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.
After the severity and pricking humour of Ian Burn, Mel Ramsden and Roger Cutforth in Ann Stephen's significant 1969: Retrieving the Black Box of Conceptual Art at the VCA's Margaret Lawrence Gallery...
Ian Burn, Installation photograph for Xerox Books, Pinacotheca,
1969, black and white photograph. © Estate of Ian Burn.
... arriving at the NGV presented quite a contrast. The Warhol-Weiwei exhibition felt more like a fun fair or Boxing Day sale. Very crowded, obviously the word was out that this was a fun thing to take the children to in the school holidays. The loud music from the NGV Teens Art Party dance squad rehearsals in the Great Hall added just one more upper there, like at The Factory perhaps, or whatever...
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Shoobie doobie do wop
I wanna dedicate this
Pop pop shoo wop
Everybody made it
Shoobie doobie do wop
Infiltrate it
Pop pop shoo wop
Activate it
New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Talk about, pop musik
Pop pop pop pop musik
- M (Pop Musik, 1979)
... but was quite inappropriate when also heard in the Asian and European galleries. Nowhere to hide. Where's Poly Styrene when we need her?
Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard
But I say... 1 2 3 4
Oh Bondage! Up yours!
Bind me tie me
Chain me to the wall I wanna be a slave
To you all
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Chain-store chain-smoke
I consume you all
Chain-gang chain-mail
I don't think at all
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Thrash me crash me
Beat me till I fall
I wanna be a victim
For you all
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
Oh bondage up yours
Oh bondage no more
- X-Ray Spex (Oh Bondage Up Yours!, 1977)
Ai Weiwei, Study of Perspective
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
Report of 8 April 2016 re.
Observation of young children giving the finger
to photos/images/appearance(s)...
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
NGV Teens ART PARTY
Thursday 7 Apr, 5.30pm
While that's all happening at the NGV, around the corner at the VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, there's the opening of Ann Stephen's 1969: Retrieving the Black Box of Conceptual Art.
- full exhibition catalog here.
l - r : Ian Burn, Roger Cutforth, Mel Ramsden in New York, 1969
And, before that, also at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, the VCA lunchtime forum 'In conversation with Ann Stephen: Raafat Ishak, Fiona MacDonald, Peter Tyndall.
Ian Burn, Installation photograph for Xerox Books, Pinacotheca,
1969, black and white photograph. © Estate of Ian Burn.
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
- from Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney :
Revisit the golden age at ARTBAR
Artist Kate Scardifield programs a night of roaming performance, guest DJs, fashion and surprises that hark back to the golden era. Feel the Midas touch with Rochelle Haley, YEVU, Make or Break, Heaps Decent founder Andrew Levins, the Jingle Jangle DJs and more. Plus: this is your opportunity to see works from the 20th Biennale of Sydney after dark.
#MCAARTBAR driven by Audi Australia
MCA ARTBAR Golden Hour
– curated by Kate Scardifield
Fri 29 Apr, 7–11pm
$20/$15 MCA Members & Concessions*
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Melbourne Comedy Festival &
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
present :
Of Midas and the Fixed View
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from this week's issue of The Guardian Art Weekly
This is a photograph of Movses Haneshyan, 105, one of the last
survivors of the Armenian genocide, as he sees a picture of his
former home for the first time in a century. ‘He started to cry
and then sing: “My home. My Armenia,” photographer Diana
Markosian told the Guardian. Photograph: Diana Markosian
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
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Regarding
this scroll by Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811)
brings to mind
more such by certain 20th century border huggers, rectangle reflectors and playful edge transgressors. 
Theatre of the Actors of Regard
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
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All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
- W.B.Yeats
A newspaper seller outside the ruins of the GPO in the days after the Rising. Photo: 'Dublin After the Six Days Insurrection' from the Falvey Library, Villanova University
Easter 1916
by W. B. Yeats I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live;
The stone’s in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse —
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
At the prison yard in Kilmainham Gaol where fifteen rebels were
executed by the British after the 1916 Rising.
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Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, January 1849
Homs, Syria 2016 :
- Russian drone survey, January 2016
click image for drone video
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
Theatre of the Actors of Regard / SIA
click image for more
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