For Anna…
I Can’t Make The Hills – Prologue: The Book Of Longing, Leonard Cohen & Philip Glass
Tag Archives: jasper johns
Waiting
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 27, 2012
Comments Off
“Baby, I’ve been waiting,
I’ve been waiting night and day.
I didn’t see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
I know you really loved me.
but, you see, my hands were tied.
I know it must have hurt you,
it must have hurt your pride
to have to stand beneath my window
with your bugle and your drum,
and me I’m up there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.Ah I don’t believe you’d like it,
You wouldn’t like it here.
There ain’t no entertainment
and the judgements are severe.
The Maestro says it’s Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you’re waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.Waiting for the miracle
There’s nothing left to do.
I haven’t been this happy
since the end of World War II.Nothing left to do
when you know that you’ve been taken.
Nothing left to do
when you’re begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
when you’ve got to go on waiting
waiting for the miracle to come.I dreamed about you, baby.
It was just the other night.
Most of you was naked
Ah but some of you was light.
The sands of time were falling
from your fingers and your thumb,
and you were waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to comeAh baby, let’s get married,
we’ve been alone too long.
Let’s be alone together.
Let’s see if we’re that strong.
Yeah let’s do something crazy,
something absolutely wrong
while we’re waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.Nothing left to do …
When you’ve fallen on the highway
and you’re lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you’re doing
of course you’ll say you can’t complain
If you’re squeezed for information,
that’s when you’ve got to play it dumb:
You just say you’re out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.”Cohen/Robinson, Waiting For The Miracle
Waiting For The Miracle, Leonard Cohen
Dance Me
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 26, 2012
Comments Off
“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of loveDance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We’re both of us beneath our love, we’re both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of loveDance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of loveDance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love”Cohen/Leonard, Dance Me To The End Of Love
For Desirée…
Dance Me To The End Of Love, Leonard Cohen
Healing
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 25, 2012
Comments Off
“O, gather ’round the brokenness
Bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vowThe splinters that you carried
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mindAnd let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limbBehold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
Of cruelty or the graceO, solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mindO, see the darkness yielding
That tore the light apart
Come healing of the reason
Come healing of the heartO, troubledness concealing
An undivided love
The heart beneath is teaching
To the broken heart aboveAnd let the heavens utter
Let the earth proclaim
Come healing of the altar
Come healing of the nameO, longing of the branches
To lift the little bird
O, longing of the arteries
To purify the bloodAnd let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limbO let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb”Cohen/Leonard, Come Healing
Come Healing, Leonard Cohen
Show Me
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 24, 2012
Comments Off
“Show me the place, where you want your slave to go
Show me the place, I’ve forgotten I don’t know
Show me the place where my head is bent and low
Show me the place, where you want your slave to go
Show me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone
Show me the place where the word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began
The troubles came I saved what I could save
A shred of light, a particle away
But there were chains so I hastened to the hay
There were chains, a lot of chains
Like a spade
Show me the place, where you want your slave to go
Show me the place, I’ve forgotten I don’t know
Show me the place, where you want your slave to goThe troubles came I saved what I could save
A shred of light, a particle away
But there were chains so I hastened to the hay
There were chains so I loved you like a slave
Show me the place
Show me the place
Show me the place
Show me the place, help me roll away the stone
Show me the place, I can’t move this thing alone
Show me the place where the word became a man
Show me the place where the suffering began”Cohen/Leonard, Show Me The Place
Show Me The Place, Leonard Cohen
Going Home
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 23, 2012
Comments Off
“I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suitBut he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He just doesn’t have the freedom
To refuseHe will speak these words of wisdom
Like a sage, a man of vision
Though he knows he’s really nothing
But the brief elaboration of a tubeGoing home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than beforeGoing home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without the costume
That I woreHe wants to write a love song
An anthem of forgiving
A manual for living with defeatA cry above the suffering
A sacrifice recovering
But that isn’t what I need him
To completeI want him to be certain
That he doesn’t have a burden
That he doesn’t need a vision
That he only has permission
To do my instant bidding
Which is to say what I have told him
To repeatGoing home
Without my sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than beforeGoing home
Without my burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without this costume
That I woreGoing home
Without the sorrow
Going home
Sometime tomorrow
Going home
To where it’s better
Than beforeGoing home
Without the burden
Going home
Behind the curtain
Going home
Without this costume
That I woreI love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit”Cohen/Leonard, Going Home
Going Home, Leonard Cohen
Almost Human
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 22, 2012
Comments Off
“When you say it’s gonna happen “now”
Well when exactly do you mean?
See I’ve already waited too long
And all my hope is goneYou shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does”Marr/Morrissey, How Soon Is Now
How Soon Is Now, The Smiths
Touching The Edges
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 21, 2012
Comments Off
“I prefer work that appears to come out of a shifting focus – not just one relationship or even a number of them but constantly changing and shifting relationships to things in terms of focus. I am concerned with a thing’s not being what it was, with it’s becoming something other than what it was, with any moment in which one identifies a thing precisely and with the slipping away of that moment.”
Jasper Johns
“Self-portraiture is a singular in-turned art. Something eerie lurks in its fingering of the edge between seer and seen.”
Julian Bell
“An act of naming should quite rightly enable me to call anything a self-portrait, not only any drawing, ‘portrait’ or not, but everything that happens to me, that I can affect, or that affects me.”
Jacques Derrida
“I envy – though I’m not sure if envy is the right word – those people about whom one could write a biography, or who could write their autobiography. Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, of my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.”
Fernando Pessoa, The Book Of Disquiet
“I did my best, it wasn’t much,
I could not feel, so I learned to touch,
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you,
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah…”Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah
With thanks to Anna Lee Keefer whose comments started the thought process that led to the images above.
Recycled and expanded from:
Fingering the Edge :: Identikit
Figuring Jasper :: Jasper’s Motifs
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
Casting Dice
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 19, 2012
Comments Off
Vladimir: We could start all over again perhaps.
Estragon: That should be easy.
Vladimir: it’s the start that’s difficult.
Estragon: You can start from anything.
Vladimir: Yes, but you have to decide.
Estragon: True.Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot
“There is more happiness in allowing the unexpected to happen than in discussing it. Why should it worry me that chance often leads us along the wrong paths? At least these paths are new to me. I like casting dice for a beautiful idea, even though I risk making a thousand blunders.”
“A picture used to be a sum of additions. In my case a picture is a sum of destructions.”
Picasso
“Like Picasso, I have a horror of artists who repeat themselves. To me they are so many insects who, imprisoned in the same fatality, endlessly recommence the same automatic action. Picasso, depending on his creative fantasy, can go from the highest classical tradition to the most hazardous new realization. Is not art a series of hazards?”
Apollinaire
Take an object.
Do something to it.
Do something else to it…Jasper Johns
Although I work digitally pretty much exclusively, and have done for a very long time, while making this current series I have thought in more depth and at greater length on the implications of digital art than I have ever done before. The title I have given this project is “Handmade: Variations On a Theme” and this was deliberately chosen to reflect my thoughts both on the concept of digital vs manually produced art and also because of the connection with musical “Variations”. To reflect, too, my conviction that the hand of the artist (and consequently the “tools” thus employed) are only one of the means available to “create”produce” art; neither better nor worse than any other. You can, if you so desire, make art by hand (a preference, however, not a qualitative judgement) but the mind is the true origin of all creativity and expression. So much is self evident (not to everybody maybe…) but we are still very much talking about art conceived and executed with the human mind. For most people the thought that art could be machine made is anathema, almost an abrogation of responsibility on the part of the artist. In fact this hasn’t been the case for a long time. It’s an argument long engaged and mostly settled but still, it feels intuitively that art thus produced is somehow “lesser”. But first, a look at the “process” involved in the creation of this current series…
The pieces in this series are the product of more or less complex layering and blending of “base” images. Moreover more often than not the actual images are nothing more than various edits of the same base image. There is, however, surprisingly little actual experimentation in this process. Through experience I have learned many of the intricacies of how digital layering and blending works; enough at least to be able to fairly reliably “pre-visualise” the various possibilities available. In actual fact to a large extent all the final pieces in this series have been meticulously conceived, pre-planned, pre-visualised… call it what you like. This has always been my preferred way of working; my accustomed method. This may be reassuring to some: I guess it at least indicates that this is serious work and not merely the product of idle play. But be that as it may it isn’t the only reason I work this way. I have, too, very real other reasons to prefer such a working methodology…
Even with precise pre-visualisation the process of digital layering and blending (not to mention pre-editing of the original images) involves a constant series of decisions (both major and minor). Basically digital blending of images is a purely mathematical process involving the application of various algorithms. Now I’m no mathematician (so, naturally, I’m extremely grateful to be entirely shielded from the algorithmic underpinnings involved!) and no doubt one could calculate just how many possible alternative combinations present themselves at each and every turn in the process, but to all intents and purposes one might as well view them as being infinite in number. Someone once likened the artistic process to a series of small “yeses” culminating in a big “Yes” but there is a limit and it may well behove one to restrict the number of small “yeses” required if only to preserve one’s sanity. So much for my sanctimonious “This is all pre-planned and I know what I intend to do every step of the way…”. It may be true but it is still a working method largely based on time and inclination (limited patience…) constraints. But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
One view of the artistic process may be that, essentially, it is a problem solving process. A human one that is. Computers, right now, as it turns out are actually not that good at it. In reality it’s still very much a case of “garbage in, garbage out…”. Conversely, it could be said that with humans it is a case of “limited possibilities in, limited possibilities out…”. One thing that computers do well, however, is calculate far faster and more reliably than any human. So… computers calculate and present possibilities at ever increasing speed thus removing one human limitation and humans make the final decisions to accept or reject them. Seems a marriage made in heaven to me. But nothing stands still… this could go way further. Basically, as I have said, computers don’t necessarily make good decisions when it comes to art (humans neither… but that’s another story) and even presented at speed too many possibilities aren’t necessarily compatible with human decision making and can easily overwhelm it. It is, however, conceivable that more intelligent systems may be developed that can, in effect, “learn” from decisions that an artist makes and present a limited subset of possibilities based on what would in effect be a mathematical “model” of that artist’s individual sensibility. A sort of computerised “second-guessing” if you like (a thought… how often do we “second-guess” ourselves in the artistic process anyway?) This would logically be just another tool for the artist to employ or not as the case may be…
For many, however, such a concept would be a nightmare scenario. Especially as such decisions are often made in a knee jerk fashion without completely thinking through the implications. Many artists completely reject the whole concept of digital art production anyway. Sadly many of these artists are exactly those one could wish were involved in its development. Meanwhile many who are involved seem to bring with them a, shall we say, “dubious” artistic sensibility. But consider this: it’s happening and will continue to happen and who knows what new directions and possibilities will become available. It remains the case, however, that, as with democracy, if you don’t vote, so to speak, you don’t get a say…
In some ways it feels a little strange that while considering and writing about digital matters, I should be listening as I am to Bach’s Harpsichord Concerti. Of course, in many ways, Bach was very much a man of his times, yet his music has always, paradoxically, felt to me at the same time “modern”. I have commented before on the relentless logic and mathematical precision, qualities that I (rightly or wrongly!) associate with the modern. In any case, it has always fascinated me that music, arguably the most expressive of the arts, is also the one, arguably too, most associated with logic. Must be all that Age of Enlightenment baggage Bach’s music brings with it! Enjoy…
Johann Sebastian Bach, The Harpsichord Concertos, Melante Amsterdam, Bob van Asperen
States and Variations
Posted by Ian Talbot
on June 18, 2012
Comments Off
“In printmaking, I think it would be perfectly reasonable never to destroy the images on the plates and stones, and always to have them available for use in new works, new combinations.”
Jasper Johns
“States and Variations” was the title of a 2007 show of Jasper Johns’s Prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. In the statement above Johns, of course, is referring to conventional (analog) methods of printmaking. With digital originals, however, any problems of storage and maintenance can largely be ignored and the opportunities for the “new works and combinations” that Johns alludes to are increased exponentially. Which begs certain questions as to why more artists don’t make full use of them…
In the images above, still constructed from my basic “crosshatch” motif, I have, using an increasing variety of blending layers and methods, sought to explore a kind of “deconstruction” of the image in order to sever the link between the finished piece and the referent of the original images, the cigarette butts. With each iteration subjectivity is dissolved shifting the resulting pieces towards an almost total abstraction where all that is left is pure pattern, the crosshatch. This sort of deconstruction has been a feature of the printmaking processes employed by those artists who have made of the art of printmaking a speciality of whom Johns is a major example and Gerhard Richter in particular, another. Artists for whom printmaking has been a unique separate medium to explore as opposed to those who use it as just another means to disseminate, in as little changed form as possible, their larger (and more expensive…) painted works. Which practice has reached its apotheosis in the numbers of artists hawking inkjet prints of photographs of their paintings online; a form of slightly upmarket poster in reality. Many, too, in spurious artificially “Limited Editions” ( sort of “…hand on heart, I promise not to print any more than 50 (100? 1000?) of prints of this even though you know and I know I could print an infinite number, all identical.”) For most of these “Limited Editions”, were they limited to 10 or 20, chances are the “edition” will never sell out anyway. Good luck with those as an investment…
Nevertheless, the opportunities with digital processing for experimentation with rapid prototyping are exciting in their own right. It is a shame that so many artists and photographers spend so much time figuring out how to best use it to “mimic” old analog practices. At least that has been my experience, which has also had the effect of a kind of “loosening up” of my own attitudes to concepts of the final “perfect” piece of work and I now tend to many of the stages in the making of individual pieces and projects. In any case what constitutes an “original” or a final definitive piece? With digital processes such terms and concepts have rapidly become obsolete and essentially meaningless. In the truest sense I really can have my cake and eat it…
Continuing my theme of “variations” the musical piece I have selected for today is Mozart’s 12 Variations in C based on the French song “Ah, vows dirai-je, maman” which may be more familiar to you as the nursery rhyme “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. Listening to it one gets the feeling that Wolfgang Amadeus’s decision to stop at 12 was purely arbitrary and that he could have gone on ad infinitum. Even with such limited means such is the nature of genius, I guess. Actually, in music, many of these “Variations” pieces by the great composers were originally conceived as “exercises”. This has not prevented their acceptance as serious pieces however. In much the same way I view my own series of crosshatch images (and the larger “theme” of cigarette ends) as a kind of “exercise” too. None of which diminishes it in my own mind either. As I have said above, digital processes encourage this way of working in any case and, for me, it has become an important part of my working methods and one which I have can feed into future projects in many surprising ways…
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 12 Variations in C on “Ah, vous dirai-je maman”, Claire Haskil, piano
