OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE TAROT DECK Slimvolume Poster Publication 2008 to 2011
Dedicated to Kenneth George Hunt 27 April 1938–21 May 2011
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CONTENTS
ANCIENT TAROT OF MARSEILLE
Ancient Tarot of Marseille
THE TRADITIONAL TAROTS
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The Meanings of The Major Arcana
8
Major Arcana
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The Meanings of The Minor Arcana
31
Minor Arcana Chalices, Pentacles, Wands, Swords
95
Notes
110
Recipients List
120
Colophon
The first historical proof of the existence of tarots can be traced back to the fifteenth century in Italy. The oldest decks also date back to the same period and place — the Renaissance courts of Ferrara and Milan. The tarot consisted of two series of cards. 22 major arcana which represented 22 religious and moral allegories and 56 minor arcana equal in all respects to a normal deck of Italian cards with suits. Until the late eighteenth century, the tarots were a very widespread card game at all social levels in all of Europe before being considered a cartomantic instrument. The rules of this game can be considered similar to bridge and are used in many places still today with only slight changes to the rules of the middle ages. Nevertheless, even when the cartomantic aspect of the tarots became predominant, they concentrated on the mysterious images of the major arcana, leaving the minor arcana unchanged with only a few exceptions. Only in 1911, with the publication of the Rider-Waite deck, was a pictorial iconography, which also included the minor arcana, introduced into modern 1
cartomany. For many reasons, therefore, divinatory use of a traditional deck is more difficult and less immediate than that of a modern deck. And yet the simplicity and allegorical purity of traditional tarots is a heritage which absolutely must not be forgotten since the roots of modern cartomancy are hidden in their images. THE TAROT OF MARSEILLE
of Paris, which in turn were heavily inspired by the Lombard ones. Nevertheless, the largest card industries of Europe were located in Marseille during that time. Thanks to that privileged position, some of the most important manufacturers of tarot emerged and prospered: Arnoux (from 1790 to 1829), Bourlion (from 1753 to 1793), Conver (from 1760 to 1890), and Tourcaty (from 1701 to 1809). They were able to export card games and tarots at extremely low prices and of a quality which was decidedly higher than the competition’s. The logical consequence was that the use of Marseille iconography became synonymous with quality and all manufacturers which were not in Marseille adopted this new appearance in order to survive. Still today, the Tarot of Marseille are the ones used most for playing, and, in Italy and France, also for divining.
The name ‘Tarot of Marseille’ does not indicate a single deck of cards but rather a series of iconographic models which identify a type of tarot deck. At the end of the 1600s, this type of card deck spread all over Europe, eliminating and replacing with rare exception (for example the neo-classical Tarot of Lombardy), all regional production and variants of Tarots. Within one century, the iconography of Marseille was the most widespread and well-known. When the esoteric world began to dedicate itself to tarots and study them, it was faced with this type of tarot, whose icons were transformed and explained in light of divinatory practices. Strangely, the reason behind the extraordinary success of the Tarot of Marseille was predominantly economic. The iconographic model was without a doubt influenced by the tarots
Generally associated with divination and fortune telling in the English-speaking world through a rich source of imagery, the Tarot of Marseille includes such archetypes as The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Lovers, The Wheel of Fortune, and The Hanged Man. For Outrageous Fortune
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OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE TAROT DECK
Tarot Deck, seventy-eight artists, whose work encompasses a variety of formal, conceptual, expressionist, literary or design-based approaches, were asked to create a card for a contemporary tarot deck based on the Tarot of Marseille. Each artist was drawn a card randomly, and invited to reinterpret it in their own way. Among the contributions are The Nine of Swords by Mike Nelson; The Four of Pentacles by Alan Kane, The Hermit by Suzanne Treister, The King of Wands by Dan Rees, The Two of Pentacles by Adam Chodzko, The King of Chalices by Cerith Wyn Evans, The Ten of Chalices by Cullinan Richards, The Four of Chalices by Tris Vonna-Michell in dialogue with Konst och Teknik, The Ace of Chalices by Anna Barriball, The Magician by Melanie Gilligan, Temperance by Simon Davenport, The Knight of Swords by Will Holder and The Three of Swords by Lindsay Seers.
packs of cards have been produced. All copies of this deck have been given to recipients nominated by the artists and the project’s organisers. The box that contains the cards has been designed by Scott King, while the image for the back of the cards has been created by Susan Hiller. These works were also included in the original touring exhibition. THE ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION Divining with tarots is very easy. First of all, one must understand what a cartomantic spread is. In order to respond to the querient’s questions, the cartomant must lay out the tarots in a certain sequence. Each position of the sequence corresponds to part of the answer. The reading is carried out through an understanding of the divinatory meaning of the arcanum, which appears in a certain position.
The initial exhibition ‘Outrageous Fortune: Artists Remake the Tarot’ consisted of the seventy-eight artworks, all produced to the same near-A3 format, framed and accompanied by explanatory captions, together with an example of the Tarot of Marseille pack. For Outrageous Fortune Tarot Deck, a special numbered edition of 1,000 printed
As an example, we will describe the cartomantic spread called: ‘The Veil’. This is useful for answering the querient when he or she is in doubt about something and is unable to discern the truth. After the querient has shuffled the cards and cut the deck, lay out three cards as shown in the figure overleaf.
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THE MEANINGS OF THE MAJOR ARCANA 2 1
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When an arcanum appears upside-down, many cartomants give it a different or even opposite meaning. For example, the turned down Fool means ‘lack of will-power’.
1) What the querient sees. 2) The Veil, or the reason why the querient does not see the entire truth. 3) The truth, or how things really are. Once the cards have been read, a good cartomant will need to remember that a reading is not carried out simply through the sum of the meanings of the cards, but rather will need to use her/his sensitivity to create a complete and unified analysis.
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MANUEL RAEDER Gathered experience, 2010 Digital pigment print, 420 x 285mm
II — THE HIGH PRIESTESS — STUDY
I — THE FOOL — STRONG WILL
FIONA MACKAY The Fool, 2010 Oil paint on MDF, 420 x 285mm
Up: ability, spirit of initiative, will power, free of prejudice, diplomacy. Upside-down: unscrupulous, social climbing, lies, quackery, incorrect judgement, wrong actions.
Up: study, wisdom, intuition, faith, woman, mother, platonic love, discretion, self-control. Upside-down: passiveness, laziness, ignorance, selfishness, introversion, closed mentality, prejudices, hysteria.
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STEPHEN SUTCLIFFE The Emperor, 2010 C-type print, 420 x 285mm
IV — THE EMPEROR — STABILITY
III — THE EMPRESS — FERTILITY
RACHEL CATTLE Heart V R, 2011 Pencil on paper, 420 x 285mm
Up: intelligence, understanding, beneficial influence, resolving help, receptiveness, pregnancy. Upside-down: indecision, lack of clarity, frivolity, sterility, inability to create concrete things.
Up: stability, legality, strength, irrevocable judgement, protection, the solving of material problems. Upsidedown: tyranny, arrogance, ineptness, atrophy, incorrect judgement, legal or professional problems.
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EDWIN BURDIS The Lovers, 2011 Acrylic and pencil on paper, 420 x 285mm
VI — THE LOVER — CHOICE
V — THE HIGH PRIEST — INSPIRATION
JAMES RICHARDS AND THOM MURPHY The Priest, 2010 Inkjet print, correction fluid and ink on paper, 420 x 285mm
Up: pity, clemency, relief, a wise man one turns to, religion, family, tradition, inspiration. Upside-down: rancour, intolerance, loss of confidence in self and others, vulgar and material actions.
Up: test, attempt, important choice, need for a decision, marriage, oath, pact. Upside-down: indecision, temptation, infidelity, unrequited love, broken promises, failed test.
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See note 1, p. 95.
MONTGOMERY CANTSIN AND KAT HARVEY Portrait of May Knott, 2011 Inkjet print from original collage, 420 x 285mm
VIII — JUSTICE — BALANCE
VII — THE CHARIOT — VICTORY
LUIGI ONTANI Carro4eta ‘identita’, Chariot4agesidentities, 2011 Colour photographic print, 420 x 285mm
Up: success, recognised merits, great ambitions, ability to lead, spiritual or material development. Upside-down: defeat, inability, incorrect judgement, sudden loss of a sure result, mismanagement.
Up: law, equity, harmony, misfortune, submission to logic, respect for hierarchy and rules. Upsidedown: prejudices, subversion, loss of a trial, problems which arise from unjust behaviour.
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ELINOR MORGAN La Rove de Fortune, 2011 Digital print on Jarrold’s paper, 420 x 285mm X — THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE — ALTERNATION
IX — THE HERMIT — PRUDENCE
SUZANNE TREISTER The Hermit: Theodore Kaczynski/Unabomber, 2010 Inkjet print and watercolour on paper, 420 x 285mm
Up: prudence, silence, austerity, solitude, spiritual search, counsellor, expert, healer. Upside-down: misanthropy, self-pity, rashness, recklessness, stubbornness, delay, sterility, hidden enemies.
Undeserved success, fortuitous advantages, propitious occasions, time: seasons, months or years, natural cycles.
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See note 2, p. 95.
JONATHAN ALLEN Tommy Angel #11, 2011 Archival pigment print, 420 x 285mm
DAWN MELLOR Alex from A Clockwork Orange (Malcolm McDowell), 2011 Pastel and marker pen on paper, 420 x 285mm
XI — STRENGTH — ENERGY
XII — THE HANGED MAN — SACRIFICE
Up: courage, prevailing intelligence, self-mastery, work, moral fortitude, defence of just causes. Upside-down: cruelty, tyranny, impulsive reactions, reckless stupidity, strong and dangerous enemy.
Up: altruism, inner search, idealism, material detachment, transition, asceticism, illumination. Upside-down: futile attempts, inability to act, illness, constraint, punishment, repentance, sacrifice.
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See note 3, p. 95.
See note 4, p. 96.
SIMON POPPER Not So Fun Guy, 2010 Acrylic on linen, 420 x 285mm
SIMON DAVENPORT Caald, 2011 Digital print, 420 x 285mm
XIII — DEATH — THE END
XIV — TEMPERANCE — TRANSFORMATION
Up: sudden change, radical transformation, the end, misfortune, initiatory death, budding. Upside-down: stagnation, rejection of change, old age, decomposition, spiritualism, serious illness or physical death.
Up: moderation, adaptation, pleasant change, regeneration, healing, spurt of energy. Upside-down: inability to adapt, inner tensions, dislike, oppositions, illness, tiredness.
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See note 5, p. 96.
See note 6, p. 97.
CEDAR LEWISOHN La Maison Diev, 2011 Ink on paper with photocopy, 420 x 285mm
XVI — THE TOWER — EXILE
XV — THE DEVIL — INSTINCTIVENESS
CANDICE JACOBS Instinct, 2011 Lambda print, 420 x 285mm
Up: sexual attraction, enchantment, charm, suggestion, selfishness. Upside-down: inner anxiety, immoral actions, perversion, lust, wickedness, black magic.
Up: collapse of convictions, shattered equilibrium, fall, deserved punishment, punished pride, exile. Upside-down: loss of defences, adversity, catastrophe, failure, disorganisation, chaos.
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See note 7, p. 97.
NOAH SHERWOOD la Promenade au Clair de Lune (Dinard à Rothéneuf), 2010 Lambda C-type print of slide collage, 420 x 285mm
XVIII — THE MOON — DREAMS
XVII — THE STAR — HOPE
MANUELA GERNEDEL The Star, 2010 Digital print, 420 x 285mm
Up: good omen, favourable prediction, superior intelligence, bright idea, purity of spirit, benefit. Upside-down: unfavourable moment, fatalism, bad omens, loss of clear-headedness, unstable mood.
Up: visions, hallucinations, travel over water, difficult quests, strange meetings, the attraction of the unknown, the occult. Upside-down: danger, flattery, insincere relationships, illnesses related to water, lunatic temperament, viruses.
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See note 8, p. 97.
CALLY SPOONER Announcement for a Pending Performance, 2011 Screenprint on paper, 420 x 285mm
XX — JUDGEMENT — RENEWAL
XIX — THE SUN — HARMONY
ED ATKINS The Sun, 2011 Ink on paper, 420 x 285mm
Up: friendship, solidarity, sincerity, love, generosity, positive period, resolution of problems, clarity. Upside-down: vanity, hypocrisy, deceitfulness, irritability, lack of clear-headedness, misunderstandings, difficulties, belated success.
Up: change of position, birth, awakening, initiation, examination of conscience, healing, fame, superior judgement. Upside-down: remorse, frustrations, bewilderment, reproof, exacerbation of an illness.
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See note 9, p. 99.
MELANIE GILLIGAN Le Bateleur, 2011 Digital images displayed in digital picture frame, object: 405 x 330mm, image: 300 x 226mm
0 — THE MADMAN — STRANGENESS
XXI — THE WORLD — REWARD
AARON ANGELL Scree (The World), 2011 Acrylic paint and spray paint on perspex, 420 x 285mm
Up: success, completion, reward, reintegration, evolution, cosmic cycle, a propitious moment. Upsidedown: imperfection, insuperable obstacles, setbacks, failures, hostility, revolution, chaos, disobedience.
Up: eccentricity, incomprehensible actions, lightheartedness, repose of the body and mind, creativity. Upside-down: escape from reality, interruption of all contact with the world, madness, instinctiveness, foolhardiness, stupidity, slavery to the senses.
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THE MEANINGS OF THE MINOR ARCANA Before publication of the Rider-Waite deck in 1911, almost none of the tarot decks had a specific iconography for the minor arcana (except for the Sola-Busca deck, which Waite used to make the symbols for his deck), preferring the symbols stylised with complete and precise figures (the so-called ‘pips’). Interpretation of the minor arcana must therefore be done apart from the image which appears on the card. As happened in the past, the cartomancer needed to use his or her own knowledge of tradition and how much he or she knew concerning the general nature of the suit. The divinatory interpretation of the suits is as follows: CHALICES: ‘water suit’: psychic, emotional, spiritual or sentimental activity. PENTACLES: ‘earth suit’: economic, material activity, of the physical world. WANDS: ‘fire suit’: physical, corporeal, creative activity. SWORDS: ‘air suit’: intellectual, psychological, abstract activity. 30
ANNA BARRIBALL Figure Ground Sea, 2010 Inkjet print on paper, 420 x 285mm
KENNETH HUNT Idyll, Passion, Affinity, Agreement, 2011 Linocut, gold leaf and silver leaf on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE ACE OF CHALICES
THE TWO OF CHALICES
Abundance, satisfaction, happiness, fertility.
Idyll, passion, affinity, agreement.
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See note 10, p. 99.
TRIS VONNA-MICHELL IN DIALOGUE WITH KONST OCH TEKNIK Mount Analogue, 2011 Stereogram inkjet print, 420 x 285mm
THE FOUR OF CHALICES
THE THREE OF CHALICES
JULIE VERHOEVEN Sod’s Law, 2010 Paint, pastel and pen on paper, 420 x 285mm
Birth, balance, healing, the beginning of a relationship.
Growth, harmony, new acquaintances.
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See note 11, p. 100.
See note 12, p. 100.
RAISA VEIKKOLA AND FRIDA ALVINZI Six of Cups, 2011 Rotring pen ink and book page collage on heavyweight papier ĂŠpais 220g/m2, 420 x 285mm
THE SIX OF CHALICES
THE FIVE OF CHALICES
JEMIMA STEHLI Paus five hands, 2011 Silver gelatin hand print, 420 x 285mm
Fear, return to family, refusal of encounters, isolation from the external world.
Memories, return to the past, dreams, erotic fantasies.
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See note 13, p. 100.
ERIK BLINDERMAN 4 cups x 2, 2010 Photo collage, 420 x 285mm
THE EIGHT OF CHALICES
THE SEVEN OF CHALICES
RACHEL WITHERS Seven of Cups (Hufeisen Seidlung), 2011 Ink and watercolor on paper, 420 x 285mm
Imagination, creativity, fantasies, search for utopia.
Maturity, maturation, modesty, sentimental steadfastness.
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See note 14, p. 100.
See note 15, p. 100.
CULLINAN RICHARDS Spuc Fo Net Anodaram, 2010 Glassine paper, silkscreen print, foil tape and mirror, 420 x 285mm
THE TEN OF CHALICES
THE NINE OF CHALICES
JONTY LEES 9 of cups, 2010 Collage and mixed media on paper, 420 x 285mm
Virtue, affection, admiration, sentimental consistency.
Recognition, contentment, rest, happy union.
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See note 16, p. 100.
See note 17, p. 101.
ANJA KIRSCHNER AND DAVID PANOS Google Knight of Cups (with historical axis), 2010 Digital collage / Inkjet print, 420 x 285mm
THE KNIGHT OF CHALICES
THE KNAVE OF CHALICES
NICOLAS CECCALDI Knave of Cups (the grouch), 2011 Pen, felt tip and adhesive on construction paper with pen and pencil, 420 x 285mm
Confidant, messenger of love, idealism, young collaborator.
Friend, passionate but unfaithful lover, love at first sight.
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See note 18, p. 101.
CERITH WYN EVANS Untitled (King of Cups), 2011 Digital pigment print, 420 x 285mm
THE KING OF CHALICES
THE QUEEN OF CHALICES
STUART WHIPPS Found photograph collected in Johannesburg’s Central Business District in 2007. Photographer unknown., 2010 C-type print, 420 x 285mm
Lover, wife or sincere friend, sensitivity, foresight.
Intellectual, artist, writer, patron, mature person.
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PHILLIPA HORAN On the Money, 2010 Silver royal mint coin with artist’s profile as Boudicca, wood carving and polo mints, 420 x 285mm
ADAM CHODZKO Cast Party or The Return of the Lemniscate of Bernoulli, 2010 Giclee print, printing ink, wood engraving, biro and sticker on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE ACE OF PENTACLES
THE TWO OF PENTACLES
Acquisition, profit, gathering, victory, increase in wealth.
Instability, fluctuation, contract being defined.
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See note 19, p. 101.
See note 20, p. 102.
ALAN KANE Realisation, Commercial Expansion, Development of New Enterprises, Investments, 2010 Photograph, 420 x 285mm
THE FOUR OF PENTACLES
THE THREE OF PENTACLES
PAVEL BRAILA Soul and Balls, 2011 Painted stencil on photograph, 420 x 285mm
Publicity, showing off professional talents or products, disclosure.
Realisation, commercial expansion, development of new enterprises, investments.
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JEREMY MILLAR The Six of Coins (To Be Given With The Left Hand), 2010 Digital pigment print, 420 x 285mm
THE SIX OF PENTACLES
THE FIVE OF PENTACLES
KATIE PATERSON 100 Billion Suns, 2010 Silver gelatin print, 420 x 285mm
Savings, economic spirit, patrimony to be protected.
Unscrupulousness, lack of scruples, unrecognisability, profitable gift.
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See note 21, p. 103.
See note 22, p. 103.
EMMA TALBOT The Things That Give You Freedom. Autonomy. Knowledge. Information., 2010 Watercolour and gouache on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE EIGHT OF PENTACLES
THE SEVEN OF PENTACLES
HANNAH RICKARDS To enable me to fix my attention on any one of these symbols I was to imagine, I was looking at the colours as I might see them on a moving picture screen, 2011 Digital pigment print, 420 x 285mm
Charity, the start of business, optimism, material help for those in need, civil duty.
Autonomy, improving knowledge, learning, understanding personal limits.
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See note 23, p. 103.
KEITH COVENTRY 10 of Coins, 2010 Collage, 420 x 285mm
THE TEN OF PENTACLES
THE NINE OF PENTACLES
HANNAH SAWTELL Reactive Monitor, 2010 Unique digital print on personalised laptop case, 420 x 285mm
Investments, earned income, new projects, ability to manage resources, long-term investments.
Wealth, inheritance, donations, fleeting success, discovery of treasures.
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BRIAN GRIFFITHS Pressing On (with pillows), 2010 Cushion cover, fabric, thread, 420 x 285mm
THE KNIGHT OF PENTACLES
THE KNAVE OF PENTACLES
MICHAEL FULLERTON Vidal Sassoon, London 2009, 2011 Silk screen on Somerset paper, 420 x 285mm
Student, new and brilliant ideas, search for a guide.
Consultant, arrogance, authoritarianism, orders, self-confidence.
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GEORGE HENRY LONGLY The King of Coins, 2011 Photograph from high resolution scan, 420 x 285mm
THE KING OF PENTACLES
THE QUEEN OF PENTACLES
PAUL BUCK Generosity, 2010 Ink and pencil on card, 420 x 285mm
Heiress, marriage of convenience, desire for safety, greed.
Businessman, merchant, rich man, shrewd investment, search for a financial backer.
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See note 24, p. 103.
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ALEXIS MARGUERITE TEPLIN Ace of Wands, drawing for performance, 2010 Oil on paper, 420 x 285mm
SOPHIE VON HELLERMAN Two of Wands, 2010 Watercolour on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE ACE OF WANDS
THE TWO OF WANDS
Invention, discovery, masculine strength, initiative, fertility.
Union, balance, organisational abilities, collaboration, alliance.
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See note 25, p. 104.
See note 26, p. 104.
JOHN CUSSANS Four of Wands (After Pamela Colman Smith), 2010 Egg tempera on board, 420 x 285mm
THE FOUR OF WANDS
THE THREE OF WANDS
GRAHAM FAGAN The Three of Wands, 2010 Indian ink, gouache and paint marker on paper, 420 x 285mm
Preparation, accumulation of reserves, fruitful encounters, energy distribution.
Alliances, society, reward, deserved rest, rural life, tranquillity.
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FRASER MUGGERIDGE 6 Wands 6 Ones, 2010 Letterpress print on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE SIX OF WANDS
THE FIVE OF WANDS
JULIETTE BLIGHTMAN V of Wands, 2010 Linocut print on paper, 420 x 285mm
Fatigue, long-term commitment, great effort, excessive spirit of protection and preservation.
Obstacles, problems which must be dealt with at the root, risk of loss, extremely delicate balance.
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See note 27, p. 104.
ROGER MALBERT Eight of Wands, 2011 Pen and ink on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE EIGHT OF WANDS
THE SEVEN OF WANDS
KEITH FARQUHAR Seven of Wands, 2010 Colour photocopy, 420 x 285mm
Success, initial results, discussions, negotiations, completion of the first part of an undertaking.
Projects, programs, expectations, planning, purchase.
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See note 28, p. 104.
JAMIE SHOVLIN X (Ten of Wands), 2011 Inkjet print, 420 x 285mm
THE TEN OF WANDS
THE NINE OF WANDS
TOM DALE, NINE WANDS Eight Broken, One Needs Batteries, 2011 Lambda print, 420 x 285mm
Experience, clairvoyance, intuition, disenchantment, pragmatism, realism.
Emulation, continuous commitment, teamwork, dialectic comparison, competition.
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See note 29, p. 104.
JACK STRANGE Cavalier De Baton 2010, 2010 Archival inkjet print, 420 x 285mm
THE KNIGHT WANDS
THE KNAVE OF WANDS
HIT sincere friend/news from afar, 2011 Photographic print, 420 x 285mm
Messenger, unexpected news, sincere friend, news from afar.
Traveller, distant relative, unexpected departure, exile.
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See note 30, p. 104.
See note 31, p. 105.
DAN REES David Gower, 2010 Ink on photographic print, 420 x 285mm
THE KING OF WANDS
THE QUEEN OF WANDS
PERLE PETIT Monokrome Work No. 2, 2010 Black felt pen, acrylic, photocopies and cellotape on paper, hole-punched, 420 x 285mm
Friend, need for understanding, trust, cordiality.
Entrepreneur, family father, responsibility, wisdom.
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See note 32, p. 105.
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NOVEL (Alun Rowlands and Matt Williams) This Man is Reading Novel (Ace of Swords), 2011 Xerox on paper, 420 x 285mm
SARA DE BONDT Two of Sorts, 2010 Risograph print on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE ACE OF SWORDS
THE TWO OF SWORDS
Conquest, exaltation, fighting spirit, to fight for one’s own ideas, dynamism.
Duel, opposing forces, competition, test of strength, judgement, ordeal, debate.
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See note 33, p. 106.
TATJANA DOLL innocent, 2010 Enamel on canvas, 420 x 285mm
THE FOUR OF SWORDS
THE THREE OF SWORDS
LINDSAY SEERS Three of Swords (Jealousy), 2011 Archival inkjet print, 420 x 285mm
Analysis, intellectual work, synthesis capabilities, introspection, paranormal experiences.
Isolation, preoccupation for oneself, resorting to specialists, distrust, the beginning of a personal struggle.
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See note 34, p. 106.
MANFREDI BENINATI Six Swords, 2011 Spray paint and ink print on card stock paper, 420 x 285mm
THE SIX OF SWORDS
THE FIVE OF SWORDS
RUTH EWAN The Five of Swords/I’m tired of the war (Aalam), 2010 Inkjet print on paper, 420 x 285mm
Defeat, severe punishment, castigation, remorse, sense of guilt, bitterness.
Imprisonment, tiredness, difficulty, misunderstanding, separation, suspension, delay.
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See note 35, p. 106.
See note 36, p. 106.
ARNAUD DESJARDIN SSSWORDSSS, 2011 Ink on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE EIGHT OF SWORDS
THE SEVEN OF SWORDS
IZUMI CHIARALUCE Nagai Iki, Deep Breath, 2011 Watercolour, marker, oil pastel and collage on paper, 420 x 285mm
Secrets, search for truth, discretion, occult science, subterfuge.
Self-defence, self-treatment, internal harmony united with external disharmony, defending one’s own state.
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ZOE BELOFF Strange Girl (After Paul Richer), 2011 Ink and watercolor on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE TEN OF SWORDS
THE NINE OF SWORDS
MIKE NELSON Between Conspiratorial and Comic, the Cliched Actuality of the Paranoid Apparition of the Black Dog, 2010 Mixed media and collage on paper, 420 x 285mm
Self-control, repression of emotions, holding back impulses, meditation, patience.
Affliction, psycho-physical instability, insanity, unreliability, hidden pain.
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See note 37, p. 107.
WILL HOLDER Knight of Swords, 2010 Risograph print on offset paper, 420 x 285mm
THE KNIGHT OF SWORDS
THE KNAVE OF SWORDS
JOÃO PENALVA Valet d’Epee, 2011 Pigment print on Hahnemühle Matt Fine Art 308g/m2 paper, 420 x 285mm
Researcher, investigator, revelations, search for truth, surveillance.
Dependent, mercenary, fiery temperament, pugnacious, hostility, impetuousness.
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See note 38, p. 107.
ANNA PARKINA Saint George, 2010 Watercolour, collage and photocopy on paper, 420 x 285mm
THE KING OF SWORDS
THE QUEEN OF SWORDS
NADIA THONDRAYEN Dead Bird (Queen of Swords), 2011 Oil on paper, 420 x 285mm
Widow, melancholy, sterility, separation, remorse, lack of feeling.
Graduate, lawyer, judge, dialectic man, expert, intelligence at work, planned decisions.
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NOTES 1. JAMES RICHARDS AND THOM MURPHY The image used by Murphy and Richards was initially produced very roughly on Richards’ home printer and pinned onto his childhood bedroom wall. The picture appeared around the time of a controversy surrounding a Catholic Priest’s abuse of teenagers. When Murphy and Richards were thinking about making a tarot card version of The High Priest, this image came to mind. They wanted to make an image of an abusive and attractive minister. 2. ELINOR MORGAN The image represents a neverending cyclical medieval lament written by Morgan. In one respect, the female character turning the wheel on The Wheel of Fortune has power over the male character that is tumbling inside. The text in Morgan’s work depicts the latter speaking to the former. Morgan wanted the story to take on a sense of medieval melodrama that connects with the history of cyclical text in Greek and medieval poems, as well as literature through to Balzac. The pattern of the text is influenced by Celtic Knots, which were
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hung on doors for protection at night; it’s said that they cannot be unravelled by the Devil, who would relinquish the puzzle and leave before morning. The knot is a design linked to spiritualism and Paganism through the occult of tarot. The nature of Morgan’s text is also linked to illuminated manuscripts, of which the Lindisfarne gospel is perhaps the most famous example. The colour blue of the paper is contained in the original card, which is seen as a neutral element by Morgan, who, in all, wanted to find a form for the card that functioned appropriately for her own practice as a curator and a writer. The artist Rob Filby chose the font. 3. JONATHAN ALLEN Allen writes: ‘The customary iconography of the tarot card known as “Strength” — a serene robed woman cleaving open the jaws of a lion — may derive from a synthesis of visual conventions that includes the classical representation of strength as a Virtue (a female figure dressed in armour standing beside a broken stone column), and depictions of Hercules and Samson overwhelming the formidable lions of their respective classical and biblical narratives. In cartomantic terms, the positive aspect of Strength (also referred
to as “Fortitude”, “La Forza”, or “La Force”) has come to denote courage, prevailing intelligence, self-mastery, and moral fortitude, whilst its reversed position signifies tyranny, impulsive reactions, reckless stupidity, and a strong and dangerous enemy. I evoke Strength in the form of the fictitious magician “Tommy Angel”, the sleek pulpiteer of an ongoing photographic series of the same name. In Tommy Angel #11 (2010), nature’s subjugation at the hands of a narcissistic evangelist-conjuror manifests a glitzy portent of male power gone awry. The presence of a skull and dusty volumes points to the related iconography of Saint Jerome, a figure rarely depicted in Western art without his leonine companion, yet in contrast to Jerome’s hermitic disposition, Tommy Angel stands poised to perform upon whatever stage will bear his ideological and proselytizing crusade.’ 4. DAWN MELLOR The work represents the character Alex from A Clockwork Orange, who was played by the actor Malcolm McDowell. For the card The Hangman, Mellor was struck by the moral duality towards Alex; or his ‘ultra-violence’ and
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the celebration of him as an anti-hero. In many respects A Clockwork Orange is a male rights of passage film; Mellor was determined to problematise this fact, but also celebrate the generation the film belongs to. The work is interested in power relationships through a form of psychological warfare aimed back at the gallery/curator through the image. Mellor had deliberately started to refer to the organiser of the project as ‘Alex’ rather than Andrew or Andy. For example, in an email, the artist wrote: ‘Hi Alex, Great to speak last week. Really excited about the possibility of working with you/Focal Point.’ 5. SIMON POPPER Popper’s work, Not So Fun Guy is taken from a series of fifty paintings of mushrooms and fungi called Fun Guys. Popper drew the death card, so this particular picture represents poisonous mushrooms. The overall series is connected to a Japanese haiku as told by John Cage, ‘mushroom does not know that leaf is sticking to it’. Cage collected mushrooms, and this haiku had been mistranslated deliberately by the artist and composer to start a conversation around meaning. In turn, Popper’s work attempts
an intuitive and deliberately mistranslated version of these connected facts. 6. SIMON DAVENPORT Davenport has chosen five fictitious recipients for this deck of cards. All have unusual hybrid art world names, such as Boo Oppenheim and Coco Goldman. 7. CANDICE JACOBS Jacobs writes: ‘I’ve been looking at incorporating sound into my work and thinking about how this could be produced within the tarot card pack. I’ve found a manufacturer in China who could create 1,000 postcards (the size of the tarot card), which includes a light sensor and speaker so that when the card is picked up or moved or turned upside down, sound is triggered. At the moment I am thinking that this could be a really interesting way to approach this project but wanted to run the cost implications past you. Not sure what your budget is for the creation of the tarot card packs or the unique works, but the creation of 1,000 postcards, which includes a light sensor and sound will be around £580. The unique work will be made differently, I would expect, but would include the same component part, so that perhaps when
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someone walks passed the work, it triggers the speaker. At present I have two ideas, which both investigate the influence of marketing, brands and advertising on the thoughts and ideals of society. 1) Using the advertising image and re-editing the soundtrack for “Instinct”, a fragrance by David Beckham. (I have attached these to this email). 2) I am going to record the sound from The Devil Wears Prada today and see if anything comes out of that. 3) I am also working on a possible idea where my friend who works for HSBC wears a secret microphone for a day and I would edit together a sound work from this. Anyway, let me know what you think. Best, Candice PS. Since picking that Devil card the worst things have happened to me.’ 8. NOAH SHERWOOD Sherwood writes: ‘The collage made for the tarot project is essentially a progression from an ongoing slide-collage travel archive, started in Los Angeles
last summer. The archive is made of collages for a 6x6 slide projector, but for this project I made a collage that was on a 1:1 scale using material from a recent trip to Brittany, visiting the walled city of St. Malo, the resort of Dinard and Rothéneuf, with its outsider art les rochers sculptées. There are some interesting connections to be made between the card selected, La Lune and the finished work; associations drawn out of the symbolic content of the card and the initially inert subject matter of the slides taken in Brittany. In researching the esoteric symbolism found in the card, there is a reference to the Epic of Gilgamesh, and coincidentally to my namesake, Gilgamesh’s encounter with the Utnapishtim (an immortal Noah-like flood-myth character). Starting at the bottom of the collage, the red and green balls are from a sculpture outside an ice-cream stall on the Promenade Pablo Picasso in Dinard, where Picasso would spend summer months making work in the 1920s (namely Bather and Cabin from 1928, in MOMA’s collection), a body of work, including sketches and paintings that evolved into his making of early sculptural works. The “boules” operate as a
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humorous Franz West-like formal foreground device, but also indicate a kind of starting point/ gate-post into the collage (the complimentary colours act almost as an antithesis to a dark and light of the moon.) The strange rock-cow at the bottom is a carving by the hermit monk, Abbé Fouré, and represents an underwater/ unknown/threatening/mysterious element. The path leading through the collage is taken from the coastal structures around the Dinard headlands that lead to la Promenade Clair de Lune, the moonlight walk. Along with the walled structures in St. Malo, these structures refer to the two towers found on the card that in turn also specifically reference the walls of Uruk in the Epic, but also describe more general structures of civilization, of menhirs, obelisks and of the source of the stone, of strata, geology and mountains. On the card, the moon is humanised, representing the moon god “Sin” the protector of travellers. I’ve used the yellow street-lamp to relate to this, a more modern object of luminosity and guidance of phantasmagoria the lights of Haussmannisation (the ice-cream inside the lamp is a humorous nod to the moon
made of cheese/man in the moon story).’ 9. CALLY SPOONER Spooner writes: ‘The poster is a research method for recording my reading of The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt. It’s a marker to remind me of what parts of the text I understand, while I work through it. Through The Human Condition I’m exploring the collapsing thresholds between the life of the mind (the space of contemplation, research, reading and thinking alone) and life with others in public. I’m trying to understand whether it’s possible to be happy in public and excellent in private, why high performance can only be public and whether this amounts to abandoning private life. I made the poster from my notes on Arendt, and photocopies from the book. I cut out words, then shuffled, ordered and re-ordered them until the right configurations stuck. These got collaged with the bandstand plan, scanned, printed, cut-out again, re-ordered, re-scanned, and then finally fixed digitally, when I felt I’d said the right thing. I screen-printed the result. This is pretty much how I write, think and speak; re-ordering material until it sticks,
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then fixing it, showing it (usually as a live performance) to move on to a new element I don’t yet understand. The architectural drawing is from Bracknell Forest’s council archives (my hometown). The bandstand was built after World War Two when the town became a new town. No one uses it, and even before it was built, no one wanted it; some people thought it would disturb local office workers. Now the stand is stuck between three office blocks. It’s an unused public performance space, and I’m interested in its potential function, as a designated site for public-ness and its failure to perform in public.’ 10. ANNA BARRIBALL Barriball writes: ‘I had recently made a very simple collage with the sea from a souvenir postcard. I repeated the image over and over playing with surface and depth. Multiplying the image of the light hitting the water had a heightened, hallucinogenic feel. I modified this collage to make The Ace of Chalices. The repeated postcard sea makes a trompe l’oeil chalice that creates a crude illusion of three-dimensionality. The familiar Rubin’s Vase figure/ ground illusion provides another
perceptual shift between two profiles with the sea in the background and a cup filled with water. What appears to exist, what’s there and what isn’t alters with different readings of the image.’ 11. JULIE VERHOEVEN Verhoeven’s recipient list takes a self-professed pop cultural hero/ heroine route: Nina Hagen, Karl Lagerfeld, Molly Parkin, Marc Jacobs, and Jeffrey Deitch. 12. TRIS VONNA-MICHELL IN DIALOGUE WITH KONST OCH TEKNIK Vonna-Michell needed to receive a high-resolution scan of the pattern on the back of the original Tarot of Marseille deck, with the idea that Peter Ström and Mattias Jakobsson from the design group Konst och Teknik would ‘code’ the image with a stereogram, i.e. a ‘hidden image’. Thus, the ‘interpretation’ of The Four of Chalices pops out in 3D from the original pattern. 13. JEMIMA STEHLI Stehli has recently been filming musicians in Portugal. Her work pictures the band Paus at a local cafe; an informal setting the group members frequent during rehearsals. The work pictures
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five hands, and represents communication in the card The Five of Chalices. The card is indicative of looking backwards, and in this photograph, the band are discussing what they had previously recorded. Stehli’s relationship with the group has grown so that they are now less self-conscious about rehearsing in her presence. The artist is more interested in how the band performs and communicates behind the scenes, rather than in how they communicate through their public concerts and recitals. 14. RACHEL WITHERS Withers’ tarot card recipients are all philosophers with an interest in free will. 15. ERIK BLINDERMAN Blinderman has used images from his archive of German workers’ clothing. He is interested in how the same character is replicated. In the artist’s view, it’s an intimate image of a pluralised character, one that suits the nature of the card he has drawn. 16. JONTY LEES Lees writes: ‘Hey Andy The other ideas I had were I’ve grown a moustache So I could have nine images of
me drinking Guinness or frothy beer And having froth on my tash Or I like the idea of dividing up the space into nine, and showing a sequence The picture with Rosy is good because it’s lazy and confident and easy and pleasurable So it fits the card I’ll redo it or let me know what you think of the beer tash Nine people smoking after sex Or my favourite goal in a sequence What else? I’m reading a book called by Richard Braughtigan Called The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 It’s about a man who works in a library where people can bring their unpublished books I was going to do a show where I filmed manuscripts and made pilots for people and I got this book because someone heard what I was doing, but it’s interesting for Southend Maybe It’s certainly an interesting book One of the books brought in by an old lady is titled Growing Flowers by Candlelight in Hotel Rooms By Mrs Charles Fine Adams
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It’s funny I’ll have to lend it to you Martin lent me a book called Dance Dance Dance by Murikami and this book, the one about the library, is one of Murikami’s favourites Ok man Speak soon Jonty’ 17. CULLINAN RICHARDS For Cullinan Richards, Maradona is an intuitive character and a risk-taker; he lives his life like the tarot, there’s a sense of immediacy about Maradona, he’s like an artist soothsayer. The mirroring or reversal of the artists’ title is a reflection of the flip doubling of tarot cards; i.e. they can be read upside down or straight up. 18. ANJA KIRSCHNER AND DAVID PANOS Kirschner and Panos write: ‘Name each element on the card: knight, horse, cup, yellow hillock, etc. Google image each word. Use the first image returned. This way our knight galloped forth through popular culture, games of chance, systems of selection and prediction — fateless, telling, inevitable.’ 19. PHILLIPA HORAN Horan’s work comes from a series of forty-eight wood-carved
panels, made in Vancouver. The work relates to Hamatsa, the name of a Kwakwaka’wakw secret society, in which a form of ceremonial potlatch takes place. The image on the carving shows a press, and the five-pound coin issued by The Royal Mint embedded in the work contains a profile of Britannia on one side; an image of a face that Horan modelled for. 20. ADAM CHODZKO Chodzko writes: ‘The Two of Coins/Pentacles. Meaning: instability, fluctuation, contract being defined, yet play as a response. So finding pleasure in a bad situation. I’ve looped together fragments from three previous works as a play with a compression of returns, fluctuations and instabilities. From Reunion; Salò, (1998) I used the Salò cast party image (the real cast party, collapsing all the power relationships of the original film; the murdered adolescents dance with the soldiers and libertines who killed them, Pasolini dances with the story-tellers, etc). Apparently, Pasolini initially intended the cast party to be the final sequence of Salò to play while the credits rolled in order to reassure, revealing the real behind the fiction. He then opted for a much darker, more nihilistic ending.
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I like the fact that the actors are dancing in pairs. In many of these “twos” their arms form a loop between them. If they cross over their arms between these pairs they’d form the ‘lemniscate loop’ (∞), which was used for The Two of Pentacles in the Marseille deck and a number of other tarot sets in order to show an eternal flux.
Arrivals (2010)) form the vortices for the flame loops (or returns), the bridge between the meetings poster and the Salò image, becoming two coins/pentacles.
The Lemniscate of Bernoulli is a ∞ around two points and is formed by the biro drawn “flames” which, with the text partially hidden underneath the Salò image, comes from a cut and distorted version of my Meetings of People with Stammers to Describe a Fire (1999) posters. Again, a social space is unsettled by the inherent instability of its fluctuating power structure; a social contract is being defined. This tarot card represents “play” in the face of instability, hence the Salò dance, a bizarre ekphrasis “meeting” and, in the corners, from the Spongebob cartoon, an exploded Patrick (the embodiment of joy, at constant play, impervious to trouble).
21. KATIE PATERSON Paterson writes: ‘My image shows the brightest event in the Universe (equivalent to the light of 100 billion suns). From The Five of Coins description I was thinking of “material activity”, of the “physical world” and “economic spirit”. This explosion lit up the universe with great intensity for six seconds, and was the brightest of these occurrences found to date.’
Two circular wood engravings of two black holes, anuses, or eyes (taken from a recent print Although. Test Prints for the New
I think this Tarot card represents the quintessential state of the artist’s challenge; to work with instability and to keep trying to discover pleasure within this flow.’
22. JEREMY MILLAR Millar drew The Six of Coins; uncannily ‘six’ was the same number of coins that appear on the artist’s ceremonial soulava With the Left Hand (2009). 23. HANNAH RICKARDS Rickards writes: ‘The text that features in the piece that I have contributed to “Outrageous Fortune” is from a book describing a
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long-distance and long-term ESP experiment performed between Alaska and New York in the 1930s. Bearing this in mind, I would like it if the five people’s names listed in the booklet appear as the five symbols in the image I have attached; the symbols are the five Zener cards that are used for ESP experiments. I will send you the names and addresses later, so that you have them for when the cards are posted.’ 24. GEORGE HENRY LONGLY Longly was investigating the Mineralogy Department at the Natural History Museum during the making of his tarot card, and had a desire to borrow original artefacts. It became clear that it was more interesting for him to find something from everyday life, so the pebbles in the artist’s work were collected from a beach in Dorset. The Natural History Museum contains objects that inevitably represent social and political histories; there are a range of taxonomies involved, such as the connections between the people that have discovered each object in the institution. Longly’s work intends to demystify these taxonomies by using everyday materials and representing them through a basic form of
image-making such as scanning. His intention is to undermine historical and scientific hierarchies and classification, together with the ideological importance of objects in museums. The picture contains a simple pattern made with the artist’s found pebbles. 25. ALEXIS MARGUERITE TEPLIN Teplin’s work is a drawing based on a performance she did at Jorge Pardo’s MOCA house. 26. SOPHIE VON HELLERMANN When von Hellermann was in Devon, she saw two boys holding bamboo fishing nets. The artist has used these two figures to represent the two wands in the card. There’s a personal correlation for the artist with this work; she drew the card in September 2010 at the same time as receiving the news that her second child was on its way. 27. FRASER MUGGERIDGE Muggeridge writes: ‘6 Wands 6 Ones. The idea is based on the similarity between “wands” and “ones”, the fact that they sound the same and abstractly look the same. So our design can be hung in any way; when it’s in the show it doesn’t matter which way up it’s shown, and it’ll be the same when you receive it as a pack
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of cards, it can be seen either way up. I am getting this image printed in letterpress — it’ll look so perfect that it doesn’t look like letterpress, but it will be.’ 28. KEITH FARQUHAR For Farquhar, the naked male figure represents confidence in a time of crisis — ‘upstanding’. 29. JAMIE SHOVLIN Shovlin writes: ‘With the design I went a bit over the top to start with, shoehorning too much dodgy symbolism in. Eventually I went for a capital X in Madrone as I remembered that it would ultimately end up on a card. I cut white bars in the central stem of the X so that it’d end up with ten individual black bars or wands. I like the off-centred minor axis because it blocks out the design and gives a nod to the nature of the card. X is a good Roman numeral, has negative connotations and, in this design, contains a sense of support. The best of both worlds; a true dialectic comparison!’ 30. HIT (LINA GRUMM AND ANNETTE LUX) Grumm and Lux write: ‘A bosom friend from afar brings a distant land near. When he enters your life he can be one of three
things. Loving bright beauty, he will cease dreaming of a past far-famed story, since dreams cannot revive it. But then, far in the azure distance — good news, optimism, transition. Such daring and enthusiasm! Surface! The Internationale!’ 31. JACK STRANGE Strange writes: ‘The work I made connected to the act of walking around town looking for The Cavalier De Baton. It was actually quite difficult to find him, but it was really good fun stalking and trying to photograph people without them knowing. I got quite a few pictures, but they didn’t feel right. I thought it wasn’t going to happen, but then I got lucky. I saw this guy from the bus when I wasn’t out looking (typically, but luckily I had my camera), so I jumped off and ran after him like a nut. I managed to get a good snap just before he went into a cafe. I was thinking of The Cavalier de Baton as this old guy; his horse has died but he’s still going for it, that kind of thing. I’m not sure if this man really is The Cavalier De Baton. But I think that’s part of it. Maybe he is related in some way!’ 32. DAN REES Rees writes: ‘By way of an expla-
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nation, once I thought of David Gower I couldn’t get him out of my head; he has always been a strange figure to me. When I was a kid I became obsessed with the cricketer after seeing him just once for a very short time. I thought he looked so strange, like a slightly androgynous child, with his white golden curls and tanned skin. He had a timeless elegance about him. I was never able to see him play live, which made him seem even more like of a mythical figure. When I heard that Francis Bacon had made a painting based on him, it only deepened my fascination. Recently I’ve been thinking of making a work based on cricket, a sculpture using cricket pads with the words “Heaven” and “Hell” painted on them. I like the connection between the very gentlemanly elegance and the dandy carefree attitude adopted in painting by the likes of Krebber and co. More important than all of this are the characteristics of Roy De Baton; he’s an active, rather vain extrovert, with his beautifully fashioned baton transformed from a “vulgar” branch into something wonderfully sculpted that wields great power. He’s very fashion conscious, has manicured nails, and is one of the only kings without a beard. Plus
in the image, it looks a bit like he is wearing cricket pads.’ 33. NOVEL (ALUN ROWLANDS AND MATT WILLIAMS) This image of Martin Kippenberger has always been inspirational to Matt; it shows an immediate, ballsy stance through the angle of the image and the artist’s posture. The original was a poster for Kippenberger’s band Luxus, and links to the artist’s involvement with the Kreuzberg club SO36. Matt’s idea for The Ace of Swords connects to the fact that making art is often related to the distinct and effective presentation of an attitude. 34. LINDSAY SEERS Seers writes: ‘Perhaps this loses me all credibility, but I use the tarot, so when Andrew Hunt drew me a card on Skype and said it was The Four of Swords I said “oh that’s a shame. I wanted the three of swords”, as this card was something of a leitmotif in my current layouts with the RiderWaite Tarot (a heart pierced by swords), to which he answered “oh sorry, yes it is the three of swords.” I am still not sure if he faked that... or if he is something of a fortune teller himself.’
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35. RUTH EWAN Ewan writes: ‘The Five of Swords / I’m tired of the war (Aalam). Having randomly selected The Five of Swords I attempted to grasp its meaning. Everything I read about the card offered different and contradictory interpretations... the associations that stuck were guilt, sacrifice and the notion of confidence of position. I have an ongoing infatuation with Joan of Arc; I’ve collected images of artworks depicting her for the last few years without knowing quite what for. A postcard showing a statue of the teenager on horseback, sword in hand, outside Reims Cathedral surfaced during a workshop with children in East London. The workshop focused on the suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst, her activism and commitment to pacifism. We spoke about what pacifism might mean and made drawings with white markers on top of various found images, mostly relating to combat. I don’t think the Aalam who wrote ‘pens not swords’ knew who Joan of Arc was, but he seemed — for that moment anyway — to have complete and utter conviction in this idea.’ 36. MANFREDI BENINATI Beninati writes: ‘The first step in
making The Six of Swords was to produce the main image in a photographic studio. All I knew was that I wanted to make the work photographically but had no idea as to how. Then I went through the Sicilian deck that I had handy and took photographs based on that. The Six of Swords in the Sicilian version shows six elements divided into two rows. It creates a mirror effect, where the three elements at the top point to the three at the bottom, and vice versa. Once I had the photograph printed, I felt that it needed something else. So I spraypainted geometrical figures onto the picture and added a more natural motif (a tree) by rubbing my finger on the wet paint. In the centre there’s also a Photoshop element to make the original photograph look a little more like an old style print.’ 37. MIKE NELSON Nelson writes: ‘Between conspiratorial and comic, the cliched actuality of the paranoid apparition of the Black dog. The nine of swords is the symbol of cruelty, either inflicted upon a loved one or irrationally placed upon oneself in a conspiratorial state of paranoia. Along with the death
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card, it is the one card that can unsettle and create an ambiguity in one’s atheism towards such belief structures as tarot and create a manic agnostic state where one swings between the two extremes. In that sense the collage and title reflect that position being comically cliched and at the same time unsettling. The collage at the centre of the work is found; taken from a scrapbook from the 1980s it reflects someone’s “real” expression of fear. The applied nine silver scratch marks indicate the value of the card, and echo the hands of the woman who is shielding her eyes with them; but to no avail, she cannot shut her eyes to what she sees. The black dog mentioned in the title is a common mythological apparition especially in British folklore, a spectre that stalks its prey and warns of their imminent death. In this context, the dog could also represent the imagined danger, the disease of the hypochondriac or the apocalypse of the conspiracist.’ 38. WILL HOLDER Holder writes: ‘What intrigues me the most about Tarot is the binary nature of its qualifications. A reading can tip either way. I don’t want to find out what enforces a reading one way or the
other, but I DO find the tipping point (when is a quality in danger of becoming an adversity?) the most interesting.
* Passive resistance tells me that I’d rather not give him a sword. He’s pretty well armed as it is. I will if you insist.
My Knight’s centre of gravity is quite nicely dictated to by The Golden Section and other such enlightenment juju. Alice writes notes FOR the King, who is afraid of not being in control, and probably even more pressured by his wife’s advice to take down his feelings on matters. The scan is from Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice (which Robert Smithson refers to in “Entropy and the New Monuments” in relation to “solid-state laughter”). Annotation and margin implies that yet another degree of control is being relinquished (by the King, the author) to outside forces.
Take care, Will
Alice writes: “The White Knight is sliding down the poker, he balances very badly.” Tenniel placed him on a 32° tilt. Redressing “balance”— and pursuing “control”— I would rather that my Knight is given an opportunity to balance as well as he can, unassisted. Any subsequent reading will be what tips him, for better or for worse.
And all my recipients are under 5s.’ 39. SCOTT KING King used the principles of tarot and divination to determine the formal decisions behind the box design. Selecting seventy-eight different fonts (there are seventyeight cards in the deck) and sizes (from 1pt to 78pt) King formed a bank of raw material to draw from; a different block of text for each part of the design was then established by chance. Seventyeight fonts were also divined for the names of the artists on the reverse of the box. Similarly, each block of colour was chosen from a bank of seventy-eight Pantone shades, via the ‘random’ selection process of the card game. The logical outcome of this approach was that seventy-eight box ‘patterns’ were made, and a single example was chosen indiscriminately from these examples to be the final design.
Ponderances: * I may hand-write my marginalia.
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RECIPIENTS LIST JONATHAN ALLEN Sina Najafi, Editor-in-Chief, Cabinet Magazine Bice Curiger. Editor-in-Chief, Parkett Verlag Christine Burgin Fumio Nanjo, Director, Mori Art Museum Paul Taylor, The Warburg Institute (Photographic Collection) AARON ANGELL Sophie Lee Laura Vent Peter Davies David Burrows Brighid Lowe ED ATKINS Martin McGeown and Andrew Wheatley Sally-Ginger Brockbank Siôn Parkinson Rupert Friend Nicolas Deshayes ANNA BARRIBALL Madi Askew Sara MacKillop Lucy McLeod Annabel Pettigrew Elizabeth Purchase ZOE BELOFF Thomas Beard
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Edwin Carels Tanya Peixoto Marina Warner Ed Halter MANFREDI BENINATI Milena Muzquiz Carla Garofalo Giacomo D’Aguanno Archivio Flavio Beninati Giulia Trapani Lombardo JULIETTE BLIGHTMAN Dirk Bell Anthony Silvester Jörg Hiller Marjory Jacobson Jonathan Richman ERIK BLINDERMAN Lisa Rave Howard and Sharon Blinderman LUX Konst & Teknik Simon Starling PAVEL BRAILA Jan D’haese Lilia Braila Dagmar Aichholzer, white8 Ariane Beyn Alexandrina Panaite PAUL BUCK Clunie Reid Catherine Petit Ana Čavić Jane Rolo
Fundação de Serralves collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto EDWIN BURDIS Joliand Green Ursula K. Le Guin Ziba Ardalan Laura Elena Harring Patrizia Dander MONTGOMERY CANTSIN AND KAT HARVEY Lorae Russo Annie and Marshall Harvey Prelinger Library, San Francisco Dreamtime Village/ Xexoxial Editions Barry Johnston RACHEL CATTLE Maureen Paley Brian Dillon Tom Morton Eva Weinmayr and Lynn Harris, AND Publishing Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout, The Drawing Room NICOLAS CECCALDI Mathieu Malouf Valentina Liernur Johan Berggren Morag Keil Julien Ceccaldi
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IZUMI CHIARALUCE Agnès b Annina Nosei Sumi Kuroda Mori Museum, Tokyo Macro Museum, Rome ADAM CHODZKO Veronica Kavass Mark Dickenson Kitty Scott John Marchant Suzanne Cotter KEITH COVENTRY Keith Tyson James Birch Elliot MacDonald Andrew Wilson Charles Asprey CULLINAN RICHARDS John Slyce Virginia White Barry Schwabsky Cate Rimmer Kathy Slade JOHN CUSSANS Sally and Holly Barker Randy Lee Cutler Sean Meyler Karen Woodall Bernice Constance TOM DALE Kirsty Ogg Anne-Marie Watson
Glenn R Phillips Stephen Foster and Ros Carter Prue O’Day SIMON DAVENPORT Peter Coffin Haydon Boss Zara Macintosh Boo Oppenheim Coco Goldman SARA DE BONDT Anthony Spira Dirk Snauwaert Antony Hudek Catherine de Smet Dirk de Wit ARNAUD DESJARDIN Steven Leiber Anne Moeglin Delcroix Clive Philpot Marcus Campbell Gustavo Grandall Montero TATJANA DOLL Elfriede Jelinek The Notter collection, Switzerland Robertino Wild Fatih Akin Eberhard Havekost RUTH EWAN Anna Hart Kate Owens and Tommy Grace Rob Tufnell and Michelle Cotton Ingrid Swenson Andrea Schlieker
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GRAHAM FAGEN John Niven Andrew O’Hagan James Robertson Alasdair Gray Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (GoMA) c/o Ben Harman KEITH FARQUHAR Ronnie Heeps Sophie Rogers Jack Michel Farquhar Chris Dooks Andrew Gannon MICHAEL FULLERTON Leeanne McKenna Rebecca Warren Ariki Porteous Robert MacSporran Rainey Colgan MANUELA GERNEDEL Highbury and Islington Central Library Anna McCarthy Francesca Migliorati Roy and Katherine Keil Nicholas McCarthy MELANIE GILLIGAN Olivia Plender Merlin Carpenter Cage, New York Lona Collison Michael Gilligan
BRIAN GRIFFITHS Clarrie Wallis, Tate Britain Luisa Strina Mr. Arjan Visser, p/a Stichting Kunst en Complex, Rotterdam The Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Miami Rodrigo Moura, Collection Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Brumadinho, MG, Brasil SUSAN HILLER David Coxhead Gabriel Coxhead Ann Gallagher Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton Sacha Craddock HIT (LINA GRUMM AND ANNETTE LUX) Lucy McKenzie Nick Mauss Marc Camille Chaimowicz Tobias Kaspar and Egija Inzule Das INSTITUT WILL HOLDER Arlo Hansen Werner Korevaar Eden Reinfurt Finley Holder Eliot Waterman PHILLIPA HORAN Simon Parris Alexander S. C. Rower Wendy Taylor
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Bob Chanos Edsel Williams KENNETH HUNT Billy Crowther Ivor and Tracy Ellis Bette Coates Ysabel Henson Mark Skip CANDICE JACOBS Ryan Gander and Rebecca May Marsden Gavin Wade, Eastside Projects Jackie Daish, Wilkinson Gallery Elizabeth Neilson, Zabludowicz Collection Caterina Riva, Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand ALAN KANE Suzanne Malyon Karen Hamilton Daniel Baumann Caroline Douglas, Arts Council Collection Bruce Haines SCOTT KING PC Gary Cody Paul Weymes Tess Roberts Samara Aster Marion King ANJA KIRSCHNER AND DAVID PANOS Transmission Gallery, Glasgow
Anja Casser, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe Alice Koegel, Staatsgallerie, Stuttgart Lisa Panting and Malin Stahl, Hollybush Gardens Alexia Holt, Cove Park JONTY LEES Michael Archer Marijke Steedman, Curator — Community Programmes, Whitechapel Gallery MOOT Gallery Martin Clark, Artistic Director, Tate St Ives Blair Todd, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance CEDAR LEWISOHN Tim Batchelor Martin Myrone Patricia Ellis Anthony Gross and Jen Wu Baixo Ribeiro GEORGE HENRY LONGLY Justin Bond Rodolphe Von Hofmannsthal Marc-Olivier Wahler, Palais De Tokyo Bart Van De Heide Oliver Basciano FIONA MACKAY Michael Clark Kay Scott Rene Daniels
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Marianne Faithfull Liza Minnelli ROGER MALBERT Isobel Harbison Katrina Schwartz Viktor Wynd, The Last Tuesday Society CCA Lagos Kettle’s Yard DAWN MELLOR Lucy Pawlak Laura Oldfield Ford Esther T Joe Scotland Vanessa Jackson JEREMY MILLAR Jeremy Coote, Pitt Rivers Museum Colin Harrison, Ashmolean Museum Neil Firth, The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry Whitstable Museum and Gallery ELINOR MORGAN Donna Lynas Kaavous Clayton Rob Filby Wolfgang Tillmans Marcus Coates FRASER MUGGERIDGE Christopher Wakeling Ella Finer
Eric Kindel Helen Muggeridge Sarah Newitt MIKE NELSON Andy Stem James ‘Ned’ Needham Lucy Ryder Richardson Dan O’Brien Dr Kae Bennets NOVEL (ALUN ROWLANDS AND MATT WILLIAMS) Gregor Muir Alison Myners Jane How Kaye Donachie Ted Rowlands LUIGI ONTANI Tullia Ontani Maxxi Museum Rome Renzo Bressan Davide Gatti The archive and library, MoMA PS1, New York ANNA PARKINA John Zarobell Jens Hoffmann Shane Ackeroyd Zdenek Felix Burt Aaron KATIE PATERSON David A Ross Gregory Burke, The Power Plant Sue Jones
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Roselee Goldberg, Performa Matthew Bown JOÃO PENALVA Dr. Paula Fernandes, Collection Curator, Collection Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Oporto Dr Isabel Carlos, Director, Collection Centro de Arte Moderna, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon Carlos Vargas Nuno Penedo/Inês Sena, Guide Artes Gráficas Michael Scott PERLE PETIT Vincent Dachy and Bridget Macdonald Sue Bishop Eliane Bailly Samantha Hare Jean-Pierre Devresse SIMON POPPER Lorcan O’Neill Stefan Kalmar Céline Condorelli Alexander Schroeder Alex Sainsbury and Elinor Jansz MANUEL RAEDER Martha Hellion Jürgen Raeder Mariana Castillo Deball Moosje Goosen and Melvin Moti Yasmine Gauster
DAN REES Aude Levere, Marisa Argentato Andrea Legiehn Paola Guadagnino Tanya Leighton THOM MURPHY AND JAMES RICHARDS James Anderson Sylvia Kouvelli Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul Sarah McCrory The collection, Lux, London Steve Reinke HANNAH RICKARDS
HANNAH SAWTELL Artery Magazine Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir Lizzie Cocker, The Morning Star Mark Ernestus. c/o Hard Wax Marx Memorial Library NOAH SHERWOOD Barbara Sherwood Nelson Éthier and Sharon Gozzo Catharina Barich and Tanya Stanic Lawrence and Cynthia Teplin Veronica Gonzalez and Penelope Pardo
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LINDSAY SEERS Othello (c/o Laurence Fishburne) The novel Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet (c/o Tom McCarthy for his foreword) The Wicked Queen in Snow White (c/o Diana Rigg) Christine Parkes (c/o Lindsay Seers) Edvard Munch (c/o curator Munch Museum Oslo) JAMIE SHOVLIN Catherine Hemelryk, Fishmarket Gallery Fiona Venables Cheryl Jones, Grand Union Sarah Perks, Cornerhouse Elena Forin CALLY SPOONER Elena Crippa and Will Bloor Mathieu Copeland Jesper List Thomsen, Adam Gibbons and Lewis Ronald, Am Nuden Da Hana Noorali and Chris Hammond, MOTinternational Silvia Sgualdini, Lisson Gallery JEMIMA STEHLI Lisa Rosendahl PAUS Simon Baker Pedro Diniz Reis Milly Thompson
JACK STRANGE Linda Moss Philip Hausmeier Tanya Bonakdar Limoncello Maribel López STEPHEN SUTCLIFFE Maria Fusco Hans Ulrich Obrist Lisa Le Feuvre Micky Schubert Clare Waight Keller
Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) and Commander, U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) Ted Kaczynski, United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) Barack Obama Sir John Sawers, Chief of SIS Director General Jonathan Evans, MI5
EMMA TALBOT Kate MacGarry Charles Saatchi Paul Hedge Robert Clark David Roberts
RAISA VEIKKOLA AND FRIDA ALVINZI Patti Smith Jan Svankmajer Alejandro Jodorowsky Vera Chytilová Leonora Carrington
ALEXIS MARGUERITE TEPLIN Emi Fontana Ann Goldstein Sarah Gavlak Hannah Robinson Stuart Comer
JULIE VERHOEVEN Nina Hagen Karl Lagerfeld Molly Parkin Marc Jacobs Jeffrey Deitch
NADIA THONDRAYEN National Museum and Art Gallery, Trinidad and Tobago Peter Doig Clare Carolin Ann-Marie Thondrayen Shirley and Harry Thondrayen
SOPHIE VON HELLERMANN Theo and Verena Siegert Josh Smith Carol Greene Dietmar Lutz Anne Pontégnie
SUZANNE TREISTER Gen. Keith B. Alexander,
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TRIS VONNA-MICHELL IN DIALOGUE WITH KONST OCH TEKNIK Sarbjit Kaur and Darshan Singh Almut and Erik Vonna-Michell Aya Takada Johanna Himmelsbach Eric Nylund
#28 Outrageous Fortune Tarot Deck Slimvolume Poster Publication 2008 to 2011
Published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Outrageous Fortune: Artists Remake the Tarot’ Focal Point Gallery Southend-on-Sea 4 July to 27 August 2011 Touring to:
STUART WHIPPS Transnet Stephen Hobbs, c/o David Krut Projects, Johannesburg Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg The Bag Factory, Johannesburg Paul Wombell
Queens Hall Arts Centre, Hexham 10 September to 9 October 2011 Jersey Arts Centre, St Helier 24 October to 12 November 2011 mac, Birmingham 10 December 2011 to 8 January 2012
RACHEL WITHERS Ted Honderich Thomas Nagel Dana Nelkin Derk Pereboom Galen Strawson
Holden Gallery, Manchester 14 January to 12 February 2012 University of Hertfordshire Galleries 24 February to 21 April 2012
CERITH WYN EVANS Daniel Buchholz Akiko Miyake Pascale Berthier Molly Nesbit Lewis Ronald
Bedales Gallery, Petersfield 27 October to 2 December 2012 Arts Centre, East Kilbride 2 March to 7 April 2013 Rhyl Library 13 April to 19 May 2013
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Organised by Andrew Hunt Box designed by Scott King Booklet designed by James Langdon Copy edited by Robert Cliff and Leila Smith Box and cards printed by Richard Edward, London Booklet printed by Genie Printing, Birmingham Based on an original idea by Peter Lewis Printed in a numbered edition of 1,000 Slimvolume Poster Publication is a loose bound edition, which exists both privately as a publication and publicly as a street exhibition. The recipients of the edition have been nominated by the contributing artists and the organiser. The receiver of each multiple is free to separate and distribute each work, or to keep the edition as a self-contained set. Slimvolume can be contacted at: Slimvolume 57c Davisville Road London W12 9SH mail@slimvolume.org Published by Hayward Touring, London and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, 2011.
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© The authors, artists and publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission from the publishers or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988. ISBN 978-1-907185-02-1
Hayward Touring Southbank Centre Belvedere Road London SE1 8XX, UK www.southbankcentre.co.uk Senior Curator: Roger Malbert Assistant Curator: Nadia Thondrayen Focal Point Gallery Southend Central Library Victoria Avenue Southend-on-Sea Essex SS2 6EX, UK www.focalpoint.org.uk Director: Andrew Hunt Exhibitions and Marketing Officer: Laura Bowen Exhibitions and Marketing Officer (Maternity Cover): Lib Fox Curatorial Associate — Offsite Projects: Saim Demircan Education and Outreach Officer: Fran Wilde Education and Outreach Officer: Sharon Byrne Education and Outreach Officer — Offsite Projects: Eve Smith Exhibitions Interns: Leila Smith (July to December 2011), Robert Cliff (March to July 2011), Mark Couzens (November 2010 to February 2011), Lib Fox (June to October 2010), Jamie Stevens (January to April 2010).
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Acknowledgements: Amy Botfield, Michelle Cotton, Laura Cumming, Darren Flook and Christabel Stewart, Robert Garnett, Jamie George, Isobel Harbison, Annie Harvey, Karen and Keith Henson, Tristan Hessing, Paul Housley, Pamela Hunt, Morag Keil, Dan Kidner, Robin Klassnik, Franz Koenig, Jessica Lack, Sara MacKillop, Tom Morton, Clunie Reid, Ian Segrave, Alexander Schroeder, Geock Smith, Peter Suchin, Rob Tufnell, Jonathan Viner, Richard Whitby, Amanda and Anthony Wilkinson, and Ellie Wright. Special thanks to Pat O’Connor.
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of 1,000