The Scripts Found in a Bottle, Found in a Can, Found in a Discourse
(Les Scripts Trouvés dans une Bouteille, Trouvés dan une Canette, Trouvés dans un Discours)
Justin Chance, Mark Harris, E. Jane, Nyeema Morgan, Jimmy Robert, Edra Soto
A discourse of artworks organized by Matt Morris,
a curator’s statement in the form of a bespoke perfume,
a saison beer in response to the perfume response to the group exhibition.
The Green Gallery
19 May – July 2, 2022
Opening reception: Thursday, 19 May 2022 5-7pm
“This memory does not strictly belong to me.” 1
“Where am I? She repeated, looking at the pink jug, for it all looked strange.” 2
“Rosé Rush edp, 1.5ml. This came with the Edwige Fenech perfume I got a while back, so I got two starlettes for the price of one. Very giggly, the scent of a champagne gelatin mould taped to a paint shaker. ‘Candy bento boxes.’ Salad bars.” 3
“I can’t remember
School, lavender, butter, wood, etc… and
violent love, brutal more like, behind closed doors.
But having learned to kill, I learned to write. First my name…
Yes madam. I
am here to respond to the signals. I am a signal.
Object Metal Spirit Object Metal
Image Telephone
covered in words object
Metal” 4
“The terror of return and renewal are ours to join and to enjoy, as an irresistible violence to narration.” 5
“...who is handsome, who would have complete confidence in me and be the accomplice of my loves, my thefts, my criminal desires; though this does not enlighten me about such friendship, about the odor, in both friends, of its secret intimacy, because I make of myself, for the occasion, a male who knows that he really isn’t one.” 6
“II. A Hostess Gown. Gray Russian satin. Its tight-fitting vest in the same shade ornamented with the new steel sequins.
III. A Frock for Paying Calls. Plum-colored faille skirt, panels of the same fabric, with diagonal velvet stripes of the same shade, continued on the matelassé tunic; bias-cut strips of velvet extend into the iridescent feathers at the hem.” 7
“Maybe wearing me then becomes an act of love, like ‘I will carry my sister’s body with me.’” 8
“Name us.. You, so much of whose raspberry laughter…
Name us.. So that Love winged with a fan
Might paint me there, the flute held in my fingers, lulling the fold,
Princess, name us the shepherd of your smiles.
[Nommez-nous.. Toi de qui tant de ris framboisés…
Nommez-nous.. Pour qu’Amour ailé d’un éventail
M’y peigne flûte aux doigts endormant ce bercail,
Princesse, nommez-nous berger de vos sourires.]” 9
“The lesson offered by their example is vexed and contradictory, because return and remaking, or restoration and transformation, can’t be separated into tidy opposing categories. Sometimes going back to and moving forward coincide.” 10
“‘Where am I?’ she repeated.” 11
_____________________
1 Marcel Broodthaers. “Where Does This Begin, ca. 1961.” Collected Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polygrafia, 2012. Print, p. 84.
2 Virginia Woolf. The Years. Boston: Mariner Books, 1961. Originally published 1937. Print, p.p. 49–50.
3 Kashina. “Paris Hilton – Rosé Rush.” illicium.verum.nova. Instagram. 27 March 2021.
4 Marcel Broodthaers. “The Telephone, 1966.” Collected Writings. Barcelona: Ediciones Polygrafia, 2012. Print, p. 161.
5 Fred Moten. “Erotics of Fugitivity.” Stolen Life: Consent Not to be a Single Being. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. Print, p. 266.
6 Jean Genet. Our Lady of the Flowers. Paris: Olympia Press, 2004. Originally published 1943. Print, p. 26.
7 Stéphane Mallarmé (under the name Marguerite de Ponty). “New Toilettes.” Mallarmé in Prose. Ed. Mary Ann Caws. New York: New Directions, 2001. Print, p. 86.
8 die ok. “An interview with E. Jane.” AQNB. 16 February 2016. <https://www.aqnb.com/2016/02/16/an-interview-with-e-jane/> Accessed 2 April 2022.
9 Stéphane Mallarmé. “Futile Petition [Placet futile].” The Poems in Verse. Translation by Peter Manson. Oxford: Miami University Press, 2021. Print, pp. 20-21.
10 Saidiya Hartman. Lose Your Mother. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. P. 96.
11 Woolf, p. 45.
Special thanks to Company Brewing for contributing to the exhibition.