ëNo Arawak 1 - 31í is a digital print published by the VFI. The artist wishes to remain anonymous although appreciates some account of his or her life will be required by prospective purchasers. The artist has therefore chosen one of three pseudonymous identities offered by the VFI: 'male, 35-40, handsome, athletic, and no longer working with painting or sculpture'.
The print belongs to a project based on the artistís everyday life, a life which by cosmic standards is small and insignificant. Everyday life should not, by definition, be conflated with those unusual, extraordinary, and exotic moments or events; rather, it is what remains once all these have been discarded. How to give an account of what goes on every day and goes on going on from day to day; the banal, obvious, common, ordinary, infraordinary - the habitual background noise of life? How can this be approached and how can it be described? ěThe difficulty in looking critically at what is utterly ordinary lies in the fact that its very ordinariness makes it invisibleî.
The project had its beginnings in the artistís wastebasket. At various moments between 11 December 1996 and 17 August 1999 he listed its contents and queried the origin, use and even the future of every one of the objects he found therein. Soon after he attempted to extend the project by describing the way he walked, opened doors, went down stairs, sat at tables to eat, lay down in bed to sleep. How? Where? When? Why? He was not entirely successful. Indeed, the current print - based on a record of the times at which the artist went to bed between 13 September and 13 October 1999 - is one of the few remains of that enterprise. The print was begun on 15 October and finished on 22 November.
It has since come to the artistís attention that the crisis of stability
may not be solved by the rigid documentation of even a single life.
The artist is interested to hear any comments you may have on the print.
Please send your e-mail - with 'No Arawak' in the subject line - care-of
the VFI:
paul.melia@btinternet.com