Unseen Art Scene (mirror)

Today I woke up curious. Serendipity well what does that mean? My mate Wiki put it like this: “propensity for making accidental fortuitous discoveries”. Finally, this religious atheist has something to believe in. Human equal but some are more equal than others. Equal human what a goal to go for in this South African World Cup year of 2010. So let me write you a poem and put down my thoughts to pick myself up. TEARS OF THE ARTIST Tears running down my cheeks and ears and eyes are not seeing or hearing my words. But all is OK! It is not our time to be together. As readers and writers we are all lost. You are not ready to receive my words. My words are not ready to receive your eyes. I write some more and with my pen and sorrow I write what is written in front of you NOW… and I am still. Still. So very STILL… Still writing. Writing away saying nothing but playing with the letters and words that have become my only friends. That is right. That is real. Real sad!! Pity me and say you are s...

Well I cannot go to Africa as an Iceland Volcano keeps me at bay. Here to stay on the island of England in her cold gardens for the next 20 years, I hear. What to say now? Nothing Doing, Doing Nothing. I'll tell you what we can do. We don't do.  We don't do nothing.  Nothing to no-one.  Say nothing to no-one so loudly.. say something to some-one so quietly.  Say nothing to no-one no more. Write as if a drum. Beats.  The goat and human skin drum. Beats.  Write it out like a drum...beat: Drumbeat in the wilderness BANG!  Drumbeat in the cities BANG!  Drumbeat in the rivers BANG!  Drum, drum it out of your system. BANG! BANG! Drum it out and say nothing, for nothing can be said no more.  The past has failed us all. Lied such sweet lies upon more juicy lies.  Lied all day, lied away and yesterday and today maybe they will lie to us tomorrow again. Joe Pollitt | 18th May 2010

Voodoo Series 2003 | Joe Pollitt Here are a series of images I took in the Republic of Benin in West Africa. The work was created in 2003 on a trip to the source of the origins of Voodoo with the artist, Charly D'Almeida who lives and works in the Port of Cotonou. The meaning of the word Cotonou is "The Mouth of River of Death". Charly is moving his family out of Paris and back to Cotonou for good this month and so I have posted up these images as a reminder of a trip taken a few years back and hopefully it will encourage me to go again. The Garden of England has become overgrown, full of weeds and the landscape seems so dreary and dull. The weather is creeping under my skin like a filthy virus; like herpes, genital warts or HIV and Aids. I want red soil under foot and the smell of sea air, coconut water....good for me-daughter....Fufu, peanut soup and red plantains and gary, yams splashed down with warm Palm-wine drunk out of a bamboo pole and Apapa-teche to build me an ...

I really felt moved when reading this article written by Joy Onyejiako from the Brunei Gallery, London as she strikes right at the heart of what Chimamanda and others are writing and talking about, "The Human Equal and the Single Story Opposed to the Balanced Stories of Contemporary Africa".  Please read what Joy has written and understand that the success of the development within Contemporary African Art desperately needs more people writing on similar lines and in a fashion or style that is as passionate and of a standard that equals that written by Joy. This is a wonderful example of a well-written article on African Art.   --- The Kingdom of Ife by Joy Onyejiako Source: AllAfrica.com It was with great anticipation that I approached the 'Kingdom of Ife' exhibition on display in the central gallery space at the British Museum. When 'Africa: the Art of a Continent' showed at the Royal Academy in 1995, there was this huge buzz of excitement which created long...

Museum for African Art, looking south along Fifth Avenue .  Rendering by Neoscape. Source: Art Daily |  http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=37617 NEW YORK, NY.-  Elsie McCabe Thompson, President, the  Museum for African Art , announced that the Museum—one of the country’s premier gateways to the arts and cultures of Africa and the African Diaspora—will reopen to the public in its major new facility in April 2011. Designed by the renowned New York City firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, the new building is located at 1280 Fifth Avenue, at East 110th Street, in Manhattan. There it will join “Museum Mile,” linking this prestigious row of museums with Harlem, one of the country’s most important centers of historic and contemporary African-American culture. (The Museum is currently closed to the public, and is operating out of temporary quarters in Queens, New York.) The Museum for African Art’s new home comprises four floors (one below grade) of ...

Last night I listened to a talk that really inspired me on the Nigerian based Blog - Art Speak Africa - run by the Curator, Bisi Silva. I heard, for the first time ever, this phrase: "The Human Equal", from a talk given by Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian novelist; who was speaking at a conference in October of last year for TED Words Worth Spreading. You can find the speech on the ArtSpeakAfrican Blog and listen to her strong words on the subject of the Single Story, which I found so interesting and quite brilliant. Here is the link, for please copy and paste this link to view to the talk. http://artspeakafrica.blogspot.com/2009/10/chimamanda-adichie-danger-of-single.html#2540115863096586369 I think the ideal of "The Human Equal" is an ideal certainly worth fighting for and if necessary dying for. The way in which Chimamanda spoke at the Conference was truly groundbreaking. With great humour and humanity to all she opened up the flood gates for all those interested...

Where shall we take our story today? Maybe to bed or out for a nice hot cup of tea; one healthy lump of sugar and easy on the milk…Where shall we take our story today? Where indeed…we are stuck in a Buffalion. Stuck in a giant Buffalion peering out behind her left eye and seeing a rather strange world so clearly. We have oxygen to breathe from her lungs, we have the power of sight from her huge majestic eyes and we have a cool breeze coming in from her lovely flat nose. We have a heart to play with and ribs to tickle. We have a liver to work with and hopefully drink with and a pair of twin kidneys to filter all our unnecessary poisons. We have two ears to hear and we are listening acutely to what is being said on the outside but on the inside things are looking stranger than ever. The Buffalion has made her demands and her demands are as clear as mustard. She has asked us only to raw or to grunt, just like she does, if we must. Inside the belly of the beast it is forbidden to speak in ...

My world is crazy. Spinning out of control, too much to handle, too much to try and understand, too late mate, madness, silly billy world that I exist in. I am far from alone in my thinking here as I bet you're feeling the same way too! But let us make no sense and nonsense and make sense or some sense of what we are all trying to say. Dear Miss Communication are you reading me? Say something or say nothing...delete me or eat me. Make no sense at all. If you can make sense of nonsense then you can read on McDuff. They read you loud and clear. You think they can’t read? But they can read and they are reading: you are writing. They are watching, watching your making up a story in front of their very eyes. Wide shut yet again seeing nothing but beauty all around me. They are watching...they are watching you writing, writing the story of the century, 'The Tail of the Buffalion'. Let us see what she sees and tell our dear reader what is being seen so violently.... So we make our...

So where have we gone? And where are we going with this merry tale of ours, of the Buffalion and her tail of tales. So we have started again and again from the beginning to the end. It is all about the fingers happily tapping away on the keys. We started again and what we need to do is grab our Buffalion’s attention. How can we possibly survive in the belly of this beast? There is food a plenty and ample to eat we will never again go hungry. We will feast for years to come inside the belly of this beautiful beast. What happens if we tickle her rids, will she laugh or will she bite? Look we can move, we can now move, move from the stomach to the ribs and start to tickle and tickle her hard to make her smile. To make her laugh out loud. We reach up with our fingertips and start to tickle and tickle away we go. We tickle her rids on the right side then tickle her ribs on the wrong side and she bursts out laughing, laughing to every tickle, we tickle, she chuckles, we tickle some more. We ...

The Tail of the Buffalion (Part 2...) All is not lost dear reader for we are now inside the belly of the beast. The Buffalion has gobbled us up and we lie in her belly ready to be reborn, broken and ready to be reawoken and awake to face another day standing. A jigsaw can always be rebuilt. So let us build ourselves up from the ground. Let us build up from the bottom to the top. Let us grow into ourselves once more. Let us feel the way we where when we were whole. Let us grow back into ourselves and piece-by-piece we start to put ourselves together again. Toes meeting feet meeting knees, meeting thighs meeting pelvis. We start again. Start building ourselves up from nothing. From pieces of meat we glue ourselves back together again. Back to the way we were. Back to a time remembered, a happier time forgotten. Back to when we were young, fun and frivolous. Back to a yesterday remembered. Suddenly I feel myself again. My fingers tingling and hands are changing from purple, to blue to red...

Enough of the personal life stuff...writing more. The Tail of the Buffalion (Part 1....) We are berry-pickers and hunter gathers. Pioneers, engineers and builders. Building blocks of high-rise thoughts with goodness found. Finding nature and answering her call, and out of her mud, cowpats, sticks, sweat and our own piss-to-bind, we build. Doing whatever it takes to build our comfy home. Using all the raw materials Creation has charitably bestowed. Beware my beautiful buck-and-ears for danger lies at the end of every single silhouette. As we walk through the valley of the shadow of life we will surely meet our maker. We will see birds of every colour twittering away azziz their will. Flapping and singing their merry songs as they fly-on-the-wall of the air. Twitting away to all those listening to the sounds they are making. Making their own way, making their sounds and making their noise and being heard, naturally. Feathered flying birds are the world’s natural-born twits. Twittering aw...