What is for real is this. I met him once. He was young then. Lost, some might have said. I thought the contrary. But then, what is the contrary of 'lost?' Here we reach the inadequacy of language - one of Ramirez's haunting questions.

Lost seems the opposite of 'found.' But one can't possibly phrase it that way. just imagine, someone saying: 'he was found.' Immediately people of certain denominations would fill: found by Jesus. And others may say by Allah, if there is a 'conversion-concept' at all in that religious realm of the human mind.

To me, he was lost-and-found. But as is appropriate with lost-and-found objects: he was shelved in a depot, just for someone to pick him up. But no one came by, as far as I know. And then, he picked himself up and moved on. So, that's perhaps how he might have dwelled also amongst Viennese stray-dogs at a railway station. It is absolutely of no importance. It is something else that counts: the truth about the path of some men. They roam - whether for real or in the mind. But they reach for horizons far out of the boundaries.

Now look again at the Albino Bowler. There is nothing tragic about him. No political statement in his clothing, no movement of any significance. He is just there having a ball and being sole and alone in competing with players invisible.

Yes, Ramirez is telling us something. But it is not an answer. It is not a statement of political protest, let alone of political direction. Ramirez is just holding up a three-penny mirror of the loss in ourselves. The homeliness, the ugliness, the pettiness, the nothingness. Ramirez is not a great artist: Ramirez is ourselves, challenging us to conquer ourselves, the Ramirez in each of us.