Wait Here is one of the first neon works produced by Etchells and addresses the viewer directly, using eight words to spell out a phrase implicating us in a narrative whose details remain forever unknown. The identity of the person who has gone to get help, what kind of assistance they are seeking, what reason they have to need help and from whom they are seeking it, are all unclear – creating a space of implication without a concrete narrative around which it may cohere.
A further dynamic tension exists between the supposed urgency and narrative drive of the text on the one hand and the overly elaborate means of the message’s display. In a certain sense, a text most appropriate for a private communication is here turned into a public one, bringing in a host of confusions and amplifications of its status and significance.
Wait Here
