Patrick Pound

The Conjurer's Books: the representation of limits and the limits of representation

Patrick Pound explores the limits of representation and the representation of those limits; a notion that hovers over every image, every text, and every book. The Conjurer's Books looks at a model of books that uses two representational systems (text and image) to activate the space between things and their representation.

This paper will address numerous examples from Sterne's ‘Tristram Shandy' with its empty space left for the reader to paint Widow Wadman : "To conceive this right, call for pen and ink - here's paper ready to your hand. Sit down, sir, paint her to your own mind - as like your mistress as you can - as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you 'tis all one to me - place your own fancy in it", to a copy of Sarah Orne Jewett's ‘The Country of the Pointed Firs' which has been illustrated by a reader; from Pitman's shorthand edition of ‘Robinson Crusoe', to a photo album with its captions in Braille, the limits of description will be displayed in a talk full of images.

The Conjurer's Books addresses words and images in pursuit of things, calling into play artworks that activate the space between a thing and its representation, and addressing the notion of the artwork's alongsideness.

This amusing talk will cover the limits of description, and ontological shifts in register across media, from photographs to theatre.

Patrick Pound is a Melbourne based artist, born in New Zealand. His work is held in the collections of the NGV, the National Gallery in Canberra, Auckland Art Gallery, the Museum of New Zealand, the Christchurch City Art Gallery and many other corporate and private collections. He has held over 50 solo exhibitions and been in numerous curated shows in New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Italy, Malaysia and so on. He is represented by GRANTPIRRIE gallery in Sydney, Hamish McKay Gallery in Wellington, NZ, and Anna Bibby Gallery in Auckland NZ. In 2002 he was featured in the Cambridge edition of The International Who's Who of Intellectuals. In 1995 he featured in the American Biographical Institute's book of Five Hundred Leaders of Influence (Third Edition). His exhibition Cuttings - In The Forest of Images is currently on show at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. He is presently undertaking a doctorate in Art History at Melbourne University, for fun.