{"id":5260,"date":"2013-07-08T15:18:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T14:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=5260"},"modified":"2025-07-26T15:08:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:08:42","slug":"on-the-impossibility-of-a-pure-praise-poem-manandeve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/on-the-impossibility-of-a-pure-praise-poem-manandeve\/","title":{"rendered":"On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>British Council &amp; Man&amp;Eve, London <a href=\"https:\/\/visualarts.britishcouncil.org\/programmes\/exhibition\/on-the-impossibility-of-a-pure-praise-poem-dom-sylvester-houedard-aliki-braine-mark-dean-and-anna-sikorska-2013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u2192<\/a><br \/>\n21 Jun \u2013 27 Jul 2013<\/p>\n<p>Aliki Braine, Mark Dean, Dom Sylvester Hou\u00e9dard, Anna Sikorska<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>bibliography:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/on-the-impossibility-of-a-pure-praise-poem-catalogue-essay\/#ace-review\">Phil Baines, \u2018On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem\u2019, Art &amp; Christianity, No 75, Autumn 2013<br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/on-the-impossibility-of-a-pure-praise-poem-catalogue-essay\/\">Lucy Newman Cleeve,\u00a0On the (im)possibility of a pure praise poem, catalogue essay, 2013<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 1px; background: #333333; font-size: 0;\">&#8211;<\/div>\n<p>exhibited works:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=5287\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/NOTHING-COMPARES-2-U.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/127983871?autoplay=0&amp;loop=1&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"585\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=5287\">Nothing Compares 2 U<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=4666\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ascension.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/137296697?autoplay=0&amp;loop=1&amp;title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"520\" height=\"390\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/?p=4666\">Ascension (nothing\/Something Good)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/nothing-comes-from-nothing-1440.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nothing Comes From Nothing (Lucretius, Rodgers &amp; Hammerstein)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>gallery information:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cPoetry all art is one of universal worships a l\u2019insu of god the unknown.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n&#8211; Dom Sylvester Hou\u00e9dard<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Ian MacMillan in 2006, the poet Geoffrey Hill spoke about \u201cthe impossibility of a pure praise poem\u201d. Hill\u2019s bold assertion forms the basis of enquiry for this exhibition, which brings together work by the late Benedictine priest, theologian and Concrete poet Dom Sylvester Hou\u00e9dard (aka dsh), with work by three contemporary artists: Aliki Braine, Mark Dean and Anna Sikorska. The exhibition explores, in various media, whether the creative act and its product can ever comprise \u2018pure praise\u2019, or whether the incidence of a \u2018pure praise poem\u2019 (or equally of a pure praise photograph, painting, video or sculpture) is unattainable.<\/p>\n<p>A number of intriguing symmetries occur within the exhibition, not least the fact that it includes work made by two ordained priests (dsh and Dean). dsh understood his visual poems and \u2018typestracts\u2019 as \u201cicons depicting sacred questions,\u201d and Dean\u2019s video works, which have been described by David Curtis as \u201cvotive offerings,\u201d also function in the interrogative mode. In each case, there is a tacit acceptance that answers will not be forthcoming. For dsh, questions are met with mysteries, \u201cto which the appropriate response can never be an \u2018answer\u2019 but has to be a growth of awareness and awe \u2013 gratitude, depth and pleasure.\u201d This attitude of praise defines the creative act, but cannot necessarily be conveyed to the viewer who joins with the artist in constructing the meaning of the work.<\/p>\n<p>Dean\u2019s work relies heavily upon the appropriation of, often iconic, film and video footage and music. It introduces visual and aural puns that behave as the generators and interrogators of meaning within the work, setting up a series of disputations between the different elements being sampled. Although the work is always carefully constructed, the reverberations and analogies created by placing potent symbols side by side are myriad. The screen becomes a crucible in which layers of meaning are compounded, burnt and refined.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-12675\" src=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACE_SpeltOut-520x75.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACE_SpeltOut-520x75.jpg 520w, https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACE_SpeltOut-500x72.jpg 500w, https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACE_SpeltOut-800x116.jpg 800w, https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACE_SpeltOut.jpg 1428w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" \/><\/h1>\n<p>\u2018On the (im)possibility of a Pure Praise Poem\u2019,\u00a0Phil Baines, Art and Christianity 75, Autumn 2013<\/p>\n<p>I first came across the work of the Dominican monk, concrete poet and scholar Dom Sylvester Hou\u00e9dard in the compendium Art without boundaries (Woods G, Thomson P &amp; Williams J, Thames &amp; Hudson 1972).<\/p>\n<p>The book in general, and the concrete poetry of Hou\u00e9dard in particular, formed an alternative set of references for several of us studying graphics at art school in the early 1980\u2019s. His work has attracted growing interest since his death in 1992 and a monograph \u2013 \u2018Notes from the cosmic typewriter\u2019 (ed. Simpson N) \u2013 was published last year by Occasional Papers. This exhibition showed work by Hou\u00e9dard, Mark Dean (an Anglican priest), and the younger artists Aliki Braine and Anna Sikorska and explored the theme of the title.*<\/p>\n<p>Hou\u00e9dard\u2019s work was grouped in two areas, with more abstracted wall pieces on the ground floor, and books and more poetic work downstairs. On entering the gallery the large and colourful \u2018Memorial to Ken Kox\u2019 was an obvious presence, but it was the smaller \u2018typestracts\u2019 which caught my attention. Rarely larger than a quarto sheet (10\u201d x 8\u201d) these pieces were delicate constructions created with a typewriter and sometimes carbon paper. While a few dealt with fragments of text, most used letters, punctuation or symbols a painter might use a brush stroke. Despite their small scale, I found them immersive as Rothko\u2019s \u2018Seagram\u2019 series at the Tate, which accords with an assertion by him in Art without boundaries: \u2018I see my typestracts as icons depicting sacred questions\u2019 (p.136).<\/p>\n<p>Dean\u2019s \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019 worked on several levels depending on how well you knew your art and film history or had read the excellent exhibition notes by Lucy Newman Cleeve. A film in portrait format comprising two overlapped sequences, one of a man, the other of a shaven headed woman (from a previous, possibly silent era judging from the film stock), both crying uncontrollably. The soundtrack a haunting 80\u2019s sounding synth pop song layered and looped, melancholic, but not quite at one with the film. I found the work incredibly moving without knowing the references: a pairing of Maria Falconetti in the film \u2018La passion de Jeanne d\u2019Arc\u2019 (1928), with part of \u2018I\u2019m too sad to tell you\u2019 (1970) by Bas Jan Ader, to the soundtrack of a remixed version of the Mirrors\u2019 cover (2011) of Dino Valenti\u2019s \u2018Something\u2019s on your mind\u2019 (Karen Dalton, 1971). These aspects of layering, not immediately obvious \u2013 and arguably not strictly necessary to its appreciation \u2013 added weight to the work and suggest an interest in the materiality of process which was common to all four artists. For Hou\u00e9dard the typewriter was pushed to the limits: letters were used as marks; conventions of line spacing were ignored; the sheet was worked, then taken out and re-worked, sometimes several times; if a coloured ribbon couldn\u2019t be found, carbon paper was used.<\/p>\n<p>In Braine\u2019s work \u2013 aptly described as \u2018concrete photography\u2019 \u2013 the substance of analogue photographic film is clearly evident. With no image exposed, the print reveals the substance of the film itself, slightly scratched and real, interrupted by either punched holes or applied stickers.<\/p>\n<p>Sikorska\u2019s interest in material is slightly different and perhaps more open to ambiguity than the others. The works \u2018Colosseum\u2019 and \u2018St Andrew unadorned\u2019 play with the visual similarities between title and object, but material differences: between the titled object and the art object, and between the art object and that object\u2019s original material. Here a knowledge of the title is critical to unlocking the work, and the sense of materiality, and her play with it, was less immediately obvious.<\/p>\n<p>Man&amp;Eve must be congratulated on bringing this body of work together. The exhibition title can be taken two ways. I\u2019m sure for many the work provided a vibrant affirmation that a pure praise poem is indeed possible, for others it opened their eyes to at least the possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Baines is a Graphic designer and Professor of Typography at Central St Martins, University of the Arts London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British Council &#038; Man&#038;Eve, London<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[102,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-selected-exhibitions","category-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5260"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23882,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5260\/revisions\/23882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplachap.com\/art\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}