Domesticity Kills

 Photo by Annabel Mehran from a fashion spread entitled 

'Last Words' in the 2013 Fiction Issue of Vice Magazine.

Styled by Annette Lamothe-Ramos. 

To be trapped between a rock and a hard place may sound like an unpleasant dilemma, but for the poet and philosopher it's infinitely preferable and far less dangerous than being caught between a cushion and a soft place. Or, as in poor Sylvia's case, a gas oven and a pile of dirty nappies.

It's unfortunate, but domesticity and parenthood invariably prove fatal to many an artist. For just as home-cooking makes fat and sharing a marital bed destroys desire, so all life's little comforts and the endless daily chores involved in keeping house and bringing up baby crush the spirit faster and more effectively than Domestos kills germs.   

I would seriously warn any younger readers of a sensitive and creative persuasion against performing any of the following activities on a regular and voluntary basis: hoovering the carpet, mowing the lawn, walking the dog, watering the plants, washing the dishes, making the bed, having kids, changing the curtains, wearing slippers, visiting parents, and shopping at Sainsbury's.    

Start by avoiding these things and, perhaps, you'll manage to preserve a little freedom and sanity and keep from slitting your wrists.

Good luck!

Reflections on the 2014 FIFA World Cup

2014 FIFA World Cup Official Logo

During certain periods, in certain societies, says Barthes, the theatre had a major social function; namely, it united the entire city within the joy of a shared experience and knowledge of its own passions. 

Today, it is sport - and one sport in particular, football - that in its own fashion performs this function. 

Football today, however, is a global phenomenon and obsession and it's no longer just a city which it brings together, or a nation, but, in a sense, the entire world - as we currently witness in Brazil at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Of course, just like the modern Olympic Games, the World Cup is a monstrous and insane corporate-media spectacle; one which is reportedly as rife with corruption off the field, as it is tainted by undignified behaviour on it (Suarez, really, what were you thinking?).

At best, the World Cup is merely posing as a noble sporting event with ancestral significance and only pretending to further the highest ideals of humanity. The opening ceremony - always carried out with great formality - fools no one and bores the spectators as much as it often bemuses the commentators. 

We all know football is now played by vain and greedy millionaires who are more concerned with selling their image rights and securing extremely lucrative sponsorship deals than with kicking a ball about and that the fans are treated as little more than a bovine source of revenue; the super-fat in their over-priced replica shirts supporting the super-fit for the entertainment and further enrichment of the super-wealthy.

And yet still we watch, still we care, and still we believe ... Such is the magic of the beautiful game. 

      

Pessimism (In Affirmation of the Oncoming Train)

Still from Broken Down Film (1985), by Osamu Tezuka 

For details visit: michaelspornanimation.com

Arguably, pessimism is not a philosophy as such, more a philosophical attitude or disposition; what we might term a style of thinking. 

Thus whilst there is no school of pessimism, there are nonetheless certain very great thinkers whom we regard as pessimists and between them they constitute a noble tradition within philosophy. For pessimism is ultimately a form of intellectual integrity; that is to say, a form of honesty, courage, and realism in the face of the universe as it is (inhuman, non-vital, and accelerating towards annihilation). 

The term pessimism was first used scornfully by priestly critics of Voltaire to characterize and condemn his satirical attack upon the optimistic view held by Leibniz and others that this world - as the creation of a loving deity - was the best of all possible worlds. If you believe this - and thereby make an implicit theological commitment to metaphysics - then of course you will find yourself in opposition to every form of impersonal negativity, such as pessimism, or, in its more aggressive form, nihilism.

But of course, there are different forms of pessimism, as Nietzsche was at pains to point out.

On the one hand, he writes of a romantic pessimism born of suffering and impoverishment, which he associates most closely with the work of Schopenhauer and Wagner. On the other hand, he writes of an altogether different kind of pessimism that is neo-classical and futuristic in character; a Dionysian pessimism which refuses to sit in judgement and says Yes to all that is evil, absurd and ugly - not out of perversity or wilful decadence, but out of strength and richness.

Nietzsche's greatest insight is surely this: tragedy is a form of affirmation and pessimism can be an expression of the greater health; something that gives wings to the spirit and welcomes the oncoming train.             

Thanks to Simon Thomas for suggesting this post.

Black Holes

Watercolour by Dan Bransfield

thebolditalic.com 

Twinkle, twinkle little mother how I loved you like no other -

shining like a star above and flowing sweet with milky love.

You gave and gave yourself away and laughed to see your children play.
But mother-suns can't burn eternal and so there comes a collapse maternal:

Upon the self they turn and fold, as hearts once warm grow bitter-cold

and offspring whom they once loved true become a source of food anew.

Thus what was a blood relation ends with wilful, dark negation; 

life once given is swallowed back, with malice by the mother-black. 

Stephen Alexander, The Circle of Fragments and Other Selected Verse, 

Blind Cupid Press (2010).    

Kidney Stones of the Soul

Thomas Hirschhorn: Resistance-Subjecter (2011) 

Gladstone Gallery, NY and Brussels

According to folk psychologist James Hillman, there are psychic crystallizations formed by material experience and memories which potentially cause blockages in the unconscious. 

I suppose we might think of these as kidney stones of the soul; equally discomforting, though perhaps far more hazardous to the health and well-being of the individual if they can't find a way to dissolve these deposits and release the energy they contain in a positive manner. 

Ultimately, if you don't learn how to piss the past away then you run the risk of ever-increased calcification; that is to say, if you obsessively keep looking back upon a life gone by, then, like Lot's wife, you'll turn into a pillar of salt - and that's never pleasant.    

All of which brings us to Thomas Hirschhorn's terrifying sculpture entitled Resistance-Subjecter (2011), in which a group of mannequins - bodies violently exploded or eaten away from within as evidenced by gaping wounds and cavities - are in a process of becoming-mineral.     

I'm aware that the politically-engaged and philosophically-informed Hirschhorn has his own very clear ideas concerning his work. As a Marxist, he's obviously concerned with what he would think of as the hard reality of things and this piece could, for example, be read in these terms. 

But, for me, this work is more than that and more than simply a rather banal reflection on the objectification and commodification of the human being within consumer capitalism as one critic suggests; more too than merely a warning about the corrosive effect of the gaze. 

Rather, it's a reminder to drink plenty of water and never allow tiny elements of the self to harden too much: love that which melts into innocence and forgetfulness; hate that which solidifies and endures.      

Notes: 

The above work by Thomas Hirschhorn can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 14 September).

Thanks to Dr. Simon A. Thomas for the insight into James Hillman. 

 

These are a Few of My Favourite Things: Pop Singles (Top 40)

I have spoken elsewhere on the political and philosophical importance of lists, but we should not overlook the pleasure aspect: quite simply, lists make happy; they are fun (if sometimes tricky) to write and fun to read. 

So, here's a list of some of my favourite singles, assembled not in order of preference nor following a critical assessment of artistic value, but alphabetically by the name of the singer, group, or producer that I associate most closely with the track. 

For compiling lists should not be simply another excuse to exercise judgement and construct hierarchies. I love all of these records - not equally, but in any order that one might choose to play them and the only logic that links them is the fact that they continue to give pleasure and make me want to sing, dance, fuck, cry, or start a revolution. 

Six further points to note concerning the selection:

(1) I've chosen only records that were released from 1972 onwards; i.e. from the year when I bought my first 7" single: The Osmonds, Crazy Horses. Obviously, there's a bias towards songs from this and the following decade, but I've included one or two more recent tracks and I'm certainly not of the view that things were better when I was young than they are now - musically or in any way. 

(2) I've chosen only one single by any one artist. Obviously I could list several by those artists of whom I am especially fond, but I didn't want to do that.

(3) I have also limited the list to a top forty, which invariably means that some favourite songs and some favourite artists are absent.

(4) Although there are different genres of music represented on this chart (such as punk, disco and rap), I don't see why anyone would object to them all being referred to ultimately as forms of pop. I have no time for snobbery in this area. 

(5) The dates refer to the year of release as a single and not year of composition, or first appearance on an album.

(6) Finally, all these songs (with accompanying videos) can be found on YouTube if interested. Enjoy!


Abba, The Winner Takes It All (1980)
Adam and the Ants, Stand and Deliver (1981) 
Alex Guadino, ft. Crystal Waters, Destination Calabria (2007) 
Beyoncé, ft. Jay-Z, Crazy in Love (2003)
Black Eyed Peas, Pump It (2005)
Bow Wow Wow, C-30, C-60, C-90 - Go! (1980) 
Britney Spears, If U Seek Amy (2009)
The Creatures, Right Now (1983)
The Cure, Why Can't I Be You? (1987)
David Bowie, Life on Mars (1973)
Dead Kennedys, Holiday in Cambodia (1980)
Donna Summer, I Feel Love (1977)
The Darkness, I Believe in a Thing Called Love (2003)
Eminem, The Real Slim Shady (2000)
Fat Les, Vindaloo (1998)
Fugees, Ready or Not (1996)
Gary Glitter, I Love You Love Me Love (1973)
Iggy Azalea, Pussy (2011) 
Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980)
Kate Bush, Hounds of Love (1986)
Killing Joke, Adorations (1986)
Lady Gaga, Bad Romance (2009)
Malcolm McLaren, Double Dutch (1983)
Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
The Osmonds, Crazy Horses (1972)
Public Image Ltd., Memories (1979)
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
Regina Spektor, Us (2004)
Sex Gang Children, Sebastiane (1983)
Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK (1976)
Slade, Cum on Feel the Noize (1973)
Soft Cell, Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (1982)
Sparks, This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us (1974)
The Specials, Ghost Town (1981)
Suzi Quatro, Devil Gate Drive (1974) 
Sweet, Block Buster (1973)
t.A.T.u., All the Things She Said, (2002)
The Undertones, My Perfect Cousin (1980)
Underworld, Born Slippy (1995)
X-Ray Spex, Identity (1978)

Who's That Girl?

Paul MacCarthy: That Girl (T.G. Awake), 2012-13

Photo: Copyright © Hauser and Wirth, 2014

If any artwork has ever solicited (and problematized) the viewer's gaze in a more challenging and slightly unnerving manner than Paul MacCarthy's That Girl (T.G. Awake) then, if I'm honest, I'm not sure I want to see it. 

Although not billed as the main attraction of the current Hayward exhibition on contemporary figurative sculpture, MacCarthy's hyperreal and clone-like figures - three silicone versions of the same girl sitting naked, legs apart, on glass-topped trestle tables - are nevertheless the stars of the show and, I think, deservedly so.

For whilst there might be issues of cynical exploitation and rather lazy porno-sensationalism, one ultimately comes away wanting to know more about the young woman who so courageously dared to expose herself in this manner and submit to the intensive, intimate, and extremely messy modelling process (as documented in the accompanying video T.G. Elyse (2011)).  

And this desire to name and to provide a personal history or biography - to effectively bring a dead object to life - is to experience what obsessed and tormented Pygmalion. Thus, in this way, MacCarthy achieves something extraordinary; he allows us to directly share in the primal (erotic) fantasy of art and to feel what he feels, not simply see what he sees.    

Notes: 

The above work by Paul MacCarthy can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 7 September 2014).

That Girl is Elyse Poppers; a twenty-something American actress who has effectively become a muse to MacCarthy, having appeared in two of his films - Rebel Dabble Babble (2012) and WS (2013) - as well as in the work discussed above.  

The Little Dancer: Armed and Dangerous

Yinka Shonibare MBE: Girl Ballerina (2007) 

 Photo © Yinka Shonibare MBE / Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, NY 

and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Most people instantly recognise Degas's sculpture of The Little Dancer Aged-Fourteen (1880-81) with her hands held politely (somewhat nervously) behind her back as if tied; eyes closed and face lifted as though waiting to receive an unwelcome kiss from an ardent male admirer.

Originally sculpted in wax and fitted with a bodice, a tutu, and a pair of ballet shoes - not to mention a wig of real human hair tied with a ribbon - la petite danseuse was first cast in bronze in 1922, four years after the artist's death.

Since then, the numerous reproductions displayed in museums and galleries around the world have enchanted - or troubled, depending upon your perspective - generations of viewers and she has become an established figure not only in the image-repertoire of modern cultural history, but also in the popular and pornographic imagination; everyone loves her and Degas makes back stage johnnies of us all complicit in child prostitution, paedophilia and art.     

This pervy aspect of the sculpture has long been recognised. Indeed, when first shown in Paris at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition, the majority of critics were outraged; one described the Little Dancer as a fleur du mal who blossomed with precocious depravity and had a face which betrayed a wicked character, marked by the hateful promise of every vice; a promise that doubtless many of these hypocrites wished to hold her to.     

Certainly neither they nor anyone since has ever done much to free, as it were, the Little Dancer from the sexually objectifying gaze of the knowing male voyeur or would-be rapist, or to provide her with the means by which she might defend herself and accomplish her own liberty. Until, that is, two London-based artists, Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE, decided to revisit and rework this piece each in a very wonderful manner by assigning independent and rebellious agency to the young girl.  

In Gander's work Come up on different streets, they both were streets of shame Or Absinth blurs my thoughts, I think we should be moving on (2009),  Degas's dancer has abandoned her plinth and escaped any glass display case that might have previously been used to imprison her and made her way to the window which she peers out of standing on tiptoes. She is thus, in the words of Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, "transformed from an object of desire into a figure enacting its own desires to explore the surrounding world".

In the earlier I don't blame you, or, When we made love you used to cry and I love you like the stars above and I'll love you 'til I die (2008), his bronze ballerina is seen taking a crafty cigarette break, having again stepped down from the pedestal on which in her earlier incarnation she stood for over eighty years, bored out of her mind. 
  
As much as I like these pieces by Gander, I have to express a preference ultimately for Shonibare's work entitled Girl Ballerina (2007), pictured above. Life-sized, as opposed to Degas's dancer who was diminished in stature, and looking tanned of skin and colourful of dress, there are two startling aspects to the sculpture.

Most immediately noticeable is the fact that she's headless, which, speaking from an acephalic philosophical perspective informed by Georges Bataille, is always a good sign; a girl who has escaped from her head finds herself unaware of prohibition and she makes others laugh with revolutionary joy due to the fact that she perfectly combines innocence with criminal irresponsibility.

This brings us to the second startling aspect; the fact that she holds a large gun behind her back and has her finger on the trigger - ready to shoot anyone who would violate her sovereignty or think of her as easy prey. Shonibare's ballerina does not passively conform to male desire or acquiesce in her own subordination; she is not a sexual naif, but more of a sex pistol: bang, bang she'll shoot you down ...


Notes: 

The above works by Ryan Gander and Yinka Shonibare MBE can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 7 September 2014). 

The quotation from Ralph Rugoff is taken from his introductory essay to the book that accompanies the exhibition, The Human Factor, (Hayward Publishing, 2014), p. 12. 

Edwige Fenech (Queen of Italian Cinema)

According to her fans - of whom there are many, including Quentin Tarantino - Edwige Fenech is la piu bella donna del mondo and I wouldn't wish to dispute for one moment her obviously strong claim on this title, even if it remains highly contestable.

Born in French Algeria on Christmas Eve, 1948, to a Maltese father and a Sicilian mother, Miss Fenech made her name in the Italian film industry. Although she performed in various movies, she will be forever associated with the spaghetti sex comedies made in the 1970s, such as Ubalda, All Naked and Warm (dir. Mariano Laurenti, 1972) which established the commedia sexy all'italiana as a distinct genre.  

Miss Fenech also regularly starred in works of Italian pulp fiction or giallo during this period, including the Edgar Allan Poe inspired Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (dir. Sergio Martin, 1972).

Such works combined elements of the crime thriller with the horror film in a distinctly Italian manner, providing plenty of opportunity not only for excessive and often gruesome violence, but also a liberal exposure of female flesh. Typically, the plots would involve a psycho stalking and slaying numerous young women - usually when naked in the bathroom, or scantily clad in the bedroom. If a supernatural element could also be worked into the story then so much the better.       

Despite these rather trashy, somewhat sensational and heavily stylized elements, the films were often extremely well made with imaginative camerawork and daringly expressive soundtracks. And whilst clearly influenced by American film making and popular culture, they in turn influenced a generation of Hollywood directors; Tarantino again comes to mind as an obvious example and it's nice to note that Miss Fenech accepted the latter's personal offer as producer to appear briefly in Eli Roth's torture porn epic of 2007, Hostel Part II, as an art teacher. 

One hopes that Edwige will continue to grace the silver screen for many years to come, as she does our dreams, our memories, and our fantasies. 

On the Militant Virginity of Joan of Arc

A very beautiful digital painting of Joan of Arc 

by Mathie Ustern on deviant-art.com 

Beginning with True Love Waits in 1993 and the Silver Ring Thing in 1995, there have been any number of virginity pledge programmes impacting (for better or for worse) upon the sex lives of millions of young women all over the world. 

Mostly this has been an American phenomenon initiated by conservative Christian organizations and churches in the United States who fetishize a notion of moral purity which, strangely, can be compromised by what a girl may choose to do with her vagina in an extra-marital context.  

Obviously, this is not something I would support.

However, I am interested in the idea of what might be characterized as a militant form of virginity; i.e. one in which it is not female chastity which is the major concern per se, but female autonomy; one in which the girl does not pledge herself to daddy, to God, and a future husband, but rather commits to her own empowerment, demanding full rights over her own body (socially and politically as well sexually); one in which she gets to wield a sword like Joan of Arc, and not simply wear a wedding band.

As Andrea Dworkin points out, for women inspired by her legend, Joan is a hero "luminous with genius and courage, an emblem of possibility and potentiality consistently forbidden, obliterated, or denied by the rigid tyranny of sex-role imperatives or the outright humiliation of second-class citizenship".

And central to this was her virginity; she chose to make war, not love; to be free, not screwed into place.

That is to say, her virginity was not intended to signify her purity, or preciousness as a sexual commodity to be traded. Rather, it was "a self-conscious and militant repudiation of the common lot of the female with its intrinsic low status, which, then as now, appeared to have something to do with being fucked".

Dworkin continues:

"Joan wanted to be virtuous in the old sense, before the Christians got hold of it: virtuous meant brave, valiant. She incarnated virtue in its original meaning: strength or manliness. Her virginity was an essential element of her virility, her autonomy, her rebelliousness and intransigent self-definition. Virginity was freedom from the real meaning of being female; it was not just another style of being female. ... Unlike the feminine virgins who accepted the social subordination while exempting themselves from the sex on which it was premised, Joan rejected the status and the sex as one thing ... She refused to be fucked and she refused civil insignificance: and it was one refusal ... Her virginity was a radical renunciation of a civil worthlessness rooted in real sexual practice."

If I were a thirteen-year-old girl today, I like to think that I would have a poster of Joan of Arc above my bed rather than Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber and be proud of my virginity - not as something puerile and determined by men who secretly lust to take it, but as something active and indicative of resistance to all forms of phallocratic tyranny.


Note: The lines quoted from Andrea Dworkin can be found in Intercourse, (Basic Books, 2007), on pp. 104-06.