David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :
'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)
(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.
We recently read the Jacquelynn Baas essay
Wood/Steiglitz/Norton... 'Fountain'.
Alfred Stieglitz, photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s
Fountain, as published in Beatrice Wood, The Blind Man, No. 2,
May 1917.
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection.
When the jurors of The Society of Independent Artists firmly rushed to remove the bit of sculpture called the Fountain sent in by Richard Mutt, because the object was irrevocably associated in their atavistic minds with a certain natural function of a secretive sort.
Yet to any ‘innocent’ eye how pleasant is its chaste simplicity of line and color! Someone said, ‘Like a lovely Buddha’; someone said, ‘Like the legs of the ladies by Cézanne’; but have they not, those ladies, in their long, round nudity always recalled to your mind the calm curves of decadent plumbers’ porcelains?
At least as a touchstone of Art how valuable it might have been! If it be true, as Gertrude Stein says, that pictures that are right stay right, consider, please, on one side of a work of art with excellent references from the Past, the Fountain, and on the other almost anyone of the majority of pictures now blushing along the miles of wall in the Grand Central Palace of ART. Do you see what I mean?
And more such (from wikipedia) :
In a letter dated 23 April 1917, Stieglitz wrote of the photograph he took of Fountain: "The "Urinal" photograph is really quite a wonder—Everyone who has seen it thinks it beautiful—And it's true—it is. It has an oriental look about it—a cross between a Buddha and a Veiled Woman."[2][25]
In 1918, Mercure de France published an article attributed to Guillaume Apollinaire stating Fountain, originally titled
"le Bouddha de la salle de bain" (Buddha of the bathroom), represented a sitting Buddha.[26]
. . . .
Since the photograph taken by Stieglitz is the only image of the original sculpture, there are some interpretations of Fountain by looking not only at reproductions but this particular photograph. Tomkins notes
"Arensberg had referred to a 'lovely form' and it does not take much stretching of the imagination to see in the upside-down urinal's gently flowing curves the veiled head of a classic Renaissance Madonna or a seated Buddha or, perhaps more to the point, one of Brâncuși's polished erotic forms."[1][42]
It all reminded us of this 'wall-gazing Daruma' scroll by the Zen master Nantembō (1839–1925).
collection : FIAPCE
The inscription as translated by John Stevens :
The form of our Grand patriarch
facing the wall in meditation
or is it a tasty melon or an eggplant
from around here in Yahata?
(signed)
Eighty-five-year-old Nantembo Toju
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
We go together
like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
We go together
Like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong
Remembered forever
As shoo-bop sha wadda wadda yippity boom de boom
Chang chang changitty chang sha-bop
That's the way it should be
Wah-oooh, yeah!
We're one of a kind
Like dip da-dip da-dip doo-wop da doo-bee doo
Our names are signed
Boogedy boogedy boogedy boogedy
Shooby doo-wop she-bop
Chang chang changitty chang sha-bop
We'll always be like one, wa-wa-wa-one...
We Go Together : songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil
Cubism and guiTAR go together
like Picasso and Braque
Pablo Picasso
Guitar, Gas-Jet and Bottle
1913
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Georges Braque
Man with a Guitar
1911-1912
MoMA
And later, like...
Roy De Maistre
Figure with guitar
c.1932 – 35
soon for auction in Sydney :
smash and guiTAR go together
like Simonon and The Clash
Hendrix and The Who
Tai-ki, Sengai and the
slave guiTARs of the ages
guiTAR Theatre of the Actors of Regard
Slave Guitars of the Art Cult | The Laugh-ist
- 1979 -
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
We've had this pinned-up in the ediTARial room for decades.
Isamu Noguchi
Now, it keeps company with this :
Josh Bowes
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Theatre of the Advertisements of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Supreme Goddess as Void, with projection-space for TAR
Theatre of the Agit-tarTAR of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Theatre of the Auctions of Regard
ART : TOO BIG TO FAIL?
Imagine that the elements all suddenly
collapsed
FIAPCE -1975-
click image to enlarge
collection : Art Gallery of South Australia
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Performed in the Storm
Observed in the Calm
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
- 1976 -
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
The Gateless Gate #29
Not the Wind, Not the Flag
Two monks were arguing about a flag.
One said:
'The flag is moving.'
The other said:
'The wind is moving.'
The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by.
He told them:
'Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.'
Mumon's comment : The sixth patriarch said: "The wind is not moving, the flag is not moving. Mind is moving." What did he mean? If you understand this intimately, you will see the two monks there trying to buy iron and gaining gold. The sixth patriarch could not bear to see those two dull heads, so he made such a bargain.
Wind, flag, mind moves,
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong.
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
- 1976 -
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology
The Speech Pathologist Looks at the Tonsils and the Adenoids
First Published March 1, 1975 Research Article
Volume: 84 issue: 19_suppl, page(s): 63-66
________________________________________________
CONFRONTING CONTEMPORARY ART :
ABSTRACT PAINTING AND OP-ART
10.30AM SAT 17 AUG 2019
What have you always wanted to know about contemporary art, but been too afraid to ask? In this interactive seminar, Dr Mark Pennings, Senior Lecturer, Visual Arts, Queensland University of Technology, takes
a close look at the abstract paintings within the Australian Collection and mesmerising Op-Art works featured in the ‘Geometries’ exhibition.
photo : QAGOMA
Theatre of Abstract Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
Theatre of the Actors of Regard in classic tableau, below, at the Tate Modern's recently opened
ARTIST ROOMS : Ed Ruscha.
photo by Tate Photography/Oliver Cowling
photo by Tate Photography/Oliver Cowling
The TARchetype, GeniTAR Prime :
Theatre of the Archetypes of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
The deep parts of my life pour onward,
as if the river shores were opening out.
It seems that things are more like me now,
That I can see farther into paintings.
I feel closer to what language can't reach.
With my senses, as with birds, I climb
into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
in the ponds broken off from the sky
my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.
Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926]
Untitled Part 1
1988
Cy Twombly
Untitled Part 9
1988
Cy Twombly
Untitled (Bassano in Teverina)
1985
Cy Twombly
Theatre of the Aquas of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
The word idiot comes from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs 'a private person, individual', 'a private citizen' (as opposed to an official), 'a common man', 'a person lacking professional skill, layman', later 'unskilled', 'ignorant' from ἴδιος, idios 'private', 'one's own'...[3]
An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idéa idea and γράφω gráphō to write) is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases.
The word idea comes from Greek ἰδέα idea "form, pattern," from the root of ἰδεῖν idein, to see.[3]
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
The Courtesan Jigoku-dayu and Priest Ikkyu, 1899,
by Mizuno Toshikata (1866-1908)
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
so many paths go up from the foothills
but one moon grazes the peak
- Ikkyu (transl. Stephen Berg)
Netsuke depicting Ikkyu and his TAR prop skull
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
The Courtesan Jigoku-dayu and Priest Ikkyu, 1899,
by Mizuno Toshikata (1866-1908)
No One Sees It The Same
The mind flows like water through the four
mindfulnesses never the same.
Buddha realm, Mara's fortress the then and now.
Cold wind, wind-blown snow, moon among the
plum blossoms;
The drinker toys with his cup, the poet hums
a poem.
- Ikkyu (transl. Sonja Arntzen)
*the four mindfulnesses : this is a discipline of meditating on
the "body" to realise its impurity, on "sensation" to realise that the perception of things pleasant and unpleasant is the root of pain, on "thought" to realise its impermanence and on objects"
to realise their absence of self. p. 236 here
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
