Derek Jarman's manuscripts are featured in an exhibit titled The Writer in the Garden at the British Library. I read about it in The Guardian.
Some of his late manuscripts and notebooks - covers beautifully personalised with gold or black impasto, full of poems, jottings and memories - will be revealed this week at an exhibition at the British Library in London.
Jarman kept 16 volumes of diaries recounting the making of his garden at Prospect Cottage, on the Kent coastline, where he moved in 1988. Here he created a curious Eden in the most hostile, salt-caked, windswept environment imaginable, a strange garden full of twisted metal and driftwood, in the shadow of the Dungeness nuclear power station.
Much of the material from the notebooks was incorporated into his published diaries, Modern Nature, but the exquisite objects themselves, two of which the British Library has borrowed from Jarman's estate, have never before been seen in public.
Speaking of visual/film artists with a talent for the written word, last night we attended an event at PPOW featuring writers and artists inspired by the works (written and otherwise) of David Wojnarowicz. The main reason we attended was to see Matt Wolf's slide show on Wojnarowicz's "magic box" in his archives at NYU. It's amazing to realize that Matt is only 22. We have already seen several works by him, and even "invested" a small amount into his latest film project. It's titled I Feel Love -- Matt titles his latest films after Communards/Bronski Beat songs -- and has Andrew Cunanan as its subject.
DAVID WOJNAROWICZ Untitled (One day this kid . . .) 1990
photostat edition of 10 60 × 48 inches
