Night Soil

Spring Time for Hitler and Germany

It is grey, so grey. It is the morning of the Artists Talking talk, I have a sore throat. It may be an artist croaking. Also as part a long tradition of public appearance mishaps I have developed a huge cankerous scab above my eyebrow. It is a cage fighting wound and while the Over Forties Academics Cage Fighting Association of Ipswich (OFACFAI) is not exactly in the premiere league, injuries do happen. My OFACFAI name is The Shrew, I am bitter to the core, and when I remove my glasses and squint across the ring I am sure if I could see that I would see fear in my opponent’s eyes (though due to thumb weakness my gouge is not what it used to be). But this morning I am bruised more emotionally than physically.

Yesterday I performed a little art sociallising in Ipswich. Not always the easiest thing to do but yesterday Eastern Pavilions had come to town. First there was a talk by painters in a show O Painters! My Painters! curated by Kaavous Clayton.

It was evident that Romanticism was alive and well in the world of painting with much talk of struggle and machismo a gogo. I am biased but I was pleased when Annabel challenged a few of these ideas. Later we went to an opening of another Pavilions event in the new studios being set up in the old ‘O’ block of Suffolk New College (now UCS). I used to teach there and remember fondly being spat upon by the catering students on the balcony above. There was some interesting work tucked discretely around the edges and a table tennis table in the centre where I worked on rehabilitation my own machismo with a fellow redundant Andrew Vass (he won with superior spin). There later still I heard second hand that a member of staff at Firstsite had be offended by my presentation of Operation Pusscat. It was, he felt, anti-semitic. I am assuming that the areas he felt most uneasy with were, the gassing of a section of the population and my Pearl Art Prize logo (pictured below).

I am not going to say much about this as I have no claims that my choice of imagery was particularly deep or clever, I also felt that the whole project was sufficiently self-undermining to make the point that it was not made to slaughter a down trodden group but instead to highlight a number of issues relating to funding and success in the UK art scene. I am also not going to claim some sort of immunity due to Jewish ancestry. I remember a revelation when I was about 12. I was listening to an interview with David Byrne and he was explaining how he had assumed “a voice” (my quotes) to write Psycho Killer. These weren’t his own feelings, it wasn’t him speaking. “Wow”, I thought, “that’s clever”, the idea that he was able to voice a point of view other than his own was amazing to me (I was about 12).

The other issue is whether it can ever be right to evoke horrible events in our history in art or humour (sly Adorno quote noted). Should such events only be treated in one way (seriousness and dread) should there be an omerta?

I saw, last night while in a depression that Himmler’s postcards to his mother had gone on sale. I wonder what he wrote while killing 6 million people.

To Blog or Not to Blog

As I type I am monitoring Twitter, the Art world’s two Susan Jones are about to meet. Could this be our first real chance to see the god particle? or will the world just end?

Until yesterday evening I was completely stumped as to what I should say at the forthcoming Artists Talking event at Peckham Space tomorrow. I have to make a 15 minute intro before fielding questions (I assume) about blogging. In my indecision I decided to go with the Bard and get Annabel to do it. So last night she wrote about my blogs for me and this morning she skipped off to work singing with flowers in her hair. I may have unleashed a beast, she has said things I may have glossed over, but we shall see. I am a little suspicious that, if I am being called upon to talk about something, it is probably already over. Doesn’t everyone blog now? or tweet, or put embarrassing photographs up on Facebook? Clicking five times on the “next blog” (on blogger) at the top of the screen got me a Phd writing health food nut, a cat loving New Yorker, a chatty christian house wife, Cookie recipes and a home for children with Aids in Mexico. With such a lack of irony in the blogging world (sample of 5) no wonder some artists are wary. My blogger sample (I clicked on another 10 times) was also relentlessly Christian (and American), I had to stop when I came to the title “God is Doing a New Thing” it sounded like a report on a traumatised chimpanzee. On the other hand I like being reminded that writing a blog is really not cool. Is “cool” cool? Annabel has laughed many times at my continued utilisation of the cutting edge word “trendy” and I refuse to type “whoop” as I suspect that it is already out of date.

At least here on on Artists Talking there is something of a captive audience of fellow bloggers stimming away in our adjacent cages.

Is WordPress is cooler?

This is all prevarication, I must get on, the kitchen bin needs emptying, I have a job application to write, parcels to collect and a form to deliver to the bank.

I have been Googled by Greater Manchester PoliceLast night Mr Pig performed the five point palm exploding heart technique on my blog writing app. At least she stood on my phone and it has not functioned since. So I am back to he laptop typing with fingers instead of thumbs. This is probably a blessing in disguise as my thumbs, frankly, are wrecked. At this time of year an old war wound flares up and I begin to lose their use. Such an evolutionary regression is not too debilitating though some do like to make jokes. I have finished reading Greybeard which ended satisfactorily without fanfare or conclusion. Things go on much as they were before, Aldiss seems to view the future with the sort of phlegmatic resignation to which I aspire. Today has been a housework day. I tackled the kitchen first and then moved around the house armed with a duster until my enthusiasm and the polish sputtered to a finish (fairly quickly). There are new projects coming into view in the near and nearish future. First I have to deliver that talk in Peckham with Aliceson. I think I am supposed to be making some sort of presentation upon the merits of blogging (and twitter). Tomorrow will be soon enough for that. Next, in December, I have been invited to show at The Monks Gallery in Lincoln and am negotiating growing cress in their carpet. They seem keen but then I mentioned staining and watering. Beyond that lies Northampton a town existing in the grey reaches of time and space.

That was yesterday, or even the day before, I am not sure. I have got no further on my talk, it may have to be a last minute thing. I have slept much of today only waking to frighten the USPS man and to give Kaavous some work for Eastern Pavilions which opens this Friday in Norwich. I had completely forgotten about it but manage to scrape together a more or less coherent body of work and magic some prices up.

Tomorrow I must enter my residency space again, everythig will be dead, I am beginning to enjoy this eternal round of death and rebirth (and death) and wonder on which note it will end. Last night we watched “Never Let Me Go” based on the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, we both had to lie quietly for a while afterwards clinging to each other. Kaavous said it was the right time for apocalyptic thoughts but tonnight I am determined to watch something jolly. Having said that I have also decided that to up the intellectual content of future posts that my reading will concentrate on a blend of Calvino and Debord so the future may not be all roses and wine.

I need more cress and have found a bulk supplier on eBay, how many seeds are in a kilo?

I am in the “quiet zone” or the “angry coach” as I like to call it. The man next to me is typing noisily on his laptop and I, usually a very forgiving person, am ready to rend him limb from limb.

Tappity tap tap tap

We are returning, separate seated, on the last off-peak train from London. Hayley, Annabel Cathy and myself have been in a meeting with academics (the second such event in two days). We had gone to Chelsea with high hopes of gaining massive funding to make work in response to the Baring Archive. We encountered another world with another way of thinking.

Tap tap tappity tap tap

This was not the world of banking, rather it was a world where apparently committees and research forae and laboratories are set up because they should be. Those that set them up have salaried employment or large research grants which only demand that they set up committees and research forae and laboratories. This seems vague and I would like to state I am not against the joy of knowledge by any means (The illustrations are great). But for we, unsalaried artists or even FE lecturers (a world where knowledge and research is not only frowned upon but legislated against) this is no practical help. How our dreams were shattered, what a sight of dejection was to be seen in the pub afterwards. So on the plus side the researchers and academics we met all seemed lovely interesting people, they want us to be involved in termly seminars and we shall get access to the Baring Archive. We will meet new people and make interesting contacts. But there will be no piles of gold or bearer’s bonds, no expenses, no gratuitous feasts. Damn damn damn. (tap tap tap)

Last night I was the warm up act at a Market Project event. I was paid, the cheque still rests in the top pocket of my very slimming and now slightly sweaty suit. I don’t usually spend so much time thinking about money but as their title suggests Market Project is concerned with the idea that artists should be financially respected for what they do. Generally I agree but it does lead towards a rather fruitless feeling of entitlement and pointless inflation of self worth in those such as myself.

Why should anyone pay me for what I do? What service or goods do I provide? How many people want them?

After I had scared (and even offended?) a few with my talk of gassing artists. The speakers began to discuss the idea that their are too many artists. Twice I heard the idea that everyone should be an artist, a cosy academic idea sheltered from the realities of trying to make and get art seen. We had art compared to baking bread an activity that is only a joy to those who don’t have to do it and can afford the time to dabble in the petit hameau. But mostly, although many interesting things were said, we had a fine display of macho intellectual jousting which only needed a David Attenborough voiceover to complete its ridiculousness. I fear that in the midst of the rut the other two panelists were a bit subdued which was a shame because they had equally interesting things to say.

Afterwards we realised that online it looked as if something terrible had happened. Because of the design of the lecture theatre no signal could penetrate once the doors had closed. The last thing the outside world read was:

“@rotagavin telling us how he’s about to cull the entire room”

Then silence for two hours.

Tappit tappity tap tap

We saw Grayson Perry’s show, the shop was crazy, full of not very good tourist-style Perry knockoffs.

TAP

Normal service will be resumed soon, tonight is bin night.

Alex Pearl- ranteur (tap tap)

Theatre of the Absurd

I am ready to go- six hours early. Actually I was ready by ten thirty – eight hours early. I am now waiting for Annabel to escape from work so we can head to Colchester. I have done a little run through, Mr Pig seemed to enjoy it. All in all I think I will be only talking for 6 minutes and then showing my film. I should feel relief, instead it has made me start to worry more about next weeks debacle in Peckham . I have looked at the adverts “Both Alex Pearl and Aliceson Carter will be presenting at the third Artists talking event.” *swallows bile*. These *s are from twitter, I haven’t quite got the hang of them yet, they seem to indicate what you want your reader to think you are doing while you write. They are often used either to reinforce or undermine something you have just said or just to add shorthand descriptive colour. Often (and quite obviously) they are not true, merely a bit of useful/less hyperbole which turns twitter into a sort of theatrical act. *cleans glasses and redirects telescope into next door’s bathroom window*

I think I may have overdone it for the talk this evening. I am not a performance artist, yet I have bought a suit, a sure sign of the “artist as performer” if ever I have seen one. It is a nice suit from the sixties and delivered via eBay from Wales by a lovely Croation woman. It is Chinese. I hoped it might give me an air of confidence but I just look like a nervous person wearing a suit for the first time in twenty+ years. Actually this was probably my original intention. To undermine myself to such a degree that whatever happens it looks preplanned. *smiles confidently*

The lovely Julie Freeman has promised to “do something spectacular” if I freeze, so I may throw in some long pauses to test her nerve.

Mr Pig is growling at a jay and a robin then running to her litter tray.

She eats only from the right hand bowl.

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