Artwork details - EVN Sammlung

Untitled Conversation ("Does it give away the story?")
Joseph Grigely

text and 12 sheets of paper; felt-tip pen, paper and pins
79 × 89 × 6 cm (total, framed)
1997

Acquisition 1998
Inv. No. 0048

The starting point and contents of the artist’s work consists of sheets of paper or small notes with his friends’ conversational fragments, as well as his own writings, which he arranges in installations or tableaux. The Conversations with the Hearing were begun by Joseph Grigely, who lost his hearing at the age of ten, in the early 90’s, and form a kind of “conversation archive” on the basis of these talks. As the artist emphasised in a 1999 interview, putting together the various parts results in the written becoming spoken again. The order of the individual words, phrases alongside or on top of each other and complete sentences, tells a quite unique, almost autonomous, story. Thus, the presentation enables a continuation and active form of understanding, which is conceived of as being a continuous and open process. The question of the different effects of real and virtual communication and the transmission of factors such as gesture, articulation or mimicry, show themselves to be essential elements for the artist.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)