I got asked to write a catalogue essay for the Michaelis 4th years, and then later I got unasked. I love my life.
Nevertheless, I did spend three days looking at all the final exams, which I thought were of exceptionally high quality. Having been freed of writing a formal essay, I want to speak here of my favourite moment of the whole exhibition. (I'm writing about this now, because I get my yearly day off on the day of their official graduation show.) Anyway, I was wandering around, and I came across a room filled with stuff, no name no title. It was a crazy space stuffed full of prints, paintings, broken things, a dried lizard, snake skins, a flowing plant, like this guy had studied four years at art school and then been kidnapped and isolated in a jungle cabin to do his exam. The sadness of all these abandoned objects was moving. As I was walking out I caught sight of a turning record. I walked up to it and followed the wires to a old radio and only when I knelt real close did I hear the faint sound of crackly piano music, the record scratched and warped into a loop. While I was down there I saw in a little red box, a preserved moth. It was very nice.

I'm not too sure why this stuck in my head. But I think after three days of seeing things well made, well communicated, things that moved and cranked and were big ideas, this little moment made me happy, that sometimes the things less well expressed can be better.

ps. On further investigation the piece was by Nicholas Wittenberg

Labels: 4th Years, Michaelis, Nicholas Wittenberg