silver sea sponge; terrible ancestor
there is no way of viewing junko mori’s
& now here restored argnew,
‘uncontrollable beauty; lichen cloud’ (2012) at
abattoir-aired in the old house
temple newsam house without a tapping sound
now less than house,
that plays on a looped video of sliversmithing.
now less than the white
the taps are as inescapable as the fine holes in
unnatural layer oxygen over
the objects itself, which is formed of round,
hearts. now
bubbling cells which fuse into one another. the
a commitment, not to shine,
overall shape & size, & the larger gaps between
treated with polish,
cells, mean it first resembles an ancient
a lost chequering
dinosaur skull, although viewed for texture it more closely resembles a giant sea-sponge.
full expectant; hidden moon
that the object as it is displayed here is so
behind the old owner,
inextricably bound with the means of its
my message
production sits in sharp relief with the place of
as the house crowds itself
its exhibition, temple newsam house, a stately
with its own indifferent feet —
home owned by leeds city council. i know the
i stare at walls
formula of stately homes from childhood, but
mullions on the mindseye
they now make me uncomfortable. what’s the
how becomes it that everyone
appropriate reaction? beauty? fascination?
is doing the seeing,
horror? scorn? the homes of the outrageously
everything for that
wealthy from a bygone age are monuments to a
i give, crumple a coin
way of life which has survived, & changed by
in its perspex orifice
surviving; will other people queue to get into penthouses & private islands in 2400, & so on.
emetical you; enholed skull,
the ‘chinese drawing room’ at temple
as a storm raises,
newsam ‘preserves the taste’ of lady hertford in
sink to the bottom of the sea
1828. what wa s fa shionable & e ven the
a room hung with black
eccentricities of an individual are fossilised in
fabric makes of itself in
time; copies of pieces she might have seen in
the mind. as a viewer,
london, themselves strange, distorted images of
you browse, delver into an engagement
another continent criss-crossed with rapacious
with the addulgent reciprocities
imperial trade-travel; my head swims with the
of light & flow.
levels & years through which the materials of
stop the show
the house are filtered. however, on the journey
with your anxient fear,
round the house there are also moments of
or weakness, blank-look —
time & reality; the jacobean plaster ceiling in
fine punishment for success, quisition
the dining room is warped & has worrying
required as zanic by the overalled vates
cracks like the ones in my flat. although some
in her practical drive:
of the architecture is imposing, the décor
to the slashed idiom —
verges on the silly; some 1750s ‘gothick’
to the royal assay —
w a l l p a p e r, n o w a 1 9 9 0 s c o p y, r e a d s a s
to the bank where
irremediably kitsch, as does the vast silver wine
it lies dreaming,
cooler in the dining room. bigger than a bath &
stareling into what ought
standing on its own dais arrange lengthways
to be but is not
parallel to the table, this would be packed with
flick*ring candl*light
ice & was the ‘ultimate status symbol’ in eighteenth-century houses.
fiscal undine; owlish pearl
however, most such objects were copper or
giving out part of yourself
brass, not silver, & silver was what brought me
we can’t take it
to temple newsam. the work of contemporary
even at christmas, it’s something
silversmiths mori & miriam hanid are presented
historic about mouths, omenish/
as part of the ‘showstoppers’ exhibition
open clam for the feet
alongside two elaborate eighteenth-century
of the watching art-spirit
silver centrepieces: a 1759 espergne by thomas
that is nothing if only
pitts & the 1731 ‘kirkleathem centrepiece’ by
the action of hands,
anne tanqueray & david willaume. the four
circulation like teeth
pieces share an intense detail, & the available
crossing your pillow with silver,
videos feature hanid’s informed admiration of
leavings only nightgiven ticks
the period pieces, one practitioner commenting on the skill of another.
tiny demon; working lunch
mori & hanid’s semi-abstract forms have as
tacking (into the win
much utility as objects as the eighteenth-
dhow) on, remaining
century centrepieces, which are by nature
triangular loss of nothing
inconvenient, rarefied, extravagant. they might
to mere elemental —
be used to hold condiments, flowers, or candles,
could a -sail, a -mill, a -sock
but the vast majority of the months of
be built enough to catchall
painstaking labour that went into each
in mere agonies?
individual piece had nothing to do with these
loving leaving, i retract my saying
mundane uses. instead, they contributed either
and rejoin rainpane peral
to status, thanks to the piece’s rarity & expense,
to be again demented by gloss &
or to another effect, their manipulation of light & shadow.
wan miracle; yorkshire sun
the queasy feeling of being in the stately
one day this will all
home pervaded, & at one point i wondered how
run down the side of the hill,
artists reconcile themselves with working in
molten polish spreading
silver. to make an expensive substance sing
from the mouths of follies —
while others groan under inadequate steel,
whiskey truth kneeling
stone, wood, plaster… perhaps I would not have
at the dark-old chestbedside
wondered this in a contemporary art space, or
when the servant sleeps
would not have come at the thought in the
(always) (once) (proteggled)
same way, but here the silver pieces were being
in the dim
put in the context of centrepieces for private
excuse of day.
homes. before those homes became museums
might that it would rain —
with the silver still in them, such works would
too fragile a skin
only have been viewed by wealthy owners,
like bedclothes from
guests, & servants. in fact, servants would have
some age of grandness
known the silver best, being responsible for its
time’s of destroying silk.
cleaning & care. today, this work falls to
simple servitude; eternal varnish.
museum conser vationists. so nobody
remember the time
experiences them in either the way for which
we gave back forth
they were designed or the context in which
into the agon?
they were originally experienced. silver
gentle hallucinating fears
centrepieces were made to catch the
over the opening silver rose
candlelight & create shadows on the table –
discoloured by the pale air
what are they now in an age of fluorescents? i
jobbing craft gives out
can only image the patterns that would be
a trick to make it, machinic,
produced from the middle of ‘lichen cloud’; i
unfardel — as if
picture a fat pillar candle melting at its heart,
you could build everything from
wax clogging the tiny star-pores & pooling in its
the disappointment of copper!
strange cellular crevices as the light lances the semidarkness, soft & sharp like pine needles.
violet brass; bracken ring
centrepieces had to be designed to be
announcing ultra royally
carried; they were wired an worked for low
(we could hope) to be thrown
volume. the same is true of ‘lichen cloud’ mori
against the outside, too much
says that the piece, fully a half-metre in
begging the question of
diameter, can be lifted with one with one hand.
need want practical
indeed the object appears curiously
insidious i love you loust —
insubstantial. space pushes its way out of
most disobey
substance wherever possible its tiny grains
but some give, rally on
melted together into cellular disks, the holes
as spring ruptures
breaking out of the surface like burst pimples,
messy infestious crown poring,
& the huge gaps in the network of disks giving a
the inside open to curated air
sense that this tremendously solid object has been frozen in the middle of its falling-apart.
invisible colour; crimson planet
the motion of silver is one of its most
as silver’s high-spectral, so’s
surprising aesthetic qualities. hanid describes
the heart unbudded, mazy —
her work ‘deluge’ (2009) as having been ‘chased’
yet the brain is other matter,
– this is a happy accident of terminology,
chased over its own surface
because the process of making grooves
swollen work, in the dark a likeness.
(‘chasing’) produces the piece’s sense of flow
out after idiom
which suggests a plurality of materials (fabric,
into a shift, it falls
shell, sea/waves) but determines none. she tells
mauve into grieving & giving,
us that silver reflects 98% of light & so is ideal
dogs in the baying
for such shapes. why? after all, a real deluge is
dust of the moon,
not nearly so reflective. water has much more
lunar caustic
colour, & a wider range of colours; in a real
rivering away that feeling
deluge/flood, water is brown, or else black &
with plentiful tarnish,
grey. try to apprehend flow by looking at a river,
perfect in the fit eyes of
or letting a silk scarf fall through your hands, &
collecting everything
you experience the flow of the substance, but
waveform, modestly
what silver reflects back to us is almost all of
recompelling itself around
the material reality of flow. but here, nothing is
responsive materials, & so:
flowing, which is how we are able to consider the idea of flow.
planetary reunion; certain stately
the last piece of contemporary work
library of defenders —
encountered on the prescribed route around
early spring in north wales
the house is mori’s ‘silver poetry; spring fever
the perfected waiting of the antho
ring’ (2014). inspired by the 31-syllable tanka, a
logic when anthro
japanese poetic form, the piece depicts 31 early
has nothing to ’pologise for
spring plants found in north wales, where mori
to the wild crabs, hermit grasses,
lives. unlike the almost insubstantial lichen
rustling birds
cloud, the ‘silver poetry ring’, although the size
& trees wheeling overhead
of a relatively modest christmas wreath, weighs
as underfoot the total wealth of all festivals
nine kilograms. the place where the last part
reburdens itself, crosses & recrossed
was joined to the first remains a secret as heavy
threshes of all invented value falling over their
as the centrepiece, giving weight to the house,
hold
the exhibit, & all its archaic services.
‘Showstoppers – Silver Centrepieces’ runs at Temple Newsam House in Leeds, 13th May – 15th October.