sin riesgo no hay arte / without risk there is no art

Carlos Fuentes just died.  Carlos Fuentes acaba de morir.

Many people are writing many things about him.

My friend, poet and professor and all around cool human being Lex Runciman, met Fuentes in the late 1990′s on the occasion of a visit he made to the campus of Linfield College in Oregon. Like myself, Lex was (and still is) a fan; he told me today that he found Fuentes ‘deeply impressive’; then he went on to say, ‘he seemed to me to carry in his thinking an appreciation of the Americas (North, Latin, South) and of Europe — all at once, all as part of one reality, one intellectual construct.‘

Good words to remember the man by.

In English we leave words in memorian for those who have died, passed on, or gone.  A Latin expression which means, literally, “in the memory of.”  We also say RIP, rest in peace. In Spanish the expression is QDEP, que descanse en paz.  Though I wonder to myself about resting in peace: Fuentes, a man who often used words and ideas to provoke and affect, not merely to entertain but also to rile up, to, as the French say, épater la bourgeoisie (or shock the mainstream), might be happier knowing that, though his body has died, his words will continue to stir folks up. In his last published article, which appeared on the 15th of May, 2012, the day he died, Fuentes deplores the fact that the current Mexican presidential candidates seem more interested in petty bickering than in tackling what he calls los grandes temas de la actualidad – the truly big questions which affect all of us today.

Me preocupa e impacienta que estos grandes temas de la actualidad estén fuera del debate de los candidatos a la presidencia de México, dedicados a encontrarse defectos unos a otros y dejar de lado la agenda del porvenir.

But I am remembering Fuentes the writer, Fuentes the thinker.  Fuentes the coiner of brief aphorisms which, though self-evident to some, contain a lot of truth for me in my daily battles, tiny and large, to translate my ideas and feelings onto the metaphorical printed page….to be a writer.

My friend, the Mexican writer and journalist Adriana Degetau, once wrote, para aprender a escribir lo único que se requiere es: escribir, escribir y escribir.  Rough translation — in order to write, the one and only thing that is necessary is: to write, and write – and write.

I agree with those words.  But Carlos Fuentes has a few others which also seem appropriate and real today, as I sit at my keyboard, about to begin writing.  He said -

Sin riesgo no hay arte. Uno siempre debe estar en el borde de un acantilado a punto de caerse y romperse el cuello.

Or, in English -

Without risk there is no art. You should always be on the edge of a cliff about to fall down and break your neck.

Standing on the edge of my own cliff, I wonder about other people’s cliffs.  I wonder about my own neck.  I wonder if breaking it will hurt.  And I wonder what it will feel like….falling.

And is it really falling….if you jump?

Fuentes also said, no me clasifiquen; léanme.  Or – don’t classify me, read me.

I’m going to read more Fuentes.

But I can’t help one tiny last act of classification in memoriam for Señor Fuentes:  you weren’t just a great writer, Carlos.  You were a great jumper.

losing everything

Years ago, starting out as a screenwriter, I heard over and over the apocryphal advice to writers -

“We must kill the thing we love.”

It took me awhile to figure out what it meant. Namely that the one scene in your script which you absolutely will not, can not, ever, conceive of getting rid of, of cutting, of losing – because it is so great, so perfect, so the-essence-of-what-a-good-or-even-great scene should be – may in fact be the scene which you will have to get rid of.  To cut.  Unsentimentally.  To kill.  To make your script ‘work’.

To make it come to life.

To truly transcend. To attain a level or a place you didn’t think possible.

Of course, I didn’t believe it.

Part of me still doesn’t.

It took me a long time to realize – and, yes, I’m still realizing it, as a writer, probably every day – the truth in it. That to really write well….I had to free myself from some fears.  Including the fear of losing something I wouldn’t let go of.  Now, as a writer, I have finally figured out – no, not past tense, let’s make that present tense, am figuring out, ever day – that I have to allow myself the freedom to write anything. And to cut anything.

Anything.

To kill the thing I love.  Or don’t think I can do without.

Chuck Palahniuk, novelist, and a fine fucking writer, says a variartion of this truth in one of his books.

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”  (The Fight Club)

I think Tsunehisa Kimura, the Japanese artist who died in 2008, expressed something similar. Not in words, but in some of his arresting surreal images.

“Waterfall”, Tsunehisa Kimura

Kill the thing you love.

Lose everything.

Then sit down again at your typewriter and put another sheet of blank paper in.  Or, in this new millenium, open a fresh new virgin file in your word processing app. And see if the loss – the metaphorical murder – has opened a new door…..made a small tiny new connection among the millions of synapses that have to fire….

to write

these

w o r d s

Stare

Stare. It’s the way to educate your eyes. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

–Walker Evans

“Truck and Sign”, New York 1928-1930, photo by Walker Evans

animals on my mind

My cat Barkley, friend and companion of the last dozen odd years, died a few months ago. In what seemed to me a cruel and untimely fashion: he was hit by a car. Part of me, a rational part of my mind, reminds me that this is a common fate of urban animals who dwell in close proximity or adjacency (is that a word? if not, it should be) to streets well-traveled by cars. And part of me, a hand-holding part, tells me to focus on the good, the positive, to remember all the wonderful and crazy and silly times and moments shared with him. To remember the half-eaten, headless voles and mice whose freshly-killed corpses he deposited at the front door, in proof of his prowess. To remember the way he lazed and flopped and rubbed himself orgasmically in the small patch of catnip growing behind the back door.

And then another part of me just misses him.

Growing up, in Pasadena, we didn’t have normal pets. I missed out on the kitties and puppies, the cats and dogs and occasional parakeets or lizards or fish that most kids or neighbors seemed to possess in abundance. Instead, we had an aviary with generations of mourning doves with Greek mythological names. So it took me awhile to get used to – to come to understand – to like and appreciate – quadrupeds.  And many of the other bewildering varieties of fowled and feathered beings who sometimes share space with us bipeds. But I came to like them.  Many of them, anyway.

And now, with Barkley two months gone, I find myself thinking….again….about animals.

And seeing them everywhere. This is easy to do when one lives in semi-rural isolation, just outside of a small town. There are dozens, nay hundreds of bird species, from dark headed Juncos to aggressive Blue Jays to circling, patient, lazy and hungry Turkey Vultures. There are the neighboring cows and horses and goats and, most recently, donkeys. There are thousands (seemingly) of insects, now that Spring is upon us; most recently there have been a spate of visiting Bumblebees, enormous black and gold banded buzzing beasts who go about their business with amazing (to me) diligence and focus.

But, honestly, the last place I expect to see animals is when I go shopping, at the Supermarket. Of course, there are the occasional patient dogs, left tethered and leashed by their owners outside. But inside.…??? Animals in the aisles?  Naaahhhhhh.  I don’t think so.

Except, of course, if you live in Oregon. And if you shop at a Co-op, a ‘co-operative’ market which specializes, among other things, in more kinds of organic goods and foodstuffs than you ever knew existed: not just organic veggies and fruits – but organic (range-fed) chicken – organic (wild) salmon – and, yes, even (especially!) organic cat and dog treats up the yin-yang.

And then there are the Simians.

When you first walk in and enter the fruit/vegetable produce area, you see them hanging from the rafters.

Holding hands.

A group of friends in their own little world.

Some seem….what’s the word? almost….philosophical.

Others despondent. Or perhaps merely stoic.

Moving over to the Organic Pet Food section, there are more. Waiting, silently, to engage those who look up, over the top of the shelves.

And if your pooch is injured or wounded, what better cure than a topical salve to apply to the hurt ‘Owwwie’ spot?  The fact that it is made from Hemp may account for the demented grin that appears on Fido’s fizzyognimee.…. Or is that physiognomy?

Humans get animal treats too. Some are the ordinary garden-variety; but if you have a yen for Buffalo snacks, you may be in luck. And, no, I’m not making this up. The only thing I couldn’t figure out is: is it ‘Grab and Go’ …. or Crab-and-Go?  In either case, the buff Buffalo looks so pleased with himself, you just have to go with the flow.

Near the rear of the store, more animals wait patiently for….adoption. Looking at them made me think of Pip, Charles Dickens’ 19th century orphan – and of other parent-less animals and children I have known, met, or encountered, in ‘real’ life or on the pages of books.  There’s something about their eyes, the way they sit there, patiently, staring at you in silence. And waiting…

And you just know, they know more than they’re saying.  They must.  How else to account for….what you see….if you have the courage to meet their gaze….and look into those eyes.

I turn away, to the section which houses water bottles and thermal coffee mugs and once again must stop.  And stare.  And start to grin….and raise my imaginary but oh-so-real glass of beer or bordeaux in an answering toast -

Cheers!

And, yes, all things must come to an end.  Even the animals.  Stuffed, painted, printed, but all alive in their own ways. And, yes, even those who are no longer among the living….do they qualify as well?  As.… ‘animals’?

I don’t know.

Actually, the truth is….it’s not just animals that I’ve got on the brain.

It’s death, too, sometimes.

And, occasionally, the undead. Like the zombies – and the living – in Colson Whithead’s compelling post-apocalyptic zombie novel, “Zone One”, which I just finished, and can’t seem to get out of my head. They’re in there, too, among my neurons. Some recent. And some going way back, to a distant age…

Like this guy.  My last image on this shopping expedition which has turned into a zoological ramble.

Needless to say, my priorities have changed. I’m not the same person who went in search of organic non-GMO soy dairy creamer hours ago. Now I have a new problem to solve: I need to get a job. And earn some money. To pay for the new Zoo I’m going to have to construct….to house all my new animals. And the organic free-range Treats that I’m going to inundate them with….until I bury them under a raw recycleable tidal wave of hemp-buffalo bites.….

Or maybe I’ll just let them fend for themselves….and come back with half-devoured headless rodent corpses, a la Barkley. I still miss him, by the way.  But even when he’s not here….he’s here.

Good kitty.

things I want to forget

Poet Linda Pastan’s words grow on me.

I read them.  I reread them.  Days, weeks, months, sometimes years later, I discover them again.  I reread them and marvel that it seems like I am reading them again, for the first time.

These words of hers are short.

Brief.

And to the point.

 

I made a list of things I have

to remember and a list

of things I want to forget,

but I see they are the same list.

 

Yes.

And then there is Beata Bieniak.

The Polish photographer. Who says her photos make a silent dialogue between herself and her viewers.  Who says her pictures are both a crutch, and a fullness. Who says they are a way of watching the world that surrounds her.

I look at her pictures.

They usually leave me…..speechless.

Like this one.

Finally free, by Beata Bieniak

Freedom.

And the bars of a cage.

Things I need to remember.

And those I want to forget.

A welcome crutch.

And a surprising fulness.

 

Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Beata.

Au Musée du Louvre

Alécio de Andrade, the Brazilian photographer, was a great creator and maker of images. He was also a poet, a pianist, and, until his death in 2003, a resident of Paris for 39 years. During those years he spent much of his time wandering through different collections at the Louvre Museum – le Musée du Louvre – and documenting what he saw with the lenses of his camera.

Among the thousands of photographs from his museum peregrinations is this one, taken in 1970. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; if you believe that, then this one has to be worth at least a million.

Au Musée du Louvre, 1970

Fucking amazing photograph.

It makes me think too, by random synaptic association of several of the neurons that seem to  floating around inside my cerebellum at the oddest of hours, of the words of Hakim Bey, from his essay on T.A.Z., the ‘Temporary Autonomous Zone’, a place which, and there’s really no other way to put it, temporarily eludes and avoids formal or hierarchical structures of control.  Whew.  That’s a mouthful. But Bey’s words are more to the point -

“Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which re-creates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols … Art tells gorgeous lies that come true.”

Museums we carry around inside of us.

Galleries in our own skulls.

Gorgeous lies that come true.

Cool, huh?

I – or at least one of the people inside my head who passes sometimes for “I” (or would that be ‘me’?) – is able to put a name to a few of the things I think and feel (my reactions) when I look at this remarkable photograph.

Sometimes.

Some things.

Others, I’m still in the process of discovering.

But to do that….I have to keep on looking.

What about you?

despite it all

Denver Butson is a great poet.

Actually, Denver Butson is a great writer who happens to be a poet.

No, I’ve never met him.

Except through his words, which I return to again and again.

His poems, which come back to me at odd hours, unexpectedly. In the middle of the day. Or the dead of the night. Or when I am sitting,  trying to recharge my batteries. And staring out the window, at the birds who just happened to have come down to perch on….what is that thing they’re sitting on, anyway? A what?  An antenna?  They used to have those, didn’t they, before cable, before satellite, before broadband and webcasts…

Actually, they still do.

And Denver Butson is still writing.

But check this poem out.

despite it all

there were twelve birds
on the television antenna
on the roof below my window

I counted them

and then one lifted up
and then two
and then three flew away

there are nine birds

and then they too lift up
and fly away

and then one comes back
and then two

there are twelve
no thirteen birds
on the television antenna
on the roof below my window

I count them
and then one lifts up

When asked what advice he would give to writers – to struggling writers, to beginning writers, but not just them, to any and all writers, Denver Butson said -

“Don’t listen to other people’s advice.  Find what works for you and stick to it.  Make it a rule or a set of rules if you have to, but always be willing to break the rules, even your own, when they don’t work for you anymore.”

Find what works for you.

Always be willing to break the rules.

Even your own.

And sometimes, while you’re doing it, it’s good to take time out, and look around you. At whatever it is that really fascinates you. Insects. Bees. Or even….birds.

The ones in those cages, over there, hanging in the trees…

Or the ones outside your home….

Or the ones in those trees, just across that field….

"Watching Birds", by Patricia Atwood

And then, just for fun, try counting them.

As they lift up.

And fly away.

And come back again.

To settle down, briefly. Or for a longer spell. Before lifting up again…

Do they remind you of something?

Someone?

(…you too?….why am I not surprised….)

Give it up for Denver Butson.  He knows….

The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You

Scottish artist Robert Montgomery lives in London. For the past eight years he has been engaged in a public art project, “Words in the City at Night”, in which he hijacks advertising space in the city, often illegally, and uses it to create/display texts…words. Montgomery’s words are part poetry, part an inquiry into our collective unconsciousness.  And part… public art. Montgomery describes his work as “post-Situatonist”, a reference to the avant-garde art movement of the late 1950′s, whose members advocated alternate life experiences to those offered by modern ‘advanced’ industrial capitalist nations. The Situationists experimented with the construction of ‘situations’ – environments conducive to the fulfillment of human desires.

Whew.  That’s a lot of words. But Montgomery’s post-Situationist words don’t pummel us with theoretical manifestos of unitary urbanism or psychogeography; they are simple, evocative, unsettling and, always, poetic.

Like this one.

Sign, painted wood & solar-powered LED lights, De la Warr Pavillion, Bexhill, East Sussex

A confession: his words resonate with me because, at times, they seem frighteningly close to things I have thought, or felt, or come to believe in myself. The idea that people who one cares about can become ghosts who inhabit your life…let’s just say that, it’s not entirely foreign to me. So Robert Montgomery isn’t just a post-Situationist public artist; he’s someone who understands some things about human nature.

About the ironies of our consumer-oriented society – whether you live in a small town in Oregon, a suburb of Guadalajara, or an industrial center in Holland, the credo seems to be the same: buy, buy, BUY. Accumulate, accumulate, ACCUMULATE. Grow everything, from the workforce to the profit margin to the number of possessions that you just can’t seem to do without.

Installation on a London Billboard advertising a Royal Wedding

And yet. Only the other day, trying to jerry-rig a repair on an ancient broken vacuum cleaner, I fantasized momentarily about….what it would be like….to own a new one. And, yes, I already have a good car but, scant weeks ago, giving in to some nameless urge, I test-drove a new one. It was cuter and sexier than my current car but above all, it was NEWER. Am I victim to the same pre-programmed societal lusts that I am judging here? Sure looks like it when I stare at myself in the mirror. Biblical tradition tells us that people who live in glass houses should not cast stones but….is the glass house of my own life really all that….manipulable?

Do I – do we – really need the comfort of….new possessions? new clothes? A new movie star? A special new meal? Or….a new war?

Installation Text, American urban landscape

Do I really want that triple quarter pounder with bacon and cheese and barbecue sauce? Do I really need another dose of the revolution-in-progress from Tahrir Square or the riots in East London or the earthquake victims in Bali? Do I have to have them? What would my life be…..without all of those things, those ‘bits’ and ‘bytes’, the incessant flow of information that bombards me from early morning via my smartphone, my electronic ebook subscriptions, my oh-so-important email updates on the 1001 breaking stories of the Global Village I think I inhabit?

Or all they all chimeras? Illusions? Glimmering mirages like those glimpsed by ancient camel trains across the Sahara? False objects of artificial desires that seduce me into following them?

Busstop installation, London streetscape

The metaphor of the desert is a good one.  So is the metaphor of a bleak 21st century urban landscape with aluminum and glass and here or there a symbolic tree placed artfully by landscapers. And part of you – part of me – says…. No! none of that is real or important. The things that are real or important, I would know if…only I could find them.  See them.  Hear them over the incessant drone of the TV, the smartphone alerts, the multi-media messages that bombard our neurons. And if you did – if I could – find those things that were truly important – truly real – truly alive ….

Well, you’d protect them.  Wouldn’t you.  Nurture them.  Like some lost cold frightened animal.

Installation, urban busstop, London

And sometimes we forget.  Well, okay, let me amend that: I don’t know about you, but sometimes I forget… Things that are important.  Or seemed important. Things that, at the time, I said to myself, I would never forget.

Like the millions killed in Iraq.  Like contested Presidential elections.  Or like the death of someone you once cared for and loved, whose life and works changed you. Montgomery felt that way about Félix González-Torres, the Cuban-born artist who died of AIDS in 1996. He created this piece partially in his memory – but also in the memory of so many other things that….are worth not forgetting. The deaths of strangers, or those we care about. But also the persistence of love.

Billboard installation for Félix González-Torres and Monika, in London

But all of Montgomery’s work is not on the serious or dark side of post-Situationism. He exhibits a sly, twisted sense of humor. Like this special Neon piece -

The Slow Disappearance of Meaning and Truth

I spent a few years living in London.  Haven’t been there in awhile.  But if I was there, I would make it a point to find and/or track down Montgomery’s work. It resonates with people. Not just the cognoscenti, art aficionados, the avant-garde or socially minded artists or writers. But with people on the street -

Montgomery’s work grows on you.  It grows on me.  Little things resonate. Other things provoke.  Still other aspects of it….probe inside me….to places I normally cover up. Like his notion that those we love….come to inhabit us, like ghosts. For some this might be macabre or just plain weird. But for me, in ways I don’t fully (or even partially) understand….it is almost….reassuring.

It should come as no surprise that Montgomery is an ardent supporter of the Occupy movement. At one point he envisaged doing collaborative works in solidarity with them. He also talks of not only the Situationists – but of modern society’s obsessions with creating ‘Spectacles’ -

“The Situationists certainly have been almost a point of obsession for me since I was at art school. I think Guy Debord’s idea of society as a spectacle – he comes from a post-Marxists perspective, but he analyses the coalition of capitalism and the media and predicts, what he calls, a “Spectacular” life where humans will feel disconnected from the things we make. A society where we live divorced from real life, surrounded by images designed to sell us things and give us paranoia. I think we are now living in the Spectacular age.”

Robert Montgomery (right) with his friend Matthew Stone, London DJ/artist, at an opening

Montgomery draws inspiration from the politicized poets and artists who came before him. He speaks of the French Situationists who, during the protests which rocked Paris in May, 1968 – les évènements de Mai ’68 – wrote poems on walls of the campus of the Sorbonne university.  He says, “they saw poetry as an agent for political change, which I find fascinating.”

Montgomery’s work reminds me of the words of the Chilean poet/novelist Roberto Bolaño, who before dying relatively young, immortalized his adopted Mexico City in his cult novel, “The Savage Detectives”. Bolaño said, of the human condition -

“What twisted people we are. How simple we seem, or at least pretend to be in front of others, and how twisted we are deep down. How paltry we are and how spectacularly we contort ourselves before our own eyes, and the eyes of others…And all for what? To hide what? To make people believe what?”

Robert Montgomery creates his works – his installations – to be seen and ‘encountered’ by commuters, ordinary people who don’t know that they are ‘art’; his works are an attempt to describe, in public spaces, what it feels like to be alive right now.

That’s one way to say it.

The other is: his works are transformative….and they fucking rock.

And they have the capacity of lighting a match – and a fire – in parts of our brains, spirits and beings – that have lain dormant for too long.

Automatic Writing

William Kentridge in his studio, drawing typewriters

I first saw William Kentridge’s work – drawings and films – in a special exhibition devoted to him and his works at the Smithsonian, in D.C.  I remember walking in and coming to an abrupt stop.  And staring.  At his immense, largely black & white drawings.  At what for me at the time was the hallucinatory and compelling nature of his images and imagery.  Images of suffering.  Of corruption.  Of greed.  Of pollution.  And of what, for lack of better way of putting it, were the transformations that seemed to be happening in his drawings, in his prints – and then later in his films.  Things morphing into other things. People mutating….men becoming women….women becoming men….objects becoming.… ‘alive’.

From "Stereoscope", 1999

It was mind-boggling stuff.  It blew me away.  The films even more than the still images.

Kentridge standing in front of one of his drawings

Brief pause for the dry, biographical facts and info for those who don’t know.  William Kentridge, born in the 1950’s, is a South African artist known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. The films are made by what I think is a relatively unique process: he makes a drawing….he films it.  Then he erases it.  And changes it.  And films the erasures and changes.  Again.  And again and again.  As the process continues, images.….change.  Evolve.  Move.  And….mutate.  And the whole thing is put together in a lineal temporal fashion to make….a movie.

Production stills from "Felix in Exile", 1994

It’s also worth mentioning that Kentridge studied to become an actor.  He moved to Paris and studied both mime and theatre for a spell. Back in South Africa, he acted and directed theatre, and also worked as an art director for television and films.

But back to his movies.  They were – and are – unlike anything I, who always thought of myself as smart and well-educated – ha! so much for illusions – had ever seen before.  Have ever seen before, really.  His films, like his drawing and prints, are fucking amazing.  They are worth going out of your way to find and see.

"Art in a State of Siege", 1986

They also affected me – and affect me – in ongoing ways.  Much of his work seems political – he is showing us things we really don’t want to see, shoving them in our faces.  But it is also personal, occasionally painful, and surprisingly emotional.  Kentridge’s works run the whole gamut of the inner human experience, another reason to seek them out.

"Casspirs full of love" 1989/2000

In addition to expressing himself in and through visual media, Kentridge is quite articulate with words.  He talks occasionally about his art, his films, his process; he talks about many things.

Like….social responsibility.

Switchboard operators from "Stereoscope", 1999

Q: What do you think the social responsibility of the artist is?

A: I don’t think there is a social responsibility for an artist. I think it’s their responsibility to work as well as they can and as far as they can with what they’re doing. Then I think the nature of what emerges from the work will be much more complicated.

A less precise question would be, ‘is it an artist’s responsibility to predict a beautiful future’? Absolutely not! I don’t think there’s a single core responsibility except to his or her work. I am interested in political art, but precisely in political art that denies such responsibility. In the long run you get work which is: (A) more interesting (B) has a more interesting relationship to the world around you and (C) in the long run, is more responsible in terms of being part of an ongoing unlocking of what constitutes society.

"General" 1993

And…the Internet.

Q: Could you share with us some of your thought about the Internet?

A:  I’ve never found a comfortable way to read the Internet. Every search engine that I’ve gone through is so filled with other noise . . . garbage . . . it’s always felt like picking up a very badly published book. It takes a huge effort to look inside, to find something worth reading. I’m always so put off by the cover page, the contents page and the introduction . . . I generally close the book before I get into chapter one.

And most fascinating of all, the process by which he creates his movie.

Q: I like that you call your films ‘stone-age filmmaking.’

A: That’s because it’s so simple.  The films started because I spent ages writing a film script. And having written the film script, I realized that that was the start of the process. I was going to be spending years trying to get other people enthusiastic about this film before I could start to make it. I’m kind of relieved that I never made that feature film. It could have been a very bad film. I would have been a bad person to make it.

I decided that I needed to find a way in which, if I wanted to make a film, I could start without anyone else’s permission, anyone else being enthusiastic about it. It need to be something that I could do on my own and cost nothing. With a camera and a roll of film I could be filming the first day, I decided. It’s not expensive, so it didn’t depend upon producers coming in to do it, and it didn’t need an army of technicians, assistants, and studio people to do it. It’s the opposite of conventional filmmaking, where you start with distribution and work backward. In the end, if you’re lucky, after three years you spend six weeks practicing your craft doing the actual filming.

Captive of the City, frame from "Johannesburg: 2nd Greatest City after Paris" 1989

Finally, after all these words….some images. This is Kentridge’s film Automatic Writing, made in 2003.  One last thing I should mention: the haunting, complex, jarring music scores to Kentridge’s works are composed by his long-time collaborator, the largely unknown and underappreciated Philip Miller.

William Kentridge understands the paradoxes of being trapped in existence, to be finite creatures of flesh and blood.

“We have an uneasy relationship to our bodies. John Updike refers to us as ‘the herders of our bodies, which are beasts as dumb and bald and repugnant as cattle’. We prod them along, hoping they will not suddenly go off on their own, leap a fence, wander onto the highway.”

Man (Felix) and Megaphone

He puts the dilemma of an artist in a way that is as compelling as his work:

“The first promptings to work as an artist are still there. The questions haven’t changed. How does one find a way, not of illustrating the society one lives in, but allowing what happens there to be part of the work.”

Doctors, from "Ubu Tells the Truth" 1996/1997

Go find his work.

See it.

Look at it.

Watch it.

Then try to see what it does to you.

And, if you are lucky, how it begins to change you….drawing by drawing….erasure by erasure….in the film of your daily routine….your existence.

Pour faire le portrait d’un oiseau

One of my favorite Prévert poems….that’s Jacques Prévert.

I remember when I first read it.  And then I just sat there. And then I remember….I smiled.

A poem about many things.  About cages. And how to open them.  About freedom.  And patience.  A poem about the artistic process….about creating something that looks like something else….and turns into something else entirely.

Here is Prévert’s original text -

 

Pour faire le portrait d’un oiseau

Peindre d’abord une cage
avec une porte ouverte
peindre ensuite
quelque chose de joli
quelque chose de simple
quelque chose de beau
quelque chose d’utile
pour l’oiseau
placer ensuite la toile contre un arbre
dans un jardin
dans un bois
ou dans une forêt
se cacher derrière l’arbre
sans rien dire
sans bouger …
Parfois l’oiseau arrive vite
mais il peut aussi bien mettre de longues années
avant de se décider
Ne pas se décourager
attendre
attendre s’il le faut pendant des années
la vitesse ou la lenteur de l’arrivée de l’oiseau
n’ayant aucun rapport
avec la réussite du tableau
Quand l’oiseau arrive
s’il arrive
observer le plus profond silence
attendre que l’oiseau entre dans la cage
et quand il est entré
fermer doucement la porte avec le pinceau
puis
effacer un à un tous les barreaux
en ayant soin de ne toucher aucune des plumes de l’oiseau
Faire ensuite le portrait de l’arbre
en choisissant la plus belle de ses branches
pour l’oiseau
peindre aussi le vert feuillage et la fraîcheur du vent
la poussière du soleil
et le bruit des bêtes de l’herbe dans la chaleur de l’été
et puis attendre que l’oiseau se décide à chanter
Si l’oiseau ne chante pas
c’est mauvais signe
signe que le tableau est mauvais
mais s’il chante c’est bon signe
signe que vous pouvez signer
Alors vous arrachez tout doucement
une des plumes de l’oiseau
et vous écrivez votre nom dans un coin du tableau.

"La Clairvoyance", by René Magritte

 

And in English –

 

To paint a bird’s portrait

First of all, paint a cage
with an opened little door
then paint something attractive
something simple
something beautiful
something of benefit for the bird
Put the picture on a tree
in a garden
in a wood
or in a forest
hide yourself behind the tree
silent
immovable…

Sometimes the bird arrives quickly
but sometimes it takes years
Don’t be discouraged
wait
wait for years if necessary
the rapidity or the slowness of the arrival
doesn’t have any relationship
with the result of the picture

When the bird comes
if it comes
keep the deepest silence
wait until the bird enters the cage
and when entered in
Close the door softly with the brush
then remove one by the one all the bars
care not to touch any feather of the bird

Then draw the portrait of the tree
choosing the most beautiful branch
for the bird
paint also the green foliage and the coolness
of the beasts of the grass in the summer’s heat
and then, wait that the bird starts singing

If the bird doesn’t sing
it’s a bad sign
it means that the picture is wrong
but if it sings it’s a good sign
it means that you can sign

so you tear with sweetness
a feather from the bird
and write your name in a corner of the painting.

 

Y por fin una versión en castellano -

 

Para hacer el retrato de un pájaro

Pintar primero la jaula
con la puerta abierta
pintar después
algo gracioso
algo simple
algo hermoso
algo útil
para el pájaro
apoyar después la tela contra un árbol
en un jardín
en un montecillo
o en un bosque
esconderse tras el árbol
sin decir palabra
sin moverse…
A veces el pájaro aparece al instante
pero a veces puede tardar años
antes de decidirse
No desalentarse
esperar
esperar si es necesario durante años
la prontitud o la demora en la llegada del pájaro
no guarda relación
con la calidad del cuadro
Cuando el pájaro aparece
si aparece
observar el más profundo silencio
aguardar a que el pájaro entre en la jaula
y una vez que haya entrado
cerrar suavemente la puerta con el pincel
después
borrar de uno en uno todos los barrotes
con cuidado de no rozar siquiera las plumas del pájaro
Reproducir después el árbol
cuya más bella rama se reservará
para el pájaro
pintar también el verde follaje y la frescura del viento
el polvillo del sol
y el zumbido de los bichos de la hierbas en el calor
del verano
y después esperar que el pájaro se decida a cantar
Si el pájaro no canta
mala señal
señal de que el cuadro es malo
pero si canta es buena señal
señal de que podéis firmar
Entonces arrancadle suavemente
una pluma al pájaro
y poned vuestro nombre en un ángulo del cuadro.

Jacques Prévert et son chien (Prévert and his dog)

Si l’oiseau ne chante pas, c’est mauvais signe

Si el pájaro no canta, mala señal

If the bird doesn’t sing, it’s a bad sign

But don’t worry too much.

Because if the dog barks – or licks you – all may not be lost.