{"id":31597,"date":"2016-01-12T18:26:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T00:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=31597"},"modified":"2018-10-09T14:51:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T20:51:57","slug":"before-language-poet-nano-taggart-responds-to-the-art-of-andy-marvick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/before-language-poet-nano-taggart-responds-to-the-art-of-andy-marvick\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Language: Poet Nano Taggart responds to the art of Andy Marvick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nano_Marvick<\/a><\/p>\n

Nathaniel \u201cNano\u201d Taggart first saw the work of artist Andy Marvik at the Braithwaite Gallery at Southern Utah University, where both of them work. “If I hadn’t already decided that the arts had to be at the center of my life,\u201d reports Taggart, \u201cI suspect that standing in front of [Marvik\u2019s] ‘And all the streets were changed\u2014I couldn’t find you’ would have begun my conversion.\u201d<\/p>\n

A poet and a founding editor of Utah\u2019s celebrated poetry journal Sugar House Review<\/a><\/em>, Taggart says there was never a plan to collaborate with Marvick. \u201cI’m told that a few months after the [Cedar City\/Braithwaite] exhibit I hand-delivered some poems and a reasonably embarrassing letter which detailed my admiration.\u201d The poems, three of which appear here along with the art that inspired them, are the direct result of the artist offering Taggart access to his work.<\/p>\n

Marvick is a Harvard and Columbia trained art historian, and the sole professor of art history at SUU. He’s an expert in the transition from traditional to modern art in Europe and America between 1880 and 1920, a period which is evident in his own artwork. His abstract canvases are often built on an underlying structure, calling to mind cubist depictions of space, but allow for plenty of deviation and room for experiment with form, texture and color.<\/p>\n

They have clearly functioned as a \u201cmuse\u201d for Taggart.\u00a0 \u201cThese poems were specifically inspired by an artist working in another art form, and a number of Andy’s paintings are inspired by artists working in forms other than his own,\u201d Taggart explains. \u00a0Emblematic of that is, for example, his \u201cA Wainscot of Indigo Sustained and Warmed by Orange Morocco.\u201d The abstract is third in a series of five three-by-four-foot canvases which, according to galleryGala<\/a>, which represents him, \u201ccontinue the themes of ancient, living color and historical abstraction.\u201d It is also a work inspired by the text of Joris-Karl Huysmans\u2019s classic Symbolist novel, Against Nature<\/em>. \u201cI think we both like the idea of a direct, intentional lineage of inspiration that spans mediums,\u201d says Taggart. \u201cThere’s something ancient about these paintings\u2014by which I don’t mean to suggest that they don’t feel contemporary. That thing we might have had right before we had language, it should have looked like Andy’s work.\u201d The chain of one text engendering another comes full circle with Taggart\u2019s own verse, having taken art inspired by language back to language.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our Love and Some Objects<\/span>
\nAfter Andrew Marvick\u2019s Through Summer Rooms<\/em><\/span>
\nThe wilting kerosene light spills a patina
\non your curled form.<\/p>\n

I dream of lightning and there is never
\nenough light in the largest rooms.<\/p>\n

Strung from urgency to make
\nthings the way we want them
\n(What reason is there to be like we are?)<\/p>\n

I dream of lightning flashes, burning. We take for granted
\nthe dark forms shapeshifting, rituals<\/p>\n

as we fold into sleep.<\/p>\n

I dream of lightning flashes that burn you.
\nI dream of lightning flashes that burn your
\nshadow onto passing freight cars.<\/p>\n

You are always in motion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Urban Design: The City of Zion Plat<\/span>
\nAfter Andrew Marvick\u2019s And all the streets were changed\u2014I couldn\u2019t find you<\/em><\/span>
\nBelieve along with me that everything happens in straight lines
\nthat our histories can\u2019t catch up to us\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that we\u2019ll get ahead<\/p>\n

of this and catch ourselves\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 our breath
\nwe know the name of Zion and the next intersection and<\/p>\n

the next\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I need you to know that all new cities are
\nbuilt atop the ruins of something (I know if you\u2019d heard my voice<\/em>
\nit would have steadied you<\/em>)*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sometimes settlers try and keep<\/p>\n

failing \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0this was supposed to be the place\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 sometimes it won\u2019t
\nrain for months but this near-perfect grid can\u2019t lead me back to you<\/p>\n

* Quote (bastardized) by Christopher Hitchens in interview with Salman Rushdie<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We Dream and Believe the Rest to be True
\nAfter Andrew Marvick\u2019s I think I really tried\u2014I couldn\u2019t hear you<\/em><\/span>
\nI don\u2019t know how long since you\u2019ve gone but I\u2019ve started
\nto notice this city is crumbling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0a patchwork pieced from<\/p>\n

something else\u2014a long list of all else entirely
\nI used to think I heard your voice seep from the cracks in<\/p>\n

the aqueduct\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0from the spaces of trenched earth that will<\/a>
\nsomeday sit below our museum\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I collect things\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m always<\/p>\n

collecting things\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 you can always find me here<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n