When Art History Goes Bad

Christo and Jeanne-Claude (and a tribute to Nathan Jordan)

2010-03-10T11:20:00.005-06:00

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Surrounded Islands. 1980-1983, 6.5 million square feet of pink woven polypropylene fabric and eleven islands in Biscayne Bay.

With my lack of posting for three months, some of you might have the notion that I have died. No– but my brother has. Earlier this year Nathan Jordan passed away two months before his twenty-eighth birthday.

He was my best friend as well as my brother, and being only two years younger than me we grew up together. I was probably closer to him than anyone else alive. His death (along with other stressful events that I have experienced as of late) has driven me into a deep depression recently, hence the lack of new blog entries. But that will change soon.

Nathan is in a better place now, and that's all that really matters; rather than mope around about how much you miss the dead, it's far less self-defeating to celebrate the memories you have of them. So I'll briefly discuss Nathan's merits as an art critic.

He had an introspective mind, he liked art a lot, and he was about ten times the smart ass I will ever be. When I took my first art history class, we discussed the work above, Christo's Surrounded Islands. I later told my brother about it. "Yeah, there was this guy who wrapped a bunch of islands off the coast of Miami in pink fabric just so he could take aerial photos of them." Laughing, his reply was, "Are you serious?! What an idiot!"

Now, when I write I try to make myself sound smart, like I really know what I'm talking about, even when I don't. But it's amazing how my little brother was able to sum up in three words what it often takes me ten paragraphs to say. But there are a few other facets to the wrapping of these islands.

These are indeed eleven islands in Biscayne Bay, situated between Miami, North Miami, the Village of Miami Shores and Miami Beach. (Those are four distinct municipalities.) And these islands are not so much wrapped as they are covered– the fabric you see here extends two hundred feet from each shore. There was a lot of work involved in making each fabric covering fit its island perfectly, as well as picking up forty tons of debris from the islands, consulting engineers, builders, and scientists, and, of course, obtaining the necessary permits. They needed the permission of the governor, the county commission, the Department of Environmental Regulation, and the United States Army. It's really no wonder that this work took nearly four years to complete. Financing was taken care of through the sale of preliminary drawings and lithographs of the islands, and the sale of aerial photographs afterwards proved very profitable.

Christo, who was born in Bulgaria, and Jeanne-Claude, a Frenchwoman who passed away last November at the age of 74, were a married couple who redefined site-specific art by wrapping islands and large landmarks throughout the world with huge amounts of polyester fabric. Here are some of their other works:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Wrapped Pont-Neuf. 1985, 430,000 square feet of sand-colored polyamide fabric and one four hundred year old bridge.

It took nine years for the duo to convince Jacques Chirac, the then mayor of Paris, to let them wrap the city's oldest bridge. But he finally conceded, and one month later it was covered in gauzy diaphanous cloth. Three million people visited it in the two weeks that it was wrapped.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Wrapped Reichstag. 1994, over a million square feet of fireproof polypropylene fabric, nine miles of rope, and one German Parliament building.

This work obviously took a lot of convincing. There was a letter writing campaign to each of the 662 members of the Bundestag, followed by a heated 70 minute debate that allowed the project to commence. The wrapping took only a week in this case, and the building was wrapped for two; but in those two weeks the work received five million visitors.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude were hippies, so they did everything they could to ensure that the environmental impact of their works was minimized. A whole team of biologists oversaw the creation of Surrounded Islands in order to protect the mammals, birds and fish who lived there. But I'm just going to say what everybody else is thinking: What do you do with six and a half million square feet of pink polyester after it's worn out its original use?

If Christo and Jeanne-Claude tried to assign any sort of deep-rooted philosophical meaning to these works, it would be extremely ridiculous. But they didn't. They contended that the purpose of their art was no thing more than to create joy by creating new ways of seeing familiar landscapes. Which in my opinion is kinda neat. So sorry, Nathan. I think you were wrong on this one.

Damien Hirst Sunday #10

2009-12-13T15:47:00.006-06:00

It's been a long time since I've had one of these. And it's a shame, too, because there's been a huge development in the world of Damien Hirst. He has recently announced that no more animals will die so that he can sell their formaldehyde pickled remains for millions of dollars. And not only that, he's also going to phase out the ridiculous dot paintings and spin paintings that have made him so ridiculously wealthy. Good for the art world and the world of good taste in general, right?

Well... there's more. Hirst has resolved to become a real painter. No, really, a good, talented, bodaciously brilliant painter who the world will remember for centuries as one who made historical advances in the use of light and shadow. One who will display a complete knowledge of classical iconography in his timeless works. One of the great prophets of civilization, in fact! Woohoo!

It will probably be more efficacious just to quote Hirst himself. He has recently said, "Anyone can be like Rembrandt. I don't think a painter like Rembrandt is a genius. It's about freedom and guts. It's about looking. It can be learnt. That's the great thing about art. Anybody can do it if you just believe. With practice you can make great paintings."

In case you were raised by scientists in an isolation booth, this is what a Rembrandt looks like. Can you tell where the light is coming from? Left? Right? Behind? Don't wear yourself out- it's one of the mysteries of the ages.

Another amazing thing about the greatest Northern European painter of all time was the way he painted women. While large bellies and thighs have not always been considered undesirable in a woman, the same cannot be said for cellulite and varicose veins. But Rembrandt van Rijn didn't give a shit. And have you ever seen an Artemis quite like this one?

According to Damien Hirst, anyone can paint like this- including you and, of course, he. And for what is possibly the first time in his career he plans on working hard not at aggressively marketing himself but at becoming a better artist. He is even approaching the endeavor with a slight dose of humility, admitting that "I definitely think it's early days for me painting. I don't think I've arrived."

I have to admit that I sort of admire this position that he is taking. Hell, if he really says he thinks he can, why not give him a chance? Let's not forget that before his days of producing bad art and good self-promotion he was a classically trained painter who attended both the Leeds College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths College. But what is this self-help crap about how "anybody can do it if you just believe"? Yes, there are certain obstacles that can be overcome. I like to think of myself as living proof that high-functioning autism isn't necessarily a death sentence for a normal life. But if you're a midget with spina bifida and an IQ of 70 then no matter how hard you believe in yourself you'll never become President of the United States. Sorry. And if you naturally suck as a painter then you'll never be able to paint like Rembrandt. Back in art school I knew several students who were determined to be painters. And those students worked harder than anyone else up to the day they flunked out because they just weren't good enough. The same goes for those who are just born to be engineers in spite of being pretty bad at math and science.

Others in the field agree. Dr. Julian Stallabrass of the Courtauld Institute cited Cézanne as an example of an artist whose work improved vastly over several decades, but also noted that "If you spend a lot of time drawing you will certainly improve. But that does not necessarily mean you'll succeed. There have always been many more artists than famous artists, and this is true all the more these days. There are a lot of art students working very hard, but not many of them will became well known." Amen.

Last October Hirst gave us a taste of what was to come with No Love Lost, an exhibition of twenty-five paintings at the Wallace Collection in London. Here are a few highlights:

Ooo, look at that wallpaper though! It was commissioned from Marie Antoinette's preferred manufacturers and paid for by Damien Hirst, who spent nearly a quarter of a million pounds from his own notoriously deep pockets getting the gallery ready for his big foray into serious painting.

Seriously, though, if these pictures were for a CD cover they wouldn't be bad. But they're not. They're somebody's first baby step towards becoming Rembrandt. And while my own opinion is probably too obvious to even mention, the critical reviews were atrocious. The London Times said this: "Hirst appears to hope that his heavy handed memento mori will make him part of the line-up of art historical tradition. But the artist who has made his reputation with shock now produces works that are shockingly bad." Yep.

But again, I say we should give him a chance. At the very least we'll have plenty more fodder for future Damien Hirst Sundays.

Kazimir Malevich

2009-12-09T16:50:00.005-06:00

In the early twentieth century, the manifesto began to become very popular in organized art history movements. Manifestos were once the domain of philosophical and political movements, but now artists were writing 'em too. This heralded the birth of what we can call the "artist philosopher" (that's my own term), which is basically a painter whose work may be deep and meaningful but isn't something you'd want to hang on your wall.

For eight hundred years the Russians really didn't have anything to show us artwise except Candyland-looking basilicas and heavily gilded, sleepy-eyed icons. But that changed shortly before the Bolshevik Revolution with the coming of two new movements in Russian art, Suprematism and Constructivism. The lithographed red and black posters with lots of backwards "N"s and "R"s and the big solid statues of well-built women holding sickles that may come to your mind when you think of Soviet art belonged to the Constructivist movement. But its harbinger, Suprematism, was far less interesting. The movement's creator, Kazimir Malevich, is notable for his ability to crank out hundreds of paintings in a short period of time that basically all looked the same.

Kazimir Malevich, Red Square. 1915, oil on canvas.

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square. 1913, oil on canvas.

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition White on White. 1918, oil on canvas.

If you're somewhat afraid that you're missing something, or if you feel a tad ignorant because you just don't "get" it, never fear. Take the advice from someone who's more than a bit knowledgeable concerning this sort of thing and just don't read too much into it. They're squares. That's all. Just fucking squares. And if you ever got a chuckle from any of those eighties movies where some culture snob looks at a painting of a square and snobbishly remarks on how brilliant and thrilling it is while all the cool kids laugh about how he's really just an idiot, you have Malevich to thank.

But just for the sake of it, let's get to the topic of Malevich as a philosopher. To really strip it down to the bones, here's what a Suprematist thinks:

Nothing is more important (or "supreme") than feeling.
You cannot use art to produce feelings if your art is actually of something that exists in real life. Only master forms can produce feeling.
The square is the ultimate master form.

See, that's pretty simple, huh? What sort of "feelings" do Malevich's paintings invoke for you? Yep, I'm drawing a blank too.

All of this talk about art producing "feelings" and how you can't paint a rose or a bunch of guys in a boat and produce these "feelings" because only lines and squiggles can do that may remind you of the artistic philosophy of another artist, who was also a Russian by birth (but a German by all other definitions).

Wassily Kandinsky, Composition VII. 1913, oil on canvas.

Now THIS is what a non-objective painting should look like. Not only did it probably take more than fifteen minutes to complete, but it really does invoke feelings in the viewer. I feel a surge of creativity and inspiration when I look at it, but you may feel frustration, anger or indignation. That's the idea, y'know?

In my humble opinion (and that's the only one that matters here), we shouldn't even compare this Malevich dumbass to the Bauhaus color theorist and legendary art educator Josef Albers, who painted a whole series of "homages to the square."

Josef Albers, Homage to the Square. 1965, acrylic on canvas.

This may be an homage to the ultimate master form, yes, but it's all about color, not form. And yes, you could go to Michael's and buy a pre-stretched canvas and a few fifty cent bottles of Delta Ceramcoat acrylic and do one of these yourself- but depending on your decor it might look quite striking over your sofa.

Although he usually chose not to, Malevich could actually paint quite well. He painted many very good portraits and objective paintings before and after he founded the Suprematist movement. Of course, as far as the "after" part goes he really didn't have much choice; the Stalinist regime forbid all forms of nonrepresentational art, arguing that they were bourgeois. But he signed all of these paintings with a black square. And when he died in Leningrad in 1935 his body was displayed beneath his beloved black square. (Hmph... now I feel a little guilty for slagging him so badly. He must have really loved his squares.)

Felicien Rops

2009-11-27T09:42:00.006-06:00

If it weren't for this magnificent website I might have never heard of the Belgian Symbolist Felicien Rops. (Oh, and if it's not too late, don't click on that unless you appreciate both tastelessness AND extreme stupidity, as I occasionally do.) The Rops lithograph featured on this site is obviously too banal for this blog, as I do set limits on human decency here, but it does currently have a place on my monitor's wallpaper.

Rops was both a Symbolist and a member of the Decadent movement, which also claimed artists such as Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley, as well as writers like Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire. And to see some of his work there is no better term to describe it.

Felicien Rops, The Temptation of St. Anthony. 1878, etching and aquatint. Well, the temptations faced by St. Anthony Abbot in the desert of Egypt have been prominent fodder for art since the German Renaissance, but Schongauer, Grunewald and even Bosch didn't go this far. While I'm not sure, this is more than likely an illustration for Gustave Flaubert's book of the same name, which was published only a few years earlier. I have never read that book but from what I understand Anthony does face the supernatural trials of lust and death. Which might make this print a little more academic than one might initially think- and reiterates the Symbolist theme of the woman as the personification of evil, as does most of Rops's other work.

But, uh, I'm sorry. Skill level aside, the subject matter brings to mind something a freshman art school student might throw together to shock his professor. "Come on, I'm just trying to show my views on religion!" "And what are those?" "Uh, that it's, uh, pretty stupid!" I can't even count the number of dominatrix/crucifix combos I saw as an art student, all done by freshmen, of course. Nowadays the nameplate over Jesus' head reads "FUCK" rather than "EROS." (If the same kid does end up with a BFA without getting discouraged over having no talent and dropping out of school he'll usually look over his early work and say, "Whew, what was I thinking?") But you sure have to hand it to Felicien Rops- those little skeleton cherubim in the top left corner add the perfect touch.

Felicien Rops, Woman On a Rocking Horse. 1870, etching and aquatint. Although Rops liked blasphemy and Satanic references as much as the next guy, he appreciated plain ol' soft porn also. Eroticizing childhood is no new invention. (It may surprise some people that American women didn't shave their underarms until after World War I, when American doughboys returned with a taste for the prepubescence employed by French whores and insisted that we adopt it as well. Makes you want to put the razor away, huh?)

Felicien Rops, Pornocrates. 1896, etching and aquatint. This was probably Rops's best known etching; in it he embodied his views of the modern woman. And as Damien Hirst once said, "That is as far as the metaphor should go." Yep.

Epic Michelangelo-Destroying Fail

2009-11-10T17:12:00.009-06:00

A word to the wise: If you plan on doing something extremely stupid, and you want to have a good insanity case when you make it to court, just scream "I AM JESUS CHRIST!" while you're doing it.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, La Pietà. 1499, marble.

Pietà is a generic term for a Madonna holding and weeping over her deceased son. Rogier Van Der Weyden, El Greco, and others have also painted and sculpted this scene. In fact, it forms the thirteenth Station of the Cross. But much like almost every other common subject Michelangelo has ever taken on, his is the most recognizable. It even has the distinction of being the only piece of his that was signed; he later regretted the pride involved in carving "Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made it" across her sash. While we know that Michelangelo made this one, there are seven authorized replicas out there, including two in the United States (in Saint Louis and Spring Lake, Michigan).

This hasn't been the luckiest sculpture; in 1736 four of the Virgin's fingers were restored after being broken off in a move. But it met its most unfortunate moment in 1972, on Pentecost Sunday, when a Hungarian geologist named Lazlo Toth managed to sneak a sledgehammer into Saint Peter's. People who knew Toth described him as looking like a poet (longish hair, goatee, et al.), said that he was always reading his Bible, and claimed that the only reason why he was in Rome in the first place was to speak publicly about the secrets of the Fatima prophecy (the Pope had promised to reveal them that year, but did not).

Possessing delusions of grandeur as well as the most Hungarian name possible, the disturbed geologist went for her face and arm while screaming that he was indeed the deceased man in the sculpture, risen from the dead. Due to his apparent insanity, he was never charged with the crime, but his deed did earn him a couple of years in an Italian psychiatric hospital. After his stay he was deported to Australia, where he had been living before the attack. (The extensive time he had spent studying in the remote Australian Outback might have been a contributor to his obvious insanity.)

The Virgin's arm, eyelid and nose were chipped off with Toth's sledgehammer. Some unfamiliar with the details of the attack were under the impression that she had been completely destroyed, with little chance of being restored to her original beauty. Well, seeing that the picture above was taken in 2005, those reports were exaggerated. Of course, just for safety's sake, the Virgin and her Son can only be seen behind bullet-proof acrylic today. (If only they could employ some sort of security precaution involving hammers in Saint Peter's, eh?)

And whatever happened to Lazlo Toth? Don Novello (best known for his portrayal of Father Guido on Saturday Night Live) published a book of bogus letters to celebrities and CEOs under the pseudonym Lazlo Toth. (It just sounds like a made-up name, doesn't it?) But the real Lazlo, who would be sixty-nine years old today if he is still alive, is believed to reside in Melbourne. One person who claims to have met him describes him as being very intelligent but was "a victim of knowledge and beliefs that he did not need" and says he lived like a hermit in the Bluemountains of New South Wales before suffering from a stroke that left him mostly paralyzed. No one knows for sure, of course, and that hasn't stopped dozens of Australians from facing accusations of being the real Lazlo Toth.

Grant Wood

2009-11-02T20:54:00.005-06:00

Grant Wood, American Gothic. 1930, oil on board.

My fellow art history blogger N.C. recently wrote an excellent post on Grant Wood's ubiquitous American masterpiece. It inspired me to feature it myself.

This is probably the American Mona Lisa, or at the very least Edvard Munch's The Scream. You've seen this pose parodied in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, on Green Acres, and if you've ever been to Washington, DC on postcards featuring the President and First Lady (whomever they may be at the time). It's disgusting; wait about five hundred years and someone will take a print of American Gothic, draw a mustache on the wife and give it a catchy title that implies that the farmer has a hot ass. (If you're one of those smart alecks who's crying out "Hey, that's his daughter, not his wife!" then your concern will be addressed soon.)

Say what you like about Wood- he didn't care what anybody thought. Amidst the synchromism of Thomas Hart Benton and the shifty abstraction of Ben Shahn, he just painted the way he always had. But that's not to say that this painting is boring or prosaic- it's surprisingly complex and full of symbolism.

Where did he get the idea? Well, it all started with a small house in Eldon, Iowa built in the late nineteenth century North American style known as Carpenter Gothic, which was mainly characterized by its European Gothic-style windows. When Wood noticed it he decided to paint it, along with the kind of people he thought should live there. Here's the little white house that started it all (notice the dormer window).

So that's why it's called American GOTHIC then, even though you see no one wearing spikes or a dog collar. But Webster's gives a very interesting definition of the word "gothic" (well, five of them actually, but here's the interesting one): "Belong to or redolent of the Dark Ages: portentously gloomy or horrifying." Gloomy or horrifying... well, I think I can see it. That old farmer's looking at us with murder in his eyes. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of that pitchfork.

The models were Dr. Byron McKeeby, the Cedar Rapids dentist who cleaned Wood's teeth, and Wood's sister Nan, who was thirty three years Dr. McKeeby's junior. So yes, even though many scholars still see this as a matter of dispute, she is his daughter. Up until her death in 1990 Nan was devoted to dispelling the myth that she was supposed to be his wife; she found the idea that people thought she could be married to such an old man, and this one to boot, really gross. Grant, on the other hand, never commented on the issue.

And not unlike its viewers of today, art lovers of the 1930s assumed this painting was meant to be a parody of small-town life. It wasn't. In addition, Iowans were very upset about being generalized as pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers. Good grief. Many people in my own state (that's Alabama) don't like the way we're depicted in art and media, but perhaps they could use a trip about fifty miles outside of the city limits for a dose of reality.

Ten Years Ago This Week

2009-10-17T12:45:00.006-05:00

You might have missed it, but this week marks the ten year anniversary of one of the most important events in the history of bad art. Even if you don't keep up with the contemporary art world, you probably remember these events at least vaguely.

What happened this week in 1999? That was the week that the Sensation show opened in New York City at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The show had originated in London, where it was fairly controversial (though for different reasons), but it was in the US where it really hit the fan. Quite literally! This was the show that integrated the words "elephant dung" into our vocabulary forever.

Everyone knew that a painting of the Virgin Mary that incorporated pachyderm waste had been displayed in New York, but most of these people had never actually seen it. Many were under the impression that this painting was smeared with the stuff, making it particularly sacrilegious. Of course, the very integrity of the medium makes that a little difficult- elephant dung is rather clumpy, and easier to simply paste onto a canvas than to smear. So if you're one of those who still hasn't seen the work that created all the fuss, here it is.

Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary. 1996. Oil, glitter, polyester resin, elephant dung, and decoupaged cutouts of genitalia and asses from pornographic magazines on linen.

Ofili, a British artist of Nigerian descent, first made a name for himself with glorious paintings such as 7 Bitches Tossed and The Legend of Captain Shit and the Black All-Stars (all of which also incorporate elephant dung), but it was the one above that won him the 1996 Turner Prize. He has explained that his use of his trademark material is reminiscent of animistic African religions, where it is used in ceremony. But many have explained it away as a modus operandi for illustrating the Virgin's humanity, much like how the artists of the High Renaissance attempted to do when making her into a modern, fashionable woman.

Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Angels. 1457, tempera on panel. Eh, I don't see much of a correlation. What many have forgotten through all of this heated controversy is that, unlike Fra Lippi, Ofili just doesn't know how to paint.

What is interesting is that in London this painting was barely a footnote. Marcus Harvey's Myra, a Chuck Close-style portrait of the child serial killer Myra Hindley made of children's handprints, was the piece that gallery officials had to seal behind plexiglas after it was vandalized in fury. But a 72 year old man was arrested in New York for smearing Ofili's Virgin with white paint, garnering it the same treatment for the remainder of the show. I don't see why it's worth getting arrested over- or why it deserves any virulent emotional reaction at all.

The controversy went even further. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called it "sick stuff," stated that it "desecrated somebody's religion" (as if art hasn't been accused of doing the same thing for centuries), and famously exclaimed "There's nothing in the First Amendment that supports horrible and disgusting projects!" Whew. Ofili defended the work by saying, "Elephant dung is in itself quite a beautiful object."

After the US House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution to end funding for the museum, Charles Saatchi, who owned all of the work in the exhibition, did get the publicity that he wanted- which was all that was important. I just wish that this sort of controversy could be created by a piece that's actually, well, good.

It never even occurred to anyone that there were a total of 110 pieces in this exhibition by 42 different artists, or that the show as a whole really wasn't all that bad.

Damien Hirst Sunday #9

2009-10-11T10:07:00.003-05:00

While not for everybody, for some the best way to celebrate a twelve year recovery from testicular cancer spreading to the brain is to cross the finish line at the Tour de France on a bike with dead things glued to it.

Damien Hirst has finally officially branded himself- while we've already seen his skateboards, which with all honesty were pretty cool, we now have a hot pink bicycle covered in real butterfly wings. Sorry, little princesses- only one was made, and it was for Lance Armstrong to finish the 2009 Tour de France on.

Several artists, such as Shepard Fairey and Yosimoto Nara, designed bicycles to sell at auction for Armstrong's cancer charity. But this was the one he chose to ride. Armstrong usually rides a black and white TREK Madone bike with the yellow "Live Strong" logo, and most of the other artists used the same color scheme in their own bikes. But after he saw the TREK that Hirst had put his finishing touches on, he was "speechless."

So what went into this monstrosity? One top-of-the-line TREK Madone racing bicycle, hundreds of dead butterflies (including the Blue Morpho and yellow and black Buttercup), and well, that's about it. The butterflies shown here were raised in an unknown location, killed by unknown means, and had their wings torn off and laminated in an unappealing pattern on the frame of the bicycle. In Hirst's own words: "The technical problems were immense, as I wanted to use real butterflies and not just pictures of butterflies, because I wanted it to shimmer when the light catches it like only real butterflies do, and we were trying not to add any extra weight to the bike." I guess when you're dealing with something this extremely technical, even a billionth of an ounce could throw it off. However, I don't see the butterfly wings being any heavier than the ink that would have been used to print pictures of them. But I don't claim to know anything about process engineering so I won't comment any further on that.

A lot of people (well, I guess just PETA) didn't like this one bit. The animal rights group called this bicycle "barbaric and horrific" and accused it of "ruining the essence of this man's very spirit." While I agree with very little of what that group says, I think they do have a point. It probably is near to impossible to create a bicycle (or any other mass-produced product) that doesn't contain animal products of any kind. But when you've built your legacy on celebrating life, is it really that tasteful to advertise that living creatures died so that you could ride a particularly tacky bike? Perhaps it's an obtuse memento mori of sorts.

I have read enough issues of People in the dentist's office to know that Lance Armstrong isn't perfect in any way. But he never struck me as a person with particularly bad taste. So it is apparently time to rethink that notion. I have been looking at this and wondering if there's any way to make it look somewhat more aesthetically pleasing. Maybe change the hot pink color scheme to something less vulgar? Take the butterfly wings off the tires? Nope. It can't be done.

I think I will just stick to the yellow bracelet.

John Singer Sargent

2009-10-09T18:35:00.005-05:00

John Singer Sargent, Self Portrait. 1906, oil on canvas.

I have been writing one of my papers on John Singer Sargent, and I have grown to really like him. Possibly the best portrait painter since Velázquez (whom he modeled himself after), Sargent painted over 900 portraits in his lifetime, including far and away the greatest official portrait of a United States President. (And what is very interesting is that, to put it short, he and Teddy did NOT get along.)

Sargent came from a very old American family- his ancestors were Puritans who arrived shortly after the Mayflower did, and his family was extremely proud of their heritage. While they were not hideously wealthy, his parents had the means to spend their lives roaming around Europe without having to worry about working. So Sargent was born in Florence, spent most of his childhood in Italy and France, and did not set foot on American soil until he was 21. As an adult his main base of operations was in London, though he spent ample time in Paris and Venice as well; in spite of having major commissions in Washington, DC and Boston, he never lived in the United States. But he never considered himself to be anything except an American. Toward the end of his life he even turned down the opportunity to be knighted, as that would have involved forgoing his American citizenship. An American spirit has no geographic boundaries.

Now the rant begins. Part of being an historian of any sort involves picking and poking at stuff that's really none of your business. Sargent never married, although as a man of high society he probably could have had his pick of the available dames. He also had no romantic relationships of note and was very private about his personal life. And even though he was a guy, he was not afraid to paint male nudes, some of which were rather sensuous.

John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Thomas E. McKellar. 1917, oil on canvas. This painting also has the distinction of being one of the very few nude paintings of a black man from this time period.

John Singer Sargent, Tommies Bathing. 1918, watercolor and graphite on paper.

For this reason plenty of scholars have pretty much assumed that he was a homosexual. No one seems to even notice that he painted similarly sensual female nudes:

John Singer Sargent, Egyptian Girl. 1917, oil on canvas.

The French painter Jacques-Émile Blanche once said about Sargent that his sex life was "notorious in Paris, and positively scandalous in Venice... he was a frenzied bugger." I'm no expert on antiquated dirty words, so I still haven't gotten the best handle on the meaning of the word "bugger." I am fairly certain that it involves anal sex, but whether it specifically denotes dude-on-dude action is unclear to me.

I don't think it's even worth mentioning that there's nothing wrong with being gay or that a large percentage of history's most brilliant artists were openly gay; everyone knows that. But whether Sargent was or wasn't was a matter that he apparently wished to take to the grave. It did not influence the majority of his work- so why do art historians seem to find any importance in it at all? Did Sargent speak with an effeminate voice? Did he buy matching wallets and belts? Did he wave his hand in a flippant gesture and refer to Teddy Roosevelt and his other sitters as "Miss Thang"? Who honestly gives a shit?

Disrespect for the dead is not acceptable in art history. Especially when it's a dead person who, as I have mentioned earlier, is someone I have really grown to like.

Jackson Pollock

2009-09-27T18:26:00.006-05:00

It's always cool and refreshing when a long-dead artist makes big news in the current day. This week, Jackson Pollock did just that.

Jackson Pollock, Mural. 1943, oil on canvas. If you've seen the movie Pollock, then you probably remember this one as the huge commission given to him by Peggy Guggenheim. According to the film, he stood at the huge 8' by 20' canvas for months before he finally attacked it in an orgy of creative fury. Estimated to be worth $140 million (like the infamous No. 5, 1948), it has been owned by the University of Iowa since 1948. (And if you haven't seen Pollock, you should- great movie.)

But if you believe this is merely a work of pure abstraction, according to art historian Henry Adams and his very observant wife you are mistaken. In his article in October's Smithsonian, it was his wife who originally looked at the painting (doubtlessly not for the first time) and noticed that Pollock had embedded his own name within its spires and swirls.

Okay... before you look at the picture below (if you haven't already given this entry a read-through) be sure to look at the one above to see if you can find it yourself.

Alright, give up? Well, here's what you're supposed to see.

There it is, people. Sachcdon Pollouh! Why has it taken nearly seventy years for anyone to notice?

Francis Bacon

2009-09-23T08:44:00.005-05:00

Back in Ye Olde Days of youth subcultures, when "emo" and "goth" were two distinctly different concepts (I guess I'm really showing my wrinkles here), I kinda sorta fit into the goth category. Of course, I was far too cool to use that word. Labels are for poseurs, after all.

Even back then I loved art, and I tried to make it clear to everyone that I knew more than the next kid did about it. And there's an unwritten law that kids who are goths, artsy fartsies, AND nerds are required to love and cherish the works of Francis Bacon, who was clearly one of the darkest artists of the twentieth century. And so I did.

Francis Bacon, Pope Innocent X (Study after Velázquez). 1951, oil on linen. This is indeed a study of the rather innocuous portrait of the Pope that Diego Velázquez painted in 1650. Bacon was so drawn to it that he did many studies of it, but with the Pope screaming as if in extreme pain. What or whom is he screaming at? Or was Bacon merely fascinated with the concept of a Pope screaming? That's been a matter of dispute since 1951. This painting has become such an icon that, like "Whistler's Mother," it's become known to most people by a name other than its own (you might have heard it referred to as "The Screaming Pope"). As Life Magazine simply put it in their 1992 eulogy of Bacon, "He painted despair."

Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. 1944, oil on board. It's interesting how these figures are at the base of a crucifixion, not the crucifixion. So don't misinterpret this as a religious work. In fact, Bacon based them on the Three Furies from Aeschylus's Oresteia.

Francis Bacon, Painting I. 1946, oil on linen. Some have considered this to be his uncontested masterpiece; after all, it includes everything his paintings were known for. Blood, meat, brutality, despair, mystery, the token figure in black, etc. What's weird about this painting is that it began as a painting of a chimpanzee hiding in the grass; Bacon took a few turns in his painting process, probably asked himself "Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I did this....", and voilá, a symphony of darkness and misery in oil paint.

Many people have argued that, even though this painting began as some sort of jungle scene, it's actually supposed to be about war. Hey, it was done right after a war, and it is pretty brutal, so why not? The only truly heated argument I have ever had with an art history professor was about this- she probably should have known better than to contend with a goth kid when it came to Francis Bacon. Obviously a member of the school of thought that believes any bleak painting done between 1935 and 1950 is about the horrors of war, she taught our class that "this is a painting about war." When I respectfully pointed out that Bacon could have painted a work such as this at any point in his career (without even mentioning the bit about the chimpanzee), she replied (with a stare that suggested daggers), "It's about WAR." And oddly enough, that became the only art history class that I ever made less than an A in. Not that Bacon had anything to do with it, of course.

But just because his paintings were depressing doesn't mean that he didn't know how to have a good time. Here are some fun facts about him:

He was indeed a collateral descendant (super-great nephew) of the 16th century British philosopher and scientist who shares his name.
As a boy he bought a medical book called Diseases of the Mouth. He read it until he had it memorized, and the appalling things one can have happen in their mouth became a great inspiration in his work. (This can be seen in the work above.)
He once said that he wanted his figures' screams to look "like a sunset by Monet." Did he succeed? You decide.
He wore dresses and heavy makeup in public at a time when such behavior was not accepted even in creative circles. I don't want to reinforce any stereotypes about guys who wear dresses and the types of artwork they should be producing, but, well, looking at the paintings above can't you say this surprises you maybe just a little bit?
He was unfortunate enough to be born with sandy light brown hair (the poor man), so he dyed his hair using shoe polish. He also whitened his teeth using toilet cleaner.
He was rather fond of alcohol, but his more unorthodox addictions included gambling and shellfish.
One legend about him (that I hope is true, because it's a pretty good story): He supposedly caught a man trying to break into his studio to rob him. He gave him a choice concerning his immediate future- either Bacon could call the police and have him arrested, or the man could go to bed with him. It was the beginning of a relationship (of some sort) that lasted seven years.
Last and least, Bacon is Damien Hirst's favorite artist; he owns one of the world's most venerable collections of Bacon's work. Hirst has even cited Bacon as a major influence, creating an installation consisting of an umbrella, some meat, and a few other items from Painting I all piled together in a vitrine. I just try to keep reminding myself that it's not Francis Bacon's fault. It's not Francis Bacon's fault.

Damien Hirst Sunday #8

2009-09-20T19:55:00.008-05:00

Now maybe you've been reading this blog from the get-go and you still need proof that quite literally anything can be considered art. Thou shalt need no longer.

Damien Hirst, My Way. 1989, pill bottles (that may or may not be empty) and a cupboard.

Wow, 1989... that was a long time ago. I was entering the fifth grade, some of my peers in college were just being born, and Damien Hirst was a relatively unknown artist. But Charles Saatchi could already see that the tripe he was producing would someday be uber-big. So he bought the object you see above for several thousand pounds. He got a bargain, as it sold for $354,500 at Christie's a mere ten years later.

Hirst elaborated on this theme rather extensively over the years; his fascination with prescription drugs led to the enormous installation Pharmacy. The Tate Gallery is the proud owner, having purchased it for about $20 million.

Well, here it is, folks. Kinda looks like a real pharmacy, huh? Actually, there are a few differences. See those neat-looking bottles of colored water sitting on top of the pharmacist's desk? Those are supposed to represent the Four Elementals- Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The blue one's probably Water; I don't really know enough about pseudo-science to speculate on the others. Hirst probably doesn't either.

However, if you look further there's even more symbolism. This cool gadget- you might have one on your back porch- is the Insect-o-cutor. It kills insects in real life, but in the world of Damien Hirst it "symbolises some sort of god, something that kills without mercy, without emotion, without choice... visitors to the gallery act as flies, people as flies, like an overview of life without emotion, that is as far as the metaphor should go." Yep. I was thinking the same thing. Weren't you?

But wait... there's more! Those library-like swivel stools hold little bowls of honeycomb, which are supposed to attract flies, which can then be killed without mercy, emotion, or choice by the Divine Insect-o-cutor. (When this brilliant piece was originally displayed in New York holes were cut in the walls so that actual flies could enter for that very purpose. Cool, huh?) And there's more! The honey also symbolizes the world of medicine before the age of modern pharmaceuticals. Get it?

And, of course, this is also the piece that was vandalized by the great Cartrain, who stole the most valuable box of pencils in history last summer. Geez, if I was sixteen and had the chance to pilfer this I would have nicked a bottle of Xanax instead.

Now, here's the next question: How would you like to eat at a restaurant inspired by this piece? And not only that, but one that serves traditional English food? Well, you had your chance, but you missed it. A joint venture by Hirst and PR guru Matthew Freud, Pharmacy Restaurant opened in Notting Hill, London in 1997. Hirst held creative control over every aspect of the design; the medicine cabinet walls, the aspirin-shaped barstools, and the Prada-designed surgical coats worn by the waiters.

It gained publicity (and possibly business too) when the Royal Pharmaceutical Society expressed its qualms over how similar it was to a regular pharmacy (the concern was that it might confuse people). Its name also breached the 1968 Medicines Act, which puts restrictions on the very use of the word "pharmacy"; it changed its name to Army Chap. (Don't get it? Mix up the letters in "pharmacy.") When it closed its doors altogether without warning in 2003, Hirst came out better than anyone; the artwork and furniture that he designed went on to net him £11 million at auction.

But good grief... this guy pickles cows in formaldehyde. Why should he be running a restaurant? Gross. (But then again, English food is pretty bad.)

Epic Picasso-Selling Fail

2009-09-19T15:06:00.005-05:00

(I will note here that in thirty posts I have not once used the term "epic fail." That pattern ends here.)

Pablo Picasso, Le Rêve (The Dream). 1932, oil on canvas.

You might have once displayed a print of this painting in your make-out van, or maybe it graces the cover of the catalog for the mail-order company that you buy your sex toys from. Either way, there is no denying its charged erotic undertones. Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso's half-his-age mistress of the time, is shown in slumber, her loose-fitting blouse revealing one of her breasts and her hands lying in her lap in a masturbatory fashion. Some people have been able to see a penis in the left side of her shadowed face. And some believe it's supposed to be Picasso's own penis. Those people really need to get their heads out of the gutter.

But it's a gorgeous painting, definitely one for the ages, and it might even be one of the few where a little Freudian analysis might be forgivable. Once the sixth most expensive painting ever sold, it came very close to making it to our current list. But a little ignorance kept that from happening.

It belongs to Steve Wynn, who also owns The Golden Nugget, The Mirage, Treasure Island, Encore, and a host of other Las Vegas casinos. While he has amassed a very impressive art collection (including paintings by Gauguin, Matisse, Manet, and a possibly authentic Vermeer), he considers Le Rêve to be its centerpiece, even considering naming one of his resorts after it. He nevertheless couldn't pass up the chance to sell it to Steven A. Cohen (remember him?) for $139 million in 2006, which would have made it the world's most expensive painting at the time.

But the fates didn't have it in mind for Mr. Wynn; while showing it to some friends only days before the anticipated sale, he knocked it with his elbow and created a six inch gash right through Marie-Thérèse's left arm. Whew! That's some powerful elbow work there! Sounds a little more like how someone might behave at a UFC match than around a $139 million painting. After a repair job that racked up $90,000, Wynn decided to take this mishap as a sign that he should hold onto it for a while.

Steve Wynn's friends, including Nora Ephron, have defended him, citing a genetic degenerative eye condition that affects his peripheral vision and makes it difficult for him to determine distance. But maybe owning a Picasso is like having kids or driving a car- some people just shouldn't be allowed to do it.

What Are the World's Most Expensive Paintings... And Why?

2009-09-16T18:34:00.011-05:00

Once in my younger years I recall looking through some old Look and Saturday Evening Post magazines that I had found in a trunk in my grandparents' basement. One article mentioned a painting by Diego Velázquez that had recently sold for $2.4 million. At the time (I believe this was the early 1970s) it was the most expensive painting ever purchased.

Today, that's laughable. Now don't get me wrong- I once rode high for a year after someone paid $600 for one of my own canvases- but even when adjusted for inflation $2.4 million for a great painting is a pittance. And a Velázquez to boot!

What makes determining the most valuable painting in the world difficult is that most extremely high-end paintings (such as the Old Masters' or icons such as Guernica) are not for sale. In 1962 The Mona Lisa was insured for $100 million, which with inflation figured in makes it worth about $670 million today. But no matter what you're willing to pay for it, it will probably never be yours.

But here are the ten most expensive paintings ever purchased by individuals or foundations at auctions or private sales- along with a brief explanation why each might have sold for so much. One thing that is interesting to note is that, although all prices are adjusted for inflation, nine of the ten were purchased in the past twenty years, with four (including all of the top three) purchased in 2006. This may insinuate that our appetites for spending have become a little less satiable in recent years (hey, look at the credit crisis!). I will also add that these figures are truthful as of September 16, 2009; while the number one spot on our list has retained its title for nearly three years, its predecessor kept it for only five months.

10. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe. 1889. Sold 1998, $94.6 million (adjusted, as are all prices here).

Why So Much? Well, it's a self-portrait by Van Gogh. And he doesn't have a beard. Come ON now.

In my personal opinion, Van Gogh's work is somewhat overrated. But this is one artist whose legend cannot be separated from his work. Whom else do you think of when you correlate the words "brilliant" and "tortured"? He went mad from eating chrome yellow paint. He cut off his earlobe (not his entire ear) and mailed it to a prostitute whom he was in love with (although he was also a closet homosexual... hmmm). He painted nearly eight hundred paintings in his lifetime and sold only one. He offed himself at the age of 37- about ten years before he would become one of the most influential artists of his time. Oh, what a sad man. And sad men are the ones who are often taken the most seriously as artists.

Van Gogh's self-portraits are rare- while he painted many, only a fraction survive- so they command a huge price. This one, however, has garnered the highest sum.

9. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin. 1889. Sold 1989, $100.8 million.

Why So Much? Generally a loner who didn't have very many friends, Van Gogh was very close to the Roulin family when he lived in ~~Paris~~ Arles (thank you Nico), painting dozens of portraits of Joseph (usually in his postmaster uniform), his wife, and their three children. This particular one was not among the most recognizable nor the most impressive (although that wallpaper sure is fancy). So let's just file this one under "who the hell knows."

8. Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar au Chat. 1941. Sold 2006, $101.8 million.

Why So Much? Picasso holds a Guinness Book record as the most prolific artist of all time; over his eight decade career he produced over a million works. Before you accuse me of shitting you, at least half of these were prints from editions; nonetheless, he was still known to produce as many as six paintings a day. So why would a painting by someone who obviously has so much work floating around be worth this much? Well, influence wise Picasso was the greatest artist of the twentieth century, and this is one of the paintings that make us see why.

It's a rare three quarter pose of Dora Maar (his most mysterious mistress; I have discussed her before) and it has a dramatic, almost sculptural quality in its line and shape. Even by Picasso's standards, this is simply a good painting. If Les Demoiselles d'Avignon showed us everything Cubism could be, this painting embodied what it became. (I'm sorry- but I like it.)

So who owns it? No one knows for sure- although rumor has it that it's Georgian mining magnate Boris Ivanishvili, who sold a bank that he owned in Moscow for about half a billion dollars a week before the auction and has since then sort of kept to himself.

7. Vincent Van Gogh, Irises. 1889. Sold 1987, $102.3 million.

Why So Much? It's quite possibly the most famous painting in the top ten; there's a good possibility that you've owned an umbrella or ceramic mug printed with it. And Van Gogh painted it while in an asylum, for crying out loud. He referred to this painting as "the lightning conductor for my illness," meaning that painting it was all that kept him from going insane.

6. Pablo Picasso, Garçon à la Pipe. 1905. Sold 2004, $118.9 million.

Why So Much? This was one of the finest example of Picasso's Rose Period, which immediately preceded his invention of Cubism; but its sale at such a high price has still been a quandary to many. Said Picasso expert Pepe Karmel, "I'm stunned that a pleasant, minor painting could command a price appropriate to a real masterwork by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced from the true values of art." Uh... damn.

5. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bal du moulin de la Galette. 1876. Sold 1990, $128.8 million.

Why So Much? The oldest painting on the list, this rather well known and optimistic snapshot of Impressionist life was sold to Ryoei Saito, the honorary chairman of Japan's Daishowa Paper. And he must have been enamored with it- he announced that when he died he planned on being cremated along with it. After an enormous public outcry to this statement he claimed he was only joking. That was probably bullshit, but hopefully we'll never know, as when Saito experienced a little financial difficulty he had to hand it over to a Swiss bank as collateral on a loan.

4. Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Dr. Gachet. 1890. Sold 1990, $136.1 million.

Why So Much? What do we know about the subject of the painting? His name was Dr. Paul Gachet, he was a Parisian physician who worked with mental patients (including Van Gogh), and in Van Gogh's opinion he really wasn't that good at what he did. In fact, Vinnie once said of his doctor, "[He's] sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much." It is interesting that Van Gogh painted his doctor in the same style as Delacroix's paintings of Torquato Tasso in the madhouse.

This painting passed hands with about eight owners, including Herman Goering (of course, in his case it was more along the lines of theft). Ultimately, this was another purchase by Ryoei Saito, which was also destined to join him in the crematorium before his creditors stepped in.

3. Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. 1907. Sold 2006, $144.4 million.

Why So Much? Now even for Klimt that is a lot of damn gold. He spent three years working on this piece, putting it amongst the finest of his oeuvre without a doubt. The wife of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, Adele left this painting and others that she had commissioned to the Austrian State Gallery in her will. They never made it there though; after the Nazi occupation of Austria, her family was forced to flee to Switzerland and their art collection was looted. After the war, a huge legal battle began between the Austrian government and Adele's nephews and nieces, including Maria Altmann. Many years and millions of dollars in court fees later, the painting was Altmann's, and she was free to sell it to cosmetics tycoon Ronald Lauder for an obscene amount of money.

Lauder bought it to display in his Neue Gallerie, though it made its debut in his ownership at MoMA, where visitors were charged $50 for tickets just to see it. It may sound exorbitant just to see one painting, but hey, I'd fork it out. Well, as long as I got to touch it. Look at all that gold. It's begging for my greasy fingerprints...

2. Willem de Kooning, Woman III. 1953. Sold 2006, $147 million.

Why So Much? It's super abstract, mildly misogynist, revolutionary for its time, and your kid could probably do it, right? There was a friendly battle going on for many years between de Kooning and Jasper Johns over who was going to be the world's most expensive living artist. In 1997 de Kooning had to bow out when he ceased to be a living artist.

Formerly in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran, it was removed after the revolution; it wasn't to Khomeini's taste. It somehow ended up in David Geffen's ownership, who went on to sold it to hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen, who's also the owner of history's most expensive dead shark (you know the one). Since Cohen apparently has little actual taste, his motive in spending so much on this piece was probably to show the world how rich he is.

And now for the most expensive painting of all time... by the artist who, according to de Kooning, "has broken the ice for us."

Ready?

Drumroll, please...

1. Jackson Pollock, No. 5, 1948. 1948. Sold 2006, $149.6 million.

Why So Much? Look kids, I know you're disappointed, and I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do about it; if I had about $150 million more than I have I'd go take Dora Maar au Chat off the hands of that Georgian guy. Then I wouldn't have to list this ketchup and mustard- looking thing as the most expensive painting in the world.

Okay, now to be a little more serious. Believe it or not, Jackson Pollock didn't paint that much. He died at the age of 44; his struggles with alcoholism and mental illness kept him from being as productive as he could have been. His trademark style of "action painting" accounted for a small percentage of his overall works- believe it or not, he couldn't whip out several of these a day. If you ever see a video of him painting (there's a good one here) then you will see that his work was not as random as you might think; every brush stroke was carefully thought. As few paintings as he actually did, even fewer are still around. Collectors expect his work to only rise in value as the years go by.

And after all, he was the one to break the ice.

How Far Down Does the Rabbit Hole Go? All the Way to Siena

2009-09-14T18:09:00.005-05:00

Ever wondered what would happen if Tim Burton hopped on a time machine, entered a Renaissance-era Romanesque/Gothic cathedral, and just exploded? Well, wonder no longer.

Oh, the humanity! Really, not a whole lot can be said about this other than it is just ugly. On second thought I guess you could also call it tacky and misappropriated. (And just to clarify things, we are not talking about the ceiling, the pulpit, or the floor- they're actually okay. We are talking about those hideous black and white columns.) Things that come to mind are old-timey prison uniforms, Marilyn Manson hosiery, the Mackenzie & Childs catalog, and the stomach-turning juxtaposition of licorice and marshmallow fluff.

Believe it or not, however, there's actually a very noble and justifiable reason for this hideousness. The building shown above is the Duomo (cathedral church) in Siena, Italy. Begun in the 1100s and completed in 1380 (it takes a long time to build a church like this), it is one of Europe's finest examples of Romanesque architecture.

When one thinks of the Italian Renaissance, cities that come to mind include Rome, Florence, Milan, and Venice, but rarely Siena. Located in Tuscany about a third of the way between Florence and Rome, Siena claims a history as old as Rome's; according to legend, Siena was founded by and named for Senius, the son of Remus and nephew of Romulus (the latter two being the twins who founded Rome). Also according to legend, a she-wolf led Senius to Siena on a trip where he was protected by a black cloud during the day and a white one at night. For this reason the symbol of Siena is a she-wolf, and its coat of arms features two simple horizontal bands of white and black.

And that is how black and white bands (of the brain-numbing repetitive variety) set in the marble of the area are common in Sienese architecture, particularly in the Duomo. Although most historians stick with the story of the Etruscans and the tribe known as the Saina.

Damien Hirst Sunday #7

2009-09-13T09:56:00.009-05:00

Damien Hirst, Hymn. 2000, painted bronze.

When looking at this sculpture, for many only one thought comes to mind: "Hey, I used to have one of those! Only mine wasn't so big." Yep, I had one of those as well. And Connor Ojala Hirst also had one; his dad was so impressed with it that he decided to duplicate it at several hundred times its original scale, cast it in bronze, paint it to look exactly like the original, and sell four casts of it at approximately $2 million a pop.

But hey, wait a second. While most of Hirst's works are based on ideas that were probably not originally his, this is the one where you can safely use the word definitely. The original design was by Norman Emms, the creator of the Young Scientist Anatomy Set, which was manufactured and sold by the toy company Humbrol for about $30. He was promptly sued for breach of copyright by Emms and Humbrol. An out-of-court settlement was reached where Hirst agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to two British charities, Children Nationwide and The Toy Trust. Emms gave the impression that the judgment amount was actually rather paltry. Hirst also agreed not to make or sell any further casts of Hymn.

(If you think this is no different than Andy Warhol's use of the Campbell's soup can image in his silkscreens, well, that's a valid opinion. Now get the hell off my blog.)

It's interesting how quickly he conceded. It sort of insinuates that deep down in his black heart he realized that he was doing something wrong. He seems to think it's wrong when a company like British Airways uses brightly colored dots in an ad campaign (he once successfully sued them for doing so).

Hirst also didn't like it one bit when a sixteen year old artist, known only by the moniker Cartrain, used an image of Hirst's For the Love of God in some of his collages that he sold online. Here's some examples:

Niiice... and the kid's only sixteen too! Too bad Hirst threatened him with a lawsuit if he didn't pony up all of the profits he'd made, turn over the balance of his artwork featuring Hirst's skull, and stop using his images altogether. So Cartrain (who as a result of his ordeal is an urban hero who can demand a much higher price for his work) had to give Hirst the £200 he'd netted.

This very week, however, the plot thickened. Ever the little rebel, Cartrain snuck into the Tate Gallery last June, where Hirst's Pharmacy installation (next Sunday's topic!) was being displayed, and to protest the artist's curmudgeonity swiped a box of Faber-Castell pencils from the installation. Cartrain issued the following statement:

For the safe return of Damien Hirst's pencils I would like my artworks back that DACS and Hirst took off me in November. It's not a large demand. He can have his pencils back when I get my artworks back. DACS are now not taking any notice of my emails and I have asked nicely more than five times to try and resolve this matter. Hirst has until the end of this month to resolve this or on 31st of July the pencils will be sharpened. He has been warned.

Not an unreasonable request, eh? But no such luck. Cartrain was arrested this week for causing £10 million in damage and is also being sued by Hirst and the Tate Gallery for an additional £500,000 for the theft. As an addendum, he even has to replace the box of pencils himself! With all likelihood, the teenager will go to prison.

I guess we can just file this under the "should we laugh or cry?" category.

Minoru Yamasaki

2009-09-11T14:44:00.007-05:00

If you've never heard of Minoru Yamasaki, then it's probably because you're not much of a Modernist architecture buff. Shame on you.

Yamasaki was born in Seattle to Japanese-American parents in 1912. After getting a Bachelor's degree in architecture from Washington University he moved to New York, getting a job with Shreve, Lamb and Harmon (who designed the Empire State Building). He started his own partnership in 1949, after which he designed his best known works.

While his love of traditional Japanese design showed up in some of his works (San Francisco's Japan Center stands out), Yamasaki was best known for his Modernist buildings. Judging by the general body of his work, this was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's man through and through.

Minoru Yamasaki, Torre Picasso (Picasso Tower). Madrid, Spain, 1988.

Minoru Yamasaki, One M&T Plaza. Buffalo, New York, 1966.

Minoru Yamasaki, Pruitt-Igoe public housing project (demolition). St. Louis, Missouri, built 1955, demolished 1972.

Yes, Yamasaki built one super avant-garde housing project. And the sad, sad tale of Pruitt-Igoe is as much one for the sociology and economics books as for the architecture annals. The mayor of St. Louis wanted to gut the city's slums and start over, giving the poor of the city a nice, clean and affordable place to live- in the form of a Modernist set of thirty-three eleven story buildings.

Ah, but the devil fools with the best laid plans. Apparently the low-incomers of St. Louis wanted a habitation that they could trash. (This is definitely not speaking for all low-income people, mind you- just those of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project). Eventually Pruitt-Igoe became a monumental symbol of everything that sucks about being poor. To put it in perspective, here's a picture of Yamasaki's vision for Pruitt-Igoe:

And here's how it looked right before being demolished:

And so it came down less than twenty years after it was completed. The saddest thing about it all? The whole Pruitt-Igoe fiasco led to the re-evaluation of Modernism in the 1970s and later to the Post-Modernist movement (ugh!). Some said its failure was based on Modernist architects' inability to accommodate social conditions. Charles Jencks even went as far as to call its demolition "the death of Modernist architecture."

Yamasaki, who died in 1986 at the age of 73, was alive to see his Pruitt-Igoe building be destroyed. I'm not sure how he felt about it, but I imagine he felt a little remorse for having not designed a building that met its occupants' needs better. There's no denying that his intentions were good. But he designed another no longer extant work that was destroyed in a similarly theatrical fashion fifteen years after he died (and eight years ago today).

Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Center Towers I and II. New York, New York. Completed 1970, destroyed by terrorist attack 2001.

I think the rest of this blog will be more difficult to write than I had thought it would. I am not a sentimental person nor a particularly patriotic one, and I'm fighting back tears as we speak. We all remember what happened, and we all have our own personal stories about what we were doing when it happened, so there's no need to wax poetic about it. The attack that destroyed it resulted in the deaths of at least 2,750 people, including several artists who rented studio space there.

It is interesting that no one has mourned for Yamasaki's masterwork. The buildings survived a three-alarm fire in 1975 and later a basement bombing in 1993. They provided ten million square feet of office space, taking only a tiny footprint on one 16 acre superblock. Thinking about the building occupants' safety he sheathed its facades in an aluminum alloy ; thinking of their personal security he built narrow windows (he was a tad afraid of heights himself). And anyone who's been to New York before 2001 will tell you that you couldn't get a better view of Manhattan than from the WTC's observation tower.

So thank you, Minoru Yamasaki. They were good buildings.

Stanley Spencer

2009-09-09T17:56:00.007-05:00

Like every other red-blooded heterosexual man, Stanley Spencer liked lesbians. But most don't like them enough to actually marry one.

Spencer was a brilliant Realist painter and an innovator- this cannot be denied. Francis Bacon, Philip Pearlstein and Lucian Freud should at the very least give him a pound of flesh each. But throughout the last century he's been the butt of many jokes- mainly for two reasons.

For one, he was from the small village of Cookham in southern England. He referred to Cookham as "a village in Heaven." Except for during his World War I service, when he was stationed in Greece, he never really left Cookham. While attending the Slade School of Art in London he commuted back to Cookham by train each day. He once introduced himself to Chinese premier Zhou El-lai with the words, "Hello, I'm Stanley from Cookham." Hey- there's probably never been a human being who was as endeared to their hometown as Stanley Spencer was to Cookham. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, also an extremely religious man, his early paintings involved scenes from Christian history happening right there in Cookham.

Stanley Spencer, Resurrection Cookham. 1924, oil on canvas. According to orthodox Christians, if you didn't know, in the end times Jesus shall return to Earth and the dead will rise from their burial places to follow Him. Well, I think that's the way I understand it anyhow. I'm Catholic, and we always learned that this is why you shouldn't be cremated- then your body can't rise from the dead like a zombie when Jesus gets here. (I always wondered what happens to those poor folks who are burned to death in car crashes and such.)

And yes, then there was his second, uh, marriage. In 1937 he divorced his wife of twelve years and four days later married Patricia Preece, a lesbian whom he had become infatuated with and who became his model and muse. Patricia was already in a relationship at the time; she went on her honeymoon with her same-sex partner while Spencer hung around in Cookham. They never lived together as husband and wife either, though he always kept her in jewelry and furs.

Stanley Spencer, Nude (Patricia Preece). 1935, oil on canvas. Spencer was a Realist who liked pointing out human imperfections (and sometimes even exaggerating them) in his figurative work. But damn Stanley, did you have to make one nipple that much bigger than the other? Grrross.

Spencer also depicted the essence of the marriage (and his attitudes towards it) in some of his other works:

Stanley Spencer, Self Portrait with Patricia Preece. 1936, oil on canvas.

Stanley Spencer, Double Nude Portrait- The Artist with His Second Wife. 1937, oil on canvas.

Now who does nude self-portraits? The German Expressionists did. Several sexual lib freaks that I knew back in art school did. But the only British Realist who did was Stanley Spencer. And that speaks volumes.

You can look at these paintings and really see who's wearing the pants here. Spencer was in an emasculating situation- he'd entered into a marriage that was never even consummated. It was his own fault. Who on Earth would marry someone who didn't find them sexually attractive just because of their gender? Yep, Spencer was a whipped man. You usually have to be getting some in order to actually be whipped. I told you he was an innovator. (If you were wondering what was in it for Patricia, it was the money.)

Stanley and Patricia never divorced, but he did at several times beg his ex-wife for forgiveness. I guess you can break it down easily- this was one sad dude.

Damien Hirst Sunday #6

2009-09-06T08:43:00.007-05:00

Okay, pop quiz... if you could go to Europe but only to see one thing, what would it be? Most people would give simple and predictable answers, such as the Eiffel Tower or the canals of Venice. But since I'm a weirdo, my locale of choice would be the British Museum in London. Hands down the best museum I've ever seen (and the admission is free!), I spent eight hours there on my first trip- then came back the next day. Seriously, if you have never been and can temporarily put aside the fact that most of its stuff is technically stolen, it's like seeing the entire world in one afternoon. My best memory there was when I touched the Rosetta Stone- which from what I understand is now in the Louvre- and a guard approached me and kindly asked me not to. Geez, British cops don't even qualify as cops.

Occasionally this museum, which specializes in antiquities, exhibits contemporary art that may someday become antiquities. About this time last year an exhibit opened called "Statuephilia." Five statued pieces from modern artists were displayed. Far more avant-garde than most of the British Museum's exhibits, it drew quite a stir. Here are the five pieces displayed, from least stupid to most stupid.

1. Ron Mueck, Mask II. 2001-2002, mixed media.

Superrealism is a movement that continues through today, and includes sculpture as well as painting. American artist Duane Hanson is the undisputed master of Superrealist sculpture, but Australian Ron Mueck has continued his legacy quite well. This self-portrait head, which is nearly four feet long (!), was displayed alongside an enormous moai from Rapa Nui, which was quite a propos.

2. Antony Gormley, Case For an Angel I. 1989, plaster, fiberglass, lead, and steel.

This lifesize piece with a nearly nine meter wingspan more than any belongs in the British Museum, as it echoes many of its works in its Egyptian and Assyrian influences. It kinda reminds me of something you'd use to butter your bread with. Mmmm, the thought makes me hungry.

3. Mark Quinn, Siren. 2008, gold.

The pièce de résistance of the exhibit, this was the one that generated so much buzz before the exhibit began that the museum issued a photo of it to the press- only showing the face. Many were surprised to see the whole thing.

Ouch, that looks fairly uncomfortable. How'd you like to be the unlucky fool who sat for that?

So what was the big deal? For one, this was the largest solid gold statue in Western art created since, well, Dynastic Egypt. Made with 110 pounds of gold (more than the model weighs, for sure) and produced at a cost of $2 million, it's currently carrying an asking price of $20 million if anyone's interested. But the most intriguing thing about it to many was its subject. Can you tell who it is? Give up already? Okay, it's Kate Moss.

If you feel there are ethical issues surrounding the immortalization of an anorexic cokehead in solid gold, Ms. Moss has become a muse to many talented artists since porking up a little in recent years. Chuck Close, who has recently taken an ironic foray into photography, did some brilliant daguerrotypes of her; Lucian Freud and Alex Katz have painted her as well. So she's really not that bad. Come ON now.

4. Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Dark Stuff. 2008, various mummified animals and light projector.

These are self-portraits of the artists. See? Okay, look on the wall. Now do you see? Huh?

The artists were inspired to do this piece by the little presents that their cats brought them and left on their doorstep. Whether or not the carbon-based detritus featured here was among those gifts I am not sure, but if so then these were some ambitious freakin' cats. My own cats have only brought me baby birds and salamanders, the slackers. Yep. Dark stuff indeed.

5. And finally... Damien Hirst, Cornucopia. 2008, household gloss paint on plastic skulls.

I'll tell you what this reminds me of. It reminds me of the ill-fated acid trip I went on in my youth with some hippies from Gulf Shores- mainly the part where I woke up on the beach next to a strange Jeep with St. Stephen blaring on the stereo. You're probably thinking, "Yeah, it reminds me of a similar experience."

Hirst used plastic skulls this time- even a big rich artist isn't above cheaping it out every once in a while- and he proves that there is obviously nothing on God's green earth that can't be spin painted with hideous consequences. I would say that these things belong in a head shop and not a museum, but then again that would be devaluing the artistry of the hand-blown glass "tobacco pipes" that you might find there. He was inspired by the museum's infamous Crystal Skull; said to have originated in ancient Mexico, it was later found to be a 19th century European forgery, and a cheaply made one for that. Wowee! Cheaply made fake skulls for everyone! Just hide your drugs under the soap!

This exhibit closed in January of this year- which is good, as Damien Hirst has no place in the British Museum. Especially something like this, for crying out loud. Although I would have loved to see Mueck's giant head and even Quinn's golden Kate Moss.

Chuck Close

2009-09-04T08:37:00.009-05:00

Well, if you weren't disappointed enough already by my not writing a blog in six days AND my missing Damien Hirst Sunday (hey, grad school is a bitch!), today I am not in the mood to be mean. I'm writing about an artist of whom nothing bad can really be said about; I just feel like being nice for a change.

After Louis Daguerre invented photography in the 1830s, he and his fellow photographers began a decades-long fight for the integrity of their medium. But by the 1960s, the tables had turned. Photography was not only widely accepted as an art form, but all of a sudden it was the painters who were in for a fight. (Hey, why spend several days/weeks/months on a painting when you can snap a photo in a few seconds?) Enter the reactionary movement known as Superrealism. Perhaps you're thinking, "Okay, I know what 'Realism' is, but 'Superrealism'? What's that?" Well... a picture says a thousand words.

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait. 1967-68, acrylic on canvas. Yep, you read that right. Acrylic on canvas. There apparently are painters on this planet who are just this good. In Close's own words: "I use some pretty devious means, such as razor blades, electric drills and airbrushes."

Chuck Close, Bob. 1970, acrylic on canvas. Close has never accepted commissions; his subjects are his friends and acquaintances, and he makes the effort to throw off the baggage of traditional portrait painting. In my humble opinion, he's succeeded.

Chuck Close, Frank. 1969, acrylic on canvas. Yeah, that's another impressive thing about Close's work- the scale. His large scale forces the viewer to focus on one area at a time, bringing to our attention the details that you might ignore if you were to look at an 8 x 10 photo. It's also interesting how he claims that to produce a 9' x 6' canvas he only used about two tablespoons of black paint. (Wow!) And can you imagine the emotions you'd have if you were standing in front of this painting?

The first twenty-five years of Close's career were fruitful and illustrious; then in 1988 tragedy struck when a spinal artery collapse left him almost completely paralyzed. While this would be a terrible thing to happen to anyone, it was particularly horrendous for someone who still had so much more to offer the world. With very limited use of his hands and fingers, and a body of work that already guaranteed him a place in the annals of art history, Chuck Close could have easily retired. But he wasn't ready to put down his paintbrush yet.

He could obviously no longer work in the precise style which he had mastered twenty years earlier, but wishing to continue in the subject matter and scale that he was used to he found a new way of painting- in a mosaical, gridded, very colorful style. Here's a more recent self-portrait:

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait. 1997, oil on canvas. This one is neither better nor worse than his Superrealist painting of the same subject. They are equal in their own ways. And when viewed up close, one can see a tiny work of art in each square.

If you squint, you can see that this is a close-up of an eye. Pretty swell, huh?

While Close was initially paralyzed from the neck down, years of hard work and physical therapy have enabled him to walk and move his arms to some degree. But he still has this spiffy custom-built wheelchair, which also functions as a scaffold for reaching the tip-tops of his nine foot canvases.

Chuck Close, Lucas/Rug. 1993, silk with linen warp. Close's fellow artist Lucas Samaras had been a common subject in many of Close's works, but here he is in floor covering form. Yep, this is a silk rug- an edition of 20 were made. But the image itself can easily compete with the best works of Seurat, Signac or even Redon. Which is interesting for someone whose initial artistic aim was to break down the distinction between painting and photography by using drills and razors.

Anyway, I hope you were inspired by this amazing individual, as I have been. And I urge you to think of Chuck Close (or maybe the guitar player with no arms on YouTube) the next time you want to tell yourself that adversity keeps you from doing anything you know you should do.

Rednecks in the Renaissance

2009-08-29T21:04:00.005-05:00

Keeping with the theme of my last post, I recently found an interesting print depicting life in Renaissance Venice. If you think asinine and foolish behavior for the purpose of cheap entertainment is a modern invention that came with Fear Factor and Jackass, it might surprise you how civilized the Renaissance wasn't.

Giacome Franco, Habiti d'huomeni et done venetiane con la processione della serenissima signoria et altri particolari cioe trionfi feste ceremonie publiche della nobilissima citta di Venetia. Venice, 1600s (reprint 1878), engraving.

You see, Italy was not unified as we know it today until well into the 19th century. Until then, the peninsula shaped like a boot was composed of about twenty independent city states, including the Duchy of Milan, the Papal States, the Kingdom of Naples, and republics such as Florence, Siena, and Venice. And they all hated each other. At any given moment any given city state was at war with several others.

But sometimes these Italians liked being violent for the sake of being violent. If a Florentian or Venetian couldn't find a foreigner to take their rage out on they would usually just start wailing on their own neighbors. For this reason most city governments passed laws forbidding their citizens from carrying arms, but to compensate they sanctioned opportunities for them to engage in dangerous behavior. This included Carnival (the non-Gulf Coast equivalent of Mardi Gras), where a man could prepare for the drudgery of Lent by dressing as a woman, a slave as a master, and a layperson as a clergyman.

There were other opportunities for making a fool of yourself as well. The above print shows such a festival in Renaissance era Venice. If you look close (I know this is a cruddy image- it was the best I could find) then among the things that you can see are:

A bunch of drunk naked dudes running up a bridge to try and catch a flayed goose by the neck (both the successful and unsuccessful ended up falling into the canal afterwards);
A housecat bound to a wall, who's pretty angry about the situation, clawing a masochistic guy on the head while another stands behind him waiting his turn;
In the far distance, a big crowd of people running around to avoid an enraged bull that someone has let loose for that very purpose;
A group of people dancing awkwardly on a stage (okay, that's not too crazy, but it does look silly).

Did this behavior appeal to everyone, or just the society's lowest common denominator? Well, you can see that the noblewomen watching from the balconies seem to enjoy it.

In fact, this imbecilic behavior resonated all the way to the top of the social hierarchy. When King Henry III of France visited Venice in the 16th century his hosts treated him to a stick fight atop the Carmini Bridge. After about three hours the king called it off, saying that it was a little more dangerous than a game should be.

It seems that Italians have a reputation for this sort of temperament that just may be genetic. My mother's family is Italian, and while we have had some rather entertaining Christmas and Thanksgiving gatherings I have never witnessed an actual stick fight in my grandparents' front yard. And they're Alabamans too, for crying out loud.

Giotto's Arena Chapel

2009-08-27T17:49:00.006-05:00

I don't know when I'll make my next trip to Italy, but I know I'm not leaving without a trip to Padua. Why Padua, you ask? Well, the Sistine Chapel doesn't have the only frescoes you shouldn't miss before you die.

The interior of the Arena Chapel (Scrovegni Chapel), Padua, Italy. Early 14th century, fresco. There are no historical documents- none- that state Giotto di Bondone painted these frescoes for sure. But in the last seven hundred years not one art historian has denied it. So I think we can safely say this is Giotto's work.

The ceilings are painted a brilliant blue with gold stars (that makes it look like heaven, y'know). The murals on the side panels depict events from the life of the Virgin, the life of Christ, and Christ's passion. It is a shame that the centuries have not been kinder to these frescoes; water damage is prevalent in these works (fresco is a very delicate medium to begin with, which is why it's not really used anymore) and many of the more vivid pigments used, such as lapis lazuli, have limited permanence.

This painting, one from the first category, depicts Joachim (the father of Mary) being expelled from the temple because he and his wife are childless. I'm not sure if it was proper procedure for the ancient Jews to reject temple sacrifices from the barren, but in either way to me this image is particularly powerful. Giotto, a student of Cimabue, was possibly the first artist to paint raw and unhinged emotion, and one can see this in the sadness in Joachim's face. (For those who weren't lucky enough to be raised Catholic, this story does have a happy ending. Joachim was the father of Mary, after all.)

Giotto's mastery of emotion is even more evident in this painting of Christ's lamentation. Even the angels tear at their faces and hair, or just wail in utter grief; we can tell that Jesus' death was no fun for anyone.

But the most interesting thing about this chapel lies in the story of the family that commissioned it. In the late 13th and early 14th centuries the largest and most powerful banking family in Venice was the Scrovegnis. Little is known about paterfamilias Reginaldo Scrovegni, except that he was such a wicked bastard that Dante Alighieri saw fit to place him in the seventh circle of Hell in his epic poem The Inferno. Guilty of the mortal sin of usury (or charging exorbitant interest rates on loans, much like the payday advance places that you may have in your own community), the elder Scrovegni was condemned to the unpleasant eternity of sitting in the hot sand of a burning desert with a continual rain of fire.

Dante and Giotto were contemporaries and friends (Giotto painted Dante's most famous portrait), but the details of this time period are so sketchy that no one really knows for sure which came first- The Inferno or the Arena Chapel. What is known is that while Reginaldo's son Enrico began his career in the family business he carried on his father's dubious practices, but soon after saw fit to atone for his sins (and his dad's) by building a chapel on his family's property. Did Enrico read about Reginaldo's unfun fate in The Inferno before he chose to build the chapel? We may never know for sure.

The mural on the entry wall shows a Last Judgment scene that's possibly creepier than Michelangelo's. This was the last thing a person would see before exiting this chapel- sort of a way of saying, "Have you made your decision yet?" The bottom right corner of the painting, which obviously depicts Satan in Hell, is particularly Dante-esque.

And if you look a little closer (toward the bottom, on the left side of the door frame) you can see Enrico himself, handing the chapel (or a small model of it) to the Virgins of Charity and the Annunciation, to whom the chapel was dedicated. They are willfully accepting his offer of repentance and Christian charity here.

This isn't the only place in the chapel where you'll find Enrico Scrovegni either. During the Italian Renaissance, when a wealthy family commissioned a chapel, it was usually built on their property and often attached to their residence (this one was originally built on to the Scrovegnis' no longer extant palace in Padua). This chapel, though built with the Pope's blessings, was probably meant only for the Scrovegni family; it only accommodates about twenty-five people. The family would also have perpetual masses said in the names of their deceased relatives (no doubt there were plenty for Reginaldo, just in case Dante was wrong) and the family themselves were interred within the chapel. Enrico did them one further- his tomb is directly behind the chapel's altar (you can see it in the first picture). Ummm... I'm not too sure how to comment on that one.

Un Chien Andalou

2009-08-25T18:21:00.003-05:00

If you're familiar with this film, then, well, you knew this was coming.

Say what you like about Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol, but he was a highly skilled painter. In this reporter's humble opinion no one since the Baroque period has even come close to him in terms of classically represented religious art- look at his numerous crucifixion scenes if you don't agree. But this is a guy who wanted to take a series of photographs of ducks exploding after anally penetrating them with dynamite (a friend talked him out of it). He once nearly suffocated during an important slide lecture that he was giving on Surrealist art when the diving suit he had chosen to wear malfunctioned. He painted works with titles such as Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized By Her Own Chastity and Hitler Masturbating. He was eccentric. Hell, if he wasn't such a skilled painter (and the 1st Marquis of Púbol to boot) then you might just say that he was weird.

Un Chien Andalou was the questionable masterpiece of Surrealist filmmaking. Produced in 1929 by Dalí and Spanish director Luis Buñuel, it has no discernable plot, no character development to speak of, and like every other film of its age it's silent. If you still want to see it I have embedded it below. However, if you are extremely squeamish DO NOT watch it at 0:45 and DO NOT read the next paragraph.

In the film's most famous scene, Luis Buñuel (playing an uncredited role) takes a razor blade to actress Simone Mareuil's eye and slits her eyeball in half. Anyone who's seen this movie only remembers this scene. I remember the first time I saw Un Chien Andalou, with my roommates when I was about twenty years old. For at least the next fifteen minutes all that any of us had to say was "Damn!" "I can't believe they did that!" "That HAD to be real!" "Naw, that couldn't have been!" "No way man, they used a cadaver or something!" "Eww!!! I am NOT sleeping tonight!" In reality, Buñuel used a dead cow's eyeball. See- using dead cows in art isn't anything new either.

Watch Un chien andalou (1929) in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Don't worry. I didn't get it either. And what should make both of us feel better is this quote from Luis Buñuel: "Nothing in this film symbolizes anything." He went on to say that when he and Dalí wrote the script, their only rule was that "no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted."

This film was first shown at an exhibition of Surrealist art, and the reaction was less than ecstatic. The audience squirted ink at the screen, set off smoke bombs and stink bombs, bashed each other with clubs, and destroyed many of the Surrealist paintings that were on display. This prompted Dalí and Buñuel to bring sacks of rocks with them on the film's official opening night, just in case they might need to defend themselves. When the audience enjoyed the film, and the overall public response was favorable enough to merit an eight month run, the artist and director were said to be a little disappointed.

And for the record, if you don't read French the title cards say things like "once upon a time..." and "eight years later..." without any further explanation. The title of the movie translates to "An Andalusian Dog," and if you made it through all sixteen minutes and are wondering where the dog was, there wasn't one.

Damien Hirst Sunday #5

2009-08-23T20:31:00.007-05:00

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God. 2007, diamonds, platinum and human teeth.

It had been a long time before this piece was created since any work of art had drawn such attention- even before it was made. Hirst financed its creation himself, and to reiterate to the point of redundancy exactly how rich he really is, he claimed that he couldn't recall if it cost him £15 million or £20 million. (The actual estimated cost was £14 million, which is still nothing to sneeze at.)

What went into this piece? 8,601 flawless pave-laid diamonds (with a total weight of 1,106 carats), a rare pink diamond center stone with a weight of 52.4 carats, four and a half pounds of platinum, and the skull of an 18th century Englishman that the artist picked up in a London shop. (The original teeth were retained.) Hirst made an effort to ensure that all diamonds were ethically sourced, which I must give him props for; the fact that no African children lost their hands for it makes it a little less horrible.

Nonetheless, can we not safely say that the pure decadence of this piece is sickeningly tasteless? The same effect could have been achieved using sterling silver and cubic zirconias at a far lighter expense. But no, that's not how this motherfucker rolls. If you're one of millions who's lost their job in the past couple of years due to the recession (as I am), or if you're one of the thirty million people worldwide who died from hunger last year, then the fact that people are still making this sort of stuff ought to make you sick.

Artist John LeKay, a close personal friend of Hirst's (whose work is eerily similar- somebody stole some ideas from somebody), produced this lower budget piece fourteen years earlier. He claims that in this case Hirst stole the idea from him. According to LeKay, "I felt like I was being punched in the gut."

John LeKay, Spiritus Callidus #2 (Crystal Skull). 1993, paradichlorobenzene. Do you see a similarity? To me, this looks a little more like something they'll be using as a prop when Shia LeBoeuf finally gets to play the son of Indiana Jones again. But For the Love of God- now, that's decadent. More like something a gangsta rapper might display on top of the refrigerator where he keeps his Cristal.

Although experts have estimated the true value of Hirst's skull at between £7 and £10 million (less than it cost to make... weird), he placed it on sale at London's White Cube Gallery for a cool £50 million. If it sold for that price, it would be the most expensive work in history by a living artist, and by a rather large margin. But has it sold? Even THAT is a matter of dispute.

Cristina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, reported that Hirst had failed to find a buyer for this piece and had lowered his asking price to £38 million. Hirst took great offense, and made a statement that an anonymous consortium (which he happened to be a part of) had purchased it in cash, leaving no paper trail. If the piece had been sold, he would be responsible for about £8.5 million in taxes, which he obviously never paid; it is widely understood in the art community that this was more than likely a publicity stunt to drum up attention and further escalate the price of his other works.

But hey- businessmen have been doing the same thing for centuries.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

2009-08-21T09:59:00.005-05:00

Today, outside of hoity-toity circles nobody really cares what art critics have to say. (Okay, quick- name every film and television critic you can think of, and then name one art critic. See?) It's hard to believe that as late as fifty years ago they were shaping art history. In the nineteenth century art critics such as Charles Baudelaire and John Ruskin were celebrities in their own right.

Also in the nineteenth century American art seemed to be suffering from an inferiority complex. American artists such as George Caleb Bingham and Winslow Homer fought to prove that American art could be as classical as European art, while the American painters who wished to be innovators in their medium (such as John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt) largely expatriated. Another of these American expatriates was James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who studied art in Paris before relocating to London.

To me, the neatest thing about Whistler is the way he named his paintings. He named them in musical terms, such as "arrangements," "symphonies," and "nocturnes." And as much as I hate to disappoint those of you who really thought they knew something about mid- to late nineteenth century American expatriate art, Whistler's most iconic work is actually not titled "Whistler's Mother." (Though with all fairness, that's who it is.)

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black. 1871, oil on canvas.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White No. 2. 1864, oil on canvas. Although it's so subtle that you may not even notice, the influence of Asian artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige can be evidenced in the fan, Ming vase, and cherry blossoms.

In fact, Whistler's use of Asian imagery gave him the nickname "The Japanese of Chelsea." This influence (and possibly a prediction of the future Art Nouveau movement) can be seen in some of his later decorative work, which was also, well, rather tacky.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Gold (The Peacock Room). 1876-1877.

His penchant for naming his paintings after musical terms might have been a reflection of his personal philosophy of putting formal qualities before subject matter. And nowhere else in his body of work is this more apparent than in this piece:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold. 1875, oil on oak panel. Now, uh, what is it? Could this be the very first non-objective painting in the history of Western art?

According to Whistler himself, no. Critic John Ruskin, who was a bit close-minded when it came to the whole form over content thing, accused Whistler of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." (Wow, wonder what he'd say about Jackson Pollock.) The artist responded with a libel suit, arguing that the painting was of an evening fireworks display, and won a small judgment against Ruskin. He then reverted to his standard fare of portraits and ostentatious peacock rooms.

Which makes you think- had Whistler cared a little less about what the critics had to say, maybe he could have predated Cézanne as the father of modern art. Hmmm...

Worst Intentional Treatment of a Giant Statue. Ever.

2009-08-19T16:02:00.007-05:00

(This post also could have been titled "Worst Use of Concrete. Ever.")

I think there are very few people who are as endeared to their hometowns as I am. Especially considering that my hometown is Birmingham, Alabama. Say what you like- I could live wherever I want, and I have lived in other cities, but I know how it feels to really feel like your city is your best friend. When I'm lonely, I take a walk- and the cracks in the sidewalks seem to say to me, "It's okay, Nicole. I understand." (Okay, I know that sounded extremely saccharine. Sorry.)

But Birmingham is far from a utopia. For the most part our residents aren't racist, or ignorant, or culturally inept, and visitors to this city seem to be surprised to realize that. (Now go about fifty miles outside of the city limits, and you may find otherwise.) Just because the stereotypes are largely unfounded doesn't mean that this is a town capable of electing a mayor who isn't schizophrenic; and the worst thing I can say about this town is that it seems to have contempt for itself. I have noticed this since I was very young, when I first walked around the downtown area and wondered why no one would fix up its beautiful old Art Deco buildings that had fallen into disuse.

Birmingham is a relatively young city, founded in 1871. Built on the only spot in the entire world where iron, coal, and limestone are all mined within a thirty mile radius, it received its name from Birmingham, England, another steel city. In a mere fifty years Birmingham would become the Southeast United States' most progressive city; its rapid growth earned it the nickname "The Magic City." Alas, the 1960s brought church bombings, legendary police brutality, and for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a few stints in the Birmingham City Jail; the city's reputation was struck forever (and no one on the outside seems to notice the great progress in tolerance that the last forty years have brought).

Back to the whole "city that has contempt for itself" thing, there's no better reflection of that than the tedious treatment of our city's symbol, the statue of Vulcan. The largest cast iron statue in the world (and the seventh largest free-standing statue period), the 56-foot Iron Man has overlooked Red Mountain for as long as I personally remember.

Giuseppe Moretti, Vulcan. 1904, cast iron. Uh, yeah, I know. But surprisingly, this notoriously puritanical city loves its nudity. Here's a statue of Electra that sits atop the Alabama Power building in downtown Birmingham:

Anyway. This statue was commissioned by the Commercial Club of Birmingham for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. The statue was of Vulcan, Roman consort of Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge. This was an appropriate subject for a city that was probably more than any other built around the metallurgical industry. Giuseppe Moretti, an Italian (woohoo!) who had immigrated to Philadephia, was hired to design it. The statue itself was forged in the foundries of Birmingham.

Vulcan was the hit of the 1904 World's Fair, winning the Grand Prize in its "Mine and Metallurgy" exhibit. Then Vulcan was dismantled and put on a train back to Birmingham. Somewhere along the way someone decided they didn't want to pay the freight bills. So his pieces were taken off the train and left on the sides of the tracks, where they remained for about two years. (Ironically, the statue had been so popular at the fair that St. Louis, San Francisco and Portland all wanted to purchase it.)

Here's a picture of Vulcan's head, somewhere between here and St. Louis, with some kids playing on it.

Somewhere down the way they finally decided to come back for him, and he was re-erected at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham. They didn't really do that good a job- as the above picture shows, he appears to have a positively devilish case of carpal tunnel.

Since they couldn't find the spear that he was holding originally (again, floating somewhere between here and St. Louis) he had nothing to do with his hands- so they decided to use him to advertise things. Here he is plugging Heinz pickles. Sometimes you'd see him holding a giant Coke or ice cream cone. They even once painted blue overalls on him.

In 1929 the Birmingham Kiwanis Club were the first to realize that this was just wrong. And in 1939 something was finally done about it. A sandstone pedestal was erected atop Birmingham's Red Mountain (at the foot of the Appalachians) where Vulcan would proudly overlook the city that had clearly forsaken him for the past four decades. But what would be the best way to anchor such a large statue to said pedestal? According to Birmingham's brightest minds in the civil engineering field, that would be filling him to the chest with concrete, of course. (In case you didn't know, concrete tends to expand; in 1990 it was determined that he would need a major renovation else he would collapse. He did eventually receive the renovation that he needed.)

As for Moretti, he was largely a marble sculptor and moved to Alabama permanently in 1916 (returning to Italy before his death) to take advantage of the state's fine marble quarries, many of which he invested in. He was so disappointed and insulted by the way his masterwork was treated at the fairgrounds that in 1935 he said, "I almost wish I'd never made him." If he were alive today I believe he would be a little more proud; in 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. I'm quite fond of this statue myself. From where I live I can see it from my front yard.

Damien Hirst Sunday #4

2009-08-16T12:59:00.007-05:00

In the little under a month since starting this blog I have made a grand effort to write three entries a week, plus the standard Sunday entry on why Damien Hirst is such a choad. Now that I'm in school and working part time as well, I may have trouble finding the time and energy. So today I'm going to make it brief by featuring a work that doesn't really need a lengthy statement to express its ignominy. It sort of speaks for itself.

Damien Hirst, Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain. 2007, calf, glass, steel, bullock, arrows, and 5% formaldehyde solution. If there has ever been an example of an artist's propensity for hiding their complete lack of talent by creating the most offensive piece possible, this is definitely it.

Now who's not going to be offended by this? Hirst is taking a jab at Christians, religious scholars, animal rights advocates, archers, people with good taste, and anyone who's smart enough to realize that some damn fine ossobuco was wasted for his artistic vision. I fit perfectly well into those last two groups, so yeah, I'm offended.

If you don't know who St. Sebastian is, he was a pre-Congregation martyr who was killed during Diocletian's persecution of Christians in the late third century. According to legend he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows; this miraculously did not kill him, but he was later beaten to death. This event has been portrayed in classical art dozens of times, by such artists as Botticelli, Titian and Mantegna. One of his most famous representations is this one by Rubens:

Pieter Paul Rubens, St. Sebastian. Circa 1614, oil on canvas.

One thing that might be noted about St. Sebastian's cultus is that many scholars (and most of the religious LGBT community) believe that he was possibly homosexual. Many gay and lesbian writers, including Oscar Wilde and Tennessee Williams, have written plays and poetry exploring this possibility; the 1976 film Sebastiane, about the saint's life, is very homoerotic in nature. It is definitely possible and acceptable; however, in more recent years edgier authors have explored this notion further, suggesting that the saint took a sadomasochistic approach to his attempted martyrdom (which they correlate with his being gay). If Hirst was attempting to expound this notion in his above work (hey, "exquisite pain" is a part of the title) then homosexuals have good reason to be offended too.

Further, what is the meaning behind making Sebastian a cow? Seeing the enormous following this freak has, I'll bet dozens of humans would gladly sacrifice their lives for his work. If you're reading this, Damien, feel free to steal the idea. Not that you wouldn't do it without permission.

Shortly after its creation the singer George Michael purchased this piece for his private collection. Well, good for him. It put him $7 million in the hole, making it Hirst's fourth most expensive work to date.

Egos of Artistic Proportions

2009-08-15T12:14:00.007-05:00

Artists are among the most arrogant people you'll ever meet. If you've ever been to art school then you know that no actual talent is required to get a BFA, only 87 credit hours of art classes and the driving and impulsive desire to be able to say, "Look, I have a BFA. I can paint, dammit." I can safely say this because I myself have a BFA. (Surprised?)

This is a real conundrum, because arrogance is usually the product of having choices. And the two elements that enable us to have choices are money and power. Most artists I've known have had little of either. That's sort of what sucks about not being wealthy and powerful- you don't always get to choose whom you can tell to just kiss your ass. However, there have been a few artists throughout history who have had that luxury.

Take Michelangelo for instance. In the early 16th century Pope Julius II commissioned him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. His work would crown the glory of previous frescoes painted by Botticelli and Perugino. If you're one of the five or six people on the planet who aren't familiar with this ubiquitous ceiling, here it is.

Michelangelo Buonarotti, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 1508-1512, fresco.

If you've never seen this in person, do so before you die. Otherwise you may never get the chance to see something so beautiful that it makes you vomit.

Here's all you need to know about Julius II- he was a badass. Known as the "Warrior Pope," he was probably one of the most powerful popes in papal history. Nobody crossed him and expected Christian charity in return. Even today, Gwar occasionally references him in their songs. Yet how did Michelangelo presumably reply when the most powerful man in the Western world hounded him about when he'd be done with his ceiling? "It will be finished when it's finished. Now leave me alone."

If that sounds a little preposterous to you, imagine for a second being brilliant enough to be able to say something like that to a man who would otherwise have your entire family slaughtered. Yeah, I know.

More than two decades later, another pope, Clement VII, commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar wall. Most consider this his uncontested masterpiece (if not the entire millennium's).

Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Last Judgment. 1534-1541, fresco. After this fresco was unveiled, several cardinals and monsignors wanted it torn down due to its rampant nudity. The pope resisted. However, after Michelangelo's death one of his apprentices was hired to do some work obscuring the subjects' genitals. (Some of his work was undone in 1993 when the painting was restored.)

A little known fact: Mike even painted himself into this scene (in a fashion, anyhow). The well-built guy with the beard and the knife is St. Bartholomew, who chose being skinned alive over recanting his beliefs. (You really have to admire those martyrs. Sometimes I say that there are plenty of things I'd die for, but it's usually when I'm just tired of being alive.) See the skin that Batholomew is holding in his left hand? Yep, self portrait (or at least how he envisioned himself sans skeleton or guts).

Another great mind with an ego to match was the twentieth century's leading architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. He let nothing get in the way of his artistic vision. Not courtesy, not common sense, not concern for his clients' welfare... nothing.

In the 1930s Wright was definitely the architect du jour for the wealthy and powerful set. And in 1935 magnate Stanley Marcus (that's as in Neiman Marcus) commissioned him to design his primary residence in Dallas. Marcus gave Wright complete creative license (as if he would have had it any other way) until he saw that Wright's design for the ten bedroom mansion included ten sleeping porches swathed in mosquito netting. When Marcus tried to explain that sleeping outdoors year round just isn't practical in a town like Dallas, Wright told him how it was going to be. And it sort of went like this: "I designed this house just for you. If you don't like it, you can lump it. I'm not hurting for work, after all."

Want to see a picture of the infamous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marcus house? Well, too bad! It was never built.

But when it came to egotism, no one's sense of self importance matched Pablo Picasso's. You may have heard once or twice that he was quite the ladies' man. (He was also known to be a men's man, but not with near the same prolificity.) This is the guy who entered his famous Blue Period early in the last century to reflect his depression when his best friend committed suicide over a woman. None of this stopped Picasso from later making it with that same woman.

Picasso spent the 1930s (and much of the 1920s and 1940s as well) carrying on with two mistresses, Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar. (He was also married this entire time to another woman, ballerina Olga Khokhlova. They never divorced due to Picasso's objection to the whole "splitting your assets" thing.)

Marie-Thérèse and Dora were his muses as well- virtually every painting he did of a woman during this period was of one of the two of them. If you see a blonde, it was Marie-Thérèse; if a brunette, it was Dora.

The real Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Pablo Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror. 1936, oil on canvas.

Pablo Picasso, The Dream. 1932, oil on canvas.

The real Dora Maar.

Pablo Picasso, Dora Maar with Cat. 1941, oil on canvas.

Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman. 1937, oil on canvas.

Marie-Thérèse, who also gave birth to Picasso's daughter Maya, was his bright and happy muse, while Dora, who suffered from sterility and depression, often found a place in his darker paintings. He carried on both affairs for several years- then they found out about each other. While Picasso was painting Guernica in his studio, both women stopped by to see him at the same time. Mutually infuriated, they demanded that he choose between them.

Now you gotta admit- for any other man alive this would have been one of the most awkward situations imaginable. Picasso, on the other hand, calmly explained to the women that he was happy with the situation as it was, and if either of them were not then they would have to work it out between themselves. He even suggested that they fight over him; they immediately commenced to wrestling on the floor of his studio. Picasso would later describe the moment as "one of my choicest memories."

They never came to an agreement. Picasso stayed with both of them- at least until 1940, when Marie-Thérèse and her daughter moved to Paris, and 1943, when Dora underwent psychoanalysis and realized that such a relationship just wasn't healthy for her already suffering moods. Picasso continued to support Marie-Thérèse until his death in 1973 (her suicide followed four years later). Dora, on the other hand, became a very prolific photographer, poet and painter in her own right, even collaborating with Picasso after their relationship ended. She passed away in 1997.

Well, sometimes a pimp is a good thing to be.

Katsushika Hokusai

2009-08-13T11:45:00.006-05:00

Aw, those crazy Japanese. They've been producing at least 78% of the world's weird shit ever since 1780. (Sometimes you hear a xenophobic statement like the one I just made, put aside your preconceived notions of political correctness, think about it for a second, and then realize that it's actually the truth.) But in credit to the people of Japan, they have also been the inventors and/or pioneers of nearly every form of ancient and modern printmaking. (The exceptions are lithography and the linocut- both can be credited to the Germans.)

The greatest Japanese printmaker of all time was Katsushika Hokusai. (Sorry, Utagawa Hiroshige. It was pretty close.) The son of the shogun's mirror-maker and his concubine, he was born in Tokyo around 1760. He took up the art of ukiyo-e painting early in his life, learning woodcut printing at the age of 12 while working as an apprentice for a book maker. He would soon be the one to elevate the block print from practical use to fine art (as Warhol would later do for the sikscreen, another Japanese invention).

Maybe you've never heard Hokusai's name (especially since he also went by at least thirty others). But you have seen his work- within his lifetime he created the modern face of Japanese art.

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. Circa 1829-1832, color woodcut. Probably the most famous Japanese work of art of all time.

Katsushika Hokusai, Red Fuji. Circa 1829-1832, color woodcut. Both of these prints are from a series that Hokusai did titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

While the sky on the first print definitely suggests an ink wash, Hokusai used the color reduction technique when he created these. If you took printmaking in school then I know that the thought of that makes you wince. Wait till you hear that their matrices were carved in mahogany. DAMN.

Looking at Hokusai's elegant and tasteful prints of tsunamis and the majesty of Mount Fuji, it might surprise you that if it weren't for Hokusai we might not have another Japanese invention- tentacle porn. If you're a fan of anime, perhaps you're familiar with one of its sub-genres, hentai. These are the often violent and degrading animated Japanese films that feature nude women with large eyes and larger breasts than the Japanese are known for, and sometimes they'll also feature an evil villain with eight penises who goes around raping people. Octopi, squid, and imaginary tentacled creatures have traditional roles in many of these films as well (use your imagination). What does this have to do with Hokusai? Well, he was a talented printmaker, and an even dirtier old man.

Hokusai created the tradition of using cephalopods in Japanese erotica with one of his best known prints, The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. I don't like censorship, and I will agree that all jokes aside this is a masterpiece of Eastern art. At the same time, I want you to be able to view my blog without the constant fear of your boss/five year old/grandmother walking in. So those of you who want to see a picture of a woman getting jiggy with an octopus may click here.

A fun fact about this print, according to Wikipedia: a shot of a postcard depicting it earned the 1990 film Henry & June the industry's first ever NC-17 rating. (Before that, the "X" rating lumped together hardcore pornography with celluloid masterpieces such as Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris, so a new rating was created to distinguish the more sophisticated smut.)

And if this kind of thing really is your bag, baby, the website Rotten.com has an excellent gallery of ancient Japanese and Indian erotic art that you may want to check out. (However, if you're not familiar with this website already, I urge you not to delve too far into it- unless, of course, post-mortem pics of the Lindbergh baby are your bag too.)

How to Properly Sculpt a Nude Statue of an Historical Figure Whom Nobody Wants to See Nude

2009-08-10T11:59:00.006-05:00

This piece is a follow-up to last week's post on American Neoclassicist Horatio Greenough's horrible statue of George Washington. While Greenough practiced at a time when Neoclassicism was on its way out, his fellow French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle entered the movement on the ground floor, while it was still fresh.

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, Voltaire Nude. 1776, marble. I know, you're probably expecting me to really tear this thing apart. I won't.

If you know anything at all about me, then you'll know how hard it's going to be for me to write this blog entry about the sculpture above and not the person who it's of. Seriously, when I die and go to that otherwordly place reserved for the wickedly irreverent this man is the first person I hope to see. (If I run into Ambrose Bierce or Mark Twain first I really won't complain.)

In a day when statues of this magnitude were reserved for royalty and the deceased, Voltaire was the first living writer to be sculpted in this fashion. (Yes, he was alive, and he agreed to be sculpted in the nude at the age of 81. We'll get to that later.) A French literary society had decided to pay tribute to the aged philosopher and writer by presenting him with a statue of himself. Several luminaries of the time pitched in to fund its creation, including King Frederick the Great of Prussia (who had kicked Voltaire out of his country two decades earlier).

Voltaire did not sit for this piece; Pigalle used an elderly war veteran of similar age and stature as his model. He did make the trip to Geneva, where Voltaire was living in exile, to make a plaster model of his head. When Voltaire discovered that Pigalle planned on sculpting him in the nude, he was a little embarrassed; but keeping with the philosophies that he had exalted for sixty years he let Pigalle have his way in the name of artistic freedom. After all, as Voltaire later said, "Nude or clothed it does not matter as I will not inspire lascivious ideas in women, however I am presented to them." And was he ever correct.

The reaction to this piece was scandalous. While classical nudity has been a standard in Western art since ancient Greek times, it was never, ever, EVER considered kosher to do such a statue of a man this age. Yes, Caesar Augustus was sculpted in his old age, but the imperial sculptors knew their fates if they left any chance that anyone two thousand years in the future would be able to tell how old he really was. Pigalle makes no effort in idealizing Voltaire's old, decrepit, sagging, emaciated, sinewy form. (It does kinda unearth those repressed memories of having to give your grandpa a sponge bath, huh?)

So why do I like this one and dislike the other? This sculpture is a celebration of a life. Voltaire lived a life that most of us can only dream of (both the good times and the bad). The man in this statue is clearly about to die- in two years, as it turned out. But he's going out swinging. He's been exiled from several countries, spent countless stints in the Bastille, and made some of the most powerful enemies in history. In fact, at least half the civilized world probably wants to kill him. Yet the look on his face, with the same Machiavellian Lucas Jackson smile that he was never drawn, painted, or sculpted without, shows that he has no regrets. This may be the happiest, most personally satisfied man who has ever lived. His last words were presumably "For God's sake, let me die in peace." They could just as easily have been "Bury me upside down so that the whole world can kiss my ass."

After his death in 1778, Voltaire bequeathed this statue to his great nephew, who later donated it to the Institut de France. It has resided in the Louvre since 1962.

As far as Jean-Baptiste Pigalle is concerned, despite being one of the greatest Neoclassical sculptors he is probably best known today as the namesake of the Quartier Pigalle (or "Pig Alley"), Paris's red light district and former home of the Moulin Rouge.

Damien Hirst Sunday #3

2009-08-09T16:51:00.006-05:00

A lot of people don't realize this, but the artistic tradition of signing your name to work done by others is nothing new. Many of the Old Masters' works that we have grown to know and love were actually done by apprentices (including Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, according to most scholars). Salvador Dali did not personally paint many of his paintings, though he and his subconscious mind always maintained complete creative control.

In the modern tradition, the practice of having others produce your art for you has endured three phases:

The Andy Warhol Phase: Based on the revolutionary philosophy that if automobiles and toilet paper can be produced in factories using assembly lines, art can too. Actually just sort of a statement about capitalism and our society in general.
The Jeff Koons Phase: The artist has great ideas but lacks the technical knowledge to execute them, because his chosen field was unrelated- say, in his other life he might have been a commodities trader. The spirit is still there, but the originality is long gone.
The Damien Hirst Phase: At this point, the artist realizes that he will never become the richest artist in Britain unless he produces a lot of work- more than he can produce by hand, or is at least willing to.

In 2008 Damien Hirst decided to bypass the whole ridiculous gallery circuit thing and just sell 223 of his shittiest paintings at auction through Sotheby's. Although the estimate for the lot hovered around a paltry $120 million, he walked away with over $200 million. Adding to this absurdity, this feat earned him a spot on Time Magazine's shortlist for 2008 Person of the Year. (If it makes you feel any better, Barack Obama was the recipient of the honor.)

Meet Rachel Howard. According to Damien Hirst, "The best person who ever painted spots for me was Rachel. She's brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel."

Rachel Howard- oops, I mean Damien Hirst, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, LSD. 2000, lambda on gloss. Why didn't he paint this painting himself? According to Hirst, "I couldn't be fucking arsed doing it." While my primary language is American English, I think this means that he found it a waste of time. Several paintings that were fairly identical to this one were sold at this record-breaking auction.

If you grew up in the eighties, do you remember those kiosks in the mall where they would tape a t-shirt down to a spinning board and squirt fabric paint on it as it spins, creating what was at the time a really cool shirt? Damien Hirst remembers them too, and was inspired to create a huge series of paintings the same way. (Actually, it was his employees who created them, not he.) Today there's even a name for this type of crap- "spin art." The popularity of these paintings led to forgeries, just as in the case of Jackson Pollock's work when it first became popular. A trained art dealer had an uncanny ability to tell a real Pollock from a forgery. But how can you discern an artist's true work when the originals were not actually done by the artist in question?

Damien Hirst (or whoever), Beautiful revolving spincter, oops brown painting. 2003, household gloss paint on canvas. Well, he probably did come up with the title on his own.
Damien Hirst, Beautiful, kiss my fucking ass painting. 1996, household gloss paint on canvas.

A few of these "spin" paintings sold for over half a million dollars. Interestingly, he also entered one anonymously in a charity auction where it raised a mere $400. Geez. I'm sure one can still find one of those neat mall kiosk machines for sale on Craigslist or somewhere similar. Why not just bypass the middleman and create your own?

In April 2009, the skateboard maker Supreme released a limited series of three decks featuring the spin art of Damien Hirst. Apparently it was a very limited series, as it was sold out within minutes of its release. This series is selling on eBay for over two thousand dollars, just in case you're interested.

I was a skateboarder back in the day, before I got too fat and too old. (I still wear my Etnies though.) And I shall admit that while the fifteen year old me was perfectly happy with her Alien Workshop board, she probably would have creamed over this. But who the hell wants to put Birdhouse and Operation Ivy stickers on something this expensive?

Nonetheless, here we have proof that Hirst definitely has done one thing that was completely awesome. Perhaps his conscience will eventually get to him, and he'll become a full-time skateboard designer. It could happen! And monkeys might fly out of my butt!

Frank Gehry

2009-08-07T10:34:00.013-05:00

Unless you're one of those prodigious minds who knows their Colonial from their Italianate, to you Western architecture probably took a couple millennia to change much. (The brief intervals during the Gothic period and such could be a minor exception.) Let's face it- whether it's on an ancient Greek building or an Italian Renaissance era one, a doric column is a doric column. But during the twentieth century many changes took place very quickly.

Antonio Gaudí, Casa Milà, Barcelona, Spain, 1907. I am unsure whether or not the word "gaudy" has its roots in Gaudí's name, but that's neither here nor there. What's important is that Gaudí did have a background in ironworking and did have a practical knowledge of engineering. To design a building like this, you sort of need to know your building codes (we'll get to that later). And besides, what do you think of when you think of Barcelona? Stuff like this? Here's one architect who gave a whole city its spirit.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the Robie House (University of Chicago campus), Chicago, 1908-1910. Probably the most influential architect of, well, maybe all time, his work has been copied and diluted to the point of absurdity.

William van Alen, the Chrysler Building, New York City, 1928-1930. The epitome and undisputed masterpiece of Art Deco architecture (and at the time the tallest building in the world).

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, the Seagram Building, New York City, 1956-1958. Even if you don't live in New York, there's a good chance that you have a few identical buildings in your own town. But remember what we said about being the first?

Le Corbusier, Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1950-1955. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I was thinking the same thing. But get your head out of the gutter, sillypants. This is a chapel.

But neither Le Corbusier nor Dr. Seuss had sheesh on Frank Gehry. Probably the most well-known living architect (even if only because he's the only one to make a guest appearance on The Simpsons), Gehry has infused his work with a playfulness that seems to take a page from children's books, even when designing buildings of a very serious nature.

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, 1997.

Frank Gehry, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003.

Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić, Nationale-Nederlanden Building (Dancing House), Prague, Czech Republic, 1996.

Whoa nellie! Gehry's buildings have received criticism for wasting structural resources, not adapting to their local climates or cultures, and in the case of his museums overwhelming their purpose. (You really don't want a museum's building to be showier than the artwork within, eh?) A writer for The Economist even went as far as calling him an "auto-plagiarist." Perhaps stealing ideas from a crumpled-up piece of tinfoil is plagiarism. But with no fewer than fourteen honorary doctorates under his belt you might think he'd at least know what he was doing when designing these contraptions, right?

Frank Gehry, The Ray and Maria Stata Center (Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus), Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2004. Clearly one of his craziest works yet, there are few college campuses where a building like this could suitably call home. It contained several of MIT's laboratories, the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and the offices of Noam Chomsky, Tim Berners-Lee, and others. The building was completed at a cost of $283 million, $15 million of which went to Gehry's firm for design services. (Whew, that makes me sick. Being an architect was one of my childhood dreams all the way up to when I realized I needed a tutor to make a D in calculus.)

Some praised the building for breaking the monotony of the otherwise dull streetfront, and others for metaphorically embodying the creativity and new ideas that its walls would hold. But most people didn't like it, claiming that it was insensitive to the needs of its inhabitants, not practically designed for day-to-day use, and overpriced. It is true that the glass walls took away its users' sense of privacy, and some were even known to experience vertigo in its lecture rooms.

Three years after its dedication was when it hit the fan. MIT sued Gehry's firm, claiming that its "insufficient drawings and designs" were what led to its sprung leaks, cracked masonry, mold, and backed up drainage. In fact, the Stata Center's emergency exits were even known to be blocked by falling ice and debris. Gehry blamed the problems, which in his opinion were minor, on what he called "value engineering"; he claimed that many elements of his original design were left out by the client in order to cut costs, so essentially it was all their fault. MIT held to a different story, stating that Gehry had refused to make structural changes that they had requested. Who to believe, who to believe?

To the best of my knowledge, the case still hasn't been resolved. (If anyone knows otherwise please fill me in.) But we have learned one thing here- whether you're constructing a postmodern architectural masterpiece or a teeny little country church in Alabama, you'd better follow your building codes.

Gustav Klimt

2009-08-05T07:58:00.010-05:00

In 2007 Italian smartypants Piero Scaruffi selected a list of the 1000 greatest Western paintings of all time (although he only lists about 100). One thing I admire about Scaruffi's list is that unlike the dozens of other lists that other critics have made, in addition to relegating obvious choices such as the Mona Lisa and Rembrandt's Night Watch to lower places on the list, he realized that giving the top spot to Michelangelo's Last Judgment would be clichéd. In Scaruffi's opinion, the greatest painting of all time was Hieronymous Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Since it's the painting that graces my living room (and in the case of the third panel, the backgrounds of my Twitter and MySpace pages), I must say I agree. But what I also found odd about it was that he listed several paintings (even in the top ten) that I was unfamiliar with. He apparently likes Salvador Dali and Max Ernst quite a bit, and he went as far as to include three Gustav Klimt paintings in his top ten.

I must say that I do like Klimt a lot. Yes, his work is a little garish, and in a large way he did build his artistic legacy around putting a layer of gold leaf wherever he could, but if it weren't for his genuine creativity the Art Nouveau movement probably would have been as nauseating as the Rococo period was. He practiced in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, just like Sigmund Freud did, yet there have been other comparisons made between the artist and psychoanalyst. Sexuality plays a mean role in Klimt's work, both perceived and subconscious. Ever see any of those little vertical rectangles that he paints in his patterns? Well, they're really supposed to be penises. And the round circular forms- well, you know what they're supposed to represent. And let's not get too contextual here by discussing Klimt's private life.

Scaruffi gave his #4 spot to Klimt's Beethovenfries, a large mural painted on the hall of the Vienna Secession in 1902. I had never seen it before, but here are some shots from it.

Suffering humanity and the Golden Knight

The "Kiss of the World"

The enemy forces (the Gorgons, the giant Typhoeus, the sinful passions, and misery)

Well, it's got all the common traits of a Klimt painting- leggy women with flowing hair, naked people making out, phallic and vulvic symbols to the hilt, and lots and lots and lots of gold. I know what you're thinking. "Well, it's real nice and all, but what does it have to do with french fries or Beethoven?" Actually, Beethovenfries is German for Beethoven Frieze, and this piece is a very large frieze. So now you might be thinking, "Well, what does it have to do with Beethoven?" I asked myself the same question.

Now I'm an art nerd, not a music nerd. I did date a music major for over three years, so I have a rudimentary knowledge of classical music. My favorites are the Russians (Tchiakovsky, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev especially), Puccini and Verdi (because I'm Italian), and Beethoven. I would probably say my favorite composer of all time is Beethoven. Which definitely shows that I don't know much about music, seeing as he's almost everyone else's favorite too.

Beethovenfries was a tribute to both Austrian artistic culture and the composer Beethoven. (Which is a bit odd- with as many Austrian composers as there were at the time, Klimt chose to make a tribute to a German. He apparently had a particular affinity for Beethoven, or perhaps he saw their common language as a suitable bridge.) This frieze illustrates Ode to Joy, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller that has been set in music by several composers, most famously in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. It's originally written in German, and like most poetry written in other tongues it loses a lot of its original luminosity when translated to English. You can, however, read the poem in both languages here.

The first image above shows a great knight as the savior of humanity from suffering. The second image depicts the "kiss to the entire world," which is mentioned in Schiller's poem. Schiller more than likely meant this as a Christian allegory, though Klimt obviously did not portray it this way.

The third image is the most complex. The three skinny, pale women on the left are the Gorgons- Stheno, Euryale and Medusa. These women were mythological characters with hair of venomous snakes who could turn men to stone with a single look. The big King Kong fella is Typhoeus. The most deadly monster of Greek mythology, Typhoeus had hands made of dragon heads and a lower body of viper coils. Why Klimt chose to depict him as a giant ape is anyone's guess. The three women on the right depict the three sinful passions, Lust, Unchasitity, and Gluttony. (Guess who's supposed to be Gluttony.) While the ugliness of evil was a favorite subject matter for Klimt, none of this lore is mentioned in Schiller's poem.

That leads us to again ask the question of how this frieze and its imagery really relates to Beethoven. Hmph. I think I've got a good topic for a master's thesis here. Like Freud, the methods of Klimt's madness are not easy to understand.

Worst Statue of George Washington. Ever.

2009-08-03T12:36:00.009-05:00

I have said before (although not on this particular blog) that American art was without its own voice before artists such as Johns and Rauschenberg came along and gave it a shot in the arm. In other words, it was essentially boiled over European art; the American Neoclassical period held little difference to its British equivalent, the Ashcan School did little to distinguish itself from the French Impressionists, etc. I might have subtly suggested that early American art was prosaic and dull.

Well, I was wrong. And I'm sorry. (You won't hear me rescind my previous statements very often, so relish it.) The fact is, while American art was very similar in style to the British and French art of the same period, its spirit was different. The Europeans saw their royals as gods, and portrait painters depicted them as such. (This is even true today; earlier in the decade there was a huge furor over Lucian Freud's too accurate official portrait of Elizabeth II.) Genre scenes and landscapes dominated 18th-19th century American art, but when our founding fathers and mothers were put on canvas one could see that a new sheriff was in town. Whether they were crossing the Delaware, signing the Articles of Confederation or sewing the first American flag, these were normal people. Take this early masterpiece for instance.

John Singleton Copley, Portrait of Paul Revere. 1770, oil on canvas. In this portrait one of our earliest patriots is shown in a humble, plain manner; he doesn't even appear to be wearing his best clothes. A silversmith by trade, he is shown with the tools of his profession.

Most others of the eighth grade history book variety were painted and sculpted in the same manner. But there was one truly awful exception.

Horatio Greenough, George Washington. 1840, marble. In case your vision's bad, the founding father, member of the Continental Congress, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, and first President of the United States has been carved semi-nude, wearing a toga and sandals, sitting on a throne, holding a sword outwardly with his left hand and making a Socratic gesture with his right hand. Holy shit. Holy, holy, HOLY shit. (I kinda get the idea that had the poor fellow in the sculpture not passed away from a particularly nasty bout of acute laryngitis 41 years prior, there would be a major can of Presidential whoop-ass opened.)

Damn, I hope nobody ever sculpts Obama like this.

It is true that after Washington's death he acquired a nearly god-like stature, unlike any American since (and that's probably not what he would have wanted). He was a figurehead for an emerging American mythology; there was even a "cult of George Washington" of sorts that gained in popularity throughout the early to mid-19th century. Nonetheless, when Greenough was offered a commission to sculpt him for the rotunda of the Capitol building (a dream gig for any sculptor of the time), one can only ask "What was he thinking?!"

Greenough was thinking the famous lost sculpture of Zeus that Phidias made for Zeus' temple at Olympia. As one of the six out of seven Wonders of the Ancient World that didn't make it to modern day times, here's what we assume it looked like:

Wow, pretty swank. But it just doesn't cross over to a Virginian planter too well.

The members of the 1840 United States Congress didn't think so either. ~~It never made it to the Capitol building.~~ It did make it to the Capitol rotunda, but was later moved to the lawn at the request of the artist (who thought the lighting was more appropriate there). Despite one congressman's excellent suggestion that it be thrown into the Potomac River, it unfortunately resides in the Smithsonian ~~American Art Museum~~ National Museum of American History. (Thank you anonymous commenter.)

Another question that has been suggested concerning George Washington and art is this: Do we really know what he looked like? This has been proposed because Gilbert Stuart, the official Presidential portrait painter for the first five administrations, tended to paint everyone to look alike. He was responsible for at least three quarters of all known portraits of our first president, including the one on the dollar bill. So how are we to tell?

We actually do know what he looked like, because Jean-Antoine Houdon (another sculptor of Washington whose work can be found in the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia) made this life mask of him a few years before he died. And with all fairness to Greenough, he used this mask as a resource for sculpting the Smithsonian eyesore after Washington had passed away.

So let's look at some of Stuart's portraits. Is it indefinitely the same man?

Compare Stuart's representation with this one, by another artist.

Charles Peale Polk, George Washington at Princeton. 1790s, oil on canvas. He definitely looks different in this one, which was also painted from life.

And then there's Stuart's official portrait of Thomas Jefferson:

Seriously, people. The skin tone, eye color and hairdo are all different. But it's the same man. Am I alone in my thinking? I'd like to hear some other opinions.

And as an added note: If you're from the Birmingham, Alabama area or will be here between October 4 and January 10, I strongly encourage you to check out Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness at the Birmingham Museum of Art. It's a great collection of American art from the Yale University Gallery, including paintings by Copley, John Trumbull, Charles Wilson Peale, and many others. There will even be some of Paul Revere's silver on display. This exhibit has never traveled as a group, and according to the curators never will again. And as an added bonus, you can irritate everybody by pointing at each piece and yelling, "Hey! I know I've seen that somewhere!" So support your museum and see this show.

Damien Hirst Sunday #2

2009-08-02T08:47:00.005-05:00

Until May 12, 2008, the greatest living American artist was the Neo-Dadaist and Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg. If you disagree, feel free to email me and we'll fight about it. You will not win this one. Like it or not, this was our Picasso.

One of the things that he was the first to do was create art using whatever he had on hand or could find lying around, and yes, this occasionally included dead animals. Today this form of mixed media is all too common, but in the 1950s it was revolutionary. So in addition to being profoundly talented, he also gets brownie points for being a first.

Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon, 1956. Oil, housepaint, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, buttons, nails, cardboard, printed paper, photographs, wood, paint tubes, mirror string, pillow & bald eagle on canvas. Yep, that's a real bald eagle. I am pretty sure it was dead when Rauschenberg found it. I sure hope so.

Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955-1959. Oil, stuffed mountain sheep, tire, police barrier, tennis ball, and all sorts of other junk. Okay, putting a tire around the sheep's waist was pretty silly, but other than that it's a great work of art.

The point is, Rauschenberg was not only the first to successfully and tastefully incorporate dead animals into his artwork, but quite frankly he was also the last; furthermore, as one of history's most prolific painters, photographers, printmakers, sculptors, graphic designers, set designers, choreographers, and composers, he certainly didn't build his legacy around a dead sheep. Being from a family of hunters I am no stranger to real taxidermy, but even in that case I don't see why anyone would want a stuffed dead thing over their fireplace. Even the twelve point buck's head that has brought my grandfather so much pride for the last forty years is in somewhat bad taste, in my opinion.

In last week's post I think I may have unintentionally made it sound like Damien Hirst only made one major piece incorporating a dead animal. That's just not true.

Damien Hirst, Mother and Child Divided, 1993. Steel, GRP composites, glass, silicone sealants, cow, calf, and 5% formaldehyde solution. This was the piece that won Hirst his Turner Prize and accolades at the Venice Biennale, and also the first one to really get a reaction from animal rights activists. He has used plenty of bovines in his work; his 1995 piece Two Fucking and Two Watching, which featured a rotting cow and bull sans formaldehyde (use your imagination), was removed from a New York art gallery by public health officials because it caused too much vomiting among visitors. (No, I am not posting a picture of this because there are limits to human decency. And also because I couldn't find one.)

Damien Hirst, Away From the Flock, 1994. Steel, glass, lamb, and 5% formaldehyde solution. (Not to sound too Stuckist here, but is there a possibility that Hirst saw Rauschenberg's Monogram at some point in time before creating this piece and stole his idea? Rauschenberg's estate has the right to know.)

This piece was being displayed at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1994 when another artist, Mark Bridger, decided to make it slightly more interesting by pouring India ink into its tank and renaming it Black Sheep. Hirst didn't get the joke. He had Bridger prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and was very pissed off when that only involved two years' probation.

This is the reason why it pisses me off so badly when people try to compare this cretin to Marcel Duchamp. In 1917 the Society of Independent Artists, an organization whose board Duchamp served on, held an open exhibition in New York City. Anyone was allowed to enter any work they wished provided they paid the six dollar entry fee. To test the limits of the board, Duchamp famously entered this piece under the name of one of his pseudonyms, R. Mutt:

Marcel Duchamp (eh, R. Mutt?), Fountain, 1917. Yes, this is a urinal. That's all it is. And it's more than likely one that Duchamp tore off the wall in a public men's room on his way to the show. His official statement concerning this piece went like this: "Whether Mr. Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object." But that was all bullshit. He was trying to test the limits of the society that had agreed to display anything whose entry fee was paid. Which was brilliant.

And test their limits they did. The board (including Duchamp, whose identity as the entrant was still hidden) debated for awhile over whether or not this piece was really art, and then it was put on display- hidden from view during the show. Duchamp resigned from the board after this, as did several others.

While the original Fountain is no longer extant, Duchamp authorized several replicas of it during his lifetime; it's been referred to as "the practical joke that launched an artistic revolution" by Martin Gayford. One of his authorized replicas was on display at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1999 when artist Björn Kjelltoft used it for its intended purpose. While urinating on the artwork usually constitutes vandalism and indecent behavior, no charges were filed. Those involved all agreed that Duchamp would have loved it. (However, it's worth noting that from then on Fountain has only been displayed behind a layer of plexiglass. Phooey.)

Granted, this happened five years after Hirst's lamb was inked, but it still shows that Hirst is not only inept, arrogant, and closed to any outside ideas that he's not interested in stealing, but he doesn't even have a decent sense of humor. Do you know any people like that in your own day-to-day life? I dunno, a professor who thinks his doctorate makes him better than you or that dumbass cop who really gets a kick out of pulling you over just to check your license? Dont'cha wish they'd all just curl up and die?

Andy Warhol's Films

2009-07-30T09:00:00.006-05:00

Talking trash about Andy Warhol is off-limits on this blog, no matter how obtuse some of his work might have been, and for three reasons.

First, he was not an artist, he was a product. And not only was he a product, he was also the producer of this product. One could make a correlation with the ancient Nether Gods who raped their own mothers in order to produce themselves, and when you put it that way it's pretty darn cool.

Secondly, no matter what he did, whether it be elevating silkscreen printing from T-shirt making to high-end serigraphy, bringing cellists and drag queens along to interviews, or charging other people to work in inhumane conditions producing his work for him, he was inarguably the first to do it. And lest we forget, "art without innovation is a corpse."

The third reason is definitely the most important. On March 11, 1979, Andy Warhol attended a gala that was held in his honor in Birmingham, Alabama. (If you're wondering why the hell Warhol would set foot in a city such as Birmingham, please pull your bottom lip over your head and swallow.) My mother and father were also in attendance. My mother was eight months pregnant at the time. (Yes, it was with me. This story wouldn't be worth telling otherwise.)

They had the opportunity to meet him, which they hadn't expected, and also to ask for his autograph. My dad fidgeted for a while looking for a paper good and pen, finally handing Warhol a small pocket calendar and a black magic marker, which was all he had. "That's okay," said Warhol, who then turned to the March page of the calendar, signed the page, and circled Day 11 (which was a Sunday).

As he was writing, Warhol looked up at my mom and inconsequently asked, "So when's your baby due?" "In a little over a month," she replied. (She was wrong there- I ended up being born two months late. I have always been lazy.)

When my mom tells this story, she tends to focus on how he asked her about her baby. When my dad tells this story, it sort of goes like this: "Man, I had no idea we'd actually be meeting him. There was this other guy who brought a can of Campbell's tomato soup and asked Andy to sign it. All I could think about was how I had an original issue copy of The Velvet Underground & Nico at home and how I could have brought that. There's no telling what it would have been worth today if it had Andy Warhol's signature on it."

In 2001 my dad framed the autograph and gave it to me for my 22nd birthday. It's currently hanging above my computer. Here's a picture of it:

See? I wasn't kidding.

But anyway, I thought today it might be apropos to feature some of Warhol's filmmaking feats. Here is a clip from the Warhol film titled Eat. It features Robert Indiana, creator of the iconic LOVE stamp, eating a mushroom. His cat also makes an appearance. (This is merely an outtake. The actual film is about 45 minutes long.)

This one is called Sleep. It shows poet and performance artist John Giorno, who was Warhol's partner at the time, sleeping for six and a half hours. Giorno later said that he was unaware that the film was being made until he woke up and saw Warhol filming him.

When Warhol made Empire, he set up his camera in front of the Empire State Building and left it there for eight hours.

Kiss might be the best known of his short films.

Warhol also made a full length feature, Bad. Violent, gritty, in extremely bad taste, and occasionally quite funny, it tells a rather loopy story concerning a beauty salon and a group of hitwomen who specialize in children. It's often considered the forerunner to Natural Born Killers, but saying such a thing just isn't fair to a great film like Bad. Here's a clip (not safe for work):

If you want to see the whole thing, you might be able to find it in your local video store. It's usually in the "Cult Films" section or with the soft porn (such as Shannon Tweed's films and David Duchovny's early stuff).

With Andy Warhol's great influence on the world of what is clearly amateur filmmaking, and in an era where YouTube, webcams, and iMovie are accessible to the masses, one may wonder why his work has not been replicated more often. For whatever reason I decided to make my own Warhol-esque film. (I put it on YouTube only because uploading it directly to Blogger would have robbed me of about a tenth of my allotted disk space.)

And to answer your question, yes, I have had at least one romantic partner break up with me because he didn't like having to watch me eat. Apparently I don't eat like the proper Southern lady that I am. But I gained a newfound respect for Robert Indiana. It's hard as hell to chew and smile at the same time.

Chaim Soutine

2009-07-29T08:15:00.005-05:00

Unless you're a nerd like me and/or managed not to fall asleep during your art history slide lectures there's a good chance you've never heard of Chaim Soutine. Called both a late Impressionist and an early Expressionist, his lack of notoriety may stem from the fact that not only was he from the far left field (try Belarus!), but unlike his peers he didn't even have the sense to high-tail it to Paris as soon as he could manage it- he attended art school in Lithuania. Whoa, what a freak.

Although no photographs really exist of him, he was said to be a tall, slender, handsome young man (in addition to also being dirty and legendarily smelly). This portrait, one of many by his good friend Amedeo Modigliani, is said to be an accurate depiction of what he looked like.

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait of Chaim Soutine. 1917, oil on canvas.

This is a self-portrait by him. Gee, you'd think a person with such a bad self image would refrain from reproducing it on canvas.

Chaim Soutine, Self Portrait/Autoportrait. 1918, oil on canvas.

Anywho, Soutine was the tenth of eleven children from a poor Jewish family in Minsk. Despite showing interest and promise at a young age, his folks just didn't have the means to send him to art school. But Fortuna spun her wheel upward for young Chaim when he was beaten nearly to death by the son of a local priest (for doing a somewhat unflattering drawing of said priest). The Holy Church once again bought their way out of a potential dilemma, and Soutine was on his way to art school.

He did make it to Paris eventually, joining a large group of Jewish immigrants including Modigliani, Mark Chagall and Jacques Lipchitz. But he was still desperately poor, sometimes even resorting to standing at counters in cafes with the hope that someone would take pity on him and buy him something to eat. A possible reason why? He would not allow his would-be patrons to look at his paintings before buying them.

While his style was not classical in the slightest, he was an admirer of the genre paintings of such artists as Rembrandt and Chardin, which often tended to include meat. Which is why once he saved up enough money, he bought one thing he'd always wanted- a carcass of an ox. He hung it in his studio and produced a total of ten paintings of it. Here are a few:

One can see the problems in doing such a thing. What was he to do when it became a little off-color or began to grow mold? Just go back to the butcher for a few buckets of blood, of course. He'd slosh the fresh blood on the decaying carcass to give it that "just slaughtered" look.

And while the rotting meat smell didn't seem to bother him at all (remember that he was rather smelly to begin with), his neighbors and the public health authorities didn't concur. When the health department demanded that he dispose of it, he made the argument that art is far more important that hygiene.

So what of the legacy of this marginally talented yet unquestionably nasty dude? He died in 1943 of a perforated ulcer while on the run from the Gestapo after the occupation of Paris. He didn't exactly die broke, though; he did create a name for himself throughout the last twenty years of his life, with the American collector Albert C. Barnes purchasing sixty of his paintings on one visit to his studio. The writer Roald Dahl wrote a short story, "Skin," that was based on the life of Chaim Soutine. And in 2006, one of his iconic beef paintings sold for a record $13.8 million.

François Boucher

2009-07-28T09:05:00.008-05:00

One does not need to be a great scholar of Greek mythology to know that Zeus was one horny god. When it came to virginal (and often mortal) women this was one ethereal being who just couldn't keep it in his pants. And when he experienced a dearth of such women who would have voluntary relations with him, he would resort to trickery (some would use the word "rape") by taking other forms, such as:

a cuckoo (the goddess Hera, who later became his very jealous wife)
a serpent (Rhea, his own mother)
a swan (Leda, the queen of Sparta)
an eagle (the nymph Aegina)
a cloud of smoke (Io, a priestess of Hera)
the goddess Artemis (Callisto, Artemis' handmaiden)
a (literal) shower of gold (Danaë, daughter of the king of Argos)
a bull (the Phoenician princess Europa)
the Theban general Amphitryon (Alcmene, granddaughter of Perseus and Andromeda and wife of Amphitryon)

Each of these liaisons included a very interesting story, and the resulting offspring included Helen of Troy, the hero Perseus, Zeus' favorite son Sarpedon, and countless others. In fact, very few of Zeus' children were conceived in the normal way. In a moment of jealousy, Hera chopped off Zeus' genitalia (as if he couldn't have regrown them) and threw them into the sea; Aphrodite was born from the seafoam, washing up on the shore shortly afterwards. A particularly excruciating headache of Zeus' resulted in the birth of Athena, who sprung from his forehead. (While Athena is often called "the motherless child," this might have been a direct result of Zeus' having swallowed alive Athena's pregnant mother Metis a few months before.)

Anyway, how do you tastefully represent a person getting busy with an animal or an inanimate object in art? A few artists have been able to finnagle it.

Antonio da Correggio, Zeus and Io, 1530, oil on canvas.

Noted orgy master Gustav Klimt (the "Freud of Art" before Lucian came along), Danaë, 1907, oil and gilt on canvas.

Paul Cézanne, Leda and the Swan, 1880, oil on canvas. Deviating from his typical subject matter of still lifes, landscapes, and self portraits, note how Cézanne manages to give this painting a pronounced sensuality without infusing it with any vulgarity whatsoever.

While painting the exact same subject 140 years earlier, François Boucher just couldn't finnagle it.

François Boucher- arguably the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century, and according to the Goncourt brothers "one of those men who represent the taste of a century, who express, personify and embody it." (Which sure says a lot about the 18th century, eh?) With a pupil named Jean-Honoré Fragonard and a patroness named Madame du Pompadour, one could say Boucher really pwned the Rococo period. Eh?

I have had trouble finding any information about this painting, other than that it was painted around 1740 in oil on canvas. What was the public's reaction to it, I wonder? One would think that even in today's volatile art world there would be a little derision concerning the decorum in painting an open twat with a swan staring at it from about three inches away. I live one county away from the Blountsville, Alabama Tyson plant, where no chicken is safe from molestation, and even I cannot wrap my mind around how one actually goes about having sex with a swan. Best not to even think about it.

Maybe what offends me the most about this piece is that I can't look at it without visually picturing a guy in a powdered wig loosening his pantaloons and making romance explosion all over the brocade-papered wall next to it.

Damien Hirst Sunday #1

2009-07-26T11:06:00.006-05:00

If there's one complete waste of human flesh with a nine figure net worth who really needs to be taken behind the barn it's British artist Damien Hirst. (Yes, Paris Hilton would be my very distant second choice.) As part of my inspiration for starting this blog in the first place, I have chosen to devote one post a week to him. Welcome to the first ever Damien Hirst Sunday.

Above: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst, 1992, tiger shark, glass, steel, and 5% formaldehyde solution. (Yeah, I know what you're thinking. And don't even THINK about comparing this freak to Marcel Duchamp just because he gave lengthy and philosophical-sounding names to common objects.)

A little history about this piece: the first tiger shark to give its life for it was caught by a commissioned fisherman off the coast of Australia, who earned £6,000 for his effort. It was sold to the Saatchi Gallery for £50,000. In 2004, when an American hedge fund manager became interested in purchasing it for $18 million, it was discovered that the initial preservation job had been done very poorly. So it was refilled and another professionally caught Australian shark was interchanged with the one whose tail was beginning to fall off. And that was when Damien Hirst became the second most expensive living artist in the world (a fact that really makes me hope Jasper Johns is taking care of his health).

Of course there was criticism. The British tabloid The Sun referred to it as "£50,000 for fish without chips". Art critic Robert Hughes described it as less radical than the lace collar in a painting by Velazquez. Its harshest critics were the folks at Stuckism International Gallery, who went so far as to make this page (call me weird, but I laughed until I cried at this).

And what did Damien Hirst say about it? His response to those who claimed that anyone could have badly pickled a shark they didn't even catch themselves was simply "But you didn't, did you?"

For some reason this prompts me to relate a personal story. There was a Belgian exchange student at my school whom for our purposes we'll call Jean-Claude. (His name might have really been Jean-Claude, or it might have not been. I seriously can't remember.) In a preppy business major meets Eurotrash sort of fashion he was quite hot. If he wasn't so damn obnoxious I probably would have hit it. (Heck, after one too many Miller High Lifes I might have hit it anyway.)

One weekend I was at a party that had started about two hours earlier. Jean-Claude comes through the door in a magnanimous fashion, as if to say "Look evrybody, Jean-Claude ees here! Zee party may begeen!" A few minutes later I was dancing (in the typical nerdy white girl way, moving my shoulders with both feet firmly in place on the floor) when Jean-Claude decided that he wanted me as his dancing partner. When I realized that a vexatious Belgian was grinding against me in a suggestive fashion I froze and stepped away. He replies, "Vat is wrong, sweetie? Are you afraid uf vat might become uf eet?"

I was later laughing with my friends about the silliness of this remark, and especially how silly it sounded when spoken in a Low Countries accent, but we also agreed that it was actually rather clever. In fact, one that might be worth remembering, for possible future use. We concluded that before leaving Belgium Jean-Claude had probably picked up a book, written in his native language, entitled Lines for Picking Up American Chicks.

Which makes me wonder- is there perhaps a book on the market titled Clever Quips for Bad "Artists" to Use When Defending Their "Work"? And if there isn't, then perhaps there should be. Pablo Picasso (who was definitely not a talentless piece of trash like our buddy Damien is) carried with him at all times a Browning revolver loaded with blanks, which he used to shoot at the uneducated minds who had the gall to ask him what his work meant. While that's certainly the best way to do it, I'll give Damien Hirst a little credit for having a pretty snappy comeback- one for the ages in fact, because it will be used long after he's gone (and was probably thrown around a few times before he got here as well).

Government Arts Funding: Good or Bad?

2009-07-24T10:36:00.006-05:00

Do I support funding for the arts? Of course I do, and so should you. They're an integral part of our society, no doubt. I'm a ramen-eating grad student and I still manage to write a decent-sized check to my local museum whenever I can. Depending on your means, I greatly encourage you to contribute funds to your local art collective, visit a gallery in your city and buy a painting from a local artist the next time you need something to match your furniture, or spearhead an entire foundation. I hope to someday be able to do the latter.

Do I support government funding for the arts? For the most part, no. That may surprise a lot of people. But as a Libertarian I enjoy living in a society that is built on personal choice. I don't think I, you, or any other taxpayer should have to pay for a stranger's healthcare, so it would be hypocritical to say that we should have to pay Robert Mapplethorpe to take pictures of guys urinating on each other.

Furthermore, while I concur with the avant garde's insistence that the purpose of art is to provoke, I save only my strongest criticism for those artists who attempt to hide their lack of talent by creating works that do nothing but offend. A lot of Americans would probably find a film depicting a man nailing his genitalia to a piece of wood offensive, or at the very least uncomfortable to watch (I'm referencing Bob Flanagan's NEA-funded Sick here), and I must say at the expense of sounding ignorant that I sort of agree. There are others who find Philip Pearlstein's nudes offensive as well; again, at the expense of sounding ignorant, I do feel those people should return to their caves in Afghanistan. But where do you draw a clean, thick line?

However, when looking at the people who agree with me on this point (and perhaps only this point) I don't appear to be in the brightest company. The Heritage Foundation has recently cleaned up their argument significantly but was as recently as a few years ago padding their "Reason #4" by claiming that most great artists throughout history did just fine with no government funding whatsoever. They even gave a few examples- Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Damn, people, if you're going to make a statement like this you should try your hardest to make sure it's the truth. Matisse and Gauguin received extensive funding from the French government to support their artistic efforts. (How else did you think the financially destitute son of a single mother made it to Tahiti to produce some of his finest works?)

They were right about Toulouse-Lautrec, who was independently wealthy, but it was quite odd of them to cite an artist known for his paintings and posters of whores, absinthe fiends, and the occasionally homoerotic hedonism of the Moulin Rouge. Were this another era, who would this same gang be bitching about? Fragonard? Rubens? Would they be standing by Savonarola while urging Botticelli to feed his greatest paintings to the Bonfire of the Vanities?

In short, support the arts all you can- because you want to, not because you have to.

The Times They Are a' Changin'

2009-07-23T10:15:00.006-05:00

Who's the greatest artist that ever lived? THAT'S a matter of dispute did I ever hear one. Some may say it's Michelangelo Buonnarotti. Some may argue Rembrandt van Rijn. Others will make a case for Pablo Picasso. Personally, I don't really have one single favorite artist, but I could make a decent argument for any of the three I have mentioned; in separate ways they were all brilliant.

However, when it comes to the most important artist of all time, there really is no argument. It was Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906). The undisputed father of modern art, he was to art history what Isaac Newton was to the scientific world. Before Cézanne, changes in art were few and far between; afterwards, the gates were open and the modern age had begun.

Around about 1890, Cézanne was quoted as saying, "I will shock all of Paris with an apple." Did he? Well, let's see:

Apples Before Cézanne:

(Gustave Courbet, Still Life with Apples, 1871)

Cézanne's Apples:

(Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Apples, 1890)

Apples After Cézanne:

(Pablo Picasso, Fruit In a Vase, 1909)

Speaks for itself, don't it? Cézanne was Picasso's favorite artist; he admitted that without Cézanne's influence we would never have had Cubism. No Cubism, no Expressionism. No Expressionism, no Futurism. No Futurism, no... eh, you get the picture. Line, color, contours, perspective and form were what Cézanne used for shock value. His subject matter was as dull as any other.

It's bewildering to think that this was a mere century ago. To shock all of Paris today generally requires putting shit on Jesus or similar. And it sure can't be done with an apple. (Yeah, I know what you're thinking. And it's probably already been done.)

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

2009-07-23T05:58:00.008-05:00

When one thinks of the excesses, hedonism, and general tastelessness of the Ancien Régime, images like this come to mind.

French Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing. This was painted as a commission by the young nobleman, dramatist and songwriter Charles Collé and depicts Collé and his mistress. Gabriel François Doyen was originally offered this commission but turned it down because he found the concept a little offensive. Fragonard, however, was more than happy to comply.

What isn't wrong with this painting? Note its hurried mix of loose and tight draughtsmanship. And its color scheme, which, while complimentary, doesn't even look that great in your grandmother's bathroom. And its composition, which would make nearly anyone uncomfortable even without the silly subject matter. And the spots of light that tend to deviate from their source (sorry, Fragonard, but you're no Rembrandt). And the silly sponge painted trees. This painting sucks.

Now we can just bring up the obvious here. This painting straddles the line between "tacky eroticism" and "blatant 18th century pornography." In case your vision's bad, this painting depicts a playful scene where a woman on a swing kicks off her shoe in a lascivious manner (representing a, eh, popped cherry) while a man looks up her dress and a second man is for some reason pulling a set of ropes behind her. (I have no knowledge of practical engineering concerning 18th century swings, so perhaps this does make perfect sense.) The pink rosebushes and the stone cherubim who stare on are not without their blatant symbolism. In today's art world, where one has to cover their nude body in chocolate syrup to rile anybody up, it seems all too tame. But in 1766, this was the closest one could get to putting a menage-a-trois on canvas.

But what's the real issue here? In any other time and place this painting would have been relegated to those "starving artists' sales" that they periodically hold in the lobbies of hotels, where one can pick up a "real sofa size oil painting!" for $19. But this was pre-Revolution France, where there was no shortage of aristocrats who admired the bilious. Can you look at this painting without subconsciously seeing peasants in rags being told to eat cake?

It upsets me that the Rococo movement has been associated with the French Enlightenment, which coincided with the same time period. I really want to believe that this painting made Voltaire personally puke.

And if you're wondering what happened to Fragonard, his legacy began to dry up around 1789, when most of his patrons were, well, beheaded. In spite of the very charitable efforts of the brilliant Neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David, he never found a whole lot of work afterwards, and died virtually unknown in 1806. For over a hundred years after his death he was not even mentioned in most art history texts. His great niece Berthe Morisot became one of the leading female artists of the 19th century (and rightfully so). But today, Fragonard's influence can only be seen in the houses of little old ladies who don't want to spend more that $19 for an oil painting.

Letter of Intent

2009-07-22T18:24:00.004-05:00

(Yes, the above photograph has been digitally manipulated using Photoshop. I have never been in the presence of the "work of art" depicted above, and I hope such a travesty never occurs.)

I like to consider myself an educated person. After seven years in the dehumanizing corporate world I have recently returned to school, where I shall with any luck complete an MA program in art history. In fact, I taught myself to read at the age of three, largely using my mother's cumbersome copy of H.W. Janson's History of Art. (I'm sure the term "idiot savant" has been thrown around quite a bit when I'm not within earshot.)

The fact is, I have some strong opinions- a problem that's exacerbated by the fact that I also have very few friends who care enough to listen. So that's why I have created this blog. It's for you- the folks who will listen. I hope.

This blog isn't just about bad art, though you will see and hear about much of just that. It's also about bad criticism, bad ideas, and even bad stories. In short, the addled side of an otherwise gleaming discipline, which makes it an even more interesting topic of study. And yes, you will get more of my personal opinions than you'll probably ever wish to hear. They won't get taken down here, as they always do on Wikipedia. One thing you'll hear very little about is me- but that's okay. I'm really not very interesting.

If you disagree with anything I say here, I'd love to duke it out over email. Likewise, if you agree with what I say and have a similar blog, please let me know so that I can link to it. But if you take anything whatsoever away then let it be this: Even if some fool pays $18 million for it, a dead shark isn't art. EVER.