Scratchpad for visual collection

This is a scratch list for my visual collection. The images will be hosted on Flickr and the pages on my server. I may link from these names and objects to their entries,  a link which would require a password...

Torbjorn Rodland

Photographer. Flimsy surfaces like a badly-hinged joke hint at
submerged and fractured narratives. Absurd sexual frisson, dark fringed
situations. Style as a container. See Contemporary no 67

http://www.contemporary-magazine.com/

Hogarth

Sung landscape masters

Spatiality, narrative and subject order. Systems of spatial
representation and narrative presentation reflecting cultural factors.
Perspectival system as symbolic form. ( i must read Panofsky one day !)

Roni Horn

Looking at Roni Horn in Contemporary today. Work includes "Some
Thames", a work i think I read about in a Sunday supplement magazine
years ago. I think it's very good work.

"Some Thames" was the work with the pictures of the Thames filling
the picture field: up close images that showed the turbulent surface
with all its characterful, meaningful exactitude. But a surface that
nonetheless swallows up: Horn's supporting text was full of forensic
reports on bodies recovered from the depth. Depth, perception, surface:
embodiment, intentionality, repetition. Horn's repetitions set up
relations across a series that are fascinating. "Doubt By Water" is a
sequencew of images, double-sided, on plinths, where the sequence is
examined...WRITE MORE

Sophie Calle/ Paul Auster

Identity, space and chance. Narratives of chance and place. The insistence of objects on coincidence.

Italo Calvino: Castle of Crossed Destinies

ditto, but with Tarot, so the objects become symbols.

Baraka/Ron Frick

Visual components/componence rhythm and editing. Solidity of intention despite nonverbal mode.

Russian Ark

A journey through a memory palace. The way the narrative drives
through on one single line, but has others meshing like gears on a
toothed track. Vision, layers of presence. History and research as
subject. Ghosts.

Vong Phaophanit

Especially the one with the ashes and silk.

Christiane Boltanski- "les Tombeaux"-"The Tombs"

v similar to (Tulse Luper suitcases)by Peter Greenaway

What is Boltanski doing to people though? Do his commemorations victimize?

Abelardo Morell

http://www.abelardomorell.net

Photographer. Camera Obscura series is fascinating. Section on books
also. Attracted to visual games, light. Sense of hermetic value.
Enclosed, gamelike.

Isaac Julien- the John Soane film.

Don't Look Now (Nic Roeg)

Francesco Clemente

Sigmar Polke
R. B. Kitaj
Tom Phillips
Richard Serra
Cy Twombly
Sol LeWitt
Ian Hamilton Finlay
Joseph Kosuth
Jenny Holzer
Art & Language
Amikan Toven
Wolfgang Laib
Christo and Jeanne Claude
Starn twins
Mary Kelly
James Turrell
Joseph Beuys
Anselm Kiefer
Bill Viola
Vija Celmins
Nancy Spero
Paula rego
John Kirby
Heraldry
Susan Rothenberg
Tony Cragg
Rachel Whiteread
Joseph Cornell
Mona Hatoum
Susan Hiller
JS Bach
Eileen Lawrence
Cornelia Parker
Tacita Dean
Niki De Saint Phalle
Louise Nevelson
Sonia Delaunay
Max Ernst
David Lynch

image store

I've been looking for ways to produce an online image library for myself, and I think I've cracked it. I'm posting some instructions to myself, in case I forget how to do it at some point.

• Collect image files.



• Upload to Flickr.



• Set each file as Private



• go to each file's page, view "all sizes" and get the file's path.



• you can use this path as an IMG SRC in a page kept in your password-protected directory on the website.



• A private image collection, hosted jointly by "me" and
  flickr, only accessable via password for academic purposes. I design
  the pages (maybe rapidweaver for quickness) and flickr host the files.
  I still use my own bandwidth (?) but I don't host the files on my
  server space



• UPDATE- I decided to keep it on site and have been collecting with DevonThink.

Ex-Abs

This article,

Ex-Abs
Committed abstractionists are finding themselves irresistibly drawn to the figure
By Deidre Stein Greben

http://www.artnewsonline.com/currentarticle.cfm?type=feature&art_id=1634

about artists switching from abstraction to figuration and vice-versa, interested me.

One of (the
main) way(s) I want to write about artists’ books is their identity as
an enabling mode of practice. A way for artists to break through and
express themselves.

There are several characters to this:

I: The
artists’ book as a therapy or remedy (or pharmakon, if you will), for
the “sickness” of an uncontained cultural fragment that has to survive
on its own. I’ve been interested in thinking of the book form as a sort
of “in vitro” (“in biblio”? environment where relationships can be
managed in a more controlled way. My entries on temporary structures
elaborate my meaning here a little.

II: The
book as a method of accessing strategies of distribution and
multiplicity. Of course, this could just as easily be said of any
multiple, but there is a depth in books and a ponderous identity to
them that can be interestingly transgressed.

III The
multivocal propensity of books. This is one of the things leveraged in
the “temporary structure” idea. A book has the potential to act as a
matrix for a number of different poetic approaches, types of media,
overlay, argument, array, etc.

IV As
a means of expressing a fully-formed idea that can only be addressed
through a book object. I’ve encountered this idea of the process of
creating books in various forms and, though it has some anecdotal
soundness (such as in the story of “how an artist solved a brief”) , my
initial feeling is that there is a much more complex chicken-and-egg
scenario going on whereby the artist has ideas which are expressed
through the medium, which gives the artist more ideas, etc. It’s also
the case that artists encountering book art for the first time do not
encounter a pristine medium that they can transparently fit to their
own visions, (not that that was ever the case), nor is the artists’
book form sufficiently well-known as to be easily thought of in a
passing way, without some contact, some previous model- and thereby
previous influence- informing the new artist’s comprehension of the
form. This open up the idea of “does the artist make the book, or does
the book-form prescribe the art”.

 

As
I’ve said, I only offer this doubtfulness as an addition to the notion
of “artists finding solutions”. I’m simply not so sure that this
assumption of artists proactively seeking appropriate tools is quite
how things come about. I think it’s more likely that artists find
something, like it, and start to work with it.

 

Again
I’m nagged by doubt though, because I know perfectly that I have ideas
that haven’t become books yet, and that I’m voluntarily allowed a
comfortable dogma to develop where I assume that the way that I express
them will be through books. They needn’t be, I think. But I can
evaluate why I think it is a good idea if they DO become books: the
reasons of “temporary structure” “multiplicity” “multivocality” et al.

 

Anyway,
I found the article interesting because I thought about the artists’
stories in these terms: as a story of enabling, as a timeline of
realizations and the opening up of new strategic possibilities, new
attitudes to what one is doing. Transforming one’s studio practice from
one methodology of encountering and transforming ideas into another.
The idea of the “artist’s story” is sometimes maddening to me because
it often hinges on inaccessible, personal circumstances that I can’t
reproduce for myself: what is more valuable are those moments when an
artist explains, or tries to explain how they decide to do the work
they do. This article, because it describes artist’s attitudes to a
shift in their work, captures some such moments of revelatory
reflection.

 

Artists talk in it of terms of their desires for their work, and the solving of problems by working in a particular way, with a particular method/medium/sensibility/etc: 

 

““I
wanted to do something more personal, to connect with viewers in a more
specific way by using known imagery,” explains [Jonathan] Santlofer,
who admits that his attraction to recognizable images may relate to his
having lost his artwork in a fire. “I had a need to connect with
something more tangible,” he says.”

 

“At
a certain point, I fell too much in love with someone’s ankles,” says
[Pat] Passlof, explaining her temporary decision to abandon figuration
and stop working from a model. “It got in the way, and I had to stop.”

 

I want to get some information from book artists in the same vein.

note to self re password directory

I've set up a password-protected directory at

www.andreweason.com/pass/test.htm

with the usual password.

Head and Shoulders

More fun at Bradford on Avon...

I visited Ale and Porter in Bradford on Avon on Friday to pick up
some copies of the Art Dictionary book I illustrated for Piers Bizony.
So now I have a small batch of them to take around to likely outlets.
I'll produce some sort of handout explaining the what and whys as well
as some contact details and get out there with them. I should be taking
some up to Edinburgh, and with any luck, get some orders from it.

Also spoke with Fiona about "Head and Shoulders", a portrait show.
I'll be doing some wall drawings and a short residency sitting people
for quick portraits, as well as producing a few pictures to sell. I'm a
bit concerned that this work takes me away from my research projects
somewhat, so I'm going to draft a bit of brainstorming that will show
me how to bring the things together.  I anticipate some sort of book
recording events with a somewhat deeper view, or some kind of idea
overlay, will be the result.

Update: Shrigley does funny drawings, but does something worthwhile
with them, too. I think I'll nominate him as a mental mascot.

On Hunting

My ongoing project, Whistling Copse is all about the murder of a gamekeeper by a poacher and all the various things that lead off of that. Amongst these, of course, are the issues raised by hunting, and I wondered about whether or not it might be possible to explore some of the current issues and protests around the recent hunting ban and present the results as part of my project. I have some thoughts on it now, which I'll briefly set down...

Unlike many, I'm not emotionally involved with the hunting issue. On the whole I think it is a troubling and outmoded cultural remnant which discomfits so many people that we would probably be best off without it. I agree with pro-hunting groups that in doing so we would be censoring part of our cultural heritage and doing away with part of what makes Britain what it is, and so on. I think, though, that on consideration of the meanings of hunting it is probably better that we should move on and should replace what we've lost with something more befitting the humane values I would hope most of us strive towards.

This is not to discount the appeal of hunting, however. I am certain that I would indeed find pursuit an energetic thrill, and the noisiness, liveliness and energy an affirming and enjoyable activity. I am certain, also, that I would find the death a shocking, poignant and powerful event that tramelled up personal reflections on mortality in its wake. An affecting and symbolic event. And one about which I would feel profoundly guilty and profoundly wrong.

I am surprised not to hear more defenses of hunting in which this symbolic event and its value are discussed. However, I would set this experience, which I have characterised as my own -imagined, to be sure- experience of hunting, against another, more troubling aspect that I believe exists, and which I believe is present in the minds of many who might otherwise speak of hunting's quasi-spiritual value. That is, issues of class and dominance are tied in with this experience inextricably.

Hunting is not only a thrilling pursuit. It is a symbol of dominance over one's fellow human beings in the act of trespass. (Perhaps I will be told that the whole point is only to hunt on one's own or on allowed land, but I don't for a moment believe that no trespassing goes on. Anyone who says this I call a liar- though I freely admit that I'm not as interested in the issue as to know of very many cases: spleen vented on Question Time is about as much as I have any knowledge of). It is also a determination against death and a declaration that one will live one's life in this world in such a manner as to acknowledge death's power and the power of cruelty, the better to frame one's life in a similarly inevitable composition of determination, grit and energetically-exacted pleasure. To be blooded, and brought into the reality of hunting and the real face of death is to be brought, says the logic of hunting, into the real world, to be brought closer to the fragile verve of life as expressed by will alone. To be blooded is to be brought face to face with the ruthless necessity of death, the enjoyment and exhilaration of pursuit, and to match them a ruthlessness of pleasure, a ruthlessness of will. The huntsmen and huntswomen are members of a compact against death. Their unswerving commitment to the hunt is an affirmation of life through the power of cruelty, (Cruelty plays a necessary, shocking part, in the pursuit: "If it happens, it happens because it must. If a creature must die, it must die. If I have to trespass, I shall. If I have to go to jail, I shall"). Hunting is likewise a display of dominance over those who lack the stomach for it or the will to take it, or to face the necessity of cruelty to take what one wants. The face of hunting as an affirmation of dominance, more than its cruelty to animals, is the one I find most troubling.

Yet I cannot deny a fascination. Clearly, if we should deny ourselves this rite, it will leave a gap in British identity. I think that we should reach towards new myths and new values. But what is more potent than death? What could one ally one's life to that could be more powerful a finality or more powerful a spur to the will? This question of values is one that should be at the vanguard of our culture, but of course, it's far from it. My fascination will not be purged. It is a natural fascination that could certainly find some healthier meditation than killing. I don't want to give the impression that my mind turns and turns on the idea of death, incidentally. I'm thinking about it now for the purposes of thinking about hunting. But thoughts of death and its attendant rites have a very present place in our lives, or should. Everyone who has thought about life has also, inevitably, thought about death. What do we do with those thoughts? That's what's needed.