The Second Mirage, 1982

C-type print

12.7 x 17.8 cm

A chance recording by an automatic camera resting on a metal railing

THE SECOND MIRAGE
Rosroe, Connemara, Ireland, 11.59am – 12.00pm 6 April 1982


"This first solo exhibition was held one minute prior to noon on 6 April 1982 on the front door of a small stone cottage in the fishing village of Rosroe, Connemara. This was also the place where Ludwig Wittgenstein, in whose steps I had followed, had completed his second major work, the Philosophical Investigations, some thirty years earlier – not much had changed since then.

The exhibition comprised a single random photograph that I had taken on my travels – a remarkable chance photograph of a reflection of a Malevich ‘cross’ painting in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

I had sent invitations for the exhibition to Australia via n-space and though nobody came, people knew that it was happening. It’s the fact that this unlikely event actually took place that still fascinates me. It seemed fantastic because of the apparently vast distances it covered both physically and conceptually. Yet the event itself became the witness and criterion of its existence. It was, in retrospect, a little crystal."

JY 1990