Mesdames, messieurs: I’ve heard that Paris is the most beautiful and romantic city in the world. I don’t know if the people who say that mean they like the monuments, the statues and the palaces of the fallen empire. I saw them before when I was in Paris and I found them repulsive. Symbols of power are not romantic, they are pathetic.

This time, I’ve found a new Paris in Belleville, are more true and attractive Paris—which I adore. And I’ve eaten lots of delicious noodles here that taste just like those in the Peoples’ Republic of China.

Many of the Chinese businesses in Belleville have a poster on their shop windows saying, “No Politics, Go Olympics.” Some European and French politicians have decided to change the world by boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. The Europeans call that defending human rights.

This week, the socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, named the Dalai Lama an honorary citizen of this city. At the same time, the Third World is suffering a new kind of alimentary crisis: the shops are full of foodstuffs, but people don’t have the money to buy them. It’s a slow genocide committed by the neoliberalist First World. Decorating politically correct dissidents is much cheaper than resolving the real problems of global capitalism.

Once, France was an empire. Now the state has handed the empire to Carrefour—the company that invented our beloved and sacred hypermarket. Now the Chinese are demonstrating in Beijing against Carrefour hypermarkets—the new French colonialism with artificial strawberry flavor. Liberté, égalité, and everyday low prices!

The ice cream cannibal wall painting is almost finished. Usually, painting makes me a bit nervous but shaping and dripping the rasberry ice cream was super fun. I felt like Willem de Kooning, a true modernist macho painter. Emilie videoed me and the neighbours were wathcing the spectacle through the gallery window. Then we had some noodles and dumblings for lunch, Belleville is 72% Chinese (and 15% Arab, 8% French, 5% Jewish), and it's good that I have lot's of Chinese drawings with me. My future is here and the world's future is in China.

Krista, who curates the art section of the Finnish Market in Paris, phoned me when I was at the Madrid Airport. She was hanging the art work and said that she couldn't find a hammer and asked if I could bring one from Spain. I replied that maybe it's faster that she goes to buy one. She thought that it was an absolutely fabulous idea. Yesterday, I installed the work I've done with Jani and the market opened today, but I didn' go there. I don't like representing my fatherland.

The day I arrived, Emilie, my Parisienne gallerist, picked me up at the Orly Airport and took me to the place at Rue de Suez she has rented for me. She had prepared for me a grocery bag with tomatoes, apples, potatoes, cheese, butter, steaks, eggs, bread, orange juice and Carambar candys. I said that it was extremely kind from her but that I was not going to cook in the flat. I gave her all the food back - except the Carambar that I'm going to use for a drawing - and asked her to take me to a bar for a cold beer.

Today, I got a grant of €7000 from the Arts Council of Finland. Money makes me happy, or at least relaxed. I was living an economic catastrophe, now I can pay my debts to everybody. And maybe I can buy a Louis Vuitton wallet. And I'm going to Paris this afternoon. And Billie Holiday sings on the radio:

I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never new my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace

Till April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees
April in Paris, this is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise

Never before, I’ve prepared two important exhibitions at the same time. I’m going to Paris on Tuesday and before traveling there I must leave everything planned, packed and ready for Berlin, too.

Galerie e.l Bannwarth, Paris, Human Rights Damage Our Economy: White walls, ice cream cannibal wall painting, five placards, 72 Domestic Terrorism milk bottles, three counterfeit Barilla pasta boxes, Colon(ialism), 35 drawings.

Bourouina Gallery, Berlin, Consommateurs, Applaudissez, le Spectacles Est Partout: Purple walls, 12 placards, window painting, graffiti on the wall, Anti-police Rocket Launcher, a champagne Molotov Cocktail, three bottles of Rebel cream, 40 drawings.