Magritte et al

Some artists' work seem to make it impossible to make anything new. You're burdened by their achievements, kinda thing.

Like this:

I never used to like Magritte (for he is in truth the author of said painting), I thought he was a big cheeseball, because he was popular and accessible in the same way Klimt or Dali are, or something. But I keep running up against him. Recently (in Tokyo) I saw a whole lot of his paintings in the flesh and I just yielded. They were great; he's great. But they are really like a complete circle that appears to close off that territory for the artists that follow (like Duchamp's readymades I guess).

I saw a poster made by an artist once that listed all the object-territories captured by various artists, like:

Beuys owns felt
Kusama owns dots
(etc etc)

I often think of it. There are territories I'm interested in that I feel that way about. Like, Magritte owns semiotics, Schwitters owns collage, Andrea Fraser owns institutional critique, Thomas Demand owns models, and so on. I realise this is an uber-reductive way to think about artists, but that doesn't stop it feeling inhibiting.

But anyway, one's own desires for worldly success aside (because obviously the PR-driven media, time-poor curators and confused audiences prefer neatly packaged artist oeuvres), who wants to inhabit a bounded territory like that? How boring. That's like having to write romantic fiction or something. It's a big fat trap.

/obvious

While I'm not here

This is what I've been doing with my time:

Kate Beaton: I love love love. I just keep coming back.

Asterios Polyp. Just read it, if you like comics.

While I was in Laos and Cambodia, I was digging Never Let Me Go. Also excellent.

The world is just full of stuff that's good. How are you supposed to find the time to do your own things?

Best Picture

There's a William Eggleston one I've always rather liked. I'm not sure if it could be called 'best' exactly.


But that's a whole other discussion.

The Crimson Petal and the White

Right now I'm reading this:


It took a while; initially I felt it was too cold or something, but I'm about a third of the way in and it's completely pwning me. It's a page-turner, to be sure.

The best part, now that I'm in there, is that I have some 500 pages to go.

Favourites

Two of the best films I think I've seen over the last twelve months are 'Happy Go Lucky' and 'Man on Wire'.

Goodness me they're wonderful.

I love Mike Leigh so very very much.

That's all I have to say about it for the moment.

Last word for the day

I'm finally really stuck into this book.


It's totally doing it for me now. I'm about a third of the way through.

I can hear the Fleet Foxes in the other room, so I'm going to read some more.

Aussi, parce qu'il pleut.

Homme

So, JC is a fucking good drawer. You should look at his illustrations. I really like the New York ones. He draws so effortlessly.

JC, you told me you wrote a novel - what happened to that, eh?

And what about that trip to Sydney? Huh??

A warning, though: it's no NYC. It ain't even Paris.

In the meantime, I'm making more flags. I'm over 'em.

You may say to yourself, my god! What have I done?

David Byrne is just a magnificent performer. I love this song. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was little in the soundtrack to Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Everything about this is great.

Lying to George

George is a little bit freaky in this scene, but his passion is magnificent.

Today

I was walking home from work through the park and there was a young couple talking about and looking at something sitting between them.
"...outlaw,"
I heard as I approached them.
"He's a good boy," she responded
"Not too good; he's got a twinkle in his eye," he said.

I looked, discreetly, and was surprised to see not a baby or a puppy, but a 1L water bottle on the bench as the subject of their discussion.

I was a bit like 'huh'?

Then I remembered this scene, from whence I believe this dialogue was drawn:



I cannot imagine a play of Raising Arizona, and I suppose I shall never really understand.

I am reading

This:

It's really, really good.

This sentence is a link to a short but good Self interview that's characteristically cut-to-the-chase-y