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Sophie Fiennes – Kiefer & Zizek

August 22nd, 2011

  • A Conversation With Sophie Fiennes (OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW)

    The film came about because I had met him on a few occasions through shows; his gallery knew that I liked his work. The gallery and he called me, somewhat spontaneously, saying “Come down to Barjac.” The gallery then called me back and said “He’s leaving Barjac… it’s an amazing moment and it is an extraordinary place. Why don’t you just come and see it?” So, it was a very loose invitation and when I got there I saw this extraordinary place. The filmmaker in me was completely challenged and there were so many possibilities somehow. I had to make a film there.

  • <> 1Kiefer-Sophie
    Anselm Kiefer and Sophie Fiennes

    Her mother’s death galvanised Sophie Fiennes, and now she has produced a brilliant documentary about the artist Anselm Kiefer .. (Times on Line UK)
    Sophie is the sister of the movie star Ralph Fiennes.

  • Lucian Freud R.I.P

    July 21st, 2011

    Lucian_Freud
    Lucian Freud and two childrean
    Lucian Freud dies at 88

    For an artist who has in recent years been selling for $30m for his best portraits, it’s easy to forget how far he fell out of fashion in the 60s and 70s. His highly skilled, original, instantly recognisable, figurative work was eclipsed by the ephemeral stardust of abstract, often unskilled artists…

    A Freud was always distinctively a Freud, with idiosyncratic features. For all my admiration for his work, his noses, for example, tended towards the over-droopy, I would say.
    His work changed, too, over his very long career – a sign of an original, curious artistic mind. (Harry Mount)

    BBC obit (image + a video clip)

    lucian-freud
    Painter’s room

    Esther Freud lucianfreudbellaandesther4
    and her sisiter.. (see two clips of Hiideous Kinky starring Kate Winslet)

    See more photos and paintings here, great collection

    See Caroline (his second wife) and other images

    Max Jacob & Modigliani

    July 11th, 2011


    (Art/Graphics on youtube are by Serge Kantorowicz)

    Max Jacob Amedeo Modigliani-maxjacob by Modigiliani

    Max Jacob July 12 1876
    Amedeo Modigliani July 12 1884
    Max was 8 years older than Modi, they were both born on July 12.

    Anna Akhmatova acrobat as an acrobat by Modi

    Modi, Jeanne and Anna Akhmatova (previous post – read about Anna Akhmatova’s crucial role in Modigliani’s art)

    Jacob (via)
    Painting by Max Jacob, “Orpheus Attacked by the Brigands,” 1928, Philadelphia Museum of Art
    For Jacob, an openly gay apostate Jew, the myth also carried personal significance. When Orpheus loses his wife Eurydice in the Underworld, he renounces women for the love of men, thus providing Jacob with an affirming image of homosexuality from classical antiquity.

    Max called Modigliani Dedo..

    Picasso said: ‘There’s only one man in Paris who knows how to dress and that is Modigliani.’ He didn’t say that as a joke. Modigliani, poor as he was, even to the extent of having to borrow three sous for the underground to go to the literary evenings at the Closerie des Lilas, was not only refined, but had an eclectic elegance. He was the first man in Paris to wear a shirt made of cretonne.

    Max Jacob MaxJacbPIcassoby Picasso (Via )

    1876-1944. Met Picasso in 1901 and for some time shared a studio with him. Afterward, and for many years to follow, he lived three doors away from the artist on the Rue Ravignan. One of the key members of the group that formed around Apollinaire. A painter as well as poet, Jacob lived in extreme poverty, working at all manner of jobs throughout his life. Although born a Jew, he converted to Catholicism in 1915, six years after having a vision of Christ. In 1921 he moved from Paris to the small village of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, close to a Benedictine church, where he remained until his arrest by the Nazis in February 1944. He died the following month in the concentration camp at Drancy. (via)

    Update: Max and Picasso were both so poor they shared the same overcoat, hat and gloves in winter. There was one bed. One went out and used the coat, the other stayed in and used the bed. What resolve! (via email thanks to Janet Paparelli.)

    Bye Cy Twombly

    July 5th, 2011

    Cy Twombly dies in Rome

    The artist, who was living in Italy and had suffered with cancer for several years, was hospitalised a few days ago, according to Eric Mezil.

    Cytwombly1
    Cy Twombly Gallery in Houston in front of the gallery’s largest painting, “Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor.”

    Cy Twombly – April 25, 1928 – July 5, 2011

    Guardian obit

    Edwin Parker “Cy” Twombly Jr was born in Lexington, Virginia. Both his parents came from Maine. His father was a sports instructor and former baseball player whom Twombly admiringly described as still doing back flips at the age of 40: he was known as “Cy” after the legendary pitcher “Cyclone” Young. Twombly inherited his father’s nickname but not his athleticism.

    Obit from Artsbeat NYtimes

    Each line he made, he said, was “the actual experience” of making the line, adding: “It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization.” Years later he described this more plainly. “It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture.”

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    Q & A Cy Twombly with David Sylvester Art In America

    Thicket 1CyThicket

    Wilder Shores of Love (see his sculptures)

    His photographs 1CTwombly2D also here

    See paintings here (Guggenheim 2008)

    Obit by Evan Garza (Huffpo with a nice slideshow)

    Richard III & Brick Dudes

    June 29th, 2011


    It has been a hard days night – Peter Sellers as Laurence Olivier playing Richard III (The Beatles introduced Peter Sellers)

    Richard III at Old Vic – see a slideshow from Laurence Olivier to Kevin Spacey, take a look at an embarrassment of Richards, past and present

    Now is the winter of discontent on youtube – Laurence Olivier <> <> <> Ian McKellen

    Looking for Richard aMagrittowl1 (Al Pacino and Kevin Spacey who was brilliant)

    Guarding the King a2dogguard

    Brick Dude & rival a2dudes.

    Umbrellas of Chez Bricks here

    Nov 2008 by Dotdude
    See Spike and Daisy from Jtwine’s blog.

    Merz, Ursonate – Kurt Schwitters

    June 20th, 2011

    Ursonate – female voice <> <> Ursonate 2

    Ursonate Kurt Schwitters gif and text

    Ursonate Steven Schick and and Shahrokh Yadegari

    Merzbau via

    Kurt Schwitters KurtS (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948)

    KurtS2

    In 1918, his art was to change dramatically as a direct consequence of Germany’s economic, political and military collapse at the end of the First World War.
    “In the war, things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready…. Everything had broken down and new things had to be made out of the fragments; and this is Merz. It was like a revolution within me, not as it was, but as it should have been.

    Sam Taylor Wood

    June 16th, 2011

    Review of Nowhere boy
    Artist Sam Taylor-Wood surprises us with an old-fashioned, affecting film exploring John Lennon’s early years, writes Philip French

    Sam Taylor Wood follows the examples of artists Julian Schnabel and Stev McQueen of crossing over to make mainstream films.

    Nowhere Boy was dedicated to late Anthony Minghella.

    Sam sam-taylor-wood-im-in-love Taylor Wood

    Some links to her art
    Men Crying – 2004 – see Daniel Craig, Benecio Del Toro, Dobert Downey Jr + more)

    Ghosts X

    In Pictures - Guardian gallery

    Wrecked

    OBE honor <> and here
    The 44-year-old Turner prize nominee has now been made an OBE and says it is an “incredible honour”.

    Sam Taylor Wood is twice a cancer survivor and is currently living and raising a child with Aaron Johnson who played John Lennon in the biopic.

    Burleske is not a Burka

    June 10th, 2011


    Happy birthday Michael Cacoyannis.. found this film, Women in Black, I have not seen.
    Life is Trouble, Death is Not from Zorba the Greek (this many of us have seen).

    Previous post (Michael Cacoyannis with Jacques Cousteau)

    Richard Strauss birthday too. (June 11) – ( A Space Odyssey 2001)

    Burleske is not a Burka.

    THE WOMAN WHO LIVED .Malalai – AND DIED – BY THE GUN.

    Malalai is one of the only police women in Kandahar. Unlike other women in the region, Malalai works alongside men, apprehending criminals and restoring justice in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. When working outside her home and office she is always armed beneath her burka.

    1trashmyart
    Jurgen Trautwein Trashmyart

    Leonora Carrington R.I.P

    May 26th, 2011

    Leonara
    Leonora with Max Ernst and Paul Eluard Photo by Lee Miller

    Leonora Carrington was 94 years old

    Leonora Carrington, a British-born Surrealist and onetime romantic partner of Max Ernst whose paintings depicted women and half-human beasts floating in a dreamscape of images drawn from myth, folklore, religious ritual and the occult, died on Wednesday in Mexico City, where she lived. She was 94.

    See Green Tea, or La Dame Ovale, a 1942 painting by Carrington from
    Guardian Obit

    English surrealist painter and sculptor regarded as a national treasure in Mexico

    <> Leonara2

    Leonora Carrington and The Debutante (Youtube) – Excerpt from Documentary,”The Flowering of the Crone: Leonora Carrington

    My Brother’s War

    May 21st, 2011

    <> <> <> 2Garyhines

    Gary Hines 1GaryHines

    Jessica Hines homepage

    Through the remembrances of his wartime friends and through my own journeys to Vietnam in 2007 and 2008, I retraced Gary’s “footsteps” using his letters and photographs as guides. I continue to make discoveries about wartime in Vietnam as experienced by its veterans. The visual record of those experiences continues to unfold.”

    NewYorker (with slideshow)

    Lens Culture

  • Female Drug Addiction Karima in Afganistan
    Raphaela Persson

    Boxing Girls in Kabul
    Raphaela Persson

  • Allora alloracal Calzadilla (NYtimes)

    The Caribbean-based artist collaborative Allora and Calzadilla will represent USA at this year’s Venice Biennale. For the American Pavilion they are preparing a an exhibition consisting of 6 new projects, titled “Gloria”, which will involve performances by professional gymnasts, custom-made pipe organ with a fully functioning A.T.M. and a 52-ton military tank turned upside down and topped with a treadmill and an Olympic runner (via Happyfamousartists)

    Previous post Allora and Calzadilla

    Dennis Hopper – The Last Movie & Photos

    May 17th, 2011

    The Last Movie Part I (see the film)

    The Last Movie the film that buried a visionary…

    The movie won the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival; despite this, it failed financially and critically after a two-week run at New York City’s Cinema (wiki the Last Movie)

    <> <> <> dennishopper

    BBC Dennis Hopper Documentary

    Jean TinguelyJeanTinguely

    Rauchenberg R.R.dennis-hopper

    Then I had Easy Rider, and I couldn’t get another movie, so I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years. I lived in Paris for a couple of years. I didn’t take any photographs, and then I went to Japan and saw a Nikon used. I bought it, and I just started, like an alcoholic. I shot 300 rolls of film. That was the beginning of me starting again, and then I went digital

    See more photos starting with the photo of Paul Newman by Dennis Hopper here. (Chasing Light)

    dennisRuscha

    Ed Ruscha 1964 Photographd by Dennis Hopper

  • Willem De Kooning

    April 24th, 2011

    <> <> deKooning

    The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.

    Willem de Kooning April 24, 1904

    Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning
    to aspire to. I think it has an orange
    bed in it, more than the ear can hold

    Frank O’Hara
    (See Summer Couch from – In Memory of My Feelings)