Looking, Talking, and Thinking About Art with David Salle (Part 3)

David Salle working in his studio 

photographed by Frenel Morris (2023)

 

"Modern art has always hungered for philosophical, theoretical, and verbal expression. 

 However, the theoretical and the philosophical can be counterproductive 

if they constrain rather than liberate the imagination." - David Salle 

  

 

I.

 

If Malcolm Mclaren learnt one lesson from art school it was that it's better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success:

 

"'I realised that by understanding failure you were going to be able to improve your condition as an artist. Because you were not going to fear failure you were going to embrace it and, in doing so, maybe break the rules and by doing that, change the culture and, possibly by doing that, change life itself.'" [a]

 

And I think we can call Jack Goldstein a flamboyant failure; a cool good-looking cat, whom Salle never saw "without a leather jacket and a cigarette" [b]; the kind of artist "who thinks he has to be the prickliest cactus in the desert" [153].

 

In 2003, he committed suicide (aged 57): 

 

"The cliché would have it that gave all he had to his work, when it might be more accurate to say that apart from the work, there wasn't much in this life that he could claim as his own. [...] He was a man who had somehow failed to be 'made' by his experiences - he was only 'un-made' by them [...]" [155-156]

 

Of course, the posthumous part of his story is also familiar; "since his death, Jack has been lionized by a new generation of young artists who see in his rigid and strained sensibility a yearning for something clean and pure [...]" [156] [c].

 

In other words, he's what Nietzsche would call a posthumous individual ...

 

 

II.

 

Salle is clearly a fan of the young Frank Stella; an artist best known perhaps for his Black Paintings (1958-60), a series of twenty-four related works in a minimalist style that free painting from drawing:

 

"Stella instinctively understood something fundamental about painting: that it is made by covering a flat surface with paint [...] If a painting could be executed with a kind of internal integrity, the image - i.e., the meaning - would take care of itself." [165]

 

Some critics - and even some other artists - feared at the time that Stella's work marked the end of art. But, actually, it marked a fresh beginning; "after first stripping down painting to its essentials, the creator then populated the world with every manner of flora and fauna" [166].   

 

And, ironically, by the end of his career Stella has become, says Salle, merely a decorative painter; one who is actually closer to painters in the art nouveau tradition, than to Malevich; one whose late works "still occasionally command our attention, even awe, but more often than not leave us with a feeling of a lot of energy being expended to no particular end, of being more trouble than they're worth" [170] - ouch!

 

 

III.    

 

"Style reflects character" [172], says Salle. 

 

And if there's a single sentence which brings home just how he and I philosophically differ, this is it. For one thing, it presupposes an underlying character - some kind of essential moral quality that is straightforwardly reflected in our manner, our behaviour, and our appearance. 

 

I would say, on the contrary, that style - as a form of discipline and cruelty - shapes character and would refer to Nietzsche on this matter:

 

"To 'give style' to one's character - a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye." [d]

 

Style, in other words, is an art of existence involving not only a single taste, but what Foucault terms techniques of the self. That is to say, a set of voluntary actions by which individuals: 

 

"not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria" [e].  

 

 

IV.

 

Where Salle and I do agree, however, is on the question of appropriation - like him, I'm happy with such a practice; what is Torpedo the Ark if not a blog assembled largely of notes? 

 

Ultimately, like James Joyce - according to David Markson - I'm "'quite content to go down to posterity as a scissors and paste man'" [177]. If nothing else, as Salle says, at least this succeeds in irritating a lot of people and, besides, the act of choosing what one steals and appropriates can be "in and of itself, in the right hands" [177] an art. 

 

The greatest of appropriationists are alchemists: they transform materials. For they understand that by changing the context you create fresh meaning: "Even if you repaint, or reprint, something as close as possible to its model, you will end up making something new." [178]

 

When a critic says: 'They're someone else's ideas!' Simply reply: 'Yes, but they're mine too.'

 

 

V.     

 

This is something I also agree with and which strikes me as important:

 

"We're taught to think of modernism [...] as a story of progress and up-to-dateness, a developmental stream that seems logical, even inevitable. But some of the most interesting painting exists in the margins, apart from the official story. [...] It's a question of temperament and talent, and also of context, rather than linear progress." [189]

 

Sometimes, one needs to travel back into art history, into antiqity, into mythology, in order to project "an updated version of the past into the present" [189] and learn how to live yesterday tomorrow (as Malcolm would say). And whether we call this retrofuturism or neoclassicism it pretty much means the same thing. 

An artist, says, Salle, is ultimately "both himself and a distillation of everything relevant that preceded him" [191] [f].

 

VI.

 

Is contemporary art infantalised? 

 

Salle seems to say as much (although he doesn't use this word):
 

"In the world of contemporary art, the quantity of work that depicts, appeals to, references, critiques, or mimics childood has reached critical mass. For the first time, the international style is not a matter of form or invention but one of content. And that content is all wrapped up with regression. The art public becomes excited by the same things that babies like: bright, shiny things; simple, rounded forms; cartoons; and, always, animals. Brightly colored or shiny and highly reflective; or soft, squishy, furry, pliable - huggable." [200]

 

What's going on? 

 

Maybe, suggests Salle, it's compensatory for all the grown-up things that also define the age: "class war; government dysfunction; religious fundamentalism; the baking of the planet - take your pick, the list goes on" [199].

 

Maybe. 

 

Though I very much doubt that's how D. H. Lawrence would view things. I suspect, rather, that he'd rage against the infantalisation of art and see it as a profoundly perverse form of corruption or decadence. 

 

He'd also point to the curious fact that the perverted child artist is also an often gifted businessman, making a lot of money by turning the gallery space into a nursery and offering works that provide instant gratification and the promise of ice cream [g].  

 

 

VII.

 

Is it true, as Salle suggests, that "the qualities we admire in people [...] are often the same ones we feel in art that holds our attention" [211]?  

 

I mean, it's possible. But surely the most fascinating works of art possess (inhuman/daemonic) qualities that pass beyond admirable ...?      

 

 

VIII. 

 

Salle makes a distinction between pictorial art and presentational art; the first is all about self-expression; the latter is concerned with a set of cultural signifiers. 

 

Of course, nothing in art is simply one thing or the other. It may be convenient to provisionally posit such a binary dictinction, but there is no either/or. But, having done so, it's probably right to say that presentational art has triumphed over the last fifty years; a fact that makes Salle's heart sink. 

 

Why? 

 

Because, says Salle, we end up with art that is simply commentary and lacks emotional power. One might even say such art lacks presence or what used to be called aura:

 

"Baldly put, a work of art was said to emanate this aura as a result of the transference of energy from the artist to the work, an aesthetic variant of the law of thermodynamics." [230]

 

The problem is, that's not just baldly put, it's badly put. In fact, it's a misunderstanding of the term aura - certainly as used by Walter Benjamin, who, in a famous essay written in 1936 defined it as an artwork's unique presence in time and space [h]. 

 

In other words, aura results from cultural context and is not something invested in the work by the artist. Not for the first time, Salle is giving the latter too much credit; viewing the artist as a larger than life personality and the souce of mysterious energy; as one who is often unhampered by sanity but gifted with genius. 

 

I'm not by any means opposed to artworks that exist as actual objects crafted by hand and full of auratic authenticity. But, unable to produce such myself - and without the means to buy such - I'm perfectly content to think of art primarily as something presented on a screen or printed on the page of a book or magazine.

 

And even Salle admits that, at least since Picasso, "how well a work reproduces plays a significant role in its popularity; the most acclaimed artists from the '60s, for instance, look fabulous in reproduction" [234]. 

 

He continues:

 

"This isn't to suggest that those works didn't also have tremendous physical presence, but the fact remains most people  are primarily familiar with a work of art through a reproduction; those who have the good fortune of experiencing the painting firsthand are fewer in number, and those who have the luxury of actually living with it are very rare indeed." [234]

 

But still there are some works that look more compelling in a magazine or on a screen than sitting in a gallery space; this is what Salle terms art conceived as spectacle or as advertising; art that is ironically detached from its own form and exists happily as a pure image; art that is devoid of aura - but then, as Salle says: "It's a relief sometimes to let go of things that no longer serve." [239] [i]  

 

 

Anish Kapoor: Cloud Gate (2004-06) 

Polished stainless steel (10 x 20 x 12.8 m)

Millennium Park, Chicago, USA.

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 49. 

      In an address given to the New York Academy of Art in 2011, Salle says: "I think it's fair to say that failure is the last taboo in American culture. [...] It might just be my sensibility, but I've always been attracted to the idea of the noble failure; the attempt at something that was probably bound to fail at some point, but the contemplation of which is exciting nonetheless. But this archetype of the noble failure doesn't seem to have much currency anymore; in fact, it probably went out of fashion  about the same time that the alienated hero was given a pink slip." [249]

      McLaren wanted to destroy success; today, artists want to be popular and succeed in the market place. Salle seems okay with this; "sometimes the most poular art is also the best" [250] and if you're a genuine artist, money and fame won't greatly change what you do (nor the amount of time spent alone in the studio).         

[b] David Salle, How to See (W. W. Norton, 2016), p. 154. All further page references to this work will be given directly in the post. 

 

[c] Later, writing of Mike Kelly - another artist who topped himself (in 2012, and also aged 57, like Goldstein) - Salle says that suicide can't be trumped in its finality and thus "makes the survivors seem small" [159].

 

[d] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1974), IV. 290, p. 232.

[e] Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (Penguin Books, 1992), pp. 10-11. 

[f] Later, in a piece on Francis Picabia, Salle writes that every generation wants to revisit and revise the past in some manner and that "letting the air out out of the story of linear progress" [197] was something that characterised the work of him and his contemporaries.

[g] According to Salle; the giant bean sculpture by Anish Kapoor - pictured above at the end of the this post - is a work that says, "'There will be ice cream'" [244]; one that is very large, very shiny, and, even though its hard and metallic to the touch, one that makes you "want to cuddle it" [199], or take a selfie standing in front, smiling.   

 

[h] Benjamin's essay, 'The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction', can be found in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zorn (The Bodley Head, 2015), pp. 211-244. 

      See section II which opens with the lines: "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be."  

 

[i] Salle goes on to add: "I have always found it a relief to let go of stuff that I only partly believe in. It makes me feel lighter, better." [239] I interpret this as saying the abandonment of ideals that weigh us down is a crucial aspect of overcoming the spirit of gravity.

 

To read part one of this post, click here.

 

To read part two of this post, click here. 

 

To read notes on David Salle's Introduction to How to See 92016), click here.  

Looking, Talking, and Thinking About Art with David Salle (Part 2)

 

Standing in front of David Salle's Vamp (2025) 

Oil, acrylic, Flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen (78 x 120 in) 

Photo by Maria Thanassa taken at Thaddaeus Ropac (London)

 

 

I.

 

Body art encompasses a wide range of works by a variety of artists, including Vito Acconci, whom Salle identifies as one of those artists who, certainly in his early years, wished to know everything and "scrutinized the very foundation of their responses" [102].

 

In theory, I should probably approve; but in practice I'm not a fan of corporeal expression and exploration. In part, this might be put down to a certain prudishness on my part.

 

Leaving that to one side, however, I'm also concerned that in their attempt to externalise libidinal forces and flows and to open up the secret places of the body, artists can end up exchanging "intense interiority" [a] for mere representation; becoming, as D. H. Lawrence says, masturbators in paint who rob the body not only of its beauty, but also of its "natural demonishness" [b], thereby rendering the flesh banal.      

 

Thus, unlike Salle, I don't find Acconci's obsession with his penis, for example - whether it's tied with a piece of string or dressed up in dolls' clothes - either amusing or radically transgressive: just flaccid. 

 

 

II.

 

In the late 1960s and early '70s it was believed that "anything can be art/ art can be anything" [107]. 

 

I think we know better now: know, for example, that kicking a freshly plucked chicken around before depositing the "grit-encrusted bird" [107] in a dumpster outside a branch of KFC, is certainly one way to make a statement about animal cruelty, factory faming, fast food, etc., but it doesn't necessarily qualify as an artwork (even if you document the process and give a nod to surrealism).

 

III.

 

This paragraph in a section on Julian Schnabel, caught my eye:

 

"Strange as it may seem now, words like 'subjectivity' and 'sensibility' were deemed uncool in the art world of the mid- to late '70s; the artist was seen as a kind of philosophical worker, visual arts division, who took pains to leave few fingerprints. During that period, it was considered heresy for an artist to insist on the primacy of his or her subjectivity." [124]

 

Salle continues in a manner that makes clear where his sympathies lie:

 

"This began to change when Julian, along with other artists of a similar age, emerged at the end of the decade and sounded a big Bronx cheer for the pieties and anemia of a generation drifting out to sea on a leaky raft of conceptual precepts." [124]

 

The thing is, whilst I'm perfectly happy for Schnabel to take a hammer to his mum's best china - and whilst I dislike the militant asceticism of those who refuse to allow even a touch of the personal to enter into their art - I still remain troubled by words drawn from the vocabulary of Romanticism.

  

 

IV.

 

"Painting is one of the few things in life for which youth holds no advantage." [129] 

 

I wonder if that's true: I seem to remember that a few years ago someone or other worked out that modern painters produced their greatest works in their early 40s; so not young, exactly, but not as old as Salle was (64) when he made this claim [c].

 

Still, I'm happy to concede that the "diminutions wrought by aging" can be (to some extent) "offset among painters by fearlessness, finely honed technique, and heightened resolve" [129]. 

And there are certainly many artists I can think of whose late work is still as vital (and as full of wonder) as that produced when they were young; Matisse was 83 when he created his famous cut-out The Snail (1953), a small reproductive print of which is above the desk at which I'm writing this post.   

 

And let's not forget that true monster of stamina - Picasso - whose final years were characterised by artistic freedom and a frenzied level of production; between 1968 and his death in the spring of 1973 (aged 91) he painted more than a hundred canvases and made an even larger number of engravings. 

 

It takes a long time to become young, as he once put it. 

 

 

V. 

 

Salle offers an intriguing perspective on the British-American artist Malcolm Morley (the man who gave the world superrealism):

 

"He doesn't paint life per se. Rather, he crafts scenes assembled from models, mostly of his own making, and the paintings that result from this convoluted process are like a loopy costume party: everyone is masked; true identities are withheld." [131]

 

This alone makes me want to take a look at his work; even at the risk that "looking at Morley can give you the sensation of being trapped in a painterly hall of mirrors" [131]. 

 

And this pretty much seals the deal: "Morley is mercurial and restless, experimental, literary, theoretical, and perverse" [135]. I must check him out, because such figures - unconventional to the core - are few and far between.

   

 

VI.

 

Sooner or later, the question concerning technology - and of art in the age of social media - was bound to raise its head:

 

"History bestows on every generation of artists a set of cultural imperatives that will be used to take its measure. [...] If the problem facing artists thirty years ago was how to stand in relation to popular ulture whilse retaining some sense of art's autonomy, artists coming to maturity in the age of social media [...] must express a point of view about the Internet and its ubiquity." [143]

 

Of course, as Salle acknowledges, artists have always had to engage with and adapt to new technologies; from innovations in paint to the invention of the camera. And, for the most part, they have "embraced the possibilities of new mediums, as well as changes in art's distribution that followed" [143].

 

No one, says Salle, wants to be "the guy standing  on the corner in 1910, shouting 'Get a horse!' at a passing motorcar" [143] [d], and thus young artists today "must confront, and figure out their relationship to, the endless flood and immateriality of digital imagery" [144].  

 

And the Swiss artist Urs Fischer is doing just that; he is, says Salle, "an interesting example of transition fluency" [144] - i.e., one who embraces technology whilst still retaining a relationship to pre-digital art history and practice; one who is "comfortably at home in the digital age" [146] whilst somehow managing to stand apart from it.

 

As with Malcolm Morley, Salles description of Fischer makes me keen to know more: 

 

"His expansive personality combines aspects of the engineer, camp counselor, social director, homespun philosopher, outsider artist, social critic, and activist provocateur. He is clearly ambitious vis-à-vis art history and carries himself with the swagger of someone [...] simultaneously irreverent and deeply serious [...]" [144]  

 

It might be objected that this is simply stringing together a number of attributes and doesn't actually tell us what matters about his work. But those who read on will find that Salle does in fact make it clear why we should value Fischers work, much of having been built on the digital detritus that social media produces every day:

 

"As a grown-up child of the digital age, he uses the computer as a primary drawing tool, and, like today's youth, what he sees of the world is what's pictured on the Web [...] But to the Web's undifferentiated sea of images, Fischer brings a kind of attention that is dense and purposeful; what he selects feels thought-out. What he's seeking is the hidden codes of similarity and difference that lie underneath the semipublic modes of depiction in contemporary Internet culture [...] Fischer's gleeful way of using images [...] starts to expand in the mind like a paper flower when it hits the water." [146]

 

In sum: "Fischer is the embodiment of Manny Farber's 'termite artist'" [148]; exposing foundations; believing in the ruins, making cash from chaos. 

 

And yet, Salle's initial doubts about Fischer resurface: his work can seem superficial (in a non-Greek manner); "just so much cultural detritus" [150] after all ...  

 

 

Urs Fischer: Horse/Bed (2013) 

Milled aluminum, galvanized steel, screws, bolts, two-component resin 

(218 x 263 x 111 cm.)

Photo by Stefan Altenburger

 

 

Notes

 

[a] David Salle, How to See (W. W. Norton, 2018), p. 101. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the text.   

 

[b] See D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to These Paintings', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 196. 

      Writing in this essay, Lawrence argues that the history of the modern era is founded upon the crucifixion of the body and the triumph of mental consciousness and that art, "humbly and honestly served the vile deed" [203]. The only modern painter he respects is Cézanne, who, he says, refused to masturbate in paint. And that is the secret of his greatness in an age when "the mind prostitutes the sensitive responsive body, and just forces the reactions" [209]. 

      It might be noted, finally that Acconci is best known for his (supposedly) ultra-radical early performance art, including Seedbed (15-29 January, 1972), in which he lay beneath a wooden floor built in the Sonnabend Gallery (NYC) and masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring his thoughts and fantasies into a microphone.   

 

[c] It was the Dutch economist Philip Hans Franses who worked this out after examining data on 221 famous painters who lived between 1800 and 2004. Of course, by greatest works, he meant their most valuable in financial terms (i.e., the works that have had the highest sales price). 

      See P. H. Franses, 'When Do Painters Make Their Best Work?', in Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 25, Issue, 4 (2013), pp. 457-462. 

 

[d] I don't know if Salle is thinking here of the British artist Robert Bevan (1865-1925), but, despite the transition from horse-drawn carriages to motorised vehicles picking up speed as cars gained in popularity by 1910, the latter was more than happy to be this guy standing on the corner vocally resisting progress. A keen horseman, Bevan continued to depict horses in his artwork and to bemoan the decline (and eventual demise) of the horse-drawn cab trade.

      Whilst Salle seems to think it absurd to reject technological advances - he has recently started using AI in his own work - he admits to reserving a degree of fondness "for artists who, curmudgeonlike, turn their backs on the latest advances" [143]. 

      As for what Bevan would make of Urs Fischer's Horse/Bed (2013) - pictured above - is anybody's guess.  

 

To read part one of this post, click here. 

 

To read part three of this post, click here.

 

To read notes on David Salle's Introduction to How to See (2016), click here. 

 

Joan Miró: Monumental Printmaking by An Artist Assassin

Joan Miró: Gargantua (1977) 

Etching and aquatint with carborundum on Arches wove paper 

159.5 x 120 cm

shaperomodern.com

 

 'I try to apply colours like words that shape poems, 

like notes that shape music.' - JM

 

 

I. 

 

I have to admit, I've never been a big fan of Joan Miró - even after all that time living in Barcelona, just down the road from the Parc de Joan Miró, where his magnificent 22-metre high sculpture Dona i Ocell (1983) proudly stands [1].  

 

However, when I heard that there was an exhibition of thirteen large prints by this Catalan artist at Shapero Modern (94, Bond St., London, W1), I knew I wanted to go take a look ... 

 

Because even though Miró is not one of my favourite artists, I do admire the fact that his work is so difficult to classify - some might even describe it as genre-defying - as he moves in a unique space opened up in between Surrealism, Expressionism, and Fauvism. 

 

I also love the fact that in numerous interviews Miró expressed contempt for conventional techniques, declaring himself to be un assassí who wished to eliminate the clichéd visual elements that typically characterise bourgeois painting.

 

So - to the gallery! 

 

 

II.

 

Obviously, I was there to look and not to buy: the lovely print above, signed in white crayon and numbered by the artist (25/50), is £85,000 and that's a bit more than I can afford, unfortunately, and even the more reasonably priced works are still more than I would seriously consider splashing out on. 

 

However, I like to imagine that even a pauper such as myself can appreciate and be touched by art; even if unable to purchase the works. 

 

And, to be honest, I'd rather just briefly glimpse a picture in passing than own it and feel compelled to stare at it in an attempt to get my money's worth of aesthetic pleasure; or attempt to incorporate the picture as an essential part of some fancy interior design; or live in the secret hope that it might one day be sold for at least twice the price paid for it (if not an extraordinary amount more).

 

There are, says D. H. Lawrence, very few people who "wouldn't love to have a perfectly fascinating work" hanging in their home, so that they could "go on looking at it" [2] - well, I'm one of this tiny minority: I love art, but have no desire for property (I even prefer a blank wall, despite Lawence suggesting this is merely a form of snobbism). 

 

 

III. 

 

Although Picasso pipped him by a year, Miró was 90 when he died in 1983 and that's a good age by any reckoning; six years older than Matisse when he passed away and two years older than Renoir. And the fact that he was still producing new work until the very end probably qualifies him as a monster of stamina. 

     

According to the exhibition's press release, in the final decade of his life, Miró "devoted himself primarily to the art of printmaking, producing some of the most dynamic and ground-breaking prints of his time" [3]. 

 

And we should be grateful for this; for all thirteen works here are fabulous and demonstrate that he was not only still experimenting in his later years, but had an "exceptional command of printmaking techniques" [4]. 

 

I was particularly fond of La Femme Arborescent (1974) and Le Rat des Sables (1975), but there wasn't one that didn't delight; mostly due to their vibrant colours, but also to their compositional power and the fact that Miró has the astonishing ability "to transform physical movement into a visual language, blending abstraction with subtle figurative suggestion to convey the pure vitality of dance" [5].  

 

 

IV. 

 

The exhibition is on until 4 May: I would encourage readers who view this post before that date and who may find themselves wandering round Mayfair at some point, to visit and enjoy (even if they can't afford to buy a print). 

 

For even a few moments spent in the presence of these paintings will, I promise, make happy [6].    

 

   

Notes

 

[1] I have explained my fondness for this work in a post published on 16 Feb 2013: click here. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Pictures on the Wall', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 257. Note that Lawrence concedes, however, that most pictures, like flowers, quickly die and lose their freshness and should thence be immediately thrown away or burnt. 

 

[3-5] Press release / Overview: Joan Miró: Monumental Printmaking (6 Mar - 4 May 2025) at Shapero Modern, London, W1 - click here to read on the gallery website.    

 

[6] That's not something I can promise of the portraits on paper by Egon Schiele, currently shown at the nearby Omer Tiroche Gallery (21, Conduit St., London, W1), but these too are well worth seeing: click here for a post inspired by this exhibition. 

Bits

The Bulletin Vol. 43 No 2217 (10 August, 1922) [a] 

Metro (16 September, 2024)

 

 

I. 

 

Although D. H. Lawrence's Australian novel, Kangaroo (1923), is little remembered today outside of certain red-bearded circles, it was critically well-received at the time (perhaps less for its philosophy and more for its descriptions of the bush). 

 

One of the things I admire about it, however, is Lawrence's use of actual text drawn from a popular weekly news magazine; namely, the Sydney Bulletin - "the only periodical in the world that really amused" [b] the novel's protagonist Richard Somers:

 

"The horrible stuffiness of English newspapers he could not stand: they had the same effect on him as fish-balls in a restaurant, loathsome stuffy fare. [...] But the Bully, even if it was made up all of bits, and had neither head nor tail nor feet nor wings, was still a lively creature. He liked its straightforwardness [...] It beat no solemn drums. It had no deadly earnestness. It was just stoical, and spitefully humorous." [269].

 

Whether we might find the same "laconic courage of experience" [272] in today's edition of the Metro [c] - copies of which are sitting in a pile at the front of the bus - is extremely doubtful I fear ... 

 

 

II. 

 

And, having now flicked through the paper in search of some entertaining snippets - or bits as Lawrence calls the short news items that catch his eye [d] - I can confirm that the Metro is completely devoid of momentaneous life or even vaguely interesting anecdotage, with the single exception being the story of a rat-catcher from Wakefield who recalled once having a client who had a rat living in the wooden slats of his bed and another who was left screaming when she discovered a rat floating in her toilet bowl (only after having already sat down to urinate) [e].

Having said that, I was sorry to read that a fluffy tortoise-shell cat named Rosie - believed to be the world's oldest, aged 33, and living in Norwich with her human companion Lila Brissett - has just died [f].

 

And I would like to send congratulations to a couple in Crewe - Peter and Peggie Taylor - who have been married for 78 years and who have both now celebrated their 100th birthdays [g].  

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Known as the 'bushman's bible', The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine based in Sydney and first published in 1880. It featured articles on politics, business, poetry, fiction and humour and exerted significant influence on Australian society and culture, promoting the idea of a national identity distinct from its British colonial origins. The copy shown here, dated 10 August 1922, may have been read by D. H. Lawrence, as he was in Sydney on this date, before departing for San Francisco on the 11th. Readers who are interested, can read this edition of The Bulletin online thanks to the National Library of Australia: click here. 

 

[b] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 269. Future page references to this work will be given directly in the post. 

      As Bruce Steele notes in his Introduction to Kangaroo, Lawrence's use of the Bulletin "was not simply as a quarry for verbatim quotation [...] Sometimes he adapted or extrapolated from it [...] He even attributed ideas and views to it" [xxxiv]. 

      Arguably, Lawrence's use of a print publication was the most radical and imaginative since Picasso cut and pasted a piece of Le Journal into his collage Guitar, Sheet Music and Wine Glass (1912); a work widely regarded as the first self-consciously modern artwork to incoporate real newsprint. As Steele concludes, Lawrence seems to have not only been amused by the Bulletin - including its cartoons and advertisements - but found it a "productive source of idiom as of fact" [xxxv], giving a certain authenticity to his novel. 

      Finally, readers might also be reminded that earlier in chapter VIII of Kangaroo Lawrence incorporates an "almost thrilling bit of journalism" [168] by A. Meston from the Sydney Daily Telegraph virtually in full - something dismissed as padding by critics of the novel. Such criticism, however, is dealt with by John B. Humma in his excellent reading (and defence) of Kangaroo. See 'Of Bits, Beasts, and Bush: The Interior Wilderness in D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo', in South Atlantic Review, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Jan., 1986), pp. 83-100. Click here to read on JSTOR.     

 

[c] The Metro is the highest-circulation freesheet tabloid newspaper in the UK. It is published in tabloid format by DMG Media and distributed on weekdays.

 

[d] The bits that most fascinated Lawrence were actually contributions from readers of the Bulletin published on a page known as 'Aboriginalities'.  

[e] Danny Rigg reports on the work of professional rat-catcher Keiran Sampler (and his two canine assistants Poppy and Panny) in a story entitled 'It's rat-a-pooy', in today's Metro (16 September, 2024), p.7. Click here to read the story in the e-edition. 

[f] See 'Rest in puss Rosie ... Oldest cat in world dies aged 33', in the Metro (16 September, 2024), p. 9. Click here to read the story in the e-edition. 

 

[g] See Izzy Hawksworth, 'We're both 100 years old and still married after meeting in a bar', in the Metro (16 September, 2024), p. 9. Click here to read the story in the e-edition. 

What Was I Thinking? (8 April)

Images used for the posts published on

this date in 2014, 2021, and 2023

 

 

Sometimes - especially those times when, like today, I can't think of anything else to write about - it's convenient to be able to look back and see what one was thinking on the same date in years gone by ...

 

In Praise of the Pig

 

The interesting thing about this post from 8 April 2014 is that it cost me a very dear friendship with an amazing woman called Beatrice de Dia, who found it to be Islamophobic, whereas it was, rather - as the title surely indicates - simply an expression of my porcophilia.   

 

And so, whilst the post did challenge the dietary injunction against eating pork found within Islamic (as well as Jewish) religious culture, it mostly celebrated pigs as intelligent, social, and loveable creatures who are, of course, genetically very similar to human beings, sharing as we do 98% of our DNA with them (which is why they represent the best hope for the xenotransplantation of organs in the future).

 

The post was also a reading of the view put forward by Christopher Hitchens; namely, that the reason heaven hates ham has nothing to do with food hygiene, but because eating pork uncomfortably reminded the ancient Semites of a time when human sacrifice and cannibalism were de rigueur. 

 

Finally, the post ended by calling on non-Jews and non-Muslims to also reconsider their own vile treatment of the pig and end the disgusting cruelty of factory farming. 

 

For if, on the one hand, pigs deserve better than to be vilified by those who allow religious superstition to distort their relationship to the animal world, then on the other hand, so too do they deserve more than being confined, separated from their young, and forced to live in their own filth before being slaughtered in their hundreds of millions each year by the Chinese, Americans, and Europeans. 

It's such a shame that Beatrice couldn't process the post - despite smiling at its mock-epic quality - and seemed to think I was encouraging racial and religious intolerance (even hatred). I'll always think of her very fondly (and still miss her terribly). 

 

 

Notes on An American Werewolf in London

 

Fast forward seven years, to 8 April 2021, and I was offering thoughts on An American Werewolf in London (dir. John Landis, 1981). 

 

Well, I say that, but actually the post was less a film review and more an excuse to sing the praises of two women who have secured their place in the hearts (and erotic imagination) of many a male viewer: Jenny Agutter and Linzi Drew. 

 

The former, who plays Nurse Alex Price in the film, is still, in my view, one of the most beautiful English actresses ever to have graced the screen; whilst the latter, appearing as Brenda Bristols, may not quite have the same allure as Mary Millington, but she did have a successful (and varied) career in the UK sex industry during the 1980s, working as a stripper, model, and porn star.

 

One day, if I can ever see past the charms of the female stars, I must really get around to discussing the demonic Nazi stormtroopers that appear in a terrifying dream sequence that even the Chapman brothers would've been proud of and how the film is crucially tied to the question of Jewish identity and feelings of cultural estrangement ... 

 

 

In Memory of Two Dead Artists 

 

Was it really 14 years ago that Malcolm McLaren died, aged 64, and over 50 years ago that Picasso departed this life, aged 91? Apparently. 

 

As I noted in a post published last year on this date, McLaren may have acted with mock delight when told of the great Spanish painter's death, but he undoubtedly admired Picasso and was happy to pose by one of his works when being interviewed at the Guggenheim in 1984 for an episode of The South Bank Show. 

 

His friend from art school days, Fred Vermorel, wrote this in 2015:

 

"Considered as an artwork [...] McLaren's Sex Pistols was as seminal and resonant as Picasso's Guernica. Only this was a masterpiece made not of paint and canvas but of headlines and scandal, scams and factoids, rumour and fashion, slogans, fantasies and images and (I almost forgot) songs - all in a headlong scramble to auto-destruction."[1]     

 

I think that's not only a nice thing to say, but also very true.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Fred Vermorel, 'Blowing Up the Bridges So There Is No Way Back', in Eyes for Blowing Up Bridges: Joining the Dots from the Situationist International to Malcolm McLaren (John Hansard Gallery, 2015). Quoted by Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 292.  

I Don't Know as I Get What D. H. Lawrence is Driving at When He Writes of Bursten Bowels ...

Picasso: Gored Horse (1917) 

Graphite pencil on canvas with ochre primer 

(80.2 x 103.3 cm)

Museu Picasso de Barcelona

 

 

I. 

 

As readers of D. H. Lawrence are very well aware, he loves to write about the mysterious nether region of the human body known as the loins - i.e., that zone of libidinal intensity that lies somewhere between the ribs and the pelvis (or above the legs, but below the waist).

 

In fact, the only thing that excites his imagination more are the bowels ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Unfortunately, a bit like Frank O'Hara, I'm not quite sure I always understand what Lawrence is getting at when he uses this term [1]. On the one hand, it seems to be more than simply an anatomical reference to the gastrointestinal tract; indeed, for Lawrence, the bowels seem to be the seat of human compassion from which the deepest desires also spring. 

 

But, on the other hand, Lawrence likes to base his philosophical understanding of the body in biology where possible. So when he talks about the bowels, he is also referring us to the digestive system and those sausage-like organs known as the intestines or entrails. 

 

And, rather like Kenneth Williams, who described his daily bowel movements obsessively in his diaries, Lawrence seems to be plagued by a fear of things not working properly in this region, as we can see in the novel Kangaroo (1923), for example, when the marsupial-like fascist Ben Cooley is shot several times in his "'bloomin' Kangaroo guts'" [2], as one of his followers says.

 

Richard Somers - the book's Lawrentian avatar - visits Cooley in the hospital and can barely disguise his horror and disgust at the thought of ruptured bowels:

 

"Somers found Kangaroo in bed, very yellow, and thin [...] with haunted, frightened eyes. The room had many flowers, and was perfumed with eau de cologne, but through the perfume came an unpleasant, discernible stench. [...]

      Somers could not detach his mind from the slight, yet pervading sickening smell.

      "'My sewers leak,' said Kangaroo bitterly, as if divining the other's thought." [3]

 

Bruce Steele's explanatory note on this is spot-on:

 

"Jack's angry reaction to his leader's having been shot in the stomach and not killed outright probably reflects the First World War soldier's fear of abdominal wounds. In a pre-biotic age, peritonitis was a common and deadly complication of such wounds. While a ruptured bowel could be stitched, contamination of the abdominal cavity was frequently fatal; it would account for  the 'unpleasant, discernible stench' and Kangaroo's diagnosis 'My sewers leak'. If the sniper had deliberately aimed at his stomach rather than his head - which would probably have killed him instantly - it would have been in the knowledge that the victim would almost certainly die a slow and painful death." [4]

 

Of course, whilst being shot in the stomach can lead to a slow and painful death for a man, being disemboweled by the horns of an angry bull can be an equally horrific (and, arguably, even more obscene) way for an elderly horse to die.

 

And so to Mexico City ...   

 

 

III.

 

There are several disturbing scenes in Lawrence's novel The Plumed Serpent (1926), including the opening one set at the plaza de toros [5] - and I'm not referring to the fact that someone in the crowd thought it funny to throw an orange at the bald spot on Owen's sunburnt head.

 

Rather, I'm referring to the following incident involving a blindfolded horse ...

 

"The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly, to face the bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-point into the bull's shoulder. The bull, as if the horse were a great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered his head in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight up into the horse's abdomen. And without more ado, over went horse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

      The rider scrambled from under the horse and went running away with his lance. The old horse, in complete dazed amusement, struggled to rise, as if overcome with dumb incomprehension. And the bull, with a red place on his shoulder welling a trickle of dark blood, stood looking round in equally hopeless amazement.

      But the wound was hurting. He saw the queer sight of the horse half reared from the ground, trying to get to its feet. And he smelled blood and bowels.

      So, rather vaguely, as if not quite knowing what he ought to do, the bull once more lowered his head and pushed his sharp, florishing horns in the horse's belly, working them up and down inside there with a vague sort of satisfaction." [6] 

      

As the novel's protagonist Kate Leslie rightly recognises, this shocking spectacle reveals nothing so much as human cowardice and indecency. She turns her face away in disgust. And when she looks again, "it was to see the horse feebly and dazedly walking out of the ring, with a great ball of its own entrails hanging out of its abdomen and swinging reddish against its own legs as it automatically moved". [7] 

 

But the sordid show isn't over: another horse is brought into the bullring so that it may be publicly disemboweled for the amusement of the crowd:

 

"Kate knew what was coming. Before she could look away, the bull had charged on the limping horse from behind [...] the horse was up-ended absurdly, one of the bull's horns between his hind legs and deep in his inside. Down went the horse, collapsing in front, but his rear was still heaved up, with the bull's horn working vigorously up and down inside him, while he lay on his neck all twisted. And a huge heap of bowels coming out. And a nauseous stench." [8] 

 

 

IV. 

 

I've never been (and wouldn't go) to a bullfight, and so would find it difficult (and disturbing) to visually imagine this scene were it not for the fact that Picasso - a lifelong bullfighting enthusiast - produced the image at the top of this post, after attending a bullfight in Barcelona during his stay in the city in 1917.

 

As the anonymous author of a piece describing this work on the Picasso Museum's website rightly notes:    

 

"In contrast to what he had mostly done on previous occasions, here the artist leaves aside the colourful and festive representation of the spectacle of bullfighting to focus his attention [...] on the solitary agony of the disemboweled horse, which collapses until it falls on its knees in a fetal position or prayer posture that has been compared to that of a fossilised crustacean or bird. Picasso manages to transcribe the animal's stabbing pain by means of its outstretched neck and raised head, looking upwards with a fixed gaze, as if asking for mercy to put an end to its cruel agony, once and for all." [9]

 

The author concludes: 

 

"The drama and cruelty of the scene reaches its zenith with the horn that sprouts from the ground and stands threateningly, waiting for the horse to finish collapsing to then finish it off." [10] 

 

I suppose, to end on a slightly more positive note, it might be mentioned that bullfighting was banned in Catalonia several years ago and the the last bullfight in the region took place in September 2011. [11]

 

However, there are still eight countries in the world where this ancient festival of gore still takes place - Spain, France, Portugal, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador - and every year around 180,000 bulls (and 200 horses) are slaughtered in the ring.

 

 

V. 

 

In sum, I might not get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at when he writes of bursten bowels, but I do know: 

 

(i) I wouldn't want to be shot in the stomach ...

 

(ii) I don't like cruelty to animals ...

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Frank O'Hara, 'I don't know as I get what D. H. Lawrence is driving at', Selected Poems, ed. Mark Ford, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 167. The poem can be read online at allpoetry.com: click here. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge Unversity Press, 1994), p. 317.

 

[3] Ibid., pp. 322-323.    

[4] Bruce Steele's explanatory note to 317:12 of D. H. Lawrence's Kangaroo ... p. 406.

[5] In Lawrence's day, the main bullring in Mexico City was the Toreo de la Condesa. This ancient bullring was replaced in 1946 by the monumental Plaza de toros México, an arena that seats over 41,000 people.

[6] D. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, ed. L. D. Clark, pp. 15-16.

[7] Ibid., p. 16. 

[8] Ibid. 

[9-10] See the text that accompanies Picasso's Gored Horse (1917) on the Museu Picasso de Barcelona website: click here. 

[11] The ban was officially annulled for being unconstitutional by Spain's highest court in October 2016. However, despite the overturning of the ban, no further bullfight has taken place in Catalonia. 

 

 

On the Question of Quality Versus Quantity

 

   

I. 

 

Good people always insist: It's quality rather than quantity that matters [1].

 

You'll be a much happier and more authentic human being, they say, if you forget about numbers, stop being acquisitive, and focus instead on things that have real value and substance, such as meaningful relationships.

 

It's a kind of moral minimalism in which the related mantra less is more is used to justify a small circle of friends, or the fact that one hasn't read many books. 

 

Surprisingly, even D. H. Lawrence, who is usually quick to attack the base-born stupidity of proverbial wisdom, buys into this idea. But whilst he may be right to argue that it is better to read one good book six times rather than six bad books once [2], we feel obliged to point out the possibility of reading six good books six times.

 

That's a greater quantity of books - and many more readings - but surely that's better than simply reading one text over and over and insisting with monomaniacal intensity on its value. For that's precisely the error religiously-minded people fall into when they mistakenly decide that all they ever need read is a single holy text. 

 

Ultimately, it's not a binary choice: you can have quality and quantity. In fact, as we'll explain below, you can't have the former without the latter ...

  

II. 

 

Speaking as an evolutionary biologist, I can say that nature massively favours quantity over quality, which is why it can be so outrageously profligate. It's not necessarily the fittest who survive in this life, it's those who have the numbers to stake a claim on the future. 

 

And by modelling populations over long timescales, a recent Oxford study showed that the most important determinant of evolutionary success was not good genes, but the widest number of genetically available mutations [3].   

 

Brilliant individuals come and go like flowers; they simply don't have time to fix in the population or determine the evolutionary outcome of a race.   

And speaking as an artist, I can also confirm the fact that the creation of great works rests upon a large body of work. That's why, for example, it was necessary for Picasso to paint some 60,000 pictures in order to produce a small number of works - probably fewer than a 100 - that are considered masterpieces. 

 

This doesn't mean the vast bulk of the work is worthless or a waste of time; on the contrary, it was vital. For it was by producing works in such quantity that Picasso was able to learn, experiment, and evolve as an artist. Most importantly, it allowed him to make mistakes; for just as quality rests upon quantity, success rests upon repeated failure.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The saying is often attributed to the Roman philosopher (and proto-Christian) Seneca; see his Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter XLV: 'On sophistical argumentation', line 1. Click here to read online.    

 

[2] See Lawrence's discussion of books and reading in relation to this question of quality (or real value) versus quantity in Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins, (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 60.  

 

[3] The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It's lead author is Dr Ard Louis, Reader in Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. For an interview with the latter discussing the key finding of the study - i.e., that  life's evolution is all about arrival of the frequent, rather than survival of the fittest - click here.

 

 

Reflections on Heide Hatry's Rusty Dog

Heide Hatry: Rusty Balloon Dog (2015) 

Photo by Stan Schnier

 

 

I. 

 

Ask a metallurgist and they'll tell you that rust is an iron oxide, usually reddish-brown in colour, formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water. Which, of course, is true in as much as it's factually correct. 

 

But, when considered from a philosophical perspective, rust is a fascinating erotico-aesthetic phenomenon, which is why it has long appealed to artists; particulary those who see beauty in decay and believe in the ruins. 

 

II. 

 

Victorian writer and art critic, John Ruskin, for example, was a big fan of rust. Whilst conceding that you can't use a rusty knife or razor with the same effectiveness as a rust-free blade, rust, he says, is not a defect, but a sign of metallic virtue [1].

 

What's more, in a certain sense, "we may say that iron rusted is Living; but when pure or polished, Dead". Rusting, in other words, is a sign of inorganic respiration; the taking in of oxygen from the atmosphere by the iron.  

 

Further, it's iron in this oxidised, vital form which makes the Earth not only habitable for living organisms, but beautiful; for rust makes the world softer to the touch and more colourful to the eye - just think, he says, of all those "beautiful violet veinings and variegations" of marble. 

 

 

III.

I recalled Ruskin's lecture in praise of rust when seeing one of Heide Hatry's figures in the Rusty Dog series and whilst reading her thoughts [2] on what these figures represent. 

 

According to Hatry, the rusty dogs pose a challenge to the super-shiny, super-smooth aesthetic of Jeff Koons, exemplified by his mirror-polished stainless steel Balloon Dog (1994); and secondly, they call into question the commodification of art, exemplified by the sale of the latter in 2013 for a then record sum for a work by a living artist of $58.4 million.

 

Unlike Koons's balloon dogs - he produced five in all, each with a different transparent colour coating - Hatry's rusty dogs are small in size and made out of cheap 'n' cheerful material. I'm almost tempted to refer to them (affectionately) as mutts.

 

They remind one rather of the famous animal assemblages made by Picasso in the early 1950s, which incorporated found materials, magically transforming them into works of art. His she-goat, crane, and baboon were playful, certainly, but not just intended to be fun - a key term for Koons.       

 

Ultimately, however, for all his talk of fun and innocence, Hatry thinks Koons is cynical and that his works lack soul - by which she seems to mean depth, seriousness, and maturity, but which I would interpret (following Ruskin) as meaning they don't breathe; don't oxidise; don't rust. 

 

For it's rust which is the anti-Koonsian material - and rusting the anti-Koonsian process - par excellence. 

 

Rust challenges all forms of idealism, including the Koonsian dream of a super-smooth, super-shiny surface that perfectly reflects the viewer in all their narcissism and projects the promise of an everlasting, never changing world, free from corruption and death.       

Notes

 

[1] See John Ruskin, 'The Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and Policy', Lecture V in The Two Paths (1859). Click here for the 2005 eBook published online by Project Gutenberg from which I'm quoting. 

 

[2] These thoughts were expressed to me in an email dated 8 Dec 2022 and contained in an unpublished essay - 'Must We Abhor a Vacuum?' - written in collaboration with John Wronoski, in 2014.

      Although I am more favourably disposed to Jeff Koons and his work than Heide, I do have issues with his aesthetic of smoothness and, push comes to shove, I side with those who affirm dirt, dust, rust, and shit (what Bataille calls base matter) over the smooth, the shiny, the seamless, etc. 

 

 

 Readers who are interested, can click here to access the posts on (or with reference to) Jeff Koons on Torpedo the Ark.