Smashed to pieces (in the still of the night)
14 Jan 2018Viewers often imbue your work with very specific meaning that you might not have intended. SMASHED TO PIECES (IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT) (1991), a large public work in Vienna, was interpreted by many there as referring to the events of Kristallnacht.
That piece had nothing to do with Kristallnacht. It was to do with the fact that listening to smashing bottles in a major city such as Vienna takes on a very different tone in the middle of the night. You make something because you like the green of a Jameson bottle of whisky, you put it out there, and somebody responds because they have this desperate need to understand their relationship to green for whatever reason. Either they were brutalised in Ireland or green was the colour of the eyes of the only person that they ever fell in love with. They can take what you’ve made and use it in their life to understand their place in the real world. All art should be this universal. Artists have a role in this society and it’s a real honest to goodness role. And that’s to take these universal things and place them out there and… be that as it may.
