Tony Matelli, Marlborough Contemporary Art London

Tony Matelli showing at London Marlborough Contemporary Art Gallery, 6 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4BY, until Dec 16, 2017.

Several impulses strike when looking at Tony Matelli's work.  To touch - to wonder what the work is made from - does the food smell ? - are the statues found ?

I'm interested in found work across mediums.  The found sound of drag fabulist Dickie Beau.   The found verbatim theatre of My Name is Rachel Corrie and Alecky Blythe (an aside, even my own Lost in Peru  which is also probably my worse review ever (so far, hah! Alienation and poetic naval gazing, but at least pushing the boundaries of form and style!)  but it did find me love).   The found poetry or heightened poetry of the likes of Charles Reznikoff.

What transforms an object found into something more? How can it reveal a deeper truth? Does it need to?

Place and performance transform.

As does juxtaposition or enjambment.

A sandwich.  In this case almost literally except the food is painted bronze.

Work like this will often produce a superficial response. How hard is it to place a urinal on a plinth? (Duchamp’s famous found art icon / practical joke) Much of where art today provokes such a response. That may be your truth.

I like to judge art differently. Intentionality. History. Thought. The viewer all wraps up in this.

I'm not studied in art. I've read a little. John Berger and Susan Sonntag. The interviews of Francis Bacon. But I reach across several mediums of expression.

So to me.  I see this.  I immediately recall Di Chirico's Uncertainty of a Poet.   (Artist says not influenced by).

There is an absurdity.  The impermanent made permanent. The fragile cast into bronze.  The real and hyper real being not what you see.

The permanent being found.  Made and remade.  The old made a new.  Sandwiched and juxtaposed.

When I think of Di Chirico I always recall Wendy Cope. And her beautiful funny absurd word play of a poem of the same title (see left)

This takes me to the theatre of the absurd. And where life or found art or #realnews over #fakenews seems more strange and bizarre than the strange and bizarre.

And so here, I am. A playwright of no recent plays. An investor attempting sustainability in a world dominated by short term profit. A multiple parallel identity - husband, son, father being an obvious initial three -

Looking at a banana which is not a banana on an old statue that is not old found in a place where it is not found and as the absurd builds on the absurd - that’s part of the human condition as expressed in art.

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If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try:  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure. 

Interested in some more found art, I have some thoughts on watching Dickie Beau and his found sound. The found sound of drag fabulist Dickie Beau.

Cross fertilise. Read about the autistic mind here. 

Linkedin poem

My funny little Linkedin poem in honour of UK National Poetry Day. It riffs on this fad of some posters in an effort to gain more views have taken on this elongated form of post particularly suited to a mobile phone.

Better is Rishi Dastidar's (I love I can tell it's written in Notes on a phone)

The 4 books of poetry I’ve last read are Rishi Dastidar (Ticker Tape) JH Prynne, Rebecca Bird (through Rishi), and CD Wright (One with Others).  If you fancy it, check them out.

JH Prynne to my lay mind is one of the most important British poets of the last 50 years. The CD Wright book One With Others is extraordinary (I will try a post on it some time, I can't even think to describe it in a few words). There’s a large part of me which is sad we read so few poets. That’s the way of the world, I guess.

More on Prynne here (I sat next to him and his orange tie once).  Rishi's book here. Rebecca Bird's site here.  

One With Others: "Investigative journalism is the poet's realm when C.D. Wright returns to her native Arkansas and examines an explosive incident from the Civil Rights movement. Wright interweaves oral histories, hymns, lists, newspaper accounts, and personal memories—especially those of her incandescent mentor, Mrs. Vititow—with the voices of witnesses, neighbors, police, activists, and black students who were rounded up and detained in an empty public swimming pool. This history leaps howling off the page."  New Yorker article here.

I owe a post of Thanks to Forrest Gander (who like Gideon Lester was very influential to me), so there's another post in the back log.

Writing Competitions

Several poetry, short story, art and a play writing competitions with deadlines coming up. The Oxford Brookes Poetry (28 Aug, deadline) competition. Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, both poetry and short story (31 Aug) and an art prize. Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award (28 Sep, need to be published writer). Manchester Poetry Prize for best portfolio of poems and the Manchester Fiction Prize for best short story (29 Sep). Taking Flight, play competition (30-60 mins, 1 Oct, Asian writers). The big one in poetry, The Poetry Society’s annual National Poetry Competition (31 Oct).   Get ready, get set - write - draw - go !

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The Oxford Brookes Poetry  competition. 
The competition is open to both new and established poets aged 18 and over from across the globe and has two categories:
1) Open category (open to all poets aged 18 years and over)
2) English as an Additional Language (EAL) category (open to all poets aged 18 and over who write in English as an Additional Language
The winners of each category will receive £1000 and both runners up £200.

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award
The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is an international literary prize that celebrates excellence in Poetry and Short Fiction. The prize is now in its 11th year, hosted by Aesthetica Magazine. With the aim to support and nurture new writing talent, it awards publication within an inspiring anthology to a shortlist of 60 writers, including a winner from each category.

The winners are also presented with further opportunities to expand their literary careers: £1,000 cash prize each, a consultation with literary agency Redhammer Management, a Full Membership to The Poetry Society, a subscription to Granta and books courtesy of Bloodaxe Books and Vintage Books.

• Poetry entries should be no more than 40 lines
• Fiction entries should be no more than 2,000 words
• Works published elsewhere are accepted

They also run an Art prize.   There are two awards for entry: the Main Art Prize and the Emerging Art Prize. The Emerging Art Prize is open to current students and artists who have graduated within the last two years. The Main Art Prize is open to all, including those eligible for the Emerging Art Prize.

The 2018 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.
The prize, worth £30,000 to the winner, is an international award, founded in 2010, that is open to any story of up to 6,000 words written in English. Stories need to have been either previously unpublished or only published after 31 December 2016. Five other authors shortlisted for the award will each receive £1,000. The prize is administered by the Society of Authors. To be eligible, the author must simply have a record of prior publication in creative writing in the United Kingdom or Ireland.

The Manchester Writing Competition was established by Carol Ann Duffy in 2008. It offers the UK’s biggest literary prizes for unpublished writing and has awarded more than £135,000 to its winners. Each year two £10,000* prizes are awarded: the Manchester Poetry Prize for best portfolio of poems and the Manchester Fiction Prize for best short story. Designed to encourage and celebrate new writing across the globe the competition is open internationally to new and established writers.
> Manchester Poetry Prize - £10,000* 
> Manchester Fiction Prize - £10,000*

There is a play writing competition from Red Dragonfly. It's aimed for Asian writers in the UK only. They are looking for i) a thirty minute to an hour stage play, the subject of which can be anything you want – from something contemporary to more traditional folk and fairy tales- as long as it is family friendly – and we mean the whole family not just small children ii) The play should be written for a cast of up to five actors – although they can double up on characters if you want and iii) workable with a minimal set, however do not let this restrict your imagination – it's amazing what can be accomplished on a stage with very little. Applicants need to be over eighteen and based in the UK but otherwise we are truly open to hearing from anybody.

Finally in this summary, the big Poetry Society competition, it's open globally.  

1. All entries are judged anonymously and the poet’s name must not appear on the poem itself.
2. All poems must have a title and must not exceed 40 lines in length (excluding title). Entries can be on any subject.
3. Poems must be the original work of the entrant.
4. Entries must not have been published, self-published, published on a website, broadcast or featured among the winners in another competition before 31 March 2018.

Get ready, get set - write - draw - go !

Cross fertilise. Read about the autistic mind here and ideas on the arts here. On investing try a thought on stock valuations. 

To Jane To Sue

From this

comes this

And this

Witnesses this

I am. We are. Stewards.
Pass it on. Pass it on.

It is passed on. It is.

This mind. This memory.
Passed on. In your words.

In your touch. In your sound.
In your eyes. In your being.

We pass it on. We pass on. We pass. We.

I-we-you-she painting
an impossible song of love.

For Sue Dunkley and Jane Bodie.   Arts.  Autism.  Investing.

David Jones. Works grow over time.

I'm reading over writing I did 10 years and I'm amazed on what still seems relevant. It reminds me of some Ernest Hemingway (attrib) advice (commented on here and book here), don't compete with living writers. It's the dead ones that matter.

My neighbour and friend at Harvard, who was training to be a priest (and now is a wonderful priest - what makes an impact in Church work today - must be a whole other series of thoughts) gave me a book on David Jones.

Jones’ poems In Parenthesis and Anathemata are great works I come back to time and again (poetry foundation page here). They are not easy first reading but very rewarding.

letter to Colin Hughes on his work.  

The way the works grow on me... 

(or am I growing up? cf. Mark Twain (attrib)   - "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." 

 ...over time intrigues me in a world of seemingly ever faster, more connected instant media.  

[As an aside, Mark Zuckerberg in a remarkable letter that alters Facebook's fundamental purpose (at least articulated by him) does acknowledge some of these factors about connection and echo chambers. ]

David Jones was also a brilliant visual artist.

from his manuscript for In Parenthesis.  

He is known as a painter-poet.

From In Parenthesis, part 7

And to Private Ball it came as if a rigid beam of great weight
flailed about his calves, caught from behind by ballista-baulk
let fly or aft-beam slewed to clout gunnel-walker
below below below.
When golden vanities make about,
you’ve got no legs to stand on.
He thought it disproportionate in its violence considering
the fragility of us.
The warm fluid percolates between his toes and his left boot
fills, as when you tread in a puddle–he crawled away in the
opposite direction.

David Jones was born in south-east London to a Welsh father and a London-born mother. As his father had been discouraged from speaking Welsh as a child, David Jones did not speak the language. Yet Wales, Welsh and Welsh mythology would remain a significant component artistic influence.

He studied at Camberwell College of Arts, where his work was described as ‘leaving everything out except the magic.’ He enlisted at the beginning of World War One, serving from 1915 to 1918. He served longer on the Western Front than any other major war poet in the UK. This shaped his whole life.

He had traumatic breakdowns through out his life. Certain breakdowns would then make turning points in his artistic practice.

(C) David Jones estate, Tate collection

Jones also made beautiful type and engravings and post-war David Jones became a Roman Catholic. His Christianity would become increasingly important in his art. Post war, he came under the influence of Eric Gill, a religious artist.

TS Elliot and other poets of the period considered Jones work important.I believe if you compare In Parenthesis and Anathemata to Elliot's work you can see why.It must be someone's PhD thesis or more.

More recently In Parenthesis was turned into an opera by Iain Bell and WNO with Librettists Emma Jenkins and David Antrobus  (I'm not jealous, honest). It has also been a recording made a while back at the BBC.