The Museum of Peripheral Art

Buttering Up The Iron Lady

2012-01-31T15:29:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin

Butter is an ancient material - thousands of years in the making. The word originates from Greek - bouturon: bous, cow + turos, cheese. Butter has been used not only for food, but also as medicine and as a hair product. Tibetan lamas have used yak butter for hundreds of years as a medium for large-scale and colorful sculptures and facades (pictured left). According to a legend dating back to 641, a Buddha statue was brought for a royal wedding but there were no fresh flowers to adorn it so they were made from butter. I just saw The Iron Lady in the theater, which has a minor butter theme. It is a diet concern, a staple and an economic indicator. It is also a metaphor for the mind...minding the butter and the former prime minister's dementia. The elderly Margaret Thatcher tells the hallucination of her deceased husband, who is having breakfast with her, not to put so much butter on his toast. A young Thatcher (née Roberts) leaves her family's hiding spot during a WWII Luftwaffe air raid to cover the butter in their corner grocery shop. And finally, later in her political career, when one of her party members suggests she is out of touch with the people, she lists a few brands of butter and margarine and how much they cost to prove she is down to earth.

Glassy-eyed

2012-01-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin

This week's My Favorite Mistake page in Newsweek is by composer Philip Glass and is about his having two pairs of children with two wives, three decades apart. He writes about the notion of the solitary artist, spending time with his children as the finest moments in his life, and how his second family gave him a second chance to be a more involved father.

The mention of Glass influenced me to watch Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, which is accompanied by his music. Glass also created the scores for the first two films in this Qatsi trilogy - Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. These films look at the contrast of modern and traditional life but Naqoyqatsi examines the transformation of a natural environment to a technological landscape.

The film starts with the Tower of Babel and gorgeous pans of dilapidated and empty buildings, and then moves on to glimpses of anything and everything (most of it in slow motion): athletes, soldiers, binary code, endless fractals, body scans, atomic bombs, happy people, sad people, traffic, factories, data centers, motherboards, trading floors, satellites, wax museum celebrities, assassination attempts, wildlife on the move, uprisings, police crackdowns, and ends with skydivers and stars.

The film is so stylized, digitally manipulated and intensely edited that I felt detached from the theme and it simply became a montage of images that reminded me of Czesław Miłosz’s poem Tidings:

Of earthly civilization what shall we say?

That it was a system of colored spheres cast in smoked glass,

Where a luminescent liquid thread kept winding and unwinding.

Or that it was an array of sunburnt palaces

Shooting up from a dome with massive gates

Behind which walked a monstrosity without a face.

That every day lots were cast, and that whoever drew low

Was marched there as sacrifice: old men, children, young boys and young girls.

Or we may say otherwise: that we lived in a golden fleece,

In a rainbow net, in a cloud cocoon

Suspended from the branch of a galactic tree,

And our net was woven from the stuff of signs,

Hieroglyphs for the eye and ear, amorous rings.

A sound reverberated inward, sculpturing our time,

The flicker, flutter, twitter of our language.

For from what could we weave the boundary

Between within and without, light and abyss,

If not from ourselves, our own warm breath,

And lipstick and gauze and muslin,

From the heartbeat whose silence makes the world die?

Or perhaps we’ll say nothing of earthly civilization.

For nobody really knows what it was.

Isles of Tiles

2012-01-27T23:24:00.002-05:00

by Drew Martin

When I was kid I thought islands floated around the oceans and that you could swim under them. Islands are paradoxes...beautiful getaways and prisons for castaways. Unlike other chunks of land (deserts, mountain ranges, plateaus, plains, etc.) an island is not an island unless it is dwarfed by a vast body of water. This relationship of dry land and water is very much like my basement, which sits only a few inches above the water table. When that rises with the winter snow-melt and the spring downpours, my cellar floor is inundated with ground water. It is a very stressful time because I depend on a sump pump in a well to remove the water. If the water rises too quickly and overtakes the pump or if a storm knocks out the electricity then the water will rise a few feet and kill the boiler, hot water heater and appliances. Even if the water is constantly removed, the concrete floor can be wet for days. A neighbor has been giving me scrap tiles for projects so I started making tile islands around the basement. I do it in part as an art project but at the same time these elevated areas are placed in areas that I frequent and will hopefully remain dry. (Click here to see a video of one of the larger and more formal tile islands - in it I am cleaning off extra grout)

Debasement

2012-01-26T08:23:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
Basements are scary places. It is where gangs of spiders hang out. In films, they are equated with unspeakable perversions - dungeons of death. When I hear about people like the Austrian man who raised an incestuous family with his kept daughter in his basement unbeknownst to his wife upstairs I am horrified but also curious about the actual space. Do they not have periodic house inspections for tax and code purposes? I have a reoccurring dream that underneath my house is an endless cavern or multiple levels of an underground structure. No one is ever in these spaces but me, alone, exploring. I have an interesting house. It is a bit of a shack that was built 130 years ago so there is an old, stone foundation, which has a couple newer crawl spaces with cinder-block foundations. The walls were falling apart last year so I spent six months rebuilding them with stone and more than 2,000 pounds of concrete, which I mixed by hand. One of the walls had a hole that went into the adjoining crawl space. I dug into it deep enough to get in and store things but I originally had ambitions to turn it into a gallery or speak-easy. Pictured here is an arch and "secret" door I made for the hole.

Like a Rock

2012-01-25T22:23:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
A big medical office building is going up across the street from my house. The excavators dug a huge, deep pit for the foundation. At one point, when the hole was rectangular, perfectly flat at the bottom and tidy all around, a lone, big rock stuck up out of the ground; the tip of a boulder the size of a car. There was something mesmerizing about this scene. Here was a rock that had been buried under soil and clay for hundreds of years, maybe much longer. It reminded me of a Zen garden. It was not surrounded by pebbles raked by Buddhist monks, but packed earth with a rippled pattern of metal tank treads. I thought it would be nice if the builders would leave the rock and just pour the foundation around it so there would be this surprise in the basement. One late afternoon I decided to go out and photograph it but the sun had set and it was very dark. So I set up my tripod and because I was shooting black and white film I overrode the shutter speed and exposed the film for almost twenty seconds. The result is the image here. The next day the workers showed up with jack hammers and backhoes and broke the rock up into little pieces and put it on the side to be carted away later. The ground was flat.

The Broken Vase

2012-01-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin
It is bulk-trash pickup today in my town. It is a day when I should be blindfolded, bound with zip-ties and locked in a windowless room. Bulk-trash pickup day happens twice a month and you can put anything bulky out on the curbside and the town garbage collectors will pick it up and toss it in their truck. I live in a nice town so people throw out nice things, often because they are bored of them but usually because there is something broken. I never go out of my way for it - some people drive around in pick-up trucks the night before and collect everything they can - but I certainly have had absurd bounty: electric lawn mowers, cross-country skis, museums pedestals, etc. This morning I was running through the hills of my town. It was still dark, which is a time you should definitely not trash-pick because it is hard to assess the condition of something. Midway through my run I saw a huge, broken Greek vase. It is entirely kitsch but it was also such a great big sculptural object. So I picked it up and ran about two miles with it home and placed it on my art/junk wall outside my house.

Dating Dorian Gray

2012-01-24T09:57:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
A couple years ago, I swapped computer assistance for French classes. It turned into more than just helping a lady revamp her website: I also helped her set up online dating profiles. She was in her 60's, looked like she was in her 70's, posted that she was in her 50's and was looking for men in their 40's. She would scoff at anyone nearing her years. Although she was not realistic about her age, she was candid about the situation. "I hope you never have to do this" she said to me in a deeply sad voice. Yesterday I was reading the Get Naked page of Time Out New York and there was a 59-year-old man who wrote in that he was passing himself off as a 37-year-old guy to his 20-year-old boyfriend. I never understood this. It is flattering to be told you look younger than you are and to feel like a twenty-something as you pass through your middle years because you exercise, eat well and have good genes but why on Earth would you want to set yourself up to appear to be a poorly aging younger person as opposed to a timeless older person? If anything, the latter means you hold the secret to extended youth.

Portrait with a Low Brow: Whistler's Mother was a "Mad Old Cow"

2012-01-23T08:51:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
In the film Bean, Mr. Bean is a narcoleptic sitter at the Royal National Gallery. He is gladly shipped off to America when the Grierson Gallery of Los Angeles seeks an expert to receive Whistler's famous painting known at Whistler's Mother from the Musee d'Orsay. The painting is actually titled Arrangement in Grey and Black. Bean is anything but a specialist and is mistaken as a quirky genius. When asked about his position, he says "I sit in the corner and look at the paintings." The curator is impressed by this simple approach for a scholar. The movie is full of lowbrow antics: Bean sneezes on the head in the painting and tries to clean it up with paint thinner but ends up dissolving it, which he then replaces with a cartoon face. He fixes the disaster by swapping the damaged canvas with a poster. In his speech at the unveiling, Bean offers that it is a large painting, which is good because if it were a small painting - microscopic - no one would be able to see it, and that is about family, which he has discovered on his trip is the most important thing. He says that even though Whistler's mother was a "mad old cow" he was still thoughtful enough to spend the time to paint her picture.

Comic Book Confidential

2012-01-22T17:57:00.003-05:00

by Drew Martin

I watched Comic Book Confidential online today, which is a film that surveys the history of the comic book medium, starting with the hero characters created during World War II. The movie is from 1988 but it is dated in all the right ways. For one thing it is a time when the comic book was still a comic book. A young Art Spiegelman, who is interviewed in the film, had published his first completed volume of Maus only two years prior. Although the label graphic novel had been around for some time before, it was with Maus that I recall the term got traction in the general public, mainly because the content about the Holocaust was too grave to refer to as a comic. Along with Spiegelman, the film features more than twenty artists including Frank Miller, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Robert Crumb and William Gaines - who says his father invented the comic book from the Sunday comics. One of the treats of the film is that several of the artists read from their works. Eisner succinctly expresses the draw to creating comics,

"I can tell a whole story at two levels. I can deal in writing and I can deal in acting. It has a completeness to it that satisfies me."

Project Light

2012-01-21T10:43:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
Projected and transmitted light plays an important part in two shows, a stone's throw apart, in the West Village. Uri Aran (at Gavin Brown) uses multiple video projections, a slide projector and one small, black and white Spectra television (pictured left - top) to display his content. David Lamelas (at Maccarone) projects light in a very different way. He uses old movie projectors - one of them points at the glass doors of the entrance to the gallery. The other one is turned in the opposite direction and projects a modest patch of light on a white wall - pure light (pictured left - bottom). It is as if the two artists were given the same class assignment to use projections of light in their work and each of them executed the concept with very different interpretations. Aran idles in front of his camera - listing "cuisines of the world" in one of his small rear-projections. In another similar rear-projection he describes ten soiled balls hammocked beneath his talking image. The detached Aran dunks a tea bag and fumbles with cookies in one of the larger wall projections. The television loops a scene of a mother and son snuggling while the mother strokes his hair. The carousel projector with 80-slides shows details of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street with cookies. Cookies are a major theme here. They are childish doubloons and symbolize home as well as the crumbling fragility of boyhood. In one part of another large projection, which has a whole gallery room dedicated to it, Aran repeats "Look mom. Look at that." He says it in his adult voice but with the tone of a child who is desperate to get his mother's attention. Melancholic music and table-displays of scrappy, unsophisticated objects all work together to create a very troubled feeling of loss and insecurity. There is something very sad about Aran's installation...not depressing just neglected...like he is waiting for his mother to come to him with tea and cookies and to clean up his mess in the gallery. Considering Aran's show next door, Lamelas' use of movie projectors is very poignant. While Aran seeks attention and projects something like a substitution of home movies, Lamelas projects the absence of them. There is no film, no image, just light. The projectors make their metallic ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta sounds, the light flutters and the extended arms, which would normally hold the film reels, seem pointless now, especially the rear arms, which spin effortlessly. The light hitting the glass front doors temporarily blinds the visitor and the light hitting the wall is without incident unless you pass by it, which would then cast your shadow on the wall in the frame of the lit rectangle.

The Common Vision of Churches and Casinos

2012-01-17T23:00:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin
I met up with my friend John Coburn after work today. John is an artist I have been following for a couple years and the first person I had a studio visit with as an arts writer, which is when I found out that he knew much more about art than I did. In 2010, I interviewed him (Bring It On: An Interview with John Coburn) and reviewed his show Fairlane Marauder. John works as a decorative painter at EverGreene Architectural Arts, a painting studio dedicated to restoration, conservation and decorative painting. I stopped in tonight to take a look. I was amazed by the large spaces, huge paintings and supplies everywhere. Apparently a lot of the work is for churches and casinos, and many times it is difficult to tell which of the two destinations a painting will call home. One set of canvases being worked on (not by John), which I found interesting was an enormous painting of the sun shining through heavenly clouds. Taped to the wall, next to it, was a source for the work: a photograph from 9/11 of the sun setting through the dust of Ground Zero kicked up in the wreckage. I made two fly-on-the-wall videos when I was there: one of a religious painting on the wall opposite the sunburst and one of an artist drawing. There is also an interesting video EverGreene has online about historic finishes investigations.

A Well-Designed Future

2012-01-17T09:14:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin
Yesterday I watched the documentary Objectified, which is about the conception and production of things. It is a slickly made film, produced and edited with an attention to detail worthy of the industrial designers interviewed. In one scene, the retired Braun designer, Dieter Rams, trims a bonsai in his garden in Kronberg. He says that good design should be innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, honest, unobtrusive, long-lived, consistent in every detail, environmentally friendly...and "last but not least, good design is as little design as possible." The documentary returns to Rams at the end for a slightly apocalyptic comment...."The value, and especially the legitimization of design will be, in the future, measured more in terms of how it can enable us to survive, and I don't think this is an exaggeration, to survive on this planet." Rams points to Apple as today's best design firm, which prompts an interview with Jonathan Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President - Industrial Design, who speaks about undesigning and getting design out of the way. Karim Rashid questions why we need to keep revisiting the archetype; why for instance, does a digital camera try to reference a film camera, which had been designed for the way film loads. This documentary addresses cradle-to-cradle design issues of sustainability. What I found most interesting were the designers who spoke about design beyond products; using design to understand situations and to design solutions.

First Impressions: A Look at Homepages of 40 Museums

2012-01-15T23:57:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin

I am embarking on making a website for The Museum of Peripheral Art. I had one before but I took it down just before I turned my attention to this blog. I thought I should first take a look at the websites of internationally renowned museums as well as a few that I had good memories visiting. Museums come in all shapes and sizes and have very different revenue sources but on the Internet the opportunities to present an institution is a fair game. Some organizations do a decent job of representing who they are, while others fail miserably. A museum website should embody the heart and soul of a museum. Presented here are thumbnails of "print screens" of 40 museums, the majority are in the United States, with a large number in New York, but these also include museums from Australia, China, Czech, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Qatar, Russia, Spain and Switzerland. I just realized that I completely forgot to look at Italian museums' websites (of course they would know how to put on a good show) but when I clicked on the website for the Uffizi, I was more than disappointed. My comments are beneath each set of four images:

I like simple homepages without too much clutter and when they give you an impression of what they are about. I think it was important for the New Museum to show some of its gallery space with an exhibit. The Metropolitan and the Louvre - both classy. The Rubin, OK, I know I am heading East.

These are examples with an urge to tell you more about themselves and they do a good job of it, each in a way that represents the respective organization well. There is a trend now in website design towards cleaner looks but I like the richness of these pages. There is information but they do not seem informational.

These try to do the same thing but have a bit of a breakdown in layout. The Rijks kills it on the lower left in the same way that the Tate's right "shop" navigation bar and bottom-center "follow us" section seem misplaced. MAD overuses its logo and MoMA looks like it is selling ad space and only whispers its name.

There is something wrong with all of these but they all have something going for them. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney is too busy and the top navigation is quirky (perhaps too cute) but I actually found it amusing...while it is loading a little janitor is mopping the top header and then people walk into the header and assume a place in the navigation. When you mouse over each one, he or she waves and then a speech bubble pops up over him or her, with subcategories. I like it because, starting with the janitor, it shows you that the museum is about the staff too. I really liked the Prado's homepage when I first saw it because it looked clean and organized but each time I go back to it, it looks more and more boring. Although The National Museum of Moder Art, Tokyo's page is almost void of images, I do like how they make it super clear what they are about Art - Craft - Film. The Virginia Museum of Fine Art has a gorgeous new addition and an impressive collection but this page does not show that and it has banner overkill.

These examples are quite nice and they are all in the same family. They are simple but a little safe. I was expecting a little more of a punch from The Warhol, MOCA - Los Angeles is what I expected, the Städel's site is clean and organized like the museum and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is very similar, but I have to admit - its use of a great exterior shot of the museum piques my interest in going there. It looks beautiful and modern.

The site for the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi has some clunky navigation but it actually do the best job of all the sites showcasing its collection. I immediately know what I am in for, which I like. I think if the Getty cleaned up its header, it would work better. The Art Institute of Chicago has too much going on and should show its new modern wing by Renzo Piano. The Newseum is the only site I included here that is not an art museum so in all fairness I cannot compare it as such. I just thought it was interesting to take a look at a museum based on mass media.

The Guggenheim commits the same act of design murder by inflating its name. It is busy and boring at the same time. SFMOMA's site would be better if it did not use a Flash build. Otherwise, I actually like how simple and simply different it is...it is growing on me. The Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha is a fantastic building by I. M. Pei and it should be shown off in the header instead of a bad, stylized rendering of it. This last one here pains me. I visited the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1992. I remember it being small but unique . This website des not recall its fascinating collection for me and it has the name/logo in the footer when it should be in the header.

They get worse: the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghei's website is too amateurish, apparently I should bring my MasterCard to Budapest if I want to look at art, the National Museum in Prague's website looks like they are still using a template from the 1990's and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw took a bad logo and made it huge but then the use of it in the upper left of the website looks like it was photocopied from the back of a discarded tram ticket.

These last four are crimes against humanity. I remember being awed by the Ishtar gate preserved at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin when I saw it as a young man. This site looks like a form. I spent a week next to the the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres about that same time in 1992. How could you go wrong designing a site about Dalí's work? I toured the Hermitage when St. Petersburg was still Leningrad and was blown away by it. The site should simply loop the trailer for Russian Ark - the movie with the longest "shot" in film history and the first feature film created in a single take, with 2,000 actors bringing to life 300 years of Russian history in 33 rooms of the Hermitage. I have never been to the Pompidou but it was in all my art history books - Piano's building turned inside out...this homepage is dead.

Eva Hesse: Picking up the Pieces

2012-01-13T22:56:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
There is an interesting talk online, Drawing as Primary Medium, by the curator Catherine de Zegher about Eva Hesse, a brilliant artist who has a cult following that still mourns her untimely death and keeps her unique work alive in caring hands.

Hesse was born in Hamburg in 1936 but was sent to America via England when she was two to flee Nazi Germany. Her parents split when she was eight and her mother committed suicide when she was ten. Hesse died of a brain tumor at the age of 34. With this background it is common to describe Hesse's art as work about loss.

De Zegher relates the act of drawing as the outward gesture to another person as well as the first exploration - departing from one's mother. She is not the most engaging speaker but she is intimate with Hesse on many levels. De Zegher speaks of Hesse's work as the hybridization of sculpture and drawing and a union of opposites that can never be together; black and white, rejection and incorporation.

De Zegher says that Hesse "picked up" drawing in two ways...raising it from a subservient position in a painting and sculpture-dominated art world and by literally picking up materials for her work from the floor of a defunct textile factory in a suburb of Essen, which she and her husband Tom Doyle occupied as studio space when they returned to her homeland for a period. Hesse made an attempt to translate her drawings into paintings but it did not work for her. The reason for this was that her drawings were more like sculpture, which is why she developed such a natural relationship between the different disciplines. Hesse's work was pioneering because she used materials that were still ignored in the arts. De Zegher says that 70% of the artists she interviews mention Hesse as an influence because of her complex thinking around space, process and connectivity. She speaks for Hesse when she quotes Richard Tuttle in the talk:

"I ask the material to tell me what it knows and then I humbly listen. The payoff is greater than the humiliation."

Create Dangerously

2012-01-11T23:01:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin
I recently watched an online lecture by Edwidge Danticat titled: Create Dangerously - The Immigrant Artist at Work. She expresses that writers belong to their readers and are honorary citizens of the countries where they are read and that self doubt is part of the acclimatization of every immigrant, which is the staple for artists. "The immigrant artist shares with all other artists a desire to remake the world even if the world is full of xenophobia, sexism, racism and just plain meanness." It is not a delicate lecture. She begins with the execution of two young talented Haitian men: "Their blood on the wall was the collaborative work of a dictator and henchmen." She speaks of the need for convincing each other in extreme conditions that art can be created, finding a balance between silence and art. She speaks of Albert Camus - creating with a sense of political responsibility and a revolt against silence. Danticat questions how writers and artists find each other in dangerous times; when reading and writing is an act of disobedience. She says "What joins writers, is that somewhere, if not now, someone might risk his or her life to read us." She quotes Osip Mandelshtam, the Russian poet and essayist: "Only in Russia poetry is respected – it gets people killed."

Butterflies on My Mind

2012-01-11T08:57:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin

Butterflies have been on my mind. It started with a documentary about a woodworker who used butterfly dovetails and with images of an installation of butterfly cut-outs by my friend Kirk Maxson (pictured - left). Yesterday I drew a butterfly hanging sets of her wings out to dry and I just woke up from a peculiar dream about a butterfly. I was visiting a couple in Piermont, New York. The husband had just invented illuminated clothes hangers for dark closets, which could be disassembled and used as shoelaces for runners. They looked particularly similar to the clear noodles I ate last night, but with a red glow. I was there for an experiment: to transfer my mind to a butterfly. I was reluctant to do so and thought, "Who will take care of my body while I am away?" When I entered the room for the procedure, I was surprised. In place of a surgical suite, there was a dining room with tables of well-dressed guests waiting to witness this. There was a table for me to lie on and some kind of apparatus to monitor me. I needed some time to think about this so I excused myself and left for the bathroom. I closed the door and woke up in my bed at home.

The Compleat Sculptor

2012-01-11T08:24:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin

One of my favorite escapes in New York is to go the basement of The Compleat Sculptor, Inc. at 90 Vandam Street between Hudson Street and Greenwich Street in SoHo. It is only a couple blocks from me but it feels like a world away. The above-ground store has traditional sculpting supplies and modern casting materials for the "Sculptor, Prop Maker, Prototype Maker, Conservator, Police/FBI/Law Enforcer, Model Maker, Restorer, Architect, Body Caster, Display/Window Designer, 3D Mosaicist, Scenic Artist, Fine Art Student, Archaeologist, Special Effects Artist, Mold-Maker..." The basement is a cavernous open space with stone and wood from all over the world. Sometimes I go there to buy sculpting tools or large boxes of air-drying clay. My favorite corner of their cellar is the 99-cent/pound pot-luck bin where you can find abandoned stone fragments such as my favorite piece "Cantaloupe" (pictured left). This is a roll-up-one's-sleeves artist's place that offers classes in stone carving, clay sculpture, portrait drawing and mold making. Click here to see someone at work in one of the studio spaces.

The History of Light

2012-01-10T17:50:00.002-05:00

by Drew Martin

Even though we can see starlight from billions of years ago, light is fresh: we can create it with chemical, nuclear and mechanical means. With the quest for fire, humans discovered a powerful combination of heat and light. The electric lightbulb lit up civilization around 1880. Motion pictures were first projected in 1895. The first installation of a neon sign was 1912, the same year as the first red-green electric traffic light. In Times Square, the first large electric billboard was installed in 1917 and the first running electric display was installed in 1928. The first television screen was created in 1923 and the first LCD computer monitor was developed in 1972. When I think about light, I wonder just how long plain light will last in its simplest use - to illuminate, and how it will be replaced by informational light. Could, for example, headlights of cars contain signatures that would provide law enforcement with registration information, car-make and driver identification that could be picked up by a scanner. For that matter, could headlights even project images, like a drive-in-movie-for-one. Likewise, could street lamps also project or relay information about lost cats, garbage pickup, and parking. Light has always been a key to our existence but now it is a valuable resource for energy and information.

Kids Doing Cartwheels in Sri Lanka

2012-01-09T08:43:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin
In 2011, Katie Humphries, a New York-based photographer, asked me to speak to the students of her P.S. 3 after-school photography class about my UNDER THE HOOD: New York project that was displayed at the New York Public Library. I also spent some time discussing how I professionally use photography and showed the young students progress photos of many iconic buildings in New York and spoke about photoshoots, use of images in advertising and materials, and archiving. I was really impressed by Katie's commitment to this class. This is her nature and the direction of her creative energy. She recently returned from a trip Sri Lanka as part of The cARTwheel Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that travelled there to work with Tamil children in worn-torn regions. They created four art workshops (photography, painting and collage, graphic design, and music) in three schools: Mallavi Central College, Pandiyankulum, and Poonekary. The program included Tamil students between the ages of 10-17. The project culminated with a school community exhibition and a show in Colombo as well.

Origami May Save Your Life

2012-01-08T12:24:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin

I watched a fascinating documentary yesterday about origami: Between the Folds: Exploring Origami. The film is incredibly well constructed because of the way it takes you deeper and deeper into the world of origami. It starts off with representational origami and the realism achieved by origami artists such as Michael LaFosse, who is the only origami maker who also makes his own paper and he makes the paper with a piece in mind, i.e. double-sided black and yellow for a toucan. Then there is Dr. Robert J. Lang who holds two Caltech degrees and gave up a full-time gig at Caltech to pursue origami. As an art form, origami is unique; it is a metamorphic art, as opposed to additive or subtractive art. Its secrets and beauty are in the folding, which its followers explain is everywhere: the folding of fabric, sound waves, mountains, galaxies, DNA...everything. Some origami makers say it is improvisational like jazz, while others claim it is more like sonatas or fugues. Lang, who gives his work opus numbers, offers an analogy between music and the laws of paper, "What you can accomplish is strongly governed by mathematical laws of music; the harmonic ratios between the notes and rhythms." And this is where the documentary gets even more interesting. Anyone who is anyone in the origami world agrees, Akira Yoshizawa (1911-2005) was the master who took the basics of school-kid origami and made it an art form and a science. Dr. Thomas Hull, a mathematics professor at Merrimack College, speaks about math as all of its subjects together and says that origami exhibits this including: geometry, number theory, abstract algebra, linear algebra with matrices, and "weird-bizarre" geometry like geometry of the sphere. Dr. Erik Demaine is a 30-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the top origami theorist. He went to college at 12, got his bachelor's degree at 14 and his Ph.D. at 20, with his dissertation on computational origami. He joined the MIT faculty at that time and received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship "Genius Award" two years later in 2003. If you think folding paper is being taken too seriously, consider the practical applications: the airbag algorithm came from the design of artistic origami and origami design is being used in the space industry to engineer foldable satellite parts that can be packed into rockets and unfurled in space. Demaine also touches upon pharmaceutical applications - how proteins fold determine good health or disease and being able to create proteins with a certain fold would make it possible to target certain viruses.

The Emperor's Nude Tunick

2012-01-07T12:08:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin

I just watched Naked States, a documentary about Spencer Tunick, the photgrapher who made his name taking pictures of mass nudes in public. I have liked his work but had no idea who he was, I definitely did not expect the quirky New Yorker who was not quick to shed his own clothes when he ended up at a nudist beach in Sandy Hook, New Jersey. To fit in, he and his crew disrobed but he said it was too hard to concentrate on his work and he complained about a lack of pockets. Tunick's photos are beautifully still with bodies that seem to be in-between rest and death. He says his work has two sides: form and shape without fashion, and a reaction to war, terrorism and killing. For his first shoot with more than 1,000 people (gathered at a Phish concert) he photographed all the bodies lying down on an old Air Force runway that used to be home to fighter jets with nuclear capabilities. Now that Tunick is famous he can get whoever and however many people he wants to pose for him, but this documentary from 2000 is simply about a guy with an idea and a camera. It shows an unknown Tunick struggling to earn his recognition: driving across the country with his devoted girlfriend in a van to different shoots, trying to find models on the street like a guileless Greenpeace volunteer asking passersby to sign a petition. At a biker gathering an irate father tells him to F-off when he approaches his daughter. The amazing thing about the documentary is that it shows the cycle of participation. Some people are up for anything but for the most part the people he asks are bashful and reluctant but then speak about the experience as liberating and the awkward feeling of putting their clothes back on. One young woman in Fargo responds to his initial request, "Don't you know we are in North Dakota and we are very repressed." She talks to friends right afterwards. A guy is suspicious but a girl says that it must be as liberating as skinny dipping. The most moving subject is a young woman who is extremely shy about the offer and then after being photographed says she was raped six months prior to the shoot and that since the rape she had an invisible boundary around her. She says that Tunick's shoot was 90% of her therapy to feel "free to be me." Most of the bigger shoots seem completely chaotic and frustrating. At the time of the film, Tunick was arrested five times, three of those in New York. For a New York arrest shown in the beginning of the film, Tunick is charged with aiding and abetting disorderly conduct. The movie ends with the charges dropped and the triumph of a impressive solo show at the I-20 gallery.

The Cloud

2012-01-05T20:31:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin
Walt Disney was restless in the afterlife. The Cloud was boring, but then it filled with digital information: articles, photos and movies. Walt, the omnivore that he is, devours all of it. One of his favorite things to watch is a performance by Lenka Klodová. In the piece, Lenka gives a survey of art with large, painted cardboard panels and her big, bare breasts. You never actually see Lenka topless because she stands behind the boards. To begin, Lenka holds up a large panel with a painting of Madonna/Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. Then she knocks out the head of the Christ child and substitutes his cherubic face with a round breast. The small crowd in the brick room cheers at the transformation of Christ from mere paper into living flesh. An old man with a scraggly beard raises his hands and shouts..."It's a miracle!" Lenka then holds up a still-life painting of a bowl overflowing with juicy fruits. She tosses aside two, flat apples and replaces them with her own ripe melons. Finally, (Walt's favorite part) Lenka holds up a huge panel with a painted Mickey Mouse, which is almost as tall as she is. Some viewers start singing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. Lenka punches out Mickey's eyes from behind and slips both breasts through the cardboard sockets. Walt admits, Mickey never looked so good.

The Cabbage

2012-01-04T23:04:00.002-05:00

by Drew Martin

In my mid-twenties, I lived in Sudetenland where I used to ride the trolley buses. One day, I got on a full bus and a middle-aged woman squished next to me. She was curvy and carried heavy bags of produce. The doors closed and the bus rolled forward. Our backs were to each other and our bodies overlapped on one of our legs. Her calf muscle was strong and firm, and it pressed against my leg with a hidden desire. I stood still and enjoyed the sensation. We rode over a metal bridge above the Elbe and turned before a small basalt mountain where a fallout shelter had been prepared for the communist elite. That was a fading era: the Berlin Wall had been torn down a few years earlier and people were enjoying new freedoms, everyone except me. I was stuck in this backwards town in a bad marriage and all I had in this moment was the pressing leg of a stranger. The bus continued on and bounced and people's bodies jiggled. When we rounded a corner one way our legs would press harder and then on the opposite turn our calves would briefly disconnect but soon find each other again. Finally, the trolley bus slowed down before the main station. The doors opened and I turned as I got out to look as this companion's leg, only to find it had been a cabbage in her bag.

Drawn to Landscape

2012-01-04T10:49:00.003-05:00

by Drew Martin
I recently revisited the lecture Blind Landscape by Teresita Fernández, which she gave at Princeton in 2009. I watched it a couple years ago but was not stirred by it, so I watched it again and listened to it several times. I also checked out some more-recent online interviews with her in order to understand this artist who I have not met and whose work I have never seen in situ. Fernández is the first to point out: you need to see her work in person, but The Museum of Peripheral Art's raison d'être is to embrace the peripheral, mediated experience of the arts. Fernández is beyond accomplished: her work has been shown all over the world, her awards include the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship "Genius Award" (2005), and last year President Obama appointed her to the United States Commission of Fine Arts. Fernández calls herself a conceptual artist but I do not like that term (for her) because what she produces is really installation art. In keeping with her own label, however, it would be more appropriate to call her a conceptual landscape artist because her work is about the grandiosity of land (and sea) but is also intimately close to the composition and details of the whole. Not only does travel suit this very cultured and articulate artist, but I think Fernández really redefines what traveling as an artist can be - a constant, creative exchange with landscapes. Although people are not present in her work - they are integral to it as the viewer, mimicking the reality of our relationship with the land and architecture. Most artists from Miami - (now) based in Brooklyn would only trash-talk New Jersey to stake one's claim as a New Yorker but Fernández is territorial in the greatest sense - she explores her environment with a curious eye and an open mind. I was impressed when she spoke about some of the Garden State's points of interest: the other-worldly phosphorescence room at the Franklin Mineral Museum and the Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson. What I like most about Fernández is her interest in things such as the intentionally surface-burned houses of Naoshima, Japan (pictured left - bottom), which she calls big charcoal drawings, and the graphite mines of Borrowdale, England, where graphite has been used for ages to mark sheep, which she delights in calling animated drawings. Pictured left - top is Ring of Fire by Fernández.

The First Stone Sculptures of Life

2012-01-03T00:37:00.004-05:00

by Drew Martin

It has been relayed to me all of my life by art historians that Michelangelo found his human forms inside the blocks of marble and he merely released them. He died in 1564 and while fossils of bizarre creatures had been discovered for centuries, it was not for another 300 years that people started making sense of them. There is something very Michelangelo about fossilized plants and animals - hints of life trapped in stone/converted to stone. It is also quite mythological: Medusa-like. Two days ago, a neighbor and I were walking around an excavation across the street from my house. We live in northern New Jersey, which is full of glacial field stones. The deep dig turned up thousands of rocks, some the size of large cars. On the way out of the site, my neighbor saw a chunk of sandstone. He mentioned there would be fossils inside, perhaps a few shells, so he lifted it above his head and threw it down on the asphalt driveway. It split open to reveal the tail of some ancient creature, with a ribbed end. It was fascinating to witness and to contemplate this life form from a much earlier time and to imagine that the very land we stood on was once covered by the ocean.
Click here to see a video of the rock and fossil.

Possible Side Effects of Good Design

2012-01-02T19:27:00.004-05:00

by Drew Martin

I just finished watching the Princeton University online lecture SIGNALS GraphicChipDesignKidd. Chip Kidd is an author, editor and graphic designer, best known for his book covers for Knopf where he has worked in design since 1986 and is now the associate art director. Kidd is a captivating, colorful and articulate speaker. This lecture is a must-see for graphic designers; he speaks about time and sequence, color crescendo, making typography "look like it is in denial," the fine line between minimalism and boredom, and most importantly figuring out your idea and concept before trying to make it look good or leading the project with style in mind. The six-finger image here is from the cover of Augusten Borroughs' Possible Side Effects. While discussing the approach for Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, he talks about incorporating 16th century Turkish court paintings and generalizes about such details, "We want to present them in a way that will provide them a narrative that is applicable and relative to what is going on in the book." Kidd taught Senior Graphic Design Portfolio at the School of Visual Arts in New York for six years and seems to have the best of both worlds - the tools computers can offer but also the skills of a hands-on, old-school designer.

Human Geography

2012-01-01T18:56:00.001-05:00

by Drew Martin

Yesterday I watched the Princeton University online lecture Place, Art, and Self by Yi-Fu Tuan, who was introduced as a pioneer in human geography. He spoke about our spaces - natural (pristine nature), artificial (all architecture) and virtual (the space in art and music where we pause to rest to be nurtured). He differentiated the kinds of art - photography is a very stabile space, while 'dutifully plodding through a novel' is too much like life, not a place to rest with one inconsequential incident after another, but added that even in a novel there are pages that work on our sensibility, making us aware of our presence and mood to which we may wish to return. Interestingly, he spoke about the nostalgia of (specifically) American men directed to the recent past and also about how home towns stunt growth and do not suffice for the mature human being. I think what Tuan considers with equal weight, physical and virtual spaces, are actually one in the same - we seek out environments that are manifestations of the space in our minds. Tuan said he has a desert personality and that people fall in love with a place in very much the same way they fall in love with others; affection for a place might be like a friendship that grows over time but it can also be love at first sight.

A Year in Review: The Museum of Peripheral Art in 2011

2011-12-31T01:00:00.003-05:00

Click here for The Museum of Peripheral Art's 2010 Annual Review
Click here for The Museum of Peripheral Art's 2009 Annual Review

The Fragility of Ideas

2011-12-30T08:34:00.003-05:00

by Drew Martin
In the Pacific episode of Stephen Fry in America, Fry visits Jonathan "Jony" Ive, Apple's design guru. Fry engages Ive on a rooftop overlooking San Francisco Bay:

It could be said that the two most influential Britons in the past thirty years are Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, and you, who have given us the iPod and all the train of Apple products. And yet you both choose to live and work in America. I wonder if that says something about Britain or more importantly about America.

With a modest stutter, Ive responds:
I think there is a conspicuous lack of cynicism and skepticism. Ideas are so fragile aren't they? It is so easy to miss an idea because they can be so quiet, or to snuff an idea out. I think that the sense of the inquisitiveness and willingness to try is so important for design; for developing those tentative, fragile ideas into a real product.

Like a Song, She Came Out of Nowhere

2011-12-29T09:34:00.002-05:00

by Drew Martin
Tomorrow is Patti Smith's 65th birthday. I did not know much about her - she was simply a figure carved into America's cultural landscape with Dylan, Hendrix and Kerouac. On Monday, I watched Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff + Robert Mapplethorpe. Interviewed in this documentary, Patti was pivotal in these men's lives and influential to the evolution of photography as art. The next morning, I watched her online Princeton University lecture: Picturing Robert: Remembering a friendship and artistic relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and then a friend and I talked about her and we listened to her songs. We went out for a late lunch and midway through our meal Patti walked right by our window, smiling and wet from the rain. What made an impression on me about her in the two videos was not her relations with Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff, or her music and their photos, but hearing her talk about her first aesthetic experiences; wanting to have her hot chocolate in a delicate china cup instead of the synthetic ware her mother used and also understanding how different a Vogue photo was compared to her class photos.

Like Moths to Flames

2011-12-28T06:35:00.000-05:00

by Drew Martin

My neighborhood for the past dozen years came with a serious Peeping Tom. He is an older, married man with kids in college. Interestingly, he is also a very visual person - an industrial designer. I think it is instinctual to look at a lit window, like moths to flames. I try not to do it when I am running every morning before sunrise because there is something naughty about it but mainly because what I typically get a look at are bald (albeit hairy) ugly men doing their thing in the bathroom. That being said, about a month ago I was running a little later than usual (because I had the day off) and just as I ran by one home a naked woman stepped up to her window. It all happened in the split second I ran by - I probably even ran faster so as not to be seen as the voyeur - but there was a part of me that was piqued. In many regards all photography and art, movies and television shows, people-watching and surfing the web is a form a voyeurism, which has various social responses and legal actions. I define it as a matter of intention and interaction. If you go out of your way or change course or slow your pace to indulge, then you are hooked. Pictured here is Edward Hopper's Night Windows from 1928.

Dreamedia

2011-12-26T08:41:00.005-05:00

by Drew Martin
I have written a few times before about dreams as media. In a time when they are taken less seriously for psychoanalysis, I think they still hold their own as media; they are free, require no production, no system/machine of distribution and they are never boring. Last night I had several dreams that took me to new, open landscapes and cities where the citizens swam in narrow canals. The dream I remember most vividly was one in which I went on an evening date with Anna Netrebko. We went to a grand hall and she started singing. A middle-aged man in a tuxedo joined her in duet. He had golden hair and golden skin, which was darker than his hair, and bright, straight teeth. I went outside the hall to the lawn, wondering if I should get Anna's car, some kind of silvery, sleek sportscar but then she slipped out a second-story window and I carried her in my arms to an overlook. She had on her red dress from La Traviata; I still remember the crisp material. We looked out over a valley of city lights, as numerous as the stars, and she said I could be with her forever. I told her that all of the lights reminded me of all the possibilities there are in this world, and with that the dream ended.

Representation, Narration and Iconoclasm in the Zen Garden

2011-12-25T10:34:00.015-05:00

by Drew Martin
I recently had the pleasure of meeting the director of the Mingei International Museum of folk art, craft and design in San Diego. Conversations about the museum's collection and then (less than two days later) flying over the Grand Canyon and other breathtaking western landscapes reminded me of a Princeton University lecture I watched/listened to online several years ago by Allen Weiss from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Weiss went to Japan to study Zen gardens and became interested in tea ceremony pottery, the glazes of which he compares to the abstraction of aerial landscape photography and what the poet Gary Snyder called the 'gleaming calligraphy of the ancient riverbeds.' Pictured here is a detail of Fujisan, the world's most famous raku tea bowl, from the early 17th century by the potter Honami Koetsu, which captures the snow and fog on Mount Fuji. Weiss speaks of experience through a synesthetic matrix and Japanese aesthetics:
"Large revelations often occur in very, very small places and they are very often the result in a radical shift in scale and perspective."

Megamorphosis

2011-12-24T03:31:00.012-05:00

by Drew Martin
This past week I was in San Diego and Los Angeles. I drove up Pacific Highway 1 at sunrise; the waves were bobbing with surfers. At sunset, I drove east into the desert and passed through valleys of dry, contorted earth and fields of tall, white windmills, which were spinning wildly. The next morning, I woke up surrounded by the arid mountains of Palm Springs. I flew east and switched planes in a blizzard in Denver, Colorado where people wore shirts with images of wolves and were dressed like outdoorsmen. By the evening I landed in a fair, damp Queens, New York. In the morning, I went for a run through the woods in New Jersey and felt enveloped in layers of life, compared to the fragile spattering of scrub brush in the desert. Yesterday, I returned to SoHo and got my haircut underground in Chinatown while listening to a Chinese opera. Usually it feels like everything is the same and that we change at an alarming rate, but the past few days I feel like I have been the constant and a million things have changed around me; the air, the temperature, the sights and sounds. While our minds are always open for new experiences, it feels like our psyche tries to anchor us in a sense of one-self, otherwise we could never navigate this vast sea of transformation.

The Greatest Czech Diplomat

2011-12-19T09:12:00.005-05:00

by Drew Martin
The nice building on the left in the picture is the Náprstek Museum in Prague. The street on the right is Náprstek Street. I lived down that street, on the left - at the end, for my first eight months in Prague in 1992. This area used to be really run down even though it is home to the church where Jan Hus used to preach. I lived in a squat then and we used to come down to the abandoned buildings around the museum and strip them of things we could use. Náprstek means thimble but the museum and street are named after Vojtěch Náprstek (1826 - 1894) who was a Czech philanthropist, patriot and politician, as well as a pioneering Czech language journalist in the United States. The museum holds the collection of artifacts he gathered on his world travels. The first use of electricity in Prague was to light a whale skeleton he brought back from one expedition. Thomas Edison came to oversee the electrical work. I remember reading that Náprstek was considered Czech's greatest diplomat. While reading, thinking and writing about Vaclav Havel yesterday, I remembered him that way, as one of Czech's greatest diplomats.

The Velvet Evolution

2011-12-18T20:09:00.010-05:00

by Drew Martin
In 1968, on the night of August 20/morning of August 21, armies from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary invaded Czechoslovakia. 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks entered the country. The engineer-turned photographer Josef Koudelka captured the most startling images of that hellish week, including this image for which he took a picture of a passerby's arm and wristwatch, with Wenceslas Square in the background, to show the exact time that troops invaded Prague. It was a repressive era that lasted four decades until the Velvet Revolution led by people such as Vaclav Havel, who died today. I liked Havel. I lived in Czech for five years of his presidency. He was a playwright, a musician and an artist. Culture was very important to him. I remember watching the news one night while he was on a trip to Australia. There was footage of him dancing bare-chested with the Aborigines. His aides and others were appalled - he did not care. I saw him a few times on the street and had the pleasure talking to him at a club opening where I had made and installed a sculpture of a human-sized angel. He even made a point at that time to show up at and support such events.

Make Her Work: Jenny Holzer

2011-12-17T22:44:00.009-05:00

by Drew Martin
I just saw Claudia Muller's documentary About Jenny Holzer, which is quite interesting. Holzer is the mother of text art. Her aphorisms/truisms have been placed and projected around the world on buildings, rivers, individuals and crowds.

Several times in the film, Holzer claims she is not a writer but attributes her form to her Midwestern roots where the spoken language is plain and succinct. The exception, she says, is that Midwesterners would typically be prone to keep things to themselves. Holzer writes with a personal (but not necessarily autobiographical) voice in a public forum.

Holzer started out as a painter and found her way to text by writing on top of abstract paintings. Many of her projects have only existed on moving electronic tables - her trademark LED displays. A friend describes her as a sensualist in the art-making process, which is why she likes projecting onto various surfaces that provide real texture. I do like how the movement of her text can be read as simply motion, which in itself tells us something without words.

Page One: Inside the New York Times

2011-12-13T15:17:00.009-05:00

by Drew Martin
My go-to person for documentary film suggestions is Gabrielle, the constant literary blogger at the contextual life. If I am late getting back from lunch it is typically because we bump into each other outside the building where we respectively work in SoHo and start talking about movies and such. Yesterday she recommended The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. The last movie she told me to watch that I did see was Page One: Inside the New York Times about the tumultuous times at The New York Times. She said I would like the "main character" David Carr - I did. My favorite comments by him were:
If you write about media long enough, eventually you'll type your way to your own doorstep.

The real value of Twitter is listening to a wired collective voice.

The medium is not the message. The messages are the media.

Turkish Delight

2011-12-12T17:37:00.009-05:00

by Drew Martin
I was tooling around Europe in in early 1990s and wound up in Istanbul for a week. It was uncommon for me to pay for lodging then but I found myself in a $3-a-night hostel next to the Hagia Sophia. I shared a room with the Australian I traveled there with from Greece, a New Zealander, an American and a Turkish woman who asked to stay with us because she said the women in her room were prostitutes.

The New Zealander intrigued me. He was a young sculptor traveling with his small, curious wood carvings. He had recently met up with Hundertwasser in Vienna, who purchased one of his pieces and invited him back to study with him.

It has been 19 years since that time and fortunately he reached out to me this past week. It is always nice to hear from someone so far removed but it was really special to see his matured sculptures. It was as if he had shown me an acorn in Istanbul, which he then planted and watched grow into a beautiful tree.

The Universe of Keith Haring

2011-12-11T07:18:00.009-05:00

by Drew Martin
I have always thought of Keith Haring's work as simply ubiquitous and repetitive commercial pop art but after watching The Universe of Keith Haring (2008) by Christina Clausen I understand his visual genius. He was perhaps the most spontaneous, consistent and prolific artists of all time. This thorough and admiring documentary shows Haring not only as a virtuosic painter but as a deep humanitarian. Yoko Ono perfectly sums it up when she says,

"Andy Warhol's work was creating something in a meaningful tradition but it was meaningless in a way and he liked the meaninglessness. And Keith was creating something that was looking like meaningless but actually it was meaningful."
Haring was greatly influenced by semiotics and his father's hobby with morse code. By his third year at SVA he was advised by a director of the school "Maybe you should try to be an artist instead of a student." To which he replied "Oh yeah, what a great idea!"

Emotional Landscapes

2011-12-10T06:30:00.004-05:00

by Drew Martin
Most people, myself included, do not actually know how to draw feelings and emotions. Perhaps abstract painting is best suited for this pursuit because figures, facial expressions and situational narratives typically drive an image towards obvious external interpretations.

The artist Claudia Ahlering, however, really challenges this notion. Her work recently caught my eye: a series of back-of-the-head portraits reminded me of Study of Lilia (1887) by Carolus-Duran. These portraits are her most sober work. Her larger, full-body and detailed paintings are looser and shift between realism and expressionism with dabs of color. They show me an artist with a rich soul but what I find most fascinating and revealing are her ink drawings. They are graphic; sometimes scatological, often very sexual.

Ahlering's imagination is ripe and her drawings move beyond a simply surreal realm into a purely emotional landscape.

Art & Copy: Art Serving Capitalism

2011-12-03T04:10:00.036-05:00

by Drew Martin

I have written about and recommended good documentaries for graphic artists such as Helvetica (about fonts/typography) and Milton Glaser, To Inform and Delight (about design). A third must-see film in this league, and perhaps the best crafted, is Art & Copy (about advertising).

For Mad Men fans, this is a good primer for a more evolved advertising environment to come in the much anticipated fifth season. Art & Copy is about the ad industry, roughly starting with the period when Don Draper is supposed to walk the Earth. That was a time dominated by copy - text-driven ads complemented by illustrative artwork.

All of this changed with Bill Bernbach, the legendary ad man and founder of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). Part of his strategy was to put the art director in same room with copy writer in order to develop an ad in unison. He was the first to see what concoction this chemistry yielded.

Bernbach was responsible for the timeless Volkswagen Beetle campaign that made the quirky and (at first) unpopular German car an American hit. He did so by cutting through the tradition that had gotten in the way of the art and developed the big idea.

The title of the documentary is perhaps too generic but I do like how it also suggests the idea of making art and copying it, or copying art for advertising.

Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day speaks about the art of ads becoming part of culture as opposed to some form of "pollution." After reviewing his firm's iPod campaign (silhouette dancers) he says,

These things end up out in the world as art...you know, you go back a couple hundred years to Paris and Toulouse-Lautrec was doing posters that went up around Paris to invite people to the Folies Bergère. It is now considered art. There are now coffee table books made of Toulouse-Lautrec art but back then he was just trying to get people to come and buy a drink, pay the cover charge to get into the Folies Bergère. I think we are in the art business when we do it well.

Jeff Goodby (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) thinks of advertising as art serving capitalism.

Directed by Doug Pray, Art & Copy features interviews with some of the biggest names in the ad business, who created lines that are now part of American's DNA:

Jeff Goodby: got milk?
Dan Wieden: Just Do It.
Cliff Freeman: Where's the beef?
George Lois: I want my MTV!

These were not belabored ideas but quick thoughts. Goodby offered got milk? as a solution to an presentation board without a title. Wieden skimmed Just Do It. from a newspaper article heading "Let's Do It," the last words of a murderer from Utah to the firing squad just before his execution.

All of these are part of our psyche now and have bloomed beyond their original intention.

I want my MTV! was conceived to pressure cable companies to carry the network. It worked, instantly. The campaign is as demanding as Americans can be. The beef of Where's the beef? has come to mean any and all content and substance. Just Do It. became a mantra to everyone for everything including quitting a job, traveling, asking someone on a date and even divorce. Got milk? has yielded the most spin-offs...got this? got that? It means if you do not have it, you should. As far as product-pushing one-liners, got milk? is pure gold.

Goodby comments, "It's so short and it's almost nothing. It's almost gone before you can say the words."

The nice thing about watching Art & Copy, as opposed to just reading about it (here and elsewhere), is to be able to see the spark in the creatives' eyes. Goodby has a kind, good-vibe face. His ideas grace him. Dan Wieden appears to be wicked smart and has a piercing intelligence. Freeman looks like he could sell you anything (he used to be a door to door salesman for encyclopedias). Lois seems more like a boxing coach than an ad man. He throws the equivalent of one-two punches that knock you out in the first round. His unfiltered creativity is simply pure, punkish energy. He thinks an ad should be like poison gas that makes your eyes sting and chokes you. He speaks about grabbing the client "by the balls."

By turning the industry on its head, a handful of creatives really did change the world.

Mary Wells (DDB) arrived at advertising with a background in theatre. Television ads at that time were simply moving versions of the print ad. Wells changed all that and introduced the idea of skits and situational comedy to the commercial. She also single-handedly changed the airlines, using DDB's account with Braniff Airlines. She sold them on painting their planes different colors, she brought in Alexander Girard for design, hired high-end fashion designers to make the uniforms for stewardesses, decorated planes with the flair of the destination. Flying became fun. Stewardesses became sexy.

One thing that really surprised me was some psychological digging in the film.

Wells (pictured left) says her mother was quiet and her father out of sight. He was an ambulance driver back from WWII and clinically depressed. She says he never said a word at dinner. "No one ever talked to me about anything." She adds, "I think people who are loners, who have lives they kind of have to overcome when they are young...I think that they get a strength that is very useful later on."

Charlie Moss, a creative director at Wells Rich Greene who created the “I Love New York” campaign, says Wells perfected the combined role of salesmen and entertainer.

The success of the mass media communicators seems to be born in a lacking childhood.

Rich Silverstein (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) said he guesses it is all about trying to prove to his father that he is worth anything.

Clow (TBWA\Chiat\Day) speaks about being the little guy, David versus Goliath, a small firm versus a big ad agency, creative versus corporate. "Creatives rise up, they can't do shit without us!" is his battle call. He notes that this approach comes from meeker, underpowered times in high school.

The most telling of this psychological condition is from Hal Riney, the man behind Ronald Reagan's reelection ad campaign.

Emotion was always to some degree a part of my life that had been left out and I think...I suspect I let advertising be a sort of an avenue to express some of the things that I might not have experienced in my life. I missed a lot of things and I certainly missed the kind of wonderful families that we all still admire and I think there is a lot of that in my work.

Goodby, who seems the most immune and well adjusted of the lot, says,

When Americans buy a Hal Riney experience, when they buy into one of his campaigns, I think many times what they are buying is what they wished their lives would be; A feeling for something that happened in their childhood or, you know, something that would have been better if you'd had that kind of dad or that kind of mom or lived in that kind of house or that kind of little town. A time in America that people had wished had happened - probably never did. What people don't understand is that how as a person you are experiencing is actually what he wishes his life would be and he's creating that and it's so evocative and so attractive. You're feeling him, experiencing the man - Hal, about trying to move people by emotions.

Silverstein contributes,

Hal Riney is the devil and he's also the angel. Riney always said there is the responsibility on the part of the advertiser for people to know that this was an ad... so that when you are talking to somebody you had to make it clear that you are talking in the form of advertising to them at the time. Well, that world is like long gone. You know a lot of the things that have happened to us in the name of advertising sneak up on us in crazy ways and they seem like something else. It's not about commercials any more. It's about everything. Everything is an ad: a stunt or paint on the wall or a guerilla tactic or a theatre placement or product. It just goes on and on and on and on.

To this Goodby ads, "It's like air and water. It's just going to happen to you."

Freeman considers a mutual relationship,

If you communicate in a way that is entertaining people literally get something from it and they literally like you because of the way you sold them something...they are like...(they're American man)…"This is free enterprise you are a hell of a good salesman thank you very much!"

When speaking about the Just Do It. Nike campaign by Weiden + Kennedy, Goodby explains,

The reason why the campaign is successful is that a likable human emotion - the idea that we can get healthier - was suddenly in parallel with a corporate mission which was to sell a whole bunch of equipment to people and we like those two things together. We don't distrust those two things when they are going in the same direction. People don't mind being sold to if they understand why it's happening and they enjoy the process. At the same time I would hope that people understand that brands can be dangerous.

All the ad people interviewed in Art & Copy seem to be sincere about making well made ads.

Jim Durfee explains,

If you can find that kernel, that core of what the product is, so that when you talk about it, no matter how you talk about it, people respond and say "Yes, that's right." Then if you talk about it in a strong, interesting, memorable way they say "Yeah that's right, I'm going to buy it." It's a challenge to say the right thing.

A great example of this is Phyllis K. Robinson's Clairol campaign that that highlighted the me generation. "It lets me be me."

The senior Riney speaks about the creative talent. He says that when he started, creatives were nothing - flunkies. In the agency, the cherished spot was the account guy. He tried it for six months and thought it was the worst job, ever.

One of the most remarkable advertising stories explained in the film is Lois’ campaign for Tommy Hilfiger. After talking about his MTV campaign, Lois looks at his watch and says, “I can make Tommy Hilfiger an important brand in a couple hours.”

It sounds cocky, but according to Hilfiger, that is exactly what Lois did. Hilfiger wanted recognition but what Lois offered him was overnight success and Hilfiger was a bit stunned by it. Lois created an ad that compared Hilfiger to three top designers. Hilfiger was reluctant because it sounded like he was bragging to men he considered gods.

Lois countered,

If you want to have any name recognition in this business at all, you need millions of dollars worth of advertising over and over and over and over and it will take you years. If you want your name to be known right away and people to go and look at your clothes, we need something unique like this.

Lois believes an ad should be "seemingly outrageous"... because you look at something and think it's outrageous and then in the next two or three or 20 seconds, you realize, 'Wow it's on the nose!'

The most interestingly part of the Hilfiger campaign is that it ended up making him a better designer, working harder, trying to live up to prove naysayers wrong. He says that Lois turbocharged his success.

I do not think Lois is pitching advertising itself when he says,

Great advertising makes food taste better, makes cars run better. It changes the perception of everything.

Wells adds,

I think what you can do is manufacture any feeling you want to manufacture. You can create any feeling that you want people to have
.
She says that she and the other best advertisers are born with a gift for sensing what it is that will turn you on.

Another remarkable case study in the film is about something that would seem like a hard sell, milk. Jeff Manning of the California Milk Processor Board simply wanted to create good advertising for milk in California. He explains that milk is generically marketed and that it is taken for granted. “Nike and Snapple can introduce new packages new bottles, shoes…we sell white milk in gallons.”

The original intent of the new, milk campaign was to express that people should not run out of milk or to buy it before it goes sour and the reality was that the consumption of milk was on a steady decline.

When Goodby offered “got milk?” everyone objected. It was not a complete sentence. It was not grammatically correct. His partner, Silverstein, voiced "That's a dumb ass line. That's bad. It's clunky, It’s not even English." Goodby stood his ground, "No, I like got milk? It's kind of cool."

Silverstein, of course, now recognizes the brilliance of it and appreciates the campaign’s success.

“There is no other kind of communication in the world that is as focused as an ad is. You have got a certain amount of time to engage somebody and you have to do it in a quality way. It's like haiku.”

He continues,

I think we are trying to entertain society using clients' products. If a client heard that they'd go, “Wait you are not thinking about my product.” Of course we are but I believe we are here every day to do something kinda special to connect society in some entertainment form.

Goodby adds,

It's the same as making art. I make stuff, I put it in people's faces and it changes them and hopefully it enriches them and feel something. And it's real a rush to have it happen to millions of people at once. I have always made a distinction about things that you experience as a single person and you go “Wow, this is cool I want to go tell my friends about it” and things that you experience as a single person and you know millions of other people are seeing it at the same time. It’s a mass communal happening and not too many things offer that in life.

While watching the documentary, I was most impressed by the wisdom of Dan Widen,

Creative people need this sort of duality; of feeling very secure in some deep sense enough that they can be very risky and put themselves into the work. What I've tried to do is focus on the environment, which people work here and let them relax and be themselves and be adventuresome. I think most creative people are so damn insecure that they want to think that they know everything but they know deep in their hearts that they are in deep trouble from the minute they get up in the morning. So if you can tell them "That's the way you are supposed to be,” sometimes that's kind of liberating.

The whole trick of this business is to stop pretending you are an advertising agency and help the client forget that he is a client and just sit down at the table go 'so what are we going to do...how are we going to turn people on?

A lot of people think of risk as challenging convention and that's one form of risk I think the real risk comes in being willing to try to be authentic.

The interesting idea about branding is that you are giving an idea not just to the customer but also to the company itself of who they are and a sense of themselves (you know what I mean) and a sense of their role and their responsibility in the greater economy. That's at least like being at least a midwife to something.

For a business often associated with lying in order to sell, there is a lot of discussion throughout the film about the truth.

(pictured left is a "fake" Nike ad, meaning Nike did not create it, and yet it is still advertising for them)

Liz Dolan, former head of marketing for Nike admits,

He always terrified me, Dan Wieden. He's always going to tell you exactly what he thinks. Making great advertising is very much an emotional, very much a difficult process and it is not for the faint of heart.

Goodby offers,

If there is a truth in it, it is not about the product and it's not about your relationship to the product when you buy it. This sounds crazy but you are really saying is that I am part of the people that get this humor. I am part of that group, they want to become part of that community.

Clow voices,

I think we have higher aspirations for our clients and are more passionate about what our clients can be, should be to try to be then they are. We are trying to tell them - Hey you can be more than just a car company. You can be more than just a pet food company. You can aspire to loving dogs rather than just feeding dogs.

While the Art & Copy shows advertising as an interesting and creative world, Goodby offers a more sobering view,

It is a business of rejection. You start working and then you kill ideas for yourself. You show it to your partner and then he or she kills a few ideas. And then you show it to the client and the client kills a few ideas. Then you show it to some people in a focus group and they kill a couple of the ideas and then you come back again to the client again and he decides he did not like after all because his wife saw it. That can sometimes take a year, that process. It can take a year. It is very stressful and depressing to have those ideas killed and so there has to be a nurturing environment because people have to get themselves up off the floor and do this again.

But there is also something reverential about these people...

(Riney)

This business is not a work of committees. It's about a few really good people and if you are lucky enough as I have been to have a few of those people around you can probably succeed because there aren't a whole bunch of them.

(Wieden)

Can I say one other thing? I don't think any organization or any career succeeds if there isn't a goodly amount of old fashion love involved and a deep sense of affection for each other and the people you work with. And if you can hold onto that and make your decisions with those things in mind even when they are hard decisions you have to make, I think it is a big difference.

(Wells, pictured right)

I don't get tired. Maybe because I am not afraid. I think fear is a very powerful depressant.

(Lois)

I think creativity can solve anything...anything...anything!

Art & Copy is littered with statistics (from the time it was made in 2009):
The global advertising business will exceed $544 billion by 2010
Food companies spent $32 billion on advertising last year
Car companies spent more than $15 billion
Political advertising over $2.6 billion in 2008
44% of all satellites launched are for commercial communications
75% of global satellite services revenue comes from television
70% of U.S. tv broadcasting revenue comes from ads
In the 1970s, the average city dweller received about 1,000 advertising messages every day. today it's closer to 5,000
There are 450,000 billboards across the us
$7 billion is spent on billboard advertising per year.
The average American watches 8 hours a day of TV
Last year Time Warner sold $8.8 billion worth of advertising
A 30-second ad on American Idol costs $750,000
A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl costs $2.7 million
Michael Jordon's value to Nike has been estimated at $5.2 billion
There are 565 satellite-delivered TV networks in the U.S.
There are 1,353 HDTV satellite channels around the world today.
75% of U.S. homes have 3 or more televisions
Americans see 61 minutes of ads each day on the Internet, TV, and mobile screens
65% of Americans believe they are constantly bombarded with too much advertising
Advertising agencies employ 182,600 people in the us there are about 26,000 ad agencies worldwide
80% of all advertising is produced by only four global holding

The Past Future of the Arts

2011-11-16T08:38:00.014-05:00

by Drew Martin

I once wrote a paper about extraterrestrial communication and structural Marxism, which questioned why some people want to communicate with (potential) aliens and why they would expect aliens to want to communicate with them.

Thinking about this paper recently, I recalled two books that have interesting comments on the arts, media and outerspace; 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke and The Martian Chronicles (1946) by Ray Bradbury.

In 2001, astronaut David Bowman passes time in a manner that is the equivalent of surfing the Internet:

He would have six off-duty hours, to use as he pleased. Sometimes he would continue his studies, or listen to music, or look at movies. Much of the time he would wander at will through the ship's inexhaustible electronic library. He became fascinated by the great exploration of the past...

The reference to "Odyssey" appears in the continuation of that passage:

... and he began to read the "The Odyssey," which of all books spoke to him most vividly across the gulfs of time.

What prompted me to return to 2001 was remberance of this passage:

During the last three months, David Bowman had adapted himself so completely to his solitary way of life that he found it hard to remember any other existense...

At first, needing the companionship of the human voice, he had listened to classical plays - especially the works of Shaw, Ibsen, and Shakespeare - or poetry readings from Discovery's enormous library of recorded sounds. The problems they dealt with, however, seemed so remote, or so easily resolved with little common sense, that after a while he lost patience with them. So he switched to opera - usually in Italian or German, so that he was not distracted even by the minimal intellectual content that most operas contained. This phase lasted for two weeks before he realized that the sound of all these superbly trained voices was only exacerbating his loneliness. But what finally ended this cycle was Verdi's "Requiem Mass," which he had never heard performed on Earth.

The "Dies Irae," roaring with ominous appropriateness through the empty ship, left him completely shattered; and when the trumpets of Doomsday echoed from the heavens, he could endure no more. Thereafter, he played only instrumental music. He started with the romantic composers, but shed them one by one as their emotional outpourings became too oppressive. Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, lasted a few weeks, Beethoven rather longer. He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally with Mozart. And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years.

Coincidentally, the section of The Martian Chronicles that I have also thought about is titled: June 2001: - And the Moon be Still as Bright.

An American crew has landed on Mars only to find a great civilization recently wiped out by chicken pox.

A member of the crew, Spender, is horrified by how his fellow astronauts are behaving so he leaves them to find out what great culture they had missed.

Spender says to his captain:

We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn't set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it is out of the way and served no large commercial purpoae. And Egpyt is a small part of Earth. But here, this whole thing is ancient and different, and we have to set down somewhere and start fouling it up. We'll call the canal the Rockefeller Canal and the mountain King George Mountain and the sea the Dupont sea, and there'll be Roosevelt and Lincoln and Coolidge cities and it won't ever be right, when there are the 'proper' names for these places."

The captain responds:

"That'll be your job, as archaeologists, to find out the old names, and we'll use them."

Spender also offers:

They (Martians) knew how to blend art into their living. It's always been a thing apart for Americans. Art was something you kept in the crazy son's room upstairs. Art was something you took in Sunday doses, mixed with religion perhaps.

They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and beautiful. It's all simply a matter of degree. An Earth Man thinks: 'In that picture, color does not exist, really. A scientist can prove that color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light. Therefore, color is not really an actual part of things I happen to see.' A Martian, far cleverer, would say: 'This is a fine picture. It came from the hand and the mind of a man inspired. Its idea and its color are from life. This thing is good.'

In another passage:

He (Spender) put down the thin silver book that he had been reading as he sat easily on a flat boulder. The book's pages were tissue-thin, pure silver, hand-painted in black and gold. It was a book of philosophy at least ten thousand years old he had found in one of the villas of a Martian valley town.

Marwencol

2011-11-13T06:45:00.039-05:00

by Drew Martin

Hogancamp's "The Ruined Stocking" is a bar in Marwencol, Belgium where everyone gets along because the men who frequent it are satiated by flowing booze and beautiful women. The bar is named after the owner, Mark Hogancamp (center at the bar), a recovering alcoholic who downs cups of coffee instead of shots.

"The Ruined Stocking" refers to the many staged cat fights that take place there; gorgeous women wrestle each other for the patrons, who are mainly British, American and German soldiers.

Hogancamp is married to a woman named Anna, but Dejah Thoris, the Belgium witch of Marwencol, competes for his love. She even took him back in time (in her time machine) before he met his wife, but his love for Anna prevailed. Hogacamp is well liked in his bar and around Marwencol but every so often the SS storm through the town and kill or torture people. Even Hogancamp was taken captive and beaten in the town church but was saved by pistol waving babes who shot all the SS except for the division leader who was dragged through the streets of Marwencol and kicked by the townspeople before being shot. The law of the land is that everyone gets along. If it is breached, it is eye-for-an-eye Hammurabi's code.

Mark Hogancamp is a real guy but he was never pummeled by the SS. The fact is, he had the shit kicked out of him by five guys outside a bar. He was beaten so badly that he went into a coma and his face required reconstructive surgery. When he came to, he had to relearn how to do everything; eat, walk, talk...His brain damage was so severe that he lost every single memory prior to the attack.

The Marwencol, Belgium that Hogancamp knows is actually in his yard in Kingston, New York. The buildings and the people (dolls) are 1/6 scale. Dejah Thoris' time machine?...Hogancamp made it from a junk cell phone, an mp3 player stand and a VCR that ate one of his best porn tapes. As Hogancamp explains, he had no other choice but to sacrifice the machine to save the film.

Marwencol is a documentary by Jeff Malmberg about Hogancamp and the pretend world that he maintains as his mental therapy for dealing with what happened to him and his physical therapy for restoring his fine motor skills.

What makes Hogancamp's situation remarkable and takes it beyond being a tragic victim to the realm of artistry is that he photographs every detail of his played out imagination.

The looping adventures in Marwencol create an endless narrative, which Hogancamp records in countless photographs. The images masterly display Hogancamp's intense involvement and belief in his imagination. It is as if he works less as a man with a camera telling a story and more like an embedded photographer recording everything he sees.

The magic happens in the photographs. They act as a kind of proof that this world exists beyond his mind. This is an interesting concept because the pictures Hogancamp drew prior to the attack were used in court as evidence to show the affect of the beating. So while his life and consuming pastime seem delusional, his visual narrative is so strong that it pulls the viewer into his world as only the best directors, artists, writers and musicians can successfully do.

Hogancamp's 1/6 scale reality is not a schizophrenic trap. It is a social blueprint for a fuller life. His unhealthy obsession is actually an incredibly sane desire, to be liked and have purpose. His doll interacts with dolls that have been made to resemble the people in his life but in Marwencol, Hogancamp is much more engaging.

For this reason, the details of his world are made as realistic as possible. The tiny guns have functioning triggers and clips. The soldiers bags are not simply stuffed with cotton, but carry small grenades and military caboodle. When four characters jump in a Jeep for a ride, he makes sure they are carrying enough fire power to come out of an ambush in one piece.

One of the reasons why Hogancamp has Jeep rides is because the model vehicles he gets from a hobby shop or in the mail have new tires. He complains about their newness so instead of distressing them with sandpaper and dirt, he put hundreds of miles on them, which he calculates as thousands of miles at the smaller scale.

This patient documentary is a work of art. It is brilliantly crafted to take the viewer into Hogancamp's world. While Hogancamp is dressed in normal attire for most of the film, we learn that he also occasionally dresses in WWII outfits. That is not too hard to imagine.

A scene of him sunbathing ends with a closeup on his left foot; his toenails are painted and he wears a toe ring. This segues to a scene of him opening up a closet with 218 pairs of "women's essence," high heels. The shoes were all given to him by women but more than having a shoe fetish, Hogancamp is also a cross dresser. He was before the attack. In fact, the beating happened because he told some guys at the bar that he was a cross dresser, which they took as cue to bring him outside to "teach him a lesson."

Hogancamp's private world is actually quite public. He frequents a local hobby shop, talks to neighbors and has a job a few days a week at a local restaurant. The people in his life know they are characters in his fictional life too. A photographer named David Naugle eventually saw him pulling his Jeep along the road. It sparked an artworld fascination with Marwencol. With the help of Tod Lippy, editor of Esopus, Hogancamp had a show at White Columns in New York in 2006. It was a big decision for Hogancamp. The documentary shows him thinking it over while making meatballs and looking at three of the dolls he has on a small bench beside him: Anna, one of himself and Dejah Thoris. Despite their presence, it is a very lucid scene. He speaks aloud and talks about how it is something that will take courage:

"Women want to meet the artist. They don't want to hear that the artist couldn't make it...I am still afraid to go to the city but that's were courage comes in. Courage, I was taught, that courage is to face the thing to do the thing...even though I have such great fear of doing it."

Hogancamp deliberates what he should wear for the show. Perhaps a suit, though he would rather wear a dress. He settles for men's casual and asks the film crew on the day of the show "Do I look like a beatnik artist?" Fidgeting, he complains "fuck'n man's shoes." As the opening of the show winds down, Hogancamp laments to a woman at the show that he would rather have worn a pair of stilettos and she responds that it is not too late. With almost everyone gone and the gallery floors being mopped, he changes into them and walks out of the gallery.

Hogancamp's success in the artworld is reassuring but at the same time that acceptance falls short of real, healthy relationships. What one would hope to be a reconnection with a former life actually seems to spiral away from that. His conversations at his opening about putting on high heels and being married to a doll do not go over well, and the documentary ends with Hogancamp's doll needing to create a miniature reality in order to deal with his SS beatings. As Hogancamp remarks before revealing his women's shoe collection, "It gets stranger by the moment, doesn't it?"

Indian Giving

2011-11-10T11:30:00.014-05:00

by Drew Martin, with Michael Barson

Typically an interview is conducted in order to learn more about a person and for insight on a particular topic but this interview was originally designed to help decide what to do with a unique collection of advertising artwork.

Michael Barson is the Senior Executive for Publicity at G. P. Putnam's Sons and author of a number of well-received books on American popular culture, including Red Scared!, True West, Teenage Confidential, The Illustrated Who's Who of Hollywood Directors and Agonizing Love.

We regularly cross paths on the PATH, the subway system between New Jersey and New York, and we work in the same building in SoHo. A typical PATH train encounter has Michael pretending to trip over me, or nonchalantly dropping his satchel on my lap while demanding I give up my seat for him. The passengers are shocked and appalled at his rude behavior, which pleases Michael to no end. (He is very easy to please.) I turn red, squirm and try to diffuse the situation by making it known that I am familiar with these juvenile antics before he is escorted off the train by security. But Michael maintains this is high-level meta-comedy.

When he dropped his satchel on my lap the other day, I reached in and pulled out a portfolio filled with product labels and movie placards from the early 1900s to mid-century. The common theme of each piece is the Native American, more specifically - stereotypes of Indians. They are fascinating from every angle. The artwork includes commercial illustrations, hand-tinted photographs, movie posters and fruit-crate labels. Aside from a few black and white pieces, everything else is from a four-color press and the artwork has a lot of vivid fields of color along with painterly people and objects.

One of the most bizarre examples is an advertisement for a rubber heel company. It is DaDa and Surreal. In the black and white illustration a huge rubber heel hangs in the sky above a river. In the foreground, an august caucasian man steps forward in a fine pair of shoes and an all but naked Indian kneels before him, clearly demonstrating his awe at the man's wondrous shoes. Or rather, the wondrous heels on his shoes. Michael would define this as a high-level form of meta-comedy as well.

Drew:
I know you collect red scare posters, love comics and Spaghetti Western media but these "Indian" works are quite different, more indigenous. Is it an extension to the Westerns or are they simply another piece of your childhood?

Michael:
My fascination with the differing ways the American Indian has been portrayed in popular culture is probably an offshoot of my interest in the larger area of the Western, but I would say it is also the most intriguing part. And that is because of the ways our viewpoint regarding Indian cultures (and there were many distinct ones) has ebbed and flowed over the past 150 years.

These items of advertising art that you confiscated from me are in the mode of the Noble Savage - their iconography is essentially our white world worshipping the attributes of the unspoiled Redman. Or he would have been unspoiled if we hadn't already eradicated him, or at least much of his original world.

Drew:
Speaking of your childhood. Has it ended? I mean...are your interests in these topics a matter of nostalgia or is it simply a childhood continuum?

Michael:
I can honestly say it isn't due to nostalgia alone, since 80% of the materials I work with in my books and other projects are things I never saw as a child growing up in the Fifties. But yes, I do try to mine my memories of the culture in which I was immersed as a kid in order to include those first-hand examples in my writing. I like being able to say from my own experience that I liked Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates on the show Wagon Train more than I liked James Arness as Marshal Dillon on Gunsmoke, and why. But you can't experience everything first-hand, so I also continue to learn about the rest of the pop culture of the day in the course of my research. Which will probably continue until the day I die.

Drew:
All of these images are, or at least the use of them is, politically incorrect on so many levels I would not know where to begin. I believe your interest in them is more a matter of campy cultural eras but do you also look them more critically and academically?

Michael:
I disagree with that assessment, at least in terms of this advertising art. There is nothing politically incorrect about having a portrait of the nobel Red Cloud on a cigar box label... It may be ridiculous to link the properties of a five-cent cigar with one of the greatest Indian leaders who ever lived, but it is not showing disrespect to the memory of Red Cloud. Rather, it is trying to add class to the product by dint of Red Cloud's legendary reputation for nobility and leadership. To me, that does not really qualify as "camp."

Of course, in other kinds of pop media - movies, comic books, paperback novels - there was plenty of disrespect going on at the same time. That is part of the schizophrenic attitude we have always shown toward the American Indian, which is why the topic continues to fascinate me.

Drew:
Is the "Indian" vanishing from magazine pages and movies because of political correctness or is there simply a drop in relevancy and romanticism?

Michael:
The recent success of the science fiction movie Avatar demonstrated that our fascination with the mythology and iconography of the Indian is still hard-wired into our cultural consciousness, even if James Cameron's story had to be tweaked and re-packaged into a somewhat different form. Although the eight-foot-tall blue-skinned native people in Avatar were technically aliens, beneath the surface they functioned exactly as the Indian cultures did in such other hit films as Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves (which won six major Oscars back in 1990) and the Disney version of Pocahontas, all of which "donated" major plot elements and characters to Avatar (as many critics pointed out at the time of its release). And most important of all was that the story in Avatar allowed a new generation of moviegoers to see a revamped, re-imagined dramatization of what the United States military (and by extension, our government) wrought upon the original Indian nations during the 19th Century.

The attacks by the heavily armed forces of the pitiless soldiers in Avatar were horrifying to witness, just as their ultimate defeat by the combined forces of the native tribes and Mother Nature was totally exhilarating. By that point, the audience fully identified with the "aliens," rejecting the brutish instincts and violent natures of the white military forces. Hence, the final shot in the movie was one of the most emotionally satisfying I can recall. That said, we aren't likely to see the Western return to its former prominence in pop culture again, in my opinion. But every now and then it can still make its presence felt, thank goodness. Those lessons are ones we should not forget.

Drew:
You mentioned pitching them for a book idea or at least an article but what is your true ambition for them?

Michael:
Sharing them as widely as possible with others who might be interested is my main ambition, I suppose. And you could say that about all of my books about different aspects of American popular culture. They all contain lessons to be learned about our past, using materials that conventional histories largely bypass.

Paradise Punk: An Interview with Meilani Marie Wenska

2011-11-09T13:52:00.010-05:00

by Drew Martin, with Meilani Marie Wenska

Meilani Marie Wenska is a Los Angeles based singer/musician, actor, writer and artist, who is originally from Kaneohe, Hawaii. We met in the late 1980s and became friends in college as we were in the art program together.

Drew:
It has been more than a year since I saw you in Los Angeles. Thanks for coming to my show. It was great to see you there. You still look young, healthy and happy. You mentioned a web series video project you have been working on. What is that about?

Meilani:
In April of 2010, I wrote a screenplay based on my experiences with my family when my grandmother died. I decided to promote the screenplay by turning the first part of it into a web series. So I adjusted the script, roped in some friends to help, hired a crew, and did a casting. Shot it in three days this past April.

Looking at the footage, I am so impressed with the talent of everyone involved. Editing has been a lot more work than I ever imagined, but I’m done with the rough cut and in the middle of color correcting at the moment. Basically I’m teaching myself how to do all of the post production as I go along, using Youtube tutorial videos and a book on Final Cut Pro.

Drew:
I know you have been playing/singing, acting and writing poetry...do you still paint?

Meilani:
The last few years I’ve mostly done paintings and drawings as gifts. Ironically, I’m living with a painter/photographer, and really should get back into it. I love the oozey texture of paint and playing with color. Soon enough…I’m content artistically now with editing, playing jazz and acting.

Drew:
One thing I remember about you from college was that you went to work at a gardening center and were making concrete garden statues. I find that kind of intriguing. Was that like an ongoing sculpture project, which required skill or was it more of a mindless, rough job? What did you learn from it?

Meilani:
Wow, I haven’t thought about that job in years! It was a business with a loyal following, pumping out these little concrete statues every day. I’d come home covered in cement dust and mud, and it was mostly hard labor. But there was a finesse to it, little details that if you got wrong, perhaps a gnome wouldn’t have a nose. I knew after that job that sculpting was definitely not my thing, but that with business acumen, you can make a good living through selling art.

Drew:
You seem to immerse yourself in beauty, with your boat and trips to various paradises. Well, it is more than that...you just seem to have a beautiful life on many levels. I guess what I want to know is if this is a philosophical decision and everything simply falls into place, or is it something rooted in your past that is just second nature or is it something more directed...a kind of general aesthetics you pursue and make happen?

Meilani:
Well, I’ve been really fortunate in the last two years, with buying the boat and being able to travel around. California has a ton of amazing natural wonders--you don’t have to drive for more than a few hours. I’ve found that being in nature confronts you with the incredible world we inhabit, and effortlessly lifts your spirit.

And spending time on the boat is fantastic. The quality of light on the water and the surrounding boats is gorgeous, and the marina is shockingly full of wildlife. I’ve seen a sea eagle, sting rays, sea lions, jellyfish, and the most enormous schools of fish, just sitting on my boat while docked a mile back from the open ocean. Love it.

As far as philosophy goes, I do believe that a person is creating their own life at every minute, through thoughts, beliefs, and actions. You make little decisions all the time which have impact, and your general vibe can attract luck or misfortune. You really have to choose what side of your personality that you’re going to feed, and things can fall into place if you go with the flow and allow them to happen.

I can’t say my life’s been a walk in the park; the past year has had many challenges and tribulations for me on both personal and professional levels. But I’ve come through it all, and am just trying to be the best person I can be.

Drew:
You were in some all-girl punk bands...PMS, if I recall correctly. That was quite hard and aggressive, the opposite about what I was getting at in my previous question. Does that side of you still exist? Do people need that kind of release no matter how pleasant life may be? And, for that matter, is that the key to a better life?

Meilani:
Oh, most definitely, that side is still around! One of my favorite things to do is drive on the curvy part of Sunset Blvd. near UCLA with the sunroof open, blasting loud punk rock, and passing as many cars as I can. I also did boxing and a very aggressive martial art for about 10 years. Life is not perfect, and we all get stressed out. And the release, whether punching and kicking, or rocking out, feels so good.

Drew:
I thought I did not like Los Angeles, but I really liked it on my last visit. It seems like a really good place to live and have a personalized life. What do you like about LA? What is unique about it?

Meilani:
I love how LA is right on the beach, and the climate beats anything, except Hawaii. People say LA has no character, but there are a number of neighborhoods with flavor—like Echo Park or West LA. Another thing I like is how LA is truly an international melting pot—you can find entire neighborhoods of every ethnicity in the world.

The Wrong Idea at the Right Time: An Interview with Bill Wheelock

2011-11-06T03:18:00.019-05:00

by Drew Martin, with Bill Wheelock

Bill Wheelock is a Los Angeles based conceptual artist and the author of The Wrong Idea: Maurizio Cattelan in the Economy of Attention. I recently reached out to him to discuss Maurizio Cattelan's media ubiquity.

Drew:
It seems that everywhere I turn, there is an article about Maurizio Cattelan because of his Guggenheim retrospective. So I thought it would be a good time to finally get around to reading your The Wrong Idea: Maurizio Cattelan in the Economy of Attention. You wrote it in 2005. How has it aged?

Bill:
I think the concepts are all very much present, only some of the facts have changed. Immediately after finishing the book, The Wrong Gallery moved from the Chelsea NY streets to the Tate Modern, which drastically altered the context. I had written that the Wrong Gallery was one third an object in and of itself; one third a frame for other objects, and one third an institution. The move to the Tate crystallized its state as an object. The pathos seemed to have left it in the revered halls of the Tate. It is harder to suspend one's disbelief with all that validation.

There has never been a place for a commercial gallery actually within a museum, although there have been some recent strange bedfellows (such as Jeffrey Deitch’s position as director of LA MoCA). My book opens with discussion of a recycled Cattelan piece; he claimed to have buried an old sculpture, Kitakyushu, 2000, under the floor at The Whitney Biennial. It will be interesting to see how, if at all, these two iterations of the same piece could hang in his “All” retrospective.

Drew:
I was not sure how to read your book because I typically fall into the mindset of the writer but here I realized you might want to revise sections so I kept a distance. That being said, I liked it a lot. I started it one evening and finished it the following afternoon. I am a very slow reader but I found it engaging and it seemed very relevant. What prompted you to write it?

Bill:
It was actually my Master’s thesis rewritten to remove most of the boring academic structure. I am drawn to his defiance, and was myself defiant against my thesis committee, who insisted it was a poor career move to focus on a living artist. I suppose to a monograph author, that may be good advice. The artist could openly object to a critic’s opinion or drastically change course. Cattelan has threatened to quit art all together after his retrospective, so they may have been right. I don't consider my book a monograph. I could have chosen any number of Duchamp’s heirs. Cattelan was the last one I proposed whom my thesis committee were willing to accept, three months before graduation.

Drew:
From the title, I thought you were going to write a criticism of Cattelan but you have an affection for him, as you do his influencing predecessors; Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Joseph Bueys, Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein to name a few. What is the draw for you to this kind of artist?

Bill:
All of the above artists play with more than just craft or concept but also the preconceived notions of what the viewers expect to see in an artwork. Although Zen is a different tradition altogether, there is something of an ego-smashing proposition involved for the viewer of this type of conceptual gamesmanship. The environment has changed from Duchamp, Bueys and Manzoni’s war-influenced Dadaism to a more economic absurdity practiced by the likes of the Madison Avenue artists of the American 80s or the Derilique art from the Un-Monumental 90s. Cattelan’s oeuvre plays a comfortable counterpoint to a post economic meltdown universe (toasted economelt anyone?). The book’s first chapter is in empirical first person because I do feel a physical and emotional reaction to works so in tune and on time, however conceptual their form.

Drew:
What do you think the cynical prankster really thinks about art deep down inside, beyond the clowning around the art world for which he is paid?

Bill:
Budweiser’s best ad just reads “Who cares if they’re real.” If they touch you, they are real enough. All glibness aside, most comedians are also depressive and contemplative offstage. I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Drew:
And how do you think this affects how art is taught to children and is appreciated by people not involved in this game that Duchamp began?

Bill:
The Duchamp game is an adult game. Some educators think all art should be public for all ages. I admire those who step up to the challenge and attempt to teach this liberally, but generally disagree with it. A child CAN drink a fancy red wine, but to appreciate it one needs to know what you have your hands on. Most children have a naive and limited idea of the economic environment. I can’t tell you what to the prerequisites are to get the most out of a work of meta-art, but I can say it is a critic’s responsibility to contextualize unfamiliar work. Absurdity can be most definitely taught to students of any age, so one could approach Cattelan from that direction. Trouble is when you explain humor, you tend to kill the timing.

Drew:
What do you think the near future of art has in store? And more importantly, what role do you think art could have in society that is different from the past and today?

Bill:
Well, we are in an economic depression, which is usually good for creative arts. Highly educated people have a lot of time on their hands, as intellectual employment is tough to find. I expect there will be some resurgence of craft and labor intensive work that has been lacking in the last fifty years or so. What is different is that the work of an artist has become a mainstream lifestyle and not freakishly marginal, so we are unlikely to see too many Elvis-famous heroes emerge, instead collective movements and participatory social commentaries like we are seeing in the Occupy movement are arising. People are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore, but they don’t seem really sure where exactly to go yet. Leadership seems scarce. My own crystal ball is still busted.

Drew:
You write about art and you make art. Is there a time and place for each with some kind of loose schedule or is it more of a leap frog in which you exhaust your interests/energy for one before you engage the other?

Bill:
I tend to follow my enthusiasm from project to project, without too much discipline, but once committed to seeing something through, I’d be lost unless some kind of structure or deadline is imposed. Technology permits both writing and photography to be built on the computer. Working on both feel like the same kind of weaving of patterns into the weft of the web. Blogging has been a tremendous help for me. The tools we have today allow no differentiation between the action of writing, film editing or image production. Plus, space and materials are practically free! I rely on Dropbox, iCloud and the blogosphere to sneak a bit of work in whenever I can get away with it. I edited photos recently while in a doctor’s waiting room, and later that day blogged them in line at the DMV with my phone.

Drew:
What have you been up to since our last interview? What projects have you been doing?

Bill:
Along with The Hairy Prone Companion, I have started a blog called HafoSafo identifying local news around my neighborhood. Lately I am engaged in a top secret book project for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that I can’t talk about or I won’t finish (see former comment on structure & discipline...). I am privileged to be working full time digitally photographing The J. Paul Getty Museum’s tremendous collection of over 150,000 - and growing - photographic prints as my day job. I read a lot and try to brag about it on Goodreads and am also hopelessly addicted to audio books. I may try to record and upload a free version of Ivan Goncharov's "Oblomov" to LibriVox.org. When all else fails, I work on motorcycles- which I find tremendously comforting as there is always and only one right way to do everything.

I also interviewed Bill in the summer of 2010: Always Thinking: An Interview with Bill Wheelock.

Lady In Red

2011-10-27T21:22:00.007-04:00

by Drew Martin

This past Sunday my parents and I stopped for lunch in Washington, D.C. at a cafeteria in the National Gallery of Art. It was a welcomed break during our long drive from Richmond, Virginia to our respective towns in northern New Jersey.

My father had recently finished reading David McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris ("about young Americans — aspiring artists, doctors and writers — who went to study and work in Paris between 1830 and 1900, then returned home to make their marks") so we viewed Gallery of the Louvre painted by the American Inventor Samuel F. B. Morse (morse code) during his stay in Paris.

We whisked through a few other galleries in the museum. My longest pause was by Antonio Canova's Reclining Naiad (1824) but the work that really caught my eye just before we exited was Study of Lilia (1887) by Carolus-Duran (Charles Auguste Émile Durand). It is so red, so mysterious. Even after 125 years it is so fresh. Lilia's youth and beauty radiates from her pale neck. It love it!

After Life

2011-10-26T08:18:00.009-04:00

by Drew Martin

There is a touching scene in the film My Architect when the director, Nathaniel Kahn, rollerblades around his father's genius Salk Institute, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, California. Its architect, Louis Kahn, designed some of the most intriguing buildings in the 20th century. Oddly, he also kept three families. Nathaniel seldom saw his father; the film is a search for him in the architecture he left behind.

The rollerblading scene is special because Nathaniel is a grown man but the institute's large, central plaza and his carefree movements offer us a scene of a father and son playing together.

I witnessed such a moment firsthand this past weekend. I was in Richmond, Virginia for a great uncle's funeral service. This patriarch had a house at a creek off the James River where there are huge family gatherings every Fourth of July and other legendary parties. The main attraction was always waterskiing. The service seemed incomplete but afterwards we all changed out of our formal attire and drove down to "The Creek." One of the granddaughters and the only son of this man put on wetsuits and took to the water, skiing elegantly up and down the creek, which has an exotic southern look worthy of alligators.

The son is a 65 year old man but I still remember him as the young man who patiently taught me to waterski when I was a kid. On the single ski board on Saturday he looked like a teenager, cutting through the wake, reaching down to slice the mirror-smooth creek water with his fingertips. It might seem odd to waterski on the day of your father's funeral but everyone there witnessing this understood why it was important.

A body may be in an urn or coffin but the spirit of a person is unbound and everywhere. My relative, skimming over the surface of the creek in the golden glow of the sunset seemed to be immersed in his father, pulled by his father.

Mixing It Up: The House of Pancakes

2011-10-23T08:39:00.009-04:00

by Drew Martin

I do not know what I am more amazed by, pancakes or concrete. They may not seem like kindred (inanimate) souls but they have a lot in common.

Pancake mix and cement are dry, uninteresting powders. They seem more like the end product than something with such great potential. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

But then you add water to cement and water or milk to pancake mix and you stir them a bit and they both transform into uninteresting goop, neither tasting good.

And then the magic happens, you drop some batter on a hot skillet and a sizzling circle forms and soon you have a moist, steamy cake to bathe in maple syrup and fill your stomach. You pour concrete into a form and in a matter of days you have a rock-hard structure.

It is amazing one can taste so good and the other can be so strong.

The Brother From Another Planet

2011-10-13T19:50:00.032-04:00

by Drew Martin

I recently watched The Brother From Another Planet (1984) for the first time. Despite a lot of bad acting and an almost unwatchable ending, I really like what it was trying to do. If any movie deserves a good remake, it is this one.

This film is a kind of sci-fi take on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Both main characters end up in Harlem, which simultaneously rejects and embraces them, and both stories are rooted in the American slave narrative.

Aside from having padded feet with three horny toes, the brother, who is a runaway alien slave, resembles a man of African descent. He is pursued by two white-guy aliens referred to as men in black, who are the predecessors to the agents in The Matrix.

The beginning of the film is fantastic. The first scene is inside the capsule of an alien starship speeding towards Earth. Joe Morton plays the sole, panicky cosmonaut. The minimal, cheap effects actually work really well. There are a few beeping lights, some kind of illuminated extraterrestrial script and a lot of splicing back and forth to the anxious Morton.

The music in this scene (and peppered throughout the movie) is Caribbean steel drum, which is a perfect sound to give the pummeling of the metal capsule as it tumbles down, especially because of the increased tempo. It is a playful sound that makes the tense scene quite edgy.

For a brief moment we see a clear, evening sky. A blip flashes across it like a shooting star and the brother splashes down in the New York harbor.

With the Statue of Liberty in the background he crawls up onto Ellis Island. He is dripping wet and profusely bleeding because he lost a leg in the crash. The stump is quickly mended with energy from his hand and the lower leg and foot grow back by morning. The brother possesses such healing powers, which he uses to earn some cash by fixing broken electronic devices, particularly video game kiosks. One of the treats of the film is getting a glimpse of where we were with computer graphics over a quarter of a century ago.

In addition to the slave narrative and a subtheme about drugs, this is definitely a insightful film about communication.

The brother cannot speak. I do not know if this is a limitation of his species or that he was permanently silenced as a slave (I gathered the latter). In the end of the film, the brother meets other runaways and they are all dumb. The white pursuers speak and have some kind of screeching sound they make when they are agitated.

Despite the inability to talk, the brother understands multiple languages and, more importantly, can retrieve past conversations embedded in objects. At the abandoned Ellis Island Immigration Center, the brother is overwhelmed by a cacophony of voices/languages when he touches the interior surfaces of the building. A column in a subway station recalls the screams of a woman pushed to her death on the tracks. A discarded newspaper is of interest of him not because of the headlines or photographs but because he can retrieve the dialogue of a man who was holding it. All objects for this alien are saturated with past sounds. He reacts to seats and walls that silently witnessed tragic events as if he has touched a hot iron skillet.

When the brother wants to track a drug dealer, he actually removes his eyeball and leaves it behind in a planter to record the man's movements. He later retrieves his eye and pops it back into its socket and sees a playback of the events in his mind. In another moment he takes out his eyeball and places it in the hand of a corporate man dealing in drugs in order to show him what he witnessed first hand, the dead body of a young punk who overdosed with this man's junk.

One of my favorite scenes is when the brother first sees a wall in Harlem with graffiti. It is as if he is confused by what it is trying to say, assuming it is meant for communication beyond tagging. Finally, he finds some red, scribbled graffiti that he recognizes as a sign of his people. He cuts open the palm of his hand and leaves a message at that site with his own blood.

The film would have worked better without a lot of the heavy-handed social commentary because the best scenes are of this alien brother trying to make sense of his new world. He is constantly processing his environment.

His first mistake is to eat fruit off a stand without paying for it and he is chased away. When he observes how money is exchanged for goods, he returns to the same shop, takes money out of the register and tries to pay for more fruit only to be chased off again, not understanding his expanded crime.

The Most Important Man in the World

2011-10-04T20:11:00.038-04:00

by Drew Martin

This past weekend I watched a fascinating documentary, Bill Cunningham New York. It is about this 80-something-year-old fashion photographer for The New York Times. It is of course about clothes and fashion, New York and The New York Times, but more importantly it is about loneliness and being part of society's bigger picture.

What might be considered a sacrifice of lovers and family for an unfettered creative working life seems more like a substitution and a fair exchange for someone who loves what he does. Cunningham is a loner but he spends his days surrounded by millions of people, documenting their styles and being adored for his instinctive understanding of fashion. For most of his career (and all of the film) he lived in a tiny artist studio at Carnegie Hall, sleeping on a cot between his filing cabinets (part of the film is about his being evicted). He did not have a kitchen or bathroom in the studio. He ate out for every meal on the cheap and used the hallway bathroom on his floor. When discussing the possibility of a future living space having more amenities he laughs,

"Who the hell wants a kitchen and a bathroom?!"

For transportation, he gets around on a classic Schwinn. He says the one he is riding is his 29th; the previous 28 were stolen.

In the end of the documentary Cunningham is asked about his personal life. He says he never had a romantic relationship, sobs to himself, and then answers the next question about church; he regularly goes because he admits he needs it. He adds that when he used to attend as a kid, all he did was look at women's hats.

When asked the first question, he suggests it is a more specific inquiry about his sexuality but skirts the topic as something that was not discussed in his upbringing. It is a heart-wrenching moment. As for relationships, he says he did not have time and it was not on his mind but that he is also human. It is an amazing idea that someone who spends his day just a thin wrapping of fabric away from a world of fleshy bodies has never opened the presents.

In the end, Cunningham talks about honesty. To play a straight game in New York, he says is like Don Quixote fighting windmills. It was a welcomed analogy because throughout the documentary I kept thinking of Cervantes' line "The road is better than the inn."

What we learn of his honesty is that money and perks are something he shuns. At a Lincoln Center gala we see him turning down an offer for food. He thanks the host and hurries off exclaiming "I eat with my eyes!" This discipline is more than declining the temptation of being wined and dined, he does not even accept a glass of water at such an occasion when he is on assignment for the New York Times so as to not compromise his position. Keeping a distance, he says, allows him to be more objective.

Although Cunningham has dedicated his life to documenting fashion, he does not give the impression of a workaholic. He is good-spirited, easy-going and his craft comes naturally so you entirely believe him when he says it is not work but pleasure. What might be simply stubbornness of another man his age is really his determined vision.

There are delightful scenes of him working with a Times layout artist half his age, who he calls a lumberjack from southern New Jersey. In one interaction, Cunningham comments on the dress and pose of an elegant New Yorker he had photographed at an evening event who they are placing in a layout. Cunningham likens her to "a John Singer Sargent painting"...the lumberjack fumbles a confused response not understanding the reference, which is specific to Sargent's scandalous Madame X, a larger-than-life painting from 1884 that damaged the reputation of the Parisian socialite, Madame Pierre Gautreau, and spurred Sargent's departure from France.

At an awards ceremony for the National Order of the Legion of Honour of France, Cunningham is decorated as an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters but spends most of the time running around taking pictures. One attendee remarks to him how funny this is and he gleefully responds,

"You think I would miss a good picture?!"

At the ceremony, the decoration medal is pinned to Cunningham's blue worker's jacket. Whenever I saw him riding around Manhattan or scanning crowds at galas in his royal-blue smock, I thought it was a printer's jacket from New York's bygone printing era but he explains in the film while on a fashion week trip in Paris that it is a French street sweeper's jacket, which he wears because it is inexpensive and has pockets.

The footage of Paris immediately follows Cunningham's remarks to the documentary film crew in New York that there is no way they are going to follow him to France for the events. Fortunately they did because there is a priceless scene of him trying to get into a fashion show. He humbly holds out his press pass to a twenty-something woman with a clipboard. She is not very helpful and dismisses him. In a minute an older man comes over, takes him by the arm and informs the woman,

"This is the most important man in the world."

This is not far from the truth in the fashion world. Vogue's Anna Wintour charmingly says in the film that everyone gets dressed "for Bill" and that he takes one or two pictures when he sees something he likes and when he does not bother it is "death." It is not that he commands that kind of power but his reaction to what is stylish is so immediate and unfiltered that it comes out as the inarguable truth.

In Paris, Cunningham crosses paths with Anna Piaggi, a fashion columnist for Vogue. He says she is the best subject to photograph in all of Europe and is why he goes to Paris. He calls her a poet with clothes.

He definitely knows who's who but not the modern celebrities since he does not go to the movies or have a television. When they pass by and he does not take their pictures, he says he has overheard people say he must be the dumbest one in the crowd. He explains that even if he recognizes a person he will only shoot her clothes if she is wearing something interesting. He says he could never be a paparazzi - tormenting people, and that what he does must be approached "discretely and quietly. Invisible is the word."

Cunningham speaks of Paris fashion week as a school that educates the eye and during his decoration speech says,

"I'm not interested in celebrities with their free dresses. I am interested in clothes."

Some scenes of this documentary are interviews with him from previous decades. In one piece he talks about how the wider world perceives fashion as frivolity but defends,

"...the point is; fashion is armor to survive the reality of everyday life. I don't think you could do away with it. It would be like doing away with civilization."

About his craft he says,

"It's not photography. I mean any real photographer would say, "He's a fraud! Well they're right. I am just about capturing what I see and documenting what I see."

Click here to view the trailer for Bill Cunningham New York

Gay Poodle Stalker

2011-09-22T08:04:00.008-04:00

by Drew Martin

Perhaps the heavy metal chains of slaves and beasts of burden have been broken but people still want ownership of and obedience from humans and animals. Some roles have changed only in name; maid to cleaner. Sometimes all it takes is a possessive pronoun. My favorite is "My architect..." instead of "The architect who designed the addition to my house..." because it is exclusive and establishes a hierarchy. This pyramid is constructed every day by everyone...the toy dog as a living accessory, the gay friend as supplemental mate who really listens. The problem with all of this is that the singular focus and one-way attitude flattens the dimensions and limits the possibilities of the other.

The newest of these is the "stalker." Originally coined for a harasser with sexual intent, the term is now overused for anyone who randomly says hello on the street, emails twice without receiving a response or shares a schedule that increases the likelihood of
crossing paths.

The trend is that everyone is supposed to have one. Social media makes the occasion quantifiable, identifiable and recordable (and even encourages it to a certain degree) but the real modern twist is not the action or the new tools of the initiator but the mind of the receiver. Assuming the role of the one who is stalked establishes that one is uncontrollably desirable...a fine balance of egotism and paranoia.

“A secret admirer is the same as a stalker... with stationary.”
Demetri Martin

“I've only done it once or twice every week”
Oscar Wilde on stalking

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time

2011-09-18T19:06:00.022-04:00

by Drew Martin

If you like the work of Andy Goldsworthy then you should see Rivers and Tides, a documentary about him and his work, which is directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer and accompanied by the music of Fred Frith.

I streamed it on Netflix this weekend and was surprised to note that it is from 2001. It is a timeless film because his artwork is timeless.

Goldsworthy talks to the camera, which functions as the narration. In one moment he suggests that the filmmaker make himself useful and put down the camera to help gather stones for a piece he is creating on the beach. It is a sculpture of flat stones he stacks in the shape of a pine cone. Four early attempts collapse while he is working on it due to the loose sand. He shouts a sharp, frustrated "Shit!" which reminds me of myself in such a moment. Finally the work is topped off and the rising sea engulfs it. The stone sculpture disappears under water. He speaks about how it is a gift to the sea. The tide recedes before sunset and exposes the sculpture again. It is beautiful to see it back in the open air after being embraced by the water, as if it has undergone a rite of passage and understands what the sea is about, with all of its creatures.

I have seen Goldsworthy's wall at Storm King Art Center and a lot of his work in photographs but the film captures the cycle of his projects, which is not possible without the ability to record time. His stone walls last years but some of his projects only last a brief moment. For one of these, he spends hours grinding a reddish stone, by hand. In the end, he holds a ball of red pigment and throws it into the river, where the stone came from. The river turns red for a few minutes and then dilutes itself as it moves downstream. During the preparation of the pigment, Goldsworthy speaks about his pursuit of the red. He comments that the red in the stone is from iron, which is the same reason our blood is red. This piece is about making the stone alive again, as it once was in its volcanic birth.

In the end of the film, the camera pans rock cliffs, which seem like unmovable walls and Goldsworthy offers that the stability of stone is undermined by its fluidity. With much of his work, Goldsworthy likes to take it to the edge of collapse. This is perhaps one of the treats of the film; watching Goldsworthy work on something and have it fall down around him. He deeply cares about his work and such a setback is often met with utter frustration but then he sets to rebuilding the structure. He is tireless.

Goldsworthy started documenting his work with photographs in order to show his teachers what he was doing. He mentions Constantin Brâncuşi who asked why should he have to talk about his sculptures when he can show pictures of them.

Much of the film is shot near his home in Scotland. The moist, green hills are full of sheep, stone walls and an exposed nature. Goldsworthy surveys the land and says that people say it is pastoral and pretty but he remarks there is a much darker side because of the history of sheep and how people were displaced and all the trees were cut down in order to accommodate the animals. He also means that there is a life cycle with decay. He comments on how we think of the signs of Spring on the surface but the evidence is below ground, where the heat and moisture blackens and rots the previous year's growth. This is a theme in Goldsworthy's work...what lies below something, affects the surface.

Goldsworthy speaks about his process but his most insightful comments are about life. He explains how he has lived in different places and how five years might seem like enough time to get to know a place, but it is not. He says you need to see children at a bus stop for years and watch them grow and have children of their own. Goldsworthy recalls a conversation he had with an older lady in his village. After mentioning all the people he knew, she remarked "You see only births and I see only deaths." He says it in a way that he was humbled by it and remarks that he tries not to forget this.

The title of the film, Rivers and Tides, seems obvious enough but Goldsworthy explains that the river is about many things, not just water. There is a river of animals and plants. It is all about flow.

One thing I learned from the film is about Goldsworthy's involvement with his projects. We see him throughout the film, piecing together icicles, reeds and scraps of stone but for a more ambitious piece, such as the wall at Storm King, he worked with wallers, who were often removing the pieces he was placing, for the sake of integrity of the wall. For this project Goldsworthy's role was primarily to define the direction of the wall. Although he was on foreign turf, America, the project was close to home because the Center's property was once farmland and what Goldsworthy found at the site where great stretches of derelict walls made over a hundred years ago by Europeans, possibly Scots. What interested him was how trees took shelter near the walls and grew back around them. Goldsworthy says the wall at Storm King "has a line in sympathy with the place through which it travels."

Although Goldsworthy engages with people and has a wife and several children, you see that he is content by himself, comforted by his own silence. Towards the end of the film he says "Words do their job but what I do here says a lot more."

My favorite comment by him is a line that you feel in his work,

"I am so amazed at times that I am actually alive."

The Triathlon and Human Metamorphosis

2011-09-17T05:44:00.048-04:00

by Drew Martin

Last Sunday I did the running leg of a triathlon in Croton on the Hudson. It was a "Toughman" half Ironman, which means a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a half marathon (13.1 miles). The half Ironman is the longest triathlon you can race as a team. Our team was well balanced and took first for the coed relay.

Croton is a beautiful part of New York and the annual event takes advantage of this. The course starts down on the Hudson River (actually in the river and this year it was very murky after Hurricane Irene) and climbs up above the spectacular Croton Dam (pictured here).

The bicycle and running courses are difficult because of the extreme elevation changes and a lot of the running is on trails through the woods. That being said, it is one of my favorite places to run and the event is well organized. At the bottom of the dam you are greeted by a band and cheerleaders before entering an uphill battle in the woods. There are other cheering sections, lots of cow bells and even a rock band along the way.

At the turnaround in the woods there is also a waist-high statue of a gorilla or a yeti. It is all quite a surreal experience because you are trying to run and stay focused and yet you are a bit delirious from the exertion. Most of the other athletes had run and swum, and I had fresh legs, so it was very dreamy because everyone was really tired and I was apologetically flying by them as if they were in slow motion.

I have written quite a bit about the arts and running, how they overlap.* The triathlon culture is more diverse and has its own visual cues and aesthetics. For one thing the hydrodynamics of swimming and the aerodynamics of cycling influence what we look like and how we make things.

These dynamics inform shapes and surfaces. It is amazing how the eye picks up on this. We instinctively know what is lighter and faster. Aerodynamically and hydrodynamically engineered shapes look cool. I think that one reason we gravitate towards streamlined objects is because they appear simple; they are smooth and without complicated and frivolous details. Perhaps it is an association with examples from nature.

Aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are disciplines of efficiency. Just as there is beauty in symmetry, mathematics is also stunningly eye-catching when we witness the tangible results of its formulas for speed and resistance.

A triathlon is the most metamorphic of all sporting events. The athletes start on the beach in tight black neoprene wetsuits looking very fit and aquatic. When the swimmers emerge from the water, they have to run quite a bit to their bikes for a transition, which involves stripping down out of their wetsuits. In this event there was a place where volunteers peeled the suits off the athletes for them. (Pictured here, is our swimmer leaving the Hudson River after a 1.2 mile swim)

In the cycling portion, the participants mount their bikes and take off for a long haul. Some riders wear tear-drop helmets and have low, extended handlebars, which morphs the rider and bike into one streamlined force and a hybrid of human and machine. The shaved legs of the riders and the sleek carbon fiber surfaces are equally smooth.

In the final transition, the bikes are abandoned as are the fancy helmets and stiff shoes. Everything is left behind including the previously shed rubbery skin, and the participant begins to run. It a significant moment, born from water and beyond the assistance of technology. It is the human running free.

For someone, like myself, interested in visual identity and graphics, the event is a real treat. Aside from the numerous logos and the rainbow of colors that adorn bikes, helmets, wetsuits, and running shoes, such an occasion is rich with graphs and charts.

Below, is a map from the Toughman website, which shows the running route. It is not something you could actually use to navigate the course but at least you get a sense that it is hilly and that it is, for the most part, an out-and-back run. Personally, I like running big loops, preferably clockwise.

The next chart is interesting. It shows the elevation changes of the running course. For the kind of runner I am, this is like finding a treasure map. It tells me more explicitly just how hilly the course is, the number of climbs and when they occur in the race. I can also reason that the best runners will stay away from the event because their times would be ravaged by such topography.

Immediately after the first waves of athletes finish, the results are posted on a board. Each triathlete wears a chip around one of his or her legs with a wide, rubbery and Velcro strap. For teams, the chip is passed from swimmer to cyclist to runner. The chip is read by mats at the entrance and exit of the transition area and at the finish line. Theoretically you could cut corners, or worse, and the computer would be none the wiser. In fact, in our race I was ranked with the seventh fastest running time. Naturally, I wanted to see who was quicker but the fastest running time was listed for a woman in 413th place. The only reasonable explanation is that she cut out the few mile loop above the dam, thus placing her with a running time more than four minutes ahead of the elite male who won the overall event with a time two hours ahead of her, even with her shortened course.

These results look something like the chart on the right, which was shows our team on the top line. It has fewer columns than the overall standing chart, which details the duration of each part of the triathlon as well as the transitions times.

Finally, the best visuals of all are the pictures taken by professional photographers (for sale), like the one of our swimmer (above). My pictures are odd to behold. I do not even remember the outside of my body during the run. I do recall some internal cramps and focusing on my lungs, telling myself I was one with the air around me as I ran like the wind. I would not post an image of myself here because I am too pale and skinny. Despite all of the previously mentioned visual elements, I think the most interesting aspect of such event are the body types. Triathletes are perfect. They have swimmers' arms and cyclists' legs. As the mercenary runner, I am all legs and weigh as little as people a head shorter than me. It was a bit of a joke at the event, people asking me if I was the team's swimmer.

Even with all the visual reminders of the day, nothing can compare with the memory of participating in the event...the body moving through space and going into a zone.

*Other posts by me related to running:

Born to Run: A Do-It-Yourself Marathon
Recalling a do-it-yourself marathon inspired by the book, Born to Run

An Out of City Experience
The "third man factor" while running

Find Your Strong
Gladly brainwashed by Saucony's "Find Your Strong" campaign

Running with Music
The analogy of running and music, comparing a runner's body to a musical instrument.

Running the Media
Running as a means of communication

Murakami...About Running: A Book Review
Comments on Haruki Murakami's memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"

Cause & Effect
Running as performance art

Racy
Comparing Neal Bascomb's "The Perfect Mile" (about Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile) with Anaïs Nin's seductive "Delta of Venus"

Frost Nixon

2011-09-02T08:50:00.013-04:00

by Drew Martin

If you do not like politics and movies about politics, and you could care less about Nixon, his administration and Watergate then a good film to see is Frost/Nixon because it is about all of these things but from a very different angle. I watched it last night and found it well paced and captivating.

The movie jacket reads:
When a disgraced President Nixon agreed to an interview with jet-setting television personality, David Frost, he thought he'd found the key to saving is tarnished legacy. But, with a name to make and a reputation to overcome, Frost became one of Nixon's most formidable adversaries and engaged the leader in a charged battle of wits that changed the face of politics forever.

I just now realize it is a Ron Howard film. Although I also liked A Beautiful Mind, I still have a hard time accepting him as a director because he was burned into my adolescent mind as his Happy Days incarnation, Richie Cunningham. Knowing this however, makes it easier to see this film as a blend of the media cues I understood it was referencing: The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, All the President's Men and Rocky.

Rocky, because the series of interviews, which take place over several days, are treated like a boxing match. From the very start the reference is offered, suggesting that Frost, despite all of his training and hype, is left slack-jawed by the defending champion's first punch. Each session is treated as a physical round of sparring. Between recordings, each "fighter" is coached in the corner. There is not any visible blood, spit or bruises but these breaks mimic the "get back in there and show him what you are made of" ringside pep talks.

The interesting thing about the interview is that it substitutes for a trial that never happened because incoming President Ford pardoned Nixon. This is the most interesting concept because a trial is only a means to an end and what America really wanted was not so much that the truth be told but a real confession and admission of guilt; the truth was already out there. It is stated through one of the supporting characters in the end of the film that the fault of television is that it reduces things and dumbs them down but in this case, the closeup of Nixon's troubled and regretful face was the perfect use of the medium.

Autism: The Musical

2011-08-31T12:06:00.026-04:00

by Drew Martin

A couple of nights ago I watched Autism: The Musical (2007) directed by Tricia Regan. The documentary follows Elaine Hall, her adopted autistic son and a true cast of characters through the rehearsing and staging of a musical with autistic tweens. They are tweens because they are between being kids and young adults and are also somewhere between being brilliant and challenged.

All the people in the movie are impressive, especially Hall who tirelessly navigates her son's world and, if that was not enough to exhaust most single parents, takes on a dozen more autistic kids and interacts with their loving but worried parents to put on a show.

The kids are unique. Henry Stills, the son of Kristen Stills, one of the movie's producers, and Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) and is an Asperger keen on paleontology. One of the most touching scenes is when his super-articulate friend Wyatt tells him that he is very smart. Henry sincerely responds that he had always wanted someone to say that to him. Such moments make the film special because they catch you off guard. You see the kids doing things that simply are not normal. They run around wildly or have a tantrum or contort themselves and you assume these actions are the manifestations of what is happening inside them but then they pause for a moment say something incredibly lucid that makes you to realize there is a very calm and intelligent person inside.

At a therapist, Neal (Hall's son) seems uncomfortable and fidgets. He is nonverbal so they are trying out a texting machine he can use to express himself with written words. His first stunning sentence is that he wishes his mother would be a better listener.

Wyatt speaks like a person twice his age, asking himself why he and others go into their own worlds. He yearns to be around people and to interact with them but explains that sometimes he is alone and therefore retreats to a closed-off place. He also has an issue with bullies and clearly sees his dilemma of being placed in a school program with others like him. He complains his class is "100% retarded."

The parents' concerns are also expressed. The father of the only girl the documentary focuses on, Lexi, says the one thing he has nightmares about is what will happen to her when he and his wife are gone, suggesting she is the perfect potential victim for sexual abuse because she does not have the capacity to report such a violation.

He and the father of a musically inclined boy named Adam independently discuss the friction there is with their respective wives. Lexi's father walks out on her mother during the film, Adam's father had an affair prior to the filming. From the outside, the transgressions would appear to be escapism due to the inability to accept their lot but they are both very clear what happens: the mother becomes so obsessed and consumed with her child's autism that there is nothing left for anyone else. If the apple does not fall far from the tree, the parents have to face and overcome their own quirks and limitations to do the best they can. Stephen Stills is the first to admit that he was very much like Henry when he was a boy.

One of the most interesting comments by the parents is from Lexi's father. He keeps trying to solve the impossible riddle of parenting a disadvantaged child and how to plan for her future. He thinks it over and over but the solution is never right. His wife, by contrast, in an earlier part of the film blurts out that she could take her own life.

The film shows troubled moments and starts with the alarming fact that in 1980, autism was a relatively rare disorder, diagnosed in one in 10,000 children in the United States. Now it is one in 150.

What you discover by the end of film, however, is that there is so much joy in the lives you witness and that you could love each of these kids as much as the parents if they were in your own home.

Pictured below: Adam, Neal and Elaine Hall, Lexi, Henry & Wyatt.

Passion and Purpose

2011-08-19T08:14:00.026-04:00

by Drew Martin

I recently watched Philippe Séclier's documentary An American Journey in Robert Frank's Footsteps (2009). What I found most interesting was the discussion of how the actual title of Frank's photography book The Americans (1958) caused a stir.

Photo historian, Stuart Alexander explains how many of the same images appeared in US Camera 1958 and were accepted as Frank's personal experience but by using the title The Americans, his capturing of uncomfortable truths seemed judgemental.

I wish the idea/motif that it takes an outsider to show an American what the country is about could have been better balanced or expanded. This is true of every place, not just America, is it not? It is also inherently false, which is why the French filmmaker's retracing of this expatriated German-Jewish-Swiss' footsteps first comes off as presumptuous and as annoying as an American abroad digging deep for genealogical records. What saves the film from estrangement for a US audience are the candid and quirky Americans who are interviewed and guilelessly come across as good natured and nonjudgmental.

In the film, photographer and acquaintance Wayne Miller recounts a talk Frank gave at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956, where he discussed how good photography can only come from a combined sense of passion and purpose; one without the other does not work. Miller explains that part of Frank's purpose was anger. The most interesting thing he noted about Frank was that he would edit his negatives. This means that instead of cropping the exposure of an image in the darkroom, Frank would cut the actual negative before making prints and throw away the rest. Miller was in awe of this method, which he said took courage and conviction. He added that he was envious of his servitude and insurance.

His printer, Sid Kaplan, speaks of the challenging prints, which "took a lot of time and paper." In his creative relationship with Frank, he likens him to the architect and himself to the engineer. This relationship sounds hand-in-glove but he is also saying "he could not have done it without me." He shows a famous picture by Frank of people on a trolley car and he explains the under- and over-exposing that was necessary to make it work. Hearing him and seeing the final print is not validated until the same photo is shown at another part of the film on a contact sheet. It is a completely different image; flatter and washed out.

Peter Galassi, a curator at the Museum of Modern, explains that during Frank's time New York, the magazine aesthetic completely dominated photography; photography had a strong tradition as independent art, but was buried under weight of magazine world, in which Frank worked to make a living. He goes on to say that the photographers had to create their own place in the art world, which included the idea that a photographer could be an artist. It seems hard to believe, but according to the film there were no galleries in New York City at that time that showed photographs.

The Americans is hailed as a landmark book and a landmark view of the United States. Ed Ruscha said Frank brought together the American dream and American nightmare. Art critic Vicky Goldberg said Frank created a rent in the fabric that the nation had constructed.

Fellow photographer, John Cohen said Frank created the biographical photograph and photography teacher Jno Cook said that Frank made serial images that are cinematically related, which refer back to previous frames and make you wonder what is going to come next.

Frank's publisher, Barney Rosset lumped him together with Kerouac and Ginsberg because like them, Frank was able to connect with ruffians and "come away alive." Rosset explains that although it may not have been obvious in that period, "things come out in different arts but it takes a long time to make the connection."

The first appearance of The Americans was as Les Américains. It was published in Paris by Robert Delpire. Curiously, instead of using one of Frank's images for the cover, Delpire chose a drawing by that other great visual genius in exile, Saul Steinberg. Frank asked Delpire if it was too weird, to which he replied that is was complementary.

The film ends with Séclier's reflective narration offering that before Frank settled down in his adoptive home, he made this visual tour of America, covering 15,000 miles: He saw the land as it is, passed all the tests and felt the real pain of loneliness. He must have thought "I like it" and America responded "Ok you can be one of us."

Making Sense: A Library for the Blind

2011-08-05T21:22:00.016-04:00

by Drew Martin

Although most artists are "visual" artists, art is not made with eyes. Most artists are guided with their eyes but the process is usually performed with their hands; a tactile process. Oddly, the experience of the art by the audience is typically visual, sometimes audio, but rarely involving touch.

What a shame. We would experience so much more by running our hands over great sculptures and brushing our fingers across some canvases. The art world would be quite different if this were the case. It would probably be much more authentic and the untouchable prestige would vanish with human touch. Of course, there are preservation shortcomings to fondling art, but what a tease that is.

I was in Philadelphia yesterday for a photoshoot and was fortunate to start the day off in the same building as the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Part of the Free Library of Philadelphia, this library provides services for people with visual impairments and physical disabilities that would prevent someone from holding a book or turning pages. Available to check out in person or to receive in postage-free containers are audio books and magazines; braille books and magazines; described videos; and, large print books. The audio book stacks are pictured here.

Pennsylvania's two Regional Libraries have over 75,000 titles for circulation. The library includes a public Talking Book Center with audio navigated computers that can convert printed word in braille, large print, or synthesized speech. With the cooperation of authors and publishers, books and magazines are recorded on cassette and produced in braille.

The idea of the audio book actually came from Thomas Edison who recommended that his invention of the record be used for the blind to hear their books.

The interior, opposing walls of the entrance to the library are flanked by relief sculptures with braille titles and were designed to be touched as much as looked at. One of these is pictured above. A plaque next to them reads: Main Line Center for the Arts, Sculpture Classes for the Blind and Sighted.

The Middle of Somewhere

2011-08-03T07:55:00.020-04:00

by Drew Martin

A couple of weeks ago I took a midday train home. The typical evening rush-hour professionals were absent. In their place were random suburban day trippers. Two elderly, platinum blondes boarded with a small boy, who I did not see before he was slipped into a high-backed three-seater.

The train left Hoboken, passed through a long, dark, old tunnel in a rocky hill and emerged into an overgrown slice of northern New Jersey.

The boy chirped in a tiny, high-pitched and concerned voice, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?"

He must have been only four or five years old and he sounded so sad and lost. The train continued on to the marshy and wide-open Meadowlands. He asked even more desperately, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?" He was so anxious that he might as well have been abandoned in the wilderness.

He repeated the troubled question, over and over. Each time, my heart sank. Finally, our train pulled into Rutherford, which has a town center and signs of life. The boy's voice did not change its tone but this time he asked with a glimmer of hope "Are we in the middle of somewhere?"

Illustration by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

Pow Wow

2011-07-29T12:31:00.051-04:00

by Drew Martin

Before the wayward and speculating Europeans arrived in North America, art on this continent was decorative and ceremonial craft, which was very much a part of everyday life. Aspects such as tribal identity and preparation for various occasions had visually aesthetic details but more abstract ideas such as opposition to enemy oppression and the questioning of bloody sacrifices were not expressed in art.

The Spanish occupation of Mexico and the English settling of the East Coast of the United States created and fueled a new kind of inhumanity, which over the years has been responded to with emotive works in literature, music and the visual arts.

The difference between the histories of Mexico and the United States is enormous. The Spanish were conquistadores and from the beginning mixed with the natives. The situation up north was more complicated. The English "adventurers" did not want to be so roguish; they naively thought they would win over the natives and yet the end result was much more devastating to the indigenous population.

The profound divide was that the English not only oppressed the natives but also imported and dominated a completely different culture at the same time, the enslaved Africans. I am not sure if such an international human disaster with so many atrocious consequences has ever occurred in this tight a timeframe on one scrap of land: the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 obliterated "Indian" culture, slavery in the US started there with the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 and between those years tobacco was introduced to Western civilization, which stoked the plantation system and launched the most addictive and deadly habit of all time, smoking.

The dominant tribe of Tidewater Virginia, the Algonquins, were surprised by how submissive the first Africans were but could not comprehend their state; having been swiped from their own continent then packed on slave ships for the harsh transatlantic journey. The Africans had already lost everything and were all but dead on arrival.

The Algonquins skirmished with the English but also tolerated them to some degree, especially after the marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe, (ironically) the father of the tobacco industry. Shown to the right is a portrait of Pocahontas and their son Thomas Rolfe, painted during their trip to England, shortly before she died in 1617.

Following her extremely premature death, which contributed to increasing tensions with the English, the natives staged a massacre in 1622, which resulted in the wholsale slaughter of hundreds of colonists in a matter of minutes. England responded by sending over troops to comb through the woods of Virginia and kill every native in sight. Those who fled, moved west while the African slaves were left alone to bear the brunt of the English and their stifling labor system.

What followed was the worst of slavery and yet not only did the spirit of the slaves endure, it flourished like no other. The contributions to the arts by the descendants of the slaves is immeasurable and priceless. Much of the music, literature and artwork has a continued theme of struggle and opposition to established America, and rightly so. What might be felt as threatening is still the backlash of having been threatened. Likewise, Mexican artists have had a lot to say about the Western invasion. The first works that personally come to mind are the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco.

But what about native Americans? When I try to think about art that expresses their struggle I completely draw a blank. The images I connect to the "new world" atrocities are European, such as this hand colored engraving by the Swiss artist Matthäus Merian, from 1628, depicting the 1622 Massacre. For lack of anything else, I even gravitate back to the most obvious stereotypes of their art...beads, totem poles, headdresses, etc.

Why is this? Is it because so many of those tribes that would produce protest art were simply wiped out? Are there a lot of native artists that are dismissed by a trendy art world? Or is it something much more philosophical...that these cultures without written languages at the time or art beyond patterns and symbolic forms were not culturally positioned to express their woes in art. Or, even now, by doing so...by putting on a show for the art world, would mean the kind of submission and compromise they have so ardently fought against for the past 400 years? Perhaps it is also because unlike the one-way fate of the Africans, the native tribes were already fragmented and locked in power struggles (which is why many of the lesser tribes aided the English because they feared the Algonquins) and much of the demise was due to their own immune systems, unable to cope with the diseases brought over by the Europeans.

Before the 1622 Massacre, the natives for the most part lived independently of the newcomers but would "show up for work" on the colonial one hundreds (precursors to plantations). They had breakfast with the English and then went to the fields...this is why the first attack was so successful, it was orchestrated to happen at the start of breakfast on Good Friday of 1622, at point blank.

Although the natives were fascinated by the phenomenon of writing they had no use for it with generations of codes and communicative nuances in place. On the other hand, the African slaves lived closer to the English/Americans. The English language was under their noses and their being denied its power made literature an explosive medium for telling their story in slave narratives and all the great novels that evolved from them...mainly because it entered the quiet reading rooms of the early Americans with a bang.

Language played a big part in slavery. The multitude of African dialects meant that there was no unified African language, so any hope of solidarity required a lingua franca, which had to be English...but first and alternatively it was song; invisible, free and undeniable. The visual arts took the longest to develop. The slaves' tools were just for labor. Art is obvious and hard to conceal. Additionally, art at that time was a leisurely pastime and reserved for the privileged documentation of pedigree.

Writing has a visual identity but you need to be close to fine print to understand the message and it takes time to decipher a passage. The message of a graphic radiates from its source and is immediate. This is where Kara Walker comes in, and is why she had such an impact with her early work. It was all thought, sung and written before but never so visual. It was an expression in hiding that did not come out until it was safe. Now it is applauded but if it were made in the time which she references it would have had fatal consequences.

I know there must be many native Americans who have written, sung and created art about their own injustices but where are those with the status and recognition of Orozco and the Walker? A disadvantage the native American artists face is that people really love the stereotypes. The image of the native warrior holds a special place in the world's mind. It is romanticized even when adulterated by European influences, such as with horses...pre-Columbian native Americans had never seen horses and did not know what to make of them at first sight; sometimes mistaking a mounted rider and his steed as one monstrous creature.

Most people around the world think the natives all wore headdresses and lived in tee-pees and ran around with tomahawks in their hands. Not only do they think this, but they believe they know it so when something disrupts that image, they do not want to accept it. Such images are popularized by the movie industry as well as staged photographs from the beginning of the 20th Century and are quite different from the original concepts of native Americans. At first, the imaginations of the old world were fed by the images of Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (1533–1588) a French artist who traveled to Florida, mapped the region and made a series of botanical illustrations and depictions of the Amerindians. Le Moyne eventually returned to Europe after relationships with the natives soured and he escaped a Spanish invasion. The torch was then carried by other European artists such as the Belgium artist Theodorus de Bry (1528 – 1598) and his sons who never visited the Americas and whose works were often adjusted to please buyers.

Shape Shifting

2011-07-19T17:47:00.014-04:00

by Drew Martin

In the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, René Auberjonois plays the character Odo who is a shape shifter/changeling. The natural state of this metamorphic species is a shimmering, goopy liquid. Amusingly, his kind refers to humanoids as "solids."

In the Star Trek tradition, Odo is the in-need-of-a-hug show outcast, as was Spock in the original series, as was Data in Next Generation. Unlike these predecessors, ornery Odo is not a logical counterweight or friendly android; he is cantankerous and dismissive.

Not only is Odo the least human of these pivotal characters but he knows nothing about his origin. He serves as the constable on the station and transforms himself in order to spy on suspects and to access areas undetected. He can be a mouse, a bag...even a framed painting.

In the episode The Search, Odo finds his home on a rogue planet and meets others like him. After a brief introduction, he is left alone in an arboretum. When he is rejoined by a maternal figure, she asks him if he has made good use of his time in that garden. He is confused and asks her what she means. She comments that he has been among the "solids" too long and that he should take the shape of the various plants around him in order to understand them better; to assume the form of something is to know it.

This idea has a wonderful extrapolation to art, especially sculpture. I imagine Odo wandering around museums emulating Rodin, Canova, Oldenburg, Calder, Moore and Kapoor.

Michelangelo said he was freeing the human forms that already existed in the blocks of marble. If this sounds a bit too romantic now, it was a conceptual leap at the time.

With Odo in mind, perhaps a great sculpture could be viewed as the transformation of the artist himself or herself into a three dimensional object for our benefit. Additionally, it would be an interesting way to interact with a sculpture. Put aside the analysis, art history and any attempt to figure out what it is trying to "say" and just imagine yourself taking on its properties.

Shattering Boundaries: Grace Hartigan

2011-07-17T18:30:00.004-04:00

by Drew Martin

I just watched Grace Hartigan: Shattering Boundaries. It is a documentary about Hartigan, who was one of the first artists to recognize the quality and vitality of abstract expressionism and was part of a community of poets and painters in New York City that went beyond collaboration. Her own work merged figuration and the methodology from abstract expression.

Hartigan (March 28, 1922 — November 15, 2008) claims in the film, that the large scale of American abstract expressionist paintings came from movies...seeing the large heads on the silverscreen, which she recalls as early as 5, had a profound effect on visual artists.

Hartigan posed nude for 95 cents an hour at the Art Student League to make ends meet but stopped because she said it was difficult to discuss and defend her work while naked.

Hartigan contacted and visited Jackson Pollock after his first drip show and commented...

There was then that tremendous feeling that there wasn't just that activity, and you weren't just making an object. That whatever it is in the unknown in the self is deeply involved with the work.

Hartigan was very much a part of that tight knit artist community in New York City. It was said that there was a struggle of ego and insecurity. Ego, because these artists had stolen the art world fire from Paris and felt as if they were changing the world. Insecurity, because they wondered if it really mattered.

When asked in the more commercial era of Warhol how she would like to be called the mother of Pop Art she replied...

I would rather be the precursor of a movement that I hate than a second generation of a movement that I love.

Form & Light, Inform & Delight

2011-07-10T15:59:00.029-04:00

by Drew Martin

The film Helvetica is a must-see for any graphic designer. A movie about a font may sound painful to sit through but it is captivating. This weekend I saw another film, which I think is even more important for young designers to watch: Milton Glaser, To Inform & Delight.

The title of the film comes from the 1st Century Roman Poet Horace's statement that the purpose of art is to inform and delight. The opening credits introduce the words form and light before changing into the Horatian title: the play on words is perfect for what follows.

If you are not familiar with Milton Glaser, you just do not know it. He is the artist who came up with the logo for the I Love New York slogan.

As Glaser explains, the project was conceived during a time in the mid 1970s when New York City was going downhill, fast. The new, upbeat saying contributed to the reverse of the decline of morale. The success of the logo, he offers, is because it is a visual puzzle, which makes the person viewing it remember it better than being told directly. Simple as it is, the combination of text and the symbol has to be figured out.

Glaser was one of the first designers to part with the Swiss-informed commercial art world. His post-modern sensibilities embraced previous styles and made them relevant again. He helped found New York magazine and was also behind Gloria Steinem's Ms. magazine. His approach to the press was that of service journalism.

As a designer, his first love is drawing, which he explains, is a way of understanding the world and of thinking. He speaks about the balance between solitary creation and collaborative work, the latter preferable...like having a dancing partner. I especially liked one moment when he was talking about a poster he did for the School of Visual Arts. He tossed together a bunch of stickers he did for the school. The edges curled and because he liked the effect, he had them photographed this way. He explained that he could have reached a similar effect on the computer but he would not have stumbled upon it as a physical act.

It is a comment that seems appropriate for other interests he enjoys as much as creating graphic art. He loves music and feels that his visual nods to music and musicians can evoke the response that music does. Likewise, he loves food and compares preparing meals to having the same kind of joy as drawing.

A well known graphic artist referred to him as the total artist. A friend explained that Glaser's hands have no resistance and his drawing is automatic, immediate, complete, unmediated and instantaneous. Glaser is just as well known and admired for his articulation. He speaks about the role of artists and design as a way to interact with people just as certain cultures participated in gift giving in order to pacify each other. Similarly, as with the presents, the absence of the gifts of art results in conflict and "people killing each other."

It makes sense that Glaser created the I Heart New York logo because he is perhaps one of the greatest and most authentic New Yorkers. He was educated at the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts as well as Cooper Union. While he reminisces about what a great education he received he is also quick to point out that New York City is one of the best places to be educated simply as a citizen because of all the free events and lectures and the wealth of the museums.

A Beautiful Mind

2011-07-02T07:52:00.020-04:00

by Drew Martin

A picture in a magazine caught my eye a couple months ago. It was of a boy lying on the grass with a vacuum cleaner hose arced over his head. He holds one end at his mouth and the other end at his ear. It is an intriguing picture because of his tranquility and the soft, echoing sounds it creates in your mind when you look at it, but it also a little unsettling.

This picture accompanied an article about autism and is part of a New York Times article with a slideshow that focuses on the boy's condition. The pictures were taken by the father, a professional commercial photographer, of his son. The father approached the project as a way to understand his son's quirks and the young boy contributed to the planning and executing of the shots.

The Aspergers and Autism community blog, thautcast.com, shares my thoughts on the Times' piece that it...

"... is a little more "autistic children are trapped in a cruel world of darkness" than I would like to see in this century..."

The inherent stillness and isolation of the photography has a lot to do with this and the formality of the shoot reinforces a clinical label. Unfortunately, most media representations of unique minds tend to either exaggerate, caricaturize or elevate them to a genius/savant level.

While it is true some autistic kids are cognitively years ahead of their peers and make brilliant musical and artistic connections, I would hesitate to join the camp that proposes autism is a sign of human evolution. I believe that people who display autistic tendencies have greatly contributed to the advancement of civilization and culture with their insights on humanity, arts, sciences and engineering but we are not witnessing the birth of a new species.

The idea of autism as a kind of mental superiority has been criticized as neurelitism, that is, the view that autistics are somehow superior to neurotypicals. This discussion focuses on the individual character blazing new neural paths. If there is progress with our species it is perhaps more about the social aspects that require more parenting and schooling and better parenting and schooling. An autistic child who is diagnosed early should receive much more attention and more of an education than the average kid. This would seem to be consistent with the progress our mammalian bonding and childcare. After all, we do not lay eggs in the sand and then scurry back into the sea. The emotional ties of our kind are forged through long gestation and rearing periods.

So what does autism creatively look like? While Stephen Wiltshire is well known for his detailed cityscapes, I think it should be emphasized that these sophisticated works are the final product of someone with a great visual memory but they do not shed much light on his thought process.

I find autistic sensibilities more accessible in the work of an artist such as Piet Mondrian. The artists most commonly assumed to have been autistic include Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol but I do not think it would be too far a stretch to say that every famous artist, as well as noted scientist, inventor, writer and musician is somewhere on the spectrum.

Autistic and artistic seem at times to be interchangeable.

If you listen to an autistic person explain the singularity and focus of the moment, it sounds familiar to not only how you feel when you are absorbed with the inner world of creation but also when you are immersed in someone else's work and your connection to real-time is severed.

The most common state of art is the finished product but we also can talk about art as a process, an experience, a concept and a performance. All of these are intentional. Even the per-chance dada-ists and their successive action painters were intentional. So are the l'Art Brut creators: they all set out to create.

To understand autism and art, it is important to consider the unintentional: associations made simply to establish relationships and order, which, to an observer may be received as a higher function.

In my long, narrow closet is a stretch of colorful banded carpet made by my aunt-in-law in the Tatra mountains of Poland. I came home the other day to find my three year old's cars lined up by color along the stripes. It was a subtle, beautiful gesture and yet it had nothing to do with an idea of art or decoration. It simply seemed like the right thing to do. I think this example is a nice play on being "on the spectrum" because it is indeed a colorful experience.

Intoxicated with Telling the Truth

2011-06-12T06:15:00.009-04:00

by Drew Martin

I saw an interesting movie this weekend called Far From Poland. It was made in 1984 by Jill Godmilow, an American documentary filmmaker. What was special about it was that after being denied a visa to go to Poland to witness Solidarity firsthand and document the movement, she decided to go ahead and make the movie in New York City. She had texts and recordings of famous interviews translated and reenacted by actors. These include Anna Walentynowicz, the crane operator whose firing in 1980 sparked the strike in the Gdansk shipyard, a ex-censor and a coal miner. The film closes with a fictional set of letters from General Jaruzelski to his daughter. The reenactment shows him under house arrest, which was part of his punishment for having imposed martial law on Poland while he was Prime Minister during communism.

The four acts are pasted together by the filmmaker's comments and discussions with her boyfriend while she was making this film. Interstitial Polish jokes and recounted dream conversations with Fidel Castro help glue it all together.

A review quote on the DVD jacket reads,

"...like the best of Goddard, it is film criticism and social criticism at the same time."

One question put to Walentynowicz was if she thought people are essentially bad because of how she was treated. She replied that people aren't evil, just terribly afraid. It was that fear that made all of the atrocities of communism possible and why it lasted for four decades. Walentynowicz went on to say that when the tables were turned, the Poles became "intoxicated with telling the truth."

The DVD comes with a 16-page booklet, which leads with this piece by Godmilow...

I've been thinking for a long time that what is commonly understood as the progressive or liberal documentary is an inadequate form - a relatively useless cultural product, especially for political change. Its basic strategy is description and it makes its argument by organizing visual evidence, expressive local testimony and sometimes expert technical testimony into a satisfying emotional form...Though the liberal documentary takes the stance of a sober, nonfiction vehicle for edification about the real world, it is trapped in the same matrix of obligations as the fiction film: to entertain its audience; to satisfy, to assure the audience of informed and moral citizenship; to achieve closure. My question is: Is that of any political use?

The booklet contains a timeline of Solidarity and the End of the Communist Government of Poland, which reaches back to workers' strikes in June 1976 and continues until August 2005, when, at 82, Jaruzelski apologized for sending Polish troops to crush the pro-democracy Prague spring during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The booklet also contains a manifesto of sorts...

KILL THE DOCUMENTARY, AS WE KNOW IT: DOGMA 2001

1. Don't produce "real" time and space: your audience is in a movie theatre, in comfortable chairs.

2. Don't produce the surface of things: have a real subject and a real analysis -- or at least an intelligent proposition – that is larger than the subject of the film. If you forget to think about this before starting to shoot, find it in the editing room, and then put it in the film, somehow.

3. Don’t produce freak shows of the oppressed, the different, the criminal, the primitive. Please don't use your compassion as an excuse for social pornography. Leave the poor freaks alone.

4. Don’t produce awe for the rich, the famous, the talented, the highly successful: they are always everywhere and we feel bad enough about ourselves already. The chance to envy, or hate them, in the cinema doesn't help anybody.

5. Don’t make films that celebrate "the old ways" and mourn their loss. Haven’t you yourself enjoyed change? How are the "old ways" people different from you?

6. Keep an eye on your own middle-class bias, and on your audience's: don’t make a film that feeds it. Remember that you are producing human consciousness in people who are very susceptible to suggestion... and alone in the dark.

7. Don't address an audience of "rational animals": we have not yet evolved beyond the primitive urges of hatred, violence, and exploitation of the poor and the weak.

8. Try not to exploit your social actors: just being seen in your film is not enough compensation for the use of their bodies, voices and experience.

9. Whatever you do, don't make "history". If you can't help yourself, try to remember that you’re just telling a story -- and at the very least, find a way to acknowledge your authorship.

10. Watch that music: what's it doing? who is it conning?

11. Leave your parents out of this.

The Essence of Essence

2011-06-10T08:24:00.010-04:00

by Drew Martin

I thumb through a lot of magazines. One of my favorite is Essence because it has a really specific readership and not published for a middle-aged Caucasian male (me) to read. The pull-quote from the Letter from the Editor, Constance C. R. White, sums up the directive,

"We are committed to reflecting the truth of Black women's lives."

So it would seem that there would not be a lot for me to relate to, but other than very precise leads, such as the title of (CNN Anchor) Don Lemon's article, To My Beautiful Black Sisters, the topics are universal and interesting for everyone to read.

Perhaps topics are more poignant when they are meant for a limited audience but, unbeknownst to the writer/editor, have a much broader reach, as with issues of relationships and parenting. What might be perceived as weaknesses, and not something one might not share outside of a group, are really important to broadcast loud and clear.

White rallies against "one-note depictions of Black women" in the media so it is key for her and all the contributors and readers to understand that although Essence has a niche market it is also a wonderful magazine for everyone.

Lemon's article in the July 2011 issue is brilliant. He starts off with the tragedy of Tyler Clementi, a young man from my town who jumped off the GW Bridge because his intimacy with another young man was secretly recorded by jeering students. Lemon explains his own mother's support when he came out after his boyfriend dumped him. He then turns to the readers and offers how they should react to a son or daughter in a similar situation and to reject bigotry and discrimination.

Lemon mentions his book Transparent (an interesting title reference to Invisible Man), which I would think he wrote for a very general audience, not focused on African American women. Writing this post has made me realize there is a perceived audience a writer is catering to. I think it is obvious that the writer has some idea who he or she is addressing. If there is a career behind the person then the publisher is quite concerned about such details because it represents a market. What I think is missed is the perceived audience a reader may think is being addressed.

I do not know who reads this blog. It is for anyone interested in the arts and media (any age, race or religion) and I want it to be a casual, serendipitous encounter. I don't think of it as a blog that someone would persistently follow. But now I realize someone might read this and think I am writing for a determined audience. In the back of my mind I am writing this post specifically for Constance C. R. White, Don Lemon and the readers of Essence who would not assume someone like me would find it interesting...and in the same moment, I am writing it for everyone.

Find Your Strong

2011-06-09T15:23:00.020-04:00

by Drew Martin

I typically do not write about advertisements and I know better than to succumb to commercial forces but I am sold on the new Saucony Find Your Strong campaign, especially the picture above. Unbound freedom is a small price from them (compared to a car commercial): a pair of shorts, their shoes on my feet and that gorgeous rolling landscape. I love this caveman-like runner...modern man drumming up his wild side, which in turn is a primordial man running into his future. This picture is the antithesis of the button-down office worker, tamed and domesticated, scurrying to work through a labyrinth of city blocks.

I admit...I have been thoroughly brainwashed/programmed by the ad and will buy a pair of Saucony for my next running shoe purchase just to recall the sensation I get from looking at it. According to solecollector.com, the company started in the Victorian era and yet this is their first national campaign and television spot.

"The new campaign continues to amplify our brand mission to inspire runners every day," Chris Lidner, Saucony's chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

That is so corporate-speak but at the same time inspiration can indeed come from calculated marketing lingo. Not as punchy and commanding as Nike's Just Do It campaign from 1988, Find Your Strong is less of that no excuses drill sergeant bark and more of an internal supportive voice. Additionally, this campaign is directed solely at runners, confirmed by the tagline We Know Because We Run.

The Just Do It campaign was a huge success but I think that catchy phrase is also limiting. Do what? Find Your Strong has a lot of meaning for me as a runner because there is the first read that you are to summon your internal strength but it also says to me to find what events you are good at and enjoy them.

I just read that their first factory was built 1898 on the banks of Saucony Creek in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. The "swoosh" (for lack of a better term) of their logo/design on the side of their shoes represents the constant flow of Saucony Creek, while the circles represent the boulders lining its creek bed.

Anything But Biutiful

2011-06-08T08:38:00.012-04:00

by Drew Martin

On Saturday I ironed my dress shirts to Biutiful, the latest film by Alejandro González Iñárritu, I liked it...I like gritty realist films, such as his Amores Perros.

Biutiful stars Javier Bardem, who is one of my favorite actors, not so much for his mellow performances but because he has such an interesting, sculptural face to watch. It is rarely contorted with expressions and has a stillness, which allows you to really look at it instead of a projection of an overconfident Hollywood mask.

Part of the film samples the lives of immigrants in the sketchy parts of Barcelona, where Africans and the Chinese elbow their way through their personal Hell on Earth. These scenes did not make me feel like I was sharing their experiences, which is what movies typically try to do. I had quite the opposite feeling, like I never could understand that life.

I have lived abroad and worked odd jobs including construction in foreign lands. I have shacked up with Ukrainian workers in cheap laborer digs and waited on long bureaucratic lines for documents with too often ignored Vietnamese street vendors but I was always had an advantage. I had a US passport, an education, spoke English and I was a white guy in northern Europe. More important was the psychological state. When you put yourself in certain situations, it becomes an adventure and you have some kind of forcefield around you.

Closer to home, no matter how integrated I am with immigrant diasporas in America, I can truly never share their experiences. What I like about about Bardem's character is his confrontation with this barrier. He tries to get close and be helpful but there is clear division between him and the others. It is that advantage that puts him in a place to try to help them, even when he is in it for profit.

If there was ever a film about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions, this is it. The African immigrants he deals with are arrested and deported, 25 Chinese people are asphyxiated in the evening because of defective gas heaters he purchased to warm them at night...although he did buy the cheapest kind so he could pocket some money.

This is the one of the most important aspects of the film, his character's character flaw, which is simply that there really is no right answer. He yo-yo's his children from their bipolar, wreckless mother who abuses the son and sleeps with their uncle. When he feeds them, the meal is some kind of cereal biscuit, like a huge Shredded Wheat, which he loads with spoonfuls of sugar, while he and the child he is serving imagine it is something else. This is the sugar coating of their life but there is nothing sweet about it.

Despite the disconnect to those he cannot really help, Bardem's character is affected; he internalizes the plight of the others, which is symbolically represented by his physical demise. He is dying of prostrate cancer, which has spread like wildfire. He pisses blood.

The world that Iñárritu shows us is rotten, through and through: moldy and grimy on the outside, rancid and toxic on the inside. There is no peace; the dead are restless, still trying to escape this world. The Chinese corpses are dumped like trash in the sea and even the father of Bardem's character is exhumed in order to sell his place in the cemetery.

Hell freezes over in the afterlife, a snowy forest in the Pyreness where Bardem's character meets his father, who died before he was born. In this scene, which appears in the beginning and the end, you breathe the fresh, clean, crisp air and feel purified.

Ish

2011-06-07T22:01:00.027-04:00

By Drew Martin

When I was a much younger man, a student, I reasoned that my pursuits of biology and art would be best fulfilled by raising children. What else could be closer to the "study of life" and creation? The truth is, whatever your calling, having children and watching them grow gives you insight to every little detail in life.

I became interested in languages and linguistics when I lived in Europe for several years so I always like to listen to my kids speak and express themselves.

My 12-year-daughter is fond of ending thoughts with "...and yeah."

According to an online slang dictionary, "...and yeah" finishes a sentence making it complete. It is used when the rest of a sentence would be either redundant in repeating what they already said or they forget what they were going to say, or they just felt like ending the sentence then and there.

The contributor from that source did not know the origin, but noted its use at least a decade ago.

"And yeah" used to drive me nuts but now I like it. There is something upbeat about it.

My 11-year-old son is the master of avoidance. He likes to get out of things, such as chores and other obligations...especially answering me. So recently he distilled the perfect answer and in doing so has created a new usage of the word "ish."

As a suffix and and adverb ish indicates approximation and can mean about, almost, around, close to, loosely, near, nearly and roughly.

Let's meet around noon-ish.''

She's already a mother of two. How old do you think she is, ish?

This creature, pictured right, looks fish-ish.

How was the show?" "It was good, ish"

I had, however, never heard anyone simply use "ish" as stand-alone response until two weeks ago when my son started using it as the all encompassing answer. It is actually the ultimate usage of ish because now it spans nouns and adjectives.

So if you ask, "What time will you be home?" Instead of being answered "Seven or eight-ish," you simply get "Ish."

This could seem very frustrating but for one thing it is generally a positive response, and at worse, a diplomatic "Yes and no." So while it sometimes leads to a circuitous discussion as a parent, I actually love this usage and open-ended meaning.

Have you been following the news?

Ish.

Racism Revisited

2011-06-03T15:31:00.037-04:00

by Drew Martin

I recently read Jerry Saltz's review for New York Magazine of Kara Walker's current shows at two New York galleries. I printed the article and read the hardcopy, which noted there were 23 comments but only two are shown on my sheets.

One remarks:

I always find it curious when I hear some folks expound about Kara...so much baggage they bring to her work - so much pseudo-intellectual analysis, and this and that...

I was intrigued by that honest response to Saltz's expounding and although I am not a fan of Walker's artwork, I thought I would visit both of her exhibitions with fresh eyes to find some enthusiasm for her and try to see beyond the hype. Most importantly, I really wanted to question myself...my biases. Her in-your-face product is not the kind of work that encourages this, in fact, it does quite the opposite. But I like to understand why I do or do not like something.

On Tuesday I went to the Lehman Maupin gallery at 201 Chrystie Street. It is a very cool space, with a balcony view of the main gallery. Walker's most awkward work is her filmed puppetry. The main, cavernous room is devoted to one of these films, depicting rapings and such (pictured above). A much smaller room upstairs shows a brief, looping video of Walker picking a guitar and trying to sing. Apparently Saltz enjoyed that she was "pantless" and was focused on "glimpses between her legs." Personally, my immediate reaction was to sigh and tell myself there is much better talent in the world to devote this kind of space to than such a self-indulgent, YouTube-quality production.

Saltz promised a more powerful show at the Sikkema Jenkins gallery at 530 W 22nd Street so I walked there in the blistering heat on Wednesday. I think I was going there to confirm my convictions but that immediately changed when I passed through their clean, transparent doors and was enveloped by the calm, chilled air. As an aside, I must add that the gallery is gorgeous...museum quality, a beautiful space and with the right tone of lighting.

It is hard not to be impressed by what Walker has created. The scale of everything is immense...huge sails of creamy paper and well-made black and white frames with panes of glass the size of storefront windows. This is a big production show, with a lot of calculated support behind it. No artist would (or could) create such works without being assured (he or) she would be exhibited and that the pieces would sell like hotcakes.

At times I did find the scale of everything distracting. The easy look of the drawings makes them seem like sketchbook doodles that have been sized up simply for a wow factor. Not only is this part of the territory, but with many artists it is the process. Whenever I see something blown up with the size matters attitude, I like to think of Salvador Dalí's Persistence of Memory hanging on the wall at MoMA. It is so small and yet it had such an impact on the history of art because of its concept and quality.

Saltz likens Kara's previous work to Francisco Goya's The Disasters of War and the current show to Pablo Picasso's Guernica but Walker's work lacks Goya's depth and Picasso's vision. Instead, her drawings at Sikkema Jenkins actually remind me more of Honoré Daumier, especially because of their social commentary and the bulbous characters.

Although the forms are cartoonish, I was impressed by Walker's complicated layering and subtracting of charcoal and pencil, especially the broad strokes from erasers that bring back the white of the paper to highlight certain areas and to contrast the pitch-black shapes. These drawings are not just done with her hand but with her whole arm in full swing.

There is a conflict between her slightly goofy forms and display of abstraction, which reminds me of William De Kooning. It would be nice to see Walker jettison the caricatures for pure abstraction and let her stormy gestures speak for themselves. She is certainly positioned in the artworld to do so.

At Sikkema Jenkins, I got past Walker's dependence on racism as a theme...or maybe I simply became numb to it because she constantly hits you over the head with it. Perhaps there is something conceptual to be said of her exploiting the exploited.

Goya and Picasso had so much more range in subjects and styles. Their horrors were matched with beauty and love. They showed us a full range of emotions and perspectives. When an artist such as Walker has this narrow a focus, one has to ask what more is she capable of. Saltz wrote that her new drawings have "taken leaps forward" but it actually feels like "more of the same" just a different medium.

I like what the minimalist sculptor Anne Truitt wrote in Daybook, that she would not want to create cathartic work and have to face it again, frozen on a canvas, as did Frida Kahlo with her physical and emotional suffering. Goya and Picasso, with The Disasters of War and Guernica (respectively), were coming from a very different place...reacting to their immediate environment and threats: Goya's "I saw this" and Picasso's reply to the German officer's inquiring about who painted the canvas, "You did."

Walker is doing something very different though. As a privileged art professor at Columbia University and an artworld darling, she is stretching for the material and knows what she has as an marketable artist. I once read a remark by her that her silhouettes "saved her" (from obscurity). One would now only expect Walker to keep racism alive and center stage in her work, but personally I would like to see her make a true leap and explore multi-racial respect and love. But then again, I do question whether this is simply my wanting the horrors of the past to simply go away.