THOUGHTS -
Meat - think of a cow - slaughtered, cut into segments and sold to make various edible dishes. The cow is deconstructed to a level of flesh as a form of commodity, its whole form does not exist. However the cow is represented by the weight of its segmented flesh, sold at any local grocer. Do we think of the cow? As we, inspect the flesh – its freshness, the cut, the texture, the fat/lean of it, etc…
I think I will call her Willamina, the cow whose 1.22 lbs prime cut steak is neatly packaged with cellophane and pink foam.
Presence’ Tense, after six week presentation was dismantled in a pseudo-performative public de-installation piece on January 17th. The public was welcomed to participate and observe the reduction of the art pieces from sculptures to commodity portions.
Presence’ Tense consisted surprisingly modular concrete pillaresque sculptures, monumentally installed in the gallery, with no structural function. Using the butcher shop as a metaphor, these Habra Jabra sculptures built with building blocks from similarly useless but common materials will be slaughtered, quartered and cut down to their co-modifiable re-purposeful, re-thinkable and reducible basic parts. The pillars much like a full cow is slaughtered, quartered and sold piece by piece – reducing the installation down to its basic parts and sold off by weight and choice, much like ribs, shanks, steak and chuck are sold at grocery stores and restaurants.
With the aid of two assistants (Atif F. Sheikh and Mir Masud-Elias)the installation was dismantled.
Audience members selected the cylinder for purchase after inspection. The cylinder was weighed and then wrapped in butcher paper, sold by the pound. The weight was written on the butcher paper and given to the buyer.