WIDOW’S PAIN, OR BACHELORS EVEN, AFTER MARCEL DUCHAMP, AFTER CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, 2015 Poplar wood, perspex 83 x 68 x 20 cm
WIDOW’S PAIN, OR BACHELORS EVEN, AFTER MARCEL DUCHAMP, AFTER CHARLES BAUDELAIRE‘ is a reworking of Duchamp’s sculpture “Fresh Widow” and draws reference to Baudelaire’s prose poem titled ‘Window’ (published in the Walkers book ‘Return Inverse’) in which he celebrates the opacity of these links between what is public and private, that simultaneously pierce and reinforce the barriers between us and the outside world. The poem makes references to the poet witnessing an elderly person though a closed window which elicits within him an empathy for his own humanity, despite the potential of it being fictional. The reflection in the black perspex of the Walkers window throws the gaze of the viewer back upon him or herself, while simultaneously references that which lies beyond, a site of contemplation, out of view.
Installation at Magazin4, Bregenz, Austria
