FEATURE Images - Courtesy of the artist. Writer - Inspired by Zhivago Duncan, written by Kit Hammonds, curator.
Zhivago Duncan: Desert Sublime Of myth and imagination, an interpretation of the artist and his work in the Jordan desert Among a scatter of papers I came across by accident
without walls, the apparent target a lonely looking
was a handful of photographs, each labeled for the
white panel now splattered with gunshots and paint
archive of Dr Tiq. While waiting for my own box
explosions. The shooter was the artist I had been
request, I broke archival protocol, idly flipping the
sent to observe who looked about as American as
images over to find hand-written notes on the backs,
anyone could in jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap,
presumably written by the doctor. The first image
holding the automatic rifle in one hand and a glass
casually captured a rifle in a dilapidated car interior.
in the other poured from at least two bottles further down the track than the one that had urged me
“The harsh rattle of Kalashnikov gun fire and a
to retire, and was responsible for the stiletto pain
procession of echoes from nearby cliffs brought me to
that passed from the back of my eyes at isometric
consciousness by stabbing into my already throbbing
angles through my brain.”
skull. While I parsed reality from the troubled dreams,
The artist and his entourage and the local crew had worked as if on a film set, grabbing food on the go, each going about their task to meet the deadline of nightfall
fearful adrenalin took hold that these shots might be
“The day had been a frenzy of activity without formal
directed at the abandoned car that I found myself
break. The artist and his entourage and the local crew
curled up in. It was not that unusual to hear gunfire
had worked as if on a film set, grabbing food on the
in the Jordan’s desert region of Rum. But this seemed
go, each going about their task to meet the deadline
to be closer than normal. Reason slowly overtook fear
of nightfall. Here the desert was the studio, art not so
journalist Justin Dustin, a man whose demeanour
as I remembered this was part of the plan, but still I
much in situ as completely outside of it. In preparation
was reminiscent of Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse
raised my head cautiously in case a stray bullet found
I had done some research into other artists working
Now, came over with another scotch, but all I wanted
me as its unexpected target.”
in the vast expanses—mainly Americans—the beat
was water. At the astro-archeological conventions I
poets and land artists in particular. New to me, the
was more used to attending, I prided myself on the
The next photographs pictured a paint-splattered
poetic, philosophical and intimate writings and works
ability to hold my own in receptions and bars. Here
canvas, a mechanical horse and an illuminated truck,
of Robert Smithson naturally satisfied my bookish
I was gravely out of my depth. Even over the short
each standing alone in landscapes of rock and sand.
curatorial interests. Smithson saw his own distant ‘sites’
distance, I had to stop twice from a swimming head,
The notes continued:
in the null industrial hinterlands as condensing a deep
and at one point rested on a mechanical children’s
past with a science-fiction future. But what was taking
ride that sprang into action as I leaned on it, rocking
“Through the dusty glass the light of the stars shone
place here was different, not merely geographically,
and signing, without reason, in Chinese. It was just
over gloomy sands and rocky outcrops. A couple
but also for the sense of the suspended and isolated
one of the set pieces for this shoot that broke down
of hundred meters away was the mob that had
present that was being created in the fraction of a
this border where white and red sands met into a
brought me here milling around in a halogen oasis
second that it takes for a camera shutter to click. “
disorderly dystopia of cultures. With the gunfire over,
cast by the headlamps of a bulldozer. It was an
the bulldozer was now in operation, pouring sand
unruly scene and an unruly group of Bedouins and
“As I finally dragged myself out of the car a spry
from its shovel while video images were projected
westerners. The lamps created a shooting gallery
photographer—the French-Morrocan photo-
onto cascading walls of sand.’’
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