Selling My Soul
Performance at Tate Modern, Turbine Hall | Charcoal and eraser on paper
1m x 2.4m, 4 panels | 2010
Invited to be part of the international group show “No Soul for Sale,” Selling My Soul took its place at Tate Modern in London. As part of the installation, Lam used a rubber eraser to erase his charcoal drawings, leaving a residue of crumbs on the floor.
Four sheets of paper, each measuring 1 by 2.4 metres and filled with charcoal line drawings, were hung on ninety degree intersecting walls, with two sheets on one side. On the platform were fifty matchbox-sized erasers, each stamped with a custom-made drawing of Lam standing and erasing.
Lam’s initial plan was to erase the charcoal over the course of three days; however he received a sudden instruction from the Tate to finish within just a few hours of the opening. The speed of his movement, as a result of the tension created by haste, further intensified the urge of his erasing and the overall sense that the impending future lay in the very moment of the disappearing present.
As the eraser wiped out the charcoal sketches, it also effaced the self – the self-depicting gesture of erasing is imprinted on the eraser, which is as much an object as a character that complicates the relationship between action and material over the course of time.
