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.


30 April 2020

Vale GERMANO CELANT


Germano Celant, the Towering Italian Art Critic Who Gave the World Arte Povera, Has Died at Age 80 From Coronavirus Complications
The widely influential Italian art historian, critic, and curator Germano Celant, who coined the term Arte Povera to describe the radically economical art of Jannis Kounellis, Mario and Marisa Merz, and Giuseppe Penone, among others, has died at age 80 in Milan due to complications from the coronavirus.
His death, which was reported by various Italian news outlets, followed his hospitalization at San Raffaele hospital several weeks ago.
He began exhibiting symptoms after returning home from New York, where he had visited the Armory Show, according to the Italian publication Artibune.
The eminent curator launched his career in 1967, when he published his Arte Povera manifesto, “Notes for a Guerilla War,” in Flash Art magazine, where he championed the work of artists who made “poor art, committed to contingency, to events, to the non-historical, to the present.”
Arte Povera—largely a response to Italy’s post-war industrial culture and economy—contrasted with the bright colors and commercial sensibility of the American Pop Art movement. Celant cast his favored artists, who used unconventional materials such as plywood and rags in their work, in political terms. In the background, as Celant was writing his polemics, a recession in Italy hampered what was previously a period of sustained economic growth, and students influenced by Marx were protesting at universities.
As he helped to build the reputations of anti-establishment artists in the 1960s and ’70s, Celant climbed the ranks of the art world in an increasingly distinguished career.
In 1997, he curated the Venice Biennale, and also held roles as a curator at the Guggenheim, a contributing editor of Artforum and Interview magazines, and was the artistic director of the Prada Foundation in Milan at the time of his death. In October, he announced that he was planned a show dedicated to KAWS.
“I don’t feel like a man of power,” he once said. “I’ve always been interested in the power of art. Artists know that: that’s why they trust me.”
Celant was born in Genoa in 1940. He studied art history at the University of Genoa with the critic Eugenio Battisti, with whom he later worked at the art and design magazine Marcatrè, which was founded by a group of critics including Umberto Eco.
Celant’s exhibition, “Im Spazio,” which was mounted at Genoa’s Galleria La Bertesca in 1967, is often seen as the beginning of the Arte Povera movement. Among his many other significant exhibitions was a 1993 show at the Prada Foundation in which he reimagined “When Attitudes Become Form,” Harald Szeemann‘s influential 1969 show. Other significant exhibitions by Celant included “Italian Metamorphosis, 1943–1968,” which was staged at the Guggenheim in New York. 
“The loss of Germano Celant is a catastrophe,” Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the Castello di Rivoli museum in Turin, wrote in a Tweet. “One of the most serious people in the art world, of the most intelligent, profound.”
  

          
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29 April 2020

glass half TAR


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27 April 2020

A break away! (COVID-19)


Despite the encouraging coronavirus statistics, authorities in Victoria and NSW are attempting to maintain their strict isolation regulations.


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On the weekend, however, there were many reports of iso-breakout.




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 after Tom Roberts, A COVID 19 break away! 1891-2020, AGSA
  
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24 April 2020

d|r|e|a|d

   

 Dread Poetry and Freedom : Linton Kwesi Johnson and the 
 Unfinished Revolution (David Austin)

FIAPCE  
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22 April 2020

textual straTARgies


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 above : Hotei regards text by Sengai (1750–1837)
 below : TARist regards Clouds (2010) by Michael Sailstorfer
 below and beyond : TARist regards TAR Label

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20 April 2020

Re. Live Sales


New York Times, 19 May 2020 : Auction Houses Postpone Live Sales and Pivot to Online

some extracts : ... Like companies all over the world, auction houses now find themselves in uncharted territory, trying to find a way to keep their businesses afloat even as the future of buying art looks as if it may be forever changed.
  

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“I’m thinking really seriously about what the online experience is for our clients,” said Amy Cappellazzo chairwoman of the Fine Art division of Sotheby’s. “In effect, we’ve been in the live theater business. Now we’re segueing into what is more like live streaming. The truth is, that revolution has been underway for some time.”

 TARists at 'Exhibition of a Rhinoceros at Venice' by/after Pietro 
 Longhi, 1751-2020

Many experts say online auctions can’t replicate the high drama of an auction room, nor replace the revenue required to sustain personnel-heavy operations like Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips.

“The auction itself is high drama — gladiator sport,” said the dealer Brett Gorvy, a former Christie’s executive. “When we get back to a degree of normality, it will return.”

Mr. Gorvy also emphasized that sellers need auctions to gauge where the market is; sporadic private sales don’t provide enough information on whether prices have fallen as a result of the virus.

“There is nothing publicly to test the market — no fairs or auctions,” he said. “It’s holding up business. People don’t really know at what price to trade.”


  culTARal enTARopy : gold in, shit out, energy of TAR along the way
“I’m not an online fan," said Adam Lindemann, a prominent collector and dealer. “I want to see the real thing if I can.”
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17 April 2020

Beyond The Visible


BEYOND THE VISIBLE - HILMA AF KLINT
directed by Halina Dyrschka
first screenings today | trailer
  
 Hilma af Klint c.1900

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14 April 2020

TAR files : I want to believe



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12 April 2020

True Believers

   

             It was like when Jesus said, you know, 
             'Eat my body and drink my blood.'
             - Jim Carey (doco)
             Its a way to, like, weed out the crowd.
             - Jim Carey (doco)

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10 April 2020

stabat muTAR (Good Friday 2020)


The Japanese and Korean term mu (JapaneseKorean
or Chinese wu (traditional Chinesesimplified Chinese), 
meaning "not have; without", is a key word in Buddhism, especially Zen traditions.

The Gateless Gate, which is a 13th-century collection of Chan or Zen kōans, uses wu or mu in its title (Wumenguan or Mumonkan 
無門關) and first kōan case ("Zhao Zhou's Dog" 趙州狗子). 
Chinese Chan calls the word mu 無 "the gate to enlightenment".
The Japanese Rinzai school classifies the Mu Kōan as hosshin 
発心 "resolve to attain enlightenment", that is, appropriate for beginners seeking kenshō "to see the Buddha-nature"'.
- Wikipedia
   
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09 April 2020

socio-isoLOGOS/HA HA


Chris Mann was the first person I heard talk of language as a virus. That was probably in the early 1980s. I don't know if it was Chris's own thought or if he had encountered it via William Burroughs :

What Burroughs terms the viral function of language is its ongoing ordering of reality toward the limit of total control, the opposite of anarchy. He employs the figure of the virus, a force hovering between evolving being and mere replicator, to problematize conventional definitions of living and non-living.9 In Burroughs' cosmos, one must always remember that the words one transmits can never be neutral moves in the universal language-game; even if misfiring, some sort of force is necessarily being transmitted. This is the very problem addressed by Csicsery-Ronay when he cites Jameson's skepticism over sf's linguistic aporia. It is exceptionally difficult for any resistant message to avoid complicity with the dominant communication systems in whose language it is composed. If “a butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo can cause a tornado in Toledo” (Porush 381), who knows what havoc a few well-chosen words could wreak in the infosphere? As responsible cyborg-writers, we'd best have a good idea how the “techsts” we use are going to function out there before we turn them loose. The trick, argues Burroughs, is to transmit a kind of force that doesn't immediately contribute to the virus-effect but can actually help work against it. The fold-in is the principle textual method of guerilla resistance against the virus (or, as Burroughs puts it in his science-fictional work, against the Nova Conspiracy); one takes a strongly linear form like the typewritten word, cuts it, and reassembles it such that its ordinative powers are deactivated.10 As apomorphine was Burroughs' antidote to morphine addiction, so silence is the antidote to word-addiction and the fold-in to order-addiction.11 This resistance, in Burroughs' work, is the only option under the circumstances of total occupation by Control.

- from William S. Burroughs and the Language of Cyberpunk
by Brent Wood
Science Fiction Studies : #68, Volume 23, Part 1, March 1996

     
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07 April 2020

gaze anaTARmy


Gray's Anatomy (1858)

- wikipedia  
gaze anaTARmy 

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04 April 2020

draw draw draw your oar gently o'er the see


MELBOURNE.- The National Gallery of Victoria has launched a new four-part virtual series of its popular Drop-by Drawing program.

This virtual iteration of the program invites audiences to watch a video tutorial of a Drop-by Drawing class, which features tips and tricks on how to draw from some of Victoria’s most engaging contemporary artists.

The series features Victorian artists Minna Gilligan, Lily Mae Martin and Kenny Pittock giving a step-by-step guide on how to draw, whilst taking inspiration from some of their favourite artworks in the NGV Collection.

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV said: “Our Drop-by Drawing program is one of the NGV’s much-loved programs where our visitors can hone their drawing skills in the setting of the wonderful NGV Collection. We know drawing is a very mindful and therapeutic activity, and during this time we are delighted to be able to give audiences a chance to experience virtual Drop-by Drawing tutorials at home.”

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      free pencil movement protest NGV Drawing Ban (2004)

PART ONE - SUNDAY 5 APRIL
PRESENTED BY LILY MAE MARTIN ON NGV CHANNEL 
The first virtual drawing class hosted by Lily Mae Martin, takes viewers into the NGV’s 19th Century European Paintings Gallery where she takes inspiration from the life-size marble sculpture Musidora, 1878 by Marshall Wood. Musidora was a mythological ancient Greek goddess, who inspired all forms of literature and the arts and is the striking centrepiece of the gallery.

Martin encourages at-home participants to focus on simple drawing exercises, including observational drawing and mark making, to begin their sketch of Musidora. These practical skills demonstrate to viewers how working on a drawing in stages builds consistency in their work.

“It is about getting comfortable with drawing and embracing the practice of mastering the technique. The key to drawing is practice! Take time to look at the object and study it. Be comfortable in your setup and your space, whether you are drawing a sculpture or the kettle in your kitchen. It's something you can do at home with everyday objects,” she said.


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02 April 2020

a pedant's lament


So, 
look, 
blah blah 
very unique.

Absolutely!


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01 April 2020

Love in the Time of


"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead...

Some days after jotting down the drawing below, Dr King's final speech returns to the fore



"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
  - Wikipedia


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