Word as Art

Having gone to art college at 14, and now of pensionable age, John Charles Clark has a long visual tradition. A well-known painter, printmaker, and art tutor, his current work derives from a conceptual art (or anti-art) stance. His investigation into language, and pre-occupation with the 'word sign', evolved from his understanding of painted works of art as being iconic, as signs and text. In the New Writing project, it is the books themselves that are the art.

Word as Conduit.

The expectation is that the viewer of these books will pick up on the visual signs and clues within the work and interpret them in their own way, just as they would a painting. A semiotics expert will come to the work with a certain mind-set, as will a writer, but the work itself is accessible and open to all: it is fluid, not prescriptive.

Interestingly, Clark is dyslexic, so conventional spelling and sentence construction do not come easily to him. Perhaps this is why he has embraced language deconstruction.  Word as Form: In 1993, the material he was producing was largely word fragments and clusters. The juxtaposition of words and spaces on the page informed his artistic intention of, “taking simple ideas, and seeing where the journey takes you”.

The next stage was the adoption of the list, or grid, structure – four columns of words/signs. The form is meant to be plain and clean but, paradoxically, this rigidity makes the work more elastic. The eye can read vertically, horizontally and diagonally; it can skip lines and make connections as and where desired. Removing words from the grid changes both its shape and meaning.

Clark describes his conception of language as: “A sign mirror in which consciousness can reflect itself. As surface it is totally reflexive, fluid, malleable, adaptive to creative use; a surface on which signs can float and assemble freely”. 

Word as Sign.

Most conventional artwork is signed by the artist to authenticate it, but Clark adopted a sequential, alphabetical re-ordering of his name, which itself became art. The sign he created, AACCEHHJKLLNORRS, cannot be verbalized and thus signals writing rather than speech. It also now denies the artist's identity, and he sees this as the start of losing the 'writing voice' – a self-crucifixion, and the death of egocentric identity.

AACCEHHJKLLNORRS has further encoded his sign into three number systems: ordinal, digital, and Mayan, the resultant sign becoming even more distant from the original source material. Part of the reason for this is to try to transcend, or wipe clean, the language mirror, so as to begin anew. As a writer myself, the prospect of encoding my authorial claim, distancing myself from ownership of my work, is quite alien and scary, and requires a certain level of confidence I confess I don't have.
Following on from sequential re-ordering, the logical progression for Clark was to change word order ('indexical' re-ordering of text), including that of established texts such as Shakespearian sonnets and Beatles songs. This kind of subversion eradicates all contextual meaning – destructive as opposed to deconstructive – and is by definition revolutionary. Clark calls this “the transformation of form, eliminating subjective content; producing non-signification; just pure form.” Once you dismantle language, the social structures that language under-pins are put at risk.

Word as meaning.

Clark believes that recognition, not meaning, is important, so that words are mere containers and the word-sign becomes 'an intersection for interpretation'. However, it's not that simple, and Clark admits that words have a tendency to “gang up on him” and demand to be made sense of.

The use of the list / grid as a deliberate ploy to disconnect and physically separate words on the page does not deny meaning. The words seek to re-connect, and when reading these disparate columns of words it's impossible to shut off that part of your brain that wants them to speak to you. I particularly like his earlier work which has category lists of ordinary things like fashion items, weather, and one in particular that aligns 20th century art movements, next to St Ives public houses, next to St Ives Artists. Each list has a different language, yet they link together seamlessly.

Some of his later, more jumbled pieces, remind me of magnetic poetry – inviting me to play, suggesting possibilities, and illustrating the magic of words. But this goes against Clark's notion of trying to confound the mind; presenting meaningless riddles to bring about “a state of unknowing innocence”.  Another example of how language resists mystification.
 
I also like the way in which the text itself is reproduced – sometimes blurred, or distorted on the page, at other times, bold and striking.  This creates a visual immediacy that challenges my otherwise 'readerly' eye and re-connects me with the original premise of 'word as art'.

As Clark says: “In general my understanding has been that words are not literature, and that numbers are not mathematics: the territory that has opened up between the two has been my playground.”

John Clark’s work offers a fascinating insight into the relationship between language and art. And, more importantly, challenges us to look beyond ‘word’ in the usual way.

Acknowledgements: The artist wishes to thank the following for their support in the production of his work: The Ray Family; David Beer; and, the Belgrave Gallery, St Ives.   Limited edition copies of Not Writing are available at Penhaven Gallery, St Ives.