Three Laughers of the Museum with|out Borders

A favourite story-time tale at bLOGOS/HA HA is The Three Laughers of Tiger Glen. 

Here, from the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University :

According to an old Chinese legend, one day the Daoist priest Lu Xiujing and the Confucian poet Tao Yuanming visited the Buddhist monk Huiyuan, who had become a recluse and vowed never to leave his mountain temple. As they concluded their visit together, the three friends became so caught up in conversation that Huiyuan inadvertently crossed the bridge over the Tiger Glen, a ravine that formed the boundary of the temple precinct. As soon as they realized what had happened, the men burst into laughter at the absurdity of this transgression. The parable teaches that true wisdom is gained when boundaries of difference are overcome through mutual understanding.

The theme became popular in Japan, especially among Kano-school artists whose subject matter and ink-painting style derived from Chinese traditions. Here, the three men are shown laughing together at the edge of the glen, having just crossed the bridge over a raging torrent.


 click image to enlarge
 Kano Doun Masanobu
 Japanese, 1625–1694
 Three Laughers of the Tiger Glen
 hanging scroll: ink and colours on silk
 Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

             

Enactments of this theme have now become popular in the West, especially among the Museum flash mobs. 

Three Laughers of TAR  

 click image to enlarge                       photo courtesy LM of TAR

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

             

The Speaker

LOGOS : The Speaking into Being of the Universe

HA HA :  Bronwyn Bishop, seen here in November 2013, being formally escorted to The Speaker's Chair by Prime Minister Tony Abbott (she was his 'Captain's Pick' for Speaker) and Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne.


   
That was then. She was a partisan disgrace : in her brief reign, she ejected 393 Labor MPs and just 7 members of the Coalition. Now, because of her abuse of 'entitlements', she has been forced to resign as Speaker .

The new Speaker is Tony Smith, seen here today being escorted to the Chair by two low profile Liberal backbenchers. He has promised to be fairer and less partisan.


     
This evening we've been looking through some old editions of Le Charivari. So much old news still has currency. Plus ça change...

Here, our fellow journal suggests to the Speaker of the day
(Paris, 1869) a musical scale to denote the range and seriousness of members' infractions. Ring the bells!

click image to enlarge  

 Nouveau règlement proposé par Le Charivari pour le Corps 
 Législatif.
 New regulations proposed by Le Charivari for the 
 Legislature.

 Le President aura des sonnettes de plusieurs dimensions en
 rapport avec le plus ou moins de gravite de l'infraction qu'il
 rappellera a l'ordre.
 The President to have a scale of bells related to the greater or
 lesser seriousness of the offences to be called to order.

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

       

Out of Bounds : Adam Goodes and the larger Field of Play

Tonight at Kardinia Park, Geelong, Adam Goodes returns to the field of play.



The AFL field of play has been at the centre of a much larger field of play since Adam Goodes -  2014 Australian of The Year and twice winner of the prestigious Brownlow Medal - had the temerity to point out the young spectator who abused him as "an ape". This, during the 2013 AFL Indigenous Round, no less.
                     

Watch his unedited news conference from the following day here

Since then Goodes has been booed while playing and denigrated in the media by those who like to say "I'm not a racist, but...".

In May this year, Goodes celebrated kicking a goal - again during the AFL Indigenous Round - by dancing his black pride at the opposition. The racist response immediately went up another notch.

Finally, last weekend, after Goodes under pressure took leave from The Swans, many Australians protested for him and against racial abuse : from Gumatj clan dancers at the Garma Festival, with Goodes' 37 painted on their backs a Swans red V on their chests...

to the Yuendumu Sports Weekend ( article here ) ....

to Sydney and beyond...

below : Kavisha Mazzella (front left) and Rachael Maza (centre) join the war dance flash mob in Federation Square. (774 ABC Melbourne: Clare Rawlinson)
       

         

In 1976, FIAPCE, the Fosterville Institute of Applied & Progressive Cultural Experience sketched a poster design with the text
     

? Why NOT footballers-for Social-Reform ?     

At that time, the question made rhetorical sense, but it seemed odd and unlikely. 

In 2015, thanks to the courage of players such as Nicky Winmar, Michael Long and Adam Goodes, to the institutional efforts of the AFL, in particular under the leadership of Andrew Demetriou, and the advocacy of journalists such as Martin Flanagan and Gerard Whateley it no longer seems a strange or unlikely leadership role.

collection: Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne University      

Now, focus moves to the conduct of the crowd.

? Why NOT Theatre-of-the-Actors-of Regard-for-Social-Reform ?

"Well, the Aboriginal footy star Adam Goodes will take to the field on Saturday night when his team Sydney plays Geelong. It will be Goodes first match since he was persistently booed  by supporters of the opposing team two weeks ago.

And people all around Australia will be watching to see not how the teams perform but how the crowd behaves. 

For this past fortnight, the booing of Adam  Goodes has been the subject of heated debate, as if the treatment of this one sportsman lays bare the soul of the entire nation." 

Michael Cathcart on 'Books and Arts'
ABC.RN, 7 August 2015
Introduction to : What role do the arts play in the national debate around racism?

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

    

QANTAS (Flesh)

Open Letter to Alan Joyce

CEO : Qantas Airways Limited

Dear Alan Joyce

One of our staff recently travelled with Qantas from Melbourne to Queensland and back.

Act 1. On the Friday afternoon 1.05 pm flight out of Melbourne, 
this was The Play as recorded by our staff member, who is also 
a member of Theatre of the Actors of Regard :

QANTAS staff : "Chicken Caesar wrap, sir."

bLOGOS/HA HA : "I'm vegetarian."

QANTAS staff : "I'm sorry sir, we don't provide specialist meals.  (pause)   Would you like some rice crackers?"

bLOGOS/HA HA : "No, thank you."

So, our staff member received no meal. Later, some passengers, including the person seated beside our staff member, accepted to receive a second CHICKEN CAESAR.

     

Act 2. On the Sunday morning 11.00 am flight out of Brisbane,
this was The Play as recorded by our staff member, who is also 
a member of Theatre of the Actors of Regard :
            
QANTAS staff : "Would you like a Moroccan Chicken Wrap or a Ham and Tomato?"

bLOGOS/HA HA : "Is there nothing for vegetarians?"

QANTAS staff : "I'll see if there is an apple down the back."

Act 3.  Much later, after no apple was brought, when your staff were clearing away the leftovers, our staff member challenged one of your staff about this miserable situation :
              
"It seems pretty weird, in Australia in the 21st century, that QANTAS does not provide for vegetarians as non-specialist passengers. That QANTAS assumes as its default ethical position that it's passengers will require animal blood sacrifice food? As if that is normal and unremarkable. That QANTAS treats the non-sacrificers as "specialist" and is quite happy/blind to not provide them with any food unless they cause a bother."

"Would it not be more fair and reasonable in Australia in the 21st century to offer everyone something in common? Something we can all eat, something vegetarian? And if QANTAS still wishes to support the animal sacrifice practices of some of its patrons, make death meals the "specialist" ones to be catered for."

Our staff member informed your staff member he would be writing to you about this and pushing it further. 

Your staff member was gracious, made certain explanations, and provided a card with a QANTAS customer comments url. 

Presumably, he also mentioned this conversation to the senior flight attendant who finally brought our traveller... an apple. 

     

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

    

ROBERT MACPHERSON : THE PAINTER'S REACH

      they have

      gone to GOMA droving 
      and we don't know where they are 

           

As well as The drover invitation card from the University of Queensland Art Museum, we recently received another invitation from Queensland (below), from the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA).
    

ROBERT MACPHERSON

THE PAINTER'S REACH

     

          

bLOGOS/HA HA sent one of our award winning journalists
to attend the opening, the lectures and the special guided tour by
The Drovers of TAR.

      The TAR guide is there, awaiting in demand,
      TAR book held firmly in his Hand Space hand;
      He fixes on an Actor with a look of lonely lack,
      Exactly what he's waiting for : "TAR here, Jack!"

      - from Songs of the Open Road 
        (The Drovers of TAR)

          

         

The Painter's Reach is a 40 year survey curated by longtime MacPherson expert Ingrid Periz. For those familiar with the art of Robert MacPherson there are lots of old favourites. 

The early, sufficient, mark-making mark-regarding themes and variations.... 

                  

Robert MacPherson
SCALE FROM THE TOOL, 1976

            

studio c.1977 with SARAH'S MERLES - photo David Goulter

soon spill out from the artist's paint encrusted studio ...
                    

Robert MacPherson, 
SCALE FROM THE TOOL (SABCO) 1976
         
... in liberated, worldly play.

              

Robert MacPherson

MAYFAIR : XMAS (WILDFIRE RED) FOR MRS PRETTY 2001-2002

'Speaking of CHERRY PICKERS...' (LOGOS/HA HA) :

from QAGOMA Facebook comes this image of THREE MEN and a SPIRIT LEVEL high in a CHERRY PICKER installing the 156 panels of "CHITTERS: A WHEELBARROW FOR RICHARD, 156 PAINTINGS, 156 SIGNS" 1999-2000

                 

                 
Then t/here's our looking at the/se painted words, printed words, pixilated words.

Robert MacPherson
4 PAINTINGS (NAMING) RED CENTRE DEAD CENTRE IN MEMORY OF D.P. 1993-2001

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

LOGOS/HA HA        

        

Looking without, and reading, and perhaps even looking within.

Robert, MacPherson
LITTLE PICTURES FOR THE POOR, 1983

          

detail

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

LOGOS/HA HA 

         
             
...........................................................


Displayed in a long red wall vitrine are various other MacPherson productions, not so obviously or primarily of The Painter's Reach: his correspondence with fellow artists is as much a measure of The Postal System's Reach. This pair of gloves, with a clearly franked postage stamp on each finger and the receiver's address written under the thumbs, are part of a recent gift to GOMA of around 13,000 items of MacPherson correspondence.

         

Robert MacPherson, 1982

...........................................................

I SING ON THE CAKE 

Topping the show off, QAGOMA has recently acquired this grand opera by Robert MacPherson and his eternally 10 year old alter-ego Robert Pene :
               
1000 FROG POEMS: 1000 BOSS DROVERS ("YELLOW LEAF FALLING") FOR H.S. 1996–2014

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

LOGOS/HA HA 

               

                         

         

Cultural Capital, The drover of

     
Extending our Capital theme, we have received through the post, from the University of Queensland Art Museum, an invitation to the travelling (art droving) exhibition :

CAPITAL & COUNTRY : THE FEDERATION YEARS 1900-1914 

The invitation reproduces a 1906 painting by Harry Garlick, The drover, from the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

Before we show that invitation, here is the NGA's online reproduction of The drover from an earlier (2007-2009) travelling (art droving) exhibition :

Ocean to Outback: Australian Landscape Painting 1850–1950

          

What is the CAPITAL of IMAGE & TEXT ? At that NGA website, this image is accompanied by the following text composition, beginning with the SURNAME of the artist in LARGE(R) CAPITAL LETTERS than the Prenom/Christian Name/ First Name :

GARLICK, Harry

Australia 1878 – Australia 1910

The drover 1906

Painting

oil on canvas board

60.8 (h) x 45.4 (w) cm

Framed 81.1 (h) x 65.7 (w) x 7.2 (d) cm

signed and dated l.l., oil "Harry Garlick \06"

NGA 1972.135

VIEW: Article |

For the CAPITAL & COUNTRY invitation

the EXHIBITION TITLE is imprinted onto the image 

in steely blue CAPITAL LETTERS

    
in the manner of a later LANGUAGE or CONCEPTUAL ARTIST

'Value added' landscape No.14

Ian Burn and Hans Selke

1993

or in the manner of a TAR figure & field dualist 
      gone to GOMA droving 
      and we don't know where we are :

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

LOGOS/HA HA 

from the series : AUSTRALIAN ANDSCAPE 

Harry Garlick and FIAPCE

-2015-
         
TAR and the mirrors of emptiness : we looked online for earlier stock route camps of the drovers of CAPITAL & COUNTRY and were rewarded with this devoided scene of white/blanc (Fr.) projection-spaces whose spectral reflections appear to indicate something quite other.

           

Below this image was the following text

           

Capital and country: the Federation years 1900 - 1914 is the National Gallery of Australia's first major exhibition to focus on Australian painting from this formative era of the nation's history.

Drawing together the art of a newly Federated Australia with the work of Australias residing in Europe, the 46 works in this exhibition invite viewers on a journey from the Australian bush to bohemian enclaves of London and Paris.

Well-known and loved paintings from the national collection will be on display to tell the stories of thie era, as well as works from the collections of the Parliament of Australia and the National Library of Australia.

whereas, above the image was this, as relevant here as there :
             

 This listing has already occurred and is has now expired, it has been retained for viewing for historical / archival purposes. 

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

LOGOS/HA HA 

               

         
            

Q : "What is a question?"

Though with only schoolboy French, we do appreciate the double or meta form of the formal reflexive French interrogation :
"What is it that it is (whatever)?"
"Qu' est-ce que c'est (this question)?"

            

lithograph on offset page by CHAM, Le Charivari, Dec. 1869
collection FIAPCE  (Perhaps someone who has acquired the first edition of Das Kapital in German has come to speak? The Paris Commune is formed 15 months later.)

                
Though with only schoolboy Art appreciation, we do appreciate the raised hands of Theatre of the Actors of Regard :
"Does anyone really know what this is?" 
           
 click image to see full image
 (Fifteen months later they formed the Free Pencil Movement.)

                       

Though with only schoolboy Korean Zen, we do appreciate the primary koan of that tradition :
"What is this?"

         

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

 
     

Regarding certain capital questions

Today, the kerfuffle continues over the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bronwyn Bishop's $5,000 helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong at tax payers' expense to attend a Liberal Party fundraiser. Blue blood snouts caught in the trough are popular theatre. 

Questions are being asked, of course.
- Que pensez vous du capital? 
- Messieurs, j'en suis encore a faire sa connaissance!

Preface to the French Edition (Marx, 1872) 

To the citizen Maurice Lachâtre 
Dear Citizen, 
I applaud your idea of publishing the translation of “Das Kapital” as a serial. In this form the book will be more accessible to the working class, a consideration which to me outweighs everything else. 
That is the good side of your suggestion, but here is the reverse of the medal: the method of analysis which I have employed, and which had not previously been applied to economic subjects, makes the reading of the first chapters rather arduous, and it is to be feared that the French public, always impatient to come to a conclusion, eager to know the connexion between general principles and the immediate questions that have aroused their passions, may be disheartened because they will be unable to move on at once. 
That is a disadvantage I am powerless to overcome, unless it be by forewarning and forearming those readers who zealously seek the truth. There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits. 
Believe me, 
dear citizen, 
Your devoted, 
Karl Marx 
London 
March 18, 1872

below : lithograph on offset by CHAM, Le Charivari, Dec. 1869
collection FIAPCE  (Perhaps someone who has acquired the first edition of Das Kapital in German has come to speak? The Paris Commune is formed 15 months later.)

       

         
Today, this headline and report in
THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW :
Porsche profits triple in stark contrast to heavy losses at Holden
Porsche Australia has tripled profits and lifted revenues by 37 per cent to $428 million on strong sales of its luxury vehicles at a time when local car makers are reporting heavy losses.

       

Questions are being asked, of course.
- Que pensez vous du capital?
- Messieurs, j'en suis encore a faire sa connaissance!
                  

Today, there are over 2.5 million Australians living below
The Poverty Line (see below)
(see also: "Taking a Line for a Ride in a Helicopter" by Paul Klee)

____________________________________     

       

Questions are being asked, of course.
- Que pensez vous du capital?
- Messieurs, j'en suis encore a faire sa connaissance!

    

Questions are being asked, of course.
- Que'est-ce qu c'est un question?
- What is a question?

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

   
     

Confound it !

   
57

I. Lara (photographe amateur, 04-2)

Estimation :

120 - 150 €

Résultat : 1500 €

Carte de visite au miroir vers 1860 Épreuve albuminée, 90x55 mm, montée sur un carton au format carte de visite, cachet bleu au verso : "I. Lara, Fotografo. Aficionado", annotation au crayon : Cuba ? Espagne De la collection Michel Braive. Dans les années 1860, Cuba est une colonie espagnole Unique print, published in Michel Braive, L'âge de la photographie, page 167 Also in Juan Naranjo, La fotografía en España en el siglo XIX, Caixa Forum, Barcelona, 2003

 carte de visite au miroir
 circa 1860
 blue stamp on the back: "I. Lara, Fotografo Aficionado."
 annotation in pencil: Cuba? Spain

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

 LOGOS/HA HA 

         

     
     

TAR : De Revolutionibus : De-Centred : re. knowing & not knowing where to look

             
Dear wonderful Nadar, 

In 1858, you were the first to photograph our world from space.
             

Nadar élevant la Photographie à la hauteur de l'Art
Nadar elevating Photography to the level of Art
Lithograph by Honoré Daumier, in Le Boulevard, May 25, 1863

And, in your studio, the first to fake it too.
           
 Nadar, Self-Portrait in a Balloon Gondola, c1865

Félix Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1 April 1820, Paris – 23 March 1910), a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. He took his first photographs in 1853 and pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. In 1858, he took a camera up in a tethered hot air balloon and became the first aerial photographer. Around 1863, Nadar built a huge (6000 m³) balloon named Le Géant (“The Giant”), thereby inspiring Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon. Although the “Géant” project was initially unsuccessful Nadar was still convinced that the future belonged to heavier-than-air machines. Later, “The Society for the Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier than Air Machines” was established, with Nadar as president and Verne as secretary. Nadar was also the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. In April 1874, he lent his photo studio to a group of painters, thus making the first exhibition of the Impressionists possible. (Wikipedia) 

                      
Today, we think of you again, as a vehicle from Earth, New Horizons, after almost ten years travelling through space, passes by and photographs our Sun's outermost mini-planet Pluto and its moon Charon. Here's the screen photo we made for you at the moment of closest approach. 
             
           
Of course, dear Nadar, there were many others involved in this projection : Copernicus & Co... 

Aristarchus of Samos, Martianus Capella, Nicole Oresme, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. Nilakantha Somayaji, Nilakantha, Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi, Alhazen, Abu Rayhan Biruni, al-Battani, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Zarqali, Ibn Rushd, and al-Bitruji. Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, William Herschel, Friedrich Bessel... 

Nicholas of Cusa in his Learned Ignorance asked whether there was any reason to assert that the Sun (or any other point) was the centre of the universe. In parallel to a mystical definition of God, Cusa wrote that "Thus the fabric of the world (machina mundi) will quasi have its centre everywhere and circumference nowhere." 

Modern thinking is that there is no specific location that is the centre of the universe, per Albert Einstein's principle of relativity. (Wikipedia) 

               
...but it is still giddy YOU who have us in the best of spins!

Yours at large
TAR

      

Nadar,  revolving self-portrait,  c.1865