CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/21/2020

In memory of Franck André Jamme

Featured images are reproduced from Tantra Song, back in stock from Siglio. Collected by the French poet Franck André Jamme, who died October 1 at the age of 73, these rare, anonymous abstract Tantra drawings from Rajasthan are designed to awaken heightened states of consciousness, and feel especially significant to us during this particularly absurd and chaotic time in world history. "We speak of beauty," Jamme writes. "Perhaps instead, they evoke a kind of truth. Surely because they reveal, in their very abstraction, certain kinds of thoughts—thoughts that have chosen, instead of words, to express themselves in lines, shapes and colors.
In one of his books, Ajit Mookerjee, referring to these pieces, speaks of a 'visual metaphysics'. …
Continue looking at them, untiringly, these images. They are somewhat rigid, a bit studious, almost too restrained. And yet, nearly all, tremble. But that too depends on who is looking at them. For any work, a kind of family is necessary. A mother and a father, at least. A mother: the painter; a father: the viewer.
Some are black, some red, some brown, some yellow, some multi-colored, that’s true. Yet if we had but one color to associate with them forever, it would be blue. Sky blue. The blue of consciousness. Azure.
Nothing extraneous. Nor the slightest impression of effort. No emphasis, no commentary.
Wild little things
That shine
Obstinately

To read publisher Lisa Pearson's remarks upon learning of Jamme's death earlier this month, continue to the Siglio website.