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.


13 January 2009

Yves Klein, Harry Shunk & Janos Kender

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Another photograph of Yves Klein as the Actor of Looking.
Le Rêve du Fue, 1961



As with the two previous, this photo is by Harry Shunk... and his partner Janos (or John) Kender. Thus, Shunk-Kender, as the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation had attributed yesterday's image.

This information comes from the very informative obituary of Shunk (26 June 2006) by The Times :
Information about Shunk is scanty, for he enjoyed mystery and became reclusive from middle age onwards. He was born in 1924 in Trieste, in northeast Italy, but long under Habsburg sway, and was probably of Austrian descent. After travelling in Britain and Ireland, he settled in Paris in 1957. There he studied photography with another Austrian, the elderly Dora Kallmus. Having forged a professional and romantic partnership with Kender, the pair began to haunt Klein’s studio. All three men were hard-up, and were only saved from starvation by a line of credit that Klein had established at La Coupole. Shunk could not afford to buy a camera, and the one he used for Le saut was given to him by a patroness of Klein’s.

Aside from that image, he, Kender and Klein collaborated on other manipulations of reality, such as Rêve du feu, the illusion of a jet of flame sprouting from Klein’s upraised palm. Then, in 1962, at the age of 34, Klein died of a heart attack.

(Read full article... )