| (My patch is prettier than yours, na-na-na-na-na…)
The writer Michel de Montaigne used to make his finger bleed every day to prepare himself mentally for his own death. In Espai 13, the C-72Rs routinely read forensic reports on wounds that have been treated on coats hanging there. They then sew patches onto these wounds, and the coats, now little more than rags, turn into scarecrows. How can one believe in the immortality of a coat or the eternity of a life? The thickest coat is as fragile as the human body, and, as you know, after the age of forty, everyone has the face they deserve. Patches, scars, stitches, glasses, wrinkles – welcome them all! For new leaves to grow, the old ones must first decay…
Yet we live in a civilisation that refuses to glimpse death around the corner, that constructs “tomorrow” like a fortress to keep us still today. Secure your assets; boost your pension; insure yourself against anything – life, death, heart attacks, fleas, love, fire, theft! Any attempt to freeze the present is considered valid, any means to extract life itself from life (what would death be without life?). Those who control the life cycle control the social cycle. Their economic power is legitimised through a moral victory: the elimination – or at the very least, legalisation, classification and monetisation – of humanity’s fundamental contradiction: its finitude. The medieval man bought indulgences. The modern man signs insurance policies.
Is the artist an emissary of death? “Cinema is death at work,” said Jean Cocteau. The force of “You’ve Left Your Keys in the Lock” lies in a dividing line drawn between the collective longing for tranquillity and the unease that the artists so insidiously provoke. This tension is heightened by a series of dichotomies, made all the starker by the installation’s neutrality: digital interactivity versus the stitches in the coats; the violence of the artists’ scheduled interventions in Espai 13 set against the emptiness of the space at all other times; the bewilderment of the viewer, who thought they were simply there to decide the future of the Eurorisc company, yet finds themselves powerless as they witness the patching of the coats; or even the unsettling experience of encountering, in the middle of a museum, a working environment filled with frantic yet incomprehensible activity…
“What a way to weigh people down!” exclaims the poor visitor as they leave. Then they cry out: “Is there anyone who can insure me against artists?”
Mónica Regàs |
