05.15.09
Documentation of my documentation
Part 1
The story of Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase
Documentation of the people through the G 2 W 13th street, the 10 13th street, the 4th flo studio, the 7th floor f W 13th street, the 9th studio at 2 W 13th stre at 66 W 13th street, th 66 W 13th street, the 2 studio at 25 E 13th stre floor architecture stud
e passage of a few Gimbel Library at 0th floor lab at 2 W oor printmaking fashion studio at 2 floor foundation eet, the 3rd floor lab he 8th floor lab at 2nd floor architecture eet, and the 3rd dio at 25 E 13th street.
01.
Where I started in my process. I found inspiration in a poster by Fischli and Weiss.
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HOW TO WORK BETTER A quote about the poster by artist Ryan Gander “Taped to the wall of my studio is an A4 photocopy of a short ten-point manifesto by Fischli/ Weiss entitled ‘How to work better’. I don’t know who put it there, but it has been in place for at least three years. It’s a tongue-in-cheek work using a motivational statement, which is a piece of found textthey subsequently enlarged and had painted on the exterior of a building as part of a public commission. I some— times show it to students at the beginning of slide lectures, and always point it out to assis— tants who come to the studio. I like it quite simply because it acknowledges their awareness of the idea of practice rather than production.”
How to work better Do one thing at a timE KNOW THE PROBLEm LEARN TO LISTEN LEARn TO ASK QUESTIONS DISTINGUISH SENSE FROM NONSENSE ACCEPT CHANGE AS INEVITABLE ADMIT MISTAKES SAY IT SIMPLe BE CALM SMILE
02.
The concept of the Mise en Abyme is the crux of my thesis project. Coming out of Situationist In— ternational and the writings of Guy Debord, I found the con cept to be the most promising place for inspiration.
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Will Holder
The magazine F. R. David is the biannual journal published by De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam.
Will Holder is a curator, book designer and editor. Holder’s work investigates the gap between language and object. In a way his work paralells what I’m attempting to do in my thesis, bridging the gap between the writings of the situationists and the object of graphic design. A concept that pops up continually in his work and the works of other avant garde artists is the idea of the Mise en Abyme or the story within a story that references the story it contains. This concept is applicable in a number of ways, an example being the recent movie Tropic Thunder, where the film is a movie about war, where the characters realize that they’re no longer in a fictional war and engage in an actual war. This appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where a play about the murder of Hamlet’s father is performed, referencing an event that occurred earlier in the story and then affecting the outcome of the story later on.
Will Holder employs this concept in the biannual journal he co-edits with Ann Demeester and Dieter Roelstraete. Each issue is based upon a theme starting with each letter in the name F. R. David. This is a more of a stretch with the idea of the Mise en Abyme, each issue makes reference to the theme that references the name and the name itself references a singer from the 80’s and his song “Words don’t come easy.” The Situationists do this as well with their idea of Detournement and the Derivé. The Derivé is a way of making an urban environment within an urban environment. Reshaping and reimagining the city, within the city. It’s a Mise en Abyme of the environment. This concept is definitely worthwhile pursuing, and I feel that by creating a fake character, who in effect is myself, I will make a person within a person, imagining a city within a city, in an art show within an art show. Or maybe I should just forget about it and make some Russian dolls.
03.
A video by Hillman Curtis, on the artist Lawrence Weiner, had a significant effect on my process and how I felt about moving forward in my theis project.
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“Can I ask you a question? How the hell do you know how the universe is supposed to function? We each have no reason to determine how the universe works. We have a reason to determine how the universe presents itself.” “When a young person has the privilege of being able to design, being able to in school, being able to do that, and does not accept the responsibilities of their own time and it doesn’t really matter in the end what side they fall on. Do you really want to entrust your culture in their hands?” “The people who wandered off when a school was closed down and they just continued their career track and they kept themselves going, those are not the people who are supposed to be making your culture.”
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Artists as well, when they find themselves in a situation where there’s an unaccommodating structure and it is immovable. You figure out some way to go over it or under it or around it. You don’t just stand there and say ok I’ll join it.” “You know going off with your tail between your feet and going off to another country doing this or doing that. FINE. Art is of the moment, design is of the moment.” “The same basic principle, you gotta be who you are, no matter how dangerous it is.”
A number of quotes by Lawrence Weiner in the Artist Series film by Hillman Curtis and Debbie Millman.
04.
I decided to limit the scope of my project to seek out areas of our university where the ideal conditions for the creation of “Situations� could take place. I will seek out spaces that already function in this way, or could have the potentiality for drift, and detour.
Situations at University Libraries
This morning while working at the Gimbel Library I began writing down the names and authors of the books, DVDs and other ma terials that were returned to me during that time. At the Bobst Library I found a number of interesting pieces of self documentation as well.
I focused on the library as a fluid space where diverse kinds of information are disseminated and a broad range of the student population passes through. These areas are also self documenting areas, in that, unlike the sidewalk that bears the resemblance of its use by the wear and tear of its surface, a library, lab, or studio leaves a trace of its users in the forms of writings, print outs, and artworks.
I focused on the idea that a situation could be otherwise understood simply as “the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in time� which coincidentally is the name of the first art show that displayed the work of the situationist international. Areas that are self documenting are also self referential, tying the idea to the Mise en abyme that I talked about in an older post. Whats left behind in a self documenting space bears the reflection of that space and the people who occupied it during a given span of time.
05.
A Facebook tag-a-thon and how it relates to situationist ideas
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Derivé and Detour
Little less than a week ago I was Play has always been a tool for the tagged in a picture on Facebook. The avant garde. Dadaists played image contained a large headline and a similar games with words, surrealists disassociated supporting byline, set and their exquisite corpse modin sans serif type over another equally bi- el did too. Guy Debord and Michele zarre image. The image was deBerenstein, as told through the scribed as a list of instructions. Folnovel “All the kings horses,” while not lowing the in-structions I made directly resulting in a work of art or my own and spread the love around. album cover—probably something they would have detested anyway— My phone, having internet and e-mail played games with their relationship capabilities has been vibrating at with one another by fooling around least once every 5 to 10 minutes over with other people. the past couple of days with e-mail notifications of people either commentThese Facebook album covers will def ing on my photo, other photos nitely not be canonized in art hisI’ve been tagged in or notifications tory but I feel like they have the same that I’ve been tagged in another avant garde spirit of the past. person’s experiment. Taking a given, normative, and struc The results have been pretty hilarious tured environment with set paths and at other times completely arof operation—a city, a school, an airport bitrary but I feel that under all this jokterminal and in this particular ining around there is a secondary stance Wikipedia, Flickr, and quotationslevel of meaning. I continued to think page.com—and breaking it down by that something about this game using its functionality for something un seemed to fall in line with the concepts intended, imagines the human capacof drift, detour and the creation ity and desire for play. This is the crux of of situations. the Situationist argument.
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During the may 68’ uprising, a number of phrases were graffitied on the walls of the Sorbonne during its occupation by the students and factory workers of France. One phrase:
“These are album covers because I said they are album covers.”
“I take my desires Or put a little more eloquently for reality, because I believe in the reality “My desire to make these covers real, is of my desires.” what makes them a bears resemblance in regard to these reality.” fake album covers. Engaging with these web games it could be re-worded now as:
I’m not saying I’m right on this, and it’s definitely up for debate, but I feel like whenever a large amount of people decide to participate in something, it’s worthwhile to try to figure it out.
To Do This 1 - Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http:// www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
2 - Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/ random.php3
4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
5 - Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in. (you can untag yourself if you don’t want this photo up)
06.
An exploration with mispelled web urls
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Digging Between the Cushions
I was really jazzed about this whole internet gameplay Facebook party and I stumbled on and devised another sort of web exploration.
Muscle memory in regard to typing has come to be second nature to me. I think I could probably make accurate finger motions in the air as far as typing my favorite web addresses. Yet, occasionally I’ll slip up and make a mistake like racebook, facbook, facebool etc. even though facebook is probably the website with the highest traffic on my computer. But in the same way Microsoft Word will autocorrect commonly misspelled words, web giants like google, yahoo, and facebook will buy up all similarly spelled web domains and even if a misspelling occurs the incorrect web addresses link directly to their site. These sorts of precautionary guiding measures provide, whether business related or just plain benevolent hand holding, a measure to ensure we end up at the right spot. I find this to be wrong in the sense that it limits surprise, and delight. How many times have you experienced a moment where you stumbled upon some thing wonderful simply by accident? I wouldn’t want something to auto direct me to Virgin record store if I forgot that Tower on East 4th street and Broad-
way was closed and wandered into Other Music—still in business by the way—directly across the street. Maybe this example is too specific, but in principle I don’t like people telling me where I should go, or deciding for me what I really meant when I typed something wrong. I remember one of the first days of class Ted vehemently criticized Microsoft Word, and expressed how he absolutely hated the way it affects his writing. I think he said something along the lines of, “If I want to do something, I don’t want some program giving me tips on how to do it.” Mispelled websites that link you back are like the paperclip popping up on screen asking you if you need help, instead these sites skip the question asking part and correct the mistake for you. Unfortunately or fortunately sometimes mispelled websites mean pornography. I find it kind of hilarious that pornography has become the kind of black hole on the internet, in the sense that, I am often worried that if I make one wrong step, I’ll fall into the “porno pit of despair.”
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Hoogle
By missing the “G� in google to the right I was immediately linked to a website called Hipocrisy.com. Not sure what that means but for the sake of continuity I entered the hoogle.com web address in the top bar.
FOOGLE
By missing left I landed on foogle.com which was apparently under construction. The note at the bottom is a kind of cool disclaimer denying a relationship to google and froogle. The Santa tshirt ad is a nice touch.
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Toogle
Unfortunately an upward miss to T had no results
Boogle
This was the most satisfying result. A miss to B brought me here. Clearly a site owned by google and an example of some pro grammer messing with you. A strange stock image of sheep on the moutainside is flanked by the Turkish proverb, “One thousand f riends are too little; one enemy is too many.”
I feel like after doing this I realized a few things 1. I would like to explore further incorrect combinations of the letters in “Google” and record the results. 2. I’ve come to realize that searching for what collects in the cracks and crevices of large immovable struc-
tures that stay stationary over a long period time, like digging through the cushions in your living room couch, or Google in this particular instance, you’re bound to find a bunch of shit. You’re more likely to find some change, scraps of food, or the old remote but occasionally you might find something you’ve been missing, and surprise in the fact that you finally found it.
07.
Writings on a lecture given by designer, publisher and editor David Reinfurt
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David Reinfurt, Screen Savers, and the Huge TVs at 2 W 13th Street
The screen saver technology in the lobby of the 2w 13th street building was taking account of every person on the network at that time.
Last night I went to a lecture conducted by designer, publisher and editor David Reinfurt. He is known for his design firm O-R-G and his independent publishing house, occasional bookstore and just-in-time workshop Dexter Sinister that he founded with designer Stuart Bailey. Dexter Sinister has been invited to participate in a number of exhibitions around the world including the most recent Whitney Biennial. David’s work and that of Dexter Sinister focuses on letting form dictate content and vice versa. David and Stuart edit, design and publish the graphic design journal Dot Dot Dot from the basement at 38 Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side. They have been getting a lot of press recently and Dexter Sinister is featured in prominent culture and design magazines like the most recent issue of 032c , the current issue of Japanese design magazine Idea and have been featured in past issues of Print magazine. David Reinfurt wrote an essay on the history of the screensaver called Screen.Save. Whether consciously or
unconsciously I think after seeing him talk, screen savers had been fresh in my mind, and while walking by the big tv screen in the lobby at 2 W 13th street I noticed something very interesting. A name popped up on the screen and I recognized that it was the name of someone in the lobby who was also working on their computer. It dawned on me that this screensaver was actually giving me the names, whether codified or not, of all the computers in the building and visually representing all the people plugged into the network at that given moment in time. It was actually reflecting information about the people in the building and it was engaged in the act of referencing itself—a representation of Parsons, inside Parsons, i.e the concept of the Mise En Abyme. This visual is a kind of “Situation,” in that its recording live “the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in time.” It’s basically doing my project for me.
08.
A film that inspired me and that also plays with the concept of the Mise en Abyme.
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Orson Welles and the Mise en Abyme
F for Fake is the last film completed by Orson Wells. It was rel eased in 1974. Experimental in nature, the film was Wells attempt at a new format that he described as a “movie essay.” Up until his death he had plans to make many others like it. The film became well known for its experimental format and editing—done en tirely without the aid of modern technology.
The film focuses around the controversy of Elmyr De Hory and his biographer Clifford Irving. Irving, at the time of the film’s completion, had released a book called “Fake”, a book about the life of De Hory— one of the most notorious art forgers of the past century. Irving also released a book about the life of Howard Hughes, which culminated with an interview between Hughes and himself—an unlikely occurence as Hughes became a reclusive hermit as shown in the film The Aviator. Irving, with or without the aid of De Hory had apparently gotten written permission from Hughes to write the book about his life and had the signatures to prove it. These two books created a world wide controversy and brought the lives of Clifford Irving and Elmyr De Hory into the public eye. The movie is another example of the concept of the mise en abyme. It is a movie about making a movie, an artist who makes fake art, a writer who fakes his writing, and a filmmaker who made his name for a radio broadcast about a fake alien invasion. Orson
Welles life is mirrored by the lives of De Hory and Irving, in that they all made their careers by lying. Its a movie about a biographer of a faker, but it’s also a biography of another faker — Orson Welles. Through all this confusions and complication Orson Welles thesis on the idea of faking and forgery comes with his description of Chartres Cathedral in France. Chartres was built anonymously according to Welles “without signature,” but it is one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind, and revered throughout the western world. What I interpret Welles talking about here, in his perspective the fact that the building was made is more important than who actually made it. The beauty of the building means more than the authenticity, and in that way he is defending the work of De Hory. De Hory and Irving both gave works to the public and even though they’re not entirely authentic they are still great works and enrich the lives of those who come across them. This scene is also justification for Welles’ own life, a life of charlatanism.
09.
We were required to make tabloid — size pages that explained our process and what we intended to do for our thesis. They were put on display on the 11th floor at 2 W 13th street.
10.
I read an article by Holmberg in an issue of Dot Dot Dot that had reminded me of the Mise en Abyme.
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Paper Language
Ryan Holmberg is a teaching assistant at Yale University where he received his masters degree in art history.
I thought I would post this article. I can’t find a version online. I’ll try to type it up verbatim here. It is probably better read on an actual sheet of paper but I think it is one of the best examples of my idea and I would like to use it somewhere in my thesis project. “Language can also be compared with a sheet of paper: thought is the front and the sound the back; one cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time; likewise in language, one can neither divide sound from thought nor thought from sound; the division could be accomplished only abstractedly, and the result would be either pure psychology or pure phonology. (Ferdinand de Saussure) One cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time. Likewise in language, one can neither divide sound from
thought or thought from sound. Thought is the front and the sound the back. One can neither divide the front from the back or the back from the front. One cannot cut the front without cutting the back at the same time. Thought is the front and the sound the back. One cannot cut thought without cutting sound at the same time. One can neither divide sound from thought or thought from sound. Cutting both at the same time. Dividing one from the other. Cutting through and dividing between. Paper and Language. = The two sides of a sheet of paper are isometric. They share dimension and measure. one side is without perspective onto the other. Back to back, not face to face. Identity in dimension is identity in size. They share extension. The limit of one side is the limit of the other side. There is no sheet of paper in which one side exceeds the other. They share
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body. Front and back are co-substantial. One can neither divide the front from the back nor the back from the front. There is no front without a back and no back without a front. Division of the front from the back or the back from the front creates two sheets of paper, each with an indivisible front and back. There is no end to division and thus no division of the front from the back or the back from the front that results in a sheet of paper of all front or all back. The division could be accom plished only abstractedly, and the result would be either pure psychology or pure phonology. The result would be either pure thought or pure sound, pure front or pure back….”
And so on and so forth. As you read this article, it becomes clear that by repetition of words and phrases you coalesce with the sheet of paper that you are reading. This article appeared in Dot Dot Dot 12 and has been one of the most interesting and compelling articles I think I have ever read. It is an illustration of the mise en abyme in a linguistic sense. Sort of like a written version of my mini presentation. You most certainly can’t separate thought from sound in terms of language, but through this article you either read it through pure thought or pure sound, or oscillate between the two into infinity or until the end of the article.
11.
Comps I put together for the design of this book.
At this point I feel like I’m in a good spot to start making some design decisions about how my books are going to look. I’ve decided to name each book by the time, place and date where the content was compiled. Each title is a sentence where each part can be easily swapped out. Each book is color coded and the
color corresponds to the title and color of the images on each page. The image will fill the entire page and be cropped and sized to the box in an interesting way. Images can be shown multiple times just with different points of interest.
12.
I decided that my project needed a third element that could further emphasize the idea of the Mise en Abyme by including quotes from William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri, two early instructors and founders of Parsons the New School for Design.
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William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri
I want to somehow document this conflict along with my project. The notebook that I’m going to look at has notes taken in both Chase’s classes and Henri’s classes. Henri apparently was kind of crazy and encouraged fighting in his painting class—a pre-cursor to the Pollock, De Kooning, Clement Greenberg days— while Chase was a traditional academic painter. The documentation of the school, the collection of material from a location and also the notes from the journal coupled with the idea of the conflict between Henri and Chase will be combined in my books.
After class Tuesday, I came to the conclusion that my process right now was working with two elements and needed a third. My books right now are the completion of two acts—one is the collection of materials within parsons at a given location, the second the compil ing and cropping/presentation of my findings. My process seemed to be lack-ing a third element that would make it all the more interesting. Since my project is concerned with Parsons, and mirroring the institution within the senior show, I feel like it would be a good idea to reference the school again by digging into the past of the institution. I had an idea to make up a fictional conversation between myself and founder William Merritt Chase, while I was going around the school. Something like, the ghost of Chase came to me on the street and followed me around Parsons, or I was able to raise the spirit of Chase and somehow document that by a fictional conversation. Since I’m not a biographer and it is really not possible for me to do Chase justice
without a big inquiry into his history etc. I figured it would be a good idea to go into the Parsons archives and see if there were any letters of correspondence or personal journals by Chase that I could read. I spoke to the archivist Wendy Scheir and made an appointment to see a journal by a student at parsons during the school’s beginning that has notes taken during classes taught by Chase. She also told me of another interesting part of the school’s history, the fight between Chase and painter/teacher Robert Henri and how Henri eventually forced Chase to leave. According to an article in The New York Times Henri was originally invited to join the faculty at Parsons, then known as the Chase School. Henri was honored to join and over time he began to interact with the more avant garde painters in New York at the time. Over a conflict of vision and ideology over painting— Chase being more of a classic european inspired painter and Henri being of the new American movement in painting—Henri got Chase to leave his own school.
13.
Design decisions and comps for the cover of each book.
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Cover Tests #1
So I’ve been working on laying out some basic design decisions so that I’ll be able to quickly design and build the rest of my series.
I decided on a number of fonts that had an archival feel. Typefaces that carry little emotional baggage but are at the same time historic. I wanted faces that were either designed a long time ago or were based off of classic letter forms with the exception of Consolas and Andale Mono which are screen fonts. Grouch Klang Akzidenz Gil Sans Shadow Outline Artm Grotesk APC Courier Machine Albertus Andale Mono Neographik New Baskerville
Novarese Veljovic Berliner Grotesk Consolas
I want to cut these down to only three faces. One headline copy face, one body copy and one caption face. Right now I’m leaning towards using All Caps Neographik for headline, Novarese for body copy, and All caps Consolas for highlight/captioning font. I’m not sure how I feel about Neographik for Headline font. It tends to remind me of mario and its a little horsy and a little too heavy. I might swap out for either Akzidenz or Grouch. Not sure.
#1 Artm Grotesk is used to fill the entire cover. Blue is swapped out for the information that changes from book to book. A number at the bottom signifies the number in the series of books that contain the story of William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri.
#2 Emphasis is placed on the date set in Gil Sans Shadow. The Middle info is in New Baskerville the the interchangable info set in blue. Albertus is used for the volume number and the title of the Robert Henri and Chase story. It’s all centered on the cover in the classic trangular composition.
#3 Pretty straightforward. Just a big number set in Klang. Fills the entire page. The rest of the info is set in Akzidenz with the date in Klang. 
#4 Horizontal rule above the title “Part 1 set in Grouch. The rest of the info is set in Akzidenz and a contact sheet of the images that will appear in the book is set in behind in the color of that particular book. The combo of Akzidenz and Grouch has too much of an Acne paper and American Apparel feel. This would mean that each book would be a part of a bigger story, which might not be entirely right.
#5 This cover displays where the image will fall within the entire book. The x delineates the image area. The info is set in Akzidenz with the title and part number set in Klang.
#6 This cover has an image set behind. Basically the same as #4, but the title is swapped out for a Klang 1 and a picture from the interior is set behind. I feel like this one might actually look nicer if it didn’t have the picture behind and the number was set in the blue–see #6a.
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#6a
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#7 Emphasis is placed on the span of time the book was collected. A set of times is set in Machine the rest in APC Courier.
14.
Initial design decisions for the layout of my book.
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Layout Tests #1
Setting up master pages and templates for the rest of the series.
I started in on making some initial moves towards the design of pages that contain content. Each book should have a brief introduction and some text to accompany it, I also want to include a master book that will outline my process, thesis statement and inspiration.
I decided on an A5 book format. It’s a nice handheld size and it should be easier and cheaper to produce when I get the ball rolling. It’s a 12 column grid with one column text block on the left and two column on the right. I wanted the page to be generally light in tone but more importantly have a good contrast in tone between body copy, headline, and caption text.
#1 12 pt Neographik all caps headline. 6 pt Consolas for caption/highlight. 8 pt/9.6 pt Novarese book for bodycopy
#2 30 pt Grouch for headline 6 pt APC Courier for caption/highlight 8 pt / 14 pt Akzidenz Light for body
#3 36 pt Artm Grotesk for headline 6 pt Meta monospace for highlight 8 pt/9.6 pt Veljovic for body copy Artm Grotesk dropcap
#4 30 pt Gr Courier for headline 6 pt Gil Sans for highlight/caption 8 pt/9.6 pt Artm Grotesk for body copy Gr Courier dropcap
#5 26 pt Gil Sans Light Shadowheadline 6 pt Gil Sans light for caption 7.5 pt/9 pt Gr Courier for body copy Gil Sans Light Shadow for drop cap 2pt Rule above and below on each page.
15.
Further research on the controversy of Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase.
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Quotes and Writings
I intend on displaying these quotes within the series of books that will accompany this one. All quotations are courtesy of the Anna and Steven Kellen Archives at Parsons the New School for Design.
I had the opportunity today to go into the Parsons Archives and take a look at a notebook from 1906 by student Roy Fleming who attended the New York School of Art, soon to be The Chase School of Art and eventually Parsons School of Design. He was a student in both Chase’s and Henri’s art classes and had taken a plethora of notes and sketches that recounted verbatim the lectures of both teachers. I was able to transcribe some great quotes from Henri and a small amount of writing from Chase.
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William Merritt Chase Nov. 17 1906, Notebook of Roy Fleming In regard to a book called ‘Modern Painting’ by George Moore “I tell you where in women artists beat us men—they are appreciative (aesthetic) —sensitive.”
Henri April 15th 1906 Notebook of Roy Fleming In regard to the student’s drawings “What do you care if the others laugh at it and make humorous remarks about it? You paid your fees here at the school, and I were you I would see that I got all the good out of the school I could. “By god, I would fight to have my drawing put there if I wished to. I wouldn’t want to fight. There are many reasons I wouldn’t want to fight mainly because I’m not good at the game but I would fight with anyone that interfered to prevent me from doing my work.” “I remember when I used to send my pictures to the jury. I knew before I sent them that they would be refused. That didn’t matter to me. ‘Well, here comes some more of that Henri stuff,” and they would
“But men have the staying powers, they have the courage you women have not.” Speaking about Whistler “He was enthusiastic, as all great men are.”
laugh. Now I’m telling you these things—I may not use good english according to ordinary authorities but if you get the idea that I attempt to give you then it is GOOD ENGLISH. Let Yale and Harvard be DAMNED.” “Walt Whitman was a great man—he spoke as he felt. He didn’t regard the conventionalities of poetry.” “I plead for the uplifting of ideas in art.” “Stand up and tell us some truth with conviction and courage.” “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.” “No-one ever became great who did not take chances.” Some of these quotes are kind of banal but they also give insight into how Henri was as a man and teacher.
16.
Saul Anton’s book, Warhol’s Dream, served as inspiration for the last part of my project.
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Fictional Conversations
Fictional conversations and interviews could be an interesting way to deal with the content I’ve collected about WMC and Henri.
Warhol’s Dream is a critical study of Andy Warhol and Robert Smithson, two incredibly influential and successful artists of the sixties, through a fictional encounter of the two artists that never really occurred. Saul Anton, a Princeton doctoral candidate who has written for Parkett, Frieze and Artforum among other magazines, sought to write a novel that appeared as though the conversation between the two artists actually occurred. It is an original and insightful way to shed light on the histories and lives of these two important cultural figures. I’m inspired by this book, or more importantly the idea of this book, as a written experiment that I
could bring into my own thesis project. I’ve been collecting quotes and writings from both Chase and Henri and I feel that I could possibly begin to interact with these two people myself. Not actually have them speak to one another in a fictional encounter, but to have them talk to me in a fictional interview. This series of conversations between myself and the two men could runs along the visual research I have been collecting and compiling in my books. This interplay between the spoken word and the designed object is an interesting territory for exploration in graphic design. The translation of a conversation or pitch into an actual finished product is the problem every graphic designer faces.
17.
Updated quotes from William Merritt Chase that appear in the book William Merritt Chase by Ronald G. Pisano, Watson Guptill Publications, New York.
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William Merritt Chase
These quotes will also appear in the books that accompany this one.
Here are some more quotes by William Merritt Chase as found in the book William Merritt Chase by Ronald G. Pisano, Watson Guptill Publications, New York. “…the aim of every great artist, so far as technique goes, is, to as great an extent as possible to do away with the intermission between his head and his hand…”
” Genius is only recognized in people who succeed.” “Do not imagine that I would disregard that thing that lies beneath the mask…but be sure that when the outside is rightly seen, the thing that lies under the surface will be found upon your canvas.” “I will venture the remark: that no matter what you do, so long as you succeed in what you do, you will be forgiven…”
“Don’t hesitate to exaggerate color and light. Don’t worry about telling lies. The most tiresome people—and pictures—are the stupidly truthful ones. I really think I prefer a little deviltry.”
“The profession of the artist is one of the most ancient that we know, and, as I tell the students about to enter it, the most dignified.”
“My god I’d rather go to Europe than to Heaven.”
“If you do give [away your work], let it be the very best you have.” “Great work comes from the heart. When only from the head, it is uninteresting.”
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“Do not try to paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished.” “Subject is not important. Anything can be made attractive… “Aim to make an uninteresting subject so inviting and entertaining by means of fine technique that people will be charmed at the way you’ve done it.” “The harshest criticism—the very harshest—is when you hear it said ‘What a lot of time it took him to do that!’ The successful work is not of that kind—it looks as if it had been blown upon the canvas and entirely without effort.” “Be in an absorbent frame of mind. Take the best from everything.” I really love that last quote. I feel like it sums up my entire process.
Subject is not important. Anything can be made attractive‌ Aim to make an uninteresting
subject so inviting and entertaining by means of fine technique that people will be charmed at the way you’ve done it.
Be in an absorbent frame of mind.
Take th e best from everything. —W.M.C.
All content that appears here originally appeared on the class blog and my blog www.ryanq.com/blog Š Ryan Quigley 2009 171 Bedford Ave Brooklyn NY 11211 www.ryanq.com quigr193@gmail.com Thesis Advisor: Ted Byfield Parsons the New School for Design Thanks to Wendy Schier at the Anna and Steven Kellen Archives. Typefaces: ITC Grouch, Artm Grotesk, Consolas, and ITC Novarese.