.
Can one make works that are
Not "of" art?
Fresh Widow / French window
Painted light blue
With black leather "panes" so that
At the life opera
All day it's night
Total solar eclipse, France: photo by Luc Viatour, 1999
This progress we feel ourselves to be making in the life opera is also a regression an illusion
For as our brilliantly appointed gypsy wagon proceeds along the predetermined course of this track
Inside the enormous administered industrial Trumanshow opera house of history
We eventually return to its starting point
Having traversed every part of the track
Without ever encountering an edge in a work of art
A Möbius strip: image by David Benbenick, 2005
Conditions of existence inside this great theatre or opera house were initially fixed
As it remained closed off from the ebb and flow of life outside its walls
Making it appear a safe and logical location for laying down the gypsy wagon tracks
But with time certain inconsistencies began to creep into the tracking system
Due to the hasty rounding off of numbers in computation as human fatigue set in
And these errors rendered longterm prediction of the exact course the careening gypsy wagon might take
All but impossible, yet still we rattled on, happy, unawares
Plot of Lorenz attractor (icon of chaos theory): image by Wikimol, 2006
Tinkerbells of chaos
Heavyweights in our imagination
In reality light as feathers
Dancing on the heads of pins
(Our own)
And there is in this lightness for us great consolation in this lightness there is our gypsy joy
For from emptiness comes the unconditioned
And from the emptiness of our sagesse arises stillness
And in stillness is joy
Action and non-action emanate from us in the same moment
Feather structure of Blue-and-Yellow Macaw (macro): photo by Jörg Groß, 2009
Tinkerbell: partial frame of wallpaper from Disney Hadas (Disney Latino version of Disney Fairies): image by Lord Opeth, 2010
For the spectator even more than for the artist
Art is a drug
That creates addiction
No one wants to be hurt by a work of art
John L. Sullivan, heavyweight champion: cigarette advertising card, 1886: image by Ivo Shandor, 2007
Tinkerbell map (chaotic attractor), discrete-time dynamical system: image by Claudio Rocchini, 2006
A styrofoam sugarcube
And a marble sugarcube
Falling through infinite space
Have exactly the same weight
The birdcage full of sugarcubes floats before us
This tickling feeling this sense of irritation what is it
Works of art do to us
We could worry over it until the end of our nights and days
And nothing would ever change
For we will always remain over here where we are
And works of art will always remain over there in eternity
So why not sneeze and see what happens
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Why not sneeze Rrose Sélavy (Pourquoi ne pas éternuer)?: Marcel Duchamp, 1921 (Walter Arensberg Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Solar eclipse: photo by Javichu el jefe, 2007
Tom,
ReplyDeleteA beautiful unfolding of 'things' (words/pictures) along the track here, from one 'click' to the next. Night then day, one side of the Mobius strip then another, shadows then light then shade. . . .
4.18
silver edge of sun in branches above ridge,
golden-crowned sparrow calling oh dear me
in foreground, waves sounding in channel
acts of perception possible,
to bring into picture
stands in shadow, this “and,”
is only a consequence
line of cloud in pale blue sky above point,
sunlit green slope of ridge across from it
This is exquisite. The firm and sure descriptions of the biggest uncertainties (and is anything more uncertain than what will actually follow a sneeze?); the procession and architecture of the images. Historians and critics with the best intentions have regularly trivialized and denatured the ready-mades in their descriptions as well as in their praise. I suppose they do sort of defy description. But I think you’ve done for the ready-mades what you did for Bellmer the other day. You’ve given them speaking voices, the ones they’d probably use backstage at the life opera. They’re famous actors, of course, but serious artists also. They want to be understood.
ReplyDeleteStephen, Curtis,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to you both for conducting the evening (well, mine anyway) into the post-desire path from within whose hidden windings and turnings seemed to emanate the slightly off-key motif of this modest opera for three voices... or maybe it was just the screws turning once again, deep within the battered old old house, groaning as the next low bears in...?