Curatorial Conundrums

 Posted by at 10:28 am  Hitting the Potholes, ON the STREET  Comments Off
Jan 262013
 

18092012039The bicycle hanging on the wall. The steamed up windows. There is something called the Men’s File on a shelf – perhaps a catalogue – a sort of rogues’ gallery. On the cover of the File is a wild looking horse with a man next to it, arms wide, taming the beast, about to ride the beast. Stencilled on the window: ‘wood roasted artisan coffee’ and ‘Italian food heroes’. A proper Guardian readers’ hideout. Assorted culture bandits.

Eyes peeled to the gutters to glean what gleams in the muck of it all as we wait for the acolytes of Milt Friedman to wreck the joint. Watch with some sort of learned helplessness. We don’t believe in it but we are not yet ready to do much about it. Wait until it’s all gone. Wait until we can actually see what it is we’ve lost, not what we are about to lose. Waiting like a surfer, treading water (actually, there is a surf board on the wall as well as the bicycle) waiting for the wave, for the energy to lift me (you) above the waiting helplessness of the swell that is going nowhere.

Here are the bones of the installation. Umm! I thought for a moment the bones might be in place, describing a structure, but I’m not so sure. The stall looks bright enough, but I suppose it’s merely an architect’s dreaming of what we might be. What the installation might become. Yesterday I turned my mind to collecting without knowing precisely what that might involve or what I should be looking for. There was some sort of unthought out assumption that it would be things that caught my eye or my nose, or something I rubbed up against. But even then I might not see it; missing all the important stuff.

A dog owner sits with a (smallish) dog on her lap, she bounces it, like one might bounce a baby, then buries her face in its hair. My face might or might not register the disgust that I feel. I looked up at that precise moment. Now I check again and she is talking with her woman friend – I imagine they are a couple.

I would like to get rid of more books. What books might I read at some indeterminate time in the future – is it at all likely.

I think people change as they walk in through the door. Like visitors to an art gallery entering into an installation. They know they have become actors of some sort but have no idea what to do. Spontaneity is not easy. It might be easier (harder) if somebody told me, right, now you have to be spontaneous, or this is another good one, just be natural. But the cellular activity slows down and I must try to remember what I am supposed to be doing – what clues are there? – are there parts of the installation that could ease my social anxiety? Vandalism could be a possible course to set out on but it’s scary, in fact, far too scary. I can already feel the strong arm of the burly policeman(person) forcing my arm up my back.

Just be natural. Just a suggestion of an ironic smile. I know it all. I’ve seen it all before. perhaps I’ve even been here before.