(designed to read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)
As I walked towards the Serpentine Gallery I saw a cluster of 13 daisies (two damaged) in very green grass - and chestnuts blooms growing so near to the ground that it's darker beneath the tree. Confronted by chestnut blooms at face level - white flowers with pink and yellow details - and such obtrusive growth of big new leaves and branches, almost obscene.
11:44
At the exhibition of Cy Twombly's works on paper at the Serpentine Gallery:
marked by the abstract expressionism which ruled his coming-of-age, he has never been content with its sovereignty of pure instinct (comment in a book by Simon Schama)
...Cy Twombly: he sees all inscription as ART - it's just a question of seeing it.
Lido Cafe, sitting down and writing on the handheld:
as I walked here across the grass amongst daisies I wished to be writing on this handheld while standing up - but up to then I was noting thoughts briefly on paper - and then I have to transcribe, (which takes time - and I may never do it) and some freshness is lost in the connecting of written scraps into sentences... But if I could write-digitally-standing on the screen I'd both save time and write more freshly, closer to thought. (I hope.)
I must try it. I did so - what follows was written standing:
As I looked at Cy Twombly's works (and particularly at books of his works with essays by others) I several times felt inspired to accept or adopt his wider perception of art (as including all 'inscriptions' from prehistoric onwards, no matter how roughly inscribed or how vulgar) - and thus (as when consulting an oracle) to inhabit a widened perception myself... And as I noticed the great variety of the interpretations of his work I thought 'his artworks are a bit like Herman Rorschach's ink blot pictures*' (in which one's own subconscious image-making is perhaps revealed)... is each critic seeing himself in these works?
When I asked one of the men raking soil 'what are you making?' he had to ask his mate...
who said 'Princess Diana's memorial fountain'.
'Improving the world?' I said
and they laughed - nervously, I thought.
Then I copied this from the explanatory poster:
...an extraordinary water feature, being a stone oval 210 metres in circumference over which water will run, tumble, cascade, curl and bubble before coming to rest in a large tranquil pool....a memorial that will reflect the personality and life of Diana...
...computer generated 3-D models are at present guiding high-tech diamond-tipped cutting machines as they work on Cornish granite...
All these elements, I thought, each a recent novelty, combine to enable the birth of a synthesis beyond the perceptions of their inventors
as I write, standing by the safety fence, a huge dumper deposits perhaps half a ton of soil before me.
The young man whose job it is to spread the soil with a shovel takes off his sweater and in doing so exposes inscriptions in gothic lettering tattooed on his back.
high visibility jackets must be wornTo write thus, standing, is very slow - it obliged me to stand in one spot for several minutes (would texting be significantly faster?)
A starling perches on the safety fence for about half a minute as it looks about before flying away
14:33 I've noted enough... there are several worlds here - as everywhere.
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