Heather (Bause) Rubinstein + Raphael Rubinstein
Poetry as a Non-Professional Experiment (For and From James Murphy)
2014
36 x 28 inches
Acrylic on canvas
http://www.heatherbause.com
Heather + Raphael Rubinstein
Late one night in the Spring of 2014, a poet lost in the wilds of YouTube, comes across an interview with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem—a band whose music a painter has recently introduced him to— a band and painter he has recently fallen in love with. In the interview, Murphy talks about the difficulties of being in a band, how what had begun as a “nonprofessional experiment” has taken over his life. The sleepless poet transcribes the interview as accurately as possible, but whenever the word “band” appears, he changes it to “poem.” He shares the resulting poem with the painter, who, without telling the poet, transfers it onto canvas. She, too, alters the text: whenever the word “poetry” appears, she crosses it out with a red-paint-loaded-brush, and writes in “painting” instead. When the painter shows the poet the finished painting, wordless communications flow back and forth between them.