Piero Manzoni, Artist’s Breath, 1960
via http://home.sprynet.com/~mindweb/page15.htm
I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a staring point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap & still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.
I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for an art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggy’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.
I am for art that is smoked, like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.
I am for art that flaps like a flag or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.
I am for art that is put on and taken off, like pants, which develops holes, like socks, which is eaten, like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit.
I am for art covered with bandages, I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps. I am for art comes in a can or washes up on the shore.
I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.
I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.
I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.
I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.
I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind mans metal stick.
I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.
I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetys arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth.
I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.
I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.
I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.
I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a government check. I am for the art of last wars raincoat.
I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer-holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worms art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.
I am for the art of neck-hair and caked tea-cups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for odor of boiling dishwater.
I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red and white gasoline pumps.
I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.
I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.
I am for the art of scratchings in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.
I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids’ smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.
I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beerdrinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a bartstool.
I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog-turds, rising like cathedrals.
I am for the blinking arts, lighting up the night. I am for art falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off.
I am for the art of fat truck-tires and black eyes.
I am for Kool-art, 7-UP art, Pepsi-art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol Art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L & M art Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New ar, How art, Fire sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art.
I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat’s dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.
I am for the art of meowls and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.
I am for the white art of refigerators and their muscular openings and closing.
I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meathooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue and yellow meat.
I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for for the art of crayons and weak grey pencil-lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.
I am for the art of teddy-bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, explodes umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.
I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phonographs.
I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharohs. I am for an art of watertanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for U.S. Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-eat art, Best-for-less art, Ready-to-cook art, Fully cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, Pork art, chicken art, tomato art, bana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art.
add:
I am for an art that is combed down, that is hung from each ear, that is laid on the lips and under the eyes, that is shaved from the legs, that is burshed on the teeth, that is fixed on the thighs, that is slipped on the foot.
square which becomes blobby
May 1961
How long shall I wait for you?
Do not wait for me. I am tired and I want to lie down.
Are you tired and do you want to lie down?
Yes, I am tired and I want to lie down.
A beautiful video by my friend Joanne Nucho.
Paul Thek
photo by Peter Hujar
via api.ning.com
a show i wish i had organized
Came across this review by Holland Cotter of a permanent collection drawing show from 1997. I was struck by how many of these artists are on my mind lately — even Paul Thek, who is my latest obsession. I only wish there was a catalogue…
Went to a fantastic lecture today by one of my favorite writers, Diedrich Diederichsen, who was discussing the artist Martin Kippenberger. At the very beginning of the talk, he alluded to the idea of “sequentiality” in Kippenberger’s work. Sequencing has been on my mind a great deal lately because of the exhibition I’m co-organizing. (It’s called “To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book and it opens at MOCA, Los Angeles, on October 19.)
In a way that I can’t even begin to paraphrase, Diedrich elucidated the “endlessness” of Kippenberger’s practice — i.e., the ways in which Kippenberger’s work would lead to other work (a path that is decidedly non-linear in reality) but would also lead to work done by others (friends, assistants) that would be part of his practice. And when Kippenberger became unable to do the work he would set another in motion to do it for him. And so on, and so on…
Diedrich also talked about what amounts to a joke deprived of its punchline, a joke that can go on and on endlessly without the closure provided by a punchline.
A couple of specific thoughts came to mind that I want to remember for later:
If MK’s practice was somehow based on endlessness, how does it feel to be one of those who made work for him? What is it like to work in the shadow of someone who worked in this way? Is it a concern that any work done by those people henceforth is co-optable under this rubric? I’ve recently observed that some artists who were close to Kippenberger during his life have sought to distance themselves from his legacy and I wonder if this is an act of artistic survival for those artists who are still alive or is it a refutation of something that threatens to become commodified.
Also, I am intrigued by the potential that could be yielded through a consideration of sequenciality in an artist’s practice. Perhaps for some, one thing leads to the next and so one, but for many the path is more rhizomatic. And, in deference to a model that Diedrich himself likes to call out in his writing, one often discovers the presence of internal loops — of the eternal return to certain themes and ideas that lead elsewhere each time they are revisited. Certainly that is the case for me. I am often surprised to find myself thinking about something that preoccupied me many years ago but it continues to be generative, especially in the context of the current moment, as it leads me in a new direction (which turns out to take me to the place I started). This blog is proof of that.
More on sequentiality later. Thank-you Diedrich — and Martin, wherever you are.
The idea of language as material did not begin or end with Smithson, but Heap of Language (1966) is a singular statement. I love how it is both a poem and a drawing — and, in some way, a sculpture. Something to aspire to.
Click through to read Richard Sieburth’s insightful essay on it.
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.—Walter Benjamin
I used to be afraid of boredom. Now I am embrace it.
Odilon Redon
Cactus Man
1881
Charcoal
49 x 32.5 cm
The Woodner Family Collection, New York
This somehow reminds me of Matthew Monahan’s work.
