the face beneath the mask

And then there is the underside, the dark, amorphous, mad one when I attempt to see beneath the mask.

The unsettling truth it conveys is unbearable to most, and that is why we so obsessively seek and stick to masks --- our safely diurnal contours and forms.

Hiding the fear of disclosure and, above all, of being disclosed.

Unveiled, blurred.

Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait (Looking Right), 1964
Source:
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/francis-bacon/study-for-a-portrait-looking-right

When I look at you across the table, I don't only see you but I see a whole emanation which has to do with personality and everything else. And to put that over in a painting, as I would like to be able to do in a portrait, means that it would appear violent in paint. We nearly always live through screens - a screened existence. And I sometimes think, when people say my work looks violent, that perhaps I have from time to time been able to clear away one or two of the veils or screens.

---Francis Bacon, in David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon (London: Thames & Hudson, 1987).

taking stock

William Blake, Glad Day or The Dance of Albion, c. 1794.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's;
I will not reason or compare; my business is to create.

William Blake

There are times in life when you make certain decisions and are compelled to take stock. A few days ago, as I was rummaging through endless boxes of books I hadn't opened for years (mainly due to lack of space), and sorting out which ones to rescue from oblivion and send to my house in Tokyo, I stopped to wonder what drew me to these works from the outset. Most of them are out-of-print copies bought from second-hand bookshops, the work of artists who were neglected or forgotten in their lifetime - they didn't 'sell', to use the depressing jargon of commercialism - because they were utterly, uncompromisingly devoted to their own inner vision.

And what a vision it was, what a vision, giving birth to works of baffling complexity, inconstancy, heterogeneity, ambition; unsettling in their subversion of conventions and systems of authority, and thus inviting the contempt of the usual gatekeepers: publishers, editors, and, of course, the devoted followers of intellectual fashions - critics, academics... - who dismiss anything that does not lend itself to the abstract, theoretical gaze. As a result, to use the words of a dear friend, 'the truly innovative are marginalised beyond the borders of silence itself'.*

If there ever was a figure who epitomised the overwhelming difficulties and challenges confronting the creative artist in such a resistant, stony-hearted world, it was William Blake. While he is nowadays a celebrated artist, about whom multitudes of academic books have been written and prestigious exhibitions held, Blake was largely overlooked in his time - he was mostly seen as little more than an insane eccentric - and made a meagre living as an engraver and illustrator for books and magazines. In his lifetime, he never managed to sell one single copy of his astounding, visionary illuminated books of poems, which display not only a superb sense of craftsmanship but his immense learning (Blake didn't attend school and, in adult age, taught himself Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read classical works in their original language). His 'business' was to create, with no concessions to the temptation to lower his standards and betray his vision in order to become popular.

It is not my intention to romanticise this kind of hand to mouth artistic existence. Quite the contrary, I'm fully aware of the persistent, unbearable pain and sense of injustice that must result from one's work - and life, for, to those truly committed to their art, there is no division between them, their art is their life and vice-versa - not being valued as it should. I only wish we lived in a better, much better world where the work of the most gifted artists were understood, loved and valued in their lifetime. Yet, I'm irresistibly drawn to those who have had the courage to resist the dominant cynicism of the age, who have had the stamina to sacrifice everything - financial and emotional stability, relationships, the mediocrity of a 'normal' life... - for creative freedom. Away from groups, coteries, movements, promotional apparatuses, and political agendas, concerned exclusively with the singularity of and faithfulness to their inner vision, attending their one and only necessary business: creation.

And why? Because against the grain of these horrendous times of self-promoting fakers and shallow sound bites, I believe, more and more, that nothing else is worth doing. Nothing else but to feel, be alive through art.

Because, as another neglected giant dear to my heart once put it:

To be exclusively concerned with the highest forms of life
Is not to be less alive than 'normal people.'

Hugh MacDiarmid, 'In the Shetland Islands.'



*Clive Bush, Out of Dissent: A Study of Five Contemporary British Poets (London: Talus, 1997). p.2.

the beauty of temporariness

Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Umbrellas (Japan)

While I'll always prefer the small-scale, solitary, pastoral, whimsical approach of British earth artists - Andy Goldsworthy, Chris Drury, David Nash, Richard Long, and Hamish Fulton are my faves - to the megalomaniac American Earthworks, I very much enjoyed visiting the Christo & Jeanne-Claude retrospective LIFE=WORKS=PROJECTS in Tokyo this weekend. A most felicitous title indeed, for this identification runs through everything they lived & did together. No matter how much you dislike their self-importance and extravaganzas, you have to admit that they did manage to merge what most of us, mere mortals, are forced to keep separate: life and work, work and pleasure, love and work, life and love... And is there a nobler aspiration for an artist?

But besides this, their crazy, obsessive large-scale projects have an undeniable beauty of their own, which the artists perceptively attributed to their 'nomadic' temporariness (they always insisted that their projects be temporary and exist for a very limited number of days) - an ephemerality that has an awesome power to change forever your way of perceiving a certain landscape. Here are a couple of moving lines I copied - by hand! - from one of the captions at the exhibition:

'In the thousands of years of art history,' [Christo & J-C] explained, 'artists have introduced various elements of beauty into their works. There have been religious themes and abstract designs, colours and shapes, marble and wood used as materials. But there is one element of beauty that no one has used until now. That is temporariness. That is what we have in our works.'

[On the 'nomadic':] 'The nomads of Tibet and the Sahara desert pitch their tents in the desert,' [Christo] said, 'and instantly create a village. But the next day there is no trace of the village. We want to incorporate the quality of nomadic life into our projects.'


They did. And I, for one, shall never forget the image of Christo dashing between Ibaraki and California, shouting at everybody, throwing tantrums, between despair and exhilaration, childishly enjoying his 3,000 thousand blue and yellow umbrellas...

moving past impossibilities

"Moving past one phase of one's life - transformation, and moving past impossibilities. Things seen as impossibilities at the moment"....

---Muriel Rukeyser, Interview (1972).


... and transformed into possibilities, as things begin falling into place and - or because - you decide to take care of yourself, to save yourself, and not to rely on some Prince(ss) Charming to save you. (That wouldn't be fair on the poor guy/gal, anyway.)

Were I to choose an image to illustrate the whole thing, I'd go for M.C. Escher's wonderful work (this woodcut print, for example, which I don't reproduce here for copyright reasons). Has anyone ever portrayed metamorphosis, transformation, change, impossibilities turned into possibilities, in such a playful and, at the same time, obsessive way?...

yume no ie / dream house (2)

...And what did I dream of? What did I dream of?...
And did it matter?...



Rain mixed with snow was falling outside and in my dream too. All the sharp edges, all the boundaries you are forced to impose on life were softened - day and night, light and shadow, pain and pleasure, dream and vigil. I walked effortlessly through them while rain & snow were falling everywhere.

I woke up at dawn under a red light. My hand stretched out to the blurred silhouettes of the trees outside and I noticed it too was blurred. The trees precarious fingers, the hands small trees extending their baby branches. Sisters. All struggling for life - all slowly, painfully growing.

I reached for a branch to write a line, but the rain & the snow were no longer falling outside, nor in my dream. Nor did it matter.

Only ice was slowly melting outside. Dripping, dripping.

Marina Abramovic, Dream House
Matsunoyama, Niigata
21-22 November 2009

yume no ie / dream house (1)

A while ago I wrote here that nothing is more faithful to life's endless absurdities than contemporary performance. This dimension is present, to an extent, in Marina Abramovic's art, but it is not a sense of absurdity you feel when staying at her Dream House. Rather, you come to your senses, and so many unthought of things start making sense.

An old farm house taken care of by local people welcomes four guests who share the common space and at night retire each into a separate room with an ambience of its own. They sleep in a wooden box with a crystal pillow wearing pajamas designed by the artist - and dream. In the morning, as daylight enters the four rooms, each acquires a different colour - purple, blue, green, red - and the guests write down their dreams in a dream book.





As in so many of Abramovic's installations and performances, which seek emotional and spiritual transformation through the body and through the energy imparted by certain materials - crystal, stones, magnets, bones, e.g. -, the participants are requested to follow a set of precise instructions once in the house. The instructions favour the mood for dreams and ground you and focus your attention on those seemingly trivial, everyday actions you usually take for granted. Sitting, standing, walking, washing your hands, having a bath, drinking a glass of water, feeling the cold air on your face: all become invested with meaning and acquire an almost ritualistic quality.

Gradually, as you yield to the energy of the place, everything becomes possible - and the fierce handwritings in red on the walls of the living room become more-than-real. They provide the real instructions for those willing and able to accept the invitation extended by the artist.

Marina Abramovic, Dream House
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial
Matsunoyama, Niigata

'a feeling of hanging in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet'...

There is perhaps no art more faithful to life's endless absurdities, perplexities, incongruencies, discrepancies and unpredicability than contemporary performance.

Here are a few priceless gems by a unique Chinese performance artist I worship, Li Wei, interspersed with some of his words of wisdom.

Bright Apex (Beijing, 2007)

[Li Wei] says that much of his work is about change: 'there is a feeling of losing a grip on things, an uncertainty about the morrow. It’s a feeling of hanging in the air, of having nothing firm under the feet'.

Li Wei Falls to the Como Lake (Italy, 2004)

About the Fall photographs, Li Wei says, 'this feeling of having fallen headfirst into something and of having nothing firm under the feet is familiar to everyone. One doesn’t have to fall from another planet to feel it'.

Love at the High Place (Beijing, 2004)

Li has said that much of his work involves the symbolic balancing act between personal freedom and emotional security, such as that of the family.

A Pause for Humanity (Beijing, 2005)

Source, including photographs and captions: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/apr/30/photography.chinaarts2008?picture=333839247

the unimaginable touch of Time

John Constable, Cloud Study

From low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail:
A musical but melancholy chime,
Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.
Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

William Wordsworth, "Mutability"


Not wishing to be caught in the traps of determinism, I cannot however avoid thinking that this persistent fascination with mutability and the impermanence of forms which pervades nearly all modern British poetry and art must be deeply rooted in the landscape and changeable climate of the archipelago. Paradoxically (or perhaps not), this rootedness may also account for the persistent will to make forms against all odds, to grasp their line(ament)s, their unfolding and dissolution in time, in the weather, in place.

I have attempted to tackle the topic in the past, in an academic context, but somehow it has cropped up again after a recent visit to an exhibition on "British Art in Sensibilty and Experience" and the subsequent irresistible urge to re-visit the work of the so-called environmental/land artists (names are so reductive!): Richard Long, Hamish Fulton, David Nash and, in particular, Andy Goldsworthy. I didn't need to search far and wide to find this illuminating passage opening one of Goldsworthy's most astounding books:

Whenever possible, I make a work every day. Each work joins the next in a line that defines the passage of my life, marking and accounting for my time and creating a momentum which gives me a strong sense of anticipation for the future. Each piece is individual, but I also see the line combined as a single work.

Time and change are connected to place. Real change is best understood by staying in one place. When I travel, I see differences rather than change. I resent travelling south in early spring in case I am away from home when I see my first tree coming into leaf. If this happens, I see the leaves, but not the growth or change. I feel similarly about the first frost or ice or snow, and the first warm day after winter. I thrive on the disruption forced by seasonal changes - a hard freeze, heavy snow, a sudden thaw, leaf fall, strong winds - which can change dramatically any working patterns that have become established in a particular season.

Not that seasons can be easily separated from one another. The smell of autumn can often be detected well before the season fully arrives, just as emerging growth can be seen in winter. For some plants, such as mosses, winter is their summer. [...]

In a previously unvisited, snowy place I have little idea of the landscape of stone, water and earth that lies below the surface. This gives me a strange perspective on the place which can sometimes be interesting. In the Arctic, for instance, I began to see the frozen sea as land which in turn made me think of the land as fluid. Usually, however, I am like an animal that needs to know where to find nourishment beneath the snow - the summer contained within winter. Being aware of the presence of one season within another and the tension and balance between seasons is also a way of understanding the layers of time that made the land.

Andy Goldsworthy, Time (Dumfriesshire, Scotland: Cameron Books, 2000), p. 7.

Maybe it is this inability - or impossibility, under the present social circumstances - to stay in one place and perceive its changes, the interweaving lines and layers of which it is made, that accounts for our anguished sense of lack of time. Our inarticulate unease at mutability. The impoverished non-places through which we constantly move, in a frenzy, lack precisely this sense of time embedded in a place. But does the lack really lie in the places themselves, or, instead, in our unskilled, desensitised perception unable to see beneath the glossy banalities of the everyday?...

Image: Andy Goldsworthy, The Neuberger Cairn.

A buoy at sea

J.M.W. Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus

[The belief that creativity lies within us, no matter how society treats us] became powerfully grounded in Renaissance philosophy. It appeared in the writings of the philosopher Pico della Mirandola, who envisaged Homo faber to mean "man as his own maker." [...] His Oration on the Dignity of Man of 1486 was based on the conviction that, as the force of custom and tradition wanes, people have to "make experience" for themselves. Each person's life is a narrative in which the author does not know how the story will turn out. Pico's figure for Homo faber was Odysseus, voyaging through the world, not knowing where he would land. [...]
Art plays a particular role in this life voyage, at least for artists. The work of art becomes like a buoy at sea, marking out the journey. Unlike a sailor, though, the artist charts his own course by making these buoys for himself. This is how, for instance, Giorgio Vasari proceeds in The Lives of Artists (1568), one of the first books ever written to chart artistic careers. Vasari's "lives" concern artists who develop within, who brought forth works despite all impediments, artists whose creative urge is autonomous. Works of art are the evidence of an inner life sustained even in the face of humiliation and incomprehension. [...]
The scorned or misunderstood artist has a long trajectory in Western high culture, in all the arts.

Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (New Haven: Yale UP, 2008), p. 72.