People de la Muse a typical Artist poem 2013

PEOPLE WHO KEEP YOU WAITING YEARNERS FOR THE ALWAYS-AVANT-GARDE WHINING BOOKSELLERS I HAVE ALL YOUR BOOKS BOASTERS CIRRHOSIS OF THE LIVER IS NO EXCUSE FOR BAD ART NOT BORN AN ARTIST LIFETIME TENURED PROFESSORS Ar tist of his generation Collect small & paint big yourself Collector with 2 1/2 PICTURES INSTEAD OF ONE CHARIT Y EVENTS EXCELLENT ARTIST RESTAURANTS Sensitive furniture-moving for ar t Ar t-lovers who hate letting you finish what youre saying WANDERESSES WALKING IN TIME ON THE WIDE PATH ARTIST WIDOW TERROR POSTHUMOUS ARTIST COUPLES NO CATALOG CHEAPSK ATE-PETERS BECAUSE OF MISER-FATHERS ARTISTS WHO PUBLICLY ADMIRE OTHER GALLERISTS UNIVERSALLY-CONSTANTLY-CRITICAL NON-MUSEUM-GOERS 1 SPONSORS AND 18500 VOLUNTEER WORKERS BUILT MUSEUMS AS AVAILBLE SPACE FOR ARCHITECTS & EMPLOYEES ARTISTS WITHOUT A CORRECT SENSE OF SELF-PRESENTATION IMPOT EN T QUEER FIS H WIT H OR WIT H OU T POCKE T MO NE Y ART BUSKERS DISCOVERERS WHO BUY EVERY THING NONDISCOVERIES FLEEING THEREFROM SHE BIDS IT UP, HE KNOCKS IT DOWN INTERESTED PARTIES WHOLL DROP BY AGAIN NEX T WEEK

people de la muse

People de la Muse a typical Artist poem 2013

Published on the occasion of

S H O W R C A 2 0 13
20 30 June 2013

Painting Department, Royal College of Art London, United Kingdom

Title and Covertext inspired by Martin Kippenberger : People de la Muse a typical Artist poem1

1

Kippenberger The Artist and His Families, Susanne Kippenberger, J&L Books, 2011, p. 197199.
Recited for his opening at the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum Geneva in 1997.

YOUNG GERMAN ART BUYERS IN N.Y. PEOPLE WHO WOULD R ATHER SAY NO THAN FAIL ART WARM Painted-on gray PL ASTIC GRANDMOTHERS Attempts at exposing without revealing DRAWING MOMENTARY FORM THROUGH TIME Chatting up conser vative preser ves qua ar t savvy SUPPOSEDLY INTELLECTUAL HUMOR Retouched I KNOW THAT ALREADY attitude ECO-PRO & CONTRA-LONGLIFE INCINERATORS Operetta = megapicture RESPECTABLE PERFORMANCE = lots of moss Re-cabling not de-naveling SQUARE-CIRCLE-SCRIBBLE-STONESAW-FRACTION LETS GO WEST CURATORS LETS GO SOUTH CURATORS Enfant-terrible-critics for ever y thing WINE L ABEL ARTISTS Reser ving 3 pictures (worse than not buying) Theor y-heavy contemporar y ar t

Contents IN CORRESPONDENCE
7 8 11 1215

Pimping-up the Modernist Suppor t

16 1783

Extracts from The High Drama of High Noon IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER I echo and history Road Width BREATH
95 89 91 9394 84 86

Wanting of Endings

In Alphabetical Order II 9 697

CIAO MEGA ART BABY!

people de la muse

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IN CORRESPONDENCE

with Ruth Noack

Dear Emanuel and Max, I would so much like to engage with you, but writing a text by the end of next week is out of the question. It would not even have been possible if I were still freelance. Show some respect for the craft of writing. Moreover, even the suggested poetic text (or rather ESPECIALLY that), would have to be based on art work that first needs to be looked at - I never write on art unless I know the work very well. It is part of my ethics. Having said so, I was reminded of an anecdote: on display in the brain of dOCUMENTA 13, there was a letter by the artist Kai Althoff, explaining why he chose to refuse participation in the show. I do not remember the reason, only that it was written to Carolyn personally, on very good stationery. The artistic director of documenta 12 received a similar letter from the same artist. It was heavily perfumed. For weeks, our flat reeked of Patchouli. You have my permission to use my mail in whatever form you deem appropriate, Ruth

people de la muse

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Pimping-up the Modernist Support

photographic formaldehyde, research and persistence. The daily practice of painting. Last exit painting. Seeking the primal through paint. Painting beside itself. Thinking through paint. Reflexivity and agency beyond the canvas. Canvases and careers. Post-studio. Post-object. Re-mediation. Paintings pure. One has to be able to take it. The whole network is important! Even spaghettini Painting is a sign, or at least made of them. When you see a painting these days, one could do well to ask a simple question: is this work coming forward as a proposition for what a painting might be in 2013? If the work feels like it is responding to such a question, then it is doing something and may even be important. If not, then it might be just a nostalgia trip for maker and viewer alike. Pleasure is to be found in both options. As in the catholic birdhouse, there are two ways both in and out. Paintings tend, far too easily, to be self-validating, as if once one is hung on the wall, or even leaning up against, a coherent identity forms and all is in place. When we see a painting, we call it by its name and conflate maker with made in an indexical sleight-of-hand that would never be pulled off elsewhere, not without a copious amount of irony. How dreadful (a parodic position might have some mileage left in it). Self and Subjectivity painting still tends to trade on an all too easily won intellectual currency other centuries lent the medium. Whos to blame? Plato. Kant. Hegel. Diderot. You might as well say it was Quiche Lorraine. References to the former are as obscure as the latter in the B-52s . There has been a massive quantitative easing brought on since by others. And the market of lookers, buyers, dealers and collectors continue to make their own inf lationary readjustments in the take up of the subprime.

by John Slyce

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Voltaire

Here we are In an age of diminished expectations where the stakes no longer merely imagined and laced with inflationary ambitions are set even higher and in a more tangible, materialist and pressing way than ever before. It should never be forgotten that someone is going to have to pay for this ride. Why then explore the traditional discourse and perhaps even the archaic tropes and techniques of painting? Why, is it still for some the success medium given its easily identifiable and exhausted codes and moribund hold on the commanding heights of a spent modernist pantheon of medium-specificity? Why painting? Why now? An earlier generation of artists asked a similar question of the picture and then continued to make them with a criticality and engagement that functioned initially as a means to go on. Another small cabal of painters spread across two generations and continents connected in another way with the photograph in order to breathe life into the practice of painting and are lionized to this day as a cross between daytime TV casualty consultants and medieval witchdoctors who resuscitate a corpse through injections of

people de la muse

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(Net)works here belong wholly to their makers and are testament to honest labours, experimentations and explorations in, around and on a platform of painting. This is their baby and they should be allowed to write a future for themselves and their art free of others' battles and engagements with an awareness of what has passed that does not stay their hand. If they can be said to embrace any position collectively, then perhaps it is fair and true to say they are all the children of Voltaire: they embrace something in the medium with a view to the here and now and in a functional relationship to contexts as they explore the space between doubt and certainty. Be kind and be exacting worthy viewers of work that has been, in each case, hard-won and scrutinised with a view to the contemporary conditions we all labour under. I count it a great privilege to have spent time with these artists and the art when it is being made. I hope, with all sincerity, that their work is and will remain always complete and never finished. Unlike the spaghettini.

Mike Kelley, Catholic Birdhouse, 1978, Student work

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Extracts from
by Tai Shani

The High Drama of High Noon

ACT 753 INT. LOCATION:

SCENE 8756 CAR HIGH NOON

Yes, just like you I too once was epic. A lightness of touch and a NARRATOR B:  golden, soft light that stages a room and invokes the undying knowledge of eternity. I was uncanny, yes, spiritual and visceral. Erotic undertoned with latent violence, suppressed, I dangled and was whimsically placed with a considered sense of arbitrariness. I was feminine, I WAS feminine. I was symbolic, unconfined intensity with a knowing nod to, or a rejection of embodiment, I was curled and coiled and was abstracted, I hinged on contrast and tension. At times aggressively jagged, even transgressive, heroic and difficult to grasp. Yes, I was sincere.

NARRATOR A:  In the passenger seat of a white, pure white that leaves afterimage, like a dark force, an inverted car form, stuttering, travelling, overlay on the elusiveness of the everyday, white Fiat Lux*, in that reclining Olympia passenger seat, young Mona reclines. She is wearing a peach, finely ribbed, knitted sweater. The ribs; Industrial lines, side by side in the familiar satisfaction and reassurance of parallelism, lines extending in certitude beyond the horizon, never destined for intersection or transformation. Further up above her ribs, corrupted by the chaos of the extended arc of her breasts pushing underneath the weave of yarn, lines bulge, losing all modernism, losing the symmetry of civilization to disruption and meat interference. On top of the dome of very special, secret flesh held high in firm and plump skin, a smaller cupola, budding nipple, pushes harder still against the taught yarn, stretched till the structure of the weave is revealed, tiny, tiny loops marking beneath them the finer, fruit-like flesh of this concentration of pure pigment and pure affect, Monas true-pink nipple. Each tiny peach-coloured loop is surrounded by a framing sacred halo of fuzzy fibers that bow and rise ceremoniously like gently swaying anemones in the enigma of the abyssal ocean, rise and fall in the ebb and flow of Monas milky, warm breath which rolls softly from the heavy, softly parted lips of girlhood. A string of saliva in the threshold of public and private mouth. A portrait, a still life.

ACT 2846 EXT. LOCATION:

SCENE 6995 THRESHOLD DAY

Everything that led us here has disappeared into the indifference PARADISE LOST:  of nowhere, the fatal ringing that opens the gate into that thick darkness that I can name, which irresolutely holds the namelessness of the void in place enough for me to dissolve into. The sirens song. Play back the sirens song

(SIRENS SONG) OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOO  The sound of one Planck time, the indivisible time unit, the time required for light to travel. The extracted sound of the still frame: O repeated to create a song on the margins of nature.

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 The universe now running at  0.0000000000000000000000000000000000016/299,792,458 fps Replay the sirens song

ACT 25085 EXT. LOCATION:

SCENE 65 BEYOND THE HORIZON DARKNESS

(SIRENS SONG) OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOO  The sound of no time, all surface, all surface, all at once. No sequence, all together: A resounding, synchronal, chorus O.

Disappearing in the obscurity of absolute forgetfulness I go PARADISE LOST:  towards the Sirens analogue song, a wonder of a future that holds no more secrets.  But before I can know it, the void is momentarily eclipsed by the spark of meaning, language igniting, furiously burning colour, shape, objects, but its namelessness resurfaces slowly in the melancholic glow of meanings dying embers where it remains unwavering above and below the black, blackness of its crumbling coal. Black crumbled coal meaning losing its contour to the dark, butted up violently against where the boundlessness of my territory finds its end.  Then the end of the script, shhhhh silence, and no sooner have I said it and it has disappeared, vanished and there lies the only place where its truth can be momentarily glimpsed, right there in its elusive disappearance.  Wildfire running wildly through the burning bush, that miracle that solely burns to brief ly illuminate the boundless, pure night that looms behind it.

ACT 985

SCENE 4522

INT. LOCATION:  GREY & RED ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST PAINTING DUSK Grey: The evening grey suckles like a new born, blind, unbearably NARRATOR A:  wonderful, padding, pink pawed kitten suckling at the days saturation till it is exhausted and all colour fades into a hinted hue monochrome of early night. Against this melodramatic backdrop the branches bow down, the gothic black of spilt ink on chalky dark sky, five stars burning small pin holes through which the silver light of the beyond shines through. (BAROQUE DIONYSIAN TONE)  In a cave behind the hill, two males from the Neanderthal tribe prepare the bison. Rough dirty hands that smell of blood, semen and faeces, flexing bone before it snaps and shatters piercing the slippery organs of the animal which f lop out into disorder, ribbons of blood squirting onto small muscular, tan legs and belly. Red.

Fiat Lux*: is Latin for the Biblical phrase Let there be light in Genesis 1:3

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in alphabetical order I
It's thought of the smell of hessian that first impresses, as opposed to any gap in the material enabling sight impresses as nose presses, against rough weave, recalling other memories or encounters with similar kinds of cloth, whether as wall cladding or upholstery backing or some garment used in a nativity play. The nose touches the cloth, its closeness preventing attempts at focus, it suggests a visual blur, a porous barrier that remains insistently present yet formless, tempting a glimpse beyond, into some forbidden scene.
Ian Kiaer

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004), Brussels [two men], 1932 Silver gelatin photograph 2435.7 cm. Illustrated in Henri Cartier Bresson. Photographer, Bulfinch Press, 1979, p155.
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I thought of staying longer

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w2

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A childs first impulse involves this practical alteration of external things; a boy throws stones into the river and now marvels at the circles drawn in the water as an effect in which he gains an intuition of something that is his own doing.
G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics

Boulevard Anspach II

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 S ocial space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate and exchange material things and information. Such objects are not only things but also relations, as objects, they posses discernible peculiarities, contour and form, social labour transforms them, re-arranging their positions within spatio-temporal configurations without necessarily affecting their materiality, their natural state.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space

Specific Object, for a Bench.

Toil (Slow Decay)

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The Start of Something New and Good.

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Caterpillar.

Alice.

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Fold apart.

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4th March 2013 Dear Statement, Im writing to let you know that I think its better we stop contacting each other for the foreseeable future. I know you have been busy and that you have had many things on your mind but I have to say recently, I feel a widening gap has opened up between us. I know in the past we had our ups and downs but I thought that there were enough common interests between you and I to keep us plodding along. Lately I feel like you are off doing your own thing ninety percent of the time; what was and should be a working relationship has splintered into something I hadnt foreseen. I would like to take few moments to spell a few things out. One thing which really has bothered me; is how keen you have been to run off reading fictional texts from 1920s and 1970s, to watch 70s TV series at random, attend plays in the evening time, to consult archivists, archaeologists and scientists adlib. Does it ever occur to you that sometimes I would like to take part in these activities and maybe even contribute? I mean it doesnt have to be much I can doodle on the sidelines. One thing I must make very clear and one of the MAIN REASONS why I have been upset with you over the past few months, is that I do not intend to illustrate your thoughts at any given whim. I cannot follow your erratic choices and interests, which seem to me to chance pace at the frequency of weather. This sporadic chain of thoughts is making it extremely difficult for me to locate myself in any sense and at this stage I feel like I am embroiled in some kind of part-fictional project. I am also uncertain about your choices in camera angles, format and editing. It feels discombobulated and I intend to counter this at my own discretion. I am uneasy about all the above and I await your response to discuss the matter more clearly. I do not want to tailspin into some kind of existentialist crisis so I insist we meet and you kindly place more cards on the table. It is unfair how you continue to pile notes on my desk, which I am supposed to digest and come up with some kind of creative solution. I also intensely disliked those Beckett pieces and none of the material has helped me in any way. If you are so interested in a kind of fictional technology, then please be assured of my commitment to the aforementioned. It was always my intention to follow some kind of narrative, even if you are totally preoccupied with ideas pertaining to psychogeography and the cinematic essay.

Kind regards, The work

Hy-Brasil

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 The thyme we used was the cultivated or garden form of wild thyme, Thymus serpyllum, in fact the form you see creeping about between pavingstones in paths and terraces. Sepyllum comes from the Latin Serpere, to creep; think of serpent; and in fact two old English names for the wild thyme were serpille and serpolet. My serpolet lawn The Romans believed its fragrance to be a remedy for melancholia; and in later years, our own Elizabethan times, it was thought to cure sciatica and whooping cough, headache, frenzy and lethargy.

After walking around thinking that at some point I should find somewhere to sit and write, it is typical that I started from copying out a quotation, standing up until the guide said maybe I would like to sit down, and then, now, on the couch, I cant really stop except for the feeling that someone will talk to me if I stay too long, and also that the woman sitting next to me is eavesdropping on my writing. The room changes as people come and go it gets noisier in waves, sometimes people whisper, one person said loudly: it is very peaceful. The guide, an old man with a raspy voice, tells the couple next to me in regards to Vita and Harold renovating the barn into this library: They didnt like it when it was finished; Harold said it looked like a Turkish barracks and she thought it was too drafty. I notice it is she and not Vita, meaning that Sissinghurst is primarily her legacy, and in fact, a number of people ask the guide where it was that she died. I wonder what other little anecdotes he has at the ready to pass on, and where he got them from. I suspected I would hear them if I stayed, quietly reading for a few hours he wouldnt give me the kind of ones I wanted if I asked a question, and I dont know what question I would ask except: tell me your stories. The couple said thank you when they left, for this morsel.1

Act.

I am wandering around, trying not to get wound up by large groups of tourists and have settled in the library. I copied down the above passage to feel like I was working. Attracted to potential poignancy within a fairly unpoignant experience, I liked that thyme sounds like time and the idea that it might be a cure for melancholia, but also frenzy (what is frenzy?).
1

V. Sackville Wests Garden Book. London: Penguin Books, 1968. page 94

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Echoes, Rhythms and Deep Flows

By a small indentation in the stone, a bigger one becomes. Granted a little allowance water gathers and transforms. The small groove becomes big, over time shaped by its beginning. How long can a stone left unturned, left to the elements of chance? How possible is it to change a predicament, Knowingly turn the stone, so small holes are stopped from becoming deep chasms? One crack may turn into an abyss. One spark of light could transform the whole of darkness.

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Intimate Conjunctions

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Evergreen.

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The Stream of Stockholm (winter piece)

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From a specific context, reconfigured,to inhabit this architecture

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Fanfan and Emile

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All In A Vision

A New Dialect Formation

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O BA GNATH BHIOS CUIG BLIAIN BUACHAILIN S

R AS BEAG, SCARTHA O SRUTH IS LA SAMHR ADH

A R A I B H A N N D U L AG C RU N A G R E I N E B O L G A D H E A N A M H ,

T UM A DH , I S B OLG A DH EA NA M H A R I S NO

D U L A R S T R A E A R N A G O RT G A I N M H E AC H ,

LEIMHNEAGH TRI NA DOIRE BLATHACH LAN LE BUACHALAN BUI

a typical artist poem 2013

A More Extended Sleight of Hand.

Another More Extended Sleight of Hand.

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bananaboob

sea view

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" It is the dark that contains all the colours, not the light. What else are colours but shadows or shades of light. Lay colours on top of each other and you get black, The purest vision Is pure shadow The opposite of light."
Gunnar Ekelf

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10 WINDLESTRAWS The Abyss of Hallucinations has Law and Reason;  but in Truth there is no bond between the Toys of the Gods. This Reason and Law is the Bond of the Great Lie. Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations. There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men call Silence is Its Speech. This Abyss is also called Hell, and The Many. Its name is Consciousness, and The Universe, among men. But THAT which neither is silent, nor speaks, rejoices therein.
Aleister Crowley, Book of Lies, 1913, Pg. 26

When Set Slayed Sothis

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Dear comrades

Seekers who are lovers.

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ECHO and HISTORY

gestures, painting then had to occupy its own flight into an elsewhere. Painting and cinema, painting and photography, painting and performance, painting and collage, always painting and something else, always a new condition but mixed with something stale as well. Thus painting becomes the ground of its own dispersion, forever in pursuit of lateral extensions, a mutant field of becoming other to itself. I hear a voice saying that in her case painting emerges out different distinct economies but in general terms is the mixing of sensuality and discourse. I have never heard that before. I am not certain was this facile or profound but then I think that I do not really need to know. Anyway painting has always been close to the condition of not knowing. Another voice talks about collecting the shards of pulsation locked deep within the body and blending these within the shadows formed out of mutating memories as the starting point of each work. Such voices would have been impossible in the time of high modernity and yet the figures of high modernity appear to hold some reiterative fascination with this time, perhaps because contained within this gestural reiteration, there is a resistance to the shallow splicing of anything with anything. Painting is posed as a question, because in order to exist, it requires the question of what it poses. In terms of rhetoric we might discuss painting as an impulse pushing forward against its own edge. Perhaps this points to the fact that painting cannot simply be in and of itself but rather requires connection to its own dissolution (a doubled over economy). Yet dissolution in this context would no longer imply the death of painting because that would also imply a desire for a transcendental or revelatory outcome. Could we say that the future of painting is dismal, a vestige of its own promise or a footnote to the dissolution of art? If everything can relate to painting but painting finds itself is increasingly remote from the task of relating to itself and this implies not only a weakening of autonomy, but a decline within the very figures that produced the very coherence for it to assert the potentiality of a future yet to come.

by Jonathan Miles

Being part of a painting school is like being in an echo chamber consisting of broken pieces of syntax, half remembered histories, fragments of sense, whispers, and impulses (an echo chamber of discontinuity). I must confess hating writing about painting because I am caught between the talk of painters and theories of art. I am never certain about what is raw and what is elegant. Painting itself would appear a clumsy mix of both. Someone said to me that Guston had messed things up with all that talk about doom. The man loved painting but couldnt present this simple pleasure anymore, so instead pursued the dialectic of the presentation of figures and figural presentation carrying within this the weight of an impossible burden, but only as an instance. That is what painting had become, a series of instances that desired continuum but failing or faltering in the face of such a possibility. Painting had to contain contradictory gestures, painting tormented as a figure because it was, after all, only painting. It was not so long ago that there was a discussion about Bedroom Romanticism (a mixture of Friedrich, Blanchot and album covers). It was like splicing historical syntax with the immediate wit of mass culture (the remote and the immediate), rather like the contemporary DJ, both hip and potentially aesthetically measured at the same time. I think it took all the death out of painting but left enough dirt to make it seem vital. It was just a matter of getting the tonal range right, as opposed to calibrating despair. In effect the relationship of painting and temporality had started to shift. Following from contradictory

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The idea of the subject and the figuring of consciousness1 assume a connection to painting because of the way they pose ways of going beyond limits. But can we still speak of painting as a limit experience? Painting invariably seemed to arrive too quickly on the scene but is now invariably late. Painting circles around an odd sense of time, just outside of a construction of history that cares little for the arrest of the footnote or remainder that painting occupies. Is the late modern art school now like a strange Tower of Babel? Although there are so many languages, syntaxes, memories, there is no project to touch the sky or impossible infinities. The ruin has already been dispersed and the fragments retain little of the memory of lost connections. Presence is no longer that which coincides with full visibility but withdraws into temporal registers, implying shadow or blind spot as opposed to a shining totality. This morning I was lying in bed trying to imagine Mi Fei (late 12th C), Titian (16th C) and Willem de Kooning (20th C) in conversation. I must have fallen asleep and a dream occurred in which each studio space was occupied by a voice recording of such imaginary conversations. I was drifting from space to space listening to the strangest encounters. Painting itself had disappeared but rather than existing as objects, had instead vaporised into a swirling vestige of voices.

For Hegel consciousness propels the subject beyond limits, but paradoxically because these limits are composed  within consciousness, indicates something that goes beyond itself.
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T ext instructed:

Textile wall of red vermillon.Two sides. Outside, and division. Visioncatch sight of my moving image. Static. In timber of folds. Hats.
by Richard Wentworth

Road Width

Two men and two hats. One moustache. Look, his eye is looking, looking at me! His shadow looks like an approaching whale of difference. Division yet again. Between the two men a bar of metal grey is piercing.

Gathering must be as old as the world, certainly a longstanding subject for art. It has been a prominent subject in photography for two hundred years. Memories of gathering are a private matter, but we like to share them. In the autumn of 1989 I was sitting on a sofa with my two sons watching television. When the news came on, it was the first imagery of crowds at the Berlin wall. My eldest son was nine, my youngest seven. I heard the terrible patriarchal words as they escaped my lips Do you realise that this is an incredibly important moment? No, why? I remember thinking how on earth do I offer these children a glimpse into the history of the 20th century in Europe without coming unstuck?. I regretted immediately that I had made my initial pronouncement, but set off bravely. Well, the wall was put up because two groups  of people who won the war couldnt agree with each other after the war had ended. What war? What do you mean?

Hat one, moustache free face, no coat,

rests his lips and nose on the wall. A touch given to his body of light. From the very near to the very furthest of our home a straight line of vision. Marked. Divided. Numbered. In one bite, both swallowed down by my look. One waiting, the other giving up. Up till here, the end of space.

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 Well really, its a war thats gone on for the whole century, but its hottest moment was the Second World War, the one that grandpa was in Who fought who? Everybody fought everybody. Stop teasing, dad.  Well, its really hard to explain, but people like to remember it as the Russians and the Americans and us against a man called Adolf Hitler. There was plenty of other stuff going on everywhere else. People remember it as the peak moment of everybody disagreeing. Ive heard of Hitler.  Its just so complicated, things are never neat and they dont have tidy endings. So what were they arguing about at the end? Well, they all ended up in Berlin and although  they were relieved they d finished the war, they couldnt really agree on what they d done. Who were they? The Americans and the Russians. So then what happened? Something called the Cold War. Was it cold because it wasnt hot? Yes, it was a really chilly argument with  both lots brandishing all kinds of new weaponry. Youve heard of the atom bomb. Oh that.

Well, they only had a few of those then, now theyve got  hundreds of thousands all aimed at each other. Is that what you call an arsenal? Exactly. Anyway, the argument got so bad that they  built a wall across Berlin. Thats what were looking at on the news. Theyre trying to get rid of it. So how old were you when it was built? Thirteen. They cut the city in half. No, dad, this is one of your jokes, thats silly. You cant cut cities in half.  Well they did. And anyway, Berlin is much smaller than London. They just built this wall incredibly quickly during the summer holidays, right through Berlin. What? A real wall? Like down our street?  Exactly like down our street straight down the middle. Well then you couldnt talk to the people on the other side of the street Well, we dont speak to them, anyway.  Its London. Yes, but we could if we wanted to, but not with a wall in the way. Well, were talking about choices, really. You have to choose.  Anyway, its time for supper. The characters in this exchange lived in Berlin in the years 199394. Flying from newly operational Stansted to Tempelhof and back again became our pattern of travel. Stansted had originated in 1942 as a long range American bomber base.

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Wanting of Endings

by Jonathan P. Watts

... only a spiral movement would meet the facts... Principles of Art History, 1915.

Heinrich Wlfflin,

Painting has died many times throughout modernity. Malevich, Rodchenko, Mondrian, Reinhardt, Stella, Barry, Buren. Then in 1981 October issued its execution warrant - Douglas Crimps The End of Painting. Yet, the following year the publication of Arthur C. Dantos The End of Art, despite its bleak pronouncement, paradoxically showed painting mercy. Crimps and Dantos theoretical sense of endings were in conversation with critic Clement Greenbergs developmental linear narrative of art history based on paintings purification, its reduction to the unique and irreducible features of its medium. For Crimp, if pure painting had been the privileged vehicle of art-historical narrative its purity was compromised by photography. Certainly that would constitute an end of painting - but only on the assumption of Greenbergs narrative. Or perhaps Crimp really wanted to see the end of painting. His aims were political, directed at the exclusively reactionary reanimation of painting in the early 1980s following a decade of conceptual art that forcibly critiqued it and the wider institutional vehicles of art-historical development: the museum, the gallery, the collection, the dealer, the auction house, the connoisseur. The baffling irony of Dantos announcement of The End of Art for artists working at the time was that studio practice continued as normal. Rather, understood historically, a privileged historical narrative had come to an end. What was supposed to happen next?

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people de la muse

a typical artist poem 2013

Nothing was supposed to happen next, Danto wrote after the end of art, because the narrative in which next stages were mandated had come to an end. Art after the end of art comprised painting, but the painting in question was no longer driving the narrative forward. Instead, art after the end of art was characterised by an unprecedented pluralism; a liberating dedifferentiation between media and forms. Writing in 82, the Italian critic Achille Bonito Oliva proclaimed painting now free to pick over painting styles as a sort of objet trouv, detached from their semantic references as from every metaphorical association. They are consumed in the execution of the work, which becomes the crucible in which their exemplarity is purified. For this reason, it is possible to renew references that are otherwise irreconcilable, and to interweave different cultural temperatures... [producing] unheard-of hybrids and different dislocations. In the absence of ideological fixity was multidirectional digression. Impure painting reveled with uninhibited superficiality in the vast image pool, its deeds separated from its convictions: Surrealism without the Unconscious Fredric Jameson called it. Several years ago, looking back, Nicolas Bourriaud characterised this period in question as resembling a mode of thought based on mourning, as a long depressive episode in cultural life. In seemingly motionless space-time, culture had nothing else to do but work through the legacy of mutilated fragments and vague recollections of the past. Bourriauds suggestion of the prefix alter sought to motivate a shift in the historical imagination, a vision of history as a spiral which advances while turning back upon itself. Its a vision shared by Jrg Heiser: The new doesnt exist as a sparkling clean something out of nothing, but as the dirt that gets stuck in the spirals of history (the spiral as a model of development that is neither linear nor cyclical; dirt as that which at first just seems to be left over but which then takes on meaning after all). Painting never really ended, despite the powerful polemics advanced by its activist critics. Today, impure painting, or simply painting, is expanded, pan-media, in screen culture. In a present conceived as a spiral its able to healthily assimilate the past while moving on what is singular about painting endures.

breath

by Nigel Rolfe

"When i let go of what i am, I become what i might be."

Lao Tzu

Into t he air t he pigment breat hes scat tered to t he w ind now free neit her bounded nor restrained not longer limited by t he resistances and obstacles of life f loating t he human spirit f lies it is gone returning now gent ly to ear t h

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In Alphabetical Order II
Katharine Barrington p. 18: Untitled. 2013, oil on Board, 110170 cm; p. 19: I thought of staying longer. 2013, oil on board, 7080 cm; katharinebarrington@googlemail.com; www.katharinebarrington.com Raymonde Beraud p. 21: w2. 2013, oil on canvas, 4838 cm; raymonde_beraud@yahoo.com; www.raymondeberaud.co.uk Lucy Boyle p. 22: Boulevard Anspach II. 2013, oil on linen, 120 cm; lucy.boyle@network.rca.ac.uk; www.lucyboyle.com Benjamin Brett p. 24: Untitled (detail). 2013, oil on canvas, 188235 cm; p. XX: Untitled. 2013, oil on linen, 3540 cm; benjamin.brett@network.rca.ac.uk; www.benjaminbrett.co.uk Jack Brindley p. 26: Specific Object, for a Bench. 2013; p. 27: Toil (Slow Decay), 2013, c-type print, frame, black emulsion paint, 6070 cm; jack.brindley@network.rca.ac.uk; www.jackbrindley.co.uk Lucas Clayton p. 2829: The Start of Something New and Good. #15. 2012, Various Polaroids; www.lucasclayton.com Cristina Cojanu p. 3031: Untitled (From Catch Sight of My Moving Image). 2013, production still, video installation, dimensions variable; cristina@cojanu.com; www.cojanu.com Emily Jane Cooper p. 32: Caterpillar. 2013, steel, polystyrene, paint, approx. 220110300 cm; p. 33: Alice. 2013, oil on canvas, 200 180 cm; 89emilyjane@gmail.com; www.emilyjanecooper.com Charlotte Develter p. 34: Non Titled. 2013, cleaning-pipes, oil paint, acrylic, textured spray paint and lacquer on canvas, 210170 cm; p. 35: Felix Culpa. 2013, cleaningpipes, oil paint, acrylic, textured spray paint and lacquer on canvas, 210170 cm; charlottedevelter@gmail.com; www.charlottedevelter.com
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Luke Diiorio p. 36: 2013, acrylic, oil, pigment on canvas, 5555 cm; p. 37: 2013, aluminum, package wrap, 75100 cm; www.lukediiorio.com Freya Douglas-Morris p. 38: Studio. 2013; p. 39: Fold Apart. 2013, oil on canvas, 3644 cm; freya.douglasmorris@gmail.com; www.freyadouglas-morris.co.uk Laura Fitzgerald p. 40: Dear statement. 2013; p. 41: Hy-Brasil. 2013, Video Still, VHS, 00:20:00 min.; laurafitzgeraldfrominch@gmail.com; www.laurafitzgeraldfrominch.com Dido Hallett p. 42: Studio. 2013, dimensions variable; dido.hallett@gmail.com Keiji Ishida p. 44: Installation view consisting of Night walking, Oil on canvas, 204146 cm & Untitled yellow pocket, Fabric, thread and wood, 140 130 cm; p. 45: Untitled. 2013, charcoal and colour powder on paper, 97 83,7cm; keiji_ocean@yahoo.co.jp; www.keijiishida.com Milli Jannides p. 46: gardenpicture (artist's personal archive) p. 47: Act. 2012, oil on linen, 4045 cm; milli@millijannides.com; www.millijannides.com Sarah Jones p. 49: template; bolt_hole@hotmail.com Katrin Koskaru p. 51: Installation view consisting of Krenholm Manufacture. 2012, oil on canvas, 170 200 cm & lockers, various dimensions; katrin.koskaru@network.rca.ac.uk Dalit Leon p. 52: Echoes, Rhythms and Deep Flows. 2012, oil on canvas, 130150 cm; p. 53: Untitled. 2012, pen & ink on paper, 1521 cm; Poem Untitled, 2010; dalit.leon@gmail.com; www.dalitleon.com Gabriel Lima p. 5455; gbrlima@gmail.com Catherine Parsonage p. 56: parsc01. 2012, oil on gesso board, 3652 cm; p. 57: Intimate Conjunctions (detail). 2013, oil on canvas, 220190 cm; catherineparsonage@hotmail.co.uk; www.catherineparsonage.com

Neil Raitt p. 5859: Evergreen. year, oil on canvas, 240210 cm; neil.raitt@gmail.com; www.neilraitt.com Emanuel Rhss p. 60: The Stream of Stockholm (winter piece). 2012, acrylic on dibond, 150100 cm; p. 61: From a specific context, reconfigured, to inhabit this architecture. 2013, plaster and plasterboard, 1536028 cm; emanuel.rohss@gmail.com; www.emanuelrohss.com Max Ruf p. 6263: Drive (click). 2013, oil on linen, 130 170 cm; photo (artist's personal archive); mail@maxruf.com; www.maxruf.com Margot Sanders p. 64: Fanfan and Emile. 2013, oil and pigment on linen, 130110 cm; margotsanders@gmail.com; www.margotsanders.com Tomie Seo p. 66: All In A Vision. 2013, graphite and spray paint on paper, 122140 cm; p. 67: A New Dialect Formation. 2013, cray, plastic, bird skull and jigsaw, 604040 cm; tomie.seo@network.rca.ac.uk; www.tomieseo.com Joshua Sex p. 6869: Artist's translation into Irish (section of: The Prelude, William Wordsworth); Artist's studio, 2013; www.joshua-sex.com Cyrus Shroff p. 70: A More Extended Sleight of Hand. 2013, charcoal on Ikea MALA paper, 1000300 cm; p. 71: Another More Extended Sleight of Hand. 2013, marble, wallpaper sample, postcard, oil paint, 6636 cm; shroffcyrus@gmail.com; www.cyrusshroff.com Heidi Smith p. 7273; smithheidi@live.co.uk; www.heidismith.co.uk Zoe de Soumagnat p. 74: Sea View. 2013, collage, 1928 cm; p. 75: Bananaboob. 2013, oil on canvas, plastic fruit, plaster, 51 33 cm; zoe.desoumagnat@gmail.com; www.zoedesoumagnat.com Tyra Tingleff p. 77: Untitled. 2013, oil on raw linen, 200150 cm; tyratingleff@gmail.com; www.tyratingleff.net Sanja Todorovic p. 78: Untitled. 2013, oil on linen, 4436 cm; todorov.sanja@gmail.com; www.sanjatodorovic.com
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Timothy Zercie p. 81: When Set Slayed Sothis. 2013, acrylic, oil, spray-paint, lacquer, salt, fabrics and glitter on canvas, 180160 cm; www.timzercie.com Lian Zhang p. 82: Dear comrades. 2013, oil on board, 2033 cm; Seekers who are lovers. 2013, oil on board, 2033 cm; hanbao2222@gmail.com; www.lianzhang.co.uk

Contributing Writers & Artists

Cristina Cojanu p. 88: text instructed Sarah Jones p. 87: brick Ian Kiaer p. 16 Jonathan Miles p. 8486: ECHO and HISTORY Ruth Noack p. 7: IN CORRESPONDENCE Nigel Rolfe p. 95: BREATH Tai Shani p. 1215: Extracts from

The High Drama of High Noon

John Slyce p. 811: Pimping-up the Modernist Support Neal Tait p. 92 Jonathan P. Watts p. 9394: Wanting of Endings Richard Wentworth p. 8991: Road Width

Published by graduating students of the Painting Department 2013, Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom Coordination Emanuel Rhss, Max Ruf Concept & Design Chan-Young Ramert Print by Conrad, Berlin, Germany Special Thanks to Philip Allen, Douglas Allsop, Mike Atherton, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Margarita Gluzberg, Ian Kiaer, Ansel Krut, Jonathan Miles, Sally OReilly, David Rayson, Nigel Rolfe, John Slyce, Steve Smith, John Strutton, Neal Tait, Alexis Teplin, Milly Thompson and Hardeep Virdee, as well as all fine art staff and supporters. 2013. All rights reserved.

YOUNG GERMAN ART BUYERS IN N.Y. PEOPLE WHO WOULD R ATHER SAY NO THAN FAIL ART WARM Painted-on gray PL ASTIC GRANDMOTHERS Attempts at exposing without revealing DRAWING MOMENTARY FORM THROUGH TIME Chatting up conser vative preser ves qua ar t savvy SUPPOSEDLY INTELLECTUAL HUMOR Retouched I KNOW THAT ALREADY attitude ECO-PRO & CONTRA-LONGLIFE INCINERATORS Operetta = megapicture RESPECTABLE PERFORMANCE = lots of moss Re-cabling not de-naveling SQUARE-CIRCLE-SCRIBBLE-STONESAW-FRACTION LETS GO WEST CURATORS LETS GO SOUTH CURATORS Enfant-terrible-critics for ever y thing WINE L ABEL ARTISTS Reser ving 3 pictures (worse than not buying) Theor y-heavy contemporar y ar t

CIAO MEGA ART BABY!

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