[x] Joseph F. Keppler, Fri Nov 12, 7pm: Current (strained) relations between art and criticism

[Jim Andrews]

Seattle's Joe Keppler is a poet, sculptor, photographer, audio guy, and
critic. I met Joe in 1987 and produced a couple of radio shows about his
poetry and his magazine Poets.Painters.Composers. (one of which is at
http://vispo.com/audio ). He was and is seriously engaged in multiple arts
and media (sometimes in the same work), a polyartist, and was and is an
intellectually voracious thinker and critic about art and politics. Joe's
work and his exciting engagement with critical thought continue to be an
inspiration to me and many people in Seattle and the northwest. I hope
you'll join us at my place Friday Oct 12 at 7pm for a presentation by Joe to
the group of x and discussion with him.

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PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION
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Comparing words, images, ideas, and things with one another, Joseph F.
Keppler is presenting a conversation on Friday evening October 12th about
The Mallarmé Project, his text-and-visual essay (
http://eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/pdfs/Mallarme_Project.pdf ), which
examines a yearlong series of art exhibits and critical reviews in Seattle.
He is also showing a few images of recent sculptural work and bringing
several small "pocket" sculptures for the discussion. Images of four
sculptures from him are at http://vispo.com/guests/keppler/4sculptures.pdf .

Keppler intends to argue that contemporary art and criticism no longer
cohere; yet both are believed in with minimal attachment. He calls for a new
thinking about art, one that starts by drawing the trivium of grammar,
logic, and rhetoric into contemporary texts and art. Since the Renaissance
the trivium has gradually become a classical pedagogy to cure what ails
modern education, but it has profound applications for aesthetics and
politics. To ask, for example, what are the grammar, logic, and rhetoric of
a sculpture by Serra or Kapoor, or of a visual poem by Finlay or Nichol or
Andrews, or of common films or videos or news reports is, he feels, to begin
to apply thinking about the trivium to the critiquing and making of art; and
by doing so initiate a future for contemporary moves in politics. Using his
sculptures and his essay's verbal and visual contents, he addresses how
aesthetics and politics can and must change.

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BIO
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These Latin words, curriculum vitae, translate into English as course of
life, and a plural life has been my course ever since my mother and father
conceived me. My parents still are within me as are the intense fear and
love I experienced in my childhood and the tragedy and blessing of my early
education in the schools and streets of North Philadelphia. There seems no
singular agent in the course of my life, but as it were a collection of
people and spirits, acts and events that form this artist.

Although early in life I excelled at mathematics, at Temple University I
remember wondering about the purpose of my learning and wanting to study
liberal arts especially continental philosophy and being told by a
remarkable professor, who wrote on Structuralism, that the philosophy
department at Temple and most North American universities did not offer much
philosophy besides the sequelae of logical positivism and I should study
world literature and art instead. His advice I take even now and hungrily
study contemporary thinkers and artists.

To be a conscientious artist in American society I live quietly, thinking
and practicing art so as for art to be alive within me and yet to provide
for my wife, Jane, and our four children. With no regrets I make art and
also a living, the latter at a complicated, computer-oriented occupation
like many of my contemporaries.

My major work is sculpture, and our house and garden are punctuated with my
steel work. Before currently exhibiting sculptures at the SAM Gallery, my
favorite shows have been a two-person, Autumn 2011 exhibition at the
Rock/DeMent gallery in Pioneer Square and a Fall 2007 solo show at Form
Space Light Gallery in Fremont, for which I wrote a catalog essay entitled
Looking, Thinking, Reading, Writing, and Doing. My exhibition history as a
sculptor also includes smaller shows throughout Seattle and Portland and
several exhibitions dedicated to my deceased younger brother, Robert, and
his influence on me and our work together. Deep emotions resurge whenever I
think of him and our collaborations so fatefully cutoff by his accidental
drowning.

Drawing and painting are crucial to my sculpture and nourish my thoughts and
vision. I draw daily. Even now while going over this CV on a train ride
across the continent from Seattle to Montreal I draw the passing scenes to
study how differently landscape is perceived from a moving rather than a
stationary perspective. [The landscape seems to be the audience and the
train the film.] Correspondance (a sketchbook), a 2009 book of drawings
about other artists drawn solely using my laptop's word-processing software
can be viewed at: http://eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/pdfs/Correspondance.pdf

Writing is also something I do everyday. My history as a writer includes
years as a book reviewer for the Seattle Times, an audiobook reviewer for
the American Library Association, and a free lance critic for small art and
literary publications. My best poetry book is All the While a Child Counting
on Counting the Moon in Flight, published by nine muses books in 2003.
Currently I am a contributing editor for Eratio, an internet arts journal in
NYC. In the 2012 issue is my Mallarmé Project, an examination of a yearlong
series of art exhibits and writing projects prompted by Stéphane Mallarmé's
A Throw of the Dice and viewable at
http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/pdfs/Mallarme_Project.pdf .

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LINKS
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Mallarmé Project:
http://eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/pdfs/Mallarme_Project.pdf
Radio Profile: Border Crossing: http://vispo.com/audio
Four Sculptures: http://vispo.com/guests/keppler/4sculptures.pdf
Correspondence: http://eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/pdfs/Correspondance.pdf
Visual poems: http://vispo.com/guests/keppler
>From 'The Longest Days': http://speakeasy.org/~subtext/poetry/keppler

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LOCATION
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This event is at my place: #1502, 811 Helmcken street. I'm in The Imperial
Tower (!) at the corner of Howe and Helmcken. Buzz 247 to get in. If you are
coming by car, there is underground parking. If you are coming from
Granville street along Helmcken, you turn right into the alley between Howe
and Hornby. And go right at the first opportunity down into the basement.
Buzz 247 to get in. And then buzz 247 again when you are by the elevator to
get up to the 15th floor.

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UPCOMING X EVENTS
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Joseph F. Keppler, Fri Oct 12, 7pm, #1502, 811 Helmcken St
Ben Bogart, Fri Oct 26 7pm, 149 W Hastings rm 3420
Miles Thorogood, Fri Nov 30 7pm, 149 W Hastings rm 3420
Artur Matuck, Fri Jan 11, 7pm, #1502, 811 Helmcken St