Esta
exposición,
está dedicada a tres artistas
clave del siglo XX:

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968),
Man Ray (1890-1976) y
Francis Picabia (1879-1953),

tres personalidades
provocadoras
que revolucionaron los
cánones artísticos establecidos,
marcando un antes
y un después
en el mundo
del arte.

De hecho,
su huella se puede
seguir en muchas de las creaciones
del arte contemporáne...
oH!

La muestra reúne más de 300 obras: pinturas, fotografías, dibujos, películas y objetos, entre los que destacan los famosos readymades de Duchamp como Fuente, un urinario colocado al revés, claro ejemplo de cómo hicieron tambalearse los fundamentos artísticos al cuestionarse el propio concepto de obra de arte.

Marcel Duchamp y Francis Picabia nacieron en Francia y se hicieron amigos en París. Fue en Nueva York, ciudad de exilio de los dos artistas franceses, donde, en 1915, junto con el americano Man Ray, impulsaron el movimiento dadá de esa ciudad, y donde forjaron una amistad a tres bandas que duró hasta el final de sus vidas.

La exposición incide precisamente en la influencia que esta amistad tuvo en sus trayectorias artísticas. A través de las obras vemos la fascinación común por las máquinas, el movimiento, el erotismo o la experimentación con la luz y las transparencias, que llevó a Man Ray a la invención de las rayografías.

El recorrido finaliza con una amplia recopilación documental (Sala Temporales 2), testimonio de las vivencias, el intercambio de ideas y los juegos compartidos; entre estos juegos, el ajedrez es el gran protagonista.

Dadá es una palabra que no significa nada.

Sin embargo Dadá cambió el curso y la intención del arte, tal y como se lo conocía hasta 1916. Surgió en Zúrich (Suiza) iniciado por Tristan Tzara,que se caracterizó por sentimientos de protesta contra convenciones literarias, una actitud de burla total por las manifestaciones artisticas literarias, por gestos y manifestaciones provocadoras en las que los artistas pretendían destruir todas las convenciones con respecto al arte, creando una especie de anti-arte o rebelión contra el orden establecido en aquella época de comienzos y mediados del siglo XX, en los periodos de la primera y comienzos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.^[1] tuvo su área de influencia no sólo en el arte gráfico sino que también en la música; Y surge como consecuencia de la quiebra de valores.[2

Artistas reconocidos de este movimiento fueron: Tristan Tzara y Marcel Jank de Rumanía, el francés Jean Arp y los alemanes Hugo Ball, Hans Richter y Richard Huelsenbeck. Tras varios encuentros informales en distintos cafés, empezó a tomar forma la idea de crear un cabaret internacional. La primera celebración tuvo lugar el 5 de febrero de 1916 en el Cabaret Voltaire, y consistió en un espectáculo de variedades con canciones francesas y alemanas, música rusa, música negra y exposiciones de arte. El nombre Dadá lo encontraron casualmente en un diccionario Ball y Huelsenbeck mientras buscaban nombre artístico a una de las cantantes: pongámosle Dadá "...El primer sonido que dice el niño expresa el primitivismo, el empezar desde cero, lo que nuestro arte tiene de nuevo".

En 1913 tuvo lugar en Nueva York la Exposición Internacional de Arte Moderno, más conocida como el Armory Show. Allí, el Desnudo descendiendo una escalera de Marcel Duchamp causó una auténtica conmoción y fue calificada de obra maestra por Breton. Duchamp se convirtió en la bestia negra del arte moderno. Marcel Duchamp ha pasado a la historia como uno de los artistas más enigmáticos e inteligentes.

Y es precisamente con una de sus obras tirulada "Fuente", donde todo cambió... Era claramente la primera vez, que un Artista transggredía de esta forma el Arte, presentando un Urinario firmado por el, y lísto!!! Vino a decir, básicamente que Arte es aquello que el Artista llama Arte.

Meanwhile exploring entries on Marcel Duchamp on You Tube I came across one of those videos, in which an excerpt of Hans Richter´s "Dreams that Money Can Buy" featuring Marcel Duchamp´s "Anemic Cinema" is put together with Radiohead´s "You´re All I Need", which happens to be my favorite song on their last album. Lucky coincidence for this is a great match!
The song is painful, obsessive and yet inspiring with Tom York´s amazing lyrics: "I am all the days you choose to ignore"! Duchamp´s "Anemic Cinema" as an inquiry into human perception and the cinematic gaze gains a new reading here.
The viewer´s gaze under the spell bounding and hypnotic effects of cinema is thus compared to an impotent powerless lover living off an illusion. Until the advent of the internet and interactive cinema, our relation with cinema has been a passive and non-corresponded one indeed, just like the love described in the song.

I wonder what drove Wild Turner to put Duchamp´s "Anemic Cinema" and Radiohead´s song "You´re All I Need" together?
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place" another song by Radiohead together with Antonioni footage also results tremendously brilliant. Here >>

And most amazing is to think that this could only have happened in the internet of course, where the logic of the medium favoring freedom to experiment and assembly - two of Duchamp´s most strongest ideas and legacy for the future - overthrows limiting author rights´ bureaucracy. Indeed a match made in heaven!

On the topics of the change of the artist´s role after Duchamp and quotation/ assembly /sampling issues today, is really worth taking a look into Dj Spooky´s interview on Duchamp at The Dallas Museum of Art.

I'm interested in what people have to say on this subject and how different people define the nature of art. Just about everyone has an opinion. Powerful characters throughout history have challenged the definition of art.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp 1916

Marcel Duchamp

In 1915 Marcel Duchamp presented a series of objects that he referred to as readymades. His bicycle wheel and urinal are examples of these experiments which represent Duchamps conscious effort to break every rule of artistic tradition. His intention was to create a new kind of art that engages the mind instead of the eye in an effort to make the observer participate and think. Duchamp started by eliminateing arts most fundamental values: beauty and artisanship. He removed the hand of the artist from the process of creation and substituted manufactured, assembled, or "readymade" objects in an effort to create works without the pretense of artifice. Duchamp was not concerned with imitating reality.

Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol 1967

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol began his career as an illustrator and commercial artist. He never abandoned his quest to use mass media to capture significant moments in American history and culture. He raised controversy in the 1960's when he transformed highly charged political images into art. Warhol began to make paintings of famous products such as Campbell Soup Cans and Coca Cola products. He founded a studio called "The Factory" where he switched to silkscreen prints which he produced in quantity. His philosophy was not to make art of mass produced items, but to mass produce the art itself. Artists like Jeff Koons continue in this tradition. Warhol declared that he wanted to be "a machine" and therefore minimized the role of his own hand in the production of his art. It was because of this fact that his work quickly became popular and controversial. In many ways, Warhols superficiality and commerciality, was a mirror of the times.

John Cage

John Cage

John Cage was a leader in indeterminate music. Indeterminate music is generally defined as partially composed, requiring the performer to make decisions and improvisations while playing. Cage was a student of composers Arnold Schoenberg and Henry Cowell who were both known for their radical innovations in music. Cage's major influences came from his interest in Zen Buddhism and Asian Philosophy. His work 4'33" challenged the art of music like never before. A pianist sits in silence for the duration of four minutes and thirty three seconds. The sounds made by the audience and the room become the musical experience. At the end of the duration the performer leaves without ever playing a note.

So do we separate those who make art from those who challenge art? Is there a difference?

My Definition of Art

Part 1
I believe that art must be beautiful. However, I define beauty much differently than most people. My definition of beauty as it pertains to art:

Any artistic work that celebrates, and uniquely portrays, the triumphs and tragedy of the human condition. The work must communicate these feelings with passion and fervor.

I'd love to hear your definition of beauty. Please leave your remarks in the comments section.

Part 2
We all see the world from a unique vantage point. We all express our vision differently. I think a successful work of art expresses an individual point of view. It challenges the viewer to see things differently than they ever have before.

This topic should make for interesting conversation. Please post your thoughts in the comments section.

You are visiting the blog of fine art photographer Daniel W. Coburn. For more information and photographs visit his official website

Johnny Depp como Sweeney Cruela De Vil Todd

Música

Ai gente, que boring. Todos os meus bocejoswhatever pra Bravo!

Tá, eu sei que vou apanhar. Mas heeeei, parou com essa de listar os melhores blá, blá blá, os melhores caras da música, os melhores ladrões de trepadeira, os melhores comedores de lingerie, os melhores artistas circenses incandescentes...zzzzzzz... né?

Cansei. A "novidade" da vez é uma edição especial com as 100 melhores obras da MPB. Te dou um dado? </tedouumdado> Daqui a pouco a galera da redação vai entrar numa vibe Caros Amigos na minha ex revista cultural favorita.

Beijoooosmeliguem!

Em tempo: Reafirmando que nóis é foda graçasaolúcioribeiro, a organizaçao do Tim Festival confirmou hoje (24) a presença de Klaxons, The Gossip e os jazzistas Sonny Rollins e Stacey Kent no festival. Estão confirmadas também as apresentações de Echo & The Bunnymen em Julho no Brasil.

Literatura

Considerado por muitos o maior escritor brasileiro em atividade, Milton Hatoum merece ir pra Academia Brasileira de Letras. Explico: Essa desocupada que vos fala teve a recente oportunidade who cares? de encarar uma sabatina com o ilustríssimo supra-mencionado. E o autor só faz encorpar o coro que diz que a idéia, o romance, sempre supera a realidade. Cheio de preciosismos filosóficos, sentenças radicais e respostas vagas, deixou a desejar. Decepção.

Pode entrar pra Academia e se tornar imortal em vida. Mas eu preferiria mais livros e menos teoria literária.

7ª Arte

Acaba de sair em DVD o filme "Sweeney Todd - O Barbeiro Demoníaco da Rua Fleet", última obra do diretor freak Tim Burton. Pra quem não viu, é uma boa oportunidade de conferir a sempre proveitosa parceria Burton-Depp.

Scary til death.

Artes Plásticas

O MAM (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo) realizará a partir de 15 de Julho "Marcel Duchamp: Uma Obra que Não é Uma Obra ‘de Arte’", a maior exposição de Duchamp já realizada na América Latina.

Serão cerca de 120 peças, incluindo seus mais importantes trabalhos. O evento terá “Duchamp-me”, algo como uma exposição dentro da exposição, reunindo obras de artistas brasileiros inspirados por ele.

Bom pros fãs de Arte Conceitual e pros desconhecedores interessados.

Fotografia e TV

Para aqueles como eu, aficcionados por fotografia, vai o acervo virtual da Fundação Pierre Verger. Para conferir, clique aqui. Um tanto desvalorizado em seu tempo, Verger foi um apaixonado pela cultura brasileira de raiz africana, fotografando todas as cenas que encontrou relacionadas ao assunto. Foi também um assíduo pesquisador do Candomblé, o que o fez lançar vários livros respeitados até mesmo na comunidade religiosa. Très interessant!

Pra fechar, essa é a semana do chororô. E aí, quem viu o final de temporada de Grey's Anatomy? Ahn? Ahn?

Se não viu, corre pro download. O episódio é duplo, povo. 2 horas de McDreamy! :D

Câmbio desligo.

E. Arroyo, A. Recalcati e G. Aillaud
Vivir y deja morir o el fin trágico de Marcel Duchamp
1965

What is it with Jake and Dinos Chapman? They like it right on the edge of obscene, bordering on something they should be sectioned for.

Hung on the white walls of the White Cube Gallery, Mason’s Yard, are gloomy Victorian portrait-paintings, bought from junkyards, one even taken from the Shoreditch Town Hall. Each defaced, and I mean literally, with the Chapman Brothers’ grotesque over painting.

All the typical attributes the Chapman brothers like to put in their art are here. Eyes bulging, skeletal features revealed where flesh should be, veins popping, a nose now becoming something resembling female genitalia are painted over the original features. An effective idea, if you like to be repulsed and amused all at once, and well executed.

They are like an extreme version of demented school kids who draw on textbooks.

The more you think about these portraits the more a darker side appears. These long dead people, who blatantly had their painting done as something to keep in the family. You know, hang above their mantle piece, something to give to their kids. And now had the Chapmans have basically vandalized the one surviving memory of them. Nice. It is Duchamp, and his Mona-Lisa that is to blame for this no doubt. He gave the world subversive art the Chapmans have run with it.

The small paint-by-numbers style paintings downstairs is another example of this. The paintings, signed by A.Hitler, are of a very pleasant nature, rainbows with smiley faces, nice houses, all very jolly. Copying the style of watercolors actually auctioned last year that were attributed to Hitler, the Chapmans raise various moral and political questions and keep in with the whole subverting art theme. Blah blah blah! Personally I think it’s their obsession with Nazis that has more to do with it.

Next door they have revived their infamous Diorama scenes this time set in a tropical climate. War, Nazis and destruction rage, as skeletons fight a battle over mutilated bodies in mass graves, and mutated humans play beach ball on the sand.

Long after the YBA’s first did ‘Shocking’ as the new thing in art, the Chapmans refuse to quit. They have imaginations of disturbed children and they obviously like it that way. Much if this exhibition is very similar to previous works, even the defaced portraits that seem to be a new concept are very much along a similar theme to their Goya-influenced sketches exhibited at the White Cube over a year ago.

Is shocking going out of fashion? Not according to Jake and Dino Chapman.

No pictures yet! Have a look at their website for images (see below on London Galleries)

Filha do Dadaísmo de Marcel Duchamp (aquele dos urinóis feitos "obras-primas", num movimento que pregava a zombaria e a destruição de toda a ordem e academicismo), a Pop Art nasceu no final da década de 50 como uma crítica irônica à massificação da cultura e aos bens de consumo.

De repente, o que era vulgar tornou-se refinado, libertou a Arte da erudição das galerias e museus e a levou para as massas, através dos seus próprios objetos. E, já que o gosto, valor ou significado dependem do contexto em que se encaixam, o novo movimento esfacelou os limites entre o que é Arte e o que é mero acaso ou ilusão - ou farsa, mesmo.

Se a Pop Art assumiu elementos e ícones da publicidade, televisão, fotografia, cinema e até dos quadrinhos para criticar e apontar para uma "crise artística", não deixa de ser irônico que, hoje, esses próprios elementos tenham se elevado a conceituadas formas de... Arte?

Neil Gaiman e um time de geniais cartunistas transformaram os quadrinhos em obras profundas, inesquecíveis, dignas de colecionadores. A animação, mesmo, ganhou os computadores, imiscuiu-se no cinema, gerando efeitos inacreditáveis, e tem só para si uma celebração anual com tanto prestígio quanto o Oscar: o AnimaMundi.

As 'peças' feitas para a televisão também não escaparam ao "fenômeno" e, cada vez mais, abusam de animações, efeitos de photoshop e outros truques eletrônicos dignos da mais fantasiosa fição científica para deslumbrar os telespectadores. Agora é a publicidade que veste a indumentária da Arte, com traços inovadores e ousados próprios do grafitti. Atacando em outro 'front', o grafitti surgia como legítima arte das ruas e, à maneira da Pop Art, também se apropriou de signos populares ou restritos, de forma indiscriminada, para transmitir a sua mensagem. Invadiu galerias e passarelas, brilhou sob os holofotes e, de muro em muro, virou moda nas casas dos "descolados" - a ponto de ganhar críticas furiosas dos mais tradicionalistas, que vêem na súbita 'fama' do gênero artístico o esvaziamento dos seus propósitos e ideais.

O grafitti seguiu o exemplo de Warhol e cia (ainda que de forma incidental) e mimetizou a estrutura publicitária de pôsters e lambes para espalhar, em escala massificada, os seus próprios conceitos. Agora é a publicidade que, utilizando "ações de guerrilha" virais, incorporou elementos do grafitti, como o stencil e o spray, para "decorar" muros, paredes e até o asfalto com a divulgação de produtos que vão desde um novo celular até um filme em cartaz - como a obra "Concepção", cujo logotipo apareceu pichado em vários locais da cidade.

Mais do que uma suposta agressão aos ideiais e à legitimidade da arte de rua, a nova estratégia levanta uma discussão mais profunda: até que ponto os elementos antes marginalizados de que se apropria a publicidade podem ser considerados Arte? Uma bela escultura de areia na praia do Leblon, erguida para divulgar uma academia de ginástica, é Arte? E um ônibus decorado em toda a sua extensão por grafiteiros, com imagens surpreendentes e uma gritante mensagem cultural, a serviço de um site? Muito além do que já foi sonhado ou especulado, meois como o cinema, os quadrinhos e sobretudo a propaganda romperam os limites da Arte.

E, se uma caixa de sabão em pó decoradas com as obras de um expoente brasileiro da Pop Art, Romero Britto, e seu característico entretenimento sem reflexão, não é, em seu propósito, uma legítima obra de arte, ao menos é indício de algo que deve perdurar muito mais do que os quinze minutos profetizados por Andy Warhol.

Texto: Juliana Leite (publicado no Jornal da Praça in Revista em julho de 2006).

Låt oss tala lite om Elsa, Mama Dada herself, även kallad Baronessan. Förresten, låt oss tala lite om Marcel Duchamp likaså. Det finns ju rykten som gör gällande att Duchamps idé att ta vardagliga ting och ställa ut dem som konst, hans s.k. "ready mades", egentligen var något han snodde från Elsa. Det skulle inte förvåna mig. Baronessan Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (jag vet, jävla tjusigt och krångligt namn, ett namn hon fick först i sitt tredje äktenskap) var en outsinlig källa till excentriska krumsprång. Hon gjorde sig en BH av tomatburkar, ja. Bland mycket annat.

Här är hon förresten. Tanten är galen långt efter sin död. Jag har försökt förminska den här bilden flera gånger idag, men så fort hon kommer in på Lilla Blå Bloggen fläskar hon upp sig i jättestorlek. Så är det. Hon spökar. Men okay, Elsa får som hon vill. Det är inte varje dag ni vilar ögonen på Elsa så glo ordentligt! Det gjorde Marcel på sin tid också, han ville att Elsa skulle stå modell för honom. Och det kunde hon väl göra.

Elsa var lång, smal och egentligen inte vad man kallar vacker. Bland annat lär hon ha haft ett sjujäkla överbett. Men hon var ändå en kvinna som drog blickarna till sig. Efter att ha levt ett kringflackande liv i Europa kom hon till USA med sin tredje man. En karl som övergav henne när första världskriget bröt ut och stack hem till Tyskland igen. Han tog livet av sig i "protest" mot kriget, vilket Elsa tyckte var "nobelt". Trots den nobla akten innebar makens frånfälle att Elsa själv ställdes på bar backe. Hon drog till Greenwich Village, New York, där hon dels jobbade som nakenmodell och dels i en cigarettfabrik. Efter ett tag gav hon upp båda jobben och började skriva poesi istället.

Elsa var en bra bit över 40, rakade skallen, målade den röd, bar ibland en födelsedagstårta på huvudet, hade ett halsband med en levande kanariefågel... Hon tillverkade en löspenis i gips som hon använde för att "skrämma gamla nuckor med". Kort sagt, en excentrisk kvinna med många strängar på sin lyra. Hon var en av förgrundsgestalterna inom den amerikanska dadaismen och hennes promenader genom New York var ingenting annat än storartade happenings; detta innan begreppet "happenings" ens var uppfunnet. Så träffade hon Marcel, en något tillbakadragen fransk konstnär med förkärlek för schack, och Elsa blev störtkär. Eller kanske inte. Kanske var det bara glädjen över att upptäcka ännu en knäppgök i samma anda som hon själv. "Marcel, Marcel, I love you like hell" brukade Elsa utropa och skrev otaliga dikter till hans ära.  Marcel själv ställde ut en urinoar på en konstutställning 1917, döpte den till "Fontänen" och så var skandalen ett faktum. Urinoaren skulle 2004 komma att utnämnas till ett av 1900-talets mest betydelsefulla konstverk av 500 välrenommerade konstnärer och kritiker. Slicka i er den karamellen, folks. Troligen var det Elsa som sände honom urinoaren från början. Men riktigt hur det låg till med den saken vet man inte. Hon fick i alla fall ingen credit för det.

 Elsa försvann in i historiens dimmor och Marcel, vid sitt schackbord, blev världsberömd och fick ett enormt inflytande på konsthistorien under hela 1900-talet. Alla var dock inte lika imponerade över honom. Hans fru fick nog och limmade, i värsta Pål Pommac-stil, fast hans schackpjäser på brädet. Några veckor senare var skilsmässan ett faktum. (Jag vet inte vad det är, men hur jag än försöker förstora upp bilden av Marcel förblir den liten... Jag anar Elsas inflytande även här. Sorry, folks! Ni får ta fram förstoringsglaset). Det är Marcel Duchamp på bilden. Han har en pipa i ena näven som han trycker mot magen. Han koncentrerar sig. Han spelar schack. Jag tror inte han tänker på Elsa ett endaste dugg.

Men vem var det som fick införskaffa sandsäck och boxarhandskar? Åh, javisst ja, det höll jag sånär på att glömma. Det var William Carlos Williams. Han var poet och tillsammans med bl.a Man Ray en av deltagarna i gruppen "the Others"; ett gäng poeter och konstnärer i Greenwich Village från 1915. Jag läste Williams första gången i tonåren, det hörde till samma fas som Doors-plattorna och Kerouac-böckerna. Jag minns egentligen bara en sak av honom; dikten om plommonen. Hur var det nu den gick? 

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox

and which you were probably saving for breakfast.

Forgive me, they were delicious

So sweet and so cold. 

 Så enkel och vacker kan poesi vara. Så här såg han förresten ut:

 Rätt söt plommontjuv, va? Åtminstone tyckte Elsa det. Och ska vi vara ärliga så blev William stormförtjust i Elsa; han uttryckte en kort stund in i bekantskapen att han älskade henne. Han kysste henne, lite försynt men ändå djärvt. Det skulle han aldrig ha gjort. Elsa grabbade tag i stackars Williams, sa att "vad han behövde för att bli en bra och frigjord konstnär var en dos av hennes syfilis". Sedan började en katt-och-råtta-lek där Elsa jagade Williams och Williams försökte gömma sig. När hon blev ratad av honom smockade hon till honom rakt i ansiktet. William Carlos Williams inhandlade sandsäck, boxarhandskar och satte igång att ta lektioner. När han ansåg sig någorlunda förkovrad i den ädla boxningskonsten gav han igen med råge. Baronessan Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven stöp i gatan mitt på Manhattan. Av detta kan vi alla lära oss att poeter kan vara mycket slagkraftiga. Framför allt när de drabbas av kärlek. Tro aldrig något annat.

Vad hände med Elsa då? Tja, hon återvände till Europa under tidigt 20-tal i tron att hon skulle få det bättre men istället kom hon till ett Tyskland i ruiner efter kriget. Trots detta stannade hon, utblottad och vad det verkar, inte helt frisk. Hon dog i sin lägenhet, gasförgiftad. Om det var ett medvetet självmord eller en olyckshändelse vet vi inte. Sorgligt är också att Djuna Barnes, journalisten/författaren och vännen som gjorde anspråk på kroppen, senare inte kom ihåg var Elsa blivit begravd - eller ens om hon blivit begravd!

Ja, ja. Hur det än är med den saken så är Elsa borta nu. Hon var en komplex kvinna, hade en jävlig barndom, levde ett kringflackande liv i flera länder, utmanade sin omgivning, var bisexuell och samtidigt homofobisk, hade flera judiska vänner och var uttalad antisemit... Att beskriva Elsa är inte det enklaste. Det första som slår en är det paradoxala i hela hennes person. Men det är väl också därför jag blir fascinerad av henne. Hur som helst, hon tar plats på Lilla Blå Bloggen i alla fall. Stor plats. Stort fotografi. Jädra fin bensprätt. Och det säger jag aldrig nej till. Det vet ni ju.

För er som blir nyfikna på dadaismen, Duchamp, Williams, det tidiga sekelskiftets bohemliv i Greenwich Village m.m. finns det otaliga böcker och artiklar i ämnet. Ge er ut och leta. Eller låt bli. Själv drar jag till Wien för att knarka mera konst och dricka anständigt kaffe. Auf wiedersehen...

Por Adelina Massoli.

“Cuando se los regalaron, se dio cuenta de que a uno de ellos le faltaba una pierna a causa de un defecto de fábrica. No obstante, mientras jugaba, colocaba siempre al soldado mutilado en primera línea, delante de todos, incitándolo a ser el más valiente."

Hans Christian Andersen. El soldadito de plomo.

 Ya había publicado una pequeña nota en nuestro antiguo blog Vedadofilm donde anunciabamos nuestro traslado a este nuevo sitio de Naturaleza Rota. Esta permuta se debe sobretodo a las múltiples peticiones de varios lectores para ampliar nuestras temáticas y artículos.  Naturaleza Rota cuenta con su propia revista mensual de la cual se está preparando su primer número por la editora Liliana Artiles. Un portal mucho más abarcador teniendo como eje el universo alternativo y las propuestas iconoclastas, cosa que nos caracterizó desde el principio.

Este es el primer artículo de El globo rojo para Naturaleza rota, he cambiado un poco la temática que iba a tratar, dejándome llevar por una serie de recuerdos que me afloran.

 En un invierno crudísimo, a finales de los años 70 me encontraba en Nueva York colaborando en una olvidada Biblioteca privada que se encontraba en un sucio callejón entre la octava y la 42. Un día el bibliotecario dueño del lugar un viejo judío de apellido Rudenlnstein, con el que había intercambiado unas pocas palabras, me llevó a su desordenada oficina y ante sorpresa mía me enseñó lo que sería  el manuscrito de un diario escrito en húngaro por Nietzsche, con acotaciones en un extraño idioma pariente del griego antiguo. El misterioso diario había caido en manos de aquel bibliotecario producto de una venta mayoritaria  de libros viejos que  habían hecho los parientes de una anciana suiza que acababa de fallecer, y que  estaban repartiendose como buitres todas las pertenencias de la fallecida.

El diario mostraba contradictorios planteamientos con respecto a su propio pensamiento del filósofo suizo. Se trataba de una continuación más radical de “Humano demasiado humano”. Yo, fanática de Nietzsche como siempre he sido no cabía en mi de la excitación.

Cada día el viejo librero me permitía pasar varias horas hojeando y entendiendo con no poco trabajo aquel manuscrito revelador de uno de los genios filosóficos más importantes de la historia moderna. Estaba ante un acontecimiento único, y  ser testigo de esto me llenaba de alegría.

 Comencé algunos trabajos con artistas del happening y el performance, y eso, sumado a otras complicaciones fueron espaciando mis días laborales en la biblioteca.

Había dejado de asistir por más de una semana, cuando regresé la biblioteca estaba cerrada cosa un tanto rara, entonces me enteré por una verdulera vecina que el señor Rudenlnstein había sido detenido por la policía, por falsificación de libros y manuscritos supuestamente originales, vendidos por precios muy caros a coleccionistas en el mismo New York.

Una mezcla de sorpresa y tristeza se apoderaron  de mí. Comprendí que aquel diario manuscrito era totalmente falso y toda la excitación y expectación creada con las lecturas habían sido por gusto .

 Ese día  regresé a mi piso decepcionada, casi no jugueteaba con mi gato Almanza. Sin apetito miraba los remolcadores jugando como niños en el petróleo del Hudson, pero una paz interna de apoderaba de mí a medida que iba recordando las alegres horas interminables hasta la madrugada frente a las páginas del maravilloso manuscrito de Friederich Nietzsche el grande, el bellísimamente loco, filólogo wagneriano. Pensé en el señor Rudenlnstein y sentí pena, de seguro estaba siendo sometido a fuertes interrogatorios, durmiendo en una celda fría, con su sensibilidad estaba segura no iba a soportar la prisión, un tipo que falsifica a Nietzsche no solo en su letra, sino en los vericuetos de su pensamiento era imposible que  sobreviviera al encierro.

 Mucho tiempo he estado pensando sobre la fascinación de la literatura testimonial, la ficticia o simplemente como algunos pueden llamar también, la falsificación  literaria. En el mundo del arte la falsificación literaria es algo común, creando fascinación en ávidos lectores que se sumergen en los mundos creados por el falsificador, dejando llevar su mente más allá de lo real, verosímil o no.

 En la actualidad los canales de información se mueven a una velocidad tremenda. Los escándalos de falsificaciones literarias y periodísticas han sido muchos. Uno de los más conocidos es el del periodista Stephen Glass quien con solo 25 años era editor asociado de la prestigiosa revista norteamericana The New Republic. Su fama iba en aumento debido a sus fascinantes artículos cargados de exclusivas historias. La mayoría de estos artículos eran falsos relatos creadas por su imaginación. El 10 de mayo de 1998 fue descubierto y despedido trás su artículo Hack heaven. En el mismo Glass narraba como un un haker adolescente penetraba el sistema operativo de una compañía llamada Jukt Micronics, poniéndola en jake y demostrando su vulneabilidad. Este texto  sembró dudas en otros periodistas que comenzaron una investigación de los hechos descubriendo que todo era una falsa de Glass.

 Los casos sobre  falsas autobiografías van en aumento, sobretodo por lo rentable  que se pueden convertir. Por ejemplo esta el caso de la falsa autobiografía de Howard Hughes que fue vendida por Clifford Irving a la editorial McGraw Hill Book por 765, 000 dolares. Al descubrirse su falsa fue condenado a prisión durante 17 años. En 1984 Konrad Kujau presentó los diarios falsificados de Adolf Hitler, también descubiertos como falsos. El caso de Margaret Seltzer  autora de su autobiografía sobre  su niñez, marcada por su origen indio, sujeta al abandono, la violencia y las drogas. Resulta que Seltzer quien obtuvo varios beneficios económicos con su libro, creció en un barrio acomodado de L.A y no tiene ninguna sangre India. Otro caso que aún hoy se sigue discutiendo es el supuesto diario de Jack el Destripador. Según este la identidad del conocido asesino caía en James Maybrick un comerciante de algodón. El descubrimiento se hizo en al año 1992, y expertos de Scotland yard comenzaron una científica investigación que ponía en duda evidente la verosimilitud de tal diario. En 1995 el descubridor del diario Michael Barret admitió que el y su esposa habían falsificado el mismo.

Hay otras falsificaciones de las que particularmente me declaro fanática. Una muy inquietante es la de el Necromicón, o Libro de los nombres muertos, invención del escritor norteamericano H.P. Lovecraft, quien menciona esta obra por primera vez en 1922 atribuyendola a Abdul Al- Hazred, “El ciego”, autor persa de hacia el 700. Otra falsificación es la de Rose Sélavy, un doble femenino o alter ego creado por marcel Duchamp. Sélavy es la creadora de diferentes juegos de letras que aparecen a partir de 1921 en algunas revistas. Este doble femenino plantea una prolongación importante  del pensamiento duchampniano.

 En una ocasión me encontré en un bar de L.A, a un muchachito andrógeno, rodeado de celebridades. Era la figura de moda de aquel lugar. Se trataba de J T Leroy, colaborador de Gus Van Sant, exitoso escritor. Rodeado de una ola de enigma sobre su pasado. Aquel día algo me fascinó de aquel muchacho. No se podía definir si era hombre o mujer, pelo rubio, gafas  de sol, sombrero negro calado.

J T Leroy, enfermo de SIDA, exjunkie, con una niñez marcada por el abuso, la prostitución y la heroína, temas que aparecen en sus novelas autobiográficas,  “Sarah”, “El corazón es mentiroso” (llevada al cine por Asia Argento) y “Harold’s End”. Sus libros han sido traducidos a 20 idiomas. En la época en que coincidimos el era una especie de figura mitológica en esta ciudad. Aquella noche la fiesta se excedió  y creo haber intercambiado algunas palabras con la-el excéntrico escritor.

 Leí "Sarah" y particularmente me parecía un buen material literario, quizás un tanto sobredimensionado. Siempre la mezcla entre infancia traumática, SIDA, prostitución, sexo, con toques de realismo sucio, son una fórmula perfecta para triunfar en el mundo literario. Sumado a esto el hecho que se trataba de un testimonio real de la propia vida de Leroy.

Cual no fue mi sorpresa al enterarme por la prensa del escándalo de JT Leroy, toda la supuesta infancia y lo que se contaba en sus escritos era totalmente falso. JT Leroy era un personaje creado por el matrimonio de Geoffrey Knoop y Laura Albert, y la persona que interpretaba en público a JT era Savannah Knoop, hermanastra de Geoffrey. Esto fue llevado ante los tribunales, convirtiendose en comidilla de la prensa sensacionalista y despuntando como uno de los últimos sucesos sobre las falsas autobiografías. Muchas han sido las denuncias y no sin razón contra el caso Leroy, la manipulación y engaño con personas que pensaban se trataba de un joven enfermo.

Todo esto me hace recordar al señor Rudenlnstein, nunca más supe de él, ni cual fue su paradero.  Más allá de la eticidad o no de su comportamiento me hizo pasar unas horas maravillosas frente al dulce engaño de aquellos manuscritos.

En el presente la base de un buen periodismo esta en la verdad de lo que planteas, en medio de tanta información que no siempre es buena y no siempre informa. Aún me son inexplicables los momentos de fascinación que como yo delante del manuscrito pasaron los lectores ante Glass, Leroy o el resto de los que he mencionado. La fabulación  e imaginación pueden viajar por raros caminos que estoy seguro no siempre están plagados de buenas intenciones, mucho más cuando con ello se pretende manipular o usar en función personal la inocencia ajena.

Con este texto de hoy abrimos El Globo rojo, esta vez en Naturaleza rota,  siendo diferentes, diferencia  que nos marca no como defecto sino como virtud, como en el cuento de Andersen poniendo el cuerpo de primeros.

Salgo a la calle, Los Angeles vive un calor inusual, el sol está radiante,  siento el resplandor sobre mi cara  y es real, lo constato.

 Rodeo Drive. 16 de mayo del 2008

A couple of years ago, Tangents would have been for several reasons the perfect forum in which to rave about Rachel Cohen’s A chance meeting: intertwined lives of American writers and artists (Vintage).  The book explores the moments or points at which pairs or trios of artists’ and writers’ lives intersected or gently touched against each other and in so doing it becomes a celebration of literature, art, photography, and cinema, as well as of the common ideas connecting their forms and the lives of their makers.  Then there is the felicity – almost certainly unknown on the author’s part – of its echo of (the group) Josef K’s finest moment, and its probably known and knowing nod to a Brief encounter-esque sense of romance; for Rachel Cohen’s book is as much about what is left unsaid as about what history records as having been said.  Its acceptance and understanding that writers come in all shapes and sizes, that some write of a life of adventure in snatched moments between one escapade or assignation and the next, and others form adventure from a solitary life of sedentary reflection, is the literary equivalent of the stuff in which Tangents dealt over its ten year history.

In truth, beyond the shared title, there’s not much to link Rachel Cohen’s A chance meeting with Josef K’s 'Chance meeting', other than the somewhat deliberate circumstance of individual taste, and the suggestive nature of the song’s lyric, reprising the tone of David Lean’s film and Noel Coward’s screenplay:

‘The red sky behind you
The feeling you’ve been here before
You lived in the past dear
With things we all gave up then
I met you again there
But this time it weren’t for real’

But connections spark and snake in all directions as you read, inevitably going beyond the ones that Cohen herself makes, or gently presents without comment, like Willa Cather meeting Flaubert’s niece, and writing up the encounter in an essay called “A chance meeting”, or the title of the novel written by one of her subjects, W.D. Howells, A chance acquaintance.  Mention of Joseph Cornell will necessarily stir the attention of any fan of the Clientele’s music.  The story Cohen tells is this:

In 1943, Joseph Cornell wrote to Marianne Moore to thank her for some small amount of praise for a collage of his illustrating a story in an arts magazine.  The salutation was held up by an armadillo, armoured animals exerting a fascination for Moore displayed in her poetry, and Cornell wrote that her words were ‘the only concrete reaction I’ve had so far, and they satisfy and affect me profoundly.’  Cornell was voicing the gratitude that a deliberately lonely artist starved of reaction suffers through long years of obscurity.  His inclination was to fall in love with anyone who paid him attention, all the more so because it was someone he admired.  It led to an exchange of gently romantic letters, and to a meeting, though whether strictly speaking you could call it a chance one is debateable.  Of the meeting itself nothing can be said but that Moore saw Cornell’s basement workshop and his boxes-in-progress.  But Rachel Cohen gives us the tenor of their almost exclusively epistolary relationship and describes presents Cornell sent by post (a valentine of worm-work paper and an ancient book of rare animals), treading softly through the facts to offer from inside each story telling perspectives such as her notion that ‘people very often sent things to Marianne Moore in the hopes of getting back the language with which to talk about them, almost as if they were sending specimens to a zoological expert in order to find out the precise genus and Latin name.’

Along with three dozen other such encounters between writers, artists, photographers, thinkers, critics (and Charlie Chaplin), the book also narrates the second and third meetings between Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, which rested on Duchamp answering a phone call by chance.  Duchamp gives Cornell a present, perfect in its symbolism: ‘He had picked up a red-and-yellow glue carton that said “strength” on one side and, admiring the American phrase, had written “gimme” above it and then signed the whole “Marcel Duchamp,” dated Christmas 1942.’

Cohen’s book is full of such anecdotal gifts, but it is also strong on the way art forms and their purveyors rub off on (and up against) each other, and on the artistic urge which drives their creations, their lives, their relationships with the people to whom they are drawn and the ones from whom they retreat.  With its contextualised counsel from one writer or artist to another, it becomes a creative primer, and a caution against the wasting away of talent.

Carefully chosen photographs inform the text.  Richard Avedon’s 1960 picture of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and dancer Merce Cunningham is terrific; the laughing trio look like a particularly joyful early 1980s New York indie band.  Cohen’s description of the daguerreotype of Henry James Senior and Junior – ‘disturbing in the ghostly aliveness of its subjects’ – also stands for her own book.  She makes what must have been painstaking research seem effortless, stitching it into the whole so that you barely notice the thread binding the material together, and all without a footnote in sight.  There is empathy with all of her subjects, but not always sympathy –  for example, she has little time for the shellac vanity of Katherine Anne Porter.

Neither does she make more of the connections than there is.  Beyond the intrinsic pleasure she presents readers, she concentrates on her essential job, which is to make them want to go away and read the books of those of whom they were previously unaware; in my case William Dean Howells and Sarah Orne Jewett, the lesser known works of Mark Twain and Willa Cather, and maybe even Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs.  But she still allows me to draw the line at Gertrude Stein, and set me imagining the context of meetings that happened between artists of my own cultural acquaintance.  I’ve often wondered whether – as well as serve coffee to Thomas Mann when working in a dining hall – the young Jack Kerouac really did pass Thomas Wolfe on Brooklyn Bridge in a ‘raging blizzard’, as he reports in Vanity of Duluoz, and whether Wolfe might have taken the young football star for a drink if Kerouac had mustered the courage to speak to him.

In White bicycles: making music in the 1960s Joe Boyd writes of playing Nick Drake to John Cale, and of the amazed and excited Cale going round to see the young singer there and then, a seemingly improbable meeting of the confident Welshman and the diffident Englishman which the very next day resulted in the recording of ‘Northern sky’ and ‘Fly’.  The fleshed-out story behind an easily missed credit on the sleeve of Bryter later.

These connections, both real in terms of lives touching each other, and imagined, in the sense of the artistic repercussions of such encounters, are made of much the same stuff that informs A chance meeting.  And any regular readers of Tangents who have ventured into these obscure parts are guaranteed to enjoy it as much as I did.  Or your money back.

Queremos saudar Robert Rauschenberg, que morreu na segunda-feira.
Lembramos a sua série Cardbird, que fez nascer formas de pássaro de cartões de embalagem rasgados, mas cartões montados, fotografados, impressos, recortados e colados em base de cartão para serem iguais a cartões rasgados, em formas de pássaro.
À parte a pintura, e as colagens, queríamos mencionar o seu "Erased de Kooning Drawing" ("Desenho de de Kooning apagado").
Rauschenberg decidiu levar o desenho ao branco completo, a partir do desenho. Apagou variados desenhos seus.
Mas aquilo não era nada - conta. Cada um parecia um Rauschenberg apagado. Para ser uma obra, teria de começar como arte. Tinha de ser um de Kooning. Uma coisa importante.
Rauschenberg foi ao estúdio do colega. Comprei uma garrafa de Jack Daniels e fui.
Depois de uma cena de espera e silêncio bastante tensa, com uma sombra de conflito, quando de Kooning trancou a porta com a tela que estava a pintar, de Kooning responde:

Tem de ser uma coisa de que eu sinta mesmo muita falta.

"You see how ridiculously you have to think, in order to make this work?" (Rauschenberg)
Vale a pena ver o vídeo do próprio Rauschenberg a contar o episódio, e o seu plano de trabalho, com o seu humor impossivelmente doce.
Já agora, como complemento para qualquer escrúpulo em relação aos cruzamentos nada/arte, humor/arte, e gostar/não gostar, será de ver o vídeo de Marcel Duchamp sobre o "gosto indiferente".

"I wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn't a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing."

Building on the work of Marcel Duchamp, Rauschenberg (together with his contemporaries John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and former partner Jasper Johns) opened the doors to chance and gave rise to generations of critical experiments with art, life, and American culture. These include Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism. In 1964, he became the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale. He also won a Grammy award for designing the limited edition discs of Talking Heads' famous Speaking in Tongues album in 1983.

As I tip my hat in farewell to Rauschenberg, I had to revisit one of my most favorite works of art: Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning Drawing". In 1953, he asked Willem de Kooning if he could erase one of his drawings as an act of art. Intrigued, de Kooning chose an ink and crayon work that would be difficult to erase and it took Rauschenberg one month to get the paper relatively clear of marks. The result is a profound blurring of both presence/visibility and absence/invisibility, creation and destruction, fullness and nothingness. Here's to the passing of a mighty great man.

"The artist's job is to be a witness to [his] time in history." --Rauschenberg

Marcel Duchamps mission with Fountain was to challenge the public into truly deciphering art. Viewers considered a urinal placed upside down was illogical, senseless and no Fountain.  The piece was rejected from an art show but soon after Duchamp claimed that he was the artist and that "R. Mutt" was an alias the piece was quickly accepted. 

Acontecerem algumas coisas nesse tempo que fiquei fora; a visita da minha amiga Naoko, alguns dias de sol, algumas fotos tiradas e uma boa notícia que não contarei agora para guardar o suspense.

Agora só vou destacar de relevante minha visita ao  Musée Maillot, que ainda não conhecia. Fui para a exposição do Machel Duchamp, mas encontrei muito mais que “La Fontaine” . O museu tem exposições de arte contemporânea e também uma exposição permanente boa, por um preço razoável (6 euros para estudante). Se existe uma coisa no qual essa cidade é boa, é o valor pela arte. Qualquer museu, por menor que seja, tem um acervo incrível.  

Agora vou ver os blogs e notícias que perdi com todo esse tempo sem internet. Depois escrevo mais.

開始對塗鴉產生興趣，是因為看見香港街頭愈來愈多塗鴉作品。初時發現它們多在橫街窄巷，字體形狀像外國塗鴉的模式，漸漸地發現及認得個別graffiti writer的簽名出現在鬧市的燈箱、燈柱、甚至牆壁、建築大型的塗鴉創作亦愈來愈多。在好奇的驅使下，希望了解graffiti writer的創作動機，究竟他們塗鴉，是為了什麼？有什麼目的嗎？

還有，這風氣在香港愈來愈熾熱，起初只是街頭創作，慢慢地，走進社區中心、學生興趣班，以及商業活動。香港的塗鴉，與其發源地──美國有著很大的分別。

在圖書館找到的書，大多只是外國的，對於本地的塗鴉卻少有人談論，於是，對於研習香港的塗鴉，興趣愈來愈濃。

很多時，人們都會問，塗鴉是藝術嗎？要回應這個問題，我想，先要了解甚麼是藝術。

甚麼是藝術呢 ?

「藝術」一詞，一向令人感到難以介定，但提起藝術，便會令人想起很多有名的作品，文藝復興時期達文西所創作的蒙娜麗莎的微笑、印象時期羅丹的地獄門、沈思者、 吻...... 等。 塞尚的靜物畫， 梵谷的星夜, 向日葵、 自畫像， 杜象的泉、 單車輪， 還有Crystal的地形藝術， 藝術除了是繪畫， 雕塑之外還可以是不同的媒介，不同表現方式的視覺藝術， 除此之外,，音樂、 戲劇、 寫作都是各種不同類型的藝術表現方法。藝術所包括的範疇很廣， 種類很多， 但到底甚麼是藝術呢？能夠稱之為藝術的作品到底包含了甚麼元素？ 有甚麼特質方能稱之為藝術作品呢？

根據陳瓊花的《藝術概論》中引述藝術教育家凌嵩郎所界定的藝術包含了廣義和狹義的解釋:：

廣義的；

1.                  凡含有技巧與思慮之活動及其製作；

2.                  與技術同義。

狹義的:

1.                  含有審美的價值；

2.                  根據審美的原則，或合乎美的原則之活動及其活動的產品；

3.                  表現出創作者的思想及感情；

4.                  給與接受者以審美的感受。

如根據凌嵩郎認為的藝術廣義的解釋方法， 即是說， 在我們生活當中的一切事物都有可能是藝術， 因為在生活中無論是一幢建築物，一張椅子， 一支筆都是經人功造成，當中都必然包括技巧與思慮之活動。 假如所有的物品都有可能是藝術的話,，那麼一件可以被稱之為藝術品的作品， 到底包含了甚麼的特質，又或者包含了甚麼元素呢 ？

而以藝術的狹義來說，好像是根審美的價值有著密切的關係，  對於美歷來有著不同的風尚，亦會因地域與傳統文化的不同而各有差異。好像是一些民族， 他們喜歡把圖案和花紋繪畫在自己的身上甚至是面上，做成永遠的標誌， 相信一般在城市生活居住的人則未必個個可以接受這些是美的標準。

又譬如, 唐代所有人都認為女性要有肥胖的身材， 豐滿的身型才算是美,，但今天大部份的女性要是身上有一點的脂肪就要參加纖體， 肥胖的女性就是「豬扒，今天要做個漂亮又美麗的女士最基本條件是「瘦」.

我們很容易發現原來在不同的地域，不同的時空，人對美的要求會有很不同.。再者不同的人對美的經歷和體會，會有不同. 很難對美定下一個標準。再加上一件藝術作品不一定是美。Marcel Duchamp的泉美不美呢? 而歷來一件塗鴉與藝術品之所以能成為藝術品的原因很有可能就是作品當中的表現手法。

從以上的角度看，塗鴉，在現今確實是藝術中的一環。

Lokching

Lo habíamos dejado en: "El arte reside en los ojos que lo ven y no en las manos de quien lo hace".

Aunque no me habeis hecho preguntas, intentaré responder lo que a mí me sugiere esta pregunta.

Pues está bien claro, que el objeto u obra o como lo queramos llamar, no es arte porque a un señor se le haya ocurrido hacerlo, sino porque a alguien (tú o yo o un museo) cree que eso es arte.

Y dirás, ¡pues vaya! ¿a quién se le habrá ocurrido ésto? ¿porqué es ésto así?

Como sabéis la historia del arte es larga y azarosa y sobre todo la de los últimos 150 años. Lo contaré de la forma más breve posible. El caso es que nuestros amigos los impresionistas (Monet, Renoir, Degas...) estaban hasta las narices de que les echaran del Salón Oficial de la Academia de París. Algo así como quien va a Tú si que vales o a Operación Trinfo y le echan siempre sabiendo que lo que haces vale. Pues lo mismo. Y entonces se organizaron y montaron su propio chiringuito en el estudio de un fotógrafo, donde enseñaban sus rompedoras, frescas y atrevidas pinturas al mundo entero; corría el año 1874.

Curiosamente si hoy estudiamos la historia de la pintura francesa del siglo XIX, en los libros de texto no aparecen los pintores académicos, sino estos revolucionarios de la pintura que hoy en día han pasado a la historia como genios.

Tanto su forma de hacer totalmente rupturista, como por la forma en la que se dieron a conocer, fueron un hito para la historia del arte de la posteridad, en la que nos encontramos hoy en día. El arte, la expresión, se saltaba los límites convencionales que le constreñían. El arte, dio un paso hacia su propia libertad, para que fuera valorado por lo que es y no por quien lo hace ni para quién lo hace.

Otro ejemplo del rupturismo que plantean los artistas es la famosa fuente de Marcel Duchamp. Vayamos por partes. En realidad, no era una fuente, sino un urinario de pared de los que podemos encontrar en cualquier establecimiento público para hacer nuestras necesidades. Creo que vais entendiendo lo del rupturismo ¿no? Yo creo que lo que pretende este ¿artista? es hacer pensar a los demás qué es arte y qué no. Pongámonos en la mentalidad de la sociedad francesa de 1917... pero, ¿qué es ésto?, ¿qué ordinariez?. ¿Hay algún objeto más repugnante que un urinario? ¿porqué escribe la fecha y lo firma? ¿porqué está colocado de esta forma? Veis por dónde van los tiros.

Un último ejemplo de esta evolución del arte hacia el arte actual podría ser Andy Warhol; seguro que os suena, el de las serigrafías de Marilyn Monroe de vivos y estridentes colores. Bueno, pues a este buen señor se le ocurrió en 1962 algo parecido a Marcel Duchamp. Pintó 32 latas de sopa idénticas a sus originales. La exposición era como ir al supermercado, todo lleno de latas de sopa. Algo totalmente cotidiano, era como si ahora pusieran una exposición toda de cajas de leche o de tomate frito. Warhol dijo: "un grupo de pintores ha llegado a la conclusión común de que las más banales e incluso vulgares trampas de la civilización moderna pueden, al transportarse al lienzo, convertirse en Arte".

Y así hemos llegado a nuestros días. Os podría poner algún ejemplo más, pero creo que estos tres son representativos de los pasos que ha ido dando esta multidisciplina hacia su ¿libertad?, ¿independencia?.

Continuaremos otro día, os dejo que penseis en nuestra frase:

El arte reside en los ojos que lo ven y no en las manos de quien lo hace.

Que aproveche.

This week’s guest blogger is Thomas Persson, the editor in chief and creative director of Acne Paper. Founded in Stockholm in 1996, Acne — perhaps best known for its omnipresent pipe-cleaner-thin jeans — is a diverse creative collective, working within the worlds of fashion, graphic design, magazine publishing, film production and advertising.

Since its launch in 2005, we have created six issues of Acne Paper, each with a new theme for the season. For our current issue, we chose “Exoticism” because it is an interesting topic to explore in an era of globalization and bland sameness. We look at exoticism throughout history and question what could possibly be considered exotic today, when all the wonders of the world are so readily available.

Curiosity informs my work every day, and hopefully I will have the chance to share some of it with you this week. Let’s start with our new cover, a portrait of the dancer and choreographer Jonté shot by Terry Tsiolis.

(Terry Tsiolis)

Jonté, wearing a dress by Comme des Garçons, poses as a fantastical hybrid of African and Asian beauty traditions. To me, Jonté represents exoticism because of his uniqueness, his poise and his otherworldly beauty. I was first introduced to his work on Youtube, where I saw his music video, “Make-up.”

We became friends when we brought him over from New York to dance at the opening of the new Acne headquarters in Stockholm — a performance the city is unlikely to forget in a hurry.

(From Left: Issue 1, Autumn 2005, "The City." Photographed by Peter Gherke; Issue 2, Spring 2006, "Escapism." Photograph by Andreas Larsson; Issue 3, Autumn 2006, "Education." Photograph by Lord Snowdon; Issue 4, Spring 2007. Photograph by Benjamin Alexander Huseby; Issue 5, Autumn 2007, "Playfulness." Photograph by Benjamin Alexander Huseby; Issue 6, Spring 2008, "Exoticism." Photograph by Terry Tsiolis)

When Jonny Johansson, the founder and creative director of Acne, and I decided to launch the magazine, our plan was to bring out a publication that weaved together people, imagery, history, newness, and the pleasures of inter-generational exchange and learning.

As an example, one of our main features in the new issue is about Rolf de Maré and his groundbreaking Ballets Suédois, which electrified Paris in the years between the two European wars. De Maré, an aristocratic Swede, a pioneering art collector and an avant-garde ballet impresario, is the subject of a great new biography by Erik Näslund, the director of the Dance Museum in Stockholm and a noted writer and historian.

Below is a feature we have in the issue in which Näslund interviews Pierre Bergé, the longtime partner of Yves Saint Laurent and patron of the arts. (Click here to download a zoomable PDF of the story.)

I'd like to end today's post with a brilliant film clip, "Entra'acte," made for the Ballets Suédois in 1924. Try to make it through the 20 minutes — it’s French avant-garde film at its very best. (The screenplay is by Francis Picabia and it features music by Erik Satie, and performances by Marcel Duchamp, among others.) Let me know what you think.

David Eggers, Jesse Nathan and Jordan Bass found works that had a sense of humor. There was a line outside, lots of white people.

David Eggers


Still looking at the girls but there are no girls there at all there is only
(this'll kill ya) inner peace and harmony.


Pay your way.



What's you favorite flavor? Your mom.






Choose: Hold on/Let Go



There's this butterfly w/ a Swastika flying above and the two caterpillars are talking and one says, "Don't worry, it's just a phase"

Horses With their Heads in Buckets of Cum

They attempt to get away by rolling themselves in floor rugs







I wipe my typhoid infected ass with dollars then my agents spend the money in Miami restaurants. No kidding.




A lot can go wrong in large scale physics experiments


Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Saves Lives. I get paid for this:

5 Mustache me and Baldy, Beardos all went to Areosmith and loved it

It's great down here. I'm really enjoying myself.
Yes, it's great to be away from my wife.


Poster Making

Arguement: Staged to keep the seats around empty. News Update: It turned into an actual argument.

Here is your portrait. I wish to be paid immediately.

I got ten best friends. I'm gonna make them all fight. I hope Rudy wins.

If you were my boyfriend I'd fatten you up and make you life weights, git you big ass muscles, like Paul McCartney

He was tall and his favorite thing was everything

Andy Warhol's book of shoes

An Egypt Poem: A pretty lady brings me back to lift even though I'm really gross.I'm really strong - I mean really strong.She lves me for my powers.I'm really ulgy and get sensitive when I think back on when I was good looking... then I get mad and smash stuff. We'll try to rule the sandy lands together. Some indiana jones looking dude with no super powers beats my ass somehow and my girlfriend falls down a bottomless pit in an underground fortress filled with gold. I'm in a museum now.




Almost Canadian

Tired

This broad was trying to get in but they didn't let her. She was saying, "Oh, my friend is in there"


This is the first time I have seen a bagpiper in the subway.



Until about a week ago, Eddie Van Halens Guitar was the coolest thing there was. Now something else is cool.

Directions: Several MTA trains stop at the Canal Street Station (6, A, C, E, J, M, Z, N, R, Q, W). We are located at 291 Church Street - between Walker and White Streets, just two blocks south of Canal Street. The 1 train stops at Franklin Station and we're two blocks east.

There were three main people who worked on the show on our end, Jesse Nathan, Jordan Bass, and myself, and we all took a shot at writing essays about the work we’d found and included in this show. The first drafts of these essays were a little formal and maybe even pretentious. We re-wrote them and they still didn’t seem right. So finally we settled on the text below, all of it mercifully brief and plain.

This show, titled Lots of Things Like This, came about when apexart asked for an idea for a show. The first thought that occurred to us was an exhibit that would highlight work that included these three elements:

1. An image
2. Some words (usually referring to the image)
3. A sense of humor

The show never got much more complicated than that. We started with the artists we knew we had to include: Raymond Pettibon, Tucker Nichols, Maira Kalman and David Shrigley. All four of them had found a place in the fine art world, even though in many cases their work was both narrative and funny, a combination that’s historically been rare in galleries and museums. For the most part, artists who use text in their work don’t write punchlines – the text is usually abstract or oblique, open to interpretation. But the rise of comics-based art, and of Pettibon in particular, had opened the doors to new hybrids of words and images, thank god.

So we started looking for work by our starting four artists, and many others, that satisfied the criteria. We figured we would bring in some artists who generally go by the label cartoonists (because, generally speaking, image + text + humor = cartoons), and we did, but we also found some great examples of the form from long-dead painters (Goya, Magritte), more recently dead genre-straddlers (Steinberg, Warhol), and a wonderfully diverse group of artists from all kinds of disciplines: writers, poets, musicians and playwrights. Actually just one playwright, David Mamet. But he's one of the best.

In some cases, this sort of work is central to what an artist does. Solakov and Perjovschi, for example, are well known for their brilliant and witty combinations of text and image. In other cases, as with Silverstein, this kind of captioned art is at the outer edge of the artist’s oeuvre. But we can say that just about every artist that we investigated, or had a hunch about, did indeed have work like this tucked away somewhere. Long after we had filled the show, we were finding fascinating examples of the form, and of course there are a number of obvious omissions in this show, from Lichtenstein to Picasso.

In any case, being loathe to draw conclusions about the artists’ motivations or methods, because, again, so many of these people are dead, we’re instead going to list some questions that occurred to us and might occur to you and might help the show blow your mind completely:

Why is it that so many of these artists aren’t so great at spelling? And why is it that when they screw up one of their words, instead of starting over, they just cross the word out and write it again? Many people would choose to start over.

Why is it important to many of the artists that the drawings appear casual, even rushed? Is the loose draftsmanship part of its appeal, in that it seems more intimate and disarming? Is absurdity more appealing when it comes across as humble?

What is the line between a doodle, a cartoon, a gag, a work of fine art, and will there ever be a time when someone doesn’t insist on writing a similar kind of silly and rhetorical sentence in an art catalog?

In some cases does it seem that the artist is defacing his or her own work by adding the text? That’s partly why we included the Duchamp / Mona Lisa experiment and the Goya – in both cases the words are a lighthearted comment on a finished or abandoned image. Sorry, that’s not really a question. Moving on...

Does this excerpt from an essay by Michael Bracewell, writing about David Shrigley, help us understand what some of these artists are up to? Here’s the relevant part: “Shrigley’s unlocked studio, situated near a struggling job club, was often raided by vandals who amused themselves by making additions to his drawings. Acknowledging the comedy within the discrepancy between the miscreants’ anti-art attitude and the claims of fine art to instruct or enlighten, [Shrigley] began to develop a graphic style in which the banal or the absurd could be used...”

Couldn't it be said that these artists are doing lots of not-encouraged-in-art-school things at once, given they’re making work that’s narrative, often informal, un-self-serious and usually featuring punchlines? And given its crossing of these many boundaries, doesn’t it make sense that its practitioners would come from so many other disciplines?

Does the subject matter – in many cases private and withdrawn – fit the form of these drawings? That is, is there something shy and retiring about this work, as if you’re looking at something very private, something not meant for public viewing?

Is it instructive that a good percentage of the art we chose to put in the show was hard to find? More often than not, we would find something in a book or online that we wanted to include, and when we got in touch with the artist, his or her gallery or estate, they would have no idea where the original was. No one would know. It was refreshing, in a way, and seemed appropriate for the form. Again, it doesn’t take itself so seriously.

But it does bring pleasure. This was really the guiding motivation behind the researching and hanging of this show: to put an enjoyable exhibit together, to cover the walls with strange and funny things. In that pursuit, we were lucky to assemble a fascinating group of artists, and we hope you like it.

P.S. The ostensible curator, Dave Eggers, would like to emphasize just how hard Jesse Nathan, a very young man who stepped up to help out, worked on this show. A good deal of the most interesting “finds” in the show came via his hard work, ingenuity and creative digging. Jordan Bass at McSweeney’s was a tremendous help, and of course Kerri Schlottman and everyone at apexart were exceptionally professional, good-natured, quick and efficient, and helpful in every way.

Dave Eggers

I have much to say and engage with in regards to these two questions and I do not plan on writing it all down now, or even get close to addressing all the problems with these two questions but I wanted the conversation to start. So I have been doing some Saussure reading lately, for a class mind you, I don’t think I could do it for myself yet in life, and well more specifically I have been reading his Lecture Notes from the University of Geneva, 1906-11, compiled and published by his students after his death. Okay that all being said the part of these notes I want to draw attention to is the three ways in which a word, a linguistic sign, is arbitrary. The three ways come from first breaking up the sign into its two parts, signifier (the sound) and signified (the idea or concept). For example when we say “chair” the sound associated with the concept of a device for sitting on are not inherently combined, that’s easy enough to understand when one travels to a place where one’s native language is not practiced. Try saying chair somewhere where they don’t speak English and see if they understand you. So with these two aspects defined what is then arbitrary? Well as is suggested above the relationship between the signified and the signifier is completely conventional, why call a chair a chair and not a table? It is just what we have chosen. Second the sound itself is arbitrarily defined, why not chairy or chaaaair? Lastly the concept is also arbitrarily defined. A stool and chair are separate in our language, not all languages and a desk chair and table chair both use the word chair, in other languages they don’t have the same signifier.

We can spend all day talking about Saussure but the only thing important for the art question is the arbitrariness of language. given that I want to know bring up C. S. Pierce who studied sign. Pierce, 1839-1914, defined three different signs: Icons, resembles what it points to, Index, related to its object through forceful interaction, and Symbols, anything that requires information to form the connection. Language as it is arbitrary and conventional falls under that third category. Renaissance paintings fall under the first category and photograph falls under the first two, as it is both representational of what it points to and it is a consequence of it (that’s why photos can be evidence and paintings can’t, for the most part).

Okay NOW back to the question at hand, what is meant when someone says “a child could have done that?” that’s what I am now going to address:

So last weekend I was at our university’s annual sculpture show and had a wonderful and exploratory time observing and being part of the exhibitions. But of course, with the art being student created (ie experimental) there came a slew of questions or rather comments regarding the validity of the art. For example when looking at one of the more hidden pieces that was made up of plaster, grocery bags, hot glue, wax, and a globe it was stated that the piece was not for sale. The response of one individual to that knowledge was “why would someone even be interested in that? they could get it at a supermarket for far less, hell it comes with your order at a supermarket” he was obviously referring to the enormous number of plastic bags used int he sculpture’s creation. So therefore the question becomes creatability? I guess you could say, or rather that he and many others were measuring the “artistic merit” of the works based on how “easy” or “accessible” they were to create. Here is where I bring up Saussure, to remind us that our “conventions” for what is easy and hard, and what is beautiful and ugly, and especially what is and isn’t art is NOT based on any fundamental truth, for there isn’t one, but rather it is based on our own arbitrary definitions. One may be able to easily translate beauty linguistically between English and French but you’d be surprised at how the term may be applied very differently in the two cultures. I bring this up to suggest that when we talk about certain elements that “should” be striven for in art, those elements have no universality in them and furthermore are completely relative based on what we define them as not.

Okay then so let’s briefly talk about what is implied with that child statement. First let me say that I am not going to take the time here to debate it but rather just understand it, later we’ll debate it. So typically the “a child could do that” statement applies to the works of art that appear to have no talent applied during the creative process. One that I always think of in this argument is Kasimir Malevich’s Black Square or Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. In either case the artistic object is not something that requires a mastery of representational ability. By that I mean to suggest that when this statement is applied to either work the implied meaning of it is that neither work achieved the same level of representational, iconic, achievement that say the Mona Lisa did. So in the end I bring this up now to ask, do you think that what is implied by this statement is a comparison with Renaissance art? After all nothing can be defined independently, everything is always negatively defined. Therefore for this to be slated with being less than art, what other artistic objects are being conjured up to mark this objects failure? Furthermore I want to bring up the question of “talent” and to suggest that we are applying to this word an age old convention of something physical. That the talent required to be a superior artist is some sort of mastery over representational, some kind of ability to recreate life through a medium. I would argue that it requires the SAME amount if not MORE talent to produce something so iconistic as to go against convention. Why seek only to use convention when defining art?

But I must also add that by bringing up Saussure we are going down a path of arbitrariness that may conclude with that unnerving realization that art itself is arbitrary.

Let the discussion begin,

Huysmans

R. Mutt firmó en 1917 este wáter, revolucionando el arte al igual que en su día Manet hizo con El Balcón, Warhol con su pop-art, y así hasta Velázquez con su pintura impresionista (por citar un estilo, ya que revolucionó todo cuanto tenía a mano). Mutt jugaba con la ironía hasta en el pseudónimo, protegiendo a la obra de dar el verdadero nombre del artista y creando una confusión entre popularidad y relevancia pública con la verdadera identidad de quien se encontraba detrás, el artista, tantas veces ensalzado como última cruzada. Marcel Duchamp era el hombre del wáter, el hombre que se rió del MoMA como hasta ese momento no lo había hecho nadie. ¿Es arte? Desde el punto de vista de rompedor sí. ¿Es bello? A cada cual su idea. Pero esta obra es revolución, necesaria revolución cuando se llega a un punto en el que arte se emplea para cualquier tipo de obras, expresiones e incluso actos populares. La fuente, como denominó a la obra, es revolución no arte.

Todo esto viene debido a que la Tate Modern de Londres trae dicha obra como exposición temporal. Un servidor ansía verla en persona y también ansía que bajen los precios de los vuelos, ya que el viaje inicial a la capital de la música ha quedado aplazado por el alto coste de éstos. Pero no hay que preocuparse, Duchamp viene también a Barcelona, y ahí se le verá, sí o sí.

Foto: Duchamp, Marcel. Fountain. 1917

Sr. Chinarro - Yo no soy militar