Fairest of All

Lyrics

To make out the difference Between your eye and itself ? the straight in the mirror Sneak up on a ? Better yet to see it cracked Up and down or side to side None of this will help you see Your eye from the other side What the mirror sees it takes And never will return The spectacle you make Don't waste time trying to run

History is, they say A mirror of a kind As you look back into the past The mirror looks behind To see the past isn't good enough It's fiction, it's a lie Can tear out ? To see your own ? eye

Chronology

• Sighs Trapped by Liars
  • Elisa Randazzo - vocals

Interpretations

Fairest of Them All is a 2004 piece by art historian and Art & Language collaborator Charles Harrison.

‘Artists Favourites: ACT I & II’, presented at the ICA last year, which claimed to give over the curatorial reins to artists by inviting them to select one of their favourite works of art by another artist, is a case in point. Art & Language, whose favourite was Fairest of Them All, 2004, by Charles Harrison, highlighted the self-reflexive escapology.

A framed text panel mounted upon a lectern-like plinth and spotlit from above read: ‘In appearing to make a real distinction between artist and curator the organisers have proposed a single negation: “artists are not curators”. In fact, the curatorial presence in the exhibition has been doubled. The result is a double negative: the artist is simply not not a curator. And that’s in fact how it is. A different kind of work is needed if we are to reshape the distinction and reintroduce a critical negation.’

The title phrase comes from Snow White's Evil Queen: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"