Kandinsky at the Guggenheim, NYC. Photo James Perkins

]]> http://crfranke.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/tribute-to-the-masters-revised/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:17:38 +0000 Cathey http://crfranke.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/tribute-to-the-masters-revised/

This is based on an earlier post but with additional favorites:

I am a huge art fanatic, dedicating as much time to it as writing and music. These aren’t new artists. They are the masters from the past who I’ve admired for years and years. My all-time favorites.

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Name: Henri Matisse

Country: France

Style: Fauvism, Modernism

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Name: Salvador Dali

Country: Spain

Style: Dadaism, Surrealism

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Name: Hieronymus Bosch

Country: Netherlands

Style: Renaissance

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Name: Rene Magritte

Country: Belgium

Style: Surrealism

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Name: Giorgio De Chirico

Country: Greek, Italy

Style: Surrealism

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Name: Diego Rivera

Country: Mexico

Style: Mexican Muralist, Social Realism

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Name: Paul Klee

Country: Germany, Swiss

Style: Expressionism, Surrealism

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Name: Edvard Munch

Country: Norway

Style: Expressionism

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Name: Pablo Picasso

Country: Spain

Style: Cubism

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Name: Rufino Tamayo

Country: Mexico

Style: Muralist, Mixografia

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Name: Wasily Kandinsky

Country: Russia

Style: Expressionism, Bauhaus

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Name: Franz Marc

Country: Germany

Style: Expressionism

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Name: Eugene Delacroix

Country: France

Style: Romanticism

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Name: David Alfaro Siqueiros

Country: Mexico

Style: Mexican Muralist, Social Realism

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Name: Marcel Duchamp

Country: France, U.S.

Style: Dadaism, Surrealism

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Name: Francisco Goya

Country: Mexico

Style: Romanticism

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Name: Juan Gris

Country: Spanish

Style: Cubism

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Name: Willem de Kooning

Country: Netherlands

Style: Abstract Expressionism

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Name: George Grosz

Country: Germany

Style: Dadaism, New Objectivity

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Name: Joan Miro

Country: Spain

Style: Dadaism, Surrealism

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Name: Paul Signac

Country: France

Style: Pointilism, Neo-Impressionism

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Name: Georges Rouault

Country: France

Style: Fauvism, Expressionism

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Name: Wilfredo Lam

Country: Cuba

Style: Modernism, Cubism, Surrealism

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Name: Vincent Van Gogh

Country: Netherlands

Style: Post-Impressionism

Today was a fun day because 1) I had off from work! and 2) I got to go into NYC specifically to do artsy things! I went as part of a tour with the friends of the Princeton University Art Museum. The first part was going to Evergreene Studios, an architectural arts firm that specializes in conservation, restoration and some new design. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures but seeing the studio was amazing. In two different parts of the studio they were working on huge murals, one with life-size figures. One guy was even applying gold leaf to the canvas which is something I’ve never seen. It looked so perfect and seamless. In another part of the studio they were making wallpaper by applying all these finishes to a special kind of paper. That whole experience made me think about my background in art history and why didn’t I ever think about conservation?! Oh, now I remember, it was the whole art and chemistry thing…But still check out their website and think about how important conservation and restoration are to keeping our heritage alive!

The second part of the day was a trip to the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim. I love the Guggenheim mostly because it was the last building built by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of my favorite architects of all time. It’s a great modern space for showing art work, though this opinion has been highly contested since the design plan was first introduced by Wright. The Kandinsky exhibit, which is open until January, is one of the biggest shows of his work. It’s arranged perfectly in the Guggenheim, travelling up the ramp as his work evolves from his time in Germany to Russia and France. I am not a huge Kandinsky fan though he was important to the evolution of abstraction in painting which leads to some of my favorite artists like Pollock, Rothko and Robert Ryman. The vivid colors and biomorphic forms in his art are stunning and offer a colorful approach to understanding abstraction. The exhibit itself was beautifully arranged though the te

xt seemed to repeat itself in an effort to enrich Kandinsky’s story when he really didn’t have much to tell. It wasn’t enough to get me interested in Kandinsky besides knowing his style and where he’s from but I loved seeing it in Wright’s space.

Al ser humano le gusta que se lo den todo hecho. Bien cortadito y masticadito. Esta es una verdad como un templo, universal y de la que todos hemos disfrtuado alguna vez en la vida.

A mí lo que me preocupa es que esta tendencia se “cuele” en la música.

Es totalmente aceptable, normal y recomendable escuchar canciones convencionales. Es decir, que tengan sus estrofas, su estribillo y una letra pegadiza. Estoy hablando de las canciones de toda la vida, esas que cantamos alegremente porque nos sabemos la letra de principio a fin (o eso pretendemos).

Sin embargo, creo que no hay que ser tan cuadriculados. No hay que dejar que lo fácil nos lleve siempre de la mano. A veces tenemos que soltarnos y adentrarnos en otros senderos. Puede ser que los zapatos nos hagan daño al principio, pero no hay que alarmarse, son las típicas rozaduras que se crean porque no estamos acostumbrados a caminar por terrenos tan escabrosos.

Somos capaces de pararnos unos minutos delante de un cuadro de Picasso, Kandinsky o Miró. Mirarlo. Volverlo a mirar. Y por último, lo intentamos entender. Buscamos algún significado. Más tarde hacemos un ejercicio de traducción. Transformamos todas esas rayas, líneas, formas y colores (aparentemente sin sentido) en conceptos o sensaciones que conocemos plenamente.

Con la música podemos hacer exactamente lo mismo. En vez de criticar tanto la música clásica contemporánea, criticar la obra de John Cage o de Arnol Schoenberg y un largo etcétera de compositores, podemos sumergirnos, probar esta nueva corriente.

Merece la pena hacer el esfuerzo y aprender a disfrutar de lo abstracto en la música. Aunque sólo sea una vez.

Not often enough, when reading about the Bauhaus, are you able to enjoy stories of the female influence there.  Instead you absorb tales involving names like Gropius, Itten, van der Rohe, Klee, Kandinsky, Breuer; but there were some fabulous female gems amongst all that testosterone.  My favorite was Gunta Stolzl, born Adelgunde Stolzl.  I was immediately fascinated by her weavings. Her artwork is bold in color and style as well as having a distinct function as they were used as floor coverings and furniture coverings. Gunta Stolzl truly embodied what Walter Gropius stated in his Bauhaus manifesto in 1919. The manifesto is a call to arms to the creative people to once again return to their sense of “craft” in producing art. Walter Gropius proclaims in his manifesto “The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.” Gropius also declares the decorating of a building was “once the noblest function of fine art”.

It was in learning more about Gunta Stolzl that I came to admire her strength and tenacity as an artist and as a woman. She reminded me of my maternal grandmother who was not on the same path as Gunta, however embodied Gunta’s sense of capability in a time when women were certainly not looked upon as equals. Gunta Stolzl was born in 1897 to a father who was a liberal-minded teacher. She would keep journals of philosophical readings as well as discussions on novels. She would graduate at age 16 from a high school for professional men’s daughters. During that time her father realizes her artistic talents and pushes her to study at Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in Munich. There she studies painting, ceramics, and art history while compiling hundreds of sketches. After 3 years there she suspends her education to volunteer as a Red Cross nursing assistant in the war during the years 1917-1918. She stays until the end of the war and continues her journaling and sketching.

In 1919 Gunta returns to the School of Arts and Crafts in Munich and engages in a student’s curriculum reform organization where she became familiar with Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus manifesto. After reading this document Gunta is drawn to Weimar and enrolls for the autumn session at Bauhaus. In her journals that she kept while there she writes favorably about the ease of communication felt between the students and the teaching staff, which she is enjoying very much. Gunta’s diary during this time also contains a historically valuable recounting of Johannes Itten’s instructional approach while at Bauhaus.

Another strong influence for Gunta, and there were many, was social reform ideas that made their impact on Gunta as well as many Bauhaus members. The most influential ideas came from the Wandervogel movement. The Wandervogel movement was a German Youth Group (functioning much like the English scouts) who was interested in getting away from restrictive societies and moving towards the altruistic lifestyles, which existed in nature and freedom. I believe this movement was influential on those who embraced Bauhaus philosophies as it provided intense camaraderie and closer relations.

Gunta was at the Bauhaus for 12 years total, but 6 of them would be as a student where she studied under Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten, and Paul Klee to name an important few. The weaving area, which Gunta would study in and later run, was from the very beginning the domain of the women at Bauhaus. It was difficult for women, especially during the Weimar years, to break free into other workshops. In order to move into another area you had to prove yourself particularly talented due to the “avoid unnecessary experiments” philosophy of the men’s desire to keep women out of the other areas. Men’s desires or not, Gunta would not go unnoticed or unrecognized for long amongst the men at Bauhaus.

Gunta Stolzl was a dynamic student and attended the very first Bauhaus class taught by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky in 1921. The influence of these two men can be seen in her early abstract works on paper (seen at http://www.guntastolzl.org/gallery/1540942_7ocu8#74244138). It is not possible to cut and paste these drawings to receive the irrefutable impact Kandinsky and Klee made due to a lengthy approval process by Stolzl’s family who governs her image archive. Along with the imagery influence, Johannes Itten’s color philosophy also has a profound affect, which can be witnessed in her later weavings from 1923 and later. While a student, Gunta crafts two knotted carpets that are both sold during the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition at the House am Horn building.

Gunta, in 1921, collaborated with Marcel Breuer at the Bauhaus to create what I believe to be one of the most exquisite pieces to come out of the school. The “African Chair” was made of painted oak wood with weaved fabric freely designed and produced by Stolzl. After creating the fabric piece, she stretched it onto the back of the chair using holes in the framework. The African Chair had been lost for a number of years and only recently recovered in 2004 and returned to the Bauhaus Archive Museum. Prior to that the only proof of the chair’s existence was a black and white photograph of the piece. There is no concrete evidence as to the original purpose of the chair, but historical speculation runs rampant. Some of the inferences include a throne for Walter Gropius to confirm his belief that architecture was the “mother of all arts in classical architectural theory” or that perhaps the chair was a symbolic wedding chair influenced by the budding relationship between Breuer and Stolzl during that time.

Although Gunta had strong allies in Breuer, Klee, Kandinsky, and Itten it would not prove easy for her to advance her teaching status in the Bauhaus to master since she was never technically a protégée of any master.   Come back next week to see how she would fare in her future at the Bauhaus.

Bibliography:

Manifesto. Bauhaus-Archive Museum of Design. http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/manifest1919.htm cited February 22, 2008.

New Acquistions: The African Chair. Bauhaus-Archive Museum of Design. http://www.bauhaus.de/english/aktuelles/neuerwerbungen.htm cited March 4, 2008.

Gunta Stolzl. Bauhaus (Red Book). Konemann (Edited by Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend), 1999. http://www.guntastolzl.org/gallery/1897708/1/95700545 cited February 13, 2008.

Biography. Gunta Stolzl – Bauhaus Master. http://www.guntastolzl.org/gallery/2222182 cited February 13, 2008.

Hans M. Wingler. The Bauhaus: Weimer Dessau Berlin Chicago. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The MIT Press, 1969.

I used the red channel in Photoshop to print a cartoon of this design for tracing. I darkened some of the lines with a black Micron pen and also added a few extra lines here and there to delineate major colour gradations.

Then I traced it with an HB pencil and my lightbox. That lightbox is the best $50 I’ve ever spent. In an ideal world I would have bought one with a huge surface area but even this little box is a huge help to me.

This is now ready to stitch. I think I’ll probably start with the smaller elements, particularly the “spears” of black/brown and the spears of colour near the middle left.

Ah, the adventure of printing miniature quilts. This pink and green one was a graphic I made nine years ago that has sentimental value. The blue and white one is a sample of a miniature I’m making for someone else.

Here is the progress on the French knot rug I am doing in 1:12 scale for Skye Cottage, one of my dollhouses.

I liked this technique so much that I started looking for inspiration in my art books and then online for doing up another one. There isn’t much around concerning abstract art, and it takes a really good artist to pull it off. I was fortunate enough to find one, so I wrote to her explaining what I wanted to interpret her art for and she has given me permission to use her art as the basis for this project.

Her name is Angela Porter and she is from Wales. I found her page at DeviantART under the name “Artwyrd” and my jaw just dropped with delight, she does some wonderful work. She also has a web site and does textile art and jewellery as well as artwork in pencil, pen and ink, pastels, oils, and watercolour.

This is Angela’s original art Kandinsky Inspired 3 and my circular version, that I adapted after spending some time fiddling in Photoshop. I have also shown a small mock-up of the rug in paper in the hallway of the dollhouse. I just LOVE this piece of art. I will go away for a few days and come back to and it always fascinates me. Many thanks Angela for understanding what I wanted to do and how inspiring I find your work. Not all artists are like that in my experience.

There will be stairs behind this and I’m considering painting them with some kind of Kandinsky-inspired pattern myself. I’m just waiting for my art book on Kandinsky to arrive and then I’ll consider the possibilities. I will be painting furniture for this and another house and I’d always planned to paint these stairs with artwork, but again, Angela’s work has inspired me to stretch my creativity a bit further.

The dollhouse is my second one and was one I won in a raffle from miniaturists Judy and Jim Henry here in Ontario almost 11 years ago. Jim built and painted the exterior himself, and then I was to do the decorating. I’m glad I didn’t get it finished ten years ago as my new idea is to turn it into a celebration of abstract art, because Frances, the doll who lives there, is an artist. Her little girl is only six but she’s really interested in architecture, so I’m doing houses on a petit point rug and printed quilt, and perhaps I’ll frame some architectural prints for her walls. In short, this house will reflect my own interests and passions!

Since I’m in my Fauvist period (grin), I imagine this little dollhouse will turn into something rather magical at some point, which would suit me as a tribute to Judy and Jim who were responsible for the house, and were very inspiring to me as creative people themselves.

I’m slightly distracted by ideas and projects lately, but that’s really the way I like it since I’m a creative person. Creativity brings such vibrancy and interest to life.

Update: I just got back from Michael’s and bought 27 new skeins of floss to add to what I have here for the colour blending in this piece. I made tons of notes and colour code references on my reference sheet and then bought what I needed. I feel rich with colour now!

Day 1
I’ve been all over and still I feel that I will never get to know this place properly. It is huge, never ending maze of streets stores and people so many people.
At the lanudrment, his big brother is teaching him how to fold the socks.
So I’ve been to Chinatown, it’s a strange thing, I’m not sure why. I had lunch at the public park. People were playing Chinese chess, singing and doing tai-chi. There is a synagogue there as well it is unused and originally it was the Jewish part. Until they left to other areas so that Chinatown expended.
So, the borders between the neighborhoods are kind of blurry. And I strolled over to the east side, the lower east side that is. Used to be jewish, Now filled with designer shops cafes and such. At katz’s they filmed the famus scene of when Harry met Sally.
And by the evening I got all the way to Greenwich Village.
Day 2
Had a breakfast at central park
The ice skating ring is open, it was such a nice day that all I wanted was to stay and read a book. But I went with Millena which I met at the hostel and we were headed to the MOMA museum. Shes the one with the pale pink bag.
Besides I finished both of my books and didn’t buy another one yet.
So that’s the museum garden
On the way back to the hostel at the subway.
Day 3
It was a quiet walk through Chelsea and Greenwich Village. And the weather is holding nicely, I still take my coat (and use it by night) and wear two layers but still no rain.
I found the set for Law and order criminal intent at the Chelsea piers (NO, no actresses were spotted, not that I will know to recognize them.) and of course the Chelsea hotel.
Greenwich Village is so pastoral and with the NY University located right in the middle it is a lively place.
For my 4 o’clock tea I had a cheese cake from Magnolia bakery and apple cider (natural and worm) from a booth I found at the farmers market by union square.

Day 4
I was headed to the Guggenheim … but since it is so close to the park I couldn’t resist another breakfast there. The added bonus was that I finally bought a book.
Then, on the way to the museum I saw 3 synagogues this is the Safra.
They are holding a special retrospective exhibition of Kandinsky works which was spectacular.
Then I strolled again at the park all the way toward Columbia University.

Well that’s concludes my second round of the city.

Sorry, the computer is not cooperating right now. The order of the pictures is as at the post. I will insert them to their places and I will upload some more to my Flickr. Just not right away, it takes ages…

Un siglo de Cenizas, novela de Martín Cid

El artículo se titula “Una íntima enemistad fingida: literatura y pintura” y me ha gustado por dos motivos: por estar totalmente de acuerdo con lo que Martín escribe y porque me lo ha dedicado. Un gran honor que quiero añadir a mi blog.

Gracias, Martín

http://www.ellibrepensador.com/2009/11/08/una-intima-enemistad-fingida-literatura-y-pintura/

I’ve been dying to go to NYC this season to visit the Guggenheim’s massive Kandisnky exhibit. He is my absolute favorite artist and I’m still in awe of 4 private collection pieces I saw at MOMA last year.

Found out about this in August but with my work travel schedule I just couldn’t fit in a weekend to go. It’s on view until January 13 and my schedule is clearing up but bbrrrr…..it’ll be chilly.

The video on the Guggenheim website I just watched might persuade me to brave the elements, however.

Check out my Kandinsky inspired birthday cake from two years ago beautifully baked and desinged by my friend Olivia of Sweet Catastrophe Cakes.

I remember the passion I had for El Greco in my teen years.

Something compelling, either in the fusing light of his paintings or the mysterious, elongated faces of the characters casting sidelong glances at each other fascinated me.

Then I grew out of El Greco, moving on to more modern painters and art currents.

The previous early infatuation with a painter of the old school, began to feel like some sort of  aesthetic gaffe, when compared to a new found interest in Kandinsky or Delauney’s pictures.

The embarrassment came from a sense that El Greco’s paintings and some of the other Spanish masters appeared to be less complex than, say, a novel visual charade from Braque or Paul Klee.

Therefore, most of the early Spanish masters were laid to rest for what I thought would be ‘forever’ in hard to reach places on bookshelves.

Such is the flippancy of capricious art lovers.

Last year, amid the surging waves of the flood on the Mississippi I traveled to Saint Louis.

I wandered by the Arch, on a day of calm sunshine, reaching out to the distance the Arch calls to, and the echoes of wide spaces it brings from afar.

Forest Park was my next destination, and its museums basking in the breezy murmur of the fountains. Minutes later, I stepped into the St Louis Art Museum.

As I ambled through the various rooms at an even pace, carefully viewing the collections, a painting caught my eye on a sidelong glance, on my right.

I turned.

An overwhelming sense of awe, past any sensation of beauty, or known feeling swept me.

The force of this panting came at me full force, in one blow, dimming the world around me.

The paintings I had seen so far in previous rooms and the musings they had generated only seconds before disappeared. I was alone in the world with this painting, its enigma and its message.

It is a painting by Zurbaran that represents St Francis.

It is painting whose overpowering beauty has since made me reconsider a lot of acquired tastes and ideas, and tore to pieces any traces of flippancy.

I’m a fervent admirer of Spanish masters once more.

This is the first in a brand new blog series: 30 Museums in 28 Weeks. Through CUarts’ Passport to New York program, Columbia students get in free to 30 museums in the city. We will attempt to visit every single one of these museums before the end of this academic year and share the experience here with you. 30 museums. 28 weeks. That’s a lot of culture.

I am ashamed to admit that I had never been to the Guggenheim before this weekend. Oh sure, I’d passed its distinctive exterior a few times on rare sojourns to the East Side, but I’d never actually set foot inside. Until yesterday. As a last hurrah of Fall Break before hunkering down for the winter, I walked across Central Park through the beautiful changing leaves and finally crossed into the museum.

The building itself, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is a substantial part of the experience. As I entered into the lobby, the winding ramps above me provided glimpses of artwork on the walls but it was the patrons themselves who seemed to be on display as they looked over the endless wall, seeing and being seen.

The main exhibition currently is a extensive collection of paintings by Vasily Kandinsky, an abstract artist whose paintings feature bright, bold colors in exuberant brushstrokes and geometric patterns. Each work is a bit like a Rorschach test; what you see in it says more about you than about Kandinsky himself. I particularly liked his later work which tames his early effervescence into more focused, deliberate shapes that still retain the colorful mystery of his abstract ideas.

Another one of my favorite pieces was in a separate exhibit entitled Paired: Gold. The work, by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, was a ceiling-to-floor curtain of plastic golden beads, like Mardi Gras necklaces. They shimmered as they caught the light in different ways when people passed through. I must confess though that my attraction to the work was mainly my magpie instinct for sparkly things and my short attention span that was getting a little weary of endless abstraction. I enjoyed it, but I find it difficult to call it “art.” Even more difficult was the second work in the exhibit, Roni Horn’s Forms from the Gold Field. It was a rectangle of solid gold, lying on the floor. Huh? It was pretty, I suppose, and shiny, but it had no apparent statement or point of view, which I think are essential to successful art (in my humble, untrained opinion). I prefer Kandinsky who challenged the function of painting while also being pretty and shiny.

A little dizzy, I winded back down the spiral ramps, through the hordes of schoolchildren, and out into the sun. Not a bad afternoon at all.

******

Darcy Zacharias, CC ‘10

“Before I started working with him, he was described to me as ‘a director who prepares like Rembrandt and executes like Picasso,’ and I felt that was pretty insightful.”Dion Beebe ASC ,Aug.2004 American Cinematographer Hell On Wheels

Dante Spinotti, Mann’s cinematographer on four of his films, described the director’s visual processes in the following way. “It’s a little like being in front of a Caravaggio scene and changing it into a Kandinsky painting.” [25] The Kandkinsky-like qualities Spinotti is evoking are Mann’s intoxicating passion with the painterly, expressive, plastic possibilities of the cinema, with the way that framing, colour and light can transform a room in a house or a street at night. But while images in Mann’s films can sometimes be abstracted, expressive or surreal they are almost always tied to a character’s point of view, or the mood of the narrative, and always linked to emotion and affect.
MICHAEL MANN Cinema of images by Anna Dzenis

The Keep-The Last of Moichans

Heat-Collateral-Miami Vice

The Keep-The Insider-Public Enemies

Jericho Mile-Thief-Manhunter-ALI

In October, as well as South, I read a stimulating article in the London Review of Books by Bridget Riley, the artist. 

It’s one of the best, blow-by-blow descriptions of the process of artistic discovery one could read.  It begins with the recognition of her ignorance:

For me, drawing is an inquiry, a way of finding out — the first thing that I discover is that I do not know.  This is alarming even to the point of momentary panic.  Only experience reassures me that this encounter with my own ignorance — with the unknown — is my chosen and particular task, and provided I can make the required effort the rewards may reach the unimaginable.  It is as though there is an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal general-purpose eye, to penetrate a kind of obscuring veil or thickness.  To break down this thickness, this deadening opacity, to elicit some particle of clarity or insight, is what I want to do.

Then she sets the background and the task ahead.  Her chosen field is abstract art, and the time is the early 1960s with all the terrors and potential that abstract act, after the pioneers like Mondrian and Kandinsky, offered then. 

She touches on the required sacrifices:

But to be excited by the prospect of a great adventure is one thing, to act is another.  To make a start, I had to sacrifice some hard-won achievements and joys.  For instance colour, about which I had only recently gained some understanding, now had to be laid aside until an abstract form equal to its purity could be found.

The first hint comes:

Although I had taken a few steps in the direction of abstract painting, I had not yet arrived at a point where I could establish a dialogue.  One evening on my way to the studio, I thought of drawing a square.  Everyone knows what a square looks like [...] a monumental, highly conceptualised form: stable and symmetrical, equal angles, equal sides.  I drew the first few squares.  No discoveries there.  Was there anything to be found in a square?

And then the moment of artistic felicity:

But as I drew, things began to change.  Quite suddenly something was happening down there on the paper that I had not anticipated [...] I drew the whole of Movement in Squares without a pause and then, to see more clearly what was there, I painted each alternate square black. When I stepped back, I was surprised and elated by what I saw [...] My experience of working with the square was to prove crucial.  Having been lately becalmed, now a strong wind filled my sails.

*****

I also read a review in The Guardian Weekly of a book called The Dream Faculty by Sara Stridsberg.  To the author’s surprise the book became a big hit in Sweden, her home country, and was voted book of the year for 2006.  It is a fictional biography of the real-life Valerie Solanas (1936-1988), an American “writer, intellectual, prostitute and feminist legend,” who became famous in 1968 when she shot Andy Warhol. 

Warhol survived, but only just, and Solanas went on to write the SCUM Manifesto (or the manifesto of the Society for Cutting Up Men). 

For the reviewer it is a work of ”radical irony,” one that had more in common with Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal than other feminist works.  However, with one murder attempt already under her belt, the irony sometimes got lost on the public.  Whatever it is, the SCUM Manifesto is very funny and bracing to read. She certainly knew how to write an opening sentence:

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

Love that “thrill-seeking.”

Here are some other quotes:

Although completely physical, the male is unfit even for stud service.  Even assuming mechanical proficiency, which few men have, he is, first of all, incapable of zestfully, lustfully, tearing off a piece, but instead is eaten up with guilt, shame, fear and insecurity, feelings rooted in male nature, which the most enlightened training can only minimize; second, the physical feeling he attains is next to nothing; and third, he is not empathizing with his partner, but is obsessed with how he’s doing, turning in an A performance, doing a good plumbing job.

Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is psychically passive.  He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the male as active, then sets out to prove that he is.  His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing.  Since he’s attempting to prove an error, he must “prove” it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate compulsive attempt to prove he’s not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman.

Women, in other words, don’t have penis envy; men have pussy envy.  When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw … Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female.

Interesting how genuinely seditious they read.

***** 

To read the full Bridget Riley article from the LRB, click here:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n19/bridget-riley/at-the-end-of-my-pencil

To read the full SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, click here:
http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm

Images: Movement in Squares, 1961 by Bridget Riley (top)

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http://wp.me/sgXyq-1066

Kandinsky

Jorge Vercillo

Saint Preux

Artie Shaw

Clarice Lispector

Baudelaire

José Régio

Bergman

e mais………………

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Amarillo, rojo, azul obra de Kandinsky quién fué un pintor ruso precursor de la pintura abstracta, teórico del arte y profesor de la Bauhaus.

Esta obra la realizo en la época donde publicó Punto y Línea en la cuál expone la concepción que tiene de que las formas y los colores son transmisores de emociones, tensiones, dinamismos y expresiones. Así es como asocia el amarillo con el triángulo, el azul y el círculo, y el rojo con cuadros.
En el cuadro podemos notar como el artista plasma sus ideas, intensificando del lado izquierdo el color amarillo acentuado por líneas inclinadas que nos traen a la mente la figura de triángulos, en la parte derecha, inmediatamente a la derecha, situado en el centro hay una concentración de color rojo que forman figuras de cuatro lados; y del lado izquierdo tenemos un circulo azul que completa la secuencia de los colores estudiados.

En lo personal toda la obra de Kandinsky me parece muy interesante desde sus primeras obras y también su participación en la Bauhaus es de admiración.

Elongation, distorted hands, feet, necks. This is the single-most characteristic that I look for and admire in works. If it’s stretched, pressed, enlarged, or diminished beyond its normal state, I love it. And for this, I cannot get enough of Modigliani.

Those necks! Those eyes!

Less obvious is the use of elongation in Caravaggio’s The Supper at Emmaus. The elongated right hand of the disciple sitting at the table draws the viewer in to the painting.

And distortion can portray a sense of the grotesque, the humor, the abstraction of a figure or scene. I especially like the abstraction in Eastern European art, particularly Russian art, like Kandinsky, which inspired some of those in the surrealist movement.

Nothing makes an impact quite like black and white tiling. Add graphic theory, a world renowned artist and political controversy and you’ve got a museum piece on your hands. Today features two creative icons known for such experimental designs: Wassily Kandinsky and Vivienne Tam. Of the vast array of works currently on display at the Guggenheim, the above composition, (title and date unknown), reveals delicate vignettes aligned against a grid. Widely known for his sweeping bright strokes, Kandinsky’s works on paper reveal the building blocks for his grand paintings, mathematics at their finest. Incorporating checkerboard theory into modern day fashion, Vivienne Tam’s most iconic pattern is currently on display at New York’s Fashion and Textile Historical Gallery at FIT.  Tam, a Chinese American, has taken advantage of Western attitudes to ironically incorporate the infamous Chairman Mao into this woman’s suit- a true cultural revolution and a great leap forward.

By: Shayna Kulik

Falling spiral (copyright 2009 Cary Charles - all rights reserved)

Decide now to tap your finger. Do it. I bet the gap between deciding and doing is less than one second . . . almost instantaneous.

So you will understand why I gasped on seeing a mathematician on this week’s BBC Horizon show titled ‘The Secret You‘ perform a similar act. He held a button in each hand and alternated, pressing each according to spontaneous decisions whilst lying in an fMRI scanner . . . as soon as the decision was made, the button was pressed.

Impressively, the scans predicted each decision, but that wasn’t enough to make me gasp. Oh no.

I gasped because the decision was revealed by brain activity 6 seconds before the button was pressed! Now think about that . . . think about the gap you experience between deciding to tap a finger and actually doing it. It is very probably less than a second.

Whilst the decision was consciously known and decided less than a second before the button was ‘instantly’ pressed, the outcome was predictable on the scans some 5 seconds before . . . a period in which the presenter was completely unconscious that the decision had been made. And more impressively, that unconscious processing made the decision that the presenter assumed was made consciously. So when you make every decision in your life, are you actually the final bit of the conveyor belt of consciousness, with the unconscious you having sorted it all out earlier on? It seems so.

For years it has been suggested that our minds are approximately 10% conscious and 90% unconscious. Indeed, in hypnotherapy, we speak directly to that unconscious mind and gain some quite amazing results. I know from experience how that feels and that it works, and now scientific data is really starting to pile up. It is such an exciting time as the stigma has all but gone from research into consciousness.

Taking the overall duration of associated brain activity (6 seconds) as 100%, the results mean that 83% or more of the presenter’s consciousness was unconscious. And I am being charitable there. For almost everyone, the duration is less than a second from thought to action.

As an artist, writer and intuitive therapist this explains so much. Archives are brimming with accounts of famous songs, stories, poems, paintings, inventions and more suddenly ‘arriving’ in minds. Mozart is said to have dreamed some of his music in its complete form, for instance. More personally, I have awoken on several occasions having seen the next painting, fully formed . . . indeed, when that happens, the image does not leave until I have actually manifested it on canvas. Understanding so much of the formative process occurs in the unconscious mind makes such sense . . . and also raises the question of where exactly is the boundary of the individual’s consciousness.

Sometimes things come to us, purely inspired, hitherto completely unknown. We haven’t been exposed to that information in our lives, yet still the unconscious has taken hold and is busy working with it. Could this in some way account for talent . . . how one person automatically has a propensity toward any certain skill? Jung proposed the Collective Unconscious, a kind of genetic memory passed from generation to generation, but here we are nudging towards what I like to call the ‘Connected Unconscious’ – that remarkable ability that we have in special moments to leap with brilliance beyond our life experiences. These are the delicious aha moments . . .

I’m reminded of a classic account of the morphogenic field, perfectly demonstrated when monkeys were being observed in their natural habitat on an otherwise uninhabited island. A monkey imitated a scientist who had washed a sweet potato in the sea. Soon after, others imitated. So far so good, but what really makes you think is that at virtually the same time, several monkeys on a similar nearby island, completely out of sight, took sweet potatoes into the sea and performed the exact same act for the first time.

So next time you hear about a premonition, take time to wonder what the unconscious mind was doing there. Next time you think you decided something, or you become part of some ‘crowd mentality’, just remember that your unconscious mind decided it well before you realised the conclusion and called it your own. If ever there was a reason to start working with your unconscious mind, this is it! It really isn’t practical or pragmatic to think otherwise.

No wonder so many addicts fail to give up their addictions by conscious decision alone!

If you missed the show, it will be available on the BBC i-player site for about a week – of course, your unconscious might already have watched it

Clarss

Este año el famoso museo Guggenheim de Nueva York cumple 50 años de su construcción, 21 de octubre, y para celebrarlo se preven varias actividades y exposiciones importantes.

Museo creado por la Fundación Solomon R. Guggenheim, está dedicado al arte moderno. Fue fundado en 1937 en Upper East Side, NY. Es el más conocido de todos los museos de la fundación. En 1959, el Guggenheim se mudó a la calle 89 y la 5ª Avenida, frente a Central Park.

El pasado 15 de mayo de 2009, el Guggenheim inauguró la exposición Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward para conmemorar el 50 aniversario de su emblemático edificio diseñado por Frank Lloyd Wright.

Junto con esta muestra, se han puesto otras exposiciones de arte, arquitectura e innovación como The Sweeney Decade: Acquisitions at the 1959 Inaugural, inspirado en el trabajo del director James Johnson Sweeney durante su mandato de 1952 a 1960; y Kandinsky (abierto al público hasta enero de 2010), una completa retrospectiva de Vasily Kandinsky,  artista que ha estado estrechamente relacionado a la historia del Museo Guggenheim.

Como parte de la celebración, el Guggenheim tiene una serie de programas gratuitos al público y eventos durante todo el año, como el día gratis en el museo el 21 de octubre con programas de educación especial especialmente para las familias.

Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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Shaunee H from Notredame was asked to recreate her Kandinsky inspired artwork (drawn to the music of ‘Popcorn’) in Photoshop. Having never used the application before, I feel there are great elements here and the piece is interesting enough to return to time and time again. Like all good abstract art, the work should be something that you can revisit, it should be something that you can discover and rediscover. I feel she’s done a great job, especially for only having 30 mins and never using the software or a mouse to draw before.