Portrait by L. Ying

There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.

Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list…The poem is nothing but information. It is the constitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report.

(Leonard Cohen, How To Speak Poetry, from Death of A Lady’s Man, 1979)

Writer Statement 1

What should a writer be stating? Should it be something rebellious like ‘Viva la revolution!’? Should it be something gentle like “I love you’ or should it be something morbid-smart-ass like ‘Writing is like death and death is the end and that is the limit and trying to go beyond that limit is futile’ and all that kind of stuff?

No, those don’t sound like real statements. They sound like somebody wanting attention.

Maybe a writer is somebody who wants attention? Maybe he is seeking attention? Maybe he just doesn’t want to be alone? Maybe that is the feeling he is transferring to the reader?

The writer writes.

The statement states.

That is the inherent contradiction in a Writer’s Statement.

A writer tries to hide by writing, not to state something.

So in fact he is not looking for attention. He is trying to draw attention to his writing so that he can escape in the meantime. It’s like a decoy. Writing is a decoy.

He writes in order to erase himself.

This should be my Writer Statement:

“I am a writer and I am going to disappear. While you are reading this I am already somewhere else. You will never find me.”

Portrait by Veniamin Kazachenko

Writer Statement 2

To write a Writer Statement means that I already admit that I am a writer in first place. Only a writer can write a writer statement. Someone who isn’t a writer shouldn’t be writing any kind of writer statement. But if I am already stating that I am a writer isn’t that what the statement should be proving? That I am a writer. That I write. It is a confession that I am a writer. A writer statement is a confession that one is a writer.

I confess.

I am a writer.

 
—

22.1.12

My nose hurts.

At first I thought it hurts because its growing,
growing from all of my lies like Pinocchio.

I imagined myself walking around a little Italian village
and meeting some guy who would promise to make me real,
to make me real famous.

Then I sat around and thought to myself that writing is like lying,
because it always misses the point
there is always something else I want to be talking about,
but I end up talking about what’s in front of my nose.

What if I were to stop writing?
Would my nose stop growing?
Would it stop hurting?

But writing is what makes me feel real.

And how would I become real,
how would I become real famous,
if I were to stop writing?

Would I be able to become real famous by stopping to write?
Maybe stopping to write would make me real?
Maybe It would make me focus more on life
and less on telling all these lies.

The Thinker (After Rodin), Ohad Ben Shimon, 2012

Maybe my nose will stop hurting,
and my lies would stop lying,
and I would be just ‘one of us’,
a good old jew boy with a big nose.

_

AN INDIRECT DIALOGUE

The following exchange took place by email from 23rd-25th January 2012.

VSK:  That’s a very interesting statement by Leonard Cohen isn’t it! Particularly those ideas of “information” and “report” and how those might sit with us now.

I’m thinking about this alongside your previous residency writings – that sense in the last post of observation, reportage in some ways, in the bar…. the way that from post to post I feel as a reader I can follow a series of kinds of attentions, not a linear flow but a series of distinct positions…

Out of the Cohen comes a cluster of terms and concerns through which to think about writing – the ambiguity of how it feels and effects: “state” and “statement”, different notions of paying attention, being attentive, and wanting attention. How “attention” changes when it is something to be received not given!

The concerns of the writer leading to the creation of a text which has its own life to lead…

OHAD: I was thinking of the notion/definition of art, as such, and here referencing the Conceptual Art’ preoccupation with who defines Art. The problematic of the artist defining what is art in comparison to the writer stat-ing or the relation between the writer and the state.

Perhaps then we can say that the space between writing and art practice is defined by a double failed negation. The Artist in his or her attempt to define what is art or who is an artist and the writer on his or her behalf to make any clear statement about writing.

VSK: Given what we have been discussing about writing in an art context, I enjoy this sense of “writer’s statement” in relation to the more familiar “artist’s statement” and the particularities/ peculiarities/ contexts of that form… that writing is somehow counter to the writer or the writer’s thoughts and intention- how that “counter – to” works itself out…

So if this ‘writer statement’ is impossible even as it is acted out then it suggests there might be other ways we can talk about this, which also returns to certain literary forms such as fiction, poems, fables..  we also turn to everyday experiences and anecdotes to try and find another way of speaking this, or to find an energy that might feed into our ‘writer statement’ even as it escapes it…

OHAD: I like very much you pointing out that the impossibility of a writer’ statement being acted out (and indeed it is reminiscent for me of the artist statement) can lead to or suggest other detours to talk about it… you mention literary forms… and I think visual forms can also function as such detours… perhaps that’s the dance/oscillation between the textual and the visual in my practice.

VSK:  In The Writing Life Annie Dillard tells a story of a writer who would repeatedly stop writing and go out for a walk, come back home, then type up the whole story again, hoping that each time the impetus of the walk followed by typing enabled the writer to build up a momentum that continued the story for a few lines or pages. In this way the novel was written…

OHAD: Well, it took me a while to figure out some images and I played with some options.. At last I came to three different portraits of me. I wanted to stay away from any kind of theatricality due to Cohen’s low-key reference but eventually I couldn’t…it was stronger than me.

VSK: I like the ending – a real punch line! Interesting to think of punch line as art writing strategy…

OHAD: I would like to suggest the figure of the philosopher/thinker here as perhaps an essential link in order to make the bridge and complete the ‘picture’.

More about Ohad’s work is here. See also Post 1 , Post 2, and Post 3 of his VSK residency.

Nare on Skype 22 December 2011

20.12.11 (for Nare)

There is a man standing next to me in the bar.

He is on his mobile phone.

“Let’s make the deal. Let’s make the deal,” he keeps repeating.

He says something about needing to bring the papers and something about a flight and staying for a week somewhere.

He is serious.
He is well dressed and wears a golden wedding ring.
He places his other hand on the bar while continuing to negotiate how many days he will spend somewhere.

“When do I go back?” he continues asking.
“I need to work whether you like it or not. It’s as simple as that. Without discussion.”

(He has a Dutch accent.)

“I cannot leave without the papers for two and a half weeks.”

Then he says ‘New York’, ‘January’ and something about a position he needs to take whether someone likes it or not.

Then come some more words like ‘Paper’, ‘Flight’, ‘Christmas’ and ‘New Year’.

I think to myself that this guy is retarded. Whether he likes it or not.

He gets more and more angry and says he can over-bridge a week but not two weeks.

I wonder to myself if this guy is maybe just talking to himself. Maybe there is nobody else on the other side of the line.

Maybe he is just pretending so that nobody thinks he is alone.

The conversation seems to reach an end. Both sides agree that the guy comes without the papers.

All this about some papers.

This guy means business. That’s for sure. He listens to the other guy a bit about the option of no papers and he points to Nare that is the bartender and hints for a new glass of beer.

This man is full of shit.

’Magazine’, ‘Mexico’ and ‘Television’ are the next words that he says.

He takes a sip from the beer and says “Anyway, I’m going to take the papers and two laptops.”

He has gel in his hair. His hair is pulled backwards.

“So the deal here is no papers and leave (sometime) in January or take the papers and leave (some other time I don’t hear).”

Then comes ‘New York’ and ‘Nairobi’.

“I need to be back in my office again on the 9th of January.”

…

Self Portrait, 23 December 2011. Illustration by Nare Eloyan.

…

I think to myself that I should just say to the guy: “Listen man. You cannot sit here on the bar and talk business the whole fucking time. Make the fucking deal and get on with your beer. Are you retarded? Are you seriously retarded or autistic? How can you be living like this man? This is sick. You are sick. Your life is sick. Your watch is sick. Your big fat white fingers are sick. Your mobile is sick. The way you talk is sick. Your whole fucking brain is sick.”

As his words come out of his mouth, I put words on the paper. Maybe my notebook pages are the papers he is talking about? Maybe I’m writing on the papers he needs in order to close the deal? Maybe I’m keeping him from signing the contract?

I look into his bright blue eyes.

His fine glasses are slightly tilted on his nose.

He looks sharp.
He looks like he knows what he is talking about.
He looks like everything is under control.

After about 15-20 minutes of talking on the phone he still hasn’t reached an agreement with the other person on the phone.

Then he says “Having said that,” and repeats the date 7th of january for the eleventh time.

His way of talking is abrupt, cut and with a bass tone.

Then he scratches his penis or balls and notices that I notice that.

“The bottom line is,” he says and then goes onto another round of negotiations with the guy.

He says “2 weeks..3 weeks..what?”

I decide to finish my beer and leave when I finish it.

I finish my beer and hear him say “You are talking a language I don’t understand.”

I decide to give up with this guy. Just stop paying attention to him.  I take out some money, pay my beers and leave.

…

Nare at Home 21 December 2011

*

More about Ohad’s work is here. See also Post 1 and Post 2 of his VSK residency.

“…it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.”

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young poet, The Seventh Letter, May 14th , 1904, Rome)

“Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a  strong, simple ‘I must’, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young poet, The First Letter, Feb 17th , 1903, Paris)

2.12.11

It is night-time.
It is winter.
It is cold.

It is difficult.
It is hard.
It is driving you crazy.

Nevertheless.

It is good.
It is for the good.
It is difficult for the good.
It is a difficult time for the good.

Nevertheless.

You will be fine.
You will.

As long as you keep your eyes open no harm will be done to you.

Be aware.
Be brave.
Be funny.
Be consistent.
Be around friends.
Be in big cities.
Be in the country side.

Be sexy.
Be aroused.
Be attracted and attractive.
Be horny.
Be flirty.
Be clever.
Be yourself and not yourself.
Be the different characters of yourself.

Be a literary hero.
Be a movie star.
Be famous.
Be famous.

Be emotional.
Be lost.
Be free.

Be reading books.
Be walking in the forest.
Be riding the bike.
Be and be not-be.

Be someone who cares.
Be honest.
Be a man.

Be a woman.
Be a child.
Be in equanimity.

This poem demands a final ‘Be’ standing alone at the end but I wont do that.

Be-cause,
this poem wants to
be
a
tree.

_

What has not been said?

There must be something that has not been said.

Postmortem.

How can we connect that to Postmodernism?

_

She is on her fours,

I am above her.

She is below me.

She is blowing me.

I am being blown.

I am being blown from below.

I am being blown from below by a beautiful blonde.

I am being blown from below by a beautiful blonde with big breasts.

b(e)-b(e)-b(e)-b(e)-b(e)-b(e)-b(e)-b(e)

Her breasts are dangling in front of me.

I look at them.

They are big.

They belong to a beautiful blonde with big breasts.

I take them in my mouth.

I suck on them.

She sucks on me.

We both suck each other.

We suck and suck and suck.

Then we fuck and go to sleep.

-

The following is a reconstruction of an email exchange between VerySmallKitchen and Ohad Ben Shimon in response to the above post, which took place Dec 3-4 2011.

OHAD: i have been wanting to write something erotic after reading bataille’ story of the eye for the first time. im aware that it doesnt quite pass by my usual subject matters or ‘style’.

what made the last section definite for me is that it is not at all about desire or the sexual act but only about the one long sentence where i felt like coming up with a lot of words starting with the letter ‘b’ – being blown by a beautiful blonde with big breasts and that that would echo somehow the verb/wish – ‘be’ from the first section, so to have some kind of ‘coded’ message. and in relation to poetry and photography…that they should also just be in the sense that a poem wants to be and a photograph/image wants to be..

i guess im ’building on’/trusting the contingency of language..in form and in essence in the sense that contingency is something applicable to propositions and i see art as a proposition. maybe that is the necessary link we need in order to come back to our original question – what is the relation between art practice and writing..

VerySmallKitchen: One characteristic of texts that position themselves between art practice and writing seems to be an immersion in the possibilities of a form or genre which is simultaneously a utilisation of its possibilities/effects and a commentary upon those -

Ohad: i do consider all of this discourse as one which is on a meta level yes definitely. i think the kind of poetry i am most interested in is ars poetics and i guess that im interested in connecting poetry as the highest form of literature to a possible highest form of visual art, perhaps that would be painting or some other form of image-language (beeld-taal in dutch)? so im dealing here with comparing these two systems, the system of language to the system of art via a meta connection, yes.

VerySmallKitchen: But these multiple levels of (self-) awareness are not necessarily shared or even identified by a reader.  Perhaps that explains texts that require performance or discussion to be “completed” in some way, either as “afters” or by inviting notions of script and conversation into their own page forms -

Ohad: (thinking out loud) is an incomplete text one that does not have con-text? do we need a text to have a ‘con’ in order to justify it or can it just be without having an antagonist to ‘fight’ against? a preposition (con) to complete the proposition? does a text need a context in order to be self-aware? does its self-awareness require a context in order to be comprehended? does a text need to be comprehended?

maybe this is a quality that we can borrow from visual art which does not necessarily require to be comprehended in order to be enjoyed..maybe such is the form of the ‘artistic’ text? maybe con-text as such is something we can start to imagine doing without. i mean this in the sense that everything is context. everything is going against the text. that is why it wants to be, to be on its own, to exist on its own terms (like the reference by rilke) to exist.

the text is the protagonist and the con-text is the antagonist. maybe that is the duel of literature..that is the pity i find in story of the eye by bataille.. it is followed by an unnecessary ( in my opinion) contemplation by roland barthes and susan sontag who will creep their way into whatever interesting text is out there..

… i think a good way to deal with this is indeed through performance, especially as regarding to voice, and the sound the text and reader make whilst reading it – indeed a more physical form. perhaps that is the reason for all the explicit physicality, stereo-typical sexual representation, i.e the politics of representation at the end. the politics of representation here is in fact a politics of repression in which the voice is being repressed by an all encompassing Über-con-text.

… some final thoughts about things standing on their own..perhaps we are attempting here a challenge to what is believed to be unachievable in contemporary art..an object standing on it own..a self contained object..

VerySmallKitchen: But despite all these processes/ideas the post still concludes with a stereotypical heterosexual male sexual fantasy/ porn image-

Ohad: what is a classic porn image/ male fantasy? im sure there are million different kinds of fantasies. why are we forced to think that there is one iconic, original, solid male fantasy. the nature of fantasy itself is in the multitude not the singular..dreams and fantasies are lucid. maybe we are dealing with challenging the classic definition of a male fantasy?

maybe the ‘pornographic’ section at the end is dealing with the deconstruction of the original/monolithic text/male fantasy as such? maybe that is where porn and poetry meet..? i guess you are right in pointing out that we do have some gender issue on our hands. how to deal with that? maybe in the next post?

VerySmallKitchen: Thinking about blog traffic I was considering the relations of our ideas on language and art practice to “beautiful blonde big breasts sucks” as google search terms… should this be part of our concern?

Ohad: the google search terms is part of our inquiry i believe. google is the all encompassing context which the texts we are dealing with today take their oxygen/raison de etre from.

Post 1 is here. More about Ohad’s work is here.

-You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

-I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

-These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

(Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself, 1855)

I am at a park.
I am at the queen’s park.
I am at the park of the queen,
but I don’t see the queen.
I am told she is in the palace.
I see the palace.
I see the palace garden.
I see the guards of the palace.
I see the gardeners of the palace
garden.

I see the birds in the park.
I see the flowers in the park.
I see the winter trees in the
park.
I even see the mist in the
queen’s park.

But I don’t see the queen.

-

The Queen’s Painter Prize is about obscurity.
It is about the obscurity of the queen and the obscurity of the painting, {and the relation (indexical)
between the queen and the painter}.

-

Am I the obscured writer?
Am I a Camera Obscura?
Am I in the obscured kamer?
Is the kamer obscured from the rest of the world?
Is it a hidden room?
It is.
And from the darkness of the room comes light.
And the light is right.
And ‘the right’ writes.
And ‘the wrong’ remains obscure.
The obscured writer is ‘the wrong’ writer.
And ‘the wrong’ writer is always right. Always.
The obscured writer writes
with an obscured pen.
The pen is obscure.
The whole trick of writing is how to obscure the pen.
The whole ____ of _____ is how to obscure the ___.

See?

-

VerySmallKitchen writes:  The following notes are edited from emails between Ohad and VerySmallKitchen in November 2011.

OHAD: I have been playing with a few ideas in my head about my possible contribution to VerySmallKitchen..they center around my desire to figure out/’re’-search (even though I am a bit skeptical of the term ‘research’) the space between writing and contemporary art practice (including mainly performance and photography).

(Thinking out loud)

As a starting point I would situate the discourse involving writing and art practice, on the issue of Categorization at large..I mean to say..I think both writing and art practice as fields of interest, have a kind of dialectical character which begs the question of the attraction between them. Writing as a category may refer to 2 main ‘things’ – Writing as a noun, the ‘thing’ that is written, and Writing as a verb, which designates the ‘activity’ of writing…and of course the ongoing debate regarding genres, cross-genres, etc.

Contemporary art practices are also obsessed with categorization, with art historical references, art movements, mapping-outs, delineating, etc…and also in the more traditional artistic practices the obsession with object oriented art production…hence the connection I would speculate between thing (writing) – object (art practice).

A question to myself – Is writing really a medium or is it an inscription onto a medium?

…

I’m not exactly sure I understand what it means to be an artist in residency on a website…but I could tackle that question in my writing in a kind of self reflexive manner..For each post I would write a diary entry from a very specific and limited time/space…it would then be a kind of performance which I’m writing from… image and text as two separate and yet parallel language systems…

another more interesting option I’m thinking of now is to limit the space even more.. down to the level of an object… investigating how my presence on the object influences my writing..suggesting a diffusion of the subject-object dichotomy..how my physical contact with the object influences my writing… You could see it as a taxonomy of a sort.

…

I see these texts as drafts in the sense that they are instantaneous, like a sketch, of the moment. Usually drafts would mean something on the way to somewhere else, but for me this kind of drafting is more of the present, its not leading anywhere, only to its own reason to be.

-

More about Ohad’s work is here.