Monday 26 January 2015

This is Propaganda by Tino Sehgal

THIS IS PROPAGANDA 


British-born, Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal turns art storage on its head. Why? As performative work – executed not by Sehgal himself but by his trained ‘interpreters’ – it is completely immaterial. Unlike other artists in this field, Sehgal also stipulates that no record whatsoever remains of the work – no photos, no recordings, no press releases; only the experience. That rule even extends to institutional sales agreements of his piece – a sale like that of This is Propagandawhich Tate bought in 2005, is verbally executed. The artist, the buyer, a lawyer and a notary are present; all rules and regulations around the piece are committed to a designated person’s memory. So This is Propaganda (which sees a gallery guard singing “This is propaganda, you know, you know, this is propaganda, Tino Sehgal, This is propaganda, 2002” to every visitor who enters the space) exists only in the mind. Imagine that.


Fascinating- modern art, concept art, is art about the creative process or is "art" the outcome?

I don't know, but I do know artists themselves are interesting.

(Courtesy BBC website.)

Sunday 18 January 2015

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, 
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, 
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, 
'He was a man who used to notice such things'? 

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, 
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight 
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think, 
'To him this must have been a familiar sight.' 

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, 
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, 
One may say, 'He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, 
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.' 

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, 
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees 
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, 
'He was one who had an eye for such mysteries'? 

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom 
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, 
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, 
'He hears it not now, but used to notice such things'?





Read this as a schoolboy in England. Had a wonderful youth traversing Hardy's "Wessex".
As a kid in school, the poet's desire to be remembered struck me as an idea I could grasp. Alot of poetry , back then, was a foreign land for which I did not have a passport.