Art of Murder

Clara had been painted titanium white for more than two hours when a woman came down to see her. Gertrude was with her. Out of the corner of her eye Clara could see a pair of sunglasses, a small flowery hat, a pearl-grey suit. She looked like an important client. While she was assessing Clara, she went on talking to Gertrude.

'Did you know Roni and I bought a Bassan a couple of years ago?' She spoke with a strong Argentine accent. 'It was called Girl Holding up the Sun. Roni liked the way her shoulders and stomach shone. But I told him: 'Good heavens Roni, we have so many paintings, where are we going to put it?' And he said: 'We don't have that many. And besides, the house is full of your little knick-knacks, and I don't complain.' Laughter. 'Well, guess what we did with the painting in the end? We gave it to Anne.'

'Good idea.'

The woman took her glasses off and bent over Clara. 'Where's the signature?… Ah yes, on the thigh… it's beautiful… What was I saying?' That you gave the painting to Anne.'

'Oh, yes. They loved it – Anne and Louis, you've met them. Anne wanted to know if the rental was expensive. So I told her: "Don't worry, we'll pay. It's a gift from us to you." Then I asked the painting if she had any problem about going to Paris with my daughter. She said she didn't have.'

'A painting that's been bought should have no problem following the purchaser wherever it may be,' Gertrude asserted.

'But I like to show them I care… This is a wonderful painting, of course.' The 'w' boomed out like a distant foghorn. 'What did you say it was called?'

'Girl in Front of a Looking Glass'.

'Wonderful, wonderful… If you don't mind, Gertrude, I'll take a catalogue.' 'Take as many as you like.'

Clara was still immobile when they left. Wonderful, wonderful, but you won't buy me. That's obvious from a mile off. She knew it was not good to let her mind wander while she was in the trance-like state of quiescence, but could not help it. She was worried no one would buy her.

What was wrong with Girl in Front of a Looking Glass? The canvas was nothing extraordinary, but she had been bought as worse things. She was standing completely naked, her right hand covering her pubis and the left one out to the side, legs slightly apart, painted from head to toe in different shades of white. Her hair was a dense mass of deep whites, her body gleamed with brilliant glossy tones. In front of her stood a looking glass almost two metres tall, inserted directly into the floor without a frame. That was all. She cost two thousand five hundred euros, with a monthly rent of another three hundred euros – not exactly expensive even for a second-rate collector. Alex Bassan had assured her she would be sold at once, but she had been on show for almost a month now at Gertrude Stein's gallery in Madrid's Calle Velazquez, and as yet no one had made any firm offer. It was Wednesday 21 June, 2006, and the agreement between the painters and GS expired in a week. If nothing had happened by then, Bassan would withdraw her, and Clara would have to wait until another artist wanted to use her to paint an original. And in the meantime, what would she live off?

Without the paint, Clara Reyes had slightly wavy, platinum blonde hair that reached down to her shoulders, blue eyes, high cheek bones, a look that lay somewhere between innocent and mischievous, and a slender frame that gave her a delicate appearance which was belied by her surprising strength. And to keep it that way, she needed money. She had bought a white-walled attic in Augusto Figueroa, and in the living room had set up a small gym with a Japanese tatami mat surrounded by mirrors and apparatus.

Whenever the galleries were closed and she had no chores to do, she went swimming. Once a month she went to a beauty clinic. She used three kinds of cream each day to keep her skin as firm and gentle as canvases should be. She had got rid of two small moles from her body, and had had a scar removed from her left knee. Her menstruation had stopped as if by magic thanks to a special treatment, and she used pills to control her bodily needs. She had removed all her body hair completely and permanently, including her eyebrows; all that was left was her hair. Eyebrows and pubic hair are easy to paint if the artist so wishes, but they take a long time to grow. None of this was a whim – it was her job. Being a canvas cost a lot of money, and she could only make a lot of money by being a canvas. A strange paradox that made her think that Van Tysch, the greatest of them all, was right when he said that art was nothing more than money.

Yet this had not been a bad year for her. A Catalan businesswoman had bought her for Christmas as The Strawberry by Vicky Lledo – but then Vicky had a very faithful following, and sold all her works at a good price. In that painting, she had been with Yoli Ribo. The two of them were seated on a pedestal painted in skin tones, arms and legs intertwined, a plastic strawberry painted in quinacridone red held in their mouths. It was an easy position to hold, although they had to use an aerosol every day to reduce the saliva they produced ('Just imagine a painting that dribbles’ Vicky had said. 'Can you think of anything less aesthetic?') When you got used to it, having to put up with a plastic strawberry in your mouth for six hours a day seemed like the simplest thing in the world. And thanks to hyperdramatism, the exchange with Yoli had been ideal: they shared the strawberry, their breath, looks and touch like real lovers. Vicky had signed them on their deltoids with a horizontal V and L in red. They spent a month in the businesswoman's house before they were replaced. And then Clara had to find more work. In March she had taken over from a French model in an open-air piece in Marbella by the Portuguese artist Gamaio, and in April had replaced Queti Cabildos in Liquid Element II by Jaume Oreste, another open-air work, this time in La Moraleja, but she did not earn as much as when she was the original.

Then in May, good news. She got a call from Alex Bassan. He wanted to paint an original with her. 'Alex, you're an angel,' she thought. He was someone who didn't apply himself to his work, but sold well. He had already painted Clara in two originals a few years back, and she was used to his way of working. Quick as a flash she accepted.

She came to Barcelona at the start of May and installed herself in the split-level apartment on the avenida Diagonal where Bassan lived and worked. Bassan and his wife lived on the upper floor of the apartment, while Clara slept on one of the three fold-up beds kept in the atelier. The other two beds were inhabited by a young Bulgarian (or was she Romanian?) girl who must have been about eleven or twelve, and who Bassan used as a sketch from time to time, and another sketch called Gabriel, nicknamed Misfortune by the painter because the first time he had used him had been for a work with that title. Misfortune was skinny and submissive.

While Clara was at work, the young girl wandered round the atelier like a ghost, clutching one of those Japanese toys that you have to push buttons to feed, raise and educate. During the fortnight Clara spent at Bassan's, this was the only thing she ever saw her with: it was as if the girl had come without any possessions or clothes. And all Misfortune did was come and go all the time. Clara guessed he must be working with several artists in Barcelona at the same time.

Bassan had made several studies before Clara arrived. He had used a North American sketch called Carrie. He showed her the photos: Carrie standing, Carrie on tiptoe, Carrie kneeling – always in front of a looking glass placed at varying distances from her. But the results had not satisfied the artist. For the first few days, he used Clara without a glass. He painted her black and white with trial aerosols, and tested her against strong lights on a dark background. He sprayed her hair and had her stand on one leg for several hours. 'What is it you're trying to achieve, Alex?' she asked him.

Bassan was a huge, strong man built like a woodcutter. The hairs of his chest protruded above his artist's overall. He painted the same way he talked: in great bursts. His thick fingers sometimes grazed Clara's skin when he was outlining a delicate area.

'What am I trying to achieve? That's some question, Clara my love. How the fuck should I know. I have a looking glass. I have you. I want to do something simple, with simple colours, perhaps a range of brilliant whites. And I want you to express… I'm not sure… I want you to be sincere, open, with no barriers… Sincerity, that's the word. To discover what we are, to pass through the looking glass, see what it's like to live in a looking-glass world…'

Clara did not understand a word of this, but then she never understood any of the painters. That didn't worry her: she was the painting, not an art critic; her job was to allow the painter to use her to express what was in his head, not to understand what that was. Besides, she had a blind faith in Bassan. With him, everything was unexpected: he found what he was looking for by chance, all at once, and when that happened it touched your soul.

One day midway through the second week, Bassan put a looking glass on the studio floor and told her to crouch on it naked and look at herself. Several hours went by. Hunched up on the mirror, Clara could only see rings of condensation from her breath.

'Do you enjoy looking at yourself?' the painter asked her all of a sudden. 'Yes.' 'Why?' 'I think I'm attractive.'

'Tell me the first thing that comes into your head. Come on, don't think about it, just tell me.' 'Navel,' said Clara. 'Someone's navel?' 'Not someone's. My navel.' 'You were thinking about your navel?'

'Aha. Right at this moment, yes. Because that's what I'm looking at.'

'And what were you thinking about your navel? That it was pretty? Ugly?'

'I was thinking how extraordinary it is. The idea of having a hole in your belly. Isn't that strange?'

Bassan stood still (his way of thinking) and almost immediately slapped his thigh (his way of announcing he had discovered something).

'Navel, navel… hole… the beginning of the world and of life

… I've got it! Stand up. You're to cover your sex with your right hand, but raise your thumb a bit. Let's see… like that… No, a little higher… That's right, pointing up towards your navel…'

In the end, the work was very simple. Bassan had placed her standing up, arms and legs slightly apart, right hand on her sex and thumb raised rather less than he had at first thought. He mixed a lot of zinc white and covered her completely, including the 'natural stains' (facial features, aureolas and nipples, navel, her genitals and the crack between her buttocks). He used white lead to cover the brightest parts, then painted over them with titanium white. He sprayed and moulded her hair in a compact white mass that stuck close to her scalp. He used a small sable brush to paint some simple traits on her face: eyebrows, lashes and lips in a Naples brown diluted with white. He stuck a full-length mirror into the floor a short distance from her and put three halogen spots on two parallel strips to highlight her body. The powerful lights made the oil paint gleam. On 22 May he tattooed his signature on her left thigh: a capital B and two small esses. 'Bss'. It sounded like a soft whistle, she thought, or the buzz of a wasp.

'I think it'd be best to try Madrid,' Bassan said. 'I've had an interesting offer from the GS gallery.'

Bassan himself prepared the catalogue. He claimed exhibition catalogues were more important than the works themselves. 'Nowadays, we painters don't create paintings, we create catalogues,' he said mockingly. As soon as he received the first proofs from the printer, he sent Clara a copy. It was beautiful: a large white satin card with a photo of Clara's painted face on the front. Opening the card, the text in gold letters read: 'The painter Alex Bassan and the GS gallery have the pleasure of…' Bassan described it perfectly with one of his impulsive phrases: 'It looks like the invitation to an elf's first communion.' The opening was at eight on the evening of Thursday 1 June at the GS gallery in Madrid, an event like many others. Gertrude Stein shared the cost of the drinks. People got drunk in the foyer, then went down into the basement to look at Clara, who was positioned in the centre of a tiny room. Opposite her stood the looking glass, with no frame or base, as if it had appeared by magic. Behind her on the white wall was an inscription: 'Alex Bassan. Girl in Front of a Looking Glass. Oils on a twenty-four-year-old girl with full-length mirror and lights. 195x35x88cm.' Under the title was a shelf with a pile of catalogues. There was no podium or any kind of security rope: she was simply standing on the bare white floor that shone as brightly as the looking glass and her body did. The room was really cramped, and as it filled up, Clara was worried someone might step on her foot. A white fire extinguisher hung from the wall in a corner. 'At least I won't go up in flames if there's a fire,' she thought.

She could hear the art critics praising the work. A few criticisms as well. Not of her, of course, but of the work. Yet it was her they were staring at: her thighs, her buttocks, her breasts, her unmoving face. And the looking glass as well. There was one exception. At a certain point out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a silhouette coming close to her, and mouthing an obscenity into her left ear. She was used to this, and did not even blink. Often in hyperdramatic exhibitions some crazy person got in who was not in the least bit interested in the work, but in the naked woman on show. To judge by his breath, this guy was drunk. He stood right next to her for quite a while, staring at her. Clara was concerned he might try to touch her, because there were no security guards anywhere. But a few moments later he moved off. If he had tried anything, she would have been forced to abandon her state of quiescence and give him a verbal warning. If he had continued to pester her despite this, she would have had no problem kneeing him in the balls. It wouldn't have been the first time she had stopped being a work of art to defend herself from a troublesome spectator. HD art aroused a mixture of passions, and the female paintings who had no protection soon learned the lesson.

Girl in Front of a Looking Glass would fit easily into any reasonably spacious living room. Her percentage from the sale and rental, together with the money she had already received for her work with the painter, would have lasted her the whole summer. But nobody wanted to buy her.

'Clara.'

She breathed in sharply when she heard Gertrude's voice on the stairs. 'Clara, it's half past one. I'm going to close the gallery.'

It was always an effort to emerge from her state of quiescence and step back into the world of real objects. She twisted her head from side to side, swallowed several times, blinked (two cameos of her face were imprinted by light and time on her retinas), stretched her arms and stamped her feet on the floor. One of her legs had gone to sleep. She massaged her neck. The oil paint tugged uncomfortably at her skin.

'And there are two gentlemen to see you,' Gertrude added. 'They're in my office.'

Clara stopped sketching and looked at the gallery owner. Gertrude was at the foot of the stairs. As usual, her green eyes and scarlet lips gave nothing away. She was no longer young, and was as tall and white as Mont Blanc; so white she almost glistened. If she had fallen into snow, all you would have seen of her would have been a pair of almond-shaped emeralds and a stain of red lipstick. She liked wearing white tunics, and talked as if she were interrogating a prisoner of war under torture.

‘I'm German, but I've lived in Madrid for several years,' she told Clara when they met. She pronounced 'Madrid' like a robot from a B-movie. 'GS are my initials.' She went on to tell her her surname, but Clara couldn't remember it. 'Pleased to meet you,' Clara had replied, and was rewarded with a smile. Bassan said she was a successful gallery owner and had a select clientele of hyperdramatic art collectors, but Clara hadn't been able to discover if this was true or not. What she had found was that Gertrude was rude and disdainful towards the paintings. Perhaps she was a little more pleasant with the painters. On top of that, she was a cleanliness freak. She did not allow Clara to use the bathroom to wash or make up after work. She said she had no wish to see paint anywhere else apart from on the skin of her paintings. On Clara's first day she showed her a small space at the back of the upstairs office and said that all the works got on just fine in there. Each day before work Clara had to go into this wretched cubicle and put on the porous swimsuit and the hair-dyeing cap, soaked in the colours Bassan had prepared, and wait for almost an hour until they had dried on her skin. Then she took off the swimsuit and cap and emerged naked and gleaming white, walked down to the basement and took up the pose and expression the painter had chosen for her. When the gallery closed, she was forced to make her way home with her body still painted under her tracksuit and wearing a ridiculous beret to hide her white hair; all she could scrape off was the paint on her face. It was no fun driving with her skin stiffened with oil paint.

'Two gentlemen?' Clara had to clear her throat to get the words out. 'What do they want?' 'How should I know? They're waiting in my office.'

'But did they come down to see the work?' Often she was unaware of how many visitors there had been.

'Not today, that's for sure. They asked for Clara Reyes. They didn't mention any work of art.' As Clara mulled this over, Gertrude went on:

'I suppose you're not going to want to see them like that. You can put on one of the robes from the loft. But don't touch anything. I don't want any paint marks in my office.'

The two men were standing waiting for her, looking at glossy catalogues of other works she had been. She recognised Tenderness by Vicky, Horizontal III by Gutierrez Reguero, and The Wolf, in the Meantime, Is Dying of Hunger by Georges Chalboux. The illustrations showed her naked or half-naked body painted in a variety of colours. There were also a few Girl in Front of a Looking Glass catalogues. One of the men was throwing the catalogues on to the table after showing them to his companion, as if he were counting them. They were dressed in expensive suits and looked foreign. When she realised this, Clara's heart skipped a beat: if they had come a long way, perhaps that meant they were really interested in her. Hey, slow down a bit, you've no idea what they're going to propose, she told herself.

They offered her a chair. As she sat down, her robe opened over her knees like a petal, and one leg painted titanium white and white lead was revealed halfway up to her thigh. She crossed her hands under her chest and sat there like a patient child. 'Well?' she said.

The men did not sit down. Only one of them spoke. His Spanish was full of errors, but was easily understandable. Clara could not place his accent. 'Are you Clara Reyes?' 'Aha’

The man took something out of a briefcase: it was the resume Clara usually sent out to the most important artists in Europe and America. Her heart beat faster still.

'Twenty-four years old,' the man read out loud, 'one hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall, bust eighty-five, waist fifty-five, hips eighty-eight, blonde hair; light blue eyes tinged with green, depilated, no skin blemishes, firm and well-toned, primed four times

… is that correct?' 'Correct.' The man went on reading.

'Studied HD art and canvas techniques with Cuinet in Barcelona, and adolescent art in Frankfurt with Wedekind. Also in Florence with Ferrucioli. Is that correct?' 'Well, I was only with Ferrucioli for one week.'

She didn't want to hide anything, because that always led to difficult questions later on.

'You've been painted by both Spanish and foreign artists. Do you speak English?' 'Aha. Perfectly.'

'You've done interior works and open-air ones. Which are you better at?'

'Both. I can be an interior work or a seasonal outdoor one, or even be outside permanently, depending on the clothes and the time of year, of course. Although I can pose permanently outside with adequate protec-'

'We've seen other works you've done,' the man interrupted. 'We like you.' 'Thanks. But haven't you been downstairs to see Girl in Front of a Looking Glass? It's a really impressive Bassan, and I'm not just saying that because I'm the work, but-'

'You have also done mobile works of both sorts: performances and reunions,' the man cut in again. 'Were they interactive?' 'Aha. They were sometimes, yes.' 'Were you ever bought?' 'Almost always.'

'Good.' The man smiled and peered down at the sheets of paper as if there was something there that amused him. 'This resume is for promotional purposes. I'd like to hear your private one.' 'What do you mean by that?'

'I mean your whole professional career, and what you can't put in a promotion leaflet. For example: have you ever been an ornament, a mobile, a utensil?' 'I've never been a human artefact,' Clara replied.

It was true, although she had no idea whether the man believed her or not. But her own words sounded rather haughty to her, so she quickly added: 'Human ornaments have not really caught on yet in Spain.' 'Art-shocks?'

She hesitated before replying. She straightened up in her chair – her painted buttocks making a swishing sound – and told herself to stay on her guard. 'I'm sorry, but where are these questions leading?'

'We want to know what demands we can make of you,' the man responded calmly. 'I should warn you, I won't do anything illegal.'

She waited for a reaction that did not come. She hastened to add:

'Well, it would depend on the circumstances. But first of all I want you to tell me what you're going to do, where you're going to do it, and which artist is thinking of contracting me.' 'Your answer first, please.'

She decided there was nothing to lose by telling the truth. She was not a minor; the two art-shocks she had been bought in that year were not the hardest of their kind, and had been put on only in private for an adult audience. But it was also true that on both occasions elements had crept in that perhaps went beyond the limits of what was permitted. For example, in 625 + 50 lines by Adolfo Bermejo, one of the human canvases chopped the head off a live cat and squirted its blood on Clara's back. Was that illegal? She wasn't sure, but the question had been a general one, so she could respond in general terms, too. 'Yes, I've done art-shocks.' 'Porno ones?' 'Never,' she said firmly. 'But you've worked with Gilberto Brentano, I believe.'

‘I did two or three art-shocks with Brentano last year, but none of them was porno.'

'Have you ever belonged to any group providing underage material for works of art?' ‘I worked with The Circle for a few months.' 'How old were you?' 'Sixteen.' 'What did you do there?'

'The usual. They painted my hair red, ‘I had to wear lots of rings, and I took part in a few murals like Redhair Road.' 'Was that your first artistic experience?' 'Aha.'

'As far as I can see,' the man said, 'you like tough, risky art. But you don't seem the tough, risk-taking type. You look quite soft to me.'

For some unknown reason, Clara liked the man's cold disdain. A smile stretched the oil paint on her face. ‘I am soft. It's when I'm painted that I toughen up.' The man showed no sign of taking this as a joke. He said:

'We've come to propose something tough and risky. The toughest and most risky thing you've ever done in your life as a canvas, the most important and the most difficult. We want to be sure you're up to it.'

All of a sudden she realised her mouth was as dry as her paint-covered skin beneath the gown. Her heart was pounding. The man's words excited her. Clara loved extremes, the dark zone the other side of the frontier. If she was told: 'Don't go,' her body stirred and went, just for the simple pleasure of disobeying.

If something frightened her, she might try to keep it at a distance, but she never lost sight of it. She detested the instructions vulgar artists gave her, but if a painter she admired asked her to do something crazy, whatever it might be, she liked to obey without question. And that 'whatever it might be' recognised few limits. She was obsessed with discovering how far she would allow herself to go if the ideal situation occurred. She felt she was still a long way from her ceiling – or her floor, for that matter.

That sounds good,' she said. After a few moments, the man went on: 'Naturally, you'll have to drop everything else for a considerable length of time.' ‘I can drop everything if the offer is worth it.' 'The offer is worth it.' 'And I'm simply supposed to believe that?' 'Neither of us wants to rush into this, do we?' The man put his hand in his inside pocket. A black leather wallet. A turquoise-coloured card. 'Call this number. You have until tomorrow evening, Thursday.'

Before she put the card into her robe pocket, she glanced at it: the only thing on it was a phone number. It might be a mobile.

Gertrude's office was small, with white walls and no windows. Despite this, to Clara it seemed as if it had started to rain outside. There was, at least, a muffled impression of rain. The two men were staring at her, as if waiting for her to say something. So she replied: ‘I don't like accepting offers I know nothing about.'

'You don't need to know anything. You are the work of art. The only one who needs to know is the artist.'

'Well then, at least tell me the name of the artist who wants to paint me.' 'That's something we can't reveal.'

She accepted this refusal without protest. She knew the man was telling the truth. The great painters never revealed their identity to the canvas until their work had started: it was their way of maintaining an element of secrecy about the painting they were going to do. The door opened and Gertrude appeared.

'I'm sorry, but I'm going out to lunch and I need to shut the gallery.'

'Don't worry, we've just finished.' The two men picked up the catalogues and walked out without another word.

While she was on show that afternoon, Clara's breasts moved up and down with her breathing. She was so nervous that a state of quiescence was much more difficult to achieve than usual. But daydreaming helped her to stay still, because when dreaming one can move without moving. The time went by and nobody came down to see her, but she wasn't concerned, because she had her fantasies to keep her company

The toughest and most risky. The most important and difficult.

Her greatest desire was to be painted by a genius. Various names sprang to mind, but she hardly dared speculate that it might be one of them. She didn't want to raise her hopes up too high, so as not to be disappointed. She kept in her pose in the silent whiteness of the room until Gertrude told her it was time to close.

Outside it really was raining: a violent summer shower that had been forecast on TV. On other occasions she would have run to the car park entrance, but today she preferred to walk slowly in the downpour, with her make-up bag slung over her shoulder. She realised her tracksuit was clinging to her like a wet sheet, and the beret was dripping on to her face, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. In fact, she welcomed it. Cold diamonds of water showering down upon her.

The toughest and most risky. The most important and difficult.

What if it was a trap? It had been known. You were contracted – supposedly on behalf of a great maestro – taken out of the country and forced to take part in porno art. But she didn't think this was anything like that. And even if it were, she would take the risk. Being a work of art meant accepting all the risks, all the sacrifices. She was more scared of being disappointed than of facing danger. She could accept falling into any trap except that of mediocrity.

The toughest and most risky. The most important and…

All at once she felt as though her body was melting. She felt fluid, at one with the rain. She looked down at her feet and saw what was happening. She had forgotten she was still painted, and the raindrops were washing off all the white paint. As she walked along, she was leaving a trail behind her, a curving milky stream that flowed from her tracksuit on to the pavement of the Calle Velazquez, only to be quickly blotted out by the rain, as sharp and precise as a Pointillist painter. White, white, white.

Little by little, as the water cleansed her, Clara grew darker.