Tag: Reykjavik

Youth is Not Skin Deep

Its been six months since I’ve written anything on this blog about our film, A Force in Nature: Jóhann Eyfells. It was also six months ago when I thought I would lose my house, and be forced to move due to financial challenges and joblessness. I think the last time I was ever faced with the possibility of being without a home was exactly 30 years ago, during the Writers’ Strike in Hollywood, when my total gross yearly income had barely reached $9,000. 2017 was both a very challenging year for me financially as well as rewarding creatively. In fact, if it wasn’t for my special friendship to this exceptional man, Jóhann Eyfells and experiencing the extraordinary life force he has within, I might not be here today writing about it. Of course, I won’t ignore the generosity and support I also received from own family and friends

This confession is not so much out of a self-abasement then it is out of an earnest look at my own humanity, my own frailty and fear of loneliness in the face of aging in this country.

lonely
Courtesy of http://www.herhelpinghand.com

Growing old in the United States is synonymous of becoming more and more invisible, and becoming expendable and nonessential, unlike most other cultures. I’ve always known this about our own American culture, but never felt the affects of it until I began losing my hair and feeling the weight of my awkward, out of shape, aging body on this earth. Its as if at a flick of a switch the world no longer saw me as relevant. On the outside, through social media like Facebook and Instagram, people could perceive me as being happy in life and somewhat successful, being a father of two beautiful children, a new business owner, a homeowner (mortgage owner), a filmmaker having just completed a film, and receiving small accolades for it. However, on the inside I was quickly losing my hold on everyday life, watching myself physically deteriorate, and my sense of self worth was at an all time low. At 56, I was feeling the grip of loneliness and isolation (self-imposed and otherwise) tightening around me, and most importantly I had come to realize a hard truth about myself. I was dying.

I became acquainted with Jóhann Eyfells exactly 13 years ago to the day, 10 years of which I spent documenting and filming his intimate and creative life. I don’t claim to know everything about him, but what I have come to understand is that even at his advanced age he represents everything that I would consider youthful, vibrant and alive. In fact, after being exposed to him, I clearly saw that the concept of ‘youth’ in this country is merely superficial and skin deep, and that young people and old alike would profoundly benefit from experiencing the life force and spirit that constantly emanates from individuals like Jóhann. I am convinced that at 95 he is the poster child for youth, vitality and strength, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply foolish. Men or women his age and younger would usually resign themselves to complacency, and often look to the nostalgia of the past or fantasy of the future just so they don’t have to be reminded of their present state of being almost dead. Jóhann lives in and for the present moment, in which the past and future are merely part of a larger continuum, and death is simply an expression of life itself in its full splendor, giving way to another birth.

Why is there such a chasm between young and old in this country? Are we so distrustful of each other that we cannot tolerate each other or even listen to each other speak? As long as I can remember, this common perception of youth as being synonymous with strength and stamina is the foundation of our modern consumer society. Its no accident that Coca Cola’s long commercial success is thanks to their ability to manipulate their audience emotionally through the magic of film and imagery, whose brand advocates ‘youth’ and ‘vitality’, and has done so for decades, shaping our collective consciousness to ignore and sideline the aging. I am not blaming it all on Coke and other corporate advertisers, since there is something called ‘free will’ and we all have the ability to use it. However, there is something to be said about the manipulative and tantalizing power and soullessness of commercial television and consumerism, which if constantly consumed, eventually erodes at our own ability to be discerning, unaffected and even motivated. I’ve been working in this industry since my mid twenties, so I say this with some authority on the matter. If Coke’s advertising efforts and genius could be refocused on healing our ailing planet and building bridges between generations instead of marginalizing one generation by championing another, I might even consider buying a bottle.

Screen Shot 2018-12-29 at 3.44.46 AM

Last week on Christmas Day, my own two children and I went to visit Jóhann at his sculpture ranch near Fredericksburg, Texas, as I had done for the very first time, exactly 13 years ago. My son at the time was only six months old. Now, he is 13 1/2. Walking through this large playground full of massive and imposing sculptures, I found it to be both interesting and very satisfying that my own son and Jóhann were both animated and visibly engaged philosophically over one of his recent sculptural pieces. What I also found to be quite uncanny, was how they both inspired one another, and that their ‘youthfulness’ was glaringly noticeable.

Johann2018-3.jpg

Johann2018-6.jpg

In all of the time I’ve known Jóhann, interviewed him, and experienced his person, I have always come away inspired and rejuvenated. Its not to say that he is immune to low moments as a result of his solitary life, but loneliness and depression has not in the least waned his insatiable curiosity of life and his feverish dedication to the creative process as an artist and visionary.

Johann2018-5.jpg

This time, I came away realizing the one reason why I was initially captivated by this man upon first meeting him, which subsequently led to our lasting friendship, and to dedicating 10 years of my life to making a documentary film about his life as an artist. Not only was he a source of vitality for my own tumultuous and sometimes ‘hopeless’ life, but he represents everything I would associate with youth and vitality, which I have spent most of my adult life trying to reconnect with, such as the innocence and curiosity of a child, the heart and soul of being human, and my own creative life force, among other things.

As a filmmaker, I am happy to say that the film does capture some of the magic I experienced first hand with Jóhann. Upon meeting him or seeing the film, it might inspire others, young and old alike, to understand that youth does not have to be merely skin deep, but rather an expression of joy and life.

This film is now available for public screening. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in hosting such a screening event in your home town theatre, school, museum, or even private space.

email: filmmakershowcase@gmail.com

phone: (512) 966-9299

https://www.facebook.com/AForceInNature/

 

Groping in the Dark

Dear Reader:

Below are the contents of Jóhann Eyfells’ phone “conversation” with Joseph Bravo 3 days ago:

“When he called his first words were, “Joe are you there? I have something important to give you, write this down.”  So I immediately began to type on my iPad as he commenced speaking. It is a verbatim transcript of his exact words as they were delivered in a stream of consciousness. When he was done dictating, he abruptly ended the call.

Jóhann’s remarks were not simply a series of enigmatic non-sequiturs, but actually constituted a spontaneously conceived and delivered piece of free verse poetry. His thoughts have been separated into stanzas as well as adding punctuation and italics in order to make them more intelligible and to convey his emphasis as he extemporaneously dictated. But the words themselves occur in the exact order as he spoke them with neither additions nor omissions.

Jóhann Eyfells has been speaking to us in poetry all along and this accounts for why he is sometimes so difficult to follow. But when his thoughts are understood in the context of poetry rather than disjointed prose, they take on a coherence, a clarity and profundity that makes their revelatory context evident and their esoteric meaning attainable.

I am confident that you too will appreciate that Jóhann is as brilliant at poesy as he is at sculpture and that this fact will enable you to recognize a perhaps unanticipated aspect of his unique cosmological genius. Hopefully, this poetic epiphany will bring his oracular rhetoric into unprecedented focus to reveal the music of Eyfells’ spiraling spheres.” (Taken from Joe Bravo’s email to me, dated June 21, 2018)

IMG_4036.JPG(Photo by Tracy Costello – May 2018)

Groping in the Dark or An Upside Down World: A Sculpture by Jóhann Eyfells

“It has all the information you need to understand an Eyfells.
Such a piece has never been created in the world before.
It is equivalent to finding a new continent.
We are on the edge of understanding one another.
You are the only person in the world who has even a glimpse of where I am coming from.

Nobody has received a phone call of this significance before as if stealing from God himself.
This phone call is a ‘game changer.’
It puts everything in second place, it takes on the characteristics of first place.
What I’m telling you is five star!
This phone call is incomplete and in a way frantic.
It will settle down and become pure force recipes of absolute exactitude.

A gift of magnificent interiority.
A foundation that has no known causes, pure emergence of unanticipated magnificence.
A new way of imagining the magnificent becoming.
A total unknown force of totally unknown cause and logical beginning.
A cause of magnificent joy because it is a window into an entirely new scientific domain.
It is the understanding of the three titles of my pieces for the Venice Biennale.

Quivericity, the last source of any entirely momentary knowledge.
The source of all quivering that excites us.
The manifestation of endeavors, stillness and darkness.
Silence begets sound, stillness begets motion, darkness begets light.
Begetting is a magnificent gift!
It is not something that drains your energy.

We are on the edge a new opening.
Copernicus and Galileo removed the mystery by only presenting a bigger one.
They created an enigma rather than solutions.
I am creating solutions not enigmas.

We have to grasp at understanding without any particular knowledge.
All of this is only an elucidation of a temporary condition.
“I know I know nothing.”
All knowledge is incomplete.

This it pulls into reality, it is a knowledge of such.
It has a clarity of an absolute revelation.
The simpleness of its own symbolism.
The equivalent of a newborn baby.
It is simply without any question a magnificence, a miracle, only a birth.
The colloquial equivalent of Hayden’s “simply splendid!”
The hierarchy of all epiphanies.

Not for discussion at this moment,
It has to be digested first.
It has to be pulled into a new form of communication,
A new form of informative patterns.
It has an amazing new form of patterns, a double click.

This piece contains it all.
The newness of what I am saying has never been accomplished before,
The closest thing to permutation that is.
The opposite of Norman Mailer’s nonsense, I was jealous of him.

A newborn baby without speculations of any kind.
A remnant of a little bit of unknowable something.
The essence of a form,
The moment of eternity that negates everything that existed,
Pure forward motion without any known obstructions,
A moment of absolute fluidity.

Put what you are hearing in your own vernacular, up to a point.
Put it as if it were something you are reporting rather than regurgitating.
Put it in your own mouth.
It should be active rather than passive information.
You have to use it as your own material for creation,
A new creative energy in your soul.

An accomplishment of an unparalleled nature,
Beyond all relativity.
What is is.
It cannot be measured,
Cannot be judged.
A moment of absolute birth,
An absolute genesis of arbitrary nuances.
It is the essence of the poem on page 25.

Still slow in birth,
It hasn’t transferred itself into a new category.
Still is something rather than yet something else.
Still is the richest connotation ever.
In Icelandic, it is something yet to come.
Always ready for a new figure of speech …. always.

Let’s not contemplate this too much.
Put it out as a burst of unparalleled creativity,
Not a subject for contemplation,
A real material equivalent to spontaneous combustion,
A new combination of elements that create light or fire, but deeper,
A materialization of an immaterial event.

Do you think this is something that has the look of a beginning of something great?
Use it as a spring board,
Not something as a photograph to be reproduced without any new understanding.
It should not need any new understanding or elucidation.
It has its elucidation in its own vocabulary,
The essence of a cell birth,
The birth of a birth that I have been working with for seventy years,
The double click of an absolute certitude.

I do have something durable in my piece, Groping in the Dark.
You have to imagine the groping coming from below,
A strange kind of reversal.
The one observing is below,
The one groping from above.
Six fingers arranged in a triangular configuration,
Two corners single groping,
One corner double groping.

When those all coalesce, we have an absolute genesis of a moment,
Of the innards of infinity,
The moment of the instinct of infinity,
The moment that explains why there is something rather than nothing,
Some nuance of un-satisfaction behind infinity.
It doesn’t enjoy its own solitude.

How much information have you plotted down?
It is like peering into irrational self similarity, like a cross section of my rocks.
If you try to identify every element, you are lost.
It is like a constellation,
The better the telescope, the better you see but the more complex it becomes.

If you have a feeling of self sufficiency, let’s call it a day.
A colloquial version is sufficient, simply splendid!
Not terribly original but absolutely timely.
So if you spend a moment of self sufficiency then we can call it a day.
Self sufficiency is a good termination point.”

Jóhann Eyfells – June 21st, 2018

Coming Home

IMG_1701I don’t know whether to jump up in joy or cry in disbelief or both. In the Icelandic news, Jóhann Eyfells’ sculpture “Íslandsvarðan” has been officially acquired by the city of Reykjavik for a rather substantial sum of money, and is now to remain as a permanent installation on Faxaflói (Faxa Bay), on the northwest side of the capital city.

Why is this so important?

This is a huge victory for Jóhann Eyfells, an Icelandic sculptor, now almost 95, who has spent more than 70 years living in a semi self-imposed exile from his own childhood home and family.

2018_4_12_Johann copy.jpg
Jóhann at 94 (Photo by Tracy Costello)

With the expectation of helping with the family business upon his return, Jóhann at 23 was sent away to America by his mother to study Business Administration at U.C. Berkeley, California. Once there, everything changed. He would meet, Kristin, his eternal companion and wife of 56 years, and would eventually, contrary to ‘family expectations’ pursue a childhood passion for the creative process and find expression as a sculptor. For a short period, he would return to Iceland only to find himself misunderstood creatively and eclipsed by a younger generation of artists. America would become his permanent artist residence, both in Orlando, Florida and eventually Fredericksburg, Texas.

It’s a victory for artists all over the world, in which to create, to dedicate yourself entirely to the creative process does not always mean being spurned, tossed aside and forgotten.

2017_8_Sculpture9smIt’s a huge victory for Iceland, welcoming one of it’s own, ushering back the clarity and fine instinct that artists like Jóhann possess and who are able to intuitively channel the ‘unknowing’ in their creative processes, and boldly execute in their artistic expressions and bodies of work. No less important is Jóhann’s uncanny ability to find diverse means, expressions and materials to articulate his ideas and vision. Furthermore, his work also embodies everything that is intrinsically Icelandic in nature, such as the ongoing fluidity of the physical forces, destructive and creative, that give form and understanding to the human experience.

It’s a victory for art, that a sculpture like “Íslandsvarðan” is recognized for its intrinsic and aesthetic significance, in a world where ‘value’ in art often seems arbitrary and is dependent on the piece’s commercial and monetary success, a commodity to be traded by only those who can afford to buy it, not to enjoy it for it’s genuine artistic expression and depth. Are we turning a corner in the 21st century, where art and creative expression could be considered a critical part of our own human survival?

Who am I to judge, I am just another human being that finds individuals like Jóhann to be inspirational, who also give me pause to reflect and reason to go on living, joyfully.

Hayden de M. Yates (Co-Producer and Director of A Force in Nature)

A Force in Nature, as of September 2018, will be seen in select theaters and venues throughout North America, Canada and the US.

Flyer2018Rectangle copy

For more details on future screenings and exhibitions email us at: filmmakershowcase@gmail.com or call (512) 966-9299.

 

 

 

 

I am a Thief

“I am a thief. I steal someone’s creation. I take someone else’s ‘success and make it my own.” Jóhann Eyfells

There is an inert and outward beauty in these so called found objects that Eyfells selects as his own. How is he able to recognize the inherent genius that created each of these objects? Is it God or is it Man? When each of these forms were initially created, they were designed and manufactured for a single function use to serve mankind. Jóhann Eyfells recognizes, not only the brilliant unambiguous engineering in each of these object, but also the inherent beauty of obsolescence. Most of these pieces share a common fate. They experienced a similar array of forces that it took to create, utilize and destroy them. Eyfells is merely there to bring these forces to light by displaying these objects in their various stages of disintegration and dissolution. He will also go as far as to give them new life and re-purpose them into functioning pieces of art. Thanks to Jóhann they begin a new life of artistic expression.

Object1sm

(photo courtesy of Hayden de M. Yates)

Should you wish to participate towards the making of our feature film documentary, A Force in Nature, you can do so right here:

https://paypal.me/VitruviusCreations

My life with Jóhann

It is a rare moment when I can fully reflect on my life and acknowledge how a single human being has significantly influenced my life.  But after almost 10 years of knowing Jóhann Eyfells, as an artist and a human being, I have finally managed to do just that.

JohannHayden

The art of Johann Eyfells is not an embodiment of the person but rather an expression of  something beyond the person, beyond the rational constructs of modern civilization that have shaped our physical lives. When you stand and face an Eyfells’ sculpture be prepared to be intellectually, psychically and spiritually challenged. You are about to enter a reality that is both unfamiliar and irrational. It is truly the unknown, seemingly chaotic, which most of us will avoid at all costs.

I have no doubt now, that Jóhann Eyfells is as nimble, precise and swift with his understanding of the cosmos and the physical world we live in, as he was in the ring as a boxing champion in Iceland. It is with this almost ‘supernatural’ agility that he is able to conceptualize and execute all of his projects, whether it is his collapsions, in which ‘time’ as an abstract concept is visually revealed, his cairns, his rocks or his multiple installations of ‘industrial made’ found objects of massive proportions, sometime weighing up to 14 tons.

HMY_3810

And let me tell you, when I stop to think how a 92 year old, whose body is as fragile as porcelain, can manage to lift and precisely position these huge rusted steel remnants of an industrial age past to satisfy his aesthetic compulsion as an artist, I am often left speechless and astonished.

HMY_3806

Yes, indeed, he often sees the inherent beauty of something that would otherwise seem obsolete and discarded to most of us seemingly ‘forward thinking’ humans, and that is precisely what these objects have become to him, beautiful expressions of human engineering and brilliance. Recently, they have become necessary and critical components to articulating to the world our often unsettled and sometimes fearful relationship with the unknown and irrational. It does seem ironic that he uses the very elements that not only embody the rational and physical world, manufactured tools and elements of the industrial age, like giant turbine propellers, to open our minds to the unfamiliar seemingly insane world of Eyfells.

As a true artist, he tirelessly challenges our tendency towards complacency, brought on by the comforts and conveniences of the industrial, electronic and now, digital age. I see him as the Don Quixote of the 21st century, tirelessly and against all odds, confronting the rational world, except this time he does not represent a tragic character that ultimately gives in to ‘convention’ and renounces his ‘insanity’ to become a mere shepherd. No, instead, he selflessly provides us with the opportunity to see for ourselves how collectively we can easily be allured by the deceptiveness of rational thought, that it is ok to embrace the irrational, the unknown. He is our new hero, without a doubt, and it will take us a little while to realize this. Its highly probable that he will not see this revolution of thought take hold before he passes on, but I would hope that he will bare witness to a larger audience and more global appreciation of his accomplishments.

where-in-the-universe-81

If WE are willing and courageous enough to allow ourselves to be immersed into the unknown and uncharted aspects of our intellect and psyche, I promise, like I have, YOU will in fact see the light and wisdom of Jóhann’s aesthetic expression and art, and as a result, be forever transformed.

Today, thanks to the insight I’ve gained through Johann’s work and vision, I feel I am at a better place in my life, simply because I am not defeated by the fear of the unknown. In fact, it is that fear that signals that part of me to move forward instead of backward, to take risks and ‘leaps of faith’. It is also through those ‘leaps of faith’ that I discover new understanding, not only of myself, but of the cosmos around me. I will certainly miss Jóhann when he is no longer with us, but his insight and joy of life will eternally course through my veins.        Written by Hayden de M. Yates

Johann52614e

Photos by Hayden de M. Yates and Ian Candler

To see the trailer of the new documentary film, A Force in Nature, go to the following link:  https://vimeo.com/135532487

The Opposite of Murphy’s Law

The life and work of Jóhann Eyfells is a constant reminder that “if something can go right, it will go right.” Since the first day I met with my friend Jóhann, almost nine years ago, my life has taken a whole new meaning, and for the better, without a doubt.

JEyfells2See this teaser, A Force in Nature (password: spirals), a feature length documentary film looking at the life and work of Jóhann Eyfells.

Sigurður Pálsson – “To be alive is to Become…”

sigurdur_palsson

“We were not intended to Be, but to Become”

We would like to thank Sigurður Pálsson for his beautiful contribution to A Force in Nature.

Born 30. 7. 1948 at Skinnastadur, Iceland, Sigurður Pálsson studied French in Toulouse and Paris 1967-1968, drama and literature at the Institute d’Etudes Théâtrales, Sorbonne, Paris 1968-1973 and again from 1978-1982, obtaining maîtrise and D.E.A. degrees. He also studied at the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français, obtaining a cinema direction diploma. He was professor at the University of Reykjavik and the National Academy of Dramatic Art. Sigurdur Pálsson has also published thirteen books of poetry from 1975 to 2006.  Some of his poems have been translated  into French, Swedish, English, Danish, German, Bulgarian, Chinese, Estonian, Italian, Spanish. He is also a cinema producer.

He was nominated for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature in 1993, and for the Icelandic Literary Prize in 1995 and 2001 and finally in 2007 for Minnisbók (Notebook from Memory) for which he received the Prize. Minnisbók is a memoir of his stay in France during 1967-1982, a playful, bittersweet, funny and charming description of an époque. He was awarded the annual Literary Prize of the Icelandic Radio 1999 and the Booksellers’ Prize for Poetry, 2001. Selected poems were published in French in 1993 in a bilingual edition (Poèmes des hommes et du sel) by Editions de  la  Différence. A selection of Pálsson’s poems was published in Bulgarian in 2005 and in Italien (with texts by two other Icelandic poets) in 2006. A selection in Spanish, Vientos y Nubes, was published in 2008. Pálsson has written eleven theatre plays that have been staged from 1975  to 2008, many of them by the Reykjavik City Theatre while the two most recent ones, a much acclaimed play on the life of Edith Piaf, and the last one, Utan gátta, were put on by the Icelandic National Theatre. One libretto: The Moonlight Island, world premiere in 1997 in Beijing. Music by Nordic Council Prize Winner, Atli Heimir Sveinsson. Three novels: Parísarhjól (The Big Wheel of Paris) published in 1998, Blár þríhyrningur (Blue Triangle) in 2000 and Næturstaður (Night Lodging) 2002.

Pálsson has also produced two full-length features (in 1983 and 1992) by Kristín Jóhannesdóttir.  As in Heaven was selected in the Official Selection (Out of competition) in the Cannes Film Festival in 1992  and has won about twelve prizes in international film festivals. He has directed three TV films and several theatre plays.

Pálsson has translated over twenty titles from French into Icelandic, works by Camus, Genet, Adamov, Arrabal, Ghelderode, Feydeau, Bailly, Queffélec, Prévert, Éluard, Carrère, Augé, Deforges, Cordelier, Châtelet, Vinaver, Anne, Kvaran and Schmitt and also two plays by Arthur Miller. Sigurdur Pálsson was President of the Alliance Française of Iceland from 1976 to 1977. Chairman of the Writers’ Union of Iceland from 1984 to 1988.  He was awarded the three  years Honorary Stipend of the City of Reykjavik in 1987 and has several times been granted a Writer’s Stipend from the State of Iceland. He was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990 by the French Minister of Culture and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 2007 by the President of France.

http://vimeo.com/52449621  password: “spirals”

You Asked Me to Explain Jóhann Eyfells: In the spirit of “Receptualism” or “Uncreationism”

Image

Our Problem:  The Unconscious versus the Conscious. All great activities escape consciousness.

“I assume it is a fundamental trait of human nature to desire an explanation when faced with something unknowable, or in other words to be comforted by something that can “only” be sensed. As an abstract artist in the modernist tradition, I generally shy away from trying to explain the “unknowable” that belongs to the eternal nature of all things. On the other hand, I am always more willing to make an attempt at unraveling the categories of an infinitely active beginning-less and ending-less continuum, which is always implicitly present in all creative manifestations. Additionally, and perhaps more fundamentally, I would also be more than willing to attempt to unravel and elucidate the infinite ability of “our” creative unconsciousness to reach beyond anthropomorphic concepts of symptoms and symbols, and thus try to penetrate into the obscure conceptual categories of the unconsciousness itself.

CHANCE

The driving force and the only unifying factor behind all of the investigative endeavors as articulated above can be made more specific by the employment of the all-inclusive, yet radically dualistic and ambivalent term: “operational necessity.”

The reader will most likely recognize the term from the vernacular of industrial or military strategies, yet this expression has a much more immediate and radically different dynamic application in the domains of philosophy and art, the two domains where our use of the phrase, “operational necessity” exemplifies a momentary rejection of all established values. If we imagine two unequal and irreducible forces, one dominant and the other dominated in close proximity to one another, then what we witness at the very moment when they enter into a relationship is a necessary formation of a whole or an absolute birth of an “event” which cannot be scientifically verified. It is only to be observed and perhaps described. Thus our “operational necessity” serves no established patterns and is of the kind that contains no known causes (no know “WHYs”). This enigmatic, yet super-positive version of our quarry contains, however, a totally fresh “uncreated” and an almost esoteric essence or a will, which appears or turns out to be necessarily constituted by two irreducible halves, Chaos and Circular Motion, where oppositions do not exist. Thus our quarry becomes the “embodiment” of the impossibility of the existence of “absolute” wholes, but exemplifies instead, the ceaseless and absolute genesis of something. Again our “operational necessity” must thus be recognized as the thought of pure becoming a momentary creation and a chance occurrence. A specific yet unbiased “example” would be “THE THROW OF THE DICE.”

Furthermore, and concretely, the double meaning of “operational necessity” depends on whether we affirm our own difference (positively) or deny that which differs (negatively). Finally and most deeply, “operational necessity” is defined negatively as the ”affirmation” of established values and positively defined as the transmutation of all known values.

Similarly, the multiple phenomenon which I call “Singularicity” exists as a unique whole or being of sensation that cannot be measured or compared. It can only be sensed. It is the kind of complex unity that ideally would exemplify the union of life and thought, sometimes referred to as a “pre-Socratic unity.”

 THE ART

This is the essence of art. It can only be affirmed as a necessity of chance (i.e. as a creative thought). What occurs in the innermost nature of my mind as I imagine eternity or infinity is the concept of the (new) positive version of “operational necessity”, i.e. only the affirmative and positive kind as articulated above. I have no choice but to act in light of this joyful and profound event. Thus, I am attempting to express through my work infinity joyously announcing itself. Poets and great composers of music are pioneers in similar pursuits, and I would go as far as to say that this mode of being could become a universal human quest, entirely momentary and positive.

In reference to my work, the reader inevitably will be aware of a physical rupture of a continuum as is clearly evidenced by my spirals and even more so in my dissected cubes and rocks. And it is surely the space in-between that becomes a domain of revelations and that will elevate our perceptions. I strive to evoke a sense of an eternity of aesthetic invisibility into my pieces. It is my hope that this infinitely repeated aesthetic “something” is there as surely as are the support structures and the pedestals that I build to support each piece.

All authentic aesthetic feelings that are affected by a work of art must, ideally gain their tone meaning as the magnificent gifts from outside that I strive to portray. Much rewardingly, I have had people look at my work and tell me positive things I could never have anticipated. Occasionally, I have been elated beyond measure by some viewers’ reactions to an art piece I created, and of course, I have been moved in similar ways by the work of my fellow artists on numerous occasions.

 THE MOVIE

Does “exterior reality” sometimes feel like we are in somebody’s movie? Do you “almost” hear and see the unknowable script echoing in and passing through your head as you keep wondering what existence might conceivably be about? Does the unknowable leave you unsettled, feeling incomplete and skeptical? Don’t despair…confronting the unknowable is the concrete form of the human condition, and we must have total faith in and embrace this feeling of radical ambivalence, because it initiates the necessity of our faith in the world and that which becomes the fundamental source and cause of everything, a sort of a “womb” of absolute genesis or that which I call “only a birth”. It exists as the entirely momentary fact of living or the glittering “Being” of the flash of eternity. It is the inside of the inside, a version of infinity that wants to show itself. That is the “durational” movie you and I are in; a movie that is the highest functionary of what IS – a power that has the ability to instill in us as deviations/spirals, again, or eternally “once more”, faith in the world, and only new faith in living can re-join us to the movies’ script: “our” seeing, “our” hearing, “our” feeling, “our” loving, “our” creating, etc, etc. Embrace it! We (as dispersed absences of the origin) call it “Receptualism”. Welcome it!”

Johann Eyfells

I = M∞2

Image

What is the role of the artist?

Image

The following is an interview of Jóhann Eyfells in the early 60’s, shortly  after he decided to leave architecture for sculpture.

Published Interview – October 17, 1964 – Visir (Icelandic newspaper) by Steinnun S. Briem

SB. What are you expressing with this?

JE. “I think that this work of mine does a better job of saying something about me, than I can say about ‘it’. It is very difficult to analyze and explain one’s own work. The artist expresses himself through a certain form, and through this particular form he says all he has to say. When I have expressed myself in sculpture, I cannot repeat the same thing in another form, that is to say in words. This does not mean that I don’t know what I am doing, but I express myself as a sculptor, not as a man with words. All outside influences, that affect me, all inner movements of the emotions, must inevitably find expression in my work. No artist can exist outside his times. The forces of his era always surround him. Perhaps one can detect anxiety and apprehension in my work; ruins, timelessness…how long will this live?…how long does mind live in matter? So much remains unsaid.”

SB. Are you a kind of artist-philosopher?

JE. “No, I am not. Some forms of visual expression base their life on intellectual reasoning, but my art relies more on the logic of feelings. It is two different things to know and to understand. We may know what we are doing, although we may not understand it. We turn on the light by pressing the switch, but we do not understand electricity. We understand nothing.”

“We are constantly taking new steps into the unknown, both in science and art, but do we really understand what is happening? I do not think so. That is why I cannot say much about my work. I can discuss my position and attitude towards art, but not the expression of what I sense. That is in my work and nowhere else.”

And here is some info about A Force in Nature, a feature documentary film due out in Spring or summer of 2013

You can join us on Facebook at Friends of Jóhann Eyfells
Twitter: @haydenyates

Take a look at a few scenes from our film below. Don’t forget the password:
http://vimeo.com/52449621
password: “spirals”

Redefining Art in the 21st Century.

Screen Shot 2012-06-22 at 2.45.54 AM

Jóhann Eyfells, a defyingly driven 89 year old Icelandic sculptor living in Texas, redefines the meaning and purpose of art for the 21st century. Art is no longer a commodity or something that is there merely as a status symbol or to satisfy a superficial aesthetic need. It has a higher more profound purpose, to reformulate human consciousness. It is there to remind humanity of its own eternal infinite nature that goes beyond time and space. As a young man in Iceland, he was considered to be an exceptional boxer who had never experienced defeat. He would win over his opponent not because he was stronger, but because he would be faster, infinitely so. Boxing provided him with a glimpse of a boundless universe in which everything traveled at infinite speed.

Through Jóhann’s penetrating insight and body of work, we can begin to catch a glimpse at an infinite and ‘unknowable’ universe that resides around us…in spite of our precarious fondness of the visible and physical world.

“Complacency is the unwillingness to explore the chaotic unknown and the undefinable, and resigning ourselves to the coziness of the knowable.” Hayden de M. Yates

Jóhann’s fiery loyalty and commitment had not always been limited just to art. At 23, he left his home in Iceland, land of fire and ice, to forge a new life in America, where he would eventually meet the love of his life, Kristin, also an Icelandic sculptor/painter, with whom he would spend the next 54 years.

Jóhann and Kristin, in their undiluted love for one another would both become consummate and masterly artists, each pushed by the other’s genuine passion and tenacious commitment to their craft, as an expression of humanity and beyond.

And here is some info about A Force in Nature, a feature documentary film due out in Spring or summer of 2013. The password is “spirals”.

You can join us on Facebook at Friends of Jóhann Eyfells
Twitter: @haydenyates

Take a look at a few scenes from our film below. Don’t forget the password:
http://vimeo.com/135532487