…Exhausted…
…Bored…
…Don’t mind me, go ahead…
…Melancholy…
…Wake me up the day after the day after…
…Mellow and relaxed…
…Waisted…
…Pretty fucked up…
…Peaceful…
…Alone, together at last…
…Too old for this…
…Happy, tired and excited… (as seen through the humorous eye of Gil. You can check Gil’s funny, happy, tired and excited cartoons on his blog les dessins d’humeur de gil).
……..
(fill in the blanks)
I am the female version of this man, if only for a few minutes on any given day. Except bored – I’m never bored. And haven’t had a hangover in a long-long time.
Howard Kanovitz
New Yorkers I, 1965
Acrylic, graphite pencil, fabricated chalk on linen
This painting depicts composer Richard Rodgers who, together with Oscar Hammerstein, co-wrote such legendary Broadway musicals as Oklahoma!, South Pacific and the Sound of Music. Howard Kanovitz based the painting on a newspaper photograph because he was impressed by its low definition quality which suggested an isolation of the figures from their environment. It was the same quality that made me want to capture the detail on the first photo above.
Love him or hate him, Andy Warhol is one of the most important pop icons of the twentieth century, his art still gaining both in popularity and value. I’m on the side of the haters to be honest, but that doesn’t prevent me from admiring some of his works, like the Screen Tests or this screenprint of Ethel Scull which I audaciously borrowed for my blog profile pic.
”Ethel Scull 36 Times” was one of Warhol’s first commissioned portraits for which he escorted Ethel Scull, a patron and collector of modern art, to a Photomat in Times Square. There, under his direction, they took more than a hundred photos with Ms Scull posing with or without sunglasses, making serious or playful faces; in short having some silly fun. Warhol chose 36 of these poses and here is the end result. What attracts me most about it, is this personification of joie de vivre with a certain je ne sais quoi, emanated from every pose.
Andy Warhol
Ethel Scull 36 Times, 1963
Acrylic and screenprint on canvas
Marilyn Pursued by Death, 1963
Rosalyn Dexler
Acrylic and paper collage on canvas
From the accompanying caption: [… On the day this source photograph was taken in 1956, Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were to announce their upcoming marriage; in the frenzy to cover the event, a car carrying reporters crashed, killing at least one member of the press. Drexler’s painting is an eerie evocation on the sometimes tragic results of our society’s insatiable desire for celebrity news.]
It was a very cold day with breathtaking, eye blurring strong wind gusts, the first after an unusually long and mild autumn and it caught me unprepared. Then, there was a queue outside the Neue Galerie which, considering it was a weekday, also caught me unprepared. It was my second visit at the premises but the first one to the galleries, the last being a coffee break at the Vienna-inspired Café Sabarsky – for which there is a separate queue given its popularity which competes with that of the Galerie itself.
A staircase (or elevator) brings the visitor to the high-ceilinged reception rooms with their wood floors and wall panels, where Gustav Klimt’s Ladies await to welcome guests into their fin-de-siècle golden world of art nouveau, showing off their costumes, accessories, decorative objects and furniture. All this tends to feel a little cramped – this is a private mansion after all and the guests are eager and plenty – but it’s only a small inconvenience quickly brushed off once guests are made to feel at home by the charming Ladies.
Consisting of 12 paintings, 40 drawings, 40 works of decorative art, and vintage photographs of Klimt the exhibition is of a smaller scale compared to what we’re becoming used to in The City and certainly far smaller than the extensive collections I had the chance to experience in Vienna.
Having said that, I’m always surprised – with mixed feelings – when I finally get to see a work of art, like the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I for example, in the gallery that actually owns it and learn about its long trip home; a home sometimes to be found in the most unexpected places.
Photography is strictly not allowed in the galleries and hallways but here is a photo of the elegant black-and-white staircase, the only place I could take one away from the accusing eyes of the guards.
Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918 runs through January 16th, 2017 and while, as already mentioned, small and in no way representative of Klimt’s work it will certainly be an hour – or two – spent in good company. After all, we can all use some Golden Age glamour this holiday season, cant we all?
Claes Oldenburg – Nude Figure with American Flag – “ABC HOORAY”, 1960. Pen and ink and watercolor on paper
I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.
I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.
I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and still comes out on top.
I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.
I am for all art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.
I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap painting signs or hallways.
Claes Oldenburg – Ketchup, Thick and Thin – from a N.Y.C. Billboard, 1965. Fabricated chalk and watercolor on paper
I am for art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.
I am for art that spills out of an old man’s purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.
I am for the art out of a doggie’s mouth, falling five stories from the roof.
I am for the art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.
I am for an art that joggles like everyone’s knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.
I am for art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells like a pair of shoes.
I am for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses like a handkerchief.
I am for art that is put on and taken off like pants, which develops holes like socks, which is eaten like a piece of pie, or abandoned with great contempt like a piece of shit.
Claes Oldenburg – Soft Toilet, 1966. Wood, vinyl, kapok fibers, wire, and plexiglass on metal stand and painted wood base
I am for art covered with bandages. I am for art that limps and rolls and runs and jumps.
I am for art that comes in a can or washes up on the shore.
I am for art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for art that sheds hair.
I am for art you can sit on. I am for art you can pick your nose with or stub your toes on.
I am for art from a pocket, from deep channels of the ear, from the edge of a knife, from the corners of the mouth, stuck in the eye or worn on the wrist.
I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches.
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen – Dream Pin, 1998. Graphite, colored pencil and pastel on paper
I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind man’s metal stick.
I am for the art that grows in a pot, that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning, that hides in the clouds and growls. I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.
I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetie’s arm, or kiss like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on like an old tablecloth.
I am for an art that you can hammer with, stitch with, sew with, paste with, file with.
I am for an art that tells you the time of day, or where such and such a street is.
I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.
I am for the art of the washing machine. I am for the art of a government check. I am for the art of last war’s raincoat.
I am for the art that comes up in fogs from sewer holes in winter. I am for the art that splits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worm’s art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs.
Claes Oldenburg – Pat Standing in a Radish Patch, 1959. Oil on linen
I am for the art of neck hair and caked teacups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for the odor of boiling dishwater.
I am for the art of sailing on Sunday, and the art of red-and-white gasoline pumps.
I am for the art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.
I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel. I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.
I am for the art of scratching in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.
I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids’ smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.
I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beer-drinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a barstool.
I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice-cream cones dropped on concrete. I am for the majestic art of dog turds, rising like cathedrals.
I am for the blinking arts, lighting up the night. I am for art falling, splashing, wiggling, jumping, going on and off.
I am for the art of fat truck tires and black eyes.
I am for Kool art, 7UP art, Pepsi art, Sunshine art, 39 cents art, 15 cents art, Vatronol art, Dro-bomb art, Vam art, Menthol art, L&M art, Ex-lax art, Venida art, Heaven Hill art, Pamryl art, San-o-med art, Rx art, 9.99 art, Now art, New art, How art, Fire Sale art, Last Chance art, Only art, Diamond art, Tomorrow art, Franks art, Ducks art, Meat-o-rama art.
I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat’s dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.
I am for the art of meows and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.
I am for the white art of refrigerators and their muscular openings and closings.
I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meat hooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue, and yellow meat.
I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for the art of crayons and weak, gray pencil lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.
I am for the art of teddy bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, exploded umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen – Soft Shuttlecocks, Falling, Number Two, 1995. Graphite, charcoal, and pastel on paper
I am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums and tambourines, and plastic phonographs.
I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharaohs. I am for an art of water tanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.
I am for US Government Inspected Art, Grade A art, Regular Price art, Yellow Ripe art, Extra Fancy art, Ready-to-Eat art, Best-for-Less art, Ready-to-Cook art, Fully Cleaned art, Spend Less art, Eat Better art, Ham art, pork art, chicken art, tomato art, banana art, apple art, turkey art, cake art, cookie art…
add:
I am for an art that is combed down, that is hung from each ear, that is laid on the lips and under the eyes, that is shaved from the legs, that is brushed on the teeth, that is fixed on the thighs, that is slipped on the foot.
Excerpts from Oldenburg’s art statement dominated the ”Conservative mother with family” film. It spoke to me particularly because I, like the artist, have been a firm believer in some or all of the parts, during some or all phases of my life.
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Edward Hopper
The Humble Fabulist 