The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master, by Thomas Brezing

Thomas Brezing's exhibition The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master opens on Saturday 12 November 2011 at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth, and runs until 11 January 2012.

Brezing's painting 'Skylloura', which provides the cover for my book Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, will be on show.

There's a full programme of public events planned around the exhibition, two of which include my participation:

On Saturday 26 November, at 3pm, I will be taking part in a panel discussion with title 'the influence of literature on art and art on literature'. Artist David Newton will be contributing chair, with the panel also including Thomas Brezing and artist Mary Kelly. (A full colour catalogue accompanying the exhibition, with essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, will be launched at this event.)

And on Saturday 10 December I will be present in the gallery from 11am until 2pm, in the Artist's Shack, for an intervention, where I intend to engage the public into the surrealist game 'exquisite corpse' to produce collaborative poems around the works in the exhibition.

It's a Wrap: UpStart poster giveaway party

To mark the close of the poster project and to raise funds for future projects, UpStart - the group that put art and poetry on the streets of Dublin during the Irish General Election campaign of February 2011 - is throwing a poster giveaway party on Friday 14 October at Block T, Smithfield, Dublin 7.

It'll feature bands, DJs, performances, speakers, screenings and a poster exhibition. And everyone attending will receive a wrapped poster - their own piece of UpStart history to keep.

Somewhere among it all I'll be reading from new work.

The entrance fee is 7 Euro (though it's free for contributors to the original project) and like all UpStart events it's BYOB. 7pm till midnight.

Herbarium

Herbarium is an anthology of poems, edited by James Wilkes, celebrating and exploring the contemporary resonances of medicinal plants and herbs. It features contributions from over 50 poets and is published in celebration of the Urban Physic Garden, a pop-up community-built garden of medicinal plants installed in Southwark this summer by Wayward Plants - a collective of architects, designers, artists and urban growers - with the aim of blooming a slice of neglected London land for a short period. The garden is open to visitors Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm, until 15 August 2011.

For the anthology, each species in the garden was selected by a participating poet, who then produced a poem around it. My contribution ('Sincerely') relates to the herb gravelroot. Gravelroot is a "white- and purple-flowered plant up to 3m/10ft; North American Indian red dye plant" (The Complete Book of Herbs, Clevely and Richmond, Lorenz Books, 1994). Its roots and seedheads are used to treat rheumatism, backache and urinary disorders - but of interest to me in writing this poem is its employment as a talisman (in voodoo, magic and witchcraft) for gaining success in job hunting and interviews, and for the improvement of career prospects in general.

A reading of the poems from the anthology - and the launch of the print edition (with accompanying CD) published by Capsule Press - will take place on Friday 22 July at 7pm at the Urban Physic Garden site on 100 Union Street, London SE1 0NL. Unfortunately I can't be there, but S J Fowler has kindly agreed to read my contribution.

Grow Together: Concrete Poetry in Brazil and Scotland

Grow Together: Concrete Poetry in Brazil and Scotland runs from 3 July to 7 August 2011 at HICA (The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art) and is open on Sundays 2 - 5pm, or by appointment.


Augusto de Campos / Haroldo de Campos / Décio Pignatari / Edwin Morgan / Ian Hamilton Finlay / Geraldo de Barros

As well as presenting individually important poems, such pivotal works as Augusto de Campos' Tensão, this exhibition, with adjacent works in English and Portuguese, examines correspondence between languages as well as between language and equivalents in sound and music. It specifically reflects on the communication between poets of different nationalities and, in this context, on the effects of location on meaning. Consistent with this the location of HICA, as rural gallery and research project, enables an active presentation where elements such as Morgan's Chaffinch Map of Scotland or Pignatari's Terra, painted directly onto the gallery walls, make immediate connection to the context of the space and exhibition, and determine a current meaning.

Background to the concrete poetry movement, especially in Brazil, will be presented through related materials, including interviews with Augusto de Campos and a film by Michel Favre on the concrete artist Geraldo de Barros.

The exhibition’s title, Grow Together, is from the Latin root of the word ‘concrete’. Here, this etymology is particularly suggestive, of dialogue between geographically distant centres (Brazil and Scotland), or perhaps more pertinently, of the process of development of artworks and poems themselves: the process through which meaning finds form, exemplified in the exhibition by Haroldo de Campos’ Cristal Forma.

Dr Nuño Sacramento, Director of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, will give a talk on the work of Ferriera Gullar, poet and author of the Neo-Concrete Manifesto, at HICA on Sunday 7 August.

The Art Books of Henri Matisse

The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin is currently exhibiting five out of the more than a dozen artist’s books produced by Henri Matisse. I wanted to look at the approach in these books towards marrying the elements of narrative, typography and illustration.

I was a little surprised to learn that they often came unbound, in loose sheets. Jazz (1947) is Matisse’s best-known art book, with bold colours and occasional lithographed text as accompaniment to the images. Jazz is brilliant and large-scale – and in my mind somewhat at odds with the idea of the portability of the book (it was originally conceived as a collection of plates). In terms of book production, then, I found the other exhibits of more interest.

Pasiphaé (1944) is Henry de Montherlant’s retelling of the legend of the birth of the Minotaur. For this, Matisse selected favourite phrases from the text which he interpreted in several ways – though in the book he published only one image per scene. The linoleum-produced illustrations consist of white lines on a black background, forming silhouettes which recall classical Greek representations of the figure; dispersed throughout the book, they contrast sharply with the white pages containing the black lettering of the text. (I also noted that the text incorporates a combination of verse, regular prose and dramatic dialogue.)

an image from Pasiphaé (source: henri-matisse.net)

For Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans (1950) Matisse created a backdrop to the medieval-period poems rather than direct illustrations. What stands out here is the use of his own calligraphic script for the text – surrounded by garlands and rolls; he also decided to vary the colour and motif of the script in order to avoid monotony.

In Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (1932) he responded to the poet’s stated emphasis on the importance of the white space around the poem by etching “an even, very thin line, without hatching, so that the printed page is left almost as white as it was before printing.” So, like in Pasiphaé, the soft-line images placed on the opposite page to the text form an attractive contrast to the dense black type.

an image from Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (source: henri-matisse.net)

And there’s also his illustration of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1935). Most intriguing here is the fact that Matisse chose to illustrate subjects from The Odyssey rather than scenes from Joyce’s text. His pencil studies reproduced on blue & yellow (see-through) tissue are impressive.

The exhibition continues until 25 September 2011.

Baghdad, 5 March 2007 (Al-Mutanabbi Street) at the Imperial War Museum North, Manchester

Exhibition continues until 31 January 2012.

Upstarts out and about

The UpStart posters are up around Dublin city. Among the earnest political promises that hold little currency we find the unexpected: a fantasy scene, a political cartoon, a startling line, a combative message... The impact is not enormous - these posters are dotted here and there, sometimes overwhelmed by the bankrolled electioneering slogans and those familiar rigid faces - but for those with even moderately roving eyes they provide relief and make a bright splash in their day.

Great credit is due to Aaron Copeland, mastermind of the initiative, and to everybody working for months now to bring it to fruition; kudos too to all the artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians who have donated their - mostly uncredited - work to the project.

All the work for UpStart, including the images/text on the posters, is now being added to the project's website, where there's also a lively blog. I haven't yet managed to locate the poster with my contribution - eventually I hope to add to this post an image of it in situ.


*Update, later on 20/2/2011: Here it is, courtesy of Unkie Dave's photostream on Flickr.

Patience (After Sebald)

Written and directed by filmmaker Grant Gee (Meeting People is Easy, Demon Days, Joy Division), Patience (After Sebald) is described as an essay-film on landscape, art, history, life and loss. It offers an exploration of the life, work and influence of WG Sebald via a long walk through coastal East Anglia that tracks his book The Rings of Saturn, and features contributions from Tacita Dean, Robert Macfarlane, Katie Mitchell, Rick Moody, Andrew Motion, Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair and Marina Warner.

Patience (After Sebald) will premiere at Aldeburgh Music, Snape, Suffolk on Friday 28 January, during After Sebald - Place and Re-Enactment: A Weekend Exploration, which also includes an exclusive new work performed live by Patti Smith. After the screening, Grant Gee will be in conversation with Robert Macfarlane.

I'd love to travel for this, but it looks like I'll have to settle for a future screening of the film elsewhere...

UpStart

UpStart is a non-profit arts collective which aims to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011. It plans to do this by reinterpreting the spaces commonly used for displaying election campaign posters in Dublin City and is calling on all artists to submit work for this exhibition.

The objectives of UpStart are to encourage a debate on the role of the arts in the state. The hope is to highlight the importance of creativity and ingenuity when society is in need of direction and solutions, and to emphasize the value of the arts to public life. UpStart believe that the future development of the country requires a healthy cultivation of the Arts.

UpStart are asking for submissions to this project from the full range of artistic disciplines. The aim is to receive 500 submissions from writers and visual artists, photographers, painters and graphic designers. These works will be duplicated and 1000 pieces will be printed as election size posters and be erected throughout Dublin city. Works from musicians and film makers are also accepted: these will be hosted and exhibited through the website, which will be launched on the day of the electoral poster campaign.

UpStart is now open for submissions, which will be accepted until the 15th of January. Submission details (please read these carefully) are available on the website, where you will also find information on how you can donate or otherwise help out with the project. There is also an UpStart Facebook page.

UpStart comprises artists and writers from Ireland and abroad and is non-aligned to any political party. It respects and follows Dublin City Council litter regulations and operates within the requirements of Irish law.

Neither Use nor Ornament

Nick Pearson's exhibition Neither Use nor Ornament opens at the Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax, West Yorkshire, on Saturday 9 October.

"Minimal intervention"? "Refabrication"? Leeds-born, London-based artist Nick Pearson is a creative 'fence', filching objects from the real world and subtly re-designating them before palming them off on the viewer. Snatching conversational fragments and kidnapping the lives of redundant objects he re-presents them - like objects in a dodgy charity shop - as items that promise both utility and decoration but deliver neither. The art world calls it 'slippage'. It's always playful and it's sometimes profound (but only when you least expect it).

An exhibition catalogue with the same title will also be available. An update of the original 2004 edition, the catalogue includes reproductions and critical essays - as well as my contribution 'Why I Live in Egypt'. For this I lifted an extract from an article in the Irish Times magazine and slightly altered it in five successive stages, the presentation of which constitutes the piece itself.

The catalogue is available to order from Nick's website. The exhibition runs until 9 January 2011.

Howl, the movie

Howl, the movie - a film composed from court records, interviews and the poem itself, and with James Franco as the young Allen Ginsberg - opened in cinemas in the US last week. I look forward to its European release.

There's a trailer on the film's official website. And an early review on Ron Silliman's blog.

Ó Bhéal

On Monday 20 September I will be reading at Cork city's weekly poetry event, Ó Bhéal.

Ó Bhéal has been running since April 2007 and typically presents a guest poet followed by an open-mic session, while the evening kicks off with a 'poetry challenge'.

Ó Bhéal has also been promoting the art of the poetry-film. I was delighted to read on its website that the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin will be screening The Lammas Hireling, a film of Ian Duhig's poem of the same name made by Ó Bhéal founder and director Paul Casey, as part of its programme in October.

My thanks to all at Ó Bhéal for having me as a guest poet. The venue is The Long Valley Bar (upstairs) on Winthrop Street, and start time is 9pm. Entrance is free.

Still Films

Beginning today, the Irish Film Institute in Dublin presents a week-long season of works by the production company Still Films.

The centrepiece for the season is 'Pyjama Girls', a documentary film by Maya Derrington. It examines the lives of two inner city Dublin teenage girls who roam the streets wearing pyjamas. 'Pyjama Girls' will be showing daily until 26 August.

'The Rooms' is a new short collaborative project by Paul Rowley and Tim Blue, and will have its premiere on 22 August. It's a study of "a world abandoned that continues to operate" and was filmed in Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain, the United States and Korea.

Paul Rowley and Nicky Gogan's feature documentary about asylum seekers living in the former Butlins holiday camp in Mosney (an hour north of Dublin) 'Seaview' will be shown on 21 August. After touring festivals internationally, and in light of recent hunger strikes at Mosney, this is a timely re-screening of 'Seaview' in Ireland.

And on Tuesday 24 August, the founders of Still Films Nicky Gogan, Maya Derrington and Paul Rowley, will discuss their collaborative practice and screen a selection of short films.

Tickets and information from the Irish Film Institute.

HICA

The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art (HICA) is an artist-run space located near Inverness in the north of Scotland. It aims to re-examine the term Concrete Art.

An exhibition by Jeremy Millar opens on Sunday 2 May 2010 and runs until 6 June. This exhibition considers "a sense of emergence, or unforeseen development, which is central to the creative process, no matter how pre-planned the work in question".

HICA is open on Sundays 2-5pm, or by appointment.