Black Board for Beuys // 1996

Black Board for Beuys // 1996

Crawford Art Gallery // Cork


beuys-boardI was working in the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery as a Technician. I found a black board hidden away in the storage room of the Gallery.

I t gotmethinking. I approached the Director of the Gallery about making a work for the space. Permission was granted. The blackboard, chalk and a duster were installed in the exhibition space.  A notice was posted inviting the public to write whatever they liked on the board. All OK thus far, nothing special, just another standard art work. Declarations of Teenage Love were the order of the day followed closely by crude penis.’ scrwals.

A gallery goer who as an art student attended College in the building when it previously housed the Crawford Art College came to the show. She asked about the blackboard and informed me that Joseph Beuys used the same blackboard when he gave a Lectured in the Crawford Art College during his Tour of Ireland in the 70’s.

My eyebrows rose at the prospect of being a conduit for Dead Art Gods exiled in the ether. Later my brow down turned to a furrows when Spectraphoto lost all my slide documentation of the work.

Ah to be stuck in The League of Lower Division Gods.