Véronique Vassiliou from
n.o. LE DÉTOURNEMENT
I maintain the stage is a tangible, physical place that needs to be filled & it ought to be allowed to speak its own concrete language. —Antonin Artaud, “Production and Metaphysics,” The Theatre and its Double
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N.O. is also noh, drama, lyricism and Japan. It is religion, tradition, rite, whitened figures whose gestures succeed one another in fits and starts in an ever repeating order. And it is the waki, the one who observes and recounts, who doesn’t perform, who takes no part in the story, who remains in the margin.
N.O. is nihil obstat, that which permits whatever is permissible, which authorises and prevents, the frame and its limits, the constraint. That which is before being imprinted, before being given to be read.
“I tear the flap from the carton—a crude, messed-up one (it was lying outside. It had got wet and then dried out)—wrench hard at it. I separate the outer layers of cardboard from the inner layer of corrugations (I set it aside for future use, for other tearings. Or perhaps I will coat it with juice, with thinned paint, the colour diluted, faded against the dominating surface). The rest is folded, broken up and stuffed in a black plastic bag.”
ELEVENTH CLUE (GESTURES)
“Even before looking, before seeing … They grab the price list and scrutinise it. Only then do they cast a glance at one or two canvases. Then they return to the catalogues, make enquiries with the dealer about the artist’s development and, finally, go and take a bit of a closer look at what’s on show.”
ANOTHER CLUE