"Encore une fois, les photographies de Valérie Jouve ne se contentent pas de répéter l’expérience de l’aliénation urbaine car ce qui fait retour en elle, au titre de « tout juste passé », ce n’est pas seulement la perte de capacité de la photographie à véhiculer le sens, mais celle de l’espace urbain lui-même. Tentatives de se réveiller dans la pénombre de l’instant vécu, elles nous font ressentir la difficulté qu’il y a à appréhender le fait que le domaine urbain ne porte plus, aujourd’hui, d’aspirations à l’expérience individuelle et collective comme il a pu le faire auparavant. Ces aspirations auront finalement été absorbées par la dématérialisation croissante de l’espace dominant des réseaux électroniques, de la technologie des médias et du marketing global."

"Yet again Valérie Jouve’s works do not merely reiterate the experience of urban alienation, for what inheres within them, in the sense of the “just-passed” or the “recently forgotten”, is not only the capacity of the photographic image to convey meaning, but urban space itself. Like trying to awaken to the blindness of the lived moment, one senses in these works the difficulty of grasping the fact that the urban realm no longer carries with it all those prior aspirations of individual and collective experience it once did. For those aspirations have finally been absorbed in the increasing dematerialization of the dominant spaces of electronic networks, media technology, and global marketing.”


OK, so is it just me or does this make no sense? I've just been exploring this artist's work (along with Mohamed Bourouissa and Denis Darzacq, who are great - especially Darzacq's La Chute, if you like photography check it out) for a French module I've been taking and had an exam on, mainly focussing on how contemporary French artists look at la banlieue (French inner cities is the closest I can get to describing it, but they tend to be on the edges of the city) which actually turned out to be pretty interesting. However, I don't think I'd be alone in saying that jargon such as the above (quoted from the 'blurb' in the sleeve of a book of Jouve's work I borrowed from the library) is really offputting and unhelpful for those of us not well-versed in art and photography.

I read an article in The Independent the other week which was really interesting (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/days-like-these-to-like-a-work-of-art-you-have-to-know-something-about-it-this-worries-me-1419196.html) about the appreciation of art. The columnist has gone to the Tate Modern in London to see the Mark Rothko exhibition with an intelligent friend and, after considering the colours of the works, 'I remembered reading a quotation from Rothko himself, which added to my discomfort: "The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their colour relationship, then you miss the point."I didn't like the feeling that I was being judged on my reactions by the artist himself. My educational background is in literature where, by and large, once they've published a thing, authors leave you to your own devices. It's up to you what you get out of it. And yet here was an artist from beyond the grave telling me that even though I liked his paintings, the way I liked them was wrong.'

Blurbs like this in art books have the same impression on me. It's not just that they make no sense (if anyone manages to work out what's actually being said in the quote above, please let me know!), it's that there's supposedly a particular way to interpret them. While I was complaining about this the other day, a friend pointed out that poetry is exactly the same - only interesting and meaningful for the initiated. I think I've tried to show before that this needn't be the case. I believe that good poetry should have something about it that goes beyond metaphor and form, that touches people's hearts and minds because the words themselves connect with the memories and experiences of the reader. I think this was William Wordsworth's aim, expressed in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798). His idea was to take his experiences and emotions and put them into poetry in such a way that any person could read it and relive what he had experienced. I don't know how successful he was in this but I like to think that everyone can find a poem that tugs at something within them.

This has been quite long, but I leave you with an example of a poem that many people who have been in love for a long time find it fairly easy to relate to, Shakespeare's sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

"A million minor miracles"

It's not really literary but I've decided not everything has to be. I want to share things that inspire me too. So here's an article I read recently by Pete Greig, who is a founder of 24-7 Prayer. It's pretty inspiring, and he wrote it in a boiler room (centre dedicated to prayer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year). I hope it inspires you :)

I’m standing at night in this subterranean place of prayer, and perhaps it’s the coffee, or the music, or the Spirit, but the darkness doesn’t seem too strong. I’m praying for miracles in the city where I live – for healings, and salvations, and justice, and revival, and all those usual Kingdom kind of things. But tonight, as I do so, I find myself suddenly startled - like a boy blinking at fireworks – bewildered by how many miracles there already are.

It occurs to me that here in my city today, doctors dispensed healing – can you imagine anything more wonderful? Neighbours did favours. Dog-walkers in the park silently admired the shape of trees. Jokes were told in nursing homes. Thousands and thousands of people prayed, or wished, or merely unwittingly wanted what God wanted for a moment or two.

Chances are that somewhere today a young man and a young woman began to fall in love (although they don’t yet know it). A teenager picked up trash she had not dropped. A single mother decided, just for once, to buy herself a slice of chocolate cake and to celebrate the moment in long, slow, mouthfuls of happiness. A painter-decorator stepped back from a wall he’d just painted the colour of claret, and maybe at that moment the sunlight broke through the window, and he saw that it was a good piece of work. A man resisted the temptation to click the link he wouldn’t want his wife to see. Maybe he failed yesterday. Maybe he’ll click it tomorrow. But today he overcame. In the hospital perhaps a surgeon pinned a broken arm with immaculate skill. Delicious food was prepared and cooked and served in thousands of homes joyously. A pastor’s words, so carefully crafted, brought a little comfort to grieving relatives. People cried, but a check-out girl smiled at a lonely old lady. People died of course, but babies were also born. From time to time today, I was born too. We all were. A million, minor miracles.

We do not pray ex nihilo. We pray for more of whatever it is we see. Nothing comes from nothing – certainly not faith like this. Tonight I’m blessing the evidence of miracles; the pre-existing goodness, the presence of Christ in these streets, these surgeries, these schools, these art galleries, these pubs, these homes, these wards. Witnessing so many minor miracles I applaud the world. If all of this is happening all around me, what might not happen next?

And so I stand here now in this subterranean place of prayer and it seems self-evident that there is more light in the night than darkness in the day. There is goodness breaking through, everywhere I look. And I’m praying for miracles tonight with greater faith than frustration for once. I can see creation rising like the moon above the Fall. Ultimately, almost inevitably, benevolence wins the day quietly.

I’m climbing the stairs to my car now, stepping out of the prayer room into the darkness. I’m driving home past houses and perhaps it’s the music on the stereo, or the coffee, or the Spirit, but the city seems to me to have become the place of prayer.