Taken form Tony Allen’s Journal - new agenda arts trust

Contract. 1 August 2000, is a 8 minute real-time head and shoulders video portrait of a seated friend consensually having his nose gradually broken by Ofar (off-camera) relentlessly smashing him in the face with a stretched canvass. It closes by displaying the snot 'n blood abstract alongside the signed contract between artist and sitter. No money changed hands, there was no sponsor, no grants and no one commissioned the piece. Two years later neither the canvass nor the video have been sold or seriously exhibited. Is it a piece of pure art or a document of a Sado-Masochistic relationship?

Knowing both of them personally, and given what they had experienced themselves in it's creation, I thought the least I could do was to commit to looking at the thing from  beginning to end. I literally climbed up the furniture when I saw it - it was truly harrowing.

What did it say to me? Extraordinarily it said lots and unusual for a contemporary artwork, what it had to say was not primarily concerned with the subject of art but instead it posed many questions about pain, friendship, commitment and trust. And it forced me to answer them for myself.