Damien Hirst exhibit, MCA Denver

On Friday I went to the opening night of the Damien Hirst gallery exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Denver. Hirst is a modern British artist who I probably first heard about when watching the Live Forever documentary about British pop culture in the Nineties. He was mentioned in the same breath as Oasis and Blur, as an artist who embodied the break from the old, the hedonism, and the challenging of new boundaries.

The first piece of Hirst's that I saw was last October when I went to visit my best girls in New York City. His most famous piece The Physical Impossibility of Death In The Mind of Someone Living (1991) is a 12 foot tiger shark suspended in bluish-green formaldehyde. That's it. There was a layer of shark oil floating on the top. Leaking. I will admit I felt like prey, standing there in front of its huge jaws, looking at its rows of teeth, so impotent, so harmless now.

This current exhibit in Denver (now through August '09) consists of four pieces, but the most buzzed about is the St Sebastian, Exquisite Pain (2007), because, well, it's a gutted calf strung to a steel post, pierced through with arrows. And there's formaldehyde again. Two of the other pieces involve butterflies --so gorgeous and ethereal in life-- dead and pasted onto painted canvases en masse, while the final is a portion of his famous Pharmacy display (1992) of bottles and pills and potions stoically beaming from shelves.

As one who cut my own art history teeth on Renaissance art and the search for the beautiful, the transcendent, Hirst's exhibit raises interesting talking points about what art is, and what (if anything) its function can be. My companion to the show is a fierce visual artist herself, so I enjoyed bouncing ideas off her -- what is he trying to say or make us think about with this one? Threads of death and life and pain and modern apathy all came up in our conversations.

The calf startled me in several ways. I felt nothing but detached when I looked at him front on. Then to my right, and around to the back -- brutal but clinical. But when I moved around to the fourth side, suddenly there was something sad and familiar and almost sensual about the curve of his head as it lay to the side. Strange and startling to see a bit of that ecstasy-in-death that I am so familiar with in Renaissance art. I had similar thoughts while studying the hundreds of butterflies arranged in neat geometric patterns in death. That's what I appreciate about contemporary art -- the ability to ambush you.


St. Andrew (The Battle Is In The Air) - White Stripes
Butterfly Nets - Bishop Allen
The Drugs Don't Work (live on Jools Holland, 1997) - The Verve

Exploring a little French bookstore with Amanda

The other day my cell phone rang with an incoming +33 phone number. I knew that meant somewhere in Europe, and also meant a big yay, whoever was calling. It was one of my oldest friends, Amanda (almost 15 years of friendship now), calling for my birthday from France, where she is living and working her own little slice of divine life. She asked if the package she had sent me arrived. Yes -- it did!

Amanda had mailed me packet of dusty art postcards with her spirited hand-written commentary, and they'd arrived all foreign-postaged and thickly wrapped in old-looking paper. It was, hands down, the best thing I have gotten in the mail in a long time. Amazing that someone still takes the time to write letters like that, set the scene, and whisk me off with her to the dusty stacks of some little French bookshop.

She knows my passion for art, which, when I think about it is not too far removed from my passion for music. In the same way that music is a way of not only capturing the musician's inner thoughts but also somewhat reflective of the culture at the time, a piece of art does the same. There is the same beauty and lyricism, lust and loveliness, pain and pleasure in a piece of sculpture or a great painting as you find in your favorite song. Michelangelo's Pieta. Thin Blue Flame. My favorite Bernini sculpture. They're all revealing facets of the human condition, and that will always suck me in. And whether it's a snapshot of a moment with a girl in a song, or the profile of a long-dead woman in the painting, all forms of art are a way of preserving a fleeting, ephemeral piece of ourselves for the future, right? Of saying, "I was here. I felt this. I mattered."

I thought I'd share an excerpt of her letter with you as well as the art she picked, just to brighten your lovely Saturday the way she brightened mine. Let's go:

Dearest Heather, I was walking down Cours Victor Hugo when one of those amazing French book shops just stops you with all the stories in the window. I could have kept walking but I moved not that long ago, and this street (around the corner from chez moi) is my nearest commercial street. So I had been aiming to do a good "get to know the neighborhood" tour. What really got me though were the vats of old postcards marked .10€ apiece. An hour of sorting through, and ten very dirty fingers later, I had about a dozen that pleased me in hand. And I kept coming across Italian images, giving me this idea . . . I'm thinking you have seen some of them in museums or in your studies. I hope they take you back to a special place that no one but you has access to.

The first one is my favorite. I don't have, or rather won't try to find the words to explain why. But I think you'll understand.









I love this version of the annunciation, although the real thing was clearly nothing like it (uh, arched buttresses? Mary is looking pretty white?) the composition is still like holding your breath, yet so rich. I want a yellow halo! And who's that in the background?

Thank god we weren't there for the battle of San Romano because somebody got their asses kicked! It's hard to distinguish exactly what's going on, although there seem to be a lot of jousting sticks. I think this must be just a panel of a larger painting. Go red team!


I need to brush up on my history a bit but I'm pretty sure that the Emperor Justinian is the one that converted the Roman Empire to Christianity, no? But I thought that was the 4th century. (?) Anyway mosaics are cool.

Tough to be St. Stephen, eh? Well, I think this is French from Aragon, but the border reminded me of the pretty, pretty Florentine paper you love. N'est-ce pas?


And really, stoning is so barbaric.

There were a lot more but yeah, those made my day. What a wonderful little island of artistic sanity in the middle of an otherwise mundane afternoon, shuffling through the stack while standing in my kitchen, feeling 5,000 miles away in an instant.

Sometimes knowing that there is such beautiful art in the world makes me feel simultaneously very thankful, and ass-kicked sad that I don't live in Italy anymore. Once you've lived side by side with such amazing art, it's hard to stop.


ARTWORK
Ritratto di una giovane signora - Veneziano
L'Annunziazione - Fra Angelico
Battaglia di San Romano - Paolo Uccello
L'Imperatore Giustiniano - Mosaics in San Vitale, Ravenna
Predication et lapidation de Saint Etienne - Breviaire de Martin D'Aragon

Like an L.S. Lowry painting come to life

I posted something once before with a similar title [see: Like the Musee D'Orsay come to life] --because I love seeing intelligent and creative interpretations of art set to music.

I nearly minored in art history (which is a fancy way of saying that I love wandering around in old museums but was a bit too lazy to finish the upper-division coursework for the minor), and often "see" music in a visual way, so whenever a band can create something that reminds me of a painting, I am all over that action. Oasis has a new animated video for their b-side song "Masterplan." It's mostly a jaunt through hometown Manchester with the boys, but the cool thing about it is how it resurrects the best paintings of L.S. Lowry into an industrial landscape in motion.

L.S. Lowry was also from Manchester, England, and lived from 1887 to 1976. Most of his paintings were muted landscapes of the industrial areas where he lived, often populated by so-called "matchstick men" (fairly simplistic, slim, homogenic folk) with an almost primitive and flat representation of perspective. There's a certain autumal beauty to the tones he uses, and a charming air about his works.

Here's one of L.S. Lowry's paintings -- "Coming Out Of School" 1927, Tate Gallery:

Now watch what Oasis does with the same stylistic idea. If you are familiar at all with some of the more well-known works by Lowry, you'll see that many of his paintings are represented in the content of this video (i.e. Man Lying On A Wall, Fairground At Daisy Nook). Oasis worked with Lowry's estate and received their blessing on the endeavor, which they hope will bring "a fresh new image" to good ole' L.S.

The song itself is lovely and I think it's a nice touch how the original 5 band members walk (well, Liam struts) past actual Manchester landmarks. Good on Oasis for giving props to a fellow Mancunian through their video, possibly even sending a few kids scurrying to crack open an art history reference book. Watch:

Oasis is busy workin' it in support of the release of a greatest hits collection (Stop The Clocks! It's out November 13!) and Noel Gallagher is set to appear in NYC at the premiere of the new tour documentary Lord Don't Slow Me Down (CMJ FilmFest, November 4th).

Ahh, if I were in London tonight

. . . In addition to hoisting a pint to calm my nerves after a tense, hard-fought game today pitting England against Sweden (ending in a draw, but how I rooted for a Brit win) - I would be heading to the British Museum. I took a seminar class on Michelangelo when I was studying abroad in Florence, and as such I consider myself fortunate to have seen most of his finished works and many of his drawings and sketches. But this exhibit brings together some that I have not seen. I love the anatomical power and grace of Michelangelo's human forms.
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Michelangelo Draws Night Crowd
Associated Press article, 6/8/06

LONDON - The British Museum said Thursday that it will stay open until midnight for the first time to meet the demand for access to its exhibition of the works of Italian master Michelangelo. More than 140,000 people have visited "Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master," since it opened at the end of March.

Now the 247-year-old museum will remain open until midnight every Saturday until the show closes on July 25.

"The exhibition has been such an overwhelming success that we wanted to find a way to let more people see the show before the end of its run," said director Neil MacGregor. "This really is a unique opportunity to spend your Saturday night with a master of the Italian Renaissance." The exhibition is a study of the Renaissance artist's life from his earliest pen drawings to his late, haunting crucifixions.

It reunites material not together since the posthumous dispersal of works from Michelangelo's studio in 1564. The works come from collections in the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Teyler Museum in Holland.

The museum's first Michelangelo exhibition in 30 years features 90 drawings and a collection of thumbnail sketches and red chalk studies that trace the evolution of the painting of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

The exhibition took a record 11,000 bookings before it even opened, beating the previous record of 3,670 advance bookings set by an exhibition of Persian art.

Do you like American Music? (I like American music)

"Popular music has been characterized by some as a rather disposable art form associated with youth culture, and yet the performers and their songs have the capacity to stay with us and embody deeper meaning as we grow older -- and there is great power in this dichotomy. To quote Patti Smith, 'Our music grants us a coat of invulnerability, a spring in which we bathe with abandon, methods of response, moments of respite, and a riot of self-expression.' With these photographs, Annie Leibovitz illuminates and celebrates the full range of experience contained in American Music."

. . . and so the sign greeted us at the beginning of the fabulous American Music photography exhibit, currently in residence at the FAC Modern in downtown Colorado Springs. It is a journey through the landscape of current American music, with most pictures shot in the past several years by famed Rolling Stone/independent photographer Annie Leibovitz. Organized by and premiered at the Experience Music Project in Seattle in 2003, the exhibit has travelled across the country and may be coming to your town soon. If it is, I highly recommend a trip.

I love rock 'n' roll photography. There was an excellent exhibit in San Jose last year (at the Tech Museum) with portraits and live concert shots spanning the entire gamut from Bono to the Beatles to Charlie Watts to Michael Hutchence to Michael Stipe. I love rock photography because of the way a good photograph can look into these artists' souls and give you a voyeuristic chance just to stare at all their wrinkles and warts (or glowing luminous skin and teeth, depending on the subject of the photograph).

While the Tech Museum exhibit last year was a broad and far-reaching look at rock music across the last 50 years (and I loved it), Annie Leibovitz's exhibit strives to capture American music at this precise moment, in all of its broad forms from jazz to soul to rock to country to rap to blues. I don't think any picture in the exhibit was taken before 1999 or so. It was fascinating. It would have been perfect, perfect, unbelievably celestial for me if the exhibit came with headphones and a digital music player - so that as I looked into these faces that told so many stories I could also listen to their souls come out in the music they make. I knew many of the artists, but a lot of them I didn't recognize, especially in some of the genres that I am still learning about.

I am having a hard time finding online where the American Music exhibit is travelling to after it leaves the shadow of Pikes Peak, so if you want to see some of the pictures, you can either order her excellent American Music book (containing all the photographs and some superb commentary from Ryan Adams, Patti Smith, Roseanne Cash, and more), and/or you can view many of the pictures in the exhibit here, although it lacks the same punch (I am admittedly a total museum whore and love just being in a museum).

Here are some of my snaps from the exhibit last night. I didn't get a good one of the stunning Iggy Pop portrait pair, so check that link right above to see the leathery road map that his skin has become. I'll say it again: fascinating.

That White Stripes photo is just fabulous. You can't see it in this shot, but I love how Meg White is just so impassive. She's like, "Okay, Jack, whatever you say." Someone once told me that Meg White was a good woman because she does what she is told.

Mike Ness is seriously one of the baddest mofos ever. I am overdue for a post on him and his music. His skin is an art form in and of itself.

This is supposed to be Johnny Cash with Roseanne Cash on his front porch, but my haste to take covert pictures blurred it. A better shot is here. I love this because of the distance in Johnny Cash's eyes as he plays. The music is taking him somewhere that is hard to place.

Country roots and wings with Bonnie Raitt and the Dixie Chicks. Raitt is photographed backstage in New York: I found the bottle of Dial soap sitting on the ratty old sink somehow poetic. I love little tiny details like that and I can't say why.

Brian Wilson looking more than a bit like my dad, in that bathrobe and I think my dad has the same slippers. Sorry for the blur, see here for a good shot (my picture above looks all artsy blurry - it's my attempt at, uh, social commentary about the speed with which we age). Wilson looks sad and lost and suburban.

Life imitating art.
(We've already established that I am a geek, so, ya know . . .)

Happy Birthday Joan Miró

Check out the cool Google logo today for Catalan surrealist artist Joan Miró, born today in 1893:

Miró was a master of the surrealist movement, along with contemporaries Dali, Magritte, and Kahlo. Of the approach, Miró said: "Rather than setting out to paint something, I begin painting, and as I paint, the picture begins to assert itself, or suggest itself under my brush. The form becomes a sign for a woman or a bird as I work . . . the first stage is free, unconscious. . ."


"Miró's floating biomorphic shapes, hovering, vibrating, advancing, and retreating, are suggestive of musical tones made visible. The tempo is light and graceful, the mood playful and humorous."
-- from Art Through The Ages, Gardner

Colorful Revolution - The Redwalls

Like the Musée d'Orsay come to life

Visually, this video clip is amazingly beautiful. It reminds me of some impressionistic painting come to life on the wonderful streets of my home 'hood San Francisco. You can discount the fact that it is a Sony ad if that makes it easier to appreciate the art, but watch how incredible this is. It makes me happy. Featuring the lovely musical stylings of José González, with "Heartbeats."

Watch the video (other options for viewing it are here)

(Thanks to Jerry for finding the link)