notes follow

U B U W E B – Film & Video: John Berger – Ways of Seeing (1972):

Notes by Nick Currie (Momus) Ways of Seeing was a BBC television series consisting of visual essays that raise questions about hidden ideologies in visual images. The series gave rise to a later book of the same name written by John Berger. It would be easy to say that Ways of Seeing is hopelessly dated — made in 1972, the films come across as a puritan-groovy mix of Monty Python, the Open University and the Look Around You spoofs. And yet what’s so remarkable about this series is that it seems more apposite, subversive and thought-provoking than ever. The Britain we glimpse in the films, already alienated by spooky BBC Radiophonic Workshop music by Delia Derbyshire, is alienated even more by the passing of time. Alienated usefully, in the Brechtian sense; we look at a capitalist society which is like, and unlike, our own. One way our own society is unlike 1972 is in the fact that, despite the enormous plethora of TV and internet TV we have now, nobody has made anything quite like this. In art history, the treatment of women’s bodies, in our relationship with objects and property and in advertising (the themes of the four films) the same mystifications and objectifications and manipulations carry on. What doesn’t carry on is analysis of them on this level. Sure, there are a thousand media studies courses out there. But several things have happened since Ways of Seeing was made. Firstly, Western societies have swung right; they’re much less resisting of the capitalist beast — much more infused with its values — than they were in 1972. There’s very little actually-existing socialism now, and perhaps globalisation has also eroded national differences quite a bit in the thirty-six years since the series was made. Secondly, postmodernism has made it much more difficult to critique popular culture now. Ways of Seeing is not just a Marxist take on representation, but a late Modernist one, informed by Benjamin, Barthes, Brecht. Berger’s authority here is a moral and poetic one, though, and he’s at pains throughout to make us question the authority of commentarists seen and unseen, question the use of music and context in media, look at editing, make our own ethical juxtapositions (an ad for an aperitif next to images of refugees). There’s a wonderful moment in the first episode where he mocks the commentary in a recently-published book about Caravaggio (it jumps straight from tediously specific formalist analysis to talk about “the human spirit” with nothing in between) then takes it to a group of schoolchildren, who immediately spot the epicene ambiguity of the central figures in the paintings — who spot, in other words, that Caravaggio was gay. Berger also takes a group portrait by Franz Hals of some benefactors who saved Hals from starvation by feeding him, and reads out a formalist commentary critiquing the poor composition. I can’t think of an art series since which has dared to criticize other art critics so directly, and so systematically. The second episode, about the female nude, has some particularly troublesome and interesting things to say about structural narcissism (“men dream of women, women dream of themselves being dreamt of”), the difference between nakedness and nudity, and the institutionalised misogyny deep in our culture — the tendency of men to desire women and simultaneously blame them for provoking that desire. Berger traces this back to the biblical tale of the expulsion from Eden. There’s a great discussion at the end with a group of highly articulate women, including the writer Eva Figes. Episode three is about oil paintings, their relationship with saleable objects and property, and their fate as saleable property, valuable for depicting objects of value. And the last episode — for me the most compelling — is about advertising and envy. I actually find it rather disturbing that — despite our claims to be a culture that’s increasing freedom of choice all the time — we haven’t come up with anything quite as astute, subversive or beautiful as Ways of Seeing since. Not on the BBC, and not even — especially not — on the internet. I think this is still the most intelligent glance television — a medium, ostensibly, about looking, but actually very bad at looking intelligently at looking — has ever cast on the act of looking.

Don Peebles – ARTIS Gallery – Artists:

Don Peebles is one of New Zealand’s most senior artists. He began his training at the Wellington Technical College of Art in 1947, he then moved to Australia and studied under John Passmore, a leading Australian painter at the time, at the Julian Ashton School of Arts in Sydney.

Audio from RNZ:
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Artist Don Peebles dies – National – NZ Herald News:

One of the pioneers of New Zealand abstract painting, artist Don Peebles, ONZM, has died at the age of 88.

Rest of the NZ Herald item follows.

According to the New Zealand Arts Foundation, Peebles was a key figure in the emergence and evolution of New Zealand abstract art.

He was a leading force in contemporary New Zealand painting and one of New Zealand’s most senior and respected practitioners.

Peebles was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1999 for his services to New Zealand art, and in 2003 received an honorary Doctorate in Literature from the University of Canterbury.

The director of the Diversion Gallery in Marlborough, Barbara Speedy, said the artist had continued painting throughout his battle with cancer. She said Peebles had an extremely dry sense of humour.

“It was like a razor-sharp wit sheathed in silk because he was always such a gentleman in everything.”

Peebles, being extremely well read and a source of wisdom, was an unofficial mentor and guide for a lot of New Zealand artists, she said. “It’s like a piece of our art history has fallen away.”

Peebles is survived by his wife, Prudence, and their three children.

I can see some of that in my work occasionally, but mostly that I am NOT “New Image” even though I like comics and stories and “rough expressionism”. I am too interested in shape, colour and texture.

There is is something. A realisation about what I do, well, don’t do. Most of the time I just have no idea. Thinking again about the comments from Peter McLeavey on my work (see here) that I need to find who I am etc… I am many things! PolyPsycho digital printmaker.

Description & images by Frizzell’s hero HC Westerman appear below.

New Image @ Art + Culture:

New Image Painting. New Image Painting (or New Image art or New Image Americans). A vague term applied since the late 1970s to the work of certain painters who work in a strident figurative style, often with cartoon-like imagery and abrasive handling owing something to Neo-Expressionism. The term was given currency by an exhibition entitled ‘New Image Painting’ at the Whitney Museum, New York, in 1978. New Image marked a return to painting after a period when much of the contemporary art scene had been focused on performance, installation and conceptual art. Closely related to Figuration Libre (France), Transavantgarde (Italy), Nuovi Nuovi (Italy), Neo Expressionismus (Germany) Some of these artist include: Nicholas Africano Jennifer Bartlett Jonathan Borofsky Neil Jenney Robert Longo Michael Lukas Robert Moskowitz Susan Rothenberg Julian Schnabel (ml) http://www.the-artists.org/movement/New_Image_Painting.html

Leaves
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I made some acrylics. Here is one where I liked something in the image. This one is a WIP 8 x 8 inches on board. The photo above is probably slightly more contrasty than the original. The next one, I worked on the digital image, not with filters but by adding brush strokes in ArtRage 2.5 A prelude to fiddling with the original?

Leaves
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This image is availalable printed in a limited edition. It is available exclusively on Felt, a New Zealand Art & Craft website.

Interesting Flash Technology. I want to put it to better use!

A photo plus two options follow.

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Earth Cross II b

This one has never had a proper post. It is in the Gallery and I have posted it with a border but I wanted to locate it and had trouble (the one with the border has a different name). So here it is, “Earth Cross II b” sketched on 17 December ’07

This is the one I used as a reference for an Acrylic, though it looks quite different. (posted below).

Leaves
Earth Cross II – Acrylic on canvas – 600 x 600 mm

One thing I did, in a moment of frustration with real paint, was a new digital. It just flew out. It is like the one I was using for a reference, with a subtly different feel.

Bush
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It is now obvious why I found it hard. The mottled effect is done digitally by setting the paper to very rough on those layers. The light spots are pits in the “paper”. Maybe I need to forget about being too true to my digital version & go with the medium? Or maybe persist?

How would you do this in acrylic?

Forgotten
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Image.

I have completed my first painting in acrylics. There are pleny of
half finished or failed ones lying about but this one I’ll consider
done. It is the first of a series.

It is on gessoed canvas, unframed, the image is 600 x 600 mm
just under 24 inches square.

It has taken a while to get to this point. I have tried a few oils,
some and line & washes – but this one is the first result – that is
not digital.

Digital is clean & quick. Just how quick comes home when I need
to re-arrange the office into a studio. Paints, water, table floor
coverings, easle. Surfaces to prepare and techniques to try out.
And the waiting for things to dry. The cleaning up.

On Sunday (13 April) I was productive. I had about four Earth
Crosses in acrylic on the go. I also prepared some more canvas &
a board. Paintings come on and off the easel as I add something &
then wait for it to dry.

It is based on an earth cross from a few weeks back, see it here.

The photography is patchy but it gives the idea,

Details:

Forgotten
Detail
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Forgotten
Detail 2
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