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| Terry Bond |
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| THE STORY OF FLIGHT |
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| As the Surrealists knew, revelation (by definition) can only occur within the context of our complacent relationship with the commonplace - we have to be lulled into a false sense of security to be jolted out of it. I recall at a visit to the dentist in 1994, staring up at the ceiling (as one does) at one of those fluorescent lights with plastic covers that soften the light, transfixed by the image of scores of dead, dusty insects trapped within. |
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| Aroused by the desire to resolve, to focus, that these diffusers prevent - the experience brings to mind Gerhard Richter's remark 'How can a painting be out of focus?' - these 'soft deaths' resulted in the work Flight, a fluorescent light with a plastic fly glued to the inside of the diffuser, that I exhibited at the Lisson Gallery in 1995. |
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| Seemingly not revelatory enough for some. I remember being asked by Anish Kapoor at the hanging whether the fly moved. 'It hasn't yet' was my reply. |
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| The piece was bought by a Mr C. Saatchi as part of a job lot, as is his habit, although I do know that he looked at it, because I was there at the time. |
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| I got a phone call from the gallery towards the end of the show telling me that the piece had been damaged (the diffuser had been cracked). As I couldn't get to the gallery to repair it, I faxed instructions of Donald Judd-like neurotic specificity for its repair (purchase of new diffuser, plastic fly, glue, and its exact placement within the diffuser) to the gallery manager. |
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| Four years passed, and one day a fellow artist who lived nearby arrived at my door cradling an enormous book called Young British Artists - The Saatchi Decade, that was hot off the press. 'You're in it!' he informed me, and he showed me my pages illustrated with three of the pieces Charles Saatchi had bought from me, among them Flight. |
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| I remember how during that decade the London art world became very ageist. Imagine my anxiety when I found that my already tentative connection with the 'group' had been stretched by getting my date of birth wrong by ten (plus) years. (I did consider a crusading work in response - going around the world hunting down copies of this tome with a ready-made self-adhesive typographical correction - but I mellowed before it was executed.) |
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| Of course, that wasn't the only 'intervention' I found - the 'curse of Kapoor' had struck. To my astonishment, Flight was now merely a light. In some transmogrification worthy of the movie, 'the fly' - or 'Anish' as I now refer to 'him' - had indeed moved, probably into a Lisson Gallery skip along with the cracked diffuser, to perhaps re-emerge somewhere in a North London land-fill, along with his maggoty mates. |
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| Quite what is the status of the resultant object and its representation? A dis-assisted readymade? A denuded artwork? Or a mere fluorescent light fitting (albeit surely one of the most expensive ever sold)? With the addition of this tale, it transforms itself once more. |
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| Terry Bond, December 2009 |
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| Terry Bond was born in Essex in 1950, 1957, or 1960, depending on which typographer you believe. He studied at Wolverhampton Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, London. His work takes the form of photographs, video, objects, and the occasional written piece. Exhibitions include: 'New Contemporaries', ICA, London, 1981; Cambridge Darkroom, 1988; Lisson Gallery, 1990, 1993, 1995; 'Works from the Lewitt Collection', Wadsworth Athenium Museum, USA, 1991; 'Bad Behaviour', Arts Council Touring, 2004; Kettles Yard, Cambridge, 2006; Ronald Jugg Gallery, 2005 and 2009. Publications include: Frieze magazine Jan/Feb 1996 (Illustration); Young British Artists - The Saatchi Decade, 1998 (illustration); The Saatchi Gift to the Arts Council Collection, 2000 (illustration); Bad Behaviour, Arts Council Touring Show 2004 (illustration). |
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| He was last seen at the wheel of a mobile library deep in rural Essex, heading towards the coast. |
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