Wooden merchants table, glass table top, display cloth, locks, closed eye hooks, lights, black oil wax tablecloth.
This work is based on a merchants Table that the Gallerist Antonio Sarmartino helped me find in Trappani. All parts of the original table were used in the re articulation of the table. The glass upon which the piece now stands was the counter of the table. Underneath this glass counter in blue fabric objects for sale were displayed the table top was for transactions. Additional wood was found in the municipal wood dump and brought from France England and Germany. The floats were given by a fisherman in Trapani. The table spoke of the sea. Under the table I have placed many legs most of which can only be seen indirectly in the reflection of the glass below. It is not possible to articulate the amount of migrants that drown crossing the sea, this dim refection is a visual representation of the bottomless loss in the unfathomable sea depths. Under the glass is a black oilcloth table cloth. I have worked extensively with these table cloths before. It is interesting that oil pipelines facilitate the crossing of oil across this stretch of land that is so treacherous for Africans. Many migrants spoke of clandestine night time crossings using the stars and the searchlights that "found" them. I integrated lights into the bottom of this piece as a result of these conversations. The sea is omnipresent in Trappani it appears to be such a wide open and pleasurable space. The reality is that it is a grave a locked space of trade is in the table that has a coffin like structure. In one of the locked draws under the table legs spill out stuffed in like migrants stuffed into un-seaworthy vessels. Under the table legs of all ages that have fallen into the water step over water borne boundaries. Some are misshapen as legs seen though the distortion qualities of water. The sea as a locked space of trade the people merely objects things flotsam, driftwood, under the table. And yet there is an integrity to this movement that is invisible from above, the legs are a collective of sorts the journey has an epic quality a tenacity that provokes a kind of awe. The journey is a kind of animal, perhaps a trickster animal, stepping over corpses, the sea in a coffin it's burden.
- Subject Matter: Table nr 43: Merchants Table