07/02/08
Weather mild, journey uneventful. My health is going steadily downhill. I now have a phlegmy , hacking cough and a headache, which just won’t go away. The work is going ok though. I’m just beginning to take a series of images for a 3d view master I want the images to be neither from one of the films nor of any of the existing sculptures but beyond that I’m not exactly sure what they will be yet. I have made a little series of flags, which I imagine would mark the pole but I’m not sure about them either. BCA is a lot busier of late. Jane, the other artist in residence is back hiding behind a camouflage sheet at the back of the studio, she’s making a beautiful looking film about flight and trying to sort out her car insurance. Downstairs Suzanne Mooney is preparing her show The Secret Life of Things. The first piece is a narrowing aisle of plinths leading into the gallery each topped with second-hand souvenirs. Suzanne was slightly miffed that she couldn’t place the plinths even closer together but her artistic will was defeated by health and safety regulations. Then to the left is a large print of photography manuals. The books are arranged as if on a shelf with pieces of paper sticking out of their tops marking unseen pages. They are photographed over life size and create a pleasing abstract pattern but I am still fooled into turning my head sideways as if browsing the shelf of a charity bookshop. Towards the back of the gallery are a series of photographic postcards each depicting one of the souvenirs and two digital photo frames playing a series of images of photographers found in books and magazines. One has only images of women, the other of men. It’s fun to flick your eyes from one to the other to spot the differences. Everything is carefully arranged to draw you into the space and the show manages to be simultaneously engaging, coherent and cool in a way that makes me want to hide under my table. I’ve always struggled with my lack of coolness, which is the only word I can think of to describe that sense of ironic detachment coupled with an intense aesthetic control that is totally lacking in my haphazard approach to making. Suzanne did come up to the studio and said “you are a messy man” which sums it up really.
