Fugue #125

"She’s dirty - head to toe, mud, and I have to tell her that there’s no way to get clean."

The voiceover is Ellsworth Kelly. Or it’s supposed to be - talking to a troubled friend. The mud is figurative here, but the sound of the subway is real as "Kelly" remembers his time as a student. He describes a mental picture of the New York subway, which becomes a real picture of the Paris metro, projected across the stage. A scrim catches it, and then blocks of color, superimposed - not random, yet not composed. This is the artist growing, finding his vision among half-abstracted glimpses of urban surfaces. And emerging, back in New York, fully formed.

Enbal, under the palest stage lights is covered in paint, walks through a projection of Sculpture for a Large Wall (1957). Her body, in a silver leotard, literally becomes part of the work as she moves across the blocks of color.

Another voiceover, a character named Briony Fer: "Color is a poetic kind of abbreviation, but also one with a lyrical or poetic cadence." And the blocks become shapes on the scrim, shaped canvases, whose curves echo Enbal’s. Monochromes, in Kelly’s hands, step away from inexpressiveness and create a dialog in serial form.