After Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart retired from music in the 80s, he concentrated on his newfound career as an internationally recognized abstract painter and gradually became more and more reclusive. One of the few glimpses of Van Vliet during the ’90s is in Anton Corbijn’s 13 minute poetic 1993 documentary, Some Yo Yo Stuff, which features features him talking about life, philosophy, music and art. Van Vliet’s mother and David Lynch make appearances in the film as well. Continue reading SOME YO YO STUFF : An observation of the observations of Don Van Vliet by Anton Corbijn 1993 approx 13 min.
Tag Archives: ART
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG AND LEO CASTELLI in conversation with Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, 1977
Barbara Diamonstein-Spielvogel conducts a wonderful conversation with Robert Rauschenberg and Leo Castelli in 1977.
From the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Video Archive in the Duke University Libraries.
GUY BOURDIN : WALKING LEGS
“THE EROTIC, UNNERVING IMAGES OF HIGH HEELED SHOES WALKING, DISCONNECTED FROM THE BODY, ALONG BEACHES OR ACROSS INDUSTRIAL WASTELAND ARE IN CONTRAST TO OTHER SEXUALLY CHARGED PHOTOGRAPHS FOR FRENCH VOGUE”
– SUZY MENKES, VOGUE
Guy Bourdin, born in Paris in 1928, was the pioneering fashion photographer whose arresting photographs filled the pages of French Vogue for three decades from the 1950s through to the 80s. He is notorious for breaking the boundaries of traditional commercial photography and reshaping the classic fashion picture, using a daring narrative and vibrant colour palette. Vogue’s editor introduced Bourdin to the shoe designer Charles Jourdan, for whom he became the brand’s official advertising photographer, producing some of his best images during this period. The beauty in many of his pictures is that you can see small imperfections and fine details such as the models’ pores. In this respect they hold an integrity that is rarely seen today.
In 1950, Guy Bourdin met Man Ray and became his protégé. The spirit of the Surrealists is ever-present in Bourdin’s work: we see this in the dream-like quality of his pictures and the artist’s use of uncanny juxtapositions. Taking photography as his medium of choice, Bourdin explored the provocative and the sublime with a relentless perfectionism and sharp humour. He captured the imagination of a generation, and yet his images have a timeless quality, so much so that they continue to influence the worlds of fashion and advertising today, twenty years since his death.
To coincide with the UK’s largest ever exhibition of the influential and enigmatic fashion photographer Guy Bourdin at Somerset House, the Michael Hoppen Gallery is delighted to exhibit a wonderful group of images ‘Walking Legs’. Officially being unveiled alongside Somerset House’s show ‘Image-Maker’, ‘Walking Legs’, is one of Bourdin’s most loved Charles Jourdan campaign series. ‘Walking legs’ was shot in 1979 by the French designer and photographer using quintessentially English landscapes as the backdrop to this high-end campaign. Photographed at locations on a road trip taken in a Cadillac from London to Brighton, many of the city and seaside scenes remain the same today and include familiar sights such as the London bus stop and the classic park bench. As with much of Bourdin’s work, the model is mysteriously absent – all that is seen is a pair of mannequin legs, adorned with Charles Jourdan’s creations.
-Guy Bourdin, Walking Legs, Michael Hoppen Gallery, http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/exhibitions/8/overview/#/image_standalone/14
ARTHUR GARFIELD DOVE :: That Red One, 1944
ELLEN FULLMAN AND THE LONG STRING INSTRUMENT
Artist/Composer Ellen Fullman has been working with her Long String Instrument since she developed it in 1981. The Long String Instrument, an installation of dozens of wires 50 feet or more in length is tuned in Just Intonation and “bowed” with rosin-coated fingers, producing a chorus of minimal organ-like overtones. The instrument combines Fullman’s artistic expressions of everyday activities, such as walking, with a unique performance art sensibility. Fullman has developed a specialized notation system to choreograph the performer’s movements, exploring sonic events that occur at specific nodal point locations along the string-length of the instrument. She has recorded extensively with this unusual instrument and has collaborated with such other luminary figures as composer Pauline Oliveros, choreographer Deborah Hay, the Kronos Quartet and Keiji Haino.
This video features Ellen Fullman and the Long String Instrument in performance at MOCAD (The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) on March 9, 2013. With area musicians Abby Alwin (cello) and James Cornish (trumpet), and visiting musician Theresa Wong (cello).
ALEX COUWENBERG :: beyond hard-edge abstraction
MOAH – Museum of Art & History – Lancaster, CA The Artists of the Film MANA Exhibition Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
Alex Couwenberg’s images reflect the cultural trappings of his Southern California roots;
“From Los Angeles, Couwenberg’s work references and suggests the aesthetic associated with mid-century modernism, car culture, skateboards, and surfboards. Not to leave out, paying homage to the historical styles of post-war art making associated with Los Angeles and southern California throughout the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Couwenberg’s paintings give a nod towards the Hard-edge abstractionists, the finish fetish, and the light and space artists. Not content to replicate, he uses the sensibility of Eames-era design and hard-edge geometric abstraction as points of departure for creating paintings. His process, an additive and reductive series of moves and passes, creates multilayered environments that are deep and sensual. He harnesses these ideas into harmonious results, reflecting the visual landscape of his environment.” -bio from mana, the film’s website
At The Claremont Graduate School, Couwenberg was mentored by hard-edge abstraction legend Karl Benjamin whose influence is apparent, albeit as a point-of-departure. Couwenberg has built an dense and extensive vocabulary on the bedrock of the clean, pure and reductive geometric language that Benjamin and his peers utilized during their mid-century era.
ELLIOTT ERWITT: NEW YORK CITY, USA, 1953 Transcending the Personal into the Universal
‘The photograph that Elliott Erwitt made in 1953 of his newborn daughter and her mother in the family’s modest Manhattan apartment is among the most widely reproduced of its time, having appeared in venues as different as Edward Steichen’s seminal 1955 photography exhibition (and book) “Family of Man,” and in magazines, on postcards and even in drug company advertisements. But if Mother and Child is a mainstay of modern photography, to the mischievous Erwitt, 74, it’s just “a family picture of my first child, my first wife and my cat,” he says. “I still see it as a snapshot. But it happens to be a pretty good one.” -Adriana Leshko, Smithsonian Magazine, August 2002″
CHRIS BURDEN :: BEAM DROP
In 1985, the late Chris Burden created a piece entitled Beam Drop for Art Park in New York. The piece, involving a ‘performance’ of sorts while ultimately producing an art object as well, signals Burden’s transition to sculpture.
“Sixty enormous steel L-beams fall a dizzying 100 to 120 feet from a crane into a foundation of wet cement. They stick up like awkward, hostile pillars, clanging as they crowd together in a bulky clump. “Using chance as an integral element in art-making has historical precedence in the works of such renowned artists as Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp, and John Cage,” wrote Burden in a statement on the piece. “However, most artists of monumental steel sculpture have not embraced randomness as the essential component of their work.”-Interview Magazine Continue reading CHRIS BURDEN :: BEAM DROP
CHRIS BURDEN :: THE TV COMMERCIALS, MOCA TV
The late Chris Burden discusses the making and showing of his famous and subversive “Commercials” which he exhibited by purchasing air time on local television stations. Continue reading CHRIS BURDEN :: THE TV COMMERCIALS, MOCA TV
CLARE ROJAS’ Geometric Abstractions (and sometimes music)
Bay area based, internationally-shown artist Clare Rojas works in a wide variety of media: painting, installations, video, street art, and children’s books. Her work has been considered to have been emblematic of San Francisco’s Mission School, “a loose group working in San Francisco in the nineties who shared an affinity for old wood, streetscapes, and anything raw or unschooled. They take their inspiration from the urban, bohemian, “street” culture of the Mission District and are strongly influenced by mural and graffiti art, comic and cartoon art, and folk art forms such as sign painting and hobo art. These artists are also noted for use of non-traditional artistic materials, such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, scrapboard, and found objects.”-clare rojas, wikipedia; mission school, wikipedia; dana goodyear, a ghost in the family, the new yorker
Rojas’ work referenced: “…West Coast modernism, Quaker art, Native American textiles, Byzantine mosaics, and Outsider art, Rojas tells stories through painting, installations, and video. Often her narratives concern relationships between the sexes and among humans and animals, in their struggle to find harmony and balance. Many works quietly celebrate the traditional strengths of women, depicting them like Russian nesting dolls in conventional roles without critical undertones or hints of sexual exploitation. Quilt-like patterns in vivid colors accentuate the folk art-inspired scenes present in some works, while simple geometric forms and stark interiors evoke Bauhaus design in others.” -clare rojas, biography, artsy.net
Over the past 8 or so years, her figurative, folk art-toned work has given way to pure geometric abstractions. Her paintings are made with oil paint on both linen and paper.
Rojas also plays guitar and banjo under the stage name Peggy Honeywell. As Peggy Honeywell, she wore a long wig and flouncy calico dresses, and sometimes, because she was shy, a paper bag over her head. She has released two albums: Faint Humms (2005) and Green Mountain (2006)
The Incubator 