Under the Spell of the Yellow House, oil on canvas

If I look like a deer in the headlights, imagine how you’d feel after spending 9 weeks with Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in Vin’s Yellow House in Arles.  I joined their fights, took sides, changed my mind, wanted an allowance from Theo, found Gauguin a boor, Van Gogh a wimp, liked Van Gogh’s art the best at the beginning of my visit and Gauguin’s at the end.  All this involvement from reading Martin Gayford’s The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles.

There is the Temple (Parahi te marae), 1892

I visited the Gauguin exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art today, and in this whirlwind trip through the exhibit (every one of our family members seemed to be on a very different schedule, needing to be three places at once), I was able to latch on to bits and pieces of the audio tour. I was struck by how one’s profession can really turn on a dime, just as Gauguin’s did. Apparently, it wasn’t until 1882, after a stock market crash and recession rendered Gauguin without a job as a broker, that Gauguin decided to abandon the business world to pursue life as an artist full-time.

I wonder, after this recent stock market downturn (which has, though, over the last few months climbed up nicely), how many people in the finance industry turned from their jobs to embrace their inner artiste?  I know that when the going gets tough for me at work, I get out my paints and just paint away. It’s REALLY bad art that appears on my canvas. Really. No, really, it is. But that’s okay. It’s therapeutic, and somehow just fleshing out whatever pops into my head (sort of as a physical manifestation of my inner thoughts) gets me over the hump.

Perhaps the big banks and people on the Street should have invested in an easel, modeling clay, or signed up for an Intro to Glassblowing class.

Às vezes gosto de copiar outros desenhos ou pinturas a fim de entender melhor outras técnicas, cores, composição, etc., e algumas vezes acho legal fazer algumas brincadeiras.

É o caso deste desenho, que fiz me baseando em uma pintura “No Café (Madame Ginoux)” de Gauguin.

CLEVELAND (November 19, 2009) –The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) celebrates The Cleveland Institute of Art exhibition CIA Students: Cleveland, 2009. The CIA student exhibition, featuring 10 pieces created just for this occasion by 21 students, is inspired by Paul Gauguin and other anti-establishment artists at Monsieur Volpini’s Café des Arts in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in 1889.  Just as Gauguin showed the world a glimpse of the emerging artists of his day, the CIA café exhibition at the museum offers a look at today’s young talent.

CIA Students: Cleveland, 2009 is on view in the CMA café November 13 through January 24, 2010 and is free to the public.  Call 1-888-CMA-0033 for more information.

Paul Gauguin:  Paris, 1889

Featuring more than 75 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by Paul Gauguin and his contemporaries, Paul Gauguin:  Paris, 1889, is the first exhibition to focus on 1889 as a critical juncture in Gauguin’s artistic development.  Paul Gauguin:  Paris, 1889 is on view at The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) from October 4, 2009 – January 18, 2010.

Excluded from the exhibition of academic paintings at the Grand Palais, Gauguin presented his work and works by his contemporaries in Monsieur Volpini’s Café des Arts, located on the grounds of the Exposition Universelle.  The exhibition in Café Volpini, L’Exposition de peintures du groupe impressionniste et synthétiste is recognized as the first Symbolist exhibition in Paris.  Paul Gauguin:  Paris, 1889 recreates the 1889 avant-garde exhibition at Volpini’s café, showing paintings Gauguin exhibited as well as works exhibited by Louis Anquetin, Émile Bernard, Charles Laval and Émile Schuffenecker.  This exhibition will be the first reinstallation of works from the Volpini exhibition, and will include many works that have not hung side-by-side since 1889.

The Cleveland Institute of Art

Founded in 1882, The Cleveland Institute of Art is an independent college of art and design committed to leadership and vision in all forms of visual arts education. The Cleveland Institute of Art is located at 11141 East Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio. For more information visit www.cia.edu or call 216-421-7000.

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art is renowned for the quality and breadth of its collection, which includes over 40,000 objects and spans 6,000 years of achievement in the arts. Currently undergoing a multi-phase renovation and expansion project, it is a significant international forum for exhibitions, scholarship, performing arts, and art education. Admission to the museum has been free since its founding charter.  The museum is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.  Additional support comes from the Ohio Arts Council, which helps fund the museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.  For more information on the museum, its holdings, programs, and events, call 1-888-CMA-0033 or visit www.ClevelandArt.org.

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I felt very cultural this weekend: on Sunday I went to see the symphony AND spent time at the Gauguin exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art. And I put the finishing touches on my rockin’ gingerbread house entry for the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s annual gingerbread show (which is actually a fantastical Museum of Contemporary Art made out of gingerbread). Whew!

This was my second trip to see the Gauguin show (first take I wrote about here), and I’m sure I’ll go back several more times before it leaves in January. But my impressions (Take II) were more complex (delightedly!) than the first round.

I’m not sure what other artists are so “self reflecting” — that is, in newer paintings, they physically paint in/allude to previous works — but Gauguin surely is a master. His motifs are bathers, pitchers, the color yellow, the white Brittany hats. I mentioned this in my previous blog, but it was even more apparent to me at Take II.

Gaugin’s use of yellow, particularly in his later years in Tahiti, is prolific. Perhaps it started in Arles with his Yellow House days with van Gogh and transcended time. The show’s catalog states that at first Gauguin claimed credit for van Gogh’s adoption of yellow as a favorite color. But ultimately the opposite was true: Gauguin embraced yellow after being impressed by van Gogh’s yellow-on-yellow paintings of sunflowers. And Gauguin used canary yellow paper for a series of zincographs (medium where an artist draws directly on a metal plate with a black crayon) that chronicled Gauguin’s early career and travels to Martinique, Brittany, and Arles and reiterated his motifs. (Interestingly, the CMA owns a complete set of the zincographs, which is rare, because Gauguin only made an edition of 30.) The zincographs were a watershed in Gaugin’s work: the motifs are resemblant of Claude Monet’s grainstacks and Jasper Johns’ stenciled number paintings.

I also noticed that Gaugin has a tendency to paint mid-pose — he captures a boy fixing his shoe, and blossoms just beggining to bud (rather than in full glory). I was struck by his interest in the non-interesting stages of hum drum daily life. But capturing these humdrum moments makes the viewer stop, go back, and look again. It’s inspiring that the humdrum can, in fact, be interesting.

And he disdained pointilism!

Harmensz van Rijn Rembrandt, Il reverendo Johannes Elison, 1634 olio su tela, cm 174 x 124,5 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Prosegue a Rimini la mostra Da Rembrandt a Gauguin a Picasso. Nel contesto di Castel Sismondo sono esposti sessantacinque capolavori della pittura europea dal Cinquecento al Novecento, provenienti dal Museum of Fine Art di Boston. La mostra rimarrà aperta dal 10 ottobre 2009 al 14 marzo 2010 negli orari da lunedì a giovedì e domenica dalle 9 alle 19, venerdì e sabato dalle 9 alle 20. Chiuso 24, 25, 31 dicembre 2009. 1 gennaio 2010 orario dalle 11 alle 19.
Per ulteriori informazioni, Tel. 0422/429999, fax: 0422/308272, oppure visitare il sito: www.lineadombra.it

*****

Deposizione della croce, Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Perugia (1569).

A Siena, presso il Complesso museale di Santa Maria della Scala è ospitata la mostra Federico Barocci. L’incanto del colore. Una lezione per due secoli.
Per l’evento asono state raccolte 134 opere tra pittura, disegno e incisione, al fine di far conoscere meglio al grande pubblico un artista di grande sensibilità e talento, il cui fascino ha influenzato due secoli di pittura, modello fondamentale per molti artisti del Seicento e del Settecento. Accanto alle opere del maestro, tra le quali la Deposizione del Duomo di Perugia e il Perdono di Assisi, proveniente da Urbino, sono presenti i capolavori di altri artisti come Rubens, Van Dyck, i Carracci, Guido Reni, fino a Fragonard e Rosalba Carriera, in un percorso che va dal Cinquecento al Settecento.
La mostra è aperta dall’11 ottobre 2009 al 10 gennaio 2010, tutti i giorni, compresi i festivi dalle 10,30 alle 19,30 (chiusura della biglietteria alle 18,30). Per informazioni e prenotazioni tel. 0577/286300 oppure 02/43353522.
e-mail: federicobarocci@operalaboratori.com/b-ticket/Vernice

The Cleveland Museum of Art is hosting “Gauguin: Paris 1889″, featuring a recreation of the “radical independent exhibition that Gauguin organized (and shamelessly self-promoted) on the grounds of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris”.

It was unbelievable.

The exhibition is only exhibiting in two places — Cleveland and Amsterdam – hence the CMA’s insanely awesome marketing: “The man shunned civilization. (So it’s only appropriate that he’s making just one US stop.)”.

What struck me about this exhibit is Gauguin’s sensitivity to the people he saw and painted, much moreso than Van Gogh (and they lived in Arles together, painting for several months). Although I think that Van Gogh’s portraits and subjects are richer, more intense, electrifying, I think that Gauguin had a better way conveying people and their moods, and well, the reality of their lives. In this exhibition, the innocense and movement in his subjects (specifically his primary subject matters in this exhibition, which were the Breton girls dancing and the woman with red hair in the waves) is arresting, and I have thought about these anonymous people over and over again since I saw the exhibit last weekend. And so they are striking in a different way than Van Gogh’s studies.

In this exhibit, Gauguin’s oils, chalks, sculptures, and wood carvings all run central to two themes: his life in Brittany and life in Tahiti. And he keeps dabbing a brilliant red/orange to make a tiny splash on each composition (a single carnation on each of the Brittony girls ‘dresses; the vibrant red hair on the girl in the waves). We walk through daily life in Brittany — largely seen through children’s eyes, and the series aptly named “Voipini Suite: Joys of Brittany” – but we also see very deep, intellectual themes running through, particularly with the violent green waves and the woman thrust in them. Her body takes up the entire picture, so that the viewer feels almost caught up in the waves with her. In the end, when he was in Tahiti, he created a self-portrait with his face very dark (disturbance, insecurity), and in far in the background, off to the sides, are a small white cloth (indicating the white Brittany hats of the women and children there) and a red swath of paint (indicating the woman’s vibrant red hair). In this exhibition, Gauguin came full circle with his themes and his work.

DIAMOND VAN GOGH BY GAUGUIN by Bob kessel

“DIAMOND VAN GOGH BY GAUGUIN” by Bob Kessel, from the new art series “PAINTERS PAINTING PAINTERS”, can be purchased as a signed and numbered limited edition original fine art print. Contact Bob Kessel for prices and availability.

VAN GOGH PAINTING by Paul Gauguin

Gauguin’s arrival in Arles on October 23 1888 signaled the inauguration of the Studio of the South. The following two months, during which the artists lived, ate, and worked together, were marked by an intensity that van Gogh described as “excessively electric,” as they debated aesthetic influences and working methods and sought to refine and maintain their individual artistic identities. Van Gogh, who painted very rapidly, applying thick coats of pigment, preferred working from models or directly from nature. Gauguin, on the other hand, counseled: “art is an abstraction; extract it from nature while dreaming in front of it,” and preferred to work from memory, building up thin layers of color in a slow, methodical style.

Testing their theories, the two artists painted a number of identical motifs side by side. In the ancient Roman cemetery known as the Alyscamps, Van Gogh worked with characteristic speed, quickly producing what he called “a study of the whole avenue, entirely yellow.” Gauguin proceeded more deliberately, creating a more abstract composition featuring three Arlésiennes (women of Arles), whom he ironically referred to as “the three graces.” Later the artists produced similarly divergent results in their depictions of the proprietress of the local café: Gauguin’s Night Café and van Gogh’s The Arlésienne (Madame Ginoux).

As winter approached, the two artists were increasingly confined to the tiny yellow house. Their aesthetic debates intensified and the tension of living and working together soon proved to be too great; Gauguin began to speak of returning to Paris. At the end of December, van Gogh, distraught, threatened Gauguin with a knife, then cut off part of his own ear. Gauguin fled, never to see van Gogh again.

Degas is repulsive.

- The New York Times, 1886

Gauguin is… a decorator tainted with insanity.

- Harpers Weekly, 1913

You scarsely know if you are looking at a parcel of nude flesh or a bundle of laundry.

- on Manets “Venus et le chat” in Le Figaro, 1863

Matisse is an unmitigated bore..surely the vogue of those twisted and contorted human figures… must be as short as it is artificial.

- Chicago Tribune 1913

it is the work of a madman.

- Ambroise Vollard, commenting on “Demoiselles d’Avignon” 1907

No intellegence can accept such aberrations.

- Le Figero art critic on Camille Pissarro, 1876

He (Renoir) has no talent at all, that boy…tell him please to give up painting.

- Edouard Manet on Renoir, 1864

Why should Titian and the Venetians be named on a discourse on art? Such idiots are not artists.

- William Blake, 1807

Certainly no man or woman of normal mental health would be attracted by the sadistic, obsene deformations of Cezanne, Modigliani, Matisse, Gauguin and the other Fauves.

- John Hemming Fry, The revolt against beauty,1934

Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted Engish artist, Mr. Rippingille.

- John Hunt (British art critic),1780

The Experts Speak, 1984, Villard Books, New York

British Museum (detalle)

Fleet River Bakery

Comenzamos el segundo día de estancia en Londres con un buen desayuno en la Fleet River Bakery (un local con tres habitaciones muy acogedoras, en diferentes niveles), donde se puede tomar desde una macedonia de frutas con yogur hasta el típico desayuno inglés (y todo casero).

.

Sir John Soane's Museum

A pocos metros del café estaba nuestra primera parada cultural del día: el increíble Museo de Sir John Soane. La casa-museo del famoso arquitecto es un laberinto de objetos de arte y arquitectura que le dejan a uno con la boca abierta (una de mis escasas compras fue un libro espléndidamente editado sobre el museo).

Más tarde, fuimos dando un paseo hasta Lambs Conduit St. (calle que descubrí por la revista Monocle), una preciosa calle peatonal llena de preciosas tiendas de todo tipo: restaurantes, peluquerías, fruterías, tiendas de bicicletas, etc. Entre todas esas tiendas está Persephone Books, una librería que edita exquisitamente los libros que vende, donde nos detuvimos para comprarle un regalo a Anay.

Frutería y tienda de productos ecológicos en Lambs Conduit Street

Tiendas en Lambs Conduit Street

British Museum (detalle del interior)

Lo siguiente en el recorrido del viernes fue el British Museum, que merecería la pena aunque sólo fuera por la cubierta de Foster. Pero es que, además, tiene una colección de saqueo pirata impresionante: la esculturas del Partenón, la Piedra Rosetta y otras maravillas egipcias, etc., etc. Como curiosidad, había mucha gente copiando en sus cuadernos de dibujo las esculturas del museo, y un chico tenía un cartel que ponía (en inglés): “Por favor, no me hagan fotos”.

British Museum (detalle de la cubierta de Foster)

Edificios en Bloomsbury Square y en 1 Kemble Street

Bar en el Folies-Bergère (Edouard Manet)

Salimos del British y nos dirigimos a la Somerset House (por el camino pasamos por Museum St., donde hay un patio con tiendas de lo más apetecibles (de fotografía, librerías, etc.), Bloomsbury Square y Kingsway –Fernando me descubrió un edificio muy interesante (de R. Steifert & Partners) en 1 Kemble St.– hasta llegar a Strand), para ver la Courtauld Gallery, donde uno se sorprende de la cantidad de obras espléndidas que alberga (especialmente la colección de pinturas impresionistas de Manet, Cézanne, Gauguin, etc.).

Escaleras de la Courtauld Gallery

Comimos en un McDonalds en Fleet St. (compensamos con un buen café y chocolate belga en Manon Café, en el 110 de la misma calle) y nos dirigimos después a Magma Books, en Clerkenwell Road (libros de arte, fotografía, diseño y cómics) y a Pure Groove (un café con tienda discos, donde hay actuaciones en directo, que está en West Smithfield).

Magma Books y Pure Groove

St. Paul's Cathedral

Para la tarde quedaban la catedral de St. Paul, el Millenium Bridge de Foster y la Tate Modern (desde mi punto de vista, uno de los pocos museos de arte moderno que es brillante tanto en continente como en contenido).

En la Tate Modern había una exposición de arte Pop (Pop Life), pero yo ya había visto dos muy similares en contenido (una de ellas, Pop Art, la vi en 1992 en la Royal Academy of Arts), así que nos dedicamos a ver la exposición permanente (Picasso, Giacometti, Pollock, etc.) y a disfrutar del fantástico edificio (la instalación de la sala de turbinas no me gustó nada, pero quizá fue el recuerdo de la fantástica instalación de Olafur Eliason de 2003 (The Weather Project) el que hizo que la actual me pareciera tan mala).

La catedral de San Pablo vista desde el Millenium Bridge

Exterior e interior (sala de turbinas) de la Tate Modern

Fernando, delante de la Tate Modern, esperando a que yo terminara de hacer fotos (¡qué paciencia tiene!)

Millenium Bridge con St. Paul al fondo

Liberty

Terminadas las visitas culturales, finalizamos el viernes con un paseo por Carnaby Street (tiendas de zapatillas, MUJI, Liberty, Supersuperficial –una tienda de camisetas–, etc.) y las calles cercanas del Soho, y con una fantástica cena en Ping Pong, un asiático de moda (siempre hay cola) especializado en Din Sum (el Char Sui Bun está simplemente espectacular).

Continuará…

Oficina de Turismo, junto a la catedral de San Pablo

It has come to my attention that my partner in crime, whom I shall refer to by his nom de guerre as Guy de Maupassant Blanka, triumphantly returned while I was away fishing off the harbors of Tahiti.  A truly harrowing tale it seemed.

But the way he fought off the demons of yesteryear via Googling and Youtube videos was truly an amazing feat.  Despite his apparent victory and return, welcome was not so forgiving as the door to our office was locked when he arrived and I had the key.  To you, Blanka, my friend, I apologize for being a rudimentary dickhead nice person.  I just felt that you were dead for sure and that I had no need to leave the keys under the welcome mat (which I also took with me since I did not feel the need for one.)

If this is any consolation, I have brought with me some paintings by Gauguin which he inexplicably hid underneath the sands of Tahiti.  Can you guess what the painting is of?  Let me just say one word, paint Gauguin.

Your humble writer’s note: Azkaban is not a prison located in the Middle East.  It has no relation to any of current conflicts abroad or domestic.  It is not located in Guantanamo Bay, but rather, a fictional locale masterminded by an uncertain individual of the female orientation from the British Isle.  Uncomma has no relation to the said individual or any individuals of interest with the individual’s intellectual property or properties.  Uncomma was not paid in any way by the individual for any promotional affair relating to the mentioned individual of British citizenship.

Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one’s will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them.

~Paul Gauguin

La Belle Angele, 1889

Ondine, 1889

I shut my eyes in order to see.

~Paul Gauguin

I have posted three videos on the art works of Paul Gauguin with YouTube on the Channel: A PRONK STUDIO VIDEO:

http://www.youtube.com/user/raymondpronk

Thank you for your comments and ratings.

Gauguin Part 1 of 2

Gauguin Part 2 of 2

Gauguin Overview

In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters.

~Paul Gauguin

Two Tahitian Woman, 1899

Self Portrait Wearing a Hat, 1893

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.

~Paul Gauguin

Background Articles and Videos

The Impressionists BBC (Part 1)

The Impressionists BBC (Part 2)

The Impressionists BBC (Part 3)

Related Posts On Pronk Paintings

Mary Cassatt–Videos 

Paul Cezanne–Videos

Edgar Degas–Videos

Winslow Homer–Videos

Edouard Manet–Videos

Claude Monet–Videos

Berthe Morisot–Videos

Camille Pissarro–Videos

Frederick Remington–Videos

Pierre-Auguste Renoir–Videos

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec–Videos

Georges-Pierre Seurat–Videos

Vincent Van Gogh–Videos

Johannes Vermeer–Videos

Art Videos on youtube.com Channel: A PRONK STUDIO VIDEO–Videos

Se passate da Rimini in questa stagione NON PERDETEVI LA MOSTRA “DA REMBRANDT A GAUGUIN A PICASSO” presso la Rocca Malatestiana, detta anche Castel Sismondo.

E’ una mostra molto ben fatta (finirà il 14 marzo prossimo) e vi spiego il perchè.

Pochi ma ottimi i dipinti (circa una cinquantina) e ordinati in modo originale (almeno per me, che non sono uno specialista): in una sala ci sono i soggetti religiosi (il Veronese, il Bassano, Murillo, El Greco, Zurbaran), in un’altra i ritratti (Tintoretto, Velasquez, Van Dick, Rembrandt, Degas, Picasso), e poi i paesaggi (Constable, Corot, ancora Degas, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin), le nature morte (Braque, Gris, Matisse), gli interni, ecc.

Si resta a bocca aperta. Credetemi. Prima che la sindrome di Stendhal vi faccia del male, sedetevi in uno dei tanti divani.

Per trovare la Rocca (che già di per sé è uno spettacolo), chiedete al navigatore di portarvi in Piazza Malatesta. In mancanza del navigatore, vi consiglio di puntare sulla parte nord del centro storico.

Dite pure che vi ho mandato io.

“Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being”-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Cleveland Museum of Art’s newest exhibit “Paul Gauguin: Paris; 1889″ showcases more than 70 paintings, and other artistic works by Gauguin (pronounced ‘go-gan’) and some of the contemporary artists that both inspired, and worked with him.  Deborah Gribbon, the Museum’s new interim director has done a great job in one of her first moves since former director Timothy Rub went to work for the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Photo taken from www.clevelandart.org

This exhibit really reflects Gauguin’s interests as an artist especially during the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris.  One of the more prolific works by Gauguin, “In The Waves” seen here was used more than once in Gauguin’s works, in fact this recognizable figure was used in a woodcraft piece that he created which is also on display in this exhibit.

Avenue De Clichy by Anquetin

As mentioned, Gauguin is not the only artist on display in this exhibit.  You can view Louis Anqetin’s 1887 piece, “Avenue De Clichy” and Charles Laval’s “Going To Market, Brittany” plus amazing photos of the Eiffel Tower being built in Paris.  Art fans may also be interested to know that there are also incredible Van Gogh paintings and sketches on display from when Gauguin worked alongside Van Gogh for a period of time; though they would argue about how to properly paint or who the great painters of history were, it’s clear from this exhibit that both artists were inspired by each other.

Click here to learn more about the exhibit and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Keep up to date with my photography, Radio Revolution and more by clicking “Projects” above.  Have a great rest of the weekend everybody!

-Tim

Rimini fino al 14/3/2010 piazza Malatesta Castel Sismondo Mostra a cura di Marco Goldin  Un appuntamento imperdibile, perche’ non altra volta riproducibile.  Sessantacinque capolavori della pittura europea dal Cinquecento al Novecento provenienti da uno tra i maggiori musei del mondo, il Museum of Fine Arts di Boston. Occasione che mai piu’ si verificherà, dal momento che l’Istituzione americana ha in atto una parziale chiusura delle sale che porterà, nell’autunno 2010, all’inaugurazione della nuova, immensa ala progettata da Norman Foster. Tale iniziativa condurrà poi, come sempre accade in questi casi, a un successivo blocco dei prestiti. Pertanto Rimini si candida a essere il luogo che, non solo in Italia ma in Europa, rappresenterà nei prossimi mesi Boston e il suo straordinario Museo.  La Mostra vuole essere una grande lezione di storia dell’arte raccontata a tutti.  Singolarmente vicine infatti le dichiarazioni del direttore del Museo americano, Malcolm Rogers e del direttore di Linea d’ombra, nonche’ curatore di questa mostra, Marco Goldin: l’arte e’ per tutti. Nella comune convinzione che non si debbano innalzare ostacoli ne’ barriere davanti alle opere d’arte, ai capolavori d’ogni tempo. E che questi capolavori possano essere amati anche da coloro che magari non hanno compiuto studi specifici.  Mostra promossa dalla Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini e da Linea d’ombra Libri, con il fondamentale contributo del Gruppo Euromobil.  Catalogo Linea d’ombra Libri a cura di Marco Goldin (mostra autori)

I know that this is out of chronological order but I have to gripe and this blog is my outlet.  This just happened

I get the museum pass today, for 4 day.  I go to the D’Orsay in the morning. I take a lot of pictures.  The batteries on the camera die again, 3rd set this trip.  OK, no problem.  I have batteries back at the apartment, it’s not far just one metro stop.  I go home, shower, get batteries, skype the family and eat.  All is good.  Go back to the museum, which I love, take a few shots on the camera.  Everything is fine, I break for cafe creme’ and try to take a photo.  The camera is not cooperating, won’t take anything.  It appears to be working fine, I can see the previous photos. I see the picture I want to take on the digital view finder, but it won’t capture the image.  I didn’t drop it or anything.  This really sucks.

The last photo I took was Gauguin’s self portrait.  The one about good and evil.  The angel and the devil on his shoulders.  I think the devil whispered in Paul’s ear.  I’m convinced that Gauguin broke my camera. 

My last shot, before Paul Gauguin broke my camera.

He’s learing at me, this is hard for me to take, he’s one of my all time favorites.  I even drove up from KY to see him in Chicago in the late 90’s.  He and Van Gogh had a special around the world tour that I went out of my way to see.  You could call me a groupie.  Paul’s a fickle friend.

I decide to go home.  On the bridge to my Ile St. Louis are a group of artist.  They are taking photos of their large public art project. (I’d take a photo and show you but…) It is a kind of fabric wall paper that they are applying to the wall along the quai.  It is very abstract, b & w and of sets of eyes.  They are women’s eyes but very masculine with a reptilian texture.  It is very provoking.

The artist are admiring their work and taking photo of it in different light.  I ask if they speak english, one does.  I ask if they know of any place to buy an affordable replacement camera.  They show me on the map, the main electronics store, the French Best Buy is called FNAC.  I plan to go there first thing tomorrow.  Sorry Ryan, I will try to keep this purchase in budget.  I just can’t be on this trip without a camera.  I have 4 consecutive days on the museum pass and it started today.  I need a camera ASAP.

I knew that things would go wrong on this trip, I was just hoping for more affordable problems.

I will write later about the amazing Musee’ D’Orsay.

2 TAHITIANS by Bob Kessel after Gauguin

“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.” – Paul Gauguin

Bob Kessel has created an art series based on Paul Gauguin. The “GAUGUIN” series can be purchased as signed and numbered limited edition original fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for prices and availability.

Il cineamatore e la palude, 2005

Ho scoperto da poco quest’artista nostrano e credo che valga la pena mostravelo.
Sto parlando di Cristiano Mattia Ricci, artista nato a Cesena classe 1973. Cominciò la sua carriera artistica con la parola scritta e con il linguaggio poetico e dopo qualche anno ha spostato la sua attività sul reparto visivo.

Cristiano Mattia Ricci partecipa alla manifestazione Kunstansichten 2009 in Germania, con una personale dal titolo Vahine’s ballad.
Il ciclo di dipinti che dà il titolo alla mostra prende spunto dagli amori polinesiani di Gauguin, trattati attraverso un “cubismo” quasi fumettistico.
Se passate per Offenbach fate un giro in galleria.

per info: www.artycon.de

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Nell’articolo, qualche opera della personale.

Jorge in Sardegna, 2005

L'arte del sospetto, dell'inganno, dell'indiferenza, 2007

Autoritratto pensieroso nel bordella della vita, 2007