I first met Rory in 2005, when DIRT Contemporary was this hip little space on Kloof Street, totally out of the ordinary and unexpected. Rory himself was an art school drop-out with a taste for the bizarre and rough in his art, and that showed up in the gallery: there were no polished edges and no holds barred. It was a totally artist-run space, with no regard to the norms of business practice or white-cube etiquette, which made it an incredibly free and experimental gallery. I particularly remember each exhibition opening ending up as a drunken party, with frequent trips to the Spar across the road for more supplies, the bergies stealing beers and vloeking us from the sidewalk. It could never work in the long term, debt and other drama soon led to the closing of the gallery. The last I heard of the gallery was an accident in which a 25 litre can of white paint, to clean up the space before eviction, spilled onto the pavement. The stain stood testament to the mad legacy of the time. It was repaved recently when the city started to cash in on Kloof Street's 'artiness'. It's now a clothing store, and it always broke my heart to see: the idealism of his dream -young, contemporary, un-commercial, experimental art- can't stand up to market forces. It never could, but it was a nice dream, and I doubt anything like it will exist again.

His death is a horrible tragedy, but I'm glad that for the short time I got to know him.

Labels: rory palmer