General questions:

1)    What visual aesthetic initially attracts you to a band’s content? (i.e. style, branding etc)

2)    What sources do you use to find new music?

3)    Do you download music?

4)    If so – Do you buy everything that you have downloaded in the physical form afterwards?

5)    Do you own CD’s with “additional content”? (i.e. bonus DVD/CD/CD-ROM)

6)    What do you like/dislike about how the content was presented during the experience?

7)    How often do you watch/listen to the additional content?

8)    In response to the above question, what influences your chosen decision?

Questions for musicians:

1)    What ways do you choose to promote your band?

2)    Do these methods give you full control over your content?

3)    Does your band have a press pack? (A collection of photos, music, reviews to show potential venues and/or labels)

4)    If not – Would you find interest in having one in the future?

5)    Would you find it beneficial to have all the different aspects of a press pack in a singular CD-ROM for convenience?

6)    Would you be more interested in choosing a press pack CD-ROM over your current method if it offered more security over your content?

Leave a comment with your answers!

For years Edward Burtynsky has claimed he is not a particularly political artist. He can no longer make that claim: The Corcoran/Steidl catalogue for ‘Edward Burtynsky: Oil’ is the most immediately political museum catalogue I’ve seen. It is a catalogue that may — should? — impact the way museums and kunsthalles approach contemporary art catalogues and exhibitions.

It includes the standard: A strong curatorial essay from exhibition organizer Paul Roth and an essay by a travel writer who has followed Burtynsky to the ends of the earth.

It’s the last essay that’s an unexpected doozy: Written by Dr. William E. Rees of the University of British Columbia School of Community and Regional Planning, it argues that the way we’re treating the earth — particularly in regards to natural resources such as oil — is unsustainable. The essay puts Burtynsky’s work not in the context of art history, but in the context of research on recent environmental scholarship. It indirectly makes a powerful case for including artists among the ranks of our most significant public intellectuals. It aggressively pushes art out of the contemporary art ghetto and places it in the mainstream of discourse on the future of our planet.

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Tyler Green
Modern Art Notes

Chegou ao fim o martírio de quem deseja ter cílios longos, bonitos e bem definidos.
Com a técnica de alongamento fio a fio, o efeito pode durar até 60 dias, desde que seja realizada a manutenção adequada. As mulheres podem ter os cílios superiores encorpados e alongados em aproximadamente uma hora. É necessário que a cada 15 ou 20 dias, a cliente retorne para fazer a manutenção do procedimento, baseada na reposição dos fio que caíram. Isso é necessário porque existe uma troca natural de cílios que gera uma diferença de tamanho entre os naturais e os que foram colocados.

A finalidade do alongamento de cílios fio a fio também conhecido como “Mega Hair de Cílios” é valorizar ainda mais o olhar, dando extensão e volume aos cílios naturais.

O fio artificial é colado um a um nos já existentes. A quantidade e  o comprimento dos fios são definidos de acordo com a necessidade e conforme a expectativa da cliente e orientação da profissional. É aconselhável não usar máscara de cílios nas 48 horas que antecedem o alongamento. O procedimento é realizado entre 60 e 90 minutos e a durabilidade média é de 30 a 40 dias.

Ivana Costa  atende na Clair de Lune semanalmente.  

Marque uma avaliação gratuita.

Teremos imenso prazer em recebê-la.

The art of progressivism is also the art of doubt.  If the study of aesthetics is the study of value, then one has to take value in art seriously.  Indeed, the question, whether or not art is engaged with value, lies at the core of high modernism.  Nevertheless, as long as one is sufficiently comfortable with some stance on pragmatic truth or even conceptual truth, then one need not disassociate art making from value promulgation.

If the art of fascism is stringent rule-minded expressionism that refers only to itself, then the art of progressivism would require a supporting idea that would tend to disavow stringent rule-following.  Hence to understand progressive art or art-making–for now, the two co-exist as one!–one must first understand fascist art.   I propose that fascist art is stringent rule following that comes from some avowed interest in the not-self, though expressionism is concerned with just that.  By concern, with not-self, I mean, the artist is not interested in any sense of what it is to be a man or a woman or an artist: the biographical facts of works that are rooted in communal and individual choices are rejected.  What matters is the expression itself of some objective fact, which can only reflect objective things that remain true irrespective of the perspective taken on the work.   As soon as the artist looks upon himself, as person, as subject, all view points become true or false but relatively so.  He makes judgments on pragmatic truth, that is whether he exists or whether he is in love or whether there is today, in some corner of the world, some kind of border skirmish.  But whether or not certain other propositions can be thought conceptually true, for instance, propositions on certain religious beliefs, nevertheless he remains interested in their truth or falsity.

It is only when the subjective vision is disavowed and some concrete value is given priority that fascism creeps into art and art-making.  This concrete vision is merciless, since it cannot respect relative value and requires that its own value supersede all others.  Authoritarians project their own value in just these terms.  The fascists speaks of the way war and machinery as a beautiful march to a new world; man is undone here.  The fatherland is the project of this new world, and with it heralds the cleansing of reason so that the favored, perhaps Aryan, reason (of the dictator) becomes the sole objective reason and hence, running top down, becomes cause.  The dictator and his fascist vision are required to be infallible.  By denying and often destroying every other conception of the good, the dictators proves himself to be infallible.

Liberalism rejects these infallible objective values and seeks to support individual reason and individual cause in a non-interventionist manner.  I know what I want, but you cannot claim to know what I want and vice versa because we have not lived each others lives, though we have lived our way.  I want to seek my good, but you can only legitimately intervene on my aspiration for my good, if you know my claim is faulty or irrational.   Since often you cannot know this, you must stay your hand.  Since this is the case for me as well, I must be committed to stay my hand as well.  Hence, mutual non-intervention is required of us due to the sociological fact of doubt and is sanctioned by the normative acceptance of liberalism.  Hence, through liberalism–and yes, the liberal state–we are each fully able to respect each others own conception of the good.

Liberalism requires that each individual be a person who has claim of choice over his own a certain sphere of actions.  However, those choices can be pluralistic and need not function as a numerical accounting system that functions in a hierarchical manner.  Hence liberalism supports pluralism.   The art of progressivism is then not only the art of doubt, because for sociological reasons we cannot know the objective good for and of another person, but is also teh art of pluralism.

This position is then best supported by a position of aesthetic pluralism.  This value requires that an artist think that there are no objectively superior ways of painting in one way relative to another.  There simply are ways of painting in one way, relative to another.  If this is the case, the aesthetic pluralist artist is in a quandary: there are no rules to follow, that are designated as the correct rules; there are no facts of the matter that can support a work that he might create, because there is no superhuman authority who might adjudicate between two competing claims of the truth in works.  The aesthetic pluralist artist is a fallibilist.

The fallibilist artist has every route available to him, but no direction in which to travel.  That is the cost of aesthetic pluralism.  It is a price he pays by choosing one of the available routes.  Where he goes, only he can tell, only after he has reached the destination that, plausibly, remains unknown to him.

(Please circulate widely amongst the member of your faculty and your graduate students. A poster is attached if you would like to promote this event in your department. Thank you.)

(S’il vous plaît, veuillez faire circuler ce courriel parmi les membres de votre département ainsi qu’auprès de vos étudiants aux cycles supérieurs. Si vous désiriez faire la promotion de cet événement dans votre département, vous trouverez une affichette en attaché à ce courriel. Merci.)

"Presence, Mood, Meaning in the Study of the Visual"

Keith MOXEY (Columbia, Barnard College)

Michael Ann HOLLY (Starr director of Research and Acad. Programs at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute)

Hi,

Bonjour,

C’est avec grand plaisir que les Ateliers Montréalais de Réflexions sur l’Art et l’Esthétique accueillent Keith Moxey et Michael Ann Holly pour une présentation double ce mercredi 2 décembre à 18h dans la salle BWR du Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. Cette présentation, gratuite et ouverte à tous, sera suivie d’une période de questions et d’échanges.

_________________________________________________________________________

It is a great pleasure for the Montreal Reflections on Art and Aesthetics Workshop to receive Keith Moxey and Michael Ann Holly for a double presentation this coming Wednesday December 2nd, at 6pm, in room BWR of the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. This free presentation is open to all and will be followed by an exchange/question period.

Hoping to see you there,

Espérant vous y retrouver,

Olivier Mathieu

The fabric district, found roughly along 9th street between San Julian and Santee Streets in Los Angeles (exit the 10 at San Pedro), easily makes my top ten places to be in LA. Rebecca H. first introduced me to its bolts upon bolts of fabric at wholesale prices I’d only dreamed of. It was the college-play costumer’s dream. I have since dragged many friends with me to shop for silks, cheap cottons, suitings, and various wedding related endeavors. Or just to run our hands along the textures of beautiful textiles.

Once Peter G., Danielle C., Timothy and I went simply to take pictures.

[photos taken by Timothy C.]

I made a trip this week to purchase materials for a couple Christmas presents, silk ties for the groomsmen and groom in our wedding, a vests for groomsmen and ushers. I found all the fabrics I needed for under $40 (a total of over 20 yards). Several successful bargainings were had (yes, this is still new to me, an Orange County native, but I am working on expanding my concept of shopping).

Also, hot dogs as you’ve never experienced them … wrapped in bacon, piled with tomatoes and guacamole … and cooked on the side of the road.

R

Berbicara tentang beauty atau ugly pasti dengan mudahnya kita memilih salah satu diantara keduanya, yaitu “beauty” sebagai salah satu faktor yang membuat sesuatu terlihat lebih ideal. Tetapi kemudian saya mempertanyakannya ketika terlibat sebuah pembicaraan ringan dengan salah satu kontributor untuk web ini yang menggunakan username “holydragon”.

Pembicaraan mengenai mana yang lebih penting antara “beauty” atau “ugly”. Analoginya seperti ini: “Apakah kecantikan seorang wanita itu penting atau ketampanan seorang pria itu penting dalam hal mencari seorang pasangan?”. Mungkin dengan mudahnya akan dijawab faktor itu memang penting, atau sebaliknya dengan mudah menjawab tidak penting, yang lebih penting adalah “inner beauty”. Situasi diatas adalah suatu hal yang pasti selalu terjadi.

Dapat dikatakan bahwa dalam hal ini faktor “beauty” menjadi bukan sebuah masalah. Baru menjadi masalah jika berada dalam bahasan factor “ugly”. Jika ada pertanyaan, “Mau atau tidak mempunyai pasangan yang “jelek”? Semua orang akan berkata tidak.

Dari analogi diatas, saya melihat bahwa faktor “ugly” jauh lebih menjadi hal yang penting daripada “beauty”. Jika kita memiliki pasangan yang tidak “cantik-cantik amat”, mungkin tidak masalah. Baru akan jadi masalah jika pasangan kita “jelek”. Begitu pula yang terjadi pada keseharian kita yang lain. Kita cenderung menganggap yang kita kejar adalah suatu “beauty”, tanpa sadar sebenarnya yang lebih dulu kita lakukan adalah menghindari “ugly”.

I wrote this essay for the artists Bik Van Der Pol (http://www.bikvanderpol.net/) in connection with their recent exhibition at the CCA, Glasgow.

MICHAEL STONE: INVOKING THE GHOSTS OF GULLIVER

In the UK, we are used to the popular derision of contemporary art practice – if tabloids relish the opportunity for incredulous puns about the antics of crackpot artists, elsewhere  commentators deplore the loss of virtuosity and pronounce discomfort at the thought that someone somewhere might be taking us all for (an expensive) ride: the Emperor’s new clothes are (not) on show. There is something liberating in the fact that the popular consciousness allows for “crackpot” art, even if that is only in derision. But what does it mean for someone like Michael Stone, a convicted loyalist terrorist, to claim his action in throwing a rucksack packed with assorted weaponry into Stormont was “performance art’?

Stone was jailed in 1989 for killing 3 men, and injuring dozens more, in a sectarian attack on mourners attending a funeral at Milltown cemetery, North Belfast, 2 years previously. Sentenced to a total of 684 years, he was released in 2000 from HMP Maze under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, by which time he had taken up painting as a hobby. In the years between his release and his Stormont re-arrest, he occupied himself as an artist, whose paintings fetched between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds work. In 2001, the Engine Room gallery in Belfast hosted an exhibition of Stone’s work, the Belfast Telegraph noting that “he seems genuinely committed to an artistic career” and (approvingly) that “There is no suggestion that he is involved in any of the rackets – drugs, prostitution, protection – that have become a career for so many of the other men released early under the Good Friday Agreement”. Even though Stone sometimes tackled contentious subjects in his paintings without engendering much effect, gun-touting poses he re-enacted for photographs in 2004 were condemned, and the Stormont action – apparently titled “Never Say Never” – had Stone jailed and branded a lunatic. If prisoners are encouraged to pursue an interest in art while incarcerated, as Stone was, are we to impose limits on how that interest manifests itself, or impose restrictions on the subject matter they can tackle? Stone was very much isolated, (the volatile, misunderstood artist of Romantic construction), but if we want art to converge with social practice, are there caveats to that? How far does art encroach on criminality?

In some respects Stone’s story resonates with the experience of one of Scotland’s ex-con cause celebres, Jimmy Boyle. Styled by himself (and others), as “’Scotland’s Most Violent Man”, “ the most notorious criminal in Scotland, a violent product of the Glasgow slums”, Boyle was a celebrity inmate and hardman serving a life sentence for the murder of a renown gangster, William “Babs” Rooney. Art therapy at HMP Barlinnie led to an apparently Damascene conversion, and, in 1976, while he was still in prison, he was commissioned by the Craigmillar Festival Society to design a large recumbent sculpture -“Gulliver”- for them. The Craigmillar Festival Society was pioneering in many ways, not least in its genesis amongst a group of local women exasperated with municipal indifference to the area and its people. In the 1970s, its profile as a model promoting the efficacy of community arts initiatives was international. Without doubt, this worked in Boyle’s favour, and on release, he enjoyed a high profile and reportedly high earnings as an artist. His transformation from lawless gangland enforcer to well-heeled, well-behaved sculptor is something of a civic and national proverb. We see the city in the man: we see the social and political value of art in its redemptive powers to integrate the disenfranchised individual with the powers of his own expression, in uniting the divided self and more than this, we see evidence of an economic miracle. These days – with notable contemporaneity  – Boyle appears in newspaper interviews as a multi-millionaire property developer, doing up riads in Marrakesh, while current cultural policy promotes the arts as almost failsafe engines for recession-proof growth, making Boyle something of a poster boy for the benefits of exploiting “creative skills”.

Boyle generates the type of expressive work that formed the bedrock of art therapy in its infancy and is still, in some contexts, pursued as an irrefutable good. It conforms to a model of practice long regarded as defunct in art schools – if it is good enough to provide respite from those personal or social problems identified by mental health or regeneration committees, it is not really good enough for professional art education (even if those so educated administer or deliver the therapy). Consequently, like Jack Vettriano, Fife’s self-taught king of stiffly nostalgic soft-core noir, the outmoded Boyle has been blindsided by the critical art establishment; his success has more to do with his notoriety than his significance as an artist.  Reciprocally, Boyle has dismissed contemporary art, emblematically marking “Sensation” “the biggest pile of rubbish” he’d ever seen, and making claims that he will not sell to Saatchi: “Because I don’t like what he does and can afford not to.” “Not selling to Saatchi” has become a well -rehearsed cliché even amongst currents of the contemporary mainstream, as if it were some guarantee of artistic integrity, of concern with “higher” imperatives than those of the market. So where does this take Stone, who not only claims he has sold to Saatchi, but whose declared forays into performance and re-enactment are much more in keeping with the general trends in the academy, in the museums, in critical analysis and the market? Can his action be determined “art”? Is he precluded from performance practice because he has not earned a degree? Because of his criminal record, and the specific nature of that criminal record? He has a demonstrable commitment to artistic practice, what does this count for? Are we to admit that there are, after all, objective standards by which art succeeds or fails? Are such standards moral, ethical or political, assuming they are not formal?

There are many interesting parallels between the propensities and systems of art and crime, not least of which is intent. Marcel Duchamp foregrounded the notion of artistic intent through the Readymade – particularly “Fountain” – proposing that a work of art could be enacted through choice (rather than manufactured through craft). Rejected from the open, avowedly non-selective, non-hierarchical exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, Fountain was deliberately adjudicated “not art”. In 1967, interviewed on Canadian radio, Duchamp said “It’s not the visual aspect of the Readymade that matters, it’s simply the fact that it exists.… Visuality is no longer a question: the Readymade is no longer visible, so to speak. It is completely gray matter. It is no longer retinal.” This statement came at a time when his influence on a generation was well established. Though he tacitly implies that at some point in it’s conception the Readymade was necessarily visible, it was in principle an idea which merely required the service of objects for its enactment. The object forms it adopted between 1913 and 1917 are important only so far as they are conceptual facilitators: conceptual and performative practice in the 60s and 70s developed and extended the remit of the Readymade beyond the object.

Despite the Readymade’s initial and most complete realisation being in its exclusion from exhibition, presented in exhibition (from the late 1950s on), its effect in influence was to devolve the power of choice to the artist within the confines of the “White Cube”. However, just as the object form had a limited lifespan in relation to the Readymade, it seems that the “White Cube” context could be dispensible too: the gallery is only a surrogate for audience. Through enacting the Readymade, Duchamp imposed an active duty of intent on the viewer. This active duty is where the Readymade abuts with Situationist theory: Duchamp may have had to use an institutional context to effect the Readymade, but its true legacy is in the creative potential of the viewer, not the affirmation of the hegemony of gallery or museum. Situationist culture “introduces total participation…it is the organization of the directly lived moment…(in which) everyone will become an artist, i.e. a producer-consumer of total culture creation.” Some notion of “participation” has framed the development of recent cultural policy – much of the Creative Scotland Bill hangs off it. If everyone is (and can “participate” as) an artist, if active viewing is the minimum necessary foundation for establishing art art, what is there to prevent Stone formulating his action as art?

It is maybe appropriate at this point to consider Joseph Beuys’s conception of “Social Sculpture/Social Architecture”. In 1980, 4 years after Boyle’s “Gulliver” was installed in a field at Craigmillar, Beuys created a blackboard diptych during the Edinburgh Festival entitled “Jimmy Boyle Days”. Quite what Beuys made of Boyle’s output is hard to determine, suffice to say that Beuys was not suggesting that everyone should paint or sculpt in pursuit of being an artist: he was concerned with developing art as a “politically productive force, coursing through each person, and shaping history… This is the concept of art that carries within itself not only the revolutionizing of the historic bourgeois concept of knowledge (materialism, positivism), but also of religious activity….” “Creativity isn’t the monopoly of artists. This is the crucial fact I’ve come to realise, and this broader concept of creativity is my concept of art. When I say everybody is an artist, I mean everybody can determine the content of life in his particular sphere, whether in painting, music, engineering, caring for the sick, the economy or whatever.”

In this sense, and bearing in mind his abolition of entry requirements to the class of “Monumental Sculpture” in Dusseldorf, Beuys moved towards rubbishing the notion that “artist” is, or should be, a specialised, professional status. Indeed, in fulfilling Beuys’s ambitions for art to become a “politically productive force”, there must be universal creative emancipation – there can be no professional status: the artist claiming such status is a Pharisee. Equally, in terms of the Situationist imperative to introduce “total participation”, there can be no qualifications, no hierarchies. Art is whatever is chosen – and enacted – by the artist, that is by anyone behaving as an artist. Significantly that includes recognising art, “active aesthetics”, perhaps in the tradition of the flaneur, who configures urban experience in accordance with personal  narratives. Karlheniz Stockhausen was widely condemned for declaring 9/11 “the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos”, but if 9/11 functioned as art for him, if his experience of 9/11 produced an aesthetic apprehension, who can deny it?

If everybody can be an artist (the current drive for participation underscores this); if art can be any choice, enactment or aesthetic experience – must art always be benign, therapeutic and economically productive? Are these values basic determinants of what art is? Is there a place for art to be anything else or does that necessarily take art into the ever expanding scope of illegality and criminality? Is art always “good”, “acceptable”? Stone was found guilty of attempted murder and criminal damage. In Stone’s trial, Peter Bond, an artist and senior lecturer at Central St Martins, was called as an expert witness in whose opinion Stone’s action could “come under the ambit” of performance art as long as there was no intention of using the weaponry or exploding the devices. Imputing Stone’s artistic intent depends on the planned failure of his criminal activity, what does this add – or take away from – the range of artistic practice?

Charlotte Klonk's "Spaces of Experience"

The latest word in display theory was just released by Yale University Press. As in two weeks ago. Charlotte Klonk’s Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000 locates the development of art gallery interiors in the broader history of experience and perception. It looks like an interesting read, and may be helpful in guessing what comes next!

Jenny F.

Karl Valentin

From all of us here, serving drama on Guam, to you, where ever you are. Keep hope alive.
The Editors

“Artnica” by Jacques Poirier, 1997 (Photo: Collection of Ian M. Cumming)

All figurative art contains an element of trompe l’oeil, while the essence of the “true” trompe l’oeil is that it sets out to deceive us into believing that the objects we are seeing are not the result of artifice but real.

The fifth-century B.C. artist Zeuxis, so the story goes, painted grapes so life-like that birds flew down to peck at them. But even such an artist as Zeuxis was fooled by his rival Parrhasius: When Zeuxis tried to push aside the cloth covering one of Parrhasius’s paintings the trompe-l’oeil fabric turned out to be the painting itself.

“Art and Illusions: Masterpieces of Trompe l’Oeil From Antiquity to the Present Day” at the Palazzo Strozzi here presents a thought-provoking array of more than 150 works from Roman frescoes to contemporary works that to varying degrees force “the limits of verisimilitude,” in the words of its curator, Annamaria Giusti.

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Roderick Conway Morris
New York Times

One thing all UNC fans have come to know, love and expect of Roy Williams is his fashionable selection of ties, most often courtesy of Chapel Hill outfitter Alexander Julian. The same man who put the argyle on the side of the basketball uniform is still turning heads with  what he’s putting around Ol’ Roy’s neck. So, here at The Rafters we decided to pay homage to the best accesory in college hoops, if not the entire sporting world, and document every tie Roy Williams wears this season.

First off, let’s go ahead and give the title of Best Dressed Coaching staff to the UNC bench. Very well done gentlemen.

Onto tonight’s matchup against Gardner-Webb, Roy matched up a blue and white dotted beauty over a white shirt. One of the more toned down of Roy’s choices thus far this season.

Roy chose a blue suit and also went big with the contrasting buttons. Sharp look.

Here’s this years stats:

Game 1: Florida International, W 88-72 – Small paisley in aqua and dark blue with pocket square

Game 2: North Carolina Central, W 89-42 – Large paisley in Carolina and navy blue and gold with pocket square

Game 3: Valparaiso, W 88-77 – Large paisley-ish in gold, navy, brown and Carolina with pocket square

Game 4: Ohio State, W 77-73 – Diagonal white stripes over light blue back with pocket square

Game 5: Syracuse, L 87-71 – Large paisley in Carolina and navy blue with pocket square

Game 6: Gardner-Webb, W 93-72 – Blue and white dotted with pocket square

[Some photos by N&O's Robert Willett]

Before I go any further, I would like to say that in all honesty, I had lined up another post to publish today, but frankly, it’s been a long day and I didn’t really want to upload something which was causing quite a bit of strife at the moment, possibly at the end of the week or next week then.

Now, because I decided not to post the thing which I was going to post, I can’t think of anything else to write about, so I guess I’ll have a ramble about the first thing which comes to mind… or that I see if I close my eyes and turn my head away from my computer.

A glass. Not just any glass though. An IKEA glass, from probably one of the most iconic global brands there is. People hate it, people love it. Whichever side of the fence you are on in regards to the Swedish furniture maker and general place of plywood awesomeness, they won’t go away very easily, and as it turns out, you probably use something of theirs almost every day.

Now you might be thinking that I have gone off my nut here, writing about a company which seems to infuriate many people, but take a minute to think, or try to think about what it really is that annoys you about them. Chances are that it is because whenever you go there, the the warehouse of steam bent meatballs, everyone else in the area has decided to go too, whether it because the weather is awful and people suddenly have an urge to update their homes, or just because it is a Thursday night and you want to get away from the dog who seems to have taken a liking to your sofa when you have been out for the day.

Either way, their general philosophy is one which changed the way in which people bought furniture. Great designs and low prices is something which other companies should try and do. But for some reason, design seems to mean that they can bump up the prices. Now I’m not saying that everything should be at rock bottom prices, there are certain designery things which deserve to be the price they are because you are clearly able to see the amount of work put in by the designer and the company as a whole to make the product the best that they can make it.

Count the number of things bought in IKEA in the room you are in just now (not really doable if you are at work, preferably done at home), and of those things, for which reasons did you buy them? Because they were cheap? or because they looked good?

And whilst you are pondering that, and I am aware that some people will manage to answer that quicker than others, I’ll leave you with an epic song which I came about whilst listening to The Bitterest Pill podcast a few years ago, a song created by Jonathan Coulton, a song all about IKEA.

Link to song on iTunes

Note: tiredness may have played a part in the randomness of this post.

“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heart-breaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm’s way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin. And so, if one reads Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lynd, or Mr. Squire in the bulk, one feels that a common greyness silvers everything. They are as far removed from the extravagant beauty of Walter Pater as they are from the intemperate candour of Leslie Stephen. Beauty and courage are dangerous spirits to bottle in a column and a half; and thought, like a brown paper parcel in a waistcoat pocket, has a way of spoiling the symmetry of an article. It is a kind, tired, apathetic world for which they write, and the marvel is that they never cease to attempt, at least, to write well.”—Virginia Woolf, “The Modern Essay”

 Tivemos o privilégio de constar no guia “Addresses Rio 2008“  que publica o que há de melhor no Rio de Janeiro.

Na Revista de Domingo do Globo tivemos a grata satisfação de saber que a Editora Addresses Rio que funciona há 22 anos, está ampliando horizontes. Lançou Guias com endereços secretíssimos de Paris, Salvador , Serra  e dedicando-se a novos projetos, deverá lançar um Guia voltado para a terceira idade ainda este mês. 

As “meninas” não param por aí e pretendem ainda investir em novos Guias; Istambul, Londres, Nova York, Portugal e São Paulo.

Nós da Clair de Lune fazemos votos para que este projeto se perpetue e amplie cada vez mais nos mostrando o que há de melhor por aí!

This Past Saturday the Pope met with Artists in a special address in the Sistine Chapel.

I think you will find in the words that follow, an exhortation that many artists have been dying to hear. I know that as a charismatic, and a once ultra-Charismatic, i hated that we had no way to talk about beauty really. Worship services came in mass produced packages with the trappings of lights and smoke machines, all attempting to recreate something that the church has always been about and failing horribly. While comfortable, pretty, or even quaint, these scenes are not scenes of undying beauty, they will pass with cultural fads and something else will take their place.

It is my hope that you’ll take the time to read the whole address, since in it are words of profound insight, with quotes from some of my favorites, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and even a lesser favorite worthy of respect, Plato. The Holy Father launched this address on the 10th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s address to artists, attempting to reestablish a stronger communication between the arts and the church and highlight the interdependence of each on the other.

It is my hope that these words encourage artists, theologians and the faithful, because they encouraged me, and have lifted my spirit.

Just some highlights from the address before I give you the full text:

“Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature.”

“Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft”

“Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy.”

“What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty?”

Here is the Full Text of the Pope’s address to artists:

Dear Cardinals,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Distinguished Artists,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history. I cordially greet each and every one of you and I thank you for accepting my invitation. At this gathering I wish to express and renew the Church’s friendship with the world of art, a friendship that has been strengthened over time; indeed Christianity from its earliest days has recognized the value of the arts and has made wise use of their varied language to express her unvarying message of salvation. This friendship must be continually promoted and supported so that it may be authentic and fruitful, adapted to different historical periods and attentive to social and cultural variations. Indeed, this is the reason for our meeting here today. I am deeply grateful to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church, and likewise to his officials, for promoting and organizing this meeting, and I thank him for the words he has just addressed to me. I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests and the various distinguished personalities present. I also thank the Sistine Chapel Choir for their contribution to this gathering. Today’s event is focused on you, dear and illustrious artists, from different countries, cultures and religions, some of you perhaps remote from the practice of religion, but interested nevertheless in maintaining communication with the Catholic Church, in not reducing the horizons of existence to mere material realities, to a reductive and trivializing vision. You represent the varied world of the arts and so, through you, I would like to convey to all artists my invitation to friendship, dialogue and cooperation.

Some significant anniversaries occur around this time. It is ten years since the Letter to Artists by my venerable Predecessor, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II. For the first time, on the eve of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Pope, who was an artist himself, wrote a Letter to artists, combining the solemnity of a pontifical document with the friendly tone of a conversation among all who, as we read in the initial salutation, “are passionately dedicated to the search for new ‘epiphanies’ of beauty”. Twenty-five years ago the same Pope proclaimed Blessed Fra Angelico the patron of artists, presenting him as a model of perfect harmony between faith and art. I also recall how on 7 May 1964, forty-five years ago, in this very place, an historic event took place, at the express wish of Pope Paul VI, to confirm the friendship between the Church and the arts. The words that he spoke on that occasion resound once more today under the vault of the Sistine Chapel and touch our hearts and our minds. “We need you,” he said. “We need your collaboration in order to carry out our ministry, which consists, as you know, in preaching and rendering accessible and comprehensible to the minds and hearts of our people the things of the spirit, the invisible, the ineffable, the things of God himself. And in this activity … you are masters. It is your task, your mission, and your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms – making them accessible.” So great was Paul VI’s esteem for artists that he was moved to use daring expressions. “And if we were deprived of your assistance,” he added, “our ministry would become faltering and uncertain, and a special effort would be needed, one might say, to make it artistic, even prophetic. In order to scale the heights of lyrical expression of intuitive beauty, priesthood would have to coincide with art.” On that occasion Paul VI made a commitment to “re-establish the friendship between the Church and artists”, and he invited artists to make a similar, shared commitment, analyzing seriously and objectively the factors that disturbed this relationship, and assuming individual responsibility, courageously and passionately, for a newer and deeper journey in mutual acquaintance and dialogue in order to arrive at an authentic “renaissance” of art in the context of a new humanism.

That historic encounter, as I mentioned, took place here in this sanctuary of faith and human creativity. So it is not by chance that we come together in this place, esteemed for its architecture and its symbolism, and above all for the frescoes that make it unique, from the masterpieces of Perugino and Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and others, to the Genesis scenes and the Last Judgement of Michelangelo Buonarroti, who has given us here one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art. The universal language of music has often been heard here, thanks to the genius of great musicians who have placed their art at the service of the liturgy, assisting the spirit in its ascent towards God. At the same time, the Sistine Chapel is remarkably vibrant with history, since it is the solemn and austere setting of events that mark the history of the Church and of mankind. Here as you know, the College of Cardinals elects the Pope; here it was that I myself, with trepidation but also with absolute trust in the Lord, experienced the privileged moment of my election as Successor of the Apostle Peter.

Dear friends, let us allow these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me, reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide. Yet the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought to that “face-to-face” vision of God from which limitless, full and definitive happiness flows. Thus Michelangelo presents to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo’s painting, its colours and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on 8 December 1965: “To all of you,” he proclaimed solemnly, “the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends of true art, you are our friends!” And he added: “This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands . . . Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world.”

Unfortunately, the present time is marked, not only by negative elements in the social and economic sphere, but also by a weakening of hope, by a certain lack of confidence in human relationships, which gives rise to increasing signs of resignation, aggression and despair. The world in which we live runs the risk of being altered beyond recognition because of unwise human actions which, instead of cultivating its beauty, unscrupulously exploit its resources for the advantage of a few and not infrequently disfigure the marvels of nature. What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation – if not beauty? Dear friends, as artists you know well that the experience of beauty, beauty that is authentic, not merely transient or artificial, is by no means a supplementary or secondary factor in our search for meaning and happiness; the experience of beauty does not remove us from reality, on the contrary, it leads to a direct encounter with the daily reality of our lives, liberating it from darkness, transfiguring it, making it radiant and beautiful.

Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.

Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond. If we acknowledge that beauty touches us intimately, that it wounds us, that it opens our eyes, then we rediscover the joy of seeing, of being able to grasp the profound meaning of our existence, the Mystery of which we are part; from this Mystery we can draw fullness, happiness, the passion to engage with it every day. In this regard, Pope John Paul II, in his Letter to Artists, quotes the following verse from a Polish poet, Cyprian Norwid: “Beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up” (no. 3). And later he adds: “In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery. Even when they explore the darkest depths of the soul or the most unsettling aspects of evil, the artist gives voice in a way to the universal desire for redemption” (no. 10). And in conclusion he states: “Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence” (no. 16).

These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality. This close proximity, this harmony between the journey of faith and the artist’s path is attested by countless artworks that are based upon the personalities, the stories, the symbols of that immense deposit of “figures” – in the broad sense – namely the Bible, the Sacred Scriptures. The great biblical narratives, themes, images and parables have inspired innumerable masterpieces in every sector of the arts, just as they have spoken to the hearts of believers in every generation through the works of craftsmanship and folk art, that are no less eloquent and evocative.

In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: “Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.” He then adds: “Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion.” And he concludes: “We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.” Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: “Art means: revealing God in everything that exists.” Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: “In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art” (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: “Does art need the Church?” – thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the “great codex” that is the Bible.

Dear artists, as I draw to a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.

Saint Augustine, who fell in love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected on man’s ultimate destiny, commenting almost ante litteram on the Judgement scene before your eyes today: “Therefore we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky, sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source of all other beauty” (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5). My wish for all of you, dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I greet you with a single word: arrivederci!

Here’s an image just to remind you of the context of these words:

Vatican Official Transcript