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.


06 June 2011

CAST OFF

.
Larissa Kosloff's plaster cast is now off, as reported at the ACCA Venice Biennale blog.



Cast off your ...



... and be ( your wish here ) !

Trade card_crutches theatre boy girl_sRGB_400

The ACCA blog references certain works by 20th century European and U.S. artists :
Manzoni whose signature assigned status to human forms and scatology; the history (legacy…ok sorry, we are done now) of sculpture which marries to the cast from Duchamp to Nauman and beyond

"Laresa Kosloff lives and works in Melbourne, Australia."
as described at her website.

There are local, Melbourne references that might also be invoked. It was Barry Humphries' dadaist acts in early-1950s Melbourne that first came to mind, hearing of Laresa's Venice project.

Clive James :
Still a schoolboy in Sydney, I heard about these daring adventures only later, but everybody in Australia got to hear about them eventually. Apparently there was a progressive breakfast, in which Humphries, riding towards Melbourne University on a train, was handed a new course through the carriage window at each station by an accomplice. He particularly favoured public transport because of the captive audience. Having had his right leg specially immobilised in a large white plaster cast (the immense trouble he will take to get an effect has been a trademark throughout his career), he would sit in a crowded railway carriage with the glaringly encased leg sticking out into the aisle until everyone on board was aware of nothing else. Then an accomplice would come along and jump on it.

from Approximately in the Vicinity of Barry Humphries
at CliveJames.com

Throughout his career, the Melbourne artist John Brack appears to have been deeply interested in act and action. (To be and to do). In mere movement, including stillness and the point-0f-collapse, and in grand movements. As a genre formalist, the genre varieties of still life (flowers, various objects including implements and instruments, nudes, portraits, meta-arrangements) through (running children, horse racing, The Car, dancers, gymnasts) to the great History Painting The Battle (1981-83) and beyond. From the conformist linearity of Collins St, 5p.m. (1955) to the later (1980s-90s) complex, questioning, confrontational, flows and organisations of pens and pencils.

These comments arise out a long admiration of Brack's work, and seeing it, his world view there again in yesterday's ACCA photo of Larissa Kosloff. In a cast, on crutches, in panto, inside and outside the coming and going of Art World Venice, 5.pm.

Laresa Kosloff in Venice_everyone on the go_400


John Brack
Still life with Artificial Leg
1963
1998_PT on crutches_400
Theatre of the Actors of Regard (1998)

detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...

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