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

[Fred Wah]

Jim,
Sorry to be missing all these wonderful events you're setting up; I hope things settle down soon. Planning to get to yrs and Lionel's gig.
Just a note on the date for Joe Keppler, you've got November 12 in the subject line.
Fred


On 2012-10-12, at 8:18 AM, Jim Andrews <jim at vispo.com> wrote:

> 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.
> 
> *******************************
> PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION
> *******************************
> 
> 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.
> 
> ****
> BIO
> ****
> 
> 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 .
> 
> *******
> LINKS
> *******
> 
> 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
> 
> ************
> LOCATION
> ************
> 
> 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.
> 
> ***********************
> UPCOMING X EVENTS
> ***********************
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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