[no title: p. 213] 1970

Curator: Looking at this small-scale work by Esq Tom Phillips, titled "[no title: p. 213]" and housed here at the Tate, I'm struck by its unusual format. It appears to be a page from a treated book. Editor: Yes, it feels like stumbling upon a half-remembered dream. The floating words and shapes have a strangely whimsical, yet unsettling quality. Curator: Phillips is known for using pre-existing texts, like Victorian novels, as a base. He then paints over sections, leaving only fragments to create new meanings. The materiality of the found text becomes crucial. Editor: It's a remix! Like poetry emerging from noise. "One of her chins overlapped Grenville for years..." What a delicious fragment! It sparks a whole story, doesn't it? Curator: Indeed. The process emphasizes how meaning is constructed, contested, and ultimately, dependent on the reader's interaction with the material. Editor: I love how it feels incomplete, demanding my participation. It's a little puzzle, a little poem, a little provocation all in one. Curator: I agree. It's a fascinating example of how art can transform the ordinary into something extraordinary through conscious manipulation of its material origins. Editor: Exactly. It leaves you pondering the power of suggestion, the beauty of the fragmented, and the stories hiding within every object.