but even if I cannot see the sun
but even if I cannot see the sun
Grey Noise, Dubai
18.01.2016 – 05.03.2016
Artists: Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Marco Godinho, Lala Rukh, Sail Into Night, Michael John Whelan
Curator: Umer Butt
Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night
Adapt the eyes to the darkness
A black color everywhere
Something close to the moon
Days collapse through the fog
Presence of little or no reflections
A very dark color in space
Now, complete absorption of light
An uncertain future appears
Owing to the absence of light
A doubt of invisibility persists
Black, the opposite of white
White as the black of the night
The present is a permanent nightfall
A feeling that never disappears
Visibility loses its eyes which are dying
The past whispers an infinite stillness
Transcendental power of silence
Hopefully poetry resists passing time
Again, escaping the situation Listen to the full moon
Like the echo of wild waves
Today we choose to remember
Shadows of lost memories
Amplify small and hidden details of a distant reality
The shape of the sea as a mental landscape
A territory of permanent imagination
A map that guides to subjectivity
From faraway places to a location out of mind
Repetition of night and day
A cyclical return of our daily activities
Mapping time, measuring space
As the breath of the universe
Duration of sleeping time
How many hours of freedom
Happiness still frozen in an unpredictable future
Every day after closing hours
Is left to be heard, behind the walls
The sound of hope as an activity for ghosts
A revolution starts with a common failure
Red flowers, a new red flower everyday
No sun in moonlight, no water inside the room
Sharing a life together, that is what matters
Every end is a new beginning
Of an unknown open scenario
That gives a shape to the story
Nobody knows in advance, where all this will lead
An iceberg that melts into the unknown
My hand is open and empty
Emptiness is not nothing
Marco Godinho
December 2015
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Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night, 2016
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Every Day a Revolution, 2012
Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night, 2016
Poem, black slate paint on wall, chalk, time (50 days), daily performance
Installation views, Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2016
In 2016, for Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night at the Grey Noise Gallery in Dubai, the poem was presented to the public via press release; in the exhibition space, the gallerist chalked a new line each day on a wall con verted to a blackboard for the occasion. In exploring poetry writing and thresholds of language in fleeting, temporal form in solo and group exhibitions, the artist developed a series of actions that use writing as a daily link to the indoor or outdoor space where they are performed. The length of each poem is defined by the length of the exhibition: the text, equal in lines to the number of days, is disclosed in fragments. The action is repeated each day but is never the same; it becomes a ritual and invites new ways of celebrating the quotid ian. This simple gesture, which materializes differently in each setting, is a measure of the passing of time that reveals, through the appearance and disappearance of words, a sense of poetic rebellion against the instability of the present.
Every Day a Revolution, 2012
Wine bottles, red carnations, time (50 days), daily performance
Diameter variable with number of bottles
Installation views, Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2016
Standard wine bottles, varying in number according to the length of the exhibition, are set on the floor in a circle. Each day a red carnation is placed in the bottles. The work refers to the unrelenting struggle for the right to freedom waged by people around the world. The red carnation has become a rallying symbol in contempo rary insurgencies. The bottle recalls the Molotov cocktail, a homemade incendiary weapon most often used against authorities in incidents of urban unrest.
Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night, 2016
Every Day a Revolution, 2012
Still a Blind Light in an Endless Night, 2016
Every Day a Revolution, 2012