Chelsea Grids /
The astonishing sculptures of the Pergamon show at the Met /
Saw the Pergamon over the weekend and just can't get over the fact it's over. The first photograph is a sculpture of the great orator Demosthenes. The lesson from his story is that words need to be backed with actions. The astonishing beauty of these sculptures - not just in person - even from my computer screen they absolutely dominate my consciousness. The craftsmanship, the lines, the stories, the fact that they have been around for more than 2000 years - more than any other object I know. It is about beauty and eternity… forever beauty.
Since ancient times artists and philosophers have tried to impose a standard - of beauty, of conduct, but the most important is the standard that endures and resonates deep within the folds of our DNA.
I have long been obsessed with classical mythology, the Gods and Goddesses of times long past. They epitome the longing for eternal beauty deep within ourselves.
Myths guide us into the divine in ourselves. All our aesthetic dreams, all philosophy, our dreams as a civilization. Our myths, the main themes of our folklore, our songs, start here.
Did people notice they are in a divine presence? of beauty. Did people realize that we are looking at the cradle of civilization.
This is not about Gods and Goddesses, it is about the great, and not so great, within ourselves.
The great orator Demosthenes was one of the most vocal intellectuals in Athens to warn, unsuccessfully, against the treat posed by the Macedonians to the freedom of Greece. This portrait conveys the mental resolve, not physical strength. An epigram on the base of the original statue read, “If you had power equal to your resolution, Demosthenes, the Macedonian Ares would never have acquired dominion over the Greeks. (text from the Met) As I mentioned earlier and to add a 21st century perspective - often intellectual acts are not enough, certainly not enough against powerful enemies with armies and horses. In life too, words can do only so much and often times action is required to force change in the world. Action is the blood of life and a powerful thinker here missed an opportunity to become a great man.
Marble portrait of Aristotle. Aristotle was called to Macedonia by King Phillip II to serve as the tutor of the young Alexander. This portrait is striking for its distinct individuality. It is probably the most faithful of some twenty surviving Roman copies which were presumably based on the posthumous statue in Aristotle’s school in Athens. His short, fashionable beard reflects the fact that, unlike most philosophers, he participated in society and, especially, politics. (text from the Met) This bust is in Vienna.
Animated Pen and Ink drawings tonight - as part of Art From the Boros at 529 West 20th, Opening reception tonight 6-9pm /
When artwork generates several outcomes and when work pushes its way into different mediums /
I created Winter with this simple purpose in mind, with a frame from Winter Diagrams: December.
And the making of Winter:
My parents, and everything /
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It probably is very difficult to be my parents and, not only because of it, I wanted to thank them for their unwavering support and for being with me in spirit and hope to see them in New York soon.
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Next week's show will include animations in part inspired by friends and scored by portland artist Marcus Fischer's album For Friends This Winter /
http://www.mapmap.ch/index.php/sound/for-friends-this-winter/
Doing commercial work is not .... the same as fine art work. Commercial work is a synthesis. And a lot of it gets done by talking - I used to get in touch with around 20 people when creating art commercially for a specific project - and at the end the work gets evaluated by another set of at least 20 people. While it is not necessarily a committee work as it is done in ad agencies, the work I used to do at Lucasfilm, you could say, was my best shot synthesis on a visual theme. Being "good" commercially meant you were a good listener and interpreter of a cloud of ideas. Sorry ... a very receptive 3d printer.
Fine art work is, on the other hand, genesis. A brand new world is created where you generate an idea, you are the primary vehicle, the messiah, the creator, the motivator, the heavy lifter, the ceo and the heart of the operation. But art is rarely created in isolation and completely without an agenda. Michelangelo worked for the Pope. Renaissance artists worked for the Medici. I personally like when artwork generates several outcomes. winter diagrams were just simple drawings of hands before they were strung together in an animation, then they became a three-dimensional sculpture in Winter - the dress. They will continue to push their way into various forms I am sure, some of the stills from the animations are to become a painting , or several stills combined and interlocked into one painting - I haven't decided yet.
I grew up as an artist creating work commercially and have a lot of the same habits. I love bouncing ideas and talking about work - others' or mine or old masters or new ones.. love dissecting and putting out feelers for the impressions any work leaves on people.
I remember vividly the winter in Brooklyn when I created the animations - although Hand Painted ocean was originally conceived in Manhattan. I came across Marcus Fischer's album For Friends This Winter and decided to use the music for the animations, also feeling that the animations themselves and how I wanted to do them were in large part a synthesis, inspired by many conversations and then a first(i think) visit to one of my favorite museums in New York. I remember one particular evening with a lot of New-Agey talk, with a girl that was doing New-Agey type massage and having really strange conversations about how she feels her patients with her hands. True? I don't know but deepened my obsession with hands.
Also my friend Rob List had earlier come to my Harlem room and did an impromptu performance which i for some reason filmed, and almost set me on a course:
https://vimeo.com/12269715
The seed for Hand painted ocean and fruit:
Hand Painted Ocean and Fruit from mirena rhee on Vimeo.
I keep the same shifty perspective for my installations where i do value people's unscripted intrusions and impromptu contributions more than my attempts to control a visual outcome.
ART FROM THE BOROS IV Press Release /
By popular demand, Denise Bibro Fine Art announces Art From The Boros IV, on view July 14-August 13, 2016. After a copious amount of submissions and studio visits, forty-one diverse artists were selected to participate in this group show highlighting talent found within New York City’s five boroughs. Art From the Boros IV exemplifies the eclectic artistic community of New York City, showing a varied range of genres of art and mediums. With a nod to the Renaissance and Dutch painting, artists Thurston Belmer and Sally Cochrane create rich, highly representational contemporary paintings referencing the great masters through light and application. Roger Preston’s Heathcliff shares a similar worldly feel in a contemporary fashion as photographer Zeren Badar’s Very first Accident mocks the propriety of the old world. In contrast, paintings by artists Jack Rosenberg and Robert Jessel rely on thick, often staccato brushstrokes to create and highlight their compositions while Courtney Bae’s evenly painted figurative narratives and Petey Brown’s lusciously painted swimmers are quirky and often, whimsical.
The fourth edition of Art From The Boros, also, features three-dimensional works and multi-media videos such as the deftly manipulated wood assemblages by Mikhail Gubin countered by the sleek, polished metal works and bronzes by Daniel Sinclair. Artist Mirena Rhee offers a fresh, personal perspective through animated interpretations of her own hand drawings. In a world that often projects galleries as being jaded and inaccessible, we are demonstrating that we are one that values and shares the desire to keep abreast with the bustling creativity all around us.
Artists: Margery Appelbaum, Zeren Badar, Courtney Bae, Thurston Belmer, Petey Brown, Kenneth Burris, Bob Clyatt, Sally Cochrane, Marilyn Davidson, Andre Eamiello, Laura Fantini, Anne Finkelstein, Mikhail Gubin, Yasmin Gur, Amir Hariri, Robert Jessel, Elizabeth Knowles, Amanda Konishi, Kate Lawless, Amanda Lenox, Park McGinty, Harvey Milman, Maria Morabito, Laura Mosquera, Suyeon Na, AJ Nadel, Douglas Newton, Kathleen Newton, Lisa Petker-Mintz, Ben Ponté, Roger Preston, Chelsea Ramirez, Mirena Rhee, Jack Rosenberg, Zvi Schreiber, Daniel Sinclair, Jeff Sundheim, Paul Antonio Szabo, Scott Walker, Lucy Wilner, and Charles Yoder. Opening Reception: July 14, 6-8pm For more information call (212) 647-7030, email info@denisebibrofineart.com, or visit www.denisebibrofineart.com
Art From the Boros IV - at Denise Bibro Fine Art, opening on July 14th and will run until August 13th. Hope to see you at the opening at 529 West 20th Street, 6-9pm /
Heading to start the setup tomorrow - I will be showing animated pen and ink drawings, more soon.
There's trouble with putting stuff in bags.. Either there goes too little or too much, it is comical as it is the simplest thing - thought, decision, item, bag. sometimes bags need to get emptied to see what went in in the first place., in and out - i have no idea why people need to trouble with clothes. it's the 21st century - by now we do know what is where.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains /
We can, though, try to get out using our intelligence. I am not saying our minds because every animal has a mind, and every animal uses their mind to go after food and reproduction. We can use our intelligence to grow faculties that will help us overcome our DNA limitations. Imagine that everywhere we go we put up fences - we get home and our first reaction is to lock up, we build a house and put a fence, we build a nation and put up a wall, ironically not to keep beasts out.
We build nice cities like New York, we build nice avenues with beautiful shops alongside to keep crystalline structures like diamonds and gold safe from the elements while homeless people look in from the gutters.
We tell grown adults how to conduct their love lives, we are ashamed of merely showing penises and vaginas on public television while it is hard to turn on any device without running into a celebration of violence, real and imaginary.
We sit around stuffing ourselves for hours on end with food and drink when a fifth will do, we slaughter animals indiscriminately but adore pet stores and strut ourselves with creatures on leashes. We enjoy ice cream cones in front of animals in cages.
We can do better here, much better.. this is why we print books so we don't forget that people already thought of all this in the past. Now that the vast majority is in the public domain - it is easier than ever to think - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46333/46333-h/46333-h.htm
How many do you see here? And I don't mean fingers /
Emergency Supply of Funny Videos /
Emergency supply of funny videos just in case. Sorry, no cats but plenty of Jeeves, The Office, Extras and others. I have discovered Hugh Laurie and Fry as Wooster and Jeeves... the transformations on the face of Hugh Laurie tasting that hangover elixir is priceless. Also, Larry David.
According to the NYT, a vast majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings were bought legally and with a federal background check /
How They Got Their Guns
A new data visualization emphasizes that there are six licensed gun dealers for every Starbucks in the U.S. - http://www.citylab.com/crime/2016/01/map-gun-dealers-starbucks/423801/ -
Mapping the Sale of Firearms vs. Frappuccinos
The Evolution of Man /
This cartoon wasn't meant to be funny. I am feeling sick and unwell and going to bed for an hour, images of guns and gun talk literally make me dizzy and ill. The overarching message here being .. our steady commitment to obliteration. We were born in a violent burst only to end up creating one. I don't get it. I get hate, I get beating the shit out of someone, I get violence... maybe ( although not the bomb ), but our sheer nonchalance towards violence I don't get. I even get how we can be hated by ISIS. I get self-defense, I get rifles in your home in Montana, I get pistol for your safety ... to defend your home in the burbs somewhere. But having gun stores and gun culture, and casualness in violence, I don't get. And I can't bear it. And it is my fault, although I am not gay I thought we made big progress with legalizing gay marriage. It is my fault, I feel we are still savages although we sent rovers to Mars. Shame on us really because 100 rovers can't make up for having a thriving killing culture. It is nice living in a big liberal city like San Francisco or New York, comforted by the company of like-minded liberals where we pat each other and congratulate each other with plastic wine cups over having achieved various achievements that we liberals usually achieve. And while, having nice dinners, people around us shoot each other, starve and plain don't make it. It is our fault and I can't bear it. I look around my studio and see meaningless pursuits and wooden sticks with dry paint on them, it doesn't make sense to wave them this way or that whatsoever.
On The Subject of Killing /
Imagine a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere in a vast ocean of pretty much nothing. It wobbles and probably hisses, whatever it takes for it to get more round. This tiny rock becomes a bigger rock and probably wobbles more. It gets hit by other rocks and dances around a little, most likely. It grows and starts to settle. There are big dimples on this rock and these big dimples become big oceans. Now, I don't really know since I haven't been there - but there were tiny things at some point very willing to divide into more tiny things. The nature of the process escapes me and, frankly, the urge too. These tiny things at some point grew little appendages and started exploring and became fish. Fish made more fish, the Universe kept spinning, fish made it to shore and became a lizard. That didn't work out but luckily other things did work out better. So Earth tried to make large forests and put large animals in it. It practically took forever. And one day a monkey stood up and was aware of the world that surrounds it or maybe it took millennia from one monkey to another, can't tell ya for sure.
After billions of years there is man. And we are wonderful. We clawed ourselves out of the mud, we fought out the bad guys and took to the sea and then we took to space. And how far we have come for man used to be chained to the earth like a beast. We have created the Garden of Eden on earth. There are wonderful machines and tools delivering wonders to our homes. we open little jaggy things and water flows, we open chunky boxes and food comes out, we flick switches and light comes on. There are these bright screens we have conjured miracles on with dreams streaming in, hierarchy of angels as Joseph Campbell calls them.
And we are beautiful, for the most part. We command nice bodies with versatile trimmings, we command consciousness with imagination, we command machines with wonderful properties, we command a lot of the earth and the sky, and the oceans, well to some degree but looks like we are getting better at it. We put designs of the mind through ores and out come fantastical creations for the first time in billions of years.
As far as I am concerned we are gods walking this planet.
And then there's the gun store on the corner. It takes a jury of 12 men to convict and sentence to the death in our land.. it takes years of deliberation, lawyers and paperwork and until the end someone fights for the life of this man or woman.
And then there is a gun store on the corner, with ready made weapons engineered to take the lives of dangerous criminals and animals. Anyone could become a judge and jury on tens and hundreds of people, and take a life, in an instant.
Killing has become trivial, merely a shopping experience.
Why did we bother then to create and build a civilized nation our of this large chunk of ground. Why cross the seas, why brave Ellis island and make all the skyscrapers in New York, why make a California out of the desert when we still fear getting shot downtown? I recently drove through Oakland in California with a map of the latest killings and robberies on my phone to make sure to find a parking spot with the least likelihood of getting shot. I just don't like killing, man, and I don't like dying. I have this instinct built in me to make sure I stick around. It is our DNA and common sense built into every living human. It is time to put common sense into how we govern our nation and where we want our nation to stand, on the subject of killing.
A Night at the Rijksmuseum - Every Painting is a Planet. Van Gogh's Sunflowers in 3D. /
Eiko, from Eiko&Koma, dancing A Body on Wall Street. It is pure gold and right on the money, so to speak. /
A Body on Wall Street: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eikoandkoma/albums/72157669071236502/with/27573558595/
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Isabelle Collin Dufresne - Ultra Violet, an artist and muse to Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. I photographed her and her work in her studio in New York. /
"The Messiah is The Message" is one of Ultra Violet's works that spoke to me the most. It is a message I firmly believe in - you only bring to the world what is truly in you. The purpose of the life of an artist is to distill a message through their practice, artists are the priests of the unknown which they make known through their work.
Please, email me for usage rights & licensing, the following photographs can't be used in any kind of media & blog without my written permission.
Rest in Peace, Ultra.
