Scripts based on historic exhibitions, to be experienced under hypnosis or in one’s preferred reading state. Written by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Angie Keefer, John Menick and Robert Snowden.

Curated by Raimundas Malašauskas Hypnotised by Marcos Lutyens and Annalisa Fruttero Assisted by Agatha Wara Hypnotic Show Produced by Artissima 18

Hypnotic Show, 2011 2011 7. 25. 40. 57. You’re on stage, You are in a hotel, The building is huge, It’s a mess. You can’t kneeling, in a black lying wide-awake painted white and feels see anything clearly. dress in one The 43. 9. 28. Some weeks ago, 59. You smell treason. And You are in a derelict you spoke to a man Beneath the horizon, a as you walk closer to wharf building. Rust- camping chariot or sleigh, a

11. 29. 46. 61. You really shouldn’t be You are abandoned in Some things you see An austere white here, you know. Your the Archaeological you can never forget. building crowned by a It’s filigree 13. 30. You lie on your back in What you are looking 48. a clearing. Treetops at is not a perfect Soft pink walls. A dimly lit bathroom 15. 32. barely You enter an empty This square room is courtroom. Just to your not quite a room, more 50. Pedestrians, men, 17. 33. women, are milling. You arrive at the house There’s a whirling you’ve been looking sound coming from the 51. On an escalator 19. 35. moving upward You are wandering There are many rooms through a through an old house. here, and many ob- 53. 20. 36. Mommy took you to You are walking down The pianist enters the work today. It’s your a crowded sidewalk room. His name is 55. 23. 38. It’s dawn. The sky is You are in a world of The moon is spread pale. You tread across information, language out below, its surface a layer

Index I Index I 7. 29. 50. John Menick Angie Keefer Angie Keefer

9. 30. 51. Sofía Hernández John Menick Angie Keefer Chong Cuy 32. 53. 11. Angie Keefer John Menick John Menick 33. 55. 13. John Menick Angie Keefer Angie Keefer 35. 57. 15. Angie Keefer Sofía Hernández Angie Keefer Chong Cuy 36. 17. John Menick 59. Sofía Hernández Angie Keefer Chong Cuy 38. John Menick 61. 19. Angie Keefer Angie Keefer 40. Sofía Hernández 20. Chong Cuy Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy 43. Sofía Hernández 23. Chong Cuy Angie Keefer 46. 25. Robert Snowden Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy 48. Angie Keefer 28. Angie Keefer

Index II ou’re on stage, kneeling, in a black dress with black stockings, under a hot spotlight. Y You’re not sweating, yet, and if you do sweat, that’s fine too. Your left foot is asleep – pins and needles – but you can’t do anything about that now. Best to clear your mind and look straight ahead. In front of you, on stage, is a pair of silver scissors. You picked silver, you remember, because it would shine, and people could see the scissors from the back of the theatre. They’re not real silver, just silver in colour, meaning reflective. You – kneeling – and the scissors – shining – under the spotlight. There’s an audience out there, a few hundred people, sitting in rows of wooden seats. But you can’t see them, either the people or the seats. From the stage, the audience is invisible, submerged in black. In fact, if it weren’t for the wooden floor of the stage, you wouldn’t be able to see anything: just you and the sounds of the audience giggling, clapping or talking among themselves. Someone appears from the murmuring darkness in front of you, a young man in white trousers and green sweater. He hops up on the stage and walks toward you. The man picks up the scissors and opens the blades. His eyes search your body. No, not exactly 6 7 your body – your dress – and he lowers the blades to your left shoulder. You don’t look at him. You look toward the audience. You can feel the cool metal where your shoulder slopes up to meet your neck. He ou smell treason. And as you walk closer to snips. The cut is not into your skin, but a millimetre the building entrance, you see the minor above, into your black dress. He snips again, careful Y insurrection bubbling at the plaza in front not to hurt you; a large drop of sweat dangles at the of the museum. The flyers and pamphlets that are tip of his nose, then falls, splashing on the wooden being distributed are about Burma; they are against stage. He snips twice more – fast – and a square of the government. fabric falls away from your dress near your left shoul- You recognise some people. Clearly, no one appears der. Then the man places the scissors in front of you to be a local citizen. OK, maybe one or two people and jumps off the stage. among a dozen are from the town. You know this Two breaths later, a woman, no older than 20, with because they are dressed in traditional clothing. The black-framed glasses and a severe look, replaces him others at the plaza have all travelled to be there; just on the stage. She picks up the scissors. You can’t see as you have. her face – you’re looking straight ahead, remember – Across the plaza you see an elegant man seduc- but you can see her hand dangling in front of you, the ing a group of people. He is The Traitor. You meet scissors gripped by the thumb and index finger. She his partner, The Collaborator, and exchange brief leans in and presses the scissors between your breasts. words with her. Then, someone next to you in- People in the audience giggle; the scissors clip off the troduces himself as The Traducer. He points to a front gold buttons on your dress. Your dress falls open woman nearby who is The Experientialist. You are in slightly. The young woman leans back, examines her the midst of it, and have not even stepped into the work and quickly leaves the stage. exhibition. You decide to go inside the museum. To your right, a long, long hall leads to dozens of galleries, to the left and right. There is one artwork in each space: some are drawings, some paintings. To your left, another long, long hall leads to another dozen 8 9 of galleries. There are more rooms with videos at this end of the building. You decide to take the stairs and go up to the sec- ond floor. On your way up, in the foyer, you admire ou really shouldn’t be here, you know. Your a number of hyper-realist paintings. These paintings contact got up to use the bathroom, leav- are large, and are so well made that they look like Y ing you alone at the table, but it’s risky to be photographs. They depict scenes that are exactly like here. You could be seen here – you and him – and the one you are in at the moment: people looking at that would be trouble. This is a restaurant you go art in a museum. to often, without him. You know people here. You As you walk, you see more paintings of art and know the owner. ‘Shit, this was a bad idea,’ you think spectators in different kinds of exhibitions. You don’t to yourself. recognise any artwork, nor any one person. You can’t Then there is that man across from you; the man tell if you are looking at a painting or if you are in one in the leather jacket with the bad hair. That guy, of those paintings. And, suddenly, again, you smell probably in his thirties. He got here just after you, treason. That scent of betrayal in the plaza is now a seated immediately after you, chose a table right smell of duplicity in this room. People are looking across from you and seems to have been pacing at you looking at art. You are inside a painting of an his meal according to your meal – the meal you’re exhibition. not supposed to be having. When you ordered the appetizer, he ordered his. When you sent back your undercooked entrée, he waited to start his. It’s almost like he is eating with you. But he isn’t eating with you. He’s at the table over there. And you are over here, with your contact, with this guy who you shouldn’t be seen with. The other guy, the one over there with the bad haircut and leather jacket, you’ve seen him before. You saw him in the park today, right before coming here. That’s it. He was in the park. Sitting across 10 11 from you. Is he following you? Is he from the office? Does he know why you’re here? Okay, stop being paranoid. It’s the situation, not this guy in the jacket. This is sloppy. If he finds out what’s going on, you’re ou lie on your back in a clearing. Treetops finished. Just leave the package for your man in the come into focus above you. You are sur- bathroom and leave. Y rounded by small wood-frame houses with What is taking so long in that fucking bathroom? porches, neatly arranged along the square perimeter ‘Waiter,’ you say, ‘check please’. of a thinning green crossed by concrete walking paths. The waiter walks away. And what happens? That The grassy soil under your body is warm, but the guy at the other table also asks for the check. Okay, wind and the uneasy demeanour of the trees bode that’s it. You’re out of here. You abruptly stand and autumn. Stand up. Notice the top of a brick steeple walk to the door. Have a cigarette. Chill out. Wait for just beyond the houses to your left. Hear the crash your contact to get his head out of the toilet or what- and hush of ocean waves. Follow the path through ever he is doing in there. As you pass, you make eye the green, in the direction of the church. A horizon contact with the man in the leather jacket. Bad hair. comes into view. You are on an island. Not unattractive, though. Your eyes lock. He pivots The church appears little more than one meet- his head and follows you to the door. If he is follow- ing room, plus a vestibule and the spire you first saw ing you, he’s bold; doesn’t mind being seen. from the green. A red door the shape of a bishop’s hat Outside the air is cold. You didn’t bother to get is ajar. Climb three steps and enter the building. The your jacket. You take out a cigarette. It smells like rai- vestibule is dim, but you see by afternoon light from sins. You light it and inhale, turning back towards the the half-open door. You face a heavy velvet curtain. window of the restaurant. There he is, staring at you. Reach forward. Grope for an opening in the folds. Your man returns from the bathroom. He is looking Slip through, into pitch darkness. around for you. You stamp on your cigarette and walk You are blind. The room is blank. Smell damp away from the restaurant. bricks. Hear ocean static, indistinguishable now from the din of a highway. Gradually, your eyes adjust. Become aware of thin lines creeping through the blackness, sunrays straining to reach the bottom of a 12 13 lagoon. Where light touches the floor, see geomet- ric shapes: a circle; an X. Move closer to the lines. Discover the edges of slender panels of light. Step through one panel, as if through a sheer waterfall. ou enter an empty courtroom. Just to your Stand in the centre of the circle. It slides away from right, on one of the counsel’s tables, a you. The angled cone of light rising from the shape’s Y slender metal object balances delicately on edge moves across your body like a saw. end, upright in the centre of a squat marble base. Its polished surface is tawny, not quite amber. Look down. See a paper tag attached to a frayed piece of shipping twine. Lean in. Read Exhibit One. US Customs. Kitchen Utensils and Hospital Supplies. Hear a voice from the object: ‘Will you look at Exhibit One and tell the court whether in your opin- ion that is a work of art?’ Step back to survey the courtroom. There is no one else here. The voice: ‘You might enlighten the court as to whether you would think that object – Exhibit One – a bird?’ Regard the object in profile. It is like the breast of a bird, especially on one side. All breasts of birds are more or less rounded? Any rounded piece of bronze then, could represent a bird? Looks more like the keel of a boat, no? And a little like the crescent of a new moon? If Mr Brancusi called this a fish, would it then be to you a fish? 14 15 If he called it a tiger, would you change your mind, and call it a tiger? You continue listening, but the object is mute. ou arrive at the house you’ve been looking for. Your map indicates it’s the home of Lea Y Cuadron and André Vereecken. Of course, you don’t know these people, and neither do they know you. And of course, it feels a little awkward to be wandering into their house, but you continue any- way, making your way through their home. Walking inside this house feels like walking inside a book. All the walls are covered with text. You want to read this book, but you are unable to do so because the entire text has been crossed out. The house is beautiful, nonetheless. As you walk from room to room, you notice pristine floors, ori- ental rugs and exquisite details in every corner. The rooms have few pieces of furniture, and it’s unclear if emptying the rooms was intentional. You wander around … What is on the left? As you enter a room that looks like a study or an office, you encounter some people there rumbling the infamous question, ‘Is this art?’ As if to query the nature of why we are there instead of what is it that is there. You follow the discussion for some time and leave the house feeling good you understand Flemish. You decide to visit the next house. It’s only a couple of doors away from this one, so you walk down the 16 17 street. The house number is 94, and you’ve arrived there. This dwelling has high ceilings and is beauti- fully illuminated with natural light. The wooden floor of the parlour screeches at your every step, so ou are wandering through an old house. you walk slowly through the space. You see other After passing ordinary rooms, along ordinary people in the room tiptoeing. Y halls, leading to still other ordinary rooms, All the furnishings are covered with white blankets. you stand before a bricolaged grotto of intersecting Other things are white too, including the books on planes and volumes. You stand under splintering the shelf. At the centre of the space is a blank canvas beams and plywood stalactites. You step forward. on an easel. Like everything else in the room, the Gravity lags. canvas over the easel is white. You decide to stare at Light from the adjacent room flows through glass the canvas meditatively for a few minutes. You are openings around the door now closed behind you. waiting to see if this blank painting will speak to you But your compass is inscrutable. There are too many … You are waiting to see if you will feel any connec- surfaces here. tion to this place … Shuffle sideways through a narrow passage of slanting walls made from jumbled scraps of fence and plaster rhomboids. Come to a door. Enter an- other room configured the same way that is not the same at all. Continue past several doors, until you reach the last room. No further door. Thumb an open note- book with various scribble, mostly affections and deceptions, one fragment written in English: Oh thou, beloved of my twenty-seven senses, I love thine! Thou thee thee thine, I thine, thou mine, we? That (by the way) is beside the point! 18 19 for a couple of minutes to look at some used books. There are recent titles, but you’re not in the mood for reading today, so you put the book back into place ou are walking down a crowded sidewalk and move on to the next vendor. She has some used filled with street vendors and slow pedes- clothing. You contemplate the wool blazer hanging Y trians. It’s New York. Winter. You are a from a fence, but you are suddenly distracted by the little cold out, but can stand it. You kind of like it, in next vendor. A black man with some kind of white- fact. You confirm to yourself wanting to be outside. styrofoam marbles … So, you step towards it; you Enjoying the day. Walking. Strolling in the city. You bend down to take a closer look at the product on remember that you stayed indoors last night; that his rug, and your jawbone slowly drops in awe as you it was snowing outside. But this morning you’re out realise that these are in fact snowballs, not marbles. and about. Loving it. The cool breeze reminds you It’s weird. how much you like winter. The chill brightens your He is selling snowballs, and he’s arranged them by nose. It may look silly, but you don’t mind it. The size. Tiny snowballs, medium size, some larger ones; smell of fresh graffiti keeps you warm. one placed after the other over his wool rug, arranged You walk slowly down the sidewalk, attentively just like marbles on the sand. But these are snowballs, looking at people’s faces. Once in a while check- and they will melt. So, what is the point? … You ing out the street vendors’ items. They sell common raise your head and torso and look at him, straight in things: fake jewellery; some old radios and cameras; the eye. He looks at you, peacefully, doesn’t wink, just cassette tapes … You continue wandering, hearing slowly raises his right hand to offer you a snow- jingle bells in the far distance, and in closer proxim- ball. You look at it, the snowball in his hand, and ity the chimes from a can. You want another rhythm, you wonder, should you ask the price? Should you and pause for a moment to check out the scene, to humour him out of respect? Or should you empathise see if any kids will be b-boying in some corner in and pity him? Should you just smile? your trail, but it’s unlikely – there are no boom boxes ‘There are too many crazy people in the city’, you in sight. think to yourself. The thought of ending up like that You’re glad you’ve come across other sidewalk sales. scares you; you don’t think highly of your govern- These vendors here are more interesting. You stop ment. As you walk away, perplexed, you ask yourself, 20 21 ‘why snowballs?’ You don’t feel exactly fooled by him but neither comfortable. You feel … confused. Do you like feeling this way? You’re thinking that snowballs melt, and this time, this time you grin at ou are in a world of information, language the thought of it. Then, someone approaches you and numbers and systems and evidence suddenly, interrupting your thought. Y and grids, ephemera. You see photocop- It’s a nice old woman from the Red Cross; she ies, printouts, black-and-white photographs, words asks you to make a donation. Her hair is as white as under penitential light. Look hard. Squint. Your eyes the snow. Her eyes smile at you. Her presence some- are dry. You are lost, but why should things be easy how comforts you, and you wonder ‘why’ … ‘Why?’ to understand? Someone named Weiner has removed … So you stand there for a second to experience this a square of the lathing or support wall or plaster or feeling more profoundly, listening to her talk about wall board from a wall. You know because this is ex- the cause she supports. Meanwhile, you are search- plained in a text on the wall next to the hole. You put ing for change in the right pocket of your jacket. You your head in the hole. It’s cold. Feels good. Pull back. pull out some subway tokens and coins; you tuck the Cross the room. Pass 50 or 60 adult-sized tennis tokens back in your pocket, and your eyes count the shoes, big photographs of bread mould, 30 pictures coins remaining in the palm of your hand. It’s your of sky, some guy burying himself. Find yourself now lunch money, but you can do without, and you want in front of a large vinyl wall text. Read aloud: to make her happy, so you deposit about 70 cents in her Red Cross donation can. She smiles at you, and 1. to assume a mental set voluntarily. you feel good. You are a good citizen, yes. She knows 2. to shift voluntarily from one aspect of the situa- you are. tion to another. 3. to keep in mind simultaneously various aspects. 4. to grasp the essential of a given whole; to break up a given whole into parts and to isolate them voluntarily. 5. to generalise; to abstract common properties; to plan ahead ideationally; to assume an attitude 22 23 toward ‘the mere possible’, and to think or per- form symbolically. 6. to detach our ego from the outer world. ou are in a hotel, lying wide awake in one To detach our ego from the outer world, to see, to of the beds in your duplex guestroom. The look and not see, to forget you’ve seen. There is a Y lights are off. A plasma TV is the only thing grey photograph of a room with a parquet floor. See that illuminates the room. Even if the windows are rectangles overlapping rectangles. See a jangle of shut, you can still listen to the intense sound of aero- straight lines. See through several doorways to a win- plane take-offs and landings. Jets come and go every dow in the back of the house. See outside – spindled 15 or 20 minutes. Just from the sound of it, you start winter trees, trunks, branches, dendrite lines the same counting … You’ve counted about ten flights, and you thickness as those traced on the walls and floor. See realise that this means you’ve been awake for hours. contours of shadows and light you do not see but You curse the jetlag for your insomnia. You will be can imagine seeing. You can imagine seeing a careful flying the next morning. Tonight, you are simply history of almost nothing written with a ballpoint stuck there. pen in a memo book. You can imagine assuming an You are there, lying wide awake in a soft bed, with attitude toward the mere possible, shifting from one all the pillows available positioned under your head aspect of the situation to another. and neck so you can comfortably watch TV. You hold the remote control in your right hand, and with your index finger press the channel button every two to three seconds. Seconds feel like minutes. A news anchor announces 14 deaths today in Afghanistan. When will the violence stop? You change the channel again. A documentary on China’s economic growth. The graphs showing their current income are going up steeply. ‘They are rich’, you think to yourself. The Chinese will take over the world.

24 25 You press the button to change the channel once In any case, you are watching TV. You’ve now again. This show looks familiar. You keep watching. recognised the programme as Melrose Place, the US It is set in 1990s LA. You kind of recognise this. You television show. You know this because the protago- may have seen the show before, but can’t quite place nist is not the girl who Michael was looking for in it. It’s obviously a rerun. You keep watching. that seedy hotel, but the blonde one who is appear- A guy named Michael visits a seedy hotel in ing in this segment of the show. It’s Alison. She is search of his lover. He looks like he is the protagonist lying in bed, listening to some fight in the courtyard of the show. Or maybe it will be her. In any case, it’s of her building. And you notice that there is some- unclear whether his lover is a prostitute. Or was one. thing particular in this scene, too. It’s Alison’s bed Or will become one. Those kinds of guests seem to quilt. It’s hypnotising. The pattern is made up of be in those kinds of hotels. But you suddenly recog- white hexagons. It looks like a molecular model of nise something peculiar about the clerk at reception. sorts. You can almost bet on it. You’re so sure of this He is reading a book by Lyotard – or was doing so conjecture, of this molecular design just there on the before Michael began inquiring about the girl – and quilt, because you’re in the business of pharmaceutics. you recognise the title Libidinal Economy. Is it really But again, you are also sure that you are tired. You possible that the clerk would be reading a French may be imaging things due to insomnia. theory book about pleasure? Someone must have forgotten the prop, you think. The smell of bacon is stinking out your bedroom. You wonder if the odour will go away if you finish eating your BLT sandwich, or if, in doing so, the smell of bacon will simply emanate from your body. You consider getting up from bed and putting the food tray in the hallway, but do nothing. Instead, in a resigned mood, you reach out your left arm to grab hold of your Pepsi resting on the bedside table. You take two slow sips. It’s flat. The ice has melted and watered down the taste. 26 27 ou are in a derelict wharf building. Rust- ou are abandoned in the Archaeological ing walls and roof of corrugated steel are Museum at Delphi, which is defiantly cool Y supported overhead by rows of trusses and Y and calm, despite the late summer heat underfoot by beams peeking through rotten floor and hustle of the tourist trade outside. You have just planks. Hear the river. Consider the building’s size. descended a stair into a small gallery with a dark Consider a river’s size. concrete floor and high walls. Your footsteps resonate At the far end of the building, an arced portion of as if re-composed for a movie version of your life. wall is cut away, leaving a pared rosary window the In the centre of the gallery, a slate-coloured shape of a scant three-quarter moon. bronze statue of a young man in a long robe stands Walk across a steel beam over a channel in the on top of a concrete cube like a Doric column. The floor. Beneath this narrow bridge, a spotlit swath of man is almost twice natural size. His posture is black water shows velvet green. regally assured, although he is missing his left arm. Approach the window. See the industrial crags of Even blighted, he is an archetypal beauty. High Hoboken and Jersey City, one half a set of worn-out cheekbones, almond eyes, Greek nose and full lips. zipper teeth between river and sky. A placid expression that betrays no calculation. An- drogynous. He holds bent fragments of metal reins in his only hand, offering them for someone to take. The top of the concrete base is the height of your knee. You stand close to it now, looking down at the robed man’s perfectly formed feet and fine ankles, just visible beneath his long dress. A shiny coin lies heads up next to the statue’s left pinky toe.

28 29 flower follows you. You step back to your left. The flower follows you. You bend down below the ped- estal. The flower bends over. Of course, there is no hat you are looking at is not a perfect one in there, you think. No puppeteer. If there were replica of a flower. For one, it’s too big: a puppeteer, it would have to be a child, because the the stem is too thick. But the sculpture pedestal is only 60 centimetres across. isW supposed to reference a flower, give the viewer the You stand up. The flower straightens up. You think Platonic idea of a flower. In other words, it’s shaped of that scene in the Marx Brothers movie, in which like a flower; it’s flower-like, and that is its most Groucho is looking in the mirror. Except he isn’t disturbing quality. looking in the mirror; he is looking at Harpo in the The flower is atop a pedestal. It’s about 45 cen- next room, and Harpo is imitating Groucho – play- timetres high, from the base of its stem to its open ing his double. You decide that you are Groucho and top. The stem itself looks like the spine of an animal, this mechanical flower is Harpo. with metallic vertebrae and a spinal column of wires You spend the next couple of minutes trying to stretching from the pedestal to its top. trick the flower. Maybe if you move slowly and make The flower shines, polished and antiseptic. Its pet- no noise, it won’t notice you. You move slowly, then als are open, made of plastic, or maybe fibreglass, but quickly, then duck, waiting for the flower to break, not the kind of plastic or fibreglass that is supposed not to notice you, to give up. to fool anyone. This is plastic as plastic, not plastic as flower, or plastic as flesh. It’s fully artificial, this flower. You feel a tickle in your throat. It’s the leftover from the cold you had last week, you think to yourself. In the centre of the four plastic petals is a metal cross, just two metal rods, like a target, right where the reproductive organs should be. You clear your throat. The flower turns to you. It arches its open petals up to your face. You step to your right. The 30 31 his square room is not quite a room, more here’s a whirring sound coming from the an idea for one. Imagine a cutaway view, like machine now – a gigantic thing, all gears, T a doll’s house. Three walls of temporary par- T metal rods and spools of paper. You’re stand- titions held in tension between a concrete floor and ing in a courtyard with 20 other people. The night air ceiling. A fourth wall made entirely of glass. No door. is cold and smells like the approaching spring. Eve- Near the top of the wall, above your left shoulder, rything in front of you – the immense machine with is a long, horizontal painting proportioned like a all its moving parts – is changing speed. There’s that bumper sticker. On one end, the watery shadow of whirring, and banging too. Hammers banging sheet a deflated bicycle wheel. On the other, a wrist and metal, a giant engine of sound smashing itself out. hand in black outline, flat colour, a forefinger point- You stare into the machine as it works; everyone ing directly to your right. In the centre, an array of stares into it. You all stare into its hundreds of parts carpet tiles next to a large wire pipe cleaner shot working faster and faster. And as you look, your face through from the other side of the wall. and the faces of the onlookers change. Everyone is Turn right. Follow the pointing finger. Approach the anticipating something horrible is about to happen, glass wall. Peer out over a collar of groomed treetops as if this gargantuan machine with all of its motion trimming an open courtyard. The bulbous form of a will cross the courtyard and explode, tearing its way grotesque metal woman is arranged on a stone plinth through the crowd. below. She floats or tumbles, as if she might have The spring air is replaced by something else: the fallen from the very spot where you are now standing, smell of smoke, maybe. It’s not cigarette smoke, suspended half a breath before touching the ground. nor the smell of burning paper, but the smell of a In the corner gap between the glass and the workshop, of an engine about to erupt. You back up nearest partition wall, reach an illuminated button. against the glass wall, and the onlookers do the same. A muffled hum and click, the workings of an old- Your wool coat rubs against your neighbour’s. She is fashioned, pulley-drawn something, emit from deep a stranger, and when you accidentally touch her hand within the building. Otherwise, the room is quiet. you feel a static shock. 32 33 The sound is unbearable now. You don’t recognise the sound. It’s sound from another era. Railroad cars colliding, lifts falling past art deco offices, factory machines swallowing children’s hands. You remember here are many rooms here, and many ob- an image you saw once, of nineteenth-century Paris. jects: life-sized figures; taxidermy; waxen It was a picture of a steam train that had crashed T decomposing limbs; doubles; dolls; models; through a concrete wall and spilled its engine car fibreglass corpses; hair and muck; hundreds of comic into the street. The witnesses to the accident must books; 47 ordinary household spoons; squeeze toys; have smelled exactly the same odour that you smell coat hangers; homemade signs; piles; props; plastics; now. You decide that is what this is, this machine: a difference without variation; things that make your railroad car out of control. Something explodes in scalp itch; too much to tally. This is a slicken, no- front of you, and everyone jumps back. The flame where land. This is a mirrored hall. This is horror. bursts, swallowing the machine. It spreads fast, the There is no logical emotional link. The outburst is flame. The machine is covered in a swell of fire, kick- over, as if nothing has happened. The man-sized boy ing, throwing off metal bars and imploding into a in the diaper lurches forward half a step. Move away. mess of sound. Wander into increasing anonymity. Float among You stay where you are, pushing your neck against objects. You are almost recognisable. You are taken the cool glass behind you. The flames are reflect- over. Without warning, safety, comfort are ruptured. ing in the glass, waving hands of fire. You inhale, Without warning, the object. Without warning, the straightening your back, your mouth dry from the presence. Without warning, the memory of the event. heat. The machine continues shaking and you look It is as if none of this has taken place. It is as if se- to the woman next to you, her profile highlighted by duction. It is as if shock. The limb is lifted. The limb the growing flames. is broken. The limb is static. The limb is bent. The limb. The intensity. The residue. The zombie stuff.

34 35 People laugh. Someone whistles loudly through his fingers. David-something sits there. Doesn’t move. Suddenly he opens the lid of the piano. OK, he’s go- he pianist enters the room. His name is ing to start. Then he closes it again. He’s not doing David-something. You met him last night at anything except opening and closing that lid every T the dinner party. He’s in a tuxedo. Everyone 20 seconds or so. applauds. The seat next to you is empty. It’s Cheryl’s. Someone stands up in the front row and leaves. She’s not here. Not a bad idea, you think. You’re kind of hungry. David-something sits at the piano and closes the Maybe a burger at the diner before driving back. The keyboard lid. You wait for him to start the piece. You woman in front of you is wearing a strong perfume. don’t know what he is playing. A piece by an avant- Chanel No. 5. Half a bottle, probably. David-some- garde composer, probably. It’s Woodstock, after all. thing isn’t playing. He opens the lid again. Maybe He sits at the piano for a few more seconds. He’s that’s the performance, you think. It’s about that lid not playing yet. You really need to get back to the opening and closing. Anyhow, everyone is talking city, you think to yourself. The client needs to see amongst themselves now; a murmur in the room. the layouts on Monday morning, and if you can get You really should be getting back to the city, into the office on Sunday you’ll get everything done. especially if this is going to go on for much longer. So whenever this thing is finished, you’ll find the car Cheryl wouldn’t mind. Plus, people are starting to and drive back to Manhattan. leave. Better go home now. You get up, loosen your David-something is still sitting there. Is he going tie and look at David-something. He closes the lid to start? Anyway, you didn’t buy the tickets. They and you decide to leave. were a gift from Cheryl. Too bad she got that cold. Cheryl’s good with these snobs; you have no idea what to do around these people. OK, he should start playing soon. The room is starting to whisper. The man to your left says some- thing to his wife about the cost of the ticket. Some- one to your right yells, ‘Come on and start, already!’ 36 37 Overhead a space station rotates: two rings spin- ning around a central bar, floating slowly, as if a taxi has lost its front two wheels along with the axel. The he moon is spread out below, its surface space station is also white, like the rocket, centipedes covered by mountain ranges. From up and moon’s surface. It spins up there, only metres T here, the mountain ranges look only a few away from your hand. metres tall. Their surface – the entire lunar surface In a flash, the moonscape is replaced by a snows- to the horizon – is like a dried-up ocean, its sea life cape. It’s probably Antarctica. Instead of the wheeled gone, leaving only white coral reefs and heaps of centipedes there are houses on stilts. Each house is sand and rock. shaped like a giant eye: a glass window filling the Six-wheeled white vehicles climb the dusty space that would normally be occupied by the cornea mountains. They look like bleached centipedes and retina. Even with the Earth’s gravity, Antarctica climbing baby-powder hills. The vehicles, powered has the same smooth, frictionless feeling as the moon. by invisible people – perhaps robots, perhaps mission Small vehicles trapped in circular routes, with people control in Texas – roll up one side of a mountain and nowhere to be seen. down the other, guided by grooved tracks created by years of routine travel. A rocket stands by one of the mountains, waiting for lift-off – an old-fashioned missile with fins, and a pole on top its capsule. Again, the scale is hard to judge. Maybe it is as tall as a five-storey apartment building. Maybe it is only half a metre tall. With a small puff of smoke, or steam, the rocket darts straight up, its path guided by a slim, clear fishing line. When it reaches space – really just a ceiling lined with black velvet – the rocket pauses and then gently drops straight back down to its lunar surface.

38 39 seen here so far. It’s as if they were made in a factory, not by an artist. But you know that you are not in a factory, you know that this is an art exhibition. It just he building is huge, painted white and feels seems very cold here. In this room, with this art, so airy, with multiple floors connected by a plain and stark … It’s all somehow domineering, too T curvaceous ramp instead of a common stair- sure of itself. well. You are wandering inside, walking up the ramp. You’re uncomfortable with that feeling, and leave And, yes, you can see it and feel it; it’s really a huge immediately to the next area. This space is almost building, immense just like a factory, but this is no vacant, but there are some colourful pieces in a cor- factory at all – you already know that. Someone told ner. As you walk closer to the sculptures, you can feel you this building is called a pavilion. You have come the colour impregnate your vision. The artworks are here to see an international art exhibition: a huge so bright, so bright that you squint but keep walk- exhibition of new art. ing towards them, and they are so illuminated that While you’re looking at an abstract painting that you can feel their potency. They feel magnetic, you’re you understand little about, you eavesdrop on a drawn to them; they feel like a concentration of pure couple’s conversation. You hear them say that there energy. They are like meteors made of loose pigment, are 5,000 artworks here, and you wonder if you’ll like fireballs of colour. have enough time (or energy) to see all the art today. You can sense in this room a measurable presence As you know, the building is huge. Someone told tied up with emotion. An artist appears and tells you you that it has over eight kilometres of walls to hang he is a sculptor. He made the piece you are looking at. paintings on. You can indeed see many paintings, but He tells you that he is interested in creating things there are also many, many sculptures. Everything that are only ‘within hand’s reach’. You notice that here feels very ... It feels very modern. indeed the sizes of his sculptures are human scale. This room that you are now wandering into You come close and reach the artwork; you touch its contains very plain artworks. There are a couple of surface very slightly and feel the powdery texture. paintings and some sculptures. All of them are big, You picture the world as a field of forces. Your bigger than anything else in the exhibition. These experience of space and time is informed by develop- artworks look more industrial than anything you’ve ments in physics. And you are interested in kinetic 40 41 art – a kind of art in which one or all of its parts move according to the wind, or by a computer or even by you, when encountering the piece in an exhi- bition, very much like this one. ome weeks ago, you spoke to a man camping You like The Poetics of Space, the relationship outside the museum. You approached him between science and poetry, and you have a particular S because you thought the camp was the start fascination for spaces that have an affective qual- of a demonstration against the war. But it wasn’t. It ity. What is affection? … You imagine weaving a wasn’t anything like that. He said he was an artist; he basket. You can feel the texture of raw materials in said that he was observing the installation of the next the palms of your hands, the fibre threads in your art exhibition at the museum. fingertips. As you interlace the material, passing the Yesterday, you passed by the museum once again, threads between your fingers, crisscrossing one fibre and neither the camping house you had seen there, with another, then tightening it, you give shape to nor the artist you had talked to, happened to be in something. sight. ‘The installation period of the exhibition must be over’, you thought to yourself. So today you’ve decided to go into the museum, to see if the exhibition that the artist was following is, in fact, ready. It is. Walking towards the museum, just before you en- ter, you almost trip over a depression and metal grate on the sidewalk, which you had never noticed before. You catch your balance, take a deep breath, arrange your hair with your hands and continue walking. As you walk into the building, you notice some iron structures in the foyer. Perhaps these are sculp- tures – you don’t know for sure – but they are bright- ly illuminated, and you deem them art for that reason alone. As you head upstairs, you see that the stairwell 42 43 has been haphazardly divided into two sections by a continue spilling along the floors, and materials curtain. This makeshift curtain makes you wonder (such as ice) melted or (lettuce, for example) wilted whether the installation of the exhibition is, in fact, as time has passed by. complete. You also wonder whether you should take You are halfway through the exhibition, and con- the right or the left side of the stairs. You choose the sider if you should walk back to the first galleries, the right and walk up to the second floor. ones with the maps – to see where you are and what The maps, diagrams and documents on display they say – or if you should continue walking further. in the first gallery you enter tell you little about the You are really perplexed, but thankfully alone in a exhibition, so you walk swiftly across this room and gallery space that happens to have a mattress. Yes, through the next couple of galleries, which look sort there’s a mattress there, in front of you, plopped on of the same. There are some loudspeakers announc- the floor of the museum, with a pair of headphones ing the weather report. The newscaster is correct: nearby. today is a little chilly and grey. You stand there for a second more before choosing The next galleries contain artworks made of raw to sit on the mattress, and, a second later, actually lie materials such as water, ice, lead, granite, wool and on the mattress. It is small, but you fit well on it. You cotton – and these materials are scattered around, are lying there, belly up, looking at the ceiling. The piled or arranged in different ways along the floors smell of fat from a nearby installation or sculpture or of the galleries. These rooms have a particular smell, whatever is somewhat present, but you seem to forget unlike the other spaces. They smell, well, raw, as if it once you place the headphones over your ears, they are outside, particularly this room with a heap close your eyes and fall asleep to the sound of the sea. of coal on the floor and a sculpture made of wool rags propped against the wall. This gallery feels particularly warm. As you enter the following gallery and see more of the exhibition, you realise that the art and the mate- rials in this area of the museum were placed directly on the floor, rather than on plinths or in vitrines. It is unclear where a piece begins and ends, as things 44 45 gods or modern art, but believe in the fat lady. Be like a house slowly losing its electricity, the fans slowing down, the lights dimming and flickering, the clocks ome things you see you can never forget. It’s stop and run and stop. Think; you always do the 1955. You are wearing a hat. Everyone is wrong thing. You do the wrong thing so often that S wearing a hat. The Harcourts are here. The the times in which you actually do the right thing Oppenheims are here. Peggy Wheelwright is here. stand out so brightly in your memory that you forget Chew a piece of double bubble bubble gum. Chew you always do the wrong thing. Love the fat lady. it discreetly; don’t make a big show of it. Skip the Circumnavigate the sculpture of the fat lady. Step preliminaries. Drink Champagne. Look at the room towards it. Put your hand into your mouth. Fish through the flute. The room is old but modernisti- out the piece of double bubble bubble gum. Do the cally hung; the paintings are at adolescent eye level. wrong thing. Squish the double bubble bubble gum They are not about men and women and children between the big toe and the next big toe of the left and dogs and land and kings who wear gold suits foot of the fat lady. Smell the fat lady. All the parts and ride elephants over mountains. They are solid of the fat lady seem to change, and she seems to black. Flat black. ‘Flatness’, you think, ‘is an odd become something different and better. See yourself impression’. What else would a painting be but flat? in the distorted reflection of the fat lady’s bulbous At random, you look from one to the other, vaguely thigh. Study your face; judging by your face the perceiving their discreet shade of black. You remem- what-the-hell-big-time-happy nodes in your cortex ber an old mirror you bought that reflects but does must be a real firework show. Place breath on the not reveal. thigh. Untuck your shirt. Polish the thigh with your On the marble floor between you and the wall shirt. Shudder. Shudder, in fact, is not quite the is a fat reclining bronze lady. You encounter it the word for the feeling; feeling is not quite the word for way you would a moose in the woods. Marvel. Love the feeling. drains you, takes with it much of your blood sugar and water weight. Chew the double bubble bubble gum. You find sculpture, and its awful taxidermy, normally awkward. You don’t believe in gurus or 46 47 January – abbreviated in all capital letters. See JAN. 5, 1997; JAN. 6, 1997; JAN. 7, 1997. Beyond arm’s length, the dates appear machine-printed. Only oft pink walls. A dimly lit bathroom barely when you are directly below the paintings, do you larger than a coat closet. Look down. Observe discern brushstrokes. S a diminutive toilet scaled to suit a short sink. Where a mirror would be, see an illustration of two rosy-cheeked children jumping rope on top of a grassy hill. Bend over slightly to reach a low door- knob situated for a child’s grasp. Exit the bathroom. Enter what was a bustling classroom, now empty of students. Small tables and chairs arranged in clusters smell faintly of chalk dust and wax crayons. To your left, above a stack of cubbyholes, dancing paper corncobs with faces and arms and first names: Marcus, Julia, Bea, Miguel, Sarah, Andreas. To your right, a dusty, haphazardly erased black- board. In its centre, an empty chalk circle the size of a life ring. Above the board, lowercase letters, each cut from a different coloured paper, mounted to the wall: red-a; blue-e; green-i; yellow-o; orange-u. Approach the board. Notice a row of solemn rec- tangular canvases hung on either side of it, slightly above adult eye level. Sizes vary, hovering between cigar box and chocolate sampler. The paintings are dark shades, nearly black gravestones in a circus tent. In the centre of each painting, a date, bright white in a staid, modern typeface, the name of the month – 48 49 edestrians, men, women, are milling. n an escalator moving upward through a Through green lights, through red lights, glass chute, to your right, the low skyline P down the middle of the street, over white O of Paris subdued by dusk. Below, a sloping lines, over arrows, they mill. This isn’t how you concrete plaza, empty of people, receding from view pictured Japan: signals gone haywire, neon koans, as you ascend. Hear the click rhythm of the mechan- stacks of posters, death-star posters, red posters, rock ical stairs flatten and turn back under the conveyor as posters, posters hung on walls, posters with lines like they reach the top of their climb. The colour of reflection is pink, people milling through Step off the escalator. Turn left. Wander away jokes and riddles and salsa music and a broken fam- from the glass skin of the building towards the ily of abandoned office chairs on roller wheels. Here, darkened core. Enter the first gallery, a poorly lit rac- now, a folding table piled with animal masks, the quetball court. A film loop of a Hollywood produc- plastic-y, rubber-y, full-face variety. We have tiger, tion company’s logo is projected on one wall. From horse, bunny, rooster, poodle, frog, lamb, goat – all a gilded porthole in a field of flat red colour, a lion making their respective animal noises. Take a mask. emerges and lets out a loud roar, then departs, re- Take some posters. Check the time. Check the turns, repeats, repeats, relentlessly. The roar becomes time again. Enter a room. It’s a white room. On the rote. The quivering light of the projector and the ceiling, see a bevy of speech bubbles, the kind with white noise of the cooling fan grow more intense. a tail hanging down to connect to a cartoon mouth. On the adjacent wall, a half-finished painting. A Blank, white, helium bubbles are bobbing. And your battle flag. ‘20th Century Fox’ in dramatic perspective goat mask is bleating. Bobbing. Bleating. Bobbing. against a black background. Letters hurtled for- Exit. Face a wheatpaste poster rainbow. Read: For or ward through deep space from a single point on the Against. True or False. Is one thing better than another? horizon. Where should I go? What should I do? Are you crying? Behind you, a red-lacquered slab against the wall, No, I’ve got something in my eye. Who’s Afraid of the the exact gloss and shade of a starlet’s fingernails, New Now? Nobody. Nothing. Adults Only. Good Luck. exactly your height and shoulder width. Approach 50 51 the slab. A candy-red version of yourself approaches you. A wall card next to the object falls on cue, lands face down on the floor. Small type reads: ‘Don’t tell me when to stop’. ommy took you to work today. It’s your favourite day when she takes you to work. M Mommy works in a school for grown ups in New York. She says she is taking you to ‘an opening’. She says that other kids will be there, and you’ll like it. There are snacks for you at the opening: brown- ies and Cherry Coke. Mommy gives you a cup of Coca-Cola, and you hold the cup with both your hands. You drink it, careful not to spill any on the floor. It tastes like cherries and you wipe your mouth with your hand. She asks if you want a brownie, and you say yes. Mommy says you can take the brownie with you. Mommy holds your hand and walks you to the toys. She says you can’t touch the toys. You ask why. Because the toys are not toys, she says. They’re art. You think art is made with paint or crayons. This art is not made with paint or crayons. This art is made with pictures from the funny pages. Sometimes there are little plastic toys and blocks and jewels, too. The artist has put all these little things in little boxes. The boxes have glass covers, so you can’t touch the little things. The boxes are like the box that mommy puts her necklace in; the necklace daddy gave her. Mommy’s box has a glass cover, too. 52 53 At other art shows, the art is too high for you to see. That’s why you don’t like going to art shows. The art is above your head, and mommy carries you to see the art. Today, the boxes are just right for you, t’s dawn. The sky is pale. You tread across a layer right where you can see them, and you don’t even of unbroken snow, leaving a wake of footprints have to stand on your tippy-toes to look at them. It’s I along a walking path in a planned forest. Ever- funny, because now the adults have to bend down to green trees. Boots on powder. look at the boxes. The path leads to a clearing, up a small hill, more One of the boxes contains a picture of a cat. The of a mound, and ends at a doorway in a stone wall. cat is standing up – like a person. It’s wearing grown- Adjunct, is a cylindrical stone reservoir with a flat roof. up clothes, but the grown-up clothes are funny look- Through the arched door, follow the tunnel to ing. You can’t read the words above the cat’s head and the main volume. Inside, the same, thin dawn dusts ask mommy to tell you what they mean. She says she the room through a circular excision of the ceiling. can’t read them because they are ‘French’. You ask Directly beneath this opening, a plate of snowfall mommy what French is. She says it’s like English, on the floor withdraws as it melts, leaves a dark, wet but people in France speak it. You ask where France ring around a shrinking rug of white ice. is, and mommy says she’ll tell you later. A concrete bench emerges seamlessly from the You bite into the brownie in your hand, and chew. surface of the wall, circles the perimeter. Take a seat. The brownie is very tasty and sweet. You decide that, Feel an even, dry chill spread over your back and when you get home, you will find mommy’s glass box thighs. Look up. The opening in the ceiling appears and make art out of it – first thing. You think your solid, like a milk-glass lens, if not for the trim of art will make mommy happy, and you like it when snow overlapping its edge. Look long at this circu- mommy is happy. lar field of light. Your pupils contract. The ceiling and room darken. Slowly, the hue of sky turns from grey to lavender. Some minutes later, citric tones of morning bleed into view, though you seem to notice this only long after it has happened, as if the physical connection between your eyes and your thoughts had 54 55 been extended by an age while you were sitting only a short while. Golden pinks give way to a depleted blue urge slightly more emphatic around the edge of the circle, but only just so. t’s a mess. You can’t see anything clearly. The entire gallery has been woven with twine. You I can’t even walk properly into the room. Kilo- metres of white string have been strung from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall. Lines of white string everywhere, crisscrossing the room. Here, paintings are insects. Sculptures are bugs. Art and all trapped on a spider’s web. You decide to enter the room anyway. To avoid getting trapped in the web, you crawl into the room. You feel embarrassed; your ears are hot; your cheeks are red. Your hands, your knees and your toes touch the floor. Your palms feel sticky at every step. The floor is moist. It’s gross. But still, you can’t be bothered with any of that, because right now you’re too busy crawling into the room and being careful not to get entangled in this spider’s web made of twine. You are crawling through the gallery. You’re a dog. You’re admiring insects. And you can’t avoid liking it. Curtains cover all the windows in the room, and the only light emanates from two dimly lit chande- liers hanging from the ceiling. So you crawl carefully, attentively, slowly. You are able to spot a piano at the end of the room, and you walk closer to see the bug 56 57 resting above it. Just around the corner of your eye you’ve spotted someone flying away and two kids breastfeeding from a goat. You keep crawling along the floor, avoiding the eneath the horizon, a chariot or sleigh, a spider’s web. water mill, a small gear engaged with a large B wheel, a trapdoor to the basement, a pulley. Not shown: the revolution of the bottle of Bénédic- tine. And Sandow. A blown-out kinetoscopic vision of mustachioed Prussian bodybuilder Eugen Sandow performing his stunted dance – flexing, swelling and preening – is not shown. At left, nine floating moulds, a chess player’s cemetery of uniforms and liveries, organs, shells, containers for gas. The priest, the delivery boy, the gendarme, the cavalryman, the policeman, the undertaker, the servant, the busboy, the stationmas- ter, intersected, crossed and bound by lines, fissures, remedies and capillary tubes. Adjacent to these, sieves tossed off in an arc, successive moments in the trajectory of a single sedge hat thrown over a hurdle. A pair of open scissors, sharpened on both sides of the hinge – no handles – hovers laterally above a triad of variegated bass drums anchored to a tiered Louis XV table, or what could be a chocolate grinder. Immodest – lewd, even – the machine gnashes and churns. Forensic evidence, a body bereft. His three dimensions to her four. You remove all items from 58 59 your pockets. You strap into the seat. You put your money in the slot. You press start. On the upper pane, The Bride – joints, curves, axles, a beak – is suspended at farthest remove from n austere white building crowned by a filigree the region of the Butterfly Pump and the path of dome of golden laurel leaves. A pallor that the illuminating gas. Her instructions flow through A intensifies the blue of sky behind it. Two the draught pistons in the Milky Way out to the windowless, rectangular masses on either side of a nine shots, then back again, eluding the Handler of central stair. A black door. Around the door, graceful- Gravity, the trivet, the rod, the weight, the horizon ly stylised tree trunks. A blanket of more gilded leaves. beneath. Up the stairs, through the door, an unmanned ticket counter and coat check. A vertical black and gold poster. Entrance to an exhibition hall. An octagonal platform at the far end of the room supports a marble sculpture of a naked man. He sits cross-legged, high on a throne, with a salmon-hued marble blanket over his lap and a marble eagle at his feet. The man is cut from gleaming white stone. He hunches. He clenches his right fist over his thigh. His brow is furrowed. The corners of his mouth turn down. You stand below the sculpture, in the eye line of one of four miniature child’s heads pilloried behind the seated man. The child points a pudgy, implicat- ing finger in your direction.

60 61 11. 32., 57. 51. Vito Acconci Marcel Duchamp John McCracken

53. 25. 23. Dore Ashton Gala Committee Kynaston McShine

13. 51. 7. Mark Beasley Jack Goldstein Yoko Ono

43. 50. 30. Wim Beeren Dominique Jasia Reichardt Gonzalez-Foerster 46. 51. Arnold Bode 51. Ed Ruscha Catherine Grenier 15. 9. Constantin Brancusi 20. Rasha Salti David Hammons 57. 19. André Breton 17. Kurt Schwitters Jan Hoet 36. 59. John Cage 48. Harald Szeemann On Kawara 25. 33. Mel Chin 35. Jean Tinguely Mike Kelley 53. 55. Joseph Cornell 61. James Turrell Max Klinger 9. 36. Suzanne Cotter 28. David Tutor Gordon Matta-Clark

Index III 29. 36. Charioteer of Delphi, 474 BC, John Cage, 4’33”, 1952, performed Delphi Archaeological Museum, by David Tutor, Woodstock, New Delphi, Greece England, 29 August 1952

61. 46. Max Klinger’s Beethoven monument, ‘Documenta 1’, 1955, curated by 1902, XIV Exhibition, Secession, Arnold Bode, Kassel Vienna 33. 32. Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, Marcel Duchamp, Tu m’, 1918, 17 March 1960, Museum of Modern permanent exhibition, Yale Art, New York City University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut 38. ‘Futurama II’, 1964, New York 15. World’s Fair, General Motors Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, Company, Flushing Meadows, 1923 (with excerpts from trial Corona Park, Queens, New York transcripts, New York City, 1927) 7. 19. Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1965, Carnegie Kurt Schwitters, Merzbau, c. 1923-37, Hall, New York City Hanover (with an excerpt from Kurt Schwitters’ original translation of his 40. own poem ‘An Anna Blume’) ‘VIII Bienal de São Paulo’, 1965, São Paulo, Brazil (scripted following a 57. conversation with Guy Brett) ‘First Papers of Surrealism’, 1942, curated by André Breton and Marcel 11. Duchamp for the Coordinating Vito Acconci, Following Piece, 1968, Council of French Relief Societies, New York City Whitelaw Reid mansion, New York City

Index IV 30. 17. 55. ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’, 1968, ‘Chambres d’amis’, 1986, curated by James Turrell, Cat Cairn: The Kielder curated by Jasia Reichardt, Institute Jan Hoet, organised by Museum Van Skyspace, 2000, Kielder Forest, of Contemporary Arts, London Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, and Northumberland, England presented in 58 houses and locations 43. around the city of Ghent 51. ‘Op Losse Schroeven (Situations and Jack Goldstein, Metro-Goldwyn- Cryptostructures)’, 1969, curated 35. Mayer, 1975; Ed Ruscha, Large by Wim Beeren, Stedelijk Museum, ‘The Uncanny’, 1993, curated Trademark with Eight Spotlights, Amsterdam by Mike Kelley, Sonsbeek, the 1962; John McCracken, Don’t Tell Netherlands Me When to Stop, 1966–67 in ‘Los 23. Angeles 1955-1985 – The Birth of ‘Information’, 1970, curated by 25. an Art Capital’, 2006, curated by Kynaston McShine, Museum of Mel Chin and the Gala Committee Catherine Grenier, Centre Pompidou, Modern Art, New York City inserted ‘artworks’ as ‘props’ into the Paris US television programme Melrose 53. Place. The episode referred to here 13. ‘A Joseph Cornell Exhibition for is ‘101 Damnations’, originally ‘Plot/09: This World & Nearer Children’, 1972, curated by Dore aired on the Fox network on 3 April Ones’, 2009, curated by Mark Beasley, Ashton, The Cooper Union, New 1997. This art project was part of an Governors Island, New York City York City unconventional and now defunct arts commissioning programme run by 9. 28. the Museum of Contemporary Art, ‘Plot for a Biennial’, 2011, curated Gordon Matta-Clark, Day’s End, Los Angeles by Suzanne Cotter and Rasha Salti, 1975, downtown Manhattan, New 10th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, York City 48. United Arab Emirates On Kawara, Pure Consciousness, 1997, 59. installed in 19 kindergartens, globally ‘Bachelor Machines’, 1975, curated by Harald Szeemann, Biennale di 50. Venezia, Venezia ‘Moment Ginza’, 1997, curated by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Le 20. Magasin, Grenoble, and Färgfabriken, David Hammons, Bliz-aard Ball Sale, Stockholm 1983, Cooper Street, New York City

Index IV Index IV Hypnotic Show

Translation: Paola Bertante Editorial coordination: Francesca Bertolotti Editing: Chiara Vecchiarelli, Ariella Yedgar Graphic design: Lina Ozerkina & Friends Printer: Tipografia Ideal, Turin

© The authors

Edition of 500

Cover: Judith Braun, Audrey Cottin, Mariana Castillo Deball, The Insignia, 2011