page 42

Project 4 notebook - page

[verso]

Human Zoo theme:

Build ten cages with padlocks (silver-plated wood slotted into 1inch drilled insets/glued etc).
[illegible text]

Painting may be viewed as a human zoo activity. People are interested in people – curious. Instead of allegorizing & symbolizing human beings via painting, music, etc. – into conspiratorial ‘cultural’ imagery & formulas. Why not exhibit the human being himself?
Charge 10p as in a zoo.
Record breed/ type/ trade/ ambitions/ etc. with coloured map.

The cage inhabitants to be silent and uncommunicative. To make sure of a good shit before entering the cage. Opportunities to urinate in containers in the cage.
Inhabitants may do what they will in the cage.
Read/ write/ play musical instruments etc.
But they must not communicate with visitors.

The final cage should contain a skeleton, or rotting corpse.
The visitors are invited to observe & unconditionally peer at the cage-content.
They are not to fear any backlash or cynicism or philosophical repartee on the part of the cage-contents.
 

[recto]

Age/Sex/occupation/skills/ambitions/locality (coloured map).

The whole presentation to be clean and rather like a museum piece. The ‘cage-content’ is an object. In the cage will be one or two other ‘objects’.
Items of special interest will be spotlit.
(Elizabethan chest/academic painting/etc.)

 

e-Newsletter

  SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER - Keep up-to-date with exhibitions, news and events.