On Artistic and Philosophical Rabbit Holes

il-Kamra ta' Fuq

 

'I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole ...

and yet - it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!'

 

 

I. 

 

Artists, like philosophers and certain young girls, can never resist heading down a rabbit hole; often without considering how in the world they might get out again.  

 

So it is that, later this month, Maria Baldacchino, Karl Fröman, Maria Fröman, SJ Fuerst, and Luca Indraccolo, will individually explore and conceptually map out as best they can a series of surreal landscapes in an exhibition curated by Melanie Erixon entitled The Rabbit Hole Collective #1 [1].    

 

Visitors can look forward to encountering Lego-animals, gravity-defying pieces of fruit, painted inflatable pool toys, Pulcinella among the ruins, and other enigmatic figures looking for a coherent narrative within an environment in which it is reasonable to expect the impossible.   

 

 

II. 

 

The phrase, down the rabbit hole, is, of course, taken from Lewis Carroll's nonsensical novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and generally refers to the fact that it is often easier to get lost in one's own reality - or to find oneself in a strange and perplexing situation - than might be imagined once a collective frame of reference (i.e. common sense) is abandoned (or you take too many psychedelic drugs).  

 

Arguably, the best and most brilliant discussion of Carroll's work is by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who, in his 1969 work Logique du sens [2], challenges the conventional view that falling down a rabbit hole invariably ends in mad obsession or delusion (and is thus something that one should probably avoid doing).  

 

For Deleuze, the rabbit hole is primarily a zone of indeterminacy between two distinct states; i.e., a unique liminal space which he relates to his philosophy of difference and becoming. 

 

Thus, for Deleuze, the rabbit hole doesn't only allow for a shift in perspective or the exploration of new ideas and experiences, but provides an opportunity for molecular change via an opening up to alien forces (this is not simply an imaginative game or fantasy, but an event that has demonic reality and involves a natural play of haecceities) [3].     

 

 

III.

 

I'm not sure if the five artists involved in the upcoming exhibition at il-Kamra ta' Fuq have read Deleuze; nor if they care very much about his reading of Lewis Carroll in The Logic of Sense. 

 

However, one artist who has certainly read Deleuze and who does seem to care a good deal about his (and Guattari's) thinking on holey space [4], is John Beckmann [5], who, in 2019, was responsible for a conceptual installation in New York entitled Rabbit Hole (for Gilles Deleuze).

 

In this work, full of clever and often subtle artistic references, Beckmann filled an empty gallery with live rabbits, ladders, and all manner of artificial holes, tunnels, and escape hatches for visitors to explore. The aim was to create a rhizomatic space of complexity, ambiguity, hybridity, contradiction, and otherness, in which nothing was quite what it seemed. 

Amusingly, Rabbit Hole also raised a question that many critics have posed about the contemporary art scene: 

 

"Is it really a powerful underworld of counter-cutural subversion whose liminal spaces allow people to move beyond society's status quo? Or is it a warren of anxiety, self-reference and solipsism?" 

 

Answers on a postcard please ...

 

 

John Beckmann / Axis Mundi: 

Rabbit Hole (for Gilles Deleuze) (2019) 

archello.com

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The exhibition will run from 25 April until 11 May, 2025 at il-Kamra ta' Fuq, New Life Bar (1st floor), Church Square, Mqabba, Malta. For more details please click here, or visit artsweven.com

 

[2] The English translation of Deleuze's text by Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas, was published as The Logic of Sense by Columbia University Press, in 1990. 

      Assembled from a series of thirty-four paradoxes and an appendix of five essays, the book is essentially an exploration of meaning and meaninglessness. For Deleuze, there is the kind of superficial nonsense which Lewis Carroll delights in and then there is the more profound (and violent) kind offered by Artaud. But nonsense of either kind can only be viewed as that which positively has no sense (as opposed to any absense or lack of sense).      

[3] See Deleuze and Guattari writing in A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1988), pp. 252-253.

[4] See Deleuze and Guattari, writing in A Thousand Plateaus ... pp. 413-416. 

      The argument is that there are some people who are of necessity cave dwellers; individuals who love to bore holes and "turn the earth into Swiss cheese" [413]. Theirs is a space that is permeable and full of subterrannean passages that branch off in multiple directions and connect in unexpected ways; a space often associated with clandestine or illegal activities.

 

[5] John Beckmann laid the foundation for his New York based contemporary interior design studio Axis Mundi in 2004, drawing upon his scholastic roots in philosophy and visual culture. Those who wish to know more about him can click here.

Festina Lente: Or How An Artist Can Learn to Be Quick Even When Standing Still

Festina lente - a design by the famous Renaissance period 

printer and publisher Aldus Manutius, featuring a dolphin 

curled round an anchor

I.

 

A recent post on the politics of accelerationism contra slowness - click here - seems to have caused a degree of confusion amongst one or two readers. 

 

So, just to be clear: whilst suggesting that it might restore a degree of sovereignty to hop off the bus headed nowhere fast and take it easy while the world goes crazy [1], I'm not advocating a politics or a philosophy of inertia. 

 

For inertia not only implies unmoving but also unchanging and my thinking is closely tied to an idea of difference and becoming, not remaining essentially the same or having a fixed identity. 

 

Further, I'm of the view that quickness has nothing to do with running around like a headless chicken; that one can, as Deleuze and Guattari point out, "be quick, even when standing still" [2], just as one can journey in intensity without travelling round the globe like a tourist.

 

 

II.

 

Of course, this isn't a particularly new idea. 

 

One might recall the Classical Latin adage: festina lente, meaning make haste slowly [3]; a saying which has been adopted as a personal motto by everyone from Roman emperors to American sports coaches, via members of the Medici family and the Cuban Communist Party.  

 

Lovers of Shakespeare will know that the Bard frequently alluded to this idea in his work; as did the 17th century French fabulist Jean de la Fontaine in his famous fable (adapted from Aesop's original) concerning a hare and tortoise (the latter being praised for his wisdom in hastening slowly).   

 

My only concern with this is that moralists see making haste slowly as a matter of policy; i.e. a form of prudent conduct that protects one from making mistakes and as someone who values error and imperfection and failure - who sees these things as crucial to the making of challenging art, for example - that's problematic (to say the least).     

 

 

III.

 

And so I return to Deleuze and Guattari, because their rhizomatic idea of being quick, even whilst standing still, is not one that can be used to negate the creation of radically new art ...

 

According to the above, a painting, for example, is an assemblage of lines, shapes, colours, textures, and movements that "produce phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture" [4]. In other words, just as it's formed from different material elements, so too is it made up of different speeds and comparative rates of flow.      

   

And sometimes, these things converge on a plane of consistency [5] - but that's not to say the composition is ever perfect or free from error; nor that the artist who, purely out of habit and convention, signs their name on the work has succeeded and can now sit back and admire their own canvas. 

 

A painting is never really finished and whilst I can sympathise with artists who are often gripped with the urge to destroy their own pictures, I have never really understood those who place their canvases in golden frames and are genuinely pleased to see them hanging on a gallery wall.    

 

If an artist wishes to be quick, even when standing still, then, according to Deleuze and Guattari, they must learn to paint to the nth degree and that means (amongst other things) making maps not just preliminary drawings, and coming and going from the middle where things pick up speed, rather than attempting to start from the beginning and finish at the end (something that implies a false conception of movement) [6].  

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referencing here a lyric from the Killing Joke song 'Kings and Queens', released as a single from the album Night Time (E.G. Records, 1985).

 

[2] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plaeaus, trans. Brian Massumi (The Athlone Press, 1988), p. 24. 

[3]  This Latin phrase is translated from the Classical Greek σπεῦδε βραδέως (speûde bradéōs). 

[4] Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plaeaus ... p. 4. 

[5] In art, composition refers to the arrangement and organisation of various elements within a work to create a cohesive and aesthetically pleasing whole. 

      But by a plane of consistency, Deleuze and Guattari refer to something that opposes this and which consists only in the "relations of speed and slowness between unformed elements" [ATP 507]; there is no finality or unification. A plane of consistency, therefore, doesn't aim to produce aesthetic pleasure, so much as open up a zone of indeterminacy and a continuum of intensity upon which new thoughts and feelings can unfold and interact without being constrained by pre-existing ideas and emotions. 

      In sum: it's a kind of virtual realm of infinite possibilities. See the post dated 23 May 2013 in which I discuss this and related ideas with reference to Deleuze and Guattari's fourth and final book together, What Is Philosophy? - click here. 

 

[6] See Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plaeaus ... pp. 24-25.

On the Politics of Accelerationism Contra Slowness

Jamie Reid, Nowhere Bus (2005)

giclee mounted cotton rag print (79 x 90.5 cm) 

bonhams.com

 

 

I. 

 

As everyone knows, the Sex Pistols were going nowhere - but they were going nowhere fast! Speed was the very essence of punk; even if travelling by bus [1]. Indeed, one might argue that Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid both subscribed to a political strategy that is now termed accelerationism ... 

 

In other words, theirs was a revolutionary project founded upon the idea that radical social and political change could only be achieved via an injection of speed (or chaos) into the current system in order to destabilise it and thus accelerate its demise. 

 

When everything is rotten and on the point of collapse, the task is not to try and reform or improve the situation, but, rather, to push the process of decay further and faster beyond the point of no return. Ultimately, the Sex Pistols wanted to make things worse - not better; McLaren and Reid believed in the ruins of culture, not its grand monuments. 

 

II. 

 

I'm not sure from where (or whom) McLaren and Reid adapt this line of thinking - one which attracts extremists on both the far-left and far-right - but, for me, it has its roots in the Nietzschean idea of pushing (or kicking) over that which is already falling [2]. 

 

One is also obliged to mention the work of Deleuze and Guattari in their seminal two-volume study Capitalism and Schizophrenia, in which they speak of accelerating the processes of the former all the way to a singular outer limit [3], effectively injecting Marxism with a little madness and speed.

 

And of course, it was from his idiosyncratic and delirious reading of Deleuze and Guattari, fuelled by amphetamine, that the British philosopher most associated with the theory of accelerationism, Nick Land, drew many key ideas in relation to his own brand of techno-nihilism that affirms rapid advances in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, human enhancement (or replacement), etc. [4]

 

 

III. 

    

As dangerously exciting as the idea of accelerationism is - and despite my own long advocacy of speed over slowness: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! - I find myself now increasingly drawn toward the idea that it might, in fact, be advantageous and desirable to slow things down; that slowness is another softly-spoken S-term to be added to the list that includes silence, secrecy, and shadows ... [5]   

 

Of course, this might just be a sign that one is getting older, but not necessarily any wiser: I'm very aware of the fact that it was only when he had passed 60 years of age and approched the end of his life, that Malcolm McLaren also embraced the idea of slowness in various cultural forms, including slow art and film [6].

 

Thus, for example, when discussing his series of 'musical paintings' entitled Shallow 1-21 (2008), he was very keen to explain how they were based upon the idea of slowness; that speed and the idea of going nowhere fast wasn't attractive to him any longer; that Damien Hirst's spin paintings were essentially boring [7]. 

 

McLaren now wanted individuals to take their time; to focus on things and delight in the nuances and details; to enjoy the moment that leads up to the event or action as much as the event or action itself; to appreciate that Jamie Reid's bus destination could, with but one stroke of a pen, be transformed from Nowhere to Now/here - i.e., an immanent utopia that exists in the bonds between people, not the dissolution of those bonds.   

A still from Malcolm McLaren's Shallow 1-21 (2008) 

showing a woman slowly eating some grapes
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

   

   

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring of course to the Jamie Reid artwork used to promote the Sex Pistols' single 'Pretty Vacant' (Virgin Records, 1977) which featured two buses; one headed to Nowhere and the other destined to terminate in Boredom. 

      This amusing image, however, pre-dates punk; Reid was reworking an earlier graphic produced for his radical Suburban Press, having appropriated the buses idea and design from a 1973 pamphlet published by the American situationist group Point-Blank! In 2010, the activist David Jacobs, founder of Point-Blank!, claimed that he was the one who should be credited with the original concept and design. 

 

[2] In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes: 

      "O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: That which is falling, should also be pushed! Everything of today - it is falling, it is decaying: who would support it? But I - want to push it too!" 

      - 'Of Old and New Law Tables' (20), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1969), p. 226.

 

[3] In Anti-Oedipus, for example, Deleuze and Guattari advocate an acceleration of the forces and flows that capitalism has itself unleashed: "To go still further, that is, in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization." [239]

      It should be stressed, however, that whilst they think capitalism "produces an awesome schizophrenic accumulation of energy" [34], this also acts as its limit, which is why "schizophrenia is not the identity of capitalism, but on the contrary its difference, its divergence, and its death" [246]. 

      Page references are to the English edition, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1994).

 

[4] Readers interested in knowing more about Land's thinking in this area might like to see his essay 'A Quick-and-Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism' (2017), which can be located as a five page pdf on the Internet Archive: click here. 

      Ultimately, for Land, capitalism is something akin to an alien form of intelligence and a means of opening up the future. Thus, philosophers truly interested in change have a duty to affirm such regardless of the consequences to humanity or the planet. 

      See also Robin MacKay and Armen Avanessian (eds.), #Accelerate: The Accelerationist Reader (Urbanomic, 2014). 

 

[5] See the post 'In Defence of Isis Veiled' (9 Sept 2023), in which I suggest what a practice of occultism might mean today in an age of transparency: click here. 

 

[6] On the other hand, it's possible that this wasn't a sign of age, but an attempt by McLaren to get with the times and create a contemporary space for himself. For the slow movement as a cultural initiative encouraging individuals to reject the hustle and bustle of modern life, had, by the early 2000s, been (ironically) gathering pace for a number of years. 

      The core idea at the heart of the slow movement's philosophy is that faster is not necessarily better and that one should learn to relax a little so as to enjoy the moment and be able to appreciate and reflect upon things without feeling hurried or distracted. 

      The slow movement has found expression in many different areas; from slow art and photography, to slow fashion and food. There is also a political aspect to the movement; one that calls for local governance models that are inclusive and centered on deliberative democracy and community empowerment. 

      All this sounds very nice, but one suspects that this is essentially a middle-class movement; that the working class can't afford to take things slowly and lead a more leisurely lifestyle.

 

[7] I'm paraphrasing McLaren speaking in conversation with Prof. Jo Groebel, Direktor of the Deutsch Digital Institute, Berlin, at the American Academy in Berlin (29 Oct 2008): click here. Malcolm introduces the concept of slowness at 42:10. 

      For those who may not be familiar with the work, Shallow 1-21 is an 86-minute video consisting of 21 'musical paintings' that combine (but do not synchronise) musical snippets with short film clips - the latter appropriated from old sex movies - into a slow moving and hypnotically layered work of art.

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on making haste slowly and learning how, as an artist, one might be quick, even when standing still, please click here. 

 

On Lawrence the Lemon Lover

 Citrus Fresh DHL ... l'amante del limone 

  

D. H. Lawrence was someone who appreciated the beauty of the lemon - particularly the lemons that grow in Italy - more than most ... 

 

In Sea and Sardinia, for example, he writes of the lemons hanging "pale and innumerable in the thick lemon groves", where the trees press close together, because, "Lemon trees, like Italians, seem to be happiest when they are touching one another" [1]. 

 

He also notices the heaps of pale yellow lemons lying on the ground: 

 

"Curious how like fires the heaps of lemons look, under the shadow of the foliage, seeming to give off a palid burning amid the suave, naked, greenish trunks. When there comes a cluster of orange trees, the oranges are like red coals among the darker leaves. But lemons [... are] speckled like innumerable tiny stars in the green firmament of leaves." [2] 

 

Whilst in a section of Twilight in Italy, Lawrence writes of tall lemon trees "heavy with half-visible fruit" that look like "ghosts in the darkness of the underworld" [3] and whose flowers give off a subtle and exquisite scent. 

 

They trigger thoughts in him of "the ancient world still covered in sunshine [...] where there is peace and beauty" [4] and none of the black dissonance that belongs to the modern industrial world. 

 

Reading this, one wishes one could either sip un poco di chiar' di luna, con canella e limone [5] or even, indeed, rub a little olive oil on one's naked skin and "wander a moment in the dark underworld" [6] of the citrus grove, balancing a lemon flower in one's navel and laughing, like Juliet, the sun-woman.

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, 'As far as Palermo', in Sea and Sardinia, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 13.

 

[2] Ibid., pp. 13-14.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'The Lemon Gardens', in Twilight in Italy and Other Essays, ed. Paul Eggert (Cambridge University Press), p. 129. 

 

[4] Ibid., p. 132. 

 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, 'A Little Moonshine with Lemon', in Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays, ed. Virginia Crosswhite Hyde (Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 99. 

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Sun', in The Woman Who Rode Away and Other Stories, ed. Dieter Mehl and Christa Jansohn (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 24.

 

 

For a citrus fresh sister post to this one, click here.

 

Yahrzeit: In Memory of Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren comes of age 

(1959)

 

May the great name McLaren be magnified throughout the punk world, 

which was created according to his will.

 

 

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Malcolm Mclaren's death [1].

 

I don't know if the Greeks had a word for such an anniversary [2], but the Jews certainly do: Yahrzeit [3]. 

 

And it is worth remembering, I think, that Malcolm - like many of the key figures involved in the punk rock revolution [4] - was himself Jewish and even posed for a photo on the day of his bar mitzvah, looking very dapper in a double-breasted dinner suit, dicky bow, and tallit, whilst somewhat nervously holding a prayer book [5].

 

Whether McLaren's Jewishness played a significant role in his life and career is something that can be debated another time; as can the question of whether or not antisemitism is to blame for a lot of the hostility still directed his way and the fact that his astonishing contribution to popular culture - not just to music, but to art and fashion - is either grossly underrated or deliberately downplayed. 

 

Here, in this short post, I simply wish to commemorate his genius and acknowledge the huge influence (for beter or for worse) he has had on my own life.  

 

Notes

 

[1] Conicidentally, we might also note that Vivienne Westwood would have been celebrating her 84th birthday today, had she not died in December 2022.   

 

[2] Whilst there isn't an actual term in Greek - ancient or modern - for death anniversary, the practice of commemorating a loved one is known as Μνημόσυνο (Mnemosyno); a term derived from the name of the goddess of memory and mother of the nine Muses, Μνημοσύνη (Mnemosyne).

 

[3] Yahrzeit is a modern borrowing from the Yiddish word יאָרצײַט. It is an annual occasion traditionally commemorated by reciting the Kaddish (a 13th century prayer composed in Aramaic) and by lighting a long-burning candle.  

 

[4] This is particularly true of the New York scene as shaped by (amongst others) Richard Hell, Joey Ramone, Sylvain Sylvain, Chris Stein, and the founder of CBGB Hilly Kristal (all Jewish). In the UK, punk in the 1970s as most of us know it, was essentially invented by McLaren and his friend (and fellow Jew) Bernie Rhodes.    

 

[5] McLaren was born to a Scottish father (Peter McLaren) and a Jewish mother (Emily Isaacs), but was effectively raised by his maternal grandmother, Rose Corré Isaacs, a diamond dealer's daughter, in Stoke Newington's Sephardic community.

 

 

This post is for all those who remember Malcolm with fondness and continue to fight his corner.  

 

Oranges Are Not the Only Citrus Fruit (In Praise of Lemons)

Édouard Manet's Lemon (1880) [1]

served on a pewter plate against a lime green background 

(SA/2025)

 

 

The thought suddenly struck me after reading a poem by Frank O'Hara [2] that, just as sardines are not the only little fish in the sea [3], so too is it true that oranges are not the only citrus fruit [4] in the world; even if they are by far the most popular for juicing and thus might be said to enforce the same (repressive) model of normality each breakfast time as a bowl of cereal, or a slice of toast.

 

Ever since a young child, I have refused to accept the status quo or conform to popular opinion and so have long been suspicious of oranges and the role they play within society; much preferring lemons, not only for their colour and shape, but also for their smell and even the sharp sourness and acidic bitterness of their taste [5].

 

Oranges can be refreshingly tangy, it's true, but there's always an underlying sweetness that compromises their zestiness in comparison to the lemon and ultimately ordering un citron pressé - or perhaps even a little moonshine with lemon - is so much more punk rock than asking for a glass of orange juice.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Manet's picture - Le citron, oil on canvas (14 x 22 cm) - can be viewed on the the Musée d'Orsay website: click here.

 

[2] The poem I refer to by Frank O'Hara is 'Why I Am Not a Painter' (1956), and can be found in The Selected Poems, ed. Donald Allen (Random House, 1974). It can also be found on poets.org: click here. 

 

[3] See the recently published post on anchovies: click here.

 

[4] Obviously, I'm playing with the title of Jeanette Winterson's 1985 novel - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - which she later adapted for a BAFTA-winning television drama (BBC TV, 1990). 

 

[5] The juice of the lemon is about 5-6% citric acid; that's slightly more than lime juice; almost twice as much as grapefruit juice; and five times more than orange juice. It might interest to know that lemons also contain more vitamin C than oranges (whilst obviously lower in sugar).  

 

 

For a sister post on D. H. Lawrence's love of lemons, click here.     

 

From Sardines to Anchovies

I. 

 

I've nothing against the humble sardine; that small, oily fish in the herring family, which some people refer to as pilchards and which Aristotle is thought to have loved eating; though presumably not on toast, which is how the British traditionally serve them. 

 

And there's no denying that they do make a tasty and nutritious meal, even when enjoyed straight from the tin, rather than fresh from the sea; full of protein and fatty acids, sardines are also low in contaminants, such as mercury, unlike some other larger fish commonly consumed by humans.

 

However, push comes to shove, and my preference is for the anchovy ... [1]

 

 

II. 

 

The anchovy is another small, oily fish, belonging to the same order as the sardine (Clupeiformes), but to a different family and they have been happily swimming around the world's temperate oceans for tens of millions years; i.e., long before there were any people to catch them in nets and stuff them into jars.     

 

Anchovies are pretty little things; slim-bodied, and silvery greenish-blue in colour, with a stripe running along their backs. But they also come with tiny sharp teeth, so anyone handling a live fish should beware.

 

I'm particularly fond of the European anchovy, which is found in the Med and which has been fished by the peoples fortunate enough to live on the coasts of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, etc., for untold generations.

 

The place that I mostly associate with them, however, is the picturesque small town of Collioure, on the Côte Vermeille, just over the border from Spain, in the region of French Catalonia where they are known as anchois or anxova depending to whom you speak. 

 

Katxu and I went there once, initially because we wanted to follow in the footsteps of Matisse and Derain and experience the astonishing quality of the light that inspired Fauvism a century earlier, but we soon ended up at the anchovy museum like everyone else who visits [2].

 

After the visit, I was so enchanted by the story of these little blue fish and the folk who depend on them, that I even wrote a short poem on the back of a postcard:

 

  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I know that many Brits do not like anchovies, due to their characteristic saltiness and strong flavour; i.e., pretty much the same objection that is often raised against olives. But then the British are a people who privilege fish fingers and pickled onions over most foreign delicacies.

 

[2] Technically, there are two family-run anchovy businesses in Collioure, rather than a museum as such: Anchois Roque and Anchois Desclaux. Both were established in the 19th century and each is open to the public, so that one can watch as the fish are processed, preserved, and packaged in the traditional way (by hand, not machine). 

      As well as regular tastings, there are all kinds of old objects and photos to look at that allow one to appreciate the historical and cultural importance of anchovies for the inhabitants of the town. Click here, for further details. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on oranges and lemons and the politics of citrus fruit, click here.      

 

 

Oranges and Sardines: Reflections on Art & Poetry (Not Seafood & Citrus Fruit)

Michael Goldberg: Sardines (1955) 

oil and adhesive tape on canvas (80 3⁄4 x 66 in.) 

Smithsonian American Art Museum

 

 

I. 

 

Frank O'Hara's carefully crafted poem 'Why I Am Not a Painter' [1] continues to amuse readers interested in the ambiguous nature of the relationship that exists between those who, like him, choose to type words on a page and those who, like his friend Mike Goldberg [2], prefer to express themselves with oil on canvas.    

 

Whether this reveals O'Hara's conviction that the pen is not only mightier than the sword, but also the palette and paintbrush, I don't know. And even if this is his belief, like many writers, he secretly wishes he could play with colours rather than words (he lets this slip in a casual aside in the short opening stanza).

 

For the latter can never quite capture the red-yellow essence of orange, even if you produce a whole page of descriptive prose or the most exquisite poetry; a picture, they say, conveys a thousand times more information than the word (in terms of size, shape, and colour of a sardine that's doubtless true). 

 

However, sometimes - even on a canvas - images can become too much, too overwhelming, and a string of eight letters spelling out the word S-A-R-D-I-N-E-S is really all you need; particularly when you understand, as poets and philosophers understand, that no word exists in isolation; that each is connected to every other word in the language via a complex network of shared meanings, etymological roots, grammatical functions, figurative associations, and so on - even if, ironically, no word has any essential connection to the object it represents. 

 

Probably most painters understand this too, which is why they still very often give their pictures a title; particularly the more logocentric amongst them for whom the Word remains the origin and most fundamental expression of reality; titles are rarely given purely for practical reasons. 

 

 

II. 

 

The phrase, oranges and sardines, has now become fixed (one is almost tempted to say a cliché) within the arts, as a phrase referencing poetry and/as painting. 

 

Back in 2008-09, for example, the Hammer Museum [3] held an exhibition curated by Gary Garrels with this title, although, somewhat ironically, it allowed six contemporary abstract artists to reflect philosophically and poetically on their own work - their studio processes, their indebtedness to art history, etc. - without the need to consult any actual philosophers or poets (the show really should have just been called Sardines).  

 

To be honest, I don't mind that so much. Although I'd probably challenge Garrels's slightly ludicrous assertion that "artists look at art with a focus and scrutiny, a criticality and level of engagement that few of us are able to summon with the same intensity" [4]. 

 

I mean, c'mon, I admire greatly those working within the visual arts - and I'm happy to admit that many have "a deep knowledge of art and art history and of the intellectual arguments around art" [5] - but where's the evidence for this particularity of vision? 

 

Having said that, however, I know conceited poets who believe they have a unique sensitivity to language; arrogant philosophers who think they are the only ones who know how to conceptualise ideas; and even affected fashion designers who imagine it is they who are solely responsible for determining our love of cerulean blue.         

 

 

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] Frank O'Hara, 'Why I Am Not a Painter', in The Selected Poems, ed. Donald Allen (Random House, 1974). Written in 1956, the poem can be found on poets.org: click here.

 

[2] Michael Goldberg (1924 - 2007) was was an American abstract expressionist, known for both his action paintings and still-lifes. He was a key member of the New York School, an informal group of poets, painters, dancers, and jazz musicians living it large in the 1950s and '60s, drawing inspiration from one another and from earlier avant-garde movements, such as the Surrealists. 

      Frank O'Hara was very much at the centre of this group, before his death, aged 40, in 1966, and Gary Garrels is right to note that he was "not only a poet but also a curator and critic who grounded his critical approach to art not in theory or philosophy, but in a distinct appraisal of the artworks themselves, the cultural situation of the time, and the circumstances of the artists". See note [4] below for a link to the essay by Garrels from which I quote.

 

[3] The Hammer Museum is an art museum and cultural centre, affiliated with UCLA. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur-industrialist Armand Hammer to house his personal art collection, the museum has since expanded its scope and now hosts a wide array of free public lectures, readings, concerts, and film screenings.    

 

[4] Gary Garrels, introductory essay to Oranges and Sardines: Conversations on Abstract Painting (Hammer Museum, 2009): click here to read the essay on the Hammer Museum website.    

 

[5] Ibid. 

 

 

Bonus video: Frank O'Hara: Why I Am Not A Painter (Optic Nerve Ltd.): click here. This is one of seven excerpts from the film Frank O'Hara: How Terrible Orange Is/& Life (Colin Still / Optic Nerve, 1995).

 

This post is for the American figurative painter SJ Fuerst who kindly sent me O'Hara's poem. 

 

 

Dark Spring: In Memory of Unica Zürn and a Brief Note on a New Exhibition Reimagining Her Legacy

Photo of Unica Zürn by Man Ray (1956) and a flyer for the 

Dark Spring - syzygy exhibition ft. Vicky Wright's V-Effekt (2024) 

 

"There can never have been a spring more beautifully dark than this ..."

 

 

I. 

 

Unica Zürn, for those who might not recognise the name, was a German author and artist, probably most famous for her anagrammatic poetry, automatic drawings, and the notorious nude photos produced in collaboration with her Surrealist lover, Hans Bellmer, in 1958, in which she was bound so tightly with string that it cut into her flesh.

 

Born in the summer of 1916, in the Grunewald district of Berlin, Zürn adored her (mostly absent) father; had a stormy relationship with her (uncaring) mother; and was sexually abused by her older brother. 

 

After leaving school, she began working at the film agency which produced propaganda material for the Nazi Party, although Zürn herself was not a party member (and, besides, a girl has to make a living somehow).

 

She married a much older - and also much wealthier - man during the War and bore him two children. Unfortunately, following a divorce in 1949, Zürn lost custody of both bairns, lacking as she did the means to support them (or indeed herself).    

 

Deciding that she was more suited to a bohemian life rather than one of domestic drudgery and child-rearing, Zürn began to hang around the caberet circuit and frequent the bars and clubs popular with artists, whilst earning what she could by writing short stories for newspapers and dramas for the radio.

 

Zürn also became romantically involved with the painter and dancer Alexander Camaro, although it was her meeting with Hans Bellmer in 1953 that was to prove pivotal; the two of them fleeing Germany and relocating to Paris, where she became his mistress, model, and muse. 

 

Whilst in Paris, Zürn also began experimenting with her own artwork; if Bellmer secretly wished to slice up bodies, she was more interested in how to fragment language and produce a style of writing she termed Hexentexte (1954). 

 

Before long, she and Hans were very much part of the Surrealist in-crowd, mixing with André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray ... and all the other usual suspects. But the good times were not to last and in 1960 Zürn experienced a psychotic episode - which may or may not have been triggered by her experiments with mescaline. 

 

Following this, dissociative states, severe depression, and suicidal thoughts became the norm and she was diagnosed as a schizophrenic (and not in the positive sense that Deleuze and Guatarri would later thrill to). If, on the one hand, she continued to produce new work, on the other, she destroyed many of her earlier drawings and writings.  

 

Long story short: in October 1970, 54-year-old Zürn committed suicide by leaping from the window of the Paris apartment she had shared with Bellmer, while on a five-day leave from a psychiatric hospital. She was buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris and, at his request, Bellmer was buried next to her upon his death in 1975.

 

One of Zürn's final written works was the semi-autobiographical Dunkler Frühling (1967) [1], which tells the story of an obsessive young woman as she has her first sexual encounters and experiences the onset of mental illness. 

 

Somewhat disconcertingly, Zürn's death seems to be foreshadowed in the text as the protagonist of Dark Spring also tops herself by jumping out of a window, although, as it rather poignantly says in the book: She was dead even before her feet left the windowsill.

 

This book has since acquired cult status, particularly amongst feminists, female artists, and those who find her life (and death) fascinating (even romantic). Thus it is, for example, one can wander around Hoxton on a sunny afternoon and come across a contemporary gallery space on Vestry Street running an exhibition entitled Dark Spring - syzygy [2] ...    

II.

There were only eleven paintings on show - two from each of the five artists featured in the exhibition, with an extra one for luck by Sadie Murdoch thrown into the mix - but I struggled to see how some of the pictures repurposed and re-routed the principles of Zürn's work, as promised in the exhibition press release (though I'm perfectly willing to concede this might be a failure on my part). 

 

I liked Murdoch's Pass-Way Into Where To (2022) - an ink-jet printed digital montage, operating, it is claimed, in "the field of power and absence, via the partial, the incomplete, the crop and the edit" (see Figure 1 below).

 

And I also really liked a canvas by Petra Williams entitled Floating Man (2024); not so much for the questions it posed re identity, isolation, relationship to others, the need to create one's own space, etc., but because the colours were so lovely (see Figure 2 below).

 

But perhaps my favorite work was a pair of pictures by Vicky Wright in her V-Effekt series (2024). For these at least gave us amorphous figures with distorted bodies and a layering of faces that one might expect and hope for in an exhibition inspired by Unica Zürn.

 

The writer of the exhibition press release describes them as anti-portraits and speaks of how their woozy painterliness troubles subjectivity, thereby obliging the viewer to reconsider the idea of the human self in relation to non-human elements, both demonic and animal (see Figure 3 below).        

 

Fig. 1 Sadie Murdoch: Pass-Way Into Where To (2022)

Fig. 2 Petra Williams: Floating Man (2024)

Fig. 3 Vicky Wright: V-Effekt II (2024)

Notes

 

[1] This short novel by Unica Zürn has been translated into English by Caroline Rupprecht and was published by Exact Change in 2000. 

 

[2] The exhibition at Cross Lane Projects (1st floor, 6-8 Vestry Street, London N1), runs until 19 April, 2025, and features work by Vicky Wright, Josephine Wood, Petra K. Williams, Sadie Murdoch, and Tracey Owusu. For full details and to download the press release from which I quote in this post, please click here.   

Disrhythmy: A Tale of Two Mothers

'La subtilité du pouvoir s’opère par la disrythmie ...'

 

 

I. 

 

I was amused by the fact that Roland Barthes was a little shocked by witnessing the following scene:

 

"From my window (December 1, 1976), I see a mother pushing an empty stroller, holding her child by the hand. She walks at her own pace, imperturbably; the child, meanwhile, is being pulled, dragged along, is forced to keep running, like an animal, or one of Sade's victims being whipped. She walks at her own pace, unaware of the fact that her son's rhythm is different. And she's his mother!" [1]   

 

For Barthes, this was a clear abuse of power. 

 

But for me, it brought back happy memories of my own early childhood, when I used to walk to the local shops with my mother, holding her hand, as she hurried down Daventry Road and along Hilldene Avenue, obliging me to to keep up as best I could and adapt my rhythm to hers.

 

Happy days: I didn't in the least feel dehumanised or victimised at the time and, it seems to me now, that it's right for a parent to set the pace; modern mothers are mistaken in thinking it is they who should adapt themselves to their child's rhythm and give in to their every demand; that it's they who should be dragged about. 

 

That's how to spoil a child.

 

 

II. 

    

What didn't amuse me, however, was something I witnessed yesterday when taking a stroll:

 

A mother, holding her daughter by the hand. The young girl dawdling to look with wonder at some large yellow daffodils growing in one of the very few front gardens yet to be concreted over. Suddenly, the woman sharply yanks the child's hand and tells her to hurry up: "We haven't got time to look at some stupid flowers!"   

 

Now that's what I call dysrhythmy and shockingly bad parenting ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together, trans. Kate Briggs, (Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 9.

 

Idiorrhythmy

D. H. Lawrence: untitled ink drawing (1929) [1]

 

I. 

 

In a series of lectures in the academic year 1976-77, French philosopher and critic Roland Barthes explored the idea of how individuals might productively live with others in a manner that preserves the right of each to exist at their own pace and maintain a necessary degree of solitude. 

 

He discussed this in his own singular and imaginative fashion - i.e., as a form of fantasy [2] - in relation to the fascinating concept of idiorrhythmy [3]; a term that first appeared in the early middle ages in connection with certain orders of monks whose members although existing alongside one another in the same space, were free to work and prayer each according to their own specific rhythms  [4].

 

For Barthes, idiorrhythmy thus provides the clue as to how we might live together in a society, but, at the same time, respect the character quirks and behavioural idiosyncrasies of members - no matter how strange, irritating, or offensive we might find these things.

 

It sounds good, but, unfortunately, there's the very real danger that such an ultra-liberal (almost anarchic) model for social coexistence risks fragmentation into a chaos of self-sufficient, self-interested, and self-absorbed egoists, caring for nothing for anyone as they spin contentedly on their own axis. 

 

And whilst I might not fancy being a member of a really tight-knit community in which the interests of the individual are stricty subordinate to those of the collective, neither do I wish to live in a world of atomised individualism. 

 

II. 

 

Sometimes, like Barthes, I imagine myself living somewhere by the sea - or perhaps in the mountains - in a little house, "with two rooms for my own use and two more close by for a few friends" [5], as well as somewhere we might gather with our neighbours for celebration.

 

But then, like Barthes, I quickly snap out of this longing for Rananim [6] and realise that it's ultimately just a "very pure fantasy that glosses over the difficulties that will come to loom like ghosts" [7].

 

Indeed, it's hard enough living at times with just one person and one is obliged to ask: is there such a thing as an idiorrhythmic couple? 

 

Barthes doesn't seem to think so. In any case, he's expressly uninterested in such a model per se, preferring to only talk about couples in the context of wider groups. His main objection is not only that the couple offer a model of domesticated and legitimised desire, but that such a model "blocks any experience of anachoresis" [8]; i.e., it doesn't allow for a vital retreat into one's own peace and quiet [9]. 

 

But surely that depends; not so much on who that person is as a person with their various interests and ideas, but on their impersonal rhythym. 

 

Provided the latter isn't too disruptive of one's own and they don't, like Madonna, insist that you get into the groove in order to prove your love [10] - for this invariably means falling into line with their rhythm - then I can't see the problem with individuals forming a monogamous couple (on the condition that they are separated sometimes and don't become "'stuck together like two jujube lozenges'" [11].   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This astonishing ink drawing of two nude figures by Lawrence illustrates the unique rhythms of the body and how these individual rhythms interact in a pattern of relationship.

 

[2] In his late work, Barthes loved to use the term fantasy, by which he understood "a resurgence of certain desires, certain images that lurk within you, that want to be identifed by you [...] and often only assume concrete form thanks to a particular word [... that] leads from the fantasy to its investigation".       

      See Roland Barthes, How to Live Together, trans. Kate Briggs (Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 6.  

 

[3] The term idiorrhythmic is a combination of the Greek terms for personal and distinct, ἴδιος (ídios) and rule or rhythym, ῥῠθμός (rhŭthmós). In modern English, it therefore means something like self-regulating, or independent. 

[4] Barthes refers to these loose-knit religious communities as idiorrhythmic clusters. Sadly, they were eventually replaced by cenobitic orders of monks who lived according to a single model; we might say that individual rule and rhythm were replaced by centralised law and order. Or, as Barthes writes: "Power - the subtlety of power - is effected through disrhythmy ..." How to Live Together ... p. 9.    

[5] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together ... p. 7.

 

[6] Rananim was the name for a small utopian community dreamed of by D. H. Lawrence; a place where he, Frieda, and a few friends could escape the modern world and create a more fulfilling way of life founded upon the assumption that members were fundamentally good at heart and shared his vision for mankind.

[7] Roland Barthes, How to Live Together ... p. 7.

 

[8] Ibid., p. 8. 

 

[9] Barthes also claims that the history of modern communes has demonstrated that things quickly fall apart "from the moment that family groups are reestablished - due to the conflict between sexuality and the law". See How to Live Together ... p. 8.  

[10] I'm referring to the track 'Into the Groove' by Madonna, which featured in the film Desperately Seeking Susan  (dir. Susan Seidelman, 1985). Written and produced by Madonna and her then boyfriend Stephen Bray, the song was latter added to the 1985 re-issue of her second studio album, Like a Virgin (Sire Records, 1984). It was a number 1 hit and remains her best-selling single in the UK.     

[11] D. H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 91. This is Rawdon Lilly speaking. He continues: "'Everybody ought to stand by themselves, in the first place [...] They can come together, in the second place, if they like. But nothing is any good unless each one stands alone, intrinsically.'" 

 

Musical bonus: 'I Got Rhythm' composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1930). Originally sang by Ethel Merman in the stage musical Girl Crazy, it has been recorded on numerous occasions by a variety of artists ever since. Click here for a version by Ella Fitzgerald from 1959.