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.


18 February 2015

White on white, G & B, 1910

       
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)
   

Through the Exhibition with Günther Uecker

"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
     

(3) In this 
our scene here now :
you and me 
we 
two figures 
with language and other projections
regard 
this :
now our meta-scene regard
     
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...

LOGOS/HA HA