Blind painting of a falling tree (2022)

Australian artist Mike Parr is known for long-durational performances where he tests the limits of the body and the will, and the possibilities of representation in art. For rīvus, Parr attempts to paint the image of a tree with his eyes shut. The video footage of the action, taken by Gotaro Uematsu and Heath Franco, the latter also blinded, is shown here alongside the resulting image.

'Everything in advance. Performance art for me is in advance. Decisively in advance. Because the event always exceeds the idea. I see something huge, black, impossibly uncertain. A body as trunk, a trunk as body falling. Falling trees everywhere. In this country, Indonesia, the Amazon, everywhere. Blind painting is unprecedented because it acknowledges the history of art, so art falling too, beyond the trace, beyond the indexical, beyond mental reclamation. Must see the possibility of the unseen in this unseen way!'—Mike Parr