Four
As the years grow, memories on the wane, and like receding hair-lines, her subjectivity, perceptibly, begins to dwindle and loses most of its edges. For more than twenty years, she has buried a career of commercial photography in numerous plastic boxes stored in the basement, thinking she would never touch them again, that they were secondary, works done with the single purpose of supporting a livelihood, unlike art, which she would vow to keep as long as she lives, these boxes would eventually be disposed of one day. Recently she has different feelings and becomes more gentle to herself. What is art, she questions, the function of art, the necessity to carry a price tag to be called art and, does one really have to study its well-established theories, history, or its multitude of definitions, criticisms, arguments to really understand art? Can you live life and make art? Could what you are doing everyday also be a form of art, like the alarm clock that wakes you up at 7:03 with a Ballade from Chopin, or a melancholic song from John Dowland, the Thirty Nine Steps you take to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, grabbing the Yayoi Kusama mug from the Ikea cabinet, the blue and black painting printed on the cup and named by the artist ‘Late-Night Chat is Filled with Dreams” greets you good morning, and at that moment you couldn’t resist to recite a few lines from Emily Dickinson, ‘I’ll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time…’. What If, again she thinks, I am aware of my actions and design every single move on purpose, like in a ritual, can I declare that as an art of performance? Surely it has been done before, but this time is different - it would consist primarily of just one spectator - I, myself. At this split second she realizes, she is living life to make art, and what’s more awesome, simultaneously she’s making art to live life. Art and Life, she and her shadow, inseparable. Like indivisible time, the boxes would always be a part of her shadow, with which resurrection could only be brought about through light.