tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66522755384578237082024-02-06T20:50:05.307-08:00Art BabelCreate | Review | Critique | Debate | AskNew York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-43527118459531127732016-03-02T06:34:00.000-08:002016-03-02T07:50:47.838-08:00Le Rêve Américain<span style="color: black; font-size: x-large;"><b>W</b></span>hen I was a child, I dreamt of America: of revolutionaries and cowboys. I dreamt of brave men conquering the wild frontier, battling their way westward toward the ocean to achieve the natural destiny that God laid before them.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tz7BWCHNS8M" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
As an adolescent I dreamt of the savages and the slaves in the field, cumulus clouds bending over their backs. I dreamt of the war between brothers, and the glory of the southern cause. I celebrated abolition and the great march toward freedom, equal rights for blacks, not realizing my hypocrisy. I lived in the world of fantasy - of white picket fences and suburban cul-de-sacs. But only in my slumber. I did not know that all my life I dreamt white dreams - the dreams of white men. It was my legacy for the taking, and the wealth of the American dream was for me, but it was not for the blacks, or the Indians, it was not the legacy of women. No, it was built upon their backs.
It is only now that I can begin to understand it myself. What profound romanticism in what we aspire to be, and such tragedy in what we are! America is a pantheon of martyrs. It is the illicit seduction, the taboo, the forbidden. <b><span style="color: white;">The American Dream is a warm gun</span></b>.<br />
<br />
Though I do not claim to entirely understand experiences I have not had, I have witnessed my share of tragedy, violence, and injustice; manifest in school shootings, drugs, abuse, and death. But what I do understand is that human suffering is comprehensible to all of our species and through empathy we may know the hearts of others if not their memories.<br />
<br />
America is not whole. It is entirely impossible to understand it without understanding the profound scars of our history, without understanding that invisible wound that divides our country between the north and south, between the urban and rural, between empowered and the powerless, which we seem unable to dress and heal. Though in my work I seek answers, I do not presume to answer them myself. The best I can hope is to contribute more nuanced questions. I believe that art can affect the direction of culture. It can inspire more constructive dialogue through distilling and re-contextualizing our most divisive challenges to reveal new perspectives and transformative experiences. This body of work marks the path of my search, the half remembered phantoms of awakening. It follows my questioning, both those that lead to fertile fields of understanding and those that lead to dead-ends. I hope that you'll find it as enlightening as I.
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;">Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. But you cannot arrange your life around them and the small chance of the Dreamers coming into consciousness. Our moment is too brief. Our bodies are too precious. </span></blockquote>
-- Ta-Nehisi Coates, <u>Between the World and Me</u>.New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-77725596770130521272015-02-17T13:35:00.002-08:002015-02-21T10:29:07.901-08:00The Easy Guide to Post Contemporary Philosophy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s a child I loved to take things apart to figure out the marvelous mechanisms by which they functioned. I would often summer at my grandparents’ house in Alabama, and I recall being fascinated by their beautiful antique clock. One day, when my grandfather left for work, my grandmother went to run errands, and for the first time I found myself all alone with the clock! Today, I decided, would be the day that I tackle it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtGgxZTmJALwXkwXSiD5AdVOTy-zjl81PP65matBIMq7Dz66PFyJSBYOgcrD6UYRgDciQB0ydgV0BnlnC-5xHOTAAAApI49_Xf_oT-oN6ftWJtJjq8c_EieeDs4j1XD0P7kwLb-1vuEv9x/s1600/Dobsky+Ship+of+Fools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtGgxZTmJALwXkwXSiD5AdVOTy-zjl81PP65matBIMq7Dz66PFyJSBYOgcrD6UYRgDciQB0ydgV0BnlnC-5xHOTAAAApI49_Xf_oT-oN6ftWJtJjq8c_EieeDs4j1XD0P7kwLb-1vuEv9x/s1600/Dobsky+Ship+of+Fools.jpg" height="263" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Ship of Fools" by Carl Dobsky</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Hours later, there I sat with the clock disassembled - the cogs and springs scattered across the floor, and I realized that my grandmother would return any minute now, and if I didn't put it back together, I was in for big trouble! Somehow, I managed to reassemble it, and it functioned... more or less. Though my grandfather remarked with curiosity that it never quite told time as well as it had before. I never told them about this, but if I had, many years later, I don’t think they would have been too angry. In retrospect, that’s just what people do when they’re trying to understand something. Of course, now I realize I could have consulted a book, or found a less valuable clock to disassemble - perhaps one that wasn’t a family heirloom. I wasn’t the first to take a clock apart and I won’t be the last. But, there is some experiential value in finding out for yourself. Asking questions is a fundamental part of learning and learning how to ask the right question is ever more beneficial. But what happens when all we do is question without the formidable task of formulating answers?<br />
<br />
A life of only questioning doesn't allow for the building and passing on of knowledge. Given the brevity of life, we don't have time to re-invent the wheel every single time. How would we build a chariot, a wagon, a car? It was arguably necessary to question the cultural assumptions of the aristocratic 19th century: slavery, gender prejudice, colonialism... but there were necessary values which were also thrown into the rubbish pile such as beauty, truth, skill, and a belief that humanity can better itself, that we can transcend our greed. And early modernism began in this vein, but after the atrocities of two world wars, many of the culturally influential in academia and the art world lost faith in our better selves, precipitating the relativism of Post Modernism to the market driven Contemporary Art.<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, Contemporary Art is chiefly concerned with questioning, Post Contemporary proposes answers. Art historians define “Contemporary Art” differently than the dictionary. In art historical terms, “Modern Art" and “Contemporary Art" do not mean “art made now”.<br />
<br />
Modern art is largely abstract art made in the first half of the 20th century. Likewise, “Contemporary art” is art made in the latter half of the 20th century and is characterized by Post Modern ideas - that is, it emphasizes the transient and often superficial issues of the present moment. Both emphasize a critique of the Classical fine art tradition and classical values such as quality, beauty, and skill.<br />
<br />
Post Contemporary philosophy proposes that the art experience is universal to humanity, and that this experience can inspire healing, and transformation. So, what distinguished Post Contemporary art from Contemporary realism? Being a painter myself, I'll focus my analysis on what I know best, that is: painting. I'll leave other art forms to those who have more expertise in their practice.<br />
<br />
The first painting above "Ship of Fools" by Carl Dobsky, is an example of a Post Contemporary painting. The second, entitled "The Old Fence" by John Currin, is an example of a painting that lies more in the category of Post Modern figuration.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt2mMjiDPynqj7zgOgzKS-_HOAUPwzUX7FLvaykC3zSKIfR_W0h2hSIUWsYc56_RqXJW054pOkM_sN-22OPEtl8mvcq_HZ6OMDkQRKtYkkCj6e8A20a5jI8m1fHrP857YI0iIqCM6V0Ru9/s1600/the-old-fence-john-currin-1999.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt2mMjiDPynqj7zgOgzKS-_HOAUPwzUX7FLvaykC3zSKIfR_W0h2hSIUWsYc56_RqXJW054pOkM_sN-22OPEtl8mvcq_HZ6OMDkQRKtYkkCj6e8A20a5jI8m1fHrP857YI0iIqCM6V0Ru9/s1600/the-old-fence-john-currin-1999.jpeg" height="320" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Old Fence" by John Currin</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"Ship of Fools" asks as many questions as it answers, yet its expression is built upon a belief in the baseline of the universal human condition. One man bails out the ship with a small bucket, while the whole craft lurches frighteningly close to sharp rocks, ornamented with the wreckage of previous ships. A reminder of the past, or a premonition of the future?<br />
While he presents the folly of mankind's foolish pursuit of beauty and truth into treacherous waters, we can't help but see this gesture as somehow heroic. For this swarm of butterflies, cascading into the maritime nocturne is an unusual occurrence, perhaps the focus of a zoological investigation? The dramatic baroque light, the Boschian expressions of madness and passion, demand that the viewer inquire deeper than the initial impression of humor. Does this not reflect our own search, each of us, to capture the ephemeral, the rare? Pushing the limits of our understanding requires braving ever greater dangers. Though it may seem that the life of a painter cannot be compared to the intrepid explorer, the astronaut - there are unexpected dangers and sacrifice in the life of the artist, there are murky depths into which we sail, distant from the shores of the people we love, and there we can sometimes lose ourselves in our passion, in our madness.<br />
<br />
While I sincerely enjoy Currin's painting, I find it very much locked into the perceived zeitgeist of the time in which it was created. Currin's figures, with their fleshy rendering somewhere between a Cranach and a cartoon are painted with a modicum of skill - yet they are suggestive of playfully grotesque fashion models of the late 90's. His use of classical painting techniques and a hint of grace and beauty might make this work Post Contemporary, save for the fact that their use is rather tongue in cheek, which you can read in the expressions of the figures, the discord between the murky face of the woman on the left and the rest of the painting, and by observing the rest of Currin's work. His use of the European Fine Art Tradition is ironic, he has assembled this construction only to shoot holes in it and bombast the frivolity of art. This work is meant to be read through a post modern, linguistic lens, the technique and the figures are signifiers of an outside context, rather than expressing their meaning through the visual language of painting, mark making, and composition itself - what Vincent Desiderio calls "The Technical Narrative".<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKi1ZIik6DdFDGbWxjozocUZMgMptwU8UNmlkxqDikDUHY5FWorUuINUXQ5ewzAEJmcYgK6aJ9_yjNs4jVMbFrgn5Ucm3COn27yUai2c8sQG4tdd-KJSAMQYao-EbXqOx2P2S26L0RPvMA/s1600/Twilight+in+Arcadia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKi1ZIik6DdFDGbWxjozocUZMgMptwU8UNmlkxqDikDUHY5FWorUuINUXQ5ewzAEJmcYgK6aJ9_yjNs4jVMbFrgn5Ucm3COn27yUai2c8sQG4tdd-KJSAMQYao-EbXqOx2P2S26L0RPvMA/s1600/Twilight+in+Arcadia.jpg" height="230" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Twilight in Arcadia" by Adam Miller</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dobsky's, and Adam Miller's work "Twilight in Arcadia" are excellent examples of a Post Contemporary use of this technical narrative to convey meaning that transcends the time in which they were created. They speak to us today, not because they present figures dressed in clothing we are familiar with, but because they aspire to speak to every human being about eternal human conditions across every era and every culture. While Currin's work requires a textual analysis to communicate its deeper meaning, "Ship of Fools" and "Twilight" are self evident. They do not beat you over the head with their message, yet they are more and more intelligible the more time one spends before them in contemplation.<br />
<br />
(Below is a rough sketch of the Post Contemporary compass, I've put together, to illustrate that these labels aren't black and white, but rather a gray scale. Sometimes the same artist may produce different paintings that fall in the Contemporary and the Post Contemporary categories. You may disagree with the specific placement of each artist, or who I've included or omitted, but I encourage you to make your own if you like.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVcwQ5S5peREGbilN_T3lK8GDOJnoQ1_11uX4gCogKui9AgRTEEho_Ixc2NPxYRGvkTj2DfeXWsrP-Fi2pCtxpBdY7Wd6j9zCabwSYPBtGDy6-xyuUGaF5LbB7LFOn5wrFGR6b5STr5ay/s1600/PoCo+Compass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZVcwQ5S5peREGbilN_T3lK8GDOJnoQ1_11uX4gCogKui9AgRTEEho_Ixc2NPxYRGvkTj2DfeXWsrP-Fi2pCtxpBdY7Wd6j9zCabwSYPBtGDy6-xyuUGaF5LbB7LFOn5wrFGR6b5STr5ay/s1600/PoCo+Compass.jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwnag53yV8rFoepXhHNVnxJW1N8mJI1PIW5aWP0jzWB2hKJ0-PVl48xZe0V6Ha4429xqN87VyEunwwPUOZv1sUCjW3oTa_biE2nmm6syK4fordkBAGJYrIitViTGaG8sCfreaNb6Ji6oJ/s1600/parrish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwnag53yV8rFoepXhHNVnxJW1N8mJI1PIW5aWP0jzWB2hKJ0-PVl48xZe0V6Ha4429xqN87VyEunwwPUOZv1sUCjW3oTa_biE2nmm6syK4fordkBAGJYrIitViTGaG8sCfreaNb6Ji6oJ/s1600/parrish.jpg" height="153" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Cycle of Terror and Tragedy" by Graydon Parrish</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Instead of trying to change the minds of Art historians to include our work in the museums that house Contemporary Art, Post Contemporary offers an alternative form where classical values are acceptable, one need not reflect one’s time to be relevant, and quality is more important than novelty. That isn't to say that one mustn't reflect one's time, nor that novelty has no value in Post Contemporary philosophy. PoCo does not view art history as a single line of progress, as Contemporary art views it, but a branching path, where many different approaches can co-exist in a pluralist art culture.<br />
<br />
Artists still make modern art today. Artists will still make contemporary art tomorrow. But now there is a place for artists who make work that expresses coherent ideas through a visual language, rather than through a text. Questioning is valuable and will always be an integral part of what the artist is here to do. And I would argue, to the chagrin of some of my dear colleagues, that Duchamp's urinal, which inquired into the very definition of art itself, was an excellent line of inquiry. However, the same interrogation has been repeated for nearly a hundred years now, and questioning alone forces us into a feedback loop, which the Italian poet Primo Levi describes as <span style="color: white;">"the unstoppable and cyclical rebirth of the 'modernist' rhetoric".</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"><br /></span>In the course of a day, most of us don't have much time to reflect upon the deeper reasons why we do what we do. We act and react to countless events, and relying upon our instincts is often the most expedient way of getting through the day. But there are times when what we're doing isn't yielding the results we desire. If the goal of art is to have a positive impact on culture, such is the state of the market driven Contemporary Art world. We have asked a century worth of questions... some productive, some not. We have questioned our assumptions and the very foundations of our reality. But what has not been embraced thus far in the art world, is the attempt to formulate new answers.<br />
<br />
Now we have the opportunity to move forward, to blaze new territories, but in order to succeed, we must abandon the century old battle between the classical tradition and the contemporary art world... between the questions and the answers. Why not embrace what each of us do best and build a dialogue between the two worlds? We have learned the mysterious inner workings of the clock, now let us embark together to build a better one. Together we might learn to ask better questions, and perhaps we might find a few answers.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;">Post Contemporary is not owned or originated by any one individual. Though, I am to blame for introducing the term to the world of painting, I do not propose to be the founder. I am merely trying to describe what I see already developing around me. PoCo emphasizes empathy for all, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or creed. PoCo is not a movement, but an aesthetic philosophy within which many movements may take place - like modernism and post-modernism before it. PoCo values are not only expressed through the work of painters, but also in sculpture, architecture, literature, and film.</span><br />
<br />New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-48298748751056737372014-06-16T12:01:00.002-07:002014-06-16T13:59:59.037-07:00Nerdrum Sentenced to Jail by Supreme Court: Final Verdict<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqngQu7GSREUBUG-lYtctHVAaAb7LXBRdbjHKct7haAVANuv54i10yqcMdtGxbo2etOKPphPrSimHwEALT_Otyx4O2hACnij1F9wYV_HyExsUYQhYUpLYra-kWah65tSOvPuC_zp37bGr/s1600/nerdrumbehindbars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqngQu7GSREUBUG-lYtctHVAaAb7LXBRdbjHKct7haAVANuv54i10yqcMdtGxbo2etOKPphPrSimHwEALT_Otyx4O2hACnij1F9wYV_HyExsUYQhYUpLYra-kWah65tSOvPuC_zp37bGr/s1600/nerdrumbehindbars.jpg" height="292" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Courtesy of Matthew D. Inness</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">June 2014, the Norwegian Supreme court sentenced Odd Nerdrum to one year in prison concerning allegations of gross tax fraud. </span></span><br />I am no longer shocked but am continually outraged, as this is the third and final sentence regarding this case. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.4;">I won't discuss the details included in the article below. But, I will tell you the facts behind the case, which have been repeatedly overlooked and mis-represented in the Norwegian press. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">First of all, it is crucial to understand that according to the current Norwegian laws, Odd Nerdrum will not be allowed to paint in prison, as prisoners shall not engage in "commercial activities" while serving their sentence. Even if the sentence were just, this would amount to nothing less than cruel and unusual punishment, a <b>violation of human rights</b>, and not least of all, a violation of his <b>freedom of expression</b>. Though we in the United States highly value the freedom of expression as a universal and natural born human right and fundamentally necessary to the fabric of a free society, many nations such as Norway do not seem to hold the same belief.<br /><br />Further, we have ideals about justice, that the defendant is <b>"innocent until proven guilty"</b> and that it is first the responsibility of the prosecution to provide evidence of guilt, not the responsibility of the accused to provide evidence of innocence. These principles were clearly violated from the first to the last as each court presumed Nerdrum to be guilty from the beginning and demanded that he prove his innocence.</span></div>
<h4>
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">These proceedings remind me more of the Spanish Inquisition than they do of a modern judicial system in the civilized world! </span></h4>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Clearly the Norwegian judicial system doesn't operate according to the principles that we believe are universal. So, though I can not claim that this sentence violates any Norwegian laws, I will say that <b>this sentence violates international laws on human rights and self evident principles of justice.</b><br /><br />Over the course of several years of writing about this case, I've learned the details of how it came about:<br /><br />It began when approximately 40 large scale pieces that Nerdrum painted with an experimental medium began to drip and melt. Understandably, the collectors who had purchased these paintings were upset. Nerdrum spent the next decade re-painting many of these pieces and offered to ship them at his expense to the collectors. The Norwegian IRS claimed that he painted these pieces, not to replace the damaged paintings, but to sell them and evade paying taxes.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Read more for the full background to the case</span>:<span style="color: white; font-size: large;"> <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2012/06/image-courtesy-of-matthew-d.html" target="_blank">Odd Nerdrum: Art Political Prisoner</a></span></b><br /><br /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">Here is the full article in the Norwegian Press below. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4;">---------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4;"><br /></span></div>
The High Court has taken the matter to the earth. <span class="notranslate">They have reduced the amount Nerdrum was previously convicted of dramatic, says defender John Christian Elden NRK.</span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;"><strong>- On the one year and eight months as they now have imposed, then eight months suspended, so they have said that he shall serve one year in prison, continues Elden.</strong></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate">In the Court of Appeal on 23 May let the prosecutor and the acting Attorney Asbjørg Lykkjen claim for two years and ten months imprisonment for artist Odd Nerdrum (70).</span> <span class="notranslate">The case was in May reprocessed in the High Court.</span> </span></div>
<ul style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;">
<li style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><strong>See also:</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><span class="article widget reference" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(190, 190, 190); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #66005d; text-decoration: none;"><a class="autonomous" data-id="1.11735837" href="http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&rurl=www.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/kultur/ber-om-to-ar-og-10-mnd.-for-nerdrum-1.11735837&usg=ALkJrhgyTN59rJ5G78yx_rl-ITUe52cVcA" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(190, 190, 190); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #66005d; text-decoration: none;" title="Asking for two years and 10 months for Nerdrum">Asking for two years and 10 months for Nerdrum</a></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 1.1em 0px 0px;">
<div class=" g50 col fr s6 sl9 sl12 sl18 image-reference" style="clear: right; float: right; width: 353.328125px;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<figure class="image widget rich" style="clear: both; cursor: pointer; margin: 0.4em 0px 1.4em 20px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><img alt="Odd Nerdrum and John Christian Elden - Odd Nerdrum arrived appeal the Court of Appeal with his attorney John Christian Elden in mid-May. - Photo: Junge, Heiko / NTB Scanpix" class="js-img" data-kaleidoid="aM_U2grUcx500Tvu6x04XQ" src="http://gfx.nrk.no//aM_U2grUcx500Tvu6x04XQAXN-ihToUyRSIn_d_3lLXA" data-original-src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAwAEAPAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAADAAQAAAIDhI9WADs=" data-srcset="[{"80":"WgAlyOXSHfhSIn_d_3lLXA"},{"160":"eGBC0qH2pS1SIn_d_3lLXA"},{"350":"AXN-ihToUyRSIn_d_3lLXA"},{"450":"gfHRwJMkmQ5SIn_d_3lLXA"},{"650":"yv-yoxm2hSBSIn_d_3lLXA"},{"1000":"L1azRzBb9ZxSIn_d_3lLXA"},{"1200":"4NfLxD5a-khSIn_d_3lLXA"}]" data-width="333" id="aM_U2grUcx500Tvu6x04XQ1402940929453" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: auto; visibility: visible; width: 333.328125px;" /><figcaption style="clear: both; color: #636363; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 1px;"><div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.3; padding: 0px;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Odd Nerdrum arrived appeal the Court of Appeal with his attorney John Christian Elden in mid-May.</span></div>
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;"><small style="display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.3; margin: -2px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">PHOTO: JUNGE, HEIKO / NTB SCANPIX</small></span></figcaption></figure></div>
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Appealed to Supreme Court</span></h2>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate">In June 2012, Nerdrum sentenced in the High Court to have sold pictures of almost 14 million without bringing up income on your tax return.</span><span class="notranslate">The artist was sentenced to two years and ten months.</span><br /><br /><span class="notranslate">Nerdrum appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the verdict because <a href="http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&rurl=www.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/kultur/_-nerdrum-er-veldig-glad-og-letta-1.10899944&usg=ALkJrhi2uUva9XtIgv0nGg97zYEMhbyqhg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(190, 190, 190); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #66005d; text-decoration: none;">they believed the judgment of the Court of Appeal was inadequate.</a>Thus, the whole matter is discussed again by the Court of Appeal in May 2013.</span> </span></div>
<ul style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px;">
<li style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><strong>See also:</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><a class="autonomous" data-id="1.11726771" href="http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&rurl=www.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nrk.no/kultur/ny-rettsrunde-for-odd-nerdrum-1.11726771&usg=ALkJrhgew6NxnyYOWVeHEaZa9r2PmwrdJA" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(190, 190, 190); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #66005d; text-decoration: none;" title="New straight round of Odd Nerdrum"><span class="article widget reference">New straight round of Odd Nerdrum</span></a></span></span></li>
</ul>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 1.1em 0px 0px;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Demanded acquittal</span></h2>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate">Defender John Christian Elden asked the High Court to acquit, and that if Nedrum was found guilty, he should be imposed mildest possible punishment.</span><br /><br /><span class="notranslate">During his closing argument the Court of Appeal, he criticized the investigation in the case.</span></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><strong>- There has not been one question from the police to me during the years I have been defending.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>When the police can not stand afterwards and say that defense should come with more.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>It is a fundamental failure of an investigation, said Elden in the Court of Appeal on 23 May.</strong></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Odd Nerdrum has even said that tax evasion is due to his own mess, and no ill will.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate"><strong>- I had little knowledge of these checks.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>Had them in your pocket.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>Forgot them.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>Had to get new ones.</strong></span> <span class="notranslate"><strong>So hopeless I explained Nerdrum in court.</strong></span></span></div>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 1.1em 0px 0px;">
<span class="notranslate" style="background-color: none;">Parallel issues</span></h2>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0.2em;">
<span style="background-color: none;"><span class="notranslate">Odd Nerdrum has two parallel cases going to the courts.</span> <span class="notranslate">The artist has brought a case against the Norwegian tax because he believes himself falsely imitated for years 1998-2002 and would have repealed the decision of the Tax Office.</span><br /><br /><span class="notranslate">He lost the case in both the District Court and High Court and appealed the case to the Supreme Court in May.</span></span></div>
New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-7109525425668127742014-04-01T14:08:00.001-07:002014-04-01T15:02:00.641-07:00Online Drawing Class<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.craftsy.com/ext/Scott_3924_H" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApHcB2hgVzQVpiB__ETga1O5rqrxEXBb3p1PPkgWXe3Xa2qleCDWZszWteWOMFu9HQzd33qsIjd019k5Ohs3fnS2wIQ1iyn3aR1qV0yApIfHhO5j3XZt93eMSMhUpezBQ6cYjLxSeX-OZ/s1600/Title+Card+for+Blog.jpg" height="113" width="200" /></a></div>
Last February, I visited Denver for the first time for the purpose of filming an instructional drawing course.<br />
Responding to dozens of requests, I've tried several times to produce one myself, but simply couldn't resolve a high enough production quality with my limited resources and still offer an affordable price. This is where <a href="http://craftsy.com/">Craftsy.com</a> came in. Not only did their production team have all the bells and whistles, but they also were spectacular at their job. Even so, we were able to make it affordable - even on a student's budget.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2k1PX3msX1dbo1r_jL6TkVKBo0Au9hQyaN7azGNKBDAFgCCED8oPyXjeK41vb1BKJdBQfqxYgiT-tqEvmozDIMRMtXldObIqTq9Ei0m0EHlR-geqnB5FnMCAuktcanxZ9YWoRFOMQOj7/s1600/3924_Marketing_129_retouched+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2k1PX3msX1dbo1r_jL6TkVKBo0Au9hQyaN7azGNKBDAFgCCED8oPyXjeK41vb1BKJdBQfqxYgiT-tqEvmozDIMRMtXldObIqTq9Ei0m0EHlR-geqnB5FnMCAuktcanxZ9YWoRFOMQOj7/s1600/3924_Marketing_129_retouched+copy.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a>In seven sessions that you can follow at your own pace, my course Expressive Figure Drawing, covers techniques for expressing emotion, mood, and concepts utilizing the language of mark making and composition. I discuss examples from the Old Masters, and a few new ones, as well as demonstrate several drawing approaches, including charcoal and chalk on toned paper, reductive charcoal drawing, and a secret bonus technique you won't learn anywhere else.<br />
<br />
Better yet, for my readers, I'm going to give you 50% off my class if you sign up before April 15th.<br />
Just follow this link to my class: <a href="http://www.craftsy.com/ext/Scott_3924_H" target="_blank">Expressive Figure Drawing</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPe5QYSw0AzwcQHrcYQytWCj48uk-ffjsfaWlf4r8Tx7XUW5AYD2FnVD7fkiz_CTySiGLFuuEvJ-4aATl27cfblTX8O6gwFO0Ecqcj68qSP17Negn0N-fknqTeVU1cifNVtAK65F6FbGr/s1600/3924_Marketing_113_retouched+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzPe5QYSw0AzwcQHrcYQytWCj48uk-ffjsfaWlf4r8Tx7XUW5AYD2FnVD7fkiz_CTySiGLFuuEvJ-4aATl27cfblTX8O6gwFO0Ecqcj68qSP17Negn0N-fknqTeVU1cifNVtAK65F6FbGr/s1600/3924_Marketing_113_retouched+copy.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJm5gYr23zNgVhXJd33uRfXmtfm67W3pouOeyu7LmCFCJUWZ1lgSBasTZFKFzUkjKiZpTliFf79cDg-MBX5xMDeEnRTtO6MwXSVV2EQN-bJPE8XOZWZpNMRAQuwhzQLueaemPR-pQ7pMQ/s1600/3924_Marketing_156_retouched+copy+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzJm5gYr23zNgVhXJd33uRfXmtfm67W3pouOeyu7LmCFCJUWZ1lgSBasTZFKFzUkjKiZpTliFf79cDg-MBX5xMDeEnRTtO6MwXSVV2EQN-bJPE8XOZWZpNMRAQuwhzQLueaemPR-pQ7pMQ/s1600/3924_Marketing_156_retouched+copy+(2).jpg" height="200" width="147" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-59611846539293751312012-10-27T13:57:00.002-07:002012-10-27T14:00:49.985-07:00Drawing Workshop<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-large;">One Day Portrait Drawing Workshop</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">with Richard T Scott</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Nov 17th, 9am-4pm, Northlight Art Center</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">Sharon, CT</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwUZMVVyJqJkAOVEmqx7GR3IYMMRdj2DPIjICQJm9LrS319glYnBUog9ZXdmOLVao5DOWrKiYxJLFKcL1rG6nqus7OukM5hg4825O75DE5YT-Xhs2Rc8NIS7ck5xesE4flLCIXWBJb5Uv/s1600/Flight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwUZMVVyJqJkAOVEmqx7GR3IYMMRdj2DPIjICQJm9LrS319glYnBUog9ZXdmOLVao5DOWrKiYxJLFKcL1rG6nqus7OukM5hg4825O75DE5YT-Xhs2Rc8NIS7ck5xesE4flLCIXWBJb5Uv/s400/Flight.jpg" width="290" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: large;">$95, model fee included.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
minimum of 5 students.</div>
<br />
This course will be a one day intermediate portrait workshop, covering classical skills from the old masters to contemporary masters: materials, techniques, and philosophy of drawing.<br />
<br />
Beginners welcome! Work in any media you feel comfortable!<br />
<br />
Richard will walk you through the stages of composing and beginning a portrait, starting with compositional skills, drawing and proportion, light and form, and finally evaluation. There will be helpful information on how to analyze your work in order to improve both your skills and give yourself the tools to express your vision.<br />
<br />
The focus of this course will be on drawing techniques, with the goal of utilizing observed phenomena in order to explore rhythm, emotion, and both the expression of the model and your expression. It will cover adaptive methods for utilizing the movement of the model, compositional changes due to your decision making, and enhancing both analytical and intuitive approaches to drawing.<br />
<br />
Emphasis will be on balancing the detailed and accurate observation of light, form and anatomy - with composition and expression.<br />
<br />
To register contact us at: richardtscottart@gmail.com<br />
<br />New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-10892794139257462652012-10-24T12:08:00.001-07:002012-10-24T12:39:32.237-07:00Among the Ruins<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white; font-size: large;">Hope in the Post-Industrial Autumn</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y3eSuJiiNRZvRor1i8VOscWPzedr0Dk9V_DnFxYKUPw5wVOdwj5uJf8GGiK9s-857Dd5gfoQg6R-VVb9uhe3KuxqU9Q1VIuAqmAFp02nnK5BE2bEJMl-btfwTUOwAEbeygH91Q_vfl6_/s1600/Among_the_Ruins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Y3eSuJiiNRZvRor1i8VOscWPzedr0Dk9V_DnFxYKUPw5wVOdwj5uJf8GGiK9s-857Dd5gfoQg6R-VVb9uhe3KuxqU9Q1VIuAqmAFp02nnK5BE2bEJMl-btfwTUOwAEbeygH91Q_vfl6_/s400/Among_the_Ruins.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Among the Ruins</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span>ivilizations, like the cycle of life and death; grow, flourish, mature and decay. This is as true for every being as it is for entire cultures.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVl-_HSmngpFppXxm-JyDgZSN7qmeNvXaL_Us6FtMtjJRlXR-UhLSSnko8dmKrF6TEHTiJqBLnP8vpQaoLv2Q10aLsRl3yH7c9DiGzQN9h3Y8IPb2sUkloEstSFc9Oky3gcBZ8XP3hx5w/s1600/Baptism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpVl-_HSmngpFppXxm-JyDgZSN7qmeNvXaL_Us6FtMtjJRlXR-UhLSSnko8dmKrF6TEHTiJqBLnP8vpQaoLv2Q10aLsRl3yH7c9DiGzQN9h3Y8IPb2sUkloEstSFc9Oky3gcBZ8XP3hx5w/s200/Baptism.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baptism</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Among the Ruins</i> is an unflinching meditation upon the plight of the nuclear family in a post-industrial world. Equally disturbing and emotively driven, these works seem to breath vision into the eloquent and sightless verbal wasteland of Cormac McCarthy’s <u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road">The Road</a></u>.<br />
<br />
In this body of work, Miller reflects upon the ruins of a concrete empire, following the collapse of the machinery of State. Stunning in scope, his mechanized wilderness is populated by effigies who draw their only nourishment from their love of each other. The new hope embodied by their children is emphasized in a conceptual contraposto, silhouetted against the corpse of the urban jungle. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjahonLoTbbFs54ohH4D6Gw80pFwWcvo6D6mV3lByXkVYZQEe-WMpJcAxBVOATnsYwqsR0Lj8_AW2iha31Jr46uMG4ozeU0EbMNt6ySgNupd7tAln2cEn8IiSrMJmKxZVodyTjRsg_ppSm/s1600/Somewhere_Over_the_Rainbow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjahonLoTbbFs54ohH4D6Gw80pFwWcvo6D6mV3lByXkVYZQEe-WMpJcAxBVOATnsYwqsR0Lj8_AW2iha31Jr46uMG4ozeU0EbMNt6ySgNupd7tAln2cEn8IiSrMJmKxZVodyTjRsg_ppSm/s320/Somewhere_Over_the_Rainbow.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Somewhere over the Rainbow</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Yet, as the darkest day of winter is also the beginning of the sun's return, these families are the first to begin rebuilding their society and sewing the seeds of bright and distant future.<br />
<br />
In an era, entombed by the collapsed modern-industrial complex of the twentieth century, not unlike the collapse of Classical Europe after WWI, we can reflect upon what has passed, while envisioning the ground plowed before us, fertile and receptive to germinate a new way of life.<br />
<br />
Read as a whole, this body of work tells a compelling narrative of renewal, rebirth, regeneration - in which the best natures of man, and the natural world might return to harmony and balance... but ultimately, the end of this story is left up to the viewer.<br />
<br />
-by Richard T Scott<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Among the Ruins </i>Nov 10th, 2012 <a href="http://www.copronason.com/">Copro Gallery</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Bergamot Arts Complex, 2525 Michigan Ave T5, Santa Monica</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbOOrGVUpgMxofG6CTJ-dw8JiTsHlUWfKDiXxuQRx2w1GlZq5YpcMRCiVbtWJM4GuHJjEdT8c8YGoKTvBQS34Xcy_T2FunSMNs-puNboSK-R2-lsCLdXiRC2Sd6JLoq3H0QotvVzIbIig/s1600/End+of+the+road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbOOrGVUpgMxofG6CTJ-dw8JiTsHlUWfKDiXxuQRx2w1GlZq5YpcMRCiVbtWJM4GuHJjEdT8c8YGoKTvBQS34Xcy_T2FunSMNs-puNboSK-R2-lsCLdXiRC2Sd6JLoq3H0QotvVzIbIig/s200/End+of+the+road.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">End of the Road</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb1cVBBC6T9C2rsdT6xTT60mG6CS7WuQK_Vr9Cr2RDsLjbhL4UR6abwVuP8QD_lXtYbVlFA9p7zykrYpMy8RsZ16ZUoB1A1PgwZH7rEDaXKk6FLSHNL_EGRBf-RP9NlJrIWkDYCMrpSZ5q/s1600/The+Lookout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb1cVBBC6T9C2rsdT6xTT60mG6CS7WuQK_Vr9Cr2RDsLjbhL4UR6abwVuP8QD_lXtYbVlFA9p7zykrYpMy8RsZ16ZUoB1A1PgwZH7rEDaXKk6FLSHNL_EGRBf-RP9NlJrIWkDYCMrpSZ5q/s200/The+Lookout.jpg" width="128" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lookout</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijN1wbE52rCq_RaWQ4vF3HxWxXD2cf1-qcHyLK88aAC0VIM-Gt-II6VJwrzTNy33C-qf90u3k6cQTQW5d2zn5FwZ_ogEWTcUHI0g9E7q31nV14O-bxkElvChmjBu-RZTQULMkddd_BhMG5/s1600/The_Lotus_Eater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijN1wbE52rCq_RaWQ4vF3HxWxXD2cf1-qcHyLK88aAC0VIM-Gt-II6VJwrzTNy33C-qf90u3k6cQTQW5d2zn5FwZ_ogEWTcUHI0g9E7q31nV14O-bxkElvChmjBu-RZTQULMkddd_BhMG5/s200/The_Lotus_Eater.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lotus Eater</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4R4-Lnqore3oxOfQYJH2ggZ9XY__pwWriI3BWYhOYmUXScwowh6sY6TJYlAtMFo41AAOO7VjuiYqz-SIMaQvNVLuORXJHMoY2EpmmBB7lvbGIyMwcAjGNVdiSNMfHb4OcVKOrfQ3S_9y_/s1600/Oasis.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4R4-Lnqore3oxOfQYJH2ggZ9XY__pwWriI3BWYhOYmUXScwowh6sY6TJYlAtMFo41AAOO7VjuiYqz-SIMaQvNVLuORXJHMoY2EpmmBB7lvbGIyMwcAjGNVdiSNMfHb4OcVKOrfQ3S_9y_/s200/Oasis.JPG" width="141" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oasis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-2018108197320244922012-06-30T15:37:00.000-07:002012-07-31T12:12:01.820-07:00Odd Nerdrum: Art Political Prisoner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqngQu7GSREUBUG-lYtctHVAaAb7LXBRdbjHKct7haAVANuv54i10yqcMdtGxbo2etOKPphPrSimHwEALT_Otyx4O2hACnij1F9wYV_HyExsUYQhYUpLYra-kWah65tSOvPuC_zp37bGr/s1600/nerdrumbehindbars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilqngQu7GSREUBUG-lYtctHVAaAb7LXBRdbjHKct7haAVANuv54i10yqcMdtGxbo2etOKPphPrSimHwEALT_Otyx4O2hACnij1F9wYV_HyExsUYQhYUpLYra-kWah65tSOvPuC_zp37bGr/s320/nerdrumbehindbars.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Image courtesy of Matthew D. Innis<br />
<a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/free-odd-nerdrum">Sign the Petition to Free Odd Nerdrum!</a><br />
<br /></div>
It is with a heavy heart that I tell you of the escalating persecution of my dear friend and mentor. <br />
A man who has demonstrated his honor, has freely given his knowledge to thousands of students, has been a champion for human empathy and integrity, who generously gave my wife and I a chance to begin our lives anew when we lost everything in the great recession... this man is the first political prisoner in Europe since World War II. To some, this statement may be not be surprising, to others it may seem shocking. It may at first seem an exaggeration, but I ask you only to honestly consider the facts of the case and come to your own conclusion.<br />
<br />
Odd Nerdrum has been given an <b>increased</b> sentence of two years ten months by the Norwegian Appeals court concerning allegations of gross tax fraud.<br />
He will not be allowed to paint in prison, as this is considered a "commercial activity". I can only conclude that the reason for his increased sentence is punitive - a retaliation for Nerdrum appealing the verdict of the district court back in August 2011. <br />
<br />
Let me be clear: Nerdrum paid his taxes many years before the court case. This was acknowledged by the court and verified by the court transcript. The charge against him is that he intentionally hid money in a U.S. bank account for which the court provided no evidence, and an Austrian bank box. This claim is absolutely ridiculous! What kind of idiot would hide money in plain sight? Nerdrum, by his own statement, is not mathematically inclined, but he is certainly no idiot. Why wouldn't he hide money in a Swiss bank account, or the Cayman Islands where no one would find it? This is one glaring example of the kind of faulty logic used by the court. (This can be verified by reading the court transcript in either Norwegian or English available on freeoddnerdrum.com)<br />
<br />
<br />
It's profoundly important to point out that <b>Nerdrum's paintings are not merely a commercial activity, they are an exercise in <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">freedom of speech</span>.</b> Nerdrum has been known for challenging the status quo for decades with his paintings and statements; the very nature of his work contradicts the dominant Norwegian art world (largely funded by the Norwegian Government), and even the "social democratic" policies of the ruling Norwegian Labor party (see faceless society video below). He stands out as an individual, questions authority, has been censored on television for directly criticizing the Labor Party, who also dominates the Norwegian Judicial system. As such, <span style="color: white;">the court's attempt to silence him amounts to nothing less than the repression of political speech.</span><br />
<br />
What appears at first to be a run of the mill tax evasion, soon reveals itself to the inquisitive to be nothing less than political persecution and a violation of human rights. The Norwegian Appeals court has taken it upon themselves to stifle the freedom of speech. <b>Moreover, they have convicted a man based upon conjecture, inflated numbers, and faulty logic, and without concrete evidence.<br /><br />Innocence until proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, is a basic premise for any just court.</b><br />
<b>And both the Norwegian district and the appeals courts have violated this premise. </b><br />
<br />
<b>It may or may not surprise you that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases#Norway">Norwegian judicial system has been convicted multiple times</a> by the European Court of Human Rights for violating the principle of "Innocent until proven guilty".</b><br /><br />It also seems necessary, in order to truly understand the atmosphere, to mention the biases against Nerdrum in the media. While Norway was still reeling from the July 22, 2011 domestic terrorist attack, a major Norwegian newspaper ran a story about finding explosives on farms. They used an image of Nerdrum's farm as an example. When the Nerdrum family complained, they said "oops, we're sorry". But I find it incredibly hard to believe this was a mistake Nerdrum is a celebrity in Norway - <span style="color: #f3f3f3;">one doesn't accidentally insinuate that Graceland is a den for terrorists!</span> This is only one example of the subliminal suggestions rampant in the Norwegian press. (see freeoddnerdrum.com)<br />
<br />
The Nerdrum Affair has been a confusing case for many people. Different sources seem to give different numbers: even the courts can't seem to agree with the IRS or each other. So, I've taken it upon myself to collect and condense what I view to be the pertinent information all in one place. I've given you my opinion, but ultimately, you'll have to come to your own conclusion.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/odd-nerdrum_b_1632096.html">The Huffington Post: An Update and Commentary on Odd Nerdrum's Harsh Prison Sentence</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-808110">CNN ireport: Artist Denied the Right to Paint</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://underpaintings.blogspot.com/search?q=odd+nerdrum">An Odd Fact or Two</a><br />
<br />
(From the article below: Forum Gallery, as the exclusive gallery for Nerdrum worldwide, has sold paintings worth of $1,486,000. This number has been confirmed by American Tax Authorities, says Nerdrum's defence lawyer Berg. This is way below the $2,349,000 Odd has been sentenced for evading).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/krim/nerdrum-anker-trolig-til-hoeyesterett-etter-skjerpet-dom-3820077.html" style="font-size: 11px;">http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/krim/nerdrum-anker-trolig-til-hoeyesterett-etter-skjerpet-dom-3820077.html</a>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://freeoddnerdrum.com/The%20Nerdrum%20Affair,%20final%20PDF,%20low%20res.pdf">American Artist Magazine: The Nerdrum Affair</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="211" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CyHNiyObebM" width="375"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here you can find a copy of the verdict from the district court as well as much more information: <a href="http://freeoddnerdrum.com/Intro.html">FreeOddNerdrum.com </a></span><br />
<br />
My original post from last August:<br />
<a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2011/08/odd-nerdrum-sentenced-to-two-years-in.html">Odd Nerdrum Sentenced to Two Years in Prison</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Odd Nerdrum Censored on Television:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="211" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NMcMDwFSs_Q" width="375"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A little background on Norwegian Politics.</span><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="211" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ExAy0iL3-GY" width="375"></iframe><br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/free-odd-nerdrum">Sign the Petition to Free Odd Nerdrum!</a></h2>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-9605609388222064372012-04-18T06:07:00.005-07:002012-04-18T06:16:44.680-07:00Interview with Lee Johnson<div><div style="text-align: center; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DWN380z1l56G_2EQ3Hj8dmrcly5BhPhFUWNXIxihdgR0dn0-MucfeP1wau-n59UqoW7InSkzslqo7pY8XGrVArUnaZZrTzZGaJB61RnVtNacqLY9HdyWujdDhGXFzJ5w4uKjoZ2auM_k/s1600/leejohnson_front2h.jpg" style="text-align: left; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DWN380z1l56G_2EQ3Hj8dmrcly5BhPhFUWNXIxihdgR0dn0-MucfeP1wau-n59UqoW7InSkzslqo7pY8XGrVArUnaZZrTzZGaJB61RnVtNacqLY9HdyWujdDhGXFzJ5w4uKjoZ2auM_k/s400/leejohnson_front2h.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732728134358719186" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 272px; height: 400px; " /></a></div><br /><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Who did you study with?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Betty Lou Totten in Florida, Leo Neufeld in New Mexico, and Charles Cecil in Florence.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Tell us about your training? What is the process in an atelier or teaching studio as opposed to a university art education?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>The atelier training is pretty much nuts and bolts, just about how you build an image and develop craft. We worked 6 to 8 hours a day drawing from the cast and the model. This training typically takes 3 to 4 years of solid study. In atelier training there is no vaporing about complex theories, or anything that isn’t germane to the painting process. By contrast, university art education emphasizes that it’s more important how you talk about art than how you make it, trying to teach artists to think like art critics, instead of art makers.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What is the chief benefit of such training?</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "><span> </span></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>It keeps you very image-focused, establishing the primacy of the visual over the conceptual. It also lets you get really deep into your own work, to explore how far you can take a painting. And, if you’re lucky, you get to work with some really accomplished people.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Besides your teachers, what painters have influenced your work?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>There’s the big names, Velazquez, Sargent, Tiepolo, Goya, Ribera, as well as illustrators like Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, Kliban, Gorey, and John R. Neill.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What is your philosophy of painting?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I don’t know that I have one, not in so many words. I’m a really visual person, so I suppose that a strong visual sense combined with a good imagination and a sense of humor is what I rely on.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>How many hours a week do you paint?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Probably no painter ever thinks he works enough. I paint as often as I can, but it really varies depending on what I’m working on. I can bang away at a canvas for hours and hours a day and not get much accomplished, and sometimes I can just work for thirty minutes and finish a painting.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Would you describe your working methods?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I start with small drawings from my imagination, fiddle with them a bit, then get models in to work out the poses and do more complete drawings from life. At this stage I also do tone and color studies for the final composition on wax paper. This gives me the materials to begin work on what will be the final painting. I rough in the composition, bring the models back, and start to build the painting. From there it can be fast or slow depending on the painting, but in general I’m a really slow painter. My ideas tend to start very fast, but take a long time to develop, and I will often scrape out large parts of paintings if they are not working, and start again, much to the frustration of my models. I also spend a lot of time just looking, and not painting, in order to understand the direction a painting needs develop.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What are your views on the application of paint?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Whatever works. I think a lot of painters indulge in a bit too much cork-sniffing about paint handling and painting mediums, etc. The solution to getting good paint quality is often to just to use enough paint.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Do you paint outdoors often?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Not as often as I’d like. I go through phases where I’m doing a lot of plein air stuff, and then periods when that is not at all what I’m into. Painting outdoors is really important, though; it’s like a vitamin for your color use.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What are your favorite subjects and materials?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Figures, figures, figures. I’m only really interested in images with figures in them, so I rely heavily on live models. As far as media, pencil and charcoal for drawing, and oil for painting.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What is the role of talent in painting?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Not really sure about that. I’ve known “talented” and “not-so-talented” people, and while raw ability can give you a boost in the beginning, it really comes down to a willingness to work, just like anything else. I’ve also seen plenty of “talented” painters who crank out boring, awful paintings.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What is the role of style in painting?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>Style is really something you can’t help having, sort of like a voice. Sure, you can deliberately choose a style I suppose, but that may only be an affectation if it isn’t something that grows naturally out of what you love. Those types of labels can be really limiting too, and when people pigeon-hole an artist’s style, they tend not to look as much, since they’ve already got a term defining how they should think about that artist.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>When is a painting finished?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I like to leave some things unresolved; it gives the viewer something to do. Betty Lou used to say, “Don’t tell the world everything you know.” If you “finish” every little thing, the painting can become a boring iteration of fussy details.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>Do you have any other creative outlets?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I have an old guitar I like to mess around with, and will plug in and crank up the amp in my studio when I need a break from painting. This is also when I do a lot of staring at the paintings.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What are your favorite types of art?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Again, figurative work is my favorite, and I will gravitate to it no matter the medium.</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span><span>What are the most important qualities for an aspiring painter?</span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre; "> </span>I don’t know about qualities, but I tell people who want to learn to paint to find a painter who’s work they admire and try to study with him, or with the guy who taught him. And it’s an old adage, but drawing really is the cornerstone of painting, something you can’t do enough of. You can also learn an amazing amount by copying paintings, ideally from the real thing, or from reproductions.</span></div><div><span><br /><span >Lee will have an exhibition at EMPAC Aprill 21, 2012</span><br /><br /></span></div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlephFdvLCcz_vmjS8i0sJjRIVf0RDGZHGrW7e__sKzcLDxWrOQV-vYli474rV9lTJqCG_pNxzCblw9-T71koHJjrmC97i7H7HXgZQwgTkNbrjDqJLWJ3zITUPCRJWnhVdgkx15pHegNu1/s1600/leejohnson_backh.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 272px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlephFdvLCcz_vmjS8i0sJjRIVf0RDGZHGrW7e__sKzcLDxWrOQV-vYli474rV9lTJqCG_pNxzCblw9-T71koHJjrmC97i7H7HXgZQwgTkNbrjDqJLWJ3zITUPCRJWnhVdgkx15pHegNu1/s400/leejohnson_backh.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732728597505124946" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DWN380z1l56G_2EQ3Hj8dmrcly5BhPhFUWNXIxihdgR0dn0-MucfeP1wau-n59UqoW7InSkzslqo7pY8XGrVArUnaZZrTzZGaJB61RnVtNacqLY9HdyWujdDhGXFzJ5w4uKjoZ2auM_k/s1600/leejohnson_front2h.jpg" style="text-align: left; "><br /></a></div><div><span><br /></span></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-6379219337994208642012-04-04T08:02:00.001-07:002012-04-04T08:04:14.087-07:00Art Takes Time's Square<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/38542453?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <div><a href="http://rtscott01.artistswanted.org/atts2012">http://rtscott01.artistswanted.org/atts2012</a><br /><br /></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-59179848361580179252012-01-26T04:40:00.000-08:002012-01-26T06:05:46.730-08:00Odd Nerdrum Granted Appeal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJtaC07PTnKzqD505yChHubC_YGADj-fnGNDOhDvDp6oEBjCqb2LtIsuFIxPVvVkwuHRyg7KQjp6po2FJPq_NHx36SMIWTxsnDNC76qIzam0p5qVrLLE2pn-mGviN-jJ1rDHsuhgEeZLb/s1600/Self+portrait+at+L%2527Hippodrome.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 377px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJtaC07PTnKzqD505yChHubC_YGADj-fnGNDOhDvDp6oEBjCqb2LtIsuFIxPVvVkwuHRyg7KQjp6po2FJPq_NHx36SMIWTxsnDNC76qIzam0p5qVrLLE2pn-mGviN-jJ1rDHsuhgEeZLb/s400/Self+portrait+at+L%2527Hippodrome.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701921271698945570" /></a><div>In a dramatic turn of events, the internationally renowned painter Odd Nerdrum has been granted a new trial in the Norwegian appeals court. His two year prison sentence has been overturned amid growing allegations of faulty evidence and infractions of the legal process during the trial.<br /><br />Because his prison sentence was less than six years, the probability of being granted an appeal in Norway is incredibly low. Thus, the choice to overturn the sentence requires serious concerns about the district court's verdict. The appeals court stated that it specifically wanted to review questions over a sum of $300,000 taxed in Iceland in 2003, as well as to re-consider Nerdrum's explanation that this fiasco began due to some 40 paintings that had melted due to experimental techniques.<br /><br />The date of the new trial has not yet been set.<br /><br /><i><span>To all those who have supported Odd Nerdrum during this trying time, thank you! Our efforts have been successful! Thank you to Michael Gormley and Allison Mallafronte for publishing <a href="http://www.brandonkralik.com/Nerdrum_Affair.html">The Nerdrum Affair</a> in American Artist Magazine! I truly believe you have played an influential role in securing a fair trial for Odd Nerdrum. Thank you to Brandon Kralik, Alexey Steele, and Otto Rapp for your great efforts to make this case visible. And last, but not least, thank you Bork and Ode Nerdrum for doing such a great job with <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.freeoddnerdrum.com">freeoddnerdrum.com</a>!</span></i></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-56665514124763084192011-12-15T06:22:00.000-08:002011-12-15T07:29:43.699-08:00The Brain on Art<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAgNg5x8xTC9gGSTkoWQMLuFKPtN1Odaozdk4_0Y5kdWg8Pubqip0_T40fuBww77FF2c2Z4kElBQzuaKE5yKuudNuL30Y-Du2ZAbnxLmgt7n5i_Sh7yLJFBnZfAciAhyphenhyphenida0NSAJ5Jm-jO/s1600/rembrandt-self-portrait-wikipedia.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 261px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAgNg5x8xTC9gGSTkoWQMLuFKPtN1Odaozdk4_0Y5kdWg8Pubqip0_T40fuBww77FF2c2Z4kElBQzuaKE5yKuudNuL30Y-Du2ZAbnxLmgt7n5i_Sh7yLJFBnZfAciAhyphenhyphenida0NSAJ5Jm-jO/s400/rembrandt-self-portrait-wikipedia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686360502627550018" /></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">This is not a Rembrandt! (Or is it?)<br /><br />T</span></b></span>he French Art historian and critic, <a href="http://galeriemohier.blogspot.com/">Jean-Daniel Mohier</a> and I have been having quite a fascinating and impassioned debate on the topic of how a painting is experienced by the viewer. As I have asserted <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2010/04/judging-art-almost-objectively.html">before</a>, I think the aesthetic response is largely objective, that is: instinctual. This is based on the fact that we, as humans, share nearly all of our genetic material and that we, across all cultures, share nearly all the same fundamental kinds of experiences. However, we cannot say that the aesthetic response is <i>completely</i> objective, for then, how could we have different (though overlapping) ideas of beauty? My hypothesis was that the instinctual response we receive from a painting in the very first instant of viewing, is immediately distorted by subjective elements to varying degrees; such as learned culture, and individual experiences, which may not be shared by most people: such as experiencing war, rape, or starvation, etc...</div><div><br /></div><div>Jean-Daniel responded by sharing this fascinating article entitled <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/how-does-the-brain-perceive-art/">"How does the Brain Perceive Art?"</a>. It discusses a study conducted at Oxford University, which concluded that brains can't tell the difference between a real Rembrandt and a fake. They tried to gauge the response of viewers of both Rembrandt paintings, and students of Rembrandt, with the goal of testing this very question. Just how subjective or objective is our aesthetic experience? It addresses a question I've posed many times before: does it matter if "the Polish Rider" is a real Rembrandt, or a student? Is it not a masterpiece either way?<br /><br />Before we go on, I have to point out that they only included 14 participants in this study, all of whom had no education in Art history nor any education in life drawing... so we can't really say that this study is conclusive, as it includes too few people and does not have a sufficient cross-section of people.<br /><br />But, without further adieu, this was my response:<br />"I guess the question is whether you consider the physical object to be the truth, or the flawed perception of the observer to be the truth. Was the consensus correct when they believed that the world was flat? It just goes to show how influenced people are by false illusions. But, this all goes back to whether you believe the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy">theosophy</a> of Plato, or the scientific objectivity of Aristotle, or the irrational rhetorical tricks of the sophists. That's what we're really debating here! Plato, or Aristotle, or the pre-Socratic sophists (in the case that you follow Hegel instead of Kant).</div><div><br /></div><div>As a representational painter, I have many years of training to be able to see what's actually there in front of me instead of the symbol or illusion of what people say is there. This is the only way you can paint representational work. Of course you have to be able to project your vision onto the reality. This is more interesting... but you have to be able to discern the difference between reality and a dream, in order to make such a work.</div><div><br /></div><div>More than a century ago, art critics, historians, and the art viewing public all had studio practice in drawing and painting to some extent, so they all had some ability to see what's in front of them and form their own conclusions. So, this is perhaps the reason that today, they only follow the false illusions of fashion.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, one can say that this is simply the way it is, this is the way the world works... and that I'm describing the way it "should be". One can conclude that it is very naive, or very arrogant of me to say that it should be any other way than it is. Who am I to say that the world is round? I don't know who " I am" in that sense... I don't know who it is that gives one the right to think for themselves, and relegates other people to the crowd of sheep, but I'm sure history will sort it all out for us. As for today, I can't accept "the way things are" and sacrifice the very fibre of my individuality to mass delusion. No, I must say again that the world is a sphere and is not flat. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm deeply sorry if this makes the clergy uncomfortable. ;)</div><div><br /></div><div>But you asked an interesting question the other night:<b> <span class="Apple-style-span">why paint like Rembrandt today?</span></b> Well, why not paint "like Rembrandt", if you like? This is something Odd and I have discussed extensively. You could ask the same question about any modern painter or artist. Why paint like Francis Bacon, or Otto Dix, or De Kooning, or Koons, or Hirst, or Picasso? Yet most contemporary artists do. Those who know art history can see that 99.9% of contemporary artists are copying 20th century artists. And they are congratulated for it!!! Somehow to copy a "modern" artist is more "original" because it's a "modern" voice - which must be inherently more <i>genuine</i>. Apart from the faulty logic here, I frankly can't say I care whether or not someone wants to copy Otto Dix, and whether or not a critic likes it, but quite simply, why this double standard? Why is it not acceptable to be influenced by Rembrandt? (As an aside note, an honest look at either Odd Nerdrum's paintings and my paintings will tell you that we are not <i>copying</i> Remrandt, but simply influenced by him. And it's evident that I'm not <i>copying</i> Odd, but deeply influenced by him. You can just as clearly see the influence of Hammershoi, Vermeer, Andrew Wyeth, and Goya.) <b>So, the real question is: why reject the Greco-Roman tradition?</b><br /><br />The answer to the question of this double standard, is that the <i>zeitgeist </i>(spirit of the time) is <i>modern</i>....<br /><br /></div><div>But, you see, this zeitgeist idea is also a false illusion. Obviously my zeitgeist is different from Koons'. And Ai Wei Wei's zeitgeist is different from Lucien Freud, who's zeitgeist is different from Andrew Wyeth, who's zeitgeist is different from, though related to Odd Nerdrum's zeitgeist. So, exactly how many zeitgeists are there?</div><div><br /></div><div>So, again. What we're really debating here is Plato vs. Aristotle vs. the Sophists. Kant vs. Hume vs. Hegel... and dozens of other incarnations of the same. If you look at philosophy, all philosophers are <i>more or less</i> regurgitating either Plato or Aristotle (or in the case of the German Idealists like Hegel, they regurgitate the sophists). I, for one, can't see any <i>progress, </i>only a wheel on a treadmill<i>.</i> "<br /><br /></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-4291660564858049272011-10-26T07:54:00.001-07:002011-10-26T07:56:25.501-07:00Dr.Sultanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16504939290356493550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-58363207005228186382011-10-25T11:10:00.000-07:002011-10-25T11:18:58.100-07:00Varnish: Tips and Techniques<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV6F4X0_yE6VN5nysLI06bI_bKvHkyGIFmOjmKSEKvg5uIivmFTeljAaa7ep_Hul9DfyV6G1f-nZriKG6oZcEgR-S5KE7Bh3mTyqKntQrsk4c9A0exC6Sw2wQdpTDAswR6dIiLfykr2pmk/s1600/gamvar.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 211px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV6F4X0_yE6VN5nysLI06bI_bKvHkyGIFmOjmKSEKvg5uIivmFTeljAaa7ep_Hul9DfyV6G1f-nZriKG6oZcEgR-S5KE7Bh3mTyqKntQrsk4c9A0exC6Sw2wQdpTDAswR6dIiLfykr2pmk/s400/gamvar.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5667494346225581106" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;font-size:medium;">I have recently polled all my artist friends and researched extensively online to find the best method for getting a perfect finishing varnish on my oil paintings. After lots of practice, I finally have a method that gets great results every time…. Well, almost every time. Varnish is a notoriously tricky procedure!</span><br /><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 21px; font-family:'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What is Varnish?</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Varnish is the final clear finishing coat applied over a “dry” oil painting. Varnishing seals the surface of the painting, protecting it from dust and dirt build-up. It also restores an all-over sheen to the whole painting, deepening shadows and restoring colors that may have gone matte as the paint dried.</span></span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">How “Dry” is Dry?</span></span></span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Traditionally, artists waited 6 months to a year before varnishing. And that’s for thin paint! Thick globs of oil paint may actually take many years to dry completely. However, if you are actively showing or selling your work, or working on commission, this is highly impractical to nearly impossible. So, many artists varnish when the painting is “dry to the touch”. There is danger of cracking however, especially if the paint is thick and you are working on flexible canvas.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What Kind of Varnish?</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Damar</span><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">is the traditional varnish used by artists, made from tree resin. However, it is known to yellow with age, and it is also very brittle. Gamblin, manufacturer of paints and mediums, has developed a synthetic-resin varnish called </span><strong><a href="http://www.gamblincolors.com/varnishes/index.html" target="_blank" style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(110, 110, 110); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">GamVar</span></a></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that has been designed to remain transparent, and also is less brittle. In fact, GamVar says you can apply their varnish when the painting is dry to the touch. Apparently GamVar allows the painting to continue to dry underneath the varnish. Personally, I find GamVar significantly easier to apply, as it stays “brushable” for some time, and does not get tacky within seconds like Damar. So, now I never use Damar, and I only use GamVar.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Removing Varnish</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Varnish is made to be removable by anyone in the future cleaning or restoring your painting. It is designed to dissolve easily with odorless mineral spirits (OMS). It’s hard to imagine rubbing OMS or turps on your oil painting, but keep in mind, dry oil paint has a very strong film and won’t simply wipe away with gentle swipes of OMS. So the good news is, if you mess up your varnish, it’s easy to remove and re-apply.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You will need:</span></strong></p><ul style="list-style-type: square; margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 2em; "><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">GamVar Varnish</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sponge brush (Buy several, they are cheap)</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Small shallow dish (larger for a large painting)</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Small soft paintbrush, like a #1 sable filbert</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Low-lint cloth<br />(There is no such thing as “lint-free” but do the best you can. I use floursack-style dishcloths, although I recently discovered soft auto-cloths, almost like baby diapers, which I am going to try next.) </span></li></ul><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Lint is your Enemy</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Lint (and dust) will conspire to flock to your painting in massive unforeseen hoards. The largest airborne bits of debris you have every seen will suddenly appear to hover above your freshly varnished painting in a great, slow mating dance. Your job is to keep lint off your painting, and off everything else that might come in contact with your painting.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Prep</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Never varnish the day you ship, frame, or deliver a painting! Give yourself a few days of extra time, both for the sake of the painting, and for your own sanity.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Varnishing with GamVar for the first time takes a bit of advance planning, because it comes in a box with 2 ingredients you must mix together in a jar 8 hours before you use it. The directions say to shake the jar </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">every hour for 8 hours, </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">but I have found this to be impossible - who could do that? So I just shake the jar once or twice over 8 hours, as I think of it, and it has always worked fine.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Once the GamVar is ready to use, take out your dry-to-touch painting and inspect the surface. Use tack-cloth or adhesive tape to remove any dust or lint that has accumulated. If there is a lot, you may want to wipe down the surface gently with a clean, low-lint cloth dipped in a bit of OMS.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Next, set your painting on an easel and shine a lamp on the painting for a good 30 minutes (don’t lie the painting down flat or it will just accumulate more dust). This will evaporate any moisture on the surface. If there is moisture on the surface, the varnish will “bloom” - a horrifying phenomenon, where you may think you have achieved a perfect varnish finish, only to find that within a few hours that the surface has developed a opaque white haze. Don’t let the painting get too hot, but it should warm a bit under the lamp.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ready, set…. VARNISH</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="full-image-block ssNonEditable" style="display: block; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><img src="http://www.sadievaleri.com/storage/sponge-brush.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1303801351630" alt="" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-color: initial; width: 200px; " /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />When you ready to apply the varnish, use SPONGE brushes. They are cheap, they don’t leave any stray hairs behind, and best of all you can just throw them away when you are done. I keep a batch of fresh my new ones in a plastic ziplock bag, so they don’t gather dust before use.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Pour a very small amount of GamVar into a clean, lint-free dish. It’s easier to dip the brush in a shallow dish, and also you won’t be contaminating your nice clean varnish jar with the inevitable dust or debris on your brush.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dip the tip of the sponge brush in the GamVar, and then brush on a thin coat over the painting, using long, horizontal strokes to cover the entire surface. Then, blot (don’t rub) the brush on a clean, low-lint cloth.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Brush again with the slightly dry brush with strokes perpendicular to the first ones. Blot your brush on the towel again.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Repeat over and over, brushing and blotting, in perpendicular strokes, until the surface starts to tack up the tiniest bit, and “grab” the brush. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is reducing the glossy shine of the varnish, which can make the painting look too wet, and will make it too shiny, especially under bright gallery lighting.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Waiter, There’s a Fly in my Soup!</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What to do when you get lint in your varnish: Use the small #1 filbert to carefully “back brush” and lift the lint out with one swift flick, and wipe on the cloth. If you don’t dig around too much, the varnish should “heal” and there should be no sign you messed with it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Inevitable Do-Over</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At some point everone has to re-do a varnish job. If you have lots of lint, or bloom, or if the surface was touched or damaged, you’ll have to remove the varnish. To remove, dip your clean lint-free cloth in odorless mineral spirits, and gently wipe (or even roll) the cloth on your painting. Be careful not to damage the painting, but keep in mind, it’s probably more resilient than you think. Dry paint film is pretty strong. Wipe until it seems like all the varnish is gone. If you are not sure, wait a few minutes for the OMS to evaporate, and then look for glossy areas. Start all over again, starting with removing any dust or lint.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Varnishing a smooth painting</span></strong></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My paintings have a pretty smooth surface, which adds another issue to varnishing: Beading up. Sometimes the varnish immediately beads up just like water on a new car. This is because the surface is so smooth that the varnish has nothing to “grab”. You need to get some tooth in your surface. Wipe off the wet varnish with a cloth dipped in OMS. Then brush on a generous coat of OMS, and keep brushing until there is no longer any beading up. You may want to let the painting sit for a while, to let the OMS “bite” into the surface.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Be gentle, don’t rub hard, and the painting should be fine. When a coat of OMS does not bead up, the varnish won’t either. Put your painting under a lamp to evaporate the OMS, and then go ahead and varnish. Now I always brush on a coat of OMS before applying the varnish, to test for beading before I ever try to apply the varnish. NOTE: use one brush for OMS and a different brush for varnish. You don’t want to dilute the varnish with the OMS left on the brush.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Varnishing is tricky, and it’s always a good idea to practice on a small painting you don’t care much about before varnishing your masterpiece.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Good luck! If you have other tips or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal; font-family:Georgia, serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Thanks to <a href="http://www.sadievaleri.com/blog/">Sadie Valeri</a> for allowing me to post this great article.</span></b></span></p><div><br /></div></span></div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-2478144074834359992011-08-17T11:11:00.000-07:002011-09-30T01:34:28.949-07:00Odd Nerdrum Sentenced to Two Years in Prison<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0s75dn1Bx1yfcYXARImjvSClYyGRvBOIec6CWnxtWYEq3JZESBqnlZPiVzuj8c6R3M5CE1LnYKgk-7kS-L7QF0H7nee_7dxOSK4Qjup9Uj0TNqZIQPKqY6YtK-Qme1YFuxaortEdmwBsq/s1600/pariah.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 208px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 249px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642118949155580994" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0s75dn1Bx1yfcYXARImjvSClYyGRvBOIec6CWnxtWYEq3JZESBqnlZPiVzuj8c6R3M5CE1LnYKgk-7kS-L7QF0H7nee_7dxOSK4Qjup9Uj0TNqZIQPKqY6YtK-Qme1YFuxaortEdmwBsq/s400/pariah.jpg" /></a>I am saddened to be the bearer of such shocking news.<br /><br />My mentor and dear friend, Odd Nerdrum, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a Norwegian court. He is a man who has dedicated his life's work to defending human dignity, a man who has given his profound knowledge freely to thousands of students without charging a single penny, a man who has inspired millions with his masterly and empathetic paintings - a man who generously opened his home and family to my wife and me when we lost our jobs in New York City, in the midst of the financial crisis, and were quite literally homeless...<br /><em>This</em> man has been sentenced to two years in jail for tax evasion for $1.5 million USD. Oscar Wilde never recovered from his two year imprisonment for homosexuality and died just a few years after his release, at the young age of 46. At Odd's age (67), and considering that he has tourette's syndrome, this sentence could kill him.<br /><br /><div>Let's be clear here: the charges against him are not that he didn't pay his taxes. He has already settled that with the Norwegian tax authorities, and this was acknowledged by the court. No, the charges are that he intentionally hid money in order to evade taxes. Of this he is not guilty. </div><div><span style="color:#000000;"><strong><br /></strong></span><div><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Call me biased, but Bernie Madoff, he is not.<br /><br /></strong></span>For a little context, consider that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13878859">Ai WeiWei was accused of tax evasion</a> in China, a communist country, and released on bail after two months of house arrest and a fine.<br /><blockquote>"Xinhua reported that Mr Ai had offered to repay the taxes and would be released because of <span style="color:#000000;"><strong>"his good attitude in confessing his crimes".</strong></span> " <span style="font-size:78%;">- from article in BBC above</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">Conversely, Odd has already paid his exorbitant back taxes, he is not allowed bail and must serve his sentence in full, <b>without being allowed to paint</b></span>, as well as pay a fine. If the sentence itself doesn't sound appallingly harsh for the circumstances, there's also the fact that they have no solid evidence, and have convicted him based only on some bureaucrat's "suspicion". Wait, doesn't that sound familiar? Why, yes, that's exactly what China did with Ai Weiwei. <span style="color:#ffffff;">Yet, why is Norway imposing a more severe punishment than China, a country known for it's human rights violations?</span><span style="color:#000000;"> But</span> of course, the Norwegian press doesn't present it that way. Why would they? Just as China controls it's press, the Norwegian press is funded by the Norwegian government.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/08/03/artist-pleads-not-guilty-to-tax-evasion/">Artist Pleads Not Guilty to tax evasion</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/08/17/artist-odd-nerdrum-sentenced-to-jail/">Odd Nerdrum Sentenced to Two Years in Jail</a><br /><br />Here's what they don't tell you in the Norwegian press. First, they claim that a $900,000 fund in a safe deposit box, was placed there to evade taxes. Odd set aside the money for claims on large compositions that he made in the 1980's with an experimental medium of mastic and linseed oil. After several years, collectors complained that they began to melt if they got too warm. Though he generously painted 36 new paintings of the same images between 1989 - 2002 in order to replace the damaged paintings, many of the collectors wanted to be compensated with money instead of new paintings. This problem is quite well known and extensively documented, and the fund in question was stipulated in the contract with Forum Gallery. And considering the price of his work, this fund for potential claims is quite small.</div><div><br /></div><div>Odd's explanation is backed up by documents. The courts case is built upon conjecture.<br /><br />Secondly, Odd's bank keeps records up to ten years back. So, despite the fact that Odd provided all the necessary papers to prove his innocence for the years 2001-02, (just before he renounced his Norwegian citizenship and became an Icelandic citizen) he could not get any records for 1998-2000. They had no evidence to prove that he evaded taxes: no documents, no witnesses, no fingerprints, merely suspicion. Do you keep your tax records from over ten years ago? In the U.S we have what's called a statute of limitations, but apparently Norway doesn't. <span style="color:#ffffff;">We also believe that it's the responsibility of the court to prove a man's guilt, not his responsibility to prove his innocence.</span> Again, apparently this doesn't apply to Norwegian courts.<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="color:#000000;">Is this worth a court case and two years in jail? Even if he were "guilty", why is this a criminal case to begin with, why not just a civil case?<br /></span><br /></span>It shocks me that this kind of persecution can be so blatantly pursued in our day, against such an international treasure. As this so profoundly effects our intellectual and creative community, I thought I must tell you. So, what is it that they want? Do they want Odd to demonstrate "his good attitude in confessing his crimes"? Do they want to make a political scapegoat out of him? I'll let you decide for yourself, but if you ask me, <strong>something is rotten in the state of Norway</strong>.<blockquote><br /><br /><p align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;">The vilest deeds like poison-weeds<br />Bloom well in prison-air:<br />It is only what is good in Man<br />That wastes and withers there:<br />Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate<br />And the Warder is Despair.<br />- Oscar Wilde, <em>The Ballad of Reading Gaol</em>.<br /></span></p><br /><br /><p align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>P.S. What can you do? Sign the </strong></span><a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freeoddnerdrum/"><strong><span style="color:#ffffff;">Petition</span></strong></a><span style="color:#000000;"><strong> and contact your local papers and news channels. Spread the word! </strong></span></p></blockquote><br /></div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-30915314315575663792011-05-01T01:54:00.000-07:002011-05-01T02:31:50.457-07:00L'Esthétique<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVnxagdgTezbt2ijuViCJ-1pPuE5DSBHTOi6TEiTbH2TRfm5AyDkSoYnHsBU9Ugmv2mt6SoMn3Eky-rzQQ6Z89AsvL16mybrKlZgAn608a0I3NJt3BcUNXFBaU9tpAW-H8-XpgHAvEoHr/s1600/petit+carton+web+emailing.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 322px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaVnxagdgTezbt2ijuViCJ-1pPuE5DSBHTOi6TEiTbH2TRfm5AyDkSoYnHsBU9Ugmv2mt6SoMn3Eky-rzQQ6Z89AsvL16mybrKlZgAn608a0I3NJt3BcUNXFBaU9tpAW-H8-XpgHAvEoHr/s400/petit+carton+web+emailing.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601677665755992290" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><span style="font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Eurostile; "><b>La galerie L’</b></span><span style="font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Eurostile; color: rgb(248, 44, 49); "><b>O</b></span><span style="font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Eurostile; "><b>eil du Prince</b></span> has the pleasure to invite you to the vernissage:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;">"L'Esthétique"</span></span> de Richard T. Scott</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Eurostile; min-height: 19px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; min-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><b>Vernissage le mardi 10 mai de 18h30 à 22h</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; ">Exposition du 11 au 31 mai</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; min-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; ">" Not content to be merely a master in all the techniques of classical painting, each of the works of this young prodigy invite us to rediscover a part of the history of our culture - all the while, never forgetting to preserve his own part of shadow and mystery [...]</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; "></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; ">Before one of these paintings, blended with the greatest technical mastery and brilliance of composition, how can we not bow before the figurative genius of Richard T Scott - and celebrate, in advance, his next compositions? "</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 13px/normal Eurostile; ">Frédéric-Charles Baitinger, art critic, <i><a href="http://artension.um2d.com/?p=445">Artension</a></i></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; min-height: 17px; "><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><b>Galerie L’</b><span style="color: rgb(248, 44, 49); "><b>O</b></span><b>eil du Prince</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><b>30 rue Cardinet</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><b>75017 Paris</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; ">Métro Wagram ou Monceau</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; ">01.42.26.50.49</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; color: rgb(55, 2, 238); "><span style="text-decoration: underline; "><a href="mailto:info@loeilduprince.com" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">info@loeilduprince.com</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; color: rgb(55, 2, 238); "><span style="text-decoration: underline; "><a href="http://www.loeilduprince.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">www.loeilduprince.com</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; ">du mardi au samedi de 11H à 19H30</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; ">et souvent le dimanche à partir de 15H00</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Eurostile; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:18px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div></span>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-2522382910523816132011-03-10T08:13:00.001-08:002013-02-23T14:20:30.888-08:00The Secrets of the Old Masters<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9iBPJkCthEgkJGMaPGbzxmI5GmGq3p6EBpKSxDP-cupQ2Akgvz6o2G3lCBp3kOQfhVrNf1POrRZNDKjEPxqnp05GA9iNEIjG6wqYNaXmPsc_4X48-zZ9EgrQ0hh3V0Z2Hz1dZlxj7_RZL/s1600/alchemist.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582503349635586914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9iBPJkCthEgkJGMaPGbzxmI5GmGq3p6EBpKSxDP-cupQ2Akgvz6o2G3lCBp3kOQfhVrNf1POrRZNDKjEPxqnp05GA9iNEIjG6wqYNaXmPsc_4X48-zZ9EgrQ0hh3V0Z2Hz1dZlxj7_RZL/s400/alchemist.jpg" style="float: left; height: 400px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0px; width: 261px;" /></a><br />
<div>
There's a common idea among figurative painters that the old masters were like alchemists... toiling away in their studios - discovering the secrets of the most durable pigments, distilling superior oils, blending fragrant mediums; that what made the old masters great were their secrets: a secret medium, a special combination of colors on their palette, a special kind of brush, a special preparation for their ground and pigments. They certainly <i>did</i> all of these things, and this profound familiarity with the materials <i>is</i> something that's lacking in most ateliers today. And so, many figurative painters today lead solitary lives. Spending much of their time holed up in their studios, slowly pushing their skills, reading old books, cooking up <i>maroger's medium</i> on the stove top, competing against all the other figurative painters with guarded envy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But these <i>secrets</i> can be found in numerous books, can be learned in many great ateliers and academies around the world. So, they're not exactly secrets, more like very valuable knowledge. Though many great painters certainly did experiment with their materials, what truly made them masters was their skill, passion, brilliance, and work ethic...</div>
<div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">well, and one secret.</span></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is a secret I've seldom heard anyone mention, but one I've known about for some time. It is the secret to the success of Rembrandt, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Eugène Carrière</span></span></span>, Rubens, and Odd Nerdrum, as well as many of the greatest painters in history. And it is also the secret to my success.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When I first began studying at The New York Academy of Art, I heard tales of how incredibly competitive the students were. Students would quarantine themselves in their studios, only letting in their closest friends, repelling anyone who came knocking. They would speak in whispers about their projects... it was every man for himself. I heard that the professors were equally secretive, more concerned with their own careers than teaching. People spoke of how one professor or another wouldn't answer their questions clearly and withheld certain information from the more promising students. After all, todays student is tomorrow's competition.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Perhaps it was the special blend of my class, the class of 2007. Or perhaps we marked a generational shift in the way we thought. Or perhaps all those rumors were completely false to begin with -<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> all of my professor were incredible</span>. But, many of the professors <i>told us</i> we were different. (Maybe they say that to all their students.) Nevertheless, by the time I was well into my studies at NYAA, I found that secrecy certainly was not the case - certainly not with the professors, and arguably not within the student body. Competition, yes. Secrecy, no. There was an open spirit of sharing: anyone could walk into my studio at any time and I would gladly explain how I did a certain technique, or what medium and palette I used. And I found that everyone else reciprocated. I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like it was true for everyone. And consequently, a surprising number of my classmates from that time continued on to have successful careers.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
But, this openness was nothing new for me, in fact this had been my practice since undergrad at UGA. I don't know what put the idea into my head. I would begin each semester by seeking out the best student in whatever class I was taking - someone whose work inspired me, someone who had the skill and vision that I hoped to acquire. I became friends with them and would analyze each piece they created, searching for something I didn't know. Soon, we began borrowing ideas and techniques from each other, improving upon them... always trying to out-do the other. And when one would ask how something was done, the other would happily explain it, demonstrating the technique. Between this open sharing, and the friendly competition that drove us to always try to best the other, we would quickly leave the rest of the class behind ,who for some reason didn't seem to grasp the concept, or just weren't interested.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"> </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;">The amount of development that we made in one semester was so great, that several professors asked us to teach their classes for them (our peers) sometimes when they had pressing issues to take care of. </span></b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If we had simply kept our ideas to ourselves, or decided "oh, that's Kathy's technique - I don't want to step on her toes", we would never have gotten half so far. The truth is, that together we drove each other to excellence. (Not surprisingly "Kathy" a.k.a <a href="http://gyunhur.com/home.html" target="_blank">Gyun Hur</a>, went on to become an award winning installation artist who recently gave an incredible talk at the TED conference.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
At NYAA, I continued this practice on a higher level. And even after graduation, when I worked for Jeff Koons, I met a man who now is a dear friend and colleague: Adam Miller. We became friends in a matter of seconds and when he showed me his work, I was absolutely intimidated! I found that he too had been practicing the same kind of <b>collaborative competition</b> for the past 15 years and we soon struck a bargain. We were allowed to steal any idea, any technique we wanted from each other as long as we improved upon it and gave it back. We would freely share any information.... and over the years, Adam and I came to trust each other so well that we began sharing other opportunities with each other: exhibitions, showing each other's work to collectors, introducing each other to important people. Imagine how effective this would be for an entire group of like-minded painters! And here, you begin to see why the great ones always come in groups - why they seem to cluster together in time like a nebula of stars swirling in eddies around one another.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is not dissimilar from Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, who actually developed Rembrandt's textural techniques <i>together</i>. Robert Henri shared everything with his students, inspiring the formation of the Ashcan school. Odd Nerdrum asks all of his apprentices to critique <i><b>his</b></i> work, <i>and sometimes he takes their advice</i>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Here you see the spirit of brotherhood that permeates inspiring movements and schools such as Novorealism, the Kitsch movement, and the most successful groups from the Grand Central Academy, Florence Academy, NYAA, PAFA, and too many notable others to mention. All of them sharing the same fundamental principles of humanity, skill, beauty, emotional sincerity, passion, intellect <i>and</i> knowledge.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This</span> is the spirit in which I have freely shared so much of my hard won and valuable knowledge with you here. So, in this spirit, I leave you with a single secret. A secret that, if you embrace, will propel you to a much greater progress in your work than you ever thought possible. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Collaborative competition.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A TRUE MASTER NEEDS NO SECRETS.</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-31861340190826460332011-02-24T02:59:00.000-08:002011-02-24T07:42:42.434-08:00NY Times: Facebook Censors Art School<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NxVM3D7MzozBa-_p0KEean0HwFXhh6IJrfYvBk1qSw_NHRv38nWTFQJFwvkJAxsfdsTOFLTrgsNycFkCIpCiLs746AiA0pByPioIg-Cep0m_uC_qK1Cv2zWIACHUhN67qpV2YFwOKUxP/s1600/What+Remains.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5577212029744657650" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 244px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 353px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NxVM3D7MzozBa-_p0KEean0HwFXhh6IJrfYvBk1qSw_NHRv38nWTFQJFwvkJAxsfdsTOFLTrgsNycFkCIpCiLs746AiA0pByPioIg-Cep0m_uC_qK1Cv2zWIACHUhN67qpV2YFwOKUxP/s400/What+Remains.JPG" border="0" /></a>Here's a little update on the Facebook censorship issue.<br /><br /><div>But, before I continue.... here's the New York Times article.<br /><br /><a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/art-school-runs-afoul-of-facebooks-nudity-police/">Art School Runs Afoul of Facebook's Nudity Policy</a></div><div><a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/art-school-runs-afoul-of-facebooks-nudity-police/"></a><br />This post is more of an open dialogue with myself about this issue, which the more I think about, the more it reveals itself to be quite complex. But I'll try not to get ahead of myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>Many people have pointed out that the specific word "censorship" only applies to the actions of a government. In this case, I would argue that Facebook largely governs the world of social media, according to their own laws, which they selected and they enforce, with no possibility of feedback or input from the users. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>But, FB is not a government, it is a private business</b>. And of course, in a pure free market, we could simply choose to go to another social network. Or, we could set up our own website. But the simple truth is that if we did that, the number of people viewing our work would drop precipitously and so would our sales. With over 500 million users, Facebook has revolutionized the way painters, collectors, galleries, and the public interact. FB has indeed been a democratizing force, equalizing the power between the artist, the collector, and the gallery. It has made itself indispensable as a marketing tool. In fact, as a small business owner myself, (being a painter is also a business) it's very difficult to compete if I do not have a presence on FB. Yet, that's exactly why the deletion of some of my best work has been such an issue: "Hermetica" and "What Remains" <span style="color:#000000;">(featured above: <em>incredibly offensive, right?)</em></span> Many other painters are allowed to present their best work and fairly compete for the 3-5 second first glance that will determine whether a collector will investigate further or keep searching. Yet, those of us who paint the nude are not.<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But, it's even more subtle than that. I think the analogy of the high seas would be appropriate. Both the British Empire and world trade benefitted from keeping the seas open for free t</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">rade. But if you were invited to board the largest ship on the ocean (Facebook), would it be the captain's right to duck tape your mouth, while remaining anonymous and unreachable to the passengers of the ship? You can't just jump overboard, and you wouldn't survive if you just built your own raft. Well, no-one forced you to get on the ship in the first place. That is true. But bear with me as I explore a train of thought.<br /><br />With FB, there IS a gray area because there are two conflicting "rights" here. Many have said that FB has the "right" to decide what they allow posted there and I agree. But we also have certain rights, which are discussed in The Bill of Rights: rights which are considered unalienable under the constitution... that is they are natural to the person (or entity) and are not simply tied to the land in which the person (or entity) resides. This is why FB, an entity residing on U.S soil, can exercise their rights on the open seas of the internet and why I can as well.<br /><br />The specific rights in question are free speech and the right to access the same free market that others enjoy. But, there's a point where each party's rights, if given full reign, will inherently impinge on the rights of the other party. And the case here is that FB's right to decide has impinged on my right to speech and the free market.<br /><br />9th Amendment:<br />"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."<br /><br />If I'm not mistaken, this is largely upheld by international law.<br />(Interesting text on the 9th amendment)</span><a href="http://www.cato.org/pubs/scr/2010/McConnell-Simon-Lecture.pdf" onmousedown="UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this), "46287", event);" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="cursor: pointer; color: rgb(59, 89, 152); text-decoration: none; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">http://www.cato.org/pubs/s</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><wbr></span><span class="word_break" style="display: block; float: left; margin-left: -10px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">cr/2010/McConnell-Simon-Le</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><wbr></span><span class="word_break" style="display: block; float: left; margin-left: -10px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">cture.pdf</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /><br />The rights of a corporate entity (a non-person) should not supersede the rights of a person. Or if you prefer to look at it this way, I am a small business and Facebook is a huge business. Regardless, if either of us exercise the full extent of our rights, we will impinge on the rights of the other party.<br /><br />Complicating this issue is that FB has become a near monopoly as social networks go. Yes, they have the best product and I'm not saying that they should be regulated. But the point is that it's become incredibly inconvenient for a business/institution to compete without using social networking. If I start my own website, or even use the many other websites that don't censor classical nude paintings, it will largely be a waste of time, because very few people will see my work. Therefore, it is not precisely a free market.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;">For the moment, it seems FB is legally within their rights. What they're doing is bad business and, ethically speaking, is absolutely wrong since their policy is prejudicial against artists. But they are a private company, and I was not quite forced to use their services. If it were because I was a racial minority, that would be illegal, but since it's because I paint classical nudes, it is not. To be fair, there is a difference.</span></b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></div><div>However, does that mean that we should simply accept it and allow a minority group to be unfairly silenced by an <span style="color:#ffffff;">artificial market</span>? I won't answer that question for you, but will simply raise a few more. If we project into the future it gets even more complicated.</div><div><br /></div><div>Facebook is governing a commodity that is becoming increasingly more of a necessity (especially in my field) as the trend towards self-employment grows, as internet marketing grows, as well as the specific use of social networking as a marketing forum for businesses, institutions, and even corporations. At some point Facebook could have over 1 billion users... 2 billion... with no real competition. This is feasible. And the more users they have, the more powerful FB is as a marketing tool, and the harder it is to compete without it. This is because right now they offer the best product. BUT, the question is, if one private corporation controls access for enough people to a necessary commodity, (take for example: education) and demonstrates prejudice against one specific group in regards to that access... at what point do we do something? At what point does it become a legal issue?<br /><br /></div><div>Consider this: Walmart, in 2005 grossed more than the GDP of all but the 25 largest NATIONS in the world. All they need is a police force, and they are pretty much their own country. I'm not being <i>anti-corporate</i> here, but I'm pointing out the trend that trans-national business is taking. Now, imagine that Walmart was the only place you could buy milk. Would they have the "right" to kick you out for reciting a poem? I'm being melo-dramatic, but only to more clearly illustrate the point. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;">There is a point where private property will intersect with public rights on a societal scale. We haven't reached it yet, but if things continue as they have been, we just might.</span></div><div><br />The answer for now, is that I hope FB will be more clear about the parameters and fairly enforce them. Maybe if we raise enough commotion they will take the hint. And it would be quite simple to address this problem with some kind of adult content filter similar to flickr. PROBLEM SOLVED. But, as of yet, nothing has changed, and the administrators of FB have given no signs that we should expect a change.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So, what's the next move?</div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-27350042038573423432011-02-09T07:25:00.000-08:002011-04-04T03:42:44.949-07:00Concept to Composition Part 3: Odd Nerdrum's Painting Process<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip__FRLewwZfXdt_SQ6TdW8rwN1ZEWr3RamDtj9WbcjieZREK0ZptczgiB0DKo_77VKybJ6WCHU3gx8UZ2bKIRSymj0wpiPQZdsbBOg-cpQCeAkYw2wFAPJJOc7w1_g8ZV0FssImIe__2E/s1600/Untitled+yet.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591643223094324834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 294px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip__FRLewwZfXdt_SQ6TdW8rwN1ZEWr3RamDtj9WbcjieZREK0ZptczgiB0DKo_77VKybJ6WCHU3gx8UZ2bKIRSymj0wpiPQZdsbBOg-cpQCeAkYw2wFAPJJOc7w1_g8ZV0FssImIe__2E/s400/Untitled+yet.JPG" border="0" /></a> <br /><p>And now for the long awaited finale to Concept to Composition: Odd Nerdrum's actual painting process.</p><br /><p>This is by far the most complicated to explain. Especially because Odd's techniques aren't precisely a "process", more a massive collection of principles. There is no formula. There is no magic medium. There is no "trick". The first and most important thing you have to understand in order to comprehend his approach, is that he is constantly experimenting, shifting approaches, completely obliterating and changing the compositions even when any other sane person would consider that they are "done". The trick is not sanding. The trick is not scraping. The trick is not glazing or velaturas, or the palette, or the herringbone linen. It is not his use of mirrors, nor the dark lens he looks through. The trick is simple: he uses all of these instruments, and more, as if he were both the composer and the conductor of a great orchestra. All the while rewriting a note here and there, in the middle of the performance, repeating a phrase, going back and rephrasing a melody, alternating the emphasis on the brass or the strings, smoothly accelerating the tempo.... all as if each and every musician and each instrument were telepathically communing with him and could adjust their performance immediately according to his wishes.</p><br /><p>I know how frustrating this sounds to the young painter searching for the secrets to great painting. But the truth is that there is no process or formula for great painting, in general, no matter how your working. There are only principles, knowledge, experience, and above all: inspiration and passion. The key does not and cannot lie in materials and methods, but within yourself and how you utilize them, how you orchestrate every element into a coherent visual language. If that's not intimidating enough, then read on, intrepid friend.</p><br /><p>Contrary to the methods that most learn in academies and ateliers, and contrary to the way I learned, Odd's process is audacious, fearless, even reckless. Nothing is set in stone, nothing is safe, and anything can change at any stage of the painting. I've seen him completely finish a large painting and then decide that an entire, nearly life-size figure should be two centimeters lower, and so he simply scraped it down and re-painted the entire figure. I've seen him flip a painting entirely upside-down or side-ways and decide that it looks better that way.... then proceed to change half of the painting to work with the new composition. I've seen him decide to change the lighting at the last minute, invent shadows that aren't there, and make them look completely convincing.</p><br /><p>And this is what I love the most about the way he works. There are so many people risking their lives everyday to keep us safe, so that we have the liberty to do what we do. <span style="color:#ffffff;"><strong>The least we can do is paint like we have a pair! </strong></span></p><br /><p>It's all about principles, and understanding and applying principles is all about knowledge and practice. For a simple crash course, see my other articles on the subject: <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2007/09/oil-painting-techniques-grisailles.html">Oil painting techniques: grisailles</a>. <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2007/09/oil-painting-techniques-glazing.html">Oil painting techniques: glazing</a>.</p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNlYKVf9aEeHa97IJ95V7kLMLxooQ0norxLwTLnF9XDjajuxcjMpMxbFyoPTXb_XnU9Ac19squYtnv7_NE12U1WOrcWSsHsjTTUtAYJBk1V990PSTGoLvfTXAHw39CzQF2n_uq9VPeROGs/s1600/P1030249.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591643007428448146" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 236px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 286px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNlYKVf9aEeHa97IJ95V7kLMLxooQ0norxLwTLnF9XDjajuxcjMpMxbFyoPTXb_XnU9Ac19squYtnv7_NE12U1WOrcWSsHsjTTUtAYJBk1V990PSTGoLvfTXAHw39CzQF2n_uq9VPeROGs/s400/P1030249.JPG" border="0" /></a> <br /><p>On larger pieces Odd typically begins by transferring a loose compositional sketch onto the canvas with a very simple grid. And when I say loose, I mean <em>loose</em>. It's simply about getting the basic compositional proportions right. Next, he will put a wash of perhaps brown ochre, mixed with linseed oil and turpentine onto the area that he'll be working for the day. Typically, he starts by loosely massing in the abstract shapes of the light and shadow areas using a simple palette of yellow brown, a red earth like venetian red or flesh ochre, mars black, and titanium white (See <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2009/06/concept-to-composition-part-2-odd.html">part 2</a> for more details on the palette.) while refining the drawing, proportions, color, and value at the same time. He's not so concerned with exact likeness or anatomy at this point, but more with the gesture, value, and color. He also applies the paint thickly and liberally with very little or no medium - in accordance with the rule "fat over lean". That is "fat" paint has more oil and body and "lean" paint is straight out of the tube. Your first layers should be in lean paint, and for Odd, that means perhaps the first two or three layers. Only then does he commence to add significant amounts of medium in principle. Though, as I said before, he does often break rules such as this, because he knows how.</p><br /><p>He uses models, but not always the same one. Often times a student will model for him for a few months and then another will model for the same figure. He also works a great deal from his imagination and great stores of anatomical and aesthetic knowledge, so nearly every figure becomes a conceptual form, an ideal, which is perfect for his work as they are vessels embodying the content of the work: the spirit and dignity of humanity as a whole. His overarching message concerns the universal and timeless qualities of human experience, though specific pieces may be diverse variations on the theme. <br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0ElEwmh-PBSb0uTnhwkZqR_vAutBwX4xh71tZrB2bEh8z8VIUJJ-Lon5djEJlhIMQ7jNEb6bGYVlZaWRmVxUXLcHEfdzwbBQZw0dhqD-J3G35lDdNELa17wdyxS2pAC5V1L7X-JsjWkI/s1600/Detail+1.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591642582809594546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN0ElEwmh-PBSb0uTnhwkZqR_vAutBwX4xh71tZrB2bEh8z8VIUJJ-Lon5djEJlhIMQ7jNEb6bGYVlZaWRmVxUXLcHEfdzwbBQZw0dhqD-J3G35lDdNELa17wdyxS2pAC5V1L7X-JsjWkI/s400/Detail+1.JPG" border="0" /></a> The next stage is reductive. He will use a palette knife or steak knife to remove heavy texture that he doesn't like. He'll use sand paper if he wants an area to be smooth - he has several different grades from fine to rough depending on the purpose. But, and this is important, he's also using these tools as drawing impliments, and not simply for removing paint or revealing underlying layers. About the texture, there is an organization about it. This is the biggest fault I've seen with students trying to copy his effect: they typically will apply the same texture across the whole canvas without variation. But if you actually look at the surface of his paintings, you'll see that the texture tends to correlated with light masses, and the shadows are more scraped down and transparent. <span style="color:#ffffff;">Opaque and impasto in the light, transparent in the shadows.</span> This is another rule of thumb that he typically follows, but often breaks. <br /><div></div><br /><div>After scraping, he moves on to applying paint again - sometimes scraping it off or sanding it while it's wet, sometimes letting it dry, sometimes glazing and then sanding, etc... This is the stage where he moves fluidly back and forth between additive and reductive methods. Again, because of the fat over lean principle and because of the way that light functions, glazes and velaturas are typically reserved for the last stage, though there may be many different layers of these as well, allowing each one drying time in between and perhaps some sanding or scraping. He will often look through a dark lense at the subject to condense the value ranges, or he will look at the painting in a mirror (sometimes clear, sometimes blurry) to see the composition and general effect. And he spends long hours throughout the whole process, just working on the painting from his head: responding to what he sees, adjusting here and there, and perhaps changing the lighting or position of the subject.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Then, rinse and repeat until satisfied... but this is the funny thing, my friend Alexander Rokoff once asked Odd how he knew when a painting was finished. To which he replied:</div><br /><div></div><br /><div><br /><blockquote>"In the beginning you find the <em><strong>likeness</strong></em>. Many painters can find the likeness, but this is not enough. You must destroy the likeness to find the <em><strong>essence</strong></em>, which few are able to find. But, when you have found the essence, you must destroy it also, in order to find <em><strong>that which is beyond words</strong></em>. Only then can I be satisfied. Even then, it is not enough. I will work the painting again and again until I am even more satisfied, and this may continue for years. I think the painting is never finished, but some day I must move on so that I do not become crazy." </blockquote></div><br /><div>I'm sorry that I must leave you with perhaps more questions than answers. Much of this knowledge is simply hands on, and can only be acquired through experience and genuine searching. But, if you've come here looking for the secrets and find this article daunting instead, don't loose heart. There is inspiration here as well. Consider this quote by Charles Dubois, one of the most profound quotes I've ever heard, and one that resonates with me on the deepest level: </div><br /><div><br /><blockquote>"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to give up who you are for who you can become" </blockquote></div><br /><div>For me, this quote embodies the essence of painting, and the essence of life. No, in fact, it embodies much more, even - it embodies <em><strong>that which goes beyond words</strong></em>. And that is something words and paint can sometimes do. And that is why, in painting as in life; through all the struggles and failures, we continue intrepidly on.</div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-48257577408981812332011-01-22T06:24:00.001-08:002011-01-23T02:13:47.369-08:00Sublime or Shameless: Facebook Censors Nude Paintings<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSurAWhAB_RExmY2cABRffPq35DWiCHhegyfRBObsgUxlVzyWgofbMD59mr93l0AEnL9S7Kj9NPewxFltWhj36ZKVIf2R67nhyphenhyphenHdPuH1J3WoXTqnvlZF-y62t5QZfkC3cTVJoJGPWOYgi-/s1600/Look+at+Me.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565016000172332786" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 316px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSurAWhAB_RExmY2cABRffPq35DWiCHhegyfRBObsgUxlVzyWgofbMD59mr93l0AEnL9S7Kj9NPewxFltWhj36ZKVIf2R67nhyphenhyphenHdPuH1J3WoXTqnvlZF-y62t5QZfkC3cTVJoJGPWOYgi-/s400/Look+at+Me.jpg" border="0" /></a>The question of freedom of expression vs. censorship is an old one, and a topic that has again reared its ugly head with the controversy and subsequent arrest of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange">Julian Assange</a>, over certain top secret government documents being released on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks">Wikileaks</a>. I think we can all agree that it is not the place of the state to limit political speech, and it is certainly arguable that in order to hold political officials accountable in a representative democratic republic, this kind of information must be available to the public. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#990000;">And yet</span></span> at some point there is a line where certain information may endanger innocent lives and a very difficult compromise must be made.... or must it? <div><br /></div><div>But, it's not my niche, nor is it my intention to definitively answer that question. No, in fact, I have smaller fish to fry. Or bigger fish, depending on how you look at it... well, let's just say "other fish".<br /><div><br /></div><div>Recently, I was the host of an art competition on Facebook organized by Odd Nerdrum. It was the second of four competitions organized by Odd and administrated by three other painters: Odd ran the first one himself. The goal was to highlight the great number of incredible but unknown painters on Facebook, give them a forum to meet each other, to build community and potentially collaborate. At the conclusion of these competitions, we will put together a book.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few weeks ago marked the start of the final Nerdrum Facebook competition holding the theme <a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=691569675&aid=354193">"The Beautiful Nude"</a> consisting of paintings and drawings of nudes. And I bet you can see where this is going. In an article by John Seed in the Huffington Post about an incredibly talented colleague <a href="http://www.danielsprick.com/">Daniel Sprick</a>, entitled <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/when-is-a-nude-ok-on-face_b_586356.html">When is a Nude OK on Facebook</a>, a Facebook administrator was quoted as stating:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;font-size:medium;"><blockquote>Our policy prohibits photos of actual nude people, not paintings or sculptures. We recognize that this policy might in some cases result in the removal of artistic works; however, it is designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for all users.</blockquote></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Yet, the administrators of Facebook have, I'm assuming based on the flags by FB members, deleted many paintings of nudes, including my own piece "Hermetica", even though we took the precaution of including in the rules that submission to the competition must blur or block out any genitalia in order for it to be included in the folder - as a gesture of respect for other Facebook users. Odd himself followed these guidelines, submitting the piece you see above </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ffffff;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">"Look at Me"</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, which I must say is much better in the original state, yet has quite an ironic humor with the censorship bands festooned across the woman's more delicate parts. Nevertheless, over 50 paintings have now been deleted, some that only depicted female breasts, some that actually were already censored, and some that depicted nothing more than a bare back. Yet, others that revealed much more were spared.</span></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>This begs a number of questions: who is flagging this? Why would they "friend" painters of nudes if they found nudes offensive? Further, did they not see that this is an Art competition about the beautiful depiction of the nude? Here are the guidelines listed on the folder:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;">I, Hélène Delmaire, am hosting the final painting competition organised by Odd Nerdrum, "The Beautiful Nude"</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;">"Beauty was executed in 1907. Since then, it has been ostracized as the devil's tool. Now beauty is a subhuman cliche. Perhaps it should be enlightened with mental spirit." - Odd Nerdrum</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;">To enter please post your work on my wall, including title and format. One entry per person. A popular vote will decide the winner. Each "like" will count as one vote. The deadline is February 15th. After this date the number of pictures will be narrowed down by number of votes and a final vote will take place over a two week period.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;">Important note : In order to respect facebook policies and help the contest run smoothly, please blur out genitals or crop your painting accordingly. If not, your image will not be added to the folder. Images selected for the final book will not be censored, this is simply a measure that must be taken on facebook.</span></div></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,51);font-size:medium;"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div>One could argue that Wikileaks has the potential to compromise national security and endanger innocent lives, but can one make the same argument about paintings of nudes? If people are offended by a painting of a <i>beautiful</i> nude,<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ffffff;"> meaning specifically not pornographic</span></b>, why don't they just not look? Are people afraid that a painting of a nude with censored genitalia is going to pollute their children's minds? Since a large number of Facebook users are under the age of 13, perhaps this is the case. Are these the same people who wouldn't let their children see Michelangelo's <i>David </i>for moral reasons? Is this yet another form of the iconoclasm that Odd Nerdrum mentioned? </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ffffff;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Does it not seem ridiculous that our western culture parades violence and death in front of our eyes as entertainment, but a non-violent, non-pornographic, life affirming nude body, is somehow dangerous? </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="LINE-HEIGHT: 15px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#ffffff;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Why is violence and death perfectly acceptable as popular entertainment, while nudity is not acceptable even as Art?</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="LINE-HEIGHT: 15px;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div>For the moment I'll put my own irritation aside, as well as my own judgements about the relevance of morality regarding aesthetics (which I've written about many times before). I do not define what's appropriate to society, so it's really a moot point. Instead, let's address these questions from a larger perspective. When (if ever) is censorship appropriate? What kind of censorship is appropriate and in what forums? Assuming that censorship is necessary in public places, even if simply because it is agreed upon as being desirable for the political correctness, then where does Facebook fit in to this? What is the purpose of Facebook? Is it just for children and friends? Is it for networking and business?</div><div><br /></div><div>The short and unsatisfying answer is that Facebook is what its users make of it. Yes, it began as a social networking site for college students, evolved into some kind of mega myspace without the obscenity, and in the past year or so has evolved into an incredibly powerful business networking tool. In fact, two of my galleries and several collectors have contacted me through Facebook, and several more through other social networking sites. Yet, other networking sites do not offer the huge audience that Facebook does, simply due to its number of users. But this is a double-edged sword. More users means more exposure (no pun intended), but it also means more diverse opinions and views that may infringe on your own freedom of speech.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am a figurative painter, and as such, I have paintings of nudes, and I have the paintings on my profile. Often a prospective gallery or collector will decide if they like your work based on nothing more than a quick glance, and in the throngs of painters in the world, and the thousands upon thousands of painters on Facebook, you have to have your best work easily viewable to capture their attention. Many of my best paintings depict nudes, so censoring those really limits my ability to have my work seen by those who would appreciate it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Is this evidence of another iconoclasm in our society or is it simply a return to wholesome morality? Is this evidence of a clash of cultures or religious views? Is this an over-reaction to the way our contemporary society and advertisement relegate the nude to unromantic and vulgar kinds of sexuality? Philosophically speaking, is obscenity really a problem? Though I have my own opinions, and personally believe that obscenity certainly can be destructive, and I believe that we should respect people's cultural and religious views even if they clash with ours. And believe that artistic expression should be equally protected. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#990000;">Yet</span>, protecting the rights of one group can inherently impinge on the rights of another, and that other happens to be me. So how do we balance all of this? Is it even possible?</div><div><br /></div><div>I can't answer all of these questions for you, and though John Seed's article so articulately presented an excellent discussion of the topic,<b> and I think raised a very compelling argument <i>on behalf</i> of censorship on Facebook,</b> I don't believe he has categorically answered any of these questions either. I think these are questions that each and every person must ask for themselves. And maybe in a round-about way, that's the answer. If each of us knows where we really stand on this issue, we will better know to address it in our own lives... we can better navigate ourselves to the kinds of places where our own ideals are protected, and where our ideals don't infringe on the ideals of others.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe Facebook is not the place to display our work as figurative painters. But in this difficult economy, and truly at any time, it's hard to accept a limitation on your potential success based solely on a handful of people who don't understand what you're doing. It's hard not to be angry when someone seems to blindly attack the thing that you hold so close to your heart... labeling it vulgar and obscene, when you see it as a thing of beauty and human dignity. You see it as a gift to them, and they see it as a threat. The issue with Facebook seems to be the same as the issue with the work itself: each of us has different definitions of what it is and what is should be... and for now at least, we'll all have to agree to disagree.</div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-17889834137101242962011-01-13T03:35:00.000-08:002011-01-13T03:37:37.848-08:00The Nude Ascending: by Donald Kuspit<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPtYfIJmFOycjV-ct5Ri7OFZlBqQgWmdbNRtIlpP4in23sffuFukJvPOkbqsdtXMxyLipWGso7QtP0WEmltJ1yrvv1jkgiY2wdMeRtbs_2m2kMQW7fy-36FKPLXoTI5qXvXBlAV2mfupA/s1600/duchamp_nude_staircase.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPtYfIJmFOycjV-ct5Ri7OFZlBqQgWmdbNRtIlpP4in23sffuFukJvPOkbqsdtXMxyLipWGso7QtP0WEmltJ1yrvv1jkgiY2wdMeRtbs_2m2kMQW7fy-36FKPLXoTI5qXvXBlAV2mfupA/s400/duchamp_nude_staircase.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5561632080351807778" /></a><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"></p><div style="text-indent: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CCCCCC;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFFFFF;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Ever since</span></b></span> </span></span>she descended Duchamp’s staircase in 1912, the nude has had trouble climbing back up. With one destructive dictatorial gesture, Duchamp undid the beauty she had in antiquity, and, even more nihilistically, her body: Duchamp turned her into a cubo-futurist wind-up toy, a mechanical doll he sardonically manipulated at will. The divine nude of antiquity, her body at once graceful and seductive—an astonishingly seamless merger of the ideal and the real, the transcendent and the erotic, the dignified and the desirable—was gone forever in modernity. No more Aphrodite of Cyrene, ca. 100 B.C., or Aphrodite of Melos, ca. 150-100 B. C., but Archipenko’s 1918 </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Walking Woman</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, with a large hole punched in her flattened torso, wounding and hollowing her, and Picasso’s 1930 </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Seated Woman</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, her body also a hollow construction, not to say a malfunctioning contraption. They are just a few of the female monsters—the avant-gardized woman’s bodies--that seem the sadistic rule in modernity: the female bodies brutally sacrificed on the altar of so-called art.</span></div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><div style="text-indent: 0px;"><br /></div></span></span><p></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">These avant-gardized females are sad excuses for femininity, and suggest the male artist’s troubled masculinity. They convey what the psychoanalyst Wolfgang Lederer called the fear—and finally hatred—of woman. Perhaps her misrepresentation is an attack on the omnipotent phallic woman—Magna Mater—or an expression of castration anxiety. The violence done to her body may be revenge for her power—the power of the model--over the male artist: a way of empowering himself by disempowering her—empowering his art by de-eroticizing her. Or he may be envious of the creative power of her womb—the power to give birth innate to her body--and try to rip it out of her or spoil it with his art, a secondary creativity compared to her primary creativity. Whatever the unconscious reasons for it, the hateful misrepresentation of woman in modern art can be traced back to Baudelaire’s view, in his </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Intimate Journals</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, that “she should inspire horror” because she’s natural rather than artificial, that is, “artful.” Projected into her, this horror made her look horrible—altogether inhuman. She became a container for what Baudelaire acknowledged as his “horror of life.” </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The massacre of the female nude was carried out by an art that lost its innocence when it decided it was more important than human beings—when it abandoned what Harold Rosenberg called “the tradition of the human being as ultimate subject of painting,” more broadly, of art. This “liberation”—for so it was thought to be--made art “modern,” more particularly, “avant-garde.” Privileging art above humanity--severing art’s ties to everyday human life, a declaration of independence from human affairs suggesting a certain contempt for them (thus the avant-garde critic Clement Greenberg’s contempt for politics and religion)—is the gist of avant-gardism. The purification of art was a grandiose act of self-inflation disguised as an assertion of autonomy. It was a self-deception that led to self-defeat: uprooting itself from human experience, art became vacuous and futile, finally only able to “tell the story of its own barren soul,” as Zbigniew Herbert said, “gesticulating in a void” and forfeiting “the possibility of interhuman communication.” </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The avant-gardization of art came to mean its heedless aggrandizement of the lifeworld for its own artworld purposes: they seemed more important than those of the lifeworld. It is no doubt why Duchamp felt free to ride roughshod over the nude, degrading her body into a mechanical device. Programmed to descend the staircase, she is incapable of ascending it again, becoming the goddess she once was, a higher being worshipped by all of humankind as a symbol of its own aspirations. Duchamp’s mechanical nude—emblematic of the de-organization of the human body in modern art in general—belongs in the junkyard. Duchamp’s artistic practice, which involved junking the human figure by dehumanizing it into a machine—confirming his admiration for American plumbing, which is what the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Large Glass, </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1915-23 is all about (and more broadly for technology, as the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Rotary Disks</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, 1920 show)--indicate that when he spoke of enlisting art in the service of mind rather than instinct he meant using instrumental reason to eliminate instinct from art). It is emblematic of what Adorno called the indifference that pervades modern society, a climactic manifestation of its much acknowledged alienation and dehumanizing effect. (It is worth noting that Greenberg thought that “Courbet, the first real avant-garde painter…paint[ed] only what the eye could see as a machine.” Duchamp, it seems, only had eyes for machines, and saw everyone as a machine, preparing the way for Warhol’s remark that he wanted to be a machine. Maybe he was. ) </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">“For me,” Léger wrote, “human figures, bodies, have no more importance than keys or bicycles.” The folly of modernism—its degradation of the human being into just another “plastically valid object…for handling as I choose,” in Léger’s words--is epitomized in this statement. It endorses what Ludwig von Bertalanffy, the founder of General System Theory, called “the model of man as robot.” It has its uses, but it is a fundamental error: man is not a “living machine,” that is, a closed system, automatically functioning in pseudo-autonomy, its mindless insularity creating an effect of self-sufficiency, but a “metabolizing organism,” that is, an open system, inseparable from his environment, which he mindfully and constantly metabolizes in mutually influential intimate interchanges, and thus with no pretense of self-sufficiency. For von Bertalanffy, “the image of man as robot” bespeaks “the zeitgeist of a mechanical and commercialized society.” Its goal is to make “humans ever more into robots or automata,” “engineering” them to serve “pecuniary and political interests.” It is “metaphysics or myth, and its persuasiveness rests only in the fact that it so closely corresponds to the mythology of mass society, the glorification of the machine, and the profit motive as sole motor of progress.” Duchamp misread—wishfully?, ironically?—automatic as autonomy, and Warhol turned himself into a money-making machine, making art--what he called “business art”—to make a profit. It is no doubt why he seems the perfect living machine.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">As though in repudiation of the robot model of human beings in modernity and modern art, the Neo-Expressionist figures of Baselitz, Clemente, and Cucchi, among other painters—noteworthily German and Italian, that is, from countries that had experienced the disastrous consequences of the robotization of human life under Fascism—convey a freshly organic vision of human existence. The figure also returns in the United States, in the imagery of Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman, among others, although it still has a certain robot-like—mannequin-like—appearance, as though it was indifferent to its own humanness, even as their imagery engages the dehumanizing and de-individualizing effect of mass media society by more or less deconstructing and ironicizing it. There is no beauty in the figures of the European Neo-Expressionists or the ironic American “social realists” (as I see them)—or, for that matter in the Neo-Expressionist figures of Eric Fischl and Julian Schnabel (also “socially critical,” if more openly engaged with the all too human pathos in the American lifeworld). The figures of Alex Katz and Philip Pearlstein have what I would all a tendency to beauty, even a certain abstract beauty, a consequence of what might be called their descriptive formalism, that is, their use of modernist means to articulate the figure. All too human beauty had to wait for the post-apocalyptic human beings of Odd Nerdrum. Nerdum is among the key New Old Masters—artists who integrate and re-interpret traditional and modernist methods and iconography to renew and re-assertwhat the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson calls the “human aesthetic” grotesquely mutilated by modernism. The figure has once again come into its own. </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In sum, the nudes in this exhibition repudiate the machine model of the human being and of the human body. They inaugurate a return to the “human aesthetic” that prevailed in art before the modern period, when the mechanical model of the body took over, artists being fascinated by machines that seemed to function more efficiently—and automatically--than bodies. The body is not merely a “plastically valid object” but subjective in import—its “plasticity” is innately subjective: convincing art is not merely a matter of plastic—formal—engineering but of subjective validity. The nude reveals the body ego—the most fundamental and indispensable ego, as Freud said—in all its expressive glory, conveying its unadulterated sensuous and sensual power, in contrast to the clothed body, which is emblematic of the socially controlled and engineered body ego—the body as a social robot, its innate sensuousness and sensuality muted, indeed, denied. The nude cannot be engineered into social conformity, but always remains uncannily nonconformist however ideal and beautiful its form: indeed, idealism and beauty are always nonconformist, even when they seem to conform to reality, as the ideal and beautiful bodies of the ancient Aphrodite do—not despite themselves, but because the ideal and the beautiful always contain the real and ugly, like the piece of dirt that irritates and stresses the oyster into producing an artistic pearl, uncannily irregular and regular at once, and thus dialectically poignant, like the body, which is both raw and refined, instinctive and proportioned, like the human mind. Many of the nudes in this exhibition are amazing pearls of art and life. </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> “Life,” von Bertalanffy writes, “is not a comfortably settling down in pre-ordained grooves of being: at its best, it is </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">élan vital</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, inexorably driven towards a higher form of existence.” The same can be said of art--at least before it lost its </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">élan vital</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, that is, became Duchampian and Warholian, and forgot that its purpose is to celebrate life, overcoming our fear of it by making it seem less strange, and so unconsciously estranging and hateful. The nudes in this exhibition do not comfortably settle down in pre-ordained grooves of art, but convey the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">élan vital</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> of the body, promising the aesthetic perfection of ideal beauty—the sensuous and sensual subtlety of the body sublimated in epitomizing form--without denying the vulnerability of the all too human living flesh. In other words, they are as full of mind as they are ripe with matter. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> By Donald Kuspit</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">written for The Great Nude Invitational, NY, NY, May 2010</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></p>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-34499730674989917122010-11-21T03:33:00.000-08:002010-11-22T03:20:41.404-08:00On Darwin and Esthetics<p><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PktUzdnBqWI?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PktUzdnBqWI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object></p><p>When broaching the subject of beauty, especially in the realm of the arts, people can very quickly go up in arms. Why is this such a contentious subject? Isn't beauty supposed to sooth, to heal? How is it that beauty can divide people, when it's supposed to bring us together? The answer likely goes back as far as the feeling of esthetic pleasure itself. As Denis Dutton describes, at least as far back as the cave paintings 30,000 years ago, at least as far back as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf">Venus of Willendorf</a> 100,000 years ago, but as he suggests, all the way back to paleolithic hand axes, nearly 100,000 years <em><span style="color:#ffffff;">before verbal language</span></em>. Perhaps in some way, our ancestors were attempting to define beauty even then, even if they didn't have the abstract concept to define it.</p><p>There are two primary camps. The dominant theory is that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". That is, beauty is entirely subjective and is either decided only by individual perception, or by culturally learned perspectives, or both. Dutton is an advocate of the other side: that beauty is biologically determined and that we have evolved our sense of beauty due to natural selection. </p><p>His most interesting example are the paleolithic hand axes, which have been found in the thousands all across Europe and Africa. They have been finely crafted and show little or no signs of being used for butchering. So, Dutton hypothesizes that these axes were made for esthetic purposes. </p><p>In the realm of painting, my niche, the argument falls generally along the dividing lines of the abstract vs. realist and the concept vs. the object. I would argue, another false dichotomy. Yes, we can all tell the difference and many people have a preference for one or the other. Both camps argue that their side is more natural and fundamental, and the other only chooses what they like because they were conditioned to choose it by society. And I certainly have an opinion about this - which doesn't fall into one camp categorically, but simply by a degree of shared values. But, that's for the many other articles that I've already written. Suffice to say, both camps seem to have something of the truth and neither side is benefiting from facing each other across the battle field. Just as in politics, we are expending much of our energy trying to win, rather than understanding and problem solving. Just as in politics people are aligning along ideological lines based on an imprecise analytical tool. What is it that they say: "Divide and Conquer"? It seems to me that both sides of this argument have already conquered themselves. </p><p>Personally, I don't think it's necessary to choose one side of this false dichotomy whether in the abstract or in the specific. First of all, there are other possible explanations for the use of hand axes, and though I like the charm of his theory, it's also possible that most of them were used as weapons. Yes, to protect oneself from other proto-humans who might try to steal one's mate or food. For these objects to be useful, one needn't use it for butchering, all that would have been required would have been to simply threaten or cut someone, which wouldn't produce much more wear on the tool. Sorry to be a little cynical, but mankind has been violent towards each other far longer than we know, and it's a bit naive to project our ideal of peace and beauty for all onto our ancestral past. Further, we have to admit that there are other, equally viable explanations, though they may be less elegant and compelling as Dutton's. I'm not writing off his theory, in fact I rather like it; but it seems necessary to introduce a healthy amount of skepticism into the discussion. It's also possible that these hand axes served both purposes: a beautiful symbol of intelligence, skill, and resourcefulness, as well as a means of self-defense. In terms of the general argument regarding genetic vs. culturally defined beauty, objectively speaking, it's equally likely that both theories are true. <strong><span style="color:#000000;">That is, it's likely that <i>the human perception</i> of beauty is determined to some degree by genetic pre-disposition, and that sense of beauty is refined and molded by a layering of other factors such as genetic variation, culturally learned behavior, and the accumulation of individual life experiences.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"> Hence, embracing one does not mean that we must reject the other. I think both give valuable insight and both give value to the esthetic experience.</span></span></strong></p><p><span style="color:#000000;">But, as much as we like to think it, we are not so different from our flint carving ancestors. Fundamentally, our DNA is the same. And as we likely did then, today we do have a tendency to categorize things. We are hardwired to see patterns in complex and seemingly random data- whether it's there or not. We like to find order in chaos. We like to create abstract principles such as good and evil, light and darkness.... this is both a useful tool for understanding, and a cloudy lens which can distort our perception. But, you know, this is the beauty of it. This is part of the joy of being human.</span></p>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-30572017783683126592010-10-05T03:30:00.000-07:002011-01-25T06:19:20.620-08:00The Sustainable Studio<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCmitge8VeqaA2D3myaL1HXhKOEJmcyYAIWRxlWLbk2Amv9BbMYTaEsCGiP-rNBZRtHL7fMakl7b4FRHlDZ7Iznnyz4kJIu8sUThX1mTLuT6y7-iRZgvka8XGI6Sy1IKtEOc1PvfgQSVs/s1600/Hermetica.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524510241237113282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 316px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCmitge8VeqaA2D3myaL1HXhKOEJmcyYAIWRxlWLbk2Amv9BbMYTaEsCGiP-rNBZRtHL7fMakl7b4FRHlDZ7Iznnyz4kJIu8sUThX1mTLuT6y7-iRZgvka8XGI6Sy1IKtEOc1PvfgQSVs/s400/Hermetica.jpg" border="0" /></a><em>Hermetica</em> Oil on Linen 46" x 60"</div><br /><br />Whether or not you agree with the conclusions of climate change science (and I certainly do), we can all agree that our studio practices as artists can be very toxic. With the vapors from solvents, carcinogenic heavy metals in pigments, chemical dryers; even a simple painting studio holds many dangers to ourselves and especially to children and pets. It also has larger economic and environmental effects that I choose to take into consideration.<br /><br /><br />With this in mind, I've set out to reduce the toxicity of my studio (in the interest of my health) as well as the environmental impact of my studio practice as a painter. Over the past two years,I've developed and implemented a few points that will help reduce your risk of cancer, put more money in your wallet, support your local economy (when possible), and even reduce your carbon footprint. Of course, your own system should be adjusted to your working methods and your aesthetic philosophies, as I have had done, but even a little change can make a difference. Above all, I don't suggest that we should feel that we need to compromise our work or our creative vision, but it turns out there are so many things we can do without effecting the quality of our work and our working process, that that idea needn't even be on the table.<br /><br /><br />1. Oil Paint: Since my work is very inspired by the old masters, I really enjoy the color harmonies of working within a limited palette. So, it's no sacrifice for me to use only earth pigments such as yellow ochre (I use yellow brown - much more yellow than it sounds), mars black, venetian red, etc... and instead of using lead white (which has it's own wonderful qualities) I prefer to use Sennelier titanium white. It's non-toxic (just don't spread it on your toast every morning) and dries faster, both qualities that I prefer. As you can see in the painting above, I find that with a little knowledge of color theory, I can get a broad range of color, as saturated or as muted as I need. Also, because I often use my fingers and can't paint with gloves, it's nice to know that I'm not absorbing anything through my skin.<br /><p>A few added bonuses are that earth pigments tend to be cheaper than modern pigments and they have a proven track record of lasting a very long time (even cave paintings 40,000 years ago!). I prefer to buy locally made paints when I can. For instance, in NYC, Vasari, Robert Doak, Williamsberg, and Kremer pigments make excellent paints, by hand. Earth pigments require less processing, therefore less energy, less shipping, less manufacturing, and buying locally reduces the amount of shipping necessary as well as supports the local economy. For me this is a perfect solution.</p><p>2. I stretch linen canvases myself and make my own <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2009/06/concept-to-composition-part-2-odd.html">ground </a>out of Blanc de Medeun and linseed oil. It's an incredibly strong surface and is far superior than any factory made ground or gesso. This gives me more control over the dimensions of the composition, the surface, and more man power usually means less machine power. Two birds with one stone!</p><p>3. Recycle old clothes and cut them into pieces to use as painting rags.</p><p>4. The biggest issue I've had is with solvents. The vapors can be harmful and disposal is tricky. For my medium (just stand oil and turp), I find that I can't replace old fashioned turpentine. I've tried mineral spirits, turpenoid, gamsol, etc... and it just doesn't have the same quality and all of these still release vapors, even if you can't smell them. However, I've discovered a solvent produced from soy that has no vapors, is completely non-toxic, bio-degradable, and works quite well: <a href="http://www.soysolv.com/">SoySolv</a>. I've known both painters and printmakers who love this product. Since I'm in Europe, the lack of availability and cost of shipping would be prohibitive for me, but for people in the states, this might be a good solution.</p><p><span style="color:#cc0000;">Update</span>: At the suggestion of my good friend <a href="http://www.rokoffstudio.com/rs2.asp">Alexander Rokoff</a>, I've begun cleaning my brushes with Safflower oil. I've been able to substantially reduce the amount of turpentine I use and an added benefit is that it conditions and preserves the bristles so they stay soft and supple for around two weeks. Additionally, I save time on clean-up because I don't have to wash my brushes with soap and water every time I use them. </p><p>5. For drawing supplies, I've found that <a href="http://www.strathmoreartist.com/">Strathmore</a> makes a paper which is manufactured completely with renewable energy. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><a href="http://www.legionpaper.com/">Legion Paper</a> sells several papers that are tree-free and chlorine-free, produced with solar, wind, or water power.</span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2pxfont-size:medium;" >You can recycle your old or second rate drawings and make your own paper. In fact, recycling is not such a new concept: during the Renaissance, painters and draughtsmen would reuse their old drawings to make rag paper out of them (originally made from rags). Though, it was because of the great expense of fine paper and not for environmental reasons, it was a common practice for hundreds of years. <a href="http://www.ehow.com/how_6132991_make-rag-paper.html">Paper making.</a></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2pxfont-size:medium;" >This is just my studio practice, but the ideas of sustainability have been applied by artists working with nearly every medium. Here are some very interesting and <a href="http://www.greenmuze.com/art.html">innovative solutions</a> that others have come up with.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2pxfont-size:medium;" >If you have any ideas you'd like to add or suggest, I'd love to hear them. And if you've already made some innovations in your own studio practice, please share your work.</span></p>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-23741860535072819972010-09-13T01:52:00.001-07:002011-01-25T01:42:23.269-08:00On Kitsch and Politics: a Brief History<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7Zo-mCrPLg4DxB7EjIb-R8KwgvPnHqAWqWZJjTlj77ZlXwk_0XtGB4L7zRdtUS_5ZCPDmFb0H1SHSNUddJeCH02IaSjMU-R9pTLEcBwpUVfezzzGkgmpAKDA8alufCxS-Uo5bvFqDQQn/s1600/les_miserables.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516360909486160146" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 195px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 291px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm7Zo-mCrPLg4DxB7EjIb-R8KwgvPnHqAWqWZJjTlj77ZlXwk_0XtGB4L7zRdtUS_5ZCPDmFb0H1SHSNUddJeCH02IaSjMU-R9pTLEcBwpUVfezzzGkgmpAKDA8alufCxS-Uo5bvFqDQQn/s400/les_miserables.jpg" border="0" /></a>To me, the unwritten history is much more fascinating than the written. This history has already been recorded, though the particular connections I make have not, as far as I'm aware. We can only begin to piece together such connections from what has been handed down to us, but we can never be certain. Likewise, we can never even be certain of our written and certified accounts of history, for all history is written by the victor. All we can do is determine the facts as best we can, and try to stay objective and logical.<br /><br /><div>It's amazing how a simple definition can change the coarse of history. A slight shift in one person's perception, the equivalent of a small stone, can, over time, avalanche into a change of global proportions. There is a danger that when we lose sight of a term's origins, we can find ourselves on a speeding bus without a driver. It is so with the origins of the dichotomy of "Art" and "Kitsch". Certainly, dichotomies are not representative of truths, but they do effect our perception, actions, and history. Like in all great origin stories, this one is also filled with drama, deceit, hope, idealism, revolt, and murder.</div><br /><div>The origin of the term "Kitsch", at least partially depends on politics and timing. One can say there is a direct correlation between the upheavals in Europe during the middle of the 19th century, known as "The Springtime of the People's", and the proliferation of the term. In 1848, Europe was gripped in the throws of peasant revolutions. As a result, France elected Napoleon III as president of the Second Republic and other countries also established their own civil governments. The only major European countries who did not experience a national revolution during this period were Great Britain, the Kingdom of Netherlands, The Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The origins of these revolutions are many and varied, but it is relevant to point out that The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, and certainly some of the revolting groups fought under the banner of communism.</div><br /><div>In the 19th century, painting as well as the other arts held a much more influential role in society than we can imagine today. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862), which met universal hostility from the likes of Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Taine, who derided it for being sentimental, vulgar, artificial, and containing "neither truth nor greatness", nevertheless became so popular with the public that the issues raised in the book were soon on the agenda of the French National Assembly. Hugo subsequently became deeply immersed in politics, gave support to the new "Second Republic" and when Napoleon III established an anti-parliamentary constitution in 1851, Hugo denounced him as a traitor, leading Hugo to be forced into exile. </div><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#ffffff;">"The</span><span style="color:#ffffff;"> history of all hitherto existing society is the history of </span><a title="Class struggle" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_struggle"><span style="color:#ffffff;">class struggles</span></a><span style="color:#ffffff;">." - Marx</span></div><br /><div>I believe Marx was incorrect in attributing so much to class struggles, but, in this tumultuous period, it was unquestionably true.</div><br /><div>The first known use of the term "Kitsch" is hard to determine. There is significant evidence that it had been used as early as the 1850 World's Fair in London, but it definitely came into popular use in the 1860's in Munich: describing popular, cheap, and low quality drawings and prints which were being produced in great quantities to meet the demands of the new class of Bourgeoisie that arose out of the revolutions. Given these dramatic events, it is natural that the remaining aristocracy (in London and elsewhere) would see the world they knew tumbling down all around them, would see their friends and family being executed throughout Europe, and fear that this too could take place on their own soil. It's natural that they (consciously or unconsciously) reacted to this by amplifying a disdain for the attributes and taste of this Nouveau riche, which was already present, but accelerated by cheap decor flooding the markets. It is natural that they would react by emphasizing the obvious hierarchy of "Art" over the commodities of the people: "Kitsch". Am I saying that they actively used this as propaganda to suppress peasant revolt? I don't know, though it is a possibility. But, this is only the beginning, and we're still a long way from the present definition of "Kitsch".</div><br /><div>"There is a philosophical background to kitsch criticism, however, which is largely ignored. A notable exception to the lack of such debate is Gabrielle Thuller, who points to how kitsch criticism is based on <a title="Immanuel Kant" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant">Immanuel Kant</a>'s philosophy of aesthetics. Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric". Thuller's point is supported by Mark A. Cheetham, who points out that kitsch "is his <a title="Clement Greenberg" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg">Clement Greenberg</a>'s barbarism". A source book on texts critical of kitsch underlines this by including excerpts from the writings of Kant and Schiller. One, thus, has to keep in mind two things: a) Kant's enormous influence on the concept of "<a title="Fine art" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_art">fine art</a>" (the focus of Cheetham's book), as it came into being in the mid to late <a title="18th century" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_century">18th century</a>, and b) how "sentimentality" or "<a title="Pathos" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathos">pathos</a>", which are the defining traits of kitsch, do not find room within Kant's "aesthetical indifference".<br /></div><br /><div>Kant also identified genius with originality. One could say he implicitly was rejecting kitsch, the presence of sentimentality and the lack of originality being the main accusations against it. When originality alone is used to determine artistic genius, using it as a single focus may become problematic when the art of some periods is examined. In the Baroque period, for example, a painter was hailed for his ability to imitate other masters, one such imitator being <a title="Luca Giordano" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Giordano">Luca Giordano</a>. </div><div></div><div></div><div>Another influential philosopher writing on fine art was <a title="Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel">Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel</a>, who emphasized the idea of the artist belonging to the spirit of his time, or <a title="Zeitgeist" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist">zeitgeist</a>. As an effect of these aesthetics, working with emotional and "unmodern" or "archetypical" motifs was referred to as kitsch from the second half of the <a title="19th century" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century">nineteenth century</a> on. Kitsch is thus seen as "false". As Thomas Kulka writes, "the term kitsch was originally applied exclusively to paintings", but it soon spread to other disciplines, such as <a title="Music" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music">music</a>. The term has been applied to painters, such as <a title="Ilya Repin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Repin">Ilya Repin</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch#cite_note-4">[5]</a> and composers, such as <a title="Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky">Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky</a>, whom <a title="Hermann Broch" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Broch">Hermann Broch</a> refers to as "genialischer kitsch", or "kitsch of genius".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch#cite_note-5">[6]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch#cite_note-6">[7]</a>" - From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">(Of course, like every form of media, we must always be critical of our sources. And arguably Wikipedia is not the authority as far as encyclopedias are concerned. But, I have done some fact checking and this passage seems to be accurate as far as I can tell. Though I encourage you, if you are interested, to investigate yourself.)</span> </div><br /><div>The word became popularised in the 1930's by Theador Adorno, Hermann Broch, and Clement Greenberg, all of whom attempted to define avant garde and kitsch as polar opposites. As with the origin of the term, this re-definition took place during a turbulent and violent era: Hitler was rising to power in Germany, Stalin held Russia in an iron grip, and their propaganda was filled with illusionistic depictions of nude, athletic youths. Their films depicted beauty and sincerity with a saccharine sweetness and so it was an easy task for Adorno, Broch, and Greenberg to twist the populist definition of kitsch into a deceitful tool of totalitarianism. During the following years, WWII, and the communist scare during the cold war, modernism and then abstract expressionism, emerged as the champion of the avant garde and the very symbol of American capitalism. See: <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2010/03/cia-and-art-conspiracy.html">CIA and the Art Conspiracy</a>.</div><br /><div>Interestingly enough, perhaps due to the growth of the middle class and globalization; during the latter half of the 20th century, and especially with the popularity of Post Modernism in the 1980's, the lines separating Kitsch and high Art again became blurred. Many standard political associations became reversed and representational work which was labeled by the critics as kitsch, such as that of Andrew Wyeth, Odd Nerdrum, and others, was increasingly supported and collected by wealthy conservatives in America and internationally. Simultaneous with the development of camp taste (think of Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami) in the 1980's, there arose a growing support of representational works among American conservatives which lead to the rise of the <a href="http://www.artrenewal.org/">Art Renewal Center</a>, among other groups, hoping to re-establish the representational tradition. Representational work is now being largely supported and collected by what is often referred to as "Old money" as well as many in the middle class and is increasingly being embraced by people of many political leanings. "High Art" is, as always, collected and supported by the wealthy elite and the public institutions that they often contribute to. Though, I'd like to point out an interesting chimera: whereas, many contemporary artists such as Koons, Murakami, and Hirst produce (via factory studios) and sell their work in a very capitalist manner, the content of the work is based on a relativism (equality of all things) which is philosophically related to Marx, (see Kant and Hegel) through Derrida, Foucault, and other post-modern philosophers. </div><br /><div>Thus, today we have a confusing array of definitions for both "Art" and "Kitsch", each carrying their own set of associations. But "Art" as defined by the most influential artists and institutions of our day, is only conceptual. Consider Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Christo.... their work is considered only to be the idea, their persona the focus, and the object is simply a marketable by-product. We have the camp of Koons and Murakami, the melodramatic <a href="http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/books/minter_white.html">New Kitsch</a> of Marilyn Mentor and Charlie White, and of course Odd Nerdrum's definition of "Kitsch", introduced in his book "On Kitsch", and which is analogous to the term "Ars" used in Greco-Roman culture as synonymous with humanism, skill, and beauty. This is the same concept used during the Renaissance, Baroque, and up until the beginning of the 19th century and is often the same concept that much of the general public today still refers to as "Art". </div><div></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#ffffff;">"Ars longa, vita brevis." - Hippocrates</span></div><br /><div>As this history reveals, there are no fixed political ideologies that are necessarily fixed to these terms. They shift and evolve with the times, and are re-defined according to the politics, philosophy, economics, and fashion. They are as malleable as any other word because they are simply abstract ideals. Like all dichotomies this too is only useful in as far as it assists in analysis. Beyond that, neither idea absolutely leads to the "truth", and often - just as in contemporary politics - absolute polar ideals such as this can warp the facts and obscure our view of what's before us. Everything we see is colored and distorted by the beliefs that we hold. This is sometimes beneficial, and sometimes dangerous. Where does this history lead us? How does this apply to the questions of our lives? I'll leave that for you to decide. The place to begin is to question our own assumptions.</div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-28470586747531327132010-09-07T03:29:00.000-07:002010-09-07T09:26:24.513-07:00Takashi Murakami at Le Château de Versailles<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir7aurXROPNOjcpPMOdqz0t-2klUbHfCwoPIgfdpaH4pW3SLNW6qZq19Pd8-9hmU3ffYwl7Q1-E393pE7rbwTyEkkU-I_6b7bvujAguk_J2Nk2qQDeAftMXE6chcDYy_IfgUXuWqKp2GoL/s1600/lebalnegre__Takashi_Murakami_at_the_Ch_teau_de_Versailles_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir7aurXROPNOjcpPMOdqz0t-2klUbHfCwoPIgfdpaH4pW3SLNW6qZq19Pd8-9hmU3ffYwl7Q1-E393pE7rbwTyEkkU-I_6b7bvujAguk_J2Nk2qQDeAftMXE6chcDYy_IfgUXuWqKp2GoL/s400/lebalnegre__Takashi_Murakami_at_the_Ch_teau_de_Versailles_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514127232434578162" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">T</span>here seems to be a trend among contemporary pop artists lately: attempting to inseminate their image into the past - perhaps, with the goal of somehow giving some historical relevance to their work which extends beyond vapid, desultory references to pop culture and 20th century Art history. Perhaps they are subconsciously aware that if you remove all the context, their work has little, if anything to say on its own. Thus, because it only embodies what is projected upon it, speaks only to its own time. It is nothing more than a manifestation of the particular biases and fashions of its day and when these biases and fashions change, will one day be merely a name and a picture in an Art history book. It will likely be regarded with embarrassment in much the same way we look back upon an old year book photograph of ourselves in our "Miami Vice" phase .</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmx6v0PzbNZEqEDUc6NbIctuOSv_fNHUZcpWdulWAtAE9Z5BF9-xncElqQCldV2KR5hMQcBjJo3JRoAlsv4C1YU67rZNa4l5EkK54iSidzqyF5zaxa8344mperWlDQH1x_bz1WZJ0uzcDF/s1600/miami-vice.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><br /></span></a></span><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmx6v0PzbNZEqEDUc6NbIctuOSv_fNHUZcpWdulWAtAE9Z5BF9-xncElqQCldV2KR5hMQcBjJo3JRoAlsv4C1YU67rZNa4l5EkK54iSidzqyF5zaxa8344mperWlDQH1x_bz1WZJ0uzcDF/s1600/miami-vice.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; "></span></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmx6v0PzbNZEqEDUc6NbIctuOSv_fNHUZcpWdulWAtAE9Z5BF9-xncElqQCldV2KR5hMQcBjJo3JRoAlsv4C1YU67rZNa4l5EkK54iSidzqyF5zaxa8344mperWlDQH1x_bz1WZJ0uzcDF/s1600/miami-vice.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"></span></a><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 374px; height: 400px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmx6v0PzbNZEqEDUc6NbIctuOSv_fNHUZcpWdulWAtAE9Z5BF9-xncElqQCldV2KR5hMQcBjJo3JRoAlsv4C1YU67rZNa4l5EkK54iSidzqyF5zaxa8344mperWlDQH1x_bz1WZJ0uzcDF/s400/miami-vice.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514126928505649986" /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">Like his American counter-part, Jeff Koons in 2008, Takashi Murakami has mounted an exhibition of his opulent, pop-psychedelia in the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">C</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 15px; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">hâteau</span></span> de Versailles in France. And in some ways it's befitting for the two Art stars to exhibit here. Like the French Aristocracy before them, both Koons and Murakami have built their empires on the backs of the lowly peasant workers, exploiting their skills, resources, conspiring with other aristocrats, and manipulating markets. And Murakami's work, unlike Koons' more minimalist sculpture, does meet the copious extravagance of Versailles with its own exaggerated theatricality. But the accord ends there. The architecture and frescoes of Versailles, even with their Rococo superficiality, display a relative sea of content and gravitas compared with Murakami.</div></div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, I can only glean a single message actually conveyed by the work itself, glistening beneath the surface of the tepid kiddie-pool that is Murakami's exhibition:</div><div><br /></div><div>Let them eat cake.</div></div></div></div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6652275538457823708.post-45901504495719103822010-08-30T03:02:00.001-07:002010-09-09T07:16:00.253-07:00Judging Art: Part II<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVyffj4hTCQHSwVB74cEDka7eRYexMae2LoxM4A09j2-cmJ_jomt0V-bOqSjGeY15qyR32K_bdMVQ4DBvzx-s-Due4fj7nG4wlhQpZUDuEhrNlnVVfJzDtpanxibKLuyUHOdmGhBaGvxg/s1600/atlas-shrugged.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514876377056760754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjVyffj4hTCQHSwVB74cEDka7eRYexMae2LoxM4A09j2-cmJ_jomt0V-bOqSjGeY15qyR32K_bdMVQ4DBvzx-s-Due4fj7nG4wlhQpZUDuEhrNlnVVfJzDtpanxibKLuyUHOdmGhBaGvxg/s400/atlas-shrugged.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="center"><span style="color:#ffffff;">"The primary purpose of Art is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man". - Ayn Rand</span> </div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">I offer for your contemplation the long awaited sequel to <a href="http://artbabel.blogspot.com/2010/04/judging-art-almost-objectively.html">Judging Art: Almost Objectively</a>. For you gentle reader, I would like to propose a small suggestion. Find someplace comfortable, select a beverage of your choice (I like a subtle Burgundy or a Chimay) and print this article out. This is not light reading and after a while the computer screen may strain your eyes. And I personally prefer the light reassuring sensation of paper in my hands.</span><br /></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">For my Kitsch colleagues, please see my first article to see how and why I'm using the term "Art". </span></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">Since the publication of Part I, I have received a great number of compelling responses, both positive and critical which have lead me further down this path of inquiry than I had before expected. For this I am grateful! Though I don't propose to have solved these questions by any means, at least for me, the ideas that I will express seem to shed some light on as of late dusty and un-touched corners of philosophy and consciousness. Indeed, I think that the advances in our understanding of human consciousness play a big part in revealing the basis behind the aesthetic experience. Perhaps science will never completely explain the intricacies of human consciousness, the question of the spirit, the aesthetic experience, but it can and does bring us half-steps closer. All the while uncovering two questions for every one that it answers - a process I think quite worthwhile. In that vein, I've embarked upon a path of research, debate, testing my theories with colleagues. And so, I look upon this as a work in progress and hope that the questions which arise will help us as artists: to foster our own creative and technical process, and as individuals I hope it will result in some greater understanding of these beautiful and strange creatures we call fellow human beings.</span></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">I have lately been reading a fascinating explication of Ayn Rand's esthetic theory, entitled <a href="http://www.aristos.org/editors/booksumm.htm">What Art Is</a>. What Rand (and the brilliant authors) have illuminated for me, is that there are several levels of meaning communicated in a work of Art. As obvious as this may seem, the understanding of the nature of these levels illuminates something about the creative process, about the nature of communication, and even about the nature of consciousness. And it accounts partially for how and why each viewer can and will read so many different things from the same piece.</span><br /></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">The first level, being closest to the individual and the most intimate and emotive form of communication, is the inherent content that a successful work communicates - what I discussed in part I. Briefly, this base-line communication derives from our shared genetic predisposition and the part of our life experiences that are universal. Yes, I've heard the standard post-modernist response to the "universal" argument enough times to know what many of you are perhaps thinking. <span style="color:#000000;">This content is context ALSO and is not really in the work itself!</span> Of course, <em>objectively speaking</em>, if you were an alien intelligence, gazing at Vermeer's "Girl with the Pearl Earring", you would not see this human meaning as inherent to the work, you would not likely feel the gentle significance of her slightly parted lips, the posture of her shoulder, the glint of light upon the pearl, the graphic contrast between her form and the impenetrable darkness around her. And so it would also be context projected upon it by humans. </span><br /></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">But, as fascinating as this ET scenario is ... (what would such a being think of our Art?), this brings up an important point, so please bear with me for a moment while I temporarily digress. </span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Have you ever felt as if you were only half awake? I certainly have. And it seems like I experience "existence" more when I halt the verbal background noise that's always bounding around in my head and I simply focus upon my senses. This is one of the reasons I love painting. It is the point where communication becomes communion: the point where the moment of the artist transcends space and time and meets the moment of the individual viewer. We'll return to this eternal moment later (or perhaps we've never left?). But for now, we have to start at the beginning, for the nature of meaning in Art is directly linked to our consciousness.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Consider the question: "do I exist?"</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Seriously, ask yourself this question. If your answer is "yes, of course I exist!" I will kindly ask you to prove it. Oh, don't worry, you don't have to prove it to me. You merely have to prove it to yourself. However, your most reliable method of proof is your sensory input, which under many different circumstances might not be trustworthy - especially since it's meaningless until it's interpreted by the brain. Your entire reality exists in you brain. Everything you see, smell, hear, and touch. Maybe nothing exists at all! Woah, stop there! Now, we're going down a slipper slope, one which I've ventured down before, and I must say it led me through several of <a href="http://www.worldofdante.org/maps_main.html">Dante's circles of hell</a>. Yet, somehow, I was able to crawl my way back out. But, if you make the necessary assumption that you do indeed exist, the next questions are: "Does the world around me exist?", "Does everyone else exist?" Ultimately, we cannot absolutely prove anything. So, we have to make a fundamental assumption based on the information we have. Yes, we all exist. Great, I'm glad we cleared that up!</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvTB7aG6NsgeA4oVWMblNQojBu-6vfrYEmkySGOyfdEkVUaseTm6TnbySo1DiW752tipU2qeUUGhEnsborOeORVlaLN_Y4WxEFLpwo1RY5GsYea1AcSzrQYXoE5JFc2_l8iG_pPylIQ-l/s1600/dante-121009.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514870589017367010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 233px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvTB7aG6NsgeA4oVWMblNQojBu-6vfrYEmkySGOyfdEkVUaseTm6TnbySo1DiW752tipU2qeUUGhEnsborOeORVlaLN_Y4WxEFLpwo1RY5GsYea1AcSzrQYXoE5JFc2_l8iG_pPylIQ-l/s400/dante-121009.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">We all exist, and we are human beings. Art is made by human beings for human purposes and we have to make certain base assumptions if we are to get anywhere with the question of objectivity/subjectivity. If you remove the human content, it is no longer Art but simply a physical object: paper, scribbles (which the mind may interpret as words), paint on canvas, the motion of a body, etc... The thing that makes a material object into Art is the human gaze, the human mind, the human spirit. This is one thing that much of the Conceptual Art world understands, but what they're missing is the other necessary component. Without the act of communication, the concept is not Art.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span></div><div></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">As we move away from inherent content, things become a bit more ambiguous. Subjectivity plays an incrementally greater role. So, the second level of meaning is intermediate between inherent content and projected context. I will call it: individual context. This is meaning that draws from individual and social experiences in life that are common to all cultures, but not universal, though we all understand and respond to them in some way: family relationships, friends, hardship or privilege, loss, getting married or having a lover, parenthood, etc...</span><br /></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">The third level of meaning, the most conceptual, is projected context. This is meaning that is projected onto the work by the viewer, based upon symbolism and iconography which are culturally specific and are learned: ideas that are absorbed from our specific kind of education (whatever form that may take), specific environment, exposure to the media and advertising, biases and views that relate to the time period in which we live, philosophical/religious/political ideologies, etc....</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Related to this description of the different <em>ways content can be communicated</em> by a piece, I think it's important to make a distinction about the <em>kinds of content </em>which may be communicated. I often hear from the Conceptualist Contemporary Art faithful, something which can be summed up by a quote.</span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"> </span></span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><br /><br /></div></span></span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><div align="center"><blockquote><p><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">"Man is by nature a political animal". </span></span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">- Aristotle</span></span></span></span></span></p></blockquote></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Many of them take this to mean that all human action and communication is political action and communication - an idea that was championed by Marx. This assumption leads </span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">much of the contemporary Art world to believe that a work is "relevant", only if it is knowledgeable of this "fact", and addresses political concerns of the time. But, there are two major problems with this assumption. One is that Aristotle's <em>polis,</em> the city state, is a different and less complex form of politics than our current conception of politics (a discussion I'll leave for later). The second, and most important problem, is that only a portion of the human experience is political. Shall we say that Art shall be only for political people? </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Not everything is about the struggle for power. Not every action is duplicitious. We may have friends simply because it pleases us. In fact, on a larger scale, Democracies or Republics function only as well as the people understand and communicate with each other on an individual level. Political content is only one kind of content and is often very time specific. So, if a work does not have other, inherent or human meaning, it will simply become a historical footnote. When those particular concerns have changed, as they always have and always will, the work will no longer have much of anything "relevant" to say to the viewer. If you peruse through collections of the finest art magazines and books from the first half of the 20th century, you will inevitably discover many artists who were praised at that time as among the greatest of history, far greater than the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Munch, Pollock. And yet, most of us who were not alive at that time, even with degrees in Art history, have never heard mention of them. Painters like: Bazaine, Da Silva, Bissier, Pasmore, or names that I recall coming across once or twice: Vasarely, Hartung, Soulages. The re-writing of what is important in history is ever constant.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">Whether inherent or contextual meaning, there are three types of human content which are related to the levels of meaning mentioned above, that may be communicated in a work of Art: individual, social, and political. Individual content derives from our individual experiences, both subjective and those that are universal. Social content has to do with our relationships with family, friends, lovers, co-workers. Political content pertains to power structures within and between large groups, ideologies, dogmas, ... and because of this political content most often takes the form of propaganda. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">From my perspective, it seems like the most successful work focuses primarily on individual content and often social content. It can include political content, but this cannot be its only meaning if it is to most effectively fulfil its purpose. Regardless of what culture, era, or part of the world you call home, and regardless of your political/religious/philosophical views; a work that speaks poetically and profoundly about our shared human experience will always speak directly to you.</span> </div><div><br />Certainly, there are many learned biases, or perceptive lenses which may obscure, distort, or clarify one's ability to apprehend and experience a work. These are examples of unconscious projected context and are not uniformly bad or good. Sometimes they clarify and sometimes they simply blind us from seeing what's in front of us. Thus, it helps to be conscious of our biases and learn how to discard those we don't feel are helping, and perhaps enhance those that we feel are useful. Which is a fundamental role that education plays, and why each person should be actively engaged in their education, rather than just allowing it to be pressed upon them. </div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">So, this brings us full circle. What is it that makes a work "better" than another? Is it skill? Is it emotion? Is it a new or compelling idea? As I said before, yes and no. It is all of these things.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><strong></strong></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><strong>On intuitive meaning vs. cognitive meaning</strong></span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"> </span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></div></span><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><blockquote><p align="center"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">"Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were precepts" </span><br /></span></p><br /><p align="center"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;color:#ffffff;">- Ayn Rand</span></span></p></blockquote><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">In order for the work to communicate most effectively, it must do so on an intuitive level so that, as Rand explains above, the work can be immediately grasped, pre-verbally, before any cognition has taken place, as if it was perceived and sensed. This sensing, this understanding takes place in the right brain and is akin to the sense of "being" that many spiritual leaders describe during prayer or meditation.</span> </div><div></div><div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">Indeed, Art is of a dual nature. (Or even further, Art is of a pluralist nature). It is not entirely objective, nor is it entirely subjective. Great beauty requires a bit of the sublime. And the truly sublime requires a bit of beauty. Beauty is not just physical, and the sublime is not purely conceptual or even "non-material" in the transcendental right brain sense. This is why I choose to use different terminology: because of how much baggage is associated with the "sublime". Because of Kant, whether or not he intended it, it has become associated with only the "concept" or Plato's "form" within the Art world. But, as you and I know, originally the definition was more about the absence of language, concept... this higher, transcendental state. But, for this reason, the word "sublime" confuses people. </span></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;">I prefer to analyze this in terms of emotional and conceptual content. (See Judging Art Part I)Emotional and Conceptual: this necessitates creativity and skill - I use the term "skill" in a more open minded definition than most realists, and I use the term "creativity" in more open minded sense than the abstract or modern artists. As I've said before, great Art requires three things: intelligence, passion, and skill. What I mean by that is, emotional content, conceptual content, a sufficient skill to communicate the two, and a poetic and creative combination of all three. The great thing is that each artist combines them in different proportions. But, the natural result of the effective combination of these three elements will necessarily be: both the transcendent experience (sorry, I won't call it sublime) that we've been talking about, as well as beauty. This beauty can and is defined in many ways, but I think this transcendent "being" or presence is largely the same in every person because it rests upon our universal humanity. Though some are more practiced at achieving this state than others, as one who meditates is more practiced at achieving a trance -this absense of thought is the frame of mind one must have when <strong>first</strong> viewing the work, or one will not understand the primary point. One can, of course, venture into all forms of context and this is not a fruitless act, but it is additional and not fundamental to the core meaning. This accounts for both the immediate and shared universal response as well as the additional knowledge or experience collected in our unconscious and intuitive mind.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"></span><br /><div><span style="font-family:Tahoma;">I have long wondered why Art often takes the place of religion for some, and now I understand why. It offers a path to the deepest connection to ourselves, to each other. It gives ghostly form to our hopes, dreams, passions, and fears. It is profoundly intertwined with our very consciousness and embodies the manifestation of our most spiritual moments. The greatest work transports us to the moment of its creation, to peer out from beneath the opalescent layers of paint and oil to catch a wavering glimpse of its creator, as if through a dark foggy glass. His moment of creation becomes our own and for a small space, time stands still, it melts away. We meet this soul and feel "this is my brother, my sister, my father or mother... this is me". All of the tragedies and joys that have graced his life, I too share. And what greater means can we have to address the grave problems ahead of us than this bottomless and shared, individual understanding?</span><br /></div><br /><div>Thanks to my friend Michael Guilmet for sharing with me this very pertinent quote:</div><br /><br /><p align="left"><span style="color:#ffffff;">"The revelation of art is not ethics, nor a judgment, nor even humanity as one generally thinks of it. Rather, the revelation is a marveling recognition of the radiant Form of forms that shines through all things. In the simplest terms, I think we might say that when a situation or phenomenon evokes in us a sense of existence (instead of some reference to the possibility of an assurance of meaning) we have had an experience of this kind. The sense of existence evoked may be shallow or profound, more or less intense, according to our capacity or readiness; but even a brief shock (say for example, when discovering the moon over the city roofs or hearing a sharp bird cry at night) can yield an experience of the order of no-mind: that is to say, the poetical order, the order of art. When this occurs, our own reality-beyond-meaning is awakened (or perhaps better: we are awakened to our own reality beyond meaning) and we experience an affect that is neither thought nor feeling but an interior impact. The phenomenon, disengaged from cosmic references, has disengaged ourselves, by the principle, well known to magic by which like conjures like. In fact both magic of art and the art of magic derive from and are addressed to experiences of this order. Hence the power of the meaningless syllables, the mumbo jumbo of magic and the meaningless verbalizations of metaphysics, lyric poetry and art interpretation function evocatively, not referentially; like the beat of the shaman’s drum, not like a formula of Einstein. One moment later and we have classified the experience and may be having utterable feelings that are in the public domain and they will be either sentimental or profound, according to our education. But according to our life, we have had, for an instant, a sense of existence: a moment of unevaluated, unimpeded, lyric life, antecedent to both thought and feeling; such can never be communicated by means of empirically verifiable propositions, but only suggested by art." </span></p><br /><br /><p align="left"><br /><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="color:#ffffff;">- Joseph Campbell </span></span></p><br /><p align="left"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="color:#ffffff;"><br /></p></span></span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000000;">I hope I've left you with more questions than answers.</span></div><br /><br /><div></div></div>New York Cityhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05807506312905707802noreply@blogger.com9