a point of no return

Two Finales

charly — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:19:05 +0000

Two powerful guitar performances, for the Guitar Foundation of America Competition. One of them features Jerome Ducharme playing the “Finale” from the Suite Opus No.41, by the Canadian composer Jacques Hétu (1938-2010). The other video features Marcin Dylla playing the Finale of the Sonata for Guitar, opus 47, by the by the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983).

Louise Bourgeois

charly — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:50:14 +0000

Yesterday the French / American artist Louise Bourgeois (December 25, 1911 –May 31, 2010) passed away. I saw a retrospective of her work on 2008, at the Guggenheim Museum (the one in New York). Not being precisely a fan of those “modern” sculptures that seem to pollute every modern art museum around the world (and by the way, why are they always huge?) I was very impressed nonetheless by some of her sculptures. The underlying sexual tension, oppression and feeling of abandonment in her art is extremely powerful and disturbing. On the other hand the variety of materials and techniques she works with is remarkable: wood, resin, bronze, etc. Since the Guggenheim has that annoying “no photographs allowed” policy I don’t have any pictures of that exhibit, so I’ll just post this video I found on Youtube, featuring the wonderful Gymnopédie No.1 by Eric Satie

The spectator is no longer merely a viewer if he is able to move from the stage of viewing to the stage of collaborating. . . . Dislocation is analogous to the state of passivity that is rejected and becomes a state of active being. In other words it is the dislocation, the transformation of a person who is passive, depressed through a crise de conscience, into a person who becomes suddenly active-the passage from death to life through the creative act.

From “An Interview with Louise Bourgeois”, by Susi Bloch. Art Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 370-373

New Flashbook – Animals

charly — Sun, 30 May 2010 22:55:31 +0000

New Flashbook – Animals

note: Flashbooks have sounds, so LOWER YOUR VOLUME! When it finishes downloading (may take a bit), right click on black square, press PLAY, and flip pages! NOTE: If the right column interferes with the Flashbook then ZOOM OUT (CTRL-)

TED and Ze

charly — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:19:12 +0000

As an occasional follower of the TED talks and an old fan of Ze Frank’s web toys I had a kick when I discovered this by pure chance:

Jan Švankmajer

charly — Mon, 24 May 2010 06:38:19 +0000

The short film “Dimensions of Dialogue (part 1)”, by Czech Claymation (and Animation in general) master Jan Švankmajer. The quality is not the best, but still good enough to get a good idea of his work. There are plenty of other videos by Švankmajer on Youtube worth checking out

Animation Video – Pixels

charly — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:44:42 +0000

A sweet animation video by Patrick Jean

Influences – Fuseli & Blake

charly — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:59:28 +0000

The British painter Henry Fuseli (the guy that painted the hyper-famous “The Nightmare”) was an important influence on many painters, notably the great William Blake.

Fuseli’s painting on Hamlet confronting the ghost of his father

reminds me a lot of Blake’s style, as in for instance “The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve”:

I don’t know if I am pushing this too far, but I also find a striking (well maybe “striking” is too strong of a word) similitude between Fuseli’s beautiful “Silence”

and William’s Blake “Urizen”

On a side note; Blake, who was not exactly prone to giving compliments, once wrote:

The only man that e’er I knew
Who did not make me almost spew
Was Fuseli: he was both Turk and Jew–
And so, dear Christian friends, how do you do?

Flashbook – Shores

charly — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:44:13 +0000

New Flashbook – Shores

Flashbook – Looking like…

charly — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:01:17 +0000

New Flashbook – Looking like…

Boredom

Mansell — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:35:38 +0000

The other day while reading Walter Benjamin I came across this phrase:

We are bored when we don’t know what we are waiting for. That we do know, or think we know, is nearly always the expression of our superficiality or inattention. Boredom is the threshold of great deeds –Now it would be important to know: What is the dialectical antithesis to boredom?

This made me think immediately on Tu m’ (1918), the last painting by Marcel Duchamp (French / American, 1918 – 1968), one of the biggest icons to emerge from the Dadaist / Surrealist movement:

Tu m’; image taken from the Yale art gallery

The title has been said to be a shortening of the French “tu m’ennuies” or the more vulgar “tu m’emmerdes"; usually translated as “you bore me" (though other possibilities have been suggested too). This title may well express his feelings towards painting; an idea strengthened by the fact that this was his last work.

Some of his "greatest hits" are depicted here, namely his “readymades” (everyday objects transformed into art), which makes you wonder if he was also bored of those. Besides the color swatches, a representation of a readymade in itself, the shadows of his famous bicycle wheel (Bicycle Wheel, 1913) and the coat rack (Trap, 1917) can be seen here. These are the original readymades found in the painting:

Bicycle Wheel, Image taken from the MOMA website (this is a newer version, as the original is now lost)

Trap, Image taken from toutfait.com, an excellent site on M. Duchamp

Even though there are plenty of paintings that depict boredom in many different ways, what I find interesting on this particular one is that it goes one step further: What bores the artist is that which has defined him for a long time. Granted, you could argue that painting was only one of the many facets of Duchamp’s work, but then again, the silhouettes of the readymades makes me think that he is expressing boredom in a broader sense. And this in turn reminds me of Oscar Wilde (from “The Picture of Dorian Gray”):

"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness"