{"id":109,"date":"2012-05-17T10:52:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T10:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1051675528.test.prositehosting.co.uk\/?p=109"},"modified":"2012-05-29T13:53:45","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T13:53:45","slug":"moping-owl-eye-spy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/?p=109","title":{"rendered":"Moping Owl: Eye spy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

… from yonder ivy-mantled tow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

EYE SPY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear old Dicky Stork is still cawing away, if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what storks do, from his nest high on the chimney pots of Burlington House. I can hear him from here, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even worse when the wind\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the East. He seems to be quite a fixture there nowadays, but then if he caws what the Wildlife Managers in the Academy Zoo below want him to caw, he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the chimney-sweep\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broom up the bottom for a while yet. He works as some sort of beady eye or look-out to give the ground-feeders early warning of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on elsewhere. And what has just caught his eye is a foreign exotic or rare vagrant, blown in all the way from Mexico on all this Global Warming we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been having lately, and now come to roost at Tate Modern.<\/p>\n

It seems this particular bird, Gabriel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Orozco, is so rare a sight as to make any twitcher twitch like fury, Storky included. So unpredictable is he, indeed, that no twitcher can \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pin him down\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which I thought was only what one did to butterflies. I may be wrong. Even so, perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just as well young Ostrich (one of the rare flying ones, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m told) seems to be pretty quick on his feet, for he has always \u00e2\u20ac\u0153moved restlessly around the world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and won, so Storkage tells us, an international reputation for moving restlessly around the world.<\/p>\n

But the main thing, in Sticky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes, is that he has this wonderful gift for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153employing a limitless range of found objects\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I sympathise: the world is such a big place, and just full of stuff \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you should see the cellar of my old tow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122r. I might ask this O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Roscoe round to take a look. Who knows, he might find just the thing. For what he does that is so special is that he \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctransforms\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 these things, yes transforms them, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust like that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as the Great Tom used to say, and does so, moreover, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so surprisingly that they catch us off balance.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I would have thought it more a case of looking where you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going, Storky old thing, and laying off the Tate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dodgy Sauvignon Blanc at the Press View.<\/p>\n

Now you can tell when Dicky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really excited, for then he dips deep into the adjective bag he always keeps handy. How he loves his adjectives, and his adverbs too, come to that. Any one will do. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are often invited to participate in the sculptural structures Orinoco displays.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh those structures: so sculptural, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you know, though quite how to participate in them I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not altogether sure. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A bizarre (here we go) work, wittily (and again) entitled \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPing Pond Table\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (ho ho, my sides, my sides, oh, ha ha, do stop, please) sets two ping-pong tables, cut into four halves (I think I follow) in the form of a cross around a lily pond (now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m lost). Although we can play with the bats and balls provided, the pond in the middle is strangely distracting.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nothing strange about it, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have thought. Silly, perhaps. Cocky goes on to say that Orasbo \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153delights in playing with vehicles\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, just like most little boys, I suppose. He once sliced a Citroen DS into three and spliced the outside bits back together again, thus making it, transforming it I mean, into something rich and, yes, wait for it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153strangely thin and menacing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d DS, Dicky helpfully points out, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is a pun on d\u00c3\u00a9esse (goddess, you see: nudge nudge), so this work is a kind of double sacrifice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the cutting up of a legendary (there goes another one) car that is also a deity.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0How strange that is, Dicky. You can tell he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flown down from Cambridge.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcFour Bicycles\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Rockio jammed together four old Dutch bicycles in a tangled, thrusting mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Those Dutch bikes, I must say, are the best, especially with a bit of age on them. \u00c2\u00a0Nothing like them for a bit of massive tangled thrust. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They take on an explosive dynamism \u00c2\u00a0(I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lost count), but also appear futile \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there is often a playful melancholy in his work.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I should say so: he once rolled a large playful ball of plasticine through the streets of New York, picking up, well, just imagine\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His Tate show reveals just how much he relishes the artist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life-affirming ability to transform everyday objects into sources of wonder.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Corky, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said it all.<\/p>\n

HERITAGE CORNER<\/strong><\/p>\n

It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do to brood too much, but sometimes it can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be helped. And now a soggy scrap of paper I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d forgotten all about has fallen out of the ivy, to set me off again. It seems that wily old Farmer Nick has had a useful little purchase fund set up to the benefit of Tate Farm Holdings (Int.), to make sure that they never run out of stuff to fill their cellar shelves down by the river. This Outset\/Frieze Fund can only be spent at the Village Church Bazaar & Bring & Buy Sale, held in the Park every autumn. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sole purpose is, groan groan, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to enable the Tate to acquire works by emerging and leading international artists\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: in other words, any old charlatan, mountebank or flyby-night with a bright line in art-speak and a sharp dealer.<\/p>\n

So who does the spending on the Tate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, which is to say our behalf, amounting this year to the tune of \u00c2\u00a3120,000? Why: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prominent international curators, whom we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve neverheard of, alongside Tate curators, ditto.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Whew: so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all right then. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are grateful for the continuing support of the Fund, which has enabled the Farm to significantly (of course) extend its collection of work by new and emerging artists,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Farmer Nick. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is increasingly importantat a time when funding for new acquisitions is so limited.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s see what he got for Christmas this time:<\/p>\n

1. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcFive Day Forecast\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (1991) by Lorna Simpson, an American aged 51 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie. 5 black & white silver gelatin prints, and 15 engraved plaques.<\/p>\n

2. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcA long title in French all about native villages deep in the forests\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (1993) by Jimmie Durham, another American, aged 71 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie. A construction of cardboard, wood, bone, a Mexican (v. signif.) Coca Cola bottle, aluminium, steel, glass and text.<\/p>\n

3. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcQuestion Mark b (Anti-Painting, Text Painting\u00e2\u20ac\u21221969) by Julius Kollar, a Slovakian who died in 2007, aged 68 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie. latex on wood.<\/p>\n

4. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcUniversal Futurological Opening\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (1978), also by Mr Kollar \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie. toilet paper and felt-tip pen.<\/p>\n

5. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcConceptual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (1972), again by Mr Kollar \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ie. stamp on paper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quite a bargain, I should say. And at least it will keep Chickens in the Conservation Coop in a job through these hard times.<\/p>\n

The Jackdaw Mar-Apr 2011<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… from yonder ivy-mantled tow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign. EYE SPY Dear old Dicky Stork is still cawing away, if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what storks do, from his nest high on the chimney pots of Burlington House. I can hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejackdaw.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}