Agatha Gothe-Snape, The place where people meet to seek the highest is holy ground, 2015, archival digital print on rag paper, 76.2 cm × 55.9 cm (sheet size), edition 10 | AUD 500.00 each, TCG020639

On my first visit to New York for the Performa project, we considered several potential venues to present Rhetorical Chorus (LW). My brief was to find a site for the rhetorical delivery of ideology - not necessarily religious. On the one hand, I was tempted to frame the work within the corporate or contemporary context of the sales pitch (an Apple Keynote Talk) or everyday philosophy (a TED talk). On the other hand I wanted to foreground the legacy of the Twentieth Century in its utopian secularisation. When I visited the Society for Ethical Culture, I was struck by the appropriateness of the venue to this end. Built in 1910 in the Art Nouveau style, The Society for Ethical Culture will be an apt context for the song improvised and interpreted by The Transmitter and the choir, an abstracted rearticulation of Weiner's gestures. Uncannily, the sentence inscribed in the wooden facade above the stage where Rhetorical Chorus (LW) will take place reads - THE PLACE WHERE PEOPLE MEET TO SEEK THE HIGHEST IS HOLY GROUND. It struck me as a readymade Lawrence Weiner aphorism and the perfect venue for this reading. This edition has been produced to support Agatha Gothe-Snape's project, Rhetorical Chorus (LW), for Performa 15 in New York in November 2015. All proceeds from the sale of this work go towards AGS's Performa work. AUD 500.00