Tags
The Pig’s Arms’ resident art critic, Phil O’Stein was an early visitor to the NSW Gallery Members’ free squiz at the new blockbuster Picasso exhibition. Here’s his take.
Ah, yeah, hi. Well the missus and I (and I use the term loosely, if you catch my drift, Tarquin) were amongst the three or four hundred thousand NSW Art Gallery members to line up for an hour and a half in the stinking heat of a Sydney November Sunday afternoon to run our beady peepers across the latest imported nonsense from the National Picasso Museum of Paris.
The NSW Gallery lucked out and scored third pick of the Museum’s collection – in fact Picasso’s own collection at the time of his death (read …. unsold stuff he had in the back shed). First and Second picks went to Seattle and somewhere in Asia.
This is not to suggest that the 150 or so works on display were to an individual tripe of the first order, but I could see from the look on the missus’ dial that she was not going to contemplate a major redecoration of the rumpus room on the strength of the works the NSW Gallery flung up on the walls of most of its ground floor display spaces.
It was in fact a trans-historical pastiche of the various periods identified in Mr P’s long and illustrationist life. There were bronzes as well as flat-pack art, and my personal favourite sculpture of a bull’s head – made from the careful juxtaposition of a bicycle seat with handlebars was slung way up on one wall – obviously reflecting the unsafeness of such an object amongst the seat-sniffers represented in impressive numbers amongst the members.
Now call me Phil O’Stein, if you like, but I have seen quite a lot of this art and a superset in the actual Museum villa in Paris, and I have to say that something seems to have been lost in the translation.
I’m betting that the loss is something to do with below-par curation of the overall exhibition. There was virtually no explanatory material. The curator(s) had boldly gone for letting the works speak for themselves – which led to some intriguing dialogues amongst the arterartie having a butchers at the works. “Look, there’s the woman’s head over there”. “That’s not the head”. “Is that really a guitar”? “I’m buggered if I can see the saxophone”. Clearly the troops were not always up to re-assembling Mr P’s disassemblages.
Let me draw a contrast.
The missus and I (nudge, nudge) went to the Dali exhibition at the NGV sur Yarra a while back. Like the NSW G Picasso exhibition, this was intended to be a blockbuster – and it certainly was. Over half a million people flocked to Paris sur Yarra to have a squiz. And magnificent it was too. There were all kinds of interesting objects, movies from the period, light, colour and excitement.
That was what was missing from the Picasso Exhibition. The excitement.
It could be that in sending off the great man Ed Capon – after his magnificent 30 years steerage of the NSW G – they had expected that the mass of Picasso works would be exciting enough on their own, and that the target to hit was the logistics – namely getting the masses through the exhibition quickly and tidily – hence the booked timeslots for ticket-holders only.
Maybe it really is that the NSW G – is showing us that it is a tired old flog of a building and that it is incapable of really doing the blockbuster exhibition with the same flair and panache as either the National Gallery in Canberra or the NGV in Paris sur Yarra.
What concerns me is not just that the Picasso exhibition left the missus and I a bit flat. I’m worried that this is the second in a trend of “should be great but look a bit ordinary” exhibitions – following the “Mad Square” show.
If the arterartie members were having a struggle extracting delight from the Picasso show (as seemed to be the case for people dotted through the inner circle throng – more interested in dinner to come or what they were doing about their own personal global financial meltdowns…. readily apparent in their attire), what might one of the hoi polloi – expected to show up in their thousands make of Picasso ?
Geeze, he can draw, but why does he make the hands and feet so big ?
For THE artist of the 20th Century, the curators could well have worked up a tiny tiny bit of sweat and led the punters through with a modicum of context. It’s the least they could have done.
So, the missus and I are scouting around to see whether there will be at any stage the odd guided tour where a well-informed artertainer can supply the context and inject the excitement that Patrons de la Salle de Porc have come to expect – ever since the Mondrian Brothers (Abstract Plumbers to the Drinking Classes) retiled the loos at the Pig’s Arms.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Finally being in a position to make an intelligent, or at least informed, comment, having rocked up last weekend, I have to say I enjoyed it very much.
I was prepared not to, having read that it didn’t include major works, and arriving in a pre-annoyed frame of mind over the ticketing system with time slots. But before I forget, the time-slots were for entering the exhibit, not leaving. You could stay there all day as far as I could see.
Did you get the free program? They were pro-actively handing them out in the corral where we gathered to form a queue, and again at the entranceway when the queue moved over there. They also had (vaguely irritatingly BBCish accented) detailed podcasts about selected works, pretty standard practice these days and also free, at least to those with an iThingy who arrived prepared. Actually, I think they DID omit explanation of the inflated bodies and body parts, and only selected works had individual descriptions. But for a dilettante there was more information than I could absorb at a single visit, and I was happy about the categorisation into periods and rooms and the general descriptions of each period.
I felt good about it. Enjoyed every single drawing, painting, sculpture and 3D whatsit.
LikeLike
Better late than never !
LikeLike
Nearly was never. It finishes this weekend I think.
Last year I missed the Chinese Warriors due to illness, which I was really dark about. Probably a once in a lifetime opportunity.
LikeLike
Having said that, if I was to express the same feelings as the original article in my own way, it would be that the exhibition was not World Class. Can’t help wondering whether anyone else scored better from the temporary closure of the Musée Picasso.
While there’s certainly room in the world for a workmanlike Picasso exhibition in your home town, and I would go every time, it’s not a “you can’t miss it” event.
LikeLike
As others on this blog have listed their own modest collections of art, perhaps I’d better run through a brief list of the art which adorns my lounge-office-music-room just so you won’t all think I’m a complete philistine:
The largest ‘piece’ I have is a reproduction of a detail from that huge Manet painting… the detail shows the French barmaid, whose eyes depict deep inward reflection even as the mirror behind her depicts, with less than scientific accuracy, the scene in the ‘trox’ in front of her, of which she is apparently oblivious; although it is an impressionistic work, its detail and observation is superb.
Then there are a couple of Chinese calligraphies, both done by my erstwhile T’ai Chi instructor: The largest is a quotation from the I Ching; translated into English, it says: “Perseverence Furthers!” The second is my T’ai Chi Sword certificate; translated, it says “The quality of (my) swordsmanship is elusive and profound” with the date and signature of the artist in smaller characters in the bottom right-hand corner as well as the artist’s personal ‘seal’ or ‘stamp’… I also have a third, smaller calligraphy: my T’ai Chi certificate, which has yet to be framed; until I get around to doing this, I keep it inside the programme from Bob Dylan’s 1981 concert at Earls Court, London; this is a single Chinese character and translated, it says, “Profoundness”.
The most ‘valuable’ piece I have is actually a modern Native American work by an artist from the Haida tribe and it depicts the Haida Creation myth, in which the Raven (spirit, or ‘god’) is creating humanity. This is a beautiful work with the Raven and its creations embossed in gold leaf.
I also have a miniature ‘Entombed Warrior’; one of the kneeling and ‘would-be-carrying-a-crossbow’ type… this sits in front of a modest watercolor doodle by yours truly… this latter piece is an imaginary river-scene…
I don’t suppose I can count the photo-copies of ancient Chinese paintings, including one of Lao Tzu from the cover of DC Lau’s translation of the Tao Te Ching as works of art, even though they were hand-framed by a now-deceased friend… but they are decorative; and I don’t suppose my ‘gold’-plastic 8-ball trophy for ‘best player’ counts as an art work either… though my self-made African drum in cow-calf and kangaroo hide (not traditionally African materials, I grant you…) might just scrape through as an ‘artwork’ in the modern context… and I think the, again self-made, cylindrical leather container in which I keep my yarrow stalks for divination with the I Ching, with its hand-carved depiction of a phoenix, rising from the flames; and a similar hand-carved ‘belt-pouch’ with the same motif carved onto its copious flap; can also be counted as ‘artistic craftwork’ if not ‘art’ per se…
I also have three little porcelain elephants that were a present from a French au pair we used to have to help us look after the sprog in London…
And my guitars are definitely works of art in my opinion, even though I know that Voice, at least, will pedantically insist that they may be works of ‘craft’ though not art… 😉
I also have a laminated copy of an ad for my historical novel, “Cyrus” blue-tacked behind the front door (and four more that I have yet to decide what to do with!) And last, but certainly far from least (in everything except size!) is an original icon by Lehan; a lovely depiction of my SG Gibson on a black background with a Pigs Arms logo… Oh… and I almost forgot the poster of an Epiphone ‘Casino’ semi-acoustic guitar which is blue-tacked to one of my bedroom doors… but in any case, as both a poster and an advert, I doubt this is truly ‘art’ either…
And that’s about it really… I don’t include my small collection of photos, even though some might call photography ‘art’…
Hmmm interesting excercise really; I didn’t know I had so much ‘art’ in my house! Sorry if I’ve bored you all with my ‘skiting’!
🙂
LikeLike
Don’t use the spoon upside down while tapping your plate. ( or swaying the fork in mid air while having a nice conversation, trying to make a salient point)..
LikeLike
And then there is Marc Chagall. The floating bride, with flowers aloft and looking down. Who would ever have thought to paint the conjugals like that. The master of romantic but mythical images that to my mind have only come close to matching by our very own Ian Fairweather, that alone but not lonely surviver on Bribie Island, painting on masonite.. . a language in paint.
Back in the late sixties or early seventies a very large John Olson was exhibited in the AG of NSW. It brought howls of protests rekindling the court case brought against the panel of judges on one of William Dobell’s Archibold winning portrait of …. who…? I think the case was on the basis that the prortrait was a carricature and not a portrait. I think the Dobell winning portrait survived the Court drama.
All three of them painted away the conservative bounderies, not in any way deliberately but sub-consciously, hardly aware they were doing anything extraordinary. They painted not having any other option or other way. We do the best when we are hardly aware of what we are doing. It is never a deliberate act. Says me.
Geez Hung, chuck it away.
LikeLike
I/ve come here late. And sometimes one just doesn’t want to run repeats. I had my say about Picasso (my visits to his shrineeum in Barcelona, home to Gaudi) and the Cezanne/Pizzaro relationship. We had a discussion here (recently) about Monet and his life.
The problem is that I have been privileged to see works of art in sanctuaries around the world, but am only a raving dilettante; instantly able to forget something, that I profoundly, and pointedly badgered everyone with last time–telling them how clever it was/is 🙂
My fortunate travelling has, of course, led to the most lucky encounters of the world’s art. Undeserving encounters really. A more deserving observer should have been dispatched. However, I was to hand–so it fell to me.
I remember when Moore was all the rage. I swear I knew what he was thinking. Like fu*k I did.
I love Picasso, however H.I. always brings up his muses, as if in someway It taints my choice. Crafty these women.
Imagine being able to draw a perfect image, like a photograph, at an early age (early teens). Well eventually one would drwaw a straight line, knowing one could draw the actual image if’n one wanted to.
LikeLike
Tell us Funston of what you have seen.
You know of my interest in such things.
It has been said that those “at hand” are more…..reliable witnesses.
LikeLike
You’re not a tax inspector, by chance—are you?
LikeLike
VL, I was most disappointed when I saw Mona Lisa for the first time, I had such high expectations so it was bound to happen.
The again, seeing Marc Chagall’s out- of- this- world paintings, I was blown away, I was speechless, I just loved them. Same thing happened when I walked into Giocometti ‘s all white studio gallery in Paris…I just stood there…the wrords came later..
LikeLike
Do I Iook like a tax inspector Funston?
LikeLike
Well, in truth, you are a mystery. That’s rather nice though. However you have asked me a few questions, which BTW, I’m happy to chunter about ──── a trade off?
LikeLike
Sure.
What do you have to trade?
LikeLike
May JG Cole could give one hint as to looks. Are you male or female? What state do you live in is also relevant.
LikeLike
Viv, only guessing….
JG is male, Sydney, mature age, well read, knows plenty about Oz politics, likes to ‘teach’ or rather educate, slightly obsessive, can be cutting, writes well, very private, interested in arts in many aspects…A bit of a Renaissance man….
good sense of humour…
LikeLike
Warrigal’s brother ?
LikeLike
Spartacus’ third cousin thrice removed from the umbilical cord by Moses’ midwife’s sister twice removed from the Bible.
I’m absolutely certain about that. I saw in one of Murdoch’s NEWS papers.
LikeLike
Ah, but Waz has no brothers, we’d better stop, we don’t want to scare anyone away….as I said, very private.
LikeLike
Atomou – you sneak a peak at my birth certificate??
🙂
Here’s a clue:
First, “space”.
…….behind the extended, pullulating fabric that Monet established, Pollock threw open a limitless and planeless dimension. Partly by diminishing the scale of everything within the picture field and partly by suggesting that field as a labyrinthine web or screen constantly perforated by the eye, Pollock suggests a cosmic firmament….the near and the far, the infinitely small and the infinitely large, are juxtaposed without mediation.
That’s one of the things Pollock’s work does. Emmjay, if you are reading – that’s an answer to one of your questions.
Tomorrow I shall speak of “order”.
Only on the condition that a few more guesses are tossed into the ring.
My smile is broad and my curiosity is piqued.
I shall donate one of my prized possession to the winner!
PS. Who is Warrigal?
LikeLike
I did sneak a peek. Just getting ready to go and see/hear John Hammond (see the Dot) at the Basement. Warrigal has written some great stories here – and is our chief exponent of digital mischief. Chek his work out on the column at the right.
Looking forward to ‘Order”. Many thanks.
LikeLike
Wow! That is impressive J.G. You even do Hispanic accents. Is there no end to your talent?
LikeLike
J.G. if you look at the blogroll on the right and click onto mine, you’ll be directed to my blog. The banner of that blog was arted (it IS a verb isn’t it, after all every other noun is) by Warrigal. A much treasured individual who has given us the also much treasured story of two well-rounded canine characters, “Mongrel and The Runt.” When and if you get a chance, do read it. It’s one of the meatiest and most satisfying stories I’ve read for a while and it included Julian Barnes’ The Sense of Ending, which I’m ending any minute now.
As for the Monet/Pollock allusions, I’ll… think about them, though “think” might be too grand a word for it…
LikeLike
Emmjay – I shall do just that.
Funston – talents? You should see me lay pavers!!
Atomou – I cannot find it……could you please give directions……again.
Emmjay, Funston – do you both care to pay the piper with an opinion?
Atomou and Helvi have shown their hand.
What of yours?
LikeLike
…may I add to my earlier assessment of JG; loves the attention….(well who doesn’t)
LikeLike
OK, J.G. I get blind like that sometimes too, so I understand.
Click here and look at the banner at the top of my blog:
LikeLike
Helvi – the “attention”?!?!?
atomou – thank you. I see it and time permitting shall look it over this evening.
I see your picture and your name, George, I took you for an older chap.
but you are not.
LikeLike
Actually, I’m much younger, J.G!
🙂
LikeLike
You are more familiar than we think. Or, at least more familiar than we have indicated that we think.
LikeLike
I’m away to rest my weary bones. It’s too hot up here 2nite.
LikeLike
Morning all,
Now, “order”.
…..no one passage or episode is compared with another in a system such as his in which the principle of domination – subordination is denied. Instead a diffusion of attention is equally charged, homogenous visual particles compel a simultaneous reading of the whole microstructured composition. Individual or local anarchies are subsumed by a conception of overarching rhythm.
Tomorrow, “expressiveness”.
As an aside, my hit rate on the Drum is awful, simply awful. I posted several times on that disgraceful and perfectly comical Abbott article and not one passed through. I tried again on 2 other articles and again….not a sausage!
Even this morn…..I dropped one on Manne’s article and am yet to see it up…..although I can see ones published after I put mine through?!?!
They’re letting all sorts of absurd things through…..
Oh hi Funston, saw your………..contribution 😉
LikeLike
Morning JG. Listen, do you switch to alternative pseuds at the Dumb – and bogus Email addresses ?
I’ll chew over “order” and see if I can forge a translation for myself 🙂
LikeLike
JG, how appalling…I missed your posts on that awful Abbott article, I said to gez ‘I can’t wait for JG’s take on this one”….and then nothing…
Surely they put your posts up on Manne’s story.
I saw couple there yesterday, but maybe they were written by your brother and sister, they read like yours.. 🙂
LikeLike
Just trying to elicit some sensible responses, however unlikely.
Miaowarrwa stays mainly in the plain. The plain. Stomping around in The Fromelles.
LikeLike
Can’t be HtC–he would know Warrigal.
LikeLike
Emmjay – I have had one other pseudonym – but left it behind some time ago. I use the one email address.
Why do you ask?
Look at a Pollock from that time – look at either “Lavender Mist”, Autumn Rhythm”, Number 1A, there are many to choose from – google their names and the pics should come – look at them and read the words from “order” and “space” and tell me its not…….clear/apparent 🙂
Helvi – It must have been Ms Sloane’s offering of last week. Several shorter quips made it through. 2 longer ones did not.
And here I was naively thinking that my Abbott pieces would make it up – I was so happy with them! Bur alas……yesterday was the shift of the Conservative Moderators, it appears. I also posted on Kohler, Judah, Jericho and Berg. Not one was published!
I can not even hazard a guess as to why.
LikeLike
The reason I asked about the pseuds and the email address is because they can filter your comments automatically based on those if they want to…… Mix it up a bit chief. The emails don’t have to be real, you can use anything of the form fred123@g,mail.com. Vee Ell reckons he posts without using ANY email address…. I’ll look at Pollock when I get a moment. Flat out at present on the domestic and work front – FM is crook and has been for nearly a month.
LikeLike
Are talking to me Funston?
Or are you talking about me?
If you have a question – unburden yourself.
LikeLike
Just musing J.G. In between trying to be contentious on Manne’s story. He had to mention The Murder press. he’s getting boring.
Obviously you’re oblivious to HtC.
And when I think about it, he had been sailing around Vectis.
LikeLike
Emmjay – ta for the advice….I just may try it. Now all I need is a new pseudonym….
Funston – muse away….who is HtC and “Vectis” as in Isle of Wight – Jimi, Free, Doors, Cohen, Sly and the Who??
Don’t tell me….you were there!
You will say you were……and then………say nothing more.
Pssst, I’m on the hunt for a new pseudonym – any ideas?
LikeLike
CLOG, OGLES, JOGGER, LEGS GEL JOEGLES LOGS, GOLES
To name a few…
Or else, Johnny Good!
LikeLike
Blue Drippings
Pole Vaultings
Pollocks
Dollops
Cauli
Colee Gee
Goalie
LikeLike
I never fill in the email tab. Never… Excepting on the off drum daily blogs, where it’s mandatory.
LikeLike
Well, I quite like J.G. Cole. It has a sort of preponderance about it, with all of the periods (stops). It’s grand, in the manner Of Lord Lord ╒unston, yet knowing, in a supercilious way.
The problem is that some writers on The ABC, believe that by being, in their view, profound and witty, they are preserving an image. Cultivating one if you like. However, if any of them died tonight there is simply no legacy. just the ravings of masqueraders. Quite absurd really.
If one wants to pontificate and make it meaningful, one should put one’s own name. Otherwise it is futile; fleeting; transient and puerile, like a sheet of cellophane.
It’s great to be puerile sometimes, because it goads and elicits. But no record is kept of anything. Not even in one’s mind, because of memory blur. So one might as well say that it didn’t happen.
It’s amusing, to me anyway, when 1 anon refers to another, in a sort of reverend way; a kind of knowing and sharing the same view.
But, they might die that night—and no one would know. ..I mean, what happened to Hudson Godfrey? Tomokatu, now Miawarra (excuse spelling), explained that it was a major part of his life.
Yes Vectis, as in IOW. My birthplace.
Are you a died in the wool Ozzie, J.G. ?
Anyways, Orange Pekoe time.
LikeLike
Ooops dyed, would look better.
LikeLike
Obviously, you are a Pollock tragic J.G. Have you seen his stuff, on the wall in The US.
I was just looking online, but one cannot reasonably discern the depth and breadth, on a laptop.
So, I’ll confess to being ignorant of the finer points–and I’m ceratinly not going to regurgetate, stuff that I have just learnt about on line. that’s one of my pet-hates about Unleashed. Every lazy Canberran is an expert now, Blogging and googling, in tax payers time (-
LikeLike
Funston, I too like the name. …but shall jettison it to secure publication.
That is quite important to me. You may ask why……a most reasonable question.
I am here for two reasons- to read and to contribute. Now one may call that Image/persona cultivation. Perhaps it is….but it is of little concern to me and comes not at the cost of those two reasons….
The contributions I make to the forums are very important to me. They are considered opinions and if you seek to know my character then look no further than those posts……or any syllable you read here. We toss these thoughts into the breeze and expect the miraculous – that they are published and that someone…..somewhere….somehow…..responds accordingly.
Accordingly?
Yes, accordingly- intelligently, comically, seriously, considerately, sensitively…….
You can therefore imagine my surprise then when I first encountered your ideological stable mates chirpinga, custard, rusty, John, hermit,zoe, mikc etc . My mind reeled at the brazen, ill-considered, propagandistic dribble they consistently issue. But worse Funston, worse still, is this: blogging/anonymity means that those normal self regulating qualities of shame, embarrassment and propriety that serve to steer us clear of kaka are abandoned ….wholesale!!!
Have you noticed the STYLE of post that is so recognisable it borders on mannerist??
Of course you have.
A jibe here, a provocation there…..substance? Nada. Import? Nada. Critique? Nada. Insight? Nada.
It often weighs heavy on me that for the first time in half a lifetime I find myself in the company of….sheer nonsense. This is not about perspective, nor bias, nor opinion……this is about nonsense.
Have you noticed also that the Left (on these pages) have no counterpart to these Dull?
Why is that Funston?
Pah! I’m ranting……..sorry….. It is (self )indictment.
You are quite correct…I may in fact die this afternoon…..and nothing shall remain……except for some words and an outline.
But you shall remember me Funston! 🙂
As I remember Hudson Godfrey. I remember our jousting; I remember the disappointments, the victories, the arguments and the conversation……I remember his long winded, often labored prose, his wrestle with delivery and his considered, methodical, approach.
I enjoyed his company……sadly he left quietly, abrupty. He was the prime reason I let go of my first pseudonym – a tremendously awful stoush on a Wilson article that, surprisingly enough, young atomou here came to my defense!! (thank you atomou:)).
But that is another story….and I shall not bore you with it.
Anyway, let me use two chaps to illustrate your final point.
Mitor – seems lovely and considered…..but succumbs too readily to the seductions of sound byte and over arching cliché. My particular beef is that he tosses about complex terms – postmodernism, ideology, deconstruction etc – far too casually. Now that may be fine for those easily….distracted…..by the presence of many syllables, or that are indifferent to such things, but for one like myself, a student of these matters for over half a lifetime, it rankles. Hard. Not out of any conceit or arrogance on my part but from the slow and insistent dumbing down of complexity – not for the wonderful goals of comprehension or communication – but for intellectual cache, the APPEARANCE of expertise. I have little respect for such dishonest grandstanding.
And finally, Bruce Thombo Jefferson – a more complex individual, who, despite “evidence” of wide reading, has, sadly, tragically, little (of substance) to say. Strangely enough, the ONLY topics I see him on are Wilson’s and any other that relate to issues of Sexuality. He reminds me of those sole concern is the opportunity to juggle language; rearrange and re configure new and seemingly wonderful combinations……Substance is a second order consideration. He succumbs to that absurdly French mannerism whereby “form” substitutes for meaning…..
And content? Pah! an irrelevance.
I argue with him at every opportunity
I find him most disagreeable. And dangerous.
(He’s not someone here……is he? :))
Now to your questions: Yes, I am a Pollock “tragic”. It has been many, many, years Funston and all of those chaps; Pollock, Rothko, Reinhardt, Kline, Gottlieb, Newman, and the Minimalists that follow; Judd, Andre, Le Witt, Marden, Martin and Ryman, mean a great deal to me. My bookshelves groan under the weight of critiques and quartos.
And yes, I have seen many Pollock’s……but alas, not the ones on the third floor of MOMA. I came close Funston, very close…….but the delectable, the bewitching, attentions of a Berlin University student and a 40 year old NYC divorcée, seeking to “calm the nerves” with a half a million dollar European ….repose, put the continued study of Pollock….on hold. 4am Berlin winter morns are not the time to make such decisions….I find. 😉
I best go Funston. We shall talk again soon.
And yes, I am Australian. I was born here. My parents were not though.
Emmjay – it appears your tactic works! I shall experiment further to remove the possibility of chance.
Atomou – Thank you for your suggestions. I see three possibilities. I also noticed your translation of Medea. Tell me, if you care, about the process.
ta.
LikeLike
Yes, a high proportion of the comments are nonsense. Sometimes I point one out if I’m feeling tetchy or if a particularly iconic example presents itself. But then again, a high proportion of the articles are nonsense too.
If you haven’t noticed the formulaic nonsense printed by the Left as well as that by the Right, J.G. Cole, you are fooling yourself mightily. Human Nature routinely trumps Education.
LikeLike
Ah, how fantastic! A brother rambler!
J.G. I don’t know what the others think of our sort of rambling but, personally, I love it. It allows one to be oneself. To write genuine thoughts, with the minimum discipline imposed upon them; and genuine thoughts reflect the human genuinely!
Allow me though, before I get deeper into my own rambling, to give some airing to my other dubious quality, that of being a pedant. Could we, perhaps discuss the validity of “dribble” versus “drivel?” My reasoning suggests the correct word in the context you’ve given it here, is “drivel” (ie, nonsense), though both words suggest bodily fluid allowed to run unfettered out of one’s mouth, “dribble” I’d suggest, is more so than “drivel” which is the qualification of that fluid, as that of being meaningless nonsense.
I would not worry about it much, had I not been such a… pedant!
The second and final observation I must make is that an ellipsis is made known by three dots, immediately following the last word but separate by a space before the next word, just as I have demonstrated on the final sentence of the previous paragraph.
Again, I would not worry about it much, had I not been such a… pedant!
Pedantry can be a real pestilence some times but it can be easily dismissed.
Glad you came across my Medea.
I’ve studied ancient Greek pretty much all of my life. As a child in Greece and, again as an adult at Uni, here, in Melbourne. I loved all that world of myth and philosophy and history. Always have.
When I took up Classics at Uni, we have, of course studied these plays and dipped into the english translations. I found what the translators had done, particularly with Aristophanes, utterly shameful! Bowdlerisms and mindless mistranslations, presumably, so that the young charges who had to learn some of the language would not be morally misdirected. I took an oath back then, that when I get some time I shall work to redress that injustice.
I retired from teaching in ’98 and immediately asked my cousins to send me the originals of all these plays, as well as a few other works, including the Liddell and Scott dictionary (paradoxically) translated into modern Greek! It’s a brilliant piece of work, as is, of course the original dictionary, in English which I also possess.
Then I also went to Greece and added to those volumes.
Following this, I got in touch with a fellow translator in the UK to whom I’ve sent the proposal to add my stuff onto his website. He asked me to send him something, which he checked and liked. Since then, I send him everything I do. He has a brilliant site, replete with the the thoughts of the most fantasmagorical minds of the past. I have provided the link to that site at the bottom of my front page. Most worthy of a good look!
Anyhow… though the work is demanding, often excruciating, it is also very rewarding and I’m kept very busy by questions sent to me from all sorts of people: students of ancient Greek language, of drama, their tutors and professors, actors, directors and casual readers. It can become most exciting when people who are acquainted with the language ask me about specific renditions I’ve given to various utterances. Then, I lose myself!
Medea, of course, is the quintessence of tragedy, though that might be getting a little too heavy-handed with praise, considering that all tragedies are, per se, tragedies!
It is one of the most popularly read and discussed plays. Next comes Oedipus Rex.
I won’t go into the whys and wherefores now, since I have some regard for the patience and tolerance of other, but will not be too hesitant to do so at another time.
LikeLike
Atomou, thank you for your reply.
First, of course 😉 – two things.
I used “dribble” because I thought it had greater punch coming just before “issue”. When I think of the term “issue” all sorts of spurtings and ejaculations and wettings and emissions come to mind.
I am aware of my mannerist use of ellipses…. I do, however, resist the strict grammatical rules that govern its use. You are quite correct in what you say….it is just that i use them specifically as speech pauses, speech breaks….a gulp of air, as it were. This, I know, is not the correct usage. It is however the usage most appropriate to the way I write and speak…..informally. The longer the dots, the longer the break, the reflection, the suspense.
Thank you for the rest of your post. I find it most interesting………and I shall prepare a question.
LikeLike
Voice – “formulaic nonsense” was not in question. Find for me the Left equivalents – quantity and quality – of the Right’s Chipinga, custard, Rusty, andy, mark, murk, zoe, monica, Tory Boy etc.
You will notice that I have excluded the other, more sensible and articulate, Rights.
My point was specifically about the poor, unashamed and downright childish statements that quite often define their contributions.
Their function is provocation and obfuscation, slander and repetition.
Nothing more.
LikeLike
Much of the formulaic nonsense is the epitome of all the faults you list.
You really can’t see anyone on the same side of the political fence who writes childish, repetitive comments whose function is to provoke and/or mislead?
Because if not I don’t see that my pointing them out is going to change that.
LikeLike
Voice – The condescension in your final sentence prompts me to call your bluff.
I call.
Declare the Left equivalents of those principals I’ve already mentioned – in both quantity and quality.
LikeLike
May get back to you later J.G. Have other things to attend to at the moment. I wouldn’t need to produce “the equivalents” though. Simply a single obvious example.
LikeLike
Their function is provocation and obfuscation, slander and repetition.
Personally, I have never had any interaction with any of the pseuds that you have nominated.
I am a loner, although I agree with comments from both sides.
I just like to jar people into sensibility. Ideals are OK, however they are (also) lazy.
My function is to protect the weak. Provide for them. Shake the tree, so they might stop dreaming and see life as it really is.
The ABC blog, is just that. It’s just a chance to express one’s thoughts. In my case based on my experience and things that I have gleaned. Whetehr it was from an illiterate farmer in Indonesia, or a pompous academic who only had one string to his bow.
I am dashing this off, withouit too much thought, since I am required elsewhere. I should probably have made a constructed argument. But as I pointed out. We’re gonna die anyway, so let’s concentrate on supper 😉
LikeLike
You look like a poofter to me
LikeLike
You might, JG, put your picture up, and we’ll tell you 🙂
LikeLike
And you put a picture up from 30 years ago, hypocrite
LikeLike
Anyhow Mark, you look lovely in your youthful picture.
LikeLike
Hope you are feeling better,Mark.
LikeLike
Yes H. They are coming to lock me up again.
LikeLike
Ah Helvi….that I cannot do.
LikeLike
When I first saw Blue Poles I was totally gobsmacked. It is fantastic bloody tastic. Never seen a Picasso in the ‘flesh’ so can’t comment. What I do know is that seeing an artworkk first hand is totally different from the experience one gets from viewing a photo in a magazine or online.
LikeLike
er – fanbloodytastic. Or even really really amazinig.
LikeLike
Obviously I am still a bit frazzled. Amazing. work, not workk.
LikeLike
Totally agree about seeing art in the flesh, Viv. Magic moments for me……..
Tate modern – especially Mark Rothko (brought me to tears) Impressionists – in Australia and at the Musee D’Orsay, in Chicago and New York The Monets in L’Orangerie Renaissance painters at the Uffizi – especially a few of my favourites – Bronzino The Sistine Chapel ceiling Dali – in Melbourne Wonderful aboriginal art – Dacou – in Melbourne and looking forward to the Nat Gallery pushing ahead with focusing on aboriginal art as its core genre. Klimt in the Belvedere Palace.
And I’m fond of Italian automotive design too. Very much in the flesh.
LikeLike
Ah Emmjay, a formidable list of fav’s.
I too thought the Rothko’s were beyond description….
My last exultant experience was looking at a Donald Judd, one of those sublime anodised aluminum boxes lined with orange perspex. It was just sitting there…on the floor….I could barely contain myself….sank to my knees and tried to crawl through……the Gallery attendant was unimpressed…..and Security would not be smoothed over by the pleading of Australia’s number one fan of Minimalism.
Looking at pics of Donald Judd it seems to me that I’ve never seen him or Funston in the same room at the same time.
Coincidence……??
LikeLike
The spooky things about Rothko’s works were the cathedral atmosphere and the utter sadness. More so was that I later found out that he committed suicide – and I instantly understood why. The painting was a pathway into his consciousness.
Have you had a visit to White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale (Sydney) ? Another couple of articles at the Pig’s on works we’ve seen in that interesting space – 21st Century Chinese art.
LikeLike
Emmjay, Rothko’s works are indeed a delight….for they manage, for me at least, to straddle those dual imperatives: the particular and the universal, the intimate and the grand. It is that straddling, that coupling, that I particular find fascinating (and that informs my outlook on most things in life actually). His deliberate formal tactic of stacking or repetition is certainly a most powerful vehicle for expressing his view of the world.
I like him.
Further to your point on the Chippendale Gallery. I must confess here to being a staunch Western Modernist – artistically. I am (generally) indifferent to art from non-Western cultures…….and seem to have absorbed the Western template whole. It is not that I don’t see value/expression in non Western art, it is that I find the theory, the hermeneutics, the philosophy, so relevant to the way I live my life.
I take it (personally) that the Modernist project speaks to me DIRECTLY.
🙂
And you?
What of your propellants?
LikeLike
So, consider it an exercise in detecting the influence of Western Modernism on contemporary Chinese art. You won’t need a magnifying glass.
Disclaimer: I have even further to catch up than MJ, have inadvertently let my NSW Art Gallery membership expire, and am a female with children (although hopefully never having done a TAFE art course redeems the latter fault slightly.)
LikeLike
Then you can write an article about it and post it up here.
LikeLike
Voice, you are cheeky!!
Consider it an exercise in telling of all the things about me that you love.
Then you can write an article about it and post it up here.
LikeLike
Are you flirting with me, J.G. ?
LikeLike
We saw a Modern Chinese exhibition at The White Rabbit Gallery…I think it was 2010.
I found the artworks amazing…original, creative, mind-blowing…
We sent friends and family members to see it, all of them found it impressive.
PS. Dear old Donald Brooks on UL used to exasperate me with his esoteric art theories, so now I prefer telling people, go and see the works yourself…art means different things to different people…
LikeLike
Voice, I’m not sure. Is my shirt unbuttoned?
Helvi, I don’t dispute the expressive qualities, the intent or the aesthetics in non-Western art……I’m just saying I relate to the Western model, particularly art, literature, architecture, physics, psychology, philosophy from about 1850 on, most keenly; directly and unmistakeably and forcefully.
I read it as one long narrative.
LikeLike
I most sincerely hope not J.G., or we’re going nowhere. That IS one of those hip Afghan camel-hair shirts, isn’t it?
LikeLike
haaha
aahha
ahahh
hha
a
ah
Ah Voice…..you had me at “sincerely hope not”.
I wasn’t suggesting I was flirting Voice….I was questioning my manner that was taken AS flirting. I thought I had left the top button of my shirt undone…..
Many have succumbed by lesser………mistakes 😉
You have made me laugh! 🙂
LikeLike
“So, consider it an exercise in detecting the influence of Western Modernism on contemporary Chinese art.”
Well, perhaps one wouldn’t need a magnifying glass for that, Voice, but considering the far from miniscule influence of traditional, even ancient, Chinese art on the impressionists, which foreshadowed the modernist movement, it might be said that Western Modernist art’s influence on Chinese art merely brings it full circle; bringing it on home, as it were!
The Taoist influence is everywhere; all pervasive, if subtle!
😉
LikeLike
Hello Vivenne,
What you are referring to is the artworks “aura”.
A key text is Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. It speaks directly to your point. Very, very, briefly it articulates the process (technological/mechanical) by which images are stripped of their aesthetic authority; their essence and transcendental push.
One thing that I can say with certainty is that works on the scale of those larger Pollock canvases can ONLY be appreciated in the flesh……they appear as “environments”.
The Picasso’s I’ve seen are an entirely different experience.
Anyway, nice to meet you 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks JG. In case you haven’t caught up, I am in print every now and then, elsewhere, as Stuffed Olive.
You are right, both of you – I spent a couple of hours in Matisse’s actual home, near Nice I think it was – was one of those experiences I will always remember.
LikeLike
Hi Stuffed Olive!
No I hadn’t caught up……
sorry.
LikeLike
I did post as Vivienne but some nincumpoop pinched my name and posted as a semi religious right wing nutter. So I gave up and became one of my favourite foods instead. But there is an imposter Stuffed Olive who has cropped up a few times recently – you will know me as the leftie, pro Labor, and anti most things of the right and the IPA.
LikeLike
Also through her vehemence and undisciplined passion for unstuffing-up this stuffed-up world!
Awful taste in art, though!
LikeLike
Too cruel Ato because you do not know my taste in art. In my office I have an original by one daughter – a drawing of me – signed and dated 1994. Another is a cut out of a Leunig cartoon headed “no Whistling in the Building” – both classics in original wooden frames purchased from Woolies.
LikeLike
Oh, bugger! Yes, I didn’t know that, Vivie. Sorry, I take it all back. Woolly frames gives you the tick! Well done!
I wonder if your daughter’s drawing is as accomplished as my paintings of my two!
It’s so gratifying to have “originals” hanging on one’s walls!
Once, one of the legs of an old wooden chair broke and I had to fight Mrs Ato for it! She was convinced it should have been smashed and thrown in the bin but I finally convinced her that all I had to do is plant it firmly into the soil in a particularly exhibitive corner of our back yard and it would -as if by the ghostly hand on the great George Grosz himself- be transformed into the very quintessence of dadaism!
She gave me a month during which it stood there in all its glory, admired by all and sundry who visited that part of our abode. Then, by some magical or divine intervention, it disappeared.
LikeLike
You are forgiven Ato. I won’t list all the other fabulous art works in our house as I would have to check the wording on the back to get the details (all pinched from some very expensive classic calendar years ago and properly framed) and then I would have to clean and dust them all after that disturbance. One of them is a Monet or Manet and another is a Gaugin looking job. But we have one really proper print of a Drysdale – dusty street scene in Sofala or some outback town.
Re that chair leg story, I thought you were going to say you were waiting till it took roots and grew a new chair body !
LikeLike
Bless you, Lady: you are a killer!
Fell off my chair larfing and killed myself! I hope you’re happy now!
Chair is all right though. Can’t use it as a Dodo!
LikeLike
Stuffed Olive, you reminded me yesterday of a story about “Blue Poles”; about its creation. Let me quickly tell it. Some suspect it to be simply a fiction – adding to the mythology surrounding the man and his process.
I believe it to be true.
It goes like this:
Late one evening in 1952 Tony Smith, an architect friend of Pollock living in Manhattan, receives a desperate phone call……from Pollock, drunk and in a deep and ugly depressed state screaming that he would kill himself, that he was at the end , that it was all over. He pleaded with Smith to come quickly out to Springs on Long Island – a 3 or 4 hour drive and save him from himself.
A rattled Smith drove to Pollock’s studio and found him drunk and a terrible state.
Underfoot was a canvas – an embryo “Blue Poles” – and over the course of the next few frantic hours Pollock, with the assistance of Smith, began to paint. Remnants of cigarettes, whiskey, glass and even Pollock’s blood, litter the canvas.
Toward the morn the canvas lay unfinished – Pollock had calmed and Smith left for Manhattan.
Alone, Pollock then laid down his blue poles – his “totems” as I like to call them whenever I am in a figurative turn of mind – and although he reworked it off and on for quite some time – the work was “complete”.
Without those poles it would no doubt be a lesser work.
That is my opinion.
Now this story competes with many others.
I choose it because it was told by those at hand.
LikeLike
I think I read that some time ago – there was a feature story on Pollock in one of the weekend magazines (SMH I believe).
LikeLike
I dunno… Picasso reminds me of certain forms of jazz music: too self-consciously intellectual; and thus, although it may be truly wonderful stuff, if you have the mind, time and inclination to think about it enough, generally speaking, it puts too much of a strain on the brain to be properly enjoyable…
🙂
LikeLike
Asty, I daresay, artists are like all other professors of the creative arts: poets, composers of music, architects, etc. They create some brilliant stuff and they also create some crap. I can’t remember the exact word Arthur Miller used but he said something like “I’ve written my fair share of crap.”
The interesting thing is that the viewer’s opinion varies on all those works. Picasso might have thought that something he did was brilliant while some viewers might consider it crap; and what he might have thought it was crap, some viewers might well have thought it was brilliant.
Kazantzakis was constantly asked to comment on what the various critics said about his work. His invariable response was, “once the work has been completed and presented to the world, the worker should let it live or die on its own.” The “worker” can’t go changing the work at every whim and fashion that it stumbles upon.
So, we have varying opinions about everything. Totally innate of the sentient species. The most we can do is give reasons why we hold the particular view but, in the scheme of things, a mere, “don’t like it” is quite ample.
I like his “Guernica” but never got too engrossed in much of his other stuff. I’ve got two huge books on him, with lots of his paintings in them and looking through it, most of them leave me cold. But try buying one of them!
And that’s what I was trying to say earlier. The moment “the market” stretches its slimy hands upon a work, the work takes another dimension, another set of values apply.
So, in terms of whether the art is good or bad, IMHO, accountants’ numbers -as well as the mellifluous gushings and/or urinations of critics- are irrelevant.
LikeLike
Ato, my response to this post of yours is down below… under the conversation you were having with Gerard…
🙂
LikeLike
Saw it, asty.
QUite so, quite so with Spiko!
LikeLike
I think Spike is to comedy what Picasso is to art… as well as being true poet!
🙂
LikeLike
I sense some disappointment there….
I somehow felt that this was not going to be the one worth queueing up for hours and said so to Mr Oo…
I have seen some wonderful staff in Paris and other places, so I don’t get overly excited about the minor travelling shows anymore…I enjoyed the French one in Canberra as it was close to home and extremely well organised.
LikeLike
If you ever have anything to say please let us know
LikeLike
Hung, why would I throw my pearls to the pigs, Piglets if you like
LikeLike
The ‘Masterpieces from Paris’ here in Canberra a couple of years ago is what I am still living off. We went during the week and the queue was only a hundred metres or so.
Sorry to hear the lacklustreness of the Picasso at NSW AG. I doubt whether a large retrospective of Picasso’s work would ever hit our shores. There would be many cities and galleries vying for that privilege.
Talking about ‘Blue Poles’. and the indecent criticism of the cost of the painting. Did I hear this painting has been the most lucrative investment of all times by the AG of NSW?. I love looking at Greek marble figures but so did I seeing the Blue Poles for the first time.
LikeLike
Gez, a long time ago I had come to the conclusion (though “conclusion” might be too presumptuous a word) that there are two types of number handlers, the scientists and tradesmen on one hand and the accountants on the other. The first lot are extremely important because they examine the world and they build. Their numbers are imbued with virtue. The second lot are extremely nasty and their numbers, well the best that can be said about them is that they are worthless. At their worst, they can be utterly destructive. Everything that the first lot have built, the second lot will, given half a chance, tear down.
The artist, to my way of thinking (though “thinking” might be too grand a word) is one of the tradesmen who uses numbers (abstractly, yes, but numbers, nevertheless) in a virtuous way. But then, the accountants come along and their destructive ways, destroy whatever artistic merit the artist had given his work. The work becomes something else: A postage stamp, perhaps, an antique brick, the bone of a saint. The artist has vanished. Not only has the good artist vanished but other, dilittantes, who know that there are accounts out there, infiltrate the art studios and concoct postage stamps and antique bricks, not art.
The fact that Gough’s accountants managed to trick him -as they trick all other auction house attendants- to pay a million bucks for Pollock’s Poles -blue or otherwise- does neither make it a work of art, nor Pollock an artist; nor yet worthy of a museum, if its raison d’etre is to exhibit the world’s finest works.
When I saw the Poles, it was hung not far from Cezanne’s little masterpiece, called “Europa” or was it “Europa and the Bull?” Anyhow, startlingly simple blue lines of a bull (Zeus), spread on the ground, Europa between his legs.
One felt the rape. One sympathised with the beautiful maid. One understood what the myth was all about. One could stand in front of it lost in the magic that Cezanne had created. I don’t know what the price tag for that work was, nor would I be so vulgar as to ask and to compare it with what Gough’s accountants have managed to extract from his coffers…
I didn’t like Pollock’s work but I DO understand that art, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. I also know that the numbers of the accountants go up and down depending on “the markets.”
LikeLike
Ato:
While I appreciate the ‘different strokes for different folks’ I have no doubt that you know that Cezanne’s masterpieces were also rejected by the conservative establishment of the French art world. In fact, his work was first totally ridiculed.
This from a Cezanne Biography:
Quote:
While there was something unique about his style, Cezanne’s true influence was to be rejected by the art establishment only to later attain the acclaim that resulted in the art establishment being ridiculed. It was a story that every other artists who had likewise being denied opportunities could identify with. Celebrating Cézanne as the father of Modernism was not a celebration of the influence of his style, but the story of creating a new style in the face of establishment rejection. Unquote
Jackson Pollocks ‘Blue Poles’ might just be seen in similar vein by many… a beginning of a new era.
LikeLike
“Jackson Pollocks ‘Blue Poles’ might just be seen in similar vein by many… a beginning of a new era.”
I’m not talking about what the “many” like or dislike, Gez. I’m talking about the effects that different works have on me.
Accountants and critics don’t persuade me. My own studies, my own examinations, my own criteria -which, of course may change as I grow younger or older- form my opinion.
Hitler destroyed what he hated and stole what he liked. Neither of these dispositions are likely to have an effect on my own disposition towards those works. Communist Russia did the same. Means nothing to me.
LikeLike
“I m not talking about what the “many” like or dislike, Gez. I’m talking about the effects that different works have on me.”
That’s really all what any of us can say, and of course we have to respect the effects the artworks have on other people, don’t we, atomou.
LikeLike
I don’t know what you mean by “respect” H.
I understand that everyone has his or her own views of beauty. No probs. Same with art. Some will call a dog’s carcass art and others don’t. Fine with me. Some will put an accountant’s value on that carcass. Also fine. But the carcass will not become a work of art because an accountant has put a monetary value on it or an art critic called it one.
I don’t know where respect comes into it.
Acceptance, yes.
LikeLike
Helvi means that art is very much a private affair, but…. when we, and a majority see a painting as a masterpiece, we can either take notice or ignore it as the work of mere accountants or total rubbish as you, Ato, seem to have chosen to do. . . I suppose there are those that look upon those Grecian marble figures as beautiful reminders of an amazing culture and history, but, if a present day artisan imitated those today, no matter how skillful and precise or beautiful the busts or figures were sculpted, he or she would be seen as nothing much more than a skilled craftsman.. . That’s the reason why art doesn’t stand still but evolves and moves on.
LikeLike
We’re talking at cross purposes, Gerard.
We agree using different words.
LikeLike
I think Spike Milligan said it for me, Atomou:
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
Get it out with Optrex!”
🙂
LikeLike
Hello all.
I feel the need to jump in here.
I will not visit the Picasso show. Standing in line for 3 hours and catching glimpses of the 3, count them 3 artworks I am interested in, from over the shoulders of Sydney matriarch’s intent on sharing with the world their view, learnt on one of those 6 week TAFE course, of Picasso’s use of “line” or “form”, is simply poison.
To my mind Picasso and Braque changed the way we see things – from 1906 to about 1914 – they gave subsequent artists a prime template…..one still in active use.
I care little for the work of the following decades.
Pollock, is for me, one of those 3 or 4 chaps in last century that changed….it all!!
In the space of 4 years – 1947 -1951 – the artistic/critical world spun on the axis of his artwork. No argument 🙂
And like Picasso/Braque of those seminal years, Pollock was the metric that artists balanced themselves on. Each artwork/argument returned to him; each was a question, a response, to those supreme canvases.
I STILL argue with him. Even after 20 years.
I hope to do so for the rest of my days.
I shall cut short there…..otherwise 4 million words will spill:)
Oh, those other chaps are Malevich, Duchamp, Picasso/Braque, Mondrian and Pollock.
gerard – Cezanne’s influence, you are quite right to suggest, was his anti-establishment position. But that was/is a secondary concern. Stylistically Cezanne’s influence was immense and it is that, I would contend, that accounts for his reputation….a little generous to my mind…as the Father of (artistic) Modernism. Modernism has many fathers …….
And issues of paternity are always……troubling 🙂
If you care to continue this conversation I would be delighted to join you.
LikeLike
JG, thank you for your comment.
I was a science student as an undergrad and I’ve been playing catch up in art and letters ever since.
First, tell us about the three works that you want to see.
Second, I came to appreciate Blue Poles when I saw a documentary on Pollock – and while the light went on somewhat, my bulb was a bit dim. Can you cast some more light on why Pollock was a pivotal artist of the 20th C ?
If you search for “Mondrian at the Pig’s Arms, you will find the piece I wrote when the Mondrian Brothers re-tiled the loos at the pub. You might like to scribe some words for us on Mondrian – and while I am familiar with Duchamp, I am totally in the dark about Malevich.
Ok, patrons de la maison de porc…… Off you go! Get stuck into some artery.
LikeLike
This is to Emmjay’s questions. I think this is the right place to post.
I’m unsure as to thank you or punch you for your question 🙂
I shall be (uncharacteristically) brief.
Once you roll me off THIS hill I could go on forever.
Bear with me…..ask questions as I go.
Pollock between the years 1947-1951 signal an (almost) unprecedented originality. Picasso/Braque excavated prime ground during their analytical phase – whereby space and the object where reconfigured according to the new laws of perspectivism, and in their synthetic cubist stage they allowed for the “inclusion” of multiple media and representations to be bound within the single work. Think collages and the way they seek to amalgamate multiple sources and conflate multiple meanings.
I would also include in this company the works of Mondrian who sought to establish universal laws of equilibrium; Malevich who gave us our first abstracts and birthed the potent, intrinsic and utterly indispensable notion of non-representation; and finally Duchamp who gave us the ready-made. With Malevich and Duchamp we have, one could argue, the parents of Modern Art – one for excluding all, the other for including all.
Anyway Pollock. Pollock did two things of prime artistic significance: one, he laid the canvas on the floor. He removed the easel and set about, with his sticks and brushes, to toss and drip paint directly onto the canvas. The implications of this were/are enormous and profound and we shall speak of than at a later date. The second act of significance was a formal one: his allover style of composition meant that, for the first time in 500 years, perspective and space and subject matter, were tossed out the window and replaced by the new formal concepts of space, order, chance and energy.
Again, this reorientation, this recalibration, was profoundly important….and deserves much more than I can give it now. If you care for an elaboration I would be most happy to give it. Ask.
Both these innovations of Pollock meant that whatever was done AFTER him would be BECAUSE of him all subsequent artists/movements of any consequence have their arguments with these two developments. I would argue too that positioned as he is mid century he provides us with a neat fulcrum upon which to posit the clearly Modern and the clearly not-quite-Modern……the Post Modern. Formally at least one could say that there was no going back to “old” space and “subject matter” after Pollock. The work of the Pop artists, the Minimalist, Johns, Rauschenberg, Stella etc…..are proof of that fact.
Anyway, the other reason I like Pollock, personally, is that his works can give us this:
“Full Fathom Five” has a congealed architecture that announces, ironically, a shapelessness whose only fitting parallels are the ocean depths. Great hoops of black, blue and green arc and collide over a surface of black , blue and green…..clumps of thrown colour seem to rest like primordial reefs only to hover and glide as if in response to some elemental beckoning….great communities of seemingly anarchic colour free-float, dip and sweep across a limitless and dissolving space….magical parabolas of colour weave exquisite tapestries of staggering intensity and retinal confusion onlty to reappear again as crisp line or delicate filigree……vast constellations appear and disappear…..foreground background “space” implodes…….this new boundarylessness even suggests the capacity to include everything, reflect anything…even perhaps the chaotic process of creation itself….for strewn about and often buried are nails and cigarettes, buttons and coins….transformed of meaning under some liquescent vision….a vision that makes me think not of Shakespeare or Joyce (as the paintings title might suggest) but to that most innocent of stowaways, Pip from Melville’s “Moby Dick”,
“…..he sea had… drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro…….. Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent….. that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom”.
That’s what I think anyway.
That’s what I like.
LikeLike
Major
LikeLike
I don’t know what that means.
But let me give it a whack.
Brigadier.
LikeLike
Beautiful descriptions JG… I was always sad about Pip’s fate, until you explained it for me; that kind of ‘metaphorical’ god-ness, I can live with… the Blakean notion leaves me not cold, but hot… angry-hot! That is a god that MUST be rebelled against! That is the kind of god who sets traps for humanity so it can punish them eternally for falling into the infinite traps he sets; a sadistic god who delights in measuring out with his dividers man’s oh-so-finiteness! A petty god for a petty people… (ie. the ‘Victorians’)
😉
LikeLike
So, when are we all having a guided tour of the Mondrian Wonders of the Men’s Dunny??
LikeLike
I think there was a photo-tour of the Pigs’ Arms dunny posted some time ago, Big M…
🙂
LikeLike
There was only one photo, then again, I’d never want to see it from Foodge’s perspective!
LikeLike
Phil, the problem is that you and your winky missus haven’t caught up with “The Times” yet!
You can’t just walk into an art gallery without your iPhart or iBrary! Because that’s what’s gonna happen: you’ll be stuck for pigeon holes for all those pigeons -some of which have identity issues and could well be women -or droopy roosters (I didn’t want to use the immodest C word)
Anyhow, what do you think has happened to all the Greek marbles, ey? Well, they were iPharted to the UK and if you had your iBrary with you, you could have asked your winky missus to check them out, complete with all lying waffle attached, all looking like holes tailored for pigeons!
Still, Phil, I don’t know how much this exercise cost the Oz hoi poloi but we could be well thankful that our Mr Crean (Minister for the Arts and suchlike genteellions) wasn’t creamed into buying one of them tosseraways from the late Mr P’s estate! Because if we can pay $bzillions for some blue poles, I reckon one of them things would send us to join the greek marble tosseraways, kindly left in Greece by the unkindly thieving Poms.
I’m sure I’ve just said something… or other!
LikeLike