Together with two good friends of great artistic repute, the Photocopier has embarked on a new, ongoing project called Sleeplife. Quite what Sleeplife means is anybody’s guess. But the Photocopier and his friends agree on one point: Sleeplife is pretty much all we have left.
Given the subject of sleep has been misunderstood, abused or harnessed into many things over the years that have nothing to do with it – or employed as the courtier to our rampantly egotistical and psychotically-squeezed waking state – it’s maybe time to add to that confusion.
We are all agreed on that.
The first seeds of confusion – and eventual absolution – were sown in a gloomy December week in Brussels, a city with many lives and psychic arteries. Manifestos, explanations, actions, reflections and other artistic or socio-cultural bricolage will all be photocopied and added here; as is my wont.
These posts will show the Photocopier’s modest contribution. The work of Charlien Adriaenssens and Larissa Monteiro are “deep linked”, daddy-oh. They may, or may not post about Sleeplife. Who can tell?
A photograph of a line of photocopies imposed on a wall in Brussels Schaerbeek. The photocopies were first stitched together and then sellotaped strategically to the wall (which displayed a treatise on the politics of sex; the remnant of the previous exhibition). Here we see photocopies employed as imps of legend, there to obfuscate, upturn or confuse. No answer need be given. Image sources are: a bastard marriage of the Sphynx and a Czech communist-era toy, and Soviet children sleeping. Part of the opening – and ending – of the inaugural Sleeplife residency (KAK Brussels, December 8-12, 2019, CE). This was taken during the show.
A photograph of a photocopy imposed on a wall in Brussels Schaerbeek. The photocopies were first stitched together and then sellotaped strategically to the wall (which displayed a treatise on the politics of sex; the remnant of the previous exhibition). Here we see photocopies employed as imps of legend, there to obfuscate, upturn or confuse. No answer need be given. Image sources, Polish film posters, and an pencil illustration from a book about the Black Death. Part of the opening – and ending – of the inaugural Sleeplife residency (KAK Brussels, December 8-12, 2019, CE). The Photocopier can’t be arsed turning this image the right way round.
A photograph of a line of photocopies imposed on a wall in Brussels Schaerbeek. The photocopies were first stitched together and then sellotaped strategically to the wall (which displayed a treatise on the politics of sex; the remnant of the previous exhibition). Here we see photocopies employed as imps of legend, there to obfuscate, upturn or confuse. No answer need be given. Image sources are solely the Photocopier’s imagination. Part of the opening – and ending – of the inaugural Sleeplife residency (KAK Brussels, December 8-12, 2019, CE). This was taken during the show. Here the marriage of serious texts and nonsensical drawings, plus the dramatic ground light makes the Photocopier laugh.
This post is the second in a series that was originally to be called a ‘Study in Scarlet’. Both titles are appropriate given where Albion finds herself in late October, 2019. Balm is given by way of some old comics that somehow passed down to the Curator by way of his father. Plus some altered photographs of West Yorkshire and pictorial catharsis.
“………………………………….It seems a humiliation
to let you go to your ships with our treasures
unfought—now you have come thus far
into our country. You must not get our gold
so softly. Points and edges must reconcile us first,
a grim war-playing, before we give you any tribute.”
A photograph of a photocopy of a children’s comic printed during the first Christmas of the Great War. The comic was the possession of the Curator’s father. If only all wars could be so simple. A salutary reminder too, that what happens in real life never gets into the press. The Curator draws a line at commenting on international negotiations.
A photograph of a photocopy on red A3 paper of a photograph of some fine arts students discussing a sculpture at St Martin’s in 1992. In an act of desperation, the Curator applied for the Art History Masters course. He never heard back from them.
A photograph of a photocopy of a children’s comic printed during the first weeks of the Great War. The comic was the possession of the Curator’s father. If only all wars could be so simple. The Curator draws a line at commenting on international negotiations.
This post is the first in a series that was originally to be called a ‘Study in Scarlet’. Both titles are appropriate given where Albion finds herself this 20th day of October, 2019. Balm is given by way of some altered photographs of East Yorkshire and East Lancashire letter nonsense.
In a curveball that maybe typifies this topsy-turvy time, the featured image has very little to do with Albion at all. Its origins are Estonian, but its provenance is unknown.
A photograph of a photocopy on red A3 paper of a photocopy hanging on a wall (during an exhibition about England), of a photograph of a collection of roof slates in Rising Bridge, East Lancashire. The Curator took this in 1999 whilst walking with friends. The day was a wet one.
A photograph of a photocopy on red A3 paper of an amalgamation of receipts (one for a cow costume on the Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne), business cards, press clippings and a pen and ink drawing by the Curator. The Curator’s life in the 1990s – and for small periods in the early 2000s was barren. He needed to pass the time somehow. If that meant a sojourn in Belgium, so be it.
A photograph of a photocopy on red A3 paper of a superimposed photocopy of a photograph of a briar hedge near Bridlington, East Yorkshire . The Curator travelled a lot in a company car in 1998. Clandestine activities such as photographing hedges was his release.
The 1970s and 1980s were the era where I began to watch football matches in Lancashire and the North East. Initially accompanied by an adult (a pal’s dad, my dad or my granda) during the mid-to-late 1970s, I attended my first games on my own around 1984, with my first serious away trip being spring 1987 to watch Newcastle United play Manchester City at Maine Road (0-0 if you must know). Football has always kindled a creative spark for me. I remember very little about the actual games from the 1970s but can vividly remember the atmosphere of pent up rage, hard-bitten humour and machismo. And the “Fauvist”, almost giddily bright splash of green of the pitch. This somehow opened up a feeling I could only express through drawing.
During the same time (1977-1983), I was engaged in painting the armies of the C18th Austro-Hungarian Empire in full; specifically that which had fought during the later Wars of the Spanish Succession (covering 1740s-1760s). Somehow that dovetailed with obsessively drawing footballers from the 1920s and 1930s. Football history was a subject that, back then, was often ridiculed by my increasingly “casually-clothed” peers.
During 2011-12, I returned to examine this thematic link, discovering that there may be more in it than my pre-adolescent whims let on. These are sketches from a day long “draw-in”(accompanied by a crate of ale, which was polished off day-tripper charabanc style, with the aid of a cheese sandwich). The uniforms are those from all combatant armies of The Great War.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of two North West casual gangs (the curator can’t remember which crew, or team). The freehand drawing (in byro) is taken from the excellent Blandford title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. The acrylic paint was accidentally added during the making of a mural of British football hooliganism in Enschede, where the photocopy served as a visual note. With additional text from Anthony Burgess’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1962). The soldier is Russian Lieutenant General (GS) Baron Frederick von den Brincken, Chief of Staff Guards and St Petersburg Military District, 1915.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph. Here, police monitor what looks like a crew from the very late 1980s. The freehand drawing (in felt liner tip) is taken from the excellent Blandford title, “Army Uniforms of World War 1”. With additional text from a tispy curator. The soldier is Russian Life Guardsman of the Ismailovski Regiment in walking-out dress, 1915.
A photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of what, without doubt, is an image from the mid 1980s, capturing the (bizarre) trend for deerstalker hats amongst North West casual gangs. The curator thinks this lot could be Tranmere FC. Deerstalkers were lampooned in Liverpool FC’s widely read fanzine The End, but – as usual with any message laced with any form of irony – taken seriously by those it sought to lampoon. The soldier images (in felt liner tip) are those of a Serbian soldier and staff officer, dating from 1916 possibly from the Salonika campaign. The third image (in pencil) is French; the helmet badge for the engineers, to be found on the front of the 1916 Adrian pattern helmet. The doggerel text from the curator has no provenance, though music fans of a certain age may recognise the title of a Smiths song, from the ‘Meat is Murder’ album (1985).
Sometimes I think my life, especially that part of my life I have spent living in the Netherlands is akin to being stuck in a bubble. Or sitting in a greenhouse floating through an endless void. Of course, both situations have their advantages.
The curator found this photocopy in his coat pocket after a night out in Blackburn, Lancashire. Mid 1990s. Given its unknown provenance this slip of paper must be a contender for the most forlorn wish never granted.
Photocopy of a fairly perfunctory pencil sketch of a photograph of a woman sitting on a designer couch. Image taken from a glossy magazine. Imagine if this image was the sole remnant of how we lived in the 2000’s. The silent, unseeing mystery pointing towards the void, akin to looking at a painted sarcophagus.
Photograph of a sketch in byro and felt tip and pencil. The subjects of the drawing are diverse. One is from an advert promoting one of the many devices of the “Nokia Years” (aka early internet, pre-smartphone era) where modern people needed a whole array of digital aides to go about their business. The other is from a photocopy of a famous photograph of three girls crossing a road in Amsterdam in 1970. The (almost brazen) sense of nothingness of this image whispers something to me about the Netherlands. I’m not sure what.
Life seems to be led in a bubble of our own current fancies. This is true in the Netherlands, where I live, where my longstanding obsession with images of the descent from the cross and the last judgment are often put politely to one side.
Over the summer, I decided to throw out all my old papers and photocopies and paintings. My friends Paul and Dan rearranged them for me and added their own mark. The resulting works were shown – and remained – in Rotterdam.
The three new works somehow managed to have an air of the Baroque, and Northern Renaissance images I have long admired. Details of two are shown here in black and white. I wonder what’s going to happen when giving answers to everything stops being a going concern.
Photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of a detail of a work from the exhibition, “Hold on to the Paper”, Rotterdam, June 2017. The image (suitably apocalyptic and recreated by the curator’s friend Paul) shows old drawings and scraps and photocopies from the curator’s collection. Pleasingly, this image in particular looks like the plate from an old book on art history.
Photograph of a photocopy of a photograph of a detail of a work from the exhibition, “Hold on to the Paper”, Rotterdam, June 2017. The image (suitably apocalyptic and recreated by the curator’s friend Paul) shows old drawings and scraps and photocopies from the curator’s collection. The curator found he had an inordinate amount of petcare mail order catalogues from the 1990s in his collection.
Photograph of a photocopy of a dip pen and ink drawing showing an East African soldier from the First World War, an Askari, holding a modern tablet. Drawn in 2013 or thereabouts, the curator thinks this drawing symptomatic of his Leiden bubble.
There is a peculiar shade of blue that pervades certain parts of Accrington. Not always seen, it can nevertheless be sensed as a strong visual memory over long periods of time and sometimes in other places, far removed from this former manufacturing town in East Lancashire. The blue can be put to various uses. In modern parlance, it is a “positive” force. And the curator invoked it to solve, or put to bed a number long-standing obsessions that seemed only to muddy the waters during the indeterminate early 2000s.
Photograph of a colour photocopy of a drawing using dip pen and ink and coloured ink wash. Richard the Photocopier drew a number of these preparatory, private sketches in the early 2000s, in a bid to rid himself of Slav, Teutonic and Finno-Ugric folkloric images that had pursued him – to very little purpose – from a very early age.
Photograph of a colour photocopy of a collage comprising two drawings, using mixed media. The images were inspired by a book on ethnic Hungarian costume found in the Museum of Ethnography (Néprajzi Múzeum), Budapest 2003.
Photograph of a damaged colour photocopy of a black and white drawing using dip pen and ink of various ethnic Hungarian folk costumes. Date, 2004. Coloured ink was applied to the photocopy by the curator immediately prior to photographing it.
A reminder that life can be flippant. O, cleanse my flippant soul. By the powers that be, o, stop me from thinking everything can be a joke.
A photograph of a negative of a photograph taken by the curator of a friend, in a pub car park on the Whalley Road. At his feet, a papier-mâché badger. The curator had made the badger as a wedding present for another friend. Taken shortly before a journey to Bedford to present the badger. And shortly after eviction from the pub.
Photograph of a photocopy of a pen and ink sketch by the curator of two Soviet Cadets. Drawn around 2005. From the book, ‘Russia from the Inside’, by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser.
Everyday, we feel the weight of the presence of the New Age of the Witchfinder Generals. Blinding everything with a cruel light. Projecting a grey film just behind our retinas. Photocopy and use these images as charms against their powers.
A photograph of a colour photocopy of a collage made in 2003. The figures are sketched in dip pen and ink and depict a vote being cast in the USSR. From the book “Russia From The Inside”, by Robert Kaiser and Hannah Jopling Kaiser.
A photograph of a colour photocopy of a collage, inserted into the press release of Ceramic Hobs’s LP, Oz Alice. The curator found this image increasingly interesting in the light of our ever-present digital lives.
We switch on our devices and see the New Age of the Witchfinder Generals. Perched on their glass thrones. Photocopy and use these images as charms against their powers.
Photocopy of a photograph of a performance in the SUB071, Leiden, sometime in 2007. A reminder of Little Gwion dipping his thumb into the digital cauldron.
A photograph of a photocopy of a pencil sketch of Ainu women from the book, “Life and Survival in the Arctic”. To be used as a charm against Witchfinder Generals.
