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Sport 19: Lightworks

History

page 165

History

One small window has escaped both the darkness and the line of light. Is it faultless, or a mild mistake? Look high, the second row, the upper row, top right-hand corner, there, the one without black, without neon, where the building is tied to a horizontal sail, tugging against sky and water. It's the tea-room. The gallery staff are up there, clutching their mugs, chuckling to one another, glancing down into the square. They are pleased and anxious and transparent, safe for the moment, which is of course only the moment: there may be dangerous men on the streets with cans of paint, women with bricks, librarians, artistic children. The gallery staff watch the square, the citizens coming and going. They stare out at the contemporary weather. They note how the light changes, and they see their own building reflected in the windows opposite. How history wavers! Look, there's a woman inspecting a sheet of paper. Undertow. Oh soon the night will come: the dark with its moon, the dark with its streetlights and headlights, the dark with its stars. When that happens, they can go.

‘Fault’ was first published in 1994 as a
small book by the City Gallery,
Wellington, at the launch of Fault by
Bill Culbert and Ralph Hotere, on the
facade of the Gallery.