Thursday, December 18, 2008

Reformation no 10 Revisited, The Tom Sawyer Day...

Today is the day. You must remember it from your childhood. When Tom Sawyer was trying to sell off to his mates the painstaking duty of painting a fence as if it were some kind of adventure or something. As a life's chance, perhaps. And he succeeded. Got away with it. He even got payed for giving away his brush for a couple of minutes. A bite of chocolate, a dead mouse, a half broken whistle... Whatever the boy wished. Whatever they had. Whatever he could bargain out of the poor dumbsters. Maybe even a few pennies. Or something extra special. Just for putting up a right face, for showing an attitude. Indeed. I should try it myself. Attitude is what matters most if it comes to art anyway. (Only this was not supposed to be art, only as cleaning up the mess after an art project for the group show of "Stylish Pentagram".) But nevertheless, today is the day and the paint is ready. I should be proud for the oppoturnity. And should not whine about the dough I put in it. It will all be payed back in the heaven for misunderstood little conceptualists. After all it is my duty. Sounds better than an obligation anyway. Sounds honorable. Although I have managed to delay my duty a few days -- with no foul intentions but because of heavy flu I managed to catch up in London last weekend. Today I will have to indulge in the actual restoration process. I have no choice as I have signed papers with the city Heritage Department. Or, I do have a choice, you always do, but... This time I would prefer to follow the rules. To go by the book. I have admitted my duty to paint back  the historic columns of Kunsthalle Tallinn which I painted green during a performance at about two weeks ago. Then Silvia, who was filming got attacked by a crazy lady. She was waiving a stick at her and shouting something. She didn't care a damn about the color of the columns but actively objected being filmed as an innocent bypasser. Little did she know that she is being filmed all the time while doing her little crazy lady walk around the old time. A pity we couldn't catch her colourful curses while she was trying to smash the camera. Let's see what happens today! If anything. The team is ready; Silvia (camera), Väärtnõu (work) and Hanno (talk). Here we go now! 

1 comment:

  1. in the end of the day nothing much happened. we did our thing, we painted the columns. we talked to some passers by and hangers on. i admitted to toomik (who like some strange carnivorous bird, a vulture perhaps, is catching his moments, his special slices of life he uses in his videos, by cruising near viiralti cafe) that i had picked a bit too bright colour, but... what can you do if you are not provided with the color code? just do your thing. fine. they were fine columns indeed when we were ready. except when we came back another day the rain had washed the columns hard... i am expecting to get a phone-call from andres liiv, the chancellor of the artists union, the first thing monday morning...

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