scanlon&grivell 

two figures in dense violet night

 

One of a series of four 'conversations' between Becky Beasley and invited 'significant others'. With Michael Dean, Anne Hardy, Claire Scanlon & John Stezaker.

 

Each weekend for a month an artist and art-work engaged in a 'conversation' with Becky Beasley and her work. Each artist opened or closed the conversation by reading the poem Two Figures in Dense Violet Night by Wallace Stevens.

 

"Two Figures in Dense Violet Night brings together works and nascent friendships in equal measure; not too much work to allow one to consider this an exhibition with a conversation, nor too little for the opposite. Each weekend will bring with it a new visitor to the space, with new works, a new conversation. And so, in this way, nothing will remain the same. I hope you will return more than once.' 

Becky Beasley

 

For Claire, the invitation provoked a development of the earlier wall-work ‘two-words’, (made for Am Nuden Da's 'words' exhibition), into a Desultory Object postcard pair. It then became the ‘conversation piece’ for this artists’ conversation ‘event’.

 

The ‘dispenser’ was designed by us but made by a craftsman/joiner. The object has two components - a plinth-like supporting structure, and a ‘former’ frame to enable the precise inter-leaved stacking of the post-cards. The post-cards are offered as a take-away art-work, with the inevitable consequence of a disruption of the stack in the process. This ‘messing up’ of the art-work by the audience is welcomed and analogous to the proliferation of meanings produced by each subjective encounter.

 

The installation included a temporary library of significant texts or ‘reading table’ (a kind of live bibliography). This related to the context of the ‘conversations’ between the artists.

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LIDO Projects, St Leonards-on-Sea, 2011

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