And so, at last, the much-anticipated publication & arrival of Suzanne P Hudson's study of the work of Robert Ryman, titled after the artist's conception of painting, as an experimental activity, as 'used paint'. Having long been fascinated by Ryman's work, as objects & his process, the text is something to be avidly explored without much further ado, but my attention was initially arrested by the book as an aesthetic object in its own right. Linen-bound, this covering is itself ensleeved in a dust jacket of thick tracing-like paper, in the manner of New Order's exquisitely-packaged 'Low-life' LP from way back when (ahh, those really were the days, of the confluence of music & visual art & design...)
As is apparent, a window cut into the dust jacket reveals the linen beneath, & the particular properties of the material's texture & weave, the brickwork-like structure of which is subject to optical effects upon viewing.
A drawing was thus inspired by such a richly compelling aesthetic object, employing & consistent with the fundamental concerns of process & the realization of an allover surface, comprised of - obviously - used graphite, as each drawing, unspokenly, of necessity is. Referencing the model, a windowed sheet of tracing paper was then overlaid to create a drawing-object.
graphite with tracing paper overlay/20x30cm
The original drawing could exist as such, on its own terms, as an example of allover process, of marks made, horizontally & vertically, & the modernist grid...
graphite/20x30cm
Soundtrack:
Marvin Gaye 'What's Going On'
B52s 'Rock Lobster' EP
Tunng 'Good Arrows'
Chris Morris 'Blue Jam'
Young Marble Giants 'Colossal Youth'
Cabaret Voltaire 'Voice of America', 'Western Mantra' & 'Red Mecca'
Portishead 'Third'
Again trawling the collection & becoming pleaantly reacquainted with a couple of classics in the form of 'What's Going On', sublime as ever, & the mighty 'Rock Lobster', its energy, drama, fun & magnificence undimmed by time.
There seems something most appropriate, too, in hearing the Cabaret Voltaire albums of their Rough Trade period, & 'Western Mantra' (post-punk's very own 'Sister Ray') with its effect-laden somewhat degraded, crunchy 'scratched surface' sonic aesthetic, in particular, on cassette, taking one back to the 'C90' days of their release & the habitual, obsessive taping of obscure wonders (very much such as the Cabs) from the John Peel radio programme: the cassette itself (onto which the albums were transferred from their original vinyl incarnations, for the purposes of portability) is a profoundly 'Proustian' object, a relic from another (technological) age, a survivor from a past with which it maintains tangible contact & thus assists in becoming that much less distant.
By something of a coincidence, an initial browse-read of the most recent (essential) book acquisition, Simon Reynolds' 'Totally Wired' - a companion volume of interviews with those musicians featured in the author's earlier history of post-punk 'Rip It Up and Start Again' - has already revealed his thoughts on PiL's 'Metal Box' album, & the fascinating concept of how the physical embodiment of music is an essential component of its reception & fullest appreciation: I too owned the album in its original incarnation, very much an object of desire (at an RRP of £7.45, when most albums cost under £4.99 in its day, it had to be: I, like Simon, had to wait until Xmas to hear it, 'presented'!), the three 12" vinyl discs contained in a metal canister, which gave to the music a palpably metallic quality (not of the 'heavy' variety, although the vibrations of the bass embedded in the grooves of the records most certainly were) & its sense of otherness, that nothing quite sounded like it as nothing else had been presented in such a singular fashion. I concur absolutely with Reynolds when he states that subsequent incarnations of the album - first as a double LP in a gatefold sleeve (in which format a friend owned it) & the later "almost risible to behold" CD reissue (a single disc in appropriately miniaturized can, which really is a pathetic specimen in comparison to the physical, & psychological, dimensions of the original, further evidence of increasingly 'reduced circumstances') - have served only to diminish the nature of the music, & its significance & eerie, compelling power: 'Metal Box' really was music-as-object, & seemingly very much intended to be (the 3 12" discs themselves, with 12 tracks spread over the consequent 6 sides of vinyl, to be played in whatever order & quantity the listener saw fit on any particular occasion, were a deconstruction of the traditional album format & its fixed mode of sequencing the music, for instance).
And now, of course, so much music has no physical form, save, perhaps, for the technology via which it is experienced (which might well be taken for granted, unconsidered, anyway): what happened, where did the art go?!
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