There is nothing left to guard, and it is still standing there.
April 26th, 2:47 AM. The crew came in the third week of the month and filled the pothole at Belmont, and they did it properly: a black disc of fresh asphalt, tamped flat, still holding the wet gloss that new patch holds for a week or so, taking the streetlamp’s reflection differently from the road around it, like a plate set into a table. The hazard is gone. The reason is gone. And the cone remains at the edge of the patch, tilted, headless, its base still split, keeping vigil over a piece of road that has been fixed. Nobody came back for it. The viewer should be clear that this is not neglect. A crew that fills a hole at that hour does not forget the cone; the cone was simply no longer part of the work, and there is no municipal procedure for retrieving a thing that has stopped being equipment. In Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus the whole event is the instant of recognition, after which the figure is no longer needed in the room, and the painting declines to show what becomes of the table afterward. This is what becomes of the table afterward. Ten stations, from a lot with no hazard in it to a road with no hazard left, and the same broken orange thing standing through both. It was never warning us about the hole. Custos manet, opere peracto.
Prints available. Acquire this work as a fine art reproduction, worthy of any wall that deserves better.
| Unframed Print | Framed Print |