When I was in Paris, like, fifteen years ago, I happened past a glassware shop and I saw these dinner plates in the window:
That is, out-of-focus night-time surveillance photos. On dinner plates. And I had a sudden vision:
A… what’s this style called in English? “Peasant romantic” or something? It sounds less insulting in Norwegian, somehow. Anyway, I was thinking about the juxtaposition of an oldee-tymey romantic dinner plate display shelf of some kind (not as romantic as the above, because there are limits) and these spooky and unnerving dinner plates.
So I bought the plates, schlepped them back home (without breaking any! it’s miracle!) and then… put them in a cupboard for fifteen years.
Until now.
I spent a lot of time researching (i.e., at least half an hour), and I just couldn’t find any antique ones that wouldn’t look like a too overt joke in my kitchen, or that were big enough, and I finally resorted to Etsy.
Tada!
But, er, during the fifteen years that had passed, I had forgotten that there were only six of these plates. I could have sworn that there were eight! Had I broken some over the years and repressed the memory!? I need false memory regression therapy stat!
But no, some Googling shows that there were indeed only six of them. And the artist’s name is Magdalena Gerber, and these were made in an edition of 1K. I feel so speshal now.
Hey, is that the place I bought them? That looks vaguely familiar…
The table, it is well known, is a setting for fruitful exchange and conviviality. With this work of images on plates I lay out a landscape that adorns the table and invites the guests to share their stories and to transform the meal into a feast of shared exchanges. Through captured video I explore the space, sometimes strange, between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Here, barely visible characters are crossing the street quickly under the rain, and there passing on a bicycle, and so forth.
It’s even more arty than I thought!
(I do think that perhaps these look less spooky now than when they were made, perhaps. Everybody’s willingly under surveillance now anyway…)
But… only six… so… now the shelf is too big, really. Perhaps I can pad with some other plates?
Yes? No? Hm.
Oh, and I think I need a different lamp for the table now… One that’s not as tall.
As mounting this shelf involved drilling into some very hard red brick walls (under the paint), I got to use my Bosch battery powered drill again. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but this is the thing I’ve been missing all these years. It’s not just that the cordlessness means that I save half an hour looking for a power outlet and extension cables, but somehow the drilling itself is also easier — perhaps because of the lack of drag from the cable subtly making me mis-point the drill? With this thing, it just BROOOWWWWKCKKCKCKCK and I’m done.