Addendum VI

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877): A Somnolent Sisterhood

Reclining Nude, c.1840–41

The Hammock, 1844

The Young Ladies of the Banks of the Seine, 1857

Reclining Nude, 1862

Reclining Woman, c. 1865-66

Woman with a Parrot, 1866

'The nude does not simply represent the body, but relates it, by analogy, to all structures that have become part of our imaginative experience.'

Kenneth Clark

Verso IX

Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (1767–1824) - The Sleep of Endymion, 1791


Endymion (Extract)

Some were athirst in soul to see again
Their fellow huntsmen o’er the wide champaign
In times long past; to sit with them, and talk
Of all the chances in their earthly walk;
Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores
Of happiness, to when upon the moors,
Benighted, close they huddled from the cold,
And shar’d their famish’d scrips. Thus all out-told
Their fond imaginations,—saving him
Whose eyelids curtain’d up their jewels dim,
Endymion: yet hourly had he striven
To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
His fainting recollections. Now indeed
His senses had swoon’d off: he did not heed
The sudden silence, or the whispers low,
Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,
Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,
Or maiden’s sigh, that grief itself embalms:
But in the self-same fixed trance he kept,
Like one who on the earth had never stept.
Aye, even as dead-still as a marble man,
Frozen in that old tale Arabian.

John Keats

Coda II

Pablo Picasso (1881-1967): Sleepers Together, Alone And Observed

La Sieste (Les Moissonneurs), 1919




Sleeping Peasants, 1919




Woman with Yellow Hair, 1931

The Dream, 1932

Minotaur Caressing a Sleeping Woman, 1933

Faun Unveiling a Sleeping Woman, 1936

'Anyone can escape into sleep, we are all geniuses when we dream, the butcher's the poet's equal there.'

E. M Ciroan

Palimpsest III

Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) - Rue Transnonian, le 15 Avril 1834, 1834

Appendix I: Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889)

Sinful, Sensual, Supine, Sickly, Swooning and Satanic

Eve After the Fall

The Birth of Venus, 1863

The Death of Francesca de Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, 1870

Phedre, 1880

Ophelia, 1883

Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners, 1887

Somewhere, Under A Rainbow

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) - Printemps, 1869


'The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.'

William Blake

Addendum V

Somewhere, Under A Tombstone

The Next War

by Wilfred Owen, poet and soldier (March 18, 1893 – November 4, 1918)

Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,-
Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,-
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odor of his breath,-
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft,
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against His powers.
We laughed, -knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Wilfred Owen*

*Owen died aged 25 - just one week before the war ended - at the Battle of the Sambre.

I'm Gonna Buy A Rubber Doll

Japanese Sex Doll Factory

'If Miss means respectably unmarried, and Mrs. respectably married, then Ms. means nudge, nudge, wink, wink.'

Angela Carter

Verso VIII

Méret Oppenheim (1913-1985) - My Nurse, 1936

(Dame) Vivienne Westwood (b. 1941) - Sex, 1974-76

Six Images In Search Of An Exhibition X

Tales of the Quotidian Sublime

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) - Untitled (Perfect Lovers), 1991

James Turrell (b. 1943) - A Frontal Passage, 1994

Thomas Demand (b. 1964) - Room (Zimmer), 1996

Andreas Gursky (b. 1955) - Times Square, New York, 1997

Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963) - Untitled (Paperbacks), 1997

Matthew Barney (b. 1967) - The Cabinet of Baby Fay La Foe, 2000

'The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.'

Marcel Proust

Coda I: Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996)

A Requiem In Paper, Light, Stone And Candy

Loverboy, 1990




Untitled, 1990




Untitled (The End), 1990




Untitled (Public Opinion), 1991




Untitled (Portrait of Dad), 1991




Untitled, 1991

Untitled (Revenge), 1991

Untitled (Placebo - Landscape - for Roni), 1993




Untitled (Lovers - Paris), 1993




Untitled, 1992-95

'L.A. 1990. Ross and I spent every Saturday afternoon visiting galleries, museums, thrift shops, and going on long, very long drives all around L.A., enjoying the "magic hour" when the light makes everything gold and magical in that city. It was the best and worst of times. Ross was dying right in front of my eyes. Leaving me. It was the first time in my life when I knew for sure where the money for rent was coming from. It was a time of desperation, yet of growth too.

1990, L.A. The Gold Field. How can I deal with the Gold Field? I don't quite know. But the Gold Field was there. Ross and I entered the Museum of Contemporary Art, and without knowing the work of Roni Horn we were blown away by the heroic, gentle and horizontal presence of this gift. There it was, in a white room, all by itself, it didn't need company, it didn't need anything. Sitting on the floor, ever so lightly. A new landscape, a possible horizon, a place of rest and absolute beauty. Waiting for the right viewer willing and needing to be moved to a place of the imagination. This piece is nothing more than a thin layer of gold. It is everything a good poem by Wallace Stevens is: precise, with no baggage, nothing extra. A poem that feels secure and dares to unravel itself, to become naked, to be enjoyed in a tactile manner, but beyond that, in an intellectual way too. Ross and I were lifted. That gesture was all we needed to rest, to think about the possibility of change. This showed the innate ability of an artist proposing to make this place a better place. How truly revolutionary.

This work was needed. This was an undiscovered ocean for us. It was impossible, yet it was real, we saw this landscape. Like no other landscape. We felt it. We traveled together to countless sunsets. But where did this object come from? Who produced this piece that risked itself by being so fragile, just laying on the floor, no base, no plexiglass box on top of it . . . A place to dream, to regain energy, to dare. Ross and I always talked about this work, how much it affected us. After that any sunset became "The Gold Field." Roni had named something that had always been there. Now we saw it through her eyes, her imagination.'

Excerpt from The Gold Field by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1996

A Tree Is A Tree Is A Tree

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) - The Oak of Flagey, 1864


'I have never seen angels. Show me an angel and I will paint one.'

Gustave Courbet

Verso VII

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) - The Tree of Crows, 1822


'If the artist sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting what he sees before him.'

Caspar David Friedrich

Palimpsest II

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) - Moonlight Study, 1831


'Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.'

Caspar David Friedrich