War and Art

In the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art is an exhibition of war time paintings. Here are but a few samples. Obviously, I was so struck by the intensity in all of them but also the painterliness, especially in the last one of the kamikaze attack on the American B-29's. They chose a 'Western' way of working these subjects into oil paintings. It as if the painter (Ken'ichi Nakamura) had Monet in mind when he made this incredible picture. I was very moved by them and leave them for your perusal. 

smart

Searching for
Mind behind
Smart phone.

tokyo rain

While walking under a light rain this evening from Omote-sando to Shinjuku here in Tokyo I came across a a marvelous sight. It looked like an entire japanese landscape imprinted upon a cement wall perhaps 15 meters long as if done on a long scroll. Created by water seeping down the wall from the top in uneven degrees misty mountains appear as if by moonlight. I had only my i-phone on me so these are dark but wonderful, if one has the imagination.

napping

Napping, 

And surfing smart phones-

Tokyo metro!

gotta love that gal #13, Deanna Durbin, The Anthem Sprinters by Ray Bradbury

Deanna Durbin dies at 91.
'Say it ain't so!' as they truly did often say in so many films of the forties and fifties, many of which we saw as kids in black and white on the television late at night.

I remember Deanna Durbin, the all American kid, if ever there was one, albeit fictitious, and dreamed up by Hollywood during the Depression to cheer everyone up.

But I really remember her because of the pivotal role she played in a wonderful short story by Ray Bradbury called The Anthem Sprinters. There was a time in my life when I think I read everything he ever wrote.

Bradbury and his wife spent a year in Ireland back in the sixties when he was hired to write a screenplay. He was having a tough time of it and decided for distraction to write a few short stories while he was over there. Apparently, he did fall head over heels in love with the Irish. 

The Anthem Sprinters is the story of a gang of friends, who, from their bar stools at the local pub (naturally), organized races to see which one could get out of the movie theatre the fastest. The rules were simple: The races were between two runners, who having sat through a film at the local movie house had to race out of the theatre and back to the pub where their friends waited impatiently. This was a serious pastime and piles of money were wagered on each runner. In fact the best runners were 'handicapped' by being seated in certain rows near the front of the theatre. The slower ones were given the advantage of being allowed to sit near the back and closer to the exit. Both runners were seated on the aisle however, but the important caveat was that they could not move until the very end of the film but before the start of the Irish Anthem. Once The End was displayed they were off.

In his marvelous story Bradbury gets caught up in the excitement and waits with the others at the Pub for the arrival of runners. Only one of the runners shows up though, and everyone at the Pub is scratching their heads. They sent someone down to the movie house to see what has happened to the other runner. Did he fall and break his arse they wondered? After a while this guy comes back to the Pub to report. It turns out that the 'favored' runner who had been handicapped in the first row seat hadn't actually left the theatre. When they found him he was seated in the empty theatre and still balling his eyes out because the heroine in the film had died. The heroine was Deanna Durbin.

She eventually left Hollywood and went to live in France to raise a small family in 1949.
Smart girl! 

Great books #2 (Kafka on the Shore)

I know, I know,,, he has been around for years and I only just discovered him when I randomly picked up The Wind-up Bird Chronicles while in Japan last year. Ok,.. so I don't read the New York Review of Books each week!

But, anyway, not since reading (and re-reading) J. D. Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye and his Nine Short Stories so many years ago have I been drawn into such youthful eccentricity. Murakami's imaginative narrative is as good as the great American Master himself. 

parting

For my parting,
A kookaburra cries out
For me.

Kenko (c. 1283-1350)

Kenko is very special. His love for the Japanese idea of beauty aligned with impermanence; his preference for all which is irregular and unfinished, and his love for the understated and the restrained make him a kind of hero for me. From his essays on idleness:
                                               
'Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration. Are poems written on such themes as "Going to view the cherry blossoms only to find that they had scattered', or is 'On being prevented from visiting the blossoms' inferior to those on 'Seeing the blossoms'? People commonly regret that the cherry blossoms scatter or that the moon sinks in the sky, and this is natural; but only an exceptionally insensitive man would say, "This branch and that branch have lost their blossoms. There is nothing worth seeing now."

In all things, it is the beginnings and ends that are interesting. Does the love between men and women refer only to the moments when they are in each other's arms? The man who grieves over a love affair broken off before it was fulfilled, who bewails empty vows, who spends long autumn nights alone, who lets his thoughts wander to distant skies, who yearns for the past in a dilapidated house - such a man truly knows what love means.' 

pancake

A new moon!
The pancake 
Of my childhood.

how we see ourselves

Real Beauty Sketches from John X. Carey on Vimeo.

Lisa Black, jeweler

In the studio of Lisa Black from cloudsandsea on Vimeo.

architect's wrath

Bless You from Philip Watts on Vimeo.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 from ICP on Vimeo.

Picasso et Matisse

I have always loved the Matisse portrait of Marguerite. I only discovered the Picasso recently in a book. As they sit in different corners of my desktop I was suddenly struck by their similarity. What that is, I am not sure except for the obvious color harmony of magenta, and maybe, a disguised emerald green to create the blacks in both paintings. Both portraits of young women, one obediently posing for her father, the other in that feminine activity of having her hair brushed. 

Both gaze out towards the viewer but not quite on center. Both possess a kind of natural unity in the picture frame as if to say "No big deal, just me". There is nothing grand or ostentatious in their bearing, they are not  presented as being beautiful. They just are.

I believe that they are roughly about the same size. And the dates? Margueritte was done between 1906-1907. The Picasso, maybe late 1930's but not having studied Picasso I can only rely upon images gleaned from various websites. I found similar portraits of both Dora Maar and Nusch Eluard done in 1938 so its probably not crazy to say around 1937-1939.

I like them both very much. There is a simplicity and a freshness in them which creates an intimacy upon immediate inspection.

Both were done in one seance most certainly. 

I was speaking with an artist-friend the other day and lamenting this terrible obsession which so many artists have of working from photographs. (It makes me crazy.) But because it is such an accepted way of working in this contemporary art world I found it difficult to mount an attack on it to my friend. And yet, personally speaking, I find it ridiculous for a painter to work from a photograph. (Blasphemous indeed! The intolerant in me wants to shout out from the top of the museum) 

And I would be happy to eat my words if just one person could cite an example of a really great painting  done from a photograph.

In the end my argument had to resort to the fact that only from working from a real live person could one achieve a veritable image precisely because the mistakes inchoate are proof of the genuine experience and which result into an original and one of a kind image. One could say that the 'mistakes' in the making of a portrait are in fact 'decisions' in a most vital and integral way as they allow for this originality to subconsciously manifest through the artist's hand. I cannot believe that this be can achieved from working from a photograph. To paint a portrait is such a deeply personal experience implying so much of what the Japanese call Wabi-Sabi; the necessity of an inherent imperfection in a work of art, and the inherent transitory nature of all things. 

tattoo

New leg tattoo
For the furry fellow
With the limp.

Sidney Nolan

While in Melbourne I visited Heidi which was the home to Sunday and John Reed, Australia's most famous (and wealthy, I gather) bohemian couple. They built up a Contemporary Art Centre in Bulleen, just outside of Heidleberg and a stone's throw from Melbourne CBD. Originally a small dairy farm it was converted into an elegant yet simple home to which eventually two more buildings were added. It's walls  were quickly filled with works of Art by many of their artist friends who were living around Melbourne after the war. The three buildings on the property regularly host exhibitions. On my visit were exhibits showing new works by Contemporary artist Fiona Hall, and another with works by Louise Bourgeois. 

In the original farm house, which the Reeds returned to, and eventually died in (both within ten days of one another in December 1981) was a show of Sidney Nolan. Here there are small drawings, paintings and gouaches which decorate this unpretentious home. Over time, I see more and more clearly that he is really one of the most original European artists of 20th Australia. I include some poorly reproduced photos from this little booklet as I was not authorized to take photos inside. As well, (top) a painting which always stops me in my tracks when I see it at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane. I could barely pull myself away from the second image which is entitled Abstract, St Kilda Reflections, 1939. I think it's the height of Modernism of which I am an adherent, and astute friends will recognize immediately why I am drawn to these images.

Bon parcours!

Great Books #1 (Alain de Botton)

This is a great read! A selection of clever essays edited by Alain de Botton. All the usual suspects: sex, money, insecurity!

Robert Rooney

Here in Melbourne in the neighborhood of Fitzroy, a wonderful show by Melbourne artist Robert Rooney who is photographer, musician and painter. I liked the three paintings done in the late fifties as well as these photographs shot with a Box Brownie. They are  printed as inkjet prints which give them a soft and eerie feel almost as if they could have been drawn with conte crayon. 

The Box Brownie was introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1900, and was marketed toward children. Soon, Brownie Camera Clubs sprouted up everywhere.

from 28 March - 19 May 2013

at the Centre For Contemporary Photography

404 George Street, Fitzroy, Victoria

gutter

The gutter,
Each rain a metronome
Of pain.

Performance

This evening I went to see Performance here in Melbourne where I am for a week. Its a beautiful film which moved me, and I was left with a nostalgia for New York which couldn't be shaken off even while walking through these lovely streets of Carlton. Its a poetic and moving portrait of musicians undergoing a great transition in their lives, both personally and professionally. It is a postcard too, of Central Park in the whiteness of winter when only the intrepid go running around its reservoir. I, myself did for many years.  And throughout the film there is Beethoven, whose late sonatas make one weep inside. The Frick Collection which I know well, and used to visit often, also plays a pivotal role in the film. Christopher Walken is remarkable, but then, they all are: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivani and Imogen Poots. Don't miss you if you love Beethoven, and New York!

Watching it I am reminded yet again of the great divide between the erudite world Classical music on the one hand, and the Art world on the other. How could one possibly compare the discipline of playing Beethoven, (and all that implies) with the fabrication, and then the consequent sale of a large red valentine by Jeff Koons? What happened?

   

poisson d'avril

Each year I call Poussy K. in France. He's like family to me and I have know him for 35 years.

He owns the Chateaunoir in Aix-en-provence where I used to live.

Every year I call him with an outlandish story to celebrate April 1st. Today I called him but his wife Choupette answered and said that he was out in the hills... She suggested that I call him later tonight. (which means early tomorrow morning for me here in Australia)
But I have to do it. 

For this year I have concocted a story that I am traveling with Gerard Depardieu in Russia. I have been asked to accompany him as his sober companion to make sure that he doesn't drink for two weeks. I will say that I met a beautiful Russian woman named Mina who had stayed at the Chateaunoir 25 years ago and told me that she had had a brief affair with the owner Poussy K. of the Chateaunoir in Tholonet. It should fly for at least a few minutes but then I will say that we have just finished a big fish goulash in a fabulous restaurant here in Moscow....when he will then tell me: "Ah, tu m'as fait bien marche connard!"

I have called him every year now on the 1st of April since I left so many years ago. Each year the story must be farfetched but also equally plausible. Its a delicate art of sorts. So I'll call early tomorrow morning.