Sport 19: Lightworks
Gregory O'Brien — A Culbertbook
Gregory O'Brien
A Culbertbook
There are more enigmas in the shadow of a man who walks in the sun than in all the religions of the past, present and future.
Giorgio de Chirico
the camera
sees nothing
is only a network
of apertures, openings
the film inside
the camera sees
POSTCARD FROM PAUL VALERY
TO B. CULBERT VIA R. HOTERE
‘Black isn't
as black
as all that.’
Citroën
in a quandary
in a quarry
the man who delivers
the light
the light delivery van
wine
glass
why
ask
still life
the light is
fixed and
the things
are in
order, the things
are in
the condition
they're in
Skylight
In 1988 I was living in an apartment across the corridor from where Bill and Pip Culbert were temporarily lodged. Knowing they did not have a washing machine or drier, I knocked on their door one afternoon and offered them the use of mine. They declined politely, saying that they never used a washing machine; their clothes they washed by hand. Later that night I observed articles of clothing hanging up to dry in their window, the light projecting through the fabric out into the night sky above Albert Park, Auckland …
Today, at the City Gallery, Wellington, I find myself standing in front of a photograph of clothing strung on a line somewhere in southern France, and I am reminded of those articles of clothing, handwashed and wrung out.
And I am entertaining the possibility that perhaps light isn't complete until it has passed through or touched upon those things that are close to us, those things that matter to us.
At Toss Woollaston's house,
Upper Moutere (Sept. 1984)
‘I like the light
behind me
falling directly
on the subject, the light
coming from where
I am.’
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LAMP AND
LAMPSTAND
LAMP AND
LAMPSTAND
LAMP AND
LAMPSTAND
LAMP AND
LAMPSTAND
page 149
‘If we want to keep talking all night then we will have to talk about small things. Because there are more of them.’
Jack-Marcel Haddow, aged four, 1990
‘It's always night or we wouldn't need light.’
Thelonious Monk
lights | ALIT | bulbs |
UPON | ||
ALIT | lights | ALIT |
UPON | UPON | |
bulbs | ALIT | lights |
UPON |
list of works in the exhibition
exhibition of works in the list
works of the exhibition in list
works in list of the exhibition
list of exhibitions in the works
BRANCUSI:
that the endless columns
of the twentieth century
might become endless queues
CULBERT:
that the speed of light
at the end of the century
might depend upon the traffic
in the square
a man smokes
a cigarette
from a golden box
then returns home
one cigarette lighter
light
fitting
……………………………………
fitting
light
DIARY 4.4.97
- 1. The light source in the history of art, or—as is more likely the case—in the history we impose upon art.
- 2. In the banks of fluorescent tubing and the tabletop busy with illuminated jars, the source of light is no longer outside the artwork, glancing in through an open window or doorway, or beaming down from a cloud.
- 3. I am driving RH into Wellington from the airport. He is telling me about a number of wooden doors leaning against a wall of his downstairs studio. These he painted black some months, some years back.
- 4. BC has been staying with him for the past week and has inserted fluorescent tubes diagonally through these black panels.
- 5. What do we have? A commentary on the passage of light through doorways in the history of Western art.
- 6. Whereas the doorway was once the light-source, now the door itself is.
THE ROOF OVER
OUR HEADS
the beams
of
the house
of
light
Work in Order
no such thing
as shadows, only
the boundaries of
the surrounding light
Romance on a verandah near Port
Chalmers, a film in the Southern
French manner:
Porch Amours
‘… the mysterious significance of lines, of lights and of shadows, so as to use these elements, which one might call alphabetical, to write the beautiful poems of their dreams and their ideas …’
(Albert Aurier)
Headlamps
through thinking
about
‘New Zealand Art’
Headlands, MCA Sydney 1994
wine glasses
grasses whine
wane glances
Culbert & Brancusi the lore firm
the lesson:
lessen
ARRAY
light rail
all the way
to London
by tube
a rail of
light
their son, Ray
(also, of
light).
LIGHT PLAIN
‘You can tilt the whole field of a civilisation when you go to the extremities or the margin. You can tilt that field. And when you tilt that field, prepossessions are dislodged. So you get that terrifying counterpoint in which partialities begin to open themselves up, various intuitive texts begin to nourish the imagination.’
Wilson Harris
2 CV
A CAR PART
A CAR APART
A CARAPACE
A problem with the noonday light
‘Mrs Fitzgerald called
to see if Mr Bidbid
could come around
at once and get up
on her roof. I think
she has left
the ladder out
and will be waiting
inside the house.’
‘Perfect stillness, perfect fecundity.’
Ruysbroeck
LIGHT, A VEHICLE
where
is
as
as
is
is
where
is
where
is
as
is
where
A small, grey matter
a short reflection on arts council funding
wouldn't want
all this black
and white
to bother
their grey
matter
find some
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what's
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120 watts/what is