Douglas Park in GAGARIN Volume 8#1


GAGARIN
Volume 8#1 May 2007





GAGARIN
THE ARTISTS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

is an artist’s magazine (°2000), entirely dedicated to the publication of especially written and unpublished texts by artists who are now working, anywhere in the world. Each issue contains a number of artists’ writings, if possible from an equal number of countries. The texts are published in their original language and alphabetical writing, with unabridged translations in English added. Advertising and visual material are deliberately kept out.

GAGARIN is published twice a year by
GAGA vzw, Belgium
Concept & coordination: Wilfried Huet
2000 copies, 16x22cm
http://www.gagarin.be/back_issues/artist/117

Misagreement

Overpopulation of maps outnumber and exceed places and routes depicted. Compulsory decommissioning and mass hand-in surrender amnesty enforced. Contraband rolled, folding, split, cut, broken and torn up; raw loads fed inside every shredder exit other side somewhat revised; ribbons and strips get ground and crushed down to powder; any stubborn microbe snowflake confetti survivors remaining leftover become pulped, molten, leaking; outpour spills unleashed deluge flood; discharge eruption spreads far, deep, wide, rising, invincible.

Supervisory sun, moon and star light rays and beams strain, blow and push outwardly, searching, focused. Flick-switch and harp and lyre cord struck and played being megalithic lead and granite rigging, sails, flag and trailing streamers. These dependents cling onto and feed off totemic widow-maker telegraph pole; mast, driven and bolted securely through seaworthy and watertight life-raft; basket and carpet, nest-built and woven using only butterfly wings, shed petals, sloughed scales, moulted feathers and autumn leaves; platform, resting and balanced on buoyant anvil float.

Propellers, screws, paddlewheels, turbine-jets, oars and rudders frantically stir, whisk, churn, shake, unsettle and scramble murky stagnancy so much they bring about rebirth, cleansing, freshness and purity, all anew.

This laundry steam-iron and heavy-duty pile-driver trouser-presses and panel-beats often turbulent billowing waves ridden over; perseverance kept up, sustained, constant; until even, flat, smooth, slow, calm, nearly still.

Blades and teeth in the galley conduct precision-surgery removal, uplifting vast liquid sheets; entire skins scraped and taken right away from support; same operations incise and engrave bite-mark potholes into marine surface; also, burial-mound molehill blisters stay malingering around after them.

Chained anchor cast -albeit forwards and aloft, flown as kite. Clouds landed upon, caught and grabbed stretch tether tight, pulling hard enough, their sheer traction drags and steers craft along.

Oceans, by now run out and grown tired of, coast and shore on dry land is sought, then found. Steep cliffs, high rooftops, mountain peaks, obstacles, conquests scaled, crossed, passed, left behind. Sadly, leash retracts, vessel ends up stranded and soon forgotten in the sky.

©, Copyright, Douglas Park, 2007

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