RECEIVED: Cheryl Penn's Treatise from the School for Complex Aesthetics (Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa)

[De Villo Sloan]

Back and front covers of IUOMA member Cheryl Penn's book "A Case for Complex Aesthetics" (Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa)

January 10, 2012 - South African painter, book artist, and visual poet Cheryl Penn sent me this absolutely stunning and fascinating book totaling 32 pages, certainly a major effort. The cover (above) is canvas painted with vibrant asemic writing and symbols.  

I call this book a treatise, rather than manifesto or narrative, because for me it is an exploration of how to both compose and read work that combines text and image. I am sure many examples already exist, but this seems to be a very unusual example of rhetoric being employed in visual poetry. Here is the title page:

While the work stands on its own, I think I can provide some context. Especially given the influences we encounter, many mail-artists experience a pull between applying aesthetics in their work and using representation or gravitating toward anti-art that relies often on found material and concerns itself with re-connecting life and art rather than maintaining traditional boundaries.

Discussions about these seeming polarities certainly took center stage in the Asemics 16 project that Cheryl and I both coordinated. Many IUOMA friends were involved in these discussions. I don't believe it was ever a matter of rancor (well, almost never). People were worked through the issues and made choices about where to take their own work. Cheryl's thesis here is that complex aesthetics are the foundation of simplicity. That is a classic, Penn-sian paradox. I'm not sure if I agree with her main argument completely, but I certainly do admire the work and find much that agrees with me along the way:

Even the writing on the text-based pages of the book is enhanced by applications of typography, overlays, and concrete poetry. In language that tends to the minimal side, Cheryl makes forays into her views about vision, concept, culture, and composition.

Because I am already so familiar with her work, I believe I immediately know her references and follow the deeper exploration and organization of ideas she makes in the book. On one level, this is a guide to how Cheryl Penn works; we seem to always want to know those things abut artists. Enlarging upon that, it is a guide to understanding visual poetry; and there simply aren't enough documents like this in relation to those who are interested. I immediately respond positively to the ideas on the pages above, yet I'm not sure how it necessarily connects to aesthetics. Rather, they speak to me about concept and structure. Here are two more pages:

An overall structure that holds the book together are cycles of simplicity building to complexity then diminishing. 

Back to Cheryl's School for Complex Aesthetics. Just yesterday, the term "surplus signification" was used in an IUOMA comment; that's from Foucault. I did once suggest to Cheryl that I thought she was too bent upon creating complicated structures of signs as an end in itself: a common criticism of postmodern work.

I said her work was informed by the Arthur Rimbaud Symbolist School of Subtle Aesthetic Obscurity, which, of course, doesn't exist but does describe a certain kind of art. Her School for Complex Aesthetics, I flatter myself to think, might be a response. If this is the case, then I have to admit I am a fan of her school. Here are some of my favorite sections of the book:

These are gorgeous, richly overlaid visuals. The text, driven by an off-beat incremental repetition, carries its message through the changing terrain.

Over the last 100 years, numerous avant garde movements - ranging from Da Da to Objectivism with much in between - have promised the end or eradication of metaphor and related figurative language that might fit the definition "surplus signification."  

Cheryl's work makes me ponder why that clause has so often been inserted in manifestos promising to set right artistic errors of the past. I'm all for setting right errors of the past. Yet given the nature of language and the language of images, is it really possible to eradicate metaphor? Would it solve anything in particular if we were able to? And might energies be better spent elsewhere?

As always, intriguing and fantastic work from Cheryl Penn. Many thanks!!!

Make sure to visit http://cherylpenn.com/wpb/

MAIL-ART PSYCHIC

"Mom, Ray, TRRH" & another Erni Baer Fan Club membership card

Spandex toga

"Wind in the Willows" chapter

Do you wear shoes in bed?

(A) Sunglasses

(B) Sure, I love bracelets

(C) I visit the malls

If it's still mostly green, keep it.

Like wearing a raincoat in the gold shower

9, 7, 591

What best defines your signature look?

(A) Neutral & dark hues

(B) Flotist

(c) My body is a Temple (of Satan)

(d) stapled my finger to the table when I was bored

(e) 

[Marie Wintzer]

Great!!!

[De Villo Sloan]

I have many, and I'll be glad to send them.

[Marie Wintzer]

This gave me another idea. I want to make a book with Cheryl's unreadable notes. I'll have to make an official call at some point, but if anyone has such notes or copies of it I would be very happy to take them.

[Marie Wintzer]

[De Villo Sloan]

What an honor, your Majesty. I'm sure you will receive a copy of the treatise.

Dw surprises me sometimes. That's an amazing quote that played a part in the aesthetics/anti-art debate.

Having worshipful subjects is not always easy. They expect you to feed them.

[Marie Wintzer]

32 pages! Wow, I can't wait to get my own copy of this. I won't be able to write such a nice blog, though. Great job both of you! Treatise... I like that word.

I don't know how this is going to be received, but I HAVE to quote the Dw here: "It's The Arthur Rimbaud Symbolist School of Subtle Aesthetic Obscurity. You don't say what you mean; you mean what you don't say. He was from France and is a lynx to the minx. Not to be confused with the South African School of Clueless Semiotics (aka if I pile up enough bizarre images somebody is bound to think it means something profound)."

This was pre- complex aesthetics treatise, I have to precise. Very funny IMHO.

[De Villo Sloan]

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

"The first copy for you", Sloan...

which means that there are others to come to others, right, dear Cheryl ? ( hint, hint!)

Beautiful: "Because everything comes..." Remarkable work of art, Cheryl! xx

And what a blog...great writing,Sloan ( so this is why you don't have time to attack "Windmills", hmmm?)

[De Villo Sloan]

Thanks for the further explanation, Cheryl. I couldn't read the note that came with the book. How does this work? Are there other copies? This is so unusual in vispo and such a major effort, it would seem a shame if more people didn't see it. I didn't scan the whole book, of course.

I forgot to write in the blog that this aesthetic school business is the foundation of MinXus.

Chairman M. continues to have a thistle in her jammies or is out in the cold slopping the minks & remains resentful. This book would be a MinXus Bible.

[cheryl penn]

Hey De Villo - no wonder people send you work - you write such fantastic commentaries - thank you :-) - yip, you and I have had MANY a foray into the question of aesthetics. Some more HEATED than others!! My own realization while doing this book was that complexity and effective simplicity are so tightly entwined as to be inseparable - I know this too may be paradoxical :-) - what I mean is that seeming aesthetic simplicity is made more compelling if layers of historical marks are covered over, rather than just a single entity/unit on a page - does that make sense? Thank you again :-) - tell Arthur if you see him some where in your denizens that he is welcome for tea - although in his case, I might have to dig up something else - he's still traveling through Africa? I have not heard from him in a long while! Hey Karen and Angie - I posted you both something today   :-) X