'23kpc' Chapter 29: Art in Service to Something Else

Even when it's literally spelled out for you, what art is "about" isn't always obvious

[Representative works of art by three conceptual artists: “Laments: I was sick from acting normal,” by Jenny Holzer; “Blah Blah Blah,” by Mel Blochner; and “Dog Ear” (two samples), by Erica Baum. For more information about the specific pieces, see the “Notes on the art” section at the bottom of this post.]

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Last week…

Now that he’d finally learned what happened to Tyler Morton, Guy decided it was time to report back to Tyler’s brother Al — the one who’d kicked off the investigation in the first place. Al chose a surprising venue for their conversation: a sort of virtual art museum aboard the ship, called the Rijksmuseum (after the original back on Earth, long ago). Al didn’t seem to care about the museum itself; he just arranged to meet Guy in a specific gallery, #42.

Why that one? Because he, Al, had always had a profound attraction for the sole painting on display there, Philips Koninck’s A Panoramic Landscape, one detail of which seemed to express how Al thought of himself and Tyler.

Guy and Al then left gallery 42 behind. And at this point, Guy’s narration continues…:

Chapter 29: “What’s in a Word?”

I do tell Al about his brother, as well as I can, while — pretending to pay attention to the art — we move around from gallery to gallery. I wish I could explain the Muybridge thing better, but I decide (not that I have a choice) that Al probably doesn’t need to understand it any better than I do myself.

Even so, clumsy though my explanations might be, he seems to grasp the importance of the Muybridge — its potential. He keeps shaking his head, and smiling, and saying things like, “Tyler did this ting. My broth’!” Which does nothing, of course, to mask (let alone ease) the pain of losing his only relative — especially to such a horribly lonely, frightening death.

But even that kind of pain can’t completely blot out the civilization-altering potential of something like Tyler’s Muybridge. We’re in an exhibit of late twenty-second-century AlphaLiteralist works when Al suddenly stops me with a question. And I mean suddenly: Durwood actually jerks forward and back on his invisible leash.

“Ya know,” he says, “I don’t unnerstand.”

“I don’t ei—”

“No, wait, lemme finish. Tyler was on dis bridge ting, right? How’d he get off it? Why?”