Collage
Of course we are familiar with collage! In the American educational program I grew up in, collages were as prevalent as recess lol. I decided to look at some Raoul Haussman and really liked the Raoul Dada-Messe from 1920. The collage works are impressive but I feel that without substantial explanation, I don't really understand them. In the time period when the Dada movement emerged, the world was a much different place and so the art to me, though possibly intentional, seems overly abstract and ungraspable. I further looked at the Hannah Hoch collage Cut With the Kitchen Knife through the first Epoch of the Weimar Beer-Belly Culture and was enamored with the sheer amount of material, but i feel like I understood the message behind The Beautiful Girl. Especially today, I can't comment about in the past, the BMW logo is totally synonymous with wealth, prosperity, and money. From a modern lens, it is a commentary on ideals of beauty and femininity, dare I say intelligence with the inclusion of the light bulb, and monetary gain.
Ready Mades
One of my favorite "found" poems is the Williams' poem "This is Just to Say" because there is a lot of artistry in it's simplicity. I'm glad it was used as an example in this course because I feel it is an important poem. The idea of the readymade poem, however, usually gives me conflicting feelings: on one hand I agree that art is art whether it is found or created, and on the other hand it makes me a little uneasy that someone can find a piece of writing, take away the context, or overtly expose its context, and call it art. In the case of poetry, I find collage a truer form, in my opinion, of art than purely found poems because the artist has some say as to decisions made in the piece. A collage can be several cut ups of poems, phone books, advertisements, whereas a strictly found poem might be a recipe from a local cookbook regurgitated as a work of art.
Basic Chance operation
I have never played with this type of poetry writing but respect it's roots. Though I find it hard to believe that shuffling cut out words into a new format by picking them from a bag bears any resemblance to the artist itself, I like the randomness of the excercise.
Found Poem (Taken from a Legal Brief...names have been changed)
"Settlement Brief Page One"
Superior Court of the State of
California, County of San Diego, Central
Judicial District
Janice Fry
an individual
& William Fry
an individual
Plaintiff
v.
Los Cochinitos Restaurant,
and
Julio Gonzalez
et. al.
Case no. Not yet filed
plaintiffs settlement rief
Date of Accident: 11-01-03
-----
I took this from My dad's Law Office but obviously had to change the names but the point is the same.
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I don't know why I like this poem, but I really, Really do. It's a perfect example of a ready made. You don't change or abstract it, but the shift in perspective is very dramatic. I might delete the first paragraph just to get to the point quicker. Maybe this was not the intention but transfering the breif into a poem reminded me of the gravity of two people going to court.
ReplyDeleteTommy, I also liked your poem. However, I kind of liked the tone the first paragraph gives the piece and would suggest you keep it. It makes the matter seem very official, which is sort of comical once you see that the case is between two individuals and a restaurant - which suggests that the case is a lot less interesting (and important) than the introduction implies. This makes the poem seem almost satirical. I also liked how you included the date of the accident. The event happened six years ago and they are still fighting over it? Over-analytical minds like mine could find a commentary about our legal system in this piece.
ReplyDeleteThe problem that you have with readymades, Tommy (regarding the importance of there being some evidence of the artist making decisions in the act of composition), is a problem that comes up often with respect to appropriation of various sorts. It's a problem, in part, of agency: it's hard sometimes to accept that an artist can surrender his or her agency and have that, in its own way, count as a form of agency.
ReplyDeleteI do like your poem! Like Kayla points out, it can't help but appear satirical. Some points to consider: if it is satirical, what is being satirized and how? How does simply breaking something into lines of verse turn it into satire?