Friday, September 25, 2009

Double J Guest Post



While most contemporary conceptual art has as much connection to the old masters as a Hannah Montana pop hit has to Beethoven, many of the young artists in the underground draw inspiration from the history of western figurative painting not simply in content but with the fine attention to detail and composition the arts establishment has typically rejected over the last few decades.


I have a guest post up at the fabulous Just Jen blog wherein I riff on underground art and the work of Simpkins, Early and James Roper.

If you are not reading Jen's blog on the regular I suggest you remedy that sharpish, especially if you, like me, enjoy a little smart discussion on art and culture but don't have the time for snobbery and ego stroking.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Diego Velazquez - Portrait of Pope Innocent X (Francis Bacon remix)



"Bacon’s scream is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth." -- Gilles Deleuze

Between 1949 and 1964 Francis Bacon created a series of some forty five paintings that remixed and versioned Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Of these many variations on a theme, 1953's Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is perhaps my personal favorite. It sits early enough in the series to channel the power of Velasquez's portrait yet far enough along to have as much connection with Bacon's earlier versions (Head VI in partuicular) as with the original.

Bacon claimed never to have seen the Velasquez in person and judging by the books in print at the time it is assumed that he may only have seen the painting in mono-types (supposedly this is how he mistakenly used purple for the pope's robes). As common practice Bacon would take photos or prints that he used as reference and tear, cut and paint on them. He used these modified copies as a more traditional artist would use preliminary sketches.



In electronic music a good remix is one that takes a small sound or moment of the original, a drum fill or synth hook, and draws it out, expanding it into a entirely new piece of music while often re-editing or dubbing out those features of the original that are most prominent. In Study after Velasquez Bacon takes some of the original paintings traits, most prominently the geometric composition of the chair, the sitting pope's posture and the remarkable use of light. He then blurs and removes, dubs out, the figure's engaging if cool gaze and expressively clenched hands. Even to a viewer who has never seen the Velasquez these omissions draw immediate attention. Traditional portraits not only have eyes and hands but they are normally the vehicle through which the painter presents the inner life of the subject. Here they are erased and the viewer is instead presented with a jarringly expressive mouth in full shriek.



This leads us to the often cited Deleuze quote above. What happens when a screaming mouth repalces the eyes as the entrance to intimate knowledge of a subject? (As an interesting aside the scream here is understood to be referenced from the nurse's primal scream in the film Battleship Potemkin an recurring image used by Bacon.) This replacement of organs results in a type of inversion to how the work is viewed. Through the eyes a viewer can glimpse the intellectual life of Velasquez's pope. She can see the wheels turning in his head as the cliche goes. This interacation draws the viewer in to the image, engages her. In Bacon's painting the eyes are blurred beyond recognition and instead the viewer is challenged by the bared teeth and impenetrable emptiness of the screaming mouth. Instead of being drawn in we are repulsed. Instead pondering the intellectual intricacies of the pope's conscious mind we are attacked by the primal nature of an extreme physicality. The eyes are instruments of removed perception, they do not physically effect the outside world. The mouth however is an instrument of consumption that can have a destructive effect on the world outside the body.

Through his act of erasure and reconstruction, Bacon takes the intellectual piety found in Valesquez's original and replaces it with a much more animalistic view of human nature. That the pope remains dressed in all his regalia makes this contrast all the more immediate. He further tranforms the orginal image by flattening the scene down in to only two dimensions. Where in the Velasquez the precision of perspective highlights the otherness of the subject, in Bacon's version all perspective is flattened and compressed. The background curtain, the foreground chair and the pope himself exist on the same plane. The hierarchy that places man above his surroundings, let alone pope above his subjects, is destroyed. Instead all things are portrayed as interconnected equals.

To return to my example of the remix in music, in dub reggae it is a common technique of the producer to load several distinct parts of a song on to a single channel on the mixing desk. The lead guitar, keyboard, bass, etc. are no longer kept separate in the mixdown. The result is an over-saturation of the sound. Paradoxically this technique does not leave the arrangement sounding crowded but instead opens up space within the song giving it extra dimension. In Bacon's Study after Velasquez, he takes the background and foreground components and compresses them on to a simgle plain. Instead of giving the painting a cluttered or crowded composition the technique opens up a dark void within the painting that is nowhere in Valsqeuz's original. In Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent Bacon fills this viod with an arresting primal scream.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

End of Summer Mixdown

Here's a little mix to soundtrack the final summer roll out. I tried to capture some of the fresh sounds that have been so exciting over the past months. UK Funky and House music with a emphasis on lively swung percussion and serious BASS weight.

End of Summer Mixdown (Sept 09) by kelcey

(00:01) Little Dragon - After The Rain (floating points remix)
(01:00) Karizma - Neccessarry Madness
(04:10) Rudenko - Everbody Everybody (fingaprint remix)
(07:30) Untold - Just For You (Roska Remix)
(10:00) Afefe Iku - Bodydrummin'
(13:20) Ill Blu (feat. Hoodzee) - Rider
(17:20) Martin Kemp - No Charisma
(20:20) Geeneus - Yellowtail (VIP)
(22:25) Eve/Benga/Salaam Remi - Me-n-My (Up In The Club)
(24:10) Cooly G - Oh Boy
(26:00) Cooly G - Him Da Biz
(28:45) Roska - Pyramids
(31:15) N.B. Funky - 2nd Strike (VIP)
(34:45) Loco Dice - Pimp Jackson Is Talkin' Now!!! (luciano remix)
(39:30) Hot City - Hot City Bass
(42:55) Felix Da Housecat - Kickdrum
(45:05) Basti Grub - El Gitarrro (M.in remix)
(48:45) Kode 9 - 2 Far Gone
(52:30) Sideshow (feat. Paul St Hilaire) - If Alone (appleblim and komonazmuk dub)
(55:11) End

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Plastic Moment #7, September 2, 2009, 2:25:22PM

United States Court House, New York, NY
(40.713758, -74.001392)

"please check your cellphone in at the security sir"

"of course", my weary tone implying my familiarity with this particular routine. I'm in post metal detector reassembly mode. Scooping up all of my personal effects from a gray tupperware bin and redistributing them to their proper place and pockets. As I finish up I pat myself gently on the thighs and smooth my slacks out in an exaggerated fashion. Then I head in to the security office. As I enter I can't help but eavesdrop a bit of peculiar conversation between security officers.

"...it's just that they could be transmitting from inside here, covertly broadcasting sensitive details of our operation, is all." Security Guy #1 explains nonchalantly.

As I reach the desk Security Guy #2 is trying hard not to give his colleague an "are you fuckin' kidding me?" look but it's pretty obvious that's what he's thinking. There is a lengthy uncomfortable pause as the two men search for a way to change subject while avoiding eye contact. But then they realize that I'm standing over them with my blackberry held extended in a surrendering fashion, and they take the opportunity to let the uncomfortable conversation die.

"you've turned it off sir?"

I nod affirmatively and contemplate what I'm going to do with all of the covert transmissions containing the essential details of their security operation. SG #2 takes my phone and turns to retrieve a numbered token in exchange. Just then a third Security Guy emerges from a back room coming around the desk toward the door.

"Jimmy remind me to take my gun home with me tonight.", SG #3 declares without looking at anyone or giving up a hint as to which of the two is Jimmy.

"What am I your fuckin' mother?", responds SG #1 (possibly Jimmy)

"What the hell you need your gun at home for man?", questions SG #2

"Yeah, you live in fuckin' suffolk county, nothing ever happens out there, what do you need it for to commit suicide or something?" Possibly Jimmy's gallows humor yields a sly chuckle out of SG #2 and a nervous smile from me. But just as he's about to reach the door out in to the corridor SG #3 turns slowly around and glares back at his mocking compatriots.

His eyes are dark and lifeless. I swear I see the abyss reflected in their clouded liquid sheen. His eyes have obviously not seen sleep for sometime. They have not rested as he's spent long cold nights awake planning and un-planning existential escape routes from some unknown personal situation. The air in the tiny security office goes cold and silent as each extended second passes with a cold deliberate tick. Each of us are trying to avoid the crushing twilight gaze of SG #3 that is locked on to some distant unseen point off in the distance. And then he simply shrugs, his shoulders rising slightly followed by his arms dropping like beef slabs at his sides. He wordlessly turns and walks out in to the corridor.

I turn and silently take the token for my phone from SG #2 and follow the third man out. As I emerge in to the cool marble corridor I can hear the two men returning again to their conversation as if nothing had ever happened.