Wednesday, July 11, 2018

10,969. RUDIMENTS, pt. 373

RUDIMENTS, pt. 373
(avenel breaking in to New York)
Once I first got to New York,
I was amazed to realize, right
around the corners from me,
so much going on. First off,
at #1 Washington Square North,
in May, '67, just passed, Edward
Hopper had died of a heart attack
in the apartment and studio he
kept there. In that period (1967)
and those days, he was considered
a fuddy-duddy and passe anyway -
an erroneous reputation long since
corrected. The fact that he had no
'flash' is what had done him in,
reputation-wise I mean. Not the
heart. In addition, in that same
row of park-front brownstones,
until 1966, when he'd moved away
(died in France, 1968), the famed
artist Marcel Duchamp  -  known
then mostly for his silence  -  had
spent his time (supposedly) playing
chess endlessly, and musing. He'd
long before passed on Art, turning
to silence instead, disdaining the
Art World. Posthumously, a few
now also famed and treasured
works were found. He had,
after all, coyly been working
on something. And, the third
instance, right over at St. Marks
Place, with the little concrete
griffins out front, (#77) lived
W. H. Auden  -  writing, working,
and being himself. Just these 3
were enough for me. There were
others, but I stopped here. In a
silence stunned. Where was I,
after all? And how had I done
this to myself? I was almost
baffled to realize that this was
a place where one could run
into almost anyone, and
certainly run into the ghosts
and faded presences of a million
other greats : from Poe on 4th
Street to Whitman at Pfaff's.
Charley Parker, on e6th  -  he'd
died almost a decade plus before,
in the uptown hotel room of the
Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter,
at the old Stanhope Hotel, 995 5th
Ave, across from the Met. But he
was as if yet present, and revered.
I didn't really distinguish among
much of this at all, just went with
the flow. I'd no sooner learn
something new of a place or
personage, then go there myself
to investigate right off. It was
all part of my  -  as I'd put it to
myself  -  'edjudification!'
-
That being all fine and good, I
still had to formulate, for myself,
and amidst all the instructional
operations of the Studio School,
its people and other places, what
I was going to be doing and in what
sequence I'd approach the time I
had. I kept thinking of Duchamp,
how he'd figured himself for quitting
the art world  -  BUT of course first
having made legendary status and
self-defining norms. Pretty easy at
that point to say you're done. Like
any of those asshole rock guys, with
all their 'last concert' BS and the
retirements they all return from for
another bout of adulation while
they sucker some crowd of
diligent pussy-faces with a
50-year old version of their
25 year old shithead self. At
least Duchamp hadn't stooped
to that. Of course, once I saw the
work he had done, I wasn't really
sure it was worth it anyway 
('Etant donnes'). And he'd 
worked on it, astoundingly, for 
20 years! ('46-'66). I'm not even 
sure, if it's still in Philadelphia,
that it's worth a look except
as it being the end of Art,
for him. Robert Irwin, the
guy from California, he too 
had moved out of painting
and canvas art  -  into lighting
and landscape and installations; 
saying the canvas and its shape 
was just too restrictive, too 
confining to be any longer
bothered with. I never knew
about any of that stuff; small
had always suited me fine.
-
The place I had come from
had been little, closed, and
small. New York was crazy
wide-open, large, and sprawling.
Everything was different, and
was going to be. The people
were odd though  -  and in
the oddest of ways. They got
all missionary about weird
causes  -  environmental stuff,
and Nature; freaking out over
things that were everyday junk
anywhere else  -  owls, hawks, 
birds, weeds and grasses, etc.
But they little realized, apparently,
that New York City was like
the least environmentally correct
place you could find. It was all
un-natural, its 'Nature' had been
destroyed long ago, there were
disgusting people crammed into
every crevice. Grease, food, garbage,
sewage, human waste, death and 
putrefaction, were everywhere and
in a totally artificial environment,
with rats and cockroaches at the
dinner table. How myopic could
people become? Worrying for
others about things that, for
themselves, they long ago had
lost control over. Every little bit
helps, sure, but in 1970 it was
more like every litter bit helped.
-
So, a lot of these art guys made
a production out of quitting. As
a statement. To me that was akin
to an astronaut, out in space,
pulling off his oxygen plug in
order to make a statement about
no longer favoring the space
program. Ah, dude....a little
late for that shit. And you're
gonna' be needing to breath.
The whole thing was like going
to the Y; except it was re-named
the 'Why Bother.' What I had
chanced upon, boy I'd hit it big.
-
I was interested in getting started,
certainly not in quitting. Sometimes,
when you're on a steady basis with
Art or Writing  -  any of that cultural
and creative stuff  -  you maybe think
of giving it up. A lot of people do
that - stopping. Yeah, because it's
a ton of work, constant and steady.
A lot of times it's easier to just stop.
For me it was all-consuming, and
and damn-still is too. You can read
all about the artists of the past who
quit it, most anywhere. A person
probably ends up dead. Like all that
small-town nowhere, sliced
white-bread stuff in the places I'd
come from. Avenel, and Woodbridge.
Basically just jerky crap run by
school Nazis lording it over you.
Their only real art is the crease
in their pants or their new hairdo
if they're a woman. Dead-End
Amalgamated School District.
Art that quits ain't art at all.
And, anyway, say, in the case
of Duchamp, what's Chess 
anyway and who cares? What
a waste of time. At the least,
I was having a lot more fun
just walking about and absorbing
all the things around me.
-
Morton Feldman used to lecture
us, mostly about 'music'  -  modern
music, in his vein; but he'd also 
touch on a hundred other topics.
He was so New York, the look,
the talk, the manners, the accent.
He'd blurt really cool things out
and then have to be stopped and
asked what he'd meant by that.
A roomful of 30 art students,
rally wanting to know. He couldn't
get away with much. Sometimes
it was very difficult for me to
follow, or even to stay with, parts
of what he was saying  -  he'd use
terms and outlooks I couldn't
quite grasp. The good thing was
how he always managed to bring in
any or all of those New York School
abstract-expressionist painters, his
whole Cedar Tavern crew. All
the references and the names I
got to know, and then, in fact,
any number of them became our
faculty too. As they say in the
party world : 'It was great to
be able to finally put names 
with faces,' Man, you see
enough of that stuff in the
real-world live flesh, and it
becomes rollicking and vivid.
I met them all; and none of these
guys were quitters. They were all
still at it, and going strong.
-
Feldman said 'I don't want to know
how things work.' His point was,
which I caught onto after a while,
that the 'mechanics' of things are
detrimental to the actual 'doing' of
the thing, in this case the composing.
Stravinsky, Boulez, and other names
he'd mention, they were all caught
up in the mechanics and schema
of what they were doing. Even
'revolutionary' music, like 12-tone
and all, was totally working-conscious 
'against' the system they were breaking,
but in process they were making
a new system of their own. The
'saying how' usually just ended
up introducing new standards. His
wasn't like that. His methodology
was always kept hidden. For so
many others it was always out in 
the open, and that became their 
work, the method, not the work 
itself. One time he  added, 'Philip 
Guston said to me, 'I don't want to
know how something was done. 
When I'm in a gallery, in front of a
painting, and someone comes
over and starts telling me how it
was done, I leave.' I think I took
in a lot of that, knowing what they
each meant. Inspiration is fire
that needs to be caught at its
breakout. I don't want to know how
the kindling or the logs were stacked.
-
Artists are telling their stories
continually. Kierkegaard put it
thusly: (In 'Either/Or') - He said
he feels that when he dies, they
are going to ask him only one
question, when he gets there,
wherever. And that question is,
'Did you make things clear? Did
you make things clear?' In other
words, in his own life, did he make
things clear? How he felt, how he
wrote, everything. 
-
This was all some heady stuff
for an 18-year old from Avenel.









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