Moyra Davey at Murray Guy
Image above: ©Moyra Davey, Oozing Wall (Tape), 2014, C-print, 24 x 20 inches, Edition of 5 / Courtesy of Murray Guy
Images above: ©Sang Ha Park, Opening night, Bottom right: Janice Guy
A kind of stubbornness made me read Funeral Rites in its entirety. I both hate and love the book, and in a puerile fashion drew up ‘good’ and ‘bad’ columns to keep track of my thoughts.
Image above: ©Moyra Davey, Liberty Empire, 1996–2015, Framed gelatin silver print / Courtesy of Murray Guy
I’d also been thinking about the author’s obsession with certain photographs of murderers and thieves, and snapshots of loved ones. In prison he fashioned a montage on the back of the rules board posted in his cell, affixing photos cut from magazines and newspapers, and drawing colored stars around his favorites. He could take this small placard under the blankets at night and live out his fantasies undetected. We learn of this montage in Our Lady of the Flowers…
Image above: ©Moyra Davey, Four Trees, 2016, 4 c-prints, tape, postage, ink / Courtesy of Murray Guy
At some point it crossed my mind to make my own version of the inverted rules board, and so I began with a giant photograph I call ‘Oozing Wall.’ This relic of an image from 1991 became the backdrop for a series of retrospective tableaux—compositions that might be thought of as talismanic, votives to persons past and present.
Image above: ©Moyra Davey, Newspaper, Coffee, 2015-16, 12 c-prints, tape, postage, ink / Courtesy of Murray Guy
“The task is to fill the empty page,” wrote Derek Jarman.
I am filling the empty page and I am also trying to make it count, trying to ‘risk’ something, as did Jarman. But my situation is different; I am not desperate, there is not the same urgency I felt after being diagnosed. I have immodestly spoken of my own “modest blindness,” and like Borges, I know the allure of confession.
Image above: ©Moyra Davey, Notes on Blue, 2015, HD video with sound, 28 minutes, Edition of 5 / Courtesy of Murray Guy
Moyra Davey: 7 Albums is on view at Murray Guy until May 21, 2016 at 453 West 17th Street New York, NY
