After we saw kinship of the remarkable side-by-side toilets we saw in a public bathroom to Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal, we realized that we frequently stumble on objects and sightings that are powerful ready-made artworks unto themselves. If we saw them in a gallery, we’d marvel, or at the very least ponder them, in the way we do “real” art.
A longtime favorite is an abandoned building we used to pass in our Harlem neighborhood. The vines had been ferociously, in the loveliest way possible, consuming the building to become a structure only of vines, with perfectly delineated outline of fire escape…. Who could have envisioned such a thing in their mind’s eye?
We love that we have the opportunity to discover them; such readymades are hiding in plain sight everywhere. We have only to look around…
We searched for a vine haiku that might accompany the wonderful found art. And found them in the Everyman’s Library Pocket Haiku.
They needed only a couple of changes…
A hundred different
gourdsvines
From the mind
Of one vine.
—Chiyo-Ni
…
The
hangingsuspendedbridgefire escape
Creeping vines
Entwine our life.
—Basho
Beautiful. A wonderful find. Thank you
Ohhhh lovely.
My favorite thing about vine-covered walls/homes/etc is when you get close you can often see the little ecosystem it’s created – little lizards, spiders, etc. Also, the way the little vine tendrils seem to defy gravity and reach outwards is so wonderful…