Thursday, February 10, 2011

Desire


Sensation

Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue:
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien:
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, - heureux comme avec une femme.


Sensation
Arthur RIMBAUD
(1854-1891)

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

These things are things that now must be no more


And the day seemed a night

(...)

The boy lay dead, and the day seemed a night
Outside. The rain fell like a sick affright
Of Nature at her work in killing him.
Memory of what he was gave no delight,
Delight at what he was was dead and dim.

(...)

Antinous
Fernando Pessoa
1918

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

The boy lay dead


Hadrian’s soul

The rain outside was cold in Hadrian’s soul.

The boy lay dead On the low couch, on whose denuded whole,
To Hadrian’s eyes, whose sorrow was a dread,
The shadowy light of Death’s eclipse was shed.

(...)


Antinous
Fernando Pessoa
1918

Some facts never exist


The time and place and manner of my death are three facts that don’t exist yet

The time and place and manner of my death are three facts that don’t exist yet.
Facts exist for whole centuries and then suddenly cease.
Pluto used to be a planet and now it is a chunk of debris, number 1341340.
My grandmother’s house stands on the hill above the sea where she left it.
When I come back to visit I discover a crater in its place.
This room is full of facts.
All day I let the cat out, let it in, then let it back out again.
I mean this metaphorically.
Some facts never exist.
It is winter. It is summer.
All night the branches tap at the glass.

- Trans - Neptunian Object by Suzanne Buffam.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

An Essay (on colour)







No Turning Back







Separation

The separation and hostility between the "world" of art and the "world" of everyday life finally exploded in Dada. "Life and art are One," proclaimed Tzara; "the modern artist does not paint, he creates directly." But this upsurge of real, direct creativity had its own contradictions. All the real creative possibilities of the time were dependent on the free use of its real productive forces, on the free use of its technology, from which the Dadaists, like everyone else, were excluded. Only the possibility of total revolution could have liberated Dada. Without it, Dada was condemned to vandalism and, ultimately, to nihilism -- unable to get past the stage of denouncing an alienated culture and the self-sacrificial forms of expression which it imposed on its artists and their audience alike. (...) In Berlin, where its expression was most coherent, Dada offered a brief glimpse of a new praxis beyond both art and politics: the revolution of everyday life. - [The Revolution of Modern Artand the Modern Art of Revolution]