Ian Hays: A Reply to CP

This is a Reply to some interesting questions from Conceptual Painter 2005.

I am using contemporary writers in my work in the sense that past and current exegetes and commentators on my theme are relevant to my own studies though my reading of these is now almost totally on Joyce. I think Joyce is a ‘contemporary’ writer in that Finnegans Wake is still ahead of the game and not many people have read the book. Indeed, Derrida says that Finnegans Wake cannot be ‘read’ at all and what he seems to be pointing to is connected with thought and how it seems to work. Sheldon Brivic is interesting on this:

Joyce maintains the place of the Other as a constant displacement by endlessly changing the rules of language with each new stylistic experiment so that the principles underlying style recede into complexity. Such an uncapturable authority is stronger than any definable intention because it cannot be reduced and so it remains creative. It requires a knowledge greater than consciousness, which can only grasp one intention at a time. Joyce is always beyond any definition we try to enclose him by. (The Veil of Signs. p.24)

The above quote works perfectly well for Duchamp too you will note. The notion here is that rather like a computer we really only do one thing at a time but that flux keeps us from ever fully ‘standing outside’ (and therefore ‘understanding’) this, hence the likes of texts that breath through the workings of phenomenology, and writers like Lacan (who is Brivic’s other main protagonist in the above noted book) who can perform ‘psychological’ acts on literary events. Looking at just two of the structural works Joyce employed in Finnegans Wake that were written by Vico and Bruno, and even looking at structuralism, the concept of the cyclical nature of history suggests that the ‘contemporary’ is fleeting as is ‘today’: that the daily newspaper becomes old the same day but that Homer (and Joyce) are always new. Bearing in mind that Joyce Studies is an international phenomenon, and that one can only do ‘one-thing-at-a-time’, I don’t find myself wanting to read outside of my current bibliography which is growing by the month as my visual/written enterprise goes on. I intend to read At Swims Two Birds by Flann O’Brien. This work was pointed out to me by a colleague and the book is also mentioned in Joyce Upon the Void by Jean-Michel Rabaté. As to students of art who do not read enough, sadly this is the case in my own experience, but this is not the fault of the internet or television since these are either switched on by someone or they are not. If the field of art is to be once again culturally significant and worthwhile then its status as a discipline that scorns mere flattery, and is truly transcendental, in which pure thought is valued and scholarship celebrated, then the act of reading and writing on and around art must take place and be prized.

Art is a life-changing discipline, so that reading on and about it is also life-changing. This becomes clear when we read the subtle insights on what it is to be complexly human in works that stimulate thought in ourselves and moves us into the mundane with such force that we see the world anew: not in the mode of the newspaper but in that of the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, the Ulysses, the laughter in Duchamp’s fraudulent manners of creativity and punning and, of course, so many more works of human consequence. Pedagogy and genuine learning is ghosted by near failure, failure, and invisibility otherwise nothing of value would be achieved: it means putting ourselves and our works on the line in order to be multifariously human. To this extent if my visual and written work that you are asking about fails or succeeds then so long as it does inspire others to read, write and to make visual work too then the pedagogical attempt must be a coup.

It is clear that the visual and the written are interfaces, are coextensive, and this much is clear in Finnegans Wake and The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. It is no less clear really in simple books on the history of art either come to that. It would be immeasurably difficult to imagine people in the visual arts being ‘called back to literature’, poetry and philosophy in order to gain inspiration, because it is so easy for us to see how we could fail to make our mark in society and culture since by exploring and reading within these academic fields and making ourselves conversant with them would mean sitting in the shade of more popular forms of visual art that get exhibited.

What the visual and written do for me is help me contextualise different aspects of what I think a work of art might be and there are as many aspects as there are meetings I have with the work I am looking at: I worry constantly about the dilemma under my gaze. Each aspect, and each context, while being worked through has something of my own experiences shaping them that are also totally coextensive with issues brought about by literature, philosophy and poetry; in other words the books I am reading. This means that the work I do is not ‘illustration’ in the usual sense of the term. This would be a meagre and misleading thing to think when looking at the pictures and is in any case disqualified by my writing that is the other centre of my work. At present the picture I have been working on for some two years has a written document in excess of 630 pages in length single spaced up to today. There are another 48 documents that accompany this text on various topics that at the beginning of this project I deemed to be important enough to be treated separately. This is not ‘good’ writing but instead, I hope a catalogue of ideas whose grammar and intellectual promise is gradually improving. Thus, the writing/academic portion of the work can be read as a learning experience that is also reflected in the visual work since layers of additions to already quite complex-looking material are intended to be improvements on earlier thoughts, acts and designs.

In the way I was just now using the word ‘contextualise’ I had in mind that for me contexts are changing constantly of course, and that my images and texts might call to mind the elusive butterfly and maybe Symbolism from which Joyce, for one, (only partly in my own current view) wanted to escape. A thought I have is that more is less and that the more I try and the more I add to the picture that will probably never end, then the closer I will get to ‘suggesting’ (Mallarmé) something as simple as an ordered and interesting garden (think of all the metaphors you like in conjunction with this image including worms and worm holes, the gnomon [measuring shadows = Duchamp/Joyce], the micro and macrocosm, and also extreme subtlety as a way of looking through my work and it should become more interesting for you). If such a thing were possible, when you finally get to see my images on this site, which I am told may be soon, then the works of science and molecular chemistry I have been recently reading, and whose images are beginning to form within the visual and written work, will play a part in bringing lucidity to the subtleties I am trying to impart. If this sounds fancy it will do for the time being. It is not necessary to be ‘in the know’ about a work of art but the problem of emotional and intellectual self-sufficiency for the spectator, the idea that one might be missing something Big, will always haunt that spectator if they are in the least interested in the arts and what the arts can do. Philistinism is not a problem but merely a state of ignorance in any age, in any century, no matter the reason: it’s a matter of simply missing out on what has been offered free of monetary charge but which is hopefully blessed by electrifying rigour. I am more interested in space-time and change through an art and life whose single aspects or parts are themselves multifaceted (or as some like to say ‘fragmented’) as opposed to somehow assuming that a ‘finished’ work is one that teaches a more profound lesson. Dissemination is a critical issue in all of this and so No: I do not think it is ‘fair’ to ask insightfulness of everyone but then one is not working for everyone (perhaps Alexander Pope had something important to impart after all when he wrote his Essay on Man!).

I think university life must be vital and that art has its rightful place here with things in motion. I still think that what the Slought Foundation is doing in Philadelphia is excellent but then of course this was a brief experience of mine, but still the State University of Philadelphia has a great deal to be proud of. As to the

Museum

Art

Philadelphia

, the notion of letting them know my thoughts on the Duchamp room had never occurred to me: but your really interesting questions have stirred my thoughts in that direction. These were not ‘stupid questions’ C P but ones that have brought about a fairly swift reply from me in one brief go in a very busy week.

Comments

Ian,

some really provacative ideas here... I agree with you about the state of contemporary artists vis a vis not reading enough. The two painters I know personally are both voracious readers, but also paint outside any of the current trends, so are anomalies. As a writer, I involve myself heavily in studying art- I wrote a paper for an art history class called "Dada to Deco" which traced a path from the avant garde to the commercial in between the wars, and my BA thesis was on Joyce & Hypertext.

I'm a disciple of both Joyce and Duchamp in my own writing, and I'm working on a mock epic which owes much to both. Feel free to read it at:
http://fw269.com/shabby.rtf

cheers-

Posted by: brewdog | March 25, 2005 at 08:44 PM

Ian,
Thanks for your answer and for all the doors you opened with your thoughts.
Hope you keep going with this blog... I'll be around to read your texts and question them.

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Posted by: Comprar Vimax | December 15, 2011 at 08:49 AM

VM,Thank you for keeping the need to pray for Japan alive. We need not erogft to pray for our neighbor, in a week, a month or even a year. They will need our help and our prayer for a while to come.Regarding our children and our families here, I love that you have encouraged prayer from others to the children on our own soil. True, we may not have had a recent natural disaster in our home town that matches Japan. However, the emotional and physical Tsunami's and Earthquakes that shake the hearts of our children and drown the life out of a happy heart need to be held close and prayed for DAILY!xoxo

Posted by: Lahi | April 18, 2012 at 08:18 AM

Julie Lee - Joyce and Rob Can't wait to meet baby Selah. Hopefully she takes after her momma!!! The pictures are atberh taking.August 13, 2011 3:32 am

Posted by: Rina | April 18, 2012 at 04:11 PM

Thanks Daria!!I just disadcovadered this comadment page, very cool!It is a nice webadsite designed by our lolvey and taladentedWeb Designer Debadora Crosby.We are gearading up and startading to draw out all the lessons for each and every stuaddent.Guy and I have all kinds of goodadies for our stuaddents…Wateradcolor paper with two pre-drawn lesadson per stuaddentGuy uses 300 lb arches cold press WC paperJoyce uses 140lb cold press WC paper — stretched creadatading a beauadtiadful wateradcolor canadvas.Brushes and Pigadments will be supadpliedHand-outs with the step by step instrucadtions, pigadment charts and much more.AND…if that wasn’t enough all our stuaddents get a DVD of each lesadson!All of the above is included with the workadshop fee.The Student/artist just has to show-up, sit down, paint, relax anda0enjoy!!

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