progress, non?

my question is, are radish leaves edible? or are they more like rhubarb leaves?

"facts about the room"

this is an imagined performance by mike parr, from 1970. it consists of lettering on a wall and is currently at the george fraser gallery in auckland.

there is a numbered list of facts about the room. the best part is that they are numbered in red in roman numerals. what is also interesting is that the list was written about a completely different room in 1970 but it fits the george fraser gallery perfectly.

some of my favourite facts are...

xi. the room frames a box (the windows are a partition)
xvi. the room exists at my back
xxi. the light is absorbed by the room
xxii. the windows are part of the room
xxvi. I can stand in front of the windows all day
lxxix. From time to time I bump into the walls
lxxxi. Finally I sit down and rest
lxxxii By lying on the floor I can think about the ceiling (I lie on the floor)
lxxxiii. If I stand on the window sill I can reach the ceiling
lxxxiv. As I jump down from the sill I am moving in the space of the room
lxxxviii. I lean on the windows
lxxxix. After all nothing can be seen

it's an imagined performance, because as reading the statements, I felt myself imagining enacting each of the movements mentioned... perhaps.

I also imaging mike parr as a young man enacting the facts with athletic vigor. jumping around the george fraser, one sleeve where part of his arm is missing flapping around...

it is a combination of calm, light and imagined bounding around.

[there is also a film called Pushing a video camera over a hill 1971. 16 mm film trasferred to DVD (7:26min). Courtesy of the artist. // it's just that, the point of view of a bone-rattled camera being pushed over and down a very dry Australian hill. it sounds as though it is on a pair of very rickety wheels. the sound is quite great]

"instead of allowing something to rise up to your face dancing bruce and dan and other things"

this is a constructed situation with dancers by tino sehgal. it is also my most favourite piece of art at the moment...

when entering into the gallery space there is somebody on the floor. this person is moving very slowly. curling like a kitten, smoothing the floor. feeling weighted and connected to the ground. the mover/dancer curls around the room very low. at one point her head connects with one wall, then she turns around with her fingers held up like a camera frame and gazes around the room. the dancer turns over and over, always anchored to the floor.

as long as st paul street gallery is open there is always a dancer dancing to herself in the room. in total this work will run for 533 hours. this work is from 2000 so tino seghal was 24 when he conceived it! he's a bit of a genius in my opinion. this work is really a set of instructions communicated to dancers...

the best part is the mere presence of a moving body in the gallery space. this work seems to take contemporary art/theatre/dance to a perfect place. there are no photographs of the work so it only exists visually as a present performance...

it is quite wonderful knowing that I can go visit it at st paul st gallery whenever I feel like it... I think I've seen it four times now...

"interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic, by the college-girl mentality"

yey! I know it's a cliche but this edition was so very pretty, so I had to get it. I found it at the hard-to-find bookstore in onehunga.

part III

the radishes perhaps may be on the verge of being eaten...

the white rabbit

the other day I was stuck in traffic on mt albert road... and saw, by the footpath, a big plump rabbit... no it was most definitely a bunny. the bunny was loping around and nibbling on a hedge... I hope this rabbit made it home safely... it was heading away from the cars and towards a rather verdant garden... perhaps it will live out the rest of its days in freedom... this was in the neighbourhood of sandringham so it may spend its liberty eating dahl makani and naan with friendly local shopkeepers... at least I hope so...

animal, v--------, mineral... part II

before and after... we just had a lot of rain, the radishes are pleased...

objets trouvés

did anybody lose two black pom-poms?

???

who do the trees farewell
with their leaves
like fluttering handkerchiefs?

memory to the marrow

"memory to the marrow" was a show at projectspace B431 [a small white light-box type space at elam art school in Auckland.] from 28 April to the 1 May 2010. this show involved work by luke willis thompson and sue-li tasker yeo.

works by luke willis thompson included two framed photographic prints:

--Post preparation (still left, from second year performance involving ceremonial ta'ovala mats and tapa) 2007

and

--still right (my visit to see my father's body, filmed privately at J B Weir funeral home, Ponsonby) 2009.

another wall held Lengths (piano/smile) 2010, this was made of bone and japanned nails.

in the centre of the space was Lengths, 2010, consisting of helium gas, balloons and white cotton string.

as part of this show at 6.00pm on Wednesday 28 April 2010 sue-li tasker yeo contributed a performance piece. this consisted of sue-li telling the crowd who had gathered for the show's opening a story. sue-li stood in the doorway telling her story, with the yellow-glassy box of the gallery lit up behind her. it was a blue-autumn evening under the large trees that stretch over the elam buildings and the audience was by this time filled with the merriment of complementary gin+tonics, whiskey and beer... sue-li's story was about a prophecy made upon her father's birth in malaysia, that he would leave malaysia one day and that upon his return would die. the act of recounting this story was quite emotional, sue-li's voice at times was strained as she attempted to include the large audience in the telling and at times she smiled nervously, looked down and paused. at the end of the story everyone clapped and slowly dispersed.

the act of sue-li's telling of an intimate story and recollection served to gather up the disparate elements of memory to the marrow. the story enmeshed with luke willis thompson's photographs:

1) the photograph of his visit to see his father's body and
2) the photograph of his encircling himself in the apparent comfort of tapa cloth...

as well as his installation:

Lengths (piano/smile) was a small construction nailed to the wall. fragments of bone, some gently sloping upwards into smiles balanced upon a collection of nails. These ivory splinters recalled shattered piano keys or broken chopsticks as well as wobbly grins.

Lengths consisted of two white balloons, one tall, one short levitating in the middle of the gallery.

such is the stuff memories are made of, balloons from birthday parties and celebrations long past, feelings deep within our bones, visitations to the husks of departed loved ones and nervously recounted family anecdotes...

the chill of an autumn evening, the warmth of mid-week gin and the light of an open gallery combined with the off-white materiality of bone and balloon, the hush of a crowd and a nervous narration created a particular event. an acknowledgment of memory, storytelling and all that comes in-between...

animal, v--------, mineral...

if robert le page is right and transformation is the essence of drama then perhaps this will go well... this is my new vegetable garden featuring from the top-left hand corner clockwise, silverbeet, silverbeet, spring onions and radishes... perhaps I'll take another photo another day and we can watch them grow together. this is an alternative for me simply sitting and staring at them, willing them to grow quickly like the little girl in "my neighbour totorro". as they grow perhaps it will become more interesting... I've always liked time-lapse films of seeds splitting open and becoming plants and flowers unfurling...

the quiet shudder of the hot-water bottle

this is my hot water bottle. the cover was knitted by my great aunt while she had cancer. my dad says that her hot-water bottle was her final companion. since then it has comforted a turtle and a frozen actress. and while I'm home I'm never without it...