Terence Koh is an hour late. He had to shower first, get dressed, get ready. Now he is ready. Almost. The black hair is short-cut, the moustache flimsy, he is a little man with black rubber boots and overalls. He used to be always dressed in white. But he will not any longer be known as the Asian in white, he has said in an interview. His appearance is monkish, resembling what you might choose if you were a gardener ready to step out into the garden.
I think to myself, just let me get this over with. I am excited, as if there is something that is at stake, but what? I am approaching the room with Koh as if it is dangerous. But what could be dangerous about meeting a gentle man who resembles a monk in a dark room? He will not even see me in the dark.
A group of students and I have met up to the one-on-one performance with Terence Koh. We are waiting. Minutes go by. The artist is behind the door with his assistant. His friend. Espen Johansen. It is Johansen who got Koh to come to Bergen and KMD . They have been acquainted for a long time. The students and I stare at the door. I can hear them moving things around inside, creating an artwork.
I feel my own nervousness, try to keep hold of it, study it from within. It's the same nervousness I have before I get up on a stage, a fear of the unknown, to be assessed, a fear of what will happen inside this room. What part does he expect me to play? I am curious. But mostly I am afraid that it is too intimate, too open. The scepticism in me fights with the kindness I want to show.
Terence Koh sent us a handwritten note about the performance where it says:
When the academy of art in Bergen invited me for their opening ceremony, eye am very happy too say yes. my immediate thought was too gift head massages instead.
This was the message from the renowned artist. I come to Bergen to massage your heads. We did not know how to react. With disbelief? With joy? The rest of the message from Koh read:
eye has been observing when massaging too empty my self. Eye concentrate my full energy too the other. there is a great energy when one realizes how much is wasted feeding our ego. this energy vibrates both ways from you too me and me too yoo. let yoor self completely go between my hands. you are a baby again. skull, flesh, blood, skin, eyes, hearing, smell, thought flow as one. light in the beginning gentle. then warmer and whiter and whiter too a point beyond white or color. Freeing our conditioned mind. How this might relate to art is a mystery to me.
The door still does not open. My butt hurts. I have fallen, I'm about to get a bruise. Can I exhibit it and call it art? What is art? I do not understand it. Before Koh came, I sat down on a bench outside the room where the performance was going to take place . Several students sat there chatting and waiting. The bench was blue. It had a yellow post-it note stuck onto it. I did not read the note, impatient as always, ignorant. I wanted to sit down quickly, to be invisible. The bench folded, and I fell on the ground in front of the students.
Afterwards I read the note, it said "out of order". And there I was, on the ground, bent like the bench itself. I cursed the bench and the one who made it, whilst feeling a hot wave hitting me hard, got up without looking at the younger students who sat so steady and grounded watching me. One of them came over in a hurry with another chair. I stammered thank you, while shame filled my knees, started gazing at my cell phone, as if it contained a secret escape route.
Finally, the door opens. I feel relieved. The long wait has done something to me. A feeling of; just give me the damn diagnosis, I cannot wait any longer.
- You can come in, Espen Johansen says and nods.
I am the first. Trying to walk with dignified steps into the room. Do not stumble, I murmur to myself, do not walk too fast, not too slow. I can feel the eyes of the students in my back. The door closes behind me, and it is just Terence and me. A pleasant smell of incence fills the room which is dark, apart from the candle that is blazing and the dim light from the hallway that penetrates the ceiling on the wall. In the shadowy light, his face looks friendly and mild. He radiates goodness. I feel like laying down on his bench and cry.
He takes my hand and smiles.
- Terence, he says
- Hilde, I say. - I am pleased to meet you.
- Are you from here? he asks.
-Yes, I am from this region, I reply. - I'm sorry about the rain.
-You can lay down here, he says, and points at a bench covered in white cloth. - Put your head there. Take your shoes off.
His voice is almost like a whisper, yet clear like glass, obediently I lay down on the bench, try to put my head to rest, but twist and turn a couple of times before I lay still. I hardly dare to look at him, I am unable to think of anything but the fact that he is famous for working with Lady Gaga, with Marina Abramovic, that he is a hot shot in New York. Oh God, I would rather lie alone in the dark on this bench with the door locked, but I am his prisoner, stuck to the bench. Out of politeness and respect I must stay. Get your act together, I say strictly to myself, cherish the moment. Let yourself completely go between my hands. You are a baby again.
I try to set free my imagination, I try to be like a child there in the dark, like a newborn, but my preconceptions are hammered into my brain, word for word, thought for thought. I am such a prisoner of my thoughts that the body tremble with resistance.
In the Munch essay So Much Longing on Such a Small Surface, by Karl Ove Knausgård, he quotes Gilles Deleuze who has written a book about Francis Bacon. "It's a mistake to believe that a painter works with a white surface," says Deleuze. Knausgård claims that the canvas is never empty, but full of the painters images and preconceptions, imagery the painter brings with him or her before even starting to work at the painting, thus the painter's imaginations are between the painter and the subject. I do not know if I interpret Knausgård as intended, but I think that my imaginations as I lay on the bench in the dark distracts me from experiencing the art. I think about power realtionships, fortunately, Terence Koh is gay, which makes it easier. Could this otherwise be possible, a famous heterosexual man meets women in the dark? I doubt it. I am still trying to find a good position on the bench, thinking of a psychologist I went to see, how I refused to lay down on his bench, I would sit, look him in the eye, check his reactions.
Get your act together, I repeat to myself. Receive this gift!
At least it smells good inside here. Terence Koh massages my temples, the scalp, for a few minutes I manage to let myself float away, forgetting Lady Gaga and everything that interferes with my image of Koh. I feel the stress and anxiety dissolve and become less heavy. I feel his cool hands, lie completely still, thinking that I want this to last forever, then, at the next instant I suddenly remember where I am. I open my eyes, looking into his, they are closed, it looks like he's dreaming, what's he thinking of? He who has been called the Naomi Campbell of the art world. I think of the conflicting traits of a human being, the goodness, the ugliness, the indifference, the scaredness and the provocativeness. I think of his shit. In 2007, he sold his own gold-plated shit for $ 500,000. Impressive. Provoking. In 2004 he exhibited a crystal chandelier with dark paint, human hair, horsehair, rope from a ship found after midnight, stones and his own blood and shit. What is he doing here in the dark? Why has gone from provocateur to masseur? But this is ten years ago, is he responsible for things he did ten years ago? Is he trying to cleanse himself from the old Terence? All the blood, filth and shit he was known for.
His closed eyes are disturbing. I want to know what he thinks, but it's impossible, I do not have access to his thoughts. His face is peaceful. Like a sleeping child. He looks like he loves to be in the dark. I'm closing my eyes.
He is really holding my head as if I were a child, the whole heavy weight of it. I feel a sudden rush of joy that I am laying here in the dark being held. In the dark I think of goodness. I believe him. I think I believe him. I do not need to be a cynic and think this is a whim to get attention. I do not want to be a cynic and Terence Koh has been on this new road for many years. In 2011 he walked around a huge mountain of salt in a gallery, round and round on his knees. Dressed in white. The exhibition was called «nothingtoodoo». Then, like now, with a handwritten note. It said; peace iz non-violence, peace iz everywhere, peace iz now. Peace. Love. It is easy to make fun of, but laughter easily gets stuck in the throat.
Several minutes have passed, I hear the buzzing sounds from the of students outside. Koh puts my head gently down on the bench. I sigh, I do not want to get up. I want to stay here in the dark with Terence Koh, listen to his mild voice, the slightly strange accent. But I do get up, sit on the bench for a little minute.
- Why do you do this, I ask.
– This is just something I am working on, he says in his modest manner. – I am inspired by the indian Krishnamurti.
– Oh?
– Are you born here? He continues.
– Yes I was born here, I have lived here almost all my life.
– It is strange for me to come here, meeting total strangers, and them giving thrust in me. All is interconnected, time and place.
I nod and smile, even if I do not understand what he is saying. Time and space? To me time is time, room is room, I have never been religious. But he is so mild, seems so humble, impossible to dislike. I feel a duty to try to understand what he's saying, put myself in his shoes. We are connected, I can understand that. We are in the same boat and the boat is leaky.
I get up. He is taller than I first thought. He takes a step towards me. I think I'm going to cry, but we end up hugging each other. Thank you, I say and I mean it. I feel a lightness I do not recognize.
Walking passed the students I am high, as if I somebody had given me something. The energy of Koh is with me throughout the evening as a boost. Questions spin in my head. Can I pass this on? What is the art of this? Can I rid myself of the prejudices I carry and show thrust.
Afterwards, I read that Koh in his later works is inspired by Canadian painter Emily Carr, her art, her thoughts about art and life. To the art magazine Hyperallergic.com, Koh says about Carr: “She’s always talking about the moment, like a Buddhism moment,” he says of Carr’s writings. “I read all her books and her autobiography over and over again, and she says it’s about the moment that counts, not the past or the future.”
Koh has planted a tree for Carr, on an exhibition he held in 2014 in Kleinburg, Ontario. He planted the tree in sparse forest so that it could grow unrestrained towards the light.
I have a poster with a painting by Emily Carr, I bought it long ago in Canada. Underneath the painting of a huge red cedar tree it says. “In the forest think of the forest ... the singing movement of the whole.” Emily Carr painted the picture in the 1930s. Just before the Second World War. Many people say that what is happening around us echoes what happened in the 1930s. That the war is approaching again. Terence Koh knows this too, that we live in a critical time. Perhaps this is not the time to sell your shit and be cynical, maybe love is the best weapon.
Emily Carr also claims: "I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows ".
I see Terence Koh's performance in Bergen as a metaphor. We are all together in the dark, tied together, fumbling, blind. But in the dark we are also plants that can grow towards the light. Life consists of meetings. Of moments. They can be good if we choose the good. Freeing our conditioned mind. If we can.
Read more about Terence Koh:
Handwritten note from Terence Koh on the performance he was planning.