Ian Robertson Duncan

This stretch of road
Is bright and quiet

My untied tongue
Is happy against the roof of my mouth

I am participating in an exhibition and performance in Taipei, at the Taiwan Folk Arts Museum.  The title of the exhibition is translated as Painting With Silk String and its topic is the relationship between painting and the qin.  I wrote an essay for the exhibition and have posted it here: Art and Qin.

The opening reception is November 5th (2-5pm), and the performance is on November 14th (2-5pm) - drop by if you’re in the neighborhood!

Here is a scan of the poster (click on the image to see it bigger):

Thanks for your interest!

Ian

The narrator in the Mexican poet Octavio Paz’s prose poem, The poet’s works III, leaves his writing desk on a cold, windy, winter night to go in search of cigarettes:

when suddenly I felt – no, I didn’t feel it: it passed, quickly: The Word. […] I reached and grabbed it by the tips of its floating hair. I pulled desperately at those threads that stretched toward the infinite, telegraph wires that inevitably recede in a glimpsed landscape, a note that rises, tapers off, stretches out, stretches out…I was alone in the middle of the street, with a red feather between my livid hands.

The red feather is only a trace of the Truth, but it allows you to imagine the bird, and the possibility of flight. The telegraph wire receding in the distance expresses a connection to the spiritual, and the possibility of communication. The feather also symbolizes a quill, a writing tool. In the poet’s hands it conveys the ability and the responsibility to articulate or share his experience. The Word or the Truth is something that we can glimpse or maybe even know well, but it seems to always hover just beyond the possibility of expression. Art is a poem, painting, or piece of music that has the ability to connect us to this Truth.

In 2007 I began to study Qigong, Taiji, the Dao. When I first heard my teacher, Master Wu Zhongxian, play the qin, I was amazed by the sounds and textures. Its subtle and naked beauty moved me. I knew immediately that I wanted to learn to play.

A few months later, traveling in China with Master Wu, I had the opportunity to meet and become a student of the qin under his teacher, Master Li Mingzhong. I believe he accepted me in part because I am a painter, and because of the traditional relationship between painting and the qin.

I am still very much a novice qin player. I do not speak Chinese, or play other instruments, so learning the qin has some challenges. The more I am able to hear the language of the qin, the more I see the connection to the language of painting. In a painting I will establish a theme based on color, form and brushstroke; then I develop that theme with harmonies, repetition, and variation. Qin songs seem to develop in the same way. In both cases, each time a pattern or melody repeats, this time with a slight variation, it leads you to understand more clearly the original theme.

Painting and qin playing also teach each other about Time and Space. A painting presents itself as a single moment, but it also takes you on a journey over time, guiding your eye and mind with rhythm and color relationships. A qin song presents itself as a melodic journey, but if you can hold the whole song in your mind as if it is a single moment, it is interesting and rewarding to see the harmonies and variations as if they are arranged in relationship on a canvas.

The resonance of silk and wood, the quiet strength, the way the form of the qin relates to the body, and to Heaven and Earth…there is something unique in how all of these things come together that I am still discovering. But I know that when painting leads me to a new understanding of the world, I can bring this into my qin playing directly, and when the qin teaches me something, it is something my paintings want to know as well.

I am initiating a project called the Gift Network in order to develop further the ideas of value and exchange in the context of making and owning (or experiencing) art that I was exploring with the Auction last fall. The structure of the project will be as follows. Paintings will be given to interested and willing participants, who in turn will agree to give the paintings again within a year of receiving the Gift. The paintings will thus remain community property, but will be hosted by a series of individuals - like you! If you are interested in participating in this project please email me at ian@wingedway.com. Clearly there are many details to work out, and paintings to be painted, but I will keep you posted.

I am indebted to Charlie Ledley, whose generous commission of a large painting this year will go a long way toward supporting the initial paintings in the Gift Network.

If you are interested in supporting this project by way of commission or donation, drop me a line.

Winged Way is not yet a 501c3 organization, so donations are not tax-deductible.

Saturdays in March and April at 10:30am at Winged Way I will teach a simple, powerful series of forms that I learned from my teacher, Master Zhongxian Wu. This Saturday, 3/14 will be the first class. In each class we will practice the same series of forms.

There are four parts to what I will teach: Tu Gu Na Xing (Take in the new, release the old), Shaking (Inner Dancing and Drumming), Three Treasures, and Closing. They are strong, fundamental forms that are part of my daily practice. Also, for those who have not felt qi before, this series is effective at introducing you to this sensation. If you are an old hand with other forms, I am sure you appreciate the power of these forms. The class is for all levels.

These forms are part of the Classical Shamanic Tradition from Mt Emei. (My teacher is the lineage holder, and I will teach the form precisely as I was taught.) It will take about an hour and a half.

Click here for an explanation of Qi and Qigong on this website.

Space is limited - Please RSVP to save your spot.

Schedule:

3/14, 3/21, 3/28, 4/4, 4/11, 4/18, 4/25

10:30am

Please be on time or a little early - once we start we wont answer the door…thanks!

Hope to see you!

Address and phone:

273 Grand St, 4E
NY NY 10002
(646) 221-0591

Thanks everybody! The auction was great fun and a great success!

Many thanks to all who participated in all your many ways.

[Lewis Hyde is the author is The Gift: "The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities." Goto: http://www.lewishyde.com/pub/gift.html. I wrote and sent this letter today, 11/18/2008.]

Dear Professor Hyde,

I am grateful for “The Gift” and thought you might find some of my work and distribution strategies interesting. Enclosed is my book, published by my company, Winged Way, via Lulu. The contents of the book are released to the public domain as an offering. The PDF is available for free, and the book is available at cost ($7.72).

I believe in the market economy as an effective mode of communicating value, and I also believe that gifts beget gifts. Both beliefs are founded on a tangle of experience and faith (or idealism). I dont have the logic entirely worked out yet, but I think these two models have the potential to be mutually supportive.

I believe the business of the artist to be one of service to his or her community. It is also the responsibility of the artist to create work that fits into the lives of his audience in some way - whether that means on the wall behind the couch, or in the town commons between the playground and the fountain. It seems to me that if the work is good, and the work fits into individual or community life, then it has a quantifiable value - a sacrifice that its patrons are willing to make in order for it to be part of their experience.

I am experimenting with these ways of understanding art and value right now with the production and distribution of my paintings. On November 23rd I am distributing my paintings via a live public auction in which the 32 paintings on the block will have no minimum price. They are therefore guaranteed to sell. As the artist, I accept the possibility that I will by some abstract calculation lose money at this particular sale given the parameters of limited time and limited exposure for a still emerging artist like me. However, it is a very real compensation to me that the work will move into its next phase of life by taking up residence in the lives of others. The work will then accrue a kind of internal value by virtue of the attention it is given in its new home, and over time, it is my hope and belief, this value will flow back into the value of current and future work of mine. My sales in 2011 will be higher and more stable than in 2008 as a direct result of the paintings perpetuating their own value and energy by being in peoples lives.

So, while I hope this play with the modes of exchange is of interest to you, I am more interested in your interest in the content of my work. I hope you enjoy the poems, and that you get a chance to take a look at my work on my website (www.wingedway.com), and perhaps to see it in person sometime.

My very best,

Ian

Here are some thoughtful pieces on the current state of affairs:

Shakeout Time, by Richard Polsky

Frieze After the Freeze, by Jerry Salz

My take away:

• Where quality and scarcity meet, value endures.
• “Alternative spaces will become more important for shaping the discourse.” (Salz)

This of course means you are in the right place.

I create the paintings as an offering to my community. You are my community, and the exhibition and auction constitute the performative ritual to gift that offering to you. In exchange, I ask that you offer the appropriate sacrifice. In the auction format, the person willing to make the greatest sacrifice receives the offering. In this case the currency of exchange is the good old greenback. Ideally, the sacrifice could be measured with respect to resources -i.e. the wealthy pay more and the less wealthy pay less. Some of my most meaningful sales have come from fellow artists who have had to pay monthly installments over a long period of time. That’s sacrifice! I havent found a way to accommodate this difference in resources yet, but my interest in making the art available to anyone is significant in my decision to handle my exhibition and sales independent of a third party gallery or art dealer.

As it is my intention to re-describe the transfer of value (sale of art) in these terms, it is also important to me to energize the moment of value transfer via the incantation of the auctioneer. Auction chant is beautiful. Beauty conducts value like gold conducts electricity. Here is a beautiful example of Cecil Ward’s chant at a livestock auction in 1964. And here is Stenson Clontz in 1985. Amazing!

For the Legs Icon Auction on November 23rd, 2008, the bidding will be guided by the chant of auctioneer Michael Powers. Michael cut his auctioneering teeth at large vintage car sales in Puerto Rico. We are in for a ride and a treat - but dont worry! - he will only chant as fast as you can hear him!

First, the data:

What: All the paintings in the exhibition, Legs Icon, will be sold via live auction.

How: They will be sold absolute, with no reserve – that is to say, no minimum price.

Where and When:

If you would like to place bids over the phone, via a representative, during the live auction, please contact me.

Deals and Details:

• Admission is FREE. Registration is REQUIRED. (If you place a bid we need to know who you are and that you agree that you are responsible for your bid.) You can register in two ways: create an account on the Winged Way Auctions site, or in person at the Housing Works on the 23rd.

I would like to encourage you to get involved in the Winged Way Auctions website, and so I am offering you these incentives:

• Free copy of Legs Icon: Exhibition and Auction Catalogue if you register for the auction by creating a Winged Way Auctions account. (It will otherwise cost $10.)
• $100 discount if you place a winning bid online. (So, bid as high as you can on a piece online, and if no one is will to pay more, then you saved $100.)

I would also like to encourage you to become patrons while my work is still modestly priced, and to remain patrons as the value of my work grows. So, for this auction, and for all future purchases of paintings directly from me, I offer you this:

• 10% discount to patrons (i.e. you currently own a painting by me, Ian Robertson Duncan). If you are a first time buyer, and you buy more than one piece at this sale, this discount will apply to all but the most expensive piece you buy.

Wherefore: Sounds like fun to me!

See also “The Auction: Statement of Intent.”

The exhibition and auction catalogue is now available. Click here to download the PDF. It is a large file - it might take a minute. The catalogue includes images and lot numbers of all the paintings in the current exhibition and in the upcoming auction on November 23rd at Housing Works. It also includes the essay on the exhibition by Natasha Becker: “When Likeness Breaks With Likeness.” The physical catalogue will be available for $10 at the gallery (beginning Saturday, November 15th), at the auction, and can be ordered online here.

Images and posts relevant to the current exhibition can be seen by clicking on the category “CURRENT SHOW” in the left sidebar. The images are also posted on Winged Way Auctions (the bidding has already begun!).

Drop by to see the work in person!

Open 11-6

Wednesday - Sunday

Winged Way

273 Grand Street, 4th floor

NY NY 10002

ian@wingedway.com

646.221.0591

Check it out here.

Check it out here.

by Natasha Becker

Independent Curator and Critic

Legs Icon, Ian Robertson Duncan, November 6-22, 2008

Like his previous series, Skin, Legs Icon are the kind of paintings that make Ian Robertson Duncan the enigmatic painter that he is; one can’t resist looking, touching, feeling, and pondering the rich surfaces of the work, yet the work also dares us to look beneath its surface. Indeed, they extend to the realm of human relations and invite us to go beyond our own layered and complex surfaces.

(read more…)