ENCYLCOPAEDIA OF A WORK OF ART YET TO BE

main text: 

‘Five secret intelligence officers are presently meeting to finalise what will be painted on the preceding, primed canvas; whereupon it will be painted and the work of art completed.’

floorplan headings:

– while on the way to the meeting, this is where secret intelligence officer 4 had turned around, suddenly, to see if anyone was following

– where officer 2 had momentarily forgotten the important matter to be discussed at the meeting – then, nervously, remembered

– where officer 3 had theorised why the canvas could only be painted a cobalt-blue turquoise

– where officer 1 had hoped that the Operation’s ‘vacant space’ at the centre of all this still worked as a ‘blind’

– meeting room; primed canvas; window; the vacant space

– BACK of watercolour: bottom right hand corner, ‘Finished Tuesday, 9.04.2002’, in lead pencil;

– Back of canvas: written on stretcher in lead pencil ‘primed canvas (cobalt-blue turquoise)’.