Sound of Form REPRISE

FROM THE DANCING SEA

target="_blank" Singulart

ON the 16 May, 2024, https://www.singulart.com/en/artist
/kevin-jackson-3525" target="_blank" won't work anymore.

This logo used to be here ➜ pointing at the right-hand panel . . . .

I sell or have sold work from this platform, but not enough and Singulart have off-loaded me.  It's too late to see my work there!

I know well, 'not enough'.  Galleries who’s very job it is to sell having nothing else to do but sell, never seem to sell enough. 
In considering that galleries don't have to buy what they offer for sale, they do have to shift at least some of it to cover their costs in the virtual and on the high-street.  Singulart claim to have topped the US$100Million sales mark in the last 12 months.  Not enough, for making money costs money.  Search Engine Optimization has become Singulart’s marketing route 1.  A burgeoning team of SEOs, Search Engine Optimisers, toil for them divining Google Analytics. 

Art pours in through galleries' portals and this is a costly logistical and administrative problem for them.  Obviously, everything, including SEOs, has to be paid for somehow.  Only a rare few have an ‘eye’ to sell art.  If Singulart's massy inventory of virtual art does not sell enough, why-ever not defray some of their costs by charging fees to the artist?
A good idea, for 'Guess what?'  Artists will pay!
I might pay if the sales Singulart generated for me justified the per month price. 
They don't. 

A commercial art gallery is only as successful as its sales figures.  An artist is no better in the commercial world . . .  only as good as their selling record, and no more. 
All a gallery has to do is flog art. 
In the mildest of pointless pique, I pre-empted my off-loading by off-loading myself.  Singulart_blank, I'll flog mine elsewhere.

printed at Selected Artworks, Milan

The Corner Man.

I am the ‘corner’ man for AS Velasca, the football club founded to play, and as a Fine Art performance, by artist Wolfgang Natlacen.

Clamber to the roof of the Duomo in Milan and scan the cityscape, the surrounding plains of Lombardia and the distant backdrop of mountains.  Famed dome and basilica still peek amidst the new and not so new, and close by is the concrete brutalist 1950s masterpiece, Torre Velasca.  So ugly, it is breathtaking in its odd beauty, or perhaps it is the other way around, so beautiful that the ugliness takes one’s breath away.  

The Torre Velasca gives the club its name, even style and ethos, and features on the team badge.  Torre Velasca didn’t have a football team, but since 2015, it has as one of many minor football teams in a city of significance and significant in football terms.  AS Velasca works up-table campaigns out on the pitch, while a parallel squad of artists in amateur, work the kit designs, the publicity, the Bulletin, the accoutrements and team gimmicks, the tickets, and the very profile of the football club.  
In tongue in cheek promotions, AS Velasca proclaims itself to be the second team in Milan, la seconda squadra di Milano.  It is a deliberately, provocatively absurd claim, but watch out Internazionale, look out Milan, you’d better get the San Siro rebuilt and up-to-post-covid-purpose, for think on regazze, one day it could be.

Art and sport alike are about promotion.  AS Velasca has kit contracts and art sponsors.
Some of the artists are definitely football folk and fans, some ambivalent.  I do cricket more.  AC Milan, was founded by British expatriates in the C19 as a Football and Cricket Club, (I’d love it if Italy were an international cricket force. That would be so cool!), and that did it for me.  Asked to join the squad, I was in.
On any team, you’re only as good as your latest performance.  Nimbler, hungry, able bodies are always challenging for your position in the line-up.  For now, I hold the corner flags spot.

 

Smitten by the pandemic, the lower leagues are suspended.  Matches scratched, game results X - X.  Team Sweatshirts that may never be worn become artworks on clothes hangers.  It is truly a Milan thing where just about everything has to work well on a fashion design clothes hanger.  
This season’s corner flags might never flap in earnest.  Mere artworks only.
But I’m the corner man and Table Soccer has kept us lockdown busy.  The players have painted the figurines, one apiece, and the artists have the table to adorn.  It’s a work in progress, and we know there is a flaw in the project as Table Soccer is too intimate to play just now.  
Here are the painted players, and below in poignant still deconstructed view, my table soccer corners.

Our playing field goes beyond the limits. A.S. Velasca is a 360° project where the artists will invent us, describe us.

artists
75070 / ALESSANDRO BELUSSI / CAZAENTRE & NNOIR / ANDREA CERNOTTO / ANNALISA CUZZOCREA / PRIMAVERA DE FILIPPI / STEPHEN DEAN / KEVIN JACKSON / JAY ONE / ANDREA MAZZACAVALLO / WOLFGANG NATLACEN / PATRIZIA NOVELLO / ZHUO QI / NADA PIVETTA / ERIC POUGEAU / DAVID SHRIGLEY / THOMAS SIGNOLLET / PATRICIA WALLER / THOMAS WATTEBLED
sponsor artists
KENDELL GEERS / FRANCESCA BELGIOJOSO / PASCALE MARTHINE TAYOU / JIANG LI / ZEVS / RÉGIS SÉNÈQUE

A project by Marco De Girolamo, Karim Khideur, Loris Mandelli, Wolfgang Natlacen and Clément Tournus.

New Garlic

 

CENTRE LINE

Mons-En-Montois

Barrow Crossing

Picture Postcards

Picture Postcards from my Personal Porn Blog

C O U N T E R P O I N T

COUNTERPOINT started as an entirely notional pitch of a project that to my surprise and sudden consternation was selected for inclusion in 'ero-tic II', Bologna, in February 2019.  The paintings I had made for the exhibition were rejected which was a pity considering that they did exist, whilst the then still notional 'Picture Postcards from my Personal Porn Blog' didn’t, and which I then had one week plus a day or two, to make from nothing and scratch before the shipping deadline.
At the exhibition, I was asked repeatedly, "Do you have a pornblog?"
I didn’t, but whether 'yes / no', to that question was not quite the point, or so I had thought.  Now though, with this post, perhaps I do have a blog with porn.

ero-tic II had this curious brief :

ERO-TIC is an artistic research on the erotic imaginary that orbits, ticking, between the two extreme poles of eroticism: “erotomania-TIC” and “erotogenic-TAC".
From "fucking automatisms" to a complex Pindaric flight that tends towards the harmonious embrace between physiological thrusts and sensual satisfaction.
An intricate aesthetic path led by the moods of artists Daniela Novello, Patrizia Novello, RUFOISM (Marco Perroni) and Nicola Villa.

I didn't understand the brief then, and haven't made much progress understanding since, but it was wondrous to be invited and to be exhibiting in Bologna during the Arte Fiera.
Of the four core artists, only RUFOISM featured overtly sexual imagery.
He, myself and two of the other guest artists skirted about the sleeze.

INATTESO

27. Auflage der Arlberger Kulturtage

Corner Flag

Elmina

DISNEYdance

DISNEYdance

Collagraph print developed from a drawing in wax on the card 'plate',

 then cut and printed itaglio. 

ARTFinder

The Famous Contrivance

Mezzotint is justifiably famous for what it’s famous for.
It is famed for the black, the night sky cosmos deep black first seen in print at a time before we’d come to know that every milliarcsecond in the skies is glinting with galaxies, that black nevertheless, a black that in the intaglio pantheon only mezzotint gives.
No other printed black had quite compared to it, never before, and not yet since.  
 Mezzotint is famous for having two zeds.  As a word, the double zedded mezzanine, seems to be well liked too.
It’s famous as a clique.  Historians love it, dealers specialize and collectors compete, online social media groups cluster and chat making heroes of the print-tech gurus, for its fame is justified in the studio, where it really counts.

Mezzotint gives the artist nigh infinite, and very intimate control of tonal values.

It gives a lot for free in this respect, and the harder worked the more rewarding it becomes.  The giving though, is not given for free for marvelous as mezzotint is for tone, it is considerable less good for line, which, in print terms means any hard edge.  Hard edges can be achieved in mezzotint only by contrivance either in the plate making, or at the printing stage.
Mezzotint is the quintessential monochrome medium.  This does not preclude colour but however the mezzotinter wishes to use colour, whether by pre-colouring the printing paper, by inking the plates in colour either single or multi-plate, or by hand-colouring the prints, the making of the plate(s) has to be pre-figured accordingly.  Failure to do this results in a gloomy mess, which if gloomy is what the artist wants all well and good, but if not, the printmaker will be in trouble.
Thirdly, a minor but not unimportant point: the mezzotint print surface is flat.  Not so flat as lithography and nothing like so flat as screen polished digital, but mezzotints don’t have the surface vivacity of an etching or aquatint.  If print surface texture, either physically or within the image is required, this too can be achieved but only at the price of elaborate contrivance.

Contrivance is fine. 

The notion of spontaneity in printmaking is a highly conditional quality, elusive and of course much sought after, and much prized.
The direct mark, the emotive rapid response and fluidity of thought are all subject to the slowing and sure battering of process and technique.  There is always something between artist and viewer be it plate, block, or computer screen.  Spontaneity can be nodded at in direct lithography, even nodded to in line etching, but by the time the printmaking artist addresses the more abstruse, arcane, and new, print media, contrivance is the name of the game. 
Mezzotint is contrived to a fault.  To push the point, the thought of winging it in mezzotint is a non-starter even though I hate to be the one who says, ‘Don’t do it, don’t try’.
No, I’d like to say, ‘Go for it’.  (Break your arms, and bank account, make the time, it might work.)
Actually don’t.  Really.
To get the best from mezzotint, play the game.  Pre-figure the image then contrive it in the making.

Does this mean that mezzotint is not a pure medium?
Consider that mezzotint was the most glorious flowering of reproductive craft when reproduction meant the interpretation of an original as opposed to the multitude of photographic rendering processes (many now historical oddities) that we are accustomed to.  As a craft skill, the contrivances however elaborate, became intrinsic, and unsurprisingly were encouraged and indeed limited by commercial imperative. 
Artists took note.  Think of Turner’s famous set of 10, pre-etched, rocked over and craft worked up to his drawings; of John Martin, who’s in-house mezzotint interpretations of his paintings arguably transcend the originals.

Today, the killer is the cost.
If only mezzotint was just expensive (like photogravure) it would be easier to deal with.  Either, one has the money or not; you can raise the cash, or you can’t; the ante can be justified one way or another, or, you try it another way.
The cost of mezzotint is not the tools, or the materials, neither cheap but not bank breaking either.  There are no chemicals involved, or software, and there is no wizard to hire.

Mezzotint is slow.

No amount of cash can shortcut time and time is the costliest of commodities. 

Mad Mog - THE RETURN

THE NEIGHBOUR I haven’t seen for three years, not a whisker, landed with a thump and parting of leaves, cries of recognition and the early courtesies of long absence. 

I thought she were dead, or geriatric, rueing the faster breed of mouse and finding that garden walls were higher than they used to be. 

I’ve had a decade birthday in the intervening time, now she has a rheumy eye, but that aside we look in fine fettle, or so I told each other as fur flying, we cuddled and purred.  The only neighbourhood mog smart enough to negotiate my insect screen net without a hissing squalling tangle, Mad Mog called at will, appeared at my feet, surprised at my bedside, vetted my guests, harried the house spiders and went on her way again.  She came and went so frequently, it was like having a cat of my own.  Fur collected amongst the dust.  A smeary of grime from her self stroking passage marred the lower edges of door jambs.  Never hungry, she’s loved at home, well catered for chip and pinned, Mad Mog didn't come for the food that I would provide a needy visitor.  I gave her nothing yet still she visited and I got into the habit of checking she wasn’t here each time I locked up and left. 

Two kittens, brother and sister, one black one gold and now grown, have taken pussy possession of the jungle that my yard has become.  They in their curiosity have each attempted access, both confounded and black one entrapped in the netting.  Their youthful bombast, I’d thought, would be too much for an old puss, high wall notwithstanding and perhaps it was. 

But, I’m not forgotten and I shall check the premises carefully when I leave for my feet and the chair legs are being face wiped as I type. 
There’s a floor level purring. 

vernissage & The Art Fair From Hell

On-screen work and the online project is compulsive. 
VERNISSAGE was obsessive to do, and now done, I sit in front of an idle screen and twiddle through the links, see I haven't blogged, nurtured social networks or tweeted. 
I've thought I had something to blog but I haven't written a post this year. 
The neighbours have vacated to quieter premises leaving me their builders who work hard and long, breaking down, drilling, grinding and hammering.  One by one, all my neighbours dance the property market value massage jig, the compulsive attention deficit social disorder to tinker and titify to the music of cash.  I don't know what they see in their extra bits here and there. 
Turkish eyes don't see what I do. 
The city of Izmir is a Turkish anachronism.  A secular bastion in an increasingly religious, modernizing country.  Risen from the ashes of Smyrna, Izmir is a work and play hard, fad-fast, stuff needy, get it and flaunt it place.  A reactionary throwback of pre-crash rich noughties style, of good-life middle-class expectations dressed up as liberality. 
It is an art-free zone. 
There is a vast exhibition centre set in a beautiful central park smack downtown, and quite predictably, business minded Izmir tries an International Art Fair of its own.  The art-fair is an established business model, there's cash and cachet in art somewhere, it's just more than a question of working the angles. 

Turkish artists face difficult times. 
Istanbul aside, Turkey is an art-free country.  There is rich heritage and art in Turkey, and both are there to stand in front of as photo backdrops.  For good reason.  Any area beyond the perimeter is unheeded.  There is no view that is not marred by block on blocks of apartments and more-of-the-same development in concrete poured drab uniformity. 
I don't know what Turkish eyes see.  They certainly look at each other looking at everyone on the lookout.  From my Kamilkoç coach, the urban homogeny is almost painful.  A sprawl of 6-8 storied blocks, the odd new mall and mosque, and what have Turkey done to their mosques?  They're all new.  Not the famous ones of course, they're still there as backdrops, no, the local mosques big and small built to centralized designs with concrete-pipe-perfect tin topped minarets, and silver domes glinting like freshly washed and draining cooking pots. 

Wondrous food and hospitality and Turkish eyes too, but what do we see? 

L I G H T U P

L I G H T   U P

Proud Pots, Paintings and Prints

- Rima Farah : Definitions at Dar d’Art, Tangier 2012 -
I grew up with Rima Farah.  Not literally for we aren’t nurtured of the same soil and we weren’t student fellows, but as young artists we shared the post-art-college years of hope and struggle, we shared our first studios.  Together she and I formed a business and over 20 years we collaborated on hundreds of prints and paintings.  We exhibited all over in all sorts of guises; at fairs, corporate shindigs, in lobbies and galleries; we had dozens of showings in London, Europe, Japan, the USA, and across the Middle East.  That ended in 2000 and in the years since our work and lives have spiraled apart, touching here and there, occluding and eclipsing and colliding.  

Definitions, is Rima Farah’s first major exhibition since Dubai in 2003.  It has been a long time in the careful maturing and her path has brought her to sufism, calligraphic complexities, paintings on ceramics, and in the while to establishing herself in Tangier.  

I must refrain from attempted critique as my history with Rima compromises any objective view of the artist’s new work, but I do have insight to the backstories.  I know the moves, her exhibition routine, for her moves and mine are born of our moves together.  I know well the pre-exhibition busyness of mustering finance, timing, of the printing, framing, photography, transportation, of hanging and pricing; and preparing spiel for the catalogue, for online, the invite, the press and gallery’s pet clients; a different spiel for friends and yet different again for artist colleagues and rivals.  Executing the tasks seems endless, like that list, exasperating and there’s an opening deadline and post-exhibition party to arrange, success to prepare for, and a brave face put in reserve for disaster.  
Exhibiting is an intrinsic part of an artist’s job, if a job artist be, yet exhibitions are infrequent and an entirely different activity to the seclusion of studio working.  Exhibitions need rarely used and unpracticed skills of personal presentation.  The work is given public chance to speak, but the artist in public has to be looking good, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to glad-hand all comers with the real right words ready pat on demand.  Every detail matters; of looking good, hair, teeth, face, wardrobe and shoes; an exhibition is a performance, an act of not seeming anxious or tired even while you are fraught and stressed.  
Exhibitions are the artist's main chance and chance plays the hugest part in the success of any exhibition.  
I opened one that coincided with an outbreak of Gulf hostilities, Rima and I contended with an earthquake in Cairo, and this summer in a tempt of fate I launched a show the night of the Olympic Opening Ceremony which worked surprisingly well.  Unwittingly competing for attention with Gulf War 2 was haplessly grotesque.  
The artist cannot second guess events but you can curse your luck.  

Definitions opened to thunderous rain which added to the drama and dampened a fine opening attendance.  Rain didn’t stop the professionals, the press and TV crew, and it didn’t stop the success, or the party.  The artist cannot second guess either people, or the elements.