Studio Day 33

Larry Wolf, Timeline after Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled 1989 (2024)
from In Conversation #5 Felix (2024)
uses B Oakley's font I Am Your Worst Fear I Am Your Best Fantasy

Larry Wolf, from In Conversation #5 Felix (2024)

Larry Wolf, from In Conversation #5 Felix (2024)

Charlie Porter: Nova Scotia House (2025)

I did not want to be helped I did not want help. But it was this city it was Derek he was impossible so I said, sure.

We finished our coffee we walked some streets so straight so strange. I was in a daze I did not want to go I was going. This is it, he said, we were at a door in a building on a street that was so long it was like it went to a horizon. We went in we went upstairs Derek bought me a ticket we went into the exhibition, up the corner of the first room a pile of sweets. You can take one, said Derek, when you take a sweet from the pile I think it's like watching someone waste away. I took a sweet it was like I was taking from Jerry.

Two clocks were on a wall, touching, almost telling the same time, almost ticking at the same time. Lightbulbs on a string came from the ceiling then pooled on the floor. Words went around the top of a room. It was like Jerry I didn't understand how it was like Jerry it was nothing like Jerry it was like Jerry.

We separated in the space, going at our own pace, I didn't want it explaining I wanted to feel it, that was how I'd always been with Jerry, how he'd been with me, that is how we looked at art. In a room there was just a platform, pale blue almost grey, lightbulbs lining its perimeter on the top, that's all there was in the room that's what it was. I stared at the podium I stared, I was there for an age and I stared.

An impossible guy walked into the room muscled he just wore tiny silver tight shorts, trainers he was impossible, he didn't look at me, he had on headphones he carried a Walkman, he didn't look at me he climbed on the podium he started dancing he didn't look at me. I couldn't hear what music he was dancing to he didn't look at me I stared at him I stared. He danced he danced, his dance like he was somewhere else sometime else and all was OK or maybe all was not OK and all there was for him to do was dance, that nothing was OK really nothing, nothing was OK ever, and all he could do was dance, he was so impossible and he was here and he danced and he danced and he danced.

The room was silent but in his ears was music and it's all he needed, to help him be in this horror to help him. It was adult and I did not understand and I understood. I was crying and I was crying. He danced and he danced and then he stopped and he walked off and no one else saw no one it was just me and him but to him it was just himself he didn't acknowledge me at all. He left and I was left there and I stared at the podium I wiped my face I wiped my tears and I stared at the podium I don't know how long. Derek came into the room and he came close to me and he said, this is a performance work, a dancer dances for a few minutes everyday but they don't announce when, most of the day it's just the podium unless you get lucky.

I asked him, did you ever get lucky, and he smiled at me and winked and said, never.

Charlie Porter: Nova Scotia House [pages 178-179]