NYAB Event - “Cut Nothing Cut Parts Cut the Whole Cut the Order of Time” Exhibition

“Cut Nothing Cut Parts Cut the Whole Cut the Order of Time” Exhibition

Casey Kaplan

This event has ended.

Kathy Acker rang my head like a bell.

It happened sometime in the spring of 1990, while she was reading out loud, a passage to our class from Gertrude Stein’s 1914 book Tender Buttons.

I had just read it myself and thought little of it. In fact I clearly remember not liking it.

The book is comprised of three parts: Objects, Food and Rooms. I didn’t understand what any of the passages had to do with any of the subjects that they were listed under. When Kathy read, she did so simply, without sentiment and with a New York accent that delivered the words with matter-of-factness.

She was sitting at the end of a long conference table at the San Francisco Art Institute, and I was with half of the class, looking out through the window at Alcatraz, our backs facing the wall with the then entombed painting, The Rose (1958-1966) by Jay Defeo.

Kathy read:

“The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.”

Then the sound of a bell.

“The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong…”

I’m thinking about this now, in New York, while I look out at the rain from the circular window of my hotel room.

Geoffrey Farmer born 1967

Media

• Installation

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