Red Head Gallery Display Cases,
Lobby Area,
96 Spadina Ave., Toronto, Ontario
July-August, 1996.
In each of the display cases, on the back wall, is placed the representations of a pair of hands, each painted from photo projections onto wooden boxes. The hands are life size and protrude from the wall approx. four inches, referencing the depth of my body. Between each hand is the space of my body, implying both presence and absence. On entering the lobby, the first showcase contains the pair of hands most in focus, most present.
The second pair, which is blurring and dissolving, is in the second case. Affixed to the inside of the glass windows, near the bottom of each displaycase, is a number of circles, approx. 2" in diameter, running in a continuous line, with text printed on them. In form, these circles reference the same markings that can be found on the glass wall of skyscrapers at pedestrian level.
Housing body fragments, particularly hands, inside a display case, references
the museumification of, our mourning for, the gradual disappearance of, the
'real'- real bodies, touch, experience- and our growing intoxication with the
virtual. The text in the circles: e.g., nowhere, light, invisuble, transparent, virtual,
intangible, incorporal, you, present, absence, me, speed, dissolve, flow;
alludes to this dilemma. The title for the piece is 
; that which
interferes, causes disturbance. Now, it is our bodies, our longings, our
emotions, as Julia Kristeva has noted, the abjectness of us, the 'horror' of us,
that refuses to be contained, that questions, keeps open, is messy, that is the
static.
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