IAIN BAXTER&: Figure / Ground

Posted: October 19, 2012 | Author: David Bellman

IAIN BAXTER&:

Figure / Ground

 

David Bellman, CAUSA

October 17, 2012

 

[Gill Sans Ultra Bold – typeface selected by Robert R. Reid – forming part of an ongoing IAIN BAXTER& / CAUSA Research Scheme, 2012.]

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“We often speak of identification in our Zen discipline, but this word is not exact. Identification presupposes original opposition of two terms, subject and object, but the truth is that from the very first there are no two opposing terms whose identification is to be achieved by Zen. It is better to say that there has never been any separation between subject and object, and that all the discrimination and separation we have or, rather, make is a later creation, though the concept of time is not to be interposed here. The aim of Zen is thus to restore the experience of original inseparability, which means, in other words, to return to the original state of purity and transparency. This is the reason conceptual discrimination is discredited in Zen. Followers of identity and tranquility are to be given the warning: they are ridden by concepts; let them rise to facts and live in and with them.”

– Daisetz T. Suzuki (1938)

 

“The fact is that any ambitious and sustained intellectual work soon overstrains the capacities of common sense. As soon as one thinks at all seriously and strenuously about nature, society, mind, truth or any other big and complex subject, the traditional ways of conceiving it prove to be too muddled to allow any distinctions and definitions that might reveal hidden relations, or make obvious ones intelligible. The thinker, therefore, is confronted by the task of criticizing and correcting, perhaps even rejecting, the accepted images and tacit assumptions and of building up a new, more abstract, more negotiable set of concepts.”

– Suzanne K. Langer (1956)

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AN OBJECT TOSSED FROM ONE COUTRY TO ANOTHER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Weiner

1968

 

Iain Baxter [N. E. Thing Company] / IAIN BAXTER&:

 

An Object

Tossed From

One Country To

Another And

Back Again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iain Baxter / N.E. Thing Company (1968)

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Iain Baxter, Thrown Camera Photograph, 1979.

 

Iain Baxter, Thrown Camera Photograph, 1979.

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“Art is in essence DE-CREATION.”

– José Ortega y Gasset (1914)

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