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.


25 April 2021

Anzac Day at MCG : 78,000 see Bombers sweep Magpies

Fig. 1  the plan      

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22 April 2021

Medium : Oils ain't oils.


  
  Theory: Taking A Closer Look At Profit
   Date: 08/08/2019


Theatre of the Actors of Regard        
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18 April 2021

scratching an itch


Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
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 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
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16 April 2021

TAR AGSA Members

  
Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

Members

Guide to the Gallery   

Wed 5 May & Sat 8 May
10.30am or 11.30am

Twice a month Gallery Guides present a members-only tour on different topics. Join our Guides in May as they tour Beckett in Context: Works by her female contemporaries.


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13 April 2021

'Fallingwater' ideogram


sky
fire
water 
earth

Some things, long present, only appear when we're ready to see them: Frank Lloyd Wright's ceiling light design for the dining room of 'Fallingwater'.

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12 April 2021

Outjet!


Watching 'Call My Agent' (S 1 Ep 2) : A novel proposal is put to the director; a long pause, then a smile as he declares Outjet! Not knowing the meaning of that word, but understanding it signifies approval, the agents raise their glasses in a  toast. Well, then... Outjet!


Being Antipodean, we toast instead Colin McCahon's 'Jet out' series and do some quick ideo-outjet drawings.  

Posted by :
u/silentxem
Outjet?
Watching
 "Call My Agent" on Netflix (French series), and there was a scene where a group was toasting and they all said "Outjet." It's spelled that way in the subtitles. Had never heard this before, and my google search is coming up blank.

Posted by :
[deleted}
Native here (Belgium/France), I have absolutely no idea what that could possibly mean. I have never heard something similar.
When we are toasting, we say "santé !", "tchin (tchin) !" or "à la vôtre !".

Posted by :
level 1
okayamerican
I came here with the same question, and I think I've figured it out. In the subtitles, the word is written in italics. Since the director's name is Gabor Rajevsky (or something)
and he doesn't speak much, I'm guessing he's not French, and "outjet" is a word in his first language, which they all repeat.

We can find only one dictionary definition. Perfect match!

Outjet

owt′jet, n. that which projects from anything
—n. Outjut′ting, a projection

- Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

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09 April 2021

Prospect : TAR Non-fungible Tokens


a  d  v  e  r  t  i  s  e  m  e  n  t
TAR : The Fungible Collection 
A novel collection of digital art redefining our understanding of value

Open Editions

Open Edition  Price Per Unit $500

Day 1  1:00-1:15pm ET
Day 2  1:00-1:15pm ET
Day 3  1:00-1:15pm ET

TAR Fungible Open Editions is a further investigation of our understanding of value. TAR Fungible Open Editions will enable collectors to purchase as many fungible TAR cubes as they wish during the sale period for a fixed price. These fungible TAR cubes can be purchased individually or many at a time, and will deliver its collector a different set of NFTs based on the total TAR cubes they own.

The individual NFTs are: A TAR Cube (1), Five TAR Cubes (5), Ten TAR Cubes (10), Twenty TAR Cubes (20), Fifty TAR Cubes (50), Hundred TAR Cubes (100), Five Hundred TAR Cubes (500), Thousand TAR Cubes (1,000).

Examples:
Collector purchases 1 TAR cube, they will receive a single NFT: “A TAR Cube”.

Collector purchases 6 TAR cubes, they will receive 2 NFTs: “Five TAR Cubes” and “A TAR Cube”, summing up to 6 cubes in fungible value.

Collector purchases 26 TAR cubes, they will receive 3 NFTs: “Twenty TAR Cubes”, “Five TAR Cubes” and “A TAR Cube” summing up to 26 TAR cubes in fungible value.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
Complexity

Edition of 100  Reserved

The growth of NFTs has proven the extraordinary value that emerges from closer relationships between collector and creator. Complexity is a collection of 100 NFTs that will be given to the following 100 individuals who purchase the most Open Edition TAR cubes by the end of Day 3.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  
The Cube

Edition of 1  Reserved

The TAR Cube is a unique, “one-of-one” NFT that will be given to the individual who purchases the most Open Edition TAR cubes by the end of Day 3.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

Non-fungible Tokens

Every asset for sale in TAR : The Fungible Collection is a non-fungible token (NFT). Though relatively new even in the realm of blockchain technology, NFTs represent a paradigm shift not only in the world of digital art, but in the world of art and media generally.

NFTs are unique digital assets with verifiable scarcity. The novelty of online scarcity cannot be overstated. For the entire history of the internet, scarcity has been impossible to determine. Content flowed freely, but it flowed too freely for anyone to confidently keep track of when artwork or written media was created, distributed, owned, shared, or purchased. NFTs are revolutionising online media, starting with artwork. 

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06 April 2021

Charles Nodrum - 50 years today


We first noticed Charles Nodrum in the early 1970s, as the serious young apprentice to Joseph Brown. 

Joseph Brown Gallery, 5 Collins Street, Melbourne (1967-1976)

Today marks the fiftieth year of Charles' own significant contribution to the cultural life of Melbourne.


    Charles Nodrum Gallery
    267 Church Street, Richmond VIC 3121
    03 9427 0140
    www.charlesnodrumgallery.com.au
    Tues to Sat 11am - 6pm.


Below, Charles Nodrum, director, and daughter Kate, gallery manager.


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01 April 2021

Ramshead Revisited


An online sale in Bonhams' Fine Books & Manuscripts department this week featured a Georgia O’Keeffe skull of a Rocky Mountain Bighorn ram from Ghost Ranch, which sold for $15,300, well over its estimate of $5,000 to $7,000.
Lot 33. Skull of a Rocky Mountain Bighorn ram, complete with curled horns and portions of first vertebra, approximately 270 x 210 x 120 mm, desiccated, with minor active chipping and flaking.
Provenance: Georgia O'Keeffe; gifted to: Marilyn Thuma (a.k.a. Mym Tuma, recorded in her manuscript diary, July 1971).
Clearly reminiscent of Ram's Head, White Hollyhock Hills, this ram's head was presented to Tuma on July 22nd, 1971, during a sixteen day stay at Ghost Ranch, as recorded in her contemporary sketch diary, as "Ram's head in Studio." She would later add to the reminiscence, "She offered me a skull on the Ghost Ranch patio that I noticed had a bullet hole in it thinking I might like it in remembrance of her, a memento. I said, 'No, I could not take anything that died by trauma' so she took me into her studio and showed me this beautiful skull which I own that she said hung on her house above the gate for 30 years — 'A long time,' O'Keeffe said, 'It's brittle.'"
O'Keeffe's association with the ram's head is etched into our understanding of her — beginning with her iconic 1935 painting Ram's Head, White Hollyhock Hills. The ram's head would figure in a number of her works, but never so effectively. In 1968, photographer Arnold Newman captured O'Keeffe in front of another ram's head, reinforcing the association. In a way, they are the distillation of O'Keeffe's experience of New Mexico.
"When I found the beautiful white bones on the desert I picked them up and took them home too ... I have used these things to say what is to me the wilderness and wonder of the world as I live in it." The skulls for O'Keefe represent not death, but life, "The bones seem to cut sharply to the centre of something that is keenly alive ... even though it is vast and empty and untouchable—and knows no kindness with all its beauty" ("About Myself," essay in the exhibition catalogue for An American Place, 1939).


As kids, we had a pet lamb, Patrick, who soon became Patrick the head-butting ram. When he eventually died, we dropped his body into an old mine shaft out the back. Years later, I brought up his magnificent horned skull.


  As contemporary artist : with Patrick in the studio at Fosterville, 1972
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31 March 2021

Vivienne Shark leWitt : The wind blows where it will : Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne


Born at the Mercy Hospital and educated by the Sisters of Mercy, your correspondent yesterday walked the Works of Mercy path at Anna Schwartz Gallery. A pilgrim path.
                                                           click image to enlarge
Works of Mercy, 2020
14 paint­ings, water based paint on linen
61 x 31 cm each
Instal­la­tion view, Anna Schwartz Gallery
Pho­to: Zan Wimberley

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost. 
 
- Inferno, Canto I - Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) 
 
Midway along the Works of Mercy
I found myself regarding a man pictured deep in thought.
Aside : Methinks the Divine poet travels with us.

- TARist 

Works of Mercy, detail (counsel the doubtful), 2020
water based paint on linen
 

The Thinker was initially named The Poet (Fr: Le Poète), and was part of a large commission begun in 1880 for a doorway surround called The Gates of Hell. Rodin based this on The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, and most of the figures in the work represented the main characters in the poem with The Thinker at the center of the composition over the doorway and somewhat larger than most of the other figures. Some critics believe that it was originally intended to depict Dante at the gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. Other critics reject that theory, pointing out that the figure is naked while Dante is fully clothed throughout his poem, and that the sculpture's physique does not correspond to Dante's effete figure.[1] The sculpture is nude, as Rodin wanted a heroic figure in the tradition of Michelangelo, to represent intellect as well as poetry.[citation needed]

This detail from the Gates of Hell was first named The Thinker by foundry workers, who noted its similarity to Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo de Medici called Il Pensieroso (The Thinker),[2] and Rodin decided to treat the figure as an independent work at a larger size. The figure was designed to be seen from below and is normally displayed on a fairly high plinth, although the heights vary considerably chosen by the various owners. 

Regarding these works by Shark leWitt and Rodin got us to thinking about the representation of thinking. Most often that's of men thinking. 


As a 1960s teen philosopher, we attended The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Each episode began with teenage Dobie, self-styled protégé of The Thinker, telling us what he was currently thinking about, which was usually girls. 

Years later, possibly misled by Rodin and Gillis, this fool of a man :

1974, in response to a Ewing and George Paon Galleries theme show question: When you think about art, what do you think?

Whaddya reckon so far, Andy? 
 
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1966 MoMA

Now, this emailed image has just arrived from the Castlemaine Art Museum, the latest of their weekly series about works in the collection. Snap!


Hugh Ramsay, Nude Study, Old Man, c.1900, oil on canvas. Castlemaine Art Museum, Presented by Mrs J. O. Wickin, 1947. Image Ian Hill

We do not know, we cannot know the thinking process or the thoughts, if any, of the Shark leWitt 'Dante' figure; nor of the other posers above.

Thought (or thinking) encompasses an "aim-oriented flow of ideas and associations that can lead to a reality-oriented conclusion".[1] Although thinking is an activity of an existential value for humans, there is still no consensus as to how it is adequately defined or understood.

 - Wikipedia

We can speculate ...
(late 16th century: from Latin speculat- ‘observed from a vantage point’, from the verb speculari, from specula ‘watchtower’, from specere ‘to look’.) 
but that would only return our own projections. 

Besides, not everyone thinks (conceptual) thinking is all it's cracked-up to be :

Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through spaces smaller than red globules of man’s blood they creepycrawl after Blake’s buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

- James Joyce, Ulysses

Across the room from the Works of Mercy and the comfy-slippered thinking man is The Unity of Opposites group of works. Below is a detail (sky blue). Hessian on hessian. Pigment on hessian. Receiver of eyes : image on hessian, inward gazing. Merciful, she who clears away all self-obstruction. The ground is revealed. Nature of mind, naked, vast, sky-like, clear, wholly present.

Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.

The Unity of Opposites, detail (blue sky), 2020
water based paint on hessian
96 x 30cm

Lucid, the sky

A ḍākinī is a type of sacred female spirit in Hinduism, while in Vajrayana Buddhism the term is often wisdom dakini. The term can also be applied to human women with a certain amount of spiritual development. 
The Sanskrit term is related to ḍīyate - to fly, as in uḍḍayanam (meaning flight). The Tibetan term means "skygoer" and may have originated in the Sanskrit khecara, a term from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra.[1]

Dakinis are energetic beings in female form, evocative of the movement of energy in space. In this context, the sky or space indicates śūnyatā, the insubstantiality of all phenomena, which is, at the same time, the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations.[citation req.]   
 
 - Wikipedia

Lucid, the sky is diamond (sutra)

The Diamond Sūtra (Sanskrit: Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) is a Mahāyāna (Buddhist) sūtra  
from the Prajñāpāramitā sutras or 'Perfection of Wisdom' genre. Translated into a variety of languages over a broad geographic range, the Diamond Sūtra is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras in East Asia, and it is particularly prominent within the Chan (or Zen) tradition,[1] along with the Heart Sutra.

The Sanskrit title for the sūtra is the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which may be translated roughly as the "Vajra Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra" or "The Perfection of Wisdom Text that Cuts Like a Thunderbolt".[1] In English, shortened forms such as Diamond Sūtra and Vajra Sūtra are common. The title relies on the power of the vajra (diamond or thunderbolt, but also an abstract term for a powerful weapon) to cut things as a metaphor for the type of wisdom that cuts and shatters illusions to get to ultimate reality.[1] 
  
- Wikipedia

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