White X, 2012, Princess Alice Highway, Bridgetown.
In a way the form and content of “White X” can be seen as a point that directs viewers to reconstructed boundaries of race and identity today and the future. As Whittle represents the racial imaginaries of Barbadian society he can also deconstruct these ideologies. The “X” shape is essentially an axis that forms when two diametric opposed lines intersect. As the black and the white of the installation intertwines to form an image, the diametrically opposed ideologies behind black and white race relations in Barbados converge and are seemingly deconstructed to form a sense of synergy between the two opposing elements. By utilizing the frustration he feels towards racism in contemporary Barbadian society, and its tendency to alienate and ‘other’ both whites and blacks alike, Whittle’s “White X” can be viewed as simultaneously representing and deconstructing an established mirror image of race relations in contemporary Barbados.
White X, 2012, Chalk on black plywood. 72” x 48” approx.
The quote is from Kamau Brathwaite.
“Who is white/Who is still white - even who was ever white!”
Kamau Brathwaite, ConVERSations with Nathaniel Mackey, 1999 p 181.
At Foul Bay, 2012. This work incorporates two of the previous photographs into a hanging work which includes mono-prints and chalk text on blackboard. Madras cloth, which was a dominant element in the Innerscape series of 2006, makes a subtle return in joining all the images together.
In this, some of my most recent work, poetic extracts have become much more significant. Here text communicates in a very different way to the printed page. In “Atlantic” the author and subject are the same – me. Here an extract from the poem is transcribed on my back as l face the Atlantic Ocean at a particular time of day at a beach one could image Robinson Crusoe stepping ashore. In this instance the beach is Foul Bay, St Philip, Barbados.
The full text of the poem Atlantic can be viewed on my website www.nick-whittle.com
Art is difficult,” says the 66-year-old firmly. “It’s not entertainment. There are only a few people who can say something about art – it’s very restricted. When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it’s art or not. Buying art is not understanding art.
Anselm Kiefer reflects on his work before the opening of his biggest UK Show at the White Cube Gallery in London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/dec/08/anselm-kiefer-art-white-cube
This is the latest in the Temporary Sculpture series. It is a response to a short stretch of coastline which has inspired my visual and literary practice. Here the stone which suggests a human profile was found and which stares out from the top of this mast. The base of the work is a direct reference to boat builders and the sea. It also suggests the cardinal points of the compass. The blackboard and monoprint collage offer entries into other worlds.
Art is for everybody, but not everybody knows that.
Animated Sheet Music: “So What” by Miles Davis
After J S Bach, I immediately thought of Miles Davis.
J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1 - Prelude
Baroque.me (2011) by Alexander Chen. Video capture. baroque.me visualizes the first Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suites. Using the math behind string length and pitch, it came from a simple idea: what if all the notes were drawn as strings? Instead of a stream of classical notation on a page, this interactive project highlights the music’s underlying structure and subtle shifts.
Grab and interact: baroque.me
More details at: blog.chenalexander.com/2011/baroque-bach-cello/
On a personal note regarding my own piano practice, l am working on Bach’s Prelude in C and the first of the Six Little Preludes from the Wilhelm Friedemann Bach Notebook.
Part of a series of erotic mono-prints produced in Glasgow during my extended stay earlier this year.
“Beckett will not hear of being interviewed, whether orally or in writing. I fear that on this he is not to be budged. He gives his work, his role stops there. He cannot talk about it. That is his attitude… . One must take him as he is.”
Repeatedly, Beckett insists that his writing speaks for itself:
“I know no more about this play than anyone who manages to read it attentively… . I do not know who Godot is. I do not even know if he exists. And I do not know if they believe he does, these two who are waiting for him.”
‘The Letters of Samuel Becket,’ reviewed by Michael Dirda
“One cannot live outside the machine for more perhaps than half an hour.”
— Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Alex Ross in The Rest is Noise
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2011/09/thought-of-the-day.html
Nice find.
From the Museum Nerd archive… The original 1999 flyer for Brooklyn Museum’s “Sensation” exhibit (first shown in London at the Royal Academy of Arts) of Saatchi’s Young British Artists (YBA) collection which sparked so much controversy.
HIATUS
Taken through the porthole of The Waverley, a steam paddle steamer built in 1947 on the Clyde in Scotland during my long stay in Glasgow earlier this year.
It was a very productive period for my visual work. I will post a teaser from a series of erotic mono-prints which will be posted shortly.
Over the past few months l have been travelling and working on a website which this blog will be linked.
Nick was born in Birmingham, England in 1953 and completed his Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1977 followed by a Fellowship in Painting at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1978.
