HEALING WOUNDS

4 hour non stop performance/installation at Pyramid Art Centre, Rochester, New York.

28 January 1984

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Using found discarded objects from the ‘back room’ of the gallery, MacLennan arranged and rearranged the things around him while conversing with the gallery visitors. Included were a dustbin, a ladder, a cooker, paper, electrical cords, street signs, rubbish, dead fish, and so on. The performance lasted 4 hours – from noon to 4pm.

‘The found objects were ‘wounded’ by use and by the decision to dispose of them. MacLennan used a strategy, shared by many sculptors at this time, to reverse “the death of an object” by imbuing it with another type of existence, i.e. as art. Art thus is understood as a type of therapeutic healing.’

Text from ‘Alastair MacLennan: Is No’, ed. Stephen Snoddy, 1988.