Last night I met Max Gold – David Burrows
Jul 15, 2024
This entry has video
Looking back on two exhibitions Here, the Gold Ones flatter (2022) and Here, the Gold Ones meet (2021), Bonington Gallery commissioned a text by David Burrows released here alongside a single screen edit of the flatter film.
Last night I met Max Gold. This was unexpected as I was at the party celebrating my 100th birthday, invisible to all, feeling sad and sorry for myself (because I could see that I was not in good shape and not long for this world). But I was happy to hear the nice things friends and carers in the care home were saying about me, and enjoying the kind words of (very important) people I had never met before, paying me an unexpected visit. I have had this dream before, several times, but never with Max making an appearance. Max can see me though (in my dream)! Max can see the invisible me (not the me, sitting at a table full of food, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries). I know this because Max crept up behind me (the invisible me) to deliver a message to my right ear, ‘The fear of loss is a strong motivator… Stronger than the opportunity to gain or change…’ I remember distinctly thinking I have heard these words before but couldn’t place where and when. I looked behind me and couldn’t see a soul but still whispered, ‘Max?’ (Somehow, I knew it was Max Gold who had spoken, a figure or entity that I associate with the art collective Reactor.) Again, with words familiar but not placeable, Max spoke, and with increasing conviction, saying this fear (of loss) was not their own fear. Max was in the zone. Max was the prize. Normally this recurring dream of mine ends after guests praise my stoic acceptance of a life lived less successfully than I might have hoped for, shedding tears at my constant ploughing of a furrow no matter what, which brought reassurance to everyone who counted me as a friend or acquaintance. This part of the dream – the best bit – did not happen. Instead, everyone turned their attention to Max, now materialised as a golden egg (though this description does not do justice to the Gold One – egg-shaped with tentacles, a flickering mouth and rippling, golden skin). On viewing this apparition, I wondered whether this was my dream or, indeed, whether I was in Max’s dream? Was Max in my head, or was I in Max’s head, or were both of us in a stream of thoughts in another head. Or maybe Reactor had hacked my unconscious?
