EXHIBITION NOTES / Louise Loewen (SNACC Co-ordinator of the Bounce>Rotterdam project)

ARNOLD SCHALKS, Installation, Untitled.

Location: At SNACC. In the five fingered elm - a precious tree - between the Ruins and the prairie sunset.

Materials and process: On the long airplane ride across the ocean, he reads the poetry of Di Brandt. Arriving in Winnipeg, he purchases all of her books and reads them carefully, Dutch/English dictionary at hand. Selects one poem, a love poem - not a love poem, a poem about place and dislocation.

Notes to myself: The love poem becomes immortalized in a circular golf course complete with flags to be removed as the putting progresses. Above, hung from constructed davits is a boat with mesh hull - this is a boat for air and wind and fireflies, not water (except maybe for tears). Each material is precise, each intention highly valued. This can't be irony, though. Is a boat which collects the falling deciduous leaves not an emblem of love, a dedication? But still, there is sadness of the leaving behind.

 

THE GOLF GAME

June 25, 1995, 9:00 PM

Participants: Di Brandt & Arnold Schalks: golfers, Joe Gaudry, bagpipes.

Arnold proposes a casual game of golf to Di, who readily accepts. The lawn is manicured, the bagpiper plays ceremoniously, the holes are dug, flags a-fluttering and the game begins.

The briefing.

Di: "The bagpipes really made that ritual. I thought I would feel very silly up there. I'll never get it in the hole. But the bagpipes made it so beautiful and ceremonious. I'll never have such a large audience watchting me play golf in my life. It's lovely to be cheered on by so many people."

The hoisting.

Di: "Part of the loveliness of the piece for me was the turning of the images back into something that you make with your hands. Such a beautiful thing. Poems are always the other way around. I never think of a poem going back to the physical world that way. I come from a family of carpenters and builders. I'd like to show this to my dad. See look this is from my poem."