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Gluckman’s Gallery

by Brina

Observing & collecting; if that’s all artists ever do, it’s enough.

From the outside its murky shadows are not predictable or cheap. They do not resemble the high-tech of the present, even if the grey aluminium engulfing it, might suggest otherwise.

Walk in, jump up the stairs, determinant as a Robin’s Hood charity troop – those metallic blocks peeking from every side, we lure back at them. I play hide & seek for a moment with my companion at the time.

A girl told me on one occasion later that the material they use- aluminium block is rather cheap. It’s the shaping of it that’s extremely expensive, the machines with which they frame it, bend it to their own pleasing, for the masterpiece of a hall. She knows, because her uncle has a manufacturing company – he spent a fortune on those buggers.

You don’t have to think about it.

The great Lee flows under the gallery space, I’m trying to get a better view by exchanging triangle framed windows for the rectangular ones. My friend is messing around with the camera, always trying to capture the moments. If she’d only stay still, she’d be capturing it in her mind’s eye.

I remember once before she left for the other side of the ocean, her side of the ocean: We were leaning against the fence of the military barracks we ended up that night. The dawn was extending its fierce grip towards the backyard, approaching our ears and necks, still cold from the sleepless night. The last sleepless night for this duo at least. The uncertainty. “It’s a shame I don’t have my camera with me.”, she said with a worrisome face & eagerness in her voice. I thought that was so wrong, yet tried not to abrupt her Japanese obsession with high-tech. I struggled not to undermine her enthrallment, although it was hard to stop my shattered face from bursting out laughing. Grimace was shining through, and the catastrophe was about to break, but I managed to keep the pause and (gulp) said “Well, what can you do.” , as compassionately as I could.

As for me, images blend with sounds and stories and I could never represent them using camera only. Doing a huge injustice to their visual entity perhaps, I never stored them alone. Ten years from now we’d remember the things we didn’t photograph.

And now I see the wooden floor, parquet reflecting the light in a funky play of beams.

There was an exhibition. There must have been one. Oh yes, and then the guards came and politely asked not to use the camera. Told us we couldn’t use the camera in this object. Not on the paintings, not anywhere else in the gallery. Not even on the huge drops of glass above the staircase that were falling down like tears from the ceiling. I wasn’t aware that the building was a masterpiece of contemporary architecture. To me it was just a labyrinth. David Bowie’s labyrinth of disco elves from the 80s, Borges’ labyrinth of knowledge in different languages. The halls jingled as the feet moved about. In the dark rooms, the videos were shown: man, sitting in the bathtub with a Johnny Cash’s cover of an industrial band NIN. John Frusciante on the guitar, I knew all the useless fact once again and was happy to freak out my new accompaniment for the time being. She just nodded in confirmation and exclaimed she liked the song. She wasn’t up for any discussion so I shut up cautiously.

Further up, running up the echoing stairs there was a fine overview on the river. Right then, every baffled observer could witness the crime. Lee was swallowing Campus in front of our eyes, or even better, underneath our feet. Miss Lee was having it all planned out, conducting the worst crimes of the century, and all that people could ever do was to sigh or muse over some breathtaking scenery.

Cool glass windows tinkled when stroked by wind’s hand. Such a massive object almost singing to the weather interlude, what a ridicule I would have thought if I wasn’t so easily distracted. Somebody came by to say it was about closing time, and my busy feet should encounter other terrains.

As I ran down the stairs to catch the evening sun, impressions scent in my hair. Invisible footprints of those who entered this complex of wood and steel before me. Those who are yet to come leave even more invisible traces, for now marked by anticipation only. But back then we were not silly tourists, our bewildered selves came here to explore.