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The other day, I found the blurb I wrote for a toxic little show I curated back in 2003, at Auckland Art Gallery’s New Gallery. It was called Pressing Flesh: Skin, Touch, Intimacy. Instead of labouring my point, I just described some of the works. ‘This rambling group show looks at themes of skin, touch, and intimacy—particularly bad intimacy. It takes in hysterical welts, playing tag in the nude, a slap-happy couple, live massage performance, a blackened digit, a passive-aggressive invitation, published romantic blacklists and wishlists, a plasticine painting, a skin collage, dank nude studies, deeply textured stockings, hairy soap, a stalker video, a pitted tongue, and, finally, a classic feminist vagina painting made by a guy.’ What was I thinking? And how generous of Director Chris Saines to let me think it. Those were the days. The show included Maria Abramovic and Ulay, Pat Brassington, Gordon Burt, Steve Carr, Derrick Cherrie, Julian Dashper, Luise Fong, Lucio Fontana, Douglas Gordon, Terrence Handscomb, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Jae Hoon Lee, Andrea Low, Mike Parr, Fiona Pardington, Peter Peryer, Ann Shelton, Santiago Sierra, Jed Town, Terry Urbahn, Rohan Wealleans, and Artur Zmijewski. By all means, try to match the names to the crimes.