Collecting, taxonomy, world making, kitsch

Lest we forget

Fire!

Quick, bury your valuables!

I'm an In Our Time addict. I even hoard the podcasts on my lapdog. Last week's show focused on the Great Fire of London - I found it really interesting, especially in light of our CofC course. A few weeks previous to this they did a show on the Baroque - a truly excellent introduction to the topic if, like me, your art history lacks a little ecstasy.

The definition of collection...

has obviously already been given to us.

a trove which contains:
- gadgets and gizmos aplenty
- whosits, whatsits galore
- twenty thingamabobs
- etc.

collection

I wish I had written my paper about this song instead.

The Opposite of Collection is...

Noise?

The opposite of collection is...

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Collecting As A Work Of Art More Recently Than The 20th Century

"[...] drawings, formal studies by the artist, personal photographs, newspaper clippings, found images from the internet, computer prints, photo-copies and other vernacular paper mapped onto clear, free-standing acrylic walls. Many of the images are easily recognizable fragments of personal, cultural and political life: snapshots, ghost rider cars, the sketch released by the McCann family of an unknown man carrying a child, Francis Bacon’s ‘Study After Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X’, a portrait of Jerry Adams as a young man." Store Gallery Press Release

Talking about Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne project reminded me of - along with Gerhard Richter's Atlas Project - an exhibition at Store gallery last year of the work of German artist Tobias Buche. I first came across his work in a group show at the Lisson gallery called Construction Time Again, it seemed so flimsy and whimsical (Richard Flood, who's the boss Curator at the New Museum in NYC called Buche's work 'Anti-Serra') but really involving and seductive in the way that he mixes layers of images onto small, rickety labyrinths of painted wooden or transparent perspex kiosks - here too is the collection at the scale of the body, and as Flood described it, in a conversational mode (also thinking of Thomas Hirschorn's info kiosks & installations).
They're quite diary-like with their ephemeral personal imagery but as they're presented quite loosely and without any textual indexing, they float about the gallery space feeling both personal and non-specific at the same time. In a way he invites the viewer into an interaction with the presented images, an interaction in the sense that one starts decoding and interpreting them into narratives (no matter how fragmented they may be) or kickstarts a type of instinctive categorisation of the images.
Or else, one becomes tired of trying to make sense of the work..."surely that's the artist's job"


Also, if you're interested, here's a slightly annoying video tour of an exhibition in NYC

"Many men have tried to grasp their lives in the full spiritual and intellectual context, and those who have succeeded will never grow old. I wish that some men would also record the leaps in their lives. It seems that the leaps belong to all people; anyone can easily take whatever pertains to oneself. The loss of a superficial unity, inevitable in such an enterprise, cannot be regretted, for the true unity of a life is secret, and it is most effective when it unintentionally conceals itself."
-Canetti

miaow

You can never have enough cats, right?  The first three are high art (courtesy of the Chapman brothers) and the last one isn't, but probably should be.

Okay, I'm really sorry to do this...

but back to cats for ONE SECOND (and never again), my friend sent this to me and I needed to share it.

Kitty Wigs

Friday films - a mélange

Dear friends,

The basic plan for this Friday afternoon's entertainment is as follows:

Dekalog 10: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Goods (1989)
Krzysztof Kieslowski, 57 min.
In the absence of Terence Stamp, we find this week a tale of sexy stamp collecting. As Robert Opie might say, 'it's not as exciting as it used to be and other people are doing it, so what is the point?' This film knocks Opie into a cocked hat.

A Walk Through H (1978)
Peter Greenaway, 41 min.
More madness with Tulse Luper and the gang, as they guide us through a museum of cryptic cartography, replete with Nyman's atonal sonics.

If there's the time and the inclination we may also indulge in object fetishism via a pair of Jan Svankmajer's 'shorts'.

This business will take place in MAL251 shortly after 2.03PM. See you where? MAL251. See you there!

Jon

Tulse Luper

I had this name running through my head all day ... so in the name of procrastination and for all those Vertical Features Remake fans, a few suggestions to aid you in your collecting research:
Tulse Luper the game, the sordid history, and last but not least, the phantom stocking fetishist facebook persona.

What's screening this week?

Busy busy...

These are all links I pulled up DURING CLASS. You can measure my attention span in bits per second:

Henry Darger's room: http://www.art.org/HDRC/dargerRoom.htm
1.9 million dollar dime: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/27/DIME.TMP
The fate of MUXTAPE: http://muxtape.com/
cassette collection: http://www.tapedeck.org/index.php

enjoy!

a romantic evening with Sir John

Yeah yeah, I'm getting off topic, I know. I like cats as much as the rest of you evidently do. But I did just notice that tomorrow night (Tuesday) is the monthly candlelit opening of the Soane Museum. (We're supposed to go before next Tuesday). I propose to join the queue from about 5.30pm, and I don't think our usual Hari Krishna foodline tactics will be well looked on. Anyone else up for it?

I don't know...

I've always been a fan of this kind of kitty.

A piece of you....

As I am feeling a bit left out in this collecting malarkey (I have been in a selling, not accumulating, mode for a few years), I have decided to ask for contributions from yourself. So far I have a chipped tooth, a used tissue and various hairs and nails (and the promise of a contact lens). Basically, anything wth a DNA strand will do. The more abject the better! Please help me get the Consortium set-I will supply sealed and labeled bags for your hygene and comfort!
Cheers
Mark

Purred Reich

A more, ahem, specific cat collection.

Oh please

You people are so immature.

Arthur

Speaking of cats ...

Ok, Tim, if you want more cat pictures for your collection -- your post reminded me of MOBA, or the Museum of Bad Art, an 'institution dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms and in all its glory.'

Here are 3 cat-inspired examples: Peter the Kitty (which was reportedly acquired at the Hyde Park Salvation Army); In the Cat's Mouth (I would recommend reading the commentary that accompanies this one on the website- museumofbadart.org); and a new acquisition, He Was a Friend of Mine. Enjoy.

Did I mention I have a collection of cat pictures?

Ensuing conversation: What constitutes spam on the Consortium Blog? Can we somehow block Tim? The cats say: why doesn't anyone else give this a try?

Aphorisms

From Susan Sontag (in the essay, Mind as Passion, regarding Elias Canetti)

"The notebook is the perfect literary form for an eternal student, someone who has no subject or, rather, whose subject is 'everything.' It allows entries of all lengths and shapes, and degrees of impatience and roughness, but its ideal entry is the aphorism."

Thus, one of Canetti's aphorisms, oddly appropriate to our course:

"'culture' is brewed up by the vanities of patrons. It is a dangerous love potion that distracts attention from death. The purest expression of culture is an Egyptian grave, where everything is gathered about in vain – utensils, jewelry, food, pictures, sculpture, prayers – and still the deceased is not alive."
- from The Human Province