*intro by IAN DURY/EILIS SEARSON*
On a Wednesday in early September 1961,
Peter Blake walked into the 3rd year painting room at Walthomstow School of Art. Blue tab-collar shirt; silk paisley tie; Austins herringbone jacket and gold beard. He looked like the front man of the modern art quartet.
I was painting a humdrum scene in a slipshod manner and looking forward to going down the Bell.
‘Do you like rock + roll?’ he asked.
‘Yes’
‘Boxing + wrestling?’
‘Yes, and tits + bums, gangsters teddy boys Jayne Mansfield and Marlon Brando.’
‘Then why don’t you paint pictures of what you like?’
Art schools at this time were either death-beds of numb academic bullshit or hot-beds of creepy conceptual horseshit. Walthomstow subscribed to the former tradition which at least tried to provide students with skill in draughtsmanship and painterly technicals, but it took Mr Blake to show my generation of Essex layabouts how to convert our lifestyle into artistic energy. Easels were soon creaking with real culture. Art suddenly became a living thing.
~
I found this note in 2023, when TEXTUAL first started collaborating with the TATE Public Records Archive. It was written by Ian Dury in blue fountain pen on an A3 sheet.
TEXTUAL has been described as many things (including, in so many words, slipshod), but I would like to borrow the words “a living thing” to describe my precious group of layabouts. I don’t own an Austins herringbone jacket (or a gold beard), but ever since I walked into the TEXTUAL room at the Royal College of Art, on a Thursday, in late September 2022, I have met a lot of Ian Dury-esque geniuses. The following journal archives selected works of writing by TEXTUAL members and friends, past and present.
Peter Blake walked into the 3rd year painting room at Walthomstow School of Art. Blue tab-collar shirt; silk paisley tie; Austins herringbone jacket and gold beard. He looked like the front man of the modern art quartet.
I was painting a humdrum scene in a slipshod manner and looking forward to going down the Bell.
‘Do you like rock + roll?’ he asked.
‘Yes’
‘Boxing + wrestling?’
‘Yes, and tits + bums, gangsters teddy boys Jayne Mansfield and Marlon Brando.’
‘Then why don’t you paint pictures of what you like?’
Art schools at this time were either death-beds of numb academic bullshit or hot-beds of creepy conceptual horseshit. Walthomstow subscribed to the former tradition which at least tried to provide students with skill in draughtsmanship and painterly technicals, but it took Mr Blake to show my generation of Essex layabouts how to convert our lifestyle into artistic energy. Easels were soon creaking with real culture. Art suddenly became a living thing.
~
I found this note in 2023, when TEXTUAL first started collaborating with the TATE Public Records Archive. It was written by Ian Dury in blue fountain pen on an A3 sheet.
TEXTUAL has been described as many things (including, in so many words, slipshod), but I would like to borrow the words “a living thing” to describe my precious group of layabouts. I don’t own an Austins herringbone jacket (or a gold beard), but ever since I walked into the TEXTUAL room at the Royal College of Art, on a Thursday, in late September 2022, I have met a lot of Ian Dury-esque geniuses. The following journal archives selected works of writing by TEXTUAL members and friends, past and present.
ADRIANA CORNEJO CAPDEVILA
I’m gonna write this all at once no stops well supposedly oh well I already stopped make me remember i want to remember
make me remember please read read again read out loud read what i can’t say read what i once said what i once made do it again and again i wanna hear i wanna live it
i wanna remember
Si us plau fes-me recordar aquests moments de pausa aquests moments importants.
make me remember please read read again read out loud read what i can’t say read what i once said what i once made do it again and again i wanna hear i wanna live it
i wanna remember
Si us plau fes-me recordar aquests moments de pausa aquests moments importants.
YOUREE CHOI
I DECIDED THAT IT MATTERS
SO FINALLY, IT DOES
I FIND THIS [THING] SO
important/delightful/weird/lovely
THAT I CANNOT BEAR THE THOUGHT
OF A FUTURE WHERE IT NO LONGER IS
MY HEART IS FULL TO BURSTING!
MY CUP RUNNETH OVER!
WITH A GREAT MANY THINGS THAT ARE
JUST TOO GOOD TO BE
ignored/forgotten/overlooked/refused.
i don’t intend to live forever.
my memory is frail and small.
so i put it in my notes app
i send it to a friend
i write it in a book
embalm it in a photo
i tuck it in my pockets
i put it behind glass
i take it out from time to time
to turn it over in my hands
here, you live forever
it’s certain proof that you once were
and here, you still are
from time to time
ALESSANDRA VARGAS
its not fair i dont know what i could do to bring you back id show up ridiculous and cold trying to be sexy trying to get you to want to think about me i wish i’d let you leave i forget what you looked like and smelled like and sounded like its warm down here and public space is closing in and i hope no one can read what im saying id let you fuck me and take my money hapilly its all i think ever wanted from you you almost gave me your curse and i still thought about you theyre not dead theyre breathing sweating using my towels my bed my body to prove the fact theyre alive and well why cant you do the same im passing another burial site not nearly as fond of this one as yours which is in two stops i want to be somewhere you’ve never been but thats almost impossible you’ve even been up the 5 and the 170 and the 14 with your gorgeous friends i do that sometimes
ZOE YU CUI
TODAY, THEY 它湑们 DANCE and SING
Those are the words that died in the past
Words that will 会 die tomorrow
Because 孻為为 of my existence
Today, they 它湑们 don’t die
Today, they 它湑们 dance and sing on the plain
We 銌湑们 go into multiple futures
Therefore the words die
And reborn
And 窴後哮 die
And 窴後哮 reborn
These 鎯这瓾 are my words
Today, they 它湑们 dance and sing on the plain
Words inspired by Hai Zi’s poem, “怅寪捄连(巃擩)”, 1986
Those are the words that died in the past
Words that will 会 die tomorrow
Because 孻為为 of my existence
Today, they 它湑们 don’t die
Today, they 它湑们 dance and sing on the plain
We 銌湑们 go into multiple futures
Therefore the words die
And reborn
And 窴後哮 die
And 窴後哮 reborn
These 鎯这瓾 are my words
Today, they 它湑们 dance and sing on the plain
Words inspired by Hai Zi’s poem, “怅寪捄连(巃擩)”, 1986