11.03.2001

re SURELY NOT

I have had a close look at the revised and nearly completed version of SURELY NOT, in the light of our discussions on Friday. You are generally designing and publishing, and we will review the links in due course e.g. the link between artist book and facsicule, the link between artist book and artist book. You made a telling remark that I barely noticed but think it may be worth your eventual response.

That you didnÕt know who Fatima Spud was.

Well, if we look at the facsicules, there is a sense of knowing how given ideas extend from one to another, that the personality of one man - Duke say, or Alan Ladd has a profile, a rounded quality you need not explain - particularly in the celebrity endorsements. You are developing a set of satirical narratives in the books which are moving your own work much further, and in the written sections, rounding out the ideas from keywords to sentences and paragraphs, using a symmetry of pairs for analysis.

Oddly enough, this needs applying (I think) to the surfaces of the artist books. They appear (as we agree) at the moment as one off responses. You own graphic humour is oblique, and the cultural references range from subtle to sly. I think there is a weakness in characterisation - not in conventional terms - you can handle that.

MAIN MESSAGE FOR TODAY In the world of your artist books, you should have thought through the logic, the dramatic and bathetic possibilities of the personae involved and here is the important thing even if they a. donÕt appear until later b. appear in different guise c. never appear. A good model might be MelvilleÕs The Confidence Man. The reader left wondering and worrying. Hence I think you should know who Fatima Spud is, even if we never meet her again. The very logic, the very narrative distilled will inform the rest of your productions as yet unglimpsed. Adele still wants to create an Academy of Eccentric Practice.Your artist books may be the same - perhaps it is your guiding hand that moves the puppets, perhaps it is you in a mask. Who else is hidden behind the curtains ? But it needs to be built on to give a hidden strength (an armature) to the reference points that you are picking up on the map.

1. So, think you what lies behind the screen - back to Oz again. What overall authority has been sanctioned to address us this way ? Where might the tone of voice come from (breathless) ?

2. On the water-ski page try moving the figure in front of the large detail - it may help formally to stress the artificial. The sudden appearance of the mouth there adds a new variety (of scale) to the spread.

3. The middle spread will be re-jigged. Try making experiments with scale. I notice that you keep to a steady frame on all pages (trouser and jacket here) What about making the man and dog more dominant - as well as trying to keep it inside a frame - perhaps try both. I have started the drafts and am proof reading the Introduction. I am trying to complete this by Friday coming, and I may drop it all on a flying visit in the afternoon of next friday. C