Colin Richards
1998
mixed media installation
dimensions variable
Collection: Johannesburg Art Gallery

The Bundles

The taped bundles contain the daily correspondence the artist conducted with himself during 1985 for a period of six months. Morning letters were sent from home to work - the Department of Medicine at Wits University - and afternoon letters were sent from work to home. The morning letters were based on the births recorded in the early edition of The Star of the day before, while the afternoon letters were based on the deaths recorded in the final edition of the day before. The letters also include medical illustrations the artist made - operations, prosthetics, anatomical drawings, drawings of early hominids - as well as photographs of catastrophe published in various books and newspapers. These photographs include medical experiments and prosthetic dumps from the Jewish Holocaust as well as local atrocities, death and disease. All this material - medical illustrations, atrocities and catastrophes - were presented in standardised, repetitive units. Units suited to wallpaper or gift-wrap. Finally, the letters also document the growing and dying of a beansprout for the duration of the
correspondence.
CPR June 16 2000