Stripped of intention
Contorted through time
Stolen by you.
What purpose to bother
To recover, to view
When I am all that’s left of you
And me thought we were doing this
Anonymously until I
Noticed you had planted
A forest as I lay sleeping
Beside you. Unconcerned
With your ecology.
Images: © Errikos Andreou, courtesy of the artist.
Text: © JL Nash, 2013
“Hyperphotos are the realization of an old dream that would be impossible without digital technology: to see the big picture and at the same time the close-up, to stop time and be able to examine all the details of the fixed image.” [Jean-François Rauzier]
Images: © Jean-François Rauzier
“Growing up in Savannah, Georgia, I worked at my parent’s health food store, and as a kid my daily job was to take out the recycling. Through the years I started to realize how much was not recyclable. I began to think about landfills and where everything goes. There are islands of plastic taking over the oceans, the earth is suffocating from plastic that never biodegrades, and our water and environment are leaching toxic estrogenic compounds. Visually, I want to convey the sacrifice we have made by our consumption and waste. The wrapped bodies represent invasive cocoons floating over vulnerable landscapes.” [Andrew Brodhead]
Images: © Andrew Brodhead. Courtesy of the artist.
When he first arrived in the city,
The buildings seemed to loom
Grey monsters from childhood,
Reflected ugliness in the river
The overcast skies hid the sun
Friends were scarce.
The alleyways beside bookshops
Appeared hostile
He was nervous of his shadow.
Now that he walks these same streets,
Twenty years on,
Small alleys are simply spaces for rubbish bins
And the homeless,
Some, his age,
Many the same as he was
When he first came here.
But now he notices the sun
Dappling on leaves
But there’s still this special place.
He had all but forgotten it
In the rush of love and laughter
In renewal on returning last year,
He was in a cab
He saw the gate in passing.
STOP. PULL OVER!
He demanded and walked
To stand in the archway where
The winter vines had pulled back
Revealing the fountain within the courtyard.
This had been his secret garden,
His place
His haven
So many years ago
Here it was again.
In the spring, the gated garden
Full of blooms and colours
Bringing such hope after
Northern hemispheric winter
Darkness.
In summer he had stolen kisses
Sitting on the edge of the fountain,
In autumn, he had thrown his pennies
In hope of a love that stayed
And winter – well here he was again
This time
No rollerblades to enjoy the curves
No dog to chase around the gardens
But still one or two friends who
Had shared the secret beauties
Of a city so cold and as he stood
Once again in the entrance of such
A garden, he photographed it
Sent it to two numbers
Smiled at the sun
Threw in pounds in thanks
For the wishes that come true
And turned to leave a solitary
Figure sitting to one side
Ipod engaged.
In his own special place.
Images: © Predrag Pajdic, 2013
Text: © JL NASH, 2013
The exhibition explores early photography from the mid-19th century and the most exciting contemporary photographs, alongside historical painting. It takes a provocative look at how photographers use fine art traditions, including Old Master painting, to explore and justify the possibilities of their art.
Paintings and early and contemporary photographs are presented together according to traditional genres such as portraiture, still life, nudes and landscape, highlighting the universality of the themes and influences across all the works, both past and present.
Drawing attention to one particular and rich strand of photography’s history – that of the influence and inspiration of historical painting – the exhibition features pictures by the greatest British and French photographers alongside work by an international array of contemporary artists. It includes new photography and video specially commissioned for the exhibition and on public display for the first time, plus works rarely seen in the UK.
The show includes almost 90 photographs alongside selected paintings from the National Gallery’s collection. Key photographs will come from the Wilson Centre for Photography, Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, National Media Museum in Bradford, Fundació La Caixa in Spain, and direct from the photographers themselves. Work by leading photographers such as Martin Parr, Craigie Horsfield, Sam Taylor-Wood, Richard Billingham, Julia Margaret Cameron and Gustave Le Gray will be on display beside key paintings from the National Gallery collection.
Until 20 January 2013
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN
Images:
No1: Richard Learoyd, Man with Octopus Tattoo II, 2011
Unique Ilfochrome photograph, 148.6 x 125.7 cm. Courtesy of McKee Gallery, New York. © Richard Learoyd. Courtesy McKee Gallery New York
No2: Tom Hunter, Death of Coltelli, 2009, C print 122 x 152 cm – Edition of 5
No3: Luc Delahaye, 132nd Ordinary Meeting of the Conference, 2004
Digital C-type print, 138.7 x 300 cm, Wilson Centre for Photography. Courtesy Luc Delahaye and Galerie Nathalie Obadia
My corpse is rotting
While I still live no matter how
Much I bathe perfume
The skin the rot is setting in
Changing my diet
Absolutely irritated
Deep inside of me
It rebels I can smell myself
The flesh on my jaw
Is pretending to hold my teeth
There’s gold in chewing
I’m mining through sulphur and coal
I woke yesterday
Seeing an ear on the pillow
It was clear time had
Come to reject the sound of you
Call for a doctor
For zombies who remember all
The time you killed me
My heart decided to keep on
Beating my revenge
Text: © JL Nash, 2013
Images: © Jacky Tsai
The first one falls upon the nose of a three year old which whinnies in surprise and up it floats from the muzzle to startle it again. All the energy of a thousand horses charging into battle flood his veins and arteries and fetlocks fly over the hard ground towards the safety of a wide open space. The second one catches on the tail of a cat, at its tip where is stored a temple full of attitude, and upon that, it is cast aside to find a new home. The third catches the eye of two five year olds who race each other to catch it before the wind takes it away. The boy looks up to see its origin, his twin sister reaches up but in her eagerness and enthusiasm, she projects it back into the air, and it travels on the breeze across the street out of their reach. Crossing the street without permission or a bigger hand to hold does not live inside their personal vocabulary and quickly their attention changes to something more present, living in the moment as only children can.
High on the side of a mountain, in a cave carved hundreds of years previous, an aesthete opens his eyes from a prolonged meditation. Slowly adjusting to the dawn’s gentle footsteps in the entrance, he notices it. Caught in a pool of water left by the night’s rain, it curves upward, floating like a tiny boat. How strange to see it here, where no birds fly. How strange to see it caught in the puddle, dry. Yao stands and walks over to it and wonders whether it is real or whether he is still inside his meditation. He had come up to begin his nine years of facing the wall more than 50 moons ago. He had begun to see his spiritual existence as more real than the corporeal one and so the interjection of this visitor, puzzled him. Was it a test? His spiritual child was only five years old and children can become easily confused with things. He was spending hours in the pursuit of non-pursuit, the ultimate wu-wei and now, here was an unannounced presence. Should he have felt the energy of it as it entered the cave? He peers out to see if there was anything or anyone else on the tiny track which ran along the mountain face, cut barely into the side leading to his humble home. Where he sat, he could feel the heartbeat of the mountain and where he slept he could hear its liver and spleen and in his meditations, he often became one of differing points upon the meridians of the mountain and felt her energy move through him as much as his own blood and humours. Still, it wasn’t how this tiny object had reached him that bothered him, for such action already seated him in the past, but instead, it was why?
The fourth is caught on the lapel of a suit, put on that day to attend an interview; new beginnings promising themselves to a youth who left school before Christmas and now needed to prove that he could make it without pieces of paper. Without parents since his 8th birthday, he had grown up reading his grandfather’s adventure books and although holding a passion for words on paper, his dreams were in squares of sticky labels upon leather suitcases of the 1920’s. As he looks down, he is loathed to remove it as he is convinced it is portent of possibilities, but to display it might not be received well, so he gently removes it and puts it into his left pocket for his fingers to feel later. A lucky touch. The fifth lands upon the dressing table, as she looks down to select the colours for her eyes. She is tempted to blow it to one side, but instead, she places it back onto her headpiece, keeping her luck close and her costume intact. Today is not the day for it to fall apart. Her continuity depends on longevity of body and habit. The sixth drops onto the red polished stone step. An African morning sees the girls making beds while the kitchen staff clean up the breakfast dishes. Only the security guard notices it as he completes his patrol past the dormitories. He thinks of his kraal and his children gathering eggs and looks forward to seeing how they have grown by his return for the spring vacation.
As Yao sits to one side of the puddle, he places his hands over the tiny feather and propels it millimetre by millimetre. He has developed a keen sense of energy, not just of his own, but the energy of each and every part of his cave. The vibrations of rain and hail now converse instead of just inform and it was without expectation this knowledge had applied itself to his cells. He had come to the cave, after first nursing his spirit for three years, to be away from all temptations attached to earthly elements and now this metaphor of air, of lightness and freedom asks for his attention. His plan is to remain in the cave for a total of nine years, to nurture the Shen within himself. It hadn’t taken long for him to forget about the need for enlightenment. The more he became in touch with the energies of his environment, the depth of each spiritual moment, the more he was able to live in the present without any reference to what had passed and what might come. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and as he slips back into a meditative trance, he realizes there is no message, no metaphor, simply an opportunity to play, enjoying the curve and shape, the mass, the vibration, the energy and the beauty of a single white feather.
The seventh one floats onto a brassplate being attached to the front of a tiny coffin. The carpenter smiles and nods, removes the screws, tucks it beneath the plate and then re-attaches it while no one else is around. He has seen this many times before; he knows that a choice has been made and a light switches itself on inside him. His sadness is faked for convention. The eighth is caught between two eggs, ready to release two lives. One of the eggs begins to move. The ninth is carried into the ward on the skirt of a nurse, to be removed by a small hand reaching out in mischief. This act of defiance and rebellion will afford a trophy to a pulse that struggles to make itself known and in the protection of this soft prize, excitement proves a better medicine just when it’s needed.
The tenth feather sits in a puddle, high in the mountains. From behind the head of a monk, simply dressed, a glow begins to emanate from the interaction of energy between a mountain, a man and tiny feather. It spills out of the mouth of the cave and spreads over the rocks, rubble and grass until it reaches a mountain stream, feeding the river, that waters the city below. Across the planet and several time zones, reports begin to appear of a golden light that spreads on hand holding. Some say it began with a horse, some say a cat. In one town parents are trying to prevent the press from interviewing their twins while a school dropout has been wanted at every job interview he attends. Elsewhere, a dancer’s spotlight remained in a powercut, a security guard’s letters home sparkle each time the paper leaves the envelopes. There is a village where the funeral services of children are reported to be filled with an understanding of the natural world, the earth’s vibrations and the hope at a transition into eternal joy, energy to energy, all things existing eternally. In a muddy river, two small crocodiles light up the waters as they grow, fish multiply as they pass them and the river banks are safe. Best of all, there is a four year old in a hospital, with freckles and an obsession for tugging at clothes which pass her bed and collecting feathers which appear on a regular basis around her. She seems to have developed a halo in spite of her mischief and in her thoroughly modern Midas touch, a golden glow spreads and in that light, angel song is played to the marrow of each and every bone.
Text: © JL Nash, 2013
It’s a seven of spades day. I make sure I look left and right because although it’s a lucky number I never quite know. I mean, I am never quite sure. If it was a lucky day then it might be lucky for everyone – but clearly it isn’t. Accident and Emergency departments are still in business each seventh of the month and I haven’t found anything special on the seventh that I remember but I was born on the seventh so does that make it special for me and then why isn’t a seven of hearts day the same as a seven of spades or a seven of diamonds kind of day? Seven of diamonds, now that was a day I enjoyed – it had an edge of mystery to it. The way the sunlight reflected off blond hair – it could have been sinlight and each movement was a hidden message, leaking at each curve and crack. Yes, the only seven of diamonds day I have ever had, was mysterious indeed, but today is a seven of spades day and today is just not the same at all.
He picks up playing cards from the pavement whenever he sees them, alone, discarded, forgotten. There is never more than one card and each time he espies each little treasure, he wonders how can it be lost from a family of twelve, a group of fifty two. How soon was it missed? Who carries a single card, loose? When it first began, he would write upon the back of each one, the location and date of discovery. He kept them in a mother of pearl marquetry box he had bought five years earlier in a souk in Alexandria. He would always leave the marks of dirt or blood that had dried on the card and then, with a biro, record its moment of revelation before carefully placing it on top of the others, gently pressing them down in the box.
I’ve seen the shows on television and I’ve read several books which say live in the moment, live in the present. I find this confusing as I am most definitely here, now and I can’t see how anyone can live in the past. I suppose there is an argument to be had that the keeping of momentos and records of discoveries are a kind of living in the past. I can’t really get it – I mean I don’t feel the game thrill when I find a King or an Ace. But I guess, if I ever looked at the cards in the box, I’d be able to remember that instant when it appeared for me to find. Is that living in the past? Is that holding me back from the joy of now? I’m asking because I find joy and I feel joy, each time I look down and I see a card, waiting for me on the floor, sidewalk or bridge.
Playing cards have a plastic coating, pleasing to touch as they softly and smoothly pass between two fingers. The constant exhilaration of the croupier sits in the palm and in the small joints of his hand whenever he handles a card and then, for that day perhaps it would be a jack of clubs day or a four of diamonds day. A three of spades is a serious day and would invariably involve a visit to the bank, but a two of clubs brings intrigue. Jacks are flags of naughtiness and when he’s really lucky, and this has happened only twice, he finds a two of hearts. Was it a two of hearts in his back pocket that led to the kiss on a train in a compartment he wasn’t booked into? The roughness of that kiss and the speed with which it was executed still smarted his lips but it had been worth it. Perhaps that was what had been meant about living in the past. He needed a kiss now – in the moment. Each card was a memory which kept him yearning. Each yearning created a space that he had to fill, in retrospect. So many holes to fill.
I opened my left hand one morning and as I looked down, I saw imprinted across the palm, the lines of four aces. It was the day after I had found the fourth ace. It became more and more difficult for me to use the hand for fear that others might see the shapes and ask difficult questions. I was sure that I knew the answers but I didn’t want to answer those questions. The ace of clubs had been tucked beneath a bag, on the pavement and the bag had been discarded. I didn’t look in the bag. I didn’t open the bag. But as I reached down to move the bag to one side so that I could recover the ace of clubs, I could hear the struggle and I chose to ignore it. I chose not to follow with my eyes the direction of cries and instead, I picked up the ace of club, a prize for me and I walked in the other direction.
After the finality of the acquisition of four aces of different suits, he seemed to turn a corner and quickly found that if he had not picked up a new card by 11 am, then the day was lost of all potential. Head down, he would wander, mind stuck in the mother-of-pearl box and the recordings therein. If by some happenstance he came across a card in the evening, then it might indicate a phone call was on the way. If a card was recovered at night, then his dreams could be free. Rule upon rule stacked until there was no movement, no action without plastic coated cards with ink dates and locations.
Sometimes I can confess that I’m scared to pick them up if they are face down – in case they have been damaged beyond recognition or in case they are not playing cards but some other gamer’s puzzle piece. Of course, inevitably, you might say, I step down, lean in and pick it up each time. Recently I have begun to hear the cries again. Just when the card is a club, but they do come back to me and I wonder if I should have lifted my eyes just a little further to see. On club days and nights, I no longer sleep in case the dreams come back. I lie in bed waiting for the morning and then as soon as it is light, I hit the streets, scanning for a sign of what the day might bring.
One warm night, he stared into a velvet lined, marquetry box, for fear of sleep, in yearning for a day to be spent with direction. There was a chink of light which broke out of a tooth and each time he took a sip of his drink, it sparkled off the glass, dazzling him momentarily. With an empty house, a anxious heart and fearing an obsessive compulsion might be preventing potential, in a moment of light grey sanity, he reluctantly threw four years of cards away. He kept the box, empty and then proceeded to sleep unencumbered.
Text: © JL Nash, 2012
Image: Playing cards commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, manufactured by Chas Goodall & Son, 1897.
From The World of Playing Cards
PART 1
Drawbacks of Timelessness
Being four thousand and twenty two years old has its drawbacks but none that you might imagine. Lela Glen stared into the mirror, lit inadequately by 6 incandescent 40 W bare bulbs and steadied her hand to apply the false eyelashes on her right eye. The nicotine stain on the inside edge of her index finger reflected back in the mirror. It was so dark it could be mistaken for a birthmark. Drawback number 1.
She gets to bed at around 4 am, the show finishing at 2.30 am. It takes her about an hour to disrobe, remove the eyelashes, the lipstick, hang up the sequins, put away the heels, stand under a hot shower until all the hairspray and foundation has rinsed off and then, towel off and pull on sweat pants. It’s 3.30 when she allows herself to meet the side of her that feels heavy, cumbersome and uncoordinated and in those few moments before sleep calls, she sinks into the chair in front of the television, usually watching half an hour of The Sopranos or Deadwood. At night Lela dreams of raven haired crowds and the names Utu, An and Enki echo through 9 metre tall waves which crash through her mind leaving the sun, wet and glistening in a sky all shades of blue. She doesn’t know Utu, An or Enki beyond what Wikipedia shows her and none of this makes sense. Even hypnosis for past life regression hasn’t revealed the source of these voices. She cannot remember these shadows. Drawback number 2.
Her memory seems more comfortable operating in the short term, which is frustrating considering she has never indulged in pharmacological pastimes. Around her, colleagues and peers have worked their way through different decades of stimulation. She has never partaken. She never remembers being young so there has never been a time for illogical decision. Lela has no photographs from the past, just paper tablets covered in this squirly shorthand, which no other can read. Consequently she writes everything down in note form, using her own strange symbolic scripting to record and relay. Each written note is precisely A5, no matter what material is chosen for such abbreviated records. She wishes she could retain information for longer, but it’s just too hard and if she pushes her mind and doesn’t manually record, a grey space appears and the moment is lost forever. Drawback number 3.
The headdresses she has acquired over time, fill one of the closets she fitted herself, three years ago when she came into this life. Each one exquisitely sculptured to capture an emotion or atmosphere she so carefully constructs, of course, matching the sequins and heels for each show. Her favourite, layers of reds, yellows, blues, oranges and black, with accents of white pearls and crystals at the edge of each layer, sits upon a frame, 50 cm high. She reaches inside to touch the silken colours and to re-experience the texture of layers and accepts that she cannot remember its origin. She understands the weft and weave of each and every fabric. Each thread communicates its journey to her. Each knot and stitch recalls the laughter of thousands of years of happiness and each fray and hole stands testament to dreams unattained. How can she possibly communicate this to anyone else? Drawback number 4.
PART 2
Voice Modulation as a Hobby
Lela was once asked to advertise a voice modulation unit when it was thought that she had eyes engaging enough to convince the shy to try it. She resisted at first as she thought it was a prank or even a scam but soon she realised that it could be so much easier with help. She tried out the unit for three weeks, each afternoon on waking, she would hook herself up to the computer, initiate the software and listen to how her voice could rise and fall with the softness of ganache as opposed to bungee jumping her way around the soft palate. She loved the fact that no one else could hear her and soon, it became clear that the pleasing results of such recording and output could stay with her long into the evenings which didn’t require her spoken voice but in the snapshots of the perfect lip-sync, at the height of applause and in the perfume of the perfect fit, she hears the sound of her own modulated ventilation. By the time she agreed to do the commercial, the company had found another model but she was left with the software and on rising, cigarette in hand, coffee in tiny portions, she would often put on the headphones and mic, and play, allowing her voice to discover new corners and definitions.
Her favourite item of clothing is an antique kimono. Lela adores it and as she slips into it, wearing only her underwear beneath, the silken weight of it upon her shoulders smoothes away the consciousness her rough and sun darkened skin. The hand painted pink flowers on the light pastel green silk have tiny golden dots added to the centre of each hibiscus. Unassuming and delicate, these tiny specks shine like crystal embroidery and each time Lela moves an arm and sees the shimmer, she smiles. In her naps after her 7 pm protein shake, she often meets the voices of the petals of the flowers that graced the heads of new brides. Each petal holds a timbre and vibration that clearly reflects the dreams and wishes of each wearer. In such short snatches of communication, Lela becomes a gatekeeper and without toll or timepiece, she helps each perianth reach the tone they need in order to complete each wish, each goal and when she opens her eyes, although she forgets the process, she is always left with traces of gold upon her top lip which reflects with the kimono gilt patches.
PART 3
Adoption is Always Adaption
Each culture brings with it a sense of adaption – whether it’s a new kitten in the home or a lover who is permitted to stay overnight. Each decision ushers in the movement of boundaries, new fences and piles of old wood, which need clearing before the next year begins. That’s a pagan thing, to use the New Year as a rite of passage and why not? Beneath it all, each varied structure of value and belief, we are all human except for the fact that that we were not all created equal. There are those who walk among us who are shackled by the illusion of mortality and although they strive to fit in, and often succeed, their renunciation of one life is embedded between their shoulder blades, never to be seen by the naked eye. Should you x-ray such a person, you’ll notice a twist in their spine that belies a decision, which once cost them the heavens.
Lela looks at the suitcase, which normally lives beneath the bed and is lifted out for cleaning once a week. LGG are her initials; Lela Gefen-Glen would not fit easy and the three points of gold leaf upon worn leather are the only tag to remind her of a choice which belongs to a time when ziggurats were erected and cuneiform made sense. She is tempted to open the suitcase, each week, but the case is locked and she has long forgotten where she put the key and doesn’t wish to break the catch. The suitcase is heavy and each time she picks it up, there is a sharp pain that stabs her for a millisecond between her shoulder blades. She has no idea why this occurs and each week it happens, by the time she replaces the case beneath the bed, she forgets the pain and her mind returns to the list of gentle deeds she cares to perform for neighbours and friends on a daily basis. Sometimes these actions comprise of nightly jaunts out, in one case, weeding and tending the front garden of a pensioner who lives two houses down. Once the weeds were gone, Lela would pass by the garden and drop seeds in the front. Over time, a fragrant blend began to grow and as faded hands and worn skin fumbled their way to open the gate on pension collection days, a smile would fill and replace loneliness which lived each moment inside that house. Lela has never told her neighbour who to thank but still enjoys the same sense of erudition of the soul for which she was created.
Lela carries with her a depth of sadness and shame of which she has no idea how she owns. Her solitary response to daylight is her penance and her only reprise has become a series of acts in the darkness, releasing twisted beauty under the motion and sounds of the theatre of this life. Through each time frame, she has adopted whatever messages she needs to carry and in that, Lela has changed gender, culture, ethnicity and attachment. She has had no choice, because once she lost her wings, she needed to adapt to the lives she was facing in perpetuity and so, every day, she was resolved to lift the mantle of pain and pass to another, any other, the tiniest grain of hope she could muster.
Text: © JL Nash, 2012
Image: Leonardo da Vinci [1452–1519], Virgin of the Rocks, 1503-1506, oil on panel, 189.5 × 120 cm, National Gallery, London. The Virgin of the Rocks is the name used for two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for two significant details. One painting is exhibited in the Louvre, Paris, and the other in the National Gallery, London (shown here). For a few months in late 2011 and early 2012 the two paintings have been brought together in an exhibition about the paintings by Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery, London. Both paintings show the Madonna and Christ Child with the infant John the Baptist and an angel, in a rocky setting which gives the paintings their usual name. The significant compositional differences are in the gaze and right hand of the angel. There are many minor ways in which the works differ, including the colours, the lighting, the flora, and the way in which sfumato has been used. Although the date of an associated commission is documented, the complete histories of the two paintings are unknown, and lead to speculation about which of the two is earlier.
