1: In Tentative Intrigue with John Isaacs
You’re kind of like a disease, John,
And,
I'd like to see your meat rot, John.
And your books (not your neons),
And your well-made website, John.
I was recumbent with my ex lover, John.
We were looking at your messed up corpse- maybe
More than mangled flesh, John,
We were looking at your World View.
A view that I know to be a little bit freudian,
Concerningly associated with Adam Smith.
I think it’d rivet you, John,
If you knew the Adam Smith that I know.
It’s a veritable pit of shit, John.
It meant as much to me,
As a saved for later entry on abebooks does,
As a tattoo scratch that cannot go away,
Ever, John.
I’ll be yours soon (neon and all)
You stir my impulses with your cubic flesh
I like you more when I imagine you as a pervert
I imagine you, John,
As matter made wax.
2: A Worldview Within a Monograph
I saw the Adam Smith thing in the conception of people as discrete individuals and objects with rifts in between them. How do those meat-slabs bridge the gaps? Is flesh just filler- what is it placeholding for? A shark chunk, a phallic snow-growth, sexy Isaacs above it…
Then another book… With Edmund Burke? Burke for a visceral loner. Always onto art, what it is, what it isn’t, what it definitely is NOT, what it cannot be, what it mustn’t do, what nobody does anymore (Carcass of Desire) and the awkwardness of exhibition chat.
No more, no less, nothing more, nothing less (more is more), brutal (?), is more than this more than this at all????
3: Maimed
I sat in my chair and recited over and over, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material, this is not food, it is material,
4: Everyone in the SEA
You just remind me of a synthesis of many of those art people, whom I hate and love. Like Great Britain itself, as spoken by the Dad/Uncle in My Beautiful Laundrette. (Although, expertise in classical marxism may not help us here).
What is it? What does it mean or entail, to survey a real, living, breathing artist?
Preservation of rarefied meat, Not food, but material information. An opacity of info, contained by limited-edition runs of books and monographs.
I’m into them- having a monograph can feel like participation. But, participation sort of contradicts (is incompatible with) rarefication. In many ways, it’s like if fine wine tasted good, or if oud didn’t ever smell like shit.
Art monographs are a type of porn to me. I am burying myself in them, in my gooncave universe, all words are in justification- of course I am justified in it- under this umbrella, there is no such thing as unjust shopping!!!
6: I am Unsure Why I Fell for John
But, it felt profound to say his name over and over. Maybe his practice is naff, but I couldn’t resist in advance of the institution. You’re a place-holder, maybe, for what someone else is doing to me, John!!!!!
7: A Kind of Deficit
It felt so much like that Blair-era reddened malaise, when red turned towards blood as its primary association.
I think the YBAs can be characterised by malaise. Rich, London homeowner malaise. I wonder how they all feel about it. I am headed to their epicentre.
8: No Longer Just a Sum of Interlocking Principal Parts
I am one of those conjected inverts, potentially. When you traverse the social outerworld, inversions intensify and become ubiquitous- increasing with inversion awareness. It used to be a king concern, that the world had turned upside-down. I am happy to move axiomatically, or, according to an axis. There’s a bad taxonomising impulse-habit under us, which seeks to name and number us into a series of parts. These parts work by proxy, or, by influencing and overwriting each other.
One of my parts is the voice/mouth- a continuous expression of revelation by a single syllable ‘Ah’ that refers to constant realisation. Other monosyllables are more sinister- clocks, ughs and eurghs. Whatever.
I understood. I can stare right back at them. I’ve been seeing for years. I have been tearing for years. I’ve been thinking a little bit. That there may need to be another you to balance the books. I’ve been seething a little bit, to think of us in terms of books and balance and this and that, numbers and stocks. John. There are types of us everywhere, but I can't just put you into an archetype, nor can I just leave you to it.