Something to do in Auckland on a Sunday morning
DAVID CALLAHAN
There are probably few more dismaying experiences to be had in Auckland on Sunday morning than that of walking along Queen Street. Nevertheless, Morris Meyer used this unlikely background for a recent Parade. A single file, of about twelve people, ambled along the centreline of Victoria Street (from Albert Street to Albert Park) holding large, red, featureless placards up in front of their faces. Four clarinet players, who walked in the middle, forming a line perpendicular to that of the parade proper, played the single note of middle C, (albeit this was somewhat masked by traffic).
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Morris Meyer's
Parade, Victoria Street, Auckland, March 1, 1981 Photograph by Peter Hannken |
What was certain? There was disruption of what is usually seen - yet the event was placed in a time when very few people were there to notice. The disruptive effect was therefore dampened, which we may feel counters the whole 'purpose' of disruption. The Parade was set in the busiest part of New Zealand during its quietest period. How uncomfortable it was to see the space used in such a way; a space normally redolent with the 'meaning' of our culture - offices, banks, shops, cars, business: all serious activities. For the area to be stripped of its 'meaningful' activity is bad enough, without the mockery of such a procession!
More than this, the Parade was enacted between confines which relate historically and suggestively to the moral foundation of a Central Business District: Victoria, Queen, and her Albert. But there are two Alberts here: one a street, the other a park. These are interesting matters for contemplation yet they pale into insignificance in the presence of the red placards.
These constituted the largest obstacle to any 'untutored' reaction. Red has become such an active carrier of political sentiment that to use it in public, subversively, leads one to expect that it must be in some way connected with the 'left'. Most of the onlookers were American tourists and they all assumed this to be the case. It may be that it was. The Surrealists would have had no difficulty accommodating such an act in their political programme.
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Morris Meyer's
Parade, Victoria Street, Auckland, March 1, 1981 Photograph by Peter Hannken |
Yet if this were the case, why parade at such a time? This creates an elite even more severe than that of the world in which art can be owned. All that can be 'possessed' of this sort of event occurs afterwards. We are left thrashing around in a fog of possible symbols, concepts, denials, attacks, energies and so forth. 'Misconceptions' and personal perspective, hearsay and rumour, become the normal afterlife of such a performance. Dust on the Large Glass. People have championed the cause of works performed in an empty room. The deliberate enactment in public makes them a part of what happened. And what part did they (we) play?
Well, it took place on a sleepy Sunday morning in such an enigmatic fashion as to cause more puzzlement than anything else. But puzzlement needs to be related to one's own theory of knowledge - which is beyond the scope of this review.