The proceeds from the sale of the book, From Margin to Margin (Looking for Eileen), have been treated as a fund ‘to be used in the service of the memory of Eileen Gray’. For Remembering Gray, the artist completes this self-assigned contract by commissioning a poem from poet Alice Lyons. The poem exists in lieu of any formal eulogy or obituary for Gray, but also as a piece of Lyons’ own work, with its own integrity. It is intended to have a performative potential and the capacity for distribution in multiple forms, all extending from an initial translation into Morse code—a form of minimal communication that shares qualities of invisibility and secrecy resonant with Gray’s practice.
Previous versions of this work have included a light intervention at Grazer Kunstverein and a shortwave radio station at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. On this occasion, the poem is being distributed by homing pigeons from the topmost balcony in Haus Huth – the only building in the Potsdamer Platz area of Berlin that survived the bombing of Worla War II.
Pigeons were released periodically throughout the run of the exhibition From a Poem to a Sunset at Daimler Contemporary, which happens to coincide with the spring / summer pigeon racing season, and concluded on August 30th 2015. Exhibition curated by Dr. Renate Wiehager and Christian Ganzenberg.
