tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38494542744262746132024-03-15T19:09:50.627-06:00ART IN LIFECyndi Conn's blog addresses contemporary issues, experiences, exhibitions, and other stray thoughts that circle back to the art world - one way or another.Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-49423053413947946162013-07-15T16:13:00.003-06:002013-07-15T16:41:02.155-06:00CULTURAL BAGGAGE<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Revision>0</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>957</o:Words>
<o:Characters>5460</o:Characters>
<o:Company>Center for Contemporary Arts</o:Company>
<o:Lines>45</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>12</o:Paragraphs>
<o:CharactersWithSpaces>6405</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
<o:Version>14.0</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Revision>0</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>1001</o:Words>
<o:Characters>5707</o:Characters>
<o:Company>Center for Contemporary Arts</o:Company>
<o:Lines>47</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>13</o:Paragraphs>
<o:CharactersWithSpaces>6695</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
<o:Version>14.0</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-language:JA;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I have been following Jay-Z’s recent
“performance piece” at Pace Gallery in conjunction with the release of his new
album </span><i style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Magna Carta…Holy Grail</i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">. The event
was a video shoot for the song “Picasso Baby” that is featured on the new album.
Internationally celebrated performance artist Marina Abramović also took part
in this project. Abramović’ has been described as “exploring the physical and
mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion, and danger in
the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation.” Her work is extraordinary
and she truly is one of the most important and iconic performance artists
living today.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbaDwEpgQh5o8s0cCin9gi4qNO3JswJOw-JMPJHltytrnRlqcuyXWy4qBgQQ9sNtyBe2T0TlmhNtlPbtLY0UYSPJheOen_xpAk-pTwZOWOxwMh4zBRIJyPtFZU8V-uKhQesBOf8yscOqc/s1600/jayz-pace-gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbaDwEpgQh5o8s0cCin9gi4qNO3JswJOw-JMPJHltytrnRlqcuyXWy4qBgQQ9sNtyBe2T0TlmhNtlPbtLY0UYSPJheOen_xpAk-pTwZOWOxwMh4zBRIJyPtFZU8V-uKhQesBOf8yscOqc/s320/jayz-pace-gallery.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jay-Z’s lyrics are appalling and the performance itself was laughably awkward
and ridiculous. I reposted an article by Bob Duggan on Big Think’s
website “Did Jay-Z Just Kill Performance Art?” in which he quips that “Jay-Z’s
foray into the art world reminds me of Andy Warhol’s 1985 guest appearance on
The Love Boat.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly after posting the article I
received a comment from a thoughtful friend not directly affiliated with the art world:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;">Art and culture are inextricable, so as much as a bruise on the art as
Jay-Z's behavior is from a purist perspective ... it is a real bruise that
should also be honored or observed for what it is... Does that make any sense
from a non-art person?</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I started to write her a response on
Facebook, and then realized that I needed to write more about the issue, and
make it clear what specifically I am objecting to when I criticize this
“performance” piece. I am and have been throughout my career deeply supportive
of new forms of art, installation, and performance work. My Master’s Thesis was
based on this concept. To quote myself on this topic:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When initially presented, new forms of art and installation can incite
hostility and derision among art patrons, critics, and general audiences. New paradigms are unsettling and artistic
breakthroughs can threaten belief systems people hold dear to their
understanding of the art world and how it functions. Some of the most
distinguished and iconic artists in modern history have found notoriety and
recognition through years, even decades, of slowly evolving acceptance into the
cultural mainstream. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i><span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once labeled charlatans heralding a clear decline in culture, such eminent
artists as Theodore Gericault, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Marcel Duchamp
incited public fury and scathing criticism in their respective eras for the
ground-breaking work they produced. By challenging the conventions of how art
is supposed to look and function, artists operating outside that norm encounter
a public largely unprepared and unwilling to accept their permutations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I do not think that Jay-Z’s performance
with Abramović is a mind bending artistic breakthrough and I do not believe
he is the art world’s next Pablo Picasso (though he believes it to be true, see lyrics below). I am not troubled by the fact that a rapper
and performance artist held court at Pace Gallery because they are both wealthy
and famous and can make that happen. It’s also another example of a trend of
interesting crossovers between art and pop culture (think Wei Wei and Anish
Kapoor recently doing renditions of rapper Psy’s “Gangnam Style”).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After giving it more thought following
the Facebook post, the real issue is Picasso Baby’s lyrics. Women and art are brutishly
debased and denigrated for the sake of Jay-Z’s ego and hunger for power, wealth,
and status. The following are just a <u>few</u> choice lines from a lengthy and
painfully descriptive song.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wanna
Rothko, no, I wanna brothel<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, I want a
wife that fuck me like a prostitute<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a dirty
hotel with the fan on the ceiling<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All for the
love of drug dealing<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marble
Floors, gold Ceilings<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, what a
feeling, fuck it, I want a billion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jeff Koons
balloons, I just wanna blow up<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Condos in my
condos, I wanna row of<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christie's
with my missy, live at the MoMA<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">See me
throning at the Met<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vogueing on
these niggas, champagne on my breath, yes<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">House like
the Louvre or the Tate Modern<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because I be
going ape at the auction<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh what a
feeling, aw, fuck it, I want a trillion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sleeping
every night next to Mona Lisa<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The modern
day version with better features<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yellow
Basquiat in my kitchen corner<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Go ahead
lean on that shit Blue, you own it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For you to
see, I'm the modern day Pablo, Picasso baby<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The acquisition of art has been
an indicator of wealth, culture and power for centuries. That has positive and
negative ramifications, but the fact that Jay-Z wants loads of famous paintings
to line his walls is neither shocking nor destructive. The combination,
however, of violence, misogyny, and disregard for the works themselves
(encouraging his daughter to “lean on that shit because you own it” referencing
a painting by Jean-Michele Basquiat) is idiotic and dishonorable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a <i>New
Yorker</i> article by Emma Allen, Jay-Z’s art advisor states that “he’s
thinking about his relationship to art and to how you want one thing and then
you want the next thing and then it comes all the way back around; now he has a
family and how he passes on the cultural baggage.” In the same article Abramović
said “I love his music, because it’s social issues, it’s political, and really
goes to everybody’s heart. It’s so good. It’s like a volcano.” </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGd90mLPlbDfm-I_SwFVaLae60fiu5ojKROtGR5rUBQBoTsDaEnJQCb5b0mC5mB36l-abpaVIKGdsil7Rs5qgkKkpm82ja5d0o2ghFEvJjkLs3cFDky0WefS7gQ9eTfMFCH4eaBGBMNe8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-15+at+3.55.28+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGd90mLPlbDfm-I_SwFVaLae60fiu5ojKROtGR5rUBQBoTsDaEnJQCb5b0mC5mB36l-abpaVIKGdsil7Rs5qgkKkpm82ja5d0o2ghFEvJjkLs3cFDky0WefS7gQ9eTfMFCH4eaBGBMNe8/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-15+at+3.55.28+PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Alanna Heiss, my confusion mounts</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In a bizarre twist of personal fate, I discovered that Alanna Heiss was an active participant in this project. Founder of MoMA's P.S.1 and Art on Air, Heiss is one of the three women that comprise my thesis (quoted above). I spent days interviewing her, and endlessly admire her intrepid career and fearless ways. I find myself caught in a strange conundrum. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So Jay-Z’s lyrics are irony and satire. He is
essentially the Stephen Colbert of the rap world. He is so revolutionary and paradigm
shifting that I actually missed the profound and complex relationship to the
art world and the strategic method by which he passes his cultural baggage to
his daughter by telling her to “lean on that shit.” These lyrics go straight to everybody’s
heart. No, I am still not buying it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #262626; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bob Duggan gives Jay-Z entirely too much credit to be the herald of the death of performance art. I do, however, still agree with his underlying message that I posted this morning.
“Assuming that she’s heard the lyrics, it saddens me that Marina
Abramović’s cooperated with “Picasso Baby” after all she’s done for women in
art. More than anything else, it’s Jay-Z’s lyrics’ misogyny and disrespect for
art itself that will kill performance art purely by association.”</span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-24112465706344211132012-05-29T11:48:00.000-06:002012-05-30T15:27:01.589-06:0029 May - Space + Grit in Montreal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Last week I attended the first C2-MTL conference in Montreal, Quebec. The conference organizers created a distinctive event to explore the relationship between commerce and creativity through non-traditional experiences including talks by leaders across the globe, special exhibitions, presentations, and collaborative events.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0wFB7XkwL1hNjFVk5OH2kej6vRo3ttQLmJIMYO5WXJVvXrC_BiHFq3uPpRCJeRtYEyC5tlMjnqxXFRLiHK7zP64i85bsj6JFRdINlBxgvXSfWK9x_T-ULDtNQ2wF4_zvCLthwAHwfFM/s1600/c2mtl-village-640x320.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0wFB7XkwL1hNjFVk5OH2kej6vRo3ttQLmJIMYO5WXJVvXrC_BiHFq3uPpRCJeRtYEyC5tlMjnqxXFRLiHK7zP64i85bsj6JFRdINlBxgvXSfWK9x_T-ULDtNQ2wF4_zvCLthwAHwfFM/s320/c2mtl-village-640x320.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A temporary “Innovation Village” was constructed in a district of Montreal currently undergoing significant renovation and gentrification. The Innovation Village consisted of a large temporary structure housing chic bars, seating areas for discussion and workshops, interactive installations, and themed lounge areas curated by local Montreal artists and designers. The temporary space opened to a central outdoor courtyard populated with food trucks, pop-up cafes, lounge tables and chairs, and ongoing art projects.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">New City Gas</em> complex was located directly across the courtyard, a stately nineteenth century brick edifice that once provided light for the entire city of Montreal. As the conference organizers described, “C2-MTL is transforming this industrial heritage building and its surroundings into a hub of creativity. From networking plazas, brainstorming zones and collective worktables to intimate conversation rooms and exclusive content lounges, each space is designed to evoke collaboration and ignite creativity.” <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">New Gas City</em> was inaugurated as a new concert venue for the city of Montreal at the week’s end.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The conference featured a stunning roster of speakers for the three-day event including internationally renowned architects, filmmakers, business magnets, neuroscientists, and producers Jonah Lehrer, Arianna Huffington, Francis Ford Coppola, Rex Jung, Michael Eisner, architect Winy Maas, Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Director, Dreamworks), Patrick Pichette (CFO, Google), Daniel Lamarre (CEO, Cirque du Soliel), Robert Safian (Editor, Fast Company). Lectures ranged in subject such as “The Eureka Moment: How do New Ideas Take Form?” to “What’s Next: How can design and architecture contribute to solve global challenges” to “The Perfect Day: What inspires and defines the perfect day?” About halfway through the second day, disparate talks on a wide array of topics began to interlace into a handful of distinctly recurring themes.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One topic that surfaced in nearly every talk is the importance of making time each day to engage in activities that upon first glance appear “unproductive.” Lecturers emphasized again and again that breaking from the intensity and concentration of the work environment can foster seemingly stray thoughts and random connections. Invariably it is during these moments new insights and breakthroughs arise. Neuroscientists Rex Jung and Jonah Lehrer each discussed that the human brain –specifically the frontal cortex – must get out of its own way to resolve strenuous intellectual challenges. The only way to find new solutions is to explore our worlds and ideas with fresh eyes.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In Lehrer’s words (quoted from his new book <span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;" style="line-height: 1.5; text-decoration: underline;">Imagine: How Creativity Works</span>) “Why is a relaxed state of mind so important for creative insights? When our minds are at ease… we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere. In contrast, when we are diligently focused, our attention tends to be directed outward, toward the details of the problems we’re trying to solve. While this pattern of attention is necessary when solving problems analytically, it actually prevents us from detecting the connections that lead to insights”(31). Traditional logic dictates that if we simply remain focused at our desks for a few hours longer, extend our meetings until we come to a resolution, focus more intently on the problem at hand we will muscle our way to an epiphany. Neuroscience and the experience of creative leaders across the globe strongly assert otherwise - in the words of Albert Einstein “creativity is the residue of wasted time.”</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJF5l2wSqi1EcWb894ZxMdge4GrEXUeds6wNggXbqjuzRKyfAdy2hfiOg01V5N7d7BeV2b-ygak4W39E53Cb-NhKpzFcy48MsLGfF1UjM9fM2Bhr6lLbg275UQBzdhQ7X3DsriWFiEFA/s1600/googleplex-mountain-view-california-1242979177_full550.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYJF5l2wSqi1EcWb894ZxMdge4GrEXUeds6wNggXbqjuzRKyfAdy2hfiOg01V5N7d7BeV2b-ygak4W39E53Cb-NhKpzFcy48MsLGfF1UjM9fM2Bhr6lLbg275UQBzdhQ7X3DsriWFiEFA/s320/googleplex-mountain-view-california-1242979177_full550.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google, described in his talk that Google’s campus in the Silicon Valley is outfitted with long walking and biking paths, ping pong tables, laundry machines, lounges, bars, and gyms. He described their policy of Innovation Time Off, in which employees are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something that interests them personally. This policy has given rise to such innovations within Google as Gmail, Adsense, and the most energy efficient bus system in the country.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Arianna Huffington used her time on stage to introduce her new app, <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">GPS for the Soul</em> (soon to be downloadable from the Huffington Post site). This app utilizes music, images, quotes and a heart rate monitor to slow us down, give us iPhone Zen moments (the irony of the concept is not lost on her). Citing Roman philosopher Plotinus’ notion that “knowledge has three degrees -- opinion, science, illumination" Huffington described that the hyper-connectivity of our information society makes access to opinion and science abundantly easy to come by “but has also taken us further away from that illumination, or wisdom, or intuition, or whatever you want to call it that is so essential to living a fulfilling and meaningful life.” <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">GPS For the Soul</em> is a meditative tool to create space for relaxation and inspiration, a dedicated moment to unwind and daydream in an otherwise information and speed-saturated life.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Once that “aha” moment arises and the epiphany is clear, what does it then take to make the leap from idea to implementation? A second clear thread among all of the speakers in Montreal is the importance of passion and tenacity in pursuing an idea even in the darkest hours of doubt, ridicule, frustration, dead ends, and even repeated failure. Jonah Lehrer calls it “grit.” To use the famous Thomas Edison line, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is the dark underbelly of the creative process and one often glazed over when stories of innovation and success are recounted. The blockbuster movie that forever changed the industry, the invention of the light bulb, an innovation in social media that forever alters the way we interact. Yet over and over each presenter at the conference discussed the critical importance of failure. It is no coincidence that among the inspiring mottos of many of the world’s most successful and creative companies including Pixar, Google, 3M, and Apple include such concepts as “Fail Faster” and “Be Wrong as Fast as we Can.”</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Peter Sims of Fast Company stated in an interview that, “finding ways to fail quickly, to invest less emotion and less time in any particular idea or prototype or piece of work, is a consistent feature of the work methods of successful creators. Despite the myths, it's hard work.” Maybe the most apt description for the delicate balance between creating the space to dream and play and having the tenacity and grit to relentlessly pursue your idea can be summarized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance.”</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrYA0gmH47OdGar2-V50tjfBWMnMHlyUxEAgkVQpduNX2ytan6LoO2QuL7xHRPanVnCur0LfbfbB3Abp8Bq78aY2ZpZ3tdALn_5tgDlhFBTWS9CZlaGXVjrpoSocAs4aV-VvArZ1WdyI/s1600/b3356388da2a8c776f7b7464608917e6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrYA0gmH47OdGar2-V50tjfBWMnMHlyUxEAgkVQpduNX2ytan6LoO2QuL7xHRPanVnCur0LfbfbB3Abp8Bq78aY2ZpZ3tdALn_5tgDlhFBTWS9CZlaGXVjrpoSocAs4aV-VvArZ1WdyI/s200/b3356388da2a8c776f7b7464608917e6.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Photo via Grazia Magazine</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Francis Ford Coppola described his infamous years of failure, debt, and universal skepticism while filming <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Apocalypse Now</em>. He faced bankruptcy, chaos, studio pressure to quit, and an actor’s heart attack on set. <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Apocalypse Now</em> is considered one of the most important and innovative films in the history of film making. In Coppola’s words, "the things you get fired for when you are young win you lifetime achievement awards later in life. Keep an eye out for anything that rubs you the wrong way and stick with it. If it seems wrong to everyone else at the time it is probably right."</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Highlighting just two of the multitudes of fascinating and though provoking themes of the conference, there is no question that the C2-MTL conference was an enormously successful and inspiring event. The conference was curated and designed by an organization called SID Lee. Their mission is to help companies recognize and unleash the commercial potential of creativity and boasts an international roster of clients including Adidas, Dell, Cirque du Soleil, MGM Mirage, and Red Bull.</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The atmosphere of C2-MTL was small part business conference and large part late-night dance club. Strobe and LCD lights blazed reds, blues, oranges, and pinks throughout the village. Live DJ’s and musicians started at 9:00 each morning and extremely loud techno music reverberated across the highly stylized, dark, and frequently hazy (I never saw a fog machine but they had to have been running nonstop) sitting areas, cafes, lounges, and exhibition venues. Each speaker was announced like the start of a monster truck rally, which proved as disorienting to the speakers as the audience (Arianna Huffington nearly jumped out of her skin after a serene and meditative talk when the monster truck MC wrapped up her talk with searching strobe lights and bumping bass from the live DJs onstage).</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYh9H1-wj768TRS3iZZaMm06-SPvOKQoF9c4rx2P1HqMT-e5tDDKqH4CuF9vGNXv4n-59Cwehr29oQu2JYkDjIFbEwSdbPDSPpc9vrCXiTww0KHGIhlG2ou8gHwzZvpflZR30bhpT7Vg/s1600/IMG_2621.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuYh9H1-wj768TRS3iZZaMm06-SPvOKQoF9c4rx2P1HqMT-e5tDDKqH4CuF9vGNXv4n-59Cwehr29oQu2JYkDjIFbEwSdbPDSPpc9vrCXiTww0KHGIhlG2ou8gHwzZvpflZR30bhpT7Vg/s320/IMG_2621.JPG" width="230" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On the opening night of the conference, Montreal-based performance troupe Cirque du Soleil performed in the courtyard of the Innovation Village. An opera singer on a 30-foot rise sang before the backdrop of the New Gas City building. It was gorgeous, inspiring, and utilized the history of a 19<sup style="bottom: 1ex; font-size: 10px; height: 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">th</sup> century Montreal edifice and the internationally acclaimed talent of a homegrown organization. The evening was a shining example that C2-MTL can inspire collaboration and ignite creativity by focusing on Montreal’s distinctive cultural legacy. I hope that next year’s conference becomes more opening night and less clubby darkness, DJ, and fog machine. As conference speaker Jonah Lehrer described, “scientists speculate that any open, sunny space can lead to increased creativity. Architecture has real cognitive consequences.”</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For more information on the conference: http://c2mtl.com/</span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-73994208327790840832012-01-26T08:23:00.012-07:002012-01-27T10:28:09.776-07:0026 Jan - Phenomenal in Southern California<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdHKJSrT0HLElaQEFDg2guS4M61RMYIchyAvgkeOPc5KcmrPLStNwSMAQHpKvnylIBHgKs1IHHt3yUYUabgOb8NE6N2kogOKVyqI7EUlkOqiXZ5Vt_pOKj5wNaIb4o8SEYXyBAb6B73o/s1600/DG1_0528.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdHKJSrT0HLElaQEFDg2guS4M61RMYIchyAvgkeOPc5KcmrPLStNwSMAQHpKvnylIBHgKs1IHHt3yUYUabgOb8NE6N2kogOKVyqI7EUlkOqiXZ5Vt_pOKj5wNaIb4o8SEYXyBAb6B73o/s1600/DG1_0528.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9jLucT2kWov9EgyBhwITtxJ4bDbiVLBg4uffhxzShY4skyrPHtODiphI5EORBKMJ6WatYviR0uEljpI2Uu1BiwopNdVxinGIq-DqY8bXBBdmWY8FsjO5TOVq3-TSCvCQXFJO2E3LeKk/s1600/IMG_2397.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9jLucT2kWov9EgyBhwITtxJ4bDbiVLBg4uffhxzShY4skyrPHtODiphI5EORBKMJ6WatYviR0uEljpI2Uu1BiwopNdVxinGIq-DqY8bXBBdmWY8FsjO5TOVq3-TSCvCQXFJO2E3LeKk/s1600/IMG_2397.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSRPHpNJ4CRazWaFiSh-2lvYZCv3ptImdU5qm35Zpva72ZTKepnP1RSL1OqYzejkkOlo5Va0dWF6SuGoeRvGBjiQ-eW7g624EZSOubDFt_yagfSyvGw6wwEbCl3G6RiP2ZEWwsZYeGmA/s1600/384.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; display: inline !important; line-height: 15pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSRPHpNJ4CRazWaFiSh-2lvYZCv3ptImdU5qm35Zpva72ZTKepnP1RSL1OqYzejkkOlo5Va0dWF6SuGoeRvGBjiQ-eW7g624EZSOubDFt_yagfSyvGw6wwEbCl3G6RiP2ZEWwsZYeGmA/s1600/384.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 11.25pt;"></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">Last week I was in Southern California for the final week of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;"> at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and La Jolla. The three-venue exhibition was part of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">Pacific Standard Time </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">(</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">PST</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15pt;">), the six-month visual art extravaganza that is now the largest cultural collaboration in the history of the region.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">The project’s mission is to commemorate the dynamic history of art in Los Angeles from the 1940’s through the 1970s. In the words of Deborah Marrow, Director of the Getty Foundation and one of the mastermind’s behind the project, “through <i>Pacific Standard Time</i>, the region’s enormously creative history has been preserved and re-examined, narrative by narrative. Now, for the first time, the full story of the genesis of the Los Angeles art scene is finally available to the public at exhibitions throughout Southern California.”</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">I repeatedly heard that of the 185 exhibitions (and counting) in the region, <i>Phenomenal </i>was the one not to miss. The exhibition explored the preoccupation among a handful of Los Angeles artists the 1960’s – 70’s of light and sensory phenomena as artistic medium. These artists, sometimes described as the Light and Space movement, created paintings, installations, sculptures, and atmospheres to shift and exceed the viewer’s capacity to experience and perceive art through basic manipulations of light and space. As described by Christopher Knight for the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> “whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or by playing with light through the use of transparent, translucent or reflective materials, these artists each made the visitor’s experience of light and other sensory phenomena under specific conditions the focus of their work.”</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Phenomenal</span></i><span style="text-decoration: none;"> featured 56 works by 13 artists: Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Ron Cooper, Mary Corse, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, Bruce Nauman, Eric Orr, Helen Pashgian, James Turrell, De Wain Valentine and Douglas Wheeler. The impact of the exhibition outstripped all of my expectations and reinforced my conviction that art can profoundly inform and expand the way we see and process the world. </span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">One of the most important aspects of <i>Phenomenal</i> is the time it requires to literally see and then experience the impact of the works in the show. Upon first blush, many of these works appear to be an empty canvas, a room with nothing inside. In Irwin’s biography </span><u>Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees</u><span style="text-decoration: none;">, Lawrence Wescheler describes witnessing a couple literally "not see" one of Irwin's 7-foot dot paintings hanging in a museum. Standing with the work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Weschler describes that "a couple walked into the room. The young woman, gesturing with a sweep of her arm, sighed in mock exasperation 'See, this is what I mean.' Her friend smiled knowingly... and the two moved quickly on. They had literally not seen a thing - one does not, one cannot in that amount of time. She was just sick and tired of having museum walls cluttered with empty white canvases."</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Experiencing these works requires the patience of time and attention, the leap-of-faith conviction that experiencing an “empty white canvas” might actually be worthwhile. And the works do unfold. With time and patience entire rooms, materials, light, and color that were literally invisible upon first glimpse are revealed - visual assumptions are shattered. In the words of Christopher Knight for the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>, “the eye opens, the buzzing mind lets go. A spectator arrives at a perceptual base point. As your body begins to feel the space it occupies, the rational brain shuts off. The effect is sensuous and exciting.” Or perhaps more aptly, in Irwin’s words, "at the very best, a few people will walk in and it will change their lives.”</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Dramatic though that statement may sound, Weschler describes that this level of visual engagement turns our perception inward and facilitates a heightened awareness or our own ability to perceive. "Engaging the picture, we in turn engage the wonder of our own perceptual facilities. As in so much of Irwin's later work, for a few moments, we perceive ourselves perceiving." It is within that fresh perceptual space that we are able to see nuances, ask new questions, and make room for new opportunities.</span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; mso-line-height-alt: 15.0pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The impact of <i>Pacific Standard Time</i> upon Southern California has also created an opportunity for profound shifts in assumptions and perspectives.<i> PST </i>created a new paradigm in large-scale collaboration. The project successfully fostered a sense of place and time through community consensus and the shared direction of powerful non-profit leaders in the region. In a time when so many non-profits dread collaboration and are loathe to share resources, <i>Pacific Standard Time</i> serves as a wake up call that a broader impact can result from a unified long-term community vision and a thoughtful and strategic combination of forces. Janet Lamkin, California State President of Bank of America, described the long-term impact of this project is that it “will bring together people of every neighborhood and background, and involve virtually all of this region’s arts institutions….(and) contributes to a climate where innovation flourishes, economies grow, and people, business and communities thrive.”</span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; text-decoration: none;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-8143651470989261532011-12-05T20:38:00.001-07:002011-12-07T15:59:52.294-07:005 Dec - Art Basel Miami Beach<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimmvOxyDbaZuwTCNFoSLpe0IvY64UtFoZuIb7i3ru7jTFq-3nOJ-c60t39I9c2HzRb3mTLml9rkcXQW4Toy5sAqYN3n62VCd4fH1dskErSnfy4f3G4EWW5RDPWPnmZWTJAuAL3Ff6tjg/s1600/Art%252520Basel%252520Miami%252520-12-4-08%252520.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjimmvOxyDbaZuwTCNFoSLpe0IvY64UtFoZuIb7i3ru7jTFq-3nOJ-c60t39I9c2HzRb3mTLml9rkcXQW4Toy5sAqYN3n62VCd4fH1dskErSnfy4f3G4EWW5RDPWPnmZWTJAuAL3Ff6tjg/s1600/Art%252520Basel%252520Miami%252520-12-4-08%252520.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgolox8IWJYCb6EX675N3UK76SD0-UPrD9YyzgLGpn91eLZ1O4QnqlmexoHc3m0A8QqRcbwJ5COzYJXlsd_DJ3SPqkLIJ4rF02D1dq168rkMS8837-3qZEdoGyr7KmksG6Z0s5afWcFd7A/s1600/Art%252BBasel%252BMiami%252BBeach%252BShowcases%252BWork%252BOver%252B49XSf9GfdHrl.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgolox8IWJYCb6EX675N3UK76SD0-UPrD9YyzgLGpn91eLZ1O4QnqlmexoHc3m0A8QqRcbwJ5COzYJXlsd_DJ3SPqkLIJ4rF02D1dq168rkMS8837-3qZEdoGyr7KmksG6Z0s5afWcFd7A/s1600/Art%252BBasel%252BMiami%252BBeach%252BShowcases%252BWork%252BOver%252B49XSf9GfdHrl.jpeg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span id="goog_1894692647"></span><span id="goog_1894692648"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;">Last week was the 10</span><sup style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;">th</sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> anniversary of </span><i style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Art Basel Miami Beach</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;">. In what amounts to a week-long art viewing, hobnobbing, party-hopping bender, the international art glitterati descend upon Miami Beach to see, be seen, schmooze, acquire, revel, gossip, and generally carouse. In addition to </span><i style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Art Basel Miami Beach </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; text-align: -webkit-auto;">there are 16 satellite fairs scattered throughout the city, museum exhibitions, gallery openings, private collection tours, concerts, performances, brunches, and VIP events in a timeline better suited to a month-long endeavor than a five-day art event.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Art Basel originated in Basel, Switzerland and came to Miami in 2002. Over the years, the fair has profoundly transformed the city while it is there. Hotel rooms, flights, restaurants, stores, galleries, museums are teeming, and Miami garners the focus of international publicity on a previously unprecedented scale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">The week is a testament to the unassailable and unnerving fact that money and art are inextricably bound. This week lays bare and unabashedly celebrates the fact of their interdependence. </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">The art world is an amalgamation of pretense and brilliance – breathtaking imagination alongside gilded Gucci-clad lemmings. Miami invites that dichotomy in its most extreme – amazing works by little known and experimental artists at the fringes of art making presented simultaneously with the insecurity, boredom, and keeping up with the Joneses that is the “dark side” of the art world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">While in Miami I received an editorial by the infamous (and notorious) art collector Charles Saatchi. No stranger to controversy and criticism, Saatchi seemed to have had a massive art epiphany. Or – more likely - his wealth paled in comparison to the “artigarchs” of Brazil, Russia, India, and China who are out buying all of the traditional “major players.” Saatchi seethed that “being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar…do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art? Or do they simply enjoy having easily recognised, big-brand name pictures…In the fervour of peacock excess, it's not even considered necessary to waste one's time looking at the works on display. At the world's mega-art blowouts, it's only the pictures that end up as wallflowers.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Beyond the madness and excess, the vulgarity of VIP swagger and “peacock excess,” Miami has gained an increasingly prominent position as a destination for art, culture, and design. The fair and all of its adjacent events have bolstered the Miami economy in profound and quantifiable ways. The fair’s continued success has encouraged the development </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;">of formerly dilapidated neighborhoods such as the Design </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">and the Wynwood Art District that are now comprised of </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;">major private collections, boutiques, restaurants, bars, and a major influx of galleries - 4 to 45 over the past 8 years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;">Another benefit, as described by </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">Lizette Alvarez of <i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; text-decoration: none;"> is that “as Miami’s cultural profile has grown, so too has the government’s willingness to invest. Local museums, including the well-respected Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, are expanding, partly with government money. The Miami Art Museum is in the midst of constructing a new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the architects who reimagined the Tate Modern in London.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The fact that “trendy” and “chic” is often not (ever?) a sustainable model is an issue that major players in the Miami art world must address in order to maintain Miami’s current cultural growth trajectory. Every “cool” event has its expiration date, and for Miami to bank on the past decade of cultural success it will have to make real-time infrastructural and practical investments. As Rosa de la Cruz, patron of the arts and Miami-based collector explains, “Miami universities need to create graduate programs that will act as springboards for talented young artists.” Other ideas include Miami museums building major permanent collections…Art Basel has been wonderful to Miami, but for the rest of the year we need to start building an infrastructure,” Mrs. de la Cruz said. “We have to be very conscious of that, and we have to work very hard.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-32129342606434000632011-11-02T17:00:00.006-06:002011-11-03T18:36:29.177-06:002 November - Caravaggio and Francis Bacon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQcirQrncbuCQ2M2gKDFvSEUKb8ngoMH-Bqapa9adlfCWg1YKGunsjLXlp-Af4ppMD2hikTQxsktjIVy9vYqZU6zy3ohFOQYRqWHz1UMrV8_gpoBqRPpjhXp3zV-hCtJbKKupW66MGQIU/s1600/FrancisBacon.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXSSdVVV6MiiDa4unXB3VQ42o9dWl53O7gyp_xCEVHIl0hxLjgsjaToIIZvHYnQR-u5puOmr8fp1ZJDUPw4bklcEcehtIT6Wmjeu7hurIfPR8zCUTe9OtHMaTuVg98dWuzxBSGLybaNU/s1600/books.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitXSSdVVV6MiiDa4unXB3VQ42o9dWl53O7gyp_xCEVHIl0hxLjgsjaToIIZvHYnQR-u5puOmr8fp1ZJDUPw4bklcEcehtIT6Wmjeu7hurIfPR8zCUTe9OtHMaTuVg98dWuzxBSGLybaNU/s200/books.jpeg" width="133" /></a><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQcirQrncbuCQ2M2gKDFvSEUKb8ngoMH-Bqapa9adlfCWg1YKGunsjLXlp-Af4ppMD2hikTQxsktjIVy9vYqZU6zy3ohFOQYRqWHz1UMrV8_gpoBqRPpjhXp3zV-hCtJbKKupW66MGQIU/s200/FrancisBacon.jpeg" width="133" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJwm-YiViYDd2L_ssZo-KbDCcNYIzvwlLXgEpyHU5jdDBUxREgdgmql1f3X0Ie6O-IQiiJy2feSUVaWhPB9Zx0khLDMaVQwHjFKGE_ooCgXqUfW1XqlK1lhLjc9bAp8HPNLQPqNwnbC1I/s1600/david_and_goliath_by_caravaggio.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJwm-YiViYDd2L_ssZo-KbDCcNYIzvwlLXgEpyHU5jdDBUxREgdgmql1f3X0Ie6O-IQiiJy2feSUVaWhPB9Zx0khLDMaVQwHjFKGE_ooCgXqUfW1XqlK1lhLjc9bAp8HPNLQPqNwnbC1I/s200/david_and_goliath_by_caravaggio.jpeg" width="133" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I just completed Francine Prose’s lucid biography </span><u style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Caravaggio: Painter of Miracles</u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. I have always been drawn to Caravaggio’s stunning paintings and the defiance and innovation with which he approached traditional religious subject matter. I was curious to know more about his work and infamously troubled life after seeing the Caravaggio / Francis Bacon exhibition at the Galeria Borghese in Rome, and this biography provided great insight into his work and life. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Esthetically, the pairing of Francis Bacon and Caravaggio was a brilliant choice by British curator Michael Pippiat. Both Caravaggio and Bacon unflinchingly plumbed the depths of the human condition. Each in his own unique and extraordinary way painted the sordid and debased, exposed the flesh and decay of the human body. Both artists simultaneously eroticized and laid bare the vulnerability of the human condition in forms that challenged the sensibilities and conventions of the contemporaries and patrons of their respective eras. Beyond this esthetic connection both artists’ lives were notoriously difficult, conflicted, and enormously self-destructive. Each perpetuated the myth of the tortured genius to the furthest reaches of their capacities. Bacon and Caravaggio were iconoclasts, virtuosos, addicts, and criminals – their very myths defined by the raging intensity of their personal turmoil and the extravagant beauty of their work. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Caravaggio seethed against the constraints of 17<sup>h</sup> century Italy. He embodied the sacred and profane and with each professional success his life spiraled deeper into brutal street fights, vendettas, exile, and multiple murder charges. His life, like his work, treaded a fine line between the sublime and the beautiful, the sacred and the profane. In Prose’s words “Caravaggio insisted on his freedom to defy categorization, his right to make art according to his convictions and out of whatever engaged his intellect and his soul, as well as his creative, religious, and erotic impulses.” Bacon, too, lived a contradictory and despairing existence. As described in his biography by Pippiat, Bacon was “generous but cruel, forthright yet manipulative, ebullient but in despair: He was the sum of his contradictions. This life, lived at extremes, was filled with achievement and triumph, misfortune and personal tragedy."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is fascinating that both artists have transcended their times to remain among the most important painters in the history of art. In Prose’s words, describing Caravaggio but also apt for Bacon, “all of these centuries later, the sense of connection, of communication—of communion—that we feel with the long-dead painter seems almost vertiginously direct and profound. Having spent his brief, tragic, and turbulent life painting miracles, he managed, in the process, to create one—the miracle of art, the miracle of the way in which some paint, a few brushes, a square of canvas, together with that most essential ingredient, genius, can produce something stronger than time and age, more powerful than death.” </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-83913602218925539762011-10-12T09:38:00.042-06:002011-10-26T21:08:33.854-06:0012 Oct - Bono and Hiroshi Sugimoto<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662698074921958946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmFjZcBd9kzfsFAAhMb0iAI-zZozMTsRATe_pT72CeN0W0fyHYVGXpXyFgIUMndmazDztYuPZ9e5Li8-SWv6bJAnGJnPvBKoc8XnbcZ-WeU821So26hyQwGdliuLYR6G8FOm4wOmL6lc/s200/chinati_25th_sugimoto_resized.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; height: 130px; width: 144px;" /> <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662698077666181506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3m5Rkhf4ae-ost9QGW49stbMqHCwyz1Dz5ozIHmBvERYZMxZEkJN9bnJWOIg-Bzvs3NdIIg7P_C39DTU_BPO552RBqsreT002XX98YLZkFwSEwA9Qew7CjRuBQ_rltrl2oD1m5fbD5E/s200/boden-sea-uttwill-hiroshi-sugimoto.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; height: 130px; width: 144px;" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvO-s6ghANkNTEk8jjnbVWoqbysem13WuZizzEzdM51drIhBmA0d_dPebg_s2j9n0gjr0OZTIXoXp0clw8_JRXG0y3ZhKp4F2AkY-C9SqbGFiXmcf9i9_lSY5-sEnleJMvx5uBR0AAk8/s1600/Bono-of-U2-performing-at--001.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662698087657302690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvO-s6ghANkNTEk8jjnbVWoqbysem13WuZizzEzdM51drIhBmA0d_dPebg_s2j9n0gjr0OZTIXoXp0clw8_JRXG0y3ZhKp4F2AkY-C9SqbGFiXmcf9i9_lSY5-sEnleJMvx5uBR0AAk8/s200/Bono-of-U2-performing-at--001.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; height: 130px; width: 144px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">This weekend I attended The Chinati Foundation’s 25th anniversary celebration in Marfa, Texas. It’s founder, artist Donald Judd, conceived of creating a place that would present art (originally his alongside that of Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain) in a permanent space to carefully address the context of place, architecture, and constancy. In Judd’s words, “It takes a great deal of time and thought to install work carefully. This should not always be thrown away. Most art is fragile and some should be placed and never moved again. Somewhere a portion of contemporary art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be. Somewhere, just as the platinum iridium meter guarantees the tape measure, a strict measure must exist for the art of this time and place."</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">The Chinati Foundation opened to the public in 1986 as an independent, non-profit, publicly funded institution (supported largely by the DIA Foundation). The collection now includes 15 outdoor concrete works and 100 aluminum works by Judd, 25 sculptures by John Chamberlain, an installation by Dan Flavin occupying six former army barracks, and permanent installations by artists including Carl Andre, Ingólfur Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Richard Long, and Claes Oldenburg.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">In addition to the permanent collection, Chinati also presents temporary exhibitions and this weekend featured an installation by internationally celebrated photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. I have long admired and exhibited Sugimoto’s photography and was surprised to find that this show consisted of 24 glass pagodas, each six inches high, presented on Japanese wood pedestals. At the center of each pagoda, however, I discovered a thread from his earlier works - miniature unique images of his iconic seascape photographs (pictured above, left).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">I met Sugimoto on the opening night and attended his lecture in downtown Marfa the next day, curious to learn more about this new body of work. The lecture addressed Sugimoto’s creative influences, exhibition history, and current and future projects. It touched upon his recent architectural work and how his ongoing fascination with Japanese antiquities brought him to this new body of sculptural pagodas and linked him back to Donald Judd who apparently had a similar affinity. The talk, however, took a wildly unexpected turn and got me thinking about the intersection of fame, celebrity, and cross-disciplinary inspiration.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">About twenty minutes into the lecture, Sugimoto's slideshow of images went from his own work to his collection of Japanese antiquities to U2's "Claw," a massive four-legged supporting rig build for their most recent world tour. Um, what?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">Sugimoto laughed, and said, and now we will talk about something very different. Sugimoto proceeded to launch into a story of being taken by private jet to Bono’s beautiful villa in Nice a few years ago. He had never met Bono and was not totally sure who he was, but he was enthralled with the extravagance of transport and magnificence of locale. Bono greeted Sugimoto at the villa and told him that he was a great admirer of his Seascapes. Bono then asked if Sugimoto might consider shooting a seascape from this villa for the cover of U2's next album. At this point in the talk, Sugimoto chuckles, and tells the audience that he is not a commercial photographer. Had Bono NOT asked him for the shot he may well have made a picture, but since Bono asked him to do it he had to decline. He clearly was entertained with this aspect of the story.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Bono and Sugimoto continued the conversation, and ultimately one of Sugimoto’s existing photographs, <i>Boden Sea</i>, was used for the <i>No Line on the Horizon</i> album cover and title. The photograph was also used in a repeated image that spanned the massive video screens atop "The Claw" during the world tour. Taken with his work being featured amidst the magnitude and scope </span>of U2's fame (it turned out to be the highest-grossing and highest-attended concert tour in history), Sugimoto remains star struck. At one point during the lecture Sugimoto showed a concert clip where Bono interrupts one of his signature songs in a stadium full of screaming fans to give a shout out to "Sugimoto-san." Sugimoto beamed, momentarily speechless, basking in the memory.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">This lecture was an example of artists at the pinnacle of their respective careers being awed by the achievements of peers in other fields. For the same reason that I love Andy Warhol’s <i>Interview Magazine</i>, Adam Bly’s <i>Seed Salon</i> series, and the Sundance Channel’s <i>Iconoclasts</i>, it is fascinating to explore the ways that creative visionaries interact with, inspire, and admire one another’s lives and accomplishments. The examples of this interaction is endless and fascinating, the transcendence of "good work" clearly stretches far beyond its intended or understood audience into other realms of thought and interaction. I</span>n Sugimoto’s words "the works are really connected to the very deep roots of the human mind, even to the minds of musicians who have reached the pinnacle of success."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #444444; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 22px;">Beyond the glitz of private jets, French villas, solo exhibitions, auction records, and massive world tours, this type of intersection is a fertile place for growth and innovation and offers a singular opportunity to explore new ways to illuminate and understand our world.</span>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-79759833111592811862011-09-06T08:05:00.016-06:002011-09-11T19:31:41.341-06:006 Sept - Packing for Mars<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkxubwFBelsECSk50giXre205kOR39t_YIi-HokN5jOiUPdcSTO9oJ9-Q7W0JZBI7b3CiqwHhTqTJ8w8NiLEynYHuBoUTF3M1uwnpmVn5ZQd57w4AxU7smIrE5f5LmQEc6_HHJLgoP5WA/s200/packingformars.jpeg" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649251755977805522" /> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9x7Dy6Mj8j1nx2NtZ8pAEnup9Ir888pVaDWXgwi8j77A_IbLiRHIv34XqM0h24Eojjd9e11E2nFf-ok0TS992XPh4yYpntr49VyzNmWwMz220q_htL8WpR35CkZmCzWQOrBwsjP91lBc/s200/marsx.jpeg" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649251761613869394" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdFmt8-vnW0vgWqQ0C5TjOfJRReH48_oMlRuhW8zt0SUIIsKILMk-374zbOVIRiGCVL6KuyOAowAVYgdO_n1mr3M6ufsrNw1a4_bgQCydedR2QBRkv9BzToH-aYsd4vwl8LFOUov5sdo/s1600/LORD-articleInline.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvdFmt8-vnW0vgWqQ0C5TjOfJRReH48_oMlRuhW8zt0SUIIsKILMk-374zbOVIRiGCVL6KuyOAowAVYgdO_n1mr3M6ufsrNw1a4_bgQCydedR2QBRkv9BzToH-aYsd4vwl8LFOUov5sdo/s200/LORD-articleInline.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649251760380429522" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" >I just finished <i>Packing for Mars,</i> by Mary Roach. Admittedly, this book does not discuss, tangentially or otherwise, anything related to art. But it is so entertaining, so fascinating, that I can't resist mentioning it in the blog. And I hear Bruce Nauman also loved it. So there you go.</span><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" >In <i>Packing for Mars,</i> Roach explores and details the types of stories that NASA would most likely prefer to remain under wraps. This book is about the embarrassing, awkward, mundane, and utterly human aspect of space research and travel. The <i>Publishers Weekly</i> review describes that “despite all the high-tech science that has resulted in space shuttles and moonwalks, the most crippling hurdles of cosmic travel are our most primordial human qualities: eating, going to the bathroom, having sex and bathing, and not dying in reentry. Readers learn that throwing up in a space helmet could be life-threatening, that Japanese astronaut candidates must fold a thousand origami paper cranes to test perseverance and attention to detail, and that cadavers are gaining popularity over crash dummies when studying landing</span>s.”<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br />One of the best aspects of Roach's research is that she throws herself into the project - she experiences parabolic flights in the "vomit comet", practices on zero gravity toilets, and drinks her own treated urine in the NASA cafeteria. She is unquestionably t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" >he type of adventurous friend who would lead you to delicious, scandalous, memory-making trouble. She can even make <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-2-2010/mary-roach">Jon Stewart</a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" > blush. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" >This book is a work of art. It is the dark and dirty and juicy details of rocket science. Roach is brilliant, unfailingly inquisitive, and laugh out loud funny. If my college physics professor had been this interesting I could be working at NASA by now. Well, maybe not.</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-47728098795513253352011-08-30T08:51:00.041-06:002011-08-30T16:43:55.118-06:0030 Aug - Science is Culture<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVINde-56hni-xNQr9p89kLlpFytr7oAOZxYsJ7jYwF20RPSaltXjsWGF26YdJnYr8oSfq81B67eGWrfxKVNk_IhBbWA5d5-00S3TVMnUI8kGGOZgdhNd96_-AbiieOq75WocUNiiDxaM/s200/Science-Is-Culture_jpg_150x1000_upscale_q85.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646663762842685186" border="0" /> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRhD0frr3pfeY4Evd1zagiZu71hStp21X0CoEX7YGcDI_TK0k3__ay96X9UJ35UOuuH-2yHEI5uTRw5yAEFQITpaxaeN_SMR0OMcGETTX-NDDO1tJDGGvsBJxqKDTCkZDyqtr6avwVMKc/s200/AlbertEinstein.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646663773214495090" border="0" /> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOnnjQ4nxddQE6YmR2QW3w7YxY4tsCrDXEHAn3klM9jlUt2aeUJ98IuAD1mmkml8PsPkTA7SOA_XagSFF62naMiqmqFoZt4CCiq53Acpu8JnT7pAoM3XIB6Ry15QwTUm5esPmAmsQ9phk/s200/seed5.png" style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5646663783996395714" border="0" /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); " class="Apple-style-span">
<br />
<br /></span><div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); " class="Apple-style-span"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">30-year old Adam Bly created <i>Seed Magazine</i> at the intersection of science and non-science to explore “a new way of looking at the world…like the renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the renaissance before us will be characterized by a revolution in how knowledge is gathered, synthesized, and applied to society.” Bly formerly studied cell adhesion and cancer at the National Research Council of Canada, was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007 and is recipient of the Golden Jubilee Medal from Elizabeth II. He has lectured at the World Economic Forum, MoMA, Harvard, the Royal Society, the National Academy of Science, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, and the State Department on the future of science and its role in society. His book <u>Science is Culture</u> is a compilation of five years of conversations Seed Magazine instigated between scientists and non-scientists as part of its <i>Seed Salon</i> series.
<br />
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">One of the most fascinating dialogs is the conversation between scientist and author Alan Lightman and choreographer Richard Colton. Lightman wrote <u>Einstein’s Dreams</u>, to date one of my favorite novels. The book follows young Einstein, living in Berne, Switzerland in 1905 as a patent clerk privately working on his bizarre, unheard-of theory of relativity. The book strays into fiction as Einstein goes home to take a nap, and subsequently has 30 dreams in which he works out his theory of relativity. Each dream is a parable of a world altered profoundly due to minute shifts in relativity. As described in its book review “in their tone and quiet logic, Lightman's fables come off like Bach variations played on an exquisite harpsichord. People live for one day or eternity, and they respond intelligibly to each unique set of circumstances. Raindrops hang in the air in a place of frozen time; in another place everyone knows one year in advance exactly when the world will end, and acts accordingly.”
<br />
<br /><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">Prior to their <i>Seed Salon</i> conversation, Richard Colton collaborated with Lightman to bring Einstein’s Dreams to the stage as a dance performance. The <i>Seed Salon</i> discussion is the continuation of a longer dialog between the two on the intersection and interdependence of art and science. A few highlights of the conversation: On artists’ fascination with science Lightman says “I think artists like to have their world thrown upside down. That’s part of what art is about, in my opinion. Artists like to look at things from totally new perspectives. That’s why artists have always enjoyed staying in touch with science. There’s a long history of salons and groups of both artists and scientists… Artists very much like to get new ideas from science, because they shake up their worldview, which is what they’re trying to do with their art.”
<br />
<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">On why scientists are intrigued with the arts: “I think that one of the things that art helps provide scientists with is the language—and the metaphors and the images—to describe what scientists are so desperately trying to understand. Our instruments tell us that these totally unimaginable phenomena are happening, and yet we have no intuitive understanding of them. So we grope for language and pictures, and I think art provides some of these for us.” I must say, this resonates so closely with Jonah Lehrer’s perspective in <u><a href="http://cyndiconn.blogspot.com/2011/02/2-february-art-and-dopamine.html">Proust was a Neuroscientist</a></u> – I would love to see the two of them in conversation…
<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">
<br />Lightman and Colton discuss poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who in writing a letter to an aspiring poet advises, “learn to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, or like books written in a very foreign tongue.” Lightman’s interpretation is that “a lot of art is about the questions themselves. The question is more important than the answer. So I think that artists are much better at living with uncertainty. Ambiguity is an essential part of art.”
<br />
<br /></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span">Asking new questions, existing with ambiguity, a new way of looking at the world. Like the world created in Einstein’s Dreams, I believe that we can create an exquisite new iteration of our world by exploring the edges of uncertainty, dreaming up new questions, ultimately reaching solutions that have until this point have been inconceivable and unimaginable. In the book’s introduction Bly describes that “science is a lens through which we can visualize and solve complex problems, establish international relations, and embolden (even reignite) democracy. More than anything, what this lens offers us is a limitless capacity to handle all that comes our way, not matter how complex or unanticipated.”</span></p></span><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--></div></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-6498002588492434372011-08-15T10:47:00.026-06:002011-08-16T23:48:15.787-06:0015 Aug - Art Crush William Powhida<img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLFEEPZA9Z36jhNrEweAC70vVFImi94QDNVo4HLwNLQG4ZV_HPrXJj-cWYQQcQRE4201L7H8YpeD9KD_SZvFyQDaK7xVMdOCWsxQcWsHcWLKBJIaoMSFXdb4x07VWOGI5qvVFyBja-0ZQ/s200/POWHIDA-2011-Marlborough-Chelsea-installation-shot-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641128909049369618" border="0" /> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaVqmqIjuYR9GjVQlpYA_vJQorjhsaDnEeryQkHIN51peAYZW7OlZPl3fFfxu6TUpCrF9B9A34EpyUPaCY74Fuyh1S4BttmDCetuXHc8IUil4U5TqdqeXboCYmpJs53WBlnwgMoJxFmfo/s200/Powhida_Pricing_Guide.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641128908642361986" border="0" /> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP5-ZJXd75kRU2gCMd44KBZR2N6qEIRW7tClm2CqbYxXPn-eacXam0U113RGkVGRTWcWmpEq8kywFJq_1Njk07JJKnWho3Da_psnJcaSniY9tC0kYvHkEhVDIhvZXx0whBLCIF6DboQac/s200/powhida-nosepick.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641130097001316946" border="0" /><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br />
<br /></span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "MS 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria Math"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }.MsoChpDefault { }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I recently watched the <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/8e34f0340d/powhida-trailer">Powhida Trailer</a> to get a better sense of of William Powhida's recent opening at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. The trailer is an Untitled-meets-Julian-Schnabel masterpiece, described as "the story of the greatest living artist." Powhida endlessly drains champagne from the bottle, womanizes (<i>they're not hookers, they're my friends</i>), stumbles, staggers, and waxes incoherently about his position of power and authority in an art world he recognizes as utter bullshit. I was instantly charmed.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The press release for his current Marlborough show rhapsodizes that it is the artist’s “most ambitious installation to date.” New York Observer critic Michael H. Miller ranted that “performances like this only work if there is some follow through. No one was being provoked. Mr. Powhida was simply pretending—half-heartedly—to be an asshole.” The critic didn't know that this was a Hollywood actor and that the real William Powhida was at a residency in Wisconsin. Polemical, subversive, button-pushing, deeply offensive to critics. I am willing to go so far as to say that William Powhida is the real deal.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Marlborough installation consisted of an empty gallery with one bad oil painting hanging on a far wall of a man in a black suit and a purple dress shirt with sunglasses releasing a white dove from his hands. The painting was called POWHIDA, Portrait of a Genius. In a roped off area of the gallery was a table and chairs, a mini-fridge of beer and champagne, Marlborough Reds and ashtrays. Pernod-Absinthe flowed freely for all gallery attendees. People stood around in the gallery, drinking Absinthe and looking confused. And annoyed. Powhida arrived through one of the front gallery garage doors in a dark green Mercedes convertible, arms around two beautiful blondes, drinking straight from a bottle of champagne. He got out of the car, posed, and declared “Well I’m bored as fuck.” He proceeded to sit on the couch the majority of the event with his ladies, hurl expletives, and pound champagne.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">William Powhida’s work has become an art world sensation for its scathing criticism of everything ranging from the New Museum, George W. Bush, Jerry Saltz, Zach Feuer, Dale Chihuly, to the Northern spotted owl. Poor Northern spotted owl. In 2004 Powhida began a list of “enemies,” rendering portraits of each “enemy” in graphite and gauche with insults written beneath each face. In 2009 he produced a drawing called "How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality" for the November cover of the Brooklyn Rail. Holland Cotter of the New York Times has called Powhida an "art world vigilante, virtuoso draftsman, compulsive calligrapher and fantasist autobiographer."</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">As Powhida’s popularity grows, his own fame and celebrity presents an interesting challenge for an artist whose entire oeuvre has been critiquing the art market as elitist and celebrity obsessed. Which is what makes his alter-ego so bewitching and subversive. LA MoCA Director Jeffrey Deitch described that "the irony is that by exposing art celebrity culture, he's becoming a celebrity himself... So hats off to him." Jeffery just wishes he had thought of creating an art world doppelgänger... other than James Franco.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So how does William Powhida address his own fame and place within the art world? As he described to Stephen Squibb for Idiom, “for me, this was the beginning of a dialogue that might help address some of the uneasiness about participating in a star-system and provoke an authentic reflection on the ways in which we, all of us, generate value around art objects. I’m left with the feeling that the market mechanism is bent, but not broken and that we have some collective authority to re-shape it in a more equitable manner. Really, we want to find ways to elevate the importance of culture in our shared social life. That art is a privilege for the wealthy, and not a right for everyone to understand and appreciate about our shared humanity is a concept that we really did challenge.” Half-hearted? Asshole? I think not.</span></p>
<br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:'times new roman';font-size:85%;">photo credit: nose picker by Micah Schmidt</span></p> <!--EndFragment--></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-10728208596150375412011-08-02T16:10:00.000-06:002011-08-02T19:46:39.828-06:002 August - The BMW Guggenheim Lab<img style="cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 96px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirHndBqAYmP9Phy-gm6fMMeI61DjwM3KnfV4w_96ZfvBusbGQI4GD6WA2Rr6SRbfNQZG-BlEwQRHzIWkCj_Uq56lHnwNYnZIYvzzA3xSpBQ0vf3SpHTHYxy3T7lAyCwuogfD8urf7HEtI/s200/news_bmw_lab_205.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636387803608420802" border="0" /> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 96px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJpBOO15upF-IKEOsPBXO_HslYKem3hvOxfGJtit5tzYHPOvGNnRly-mC0YsaI5V3TckT_ydLNJRf8qolYMSpEB3CZmbb3m7xubwoUbL120YCug87iME_WVyqhrYAQwhCH16k2J7ZU-WY/s200/DownloadedFile.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636387798167765602" border="0" /> <img style="cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 96px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1OwFNkGOjkx2vobpyq0drMcyl4OMxmuySU4coj0jotie6uMMKw5qTrjPZNEz5h9ySjiaovbXZN-IY3zKb_dR7BG_na7pmdcZ9kCCs7vmBYfdEiMT9CVVrkBycgm9gFzVrjQmlz2r12ZE/s200/DownloadedFile-1.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636387805127812258" border="0" /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">A visionary new venue opened its doors today in Manhattan. The </span></span></span><b style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">BMW Guggenheim Lab</span></span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> is a six-year collaboration between the Guggenheim Museum and the car company BMW. This project will invite a new generation of leaders in architecture, art, science, design, technology, and education to come together to address the challenges that face the cities of tomorrow by examining those that exist in urban life today. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The lab will travel to nine major cities worldwide with three distinct mobile structures and thematic cycles. Each structure will be designed by a different architect and each will travel to three cities around the globe. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">As described by Carol Vogel of the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">New York Times,</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> “In each city curators will invite leaders in fields including architecture, art, design, technology, education and science to participate in programs: lectures, workshops, games, performances and film screenings.” </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The first Lab, located in the East Village in a formerly abandoned parking lot, was designed by the Tokyo architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow (pictured above, right). This modular carbon-fiber-mesh structure is designed to literally fold up and move to its next stop (first to Berlin, then to Mumbai) at the end of its ten-week run in New York. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The interdisciplinary nature of this project provides an innovative and unconventional venue to engage in critical dialog and explore new ideas, i</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">n the words of</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> curator Maria</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> Nicanor it is “only by bringing everyone into the conversation can we achieve more innovative and meaningful answers to the urban challenges of the future.”</span></span></span></p> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Theoretical Physicist and Santa Fe Institute professor Geoffrey West described that "cities have emerged as the source of the biggest challenges the planet has met since humans became social, yet as reservoirs of creativity and ideas, they are also the source of the solution." The </span></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">BMW Guggenheim Lab</span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> is an opportunity to explore solutions within a captivating, intellectual, community-oriented, peripatetic, and mutable new platform. In the words of Reena Jana of Smartplanet.com “what will the public, the Guggenheim, and BMW learn from what promises to be an intriguing adventure in curating and international urban design? Even if the lessons are open-ended, the BMW Guggenheim Lab is likely to be a worthwhile architectural, marketing, and social experiment, one that will no doubt spark ongoing public debates and discussions both inside and outside the movable building itself.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-55043689784190646932011-07-25T18:14:00.000-06:002011-07-26T08:29:49.768-06:0025 July - Midnight in Paris<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDwz2Ch8mDellX8bTjNyOIhbiDBVAaUzP0offKmw1Xg6wP2gr4R9SjNGz34i1fYRBB8CIskEO17I3xtDZD5zPE4T1wmk__Cwr5cRuClLVCieR_29NJd1pfqwb79QNuYy0Ly21xhXqlTA/s1600/dali.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDwz2Ch8mDellX8bTjNyOIhbiDBVAaUzP0offKmw1Xg6wP2gr4R9SjNGz34i1fYRBB8CIskEO17I3xtDZD5zPE4T1wmk__Cwr5cRuClLVCieR_29NJd1pfqwb79QNuYy0Ly21xhXqlTA/s200/dali.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633453856669456898" /></a> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLyrFSWlMWHpmzbZSLQU8UwObMzN4ZcW5jtTa28rD3QmMEKXn1kHUPQu-5MhSEH27uXE4t9d_M7263hgnJnLSuCffWbWOFRxUeqwNZBSOKMFPRs9jk6gQ_wJd4nd5xDS3tJyvdAhum5rA/s200/images-3.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633453852815490050" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmENSCJXt37nhF91sGgvKoqFp4-FtFzf3kg7iADloev5B9F_lCD_eqHHkdPULag-BhJb4K_1XA_b1F3RfUrhIRSXEpXFAjqZdkXOAVq-04tUzpP2VLzyu7kSYzuXyTygO-M3MlnZrdUQ/s200/DownloadedFile-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633453849801770562" /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">I just saw the new Woody Allen film <i>Midnight in Paris</i>. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">It is absolutely enchanting.</span></span></span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><i>New York Times</i> film critic Joseph Berger describes that “many a writer or artist has longed to travel back in time to the sizzling Paris of the 1920s, to sip absinthe with Hemingway at Les Deux Magots or dine on choucroute garnie with Picasso at La Rotonde.” The main character in the movie, Gil (brilliantly played by Owen Wilson), does just that. Gil parties with Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, has his unpublished novel critiqued by Gertude Stein, confesses the absurdity of his situation with Luis Buñuel, Man Ray, and Salvador <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 16px; font-family:Georgia, serif;"><em style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Dalí,</span></span></span></em></span> (who are utterly unfazed by a troubled time traveling novelist), and gets love advice from Ernest Hemingway (love, sex, death, and manliness). </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">Without a thorough knowledge of the cultural explosion and characters of 1920's Paris some of the incredible dialog and intimate jokes may go unnoticed, but for anyone who loves the literature, art, and legacy of that era this film truly cannot be missed.</span><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> In the words of <i>Filmtwitch</i> critic </span></span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">Jim Tudor, the “abrupt humanization of these icons of the art and literature is as amusing to Gil as it is to us. The electricity of the time is felt as he makes not just priceless connections and contacts, but friendships. The magic and charm of 1920s Paris is right out in front of everything...”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">The film failed for me on one critical level. The moral of the story is that the present is as vital and splendid as the past. Allen attempts to teach us that the lens of nostalgia paints a far more enchanting image of an era than it truly is in its own time. The film is so sumptuous, superbly filmed, and the icons of the past are so vibrant and seductive that I am convinced without a doubt that I would rather be in Paris in 1920 than in Santa Fe in 2011. Sorry, Woody - I'm just not buying it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">images: </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Salvador </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><em style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dalí (</span></span></span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Adrien Brod</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">y)</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><em style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, a moment in the film, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald (Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston)</span></span></span></em></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-63128531600595539062011-07-22T08:13:00.000-06:002011-07-22T11:47:16.414-06:0022 July - Lucian Freud dies at 88<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhitB5kUP6Q68pGo2j_4qNiSCCegFZedG8v7tIh7vmv2mqFhnYP3PMDz3GifPjkhaVeadfPvmwHNmMOzOSg3DBQI40O9CYHxpeWbK4o8l9dZABrdfymvYLFkvdYp2v3V0-Hq-ATUc83Mug/s200/Lucian-Freud-007.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632181563497573058" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEickiqPNZ97ypiLcYKSSxphSM5UgLfzi5MsR1Vmaly67FadzloUJevcitHDzthxrbYLmwZ8plDr79Cq-6Z7PRjxc3e-6WFFqR-m6OV8EkvkXl-rbU8AUi9EdhK8wGyKC9cEGkbBVELDOoQ/s200/arts-graphics-2002_1137932a.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632181557774723106" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vip93aFBmh7i3VGegC__lTG3faD1BaIW_428pGcNsQ5Z5SgXx5IxQ9FvY98VxQNVIvCFZY9i7x7OsCwL-kuseqXZ8l5sGI1HwTJksfMogNGk5fxvqIZfZdwY38QsA2w_xQY74gnPA6k/s1600/Lucien-Freud-Queen.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vip93aFBmh7i3VGegC__lTG3faD1BaIW_428pGcNsQ5Z5SgXx5IxQ9FvY98VxQNVIvCFZY9i7x7OsCwL-kuseqXZ8l5sGI1HwTJksfMogNGk5fxvqIZfZdwY38QsA2w_xQY74gnPA6k/s200/Lucien-Freud-Queen.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632181567677678146" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Lucian Freud passed away on Wednesday at 88. Freud was a figurative painter known for holding steadfastly to his own voice and figurative style through decades that critics, collectors, and curators cast their interest and praise solely upon abstraction. Freud's work ultimately rose beyond art trends and contemporary fancies to be placed firmly within the trajectory of art history as one of the most important artists of our time. In the words of Tate director Nicholas Serota, "The vitality of his nudes, the intensity of the still life paintings and the presence of his portraits of family and friends guarantee Lucian Freud a unique place in the pantheon of late 20th century art."</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Freud’s painting delves into the exquisite grotesqueness of the human flesh – it is impermanence and imperfection manifest - his paintings are excruciating masterpieces of lumpy and flawed sensuality. Only Freud could render Kate Moss' nude body both ravishing and ravished in thick and loose strokes of his brush. In his words, “ I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be."<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> </span></span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Working most of his life in a dingy studio in London, Freud's subjects were predominantly friends, family, fellow artists, and lovers. He described that his "subject matter is autobiographical, it's all to do with hope and memory and sensuality and involvement, really”. In the words of </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">New York Times</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> critic William Grimes, Freud's studio was “his artistic universe, a grim theater in which his contorted subjects, stripped bare and therefore unidentifiable by class, submitted to the artist’s unblinking, merciless inspection.” </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Freud touched on the most intimate details of his subjects' carnality and in doing so gave his viewers a glimpse into the delicacy and raw sensuality of the human form. British art critic William Feaver described that Freud “always pressed to extremes, carrying on further than one would think necessary and rarely letting anything go before it became disconcerting.” Through the lens of Freud's sumptuous distortions we are given a glimpse of our own humanity, acutely revealed and inexorably electrifying. </span></span></span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-24067209041760224812011-07-18T08:06:00.000-06:002011-07-18T09:45:17.855-06:0018 July - Eva Hesse Spectres<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmBzhGLcW0ujY0m0ahOdYOi9wok7yd8h4df2cI9f5n4oe898ZCLwe0FxcU4QAv5lMx-ztqzNm_Hz-hHqnKoOxr6iLgGDOkz_Cl4y9E8nk0Br0P_wJ5pbn5l5MnP9vsHYC5hnzh_ixfuzk/s200/new_hesse_sig_428W.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630693651562278962" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPjyu8vvVOd2Pd8ns3op8TUHyd-ZMgmzRg12VccxcPGsLpvhQrh_kW7ZUTJR4gGaODRROYf7MiEVs0xe4Qqpwv4-7Xeu3AowSnuISO8vfSr_oO6y55MO_dpAnikGqC-3BjYh2faK6rbM/s200/tumblr_ldfxn3u2G81qeh87q.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630693656355314514" /> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNaKzHa9AhurqN6mL7VvnCrciw9dVG6hSyYyDpB9eYVw0SIgYyXh6n4sBtEN4QWTu-BOzSFuqOm1ILF44Xk8VutSQxMMS2mYWBcKcI7NWlz1MOMEx5C3fwx-WB9Rl8kp_vsDsTn_2YKM/s1600/Eva-Hesse.tif" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsNaKzHa9AhurqN6mL7VvnCrciw9dVG6hSyYyDpB9eYVw0SIgYyXh6n4sBtEN4QWTu-BOzSFuqOm1ILF44Xk8VutSQxMMS2mYWBcKcI7NWlz1MOMEx5C3fwx-WB9Rl8kp_vsDsTn_2YKM/s200/Eva-Hesse.tif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630693665656003250" /></span></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">I finally made it to the UNM Art Gallery to see the Eva Hesse </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Spectres, 1960</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> exhibition. Seeing this show was a reminder of how visceral and searing Hesse’s work truly is live, her work suffers so dramatically in printed and digital reproduction. I was surprised to find that Hesse's early </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">paintings are as haunting and fragile as her later works in more experimental and ephemeral medium that included string, rubber, cheesecloth, wax, and resin. The </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Spectres</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> paintings achieve the hollow and fragile need, the teetering vertiginous quality of the installation and sculptural works that propelled her short career into international renown. Walking from painting to painting, I was reminded of a quote from Whitney curator Elisabeth Sussman’s 2010 Hammer Museum lecture on the same series, “It is always beyond me how good Eva Hesse is at all times.”</span></span></div><div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Eva </span></span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Hesse was born in Hamburg in 1936. She and her family fled to the United States when she was 2 to escape the Holocaust. This body of work was created when Hesse was just 24, soon after graduating from the Yale School of Art. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The show consists of 19 oil paintings on canvas and masonite. An early departure from the abstraction and minimalism she would later be known for, the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Spectre</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> paintings are semi-representational, haunting, and acutely personal.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The paintings are comprised of two distinct groups. The first are smaller paintings that are of cadaverous, loosely rendered figures standing in small groups of two or three. As described by the Yale Press blog, “These paintings seem to emerge from an intersection of the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti and the paintings of Willem de Kooning. They straddle the divide of flesh and paint, figure and ground, abstraction and line, proximity and distance.”</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The second group are larger in scale and are elegiac and isolated self-portraits. As UNM Art Gallery curator E. Luanne McKinnon describes in her catalog essay, these figures embody “a sense of loss or displacement and pain. More directly stated, in these paintings Hesse’s real beauty was transmogrified into the ghastly.” As described by the Yale Press blog “claustrophobia and aberrant colors abound; skin is thick and dripping with paint; eyes are sightless and reflect nothing but violence. These self-portraits, as with the paintings that comprise the first half of the collection, are embodiments of emotional turmoil and existential frustration.”</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Hesse’s work, regardless of medium, cuts to the core of human experience. Almost unbearably desolate, her work also holds a tenderness that I experience as a visceral sense of optimism, breathless expectation. Hesse fearlessly explored pain, loss, and isolation in her work, but also the unchartered territories of life's mysteries - the tender spaces between its excruciating moments. In her words, “I am interested in solving an unknown factor of art and an unknown factor of life.” </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">IMAGES: No title, 1960. Oil on canvas. 36 x 36 in. (91.44 x 91.44 cm). Collection of Barbara Bluhm-Kaul and Don Kaul, Chicago; Eva Hesse, 1969; </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Contingent (detail), </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 15px; font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">November 1969 </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 15px; font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Fiberglass, polyester resin, latex, cheesecloth,</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> 138 x 248 x 43. </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><br /></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-26813769767106569742011-07-09T17:48:00.000-06:002011-07-09T18:28:19.173-06:009 July - Ai Weiwei's Zodiac<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSHxIt2nXWXvYOVJlDCxAlRl8YL0ukoa59-H4jjosGwWxXuHiLPfDcmMzhJ1B23lZfPSTeC0PYwgabOeIQUmgK826DqzFOsuRNe7MWpQDykiLy0uXu4HLtleNJZL2z1O2E7LK11Iy_V6Q/s200/cyndi+ai+weiwei.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627509844493219986" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKw9qrULstdoYJIQZqHZ2yD0QJ6ago6t5yMJH5UZOYSIWESY9Iq5TOCaySjh7tyfSCGFcYiQZYUFSd8ONHt89V5qxXiTHCSa4GEYaHGU1nNlsUrHqzYBRcG7tsEbucttSmowxSw8FYUK0/s200/AiWeiwei_1869523c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627509855802279938" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpwYM-OmXJ9AxV-soefa1WtYsAzSRZBYnO1sKUMGQEg5pNuUAm35p-uTzq_kIV-pjCDKteuQOHQCu6mCtugmGEe29vL5OT0artcCAOZmtnUzGJcPOmte4JP8qZk2RskmjjVrwF3VvdBk/s200/5705939378_19fd0de770_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5627509860498661298" /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">While in New York last week, I was able to see Ai Weiwei's “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” installation at the Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">As most know by now, Mr. Ai is a political activist who openly criticized the Chinese Government’s stance on democracy and human rights. He was arrested in Beijing this past April and held for over two months without official charges. He was recently released, but as Bill Lasarow of Visual Art Source describes, Mr. Ai is “effectively under house arrest, under indictment not for a political “crime” but for tax evasion, he is reduced to the statement: ‘I can’t talk to media but I am well’… Perhaps at some later date the artist will once more be who he so recently was, a fearless creative force shaping his art around a brilliant fusion of spot on aesthetic intuition and political passion. If his life hasIf his life has been salvaged, his teeth have been capped and his claws have been clipped.”</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';color:#333333;"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In light of the newly released but eerily silent artist, it felt right to see his installation of gnashing, grimacing, and ferocious creatures taking up significant space in New York City. The installation is a series of 12 heads of the Chinese Zodiac: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, boar. The cast bronze heads are enlarged versions of sculptures originally designed by European Jesuits in the 18th century for the Manchu emperor Qianlong. Part of a famous fountain clock in the Summer Palace, they were looted by French and British in 1860. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">As Roberta Smith describes in the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">New York Times</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, the installation that “my colleague Holland Cotter rightly predicted would look “winsome” if you didn’t know the back story, but that becomes more subversive if you do… It is a seemingly benign work plundered by the West, now being shown to the West, triumphantly enlarged and reconstituted.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The installation is a stunning and subversive reminder of Mr. Ai’s message in a moment that he is unable to freely use his voice. Alexandra Munroe, senior curator of Asian art at the Guggenheim Museum, read a quote by Ai at the opening ceremony of the installation, at a time he was incarcerated and his charges unknown, “without freedom of speech there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.” The installation is up 6 more days in New York. It is then scheduled to travel to Los Angeles, Houston, Pittsburgh and Washington. Another edition is currently in front of the Somerset House, London.</span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-75406966543431090912011-07-06T19:04:00.000-06:002011-07-06T21:34:54.194-06:006 July - Just Kids<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDzYTU1QGMl4CHSqlWRveMesrh3wkT4fgPkyzVZtC4wXAPcZUrKqg_6fQdUOc3fieaRqh0trf7w_0sScdyFYGy508sHP03-zZoNU2i4R1Xuo1lGDmva7DVGkkkeuygc1cAldVBi2OMbA/s200/just-kids-patt-smith-200x330-1290021150.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626412561410265010" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUOuTj9CI0dLOfsqlMcYyPskNC7-dr13f3fec6mHAA8ZcwU-WqND2xoo5IQKY3KiLgidY9FsnvWXnICcuxAasBh9Pk-xttk_juHMswGo_thHc2PM46PDQuq40GiZRPHEu-4Hn7jiso58U/s1600/img-patti-smith-3_133201412570.jpg_vmed.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUOuTj9CI0dLOfsqlMcYyPskNC7-dr13f3fec6mHAA8ZcwU-WqND2xoo5IQKY3KiLgidY9FsnvWXnICcuxAasBh9Pk-xttk_juHMswGo_thHc2PM46PDQuq40GiZRPHEu-4Hn7jiso58U/s200/img-patti-smith-3_133201412570.jpg_vmed.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626412577264350642" /></a><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHlhn9Gh07JD5kEFAxWuYAoyVYTpI0X1nISdrS2MSImDUa65Ke64vC5fVT4yi-Wpx1lTm5N38QQoWEBTXrFtqqu61cYwnvsuD7V8ypEji2bIzNaM8FrX3IoBU7EuiXyQnUJXWctlZMID0/s200/img-patti-smith-1_133132350240.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626412573083630178" /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Over the weekend I read </span></span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Just Kids</span></span></span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">, a biography by punk poet Patti Smith about her life with Robert Mapplethorpe. I was astonished by her linguistic radiance, her capacity to make even the most banal of moments enchanted and acute. I did not know much about Smith – I remember looking at stunning and fearsome photos of her in </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Interview Magazine</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> in the 1990’s and assumed she was a reckless, iconic, somewhat talented drug addict rocker.</span></span></span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Smith and Mapplethorpe met on the streets of New York in the late 1960s and immediately found in one another a confidante, an ally, a lover, and a source of unwavering inspiration. They made a pact to stick together and this book is the narration of that enduring promise. Smith winds her words through New York street life and encounters ranging from fleeting moments to lifelong friendships with such luminaries as William Burroughs, Salvador Dali, Janice Joplin, Allen Ginsberg, Sam Shepherd, Jimi Hendrix, and Brice Marden. The book is the story of finding authenticity in fleabag hotels, clarity of vision in the darkest moments of rejection and fear, and each ultimately finding a distinct voice - through poetry, collage, photography, or punk rock – that transcended the cacophony and messiness of life.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">In describing her belief in Mapplethorpe’s profound genius, Smith describes that “it is said that children do not distinguish between living and inanimate objects; I believe they do. A child imparts a doll or a tin soldier with magical life-breath. The artist animates his work as the child his toys. Robert infused objects, whether for art or life, with his creative impulse, his sacred sexual power.”</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:Georgia, serif;"><u><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Just Kids</span></span></span></span></u></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> begins with an account of one of Smith’s earliest recollections of w</span>alking along a river with her mother. “The narrows of the river emptied into a wide lagoon and I saw upon its surface a singular miracle. A long curving neck rose from a dress of white plumage. </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Swan</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">, my mother said, sensing my excitement. It pattered the bright water, flapping its great wings, and lifted into the sky. The word alone hardly attested to its magnificence nor conveyed the emotion it produced. The sight of it generated an urge I had no words for, a desire to speak of the swan, to say something of its whiteness, the explosive nature of its movement, and the slow beating of its wings.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">Smith, as she describes Mapplethorpe's</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"> "creative impulse, his sacred sexual power" infusing objects with magical life-breath </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">reflexively and intuitively describes herself. Her husband once said that every photograph Mapplethorpe took of Smith ended up looking just like Mapplethorpe. They were bonded to the end, two lives navigating the thin line between chaos and creativity, theirs an integrated existence of life as art and art as life. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-1069548787051701372011-06-23T18:50:00.001-06:002011-06-24T19:35:10.749-06:0023 June - Guest of Cindy Sherman<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bDluxUYF7MX5CnGVi3cjBa4D5TYLkZhlEzl74o4OOV2Th5NWnZ3YtQCK8seaD2eCRm_oMvyVjdumFvMwqJihq2PIS8dn1nTMq0WQ6amUWDNyGYqWwiFA_AGcOnQ_nGJIICqLDUBy3cI/s1600/guest_of_cindy_sherman-p.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bDluxUYF7MX5CnGVi3cjBa4D5TYLkZhlEzl74o4OOV2Th5NWnZ3YtQCK8seaD2eCRm_oMvyVjdumFvMwqJihq2PIS8dn1nTMq0WQ6amUWDNyGYqWwiFA_AGcOnQ_nGJIICqLDUBy3cI/s200/guest_of_cindy_sherman-p.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621595989441972034" /></a><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 154px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPB1wDo2tnocNCLF7BSupA2OJ7JNOC5FoDy1qvpiEX112SgUOkl4KhaHaD8ZEEgVRJGf-dw8qVmfJ38XeMMqxQi9Vsis0IEG1nf93335mDlAyaKsDzDT_FADCXsEnXQcJmYKeCaZS-Bfk/s200/28_guestofcindy_lgl.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621595456645002434" /><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 147px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJamIg7txXE1BOtPCFWWmrcuWfPJfdcSAIXH05ME8WLfH3Wf98xNJAVN8pcGCMHRawyRyxP1_O_rBswCmLcuREhNOPtmrJL6Nq5YEyjx_24RH9VuTTEs-RndsVoHJIyNg3ZxvbIgyOGc/s200/cindy-sherman_-untitled-_299_-1994.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621595460481596066" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> <p class="MsoNormal">I finally watched Guest of Cindy Sherman, the documentary co-directed by Paul Hasegawa-Overacker, aka Paul H-O. Paul begins with the fabulous and ghetto public access program "Gallery Beat," in which he and co-producer of the film Tom Donahue bust into galleries throughout New York and force their way into the faces of some of the art elite of the early 90's including Julian Schnabel (who hates them and comes off as an odious narcissist in the film), Spencer Tunic (then an unknown artist, Paul records the show in the buff), Tracy Emin (she is so unknown at the time he forgets her name), Ross Bleckner (who mocks public access TV). The list goes on and on and on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Eventually, Paul finds his way to the already iconic photographer Cindy Sherman. The chemistry is immediate and Paul is permitted rare and intimate access to record Cindy's world. What ensues is an insider glimpse of the glamor, treachery, and mercurial nature of the art world from the late '80's through five excruciating years of Paul's unraveling from being Cindy Sherman's boyfriend, downgraded to "Guest of Cindy Sherman," then ultimately to becoming "Ex of Cindy Sherman."<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The documentary is as painful as it is intoxicating, reality TV at its best. As Joy Press of Salon.com describes "We get a sidelong view of the art world and its symbiotic relationship with commerce and celebrity, as well as an exploration of the awkward life of a famous person's "plus one." We also get an incredibly rare look at Cindy Sherman the person, the fledgling surfer, the "Florence Nightingale" of girlfriends. Risë Keller of Movie Habit wrote an insightful review of the film, describing that "because the graceless Paul H-O features so prominently in it, I kept fearing the film would lapse into something clumsy, something that would make me want to stop watching the film before it was over. But the narrative surprised me at those moments by pulling back from his particular brink of clutziness, and the story about this odd couple kept me on edge. Other tensions kept pulling me in, too: the tension between the sunny, pert faces of the “real” Cindy Sherman and the desperation in her portraits, and the class tensions that course through most scenes. "</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the most compelling, and optimistic, aspects of the documentary in my opinion was the message (delivered as Paul's lament) that authenticity can transcend the bullshit of the art world. Paul was having a blast as a subversive ex-artist documenting (and snidely judging) the art world through the lens of <i>Art Beat</i>. It worked for him. As Cindy Sherman's boyfriend, he begins to resent how hard he has to work in contrast to the ease with which Cindy breezes through the art world. Why? I venture authenticity. What shines through in this film is Sherman's conviction and a drive. Her singular voice in a cacophony of art world sycophants that transcends its superficiality and fickle whims. Sherman makes art her way - has even attempted (unsuccessfully due to her success) to make unsalable art. For that very conviction, she is exactly who she is. And as the movie poster illustrates, Paul finds himself lost in the shadow of Sherman's spotlight. <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span></span></span>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-63711241358005590752011-06-19T14:33:00.000-06:002011-06-20T15:01:51.286-06:0019 June - A Bentonville Bilbao?<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqsIeqXufLhKXnjkpz7XdtsEzkVjrL_ajUys5KQ6FKx387kpMRQAWTh_oAQa-LcIAhsSMxihuGAnyFtjNkmlw-GbuMNyOj4nxqvMPBwmvsNdeoammQEDOQccsb5mTPuMjOFEr1qX1NDlk/s200/walmart-american-art-museum-4-6-11.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620094427307915458" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOPI2tWtx2PQFPSF6ePgco8oN88V_w8k7teec4iHd10kllUzIwINI9Kv4FuOWSX4SbAvRBrapHXIsTQn0CPzFmMzZHgvrOhPJS4xakiVazZalx9fUNeKA4umOMX4xDYIS268W0WYmIVY/s200/2948884476551370.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620094431780567234" /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Is Bentonville the new Bilbao? </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">On 11-11-11, the <i>Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art</i> will open its doors in the unlikely city of Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum will be 201,000 square feet, over twice the size of the Whitney Museum of American Art and will </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">chronicle the entire story of American art from the Colonial era of the late 1600s to contemporary works including Chuck Close, Kara Walker, Mark di Suvero, Walton Ford, James Turrell, and Roxy Paine</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">. This project is the brainchild of Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton, heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune.</span><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In addition to Ms. Walton’s lavish spending to build the collection (over 400 works will be displayed upon the opening of the museum) and initiate the project, her family has pledged to give $800 million to the new art museum, the largest cash donation ever made to a U.S. art museum. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">Kelly Crow of the Wall Street Journal explains that “the gift from the Walton Family Foundation trumps the $660 million in oil stocks that J. Paul Getty bequeathed to his namesake Los Angeles museum more than three decades ago.” According to Don Bacigalupi, the museum's executive director, "$325 million from the family's gift this week was earmarked to buy additional artworks. Another $350 million will go to cover the museum's operating expenses (around $16 million a year), and the rest, around $125 million, will be set aside for future upkeep of the complex."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The museum's “encyclopedic sweep (is) reminiscent of the ambitions of the robber-baron museum builders in the Gilded Age, but rarely attempted by new museums today. Billionaire Eli Broad, for example, has pledged nearly $340 million to build and endow a new museum for his collection in Los Angeles, but his vast holdings only cover the past few decades of U.S. and international art.” (Crow)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This is a massive undertaking in any city, but this is located in Bentonville, Arkansas. Why? Because Ms. Walton seeks to bring high art to this middle-American town of 35,000, best known as the headquarters of Wal-Mart. </span></span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Crystal Bridges website describes their mission, in addition to expanding access to art, cultural and learning resources, "will also spur the continued economic development of Northwest Arkansas.”</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This brings to mind the Guggenheim Bilbao, now the landmark of the city. Built by starchitect Frank Gehry, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Bilbao was transformed virtually overnight from a backwater to be avoided to a must see destination. As the city’s website describes “Bilbao was changed forever. Then came the obvious knock on effects of hotels opening, the airport expanding, upgrading of all facilities, extra employment etc etc. Today the advances continue as Bilbao continues to strive to make itself a tourist friendly destination.”</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ms. Walton described that “for years I’ve been thinking about what we could do as a family that could really make a difference in this part of the world. I thought this is something we desperately need, and what a difference it would have made were it here when I was growing up.” Carol Vogel of the New York Times reported that the museum is “planning for about 250,000 visitors in their first year and expect an annual operating budget of $16 million to $20 million. In addition to the 120 full-time jobs the institution is creating, they said, it will pump millions of tourist dollars into northwest Arkansas.”</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">An interesting story to follow – certainly a worthwhile collection to visit. Let's hope the <i>Field of Dreams</i> concept works for Bentonville as it did Bilbao, "if you build it, they will come."</span></span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">images: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Bilbao</span></i></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-2217515993650481832011-06-10T07:19:00.000-06:002011-06-10T07:49:19.523-06:0010 June - Spiral Jetty in Danger<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHVaSpWNdMa76PSrSFLeBbb6vojm2oKYWljMiJ_J9qZCzSWA_0Ro8LgPBRBZrP3vm_4DiwScJODTD1KYUM6yLOZ1xn_T8twHY4ujvoJliDuL4T_l5QI-iTjaicAY88Q6a3_C_J52o4arY/s200/smi_spiraljetty_steinmetz_low.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616586990482163186" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWUSeOFgWn8nVPsQy-n0bQ2-C7en4wITYoP6A4tZ_n2R38iGd55tFoBP8FNHnyVK73JP2ZXGXb70pbKY4FeSLVUAP3s_X4s7gRjJj07QR83kSTWCqrs3TzF_fSvTvi_DWRqW6Y_YnuQzY/s200/image-4-spiral-jetty-photo-by-getty-conservation-institute1%255B1%255D.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5616587001443140690" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;font-size:130%;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></span></span><div style=" ;font-family:Eurostile;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 17px; font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;font-size:13px;"><div class="byline" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Eurostile;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';color:#333333;"><b><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">BY GLEN WARCHOL<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Salt Lake Tribune</span></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">First published Jun 08 2011 05:14PM</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><b><b></b></b></span></p><b><b><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Updated Jun 9, 2011 11:03AM</span></span></p></b></b><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "></p></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On Tuesday, the state of Utah had become the owner of one of the world’s iconic earthwork masterpieces, the Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson.</span></span></p><p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "></p></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But by late Wednesday, the status of the massive art work created in 1970 and previously managed by a New York art foundation, was "in flux," according to a Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands spokesman.</span></span></p><p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "></p></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">According to division officials, the New York-based Dia Foundation that was given control of the Spiral Jetty by the Smithson estate had been tardy in making its annual $250 payment on the 10 acres of land that’s periodically submerged by the waters of the Great Salt Lake. Worse, Dia had also failed to respond to the state’s automatically generated notice in February that its 20-year lease on the lake bed had run out, said division spokesman Jason Curry.</span></span></p><p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On Tuesday morning, Curry said, "the notification went out that the lease will not be continued and the land will be managed like any other sovereign land." Other of the state’s sovereign lands include the beds of navigable lakes and rivers.</span></span></p><p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It would be up to the discretion of the director of division whether the land would be available for lease in the future, he said. And even if the parcel were made available, Dia would have no advantage over other bidders. "If somebody wants to apply for the land, it would be looked at just as any other piece would be," Curry said.</span></span></p><p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dia deputy director Laura Raicovich was shocked Wednesday when The Tribune informed her that continuation of the lease had been denied. She said she wasn’t aware of any lease termination notices. Raicovich declined to comment on the issue until Dia had a chance to communicate with the division.</span></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Under Utah’s standard lease agreement, Dia would have 90 days to remove "any improvements" on the land. According to that wording, "improvements" presumably would include the 1,500-foot-long basalt-rock jetty that draws visitors from around the globe.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Spiral Jetty would continue to be protected as state land and the public access would remain the same, Curry said. "Dia’s not holding the lease is not going to change anything regarding the Spiral Jetty."</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Utah Department of Natural Resources received thousands of emails in 2008 protesting an oil company proposal to conduct exploratory drilling near the Spiral Jetty. Curry said he couldn’t speculate whether Dia’s loss of the lease would affect its standing in such protests in the future.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The DNR’s abrupt action seems unusual, said Joro Walker, a Salt Lake-based senior attorney for the Western Resources Advocates. "Typically when somebody is occupying sovereign land, they get their leases renewed," she said, noting that the state is charged with managing the land in the public trust. "I think the people of Utah consider the Spiral Jetty to be an icon."</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Refusing to renew any lease on the lake usually doesn’t occur without good reasons and possibly a public process, Walker said, and such a refusal would be unheard of if the land were leased by a mineral-extraction company.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"Why change it when Dia takes good care of the land and the jetty? [Dia] is spending their resources to protect it, and they are paying [lease payments] into the state coffers. It seems like a completely appropriate arrangement that benefits the people of Utah."</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Wednesday afternoon, Curry acknowledged that the division had heard from Dia officials who argued that Dia had been negotiating an agreement with former Sovereign Lands Coordinator Dave Grierson, who died in April 2010. The division, he said, is trying to uncover any correspondence between Grierson and Dia.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"I don’t have any idea which way it will go at this point," Curry said. "But we will do our best to work with Dia."</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi said she was surprised at the interest in the Spiral Jetty’s status "because few people in Utah have visited it."</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Curry added: "It’s a matter of perception. To the Dia and the landform art world, the Spiral Jetty is a big deal. But in the larger scheme of sovereign lands management, it’s only one component."</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Upon Cursory research for further information, I found this blog by </span></span><a href="http://www.rosebud4projectearth.com/2009/12/preserving-robert-smithsons-spiral.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Rosalie Miller</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> from 2009:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Back in early 2008, </span></span><a href="http://www.diaart.org/" style="text-decoration: none; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Dia Art Foundation</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> </span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">discovered an application filed by the Canadian oil and gas company, Pearl Montana Exploration and Production, which WOULD of allowed exploratory drilling in the Great Salt Lake. This "development" would have disrupted the physical sculpture of </span></span><a href="http://www.robertsmithson.com/" style="text-decoration: none; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Robert Smithson's</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty" style="text-decoration: none; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Spiral Jetty</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> (located 3-5 miles from the development site)... not to mention the possible degradation of the natural ecosystem(s) within the Lake itself. However, the sate of Utah denied Pearl Montana's application... and for now, immediate drilling has ceased.<br /></span></span></span></p><div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">However, as of July, 2009, Dia has discovered yet another application, which was filed by the Great Salt Lake Minerals. This proposal relates to expansion re: solar evaporation ponds (i.e. extraction of potassium sulfate). Dia immediately issued public comments to Utah's Dept. of Water Quality and the US Army Corps of Engineers expressing their numerous concerns. Moreover, the Army Corps of Engineers is working on an Environmental Impact Study for the project and is slated for completion in early 2010.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We'll see... I am hopeful that conservation and preservation will prevail, but my skepticism seems to creep in from time-to-time. For more information on this topic visit the </span></span><a href="http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty" style="text-decoration: none; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Dia Art Foundation</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> </span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">site or click on the following link:</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.diaart.org/sites/page/59/1245" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">http://www.diaart.org/sites/page/59/1245</span></span></a></span></span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "></span></span></span></p><div id="outerPromoCaptionContainer" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; "><div class="promoContainer1 promoContainer" style="position: absolute; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="caption" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 14px; color: rgb(64, 64, 64); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Robert Smithson, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Spiral Jetty</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">, 1970. Photo: George Steinmetz.</span></span></p></div></div><div class="clear" style="clear: both; height: 1px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "> </div><div><br /></div></div><p></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </b></span></span><p></p></span><p></p></div></span></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-44305660023830378172011-06-05T08:53:00.000-06:002011-06-05T09:27:54.704-06:005 June - John Waters in Venice<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-Y61iP_AvpS6eEvbNasIYR_pMIQ7ld7EyOuiWWV4eyTSOJfzVuxdYcGI7AjDVNSoOPqF7pqR4HH3vN5_8onBone8SmMSiEshXzbb-nc5c3hUulN_P0HZpfqLTPogdMhPy4wcRQhe8Dw/s1600/JW-landscape-090001.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-Y61iP_AvpS6eEvbNasIYR_pMIQ7ld7EyOuiWWV4eyTSOJfzVuxdYcGI7AjDVNSoOPqF7pqR4HH3vN5_8onBone8SmMSiEshXzbb-nc5c3hUulN_P0HZpfqLTPogdMhPy4wcRQhe8Dw/s200/JW-landscape-090001.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614753265466078018" /></a> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0JLatFcmcqKNOrjO8PwZTzmwKtOtyITtt0i9z6I7opkR4u92noBJXBTEf_thTXJ4xHJM_PZofIy02yaY82AEu0vIYQIpfk60-c5lqY6N5Htpf6EpB_JRN5XXZgy-YJpOguxcpPShYoEg/s200/DownloadedFile-1.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614753260265673250" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfpAg3fetuMzW7hcTI8HmCBafEZeihRzgCkJenQeQUYw02OkpU1K0RwWBaVqYgsmH31LvwVgZKbGpQ3wd5z2QAWqmwvmTy7uqGx4wMudqkby4rHd5Nh36m7mf8_ntW64uSF4AzqCjYfw/s200/female.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614756920352673458" /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></div>From <i><a href="http://artforum.com/news/mode=international&week=201122">Artforum International</a></i>: </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">"</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">In anticipation of the Venice Biennale's opening, Monopol has published an interview with the celebrated director John Waters, a member of this year's biennale jury. When asked if he was surprised to be selected, Waters said, "Others are probably more surprised than me . . . I'm a great fan of this year's curator Bice Curiger. So I feel very honored. There must be some people in the art world who are irritated to see that the master of bad taste is on the jury of the most important art show. But contemporary art and bad taste have more in common than many might like to admit." Surprisingly, Waters has never been to Venice. "I've been almost everywhere, even to Bologna, the Italian capital of the blow job as I was told," he said, adding, "but a jury is lots of work, so I don't think I'll have a lot of time for wild nights, but who knows?"</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">And as interviewed in <a href="http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37777/18-questions-for-filmmaker-and-venice-biennale-juror-john-waters/">ARTINFO.com</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37777/18-questions-for-filmmaker-and-venice-biennale-juror-john-waters/"></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What aspect of the Biennale are you most looking forward to?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Jury </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">folie a famille</span></em></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><em></em></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">How many times have you been to the Biennale before?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Zero</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's your plan of attack for this Biennale?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Ruthless exploration</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's your position on gondolas?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> If they tip over I can swim.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the last show that you saw?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Louise Lawler at Metro Pictures Gallery, New York</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the last show that surprised you?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Ellsworth Kelly at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> How NEW all the work seemed.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Do you collect anything?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Buildings of Disaster by Boym Partners</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the most indispensable artwork you own?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Oversized Fischli & Weiss "Airport" photograph</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the last artwork you purchased?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Karin Sander mold painting, "Gebrauchsbild"</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the weirdest thing you ever saw happen in a museum, gallery, art fair, or biennial?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Glory holes in bathrooms</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's your art-world pet peeve?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Outrageous escalation of auction house surcharges</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What's the last great book you read?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> "Humiliation" by Wayne Koestenbaum</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What work of art do you wish you owned?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> "Carpet #9" by Mike Kelley</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What would you do to get it?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> If I was younger, burglary. Now that I'm older I guess that I'd sell my soul.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> George Stoll</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Who's your favorite living artist?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Cy Twombly</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></strong></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(201, 19, 99); "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What are your hobbies?</span></strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> How dare you presume I'm a dabbler!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">images: John Waters in Venice, Water's artwork, the famous Divine</span></span></span></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-33622617137505950982011-06-03T13:06:00.000-06:002011-06-03T13:54:06.493-06:003 Jun - A Tank, A Treadmill, A Singing ATM<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwMU2CEHH6UOAPa-2vPvgChcbWWb9tduegeM7Z3xTL9L_1DZ0ShVpMNsKIZzuygUkfm6Zw-WT8psTD9jZ4NDCFnPtlYibYU2D_qIvChvuOBIMJLwI9v2UsZmP9LdT6hpLvgqe2XE-ww-k/s200/a_560x375.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614082126328871106" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_GU2k0QjAAjp90-e5LCkw6OEO77KFmRriatBl9p1dXLIboAj8q8UfxncI0T8DVLl9WS8jjev1qPwhVaFWttaFWSLNblz6OXkde-nshjQuZYJ9SfenYfVA0K2yPc5LBJAKJkokqNkHQWM/s200/totecap-blog480-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614082114760023890" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 144px; height: 144px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI7a9jCM4lctFwkrQWZPRFhrkxaQTIT9M9xelgbQsrILh2Z8Vfiy82CBmkorlT1PZ4SJ6wfCjjuZ0xBlnjth3QIrv300ns57sga7RuCwj7O8UklPYH1CJibj3lGeeG640WiygodXKPNcQ/s200/veniceatmcap-blog480.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614082109570531778" /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The Venice Biennale is a spectacle beyond spectacles. It is the Lady Gaga of art events, and details of the extravaganza are filtering back to the US as the press and VIP's wind their way through the National Pavilions, the Arsenale, the galas, dinners, and cocktail parties. I am stung with an urgency to be in Venice. Yesterday.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The news is of the ATM machine in the Giardini, the Tank at the American Pavilion, and the "it" Tote bag. The tote bag to have this year (they are annually distributed as free takeaways) is a gold </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> lamé creation from artist Hany Armanious from the Australian Pavilion. Carol Vogel reports that "officials there said within three hours on Wednesday they had dispensed with more than 2,000 of them and as they’re getting scarcer this season’s “it” bag is becoming a collector’s item." </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Vogel also reported back of the sensation caused by the sole ATM in the Giardini (the gardens that host the national pavilions). An interactive installation piece by artist duo Allora & Calzadilla, it "</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">is a pipe organ with an A.T.M. embedded in its belly that is computer-programmed to play a tune when a person puts in their pin number... </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Theories have even been circulating that the bigger someone’s balance, the more elaborate and longer the composition, something officials at the pavilion hotly deny. </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">During the first three days of the Biennale’s V.I.P. preview earlier this week, more than 100,000 euros were withdrawn from the machine. That amount, Lisa Freiman, commissioner of the pavilion said, is three or four times the normal activity of an A.T.M. in Italy, according to BNL, the bank that operates it."</span></span></span></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Other high and low-lights come from Roberta Smith of the <i>New York Times</i> and Jerry Saltz of<i> New York Magazine</i>. Smith described the Italian Pavilion as "a</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> new and historic Biennale low is reached in the vast Italian Pavilion where Vittorio Sgarbi, an Italian art historian, television personality and former under-secretary of culture, has overseen a ludicrously dense installation of work by some 260 Italian artists, almost all of it unredeemable still-born schlock. Bristling with an unbelievably venomous hatred of art, the exhibition would be a national scandal, if Italy weren’t already plagued by so many." It sounds so bad I just want to see it to believe it. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Saltz speaks to a moment in the Giardini in which a "megacurator of an extremely well-known U.S. art museum" groaned that he was embarrassed to be an American as he stood before </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's installation in front of the American Pavilion. A 60-ton Army tank "shipped from England at who knows what expense, turned upside-fucking-down, turret and gun barrel on the ground, steel treads to the sky. Atop this warlord wedding cake, they’ve installed a treadmill where a world-class runner works out for fifteen minutes of every hour. It’s the health club from Hell, Afghanistan in Venice, and it makes a humongous racket that can be heard all around the Giardini. I looked back at the curator and said, “I think being embarrassed to be an American is partly what this is about.”"</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Money that sings (possibly to the tune of your bank account digits), </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">gold </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">lamé tote bags, train wrecks of installations, and upside down ruckus-making tanks with treadmills and track stars. Mix with a crush of patrons, curators, critics, and artists; maze-like Venetian alleyways; Bellinis at Harry's Bar; copious amounts of pigeon poop. Is there anywhere in the world I'd rather be?</span></span></span></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photos: </span></span></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images, </span></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 12px; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ruth Fremson/The New York Times (second two images).</span></span></i></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-11650163639279766172011-05-23T12:40:00.000-06:002011-05-23T17:40:47.696-06:0023 May - Prada & Risk<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcUOvHJPFJ91b0P3cIyHfladoxAp7P4zH8XdoG72XPzlwB4zYHz-RIpHR8sakgoe4RWLPkRDApXH80A0DwYmLnBVDrOWCS18ZzItB1OPY080Id3qNfJXy-pcKbRwnp14SMGV5x_eDKKY/s200/interior.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5609996022045871842" /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg04MHiBw1LcwBnUMQLQTHNTKjdBiDTralS1VECG3IFhMcYi5U1caQ9LwdgLEE-BWo-9DB1bWZ7r48gxZ1tUVU9HS1QF5rlG9cLsPt0NnafiAUlHy2y94_SK-GaL3FWl-rPiY72EHPJOjk/s1600/images.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg04MHiBw1LcwBnUMQLQTHNTKjdBiDTralS1VECG3IFhMcYi5U1caQ9LwdgLEE-BWo-9DB1bWZ7r48gxZ1tUVU9HS1QF5rlG9cLsPt0NnafiAUlHy2y94_SK-GaL3FWl-rPiY72EHPJOjk/s200/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5609996028546026946" /></a><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxgu81W0mfCraKJWsibVK5DOd0RKSSGvLoFeExFUl84_d2C2ukz3Na8G1PuHleJKZOrWoiUg06Rz8j-9fNBxrIh1eLLBqGN8-dd9wR870zOyXGBYPF1Eoeca_0UXA6tZ4_qfthJOSk10/s200/exterior.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5609996025408098354" /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;">If I were to attempt to follow my thread of musings in the art world and how they manifest in the form of this blog, the common denominator may be my belief in the manifest value of taking risks. Through the works and minds of such disparate characters as Olaffur Eliasson, Marcia Tucker, Alanna Heiss, Bruce Nauman, Dave Hickey, Robert Irwin, Lady Gaga, and Banksy (to name but a few), I have explored the ways that taking risks -- and being uncertain of their outcome -- incites dialog, innovation, fury, passion, transformation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> <p class="MsoNormal">In the June issue of <i>Vanity Fair</i>, Ingrid Sischy (former Editor and Chief of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Interview Magazine</i>) reports on Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli's approach to fashion, life, and the creation of the remarkable art collection that will be presented publicly for the first time in conjunction with the Venice Biennale next month. The Prada Foundation's new home is a 65,000 square foot 18th-century plaza on the Grand Canale in Venice. Sischy describes Prada and Bertelli as collectors dedicated to risk and outside-the-box ideas in the arts, supporting extraordinarily ambitious projects, massive in scale and frequently volatile in nature. "When it comes to materials and logistics, says Prada, 'we are attracted to the nightmares.'"</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Prada and Bertelli are remarkable for their approach to collecting. They are unique voices amidst the predictable and often clichéd accumulations of high profile art collectors. Not interested in the checklist of heavy auction hitters and the art stars of the moment, "Prada and Berletti have become legendary in the fashion and art world for making their own rules. But they are also believers in careful study; thus, when they decided in the early 1990's to focus on modern and contemporary art as collectors, and to create a foundation that would support outside-the-box ideas, theirs was a commitment."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Contemporary art can create space for independent thought beyond conventional structures and tacit social boundaries. It can electrify minds and create new conduits to experience life, with its issues and conflicts. Prada and Berletti are clearly active and engaged participants in an important international art dialog that involves innovation, originality, and risk. Describing the inaugural exhibition to be presented next month, Sischy asserts that "new ideas don't come along that often, but the exhibition provides a kind of petri-dish environment in which they can cook. Or think of it as a jam session, with artworks riffing on one another thanks to evocative or provocative juxtapositions - Prada likes surprising couplings and unexpected combinations in her fashion as well as her art."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Promoting the possibilities of art, what Tate Director Nicholas Serrota describes as "the nerve endings of contemporary art," requires an openness and excitement in the face of uncertainty rather than the assurance of subscribing to the costly and commercial status quo. Art critic and curator Dave Hickey stated that “if you don’t take risks, if you confirm the prescience of previous investors, you acquire no power, create no constituencies, and have no effect. So you must take risks."</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the <i>Vanity Fair</i> interview Prada states it is "better to make mistakes than be totally correct. We want to do something alive… The whole idea was to try and do something that could help produce new ideas in the future. However much we criticize art for being commercial, it is still a place for freedom and thinking and creativity." <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Images: Photographs of the Prada Foundation by Sam Taylor-Wood for Vanity Fair, portrait of Prada by </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Guido Harari</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span></span></div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-25660353467096757112011-05-17T09:17:00.000-06:002011-05-17T11:22:40.098-06:0017 May - Nancy Holt: Sightlines<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQr2mQXNEK8apLySETOFNFjUFu2O6VqF3maLKaewMNR6aVMMPVwA3-Vhvu2O5tGQ4H-gHm5kccIRX8wPSJKXj4yDzuZRDLSVD6S4fow8TbSGcFXF8oug04rePc7MY3eJvp0D7R2dsbRA/s1600/Providence_2010_HoltImage.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJQr2mQXNEK8apLySETOFNFjUFu2O6VqF3maLKaewMNR6aVMMPVwA3-Vhvu2O5tGQ4H-gHm5kccIRX8wPSJKXj4yDzuZRDLSVD6S4fow8TbSGcFXF8oug04rePc7MY3eJvp0D7R2dsbRA/s200/Providence_2010_HoltImage.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607717435725206898" /></a> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiusKYDDICfhXx_mA8t14nNnv0G48pxZcIJsHESlYeICsh3zrfav0Gq5bPGM8ZrAq0MfuT1cJUdqrSXHvXyuRa56Bu9g00TM092uNZthi1i9ONFqsYc20_QlE35-GefmajcqwDti7OslX0/s200/HoltFilmingST-LDeffebach197.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607717430153196946" /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">On Sunday I attended a lecture and book signing by internationally celebrated artist Nancy Holt. The event was held at the <i>Santa Fe Art Institute</i> for the release of her newly published book </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Sightlines</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">, a comprehensive survey of photography, installation, video, film, sculpture, and land art ranging from the 1960 through today.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I first met Nancy Holt several years go when she lectured at the Center for Contemporary Arts in conjunction with a Land Art exhibition I co-curated with Bill Gilbert, the Lannan Chair of Land Arts of the American West. The exhibition was a 5-year survey of the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Land Arts of the American West</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> program – a unique land art program shared by the University of New Mexico and the University of Texas, Austin (featured this month in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/arts/design/land-arts-of-the-american-west-a-texas-tech-program.html">The New York Times</a>).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I recall being drawn to Holt’s incredible history (she spent her early years as an artist in New York with colleagues and collaborators including Michael Heizer, Carl Andre, Eva Hesse, Richard Serra and Robert Smithson – to name but a few), her unassuming manner with the audience, her endless curiosity for the world around her. I had not seen Nancy in many years when I recently was invited to join her for dinner. The dinner conversation was as intriguing as her initial lecture, we meandered through topics including monumental works of land art, the process of digitalizing her image archive, the trajectory of art history, buddhist practices, Italian art hotels, her ongoing interest in reliquaries. Her lecture on Sunday followed a more focused but equally engaging and complex process of contemplation. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">At the lecture we learned that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Sun Tunnels</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, arguably her most renowned work of art, was created as an installation of orientation within the awesomely vast and impersonal landscape as the Utah desert just beyond the Bonneville Salt Flats. Holt's work often brings a personal and human scale to the immensity of the landscape within which she works - a vastly different approach than, and nearly opposite to, her male Land Art counterparts. Her work represents a moment of respite and orientation to otherwise vertiginously open and enormous spaces. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Holt is an alchemist of sorts, and much of her talk was about transformation – transformation of light into sculpture, sculpture into photography, photography into print, print into digital scans, digital scans into a power point presentation. She described a piece she created for an exhibition in Denver in the early 1990's. Her father had photographed a garden, and then created a painting from that a photograph. Holt photographed her father's painting, and then it was reproduced in a catalog. She then photographed the image from the catalog, and photocopied the photograph. She then faxed it to friends as an object of art that stated (something like): This is a facsimile of a photocopy of a photograph of a photograph of a painting of a photograph of a garden. She noted at the lecture that as each fax printed the image slightly differently, with varying proportions, ink output, and data markings, each person owned a slightly different iteration of that work of art. She then, chuckling to herself, looking at the image on her slideshow presentation, said she would have to add "digital scan of a slideshow presentation of a projection."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Her focused fascination with the alchemy of light, time, and technology recalls the Henry Miller quote, “The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." One perfect example - the holes that are spaced throughout the Sun Tunnels are made in the form of constellations so when the sun – a great star itself – shines through the tunnels it creates unique constellations inside the sculptures so each visitor can walk on stars.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">So much of what we might take for granted on a daily basis – light, time, medium, perspective, reflection, optics – is explored in Holt's art with astounding dedication and focus. The </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery of Columbus University </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">described that "Holt developed a unique aesthetics of perception, which enabled visitors to her sites to engage with the landscape in new and challenging ways.” Holt turns each moment into Miller’s indescribably magnificent world in itself and in doing so reveals complex and spellbinding new worlds for her audiences - at once meticulously intricate and limitless in scope. </span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-83961052484497769362011-05-01T06:19:00.000-06:002011-05-01T13:07:37.342-06:001 May - Eli Broad & The Giving Pledge<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidSdZUivpwgTvV8kW0NH_-IfYAtf925QOxqiOcaROY-7Sw-XGyKHZcoirJQRY5d5QLhMtmx4fE8RNJRMjoBzvHC1x8MJ4fXyXwzEM9cfzy-pjGqxt_HbaKlWDrAkr82YGFaF6zJx9ETbE/s200/broad.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601724323423007122" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ9ag_zuMFPhHLzi4Ak-dDbEoLvGAsac4l1bN_R-s3Ut9NpLhuEAIGW5rLIaOERGK0I-2dORk5YJjBUkXSOZNCV25kH7fv4-hn-Jioe-ktaS-YMF46o94xoH7Jkgc275fijC61s-j4l_c/s200/buffett_bill_melinda.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601724327039525346" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Eli Broad is a controversial figure in the art world. An </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">icon of "aggressive philanthropy," Broad is a Los Angeles brand, reputedly a control freak, and in the words of Frank Gehry, “a real pain in the ass.” In his </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">60 Minutes</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> interview last Sunday with Morley Safer, however, one thing became abundantly clear. Eli Broad is one of a handful of philanthropists who are showing the world how to give.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> </span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">At 77, Broad has given away over $2 billion to charity and intends to continue giving. In the words of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, "Eli Broad sets the standard. I think it's really being a role model for others. And they look at Eli and because of him, they get the ideas, 'I'm going to be innovative and be philanthropic and do some other things.' The leverage of Eli Broad is really quite amazing."</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Broad is one of the </span></span></span><i><a href="http://givingpledge.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Giving Pledge</span></span></span></a></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> members, a campaign initiated by Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates in which they ask those with the largest fortunes in the world to commit to giving away at least half their fortune during their lifetime or after their death. This dynamic philanthropic leadership has, in the words of </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Fortune Magazine's</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> Doris Burke, “the potential to dramatically change the philanthropic behavior of Americans, inducing them to step up the amounts they give. With that dinner meeting, Gates and Buffett started what can be called the biggest fundraising drive in history. They'd welcome donors of any kind. But their direct target is billionaires, whom the two men wish to see greatly raise the amounts they give to charities, of any and all kinds.”</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Broad frequently quotes Andrew Carnegie's statement "he who dies with wealth dies in shame.” Broad then adds that “he who gives while he lives also knows where it goes.” A window into both the intention and the potential of philanthropy, Broad, Gates, Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Turner, and a handful of other leaders are leading by powerful example. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">These dynamic philanthropists recognize that giving at any level is a learned behavior. To pitch the concept of <i>The Giving Pledge</i>, David Rockefeller Sr. hosted a dinner that included 12 of the wealthiest guests in the world. At that dinner, each was asked to tell a story of how they learned to give. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">In Burke's words, “David Rockefeller Sr. described learning philanthropy at the knees of his father and grandfather. Ted Turner repeated the oft-told tale of how he had made a spur-of-the-moment decision to give $1 billion to the United Nations. Some people talked about the emotional difficulty of making the leap from small giving to large. Others worried that their robust philanthropy might alienate their children. (Later, recalling the meeting, Buffett laughed that it had made him feel like a psychiatrist.)"</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">In the 60 Minutes interview, Eli Broad emphasized that his sense of being wealthy was heightened when be began to give his money away. He realized that his money and his life mission was not to simply maintin the status quo, but to make things different and better. Culture cannot exist without altruism and in Broad’s words "civilizations are not remembered by their business people, their bankers or lawyers. They're remembered by the arts.” The reach of philanthropy extends far beyond the arts. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">The charitable causes that <i>The Giving Pledge</i> dinner guests discussed ranged from education, culture, healthcare and hospitals, public policy, and poverty. Bill Gates stated after that dinner that the event was amazing, the causes admirable, and "the diversity of American giving is part of its beauty."</span></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> </span></span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Support for progress that occurs at the community level has the capacity to influence policy and engender change on a national and global scale. Regardless of the size or type of contribution, it is critical to give. In Burke’s words, “society cannot help but be a beneficiary…nor will it be just the very rich who will perhaps bend their minds to what a pledge of this kind means. It could also be others with less to give but suddenly more reason to think about the rightness of what they do.” </span></span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">pictured: Eli Broad (L), Warren Buffet, Bill and Melinda Gates (R)</span></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-13436603392361867182011-04-17T08:44:00.000-06:002011-04-17T23:14:56.115-06:0017 April - Modigliani: A Life<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 155px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKc3xgcyw_3OkNcDlZLSfsUDMRpdDL97dCPEy62M-hc1d1Ncs6Egy1dzLVKXSmBUFma1YgxDoMhM4bq6uzZgwbV30Dor3qlrXcQZt1f4tDnLfWUtrIm-fjLC2qvY2AESljsNFNi36ca4I/s200/book_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596575367805151874" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 158px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdUeRI3o6TLabnBynD-qizSjnvjuIIejtgf9UULh8iyEiM28BbQPjl6U-Ed_RqDSAYXnSopFYssa0uGH76JLezSrG8jXrFss88DQAHmHiBclUumGp-D1lnxpRmxA5k5R_cM-etjLttNBA/s200/Nauman.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596575367580719010" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">LAUNCHPROJECTS - I just finished the new Meryle Secrest biography </span></span><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Modigliani-Life-Meryle-Secrest/dp/0307263681"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Modigliani: A Life</span></span></a></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">. Known for his Francis Bacon-esque life of hard drinking, drugging, and womanizing; this biography sheds new light on Modigliani's life-long battle with Tuberculosis. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Secrest's biography is in many ways an argument that Modigliani's drinking and drug use was predominantly “a cover (or a compensation) for the debilitating tuberculosis that he kept secret –- a spasmodic condition managed with the opium, laudanum and alcohol that contributed mightily to his tragic death at 35.”</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">The epidemic of Tuberculosis in Europe from 1800 - mid 1900's was a terrifying and deadly situation - one that could be likened to the AIDS epidemic of contemporary society. A contagious disease without a cure at the time, "consumptives" were frequently shunned and ostracized from society. Secrest's hypothesis is that Modigliani would have gone to any extreme to hide his condition. I</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">mmoderation, however, was also a part of the artistic lifestyle - fuel to the creative force - and the majority of artists, writers, dancers, and actors living in Paris in the early to mid 1900's lived in the extreme. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Among Modigliani's great and influential peers at the time included Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Constantin Brancusi and Chaim Soutine. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Each felt destined</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"> for a special fate in life, one that released them from the conventional mores and standards of their time. As Secrest describes, “like Frank Lloyd Wright a few years later, Modigliani was clearly influenced by Nietzsche’s theories about the emergence of the Übermensch.The artist, as Superman, was divinely endowed, therefore divinely inspired, for as Nietzsche also wrote, the artist had his own truth, or a special kind of truth. ‘He fights for the higher dignity and significance of man; in truth, he does not want to give the most effective presumptions of his art: the fantastic, uncertain, extreme, the sense for the symbolic… the faith in some miraculous element in the genius.’” In a letter to a friend Modigliani wrote that “People like us… have different rights, different values than do the normal, ordinary people because we have different needs which puts us – it has to be said and you must believe it – above their moral standards.”</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Modigliani and peers believed they were different, chosen, fated. “In his mind, fatalism and idealism, creativity and death, seemed intertwined.” The conviction that the true artist is one destined to live a tortured and extreme life beyond the bounds and rules of conventional society remains to this day. One of Bruce Nauman’s iconic works of art is a neon installation that reads “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths.” Nauman, in describing this piece that proclaims the artist as outlier and oracle, stated that “the most difficult thing about the whole piece for me was the statement. It was a kind of test—like when you say something out loud to see if you believe it. Once written down, I could see that the statement [...] was on the one hand a totally silly idea and yet, on the other hand, I believed it. It's true and not true at the same time. It depends on how you interpret it and how seriously you take yourself. For me it's still a very strong thought.” Just add tragedy and stir.</span></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849454274426274613.post-44229232292969061562011-04-10T20:49:00.000-06:002011-04-11T22:12:12.442-06:0010 April - In Memory of John McCracken<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLNsta022yNWPnW9ljJxOoUF8BcOd-ICscEOQMbYM_xU7a0vDiFfEXOryKMxHfztVLeo1L82DcmvYsTFPY64emiYanCNLclTg7-5dUz6oDkASHfhyphenhyphentlV6xWznKTE1ubZDnU4cdWVglDiE/s200/6a00d8341c630a53ef014e6085d10d970c-500wi-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594523114006843266" /> <img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkYekJxOIbQzOQY-lhqxAPm0MOplo2_SWVi2JbDJpNO1qSNmNZztAb8tu38rcp66RlidBWJigWHJ-kKLll7k6Sr3AQ0SJQne2tGehkq0a5ebZVKpPBS8Hi3q9492JlBZnvO1XKz9AU9A/s200/McCracken+2+Southwest+corner+with+figure+2_WEB.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594522426731924354" /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">LAUNCHPROJECTS - </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">John McCracken, a West Coast artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico known for bright, lustrous, minimal sculptures died on Friday in New York. He was 76.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><br /></span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">I do not remember the first time I experienced John McCracken’s sculptures. It was most likely at James Kelly Contemporary in Santa Fe. I can not recall the specific colors of the works or how they were placed within the space. I do know that they haunted me for days following the show. In that rare and remarkable way that precious few works of art function, his sculpture shifted the way that I experienced anything that was even peripherally visually related. Whether it was a sumptuously painted lowrider in Northern New Mexico or a Donald Judd sculpture at Pace Gallery in New York, McCracken's sculptures changed the way I observed the world. </span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">McCracken once stated that his “tendency is to reduce or develop everything to 'single things' — things which refer to nothing outside [themselves] but which at the same time possibly refer, or relate, to everything." H</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">is work was a whisper in a cacophony of voices, and the </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">simplicity and elegance of that intention leaves an enduring and singular impact. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span style="font-family:Times;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Artdaily.org described his sketchbooks which shed significant light on “both personal and speculative observations about the function of art. Ranging from one-word statements to several pages of commentary, his notes were frequently inspired by ancient history and paranormal meditations. These facilitate a parallel understanding of his works, as evidenced in a passage from 1966 on the reflective, even surfaces of his sculptures: “if the viewer is in motion, the sculptures become in a sense kinetic, changing more radically than one might expect. At times, certain sculptures seem to almost disappear and become illusions, so rather than describing these things as objects, it might be better to describe them as complexes of energies.”</span></span></span></p> <span style="font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-bidi-mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SAfont-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">McCracken's work gave the art world elegant, minimal, infinite objects of art. In the words of a mutual Santa Fe friend,</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"> </span></span><!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-bidi- mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SAfont-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">“</span></span></span><span style="font-family:Times;mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-bidi-mso-ansi-language: EN-US;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SAfont-family:Eurostile;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Not only was he a great and unique artist, but he was a thoughtful, kind and subtle soul.”</span></span></span><!--EndFragment-->Cyndi Connhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14622899589993639809noreply@blogger.com1