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.
Sunday night at The Rex.
Three old artists sitting in a row
for Mike Leigh
Mr T
and Theatre of the Actors of Regard.
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
. . . .
Demonstration Day at the Royal Academy.
Three old artists standing in a row
for Charles West Cope
Mr T
and Theatre of the Actors of Regard.
Joseph Mallord William Turner by Charles West Cope
oil on card, circa 1828
National Portrait Galley, London
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
click image to enlarge
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
The editorial WE thought we had more or less finished this run of Malevich-referencing posts, after yesterday's report that the great artist will run onto The Field for the Essendon Bombers in the 2015 pre-Season.
Then, today, we encounter this splendid photo...
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
]The Red Cardigan(
... and its problematic headline ...
Kasimir Malevich's 'Black Square':
What does it say to you?
... accompanying a July 2014 article by Michael Glover in The (UK) Independent. It begins :
The painting itself sits in a relatively darkened room at Tate Modern, where a major retrospective of the career of its creator, Kasimir Malevich from Kiev, opens today. Given that the painting is black from top to toe and hip to hip, and that it is often said to represent a pivotal moment in the history of abstraction and the art of the 20th century, this strikes the onlooker as an odd decision. Why not be given the opportunity to see it as clearly as possible?
- read full article here
Given that (one meaning of) Logos is
The Speaking into Being of the World,
and given therefore that this Logos includes
The Speaking into Being of... say,
Kasimir Malevich's 'Black Square'
... we at bLOGOS/HA HA
would, with instinctive reflex, recast that headline,
and its conceptual confusion, as :
Kasimir Malevich's 'Black Square' :
What do you say to it?
Not that you must say anything to it. As with any other projection-space, to be silent is an option.
Salvatore Rosa's 'Self-portrait' :
What do you say to it?
Consider another artwork, a severe favourite of ours at the National Gallery, London : Salvatore Rosa's c.1645 self-portrait :
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
Rosa plays hard eyeball with his Actors of Regard while his hands hold firm to the dictum board :
AUT TACE, AUT LOQUERE MELIORA SILENTIO (Do not speak unless your words are better than silence).
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
... as the tough times continue.
This editorial in The Age today :
"Any day now vast numbers of Australians will begin an annual ritual. Already the back pages of daily newspapers have begun a familiar transformation. Progressively, sports played with round balls are being pushed inside – footy season is nearly upon us and it is cause for celebration.
Or is it? For the third consecutive year, the start of an AFL season is being tainted by the red and black stain of the Essendon Football Club... "
Resurrection : Bombers Milk Chocolate Easter Egg Wrapper
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
In Melbourne and Sydney in the early 1970s, certain members of Theatre of the Actors of Regard made it their practice to visit Minimalist and Conceptualist art exhibitions and enquire of the director or a member of staff :
"Oh, is there nothing on?"
Recounted from the other side, one may still hear gallery personnel tell of those who used to come into an exhibition and say :
"Oh, is there nothing on?"
That came to mind while enjoying this artist's response...
...to one stater of the obvious. This is from a U.S. postcard series - THOSE FOOLISH QUESTIONS - published by G & B in 1910.
click image to enlarge
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
In the preceding posts
we have regarded
as figures-on-ground :
- a red vertical (The Wild, Barnett Newman, 1950)
- a black horizontal (Black painting, Mel Ramsden, 1966)
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Cross (Small Cross in Black over Red on White), 1920-27, Stedelijk Museum : johan's photoblog
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Today, we attempt to focus on
the ground/
ground-on-ground/
The Ground/
(1) In the 1910 postcard scene :
two figures on a ground
regard
with language and other projections
a white-on-white (sic) ground (sic)
(2) In the TAR scene below :
two figures on a ground
regard
with language and other projections
a white-on-white (sic) ground (sic)
"It goes without saying that when artists attend exhibitions, they look with exceptional intensity: on the initiative of the Rheinische Post, the artist Günther Uecker and Marion Ackermann, director of the Kunstsammlung, visited the exhibition “Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian: The Infinite White Abyss” together at the K20.
They spoke about the artistic approaches of this trio of avant-garde artists, about their compositions, about German postwar art – and of course, about the color white.
For the curator Marion Ackermann, this is the most radical picture in the exhibition: Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism (White Planes in Dissolution), 1917-18, on loan from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam."
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
