I feel sick Captain. The hot chocolate made more sense than it ought. I saw a video or a film or a piece or a work. It has been following me but don't think I didn't want this to be a shorter sentence.
We sat at the bus stop in Glebe smoking cigarettes like school children and kicking our feet at catabatic things. There was never an intention to board a bus. I rolled a cigarette for Grizelda but Spencer rolled his own while he bent forwards over his crossed leg complaining that my complaining was sending him deaf. I had been slouched in a parody of drunk but that was inside where they tag you with numbers and pour sugar on plates.
Today was larger than me. It pressed on the windows. I turned my head away. After the telephoned things I had no interest in anything save for the texture of stasis in silence. An unexpected letter, with tiny beautiful gifts, could not raise so much as an eyebrow. I've had The Maple Trail** on repeat since Saturday, always preferring Radio Twilight Lost to Dirty Echo Spark.
Nothing will push back the memory of Held Without Question. Jon Wah moved on screen, hauling pixels from the grave, wrapped in the arms of his mother. Held without question. I stood in silence while the crowd moved around me. I suspended headphones with my hands while the longing formed, don't think I didn't want this sentence to be longer.
* Held Without Question (I think this is what it is called) by Jon Wah at Serial Space until 18th of December.
** More about The Maple Trail here.
Showing posts with label Jon Wah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jon Wah. Show all posts
JON WAH: A RETROSPECTIVE
JON WAH: A RETROSPECTIVE
1980 - 2008
Exhibition opens: 6 - 9pm
Thursday 4th December
Exhibition continues:
Friday 5th December -
Thursday 18th December
Serial Space:
33 Wellington Street Chippendale
Wednesday- Saturday 12 - 6pm
1980 - 2008
Exhibition opens: 6 - 9pm
Thursday 4th December
Exhibition continues:
Friday 5th December -
Thursday 18th December
Serial Space:
33 Wellington Street Chippendale
Wednesday- Saturday 12 - 6pm
Reliquary
I'm not eating dead saints but I'm walking through like everything is holy. I'm too earnest, we all know that, so I can take a skitter or an occasional low slung arrow but when he simply turned his back and walked away holding his wine glass out like a flare I thought this time Benito Di Fonzo you've gone too far.
I was sipping coffee with Spencer in the back part of the cafe having forgotten that Benito had sent out invitations to some kind of thing happening in the front part of the cafe tonight. I remembered quite suddenly when I ran right into Benito in the narrow hall connecting the back of the cafe to the front. I said hello then kept moving to the counter but on the way back out Benito and I had what would pass for conversation until we were talking about Jon Wah. I suspect that Benito believed I did not care for Jon Wah because I once referred to him as a reprehensible cunt but I don't recall seeing Benito at Jon Wah's funeral where I stood silent in the freezing rain wondering how in the hell a light like that could extinguish itself so completely.
I paused and dropped my head at the thought of Jon Wah and all that his death has done, this is when Benito turned his back and walked away holding out his glass of red wine like a flare. I burst onto the street in a fury matching Spencer's long stride. Spencer turned to me and said "He rates himself" then fell silent again.
I'm not eating dead saints but walking through like everything is holy so please, if you don't mind, just take a little care.
I was sipping coffee with Spencer in the back part of the cafe having forgotten that Benito had sent out invitations to some kind of thing happening in the front part of the cafe tonight. I remembered quite suddenly when I ran right into Benito in the narrow hall connecting the back of the cafe to the front. I said hello then kept moving to the counter but on the way back out Benito and I had what would pass for conversation until we were talking about Jon Wah. I suspect that Benito believed I did not care for Jon Wah because I once referred to him as a reprehensible cunt but I don't recall seeing Benito at Jon Wah's funeral where I stood silent in the freezing rain wondering how in the hell a light like that could extinguish itself so completely.
I paused and dropped my head at the thought of Jon Wah and all that his death has done, this is when Benito turned his back and walked away holding out his glass of red wine like a flare. I burst onto the street in a fury matching Spencer's long stride. Spencer turned to me and said "He rates himself" then fell silent again.
I'm not eating dead saints but walking through like everything is holy so please, if you don't mind, just take a little care.
Jon Wah - the funeral, the bruises, the discovery of us
I'm half way through this arduous organisation. It won't wash off. I'm trailing the stink of it behind me. It fills this room despite all the scented candles I could muster, the all day open windows and the arduous organisation. I'm swinging between the urge to vomit and an uncontrolled alphabetisation of all that I own. In a pause I phoned Superman but I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud, this thing that I've done. I told him I was bruised but I didn't tell him about the skin missing off my red raw face or that my teeth feel like they're swinging loose inside my head.
I'm swaddled in high necked long legged pants to hide the twenty separate bruises, my face is caked in Grizelda's makeup to hide my tomato red face. The lip that I thought was split has melded itself back together and the taste of blood is not continuous anymore.
It was ordinary enough, the day, the long drive out to Emu but then Superman emerged in his funeral blacks and I looked down and noticed my own. The drive was ridiculous, I had no idea how most to operate most of the controls on the mercedes dashboard. Superman managed to simultaneously lay his seat down flat and jam open a back window while I wound through clouds and the necessary tangible breath of cigarettes. By the time we arrived at the funeral it was raining and the Chapel was full so we stood outside blowing out frosted breaths and shivering in the mountain air.
It was ordinary enough, the music, the poetry, the crack split in talking voices until the service was over and we stood like cattle in a cloud. Collective grief pushed my head down and all I saw was shoes. I couldn't look at their faces. They stood uneasy as plastic flamingos around the spectacle of parents and grandparents folding their years around new grief while I stared at shoes and was grateful for the bottom of Superman's long coat hanging into my field of vision.
I walked from person to person looking at their shoes and catching glimpses of how we might all look set in stone with our long jaws shut tight and our shivering arms hung about one another unconsciously touching the people we don't ordinarily dare to touch. It felt serpentine and incorrect like an undone sum.
Spencer's shut mouth plumbed open and he rolled out the word 'us', making a low sweep across everybody with his left hand. I was caught in the movement, sibilant 's' ringing in my ears. Marcus Westbury would have ushered forward his recording mind cause I was standing thick in the undergrowth of this city. Not all of us have mastered our craft but I was shoulder to shoulder with artists, musicians and writers, we've hatched out of our university caves. It came clear to me then, it might not be grand and most of us will pass unnoticed, ashes, I'm not claiming we're all the best of friends but that small word 'us' should have scorched a mark across the sky.
I'm swaddled in high necked long legged pants to hide the twenty separate bruises, my face is caked in Grizelda's makeup to hide my tomato red face. The lip that I thought was split has melded itself back together and the taste of blood is not continuous anymore.
It was ordinary enough, the day, the long drive out to Emu but then Superman emerged in his funeral blacks and I looked down and noticed my own. The drive was ridiculous, I had no idea how most to operate most of the controls on the mercedes dashboard. Superman managed to simultaneously lay his seat down flat and jam open a back window while I wound through clouds and the necessary tangible breath of cigarettes. By the time we arrived at the funeral it was raining and the Chapel was full so we stood outside blowing out frosted breaths and shivering in the mountain air.
It was ordinary enough, the music, the poetry, the crack split in talking voices until the service was over and we stood like cattle in a cloud. Collective grief pushed my head down and all I saw was shoes. I couldn't look at their faces. They stood uneasy as plastic flamingos around the spectacle of parents and grandparents folding their years around new grief while I stared at shoes and was grateful for the bottom of Superman's long coat hanging into my field of vision.
I walked from person to person looking at their shoes and catching glimpses of how we might all look set in stone with our long jaws shut tight and our shivering arms hung about one another unconsciously touching the people we don't ordinarily dare to touch. It felt serpentine and incorrect like an undone sum.
Spencer's shut mouth plumbed open and he rolled out the word 'us', making a low sweep across everybody with his left hand. I was caught in the movement, sibilant 's' ringing in my ears. Marcus Westbury would have ushered forward his recording mind cause I was standing thick in the undergrowth of this city. Not all of us have mastered our craft but I was shoulder to shoulder with artists, musicians and writers, we've hatched out of our university caves. It came clear to me then, it might not be grand and most of us will pass unnoticed, ashes, I'm not claiming we're all the best of friends but that small word 'us' should have scorched a mark across the sky.
Bulldozers!
Management apologises for this post but she needs to have things in simple order right now
I have pondered to a standstill. It is a gentle way to be, pondered to a standstill, there is no cause for alarm.
- Jon Wah died. Artboy phoned me when I was standing in the supermarket looking at soup to tell me.
- I telephoned Superman because I found I was standing in the middle of the kitchen and didn't know what else to do. He said he would come over, I told him not to because it was too far but he said he was coming anyway. I asked him to bring a teabag from his cupboard.
- Grizelda made me dinner, then she made me eat it.
- There was a knock at the door. Superman and Artboy arrived at precisely the same moment.
- Superman went to the shops for teabags.
- Artboy took my hand and told me that he loved me.
- Superman returned with teabags, timtams and marshmallows.
- Artboy talked about marketing, sneakers and the worst song in the world.
- Artboy left.
- Superman lit a fire, made hot chocolate then made up a song about life being flopsy and not making sense.
- I made Superman look at all the photos on my computer. I could not stop myself. I don't know why I did that.
- I toasted some marshmallows over the fire by stabbing them with really big matchsticks and holding them close enough to toast but not close enough to burn my hands. I used the non-match end of the big match sticks.
- Superman showed me bad photos of himself. I thought he looked fine, he disagreed.
- Drying myself after a shower I noticed that my feet were pink from being in the hot water.
- Climbing underneath my excellent doona Superman announced that he was downloading the entire Rolling Stones discography and that in the morning he would put it on my computer.
- I said "That is the best thing that has ever happened, ever". He said "I thought you'd like that".
- I woke late, people in my office were kind when I said I would not be in this morning.
- Superman, Spencer and I sat in the Island Cafe all morning talking and taking turns to give the idiot from the music channel death stares as she sat at a neighbouring table blabbering gabble at the camera.
- We ate pies in the pie shop. I stood nine hot chips up in my pie before eating them, they were tall chips. There were only ever three chips at a time in my pie.
- Spencer went to work, I phoned my office and once again they were very kind when I said I would not be in this afternoon.
- Superman and I went to the movies. We saw Mongol, I wanted a pony, I ate maltesers, Superman ate some too.
- Back in The Peach there was tea, Superman decided to trim his beard. I don't know what he used to trim his beard. I do not have any beard trimming devices. Perhaps he brought his own beard trimming thing but why would he do that? It is true that he sometimes has muesli in his bag. I wonder what else he has in his bag.
- Superman left to go to his yoga class. He came all the way from Emu to The Peach because Jon Wah died and I was standing in my kitchen not knowing what to do. I was standing two steps away from the bench, two steps away from the pantry and two steps from the metal border thing that divides the lounge room from the kitchen. I like Superman.
Yesterday Jon Wah overdosed and died, there's no elegant way to say that
He was entirely reprehensible in almost every way.
It was generally acknowledged that he was a bit of a cunt.
His art was abject and difficult to see most of the time.
He had a band called The Bloody Cunts that was so terrible no one could listen to them.
Jon Wah, you reprehensible bastard, I wish you hadn't died.
The (body) reinstated
"The (body) Reinstated"
Curated by Louise Dibben
as part of the Firstdraft Emerging Curators Program
Works by T.R. Carter, Anna Chase, Jon Wah, and Anastasia Freeman
opens Wednesday 27 June, 6-8pm
exhibition continues to 14 July 2007,
116-118 Chalmers St.
Surry Hills NSW
Two of these artists I love, one is on my list of sixteen personal enemies, none of them are Artboy. I have no idea what it will be like but come along and have a mini adventure, buy me a pink lemonade and I'll be your new best friend.
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