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Showing posts from October, 2005

Venice and Edinburgh

As mentioned last – I’ve been away: first Venice then a conference in Edinburgh. It won’t surprise anyone who has been, but as a first timer: Venice was a revelation – really extraordinary. Ostensibly I had gone to catch the end of the Biennale and was prepared to be sceptical because of the hype and the romantic stereotypes but Venice was fabulous, a completely new experience – and much too good to think about contemporary art. I did get to the Guggenheim, most of which is not contemporary; the Rückriem-Nannucci juxtaposition was personally gratifying having worked with them both but aesthetically problematic. Not only that but the Rückriem piece has not been installed as it should, having gaps between the stone splits. The only other artist was the futurist Carlo Carra whose text collages were a revelation. My reading matter was William Carlos Williams’ Autobiography – a great read, full of poetry and medicine tales (two of my favourites!) – by coincidence the 1918 flu featured du

A New Text Postcard Pack

Sorry I've been away for a good while - Venice and Edinburgh, of which more in the next bulletin. Meantime, the latest postcard pack is available now, featuring Robert Grenier, Lawrence Weiner, me, Phil Davenport, Hester Reeve, Brass Art and Shaun Pickard. Let me know if you would like to receive one.

Pandemic Awareness Week

Mostly my interests here are cultural but ever since I was a teenage artist I knew of the early death of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. So over the years I have had occasion to note the rare references to it. The WHO has declared that it is not a question of if but when the bird flu spreading in the Far East will become the next pandemic. Preoccupied with the War on an Abstract Noun, the governments are not preparing and in reality could do very little to save the millions who are risk. You need to start thinking about this: http://aetiology.blogspot.com/2005/10/pandemic-influenza-awareness-week-day.html