Hermetic (James Joyce) & The corrected Text (2015)


Hermetic (James Joyce) & The corrected Text (2015) (2015) by Patrick Keulemans

About the artwork

In Hermetic, Keulemans combines two classical pieces of world literature - the beginning and the end of the last chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses - which, due to the absence of full stops and other punctuation marks, are difficult to read. He embeds these fragments between two pieces of leather, referring to the first carriers of communication. In a long chain of letters and full stops, but with no spaces between the words, the linguistic structure has completely disappeared. The full stops form a continuous visual pattern that looks very organic. The text lines undulate, strengthening even more the illegibility. Through the intervention of the artist. the substantive and formal complexity of the book is visualized.

In 1984 the 'Gabler' edition of James Joyce's Ulysses was released. The book called 'The corrected text' was the result of seven years of study of original manuscripts, drafts and proofs undertaken by Walter Gabler. This study provided a new version with several thousand small corrections, but in some cases also additions of several words. The edition has not been positively welcomed by John Kidd of the James Joyce Research Center at Boston University. As a result of the criticism, it was decided to return to publishing the edition of 1961, and in the United Kingdom, to the text version of 1960. For Keulemans this was the occasion to hermetically close the 'Gabler' edition with text corrector. Only the title The Corrected Text on the cover and the words ?Ulysses' and 'James Joyce' on the back cover escaped the white text corrector ink.

About the artist

image Patrick Keulemans, 1958, Willebroek
www.patrickkeulemans.be

Education:
Stedelijke Academie, Mechelen
Sint-Lukas Hogeschool, Brussels

The visual work of Patrick Keulemans starts from a fascination with language and communication: the (im)possibility of language as a metaphor for the (im)possibility of communication. The disappearance of languages and cultural diversity, the vulnerability of the individual in a globalizing world, the homogenizing effects of social media: these are the themes he works with. Behind the sophisticated and bright look of his works often lies a complex network of questions and existential doubts about frustrations, power and powerlessness, transience and human weakness, the need and the inability of communications and of a life in relationship, about religions and their influence on our language and culture. He translates his associative thinking into a visual universe with a strong shaping character which is often imbued with irony, criticism and reflection.

Zebrastraat - Permanent artworks - Hermetic (James Joyce) & The corrected Text (2015) by Patrick Keulemans