depARTure

skin patterns

Today I stumbled upon the photographer Fernand Fonssagrives (1910 - 2003) by way of Alexey Brodovitch (1898 - 1971), who I have also just discovered today. Fernand was from France and known for his 'beauty photography'. He was also a dancer, along with his wife, the legendary model Lisa Fonssagrives. She is the subject of most of his photogaphs.

From Russia, Alexey Brodovitch was a photographer, graphic designer and renown Art Director of Bazaar Magazine from 1938-1958. Biased towards fine art, he invited his friends Man Ray, Marc Chagall and Jean Cocteau, among others, to contribute to the magazine.

Here is a selection of particularly stunning (to me) images, the first three are pages from Bazaar, which Man Ray and Alexey Brodovitch worked on together (Man Ray shot the photos and Brodovitch took care of the graphic design and layout). The next few are by Fernand Fonssagrives, hello, skin patterns!

Alexey Brodovitch x Man Ray, Bazaaar Magazine 1938 click on images to enlarge

 

Fernand Fonssagrives, 1956 click on images to enlarge

between then and now

 
Gregory Crewdson, untitled from the Twilight series (click image to enlarge)

 

Photographer Gregory Crewdson's ideas for photographs come to him while he's swimming, he says. His images must  "first be beautiful, while also imbued with a mood of tension, isolation and anxiety". The scenes he stages and photographs (with the assistance of set designers and lighting techs recruited from independent film crews), reflect an imagination preoccupied with melancholia and loneliness. His Twilight series from 2001 was my first encounter with his dark and satirically evocative work. The untitled image of a smoking overturned school bus in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, reacquaints me with the perverse thoughts I occasionally cooked up while riding home on the school bus.

Pictured above, a lone and exhausted woman sits in the middle of a flower-bed that looks to have forcefully overtaken her living room. Below, a distraught looking man on his hands and knees is surrounded by ethereal purple lights emerging from his dining room floor. Also below, a pregnant woman stands outside in a baby pool, accompanied by two androgynous looking people. In all of these scenes an eery and alluring science-fiction-esque mood emphasizes a tangible tension, heightening the anxiety Crewdson strives for. 

Untitled images from the Twilight series. Click to enlarge

 

The artist's repeated return to disturbing scenes of suburbia (let's call it disturbia) suggests some kind of obsession with this theme. But what is also visible in these and his later work is a fascination with the moment between then and now. Crewdson hopes we'll imagine what has just happened and what is about to happen, when we view his work. Each photograph offers a generous helping of material with which our imaginations can run wild. I often think alien abduction or post- nuclear attack when I look at his photos. 

Although Crewdson was not the first to begin experimenting with staged photography (sometimes referred to as the tableau form), he is one of the most well known. Beginning in the 1970s  this form has become a standard art-world practice, to the chagrin of some photographers and critics who find the photos un-spontaneous and appearing more like staged theater sets. These critics complain that there's nothing worth “seeing” when the photograph is pre-arranged. Other critics attack this style as leaning towards fashion photography -- melodramatic and posed.

  I have to admit that the initial seduction of Crewdon's glossy, bitingly cynical photographs was for me eventually diluted by repetition and overuse. Whereas once his dystopian scenes appeared original, they began to look tired. 

Which is why I was pleased to recently discover his Sanctuary series from 2009. Shot on location at the legendary Cinecittà studios on the outskirts of Rome, this body of black and white photographs is the first work Crewdson has created outside of the United States.

Cinecitta studio was founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini for propaganda purposes, under the slogan "Il cinema è l'arma più forte" , "cinema is the most powerful weapon". It was here that Federico Fellini broke with the tradition of filming on location and built a near-exact replica of Rome’s famed Via Veneto, for filming La Dolce Vita. Known as Fellini's stomping grounds but also utilized by Roberto Rosselini and Michelangelo Antoni, the studio has produced many Italian classics and has hosted major productions such as Ben Hur and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. The studio has a long history, from Allied bombings in WWII, to a fire, to bankruptcy, to government privitization. Today, the studio hosts television productions and is closed to the public. 

 

Left: Fellini on the set of Satyricon, Cinecitta studio, 1970. Right: Film still from La Dolce Vita, Cinecitta Studio, 1960. click images to enlarge

All Sanctuary images below courtesy of Gregory Crewdson. Click photos to enlarge.

Immediately noticeable in Crewdson's Sanctuary series is the absence of human beings. Instead, the ghostly architectural ruins, which also happen to be defunct outdoor film sets, are the subjects of the photos. Ironically, there were no custom built soundstages, paid actors or production crews employed for this series. 

At a first glance these phptos seem to be a bold departure from his earlier work, yet they convey the emotionality that characterizes his work. Melancholy dominates -- decaying sets, statues overtaken by weeds and traces of bygone productions are a nostalgic suggestion of the past. And perhaps the future? What exactly are we looking at? A historical dream-scape? A timeless place? I like film critic A.O. Scott's statement that "Like the world of the unconscious, Crewdson gives us the sense that what we are looking at is both real and illusory" 

Lacking the sci-fi mystery and drama that are usually so central to his work, these photos are instead elegant and quiet. Devoid of action yet rich in texture and tonality, Crewdson again invites us into an intimate scene where we might tip-toe through secret places. And like all of his work, he encourages us to imagine our 'moment between then and now', for each scene. As Benito Mussolini said, Cinecitta is the place where dreams become reality.

 

  

behold the caddisfly

                                    
 

You know the day will be an unusual one when you sit down at your desk with your otherwise ordinary mug of coffee, open up your otherwise benign twitter-feed and discover that a caddisfly (a small insect belonging to the order Trichoptera and closely related to the butterfly) has surpassed your own skills in metal-smithing. Yes, you read me correctly. And there's more.

The larvae of this hairy, winged creature are aquatic and use silk excreted from their own salivary glands, to construct protective silk sheaths around themselves while they mature. Nevermind that the entire creative process takes place under or directly on top of streams, lakes and ponds; have you ever seen a human architect perform such a feat?

But back to metal-smithing. We all know that many artists are deeply curious about the natural world, incorporating nature's forms and patterns into their work and mimicking nature's propensity for mystery and the sublime. French artist Hubert Duprat goes further. Since the 1980s, Duprat has been working with caddisfly larvae. An avid naturalist and a practising conceptual sculptor, Duprat combined his fascination with larvae behavior and his own artistic vision.

He knew that caddisfly larvae incorporate grains of sand, particles of mineral or plant material, bits  of fish bone and crustacean shell to their spun silk sheath (click on image at right to enlarge). He also knew that the larvae are remarkably adaptable, often incorporating other suitable materials that are introduced to their habitat. Additionally, the artist had observed prospectors panning for gold in the Ariège river in southwestern France and began imagining what it would look like if the caddisfly larvae were encased in  sheaths of gold. Duprat asked himself, why not lend larvae materials, and see what they build?

The artist (at this point I'd call him an artist/scientist) collected a group of caddisfly larvae, brought them back to his studio, "gently removed" their natural cases and and then placed them in an aquarium filled with gold flecks, semi-precious and precious stones like turquoise, opal, lapis lazuli, coral, pearls, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. As you can see from these somewhat startling images below, the larvae performed just as Duprat had imagined and hoped. See those clusters and patterns of color? All the larvae's doing.

 
(click images to enlarge)

The larvae developed normally in their bedazzled sheaths, which they simply shed once they entered fly state. Just in case your mind isn't blown yet, Duprat claims that in his observation of the creatures, a case built and then discarded by one insect when it evolved into its fly state, was sometimes recovered by another larvae, who re-purposed the case by adding to or altering its size and form.

Manipulative? No doubt. Imaginiative? Yes. Really effing cool? Yup. Humbling? Definitely.

(As you can see, two of these bedazzled sheaths have been shed. Click image to enlarge) 

back to the future

 

(left) Books!, Alexander Rodchenko,1924   (right) Green Patriot Posters, Help It, 2010 (click images to enlarge)                                   

One of the things I love most about digesting images all day is that it comes with an element of surprise. I never know exactly what I will see on any given day, that will get under my skin, catapult me out of my chair or send me into research mode. Because I don't limit the scope of visuals I'm taking in to "art" in the formal sense, I will never grow starved of stimulating imagery. Nevertheless there are historical art movements and particular artists that continue to ignite my emotions and shape my experience of life.

The 20th Century Italian Futurists have me hooked in tight. This group of artists successfully defined a visual language that demanded social upheaval. Although their message and artistic style was specific to their time and place in history, the spirit of art and revoltion they sought is universal and eternal.

The Futurists, the most well known being Filippo Marianetti and Umberto Bocchioni, sought to purge society of anything 'old'. In their Futurist Manifesto of 1909, which was originally published in the French paper, Le Figaro, they emphasized speed, technology, youth and violence; and objects such as the car, airplane and the industrial city. It called for a complete departure from the past in all facets of society (especially art). Whether I agree with the all of the points in the manifesto isn't the point; the Futurists' faith in visual art, architecture, music, graphic design and literature to change society, is. For me, the dynamism and energy embodied in Italian Futurist works laces them with a interior beauty that is powerful and timeless. In Boccioni's iconic Continuity in Space pictured at left, speed and movement are the true subjects of the piece rather than the abstracted figure who is running into the future at warp speed. Similarly we can see in this painting below from 1913, that the artist, Natalia Goncharova, is interested more in illustrating the action of the rider's body in motion than she is in anatomical details.

In addition to Art Deco, Surrealism and Dada, Futurism helped birth the Russian Avant-garde,  in particular Russian Constructivism. This art and theory based movement is best exemplified after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Emerging out of tumult (the Czar had just been assassinated and Russia was heading towards civil war) Constructivist artists El Lissitsky, Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko aligned themselves with the revolution, believing that Communism would create a new order and that technology would provide for society's needs. They rejected art for art's sake in favor of art as a "practice with social purposes".  Alexander Rodchenko's provoking poster, Books! (the image at the top of this page) is a photomontage whose message is, "Hey Russians! The power and initial success of the Bolsheviks is a result of books and knowledge, so read up!"

They considered themselves 'constructors' rather than artists or designers, working to bring a unity between art and technology by fashioning new objects. The Constructivists devoted themselves to industrial design, poster design and photojournalism. Constructivist graphic and typographical styles have never gone away. Design elements like striking yet simple visual imagery, symbols, bold colors, lines, angles and sans-serif type transferred to the Bauhaus, DeStijl, and (most likely) your favorite living designer. The image on the right, Lyubov Popova's, Design for the cover of the booklet ‘Russian Postal Telegraph Statistics’ from 1921, is typical of the Constructivist style.

There are few continents on which this spirit of art led social change, isn't apparent. Emperors, kings and presidents have utilized the arts, often affecting entire periods of history, for better or for worse. It might be tempting to say that we don't see much art aimed at social change today; I'm not convinced one way or another that is true. In an effort to familiarize myself with those artists and collectives who are working in this vein, I'm always open for new discoveries, so please share away.

The spirit of the Italian Futurists and Russian Constructivists is unmistakable in political/social change poster art, which is an entire tradition worthy of its own multi-volume encyclopedia. One of my favorite recent discoveries is Green Patriot Posters who describe themselves as a communications campaign centered on posters that encourage all U.S. citizens to build a sustainable economy. Taking inspiration from the mobilization of American citizens to change their consumption habits during WWII, Green Patriot Posters seeks to inspire advocacy for energy independence and the fight against climate change, through poster making.

The posters on their site tackle a variety of issues facing the US today and though some of the posters are bleak and uncomfortable (as they should be), the overall message that participating in a sustainability movement should be a defining value of 21st Century patriotism, is tremendously encouraging. No longer should those of us opposed to war be  deemed anti-patriotic. Green Patriot Posters wants you to know: if you live each day with some conscious focus on how your consumption affects the longevity of your community, then you are practicing patriotism. 

You can see for yourself, the wealth of posters their designers have carefully and cleverly fashioned. My personal favorites are this one, which says to me that a seamless and graceful relationship with the natural world is sustainable and yup, sexy; this one because the image is so strong and gutteral that it needs no words; and this one because of its obvious nod to the grand-daddy of poster art, Russian Constructivism.

No doubt that as people continue to push ideas via the internet, that political poster art will morph. You don't have to look too hard to see how street art is evolving graphically with stencils. Almost any city you visit today is peppered more with politically and socially driven street art than with printed posters. It will be interesting to see how trends in digital media and street art evolve together or in complete contrast to one another.

Two things are for sure: the need to communicate political and social messages isn't going away. The legacy of modernist movements like Futurism and Constructivism prove that the arts play an essential role in moving ideas through us intellectually and emotioanally. 

 

 

 

 

raise the roof

NYC's High Line keeps getting cooler. Or hotter. From what began in the 1930s as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement, which lifted train/freight traffic 30 feet up and away from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district, has blossomed an elevated public park whose slickly modern yet suavely naturalistic landscape design is truly mesmerizing.

It's hard to believe, while meandering along its concrete pathways and through its native wildflower gardens and public art installations, that this little slice of utopia once served to allow trains to deliver milk, meat, produce and raw and manufactured goods directly from factories and warehouses to buildings without causing street-level traffic.  In the 1950s, growth of interstate trucking led to a drop in rail traffic, both on the High Line and elsewhere. In 1980, three train cars stuffed to the brim with frozen turkeys pulled into the Meatpacking District and was the last train to run on the Highline.  A very sad image, until one experiences what Friends of the High Line, the Design Trust for Public Space and the City of New York have delivered to Manhattan's West Side today. Have I mentioned sumac and magnolia trees?  An amphitheater overlooking fashionista modeling shoots (sorry meat lovers) on the street below?

I follow the High Line on twitter and on several occasions I've been tempted to hop on a plane to participate in one of the unbelievably bright programs hosted there. It seems the place is expanding every day, not just in size (section 2- West 20th Street to West 30th Street- opened last week) but in scope. From the beginning, the Highline has hosted the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York's weekly Tuesday night stargazing session. Today the place seems to be in full swing. I'm actually exhausted for their staff just looking at their calendar of events, classes and programs, though I have a feeling there are plenty of New Yorkers volunteering their time in exchange for some time in the place to be.

When I saw pictures from the High Line's most recent public event, I felt the sensation that my heart and my stomach were suddenly one organ that might pierce through my skin and fly away into the sky. You know that feeling, right?

I'm easily amused but it takes something special, like a roof top/High Line collaborative dance performance, to knock me out. The iconic choreographer Tricia Brown first performed her seminal Roof Piece with her company in 1971, on SoHo rooftops. Last week on the 40th anniversary of its debut, the piece was restaged on rooftops near the southern end of the High Line. Ten dancers stationed on different rooftops mimic each other's movements in an improvised and mutable dance. The images describe and recount the event better than my words:

(above) Tricia Brown, Rooftops, SoHo 1971 (click to enlarge)

(below) Tricia Brown Co., Rooftops, High Line 2011 (click images to enlarge)

poland happens

Ada Buchholc, Alice in Wonderland

I've been fixated on the graphic impulse in poster art and design (more on that soon), and in my perusal of Russian and Polish poster design, I stumbled upon this 'Watts Polish Book Cover Contest'. What happens when you ask Polish artists to design the Polish edition of their favorite book cover?

 

Marc Storrs and Rob Morphy, To Kill a Mocking Bird

Laszlito, Poética para Cosmonautas

 

Elena Giavaldi, Choke

Daniel Carter, Inherent Vice

Bas Alberts, The Lord of the Rings

Andrew Evan Harner, The Jungle Book

   

George Stajsic, Descent of Man

 

Cat Finnie, The Old Man and the Sea

 

...the real thing baby

 

  
Natalia Goncharova, Ballet Costume for a Spanish Dancer, c. 1915
 
 
A while back a friend of mine, one of Denver's top contemporary art dealers and curators, posted a 'status update' on facebook that led to a discussion about the difference between looking at art exhibitions on-line, versus experiencing art live in the flesh. The discussion left me feeling guilty about my own bad habits -- even though I try my best to frequent openings and exhibits, and even though I consider myself a cultural agent of sorts, sharing what moves me with friends and peers -- I had to admit to myself that there were times that I missed the entire run of an exhibit because I had decided that seeing the work on-line was somehow good enough. My friend, the gallery owner and curator, was and is right: viewing art on-line does not substitute for a live art experience. Galleries, museums and viewers all suffer when we don't step away from our computers, get up out of our chairs, and step infront of and next to the art work, even if it is far removed from its orignal time, space  and context.

If anything could convince me fully of this truth, it's gazing at the works of the Russian Avant Garde. Yesterday I had the good fortune of visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where the department of modern and contemporray art had just that morning de-robed a staggeringly beautiful exhibition entitled, "Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle".

The exhibit highlights Chagall's years in Paris and it includes works by artists who shaped his style as well as those whose work was inspired by his. There were some very edgy and dark pieces by Chagall, whose canvases are usually characterized by whimsical, soft dreamscapes. I am sure that these rare works will delight and stun Chagall scholars over the next several months. Also included in the exhibit are heavy-hitters like Modigliani and Chaim Soutine. 

However my moment of art-induced mania, of sweaty palms and speedy heart palpitations, was spurred by the paintings of Natalia Goncharova and Mikhail Larionov. Both leading artists of the Russian Avant Garde, I learned yesterday that each was hired by the Ballets Russes (the Russian Ballet) to design costumes for dancers and sets for major productions. Having developed a mild obsession with Goncharova (one of the handful of women who led the Russian Avant Garde) while in grad school, I am now deeply in love.

Now I could be a hypocrite and ask you, the reader, to view the painting Ballet Costume for a Spanish Dancer I've posted here on cyberspace, and ask you if you've lost your breath. But I wont. Instead, I'm sharing it here in hopes that you'll begin to see the beauty and power Goncharova has gifted to us through her use of rich colors, bold shapes and lyrical lines. To me, she displays a really smart and modern sense of design.

I'm also posting and sharing this image here to remind myself, when I'm entrenched in my digital world, that there aint nothing like the real thing baby..

utopia: cosmic communist constructions

 

 left: Georgian Ministry of Highways  right: Palace of Ceremonies, Tbilisi, Georgia

There's something about a bleak winter day that rouses my inner Slav. It would be reckless for me to imagine that life for my grandmother in early 20th century Poland was anything close to romantic, but her experience is one I will never really fathom and for that reason, my fascination with all things Polish (and Russian) continues.

 Lucky for me, there are lots of other people who seem to lust after a taste of that distant time and place.

Frederic Chaubin's new book, "Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed" strikes directly at my displaced nostalgia nerve. Why on earth do I find these constructions so thrilling? Indeed Communist architecture was built to propagate the concept of 'utopia'. That these buildings were able to communicate Soviet ideals in their concrete, cold and melodramatic forms is yet another win for us idealists who believe that art (and architecture) most certainly influence political and social conditions, and another loss for those who believe that art is basically frivolous.

 Soviet utopianism might not be your chosen ideology; lucky for you its architectural endeavors remain standing merely as obscure reminders of what once was and most likely will never be again.

 
 
left: Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics, St. Petersburg, Russia right: Soviet Embassy in Havanna, Cuba

Frederic Chaubin, Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed

Drawing on Reality, Fred Tomaselli

 

When it comes to showing us the 'reality' of current events, documentary and newspaper photographers have to place themselves behind, diagonally and underneath events. The frontal (to some, the most 'realistic') view is not necessarily to be trusted -- and more importantly, it's far less seductive than one that is unexpected. A perspective which gives its viewer space to think, ask questions and discover new information, is ideal.

In my humble opinion, the NYT cover photographers are particularly skilled in offering viewers unique and surprising angles from which to glimpse into 'reality'. A cover photo below, depicting a scene from the Iranian revolution last year, is permanently burnished into my memory because of the perspective it captures:

 

Fred Tomaselli's idyllic drawings, which illustrate his transcendent vision of the universe, are an entirely different persepctive on 'reality'. These surreal, even psychadellic scenes create a play-ground for otherwise grim situations. Though they are mildly critical of the media and its attempt to document history, Tomaselli's imagery shares the quality of a great documentary photograph -- it's objective enough to be recognizeable but abstract enough to allow for interpretive and critical thinking. 

I haven't yet had a chance to experience these works by Tomaselli in the flesh, but I plan to get to the Brooklyn Museum by January 2, to do just that. Until then, I'll have to trust the flat screen persepctive offered by my computer, to appreciate these poignant renditions of 'reality'.

Those of us finicky and attention deficit-ed beware: These drawings appear alongside events that could be considered old, crusty and forgotten. (click on any image below to see it larger)

 
 

 
All images are courtesy of the James Cohan Gallery, New York.

 

Architecture and Engagement: Small Scale, Big Change

 Image credit: Museum of Modern Art, New York

Recently  I picked up an enticing little book entitled, "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" by Matthew Fredrick. This charming collection reveals 101 gems of architectural theory and practice, in a language understandable to those of us who have not had the privilege of design classes. Little did I know before I opened this book, how tangible and relevant to everyday life architecture really is.

 "We move through negative spaces and dwell in positive spaces" is one of those nuggets of wisdom that simply and gracefully echoes every day life. Here's another: "Being process-oriented, not product driven, is the most important and difficult skill for a designer to develop" (I'd say it's one of the most important and difficult skills for anyone to develop in any aspect of life.. )

Initially intimidated by the enormous scale of architecture and therefore reluctant to look at it, I thank a few close friends for opening my mind up to the notion that the practice of architecture requires deep thoughtfulness and sensuality. I'll never forget the idea a friend (a brilliant architect) suggested to me: architectural spaces are actually bodies in which human beings (and any other creatures who manage to crawl into them) interact, learn, dance, play, think, eat, relax, teach, make love, the list goes on.

Because of this, (and my friend knew it all along), architects have a large task at hand --As Fredrick states it so well in his little book "Beauty is more about the harmonious relationship among the elements in a composition than the elements themselves." In other words, with a careful consideration of form and function, the possibility for meaningful connections among people is born. I don't know of anything else so important. 

Recently I became acquainted with the innovative architecture and design projects featured in MoMA's Small Scale, Big Change: New Architects of Social Engagement exhibition. It features eleven architectural projects on five continents that respond to localized needs in underserved communities. These projects exemplify a renewed sense of commitment, shared by many of today’s practitioners, to the social responsibilities of architecture.The tenet that "all architecture begins with an idea" is unmistakable here -- in these projects, the idea being that architecture should offset chaotic conditions while respecting the specific social and cultural conditions of the community.

The exhibit at MoMA is impeccably curated with drawings, models, dazzling photos and videos that chronicle the development of an array of diverse international projects, many of which are still in process. Each one is worthy of an entire report; the one that stuck most in my mind's eye is the Housing Development for the Fisherman of Tyre, by Hashim Sarkis A.L.U.D in Tyre, Lebanon.

Tyre, an ancient coastal city south of Beirut, has long struggled to maintain a viable infrastructure amid seemingly constant chaos and combat. The area’s fishermen have been particularly hard hit.

In 1984, during the Lebanese Civil War, the ancient city was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The designation brought with it strict regulations on new building along the coast, where the fishermen have traditionally lived, perpetuating overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. In response, the fishermen formed the Al Baqaa Housing Cooperative, convinced the Greek Orthodox Church to donate a parcel of land outside the historic city center, and partnered with architect Hashim Sarkis.

In a decade-long collaboration with the cooperative, Sarkis developed a brightly colored, cheerful  housing system and community gathering place. Its rectangular forms, sharp angles and minimal ornamentation reflect the modernist style.  Designed with a courtyard in the center, the development accommodates the fishermen’s ambitious program while fostering a rich sense of community. Despite its slick contemporary flair, the development sits in harmony with the already existing buildings sorrounding it. Rather than dominating the area, the development's visually stunning design and abstract forms encourage optimism for the entire area. The idealist in me wants to believe that the fisherman are better able to work hard, interact together and enjoy life in their rejuvenated neighborhood.

I find it not only impressive but absolutely essential that an institution like MoMA showcase exhibits like these, ones that not only dazzle visitors but also inform them of the progressive social activity that artists and architects continue to be deeply engaged with all round the world.

 
Image credit: Museum of Modern Art, New York

Go read: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Fredrick.  Go see: Architecture and Engagment: Small Scale, Big Change at the Museum of Modern Art, New York