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MANHOLE COVERS18 July 2006 Back from Vienna, back on the ledge, a distant siren is getting closer. I got the deck chair I am sitting on from Ikea. I wanted a traditional stripy one but they didn’t have any so I got this. When did you first start noticing manhole covers? Did the idea of these portals into the underworld fascinate you as a kid? How many films feature a man or a woman escaping from or into a manhole? I didn’t become aware of my interest in them until about 2001 when for a short but very intensive period I found myself photographing hundreds of them. Wherever I went – and especially if that wherever was abroad – I would constantly have my head down as I walked along, camera in hand, in case I missed any manhole covers I had not seen before. This need to photograph them only went on for a few months and then it was over. I have even been able to throw away all the photos I took. Earlier this month when I was in Moscow with Tracey I noticed she was doing the same thing, taking photographs of manhole covers wherever she went. At least she was only using her mobile phone to take the pictures, for some reason using a mobile makes it seem less questionable. We got into discussion about how wonderful manhole covers can be, how aesthetically interesting they are. How … once you start on a subject like this, it’s hard to stop and you know it’s going to lead to some train spottery-nether world. All you need to know for the purpose of this text is that although I no longer need to go around taking photographs of manhole covers everywhere I go, I still love them. They enrich my life as I plod along, wherever I am. On Saturday, a couple of days ago, when I was in Venice, the artist Robert Jelinek took us out to his studio. It was on the top floor of an old factory on the outskirts of the city. It was an incredibly impressive place. Everything any film director would want for a scene set in a contemporary artist’s studio. It pressed all the right buttons. I was jealous. And the rent was dirt-cheap. On leaving I noticed five brand-new manhole cover he had sitting on the floor. They were obviously ones that had never yet been used to cover a hole that a man had gone down. So I asked why, where and what, and he told me he had been in love with manhole covers for years and that he had been looking for an excuse to have some made himself. Various people asked him to contribute a work of art to such and such an exhibition in such and such a country. He decided he would get a set of manhole covers cast with the coat of arms of his State of Sabotage on it. The plan was to send one of these out whenever he was asked to contribute a piece of work to an exhibition. He told me there was now a standard size for manhole covers worldwide and that with a lifting key they were quite easy to remove and replace. Sod it. I can’t stop myself. I know it will look like I am ripping off Robert Jelinek but I’ve got to get a manhole cover cast for The17. I’ve just climbed back through the window, got on Google and found a place that can cast manhole covers. Nowhere near as expensive as I had feared. Pour myself a mug of tea from the pot. Climb back through the window with the mug. Settle into the deck chair and calm my mind by listening to the near and distant sounds. The swifts have packed it in for the night. Get my pen out and write the following score:
CAST (after R. Jelinek) Choose a manhole cover. Design and cast a new manhole cover Replace the old manhole cover |