Charlotte Combs and the Case of the Missing Valamanesh
Alana Bayne
Dear Detective Superintendent Larue,
I am writing to inform you of my findings in the case of the missing Valamanesh. A wall inside Casula Powerhouse glared white, the label Mourning (2007) appointing this space to a non-existent artwork.
I sat watching the security tapes run through hours of mind-numbing stillness, visitors coming in every so often and darting around in fast forward, then leaving me with an empty room, the artworks hanging waiting to be judged.
I heard the police officers begin arresting the security guard and bellowed at them to stop. “It can’t have been the security guard; he was sleeping throughout the whole ordeal!” The officers gaped at me in confusion, not noticing the sheepish look on the guard’s face. “While watching the security footage I noticed his hair was dishevelled when he discovered the artwork was missing. His shirt is wrinkled at the front as though he has been slumped over a table, and when I arrived he had an indentation on his right cheek, of the type you get when sleeping on a creased pillowcase. Combine that with the dazed look on his face now; it is clear that he had been napping.”
Morning was starting upon the gallery; the crime and its evidence were in danger of being washed away with the dawn and the inundation of new visitors. I excused myself, my entrance to the crime scene had been rushed; I was bundled into the gallery before I was given a chance to take stock of the museum. How did the assailant enter and leave without breaking a lock or triggering an alarm?
Re-entering the room with more presence than I had left it with, I inquired of the curator, “Did you come straight from home tonight?” She nodded. “Only I wonder how you managed to immerse your cuff in bleach in the middle the night, as your sleeve is still damp, and do you go to bed in latex gloves? I see you have a small amount of powder residue on your palm. Where have you hidden the ashes?”
She looked at me, dumbfounded. “You’re mad! What possible reason could I have for burning my own exhibition?”
“I thought you’d be more interested in how I determined that you’d burned it, but I can outline your reasoning first if you wish. Valamanesh’s Longing Belonging makes reference to the sanctity and cleansing properties of fire, how it for him symbolises a common link between his Iranian heritage and his Australian identity. What better way for an obsessed fan such as yourself to connect with an artist than by, as you see it, completing his work. Now how did I know you burned the piece, there is a patch of unusually clean floor near the centre of the turbine hall, on further inspection I could see the smallest deposits of calcium carbonate swept to the side with the stroke of a mop. The last and most obvious indication of you burning the art was the missing candle, why would it too be removed if not for a related purpose?
I led the group towards the corner of the room and directed their gaze at the floor, pointing out the shadow of what looked like a branch or palm frond. I had noticed it earlier, and had thought nothing of it as it almost resembled the missing artwork, but how could it, when there was nothing there to cast the shadow?
You see, Detective Larue, what was confusing to me was that such an admirer of Valamanesh had allowed her crime to be solved through exposure of that which does not belong in the exhibition. I suppose she took Valamanesh’s notion of metamorphosis too literally. Although the artist was interested in transcendence, and often questioned place and permanence in his work, I doubt that he would have seen the new identity of his artwork as a positive change. Mourning was about being alive and experiencing death, whereas the ashes now represent something that is a shadow of its former self. Instead of mourning, it has becoming something to be mourned.
Yours Sincerely,
Detective Inspector Charlotte Combs
Image courtesy of Alana Bayne
