'b o f/3*- 0 ClhiirDSttDDiie Borland the dead teach the living
selected works 1990-1999 migros museum fiir gegenwartskunst, Zürich l)e Appel, Amsterdam Fundaçâo de Serralves, Porto
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Foreword 5 Preface 7 Interior structures by Ian Hunt 12 Tracings 33 Lea rn t o Fa!! by Francis McKee 57 Appendix 121
F o re w o rd
“ Small Objects That Save Lives". “The Dead Teach The Living” , “ From Life" are some titles from works hy Christine Borland. It's clear from the outset: this artist does not hide her preoccupation with the great stories of Life and Death. Both on a formal and on a methodological level, Christine Borland's work is almost incomparable to any other existing contemporary art. Although sometimes exe cuted using almost old-fashioned techniques, this body of work is nevertheless extremely fresh, occupying a fitting position in the discourse of late 20th/early 21st cen tury culture. Borland reinvents the “ grands récits", which almost seemed to have been buried. Her œuvre is deeply ingrained with narrative, telling stories about Good and Evil, Life and Death, Guilt and Innocence. Christine Borland explores the context of those dualities and transforms their meaning hy introducing subtle changes and additions. Working with partly scientific methods, collaborating with forensic or medical researchers, she recreates another, almost forgotten, relationship between art and science. It was a great pleasure for our institutions to collaborate so closely on this tour ing show which resulted in three different presentations with very specific atmospheres. In that respect, this hook creates a fourth atmosphere, building on the experiences of the shows. Christine Borland’s work is like an ongoing plot, not heading for definitive answers, but rather accepting the deeply enigmatic relationship between art and truth.
Saskia Bos, Stichting De Appel Joâo Fernandes, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves Rein Wolls, migros museum r> The artist made a suggestion that her works might he grouped under certain headings: “ Anatomy” . “ Monsters” , “ Genetics” , “Traces” , and “ Self-De fence” . It is always worth considering artist's works outwith their mode of fabrication or technique, in order to get at the thought process active in them, and any writer is grateful for a push in the right direction, a hint of the patterns of organisation. But the first three headings looked too definitively like subject headings: interesting subjects, about which we all could all know more, but were they the right place from which to start?
“Traces” and “ Self-Defence” seemed truer to the elusive qualities of the work; an elusiveness that persists despite the clarity and calm in the modes of presentation. Self-Defence because it does not explain the threat against which the self feels the need for protection, which remains mysterious and unlocated but nevertheless causes actions such as the burying of guns and the exploration of the abilities of various materials (jewels, cotton wool) to provide protection against attack. The heading “Traces” also seemed to have the requi site complexity, because traces are the remains of something that has definitively changed state or is no longer. And there is a real puzzle for me in Christine Borland’s work, an aesthetic and psy chological puzzle, in her interest in presenting things that come “ after” , that wish to reconstruct or to find out what remains when something has gone or undergone a change of state. I found I wanted to shuffle some of the works that develop from her interest in anatoms under this heading ‘Traces'*, in that it is historical anatomy that many, though not all. have heen working through. Looking up “ anatomy" in the dietionars confirmed a suspicion: it is derived from (»reek words meaning to cut up. (Anatomy does not of course “ mean" cut up: the word defines the science of bodily structure, hut it is nevertheless associated in many of our minds, rightly or wron gly, with the idea of dissection and therefore with traces of things no longer living). I wondered if it would be possible to substitute the far more gen e ral and upbeat "L ife Science" for anatomy, and see how various works looked under that hea ding. But it didn't work. If art is itself a form of knowledge, it should he able to generate some of its own categories, not piggy-hack on existing disciplines or ways of marshalling perception. The categories I ended up with were much more to do with physical touch, projection and with m\ failure to understand what it is that, in certain works, I was looking at. They are categories such as the opposition between organic and inorganic, that do not fully belong to art or science, meta physics or materialism. They reflect my sus picion that we should not too quickly give up to science and medicine the task of interpreting for us the human body and the ways in which the mind complieately inheres in it. H ow ever excit- ing scientific knowledge is— and il is exciting, although the journalistic flipside of excitement is an ill-defined terror— the imagined, mental con tents of the body must he given their due too, as must the debate about that imagined and actual making and unmaking of sentience within bodies that remain, in important ways, strange to us, as Klaine Scarry's writings have sought to explain. When the imagination opens up the body, smash ed melon pulp. fat. molecular machines, darned blankets, broken crockery, spent bullets, saw dust. money, gems, cotton wool and the stone of melancholy tumble out. The challenge is to recog nize the way in which art can express, refine and even help us to debate human perceptions and concerns— for example our fantasied understan dings of our bodies, how fantasy makes and unmakes them— while also learning from scienti fic materialism, and when appropriate or possible, enabling broader discussion of its implications and practice. The needs of the for mer are perhaps less well recognised than the latter. The space for fantasy is something that also needs to survive, and part of what it needs to survive is a good-natured scepticism about the ability of scientific knowledge to provide an ex haustive account: something I thought applied to the categories I might need in order to consider certain of Christines works that had particularly struck me. (Ian Hunt)
Interior stryetures by Ian Hunt I - TTIhe o rga n ic aondi Mu© imiorganiic
A first encounter with the hones of Christine Borland’s “ Bison-Bison” has an immedi ate shock of fascination that the subsequent explanation of the process used in its making and unmaking cannot quite take away. Bone is revealed as possessing pale but attractively luminous colour: blue-grey, dusty ochre, pink, chalky white. The colour is striking in those bones which appear to be crumbling apart, like wood embers after a fire; and the powdery pale blue of the surface of the trestle table on which they are laid is calculated to show off these colours. They are named by the label as the vertebrae, and are laid out in order. Other bones, the ribs, are displayed on lower tables, which make a cross shape with the first. They are a more uniform and darkei shade of yellow and have developed a sheen that is slightly unpleasant; they resemble the things s o m e times given to dogs to chew. These bones could clearly withstand being bandied, unlike the vertebrae. They are all strangely contorted into loops or coiled. 1 low the bones could have become flexible— they are secured in their bends and loops by silver w ires is not fully explained. “ Bison-Bison” ; the familiar name doubled in the Latin classification pro\ ides no clues. Although the beast is, for Europeans, an exotic species, and its bones impressive in size, the mystery displayed is a chemical one which could as easily be demonstrated with the bones of a cow or a horse. What we are looking at is bone that lias been sub jected to calcination— heating— which has removed the organic compounds, leaving the friable, chalky remainder (principally calcium phosphate). And at bone subject to anoth er process which has successfully dissolved the mineral compounds through immersion in a weak mineral acid. This leaves the organic remainder, ossein, the substance which determines the resiliency and tenacity of bone. Immediately after the experiment the bones thus treated are flexible and can be twisted into knots. I he puzzlement does not quite end when the recipe from Gray’s Anatomy that inspired the work is produced. Can the “animal, organic” part of bone really be so easily separated from the "mineral, inor ganic” part? That is the language the 1930 edition uses, and it reminds us of the first question of the game of twenty questions: “ animal, vegetable or mineral ? . Substances really are either organic or inorganic. The distinction is an absolute one, which all of us with a little thought could elaborate. But having drawn the line, do we not still want to cross il? Would we hesitate for a moment over chalk, deposit ed from the bodies of sea creatures— is it purely a mineral? Or bone china, famed for its translucence, one ingredient of which is indeed bone ash? (It is a substance used, following the classic Spode recipe, to make two works: “ English Family China” — fami ly groups represented by skulls moulded and glazed in blue-and-white patterns— and “ 5 Set Conversation Pieces” , in which bone china pelves and foetal skulls are shown in various positions for labour.) When organic material is no longer part of a living struc ture it enters a state of limbo hard to define. In an ossuary where medieval femurs were stacked to make neat walls, I have seen human skulls that have been touched so often on the brow by visitors that they have developed a hardened surface polish, which resembled that on tooth enamel, or on marble balustrades where the polish is also pro duced by repeated encounters with human hands. And then at the miscroscopic level there are other puzzles of classification. Viruses are fragments of nucleic acid in a pro tein coat that have the ability to copy themselves using parts of living cells, but which are not actually classified amongst living creatures. In their chemistry they are organ ic, but they are without independent life. They lack the structure that a cell possesses: membrane, cytoplasm, organelles, nucleus. Animal, vegetable, or mineral, organic or inorganic, alive or dead? Viruses have a semblance of life that is so substantial in its effects that it seems impossible to think of them as non-living. (Quite apart from these grey areas for scientific definition, our imaginations and use of language do not respect the boundary between organic and inorganic, ani mate and inanimate, and project interchanges and sympathies between the two; think ol childrens unsuppressed admiration for the vitality of machines.)
Earlier works by Christine Borland were perhaps more focused and explicit in conveying a split between how something can be described from a certain materialistic point of view, and what or who we know it is or once was. “ From Life” and “ Second Class Male/Second Class Female" drew attention to dilemmas of classification by portraying the process, technical and artistic, by which certain markers of identity and appearance can be recovered and reconstructed from human bones, which had been obtained from an osteological supplier. By means of a careful choreography of the viewer's encounter with the many elements— which include photographs, letters, documents, plaster casts drilled at various points as part of the process of reconstruction, moulds used in casting the bronze sculpted heads, etc. — these works also indicate the limits of this kind of recovery, interpretation and classification in defining for us what a human is. The view er’s willingness to try' to understand the nature of those limits becomes an important part of the process of thought that these pieces seek to inaugurate. In an unrepeatable ges ture, titled “To Dust We Will Return” , the bones of two human chests were ground to dust and animated by a fan.
lfi Another piece lias indeed presented the organic/inorganic divide, but in a way that continued the discussion of conflicting ways of valuing or knowing a human subject. Diamonds were purchased to the value of a skeleton then available from an osteologieal supplier, and set sparkling in the floor in the approximate dimensions of a person. Diamonds are carbon chemistry in one of its other manifesta tions. crystallised under great beat and pressure far below the earth’s crust from depths where most rocks are molten, forced up by ancient volcanoes to layers close to the surface, mined, cut, polished and priced. But this last part of the process, the pricing, is the most significant for our understanding of the work. “ Bison-Bison” , bone doubled/halved into its organic and inorganic aspects, has a quite dif ferent effect and produces a less anxious, fascinated contemplation. The use of bone other than of human origin permits different questions to be asked. The idea that we carry a “ mineral” burden, which our DNA codes to conform into the shapes of bones, need not be a disturbing thought. (God was happy to choose clay as a modelling material.) And without it, as the experiments show, bones would lack the rigidity they need to hold us upright. A display of bones, on a pale blue surface and on transverse tables, in a pointedly aesthetic arrangement, does not automatically have to signify mortality. It can function as a poetic emblem, one interpretation of which is that humans must ultimately be classified as part of nature, not separate from it— even though its rules can be twisted.
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Currently, Christine Borland is working on projects that look more to the future than to the past of medicine and of science. The forward-looking cast is becoming more appar ent. But in a developing body of work and thinking there are other areas of investigation that either do not result in finished or fully resolved works or which appear as antici pations of something to come, something that is yet to be grasped. In 1996 a work was tried out in which a small Portakabin housed live eels, kept in a few centimetres of water in cheap, stripey plastic bags, dimly illuminated by low voltage lamps. The person who entered the cabin, not knowing "hat to expect, had a peculiar encounter with things illuminated, but not completely visible in their bags. Having gone up steps into the cabin, you had to get down on the flooi 01 kneel in older to get a close look at what might he inside, or wait for it to tvvitch with life. Eels in water in carrier hags are perhaps as close as many people get to an a(‘l of touching a creatine that really is slimy as well as powerfully muscular. A resolved " ol'k using an eel did fol low': a colour photograph with the precise title “ Girl Grasping Eel • All we see of the girl is her hand, doing the grasping. Plie eel arcs away out of v*ew and out of focus. Its as thick as the girl’s wrist, and it is only the slightly bloodied pale underside that we actually see: the musculature is impressive. “ Girl Grasping E el” is a strange work. The insistence that a girl must do the grasping, and the confident phvsieality of the encounter combine so as to produce an effect of overcoming a threshold, and perhaps enjoying in imagination the visceral touch of live eel. It extends into a new register the precise sense of touch evident from the artist’s earliest works, but intriguinglv it is a "oik that does not conform to any of the “ headings” or the taxonomv which she had loosely been working under. It is not a trace of anything, except in its status as a pho tograph; it has nothing to do with self-defence of the imagination o f attack, or with forensics, or the normal and the pathological; it required no specialist help. It is a strik- mgly complete work, but one that lacks other works around it which would help us to construct a new heading. (If it relates to “ anatomy” it does so only to demonstrate that our understanding of that word is still faulty. We still associate it with diagrams and with dead specimens, rather than with living, breathing creatures; anatomical illustration has a ways struggled to convey vitality in images of bodies.) Nevertheless the work feels like an anticipation of something as yet not fully articulated in the artist's thinking. 1 he series of photographs collectively titled “The Velocity of Drops” shows watermelons posing in a variety of locations, substituting for human mess: fallen down a stairwell, broke open in the snow and leaching juice into it. The curious wit o f this series (albeit a wit that flirts with certain fears) is based on the ease with which we are w illin g to pro- jeet liuinan injuries onto those suffered by fruit. That game of substitution can't be per formed with "Girl Grasping Eel". The sheer physicality overwhelms any possibility that the eel could simply "stand for" anything, rich as any snaky slimy thing is in associa tions. The pointed use of a girl (as with the voices of adolescents used to read “The Monster's Monologue" from Frankenstein) prohibits any easy act of identification with the act of touching; it creates a curious sense ol removal in the midst of immediacy. I have spent some time on this work because I think the puzzles it sets are considerable, and different in their nature to those articulated in many of the artist’s set pieces; and they are something to do with her developing interest in gloopy stuff. A pattern could perhaps be established that links some of the ways in which Ghristine Borland has presented the human figure with our difficulties in putting togeth er our perceptions of it and our sentience. The traditional portrait bust, for example, is all surface; although the skill of the sculptor can enliven our sense of the head’s interi or spaces and its articulation, the interior space ol most portrait heads is inert. And that is the ease with all the works that the artist has made or commissioned that involve por traiture. \\ hether made of heavy bronze, or light plastic, like the reconfigured specimen heads in "The Dead Teach The Living” (which are intriguingly fabricated in horizontal layers via a computer process and can be described as neither carving nor modelling) or in unfired clay (as in "L’ Homme Double” , in which five sculptors were each given a set of descriptions of Mengele and two photographs to work from) a sense of the interi or life of the head or its internal structure is absent. The limitation is, of course, common to portrait sculpture, but it is nonetheless a contributory factor to the themes of these works— their interest in the problems inherent in any process of reconstruction— and the powerful sense that something has gone missing m the proeess. W hat is ".s.ile a head’ Bones (with their mineral burden, as the reader will remember) teeth. e u M t.e s , sinuses, muscles, the jelly of the eye. the meninges, brain and gloopy stulf. I articulaily the latter. The limited ability of sculpture to convey the interior as well as the exit no. of a head matches in some respects our own ignorance of what is inside our bodies, oui difficulty in picturing it, and our knowledge that the body’s "contents are not secuie y bounded but exist in vital interchange with what is around them. The presentation of Borland’s works is always decorous and lucid, but the slime on the eel and the smashed flesh of the melons indicate an interest in those more slippery and visceral areas of vital matter which we can only with difficulty put together with "dry” anatomical knowledge and with external appearances. I am suggesting that there are splits in our perception and sentience of em bodies, that they cannot by their nature be overcome, and that these splits are in vaii- ous ways present in Christine Borland’s work and perhaps in some way acknowledged by it; that it is part of the vitality of her work that it does so, although it is not of course the stated “ theme” or subject of her work. A familiar nursery rhyme tells us Hlimply Dumpty sat on a wall / Humpty Dumpty had a great fall / All the Kings horses and all the King’s men / Couldn’t put Humpty together again. ’ No more can anyone finally man age to integrate external appearances with the more vaguely sensed interior, and it is an underlying strength of Borland’s work that periodically the jelly-like, the visceral and the slimy— which are also the vital— are given their due. It has not escaped her that the standard representation of DNA is on a material familiarly described by researchers as a “ gel” . And it comes as no surprise that she has long been fascinated by jellyfish. In notes on current projects she has written of a recent discovery that will have direct impact on imaging at the level of the cell. “ Obliquely related to the gels through a mate- rial quality ... are thoughts of jellyfish. These creatures, which have long been a source of fascination and interest for me, have no hone structure, muscles or brains and reproduce asexually. Recently their DNA has become useful to the scientific community. One of the most important recent discoveries in cell biology is the green fluorescent protein (GFP) isolated from a bioluminescent jellyfish. The gene that codes for this protein is active in any type of cell, from microbes to man, producing a “ day-glo" dye visible in the microscope as a bright green light. The power of the gene is that by using recombin ant DNA technology, GFP can be spliced to any protein, essentially painting that protein green. When such a spliced gene is returned to a cell, researchers can use the microscope to see precisely where that single protein is inside a cell. Further, time-lapse miscoscopy can be used to examine how that protein and the cellular component that it is part of moves within the cell during the life cycle of the cell.” The gloopy and easily rearranged stuff of the jellyfish is turning out to be significant for a new stage in the ability to depict what is going on inside cells. There are structures in the body that one can not see without a microscope, and which certainly cannot be “ sensed” , but it is at this level that the real developments in understanding and practice are being made. When attempting to put Humpty Dumpty together again (which we will never stop trying to do) we have to put together images ol differ ent scales. Art, not a narrow world hut one part of the work of creating and thinking the world into being, is actually needed here; though it may appear to he running along behind science, art can extend its preoccupations and its remit by taking the risk of immersing itself in other disciplines and modes of understanding.
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Tl * fil :î My nam e is Peter Parker and I am walking hom e from work. The office has closed for the evening and the pavem ents are thronged with secre taries and m anagers, off-duty white-collars enjoying what’s left of the day. A flock of starlings wheel above m e in the sky, looping and diving around the cathedral spires. The sun is setting and the last red rays stretch dow n the streets, burning up the gently rocking trams. Ahead, there is a sudden burst of silver light and a radiant stran ger confronts me. It’s the Will 0 ’ The Wisp, an ethereal being with a punch like the kick of an angry mule. His skin flares in the reddening twilight. He surges forward to attack. Before he has the chance to let loose the pavem ent buckles and opens beneath me. I plunge through darkness, the wind rushes around m y ears. I hear scream s. M aybe the sound of m y own voice, I can’t tell, the air pressu re disorientates m y senses. I sm ash against a floor of cables, black out and w ake alm ost im m ediately to find a sticky net entangling m y limbs. It’s the catching zone. A w eb of spiral filaments hold m e suspen ded on m y back. Crucified. A floating prey. Silken draglines drop from above m e and in the gloom I catch sight of an enormous spider swoo ping dow nw ards. The air is filled with the sound of bells crashing m er cilessly. I am surfacing slowly from fathom s of darkness, gasping hung rily for each breath and then, woozily, I am awake. The alarm clock stops. The cat is howling for breakfast. 90 What do dream s count for anyway? Freud’s a dead man. Dead as a d o o r n a i l . I got up and fed the cat. I put on som e m usic and drank m y coffee standing at the w ind ow balcony. O ne of the few advantages of m y apart m ent is the view. Perched at the top of a hill, I can see clear across the city. I should be able to see straight dow n the Rua dos Clérigos into the heart of the town too but this is not so easy. There are wires strung across every street— tramlines and telephone wires and powerlines, all intersecting and forking across the roads, taut, vibrant and intricate. M aybe it’s the data passing through this filigree that keeps the washed- out pastel buildings from expiring. Somehow, despite their faded reds, brow ns and blues, those houses hum with life. Their old-world balconies are draped with dam p sheets drying in the sunlight while downstairs, white statues of the m adonna bake in the heat of tiny shop windows. Th o s e little plaster virgins. Th e y’ve got staying power, I’ll give them that. They’re hardy and I guess that’s why they’re sacred. Sooner or later, the rest of us crack. W eakness, disaster, old age or some other wild card of fate will bring us down. Looking out across the city I could have nam ed a tragedy for every street corner and still had some left over. But tim e w as passing and I had an appointment. <>2 I’d been called by a lawyer in town and told to m ake m y way out to one of the houses on the Rua da Boavista. He said I couldn’t miss it but he was wrong. I parked at the gatehouse and thought I’d stroll up through the garden. Except the garden turned out to be a labyrinth, leading to a dense cluster of sm all trees and som e exotic bushes. I’d passed several glowing greenhouses before I reached a saucer shaped fountain. In its tiled base a hose w as sketching a figure of eight like a demented snake, coiling and uncoiling endlessly in the crystalline water. I guessed I w as lost. Above the trees, the moon still hung in the m orning sky but I w as already feeling the sun’s rays as if it was noon. I w as squinting upw ards for want of a better plan when I realised that I w as no longer alone. To m y left stood a tall, red-haired wom an in a black dress and denim jacket. As she cam e towards m e I noticed she cupped a small m obile phone in her left hand like a pocket derringer. “Did you ever see a tv program m e called Cosm os 1999?” she asked, “It’s the one w here the scientists live in a basement on the moon and the m oon leaves the earth’s orbit to explore distant space.” “B asem en t?” I said, bewildered. “Don’t you mean moonbase?” “Whatever. Let’s forget the hazy cosmic jive. You appear to be uncom fortable in this climate. Me, I seem to exist largely on heat, like a new born spider.” She extended her hand. “My name’s Simone. Are you perhaps Finn Johnson?” I think I m ust have m uttered something. Mostly, I just studied the geom etry of her hair falling over the shoulders of her jacket. “W e had better get you to a cool drink, Mr Johnson,” she said. “O nce yo u’re restored, then m aybe we can get to business.” Th e “w e ” be cam e clear as a stocky, dark-faced man in a black lea ther jacket appeared behind her. “Bruno,” she explained, “My bodyguard.” < )A We walked in silence until the trees cleared. Ahead of us a series of stepped, rect angular pools and lawns rose to a small plateau. There, surrounded by a palisade of box hedges, sat a long salmon-pink house. It had to be from the ‘30s. It w as smooth and seductive, all vertical strip windows, m odern lines and jutting bays curved like gleaming tail-fins. It was a pink m achine. To the right, a church tower rose like a lunar outpost, capp ed with viewing plat forms and a thin cross like a radio aerial, probing the blue sky for signs of life. “It was built by a businessman and his French wife back in 1 935,” explained Simone, guiding me towards the church tower. “But he was new m oney and she wasn’t really his wife so society life never let them in. S e co n d class citizens. I don’t think he gave a damn. The two of them spent their tim e out here creating their own w o r ld .” We entered the church tower and climbed for a small eternity. Em erging in sunlight on the first viewing platform, Sim one gestured with her m obile at the land scape laid out below. “All this power and more. His fertile land...” On the spiral steps beneath us I could hear Bruno labouring up the tower, his breath rasping through the space, magnified and hollow. H e w as a big m an but in b a d s h a p e . “We heard the church bell ringing at three o ’clock in the m orning,” S im o n e said, pointing to the bell beneath us on the roof. The m obile pulsed and flashed in her palm, red messages queued and waiting. She descended a flight and I followed, finding Bruno waiting for us. Together, we made our way through a maze of doors and corridors. I w as trying to rem em ber who came up with that old phrase about needing a com pass to find the mailbox while Simone explained that she and Bruno had checked out the church and found nothing. They had thought it must have been kids or som eone on a wild weekend all-night spree. “A spree?” I echoed absentmindedly, “People really still have th e m ? It sounds like smashing your ukelele and setting fire to the charabanc.” ot B runo grinned. I’d m ad e a little friend at last. Sim one ignored the com m ent and pushed open one last door into a room at the heart of the house. It was an uncanny space. The floor was a dark honey hue, patterned with diam onds created by thin intersecting bands of black wood. The door we’d entered form ed a solid rectangle of gold mirror reflecting an identical door on the far wall. Th e w indow s, recessed in a narrow alcove at the end of the room, were darkened by black w ooden blinds. Only the occasional spindle of light filtered through and broke into bright shards on the floor. Even in this golden gloom , I sensed something was amiss. On the opposite wall, red-brown flecks of blood were spattered against the white plaster. Above them, at waist height, were two bullet holes about five inches from each other. O n the floor there w as an abandoned pistol. I hunkered down and had a closer look. A Browning Hi-Power. Sim one and Bruno were watching me. “Th e only thing w e didn’t find was a body,” she said, “and even this m ess w e didn’t find until early this morning.” “So w hy m e ? ” I asked. “W hy didn’t you call the police?” “M aybe because you might understand more easily. I have a friend w ho w ent m issing recently. It’s not like him not to tell me if he was about to vanish and so now I’m worried. I don’t want to find a body— especially not his body. But I want you to find him and to keep him alive.” I picked up the Browning while she spoke. If there were no police then dusting it for fingerprints w as pointless and beyond my energy levels anyway. 9m m . A handy gun, with a comfortable grip. It could hold fourteen cartridges. I guessed two were in the wall and checked the magazine to t a lly u p . “W ho is this friend?” “Ray Mulholland,” she whispered as she watched me count the cart r i d g e s . Tw o m ore were missing and it seem ed a fair bet to think Ray might know their whereabouts, whether he wanted to or not. 'X. She led m e through an endless vista of cream y cubes and rectangles, until I had seen all of the house. None were furnished as spectacularly as the dressing room w e’d just left. No blood, no gore, no automatic pistols. Not even a dead fly. She stood in front of a set of wrought iron gates in the vestibule and told m e Ray M ulholland had been acting strange lately. Ray was a kind m an. H e w as a w ine exporter and so he travelled most of the time. A gold-w rought naked w om an clashed cym bals on the gate behind her. Ray had seen som e trouble recently. Been beaten up in a car park-no reason. But he had becom e m ore elusive, more anxious after that. A naked m an cast in gold played the pan pipes just behind Sim one’s hips. She ran a hand through her hair and I just about forgot Ray existed. She gave m e his address and I excused m yself to have one last look at the dressing room and its sinister decor. Alone with the creepy tableau I had no more ideas than the first tim e there with S im o ne and Bruno. I still couldn’t figure out why whoe ver had do ne this w ould set it up here rather than in Mulholland’s place, if he really w as the target. I dug one of the shells out of the wall and pocketed it. I squeezed a sm all button-head transmitter into the hole and pushed it as far as it would go. They might come back. It wasn’t som ething to hope for but it w as better than nothing. Back in the city, I got down to looking for Ray M ulholland. There w as a hard way and an easy way to do it and I couldn’t find a reason not to pick easy. So I went straight to the oracle. Joâo was a small, cheerful m an, disguising a hinterland of intelligence behind a dark, neatly barbed beard and m oustache. His store in Rua das Flores was the nearest thing the city had ever had to a head shop. O pe ne d in ‘68, it had rem ained virtually the sam e ever since. Posters for the Fillm ore and the W interland Ballroom jostled for space amid elegant twenties clothes and inexplicable Victoriana con traptions. Decades of incense hung in the air, as dense as the purple velvets and satin lining the walls. The only significant change in thirty years seem ed to be on the price tags. The rainbow bric-a-brac of psychedelia had been m agically trans form ed into antique rarities. In the thin years before nostalgia ripened, Joâo had done business with everyone-albeit in the shadows behind a locked door. Interesting side deals fun ded his shopping trips to San Franscisco and London. It w as rum oured that he was present at the legendary shoot-out in a Texas w arehouse w hen a lost ship ment of 13th Floor Elevators album s w ere discovered. M int condition, it w as said. Now, he looked quite innocent as he polished a small golden statuette of Robert Crumb. “Ray Mulholland?” he mused. “Born in the year of w ho know s when. Inter esting man... Handsome. Dangerous. Saw him som ew here years ago in a powder- blue suit, dark blue shirt, black brogues and black socks w ith dark blue clocks on them. Can you believe it? Like a blond satan at a pim p’s convention. Never nam ed his tailor, though.” Joâo paused, scanning the shop for eavesdroppers and then placed the sta tuette back on a shelf. Beside it, an old m onitor flickered w ith black and white im ages of a guy in a tee-shirt playing a violin in a room on its side. “W om en really went for him,” Joâo continued. “He w as a great m over— looked like a dancing master directing a polonaise even if he w as just crossing the street to buy cigarettes. A real heartbreaker.” Th e violin player had been replaced by a small, angry clown jum p ing up and dow n, scream ing silently. “W hat’s M ulholland’s line of business?” I enquired. “Well, in those days it w as guns mostly. Sold m e a Sm ith & Wesson once. A very reliable thing and a tim ely purchase as it turned out.” M y thoughts raced back to Texas. Another time, maybe. “W hat about now ?” I asked. “N ow , it’s orchids,” replied Joâo, smiling. UK) The day unw ound and Janis slowly gave way to the never-ending expan se of the D e a d ’s Dark Star. Joâo broke out the Macallan. We drank while he explained the intricacies of orchid sm uggling. It turned out that there w as big m oney in providing collectors with specim ens of orchids thought to be on the verge of extinction. The collectors cloned the plants and kept each species alive in greenhouses throughout the w orld. There w as only one kink in this tale and that was the profit-hungry poachers w ho were wiping out pristine jungles to sup ply these saintly jerks with fresh specimens. Ensconced in their cosy greenhouses they never knew the habitat was still thriving and wild. Ray, finding the arm s trade a little too brutal of late, had discovered the charm of these refugee orchids. (“You could say he put a new spin on the m eaning of graft,” cracked Joâo) Under the shelter of an import com pany called Deckard & Sons, he had been shipping orchids from Asia to the W est. W ord w as that recently it had all gone awry and the orchid com m unity had been rocked by a series of arrests. At the Tokyo Grand Prix a trader had been caught selling an incredibly rare north Vietnam ese specim en. Shortly afterwards, a sm uggler sold plants worth $150,000 to a fed agent posing as a collector in California. Strangely, M ulholland had chosen to disappear at just about this point and it was rum oured he had friends falling from high places. Nothing had been heard of him since then. I w as aware that Jerry Garcia was calling time from the sound system and custom ers in the shop were just a vague m em ory so I gather ed m y scattered thoughts. As I left, Joâo was pulling down the window shutters. H e stopped for an instant, looked at m e over his shoulder and sm iled. “Be careful Finn. Those m en will break your bones...” loi 102 O n m y w ay hom e, I stopped off at the local store and bought som e Coury Brand cat food. Th e beast w o n ’t eat anything else and, bar killing the ani m al, I can’t think of any other w ay to buy its silence. After I watched her devour every m orsel and lick her lips, I hit the w ooden hill and fell asleep reading Thom as Pynchon’s “Vineland”. Th e next m orning I got up late and lounged around the apartment. I w as w aiting for Joâo to call— he had prom ised to check around for me. I gave Pynchon another whirl and lost track of time. Takeshi Fumimota — an acquaintance of Prairie, daughter of Zoyd Wheeler and Frensei G ates— had just entered a crater which may or may not have been the footprint of a gigantic anim al w hen the phone rang. Joâo gave me the nam e of som eone at the railway station. It seems a certain satanic gentlem an had been seen stepping off a locomotive two days earlier. Lazing around the cool cham bers of the apartment had temporarily w iped out any sense of just how hot the day had become. Outside the sunlight seem ed to be flaking paint off the buildings and the heat was swelling the road like the skin of a drum . Traffic in the distance shim m ered like liquid m etal. Entering Sâo Bento w as like bursting through a membrane of air. Within the im m ense hallway of the station people moved more quickly as if released from a freeze fram e. The hallway itself, with its chequer- board floor and blue and w hite tiles resem bled nothing less than a baro que, willow-patterned w om b. The tiled murals depicting renaissance battles led passengers straight through to aging trains on dilapidated platform s. There, an equally decayed porter described Ray Mulholland to m e, verifying that he w as not only alive but had caught a cab from the station to Rua da Boavista. Perhaps I’m getting old because I nearly missed Bruno as he walked out of the station’s side entrance. He was headed down the street toward the river, m oving fast enough to prove m e wrong about his phy sical fitness. Finally, m y instinct to pursue kicked in as I realised he m ust have been tailing m e. Now he was picking his way swiftly through the parked cars and pedestrians, ignoring the heat as he pressed onwards. Q uite suddenly, he veered right, ascended the steps of the church of M isericôrdia and disappeared inside. At first I could see nothing, plunged into what seem ed utter darkness. O nce m y eyes adapted, 1 w as able to distinguish figures moving around the church interior. None of them was Bruno but to the side I could see a black curtain still sw aying in front of an entrance to the vestry. I figured I’d lost him but it w as w orth a shot, so I stepped inside. H alfw ay do w n a gloom y corridor I could hear a faint voice emerging from behind a heavy, panelled door. Edging closer, the sound became m ore distinct. I craned m y neck and listened. “I sat one evening in m y laboratory. The sun had set and the m oon w as just rising from the sea...” Sighing, I pushed open the door. There, gathered in easy chairs around an old black and white television sat a priest and two young nuns watching a m onster lumbering across a grey landscape. One of the nuns turned to m e while pointing back toward the screen, exclai m ing: “H e ’s w hacked the little girl!” “N o shit!” I replied. “N o really. O h, I’m sorry,” she said bashfully, turning down the vol um e on the rem ote. “Can we help you at all?” “N o, I’ve just strayed off the beaten path. I’ll find m y own way back,” I said. “Sorry to disturb you.” “D o n’t w orry about it,” the priest m urm ured reassuringly, “We’re having a w hale of a tim e here. Nice meeting you.” levs In the m ain body of the church som eone was practising an organ work. It m ust have been a fugue, the m usic was winding in on itself obsessi vely, creating patterns within patterns. My thoughts were in no better shape: Bruno w as following m e; I was following Mulholland; Mulholland was seen heading for Simone; and Simone had hired me to find M ulholland. A bove m e, Jesus and the Virgin stood flanking the altar in the darkness. They looked stranded, and as bewildered as I was at that m om ent. M aybe they were on a case too. Turning to leave, I had a sure sense of hallucination. In front of the water font Sim one was talking to Satan in a dark suit. From Joao’s description it had to be Mulholland... They saw m e and ran. no They had the advantage being close to the door. By the time I reached sunlight they were across the road and heading for the shanty town under the bridge. I dodged a blue jeep and ran down the hill after them. D am n they w ere fast. I m ade a mental note to work out when this was over— too m any people had left m e standing in one afternoon. They rounded a corner. I hit the sam e bend m om ents later and crashed into a tiny grandm other. S he w as dressed in black from head to foot and had all the resilience of a strip of gnarled leather. She pushed m e away hard and spat a stream of obscenities in m y face. I kept running, m y face and back slick with sweat. Ray and Sim one were at least a street ahead of m e and after one m ore corner they vanished. I stop pe d and bent over, leaning against a wall, gulping for breath, alm ost asthm atic. M y head w as pounding and I felt like a hot, tired ani m al searching for a place to lie down and expire. W hen I finally straightened up two m en were pointing guns at me. 112 O nce they had m ade it clear they were carrying weapons, they put them a w a y again. W e all kne w I w o u ld n’t m ake it if I tried to escape. After all, they had already seen m e run. There w asn’t m uch to talk about as they lead m e casually through a sm all courtyard at the end of a narrow street. They hadn’t bothered to intro duce them selves and I’d always lacked the skill for small talk. Maybe they figured I ne ed ed to save m y breath. Whatever, I w as certainly in better shape by the tim e w e got to our destination. It struck m e that it might have been a brothel. I could hear w om en’s voices echoing through the building and there w as a clinical sm ell that suggested professional cleanliness. One of m y guides took m e by the elbow and lead m e to a storeroom at the end of the hallway. H e put a hand in the small of m y back and pushed m e into the room gently, intim ate in the w ay m en can be before they hurt you badly. To m y relief, he slam m ed the door shut behind m e and left. The room w asn’t m uch. There were a few empty beer crates in one corner. M ops and buckets in another. A frosted-glass window looked out on a stepped passagew ay so narrow that no light could penetrate the shadow s. M ade from one large pane, the window opened inward. A metal grille still blocked any exit but a closer look revealed that the bolts fixing it to the outer wall w ere aged and rusty. I sifted through the oddities in m y pockets, looking for som ething to save m y skin, but there w as nothing m ore than a few coins, a spare phone bug and tw o alligator clips. Too stubborn to die, I told myself and thought again. I dism antled a m etal shaft from one of the m ops and started digging out the bolts from the crum bled wall rendering that held them in place. It w as slow w ork despite their weakness, ham pered by having to stop every tim e I heard som eone m ove in the hallway. It w as long after m idnight by the tim e the first bolt gave way and at least another hour before the others were weak enough for m e to kick out the grille. It w as tim e to visit Rua da Boavista again. 111 Day was already breaking by the time I reached the estate. Moving through the gardens as stealthily as possible, I navigated by the pink glow of the house against the pale blue sky. So what if I cursed m y stu pidity every tim e I passed a greenhouse? Clever people are never happy. I found the dressing room m uch too easily. The house was unlocked, the alarm s w ere off and the doors lay open. Ray and Sim one were stand ing there alm ost m otionless. The walls had been cleaned and the bullet holes had been plastered and painted out. The Browning Hi-power was still on the floor. Ray looked at m e curiously, as if I’d stepped out of the mirror into h i s w o r l d . “I d o n ’t understand,” I said. “W hy did you ask m e to find him if you knew all along he was safe.” S im o ne studied Ray but spoke quietly as if to herself. “Is he really safe? I’m not so sure anym ore. And neither are his friends.” “W here do I fit into all of this?” I asked. “The m orning sun is so cold,” she said, bending to pick up the Brow ning. “D on’t you feel chilly without a gun?” I figured it w as a rhetorical question. Ray w asn’t such a stoic. “Bitch. W hy are you fucking doing this? I haven’t crossed you. And no-one could have connected us if you hadn’t brought him into it.” He pointed at m e and repeated the question: “So w hy?” “W ell,” she replied. “Just because...” Then she pulled the trigger and shot him twice. She glanced at m e and smiled. “N ow you understand why you’re here, don’t you Finn?” I w atched Satan crum ple and die. I turned to ask her something but B runo hit m e from behind and I fell hard and everything went black. I w as locked up for nearly three weeks accused of Mulholland’s murder. It took that long to convince them to look for the m icrophone buried in the wall. B runo w as found dead in Zurich a m onth later. He was lying at the foot of a set of stone stairs, his head burst open like a melon. Seem s he had brains after all. Joâo tried to find out w hat happened to Sim one but the trail ran dry in Brazilia. M ost likely, she assum ed a different identity and bought her self an entirely new life. I could say m ore but what does it matter what you say about people? Mostly, you just tell yourself what you want to hear anyway. chapter footnote page 1 I .eï l.arhcn " W hile unending a demonstration in radioing}. high-school student Peter Parker was bitten by a spider nidi'll.ad accidentally been exposed to Radioactive Rays. Through a m iracle o f science. Peter soon found that lie had itanhee S^K ers P°wers...jand had. in effect, become a human spider...a Spider-Man!” ^ 1 m t l ( r The Wisp: “Enter W ill-O ’-The W isp". Super Spider-M an. No.244, O ct. 12. 1977. 89 H a punch like the kick o f an angry mule: T l-H es got a punch like the kick o f an angry inissouri m ule!” Ibid., p.8. 89 2 IWeakness, disaster,; old age: reference to "W eakness. Disaster. Old A ge and Other M isfortunes". Christine Rorland. 1992-1998 91 3 Did you ever see a tv programme called Cosmos 1999?...: Karine Cu-an Binli, Labors. June 1998. 93 3 hazy cosmic jive: David Bowie. “Slarman”, Ziggy Stardust. R C A . 1972. 93 3 I seem to exist largely on heat, like a new horn spider: Raymond Chandler, i he Big Sleep, 1939. The Big Sleep. Humphry Bogart. Lauren Bacall. Dir. Howard Hawks. 1946. 93 3 Mostly; ! just studied the geometry o f her hair: Bob Dylan. ‘Tangled Up in B lue", Blood on the Tracks. Colum bia. 1974 93 3 Bruno. she explained. My bodyguard: Sim one Kaspopovic. Porto. 1999. 93 4 It was a pink machine: “ La maison est une m achine â habiter"" [The house is a m achine for living in], l.e Corbusier. Vers une Architecture. 1923. 94 4 It teas built by a businessman and bis french wife back in 1935: Joflo Fernandes, Porto. 1999. 94 4 Second class citizens: reference to “Second Class M ale. Second Class Fem ale’*, Christine Rorland. 1996. 94 4 All this power and more: reference to “ Catch Breath"’, Christine Borland. 1994. 94 4 bis breath rasping through the space, m agnified and hollow ed: Luke 4:6. Authorized Version King James Bible. 1611. 94 4 He was a big man hut in had shape: Gel Carter. Michael Caine. Britt Eckland. Dir. Mike Hodges. 1971. 94 4 needing a compass to fin d the mailbox: Raymond Chandler. Farewell, My Lovely (1940) / Farewell. Mv Lovely, Dick Powell. Claire Trevor. Dir.. EdwardEd Dmytryk. 1911. 94 6 Born in the year o f who knows when: Bob Dylan, “Joey"". Desire. Colum bia. 1975. 98 6 powder-blue suit, dark blue shirt, black brogues...: Raymond Chandler, The B ig Sleep. 1939. 98 a blond satan: Dashiell Hammett, The M altese Falcon, (1929). 98 6 a dancing master directing a polonaise: ...... „ ,„„,i .nnn 98 referen ce to C rete Salus’s ilescriplion o f Joseph M engelc. "I. Hom m e Double . Christine Borland, > ■ 7 The collectors cloned the plants and kept each species alive in greenhouses [htwtghmtl 'Jj* D oyle. Jim . *4Black M arket Orcliidfe: A global underground sm uggling network may dn\e *«me ra -| into extinction.’* _ The Sun Francisco Chronicle. 8 JanuaryI99.->. n..6. . . . i 100 =; n A 14 101 The San Francisco Chronicle. “ 5-M onlh Prison Term for Orchid Smuggler. 15 April 199a. P- ' • 101 7 Those men will break your bones...: Tricky. “ Broken H om es". Angels « ith Dirty Faces. ( 199,d. 103 8 Coury Brand cat food: The Long G oodbye. F llioll Could. Nina Van Pallandt. Dir. Robert A III 103 willow-patterned womb: reference to “ 5 Set Conversation Pieces". Christine Borland. 1998. 10 / sat one evening in m y laboratory. The sun had set and the moon teas justrising Jrom du sea.... M ary Shelley. Frankenstein, or. D ie M odem Prometheus. Volume 3. Chapter 3. !»!»• ...... N e l m e z z o d e l c a m m i n d i n o s t r a v i t a m i rilrovai per una selva oscuru. ch e la dirilta via era sm arrita ...... | A t m i d p o i n t o f t h e j o u r n e y o f o u r l i f e I w oke to find m e astray in a daric wood, perplexed by paths with the straight way at slrde| 107 Dante Alighieri. The D ivine Com edy. Basil Blackwell. 1981. 111 12 a hot, tired anim al searching fo r a place to lie down and expire: James Crumley. The Wrong Case. I9,m 14 D on t von feel chilly without a gun?: ... .. , . icvir 115 B ringing Up Baby. Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn. Dm Howard Hawks. 1938. 115 14 Well... just because...: Bob Dylan. “Joey”. Desire. Columbia. 1975 14 I saw Satan crumple and die: “ I,saw Satan fall like lightening". Luke 10:18. 115 Authorized Version X ing James Bible. lo ll. 117 15 head burst open like a melon: reference lo "Th e Velocity of Drops” . Christine Borland. 1993-199/. 15 117 A* t S ± S ^ ^ ^ ^ H ^ m & l^ ld ^ e lle s . Marlene Dietrich. Dir. Orson Welles. 1958. 120 Appendix List of Works p a g e 18 lo Dust W « - Will Return. 1996 2 Small Objects That Save Lives, 1991-1999 2 glass plates on floor. 2 blur spot lights. 2 sm all electrical Installation of small objects received bv post after u fails, dust in the atm osphere from the crushed bones of a letter from the artist requesting a response to the title. male chest and a fem ale chest. Sm all book Displayed on trestle tables. (distributed free) containing quotes about dust Installation dim ensions variable. from literary and scientific sources. Installation view of version from Installation dim ensions variable. O riginal Dcstrovcd. De Appel, Amsterdam. 1998 Installation details from **Sawn-()ff" Knkehust. Stockholm . Sweden. 1996 4 English Fam ily China, 1998 Photos Tord I .mid Detail. 5 groups of hand-painted bone-china skulls presented on glass-topped plinths. 19 Skull. I pper Extremities Right. I pper Extremities Installation dim ensions variable. Left. Breastbone. Collar Bones. Shoulder Blades. Spine. Collection National Museums & G alleries, Liverpool Sacrum. Pelvis. Lower Extrem ities Right. Lower Photo Roger Si nek Extrem ities Left. I 997 Details. Iw elve .20 carat diam onds. Anatom ical Dissection Theatre, 1997 mounted on white gold posts. 2 fram ed docum ents. W estfalische W ilhelm s-Universitüt. Münster Installation dim ensions variable. Photo Roman Mensing Courtesy Lisson Gallerv. London Photos Andrew \\ hillock Small Objects That Save Lives, 1991-1999 D e t a il. 20/21 L'Homme Double. 1997 Version for migros museum. Zurich 6 clay portrait heads on wooden stands Photos A. Burger and 18 framed documents. Installation dim ensions variable. Bison-Bison, 1997 Installation view. De Appel. Am sterdam . 1998 3 trestle tables, bison ribs and vertebrae. Collection m igros museum. Zürich Installation dim ensions variable. Installation view from Lisson Gallery. London 22/23 b-ft to Right: Courtesy the artist & Lisson Caller)'. London Detail I. Portrait In Kenny Hunter Photo Andrew W hittuck Detail 2. Portrait by Alison Bell Detail 3. Portrait bv Evonne King 1 4 5 Set Conversation Pieces, 1998 Detail L Portrait by Angel Donald 5 hand-painted bone-china pelves & fetal skulls Detail 5. Portrait In Kem n MeKa\ presented on glass shelves with wooden brackets. Detail 6. Portrait by Brian Casta Installation dim ensions variable. Courtesy the artist & Sean Kelly Caller)', New York 24 I'lle Eely Alley ( ). 1997 Photo Christian Mostar Detail. Portacabin, eels, water, bags, glass, lights. Installation dim ensions variable. O riginal destroyed. 1 5 From Life (Glasgow) Detail, 1994 Courtesy the artist Details. 3 portacabins, one human skeleton in box, table, continuous slide show, video, anatom ical charts 25 Girl Grasping Eel. 1997 and literature, bronze head on plinth, vinyl text. Framed Colour Print Edition of l() Installation dim ensions variable. Courtesy the artist & Lisson Gallery. London Collection Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon Photo Andrew W hittuck 1 6 From Life (Zürich) Detail/Portakabins, 1998 26 The Velocity of Drops. 1996 Photos A. Burger City Park: Strolling, 'ruining «.K K neeling Colour print edition of 3 1 7 Christine Borland, Installation Detail. 1998 Courtesy the artist & G alerie E igen& Arl. Berlin De Appel, Amsterdam P h o t o L w e W a l l h e r 6 6 / 6 7 CZ 164472 9mm Pistol. 1996 2 sheets of lam inated glass with bullet holes, text. 27 *l'li«■ \**l««-it> «»f Drops. 1993-1998 Dim ensions variable. Original destroyed. 8 series. Cilypark. Stairw ell. I nderpass. Installalion \ i«*w. 69 Phantom Twins. 1997 Photo \. Burger Detail. 2 hand-sewn leather dolls, stuffed with saw dust, containing replica fetal skulls. 2 8 I > . \ . A . ( „ - l . 1 9 9 9 Installation dim ensions variable. Work in progress. Collection Tate Gallery. London Photo Sim on Starling 71 The Velocity of Drops. 1993-1996 29 Tin* Aether S«*a 2. 1999 C a r P a r k & S t a ir w e ll I >«*lail. Photographic edition o f 5. Courtesy tin* arlisl & Scan Kelly Gallery. New Aork 72/73 Small Objects That Save Lives. 1991-1999 IMiolo Sim on Starling Version from Fundaçâo de Serralves. Porto 30/31 I be Dead leach the Living. 1997 74/75 Second Class Male / Second Class Female, 1996 « white plastic heads m ounted on concrete plinths 2 human skulls, documents, 2 bronze heads on plinth: & * plastic signs. plaster skulls, plaster moulds. Courtesy I.andesim iseum . Minister Installation dim ensions variable. Photo Arcndt/Dilger Collection Howard & Donna Stone. Chicago ^2 I lie ( fiant *X Plie Dwarf. 1998 77 5 Set Conversation Pieces, 1998 D etail. 12 glass shelves with dust traces of bones Courtesy the artist & Sean K elly Gallery7, New York — Daniel Cajauus (1703-1719). height 235 cm and Sim on Jane Papp ( 1789-1828). height 71 cm. 78/79 Apples with Holes, 1992-1999 Courtesy the artist «X l.isson Gallery. London 12 red apples with .45 holes. Photo A. Burger Dim ension variable. Original destroyed. 34-42 Designs for “5 Set Conversation Pieces*’, 1998 81 Shoes with .38 Holes. 1993 Size 5 black ladies shoes with .38 hole. 44-54 Drawings for “Schadelknoelien kann man niclit aus Collection Sean Kelly. New York Biiehern erlernen! Man muss dazu einen Schiidel in die I land nelm ien...**. 1999 83 Defence Injury, Left Arm. 1998 Broken human arm bone, hooks. 58-87 Installation details from Fundayâo de Serralves, Courtesy the artist Porto. Portugal Photos Kita Burmester 84/85 Supported. 1990-1999 Glass sheet wit dust traces of human spine, 59 Girl Grasping Kel. 1997 spotlight, wooden bracket, M DF boards. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. London Installation dim ensions variable. Collection Jean-M ichel Altai. Paris 60/61 Weakness. Disaster. Old Age 3 groups of shot, white crockery, bullets, text. Cd of saxophone solo without notes (by Raymond Ilim ensions variable. M acDonald), peripheral sounds only, amp, speakers. Courtesy the artist «X Lisson Gallery, London Installation dim ensions variable. Edition of 5. Courtesy the artist & Lisson Gallery7. London 83 I.Homme Double. 1997 C ollect ion m igros museum. Zürich 127 “Schüdelknochen kann man nicht aus Büchern erlemen! Man muss dazu einen Schadel in die Hand nehmen...” , 1999 85 Home Made Bullet Proof Vests. 1994 D e t a i l . Vest with jew ellery collection, 6 books with extracts from the “ Diaries of Hermann Voss’*. vest with cotton wool, tailor's dum mies. 6 books with extracts from “ Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley. I )im ensions variable. Installation dim ensions variable. Original destroyed. Collection of Klavne and M arvin Mordes. Baltimore Photo A. Burger Biography / Exhibitions Christine Borland 1 9 6 5 Born. Darvel, Ayrshire Education 1 9 8 3 - ■8 7 B.A. Hons, Glasgow School of Art 1 9 8 7 - ■88 Master of Arts, University of Ulster, Belfast 1 9 9 6 Kunstwerke, Berlin Studio Residency One Person Exhibitions 2001 “ Christine Borland” York University Art Gallery', Toronto, Canada; travelling to Contemporary Arts Center, Houston, Texas; Miami Art Museum. Miami. Moridu. I S A * “ Christine Borland” Lisson Gallery, London, England 2000 “ Christine Borland” Treasury of Human Inheritance, Galeria Toni Tapies, Editions T. Barcelona. Spain “ Christine Borland” Spirit Collection, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA “ Christine Borland” Galerie Cent 8, Paris, France 1 9 9 9 “ What makes for the fullness and perfection of life, for beauty and happiness, is good. \\ bat makes for death, disease, imperfection, suffering, is bad." Dundee Contemporary Arts. Scotland* “ Christine Borland” Eigen + Art, Berlin, Germany 1 9 9 8 “ Christine Borland” De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands travelled to Fundaçâo Serralves, Lisbon, Portugal and mi gros museum fiir gegenwartskunst. Xiirieh. Switzerland* “ Christine Borland” Galerie cent 8, Paris. France “ L’homme Double” Arhus Kunslmuseum, Arhus. Denmark 1 9 9 7 “ Christine Borland” Lisson Gallery, London. England “ Die Ioten lehren die Lebenden” Skulpturen Projekte III, Münster. Germany* “ Christine Borland” Frac Languedoc-Roussillon. Montpellier, France* 1 9 9 6 “ Second Class Male, Second Class Female” Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, USA “ From Life, Berlin” Kunst-Werke, Berlin. Germany* “ Christine Borland’ Galerie Eigen & Art. Leipzig, Germany “ To Dust We Will Return (Part of Sawn-Off)” Gallery Enkehuset, Stockholm, Sweden* 1 9 9 5 “ Inside Pocket The British Council Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic 1 9 9 4 “ Prom Life. Glasgow” Tramway Glasgow, Scotland* Selected (inmp Exhibitions 2001 l lie Gnnslant Mumrnt" Site Specific Millenium Projects, Orkney, Scotland* // Open Country Scotland Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Switzerland* // “Circles 4” Centre for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe, ( iennany // “ Hum id" Spike Island. Bristol. England; travelling to The Melbourne Festival at the Australian Centre for ( ...... mporary Art. Melbourne, Australia* // "A t the Threshhold of Evil" the Jewish Museum, New York, USA* 2000 “ Spectacular Bodies" Hayward Galien-, Undo... England* // “ Partage d’Exotismes” Biennale d'Art Contemporain de Lyon. Lyon. Franc e * // "Paradise Now" Exit Art. New York. USA // “ Warning Shots” Royal Armories, Leeds, England* // "A Shot in the Head" Lisson Gallery. London. England 1 9 9 9 “ High Red Center" CCA. Glasgow. Scotland // “ Sampled: The Use of Fabric in Sculpture” Henry Moore Institute. Leeds. England // “ Rewind the Future” Cl.ac Mool Contemporary Fine Art. in collaboration with Lisson Gallery. West Hollywood. I SA 1 9 9 8 “ In Your Fac e " The An.lv Warhol Museum. Pittsburgh, USA // “artranspennine98” Tate Gallery Liverpool, Liverpool. < heat Britain* // "Nett. erk-Glasgow” Musee. for Sam.idskunst, Oslo. Norway* // “ To Be Real” Yerba Buena Center r ,. . , ...... „ r 9 “ r,,mnean Biennial of Contemporary Art, Luxembourg* // “Close lor the Arts. San Francisco, USA // Manifesta £ fcuropeau ' I ' . ,, n . ,, ,, l* k'rpms. Gemiany* // “ Artists’ Editions” The Modem Institute, helloes City Gallery. Prague, travelled to Kunstnalle Glasgow. Scotland // “ New Art Front Britain" Kuns.raum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria* //“ Groupshow” Sadie Coles HO. London, England // “ Here to Stay” Arts Council Collection, purchases of the 1990s* 1 9 9 7 “ The Turner Prize Exhibition" Tate Gallery-, London, England* // “ Flexible" migros museum für gegenwartskunst. I ,, Aoev Art C P., New York. USA* // “absence/presence” Kôpagovur Art /amch, Switzerland* // Letter and hvent Apex vn , . 8, Hill Street, Glasgow, Scotland // “ Connections Implicites” Ecole [Museum. Ireland'1 // \\ isn you were lieie too oo . . , ' , „ ■ c ... // “ Pictura Britannica: Art from Britain” Museum nf Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Pans, fiance « u. cum 01 Contemporary Art. Svdnev. Australia: travelled to Art Galle,y of South Australia. Adelaide: City Gallery-. Wellington, New Zealand* // “ Building Site" Architectural Association, London. Great Britain // “ To be Real" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA . . * r a lOflfU and 90's” Hayward Gallen. London, Great Rntmn* // 1 9 9 6 “ Material Culture, The Object in British Art of the 19oUs ai j 3 ^ oreat Britain* // . i- n^.iu-hie, Douglas Gordon Galerie Eigen & Ah “ Christine Borland, Roddy Buchanan, Jacqueline D • - rhn. Germany // "T h e Cauldron" Henry Moore Sculpture Studio, Halifax. Great Britain* // “ Were We Conscious” Provincial Museum voor Aetuele Kunst. Hasselt, Belgium U “ Are You Talking to Me” Spec.a Gallery,Copenhagen. D enm ark//“ Nach Weimar” Kunstsammlungen. rv;Weimar, • \\V»imar. Germany* // ” 21 Days ‘ ol Darkness” ‘ Trnnew emission • • History'” Fundacâo Serralves, Oporto, Portugal* // “Strange Davs” Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland // “ More Time/Less I The Agency. London. Great Britain // “ Live/Life” ARC Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France*, travelled to Centro Cultural de Belem. Lisbon. Portugal // “ Girls High" Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Scotland* // “ Fu„ House" Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany* *Denotes Catalogue De Appel migros museum fiir gegenwartskunst Funda^ào de Serraives thanks for their support: thanks for their support: thanks for their support: Ministry of Education. Culture and Wirz Identity J'he British Council Sciences, Zoetermeer migros museum We would also like to thank the Municipality of Amsterdam is an institution of artist, all the collectors who have Migros Cultural Percentage kindly loaned their works to the Artimo Foundation, Amsterdam present exhibition and all those who. in many other ways, have1 helped to make it possible. De Appel migros museum Mu.seu tie Arte Contemporfmea Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10 Limmatstrasse 270 de Serrai ves NL-1017 DE Amsterdam CH-8031 Zurich Rua I). Joào de Castro. 210 Netherlands Switzerland P -4 150-417 Porto / Portugal tel +31 20 6255 651 tel +41 1 277 20 50 tel + 351 22 615 65 00 fax +31 20 6225 215 fax +41 1 277 62 86 fax + 351 22 615 65 33 www.deappel.nl www.migrosmuseum.ch www.serralves.pt e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Organisation and coordination: Organisation and coordination: Mathilde Heyns Marta Moreira de Almeida Exhibition: Exhibition: Exhibition: 6 November 1998 - 3 January 1999 30 January - 21 March 1999 10 April - 23 May 1999 Curator: Curator: Cu rator: Saskia Bos Rein Wolfs Joào Fernandes MUSEUSERRALVES De Appel «nnigiœ.Kiuaaum MUSEU DE ARTE CONTEMPORÂNEA Christine Borland would like to thank: Lenders to the exhibition: Boss Sinclair & Grace Borland Sinclair Pilar Corrias & Nicholas Logsdail, Howard and Donna Stone, Chicago families Borland & Sinclair Lisson Gallery, London Elayne and Marvin Mordes, Sean Kelly & Cecile Panzieri. Baltimore, Maryland 1 he authors: Sean Kelly Gallery, New York Sean Kelly, New York Ian Hunt Serge Le Borgne, Jean-Michel Altai, Paris 1'rancis M cKee Galerie Cent8, Paris The Tate Gallery, London Gerd Harry Lubke, Institute de Arte Contemporanea, David Allen Galerie Eigen&Art, Berlin Neil Beggs Lisbon Barry Barker Visual Arts Projects, Glasgow: The curators, administrative and Helen McMahon for the use of images on pp. 28/29, installation staff at: (Glasgow School of Art developed during migros museum B. C. Sliggers, leviers Museum. Artist Fellowship, 1998/9 De Appel Haarlem. Netherlands Fundaçâo de Serralves Catalogue design: The participants of: Frank Hvde-Antwi, twiddlethumbs “Small Objects That Save Lives” the dead teach the living Design: Prank Hyde-Antwi, twiddlethumbs & Christine Borland Lithography: Colorlith, Geroldswil, Switzerland Printing: Offsetdruck Goetz AG, Geroldswil, Switzerland Binding: Buchbindenei Burkhardt AG, Monehaltorf, Switzerland ISBN: 3-907064-11-9 O 2000. migros museum, the artist, the photographers, the author All rights reserved. No part of this hook may he reproduced in any form, by an>' means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.