1964

Patrick Hughes: Reverspective paintings 1964-present

Patrick Hughes: Reverspective paintings 1964-present

Hughes’ Reverspectives are amazing. I first saw one at the Chelsea Arts Club in about 2004. I was blown away. I knew that Patrick had been deeply involved in the study of paradox and visual paradox in particular, and this (he called them Reverspectives) was a brilliant example of a great idea, beautiful crafting of the 3d painted-construction, and acute understanding of how perspective illusions are created in our brain. I must have walked up and down in front of this Reverspective for about half-an-hour, marvelling at the acutely visceral effect a mere illusion – a tromp l’oeil – was having on my perception.

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There’s an interview with Patrick at:

http://www.patrickhughes.co.uk/film.html

And a short video sequence illustrating a walk-past of a reverspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptMDDkq6FjI

 

 

Jacqueline de Jong: Situationist Times 1963

Jacqueline de Jong: Situationist Times 1963

“Editors Note: In this No. of the Situationist Times (5) do we try to open up the problem of the ring, interlaced rings and consequently chains. This happens on the base of the three patterns of European culture which are introduced in Jorn’s article on ‘Meaning and Sense’….All we try to show here in an artistic way is a certain connection of the three patterns with topological aspects. It is up to the reader if he wants so, to make his own conclusions.”

This how the editor Jacqueline de Jong sums the contents of issue No 5 of the Situationist Times – a journal in letter-format (220x280mm). A total of 6 issues were published by de Jong from Paris and Copenhagen in 1600 copies per issue between May 1962 and December 1964. The article by the Danish artist Asger Jorn: Mind and Sense – on the principle of ambivalence in nordic huisdrapa and mind singing – is Jorn’s attempt to validate and evangelise the importance of Nordic Art in the face of Denmark applying to join the European Union (a process that began in 1961). After a three-page (2500-word) article, explaining the Nordic artist’s role as a shaman, the issue is a non-linear collage of images related to the theme of the “ring, interlaced rings and consequently chains”, with essays on the mathematical aspects, the history, mythology and symbolism, magic circles, games with hoops and rings. It is fascinating.

Jonas Mekas/The Living Theatre: The Brig 1964

Jonas Mekas/The Living Theatre: The Brig 1964

“The Brig is a play written by former U.S. Marine Kenneth H. Brown (born 1936). It was first performed in New York by The Living Theatre on 13 May 1963 [1] with a production of it filmed in 1964 by Jonas Mekas. It has been revived in New York in 2007. It received an Obie Award.
The play depicts a typical day in a United States Marine Corps military prison called The Brig. Brown spent thirty days in a Brig for being Absent Without Official Leave whilst he was with the Third Marines in Camp Fuji Japan in the 1950s.” (wikipedia)

I saw this film in an all-night session on experimental ‘underground’ film at the BFI in the early 1970s. The staccato, dehumanised, robotic actions and the rigid military choreography and cruelty of the plot, reminded my of Antonin Artaud and his ideas of the Theatre of Cruelty. This movie is a visceral shock to the system, a saraband for McCarthyism, a premonition of the war in Vietnam, an essay of military elite training.