Two fates
Like a parliament
What it shades
What it buries
The middle
Is a funny wand

Upon encountering a small floral sculpture by the Italian Futurist Giacomo Balla, Mark Lamoureux penned the brief Ekphrastic poem that serves as the title for this work.

Broadly speaking, Ekphrasis is explicative – the writer uses the tools of language to describe an absent object or artwork, conjuring its form in the mind of the reader. In this sense, the text is a mediator between artwork and audience – a kind of middleman delivering up an object for aesthetic consideration.

Most artists remain suspicious of such middlemen, which I suppose is understandable. The poet’s words inevitably begin to slip and expand, following the logic of their own construction, until this mediative act has become something in excess of pure support. What began as a generous gesture of presentation
itself becomes the object of aesthetic contemplation.

Mitchel Cumming – March 2016