THE PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF SHEEP IN THE MIND OF SOMETHING WOOLLEN was presented as part of my exhibition, "I Forgot Much More Than I Ever Knew" at Locksbrook Road Campus, Bath Spa University in September and October 2024. A co-created project with my youngest child who is very good with a crochet hook. It was of course based on Damien Hirst's The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Something Living, which I had seen at Saatchi's gallery on Boundary Road back in the 1990s. The exhibition catalogue carried this text:
"The Physical Impossibility of Sheep in the Mind of Something Woollen.
David & Leo Janes (2024). Wood, cardboard, wool.
Saatchi’s on Boundary Road, Nineteen Ninety something. Right hand bandaged subsequent to a bet I am making with this person, a salesman, at a barbecue in Finsbury Park that I will suffer no harm if I sink it, the hand, into the hot coals. Nobody has ever put art in a case before, except Koons, the testicle guy, and we haven’t heard of him, or a WonderKlanger, Emperor thingy, 1648. I don’t think I am ever seeing a shark before, or since. I don’t watch nature programmes. Spielberg of course. I was traumatised. They are needing a bigger boat. Despite knowing next to nothing about Elasmobranchii, I am having a belief that sharks are not the ‘Wolves of the Sea’, but rather the ‘Sheep of the Ocean’. Attenborough, Cousteau and that, all purveyors of massive reputational fraud... Underwater MSM. I know a window cleaner with an A level in biology. Teeth for tearing kelp. So, open the door of your cage. Dive in and swim with us among the flocks of Great Whites. Dream of them, leaping over the fences of the abyss. We are not Jason Statham. Put another prawn on the barbie. Your hand is not on fire."
The shark was made in March 2024 unfortunately its tail had drooped a little bit by September.
