ARTISTS TALKING

# 68 [8 May 2010]

It is the Athens Video Art Festival this weekend - seems like bad timing; I've been following the terrible events on the news and contacted them via Facebook, as have other artists, to find out if it has gone ahead, but not yet had a relpy.

I also was part of a screening in Crouch End last Thursday: One Minute Volume Four - they showed RSA4. The programme will also be shown at PRISM hosted by S1 Artspace next week. I received an email this morning saying that it will also be shown at the Big Screen in Manchester and Liverpool, organised by the BBC.

I remember now that I sent the organiser of One Minute an email on the day of the deadline asking if I could submit a link to my website - she replied immediately and accepted my work... all was decided within five minutes - the fastest response I have ever had. I was pleased to be accepted for the screening in the bar at Crouch End - and now it has evolved into greater things - isn't it great when things work out.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

# 67 [19 April 2010]

A year or so ago I read 'Love and War in the Pyreness' by the travel writer Rosemary Bailey - a good read and full of her personal encounters with ordinary folk who lived in this region during the war. One section of the book is dedicated to the camp at Rivesaltes. When I heard that she was giving a talk in a local restaurant / conference centre and that it coincided with my wife's birthday I booked us in immediately.

I chatted to Rosemary briefly before she gave her speech and told her about my current interest in the interaction that the Jews at the camp had with the Jewish community in Perpignan and the locals of the town of Rivesaltes. I told her that I had interviewed Norbert Herz and she was quite interested. I also mentioned that I had experienced more success with my videos on the theme of Rivesaltes in the UK than in France and she responded that that spoke volumes.

The talk was an overview of the book and focused on some of the personal encounters that she had during her research. Rivesaltes was referred to whilst she was explaining about the aid workers who helped the condition of the refugess in this area.

The conclusion centred on a quote from her book concerning the horrors of Rivesaltes - it was a poignant note to end on.

The questions which followed included one regarding the on-going research and accessibilty to information on Rivesaltes... Rosemary mentioned our chat about my research at the start of the event, which was great.

Following a great meal we spoke again and she said she'd be keen for us to be in contact - so I'll be sending her a link to this blog.

The prevailing memory of the day was Rosemary's reaction to the research on Rivesaltes and the harrowing stories that she came across, she found it particularly difficult emotionally... which is something that I can relate to.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

# 66 [24 March 2010]

Reading the letters at the front of this month's Artists' Newsletter, I thought I was reading Artist's and Illustrator's Magazine, not AN! Don McNeil's letter provoked a lot of feelings in me. It is true that current art taught in colleges is based more on ideas, but skill and the craft of making are still taught on many courses. I don't agree with a lot that Anthony Jones wrote in his letter, but he did hit the nail on the head referring to Patrick Heron's idea of "visual presence".

When I was studying at the RCA (PEP in the Printmaking Department) Chris Orr said something profound which confirms this: "The image must be shit hot". The Printmaking Department was an exciting place to be - etching for example, such a traditional technique yet imbued and synthesised with a quirky, innovative approach encompassing other forms of expression: performance, installation, sculpture...

"Visual presence", or "shit hotness", is the elusive element of the work I strive for; I suppose my work is not only about ideas but about the process of putting paint on a surface or, with regard to my videos, translating those formal concerns into the moving image.

I come from a traditional education in drawing, painting and art history. I was fortunate to have drawn from life one day a week for seven years (from A' Level - MA), it was an integral part of my practice and discipline. At the moment my work is landscape-based, some would call it abstract. What role did the hours measuring and dealing with line, form and composition play in the development of my current practice messing about with paint and video?

It is not common-place to study life-drawing anymore. Is it important? What effect has the demise of life-drawing had on the work being produced today? Conversely, if the work is accuratelty drawn but lacks "visual presence" what value does it have?

Ian McKeever wrote this in his collection of essays In Praise of Painting: What is it about certain paintings, that they are able to get right under the skin? Often they are the paintings which one would least expect to do so. How and why do we find such intimacy with certain works? At times it feels as if they had been painted specifically for oneself. They leave the mass and weight of art history behind them and become an inexplicable part of one’s life.

That sums up "shit hot".

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

# 65 [20 March 2010]

I was pleased to hear that 700is Reindeerland is showing one of my video stills as part of their experimental video-art festival. I plan to go to Iceland in the future to make some work, it looks a really inspirational place.

I'm not too sure my career as a film-maker is going to last much longer. . . I bought a new Mac Pro (new to me) so that I can effortlessly make videos, just one problem: I can't use my editing software on it as it's not compatible - so now I've got to buy new software which will cost more than the computer - anyway, at least the keyboard is lovely and shiny and chic.

Also my video-camera is broken, the LCD screen is just black, so it is impossible to change the shutter-speed etc as this is selected through the menu on the screen; back to painting for me then, paint brushes are pretty reliable and cheap to replace - at least it's warm in my studio at last.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

# 64 [9 March 2010]

The layers and layers of primer on the canvasses are finally finished - painted a couple a day, rubbed down inbetween each coat. This afternoon I decided to create vertical lines using glue and sand, but before braving the Narnia that is my studio (-10 outside and not much warmer in the studio) I thought I'd look for some exhibiting opportunities on here and on Axis - nothing that immediately needs attention, but whilst browsing I stumbled across Graham Crowley's interview on the John Moores.

I know Graham from the RCA and he helped me a lot, he talks sense - here's what he said about applying to the John Moores:

Yes, of course I’ve applied again this year. I hope there’s something on the CD that I’ve sent in and that they get to see an image, and then I hope that I get through to part two. That’s all you can do. As an entrant you have to be stoic.  Don’t get suicidal because you didn’t get the judges approval. Move on. I’m sure your readers are familiar with this experience.

There have been times in the past when I’ve looked over a list of judges and thought I don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance. You have to think strategically. It’s expensive; you’ve got the work, the transport, the entry fee. Above all though is the emotional investment. I’ve made masses of bad commercial and strategic decisions during my career. You have to treat the only other resource you’ve got – your time – as precious.

I didn't apply, neither to the Summer Show - for me it is logistically complicated working in the Pyrenees. I have submitted in the past and have had to depend upon favours from friends and family to deliver and collect works. The time I was accepted for the Summer Show they didn't hang it, so it was almost worth the effort.

Things would be different if I lived in the UK, but here I am, free to do what I want (well, that's what I've decided, of course it's not true), even paint every day if it's not too cold.

My studio is strangely empty as I managed to off-load a lot of my old stuff in the sale I had. It is quite a strange feeling, cathartic, but also unnerving; it is as if keeping the old stuff was some sort of crutch, comfort in past work - the paintings I'm going to make this afternoon will be like starting from scratch and I like that idea. The work must look ahead rather than just fit in with the old.

I hope to become engrossed in my 'quiet' paintings, form some sort of relationship with them and see how things develop, maybe make some new friends who don't mind that I haven't applied to the big open exhibitions.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

# 63 [2 February 2010]

Wilried Agricola has kindly included my project on the camp at Rivesaltes in his Shoah Film Collection.

For those of you who have been directed from his site: Draft Title Shoah, please click on 'Reverse Order' at the top of the blog. Post number 1 gives a brief history of the camp, following that are sporadic bursts of information which put my videos made at Rivesaltes in the context of The Holocaust.

My videos made at the camp can be found here:

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/moving-images.html

Wilfried'd site can be found here:

http://dts.engad.org/shoah-feature.html

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

# 62 [1 February 2010]

I've decided to paint 20 or so layers of primer on the canvasses - sanding them down in between coats, so that eventually I will have a mirror-like surface. After that who knows what will evolve?

I started this afternoon, it was quite meditative and fitted into my normal day-to-day chores quite well: chopping wood, charging the fires, cooking leek and potato soup, making applications . . .

It occurred to me whilst methodically applying the primer that it is four years since I finished my course at the RCA in printmaking - and I started to reflect on how my work and outlook has moved on.

For me working in the printmaking dept was a revelation - the teaching, based on an ethos of working in multi-media, had a profound effect on me. Within the dept, as long as students included some element of printing in the process of making, anything was acceptable, from sculpture and  performance to video.

Something Chris Orr said to me in a tutorial once has stayed with me as well, I'm not sure if it's his catch-phrase though: "The work must be shit-hot!". It is so true - every image I release into the world shouldn't just be acceptable, it must succeed in every way.

Being there was such a buzz and such an inspirational environment in which to work.

I was invited to stay on for a three year course and was very tempted. I spoke to one of the tutors, who is coincidently a friend of my wife's, and she persuaded me that it was not necessarily the only route for me to take. I have a young family and a great life here in the Pyrenees - it would have meant living in dodgy digs in London, being broke and missing my family all the time.

My work has moved on since my time there - I was stuck in a rut, now I feel free to create whatever I wish, be it sound-art, video, painting, collagraphs . . . it all co-exists and feeds into each other. The camp at Rivesaltes also acts as a powerful context for what are basically landscapes.

The exhibitions and screenings I've been part of since have been really exciting, but as my mother-in-law points out they don't make much money. Sometimes it's hard to understand it's not about the money (even though I do earn a living from the sales of my paintings).

Back to the here and now . . . my video camera screen has broken, so I need to replace it, also I need a more powerful computer and faster hard-drive to enable me to continue creating videos without the added stress of technical problems. Four years ago I had a sale in my studio and sold over a hundred old paintings and prints for 50E each - I need to do that again.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

# 61 [1 February 2010]

Work's been hectic recently - been editing videos for two screeings coming up in February - one at The Firestation in Windsor which will run concurrently with a photographic exhibition by Bleach Box and the other a screening organised by Ottica TV at Better Bankside next to Tate Modern.

Every year I apply to 700is Reindeerland, a video exhibition in Iceland, every year I am rejected and I'm not sure why - what I make is the sort of thing they're looking for and I've shown with artists who have been successful with their applications - one of life's mysteries . . . the point of this is a positive one: this year they are showing a still from all the applicants in a touring show in Iceland. So, the effort applying was worth it, one of the venues is CIA - Center of Icelandic Art in Reykjavík - wouldn't it be great to visit?

I now feel a new chapter in my creativity starting - I've been making sound, video and editing for months now. My studio has been too cold to paint so this morning I moved Louis and Emilie's toys out of the way on the ground floor of our house (can't really call it a lounge as it's just one big open space) and set up 16 canvasses, primer and some brushes.

What am I going to do? No idea, but it's a start.

I hope Louis and Emilie will understand when they get home!

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/index.html

# 60 [29 January 2010]

Yesterday Georges Frêche, the President of Languedoc Roussillon (one of the 26 regions of France), said of former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius (of Jewish origin): "voting for this guy in Haute-Normandie would be a problem for me, his face isn't Catholic". 

He later claimed in a press release: "When questioned about not supporting Laurent Fabius, I answered with a popular expression which has been used by all the French for centuries".

Needless to say, this has caused a huge public outcry. The fact he is a Socialist is surprising. It seems that anti-semitism continues in the south of France.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

Source: http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2010/01/28/01002-...

# 59 [27 January 2010]

Today is the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Netanyahu spoke at Auschwitz today:

“From the cursed ground at Auschwitz, Birkenau and other camps rise the voices of our brothers and sisters, our people who choked to death and were burned and murdered. . .

I have come here today from Jerusalem to tell you: We will never forget. We will not allow the Holocaust deniers or those who desecrate [Jewish] graves and signs to erase or distort [our] memory. . .

We will never forget and always stand guard. . .

Murderous hatred must be stopped in its tracks, stopped right from the beginning. All countries in the world must learn this lesson, just as we did after losing a third of our people in blood-soaked Europe. We learned that the only guarantee for the protection of our people is the State of Israel. . .

I promise, as head of the Jewish state, that never again will we allow the hand of evil to sever the life of our people and our state. . .

Am Yisrael Chai, we have returned to our homeland, to the land of our forefathers, to Jerusalem, our capital. We have converged from all corners of the world, Holocaust survivors, Arab Jews, Jews from former Soviet Union states, Ethiopian Jews. . .

We bow our heads in memory [of Holocaust victims] and raise our heads as our flag waves with its two blue stripes and the Star of David at its center. We still haven't lost our hope.”

In France Sarkozy sent a letter to European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor. The French president wrote that his country will continue taking action to remember the Holocaust and to commemorate the victims.

"This memory is a human obligation, it is a requirement, a sacred mission to restore the human dignity and the unique characteristics of the children, women, and men who encountered the unspeakable, the inconceivable. . .

Auschwitz is the symbol of absolute evil inscribed in a red flame upon humanity's consciousness."

Pope Benedict XVI has marked Holocaust Remembrance Day by denouncing the "horror" of the Shoah and the "unheard of brutality" of death camps created by Nazi Germany.

The German-born pope issued an appeal Wednesday "that such tragedies never repeat themselves."

Benedict called the death camps "abhorrent and inhumane places" and turned his thoughts to the "countless victims of a blind racial and religious hatred."


I couldn't find anything commemorating today on the Rivesaltes Memorial site, which is a shame.

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=11547

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

Sources: