Jeff Gibbons and Gregory Ruppe Necrotic Black Black Swimming Pool With A Heavy Mossy Surface Film March 14 - April 25, 2015 Opening reception March 14 , 6-9 PM

Into the manifold open wounds the cold drifted, all the way down into the heart of things, the core which made them alive. What he saw had seemed to be a desert of ice from which stark boulders jutted. A wind spewed across the plain which reality had become; the wind congealed into deeper ice, and the boulders disappeared for the most part. And darkness presented itself off at the edges of his vision; he caught only a meager glimpse of it. But, he thought, this is projection on my part. It isn't the universe which is being entombed by layers of wind, cold, darkness and ice; all this is going on within me, and yet I seem to see it outside. Strange, he thought. Is the whole world inside me? Engulfed by my body? When did that happen? It must be a manifestation of dying, he said to himself. The uncertainty which I feel, the slowing down into entropy -- that's the process, and the ice which I see is the result of the success of the process. When I blink out, he thought, the whole universe will disappear. But what about the various lights which I should see, the entrances to new wombs? Where in particular is the red smokey light of fornicating couples? And the dull dark light signifying animal greed? All I can make out, he thought, is encroaching darkness and utter loss of heat, a plain which is cooling off, abandoned by its sun. [Sic]

PATIENT: I remember D.F., who was driven frantic by the bare walls he looked at in his room, which were very unattractive. And this same nurse who doesn't want to give you medication brought him some beautiful pictures of Switzerland. And we pasted them on his walls. When he died, before he died he asked her to give them to me. I had come in to see him a few times and I made them into pictures because I realized how much they had meant to him. And so in every room, I mean eve, this nineteen-year-old girl's mother who stayed with her day after day, she brought me the cardboard and we made them and we put them on. We didn't ask the supervisor's permission but we used this kind of tape that doesn't ruin walls, you know. And I think she resented it. I think there is very much red tape in this place. I know that beautiful scenery can remind, must remind other people of life and living, if not of God. I can actually see God in nature very much. This is what I mean, you wouldn't be that much alone if you had something that would make you a part of life. This meant that much to D.F. To S., she was surrounded by flowers and the phone calls, and the visitors that were allowed to see her, the girl friends that came, and I think that if they had all been sent out because she was so critically ill, it would have bothered her very much. She seemed to be alive when a visitor was with her, even when she was in intense pain. She couldn't talk to them either, you know. I think of her, you see. My Sisters only come once a week and sometimes they don't come at all. And so I have received most of my company from the visitors or the patients I have visited and this has helped me a lot. When I am in tears or depressed I know I have to do something to stop thinking about myself and whether I am in pain or not I have to drag myself to somebody else, to concentrate on them. And then I can forget my problems...

The writings of Philip K. Dick, the Kübler-Ross model, ghosting, Henri Bergson's concept of duration and a grocery store lobster tank as muse become material for Necrotic Black Black Swimming Pool With A Heavy Mossy Surface Film, the second installment of a series of collaborations between Jeff Gibbons and Gregory Ruppe.

The series of investigations began with Pure Duration: A Beetle On Its Back at BeefHaus in Dallas, Texas and will continue with KOKOMOat galleryHOMELAND in Houston, Texas later this spring.