Absurdity without art

I’ve just finished an ink sketch of Goya’s plate 39 (minus casualties) and I thought I’d add it to my blog. I found it tricky filling in behind the missing bodies as the tree didn’t seem to add up, for example a thick dead branch seems to be either coming from behind the corpse hanging upside down or out of his armpit. Since there are no sizeable branches the other side of the body I decided that he had been impaled with the stick, after all it wouldn’t have been the worst thing that had happened to him that day.

This is a first draft, next I plan to try similar drawings in charcoal, pencil, and another in ink wash before etching a version. I’ve ordered up the zinc plate from Intaglio and should receive it early next week. I’ll apply a hard ground, etch it at college, and then I’ll run off a few prints there prior to adding an aquatint at Gainsborough House print workshop. I want to add some colour to a few versions, probably with ink however I hope to source a decent aquarelle set, a medium which Jake Chapman twitted about earlier today, with reference to his ink drawing titled ‘Dinos und Adolf VII’ (2008).

I’ve titled my drawing ‘Plate 39 in a parapossible reality’ coining Ryan Ganders’ phrase.

Yesterday I had a bone marrow biopsy (BMB) to assess the development of my blood cancer, and as usual I thought of recording (photographing) the procedure for my art however typically this idea only came to me as a flash of inspiration in the car on the way home from the hospital. I guess that the apprehension caused by the thought and recollection of previous BMB’s overwhelms me, preventing any helpful thoughts. When I recall the operation the dominant image is that of a tray full of slides containing my bone marrow fluid, which is aspirated (sucked) through an apple corer screwed into the back of my hip whilst I assume the foetal position. The tray holds about 12 slides all prepped with my details prior to my arrival in the clinic, the fluid on an intact slide looks like a smear of bloody oil. The whole process of extracting the aspirate and BMB is enormously uncomfortable, the anaesthetic is not totally effective in the bone and the pressure required to penetrate the calcified surface in a 40 year old patient such as myself (with scar tissue from previous BMB’s) is considerable, causing the young Registrar to get out of breath and sweaty.

The last part of the operation is the most unpleasant part, the apple corer is pushed in further in order to take a core sample of my marrow, approximately 1 inch long by 1-2mm in diameter but it feels like a Bramley apple sized core.

All this and in the background I’m processing the knowledge I learnt with everyone else in the UK since it was all over the news this morning, there could be a cure for blood cancer through the genetic engineering of the patients T-cells. Might this work for my form of leukaemia? It is not part of one of the reported trials but then it is one of the rarer forms, but surely the science is the same? I’m scribbling these notes at 04:30 (using a nightlight) since I’ve woke up thinking about it (that and my pain killers had worn off), the possibilities, could there be a biological cure which would supersede the need for me to have a bone marrow transplant? Will it be developed in time?

Anyway I’m thinking about making a Mary Kelly style piece to document the procedure, similar to her ‘Post-Partum Document’ (1973-79) which she created as a response to the birth of her child. This work was a collection of objects which demonstrated her boy’s development and the surpassing of certain milestones such as speaking. My early thoughts on this would be to create a series of aspirated slides, using non-biohazard materials focusing on the presentation of the documents. The slides would also be inspired by Marc Quinn’s ‘DNA portrait of Sir John Sulston’ (2001) – the Nobel Laureate who sequenced the human genome. I might use glass as a substrate or paper which has had a wax resist applied to it. The paper would need to be stretched and I’d add an oily transparent ink to the surface the compression of a second layer of glass would cause the smear effect.

Maybe I can even reference Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’ here, amongst the desolation and the horrors of war he brings a suggestion of hope. In the last plate in his series ‘Si resucitará?’, he created a scene depicting the possible resurrection of a beautiful maiden, a metaphor for the spirit of Spain, even with a continued threat from the monsters surrounding her the allegorical phoenix rises from the ashes, it is hopeful and full of optimism.

Today I set up an installation in Ipswich at the Freudian Sheep.

It consists of 6 pieces relating to a common theme: –

“In July 2006 I had a car accident, whilst I was slipping in and out of consciousness I received a CT scan to investigate if I had internal bleeding, I did not but the doctors found something they weren’t looking for, an enlarged spleen. My oncologist described my accident as serendipitous, as further investigations resulted in my diagnosis of an asymptomatic illness. On the 14th of September, aged 32, I was given a prognosis of 96 months.

100 months on, and this is my response to that news.”

My Installation ‘Time’ on YouTube.

The discombobulating effect caused by my learning of the potential date of my probable death resulted in a complex gamut of emotions, these were heightened as the date approached. Relevant words I read and heard were underlined, everything became more intense. The ‘knowledge’ overpowered my rational desire to make the most of my time with my family, I was overcome by an agonising sense of foreboding, dwelling on my mortality resulting in anxiety and a ruminating depression. But when the date passed the relief was quickly replaced with uncertainty, the ‘knowledge’ which paradoxically provided some comfort at first, when the date was years away, tormented me as the date got nearer and created a feeling of distrust when I didn’t die on that day, knowing that from then on everyday was borrowed and I was now over due. As an engineer I knew that the prognosis I’d been given was a probable date with significant variability of at least two standard deviations either side, yet logic didn’t play a part in my feelings. Existentially I knew that everyone’s subject to mortality, you’re born, you procreate, you get old and you die, it is the natural order, however most can ignore their mortality and get on with life, I was forced to look into the abyss far sooner than most, a letter detailing your prognosis proves to be a strong Momento Mori.

The artwork was inspired by artist like Christian Marclay, whose seminal piece ‘The Clock’ (2010) captures 24 hours in real time through the editing of famous movies winning him the Golden Lion prize for the ‘Best Artist’ at the Venice Biennale. Felix Gonzalez-Torres ‘Untitled (Perfect Lovers)’ (1991) two clocks hang side-by-side, synchronised, the observer watches knowing that one will surely stop before the other. The artists partner, Ross Laycock was terminally ill at the time that he made the work, Gonzalez-Torres once said that “Time is something that scares me . . . or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking.” On Kawara’s ‘Today’ series was a body of work that spanned decades. Most days he would make a new painting, which simply consisted of the date, white text on one of a variety of coloured backgrounds. The painting was accompanied with a Newspaper clipping from the day and city in which the painting was created. He created nearly 3,000 date paintings in more than 112 cities all over the world. The series finished with ’JAN.12,2013’ (which had a black background), he died shortly afterwards, underlining the works raison detre and it’s gravitas as a memorial. Although many other artist’s pieces contributed to my thinking and the development of this installation.

Like Matt Damon in the Martian (2015), I thought I’d “science the shit out of it” (it being my art). So I’ve also been reading Stephen Hawking’s The Illustrated A Brief History of Time and Craig Callender’s Introducing Time, here are some of my notes in my sketchbook: –

Having enjoyed seeing Francisco Goya’s masterpiece The Disasters of War at the London Museum I wanted to create a work which resonated with the series. I was drawn to the image that has become most recognisable, in part due to the Chapman brothers’ work, plate 39 titled Great deeds! Against the dead! Instead of altering the characters as the Chapmans have in their work such as Sex I (2003), Great Deeds Against the Dead! (1994), Year Zero (1996) amongst others, I thought that since the scene is now etched into the gallery going public’s memory I could remove the tortured souls altogether. In fact I suspect that the scene would continue to be associated with the horror Goya concocted even in a tranquil watercolour, which I might try next. At this stage I’ve started an ink pointillist style drawing which should imitate the aquatint effect used by Goya. In the image gallery I’ve included a drawing I’d completed earlier of a lighthouse which shows the effect I’m aiming for.

The erasing of the corpses should bring to mind the original work, as Brian Dillion (2006) wrote in his paper published in Tate Etc erasure is never complete, it leaves behind “some reminder of the violence done to make the world look new again”. My work is not strictly speaking erasure, or palimpsestic (the erasure and re-use of parchment) it is a redrawing with censorship as all art surely is. In the article Dillion considers the altered imagery of Russian Communist Party where they erased from history disgraced party members, like Nikolai Yezhov. However my intent is not to forget or pretend that inhumane atrocities don’t happen but to highlight the violence by tapping into the viewers memory.

Derrida (1980) wrote about an “undecidable truth and fiction of every erased stroke”, my erasure of Goya’s victims generates many possible readings of the image. Other than my intention for the observer to be reminded of the original it could be a suggestion that Goya never actually witnessed this event, as some have alluded to (Hughes, Hofer, etc). After all the tree is unnatural, it has handy branches acting as footrests enabling the scene to be composed by barbarians with an artistic eye. Another reading might suggest that it represents an alternative reality where inhumanity doesn’t exist. Or maybe it represent the same tree today, or possibly the day before the incident occurred.

Anyway, now that I’ve seen my ink sketch alongside the original I think I might start again, my proportions are not spot on (I freehanded the sketch without gridding out the images which was a mistake – although the angle the photograph was taken at exaggerates this), and I’m not sure that the dot effect is what I’m looking for either, I think I’ll try a line drawing with ink wash next.

On the 3rd of December Adam (a fellow student) and I took the train to London to see Goya’s set of proofs at the British Museum. When we got to the Museum we had instructions to ring the door bell behind the Michelangelo cartoon in Gallery 90, which seemed very mysterious. We were buzzed into an anteroom, part of the museum which is only accessible by appointment, where we were asked to lock away drinks and pens prior to gaining access to the study room.

The museum assistant made it quite clear how careful we had to be, impressing upon us the importance of the works, and reminding us of the permissions which had been sort on our behalf enabling us to see Goya’s album.

This is the only known set which Goya printed and handed to his friend, the dealer Ceán Bermúdez who Goya had tasked with editing the captions. The prints never got editioned in Goya’s lifetime, and Bermúdez’s daughter presented these to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando after her father’s death in 1862. The plates which the Academy had received via Goya’s son, Javier (found whilst clearing his fathers house sometime after the artists death) were updated with Bermúdez’s captions and finally printed 35 years after Goya’s death. The Disasters of War, Goya’s critique of inhumanity during conflict was fittingly first published during the year of the inaugural Red Cross Geneva Convention, which was ratified a year later in 1864.

It was amazing to handle the prints (gloves were not required as they reduced dexterity and could actually result in harm coming to the artwork) the detail one could see by tilting the prints and getting close up enabled us to analyse the work and in some cases review earlier interpretations of certain images. The delicate binding of the album was interesting to me, I also noticed the repair work to some of the prints (pieces of tape and glued paper). This made me curious as to whether the Chapman brothers had been to the Museum too, as they had shown a similar piece of sellotape in one of their prints analysing Goya’s set.

The Chapmans’ prints (from 1999 which the museum also made available to us) were quite a contrast, they seemed to capture Goya’s intent from a modern perspective. The brothers have parodied Goya’s hard hitting prints in many ways, during 1999 they made a set of 83 plates which they printed on various papers, overpainted  and later overprinted (see My Giant Colouring Book (2004)). The order seemed to be unimportant, both to the Museum (who I asked, and was told not to worry about the sequence, just ensure that the tissue paper protected the image) and to the Chapmans’ whose website shows the sets in various, seemingly random arrangements. In the prints the Chapmans align Goya’s imagery with earlier works of their own, they also seem to analyse Goya’s prints from behind and close-up. Another means of interpretation the brothers use involves simplification, redrawing of familiar images using a naive, child-like style embellished with meaning, such as eyeballs in the tree witnessing atrocities, soldiers who seem to be wearing ‘deely boppers’ wired into their brains, transmitting some messed up thoughts, whilst others soldiers are literally subjected to x-ray scrutiny.

My gratitude goes to the British Museum and their kind staff for their assistance in this study. This was a great experience which I’d heartily recommend if you have the opportunity.