Tucker’s Galleria Part One

by Jason Fischer

TUCKER’S GALLERIA – New Acquisitions

1. Pound of Flesh (Artist: Simon Petrie)
Cloned flesh, sheet plastic, hatchet, $16,000

This installation is the latest work of Petrie, a rising star in the New Vat Movement. A perfect cubic meter of living flesh, vat-grown from a sample provided from the artist’s body. A hatchet rests atop the cube, deliberately blunted. When a piece of the flesh is severed, it will regrow over the next week or so. The taste of the meat is randomised, and when cooked will resemble:
a) chicken
b) squid
c) beef
d) human.

The creature feels all pain, has internal organs including a perfectly formed mouth and lungs, and is guaranteed to live for at least six months from activation.

2. Coy Psychopomp, Waiting. (Artist: Gillian Polack)
Acrylic on linen with metallic leaf, 152 x 92 cm, $7,500

A woman kneels in the foreground of this piece, and what little light surrounds her is swiftly devoured by a darkness unending. The psychopomp herself presents an almost pathetic figure, a woman with black hollows in place of eyes, her dress a ragged mess of stitched animal skins.

Rumours that a casual viewing of this painting can lead to suicidal ideation are largely exaggerated. For your safety and the comfort of other patrons, however, this painting is isolated in one of our viewing rooms.

3. Lee Battersby (Artist: Lee Battersby)
Oil on canvas, 255 x 300 cm, $103,500

This painting is complete, but for the last brush-stroke. The artist assures us that, on the application of this finishing touch, he will in fact die from a severe aneurysm. At this moment, his spirit will become permanently attached to the painting, which already contains everything he has considered necessary for his afterlife as a self-portait. The purchaser of this painting will become his power of attorney, and as per Crown v. Macklin it will be necessary to treat the Lee Battersby painting as a legal entity in perpetuity.

Catalog continues….

A Night on the Town

by Jonathan Wood

Let us walk among the menagerie. Let us peruse its delights. See this one here, the way the flesh peels back, the exposed musculature, the sinew flexing, the streaks of fat glistening. Have you ever seen such a thing? Have you ever beheld such a thing?

And this other, this female. Such colors, such beautiful staining beneath the skin. All the colors of decay – green and black and purple and white. Like a rainbow of death she is, amongst them all. They approach her, they back away, they are uncertain. They fear her purple teeth.

And the song of this one, growing louder with each sip he takes. What fluid can cause such a display, all colors and sound? See how its mouth flays the flesh even as it sings, each increasing exertion on its part causing ever more damage. Yet it carries on oblivious as its blood pools around its feet, warning the others away.

Let us walk among the menagerie. Let us lick them, taste their salt and their heat. Look how they arch at the touch. They love it, you know. For just a little while. But our fluids will scar them, will etch them. We are like sculptors, and they like clay.

See this one, the small one. It is deadly. Like a viper, like a cuckoo. Do not let it touch your eggs with its oh-so-white hands. It looks like porcelain but its heart is dullest stone.

And this one, it has edges. Oh, how they bite at you. Posions so bitter you they will bottle your blood when you are gone.

They are dangerous, yes, these creatures, though we have such power of them. You laugh, I see you behind your mask. Oh yes I see you. And they see you too. For in observing we too are observed. Even as we seek a dish to serve, so too do they. Do not forget the rules of the menagerie. Always remember that beneath our clay, our silk, our layers of wax and pus, we are animals too. And one must always feed the animals, lest the animal feed on you.