We all live through a crisis of authenticity of reality becoming something to be played with, and how we artists wallow in this uncertainty, but look here death is authentic! Sickness is authentic, old age is authentic, struggle is authentic; there is authenticity all around us it just took us our own family crisis yesterday for it to come in to focus and you can be sure that those good people that assisted us yesterday in the hospital were authentic and you can be doubly sure that they are not experiencing a crisis of authenticity in Avdelning 4. So what of us artists? Well firstly I think we are all wretched ego maniacs when stood next to a jeriactric nurse, but who isn't? But I do feel the need to reflect and especially because we still claim the aim to merge art and life and yesterday was very much LIFE so what of art? Can it go there or more to the point how can we go there? If we were makers of 'works of art', knocked off at will or on demand for the market then the events off yesterday would not pierce our bubble most likely and that is all good and right, there is nothing wrong with keeping the art practice in a box and doing so probably results in better work but for us it leaves too much out that could be in.

So we look in the mirror and ask what good is your art now when things get very serious? To this I say work on! It is precisely in hard times that authenticity strikes, that it is most crucial to face reality with our Doing whether that be painting pictures or carving wooden spoons. Work on with all the pain and tell the story of sorrow in the work, without shame or regret and exhibit it large, loud and proud; 'this work was painted when my father lay dying'. The eyes will roll but that is to be expected, so what? And whose eyes anyway? My eyes. That of the contemporary artist; dark matter eyes. Well in our breakage we are building bridges, casting lines, sending smoke signals, waving flags, desperate to be rescued from this island and find a new home in the land of authenticity. That is why the Torpoint project was a service. It was intended that art become a service or trade like those advertised across the torpoint ferry: " Mickey the Plumber: Kitchens, bathrooms, washers, dryers." We imagine; TAS -  Lansdscapes, portraits, still lifes" But art is not a necessary service, it is not an emergency it is an abstraction so our hopes to frame art on a par with the services of society is doomed and is of course a just a conceptual twist .....

 

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