Brief Epigrams

Recent documentation of the ever-changing installation I have created at the Kansas City Art Institute. Lately it has spread throughout the building. I have constructed a path leading to the original installation made from multiple copies of William M. Shutte’s abandoned dissertation. The path is defined by the architecture of the building.

Shutte's book, Index of Recurrent Elements In James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in 1981 by Southern University Press, lists any and all recurrent elements in Ulysses. Characters, places, even words are obsessively listed by page and line number and then carefully noted with symbols. It is an index of allusions alluding to other allusions. For example, from Circe page 293…


I have opened the book to each page (of 429 pages), read from it, and strapped it down with rubber bands. Having every page of the book open allows the viewer to read in a disconnected manner, a disconnected text. At the end of the path, a table with a single copy of Joyce’s Ulysses, as well as the original Head Hole installation, now embedded with a sea of these books with holes cut for head placement (as demonstrated by Paul in the last few photos). A recording of Joyce reading from Aeolus subtly plays inside the installation. His voice is, as you may have guessed, intangible, quick and sharp. (Soon I will have two fans inserted to flourish the pages of the books.) More photos to come.

Also featured in my shots of the gallery, Jonathan Sims, Erica Mahinay, Charlene Hildebrandt, and Tom Woodward. Oh, and reflected in the window, my buddy Claes Oldenburg.