The Art of John Bittinger Klomp

By the Sea

2012-01-30T09:44:00.009-05:00

"By the Sea," mixed media and distressed paint (30” x 30”) January 28, 2012

By the sea, Mr. Todd, that's the life I'll covet,

By the sea, Mr. Todd, ooh, I know you'd love it!

You and me, Mr. T, we could be alone

In a house that we'd almost own,

Down by the sea!*1

Mixed media distressed Painting is a technique that demonstrates a history in each and every artwork because of the many layers of paint that hide, obfuscate and disclose laminated items and text.*2 The blurred history in this particular painting demonstrates the possibility of parallel historical outcomes. In one we have the sense to keep our clean water and save all life on this planet. In the other we destroy our clean water, and all life on earth. At the same time I have always been in love with bright colors, the colors of life. That infatuation with intense color imbues this painting with optimism not always felt. On the surface, this is a confident work that displays the success I feel in my own life and work. However, lurking immediately below that facade is the not so well hidden presbyopic vision of human recklessness.

Notes

* Upon seeing the painting in the blog, I’ve decided it isn’t quite done. I’ve got to do some damage to that boat in the middle. ☺

*1 Sweeny Todd The Musical, Lyrics (1979) http://broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/sweeneytodd.htm

*2 There is no link in Google for distressed painting in fine art. I very much doubt that I am the only person on earth using the technique in the creation of fine art. Never the less, all the links I found were for commercial processes, and/or craft products and techniques.

Fifteen Minutes

2012-01-25T10:10:00.010-05:00

Katherine (Woman of the Year), Powdered Graphite on paper, 32" x 40" (1980) On loan from a private collection.

I met Andy Warhol at the reception for his show at the Philadelphia College of Art back in the dark ages.* During his brief conversation with several of us students I remember thinking, “he’s a space cadet.” Of course, it was an act and we ate it up as though it were pabulum for babies. Years later Andy would make the now ubiquitous statement that “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes,” and, during the late 1970’s to early 80’s I had mine. The brief span of success on a large scale was based on the creation of a series of Photorealist graphite portraits of iconic personalities. Many were motion picture stars like Katherine Hepburn, Christopher Reeves, and Marlin Brando. Others were various music, literary and historical figures like Leopold Stokowski, Jack Kerouac, Robert Oppenheimer, and Abraham Lincoln.*2 I started these drawings in the mid 1970’s by making marks with pencils on paper. Over time I discovered a plethora of techniques that allowed me to gradually move away from using the pencil alone. Instead, I began to grind the graphite into powder and applied it to archival paper using paper stumps, various kinds of cloth, and a variety of erasers. I also learned to use erasers to make marks of their own in the fields of layered graphite by removing and/or smearing some of the graphite from the surface. *3

I had a show of these drawings at The Walnuts Gallery, Philadelphia in 1979. After that show I camped out in telephone booths in New York City with my 3 x 5 card file and called hundreds of galleries with my little questionnaire, asking first, “are you interested in new and unknown artists?” I practically lived in one booth at the Hotel Carlyle, the concierge making change for me as I continued through the card file, X’ing out gallery after gallery. A close friend gave me the nick name "Clark Klomp."*4 However, after a long summer of telephoning and visiting galleries in person, I found a gallery that was willing to look at my portfolio. The owners of Good Company Gallery at 69th and Columbus loved the drawings and for several years the drawings hung in the gallery and sold on a regular basis to motion picture and theater personalities, writers, and entrepreneurs.

The story of how those 15 minutes came to an end in 1983 isn’t important. They were over, and I stopped making the iconic personality graphite drawings. I have since done a few graphite portraits on commission, and I still love to work with the powdered graphite technique. This past year our Goddaughter, a world-class chef, bought a restaurant in Lancaster Pennsylvania named Characters. She asked if she could use the drawings of motion picture stars. So, once again the remaining drawings have been resurrected from their plastic wrap and cardboard box tombs to hang in the light of day.*5

Notes

* The Philadelphia College of Art has become the University of the Arts after a merger with the Philadelphia School of Performing Arts.

*2 Many master artists had been and were working in a Photoreal, later Superreal/Hyperreal style at the time, and they include Chuck Close, Ralph Goings, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, and others.

*3 Additive and Subtractive techniques with powdered graphite were pioneered by the French during the mid nineteenth century then largely forgotten.

*4 The "mild mannered" Clark Kent character in Superman comics and TV shows (1952-58) ran into telephone booths to shed his bland reporter persona and become the super hero.

*5 see entry this journal, “Marilyn Monroe Sighting at Character’s Pub, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

Rehoboth Beach Waves, August 21, 2010

2012-01-20T00:06:00.003-05:00

Rehoboth Beach Waves, August 21, 2010 (Digital Photomontage) printed version (16" x 20")

As part of my interest in clean, safe water, I’ve done a series of wave progression photomontages at beaches in the Middle Atlantic, south Florida, and Mexico. The color of beach sand has so much to do with the way the waves photograph, and the depth of the water as the waves flow in and out changes the color of the water subtly from image to image. Also, the color of the water varies from beach to beach, and day to day in each location. In this particular composite photograph, taken from 1:00 P.M. to 1:15 P.M. on August 21, 2010, the sun is very high overhead, and so a hot spot exists on most of the photos with the exception of those with rougher and deeper water. In the top row, middle photo, and in the third row, 5th photo from the left, you can see waves crossing the sun’s image and erasing it.

The repetitive motion of wave after wave, flowing in and out in all the photomontages suggest continuity, but also change within the continuity. Each wave is a variation on the theme of “Water Equals Life,” the title of the last journal entry. Destroy the water, and you destroy all life on Earth is a not so subtle undercurrent that flows through all my artwork these days, even the pretty pastel paintings.

Water Equals Life

2012-01-15T10:27:00.005-05:00

Water = Life, (8"x 8") mixed media distressed painting, 2011

Water equals life should be a self-explanatory statement of fact because without water there would be no life. However, along with all the other realities we ignore, this one is perhaps the most frightening. I see people in south Florida throw their plastic junk on the beach constantly. On our beach the trashcan is a short walk away. On Delaware beaches people are more conscientious for some reason. Could it be that they are more mannerly in general? Or are they actually more aware of the consequences of their recklessness? It is essential that people everywhere be made aware that their profligacy will damage the future of our planet.

"Why is that, John," my alter ego says.

Plastic bottles begin to decompose in ocean water at temperatures of 86 degrees Fahrenheit much more rapidly than previously thought. They leave behind poisonous derivatives of polystyrene suspended in the salt water. Plastic bottles and bags are found floating in the oceans all over the planet because hundreds of thousands find their way through our run-off into streams, then rivers, and finally into the ocean every year. Additionally, plastic bags especially will kill turtles and porpoises because they are mistaken for food as they float in the water.

Plastics are oil-based products. We already know what oil will do in salt water from watching the 2010 BP Gulf Oil Spill Disaster unfold. Gulf Coast states are still reeling in 2012 from that horror despite BP television commercials to the contrary.

All of my distressed and pastel paintings are aimed at awareness and conservation of the oceans of our planet. Now, I must somehow find a way to put them before the public, though few seem to be interested in art that has a purpose other than being pretty. Never the less, I know that these paintings are handsome artworks and artworks with a purpose.

Koi Pond #2

2012-01-10T15:52:00.000-05:00

Pastel Painting (30" x 44") December 9, 2009

One friend said she wanted to buy this painting, but that was 2 years ago. Other than that there has been no interest. I've looked on line, and Koi paintings seem to be a dime a dozen, so I haven't done any more of them - partially because work this large can take as long as one month to complete. However, I'm very happy with the way the reflections of sky and land plants contrast with the view through the water and past the fish to the bottom of the pond. I also like the fact that I added the butterfly because it flies through the air as gracefully as the Koi swim through the water.

John's New Year's Resolution

2012-01-05T00:06:00.001-05:00

Holland Glade #1, (2008) Pastel Painting, 12” x 14”
[This particular painting has never been exhibited]

I’ve always had an aversion to self-aggrandizement, partially because I know my place in the universe, and partially because I don’t own my talents. Talents are God given, an accident of birth. As such, it is a terrible wrong not to develop and use them, but use should also be tempered by a bit of humility. So, in my journal/blog “The Art of John Bittinger Klomp” I hardly ever write about my art. Most often I do a monograph about architecture, someone else’s art, Art, the Art World or Art Theory as in Metamodernism v. the other “Ism’s.” In the past and present I’ve also written about politics and illustrated those journal entries with my own graphic art. However, due to processes beyond my control, I’ve discovered that I should write about MY ART more often. It is absolutely necessary that I put my work first, and by way of a New Year’s resolution – I will put my work FIRST!

If I don’t show my work, discuss my intent, processes, techniques, and ideas, who else will? In this current climate of economic distress, the contemporary Art World is bent upon the work of a few “masters,” past and present that it can make increasingly valuable through exhibition, press, and discussion in other institutional venue. That discussion often promotes the art of the past (immediate or historical), and/or “cutting-edge theory-based art” by younger artists that art institutions themselves promote and purchase. A secondary and older artist like myself, who has already had his two minutes of fame as a much younger person has no chance to become more established against such Institutionalized commodification aimed at a very rich conservative audience, and/or the Art institution itself.*1

Thus, in the future the reader will find more entries about MY ART, instead of so much theoretical musing about Art and other artist’s work. That is not to say that I won’t write about Art, Art Theory, as well as contemporary works of art – I can’t stop my over-loaded and cluttered mind from its rambling contemplations about art in general, and I will want to share those thoughts with others. Never the less, there will be more self-promotion flowing through this computer keyboard and out into the "cyber-void" in 2012."*2

Notes

*1 Unlike Andy Warhol's statement that "...everyone will have 15 minutes of fame," I may have had 2 minutes of almost fame in the late 1970's to early 1980's with the hyperreal graphite drawings of contemporary and historic iconic motion picture personalities. See journal entry this blog for Wednesday, September 21, 2011, titled "Marilyn Monroe Sighting at Characters Pub, Lancaster, Pennsylvania," http://jbkart.blogspot.com/2011/09/marilyn-monroe-sighting-at-characters.html.

*2 Cyber-void is a term coined by Isaac Stolzfuts in his Weblog (2003-5) at http://zacstolzfuts.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_archive.html. Viewed, 11:01 P.M., EST, Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

House of Trough: Jun Igarashi architect

2011-12-31T11:15:00.002-05:00

Characteristics:

1. Big box – almost a cube
2. Looks inward – exterior windows open into two loft spaces screened off from interior space necessitated by location in a mixed industrial / domestic use neighborhood. These windows are of various sizes, and line up randomly with one another though they all appear to be square, like some of Robert Venturi's windows.* The lofts isolate the interior space from its industrial surroundings and from the cold of northern Japan winters. The lofts echo - by way of a reversal - the more traditional engawa or veranda that is designed to connect the interior with the exterior space of the Japanese house.
3. All white interior
4. Minimal furniture and accessories accentuate the need for technological connections with few other absolutely necessary personal possessions
5. Minimal safety precautions as well – there are extremely minimal railings in stairways, and a thin wire as visual separation of loft from what appears to be a 12-foot drop into the central courtyard or trough of the house.

Observations:

First, I am inclined to think of this minimalist box as stuck in the minimalist modernism of the first half of the 1970’s decade. However, the minimalist, space with its protective loft/verandas is conducive to the owner’s use of electronic technology for work and play. It provides for never ending change as the owners live, work and play within the space.

Second, I know my Western preoccupation with or need to fill space (horror vacui) leads to the distrust of such an empty living space with its minimal protections against falling. That fear of falling is also acquired from my 21st century American cultural preoccupation with safety, and I can’t help but be reminded of the unforgettable quote from the famous television Elderly Medical Alert commercial, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”

"I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up." *5

Conclusions:

Even though it provides for never ending change in views through the space as the owner’s use the Trough, none of the other characteristics of the Metamodern are present. These are; 1) a return to fantasy/viewer as participant dreamer, 2) the architecture somehow inhabits the space between and among and (I suspect) limitless series of oppositions including the Modern, and 3) the structural presence of the organic, and/or abstract form. While “The Trough” provides for the viewers/owners to be the dreamers, it is at the same time anchored visually to the minimalist modernism of the 1970’s, and does not begin to imply the incorporation and variation in and among oppositional styles. Instead, the structure is limited to the thousands of years of traditional geometric architecture. Thus, while I admire, and find so much about this piece of domestic architecture to be interestingly accomplished, “The Trough” cannot be classified as Metamodern.

Notes

• I refer to the Lieb House, among others designed by Robert Venturi, moved from Barnegat Light, N.J., to Glen Cove, N.Y., March 13, 2009.
• Igarashi, Jun, Architects, Architecture Daily Website, http://www.archdaily.com/, viewed 7:46 PM., EST, December 21, 2011.
• “House of Trough,” Architectural Record, http://archerecord.com/. Posted December, 2011, viewed 5:22 PM., EST, December 21, 2011.
•4 Miyamoto, Selya, Photographer, in “House of Trough,” Architectural Record, http://archerecord.com/. Posted December, 2011, viewed 5:22 PM., EST, December 21, 2011.
*5 "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up," Uploaded by Bubbajomama on Dec 17, 2007. Viewed 11:00 AM, EST, Saturday, December 31, 2011.

My Christmas prayer…

2011-12-21T06:41:00.010-05:00

is that ALL OF US TOGETHER, the 99% and the 1%, Tea Party Republican, moderate Republican, moderate Democrat, and liberal Democrat can make our broken congress and country work again.

As part of this entry I've included a photograph of coconut palms decorated with lights for Christmas, a YouTube video of the Mac Wilberg arrangement of "Still, Still, Still, and a partial list of the things that have made the USA great. They are three seemingly unrelated things, though I would maintain that all things are included in a complete definition of God and the universe.

First, the Christmas Coconut Palms.

Second, Wilberg, Still, Still, Still - As close to a heavenly experience of Chistmas and winter as I can imagine.

And, third - the list.

1. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the most important part of which is the First Amendment – “the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” (broken this year by mayors and police in cities across the country.)

a. The right of the people to bear arms.
b. The separation of church and state
c. Limitation of power of the various branches of government
d. States’ rights
e. A strong federal government

7. Public education available to all
8. Creativity and constant innovation
9. Middle class
10. The Rich
11. The poor
12. Increasing suffrage for all people regardless of religion, sex, ethnicity, race, and sexuality
13. Waves of immigration and immigrants.
14. Capitalism – Super Corporations as well as old style mom and pop capitalism.
15. Socialism – including VA medical benefits and the big 3 (Medicaid, Medicare, and social security.*1
16. A limited definition of family
17. An increasingly inclusive definition of family
18. Abundant natural resources
19. Destructive use of natural resources.
20. Beauty beyond measure
21. A constructive mythology
22. A destructive mythology

Notice anything odd about this list, I ask rhetorically?

The list includes items that we would tag as diametrically opposed, items that belong on a list of extreme conservative values, and items that belong on a list of extreme liberal values, and items that would be found on both those lists. I refuse to believe that our democracy is no longer capable of reconciling and building on a value system that includes binary oppositions. Yes, Western cultures have a bad habit of thinking in oppositions. However, our nation has not been built on them. Instead our nation has been constructed during its 235-year history by fighting for (literally and figuratively) the reconciliation of seemingly diametrically opposed values.

Today, we are once again engaged in a battle that is based on separating these values into two opposing lists. One group would go beyond separation, and would redefine the values so as to exclude any hint of the other, and that must stop, or we are doomed to fight a second internecine civil war.

I will say no more, but include here, a reminder of our most noble and actual inclusive Christian behaviors based on one of our beloved patriotic songs, the first verse of “America the Beautiful,” by Katherine Lee Bates, and Samuel Ward.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!*

P.S. Had to include this glass harp rendition of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies."

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Notes

*1 In current American Western ideology, socialism is almost always labeled as morally corrupt, while capitalism is labeled as constructive and good. Most historians insist that that is a correct historical analysis. I maintain that the use of social institutions by democracies like our own has proven that a blend of socialism and capitalism is the best system available to date.

• Just to make sure there is no confusion caused by my inclusion of the word “Christian” above. I am not a born again. The accent here is placed on the words “inclusive,” and “brotherhood,” as it is my belief that Jesus Christ was all about inclusion, and his choice of disciples both men and women proved the point.

Full House is “Meta-modern?” *

2011-12-15T00:03:00.005-05:00

Part of a continuing series about the possible influence of Metamodernism on Domestic Architecture

Full house is an expanded expression of domestic space as useful space – the ultimate retro-reference to the Modern notion that form must follow function. It is “a homeless home. That’s is more like a machine, than any of the Modernists houses has ever been.” * The authors continue to explain that the house is “Meta-modern” because it has no room left over for anything but the mechanisms of functionality. The authors also state that “dwelling is in the head, not in the house.” In other words, there is no room for a particular human to “be” in the room. The house negates the individual. It is more like the limited space occupied by the character John Isadore in the Postmodern Sci-fi novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” - a novel about what it means to be human - by Phillip K Dick. * 1

Such a space is antithetical to the Metamodern! At its core, the Metamodern represents a return to the individual as the romancer and dreamer, the maker of connections, the believer, the idealist despite the warmed over ironic Postmodern trope in the back of his/her mind that such may not be possible. The notion of a space devoid of individual reference is thus diametrically opposed to the Metamodern, and that makes it a small presence as one opposition of many linear oppositions in the 3-D model of interactive oppositional forces that I proposed (Metamodernism? Part II) upon reading Vermuelin and Van den Akker’s original description of Metamodernism. * 2 and *3 For example, “Full House” is far less Metamodern than the last example given here, “Porchdog House,” because “Full House” is emptied of individual reference, and because the Porchdog House references an architectural solution to problems a particular individual (among many) encountered and solved with the help of the architect, Marion Blackwell, and the Architecture For our Century Model Home Program. * 4 As is so often the case, theorists confuse the notion of the interactive technological “no-space” of our contemporary Twenty-first Century lives – it is but one interactive piece acting within the total epistemological space of human endeavor – with all human endeavor. Thus, Full House does not represent the influence of the Metamodern on domestic architecture despite the reference to it as “Meta-modern.” I can only conclude that the reference on the “Lab4arch” Website to Full House as being “ Meta-modern” references a conceptualization - recognized in the hyphenation of “Meta-modern” - that is only tangentially related to actual Metamodern theory.

Notes

* Johan de Koning, Architect. silver prize (cat. AJ), Second DBEW International Design Competition: Beyond East & West, Korea (2002). (I expect that the awkward English is due to the translation from Korean.) http://www.lab4arch.com/fullhouse.html, Viewed 11:14 AM, EST, Tuesday, December 13, 2011.

* 1 Dick, Phillip K., Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. New York: Doubleday (1968)

*2 Klomp, John Bittinger, “Metamodernism, Part II,” Thursday, June 2, 2011, http://jbkart.blogspot.com/2011/06/metamodernism-part-ii.html. Viewed, ll:05 AM, EST, Tuesday, December 13, 2011.

*3 Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

* 4 Klomp, John Bittinger, “Flying Armadillo,” Thursday, December 1, 2011, http://jbkart.blogspot.com/2011/12/flying-armadillo.html. Viewed 11:30 A.M. EST, Tuesday, December 13, 2011.

Occidental Grand Xcaret Royal Club

2011-12-10T12:10:00.013-05:00

The Second Time Around

Or as I titled my Trip Advisor review about our visit last year, “How to be Treated Like a Millionaire Whether or Not You Are One.”

Main Lobby, River Fountain and lounge Occidental Grand Flamenco Xcaret Hotel

From the moment you are greeted at the Concierges’ desk with a glass of champagne to the final moment when your luggage is delivered back to the huge portico of the hotel lobby you enjoy the most attentive staff and excellent amenities imaginable. From the Royal Club’s own private pool and restaurant, and meals delivered to your suite’s dining room - ours had a view overlooking lawns, coconut palms and Caribbean Sea – to the staff that treats you as though their life’s task is to take care of you personally, this experience exceeded my expectations on both occasions.

The View from our suite's dining room

The Royal Club lower Pool at Night (our suite was in the building in the background)

The Royal Club's practice does involve a bit more expense, but has little to do with prestige or lavish and pretentious expenditures. Instead it has everything to do with a truly relaxing vacation away from the “madding” crowd, with people who want you to feel as pampered and well cared for as is possible. There is the ubiquitous spa that one expects to find at any resort that pretends to Twenty-first Century perfection. I mention it so that those who adore being served in this way know that a spa with all the amenities is available. However, the most important element of the Royal Club is the flawlessness of care and service brought to each guest in an environment that is - honestly, and almost unbelievably in our technologically self absorbed culture - loving, and reminiscent of a different era in which the middle class could afford the occasional excursion into such restful luxury. We left the hotel with hugs from staff members who have through these two visits become friends, and left envelopes with small gifts - I refuse to call them "tips" because they were inadequate as such, and - in an all inclusive one is not expected to tip.

I could continue with a detailed description of all the other amenities that the hotel and the huge extended complex beyond the Royal Club has to offer, including a fun packed day at Xcaret Water Park. I prefer, however, to write only about the perfection this staff brings to the vacation experience of each guest precisely because it is so unusual, and they care to provide the best of service in a world that has forgotten that love of work and ones fellow human beings can be accomplished simultaneously. I believe that the Royal Club’s mission is to make each individual feel as though the Mayan Riviera is his/her home away from home. It is, however, a home without the problems that this fast paced contemporary life brings to each of us on a daily basis.

Flying Armadillo

2011-12-01T11:31:00.007-05:00

It looks as though it is perched on its back legs, ready to launch into the air. It has an all-metal exterior 2nd story, and is raised 11 feet into the air in order to avoid any possibility of being destroyed by a future Katrina like storm surge in Biloxi, Mississippi. Owner, Richard Tyler has named it “Porchdog House” - I guess thats because he loves to sit on and enjoy the view from his living room porch with its cantilevered roof - the front porch being an extremely important part of the indigenous culture. The house is a modest 1492 square feet, based on the typical shotgun house of the region. However, Porchdog House stands the shotgun house type on its head, by cutting it in half and stacking the portions on top of one another. I like this house because it is not a house built for the 1%, and because the design program makes practical solutions of all the FEMA requirements for structures in the region destroyed by Katrina in 2005, and at the same time, it is fanciful and a bit surreal. I look at this house, and for some odd reason I think, “Flying Armadillo. “

The association makes sense because the armadillo wears his armor as protection against enemies, and makes him practically indestructible in his increasingly enlarged territory throughout the deep south. The contradictory image of a flying armadillo is humorous though dissimilar to Porchdog House. Instead, Porchdog is an elegant and fanciful solution to a program of necessity. The house was the last and possibly the best built under the Habitat for Humanity Biloxi Model Homes program by local architect Marion Blackwell, AIA. I am enthralled with it because the Metamodern has materialized in this working class neighborhood as a practical and inventive solution for an actual middle class individual and his family. How wonderful!

Mario Salvio Rage Against the Machine (1964)

Violation of the United States constitution - In light of the police pepper spraying peaceful demonstrators in California, and police violence against Occupy Wall Street nationally I'm posting this clip, and I will continue to move it and place it in future entries until the anniversary of the speech, December 2nd. Sad that our First Ammendment rights can be violated, but guns can be legally carried into the work place in Florida and peaceful gatherings nationally!

Notes

Spencer, Ingrid, “Porchdog House,” in Architectural Record: House of the Month, at http://archrecord.construction.com/residential/hotm/2010/09/porchdog.asp/ September, 2010. Viewed 9:30 AM., EST., November 23, 2011.

* “Tyler Home: Tyler Residence/Porchdog,” in Open Architecture Network , http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/node/359. Viewed 10:00 AM, EST, November 28, 2011. It is thougt that one time use of images for intellectual purpose is legal under U.S. copyright law as long as appropriate credit is given.

Pelicans

2011-11-26T10:29:00.005-05:00

An oft repeated subject – I think there may be four or five shots of flying pelicans in past journal entries. Here is why.

Last fall, 2010, a client insisted that she wanted a 32 x 40 inch pastel of a south Florida beach sunrise because she loves to take meditative morning walks on the beach. Well, I’m not a morning person, and I am generally sluggish and nasty until I’ve had two cups of morning coffee. Thus, I had never gotten up before 6:00 AM in order to shoot a sunrise. However, she insisted that the pastel had to be a beach sunrise, and that I should shoot multiple sunrises in order to get the right sky, the perfect clouds, water, birds in flight, and a full moon. Of course the client is always right, and was she ever. I enjoyed those mornings so much that I went back to the beach over and over again., and the client was so pleased with the result that she named the pastel painting “The Living Prayer.” I plan on returning as often as possible for more photographs this winter.

During those photo shoots I took many frames of pelicans in flight, and I’ve posted two or three of those photos in the past, because the birds are so graceful , and they always lift my spirits. The sun wasn’t above the horizon in this shot, so the shutter speed is too slow to stop the pelicans completely and they are a bit fuzzy. However, the slight blur gives a sense of their motion, and I like the rising line they make as they move through the picture frame from right to left.

The Flying Wedge

2011-11-21T10:26:00.007-05:00

Part of a continuing series of journal entries based on Metamodern architecture in which I ask the question – Has the Metamodern begun to influence domestic architecture? *

Residence F was designed by Meixner Schlueter Wendt Architects in Kronberg im Taunus, Germany. Because the floor to ceiling windows of the lower story are set back beneath the upper story it appears to float like a flying wedge hovering over the gently rolling landscape of which it is a part. The angle of the front top story reflects that of the hillside the house is built into. The glass lower story allows broad views of the hills surrounding the house, and the upstairs bedroom windows give expansive views of the hills behind the house. There are outdoor recreation areas including a game court above the house, and pool below the house that were created as part of the program for this family of five. As I look at the photographs of the house I can’t help but think, “It does look as if a B grade sci-fi movie flying metallic object is trying to land on this hillside in Germany. Ingrid Spencer writing about the house in Architectural Record likens the house to a stealth bomber. However, there is nothing stealthy about it because it seems to be poised to blast out of or into the hillside. The surrounding Countryside is made up of gently rolling hills, whereas the upper story of “Residence F” is all awkward angles and sharp edges that disassociate themselves from the gentle undulations. And, unlike the Libeskind “18.36.54 House,” discussed in my last journal entry, “Residence F” is not at all reflective of archetypal house form. *2 In its transgression of the “house paradigm” and sci-fi ironic kitsch flavor it is more like the Postmodern. Does form follow function as in the reductive Modern movement? No. The elaborate wedge shape of the mechanical shading device on the down-slope side is much too complicated and fanciful. Does the “sci-fi” kitsch give it the surreal/romantic touch of the Metamodern? To answer my own question, “I’m ambivalent.” I can’t make up my mind. Perhaps if the upper story had rounded edges instead of sharp corners – I don’t know! It is as though this program is trying for the Metamodern, but isn’t quite up to the task. Or perhaps, the architect(s) weren’t trying for the Metamodern. They just got caught up in the zeitgeist of the times and accidentally executed an almost Metamodern house.

House F caught my attention as I cruised through the Architectural Record Houses of the month. Never the less, I’m unsettled by the ambivalence I experience while writing about it. Therefore, based more on my “gut,” and less on logic, it cannot be Metamodern.

Notes

Spencer, Ingrid, “Residence F,” in Architectural Record, the Website, http://archrecord.construction.com/residential/. November, 2010. Viewed 9:30 A.M. EST, November 20, 2011.

* The author bases reference to the Metamodern on Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

*1 Kranberg, Christoph, photographer in "Residence F," Architectural Record November 10, 2010, viewed 9:35 A.M., EST., November 20, 2011.

*2 "18.36.54 House," this journal, November, 16, 2011, http://jbkart.blogspot.com/2011/11/183654-house.html.

18.36.54 House

2011-11-16T10:37:00.019-05:00

A Vacation House built for a Powerful Art World Couple

In the journal entry dated November 11, 2011 I asked the following questions. Will the Metamodern influence domestic architecture, if not, why not? If so, what will the evidence of that influence look like? How will we identify that influence should it take place?*1

In order to answer the questions, I began by sifting through the Architectural Record Website, specifically the “House of the Month” section, and found a vacation house completed on a 56 acre site in Connecticut in July of 2010 by Daniel Libeskind.*2 The odd name for the house describes the 18 folded walls, 36 knife edged points, and 54 lines that include the folds and edges. The house looks as though a traditional domestic structure of wood and plaster had been converted into an extremely expensive metallic and mirrored fantasy, then folded through a time warp, something from a surreal dream. Thus, one of the criteria (a new romanticism) for a Metamodern presence has been met. *3 However, this expensive structure is not domestic architecture for the masses. Additionally Libeskind’s work has these unusual angles with walls, ceilings and floors that tilt creating a slightly disorienting kinesthetic feeling.

I know the criticism that is out there, and I find it irritating because Libeskind begins his work from a location outside our everyday experience. In short, Libeskind is the Jonathan Swift of Metamodern architecture because he puts into question, the very foundation of our daily lives. This architecture is designed to unsettle, not necessarily the best place to begin if one is designing a vacation house. However, looking at the interior photographs of this home - for it is exactly that – I see that the warm wood toned walls, furniture, book cases and books contribute to a space that is at once inviting and friendly. That Libeskind is able to achieve unity between the dichotomy - unsettling surreal architecture versus relaxing and warm vacation residence - is something of a minor miracle and reflects the needs and desires of his Art World client collaborators in this domestic architecture adventure. I might add that Libeskind designed the interior furnishings specifically to fit his goals and those of the couple who hired him, a project remeniscent of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Of course, this first example of Metamodern domestic architecture is not evidence of a major invasion of the housing market. These were clients with enough of the green stuff to pay for an extremely expensive architect to play with enormously expensive materials. However, it does make a mark. Perhaps others will follow. Perhaps they already have.

We shall see.

Notes

* Eberle, Todd, photographer in "18>36.54 Houser," Architectural Record, the Website, http://archrecord.construction.com/residential/recordHouses/. April 2011, viewed 9:10 A.M., EST, Wednesday, November 16, 2011. It is known that one time use of artwork to illustrate an article for intellectual purposes is within U.S. copyright law as long as it the origin is properly notated.

*1 The author bases reference to the Metamodern on Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

*2 Stephens, Suzanne, "18.36.54 House," in Architectural Record, the Website, http://archrecord.construction.com/residential/recordHouses/. April 2011, viewed 9:10 A.M., EST, Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

*3 See the November 11, 2011 entry to this journal, “The Metamodern in Twenty-first Century Architecture” for the summarized characteristics of Metamodern Architecture.

The Metamodern in Twenty-first Century Architecture

2011-11-11T09:02:00.004-05:00

Summary

What Are the Characteristics of Metamodern Architecture?

There are four major characteristics identified. First is a new romanticism often evidernced in a surreal quality, the use of the fantastic and the dream-like found generally throughout Metamodern Art. Second, the rather nebulous conceptualization of multiple unresolved oppositional confrontations capable of existing simultaneously is paramount.*1 These confrontations are often evidenced in the direct argument achieved through the incorporation of the contemporary with existing historic architecture.*2 As one among so many examples I point out the Allen Lambert Galleria at Brookfield Place, in Toronto, Canada by Santiago Calatrava.*3

Allan Lambert Galleria, Toronto, Canada, Santiago Calatrava

Third, as I’ve worked on this series of journal entries, I have also identified an organic metamodern component present in many of the works, especially those of Zaha Hadid, and Santiago Calatrava. Fourth, the use of the computer and new technologies as an aid in the design of buildings, as in the works of Frank Gehry and others. Gehry's curvilinear (blobitecture) and/or abstract*4 shaped structures are the mark of Metamodern computer assisted architectural design.*5

Where do I go from here?

It is important to note that the Metamodern has materialized only in large programmatic works of architecture to date; convention centers, theaters, museums, and other large public projects. It is too early in the process of “Metamodernization” for these characteristics to have filtered down through the ranks of architects less able to take on the expense of huge projects, much less to influence domestic architecture. Thus, I arrive at a new question. Will the Metamodern influence domestic architecture, if not, why not? If so, what will the evidence of that influence look like? How will we identify that influence should it take place?

And with this last, I have pointed toward a future journal entry.

Notes

* Wolynski, Elizabeth, Vegas Images, http://vegasimages.blogspot.com/2010/09/frank-gehry-building-is-completed.html, Created September 10, 2010, viewed 8:26 AM EST, Thursday, November 10, 2011. I used the image of the new Cleveland Clinic building in my montage of Metamodern architecture taken from Elizabeth Wolynski's journal. It is in the top center viewer's left portion. It is known that one time use of an image for intellectual purposes is legal under U.S. copyright law. I've since looked through Ms. Wolynski's journals, and found them worth taking a thorough look through.

*1 Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

*2 The opposition of historic with contemporary design in architecture was begun during the Postmodern as an ironic gesture in which historic architecture was saved from destruction as had so often been done during the 1950's through 1960's Minimalist Modern period.

*3 nformation |Description={{en|1=Allan Lambert Galleria (Brookfield Place), Toronto ON, Canada}} {{de|1=Allan Lambert Galleria (Brookfield Place), Toronto ON, Kanada}} |Source=Eigenes Werk (own work) |Author=Ansgar Walk | In Wikipedia on line Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org. Viewed Friday, November 11, 2011, 11:11 AM, EST.

*4 An abstract shape is characterized by angles greater and less than 90 degrees, and curved and straight lines of various irregular lengths.

*5 Waters, John K., Blobiteture: Wave Form Architecture and Digital Design. Minneapolis: Rockport Publishing, 2003.

Two Things

2011-11-06T09:49:00.008-05:00

1. My friend Steve died this past week.
2. Only once, when I was fifteen, God Spoke to me.

We interrupt the normal course of this blog…

No, I am not a born again Christian. In fact according to Evangelical Christian dogma, I cannot be a Christian. Let me explain.

First, I don't believe in an absolute biblical authority. Instead there are many possible interpretations, including the fact that each translation through various languages and periods has created various interpretations automatically.

Second, I do believe in the "good news" of Jesus teachings, though once again, there are so many variations as there are individual translations of the text and through the various authors, Matthew, Mark,Luke, including the non canonical the Catholic Church decided to exclude.

Third, my idea of the Trinity is tarnished by a personal understanding that God cannot be reduced to "he." God must be so much more than male, though inclusive of a patriarchal identity.

As to God speaking to me once at age fifteen - Actually God didn’t speak because there was no voice. I slept, and in my sleep there was an invisible darkness, total and almost complete. There was a single point of light, though I did not see in the ordinary sense. I, disembodied, was only aware of that light far, far away. And, God said, though, as I say, God didn’t speak.

“It is too soon. You must go back. There is something you must do.”

In an instant I was awake and sitting up in bed. I was shaken, and my immediate concern was that I had been where I had no right to be.

Many times since that night, upon doing something out of the ordinary, I wondered, was that it? Is that the “something” I had to do? However, I realized some years ago, that God wasn’t refereeing to a single special something I must do, and it didn’t have to be extraordinary. There are so many commonplace things I must do in my diurnal existence, and they all add up to the single thing that I must do, and that is to fulfill life’s purpose, to bring my life to completion. The most amazing part of that understanding is that God’s purpose is that I should live my life according to my own unique achievement, based on my journey, the decisions I make, the problems I solve or leave unsolved. God does not wish to control my life. God sent me back because he wanted me to live my life to its conclusion according to that which I must do, not that which God must do. There is no God given plan for my life. Instead, I construct my life as I grow into and through it. I do believe with all my heart and mind that God's plan is that each one of us live our life according to our own individual plan and that plan is a growing, changing and dynamic thing that evolves and changes with and/or without our consent. At the same time, I was closest to God when I was born, and will be closest once again when I die.

And that brings me back to Steve. I’ve only known Steve for seven years. I first met him walking his dog, and for two years our friendship was limited to the brief time we spent greeting and talking as he stopped in front of our house with Brigitte. However, over the years I got to know Steve and his partner, Ron better and better. We had many evening dinners at their house and ours filled with long conversations about our likes and dislikes. We agreed on politics one hundred percent, and in seven years I never heard Steve express a single prejudice or hateful thought though I would get totally riled about our broken political system and process during our conversations. Steve and Ron also visited us twice in south Florida during the past three years as Steve’s illness gradually worsened. Over time I grew to know Steve as the sweetest, kindest and least self-centered of human beings, a prince among men.

A few years ago I was amazed to hear from other mutual friends that they had had a very different experience of Steve many years ago, and that they no longer spoke with Steve. At first I wondered how such a thing was possible. However, over time I came to realize that Steve grew through his life experience. Steve made great changes in his life, and in the way he dealt with himself and others. These changes were positive, based in life affirming growth, and in due course, Steve filled his life with love and peace. As his illness deepened, Steve gave up so many worldly things. His physical life was regulated by a cycle in which each valley became deeper, and each peak lower, and my partner and I watched with alarm as Steve's life was slowly devoured by his worsening physical condition. Over time his manner grew ever more soft and quiet. Finally, this past week, Steve made his final journey into "the valley of the shadow of death."

Psalm 23 has particular resonance with my experience of Steve these past seven years.

1The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.*

I’ve decided that those who refused to continue their friendship with Steve have suffered a greater loss than I because Steve fulfilled his chosen life’s course and filled it with his special purpose in an all to short period of 58 years.

I will miss our sweet prince.
_______________________

* King James Bible

2011-11-01T09:50:00.001-04:00

No entry today. I downloaded photographs taken of Cape Henlopen yesterday, then trashed the photos from the camera, just as I’ve done two thousand times before. And, presto/chango, the photographs disappeared from the folder on the computer. I must be getting senile as hell!!!

Shellshifting #1

2011-10-26T09:23:00.000-04:00

The shortest blog entry of my life is this experimental image of shells - one of many to come, I hope. If printed with best resolution I want it to be 26" x 28." The original was made with Adobe Photoshop software at 300 dpi / sq. inch.

Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2011-10-21T10:51:00.006-04:00

Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Museum of Image and Sound, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, 2011 *

The museum is scheduled to be complete this year, and it is definitely a Modern design, though I’m not sure it is Metamodern. Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a much acclaimed 46 person interdisciplinary architectural design firm, noted for its design theory. The firm’s philosophy claims that all designs are so site specific as to be based metaphorically in the DNA of the location. and the designs do seem extremely suited to their location. The Museum of Image and Sound (hereafter MIS) folds itself into a crowded section of Rio’s Copacabana beachfront between two fourteen-story high-rise buildings. In fact the museum looks like a rectangular metal box that has emerged somewhat crushed from a 1970’s trash compactor. Yes, I know, that is a rather scathing comment. I could have said instead that it appears to have been warped through a 4th dimension. However, I find that I have a slightly uncomfortable reaction to many of the firm's architectural programs, which almost always are jammed into crowded metropolitan sites. According to the firm, the design of the building is meant to be a vertical extension of Roberto Burl Marx’s beach promenade stretched and folded through various venues and open-air spaces to the building’s rooftop theater. The concept is marvelous, and I do appreciate the interior and exterior views of the spaces despite the criticism above. Perhaps if I visited the actual site of the MIS I would have more enthusiasm for the building. After all, Diller Sofidio + Renfro won a competition to design this space. I am struggling here because I often find it a stretch to appreciate the wisdom of competition judges and committees.

In conclusion, I don’t find that the MIS design meets the criteria for a Metamodern approach. It does not achieve the fantastical and surreal aspect that seems to be part of so many Metamodern architectural works, nor does it possess an organic quality, despite the metaphorical DNA theory of the firm. Neither do I find the presence of oscillation between and among oppositions claimed by theorists Vermeulen and Van den Akker for the Metamodern. Finally I do not claim that this is a bad design, only that it is a bit awkward, and that it is not Metamodern.

Notes

Much of the notation of this article is achieved through the linked items above.

Dezeen Blog Archive, “Museum of Image and Sound by Diller Scofidio + Renfro,” http://www.dezeen.com/. August 14, 2009, viewed 10:26 AM EDT, October 15, 2011.

*EVolo, "Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro / Diller Scofidio + Renfro," http://www.evolo.us/. August 10, 2010, viewed 10:26 AM, EDT, October 21, 2011. It is known that one time use of images for intellectual purpose is legal under US copyright law.

Arcspace, http://www.arcspace.com/index.shtml. Viewed 10:30 AM EDT, October 15, 2011.

Seashells

2011-10-16T07:31:00.000-04:00

Just a short five day visit to south Florida, then we travel north again. My partner and I went to the beach and the water was still about eighty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, crystal clear and calm. I did a good bit of swimming and sunning. However, as usual I had to take some photographs. So, just before the sunset I shot these shells on the beach. Because of the low angle of the sun the detail in the shells and sand is phenomenal, and the long shadows make all that detail pop. Because of the light quality, I find early morning and evening are the best times of the day to take photographs, and this photograph demonstrates the authenticity of that belief.

Santiago Calatrava

2011-10-11T09:34:00.001-04:00

Part of the series of entries on Architecture of the Twenty-first Century

Santiago Calatrava, WTC Transportation Hub, World Trade Center, New York, (Designed 2007)

His designs often look like spinal cords suspended by cable. The Ground Zero transportation Hub appears to this writer like a chunk of human spine transmogrified into a flying crustacean complete with Superior articular process, though these last are long pointed extensions. The Turning Torso in Malmo, Sweden twists like a human athlete preparing to throw a discus as it rises 866 feet into the sky. The Milwaukee Art Museum, though designated Postmodern looks like a Cubist rendition of birds in flight. He has designed a planetarium that is like a human eyeball complete with hydraulic eyelid. He is an architect with an engineering degree, and all his structures are engineering marvels based at least in part on skeletal structure, which makes them organic, and coincidentally Metamodern rather than Postmodern

Calatrava, born in Valencia, Spain in 1951 was known early on in his career for the bridges he designed, the first of which was built for the Barcelona Olympic Games. During the 1990’s he designed many large public facilities and more unusual suspension bridges including the City of the Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, the railway station, Care de Lyon Saint-Exupery, Lyon, France, and the Alamillo Bridge (Puente del Alamillo) in Sevilla, Spain. At the same time he began to exhibit abstract sculptures based on the same engineering techniques as his buildings and bridges.

During this century Calatrava has continued to create buildings and bridges based on skeleton-like structures. These include The Athens Olympic Sports Complex, Athens, Greece, The Turning Torso in Malmo, Sweden, and the Liege-Guillemins train station in Liege, Belgium. These structures often look like some fantastical creature - at once impossible, wearing its skeleton on the outside and surreal - has landed in the middle of the cityscape. They immediately meet the two most important criteria for a Metamodern designation. They are both fantastic/surreal, and organic. That they are often mistakenly called Postmodern fits in with Vermeulin and Van den Akker's notions of the Metamodern as oscillating between oppositions, and this author’s idea that a model for the Metamodern would look like pairs of oppositions moving and colliding with and among one another in a three-dimensional space.

Notes

Documentation for this article is established through the links above with the exception of the following two notations.

*1 "Santiago Calatrava Shows his WTC Transportation Hub at Queen Sofia Spanish Institute," Art Knowledge News, The Art Appreciation Foundation, http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Santiago_Calatrava_Shows_his_WTC_Transportation_Hub.html. Viewed Saturday, October, 8, 2011. One time use of images for intellectual purposes is acceptable within United States Copyright Law.

*2 Tzonis, Alexander, Santiago Calatrava: Complete Works, Expanded Edition, New York; Rizoli (2007).

Digital Artwork for Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T09:58:00.000-04:00

I've been an Apple fan since 1984, and I can't imagine the world without my Apple laptop and my iPod. I'm a product of my times, and Steve Jobs is responsible for my love affair with technology. All my artwork on this journal is prepared with the use of my MacBookPro. So, I'm placing this image in the journal which is part of the current mixed media distressed painting I'm working on. It's a fitting tribute because none of this, the journal, the artwork, nor the computer would exist without Steve Jobs.

Jean Nouvel:

2011-10-01T11:03:00.003-04:00

A Metamorphosis of the Modern into the Metamodern

Jean Nouvel, Torres Algues, Barcelona, Spain (2003) *

Born August 12, 1945, the architect is this writer's contemporary, which would place him in the Postmodern according to the time he began producing. Looking at his oeuvre, however, his work is Modern and/or Metamodern in character, and I’m sure there are those who would place him among Modern architects, though I question that judgment. Let me explain.

The Torre Algues de Barcelona (Agbar), Barcelona, the ultimate expression of male vanity is also Jean Nouvel’s only adventure in true blobitecture. *2 He has designed other curved structures like the Louvre Abu Dhabi (a flattened flying saucer-like dome with a transparent tree branch latticed structure), and his barrel vaulted (Paulo Soleri Arcosanti-like) Winery at Chateau la Costa in Provence. However, these structures use modern forms that unintentionally echo ancient Roman architectural devices. Additionally, Nouvel’s design for the master plan and megalithic main building for the Port of Vigo in Spain (2007) has nothing to do with curves, but instead looks like a giant rock complete with plant growth that suggests time etched sedimentation. After searching for current status of the project on line, it appears to me that the economic crash of 2008, spearheaded by our own illustrious Wall Street has prevented the consummation of the project.

Jean Nouvel, Port of Vigo Spain, Office Tower (2007 design winner)

Of all the structures I’ve listed above, the first and the last are most indicative of a Metamodern disposition, though the others relate more closely to a 3rd quarter 20th Century Modernism. It would seem that Mr. Nouvel himself oscillates between a Modern and a Metamodern position, though the Port of Vigo project and others indicate that he is ever more invested in a fantastical surreal and organic nature that is typical of the Metamodern. For anyone interested in the ways Modernism metamorphoses into the Metamodern, a closer look at Jean Nouvel’s work is clearly warranted.

Notes

Goodman, Lanie, “Starchitects on Parade,” The New York Times Style Magazine September, 25, 2011, p 102-105.

Admin, “Jean Nouvel’s Granit Monolith Covered with Vegetation Overlooks the Port of Vigo,” eVolo, http://www.evolo.us/. July 31, 2011, viewed 4:41 PM EDT, Friday, September 30, 2011.

Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Corporate Website at http://www.jeannouvel.com/. Viewed 4:30 PM EDT, Friday, September 30, 2011.

* Nouvel, Jean, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, “Jean Nouvel,” image, "The Torres Algues," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Nouvel. Last modified 7:52, September 30, 2011, viewed 10:00 AM EDT, Saturday, October 1, 2011. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

*2 That the Torre Algues is blobitecture might be desputed because it is not entirely curved. However, Frank Gehry's buildings (for one) are often sighted as blobitecture despite the presence of straight lines and trapazoidal form mixed with curves.

*3 Admin, “Jean Nouvel’s Granit Monolith Covered with Vegetation Overlooks the Port of Vigo,” eVolo, http://www.evolo.us/. July 31, 2011, viewed 4:41 PM EDT, Friday, September 30, 2011. It is known that one time use of an image for intellectual purpose is legal under United States copyright law.

Metamodernism at Ground Zero

2011-09-26T09:29:00.003-04:00

One World Trade Center Versus the Memorial Pools

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, moderated by images. *

The tragedy is that the original surreal and fantastical Libeskind design was subverted by the developer Larry A. Silverstein who with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect David A. Childs - despite all the hype to the contrary - reworked the Libeskind spiraled asymmetrical trapezoidal building into a perfectly ordinary vertical structure.

The Libeskind design versus the Childs design for One World Trade Center

It may be politically incorrect to criticize the New World Trade Center site at this point in time, though everyone knows that the entire process of development has been mired in controversy and argument between the LMDC (Lower Manhattan Development Corporation), and its various component organizations and architects during its entire history. Despite Libeskind's protestations to the contrary, his original design is barely recognizable. Never the less, here I go. One World Trade Center will not be the original 1776 feet tall twisting and off center foil to the Statue of Liberty’s raised arm and torch, as envisioned by architect Daniel Libeskind. Instead, it will be truncated to approximately 1300 feet with a tragically needle-thin and weak decorative tower stuck on the exact center top in a vain attempt to reach the reiteration of our nation’s founding. Additionally, the twenty story base is unfinished because Childs’ overworked complex idea for translucent prismatic glass walls was impractical and, quite frankly, impossible to achieve. It is not amazing to this author that well-financed corporate and social forces have destroyed the originally creative artistic vision, as it seems to be a national practice to subvert the very creative power that once made the nation great.

The Memorial Pools, a video made by Crazy Dark One on YouTube at "http://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyDarkOne," Viewed 10:30 AM EDT, Sunday, September 25.

At the same time – despite the arguments between Arad, Libeskind and others - the design for the commemorative pools and museum by Michael Arad and Peter Walker is stunning. Arad had to fight like a maniacal tiger to keep his design intact, and did alienate many of those surrounding the project including his partner in the design concept, Peter Walker. Never the less, the design, two pools surrounded by a forest grid follows the footprint of the original towers, but implodes into the earth with shimmering curtains of water that flow into a reflective pool and then disappear into another square void, a wonderful flight of the imagination and beautiful testament to the immense loss we feel as a nation and as individuals. The design is a triumph of the human spirit over the loss that exploded into our homes and work places that clear September morning in 2001.

These two structures, One World Trade Center, and the 9/11 Memorial Pools, embroiled in partisan controversy and internecine warfare create a metaphor, an oppositional paradox that is an enigmatic representation of our national state in this metamodern recapitulation of the twentieth century complete with a national economic tragedy equal to the Great Depression. I maintain that the Great Recession is equal to the Great Depression because the numbers of displaced people and the financial destruction wrought upon upper-middle class, middle class and working class Americans far surpasses that calamity. At the same time corporate America amasses trillions as the Republican Party plays Marie Antoinette to the splintered ineffective Democratic Party. One Trade Center stands in for our Twenty-first Century inability to save ourselves from our own mistakes. At the same time, the triumph of the human spirit represented in the Arad and Walker commemorative pools and forest represents the transcendence we must attain as a nation in order to heal the extremely splintered division we experience at the beginning of the second decade of this century.

Notes

* Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle, Black and Red, Detroit: 1983.

Hagan, Joe, “The Breaking of Michael Arad,” in New York Magazine: Art. Taken from the Website at http://nymag.com/arts/architecture/features/17015/, 10: 12 AM, EDT, Saturday, September 24, 2011. (May 14, 2006).

Libeskind, Daniel, Website homepage at http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/. Viewed 9:35 AM, EDT, Saturday, September 24, 2011.

Libeskind, Daniel, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Libeskind. Last modified 12:24, September 20, 2011, Viewed 10: 19 AM, EDT, Saturday, September 24, 2011.

Lower Manhattan Development Authority (LMDC) Website, http://www.renewnyc.org/, © 2002-7. Viewed 10: 27 AM, EDT, Saturday, September 24, 2011. Images used one time for intellectual purposes are thought to be legal within United States copyright law.

9/11 Memorial Museum Website, http://registry.national911memorial.org/about.php. 10:00 AM, EDT, Saturday, September 24, 2011. Images used one time for intellectual purposes are thought to be legal within United States copyright law.

Marilyn Monroe Sighting at Characters Pub, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

2011-09-21T10:01:00.002-04:00

Marilyn, (4' x 10') Oil Paint on Canvas, John Bittinger Klomp

“Yes, just like Elvis, we saw her, and she was looking right at us.”

Actually, we sent the two 4 x 5 foot panels to the restaurant two weeks ago via a friend’s truck, and drove up this past Sunday and installed them while the restaurant was closed. It should have been an easy task, but of course, Murphy was busy at work, and we encountered several problems in addition to the anticipated one of making sure that it would be impossible for the artwork to fall. We did anchor them in such a way that it would take something like a Fukushima style earthquake and Tsunami disaster to bring them down. In fact, they are fastened so well, that, unlike the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Marilyn will not melt down. Instead, hopefully her glance will melt the heart of many a diner at the restaurant, and they will over indulge in Chef, Meghan J. Young’s wonderful fare.

We also tore down the old tchotchke shelf that ran along one wall a couple of weeks back, so that the graphite drawings of motion picture characters/stars are no longer crowded out by all the junk. You can see the way it use to look by going to this journal, Sunday, July 31, 2011.

If you should go to Characters Pub for lunch or dinner, call a head, and ask for Jose Fuentes or Meghan and tell them I sent you. They are friendly characters, the service is good, and the cuisine is world class!

Growth, Organization And Entropy in Cultural Process

2011-09-16T10:58:00.013-04:00

An all too brief look at organic progress and regression as a natural occurrence in human cultural endeavor.

As described in the past several journal intries, the architecture of Zaha Hadid is a physical demonstration of organic growth and organization. In A Thousand Plateaus Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari proposed the notion of the rhizome as a process applicable to cultural processes. I dealt with the idea in this journal, particularly in “Metamodernism: Parts II & III, on June 2nd and 23rd, 2011” respectively. * 1 In those journal entries I stated that a rhizome has a two-dimensional growth pattern, and that the pattern of growth and entropy in human social organization would of necessity be a three- dimensional process. I based that observation in part on Vermeulen and Van den Akker’s ideation in “Notes on Metamodernism.” * 2 In those entries I also mentioned creationist criticism of all science that has anything to do with organic processes. I did so in order to debunk such a notion as less than plausible. Creationist criticism of organic science is based on the notion that the 2nd law of Thermodynamics (hereafter “the 2nd Law) is wrong. That creationist criticism of natural science is non sequitur. Let me explain. The 2nd law sets forth the tendency for all physical processes to tend toward equilibrium or stasis in a closed system. The non sequitur involves two missteps. First, life on earth is not a closed system in a mechanical process. Second, even if it were, the 2nd Law does not refer to random processes such as the variability of snowflakes, lightning, or planets. In short, the 2nd Law has nothing to do with evolutionary theory and/or the growth and organization of organic material. Perhaps they confuse the concept of homeostasis in organic processes with the 2nd Law. In any event, they are confused and illogical.

I have also stated that I'm ambivalent about the Deluze and Guatarri concept “rhizome” because it is two-dimensional. More often than not, human cultural process, including oppositional process is three-dimensional. Consider our own nation. Yes, we can trace a linear development from British colony to Twenty-first Century nation. Within that process, however, one must consider the development of our political two party system, the notion of separation of powers, and the sharing of power among the branches of government (presidency, legislature and courts),as well as the constitution and constitutional interpretation by the courts and others within the culture. Such variation can best be described in two dimensions. However, we must also look at the development of other newer institutions over time many of which are opposed by still other institutions in the larger culture of our democracy. These have proliferated, and their development is a random process that can only be described in more than two-dimensional terms. For instance – without casting aspersions on either side of the following binary opposition - take the cultural reaction to the reality of human sexuality as being variable. Michele Bachman and husband, PhD. Marcus Bachman own a Christian counseling service, “Bachman and Associates” that tries to counsel homosexuals out of their homosexuality. In opposition to that practice is the more largely held cultural position that homosexuality is caused by a combination of biological, genetic, and behavioral factors that are not amenable to counseling and change. Examples of cultural institutionalization of such binary oppositions are rife, and they demonstrate the 3-dimensional quality to cultural variability. I proposed a model for that 3-dimensional variability in the above mentioned journal entry of June 2nd 2011.

I also advance here the idea that Metamodern architectural practice as conducted by Herzog and de Meuron, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, Zaha Hadid and others is - for varied reasons based on each architects oeuvre - a physical three-dimensional visualization of the random cultural processes described here, and I will spend much time in the future developing and describing that notion in more detail.

Notes

* images from archdaily at http://www.archdaily.com/. Viewed Thursday, August 18, 2011. It is understood that one time use of images for intellectual purpose is acceptable under U.S. copyright law.

* 1 Deleuze, Gilles, & Guattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: 1987.

* 2 Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

Nine Eleven

2011-09-11T09:32:00.004-04:00

My Stand (An affirmation)

”My Stand” first appeared as part of Isaac Stolzfuts’ Diary on September 11th, 2003. Today, a decade after the horrible events of Nine Eleven I have altered it to fit my own persona.

I was born on September 11th, 1944.
I was in my classroom on September 11th, 2001,
I walked from desk to desk, and
On bended knee I was
Present to student supplication -
“What do you think about this shape here?”
“What about this line?”
“I can’t make this work –
How do I draw this hand?”
“This perspective isn’t right –
How do I get this sidewalk to look flat?”

My mind wandered, and I
Thought about cake, gag gifts and cards
Waiting in the office for lunch break.
My mind wandered, and I
Talked to myself, wondering,
“How did I get to be FIFTY-SEVEN!”

I n t e r r u p t I o n !

P. A. system sputter –

“Please stop what you are doing.
Turn your Televisions on,
And tune to any station.”

I hit the remote, and TV blinks,
White-noise-background
Stentorian to my mind
The anchor’s voice, a fragment,
Even and measured announcing
“APPARENT TERRORIST ATTACK...”
And, no longer doing our Art,
We watch thousands die,
And it feels as though we are there,
Engulfed in that ebon cloud of dust,
The taste of death in our mouths.
Jenna cries (name changed to protect her innocence)
“That’s got to be just a movie, Dr. Klomp,
Right?” And Henry (NCPHI) says,
"Where are all the super heroes
When you need them?"

Today I have the answer for Henry.
The super heroes are everywhere – they
Are the fallen on Nine Eleven - they
Are the thousands that have died
Since Nine Eleven - you, Henry
Are one of the super Heroes -
Our public employees, police, firemen,
And yes, teachers too are the super heroes
Super heroes are fighting the foreign wars,
And we pray for their safety,
As we pray for the wars to end.

I was born on September 11, 1944,
Near the end of World War Two and that earlier Holocaust.
A Surreal world of horror both then and in 2001 -
Flowers and fireworks versus cinders and soot.
A world in which our best die on foreign soil.
A world in which the lost lives of foreign
Women and children are not counted.
A world in which stolen artifacts
Testament to the beginning of civilization
Are casualties to our “horror terrori.”
A world in which we each partake daily
In this Twenty-first Century crusade.

I do not believe in these wars.
I do not believe in this version
Of the "New American Century."
I do believe in a United States that stands for peace and trust.
I do believe in a United States that leads the world by GOOD example.
I do believe in a United States that bequeaths to the world
A vision of democracy and freedom.
I do believe in a United States in which
Each and every one is hero and patriot -
Laborer, CEO, people of all colors, straight
Lesbian, gay, transsexual, Protestant, Catholic,
Jew, Muslim, man, woman, and child –
I do believe in a United States in which
All American heroes have the right to peaceful dissent.
Dissent is one of the freedoms we believe in!
Do not call any of us anti-American.
Do not tell any of us that we are not patriots.

I was born on September 11, 1944.
My life always circled around “Nine Eleven.”
By birthright I am Nine Eleven,
And I am freedom.
Like Walt Whitman I am part of you
And all of you are a part of me.
And we are all American patriots.
I do believe each of us owes his due on our profligacy.
I don’t believe in a United States in which any American
Must be told he doesn’t have a job
While another is not paying his due.
I do believe that Nine Eleven demonstrates
That every American is willing to do his share.
I was born on September 11, 1944, and
I do believe in a United States in which
We are all 21st century American patriots!

Remember Them the Way They Used To Be.
Be a hero, and picture them the way they will be.
Be an American patriot and invent the way we should be.

Sundance Auction Gladiolas

2011-09-09T10:34:00.002-04:00

Every year my partner and I collect items for the CAMP Sundance Art Auction. On the week of the Sundance we work with a stalwart group to setup and takedown the convention center for the celebration of sun, surf, and our diverse community here in Rehoboth Beach. One of the rewards - other than knowing one has helped a great cause - is that after the Labor Day event we get to take home a huge batch of gladiolas from the Brobdingnagian bouquets that are placed along the serving tables around the periphery of the auditorium. This year we chose yellow and purple flowers from the bouquets’ rainbow colors.

I also have a photograph of our cat, Anna sitting next to and playing with the bouquet from 2008.

For me, the bouquets serve to emphasize the fact that we are privileged to live in this wonderfully diverse community that CAMP and its two founders, Murray Archibald, Steve Elkins and all the many volunteers have helped to create since its inception twenty-two years ago.

Zaha Hadid: Part V

2011-09-04T12:47:00.002-04:00

Indications for Future Study

Zaha Hadid, Abud Dhabi Performing Arts Center, begun in 2009 (in process) *

Hadid’s architecture of this century is organic with specific references to the botanical concepts of growth, organization and entropy. In the last entry on this journal, I used the new Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center as example. That structure looks like a branching vine or tree reaching toward the sparkling waters that surround Saadiyat Island. I make no claim here for the spontaneous acquisition of energy from nothing, which is the chief point in arguments against the conceptualization of growth and organization and evolution on the part of creationists. * 2 Instead, I site the fact that scientists have repeatedly observed phenomena based on growth and spontaneous organization in biological process both in the plant and animal kingdoms. The applied sciences have used this observed organic process to develop computer programming that generates multi-agent organization, which fosters the functionality of Websites like Facebook and Twitter. Zaha Hadid, fascinated by these organic processes uses them as inspiration for her architecture. She creates architectural programs that are an affirmation of life on Earth.

Interesting to this writer is the fact that the organic process involving growth, organization and entropy can also be used to achieve an understanding of cultural processes including languages, and human production like the arts. In the future I will look at how that cultural process works, though that will have to wait until I have had time to investigate both the process, and examples of actual function in the arts.

Notes

* “Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center by Zaha Hadid,” in Archinomy: Bridging the Gap, at http://www.archinomy.com/. Viewed 10:31 EDT, Sunday, August, 28, 2011. It is known that the use of images for one time scholarly purposes is legal under United States Copyright law.

* 2 The creationist argument against evolution that nothing can come from nothing involves the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which as far as I can tell is about the dissolution or movement of energy towards stasis/entropy. Thus, the 2nd Law is not about something coming from nothing, rather it is about the non-availability of energy for work. In other words it is about energy becoming useless. Quite frankly, I have difficulty finding a link between the 2nd law and evolution. The creationist argument is specious. Instead, Science is simply a tool to discover the amazing processes involved in God’s work. I don’t understand why the specificity of the Bible is so important to some Christians. The books of the Bible are products of the time in which they were written by men, and are limited by the lack of human understanding of God’s creation and/or intent. At any rate, the techniques of God’s creation are not so important. The fact of that creation is important.

Futagawa,Yoshio, "Special Issue, Zaha Hadid," Global Architecture Magazine: Document 99 (2007)

Hadid, Zaha, with Introduction by Aaron Betsky. New York: Rizzoli, 2009.

Hadid, Zaha, Zaha Hadid Architects. at http://www.zaha-hadid.com/. Viewed 10:35 AM, EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.

Parunak, H. Van Dyke & Brueckner, Sven, “Entropy and Self-Organization in Multi-Agent Systems,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents (Agents 2001), p. 124-130.

Zaha Hadid, Google at http://www.google.com/. Viewed 10:39 AM EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.

Zaha Hadid: Part IV

2011-08-29T10:03:00.002-04:00

Growth, Organization and Entropy in Organic Processes

The fourth part in an extended series of entries about the architect, this entry will also lead toward application of the above subtitle to human cultural processes as I play with metamodernism. In particular I will discuss Zaha Hadid’s plans for the Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center, part of the 270 Hectacre cultural district of Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi in relation to growth, organization and entropy in both organic and cultural processes.

The Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center

The structure of the Performing Arts Center creates its own dichotomy because it is based on botanical imagery, a curvilinear crystalline metal and glass structure that is alien to thousands of years of architectural history. I don’t want the reader to take that as a negative, instead it should be understood as uncomplicated observation. Let me explain - if anywhere in the Western world you ask a 5-year old child to draw a house, you obtain the following image.

The pentagonal structure made up of a triangle-topped square is almost architectonic in that it is permanently constructed in each and every mind. The entire history of architecture in the West is based almost completely on rectangular and triangular structures – until now. Hadid’s work is not the only work that occupies this organic free form and/or abstract shape territory. There is a list of architects whose works in part can be described as “blobitecture.” Still others, like Frank Gehry, whose structures look as though the rectangle and triangle have been folded through a many layered but curved 4th dimension. However, Hadid’s smoothly extruded curved forms are the only ones that appear to be based purely in botanical processes. The Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center specifically appears to be based on a vine or tree with leafing branches that reach for the sparkle of reflected light from the water surrounding Saadiyat Island. The contrast between traditional structures and these botanically based constructs is so startling as to seem alien when first encountered, belying the appearance that the metallic and glass behemoths grow from a seed beneath the earth’s crust.

I’ve incorporated and documented a few images in this blog entry, but there is such a plethora of these Web images and text about them that it might behoove the reader to do some exploring of his/her own in order to discover the complexity of the design and its roots in growth, organization and entropy.

To be Continued

Notes

Hadid, Zaha, with Introduction by Aaron Betsky. New York: Rizzoli, 2009.

Hadid, Zaha, Zaha Hadid Architects. at http://www.zaha-hadid.com/. Viewed 10:35 AM, EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.

Zaha Hadid, Google at http://www.google.com/. Viewed 10:39 AM EDT, Sunday, August 28, 2011.

* “Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center by Zaha Hadid,” in Archinomy: Bridging the Gap, at http://www.archinomy.com/. Viewed 10:31 EDT, Sunday, August, 28, 2011. It is known that the use of images for one time scholarly purposes is legal under United States Copyright law.

Zaha Hadid: Part III

2011-08-23T10:17:00.002-04:00

Cairo Expo (2009- ) Zaha Hadid *

The Cairo Expo City, construction begun in 2009, looks like an illustration from a 1950’s science fiction pulp magazine cover, or a Surreal painting by artist Yves Tanguy. The buildings appear to grow out of the earth’s bedrock as though carved by flowing water over eons, establishing a presence that is the opposite of many of Hadid’s designs which as I’ve said seem to inhabit a fluctuating time/space. It is understood that this geologic contiguity is related to the manner in which the Nile flows through the surrounding countryside. Never the less, as always the fantasy element is present.

Cairo Expo, Serpentine Walkways (2009- ) Zaha Hadid *

Cairo Expo, Interior View (2009- ) Zaha Hadid *

As part of the program carved arteries work through the serpentine structures dividing the complex into individual though related sections of clustered buildings for conference, exhibition, shopping, and office space. Flowing through the center, a main stream gathers curvilinear tributaries from each of the complex subdivisions. The two office towers (30 and 31 stories) are contained within the flowing structures, and relate to the entire program because of their elongated and extremely subtle curves and bulbous bases.

The entire set of structures is so contained by the organic water carved land metaphor as to seem a more permanent part of this land than are the great pyramids themselves. Thus, they are a piece of the incredibly long history of Egypt, and I hope their construction has not been interrupted by the current instability of the region.

Notes

*images from archdaily at http://www.archdaily.com/. Viewed Thursday, August 18, 2011. It is understood that one time use of images for intellectual purpose is acceptable under U.S. copyright law.

Hadid, Zaha, "Zaha Hadid," in Wikipedia, , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid. Last modified August 8, 2011, viewed 9:21 AM EDT, August 16, 3011.

Hadid Zaha, Zaha Hadid Architects, http://www.zaha-hadid.com/, viewed 10:00 A.M., EDT, Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

Horsley, Carter B>, "Zaha Hadid: Queen of energetic, explosive works of varied perspectives," at the Gugggenheim Museum, June 3 to October 25, 2006. Viewed 10:12 A.M., Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

Zaha Hadid: Part II

2011-08-16T10:18:00.007-04:00

Zaha Hadid, Antwerp Port Authority, to be finished 2013

Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950 the Architect has often been called the Diva of Architecture, a title she takes issue with, saying, and I’m paraphrasing “If I were an excellent but stubborn and aggressive male architect I would not be called a Diva.”

An interesting aside, my goddaughter is a world-class executive chef and freely admits to also being a “DIVA.” I say why not – if you are especially good at what you do, understand just how good you are, and push hard to be successful in your career – you should accept the title "DIVA" as an accolade.

Zaha Hadid’s life is summarized in several sources on the Web, and I’ve detailed these in my notes. Instead of spending time writing about her life, I would rather write about her curvilinear creations. As stated in my last journal entry, it is as though her buildings have suddenly appeared in our time/space continuum from another dimension. They interrupt our architectural history, seeming to hover around and among the structures in their urban environment including historic structures, modernist shoeboxes and the postmodern deconstructed structures of modernism and their disjointed mixture with historic artifice. They refuse to be viewed from any one direction, forcing us to walk around and through them, walls, ceilings, and floors sometimes morphing into one another, as though oscillating in and out of our current time/space frame. They reflect our disjointed and conflicted contemporary culture much as Mannerist art and architecture reflected the conflicted post Renaissance in Italy and surrounding European nations, a time when the Catholic Popes had overstepped the bounds of their worldly power, and suffered the consequences.

view of bridge and port with Port Authority Headquarters

Let’s examine several examples of these Twenty-first Century Mannerist masterpieces. First, The new Antwerp Port Authority headquarters in Belgium, slated to be completed in 2013. The design incorporates an existing historic firehouse with a new structure designed to bring 500 employees together from various buildings. This combination of the past with the new is a trope that has been used over and over again since the Postmodern and it has saved many an historic structure from being raised. However in Hadid’s hands, the design interrupts our standard conception of how the old and the new might be incorporated into one seamless program. Instead of joining the buildings, the new crystalline structure in the shape of a powerboat hull (the reference is obvious enough) hovers above the existing firehouse, transformed into something that looks like a light-filled flying wedge. Refusing to be philosophical about the integration of the two structures, Hadid said, “…the dichotomy between the reflective, faceted form of the new extension and the powerful structural mass of the existing fire station creates a bold and enigmatic statement for the city.” “Enigmatic, “ indeed! Her choice of words leaves the question of how this oppositional structure exists - within the frame of the city and port in which it is located, with the symbolic port suspension bridge behind allowing the new building to literally and figuratively hover - in and among our discordant ideas about city and port as congested difficult places of refuge. Also, how fitting the port bridge is behind since the port authority is the bridge that controls the flow of traffic between locations and conflicted cultures.

Three quarter view of Antwerp Port Authority with bridge

To be continued.

Notes

Hadid, Zaha, "Zaha Hadid," in Wikipedia, , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid. Last modified August 8, 2011, viewed 9:21 AM EDT, August 16, 3011.

* “antwerp port authority headquarters by zaha Hadid architects,” in designboom, http://www.designboom.com/, copyrighted 2000-2010. Viewed 10:00 A.M., EDT, Sunday, August 14, 2011. It is thought that one time use of copyright material for intellectual purposes is within legal parameters of United States copyright law.

Antwerp Port Authority Headquarters by Zaha Hadid, in the Contemporist, http://www.contemporist.com/. Posted January 21, 2009, viewed, 9:00 AM. EDT, Tuesday, August 16, 2011.

Antwerp Port Authority Headquarters/Zaha Hadid, in eVolo, http://www.evolo.us/. Posted October 11, 2010, viewed 9:10 AM. EDT, Tuesday, August 16, 2011.

Zaha Hadid

2011-08-10T10:42:00.004-04:00

Help! It's an Inter-Dimensional Space Alien Invasion of the Twenty-first Century!

“Really, John – You’ve gone too far!” says the alter ego.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London, temporary instalation (July 12 -21, 2007) Zaha Hadid *

As some would have it, Hadid’s architecture skips over the Postmodern to a redefined more radical Modernism that more accurately defines contemporary Twenty-first Century culture. Instead, I would say that a rejection of the jaded Postmodern deconstruction of Modernism and reevaluation of the past implies the understanding of its presence. That is not to say that the rejection is not part of Hadid’s oeuvre, only that contemporary culture is more complex than most of us know. As with much of the most inventive “Metamodern” architecture Hadid’s buildings seem to be an invasion of their surroundings, as though something foreign to our history has materialized from another dimension. For instance, the organic form of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London looks like a giant conch-like apparition, alien to the park and rectangular urban architecture that surrounds it. At the same time, the temporary nature of the installation creates a "here today gone today" ironic response in this author. Never the less, the pavilion is one of the many curvilinear buildings proliferating the major urban centers of our world. And, there in lies a clue as to the location of this type of Twenty-first century architecture. Many of the major building projects worldwide are based in curved form that can only exist as a result of contemporary computer driven technology. Hadid’s architecture is part of a radicalized global architecture driven by bizarre and/or organic geometry that steers a course through the ubiquitous oppositional confusion of contemporary world culture(s).

More about Zaha Hadid and her buildings in my next entry.

Notes

* IT, The Terror From Beyond Space! (1958) United Artists, from the Website Posteropolis, http://posteropolis.com/store/. Viewed 11:00 PM EDT, Wednesday, August 10, 2011. It is thought that one time use of copyright material for intellectual purpose is within the limits of United States copyright law.

* Hadid, Zaha, Serpentine Gallery pavillion, London, in "Marcelo Zefarin's Blog," http://abduzeedo.com/architect-day-zaha-hadid, Viewed 10:30 AM, EDT, August 10, 2011. It is thought that one time use of copyright material for intellectual purpose is within the limits of United States copyright law.

Flat Water on the Beach Behind Seminole Golf Club

2011-08-05T10:00:00.001-04:00

Looking through old photos, I came across this image from 2006. It isn’t one of the most beautiful or unusual photos I’ve ever taken. However, it does show the Atlantic Ocean on a calm day with a slight land breeze. When that happens the ocean turns into a big lake with small waves, sometimes no waves at all. On this particular day, the water was also at its most transparent turquoise and teal, a crystal gem gracing mother earth’s breast. Locals call these conditions, “flat water.” I’ve often wondered what evangelicals mean when they say they talk to God, because I can’t. Never the less, on a day with flat water I can sit on the rocks of the ancient reef, gaze into that smooth crystal-clear void and allow myself to be swallowed up by the universe.

Graphite Drawings Installed at Characters Restaurant, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

2011-07-31T10:34:00.002-04:00

From Right to Left, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Christopher Reeves, and Norma Jean Baker (Marilyn Monroe), all (32" x 40") pencil and graphite powder

Marlene Dietrich (32" x 40") pencil

After thirty years the drawings have been resurrected from their cardboard box coffins. They are once again hanging, this time in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Some have been buried for as long as thirty-five years, others only twenty-eight. These are some of the drawings I have left from my 15 minutes of (if not fame) success (as Clark Klomp) back in the late 1970's and early 1980's.* I had no idea that I would feel so wonderful upon seeing them brought back from the dead. Thank you Meghan, Jose, and Character's Restaurant for bringing these iconic character images back into the light of day!

Marlin Brando, (32" x 40"), pencil

*"Clark Klomp" was the alias given to YT by certain adopted family during those too few minutes of success in New York City and Philadelphis.

Kunsthaus Graz

2011-07-26T09:40:00.012-04:00

Peter Cook and Colin Fournier

This piece of “blobitecture” - to use the vernacular for free form architecture created solely or mostly with computer programming - sits in the historic section of Graz, Germany, near the Clock Tower of the Schlossberg. The Kunsthaus' Amoeba like form flows around its historical partner. Most importantly to this journal, it has a metamodern presence, like a time machine with a broken “flux capacitor” oscillating between and among past, present and future.

“With respect both to urban planning and to its purpose, the Kunsthaus functions as a bridgehead at a point where the past and the future meet.” *2

This museum is all over the place - a simplified statement about its complex program! While It meets the most demanding requirements for contemporary art exhibition spaces it also accomplishes much more. It manages to be integrated with the historical past of its surroundings despite the unusual design, and is connected directly to the oldest cast-iron building in Europe, the historical monument Elsernes Haus. The amazing exterior wall is like a chameleon’s skin. Not only does it change color, it is capable of direct visual communication with it’s urban environment using a system developed by “realities limited” called BIX. The system is capable of displaying type and moving images. The museum manages to meet, complete and go beyond the old “Modern” saw, “form follows function” better than any contemporary art museum out there. I’d make an expensive trip just to visit this structure and its immediate environment. I want more!

The alter ego chimes in with, “Such an emotional response, John!”

“Yes, I know. I should attempt to remain objective, but - admitting my own parochial past - this is my first look at Twenty-first Century architecture beyond our own borders. The fact that this building was in the planning stages back in the 1990’s and completed in 2003 is amazing!” In fact, I’m surprised that Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin Van den Akker didn't site this structure when discussing their ideation about the Metamodern because it is such a wonderful example of a three dimensional model of metaxis. See the reductive model From this journal, June 2nd, 2011.

The Architects

Professor Sir Peter Cook is founder of Archigram created in the 1960's to be an avant-garde architectural group with a futurist concentration. Colin Fournier is a professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Bartlett School of Architecture, part of the University College of London.

Notes

* "Kunsthaus Graz" in UrbARama: Atlas of Architecture, http://en.urbarama.com/project/kunsthaus-graz, contributed by dpr_Barcelona, April 20, 2009, Viewed 10:00 AM EDT, Sunday, July 24, 2011. It is thought that one time use of an image for intellectual purpose is acceptable within United States copyright law.

*2 Kiser, Kirsten, “Spacelab Cook-Fournier Kunsthaus Graz,” in arcspace, http://www.arcspace.com/architects/cook/. Posted January 12, 2004, viewed 9:20 AM EDT, Saturday, July 23, 2011.

Daniel Libeskind

2011-07-20T11:11:00.002-04:00

The first in a survey of Twenty-first Century Architects

Danish Jewish Museum, interior

"The Danish Jewish Museum will become a destination which will reveal the deep tradition as well as the future of the unprecedented space of Mitzvah. The intertwining of the old structure of the vaulted brick space of the Royal Library and the unexpected connection to the unique exhibition space creates a dynamic dialogue between architecture of the past and of the future - the newness of the old and the agelessness of the new." *

Danish Jewish Museum, exterior

Limited by time and work, this will necessarily be brief, reductionist and to the point. It does not indicate any limitation to the importance of Daniel Libeskind as a late Twentieth and early Twenty-first Century architect.

Libeskind first came to my attention in 2003 when his design was chosen for the new World Trade Center in New York City. His design universe is based in distorted 3 and 4-sided polygons that look crystalline to this observer, and may be considered to some extent organic (or not). Often his work is collaborative - I question whether by choice - he never the less seems to welcome the limitations placed by interaction with others. So many of the designs also include an interaction of his contemporary design concepts with historical structure. Initially critics claimed his work to be too assertive, though his subsequent international success demonstrates approval of his bold designs. Libeskind was born in Poland of Jewish/Polish survivors of the Holocaust, and became a U. S. citizen in 1965.

This brief summary is indicative of a Metamodern position based in metaxis. However, the question remains, is the indication based on my own position?

Notes

• Libeskind, Daniel, The Danish Jewish Museum, Studio Daniel Libeskind, http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/. Construction completed September, 2003, opened June, 2004, Viewed 10:20 AM, EDT, Wednesday, July 20, 2011

• Libeskind, Daniel, The Danish Jewish Museum, Studio Daniel Libeskind, http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/. Viewed 10:20 AM, EDT, Wednesday, July 20, 2011. The one time use of images for intellectual purposes is thought to be within the legal limits of United States copyright law.

Perfect Day on Cape Henlopen

2011-07-15T11:51:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, we took a visiting friend out to our little cape. July cooperated by giving us the most delightful summer weather imaginable.

If I were only twenty-something again, I’d be out there in a second. Air temperature 80 degrees Fahrenheit, water temperature, 73 degrees Fahrenheit, Sun intense, waves, medium, Cape Henlopen magnificent! We sat on the rocks for an hour watching the young folk do their surfing. I created a little story in my head, that the younger man sitting on the rocks in front of us was actually a dad, watching protectively over his children in the water.

We also went for a long walk on the beach, and drove out to the end of the cape to look at the lighthouses out in the Delaware Bay and the dunes wrapping around from the bay to the Atlantic Ocean.

Capes End, (Pastel) Yours Truly, 2007

Just throwing in a little known fact here - the dunes on our little Delaware cape mark the highest point on the Atlantic beaches between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras.

The Metamodern, Architecture, and World Architecture

2011-07-10T08:49:00.003-04:00

I discuss current trends in Architecture with a new series of blog entries.

Metamodernism is limited to a Western and Eurocentric conceptualization. As such, does it indicate a period after dominance of the Arts by the United States? Or is it simply one piece in a larger picture that indicates a more inclusive Western movement, or perhaps one that is inclusive, cross-cultures and worldwide? I propose an answer to these questions, and perhaps others as I explore architecture from the (4 corners of the globe) - this last, a purposeful use of the inaccurate pun/trope that indicates a preliminary if rudimentary understanding of Contemporary World Architecture.

In their discussion “Notes on Metamodernism,” Vermeulen and Van den Akker, use the Swiss Architecture firm, Herzog and de Meuron as a primary example of the metamodern. * Their design for the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, completed in 2005 has a bulbous silhouette that predisposes the observer to describe the firm’s style as “blobitecture.”*2 However, a thorough examination of the various buildings designed by the firm reveals a broad oeuvre that includes standard rectangular solids reminiscent of various historical design periods. I choose some rectangular examples including; 1) Miami Art Museum, and Lincoln Road Garage, Miami, 2) 40 Bond Street, London (reminiscent of Antonio Gaudi), 3) The rectangular addition to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and 4) The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, N.Y. Often the buildings are a mixture of two seemingly opposite styles, a surreal pastiche of an existing or imagined history with a fanciful curvilinear, rectangular, and/or abstracted trapezoid like form. Examples include; 1) CaixaForum, Madrid, 2) Goetz Collection, Munich, 3) Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, and 4) VitraHaus, Weil am Rhein, the archetypal house mixed with stacked forms.

The partners, Jacques Herzog, and Pierre de Meuron, both born in 1950 are Swiss, both having attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, have designed buildings all over the world, but are perhaps best known for their use of the Bankside Power Station as the major part of their design for the new Tate Modern. That building, a long rectangular structure built in stages beginning in 1947 through 1963 is massive, longer than two football fields, providing the perfect interior space for contemporary art installations. That mid 20th Century fortress like structure is wedded to a stack of rectangular forms of various sizes and at various angles incorporated within a giant trapezoidal structure at the southern end. Thus, the museum is an excellent example of the second type of mixed oppositional style structure described above. The Tate Modern then provides a perfect visual and structural metaphore for Vermeulen and Van den Akker’s description of the metamodern as inhabiting the space between and among and (I suspect) limitless series of oppositions including the Modern versus Postmodern, perhaps pointing out that these things are not necessarily conflicted. Instead, they may even be complimentary when integrated in a well thought out program. This last, perhaps the architects’ method of visual and spatial instruction to a culture caught in a conflagration of oppositional forces.

Notes

* Pearman, Hugh, "Tate Modern Tate 2: Herzog and de Meuron go gothic," in The Sunday Times, London, http://www.hughpearman.com/2006/25.html. © Copyright 1998-2009 Hugh Pearman. Viewed 11:00 AM, EDT, Saturday, July 9, 2011. It is thought that one time use of an image for intellectual purposes is within copyright law of the United States of America.

*2 Blobitecture - I've linked to the Wikipedia description of "blobitecture." Blobitecture is also known as "waveform" architecture and is achieved mostly/completely (as I understand it) with computer design. I also located a book, Blobitecture: Waveform Architecture and Digital Design, by John K. Walters, Rockport Publishers (2003).

Turtle Tracks

2011-07-05T12:27:00.002-04:00

In June, before we left Juno for Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, we went to the beach one morning and found that a turtle had laid her eggs leaving fresh tracks behind. Someone had marked the spot with a stick so that the Loggerhead Marine Life people would be able to tag the spot. I took the photograph, one of 15 using different shutter speeds, f-stops and changing the spot on which I focused in order to make sure that at least one image was focused several feet out from the camera lens to infinity. It was fairly early in the morning, so the sun was low and reflecting off the water and shining directly into the camera lens, which often creates problems. Instead, the intensity if the light worked to enhance the tracks, and the shadow from the stick pointed out of the photograph toward the viewer.

The image reminds me that we have a responsibility to preserve the environment for the creatures of this earth.

Footprints in the Sand: Cape Henlopen

2011-06-30T10:34:00.001-04:00

This is one of an extensive series of photographs taken over time of critter footprints on the Cape. I can’t help myself. I love the various kinds of natural traces left behind, and I wish that the only things mankind left behind on our beaches might be our footprints.

The alter ego says, “Dream on, oh loco John!”

To which I reply in my metamodern oscillating performance, “If I can dream it, it can happen, perhaps.”

We need a 501(c)(3) named “Only Our Footprints” to take over the entire planet.

Metamodernism: Part III

2011-06-23T11:07:00.012-04:00

Revision of Fantasy and the Surreal in Contemporary Art

Vermeulen and Van den Akker conceptualize one of the main characteristics of the metamodern as a return to Romanticism. However, their definition of Romanticism involves two major ideas. First, Kant’s nineteenth century opposition to idealism, and second, an oscillation between and among many oppositions based in their own theoretical notions.

“…, essentially, the Romantic attitude can be defined precisely by its oscillation between these opposite poles.”
*5

I have previously explored this notion of Romanticism, one that involves Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome in “Metamodernism: Part II”, and “Metamodernism.

*1,4

Vermeulen and van den Akker also see the following contemporary works and artists as revisiting the Romantic though it is a Romanticism as viewed through the oppositional lens of the Modern versus the Postmodern (reads idealism versus skepticism). They cite the work of Bas Jan Adder’s films and his surreal life as (I guess) a sort of historical antecedent. They include the Rene Daalder film about Bas Jan Adder’s life; “Here is Always Somewhere Else” by way of example. Additionally they give the architects, Herzog and de Meuron prime importance in a Metamodern constellation of stars. The Danish/Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliason’s workshop/factory is given extreme importance as well. The visual artists, Gregory Crewdson, David Lynch, David Thorpe, and Kay Donachie, Glen Rubsamen, Dan Attoe and Armin Boehm are also given as examples of a metamodern Romantic aesthetic. Instead, I find that all of these folks seem to inhabit a space that can only be described as psychological, fantastic and Surreal. At the same time I do not differ with the use of a redefined romantic sensibility to describe the metamodern, though I do wish to broaden it to include the fantastic and surreal as dominant - dominant because most of the cited visual artists' work is fantastic and/or surreal in the Modern sense which removes it and them at least 1 major step from nineteenth century aesthetics. And, my argument is then subsumed within Vermeulen and van den Akker’s notion that the metamodern is situated in and among all these oscillating oppositions. Thus, they can have their cake and eat it too, a very metamodern trope in and of itself.

My alter ego says, "Your jaded Postmodern skepticism is showing, John."

And I reply in schizophrenic fashion,"Yes, but I still favor the term metamodern over any of the other terms meant to describe the Art World after the Postmodern."

At some point in the near future I will take a look at each of the artists mentioned above in relation to Romanticism of the past and/or a contemporary revision of romantic, fantasy based, and/or surreal art.

Sources:

1. Deleuze, Gilles, & Guattari, Felix, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia, Minneapolis: 1987.

2. Herzog and de Meuron , “Elbe Philharmonic Hall,” ArchDaily, http://www.archdaily.com/. Visited 10:00 AM, Thursday, June 23, 2011 EDT.

3. Kuehn, Manfred, Kant: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2001

4. Klomp, John B., “Metamodernism,” & “Metamodernism, Part II,” in The Art of John Bittinger Klomp, http://jbkart.blogspot.com/. Visited 10:30 AM, Thursday, June 23, 2011EDT.

5. Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, “Notes on Metamodernism,” in Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677. On line at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, visited 10:35 AM, EDT, Thursday, June 23, 2011.

Cape Henlopen Beach Sand

2011-06-18T10:38:00.002-04:00

We haven’t been to Henlopen this year but, here is a photographic trace in the beach sand from years past.

The waves wash in and create serpentine striations in the sand. Critters dig their holes back into the wet sand as the water recedes, and the result is this super macrocosmic landscape. Scale is given by the shell and piece of dried seaweed. If these weren’t there we might be looking down on the desert from an airplane, or perhaps a Martian landscape complete with craters and traces of long lost flowing water.

I take pictures of wave washed sand every chance I get, and I find the tan sand of the middle Atlantic beaches to be especially perfect to making the best sand patterns. Late afternoon light is best to pick out the subtleties in the ‘sandscape.’ I don’t remember the other particulars of this photograph among literally a thousand or more. However, I can tell that the shell was added after the fact because there should be indications of the water’s leave taking, and there aren’t. I will definitely go to the beach this coming week to take more sand photographs.

I envision a gallery wall covered in a grid of beach sand photographs. Across the room the grid is subtle, and the wall simply looks tan, with other "Waterworks" pastels, mixed-media distressed paintings, and photographs hung on it.

Atlantic Sunrise

2011-06-12T09:40:00.000-04:00

I will start on a painting based on this photograph with additions from several others taken last month when I return to Delaware. It will be the third 32" x 40" pastel painting of an Atlantic Sunrise. The first was a commission, the second waits on my drawing table to be packed and taken to Delaware. I’ve also done one very small 8” x 8” pastel Atlantic Sunrise. As I write I can hear my 2nd year undergraduate painting professor tell the studio class, “Whatever you do, don’t paint sunsets and sunrises. You can’t outdo the real thing, and the results will be so horribly trite no matter how good you are.” I actually passed that bit of idiotic wisdom on to a student of mine once, and it came back to haunt me years latter, when as an adult the student told me how disappointed he was by my statement. Of course I can’t do a better job than the original creator, but I can freeze a moment in time, and make it my own by adding those things - like richer, brighter colors, the full moon perhaps, a pelican, a distortion and/ or a swirl to clouds in front of the sun, a splash in the water, - that I see as most important to the image. So, here I am a repentant Post Postmodern old fart painting trite sunrises, and actually being happy with the results.

I like the way the sun breached the horizon in this image, making a red-orange burst on the horizon. Also, I’m looking forward to rendering the lavender and red-violet reflections of that sunburst on the dark aqua colored water. It’s cool how a seagull happened to fly in from the edge of the framed image just as I pressed the shutter button. I will look at other sunrise photographs I've taken for that something special to add, and I want a thin sliver of a silver moon somewhere in the actual painting. All that will happen next week after the eleven hundred mile trek to Delaware.

Social Realism in the Twenty-first Century?

2011-06-07T10:07:00.010-04:00

Part XIV of a series about the possibility of a rebirth of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo), based in part on my several LATE NIGHT readings of “Notes on Metamodernism” by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. *1

Banksy

According to my research on the Post Postmodern, Popomo, Metamodern, whichever or whatever, there can be no such thing as a resurgence of Social Realism in the Twenty-first Century.

The alter ego asks. "Why is that, John?”

If I look at Vermeulen and Van den Akker’s notion of the Metamodern, any revived Social Realism would have to be suspended in a state of oscillation somewhere between and/or among Modernist idealism, the Postmodern jaded approach to the world, and the Metamodern/Hypermodern/Post Postmodern conflicted political/social/religious global Twenty-first century cultural systems and practices. These must include the dirty energy versus clean energy dichotomy subsumed within idealized global capitalism, idealized East versus West religious practices, idealized global democracy, and an idealized global open society. As a product of my time and place, I am at once jaded and idealistic. I want Art with social concerns to be visible everywhere, but I also watch Governor Paul LePage (R) stealthily rip down the labor mural in the Maine Department of Labor, and I know that the democratic state is in danger of irreparable damage from such ideologically motivated and sanctioned bullying behavior. I do know that a few artists like Banksy and Denis Peterson are making art that is clearly related to the Social Realism of the past. As a product of the Zeitgeist my own artwork, “The Waterworks,” is an idealistic plea for saving our oceans, and fresh water resources from the ravages of dirty energy and the seemingly built in human propensity to destroy everything and anything we touch.

“Sounds like your caught between a rock and a hard place, John.”

“Yes, dear alter ego. I continue to ‘HOPE’ despite all the nay saying and my own negativity, a totally Metamodern position.”

Notes
*1 Vermeulen, Timotheus and Van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture eISSN 2000-4214, on the Web at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, Viewed Wednesday, 7:57 PM, May 4, 2011. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Responsible editor: Astrid Söderbergh Widding.

*2 Cochrane, Andy, “Banksy Postmortem” at The AV Club, http://blog.theavclub.tv/post/banksy-postmortem. Posted September 18, 2006, viewed by John 9:40 AM EDT, Tuesday, June 7, 2011.

Metamodernism? Part II

2011-06-02T06:44:00.010-04:00

Notes on "Notes on Metamodernism"

Part XIII of a series about the possibility of a rebirth of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo). These are some rough ruminations based on my second LATE NIGHT reading of “Notes on Metamodernism” by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. *1

Structure Types - it appears to me that all of the following are related in that they all are random, though in different ways.

Rhizomatic –Felix Gauttari and Gilles Deleuze – A Thousand Plateaus (1980)*2

Parataxis – A group of related ideas, statements, concepts, words, put together in no apparent order. What are the similarities or differences to/with Rhizomatic structures?

Pastiche – a hodge-podge a group of seemingly unrelated things hastily put together, as in ET’s communication device. In literature, a hodge-podge of different styles or imitation of various styles in one work.

Metaxis (Gk) Plato – suspension between and among oppositions.
____________________________________

Nicholas Baurriaud – altermodernism- Vermeulen and Van den Akker argue that Baurriaud confuses knowledge with being / “epistemology with ontology.” However, Hegelian precepts maintain that knowledge and being are of necessity one or human beings would be incapable of functioning within the physical world. I certainly find that knowledge is necessary to functioning well in the physical world. I know that the stove burner is hot from past experience (I accidentally touched it when I was five years old and was physically burned). Thus there is a link between my having been burned (being in the world) and my knowledge of “how to BE” safe in the world. In any event, I’m not at all certain that Verveulen and Van den Akker’s position is any less flawed than Baurriaud’s. Actually I like both explanations of a possible Post Postmodern world despite actual and/or imagined flaws.

Vermeulen and Van den Akker say that epistemologically the metamodern thinks in an “as if” mode, to paraphrase, and liken that to Kant’s notion that humankind performs “as if” it were working toward a goal of perfection even though it knows it isn’t doing so. At the same time, they state the following.

“If you will forgive us for the banality of the metaphor for a moment, the metamodern thus willfully adopts a kind of donkey-and-carrot double-bind. Like a donkey it chases a carrot that it never manages to eat because the carrot is always just beyond its reach. But precisely because it never manages to eat the carrot, it never ends its chase, setting foot in moral realms the modern donkey (having eaten its carrot elsewhere) will never encounter, entering political domains the postmodern donkey (having abandoned the chase) will never come across.

I have a problem deciphering / understanding these statements, because the authors slide from the “metamodern,” to the modern and postmodern without giving notice of the slippery slide from one to the other.

German philosopher Eric Voegelin - One of the claims of the postmodern was that it surrounded and included the modern in its very opposition to the idealism/utopism of modernism. Through Voegelin, via Plato Vermeulen and Van den Akker stake the claim that metamodernism includes but does not occupy the modern or postmodern, that instead it exists, around, through and inbetween them. What is the difference?

The clearest description Vermeulen and Van den Akker provide for the difference between the modern, postmodern, and metamodern.

“CEOs and politicians, architects, and artists alike are formulating anew a narrative of longing structured by and conditioned on a belief (“yes we can”, “change we can believe in”) that was long repressed, for a possibility (a “better” future) that was long forgotten. Indeed, if, simplistically put, the modern outlook vis-à-vis idealism and ideals could be characterized as fanatic and/or naive, and the postmodern mindset as apathetic and/or skeptic, the current generation's attitude—for it is, and very much so, an attitude tied to a generation—can be conceived of as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism.”

Vermeulen and Van den Akker refer to Hegel’s philosophy as “positive idealism” instead of absolute idealism - the generally accepted name for Hegelian idealism - in order to oppose it to Kant’s negative idealism. I need to investigate that change. I know Hegel was reacting to Kant. Do others place the two in opposition?

Vermeulen and Van den Akker point to a rebirth of theism as a metamodern strategy in the arts via German philosopher Raoul Eshelman’s “performatism." I wonder if the word, “theism” isn't awkward as it implies a Western belief in a singular God active in the personal sense as in Western Christian evangelical practice – whereas Vermeulen and Van den Akker claim a process that is between / among other middle-eastern and eastern practices as well. Of course their own description of the metamodern allows for such inaccuracies since the metamodern is not absolute in its own metaxic performance.

A reductive reaction to Vermeulen and Van den Akker

It would appear that the postmodern used one strategy among others in the attempt to void absolutes, that is to list binary oppositions, and play with each individually and/or together. However, the “metamodern” would place these binary oppositions in a relationship to one another that can only be described as three dimensional, in motion, and where any opposition can be connected to or disconnected to any other(s) at any time. This model is much more transparent than Vermeulen and Van den Akker’s use of Delleuze and Guattari’s 2- dimensional Rhizomatic model.

Notes

*1 Vermeulen, Timotheus and Van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture eISSN 2000-4214, on the Web at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, Viewed Wednesday, 7:57 PM, May 4, 2011. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Responsible editor: Astrid Söderbergh Widding.

*2 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus, trans.Brian Masumi. London and New York: Continuum (2004)

*3 Vermeulen, Timotheus and Van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture eISSN 2000-4214, on the Web at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, Viewed Wednesday, 7:57 PM, May 4, 2011. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Responsible editor: Astrid Söderbergh Widding.

That Which Is Not Social Realism in the 21st Century

2011-05-28T10:30:00.002-04:00

Part XIV of a series about the possibility of a rebirth of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo) / Metamodern

Rereading my own suggested 21st Century Social Realists from the March 27th entry, I am amazed at the whacky list I posted. Perhaps I was desperate. First, Francis Bacon whose paintings quite possibly indicated a deep personal neurotic anger - was not trying to expose social wrongs - and most of his important work happened well before the Postmodern or the Post Postmodern (Popomo). Donigan Cummings work is a painful look at the human condition, and as such, fits a Popomo / Metamodernist position, but it does not speak directly to contemporary social/cultural ills. Nor does Charles Ray, though his work cross-examines cultural phenomenon, it is not critical; instead it is more a detached ironic observation of them. Kenny Scharf is a technical wizard, but a pop artist, not a social realist. At least Cindy Sherman's work touches on social realism obliquely because it makes us ask questions about our culture-wide clichés about women.

Cindy Sherman

Now, David Wojnarowicz is another story. He was an angry young man, but his artwork also called attention to the plight of gay men with AIDS in the America of his time. Unfortunately he died on the cusp of the Postmodern and the Post Postmodern. Thus, he cannot be of the Popomo/metamodern.

I am left with but three names from my list, Denis Peterson, Banksy, and Robert Longo, though Longo is questionable. So, I must continue my search for artists working in a Social Realist vein in this century.

* It is thought that one time use of an image (not in the public domain) for intellectual purpose qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

Thunderhead #2

2011-05-23T09:41:00.000-04:00

Another picture from the May 14th evening walk with family.

This is the briefest of entries in months, but I’m desperate to get a particularly complicated pastel painting finished, and it is taking up my days.

Thunderhead (May 14, 2011)

2011-05-18T00:25:00.000-04:00

Saturday evening - family visiting so we walk to the intracoastal in the evening after a sudden thunderstorm appears out of nowhere, blows through with squalling wind and a splash of rain cools the air. Now the lowering sun shines from a deep blue sky, with brilliant piles of white, yellow, and orange cumulonimbus on the eastern horizon, and our conversation weaves a tapestry through the light and color. We have cameras with us so we can take the usual family snapshots. Instead we take a hundred pictures of clouds reflecting in the water, the full moon nestled between two nimbus knobs or the flying metal egg that holds one-hundred-and-twenty strangers safe, a tiny arrow piercing the storm.

I love these people, the storm, the sun, rain and plane. All my family, including those lost, and those not present walked with me last Saturday beneath that cobalt, cerulean and indigo heaven, all of us golden in the storm’s sun-reflection. Looking at this photo my senses are filled to over flowing not because of artifice or art.

– memory.

Robert Longo

2011-05-13T23:58:00.004-04:00

Part XIII of a series about the possibility of a rebirth, or at least the presense of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo) / Metamodern.

Oscillation (Media)

Charcoal on mounted paper, C-print, charcoal and Ink on mounted paper, C-print mounted on museum board, charcoal, graphite, ink and chalk on vellum, brass & copper bullets and steel, charcoal and graphite on paper, raw pigment and medium on unprimed canvas, cast wax, calcinated wood, oil and paint, cast bronze, Silkscreen and enamel on aluminum; acrylic and oil on wood, Acrylic and charcoal on shaped canvas; cast bronze on motorized platform of steel and wood, film.

I make some Comments based on the list

The only reason for the use of any of the above media/materials seems to be the following. Whatever it takes to complete the artist’s vision! The list is ordered temporally from the media used in the most recent to the oldest artworks. There was no method to my madness. I did notice that Robert Longo often returns to charcoal and/or graphite on paper as a preferred medium, and that created an oscillation or movement between and among all other media and this preferred black and white medium.

List of Some of the Most Recent Artworks with sizes included

The Mysteries - God Machines, Untitled (White Tiger) 94.5 x 70 inches, Synagogue 120 x 300 inches, untitled (North Cathedral) 70 x 117, untitled (my wife, Barbara, in a Burka) 96 x 70 inches, Daddy’s Caddy 59&3/8 x 96 inches. Yingxiong, Heroes – Iceman 40 & 1/8 x 46 inches, Starbuck 45 & 15/16 x 39 & 15/16 inches, Ulysses 80 x 70 inches. Balcony – Angel 58 x 70 inches, Gloria 58 x 96 inches, Untitled (No. 2) 41 7 1/8 x 91 & ½ inches. Perfect Gods, 2007 – Untitled (Big Shark) 73 & 1/8 x 70 inches, Untitled (Shark 4) 88 x 70 inches, Untitled (Claudius) 70 x 96 inches. Heritage, 2006 – Untitled (after C B.) 3 & 1/16 x 5 & 11/16 inches, Untitled (After Delacroix, The Barque of Dante – 1822) 5 & ½ x 7 & 3/8 inches, Untitled (After Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ, 1602) 5 & 11/16 x 7 & 11/16 inches, Untitled (After Picasso, Guernica, 1937) 3 & ½ x 7 & ¾ inches, Untitled (After Rauschenberg, Retroactive, 1, 1964) 6 & ¼ x 4 & ½ inches. The Sickness of Reason, 2003 – (Untitled, Bikini Atol/1946) 72 x 96 inches, Mike Test (Head of Goya), 72 x 96 inches, Russian Bomb (Them) Semipalatinsk.

I Make Some Comparisons Based on the Above List.

I stopped the list of artworks at 2003 simply because to continue cataloging titles of artwork and dimensions would be pointless, unless that were the reason for making this journal entry. Actually, if I were a schizophrenic Metamodernist, perhaps that would be a cool option, but pointless, and I’m sure Popomo / Metamodern artists do not consider their work to be pointless. Besides, I can draw a conclusion based on the various sizes of these artworks because they range from Brobdingnagian to miniature in scale. Personally, I like to work large because it is easier. I don’t know if that would be true for all artists, and I wonder why Robert Longo decided to oscillate between these two opposing scales. In the “Heritage” series he pays homage to the masters of the past, so why make these black and white charcoal miniatures about the great masters of the past so small? How are they less important than his artwork which are normally large in scale? A bit of ironic reference to his ego, perhaps. Perhaps he is simply contrasting two ways of working, “here are these little tiny drawings. Look at them next to my huge drawings.” Does he like the challenge created by working on such a small scale? I have question after question, and I wonder what Robert Longo's actual response to these questions would be.

It’s time for another list, though this one is short. *

1970’s – Robert Longo’s Menthol Wars, a punk rock act in which he was also lead guitarist.

1980’s – music videos like Bizarre Love Triangle, New Orders, Peace Sells, and The One I love.

1980’s – Album Covers - Glenn Branca's The Ascension from 1981 and The Replacements' 1985 album, Tim.
Mid 1980’s - Opera XS: The Opera Opus with Rys Chatham and Joseph Nechvatal

1995 – Motion picture, Johnny Mnemonic, and other short pieces.

So, in addition to all the media listed in the first section above, we must add, motion picture film. We must also note that Robert Longo has created album covers for musical groups, has had his own musical group in which he played guitar, and made images that were used in opera, a kind of music/drama.

I have a little something in common with the artist

I first became aware of Longo’s work with his “Men in the Cities” series, 1979.

I was also working on over sized graphite on paper portraits of great Twentieth Century Iconic figures at the time, though I hesitate to compare my work to those of this great master - simply a mark of the zeitgeist, I suppose. Never the less, the “Men in the Cities” series were captivating because the figures seemed to be caught in a spasmodic dance, the response to a sudden nervous shock, pain and/or anguish. With interest sparked because we both were working in the same medium, I continued to follow his career to the present. I've found Robert Longo to be the perfect Metamodernist. His work oscillates between various genres and media, sometimes huge and sometimes Lilliputian, sometimes painful, sometimes ironic. The work may be black and white or color, 3 dimensional, 2 dimensional or a combination. He often uses extremely large images drawn with charcoal and/or graphite or ink on paper in a photorealistic style with extreme contrast that lends weight and emphasis to subjects like, sharks, nuclear explosions, and cyborg-like human heads. Robert Longo, a Renaissance man is an amazing prolific artist, whose oeuvre implies an oscillation between and among visual and musical arts, as well as a Social Realist movement in the past, and his tangential Metamodern interest in making clear and present a dark and dangerous presence that threatens our diurnal existence.

Notes *

Smulders, Caroline and Perlein, Gilbert, Robert Longo. Skira Rizzoli (2010).

Longo, Robert, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Longo. Viewed 10:00 AM. EDT. Thursday, May 12, 2011

Longo, Robert, Website, http://www.robertlongo.com/home, viewed 10:30 AM. EDT, Thursday, May 12, 2011.

"Long Playing". Barbara Krakow Gallery. Retrieved May 3, 2010. Viewed 10:34 AM. EDT. Thursday, May 12, 2011

*2 Longo, Robert, "Russian Bomb (Them) Semipalatinsk" from The Sickness of Reason, (2003). Robert Long Website at http://www.robertlongo.com/work/view/1070/5227. Viewed 12:04 AM EDT, Saturday, May 14, 2011. One time use of an image for academic purposes is a legitimate use of copyrighted material.

Metamodernism?

2011-05-07T10:05:00.010-04:00

Notes on “Notes on Metamodernism”

Part XII of a series about the possibility of a rebirth of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo). These are some rough ruminations based on my first LATE NIGHT reading of “Notes on Metamodernism” by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker. *

Water Sports, by yours truly is about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and clean v. dirty water, use of that clean v. dirty water by mankind, political policy concerning clean air and water v dirty air and water, and my distressed and jaded but hopeful feelings(literally - the technique used in the artwork is mixed media distressed paint) about clean v. dirty water. Can Water Sports be a Metamodern artwork?

Ontologically, Metamodernist oscillates between the modern and the postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity. Indeed, by oscillating to and fro or back and forth, the Metamodernist negotiates between the modern and the postmodern. One should be careful not to think of this oscillation as a balance however; rather, it is a pendulum swinging between 2, 3, 5, 10, innumerable poles. Each time the metamodern enthusiasm swings toward fanaticism, gravity pulls it back toward irony; the moment its irony sways toward apathy, gravity pulls it back toward enthusiasm.

There are at least two things problematic about these notions. First, the description prevents imbalance (though the authors are careful to point out that the oscillation isn't balanced) from existing, since “gravity pulls it back” from whichever extreme the metamodern has temporarily inhabited. And that is precisely because the metamodern – if there actually is such a thing, and I haven’t conceded to that – describes a position that is jaded to the point of believing that destructive forces are unavoidable, and simultaneously naïve enough to hope for avoidance. It is like a double negative being positive, or perhaps more like having your cake and eating it too, or not. Secondly, why “gravity,” a physical force when talking about social/cultural phenomenon? What other force/forces might there be that are social/cultural, as opposed to physical? Additionally, gravity pulls toward a physical mass at the center to which things become attached, unable to oscillate. Is there another physical science metaphor that works better? Vermeulen and van den Akker also use the term Rhizomatic to describe the theorized metamodern.*2 I get the reference to Deleuze and Guattari's (D&G) "Rhizome." I just don't like it because it doesn't work. Let me explain. In botany, a rhizome is a type of root/bulb that inhabits the soil’s surface and sends out roots horizontally through just the top layer. The roots develop new rhizomes at their ends so that new plants, replicas of the original occur at the periphery of an ever-widening free form shape. Over time, the original rhizome becomes less and less effective and the center area dies out as the rhizomes spread from the center. Thus, the Rhizomatic model is 2-dimensional, and there is no biological center through which the metamodern is able to oscillate. In order for any all of the components to oscillate between each and every possible other opposition, the model of necessity must be three dimensional. Also, the new rhizomes are identical copies of the original and each other. There is no radicalization as D&G would have it. In either case, Vermeulen and van den Akker are using mixed metaphors. Is the metamodern more like a botanical process by way of D&G's "Rhizome," or a physical process? If it is like a combination of the two, then that complication must be stated and reconciled. One can always use subversive radicalization as an excuse. However, if we try for poetic license and mixed metaphor by way of D&G's version of Schizophrenia then we must also state that to be the case. Never assume that the reader can follow willy-nilly, and that is my main criticism of D&G's A Thousand Plateaus as well. The reader is expected to follow willy-nilly the most complicated explication of subversive radicalization of plurality extant.

A way out?

One particular theory in science maintains that the physical universe is made up entirely of energy and mostly empty space, that material things are no more than organized energy. In one variation of that theory, all wave patterns are made up of particles of energy, and waves of various lengths can interact with one another in such a way as to create oscillations, fluctuations between various frequencies. If instead of looking at this after-the-Postmodern period in a mash of literary, biological, and Newtonian metaphor, if instead we use physical science exclusively doesn’t that do the deed as metaphor for Vermeulen and van den Akker’s Oscillating Metamodernism? Thus the formula is not D&G's"n-1," but TE for total energy = PE for particle energy + OE (organized energy or matter) where matter can be any/all kinds of matter, and both sides of the equation are interchangeable. *3

According to these young philosophers – and I always maintained that the thing which was to come after the Postmodern would be understood first by the younger generation, certainly not mine - the Metamodern is transcendental in that it oscillates between and among all kinds of binaries. Evidently, it does not ever inhabit the pairs of opposites. What does that mean for understanding the processes within a philosophy that is positioned beyond the Postmodern? While not inhabiting the binary oppositions avoids the Postmodern predicament, it also implies a willful distancing from an understanding of the actual complicated interactions between the two terms in oppositional disparities.

Before ending these perambulatory first ramblings, let me be clear. I’m playing the part of devils advocate because I’m actually starting to pitch for Vermeulen and van den Akker’s invention of and theorizing about metamodernism. I much prefer it to the theories that a Post Postmodern (Popomo) is a banal inhabition of the Twenty-first Century electronic technologies.

Notes

*1 Vermeulen, Timotheus and Van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture eISSN 2000-4214, on the Web at http://www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/article/view/5677/6306, Viewed Wednesday, 7:57 PM, May 4, 2011. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. Responsible editor: Astrid Söderbergh Widding.

*2 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus, trans.Brian Masumi. London and New York: Continuum (2004)

*3 Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix A Thousand Plateaus, University of Minnesota Press (1987) Introduction - "n-1" (p7).

I Couldn’t Sleep at all Last Night, (1961) Bobby Lewis

2011-05-02T10:43:00.007-04:00

We interrupt this blog

Obama got Osama! That was all over the Internet by eleven-thirty last night.

I was watching an episode of GLEE, finished and turned the DVD player off. And, what to my wondering eyes did appear? Safari was opened to CNN and at the top of the page the headline, “OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD.” I had to pinch myself. Was it true? Nine Eleven happened almost ten years ago. George W. Bush had sworn to get bin Laden, and hadn’t succeeded during his eight-year presidency. We aren't even through Obama's second year, and Osama bin Laden is dead. Really!?! Evidently I had come to believe this would never-ever happen. I went to my partner’s room and we turned the TV to CNN, saw the rebroadcast of President Obama’s announcement.

Yes, the bastard was finally dead!

I'M PLEASED AS PUNCH. But, I shouldn't be - "A tooth for a tooth," and all that.

Then, I lay awake most of the night thinking about the apocalyptic first decade of this century, how every waking moment of everyone’s life was affected by the horror we watched unfold on that beautiful, clear late summer morning of September 11, 2001. How increasingly ultraconservative fundamental forces on opposite sides, here at home and in the middle-east were actively pursuing a course toward a Twenty-first Century Crusade, first one war, then a second, and finally, this year to everyone’s amazement, the Arab World goes nuclear with revolution, country after country seeking democratic freedom.

Tossing and Turning, and laying awake some more...

Bin Laden is dead! Damned amazing! So now, what? Of course, some crazies will come up with conspiracy theories that bin Laden’s death is a U.S. government hoax, or even more bizarre, it is Obama's hoax. There will be attempts at retaliation against the USA by al-Qaeda. But, what happens with these nascent Arab revolutions? Do they grow toward sectarian democracies or do some/all become fundamentalist Islamic religious states like Iran? Will the USA finally develop a foreign policy that actually fights against Islamic Terrorists rather than nation/states? Will fundamentalist religious fanaticism grow or diminish? More questions, elation, worry… over and over…

I just couldn’t sleep at all last night!

And, finally, I found this, posted today by a friend on Facebook.

"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." ~Martin Luther King Jr

Banksy

2011-05-01T10:00:00.003-04:00

Part XI of a series about the possibility of a rebirth of Social Realism in the Post Postmodern (Popomo) / Metamodern

Banksy, perhaps Robin Cunningham, born in Bristol, England July 28, 1973, is a not exclusively graffiti artist, who uses his often-stenciled street art to make satirical social and political commentary. There are several photographs that are purported to be of Banksy, though no actual proof exists that these are indeed of Banksy. Banksy’s artwork spans two decades, beginning in Bristol in 1992, and includes the documentary film, Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) which was nominated in January of this year for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Subversive in style, his artwork often appears on site during the night - graffiti that vandalizes public space according to his critics who include the organization “keep Britain Tidy,” and the Guardian Newspaper through columnist, Charlie Brooker - makes it necessary to keep his identity a closely held secret (sort of). However, Banksy also makes sculpture and standard painted art, even film when necessary to get his subversive message across.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Among Banksy’s art themes - anti-war, anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalist, and existentialism, in which he uses children, old people, and rats as illustrative elements - many if not most of the artwork I saw can be categorized as social realism. Often witty aphorisms are part of his street art. Interestingly, after spending so much time looking at and thinking about Banksy’s artwork, I decided that it necessitates a new category that would oscillate between and among social realist art with politically subversive art and street art, painting, film and remotely, assemblage/sculpture. And, perhaps art that does all those things is one piece of this Popomo or Metamodernist period of the early Twenty-first Century.

The reader should “google” Banksy if he/she wishes to look more deeply into this prolific artist’s work. Banksy’s own Website has the most complete showing of his artwork, but no information about the artist’s background, his thought process or philosophy. There’s a plethora of other Websites about him, though the most informative and up to date is the Wikipedia entry.

Pelicans

2011-04-26T09:52:00.004-04:00

Sunrise Pelicans

Another photo from my April 16th sunrise photo shoot. I shot about 30 frames of these guys flying about. This is the best one. I wish I could beam all my friends onto the beach with me during one of these sunrise photo shoots!

When it’s over, when I stop shooting, it’s like waking from a dream. I turn to my right and see the yellow flag marking the spot where a turtle has laid her eggs. A senior citizen on her morning walk looks at me a smile on her face, and nodes. A couple walk by hand in hand the surf lapping gently at their feet as the rising sun gains enough strength to feel warm on my face. Regretfully I stand, brush the sand from my legs, and begin the trek up hill to the top of the beach. On the way I pick up a couple of tin cans and plastic cups in order to throw them away in the trashcan next to the beach entrance.

Incredible Cello Duo from Croatia

Atlantic Sunrise #3

2011-04-21T09:38:00.002-04:00

I went to the beach again the other morning and shot several hundred photos. After working in Adobe Photoshop for about 3 hours using layers, and making drastic changes in exposure and color from foreground to background layers, Now I have about ten good photos out of the hundreds. The best thing about digital photography is that you can continue shooting hundreds of photographs without stopping to reload old fashioned film. No worry about film expense! However, the foreground in most of the images is not detailed enough, way too grainy and often the water has a slight double image. I don't understand why grain is a problem. There is no film, so the random pattern of the grain shouldn't be present. But, I have huge color dots present in these photos. So, shutter speed was too slow, as was ISO too low - even though I must have the ISO low in order to keep the shutter speed fast enough to stop the motion of the water. Although I will only use these photos as aids to paint my pastels or as part of the mixed media distressed paintings - both for the “Waterworks,” - I’m disappointed.

Friends tell me that they can set their ISO up really high and still get photos that aren’t grainy. I can’t - I always get the BIG ANNOYING color dots. I’ve tried. I will use the tripod in the future to make sure the camera is completely stabile, but that won't fix the ISO problem. I may experiment with a higher ISO, lower shutter speed causing blurry, smooth "time exposed" water next sunrise photo-shoot. Still, I could use some help here, though perhaps I’m to persnickety. I will post a couple more of these photos from time to time because the color is perfect for my paintings. Never the less, I need some help to make them better as photographs when shooting in the future.

The Marie T. Antoinette Party

2011-04-16T08:49:00.007-04:00

This is one of those times when my political ideology completely overwhelms my normal art sense. However, please note that the artwork included below is all mine.

YES, the “T” in Marie T. Antoinette stands for “Tea,” and NO, we are not a classless society.

“You have a mind set. and nothing will change it.”

“You’re absolutely right!” I didn’t bother to defend myself, and I will not defend myself. I do have a mind set, and it is set against the willful ignorance that is currently rampant in the United States of America where candidates for public office at the state level talk of secession from the union, and the middle class (the backbone of the country) is threatened with extinction by a willful corporate plutocracy that sees it’s future on foreign soil.

First, about this deficit business – fiscal responsibility is no longer a hallmark of the Republican Party. It hasn’t been for at least the past two decades. . In fact, if it weren’t for the Republican Party there would be no deficit. Yes, this Brobdingnagian deficit is bad. The two wars we are fighting on foreign soil (we’re still in Iraq) have contributed over one trillion dollars to our national debt. The Bush tax breaks to the top 2% of our wealthiest citizens have contributed another 5 trillion. Poor government oversight, and judgment, and a willful Laissez-faire attitude on the part of all parties contributed to the Great Recession that actually started in January 2007, not September of 2008. That disaster has contributed trillions more in lost revenue to the national deficit. Additionally, shipping jobs overseas means we have a smaller poorer working middle class buying less and contributing less revenue to our government, which brings me to my second point.

In order to balance a budget, as any mathematician or ordinary middle class citizen knows, you must work with both sides of the equation; REVENUE EQUALS SPENDING. All accountants must use the equal sign LITERALLY when balancing their books (though often it’s fudged in the business world). When Republicans insist on huge tax cuts and more tax cuts - for rich corporations and the uber wealthy, funding national defense at 59% of the budget while demanding draconian spending cuts to social programs or eradication of those (Medicare, Medicaid and social security) - they are not balancing the budget. They are FUDGING it! Not only will such practices destroy the middle class, the working middle class, the working poor, and the just plain poor, but they will also reduce this country to the status of a third world nation! We will be a nation of THE SUPER RICH AND THE SUPER POOR. We need a budget that is FAIR.

Quite frankly, we are not Taxed Enough Already – none of us, the middle class included. We are being taxed less right now than at any time in the last fifty years. The tax burden in the United States is twentieth in the world! I know that most of us in the middle class would be willing to pay more income tax (create revenue/income) in order to keep Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, PBS, the EPA, public education, Planned Parenthood, and other programs that help us (in some cases to stay alive). But most importantly, balancing a budget is a mathematic formula, and no matter what the Taxed Enough Already folks say, in order for the formula to work, both sides of the equation must be EQUAL!

To give credit where credit is due, some wealthy Americans are saying they don’t need the huge past and proposed future tax giveaways. Never the less that is the corporate plutocracy and Republican Party position. As a Twenty-first century Marie Antoinette might say,” That’s okay, Let them drink beer and die.”

That is quite frankly where we are as a nation. We are on the verge of class warfare.

To avoid such a class war, It will be absolutely necessary to balance the budget – and that means USING THE EQUAL SIGN in the equation with all social and economic classes participating.

BUCKET LIST OF REFORM

A friend of mine posted this to facebook, and I think it is worth repeating in as many places as I possibly can because this current entry is just a bare beginning on how to fix the problems we face.

So what would I like to see happen in the real world? For starters: plug tax loopholes that allow offshore tax shelters for wealthy persons and corporations; stop granting tax incentives to corporations that move jobs off-shore; return Federal income tax brackets to their 1980 levels; eliminate the income cap on Social Security taxes; stop worrying about the deficit until economic recovery is much more firm; allow Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices; vigorously investigate, and prosecute if possible, those who knowingly manipulated the housing and derivatives markets; re-institute strong banking regulations, including a complete separation of investment banks from commercial banks; pour as much support as we can muster into creating new jobs, especially in "green" industries; reaffirm the social contract that says we are all in this together; use tax and subsidy policy to reverse the ever-widening income and wealth gap among our populace. And that is just for starters.

Amen.

Denis Peterson

2011-04-11T00:20:00.006-04:00

His Metamodernist/Hyperrealist Art

Part X: As part of my series of ruminations concerning the possibility of a Post Postmodern Social Realism, I examine Peterson’s oeuvre in relation to the latest in philosophical nomenclature.

The Wall *

Metamodernism as opposed to Post Postmodern (Popomo) is a term brought into play in 2010 by Timotheus Vermeulen, and Robin van den Akker in “Notes on Metamodernism,” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. *2 Their term is the most recent suggestion for the period after the Postmodern. In a nutshell, the term connotes a sort of oscillation between and among the following; Modernism, Postmodernism, the present, past and future, being and not being, practicality and extravagance. It is not about binary opposition, though, ironically, it might be.

Thus, if the modern suggests a temporal ordering, and the postmodern implies a spatial disordering, then the metamodern should be understood as a spacetime that is both-neither ordered and disordered.

Vermeulen and Akker do away with talk of the Popomo being based solely in the fluid know-nothing idiocy of Internet virtuality, though that can certainly be contained in the oscillation. Instead, it opens the possibility to much more complexity. One component is definitely a consideration of the relation between man and his various cultures, instead of the emphasis being placed solely on the mechanics and institutions of those cultures. People exist, and interact with the world around them. The artist himself/herself exists in Metamodernism, and comments on his/her world. One caveat - the artist is removed from, and he knows about that separation as he/she observes himself/herself observing people and the ordered/disordered socio/economic/political spacetimes they inhabit.

Denis Peterson exemplifies this last characteristic of Metamodernism/Popomo, and at the same time his work addresses a sense of loss, pain/angst concerning our position in a culture dominated by corporate America. People are viewed (once again) as individuals, though caught in the overwhelming commodification of everything, some so completely lost, that they are no longer individuals. The images themselves seem to go beyond, past, refer back to photo realism, and photography. I see a connection to Social Realism because it often put a face to it’s own dogma by showing individuals caught in the social/political/cultural juggernaut. Peterson’s work inhabits these concerns.

Van Wagner *

Vortex of Despair *

There is so much more to the relationship between and among Denis Peterson, his artworks, Social Realism of the 20th Century Modern, and the early Twenty-first Century Metamodern. However, I cannot hope to do justice to the complexities in this short piece. I will definitely explore conceptualizing the Metamodern in relation to and among other contemporary artists, and try to place my own work within that context, or not.

Notes

*Peterson, Denis, Hyperreal Paintings by Denis Peterson at http://www.denispeterson.com/. Copyright 2010 by Denis Peterson, viewed 10:30 A.M. EDT, Saturday, April 9, 2011. It is understood that one time use of copyrighted images for scholarly publication is within copyright law of the USA.

*2 Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677

*3 Vermeulen, Timotheus, and van den Akker, Robin, Notes on Metamodernism," Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v1i0.5677 (final page)

Diane Arbus:

2011-04-06T11:35:00.001-04:00

Social Realist (?)

*1,*2 and *3

Diane Arbus, "Baby Anderson Cooper" and David Alfaro Siqueiros, "Echo of a Scream"

Her work has been described as surreal. I say, maybe. Yes, many of the portraits are of the disenfranchised, some of freakish people, transvestites, the intellectually challenged, incomprehensibly sad people or just plain pathetic people. The oddest portrait of all, baby Anderson Cooper (Yes, that Anderson Cooper), peacefully asleep, beatific Buddha expression on his square features, so incongruous to so much of Arbus’ oeuvre.* It is as though Arbus understood that we are closest to God at birth and death. At the same time, the portrait reminds me of it’s opposite, David Alfaro Siqueiros’ “Echo of a Scream,” because the two baby heads look so much alike, though baby Anderson Cooper is seen straight on, and Siqueiros’ baby head is seen in three-quarter view, mouth wide open, face scrunched into and expression of absolute terror. I can’t help but wonder if Arbus, because of her own temperament, made a mental comparison of the two baby heads. I also find an antecedent to Arbus in the portraiture of American painter Thomas Eakins, because his portraits of late 19th century wealthy and/or middle class people, though less confrontational, most often gaze enigmatically and sadly into an inscrutable distance demonstrating an unfathomable angst so much like many of Arbus’ subjects.

Thomas Eakins, "Susan Macdowell Eakins"

So, why do I think Arbus’ work could be classified as similar to the Social Realism created by the Mexican Muralists, and later American photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange? The Mexican Muralists were all about social injustice and the disenfranchised in Mexico and they wanted to change that. Evans and Walker were all about social injustice and the disenfranchised migrant workers in our own country during the great depression. Arbus, from a crusty Jewish family, didn’t express out loud a desire to make change. However, she did demonstrate a fascination with identity and the disenfranchised in her contemporary culture through her photographs. And it isn’t only the subject matter, it is the choice of stark black and white photography, like Weegee’s street photographs, the use of a 2 and ¼” square format camera that produced stark detail, extreme contrast, often shallow depth of field (through her choice of f stop), and direct frontal contact with the subject(s) who often stare directly out at the viewer. Through her subjects and technique she expresses a desire to confront the viewer directly with a deeply felt sense of isolation based in her protracted episodes of depression. Through her eyes, ordinary middle class families are seen as the other, an understanding this author views as a contemporary political reality.

Diane Arbus, "Transvestite at Drag Ball, NYC", 1970

Diane Arbus, "Middle Class Brooklyn Family on a Sunday Outing", 1966

Bringing My Own life Experience to the Subject

Personally, in 1965 I was criticized by my photography instructor at the Museum College of Art (now the University of the Arts) for making photographs of people in a similar vein to Arbus. At the time, the instructor knew Arbus’ work. I did not. Looking back, I realize that I was an intellectual pigmy, and my instructor used that against me instead of opening the door to Arbus’ amazing oeuvre. Through her work, Arbus would have surely given entrance into a visual gallery of greater self-knowledge for yours truly.

Notes

*1 Photographs are From Diane Arbus Photography on the Web, http://diane-arbus-photography.com/. Viewed 10:00 A.M. EDT, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. It is known that one time documented use of copyrighted images for scholarly purpose, as in this journal entry, is legal use.

*2 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, "Echo of a Scream" from Threedonia.com, http://www.threedonia.com/archives/11707, Viewed 10:12 A.M., EDT, Wednesday, April 6, 2011. It is known that one time documented use of copyrighted images for scholarly purpose, as in this journal entry, is legal use.

*3 The juxtaposition of these two works of art is in no way meant to be a comment on the person, character or origin of Anderson Cooper whom the author genuinely admires because of his work as journalist, author, and Television News personality for CNN network. The comparison is meant solely as intellectual exercise for the comparison of two artworks and has nothing to do with any association any viewer might possibly make other than that intended by the author.

*4 Eakins, Thomas, "Susan Macdowell Eakins," bestpriceart.com. Viewed 10:32 A.M., Wednesday, April 6, 2011. It is known that one time documented use of copyrighted images for scholarly purpose, as in this journal entry, is legal use.

*5 Arbus, Diane, "Transvestite at Drag Ball, NYC" 1970. At Elaine's *T Art Journal, http://elainearmen.blogspot.com/2009/02/photographs-by-diane-arbus.htmlViewed 11:33 A.M., Wednesday, April 6, 2011. It is known that one time documented use of copyrighted images for scholarly purpose, as in this journal entry, is legal use.

*6 Arbus, Diane, "Young Brooklyn Family on a Sunday Outing" (1966) "Diane Arbus Revelations," At Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, June 17 to September 10, 2006, http://visualarts.walkerart.org/detail.wac?id=2683&title=Current%20Exhibitions. Viewed 11:50 AM EDT, Wednesday, April 6, 2011. It is known that one time documented use of copyrighted images for scholarly purpose, as in this journal entry, is legal use.

Atlantic Ocean:

2011-04-01T10:20:00.001-04:00

Clean, Clear, Safe Water

The “Waterworks” is about saving the environment for our own use, and for future generations. As part of the process of working on six new “Waterworks” yesterday I hunted for more images to use in those mixed media distressed and pastel paintings. I found this image taken last July 2010 in south Florida. The crystal clear water sparkles in the brilliant early summer sun just as God intended. At the time the Deepwater Horizon Disaster threatened all of the Gulf Coast and Florida. There were predictions that the mess would be caught in the Gulf Stream and come right around the entire coast of Florida. I wondered if I would return to this beach in the fall and find dead fish, porpoises, turtles and water foul. It was a nightmare vision that was all too possible.

Our government has since ended the moratorium on deep water drilling and seven new drilling permits have been granted during the past several weeks. As Isaac Stolzfuts used to say, “the oil oligarchy speaks.” I know that we must have oil because we are addicted to extreme amounts of energy, and our habit is overwhelming. Without energy, our addicted culture would shrivel and die. However, we are not dedicating ourselves to investing resources in new and cleaner sources in the amount we should be. The Chinese have dedicated 10% of their budged to clean energy – TEN PERCENT! Instead, we are busy cutting our budget (reads the working middle class, and the poor are getting [BLEEPED]) at a time when our economy needs to be stimulated, not shrunk. Think what ten percent of the nations budget invested in clean energy would do to stimulate the economy – JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

We need a “Clean Labor & Energy National Party (CLEAN)”, a very outspoken political party, something like the Tea Party that will force our nation to move in a corrected path toward clean energy independence.

Social Realism in the Twenty-first Century: Part VIII

2011-03-27T10:58:00.005-04:00

This particular section has been incredibly hard to research because artists that fit my requirements for Contemporary Social Realism are found in various genres. It is all to brief, and certainly not complete.

Alix Smith, States of the Union 23

Cruising the Web, I discover that contemporary Social Realism has nothing to do with Social Realism of the first half of the Twentieth Century. Instead, this new Social Realism aspires to create scenes that might be titled “Domestic Tranquility.” Photographer Alix Smith’s domestic tableau of gay and lesbian families (States of the Union) fits well in the category. At the same time Smith's photographs do have subversive intent. They appear to be ordinary family tableau, but place LGBT families in that exact position while the fight for equality continues. Other late Twentieth Century and Twenty-first century artists that belong here are (though I don’t pretend this list is complete); Peter Worsley, Andrew Wyeth, some of the photorealists, and Leland Bell. I have nothing negative to say about this Postmodern and Post Postmodern Social Realism, though I have a nostalgic longing for art and artists and a movement that aspired to make a better world by helping people to see the wrongs of the current order or at the very lest commented on or demonstrated those wrongs and the social order. However, as a subject it makes more sense as just plain REALISM, showing subjects as they exist in every day life. In fact many of those who claim this type of realism as SOCIAL realism include as its antecedents such artists as Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer and Grant Wood, all marvelous and impressive realists that fit in various other schools; Edward Hopper, Ashcan School, Winslow Homer, American Realism, and Grant Wood, Regionalism.

Kenny Scharf, "Junglive," 1992,

Artists that might actually fit in a New Social Realism include some of the Hyperrealists, like Denis Peterson. Others, from the late 20th Century are the following; Diane Arbus (though she died in 1971), Francis Bacon(deceased 1992), Banksy, Donigan Cumming, Charles Ray (yes indeed!), Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Kenny Scharf, David Wojnarowicz. I realize that, once again I am pulling artists from various genres and that the list is terribly incomplete. Never the less, these artists actually created/create art that commented/comments on culture and society. Additionally, this list disproves my thesis question (Is there such a thing as social realism in the Twenty-first Century?) because the artists are from such disparate genres, groups, and times, and there seems to be no consensus in the Art World that these folks and more constitute a New Social Realism. At the same time, the impetus toward Social Realism first expressed by the Mexican Muralists is alive and well in the work of many artists from various genre’s with the exception of those who call themselves “Social Realists.”

Notes and Sources

1 Smith, Alix Website, "Alix Smith," http://www.alixsmith.com/index.html. The image incorporated here is thought to comply with the law because it is used for one time academic purpose. The subversive quality of Smith's images makes it possible to argue for inclusion in a category, "Social Realism in the Twenty-first Century." Viewed 10:00 AM EDT, Sunday, March 27, 2011.

2. Scharf, Kennie, "Junglive," 1992, Edition 100, Domberger, in "Ken Scharf" Website, http://www.kennyscharf.com/. The image incorporated here is thought to comply with the law because it is used for one time academic purpose.Viewed 10:01 AM, EDT, Sunday, March 27, 2011.

Dr. Flip Flopper, Newt Gingrich interview on homosexuality, his possible presidency, and Obama. What country is this?

“Supermoon”

2011-03-22T09:18:00.002-04:00

Why not make it one word, like, Superman. After all, he didn’t even exist, and the super moon did exist for one night plus a “whole nother,” as so many people say these days (that last, a pet peeve of mine). Why can’t people say, “another?” “Another” is easier to say. It is one word versus two. Actually that’s wrong. “Nother” isn’t even a word! What jackass invented “NOTHER?” If he/she can invent “nother,” I can invent the word, “Supermoon.”

So, “Supermoon it is!

I went to the beach on the evening of March 19th, to look at the “Supermoon,” and I took my camera and tripod in order to make some time exposures by “Supermoonlight.” The beach was packed with people, and a carnival atmosphere enveloped me as I walked onto the sand from our local mini boardwalk and pavilion. At first I had a bit of trouble finding all the camera controls in the dark, but adjusted fairly quickly. I heard someone say, “It’s lost all the color now,” and was immediately sorry I hadn’t gotten to the beach early enough to watch, and shoot the “Supermoonrise.” Never the less, I had a great time taking pictures of that huge silver orb, 14% larger than normal. The weather guy on TV had explained that the full moon was at perigee as opposed to apogee in its orbit.

Amazingly, I heard some negative comments about the moon as I was shooting the time exposures. Things like, “What’s so spectacular about this moon?” and, “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” I might have thought and said something similar when I was twenty something.

Sleeper awake!

In the photographs shown here, I’ve taken the liberty of superimposing a reduced in size NASA photo of the full moon taken from space onto the burned out hole the “Supermoon” made in the original digital image. The images I shot were taken with the camera set on delay so that I could have hands off the camera while the time exposure was in process for several seconds. The images are quite grainy because I should have set the ISO to 100 when shooting. Instead, I forgot. The camera was set to “auto,” and the little mini-computer set the ISO much higher. Of course, I almost always set the camera ISO at 100 or 200, so why did I forget that night? Whenever the next “Supermoon” occurs, I plan to be on the beach in time to watch the “Supermoonrise,” and take many more time exposure photographs by “Supermoonlight with the ISO set to 100!”

Fishing in south Florida

2011-03-17T10:24:00.000-04:00

I don’t.

However, I draw great pleasure being on the beach, and I bet that the guys I see surf fishing draw the greatest part of their pleasure from just being on that beach, though they may not realize it. Why else lug all that equipment, rod & reel, chair, bucket, and tackle box to the car, in order to run to the beach after work in the evening?

Perhaps I should conduct an informal poll the next few times I go to the beach in the evening.

Flight of the Pelicans

2011-03-12T13:24:00.000-05:00

The curved line of pelicans served to emphasize the magnificent sky with all those high layers of fleecy cirrus, lower cirrostratus, stratus slabs and mackerel over deepest ultramarine blue.

I was actually shooting the ocean that afternoon, and just happened to look up as they flew over the beach. I set the camera to a shutter speed of 500 and hoped that it would be enough to stop both my motion and theirs without cutting the light so much as to make the exposure too dark. I spun and aimed skyward shooting five images as they went by. How fortunate I was, because the bird’s silhouettes are in focus and clear against those wisps of cotton, and that navy blue ceiling.

Social Realism in the Twenty-first Century:

2011-03-06T09:43:00.010-05:00

Number Eight in a Series

Shaqe Kalaj, “Male 1 (Albuquerque) The Faces of ‘Social Realism 2010, * 1

The first entry in this series was posted way back on October 27th, 2010. The second on November 20th, 2010. With the last entry about Paul Cadmus, March 1, number seven in the series, I have completed my review of a few Twentieth Century artists who worked in the genre. I must now take up the following questions. Is Social Realism an actual concern of Twenty-first century Artists and the Art World? Or has it instead become so politically incorrect and / or difficult to point out problems - much less to try to correct them - that it is no longer possible for artists to create socially proactive art or for the Art establishment to place such before the public?

But first, How Would a supposed twenty-first century Social Realism fit into the Post Postmodern (hereafter the Popomo)?

As a person living in the Popomo I do expect that any current movement called Social Realism should be influenced by contemporary ideas. The first item on my list after Googling “Social Realism” does not disappoint that expectation. “Social Realism 2010: Photographs by Thomas McMillen-Oakley, Shaqe Kalaj; Julia DeClerck,” a show curated by Shaqe Kalaj and presented in September, 2010 in Plymouth Township, Ann Arbor, Michigan was described by the reviewer in ways that place curatorial concerns squarely in the Postmodern if not the Popomo.

…because there’s certainly more than enough social and economic strife to be found in today’s America — even if conditions are far different from the late 1920s-1930s. As the gallery’s exhibition statement makes clear, this trio of photographers crafts “contemporary takes on ‘reality’ (that) incorporate irony, wit, and ambiguity.”

This social commonality — rather than the squalid desperation to be found in the 20th century’s social realism — that gives the exhibit its more subtle, wry undercurrent. * 2

The reviewer's key Postmodern terms are "irony, wit, and ambiguity." I contend that these characteristics can be carried forward into the Popomo.

As discussed in past entries, many critics agree that an important ingredient of the Popomo is the infliction of anguish/confusion/pain on the viewer - though interjecting a brief thought about Michael Anne Holly and other Postmodernist rumination on “reception theory” - I’m not sure how that is to be done consistently by any artist. * 3 Many of those who claim to be living in the Popomo are fans of “Salvage Philosophy,” which seems to be a depressed and dysfunctional propensity to pick through a supposed (often virtual) wasteland of kitschy junk in order to reprocess and claim something as one’s own. That, however, to this writer, is pretty much what quite a few Postmodern artists did anyway. * 4 Perhaps the Popomo the Postmodern and the Modern are really one obsessive / compulsive triple singularity, like a dog running in circles, chasing it's own tail. Still another actual characteristic of the Popomo is that there is no outside. Everyone is on the INSIDE, as Arnold Sukenick states writing about hypercapitalism.

The very exclusion of the poor, the homeless, the ethnically alienated is one of the hottest topics in the body informatique, affecting if not defining our sense of them and inevitably their sense of themselves. Nor is the status of ignored ignored in the Popomo polylogue - it's simply a category continuous with various degrees of not-ignored that cycle in and out of attention. There's no place to hide, no dropping out, whatever your situation, it's part of the convoluted incorporations, the "fold-ins," of corporate culture. Paradoxically, we inhabit an inside with no outside. There is no counterforce to the gravity of money that can sustain an exterior. * 5

I am left with a confused notion of what is philosophically to be characteristic of the Popomo, and the status of the poor and/or disenfranchised within that construction. Thus, I will fall back on my own concern, my desire to find contemporary art that does something similar to that which Social Realism of the 20th Century did with social and political concerns of the time. So, this viewer of art wishes to find art that suits his own needs and purpose, something of a “polylogue” Popomo concern in and of itself. Simultaneously, since any all things are on the inside with no outside in the Popomo, a twenty-first century Social Realism must be included in the polylogue, and that is – as the Pennsylvania Dutch would say - ironic, ain’t.

To be Continued

Notes

*1 Kalaj, Shaqe, “Male 1 (Albuquerque),” The Faces of ‘Social Realism 2010,’ “ in annarbor.com, http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/art-ideas-social-realism-2010/. Viewed 10:10 AM EST, Friday, March 5, 2011.

* 2 Cantu, John Carlos, “Art and Ideas Exhibit Displays the Faces of ‘Social Realism 2010,’ “ in annarbor.com, http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/art-ideas-social-realism-2010/. Viewed 10:10 AM EST, Friday, March 5, 2011.

* 3 Holly, Michael Ann. Past Looking: Historical Imagination and the Rhetoric of the Image. New York and London: Cornell University Press, 1997.

See also The Three Positions of Interaction with an Artwork," this journal, Wednesday, September 9, 2009.

* 4 “Life After the Oil Crash Forum,” http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php?action=printpage;topic=72983.0. Started by Bones on August 04, 2010, 11:21:34 AM, Viewed 10:57 AM EST, March 4, 2011.

* 5 Sukenick, Ronald, “Avant-Popomo Now,” at Threads, abrinfo, http://www.altx.com/ebr/info/contribs/contribs.htm. Copyright (C) 1996 The Electronic Book Review and the author. All rights reserved. Viewed 11:01, Friday, March 4, 2011.

FOX News and Clean Energy

2011-03-01T09:58:00.006-05:00

FOX News reports President Obama’s Policy of providing incentives to solar energy is a failure.

I’ve placed “Clean #1” to illustrate my current entry because “The Waterworks” is about keeping our environment healthy, and so much in our current public dialogue seems to be about back tracking from responsible care of the Earth and our environment.

While working out at the gym day before yesterday, I was "privileged" to watch FOX news latest diatribe against clean energy. Today I’ve checked everywhere in the attempt to see if FOX news claim that one solar company alone plans to layoff 2000 workers is inaccurate reporting of the news. Instead, I've discovered that the problem is much worse than FOX news coverage suggests. The solar industry in general is having to layoff workers. However, the layoffs are due to individual state and Public Utility Commission cuts in subsidies for companies that offer cash back incentives to domestic customers for installing solar. To site but one instance among many, in Colorado, Xcel is under attack by the Public Utilities Commission.

“Xcel has suspended its Solar Rewards program pending a decision by the state Public Utilities Commission on its request to cut subsidies by 47 percent.” * 1

In still other cases, the culprit is the “OUT SOURCING” bugaboo.

Evergreen (Nasdaq:ESLRD) had announced it would outsource its solar panel assembly to China by the end of this year. * 2

I argue that instead of giving 50 billion in subsidies to the rich and all too profitable petroleum industry that must outsource so much of its employment because of location of resources, we should be giving these subsidies to clean energy with the stipulation that jobs be kept in the United States.

Responsible Reporting of the News

Instead of criticizing President Obama for his clean energy program FOX should be reporting the slashing of incentives by Republican governors, state legislatures and Public Utilities Commissions. Thus, the real culprit here is budget slashing, not the solar industry, nor President Obama. The public has to be made to realize that budget slashing is a two edged sword that can and will damage our fragile economy. And, at the very least honest news reporting should present all aspects of this story.

Notes

* Read more: Industry says Xcel's request could put 3,000 out of work - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17467346#ixzz1FAcm4Llq
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

* 2 Alspach, Kyle, Evergreen Solar layoffs surprise Devens, Marlborough employees. Massachusetts High Tech, http://www.masshightech.com/ , Viewed 10:00 AM, EST, February 27, 2011.

Intracoastal Sunset

2011-02-24T09:26:00.002-05:00

Puffy cumulus in blue-violet, mauve, glowing gold and pale peachy yellow change during forty minutes to deepest salmon and gold, fading through dusty orange until finally the sky settles into that slightly electric blue-black as stars appear one by one, and the city lights begin to create a silvery glow in the humid air to our south.

My partner and I often take a plastic cup of wine down to water’s edge to watch that daily extravaganza. I am thankful that we are almost always by ourselves, though I don’t know why more people don’t take advantage of nature’s diurnal production. Of course I tend to forget that I hardly ever watched the sunset or sunrise except for brief glances through the 3rd floor studio windows during all those years as a working artist/teacher. Such a shame that we, and our society work so hard that we don’t have time for such things until we are put out to pasture – thank God for retirement, time to breath, and time to make Art!!!

Paul Cadmus

2011-02-19T08:14:00.011-05:00

The seventh entry in the series, “Social Realism and the Popomo (Post Postmodern),” in which I ask the question – Is there a continued interest in using artwork to point out and/or correct social injustice in the Twenty-first Century United States or has that practice become politically incorrect?

Paul Cadmus,"The Fleet's In" (1934) *1

Cadmus, Born in New York City of artist parents on December 17, 1904 was a relatively unknown artist working for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), Public Works of Art division when he entered his painting, The Fleet’s In! in a government sponsored exhibit of paintings at the Corcoran Museum in Washing ton D.C.. Today his work is included among the Social Realists though Cadmus himself described his work as “Magic Realism.” Cadmus was a personal hero of mine because he led an “out” gay male life during a time when homosexuality was taboo in our culture. He claimed that his homosexuality did not define his work, though the presence of “the gay” in his work created several controversies early in his
career.* 2 His painting technique, egg tempera with brush strokes following contours of the human form is reminiscent of the Renaissance artist, Luca Signorelli. Cadmus is just as famous for his nude charcoal drawings of his partner of 35 years, Jon Andersson. I found the best on line source for images of Cadmus’ work to be the “Ten Dreams Fine Art Galleries,” . Alas, my hero died December 12, 1999, a few days short of his 95th birthday.

The Controversy that Made Cadmus Famous

The Fleet’s In, 1934, serves to highlight Cadmus as a satirical moralist, who historically included depictions of homosexuals in his paintings. The painting is unified through the use of vivid, harsh colors, and shows a group of drunken sailors, several of whom are involved in attempts to pick-up women. Two sailors on the right seem to be meeting with success, while the sailor in the center is being rejected in violent fashion. On the left side of the painting, a young man is seen to be extending a pack of cigarettes toward another sailor seated on a stone wall that runs horizontally behind the tableau. Between these two men, a sailor has passed out against the wall, and a woman in a very tight, sheer, peach colored dress is pulling his arm. To the extreme left, a little old lady in a pillbox hat is walking her dog. The leash of the dog is rubbing against the legs of the lady in the tight, peach dress, causing it to lift provocatively. The dog is wagging his tail furiously, and he appears to be growling at the peach-clad lady’s right shoe.
The painting caused a furor and went far toward earning Paul Cadmus’ reputation as the enfant terrible of the art world. Admiral Hugh Rodman had the painting rejected from an exhibition of government-sponsored works, which had already been hung at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I am reminded of the 1990 debacle over the works of Robert Mapplethorpe at the same site.
At the time of the Cadmus brouhaha, Secretary of the Navy Swanson was quoted in Time, (April 30, 1934) as saying “...[The painting] represents a most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl, wherein apparently a number of enlisted men are consorting with a party of street walkers and denizens of the red-light district” (Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, 1980, 25). I doubt that such drunken escapades were the true cause of the Secretary’s diatribe. Instead, Swanson’s furor can be traced to Cadmus’ depiction of the young man offering a cigarette to one of the sailors. His red tie is a signal that he is homosexual, and the exchange of the cigarette is probably the preamble to a homosexual tryst. It is this encoded, homosexual pick-up event that aroused such anger and frustration, though at the time, it was taboo to discuss such things, as Jonathan Weinberg points out:

In retrospect, it seems likely that what disturbed Rodman was not so much that the painting depicted drunken sailors cavorting with women-- such episodes are celebrated in naval lore-- but that the picture also represents a homosexual pickup... The suspicion is confirmed by his bright red tie, a common code at the time for signaling the homosexuality of its wearer. (Weinberg 103)

The work is nonetheless, a satire of debauchery and wantonness on the part of all participants. The robust motion of the figures, the caricatured expressions of extreme, almost idiotic jocularity plastered across the participants’ faces highlight their depravity as part of the satirical program. Arms and hands are extended in a repetition of open invitation. The human form here seems to be overly round and ripe, as though trapped inside its own skin, the body about to burst through tight clothing. Cadmus’ overlapping brush strokes follow the contours of the forms and accentuate bulges, creating a humorous imitation of the ancient Greek sculpture technique of forming draped clothing close to the skin as though water-soaked. Body parts, legs and arms, overlap and intertwine in a parody of classical tableau. It is this parody in the tradition that includes Goya and Daumier that is intriguing. Nothing, nobody, is safe from Cadmus’ scathing brush, not even himself, as he demonstrated in his The Seven Deadly Sins, a series of self portraits.*3

Sources

Kirstein, Lincoln. Paul Cadmus. New York: Rizzoli, 1984.

Weinberg, Jonathan. Speaking for Vice. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.

Notes

* 1 "The Fleet's Inn" is in the public domain as it belongs to the United States government, Department of the Navy.

* 2 I realize that “the gay” as used here is anachronistic because it is a late 20th Century cultural creation. During the first half of Cadmus’ life “gay” meant “happy.”

* 3 The Seven Deadly Sins are housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Valentine Day 2011

2011-02-14T10:13:00.003-05:00

The illustration is a variation on an artwork created for “Lottoheart, 2009,” Camp Rehoboth, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. That organization begun by Murray Archibald and Steve Elkins 23 years ago is responsible for creating one of the most active LGBT communities in the country, and an extremely friendly and inclusive Rehoboth Beach. Our favorite Northeast beach resort, Rehoboth Beach has the reputation of being the nation’s summer capital. In the spirit of “Camp,” I thought to use it here as a happy Valentine’s Day gift for everyone at Camp Rehoboth, and then to extend that gift to all.

The work itself is one of a group of artworks created by yours truly using digital photography and distressed paint techniques with Adobe Photoshop.* The most recent of these, part of “The Waterworks” series are created primarily with mixed media and distressed paint in actual time and space, though this work is primarily a many layered digital computer artwork that includes photographs of artist-made distressed paint surfaces.

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone

*I have purposely not linked "distressed paint technique" to any Website because all of these are about a very reductive and commercialized process of distressing furniture surfaces to make them look old.

Walker Evans’ Objective View of the World

2011-02-10T07:59:00.002-05:00

A Brief Comparison with Dorothea Lange

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, in St. Louis, Missouri, Walker (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts. He spent but one year in Williams College before taking off to spend a year in Paris. Upon his return to the states he settled into the “Avant-garde," dare I say homosexual underground New York City Arts crowd that included John Cheever, Hart Crane, Lincoln Kirstein and (John) Hanns Skolle. Skolle, undeservedly a lesser known artist, photographer and writer probably had the greatest influence on Evans' development. They were roommates from 1926 to 1934. In 1935 Evans and James Agee collaborated on the celebrated Let us Now Praise Famous Men, published in 1941. That book, originally to have been an article for Fortune Magazine, chronicled the lives of three poor sharecropper families. A detailed synopsis of that book can be found at the New York Times book reviews. Much of Evans most famous work was produced for the Farm Security Administration as part of a huge effort to document rural poverty during the 1930’s depression era. About 1000 of Evans' negatives are held in the public domain at the National Archives.

Walker Evans was a mentor to Helen Levitt (1938). In that year he also began taking photographs with a hidden camera in the New York subway. These were later collected and published (1966) under the title, Many Are Called. In 1945 Evans became a staff writer for Time Magazine, and the same year an editor for Fortune Magazine. In 1965 he began as professor of photography in Graphic Design at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture, today the Yale University School of Art.

The Museum of Modern Art staged a retrospective of his work in 1971 simply titled “Walker Evans.” Much of the work was done with an 8” x 10” format field camera, allowing him to photograph in great detail and with extraordinary depth of field. He was anxious to present his carefully composed image to the viewer for his/her own interpretation as opposed to investing it with his own worldview. A demonstration of Evans’ concern for objectivity is best served through a comparison of his photograph of Allie Mae Burroughs (1935 or 36) with Dorothea Lange’s photograph of a “Texas Migrant Worker” taken near Bakersfield, California in 1940.

"Allie Mae Burroughs," Walker Evans (1935 or 36) *

Texas Migrant Worker, Dorothea Lange (1941) *

The photo of Allie Mae is taken straight on, full view and frontal, while Lange’s photo shows the migrant worker’s figure turned to three-quarter view while the head, slightly tilted is turned toward the viewer at almost full view. The head in Lange’s photo is in full sun, shaded by a piece of stiff material that folds in angles instead of draping gently over the head. The pretty young woman gazes wistfully at us with full knowledge of her status in life visible in her sad eyes, while Allie Mae smiles at the camera, though her face, wrinkled and gaunt, presents the presence of poor nutrition to the viewer. Lange’s beauty is placed in the reverse position of Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic “Mona Lisa.” The plywood structure/trailer next to Lange’s figure is seen out of focus and in perspective creating strong oblique lines, while Evans’ picture plain is viewed straight on in extreme detail, perhaps ten degrees (at most) tilt counter clockwise from the horizontal. The splintered grain of weathered wood and dress pattern are heightened. Everything in Lange’s photograph conspires to create in us a sense of this sad woman’s status with a historical reference that fastens us to the Mona Lisa, an ordinary middle class woman of her time. The Postmodern gives the viewer; in this case yours truly, the right to make reference to the trope - “if but for (place in time and culture), there go I." Through this Postmodern device I (the viewer) become both Mona Lisa and migrant farm worker. Lange’s photo is extremely personal, on purpose, while Evans’ photo presents the image to us as hard reality, visual fact. Both are valid. However, it is necessary to demonstrate the ways both photographers view and understand their craft and the world around them. Finally, the comparison allows us to see Walker Evans, as he would have us see him, an impartial and objective reporter of the world

*Both Photographs are in the public domain, but were obtained through Wikipedia Encyclopedia, http://www.wikipedia.org/, 10:33 P. M. EST, Wednesday, February 9, 2011.

Another Picture of Sand Dune, Critter Prints, Sun & Shadow

2011-02-05T10:13:00.005-05:00

One warm fall day we went to Cape Henlopen in Delaware to walk on the beach for the last time before the cold of winter could make such a walk uncomfortable. Now, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing – bundled from head to foot in polyester filled winter coat, gloves, scarf, hood, hat, and boots – the beach can be an amazing place. However, we always take advantage of that last warm day so we can walk bare foot in the sand. On that particular late October afternoon, slanting sun fell over the dunes highlighting critter and people-tracks. I stopped to shoot the dunes because the light was amazing as it reflected off the fence, created deep shadows in depressions, and highlighted each grain of sand. As an artist, I am reminded that every thing in the above image is important and contributes to the whole, but only through light-play in that moment, the presence of conscious thought and the camera in hand. Additionally all of that provides a metaphor, a diagram for the interaction of each of us with others, mankind as a whole and the nations, God being the play of light without which none of it is important, or noticeable.

The Best Thing...

I've always liked this guy, even when he pretended to be straight.

Butterfly

2011-01-31T06:45:00.002-05:00

A new visit to that little piece of paradise parked next to the trash mountain in Broward County, and another crop of photos of Butterflies and Koi. I really do feel as though I’ve been transported to a dream world when I visit the short-lived beauties in Butterfly World. I’ve taken hundreds of photographs there over the past six years, and the butterfly pictures live in my morgue (oxymoron intended) and artworks. *

* morgue – an artist’s alphabetized picture file to be used as aids in art production.

Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 – Oct. 11, 1965)

2011-01-26T09:55:00.008-05:00

The fifth entry in the series, “Social Realism and the Popomo (Post Postmodern),” in which I ask the question – Is there a continued interest in using artwork to point out and/or correct social injustice by artists, curators, museums and other art institutions (The Art World) in the Twenty-first Century United States?

Dorothea Lange, "I Am An American" 1942

The famous social realist photographer, Dorothea Lange was a third generation U.S. citizen of German descent, * born in Hoboken, New Jersey. She contracted polio at age 7, and had a permanent limp in her right leg as a result. Lange said that (and I paraphrase) the limp guided her, and kept her humble because of its power over her physical being. Her father left the family when she was 12 years old, so she dropped his surname (Nutzhorn) and took her mother’s maiden name, a smart move as well as an emotional one (Nutzhorn being one degree more unusual than my own “Klomp.”. :-)

Lange learned photography from the great photography teacher, Clarence H. White, and was apprenticed to various New York City photographers, among them the famous San Francisco earthquake, and portrait photographer, Arnold Genthe. She moved to San Francisco in 1918 and lived there the rest of her life, marrying Maynard Dixon, the famous western painter in 1920.

The advent of the Great Depression in 1929 (you know, the one of which we almost had a repeat performance) sent Dorothea into the streets to photograph the unemployed and homeless. Those early photographs brought her employment in the Federal Resettlement Administration (RA), later the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Thus, her photographs for the government, never earned her great amounts of money, only steady employment, and finally fame. Lange divorced Dixon in 1935, and married Paul Schuster Taylor, the economist, who had the greatest influence on her development as social photographer of the disenfranchised. I illustrated the journal entry of Tuesday, January 11, 2011, with Lange’s photograph (“Migrant Mother”) of Florence Owens Thompson. That photograph demonstrates in stark visual terms Owens’ plight, no work available, whose frightened and poorly clothed children are starving, as is she. It seems to me a strange and definitely odd contradiction of the first order that in the 1930’s and 40’s the United States federal government was responsible for overseeing Ms. Lange’s exposition of the disenfranchised farming and working class poor while our contemporary middle and working class members of the various Tea Parties’ desire less government interfearence in their lives (misspelling on purpose). Is anyone documenting – in photography, video, or film - the plight of the disenfranchised homeowners whose lives have been ruined by the big banks in the current economic crisis? * 2

"A crowd of onlookers on the first day of evacuation from the Japanese quarter in San Francisco, who themselves will be evacuated within three days."

After the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor, Lange refused a Guggenheim Fellowship in order to record the forced evacuation of Japanese citizens of the United States to internment camps. The photographs make plain the reality of thousands of Americans forced to give up property, livelihood, and all rights without recourse. * 3 The images were impounded at the time, though they are available today in the National Archives.

At the invitation of Ansel Adams, Lange became in instructor at the California School of Fine Arts (1945). She was also a cofounder of Aperture magazine in 1952.

Lange’s legacy lives on in her work. She died at age 70 of esophageal cancer.

Notes

* I mention the degree of removal from citizenship in these United States to remind myself that all of us, even those descended from the Mayflower arrivals in Plymouth, MA in 1620 are not the original citizens of the North American continent - the United States not even having been a figment in their imaginations – and most of us are only one to two times removed from that lack of U.S. citizenship.

*2 Though it is supposedly over, it is predicted that another 1 million homeowners will be forced out of their houses this year, 2011, and on average nationally, the value of the houses, condos, and apartments we live in is half of what it was in 2005. Great swaths of new domestic architecture have been abandoned because of the Banks and their bizarrely manipulated subprime mortgages – which (by the way) have not been made illegal by our government (less is better). Is anyone documenting all the billions of dollars worth of empty buildings nationwide?

* 3 We’ve gotten good at repeating the mistake!

Images

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. See Copyright.

*1 TITLE: San Francisco, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at 13th and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

*2 "A crowd of onlookers on the first day of evacuation from the Japanese quarter in San Francisco, who themselves will be evacuated within three days."
By Dorothea Lange, San Francisco, California, April 1942
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the War Relocation Authority
(210-GC-426) [VENDOR # 175]

South Florida Kitsch *

2011-01-21T10:35:00.002-05:00

We in the United States have a propensity towards downright terrible counterfeit imitation of period architecture, and south Florida has some of the best examples of Italianate fakery. I actually love some of the worst offenders, and I plan to place some examples as journal entries. This particular structure perhaps built in the 1960’s is already in decline, the three Putti pedestals are cracked and beginning to crumble, a "queer" imitation of actual baroque ruin.

* Kitsch - poor mass produced insipid imitation of actual art objects,styles in art and/or architecture.

Social Realism and the Popomo: Also known as Social Realism in Twenty-first Century American Art: Part IV

2011-01-16T10:38:00.002-05:00

Let me preface the forth part of this series with the statement that all my writing is ideologically motivated. Parts I and II of the series appeared in my Journal on October 27, 2010, and November 20th, 2010 respectively. Part III (January 11, 2011) is immediately before this entry

Thomas Hart Benton

The great nephew and namesake of the first United States Senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton was on record as disliking homosexuals. Yes, I had to mention that first because it sticks in my “craw,” like a gargantuan dead and broken pine tree straddling a flood engorged gulch. That his dislike stands in opposition to so much of his work about the downtrodden, and/or ordinary working people seems odd. However, Benton’s location in time and place conspired to dispose him to dislike homosexual men. Benton stated his frustration with the usual Art Museum of the time because it was, as he said, “a graveyard run by a pretty boy with delicate wrists and a swing in his gait" with more disparaging vitriol concerning his belief that homosexuals had excessive Art World influence.*1 I can’t deny his belief, nor do I wish to though in the contemporary Art World it is just as likely that a group of trained men and women curators have established themselves as the greatest influence dealing in brobdingnagian artistic enterprises often financed with corporate assistance that require the organizational skills of the likes of a Christo or Nick Cave.

Having gotten that out, let’s deal with Benton’s extraordinary accomplishments. That he was a great art teacher can’t be denied, Jackson Pollock having been one of his protégés. Others among them, Charles Pollock, Jackson’s brother, Lamar Dodd, Frederic James, Charles Banks Wilson and many more. Benton is also placed among the American Regionalist artists like Grant Wood who worked for the most part in the American heartland during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Additionally he was a great muralist. He had spent time in Paris as a student early in the century, and became friendly with Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist. The similarity in composition, even color between Benton and Rivera’s murals is obvious. Being friends, the influence probably was reciprocated, and worked back and forth over time. Here, the comparison of Benton’s “People of Chilmark” with “Rivera’s “Symbolic Landscape,” demonstrates the way both twist and turn and taper toward the top of the picture plain. Though the Rivera is a gnarled tree trunk, and the Benton is composed of human figures, the two compositions can be superimposed almost element for element. The rower’s ores and the clouds in the upper left portion of Benton’s composition act in similar fashion to the branches of Rivera’s tree. In both artworks, ore and cloud or branches work in opposition to human figures or trunk. The fact of Rivera’s communist affiliation should not prevent the association of the two artist’s works.

People of Chilmark (1920)

Symbolic Landscape (1940)

to be continued

Notes

*1 Wikipedia "Thomas Hart Benton (painter)," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter). Viewed 10:25 AM EST, Sunday, January 16, 2011. Original from "Benton Hates Museums". Time. 1941-04-14. Retrieved 2007-07-29.

*2 The following are copyrighted images. I use them here for one time scholarly purposes.

People of Chilmark (Figure Composition), 1920, oil on canvas, 65 5/8 in. x 77 5/8 in. (166.5 x 197.3 cm.) Wikipedia "Thomas Hart Benton (painter)," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter). Viewed 10:25 AM EST, Sunday, January 16, 2011. Original from the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC.

Diego Rivera, Symbolic Landscape, 1940; painting; oil on canvas, 47 7/8 in. x 60 1/8 in. (121.6 cm x 152.72 cm); Collection SFMOMA, Gift of Friends of Diego Rivera; © Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Social Realism and the Popomo: Also known as Social Realism in Twenty-first Century American Art: Part III

2011-01-11T10:54:00.003-05:00

Let me preface the third part of this series with the statement that all my writing is ideologically motivated. Parts I and II of the series appeared in my Journal on October 27, 2010, and November 20th, 2010 respectively.

Dorothea Lange, photograph of Florence Owens Thompson titled “Migrant Mother”

The Art World does not recognize the Mexican Muralist influence upon Social Realism as a movement in our country. In actuality, the great muralists were a direct precursor to and influence upon Social Realism. Our own government, through the Works Progress Administration of the 1940’s sponsored works by the muralists in the United States, all of which deal with the common worker’s role in a modern industrial society. So, why is the influence not recognized? Perhaps it comes from an artificial opposition constructed about the categories “Muralist” versus the smaller scale works of the ordinary “visual artist.” Perhaps we are fearful that the Mexican Muralist’s social concerns grew directly out of oppression and revolution, and we as North Americans have needs totally unrelated to such drastic political realities (He said facetiously.). At least, that is the way the politics of Latin countries have often been presented in our public educational institutions, of which the Tea Party and extreme right are so dissatisfied. * Okay, time to get off my ideological high horse and turn back to actuality. I move on to the part of the category that is recognized within the cannon, Social Realism.

Social Realism is defined roughly as art that describes the everyday racial, social, and economic plight of the worker and the poor in our country. Historically, Social Realism is blind to race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. Variations in sexuality were not present because at the time sexual categories were purposely avoided at the time, with the possible exception of Paul Cadmus. I shall limit my examination of the Social Realists here to but a few out of necessity because I cannot do the subject and the artists complete justice on such a small scale. I shall look at the following: 1) Thomas Hart Benton, 2) Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and Manuel Rivera-Ortiz, photographers, 3) Ben Shahn, and 4) Romare Bearden.

To be continued

Note

* Perhaps the right and the Tea Party better not try to fix something that preaches the conservative viewpoint so effectively.

Documentation

St Francis & Sultan Malek al Kamil

2011-01-07T08:23:00.001-05:00

The above is an interesting tidbit from my current “Mixed Media Distressed Paint” artwork that might provide food for thought to those who say the entire Muslim world is of necessity in opposition to the entire Christian world. The arguments in that direction don’t take into consideration the fact that the Muslim and Christian worlds are (each) fractious among themselves. Additionally most Christians and Muslims do not wish to fight a new Twenty-first Century Crusade.

However, I understand that it is impossible to apply logic to the illogical.

New Year, Winter 2011

2011-01-02T10:15:00.004-05:00

The photograph above was taken while visiting my partner’s sister in the Panhandle of Florida where the temperature dipped to 23 degrees Fahrenheit on two successive nights. Mind you, I’m not complaining, we could have been in the northeast with all that snow. The Video below was shot in Astoria, NYC, by Jamie Stuart, "Idiot with a Tripod."

New Year Wish

On this second day of the New Year, I’m passing on hope for an improved outlook for everyone, and I’ll leave it there, no laundry list of sufferers. One political wish for the New Year – I hope the new Republican majority in congress will have wisdom to actually say “YES” to change occasionally, and that the now Democratic minority will not take up the Republican “NO” mantra of the past two years.

I didn’t exactly stay true to my promise to avoid all electronic technology during the holiday season. On at least two occasions I responded to electronic inquiry, 1) on facebook to a friend, and 2) an e-mail concerning a bill. Never the less, I’m pleased, and I hope all those with New Year resolutions will do as well as I did the past two weeks.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-22T07:01:00.004-05:00

I have promised myself that the space between now and the day after New Year's Day will be Internet free. Therefore, this is my last entry until January 2, 2011. My Christmas wishes are below.

The mixed media distressed painting shown above was made for the front of our Christmas card this year. In that artwork I am directly quoting William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s painting, Madonna & Child. The image is buried under two layers of paint, torn, and scraped, the torn reversed partial image, removed from the complete image and laminated above and to the side of the image's corner. I drew gold leaf lines around the repeated image of Madonna and Child to emphasize the value of the gift God gave to all humankind. The distressed technique lent itself to the expression of my notion that Jesus’ actual message of peace and love has been distorted and – yes, damaged – by the various Christian institutions. No, I do not personally hear Jesus, or converse with him as so many others claim. When I pray, I talk to God, and I ask for things like strength and a better understanding of others. In all humility, God doesn’t talk back. Instead, I sense his presence. How to explain that - warmth inside like a light within, accompanied by a heart-felt flutter, like any of us feel when another person performs an act of love and/or kindness toward us personally or toward another present, whether they be human or animal.

At the same time I know this as fact. God doesn’t have to tell me that Jesus Christ walked on this earth, and that he lacked prejudice against any people or person. Neither race, nationality, ethnicity, religion nor sexuality made him fearful or angry. God doesn’t have to tell me that Jesus Christ did not advocate war. Other men may advocate war. Jesus of Nazareth did not. Most of all, God doesn't have to tell me that all men may walk with Jesus.

With these thoughts in mind, my seemingly impossible Christmas wish is that the spirit of this holiday - in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ - will bless us with his love, and the peace he desires for all mankind.

Waterworks

2010-12-18T10:57:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately for the West, our creation myth (Genesis) makes it sound as though God gives us this planet to do with, as we will. It does not stress that with God’s gift comes the RESPONSIBILITY of caring for the Earth. Genesis does not emphasize the connectedness of all things through God.

I’ve finished a group of small mixed media distressed paintings (8” x 8”) for the not so new series (Waterworks) that began on the Beach April 20, 2010, the day of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion. I say “not so new” because most all my work, pastel paintings, photomontages, and the mixed media distressed paintings have been and are based on water. As I’ve stated in the past, I’d like to do a show or series of shows based on my concerns about clean water, all life including human, and the planet. The Gulf Oil Disaster demonstrated just how fragile our oceans and seas are – how easy it is for us to kill-off our coinheritors of planet earth, to destroy land and sea through our careless profligacy. It also demonstrated to me how connected we are to that life and this planet. Unfortunately, missing in our Western conceptualization of that connection is the knowledge that it is as much a part of us as we are of it, and we ignore that side of the connection at our own peril.

B-r-r-r-r-r! Is This an Indication of Winter 2011 Conditions?

2010-12-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

If the extreme cold pre-winter and national politics have you down – stare at this photo of Paradise Beach, Tulum, Mexico and project yourself into the 84 degree waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Then envision all the maniacal GOP and/or Democratic politicians (depending on your current view of national politics) being projected onto that beach and into that blissful tropical sun and water – actually way out in that water where they either sink or swim to shore. I wonder, could they? Would they? Or would they just thrash about and push each other under and drown.

H-m-m-m-m, in the case of the latter, we are left alone on the beach to enjoy the sun and water by ourselves. I’m not suggesting anything (honest, I’m NOT!), just creating a happy vision to relieve my worn out political nerves.

"I will not dwell on politics until after Christmas."
"I will not dwell on politics until after Christmas."
"I will not dwell on politics until after Christmas."

End Export of USA Jobs Overseas this Christmas 2010!

2010-12-08T10:04:00.008-05:00

I apologize for this entry because, once again, it is not an “Art” entry. Never the less, I’ve done my own artwork as always. It is imperative that the middle class does everything we can do to bring jobs back to this country because our president, government and politicians in general aren't fighting for us. This entry describes my personal attempt to achieve that goal.

“Good idea,” you say. “But how do I do that?”

There are Websites dedicated to products made in the United States. Just “Google” “made in America,” and/or “made in the USA, and you will turn up a list of those Websites. I’ve been doing most of my Christmas shopping on “made in the USA web pages." It is hard to find some products, because so much of our manufacturing has been shipped overseas. For instance, I could find but two manufacturers of sheets! I ended up buying two sets of sheets from Mayfield on “Mattress.com” because all Mayfield sheets are made in our country. Now that I’ve done my shopping I’ve begun a list of products and companies still manufacturing in the USA. For instance, Calphalon makes all its aluminum pots and pans in Toledo, Ohio, though they don’t make a point of that fact (THEY SHOULD!). Once I have built my list, I can use it to shop in the actual world physically. I found that many of these products do cost a bit more than products made in China. However, the United States has strict regulations on production. Thus, the products made in our country are less likely to contain lead, mercury, and other toxic chemicals dangerous to your health and the health of family members.

So – if everyone with a computer does his/her Christmas shopping at these Websites, it will be a start in trying to convince our foolish corporations to bring jobs back to the United States. I plan to continue shopping ALL United States ALL year long whenever possible. I will also contact each company that I use to let them know why I am buying their products. I’m toying with the idea of starting an interactive blog dedicated to buying products made in the USA. Is there anyone interested in joining such an enterprise?

Breakfast With the Enemy

2010-12-03T13:31:00.007-05:00

My partner’s sister and brother in law and the brother in law's sister have been visiting since before Thanksgiving. We all went on a very wonderful trip to the Yucatan Peninsula, stayed in a five star hotel in the special private section for preferred folk, ate haut quisine every night, and were served by an unbelievably attentive staff twenty-four, seven. The weather and water were heavenly. Seven days with no news, no phone calls, just endless pleasantries with the local Mayan and Mexican people, a few other guests and between one another. Above is a photo of the beautiful Caribbean Sea, and a young man who seemed to be walking on water at Paradise Beach near Tulum, Mexico.

Yesterday we returned to south Florida, and this morning my family had FOX news on during breakfast. There was John Boehner wanting huge tax cuts for the rich, John McCain blithering about his hypocritical stand against gays in the military, and Boehner again, fussing about Obama’s Presidential Commission on the National Debt. I became angry and had to go to my bedroom. I pray to God to help me understand and love all my partner’s family, but it sometimes feels like a loosing cause. They are staunch Republicans, all, or vote with the Republican Party. Some of them hate all Arabs and Muslims indiscriminately. Some hate blacks and all people of any color, though they won’t admit it (“I’m not prejudiced. "Besides, he lied, he's only half black."). I don’t get to talk openly about my sexuality, though they all know that my partner and I are (e-e-e-e-u-w!).

Yes, I will work at loving each and every one of them, and in many ways they are wonderful. However, understanding their Republican stance on issues is another matter. They don't register that a large part of the Republican Party separates us all by race and ethnicity, religion, and sexuality, and that the Corporate Plutocracy uses those social issues to separate us as members of the middle class from one another. Yes there are other issues that the Republican Party stands for traditionally, like fiscal responsibility - I use to be one (a Republican, that is - I'm still fiscally responsible) - but more and more it is the Protestant, male, women whose minds are stuck in the 19th century, whites and heterosexuals only party.

Yes, I am trying to accept that this all is simply the world as it stands, that God has nothing to do with it, that Jesus would not be recognized by many Republicans if he walked into their church or homes. I wish I could at least appear to walk on water like the young man at Paradise beach. I also wish and pray that I can be more accepting of views other than my own as was Jesus' example for us all. Never the less this morning with FOX news felt like eating breakfast with the enemy.

Magnificent Ocean!

2010-11-25T06:36:00.001-05:00

I took this photograph this past July as part of "The Waterworks." I was trying for the greatest depth of field possible, from about 2 feet to infinity. The boy in the middle ground with arms extended, looked as though he was praising the glorious day and God's creation; clean air, clean water, magnificent sun!

Social Realism in 21st Century Art: Part II

2010-11-20T10:15:00.009-05:00

The following is a continuation in what I hope will be many entries about my desire that a strong social consciousness return to the Arts rather than the watered down version that some call Social Realism in contemporary art (that which depicts ordinary people in their diurnal activities). The Mexican Social Realists of the early to mid Twentieth Century actively criticized war, and anything that wasn’t in their view a human version of a democratic society with a social conscience. Also, please note that Soviet style Socialist Realism should not in any way be confused with Social Realism as an Art movement!

One more qualifier. If you are the kind of person who - stumbling upon this journal, and seeing Siqueiros' painting "New Democracy" - is revolted by her breasts, wishes to protest, just close your eyes, and please move on.*

*2

Let me start this entry by saying that, “I’m really tired of our U. S. American aversion to Twenty-first Century European style socialism as it actually exists in practice.” Does it really mean bigger government? In fact, I am concerned about our illogical fear of big government, when in reality we have handed our United States government over to the interests of the very rich gigantic international corporations. We have been duped into thinking that these very rich Brobdingnagian not so capitalists represent the benign “Mom and Pop” Capitalism of the Nineteenth and first half of the Twentieth Century. Instead, they are in the process of destroying it.

So, what is this European style SOCIALISM that everyone thinks is such a BAD word? In theory socialism advocates for public ownership and management of production. In capitalism the public gets to purchase pieces of corporations, but has no means of direct management of production. And, now that UNIONISM is also a BAD WORD, the worker has little if anything to say about his/her part in production. In socialism, production is based directly on economic demand based on an exacting measure of labor time of all components. Thus, income / consumption is based on actual individual merit and / or contribution of work. In practice European style SOCIALISM is much less dogmatic, and involves government intervention in the free market where necessary to distribute public services like medical care more equitably among the populace. All of this has nothing to do with the bogey of COMUNISM. The key thing to remember here is that socialism advocates for the individual to receive reward based on his/her own effort/merit. Instead, modern capitalism defines the individual person as if he/she were a cog in the corporate machine, and the corporate machine has become the individual of worth (see the Supreme Court Decision of January 21, 2010).*3 That decision created the avalanche toward the Republican Party in the November 2010 elections through manipulation of gullible public opinion by the extremely rich corporate world. Thus, we no longer live in a Democracy. Rather, we live in an oligarchy, a country controlled by the interests of the extremely rich, and the large corporations.

All of this anti corporate tirade started me to wondering if there is any evidence of a backlash among people who actually think, that is people who use their intelligence - which does not necessarily imply “INTELLECTUAL” [another bad word in our cultural lexicon] but that they use their God given intelligence - thinkers of all kinds, as well as visual artists, writers, composers to oppose this Brobdingnagian corporate control that has nothing to do with actual capitalism. So, I’m back to my original question on October 27th, 2010. Does the early to mid Twentieth Century art movement, Social Realism, relate in any way to contemporary concerns in American Art? I ask that question because we need champions for humanity in this crazy world of capitalism destroying RICH MONSTER CORPORATIONS.

Having dwelt on socialism to the exclusion of all else, it should be noted here, that the Mexican Social Realists of the 1920’s through 40’s often placed democracy at the center of their visual discourse. Siqueiros' artworks express an expansive vision of a world without ethnicity, class or nationality, a world that will not tolerate totalitarianism and/or WAR, in which Democracy has broken all chains that tie humanity down. It must also be a qualified statement that socialism (ideas prizing the worth of the individual in material production in capitalist societies) is often present in Social Realist works of art from the past.

Now I must begin my search for Twenty-first Century Social Realism in Art. Does it exist? That is the subject for a future entry.

I could use some help. Does anyone have examples of contemporary composers, writers, visual artists who are creating ARTWORKS in opposition to the 21st Century CORPORATE OLIGARCHY? Are there Twenty-first century artworks that look toward a world lacking prejudice, ethnicity, class or nationality?

Notes

* Siqueiros is not objectifying women, but praising woman as democracy breaking the chains of totalitarianism.

*2 Siqueiros “New Democracy” at Palacio Bellas Artes, Mexico City. From SAH Study Tour Blog by Amanda Delorey, http://sahstudytours.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/day-2-%E2%80%93-august-5-2010-%E2%80%93-historical-centre-of-the-city/. August 18, 2010. Viewed 11:15 P.M., EST, Friday, November 19, 2010.

•3 Liptak, Adam, Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit, in the New York Times, January 21, 2010 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html). Viewed 11:00 P.M., EDT, Friday, November 19, 2010.

Clouds and Ocean in South Florida

2010-11-15T10:19:00.003-05:00

Ever since moving here in 2005 I’ve been fascinated by the magnificent skys above the marsh and seascape, especially the cumulus clouds that can turn dark and forbidding in an instant or gold, salmon and mauve with the setting sun. These clouds are as much a part of “The Waterworks” as is the clean clear water that supports so much life, sport, and fun in our state.

The day after we returned to Florida, we were on the beach, a beautiful sunny morning. We went swimming in the 82 degrees Fahrenheit water, walked on the beach, lay in the sun and hunted for exotic shells. As if God sent a rapid-fire cue to his angel stage crew, a band of dark cumulonimbus appeared over the water and began trailing from east to west. They spread across the sky, their shadows moving ominously across beach and sea, and my camera shutter click-clacked repeatedly before we packed up to leave the beach. The abrupt change, as in life, can just as quickly reverse itself here in south Florida.

Sand Recordings

2010-11-09T22:34:00.003-05:00

On October 28th after a typically long cold and damp spell we woke to bright sun and fresh air that was warm enough to open the windows at 7:00 AM. Knowing that we would be leaving Delaware for Florida in two days we decided to make a last trek to Cape Henlopen. Unfortunately there was a land breeze and the black flies had the same idea as did we. Thus, our afternoon at the beach was cut to 45 minutes. However, I took lots of photographs, this time of the sand instead of the water, while simultaneously offering my flesh as sacrifice to the voracious insects. My partner, Joe, looked like a one man comedy act as he shuffled around the beach, bent in his usual shell inspecting stance, and swatting constantly at whatever part of his body the malicious critters were visiting.

I will call these photographs part of the Waterworks because the record of water’s passage is in the markings of the miniature landscapes. Also, small sea critters dug into the sand as the water receded, creating dimples and craters in the “sandscape.” The angle of the afternoon fall sun created great lighting, and every fleck of sand and shell had its own distinct shadow, which made an abundantly detailed surface. As I look at these images, I find myself pretending that I’m in a spaceship flying over the surface of Mars, or perhaps heavenly bodies in another solar system, say 70 Virginis or 47 Ursae Majoris.

Rehoboth Beach Nor’easter

2010-11-05T09:50:00.004-04:00

The photo was actually taken in November of 2007. However, it is so appropriate to my feelings about leaving Delaware early this year in order to vote in the 2010 elections at my legal residence here in Florida. The mid Atlantic can be much more magnificent in fury than in repose. I love it when she shows her temper especially when it is not especially destructive. The photo also demonstrates my own feelings about the election this week – the anger and frustration with so many silly people who expected the economy to be repaired in only two years, and angry white folk that are being duped into voting for extremely conservative candidates most of whom advocate doing away with the new healthcare law, the department of education, privatizing Medicare, Medicaid and the V.A., remove and/or downgrade social security, and entertain the use of guns, (reads) possible revolution if they don’t get their childish way. I’m angry with a Republican Party that said “NO” to everything for those same two past years, caused the financial disaster in the first place and now claims that it can fix all the problems by keeping in place the disastrous Bush 700 billion dollar tax cut for the rich. I’m also angry with a president who has not lived up to the promises he made in 2008 concerning the public option in healthcare, don’t ask, don’t tell, and many other progressive issues, and has already promised to cooperate with Republicans in dismantling his own healthcare law. I’m angry at a political era in which any form of socialism is seen as terribly evil while Tea Party candidates can get elected to office by proposing gun-toting rebellion against our democracy!

Putting all my political frustrations aside, I like the way the sand is blowing over the dune in the photograph despite being soaking wet, the very threatening sky, and the huddled figure of my partner as he braces against the cold sand pelting wind. I remember pieces of foam were actually flying through the air the day we took the picture. Additionally, all three, flying sand, foam and braced figure demonstrate power and strength in adversity. The single point perspective of the drift fence leads the eye to the figure and the angry sea beyond, and that hoary churning ocean also demonstrates how helpless we really are against Mother Nature. Delaware friends I’ve talked to on the phone since election day tell me that the weather this week has been exactly like that in this 2007 photograph. Critically, I am capable of understanding that the photograph belongs to a generic category of pictures that might be labeled “stormy sea,” and therefore something like 2 million other stormy sea photos exist. However, as stated above, the composition including the figure, sand, crashing waves, and strong one point perspective set it apart. Thus, I see that Art (photography in this case) is my way of attempting to take charge in a world over which I have little if any control.

The Republican Tea Party is Victorious in the 2010 Midterm Elections

2010-11-02T21:29:00.001-04:00

“We’ve taken our government back!”

The Future of Government in the USA

I just listened to Rand Paul’s speech, made upon winning the Kentucky senate seat. Like Senator Elect Paul, I am proud of America. However, unlike Senator Elect Paul, I am fearful for the people in a United States of America in which the government is thought to be a hindrance to the well being of the people.

Goodnight.

2010 ELECTION POSTER

2010-11-01T23:41:00.000-04:00

Well, it is my Art! Under my own description of this journal's intent, I'm allowed.