The best bit of art I have ever seen.
Joseph Grigely kept scraps of paper, bits of napkin, receipts, filofax pages, backs of envelopes and post-it notes bearing fragments of conversations.
Written in various hands they are the comments which people had written to aid conversation with their deaf friend.
Taken out of context, they seem odd and fascinating. You want to hear the rest.
It is intriguing to see these little snapshots of how someone lives their life, differently from hearing people, and the material itself is very alive, and humorous.
Scrawled messages - I tried not to node them all, but they are brilliant if you read them in quick succession. Imagine them in pencil, or red biro:
y As Emily Dickenson
o u are late. says
Tell the truth
but tell it askew
YES! YES!
YES! I
t
I thought today how Klimt sounds like Clit h
o
always in the back of my ght you
said ASS
W
h
a
t?
once upon a time I spent the night at a friends on a mattress
on the floor. I don't know what happened but in the middle of the
night he slept-walked over + PISSED on my head! I was- uh-jeezus,it
was too weird. So I got up and showered (and found
another bed)
In the morning he saw the wet mattress +
blamed the DOG!
I didn t have the heart to tell him it was. . .
his dark side
Should we go? I
desperately need a pee
deceptive I'm drinkine too
I have been doing bizarre much alclohol I
adventurous sex believe (sp),
2-3 years.
It's holding me back
from love.
A piano echoing in a large
Anxiety. hall. Very solitary and
vibrating
I need a break.
and this is better than heroin
Fred says he hasn't smoked pot in 2 days because
he forgot
My mother most recently when I took her to
dinner was charming me W/ her 1950's coquettish
ladylike ways and I said
Mammy, you are such a remnant, and she said
You mean I'm a Rembrandt
ot i n a bar!
n
It's as English as hell
She said her name is Barbie lipstick
the sound of a cat.
John Grigely,
Barbican Conversations,
1998,
Barbican Centre,
Silk Street,
London E2.