bLOGOS/HA HA: AUSTRALIA : new pavilion opens for 56th Venice Biennale

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.

08 May 2015

AUSTRALIA : new pavilion opens for 56th Venice Biennale

1913 : the Polish-Russian artist Kazimierz Malewicz (as he signed his canvasses) aka Kazimir Malevich paints a black square field on a larger white square field. It is first exhibited in 1915.

1968 : another year of revolutionary mood, in which Stanley Kubrick releases 2001 : A Space Odyssey. It features an enigmatic black rectangular monolith.

1952 : related to neither and to both of the above is this youthful cubo-regardist action recorded at a provincial Australian photo-graphy studio.

2014 : as the fame of the Black Square continues to spread, The Tate provides this introduction to the possibilities of its regard :

Five ways to look at Malevich’s Black Square

2015 : the new AUSTRALIA pavilion (Denton Corker Marshall) was officially opened this week at the 56th Venice Biennale. One hundred years after the first showing of Black Square.