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Rye Dag Holmboe
Rye Dag Holmboe is a writer and PhD candidate in History of Art at University College, London. He has recently co-authored and co-edited the book JocJonJosch: Hand in Foot, published by the Sion Art Museum, Switzerland (2013). He has recently edited Jolene, an artist's book which brings together the works of the poet Rachael Allen and the photographer Guy Gormley, which will be published later this year. His writings have appeared in The White Review, Art Licks and in academic journals.

Articles Available Online


Art and its Functions: Recent Work by Luke Hart

Art

June 2016

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

June 2016

Luke Hart’s Wall, recently on display at London’s William Benington Gallery, is a single, large-scale sculpture composed of a series of steel tubes held...

Art

February 2015

Filthy Lucre

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

February 2015

White silhouettes sway against softly gradated backgrounds: blues, purples, yellows and pinks. The painted palm trees are tacky and...

Big Edie Beale, sitting bare-shouldered on the terrace, puts on her eyeglasses The camera – manned by Albert Maysles – follows Big Edie’s line of sight across a mass of unkempt trees, to a stretch of ocean in the near distance The camera pans back, and finds three ginger cats, half-asleep in the sunlight Big Edie speaks throughout – her voice is captured via tape recorder, manned by Albert’s brother, David Maysles ‘That is a beautiful ocean today What colour would you say that is, sapphire? I’ve never seen anything like that ocean, the 50 years I’ve been here’ Big Edie calls for her daughter, Little Edie, who steps onto the terrace, wearing a black headscarf and swimming suit A conversation develops about a cheque owed to Brooks, the gardener, who has been given the Sisyphean task of trimming the jungle-like grounds It quickly escalates: ‘I suppose I won’t get out of here until she dies or I die’, Little Edie says, ‘I don’t like it I like freedom’ ‘Well’, Big Edie retorts, ‘you can’t have it’   This was Grey Gardens: a derelict mansion in the East Hamptons, lived in by the former socialites ‘Big’ Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, ‘Little’ Edith Bouvier Beale In 1975, the Maysles brothers shot a feature-length documentary about the Beales, also titled Grey Gardens The first time I watched it, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing: the house’s vine-wrecked facades, the raccoons in the attic, the litter-strewn and cat-filled bedrooms are shocking, their decrepitude only accentuated by the Beales’ apparent indifference towards it Throughout the documentary’s 95 minutes, fierce arguments between mother and daughter bubble, erupt, and recede, seeming to have no lasting impact They perpetually recycle decades of family lore – about failed relationships, missed career opportunities, long-standing grudges – the exact details of which I could only guess at Initially, the Beales’ interminable arguments were suffocating to listen to But on subsequent viewings my ear attuned to their conversational rhythm and to the drawl of their Mid-Atlantic accents, which seesaw

Contributor

August 2014

Rye Dag Holmboe

Contributor

August 2014

Rye Dag Holmboe is a writer and PhD candidate in History of Art at University College, London. He has...

feature

October 2012

Pressed Up Against the Immediate

Rye Dag Holmboe

feature

October 2012

The author Philip Pullman recently criticised the overuse of the present tense in contemporary literature, a criticism he stretched...

Existere: Documenting Performance Art

feature

September 2012

David Gothard

Jo Melvin

John James

Rye Dag Holmboe

feature

September 2012

The following conversation was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, in May 2012. The event took place almost a year after a...
Gabriel Orozco: Cosmic Matter and Other Leftovers

Art

March 2011

Rye Dag Holmboe

Art

March 2011

‘To live,’ writes Walter Benjamin, ‘means to leave traces’. As one might expect, Benjamin’s observation is not without a certain melancholy. Traces are lost...

READ NEXT

feature

February 2011

Red Shirts in Thailand

Sam Brown

feature

February 2011

The closest I had ever come to a protest was in 2003, in Bangkok, when I tried and failed...

fiction

Issue No. 8

The Lady of the House

Claire-Louise Bennett

fiction

Issue No. 8

Wow it’s so still. Isn’t it eerie. Oh yes. So calm. Everything’s still. That’s right. Look at the rowers...

Art

September 2011

Interview with Cornelia Parker

Lowenna Waters

Art

September 2011

Cornelia Parker has over the past twenty years carved out a reputation as one of Britain’s most respected sculptors...

 

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