Simon Morley’S Stunningly Varied Monochromatic Vision, the Lost Horizon Proves Lost and Found at Every Turn, Every Fold, Every Surface

SIMO N MORLEY LOST HORIZON

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21 EASTCASTLE STREET • LONDON W1W 8DD 020 7734 0386 • [email protected] WWW.ARTFIRST.CO.UK

•[1] Lost Horizons • [Prelude ] To be governed

•[2] Lost Horizons Nos .1– 4

•[3] Blue Moon Nos .1–5 •[4] Lost Horizon (1947) •[5] In these days . . . (1938)

•[6] The door to the invisible •[7] Utopia •[8] I place in your hands •[9] Shangri-La

•[10] Finding Shangri-La–video •[1 ] 1 Mirror, Mirror •[12] Blue Moon–video •[13] Future and destiny–video •[14] How to lose an horizon

•[15] You’ve got Utopia–video •[16]To continu e the journey

•[17] Biography

To be governe d. . . (Proudhon)

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In way of an introduction, this is a work that sources an extreme expression of dissatisfaction with society as we ﬁnd it –a list taken from the writings of the 19th century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. e full text is:

To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the public interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. ‘Nobody owns anything but everyone is rich— for what greater wealth can there be than cheerfulness, peace of mind, and freedom from anxiety?’ omas More Utopia (1516)

‘e door to the invisible must be visible.’ René Daumal Mount Analogue (1952)

‘What this world needs is truth, not consolation. It must ﬁnd itself in its ordeal and by way of its restlessness, not in the solace of edifying discourses that do nothing but pile on more testimony to its misery.’ Jean-Luc Nancy Hegel: e Restlessness Of e Negative (2002)

‘Eternal happiness is one of the basic desires of the human species.’ Venerable Song Chol Lost Horizons

e dream of a perfect society certainly didn’t originate with omas More’s famous work of 1516. He just gave it another name: Utopia. It’s a dream that is probably as old a mankind itself and it has gone by many names. In one of my works for this exhibition I’ve listed 39, but there are certainly more. ey can be found in many diﬀerent cultures, contexts and periods—expressed in forms as diverse as ancient myths, religions, political ideologies, ﬁction, Hollywood movies, and the virtual realities of cyberspace.

In Chinese mythology we find Mount Penglai, a mystical land where it is said the Eight Immortals abide. Here there is no winter. ere is no suffering or pain. Rice bowls and wine glasses are never empty, and magical fruit grows with the ability to heal all diseases, grant eternal youth, and even raise the dead. King Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, who reigned from 221 BC –210 BC , believed that such a magical island really existed in the East Sea, and sent expedi - tions to discover it. But of course they failed. Instead, the King was obliged to satisfy himself with the creation of a miniature version, built in his garden . is in its turn founded the tradition of the Chinese, and then the Kor eans and Japanese, creating gardens where there are bridges and streams, paths running through cultivated beds of exotic plants and flowers, even gazebos and pavilions for people to sit in and ponder the beauty of nature or the full moon, and to recollect for a while perfection in the mind.

Countless versions of Mount Penglai were brought to life through the magic of pen and ink. Scholars, poets, artists created poems and pictures inviting people to escape from the chaos of the outside world and to temporarily inhabit a virtual space where they could enjoy beauty, peace and security. e vision of the perfect land became a favorite theme of East Asian art, and its iconography is usually signaled by depictions of dramatically breath-taking views of mountains and deep ravines swathed in milky mist and illuminated by the rising sun. Cranes — symbols of good fortune and longevity—perch on a pine tree, which is itself also a symbol of longevity—and are accompanied by two other symbols, the plum tree, representing youthful spirit, and the bamboo, symbol of hardiness, ﬂexibility and strength.

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Since moving to Korea, I’ve become fascinated by one particular exampl e— the painting Mongyu dowondo (A Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Paradise (or land)) , which was created in 1447 by the artist Ahn Gyeon (or An Gyeon). It is a handscroll in ink and light colour on silk, and is very long, measuring 438 x 106 cm. Handscroll painting is an intimate form of visual art that can be view ed by only a few people at a given time. Unrolled from right to le, so that about 50 cm is revealed at a time, the viewed section is then re-rolled before another section is unrolled. In contrast to a hanging scroll painting, the hand scroll usually tells a story that unfolds across time. e same character(s) may appear at multi - ple points over the extent of the painting, something like a car toon strip or ani - mated ﬁlm. But Ahn Gyeon’s painting is unusual insofar as it unrolls from le to right, and there are no characters at all.

One of the painting’s 23 colophons was composed and penned by Prince Anpyeong, who commissioned the work. In it he describes how he had a vivid dream in which he became the ﬁsherman described in a famous poem by the Chinese poet Tao Quian (365–427 CE ) called A Peach Blossom Spring and soon aerwards asked Ahn Gyeon to paint the handscroll. Prince Anpyeong also describes what he saw in his dream: ‘e paradise is a land of mountains, range upon range formed by deep gorges, and the rocky peaks are loy and remote . . . . Mountains on four sides stood like walls in thick clouds and mists. Peach trees in the near and far distance were reﬂected through hazy, rosy clouds.’ It is this peach grove, which we see in the right-hand section of the painting, that announces the location of the secret Utopian community.

Tao Quian’s poem had been written during a time of great political turmoil for China. It begins with a fisherman following a stream and losing track of the distance he traveled. He encounters a peach blossom grove, and aer enjoying the fragrant air filled with blossoms, he looks for the end of the grove and finds a tight crevasse in a hillside and squeezes through, emerging on the other side to see a village, lush fields, ponds, mulberry and willow trees, and bamboo. e villagers accept the fisherman into their homes, and he speaks to them of the dynastic changes and continual warfare experienced by the people since the villagers became separated from the rest of China. Aer a stay of several days the fisherman departs with well wishes and the request from the villagers that he keep their paradise a secret. But the fisherman leaves markers along the way so that he can return, and soon leads an expedition to find it again. However, all attempts fail, and since that time no one has ever re-entered the ‘Peach Blossom Paradise.’

Ahn Gyeon’s masterpiece A Dream Journey to the Peach Blossom Paradise is there - fore a painting of a dream of a poem. We don’t see the community itself— just three outlying and empty buildings at the edge of the grove at the middle and top right of the painting. So we can therefore only imagine what it’s like.

e subsequent history of the royal commissioner and the painting itself are tell - ing: in 1453 Prince Anpyeong was sent into exile, and soon aerwards was sen - tenced to death for opposing the usurpation of the Joseon throne by his brother, Sejo. Ahn Gyeon’s painting was stolen by Japanese invaders during the 1592–98 Imjin War, and ever since has been kept in Japan. It’s current custodian, Tenri Uni versity, has refused to return the handscroll to Korea, and to date has permit - ted it to be exhibited twice in South Korea. In the meantime, Koreans must make do with a copy, which is all I’ve managed to see too.

◉◉◉◉◉◉◉◉ Fast forward to Europe in the 1930s and Shangri-La. James Hilton’s best-selling novel, Lost Horizon (1932), written as the dark clouds of war gathered over the world, was made into a marvelous Frank Capra movie starring Ronald Cole man in 1938 (and into an execrable musical version in the 1970s). It brings a West- meets-East dimension to the ancient myth.

e ﬁrst shots of the movie are of a book. e pages turn to reveal this text: In these days of wars and rumors of wars—haven’t you ever dreamed of a place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight? Of course you have. So has every man since Time began. Always the same dream. Sometime he calls it Utopia—Sometimes the Fount- ain of Youth—Sometimes merely ‘that little chicken farm’.

e name of Hilton’s now famous kingdom derives from the Tibetan paradise Shambala—and Lost Horizon up-dates the dream of Mount Penglai and the Peach Blossom Paradise, locating it in a ‘real’ place—the Valley of the Blue Moon, hidden away high up in the Himalayas. Here, a dying French priest, who is already more than 300 years old, has been building a perfect society based, he says, on the simple virtues of ‘kindness’ and ‘modera tion’, while also hording everything noble and good from a world he believes to be on the brink of apocalypse. is High Lama, most improbably, has arranged the kidnapping in China of Hugh (or Robert in the movie) Conway, an enlightened British diplo mat and survivor of the trenches of the Great War, whom he hopes to persuade to become his successor. But for reasons that are by no means clear Conway chooses to depart from Shangri-La. ese centre on Conway’s sense of loyalty to a diplomatic colleague (in the movie it’s his brother, so his subse quent decision to leave seems much stranger in the book), who is also a passen ger on the plane but is desperate to leave Shangri- La. But Conway is soon wanting to return, and we learn through a diplomat col - league’s account that he struggled against impossible odds to make his way back to Shangri-La, under tak ing a Herculean journey in order to ﬁnd the happiness, inner peace, love, sense of purpose and long life he believed to be his birthright.

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As we know very well, there is a dark side to the Utopian dream. To borrow a phrase of Robespierre (adopted by Lenin), the twentieth century was full of cracked eggs but not many omelets, (Robespierre said ‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs’—that is, it is necessary to engage in act of violence in order to create the perfect society). Acknowledging the diﬀerence between what the imagination is capable of conceiving and what can actually be achieved within the complex conditions of real life is obviously of crucial importance for a soci - ety’s well-being. e danger is that the Utopian dream denies or belittles the fact that the only social advances possible are small gains made piecemeal against the background of a world characterized by unpredic ta bility and oen by misfortune. Paradise isn’t carved in stone. Indeed, as George Orwell wrote with his usual insight: ‘Nearly all creators of utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache’.

Jean-Paul Sartre claimed that in his time communism was the ‘unsurpassable hori zon of our time’. It was the only emblem for the eternal desire to discover or rediscover true community. But it is blatantly obvious that this emblem is no longer valid, except for a few. But for the rest of us, who are witnesses to the betrayal of the communist dream, no other dream has arisen to take its place. In this sense, we have truly lost our horizon.

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René Daumal’s Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclid - ean Adventures in Mountain Climbing (1952) casts a surrealist light on humanity’s timeless quest for a perfect land, a perfect society. It was the author’s ﬁnal work and remained uncompleted due to his premature death, and so was published posthumously. Mount Analogue suggests why such visions are so important, despite their dangers. It tells the story of a group of intrepid men and women who voyage to an unknown island in search of an improbable mountain— the link between Heaven and Earth. ‘Its summit must be inaccessible’, writes the narrator, who is a member of the party, ‘but its base accessible to human beings as nature made them. It must be unique and it must exist geo graphically. e door to the invisible must be visible’. By posing such a con undrum—by imagining what both is and is not, and by committing himself to the pursuit of the impossi - ble—Daumal catches a meaning behind all these quests.

For the vision of Utopia is a vital imaginative corrective to the obvious failings of ‘reality’ as it is given to us though upbringing and education. It speaks of the universal human wish that things be diﬀerent from the way they are. It emblem - atises the desire, as Jean-Luc Nancy writes in e Inoperative Community , for a com munity beyond social divisions and beyond subordination to techno pol - iti cal dominion, and thereby beyond such wasting away of liberty, speech, or of simple happiness . . . . a place from which to surmount the unraveling that occurs with the death of each one of us, that death that, when no longer anything more than the death of the individual, carries an unbearable burden and collapses into insigniﬁcance’. But in order to envisage this new horizon it is necessary to travel outside the doxa —the conventional—and this means daring to believe in the impossible.

Orwell wrote: ‘whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own empti - ness’. And yet, if we don’t try to ‘imagine perfection’, where will we ﬁnd ourselves? Won’t we be condemned to stunted acceptance of the status quo? Orwell didn’t think so, but such a conclusion might seem inevitable. As a clever Apple ad cam - paign from 1994 announced: Here’s to the crazy ones . . . . Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do’. Or, as Oscar Wilde declared: ‘Progress is the realisation of Utopias’.

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Western post-Renaissance paintings, with their fixed-point perspectives and their clear (if hazy) horizons, suggest windows and doors, and images that are to be viewed in a detached and immobile manner. ey embody the ‘horizon of mean - ing’ through a representational trope: the vanishing-point. But the thin paper and silk mounts of East Asian works, floating parallel to the wall behind, or laid on the floor or table-top, reinforce awareness that the work is ‘a boundary constitut - ing its own surface environment’, as the art historian Jonathan Hay puts it. eir framing-edge is much more permeable, opening the painted surface onto its surroundings. They do not show us an illusionistic three-dimen sional space to be contemplated as if from a distance, and from one, unmoving position. ey encour age the viewer to engage in more mobile and somatic modes of perceptual engagement, and to consider the works within a wider environment of viewing. For the unified and delineated space of Western art, East Asian landscape paint - ings like Ahn Gyeon’s substitute the emptiness or voids of clouds and mists, and the mobility of multiple perspectives. But they do not only show the indistinct beyond into which forms vanish at the horizon, as would be the case within the conventions of Western landscape painting, but rather generate a sense of activity, and the possibility of exchanges and interaction between forms, and of the abridged, suggested and invisible. e void in East Asian art points towards per - cep tion at a level of undifferentiation–where there is no horizon. It is a liquid and permeable space of the ‘in-between’, and such in-between-ness suggests a move - ment within the visible that is closely bound to respiration —to breathing in– breath ing out. e Cartesian trope of the horizon, describing the limit placed on what can be known, is challenged by another trope describing the ability to link inside and outside. It suggests that knowledge comes by fully immersing our - selves in what Maurice Merleau-Ponty called the ‘flesh of the world’.

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e ultimate end of visions of a perfect community or society is to con front the intermittent and seemingly random processes that characterize expe ri ence. Such idealizing formulae stubbornly resist the ceaseless attrition of the present on our lives in favour of rigid and consoling convictions about the past and the future.

We can become so locked into seeing something in one particular way that we will not be able to see any other pattern, or acknowledge the validity of any other point of view. A ‘horizon of meaning’ structures and delimits sensations. is ‘horizon’ surrounds each situation and is the limitation placed on change. It is what allows us to adopt a perspective, but also what prohibits us from being open to change. So what does it mean to say that a horizon has been ‘lost’? It might suggest that we no longer have any ability to believe in the reality of a per spective—that we are blinded by nihilism or what Nietzsche called ‘perspec - tivalism’, and so cannot even envisage the possibility of meaning. Or, in contrast, it might imply that we are no longer restricted by a single horizon, and that we are free to change —free to embrace the impossible.

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e contemporary Korean Buddhist monk Song Chol writes: Happiness in this world can be nothing more than fleeting; and in fact we spend more time being unhappy and dissatisfied than we do being happy. So the world of the absolute and infinite prom - ises us eternal happiness and relief from earthly suffering . . . . is eternal happiness can be achieved only by crossing over to the world of liberation, the absolute, the infinite.

Buddhism teaches that everyone is in possession of a native Mount Penglai, Peach Blossom Paradise, Shangri-La, or Mount Analogue because everyone can cross over to this world of liberation through cleansing the mind or ridding themselves of delusions. A popular Buddhist metaphor is that of the mirror: if we wipe oﬀ all the dust, the mirror sparkles. Or, as Song Chol writes: ‘You have to open the eye of the heart, the eye that sees everything clearly’.

King Qin, the fisherman, Hugh Conway and Daumal’s voyagers, are all symboliz - ing a deep truth: the Utopia they’re dreaming of is actually right here, right now. Beyond the evocation of fabled lands, where life is ‘a lasting delight’, East Asian painting implies something very different: it says that if we really wish to find Utopia we must refuse to search outside ourselves. Why? Because if we search out side ourselves, we will only succeed in distancing ourselves from what the dream ultimately signifies: we will always place it far away, beyond the horizon. e ‘infinite’ of the absolute in this sense is not something that is beyond us, but rather something that is in our midst.

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In my exhibition I’ve approached this complex theme tangentially and elliptically, using as my focus the movie Lost Horizon, and roping in along the way other points of reference from literature and art, East and West.

I’ve also used this occasion to try out some new styles and techniques, including working on hanji —Korean mulberry paper—and mounting works in East Asian formats, such as the hanging-scroll and the folding ‘concertina’ album. In these ways I reference the fact that I’ve been living in Korea for a while. I also seem to have an aversion to horizons. My works are certainly not meant to oﬀer any kind of prognosis, and I also don’t intend to be ironic or cynical. I really believe in Utopia, but I’m just not expecting to find it anywhere out there any time soon. Maybe if I can clean the mirror of my mind suﬃciently or open the ‘eye of the heart’ I’ll come to see that all along it’s been right here and right now.

Seoul, South Korea November 2013

Lost Horizon Nos.1–4

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is series of paintings uses images of the Lamasery in Shangri-La from the Frank Capra ﬁlm Lost Horizon (1938) and couples them with various names for the perfect community taken from diﬀerent cultures, epochs, and contexts.

e amazing sets for Lost Horizon were designed by Stephen Goosson in the ‘Streamline Moderne’ style. I juxtapose a speciﬁc Hollywood vision of Shangri-La/Utopia with other versions represented by their names. As in much of my work, the image is deliberately monochro - matic and indistinct, as if fading from view or emerging. I juxtapose visual and verbal representations. e words are painted in relief. ere is high contrast between text and image, but it is tactile rather than visual.

Blue Moon Nos.1–5

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In Lost Horizon , Shangri-La is located in the Valley of the Blue Moon somewhere in the Himalayas. I have painted fragments of the moon’s surface, and below them is a caption–label of the name for the perfect community.

I wanted to try an East Asian painting format—the tall, thin hanging-scroll— which is intended to be rolled up and so is highly portable .e works are painted on Korean mulberry paper in acrylic paint. I was interested in giving a strong visual contrast between blue and white, but I reduce the image to a very simple code, so it is not easy to ‘read’ close up or see as an image.

Lost Horizon (1947)

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One of my series of ‘Book-Paintings’ in which I make a copy of a cover or title page of a book in mono chrome. is is the title page of the 1947 paperback edition of James Hilton’s bestseller, Lost Horizon (1932), which is feted as being the ﬁrst ever paperback.

e painting is done in gold to give is a precious and luxur ious feeling. At ﬁrst the viewer perceives a rectangle of a single colour, but on approaching, they can make out the text, which is painted in relief. A shi occurs between seeing, reading, and ‘touching’.

In ese Days . . . (1938)

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ese two paintings are based on the ﬁrst frames of the ﬁlm Lost Horizon . A book opens to reveals the text:

In these days of wars and rumors of wars—haven’t you ever dreamed of a— place where there was peace and security, where living was not a struggle but a lasting delight? Of course you have. So has every man since Time began. Always the same dream. Sometime he calls it Utopia—Sometimes the Fount- ain of Youth—Sometimes merely ‘that little chicken farm’.

e two paintings are in Colbalt blue, which may bring to mind Yves Klein’s work, and also refer to the ‘blue moon’ motif.

e door to the invisible

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is work is based on lines from René Daumal’s Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing (1952) which casts a surrealist light on humanity’s timeless quest for a perfect land, a perfect society. It was the author’s final work and remained uncompleted due to his premature death, and was published posthumously.

Mount Analogue suggests why such visions are so important, despite their dangers. It tells the story of a group of intrepid men and women who voyage to an unknown island in search of an improbable mountain—the link between Heaven and Earth. ‘Its summit must be inaccessible’, writes the narrator, who is a member of the party, ‘but its base accessible to human beings as nature made them. It must be unique and it must exist geo - graph ically. e door to the invisible must be visible.’ By posing such a conundrum—by imagining what both is and is not, and by committing himself to the pursuit of the impossible—Daumal catches a meaning behind all these Utopian quests.

Utopia

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is work uses collaged letters from a variety of 20th century maga zines presented in an East Asian format—the ‘concertina’ folder.

I wanted to ‘ﬁnd’ ‘Utopia’ within the prosaic letters of these historical sources coming from a time when ‘Utopia’ was a hotly-contested and oen bloody issue. It can also been seen as referring to the ‘export’ of Western concepts of Utopia to the East—which had dire consequences. L’AURORA GENOVESE DOMENICA 27 Gennaio 1901 LA REVUE HEBDOMADAIRE 8 Mai 1926 SCRIBNER’S March 1939 PARIS TOUJOURS 19 Juillet 1941 P I C T U R E P O S T 11 December 1943 PARIS MATCH 8 Avril 1950 THE AEROPLANE 12 May 1950 DER SPIEGEL 17 April 1957

I place in your hands

One of my series of ‘Postcard’ works. I selected postcards of mountains and placed on top a fragment of dialogue from Lost Horizon . ese words are spoken to Robert Conway by the Grand Lama.

Shangri-La

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A trompe l’oeil painting using prunings and other discarded ﬂora from my small balcony garden in South Korea. I manipu - late them to form the letters spelling the word Shangri-La. The search for paradise begins, and ends, at home . . . .

Finding Shangri-La

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Images of the Seas on the Moon. e camera scans slowly over the surface as if we’re exploring it. e soundtrack samples extracts form the ﬁlm Lost Horizon and the music was specially composed by NOMIS.

◉ click to play video in separate window

Mirror, Mirror

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A list of names for the perfect community printed in inverted format on a mirror. A I P O T U

A I D A C R A

E N G I A K C O C

S L A T R O M M I E H T F O D N A L S I E H T

H A N N A J

D N A L E R U P E H T

N U S E H T F O Y T I C E H T

A L - I R G N A H S N I A T N U O M Y D N A C K C O R G I B

E S I D A R A P

Y T E I C O S S S E L S S A L C E H T

D N A L R E V E N - R E V E N

A I N R A N

X I R T A M E H T

A L A P D L R O W R E H T O E H T

N E D E

E G A N E D L O G E H T

G Ó ’ N A N R Í T

S D L E I F N A I S Y L E

I A R O H

N O H W E R E U R E M U S T N U O M

A L A B M A H S

Y E N O H D N A K L I M F O D N A L E H T

E U G O L A N A T N U O M

D N A L D E S I M O R P E H T

U R E M T N U O M

O D A R O D L E N E V A E H H T N E V E S

S I T N A L T A W E N

A N A E C O

A I R U R T L A

D N A L R E H

A I D N A L S I

S I L O P O N A I T S I R H C Blue Moon

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e names for the perfect community slowly process towards an image of a blue moon, ﬁnally vanishing into its depths.

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Futur eanddestiny

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Against a starry sky, the words spoken by the Grand Lama to Robert Conway in Lost Horizon slowly appear and disappear.

◉ click to play video in separate window SHANGRI-LA ‘Maybe there wasn’t really an America, it was only Frank Capra. ’ John Cassevetes How to lose an horizon

Frank Capra’s 1937 film version of James Hilton’s 1933 novel Lost Horizon provides a densely intertextual and inter-medial set of engagements with the synchronic desire of utopian ideals and the massively diachronic contexts from which the film and novel emerged. Both film and book serve as a catalyst for Simon Mor - ley’s exhibition sporting the same title, with paintings, tex tiles, video and other media carrying the ‘lost horizon’ resonances.

Writing and directing utopian works during the interwar year period (of course no one knew it as the interwar period at the time though it was clearly a time of global economic upheaval) surely is tantamount to risking fate or at least risking charges of uninformed escapism. Capra and Hilton, however, wrap their works in the turmoil from which they emerged and tinge their transcendental, utopian themes with socially and politi - cally cognizant tones, ones that work throughout Capra’s corpus from the 1930s and 40s and in Hilton’s novels and screen plays throughout his career. Both the novel and the film emerge out of the mechanized horrors of World War I, a war whose peace prefigured the larger conflagration in very specific ways, and both prefigure a desire to transcend the ways the world (wa r) is too much with us, expressing a yearning for utopian ideals as articulating a sort of spiritual critique of Enlightenment ideals (yet again).

Cinema too, especially Hollywood cinema, helped create a kind of utopian space, a space where escape could be realized (even if only for a few hours on a Depression era aer noon) and the reality of ones grinding existence tossed into an over- saturated colour fest exploding in eye-popping grandeur — so much so that Hitler put Universum Film AG (UFA) on notice to up the colour voltage or suﬀer the consequences.

That there is a film of Lost Horizon , of any utopian work, emerging out of Hollywood constitutes a redundancy for the whole studio system moment of this lustrous Golden Age of cinema operated in and mobilized utopian potentials. Capra, too, figured in this utopian vision, working a nostalgic machine of the lost or repressed or cynically- manipulated virtues of small-town America and its common-sense values that could help save the country once more from those who would seek to use the goodwill of its denizens against their own good. Capra grew increasingly uncertain about this though, as his films leading up to World War II delineate , and a darker-hued vision of the nation, its institutions and the power structure guiding them overtook his films.

e utopian impulse collapsed into geopolitical pragmatism as the world plunged into war again, and Capra was enlisted to construct a visual culture rationale for US involvement. His contributions became the famous propaganda Why We Fight series for the war effort. Asia and its imaginaries take centre stage when Capra wheels out his own directed , Disney-animated, Ruth Benedict-influenced, and ultimately never-screened Japan: Know Your Enemy . at the ‘docu - mentary’ is only seen retrospectively says much about the perspective needed to view a post-war world that looks both forward and backward: forward with the power exemplified in teletechnological control of terrain, thus rendering the world global (that is networked, under surveillance and con - trolled) and backward with the erasure of the orizon.We lost it: the horizon, that is. Gone like that, in an atomic flash.

During WWII the fact that the aircra that ﬂew the Doo little Raid over Tokyo had to be concealed as the aircra carrier as a platform for military operations remained a strategic secret. FDR jokingly claimed the planes took oﬀ from Shangri-La, lead - ing to the actual aircra carrier to be so-named. e presi dent also named his rustic retreat in Maryland Shangri-La before Eisenhower changed it to Camp David.

e perspective of utopian ﬁlms or utopian space, especially in the West, is one that accords with perspectival painting, cartog - raphy, sublime and, of course, military targeting and con trol. It is a view predicated on the vanishing point of the horizon that led to a Western culture capable of controlling space and move - ment. A horizon gained, if perhaps violently so, not lost.

Contrast this perspective—the one with the vanishing point, which is another kind of loss—with that of monochromatic painting. Consider for example the Korean artist Ahn Gyeon’s exquisite A Dream Journey to Peach Blossom Paradise or Chinese landscape paintings on scrolls. Monochromatic paintings and vertically-tilted landscapes do not yield to the lust of the eye to control all that it surveys, leaving that perspective of the world to the side. ey elide the horizon of perspective.

In Simon Morley’s stunningly varied monochromatic vision, the Lost Horizon proves lost and found at every turn, every fold, every surface. e paintings, scrolls, screen, video, post - cards with text, word lists, laser-cut texts, installations, watercolours and book covers oﬀer negative spaces for critically think ing what it means (what it meant) to lose a horizon, for good and ill. America and Asia as visually constructed imaginaries vanish down the perspectival hole Morley erases, reinvokes and re-visions.

Aer an horizon is lost, all we can do is chose a surface upon which to make new ones . . . or not.

◉

Ryan Bishop is Professor of Global Arts and Politics at Winchester School of Art, the University of Southampton. His most recent books include: Comedy and Cultural Critique in American Film , Edinburgh University Press, 2013 e City as Target , co-edited with Greg Clancey and John Phillips, Routledge, 2011 Modernist Avant-Garde Aesthetics and Contemporary Military Technology , co-authored with John Phillips, Edinburgh University Press, 2010 Baudrillard Now , Polity Press, 2009 You’ve got Utopia

, ,

is video, with music especially composed by NOMIS, samples words spoken to Chang, a leader of the community in Shangri-La, by one of the kidnapped residents, the paleontologist Alexander Lovett, played by Edward Everett Horton. e image is a still from the movie showing the set by Stephen Goosson.

◉ click to play video in separate window

LOST HORIZON In order to continue the journey. . .

Lost Horizon by James Hilton http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Horizon-James-Hilton/dp/8087888057/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389160857&sr=1- 1&keywords=lost+horizon

Lost Horizon directed by Frank Capra http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Horizon-Ronald-Colman/dp/6305416222/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies- tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1389160953&sr=11&keywords=lost+horizon

Mount Analogue by René Daumal http://www.amazon.com/Mount-Analogue-Ren%C3%A9- Daumal/dp/1585673420/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389160912&sr=1-1&keywords=mount+analogue

Utopia by omas More http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-contents.html http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-omas-More/dp/1613823886/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389161042&sr=1-1- spell&keywords=thomas+more+utoipa

Searching for Utopia by Gregory Claeys (ames & Hudson) http://www.thamesandhudson.com/Searching_for_Utopia/9780500251744

e Utopia Reader edited by Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent (NYU Press) http://www.amazon.com/e-Utopia-Reader-Gregory-Claeys/dp/0814715710

Art and Utopia edited by Christian Gether, Stine Hoholt, Marie Laurberg, (Hatje Cantz) http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/3775732810/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=nearnearfutur- 21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=3775732810 Utopias: Documents in Contemporary Art, edited by Richard Noble (e MIT Press) https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/utopias

Utopia is no place: e Art and Politics of Impossible Futures, Walker Art Gallery Lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8BhXKGOeeY

e Spirit of Utopia, Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/the-spirit-of-utopia

e Utopian Function of art and literature by Ernst Bloch (e MIT Press) http://books.google.co.kr/books/about/e_Utopian_Function_of_Art_and_Literatu.html?id=2JNlyiNj02EC&redir_esc=y

e Spirit of Utopia by Ernst Bloch http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=ld7eJLiIrzgC&source=gbs_similarbooks http://nowhereisland.org/embassy/art/utopias/ http://neo-utopianism.blogspot.kr/2011/05/utopian-art-is-it-possible-in.html http://median.newmediacaucus.org/isea2012-machine-wilderness/proposal-for-the-freeopenlibre-art-foundation/ http://nomadicutopianism.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/art-and-utopia/

Art Workers between Utopia and the Archive by Boris Groys http://www.e-ﬂux.com/journal/art-workers-between-utopia-and-the-archive/

e Idea of Utopia in Art and Life Emilia and Ilya Kabakov in conversation with Sir Norman Rosenthal, 2011 https://vimeo.com/33115155

Biography SIMON MORLEY 1958 Eastbourne, United Kingdom Lives and works in South Korea

Qualifications BA Modern History, Mansﬁeld College, Oxford University MA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London PhD Southampton University

Representation Art First, London Galerie Scrawitch, Paris

Solo Exhibitions 2014 Homage à Albert Camus , Galerie Scrawitch, Paris Book-Painting , ArtSonje Lobby Project, Seoul Lost Horizon , Art First, London 2012 Monograph , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan 2011 Korea Land of the Dawn, and Other Paintings , Art Link Gallery, Seoul A Short History of the Twentieth Century , Art First Gallery, London 2010 Six Halls , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo Moon is Homeland Bright: An Installation , Kyung hee University Museum of Art, Seoul Messagerie , Museée des Beaux Arts, Dijon, France 2009 Hitchcock’s Blondes , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo e Rose Annual, 1924 , Art First Project Space, London Cine Italia , Metis NL, Amsterdam 2008 Moon Palace , Paik Hae Young Gallery, Seoul Cine Italia , Zonca & Zonca, Milan 2007 A Short History of Dutch Painting, Part II , Metis NL, Amsterdam Classic Japanese Movies , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo e English Series , Art First, London 2005 Bookpainting , Fiera del Libro d’Arte, Palazzo del Re, Bologna VIRUS , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo 2004 A Short History of Dutch Art , Metis NL, Amsterdam Rossa , Galleria Spazia, Bologna Reading Room (with Maria Chevska), MOCA Peckham and Peckham Library, London 2004 A Short History of Modern Japanese Fiction (in Translation) , Taguchi Fine Art,Tokyo MiArt, Milan (Percy Miller Gallery) 2003 Post Card , Percy Miller Gallery, London e Life of ings , 3 Degrees West Gallery, Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere (Artist- in- Residence exhibition) e Unfortunate Tourist of Helvellyn and his Faithful Dog , 3 Degrees West Gallery, Wordsworth Trust 2002 Italian Holiday , Zero Arte Contemporanea, Piacenza, Italy 2000/1 e Collected Works of George Orwell, and Other Paintings , Percy Miller Gallery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 Crossing Space , Kunsthalle Faust, Hannover, Germany Natural History , Art First, London Monocromi. Dalla Materia alla Superficie. La Poetica dell’oggetto , with Pino Pinelli, Galleria Spazia, Bologna Chang Eung- Bok’s Boutique Hotel, Peach Blossom Dream , SeMA Living Arts Museum, Seoul Gwangju Design Biennial, South Korea 2012 e Unknown , Poznan Mediations Biennial, Poznan, Poland (selected by Friedhelm Mennekes) REAL DMZ , Cheorwon Province, South Korea, curated by Samuso 2011 Guest from the Future , with Maria Chevska, Galerie8, London 2010 Gyeonggi Creation Center Residency Program Exhibition , Incheon Art Platform, South Korea 2009 Self- Taught , Uri and Rami Museum, Ashdot Yaacov, Israel 2008 On the Edge , Michael Petry’s ‘Golden Rain’, exhibition, Savenger,Norway, European Capital of Culture Exhibition 2006 Les Mots pour le faire , with Yves Chaudouet and Maria Chevska, Musée Romain Rolland, Clamecy, France 2005 A Picture of Britain , Tate Britain, London Ex Roma , Abbey Award Winners Exhibition, APT Gallery, London Lost and Found in Translation , Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, Cornwall Art is a Word , benefit exhibition for the Museums of Israel, Christie’s, London 2004 Melt , British School in Rome Gallery Artists , Taguchi Fine Art, Tokyo Compass , Sala 1, Rome Ancoats Hospital: Aer L.S. Lowry , Nunnery Gallery, London 2003 e Book Show , e Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, Cumbria e Book Show , (curator/exhibitor), Nunnery Gallery, London A . . . parole , Cortili di Casa Sanna- Meloni, Berchidda, Sardinia, as part of ‘Del Segno, Del Suona e della Parola’, PAV e Unfortunate Tourist of Helvellyn and his Faithful Dog . Exhibition conception, design, and contribution, e Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, Cumbria e Cover eory , Ex- Centrale Electrica, Piacenza, Italy (curated by Mario Sinaldi) 2002 Sumptuous , Ex Macelli Pubblici, Prato, Italy (curated by Palazzo delle Papesse Centro d’Arte Contemporanea, Siena) L’Ultima Cena , Castello del’Ovo, Napoli, Italy (curated by Massimo Sgroi) Fluent: Painting and Words , Camberwell Art School Gallery, London ‘Red Spy’, Fortezza della Brunella, Aulla, Italy La Forma delle Forme , Villa Braghieri- Castel, Modena, Italy New Religious Art , Henry Peacock Gallery, London e Open , Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool Bibliomania (edited by Simon Morris), Printed Matter, New York Fabric , Abbott Hall, Kendal Private Views , London Print Studio, Herbert Read Gallery, KIAD, Canterbury Showhouse , PM Gallery and House, London East Wing No. 5 , Courtauld Institute, London 2001 Artmart , 291 Gallery, London EAST International , Norwich (selected by Mary Kelly and Peter Wollen) Wax , auction in aid of Cancer Research Closer Still , Southern Arts touring show Sway , ArtSway, Winchester School of Art 2000 9,8m/s2 , Zero Arte Contemporanea, Piacenza, Italy Art Futures , Contemporary Art Society, Barbican, London Occupation Studios Fund Raiser , Platform Gallery, London e Wreck of Hope , e Nunnery Gallery, London, (artist/co- curator) Chora , Abbot Hall, Kendal; South Hill Park, Bracknell; Hotbath Gallery, Bath 1999 Chora , 30 Underwood Street Gallery, London (artist/co- curator) Six Young British Artists , Gallerie Axel ieme, Darmstadt, Germany e Discerning Eye (invited by Charlotte Mullins), Mall Gallery, London Hub (curated by Above/Below), Bishopsgate, London Ninenineninetynine , Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London Wunderkammer , 13 Laburnum Lodge, London Aer Jackson Pollock , Sali Gia Gallery, London (artist/curator) Networking , P- House, Tokyo, Japan 1998 A State of Affairs , Arthur R. Rose, London Cluster Bomb , Morrison- Judd Gallery, London e Bible of Networking , Sali Gia Gallery, London Souvenirs (curated by Above/Below), Museum Street, London Absolut Secret , Royal College of Art, London SLIOMSOTN H MOROIRZLOENY

published in conection with the exhibition at art first, london

5th Februar y – 22nd March 2014

Thanks to the team at Art First

Strule Steele for the catalogue design

Ryan Bishop for the text, NOMIS for the music

Chang Eung-Bok for technical and other assistance

www.simonmorley.com

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