“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”
The first modern? Which standard of reason?
See Also On This Site: Goya’s Fight With Cudgels and Goya’s Colossus. A very good Goya page here.
Via Mick Hartley via dezeen-Sebastian Weiss photographs Ricardo Bofill’s “delightfully confusing” La Muralla Roja:
A bit of a fortress, done in the bright colors of the Spanish coast? A bit of the surreal? A bit of the Maghreb? A bit of Escher?
As previously posted, of the land artists, Richard Serra seems quite substantial:, unlike land art, people actually live in the building above.
‘Land art, earthworks (coined by Robert Smithson), or Earth art is an art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked.’
We visited a Richard Serra piece in Seattle this past weekend, entitled Wake.
Click through for a Serra-released photo of four metal pillar-forms aligned in the deserts of Qatar, designed to inevitably rust. The piece has a slight ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ feel, but that could just be me.
Check out Hyperallergic’s visit to ‘Shift,’ a series of concrete forms he left in an Ontario field.
Here’s Serra discussing a piece of his at 21 West Gagosian, or a densely-packed, carefully measured series of metal forms in a room. What does the viewer experience in this space?:
Related On This Site:A structure in the desert…not even a city Update On LACMA, Michael Heizer And The ‘Levitated Mass’-Modern Art And The Public
Denis Dutton suggested art could head towards Darwin (and may offer new direction from the troubles of the modern art aimlessness and shallow depth…the money and the fame) Review of Denis Dutton’s ‘The Art Instinct’
No thanks to living in planned communities upon someone else’s overall vision.: Roger Scruton In The City Journal: Cities For Living–Is Modernism Dead?…Repost-Via Reason: ‘Salvador Allende’s Cybersocialist Command Center’…
The video’s about 6 minutes long. Included is a pretty brief definition of modernism, but which highlights some of what I think makes Goya so accessible:
“…modernism is an artistic movement which follows the thought of humans being able to change their environment with science, technology and knowledge. In short modernism results in the idea that we, as artists and as humans, should reject tradition…”
Now, there’s a lot to dispute in such a definition…you mean reject religious tradition…all tradition? Surely you want painters to learn how to paint, and understand the technique and mechanics of their craft. How much of modernism would be a product of/reaction to the Enlightenment?
Also On This Site: Joan Miro: Woman…Goya’s Colossus…Goya’s Fight With Cudgels… Goethe’s Color Theory: Artists And Thinkers…Some Quotes From Kant And A Visual Exercise
A Reaction To Jeff Koons ‘St John The Baptist’
Denis Dutton suggests art could head towards Darwin (and may offer new direction from the troubles of the modern art aimlessness and shallow depth) Review of Denis Dutton’s ‘The Art Instinct’
How might Nietzsche figure in the discussion (was he most after freeing art from a few thousand years of Christianity, monarchy and aristocracy…something deeper?), at least with regard to Camille Paglia. See the comments: Repost-Camille Paglia At Arion: Why Break, Blow, Burn Was Successful
The first modern?
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”
See Also: Goya’s Fight With Cudgels and Goya’s Colossus. A very good Goya page here.
I was lucky enough to see this sculpture a few times at the Fundacio Miro in Barcelona. At the time, I remember thinking “Oh, it’s a comment on women in Spain“: All legs and sensuality and yet these malformed, pitiful, faces rising (or barely perched) on top.
“I know women like that…I remember thinking. It’s better to be an object of male lust than nothing, prostitutes take advantage of this all the time. Spanish machismo and insularity, the triumph of cultural values no matter how arbitrary or foolish, and the native ignorance and poverty of the human lot can clearly produce women like this. Despite my idealism, this is what shall remain long after I’m dead.” And then, rather self-satisfied, I strolled away.
Now, as I look again, I realize I have no idea what this sculpture means. Are those two faces? Strange little breasts? Is that a spigot on top? A man’s head and woman’s head? Aren’t they kind of gender neutral? What was I thinking, anyways?
Something about Miro makes me think he has thought long, judged deeply, and yet the colors are joyful, and there’s just this playfulness and achieved simplicity in his work that invites you right in and never really puts you out.
***It helps to understand how rooted Miro was in Catalonia, the northeast province of Spain with it’s own language, political identification, and identity (possibly troubling for a unified Spain), and with his materials and subjects. MOMA has some background here.
Feel free to highlight my ignorance.
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”
See Also On This Site: Goya’s Fight With Cudgels and Goya’s Colossus. A very good Goya page here.
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”
See Also: Goya’s Fight With Cudgels and Goya’s Colossus. A very good Goya page here.