Random, Abstract Poetry - 4/1/09

Background: I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page, but it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

The concept of taking something that already exists and turning it into something new was inspired by a Richard Prince's exhibition at the Guggenheim - 2008. His re-photography, nurse paintings, and deKooning woman, collage paintings were my favorites.

Examples: You can see actual articles from the Brooklyn Rail with the poetry on my website at www.ErikVP.com/poetry



A Boundary Between Perception Pieced Together
This is what we do.
Something or seeing something.
Looking up or looking down.
I empathize with that.

You make your own prints for intervention?
The color of strange colors.
Technical defects.
Unpredictability is always one thing.
Life and mirrors.

I was interested in invention, obsession,
The opposition to historical objects.
This guy looks at the same things,
But never interested,
And saw blue.
I thought, "oh my".

You know he gets more personalized.
Picture he's a flower.
Not so interesting.
He's not well.

Mud.
I also adore.
Interested in various kinds.
That's really obsolete!

What are your thoughts?
Who blurs the image?

We make hypotheses,
Reconstructing this process.
Visual illusions are extended,
As an image in a dream.

I don't think he loved Mussolini.
He just wanted to stay home.
Don't you think?



Watery Lily Pads Mocked By Instrumental Froggy
Be careful about the flower children.
An overdetermined idea.
Reading a sketch,
Then painting very clearly.

He was surprised by the fact.
Just spontaneous and totally classical.
I think it was overdetermined.

Maddeningly empty.
If apocalypse is revelation,
It's the end of understanding relevance.
Get ready.

The deluded old man,
Was genuinely touching.
His brilliance of manipulating.
The connection between sound and sounds,
Stripped of their color, words or images.

Can you talk about alchemy?
I was totally taken by it.
I wanted to find a way.

The musical landscape speaks.
I feel within your brain.
I deal with drama.

Over time, I am drawn to,
Part of my brain,
As well as color.
They're all people,
Who have life experience.

Virtually unnoticed.
Fashionably unconnected.
Fortunately, he had enough sense.
I can't think of one precisely.

Surreal, and beautifully rendered,
With highly physical experimentation.
A complex layer of conflict.
The message heard.
At times overlooked.
Stop fighting it.

A moment needs to be the next moment.
I can listen,
Lying broken.
It still sounds fantastic.



The Future May Not Be Completely Rosy
Cyan, magenta, yellow.
And make sounds called dance.
A cerebral piece?

Utterly original.
Contained within a labor of love.

Manufactured to the strictest standards.
Classical vinyl.

Nothing like a coherent narrative.
Political repression underneath surrealistic humor.
Serious words parsing at a literal level.
Funkier than a disco beat.

The mysterious German,
Strumming chords.

I discovered slippery truths,
About elusive recorders,
The word heresy.

Semi-acoustic, no-fi, lo-fi.
The secret studio.
Hundreds of beer and wine bottles,
Miraculously tidied up.

I'm not interested in composition.
I don't consciously use technique.

Ears decide who,
In terms of methodology.
People who choose to go,
And for some,
They do not experience a tangible artifact.
It's not personal.

For example,
Superimposed results compared to,
Meticulous restructurings,
That retain too much form and character.
Fascinating?
Frequently inspire,
And they will listen.

A man is like schizophrenia.
Legend says, he was listening on the radio.
This guy.
He was kind of a genius.
There is a kind of art called art brut.
I think you can call this music.

It's a song but also personal.
It's called rock 'n' roll.
But in fact rock 'n' roll.


Allow Meanings To Emerge
Their plans were delayed.
Irrevocably interrupted.
A non-stop mastermind from left field.

Wide geographic separation,
People still refer to "the impossible",
In 20th century structures.

An accessible art form.
Suburban worlds eventually go stale.
The niche creative projects had been found.

Compose life, and then go to the other side.
I like that quote.
Everything is equal.
I don't like hierarchy.
I don't like rules.
Arranging things that are equal, and so emotional.

The uncategorizable cow.
Tang, tang, tang.
Copy me?

I really wish people understood.
Move on to something else.
Reference a particular irony or nostalgia.
Probably nostalgia, as an illness.
People died of it.
Now think something sentimental.

Longing for home,
As an escape from war.
We were marching for the first time.
Into a world of really strange things.
I just woke.

I think paintings communicate.
There's the matter of one doing,
That nudges you.

You work, work, work.
It does something that you couldn't predict.
The baggage of convention entails serious slippage.
Whether faster or slower,
All I really care about is getting drunk.

Two inclinations may be diametric.
One aimed at creation.
The other about reality.
Objectively, the subjectively have a sense.
One might outweigh the striving of balance.
As you say, I like red and green.

Random, Abstract Poetry - 3/15/09

Background: I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page, but it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

The concept of taking something that already exists and turning it into something new was inspired by a Richard Prince's exhibition at the Guggenheim - 2008. His re-photography, nurse paintings, and deKooning woman, collage paintings were my favorites.

Examples: You can see actual articles from the Brooklyn Rail with the poetry on my website at - www.ErikVP.com/poetry


The Intellectual Obscurity of Absolute Understanding
A transition to the invisible,
And the anxiety of convention.
I had to learn.

You mention civilization,
Being one-dimensional.
The negation.
An opposition to positivism.

The marginal was tangential.
So you would be aware of it.
Always in resistance.
Abandoning society.

Whether it was ten or ten thousand.
He thought deeply and completely lucid.
Very critical of the French.
A necessary block,
To understanding a complicated language.

To think about theory,
All complexities can be understood.

Do you think that way?
It's possible.

The dark side was very difficult.
I was influenced by the thinker.
The difference between negative and positive.
Being oneself and so on.

I'm also thinking.
In other words, the knowledge of knowledge,
Can teach us knowledge.

Writing In Fragment Down The Page

Take a piece of paper.

And follow it.

What have you written?

Searching for an entry.

The sound of birds.

So much talking.

Stories are the collection of stories,

With a beginning, middle and end.
He awoke with a mind,
From the left side of right.

The two-headed god?

Ideas ask questions.

It's possible, but none the less.

That's not weird, it's just interesting.

An observer of his own life.

Leading to the climactic line.

It is finished, isn't it?
Yes.