A Double

Sunday, July 6th, 2014

MANET

The image above is of Henri Matisse’s La liseuse distraite (The Inattentive Reader), 1919, painted by the artist in a hotel in Nice. Bequeathed by Montague Shearman to Tate through the Contemporary Art Society in 1940, this painting is currently on display at Tate Liverpool as part of the museum’s DLA Piper Series: Constellations.

The text that follows is an excerpt of Marcelle Sauvageot’s Commentaire, 1933. Translated by Christine Schwartz Hartley and Anna Moschovakis from its original French to the English as a Commentary (A Tale), the novel, which was written just before the author’s passing at the age of 34, was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2013.

I would talk to myself, but the austerity of the monologue wore me out sometimes; it is so much easier to have an accomplice who sympathizes, approves, listens; you gain in importance; the things you say become intangible, form a novelistic universe in which you assume a role. To what extent do you respect the absolute truth? Then these little novels are drained of their suffering; it settles, becomes an entity outside of the soul. From time to time, I needed this comfort. I stiffened to maintain my integrity; but, to assuage my suspicions, I thought by recounting my life I could relieve it of its anecdotal character: its arc would make itself visible to me. I needed a double.

Temporary Vases and Speaking Clocks

Sunday, February 9th, 2014

140209_Temporary-Vases

The experience of a three-star hotel: an encounter with minimalism, but one far from a coveted industry or the sheerness foregrounded in such denominated art form. Minimalist as in a modest environment, as in its offerings cover basic necessities, as in be resourceful. A place undressed and, probably for its matter-of-fact lack of accessory, it simply goes unaddressed. At one three-star, the Everest, the one across a tiny cobblestone bridge hovering over a rumored magnetic field, the one becoming at a certain point a temporary home, time could be made to consider time in art. At that high-rise, which seemingly single-handedly assigned its stars, and I surmise it was a under the basis of its relative place in geography, since these were unmerited in reality, however, stars that were ultimately the only thing that lit those nights, hence, appreciated, contemplated, there, I ruminated on the cultural perceptions and manifestations of time invested, gained, expended in the arts. Time considered less as actual ends of a work, say, of a moment’s condensation in some type of material crystallization or topical representation, whether anticipated or unintended. Time, then, as it’s being occupied through, by, art, and so, art as an occupation that overturns conventions of productivity, resistance, and (why not?) love.

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To create the telephone artwork Nostalgia Arrow (2013), artist Nicolás Bacal took inspiration from the now relatively outdated Speaking Clock. A telephone service operating since the 1930s, first from a French Observatory, a Speaking Clock automatically provides its callers the correct time of day. To create his artwork, Bacal invited Eloí Cruz, the voice talent for the Speaking Clock in Brazil, to read a poem on the perception of time. This poem turned telephone voice-over was penned by Bacal in collaboration with Sebastián Villar Rojas. Last year, during the exhibition period of the 9a Bienal do Mercosul | Porto Alegre, Eloí’s recital could be heard by dialing a telephone number; today, you can listen to it here, in a video documenting an experience of this work, which Bacal recorded during his hotel stay in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Guest in Training

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

She spoke in a Cantonese dialect. He responded in Mandarin. I just babbled in English.

– Dog or lamb?
– Lamb, of course.
– We ate chicken intestines just days before.

I remember this odd conversation we had earlier today while I lay resting in some structure reminiscent of a bed that feels far from it. In the wall across me hangs an original artwork surely done in one of the many painting factories around here. It’s a generic landscape. A beach, some bay, the view of any country seaside. Recognizable even while it’s hung upside down.

At Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University Training Apartment Hotel, the receptionists, concierge, maids and every other employee are in training. I suppose this makes me a guest in training, too.