[MF] The Art Gallery

Welcome to the Art Gallery. Where art is born and then, it dies.

The gallery opens at 6:37 every morning. Only three people have a key, Robert Byrne is one of them. Robert is the security guard, although a graffiti-covered block would be a more apt description. Once a bouncer for the cities hottest nightclubs, the 24-year-old guards the gallery like it holds the crown jewels. But today it is empty.

I arrive at 6:01. I always arrive with 3 coffees. One is a Black Coffee with 3 sachets of sugar on the side. One is a Mocha with extra chocolate. One is a cold brew, no milk. I do not drink coffee. When I was five I was asked ‘if you could only drink one drink for the rest of your life, what drink would you choose?” I said orange juice, with the bits, and I still stand by that answer.

I don’t like coffee, these are for Janet.

Janet is the curator and today she is in the mood for a mocha with one sugar. The other 2 coffees are poured on the pigeons that rest on the windowsill. I pour it on them. They never learn.

I am Janet's assistant, or as she calls me “Half Jan.” Janet explained to me once that she believes if the brain is split in two half, the rational and the creative, then it follows that a person is constantly split between the two states. Janet believes she embodies the left side of the brain (creative) more often than the right. It is my job to be the right side of her brain. I am “Half Jan”. I am her rational side. An extension of her. Like a canvas or a frame. I allow Janet to be her genius creative self. Some days I am the left side of her brain, those days are rare.

Janet arrived at 6:13am. She sits on a stool at the back of the gallery sipping her Mocha with one sugar. She is wearing sunglasses and a displeased look on her face. I am wiping my hands with a cloth, splash back from the coffee soaked pigeons, when I ask “All Good?” He hidden glare remains fixed ahead of her “Get rid of her.” her voice is monotone. I am gone before she finishes her order.

Outside again, I stand beside Robert “Could you..” my voice breaks a little in the cold. Robert turns slightly and directs me with his chin “I see her.” Robert takes the steps one at a time, he doesn’t appear to be in a rush. His body does not bend, if he were an unknown being at the start of a horror movie I was be alive with guesses “A ghost, ghosts can float. No he’s like a Frankenstein creation. No a robot without joints”. Robert approaches the woman that Janet spotted on her way in, the woman appeared to have feathers in her hair. On purpose one would assume due to their unusually colours and designs. No bird in Ireland has feathers like that. This style was self-inflicted. She was protesting as Robert moved her away from the entrance. He hadn’t touched her, his body had this forcefield that pushed her back step after step. She was being asked to leave because she wanted to create art.

There is no queuing aloud. Janet says it makes artists look desperate and it makes the spectator look perverted. I agree because part of my job is to agree. Except when it’s not.

Artists should arrive as if they have just stumbled across the place. Some mornings I see eager eyes peering through the gated park across the road, waiting for Janet to disappear into the gallery so they can emerge. I look now at the gates, no eyes. This feather-haired woman clearly wasn’t wily enough to subvert the rules.

Back inside, Janet is propping her wrist before her. “Now” she says and she removes her sunglasses. Her eyelashes spring forward from her lids. I understand and open the doors. The Gallery is Open.

Janet remains seated as giddy artists flood the doors. The Gallery is housed in a Georgian building on the St Stephens Green. Up until 2005, it was a government building. I don’t know how Janet came to own it. I don’t know if Janet owns it.

By 9am, the Gallery is full to capacity, both artists and onlookers. Robert pulls a strand of wool across the entrance to signify this. Men and women grunt or roll their eyes. But no one moves. They all remain crowded around the entrance. Janet is still sitting on her stool. By her side I ask “All good?” she nods and slides one foot onto the floor. The other follows and the sound of her heel hitting the floor seems to bring silence to the room. The small of my back spikes with sweat. Here we go.

Janet walks to the door and sees the flimsy string stopping the masses from invading. She lifts her chin to Robert approvingly. Together, we walk into the first room. Nothing surprises me any more. In my months working with Janet I have witness the unnatural, the unusual and the previously unexpected. Now I know to expect the unexpected. The first room is alive with barks and cheers. The claws of paint coloured dogs scratch the wooden floors under the bedsheets. A woman pours florescent pink paint into a tray before lifting a Scottish terrier into the paint. The fur of his underside matting and dripping as his legs kick away. She place the dog on the bedsheets and lets him join the others.

The dogs are chasing each other, barking with glee. The crowd stands around laughing and clapping. Phones are recording and children and cooing for the dogs to come to them. Each dog bounds over the sheets depositing it’s paint behind. The sheet, now no longer considered white, has a sentence in the middle. The sentence appears to be embossed on the sheet. I look at Janet as she reads “Dogs are Men”. The words are splattered in red and green and pink. Janet points her chin down. She moves on.

Once we had a man who dressed as a woman. He stood in the centre of the room and every time he caught someones eye he would scream “Ice Cream” at them. He screamed it at a child and the child cried. I still don’t get that one.

The second room is quieter. Hushed voices discuss the fixture in the corner of the empty room. There is a large unoccupied space in the middle, the spectators are keeping their distance. Janet does not follow suit. In the centre, below the hanging bulb of light, Janet stares at the far corner. A hum drowns out the whispers as the Pulitzer winning poet is holding a needle. His thigh reddened as he stabs and pricks and injects ink into it. The corner now resembles that of an open book, words have been scrawled across it. Words to a poem. “In the dark we kill pigs” catches my eye. The man continues to tattoo his skin with what appears to be his own words. The ink is a light red, like blood mixed with milk. I wince momentarily than catch myself. Janet has told me that my reactions spoiler her observations. She compares it to reading a review of a movie before seeing it. A preconceived idea of a piece robs the viewer of making their own opinions. I learn a lot from Janet, mostly how to think.

Janet catches the scared poets eyes and ever so slightly nods. The poet returns the gesture and continues to mark himself.

The Art Gallery has become know worldwide. Last month we had a visit from the former chancellor of Germany. But by the time she got here all that was left was a mime who was packing to go home - he was actually packing - and one piece by Joesph Godfrey (one of my favourites). His canvas was affixed onto the high ceiling of the “living room” it appeared to be a mirror of those who looked at it. He had put a ladder directly under the painting. Those who climbed to the top would press their face up against the clumped paint and see just that, a person on a ladder looking back at them. The chancellor clapped with glee as flakes of yellow burrowed themselves into her left eyebrow.

Janet once sat with an American journalist by the name of Jennifer SoSo. The excited interviewer asked a myriad of questions, questions I myself wanted the answers to.

“How did the Gallery come about?”

“What was your inspiration?”

“To what do you attribute to the popularity of the Gallery?”

Janet smiled at each question but remained vague. Until finally she said “You ask a lot of questions but I only have one for you. May I?” The journalist jump up in her chair and leaned in “Yes oh yes” she was delighted to have engaged my boss. “Who raised you to be such an ignorant fool?” I put my head in my hand, it was like watching a child hurt themselves. You knew it was an eventuality but you had to let them do it so they learn. The journalist stuttered and reddened. Janet moved forward to match her counterparts pose “You don’t ask the questions. You go and you find the answers”.

I have thought about that interview, it was never published, and my conclusion is this. Janet believed that Journalism is a cheat. That true answers come from experience. First-hand experience. Before she left, Jennifer SoSo did visit the Gallery. A photo of her standing with a painting of balloons over a war zone made it onto her Instagram. The caption raved about her experience meeting the “genius behind the madness”.

Our tour continued as we watched a woman sit at a typewriter/piano hybrid. A placard, Janet despises placards, sat in front of the woman and read

“We create so we can create”

The woman smiled as Janet walked in. She hit the keys of the typewriter and music filled the room. Each ra tat tat of the keys produced throngs of sound, together a familiar song bellowed from this bockety invention, the wedding march. Janet rolled her eyes and continued to walk. But I stayed. I was in awe of how the woman, wearing a simple black dress under her bushy blonde hair, seemed to make her fingers dance. It was only a moment of rebellion, but staying to watch the woman perform gave me a beat of freedom. Shuffling to the side, I quicken to catch up with the curator.

Some people ask if I am an artist. I’m not. I thought to myself once, if man could see the gods, would he even bother trying to live. That sounds like something Janet would say. I think of all the work I’ve seen in this gallery, their process their passion. I don’t have that. I get coffee and greet the public. I meet many people, they come to the gallery, they all believe they can Be More. That each of them are destined to be great artists, creators. Not me. I’m happy as I am. Ambition isn’t for everyone and there's nothing worse than someone who is always reaching for the stars that they forget about all that's around them.

My dad is a painter. He paints fishes. My mam can crochet. But they both work in government jobs. Not everyone sees their hobby as their life's purpose. Some are content with compartmentalising. Like Janet and her half brain theory. Some of us live in the right and occasionally spurge in the left. Some live in the left and are forced to use the right from time to time. Maybe it’s all nonsense. Maybe we’re all wrong.

Some people have said the art gallery is silly. I tell those people to stop talking to me because I don’t want to talk about work outside of work.

Janet is not an artist. Or maybe she is. Maybe the gallery itself is her greatest piece. I once saw her sign contracts, I assumed they were for ownership of this building, or another. In the margins she had scribbled a cathedral. And I do mean scribbled. It was not unlike the doodles I would draw in my A4 pad during french class. So perhaps she was an artist. Or perhaps she felt doubt. Doesn’t ever artist feel doubt? Or is an artist the one who overcomes doubt, the rest are just delusional. Janet tweaks her head to the side, to beacon me. She asks for water, in the way Janet asks for anything “water”. I understand and as she reaches the base of the staircase, I break away and make for the basement. We have a solitary fridge plugged in which always contains 3 bottles of water and one bottle of champaign. I have only once seen a bottle opened, although a new bottle replaces the old every few weeks, that was when a Swiss man arrived in the Gallery. He stalked Janet as we toured the exhibitions. She paid him no mind, but I was concerned. I asked Robert about the man but he just said “Janet invited him”.

The man was tall and had long black hair, slick back with an unhealthy amount of gel. He wore an oversized cardigan what hung around his knees, which were encased in black skinny jeans. The mans hands rested on the small of his back. When he stood still, he looked like a bird at rest. Ready to take off at a moments notice. When the Gallery closed that night, Janet kissed him and took him down to the basement. I followed moments later when I saw the cork fly up to the ceiling and Janet smile. “You can go now” she shouted up the stairs and they drank from the same bottle. I never saw that man again.

Upstairs, I find Janet watching a woman furiously paint a canvas with condiments. Reds and yellows splattered over the mint sauce base. Janet took the bottle from me and took a swig. She nodded again as she swallowed. I think she like this piece. She had spent some time watching as the canvas disappeared, like a dinner plate, under the mess of sauces. There was a faint smell of tomato as we walked into the next room.

As she moved, eyes followed. Although Janet was known, she still had a strong presence in a room. One that no one could ignore, nor would they want to. Her confidence emanated and forced you to gawk. Janet paid it no mind. She was in her home, these people were just guests.

The last room was the smallest in the Gallery. In it, stood 2 dozen people, all naked save for a stop sign covering their genitals. Each of them stood side by side, they resembled a choir. The metallic signs clacked off one and other and the people breath. The room was filled to capacity and so, observers would have to stand in the door frame and watch. As we approached, someone crossed the threshold, phone in hand. Each of the naked humans turned their head to the door and whispered “Stop”. The woman retreated, embarrassed. It was just me and Janet peering into the room when she spoke “It’s a commentary on consent”. While I appreciate Janet speaking about the art, she rarely did this, I felt like this was the only piece I actually understood that day. I wish she would tell me why the man in the next room was painting heads of penises on cereal boxes. That one just seemed perverse. “Oh” I say, as if to be in awe of her analysis.

We return downstairs and Janet sits on her stool. No one dared come over to us. Janet stares at the entrance, as Robert lets more people in, to replace the ‘satisfied customers’. Janet doesn’t charge entry, nor is there a gift shop. It is as free as a walk in the park. The night crawled over the house and the street lights blinked on. Janet seeks Roberts eye and lifts her chin. He walks into the Gallery “The Gallery will be closing in 20 minutes.” He says it once, once is all that's needed. His voice booms through the halls, in the distance I hear a typewriter/piano stop mid-song. My heart pulls as I remember the blonde beauty. “Tell me this” Janet starts, her eyes fixed on the hoards that leave through the single entrance “What would your piece be”. She is asking what I would create if I were to take over a room in the Gallery. I blow air out the corner of my mouth and say “I..suppose I might” Janet holds up a hand “No. What was the first thing. The image that wedged into your mind as I asked that question”. I know what I would create but I don’t want to tell her. “It is primal, it is instinctive. Art is responsive. So whatever you first thought of is..”

“I would burn the floor” I cut her off. I cut her off for the first time ever and I do not stop. “I would paint the floorboards with petrol, scented with vanilla. I would paint a peace symbol on the floor of the living room and just as everyone is trying to see what I have painted with the clear liquid. I would drop a match.”

I silence myself now. We watch as tired artists, and giddy spectators walk out together.

“You might burn the house down. You might hurt someone” Janet remarks. But I remain silent. Her head turns to the side and it takes a moment for me to realise she is looking at me. I catch her eye and we stay like this for a few seconds. My back is damp. She lifts her chin and gives me a single nod. Then she leaps off the stool and walks out the door. Before she walks down the steps, she takes out a placard from her handbag. I start for down towards the door when I see Robert holding a hammer and nail. He holds the sign against the door and she strikes it with a single nail. She throws the hammer down and walks away.

Robert shakes his head and walks away. I am alone. The lights are still on, the door is wide open, the street outside is flooded with passersby. I read the epitaph.

“Art lives and art dies. And so the gallery has lived its life.”

At 6:37pm, The Gallery has closed. Today and forever.

Submitted February 09, 2019 at 07:46AM by PepeisA http://bit.ly/2GyVYvE