http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:56:23 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/16/125623.php Gregg ChadwickIt's all things Tut in L.A. this week. I was in the bowels of LACMA yesterday and the energy was high. Security was tighter than usual and media types were everywhere. Look forward to long lines, expensive merchandise and fluff pieces appearing in news outlets across the country.My major problem with the exhibition is the way that the museum has been hijacked to serve corporate interests:"I hate to say this, but it's very similar to how we would go market another entertainment event, like a major awards show or sporting event," says Tim Leiweke, president of AEG, the sports and entertainment presenter that developed Staples Center, among other venues, and is financing the exhibition." Royal diadem found on the head of Tutankhamun when the British archaeologist Howard Carter opened his coffin. The objects in the exhibition are magical. They bring us to another time. And they help illumine the artistic legacy of Africa and what is now the Arabic world. But there is something of the grave robber in all of this. Howard Carter ripped the crown (shown above) off of Tutankhamun's head and, as documented in the recent National Geographic cover article on Tut, Carter desecrated Tutankhamun's well preserved corpse which had become tightly fastened to his coffin by laying the mummy in the scorching Egyptian sun to melt the hold between Tutankhamun's body and its 3200 year-old resting place. We should quietly pay homage to what has come before us. Tutankhamun's legacy should inspire reverence for humanity not for gold or the dollar. Members have to pay a hefty surcharge to get tickets and non-members are asked to shell out up to $30 bucks. Is this about scholarship? Or history? Or art? Or is it more along the lines of Peter Keller's diamonds and dinosaurs and mummies:"I've often said that if I could start a museum from scratch, it would be diamonds, dinosaurs and mummies -- those are the three home runs in the museum world," says Peter Keller, president of the Bowers Museum. Look where the mad pursuit for home runs got Barry Bonds. Museum exhibitions on steroids? Should we put an asterisk next to Tut's future attendance records?And what does the financial deal with AEG look like? Will LACMA be better off when Tut is over and the crowds clear and the museum is wondering where all the visitors have gone? I'll return to LACMA during Tut but look for me in the Japanese Pavilion. Resources: National Geographic: kingtut.orgLACMA: Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs: June 16, 2005-November 15, 2005 Culture31124@blogcritics.org Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:56:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/25/135409.php Gregg ChadwickJared Diamond's new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, will prove to be as influential for this generation as Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring was to the embryonic environmental movement of the early 1960's. In Collapse, Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, examines the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations. This is an important book, and President Bush had better be reading it right now. Unlike most books of the moment, Diamond's Collapse is brilliantly written and persuasively argued. Diamond takes an unstinting look at the failures of past societies&#8212from the deforestation and eventually depopulation of Easter Island, to the vanishing civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Jared argues that ...environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies, but other societies found solutions and persisted. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. In one of the book's most chilling sections, Diamond lists the countries around the globe with the most environmental degradation&#8212coupled with unbearable population density&#8212and then ticks off the same places as contemporary global trouble spots. Rwanda, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan all make the list. Jared argues that change is needed to prevent the future demise of our 21st Century civilizations and that hard, political and cultural choices lie ahead. Jared teaches at UCLA and, lately, whenever I am in the student store on that campus, I stop to look at the area devoted to his work, and I think of this book's major question, "how can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?" May 1 to January 17, 2006: The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County presents Collapse? This exhibition draws on ideas from Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed. Sci/Tech30127@blogcritics.org Wed, 25 May 2005 13:54:09 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/16/224902.php Gregg Chadwick"Intolerance is the father of illusion and evil deeds.Tolerance is not its opposite; tolerance is neutral. The opposite of intolerance is creative imagination, sympathetically exercised in the service of ever illusive truth. The people I trust and admire take that path. Scholars, scientists, priests, and philosophers have helped guide me ... A fiery legion of artists and writers flung wide the gates and beckoned my near- sighted soul to go deeper" -Alexander Eliot, "The Timeless Myths" Gregg Chadwick esprit d'escalier 30"x20" monotype 2005 Inspired by the vision of Alex and Jane EliotIn Japan, individuals of extraordinary talent and vision are recognized as living national treasures as they live out their later years. The American intellectual couple Alexander and Jane Eliot should be given honorary Japanese citizenship and awarded that honor. Recently when I met with Alex and Jane in their warm Venice bungalow I was struck by their graciousness and humility. The front room is crowded with treasures gathered from their years together. And their minds are full of some of the twentieth century's most important memories. Alex was the lead art critic for Time magazine from 1945 until 1960. His articles on the growth of American post-war art and the rise of New York as the center of the art world were unsigned per Time's policy of that era. But he was able to gather some of the most pertinent information into his volume,"Three Hundred Years of American Painting" - published in 1957. The book was a huge success and along with a Guggenheim grant enabled Alex and Jane to move to Greece to further their studies of art and myth and to raise their children in an international atmosphere away from what President Eisenhower labeled as the growing "military-industrial complex." It pains them both to watch as the current administration stokes the fires of international conflict and evokes the painful memories of fascism. Jane is unstinting in her criticism of the Bush presidency, "I was a child in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. And I know what fascism looks like." Then her memories flood in and she points to a blackened metal circle suspended on her sculpted grotto that fills a wall in the front room. The grotto is a sort of historical-mythic manger with elements gathered from their years of travel and Jane's countless friendships with writers and artists. Jane recounts a moment from her childhood as she watched a fire set by Franco's soldiers destroy a Spanish church. She stood transfixed in its red glow. Jane watched the sculpted saints burn and then the halo above Mary fell free as her wooden body was engulfed in the flames. The glowing orange circle hit the ground and rolled across the plaza eventually landing at Jane's feet. She hurriedly grabbed the halo and hid it in her bag. As a child it seemed a sign of hope for peace. And again we need that hope. Alex Eliot From the Black Mountain project.The conversation turns to Alex . "Yes, I met Matisse in the south of France in his later years" Alex says. "He wasn't well and Matisse was making those vibrant paper collages while confined to his bed. Well, I was given an audience with Matisse and as I was leaving something got into my head. There was a question I needed to ask. I had made it to the top of the mountain as it were and I was not going to leave without finding out the answer. I had gone to Black Mountain to learn to be an artist and then on to the Boston School of Fine Arts but I needed to know from the master. So I turned back to Matisse and asked,"What should I do next?" In response Matisse propped himself up on his bed and like a mantra repeated one word -"Draw, draw, draw ..."     In a recent review Alex set forth what can be considered his views on the visionary nature of art: "Art is not just a matter of keen observation and craftsmanlike representation. At best, it's a visionary process. The great American philosopher William James posited that the consciousness of humanity as a whole is transmitted as "beams": "Glows of feeling," James said, "glimpses of insight, and streams of knowledge and perception float into our finite world." A true masterpiece of any art transmits transcendental "rays" in the Jamesian sense."In his book "Sight and Insight" Alexander Eliot describes a Chinese painter who, upon completing his masterwork, paints a door in the foreground, opens that door - walks through and is never seen again. I expect Alex and Jane to find that door and to walk through together leaving their art and writings as clues for us to find our own path. Culture29595@blogcritics.org Mon, 16 May 2005 22:49:02 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/14/173753.php Gregg ChadwickKenro Izu's pallidium prints are taken with a massive camera that seems to wrestle the sacred onto film. A selection of Kenro's work and his gargantuan camera were recently on view at the Rubin Museum in New York. In an interview conducted on July 31, 2001, with Peabody Essex Museum director of photographic services, Marc Teatum, Kenro Izu described his artistic process," I try to use my basic instincts, like an animal sensing danger. I want to be as pure, as empty as possible and just try to document the spirituality of the place. If I can't, then I don't want to make another picture postcard that someone else has already taken under perfect conditions." photo by kenro izuKenro Izu is actively creating important contemporary sacred art that defies boundaries and borders. His image (seen above) of a Buddha in a tree at Wat Mahathat in Ayutthaya, Thailand is both mysterious and inviting. There is a profound silence in this image and an uncanny presence of breath. Culture29507@blogcritics.org Sat, 14 May 2005 17:37:53 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/11/030001.php Gregg ChadwickPeter Schjeldahl, currently the art critic for the New Yorker, held a roundtable discussion with Neal Benezra, director SFMOMA, and Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture SFMOMA, recently at the Wattis Theater in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His enthusiasm for art and artists was palpable. And his wit was in rare form. During the question and answer session following the discussion it was announced by an artist in the back rows of the Wattis Theater that painting was dead. Peter chuckled and then asked," What kind of art do you do?" The artist responded that she was involved in art that utilized new technologies. Peter laughed again and blurted out, "Well, there you go, trying to kill off the competition." He neither dismissed the woman nor her art but instead pointed out the careerism hiding behind many art labels and preferences.When asked about the place of beauty in contemporary art, Peter leaned forward and spoke from the heart." This is an important, if not controversial, question that I write about often. In the 60's and 70's in academia it was the forbidden word. A group of art historians could look up at the blue sky and and declare it a beautiful day on their way to a conference on contemporary art. But once in the doors of the conference room, beauty ceased to exist." Peter concluded by stating, "Art does not have to address beauty- to reach for beauty. But it sure is great if it does." Culture29332@blogcritics.org Wed, 11 May 2005 03:00:01 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/02/145830.php Gregg ChadwickThere is a brewing controversy over the gift of a sculpture by the figurative artist Robert Graham to the city of Venice, California. Diane Haithman in the LA Times reports,"The Los Angeles City Council approved the yet-to-be completed artwork, a gift to the city from the artist and Venice donor Roy Doumani, last June. But earlier this month a handful of Venice residents filed appeals with the city to block the sculpture's placement in Windward Circle, a traffic circle ringed with funky eateries, wacky gift shops and chic boutiques."Robert Graham's work, like that of the Bay Area sculptor Stephen de Staebler and Rodin before him, plays on the history of classical sculpture and its fragmentation over time. The proposed sculpture for Venice is an elevated stainless steel female torso. The work would focus on the core of the body minus extremities. This emphasis helps to exclude a reading of the sculpture as a portrait of an individual or a type and broadens the scope of the work to include myth as well as art history. There is nobility and strength in a portrayal of the active human core that is exemplified in the classical Belvedere Torso now in the Vatican Collection. Sculpture by Robert Graham, UCLA Sculpture Garden Peter Selz writes on the subject of fragmentation while considering the work of Stephen de Staebler:"Ever since Auguste Rodin, evoking the damaged sculpture of antiquity, presented his partial, yet muscular and erotic figures, the fractured human form has been endemic to modern sculpture. The human torso was a dominant theme in the work of artists as diverse as Maillol and Brancusi, Henry Moore and Antoine Pevsner. Giacometti pared the standing woman and the striding man to the bare essentials of existence. But only in the "Abakans," the poignant headless figures by Magdalena Abakanowicz, and in De Staebler's sculpted images does the fragmented figure assume a symbolic function of human incompleteness and yearning for wholeness. De Staebler's large-scale legs signify this predicament for an artist who faces the human condition--both its vulnerability and its tenacity. His work recalls the ancient effigies of the Sumerians and the Egyptians. At the same time, it is painfully contemporary. While there is a timeless quality in De Staebler's work, these severed limbs remind us of our recently awakened sense of vulnerability." Belvedere Torso,1st Century, Vatican Collection "Despite delays and controversy, Doumani and Graham have no intention of withdrawing their donation. 'Venice is Venice. It's one of the most outspoken communities anywhere,' Doumani said wryly. 'I've never had so much trouble giving anything in my life." Culture28936@blogcritics.org Mon, 2 May 2005 14:58:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/29/234625.php Gregg ChadwickCalifornia's actor governor knows all about film screenings. After his latest off the cuff and out of control quip:"Close the borders. Close the borders in California, and all across Mexico and the United States. Because I think it is just unfair to have all of those people coming across, and to have the borders open the way it is. We in California have to still finish the border. That is the key thing -- to have borders and to keep the law, enforce the law." Schwarzenegger told hundreds of newspaper publishers at the Newspaper Association of America convention at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Arnold needs to arrange a private screening of Sergio Arau and Yareli Arizmendi's film - "A Day Without A Mexican". In an interview with Bija Gutoff on the Apple Final Cut Pro site Sergio explains the genesis of the film:"I was waiting for my car to be washed, and this guy handed me a tip," says Sergio Arau. "In a restaurant someone heard me speaking Spanish and asked me to bring water. I'd say to myself, 'Do I look like I work here?'" Yareli Arizmendi and Sergio ArauA well-known journalist, cartoonist, animator, musician and film and video director in Mexico City, Arau was used to being viewed as a serious professional. So it was a shock to discover how little his resume counted in the U.S."What happened?" asks Arau. "I had a long career before I came here, and because I didn't speak English, for the first time in my life I was a minority. No one knew or cared about the work I had done. What's worse, they didn't even see me."As an immigrant, Arnold Schwarzenegger should realize the unwarranted and destructive nature of his comments. Close off immigration from Mexico, Central and South America and California will grind to a halt. Take a break Arnold. Grab a bowl of popcorn. Screen "A Day Without A Mexican". Get ready to laugh and learn a few things. Remember Arnold; it's that other newly elected German-speaking guy who thinks he is infallible. Politics28841@blogcritics.org Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:46:25 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/26/011133.php Gregg ChadwickApril 26 - The Basque city of Guernica was firebombed by the Condor Legion of the Nazi Luftwaffe sixty-eight years ago today prompting Pablo Picasso's painting "Guernica". The fascist states of Germany and Italy had provided men and military aid to the forces under Franco who were trying to wrest control of Spain from the democratically elected government. Picasso, "Study for Guernica", graphite on paper 1937"A painting is not thought out and settled in advance. While it is being done, it changes as one's thoughts change. And when it's finished, it goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it." - Pablo PicassoNews of the firebombing of Guernica reached Paris on April 27th in a broadcast by Radio Bilbao. Within that week, Picasso abandoned his initial ideas for a painting destined for the Spanish Pavilion at the soon to open World's Fair. On May 1st he began a series of graphite on paper studies for a new painting, which would become "Guernica". In a burst of creativity, Picasso molded his personal artistic themes into a universal declaration against war. Picasso's companion, the photographer Dora Maar, had access to the work in progress and recorded the development of the painting in a series of black and white photographs. The painting's final state depicts a world where interior domestic life has literally been blown into the streets. By deftly combining cubistic space with classical art references and newspaper reportage, Picasso created a political painting that harked back to Goya's "Third of May" while depicting a new type of total war. The enemy who has laid waste to Guernica is nowhere to be seen. This unseen enemy's violence is created offstage as in a Greek tragedy and his weapons are thrown down wantonly upon an innocent populace. This painting has also played a part in our new war. On February 5, 2003, United Nations officials covered up a tapestry reproduction of Picasso's "Guernica" during US Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation of the American case for war against Iraq.One cannot help but think of a small man, behind the cloth hiding the painting, pleading, "Do not look behind the curtain." Picasso pulled the curtain back on the destruction of Guernica and unveiled the small men hiding behind their armies. Let's hope there is another painter out there willing to pull the curtain back on today's injustices. Culture28647@blogcritics.org Tue, 26 Apr 2005 01:11:33 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/04/25/125709.php Gregg ChadwickBruce Springsteen's latest album will be released on April 26th. But the title track, "Devils and Dust" is already available. Like the compelling story in the newspaper that you find well after the hype of the front page, the characters in this new song are riveting yet invisible to the general public. The music is stripped down, at times hardscrabble and barren like the physical and emotional landscapes that these characters roam. As a painter, when I listen to Springsteen's hard fought melodies and stark vocals, I see images. And many times I see images painted by Edward Hopper. Edward Hopper, Gas, Museum of Modern Art, New York Hopper's figures share with Springsteen's characters a very American way of being. Not always pretty- but always present. Both Hopper's paintings and Springsteen's songs are lit by a sort of American light that exists not to create atmosphere, but to light objects. This same light is used in school portraits and family snapshots to fix smiles for posterity. But, as in the boxes of color photos found in attics and basements, the color in Hopper's paintings seems to turn amber as the works age. I was struck recently by the evident aging in Hopper's "New York Movie" at the Museum of Modern Art. The paint was visibly pulling away from the edges of the painting. The clean, smooth look found in much contemporary painting and photography was not there. You could see the struggle in the painting's creation and feel its impending loss in the growing network of cracks and fissures. Springsteen's ballads on 1982's "Nebraska" foretold another process of decay even while new. The album was mastered from a damaged cassette tape of homemade demos that Bruce carried with him to band rehearsals. The crack and hiss in the album were there from the start and seemed to create the soundtrack for the eventual decay of Reagan's grand American Empire. Springsteen's next stripped down acoustic album, 1995's " The Ghost of Tom Joad", was steeped in Steinbeck's novels "Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden". But Steinbeck's optimism had been left in Salinas. And Bruce left the romanticism out on New Jersey's Highway 9. The music in "The Ghost of Tom Joad" was as dry as Hopper's paint in his later works. And that was the point. These were American artworks based on tangible images and moments. And there was a sort of American heroism evident in getting these images and stories down. USMC, Korean War, photo by Robert ChadwickSpringsteen wrote the haunting title track for "Devils and Dust" on the eve of the war in Iraq. There is no bombast in this piece. This is no call to arms. Instead, Bruce captures the inner conflict of all soldiers on all battlefields. When Bruce mumbles, "We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie", I think of the photos taken by my father, another Bob, as a young Marine in the Korean War. But even more I think of my mom, waiting for her man to come home. And I think of the young American moms and dads waiting for their loved ones to come home from Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the numerous and un-named lily pad bases scattered across the globe. Springsteen and Bono, 1981U2 tackled the mythos of the American West in 1987's "Joshua Tree". This music is now so emblematic of an American sense of place that I longed to hear those anthemic songs while recently driving through the National Park at Joshua Tree. But when I exited the park and watched the afternoon light slant across boarded up storefronts along the Highway and heard the scream of the Marine Corps jets above me, I realized that Springsteen had to leave his anthems behind when he tackled his vision of the American West in "Devil's and Dust". Springsteen doesn't just see the wide-open vistas at the scenic viewpoints. Springsteen turns around and sees the young Mexican girl selling trinkets along the road. Springsteen knows of the rat-filled tunnels she crawled through to get to America. Springsteen hears the diatribe coming from Washington and Sacramento. Springsteen's response is to strip his songs down just a little bit more, to edit deeply, and to keep looking at the American light. Springsteen plays in Los Angeles on May 2 and May 3. My thoughts on the concert will follow. Music28609@blogcritics.org Mon, 25 Apr 2005 12:57:09 EDT