http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/metaconstruct1984.

html

http://bbrace.net/Metaconstruct.html

The MetaConstruct: series of 13 evanescent

installations.

Various photographic details from the installations:

1979-86

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...part of a series of an original that never

existed...

[The following file is, as you will see, from a printed

Proposal sent in

1984 to dozens of art galleries primarily in North

America. It is of some

interest as it espouses and enacts a method for the

creation of a great

life-enhancing narrative, full of situationist-drift and

revision. There

was marginal financial, political and critical support

for this project at

the time. The various series of art-objects are

occasionally altered but

 they usually remain sequestered in beautiful cork-lined,

shellacked,

plywood boxes. If you have any questions/comments they

can be directed to

bbrace@eskimo.com.

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*** M E T A C O N S T R U C T

(Art-objects carry their own space

The corporate-interior is its own image Tattoos

all ablaze)

An open letter to the Gallery Curator/Selection

Committee:

Having no commercial or institutional

representation, (an unusual

choice these days) I am writing to you directly with the

hope of procuring

an Installation engagement in the Gallery at your

earliest convenience.

You are welcome to retain this promotional material as

long as required.

Included are a resume, documentation, imagery,

and texts which I

feel most effectively re-presents the intentions of the

Work. There are no

slides! The use of conventional slide documentation would

either

obliterate the intentions of the Work or would merely

serve as a

temporary refuttal of the convention.

The documentation that I have chosen to employ

consists of reduced

xeroxed/photographic details, or stills from (thus far)

eleven

interdependent installations occurring over the last few

years. These

amalgamated details enable the viewer to reconstruct for

his/herself the

`metafictional' conditions of the total installations.

(While the Gallery

 allows an emergence of a potential poetic structure, each

gallery is

architecturally and historically specific; but at a given

point in time is

also socially deemed to be the equivalent of any other

gallery. The

installations chart a course through a infinite series of

art galleries.)

The method (in retrospect) whereby one Installation (any

exhibition is an

installation) is seen to collapse into the remains of the

others (hence

the intermingling and juxtaposition of various

photographic fragments in

the documentation) is not unlike the method (means) I

employ to arrive at

a subsequent installation (in this case, the twelfth).

At any time, the `work itself' can be understood

to consist of

varying quantities, (positionings/juxtapositions), and

inclusions from a

number of installation Components. The number of

available Components has

gradually increased, and each is subject to continual re-

vision,

reassessment, and modification as required. The

specificity of their

inclusion within (and as a part of) the confines of a

particular

gallery-space provides an elucid, poetic, encapsulation

of the Present.

(And in so doing, suggests for me, future alterations and

additions to

the Components.)

Appropriate written descriptions of the

Components are included

herewith. Some pictorial sense of their past qualities

may also be gleaned

from the enclosed fragmentary photographic documentation;

but only at the

peril of understanding an imaginary present exclusively

in terms of the

past. And yet, this all-too-human condition is also

perhaps, an adequate

definition of Poetry. How else can we know who we are?

Certainly we cannot

continue to afford to exclusively relegate this essential

basic need to
 the vulgarities of a stifled marketplace and the

maddening certainty of a

technocracy. The inflated price of such a reversal of

fortune is high. It

is no less than a nurtured trust in individuals over the

singular

homogeneity of an eclipsed Modernist culture.

The Work will continue in any event, but I hope

you are able to

afford me with the opportunity and some financial means

(it is of course

essential that I am present to install the work) to

construct a specific

realization at the Gallery in the all-too-distant future.

I think you`ll

see that I cannot provide you in advance with a specific

itemization or

description of the proposed installation. It would

necessarily be

inaccurate and improbable on a number of counts. I can

only indicate what

the work has been by means of this proposal and trust

that you will find

 the material interesting enough to allow the work to

continue in the

direction of your gallery. If your response is positive

please inform me

of the future dates of the installation, send a contract,

and provide a

floorplan and photographs of the exhibition space. I will

provide a Title

and if required, a short text, in time to meet any

publication deadlines.

An allowance of at least 3-4 days is required for the

installation proper.

An agreement concerning accommodation arrangements,

transportation costs,

artist fee, and printing costs for the mailer/invitation

can be reached

based on the resources of the gallery and art agencies.

This proposal is perhaps unavoidably and

appropriately slanted

towards the empirical nature of the Work and its re-

presentation in its

present form. The poetic and whimsical nature of the Work

is equally

prevalent at the actual time of the realized installation

. I trust that

you will have adequate time to peruse the following pages

and can lend

your support to this endeavor.

Thank-you.

Sincerely,

Brad Brace.

November 13, 1984

[ All the following components still exist. They are

housed in cork-lined,

shellacked, plywood boxes situated in various Public

Storage facilities.

Occasionally I make alterations, some day there may be an

invitation for a

formal exhibition. The following descriptions are

unencumbered by

punctuation and standard capitalizations.]

**COMPONENTS:
 (a) STICKS The Sticks speak for themselves

Whittled eight foot lengths of Pine An atavism of Painted

Plank Ptgs and

photographed Verticals Currently painted a high gloss

Black Displayed in a

near vertical position Single Corner Cluster Evenly

Spaced Sporadic

increase in quantity To be joined by Greys Yellow and

White Sea Gull Non

Signifying Objects The periods of the Immediate Past

(b) NUMERALS Charred Western Red Cedar 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 0 Accidentally break forming additional fragments

Take from all

things their number and all shall perish The cessation of

Time The

consumption of ordering systems

(c) COGNIZANCE Stencils derived from the predivided

Frontal Image

paintings Flat grey primer spray paint on gallery walls

and Ground Tone

Cardinal Afterimage How societies represent themselves

and are themselves

shaped by these representations Causitive Formation

Morphokineticism De

divina proportione

(d) GROUND TONE Usually requires about a gallon of semi

gloss latex

applied to the gallery walls A singular subjective colour

Tecnica di

Spruzzatura

(e) FRONTAL IMAGE PAINTINGS Basic Forms Extracted Selves

Mirrored Identities Cut plywood forms derived from

various Aspects of anthropometric area bounded for

example by edges of jacket and neckline An Identity

reduced to an implicit perspective Repeatedly painted Oil

base Years allowing the paint to shift slightly before

drying Slightly Concave Varying in scale and actual shape

Small gelatin fish lie in the surfaces Were vertically

divided in Two and rejoined with Other sections Janus

Destiny Receive a specific painting treatment for a

particular installation Eventually cast in glass A fish

devoid of memory incapable of thought Aquarium He once

painted a portrait of Vollard the Paris art dealer It

 required 115 sittings and when it was finished Cezanne

said The front of the shirt isn`t bad

(f) TRELLII Dead Branches Fountain Originally a trellis

with the

horizontal members removed A flexible template

occasioning ebony pencil

and turpentine drawings on gallery walls Wing Now also as

six models Fir

pine and redwood White prime finish Commercial Green

Enamel i Fan Flair 24

pieces 116 flat brass screws ii Windmill 45 pieces 186

flat brass screws

iii Diamond X 31 pieces 126 flat brass screws iv Flair 16

pieces 64 flat

brass crews v Colonial Wider Stock 19 pieces 72 flat

brass screws vi

Georgian Wider Stock 20 pieces 74 flat brass screws

Equations of Time

Reverse equations of Space

(g) PICTURES First comprised of scattered but

systematically related white shapes laminated on clear

plexiglass
 rectangles Small pictorial spectres A little fragment

borrowed from the

truth throughout the shapes are provided with an edge

from very thin coats

of white plaster which extend to provide each white shape

with its own

sense of directive surface which is further enhanced by

the thin plastic

lamination Simulated White Age Building around the first

impressions The

Momentum of Inertia Next in the form of long tall picture

columns

embodying several systems pale blue shapes on silver

aluminum painted

black paper To isolate and excessively schematize the

moment of

intellectual abstraction With further passage of time

once familiar scenes

flattened out Graphic Arts Term of Close Cutting

elimination of background

(h) HOOKS Silver Coat Hooks Ectoplasm

(i) PROJECTIONS Projected Dominoes Carousels of eighty

one 35mm

transparencies Prophetic or sacred malady i Blue

Universal Film Leader Two

frames per mount ii White Uniforms Chronic and thus

destined to continue Ends with the death of the patient

The sacrifice and consecration of the self for those who

come after iii Glassware and Circular Mirrors (j) OTHERS

Trace elements Residual items subject to subsequent

incorporation Small Used Landscapes Conch shells Gleaming

Tusks Dominoes

et al

(k) VISIONS Speculative factors Spruce parting strips

painted alternately

in shifting white and black bars Course of Events House

of Formation White

Plastic Domes WhiteBlack painted triangles Mounted on

blue moulding with

fringe Saw tooth picture hangers I could see that

happening Beyond

intentions to fallacies or failings Involuntary Memory

Next inset in

longer wider sections of mouldings Be that as it may

Possibly combined
 with Landscapes

(l) CENTREPIECES Double Standards Also with spruce

parting strips painted

alternately With inserted broken cross pieces Hands and

blades all black

and white Bulls fighting and a man hunting boars in a

thicket Integrated

on spiral sections or mounted on a high gloss yellow

textured lozenge boat

shape in progress Standards Vertebrae Conjunctions

chandelier Totem

Erections The Reversibility of Events

(m) LIGHTS Umbilical cords Serpents Existing gallery

fixtures are not

employed A string of Incandescent lights Hanging Sockets

Temporary indoor

outdoor lighting Construction Patio Used Car A series of

vacuums Tightly

wrapped with #4 Butchers Twine Blue Flood Light Stream of

absent minded

thoughts Vergil A yellow flickering flame in a garage

lamp
 (n) THE PROLIFERATION Marble off-cuts Clear glass marbles

Speech (And the

possibility of Fiction To be published)

(o) HIGH GLOSS QUARTERS Seven Seas Panels Originally an

eight foot square

plywood studio table top cut into Eight approximate

Quarters Edges are

rounded Carry a smooth substantial surface of Flecto

varathane Plastic Enamel Colours The Tomorrow Finish

Currently have flat white stencil anamorphoric images of

a clown face Aura splayed across the surface Previously

leaned against walls now in the form of very low small

tables 4inch orbit 2 position Furniture Legs Some panels

are to be repainted and a new stencil image applied Polar

Bear Head Rear Leaping Tiger Half Flame Parrot

(p) HORIZON Derived from the 1979 exhibition Catch A blue

snapped chalk

line which horizontally divides the gallery inhalf

Perimeter The line

begins and ends from the midpoint of the greatest

vertical rise in the

 installation space This site of no return when the escape

velocity is

equal to that of light is called the event horizon It

forms a one way

membrane around the collapsing matter allowing things in

but not out

(q) VOICES & BELL Pretransitor Radio Local? Rudimentary

culture The

mechanization of post literate acoustic space

(r) EFFIGIES Tomato cages Martyr Turquoise shimmey Geo-

synchronist orbits

Immaculate conceptions Conjectures Objective Correlate

Impersonations

Trans Figuring Figuration Derived from truncated Frontal

Images El Greco

Dynamic Metallic Copper Leaf Finish Paint Urethane Finish

Blue Incised

Enamel Lines Flat Black Varathane Triangular Shaped

Masonite te Three

Triangular Cuts Bound in Copper Magnet Wire Accumulates

Imagines Masks

Ancestors The closing days of the Saturnalia The negative

moment of a

Tendency The mystique of purity

(s) TELEVISUAL SCULPTURE And Drapery Fabric of Reality

Blue Painted Wood

Construct In the Wake of Codes Collective Amnesia The

essential absence of

subject A distilled absence of memory In Progress

Television as travelling

medicine show Inhalations Steps (as across sound-stage)

(t) MELANCHOLY A future component Saturn and Moons Photo

Reproduction As

eight large ellipsi paintings Constellations Celestial

Bodies Ceremonial

Drums A goat skin stretched over a hollow log becomes a

living membrane

for the ancestral voices

(u) ELECTRO MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES Mechanisms for

Disbelief Interventions

Mitigating Circumstances i Fall red braided hair spinning

from point on

the ceiling The taste for action for action's sake the
dynamism inherent

in the very idea of movement can in fact drive itself

beyond the point of

control by any convention or reservation ii Fear a

suspended rattling

teacup iii Fan sky blue sky nine inch Boxer fan

Nihilistic Moment Obscure

Self Ruin The terror of balance The balance of terror

(v) LANDSCAPES Formerly Paradise Panels Originally eight

four by eight

tempered masonite panels Could form one large tropical

photoreproduction

Initially a backdrop for the Sticks Then in the forms of

a few hundred

long rectangular panels Currently the panels are cut into

arched shapes The bottom dimension remains linear while

the arc itself is cut along a freehand line Now assembled

tripled up with keystone Drilled domino eye

configurations and joins are filled with putty

Worked into highly detailed oil paintings Wall mounted

with Brass Tentor

Hooks The sky panels are lost Proscenium Aquaduct Distant

Detail
 Phenomenologically Picturesque Distant Hills Oasis South

Seas Unknown

Territory Unoccupied Future

(w) DECOYS ANCHORS BRIDGES In progress Cut filed sanded

pine plywood

constructions Shelved up close to ceiling or positioned

on gallery floor

at interstices of projected grid Tooth Miracle prodigy

and portent Cones

Cast aluminum castings of pine cones Scale Clock weight

Rectangle of the

Whirling Squares Pineal gland

(October 1984)

**XEROX DOCUMENTATION:

Photographic Details

Records of Existence

Mnemonic Aids

[There are approximately two-thousand 35mm images from

these installations. Soon to be colorized and available

 online.]

**EVANESCENT INSTALLATIONS:

.i REMUDA Eye Level Gallery, 1672

Barrington Street,

Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1981

.ii D'ACCORD Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1889

Granville Street,

Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1981

.iii CARNIVALE Mercer-Union Gallery, 29 Mercer

Street,

Toronto, Ontario. 1981

.iv FLURRY Great George Street Gallery, 88

Great George

Street, Charlottetown, P.E.I.

1982
 .v CADENZA Centre for Art Tapes Gallery,

1671 Argyle Street,

Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1982

.vi IOTA Eye Level Gallery, 1585

Barrington Street,

Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1982

.vii RENT YYZ Gallery, 116 Spadina Avenue

Toronto, Ontario. 1983

.viii SAVA Off Centre Centre Gallery, 118

8th Avenue S.E.,

Calgary, Alberta. 1983

.ix KNOX Plug/In Gallery, 175 McDermot

Avenue,

Winnipeg, Manitoba. 1983

.x L'AURA Struts Gallery, 11 West Main

Street,

Sackville, New Brunswick. 1984

.xi INFINITO A.K.A. Gallery, 813B Broadway

Avenue,

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. 1984

[ Two subsequent installations took place in Ottawa,

Ontario, 1985 and

Windsor, Ontario, 1986. ]

**Kurt Schwitters: Merzbau (detail), in his

own home in Hannover, started about

1924, destroyed in World War II.

***ADJACENT TEXTS:

An idealistic striving toward a paradoxical and

improbable classicism.

At any time, the Work consists of a number of Components

which are subject

to Continual re-vision, reassesssment, and modification

so as to encourage

a Synthesis of these essentially dissimilar Components

(possessing

conceivably individual histories) with in a theoretical

shell of an
 Archetypal Exhibition: As Single Entity.

Nomadic Distributions. Consecrated Anarchy. Far from

being a new

foundation, it swallows up all foundations, it assures a

universal

collapse but as a positive and joyous event. The power of

Affirming Chaos,

Divergence, and Decentring. Heterogeneous series

(`complicating' within

itself all series). Continually eccentric circle with a

constantly

decentred centre.

The nonhierarchical work is a condensation of

coexistences, a simultaneity

of events. Identity persists, but it is produced as the

law that

complicates all series, causing them to return within

each one as the

course of compulsion.

The Work has sought to be a product of the manners and

places in which it
 is seen.

The speculator is playing a mathematical game into a set

of random events.

An Insatiable project, endlessly producing and consuming

`systems',

metaphorhaunted classifications of an ultimately opaque

reality.

The set of objects the gallery displays is sustained only

by the fiction

that they somehow constitute a coherent representational

universe. The

fiction is that a repeated metonymic displacement of

fragment for

totality, object to label, series of objects to series of

labels, can

still produce a representation which is somehow adequate

to a

nonlinguistic universe. Such a fiction is the result of

an uncritical

belief in the notion that ordering and classifying, that

is to say, the
 spatial juxtaposition of fragments, can produce a

representational

understanding of the world.

Ideally these Interdependent Installations can chart the

course of the

cultural Mould in today`s Age of Scandal, Strategy,

Style, and Social

Reform; bearing witness to the current Generalized

Cultural Implosion

which heralds Schizophrenia as the new Emancipatory

Principle. A Shared

World.

Thus its validity is limited to generalized unstable

orientations,

cultural situations more in potential than in execution,

to tendencies in

a fluid or raw state.

The role of the Exhibition is Speculative and is an

engaging Intrusion

into the Systemic development of Constructed ideas.

 A matter of different and divergent narratives, as though

to each point of

view there corresponded an absolutely distinct landscape.

``For a long time I`ve prided myself on possessing all

possible landscapes

and I`ve thought the fame of modern poetry and painting

laughable.''

The tragedy of desire is that it must perpetually seek

without

satisfaction and ultimately can desire only itself.

Desire`s desire for

itself is in the space between the subject`s eye and the

object of

excitation. This voyeurist distance symbolically and

spatially evokes the

fundamental rent of the self.

Thus, the dialectic of Components is transformed into a

system of almost

metaphysical relations. Such a system, even though it is

only an effect or

product, is transmitted in turn to a cause, and then

exercises on the

conditions generating it an influence both formative and

deforming. It

becomes a dogma and a mystique, transforming avant garde

praxis into

principle and doctrine.

``You may seek it with thimbles -- and seek it with

care;

You may hunt it with forks and hope;

You may threaten its life with a railway-share;

You may charm it with smiles and soap--''

In recent years, accumulating data have firmly shown that

one key mental

faculty, called crystallized intelligence, continues to

rise over the life

span. Crystallized intelligence is a person`s ability to

use accumulated

bodies of general information to make judgements and

solve problems.

The public that understands is not formed within a

socially or
 intellectually privileged order, the unique repository of

knowledge and

taste, but away from any centre, an almost unforeseeable

diaspora of

isolated intelligences.

Japanese scientists have recorded phenoma which indicate

elementary

particles such as protons, which some scientists say

exist forever,

disintegrate into smaller particles.

Within these basic series a sort of internal

reverberation is produced, a

resonance that induces a forced movement that overflows

the series

themselves.

In a so-called open universe, everything will just expand

forever.

The symbolic interventions of the avant-garde now

represent neither the

refusal nor any critique of reality, but are used to

represent that

reality as a dislocated complex of free-floating

signifiers.

This is art as a collision and a cry, which searches

among the facts for

the point of fracture and boundary, for the point where

the fury of the

individual crosses into history and the social realms in

opposition to and

criticism of the monstrous universe of conformity.

And so Culture is everywhere, since artifice encompasses

the very heart of

reality. And so Culture is as good as dead (Post Modern)

not only because

its critical transcendence is gone, but because reality

itself, entirely

impregnated by an aesthetic which is inseparable from its

own structure,

has been confused with its own image. Reality no longer

has the time to

take on the appearance of reality.

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http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/metaconstruct1984.html

bbrace@eskimo.com

http://bbrace.net/Metaconstruct.html

The MetaConstruct: series of 13 evanescent

installations.

Various photographic details from the installations:

1979-86