Showing posts with label Hammer Museum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hammer Museum. Show all posts

Monday, July 18, 2011

Calvino's Elephant

Calvino's Elephant 30"x40" oil on linen 2011
Gregg Chadwick
Calvino's Elephant
30"x40" oil on linen 2011

"In fact, the elephant recognizes the language of his homeland, obeys orders, remembers what he learns, knows the passion of love and the ambition of glory, practices virtues “rare even among men,” such as probity, prudence and equity, and has a religious veneration for the sun, the moon, and the stars."

- From Man, the sky and the elephant pp. 315-330 of The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1986.

Pliny the Elder identified the elephant as the animal spiritually “closest to man.” The phrase “Maximum est elephas proximumque humanis sensibus” opens Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, Book VIII.

In turn this inspired the brilliant Italian writer, Italo Calvino, in his introductory essay to Pliny’s Historia Naturalis. And I am again reading WS Merwin's recent book of poems - The Shadow of Sirius - and thinking deeply about the mystery of our place in the universe. I had a chance to chat briefly with WS Merwin after his wonderful reading at the Hammer Museum on October 29, 2009. We spoke of elephants and mystery and nature. Inspiring stuff.

More on WS Merwin:
WS Merwin Profile

More on the Hammer Museum:
Watch and Listen

More on elephants and why we must protect them:
Elephant Reflections - from UC Press
Photographs by Karl Ammann and Text by Dale Peterson

Friday, May 28, 2010

Jung's Red Book at UCLA's Hammer Museum until June 6, 2010

by Gregg Chadwick



"L.A. is a city where people come to find themselves and explore new ways of thinking and being. They have a longing for an understanding of soul, and find themselves drawn to Jung."
-Nancy Furlotti, (co-president of the Philemon Foundation which financed the the translation of The Red Book)

At the Hammer Museum until June 6th is the exhibition The Red Book of C. G. Jung: Creation of a New Cosmology. On display for the first time on the west coast is psychologist Carl Jung’s (1875-1961) Red Book. Many scholars consider Jung's Red Book the most influential unpublished work in psychology. The Hammer Museum explains that "Jung also considered the Red Book to be his most important work, or as Jung described it, the "prima materia for a lifetime’s work."

Jung's massive illuminated volume has spent most of its existence in a Swiss safe deposit box. Only a select group has ever been allowed to view Jung's Red Book. Thanks to the Rubin Museum in New York, the Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung, the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, and the Jung family private archive, we now have the chance to view the Red Book.

The Hammer's show is intimately presented. Jung's Red Book is displayed open in a glass case in the middle of the exhibition space. Facsimile edition's of the Red Book printed by W.W. Norton & Company line one wall while Jung's thoughts, sketches and paintings encircle the room.

Jung sought to find a visual form for his dreams and fantasies and ended up using a mandala like structure in his graphic work. Similar in appearance to Tibetan Buddhist artworks, Jung's drawings and paintings evoke a world outside the flow of physical time. Instead we are given a fascinating glimpse into Jung's psyche. This once in a lifetime opportunity is not to be missed. And the lecture series (see below for an example) is noteworthy as well.


HAMMER LECTURES
RED BOOK DIALOGUES: LAWRENCE WESCHLER & DENNIS PATRICK SLATTERY




More at:
Jung's Red Book at the Hammer Museum until June 6, 2010
Susan Emerling in the Los Angeles Times on Jung's Red Book

Monday, October 19, 2009

Acclaimed Poet W.S. Merwin to Read at Hammer Museum on Thursday, October 29th

HAMMER MUSEUM

Poetry Reading

W. S. MERWIN

Thursday, October 29 at 7 PM


Photo: Mark Hanauer

In a career spanning five decades, W. S. Merwin has become one of the most widely read and acclaimed poets in the United States. His first book, A Mask for Janus (1952), was chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Series, and his most recent volume, The Shadow of Sirius (2008), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (his second: the first was for The Carrier of Ladders in 1970). His many other honors include the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, the Tanning Prize, the Bollingen Prize, and the Ruth Lily Prize.

Admission to the event is free. Please arrive early. Dedicated to the memory of Doris Curran, this series, which has provided a stimulating forum for nationally and internationally known poets for forty years, is co-sponsored by the Friends of English, the W Hotel, the UCLA Office of Cultural and Recreational Affairs, and the Office of Instructional Development.

10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Hope to see you there!