Skylab Now

Painterly Realism

2007-08-11T01:41:00.001-04:00

Kazimir Malevich. (Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935). Painterly Realism. Boy with Knapsack - Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension. 1915. Oil on canvas, 28 x 17 1/2" (71.1 x 44.5 cm). 1935

What is Minimalism?

2006-10-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

... minimalism often took to an extreme credos pioneered by previous waves of abstract art. Those artists were tired of art as an illusion, a trick by which one object represents something else. They wanted the work to be stripped of such artifice, pared down to the bare essentials so that the viewer looks only at the thing itself (rather than a picture or sculpture of something).

Minimal art took that notion and ran with it, serving up objects that could not be taken for anything other than what they were. Frank Stella, whose pin-striped paintings feature nothing but straight lines running parallel to the edges of the canvas, delivered a soundbite of minimalist philosophy when he declared there was nothing "besides the paint on the canvas" and "what you see is what you see".

- The Guardian

Agnes Martin : Untitled, 1998

2006-10-04T20:45:00.000-04:00

- Agnes Martin : Untitled, 1998 , Set of four lithographs

see also : Guggenheim

Mark Rothko : Untitled [No.4]

2006-10-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

- Mark Rothko, Untitled [No.4] , 1964, National Gallery of Art.

"his surfaces were velvety as poems of the night."
- Dore Ashton

Harry Callahan : New York 1970

2006-09-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

- Harry Callahan, New York, 1970

Interaction in visual arts

2006-09-30T17:50:00.000-04:00

"... but Haynes and Dyer seemed to take for granted the fact that Hopper's paintings have influenced many filmmakers. Among the more intriguing comments: Haynes noted that he finds the connection between Hopper and noir superficial and based primarily in the popularity of one of Hopper's most famous paintings, Nighthawks. His argument was that noir tends to be male-driven, with female characters serving merely as the subject of erotic intrigue, while in Hopper, he argues that women are not viewed voyeuristically or erotically. He essentially reworked Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure" thesis to suggest the ways in which Hopper disrupts visual pleasure.

He later added that many of Hopper's paintings do resemble film stills, a condition that one (unidentifed) woman in the audience described as "scenes on the verge of a story." I'm struggling through this idea/concept right now, but it strikes me as just about right (and reminded me fleetingly of Cindy Sherman's amazing series, "Untitled Film Stills," at least in terms of the engagement with narrative and banality).

He then connected this concept to the minimalist filmmaking style of Chantal Akerman, specifically her 3.5 hour film, Jeanne Dielman, which Haynes described as "a film about what every other film cuts out." In the film (which I have seen), we see a housewife engaging in all of the daily chores, such as cleaning, cooking, or taking a bath, all in real time, all with an essentially static camera (as I recall). The film is strangely compelling, and when it was released, it was seen as an alternative to the narrative-driven male gaze films criticized by Mulvey. Given their reading of Hopper, the connection makes a lot of sense. Sirk and Dyer also read Malick's Badlands and Sirk's Tarnished Angel through Hopper's lens, but my details are sketchier here. Certainly Badlands (in part through Sissy Spacek's amazing voice-over narration) evokes the loneliness and open space associated with Hopper, and which Dyer identified as a specifically American sensibility."

-Film theory archive, 06/04 2004

Linear Incisions

2006-09-29T17:39:00.000-04:00

It is difficult to incise that line with the white pencil in the paper, and that is in fact what they are – white linear incisions in black paper. There is very little give to the line so it looks almost like ink if you don’t look carefully. But it is not: it is the result of applying stroke over stroke, over stroke, over stroke . . . Moreover, you cannot use a very sharp pencil for this kind of drawing, because it tears the paper; so you start with a rounded off point, a relatively softened tool, which represents another irony: a softened tool for a hard edged job.

- Dan Flanvin, Commenting on his work

Robert Ryman: Surface Veil I

2006-09-26T15:13:00.000-04:00

- Robert Ryman, Surface Veil I, 1970. Oil and blue chalk on linen, 143 15/16 x 144 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Panza Collection.

Carl Andre : Fall

2006-09-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

- Carl Andre, Fall, New York, 1968. Hot-rolled steel, 21 units, 71 7/8 x 28 x 72 11/16 inches each; 72 x 588 x 72 inches overall. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Panza Collection.

Rain Poem

2006-09-23T19:46:00.000-04:00

- nick-e melville , eight rain poems (minimalist concrete poetry)

Tadao Ando : Church of Light

2006-09-13T22:14:00.000-04:00

" Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light is located in Ibaraki, a residential neighbourhood 25 kilometers north-northeast of Osaka. The building can be described simply as a bare concrete box with a wall cutting through it at a 15 degree angle. The heavy cast-in-place walls help separate the religious experience inside the small 113 square meter chapel from the outside world. The delineation between sacred and profane is important on this site, which does not permit much distance between two streets and the church itself. "
- Church of Light

- Tadao Ando, Church of Light (Ibaraki, Osaka, 1988)

Cloud Plate

2006-09-13T18:33:00.000-04:00

"Sometimes meditative, other times intensely powerful, Cloud Plate brings together four veteran improvising musicians and accomplished bandleaders, percussionist Alex Cline, vocalist Kaoru, electric koto player Miya Masaoka, and electric guitarist G.E. Stinson. This unique and inviting combination of individuals and instruments succeeds in striking a balance which allows evocative and expansive music to unfold in the moment. The beautiful package features original art throughout by famed Japanese artist Yoshio Ikezaki."

Alex Cline, Kaoru, Miya Masaoka, G.E. Stinson - Mountain
Alex Cline, Kaoru, Miya Masaoka, G.E. Stinson - Cloud
Alex Cline, Kaoru, Miya Masaoka, G.E. Stinson - Face

see also: cryptogramophone.com

William of Ockham

2006-09-12T10:18:00.000-04:00

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem or Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate

- William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347 ?)

Donald Judd : [no title] 1974

2006-09-11T22:04:00.000-04:00

Judd broke new ground in his exploration of volume, interval, space and colour . He rejected the tradition of artistic expression and craftsmanship by using industrial materials such as Plexiglas, sheet metal and plywood, and from the mid-1960s his works were fabricated by external manufacturers. By encouraging concentration on the volume and presence of the structure and the space around it, Judd’s work draws particular attention to the relationship between the object, the viewer, and its environment. This relationship became a central focus of Judd’s career, and he devoted much of his later life to the sympathetic installation of his own work.
- Tate galery

- Donald Judd (1928-1994), [no title] 1974, Etching on paper, image: 698 x 550 mm, on paper, print

Ellsworth Kelly: Dark Blue Curve

2006-09-11T01:32:00.000-04:00

- Ellsworth Kelly, Dark Blue Curve, 1995. Oil on canvas, 46 x 190 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Malevich : White on White

2006-09-10T19:56:00.000-04:00

-Kazimir Malevich. (Russian, born Ukraine. 1878-1935). Suprematist Composition: White on White. 1918. Oil on canvas, 31 1/4 x 31 1/4" (79.4 x 79.4 cm). 1935 Acquisition confirmed in 1999 by agreement with the Estate of Kazimir Malevich and made possible with funds from the Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest (by exchange)

Minimalism

2006-09-10T19:19:00.000-04:00

"Less is more," said the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, echoing the words of Robert Browning in Andrea del Sarto (1855) and the gist of Hesiod (c. 700 B.C.), who advised "how much more is the half than the whole." In its broadest sense minimalism refers to any form of human expression whose elements have been reduced, simplified, or even eliminated altogether. More specifically, the term has come to denote movements in painting, sculpture, architecture, and music--largely American--which flowered in the 1960s and were still influential at the close of the twentieth century. While many of its best examples have provided viewers or listeners with genuinely moving aesthetic experiences, minimalism is also notable for the degree to which it has tested both artistic limits and the patience of audiences. In twentieth-century popular culture minimal forms from the highway billboard to the 60-second sound bite have exemplified Mies's dictum.

- Craig Bunch, Minimalism

Observation on Minimalism

2006-09-10T12:57:00.000-04:00

First exploration, various article discussing minimalism, art and philosophy.

" These links to the anti-humanism of Dubuffet, Robbe-Grillet and Barthes seem at first glance to confirm Krauss's argument, in "Sense and Sensibility," that Minimal art was essentially an allegory of the objectlike nature of the self, revealed as a social construct, stripped of the illusion of subjectivity. This reading is at odds, however, with the first-hand experience of Minimal objects. As Fried noted, the viewer often has the sense of being in "the silent presence of another person." (33) What appears to Krauss to be mere inanimate objecthood is for Fried a willed silence, an important mode of human expression. This is the subject of Sontag's essay "The Aesthetics of Silence" and of Wittgenstein's statement in the Tractatus, quoted above. Wittgenstein's observation is subject to two mutually exclusive interpretations. One is that anything that cannot be stated clearly does not exist, and therefore is not worth discussing. In practice, this interpretation requires that we abandon most of the traditional concerns of philosophy. The other interpretation is that there are ethical and spiritual matters of supreme importance that cannot be discussed clearly. These do in fact exist. However, they will be distorted and perverted by any attempt to discuss them. They are best expressed by falling silent at the moment when philosophical chatter threatens to transgress onto sacred territory. It might be argued that what Minimal art aims to communicate is precisely this sense of supreme and therefore inexpressible meaningfulness."

-Pepe Karmel, The year of living minimally (Art in America, Dec, 2004)

Veni Sancte Spiritus

2006-09-10T09:50:00.000-04:00

Langt í burt vakir veröl stór
Grimmum töfrum tryllt
Eir arlaus óttast nótt og dag
Augu ín óttalaus og hrein brosa vi mér björt
Vonin mín, blessa brosi Þitt
Vekur ijó úr vær
Hvílist jör hljó í örmum snæs
Liljuhvít lokar augum blám litla stúlkan mín
- Björk, Vökuró (en)

Veni, Sancte Spiritus

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte caelitus
lucis tuae radium.
...
Da virtutis meritum,
da salutis exitum,
da perenne gaudium,
Amen, Alleluia.
-Veni, Sancte Spiritus from Mass for Pentecost.

01. J.S. Bach - Sarabande (French suite No.1 in d minor)
02. Björk -Vökuró
03. Arvo Pärt - Veni Sancte Spiritus

note: A small list for Sunday evening, an end of week closing note. It's mostly modern minimalist works to balance out this week's gigantic and dark playlists. In it: Vökuró, Bjork's interpretation of a lullaby written by icelandic composer Jorunn Vidar, Veni Sancte Spiritus Arvo Pärt's Berliner Masse and Glenn Gould interpretation of Bach's work.

image credit: crabtreecharles

Beginning, The

2006-07-10T02:23:00.000-04:00

Beginning, The

Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
And seek you again through the world's far ends,
You whom I found so fair
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
My only god in the days that were.
My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
...
-Rupert Brooke