Poetry #5: Ginsberg
This was created as a response to a call for projects for the "Bento", a special truck that carries an art exhibition around an area in France. The inside of the truck has a long blank wall on the left hand side, and a slightly shorter one on the right due to the space occupied by the staircase to allow visitors inside. There is also a much shorter wall at the back, that I wanted to use, and 2 tiny ones at the front, on each side of a door to a storage area, that I planned to use for explanations.
I wanted to continue the previous work by using Ginsberg's famous poem, Howl. It is an enormous poem, and its translation as barcodes, as you can see in the images below, is impressive and would be almost impossible to paint by hand, unless you spent the next 10 years on that alone. The poem is in 3 increasingly shorter parts, and I decided to allocate a wall to each, using random colors picked from different color books (in order, Focoltone, Toyo and Pantone).
Then from each wall, I extracted several squares at different sizes, locations and orientations, and I painted them on 10 separate small canvasses, with specific "rules" for each. The paintings are supposed to be hung on top of the printed canvasses, using nails driven right through the background canvas.
Finally, a 25 minutes recording of Ginsberg himself reading the poem should be heard in a loop during visiting hours. The whole setup should prove fairly claustrophobic.
Poetry #5: Ginsberg - board 1
Printed canvas, 180x500 cm plus 5 acrylics on canvas paintings of 50x50 cm
Poetry #5: Ginsberg - board 2
Printed canvas, 180x400 cm plus 4 acrylics on canvas paintings of 50x50 cm
Poetry #5: Ginsberg - board 3
Printed canvas, 180x110 cm plus 1 acrylics on canvas painting of 50x50 cm
Poetry #5.1: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of purples and blues. Each color starts as either dark or light, with an added measure of black or white. Then the opposite is added (white or black) to create the light or dark complement. Hence, the second color is much more muted, because it contains a large amount of gray.
Poetry #5.2: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of grays only, barely tinted with a touch of color.
Poetry #5.3: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of yellows. Each color starts as either dark or light, with an added measure of black or white. Then the opposite is added (white or black) to create the light or dark complement. Hence, the second color is much more muted, because it contains a large amount of gray.
Poetry #5.4: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using only the muted colors generated by the canvasses #1, #3, #7 and #9.
Poetry #5.5: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of oranges only, and no attention was paid to the alternating blacks and whites.
Poetry #5.6: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This used pure black and pure white only.
Poetry #5.7: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of greens. Each color starts as either dark or light, with an added measure of black or white. Then the opposite is added (white or black) to create the light or dark complement. Hence, the second color is much more muted, because it contains a large amount of gray.
Poetry #5.8: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using only vivid colors, never using any black at all.
Poetry #5.9: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using a palette of reds. Each color starts as either dark or light, with an added measure of black or white. Then the opposite is added (white or black) to create the light or dark complement. Hence, the second color is much more muted, because it contains a large amount of gray.
Poetry #5.10: Ginsberg
acrylics on canvas, 50x50 cm
This was painted using only vivid colors, never using any black at all, and not paying attention to the alternating blacks or whites.
