Michael Wilson: Putting the work together

Photo: Susan Christine Spencer

Michael Wilson is an assemblage artist who has always been heavy on techniques using artifacts and disassembled objects from an era long gone. He avoids plastics to make his assemblages look as though they were antiques themselves. Stuff from the dustbin, collected up and transformed. A solid piece needs to have electricity and some of them literally do. That's when a viewer’s responses can be very strong. Once in a while he puts away an art piece until he finds the right part or found object to give the assemblage that edge and  an 'outside the box' feel. He also makes castings of old parts of statues and adds them into the cohesion. The ultimate goal is to have depth and flow, which he oftentimes does, in hitting the 'mark' . He and his wife, artist Susan Spencer, open up their studios on occasion, so when in Northern California ring them up.

DH: How did you come to be an artist? How did you come to work in assemblage, and where do you find your materials?

MW: Growing up in the 1960s I was influenced by my father's art and love of jazz. He was a well- known animator and artist, so I grew up in an environment that proved a lifelong influence. Another big influence was André Breton. I took art classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and we got to display our work at the college art gallery. I was also in a graphic arts class and made my first billboard ‒ a double-sided sign reading ‘Ground Floor Gallery’‒ for a space I rented in Old Towne Pasadena, California. We sold few works, but soon found out we weren't salespeople. At that time, before gentrification, there were 400 artists living in a four-block area of Old Towne, in 1977.  

With my training and family background in art I was handed a baton to carry forward a never-ending art project that allowed creative ideas to flourish. Through my collecting junk and antiques I found it inspiring to give old objects a 'new life'. What may look like a series of broken pieces in front of you would ultimately grow to become an assemblage.

Indian Trader

Why have you focused on assemblage?

In 1908 Apollinaire had moved ‘toward freedom in assembling a poem out of disparate parts’. In its structure, assemblage is like an abstract painting and constructivist sculpture but moves away from these art forms because its elements may be charged and identifiable. Thirty different components can compete in one assemblage to effect a fluid emotion. For the real artist, it is a liberating creative method, using untried variables in different sequencing in a state of randomness and disorder. Seemingly unfitting, these objects, articles and discards must be formed into a union of parts in the ensemble. These lost and found objects can never be preordained because the artist must 'play with' elements by placing objects around until the essence of the pieces and what transpires between them is discovered by the artist. What occurs after disorder is organization of dissimilar objects. The ultimate outcome is a sort of homogenous transformation. We as artists are never fully cognizant of our intentions until the 'magic' happens. Things fall into place. After that, it is time for adhesion, putting the work together. 

What the work communicates is up to the viewer. Sometimes the artist may have specific intent with regard to form and symbol. Mostly though it is free expression and abstraction of objects and ideas. 

As with much art there is a series of adjustments, while at other times there may be a simultaneous harmony where everything comes into play quite rapidly. Oftentimes mistakes can lead you on a new path and a new development. Common objects begin to form the dynamics of a certain cohesion with a new life for these discards and found objects much like a poetic development. 

Seance

What artists have had the most influence on you? Did you meet many people from Wallace Berman’s ‘Semina circle’ – you have previously mentioned the poet John Reed in particular?

The studios we rented for US$50 a month had many artists living there, including John Kelly Reed (Ramussen), who was the great friend of Ed Kienholz, George Herms, Cameron and Wallace Berman. John Reed was in three handmade editions of Wallace Berman’s Semina journal. John was also part of the historic Ferus Gallery and curator Walter Hopps. I was able to meet artists George Herms, Dean Stockwell, Ed Moses, Llyn Foulkes, Ed Kienholz, Billy Al Bengston and others.

These artists all touched me and helped me organize my thoughts around becoming an artist. John Reed would raid abandoned buildings and come back with bags of metal and other 'found objects' for art.

After moving north I became a US forest ranger in an isolated part of coastal California, known as Big Sur. This was time for reflective and inventiveness. Little did I know beat artist Bob Branaman was living up the coast with his family in Limekiln, only to know him later in life after I met my wife, Susan. We were madly in love in Boonville, California, and immediately began living on her 20-acre ranch in the redwoods where later we built our art studios and home. 

Here in Anderson Valley we met artist Stan Peskett, a UK artist who discovered Basquiat and introduced him to Andy Warhol at a party Stan had while living around the Chelsea Hotel, NYC. 

Speaking of Andy Warhol, The Ferus Gallery had the first display of Pop Art by an east coast artist in 1961. Irving Blum had taken over the gallery from Wally Hopps and Ed Keinholz and after displaying the soup cans show Irving had managed to sell three of Andy’s works. Realizing his mistake as curator, he managed to buy back those three of Andy’s works and then bought all the rest. A major score, for later on they became worth millions. He bought all for around US$900. One of the people Irving bought a soup can back from was Dennis Hopper. He was big on collecting art and went to many openings of The Ferus Gallery, as did actor Dean Stockwell.

Have you ever met any of the great jazz musicians?

We hung out and studied with the jazz greats. Our teachers were Gary Foster, Bobby Bradford, Alan Broadbent, Putter Smith and Warne Marsh. When a break occurred, we would all go out back and smoke pot in between sets with Art Pepper, Louie Bellson, and comedian Redd Fox. The clubs we had in LA were exciting. At the famous Lighthouse Cafe jazz club you could see Milt Jackson and the MJQ, Gabor Szabo, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie. Other clubs were Concerts by the Sea, Donte's Jazz Club, Baked Potato and Memory Lane.  Once in a while you could see everyone together at a club, including the Ellington Big Band and at Hollywood Bowl the Beatles and then Benny Goodman and then later Count Basie and the Band. Jazz was a major influence and although I was classical trained I turned into a jazz bebop pianist at 14 years old. My band was Monster Wilson and the Quintet. We even a had a girl singer. Jazz was everywhere and we saw all the greats and later were trained by them. Part of art, as I see it, is besides what we do in the art studio. 

Techplotz

What was your experience as the late 1960s shifted to the 1970s? Did you notice any major changes in terms of an attitude or approach towards art? 

As an artist in the 1960s I was surrounded by art. My dad was a well-known artist in Hollywood and there were people like Stravinsky, Sonny and Cher, Jonathan Winters and Carol Burnett at his studios. Dad did the credits in the movies Irma la Duce and Grease. All his animations are at http://www.fineartsfilms.com/index.php.  

Moving into the 1970s, many artists were doing the first MTV video productions, using art as the medium to promote bands, and my dad was right in there working as the artist for songs like Jim Croce’s’ Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ and  Joni Mitchell’s 'Put up a Parking Lot'. We were all as artists trying different mediums and as soon as spray plastic foams became available it was in use for unique molds. Many stayed non-political, but maybe the first in the 60s had been Kienholz, using anti-war art as a political statement. 

Later on, punk art started using bizarre effects, such as sheer stocking and pink spray paint as a way to reflect the times and using the theme of sexual exploitation as a way to cross the line. 

Artists I knew started using production lines in small warehouses to recreate an existing piece of art and manufacture more of the same with varying changes in the reproduction. We as artists were figuring out as well that larger was better, for small pieces of art were not what the wealthy were looking for. They needed to be big in scale to fill the walls of the huge mansions these people live in.  

By the 1990s some of us fell by wayside, took vacations for long periods to reflect or got out of the mainstream and created niche art that was predominantly just to barely scrape by, but holding on to our values and not selling out or doing kitsch art. If you eventually held on, you could have a gallery represent you and that would be something many artists would love but cannot get. 

In the 1990s I opened up my first gallery with another artist, which was our playground. But later in the 2000s my wife and I opened The Beat Gallery in Mendocino County in Northern California, which was much more serious. We finally brought the gallery home and are having showings by appointment. Before Covid19 hit us all we even had a salon where expressive people came to reunite. It's a good life. 

Working the Machine

You mentioned that you and your wife, the artist Susan Spencer, are putting a book together, with about eleven other artists – could you tell us more about that? 

In 2005 Tim Nye of Nyehaus Gallery, Soho NYC, reopened the Ferus Gallery exactly how it would look during its existence, 1957-66, and invited us all to the original gallery on La Cienega, LA. It featured many of the original artists and we had dinner afterwards at the famous Musso and Frank's Grill in Hollywood, sponsored by Nyehaus. It was a great reconnect and I was doing the Ferus Gallery website, which is currently being redone by myself to be interactive.  

Many of those artists and others influenced our group in the Northern California Redwoods. Those artists included Joseph Cornell, Man Ray, Bruce Connor, Jess, Bettye Saar, Kienholz, Max Ernst, George Herms, Kurt Schwitters and Wallace Berman. 

All these connections and friendships have come to a climax, as we are publishing a book with artists Spencer Brewer, Susan Spencer, Hans Bruhner, Larry Fuente (Smithsonian), Via Keller, Esther Siegel and myself. The book will be titled Mendocino Lost & Found ‒ Rebel Artists of Assemblage and Collage.

Unpublished Poet

Apart from the book, what are you busy with at the moment? 

Susan and I continue to work on our ranch in Philo, CA and I continue as a rancher, contractor, jazz pianist and assemblage artist. Recently Susan and I had a two-month show in Venice, California at Beyond Baroque in The Mike Kelley Gallery. It was an amazing exhibit of both our works visited by many artists, poets and friends. I ran into Bob Branaman and he wanted to buy a piece of art. Instead we went to his home and workshop and I traded him for one of his artworks. I wanted to also visit artist Robert Irwin, but he's in bad shape these days. 

In conclusion, I would like to say that by isolating and simplifying objects and their environments, an elemental nature can be revealed that exists in all things, real and imagined. This is the thread that connects us all. Through the particular, the universal can be attained. Revealing the universal, whether it is our physical universe, circumstance, object, emotion, or thought, permits us to see the elemental parts of each other and ourselves and thus a circular connection is complete. This connection leads to an illumination, not only of ourselves and toward each other, but also for and toward the whole world and what other worlds may exist beyond our consciousness. This is the power of art – the power of transcendence from beauty and the particular into the sublime and the universal and back again. 

I hope that in some way the results of my pursuit of art join the tradition of work that has provided a portal to those questions whose answers help us define and clarify our existence, our experience, and our purpose here on earth. 

Websites to explore:

http://www.chezbebedogmannequins.com

http://www.assemblageartists.wordpress.com

 This interview was originally published in The Odd Magazine.

Benoît Delaune: Rock and Counterculture

Benoît Delaune, born in 1973, is a musician and teacher. He wrote his PhD about William Burroughs and the use of the cut-up technique in the ‘Nova Trilogy’. He also wrote a short biography of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, as well as theoretical texts and articles about the collage/montage aesthetics in literature, cinema and music. Between 1998 and 2003, he led a micro-publishing structure, Les éditions de la Notonecte, which released books by Claude Pélieu, Mary Beach, FJ Ossang and others. As a musician, he played in many avant-garde bands, close to free-rock and improvisation. Nowadays he plays guitar, composes and creates artworks for his new band, Orgöne. He's also working on books by Claude Pélieu and Alain Jégou.

DH: I read that you once had an interest in the work of  Arrabal – did that extend to the others in the PANic movement, Topor and Jodorowsky? Is that where your interest in counterculture writing started?

My interest in counterculture began early. As a teenager, my first interest was music, mostly rock and jazz. I began playing guitar at 12, in 1986. At 15 I began to read poetry, mostly French poets from the XIXth century: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Corbière, as well as a bit of Surrealist poetry … and this reading was mixed with listening (and reading) to rock music and rock lyrics, from Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, MC5, etc. To me those lyrics were  some kind of poetry mixed with music and to get further into the music I felt I had to read and analyse the lyrics – and also to read and analyse more ‘classic’ poetry, which led me to these poets, to Surrealism, Dada and the poètes maudits. That was my first step into counterculture writing.

​I was able to put a link between that rock music from the 60s-70s that I liked and counterculture writers in 1991, when I was 18. The first shock was reading Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, then Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. And then, at 19-20, I read a lot of Burroughs and Kerouac. Many of those great books were sold out at that time in France, or available only in expensive collections, so I had to dig into second-hand bookshops for pocket books from the 70s. A lot of those writers were, during the 70s, released in France by Christian Bourgois in his 10/18 collection. So, in second-hand bookshops, I was always hunting for the 10/18 books, which had a very specific artwork.

​Then, also in a second-hand bookshop, I found a strange 10/18 book named Viva La Muerte by Arrabal, with a Roland Topor drawing. In this novel (originally titled Baal Babylone and renamed when the movie Viva La Muerte, based on this novel, was released), I found it a paradoxical kind of writing: half naive-childish, half complex, with a strange narrative process. Some of it reminded me of the nouveau roman style and the repetitive writing also reminded me of the cut-up novels of Burroughs. So, as a student in literature, for my first big work of research, I hesitated between a study of Burroughs's cut-up novels and Arrabal's novels from the 60s. I  chose Arrabal because, in that pre-internet era, I was able to find more stuff on him and I felt it would be easier to study and analyse.

​I was interested in the PANic movement. I even found the Superwoman 45-rpm by The Panics, who were supposedly created or helped by Alejandro Jodorowsky. In France, during the 80s, Topor was almost everywhere: as a child I watched a TV programme called Téléchat, which was very strange, often nonsensical, close to Lewis Carroll, sort of a strange dadaist thing … It was created by Topor. Topor also contributed to comedy TV programmes called Palace and Merci Bernard.

You play for a band called Orgöne, and have written a book about Captain Beefheart, called Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band(s), published in 2011. What attracts you to Don Van Vliet’s music? Do you like Frank Zappa too?

​I discovered Frank Zappa's music at almost the same time as the writings of Burroughs, Arrabal, Claude Pélieu, etc. At first I felt that his albums from the late 70s and 80s were boring, much too virtuoso stuff … And then I fell in love with his second album (with The Mothers Of Invention), from 1967, Absolutely Free. I really liked the collage/montage aesthetic in it. It reminded me, of course, of the cut-up technique, and also some works by Stockhausen, and the ‘atonal’ piece of Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire. At that time I was really looking after this aesthetic thing of collage/montage.

​Then, buying a book about Zappa, I read about Beefheart, but as the writer considered him as an ‘evil twin’ of Zappa and was really putting him down, I didn't go into Beefheart at first. I just knew the ‘Bongo Fury’ record, which is a collaboration between Zappa and Beefheart, but sounded much more like Zappa than Beefheart.

​

So, when I finally listened to Beefheart and Trout Mask Replica, at the end of the 90s, it was a real shock. What really thrilled me was that Beefheart's musicians were playing collage/montage music, but directly ‘live’, without the use of studio techniques: no overdub, no cut and paste. At the time of my discovery of Beefheart, in popular music there were many bands playing what was called ‘math rock’, and this music was really connected to Beefheart's music, this ‘cut and paste’, parataxic aesthetic. So, this led me to listen more deeply to Beefheart, and finally to write a study about his music. This study became the first try of my short biography, Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band(s).

​Back in the 1960s and 1970s there was a feeling that there was a close relationship between rock music and poetry – the poetry of rock. Do you feel that is still the case in the 2000s?

​Well, it depends on what you call ‘rock poetry’ or ‘the poetry of rock’. I always considered rock music as a whole: music AND lyrics. And I feel that, often, the best rock lyrics are simple or even ‘poor’ lyrics. I very much prefer the lyrics of Iggy Pop on the Stooges's first album (which use, say, only 100 or 200 simple words), than the works of rock guys who want to be considered as poets and write very long and complex texts – they miss the aim.

I don't know, in 2020, if there still is some ‘rock poetry’. I guess that it's always here. With my band, Orgöne, we try to write ‘dreamy’ lyrics, about ‘ancient astronauts’, about the myth of Egypt and pan-Africanism/Afrofuturism. We try to create some ‘mysterious’ lyrics, that is, simple lyrics, but with different levels of meanings.

​​You have produced some collages with distinct space themes. Are they often used as cover art for Orgöne albums?

​I made some collages during the 90s but was never satisfied with them. At that time, I had met Claude Pélieu, and I had this huge shadow on my shoulder, as Claude was a far-out and crazy collagist. But, one of my first collages work was based on cheap French comics of the 70s, about cosmonauts and Eastern Island statues.

​When I began to play with my fellow musicians, and that we decided to name ourselves Orgöne (a twisted way to pay homage to Burroughs, remembering the ‘orgone box’ scene in On The Road), we had to find a proper kind of artwork. So I went back to those collages, mixing lost cosmonauts with Egyptian landscapes, or Egyptian gods with space stuff. This kind of imagery is used, now, by many bands on the ‘stoner rock’ scene – but I began to compose those kind of collages very early, and I still find this very powerful: this is part of my imaginary inner landscape, I couldn't understand why or analyse it – it's a part of me.

​You have translated some of Beat poet Bob Kaufman’s work into French, and there is an interesting case of some Kaufman poems that was originally published in French, and which you translated back into English. How did that come about?

​This is a strange story, as usual. At the end of the 90s I bought The Ancient Rain by Kaufman, and I was frustrated: there was no French translation of this book, and the only people who were able to translate his poetry were Mary Beach and Claude Pélieu. So, as Kaufman's poetry really is hard to understand for a poor English-reader like me, I was angry not to be able to fully understand this poetry. The poems seemed nevertheless brilliant. After Claude and Mary passed on, I thought maybe I would never see a French translation of this beautiful little book. So I decided to translate, just for me, one or two texts. Then, my dear friend Alain Jégou got sick. In 2010 we had planned to one day do a music/reading event. Alain would read some of his poetry and poems by Kerouac and Kaufman, and I would play ‘free-rock’ guitar. In 2011, as I knew that Alain was really feeling bad, I sent him those first drafts of translation, of the poems ‘The American Sun’ and ‘All Those Ships That Never Sailed’. Alain was really happy, told me that it worked, that I had managed to translate Kaufman' distinctive voice, and asked me for some more. So, the idea of translating Kaufman came from Alain and from this idea of public readings of Kaufman's poems. Then, Bruno Sourdin also told me that it was a good idea, that it was a way of ‘finishing’ Mary and Claude's works on Kaufman's translations. So I decided to work on the entire book, to try and translate it. This translation took me almost 10 years (as I'm not a professional translator).

Then, in September 2017 I was in Paris for a colloquium about European Beat Studies. I talked about Claude and Mary, about Claude's poetry, about their role as French translators and literary agents in France, for Kaufman, Burroughs, Ginsberg, etc. After my speaking, someone came to me, Tate Swindell. He told me that he was working on a ‘Complete works’ book of Kaufman in the USA. He asked me about Kaufman, I just told him about my translation work. He was convinced that I could help him, as I was in touch with Claude and Mary, he was sure I must have information, etc. I wasn't convinced at all, but some days later, he sent me a message, with precise questions, about the French editions of Kaufman. And I then realised he was right, I could help him a little, as I had almost everything from Kaufman that was published in France.

​Tate had realised that some poems were translated and released in France, and that the original manuscripts were lost. So, to help him find back the manuscripts, I ‘re-translated’ those texts, from French to English. In this work I was helped by my own translations of Kaufman: sometimes I could ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the exact English word that Kaufman should have used, behind the curtain of the French translation.

 ​You have been active in either republishing, or promoting the republishing, of work by Claude Pélieu, including bringing the original manuscript of his Automatic Pilot to light. When did you first encounter Claude’s work and what are your memories of him?

 I encountered the writings of Claude through his translations (with Mary) of Ginsberg and  Burroughs. Then I found, in a second-hand bookshop, his poetry books Jukeboxes and Tatouages mentholés et cartouches d'aube, that 10/18 released in 1972 and 1973. It was the kind of poetry you could talk to. Before reading those books, I couldn't imagine that poetry could be about ‘acid rock’ and MC5. His poetry in these books was, at times, naive and simple, like Prévert, and in the same time very hard, talking about Kent massacre, counterculture events and protagonists. There was a feeling of immediacy. This guy talked the same language as a youngster like me, 20 years later. It was truly amazing. Most of all, it was the kind of poetry I thought I would have written if I were a poet.

Three years later, when I was doing my PhD on Burroughs, I went to the university library and searched about everything about him. I found a notice about a little book by him, released by a French publisher named SUEL. I wrote to that publisher, and Lucien Suel answered, very kindly. We began to talk, by snail mail, and, knowing I was doing my PhD on Burroughs, he gave me several contact details: those of Burroughs himself, and of Claude and Mary, plus Bruno Sourdin. So, I wrote to Claude, asking shyly about the French translations of Burroughs. That's how I met Claude. I was really impressed to be in touch with that guy who wrote such a powerful poetry.

​I wrote to him, I think in October 1996,  and got an answer some days later … I couldn't believe my eyes. Very quickly, Claude asked me about France, about me … in fact he didn't really care about my research on Burroughs, he was just … well … a friendly guy, happy to communicate with a youngster from France. That's the most important thing about Claude: it was all about friendship, trust. Claude acted like a sea-light, a guide, ‘passing’ the light. He insisted I contact FJ Ossang, Alain Jégou … I didn't know about those guys, but Claude kept insisting. I wasn't a writer, I was just an amateur rock musician, a student in literature, so I had nothing to prove, I wasn't a writer in search of an older ‘mentor’. I guess that's why Claude trusted me.

​When Burroughs died and Claude wrote a text about his old friend, he dedicated the text to me, and  sent me the original typescript. It was an honour for me. I didn't know what to do with this text, to help promote it, so I typed back the text on my computer and sent him this printed version.

 Then Claude sent me almost everything he wrote, asking me to type them on my computer. I was anxious about this, as he always sent me the original texts by the post and never kept a copy. Feeling that he didn't care with those original ones, even guessing that if I sent them back he would lose them or maybe throw them, I began to keep everything, to make copies and to type everything.

Then, the question was: what could I do with all those texts? Claude told me that there was no more French publishers wanting to release his books. So, I took the decision to start a micro-publishing structure to release those texts, as Lucien Suel did with his SUEL editions. People like Alain Jégou were helpful, giving me addresses of people that could be interested. That's how my micro-publishing structure began, with the name La Notonecte.

​We released four books from Claude. At last, Claude had a total freedom on those books. For example, one day I found, by chance, a text by Claude, from 1965, in the Cahier de l'Herne, about Céline, titled Boomerang. I sent Claude a copy, and he then told me, ‘oh, by the way ...’ there was another text by him in the Cahier de l'Herne about Ezra Pound. Then Claude sent me another text he wrote about Céline in 1967; some days later he sent me a new text, sort of a postscript to his texts about Céline, titled Boomerang 30 années plus tard. He then wrote to me that ‘it could be funny to have a book with all those texts’. That's how we did it. I gave Claude total artistic freedom. The books sold not so bad, considering we were a totally independent structure and that it was poetry.

After Claude's death, I remained loyal to his will and legacy. I tried to help, as much as I could, to promote his books and writings. It was, and still is, all about friendship. I owe so much to Claude. I was just a 23-year-old lad when I first wrote to him, but he always was open-minded and sincere. And, most of all, with Claude I learned to be sincere, honest. He taught me kindness, in a way – even if he could sometimes be very harsh to some people.

​Three months before his passing, Claude told me that he wanted me to release a book with his ‘American texts’. He meant Automatic Pilot and other texts from the 60s. I didn't even have a copy of Automatic Pilot. Some years later, Alain Jégou found the book and sent me a copy. I then realised that it was a translation by Mary, that the original text was in French. In 2008, thinking that the original text was lost, Alain and I decided to ‘retranslate’ the English version into French. We had a professional translator working on it, and then, word by word, I spent thousands of hours comparing this retranslation with other texts of Claude from the same era, to try to trace the original text.  Then, the original typescript surfaced in December 2019, in a bookshop, someone selling his archives. To protect this very important text from collectors and US universities, I put almost every penny I had (I'm not a rich guy) and bought it. I know that Claude would be very angry to know that I had to pay so much to finally have access to this text… But it was the only way to save this manuscript from greed and collectors’ craziness.

​So, nowadays, as I always did with Claude, I'm typing up this text on my computer and preparing a possible edition. Pilote Automatique is a milestone of French poetry. This is the only text by a French writer that were a part of the Beat Generation texts, the only French ‘Beat’ text, in a way. This is an incredible, crazy, long epical and lyrical screaming poem, a long howl about speed, urban landscapes, sex, love, knocking one's head again the walls of ‘normality’, the poet feeling that Paris streets were nothing but an air-tight cell. I know a whole lot of texts that Claude wrote one or two months before this one, and … Pilote Automatique is really different and astonishing. This is the text where the young fellow Claude suddenly and unexpectedly became the Poet Pélieu.

​Soon, I'll be going to the Bibliothèque nationale de France: they accepted to buy the typescript back. So, I will have my money back, and I'll be sure that it is now safe, and the property of the French state. Then, I'll try to have Pilote Automatique released here in France.

​Some years ago the Bibliothèque nationale de France also bought letters and texts by Claude from 1961-1963. Claude's first wife, Lula, decided, before Claude's passing, to release those letters and texts. In 2012, after many years, the book Un Amour de Beatnik was released. I was in charge of the notes, critical stuff, etc and did a lot of research on Claude's life between 1954 and 1964. It was amazing. I managed to talk (mostly by phone or mail) to many people who knew Claude during that era. I hope I managed, in my introduction, to paint a realistic portrait of the young Claude Pélieu, an angry young painter and drawer who became a very influential writer and poet. This work was becoming urgent, as many people were getting older, with fading memories. I discovered some unexpected facts!

 I recently spent several hours reading the proofs of the Jukeboxes rerelease, by the publisher Lenka Lente. Guillaume Belhomme, who runs Lenka Lente, is another mercenary. He's doing an astonishing and absolutely necessary job. It was really an extreme pleasure for me to help Guillaume. Reading the proofs of Jukeboxes, man, was such a moving moment … It was like having Claude next to me, over my shoulder, laughing out loud and yelling about the situation of the day here in France, with a lot of strikes, demonstrations, police stuff … Jukeboxes sounded really of the day, it was like a chronic of the actual situation here in France.

​Do you feel that Claude’s work is still important now, in 2020, in France as well as in other (English-speaking) countries? Do you feel that Claude’s work – for reasons of language as well as others – has been side-lined by Beat ‘experts’?

As I just said, Jukeboxes in 2020, doesn't sound outdated at all. This is a very strange situation: the forces and powers, collective and individuals, that Claude described, are almost the same nowadays. His poetry sounds as necessary today than in 1972. That's maybe why Claude’s is still a sort of ‘hidden treasure’ today. His poetry, in a way, still sounds ‘dangerous’.

​When you have a look back on French poetry from the XXth Century, there is an ‘official’ history: it begins with Apollinaire and then, after 1945, it's as if poetry had disappeared … There are just a few names, Bonnefoy, Char, Jaccottet … The position of Claude and other poets is a tough one: if you really study French poetry after 1945, you will find the Lettristes, the sound poets, and then a few names, like Stanislas Rodanski, Claude, Matthieu Messagier, Alain Jégou, etc. Claude, like Alain, is nowadays as hidden and forgotten as Lautréamont was in the XIXth Century, which is a shame.

​Claude's poetry is so specific, out there, mercenary, that it's easy to side-line him, as a ‘close to the Beats but not Beat’ poet. In France, this is ridiculous: some imbeciles here wrote that his poetry was ‘some bad Burroughs copy, much too burroughsian’, but also wrote that his translations of Burroughs were ‘much too Pélieu’. So: too much Pélieu’ or ‘too much Burroughs’? Silly questions.

​You contributed to an anthology of French writings about Kerouac back in 1999, called Kerouac City Blues. The late Alain Jégou was one of the contributors. How did you get to know him?

​Claude had written to me, saying ‘this guy, Alain Jégou, he's a fisherman, and also a very good poet, he lives close to you’. I was living in Rennes, and Alain in Lorient. There were 120 km between us. So, I met Alain in 1997 or 1998 I guess.

​Alain was not only a contributor to Kerouac City Blues, he was the initiator. With the poet Jacques Josse, they wanted to question the influence of Kerouac, 30 years after his death.

​A few months ago, I thought about Alain, about his poetry. I reread some of his early poems, which he often dismissed. I was really thrilled by the quality and power of his writing. With a friend, Pierre Rannou, and Alain's widow, Marie-Paule, we plan to build a first volume of Complete Poems, 1973-1983. This is another ‘mercenary job’ that I'm forced to do by myself, as no publisher here has the courage to do it. I miss Alain so much. This planned book is a mean to have him, in a certain way, besides me. Alain talks to me through his writings. This is why the job of finding back Alain's texts in several fanzines, typing them back, etc is a pleasant one.

 What is your opinion of the Beat ‘industries’ that have sprung up in the past 20 years – the Kerouac industry, the Ginsberg industry, the Burroughs industry?

​It's a paradox. The counterculture is always a means to find new paths, new ways of feeling, thinking, often in an opposite way to the industrialisation, to the capitalistic system. The individual against the mass-production and mass-thinking. So, the Beats becoming an industry … this sounds like a bad joke. But, fortunately, the texts of those writers are really very good and authentic, I think. So, even if the industry tries to use the Beats as merchandising stuff, it won't work so long. Those texts and writers are so powerful that their art won't be wasted by Industry and will survive.

Culture can be contaminated by (or can even be) industry and capitalism, but true art speaks to the heart of someone.

 What projects are you busy with at the moment, in terms of writing, music and art?

I'm busy with my band Orgöne. We just signed a contract with a ‘big’ independent Italian label,  Heavy Psych Sounds. We'll release our first album, a gatefold double LP. So, I'm busy with the artwork, and I'm also creating a specific series of 10 unique gatefold covers, for a very limited ‘original’ edition. That means 40 collages! We'll play some concerts during the next months, in France, maybe Germany. I also have other music projects and ideas, between free impro, basic heavy rock, electro punk, swampy blues etc. Time is lacking, alas ...

​I'm also busy with Claude’s Pilote Automatique and Alain’s Complete Works 1973-1983.

In the next months, I'll have to go to Paris to talk to conferences and colloquiums. There will be an event next September, titled Cut-ups @ 60. And the biggest event will be next June: Peggy Pacini and James Horton, two beautiful people, are organising the very first official and international colloquium around Claude! I'll be there, of course. There will also be an exhibition of Claude and Mary's works. What a fantastic news! This colloquium will be a very important and historical milestone in the process of recognition of one of the greatest French poets  ever, our very dear Claude Pélieu.

This interview first appeared in The Odd Magazine in English and French. Many thanks to Benoît Delaune for the French translation.

karl kempton and Philip Davenport: Reconnecting the links

karl kempton

karl kempton lives happily with his beloved wife, Ruth, in Oceano, California. Over 45 lexical and visual poetry titles of his have been published nationally and internationally.New series have been published by Otoliths 52 and Tip of the Knife 32. His environmental activism includes marine environment and sacred Chumash site protection. 

Philip Davenport

Philip Davenport is a poet who often works off the page, in galleries and streets; he runs the small press Apple Pie Editions. His anthology The Dark Would (2013) gathered and exhibited world-leading text artists and visual poets. Philip co-directed mass-collaboration The Homeless Library in 2016, the first ever history of British homelessness. It was inscribed into handmade books by contemporary homeless people and launched at the Houses of Parliament and the Southbank in London, UK. 

DH: karl, what motivated you to start compiling A History of Visual Text Art, and how did you, Philip, get involved from the publishing aspect?

karl: In 2004 Dan Waber asked me about the differences between concrete and visual poetries. From that question came my long overview, “VISUAL POETRY: A Brief History of Ancestral Roots and Modern Traditions,” that he published, containing many hot links for those interested in examples and supporting text sources.  As far as I am aware, no English language individual has attempted another comprehensive global overview beginning with rock art to add to or correct my “Brief History.” Over the years some links broke or died.

I have many interests and activities outside visual poetry; this includes working as a marine environmental activist and protecting sacred sites of the Northern Chumash.  In 2013 I turned over my efforts (23 years of research: writings, tables, and maps) to a skilled committee. Years of monthly articles summing portions of these materials can be found here.

That is when I turned to correcting the broken links and to add more commentary for “Brief History.” I was also asked to write an introduction to the Renegade Anthology. I soon realised there was more to learn in order to further the history of what became not a history of visual poetry, but rather a history of visual text art. Visual poetry is but one approach within this wider context. Understanding the wider context meant not only rewriting but widening my understanding of text usage in visual arts. I began the book in March 2013.

Dona Mayoora: Without title 

Philip: I’ve been fascinated by poems as and with images ever since I was a kid, reading Alice in Wonderland. When I was first published it was a set of poetic missing persons notices, which were in part image. I’d been chased by the police, billposting them. The British poet Bob Cobbing liked them and when he published me, he also introduced me to this world of seen words. In 2013, I made a language art anthology called The Dark Would, which brought together leading contemporary visual poets and text artists from around the world. In the virtual Volume 2 were 40 essays and interviews, but it still didn't feel enough. When Márton Koppány showed me karl's book, I knew that this was the prequel to The Dark Would. 

The relationship between this new book and The Dark Would is important because they share many characteristics. Both try to widen the field, the spectrum, we are in. Both try to restore silenced histories. Both work outside the academy, bringing in a different kind of knowledge. Both share this knowledge in a way that prioritises practice rather than theory exchange. And karl and I as people both define ourselves through this kind of art-making ... It’s why this project has worked so well, despite other differences we have.

Dona Mayoora: Asemic Zen Bull

Philip, you say that karl’s approach to the book is ‘unrepentantly non-academic’ – in what way?

Philip: This is a book from outside the academy. It represents voices and visions of people who were “outsidered”, because they were outside academic institutions, on the edge of artistic movements, and frequently marginalised by society itself because of their mental or physical health, or political or other beliefs. karl's work is not academic in the traditional sense and several other senses (including visual!) He also is outside the academy, even though he represents a huge body of specialist knowledge. Mostly he adds this to his palette of visual/poetic expression. And to help him navigate an inner journey, which is not an academic pursuit, at least not in the western sense.

karl: The book is both objective and academic, subjective and autobiographical. The objective “academic” portions are attempts to present as accurate a history I am able on sourced accepted factual evidence. Some of the facts are parts of the often-repeated history of concrete and visual poetries; others are found among visual poetry histories ignored by concrete histories; and others belong to the wider history of an unwritten visual text history that provides a context for the concrete and visual poetry histories. Moving off the accepted academic story lines, though based on textual evidence, is perhaps where the more subjective portions of the book may be classified. The last section, “Among the Seers,” though based on factual materials may be considered the main subjective materials. Inserted throughout are autobiographical moments presenting direct experiences within the wider context. Some may look upon it as a visual poet’s or visual text artist’s personal statement, perhaps even a manifesto.

Dona Mayoora: Without title

If somebody were to talk to me about the origins of visual text art, I would think of Apollinaire’s Calligrammes, the visual text experiments of Mallarme’s Un Coup de Des, or (a little later) the work of artists such as Henri Michaux. But you point out that the origins of visual poetry can be found even in cave art or in the calligraphic scripts of the Arabic world, southern Asia and the Far East.

karl: The actual answer is unknown. I suggest that if the myths of the inventions of writing are visited, we see roots in many cases from nature or natural patterns. We do not know the oral context of rock art and thus whether or not visual poetics or an older parent were in use. It has just been announced that many rock art panels spread widely across Europe contained constellations and alignments to their stars. I am not surprised having found my first Chumash solar and polar star aligned site in 1978 with a later associated burial site dated of 9,500 years old.

Early patterned alphabet and language is found on ancient charms, amulets, and yantras. Some have iconographics associated with them. Other early amulets were composed with hieroglyphic and ideogramic forms. Some of these shapes, alphabet and iconographic, have moved from rock art to pottery to other portable objects before parchment and then paper.

What is the relationship between visual poetry and concrete poetry?

karl: With Dick Higgins, publisher of the avant-garde Something Else Press, I co-guest edited a special visual poetry issue of the Canadan magazine, 10•5155•20, in 1983. That was the moment a concrete and fluxist publisher and poet agreed with my definitions of concrete and visual poetries. I have fine-tuned the definitions since. Both use fissioned particles of the stuff of language; concrete poets only create with text and its particles; visual poets fuse text and its particles with other arts. Concrete and other purists reject iconography mixed with text.

I forget who asked the wider community who first used the term visual poetry as a specific type. Both Higgins and I pointed to the same date, 1965. In my book I go into greater detail to point out that contrary to its written histories, concrete poetry was not new as a visual text expression. Before concrete poetry were concrete art and concrete music. Nevertheless, it was the first global poetry movement. Many of us view concrete poetry as a specific movement and later a specific type of expression under the wider umbrella term visual poetry, a poetry composed that requires the reader to see the poem for a complete experience.

Dona Mayoora: Without title

Because of the self-imposed confines dictated by concrete poetry, many around the globe rebelled. To stand apart they embraced the term visual poetry. This should not be confused with a recycled term in current usage, vispo, a continuation of text-only concrete poetry.

Kenneth Patchen is one American poet and artist who gets quite prominent coverage in the book – and rightly so. But what about Ezra Pound? I am thinking of his introduction of Chinese characters into some of the cantos.

karl: My brief discussion of Pound focused on three concerns: 1) his knowledge and comments concerning one of many disappearing acts by concrete theoreticians and history myth-makers, the erasure of Henry-Martin Barzun, who Pound knew and was familiar with his visual poetry; 2) Blast; and 3) the Chinese ideogram error.

His use of ideogram images as a visual poetry is suggestive and perhaps considered so by some. Not me. They can be considered illustrations of what he wrongly viewed in the context of his imagist poetic where the ideogram exemplified for him a purer poetic moment than available with alphabetical-based text. His use as illustrations, it seems to me, was to support his erroneous claim that Chinese ideograms were a visual language. Embedded in this approach one finds his mistaken view that the written form was a higher ideal than the spoken. He embraced Confucianism at the time when his peers, those also interested in Chinese culture, were pulled not towards hierarchy but Ch’an and Taoist poetics, they being anti-hierarchical.

Philip: Pound is important, but he’s already given huge attention at the expense of other people. What karl brings is fresh news — people whose ideas haven’t already been ingested, Barzun is one, but the book contains a host of others. There’s also a renewed problem with Pound’s Fascism, given that we are in an age where the far right is resurrecting as populism, the alt right, etc. Those ideas don’t need any more oxygen, they need challenge. This book offers another reading of the history of visual poetry that includes traditions sometimes seen as threatening, like Arabic word painting, which has Islamic roots and would be considered “alien” by a European alt right organisation like Pergida.

The book also covers asemic writing, though I have noted that some visual poets are quite critical – if not dismissive – of asemic writing.

karl: I needed to address asemic writing because of its current popularity. I assume most of its composers remain, as most visual poets, uninformed about the history of visual text art on the one hand and the damage caused to all the arts by the philosophical arguments found in non- referential art.

What were the challenges in compiling and editing the book?

karl: The vastness of the subject matter is beyond one individual. Individual segments have been skillfully covered, but not the entire spectrum. Without the internet this project would not have been possible. In 1975 I consciously removed myself from active literary centers to pursue my poetic close to the ocean here in south San Luis Obispo County. There are no nationally ranked local research libraries. I do not have academic access or financial assistance for extended periods of time for library research. I also refused to venture out to research libraries, not wanting to add to my carbon footprint. Thus, throughout the six years of writing and researching, I added a significant number of books to my library. It took over a year familiarizing myself with some of the Russian Futurists and their influences, including a deep dive into ikon art from its beginnings. I uncovered an error that Orphism was an idea from Apollinaire; it came from Barzun. Correcting the Apollinaire contribution to visual text art required much research and the help of Michael Winkler, who visited the Barzun archives at Columbia University to photograph some of the vast collection of his visual poems.  The error in the standard history of Orphism, many references to Plato, and the Islamic Science of Letters pushed me to look afresh at the Greek philosophers and Orpheus. Many other jumped-through hoops are found in the book presenting my findings. These few examples illustrate my primary challenge, to present in-depth commentary on this complex subject matter.

Copyright law presented a maze I did not want to run. That is the reason the book is an internet-published pdf with over a 1000 hot links to individual works and various texts ranging from essays to books. We plan an e-book edition later in the year.

Dona Mayoora: Sea

Another challenge is my dyslexia. It requires me to burden others to be proofreaders. Also, in order not to become trapped in mistaken concepts, I need knowledgeable readers. Karl Young died during the writing. Márton Koppány has been an indispensable sounding board over the years for this book. Harry Polkinhorn has been generous with his time, especially proofing and assistance with Latin American issues. Gerald Janecek has been essential regarding Russian Futurism. Others noted in the Acknowledgements have also been of great help. And, Philip Davenport, my editor and publisher, has added to the project making it far more than I first planned. Part of the addition was associating the book with the blog Synapse International online anthology, the first of its kind in India, thanks to its host Anindya Ray.

Some of my peers regard this as a life-long work. They are not wrong. Without my many interests, including rock art, symbols, calligraphy, Vedanta, Sufism, Ch’an/Zen, North American First People Ways, the history of ideas, economic history, and the history of religions, the book would not have provided the wider context throughout history around the globe. Such context seems to me to be generally missing. The reasons for this are discussed in the book.

Philip: The problem for me was not to be an editor in the usual meaning of the word. The discussion within it had already been chewed over with two other editors: Karl Young and Márton Koppany. In addition, I wanted to respect karl as a dyslexic writer because I thought this was an essential part of his aesthetic, which affects how he sees words, sometimes in three dimensions and with inner light. Therefore, while I did some work on the text, it was with a delicate touch. Instead I brought in contrasting elements.

My most visible editorial role was to insert sequences of poem/images in the book, by varied invited practitioners; then secondly to work on the blog Synapse International which we decided would be a kind of second volume to the book, showing hundreds of works by contemporary visual poets and artists. 

Pondering, I also want Apple Pie to be a publisher in a different sense, not to own the work, but rather to be encouragers and instigators. Therefore this book is distributed in a scattered way, via various outlets. It will be first available as a download from artists’ websites, then have various iterations as a print-on-demand book and an ebook, each time slightly reinvented.

Philip, you say in the introduction that you don’t agree with all the ideas in the book – could you elaborate on your differences of opinion?

Philip: Collisions produce energy and there are some differences that have fed into the book. I grew up in a so-called religious war in Northern Ireland and that makes me suspicious of any religiosity, whereas karl’s worldview has spirituality as a touchstone. We have joked a few times about the fact that my gurus were the Sex Pistols and the poetic experimenter Bob Cobbing, rather than anyone from esoteric religious traditions. Therefore, I brought scepticism, a certain amount of humour, and a different set of references.

Dona Mayoora: Shidarezakura

But if this is anything, it’s a book that allows space for difference. It is full of stories of poets, artists and others who didn’t fit with the orthodoxy of their time. From the medieval mystic Marguerite Porette, who was burned for heresy, through to members of the Stieglitz Circle, who were silenced by critics, there’s a theme of people being silenced, or even erased. One of the unusual things about karl’s book is that it contains its own dissenting voice too, a series of letters from the remarkable visual poet Márton Koppány; it is only a short section, but it ripples through the whole thing. What is crucial is that it all serves to bring to light poets, artists, whose opinions differ from the official histories.

What is the relevance of such a book today? What is the relevance of visual poetry itself?

karl: It has relevance for those interested in the history and context of visual text art. I wrote this to correct what I saw as misinformation and missing information.

Visual text art has the relevance of any art. Text wedded with image, because of available technology, has become ubiquitous. Stated above, discussions on concrete and visual poetries lack context and are guilty of misrepresentation (in my opinion). Also, the writings generally are caught in the centric web of concrete and or visual poetry points of view. Individuals wanting to move beyond cliché may find it relevant.

Philip: Linking words and visuality together is an ancient practice that goes deep into all of our pre-history. That crossover doesn't stop at language and image. Making signs, making marks, leaving traces, making patterns, communicating through gesture, dance, all of these things are possibilities. And as our tech and our needs evolve, more possibilities will be added, not subtracted. (Do you know Christian Bok’s poem “Xenotext”, written with a bacteria?) The mistake is to think that any of the differences between media are barriers. They’re simply reservoirs of material for us to unlock and use. Advertisers, propagandists, signwriters, website designers, filmmakers, games designers... all combine media to add complexity, depth, power, resonance.

Why wouldn’t poets want to use these materials too? We speak with the means that speak most deeply to us.

Dona Mayoora: Without title

The book A History of Visual Text Art can be downloaded here.  

This interview first appeared in The Odd Magazine.