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About
the work a short history
A small painting first titled clearly The cherry picker, later re-titled
on the artists continued insistence in the light of events and protecting
his reputation, The cherry thief, An essay the rope, the clock,
the gift (Terence Maloon) an oblique reference to Manet via Baudelaire’s
La Cord, a short story, the English translation tracked down, La
Cord written in the first person for Edouard Manet, a defence of
his actions in the hanging suicide in 1859 of a young boy, Alexandre
in the artists bedroom closet started this journey. Plato says that
all representation written or in visual form is a deceit. He was
right and wrong, an accumulation of small lies can tell us at least
something if not all about the nature of truth.
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My own poor efforts
at story telling, the reply written in the voice of the mother
of the child, in which she freely admits that she is just another
writers representation brings no closure, if such a thing exists,
on the matter either. But it does offer this maker of representations
a chance to explore the way that truth is contingent and with
those with the means to make representation. And in doing so shows
how the received cultural blind spots of authors and artists in
history permeate their works of art, their realism and their sense
of place in history and culture. Further to that how those ideas
inform our own flawed vision of history and the world today |
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(The
Rope} a reply to Charles Baudelaire and Edouard Manet. Ross Barber
My friend used to say to me, "Illusions are as numerous, perhaps,
as relationships among men, or between them and things. And when
the illusion disappears, that is to say when we see the being or
the fact such as it exists outside of us, we experience a strange
feeling, complicated partly by regret for the vanished phantom,
partly by a pleasant surprise before the new, before the real fact.
If there exists a phenomenon evident banal always the same, and
of such a nature that no mistake is possible, it is maternal love.
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It is as difficult
to suppose a mother without maternal love as a light without heat;
is it not perfectly legitimate, therefore, to attribute to maternal
love all the actions and words of a mother which relate to her
child? And yet, listen to this little story, in which I was unusually
mystified by the most natural illusion. Introduction to The Rope
Charles Baudelaire (Fowlie translation)
It
was something of a mischievous surprise that we found Edouard
Manet at our door for a second time, though on this occasion he
was not a willing supplicant seeking permission to engage our
child as his assistant, model and companion. His manner had changed,
with eyes that did not make contact, he appeared an apparition
hovering on the step, predicating a hasty retreat as though entry
though the door would invoke an invisible vile substance, that
would cling to his person and render him as he really was, a human
with flaws and ‘a sensibility no more alive or more significant
than for other men.’(La Corde) This time his vaunted free
will and libertine attitudes had been usurped, perhaps by a need
to confess, we are all after all Catholic at heart. I feel it
was this, more than the pitiless eye of our police chief, that
we have all with sideways looks and shared furtive smiles declared
we have felt at one time or another, who charged Manet not legally
culpable, but with the moral task of declaring to us the death
of Alexandre while in his care.
Unlike his previous visit the sense of purpose was not evident.
Before his argument, of a better life for our son had been delivered
with passionate promises of a paradise beyond the reach of our
poor means. It is true on that occasion my husband followed my
lead, as was his nature, and was reasonably quickly persuaded.
After all are not human relationships in some part, a matter of
weighing economies? So it was that our son was to be delivered
from the economy of drudgery, that all of our class enters into
after too short a childhood, and was conducted into the economy
of Plaisir in the house and studio of Manet.
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I must confess
that I exist here before you as just another writers representation
of Alexendre’s mother and you might judge me as such less
truthful than that of Baudelaire’s Manet, in regard to the
death of my son, as I would never in life have had the words or
perhaps the opportunity to respond to his literacy. In fact, Manet’s
circle Baudelaire, Zola, Courbet; those realists all have the
goods on me in regard to my and my classes’ representations.
Baudelaire’s contempt for my character and sex is manifestly
evident; perhaps his attack on mother love has a genesis in his
own pain. And did not Zola conjure the basest life and language
that my kind is said to inherit in his ‘Social history’
Les Rougons-Macquart. And Courbet represented the condition of
The Stonebreakers albeit from the safety of his carriage. I must
confess some malicious mirth that Courbet became a victim of his
own ‘ realism’. An eye more truthful and mechanical
than his (a camera) captured him in an act of sedition and forced
his hasty retreat from the police to another country. They, the
lot of them in my view are the children of their grasping class,
seeking to distance themselves from less elegant ancestry and
in doing so propose a view of our class that supposes us to be
dumb animals, not favoured with a will to improve
The gulf between us,
my husband, Manet, and myself could not have been wider that night
or forever. Manet for his part seeking to distance himself as
quickly as possible from us and the act, appeared stuck with his
own phantoms of horror, the closet, the rope, the small body,
and guilt mixed with delicious memory of not the child that was,
but his daubed representations of his ‘small catch, his
companion, the thief of his heart, transformed into a small gipsy
sometimes into an angel, or an Eros’ with an immoderate
taste for sugar and cherry liquors, ‘he had carried the
violin of the vagrant, the crown of spines and the nails of passion,
as well as the torch of Eros.’ (Quotes La Corde)
My own tearless, speechless, shock was interrupted by the stuttered
remarks of my husband, who as a man that things happen to rather
than for, this time spoke first of what he in his heart had always
known of our bargain, 'After all, it is perhaps better thus; it
would have always finished badly!' (La Corde} Manet by way of
explanation perfunctorily told us that he was not of course to
blame in any way, after all he was away from the house on unspecified
business, Manet then took leave of us after telling us of the
indecent cause, Alexandre’s sin, his larceny of a cherry
liquor coupled with guilt and the fear of being thrown out of
paradise on Manet’s return.
I was now at
Manet’s door to see my son laying in the room, in the house
of his petty crime and in the eyes of god, his grand larceny,
to steal and to take his own life meant the gates of paradise
had closed for Alexandre, both on earth and in heaven.
Manet it was plain saw my arrival as an indisposition, but was
I imagine able to drag up some sense of pity for my situation
and nervously waved me to enter. My dulled trauma turned to a
pain so intense I could hardly stand. My eyes took in the terrible
laceration and I looked to Manet, who sensing my rage averted
his look to the rope still hanging from the closet. He made a
dash for it as though it was his life that now depended on its
concealment from me. In truth I did not as Baudelaire asserts,
ask in a pitiful state for the rope to be handed over, but being
closer launched myself at the object and tore it and the terrible
nail that it hung from, out of the closet. Manet and I faced each
other for the first and last time, as equals sharing our respective
guilts’ and then I left with the terrible object in my possession.
It is of course true that on the following day Manet received
letters and personal entreaties from the relatives and neighbours
to be given at least a fragment of the rope to keep as a relic
of memory, which in his story smacked of a macabre fascination,
but on hearing of the number of requests, I measured the need
and cut the rope and sent a piece to all who asked. Manet asserted
through Baudelaire that it was by way of trade that the pieces
were distributed, but it was a compensation of another sort that
motivated the division of the cord, a sharing of the pain, something
that Manet could never understand. If small gifts were given in
return, if a few sous passed to us, what of it? A half decent
burial consecrated or not, is not cheap.
Manet left town not long after and then France with Baudelaire,
I heard they took themselves to London for a time, I can only
assume that Manet’s story was contrived in that place, far
from the truth of the matter and is to my mind, a tasteless defence,
a vehicle for delivering to the public, gothic horror, transported
to the everyday, a chimera masking both Baudelaire’s prejudices,
and Manet’s manifest guilt. As for my guilt I have dealt
with that myself. |
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Grapple
Exhibition Context - a sensory engagement with contemporary art
Rope} a reply to Charles Baudelaire and Edouard Manet
Perhaps it is covering old ground to state the obvious that above
all else the visual has been the primary sense valued by western
culture. Common sense says, seeing is believing, a picture is worth
a thousand words, theology has a revelationary aspect that is visual,
religious texts have abundant references to gods will manifesting
in a visible sign. Science has followed theology, its method/s have
not escaped the determining structures of visual observation however
improved by mechanical means.
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Philosophy
perhaps in its most analytical mode seeks to improve on the vagaries
of commonsense, yet relies on the terms (visual metaphors) that
have a sense of revelationary theology. It has been said that
Emmanuel Kant’s method was like shining a torch to every
conceivable corner of a dark room to reveal 'truth' seeing and
understanding are then mutual terms.
The Arts in western
culture following the theorizing of aesthetics found its genesis
in a philosophy and a cult of the beautiful and in the visual
in terms of ideal form. So that a sense of the visually beautiful
is perhaps still the strongest strain of arts theology (aesthetics)
running in the arts today, an object of visual beauty is most
perceived in common parlance and the market as ART. The external
appearance of an object sometimes occludes the viewers perception
of a work of art or more specifically the artists intention, oh
it is always there, (take Velasquez’ Las Meninas for instance,
Velasquez knew the game when he placed his own eyes in the painting,
above that of the King and the Queen) but not always in the contexts
in which art is shown, all curators know this implicitly even
if their inclusion of a work in an exhibition subverts the artists
intention.
Engaging in the reading of a work of art is a dialectical process,
while meaning is the second order of perception after a visual
encounter; In truth this second order of perception from my point
of view is the most important, the meaning of a work of art which
once ‘made visible’ tells us of its ‘real’
value its cultural value, a further consideration of a works meaning
might give to us another deeper understanding of history, or the
way works of art both engage with and reflect history, ideas and
culture and disclose just who we are and what our values are.
The premises of Grapple give me an opportunity to engage with
a number of issues that are intrinsic to my practice. One is an
engagement with the history of art and ideas that have informed
our contemporary culture and art practice. The next is unashamedly
and in truth no less or more but implicit in the first, a political
and moral one in which I frequently question the issues of just
who might engage in the production and reading of works of art
and by extension be valued in our culture.
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The
installation (The Rope) a reply to Charles Baudelaire and Edouard
Manet Components.
Seven strongly focused spots with if needed floodlights, light seven
transparent acetate plinths 40x40x90cms, placed quite close to the
wall and at regular intervals between them. A Braille embossed resin
based tablet 26x26x2cm, which also houses an embedded fragment of
cotton/silk cord sits on top of each plinth. |
Image Concept
Drawing
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Six
small speakers 6cms each placed between the plinths play a dialogue
in the voices of Manet and the mother of the child, both seek
to defend their own roles in the affair at once affirming in part
aspects of the story but clashing on key issues through insinuation
and a class gulf that can never be bridged.
The lighting is set up to over light the objects so much that
the visual viewer has difficulty perceiving the work a bit like
Picabia's Relache but the light is bounced off the walls and objects
not pointed at the viewer. This simply challenges the visual viewers
primacy in the visual arts space. The embedded rope fragment is
distorted for the visual reader who looks more closely at the
work, but encounters an effect something like having cataracts,
which continues to subvert visual perception. At the same time
there will be a formal consistency in the work that will be aesthetically
a contradiction, a reflective beauty.
The Braille tablets will give the blind reader a layer of the
work that is a direct entry to the reply via touch but not entirely
complete either. They will get the mothers story only and a history
lesson.
And the average listener will have to listen carefully as the
dialogue continues in fragments of contesting views, only in the
last part History does Manet reflect on his actions in the whole
tawdry affair which is outside either of the written texts but
is part of my further speculation on the story.
So no reader is really privileged above the other, as with any
reading only an imperfect view is possible.
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Baudelaire’s
La Corde Edited and translated by Wallace Fowlie, Dover Publications
Inc. New York
My friend used to say to me, "Illusions are as numerous, perhaps,
as relationships among men, or between them and things. And when
the illusion disappears, that is to say when we see the being or
the fact such as it exists outside of us, we experience a strange
feeling, complicated partly by regret for the vanished phantom,
partly by a pleasant surprise before the new, before the real fact.
If there exists a phenomenon evident banal always the same, and
of such a nature that no mistake is possible, it is maternal love.
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It
is as difficult to suppose a mother
without maternal love as a light without heat; is it not perfectly
legitimate, therefore, to attribute to maternal love all the actions
and words of a mother which relate to her child? And yet, listen
to this little story, in which I was unusually mystified by the
most natural illusion
"My profession
of painter impels me to look attentively at faces and facial expressions
which I encounter on my way, and you know what pleasure we derive
from this faculty which for our eyes makes life more vivid and
meaningful than for other men. In the distant neighbourhood where
I live, and where large spaces covered with grass still separate
the buildings, I often noticed a boy whose fiery and mischievous
expression appealed to me at first, more than all the others.
More than once he modelled for me. At times I made a gypsy out
of him, at other times an angel, and still at other times a mythological
Cupid. I made him carry the vagabond's violin, the Crown of Thorns
and the Nails of the Passion, and the torch of Love. I took such
keen pleasure in the comic manner of this boy that one day I begged
his parents, who were poor people, to let me have him, and I promised
to clothe him well, to give him some money and not to impose on
him any other work save that of cleaning my brushes and running
my errands. This child, cleaned up, became a charming creature,
and the life he led with me seemed to him a paradise, compared
to what he would have had to undergo in his father's hovel. Yet
I must say that this little fellow amazed me at times by strange
fits of precocious sadness, and that he soon showed an immoderate
liking for sugar and liqueurs; to such an extent, that one day
when I saw he had again committed, in spite of my many warnings,
a new theft of this nature, I threatened to send him back to his
parents. Then I left, and my business kept me away from home for
quite some time.
"Imagine my horror
and astonishment when, on entering the house, the first thing
I saw was that little fellow, the mischievous companion of my
life, hanging from the closet door! His feet almost touched the
floor; a chair, which he must have pushed aside with his foot,
was overturned beside him; his head was twisted over one shoulder;
his swollen face and his eyes, wide open with a terrifying gaze,
made me believe first that he was alive. To get him down was not
as easy a job as you may think. He was already stiff, and I had
an inexplicable repugnance at the thought of dropping him abruptly
to the ground. I had to hold up his entire body with one arm,
and with the hand of my other arm, cut the rope. But all was not
over when that was done; the little monster had used a very thin
string, which had cut deeply into the flesh, and I had to pry
with narrow scissors between the two rings of swollen flesh, in
order to release his neck.
"I neglected to tell you that I had called loudly for help;
but my neighbours had all refused to come to my aid. In that,
they were faithful to the custom of civilized man who I don't
know why, never wants to get mixed up with the business of a hanged
man. At last a doctor came and declared that the child had been
dead for several hours. Later, when we had to undress him for
the burial, the rigidity of the corpse was such that, renouncing
hope of bending the limbs, we had to slash and cut his clothes
in order to take them off.
"The police inspector, to whom, naturally, I had to report
the accident, looked at me quizzically and said: 'There's something
fishy about this!' impelled doubtless by some innate desire and
habit of frightening, on the off chance, the innocent as well
as the guilty.
"One supreme task
remained .to be done, and the thought of it alone caused me terrible
anguish: I had to inform the parents. My legs refused to take
me there. At last I summoned courage. But, to my amazement, the
mother showed no emption, and not a tear trickled from the corner
of her eye. I attributed this strange behaviour to the horror
she must have been feeling, and I remembered the well-known saying,
'The deepest suffering is mute.' As for the father, he merely
said, half stupefied, half dreaming: 'After all, it is perhaps
better that way; he would have come to a bad end anyhow!'
"In the meantime the body lay stretched out on my couch,
and, helped by a maid, I was busy with the final details, when
the mother came into my studio. She said she wanted to see the
body of her son. I could not, in truth, prevent her from enjoying
emotionally her grief and refuse this supreme and sad consolation.
Then she begged me to show her the place where her child had hanged
himself. 'Oh, no, Madame,' I replied, 'that would upset you.'
And as my eyes involuntarily turned toward the sinister closet,
I saw, with a feeling of disgust mixed with horror and anger that
the nail had remained planted in the panel, and a long piece of
rope was still dangling from it. Quickly I went over to tear off
those last vestiges of the catastrophe, and was about to throw
them out of the window, when the poor woman seized my arm and
said to me in an irresistible tone of voice: 'Oh! Monsieur! Give
me that, I beg you, I implore you!' It seemed to me that her despair
had doubtless so bewildered her that now she had feelings of tenderness
for what had served as an instrument of death for her son, and
wanted to keep it as a horrible and precious relic. She seized
the nail and the string.
"At last! At last!
It was all over! Nothing remained for me to do except to resume
my work, more avidly than usual, to drive out gradually that little
corpse which haunted the recesses of my mind and whose ghost wore
me out with his wide staring eyes. But the next day I received
a bundle of letters: some were from tenants of my house, others
from nearby houses; one from the second floor, another from the
third, another from the' fourth, and so on; some in a half-joking
style, as if trying to disguise under an obvious banter the sincerity
of the request, others grossly insolent and misspelled, but all
concerned with the same purpose, namely to obtain from me a piece
of the fatal and beatific rope. I must say that among the signers
there were more '"women than men; but they all, believe me,
did not belong to the lowest and commonest class. I have kept
those letters.
"And then suddenly a light dawned on me, and I understood
why the mother was so bent on snatching the string from me and
by what kind of trade she in tended to be consoled."
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