Justine by Kerri A.; Iben; Pierce Mondrup

really wanted to see it, and suddenly there were two doors. I opened one and stepped into a new room where walls, windows, posts, chair, and table were covered in spray paint. In a corner were three paint buckets and some jam jars. Beneath a sink there was a box of jam jars. In the sink were some jars without lids.
    I was reminded of the girl who won admission to the school after sitting for a couple of days in a large wooden box among all the submitted work. Her box sojourn was itself the work. It lasted until she was up before the admissions committee. Then she stepped out of the box and read aloud from a diary she’d kept. The girl had pissed and shit in some jam jars. She left them standing behind.
    I stuck as many of the jars into my bag as would fit. I hated the fucking place. And all the fucking, jar-shitting artists.

I didn’t hate them. I loved them. No. That’s not how it was. I hated the ones I loved. I also wanted to be just like that right there. In that exact spot.

I t was cold when I began to create my work. The cold stood right outside the windows. On the floor the paper stretched and readied itself. I wrote in sprawling letters. In Greenlandic. Burned the letters into the paper with a spirit marker and drowned them in lacquer. The alkyd flayed the letters to dun. Everything snarled and sweat stood out on my skin. I removed my clothes and opened the windows. The panes broke. The lacquer was yellow and smelled like piss. First the surface received a coat, then the deeper layers. The wallpaper disintegrated and curled and dropped off. The wind started in. In February it snowed on the floor. I drank whiskey from jam jars and tossed them out the open windows. I turned on the video camera and made a song. I moved my body in dance. I delivered the pictures, the song, and the dance to the listed address.

G randpa took it in stride when I told him I was going to attend the academy. Actually, he didn’t react. But then he heard about Ane.
    â€œWhat did she do?” he asked.
    â€œShe filmed herself kicking a goat.”
    â€œAne?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œA video? But what did she kick a goat for? Never mind. And she taped it?”
    Grandpa looked disgusted.
    â€œIt was no big deal, Grandpa. She borrowed a goat from one of the other families. Then she tied it to a tree, so it couldn’t escape. Then she took the video camera and filmed while she kicked it, I mean, kicked, that’s not really what she did, she just poked it a little, you know: tap, tap. It didn’t take ten seconds. No one could come and say it was animal abuse, Grandpa. The goat’s fine.”
    â€œBut can’t you see it for yourself, Justine?” Grandpa asked. “That’s a damned insane thing to do. Kicking a goat? That’s never been art.”
    â€œGrandpa, trust me. That’s art. I could try and explain it to you, but I don’t think it would help much. You’d still think it was ridiculous.”
    â€œYou can damn well try. In fact, that’s the least you can do. You can’t just say it’s art, and that’s that. Tell me, Justine. What is it that makes kicking a goat a work of art?”
    â€œMainly because Ane says that it’s art. And because she’s going to the academy, of course.”
    â€œBut how did she get in?”
    â€œWith the goat, Grandpa . . .”
    â€œThat’s completely absurd. Can’t you see that? It reminds me of those idiotic videos where people film each other in all sorts of stupid situations, like when they fall on their ass or get their pants soaked or something. That’s just as idiotic,” said Grandpa. “But you don’t make things like that, right?”

T he new students gathered with the old in the academy’s banquet hall with its gold chandeliers and antique plaster friezes. The rector talked about art’s necessity and about the great masters whose steps had graced the