Monsters in Africa

Yinka Shonibare, "The Sleep of Reason (Asia & Africa)" 2008

In Goya’s original print series, Los Caprichos, his intent for his “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” print was to demonstrate that by turning off strict reason, the artist could produce creative, dark monsters. For his sleep, this was a good thing. In 2008, when Yinka Shonibare reproduced this print in his Asian and African versions, his intent, to me seems different. Right now the sleep of reason of certain leaders in Africa and the general apathy of  other countries worldwide are producing the very real monsters of genocide, famine, sexual slavery, etc. This New Year, join me in informing yourself and maybe even sending a little money to help the people and groups who are making a difference.

Enough Project –  enoughproject.org

Human Rights Watch —  hrw.org

Genocide Intervention Network — genocideintervention.net

Save Darfur — savedarfur.org

The Resolve (Uganda & DR Congo) — theresolve.org

Investors Against Genocide — investorsagainstgenocide.net

International Crisis Group — crisisgroup.org

Invisible Children — invisiblechildren.com

 

Speaking of Christmas…..

"Virgin and Child from the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis" c. 1250-1260 CE, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati

A statue from the collection of Cincinnati’s own Taft Museum of Art, and one of the most important of its type in the world,  is being shown on a massive international, online project of French Gothic ivories. From Artdaily:

The Gothic Ivories Project website makes available the first 700 objects from a database that already numbers more than 3,000 ivories. A detailed entry has been written for each piece and the vast majority are illustrated by high resolution colour images, with multiple views. The final number of objects looks set to triple Koechlin’s figure.

“The project has been made possible by the collaboration of numerous institutions”, comments the Project’s director, Professor John Lowden, “but it is not only the major museums that will benefit from this resource. Many Gothic ivories are still in private collections, and the website will enable owners to identify what they have.” Project manager Dr Catherine Yvard adds: “The support we received from institutions around the world has been astonishing: all major collections have joined us and smaller collections have also been enthusiastic.

We are equally interested in including objects in private collections, so as to be as comprehensive as possible. The website will be accessible to all and is designed to welcome collectors and curators as well as students and scholars. As so many Gothic ivories were divided up for sale in the nineteenth century, there is a very real chance of being able to identify what have been thought to be missing parts of a whole. The website makes possible searches by many aspects of content, provenance, function and so on.”

To see the Cincinnati Virgin and Child, click here.

Another trip to the Taft…..

Henry Peach Robinson, "Dawn and Dusk" (1885), Cleveland Museum of Art

So I’ve just viewed the new exhibit at the Taft and have one thing to say: I am ready to admit that photography is an art form on par with painting and sculpture (possibly). I am only ready to say this under the condition that said photograph is done following the precepts of pictorialism, a school of art in the late 19th C. which claimed that in order to achieve artistic viability, photography had to begin following the form and style of traditional painting. As this exhibit, TruthBeaity: Pictorialism & Photograph, 1845-1945, makes clear, this new art form worked from its very beginnings to prove the legitimacy of its expression.

Curated and collected by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, highlights of the exhibit are photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn, F. Holland Day, Robert Demachy, Frederick Evans, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Edward Steichen,  and Alfred Stieglitz. My favorite was the above photo by Henry Peach Robinson. A great exhibit which I can’t wait to see again.

Frank Duveneck, "Elizabeth Boott Duveneck" (1888), Cincinnati Art Museum

 However, the biggest surpise came in the form, again, of an unexpected Duveneck. In my last post, I had mentioned that the Taft had lent their Duveneck painting to the Cincinnati Art Museum for an exhibit. Well, as a nice little quid pro quod the CAM has lent the Taft Duveneck’s portrait of his wife, Elizabeth Boott Duveneck. I have only seen this painting on display once at the CAM years ago. This is a beautiful painting which documents a tragic part of Duveneck’s life. Their life together ended too early when Elizabeth died in 1888 after only a few months of marriage. This portrait was in fact her wedding portrait. A great essay by Carol Osborne about their relationship can be read here.

The Duveneck Boys

Frank Duveneck, "The Whistling Boy" (1872), Cincinnati Art Museum

So there is great new exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum that truly may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for art lovers. The exhibit, Cincinnati Collects America, displays dozens of painting, sculptures  and decorative works that most of the time hang in the homes of some pretty wealthy folks in the Queen City. I was really amazed to see some of these works and a little depressed to know that this is the only time I’ll see them. Amongst others, they had portraits by Sargent and Henri, and a beautiful genre scene by Cincinnati’s own Elizabeth Nourse.

However, the most amazing part of the exhibit was a free-standing wall right in the middle of the exhibition space. Hanging on it are two of Frank Duveneck’s most famous paintings, “The Whistling Boy” and “The Cobbler’s Apprentice”. With them is displayed another painting of a boy with tousled hair that is from a private collection. Let me tell you, these are three of the coolest kids ever put on canvas.

Frank Duveneck, "The Cobblers Apprentice" (1877), Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati

“The Whistling Boy” stands cooly looking at the viewer,well, whistling. “The Cobbler’s Apprentice” stands holding the product of a long day in the cabbage field, putting the Marlboro Man to shame. It’s really great to see “Boy” and “Apprentice” together considering how well-known they are in Cincinnati and that they are usually hanging a few miles away from each other in the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Taft Museum, respectively. I implore you to check it out.

Quick closing note: I want to thank Shelley, the art expert over at About.com for posting a profile of me and my blog. It’s nice to be noticed. Thanks again to Shelley and everyone else who continues to read my humble little blog.

 

“Android Karenina” & Quirk Classics Giveaway

Welcome to my little part of the Quirk Books “blogsplosion”. Let me first direct you to the Quirk Books message boards where you can go, put in your name, the name of this blog and you are entered into the Quirk Classics giveaway. 25 individuals will win a Prize pack of books, posters, audio downloads, etc, etc. After you’re done reading, go there and good luck.

Andriod Karenina is book that at times seems to ask “what will it be like? ” when it is in fact asking “how might it have been?” This book reads at time like Alan Campbell or at other times like the best of speculative, historical, science-fiction. (whew!) Set in imperial Russia, Android maintains the romance and class struggles of the original while giving way to the subtext of post-industrialization’s effects on people’s personal, day-to-day lives. Anna and Vronsky have their affairs of the heart and Stiva and Dolly have at each from the opening chapter…..but in the hands of co-writer Ben Winters, in this world, all human actions seem to have parallel actions in the world of their servants/companions: the robots.

Written as a “steampunk” epic, Andoid Karenina does not cater to the lazy reader. The function of each robot is given in it’s name (“I/Samovar/1(8)”, for example), but much of the human/robot etiquette and scientific terminology is not readily explained and the reader must work through this based on context alone. For this and many other reasons, I would highly recommend Andriod Karenina to any fan of science fiction or 19th century romantic epics. But I would especially recommend it to anyone looking for a book that is truly imaginative and challenging.

“Andriod Karenina” — Quirk Giveaway!

Got my Advance Reader’s Copy and will be reviewing it here on June 8th! Watch this space for your chance to win one of 25 Quirk Classics Prize Packages.

pat steir: underrated?

Pat Steir, "Blue River"

According to John Perrault over at the ArtsJournal, contemporary painter Pat Steir is the most underrated painter in the business. She has been exhibiting since the mid-60s and has been overshadowed as abstract expressionism moved on and pop art took over. Her early work was  blocky and narrowly dimensioned. But starting in the 70s her work was smoothed and textured with more subtlety. She became less shy about epic size and dramatic presentation.  Of the above painting Perrault noted that “like all of her rivulet paintings [Blue River] has great drama, a kind of theatrical presence not seen since Pollock, Newman and Louis.” — quite good company. Steir said of her style that, ““I wanted to destroy images as symbols. To make the image a symbol for a symbol. I had to act it out―make the image and cross it out. …no imagery, but at the same time endless imagery. Every nuance of paint texture worked as an image.”

I would recommend looking at some of her work in anticipation of the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center’s exhibit of her work which starts this weekend.

Pictures & Words: Hawthorne

Charles Osgood, "Portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne" (1840), Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Between tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone, (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges, at some unknown epoch,) we beheld the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned from that gate-way towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track, leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows, and an old white horse, who had his own living to pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows, that lay half-asleep between the door of the house and the public highway, were a kind of spiritual medium, seen through which, the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material world.

- “Mosses from and Old Manse”, Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Old Manse, Concord, MA (Photo by P. Simcoe)

matisse’s beast

Henri Matisse, "Porte-Fenetre a Collioure" (1914), Art Institute of Chicago

“I began to use pure black as a color of light and not as a color of darkness.” Although these were the words of Mark Rothko, not Henri Matisse, the quote seems to fit for both painters.(Many thought Matisse’s style to be “beastly” hence fauvism; fauve = beast) The quote fits well because of how much the early 20th C. Frenchman and the late 20th C. American shared in inspiration and innovation. Their respective careers followed a pattern of color to black, distinctiveness to simplicity. Matisse opened the 20th C. with Le Bonheur de Vivre (1905) and Rothko made the last significant statement of the century with his black paintings. No other painters since Caravaggio and Rembrandt could make black move and speak like Matisse and Rothko could. Witness Matisse’s Porte-Fenetre a Collioure (above) or the paintings in the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Both painters moved from vivid color to the blackest blacks, but instead of being flat or empty their blacks breathe.

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deja vous: durer & charpentier

First in 1514 by Albrecht Durer,

Albrecht Durer, "Melencolia I" (1514) The Met

And then in 1801 by Constance Charpentier.

Constance Charpentier, "Melancholy" (1801) Musee de Picardie, Amiens

“Depression is melancholy without the charms.” – Susan Sontag

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