Living in More Than One World

Seemingly random discoveries are part of the pleasure of reading the work of Jorge Luis Borges, and of reading about him. The latest is my discovery of a feature in today’s independent.co.uk, Jonathan Romney’s On cloud nine: Turner Prize-winner Keith Tyson reveals the surprising ideas behind Turner’s mind-bending work. I had never heard of Tyson, a celebrated British artist, before this article. What drew me to it was the notion that Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel” was an influence on Tyson’s wide-ranging art. Tyson was awarded the coveted Turner Prize in 2002. Perusing his website shows him to be a visual artist of startling originality and variety, much like Borges was with the written word.  The interview reveals Tyson’s varied and colorful life history, which indeed sounds like it could be fictional; if not written by Borges at least by a particularly imaginative author. Turner’s assertion that “My whole approach to life and everything comes from a series of existential traumas I experienced when I was about six” certainly makes you want to read on. Apparently the road to art fame — as well as his life now as a family man — was also paved with nervous breakdowns, a gambling addiction and working as a shipyard apprentice on nuclear submarines. He has an upcoming exhibition beginning September 16 at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art London, Keith Tyson: Cloud Choreography and Other Emergent Systems. (Further searching for today’s post led me to an Alberto Manguel September 24, 2008 piece in The New York Sun, A Universe of Books: Borges’s ‘Library of Babel.’ Manguel is a wonderful writer who has written eloquently on Borges in the past. I have a feeling that Borges — were he still alive — Manguel and Tyson would all take pleasure in the nature of that discovery.)

Economist.com has been running a web-only series of columns this summer spotlighting “hidden-gem museums” around the world. The pieces are beautifully written, and do an excellent job of placing the houses of art in historical context. The first was July18, about the National Museum of the Renaissance at the Chateau d’Ecouen. The column points out that although attendance rose to 85,000 visitors last year, that’s not particularly good, especially considering its location in Paris. July 25 spotlights the Museum of Handbags and Purses in Amsterdam.  On August 1 is the dryly-headlined Arles together now, about Museon Arlaten in Arles, France. Lack of marketing, promotion and amenities visitors have come to expect, such as a café and a catalogue, kept down visitor totals to 55,000 last year. Yet the back story is fascinating; blending its creator, the poet Frederic Mistral, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, and Vincent Van Gogh. The column points out that the latter admired Mistral, yet probably never met him. The loan of a Van Gogh would complete the picture: “Now that fate has reversed the reputations of the two men, the presence of a Van Gogh in the Museon Arlaten would send visitor numbers shooting up.” The three most recent museums covered are The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York; designed by and filled with the art of the sculptor Isamu Noguchi (August 9); The Phillips Collection, in Washington, D.C., on August 15 (not far from where I live, and the only one of these spaces I’ve visited) and The Wallace Collection, in London on August 22.  The latter is due for a sudden boost in visitors beginning in October, when it begins an exhibition of 25 new paintings by Damien Hirst. The hidden-gems column has been a pleasant summer diversion. Let’s hope it gets extended for another season.

A great example of a person living a multidimensional life in more than one world is Edward Tufte, profiled recently by Adam Aston in BusinessWeek, Tufte’s Invisible Yet Ubiquitous Influence. Tufte is perhaps best known for his large, elaborate and beautifully-produced books (from his own company, Graphics Press) on the best ways to present and interpret data and information, such as The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. But he is also a consultant to large corporations and master teacher (Professor Emeritus at Yale) who now spends considerable time on the road each year delivering a one day course, Presenting Data and Information, to big audiences at auditoriums nationwide. I went to one several years ago in Arlington, Virginia, and found it to be stimulating and highly informative. The cost is relatively steep, but copies of his books are included in the admission. Even so, back-of-the-room sales of his books were brisk as people bought extra copies as gifts or for their office. I also discovered that day that he is a serious rock music listener (the background music played during the breaks and during the book signing afterwards came from his collection) and an artist of large-scale sculptures and outdoor installations. The Cheshire Herald in Connecticut (Tufte’s home state) has a story, Tufte Continues To Dazzle With Larger Than Life Works, about a new exhibit of these installations, Edward Tufte: Seeing Around, at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in Ridgefield, Ct. It runs until January 17, 2010. For more on these works, and Tufte’s philosophy of art, see the interview from Modern Painters and more on Tufte’s website. The site as a whole has a considerable amount of information (including writing by and about Tufte) and stunning visual imagery.

The science of creativity in The Globe and Mail provided a reminder to me about Jacob Bronowski, the scientist/author who achieved a degree of fame in the early 1970s with his BBC documentary The Ascent of Man. It also introduced me to the writer of this compelling essay, the Canadian poet/essayist/short story writer Robyn Sarah. In the space of her short piece, she weaves together background on Bronowski, whom she describes as “mathematician, physicist, biologist, humanist, lover of the arts, incomparable teacher, passionate believer in progress;” a brief anecdote about her daughter’s reaction to a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a picture book and a thoughtful review of Bronowski’s collection of essays Science and Human Values. Originally delivered as lectures at M.I.T. in 1953, they explore, among other things, the nature of, and similarity between, creativity in science and the arts. Sarah describes Bronowski’s work in Science and Human Values as “dense with thought and information, but lucid in style and beautifully written.” The same might be said about her own essay. The science of creativity is part of the “Buried Treasures” series in The Globe and Mail’s excellent book section. Among other reviews, essays, lists and special features in this section is a new one, Summer is short…, in which a short story appears every week until Labor Day weekend. It’s being done in partnership with HarperCollins, and intersperses contemporary and classic writers. The most recent story is from Joyce Carol Oates, and next week’s will be by Herman Melville. A nice bonus in the book section from June 27 is the cleverly-titled Alain de Botton is packing your suitcase, as the ubiquitous de Botton lets us in on his summer travel reading.

I’ve been fascinated by Top 10, Top 40, Top 100 etc. lists since childhood, going back to local rock radio stations and their Top 40 lists, and the singles and album charts of Billboard and the late Cashbox.  The Guardian has a great series of Top 10 lists – all of which are on its website – in which various authors contribute annotated lists usually, but not exclusively, about books. Particularly good is Ian MacKenzie’s top 10 artworks in novels, the June 2 entry by novelist MacKenzie, author of City of Strangers. It makes for a concise, informative and insight-packed read. Despite the title, in his intro MacKenzie declares that he is presenting “10 of the most memorable” books in which fiction and art combine. In these books, from such varied authors as Geoff Dyer, V.S. Naipul, Tatyana Tolstaya, Henry James and John Updike; art is integral in some way, either artwork itself, its creator or even in the place in which it is displayed. In the latter instance, see particularly the entry on Updike, and the quote of the latter’s somewhat creepy description of the spiraling Guggenheim Museum in New York. Mackenzie writes eloquently and even passionately; as he drawing us, in a short space of time and attention, into two intertwined worlds. In this case, the art was created independently of the literature, and yet the latter can shine new meaning and significance on the artworks that their creators might not have considered. You may think and read differently next time you encounter the world of art in fiction, and may also consider things differently the next time you are in an art museum. Some may come to think of these spaces, as he does, “as a kind of secret writer’s retreat.”

The concept of the Renaissance Man (or woman, for that matter) is closely related to living in more than one world. This type of person uses their talents in a variety of ways, engages in continuous learning, and moves among many different types of people and organizations. One of the best examples from history is Leonardo da Vinci, who seems to grow more popular each year. I’m continually fascinated by what keeps people relevant over a period of many years, as Peter Drucker managed to do. Randy Dotinga of The Christian Science Monitor analyzes Leonardo’s ongoing pop culture status — and in particular his importance to science musems — “Museums push to decode Leonardo da Vinci.” Readers of this blog should definitely enjoy Michael Gelb’s classic book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. I interviewed Gelb and reviewed several of his books in USA TODAY. Leonardo’s ability to move among worlds may makea great role model for people today who must continually reinvent themselves.