Andy Warhol

Byron says, “Andy Warhol is generally considered the most significant artist of the Twentieth Century.”

I told him, “That simply cannot be true. Andy Warhol used big swathes of bright, shallow colors, no depth, no shadows.”

Chairman Mao
Andy Warhol

The most memorable Warhol image for me besides the cliched Campbell’s Soup cans, is (for some reason) the purple Chairman Mao. But, generally I walk straight past Andy Warhol’s work in museums. Why would I not? I’ve already seen Campbell Soup cans almost every day of my life. What should interest me about that? Why would I prefer Andy Warhol’s garishly bright images of Marilyn, Jackie, and Liz to photographs filled with subtle light and shade, insinuated hints of character. Why would I prefer Warhol images to detailed and skillfully created portrait paintings? I told Byron, “Andy Warhol can only be considered significant if he was representing a completely shallow culture.” The conversation has stayed on my mind.

Something from, The Museum of Modern Art Learning Site:

Assembly Line Art?
In August 1962, Andy Warhol began to produce paintings using the screenprinting process. He recalls, “The rubber-stamp method I’d been using to repeat images suddenly seemed too homemade; I wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly-line effect. With silkscreening you pick a photograph, blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then roll ink across it so the ink goes through the silk but not through the glue. That way you get the same image, slightly different each time. It all sounds so simple—quick and chancy. I was thrilled with it. My first experiments with screens were heads of Troy Donahue and Warren Beatty, and then when Marilyn Monroe happened to die that month (August 1962), I got the idea to make screens of her beautiful face.” (Andy Warhol, Popism, 1980)

Marilyn

Multiplying Marilyn
Warhol took Marilyn Monroe as his subject in different mediums, silkscreening the actress’s image multiple times in a grid in bright colors and in black and white. By repeating Monroe’s image (and that of other celebrities) over and over again, Warhol acknowledged his own fascination with a society in which personas could be manufactured, commodified, and consumed like products.

Turns out, Warhol was developing a theme. He was showing us our culture of constantly repeating, slowly morphing images of commodities.

Art and Beauty, Erin Elizabeth Hunter at The Minnesota State Fair

Erin Elizabeth Hunter won first place in Oil/ Acrylic/Mixed Media for her oil on canvas painting, “Everything That is Wrong with Me: 250 LBs. at The Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Competition this year.

I took two classes from Carol Bly as a student at Hamline University in St. Paul a few years ago. Bly was teaching us how to write, “Literature”. She essentially waged classroom war with one student, whose stories included beautiful images and clearly described torture scenes. This was not writing that qualified within the professor’s definition of artful writing. She rejected my writing also, partially because of the presence of one relatively innocuous body fluid.

I noticed Hunter’s painting almost as soon as I entered the building. The painting was displayed prominently, a quick right and then a quick left near the entry. The palette captured my attention from the distance. I moved quickly on as soon as I recognized the painting’s subject. But, I keep thinking about Hunter and her First Place painting. Out of an enormous field of varied and talented work, someone or some committee awarded that particular painting First Place.

One of the clearest and most longstanding memories I have retained from private drawing lessons during my early twenties is that the value of art is not judged by palatability, but rather by emotional impact.Judges at this year’s Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Competition reminded me of this, once again.

http://erinhunterart.tumblr.com/post/126672480987

Rembrandt, Again and Again (Apparently)

This is the ninety-fourth week I’ve posted on this blog, and thanks to WordPress’s wonderful statistics setting, I know that more of you read and continue to read what I have written about Niels Strobek and Glenn Brown than Rembrandt. But, I can’t get enough of Rembrandt’s work. It started with Henry Nouwen’s writing about The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Return of the Prodigal Son
Rembrandt

It continued at The Louvre when tiny little hairs in my ears tickled at the sight of the angel whispering into St. Matthew’s ear.

The Inspirations of Saintt Matthew
Rembrandt

I recently overheard two women talking about a wedding that took place on a television sit com. The women who were talking acted as though they were discussing a real couple, a real wedding, a real world. I thought that was pretty funny. But, Art, in all its various forms, provides opportunity for a broadened understanding and life experience. Art provides our own opportunity for less concrete and more visceral self expression.

Lucretia-1666
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Frequently, I still think about the woman I met the Minneapolis Institute of Art. She said she comes there every month in order to visit Lucretia because she (Lucretia) suffered so much, and, “I don’t want her to be alone.”

I recently heard someone say that creating art, at its most essential experience, is spiritual. Rembrandt was the master. His mythological and historical people leave the canvas. Like Saint Matthew’s angel, sometimes they breathe.

More Sunday In The Park With George and Fantasy Football

As far back as I can remember I have enjoyed puzzles and largely ignored televised sports–until now, that is! This year I drafted my first Fantasy Football team. I did my research; I sat in front of my computer for all my mock drafts. People who know me are as surprised as I am about this new occupation. Jim quit trying to report on happenings in the NFL–since this year’s answer is always, “Yes, I know.”

Two Childhood Memories:

1. Fun on Thanksgiving with Clint, our cousin who sometimes brought puzzles, the kind where you move little square numbers around a grid with the goal of arranging them in numerical order.
2. Our father sleeping (but not soundly enough) in front of the television on Sunday afternoons while football droned the afternoon away, away, and away.

Someone recently (and remind me if you read this) challenged me to include Fantasy Football legitimately in my art blog. Here’s a couple of connections: Rob Goudy, the Associate Director for The Bloomington Civic Theatre production of Sunday In The Park With George, wrote in that playbill that when he first saw the play as a fourteen year old,  I was transfixed–especially with those sacred words: “White. A blank page or canvas. So many possibilities.” Peter Turchi, in his recent book, A Muse & A Maze, compares puzzle solving and creative activity. A white canvas, a blank page, a possible team roster. These are puzzles, empty places crying to be organized and brought to life.

My team does have life. So far, I’m at 50/50 two wins, two losses. Two weeks ago, I came in first in the league, and I want to express gratitude for Thursday, all day Sunday, Monday Night Football, for Tuesday on waivers, and the Wednesday trading results, for ESPN.com, and for all these opportunities to read about and watch people fighting forward with heart, skill, hope, and intent.

Rob Goudy goes on. With a little more life under my belt, however, I find other passages from the show equally compelling: “Stop worrying where you’re going–/Move on…”