Long time no see

Two papers to write => time to vent.

1. DeviantArt has made changes to the website, so the RSS plugin is not working. Sorreys! Waiting for an update.
2. It has been a little more than 7 months since I left New York. Newness of India has faded, salad-less days and walk-less evenings are gnawing me for change.  It is time to indulge in new madness, so that the tenderness towards the land of warmth and color does not fade as well.

Twiggy by Richard Avedon

Surely I have two midterm exams tomorrow, and my arse will be viciously kicked by Indian MBAs, who, mind you, are no regular MBA students. Many of them are restlessly studying human calculators on steroids. From what I hear, some of them mumble stuff about fixed costs and increasing returns to scale in their sleep. You are right, that is an entirely different story; my point is, this post could not wait.

When Twiggy’s boniness meets Richard Avedon’s hunger for movement, one must postpone her life and take a look. Then one must go further,  gobbling up such photographer’s work. Sure, you can also google “Avedon” and come across all of these photos, but I really really wanted them on my page.

I was alerted to this spasmatic googling by Through the Eyes of Richard Avedon by NYT Style. Thank you!

Goya, Francisco. "The Third of May, 1808." 1814. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Goya, Francisco. "Great Deeds! Against the Dead!" The Disasters of War, plate 39. 1810-1820

Goya, Francisco. "Not Either." The Disasters of War, plate 36. 1810-1820

You can look up all of these 80 aquatint prints HERE.

The curtain was a zoom-in on a detail of “Pilgrimage to San Isidro’s Fountain.”

Goya, Francisco. "Pilgrimage to St. Isidro's Fountain." 1821. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

this is what my berry saw

Cassatt, Mary. "Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge." 1879. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, USA.

Just like the woman depicted in the paining, I did lots of double-edged people  watching: endlessly beautiful hedgefund wives, old men with bright scarves in a breastpocket, old women with “perfect hair” and inch-thick gold chains, sophisticated talk in German, French, Russian, etc… I saw many people coursing amongst expensive orchestra seats, “Oh hello, so wonderful to see you!” Looks like opera remains what it has always been – a social event, participation in the fancy ways of the higher society.

Andrew Wyeth

Today Internet is full of announcements about Andrew Wyeth’s death. 

He was one of my favorite artists and thought provokers. I have posted before on how much Wyeth’s art impresses me. I am thankful for his unintrusive but deep perception of human emotions and phenomenal story-telling on each separate canvas. 

Wind from the Sea

The celebrity is vivacious and very friendly: dozens stopped to say hi in the 10 mins that I spent around him, and he did not snob one person. Barely moving (he is waiting to get a hip replacement and is in a lot of pain), but continuing to scrape the mix of human slobber and gum off the sidewalk right next to the lamppost, Jim told me that he is trying to raise $200,000 to hire artists as aids. His goal is to complete the trail and fix the mosaics that need a healing touch. To find more about what Jim is trying to accomplish, check out EmpowerJimPower.com.

As for me, I am a believer in East Village and its local quirks. It is Jim and people like him that make the Village what it is, and it would suck if they disappeared.

then there was elmo, mom, sheep and what not. every time i waited for a seat at Mogador, i would check out the window of the De La Vega‘s shop. slowly checking out has become more systematic: i now take a stroll along St. Mark’s every Sat or Sun morning to see what’s new.

reading up on this young artist has revealed that his genius is not appreciated by the NYPD. i have nothing to say to this, but to remember my own encounter with NYPD, when i almost got arrested for sitting in a park late at night, talking about politics and economics with two friends. heh, NYPD and the law do not seem to have a sense of humor.

James De La Vega’s popularity is not only with the local police. if you walk thru east village or east harlem paying attention to what is around, you will be blown away how many businesses get this man to decorate their furniture, exteriors and what not.

The original:

Pablo Picasso. Guernica.  1937. Oil on canvas. 349 × 776 cm. Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid

East Village remix:

Must look up the artist. Filthy,vile. 2008. Spraypaint on brick. Around  200 x 200 cm. Outside of Mars Bar.

Jokes aside, I recommend to see the four beasts driving on the FDR or riding the Q train. I will spare you of the blackberry pictures of the project, since it is best seen live or on the pictures by the pros.

Portrait
Blaise Cendrars

Il dort
Il est éveillé
Tout à coup, il peint
Il prend une église et peint avec une église
Il prend une vache et peint avec une vache
Avec une sardine
Avec des têtes, des mains, des couteaux
Il peint avec un nerf de bœuf
Il peint avec toutes les sales passions d’une petite ville juive
Avec toute la sexualité exacerbée de la province russe
Pour la France
Sans sensualité
Il peint avec ses cuisses
Il a les yeux au cul
Et c’est tout à coup votre portrait
C’est toi lecteur
C’est moi
C’est lui
C’est sa fiancée
C’est l’épicier du coin
La vachère
La sage-femme
Il y a des baquets de sang
On y lave les nouveau-nés
Des ciels de folie
Bouches de modernité
La tour en tire-bouchon
Des mains
Le Christ
Le Christ c’est lui
Il a passé son enfance sur la Croix
Il se suicide tous les jours
Tout à coup il ne peint plus
Il était éveillé
Il dort maintenant
Il s’étrangle avec sa cravate
Chagall est étonné de vivre encore

A collector of feelings, when I look at the works of art, I mostly allow myself to separate them into “likes” and “dislikes” simply by the sentiment that they evoke the very second I see them for the first time. Not every work of Chagall produces a positive disturbance in my imagination; thus, I had to force myself to step over my hostility and into exploration regardless of this animosity without a clear reason. That was when I found the greatest painter of a magic moment in time together with its expansion into surreal.

I personally prefer the later works of Chagall, after he has already stepped away from the cubists’ technique of a linear separation of a canvas. I prefer fuzziness of the images, their airy softness of fusion to the harsh outlines and borders of the earlier works.

I have walked past her several times, I am sure. This time around she attracted me. I did not look for a while at the title of the sculpture, did not even try to figure out what was in front of me. Instead I savored the fact that somebody has cast in bronze a familiar feeling, even a phobia.

Alberto Giacometti. Woman with Her Throat Cut. 1932 (cast 1949). Bronze, 8 x 34 1/2 x 25″ (20.3 x 87.6 x 63.5 cm)

Once I got home, I read in whatever art his literature I own and online about Giacometti and the Woman. Different critics interpreted the work differently, calling it anything from “a bronze construction of a dismembered female corpse” to “powerful image of sexual pleasure and violence.” The most thorough and thoughtful interpretation of the work that I found is by Laurie Wilson. You can read a four-page excerpt (p. 120) about the Woman in Wilson’s Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic, and the Man available via google books.

Still, how did he know, I wondered? How did he know this feeling of being defenseless yet dangerous, destroyed, yet dangerous, ripped open in front of the viewer, exposed, disfigured, yet graceful and, again, dangerous? The question that I am mulling on is “What kind of man is able to grasp this feeling, and what was his path to understanding it?”