Reuben Paterson The End 2016. Cotton fabric with metallic particles. Courtesy of the artist and Milford Galleries, commissioned by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Reuben Paterson - The End
I am a clown. I spent my whole life perfecting the art of idiocy, learning my trade outside the Gallery on the corner of Worcester Boulevard and Montreal Street – cutting my teeth as a street performer. Then one day, I was invited to step inside the Gallery, to write about art. Naturally, I felt nervous, but excited.
After playing for perhaps a little too long with the kids’ puzzle wall in the foyer, I took a slow stroll through the richly adorned, august walls, surveying the works of legends Ralph Hotere and Bill Hammond. I felt tiny, stood in the shadow of their imaginations.
My instinct was to write about Shane Cotton’s five-panel monster, Haymaker – it was cryptic and overwhelming, and my head was whirling, so I decided to go outside, to catch my breath.
Wow.
But out in the air I couldn’t stop thinking about the journey downstairs – the simplicity of sparkles in a square box that I’d encountered. I’d enjoyed my one-floor adventure and I wanted to ride again. I found myself laughing, how extraordinary that in a building racked with wonder, that this galactic cube would tickle me most. Becoming disorientated in a box that travels through time and space was initially a very challenging experience – it overloaded my senses, distance and depth disappeared. What way was up, what way was down? As it started to travel I felt weightless, like I was in space, like I was travelling to another time, another place.
I rode that galactic time machine again and again like a child. A mother and two small children joined me for one trip, and I was validated by one of the kids as he said “WOW!” too.
What would I write about I asked myself?
Reuben Paterson’s upgrade on the great glass elevator, called The End.
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