“Leon, you know what we really need to do is take the structure down to the beach on top of the car, and then walk each element along the bay onto the island. It’ll take a couple of trips, but should be easy enough if you and me carry an end each and the tide doesn’t come in when we are trying to set it up. The other dangers are the seagulls and the seals. It is their home and becomes regularly cut off from the mainland so they are pretty much left alone, apart from the diving club, which go round there sometimes. Then again, some people in the village might think we are up to no good and ask if we have permission to set this up. Who would we have to ask anyway? The Regional Council? The Harbour Trust? The Community Council? The Queen? I’m not sure, who knows, maybe we just do it and then see what happens, it’s generally the only way. You really need to take risks when you are trying to do something new in curating particularly out with the white space.
Okay, that sounds good, we just need to choose a calm day, when the tide is pretty much out, or maybe we just take the structure down one evening and leave it weighed down and keep an eye on the conditions so we are ready to spring into action. I am a bit anxious. What happens if it blows away? it ends up in the sea and floats off across the North Sea to Norway or somewhere.
As you said, actually, that might be more interesting. Instead of people walking along the bay or down the top of South Row onto the rocks to find the exhibition, they have to get into Dave’s boat and cruise out to where it ends up. Maybe, but it shouldn’t end up in the sea. We will really fix it down with rocks and guy ropes and maybe put some slits in the roof so the wind gets through it, that should be okay, most of the structure is a frame, but the panels which have the artwork on it could be caught by the wind, but hopefully not.
Right, we can do this, I’m sure – the images and texts can be researched, selected, referenced, printed and laminated, then staple-gunned to the panels and shouldn’t fly off. Although if they do, will the seals eat them and end up dead on the beach along with the rest of the carnage? It’s nothing worse than all the flotsam and jetsam already thrown into the sea.
We’ve got the location, so we just need to think of –
a theme – “isolation”, “nature and culture”, “survival” or something
a title – maybe “The Ships Cousin”, “Baywatch”, “The Seilkies and the Sea”, “Between a rock and hard place” –
think of a list of appropriate artists, writers, activists, musicians and clever contexts to select from – maybe…
Dalziel and Scullion
Edward Hopper
Bill Forsyth
AWS Ocean Energy Ltd
Joan Eardley
Rosalind Nashashibi
Dr Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Annie Cattrell
Annie Proulx
Robert Louis Stevenson
Alfred Wallis
Donald Urquhart
Julian A. Dowdeswell
Bethan Huws
Katsushika Hokusai
Angus Hood
Lee Ranaldo
Hayley Tompkins
Elio Caccavale
Andrea Branzi
Bruno Latour
Janine Antoni
Henry Fuseli
GlaxoSmithKline
Fleetwood Mac
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
Susan Hiller
David Shrigley
James Turrell
Victoria Clare Bernie
Cocteau Twins
Ileana Halpern
Neil Oliver
Mike Kelley
Claire Barclay
Mearns Leader
Duncan Marquiss
Sophie Macpherson
Gregory Crewdson
John Carpenter
Homebase
Joseph Beuys
Alex Frost
Harald Szeemann
Jane Brown
R Buckminster Fuller
N55
Treehugger
Victor Papanek
Tod Browning
Fischli Weiss
Tom Waits
Thomas Schütte
David Lynch
Katriana Fritsch
Brenda Laurel
Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan
Jean Baudrillard
The Aliens
Rainer Ganahl
Hamish Fulton
Garrison Keillor
Martin Kippenburger
Donald Judd
Richard Serra
Nurse with Wound
Nan Goldin
The Cardiacs
John Bellany
Bob and Roberta Smith
Kenny Hunter
Toys-R-Us
Jeff Koons
James Rosenquist
Dan Flavin
Nintendo
Simon Starling
Bill Drummond
Mull Organics
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Nils Norman
Rachel Carson
Constantine Brancusi
Agnes Denes
Douglas Coupland
Thomas Hirschhorn
Iron and Wine
Mariele Neudecker
…for a start – bit of text – bit of publicity – send out an email to the regular mailing list;
that’s all there is to it, isn’t it…?”
Iain Irving, 2009.
Iain Irving 