This is what you've come for

This is what you’ve come for

Out of this window next to me I once saw a naked man several gardens over, crouching, keeping low. It was a sunny morning. He had emerged from the back door and from his profile I could see he was addressing the woman moving through the garden. She was his mother I am sure, or rather, as sure as I can be.

Several years later, I looked out and realized that the woman no longer walked in her garden. I could not be sure exactly when she stopped but she had been a regular feature. I imagine she loved this garden and from my broadside view this love is still evident in its tidy lush growth. But she is gone.
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As you walk the body divides itself. Your public self steers. It is either watchful, to get you past physical and social obstacles - smiling, apologizing - or carefully detached, dropping the gaze to allow you to navigate your thoughts.

In a different space altogether your legs swing and your feet work the unforgiving ground.

You will not notice this intimate relationship with the earth until your feet lose it. Whether they slip or get snagged, your public self receives the shock, forced into absorbing all that wonderful momentum you assumed was carrying you along as you ignored your feet. From this lurch into fear, hurt, exasperation or humiliation the public self blindly recuperates its balance. For most of us, to recover is to remain somewhat top heavy.
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Intimacy enables revelation, and it requires and enables a lack of fear. *
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We had no problem finding the cathedral. Strung along the shaded avenues, the Sunday strollers appeared to be going in the same direction. Dressed in all styles, the teenage girls especially did not look as if they were going to a church service.

There it was, the bulkiest building in Korçë but no one mounted the rise of steps at the front. Instead we found a door at the base of the cathedral’s wall which swept us into a scene of light, chanting and people. The interior’s ceilings were arched but low, washed in a warm buttery colour. We followed the back wall, drawn through the milling crowd. I found a vantage point beside a cool stone column and watched people gently exchange greetings while the brilliantly dressed-up children weaved around. The majority of the congregation was on its feet and the priests were barely visible. Their tall black hats and deep voices reached into the bright space above them, misted with incense.

While it was so apparently casual, the intimacy was anything but profane. I sensed we had missed a step. I looked back towards the entrance and noticed what we had neglected to do.

A painting of the Virgin Mary and Jesus was positioned opposite the door, set in a big gilt frame. A brief glance as I entered determined that it was a typical example of Albanian ecclesiastical art, a decorative icon I thought. Now I noticed that everyone who walked through the door stepped up to that painting and kissed it. Children were held up and leant forward to kiss too. The act was done swiftly, often several times with a quick stroke of hand or cheek for good measure. Simultaneously, their lips moved through a rush of words in absolute confidence that they were being heard.
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The stark sunshine picks out the gritty eyeliner and cerise lipstick like glazing on a ceramic face. I am enjoying her description of the work. “A video believe it or not. She does this funny thing…” and suddenly I am recalling Rachel Lowe’s hand scrawling across a car window trying to catch the scene rolling by with a felt-tip pen. It’s a passing thought, a personal association. I predict this new work will be more intimate and less genteel. I’m getting excited. I imagine a cocoon of an experience - can feel it already. Or else it is the sun.

The more I pass the naked, pregnant Alison Lapper on her plinth in Trafalgar Square, the more perfect her body appears. These routine glimpses from the no. 12 bus have helped me decide that she enjoyed posing for Mr. Quinn and was at that comfortable, happy point of pregnancy, between 5 and 7 months. (I am wrong, it was 8 ½). She looks strong, fearless and enviable. As an art object she has a flawless body. It may be uncomfortably exposed for some but the pigeons are always at ease. I envy their intimacy with Alison and feel that I can safely say that they never ever loiter on her head like they do on the lofty Nelson’s.

Despite my growing affection it would feel very wrong if another sculpture of Alison turned up, or if they started selling replicas like they do of David in Florence. In fact she is up for sale at some point this year. Negotiations could already be underway. I sense that removed from the square and the pigeons, she will lose her vantage point of resistance as an artwork that people must tolerate. And my special appreciation of her, my intimacy with her will also be lost. But only if I come across her again.
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When Liz Kotz compared photographs by Nan Goldin and Jack Pierson she rightly pointed out that few things are more repellent than a programmed sense of “intimacy” or a regulated sense of “accident”.
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Although I no longer see the woman or her son, I occasionally see the man who lived with her. He continues to drift in and out of the local betting shop …and the garden. He looks thinner and greyer. I once heard him speak, and was pleased to discover he was Turkish. At least I think that is what I discovered since he was not speaking english to the Turkish restaurant owner.

I am comfortable enough with what I know about him. About her I am less satisfied. But I do know what I would like to know about her. I would like to know that it is possible for her to return to the garden. I have decided that all else is superfluous.
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In a back room, the National History Museum in Tirana commemorates the population’s suffering under the dictator Hoxha with a series of glass-cases displaying ragged, sometimes bloodied clothes. Unlike the vandalized Hellenic marbles at the museum’s entrance, these fragments have exhaled all life’s joy. Instead they embody the immense sadness of irredeemable acts of violence.

A pair of trousers is held together by a network of meticulously executed patchwork. You imagine the miracle of a threaded needle in a steady hand, as the prisoner immersed himself in the task of stitching perfection. To gaze upon this precision is to see someone binding himself to time, emptying his mind into the concentrated movement of his hands to endure the blinding terror of his predicament. Unrelenting fear, hurt, exasperation or humiliation provokes a heroic rather than blind strive for balance. You centre on your core sense of humanity, your intimate self. Otherwise you are lost.
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Walking again, art work is the obstacle you see ahead, but whose distance you cannot gauge. You move towards it deliberately as your public self steers you into a prime vantage point in front. You might not get caught this time; you might not lose your balance and forget where you are positioned. But if you do, your public self will be stilled, grounded, as your inner self absorbs and closes that last bit of distance.
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…a blurring of edges, breaking down forms and even time perhaps. **

This is what you’ve come for. * Gavin Maughfling
___ ** Nicky Hodge
© 2007 Althea Greenan