Post by Silky on Jan 31, 2006 14:05:43 GMT
Very interesting interview with Jimmy on the www.t12artspace.com website.
www.t12artspace.com/phy_lit
James Cauty - Stonehenge Vs Auto Destruction.
'Jimmy (James Cauty) spent a year doing a series of large paintings depicting apocalyptic scenes involving ourselves, the destruction of Stonehenge, the unleashing of dark forces and the death of thousands...then he destroyed the lot by sanding the paint off the canvases, carefully sweeping up the dust and keeping it in a series of jam jars. One jam jar for each painting. Why? Best not to ask. We all deal with our moments of doubt in different ways.' - Bill Drummond 45 (2000)
I arrived at Jimmy's studio somewhere in Brighton - down away from the tourist machine, past the beautiful burnt out skeletal body of the old pier - James Cauty's studio lay further down by the fractured old industry and up on a hill.
I parked the Duridic White Kraut Rock Sampler Henge mobile in the yard. Jimmy claimed nobody had visited his studio before, he was warm and welcoming. I asked Jimmy about the pier - we passed comment on its installation properties. 'How exactly did it get that way?' I asked. 'Somebody launched a firework into it.' was the simple reply. I tried not to give Jimmy a knowing look. I walked around and into the recording room with the black mixing desk and the gold draped along the wall between the speakers for 'acoustic properties.' Then past the tent where he slept, inside which was an earthquake bed, constructed by Gimpo, simply and elegantly from scaffolding poles. Then there it was - a huge painting. Sometimes you see something and well, you are not quite prepared for it. There in a vast scene lay Stonehenge, being struck by lightning, and echoing Turner's vision. A huge expanse of portent sky consumed a large part of the canvas, below, down from the ignited exploding stones; a camper van, dancing hippies and caked out festival goers were being consumed by the chthonic earth; heralding them all down to Dante's world and a black, red, orange, liquid crust. The point of origin of the destructive bolt was a large white swastika, floating with an hallucinatory clarity amongst the beautiful black swept sky.
I think I asked Jimmy a question, he may have even given me an answer, but by that time it all gone way past the ordinary. Besides I had a letter on my person from the Royal Mail and quoting 'Palace disapproval' of Jimmy's gas mask Queens.
We spoke strategies, bankruptcy, and domestic implosion. Inevitably Stonehenge came up again. The Prada-Meinhof Gang had just recorded 'Hammer of the Goddess' and the Blacksmoke Organisation had supplied a totemic re-mix. From its inception I had always imagined all of the women performing this at Stonehenge. Jimmy promised to supply a map; locating the specific resting place of an 'object' buried there and now requiring retrieval.... Martin Sexton 2004
www.t12artspace.com/phy_lit
James Cauty - Stonehenge Vs Auto Destruction.
'Jimmy (James Cauty) spent a year doing a series of large paintings depicting apocalyptic scenes involving ourselves, the destruction of Stonehenge, the unleashing of dark forces and the death of thousands...then he destroyed the lot by sanding the paint off the canvases, carefully sweeping up the dust and keeping it in a series of jam jars. One jam jar for each painting. Why? Best not to ask. We all deal with our moments of doubt in different ways.' - Bill Drummond 45 (2000)
I arrived at Jimmy's studio somewhere in Brighton - down away from the tourist machine, past the beautiful burnt out skeletal body of the old pier - James Cauty's studio lay further down by the fractured old industry and up on a hill.
I parked the Duridic White Kraut Rock Sampler Henge mobile in the yard. Jimmy claimed nobody had visited his studio before, he was warm and welcoming. I asked Jimmy about the pier - we passed comment on its installation properties. 'How exactly did it get that way?' I asked. 'Somebody launched a firework into it.' was the simple reply. I tried not to give Jimmy a knowing look. I walked around and into the recording room with the black mixing desk and the gold draped along the wall between the speakers for 'acoustic properties.' Then past the tent where he slept, inside which was an earthquake bed, constructed by Gimpo, simply and elegantly from scaffolding poles. Then there it was - a huge painting. Sometimes you see something and well, you are not quite prepared for it. There in a vast scene lay Stonehenge, being struck by lightning, and echoing Turner's vision. A huge expanse of portent sky consumed a large part of the canvas, below, down from the ignited exploding stones; a camper van, dancing hippies and caked out festival goers were being consumed by the chthonic earth; heralding them all down to Dante's world and a black, red, orange, liquid crust. The point of origin of the destructive bolt was a large white swastika, floating with an hallucinatory clarity amongst the beautiful black swept sky.
I think I asked Jimmy a question, he may have even given me an answer, but by that time it all gone way past the ordinary. Besides I had a letter on my person from the Royal Mail and quoting 'Palace disapproval' of Jimmy's gas mask Queens.
We spoke strategies, bankruptcy, and domestic implosion. Inevitably Stonehenge came up again. The Prada-Meinhof Gang had just recorded 'Hammer of the Goddess' and the Blacksmoke Organisation had supplied a totemic re-mix. From its inception I had always imagined all of the women performing this at Stonehenge. Jimmy promised to supply a map; locating the specific resting place of an 'object' buried there and now requiring retrieval.... Martin Sexton 2004
