bLOGOS/HA HA: April 2010

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.

29 April 2010

Drawing Lessons from the Book of Sin (1958)

What should I do next?

click on images to enlarge

Lucio Fontana : Spacial Concept, The End of God
click here for further reading about this

26 April 2010

A Round of Upsets - for Erik Satie

Tonight's ABC TV news described this Anzac long-weekend's AFL results as A Round of Upsets.

Taking this as their choreographic impulse, a junior troupe from Theatre of the Actors of Looking will tonight perform 840 rounds as scripted and depicted below.

AFL ANZAC ROUND 5
The Four Upsets
-------------
Demons defeat Lions
upset234
Kangaroos defeat Hawks
1upset34
Power defeat Saints
12upset4
Blues defeat Cats
123upset

[repeat x840]

25 April 2010

Anzac Day today

23 April 2010

drawthing lesson

bLOGOS/HA HA notes with interest reports that a Catholic German bishop has resigned for hitting children.

This article in today's Age :

In two days Australia observes Anzac Day : "Lest We Forget".

bL recalls, too. Four years in a Marist Brothers boarding college, with daily-bread canings and occasional bashings. The most memorable of these was also the most perverse.

9a.m. : our class is told to sit straight and face the front as a white-with-rage 'brother' sets about bashing one of our number. He has just overheard this student's low demur of "Oooooh" as the Loud Speaker announced throughout this Month of the Blessed Virgin we will commence each day's lessons with a saying of the rosary. The punched, kicked and bloodied offender is then sent away ~ "Now get out!" ~ as we remain to pray.

Hail Mary, full of grace.
Our Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
[Repeat]

This 1968 POW genre drawthing was made in the final months at that place. ("You'll be in trouble if they find it.")

click to see full drawthing
with vanishing point

21 April 2010

drawthings (Melbourne)

Melbourne hosts an International Drawthing Conference and many drawthing exhibitions during April - June.
( Click here for the full program. )

One of these is
A Common Language: Drawings by Acton and Bouret
The promotional image features a Model of Regard

in need of reading glasses.

19 April 2010

un-Australian L---Scape

In the light of the recent Wynne Prize stir (article here) around Sam Leach's Dutch/Italian/Australian landscape painthing, Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos, it is interesting to note, according to Wikipedia, the origin of the word un-Australian.

And so it is with great pleasure

un-Australian L---Scape Unvieled

16 April 2010

Theatre of the Actors of Looking : A DOUBLE DOUBLE PLAY

.
'Tis no idle boast, but the truth we tell,
When we claim for the your claim here

A stainless name and a deathless fame
So long as the round World moves.

15 April 2010

copyness

As discussion continues (here) about the Trustees of the AGNSW awarding the Wynne Prize, for "the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours", to Sam Leach's Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos, his reworking of a 1668 'Dutch' depiction of an 'Italian' moment ...

... here's a timely old favorite from the heap. The original regard of this, hereabouts, a V&A postcard. Verso, it is labelled thus :

Artist copying a European print on to glass.
Watercolour on paper.
China (Canton); about 1790.
34.1 x 41.5.
FE 175
D.107-1898.

Our artist-in-residence editioned a set of these in the mid 1980s.
All hands that will, to the wheel.

1792_Artist copying a European print onto glass_V&Apostcard_440 x 600

14 April 2010

Same Old Same Old

le bLOG qui rit previously presented the plight of a Heidelberg artist attempting to render Australian landscape with a cow breathing down his neck.

Minus the bothersome cow, a similar scene greets us today on the front page of THE AGE (Melbourne).

The newspaper's headline writer has had fun too:

Double Dutch as our Sam paints
it again to take Wynne prize

"You painted it for her, you can paint it for me!" - bL

Turns out that Sam Leach's winning work in the Art Gallery of NSW's 2010 Wynne Prize for ...

is a reworking of a 1668 painthing by Dutch artist Adam Pynacker.

Is this a problem? Consider and discuss.

1. Look at the painthing

archive : Theatre of the Actors of Looking
26 March 2010 AGNSW

2. Read the Label

archive : Theatre of the Actors of Looking
26 March 2010 AGNSW

3. Consider your verdict

If bLOGOS/HA HA recalls the above TV news item correctly, art critic John McDonald made no mention of any problematic copyness attaching to this painthing when he addressed the Australian people immediately after the Wynne Prize announcement.

Today he addresses the cosmos again. On TV news; on the net, with a prime-ministerial chat from the study ( video here )

and quoted in THE AGE article, where he concludes :

12 April 2010

Heidelberg school Australia art artists education

Researchers, travellers, students . . .
click on the images below to enlarge

Adventures of a Heidelberg Artist
lithographie artistique

click here le bLOG qui rit to see what happened next

11 April 2010

Tears of a Magpie

Melbourne
Friday night
AFL football
two local tribes
St. Kilda v Collingwood
Saints v Magpies
Red Black and White v Black and White

Friday's AGE
"JUST TRY TO STOP ME"
It's the sort of headline said to have jinxed the Titanic.

"God Himself Couldn't Sink the Titanic"

Sinking the Unsinkable

Sure enough, just before half time the great Saint lands badly and seriously tears a hamstring. Simple as that.

One of the great features of AFL football is the players' immediate and respectful embrace of the enemy at the moment battle ceases.

And so it was on Friday night, as depicted here in allegory (compassion, depression, uncertain future) by our artist at the game.

click to enlarge

08 April 2010

Melbourne %!#? Brisbane : punk, art and after

http://m.messandnoise.com/discussions/3913425

wot jumpjump sed

wot bL sed

04 April 2010

Fight the Power

What are we to make of this?

Fight the Cube : a pocket-size meta-projection propaganda toy for children. There are no images on its wheel, which is entirely as shown above. That is, as one rotates the wheel through a complete revolution the 'image' projected remains the same. This from the culture that brought us, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." But why round on the Cube? Even the corners of this device have been rounded : Square v Circle : CUBE V SPHERE :

Art critic Louis Vauxcelles seeded the term "cubism" in 1908 when he described a picture by Georges Braque as "full of little cubes". (In 1905 Vauxcelles excoriated the group of painters around Matisse, as well as their admirers, as Les Fauves (the wild beasts) and, after Cubism, Tubism in 1911 to deride the style of Leger.)

Maisons à l'Estaque
1908
Georges Braque (1882-1963)

Is it possible that before this there had already been a children's anti-Cube movement in France? That there were anti-Cube-ists before Cubism? It would appear so. What might they have called themselves? From this artifact, Le Cercle de Lumière perhaps. But who knows. (*More research needs to be done on this.)

Is it possible that as a child EN FRANCE the young Georges B was excluded from such a patriotic membership? It seems likely his friends would have been aware of the photo portrait reproduced below, which is known to have been displayed in the family home. Someone pictured thus would hardly be an obvious anti-Cube candidate.

Rejected by his peers, did a formative psychodrama later play out as a petty and reactionary (rather than revolutionary, as has been previously proposed) Le Monde Est la Cube! determination in early adult life? Cubism! (And Picasso, of course, knew a good thing when he saw it.)

Or, as the old Braque family photograph invites us to consider, was Georges Braque born a Cubist?

Georges Braque
(c.1883)

02 April 2010

Giant Tableau Proposed

London : Theatre of the Actors of Looking (International) has announced plans for a giant sculpture tableau to be built at Olympic Park in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

The tableau will show a life-like 100-metre sculpture of the renowned British artist Anish Kapoor in a pose of formal regard, looking at a 115-metre sculpture of a maquette for a (this same) sculpture. Block-style figures and building sculptures will populate the pedestal on which the meta-maquette is based. The sculpture of Kapoor as Actor of Looking will show the upper half figure only and will appear to rise up out of the earth.

Scale model of the proposed tableau :

01 April 2010

Gettysburg Address

click images to enlarge