Distress of a Dictionary

2nd October—2nd November '08

This small exhibition brings together ten works made over a period of forty years, all reflecting in some way Latham's use and misuse of language and humour.

Books accumulate and coagulate. They are cut up and burnt. They are piled high and submerged. John Latham's relationship with books and the language they contain is described quite succinctly by his treatment of them. Although he began using books in his relief paintings as a purely formal element, as a required flat, solid form, they came to represent the accumulation of human knowledge and the duration of our human occupation of the planet. Although certain books, Holy books or books of the law, came to represent particular belief systems in Latham's work, he more frequently chose books for their aesthetic qualities, for their colour or size; their signification was more generic than specific.

In Latham's lexicon books are the apparatus of learnt knowledge and of received opinion. As such, they belong to the rational tradition and they stifle intuition. Reliance on the past to solve the new problems of the present and the future was flawed in Latham's view.

Books, as a vessel of language, act also as a metaphor for the use of language itself. Latham felt that the very structure and form of language, arranged around nouns and proper names, was suited to the space, or object-based tradition and was inadequate for describing the Time-Based nature of the universe. For a long time he attempted to convey his ideas through the non-verbal idiom and he developed a strong visual language that included the spray gun, canvas, glass, wires and pipes, as well as books. In this language, the event (of making) is integrated into the form that describes it.


Works, clockwise from corridor:

Distress of a Dictionary, 1988
Glass fish-tank containing torn books, electrodes and cables

The show takes it's title from this first work, which you will see as you walk down the corridor from the Brain towards the Hand. In this work, the glass takes on an unusual role. In other works, like the book relief on the front of the house, the glass represents a zero point from which the books extrude, or emerge, representing human development over time, or the lifetime of the race. Here though, the glass encloses the Dictionary, which in its half-shredded state, is attempting to make its escape like the strange insect-like form in the far corner. This might be an allusion to the way in which knowledge is held captive and stifled by the static format of the printed page. Knowledge evolves and changes, words come in and out of parlance, theories are refuted and new discoveries are made, but this is not reflected in the rigid permanence of the book.

The Life & Death of Great Uncle, 1961
Facsimile of text work. First published in 'Gazette' (2), 1961

This poster is a reproduction of the first work John made with language. He was commissioned by the curator and critic Lawrence Alloway to write a piece for a new art journal. John felt that artists should not have to explain themselves verbally and preferred to express his ideas through the non-verbal idiom i.e. through his spray paintings and book relief assemblages. Instead, he decided to use language, or typography, in a more physical sense, like in concrete poetry. The typed text 'THE SAME' breaks down - 'THE SEME THE SIME THE SI TH' - and dissolves into something resembling the ink traces of a spray-gun or a cosmos (actually the repetitive and random use of the full-stop key). The text on the right hand side purports to elucidate on the character 'Great Uncle', a composite figure representing the history of Western thought inherited from the great thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome. The word play, punning and neologisms that appear in this text, reveal the influence which James Joyce had upon Latham, particularly the rhythmic and complex language of 'Finnegan's Wake'. Latham also referenced Great Uncle in the largest of his book relief paintings made two years earlier, Great Uncle Estate, 1959-60.

Little Red Mountain
(sometimes Little Read Mountain), 1960-62
Timber base, books, plaster, wire

Latham sometimes talked about the great glut of books, unread, uncared for, which pile up in libraries, second hand bookshops and such. In this work, such anonymous books are literally piled high and obscured from view. This work relates to a series of Skoob Tower performances or actions that Latham made between 1964 - 1967. Skoob is books spelt backwards. Rectangular towers were made by placing discarded books (law books, encyclopedias, art books) open at right angles to each other. They were then slowly incinerated or exploded. The Skoob towers, as well as the book-reliefs and sculptures using books, caused some controversy at the time of making. Latham's intentions were muddled by many critics with notions of the destruction of knowledge. In fact, through destroying books, Latham hoped to highlight their role in stifling original or intuitive thought, and their inefficiency in conveying knowledge and truth.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1971
16mm film transferred to DVD (black & white, silent). 6:33 min

This is a stop-frame animation documenting an entire 32-volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, one page for every frame of film. The film becomes increasingly over-exposed as the film goes on. The acceleration and obfuscation of the text and images alludes to the difficulties in processing or 'taking on' knowledge received in this form.

Classical Painting, 1988
Drawer, expanded polyurethane, book fragments

Firenze, 1967
Polystyrene foam and books, plastic tubes, metal pipes

This work and the untitled work placed on the narrow set of bookshelves in this room, are products of a series of 'book plumbing' events which took place in the basement of Better Books on Charing Cross Road during April 1967, organised by Latham, Jeffrey Shaw, Jeffrey Sawtell and Paul Davies. The objects were created amid a frenetic environment of newspaper-covered, inflating and collapsing walls, books set in gelitin melting in the heat produced by a profusion of steam-making apparatus, a cyclist on a newspaper bicycle, performers pasted onto walls and hoisted into ceiling cocoons communicating through plastic tubing to a soundtrack of tapes by Bob Cobbing and Jandl. The idea of 'book plumbing' relates to the linear passing of knowledge from person to person and generation to generation. The later works Classical Painting, 1988, and Tunnel Piece/PhD for Dogs, 1998, also included in the exhibition, use similar materials and embody similar ideas.

Philosophy and the practice of, 1960
Singed and painted books, metal rust, clips, copper tubes, electrical wires, wire-mesh, electricalinstrument panel, plaster on canvas and hardboard

They're learning fast, 1988
Fish-tank, pages from "Report of a Surveyor", piranha fish

From the early 1970s Latham felt a frustration at the lack of take up of his ideas and began to write theoretical texts which described the ideas developed through his art making. The dichotomy that emerges as a result of this turn to writing is illustrated in this work in which the fish, perhaps representing the Arts Council with whom John was engaged in an ongoing battle at the time the work was made, or members of the Establishment perceived more generally, or perhaps people in general, swim around two glass panels enclosing sections of his text 'Report of a Surveyor' (Hansjorg Mayer/Tate, 1984). Language is the only means of communication on offer as the fish are force-fed words, but of course, as pre-verbal creatures, they, and perhaps we, have no chance of taking on board the ideas presented.


On the shelves:

David Lamelas
Publication, 1970
Artist's book published by Nigel Greenwood Ltd. with an entry by John Latham on p. 19

Tunnel Piece/PhD for Dogs, 1998
Books and plastic tubing

Title unknown, object produced during 'book plumbing' events at Better Books, Charing Cross Road, April 1967