Poussin's Humour

Tube movie

 following a note on Francis Ponge on Braque - reflecting - ourselves in - on common objects --

note: overheard 'new AND fresh'? ['a whole new fresh initiative'] & 'a clean broom' - presumably a new broom swept clean by ty\yet another new broom

ABOUT TUBES   20/12/11

whether 'my' text is composed by selection from media tslk/print or by choice of juxtaposition of words without specifiable media sources  ---- text so composed is strung out in helical ribbon around [cylinder] tubes -- with the remaining surface of the tube [various tries at it] 

a) bare  b)single-coloured acrylic  c)multi-coloured & estreaky long curving strokes freely paintd acrylic d) mixed paint & collage [especially newspape rcollage) e) collage & no paint

seen in still photos -- at a distance -- look like shelf-ornaments (vases, knick-knacks) -- but they are for hand-held reading -- no more ornamental -- or less -- than most books when left on the shelf ---  READING seen therefore close to only a small zone is in focus (the rest outside peripheral vision)-- & this zone changes as tube is turned --- more obviously like a  movie than is book-reading ---

Some time ago Wystan Curnow asked if I meant to include little images with (alongside) the words. Recently I've made something more like a texture of media image/text, media compost, than specifiable image strip-cartoon style. 'My' text is selected foreground to that background -- sometimes it dissolves back into the compost, dialectical relationship in the use of the materials.

 

My recent tubes might not look out of place on supermarket shelves with confectionery, biscuits, cleaning fluids ....

 

[text continues:

 

                                               

                                bungalo, 2.30 pm

Frances Hodgkins: Light & Colour -- a room at AAG

Not  an  easy  show  to  find --  some  sign-posting  wd  be  good  --  I  had imagined  a  big  show --  but  a  real  neat  one-room  show  when  I  did  find it-- very  enjoyable  --   lovely  to  see  such  fine  work  by  Hodgkins  -----  &  the  adjacent room  appropriately  hung  with  English  &  French  predecessors  & contemporaries. 

Highly  recommended  show! 

Very  fresh  looking   conserved   in  portfolio  for  years in  France [?]  -- some  of   the   earlier   continental   tourist   exoticism   --   markets   boats on seashore   ---   muted   greys  & dark   blues   &   firm  drawing    -- & that  shd  have  accounted  for  the   colouring  of  "Woman sewing  with  children" ---  not  curator-suggestion  on   wall-card  that  maybe  she  cdnt   afford  cadmiums  ---   &  it  is  noticeably  muted  hung  between  2  of  the   brightest  of  the   paintings  --  I'd  say  the  more obvious  conclusion  is  it's  c. 1902/3  --  

fascinating!  attempt  at   a  Cézanne  apple  still-life --   her  earlist  oil-painitng?    'background' in  a  dull grey  & all  surfaces  like  plasticine  missing   luminosity   of  Cézanne's  still-lifes. --  presumably   after   Salon d'Automne  show  of   1907  --   say    1908.  Quite  a   nice point   for   Hodgins'   understanding   of  'modern'.

 A  touchstone  for  Hodgkins'  incipient   modernism  is  the  so-called  "The  Piano  Lesson" - like Matisse's  "Red Studio"  -  vase, doorway, mirror  with  reflection  of  woman  leaning  all  over  a  little  table  --  sub-frames on a fundamentally flat surface  -- arabesques  of   brush  drawing  - puddles  of  intense  colour  detached  from  drawing  --  Hodgkins 'Fauve'.....  It's  not   likely  to  be  a  piano lesson  scene -- lessons  are  usually  far  more  private  --  teacher  in  such  subjects --- Dutch  or   Fragonard  --   is  usually  more  clearly  dominant  &  here     lesson  would  disturb  the  summer  drawing-room/terrace  gathering  -- more  appropriate  to construe  it  as  a  piano-duet  being  played  by  two   women  one  older  &  one  younger.

 

Re-  Wall-cards.

Note A: "Le Bearceuse" shd be  "La Berceuse". 

Note B: There  needs  to  be  greater  clarity  over  the  term "Impressionism"  in Hodgkins  &  English  contemporaries --- 30  years  after   the  first Impressionst  exhibition  the   term  needs   a  much  more  nuanced account for  the  many  imitators  ---  

Note C :  & Robert Bevan's painting is an unlikely candidate  for  referring  to  Divisionism  --  a  Camille  - or  maybe  Lucien -  Pissaro look  much  more likely  in  the  painting  on  show  [evn  the  rural  Pissaro's  Pontoise/Auvers  subjects]. 

 

 

ART TOI

the   nice   big    book    with     300 illus.   compendium    quick    ref.     thick    with    mod    glued    binding     sys.     nothing     will   make   it   lie    flat    when    open    bad   at   either   end   not   so    bad     in   middle    welcome    defamiliarizations    by   double-spreads    of   paintings   etc    split   &   humped    up    curves    my     fav:

 

AAG 'goes global'

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6070438/Art-gallery-goes-global-with-Google

This piece of news should come with a warning. 

& will the selection of works for this project determine what is spread round the internet on social sites? - perhaps it will include the unimpressive choices of an artist's work, e.g. the Jean Horsley in the current hang & small early Woollaston's? & what will not be selected will seem second rate? For 'the canon' of 'great' works & artists, the internet used this way on a museum collection is a powerful instrument. It will be in the hands of the curators, who will not need to give reasons or discuss their choices.

‎& will it include the 3rd rate cubist paintings that the gallery owned before the recent 'promised' Robertson collection showed them up for what they are?