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Sport 19: Lightworks

Gregory O'Brien — A Culbertbook

page 145

Gregory O'Brien

A Culbertbook

There are more enigmas in the shadow of a man who walks in the sun than in all the religions of the past, present and future.
Giorgio de Chirico

the camera
sees nothing

is only a network
of apertures, openings

the film inside
the camera sees

POSTCARD FROM PAUL VALERY
TO B. CULBERT VIA R. HOTERE

‘Black isn't
as black
as all that.’

page 146

Citroën
in a quandary
in a quarry

the man who delivers
the light

the light delivery van

wine
glass
why
ask

still life
the light is
fixed and
the things
are in
order, the things
are in
the condition
they're in

page 147

Skylight
In 1988 I was living in an apartment across the corridor from where Bill and Pip Culbert were temporarily lodged. Knowing they did not have a washing machine or drier, I knocked on their door one afternoon and offered them the use of mine. They declined politely, saying that they never used a washing machine; their clothes they washed by hand. Later that night I observed articles of clothing hanging up to dry in their window, the light projecting through the fabric out into the night sky above Albert Park, Auckland …
Today, at the City Gallery, Wellington, I find myself standing in front of a photograph of clothing strung on a line somewhere in southern France, and I am reminded of those articles of clothing, handwashed and wrung out.
And I am entertaining the possibility that perhaps light isn't complete until it has passed through or touched upon those things that are close to us, those things that matter to us.

page 148

At Toss Woollaston's house,
Upper Moutere (Sept. 1984)

‘I like the light
behind me

falling directly
on the subject, the light

coming from where
I am.’

XXXXXXXXX

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LAMP AND

LAMPSTAND

LAMP AND

LAMPSTAND

LAMP AND

LAMPSTAND

LAMP AND

LAMPSTAND

page 149

‘If we want to keep talking all night then we will have to talk about small things. Because there are more of them.’
Jack-Marcel Haddow, aged four, 1990
‘It's always night or we wouldn't need light.’
Thelonious Monk

lights ALIT bulbs
UPON
ALIT lights ALIT
UPON UPON
bulbs ALIT lights
UPON

list of works in the exhibition
exhibition of works in the list
works of the exhibition in list
works in list of the exhibition
list of exhibitions in the works

page 150

BRANCUSI:
that the endless columns
of the twentieth century
might become endless queues

CULBERT:
that the speed of light
at the end of the century
might depend upon the traffic

in the square
a man smokes
a cigarette
from a golden box
then returns home
one cigarette lighter

light
fitting
……………………………………
fitting
light

page 151

DIARY 4.4.97

  • 1. The light source in the history of art, or—as is more likely the case—in the history we impose upon art.
  • 2. In the banks of fluorescent tubing and the tabletop busy with illuminated jars, the source of light is no longer outside the artwork, glancing in through an open window or doorway, or beaming down from a cloud.
  • 3. I am driving RH into Wellington from the airport. He is telling me about a number of wooden doors leaning against a wall of his downstairs studio. These he painted black some months, some years back.
  • 4. BC has been staying with him for the past week and has inserted fluorescent tubes diagonally through these black panels.
  • 5. What do we have? A commentary on the passage of light through doorways in the history of Western art.
  • 6. Whereas the doorway was once the light-source, now the door itself is.

THE ROOF OVER
OUR HEADS
the beams
of
the house
of
light

page 152

Work in Order

no such thing
as shadows, only

the boundaries of
the surrounding light

Romance on a verandah near Port
Chalmers, a film in the Southern
French manner:

Porch Amours

‘… the mysterious significance of lines, of lights and of shadows, so as to use these elements, which one might call alphabetical, to write the beautiful poems of their dreams and their ideas …’
(Albert Aurier)

page 153

Headlamps

through thinking
about
‘New Zealand Art’
Headlands, MCA Sydney 1994

wine glasses
grasses whine
wane glances

Culbert & Brancusi the lore firm

the lesson:
lessen

page 154

ARRAY
light rail

all the way
to London
by tube

a rail of
light

their son, Ray
(also, of
light).

LIGHT PLAIN
‘You can tilt the whole field of a civilisation when you go to the extremities or the margin. You can tilt that field. And when you tilt that field, prepossessions are dislodged. So you get that terrifying counterpoint in which partialities begin to open themselves up, various intuitive texts begin to nourish the imagination.’
Wilson Harris

2 CV
A CAR PART
A CAR APART
A CARAPACE

page 155

A problem with the noonday light
‘Mrs Fitzgerald called
to see if Mr Bidbid
could come around

at once and get up
on her roof. I think
she has left

the ladder out
and will be waiting
inside the house.’

‘Perfect stillness, perfect fecundity.’
Ruysbroeck

LIGHT, A VEHICLE

where is as
as is
is where is
where is
as is where

page 156

A small, grey matter
a short reflection on arts council funding

wouldn't want
all this black

and white
to bother

their grey
matter

find some

120 120 120 120 120
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120 120 120 120 120 120 120 120
120 120 120 120 120 120 120 120 120
120 120 120 120 120 120 120 120
120 120 what's 120 120 120 120

120 watts/what is