The Naked and the Nude by Robert Graves
left: Julius Stewart,
The Glade, 1900.
Detroit Institute of Art
"A way of being in the world": does that phrase ring for you? Viggy, The Philosophy Merchant, tells me it's common, tosses it off the way he might say, "Your shoes are brown." However, I think it speaks, or implies, volumes. It resonates. It reeks, and it perfumes.
What material object, including the material human, does not have a way of being in the world? The banana? The typewriter? The blind grandmother with her blanket and her rocker?
In this time of holiday shopping, are you not picking out a present for Logan because of her/his way of being in the world? If he loves rap, will you give him The Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Because you're a provocateur? Is that your way of being in the world?
Based on his poem, "Don't Let That Horse," how would you describe Lawrence Ferlinghetti's way of being in the world?
And here again is Robert Graves' "The Naked and the Nude," this time black print on white background for easier reading, a more accomodating way for it to be in the world. (So even if you saw it here December 2, please give it another chance).
Of course that raises the question (by the way, it does not "beg" the question! Make them stop saying that! What is their way of being in the world, which permits or causes them such endless parroting? What is a parrot's way of being in the world?) . . . .
I was going to say, before you interrupted, "Whom and what do you know that goes naked in the world, and who or what goes nude?"
I've recently seen the (compelling!) movies "Inside Job," about the recent Wall Street fiasco, and "Fair Game," about Victoria Plame and Joe Wilson's plight in the early months of the second U.S. invasion of Iraq (2001 - 2003). What could be a more classic and obvious case of nudity than politics, all that subterfuge, double-speak, and sociopathy, even when it comes to the lives and deaths of other people? Isn't it true that we like to see such fruit exposed in order to convert the nude to the naked?
Well, that ought to keep you off the streets for a day or two. I wonder if I'll ever let go of the topic, "way of being in the world." I guess I'm still teething on the Slim Jim of Life.
Don’t Let That Horse ... by Lawrence Ferlinghetti : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
The Naked and the Nude by Robert Graves
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I forgot the question, but because I'm so taken with/charmed by/enamoured of the Ferlinghetti poem.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting it.
The Ferlinghetti poem is sweet and playful, the way many of us interpret the work of Chagal. Sugery yet we forgive him for it. Like the last line of " no strings attached"
ReplyDeleteGraves feels a bit more like Wagner after that. But I get the argument over classical nude verses human nakedness with all it's attendant vulnerabilities.
But I'd throw one more reference into the mix.
Another take on the nude by post feminist artist Barbara Krueger. Her position packs a verbal punch aimed at the viewer by giving language to the object viewed.
"Your Gaze Hits the Side of my Face"
shifting context
Jean, thanks. I didn't know the poem before I found it the other day at Poetry Foundation, so I'm reluctant to think I know what I think of it.
ReplyDeletePA, not sure what "shifting context" means, but I do see why you might think of Kruger in light of Ferl. and maybe even Chagall. I was not aware of Kruger, so did a superficial google and a minute of a film on Ytube. Not my thing, I'm afraid. Feel much too easy to take seriously as art (or poetry). Now I'll try "Your Gaze . . ."
"Your Gaze . . ."???
ReplyDeleteI think you just slapped it down.
ouch
This raises the question, then.
ReplyDeletePA, I might spend to long responding to what I've seen of Kruger. Suffice it to say she's part of what got me into today's (Dec. 20) post about juncos and jays. Isn't her sloganeering rather loud and jay-like? Maybe I only like slogans on bumper stickers, I'm not sure. But you've again broadened my horizons, so thank you. Guess I'll see if your place is finished yet.
ReplyDeleteagain...I hear the third times a charm
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Hiker: one man's teacher's pet is another woman's peanut gallery.
My first comment wasn’t meant to be focused so much on Ferlinghetti; more on Graves. More specifically on Graves and Barbara Kruger.
Barbara Kruger is a appropriationist artist. She falls into the conceptual camp that traces it's lineage to Duchamp. Part of a group who emerged out of Metro Pictures gallery in New York.
From wikipedia “The term appropriation art was in common use in the 1980s. Challenging ideas of originality, drawing attention to relations between power, gender and creativity, consumerism and commodity value, the social sources and uses of art."
Bumper stickers, slogans, poster art....yes! The language of popular culture. In order to critique the message appropriation artist used the language of the message. Remember how I once mentioned the pallate of the Russian Constructivist's in reference to Robert Moskowitz? red - black - white. Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevic, Naum Gabo. It's effective and appropriation worthy.
Vladimir Mayakovsky: example
Barbara Kruger effectivley used the stradegies within such art to go after the underlining message especially as it concerns male power through the “gaze.”
Context: Women like Kruger were the antithasis of the male dominated neo-expressionist movement of the 70's and 80's. Men who used "heart" in their work....and I’m not knocking heart per se When women use "heart" they're often misinterpreted as "hysterical" barred from the gates of success. The "girls" played a cool Duchampian hand and created a new door. See?
Does advertisement play on your desires or create them? Ask miss Peggy ; )
Interestingly enough Barbara's style would become appropriated back into the advertising community.
example
From Pasadena Adjacent:
ReplyDeletethis is what I'm trying to get through to your comments for the December 17th post (in it's entirety is below)....or the ever democratic PDF format
Thanks a lot Hiker: one man's teacher's pet is another woman's peanut gallery.
My first comment wasn’t meant to be focused so much on Ferlinghetti; more on Graves. More specifically on Graves and Barbara Kruger.
Barbara Kruger is a appropriationist artist. She falls into the conceptual camp that traces it's lineage to Duchamp. Part of a group who emerged out of Metro Pictures gallery in New York.
From wikipedia “The term appropriation art was in common use in the 1980s. Challenging ideas of originality, drawing attention to relations between power, gender and creativity, consumerism and commodity value, the social sources and uses of art."
Bumper stickers, slogans, poster art....yes! The language of popular culture. In order to critique the message appropriation artist used the language of the message. Remember how I once mentioned the pallate of the Russian Constructivist's in reference to Robert Moskowitz? red - black - white. Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevic, Naum Gabo. It's effective and appropriation worthy.
Vladimir Mayakovsky: example
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Plakat_mayakowski_gross.jpg
Barbara Kruger effectively used the strategies within such art to go after the underlining message especially as it concerns male power through the “gaze.”
Context: Women like Kruger were the antithesis of the male dominated neo-expressionist movement of the 70's and 80's. Men who used "heart" in their work....and I’m not knocking heart per se When women use "heart" they're often misinterpreted as "hysterical" barred from the gates of success. The "girls" played a cool Duchampian hand and created a new door. See?
Does advertisement play on your desires or create them? Ask miss Peggy ; )
Interestingly enough Barbara's style would become appropriated back into the advertising community.
example
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/10/12/article-1319751-0B9387FF000005DC-86_468x633.jpg
very good
ReplyDeletethank you
...now go and find Brenda's comments. She's upset that your not posting them