Curatorialist

Lucky enough to have just returned from a great trip to Paris, my head is in an art history kind of place. Something dawned on me on this trip that I hadn’t really considered before – the important role of the Realists. I realized on this trip that I have an extremely simple view of art history. It breaks down into two distinct macro-movements for me: External Representation and Artist’s Impression. Everything before Realism sought, in some way, to reflect something outside ourselves: from animals to humans to stories, allegories and religion, this is the world outside people, represented. Post Realism, art began to take a different look. All of the sudden, it was the artist’s “impression” of the world that showed up on canvases and we have been on that trajectory ever since. Although an over-simplification of art history, it maybe says something that the two major museums of Paris (Louvre and D’Orsay) divide up art at exactly the point where art shifted from one to the other. That point was Realism.

Courbet is significant, in that regard, because he was the quintessential, and perhaps pioneering, artist/rebel. His desire to portray life as it really is was a major break from the uppity art snobs of the day and his rejection from the mainstream only spurred him on more. You could call him the first folk artist, in fact. And, in my opinion, he deserves more credit in the history of art than he gets. In particular, I think his contribution to art far exceeds, say, Picasso’s. But I’m sure I’m relatively alone in that view. Picasso is a whole other ball of wax.

When Courbet painted “A Burial at Ormans,” well known as the beginnings of Realism, Auguste Rodin was 9 or 10 years old. Exactly the years he started drawing. Only 4 years later, he’d be enrolled in art school and was considered a child prodigy. He, of course, was well aware of the Realists, but also reverential to Romanticism and what was still the more accepted art of his time. His temperament was different; less of a rebel, he did seek to bring his own sense of realism to sculpture, but he tried in much more earnestness to bridge the gap between old school and new school. And despite dealing with his own rejections from the Salon, in his lifetime he won over all critics.

The thought that kept going through my mind at the Museé Rodin was, “What if the future of art hinged more on Rodin than Courbet?” Rodin was a sculptor, though. Sculptors belong to their own long history that sits alongside, but just outside, the world of fine art. Sort of like motorcycles to cars. When discussing Rodin’s place in art, it is more likely to hear about sculptors from the 4th Century BC or Michelangelo than any of his contemporaries. That’s too bad. It seems to me that if you look at that first arc of art, according to my own view of it, External Representationalists, it never really peaked. What Courbet, or one of his contemporaries, should have done (if I may be so bold) is to have taken Realism to its natural end – to really capture the essence of another being. It stopped just short of that, choosing instead to make it political and, therefore, about real situations, not real people. It never got personal. Not Daumier, not Millet, not Whistler… and then, boom, it’s off to Impressionism. But Rodin…

Rodin studied the human form. I mean really studied it. Multiple sketches, paintings, maquettes, even whole sculptures of different sizes and expressions… all to get just the right one. Balzac, alone, took seven years. He worked on The Gates of Hell for 37 years, up until his death, and was never fully completed. All in the effort to accurately capture each and every form. To translate the human condition through an accurate depiction of flesh, muscle, bone, expression and the language of the body. He’s known for all that, sure, but in a vacuum, really. I am in love with art and have nothing but respect for modern artists, but I also think that if there is a way to express the inner mind of an artist, it has been done. We have had a good 100+ years of what amounts to not a whole lot more than a lot of really talented artists’ impressions of the world. I just can’t help but wonder what kind of more important place we might have ended up in had Rodin been the guy who took art into the 20th Century and beyond? Imagine a hundred years of artists thinking about the true essence of others, instead of just themselves. Worth considering.

Liu Bolin is the kind of artist who makes the kind of art that sort of demands you pass it along. It begs to be shared. It has an immediacy to it. Arresting from the moment you look upon it. And, like all great art, breaks through that initial impact to deliver something deeper than what you expected.

At first look, you get an astonishing trompe l’oeil, difficult to make out where surroundings end and the artist begins. He plays with colors, textures, imagery and anything else he can manipulate to make it apparent that this is a photo of him, but that he is inextricable from his environment. Points just for making something arresting and new. In this day of icons, logos and headlines, standing out in this kind of fashion is a feat in and of itself.

At second read, though, we’re looking at an artist making a statement about the world, about his place in society, about being overlooked, ignored and/or undefined. Symbolic gestures like these should reach you somewhere profound in your body because the notion is very human. He is depicting what it’s like, not just in China, but anywhere, everywhere. We all have one foot in the desire to stand out and be noticed, and another foot somewhere hidden, behind statues and other people, in walls and blended into the world.

Learn more about Liu Bolin here.

Like everyone, I have a special place in my heart for Duchamp. I simply love his story, love his character, love his role in art history. He was a joker, a chess player, a true lover of art, imagery and critical thinking. He also loved Cezanne and was influenced heavily by him in his seminal days and that, to me, is the sign of someone who has art inside. To truly love Cezanne is to truly love fine art. And Duchamp did both, in spades – even if he remained very non-reverential of art to his last day. And wasn’t that really his gift?

Strangely, despite all that, I never really adored Duchamp’s work. He tried Impressionism, he tried Cubism and none of it really was as good as the major artists of those movements. And for the movement that he did start, my personal taste was for what happened later on with it, even though I know he paved that road. That is neither here nor there, though. What is here and there is that Duchamp changed the course of art history and few people in the world can lay claim to that. He understood what was so great about Impressionism and Cubism and he honored it by moving it forward into the next place it could go. I love how artists work like this over time, like relay racers, each with their particular leg of the race to run, handing off batons to each other to propel the entire world forward.

I really enjoyed finding this video of him describing himself. It has a bit of an off-kilter feel to it in the pacing and music, but also in the cut and paste style of the dialogue. Despite that, the video is filled with life and does a not-bad job of capturing a bit of his spirit, and it was inspiring to me to watch this and consider all that he contibuted.

This image is super arresting. I think it is a woman in the throws of some kind of palsy or tantrum. I downloaded it a few days ago and can’t stop looking at it. A person struggling with inner demons is just a delicate place that we all skate on the surface of. Well, one of us does.

Many have gathered to make art in the form, and spirit, of collaboration. Little of it transcends. Originally, the Louvre was a place for a sort of artists’ collective, during the French Revolution. But collectives borne of necessity have a distinct advantage over graffiti artists getting together to do a mural for Nike. Maybe this kind of thing has been done before, but I haven’t seen it. A UK Website here proposes that an interaction on the site results in instant action/reaction at a real art studio. Like much art that relies on technology, rather than a more viscous material, it feels a bit cybercold underneath it all, but from what I’m seeing, the art that’s getting made at the studio itself is secondary to the possibilities that this opens up. Remember Christy Brown, of “My Left Foot” fame? Putting that into context with today’s technology offers some very encouraging possibilities. Beyond that, the gap bridged by technology has never seemed to reach into the world of fine art. All of the sudden, the Internet is a real tool for expression and the spreading of paint, clay, pencil lead and many other things. It is well time that our exponential growth in technology lead to something more artistic, human, tactile and expressive. I’m into it.

I didn’t find as many images as I thought I might, but not bad for a five-minute interest in “objects with human legs attached:”

Some art teacher in Philly exacts revenge with this seething, but smiling, summary of stereotypical art students. Having taught a few myself, I can verify and relate, although strangely I looked for myself and couldn’t find me. But it is a reminder of how much of an influence comic books are on a young artist. It is a predominant theme through all of these.

See the whole lot at: “Which Art Student Are You?”

This dude, Jamie Hayon, over at Hayon Studio describes his Green Chicken Rocking Chair as a “rather unexplored shape.” I’m not sure I have much to add to that. Other than, YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT IT’S AN UNEXPLORED SHAPE! GOD DAMN.

Beyond that, it’s very well executed. It’s one thing to come up with a chicken rocking chair idea all by itself, but most all the design choices along the way are pretty interesting, too. Love the beak, love the ears, love the feathers. And, of course, it rocks.

Interesting news to comic book fans. For those of you who haven’t been keeping tabs on the Captain, Mr. America “died” a little over two years ago. The events of his death, and subsequent rebirth (“Rebirth” is also the name of the program that lead to his super human abilities, btw) are the subject of the upcoming series.

Captain America, as an entity, remains controversial. Born of an anti-Nazi sentiment, he represents America’s military at its most glamorous: protector of freedom, fighter of evil. As the definition of evil has become hazier, though, it will be interesting to see how the resurrection of Captain America reflects (or doesn’t) a renewed understanding of war and America. I, for one, like to follow history through the eyes of artists and comics are no exception. As our troops return from the Middle East, this will be a topic that affects all of us.

The first pages were released at the LA Times today, re-posted here for your perusal. The pages will be drawn by comic artist legend Brian Hitch and, aside from the political sub-text, it promises to be a whole lot of sweets for the eye.

The uprising will be July 1st. Official site here.

I guess I just love me up some of the GIFs. Something I didn’t anticipate; becoming wistfully reminiscent of a technology from adulthood. I get my swoony love of 8-bit graphics and the sound of a Casio keyboard, but it’s harder to reconcile feeling all gushy over something that I used for work.

Perhaps it’s a representation of how far I/we’ve come since getting into Web design, back in the mid 90’s. Sort of like looking back on your first car, not nearly as advanced as your current car, but still a mark of distance, growth.

But moreso, I just like the creativity one experiences when leaning into a limited medium. All media is limited, in some respect. Certainly 8-bit graphics were. But even a canvas has an edge. Finding creativity within the constraints of technology are no different than within the constraints of clay. And the results no less effective. At least not to me.

Some of it, also, is knowing where something like this might show up: as a personal icon in a comment section, or simply sitting in the corner of a web page somewhere. Animated GIFs are like virtual graffiti tags – it’s as much where you place it as the mark itself. The technology and format of it is specific to the Web, and therefore it is as inextricably tied to it, as paint is to canvas or music was to vinyl (sigh).

Continue reading ‘A Moment in Time: An Homage to the Animated GIF.’