Thur, Sep 7, 2017 at 11:21 AM

:(Poetry, of course… but his boys)

Earlier on I was bringing up the hegemony of English and its often mutilating and impoverishing effects on other languages. The inherent problems of translation aside, the most damaging effect, it seems to me, is that as soon as something gets recast in that idiom — that relentless, corrosive idiom, the all-pervading illusion of accessibility, the reduction of meaning through the privileging of “story,” of literal content — it is at the expense of musicality, rhythm, sound, vision, and sense, and the implications of different idioms, historical and modern, demotic and literary, ecclesiastic and erotic, of varying topographic and social provenance, which suffuse Cavafy’s poetry. These lyrical and dramatic qualities are, to a large degree, unintelligible not only to the readers of English translations, but to most contemporary Greek readers, as well. Far from being a deplorable obstacle to a wider appreciation of Cavafy’s work, it is the poet’s very own stance and position in the world that he chose to inhabit — to sing to the few sympathetic and attuned. When you grandiloquently brushed aside poetry in your question (which I called irreverent and which, as unformulated as a shopping list and full of an almost embarrassing anticipation, I wouldn’t even call a question so much as an incitement to gossip), you opened that abysmal void where only instant gratification counts. The thing is, you made me feel you were using Cavafy as a pretext to spice up the text with some boy-elixir. Not that true artists care to be revered, but man, keep your tricks for someone else!

But to give center stage to Cavafy — with the help of the great Peter Mackridge, who wrote the introduction of my edition of the Collected Poems (Oxford World Classics, 2008) —

His name Konstantinos Kavafis is a combination of the Latin Constantinus, the founder of the city of Constantinople and of what later came to be known as the Byzantine Empire, and the Arabic-Turkish word kavaf, meaning dealer in cheap shoes. Cavafy lived in a modern trading town, founded upon cotton with the concurrence of onion and eggs (E. M. Forster). Istanbul is primarily a city of trade, as well. In the absence of major poets and artistic movements, he had to develop his craft all on his own. Went through a long process of maturation — like me. Sees his particular artistic sensibility as having been created by homoerotic desire. Thinks that art depends on the experience of abandonment to the senses. That Eros is nourished by transient beauty, while Art makes beauty permanent. That Art imposes its will upon the art-object, removing it from the contingencies that dominate the natural and social worlds. That the alliance between nature and society is unholy. That to be free is to contravene laws and conventions, where these be natural or social or economic. And that this violation leads to a special kind of pleasure. That the pricelessness of “unnatural” love and its asociality, in that it doesn’t lead to marriage and procreation, links it to art, having no end outside of itself. Creation rather than procreation. That Art and Eros are benevolent deities, providentially controlling the destiny of those they have selected as worthy of their patronage. That loss is redeemed through the reanimation of the past, in the mind and body through memory, a capacity nurtured by solitary enclosure — enamored or trusted and dignified step by step, breath by breath, by city life — precluding the indifferent, eradicating void and uninspiring vastness of, for instance, sunsets.

In his late poems, some characters are depicted bearing the adversity, the unsparing, grinding power of history, with dignity and fortitude, courageously refusing to harbor comforting illusions. To me, Cavafy came late, maybe on the shelves of Prince Eisenherz, let’s say 1992 — and was beyond and beneath alien, unapproachable. I could not grasp, feel, relate, know, extract, gourmandize, instrumentalize, utilize — I couldn’t enjoy anything. Maybe in part because of my humanistic education — Latin and Ancient Greek, taught, I must say, by very good people in a hostile environment, completely erased my potential love for antiquity. Now, approaching old age, it comes as close to me as an embrace. Old age, maybe, is when you can become simply sensitive? Sensitively simple? With Cavafy it became, inadvertently, a love affair.

Thur, Sep 7, 2017, at 11:55 AM

Georges Seurat in Une Baignade, Asnières: Jonathan Crary considers this cherished painting still to adhere to notions of the central perspective, illuminating the fact that Seurat’s illumination is not mine, in that I don’t care about central perspective at all. Evoke the Gilles by Antoine Watteau and maybe you can talk about displacements, connected with vaporous hot weather, colors — I say vaporous, where Jonathan Crary speaks of a disrupted harmony created mathematically, or by a refraction of sound, light, and trouble.

Seurat’s thinking in a push and pull, there is no solidity at all in my mind right now. I need fresh air. I suggest to catch a vapur and cross to the other side. Good bye .

Yours,

Lukas

  Sometime in 2004 " The Rift " was rolled up in the Tom Tom neighborhood of İstanbul , while pink doves waved good-bye with their jet black eyes , and carried to Dresden , a city of former baroque resplendence which became a test-side for blanket napalm bombing at the close of WWII. There it was to be conjoined with a frame , a large , dark and forbidding affair , as part of a group show called " Nuclear War " . But the fact that the painting suited that overwrought title like a glove at a time of heightened Islamophobic paranoia in the wake of 9/11 maybe obstructed my Degas-inspired , onomatopoetic intentions and my take on official portraiture and its discontents.  That frame had been built in 1999 to lay emphasis on the very different , yet related painting " A Roman Holiday " , destined to be suspended from the ceiling of a gallery in the holy city of Dölm by a slightly disciplinary if not outright sadistic system of ropes , in a solo show called " Diplomatica ".  I still lived in Berlin at that time , notorious Berlin. " Diplomatica " sold out , but in the hushed-up process, like in a heist, frame and picture were ripped apart. The strands of thought which had made them one unified meaningful body were severed.  The coveted Roman went unclad , and the ignored Holiday went into hibernation. " A Roman Holiday " depicts the central nursery of the eternal city where all the plants for her public gardens are grown.  Like other factories producing life-enhancing , edifying and embellishing things such as spirits , cigarettes , marrons glaces , movies , records ,newspapers , to name but a few , they were - before the onslaught of health and information - and in some places still are , signs of civic pride and achievement. The countless representations of these sites of production , on wine labels , stationary , cans and boxes , or in solemnly framed oils and photographs , hung above doors , counters , desks or bars testify to their almost talismanic power, putting them on a  par with the ubiquitous likenesses of the godfathers and mothers of what we are taught to cherish - or to smash. To call these objects " visual paths of dignity " is both poetic and precise , but neither would we be far from the truth with calling them " propaganda ". I don't know whether Lucien Freud's portrait of Queen Elizabeth II comes with a frame but the pictures I have in mind always do. Like interpreters or translators , frames are one of the many unacknowledged forces in the mechanics of a society. They form little catafalques you trot behind while thinking about being somewhere else. They stoically contain the fickleness of their subjects and calm the shaky ground on which these idols and temples stand. Bleak it may be , but they provide shelter for their flag-like readability , endearing as stone. Their monumental self-assurance , implying demise. Their ostentatious simplicity , the stealth of their exposure , their authoritarian vulnerability , their temporal timelessness , their sculpted flatness , their stuffed blankness , their cruel benevolence , their evasive presence , their formulaic love . All meaning and no content. Or the banality of evil. Yet , if we only had eyes , their charmes discrets could remind us of our own absurd ambitions , of the old adage that our courtship of disaster is the creation of our pedantry and overbearing , and of the modesty and potential beauty within " the everyday ". Ahh , give us the smoke-filled rooms of yore , the brandy-trays and yellow fingernails ! Adversities like lung cancer can be  blessings in disguise. They can sharpen our minds dulled by habit and complacency. If the frame had not been discarded , its resurrection and " The Rift " would not have happened. In the end , disruptions in the palace-routine are the muse ; not some cherry-picked information by an aloof mastermind.The understated eastern vehemence in " The Rift " does coincide with my residence in İstanbul , but does not mean that I am a newsreel on two legs. Before it became " The Rift " , my boy-next-door used to call it " The Nervous Politician " .İt was  his way of brushing aside that obnoxious world of people having no qualms whatsoever to be shown in the most unfavorable of lights, boxed in by that mysterious conviction of ever-lasting appeal. Unlike the honorable Daumier I am not a political artist , and largely ignorant of the politics of the region. But why split hairs when you are drenched in it anyhow. Politicians don't leave me cold. On the contrary , it is the compassion , deeply felt by a subdued population-of which against  my will I feel myself to be a part-for the self-sacrificing , unflinching leader , the superhuman distress and torment they must endure in the  face of the endless tedium , inefficacy , waste and even meretriciousness of their travails for the sake of our national well-being. But their once applauded rhetorics may inadvertently meet incomprehension , impatience and finally disapproval , if not disgust. The shining Dilma Rousseff becomes a merciless game promoter and the lower lip of Erdoğan speaks of a residue of tenderness. Exile is a fate , whether chosen or enforced. It can blind you or make the scales drop from your eyes. Misunderstandings and analogies can rejuvenate and bend you. What you see is how little you know. I don't know why education is brought up all the time as the ultimate remedy for our social malaise , when schools and families and churches are surely the first things to avoid. Without a doubt the Catholic upbringing tied me to narrative and signification as the driving forces of a composition. A cult instills an aversion to the traceability of a sign ; but the new cult is traceability , and surely I can't tell which one is worse. I have strewn other paintings with references , precious to me but obscure to others - like billets d'amour - with the wish to demonstrate  that the world is not served on a silver platter , that you can " refute the undimmable grasp of totality ". ( T.J Clark ) I already mentioned interpreters. The following anecdote , related by Lynn Visson , a member of the guild , may help us understand their stressful plight. " A delegate who is monitoring but who has only a limited knowledge of English can easily fluster the interpreter.  One Russian kept using the word openasiya , which tranlates into English as apprehension or fears. Tired of repeating these synonyms a colleague said : misgivings. Dead silence , followed by the delegate's announcement : ' Is wrong interpretation - we are not giving anything away '. That kind of thing can drive us to drink ". Then there are different national approaches to the size of a chair or the height of a ceiling. Like Madame de Sable the " Nervous Politican " is celebrity - size , meaning petit. George Eliot in " Silly Novels by Lady Novelists " connects Gallic shortness and agility with the unrivaled intellectual power of the  servants of 17th - century France while she sees a diluting effect on the brain by the bigger , more placid , Nordic physique. When West Berlin commissioned  Le Corbusier to build one of his Unites in the showcase Hansa - Viertel , he got admonished for his low ceilings , maybe accommodating the Latins , but certainly  not the Teutons. In exasperation he cried out : " But maybe for once you could take off your Pickelhauben ! " He disowned the project. Febrile vegetation , gnawing lichens , leaking liquid , abandoned chairs and cars , defiant tea and kıtlama sugar ... dial 333 if you want to know more. And what , for that matter , should we call my reverence for the man I bedecked with the full regalia of the Greenberg architect , rallying against the muffige Konrad  Adenauer - Zeit ? Grey flannel , white shirt , woven or knitted cravat from wool ? When they told us that the lassitude and indulgence of Arabs left the country barren and unattended ; the orange blossoms brought about by iron hands. What is he : an architect , a politician , a refined fearless beautiful man ? Who alone  speaks the truth about the Euphrates and Tigris ? Or counting the shoes of the dead ?  

WHAT YOU SEE İS GENE KELLY OF ARAB DESTİNATİON FLYİNG OUT OF A KONRAD ADENAUER CHAİR , İN UTTER DİİS MAY OF THE ENTİRE HOSTİLİTY OF SURROUNDİNG