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Short and shitty: A comment on the discovery of vorticism


Wednesday, April 1, 2009

When browsing the exciting digital world that is the library catalogue I came across a title containing the evocative, mystic word… vorticism. Conjuring up images of covert religious sects full of sinister hooded eidolons walloping around subterranean crypts. Muttering arcane, paeanistic assertions filled with astonishing amounts of radiant, completely redundant verbosity. These esoteric figures adulated to the apotheosis of the vortex.

Not completely to my surprise it was nothing of the sort. It turned out to be something rather less inclined to cliché’s and more inclined to paintings.

cat. nr: 705.8 cor-1

keyword: develope envelope

One Response to “Short and shitty: A comment on the discovery of vorticism”


  1. Jules Estèves Says:

    Haha, nice thing that you ran into it!
    You DEFINITELY have to get a hand on the first issue (1914) of Lewis’ magazine, BLAST, you’ll love it. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read this year. Richard Cork’s book (the one you picked, I believe) features extensive comments on it.

    There’s also a very nice and concise essay by Ezra Pound on the subject, detailing the movement’s (or maybe rather Wyndham Lewis’) statements, strong standpoint against futurism (taken as lame, accelerated impressionism—I’m not far from agreeing) and, eventually, failure to produce groundbreaking works.
    Just uploaded it here: http://www.yousendit.com/download/UmNKWWVucHYyWGV4dnc9PQ

    “Automobilism (Marinettism) bores us. We don’t want to go about making a hullo-bulloo about motor cars, anymore than about knives and forks, elephants or gas pipes.”

    PS: Oh and I actually considered, earlier this year, giving you a printed copy of this:
    http://www.dextersinister.org/library.html?id=145

    PPS: Photoshopping Bomberg’s Ju-Jitsu is a crime!

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