How My Book Got Slashed In London's Tate Modern
How My Book Got Slashed In London's Tate Modern
by Richard S. Ehrlich
BANGKOK, Thailand -- London's Tate Modern museum recently discovered a woman who, wielding a sharp blade, obsessively cut more than 80 words from 123 books, including our nonfiction tome, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.
She mutilated the books, amputating words in a relentless surgery of slicing and dicing. When she finally laid down her tool, the slashed books' pages looked as if they were paper shrapnel, salvaged from a crime scene after a schizoid word-killer, armed with a Wanchai meat cleaver, had chopped away words that were ripe with special meaning known only to the artist, and perhaps to conspiratorial Illuminati who might be visiting the Tate.
Conceptual artist Simryn Gill's pile of meticulously plundered books ultimately became an installation at the Tate Modern called, perhaps ironically, "Untitled (2006)."
What fate would next befall our beloved book? Would it be crucified and submerged in a glass of urine, similar to the "Piss Christ" by American photographer Andres Serrano? Or chopped and hoisted like one of Damien Hirst's dead sharks?
"Simryn Gill's 'Untitled
(2006)' is made from over 100 books and pamphlets arranged
into a specific order by the artist, and displayed so that
viewers can leaf through them," the Tate says on its
illustrated website
"Alongside pocket
guides, manuals and directories -- which classify items as
varied as venomous snakes, islands, combat vehicles and
invasive plants -- there are books on popular psychology,
botany, religion and politics, as well as volumes of poetry
and fiction. From this wide-ranging selection of books, the
artist has chosen over 80 words, all of which have been
systematically torn out of each book. Gathered into
groups, the culled words are presented as specimens, or
collections, in transparent packages, with the publications
from which they have been taken," says the Tate. The 123
books chosen by Ms. Gill for the Tate Modern's March 18 –
May 7, 2006 exhibit also included books by or about Bob
Dylan, Hunter S. Thompson, Salman Rushdie, Sylvia Plath,
Richard Brautigan, George Bernard Shaw, R. D. Laing and
others. After cutting into the 123 books, Ms. Gill placed
the targeted words in separate, clear plastic bags, as if
they were evidence. For example, she filled up one plastic
bag with the word "because," so it became a bag full of
because. Could this be symbolic of when people mouth a lot
of reasons, they are simply offering a bunch of
"because"? "For the Level 2 Gallery, Gill has created a
thought-provoking installation from a collection of books
assembled over many years. Ranging from pulp fiction to
academic writings, these publications provide the raw
material which Gill then uses to tease out a supposedly
'neutral' set of words," the Tate adds. To create "Hello
My Big Big Honey!", Canadian screenwriter Dave Walker and I
collected love letters written by men in Europe, the States
and elsewhere, who returned home after falling for Bangkok's
bar girls. Men were airmailing their hearts and
confessions in envelopes, sometimes with money, to the Thai
women they previously rented. We deleted everyone's names,
and published the men's best love letters alongside our Q
and A interviews with Thai bar girls, a Thai translator who
became the girls' mentor, and a Thai professor. In an
expanded American edition, we included interviews with a
bar's mama-san and three very outspoken bar owners -- a
Thai, a Brit and an American -- plus 25 color photos. The
text is extremely graphic because we didn't censor the
letters or interviews. "Hello My Big Big Honey!" examines
love, sex, money, tourism, AIDS, Buddhism, Thai culture,
family life, betrayal, trust, and a lot of West-bonks-East
confusion. I was ecstatic our book was exhibited in the
rarified Tate, and told friends and colleagues who reacted
in all sorts of ways, even though none of us saw the
installation: "Time to get you a beret and cig holder," a
Canadian photographer advised. A New Yorker touring
London said, "I went by there yesterday in hope of
personally witnessing this -- and ideally, sneaking a photo
for you -- but I only had half an hour before I had to meet
someone, and they charge 10 pounds to get in. Oh well." A
French editorial cartoonist was less enthusiastic about the
cut-ups, and suggested, "She should have done it with a
Bible, a Koran, and a Torah. Free worldwide publicity and
a fatwa. I'm kind of old fashion when it comes to art. Too
much nonsense stuff with conceptual art. Just shit in the
exhibition gallery instead of your usual bathroom and
that's it, it's 'Art'. It's more easy to cut words from
others' books than actually writing a book. I would not
feel honored if she was doing this with my work," he
sniffed. Ms. Gill however is now hailed as, "My Big Big
Gill With Delightful Membrane!" at a small shrine honoring
her -- decked with purple incense, wooden doll heads, a
spherical prism, and fake currency to be burned if she ever
dies -- all wedged into a Shiva altar near my desk here in
Bangkok. Googling Ms. Gill reveals a lot about her work
and life, but not an email address to interview her about
which words she chose, and how our book inspired her. She
was born in Singapore in 1959, grew up in Port Dickson,
Malaysia, and currently resides in Sydney, Australia. In an
exhibit titled, "Forest," she tore out pages from other
famous books, cut them to resemble twigs and leaves, and
stuck them in various locations around Singapore and Port
Dickson, including an empty Chinese hotel, a mangrove swamp
and a tapioca stall along a road, and photographed the
results. In "Pearls," she created big, hard beads from
spirals of words printed on paper, and strung the beads of
text into necklace-like strands. If you're wondering what
you should be reading, the 123 books in her "Untitled
(2006)" offer lots of Asia-related titles, including: Richard S. Ehrlich
is the Bangkok-based special correspondent for
international media, and has reported from Asia for the past
28 years. "Hello My Big Big Honey!" is available via
Amazon.com or by order at any bookshop (the new, expanded
American edition is ISBN 0867194731). Excerpts are online
via Ehrlich's website http://www.geocities.com/asia_correspondent
– Blue Monkish, by Zai Kuning, 1996
– Stick and
Leaf Insects of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, by Paul
D. Brock, 1999
– The Day of the Triffids, by John
Wyndham, 1954
– The Power of Movement in Plants, by
Charles Darwin, 1880
– Poisonous Snakes of the World:
A Manual for Use by U.S. Amphibious Forces, by the
Department of the Navy, 1965
– Barrack Room Ballads,
by Rudyard Kipling, 1914
– The Coconut, by Edwin
Bingham Copeland, 1931
– Old Goa, by S. Rajagopalan,
1987
– Running in the Family, by Michael Ondaatje,
1984
– Report On The Trial of Xanana Gusmao in Dili,
East Timor, by the International Commission of Jurists,
1993
– The Chronicles of Gujarat, by Captain A. C.
Elliot ISC, 1970
– The Asian Highway: A Complete
Overland Guide from Australia to Europe, by Jack Jackson
and Ellen Crampton, 1979
– An Approach to Vedanta, by
Christopher Isherwood, 1963
– In Good Faith, by
Salman Rushdie, 1990
– Oriental Despotism, by Karl A.
Wittfogel, 1957
– Life the Goal, by J. Krishnamurti,
1928
– Tranquilisation with Harmless Herbs, by Eric
F. W. Powell, 1974
– Chinese Magic and Superstition
in Malaya, by Leon Comber, 1960
– Heart of Darkness,
by Joseph Conrad
– Cambodia in the South East Asian
War, by Malcolm Caldwell and Lek Tan, 1973