Six beautiful images from Francesco Clemente’s web-site today (all from the ‘Eighties). One water-color portrait and five elegant collaborations (three from Black Shroud, one from White Shroud, and a concluding work, from “Images from Mind and Space“). No particular reason to be featuring Clemente today, other than that these are breath-taking images. Reason enough.
A previous post on The Allen Ginsberg Project on Francesco Clemente, incidentally, may be seen here
Camille Hog Xin (Art In America): Speaking of poetry, you collaborated with Allen Ginsberg on two books, Black Shroud and White Shroud. How did you come to collaborate?
Francesco Clemente: We both shared a passion for William Blake. We wanted ro make our own illuminated poetry. Ginsberg was very meticulous. He prepared the paper and he came to my studio and wrote. Then I illuminated the manuscript. At other times, he wrote after my images. For example, I had a show Ex Libris Chenoceau (Chateau de Chenoceau, France, 1995) with 108 pastels. He wrote 108 short poems called “Pastel Sentences” in 17 syllables, haiku style. His courage and simplicity were inspiring.
[An illuminating discussion, (recorded in July of 1992), between Ginsberg and Clemente may be heard here (scroll down) on Allen’s PennSound page (an essential Ginsberg resource)]