Dept. of Ways and Means

Katarina Sylvan & Richard Krantz

MOONLIGHTING AT THE DEPT. OF WAYS AND MEANS

MUSIC: Strains of Carpenters 'Yesterday Once More'

Every sha la la la

Every woah oh oh oh

Still shines…..

Fade out

The cool tones of a late night disc jockey:

And with that voice, like drinking cold water from a spring well, Karen welcomes you all to another Love Song till Midnight, alongside yours truly, here to help you turn the clock over into the small hours, with every sha la la la, every woah oh oh oh. Tonight, through means necessary and ways unknown, we wind up at the Dept. of Ways and Means, moonlighting on the airwaves, looking for the means to find the ways and the ways to get the means: straight to your heart.

Once more I was moonlighting at the Dept. of Ways and Means, a place that feels so enclosed it has the atmosphere of a labyrinth in a sphere, and, coupled the labyrinthine tasks of finding ways to use means and using means to find ways, time there had a way of turning in on itself... Moonlighters - that was what they called the casual night shift workers, who were each filled with ulterior motives and non-transferable skills. We all had our own methods.

I could find a footstep on a field of artificial grass. Swish swish, I whisper, but the grass as ever, would remain soundless.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

And we're back, this is Love Song till Midnight, still moonlighting and daydreaming, all night long. Different ways, different means, same modus operandi. On repeat and by request, that was Johnny Mathis playing Misty for me, the leitmotif of the evening.

Would I wander through this wonderland alone /Never knowing my right foot from my left /My hat from my glove/I'm too misty, and too much in love/

Let those hats and gloves come off, Johnny, the mist wash over you, here at the Dept. of Ways and Means (whispers) to your heart...

The Dept. of Ways and Means was a ways away, and the only means of access was on foot, the meaning being to make it hard to reach, as no one was using their feet so much in those days. It was like the artificial grass could sense one's gait,

a cadence and stride that vibrated through the arches and whorls of our soles, like treading over a waterbed with perfect balance.

There was a stillness, water off a duck's back, sensed in the way condensation would prickle over the perfectly glistening marble staircases cast in the finest linoleum, and across the tessellating faux-bois parquet floors. Lots of soft space. Swish swish sung from the eaves and the sashes and the flies.

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

Playing Misty for me, on Love Song till Midnight, that was Erroll Garner. By request, on repeat, going out to yours truly and all you other lonely moonlighters keeping the night alive and the artificial grass growing. Swish swish goes the seconds hand as we round up and wind down to the strike of twelve, as I clock off here and make my way across the lawn to the Dept. of Ways and Means (straight to your heart).

Ways and Means move. Like ships in the night, hard to catch. Like cats, all grey. Hard to differentiate between them and the seemingly as endless as the task of tailing them. And soon, I started to realise the ways and means of the Dept. itself, it had its own methods, that moonlighting was to expose my ways and means, my thoughts, impulses and reactions.

Labyrinthine, spherical, artificial: everything was the other way around, ways were means, means were ways, waysmean, meanways

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

PLAY MISTY FOR ME

Every sha la la la

Every woah oh oh oh

Still shines…..

- Florence Wild, 2018

Katarina Sylvan, born 1989, is a Swedish artist living and working in Stockholm and London. With a scenographic approach to art-making, she mixes sculpture, painting and words in spacious installations. She has a BA in Fine Art from Konstfack in Stockholm and is currently studying an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London.

katarinasylvan.com

Richard Krantz, born 1989 in Götene (SE) is an artist currently based in Malmö and Stockholm. His practice primarily deals with ideas concerning nature, science-fiction, humour, text, loops and existential paradoxes. Krantz has described himself as somewhat of a mechanic, with maybe nothing to say, but with a lot to make. Machines must be built, and ideas must be realized. For him, practicing art is the essential, rather than the intention or meaning of the work. Krantz graduated with a MFA from Konstfack in 2017, and has before received a BFA from The Glasgow School of Art. Krantz's work has been exhibited, amongst other venues, in group shows at Kalmar Konstmuseum (Kalmar, Sweden), HangmenProjects (Stockholm, Sweden), Embassy Gallery (Edinburgh, UK) and Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow (UK). In 2014 he received a 6-months working grant from The Scottish Government. He runs the newly started art space "Darker&Deeper International" together with Alexander Höglund in Malmö.

richardkrantz.org

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