CHARLES SIMONDS

More documents

Recommendations

Info

APPENDIXE-MAIL CORRESPONDENCESeptember 1, 2011Dear Arthur,Thanks for taking so much effort to try to understand me and my work. I wishI could write better and then I might be able to make some of it clearer. But Iwill continue to try to answer your questions as best as I can and tounderstand them as well.To wit ... Well yes, actually, if I understand how you mean "maps;' I would saythat the Little People have experienced an evolution of their dwellings'architecture that has "mapped" their origin beliefs onto their evolvingarchitectural forms (being born from the earth, considering the earth as abody, seeing architectural structures as bodies (the mythologies of their worldwhich are expressed and recorded in the 3 films: "Birth;' "Landscape-BodyDwelling" and "Body-Earth"). What were originally sacred "body" informedparts of the landscape have been abstracted and evolved into architecturalstructures; "breast" landforms became domes etc.To return to your art consciousness question. It is implicit (at least) that mythoughts about changing and expanding " art's" audience imply a redefinitionof what art is, has been, should or could be in a culture ... a change in domainand purposes.All my best.Charles49
September 10, 2011Dear Charles,You really have to tell me the story of Mental Earth. You evidently worked on itin Valencia. I think it is a remarkable piece, and certainly not street work. Howmuch did Valencia inflect it?Arthur)))) ((((September 10, 2011Dear Arthur,From the beginning, part of my story in my work has been the search for themost "primitive, primordial" {"thoughtless") gesture that would be thecorollary to my {symbolically) most "primitive" and "primordial" material:clay. {"Body-Earth" is an attempt to use my body to create forms and gesturesin clay, for example). This issue upon which is then exercised from the veryorigins, my imagination {fantasy) as to inventing a world, an ethos andreligion {"Birth;' etc), then implicitly a politics and sociological explorationsand provocations that develop and elucidate it has part of its origins in mymother's career and research ...... ... .. .On the one hand, like Smear {a work at IV AM) Mental Earth attempts to try tocapture the most primitive of gestures ... the smear, as in a child's thoughtlesssmears {implicitly of its feces) but here in space, not on a surface, notconnected to an architectonic reality of time and place, but as the equivalentof a "daydream" in space; the psychological space created by laying downand hypnagogically seeing something in one's mind's space. It is an attemptto allow then "glimpses" of fantasy disengaged from narrative andparticularly from the linear narrative odysseys of the Little People. All in allthis work and other recent ones have served to allow me to explore my ownpsyche in a less coherent and didactic way ... {for myself and others), notrequiring a coherent story, but providing an arena that allows me to engage ina free form my own horror vacui onto a material.All my very best,Charles50
Page 2: CHARLES SIMONDSMENTAL EARTHGROWTHS
Page 7 and 8: This essay concerns the thought and
Page 10 and 11: I asked Simonds if the distinguishi
Page 13 and 14: visit him and discuss an exhibition
Page 15 and 16: elongs with philosophy and religion
Page 17: Mental Earth, 2002, metal, polyuret
Page 20 and 21: material (material reality, meant p
Page 22 and 23: was a part of Mental Earth. I asked
Page 24 and 25: -.&~~~
Page 27: 26 Two Streams. 2011. metal. polyur
Page 31: 30 Grown Walls, 2011, wood, plaster
Page 35: 34Tumbleweed, 1993, porcelain. 9 x
Page 38 and 39: Structures: Linear, circular and sp
Page 41 and 42: 40Gallery, Art Department, Los Ange
Page 43 and 44: 42Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany.
Page 45 and 46: 44Set and Situations, The Museum of
Page 47 and 48: 46__ . "Charles Simonds: Le batisse
Page 49: SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONSLes Abat
Page 53 and 54: ARTIST'S STATEMENTSFor the man in t
Page 55 and 56: AFTERWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS54Knoe
Page 57: 1....\. )OBDLER &- ESTA8·L tSHED 8

CHARLES SIMONDS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?