Kevin pushed through the remaining items in the stack. There, at
the bottom was Pulse. The pages of
the magazine were not cut in the expected rectangular shape but in a half
circle, and the cover was made out of soiled woven plastic that Kevin discerned
to be a recycled fragment of a Mexican shopping bag. The inner pages were
unusual as well: one article, for example, about the Pop artist James
Rosenquist was printed on magnetic paper and accompanied by small magnetic
cut-outs of his imagery so that the reader could recompose the artist’s
famously incoherent paintings at will. Another piece concerned a recently
discovered cache of thousands of photographic negatives shot by the notorious
underground artist Jack Smith. Instead of illustrating the article with printed
images, the magazine presented one of the actual negatives and admonished the
reader to find a darkroom and print their own. Despite its eccentricity, it was
clear that a tremendous amount of effort – and money – had gone into the
magazine’s design and production. Kevin glanced at the cover: Volume 2, Issue 4. “Why
the hell didn’t I know about this before?” he wondered.
It was a point
of honor for Kevin
that despite his
lofty position in the art world he did not read art magazines. He found the
standard batch of periodicals – Artforum,
Art in America, Art News, and so on – to be a depressing waste of time,
filled with poor reproductions and what Kevin liked to refer to as “other peoples
ideas.” He
preferred to encounter art directly, and spent countless hours at artists’
studios, courting people who had no standing at all in that strange hierarchy
of the anointed, so assiduously cultivated – typically by word of mouth – by his colleagues,
gallerists, and collectors. While other curators had their noses buried in the
latest issue of the flashy London-based Frieze,
Kevin
was observing the newest trends in Mid-Atlantic performance art at some dive
bar in Baltimore or driving across South Dakota to test his hunch that something
exciting was brewing amongst the Sioux.
But Pulse was different from other
magazines. Kevin
had to admit that many of the articles were about artists unfamiliar to him. One
particularly fascinating spread concerned a collective called The Lady Garden,
which occupied an old warehouse on the Thames River, further down from Kevin in
Reading. The photos showed a space in which every available surface was covered
with a tangle of detritus: stuffed animals, bicycle parts, giant pom-poms,
underwear, windshields, brass instruments, ship’s wheels, flags, plastic
ponchos, old computer screens, food packaging, rag-dolls, and so on. The
inhabitants of this bizarre interior were themselves costumed, wearing brightly
coloured knit sheathes that each ended in pointed hoods. Intrigued, Kevin started
to read the article, only to find in place of the usually dry erudition and
forced wit of the standard art review, a weirdly emotional apologia written by
one of the artist’s mothers.
“Benjamin was given every opportunity,” she wrote.
“We even offered to send him to art school,
once we realized that he was creative. He wouldn’t do it. ‘Art school is for losers,’ he told us. ‘Everything I need to know is on H.R
Pufnstuf,’ I honestly cried when he said that.
And to think he could have been the next
Thomas Kincaid!”
Kevin, not one to dither, picked up the phone and dialed the
number for the Pulse editorial office
listed in the front of the magazine. “Hi,” said Kevin, “I’m calling from the
Studio 4 Museum of Art. I was just reading you wonderful magazine and came
across an article on The Lady Garden. It looks really great. I was wondering if
you could possibly give me their contact info. I’d like to go see them.”
“Who
is this?”
“Kevin Forrester. I’m
the Curator of Contemporary Art.”
“Oh,”
said the man. There was a pause. “My name’s Sam. Sam Morrigan,” Another pause. There’s something you may
be able to help me with. Do you know Warhol’s cum paintings?”
“I
know his ‘piss’ paintings. I didn’t know he’d made any with cum.”
“Yes.
I’ve recently acquired one and I need to find out if it’s genuine. I mean
genuinely Warhol’s, you know, seed. Would you be able to tell?”
“I
don’t think so.”
“Of
course not. Um, would you like to see it?”
Kevin hesitated. He was not particularly interest in Warhol, despite
the general consensus that the renowned Pop icon was one of the most important
artists of the twentieth century.
“If
you come over, I’ll give you The Lady Gardens email address,” Morrigan bargained.
Kevin agreed to meet that very afternoon and said goodbye. He was
increasingly excited about his new artistic bright new artistic prospect.
“This stuff makes everything else I’ve chosen for the Biennial look ordinary,” he thought,
scrutinizing The Lady Garden images in the magazine. “Even the Emilys are tame
compared to this. Yet, this could be just that final kick in the pants the
Biennial needs.”
Kevin heard his computer ping and he saw that his assistant had emailed him again.
- We need to work on the checklist today.
The loan forms have to go out by the end of the week. -
-
Didn’t I send you the revised checklist already? –
-
I’m coming in there and we’re going to go over it line by line until it’s done.
–
Kevin looked at the clock on his computer: 11:30. – How about we go for an early lunch instead. My treat. For The Lady
Garden. –
-
Okay. But when we come back you better
help me! –
Kevin let Donna choose
the restaurant, hoping she wouldn’t suggest Tartuffe, where the prix fixe lunch menu
would set him
back a couple hundred bucks. Tweed had taken him there once, when he’d first
arrived at the museum. Throughout their four-course meal, two waiters hovered
nearby, swooping in with their special little crumb utensils each time an
offending morsel alighted upon the white tablecloth. The only other diners that
afternoon had been a pair of ancient ladies whose perfume had the pungent aroma
of overripe bananas. Looking around him at the floral wall-paper, the floral upholstery,
and the floral carpet, Kevin had felt as if he’d been buried alive in potpourri. There was also
a risk that Donna
would select Soup ‘n’ Burger, the one and only greasy spoon on the Upper East
Side of town Kevin
was puzzled by the diner’s popularity: despite the “B” rating they’d received
from the health department, the place was always mobbed. “Well?” he asked as
they stood on the corner of the street.
“Panini Vanini,” Donna
announced. Kevin
was relieved. This little bistro served delicious foccacia sandwiches and
housemade lemonade. But the place was known primarily for its remarkable
interior. Swathed in exquisite turquoise silk, it resembled the inside of a
sultan’s tent. On a previous visit, Donna, in one of her more generous moods, had
patiently explained that the décor was intended to suggest the 1930s dress
designs of the great Italien couturier Vanina Vanini. “Yeah, the inside of a
dress,” Kevin
had said. “No wonder I always see Peter Merton here.”
They got there just before the noon
crush and were seated without a wait. Kevin ordered his usual sandwich, the
“Veronese,” and a lemonade. Donna, shrugged and ordered the same. “May I
suggest you try the ‘Toscana,’ Signora?” offered the waiter. He held out the menu
and pointed to the suggested item on the menu.
Donna took another
look and said, “As a matter of fact, yes. That does look much better. Thanks,
I’ll have that.” She
gave the man a warm smile, which he returned.
“I
think they like you,” said Kevin when the waiter had gone.
“Puhleeze.”
“No,
seriously. Why else would they come onto you like that?”
“Reccommending
a different sandwich. That’s a come on?”
“Sure
it is, in Italy.”
“I
have a partner, you know. You always seem to forget that.”
“Yeah,
in Oregon. That’s a partner?”
“They
come out here a lot.”
“Then
how come we’ve never met?”
“Why
should you have met?” Donna countered, “You think I should bring them to work and keep
them under my desk in a little basket?”
“Well
I hope you’ll at least bring them to the Biennial opening. I’m sure it would
blow their mind.”
The waiter brought their lemonades in
tall glasses with pink straws.
Donna raised her glass. “To
the Biennial,” she said. “I actually think it might be okay.” Kevin knew that
coming from Donna this was the highest of praise. Kevin touched his glass to
hers and took as sip of the perfectly sweet-sour drink. “ I know,” he said. “ I
wasn’t sure myself until last night. There was just something about the energy
of the crowd – after I showed the Emily’s video anyway. But I don’t think it
was just their work that people loved. It was the cumulative effect. That’s
what great curating does, makes sense of things that might not make sense on
their own.”
“Getting
a little full of ourselves are we?” Donna teased.
“Maybe,”
Kevin admitted.
“ But I deserve to feel good about myself. Doing the first Studio 4 Biennial
that’s not going to be panned is quite an accomplishment.”
“You
and I know this will be the best Biennial ever. Let’s hope Luella Cross, Barry Rotz
and Frank Chickadee think so too.”
“They
will. They will,” assured Kevin as the waiter arrived with their Panini’s.
“They
better, or I’ll have my posse take care of them,” Donna replied, chewing.
After they had finished their
sandwiches and lemonade Kevin glanced down at his watch, “Oh fuck is that the time! I
have to do, I’m going to be late to get to Pulse.” Kevin jumped up from the table,
throwing some notes onto the table, “I’m sorry Donna I really need to run now, I
can’t miss this chance.”
“No
the list! You can’t run from me now. You promised after lunch.” Donna stood up
as well, moving to stop Kevin from leaving.
“
I promise we will do it tomorrow morning. You have my word Donna.”
The weather had changed dramatically since they had been inside the café
outside the air was green and gumball-sized raindrops fell like little liquid
turds from the roiling sky. Kevin hurried across Whiteknights Road, darting between
cabs, buses, and limousines. There was an electric flash, a bomb-like crack,
and the sky let loose a deluge. Misjudging his step, Kevin planted his foot
directly in a water-filled gutter. Rather than seek shelter under the awning of
the BP garage, he
ran across Wokingham Road to the address Sam had given him, a decrepit wooden
fronted building, The Three Tuns Kevin shook
himself like a wet dog and drew his fingers through his hair before stepping inside.
The doorman, an extremely short—one might even say midget-sized—man with a
striking magenta-dyed comb-over, led Kevin wordlessly
through the foyer, which was decorated with a series of Boucher-esque
vignettes. They entered a small, wood-paneled elevator. “Lady Garden,”
said Kevin as the doorman, now serving as elevator operator,
pulled shut the metal gate. They rose with a quiet rush to the penthouse floor.
When the elevator stopped, the doorman-elevator operator gazed down between his
shoes and Kevin wondered why he wasn’t opening the door.
“Do you think
the 1954 Columbia recording of Callas’ Tosca is her best? Or the 1960
EMI?” the little man asked with deliberation. Kevin wondered if this was some kind of test. He knew the
opera, but such subtle parsing was beyond his ken. The doorman-elevator operator
interrupted Kevin’s
nervous silence, “Because Sam said he can only listen to the 1954 but I just heard the 1960
on WNYC and it sounded pretty good to me.” He opened the metal gate. “Tell him
I said so.”
Kevin stepped
into a corridor that smelled reassuringly of soap and old books. He turned to
ask the doorman-elevator operator which apartment was Pulse’s but the
elevator had already gone, its descent measured by a little bronze arrow above
the door. He
walked up and down the thickly carpeted hallway looking and listening for tell
tale signs of the magazine’s office. Finally, he knocked hesitantly at the door
marked P-4. “Yes, I’m coming already. Keep your dick in your pants,” responded
a thickly accented voice. The door opened and a large dog bounded out, leaping
up on Kevin wantonly. “Thumper! Stop that! Keep your dirty paws
off him.”
A young man stepped out of the apartment and wrestled the dog, a poodle-like
breed with a coat of silky white curls, into submission. “Oh, I’m so sorry. He
got his dirty paws all over you.” The man said as he met Kevin’s eyes with a broad smile.
“That’s okay,”
said Kevin,
brushing off his
black trousers. When he glanced back, the man was gently petting the panting animal.
Their eyes met again and Kevin felt strangely disarmed by
his guileless grin.
A door opened
at the other end of the corridor
“Ari, haven’t
you taken Thumper out yet? Christ! Do you want him to shit inside again?” The man who spoke was
oddly dressed and his
graying hair stood out at angles as if he’d been sleeping.
“I’m going, Sam, I’m going.
Keep your dick in
your pants.” Ari winked at Kevin conspiratorially.
He attached
the dog to a leash and rang for the elevator.
“So, you must
be the fellow I spoke with this morning,” said the older man as he led Kevin down the corridor. “About the Warhol.”
“Yes, my
name’s Kevin.
Kevin Forester.”
“Good, come
in, before that little elevator troll shows up.” Sam led Kevin into
a spacious vestibule and closed the door. “Did you notice the size of his hands?” he asked.
“The doorman?”
asked Kevin.
“No, no. Dogboy.”
“Dogboy?” Kevin paused, wondering what Sam was talking about. “Oh, that guy. No,
why?” “They are huge,” said Sam, standing up on his tiptoes for effect. Sam appeared to be
in his 40s. While not unattractive, his skin was sallow and he had dark
circles under his
eyes. He
wore what looked like a Bavarian hunting outfit, gray wool trimmed with green
felt at the collar and cuffs. Kevin followed him into an
astonishing room. The walls were covered in silk brocade, alternating stripes
of blue and gold overlain with a pattern of over-sized, decaying sunflowers. He scanned the
walls: Miro, Dubuffet, Rothko, even a small Picasso set into a frame that
seemed, oddly, to have been made entirely of ping-pong balls. There were
Bierdermeier tables covered with dozens of outrageously fluted Art Nouveau
vases, Louis XVI chairs upholstered in a sumptuous fabric adorned with sinuous
marijuana leaves, and an enormous Ionic capital which supported a plexiglass
and nylon sculpture that Kevin recognized as an extremely
rare late work by the Russian Constructivist Naum Gabo. The robin’s egg blue
ceiling was covered with hundreds, if not thousands, of hand-painted red roses.
“I had Dogboy paint
those,” said Sam,
“I timed him.
One minute per rose, no more, no less.”
“Who is this,
Marian Anderson?” asked Kevin, indicating a photograph of an elegant black woman. The
frame was draped with small white Christmas lights.
“Desdemona
Draper, the woman who raised me. My nanny. She passed away this year. It was a
terrible loss.” Sam
sighed. “Can I get you something? Vodka, gin, marijuana?”
“No, thanks,”
said Kevin.
“Well, I hope
you don’t mind if I indulge,” returned Sam. He lit a small pipe and inhaled. He held his breath then
exhaled a grey-blue cloud. “I never smoked a puff until a couple of weeks ago.
That ne’er-do-well Ari turned me on to it. I can’t believe I’ve spent my entire
life without getting high. You sure you don’t want any?“ He held out the
pipe.
“Okay, a
little,” said Kevin,
not wanting to appear impolite. He lit the pipe and inhaled shallowly.
“But you came
here to see the Warhol didn’t you?” said Sam abruptly. Kevin nodded.
Sam opened
the dark door of an Elizabethan armoire and took out a small canvas. He handed it to Kevin.
The work, if
one could call it that, consisted of a brownish stain dribbled across the
surface of an off-white ground.
“There’s so
little of it, isn’t there?” observed Kevin.
“Somehow just
what one would expect, assuming it’s really his. But that’s what I need to
know. I asked Gerard Malanga and he said that it’s probably someone else’s,
that Andy never had an orgasm as far as he knew. Maybe Joey Dallesandro?” Kevin wished that he could summon some long-forgotten art history
class or hazard a deduction based on connoisseurship and years of close
looking. But this one was beyond him.
“Aside from
DNA testing, I just don’t think you can be sure. Still, with Warhol authorship,
as it were, was always meant to be somewhat in doubt. He left silkscreens lying
around the factory for anyone to knock off a print or two. Maybe he did the
same with these little canvases.”
“You mean
anybody could just jerk off onto them?”
“Well, yes,
perhaps.”
“I bought it
for a hundred and seventy-five thousand. I don’t think I’ll keep it unless
somebody can prove to me that the spluge is Warhol’s. I have no interest
otherwise.”
“The bottom
line is, you have to love it,” advised Kevin. During their conversation he had noticed
an old-fashioned medal pinned to Sam’s jacket. It had an aureole of yellow ribbons
and a central blue medallion on which Kevin could discern
a finely painted image of an animal covered with strange, multi-colored
markings.
“What’s that?”
ha asked,
pointing to the medal.
In a low
voice, Sam
replied, “The Knights of Taredd.” He studied Kevin for
a hint of recognition. Seeing none, he resumed, “A league of like-minded gentleman,
dedicated to a free and independent Cornwall. A noble and, I must say,
pointless cause.”
“I rode my
bike there once,” offered Kevin.
“I’ve left my
entire collection to the Municipal Museum of Launceston. So don’t get any
ideas.” Sam
took another hit. “Speaking of museums, how are things over there in that
concrete mausoleum of yours?” he asked.
Kevin wanted
to ask about the Boucher drawing but the pot was making him paranoid. “What
does he mean
by ‘mausoleum,’” Kevin wondered. “I’ve only been there a year and I’m still
figuring it out,” he
answered discreetly.
“You can do
better than that, Darlin’. I want dirt. When are they going to fire that dreary
man, what is it...Twill, Twine?”
“Tweed.” Kevin was not about to let on that only that afternoon the
director had indicated his position was becoming tenuous. “He’s not that bad.
Not as bad as people think.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth Kevin regretted them. “He’ll think I think people think
he’s bad,” Kevin
thought.
“Really? Do
tell.”
“He’s actually
got quite a bit of integrity.”
Sam regarded him skeptically. “What about that tits-and-ass
wife of his, a beard if I ever saw one?”
“She’s nice.
Kind of a free spirit.”
“Free
spirit...” Sam
repeated absently. He
returned the putative Warhol to the cabinet. “Can you sit for a while?”
“Sure,”
replied Kevin,
though he
was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and wished he could flee.
“And you,
Darlin’?” asked Sam
after they had settled onto a couch covered with a worn and faded tapestry.
“You’re a tad young to be the curator of the Studio 4 Museum, no?”
“I started
early,” explained Kevin.
As he
recounted the story of his success in Sacramento, Kevin began to
feel more like himself.
In fact the pot was finally paying off, giving him a sweet tinge of euphoria.
“So you did
the placemat show? Brilliant!” exclaimed Sam.
“Wow,” said Kevin, “I
didn’t think anyone saw that show, let alone someone from New York.”
“Darlin’, you
under-estimate yourself. I happen to know for a fact that the decorative arts
curator from the Met made a special trip out to Sacramento to see it. I
couldn’t go myself—I never fly—but I have the brochure.”
Sam lit the pipe, took a hit and passed it to Kevin. “What
are you working on now?” he croaked.
Kevin described
the Gullah quilt show, which Sam said sounded, “impudent but delightful.”
“And the
Biennial, of course,” Kevin added.
“Of course,
that’s right. That’s why you want to get in touch with The Lady Garden. You’re
not thinking of including them, are you?”
“Why not? I
mean...I have to see the work first, but, in principle, sure.”
“Well, they
don’t really make art, do they? It’s more of a lifestyle project, I guess you
could call it.”
“The final
Biennial checklist is due next week. If I’m going to add any more artists I
have to do it right away. I know it’s going to be a great show, but I just need
one or two more knockouts.”
“You must be
some kind of masochist to take on the Biennial. Everyone will hate it no matter
what you do.”
“Then I have
total freedom, right?”
Sam furrowed his brow. “Yes, I guess you could see it that way.
Like Pulse. I start with the
assumption that everyone thinks I’m insane then I set out to prove them right.
There’s a lot of power in being reviled.”
They were
interrupted by the sound of someone entering the apartment. Suddenly Thumper
was upon them. He leapt onto the couch where Kevin was
sitting and lapped at his face, exuding a distinct fecal odor.
Ari appeared at the French doors. “Oh, don’t let him do that.
He ate shit in the park.”
Kevin pushed
the dog off of him.
“That’s okay,” he
said, not wanting to seem overly fussy. In the light of Sam’s apartment he had a much
better view of Ari.
He
looked to be in his
mid-20s. Muscular but lithe in a panther-ish way, he exuded a Mediterranean
sexuality, like one of Picasso’s early teenage models. He leaned in the doorway with his hand on his hip, a
pose that struck Kevin
as self-consciously alluring. Thumper began humping Kevin’s leg.
Kevin checked
the time on his cell phone. It was already 7:30 and he wanted to catch Farscape
at 8. “I better be going,” he said standing and brushing off his slobber
covered pants.
“I’ll walk you
out,” said Sam.
Kevin nodded politely at Ari as he passed and was startled to feel the young man’s hand
firmly grab his
ass and squeeze. He
hurried out of the apartment without looking back.
“You like him, don’t
you?” asked Sam
when they’d made it into the corridor and stood waiting for the elevator.
“Sure. He
certainly seemed to like me well enough didn’t he? I’ll just have to wash my
face when I get home.”
Sam looked puzzled. “Not the dog, the Dogboy!” he
clarified.
“Oh, yes,”
conceded Kevin,
“An attractive specimen indeed.”
Kevin noticed that the door to the apartment he’d first
buzzed was open, as were several others along the corridor.
As if reading his mind, Sam explained, “It’s
all mine.”
When the
elevator door opened the miniature attendant took one look at Sam and launched
into Cavaradossi’s aria “O dolci mani mansuete e pure.”
“I’m going to
send you a little gift,” said Sam to Kevin as the
elevator door closed.
