June 28, 2016
Aidan Koch / leva Kraule Custom Framing for Hester Gallery, NYC
We are excited that Frames and Stretchers got to frame Aidan Koch's artwork for the two person show: Aidan Koch, Ieva Kraule - The person you are trying to reach is not available / Hester Gallery, NYC.
The person you are trying to reach is not available
Aidan Koch, Ieva Kraule
June 3–July 3, 2016
Memories of I.
Now time slips through I.'s fingers as a lamprey from the red washing bowl, as a nine-eyed eel who slides down the drain hoping to escape his certain death in stove enclosed by his own bitter juices. Slippery sucker. Look into his round sucking hole – this is where the time goes. This is between then and then - this is the real now. A fraction of second sucked into a dirty black hole, into the slippery lamprey. It’s sucking out the blood of the living as well as rotting corpses at the bottom of the sea. He will swallow present and past as one.
Image courtesy of Hester, NYC
I. slides her hand over the long snake. Feels the temptation. Temptation of the
first woman. Feels the urge to catch the time, to grab it, to slide down her throat.
To be the master of past and future. But the lamprey slips through her fingers
into the bathtub and down the drain.
Image courtesy of Hester, NYC
Then time was slower. Then I. had enough time to have some say, enough time
to braid opinion into her long blonde hair. Enough time to discover. But now
there are only faded memories of different self. Memories brake I. into pieces,
they confuse. A finger on the old leather, small feet on the dock dried by the
white sun, smell of saltwater on sunburn skin. Fear of getting stuck in the wide
gaps. Gaps of the dock, gaps of the train tracks, gaps leading to cold nothingness
or sudden collision. Tongue tied child spitting out candy filled with vodka in
the same tub where the time went. Same face in the mirror above it. Is it same or
are there many?
Image courtesy of Hester, NYC
I. cuts lemon in half. Puts it in the cup together with two teaspoons of sugar and
some boiling water. German TV commercials and a slice of white bread with
melting butter. Grandma is still in the kitchen. When I. didn't know how to read
she sat next to the window and turned pages pretending to be smart, all grown
up. Now she is doing the same – bored of reading - so much reading in all these
years - she now buys books to read only few pages, to put them in shelves, to
pretend to be smart. But she doesn't want to be grown up any more – she
despises past on her skin, past on her body. I. on all fours. She is not really there.
I. tangled by arms. She is not really there. Strangers arms. Pink Panther's arms.
Now she is there. Long and lean arms. Pink. Flesh pink turns into hot pink, hot
pink turns red and I. stabs her cousin with the sharp pencil over the red fur coat.
This is the first memory of pleasure by causing pain. Violent desire in broad
daylight. Red blood for red fur. Red washing bowl. Pet crayfish in the red washing
bowl. His name started with the letter A. I. still has his passport somewhere. I.
made passports for all her pets so they could travel. Pets travel a lot when you
are a child.
And they never return.
-Ieva Kraule
