In Perpetuity
Excerpt from a letter written in November 2005 from Alan Smith to Ms. Helen Legg, Curator at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
Dear Helen,
[…] As you already know, “£1512” emerged out of the closure of Ceramic Workshop Edinburgh. The intention was to convert the Workshop into a work of art, which would live on indefinitely through investing its last remaining funds; indefinitely re-invested and endlessly expanding – doubling every five years - into a financial ‘black hole’[. . .]
[…] If “£1512” is a work belonging to a conceptual way of thinking in art, and if conceptual art has grown out of Dada, a movement which spurned the practice of painting, then there should be no place for a painting in this work. Yet, “£1512” and the “Donor Painting” need each other to play out their rather unpredictable and chaotic games. The “Donor Painting” performs an impertinent hand-stand in the presence of the sober and serious face of money.
Some have seen connections between In Perpetuity and Duchamp’s Etant Donnes. Of course I’m flattered and it’s not the first time my thinking has crossed paths with Duchamp. It is true that, like Etant Donnes, In Perpetuity has a similar name in the Donor Painting. There are also two numbered works and there is also an ‘illuminating’ candle. If there really is a connection, then I have to believe that the floating piece of flimsy cloth could be seen as the last item of clothing discarded by the ‘Nude’, as she ‘Descends a Staircase!
Very best wishes,
Alan
Full version of letter
Dear Helen,
[…] As you already know, “£1512” emerged out of the closure of Ceramic Workshop Edinburgh. The intention was to convert the Workshop into a work of art, which would live on indefinitely through investing its last remaining funds; indefinitely re-invested and endlessly expanding – doubling every five years - into a financial ‘black hole’[. . .]
[…] If “£1512” is a work belonging to a conceptual way of thinking in art, and if conceptual art has grown out of Dada, a movement which spurned the practice of painting, then there should be no place for a painting in this work. Yet, “£1512” and the “Donor Painting” need each other to play out their rather unpredictable and chaotic games. The “Donor Painting” performs an impertinent hand-stand in the presence of the sober and serious face of money.
Some have seen connections between In Perpetuity and Duchamp’s Etant Donnes. Of course I’m flattered and it’s not the first time my thinking has crossed paths with Duchamp. It is true that, like Etant Donnes, In Perpetuity has a similar name in the Donor Painting. There are also two numbered works and there is also an ‘illuminating’ candle. If there really is a connection, then I have to believe that the floating piece of flimsy cloth could be seen as the last item of clothing discarded by the ‘Nude’, as she ‘Descends a Staircase!
Very best wishes,
Alan
Full version of letter