Le Lotus Minks - from De Villo Sloan

[Marie Wintzer]

I am proud to present the first book entirely manufactured and produced by MinXus-Lynxus-USA, and in fact De Villo's first artist book.

Le Lotus Minx is Vispo work, one of the very few pieces by De Villo not using his characteristic asemic stamp technique. It bears Dark wall's Minxus authenticity stamp though, looking great.

The book opens with the poem “How I taught my monkey to stop smoking in 4 easy steps”. The cut up and re-assembled black text over yellow provides an asemic wrapping around the images, and is used repeatedly, albeit under different forms, along the various pages. I first thought it was derived from cigarette paper wrapping but I now know that it is made from a long piece of plastic tape found in the street with the word CAUTION written on it. The kind of tape used at accidents and construction sites. 

The split narrative leads us from women's volley ball tournaments to the Lotus, central to the book, via the banks of the Mekong river, daily life, labor and festivals of Cambodia. Text in French accompanies the black and white photos all along the book, which, given the involvement of France in that part of the world not so long ago, emphasizes the Southeast Asian accent of the book.

The lotus is a highly symbolic flower, especially in Buddhism. Roots in the mud, stem growing up through the water, and heavily scented flower basking in the sunlight, it is a symbol of purity, of the mind's journey and growth. It is also the symbol of feminine principle, and I think I can say that this book is by the same way an ode to women. To volleyball players defying gravity, to women arranging flower and leaf decorations for the upcoming ritual, to women slowly simmering chicken by the riverside for the evening meal, to queens gracefully sowing paddy seeds.
Au royaume de la femme, le singe travaille pour l'homme.
This is a great boekie by De Villo Sloan, I am absolutely thrilled to have it in my collection, thank you! 

[Carina]

YES!

[Marie Wintzer]

They're Alsacian, of course. I can tell.

[De Villo Sloan]

Thanks all. You taught me something. Using CAUTION tape to make asemics seemed inconsequential to me in "Le Lotus Minks." But cutting up CAUTION, throwing it to the wind, so to speak, is really central & an activity outside the text. I seriously appreciate the commentary - much better insights than Dark wall's offhand: "an epic of women's volleyball & Cambodia with a particular interest in the livestock of that country." They are not, BTW, Cambodian women volleyball players. Thanks again.

[De Villo Sloan]

Here's a piece of the tape that survived the flood & the cut-up. I liked these also because wind, sun & water altered the original, uniform colors. Very ironic that the name of the company that makes the tape is "Empire." NY is known as "The Empire State."

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Hey, thank you vispoets - and that is meant for you Svenja! You do some great visual poetry.

 

You know - it's the chance associations that make this (and mail-art?) the most meaningful. After she received the book, I learned Marie had been a child volleyball star in Alsace. So it has a personal meaning for her. I thought those pictures of the women suspended in air were cool.

 

Also - speaking of the water imagery - I found the plastic CAUTION tape in the street where a brook had flooded and receded. Other people have experimented with CAUTION tape but I wanted to really fracture it into asemics and use the original material.

 

I am drawn to those old shots of life in what we know as Cambodia & generally Southeast Asia. Kubrick's Vietnam War epic film "Full Metal Jacket" did cross my mind. Kubrick made much of the American thoughtless destruction of the remains of the ancient cultures in SE Asia - yet another application of the method used to eradicate the American Indian - simple erasure of a previous culture.

 

Kubrick really questions the culture genocide machine, with very dark humor suggesting the complex cultures of Southeast Asia were being replaced by a culture whose greatest contribution is Mickey Mouse.

[cheryl penn]

Great piece of work!  Is the trilogy section of this piece - Cut Up Caution? :-) X

[Svenja Wahl]

What a fabulous boekie and great blog, many thanks to both of you. During the VISPO-book-project I had the feeling that I don*t really understand what vispo means, but every time I see DVS' work I get an idea what it can be. The pages are just wonderful, DVS, and I like especially the mixed up caution tape!

[Marie Wintzer]

It's a special one, DVS. The first book out of MinXus-LynXus USA, for starters. Then the women's volleyball  pictures, pure coincidence as you didn't know that I used to play volleyball as a kid, but it made it look even more tailor-made for me. I also see it at a spin-off from Dw's Spring Dance of the Mink, because of the Cambodian story line. The "co-habitation" of several narratives always works for me. I thought it was a great book!

[De Villo Sloan]

Thanks for posting the entire thing, Marie, and especially for the really insightful commentary. That's it - you have two narratives - a history of Cambodia & women's volleyball. No rule states that they have to have anything to do with each other. Certainly women do hold it together. Many of the Cambodian shots involve water. You have the man partially immersed in the river. You have another shot of the skindivers fishing things out of the water and the collaged lotus suggesting they're in a lotus pool. One of the volleyball shots has the net, like a fishing net. The thing seems preoccupied with boundaries and people crossing the boundaries in various ways. Some seems baptismal. Some preoccupation with ritual.The Caution tape cut-ups are just experiments with asemics & found material. Thanks again.