Speed of Life

" If the Princes of the world had to fight hand to hand, goodbye to war. But while there is someone in the world who can sacrifice thousands of victims how and when he pleases, Without risk to his person, enslaved humanity do not complain of his barbarity, for the blame is yours." -Giambattista Casti, "Gli animali parti" 1802 "Contemptuous of the Insults" Goya 1816-1820 From: "A Revolutionary Age: Drawing in Europe, 1770–1820" organized by the Getty as a companion exhibition to the traveling exhibition " Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile" "Sometimes the most determined of invaders, equipped with strong armies and copious intelligence about its enemy can make myopic blunders that later seem close to madness" Robert Hughes, from "Goya"- on Napoleon's invasion of Spain Three years into our debacle in Iraq it is helpful to turn to art and history for some perspective. Napoleon invaded and occupied Spain from 1808...

Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I 138 x 138 cm oil and gold on canvas 1907 Altmann Collection, Los Angeles A legal arbitration panel in Austria recently decided that five Gustav Klimt paintings, stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family during World War II, should be returned to Maria Altmann who lives in Los Angeles- the legal heir to the looted collection. The two sides began mediation following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that Altmann could sue the Austrian government. It was announced today (thanks for the heads up Tyler ), that the five paintings will go on display from April 4 through June 30 at LACMA . Suzanne Muchnic in the Los Angeles Times reports that "the exhibition was initiated by Stephanie Barron, LACMA's senior curator of modern art, in January after the Austrian arbitration court ordered its government to turn over the paintings to Altmann, ... Barron proposed the show in a letter to Altmann's attorney, Randol Schoenberg, who presented the ...

Bamiyan Buddhas March 12, 2001 Destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas On March 12, 2001 the Buddhas in Bamiyan were destroyed in Afghanistan. Despite a resounding chorus of international condemnation, the Taliban ignorantly declared that the tenets of Islamic fundamentalism were more important than the world's artistic heritage. And so, the statues were blown apart, exactly six-months before the destruction of another pair of cultural icons, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The Bamiyan Buddhas were towering figures carved into the sandstone cliffs of what is now central Afghanistan sometime around the third century A.D. The statues were the tallest standing Buddhas in the world. Like classical Greek and Roman sculptures, which provided major influences on the Buddhist sculpture in this region, the Bamiyan Buddhas were originally brightly painted and most likely gilded. This region was known historically as Gandhara and occupied areas of present day North W...

"And history will soon forget about you, but the heavens they will reward you." -Nick Cave, "Faraway, So Close" Cassiel and Gorbachev in Wim Wenders' film - "Faraway, So Close" "Faraway, So Close" marked Mikhail Gorbachev's feature film debut. The guardian angel, Cassiel, looks over his shoulder while Gorbachev meditates that "a secure world can't be built on blood; only on harmony." On March 10, 1985 after the death of Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed leader of the Soviet Union. In 1988, Gorbachev began withdrawing Soviet forces from Afghanistan. More than 15,000 Soviet troops died during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989). Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which had kept Eastern bloc nations under Soviet domination. The Soviet Union's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov jokingly described the decision as the Sinatra Doctrine, bec...

"We're making a mystery here, so make it mysterious." -Hayao Miyazaki    Update: Arrietty the Borrower: Next Studio Ghibli Project to be Released in Japan on July 17 th 2010   Hayao Miyazaki "Howl's Moving Castle" Hayao Miyazaki's most recent film ,"Howl's Moving Castle", is being released today on DVD in the US. The images in this film are spectacular. It is a visual feast: a panoply of color, movement, motion, spirit and imagination. Miyazaki makes films with children in mind. But his films are never childish. At a press conference in Paris upon the release of "Spirited Away"*, Miyazaki said,"In fact, I am a pessimist. But when I'm making a film, I don't want to transfer my pessimism onto children. I keep it at bay. I don't believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children, children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There's no need to force our own visions ont...

Still From Ang Lee's "The Hulk" Photo by Gregg Chadwick At the Academy Awards tonight, Ang Lee was named Best Director for his film "Brokeback Mountain". Mr Lee is a true talent - willing to take risks and at times fail. "The Hulk" (picture above) was arguably not a very good film. But his fims are always worth watching and the range of subject matter in his films is remarkable. Ang Lee on the set of Brokeback Mountain

On December 24th, 1914 the entrenched forces arrayed against each other near Ypres put down their arms on Christmas Eve. With an exchange of songs and camaraderie, French, German, and Scottish soldiers searched for a way to overcome - for one brief night - the conflict that raged between them. As morning dawned the physical and cultural No Man's Land that divided them reappeared ... The Academy Award nominated film Joyeux Noel, which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, explores these events and the human cost of war. The film is up for Best Foreign Language Film at Sunday's Oscars. Oscar Page on Joyeux Noel Joyeux Noel Trailer During World War I, many artists painted significant works: Pierre Bonnard French "Un Village en Ruines Près du Ham" 63 x 85 cm oil on canvas 1917 Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, Paris Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was in a group of painters assigned in 1916 to go and paint the war. All that remains from his attempt to visually describ...

Carol Es "1-SELF" Carol Es, who shows with the George Billis Gallery and who writes Esart, now has work included in the Getty Collection. The Getty recently purchased a volume of Carol's "1-SELF", a thirty-six page handmade catalog in an edition of fifty. Carol has explained that "the title suggests both intimate self-expression and the artist’s pattern making background in the Los Angeles garment industry, as patterns were often marked "1-self" for manufacturing." Caro Es has been busy with interviews and with preparations for her upcoming show at Gallery 825 in April. Go to Esart and read all about it. Congrats Carol.

April 25th marks the release of Bruce Springsteen's , "We Shall Overcome, The Seeger Sessions," which features Springsteen's personal interpretations of thirteen songs associated with folk musician Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger According to Jon Landau, the album "has a lightness and ease to it, a sheer joyfulness, that makes it very special from top to bottom. Bruce has taken a core group of classic American songs and transformed them into a high energy, modern and very personal statement." Of the new album Springsteen said, "So much of my writing, particularly when I write acoustically, comes straight out of the folk tradition. Making this album was creatively liberating because I have a love of all those different roots sounds... they can conjure up a world with just a few notes and a few words." Springsteen recorded the album with a large ensemble. The musicians on the record are Springsteen (guitar, harmonica, B3 organ and percussion), Sam Bardfeld...