Palimpsest talk in Paris

Last Thursday, March 15, the talk / lecture about the Palimpsest I could present once again at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The same lecture I did in February 2010 at the PhDarts conference in The Hague. The lecture was organised by Gilgian Gelzer, teacher from the drawing department. Many students showed up and listened quite concentrated. The next day, Friday March 16, individual talks with several students about their drawings made the ENSBA visit fruitful.

Within a reasonable time I have the plan to publish both texts, about the Palimpsest and about Idolatry & Iconoclasm, here on this blog.

surface research final exhibition photo's

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Book Launch

 A special performance by the two graphic designers of the Surface Research book during the Book Launch last Friday February 17 in Nieuw Dakota was destructing the new book by tearing out one of the pages. Merci Emma, Daniel and Marieke for the beautifully destructed Surface Research book.

Daniel Norregaard, Emma Olanders and Marieke Coppens

Daniel Norregaard and Emma Olanders

surface research book launch

Surface Research Book Launch in NIEUW DAKOTA

Ms. Van Riemsdijkweg 41 B, 1033 RC Amsterdam Noord

on Friday February 17 / 16:00 h.

presented by Ann Meskens, Emma Olanders, Daniel Nørregaard & Henri Jacobs

Cover of the book Surface Research, designed by Emma Olanders &
Daniel Nørregaard

setting surface research final exhibition

installing the book table

alphabet and 9 palimpsests

30 A3 papers with the blog items monthly ordered

alphabet and 9 palimpsests

research output on palimpsest and golden ratio

end of palimpsest year, beginning of creation and destruction year

creation and destruction chapter

c & d chapter and blog items

blog items on 30 A3 papers and book table

curator Alexandra installing the films

opening on Saturday January 15

opening on Saturday January 15

invitation

Surface Research Results final exhibition in NIEUW DAKOTA
Ms. Van Riemsdijkweg 41 B, 1033 RC Amsterdam Noord
January 15 - February 19 2012
curated by Alexandra Landré

OPENING: Sunday January 15 2012
16:00 h.

the invention of god

alpha gorilla and Michelangelo's Mozes

Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo
Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian
Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape

summary

Nine palimpsest drawings were the first output of my Research Residency at the Rietveld Academie, and are made during September 2009 - December 2009. In January 2010 these nine Palimpsest drawings are used as research material for a lecture for a PhD in the arts symposium in The Hague in February 2010.

This is the first chapter of my Surface Research.

After the lecture I had to regenerate the Artistic Research plan. With the idea of being of some importance for the students I organised a workshop "intensive drawing". The workshop worked with the very simple concept about the drawing surface, which is its size. We made drawings after the Golden Ratio and the triangle of Kepler.

Second chapter of my Surface Research.

At the end of the first year of this Artistic Research Residency I made a drawing in advance of the second Research Residency year. Sixteen states of making and destroying and redrawing one drawing are showing the systematically process which I want to use in the second research year.

Third chapter of my Surface Research.

In September 2010 I started the second research year with a creation & destruction project by destroying three canvases. After that four drawings are drawn and destroyed. And finally five photographic self-portraits are destroyed with various techniques.

Fourth chapter of my Surface Research.


After this practical destruction research my research became more theoretical about the subject Idolatry and Iconoclasm. List of literature:

Frans Kellendonk: Idolen. Over het tweede gebod, Meulenhoff Amsterdam 1993

Sven Lütticken: De kunst van het iconoclasme, 2007.

Bruno Latour en Peter Weibel: Iconoclash, Beyond the image wars in science, religion and art, ZKM Karlsruhe 2002

Jan Assmann: Moses the Egyptian, the memory of Egypt in western monotheism, Harvard U.P. Londen 1997

Sigmund Freud: Moses and Monotheism, translated by Katherine Jones, Hogarth Press 1939

Ad Reinhardt: Art as Art, the selected writings of Ad Reinhardt, edited by Barbara Rose, University of California Press L.A. 1975

This literature and a text which is going to be published soon on this blog is the fifth chapter of my Surface Research.

Chapter six is going to be an exhibition in autumn 2011 and will be organised by Alexandra Landré. A publication with texts and images is going to be the seventh and last chapter of my two years of Artistic Research at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Thanks a lot for the opportunity and the hospitality Gerrit !

destructed masterpieces

Erased de Kooning Drawing, Robert Rauschenberg, 1953

Imagine an exhibition of destructed masterpieces,
starting with Rauschenberg’s “erased De Kooning drawing”.

Than a sliced into ribbons Barnett Newman,
a stabbed Dumas and
a burned Tuymans.

After that a totally perforated by machine gun bullets Kiefer,
a buried Nitsch,
a drowned Baselitz and
a torn into rickety Richter.

A butchered Borremans,
a mutilated Monet,
a punched Polke,
an entropic destructed Duchamp and
a pruned Koons.

opposites

doing diderot 20 april 2011 luxor live arnhem

On Wednesday April 20 Richard Sennett (author of "the craftsman") was the key-note lecturer in the Doing Diderot symposium in Arnhem. It was a pity he couldn't be there because he was ill, nevertheless the symposium was interesting.
In the whiskey bar of the Luxor Theatre I presented my research into Idolatry and Iconoclasm.
Next week the text will be translated and is going to be published here on this blog.

Moses / Michelangelo / Freud

Moses of Michelangelo in S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

 

Drawing of Moses by Sigmund Freud

Drawing of Moses by Sigmund Freud

Drawing of Moses by Sigmund Freud

 

Drawing of Moses by Sigmund Freud

Moses of Michelangelo in S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

selfportrait iconoclasm by cutting out

idolatry                        iconoclasm

figurative                     abstract
pornographic              the void

sublime                       extreme

full                                empty

many                            one

something                   nothing

creation                       destruction

inferior                        superior

anarchy                       utopia

cacophony                  silence

polychrome                monochrome

polytheistic                 monotheistic

a mess                         tidy

dirty / polluted          pure / clean

muddy                        clear

complex                     simple
for many                    for few

a begin                       the end

selfportrait iconoclasm by stabbing

Three stages of a self-portrait stabbed with an awl.
image
picture
statue
figure
representation
portrait
icon
metaphor
diagram
simulacrum
amulet
charm
talisman
fetish
voodoo
potlatch
initiation

selfportrait iconoclasm by sandpapering out

Another three stages of a self-portrait photo which is destructed with rough grained sandpaper. It is more or less precise executed within the contour of the head. Therefore the background in the photo stays visible as a room. Do we call a photograph figurative? There are photos which are abstract. Figurative images are constructed in stone or with pencil or paint. A photo isn't a construction, often a photo isn't a construction but something captured by chance. Even though a lot of styled photo-models are posing during photo shoots in what is construction of images on a high level, those photos we don't call figurative photography.
Does it matter, figurative or abstract images? Yes, it matters. Abstraction to figuration is superior, abstraction thinks. God had no stature, shape, form, figure nor posture when he spoke to Moses on the mountain Horeb, therefore figurative images are inferior. Plato posits that reality is an idea of the higher unknown. So a figurative image is an idea of an idea and therefore unnecessary and superfluous. For Plato and Yahweh it isn't allowed to play and entertain with figurative images because it distracts from the world of ideas and will lead to idolatry. Figuration is inferior to abstraction, abstraction is superior to figuration.
Still we feel this distinction, in art we work with this distinction.
Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt are superior to Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp.
Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp are inferior to Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt.
Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp is entertainment for the bored "looking for stories" junkies.
Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt is pleasure and delight for the spoiled "longing for emptiness" addicts.