New-York, Dec 11, 2007
Walked by the International Center of Photography. Couldn’t resist to go in: photo exhibition on the Spanish Civil War. For some reason, I have a fascination with this; it has carried on for the last 40 years. The human drama, guns against bombs; prelude to WWII; la passionara, the international brigades; Norman Bethune, Ernest Hemingway; Guernica, Picasso, Frederico Garcia Lorca, all of that has made it an obsession for me. Books after books, films after films. And it is still there.
Today, discovered Gerda Taro. She lived in the shadow of Robert Capa who immortalized the civil war in the mind of humanity with his shot “the death of a Loyalist Militiaman”, as the latter was receiving a mortal bullet.
Taro and Capa were an item, both from eastern Europe (Hungary for him, Germany for her I think), in exile in Paris when, leaning to the left (perhaps more than leaning), they decided to cover the Spanish civil war and went there together in the summer of 1936. Taro was very much a photographer of her own, and this exhibition is about her, based in good part on negatives that were recently found or bought by the Center (got the exhibition book). Her career was short though: they returned to Spain in 1937; she was covering a major battle just out of Madrid when she died in one of these freak accident, crushed between a car, which she was riding on the sideboard, and a loyalist tank out of control!
Also on display, Capa at war - Spain, China, D-Day; as it should he died victim of a mine in Vietnam in 1954
This is what the Center has to say about Taro:
“Gerda Taro (1910-1937) was a pioneering photojournalist whose brief career consisted almost exclusively of dramatic photographs from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War. Her photographs were widely reproduced in the French leftist press, and incorporated the dynamic camera angles of New Vision photography as well as a physical and emotional closeness to her subject. Taro worked alongside Robert Capa, who was her photographic as well as romantic partner, and the two collaborated closely. While covering the crucial battle of Brunete in July 1937, Taro was struck by a tank and killed. Taro's photographs are a striking but little-known record of this important moment in the history of war photography. ICP now holds what is by far the world's largest collection of her work, including approximately 200 prints as well as original negatives. This exhibition will include vintage and modern prints, and magazine layouts using Taro's images. The exhibition will be accompanied by a 184-page ICP/Steidl catalogue, the first major collected document of Gerda Taro's photographs ever published.”
http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.2876511/k.1E74/Gerda_Taro.htm
mercredi 12 décembre 2007
dimanche 9 décembre 2007
Georgia O'Keeffe
Vancouver, Dec 8, 2007
Visit to Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition – “Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction”.[1]
Familiar with her work – very colorful, simplified, at time not so abstract, renderings of nature, big and small, from blown-up flowers and leaves to New Mexico desertic panoramas. Discovered though the esthetic beauty of the woman, even in advance stages of life. Photos taken by her professional photographer of husband, Alfred Stieglitz, abound; quite revealing, especially those from Lake George period.
Went upstairs to refresh my visual sense of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven; work of Edwin Holgate, the “8th member” of the Group, seen a couple of summers ago at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, coming back on my internal screen…
Book on O’Keeffe, Kahldo and Carr, as an essay to assess what these 3 artists of 20th century represent, as women, of significance in modern art. Perfect book for Cynthia; I am bringing it back for her...
[1] This is what the Gallery has to say about the exhibition:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction presents a remarkable survey of the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the legendary figures of twentieth-century art. The exhibition is comprised of a stunning selection of paintings that span the entirety of O’Keeffe’s career from 1918 to 1977. This presentation is the first solo exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work in Canada in more than fifty years. Through her landscape paintings and flower studies, the exhibition focuses on the central theme of O’Keeffe’s art — transforming nature into abstraction. This important grouping of paintings offers a distinct look at her consistent determination to re-interpret recognizable objects through painted abstractions that express the essential elements of form, colour and allusion. The dominant influence on O’Keeffe’s work in the 1930s and 1940s was the landscape of New Mexico, which she first visited in 1929 and where she spent almost every summer for the following 20 years, eventually settling there in 1949. During her long and prolific career, O’Keeffe established herself as a major figure in American art, first as a member of the “Alfred Stieglitz Circle” of modern artists in New York including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Although O’Keeffe’s work is aligned with that of some of the major figures of twentieth century Modernism —both European and American—such as Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Ellsworth Kelly, she is renowned for steadfastly remaining true to her own unique vision amid the many shifting artistic trends of the time. Since her death in 1986, her importance, eminence and influence have continued to grow, establishing O’Keeffe as an artist of great significance.The exhibition also includes an important selection of photographs of O’Keeffe taken early in her life by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and images taken by Todd Webb of O’Keeffe later in life. This extraordinary presentation of paintings and photographs offers a rare opportunity to view the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book co-published by Skira, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery, with essays by Yvonne Scott, Achille Bonito Oliva and Richard D. Marshall.
Visit to Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition – “Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction”.[1]
Familiar with her work – very colorful, simplified, at time not so abstract, renderings of nature, big and small, from blown-up flowers and leaves to New Mexico desertic panoramas. Discovered though the esthetic beauty of the woman, even in advance stages of life. Photos taken by her professional photographer of husband, Alfred Stieglitz, abound; quite revealing, especially those from Lake George period.
Went upstairs to refresh my visual sense of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven; work of Edwin Holgate, the “8th member” of the Group, seen a couple of summers ago at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, coming back on my internal screen…
Book on O’Keeffe, Kahldo and Carr, as an essay to assess what these 3 artists of 20th century represent, as women, of significance in modern art. Perfect book for Cynthia; I am bringing it back for her...
[1] This is what the Gallery has to say about the exhibition:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction presents a remarkable survey of the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the legendary figures of twentieth-century art. The exhibition is comprised of a stunning selection of paintings that span the entirety of O’Keeffe’s career from 1918 to 1977. This presentation is the first solo exhibition of O’Keeffe’s work in Canada in more than fifty years. Through her landscape paintings and flower studies, the exhibition focuses on the central theme of O’Keeffe’s art — transforming nature into abstraction. This important grouping of paintings offers a distinct look at her consistent determination to re-interpret recognizable objects through painted abstractions that express the essential elements of form, colour and allusion. The dominant influence on O’Keeffe’s work in the 1930s and 1940s was the landscape of New Mexico, which she first visited in 1929 and where she spent almost every summer for the following 20 years, eventually settling there in 1949. During her long and prolific career, O’Keeffe established herself as a major figure in American art, first as a member of the “Alfred Stieglitz Circle” of modern artists in New York including Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and John Marin. Although O’Keeffe’s work is aligned with that of some of the major figures of twentieth century Modernism —both European and American—such as Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Ellsworth Kelly, she is renowned for steadfastly remaining true to her own unique vision amid the many shifting artistic trends of the time. Since her death in 1986, her importance, eminence and influence have continued to grow, establishing O’Keeffe as an artist of great significance.The exhibition also includes an important selection of photographs of O’Keeffe taken early in her life by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and images taken by Todd Webb of O’Keeffe later in life. This extraordinary presentation of paintings and photographs offers a rare opportunity to view the life and work of one of America’s foremost artists. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book co-published by Skira, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vancouver Art Gallery, with essays by Yvonne Scott, Achille Bonito Oliva and Richard D. Marshall.
lundi 3 décembre 2007
London, on a Sunday by a rainy and windy day…
London, Dec 2, 2007
London, on a Sunday by a rainy and windy day…
The Arcanto Quartet at Wigmore Hall, part of the “Wigmore Hall Sunday Morning Café” series. Perfect way to start a free-willing day – the only one for me on that short stay in London. Eclectic program: the melodious Puccini’s Crisantemi; the classic Beethoven string quartet in F minor, opus 95, and the celebrated string quartet No 6 of Béla Bartok. Sherry served after the concert! Very civilized, in this turn-of-the-century (that is the previous one!) built concert hall, in the Renaissance style, with this beautiful cupola over the stage – the painting we are told symbolizes the 'striving of humanity after the elusiveness of music in its great abstraction.” It is a large hall but still rather intimate. I read somewhere that it was constructed by a German piano manufacturer who had to sell it, along with its business next door, practically for nothing during the first world war. It has been the venue of great performers and performances over the years, and remains a very select place to perform for well-known and up-and-rising classical musicians. The Arcanto Quartet is a good example, made of an ensemble of young East-European and German soloists who came together a few years ago.
Cynthia can’t resist getting acquainted with this lady sitting in the seat before her, because of her wonderful scarf, which Cynthia suspects is a product of her dear Laos. Sure enough, the lady is Laotian, living for many years now in London. Goes back there regularly; they know some of the same people; exchanges of experiences, and business cards…
http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/about-us
http://www.jeanguihenqueyras.com/arcanto.shtml
And now for something totally different, we are on our way to the Barbican, an art gallery in East London, part of a large residential complex which I suspect was built in the 60’s or 70’s as means to keep people in the city, rather than to see them move to the suburbs… For a very special exhibition – “Seduced : Art and Sex from the Antiquity to Now”, a major undertaking to bring together sex artifacts from all times and all places, starting with the Greeks and the Romans, but also from the East - the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians – to finish off with modern things, including Kinsey’s collection of sex educational and very explicit photos, videos projected on upper walls from the likes of Andy Warhol’s “young man’s facial expressions while getting a blow job” and erotic readings coming off the walls! Very well visited – this is a rainy Sunday afternoon after all! – well-put together, I thought, some parts better than the others; the collection of Japanese mangas is particularly good. Hesitate to buy the exhibition book: the weight! Lots of reviews in the local press, pros and cons. Follow the link below.
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=5625
Finished the day with dinner at Le Boudin Blanc, a bistrot-like place not to far from the hotel, with Andre and Sylvia …
http://www.boudinblanc.co.uk/
London, on a Sunday by a rainy and windy day…
The Arcanto Quartet at Wigmore Hall, part of the “Wigmore Hall Sunday Morning Café” series. Perfect way to start a free-willing day – the only one for me on that short stay in London. Eclectic program: the melodious Puccini’s Crisantemi; the classic Beethoven string quartet in F minor, opus 95, and the celebrated string quartet No 6 of Béla Bartok. Sherry served after the concert! Very civilized, in this turn-of-the-century (that is the previous one!) built concert hall, in the Renaissance style, with this beautiful cupola over the stage – the painting we are told symbolizes the 'striving of humanity after the elusiveness of music in its great abstraction.” It is a large hall but still rather intimate. I read somewhere that it was constructed by a German piano manufacturer who had to sell it, along with its business next door, practically for nothing during the first world war. It has been the venue of great performers and performances over the years, and remains a very select place to perform for well-known and up-and-rising classical musicians. The Arcanto Quartet is a good example, made of an ensemble of young East-European and German soloists who came together a few years ago.
Cynthia can’t resist getting acquainted with this lady sitting in the seat before her, because of her wonderful scarf, which Cynthia suspects is a product of her dear Laos. Sure enough, the lady is Laotian, living for many years now in London. Goes back there regularly; they know some of the same people; exchanges of experiences, and business cards…
http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/about-us
http://www.jeanguihenqueyras.com/arcanto.shtml
And now for something totally different, we are on our way to the Barbican, an art gallery in East London, part of a large residential complex which I suspect was built in the 60’s or 70’s as means to keep people in the city, rather than to see them move to the suburbs… For a very special exhibition – “Seduced : Art and Sex from the Antiquity to Now”, a major undertaking to bring together sex artifacts from all times and all places, starting with the Greeks and the Romans, but also from the East - the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians – to finish off with modern things, including Kinsey’s collection of sex educational and very explicit photos, videos projected on upper walls from the likes of Andy Warhol’s “young man’s facial expressions while getting a blow job” and erotic readings coming off the walls! Very well visited – this is a rainy Sunday afternoon after all! – well-put together, I thought, some parts better than the others; the collection of Japanese mangas is particularly good. Hesitate to buy the exhibition book: the weight! Lots of reviews in the local press, pros and cons. Follow the link below.
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=5625
Finished the day with dinner at Le Boudin Blanc, a bistrot-like place not to far from the hotel, with Andre and Sylvia …
http://www.boudinblanc.co.uk/
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