If I was curator: An imagined conversation

Fiona Hall: Suzette.

Suzette: Ms Hall?

F: Sorry to call late.

S: What time is it?

F: It’s Wrong Way Time. Hahaha!

S: …

F: It’s 3am.

S: Jesus. Don’t you sleep?

F: I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Hey. Just finished another sculpture for the Biennale. Shall I text you a pic?

S: Oh. Sure.

F: K. It’s called All the King’s men.

S: I just got it.

F: It articulates the inexorable currents of capitalism, neo-colonialism and civil war with reference to the concentration of media ownership, deforestation and corporate greed.

S: It’s a khaki skull with a glass eye and a bullock mandible for teeth.

F: Don’t you like it?

S: It’s very nightmares—I mean interesting. It’s very interesting.

F: Great. When the exhibition closes, I’d like you to keep it.

S: No no, that’s okay, I couldn’t possibly—

F: I insist.

S: Oh. Thanks. I’ll, um, put it in a prominent place and look at it often.

F: There are 20 more of them for the show.

S: 20?! There are 783 works already.

F: I know right. It will be as though Denton Corker Marshall and Kurtz from Apocalypse now opened a canal-front wunderkammer.

S: What’s that noise? Is that an electric knife?

F: I’m working on a new sculpture: A 1:30 scale replica of an AK-47. Guess what it’s made of.

S: Soap?

F: Cold.

S: Sardine tins?

F: Colder.

S: American currency?

F: Colder.

S: I feel like you’ve asked me to guess the medium as though it’s a normal medium when in fact it is really unconventional which no-one would ever guess—

F: Bread!

S: Okay.

F: I think I’ll make a baker’s dozen. What do you think?

S: I think that’s a lot.

F: Do you think any of the other pavilions will be doing bread?

S: I don’t know. Guns maybe, but probably not in wheat. I think the other pavilions are going paleo. And minimal.

F: You’re anxious about the quantity of works, Boss. I feel you. Relax. Every sculpture is an integral part of the glorious, nihilistic whole. Including each cuckoo clock.

S: Each what?

F: I’ve knocked up a few dozen grandfather and cuckoo clocks for the show.

S: A few dozen.

F: To balance out the 40-odd sculptures from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers collab.

S: I think I’ll start a new spread sheet.

F: Don’t forget to add the bank-note nests from GOMA—

S: Wow.

F: —a heap of new sardine tins, and a tapa cloth. Maybe two.

S: I’m going back to sleep. Can we talk about this tomorrow?

F: Tomorrow’s tight. I’m packing a shipping container of Whanganui River driftwood for freight to Venice.

S: Amazing.

F: Great. Nighty night.