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Rose McLaren

Rose McLaren is an artist in London.



Articles Available Online


Talk Into My Bullet Hole

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July 2015

Rose McLaren

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July 2015

‘Someday people are going to read about you in a story or a poem. Will you describe yourself for those people?’ ‘Oh, I don’t...

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May 2014

Art Does Not Know a Beyond: On Karl Ove Knausgaard

Rose McLaren

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May 2014

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle has an oddly medieval form: a cycle, composed of six auto-biographical books about the...

1 SAND AND SNOW   He is a warrior prince He hunts in the deserts of central Arabia He drinks and carouses with his companions, and pursues scandalous love affairs When his father banishes him for his bad behaviour, he becomes even more reckless, an outlaw At the news of his father’s death, he shrugs, he goes on playing backgammon Afterwards, however, he gets riotously drunk and embarks on a campaign of vengeance that will absorb the remainder of his short life He is the greatest poet of his age According to legend, he is slain by a treacherous gift from the Emperor Justinian: a poisoned robe   He is Imru al-Qays, the Man of Misfortune, the Wandering King He composes a stunning poem, known as his Muallaqa, or ‘Hanging Ode’, one of a handful of pre-Islamic poems so precious they were said to have been inscribed in gold and hung on the walls of the Kaaba Luminous language, imperishable lines The poem’s opening phrase, Qifa nabki – ‘Stop, let us weep’ – signals a traditional scene, in which the poet surveys the ruins of his beloved’s campsite This trope was already conventional in the poet’s time, produced by a nomadic Bedouin culture: the common experience of coming across the traces of an abandoned camp became, for poets, an occasion for mourning the loss of a real or imagined woman With Imru al-Qays, the old theme finds its most powerful and lasting expression, so that his Muallaqa becomes its exemplar Qifa nabki Stop, let us weep A call to pause, to dismount, to come down to earth, to face the signs of destruction and loss, and to weep in torrents In Arabic poetics, this classical motif is known as al-waqf ala al-atlal: ‘standing at the ruins’   Stop, let us weep for the memory of a lover and a home, at the edge of the twisting sands between al-Dakhul and Hawmal, between Tudih and al-Miqrat The traces have not yet been erased by the weaving of the north and south winds   In the courtyards and enclosures you can see the dung of gazelles scattered like peppercorns   On the day

Contributor

August 2014

Rose McLaren

Contributor

August 2014

Rose McLaren is an artist in London.

The Prosaic Sublime of Béla Tarr

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Issue No. 6

Rose McLaren

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Issue No. 6

I have to recognise it’s cosmical; the shit is cosmical. It’s not just social, it’s not just ontological, it’s really huge. And that’s why we...
Stalker, Writer or Professor? Geoff Dyer's Zona and Genre

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February 2012

Rose McLaren

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February 2012

‘So what kind of a writer am I, reduced to writing a summary of a film?’ wonders Geoff Dyer half way through Zona. Such...

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Art

May 2011

Twelve Installations

Lawrence Lek

Art

May 2011

These installations express the transience of our sensory world, the impermanence of form, and the artificiality of our environment....

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September 2012

Existere: Documenting Performance Art

David Gothard

Jo Melvin

John James

Rye Dag Holmboe

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September 2012

The following conversation was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in May 2012. The event took place...

poetry

Issue No. 3

Two Poems

Rebecca Wolff

poetry

Issue No. 3

I approach a purchase adore my children— back away— that they revere ugliness the rainbow bag that holds a...

 

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