Moving Pictures
A Symposium on Illustration and Motion
presented by the Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design

NOVEMBER 11, 2009, 7:00–10:00 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public

2 WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011
The New School Jazz Performance Space
Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY

LAUREN REDNISS reveals a history of blind spots.
JODY ROSEN unveils The Knowledge of London taxi drivers.
JOEL SMITH maps the mind of Saul Steinberg.
RICHARD MCGUIRE screens Fears of the Dark and more.

Moderated by Lauren Redniss, assistant professor, Illustration Program, Parsons The New School for Design

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
RICHARD McGUIRE is an artist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Le Monde, and other publications. He is the founder and bass player of the punk-funk band Liquid Liquid. Currently a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, McGuire is working on an illustrated book entitled HERE. His most recent animated film, Peurs du Noir, will be released on DVD this fall.
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LAUREN REDNISS is an artist and writer who recently joined the full-time faculty at Parsons The New School for Design. She is the author of Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Redniss was a 2008–2009 fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Her new book, Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie & Other Stories of Love and Fallout will be published in fall 2010.
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JODY ROSEN is the music critic for Slate and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, and other publications. He is the author of White Christmas: The Story of an American Song and the compiler of Jewface, an acclaimed anthology of early-20th-century Jewish vaudeville recordings. Rosen is working on a new book, The Knowledge, about London, cartography, and taxi drivers.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JOEL SMITH is the author of Steinberg at The New Yorker (2005) and Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, the catalog of a traveling retrospective of the artist that opened at the Morgan Library & Museum in 2006. Smith is the curator of photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, where he is working on exhibitions about architecture and memory, pictures of pictures, and the history of photographs of nothing.

This symposium is presented with support from…

Moving Pictures

A Symposium on Illustration and Motion
presented by the Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design

NOVEMBER 11, 2009, 7:00–10:00 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public

2 WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011
The New School Jazz Performance Space
Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY

LAUREN REDNISS reveals a history of blind spots.
JODY ROSEN unveils The Knowledge of London taxi drivers.
JOEL SMITH maps the mind of Saul Steinberg.
RICHARD MCGUIRE screens Fears of the Dark and more.

Moderated by Lauren Redniss, assistant professor, Illustration Program, Parsons The New School for Design

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
RICHARD McGUIRE is an artist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Le Monde, and other publications. He is the founder and bass player of the punk-funk band Liquid Liquid. Currently a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, McGuire is working on an illustrated book entitled HERE. His most recent animated film, Peurs du Noir, will be released on DVD this fall.

To give you a taste of what Richard is all about, here is a collection of links and visuals.

• Here is a short animated film Richard created called Micro Loup–it is about a microscopic wolf!

• Richard’s homepage: http://www.richard-mcguire.com

• A film excerpt: http://www.richard-mcguire.com/fears.html

• Other work, posters, NYer covers, etc: http://www.primalinea.com/mcguire/

• Interview with Steven Heller: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/whos-afraid-of-noir-an-interview-with-richard-mcguire

• Toys: http://daddytypes.com/2006/12/29/the_toys_of_artist_richard_mcguire_a_dt_interview.php

• Liquid Liquid clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70wxKJMCRHQ&feature=related

[Image from: Peur(s) du noir, a film by : Blutch, C. Burns, M. Caillou, P. di Sciullo, L. Mattotti, R. McGuire // Production: Prima Linea Productions]

This symposium is presented with support from…

YOJI KURI, THE ROOM, 1964 – INFLUENCES IDENTIFIED IN GROUP DISCUSSION WEEK 2

Terry Gilliam (1940- )

Monty Python (1969-74 UK, 1976 Japan)

Yellow Submarine (1968)

James Thurber (1894-1961)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Rolling Stones (1962- )

M. C. Escher (1898-1972)

David Lynch (1946- )

Saul Steinberg (1914-1999)

Surrealism (1920s- )

Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

Man Ray (1890-1976)

Modern advertising

Pink Floyd (1965- ) specifically their animation The Wall (1982)

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Saloon bar/Western movies
Sexualisation of women

There was also a particular film but we couldn’t recall its title – maybe David Lynch/Lynch-esque – anyone able to add this?

Moving Pictures
A Symposium on Illustration and Motion
presented by the Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design

NOVEMBER 11, 2009, 7:00–10:00 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public

2 WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011
The New School Jazz Performance Space
Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY

LAUREN REDNISS reveals a history of blind spots.
JODY ROSEN unveils The Knowledge of London taxi drivers.
JOEL SMITH maps the mind of Saul Steinberg.
RICHARD MCGUIRE screens Fears of the Dark and more.

Moderated by Lauren Redniss, assistant professor, Illustration Program, Parsons The New School for Design

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JODY ROSEN is the music critic for Slate and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, and other publications. He is the author of White Christmas: The Story of an American Song and the compiler of Jewface, an acclaimed anthology of early-20th-century Jewish vaudeville recordings. Rosen is working on a new book, The Knowledge, about London, cartography, and taxi drivers.  Here is a passel of links to more writings by Jody so you can brush on his work.

• Slate archive: http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=3944&qt=jody+rosen
• A recent Slate article on Michael Jackson: http://www.slate.com/id/2221482/
• A front page article in the NY Times: http://tinyurl.com/ygr8b5x
• Jody on twitter: http://twitter.com/jodyrosen
• Jody’s writings for NPR: http://tinyurl.com/ygbzey7

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JOEL SMITH is the author of Steinberg at The New Yorker (2005) and Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, the catalog of a traveling retrospective of the artist that opened at the Morgan Library & Museum in 2006. Smith is the curator of photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, where he is working on exhibitions about architecture and memory, pictures of pictures, and the history of photographs of nothing.  Here is an image of the Steinberg book, along with a few links to more information.

• http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300115865
• http://www.saulsteinbergfoundation.org/news.html
• http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/about/staff-directory/joel-smith/

This symposium is presented with support from…

Moving Pictures
A Symposium on Illustration and Motion
presented by the Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design

NOVEMBER 11, 2009, 7:00–10:00 P.M.
Free and Open to the Public

2 WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10011
The New School Jazz Performance Space
Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY

LAUREN REDNISS reveals a history of blind spots.
JODY ROSEN unveils The Knowledge of London taxi drivers.
JOEL SMITH maps the mind of Saul Steinberg.
RICHARD MCGUIRE screens Fears of the Dark and more.

Moderated by Lauren Redniss, assistant professor, Illustration Program, Parsons The New School for Design

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
RICHARD McGUIRE is an artist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, McSweeney’s, Le Monde, and other publications. He is the founder and bass player of the punk-funk band Liquid Liquid. Currently a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, McGuire is working on an illustrated book entitled HERE. His most recent animated film, Peurs du Noir, will be released on DVD this fall.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
LAUREN REDNISS is an artist and writer who recently joined the full-time faculty at Parsons The New School for Design. She is the author of Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Redniss was a 2008–2009 fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Her new book, Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie & Other Stories of Love and Fallout will be published in fall 2010.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JODY ROSEN is the music critic for Slate and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, and other publications. He is the author of White Christmas: The Story of an American Song and the compiler of Jewface, an acclaimed anthology of early-20th-century Jewish vaudeville recordings. Rosen is working on a new book, The Knowledge, about London, cartography, and taxi drivers.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
JOEL SMITH is the author of Steinberg at The New Yorker (2005) and Saul Steinberg: Illuminations, the catalog of a traveling retrospective of the artist that opened at the Morgan Library & Museum in 2006. Smith is the curator of photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, where he is working on exhibitions about architecture and memory, pictures of pictures, and the history of photographs of nothing.

This symposium is presented with support from…

I love the word OTHER, which in Italian is ALTRO.

OTHER/ALTRO is what I am not, what is different from me, what I move toward and never reach.

America, the idea of America, for me, grown up in Italy, has always been OTHER/ALTRO.

Even now that I live in America, I am interested in an America where I am not, that is far from me.

Growing up, America for me was a book translated into Italian by Cesare Pavese, Moby Dick. America was Edgar Allan Poe translated, reinvented by Giorgio Manganelli. America was The Discovery of America by Saul Steinberg, a book so beautiful that I kept it under my bed. America was Robert Crumb Draws the Blues, Charlie Patton tattoed on my arm.

America is this book that I read a month ago, and love: Because I Was Flesh, The Autobiography of Edward Dahlberg. I have never seen Dahlberg’s America. Nobody ever did. It’s Kansas City colliding with Ancient Greece.

I have spent the last twenty minutes trying to find a paragraph to quote, to give an idea of how unique this book is, and I couldn’t pick any, because every paragraph, sentence, word in this book is a surprise.

Because I Was Flesh is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. It pushes the limits of genre, language, style, taste, and at the same time manages to keep the rhythm of the page flowing. What really strikes me is the imagery, often delirious: “Let the bard from Smyrna catalogue Harma, the ledges and caves of Ithaca, the milk-fed damsels of Achaia, pigeon-flocked Thisbe or the woods of Onchestus, I sing of Oak, Walnut, Chestnut, Maple and Elm Streets. Phthia was a bin of corn, Kansas City a buxom grange of wheat. Could the strumpets from the stews of Corinth, Ephesus or Tarsus fetch a groan or sigh more quickly than the dimpled thighs of lasses from St. Joseph or Topeka?”

real deep mix by lefto

Saul Steinberg – The reigning 20th-century American illustrator

La 15 iunie s-au împlinit 95 de ani de la naşterea sa – iar la 12 mai s-au împlinit 10 ani de când ne-a părăsit Saul Steinberg, cunoscut desenator şi grafician român stabilit la New York, unde a colaborat cu celebra revistă The New Yorker.

Redactorii de la această revistă nu au
avut niciodată odihnă, fiind nevoiti sa trieze zece din cele aproape zece mii de poeme expediate lunar de poeţii marelui oraş al Libertăţii…

Saul Steinberg s-a născut în România. Steinberg a văzut lumina zilei la Râmnicu Sărat, dar a crescut în Bucureşti. Bunicul său fusese croitor pentru armata română la Buzău iar tatăl sau deţinea o fabrică de cartonaj. A studiat filozofia la Universitatea Bucureşti, după care s-a înscris la Politehnica din Milano, unde a studiat arhitectura, absolvind în 1940. În timpul şederii la Milano a contribuit în mod activ în cadrul publicaţiei satirice Bertoldo.
Odată cu introducerea legilor anti-semite din Italia de către guvernul fascist, Steinberg a părăsit ţara, stabilindu-se în Republica Dominicană.
În 1942, revista The New Yorker i-a sponsorizat intrarea în Statele Unite, astfel începând o o legătură fructuoasă dintre Steinberg şi publicaţie. Pentru restul vieţii sale, Steinberg va contribui cu aproape 90 desene de copertă şi peste 1200 de alte desene pentru această publicaţie. El îşi numea desenele şi ilustraţiile “masqueraded as cartoons”.
Esenţa artei sale este surpinsă de critica de specialitate, astfel:
Saul Steinberg’s body of work is a thrilling argument for the utility and effectiveness of cartoon art. His work is a skillful, encyclopedic barrage of technique: deft simplification of line, making thematic points by wording with several perspectives within one drawing, even using progressive imagery to fashion narratives from a single picture, as in his geographical cartoons. On top of his mastery of comics’ formal properties, a lot of Steinberg’s work is terribly funny, and he exhibited a playfulness best seen in his utilization of methods more commonly found in other arts: automatic writing, paste-ups, and the appropriation of other artists’ imagery.

http://www.upenn.edu/ARG/archive/steinberg/steinberg.html

Stilul său, combinând cubismul şi pointillismul, îmbină şi o cunoaştere enciclopedică a artei europene cu stilul american popular de ilustraţii, formând astfel un nou stil ilustrativ urban.
Americanii îi recunosc românului Steinberg charisma dominatoare din secolul al XX-lea al artei americane a ilustraţiei.
Spaightwood Galleries, Inc. http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Steinberg.html îl elogiază pe artist ca pe unul dintre cei mai importanţi graficieni care s-au preocupat de studierea artei comunicării:

Saul Steinberg is remembered as the reigning 20th-century American illustrator. Born in Romania in 1914, Steinberg studied at the University of Bucharest, before moving to Italy, where he received his doctorate in architecture in 1940. Though Steinberg first proved himself in the academic realm, he carried an underlying passion for drawing that became recognized when the New Yorker magazine published one of his cartoons in 1941. A year later, Steinberg moved to the United States, and in 1943, married Hedda Sterne, the Abstract Expressionist artist. He settled permanently in Manhattan. Steinberg once said that “doodling is the brooding of the hand.” This he demonstrated through his cartoons, which were less comical than a grim portrayal of life in the United States. Steinberg often drew impressions of life in New York, showing both its towering impressiveness, as well as its bleak oppressiveness. “America was made to order for Steinberg,” the renowned art critic, Harold Rosenberg, declared. John Updike also admired Steinberg, writing, “Like Vladimir Nabokov and Louis B. Mayer, Steinberg is a discoverer of the United States.”

Selected Bibliography: Michel Butor, Saul Steinberg. Le Masque (Paris: Maeght, 1966); Inge Morath, Saul Steinberg Masquerade (NY: Viking Penguin, 2000); Gerd Leufert, Exposicion Saul Steinberg (Caracas; Museo de Bellas Artes, 1968); Harold Rosenberg, Saul Steinberg (NY: Alfred A. Knopf / Whitney Museum of American Art, 1978); Art Spiegelman, The New Yorker Saul Steinberg Memorial Issue (NY: The New Yorker, 1999); Saul Steinberg, The Discovery of America (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992); Saul Steinberg, Ölbilder, Gouachen, Zeichnungen (Zürich: Galerie Maeght, 1971); Steinberg Saul, Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Collagen, Gemälde, Reliefs 1963-1974 (Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft, n.d.)

Cea mai cunoscută şi celebră operă a lui Steinberg a fost coperta ediţiei din 29 martie 1976 a revistei The New Yorker, Lumea Văzută de pe 9′th Avenue (engleză View of the World from 9th Avenue), o schiţă a lumii ce face referinţă la geografia mentală a lumii văzută de locuitorii din Manhattan.
Cunoscut mai ales datorită operelor sale cu caracter comercial, Steinberg şi-a expus opera în numeroase muzee şi galerii de artă. În 1946, împreună cu artişti ca Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi şi Robert Motherwell, a participat la expoziţia “Fourteen Americans” (engleză paisprezece americani) de la Museum of Modern Art din New York. O retrospectivă a operei sale a fost expusă ma muzeul Whitney Museum of American Art din New York în 1978 şi o altă retrospectivă, de această dată postumă, a fost expusă la Institutul de artă modernă din Valencia în 2002.

La moartea sa în 1999, în conformitate cu testamentul său, a fost înfiinţată Fundaţia Saul Steinberg. Aceasta, pe lângă rolul de păstrare a operei artistului, este o organizaţie non-profit cu scopul de “a facilita studiul şi apercierea contribuţiei lui Saul Steinberg la arta secolului XX” şi de “a servii ca resursă pentru comunitatea curatorială şi educativă internaţională precum şi pentru marele public”.

Într-un interviu publicat în 2005 de Revista 22, Norman Manea îl evocă pe Saul Steinberg, decodificând pentru publicul larg semnificaţia celebrei coperte a revistei The New Yorker din 29 martie 1976 care a fost ilustrată de Steinberg cu un desen rămas celebru pentru semnificaţia sa:

Faimoasa hartă a lumii desenată de compatriotul şi prietenul meu Saul Steinberg şi apărută ca un fel de Mona Lisa contemporană pe coperta faimoasei reviste The New Yorker imagina “satul global” văzut din Manhattan: distanţa dintre fluviul Hudson până la Pacific devine aceeaşi ca între Avenue 9 si 10, pe Upper West Side, America se prezintă prin câteva nume, ca nişte reziduale reclame, Washington DC, Texas, Los Angeles, Utah, Las Vegas, Kansas, Nebraska, Chigago şi, undeva, în spatele Pacificului, China, Rusia, Japonia se pierd în periferia prezentului. Alte hărţi ale lui Saul adaugă amănunte biografice pregnante: East Hampton, unde avea o casă de vacanţă, Milano, oraşul tinereţii, Zurich, locul exploziei Dada, Buzăul românesc, oraşul său natal.
Cartografierea destinului meu ar include, probabil, Bucovina naşterii, lagărele copilăriei de peste Nistru, lagărul comunist Periprava, care schimbase identitatea tatălui meu, Bucureştiul studenţiei şi vieţii mele adulte, Berlinul, start al exilului şi, până la urmă, New Yorkul, unde exilul şi-a găsit încetăţenirea. Un “babel”, am putea spune, în sensul în care dicţionarul limbii engleze defineşte acest mixaj confuz de amintiri şi locuri cu vocile şi vârstele lor. http://www.revista22.ro/capitala-dada-un-roman-la-new-york-1593.html

Imaginile inserate în această pagină fac parte din Colecţia de schiţe de pe National Gallery, Gemini G.E.L. http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/gemini.pl?slide=1&artist=52:
50.1 Two Women, published 1993
50.2 Sphynx, published 1984
50.3 Provincetown, published 1984
50.4 North Dakota, published 1984
50.5 Legs, published 1992
50.6 Rabbit, published 1984
50.7 Gogol I, published 1984
50.8 Gogol II, published 1984
50.9 Gogol IV, published 1984
50.10 Gogol V, published 1984
50.11 Portrait of M, published 1997
50.12 Ten Women, published 1997
50.13 Cedar Bar, published 1997

http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/gemini.pl?slide=1&artist=52

Biblioteca Bucovinei inaugurează zilele acestea o mini-galerie digitală Saul Steinberg şi va găzdui în Galeria Bibliotecii o expoziţie de grafică semnată de Saul Steinberg. Astfel, participanţii la Programul de Lecturi Publice din opera lui Norman Manea, inaugurat pe 3 septembrie la Biblioteca Bucovinei de scriitoarea Angela Furtună şi care va continua şi în lunile următoare, vor putea reconstitui parţial şi atmosfera operei lui Saul Steinberg. Este aceasta o cale pentru ca amintirea lui Saul Steinberg să revină acasă, în ţara natală, România, pe care a fost obligat să o părăsească în vremuri neprietenoase, dar în care este astăzi admirat de oamenii altor timpuri, pline de speranţă.

Interesante galerii internetice Saul Steinberg pot fi vizitate la adresele de mai jos:

Fundaţia Saul Steinberg http://www.saulsteinbergfoundation.org/

ArtCyclopedia http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/steinberg_saul.html

http://books.google.ro/books?id=kFvbn401pocC&dq=saul+steinberg&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=5wdvHbsmI6&sig=kVLHsfEUYB7OZRwEvRam-lZOoMA&hl=ro&ei=6-2kSvr1DZie_gaLlKG-CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11#v=onepage&q=&f=false

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Saul_Steinberg.aspx

Comiccreator http://lambiek.net/artists/s/steinberg_saul.htm

http://www.upenn.edu/ARG/archive/steinberg/steinberg.html

http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Steinberg.html

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Steinberg.html

“La Cluj”, ne semnalează într-o corespondenţă domnul Norman Manea, “sub direcţia distinsei scriitoare Marta Petreu, a apărut un număr întreg al revistei Apostrof dedicat lui Saul Steinberg, care conţine reproducerea integrală a textului “Made in Romania” apărut în The New York Review of Books sub semnătura lui Norman Manea, precum şi alte documente extrem de interesante, printre care fragmente din Jurnalul sorei sale, Lica, scrisori catre Eugen Ionesco etc.”.

Angela Furtună
7 septembrie 2009

Además de su investigación sobre Nabokov, Jeet Heer aborda ahora en Comics Comics la pasión por los cómics del escritor norteamericano John Updike que quiso ser en sus inicios dibujante de Historieta. Fan incondicional de Little Orphan Annie, Updike llegó a escribir una carta laudatoria a Harold Gray. Pero la cosa está lejos de acabar ahí: Milton Canniff, El Capitán Marvel, los funny animals, Spiderman o Saul Steinberg, entre otros, han merecido las opiniones en forma de comentario por escrito del creador de Harry Conejo. Jeet Heer propone que alguien recopile estos textos de Updike en forma de libro ¿Knopf? Por pedir que no sea. Mientras en la galaxia folk se descubre que otro que ha hecho tebeos es Woody Guthrie. Por si alguien me lee, apunto otro a la lista: Sid Vicious.

Via: Comics Comics

During the course of this evening’s conversation between David Mazzucchelli and Dan Nadel, the PictureBox publisher asked the artist what he learned from working in the superhero comic book medium during the 1980s. As you will read, Mazzucchelli believed that working at Marvel and DC taught him the importance of clarity. His appearance at MoCCAwas almost as rare an occurrence as a new Mazzucchelli comic, and it’s easy to understand why he’d prefer to limit his public exposure. Making sure that you’re not misinterpreted–reinforcing that clarity–can be hard work.

It was clear, however, that tonight was an event. MoCCA quickly ran out of chairs and the small gallery space on Broadway was filled with both fans and artists, among them Dash Shaw and Frank Santoro. Sitting at a table and beneath a lousy lighting system, Mazzucchelli responded to Nadel’s questions amid the sketches and pages which make up the exhibition Sounds and Pauses: The Comics of David Mazzucchelli, which runs at MoCCA until August 23. It’s a summer of Dave. His long-awaited graphic novel, Asterios Polyp, was published in the beginning of July.

It’s an extraordinary work, situating a vain architect in exile. After a cataclysm destroys his New York apartment, he jumps on a bus for anywhere. As an priapic academic and self-regarding husband, Polyp is no innocent. Once he settles in a small town, however, he begins to piece a new life together. Dreams situate him in the grand designs of predecessors like Piranesi. Flashbacks show how his marriage to the sculptor Hana–all anxiety and smooth lines to Polyp’s impassive, nail-like form–went awry. In-between, it could be said that Mazzuchelli plays games with color–a predominantly purple line separates into reds and blues–and flirts with both autobiography and art history. It’s not hard to imagine Polyp’s status as an architect whose work only exists on paper as analogous to a cartoonist, or his bemusement at a local punk group reflecting an artist appraising his position vis-a-vis against the underground.

During his interview, Mazzucchelli made frequent reference to his interest in space and the city. He also spent much of his time attempting to give as little away as possible. After the jump are notes which attempt to approximate his answers.

First, Dan Nadel asked him about the visual themes which appear in his work: an interest in landscapes and urban environments. How had his upbringing and movements around the world influenced that?

DM said he grew up in a small city, but that his childhood was spent in an environment not very different from Charles Schulz’s world. Every house had a dog, a doghouse, and the dog slept on the doghouse roof. His interest in man-made spaces came through comic books, especially the work of Kirby and Ditko. These, however, were essentially unrealistic cityscapes. When he was in art school, he began to draw cities himself.

DN: Which made a bigger impression on him–the work of Kirby and Ditko, or the experience of an actual city?

Kirby and Ditko. It was only when he moved to New York and experienced it for himself that he realized a real urban space was not the same as a space created for superheroic activity. Superheroes could never do what they do in real urban space.

DN: How influential was his time studying at the Rhode Island School of Design?

At RISD, he had a brief period of being unsure about pursuing comics as a career. There he concentrated on the elements which would eventually abet his comic book art: figures, spaces, training, albeit in paintings and the like. But during the 1980s, making comic books was frowned upon by RISD. It was considered “slumming.”

DN: So why comics, then?

He had always made them. We can blame his older brother for encouraging his interest. What comics offered him was a chance to not only indulge his love of drawing, but also to tell stories.

DN: What did he learn from superhero comics?

Working on superhero comics taught him about deadlines. Work needs to get done. Because of deadlines, inferior work will be printed. He also learned that the last person who gets their hands on the art determines what it looks like, whether it’s a colorist or an editor. Gradually, DM took steps to assume control over his work. He started as a penciller, then began inking his own work, and even got involved with some color. The old assembly-line model of mainstream comics taught him the division of labor. Paradoxically, DM began to think of comics not as a collaborative medium but a complete work. Once he left the trade, he felt like he had to unlearn the superhero “habits” of lay-out and that approach to drawing. Now, however, he doesn’t think he really need to unlearn that much. Mainstream comics was a great training crowd to perfect storytelling skills. The field is still oriented towards children, hence it’s necessary to emphasize clarity at all times to tell a successful story.

DN: Does he always have an eye on the reader/audience when he’s working? Or does he sometimes do things just for himself?

Comics are a medium of communication. It’s not an “either/or” proposition for him. He needs to enjoy it, but he also thinks about the reader. What he expresses must come across clearly where he wants it to be clear. But he also wants to make comics that he wants to read. That’s the starting point.

DN: While working at Marvel, did he look at other cartoonists? DN made reference to things DM had told him about Sternanko and Toth.

There’s no simple answer to that question. He looks at artists he admires, but can learn something from everybody’s work. He takes away lessons from different sources. “Oh, there’s a good hand.” He tends to lean towards the auteur creators when he wanted to start writing his own stories.

DN: Can he describe what led to the transition into Rubber Blanket?

When he left commercial work, DM didn’t really produce any kind of comics for a year. He needed to rethink what kind of comics did he like. He realized that the comics he had been working on were very different from the movies, novels and art that he loved. He took the time to explore underground and European comics. He started working on short pieces like “Near Miss.” He wanted to work in a different style and work in black and white. Using those two colors forced him into harhs, high contrast artwork. He went back to children’s books and textbooks which used black and white. He spoke about printing black ink as a halftone, although here I lost the thread a little bit. Then DM took a print-making class and learned how printing inks worked together. He wanted to make a magazine where stories could exist in a context that would help give them meeting. He and his wife chose the title Rubber Blanket from a term from offset lithography. A “rubber blanket” is the name given to the rubber coating given to a drum. The coat catches the ink and applies it to the paper. The title said that the “printing process is what this is about.”

DN: What did he learn from self-publishing?

That you had to have strong arms. There’s a lot of carrying stuff around.

DN: What happened to Rubber Blanket after the third issue?

DM noticed that the stories were getting longer and longer. They went from nine pages to 24 pages to 34 pages. He wanted more space and realzied the fourth issue would be one long story. That fourth issue turned into the 300-page Asterios Polyp.

DN gestured to pages from the “Big Man” story behind the podium. Could DM talk about how that came about?

Over several months, DM began drawing a giant figure in his sketchbook. He realized he needed to do a story. “Big Man” was an attempt to make a story with a fable-like structure that was nevertheless invested with emotional content.

DN: There’s a Chester Gould influence in Asterios Polyp, as well as nods to Kirby in “Big Man.” What does he learn from different artists?

DM is always looking to learn from others, but only tried to emulate one artist one time. This was a pastiche of Kirby’s work. (Not “Big Man”.) Drawing this made him feel like a 12-year-old again, although he could feel like he was getting a little closer that time. Then he went back to the Kirby originals and realized how short he had fallen. In his work, however, it’s always the story which dictates the approach rather than the need to tip the nib to a particular artist.

DN: What’s his daily routine?

DM laughed at this point. He said it was a strange question. It depended on what stage he was at. While working on Asterios Polyp, he spent many months of sketching and notetaking. During the mornings he would begin a writing and drawing session that ended when it ended. Work only gets done through the process of daily drawing. DM takes the approach of trying to do a page a day. If he can’t achieve that, he thinks he’s doing it wrong. But DM admitted that this goal, which probably grew out of his days working on mainstream comics, is rarely attained. He thinks the comic medium is nevertheless designed to be that quick. It stems back to the origins of the comic in the gag-a-day newspaper strip. There’s a routine to it. The aesthetics of comics are borne from the deadline.

DN: So how does he approach a 300-page book?

The first question he asked himself was what’s the easiest way to draw this book? But ultimately, “it was done when it was done.”

DN asked DM to expand on the construction of the book, and made reference to how Photoshopping helped him make the book in layers.

DM said that the computer allows him to work quicker in this regard. It eliminates his past need to use white-out or sometimes to snip panels out from the work and redraw. Scanning allows him to draw a good hand next to a bad hand, and then drag it over and replace the offending drawing. Gesturing to the artwork on the walls, he mentioned that you could find many of his fixes in the margins. Then he would drag them onto the work itself. The computer, however, doesn’t change how he designs pages. The computer let’s him tweak, but everything is planned ahead of time.

DN said that the linework in Asterios Polypfeels like a natural evolution, influenced by manga artists and Gould. Could he explain how his linework evolved?

This was probably the most uncomfortable DM got during the evening. He said he didn’t want to talk about it, and mentioned again “I try to allow whatever the story is to dictate the approach taken.” When he was working on superheroes, he strived towards the illusion of solidity. He used the aesthetic of film noir and shadows to make things look solid and emphasize shapes. As his work developed, illusionism became less important. The line to him is a kind of calligraphy. He was also interested in the same hand making the line and the lettering in comics. This influences how he approaches line and “mark-making.”

DN: Film noir was an influence on his adaptation of City of Glass. Was that still seductive?

Ignoring the question (or at least what I thought was the question), Mazzucchelli instead talked about art as the act of creating magic on the page. The page is always flat. But you can create marks five inch apart on that blank page and somehow create the impression of a third dimension. Comic book art can play with our appreciation of three dimensional space. He’s interested in depicting space on the page. This response seemed particularly interesting in regards to Asterios Polyp as an architect, who is also playing with creating a space on the page that then can be realized in real life.

DN turned the questions over to the floor. First up was Frank Santoro, who bellowed from the back that he wanted to know what kind of pen Mazzucchelli used.

DM uses different things. On Asterios Polyp he used calligraphy nibs. Previously he had been associated with the brush, where the thickness of the line was determined with how the artist drew it across the page. The calligraphy pens let him have an unpredictable thick-to-thin line which flattened the image.

Another attendee applauded his depiction of Polyp’s apartment, a view of which becomes a motif throughout the book. Could he talk about how he designs such a space and fills it with telling props?

DM asks himself, “Who lives here? What would this person’s space be like?” He starts with the character and then tries to think of a credible environment.

What kind of narrative models did he have for Asterios Polyp?

Here there was a long pause. DM couldn’t pinpoint a specific example. There were two important things which played into the creation of Asterios Polyp. The first was the decision to break the narrative into short chapters. That allowed him to see the structure of the book. The other breakthrough was the Greek nationality of the character. That allowed him to bring in The Odyssey as a touchstone. The rest of the work became a matter of problem-solving after those two things had been settled on.

His Batman in Year One seemed to have a much more realistic physique than most other superheroes. Why?

When DM was working on the story, Denny O’Neil brought him two giant folders with photocopies of the first years of Detective Comics and Batman. He used those as a visual reference and Bob Kane’s original design was referred to. These first conceptions of Batman seemed highly stylized, at least to him. He turned to his art school training in realism. He wanted to draw “a real looking guy wearing this suit.” His aim was to make it “credible.” For this reason, he tried to depict a man who would be able to climb up the side of a building while still wearing a heavy cape and books boots. However, if given the same assignment today, he would do it differently.

What writers is he influenced by?

DM took this question to mean what were his reading habits. He enjoys the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and another Latin American writer whose name escaped me.

Could he explain the origin of his Japanese pubic hair censor story, “Stop the Hair Nude?”

On his first trip to Japan, DM made friends with a French expat who ran a publishing house. He rented an apartment in Japan. In the post he received a brochure that read “Stop the Hair Nude.” In Japan, the depiction of pubic hair is not allowed. There are censors who usually blur the offending follicles or obscure them completely. However, lately exceptions had slipped through the net and a protest had been engineered to maintain standards. DM’s friend said that he had books sent to him in Japan. When he opened the package, he discovered that someone had scribbled out the pubic hair. These two events provided the inspiration for the story. Later, DM learned that most of the censors responsible for blotting out pubic hair in art, comics and films are actually middle aged women.

What is his favorite color?

He likes them all.

His work exploits the potential of comics and draws on manga, European comics and graphic novels. What are his current itches?

He doesn’t want to comment on what he’s working on now.

He has used black and white for years. Considering he just said he liked them all, does he want to explore color’s potential more?

It’s all about choices. There is more color than you think in Asterios Polyp–including the color of the paper.

Asterios Polyp is a fragile book whose cover is easily marred and which librarians say is hard to wrap in plastic. Why did he design the book the way he is?

It was “the most frustrating package I could come up with,” said DM, to much laughter. He wanted the final product to have a rawness to it.

What visual artists working outside the comics medium speak to him?

Loads. He is interested in artists that depict space, but also those who work in a “flat language” like Leger, Matisse and Picasso. Frida Kahlo. Velasquez. Saul Steinberg. Max Beckmann and Philip Guston were both formative influences in college. There was another artist that I didn’t catch.

At what point does experimentation enter the process of his creation–at the beginning, or is he continuing to experiment even later in the creation of the book?

The experimentation comes early on, not later. “Everything is about appropriateness.” He works out the book’s consistency ahead of time. For example, with Asterios Polyp, he had to settle on each characters lettering fonts and the size of that font before he began drawing or even considering the pictorial content of the book.

How has teaching influenced his approach to comics?

He began teaching in the mid-1990s. This was at a point where he wans’t doing much work “for various reasons.” The first class he taught was a 12-week general course on comics. Devising his syllabus meant he had to break his art down. He needed to determine what it does, how it works. This made him more analytic; he examined the medium from a distance. Stepping back from his art allowed him to consider what he does and doesn’t do. He also finds it interesting to see what solutions the students bring back from the problems he sets. Teaching provides him with a variety of responses to the question of “What’s a new way of solving this problem?”

What has his experience been like working with other writers?

Pretty good. He hasn’t done it much. There’s a lot of discussion and collaboration.

With City of Glass, he worked with Art Spiegelman as art director and Paul Karasik as writer.

This was an interesting collaboration. He realized that Paul Auster’s City of Glasswas not a very visual book. He asked himself “Why is this a good idea?” Then he realized that it was the very metaphysical nature of the book which made it a good idea. The work became an attempt to “visualize these things.” Karasik brought to the work his abstract thinking and visual metaphors. Karasik had a first crack at writing the book and even prepared sketches. An impasse was reached and DM came and helped fix what problems there were. He learned a lot from working with Karasik.

How did working on City of Glass demonstrate the difference between how DM and Paul Karasik think about comics?

This was in 1993, the time when DM was producing more physically grounded works like “Big Man.” Karasik hasn’t done a lot of work that people have seen, but his comics were about ideas. They used diagrams and visual metaphors. DM was picturing something in real space. The two artists met in the middle.

He’s worked with both Jim Shooter and Art Spiegelman. Can he account for his rapid evolution between mainstream and art comics?

It felt more like years …

His progress feels like a shedding of previous baggage, moving from a Gene Colan-inspired Daredevil to a naturalistic Batman …

His collaborators were usually surprised by what he was doing. He was fortunate on that level that they were understanding.

Most graphic novels are serialized first. Did he ever consider serializing Asterios Polyp?

No. It had to appear as a single book.

And that’s your lot. My apologies for any inaccuracies. I’m sure there will be audio and transcript available on other sites in the coming days, but I hope you enjoyed this precis.

Saul Steinberg

\

Girl in Bathtub 1949

Steinberg was born in Râmnicu Sărat, Romania. He studied philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest, then later enrolled at the Politecnico di Milano, studying architecture and graduating in 1940. During his years in Milan he was actively involved in the satirical magazine Bertoldo.

Steinberg left Italy after the introduction of anti-Semitic laws by the Fascist government. He spent a year in the Dominican Republic awaiting a U.S. visa; in the meantime, he submitted his cartoons to foreign publications. In 1942, The New Yorker magazine sponsored his entry into the United States, and thus began Steinberg’s lifelong relationship with this publication. Through well over half a century working with The New Yorker, Steinberg created nearly 90 covers and more than 1,200 drawings.

During World War II, he worked for military intelligence, stationed in China, North Africa, and Italy. After the war’s end, he returned to work for American periodicals, merging an encyclopedic knowledge of European art with the popular American art form of the cartoon, to pioneer a uniquely urbane style of illustration. Although best remembered for his commercial work, Steinberg did exhibit his work throughout his career at fine art museums and galleries. In 1946, Steinberg, along with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, and Robert Motherwell, was exhibited in the critically acclaimed “Fourteen Americans” show at The Museum of Modern Art. He has also enjoyed a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1978) and another posthumous one at the Institute for Modern Art in Valencia (IVAM), Spain (2002).

After Steinberg’s death in 1999, the Saul Steinberg Foundation was established in accordance with the artist’s will. In addition to functioning as Steinberg’s official estate, the Foundation is also a nonprofit organization with a mission “to facilitate the study and appreciation of Saul Steinberg’s contribution to 20th-century art” and to “serve as a resource for the international curatorial-scholarly community as well as the general public.” The Foundation has been instrumental in organizing the Saul Steinberg: Illuminations travelling exhibition, which will display original Steinberg works at various museum and galleries around the world, including Fondation Cartier-Bresson, Paris (May 6-July 27, 2008), Kunsthaus Zürich (August 22-November 2, 2008), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, (November 26, 2008-February 15, 2009) and Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, (March 13-June 1, 2009). The U.S. copyright representative for the Saul Steinberg Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Steinberg

Lately I haven’t been tempted to purchase much of anything, but I’ve been wanting to embellish everything I’ve got already. First up was the clogs, next comes the Subaru.

For example, I wish my tub was as delicious as this one, improved by Saul Steinberg.

Wall Street

Among the economic fields in which Jews today are especially visible is investment banking — “Wall Street,” including interconnected networks of lawyers and other legal and economic manipulators stretching deeply into Hollywood and the mass media. Since the 1800s the “Old Crowd” of German-Jewish banking families (the Seligmans, Lehmans, Goldmans, Sachs, Warburgs, Schiffs, Loebs, et al) had predominated the field; a “New Crowd” of Jews has in recent decades taken their place. After World War II, melodramatically note Judith Ehrlich and Barry Rehfeld, “economic power in America and Wall Street was shifting … Fresh faces came forward as if answering a call … They were the children and grandchildren of Italian, Irish, Poles, and other Europeans who were not of Anglo-Saxon ancestry. But most of all they were Jews.” [EHRLICH, p. 12] This is not to suggest of course that the seminal Jewish American investment firms are today inconsequential. Far from it. In 1999, for instance, Goldman, Sachs and Co. stretched across the world to become the “single largest and controlling shareholder of South Korea’s largest bank, Kookmin. [BLOOMBERG NEWS, p. 11]

“In the world of high finance,” observed Gerald Krefetz, “Jewish interest is concerned with investment banking, a broad catchall for activities ranging from tendering advice to underwriting securities. The heart of investment banking is public offerings and private placements, the risking of capital — sometimes ones’ own, but more often other peoples’ — to finance new companies, or expand old ones.” [KREFETZ, p. 54] The nature of Wall Street entrepreneurship might well be presumed in the title of a 1986 volume by Ken Auletta: Greed and Glory on Wall Street: the Fall of the House of Lehman, or Martin Meyer’s Nightmare on Wall Street: Salomon Brothers and the Corruption of the Marketplace (1993). Both Lehman and Solomon are Jewish-founded firms.

A French Jewish commentator, Bernard Lazare, noted Jewish propensities in high finance in the late 1800s:

“The man of the lower middle class, the small tradesman at whom
speculation has probably ruined has much clearer ideas of why he
is an anti-Semite. He knows that reckless speculation [by financiers],
with its attendant panics, has been his bane, and for him, the most
formidable jugglers of capital, the most dangerous speculators, are the
Jews; which, indeed, is very true.” [LAZARE, B., p. 173]

Finance, investment banking, brokerage, and commodities are the speediest ways (short of outright crime) to get rich in America; by 1988 the stock and bond market and linked economic activities totaled 12 trillion dollars a year (six times the value of the assets of Fortune’s top 500 companies). “Where the money went,” note Ehrlich and Rehfeld, “and what happened to it were greatly influenced by Wall Street power brokers.” [EHRLICH, p. 19] Corporate mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers have become an especially lucrative field. “By the 1980s, says Ehrlich and Rehfeld, “along with [Gentile] T. Boone Pickens, and a few others … the [Jewish] New Crowd was at the very core of the mergers and acquisitions field.” [EHRLICH, p. 15]…. [This circle of money men] bought luxurious homes, expensive art, high-priced foreign cars, designer clothes and jewelry; they hosted or appeared at the right parties.” [EHRLICH, p. 16] … The old WASP establishment had seen its wealth eroded by changing tax laws and inflation … arriviste Jews began to appear on the boards of such time-honored WASP institutions as the Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Public Library.” [EHRLICH, p. 5] … The New Crowd broke the stranglehold of the Establishment WASP bankers and [older Jewish] Our Crowd competitors … and extended profit centers to newer financial activities such as block trading, risk arbitrage, a wide range of retail securities products, financial futures, listed trading of options, and junk bond financing that helped companies expand and made almost every company vulnerable to a takeover, a leveraged buyout that restructured corporate entities and raised critical debt levels.” [EHRLICH, p. 394]

In the 1970s, “hostile turnovers,” notes James Stewart, “bore an unsavory taint. They generated bad feelings, especially toward those who represented the attackers. This sometimes alienated other clients. Much of the WASP investment banks and loan firms preferred to leave such work to the other firms, many of them Jewish.” [STEWART, p. 25] “Various techniques and instruments were used in the Wall Street boom of the 1980s,” says Norman Cantor, “but the most consequential — and lucrative was the floating ‘junk’ (low grade) bond to provide capital for involuntary takeovers of one company by another … Fiscal critic Benjamin Stein [sees] the junk bond device as a huge fraudulent Ponzi scheme generating temporary money pools that could be looted by ruthless investment bankers and corporate executives and their overcompensated lawyers.” [CANTOR, p. 402]

William Leach traces the influence that those in investment banking have had in shaping America, both economically and in influencing the nation’s values:

“The growth of investment banking and mass consumption industries
were (and still are) closely related developments … Bankers assisted in
undermining the competitive ethos by directing business interest toward
concentration and easy economic fixers. They helped local monopolies
become major national ‘players’ almost instantaneously. Banker-inspired
megalomania reinforces an already clear pattern in the economy away from
‘making goods’ to ‘making money.’” [LEACH, p. 275]

There is a long list of Jewish entrepreneurs on Wall Street who, as a group, have been influential in literally changing the American economic system. Sanford I. Weill, for instance, “amassed a brokerage empire and eventually became President of American Express;” he was later “recognized as one of the most powerful Jewish businessmen in the nation.” [EHRLICH, p. 13] John Gutfreund rose to become the chairman of Solomon, Inc., “one of the most powerful securities firms in the western world.” Felix Rohatyn “perhaps more than any other, was linked with the flood of massive corporate combinations that reshaped American business for much of the past three decades.” [EHRLICH, p. 14] Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., valued at around $3.5 billion and with assets of $90 billion, is “one of the biggest closely held U.S. money managers.” It manages $55 billion “for institutions, such as pension funds, endowments and foundations, and $35 billion for wealthy individuals.” [BLOOMBERG NEWS, INTL HERALD, p. 10]

Other influential Jewish Wall Street ‘players’ (financiers, lenders, borrowers, advisers, lawyers, et al) in recent years have included Alan Greenberg, Ira Harris, Bruce Wasserstein, Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, Peter Cohen, Joseph Flom, Martin Lipton, Victor Posner (“a onetime Baltimore slumlord” [FORBES, p. 45] who was indicted in 1982 for $1.25 million in income tax evasion and filing false tax returns [BRENNER, p. 72]), [Posner is "the flamboyantly wealthy Miami Beach financier [who has] been discredited as one of the most unprincipled and destructive modern corporate raiders.” [BIANCO, A., 1991, p. 31], Nelson Peltz, the Belzbergs, and many others. Alan Greenberg is the head of Bear Stearns, Stephen Schwarzman founded the Blackstone Group, a prominent investing firm. Well-known traditional Jewish investment banking houses include Lehman Brothers, Lazard Freres, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers, Bache & Co., and Cantor/Fitzgerald. [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 78-79] “Jews took the lead in the ’60s,” notes Jewish business author Steven Silbiger, “with new investment banking techniques that helped introduce a conglomeration craze by using multipurpose holding companies … The concentration of Jewish-owned securities firms created well-paying employment opportunities at all levels of the securities industry: securities analysts; portfolio managers; and stock, bond and futures traders; brokers and deal-makers. Among the equity holders of the Jewish investment banking and trading firms on Wall Street are hundreds of Jewish millionaires. Upward mobility based on merit and high salaries has made working on Wall Street a Jewish-friendly career choice … Although exact figures for the numbers of Jews are not available, they no doubt have a leading and disproportionate role on Wall Street.” [SILBIGER, S., 2000, p. 78-80]

Full Article

EXHIBITION – artist: Saul Steinberg, location: Adam Baumgold Gallery New York, date: 09.01.09 / current exhibitions at: Adam Baumgold Gallery New York 2008. Artistinformation and biography-text from: Saul Steinberg Adam Baumgold Gallery New York CATEGORY: art, modern art, projects: TEXTPORTRAITS Saul Steinberg by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer and Laura May. More information about Saul Steinberg Exhibition Adam Baumgold Gallery New York, United States.

New entries: actual 0

Barack Obama / Portrait (TEXTPORTRAIT).

textportraits by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

AKTUELLE AUSSTELLUNG: Adam Baumgold Gallery New York; Künstler: Saul Steinberg; Betitelung: Works from the 50’s – 80’s – Zeitraum der Ausstellung: 09.01.09. Kunstausstellungen (USA) aktuell: Adam Baumgold Gallery New York (2008). Weitere Informationen über: Saul Steinberg: Biografie/Biography — | Galerieninformationen/Gallery: Saul Steinberg — Weitere geplante Ausstellungen: Adam Baumgold Gallery New York von Saul Steinberg — Saul Steinberg Kunstportal: Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org). Mehr aktuelle Informationen über Saul Steinberg Adam Baumgold Gallery New York.

Beitragsforum Kunst & Kultur allgemein:

Textportrait: Barack Obama.

Textportraits – Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Me

Because I know everyone hates the kind of blogs where they, apocryphally, “tell you what they ate for breakfast”, I will proceed to give you a little guided tour of my life. It is kind of like the drawing above, but not as good. (I had toast for breakfast. There’s a surprise.)

In the past several days I have:

seen the Francis Bacon exhibition at Tate Britain (on which more later maybe) (a bit overwhelming; I had to sit down on a bench at one point and felt as if I had been pinned there by Bacon himself) (no kindness there, as someone said)
bought a book called Francis Bacon in the Fifties
rejoined the Tate, & about time too
got a good price on four lovely boxed Folio Society Shakespeares
discovered a great French deli in Lower Marsh, called Le Café Traitteur, full of fatty roasted duck legs & pots of paté (which I did not eat)
got the archive boxes
cooked a slap-up meal to a recipe by Elizabeth David: Toulouse sausages in cider, and the secret is the bay leaves: best if you have a tree really
been cheered by a roomful of people reading a wonderful play
eaten a lot (of Toulouse sausages and haricot beans)
drunk quite a lot (of tea, coffee, wine, water, diet Coke)
sorted out quite a lot about my upcoming virtual book tour to promote Me and the Dead, coming up, details very soon – I’m going to be guesting at a really exciting line-up of websites
emailed the web guy (hi Mark)
seen the Saul Steinberg exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and let me tell you! you should get down there tout de suite
thought a lot, but clearly not within the little square in which I am currently typing
slept not quite enough
thought of one really great pun, but you had to be there
not written (anything much)
not read anything (much) (not even about Francis Bacon, or by Shakespeare, or by Sir Francis Bacon instead of Shakespeare, or even eaten any bacon)
not watched anything
cleaned the kitchen
coffee
heavy bags
Morrisons
more heavy bags
filled the archive boxes, but I need more, bigger, more
filled the pepper mill
is that enough?

Strangely I think I remember a couple of conversations which I think might not be conversations, but dreams instead. I have these weird, vague impressions of things people have said and I can’t remember if they were real. Dear me.

Strangely, my virtual book tour has a title: “A conversations about dreams…”

Tomorrow: crack on. And now I’m going to bed. Book, or movie? The lady, or the tiger? Or a Steinberg crocodile?

“For more than 50 years, Saul Steinberg was the New Yorker’s nonpareil sketcher, observer, spy and – though he would have thought the word dingy and depressing – its chief cartoonist, too. (He found the word depressing because, like “humorist”, it cast too wide a net.) But then he disliked being called an artist, too, since it called to his mind the salon-swindle of “exciting” objects and collectors’ manias.”

Saul and the city.

Saul Steinberg: Illuminations.

«The cat is trying to open the door on the hinges side. I laugh, then I see I make the same mistake, with people, ideas, and doors too.» Saul Steinberg, 24 august 1994. From Lettere a Aldo Buzzi, Adelphi, 2002.

You’ve been trying to explain this feeling for a lifetime. Then you find out that Steinberg already knew about it, and told it like this. Thanks.

(I always wished I could share this wonderful book, Lettere a Aldo Buzzi, with my friends who don’t speak Italian. It’s impossible to keep the quality of Steinberg’s Italian, partly invented, and mixed up with English, French and Romanian. But I’m quite sure that this fragment can survive in translation.)

Saul Steinberg (1914 – 1999) artiste, dessinateur de presse et illustrateur américain. En 1933, il étudie la philosophie à l’université de Bucarest avant de s’inscrire au Reggio Politecnico de Milan, où il obtient en 1940 son diplôme d’architecture.

En Italie, il publie des dessins satiriques dans la revue “Bertoldo”. Son travail parait également dans “Life” et “Harper’s Bazaar”.

Il émigre aux Etats-Unis, pour fuir les lois antisémites italiennes. C’est là que, dès 1941, débutera sa collaboration avec le “New Yorker”, qui durera près de soixante ans (90 couvertures du magazine, 635 schémas…).

Portrait de Saul Steinberg

Photographie de Denise Colomb reproduite dans “Portraits d’Artistes, Années 50-60″
Denise Colomb, Paris Studio 606, 1986

Sa première exposition personnelle se tient à la galerie Wakefield en 1943 à New-York.

Trois ans plus tard, il figure parmi les quatorze Américains à être exposés au Musée d’Art Moderne de New-York en compagnie d’Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, ou Robert Motherwell. Son travail est exposé plusieurs fois à la galerie Maeght, à Paris.

Récemment, une très jolie exposition de son travail a eu lieu, du 6 mai au 27 juillet 2008, à la Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson à Paris.

"Umgang mit Menschen", Saul Steinberg - Rowohlt Verlag, 1963 (Edition allemande de "All in Line" 1945 et "The art of living" 1949)

"All in line", Saul Steinberg, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, New-York, 1945

"Il Labirinto", Saul Steinberg, Feltrinelli Editore Milan, 1961 (Edition italienne de "The Labyrinth")

"The Passport", Saul Steinberg, Hamish Hamilton London, 1955

Vous pouvez consulter le site officiel de la Fondation Saul Steinberg: http://www.saulsteinbergfoundation.org/