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Three poems by Mayakovsky, O'Hara and Ken Kiff's close friend Martha Kapos shed light on the way Kiff, like Paul Klee before him, took a line for a walk, and then another line, and then yet another. Kapos' poem was inspired by A true account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island by Frank O'Hara, which was written in jealous awe after reading Mayakovsky's An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky in a Summer Cottage.
The three poems, the three conversations between the three poets and the sun, look for the reason to get out of bed in the morning. Over a samovar of tea, the Sun tells Vladimir that it is his creative duty to shine as a poet. He berates O'Hara: 'Hey! I've been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Don't be so rude, you are only the second poet I've ever chosen to speak to personally.' And as for Martha, he assures her: 'I'll not measure out any more distress than you'll need to write your poems.'
Kiff uses paint as the poets use words. He pushes his bricks of colour together, forcing them to blur and rhyme. His exploitation of complementary colour is second to none. Yet as with poets, the technique and understanding of the language are but tools to reach another place. 'Fantasy, ' he said, 'is a way of thinking about reality.'
Kiff made specific paintings in homage to poetry including the 1985 canvas, The Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky Invites the Sun to Tea, 1985-7, but more importantly he had similar aspirations in his art to poetry. He would agree with Gaston Bachelard's dictum that 'The poet does not describe, he exalts.' Kiff needs to depict 'A hundred suns in one sunset.' Kiff was an intellectual, with endless nagging doubts. He was always questioning, and his reasoning was byzantine, circuitous, forever probing, but when it came down to the paintings, he managed to conjure up those hundred and forty in one. Not that this stopped him doubting himself, which is why he embarked on the Sequence, as one painting is never enough.
If one wants to engage with the full ambition of Ken Kiff one needs to take the path along the two hundred works in his Sequence, but this little book and exhibition is taking Bachelard's advice. Following Kiff's meandering but always needle-sharp thinking, can distract from the essential simplicity of individual works. Let's just enjoy the paintings, the poems and the hundred suns.
