ROMA (AP) - Un músico y técnico de computadoras italiano dice haber descubierto notas musicales codificadas en "La última cena" de Leonardo Da Vinci, lo cual indicaría que el genio renacentista podría haber dejado una obra musical de tono sombrío que acompañaría a su mural del siglo XVI.
"Parece un réquiem", dijo Giovanni María Pala. "Es como una pista musical que enfatiza la pasión de Jesús".
Pintada entre 1494 y 1498 en la iglesia de Santa María de la Gracia, en Milán, la obra muestra un momento determinante en el Evangelio, la última cena de Jesús con los 12 apóstoles antes de su arresto y crucifixión, presentando de una manera viva la reacción de los seguidores de Cristo cuando se enteran que uno de ellos lo traicionará.
Pala, músico de 45 años que vive cerca de la ciudad sureña de Lecce, empezó a estudiar la obra de Leonardo en el 2003, luego de escuchar en un noticiero que investigadores consideraban que el artista e inventor ocultó una obra musical en su pintura.
Cómo interpretar la obra. En un libro presentado ayer en Italia, Pala explica cómo interpretó los elementos de la pintura que tienen un valor simbólico en la teología cristiana.
Primero se dio cuenta de que dibujando un pentagrama en la pintura, tanto las hogazas de pan en la mesa como las manos de Jesús y de los apóstoles podrían representar notas musicales.
Ello concuerda con la relación simbólica cristiana entre el pan, que representa el cuerpo de Cristo, y las manos, que se usan para bendecir los alimentos. Pero las notas no tenían sentido musical hasta que Pala advirtio que debían de ser leídas de derecha a izquierda, siguiendo el particular estilo de escritura de Leonardo.
(Fuente: La Nación / 10 de noviembre de 2007)
noviembre 10, 2007
octubre 26, 2007
Christine Peterson
Fragmento de una entrevista de Brian Sherwin a Christine Peterson.
BS: Can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?
CP: I carry a sketchbook with me constantly and usually begin in there to create small compositions. I am inspired by the most minuscule things. Situations around me, a line in a book or the glimpse of beauty will ignite something within me to let me know that "its time." Once I decide exactly where I want the idea to go, I will begin working on a piece. More often than not, I have no idea what the end result will look like. I have a basic idea, but the final piece is usually completely different from what I intended.I will usually get to a point within a piece where I am completely frustrated and will be dumbfounded as far as where to go. It can be extremely discouraging, but I know that eventually the piece will just speak to me and tell me where I need to go.I am not sure how I know when a piece is complete. Some pieces never seem done; I will constantly question if I could work something out more. With others, I will get to a point where I step back and just know its finished.
BS: Christine, how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?
CP: I feel contemporary life impacts my work because I deal so much with human interaction. In so many ways, we are moving farther and farther from one another. We send emails instead of speaking, we text someone before we will pick up the phone and call. It seems as though everyone wants to be heard, but no one is willing to listen. We are all standing side by side but just out of each others reach.
BS: With that said, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?
CP: My work has always been a way for me to speak when I feel I don't have the words. Anytime I feel that something needs to be said, I somehow find a way to express it through my art.
(Fuente: My Art Space - Blog)
BS: Can you go into detail about your artistic process? How do you begin a piece? When do you know that a piece is finished?
CP: I carry a sketchbook with me constantly and usually begin in there to create small compositions. I am inspired by the most minuscule things. Situations around me, a line in a book or the glimpse of beauty will ignite something within me to let me know that "its time." Once I decide exactly where I want the idea to go, I will begin working on a piece. More often than not, I have no idea what the end result will look like. I have a basic idea, but the final piece is usually completely different from what I intended.I will usually get to a point within a piece where I am completely frustrated and will be dumbfounded as far as where to go. It can be extremely discouraging, but I know that eventually the piece will just speak to me and tell me where I need to go.I am not sure how I know when a piece is complete. Some pieces never seem done; I will constantly question if I could work something out more. With others, I will get to a point where I step back and just know its finished.
BS: Christine, how does current world events influence your work? In other words, how does contemporary life impact your creative practice?
CP: I feel contemporary life impacts my work because I deal so much with human interaction. In so many ways, we are moving farther and farther from one another. We send emails instead of speaking, we text someone before we will pick up the phone and call. It seems as though everyone wants to be heard, but no one is willing to listen. We are all standing side by side but just out of each others reach.
BS: With that said, tell us more about the philosophy behind your art. What motivates you to create?
CP: My work has always been a way for me to speak when I feel I don't have the words. Anytime I feel that something needs to be said, I somehow find a way to express it through my art.
(Fuente: My Art Space - Blog)
octubre 23, 2007
Códice de Dresde
CIUDAD DE GUATEMALA, (dpa).- Guatemala recibió oficialmente de manos de Alemania, una réplica del Códice de Dresde, uno de los cuatro manuscritos que hacen referencia a la cultura maya, informaron fuentes oficiales. La entrega se cumplió en el Museo de Arqueología y Etnología, en la Ciudad de Guatemala, en presencia del vicepresidente guatemalteco Eduardo Stein. El alto funcionario guatemalteco recibió la obra de manos del príncipe Alexander de Sajonia, de Alemania. La réplica fue enviada a Guatemala en septiembre de parte del director general de la Biblioteca de Sajonia, Thomas Bürger, tras gestiones realizadas por Stein durante una visita a Alemania en 2006. El Códice de Dresde, originario de Yucatán, mide tres metros de largo desplegado, data de 1250, y es probablemente el más antiguo de los cuatro documentos de este tipo que se salvaron de la destrucción tras la colonización española. Los otros tres se encuentran en la Biblioteca Nacional de París, en el Museo de América de Madrid y en Ciudad de México. Alemania y Guatemala tienen previsto gestionar ante la UNESCO que esos cuatro Códices sean declarados Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad.
A lo que un lector del diario aporta este comentario:
Un documento de semejante valor estará mas seguro en un museo de Alemania sin desmerecer a los guatemaltecos. Veamos lo que pasa en museos Argentinos, se pierden dinosaurios obras de arte, etc... déjenlos en un lugar seguro. Quizás algún día cuando esta América sea más segura puedan volver. Escuchamos reclamos al museo británico hasta en los Simpsons pero en la época en que Napoleón, (piedra roseta) y los ingleses rescataban obras de arte, los Mamelucos practicaban tiro al blanco con la nariz de la Esfinge. Y antes hicieron cal con el recubrimiento de Keops. La destrucción de todo lo maya en la conquista fue por motivos religiosos, no se si no hubiera hecho lo mismo yo, si delante mío arrancan un corazón de un niño y me lo entregan latiendo, eso, por mas rito religión etc. no lo aceptamos. Aceptamos que un fanático se lleve al cielo lleno de vírgenes a nuestros seres queridos en un atentado suicida, ¿que haríamos con sus documentos religión y creencias?, y culturalmente, algunos de nosotros, todavía somos capaces de envolver un salame con un Rembrant.
(Fuente: La Nación, Buenos Aires, martes 23 de uctubre de 2007)
A lo que un lector del diario aporta este comentario:
Un documento de semejante valor estará mas seguro en un museo de Alemania sin desmerecer a los guatemaltecos. Veamos lo que pasa en museos Argentinos, se pierden dinosaurios obras de arte, etc... déjenlos en un lugar seguro. Quizás algún día cuando esta América sea más segura puedan volver. Escuchamos reclamos al museo británico hasta en los Simpsons pero en la época en que Napoleón, (piedra roseta) y los ingleses rescataban obras de arte, los Mamelucos practicaban tiro al blanco con la nariz de la Esfinge. Y antes hicieron cal con el recubrimiento de Keops. La destrucción de todo lo maya en la conquista fue por motivos religiosos, no se si no hubiera hecho lo mismo yo, si delante mío arrancan un corazón de un niño y me lo entregan latiendo, eso, por mas rito religión etc. no lo aceptamos. Aceptamos que un fanático se lleve al cielo lleno de vírgenes a nuestros seres queridos en un atentado suicida, ¿que haríamos con sus documentos religión y creencias?, y culturalmente, algunos de nosotros, todavía somos capaces de envolver un salame con un Rembrant.
(Fuente: La Nación, Buenos Aires, martes 23 de uctubre de 2007)
septiembre 12, 2007
Carnadas
(...) Te digo que este tema de internet y sus caprichos, son como puertas que se van abriendo a medida que las vas explorando. Tocás una frase subrayada y se abre otra página, consecuente, permanentemente. Todos son links y, cuanto haya subrayado o de otro color en un texto, es el salto a otra cosa relacionada...
Podés volver si querés, pero la mente humana tiene un dispositivo juguetón llamado curiosidad, que es el que no permite tantos regresos sino seguir husmeando. Y es mi tremenda obsesión; no logro escapar de ella. Cada mañana me doy casi dos horas de viajes ansiosos por el mundo de las cosas que ese día me interesen y paro porque me autoimpongo que a las 08:30 tengo que comenzar a laburar seriamente en lo que esté haciendo, si no, seguiría hasta la noche con los dolores de espaldas sumados por la estancada del cuerpo: mientras estás boludeando en la red, el cuerpo está quieto, sin movimientos, porque todo lo móvil ocurre entre los ojos, tu índice y la teclita del mouse.
Luego, vuelvo a mi mundo propio con los pinceles para seguir haciendo de las mías, con la que mejor bailo, que es la loca de los colores: la paleta. Aunque atento al juguete visual, siempre encendido.
Dejo sembrado en la pantalla el tema que pueda interesar; porque mientras uno la sigue
trabajando según placeres o requerimientos, esas imágenes que hicimos no están abandonadas tan solo dentro de un marco o durmiendo en una galería, están laburando en el cybermundo a la pesca de interesados.
(...)
Hay quienes se han apoderado de mis imágenes de la red para ilustrar páginas ¡en Polonia y hasta en China! ¿Qué me importa si para cada imagen mencionan mi nombre? Sirve de publicidad... No me pagan royalties ¡jhá! Pero sirve.
Me quedó grabado el ejemplo que dio uno de los activos de Google Argentina, en la jornada de Dattatec, a la que asistí el 30 de agosto en la Sala Picasso del complejo La Plaza (BA)
El ejemplo que ellos dan es el de un cazador y un pescador. El cazador dispara a la bandada allá en el cielo y uno de los pajarracos, cae. El pato la ligó sin quererla. En cambio el pez, va hacia la carnada y muerde el anzuelo. Internet es generar la carnada suficiente para nuestro anzuelo (digamos, el arte que profesamos).
(...)
Pienso que los artistas paisajistas deberían agregar algo más de carnada a lo propio, hotkeys como: tren, trenes, cielo, nubes, campo, campestre, ombú, arco iris, carruaje, gaucho, china, madre, pampa, trigales, etcétera, etcétera, porque cada elemento que hayan pintado puede ser esa carnada.
Imagináte un tipo que está en Marruecos, Estonia, Malawi o Bégica buscando carruajes antiguos y sus “hotkeys” se ligan con la palabra carruajes donde aparece la página del paisajista, tu caso, circunstancialmente, ese tipo abre esa página y ve tus laburos. Mira y sigue. Mira y se queda. Mira y no da bola, o mira y comenta a otros. ¿Qué pasa si se da la casualidad de que es un anticuarista o un coleccionista, a la vez amante de los paisajes o del impresionismo o de las pampas? Acontece entonces un pascual que olfateó la rica carnada y se pone en contacto con el autor.
Suena a casualidad y así es, más a no dudar: estas cosas funcionan.
(...)
(Fragmentos de una carta a un amigo y colega pintor, en este día de lluvia en Buenos Aires)
Podés volver si querés, pero la mente humana tiene un dispositivo juguetón llamado curiosidad, que es el que no permite tantos regresos sino seguir husmeando. Y es mi tremenda obsesión; no logro escapar de ella. Cada mañana me doy casi dos horas de viajes ansiosos por el mundo de las cosas que ese día me interesen y paro porque me autoimpongo que a las 08:30 tengo que comenzar a laburar seriamente en lo que esté haciendo, si no, seguiría hasta la noche con los dolores de espaldas sumados por la estancada del cuerpo: mientras estás boludeando en la red, el cuerpo está quieto, sin movimientos, porque todo lo móvil ocurre entre los ojos, tu índice y la teclita del mouse.
Luego, vuelvo a mi mundo propio con los pinceles para seguir haciendo de las mías, con la que mejor bailo, que es la loca de los colores: la paleta. Aunque atento al juguete visual, siempre encendido.
Dejo sembrado en la pantalla el tema que pueda interesar; porque mientras uno la sigue
trabajando según placeres o requerimientos, esas imágenes que hicimos no están abandonadas tan solo dentro de un marco o durmiendo en una galería, están laburando en el cybermundo a la pesca de interesados.
(...)
Hay quienes se han apoderado de mis imágenes de la red para ilustrar páginas ¡en Polonia y hasta en China! ¿Qué me importa si para cada imagen mencionan mi nombre? Sirve de publicidad... No me pagan royalties ¡jhá! Pero sirve.
Me quedó grabado el ejemplo que dio uno de los activos de Google Argentina, en la jornada de Dattatec, a la que asistí el 30 de agosto en la Sala Picasso del complejo La Plaza (BA)
El ejemplo que ellos dan es el de un cazador y un pescador. El cazador dispara a la bandada allá en el cielo y uno de los pajarracos, cae. El pato la ligó sin quererla. En cambio el pez, va hacia la carnada y muerde el anzuelo. Internet es generar la carnada suficiente para nuestro anzuelo (digamos, el arte que profesamos).
(...)
Pienso que los artistas paisajistas deberían agregar algo más de carnada a lo propio, hotkeys como: tren, trenes, cielo, nubes, campo, campestre, ombú, arco iris, carruaje, gaucho, china, madre, pampa, trigales, etcétera, etcétera, porque cada elemento que hayan pintado puede ser esa carnada.
Imagináte un tipo que está en Marruecos, Estonia, Malawi o Bégica buscando carruajes antiguos y sus “hotkeys” se ligan con la palabra carruajes donde aparece la página del paisajista, tu caso, circunstancialmente, ese tipo abre esa página y ve tus laburos. Mira y sigue. Mira y se queda. Mira y no da bola, o mira y comenta a otros. ¿Qué pasa si se da la casualidad de que es un anticuarista o un coleccionista, a la vez amante de los paisajes o del impresionismo o de las pampas? Acontece entonces un pascual que olfateó la rica carnada y se pone en contacto con el autor.
Suena a casualidad y así es, más a no dudar: estas cosas funcionan.
(...)
(Fragmentos de una carta a un amigo y colega pintor, en este día de lluvia en Buenos Aires)
septiembre 10, 2007
Vestuario hostil
Al llegar a un hotel de más de tres estrellas en esta ciudad caliginosa y húmeda (Buenos Aires) me inquieta que el personal de puerta esté elegante, uniformado en línea exquisita, sufriendo las variaciones climáticas sin un vestuario acorde. Se les ve ágil al servicio del huésped aunque empapados, traspirosos. Es como llegar al Tahaa' hotel (en Motu Tautau), o al Insotel en playa Tarida (Ibiza) y que nos recepcionen de sobretodo de paño...
Al ver que en verano (hoteles de primer nivel aún sin toldo de refresco y bivalente) se tiene a esta gente joven en contrapunto con el clima, pienso en la incapacidad de los diseñadores del vestuario que, de ser más honestos con su profesión, imagino, plantearían al cliente tal criterio solucionando algo tan sencillo (¿alguien dijo humano?) como esto.
En la época veraniega de las costas de Mar del Plata, he visto doormen con ¡capa doble a la inglesa, y con galera! Tremendas temperaturas veraniegas y ellos vestidos para el Park Inn Pribaltiyskaya de la Isla Vasilyevsky. ¡Jhá! ¿Es necesario acaso tener a esta gente vestida con la capa de Skywalker cuando departe con el siniestro canciller Palpatine en el mundo de los jedis? Falta que para el invierno les diseñaran bermudas cosa que el calidoscopio de la sinrazón quedara completo.
Por ahí salta alguno diciendo "el cliente nos pide que así sea" o "la cadena hotelera tiene un estilo que no acepta cambios de adaptación". Entonces, amigos míos, la cosa es anómala pues radica en un capricho sin análisis.
Ya que estamos ¿se le ocurrirá a alguien, para los días de 36° el uso del jubón…?
Al ver que en verano (hoteles de primer nivel aún sin toldo de refresco y bivalente) se tiene a esta gente joven en contrapunto con el clima, pienso en la incapacidad de los diseñadores del vestuario que, de ser más honestos con su profesión, imagino, plantearían al cliente tal criterio solucionando algo tan sencillo (¿alguien dijo humano?) como esto.
En la época veraniega de las costas de Mar del Plata, he visto doormen con ¡capa doble a la inglesa, y con galera! Tremendas temperaturas veraniegas y ellos vestidos para el Park Inn Pribaltiyskaya de la Isla Vasilyevsky. ¡Jhá! ¿Es necesario acaso tener a esta gente vestida con la capa de Skywalker cuando departe con el siniestro canciller Palpatine en el mundo de los jedis? Falta que para el invierno les diseñaran bermudas cosa que el calidoscopio de la sinrazón quedara completo.
Por ahí salta alguno diciendo "el cliente nos pide que así sea" o "la cadena hotelera tiene un estilo que no acepta cambios de adaptación". Entonces, amigos míos, la cosa es anómala pues radica en un capricho sin análisis.
Ya que estamos ¿se le ocurrirá a alguien, para los días de 36° el uso del jubón…?
agosto 05, 2007
julio 26, 2007
Figuras escondidas...
Pesci Slavisa, dice que el cuadro "La Última Cena" incluye, entre otras, las figuras escondidas de un templario y la Virgen María. Presentó sus hipótesis hoy en una conferencia de prensa en Milán. Un asesor cultural de esa ciudad las calificó de "pura invención".
Pesci Slavisa, un informático italiano de 36 años, asegura haber descubierto imágenes ocultas dentro del cuadro "La última cena", de Leonardo Da Vinci. Esta obra ha sido en los últimos años objeto de numerosas hipótesis y teorías, sobre todo a partir de la novela "El código Da Vinci", de Dan Brown.Según Slavisa, en la pintura aparecen varias figuras, entre las cuales se distinguen un templario y la Virgen María. El investigador explicó hoy, en una conferencia de prensa realizada en Milán, que realizó el siguiente procedimiento: escaneó el cuadro, lo imprimió en un papel translúcido, después lo colocó sobre el original y así descubrió "un nuevo dibujo con otras imágenes".
Por su parte, Vittorio Sgarbi –crítico de arte y asesor cultural de Milán– calificó las afirmaciones de Slavisa como "pura invención". Sgarbi enfatizó que "es imposible" que haya en el famoso cuadro de Leonardo "dibujos de personas distintas a las que se ven". Sin embargo, el informático señaló que existe "una coincidencia de puntos que creo que no puede ser el fruto de una casualidad, sino un cálculo preciso de Leonardo". Y agregó que no sabe explicar cuál puede ser el significado de este nuevo dibujo, ya que ésa es tarea de "los críticos e historiadores del arte".
"Leonardo se divertía escondiendo otras imágenes en sus dibujos", agregó el investigador, quien aclaró no ser un fanático ni de Dan Brown ni de Da Vinci.
(Fuente: EFE)
Pesci Slavisa, un informático italiano de 36 años, asegura haber descubierto imágenes ocultas dentro del cuadro "La última cena", de Leonardo Da Vinci. Esta obra ha sido en los últimos años objeto de numerosas hipótesis y teorías, sobre todo a partir de la novela "El código Da Vinci", de Dan Brown.Según Slavisa, en la pintura aparecen varias figuras, entre las cuales se distinguen un templario y la Virgen María. El investigador explicó hoy, en una conferencia de prensa realizada en Milán, que realizó el siguiente procedimiento: escaneó el cuadro, lo imprimió en un papel translúcido, después lo colocó sobre el original y así descubrió "un nuevo dibujo con otras imágenes".
Por su parte, Vittorio Sgarbi –crítico de arte y asesor cultural de Milán– calificó las afirmaciones de Slavisa como "pura invención". Sgarbi enfatizó que "es imposible" que haya en el famoso cuadro de Leonardo "dibujos de personas distintas a las que se ven". Sin embargo, el informático señaló que existe "una coincidencia de puntos que creo que no puede ser el fruto de una casualidad, sino un cálculo preciso de Leonardo". Y agregó que no sabe explicar cuál puede ser el significado de este nuevo dibujo, ya que ésa es tarea de "los críticos e historiadores del arte".
"Leonardo se divertía escondiendo otras imágenes en sus dibujos", agregó el investigador, quien aclaró no ser un fanático ni de Dan Brown ni de Da Vinci.
(Fuente: EFE)
julio 22, 2007
Giger: retrospectiva
Me gusta mucho lo que hace el tipo; aprecio su exquisitez creativa: http://www.swissinfo.org/spa/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=8028738
junio 30, 2007
abril 09, 2007
Gaia
Treinta años atrás, el científico James Lovelock estableció que la Tierra tenía un sistema de control en la escala planetaria, que mantenía el ambiente ajustado para la vida. Lo llamó Gaia y la teoría científica fue ampliamente aceptada. Considera que el abuso humano del medio ambiente está haciendo que el mecanismo actúe en contra de nosotros. Su conclusión, que el cambio climático está todavía insoluble y que la vida en el planeta no volverá a ser la misma. El mundo ha pasado el punto de no retorno para el cambio climático, y la civilización como la conocemos está en estos dudosos momentos de sobrevivir (según lo manifiesta el gurú verde que concibió la idea de Gaia) En un pensamiento pesimista publicado en el Independiente, el profesor Lovelock sugiere que los esfuerzos por ir en contra del calentamiento global no serán exitosos, porque es demasiado tarde.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338878.ece
James Lovelock's website: http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338878.ece
James Lovelock's website: http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/
abril 02, 2007
¿Miedo, a qué?
Es bastante común que se hable del temor que provoca la tela en blanco al que se posicione ante el caballete; que es una sensación extraña, de duda a lo que se hará en ese espacio. Es mentira. Todos sabemos, aunque sea en la parte más dubitativa de nuestro comportamiento, de qué es lo que habremos de representar en esa superficie plana, blanduzca y lisa. La farsa del temor acontecería, supongo, a aquellos quienes, desconociendo plenamente de qué trata expresarse, enfrentan por primera vez una tela. Digo: por primera vez. Más, y dudo equivocarme a aquellos que ya han enchastrado una, al decir eso del temor, subestiman al interlocutor. ¿Para qué minimizar al otro? Acepto la casualidad de la duda porque sí, esta acontece de modo primigenio más no dura demasiado, jamás pasa de tres parpadeos para que la mano ejecute la primera impresión sobre la superficie de la tela. Ahí va la carbonilla dejando marcas caprichosas que dan vida a las imágenes más simples, plenas o retorcidas, ensortijadas, de las que se pueda decir algo. Si a pincel directo la mota, el color, la seguidilla de trazos... Cada cuál con su expresión, cada uno dentro del contexto de sus propios pensamientos. Matisse decía a sus alumnos aquello de “cortarse la lengua para expresarse con la pintura” y en el acto de hacer algo representativo, como lo que digo, no hay voz. El pensamiento puro de cada uno está metido en ese momento en el espacio, en la famosa bidimensionalidad que ayuda a recrear formas tridimensionales o las más abstractas, planas, escuetas, carentes de imagen reconocida, sin por esto dejar de ser la expresión humana, el léxico informal de los caprichos de la memoria y sus expresiones. Todo tiene valía como expresión. No hay qué o quien pueda truncar, censurar, invalidar tales demostraciones porque cada una es un momento, un grafismo, una soltura propia. ¿Artístico? He visto trabajos primorosos, de una calidad artística (superior a la mediocridad de sus autores) capaces de superar limpiamente a los más destacados artistas enceguecidos por las luces del éxito. Nada incoherente sabiendo como se deshonran los autores al conocer el éxito, quedándose en algo que no les satisface, por el solo hecho de mantener la compostura de las formalidades que los han llevado a tal ubicación en el podio. Se trata de la mera supervivencia, ya no es una cuestión artística. En cambio el otro (como no tiene nada que perder pues no depende) se expresa absolutamente liberado… He visto, recientemente, el trabajo de una muchachita que me recordó a los fauves con sus colores y pinceladas de expresión irrefrenable. Esa pintura, realizada por una autora de apenas unos doce o quince años, ponía a la vista una composición no solo equilibrada sino acentuada por los colores rojos en la media inferior y amarillos profusos en el área superior, con azules y verdes a los bordes, ajustando el sujeto plástico de un modo como aprendido, cuando jamás fuera su intención ser una artista. La mera diversión fue la que dejó aquella obra a los ojos de quienes supiéramos verla y aprovecharla. ¿Miedo a la tela en blanco? ¿Quién le teme a eso?
(Fragmento de conceptos vertidos -la apertura- durante la mesa redonda del Encuentro de Pintores en la sala de la Dirección de Cultura de Pergamino - 31 de marzo de 2007)
(Fragmento de conceptos vertidos -la apertura- durante la mesa redonda del Encuentro de Pintores en la sala de la Dirección de Cultura de Pergamino - 31 de marzo de 2007)
Algo inesperado
El 31 de marzo (2007) a las 19, en el predio de la Casa de la Cultura de Pergamino, se dio apertura a la muestra de las pinturas realizadas durante el Encuentro Rancagua del que es mentor el pintor Ricardo Juárez. Los invitados para la mesa redonda fueron ocho, pero nos hicimos presentes solo cuatro: Alberto Arregui, Élida Bonet, Carlos Vera y yo.
Desconozco la cantidad de participantes (alrededor de 120) más público, pero fue una grata multitud vista desde el escenario. Primero se mostró un audiovisual de las actividades desarrolladas a fines de 2006, que dieran vida a las pinturas mostradas en esta oportunidad. A las 20, se dio apertura a la charla y los cuatro desarrollamos un evento que satisfizo tanto a nosotros como a los que participaron de las preguntas y cambios de opiniones respecto a la pintura, a las obras, a las razones de nuestra tarea, la vida de artista, las dificultades y necesidades, los pro y los contra y el arte (históricamente) de tantos. Tras la reunión avalada por la Dirección de Cultura local había un ágape especial en el taller del organizador a la que no asistí por retirarme antes (mi boleto era para las 23) en aquella octava noche de tormenta. Quedaron los demás hasta que Arregui y Bonet fueron por el colectivo hacia las 03:00 del domingo. Aquí, el suceso inesperado. Élida, sentada en el sillón de espera tuvo un paro cardíaco y falleció del modo más sencillo, lo que obviamente zarandeó el regreso del profesor Arregui quien debió llamar a la gente local para dar solución a este tema. Hoy, lunes 2 de abril, mientras el país recuerda el bochorno de la Guerra de Malvinas, están velando a Élida, una mujer que pintó e hizo piezas en plata (de autor) en París, New York e Ibiza…
Desconozco la cantidad de participantes (alrededor de 120) más público, pero fue una grata multitud vista desde el escenario. Primero se mostró un audiovisual de las actividades desarrolladas a fines de 2006, que dieran vida a las pinturas mostradas en esta oportunidad. A las 20, se dio apertura a la charla y los cuatro desarrollamos un evento que satisfizo tanto a nosotros como a los que participaron de las preguntas y cambios de opiniones respecto a la pintura, a las obras, a las razones de nuestra tarea, la vida de artista, las dificultades y necesidades, los pro y los contra y el arte (históricamente) de tantos. Tras la reunión avalada por la Dirección de Cultura local había un ágape especial en el taller del organizador a la que no asistí por retirarme antes (mi boleto era para las 23) en aquella octava noche de tormenta. Quedaron los demás hasta que Arregui y Bonet fueron por el colectivo hacia las 03:00 del domingo. Aquí, el suceso inesperado. Élida, sentada en el sillón de espera tuvo un paro cardíaco y falleció del modo más sencillo, lo que obviamente zarandeó el regreso del profesor Arregui quien debió llamar a la gente local para dar solución a este tema. Hoy, lunes 2 de abril, mientras el país recuerda el bochorno de la Guerra de Malvinas, están velando a Élida, una mujer que pintó e hizo piezas en plata (de autor) en París, New York e Ibiza…
marzo 06, 2007
Economía & Cultura
Creo que el tango sin duda es nuestro. Pero esta difusión masiva está expresando sentimientos sobre cuestiones esenciales a la condición humana, como el paso del tiempo, el amor perdido, la distancia, la muerte. Y los expresa desde la perspectiva idiosincrática argentina y del Río de la Plata. Pero la situación del tango también es sintomática de uno de nuestros problemas históricos, porque tanto la primera aceptación como el actual rebrote del tango en el país vinieron por un reconocimiento de afuera. Es como si nosotros necesitáramos que otros nos reconocieran para reconocernos nosotros mismos. Esta es una de nuestras debilidades en materia de densidad nacional: la dificultad para reconocer lo que uno es, sin necesidad de que se lo digan desde afuera. La Argentina, por razones complejas de su evolución histórica, ha tenido siempre un problema en lo que respecta a la mirada externa.
Aldo Ferrer (con Julio Sevares): http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/zona/2007/02/25/z-03615.htm
Aldo Ferrer (con Julio Sevares): http://www.clarin.com/suplementos/zona/2007/02/25/z-03615.htm
febrero 20, 2007
Chances
Si prefieres el bienestar a la libertad, la tranquilidad de la servidumbre al animado desafío de ser libre, vete en paz a tu casa. No te pedimos tu consejo ni tu apoyo. Inclínate y lame la mano que te alimenta. Que tus cadenas sean livianas, y que la posteridad olvide que fuiste nuestro compatriota.
Samuel Adams
Tomado del foot de sine-metu
Samuel Adams
Tomado del foot de sine-metu
febrero 04, 2007
Art Investing - Inversión en arte
Oh, internet! I found this note of Investing in Art by Frédéric Clerc-Renaud:
Millions of dollars paid for works of art everyday. Broken records: 140 millions dollars paid for "Adele blocks Bauer" portrait by Klimt.
Have they gone off their head these collectors fighting for a sculpture or an oil painting for sale at an auction? What the hell is doing the value of a work?
Basically, a sculpture or an oil canvas is exactly the same thing as a bottle of wine and obeys the rules of supply and demand. In fact the price for an object can rise as high as the price one is ready to pay for it and considering that huge amounts of money are available in the hands of wealthy collectors, eventually there is no wondering of soaring prices in art.
Born 1955, Koons is one of the most expensive artists in his generation, and his works, world famous, reached tremendous prices. They paid five million dollars in 2001 for Michael Jackson and bubbles. Anyway this doesn’t means that this will still be the true value in a few years. Art prices fluctuate and it is not unusual to ear of collectors having paid huge sums to an artist and unable to get their money back when selling a few years later. See Corot for example. It was worth millions two decades ago and today his works are being nearly sulked by the public.
There is obviously a fashion effect to be taken into account, which has nothing to do with the real value of an artist. Investors are perfectly aware of this and do the most of it. Take a Midas, ask him to buy artcraft from an emerging artist when his prices are still rather low and he is starving to death and striving to survive. Then when he has a nice collection, suggest him to sell a few works at an auction. It does not mind that the artist is unknown. The most important thing is the seller. Midas is very famous, so famous and so wealthy, most certainly he has the gift of business and if this man bought these works it is certainly to make more money. So everybody in its own gold rush, place bids to get one of these collectibles and prices soar. Now the unknown artist is famous and profitable just like a coca cola bottle. This is art apparaisal!
Gallery owners are playing the same kind of game. They are supposed to be good at finding golden ore and people believe them when they are being coaxed into buying artcraft from one of their cherished artists.
Anyway the gap between riches and not-riches is so huge that trying to explain what is expensive and what is not is to no avail. Probably 5 or even 50 millions dollars is correct if not normal when you are used to handling easy and heavy banknotes.
Most of the times you are off this world and you have nothing else to do but buy cheaper and maybe better artists. Notice that the best way of appraising an artwork is finding what mark was hit by one of the works from this artist you are ready to buy from. Check carefully catalogues from auctions, and keep in mind that it is not unusual practice when an artist or gallery owner requires from a third party that he places bids on his behalf with a view to boosting the price, no matter if he is thus running high risk of paying fees for a fake sale.
This is the price to pay to grow famous.
It reminds me of a World War Two veteran, famous in business, who told me, that the best tool ever in marketing is your nose.
Certainly you may trust yours as well when you are considering Investing in Art.
¡Oh internet! Encontré esta nota sobre Inversión en Arte en el site del escultor Frédéric Clerc-Renaud:
Millones de dólares se pagan a diario por obras de arte. Un record: 140 millones por un retrato de Klimt. ¿Perdieron la cabeza pugnando por una escultura o una pintura esos coleccionistas de arte en los remates? ¿Qué cotiza así a un trabajo? (según el original: ¿Qué mierda pone esos valores a un trabajo?)
Básicamente una escultura o una pintura son lo mismo que una botella de vino y responde a las reglas de cumplir con la demanda. De hecho el precio de un objeto puede ascender tanto como se desee pagar por él y, considerando las grandes cifras que manejan los prósperos coleccionistas, eventualmente no hay tope en el precio del arte.
Nacido en 1955, Koons es uno de los artistas más caros de su generación, y sus trabajos famoso en el mundo, alcanzaron precios tremendos. Se pagaron cinco millones de dólares en 2001 por Michael Jackson con Burbujas. De cualquier manera esto no significa ese sea el valor real dentro de unos años. Los precios del arte son fluctuantes y no es inusual oír de coleccionistas que han pagado cifras altas por una pieza que en reventa cotiza mucho menos. Veamos Corot, por ejemplo. Valió millones dos décadas atrás y hoy, sus obras no placen al público.
Hay un efecto fashion a tener en cuenta que no tiene que ver con el valor real de un artista. Los inversores se cuidan de esto. Tomen un Midas, consúltenlo sobre la compra de obras de una artista emergente cuando sus precios están todavía bajos, tiene problemas de sustento y supervivencia. Luego, cuando tiene una buena colección, sugiéranle vender esas piezas en algún remate. No importa que el artista sea desconocido.
Lo más importante es el vendedor. Midas es muy famoso, tan famoso y rico que da certeza de que si él compro esas obras a precio de regalo es para poder venderlas mejor. Entonces los demás, en sus ansias de diferencias económicas harán ofertas importantes y los precios ascenderán por sí solos. Ahora, el artista desconocido es famoso y lucrativo tal como una botella de gaseosa. ¡Tal la evaluación del arte!
Los galeristas juegan ese mismo juego. Son supuestos de ser buenos encontrando lo óptimo y la gente les creen cuando los persuaden a comprar obras de sus artistas respetados.
De cualquier modo la ruptura entre ricos y no ricos es tan grande que tratar de explicar que es caro y que no beneficioso… tal vez cinco millones o incluso cincuenta millones de dólares es la cifra correcta si no normal cuando se están usando cuentas bancarias abultadas.
La mayor parte del tiempo se está fuera del mundo y no hay otra cosa que comprar más barato y tal vez mejores artistas.
Note que el mejor modo de justipreciar una obra de arte es hallando qué, en ese trabajo de equis artista que está por comprar, lo ha tentado.
Verificando cuidadosamente los catálogos de remates, hay que tener en mente una práctica usual, que un artista o un dueño de galería usan una tercera parte que suministra propuestas del crecimiento de precio (un clap o groupié), aún cuando se está corriendo el alto riesgo de pagar tasas importantes por un costo dudoso.
Este es el precio a pagar para volverse famoso.
Me recuerda a un veterano de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, famoso en negocios, quien me dijo: la mejor herramienta en marketing es tu olfato.
Ciertamente debe creerle a la suya en el momento de considerar una inversión en arte.
Millions of dollars paid for works of art everyday. Broken records: 140 millions dollars paid for "Adele blocks Bauer" portrait by Klimt.
Have they gone off their head these collectors fighting for a sculpture or an oil painting for sale at an auction? What the hell is doing the value of a work?
Basically, a sculpture or an oil canvas is exactly the same thing as a bottle of wine and obeys the rules of supply and demand. In fact the price for an object can rise as high as the price one is ready to pay for it and considering that huge amounts of money are available in the hands of wealthy collectors, eventually there is no wondering of soaring prices in art.
Born 1955, Koons is one of the most expensive artists in his generation, and his works, world famous, reached tremendous prices. They paid five million dollars in 2001 for Michael Jackson and bubbles. Anyway this doesn’t means that this will still be the true value in a few years. Art prices fluctuate and it is not unusual to ear of collectors having paid huge sums to an artist and unable to get their money back when selling a few years later. See Corot for example. It was worth millions two decades ago and today his works are being nearly sulked by the public.
There is obviously a fashion effect to be taken into account, which has nothing to do with the real value of an artist. Investors are perfectly aware of this and do the most of it. Take a Midas, ask him to buy artcraft from an emerging artist when his prices are still rather low and he is starving to death and striving to survive. Then when he has a nice collection, suggest him to sell a few works at an auction. It does not mind that the artist is unknown. The most important thing is the seller. Midas is very famous, so famous and so wealthy, most certainly he has the gift of business and if this man bought these works it is certainly to make more money. So everybody in its own gold rush, place bids to get one of these collectibles and prices soar. Now the unknown artist is famous and profitable just like a coca cola bottle. This is art apparaisal!
Gallery owners are playing the same kind of game. They are supposed to be good at finding golden ore and people believe them when they are being coaxed into buying artcraft from one of their cherished artists.
Anyway the gap between riches and not-riches is so huge that trying to explain what is expensive and what is not is to no avail. Probably 5 or even 50 millions dollars is correct if not normal when you are used to handling easy and heavy banknotes.
Most of the times you are off this world and you have nothing else to do but buy cheaper and maybe better artists. Notice that the best way of appraising an artwork is finding what mark was hit by one of the works from this artist you are ready to buy from. Check carefully catalogues from auctions, and keep in mind that it is not unusual practice when an artist or gallery owner requires from a third party that he places bids on his behalf with a view to boosting the price, no matter if he is thus running high risk of paying fees for a fake sale.
This is the price to pay to grow famous.
It reminds me of a World War Two veteran, famous in business, who told me, that the best tool ever in marketing is your nose.
Certainly you may trust yours as well when you are considering Investing in Art.
¡Oh internet! Encontré esta nota sobre Inversión en Arte en el site del escultor Frédéric Clerc-Renaud:
Millones de dólares se pagan a diario por obras de arte. Un record: 140 millones por un retrato de Klimt. ¿Perdieron la cabeza pugnando por una escultura o una pintura esos coleccionistas de arte en los remates? ¿Qué cotiza así a un trabajo? (según el original: ¿Qué mierda pone esos valores a un trabajo?)
Básicamente una escultura o una pintura son lo mismo que una botella de vino y responde a las reglas de cumplir con la demanda. De hecho el precio de un objeto puede ascender tanto como se desee pagar por él y, considerando las grandes cifras que manejan los prósperos coleccionistas, eventualmente no hay tope en el precio del arte.
Nacido en 1955, Koons es uno de los artistas más caros de su generación, y sus trabajos famoso en el mundo, alcanzaron precios tremendos. Se pagaron cinco millones de dólares en 2001 por Michael Jackson con Burbujas. De cualquier manera esto no significa ese sea el valor real dentro de unos años. Los precios del arte son fluctuantes y no es inusual oír de coleccionistas que han pagado cifras altas por una pieza que en reventa cotiza mucho menos. Veamos Corot, por ejemplo. Valió millones dos décadas atrás y hoy, sus obras no placen al público.
Hay un efecto fashion a tener en cuenta que no tiene que ver con el valor real de un artista. Los inversores se cuidan de esto. Tomen un Midas, consúltenlo sobre la compra de obras de una artista emergente cuando sus precios están todavía bajos, tiene problemas de sustento y supervivencia. Luego, cuando tiene una buena colección, sugiéranle vender esas piezas en algún remate. No importa que el artista sea desconocido.
Lo más importante es el vendedor. Midas es muy famoso, tan famoso y rico que da certeza de que si él compro esas obras a precio de regalo es para poder venderlas mejor. Entonces los demás, en sus ansias de diferencias económicas harán ofertas importantes y los precios ascenderán por sí solos. Ahora, el artista desconocido es famoso y lucrativo tal como una botella de gaseosa. ¡Tal la evaluación del arte!
Los galeristas juegan ese mismo juego. Son supuestos de ser buenos encontrando lo óptimo y la gente les creen cuando los persuaden a comprar obras de sus artistas respetados.
De cualquier modo la ruptura entre ricos y no ricos es tan grande que tratar de explicar que es caro y que no beneficioso… tal vez cinco millones o incluso cincuenta millones de dólares es la cifra correcta si no normal cuando se están usando cuentas bancarias abultadas.
La mayor parte del tiempo se está fuera del mundo y no hay otra cosa que comprar más barato y tal vez mejores artistas.
Note que el mejor modo de justipreciar una obra de arte es hallando qué, en ese trabajo de equis artista que está por comprar, lo ha tentado.
Verificando cuidadosamente los catálogos de remates, hay que tener en mente una práctica usual, que un artista o un dueño de galería usan una tercera parte que suministra propuestas del crecimiento de precio (un clap o groupié), aún cuando se está corriendo el alto riesgo de pagar tasas importantes por un costo dudoso.
Este es el precio a pagar para volverse famoso.
Me recuerda a un veterano de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, famoso en negocios, quien me dijo: la mejor herramienta en marketing es tu olfato.
Ciertamente debe creerle a la suya en el momento de considerar una inversión en arte.
febrero 02, 2007
enero 30, 2007
Palermo y La Boca
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre pintar una vista de La Boca y otra de Palermo Viejo-Soho-Sensible-Hollywood, etc?
Sencillo: Las paredes más representativas de las casas de La Boca, son canaleteadas; en Palermo hay más árboles y paredes antiguas, aggiornadas a lisas. Los colores para La Boca son de pomo y para Palermo, mixturados con un touch de blanco para que sean apastelados. Son, plásticamente similares.
Sencillo: Las paredes más representativas de las casas de La Boca, son canaleteadas; en Palermo hay más árboles y paredes antiguas, aggiornadas a lisas. Los colores para La Boca son de pomo y para Palermo, mixturados con un touch de blanco para que sean apastelados. Son, plásticamente similares.
Ensayo de Ditte Ejlerskov
Alas, who will free us from the heavy chains of logic?
With the reader’s permission I will begin with a warning: don’t expect any multifaceted discussions, for I will be illuminating a subject about which I have strong feelings. That subject is modernism’s disrespect for representational painting, which I attribute to surrealism’s reception in the modern current. I should also beg pardon for the many quotations, which furthermore attest to the subject’s longstanding relevance. But before getting to that, I will, mostly for my own sake, attempt an overview of surrealism’s history and a commentary on it subsequent and contemporary role.
The second before logic acquired heavy chains.
I think that Dadaism was surrealisms direct prerequisite. But when it said that way, I must stipulate that Dadaism cannot be considered an artistic school. Notwithstanding its meaningful place in the history of modern art, I think of it more as the starting gun for modernism. I see Dadaism as a tragicomic testament to the widespread depression during the First World War. It was, as the writer Paul La Cour so aptly dais, “the swindler's answer to culture”. With the advent of the war, all the beautiful dreams of a better world lay in ruins and Dadaism responded with gallows humor, scorn and ridicule. They wanted to expose the all-too-beautiful ideals that had dominated art and display them in all their pitifulness. Without direct enemies, the Dadaists fought for absolute meaninglessness. And lest anyone doubt the movement’s destructive character, they added the following saying: “The true Dadaists are against Dada”. No matter how unthinkable it seems, in that total nihilism the Dadaists left a legacy that would be fruitful, yet held that no art could be produced for the sake of beauty.
After having battled the intellect, the Dadaists still had one remaining value, namely life in its most elementary form. Some of Dadaism’s familiar faces, such as Man Ray, Max Ernst and André Breton, are also leading figures in surrealism, which the last-named announced with his 1924 manifesto. Surrealism fed the deep distrust of the intellect and reason, but it replaced Dadaism’s defeatist attitude with a new faith in humanity. It would give free rein to instinctual life, intuition and spontaneity. On this theory automatic drawing and painting were invented. These methods were claimed to be free from rational control and moralistic self-censorship, with the artist functioning as a medium of the unconscious. When I study the ideas that Breton, especially, made out to be the deepest life of the soul, I think of mystic ideals of exploding consciousness to make it more spacious. Since the discovery of desire as the most captivating power laid the foundations of great religions and philosophical currents, I must preliminarily conclude that what the surrealists had hold of lies buried far down in humanity’s primal instincts. The dream of the Promised Land lying hidden behind logic and convention had been dreamed for millennia prior to Breton’s manifesto. Spontaneity is part of human nature and I will quote these words from the manifesto simply because I am in full agreement: “Beloved imagination, what I like most in you is your unsparing quality".
It looks to me as if the surrealists were looking in vain to belong to their own time. They energetically tried to demonstrate their kinship to Marxist ideals. However, it is clear that their demand for the individual's right to uninhibited development and their romantic aversion to the intellect in no way harmonized with Marxist theory. One may also remain skeptical as to the kinship to psychoanalysis that they often claimed. Freud himself was skeptical, writing to Breton: “No matter how much evidence I’ve received of the interest you and your friends have for my work, I cannot really understand what surrealism is or what it wants”. The surrealists knew very well what they wanted – to free the mind. Writer André Gide sighed: “Alas, who will free us from the heavy chains of logic?” The surrealists not only cultivated mistrust of reason, they wanted to fight it. They not only allowed themselves to be carried away by intuition, they practiced doing so. But whereas they followed small trails out to extremities, Freud would harmonize. In this connection I find it necessary to go farther into the artist’s profile; to use Salvador Dali’s words: “Beauty is the sum of our perversities”. The surrealists were not looking for harmony.
Zoom out
But when I have understood surrealism on its own principles and zoom out onto the rest of the art world, I sit back with the feeling that surrealism was disregarded in its own time. I put all the blame on Greenberg's 1939 essay "Avant-garde and kitsch”.
After the war, religion was no longer convincing and the avant-garde therefore wanted to imitate – instead of presenting – God, and in that way to create something that worked on its own principles. Art should be its own system, be original, and deal with art. With art for art’s sake the avant-garde arrived at abstraction and non-objectivism and relegated representational painting to the degrading genre of decoration, pandering to beauty, kitsch. But scorn is born of insecurity about one’s own position, and I believe the avant-garde sensed the danger in their closed artistic milieu, especially as new capital began to drive the market. Worst of all was that the elite, who had previously been the art market's precondition, began to lose power to the masses, who were now the biggest threat to art. Their understanding of art was considered primitive. Commercial culture was coming about in all forms, and at the risk of sounding patronizing I might add that workers had no time to philosophize over art for art’s sake anyway – they only wanted to be entertained in their time off from work. Thus it was difficult for the art world to distinguish between kitsch and art, where kitsch was evil and art was good, in Hermann Broch's formula.
Representational painting was also used as propaganda. It was false and evil. Greenberg said that “Kitsch keeps a dictator in touch with the ‘soul’ of the people”. A good example can be found in Rome, where Mussolini built the EUR section at the start of his career, focusing on progress and modernity – futurism, in short. Later he realized that had to be in contact with the 'soul’ of the people, so he came up with the “new imperial” style, which hit the mark with the people, as it gave them objects to marvel over. Avant-garde invented kitsch was crafty, commercial and evil. The conflict left representational art out on the sidelines, away from real art and closer to the masses than the avant-garde. Since social realism was the educational system, there was no political will to teach people about high culture, and to be honest, sixty years later we are still faced with this problem between contemporary art and the masses' view of contemporary art. As Greenberg so succinctly put it, “The alternative to Picasso is not Michelangelo, but kitsch”. In other words, representational painting of 1939 was not worth mentioning, just commercial. Painting died from just repeating clichés. The future of painting was in the hands of the new abstract expressionists, and with such faith behind it a whole new school of abstract art blossomed in New York. The essay “Avant-garde and kitsch” invented modernism and set the market price for abstract expressionist paintings.
To zoom farther out, I think there was also a question of inflation in the obsession with the experimental, where anyone could be an artist by virtue of being innocent and non-commercial. Furthermore, I think that abstract expressionism is one of the most kitsch-ridden styles one can find. Today this is indeed the masses’ expectation. The avant-garde has become a cliché, so it is impossible to protect oneself against kitsch by being avant-garde. Everything of cultural value becomes diluted one day, because the elite no longer have the economic ability to lock it in. As Roger Scruton points out, all the culture that was sublime a hundred years ago can be bought in copies in any airport. Scruton also says that "the opposite of kitsch is not sophistication; it is innocence".
To finish with Greenberg, he thought that two cultural phenomena had arisen in society: the avant-garde – guided by high-cultural experimentation – and kitsch, the sure, commercial, people's art. And although he took back much of what he said in the essay, I think it is now clear that his theory of commercial culture was correct. Greenberg assured his readers that there was no middle way between avant-garde and kitsch, but does that mean that there is now no representational painting to be found without it being inferior by definition?
Zoom in
To address how surrealism is seen today, it would be natural not to abandon my earlier focus on Dali. He is one of those who represent all of art – a myth – kitsch. He has been taken out of his philosophical context and reduced to decoration in the same manner as for great historic works such as Da Vinci’s La Gioconda. Important works have been subjected to rape, and the inspiration the artist put into the work has been replaced by sentimental incomprehension. As I see it, this is just what has happened to several of the surrealists, mostly due to their digestible visual impact. The works were created in a high-cultural context and thereafter underwent unavoidable degradation at the same time as they were exalted in the public eye. The basis for the inevitable kitschification of representational painting lies in people's desire for beauty and the fact that the masses' needs dictate that kitsch is bad style. I could assemble a comprehensive cavalcade of works produced in a high-cultural context that have become the people's icons – works thus fated because they were too good.
Kitsch is thus the people’s intuitive bad taste. With that claim high culture is elevated to a sophisticated level. But when it comes to art I often think that the definition of bad taste is a defense mechanism, whereby we can avoid discussing the content by haughtily dismissing the form. I do not think that surrealism deserves such disrespect, but I find it again and again. Isabel Carlos said to me, after considering one of my paintings, that surrealism is a form that most artists identify with way at the start of their careers, then leave behind altogether. Contemporary art must for nothing in the world relate to surrealism, lest it become too banal and folksy. The worst thing is to be kitsch without knowing, in which case one simply has bad style – and who wants that in an art contest where what counts is good style?
Let me quickly mention that the postmodern version of kitsch leads me to think of eating one’s vomit, which holds no form of nutrition. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons knew that the worst would be to produce kitsch unintentionally, so they did so intentionally and figured they had invented a sophisticated parody of the art of the masses. They made "art". I do not entirely understand all the fuss over quotation marks. Are they used because one is afraid to say things directly and needs to hide behind condescension and irony? Or because one in fact has nothing to say? The artist acts as if he takes himself seriously; the critic acts as if he judges the work, and finally we have a buyer who has been persuaded of the work’s worth. False feelings are the coin of the market. Scruton notes that the intention to unintentionally produce kitsch is impossible, the same way that it is impossible to behave unintentionally. Michael Pierce, in his 200 essay “The reluctant death of modernism”, says that “Modernists have been so concerned with irony and distance that they have regarded kitsch with contempt – the problem for them was that kitsch was concerned with pathos – about what we like to call the human”. So I am no0t the only one who feels it is forbidden to talk about the human in a world where the thing is to have good style and create art for art. Here I see the formal artist who operates in his safe-art orb without respect for art that speaks of non-formal things, protected by the values of modernism. Since I will not in any case get through this without quoting Odd Nerdrum, it is just as well to do so here: “The ruler of the modernist hell got the name of kitsch. Kitsch became art's antithesis."
Art is a question of communicating things relating to the forces that drive us as people, not as artists – and this is where I think the surrealist problem becomes relevant for contemporary art. If we only refer to our own group we no longer meet the demand of documenting our time, because there is, in fact, a contemporary world on the other side of the gallery walls. But we can no longer understand it and thus face difficulty defining it. Art has talked about art for many decades and only superficially focused on the external world, so it has become deeply essential to the people who use it. The problem for many artists is just that (and let me straight away offer myself by way of illustration) we want to talk about art in an artistic context. This is where we want to be. We want to be accepted by the art elite, not the masses. But is there any way at all I can combine my overall motivation with the places where I want to exhibit? I will gladly talk about art, but I also want to talk about the forces at play in my life as a person. I want to meet the demand of documenting my time, but can I understand it at all? Breton describes desire as the only master humanity needs to understand. If we recognize art as testimony from different extremities of humanity and society over time, I can easily see the connection between our present reality and the testimony art is currently producing. For as long as humanity does not recognize desire as the only power, desire will control society. And that is why I believe that today we cannot accept surrealism, for example. We have a defense mechanism that protects us from the fact that society no longer serves people, but that people, in their cycle of need, serve society and strengthen the outer guard. If we realize that, we also realize that all the glorification of the modern breakthrough – and here I mean in everything contained in the term, not just in art – is itself a myth and that modernity has now taken power from the humanity that created it. But can an art-political defense mechanism that amounts to good style keep us from the truth?
This problematic faced surrealism from the start. Despite the public's love for their new concept of humanity, they were only later accepted by museums and some works were suppressed for many decades on political grounds. It is clear that modernism and postmodernism have had difficulty accepting art that sought to speak of the unconscious when they themselves want to discuss the very outermost layer of abstraction – concrete art. The result is significant today: modernism, as the strong current it has been, has created endless taboos in art. Both the public and art producers have for many decades done all they could to live up to good taste. It is dangerous to go out in the deep waters, where strong feelings are in play. It is better to stick to safe art (the contemporary aspect of which I will in no way refuse to comment on!) that uses a language that doesn’t need to speak of people, but affords a safer zone, wherein there is only the question of art - formal art. In that forum we can now relate to one another on a theoretical level, where we can speak of tendencies that really are about people, but in some larger systems, namely politics and theory. When someone comes along and wants to talk about practice and feelings, we regard it as a bit embarrassing and pathetic. We are children of postmodernism and surrealism is still alive on the sidelines.
In the time since the modern break-through we have developed everything necessary to the maintenance of our cycle of desire. Today we do not even see the machine that keeps the cycle going, much less the cause of its running. Nonetheless, I think the modern break-through has been optimal for humanity, as it challenges the intellect and I believe we should celebrate it and enjoy all of its potential - until it collapses. Modernism is an intellectual movement that will not confront humanities instinctive hangover, but I think that surrealism’s interests emerge in pace with humanity's discovery of the machine that keeps our desire going. Until then art that speaks in overly passionate terms is rejected with the epithet “kitsch”. The best example in a long time is Michael Kvium’s show at Aros in Århus, which is loved by the media and public while found embarrassing by the art world.
As a serious contemporary artist, one has always to be on the lookout for clichés. Flirting with clichés must only be done with a certain understanding of kitsch and the knowledge that all one’s artistic effort will be lost if the limits are crossed. John Currin is an artist who flirts with these limits and can serve as my ideal in the search for a new direction. He says that "critics don't know the value of magic in art” and that they “often have a deconstructive mode of analyzing art with the help of signs that all have a cultural identity – that art shall refer to some other art”. I also think that method of reading art is passé, and I think Michael Pearse expresses it fantastically well: “Post Modernists are like Cuban revolutionaries who, aging and outdated, cling to their decrepit system”.
So who is going to give André Gide a valid answer?
It looks as if this text ironically enough is ending with a cliché, that is, a critique of modernism.Therefore, I will end by denying that this is the case by concluding that I think modernism and its works have left an incredibly precise testimony of their time – the time when one does not speak of the unconscious, but works the surface. It is the time when society is not controlled by humanity, but rather humanity is controlled by society.One can indeed wonder why I have come so far afield from the subject of surrealism, but I will briefly explain why I think it is relevant in this context. I think that what the surrealists wanted to describe was humanity in its purest form – instinctual humanity and its spontaneity. But what modernism did – as the far more dominating tendency – was to hide the instincts and focus on the outermost layers, those that protect the public and direct us away from our own core, so that we live somewhere on the surface, with no idea that we are being controlled.
If you think this has been a one-sided communication, I will defend myself by referring to my warning at the start of the essay, and must therefore unfortunately state that I am not prepared to make surrealism more comprehensible. Before it can be made comprehensible it must be given its due attention, and it does not seem as if modernism will allow it space for that. Until this might happen, André Gide will have to stand alone with his question: “Alas, who will free us from the heavy chains of logic?”
From Ditte Ejlerskov's blog.
With the reader’s permission I will begin with a warning: don’t expect any multifaceted discussions, for I will be illuminating a subject about which I have strong feelings. That subject is modernism’s disrespect for representational painting, which I attribute to surrealism’s reception in the modern current. I should also beg pardon for the many quotations, which furthermore attest to the subject’s longstanding relevance. But before getting to that, I will, mostly for my own sake, attempt an overview of surrealism’s history and a commentary on it subsequent and contemporary role.
The second before logic acquired heavy chains.
I think that Dadaism was surrealisms direct prerequisite. But when it said that way, I must stipulate that Dadaism cannot be considered an artistic school. Notwithstanding its meaningful place in the history of modern art, I think of it more as the starting gun for modernism. I see Dadaism as a tragicomic testament to the widespread depression during the First World War. It was, as the writer Paul La Cour so aptly dais, “the swindler's answer to culture”. With the advent of the war, all the beautiful dreams of a better world lay in ruins and Dadaism responded with gallows humor, scorn and ridicule. They wanted to expose the all-too-beautiful ideals that had dominated art and display them in all their pitifulness. Without direct enemies, the Dadaists fought for absolute meaninglessness. And lest anyone doubt the movement’s destructive character, they added the following saying: “The true Dadaists are against Dada”. No matter how unthinkable it seems, in that total nihilism the Dadaists left a legacy that would be fruitful, yet held that no art could be produced for the sake of beauty.
After having battled the intellect, the Dadaists still had one remaining value, namely life in its most elementary form. Some of Dadaism’s familiar faces, such as Man Ray, Max Ernst and André Breton, are also leading figures in surrealism, which the last-named announced with his 1924 manifesto. Surrealism fed the deep distrust of the intellect and reason, but it replaced Dadaism’s defeatist attitude with a new faith in humanity. It would give free rein to instinctual life, intuition and spontaneity. On this theory automatic drawing and painting were invented. These methods were claimed to be free from rational control and moralistic self-censorship, with the artist functioning as a medium of the unconscious. When I study the ideas that Breton, especially, made out to be the deepest life of the soul, I think of mystic ideals of exploding consciousness to make it more spacious. Since the discovery of desire as the most captivating power laid the foundations of great religions and philosophical currents, I must preliminarily conclude that what the surrealists had hold of lies buried far down in humanity’s primal instincts. The dream of the Promised Land lying hidden behind logic and convention had been dreamed for millennia prior to Breton’s manifesto. Spontaneity is part of human nature and I will quote these words from the manifesto simply because I am in full agreement: “Beloved imagination, what I like most in you is your unsparing quality".
It looks to me as if the surrealists were looking in vain to belong to their own time. They energetically tried to demonstrate their kinship to Marxist ideals. However, it is clear that their demand for the individual's right to uninhibited development and their romantic aversion to the intellect in no way harmonized with Marxist theory. One may also remain skeptical as to the kinship to psychoanalysis that they often claimed. Freud himself was skeptical, writing to Breton: “No matter how much evidence I’ve received of the interest you and your friends have for my work, I cannot really understand what surrealism is or what it wants”. The surrealists knew very well what they wanted – to free the mind. Writer André Gide sighed: “Alas, who will free us from the heavy chains of logic?” The surrealists not only cultivated mistrust of reason, they wanted to fight it. They not only allowed themselves to be carried away by intuition, they practiced doing so. But whereas they followed small trails out to extremities, Freud would harmonize. In this connection I find it necessary to go farther into the artist’s profile; to use Salvador Dali’s words: “Beauty is the sum of our perversities”. The surrealists were not looking for harmony.
Zoom out
But when I have understood surrealism on its own principles and zoom out onto the rest of the art world, I sit back with the feeling that surrealism was disregarded in its own time. I put all the blame on Greenberg's 1939 essay "Avant-garde and kitsch”.
After the war, religion was no longer convincing and the avant-garde therefore wanted to imitate – instead of presenting – God, and in that way to create something that worked on its own principles. Art should be its own system, be original, and deal with art. With art for art’s sake the avant-garde arrived at abstraction and non-objectivism and relegated representational painting to the degrading genre of decoration, pandering to beauty, kitsch. But scorn is born of insecurity about one’s own position, and I believe the avant-garde sensed the danger in their closed artistic milieu, especially as new capital began to drive the market. Worst of all was that the elite, who had previously been the art market's precondition, began to lose power to the masses, who were now the biggest threat to art. Their understanding of art was considered primitive. Commercial culture was coming about in all forms, and at the risk of sounding patronizing I might add that workers had no time to philosophize over art for art’s sake anyway – they only wanted to be entertained in their time off from work. Thus it was difficult for the art world to distinguish between kitsch and art, where kitsch was evil and art was good, in Hermann Broch's formula.
Representational painting was also used as propaganda. It was false and evil. Greenberg said that “Kitsch keeps a dictator in touch with the ‘soul’ of the people”. A good example can be found in Rome, where Mussolini built the EUR section at the start of his career, focusing on progress and modernity – futurism, in short. Later he realized that had to be in contact with the 'soul’ of the people, so he came up with the “new imperial” style, which hit the mark with the people, as it gave them objects to marvel over. Avant-garde invented kitsch was crafty, commercial and evil. The conflict left representational art out on the sidelines, away from real art and closer to the masses than the avant-garde. Since social realism was the educational system, there was no political will to teach people about high culture, and to be honest, sixty years later we are still faced with this problem between contemporary art and the masses' view of contemporary art. As Greenberg so succinctly put it, “The alternative to Picasso is not Michelangelo, but kitsch”. In other words, representational painting of 1939 was not worth mentioning, just commercial. Painting died from just repeating clichés. The future of painting was in the hands of the new abstract expressionists, and with such faith behind it a whole new school of abstract art blossomed in New York. The essay “Avant-garde and kitsch” invented modernism and set the market price for abstract expressionist paintings.
To zoom farther out, I think there was also a question of inflation in the obsession with the experimental, where anyone could be an artist by virtue of being innocent and non-commercial. Furthermore, I think that abstract expressionism is one of the most kitsch-ridden styles one can find. Today this is indeed the masses’ expectation. The avant-garde has become a cliché, so it is impossible to protect oneself against kitsch by being avant-garde. Everything of cultural value becomes diluted one day, because the elite no longer have the economic ability to lock it in. As Roger Scruton points out, all the culture that was sublime a hundred years ago can be bought in copies in any airport. Scruton also says that "the opposite of kitsch is not sophistication; it is innocence".
To finish with Greenberg, he thought that two cultural phenomena had arisen in society: the avant-garde – guided by high-cultural experimentation – and kitsch, the sure, commercial, people's art. And although he took back much of what he said in the essay, I think it is now clear that his theory of commercial culture was correct. Greenberg assured his readers that there was no middle way between avant-garde and kitsch, but does that mean that there is now no representational painting to be found without it being inferior by definition?
Zoom in
To address how surrealism is seen today, it would be natural not to abandon my earlier focus on Dali. He is one of those who represent all of art – a myth – kitsch. He has been taken out of his philosophical context and reduced to decoration in the same manner as for great historic works such as Da Vinci’s La Gioconda. Important works have been subjected to rape, and the inspiration the artist put into the work has been replaced by sentimental incomprehension. As I see it, this is just what has happened to several of the surrealists, mostly due to their digestible visual impact. The works were created in a high-cultural context and thereafter underwent unavoidable degradation at the same time as they were exalted in the public eye. The basis for the inevitable kitschification of representational painting lies in people's desire for beauty and the fact that the masses' needs dictate that kitsch is bad style. I could assemble a comprehensive cavalcade of works produced in a high-cultural context that have become the people's icons – works thus fated because they were too good.
Kitsch is thus the people’s intuitive bad taste. With that claim high culture is elevated to a sophisticated level. But when it comes to art I often think that the definition of bad taste is a defense mechanism, whereby we can avoid discussing the content by haughtily dismissing the form. I do not think that surrealism deserves such disrespect, but I find it again and again. Isabel Carlos said to me, after considering one of my paintings, that surrealism is a form that most artists identify with way at the start of their careers, then leave behind altogether. Contemporary art must for nothing in the world relate to surrealism, lest it become too banal and folksy. The worst thing is to be kitsch without knowing, in which case one simply has bad style – and who wants that in an art contest where what counts is good style?
Let me quickly mention that the postmodern version of kitsch leads me to think of eating one’s vomit, which holds no form of nutrition. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons knew that the worst would be to produce kitsch unintentionally, so they did so intentionally and figured they had invented a sophisticated parody of the art of the masses. They made "art". I do not entirely understand all the fuss over quotation marks. Are they used because one is afraid to say things directly and needs to hide behind condescension and irony? Or because one in fact has nothing to say? The artist acts as if he takes himself seriously; the critic acts as if he judges the work, and finally we have a buyer who has been persuaded of the work’s worth. False feelings are the coin of the market. Scruton notes that the intention to unintentionally produce kitsch is impossible, the same way that it is impossible to behave unintentionally. Michael Pierce, in his 200 essay “The reluctant death of modernism”, says that “Modernists have been so concerned with irony and distance that they have regarded kitsch with contempt – the problem for them was that kitsch was concerned with pathos – about what we like to call the human”. So I am no0t the only one who feels it is forbidden to talk about the human in a world where the thing is to have good style and create art for art. Here I see the formal artist who operates in his safe-art orb without respect for art that speaks of non-formal things, protected by the values of modernism. Since I will not in any case get through this without quoting Odd Nerdrum, it is just as well to do so here: “The ruler of the modernist hell got the name of kitsch. Kitsch became art's antithesis."
Art is a question of communicating things relating to the forces that drive us as people, not as artists – and this is where I think the surrealist problem becomes relevant for contemporary art. If we only refer to our own group we no longer meet the demand of documenting our time, because there is, in fact, a contemporary world on the other side of the gallery walls. But we can no longer understand it and thus face difficulty defining it. Art has talked about art for many decades and only superficially focused on the external world, so it has become deeply essential to the people who use it. The problem for many artists is just that (and let me straight away offer myself by way of illustration) we want to talk about art in an artistic context. This is where we want to be. We want to be accepted by the art elite, not the masses. But is there any way at all I can combine my overall motivation with the places where I want to exhibit? I will gladly talk about art, but I also want to talk about the forces at play in my life as a person. I want to meet the demand of documenting my time, but can I understand it at all? Breton describes desire as the only master humanity needs to understand. If we recognize art as testimony from different extremities of humanity and society over time, I can easily see the connection between our present reality and the testimony art is currently producing. For as long as humanity does not recognize desire as the only power, desire will control society. And that is why I believe that today we cannot accept surrealism, for example. We have a defense mechanism that protects us from the fact that society no longer serves people, but that people, in their cycle of need, serve society and strengthen the outer guard. If we realize that, we also realize that all the glorification of the modern breakthrough – and here I mean in everything contained in the term, not just in art – is itself a myth and that modernity has now taken power from the humanity that created it. But can an art-political defense mechanism that amounts to good style keep us from the truth?
This problematic faced surrealism from the start. Despite the public's love for their new concept of humanity, they were only later accepted by museums and some works were suppressed for many decades on political grounds. It is clear that modernism and postmodernism have had difficulty accepting art that sought to speak of the unconscious when they themselves want to discuss the very outermost layer of abstraction – concrete art. The result is significant today: modernism, as the strong current it has been, has created endless taboos in art. Both the public and art producers have for many decades done all they could to live up to good taste. It is dangerous to go out in the deep waters, where strong feelings are in play. It is better to stick to safe art (the contemporary aspect of which I will in no way refuse to comment on!) that uses a language that doesn’t need to speak of people, but affords a safer zone, wherein there is only the question of art - formal art. In that forum we can now relate to one another on a theoretical level, where we can speak of tendencies that really are about people, but in some larger systems, namely politics and theory. When someone comes along and wants to talk about practice and feelings, we regard it as a bit embarrassing and pathetic. We are children of postmodernism and surrealism is still alive on the sidelines.
In the time since the modern break-through we have developed everything necessary to the maintenance of our cycle of desire. Today we do not even see the machine that keeps the cycle going, much less the cause of its running. Nonetheless, I think the modern break-through has been optimal for humanity, as it challenges the intellect and I believe we should celebrate it and enjoy all of its potential - until it collapses. Modernism is an intellectual movement that will not confront humanities instinctive hangover, but I think that surrealism’s interests emerge in pace with humanity's discovery of the machine that keeps our desire going. Until then art that speaks in overly passionate terms is rejected with the epithet “kitsch”. The best example in a long time is Michael Kvium’s show at Aros in Århus, which is loved by the media and public while found embarrassing by the art world.
As a serious contemporary artist, one has always to be on the lookout for clichés. Flirting with clichés must only be done with a certain understanding of kitsch and the knowledge that all one’s artistic effort will be lost if the limits are crossed. John Currin is an artist who flirts with these limits and can serve as my ideal in the search for a new direction. He says that "critics don't know the value of magic in art” and that they “often have a deconstructive mode of analyzing art with the help of signs that all have a cultural identity – that art shall refer to some other art”. I also think that method of reading art is passé, and I think Michael Pearse expresses it fantastically well: “Post Modernists are like Cuban revolutionaries who, aging and outdated, cling to their decrepit system”.
So who is going to give André Gide a valid answer?
It looks as if this text ironically enough is ending with a cliché, that is, a critique of modernism.Therefore, I will end by denying that this is the case by concluding that I think modernism and its works have left an incredibly precise testimony of their time – the time when one does not speak of the unconscious, but works the surface. It is the time when society is not controlled by humanity, but rather humanity is controlled by society.One can indeed wonder why I have come so far afield from the subject of surrealism, but I will briefly explain why I think it is relevant in this context. I think that what the surrealists wanted to describe was humanity in its purest form – instinctual humanity and its spontaneity. But what modernism did – as the far more dominating tendency – was to hide the instincts and focus on the outermost layers, those that protect the public and direct us away from our own core, so that we live somewhere on the surface, with no idea that we are being controlled.
If you think this has been a one-sided communication, I will defend myself by referring to my warning at the start of the essay, and must therefore unfortunately state that I am not prepared to make surrealism more comprehensible. Before it can be made comprehensible it must be given its due attention, and it does not seem as if modernism will allow it space for that. Until this might happen, André Gide will have to stand alone with his question: “Alas, who will free us from the heavy chains of logic?”
From Ditte Ejlerskov's blog.
enero 20, 2007
Por la muerte de Carlos...
Fuego de tu mano
queda en el mundo, quema
suciedades terrestres,
llena la copa del buen ojo,
el que mira oleajes de amor y de dolor,
ese fuegofunda ciudades,
soles que no se ven,
para alos mazos que golpean
en pabellones del espanto,
piedra es contra la perra de la injuria,
las mañanas sin leche,
las llagas del corazón,
el fuego de tu mano arde
dentrísimo de vos, desde vos,
empeñado en alzarlo que es y lo que no fue,
mares/mareas/vida/siempre...
Poema escrito el 18 de enero de 2007 por la muerte del pintor Carlos Gorriarena. Fue leído ayer por Cristina Banegas en el entierro del artista.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)