20) Self Portrait in Grey Hat
Today we have a self portrait, size 6, in which I rather feel has captured something of my mood as I reflect on the last few days and the big reverse suffered1. I brushed on a thin ochre ground, left uneven and quite rough, then set myself in - head and shoulders. Thats it. Put the pieces in the right place and a likeness emerges - the cracked pane still reflects.
The portrait is theraputic. An attempt to reset myself before plunging back into the project with a series of still lifes. I feel it necessary to try and calm down a little and take a step back from the business end of things and to quietly work and think. Its best in fact if I stay in the yard for a few days, I'm going to begin Infinite Jest2 I think. I understand the book makes use of end notes as part of the narrative so as to thrust the reader into a parody of scholorship just like that bowlhead Nabakov does in Pale Fire3. Either that or I'll take in the billiards.
Something further, I have been reading a journal of one of the activists working in the early stages of the Occupy movement by the name of Graeber4. I had a look at this Graeber and found a splendid article by him and old Shukatis5 that gives credit to the work of John Holloway and more interestingly makes a point of the way his work is generally ignored in the edu factories6. You know I once found myself sipping champagne and eating fried fish in a london paytoeat with a number of workers from the Goldsmiths7. I asked for their thoughts on Holloway and the extent to which his work penetrates the young and endebted minds they look after but to my suprise they had not heard of him.
I'd say shocked rather and I had little else to say for the remainder. Now, I may have stumbled onto Change the World Without Taking Power8 purely by chance in Byker library in Newcastle but look here I could grasp its significance in relation to much of what I had read on anticapitalist thought on the first read through. Whats more I could well understand why his thinking would not go down well in the academy and would expect it to be dismissed as a fancy but to not have even heard of the whole business takes my breath. I dare say the young customers at Goldsmiths deserve a refund!
Reading that bit of Graeber however reminded my of my intention to take a study of the old job centre in Plymouth, known to a few as the 'occupy building' and I really think it is essential for us to bend the rules9 to allow for it. Of course I understand the rules and I can well see the reason for them at this time and particularly with regard to our rationale of breakage. I can even go further and say that these rules have a general benefit, I have always felt that some limitations placed on the creative process can, perversly, increase creativity. However I think for the narrative of the project coupled with the fact that I peronally participated in the events, albeit in an offsite capacity,10 I think it essential. Besides it will be a one off. So in a few days, once I emerge from this studio fallow, a trip into Plymouth with your permission?
So, to something more substantial tomorrow. I have stretched a size 20 for still life with art theory books. Perhaps we can revisit some of the pictorial symbolism of the past and perhaps we can do it without the spoonful of irony that we have to take to swallow anything these days. We'll see.
A tought on the loop question.11 Perhaps a loop that is intelligent and has evolved from its primary cycle, taking a different track each time is what the doctor ordered. Here we are at the origins of modernism riding in the Van Gogh train but let us flick the points sending us onto a more revolutionary track whatever that is I'm not sure but at least it will be with the benefit of knowledge gained from the first time around and most crucially with the violently repressive force of financial capitalismt system itself as the target rather than the bourgoisie.
On reflection,
John
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1 Refers to the portrait commission which was rejected for not sufficiently resembling the photograph. John had hoped to start a small portrait business but has since reassessedthe viability of this idea.
2 A novel by David Foster Wallace
3 Vladomir Nabakovs classic post modern novel Pale Fire
4 The anarchist anthropologist and author who is best known for his book Debt. The book John is referring to is The Democracy Project.
5 Author of Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life
6 Critical slang term for the contemporary or neoliberal university.
7 University of Goldsmiths.
8 Book by John Holloway that triggered an explosion of debate about radical left political strategy and the meaning of revolution today.
9 A one mile parameter around Torpoint was agreed within which all painting must take place. This would not include the Plymouth Occupy building on Buckwell St. John agreed to these rules before accepting the project brief and they cannot be changed.
10 John participated in the Plymouth branch of the Occupy social movement in 2011. The precise meaning of 'offsite occupier' is not clear.
11 Mentioned in the final line of work 19).