Month: May 2018

Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “What Does Reason Know?”

The Parts and Pieces Making a Whole: Set One

“Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even it if goes wrong, it lives.”

―Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground

Katharina Fritsch

Three Sculpture Installations by Katharina Fritsch

German sculptor Katharina Fritsch is known for her sculptures and installations that reinvigorate familiar objects with a jarring and uncanny sensibility. Her works’ iconography is drawn from many different sources, including Christianity, art history and folklore. She attracted international attention for the first time in the mid-1980s with life-size works such as a true-to-scale elephant. Fritsch’s art is often concerned with the psychology and expectations of visitors to a museum.

Katharina Fritsch takes on relatively ordinary subjects in new, and often times jarring, ways. Most notably is the size of her works. Though many are meant specifically for museums, the size and scope of these works make a real impact. The images above are examples of that:  “Child with Poodles” (1995),  “Company at the Table (1998)” and “Rattenkonig” (1993).

The first, “Child with Poodles”, has rows of poodles facing in at a single child. This thick ring of objects creates a barrier between the viewer and the child, creating a dark or sinister feel to the piece. The second work, “Company at the Table”, leaves a haunting impression on many levels. The identical, faceless people and the size of the fifty foot table leave quite a cold and impersonal impression. Her sculpture “Rattenkonig” consists of a circle of large polyester resin rats painted black Facing out to the museum visitors. The scale of the piece is again quite large and formidable; nine foot rats in a circle forty two feet wide.

Calendar: May 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of May

Friend to Man

May 29, 1453 marks the end of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of the city of Constantinople.

The Byzantine empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East lasting into the Middle Ages. The capital of this empire was Constantinople, the site of ancient Byzantium. It survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe.

The borders of the empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Emperor Maurice from 582-602 AD, the Empire’s eastern frontier was expanded and the north stabilized. However, his assassination caused the Byzantine-Sasanian War, which lasted from 602 to 628 AD, exhausted the empire’s resources, and contributed to major territorial losses during the seventh century. In a matter of years the empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs.

The empire recovered again during the reigns of the Komnenian family; by the 12th century, Constantinople had become the largest and wealthiest European city. However, the city was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Christian Crusade. During this crusade, Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire formerly governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area. For the final two centuries of its existence, the empire’s remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans.

The capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the invading Ottoman army occurred on May 29, 1453. The attackers were commanded by the then 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II, who defeated an army commanded by Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos  and took control of the imperial capital, ending the seige of the city. After conquering the city, Sultan Mehmed transferred the capital of his Empire from Edime to Constantinople, and established his court there. The Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, the Greek Orthodox Church was allowed to remain intact, and Gennadius Scholarius was appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The fall of Constantinople was a watershed moment in military history. The  substantial fortifications of ramparts and city walls of the city had been a model followed by other cities throughout the Mediterranean region and Europe. The Ottomans ultimately prevailed due to the use of gunpowder which fueled their cannons.

Nickolas Muray, “Frida Kahlo”

Nickolas Muray, “Frida Kahlo on White Bench, New York”, 1939

Nickolas Muray was born in Szeged, Hungary on February 15, 1892. He attended a graphic arts school in Budapest where he studied lithography, photoengraving, and photography; he graduated with an International Engraver’s Certificate. Later in Berlin, Murray studied color photoengraving.

In 1913, at the age of 21, Muray traveled to New York City, where he was determined to make a name for himself. In 1921, while living in Greenwich Village, he opened a studio and quickly built a reputation after his photo shoot of the actress Florence Reed for Harper’s Bazaar magazine. Over the next ten years, Muray produced over 10,000 celebrity portraits.

In May of 1931, Nickolas Murray met Frida Kahlo while vacationing in Mexico. They engaged in an affair that would last, on and off, for nearly 10 years. Muray and Kahlo were at the height of their love affair in 1939. The affair began after Muray was divorced from his second wife and shortly after Kahlo’s marriage to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Muray wanted to marry Frida. When it became apparent that she wanted Muray as a lover and not as a husband, the affair ended. He and Kahlo remained good friends until her death in 1954.

Source: robertocustodioart

Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova, “The Sleeping Endymion”, 1822, Plaster Model for the Completed Marble Sculpture

In May 1819, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, on his first trip to Rome, paid a visit to the studio of the most celebrated sculptor of the time, Antonio Canova. He marvelled at what he saw and commissioned a marble statue from Canova, leaving both its size and subject to the sculptor to decide, and paying a deposit in advance.

The marble was roughed out by 1822, when Canova asked for a further £1,500. It was completed before his death later that year. It arrived in London the following year and caused a stir when first displayed at Devonshire House. The 6th Duke, who regarded it as his greatest sculptural treasure, also commissioned a large bronze copy of it from the sculptor Francis Chantrey.

The finished marble “The Sleeping Endymion and His Dog” is located in the Sculpture Gallery of Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, England.

Source: hadrian6

Charles Jagger and Lionel Pearson

Charles Jagger and Lionel Pearson, The Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park, London

The Royal Artillery Memorial is dedicated to the First World War casualties of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. It features a giant sculpture of a BL 9.2 inch Mk I Howitzer upon a plinth of Porland stone with stone reliefs depicting scenes from the conflict. Four bronze figures of artillerymen are positioned around the outside of the memorial.

Charles Sargeant Jagger was responsible for the bronze figures; architect Lionel Pearson designed the stone stucture of the memorial. The work was revised several times with much controversy about design, the siting of the memorial, the inscription, and the sculpture of the dead soldier at eye level.

The work was finished four months late, opening on October 18, 1925 by Prince Arthur and the Reverend Alfred Jarvis. Such was the toll taken on Jagger by finishing the Royal Artillery’s memorial that after its unveiling, he suspended work on all his other projects for six months to recuperate.

Gothic Raygun Rocketship

Gothic Raygun Rocketship, Pier 14, San Francisco, California

The sculpture installation first landed at Burning Man event in 2009, and has subsequently appeared at the NASA “Ames for Yuri’s Night” and is now at Pier 14 in San Francisco.

This spectacular forty foot tall sci-fi sculpture is the creation of Bay Area artists Sean Orlando, Nathaniel Taylor, David Shulman and the dedicated crew of the Five Ton Crane Arts Group, who helped to bring their fantastic vision to fruition – a larger than life 1930’s-1940’s pulp fiction space ship, gleaming silver legs forever prepped for lift off, three interior chambers fitted with all of the whimsical knobs and dials that you dreamed of as a kid.

Originally created as a 2009 art installation for the Burning Man Festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the large-scale immersion based piece currently resides on Pier 14, illuminated and dreamy at night and flashing with retro ingenuity during the day. Its presence inspiring the imaginations of all who see it, it stands tall as a symbol of what could have been, but never was.

Calendar: May 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of May

A Small White Space

The musical film “On with the Show!” by Warner Brothers Studio was released on May 28, 1929.

Filmed in Two-strip Technicolor, “On with the Show!” is noted as the first all-talking, all-color feature length movie. Warner Brothers promoted the film as being in “natural color”. This would be the first of a series of contracted films by Warner Brothers to be made in the Technicolor process. The film generated much interest in Hollywood; and other studios began shooting films in the process. The film, though a success, was eclipsed by the success of their next color film “Gold Diggers of Broadway”.

“On with the Show!” was a combination of a backstage musical using the ‘show within a show” format, a comedy and a mystery. The story and dialogue were written by Robert Lord with the music and lyrics by Harry Akst. William Bakewell was in the role of the head usher eager to get his sweetheart played by Sally O’Neil. Betty Compson played the temperamental star and the whiny young male star of the show was Arthur Lake. The vaudeville actor Joe E. Brown had a role as a comedian in the show; through this role his career shot to stardom status.

The film was a box office hit, with a worldwide gross of over two million dollars. Reviews from critics were mixed. Many thought the length was too long and the story was bad; however, most were impressed with the color process. Josh Mosher, the first regularly assigned film critic of the New Yorker magazine, wrote that the film was “completely undistinguished for wit, charm, or novelty, except that it is done in color. Possibly in the millennium all movies will be colored. In these early days of the art, however, not much can be said for it, except that it is not really distressing.”

The original color print of “On with the Show!” is lost, a fate of many of the early films printed on a nitrate film base. Only black and white prints of the film have survived. A 20 second fragment of an original color print surfaced in 2005; it was found in a toy projector. Other original color fragments have been discovered in 2014. The Library of Congress has long held a copy of the black and white version in its collection.

Pablo Zamora and Riccardo Tisci, “Quim Gutiérrez”

Photo Shoots of Quim Gutiérrez

Joaquim Gutiérrez Ylla, better known as Quim Gutiérrez, is a Spanish actor born in Barcelona, Spain.. He won the 2006 Goya Award for Best New Actor for his perfomance in the 2006 film “Azuloscurocasinegro (Dark Blue Almost Black)” directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo. He was also in the 2013 film “The Last Days” and “Spy Time” in 2015.

ICON Magazine Photography by Pablo Zamora; Givenchy Ad Photography by Riccardo Tisci

Full Sail On

Photographer Unknown, (Full Sail On)

“So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble they could not have been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvas; not even a quivering of the extreme edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said  … half to himself, still looking at the marble sails,— “How quietly they do their work!”
―  Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast