Monday, April 30, 2007

Placing

this is one of those apolagetic posts about saying nothing.

I've been reading about art, writing about art, talking about art but not doing any of it and seeing almost none of it.

so scarily I can see myself turning into one of those stange refractory individuals that eveyrone loathes...... an expert.

Acutally it's not as dire as that. I wnet and saw gilbert and geroge at some cafe donw the road and then at their tate modern retrospective.

and I had to go in and gasp at the rothgo room at the Tate modern.

why? - because some works are just so immensely incredibly moving - I felt myself drawing into the works - and wanted to come and wanted to cry and felt incredibly glad to be alive at that moment.

I had a similar experience eeing the world's greatest carpet at the V&A - something about the minutae of obsessive intense work - just by looking cross, staring, being drawing in as I slowly walked around - placed me in one of those trance states - that reminded me of listening to a really good ragas - and I felt alive and bizzing and very very glad to be alive.

and I've heard great wonderful inspiring things about drawing and what drawing can be.

I've also realised - depressingly that life drawing not only exists in a critical vacuum - but is being repidly and extensively cut from art school curriculm in the UK - not in the olden days of whatever ism reactionary turds like to cast apon attempts at pregressive critical culturla pedagogy - but due to plain old neoliberal reforms to higher ed...

bloody depressing

2 comments:

lucazoid said...

Hi mayhem
when i was in melbourne recently i found this flyer in an art supplies shop (yes, i went to one!!) which advertised "awakening the eye - drawing from life as meditation" - it reminded me of the discussion we had after your conference paper at monash last year. does this sort of thing interest you? at least it's not in a conceptual vacuum, but with a clear idea in mind as to why the artist is involved in drawing...
see the flyer here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilateral/483217829/

lucazoid said...

oh and lizzie just gave me a heads up about this book - i'm ordering it from my library sounds pretty interesting and up your alley re embodiment and pedagogy:
Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning (Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education)
http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-Bodies-Moving-Minds-Landscapes/dp/140202021X/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/104-9890139-1412739