Abstract:
Something Transparent (please go round the back) is a work which was installed at Michael Lett (478 Karangahape Road, Auckland) from 15 April to 16 May, 2009. The work is no longer there, the gallery is no longer there: the time and place have both passed. However; the impact and effect of the work remain, as do subsequent iterations and experiences of it. The initial instance might have passed, but the work is not relegated to some impenetrable place and past. Its effect is instead one of indeterminacy in time and place. It refers back to what was, but it still is itself. Its meaning is multivalent, and is examined through ideas of parergon, mise en abyme, and mirrors, and looked to within a history of modern and contemporary art, as well as Fiona Connor’s oeuvre. This thesis seeks to complicate a simple, naïve reading of Something Transparent (please go round the back) through exploring such wider concerns implicit in the work. The work reflects on a particular location (Karangahape Road) and time, but interacts globally in a discursive manner with wider trends and concerns in art. It is site-specific (and its site is very specific), and it benefits from a reading further afield and further abroad. The work itself elides distances, fusing inside and out, and in this broader context its significance and meaning are asserted. Something Transparent (please go round the back) is ultimately seen as a singular instance in art, unique in its appearance, combination of ideas, and effect on encounter.
