Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

A THOUSAND WORDS - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's blog on pictures, plants, politics and whatever else is on his mind.

Los Restos de Art Nuko en su Próxima Necrópolis

Saturday, June 30, 2018

Linda Lorenzo y proyeccíón de La Recoleta

En México un cementerio es un panteón. En mi Buenos Aires es un cementerio y para mí prefiero la interesante necrópolis.

panteón

Del lat. Panthĕon, templo dedicado en Roma antigua a todos los dioses, y este del gr. Πάνθειον Pántheion.

1. m. Monumento funerario destinado a enterramiento de varias personas.

2. m. Conjunto de las divinidades de una religión o de un pueblo. El panteón griego.

3. m. And. y Am. cementerio (‖ terreno destinado a enterrar cadáveres).

Tengo un amigo, Carl Chaplin (con el apodo de Art Nuko) que vive en el interior de la Provincia de British Columbia que está cotemplando su muerte. Hace años creía en una conflagración atómica y dibujaba hermosas postales que ilustrsban una importante metrópolis sufriendo un hongo atómico. Ver aquí.

Ilustración - Carl Chaplin

Nos decía que iba a mudarse al norte de la provincia para construir un sótano de cemento armado donde pensaba sobrevir la casi segura catástrofe. Esto no sucedió. Ahora está pensando en un lugar para sus restos y su arte. A sus amigos mandó esta comunicación:

Hi All,

I am approaching old age rapidly and would like to make plans for my last days here on Earth.

Although I plan on outliving Trump, Putin, Netanyahoo (and most of you) I fear that I am about to lose my audience.

Therefore
I have now started the planning process for Art Nuko's final resting place.

The idea up to this point has been to bury Nuko's concrete crypt somewhere in remote BC. The object being to preserve the paintings for any future anthropologists to find if they wanted to know why there wasn't anyone around to greet them.

This plan has now evolved because recent scientific revelations about what is happening to our planet and what has happened in the past.

In the briefest of outlines:

Location =

Must be above 250 feet elevation (sea level might rise 200 feet due to Global warming)

Must be far below the southern boundary of the last ice age. (We might be triggering the next one now)

Must be far away from any nuclear target (including all cities)

Must be on hard bedrock

Crypt =

Will be made of the hardest granite by Rock of Ages in the states.

The dimensions will be those of the so-called King's sarcophagus in the center of the Great Pyramid.

A solid granite cover will seal the box.

What's most important is what will be engraved upon that cover.

The massage/image will include features of

Carl Sagan's Pioneer plaque
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

and
The Arecibo Message
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message

...with the addition of the Periodic Chart highlighting Uranium and Plutonium.

It will also include the ancient Egyptian ubiquitous tomb image of the Gods presiding over the judgment of our soles as it is depicted in the Nuko painting "Spending Eternity in Egypt".

I'll leave the last word to you...

____
Carl

Para mí, habiendo vivido en México por muchos años, la idea de la muerte no es algo que temo. Cuando mi Rosemary me pide que le abra una lata o jarro le digo, "Haslo vos y imagináte que estoy muerto." La muerte vive conmigo en el día y en la noche.

Cuando visito mi Buenos Aires natal siempre voy a La Recoleta. En las dos poesías a continuación Borges escribe de ella con especial fervor. La última visita con mi Rosemary y mi nieta Lauren nos llevó a seguir los gatos. La foto que ilustra esta bitácora es de la hermosa argentina Linda Lorenzo que nos posó (con los artistas argentinos Juan Manuel Sánchez y Nora Patrich ) con projección de fotos de La Recoleta.

Vía Crucis en la Recoleta
La Recoleta I
La Recoleta II
La Recoleta III
La Recoleta IV
La Recoleta V
La Recoleta VI
La Recoleta & Emily Dickinson

La recoleta - Jorge Luís Borges

Convencidos de caducidad

por tantas nobles certidumbres del polvo,

nos demoramos y bajamos la voz

entre las lentas filas de panteones,

cuya retórica de sombra y de mármol

promete o prefigura la deseable

dignidad de haber muerto.

Bellos son los sepulcros,

el desnudo latín y las trabadas fechas fatales,

la conjunción del mármol y de la flor

y las plazuelas con frescura de patio

y los muchos ayeres de a historia

hoy detenida y única.

Equivocamos esa paz con la muerte

y creemos anhelar nuestro fin

y anhelamos el sueño y la indiferencia.

Vibrante en las espadas y en la pasión

y dormida en la hiedra,

sólo la vida existe.

El espacio y el tiempo son normas suyas,

son instrumentos mágicos del alma,

y cuando ésta se apague,

se apagarán con ella el espacio, el tiempo y la muerte,

como al cesar la luz

caduca el simulacro de los espejos

que ya la tarde fue apagando.

Sombra benigna de los árboles,

viento con pájaros que sobre las ramas ondea,

alma que se dispersa entre otras almas,

fuera un milagro que alguna vez dejaran de ser,

milagro incomprensible,

aunque su imaginaria repetición

infame con horror nuestros días.

Estas cosas pensé en la Recoleta,

en el lugar de mi ceniza.

Elogio de la sombra- Jorge Luís Borges

La vejez (tal es el nombre que los otros le dan)

puede ser el tiempo de nuestra dicha.

El animal ha muerto o casi ha muerto.

Quedan el hombre y su alma.

Vivo entre formas luminosas y vagas

que no son aún la tiniebla.

Buenos Aires,

que antes se desgarraba en arrabales

hacia la llanura incesante,

ha vuelto a ser la Recoleta, el Retiro,

las borrosas calles del Once

y las precarias casas viejas

que aún llamamos el Sur.

Siempre en mi vida fueron demasiadas las cosas;

Demócrito de Abdera se arrancó los ojos para pensar;

el tiempo ha sido mi Demócrito.

Esta penumbra es lenta y no duele;

fluye por un manso declive

y se parece a la eternidad.

Mis amigos no tienen cara,

las mujeres son lo que fueron hace ya tantos años,

las esquinas pueden ser otras,

no hay letras en las páginas de los libros.

Todo esto debería atemorizarme,

pero es una dulzura, un regreso.

De las generaciones de los textos que hay en la tierra

sólo habré leído unos pocos,

los que sigo leyendo en la memoria,

leyendo y transformando.

Del Sur, del Este, del Oeste, del Norte,

convergen los caminos que me han traído

a mi secreto centro.

Esos caminos fueron ecos y pasos,

mujeres, hombres, agonías, resurrecciones,

días y noches,

entresueños y sueños,

cada ínfimo instante del ayer

y de los ayeres del mundo,

la firme espada del danés y la luna del persa,

los actos de los muertos,

el compartido amor, las palabras,

Emerson y la nieve y tantas cosas.

Ahora puedo olvidarlas. Llego a mi centro,

a mi álgebra y mi clave,

a mi espejo.

Pronto sabré quién soy.

Link to: Los Restos de Art Nuko en su Próxima Necrópolis

Rhea darwinii - Not

Friday, June 29, 2018

During our (Nora Patrich, Juan Manuel Sanchez & me and ably assisted by our subject Linda Lorenzo) pursuit of Argentine nostalgia I found that Patrich had objects that met up with any obscure nostalgia I had on my place of birth.

One of them was seeing South American rheas (related to Australian ostriches) swiftly run across the Pampa from my vantage point on a horse. I would then urge my horse to gallop in their direction. I never really got that close.

In estancia (Argentine for ranch) asados (barbecues) well aged meet was offered to guests while the workers of the estancia at very tough freshly slaughtered beef. For dessert we had luscious cakes but again those workers ate cakes made from the eggs of the avestruz (as rheas are called in Argentina). The taste was strong as was the smell. Argentines call the stench of a sweaty horse or that of a rhea’s egg catinga.

We had a hollowed out rhea’s egg at home that did not survive our move from Buenos Aires to Mexico City. Nora did not have that problem. She had the egg which resulted in many photographs in which I used fine grain slow and very fast Ilford film. A few of the pictures here I took with Kodak Black&White Infrared Film.

I found this interesting account on Darwin's observations on the Argentine avestruz here. It saved me the painful effort of copying it from my own personal copy of Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle.

Struthio Rhea

I will now give an account of … the Struthio Rhea, or South American ostrich. This bird is well known to abound over the plains of Northern Patagonia, and the united provinces of La Plata. It has not crossed the Cordillera; but I have seen it within the first range of mountains on the Uspallata plain…. The ordinary habits of the ostrich are familiar to everyone. They feed on vegetable matter; such as roots and grass; but at Bahia Blanca, I have repeatedly seen three or four come down at low water to the extensive mud-banks which are then dry, for the sake, as the Gauchos say, of catching small fish. Although the ostrich in its habits is so shy, wary, and solitary, and although so fleet in its pace, it falls a prey, without much difficulty, to the Indian or Gaucho armed with the bolas. When several horsemen appear in a semicircle, it becomes confounded, and does not know which way to escape. They generally prefer running against the wind; yet at the first start they expand their wings, and like a vessel make all sail. On one fine hot day I saw several ostriches enter a bed of tall rushes, where they squatted concealed, till quite closely approached. It is not generally known that ostriches readily take to the water. Mr. King informs me that at the Bay of San Blas, and at Port Valdes in Patagonia, he saw these birds swimming several times from island to island. …When swimming, very little of their bodies appear above water, and their necks are extended a little forward: their progress is slow. On two occasions, I saw some ostriches swimming.

Charles Darwin – The Voyage of the Beagle

The following passage is thought by some Darwin scholars to reflect one of Darwin’s most significant “aha” moments, leading to his understanding of evolutionary processes. The bird described here is known as the Avestruz Petise, and was named by the ornithologist Gould as Rhea darwinii. However,since the bird was earlier named (based on reports, not specimens) Pterocnemia pennata (the Lesser rhea), Darwin’s name does not survive today in the annals of taxonomy.

Read the passage then I’ll note its presumed significance.

…I repeatedly heard the Gauchos talking of a very rare bird which they called Avestruz Petise. They described it as being less than the common ostrich (which is there abundant), but with a very close general resemblance. … The few inhabitants who had seen both kinds, affirmed they could distinguish them apart from a long distance. … This species occurs most rarely on the plains bordering the Rio Negro; but about a degree and a half further south they are tolerably abundant. …They are said to prefer the plains near the sea. When at Port Desire, in Patagonia (lat. 48°), Mr. Martens shot an ostrich; and I looked at it, forgetting at the moment, in the most unaccountable manner, the whole subject of the Petises, and thought it was a two-third grown one of the common sort. The bird was cooked and eaten before my memory returned. Fortunately the head, neck, legs, wings, many of the larger feathers, and a large part of the skin, had been preserved. From these a very nearly perfect specimen has been put together, and is now exhibited in the museum of the Zoological Society. Mr. Gould, who in describing this new species did me the honour of calling it after my name, states, that besides the smaller size and different colour of the plumage, the beak is of considerably less proportional dimensions than in the common Rhea …

In my Buenos Aires youth my mother dusted the house with a plumero which was made from avestruz feathers. I believe that if the Hoover had not been invented these majestic birds would be extinct.

Link to: Rhea darwinii - Not

Y si Dios fuera mujer - What if God Were a Woman

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Linda Lorenzo - Photograph - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

These days I am printing up with my Canon Pro-1 Inkjet Printer my show which I will share with Argentine artist Nora Patrich at the nicely named Galería Vermeer in Buenos Aires. The "muestra" will open mid September. Because the galler's space is not big I must choose carefully. I have opted to have as much of an Argentine/Buenos Aires presence in the content of my photographs. I could easily just place photographs of the sensationally beautiful Argentine Linda Lorenzo. But that would simply be a repetition of a show called Nostalgia that Nora Patrich, Juan Manuel Sánchez and I had in Vancouver in 2001 at a South Granville gallery. So I have limited my Lorenzo output to four. But then I look at this photograph (and there are many, many more) and I feel frustrated, limited and vexed.

In this age of in-your-face pornography I revel at looking at my photographs of Lorenzo and feeling a bout of a subjective Argentine opinion (mine) that Argentine women are the most beautiful and erotic of all.

In a different age that was the 20th century my mother, who had a slim body, wore a girdle when she rode the Argentine buses called colectivos. This was her defense from avid Argentine pinchers. In the 60s I noticed that Argentine men, in colectivos were gentlemen only in the summer. Why? They would cede their seas to skimpily-dressed women so they could look down on their cleavage.

Now in this century, and at my age of 75, I must keep these thoughts to myself or perhaps take the chance that I may not offend all with them. Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti (14 September 1920 – 17 May 2009), whose complete name was Mario Orlando Hardy Hamlet Breen Benedetti Farrugia, had a special knack for writing erotic poems. There is another Uruguayan with that knack. He is Eduardo Galeano.

Nostalgia for your skin - Benedetti

Here in Canada in this century I am enjoying reading the poems by our very Canadian Susan Musgrave who gives Benedetti a run for his Uruguayan Pesos. As a sample to well illustrate Linda Lorenzo wearing a gaucho pant called a bombacha, a gaucho belt called a rastra and holding my facón ( a gaucho knife). Below both in Spanish and in English ( a rare translation as Benedetti is not as well known in these parts as other Latin American writers is his poem) is his Y si dios fuera mujer (What if God Were a Woman)

Y si Dios Fuera Mujer – Mario Benedetti

¿Y si Dios fuera mujer?

Pregunta Juan sin inmutarse.

Vaya vaya, si Dios fuera mujer

Es posible que agnósticos y ateos

No dijéramos no con la cabeza

Y dijéramos sí con las entrañas.

Tal vez nos acercáramos a su divina desnudez

Para besar sus pies no de bronce

Su pubis no de piedra

Sus pechos no de mármol

Sus labios no de yeso.