Paul Neagu

I first met Paul Neagu in 1972 coming out of the sea at the Island of Incoholm brandishing 2 swords with a metronome on his head – a magnificently bizarre ritual performance in a summer of grand bizarre performances which included Joseph Beuys rescuing gelatine over 8 hours from the walls of a warehouse. For thirty years thereafter we conducted a passionate, cerebral, committed relationship as I watched him make what I think will prove to be some of the greatest sculptural images of the time. Paul’s leitmotif was a sense of bitterness and disappointment at never, as he saw it, being fully accepted in his adopted culture. He would I think have been quite astonished (and secretly very moved) at the warmth and prominence of the obituary notices that have followed his death. It was not that he did not have admirers and support at the apex of the Art world – but that this was never enough for him. It may have been a measure of his massive aspiration and self belief – perhaps to be realised, as with many artists before, only after his death – a belief which kept him going at it in his crummy little basement flat off the Holloway Road, irritated to distraction by the noises of families above, with numinous sculptures piling up over each other outside in the little courtyard and with the grandest impenetrable thoughts scribbled out in his study. At bottom he was flinty – with a certain belief in his own quality – and progressively over time dispensed with everything not central to this vision, including unfortunately many close relationships. Someone who lived like this is not choosing an easy option in any sense. In the end I know he was confident that he would be judged and remembered by his work. Let’s hope a retrospective at some point will enable us to do just that.

Jonathan Green