Waiting for Death
As I write this I sit by Alison’ s bed and ponder about waiting. Alison has only just been breathing for the last week, very little else. We have been expecting her to pass away any time. Alison had been diagnosed with untreatable cancer eleven months ago. She knew it was all a matter of time. I do not know if she was waiting to die … Alison has been unconscious now for a week. I do not know now as she lays on the bed, unresponsive, what she is aware of. Is she waiting to move on from this state? Is she hoping that death will arrive as soon as possible?
We know that there is no hope of recovery and we want to be here with her for as long as it takes to make sure she is not alone.
We wait patiently, but at the same time we yearn for a quick resolution to this situation that keeps us in limbo.
We sit by her side day after day. I observe a gradual transformation. It seems like Alison’ s body is getting ready for another phase.
The experience of sitting by Alison’ s bedside and the reading of Blanchot’ s The Work and The Death Space make me consider death as a trope for a profound transformation within the artist that allows the work’ s gradual emergence.
Felix Gonzalez Torres‘ Untiltled’( Perfect Lovers) 1987-1990
This piece consists of two identical clocks side by side. They both start at the same time but gradually they get out of sync and one of them will stop before the other as its battery runs out. The piece makes reference to Gonzalez Torres’ relationship with his lover Ross Laycock, who was diagnosed with aids and who died in 1991.