My Favourite Artists (Top Three)

People frequently sometimes occasionally ask me who my favourite artists are and I'm sure the question has arisen in your noodle too, hasn't it? No? Oh well, I'll state them anyway, just for something to do...because, after all, this blog mainly exists as something for me to do that is not making art, washing up, working in the shop or watching the telly. Unlike, say, Top Ten Film lists, this one doesn't change, hasn't changed for a long time, which suggests that I've come to the end of the Discovering Favourite Artists road and that, in a way, is a bit sad. So in no particular order...

Rausch(enberg) Rumble

Robert Rauschenberg, I kneel at your feet. No I don't. Let me state early on, where such a statement must be made, that I idolise no artist, perhaps because I lived through the Punk era, during which we realised it was the twilight of all (old) idols (Elvis, the Beatles and The Rolling Stones), instead, replacing them with the likes of The Clash when, actually, we should have idolised no-one because that would have been more 'Punk', wouldn't it? Yet each generation needs it's 'Pop' idols, doesn't it?

When it comes to Artists, I made up my mind long ago that in order to Carry On Being Creative (have you seen that film? Hilarious turns by Kenneth Williams as a cruel critic and Sid James as an Abstract Expressionist who is permanently drunk and getting into fights) I could do without the 'burden of worship', which could see me permanently in awe rather than confidently continuing regardless.

Bob, though...I mean...the sculptures, collages, prints, performance art, paintings...he had it all, the swine! No-one made better screen prints. And no-one organised apparent chaos better on a canvas.

Roth (without the 'Ko')

Why not Rothko? He bores me. All that 'spiritual' guff. And rooms of his work where people can sit and contemplate the 'meaning' of...something - bah!

Dieter Roth was a dirty, rotten scoundrel, wasn't he? He liked a drink. He liked being naughty. His art was naughty, quite mad, potentially displaying real genius, but not actually doing so. The crazy drawings, absurd, amazing literary 'sausages', prints, writings, paintings and artist's books, especially the artist's books and his Little Tentative Recipe . His statement: 'If you don't want to give it up, go on until you can't stand it anymore' is both funny and as true as piece of advice as an artist in the mechanical age has given, emphasising as it does both the nature of being possessed by multiple production and how its relentless potential can drive one insane. Roth was a lord of misrule, breaker of taboos and head bouncer at the wildcard artist's bar, eager to kick all poseurs and pretenders up the arse.

Eduard(oh!) Paolozzi 

Oh yes! What can I say? Um. Have you noticed a theme emerging? Well done. Yes, all favourites so far have been eclectic in their media and styles. So, Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi; printmaker, collagist, sculptor and importantly (to me), co-creator of fantastic artist's books such as KEX. He was an early Pop star and contributor to Britain's sci-fi New Wave via New Worlds magazine. He was also a prose evolutionary (like Ballard) in his writings and text accompaniments to photos chosen specifically to suggest scientific, philosophical, artistic idea and an important contributor to the dawn of Tomorrow on the British art scene in the 50s. I've still no idea, though, what Wittgenstein was goin' on about!

That's all for now - the immediate Top Three but not all of those who've inspired me over the years, of course. There may be more to come, depending on how much making art, washing up, working in the shop or watching the telly I do in the forthcoming days and weeks.

Dieter Roth On Oppressive Paintings / The Democracy of Art On Paper / Drawing

Little Tentative Recipe, Dieter Roth, 1968

'The bigger and heavier the stuff is, the more oppressing it is. I want to have paper to work on that is light, you can throw it away. The idea that you give a big painting of a huge size and heavy canvas and everything, you can give on a little piece of paper in one book (...) Books are cheap and people can throw them away. You don't oppress people too much.'
                             - Dieter Roth, quoted in In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955

I bet you didn't know that recipients of big paintings are another oppressed group to add to the list. But they are! Poor things. What can we do to help them? Perhaps we could offer to visit them and relieve them of those paintings. I would gladly do it if I had room to store them (having established if they're worth loads of money).

Joking aside, oh how I agree with Dieter Roth. But I would, wouldn't I, as someone whose preferred medium is paper and having produced a few books/magazines in my time. We know Roth the rebel, trasher of Fine Art rules, prolific scribbler, book-maker, print-maker etc. It makes sense that he would embrace paper over canvas. Despite token efforts (like recognising a disregarded minority and appearing to care) galleries do display works on paper but nearly always in the broader context, ie with paintings which, naturally, are promoted as the more 'serious' work. Whether drawn or printed on, paper is the poor relation.

Being relatively poor myself, paper is perfect. Because I live in a small flat, there's simply no room to store canvases, should I feel inclined to use them, which I don't. As for books, as Roth points out, they are cheap (though his certainly aren't today on the current market). Books are democratic and can be bought by anyone, assuming they're not elite Artist's books made by 'names'. 

Yes, so pity the oppressed. Also vilify those painters who oppress them! let's get a twitter mob going, hunting out painters who have oppressed other by foisting their big paintings on them. 

Turned Out Nice Again, RTomens, 2020

Drew this this morning. The sun was shining. The pen played up. No matter!

Dieter Roth on Raymond Chandler / Gelbart's The Big Sleep

Dieter Roth and Raymond Chandler are hardly a likely pairing but halfway through Dieter Roth Collected Interviews as I am Chandler crops up in an interview with Dieter Schwarz from 1983. It prompted me to want to read him again, not having done so for many years and luckily I found The Big Sleep in a charity shop the next day. It was like meeting an old friend from the moment I read the opening chapter...an old friend who has not changed one bit...who is a great as I remembered. As Dieter Roth says, I can always read him...I don't need any other fairytales.

By chance today, whilst drawing, with the music library in shuffle mode this track cropped up. Gelbart retain a Jazzy noirish flavour whilst being typically offbeat...

TTFN

Dieter Roth - Kissing His Own Ass

Dieter Roth On Democracy / Plantasia - Mort Grason

Ah, the wisdom of Dieter Roth and, indeed, plants. After all, they get everything they want. Since the UK has an upcoming election I thought it appropriate to share this, from an interview with Robert Filliou in 1972. Imagine everyone saying what they want and then coming to an agreement - as if! The obvious flaw in that idea aside, I love the bonkers notion of plants that 'go into the forest', as if by choice...all walking? Crawling? Slithering across the fields to get to the forest? Only in the booze-addled brain of Dieter Roth...bless him.

Book: Dieter Roth - Collected Interviews / Good/Bad Art

Just arrived in The Cave, Dieter Roth - Collected Interviews (Edition Hansjörg Mayer), 615 pages including photographs - phew! Well worth the wait - and what a weight - one and a half kilos, actually, which is heavy on my skinny chest as I lie in bed, I can tell you. The heaviness seems appropriate, although I've no idea how much Dieter weighed...he looks weighty in his later years...his work has such weight too in both range and subject matter or, I should say, potential for philosophical meaning pertaining to The Meaning Of Art should you wish to view it that way and I do, sometimes. Occasionally I come over all queer and ponder the significance of a body of work that defies easy categorisation; that's messy, refined, smelly, chaotic, beautiful, ugly, studied and slapped down, constructed, deconstructed, written, squiggled, printed, bound and on - Roth's world knows no bounds, which is why he was so great.

Just 14 pages in he discusses the meaning of 'good' in art. To take things as they are and do what has to be done is as good a credo as any for an artist. Perfectionism can go to hell. Yes and of course it's true that a person's very nature, or whatever lies at the core of their being, tends to dictate their approach...the 'natural' perfectionist is hard to shake off, to throw away in favour of embracing imperfection. I know. Or I imagine, at least, not being that way myself. 

Well, I wonder, does the perfectionist live in a neat, orderly household? One where everything is in its right place amid spotless (dustless) fittings? My art here in The Cave is quite well-ordered...stacked...but some stacks are ragged...and the works aren't categorised...and cut out pages or collages figures intermingle with finished works and mysterious blank pages (intended for what?). Should anyone request to see a piece I may never be able to find it. 

Anyway, this book's essential if you like Dieter Roth.

The World Exists To Be Put On A Postcard - Artists' postcards from 1960 to now

There's a good exhibition of artists' postcards on at The British Museum right now. I took some snaps and these are my favourites...

Mother, Richard Hamilton, 1968

Piccadilly Postcards, Dieter Roth, 1969-70

Leeds Postcards, 1988

Amo ergo sum, Renate Bertlmann, 1980

Vibrations, Henri Chopin ,1986

Alison Knowles & Pauline Oliveros, mid-70s

Monsters Are Inoffensive, 1967

Untitled, Mum/Dad, Genesis P-Orridge, 1973

Abstract Paintings: Under Heavy Manners 1, 2, 3 / Robert Irwin and art history

"You should study art history", says my friend as we sit on the sofa.

He didn't mean to be insulting. I don't recall how the subject came up, whether we discussed 'ancient' art before or afterwards. I replied "But there's so much of it!" Besides, he was oblivious to my inability to study anything. "From the 15th century onward?" I continued, knowing full well that it stretched back further, which he reminded me by citing cave art. Yes, I know about that. 

The conversation stalled on my behalf as I wondered what, exactly, qualified as 'art'. I ventured to suggest that much of what is called art with reference to cave and what-not is art of another kind, not the sort I was thinking about. But those waters are far too deep to explore when you're supposed to be cooking the meal for guests, as I was.

His basic idea was that I gain some historical knowledge. He's big on the history, knowing more than me for sure. The trouble is, with people who seem to know more, how can you be sure they're telling the truth? Some people, sensing your ignorance, can talk nonsense and you wouldn't know any better. I could tell someone that Hard Bop came before Be-Bop, should I wish to impress a Jazz ignoramus. "Louis Armstrong dropped his trumpet during a march in 1921 but that altered his sound to the good and a legend was born!" "Really?" "No."

We showed our friend a monograph on Dieter Roth (the second within three months!). He'd not seen the work before. I got the sense he wasn't familiar with most of Roth. Fair enough. The next day I pondered the fact that many know their art 'history', but not the wealth of brilliance under their historical 'noses', ie, the 20th century. The obvious names aside. The same day I started reading Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler. It consists of interviews with Robert Irwin. Anyway, on page 39 Irwin talks about his reaction to the classical canon whilst visiting museums in Europe. "I mean, it got to the point where if I ever saw another fucking brown painting ...I was so fucking tired of brown paintings. I mean, they all looked exactly the same! After a while my whole relationship to the history of art got cleared out to a matter of trusting my own eye."

It chimed with my recent thoughts on art history. I gravitate towards the 20th century. Like Irwin, I can "enter a room and go like that, zap, and pick out the one or two paintings that were at all interesting in terms of technique." It's not necessarily technique that attracts me, though. It's usually something else, something indefinable. I could hit a gallery in ten minutes, but I have to be patient because those with me usually can't. 

Which is not to dismiss history. Like Irwin, though, my head's pretty clear regarding what I can relate to/enjoy/be intrigued by etc. There's so much to treasure across the centuries, but for me, to study it would be a distraction. Since studying isn't my forte, it takes all my effort to focus on and rummage around in the last century.

Before I go, a quick word about these pieces. They're called Under Heavy Manners because Prince Far I's album was playing through most of the process. It seemed to fit. The paint is acrylic. The technique is chance and a little judgement. Hope you enjoy them. TTFN.

Dieter Roth: Little Tentative Recipe no.68 (Private View)

Peter Townsend edited Studio International from 1965 to '75. Dieter Roth obviously considered him a worthy recipient of his Little Tentative Recipe. It turned up on the stall of bookseller, Marcus Campbell at the Whitechapel Gallery Art Book Fair in September of 2018. We were later informed by Hansjorg Mayer that the box was custom-built by a company that normally made them for tea. The only other person privileged enough to see this up to now was Joakim Norling of Timglaset publications. Like Mayer and Roth, he also produces great creations in print form. I hope you enjoy a quick flick through this print masterpiece...