Yves Klein

[bogusbrig]

I just noticed that Tzara's latest AV is Yves Klein, one of my favourite artists so I just thought I'd post this poem which has a mention of Yves Klein in it.

Opinions would be grateful. I personally find it a little dry.


Painting

White on white. Something or nothing?
He had no hair brained theory to back it up
As he applied an impasto of titanium white
It had no representation apart from what it was
No metaphysical connection to physical equations
Nor was he concerned with subliminal reaction
It was just the simple process of painting

Yves Klein had lain on the beach looking skywards
Staring into the calm of a vast blue void
Until a bird scarred his vision with its flight
While Ad Reinhard made a program out of boredom
Claiming his black paintings to be the last of all
If pressured for articulation he would nod to Barnet Newman
"Aesthetics for me is like ornithology must be for the birds"

Stood back, he took note
The eye computed its own aesthetics
The feathered strokes of the brush
The randomly textured surface
A suspension of calx in oil
Dripping like molten fat
Light reflected on a prismatic surface
Casting a spectrum of hues
Pure white was unachievable
In a world saturated with colour
Beauty was unavoidable
The material mocked the idea of nothing
The object existed and negated the act​

Taking his palette knife he scrapped at the canvas
And ploughed off great swathes of the offending pigment
Dollops of bird droppings splattered around his feet
Washing the surface with a rag dowsed in white spirit
Heady with fumes and weighed with dolorous failure
He quoted Fontana’s Spatial Concept with a slash
A vagina, into which he climbed and disappeared!

 

[eagleyez]

I heard a sympony conductor implore a noisy crowd-

"just as the painter must have pure white upon which to begin,
we must have silence in the hall, for that is our WHITE."

It took the plaintive bowing of the double bass to finally silence the crowd.

Perhaps this is similar to the last line of the poem?

 

[Tzara]

I rather like this poem, Brigster. Here are some quick comments. I will try to add some more later.

Painting <--rather lackluster title

White on white. Something or nothing?
He had no hair brained theory to back it up <--hair-brained
As he applied an impasto of titanium white
It had no representation apart from what it was
No metaphysical connection to physical equations
Nor was he concerned with subliminal reaction
It was just the simple process of painting

Yves Klein had lain on the beach looking skywards <--"lay" for "laid", perhaps? Present tense makes it more immediate.
Staring into the calm of a vast blue void <--of International Klein Blue?
Until a bird scarred his vision with its flight
While Ad Reinhard made a program out of boredom <--Reinhardt
Claiming his black paintings to be the last of all
If pressured for articulation he would nod to Barnet Newman <--Barnett
"Aesthetics for me is like ornithology must be for the birds" <--Not clear whether this is a quote from Reinhardt or Newman. Also consider putting in italics instead to set off better.

Stood back, he took note <--"Stood" seems wrong tense. "Standing" perhaps?
The eye computed its own aesthetics
The feathered strokes of the brush
The randomly textured surface
A suspension of calx in oil
Dripping like molten fat
Light reflected on a prismatic surface
Casting a spectrum of hues
Pure white was unachievable
In a world saturated with colour
Beauty was unavoidable
The material mocked the idea of nothing
The object existed and negated the act​

Taking his palette knife he scrapped at the canvas <--"scrapped" perhaps should be "scraped"?
And ploughed off great swathes of the offending pigment <--"swaths" would probably be more palatable to an American reader, but "swathes" also appears to be correct.
Dollops of bird droppings splattered around his feet
Washing the surface with a rag dowsed in white spirit
Heady with fumes and weighed with dolorous failure
He quoted Fontana’s Spatial Concept with a slash
A vagina, into which he climbed and disappeared!

I'm quite fond of this, but then I know who Klein, Reinhardt, Newman, and Fontana are. Most people wouldn't. (By the way, I think you left out Rauschenberg and, for certain sure, Malevich. You may even want to bring up Ryman. Or not.)

The problem with some of your poems (which paradoxically is also, for me, their most obvious strength, or at least one of the things I like best about them) is their dependence on some familiarity with art history or philosophy or political science or whatever.

There's nothing wrong in assuming your audience has this background, but it obviously limits your readership. And the degree of limitation depends upon the relative obscurity or familiarity of your subjects and references. I would guess that El Che, for example, is to some degree a more or less popular figure in that I would assume that most people—at least most people who read poetry, which in itself defines a rather select group—would have some knowledge of him. At least sufficient knowledge to understand the reference to him in your poem.

Your Wittgenstein poem is a level removed from that. Herr W. is a huge figure in twentieth century philosophy, so I would think that a lot of people would have at least a cursory acquiantance with the man and his ideas. But I wouldn't expect my mother, for example, to have heard of him. I would expect that Mom probably would have some idea who Che was.

Then our current buds—Klein, Reinhardt, Newman. You probably gotta be an art geek to know who these guys are. So it limits your audience.

Nothing wrong with that. As I said, I liked the poem.

But you could probably rework this into a form that would have broader appeal (assuming you want to). I think if you concentrate on Klein's motivations to produce the art he did, rather than the details, it might have more appeal. He's looking at the sky, he's thinking about art and representation, how does he present that?

Or something.

As I said, I like the poem.

 

[bogusbrig]

I rather like this poem, Brigster. Here are some quick comments. I will try to add some more later.I'm quite fond of this, but then I know who Klein, Reinhardt, Newman, and Fontana are. Most people wouldn't. (By the way, I think you left out Rauschenberg and, for certain sure, Malevich. You may even want to bring up Ryman. Or not.)

The problem with some of your poems (which paradoxically is also, for me, their most obvious strength, or at least one of the things I like best about them) is their dependence on some familiarity with art history or philosophy or political science or whatever.

There's nothing wrong in assuming your audience has this background, but it obviously limits your readership. And the degree of limitation depends upon the relative obscurity or familiarity of your subjects and references. I would guess that El Che, for example, is to some degree a more or less popular figure in that I would assume that most people—at least most people who read poetry, which in itself defines a rather select group—would have some knowledge of him. At least sufficient knowledge to understand the reference to him in your poem.

Your Wittgenstein poem is a level removed from that. Herr W. is a huge figure in twentieth century philosophy, so I would think that a lot of people would have at least a cursory acquiantance with the man and his ideas. But I wouldn't expect my mother, for example, to have heard of him. I would expect that Mom probably would have some idea who Che was.

Then our current buds—Klein, Reinhardt, Newman. You probably gotta be an art geek to know who these guys are. So it limits your audience.

Nothing wrong with that. As I said, I liked the poem.

But you could probably rework this into a form that would have broader appeal (assuming you want to). I think if you concentrate on Klein's motivations to produce the art he did, rather than the details, it might have more appeal. He's looking at the sky, he's thinking about art and representation, how does he present that?

Or something.

As I said, I like the poem.

Thanks Tzara. Though I'm really going to have to start being a little more conscientious about my editing.

I got a little lost with this poem but I think as you pointed out, there is a lot of mileage in it and I've missed out a lot of obvious candidates who should be in there. I think I will expand the poem in both references and content. Ryman seems a fatal flaw by his absence when discussing white paintings.

I don't mind having a limited audience as long as I can write poems that that limited audience can appreciate. Poetry is never going to have a massive audience anyway so the reward is largely in the writing and appreciation of it by the few. I got bored of writing poems largely to do with my own experience without external reference so if I don't write about what interests me I probably wouldn't write so much. That is not to say I don't enjoy poems by others who write in terms of the collective 'I'.

Rauschenberg is up there with Klein for me so I'm wondering how I missed him. When I saw exhibitions of these two artists at different times in London, I was blown away and both artists went up in my estimation from an already high level.

Thanks

 

[bogusbrig]

I heard a sympony conductor implore a noisy crowd-

"just as the painter must have pure white upon which to begin,
we must have silence in the hall, for that is our WHITE."

It took the plaintive bowing of the double bass to finally silence the crowd.

Perhaps this is similar to the last line of the poem?

ee The white in this poem would be more akin to white noise in music. Eliminating all external reference points. There are two ways of looking at it and two ways of approaching such painting. One is stating that what you see is what you get, the painted canvas is no more than the physical object it is and the other is that it is like a religious icon, a tool or gateway to help some form of transcendence. The problem with a lot of the art theory that goes along with such work is that the artist can end up disappearing up his own backside. I think the best artists produce great work despite of the theories and the second rate simply illustrate the theories. Going back to the music analogy I think it is the difference between a musician learning a piece of music by following the notes and a musician interpreting the notes that makes the piece of music their own. If that makes sense.

 

[Tzara]

Ekphrastic Poem

Frank Okada: AX-II (1980)
Museum of Northwest Art
La Conner, Washington



From across the room we view
a window of untroubled sky.

Closer, footprints in a muddy field.
We back away again and sigh.