Month: May 2018

Radek Sziaga

Radek Sziaga, “Chciałem Odciąć Się (I Want to Cut Myself Off)”, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 55 x 59 Inches, Private Collection

Radek Szlaga lives and works in Warsaw, Poland and Detroit, USA. After finishing his studies at Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland and receiving recognition for controversy surrounding his work ‘Bad Drawings,’ Szlaga earned consideration as one of the most sophisticated and potent Polish painters of his generation.

His work takes an exploratory and experimental approach to both American and Eastern European visual cultures, as well as his own subconscious. Central to his work is an investigation of identity, and the boundary between its reality and simulation. His practice relies on both historical research and an introspective mining on his own memories and dreams.

His subtle manipulations of second hand and often iconic images, stemming from everything between rap culture and colonialism, address questions of public archives, memory and what it means to paint in this digital age.

Calendar: May 23

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 23rd of May

The Paper Airplane

May 23, 1975 marks the death of the American standup comedian Loretta Mary Aiken, known by her stage name Jackie “Moms” Mabley.

Loretta Mary Aiken was born in North Carolina, one of sixteen children. Her father worked as a volunteer fireman, dying in 1909, when a fire engine exploded. Loretta was fifteen years old at that time. Her mother ran a general store but was killed after being run over by a truck on her way home from a Christmas day service at the church. After being raped twice, Loretta, at the encouragement of her grandmother, went to Cleveland, Ohio, and joined a traveling vaudeville minstrel show where she sang and entertained.

Loretta Aiken took her stage name, Jackie Mabley, from an early boyfriend, commenting to Ebony Magazine in 1970 “that he had taken so much from her, it was the least she could do to take his name”. Later she became known as “Moms” because she was indeed a “Mom” to many other comedians on the circuit in the 1950s and 1960s. She came out as a lesbian at the age of twenty-seven, becoming one of the first openly gay comedians. During the 1920s and 1930s she recorded several of her early lesbian standup routines.

Moms Mabley was one of the most successful entertainers of the Chitlin’ circuit, another name for the Theater Owners Booking Association, a segregated organization for which Mabley performed until the organization dissolved during the Great Depression. Despite her popularity,  wages for black women in show business were meager; however, she persisted for more than sixty years. At the height of her career, she was earning $10,000 dollars a week at Harlem’s Apollo Theater.

Mabley became know to a wider white audience in the 1960s playing Carnegie Hall in 1962, and making mainstream television appearances. She appeared multiple times on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour when that CBS show was ranked number one on television, introducing her to a whole new audience of younger viewers. Mabley was billed as “The Funniest Woman in the World”. She tackled topics too edgy for most mainstream comics of the time, including racism.

Moms Mabley died from heart failure in White Plains, New York on May 23, 1975 at the age of 81. Her life is the subject of “Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley” a documentary film which first aired on HBO on November 18, 2013. This documentary was nominated for two Creative Arts Emmy Awards at the 66th Emmy Awards ceremony in 2014. Jackie Moms Mabley was named by Equality Forum in 2015 as one of their 31 icons of the 2015 LGBT History Month.

Oscar Wilde: “Living One’s Own Life”

Photographers Unknown, Living One’s Own Life

“I won’t tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world’s voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!” 

—Oscar Wilde

Morocco

Photographer Unknown, (The Camel Driver, Morocco)

“Whenever we came to a rocky escarpment, she and all her sisters would stop, not at all eager for the challenge. But we had camel drivers with sticks accompanying us; they employed the latter to urge the camels up the rocky escarpments, and the camels reluctantly complied. If the camels were reluctant to climb up the rocky escarpments, they were loath to go down them. In fact, I came to surmise, the reason camels were reluctant to go up the rocky escarpments was because they were loath to go down them. Figuring that the only reason a camel would be loath to go down a rocky escarpment would be fear of slipping and falling, I, too, was loath to go down the rocky escarpments.”
― Richard C. Francis

Ibrahim Maalouf, “Red and Black Light”

Ibrahim Maalouf, “Red and Black Light”, Live at Zenith Nantes Mertropole, 2016

Ibrahim Maalouf is a French-Lebanese trumpet player, composer and arranger. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon and now lives in Paris, France. He is the son of trumpeter Nassim Maalouf and pianist Nada Maalouf, nephew of the writer Amin Maalouf and grandson of journalist, poet, and musicologist Rushdi Maalouf. He is noted for playing Arabic music with quarter tones on the trumpet, which is a rare skill pioneered by hsi father and Don Ellis in the 1960s.

In July 2010, he was awarded the Instrumental Revelation of the Year at the French Jazz Music Awards (Victoires du Jazz), and more recently was awarded Best World Music Artist at the French Music Awards in 2014. Ibrahim teaches improvisation at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris. (Paris Regional Superieur Conservatory).

Jacek Malczewski

 

Jacek Malczewski, “Polish Hamlet (Portrait of Aleksander Wielopolski)”, 1903, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 148 cm, National Museum, Warsaw, Poland

One of the most famous works of Jacek Malczweski, this painting presents Malczewski’s grandson as Aleksander Wielopolski, a member of the Polish Kingdom government in the early 1860s, standing with two allegorical visions of the fate of the Polish nation. The figure is located in the center of the composition, surrounded by two women. He is dressed in yellow-green dress and belted pouch, in which instead of bullets are tubes of paint, and he thoughtfully pulls on the petals of chamomile.

Located to the right is an elderly woman with white hair, dressed in dark robes, her hands cuffed with shackles. Her face takes on an expression of sadness, despair and awareness of her situation. She embodies Poland enslaved, experienced by fate, remaining under the yoke of others, and who can not be liberated. On the left side there is a young girl, half-naked, shown at the time of breaking the shackles. She is full of energy, and her face is very expressive of joy and life. It symbolizes the “young Poland” which is capable of action and being able to release herself from the long-term captivity.

The image can be interpreted as a question of choosing the future fate of the Polish homeland, upon its entering a new century. This dilemma clearly refers to the character of Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s drama and Hamlet’s life choice. Alexander Wielopolski is an example of the person making the difficult decision, and carrying the consequences of that choice. The figure of a man is pensive, lost in melancholy, and his indecision is highlighted even more by the flower in his hand and a belt on the body. The painting is an expression of Malczewski’s concern for the future of the Polish people.

Calendar: May 22

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 22nd of May

Bouyancy and Surface Tension

May 22, 1842 marks the discovery of Howe Caverns in New York state by Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel.

The Howe Caverns is a cave system in Schoharie County, New York. Geologists believe the formation of the cave, which lies 156 feet below ground, began several million years ago. The cavern is composed mainly of two types of limestone from different periods in the Earth’s early history, deposited hundreds of millions of years ago when the Atlantic Ocean stretched far inland. The cave is at a constant temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit, irrespective of the outside weather.

The Howe Caverns is named after farmer Lester Howe, who discovered the cave on May 22, 1842. Noticing that his cows frequently gathered near some bushes at the bottom of a hill on hot summer days, Howe decided to investigate. Behind the bushes, Howe found a strong, cool breeze emanating from a hole in the Earth. Howe proceeded to dig out and explore the cave with his friend and neighbor, Henry Wetsel, on whose land the cave entrance was located.

The cavern was open eight hours during the day for public tours in 1843. As the site became popular, a hotel was built over the entrance to the cave. From 1890 until the turn of the century, as visitors steadily decreased, a small community of management, quarry workers and their families sprang up in the hamlet now known as Howes Cave. While the Cave House Hotel had a steady business form 1871 to 1890, it eventually became a boarding house and later office space.

The rebirth and successful commercial development of Howe Caverns, as it is known today, between the years 1927-1929, is in large part attributable to two men, John Mosner of Syracuse and Walter H. Sagendorf of Saranac Lake. Mosner, an engineer, proposed the modern engineering developments that would make the cave easily accessible-even comfortable-to the average visitor. Mosner who was impressed by his visit to Howe’s Cave in 1890, believed that with a shaft for elevators sunk at the opposite end of the cave and the addition of electric lighting, Howe’s Cave would become a leading tourist attraction.

Sagendorf provided the organization for the Mosner plan; his brother John owned most of the land on which today’s Visitor Center is located. Howe Caverns, Inc. was organized as a closed stock corporation on October 11, 1927. Work began the next year under difficult conditions. The 156-foot elevator shaft was built at a cost of $1,100 per foot. A work force of well over 50 men constructed the walks and bridges and the above-ground facilities. The much-awaited grand re-opening of Howe’s Cave as Howe Caverns, Inc. took place on May 27, 1929. On the occasion more than 2,000 visitors toured what was once known as “Blowing Rock,” Lester Howe’s great wonder, down under.

Xavier Portela

Xavier Portela: The “Glow” Series: Tokyo

After a visit to Tokyo in 2014, self-taught Belgium-Portuguese photographer Xavier Portela became frustrated by how static and two-dimensional his images appeared. His photographs didn’t capture the emotions, acute stimulation of senses, or electric feeling one experiences while gliding through the bright lights of a foreign city with jet lag-induced insomnia. To explore this vibrancy and atmosphere Portela began to manipulate the colors in his images, amplifying their saturation to make each reflect what the brain remembered, but the original image couldn’t convey.

Portela’s “Glow” series is an ongoing archive of urban images from his trips to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, New York City, and more. Each photograph is edited with a wash of neon-inspired pink, blue, and purple lights. Although previous series have included photography taken on the street, he has begun to now produce aerial views of the sparkling cities below.