10 Diary Entries [2010-12]

Simon Granell

This work is an exploration into a personal use of spoken language though a predefined process intended to mirror that of my painting practice. A similar process of self-imposed limitation is applied with the aim of suggesting both an autobiographical residue of my own thinking, and open up a potential dialogue for the reader. A series of ten quotations taken from a painting diary are paired with words and punctuation from a series of books that I own. This process has been repeated until all ten quotations have been paired, one word and punctuation mark at a time, creating lists of footnotes, the suggestion being that language has been acquired in this manner. The relationship between word and associated footnote becomes the source of play, frustration or familiarity. The intention is to demonstrate that this deterministic process far from being reductive in its effect, has resulted in the words being read either as part of a whole or reintegrated and reoriented into something new through a process of appropriation rather that engenderment. The hope is that this procedural limitation can act as a trigger for the reader to resequence and reconfigure the references through association and connection that might say something about them in terms of age, taste and perhaps even prejudice. While painting is the subject of the quotations, the implication is that this is constructed by material from another source. This has a distancing effect, which I hope has drawn some parallels with the process of making a painting itself. The footnotes have become detached for the quotations and are free to be re-cited, and act less to affirm or underline and more of leave a trace.

¹ Kawabata, Y., 1980. House of the sleeping beauties. London: Kodansha Europe Ltd, p.107

² Riemschneider, B., & Grosenick, U., 2001. Art Now. Köln: Taschen, p.48

³ Muller, J-E., 1976. Velazquez. London: Thames & Hudson, p.189

⁴ Adler, D., 2009. Hanne Darboven: Cultural History 1880-1983. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, p.103

⁵ Hudson, S., 2009. Robert Ryman: Used Paint. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: MIT Press, p.131

⁶ Elkins, J., 2000. What painting is. New York & London: Routledge, p.3

⁷ Twigger, R., 1997. Angry white pyjamas. London: Indigo, p.47

⁸ Fer, B., 2004. The Infinite Line: re-making art after modernism. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, p.67

⁹ Deleuze, G., 1990. Negotiations 1970 - 1990. New York: Columbia University Press, p.92

¹⁰ Patrick, K., 2009. Antoni Tàpies: a personal memoir. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p.100

¹¹ Bourdieu, P., 1993. The field of cultural production. Cambridge: Polity Press, p.43

¹² Haddon, M., 2004. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. London: Vintage Books, p.55

¹³ Rubin, J., 2005. Haruki Murakami and the music of words. London: Vintage, p.223

¹⁴ Plath, S., 1967. The Colossus. London: Faber & Faber, p.1

¹⁵ Pallasmaa, J., 2005. The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, p.4

¹⁶ Alberro, A., 2001. Recording Conceptual Art. Berkeley & London: University of California Press Ltd, p.4

¹⁷ Thornton, S., 2008. Seven days in the Art World. London: Granta Publications, p.6

¹⁸ Kawabata, Y., 1993. The Izu Dancer and other stories. Translated by Seidensticker, E., 1963. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc, p.116

¹⁹ Murakami, H., 1993. The Elephant Vanishes. London: Vintage, p.87

²⁰ Heaney, S. and Hughes, T. eds., 1982. The Rattle Bag. London: Faber & Faber, p.131

²¹ Camus, A., 2005. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated from French by O’Brien, J., London: Penguin Books, p.1

²² Federico, F.G., 1981. La casa de Bernada Alba. 7th ed. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, p.80

²³ Murakami, H., 2003. Norwegian Wood. London: Vintage, p.50

²⁴ Malraux, A., 1978. The Voices of Silence: Man and his Art. Princetown, N. J: Princeton University Press, p.13

²⁵ Krauss, R. E., 1999. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths. Cambridge, Massachussets & London: The MIT Press, p.10

²⁶ Sartre, J-P., 2003. Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge Classics, p.260

²⁷ Tzu, L., Tao te ching. Translated by Lau, D.C., & Su- hui, C., 1963. London: Penguin Books, p.59

²⁸ Camus, A., 1983. The Outsider. Translated from French by Laredo, J., London: Penguin Books, p.31

²⁹ Camus, A., 2001. The Plague. Translated from French by Buss, R., London: Penguin Books, p.8

“The¹paintings²are³deliberately⁴blank⁵so⁶that⁷they⁸reflect⁹as¹⁰much¹¹as¹²possible¹³.¹⁴If¹⁵they¹⁶were¹⁷about¹⁸this¹⁹and²⁰that²¹,²²then²³they²⁴would²⁵ exclude²⁶the²⁷other²⁸.²⁹”

02 07 2010

Tip

Tip