bout one hundred years ago, the introduction of scrap metal, spoons, and flotsam and jetsam, made its way into high art via the work of the Cubists, then Dadaists, then Surrealists. Fluxus, that hurly burly movement of the 1960s, gave keys, can openers, shoe horns, and telephone wires another chance to feature in high falutin’ artworks. And we had lists. Conceptual artists, from Mary Kelly to Dan Graham, Roman Opalka to Stanley Brouwn, itemized their doings, their comings, goings, birth and even death, in notes and performances, records, drawings, and books. A nice re-run of these movements occurred some time back. In the 80s, then 90s. Meg Cranston. Rirkrit Tiravanija. Jason Rhoades. Lists and every day stuff. Fluxus met sculpture. So now, there is Mark Hosking. This man has seen a lot of art, and in his Evening Rise, it’s clear he is a poet is an artist is a conceptual artist is a fisherman. And he knows how to make a book. The good thing about Mr. Hosking is that with all that art history he quite slyly cites, the book he makes might just be interesting to the guy on the pier. That sweaty dude over there, in the baseball cap and baggy shorts, with the styrofoam box that’s got bloody swill in the bottom. The guy who just lost his reel to a dog shark, and the blues are running, and he sees the guy next to him pulling them in. Our guy might just reach into his fishing box, and pull out Mark Hosking. And make himself a line out of that rope lying right there, and a hook out of that key, and a lure out of that pair of sunglasses someone stepped on…
CORNELIA LAUF, Rome.
