Metafisikal Translations - Eduardo Paolozzi / Paolozzi's artist's books (absence of)

 

I've been watching it for years. 

The price never dropped.

I couldn't afford this, the one artist's book by Paolozzi that I didn't have. 

Three weeks ago I got a tax rebate so I could afford it, in theory, but should I really spend that much on one book? A 48-page, screen printed book from 1962, signed by Paolozzi. Big deal!

'You don't need it.'

'Of course I don't need it. Who actually needs books? What do we 'need' apart from food, housing and enough money to pay the bills?'

'Then again, what's money? There are no pockets in a shroud, are there?'

'No, so you can't even take one book with you when you...go.'

'Don't remind me, please, of either my mortality or the fact that my book collection cannot go with me...and anyway, it'll be nothingness...forever...'

'So before you sleep The Big Sleep, buy what you want if you can afford it!'

Luckily, a London bookseller was offering Metafisikal Translations at the joint lowest price online so I emailed them and cheekily asked if they could drop the price at all. They agreed. It still took me a few days to finally decide to buy it.

Little seems to have been written about Paolozzi's artist's books. They're mentioned in some monographs, usually in passing. The best source has been Eduardo Paolozzi - Writings And Interviews, edited by Robin Spencer, a superb collection and essential for anyone wanting to dive more deeply into Paolozzi's work. That does include this book and The Metallization Of A Dream, but strangely, neither Kex nor Abba Zaba. The Metallization Of A Dream does get two pages to itself in the Whitechapel Gallery's monograph to accompany their major exhibition in 2017 and Judith Collins at least dedicates a page to Paolozzi's use of texts in her monograph, tying in his word collages with Gysin and Burroughs' cut-ups.

Obviously his major works according to most critics will be the sculptures, followed by his prints and collages but as someone who works with words and has had a few books made I naturally find Paolozzi's books fascinating. Anyway, here are a few pictures of my Metafisikal Translations. You can scroll through the whole book here on the Tate gallery page.

Vispo: I Meant To Say / Keep on taking the tablets / Type, Type Overtype/ On making mistakes in Art (?)

 

I Meant To Say, RTomens, 2025

This one almost ended up in the bin at the early stages but I decided not to let it go, not to give in. It wasn't even due to exist because I was only testing the printer and having done so decided to work with the result. 

Earlier this morning, one did go in the bin. It wasn't going that well anyway when the doctor called, which broke my flow, my concentration (I do actually concentrate when typing, you know, despite results which sometimes suggest otherwise) - two more tablets to take - whoopee! Soon I'll be a walking dispensary with a body functioning purely on complex chemical combinations designed to give me more time on planet Earth - more time to make art - yes! Be positive! As a kid watching The Six Million Dollar Man I dreamt of having bionic parts like Steve Austin that would enable me to be a superhuman. Today, the reality is that my science/medicine-enhanced self will soon be taking seven tablets a day just to stay alive and be able to walk about.

So I start anew with what became I Meant To Say. A few loose lines, wavy lines of various letters. Those you can still just about see behind the dense slab of letters that form the main shape and they emerge above it. It wasn't going well. I had no direction, or rather, no sense of direction as I usually do, the kind born not of planning but in the moment, working as the act of typing takes over, towards something.

Oh, I may as well draw some circles. Why not? They can't ruin what isn't much to start with. Look for some text and find it in Paul Valery's Analects (Vol 14). Add that. 

Almost give up.

I'll add a figure. Make him small. Careful about where he's placed. Yes, just right.

The typing that followed was a kind of manic desire to erase all legibility. Overtyping is a stubborn act, I know. It demands persistence beyond reason. Well, I was in that kind of mood by then.

Type

Type

Type

Type

Type

Type

&

Type

Then stop.

You'll note a mistake. That one almost caused me to stop right there, but I remembered Sun Ra saying something like 'Why don't you do something right and make a mistake?' Only yesterday I read a quote from Mark E.Smith saying 'With our stuff, I don't want to make it faultless like, cos then you've just blown it' (from Messing Up The Paintwork). 

Some mistakes are good. Some are just mistakes which don't ruin whatever they occur in and some really do add to a creation. Compared to computer-created text/visual poetry, the typewriter is a mistake machine. There is typed visual poetry that is the result of painstaking perfection, each letter/mark placed perfectly to create a clean, complex, tidy image. I always think the artist doing that in on the spectrum. I have neither the patience nor skill to do that kind of thing. My work is probably littered with 'mistakes', by which I mean wrong moves which I manage to use to the advantage of the piece which grows organically as a result.

Life's too short to worry about small mistakes but if I keep on taking the tablets I'll have longer to make a few more.

Vispo: What Did He Say?

What Did He Say? RTomens, 2025

As in you're unsure of what he said because he mumbled or spoke whilst others were speaking or spoke quietly...

...or as in you can't believe what he said, even though you heard it quite clearly. 

People can talk loud and say nothing, as James Brown told us. Talk today is cheap, if by talking we include online chat. Talk's currency has been devalued by the internet. Once upon a time, talking was actually opening your mouth and saying something to a person nearby. Do you remember when we'd go to bars and talk? People still do that, of course, but in my life it happens far less frequently these days. I 'don't get around much anymore', as another song goes.

Today we talk to people we've never met and will not meet. Our 'friends' and 'followers' or someone who's neither. Some even argue with names online. I confess to having done so years ago, but I've wised up to the futility of that. In a cynical mood, I may even doubt the worth of an online stranger-friend - any of them. People request my friendship frequently. I rarely accept. Only a good shared friend may tempt me. Half the time these people only want you to see what they're doing, having no interest in you or what you're doing - the nerve!

Vispo/drawing: Tired

Tired, RTomens, 2025

Our minds have grown tired...

It's conceivable that even the youngest (adult) mind may grow tired...tired of constantly scrolling, perhaps...tired of thinking about life - even as a teenager!

Meanwhile, at the other end of life, I have a good excuse - the accumulation of years can weigh heavy - memories are a burden! Carrying this mind and these bones around for almost 70 years! 

In Tired, The Walking Man (featured in previous pieces) has given up walking. He has laid himself down for a rest, trying to blank out the chatter of text, of people. He wants peace. He should visit the countryside, where the only sounds are those of the birds.

Vispo: Break Down The Barriers / Normal thinking in the arts

Break Down The Barriers, RTomens, 2025

In the shop 

 

An A5-sized piece for a change. I haven't worked this small for a while. One obvious advantage is that density in type can be achieved more quickly than in a larger space. You may notice that the black is heavier due to a new ribbon. This makes me ponder how much use I should try to get out of a ribbon. Perhaps I should change them more frequently. Then again, I've seen many pieces in books which are light in terms of blackness and it doesn't harm the overall effect. The temptation is always to get as much out of a ribbon as is possible before weakening the impact too much. 

'Normal thought' has to be placed in context, of course. I just liked the phrase when it leapt out of a short story. Normal thinking in one context may be abnormal in another. Normal is subjective, I suppose. Making visual poetry isn't 'normal', but does that make it abnormal? Artists like to think of themselves as not normal compared to those who don't make art. The romantic notion of the artists as 'crazy' outsider on the fringes of a 'straight' society dominated by common people who do normal jobs and rot their brains consuming normal entertainment - hah!

Scratch the surface of some artists though and you'll find they think very normally about certain things. Normal, that is, for the arts. Yes, there are supposedly 'proper' ways of thinking regarding some subjects in the arts community and woe betide anyone who thinks differently. Thinking outside the designated box could get you blacklisted. Ironic, eh? These people pride themselves in being 'individuals', not boring 'normal' people, yet they hold common beliefs that are the expected norm when you're an artist. There are rules in this world of 'rebels', you know. Don't break them! 

It's impossible to avoid groupthink, of course. Unless you're worldview is one-in-a-million on every subject you will find people for whom your ideas are normal. Yet to me, it is still unhealthy for groupthink to exists in the arts. Are artists not individuals? Do they not hold a diverse array of opinions on various subjects, just like non-artists? In my experience, no. Or rather, they may not dare reveal their thoughts on certain subjects for fear of being cast out. 

Breaking down the barriers of 'normal thought' as imposed on us by others, be they ultra-conservative or 'radical', can only be healthy for society and us as individuals.

Vispo: Politics

RTomens, 2025

 

Collage: The Night-Comers

RTomens, 2025

 Are they a dream....or a nightmare?

Vispo: Pessimism / How To Create A Visual Poem

Pessimism, RTomens, 2025

I'm not pessimistic by nature but...

...looking at the world one way...

...it's hard not to be pessimistic.

Then again, as I said to a friend the other day, we now look at the world through the online medium and potentially one can be dragged down a dark rabbit hole of doom! Whereas, pre-PC, we perhaps read a newspaper and not even the news, just the Sports pages, or the Arts (having only glanced at the headlines on the front page). We could choose because it was all contained within one manageable package and not the open-ended internet to which there is no end, no closure.

To avoid too much online news I make visual poetry. I would say it keeps me sane, but sometimes the act of creation can spark a kind of craziness. Mostly, though, it does keep me sane, except for the other day, when I started to lose my mind as it triggered my fingers on the keys of the typewriter. I was typing with no purpose. I was creating unsatisfactory work! Lots of it!

How could I get back on the right track?

Take a long break.

Think again.

Someone recently asked how I created the lines of text in a piece of work. I explained that a wide carriage typewriter was necessary to turn the A4 paper, thus getting the required angles. That was easy to answer. Someone once asked how visual poetry was made. Hmm...how could I answer that? I recall shrugging with a stupid grin on my face. 

Most people, understandably, don't even know what visual poetry is, never mind how it's made. That, dear reader, is why I have not got rich or made a living from visual poetry.

Any tool can be used to make visual poetry, from the humble pencil to software. Here I should say what visual poetry actually is, but that's almost as tricky as saying what Art is so I won't attempt a definitive answer, except to say that in my book visual poetry must feature letters or words. Don't laugh; I've seen quite a bit that doesn't, but is called visual poetry and even gets featured in books. 

All text can be deconstructed and all letters can be singular marks as opposed to forming words. Words can be played with, rearranged to make non and new sense. Visual poetry is ultimately playing with language and the components of language. I consider some of William Burroughs cut-ups to be a form of visual poetry. 

Recently I've been experimenting with a looser style involving marks made by pen or carbon, random lines and squiggles (see above). I've been making messier pieces. Not that I have ever been one for formal precision. This approach challenges the idea that a piece must be visually 'appealing'. Geometry, shapes, some colour, some bold forms all increase the chances of a piece appealing to the viewer. They help to create an impact. Since everyone is rapidly scrolling as opposed to standing in a gallery, to gain attention a piece of visual poetry needs to be eye-catching. If, that is, you want to maximise the chances of being properly seen and appreciated. But we know where that goes. 

Pandering to what one thinks the viewer wants is a trap I try to avoid. Why? Because life's too short (and getting shorter for me) to be worrying about what might get more 'likes', retweets etc. If I don't do what I want now, when will I? If I'm not free to do as I like now, when will I be free?

I didn't answer the question in the post header. I intended to before realising I had nothing to say about how to create a visual poem. 

Sorry 'bout that.

TTFN

Vispo: The Time Travel Business

The Time Travel Business, RTomens, 2025

We're all in the time travel business, aren't we?

Looking back and forward.

Some of us have a lot more to look back on than years to come...

Vispo: Oh No Not Again! and It Ain't Watcha Do / Painting and visual poetry - the use of paint and type

RTomens, 2025

 Purchase in the shop

Is there a dichotomy between paint and type? Anything can be used in a mixed media piece but rarely do typed letters and paint meet. Perhaps they are not supposed to co-inhabit a space. It was never destined to be in the history of art. They argue with each other and paint has the upper hand, being flexible regarding the size of the brush stroke and tending towards the stronger, bolder mark. Type is type. A comparatively puny mark unless overtyping is applied, which requires at least three layers to match, say, one thin line of paint.

I reached for the acrylic paint a few days ago, wanting a change regarding marks made on paper that I would type over. I commonly use carbon for mark-making since it is more akin to type and less obtrusive.  The paint marks are random, expressive; mindful of typing to be done. But it's easy to get carried away with paint. It cries out to be spread around. Sometimes there really is too much paint for my liking. Screw that up, chuck it in the bin. I have made pieces in which the 'marks', shapes, blocks of colour, usually black, dominate the page, allowing only a little room for type, but I think they confuse people. They see neither a 'proper' painting nor a visual poem. 

Oh No Not Again was created from another piece that was copied, altered, printed in layers and typed on again. Here is it's 'mother', originally called It Ain't Watcha Do.

RTomens, 2025

Purchase in the shop

The drag marks made by the brush immediately suggested vapor trails or, perhaps, comets? Fireworks? I filled the trails with letters, but as you can see, they are almost invisible. This is a good example of the battle between type and paint. To try to draw the viewers attention to the fact that there is type on the page, I added red type too. I found myself trying to fill the spaces between the trails, but the poor old Olympia struggled to make itself 'heard'. Paint was shouting too loudly.

I'm not displeased with either the original or its offspring. The offspring is possibly more dynamic, definitely more colourful, but the original tells another story, one of the battle between paint and type.

TTFN!