Art on Fire, page 12
‘They look like candles on a birthday cake,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity that installing wind turbines isn’t as light-hearted an activity as placing candles on a cake. They’re so similar when burnt. It’s regrettable, when you think about the composition. Of course, you can’t only think about aesthetics.’
I had no fire-safe doors inside me, so if a blaze broke out in one part of my mind, it inevitably spread to another. The wildfires, sandstorms, burning wind turbines, wilted sunflowers: they twirled around my head, but Robert didn’t seem to dwell. He was a flaneur who breezed past with a jaunty gait, avoiding the muddy ground beneath him. And I was a passerby who wanted to shatter his aloofness.
We spent the rest of our time looking at photos of last night’s disaster. Sam used a remote to control the speed with which we flipped through the images. It wasn’t dissimilar to looking at art in a museum. As we examined a photo of the bruised earth taken by a satellite, Robert said:
‘The colour is an irregular mix of earthy orange, marigold, and the Pantone shade Living Coral. The base consists of California Orange and Jamaican Grapefruit, with a splash of Absinthe Green on top. The trees around here turn an unusually mysterious colour when they burn. It’s probably due to a difference in the soil and tree species.’
I glanced at Robert’s face. He was still wearing the hornlike accessory that connected to the black box. Looking at the TV screen, his mouth upturned slightly. He didn’t know I was observing him. Then, as if he’d suddenly realised that I was observing him, his look turned mean and humiliated.
He wore this strange expression for a while before saying, ‘It’s beautiful. It reminds me of Mark Rothko … A perfect composition.’
This made me think of something I had read about Robert’s facial expressions when he was looking at art. It was in an article about how Robert fell in love with art the way most dogs fell in love with other dogs. What had it called Robert’s current expression — the Flehmen response? It could be interpreted as a sign of seduction. But we weren’t looking at art right now.
‘This isn’t art …’ I said uncertainly, not expecting a response. ‘It’s reality.’
Robert seemed unconvinced. Gesturing at a photo of the red sky, taken by a tourist at a California resort, he said the place was famous for their jojoba-oil massages. He told me I should check it out while I was here.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘As long as the resort hasn’t burned down.’
He seemed to take my words as a joke and laughed. Or, he said he was laughing. He displayed a transcendent reaction to the disaster approaching us. I couldn’t tell if this was because he was a dog or because he was super rich. As we conversed, I tried, with increasing urgency, to convey the unfolding tragedy, but he remained unswayed. He just batted at a winged insect on the table with his front paw and continued talking about the topics he was most interested in.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I hope to see colours like these at the incineration. It depends on the firewood. I prefer birch trees because of the sound they make when they burn. Pine is loud, too, thanks to the resin. They both have their charms.’
‘About the incineration,’ I said.
‘I heard that you’re really looking forward to it.’
‘No, more like I’m unsure about it. The wildfires are moving in our direction. Should we really host an incineration?’
‘Are you implying that the fires will hit the Foundation?’ Robert asked.
‘Not exactly … although I don’t want that, either. But we can’t say for sure, can we? What I mean is, isn’t it weird to start a fire when wildfires are already burning out of control? Of course, I know it’s a Robert Foundation tradition, but considering that it’s my work that is going to be incinerated, it’s hard for me to ignore how that looks with everything that’s going on.’
I saw Robert’s tail wag to the left rather than the right. He didn’t look happy.
‘The incineration system is like human life,’ he said. ‘Humans die. Recycling them isn’t possible. Humans are single-use organisms. Living beings are waste destined for incineration, but that doesn’t mean we live our lives in fear of our impending cremation.’
Robert drew a line as if to indicate that he was not a single-use organism. Then he twitched, jutting his jaw forward and sharply turning his head.
‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘You still haven’t started work on your paintings, have you? You’re thinking so much about art that doesn’t yet exist.’
I didn’t know what to say. It felt like I’d been hit over the head. Robert was voicing a problem I’d been ignoring until now.
‘No!’ I said defensively. ‘I have been working.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’ll be going on an inspirational field trip, too, so make sure you prepare for that as well.’
The field trip was a visit to the incineration room. After teatime with Robert, Danny and I began to walk towards the incinerator, or more specifically, towards the Robert Museum of Art — the white building that looked like a roll of toilet paper. From a visitor’s perspective, it was an elegant, bright, and beautiful building. When you opened the doors and went inside, a loosely spiralled walkway guided you through the exhibits, and as you looked at the art — feeling like a drop of oil bobbing atop a pool of water — eventually you found yourself at the top. But as I tried to understand the entirety of this building, it became a labyrinth. If the museum was the site of incineration, where the heck did they burn the art? The large circular column in the middle of the museum looked like a chimney, but that was just the elevator. Danny and I rode it up to the observation deck, an open space where you could see in all directions.
Danny asked what I had been up to and if I had been having a good time at the Foundation. I didn’t know the exact implication of his question, but I said that I was enjoying myself.
‘That’s good,’ he said. I realised that he hadn’t been asked about my paintings, but rather my driving. He must have noticed the tan on my left arm, a result of spending so much time in the driver’s seat recently. My driving skills were improving slowly but surely. Danny and I rode the elevator back down to the first floor. I looked behind us and, at last, spotted the incinerator. It looked like a pizza oven. Actually, it was a pizza oven. Danny said they loaded artworks onto a wide shovel and pushed them into the oven.
‘We don’t incinerate all the art here,’ he said. ‘If a work is too big, it’s hard to burn in this oven. In that case, we burn it outside. Robert decides the location for the burn, but no matter where it is, we always play music. As soon as the fire starts, music comes out of the speakers under all our outdoor lights. Are you working on any pieces larger than three metres?’
‘Each of my paintings is a different size,’ I said.
‘A while ago, we had some sculptures that were over four metres tall and four metres wide. They wouldn’t have fit inside of incinerator. So the artist cut off the sculptures’ heads.’
‘The artist cut them off?’
‘Yes, so the sculptures would fit. He beheaded the sculptures in front of an audience. All thirty of them.’
‘Thirty?’
The story felt extremely remote to me, considering that I hadn’t finished even one piece. I later learned that the title of the group of sculptures was Möbius Sleep. After sculpting in a frenzy during sleepless nights, the artist had cut off the heads of his creations for the exhibition.
‘Where did the heads go?’ I asked. ‘Were they incinerated, too?’
‘Originally we were going to put the heads back on the bodies for the exhibition, but the artist liked the look of the bodiless heads, so we displayed them separately. He titled the piece Head Collection. And that’s what ended up being burned.’
‘Oh! So you burned something different from what was originally planned?’
‘Yes. Head Collection just looked so much more powerful inside the exhibition hall. So that’s what Robert decided, and the artist agreed.’
‘I’m curious — it seems like Robert isn’t alone when he chooses the work to burn. Why is the artist present, too?’
‘Well, the art is in the artist’s studio, so naturally the artist ends up being present.’
‘Does the artist not end up influencing Robert’s decision?’
‘No, it’s all Robert’s decision.’
‘That’s why I was wondering. Since Robert can smell fear. Is that reflected in his decision?’
‘It seems like you’re assuming that he is trying to hurt the artist with his choice.’
‘Is he?’
‘Are you asking if he watches how the artist reacts to him looking at each piece of art, and chooses the work to burn that way? Why would you think that?’
‘Because Robert will want to burn the best piece, considering the meaning he gives to the incineration — right? Of course, he could also choose the piece based on personal taste, but when you consider the close focus paid to the artist’s reaction at the incineration event, you’d think Robert would consider what piece the artist values most. He must try to read the artist’s thoughts when choosing the art to burn. It’s not like he’s trying to sniff out a fake, but he can smell how “real” the artist’s feelings are for a certain work of art. There’s more power in burning a piece the artist really loves, isn’t there?’
Danny smiled lightly.
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘Robert isn’t choosing a piece because the artist loves it. The artist loves the piece that gets burned because it’s destroyed. In any case, the artist can’t avoid fate: the art that he or she loves will burn. It’ll happen to you, too.’
Although the incineration was a Robert Foundation tradition, it had started by accident. Soon after the residency’s third participant arrived, one of her paintings had caught fire, and the surprised expression on her face had become a big deal. Shocked by the art on fire, the artist was lost for words. Eventually, though, the fire turned her into a household name.
The fourth residency participant suffered a lot. He wasn’t told until he arrived that he was expected to burn one of his pieces of art, and he hadn’t wanted to participate. The previous artist’s creation was destroyed accidentally; burning art on purpose was a bit harder to accept. Eventually, though, he was persuaded by the logic of the Robert Foundation. As the Foundation had expected, the Robert Museum of Art welcomed a greater number of visitors that year. Incinerations had continued ever since. The systematised burnings weren’t as shocking as an unexpected, accidental conflagration, but they came to be known as a performance, a symbol of the Robert Foundation.
I had agreed to these terms and hadn’t thought they would cause me any problems. I hadn’t expected that, as the beginning of August came and went, I would still be at a loss for what to paint. I felt burdened by the deep meaning people here affixed to my every utterance. How could I get away from them? I started to put Post-it notes on the walls of my studio. Pink notes for things I’d said, and yellow for things people had said to me. A few days later, I realised there was no difference between the yellow and pink notes and gave up on distinguishing between the two. Post-its covered the walls like an animal’s fur. Only windows and hanging picture frames remained furless, as if they were the animal’s eyes and lips. The paper was in its place, my palette was in its place, my chair was in its place, the clock was in its place, and the calendar was in its place. With the glut of Post-it notes, there was only one thing missing from this cramped space: my art.
I started to paint the words written down on the Post-its, but I couldn’t depict everything. Did I have too much inspiration? I kept mixing colours, but my hands felt heavy. There was so much oil at the end of my paint knife that it felt like a fish caught in a net. Now that I’d turned my attention to the canvas, I couldn’t pull my thoughts together, and eventually I had to throw away the precious pigments. I had several canvases in progress, but none of them were complete. Every time, I would get stuck on a painting, my frustration building until around sunset, when I would give up and would go for a run. The only progress I was making was on my running speeds.
The problem was, it wasn’t just me running. One evening, after I passed the two-kilometre mark, a runner beside me struck up a conversation. It was one of the Q residents I’d met — the one with a habit of getting really close to your face when talking. It was disconcerting, but he seemed completely unaware of it. He acted like our encounter was a coincidence, but it seemed forced. I didn’t slow down.
He did his best to keep pace with me. He glanced at the watch on my wrist and seemed delighted.
‘Ooh, a Garmin,’ he said. ‘Naturally, since you’re a runner.’
He started to talk at length about the superior quality of Garmin products, which led to a discussion of marathon records. The conversation was interesting enough that I couldn’t figure out his intentions. I let my guard down and began to walk alongside him. Q5, as I’d started to call him in my head, asked, ‘How’s your art coming along?’
‘It’s a mess,’ I said.
My acquaintance kept talking, as if he didn’t believe me. ‘What’s it about? The subject matter, the background? Let me know if you need anything.’
I didn’t think I had to reply, but he waited for me to say something. Thinking about the emptiness of my canvases, I said, ‘Empty ... fields?’
‘Empty fields? That’s what your paintings are of?’
When I didn’t answer, Q5 nodded and asked, ‘I’m not an expert, so can I ask about your process, painting fields? Do you include the roads that border the fields? Are there any traffic signs? Or any signs at all?’
‘I haven’t thought about the details,’ I said.
‘I’ll make a field for you to paint.’
I laughed, thinking it was a joke, then realised he was serious. I quickly apologised. The man was bubbling over with excitement at the thought of creating an empty field.
‘I’m thinking about a field I passed on the way here — one that was covered with tyres,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to make a completely new field.’
‘But Ms An,’ the man replied, ‘the field you’re talking about isn’t in Q. You’re supposed to be getting inspiration from our city. We can prepare a field for you. We’ll work together.’
‘Um, I don’t know if we need to do that …’
‘There’s one place that comes to mind — I think it would be the perfect location for a field. It’s currently full of abandoned buildings. A lot of warehouses, too. No one uses them anymore. It would be nothing to turn the place into a field. All we’d have to do is knock the buildings down.’
‘Um …’ I equivocated. ‘If the field is artificial, I don’t know if that really counts …’
‘Everything we talk about, Ms An, is inspiration for Q,’ Q5 said. ‘I want to mark this very spot. To commemorate our exchange of ideas about empty fields. I’ll outline it, in white chalk.’
‘Like when there’s an accident?’
‘This is an accident. Isn’t love comparable to a car accident? What else do you need? It’s so interesting to be part of an artist’s creative process. Hey, what about those sunflowers over there? They’re the symbol of our city.’
‘They’re nice,’ I said. ‘Very wild.’ The sunflowers on the other side of the path were swollen, as if someone had beaten them up.
‘Do you want me to paint the sunflowers?’ I asked. ‘The ones here?’
Q5 seemed to lose confidence upon hearing my question.
‘If you want to, that would be great,’ he said, ‘but we don’t just want you to paint sunflowers. We just want you to follow your artistic eye as far as you can. It’s annoying, but people are wondering which “Q landmark” you’ll paint. I like sunflowers. You’re my muse, though, so I have to ask what you think.’
‘If I paint sunflowers and then the painting gets exhibited and incinerated, will you turn it into a TV series?’
‘If you paint a broom, we’ll turn it into a TV series. We have high hopes for you.’
‘What will happen next?’ I asked.
Q5 thought for a moment and answered in a slightly lower voice.
‘Maybe we’ll construct a museum,’ he said. ‘A park would be nice, or a library or theatre. We’re going to create a space where tourism, shopping, and art all come together. That’s Q’s new goal. You know, the “Art Highway”. Using the momentum from artistic inspiration to tear down the freeway at top speed.’
‘And after that?’
‘We become famous.’
‘What if I don’t paint anything?’ I asked.
‘Huh?’
‘What if I don’t finish my paintings? Or they’re bad.’
‘That’s not possible.’ Q5 smiled. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’ he asked, examining my complexion a little anxiously.
I told him that I hadn’t been sleeping well recently, and he said that he understood the pressure I was facing, that everyone he ran into was talking about my progress. When he saw my dazed expression, he made a big circle with his arms and said, ‘My support for you is this big!’
As if I were being punished for my confession, I found it even harder to fall asleep that night. I hadn’t slept soundly since my first night here. I’d come to realise the problem belatedly; at first I had blamed my sleep troubles on jetlag. I would just barely drift off before being shocked awake by the feeling that the cotton stuffing was falling out of my pillow. When I looked up at Canyon Proposal on the wall, the imagery in the picture felt slightly more burdensome than usual. There was a sliding cover next to the poster, or at least I thought there was, so one night I tried to move the embossed plate to hide the poster. That was when I discovered that the piece of plastic wouldn’t move. It wasn’t a cover for the poster — it was decoration, fixed in place like the collar on my pyjamas. I wouldn’t have tried to move it if the poster weren’t there, but it was odd to find that the ‘cover’ couldn’t move a single millimetre. I started thinking about the wider version of the photo, Robert in the Canyon. It made me nervous. I was inside the frame, and Robert was outside.
