Collecting; tourist painting; matchbox labels

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A series of matchbox labels from 1959, depicting Stalingrad, now Volgograd.

Here the car suggests film noir, perhaps a scene out of The Third Man.

My favourite of the series depicts Joseph Stalin atop a vast plinth, overseeing his citizens who wander  in the Square of the Fallen Fighters.

A closer look at the monster.

 Is this man about to become a victim of the KGB?

Have a look at these triumphs of Marxist-Leninist culture!

 Where some might see drabness, I sense a sort of seriousness, of civic pride and sincerity. This drawing is somewhat amateurish, but surely this only adds to the labels' charms.

There is a gravity in east-European cultural artifacts which seems, in the content of the ingratiating, often infantalising qualities of much of  Western produce, very appealing.*

The Eastern European matchbox producers made many series depicting civic monuments.

When I visit foreign towns it is such an idea that I have in mind - "tourist pictures"- as I call them and  I compile a list of places to go.- representative buildings and places- and attempt to depict them in an authoritative mode.  This is a way of creating collections.*

Famous tourist sites are so often styled in such a way as to contain and channel viewers or visitors perceptions in extremely limited ways. They are acts of urban propaganda, This is most evident- ironically so- in national monuments and grand squares, which in their nationalistic glory are almost identical to each other, much as world flags differ remarkably little in their colours and graphic devices (Brazil, among few, must be praised for the adventurousness of it's design, and New Zealanders on their recent decision to consider new possibilities).

Nonetheless, the simplicity of purpose seen in the idea of working through a list of important paintings is one of the things that appeals to me. With this simplicity of purpose comes a child's eye view of cities- as a series of monuments or important buildings (like the child's vision of history as a series of important dates). This is immensely appealing to those seeking refuge from complexity. This, and the idea of completion. has immense appeal to the artist weary of the open-endedness of artistic research and who is seeking refuge from the apparent randomness inherent in the pursuit of aesthetic victory.

The other element  relating  to tourist painting is that I like is this is the equipment you require is... and a list of the necessary equipment, as if making art were one of those wholesome activities encouraged by the editors of  The Boy's Own Paper and parodied so nicely by Glen Baxtor's cartoons. The list of equipment obviously parallels the list of things to do in all its earnestness. 

Each item has a most specific function and a delightful old fashioned name and is held in a heavy wooden box, which is secured with enormous brass clips. My equipment does not quite fit into one case, alas: I need to carry the pictures in a shoulder bag, but most of it is extremely sturdy, made of ash and bristle and leather and fine stout British materials, I just lack a Pith Helmet.

With these thoughts in mind I pack my bags for New York.

Glen Baxter, from Trundling Grunts, Bloomsbury, 2002

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* Observe, by contrast, how Parisian authorities assaulted wonderful Place Vendôme:

From the Guardian, October 23, 2014:

American artist Paul McCarthy is hitting back agains French critics after his provocative "butt plug" was vandalised last week.

Stung by the public backlash against his giant green installation, Tree, which resembled a sex toy, McCarthy has been working on an “aggressive” response as part of an exhibition at the Paris Mint, officials said on Thursday. The Mint, located on the banks of the Seine opposite the Louvre, is to host a working chocolate factory when it reopens on Saturday after a massive three-year renovation.

Vandals cut the cables of the 25-metre (80ft) inflated sculpture in the Place Vendôme last weekend, amid protests from conservative groups. One passer-by was so incensed by the installation, near the Ritz hotel, that he slapped the artist.

McCarthy decided against re-erecting the Tree, which was deflated by security officials, and has instead planned an artistic response. 

**One might attempt to speculate further on the emotions that drive collectors. It strikes me that the desire for completion, the delight in numbers, the pedantry (ah but this is the thirds edition! it is the second with the flaw in the lower left hand corner that is really sought), and the sense of obsession seen in collectors are in opposition to common creative and artistic energies, in which spontaneous responses are enjoyed, which  have unpredictable results, and in which experimentation are usual (we can see this opposition in Perec's novel Life a User's Manual, in the training of Bartlebooth in the art of painting, as a sort of existential exercise to conquer, or control experience.  Bartlebooth then (here I quote from WIKIPEDIA) embarks on a 20-year trip around the world  painting a  watercolour of a different port roughly every two weeks for a total of 500 watercolors. Bartlebooth then sends each painting back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a carefully selected craftsman named Gaspard Winckler (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier) cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each jigsaw, re-creating the scene.

It is notable that "Barltebooth displayed at the start a complete lack of natural talent", a natural mediocrity which is only conquered through steady application of process).

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Many thanks to S. Mirkowski and Professor J.B. Deregowski for assistance regarding Russian words on the labels.

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Portait of a Russian Woman; free pictures

Portait of a Russian Woman, oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm

One of six portraits that were painted in the same corner of a flat in Maida Vale, London, about ten years ago. At the time, my notion was to create a huge series (very Perec-ian, perhaps), featuring many different sitters: life, however, got in the way.

At the time I was into portraiture, having had the notion of making a career of it. But I discovered that I lacked dependable accuracy in drawing likenesses. I was especially poor at depicting women, partly because my painting style was so angular that they appeared, literally, hatchet-faced.

I am sending this one to France, along with a nbumber of other paintings. It's great to find homes for pictures which have been sitting in storage: paintings should be seen and enjoyed.

Ergo, should readers see things they like here or on Flickr- particularly larger things, and want them, please let me know and I will send them to you if you pay the postage, packing, and handling costs.

Tourist pictures

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Sunset, August, Florianópolis, oil on card, 12.5 x 10 cm SOLD

When I lived in London I had the idea of doing a series of tourist pictures.

These pictures would, in part, be a homage to Georges Perec's Bartlebooth, from, Life A USer's Manual , and a homage to the place itself (a slightly ironical homage, given the wryness or uninterest that those who live or have lived in London tend to develop toward the touristic places- a general capital city-dwellers attitude, indeed).

The pictures would feature the obvious places:

Tower of London,
Buckingham Palace,
Tower Bridge
The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben
St Paul's Cathedral
Trafalgar Square/ Nelson's Column/ St Martin in the Fields/ National Gallery
Picadilly Circus
Harrods
Regent's Park
St Jame's Palace
London Eye
British Museum
The Albert Hall

Have I missed anything?

When I lived in London I didn't have the idea of painting little pochades, each taking a few hours at most, so the concept daunted me, and never got off the ground. Now, with this marvellous working process it is all much more of a possibility, so when I am next in London, in July, I shall pursue it. 

Ten or twelve pictures is about possible in a week isn't it? Depending on the weather, of course.

I reflect also that I don't actually really like painting in public places, because having to chat to others is often annoying, and this is partly why the run of my pictures are of out-of the way places. It is also because the views of historical sights are very often highly familiar, and it's difficult to add anything to them.

Often the idea of a picture is more satisfactory than the reality: you arrive at a spot and it turns out that the view isn't as good as you hoped- traffic or tourists of road signs obscuring the view. So you end up painting something adjacent, looking in the opposite direction, having been unable to match your idealised image to the scene in front.

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Bad art, discussion 2

Here are some criteria for judging whether a work of art is bad (it leads ultimately to the paradox that some bad art is better at being bad art than other bad art- i.e. "this is the best bit of bad art I've ever seen). I shall concentrate on painting, sometime venturing into other media for the hell of it.

1. Technical failure. The work cannot be seen. A film that has not been processed. It is disintegrating, toxic and will cause ill-health. It is a painting that is falling apart. Jackson's Pollock's work falls into this category.* A good work of art is not generally going to kill you or destroy itself or anything else (firework displays being an exception and of course some art is necessarily organic, such as garden design).

2. Technical failure. There are failures of execution which marr appreciation of the art piece: the paint is fugitive, the sound has gone, the record is so muffled it is unlistenable. Now, of course, some appreciate the crackles on old 78rpm records, and the cracks in varnish. This leads onto the question of what we should be appreciating. It wasn't the intention of Rembrandt, for instance, that we should like his work partly because of the yellowy varnish surfaces, or Fats Waller because the recordings have that muffled sound. Does that matter to anyone other than restorers?

3. Technical failure in execution. In painting, discernable errors in drawing, description of items, colours, tones etc. These are usually identifiable if the artist is obviously part of a school. If the artist is very "over there", it's hard to know how to judge: David Hume knows, however.**

4. Lapses in taste: ugly. Paintings with horrible colours, instruments out of tune. Lack of understanding of overall composition: imbalance, inharmonious. Ill matching colours, lack of sensitivity: a subjective category.

5. Lapses in taste: disgust. Can a painting of a turd be a masterpiece? As a Robert Crumb fan I hover in uncertainty. Salvador Dali attempted to make work that appalled the viewer- he is regarded with suspicion by critics but has mass appeal (apart from his Civil War paintings, where the sense of disgust has an obviously moral aim). Orwell does an excellent job on this unpleasant artist***

6. Lapses in Judgement: ethics. Is it possible to make a great, openly racist work of art? Norman Rockwell made some anti-racist art which is horribly patronising (but then, condescension was his forte). Generally negative sentiments translate uncomfortably into art. It's surprising how few works of art offer negative criticism of the ethical or political views of another group (political cartoons are another story). Books can do this more effectively, but there is always the risk that we start to feel sorry for the victim, because to be effective, a characterisation has to be built on an artists capacity for sympathy for his subject- good or ill.

The patriotism of other nationalities is remarkably irritating: American patriotism particularly so (or is that just me?- I think it's the sheer bone-headedness behind it- I've had conversations with Americans in which they plainly believe they were solely responsible for victory in Europe 1945, as if the Russian contribution was some sort of irrelevant sideshow. They also believe they invented television, the dolts****).

7. Too sexy. Porno is out. Even beautifully made porno images are out. I think this is because sexual stimulation denies reflective mental processes. I'm not against anyone beating the bishop or paddling the pink canoe but endowing those instincts with profundity is mere foolishness (see the abuse of dairy products in "Last Tango in Paris").

8. Moronism: the subject. The picture transmits stupidity. This is one of the defining qualities of the Daily Painters work (see yesterday). Stupidity is incuriousity: lack of interest in the subject : we get, slavish copies of snapshots. We also get subject matter that has an obvious quality- a tourist landmark, a thing that is already considered beautiful (paintings of roses are necessarily beautiful), it is a significant person, a significant place. It is a significant moment (paintings made from graduation photos), or even a combination of the three- a significant person in a significant moment in a significant place (!).

But the significant moment is always a positive, tasteful one. There are no paintings of the significant moment when grandmother drove her car off the cliff, or your sister’s appearance in court testifying against her ex-husband on battery charges, or, "my first amputation". This marks one of the differences between serious art and popular, which is that popular is so circumspect- it refuses to examine anything that might be a potential source of discovery or self-knowledge. It mollifies (there is an exception to this in the form of popular Catholic Votive paintings, which often feature sick people or people involved in tragedies).

9. Moronism: the medium. The medium is used uninventively, without delight. This is one of those "you can't define it but you know it when you see it" qualities: a superlative painter like Magritte used oil paint in the 20s with a deliberate heaviness, taken from commercial art. Again, see yesterday's Daily Painters.

10. Cliche.

11. Banality. The picture is unable to excite the emotions. Being sensibly brought up I was taught never to dismiss things as "boring", because usually that was merely an indication of my lack of energy or discipline in making the necessary effort to get into the book, film or conversation. Boring means lack of surprises and of emotional engagement. Looking at Daily Painters, I wonder, "why they are doing this thing?" I can detect no strong interest in anything: this is dispiriting. It suggests that for the Daily Painters art exists primarily as an activity to fill up remaining time before death (I think here of Bartlebooth, Perec's watercolourist hero, in "Life A User's Manual").

There's an argument here about alienation and capitalism a la Greenberg (see his wonderful essay on Kitsch*****). I think the argument is that the workers are so alienated from their labour that they are unable to spontaneously create anything, and even unconsciously seek to transform freely creative activities such as painting into a routinous line work, in which a certain amount has to be done each day for presentation to the line manager (in the case of Daily Painters, the electronic site host).


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*When I was 16 I was taken to the Kroller-Muller Institute in Holland by a colleague of my father's. My companion, a jolly Dutch woman, and I were discussing modern art, and it's value. Frustrated with my refusal to accept that it was all rubbish, and to indicate her disgust with Jackson Pollock in particular, to my horror she stretched her arm towards the Pollock painting in front of us, broke a piece off it and stuffed it in my pocket. The piece was about half a centimetre across.

I told this story to a friend of mine, and he said he'd had exactly the same experience with another person.

**http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/hume%20on%20taste.htm

***http://www.george-orwell.org/Benefit_of_Clergy:_Some_Notes_on_Salvador_Dali/0.html

**** John Logie Baird, UK, 1925.

****http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html

Species of Spaces

Images from Florianopolis- the title of this entry comes from Georges Perec's book,which have used for my collection of photos of buildings in Florianopolis.

Here are two excepts from the Forward to "Species of Spaces and Other Pieces", which was published in France in 1974. I quote from John Sturrock's English translation (Penguin Books, 1997).

"We live in space, in these spaces, these owns, this countryside, these corridors, these parks. That seems obvious to us. Perhaps indeed it should be obvious. But it isn't obvious, not just a matter of course. It's real, obviously, and as a consequence most likely rational. We can touch. We can even allow ourselves to dream. There's nothing, for instance, to stop us from imagining things that are neither towns nor countryside (nor suburbs), or Metro corridors that are at the same time public parks. Nor anything to forbid us imagining a Metro in the heart of the countryside (campagne) (I've even now seen an advertisement to that effect, but it was - how shall I put it? - a publicity campaign (campagne))."

Another excerpt-

"...Spaces have multiplied, been broken up and have diversified. There are spaces today of every kind and every size, for every use and every function. To live is to pass from one space to another, while doing your very best not to bump yourself."