Osney Mead

Memory. The long trips back from London watching traffic tail lights stretch over the hills. The cold. The unexpected heat. The art crowd rush when Rodney Graham came on and the massive exit when he left. Seeing Jonas Mekas sitting at the back. Missing Jonas Mekas speaking. The journals we keep and those memories we throw away.  The guy who spoke fast, really fast. The big gardens. The small urban opportunists. The Zumthor/Oudolf set piece full of people like an opening. The little dog that kept coming back to us looking for a bit of food. Expensive haircuts. Hands that never get dirty. Common people doing uncommon things. Some guy in a big orange hat. Why is there always a guy in a funny hat?

A city of gardens.

Why haven’t I forgotten Hélène Cixous in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist on ‘A Real Garden’?  I could’ve listened to her for hours. Best quote, if I remember the context, had something to do with cemeteries: ‘The dead are only dead if we tell them they’re dead.’ Always so quick with a joke those deconstructionists.

A close second was Rodney Graham introducing his performance ‘Lobbing Potatoes at a Gong’: ‘When I think about gardens I think of potatoes. When I think about potatoes I think of Shepherd’s Pie.’*

After the performance the potatoes were gathered up and apparently made into Shepherd’s Pie to be served later in the evening but I don’t know how it turned out. By the time it was served we were back on the bus, stuck in traffic, watching red tail lights stretching like poppies into the distance.

*A press release from an earlier exhibition which included a film of the performance stated the potatoes were turned into vodka and sold at the gallery illustrating Rodney’s flair for mashing preconceptions.