Encyclopaedia of Repetitions in Art

Page 9

Watercolour floorpan 1: Did you read what was handwritten on those cards? You didn’t look, did you?

Watercolour floorpan 2: Of course, didn’t you? How could one help but look — they’re there, aren’t they? But a card is private, in a public sort of way.

Watercolour floorpan 3: Private or not, I’ll tell you one thing, the design’s been done before. It’s a copy of a famous fabric pattern I’ve seen in a museum, somewhere.

Watercolour floorpan 4: Everything, these days, seems to have been done before. Everything’s a repeat of something else. Yes, but sometimes there’s a difference, isn’t there?

Watercolour floorpan 5: Maybe in time and space, but so what? If I were playing my favourite record and it got stuck, midway — repeating the same thing over and over — I would change it.

Watercolour floorpan 6: Of course! And if it didn’t get stuck you would play it only once.

Watercolour floorpan 7: Only once! Are you crazy? I play my favourites again and again. But that’s different, isn’t it? Anyway, don’t you have a meeting at the Bureau* to go to?

Watercolour floorpan 8: Yes, they want me to look at some results of a survey they conducted recently: something about ‘temporal spacings of repetitions’ in art. They’re meant to be quite pleasing.

Watercolour floorpan 9: Pleasing! I’ve heard that they’re just stripes —again! *Bureau of Repetition in Art