Category: New York Times 10/9

Art is very deeply rooted in Italy. Italian artists like Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinchi (often thought of as “The Great Masters”) are the first few that come to mind when people think of the Renaissance. Each one of them have had significant impact on the advancement of art in our history. Their artwork, among other great Italian attractions, has attracted millions of tourists to Italy every year, making Italy the fifth highest tourist earner in the world! Lately, however, high-end fairs that specialize in old masters and antiques have been having trouble retaining and attracting buyers. Which is exactly why Fabrizio Moretti, an old master paintings dealer, decided to invite Jeff Koons, an American artist, to Florence to cut the opening ribbon at the 29th edition of the Biennale International dell’Antiquariato di Firenze and to show two of his sculptures.

Italian poster advertising the appearance of Koons’ artwork in Italy

Scott Rayburn opens his New York Times article, Florence Turns Up the Celebrity Heat,  by describing the strange and bizarre placement of Jeff Koon’s sculpture, “Pluto and Prosperina”, outside of the Palazzo Vecchio, which is Florence’s town hall. The piece was strategically placed in between masterpieces by the renown Donatello and Michelangelo, thereby creating a true juxtaposition between the art of the old masters and that of the contemporary. But that stark contrast was exactly the point. Dario Nardella, Florence’s mayor, thought that doing so would “broaden international interest in Italy’s oldest and most prestigious fair devoted to its own historic art!”

Koons’s “Pluto and Prosperina” (center) placed between copies of artwork by Donatello and Michelangelo, at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy

 

Both of Koons’s works of art, “Pluto and Prosperina” and “Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun),” are inspired by artwork from the past, specifically artwork by Bernini and Donatello, respectively. When asked about inspiration for his artwork, he said “The way art functions in its connective power is very similar to our genes. Picasso will be referencing El Greco and El Greco will be making another reference. It’s a community. Information is transferred.”

“Pluto and Prosperina” by Koons. Placed outside the Town Hall.

“Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun)” by Koons. Placed inside the Town Hall.

I think Koons makes an interesting point in connecting his artwork with the past. There is something very empowering to think of art as a connection or “linkage” to the artists that were around prior to him, while still being able to advance it in some way or another. What I believe is so special about the art field, unlike other fields or industries, is that the possibilities in which people can create art are endless. It’s impossible for the arts to “die out”, as people will always be finding new ways to present their creativity. Though Italy currently struggles to attract buyers, I think that the combination of artwork from two time periods (Michelangelo and Koons, for example) provides an interesting perspective on the advancement and development of art (while still staying connected to past artists!) and will hopefully help boost the interest of buyers from around the world.

In Ireland there is a place called Ballylee, and in that place you can find a tower, which is now home to bats, mice, and mold. It also harbors a piece of the legacy of William Butler Yeats. This tower is called Thoor Ballylee, and it inspired much of his work.

Over the years, though, the “Norman tower has encountered natural challenges so daunting that the Irish government had to shut it down as a tourist site”. However, that has not stopped a devoted neighbor and other local residents from working hard to keep the tower alive and open to the public. As a result, you can see this wonderful tower in all its glory during select tourist seasons. It has become an attraction once again, offering the inspiration of the poet’s faint presence to readings, seminars and musical events.

Yeats would never even speak to his neighbors. He would simply remain holed up in his building, writing for hours on end, completely engrossed in the task of perfecting his works.

He paid a very small sum for the tower. It was rumored to have been built in either the 15th or 16th century, and was in need of considerable repair, as it had become sort of a shed. in 1917, Yeats bought the tower that had long-enchanted him and began working on it with his wife, George Hyde-Lees, and an architect in order to transform the tower into a place of inspiration. The walls and curtains were all strikingly colorful, and the poet often wrote on a table adorned with wildflowers. Yeats used the upstairs quarters–a study, a master bedroom and a guest room–as inspiration for his work, as well as the winding staircase that led to the upstairs.

During his time at Thor Ballylee, Yeats and his wife had two children. He was appointed to the Senate of the newly founded Irish government, and he won the Nobel prize in Literature in 1923. However, it wasn’t all good times at the tower. The civil war in Ireland came to his doorstep in the early 1920s. According to R. F. Foster, the author of a biography of Yeats, the Irish Republican Army arrived one day to announce that the bridge beside the tower was about to be blown up, and to suggest that Yeats’s wife take the children and maid upstairs for their safety. Sure enough, Yeats’s wife was said to have heard two loud explosions, with the I.R.A. officer saying that all was clear afterwards.

In 1928, Yeats published an anthology of poems that he named after his beloved home, “The Tower”. It contains important poems like “Sailing to Byzantium” and “Among School Children.” Soon after, though, he had to abandon his precious tower for reasons of convenience and his failing health, which left it to the abuse of the elements. Thanks to residents in his old community, a part of Yeats remains after more than a century, through stories shared by neighbors he barely knew.

Christopher Doyle, or Dù Kěfēng in Mandarin, is an Australian-Hong Kong cinematographer who often works on Chinese language films. Christopher Doyle has won international acclaim for films like Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love” and Zhang Yimou’s “Hero,” both of which came out at the beginning of the turn of the century.

Roughly a year ago, Hong Kong erupted in mass youth protest. The goal: to prevent the government in Beijing from controlling local elections. Christopher Doyle is now releasing a film where he chronicles the events.

According to Joyce Lau’s September 2015 New York Times article, “Capturing the Voices of Hong Kong,” “Doyle crept into the protest zone at the break of dawn, when demonstrators were sleeping, and filmed details of daily life: a little girl delivering water, a lone teenager in the makeshift study area, a middle-aged man collecting garbage on a metal cart.” Doyle, at the age of 63, managed to capture the “intense and prolonged waiting” of the movement.

The footage has been included in Doyle’s film, “Hong Kong Trilogy,” which had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month. In Hong Kong, it is set to premier on the one-year anniversary of the police’s tear-gas assault on student protesters. Further, it is expected to also be shown in Denmark, South Korea, and India.

The movie is said to have both fiction and nonfiction elements as it uses “the voices of real Hong Kong people” as a “blueprint for this story of three generations in our city.” Said three generations are, “schoolchildren (‘Preschooled’), twentysomething activists (‘Preoccupied’) and the elderly (‘Preposterous’).”

The film has been largely crowd funded, having raised $125,000 of the $200,000 total budget online. This shows the growing public hankering for films that cover politically sensitive event. What makes Doyle’s work so noteworthy is the fact that it covers topics that the Chinese government tries to push under the table despite needing to be resolved.

Despite how unique one culture can be from another, a need for a democratic system of government knows no cultural bound. However, the Chinese government is attempt to abridge this right of civilians in Hong Kong.

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun Self-Portrait

Despicable forms of unjustifiable prejudice and ignorance occurs all around us, and it is something we can not change permanently. That is the case of an “obscure” artist, Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Roderick Conway Morris’s article Vigée Le Brun: A Delayed Tribute to a French Trailblazer, insightfully brings to attention the artwork by this successful female painter who suffered as an “object of envy and the target of vitriolic, often misogynistic libels in the anti-establishment press during the years leading up to the French Revolution.” Her work has been salvaged in the last few decades and valuable research was carried out in the rediscovery process.

What was interesting about her monographic exhibition of 160 works that will start in Paris, then to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and finally the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, is that the narration of her artwork drew on the contemporary documents and her “Memoirs,” written between 1825 and 1837. So it not only gives the audience their perspective on her work, but also what she endured through her time period to generate a better understanding.

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun has an uncanny resemblance as a portraitist, and lifestyle to John Singer Sargent in that her parents, especially her father pushed her to come into contact with the art world. It is notable that her father, a pastel artist, Louis Vigor declared “You will be a painter, my child, if ever there was one.” At the age of 12, the burgeoning artist lost her father and first teacher to a “botched medical operation,” and her mother was forced by economic circumstances to remarry to a man her daughter came to detest. She was later encouraged by her mother to pursue her art education to distract herself from her unhappiness. By the time she was 15, Louise had her own studio, which attracted an augmenting prestigious series of sitters. However, the financial rewards went to her avaricious stepfather, who appropriated the fees she was paid.

Vigée Le Brun’s portrait of Varvara Ivanovna Ladomirskaya (1800).

Later around 1776, Louise married Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun, an artist and picture dealer, who turned out to be a “philanderer, addicted to gambling and prostitutes,” and also took her earnings. Although she had to struggle in such a filthy environment, her husband’s own professional expertise and collection of old masters and prints helped Louise to expand her artistic horizons and perfect her painting techniques.

A portrait of the Duchess of Polignac (1782), by Vigée Le Brun.

Soon, as Louise’s fame grew, she became a  quasi-official, and extremely well-paid, court artist. However, the artist’s privileged position at court, in particular, “exposed her to increasingly scurrilous accusations, among them that her rise was entirely thanks to her sexual charms and that she did not even paint her own pictures.” Fearing the dangers of possible arrest and execution, Louise later fled to Italy, and was exiled for 12 years from  France. Surprisingly, these years were highly productive. According to Morris, “In the majestic procession of portraits from this period she  fully manifests her sheer brilliance as a colorist and her ability to convey not just the beauty but the erotic magnetism of some of her sitters.”In addition, her travels inspired her to make hundreds of landscapes in pastels and oils.

Indeed, Louise, much like Sargent, was truly “married to her art.” She even wrote in her “Memoirs”: “The passion for painting was innate in me. This passion has never diminished; indeed, I believe it has only increased with time. Moreover, it is to this divine passion that I owe not only my fortune but also my happiness.” Such a painter suffered through so many obstacles in life, but persevered through in the determination and dedication to what she loved. However, beyond the rise from her struggle, Louise’s story brings to attention that society should not criticize and diminish an individual’s brilliance because of his or her gender. Because of what her own French brethren did to her, she was forgotten until now.

Lady Hamilton

According to a New York Times article, Jim Shaw has “one of the oddest careers in post-Pop, post-Conceptual, latter-day Surrealist art.” His style can be described as “hallucinatory imagination.” Through his style, Shaw can create a fascinating view of the human soul, mind, and spirit of the nation, as shown on the left image. The art shown is from his famous “Thrift Store Paintings.” More of them can be found here.

What comes to mind when I look at such images? First, they are very abstract in a sense. The art is defined in that in shows no blurred lines and every line is bold and clear cut, but the meaning behind  the art must be accounted for by the viewer.

Let’s examine this one, for instance. The setting is calm, the characters in the art is extremely jubilant. I should mention that these characters in the painting seems to be from the lost city of Atlantis… 

One thing that stuck out to me is how none of them are wearing clothes. Is it because Jim Shaw views clothing as a burden to this “free world” the characters are in? The colors in the picture are especially warm and doesn’t harm the eye. There isn’t any especially bold colors like red or yellow. The mood of the sunset is shown from the fading brown into a light Sunkist orange. The skin tone of the characters are peachy in color, and looks very soothing to the eye.

In another article, Shaw is portrayed similarly. According to Jim Shaw, From Trash Bins and Swaps, he is characterized as one who goes through “trash” and uses it to forge “prodigious body of work that melds his eccentric collections with his comic-Surrealist paintings.” He rejects the modern views that art is a keeper of the final truth. He instead believes art as a “human search for spiritual peace.” The New Museum’s associate director and director of exhibitions, Mr. Gioni believes that Shaw’s inspiration lies in the forms of visual culture at the time of disappearance. Indeed, the article asserts that he is what can be known as the underground artist’s underground artist in that “his career has prowled the vicinities of fringe churches, cults, dangerous political movements, visionary art scenes and failed philosophies. Notably, Jim Shaw is one of those artist who doesn’t believe in making art for the market. He has the true artistic freedom that some artists lacks.