|
THE SCENE
The smoking room in a studio next door to aceartinc. gallery.
act one
FUN AND GAMES
VC: Les, let's play a game. It's called critical distance. I'll play critic by asking you leading questions and you play artist, answering with 9 other clichéd things you hate . . .
LN: I hate the word 'play.'
VC: I didn't ask a question yet.
LN: What, this is your game? So we have to 'play' by your rules?
VC: Yes, and it's my beer you're drinking, and it's my studio you're sitting in. Warmly, I might add.
LN: (Looks about the room. Imitates Bette Davis.) "What a dump!"2
VC: In your body of work referred to as the science series, Happy Miserable: Looks Good in Black3 Anna Scott wrote . . .
LN: I hate the word 'body.'
VC: May I continue? Anna Scott wrote, "The work serves to illustrate the banality and truth behind our daily traumas and angst - from the perspective of a detached observer." Is this not implying the anthropomorphizing of science through emotions?
LN: How about implying the opening of another beer?
VC: Most descriptors have been visceral: a heavy eye; heart-jacking; regurgitation; intimacy; . . .
LN: Thirsty . . .
VC: Aneroid.4
LN: (Silence.) (Gets own beer.)
VC: What then? A focal point of ambiguity?5
LN: I hate the word 'ambiguity.'
VC: That may well be, but at first glance there presides a state of construction/demise observed within your work. The overall effect, however, is one of calm and contemplation. I would use the term ambiguous . . .
LN: No.
VC: . . . equivocal?
LN: No.
VC: . . . disrupting perceptual/conceptual complacency?
LN: Maybe.
VC: Your cloud series references poetic and fleeting contradictions, spaces where longing coexists with imagination. Are you intentionally blurring boundaries?
LN: I hate the word 'blurred boundaries.'
VC: That may well be, but, as curator Todd Davis reflects on your cloud series: łA text-seen (or "visual poetry") is an intermedium located between language arts and visual arts, its creators include artists who initially established themselves as "writers," "poets," and "painters" in their text-seen works out of a commitment to exploring possibilities in literary intermedia."6
LN: I prefer reflections on uselessness. By this I'm reflecting on your so-called critical analysis of my work. What you are really reflecting on is the subjective positioning of emotional response as an aesthetic function of perception.
VC: By publicly exhibiting your work, are you not participating in the discourse of art?
LN: (In a singsong voice.) Who's afraid of Robert Enright, Robert Enright, Robert Enright. Who's afraid of Robert Enright, early in the morning.
VC: How cliché . . .
LN: You wear girlie shoes.
VC: Oh yeah? Well, who's your daddy?
LN: Yo momma . . .
(A verbis ad verbera)7
act two
VALPURGESNACHT8
VC: If my memory serves, you stated that your series Segue "takes the structure of a narrative and pares away the detail and content. What results is a narrative trajectory without referent; a shell of source material... The process of photographing and rephotographing these images parallels the way we absorb and reiterate phrases and perspectives from popular culture."9
LN: I hate the word 'memory.'
VC: That may well be, but In the beginning . . .10
LN: I really hate the word 'memory.'
VC: So, in THE REMEMBERED PRESENT, are you concerned with the experience of different audiences? Does your work seek engagement other than pass-by short-term memory inherent in consumption of image and/or text from popular culture? Are you seeking community?
LN: I hate the word 'community.'
VC: Ah! The plot thickens . . .11
LN: What community? Who's community?
VC: The range of titles grew . . .12
LN: Just drop it, will you?
VC: I can't. I have to make it to 1000 words. I have many dependents.13
LN: Community is just a term for consensual failure of communication.
VC: Old Superheroes slugged it out with each other . . .14
LN: If you're referring to the incident at the Kings Head . . .15
VC: No, no, I promised not to bring that up. I was having trouble finding a segue to begin dialogue on another word on your current hate- list, diaspora.
LN: I hate the word 'diaspora.'
VC: And in the real world . . .16
LN: Whatever, I'm not playing anymore.
act three
THE EXORCISM
VC: In your series Thought Bubbles, why do you use that one particular shade of green? Does it signify a graphic purity?
LN: I hate the word purity.
VC: Of course you do! All righty then, is it a representational strategy that makes reference to any specific cultural, social or political milieu?
LN: (Silence.)
VC: Does it refer to the present time and place within a logic of feelings?
LN: (Silence.)
VC: None-the-less your work is hermetic17 which implies a purity.
LN: (Silence.)
VC: Perhaps this is the colour of your spirituality?
LN: I hate the word 'spirituality'.
VC: So, no metaphysics for you! Now we're talking radical hermeneutics18 . . .
LN: You didn't make it out of the H's did you?
VC: I liked it better when you were silent.
LN: Hermeneutics, that's a pretty big word for an extra from Wizard of Oz.
VC: Is that all you can do? Taunt me instead of answering a single god-damned question?
LN: Precisely my point. This has nothing to do with religion, or spirituality, or myth-making, or . . .
VC: Not even myth-making? What then the words of Sheila Butler in review of the active problematics of your work in relation to "...the unique gesture, the artist/creator as erotically enhanced lonely male genius, the transcendent object..."19
LN: Cultural Theorists, Start Your Epitaphs.20
VC: How about self-parody? Does that shoe fit?
LN: At least it's an ethos.21 Like I said, girlie shoes.
VC: You're a little light in the loafers yourself.
LN: Butch.
VC: Bitch.
LN: Poseur.
VC: (In a singsong voice.) Who's afraid of Robert Enright, Robert Enright Robert Enright. Who's afraid of Robert Enright, early in the morning.
LN: Okay, okay, okay. Let's 'play' your silly little game. Let's 'demystify' my work.
VC: I hate the word 'demystify.'
LN: What?! No more attempts to quantify, chart or measure the aesthetic experience inherent in the poetics of banality?
VC: Your distance from critical dialogue renders this written response absurd.
LN: Yes. Really. Quite.
VC: It's late.
LN: How about a didactic panel?
VC: How about another drink?
LN: Yes. Really. Quite.
(A long silence between them.)
LN: (Singing softly) Who's afraid of Robert Enright, Robert Enright, Robert Enright. Who's afraid . . .
VC: I . . . am . . . Les. . . . I . . . am. . . .
(Les nods, slowly.)
CURTAIN
GLOSSARY OF TERMS and REFERENCES and DISCLAIMERS
1 Les Newman was born in Stephenville NF, and has lived in 15 different cities, four provinces, three states and two countries. He received his BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His community at time of this written response is within the Exchange District of Winnipeg MB.
2 Reference to a line by Gabrielle Maple, played by Bette Davis in the film Petrified Forest (1936, written by Robert Sherwood, directed by Archie Mayo.)
3 Happy Miserable: Looks Good in Black exhibited at Neutral Ground, Regina SK, 15 March - 11 April 2003.
4 Aneroid: barometer without mercury (as per highly-abridged English Dictionary, E.F.G. Series, 1940
5 A partial quote by David Craven from interview with Robert Enright, The Magic Marker (Border Crossings, issue no. 78, p.74), "I've allowed myself to freely roam for many, many years: at a focal point of ambiguity."
6 Todd Davis, Curator of exhibition text, beat, journal at Open Space, Victoria BC, 02 - 17 May 2003.
7 A verbis ad verbera [L.]: from words to blows (as per highly-abridged English Dictionary, E.F.G. Series, 1940).
8 A personal wordplay on WALPURGISNACHT, the title of act two of the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. Walpurgisnacht is a festival in Germany with otherworldly implications celebrated on April 30th (which happens to be my birthday) marking the final victory of Spring over Winter. Also a Dutch black-metal band.
9 Quoted from Les' original exhibition proposal. The Segue series was exhibited in a group show, titled Young Winnipeg Artists, at Plug In ICA, 14 March - 31 May 2003.
10 Text from an untitled Segue series print.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 Refers to a quote by Wayne Baerwaldt during an interview by Clint Roenisch for the now- defunct Lola Magazine, Toronto ON.
14 Text from an untitled Segue series print.
15 Never mind. (A reference to one of Gilda Radner's character skits on Saturday Night Live.)
16 Text from an untitled Segue series print.
17 Hermetic: perfectly airtight (as per highly- abridged English Dictionary, E.F.G. Series, 1940).
18 Hermeneutics: science of interpretation (as per highly-abridged English Dictionary, E.F.G. Series, 1940).
19 Newly Old Techno, 12 September - 04 October 2003 at Struts Gallery, Sackville NB. Sheila Butler is a visual artist and teacher whose work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and abroad. Sheila teaches courses in studio and in contemporary theory and criticism at the University of Western Ontario.
20 Article by Dinitia Smith (The New York Times, 03 January 2004) about critic Terry Eagleton. "But now the postmodernist giants - like Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes - are over... In this age of terrorism, he says, cultural theory has become increasingly irrelevant because theorists have failed to address the big questions of morality, metaphysics, love, religion, revolution, death and suffering."
21 Reference to a line by Walter Sobchak, played by John Goodman in the movie The Big Lebowski (1998, written by Joel and Ethan Coen, directed by Joel Cohen).
|
