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| Rene Laubies, Untitled, 1959, mixed media on paper; signed and dated lower right, 38x35cm |
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| Laubies, ca 1995, Paris |
A painter who claims to paint what he wants is mistaken. The painting is imposed on us, changes its course, goes left and right, and then suddenly stops. It knows when to stop. Ageing painters lay it on more and more. Heavy toil does not restore grace. Chinese painters of the classical period knew when to stop. They accentuated accidents detected in nature. A poetic and musical work of art owes everything to inspiration. One needs to forget technique and virtuosity. One cannot paint the void without painting the fullness!
Un peintre qui prétend faire le tableau qu'il veut se trompe. Le tableau s'impose à nous, dévie sa course, prend à gauche et à droite, puis soudain s'arrête. Il faut savoir s'arrêter. Le peintre en vieillissant charge et surcharge. Le lourd labeur ne remplace pas la grâce. Les Chinois de l'époque classique eux savaient s'arrêter. Ils pouvaient voir dans la nature un accident qu'ils accentuaient. Le tableau poétique et musical doit tout à l'inspiration. Pour eux il faut oublier la technique, la virtuosité. On ne peut peindre le vide sans peindre le plein !
Laubiès. 2001. "Aphorismes," in Ritratti e Aforismi | Portraits et Aphorismes. [Bilingual, Italian and French], Morgana Edizioni, Firenze.
The conservators in France are like all the French, they detest the painting and the painters that live. Deaths reassure them, but be on guard because the "second death" of official artists may prove definitive and these conservators will in the final analysis pass for idiots, which is in fact their secret terror. The zeal of these petty functionaries of art makes me laugh. They are as quickly dismissed as they are promoted. They take themselves for Louis XIV and end up like Louis XVI.
Les conservateurs en France sont comme tous les français, ils détestent la peinture et les peintres vivants. Les morts les rassurent, mais il faut prendre garde car la "seconde mort" des artistes officiels peut être définitive et ces conservateurs passeront en fin de compte pour des idiots, ce qui est en fait leur terreur secrète. Le zèle des petits fonctionnaires de l'art me fait rire. Ils sont aussi vite limoges que promus. Ils se prennent pour Louis XIV et finissent comme Louis XVI.
(Laubies, 2001.)
His flair is inexplicable; if not for that, it would be too easy and everyone would have some! When seeing a painting for the first time Facchetti senses what is new in it, what is personal, while the others all look at what can sell, what it resembles. In the film that was recently dedicated to him, one sees Facchetti walking in his gallery. It's his garden: Sima, Pollock, Hundertwasser, Michaux, Dubuffet and Laubiès. He never listened, that's his taste, he persisted and did not cede. Few galleries can therefore pride themselves in so many discoveries that mark their era. Just as he knew how to find the young painters, he exposed through his photographs the personality of Breton, Ossorio, Gracq, Michaux, Fautrier, Sima, Wols...
Le flair ne s'explique pas, sans quoi cela serait trop facile, tout le monde en aurait ! Facchetti voyant un tableau pour la première fois sentait ce qu'il y avait de nouveau, de personnel, alors que tous les autres cherchent ce qu'on peut vendre, à quoi cela ressemble. Dans le film qui vient de lui être consacré, on voit Facchetti se promener dans sa galerie. C'est son jardin : Sima, Pollock, Hundertwasser, Michaux, Dubuffet et Laubiès. Il n'a jamais écouté que son goût, s'entête et ne cède pas. Peu de galeries peuvent s'enorgueillir de tant de découvertes qui ont marquee leur époque. De même qu'il a su trouver les jeunes peintres, il a montré dans ses photos la personnalité de Breton, Ossorio, Gracq, Michaux, Fautrier, Sima, Wols...
(Laubiès, 2001.)
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| Rene Laubies |
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| Rene Laubies (1924 - 2006) "Sky," 1967 Oil on paper, 50 x 55 cm Greek National Gallery, Athens (inv. no: Π.4090) Donated by Paul Facchetti |
On returning from the United States in 1958, I met Italo Magliano at the gallery of Le Noci. Italo had a strong personality; he knew how to communicate his enthusiasm for painting. He animated to convince and overcome. Corso Vercelli in its art nouveau style, we passed from one salon to another: Sironi, De Pisis and Morgandi brought us to Hartung, Fautrier, Tal Coat and Manessier; then came the youngest, Laubies, Benrath, Bellegarde, Yves Klein and Manzoni. There was a whole dining room for Fontana (sculptures, ceramics). Italo, true collector, had accumulated enormously the works of Italian and foreign painters. One could find at his place Twombly, Schumacher, and works of painters still poorly known but whom he made known and recognized. His entire life was devoted to art... Their children continue taking care of this great collection.
En revenant des Etats-Unis en 58, j'ai rencontrée Italo Magliano à la galerie de Le Noci. Italo avait une forte personnalité, il savait communiquer son enthousiasme pour la peinture. Il animait convaincre et vaincre. Corso Vercelli dans un palais liberty, on passait de salons en salons : Sironi, De Pisis, Morandi, amenaient vers Hartung, Fautrier, Tal Coat et Manessier, puis on arrivait vers les plus jeunes, Laubies, Benrath, Bellgrade, Yves Klein, et Manzoni. Il y avait une salle à manger entière pour Fontana (sculptures, céramiques). Italo, véritable collectionneur, avait accumule énormément d'œuvres de peinture italienne et étrangère. On pouvait trouver chez lui Twombly, Schumacher, et des peintres encore mal connus qu'il fit connaitre et reconnaître. En somme toute une vie consacrée à l'art… Ses enfants continuent à prendre soin de cette grande collection.
(Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, 2001.)N.B.: Italo Magliano was a Milanese industrialist and art collector; the first Italian to have purchased Fautrier and Hartung (see Martina Corgna, "Fino al 22 luglio a Sondrio mostra sulla pittura francese del dopoguerra raccontata attraverso le collezioni private", newspaper article, La Republica, 09 July 2000 Page 10, Section: Milan. See also "L' elegia della memoria (Corrispondenze con Italo Magliano", text by Angela / Marta Madesani / Locatelli.
He discovered my painting at Facchetti's gallery when I was in the United States. He had opened his gallery in via Brera [in Milan] with the support of Italo Magliano, Count Panza, Visconti etc... These collectors immediately bought several of my paintings and I became the friend of Magliano who supported me for more than forty years. Through me, Le Noci knew Fautrier. When I brought him over to "Vallée-aux-Loups", he dropped at Fautrier's feet crying "genius" (which didn't embarrass Fautrier...). After that, everything developed in a rush. Argan, Ungaretti and our dear Palma Bucarelli arranged for him to win the Prize at the Venice Bienniale; but that he had to share it with Hartung representing France enraged Fautrier against Malraux who could do nothing!
A découvert ma peinture chez Facchetti quand j'étais aux Etats Unis. Il avait ouvert sa galerie Via Brera avec l'appui de Italo Magliano, du Comte Panza, des Visconti etc… Ces collectionneurs m'ont acheté immédiatement plusieurs tableaux et je suis devenu l'ami de Magliano qui m'a soutenu pendant plus de quarante ans. Par moi, Le Noci a connu Fautrier. Quand je l'ai amende a "la Vallée aux loups", il s'est jeté aux pieds de Fautrier en criant au génie (ce qui n'a qas gêné Fautrier…) Apres, tout s'est précipité. Argan, Ungaretti et notre chère Palma Bucarelli lui ont fait avoir le Prix de la Biennale de Venise, mais qu'il a du partager avec Hartung présenté par la France, ce qui a fait enrager Fautrier contre Malraux qui n'y pouvait rien !
(Laubies, 2001.)
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| Ezra Pound |
«I don't remember having any difficulties returning to visit Pound at St. Elisabeth's Asylum. I asked him whether the surroundings obstructed him.
"Not at all" he said, "these are the only acceptable Americans."
«When I let him know that I was born in Saigon:
"Ah, that's why! Only Europeans with a master key to the Suez Canal are worth anything...."»
«He died quiet as always in Venice, on his tomb a [laurel] shrub inclines itself toward offerings of flowers and seeds of visiting American poets.»
From Laubies, Ritratti e Aforismi / Portraits et Aphorismes (Bilingual, Italian and French), Morgana Edizioni, Firenze, 2002.
At a dinner in Rome where Ione [Graziani], fiery inspirer of Ungaretti, praised physical love, Palma turned to me and said, "What a bore!" This extremely intelligent and effective woman had in fact to be ired to make use of her beauty and obtain what she should've gotten naturally. She made her Museum of Modern Art towards and against everything. In a few months she wrote the catalogue of Fautrier, which remains the only valid work on him. Her gaze, when in turquoise and a rare flash of emerald passed, tamed Mussolini and other monsters.
Palma Bucarelli
A un dîner à Rome, où Ione, inspiratrice fougueuse d'Ungaretti, vantait l'amour physique, Palma se tourna vers moi : "Cela m'a toujours ennuyé !" En effet cette femme si intelligente et efficace, a dû être agacée d'avoir à se servir aussi de sa beauté pour obtenir ce qu'elle aurait dû avoir naturellement. Elle fit son Musée d'Art Moderne envers et contre tous. En quelques mois elle rédigea le catalogue de Fautrier qui reste le seul ouvrage valable sur lui. Son regard où dans le turquoise passait parfois l'éclair de l'émeraude, a dompté Mussolini et autres monstres.
(Laubies, 2001.)
He discovered my painting at Facchetti's when I was in the United States. He had opened his gallery on Via Brera [Milan] with the support of Italo Magliano, Count Panza, Visconti etc… These collectors immediately bought several of my paintings and I became a friend of Magliano who supported me for more than forty years. Through me, Le Noci knew Fautrier.These are just raw notes.
A découvert ma peinture chez Facchetti quand j'étais aux Etats Unis. Il avait ouvert sa galerie Via Brera avec l'appui de Italo Magliano, du Comte Panza, des Visconti etc... Ces collectionneurs m'ont acheté immédiatement plusieurs tableaux et je suis devenu l'ami de Magliano qui m'a soutenu pendant plus de quarante ans. Par moi, Le Noci a connu Fautrier.
* * *
How do such instances of vital sensibility sustain themselves in an ambiance of memory? Why do they impel us, call attention to themselves like private graffiti dragged into alleyways of interfaciality and interspatiality?
What can be supposed from these collectible emissions as if children demanding to be seen and heard who denounce curatorial arts as bollix and play at what they do until they're made to puke from the grovelling Contemporary Art charade with its growing ranks of Tupperware hosts?
What is to be drawn from these ethnographic galleries that mimic trade procedures of an early-modern era when ridiculous breeds of men changed hands on the docks of cosmopolitan boomtown ports?
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| Rene Laubies, "Composition" (before 1975, oil on paper glued to stretched linen) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon (Côte d'Or, France) |
I FIIRST MET RENE ON THE BEACH AT PURI, in Orissa India in 1983. It was late afternoon, and he was standing on the shore wearing Bermuda shorts and a colourful shirt while casually talking to a German traveller. I was out in the water body surfing jerky, two-meter-high curlers left and right across cool faces of blue-green wave. But they were coming so fast that most of the time was spent diving under the oncoming foam. The tide was high. He was waving his hand while standing on the shore, sunlight shining on his well-tanned face in filmic brilliance. He kept on waving. There was no one else near me. He was waving at me. I was rather exhausted leaving the water. I stood there dripping on the soft brown sand. He stepped right up. "I like the way you dive through the waves," he said. "You glide very well."
We met the next morning in front of my hermitage along Chakratirtha Road. René was staying a few minutes away at Hotel Bay View. Local tourist officials were looking for volunteers among the foreign tourists to take us on a two-day/one-night tour of the region of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to practice hosting foreigners and get their impressions on the places we would visit. Eight of us were chosen for the trip. René had also volunteered. We were to travel in two Ambassador sedans. Each of the two guides would be our drivers.
It was 7 AM. René took me aside and we chatted a bit as the cars got ready. He told me he was an abstract painter and asked me what my interests were. "Poetry," I said. Then he asked me if I knew the American poet Robert Creeley. "He is one of my favourites," I assured him. "Oh I'm glad that you are coming on this expedition," he said. "It would be so boring with only the others." Others were mostly English.
We piled into the automobiles. At first I sat in front. We drove ahead a couple of meters and stopped. The other car was not yet loaded. I asked a girl that was sitting in the back if she would like to sit up front instead. She agreed. I opened the door and immediately put my foot in a fresh green patch of cow dung. "Oh," I said. I was a little embarrassed.
Some one quickly fetched a pail of water and rinsed my foot and rubber sandal clean. The tour guide told me not to worry. "It's considered auspicious to step in cow dung, especially at the outset of any venture."
"That's right," said René as I climbed in the back and sat beside him. "Indians believe that. I do too," he said.
We had a lot of time to talk in the car. He told me all about his connections with the American poet Robert Creeley with whom he lived on the Spanish island of Majorca, and especially of his meeting with Ezra Pound in the 1950s at St. Elizabeth Hospital in America.
Our first stop was the little town of Pipli, famous for its artistic appliqué. We were then on our way to the town of Cuttack. René told me more of his abstract art. I mentioned to him an Indian artist from Orissa whose colourful abstract paintings I saw in a Gallery in Jimbocho, Tokyo near to the school where I used to teach.
"But I never actually met the artist," I told him, "I only read the bio data at the gallery … But then one night when looking out the third-floor window of my classroom waiting for a tardy student to arrive, I noticed a solitary man walking briskly down the street with a woollen shawl draped over his shoulders. 'That must be the artist,' I though to myself, and watched him disappear in the wet and misty night."
Just at that point in relating my story as we continued in the car along the winding road, another car suddenly began to overtake us. And in that car was the Indian artist I had just been talking about, sitting in the back along with a tall European man.
"That's him!" I shouted, and immediately told the driver "Catch that car!" He sped up quickly and honked his horn. The car pulled over. We all got out. I asked the man directly, "Are you the artist who exhibited paintings in Jimbocho Tokyo about one year ago?"
"That's correct," he confirmed.
Then I turned to René. "Please introduce yourselves."
They spoke for some minutes and exchanged brief professional data and contact information. The Artist's name was Prafulla Mohanti.
We continued our drive to the town of Cattack and spent the night in a nice small hotel with restaurant attached. I shared a room with René. I needed a shave but forgot to bring my razor. René said to use his, "The blade is new. I haven't used it."
At dinner, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I had not eaten descent food in a while. The menu boasted an array of North India dishes. Later I puked in our bathroom sink. I was fine after that.
Next morning we visited Bhubaneswar temples and then took the longer drive to the famous ancient Buddhist archaeological sites. We passed through an incredibly impoverished area where half-naked tribal people lived in thatch hovels. We returned to Puri by early evening.
Following morning, René and I took a walk south along the beach to the town and returned by the road. In this way, René was able to show me the general orientation of the ancient locale. René had visited Puri many times: for me it was my first.
Nearly every morning soon after breakfast, René took a long walk north along the shore past the Andhra fisher people's makeshift encampment to an isolated stretch of sand. There he could relaxingly strip to a g-string and bathe in peace and sublime seclusion. I never went with him. I preferred the waves just south of the encampment. As he briskly walked along the shore near the boats, the fisher children ran from their ramshackle hutments to greet him with jubilant hand waves and squeals. He smiled at them sweetly and waved in return. "These are my children," he nobly declared.
With the cooling light of early evening, we sometimes walked in the direction of the town. The boats there were different from the Andhra people. There were always several elderly lifeguards, too, with cone-shaped straw hats helping plump women in saris take their holy baths in the dangerous tides. But René was careful to watch the time and not be late for dinner at Hotel Bay View. He liked to have room and board together and to pay in advance on a monthly basis. "It's better for me to avoid the tourist restaurants," he explained. In Sri Lanka they have a good home stay system. I like it very much. It suits me well."
At Hotel Bay View, René always stayed on the terrace roof, in the "puja room" he called it, as it satisfied his fundamental need for seclusion and gave him plenty of space to paint.
He asked to read my poetry. I gave him the entire typewritten sheaf. He returned it two days later. "I like your poetry." (The seascapes took him). "We should make a book," he pertly remarked. I'll do the cover art like I did for Robert Creeley. His work became very popular after that. There is a printer in the town. I can take you there tomorrow."
I had still not asked to see his paintings. "Come to my place about five pm," he said.
I climbed the stairs to the terrace roof. The sand and sea were all in view. He had arranged about eight or nine works for me. They were lying on the ground outside his room. Only one he propped on an easel. "I don't use the easel to paint," he said. "It belongs to the hotel. I just brought it up to display one work." I scanned the lot for about 30 seconds and then broke into a steady solo applause. I kept on clapping for a minute or so as I continued to look at the paintings. Then I stopped. They were all of an approximate orange hue, chromatically analogous to the immediate backdrop. I paused a moment to collect my thoughts. "Through calm reflection you absorb the essence of the local colour. You don't try to copy but extract its essence from the breathing space, and then it's naturally abstracted."
I told him I was interested to find a yoga ashram. René only knew of the Ramakrishna Mission. He took me to meet the Swami in charge. "Do you teach yoga here?" I asked the senior swami. "No, this is not that kind of place," he said." "Do you know any other ashrams in Puri?" I asked him. "Puri is one big ashram," he said. That was a very good lesson.
Walking to the town one day, René showed me a room that was available for rent. I found it very dismal too close to the town. Walking back, I disclosed to him my desire to find a guru. "I'll be you guru," he said light-heartedly.
He returned to Paris. I wound up in Bangkok. We wrote each other often. In attempt to help me publish my poetry, he introduced me to his old friend Cid Corman who was living in Kyoto at the time. After Corman's death in 2004, our combined correspondences were archived with the large collection of Corman's papers at Indiana University (Corman mss. III, Papers, 1943-2004; see "I. Correspondents/authors," http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/subfile/corman3ser1.html).
Two years later, I returned to Puri. It was April or May, quite late in the season, I couldn't get there sooner. Rene had left. I stayed in the puja room at Hotel Bay View and began a brief suite of poems, 5 pm sun.
. . . . . . . .
[Writing notes]
Varkala two seasons [doesn't exist?]
In 1989 we met in Paris. I stayed in his sixth-floor walk up on Rue des Beaux-Arts. He was busy in Nice but came up to see me twice. Before he departed again for Nice, we arranged to meet in Venice.
He met me at Venezia Santa Lucia Station. He had already found a cheap room somewhere. It dawned on us both that Ezra Pound's grave was on an outer island somewhere, the cemetery island of San Michele. We ferried there directly in search of his tomb. Upon arrival we inquired from the groundskeeper. We spent some time there.
I quietly placed a plum on the gravestone. "All the way from China," I remarked to Rene. "It will only rot," Rene contended. I considered his argument and reclaimed the plum, only to eat it. I ate several more and left my seeds as a wanderer's offering on the tomb of Ezra Pound.
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| René Laubies (French, 1924–2006) Mykonos, 1958. Oil on paper laid on canvas, 65 x 100 cm. (25.6 x 39.4 in.) |
"I'm Colonial French," Laubies explained. "I'm not French."
Yet Rene Laubies also was not exactly white, but a quite French-leaning Creole-Afro-Eurasiatic: the product of an overseas "Creole" French jurist and a Catholic Mandarin maman. He only "became" French, officially speaking, sometime in his teens on the eve of emigrating out of Asia, when a passport and other mandated documents had to be procured, his "master key to the Suez Canal," as Ezra Pound would later narrate.
Coming of age he was leaving to study in France, which Morocco at the time then stood for. Another hot country. Someone may have been forced to even fib about his birth date. How else to account for repeated incongruity appearing in his later professional bio blurbs where date of birth is serially given as 1922 and 1924. For the record's sake, Rene's date of birth as entered into his final passport is February 27, 1922. We captured that image.
Laubies was born in French Cochin China, a dethroned set of kingdoms bundled back together by diverse groups of neighbouring monarchic realms, Cambodia, Laos, Tonkin, Annam, plus a scrape of land that was leased from China. That is what comprised French Indochina, L'Indochine française, a monumental exercise in 'geographical handiwork' (cf. Fletcher 2003: 4:3).
Cochin China was at once the economic while administrative centre of this noosed together peripheral sphere of "greater" (Oriental) France. Today that former entity has virtually dissolved in a modern constructed state called Vietnam.
Even in his old age Laubies travelled with a picture of his mother. He showed it to me once while visiting his rooftop room at Bay View Hotel in Puri (1983).
"She was beautiful," he said. He handed me the photo. I looked at the small, rather aged exposure.
"She looks very nice," I concurred before inquiring: "Was she Vietnamese?" He paused.
"In part," he said, taking time to reflect. He gave the impression that he'd never really thought in those terms.
Some days later he returned to this. "We didn't use the word Vietnamese back then, but Annamite, Indochinese or Cochin-chinoise. There were Malabar people there too," he explained. "The same as these people." We were living near each other at Varkala at the time. It must have been December 1986.
The usages, Vietnam and Vietnamese, were not widespread at the end of the century-long French colonial period. It was roughly from around 1948 that Annam and Annamese were officially supplanted by the modern expression Vietnamese, an historically constructed ethnonym for the majority Viet inhabitants of for the land and the name of their language, which gained immediate ascendancy (Proschan 2002: 614, n. 12).
References
Fletcher, Simpson. 2003. Review of, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-44, by Eric T. Jennings. Stanford University Press, 2001, in Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 4:3.
Proschan, Frank. 2002. "Syphilis, Opiomania, and Pederasty": Colonial Constructions of Vietnamese (and French) Social Diseases. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. (Oct.): 610-636.
Verges, Francoise. 2003. "Writing on Water: Peripheries, Flows, Capital, and Struggles in the Indian Ocean," in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique - Volume 11, Number 1, (Spring): 241-257.
Interrogé par Gérard Xuriguera (Les Années 50, éditions Arted), Laubiès dit lui avoir fait découvrir la peinture chinoise ancienne, "le vide et le plein, la frontalité, l'absence complète de l'expression et du théâtre, l'atmosphère, le suggéré, l'allusif". Des termes qui s'appliquent aussi à son propre travail. Sur ces bases, Alvard lance un mouvement baptisé "nuagisme", d'abord recueilli par la galerie de Paul Facchetti, le premier à avoir exposé Pollock en France (Cloutier).In a 1954 Paris group photo (here) we see Paul Facchetti and Rene Laubies stainding second and third from the left, respectively. The now retired Facchetti was himself an established painter and photographer of some importantc and figures in the following set of images.
Distillations from an ongoing study, a lofty memorandum of narrow inlet not too obscure, gleaned from a cluster of filtered evocations on a freely given data screen of elegant inquiry
I begin this set of scientific postcards from a site that I continue to scrutinize for its links to a range of kinship myths that endue its coastal caravanserai with a fadedness of anonymous hulls and their humble consignments of edible seaweeds, betel-nut, birds nest, raw palm sugar and fermented bean paste, all unloaded now... Moored to the pilings beneath the quiet moon, the squeaking of her wood as she gently rocks on the shallow inlet of the Endau River where years-back Japanese forces came ashore and marched down the road to establish Shonan.
One of quite a number of un-decreed quasi postcolonial Sinitic sites one finds elapsing in muted contiguity of a writing from elsewhere, a mingling of loci demurred by the gap, but allured by the fact that this deepest southern reach of the Malaya Peninsula constitutes the sole amphiscian zone across the entire Eurasian super-continent here in this tropical sun-drenched tract one encounters scores of basal registries strewn as arcs in chance arrangement, scuttled boats half-buried on riverbanks, driftwood drying on curves of beach with scattered whitecaps flagging the gaze to hazy forms of offshore islands floating like clouds on a distant horizon soaked in torrid midday sun that relentlessly elutriates baleful intimations of these proximal devices smudged together through supplication of quiet tides one senses a plunge of sky-blue screens as lambent veils of spatial buoyancy nimbly abide to better intervene upon, lighten to extend emotive schema that discerns exquisite tragic text in polished hue of a lithic dross awash in variegated surge of enchantment splashing pure on shorelines of perception.
But in the gap and before this reaches your eyes, we will have spread our sails to monsoon winds over metal blue seas tacking south though squalls to slept a night at Singapura—gold light seeping through morning window mingles with the greys of camphor and punk smoke. Again set sail through the Straits of Malacca and beyond many days en voyage upon the wind to Arabian Sea waves lapping on shores, secure safe havens in North Malabar. This tropical littoral that holds great importance in segmentation of ongoing tasks like combing pristine stretches of beach for a secret cove of hermeneutic vantage, gathering sponges of gentle ideation callously blurred as events or things, re-imbuing them with values of persuasive mutability, fortuitous misreading, primmediacy. A lofty memorandum of narrow inlet not too obscured sees writing and painting, their performative foundations, embedded conduits running in a background comprised of operant triadic blends perceivable in terms of combing a beach as guided by a mode of predisposed enchantment that constitutes a form of aesthetic yoga, the principle of "li" at work across these current strong seas, an easterly tack in countervailing cycles of tidal rinse that parallel or second as post-Nuagiste disquisition on Rene Laubies as a coasting vessel foraging through eddies of neglected backwaters, mediating vistas, ink drenched skies as seasonal transhumance shapes the current, billowed sails over open seas along a multiculti string of pearl-like entrepôts replenishing stores.
A shift in tropes to explicate a way for painting poetry, their methodological apparati that form when merged a triadic (not dyadic) permutation describable in terms of archaeological excavation that progresses equiliberally accommodating structures ascertained along planes of co-extensive being. So the edge, though never quite sure where it is because it's always grazing downward into new emerging surface aroused from a sense of being in field, from traction gained from decoding or amalgamating random areas of layered abandonment, strewn while fragmented, that hold no ambition to be built, presumed or relied on.
In handling calligraphy, or handsome writing we acknowledge that it holds very different social statuses in Oriental and Western art historical cultures. Not only that, in Asiatic legacy, and particularly in Far East literati practice, there is neither compelling nor valid distinction drawn between the elements of poetry, painting and calligraphy as such, nor interestingly between the notions of image and reflection, idea and word, between presentation and representation. Thus in our current transcultural epoch, painting may not even be considered "painting" but rather an extension of writing (écriture), which covers simultaneously images and letters and therefore rhetoric, and furthermore renders such terms as image and letter remarkably 'irrelevant in a very strict sense' (Inaga).
Research in this area is scarce and in its infancy. It seeks collaboration with an aim of exploring a variety of Far East Asiatic loci, geo- or logo-based attempts to engage absorbing rich sentiments conducive to reading of spirits of place near that elegant verge of decrepitude, to ingeniously mooch among relegated elements, sculpt installations of poetic passage elapsing midst crumbling facades, veneers of illustrious sea- land- town- mind-scapes to detect synchronizations, omitted fragmentation that corroborate compliment preliminary findings in a way that makes this study stand out as unique in the panorama of literati research.
It attempts to trace the global rise of non-figuration historically, theoretically, stylistically—to use as our conveyance at hand in a critical analysis of Rene Laubies' painted writing, with particular focus on haute époque painters Ma Yuan [馬遠] (1190) and Bada Shanren [八大山人] (1630), both of whom Laubies esteemed as "the pure abstract ones, because the stain held their interest, not the rock or the boat that the stain perhaps suggested" (Laubies). But is it really so? By displaying very credible abstract tendencies that render Ma and Bada obvious precursory candidates, the two must necessarily be seen as figurative artists.
I do not remember having had any difficulties returning to visit Pound at St. Elisabeth's Asylum. I asked him whether the surroundings bothered him: "Not at all, these are the only acceptable Americans." It was a pleasant irony of fate at the time that he became both famous and celebrated. He got the Bollingen Prize and a Pound newsletter telling of his works being translated into 14 languages, academic papers and books. The room was a mass of accumulated books and letters stacked on tables and chairs... there was a pretty woman too (very bad painter), a former Admiral, several sinologists and admirers. He gave me an enormous list of people to see that included Robert Creeley. He always loved to gather, give advice and connect everyone as the time he sought dollars from John Quinn for Joyce, was "il miglior fabbro" of Eliott, would militate for Vorticism, Brancusi or Gaudier-Breska. When I told him that I was born in Saigon: "Ah, that's why! Only Europeans with a master key to the Suez Canal are worth something...." In '58 he was still a force of nature. What a contrast fifteen years later, tea cup, tired, he kept mute and let Domenica de Roux do the talking and turn his bust by Arno Breker. He died in Venice silent as always, on his tomb a laurel shrub inclines toward the offerings, flowers and seeds of young American poets.
Je ne me souviens pas avoir eu de difficultés à rendre visite à Pound à l'Asile de Sainte-Elisabeth. Comme je lui demandais si ce voisinage le gênait : "Mais non, ce sont les seuls américains acceptables". Par une agréable ironie du sort, c'est a ce moment la qu'il est devenu célèbre et célébré. Il avait eu le prix Bollingen. Une Pound's news letter donnait les nouvelles de ses traductions en 14 langues, des thèses et ouvrages sur lui. Dans cette chambre, accumulations de livres et de lettres sur les chaises et les tables… il y avait aussi une jolie femme (très mauvais peintre) un ex-amiral, plusieurs sinologues et admirateurs. Il me donna une liste énorme de gens à voir dont Robert Creeley. Il aimait toujours rassembler, conseiller, orienter les uns et les autres comme au temps au il demandait des dollars à John Quinn pour Joyce, était "il miglior fabbro" di Eliott, militait pour le Vorticisme, Brancusi ou Gaudier-Breska. Quand je lui dis que j'étais ne à Saigon : "Ah, c'est pour cela ! Seuls les européens qui ont passe le Canal de Suez valent quelque chose...". Il était encore en '58 une force de la nature. Quel contraste quinze ans après, tasse, lasse, il restait muet laissant parler Dominique de Roux qui tournait autour de son buste par Arno Breker. Il est mort à Venise toujours silencieux, sur sa tombe un arbuste s'incline sur les offrandes, fleurs et graines de jeunes poètes américains.
Rene Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, (from the forward) 2001.
When a Chinese painter of the ancient high period began to paint, he first burned incense and gathered his thoughts in the calm of silence, concentrated his mind and meditated. He let life's annoyances slowly fade. His spirit free, he created space and communicated with the vital force that impels the universe. In harmony with Nature, it was She who guided his brush... This is how I meditate and paint myself, in India and the Sunda Islands, in the nature that I love, tropical and dense, or in the pure luminosity of the desert.
Quand un peintre chinois des Hautes-Epoques se mettait à peindre, il brûlait de l'encens, se recueillait dans le calme et le silence, concentrait son esprit et méditait. Il laissait les ennuis et le sordide quotidien s'évanouir peu à peu. Son esprit libéré, il faisait le vide en lui et communiait ainsi avec l'élan vital qui meut l'univers. Alors, en harmonie avec la Nature, c'est Elle qui guidait son pinceau... C'est ainsi que je médite et peins moi-même, dans les Indes, les îles de la Sonde, dans la nature que j'aime tropicale et dense ou dans la pure lumière du désert.
Rene Laubies, Portraits et Aphorismes, (from the forward) 2001.
