"A Weapon of Beauty": Shirin Neshat in the Los Angeles Times

(Jennifer S. Altman / LAT)

"I try to find beauty in the middle of the horror, and vice versa," she says. "Sometimes, really horrible things — you can turn into a weapon of beauty."
-Shirin Neshat in an interview with Tyler Green

Tyler Green's article on the Iranian- American artist Shirin Neshat in the Los Angeles Times is well written and provacative. A must read:
Shirin Neshat: Trapped Between Two Worlds



More on Shirin Neshat:
Shirin Neshat: Photo Essays- Time Europe

"You Just Don't Give Up": The Life of Harold Leventhal

HAROLD LEVENTHAL
1919 - 2005

Harold Leventhal, died on Tuesday at the age of 86. A renowned folk music champion, Leventhal acted as promoter, producer, and manager for Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and countless others. Leventhal presented a 21-year-old Bob Dylan at Town Hall in New York in Dylan's first major concert hall appearance on April 12th, 1963. Harold Leventhal was featured most recently in Martin Scorcese's documentary "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" in which he provided glimpses into Dylan's early years in New York.



Harold Leventhal enlisted in the US Army during World War II and was stationed in India from 1944-46. These years had a profound impact on his life both politically and artistically. In India, Harold's political interests led him to seek out members of the Indian National Congress. He met with Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.

Harold Leventhal and Jawaharlal Nehru,1945

Jorge Arevalo, in the concert notes to the Tribute to Harold Leventhal Concert at Carnegie Hall on November 29th, 2003, explains how ""the influence of both India’s first Prime Minister and consummate peacemaker would alter and forever affect Harold's life, particularly during America’s civil rights struggles of the 1960s when he met with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King asked Leventhal to recount Gandhi’s ideas on his political strategy of non-violence."

Because of his politics and social activism, Harold Leventhal was tailed by the FBI during the McCarthy era and was unable to even get a passport to travel until 1960. Recently, upon reading the thick FBI dossier on his activities during the 1950's, Harold was taken aback by the detail and thoroughness of the Bureau's investigation.


M F Husain
"Artist and Model"
187cm x 187cm acrylic and lead on canvas 1990

As well as promoting American artists, Harold Leventhal over the years supported the arts of India by arranging painting exhibitions, concerts and theater productions.These included shows of Jamini Roy's paintings at the ACA Galleries on 57th Street in 1952, a solo exhibition of Satish Gujral's works in 1953 and M F Husain's first exhibition in New York in 1963.

Leventhal was also New York's first world music promoter, introducing Ravi Shankar in concert at Carnegie Hall. Harold Leventhal was also instrumental in the arrangements for the poet Rabindranath Tagore's off-Broadway production of "King of the Dark Chamber" in 1961.


The following is from a conversation with Harold Levinthal prompted by the Tribute to Harold Leventhal Concert at Carnegie Hall:

Michael Kleff: "Thinking of the present political situation, is it hard to still believe in America?"

Harold Leventhal: "Well, honestly, I feel somewhat depressed, politically. This is the worst in my history of being around as a citizen. We got an administration that is on the border of [being] neo-fascist, in my opinion. And this is it. This is a calamity."

Michael Kleff: "Thinking about all the years you fought for a better world, how do you feel now? Is it painful?"

Harold Leventhal: "I don’t think it’s painful. Disappointing is the word. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t continue being in progressive causes, or causes that are for the better of minorities. Those causes are still there. You just don’t give up. You’re always somewhat optimistic that somewhere along the line whatever you stand for is gonna come true. It’s the struggle of getting there that has become very difficult. The atmosphere in our country today is extremely difficult. We don’t have enough forces that we might have had 30 years ago to rally around good causes. We’ve been marginalized. Apparently the right wingers don’t care what we say. They let us say it because they know, or they think, that we don’t mean anything. This is what’s happening to a great extent."

"I’m optimistic because, look, we got rid of Nixon! Whoever heard of a president being kicked out? There is the ability in this country, in spite of its faults, in spite of its difficulties, you can open your mouth. You might get arrested in some places (laughs) but you get out. There’s a lawyer gonna get you out!"

More on Harold Leventhal:
harold leventhal in the times
woodyguthrie.org

Shahzia Sikander's Sea of Stories at Otis

Shahzia Sikander
(detail from dissonance to detour, mixed media on paper)

Shahzia Sikander, who has traveled from Pakistan, to Rhode Island, to New York is now in Los Angeles for a short time, as a guest artist at the Otis College of Art and Design. Her recent work is on view until November 12 at Otis' Ben Maltz Gallery. Shahzia Sikander's exhibition "Dissonance to Detour", curated by Meg Linton, features new paintings on paper, a digital video animation, and a large wall painting.

There is a rich fluidity to this work, especially in the details which play with the idea of 17th century Mughal miniatures. There is an expectation of narrative and resolution within the paintings. But upon closer examination, the works slip into a vivid flux of color and line. By shifting the viewer's expectations from narrative to paint, Sikander refuses to create the works that might be expected. Instead Shahzia Sikander's exhibition evokes an imaginative response. While viewing the work, I put any thought of Pakistani-Indian politics aside and felt the spirit of Salman Rushdie's novel "Haroun and the Sea of Stories".

Two walls of very large paintings on dusty pink prepared paper dominate the room. The watered down paint puddles and skips in these works. Some of the lozenged painterly moments in the elephants (shown above), bring to mind the same sort of abstracted marking found in Chuck Close's recent paintings.


Shahzia Sikander
(still from digital animation)

The digital projections shown in the darkened room off the main gallery surprised me with their force when blown up to wall sized images. At Shahzia Sikander's show in New York at Brent Sikkema (now Sikkema Jenkins & Co.) in 2003, this type of work was presented in small frames that emphasized their connection to Mughal miniatures. Here in Los Angeles, magnified to silver screen size, the flow of images evoked thoughts of Terry Gilliam's rich film imagery.

Los Angeles is a city of many cultures-numerous villages, some almost third world in many respects- with only a thin veneer of Hollywood gloss laid on top. Los Angeles is also a city of images: digital, celluloid, tabloid - with a few hand crafted drawings and paintings scattered about. Shazia Sikander's artwork firmly shows that even in Los Angeles there still is an important place for images created by the mind and the hand.



Otis College of Art + Design
Ben Maltz Gallery
9045 Lincoln Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045 (just north of LAX)

Web site:
from dissonance to detour

Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 10am-5pm; Thursday, 10am-7pm

Shahzia Sikander is the inaugural artist in the Jennifer Howard Coleman Distinguished Lectureship and Residency Program sponsored by the Samuel Goldwyn Foundation. A catalogue of the exhibition will be available for sale in late October.

Also see:
shahzia sikander on the practice of art



shazia sikander

A Walk With Ganesh

by Gregg Chadwick

Gregg Chadwick

A Walk With Ganesh

72"x84" oil on linen 2005

Recently during an extended visit in Thailand, I toured the elephant parks in the mountains north of Chiang Mai.
Each day the elephants are brought down to the river and bathed.

As I watched these daily baths, I knew that I needed to paint these moments- the elephants, the mahouts, the river, the water, the light, the color, the heat and the air.

Ganesh- (in the Hindu pantheon, known as a remover of obstacles) provided an apt title.

Hokusai

"Blind Men and Elephant"

from the Hokusai manga series ("Random Sketches"), 

volume VIII, Pages 13,14

1818

After viewing "A Walk With Ganesh", Julie Weiss brought in a treasured book on the Japanese artist Hokusai opened to Hokusai's manga -"Blind Men and Elephant". This image wonderfully illustrates Buddha's parable:


Once, a group of blind men, who generally got about by holding on to each other as they cautiously shuffled through the countryside, came upon an elephant.

The first man, feeling the enormous leg, said, "This thing is very like a tree."

The second, standing near its ear reached up and said, "This is a winnowing fan!"

"No," said a third as he grasped the moving trunk. "Be careful. This is a creature belonging to the serpent family."

"I disagree," said a voice at the other end. "It is only a frayed piece of rope".

"You are all wrong. I have felt this thing on both sides. It is nothing more than a wall."


When the Buddha was staying near Shravasti, he retold this parable to try and get a group of ascetics living nearby to quit arguing. Each one was maintaining that he was the only right one and that everyone else was wrong. The Buddha declared that they were only disputing among themselves out of ignorance.


Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)
"Taishun, hoeing a field with the help of elephants"
9" x 13 1/2" Woodblock Print c.1840

A Letter from Danielle Brazell to the Arts Community

Dear Friends and Colleagues:



The devastation in New Orleans and the gulf cities is almost incomprehensible. New Orleans is one of the richest cultural centers in the country. It is home to hundreds of musicians, visual artists and theatre professionals.

Yet New Orleans also has one of the highest poverty rates in the country. Like many of us, these artists live gig to gig, check to check.

And these artists are now dispersed throughout the country. I’ve been in touch with several colleagues from New Orleans and while they may be physically okay, they are trying to figure out the day-to-day reality of their displacement. This day-to-day may well turn into months if not years.

The national arts community is mobilizing to help with this crisis. If you would like to help, the recommendation is to give to the Red Cross relief fund and then give a little more to the artists affected by Katrina.

The Southern Arts Federation has established an artists’ and arts organization fund, which will be administered by the three state arts councils.

Downloadable PDF for donations is at:
Southern Arts Federation

Also, if you know an artist affected by Katrina, NYFA has a great list of resources:
NYFA

Housing Links:

Craig’s List

SAG Foundation Housing Board

Now open for Screen Actor's Guild members and non-members to help with housing swaps for those displaced by Katrina.
When logging into the system type “Guest” as the member ID#.

Also check out these informative links relating to the arts relief effort:

Artist Relief News

community based arts.net

Please spread the word.

Our City of Ruins, Our Belle Ville

Gregg Chadwick
Belle Ville
11"x11" oil on linen 2005

NBC's Dateline producers movingly combined scenes of the destruction and the suffering of the victims of Hurricane Katrina with Bruce Springsteen's song "My City of Ruins" at the close of their look last night (Thursday, 9/1) on the hurricane devastation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is a brillant, sad, and stirring song, which Springsteen originally wrote for the economically-gutted hometown of his imagination: Asbury Park, N.J. It changed meanings when he included it in his performances after the World Trade Center's destruction on 9/11/01 and on his album exploring the pain of that day, "The Rising." On screen last night his words and somber chords honored yet another group of sufferers who have seen their city ruined. And its our city too, our belle ville, our most European and artistically fecund city that has been drowned. It is our neighbors who have died or had their lives washed away. This disaster is bigger than insurance companies, bigger than the Federal Emergency Management Agency, bigger than the governments of Lousiana, Mississippi, and Alabama can handle. To "rise up" as Springsteen calls at the end of the song, for New Orleans to rise up, we will all need to help. I know that many of you feel as helpless as I do right now. One thought of how we could connect and help raise our belle ville:

1. The emergency agencies coordinating care quadrant out the disaster area into 45 or so sections and assign each quadrant to one of our non-affected states.

2. Then relief-minded groups and individuals in each state could focus their attention on one quadrant of the disaster.
3. State coordinators could then help community groups identify and adopt a block that they will commit to help until it is rebuilt or reestablished someplace else.

4. Members of those community groups could then adopt a family from that block to walk with them and support them in the reestablishment of their homes, livelihoods, and lives.

Imagine the returnees seeing a sign by their flooded home when they are finally able to return. This block has been adopted by your friends in Seattle or Los Angeles or Brooklyn, call us for help.

I've always dreamed of celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but it's now going to take some rising up work to now be able to do that. Artists, there are going to be a lot of homes to paint. It's time for a city-raising.

-Kent Chadwick

The Word in Time

Gregg Chadwick

"La Palabra en el Tiempo" (The word in time)

48"x48" oil on linen 2005

Homeland Security's "Project ToyShield"

Have a nice day!

Hiroshima - A Ray of Light That Stabbed Like an Arrow

A ray of light that stabbed like an arrow
Drawing and text / Rikuo Fukamachi
August 6, 1945
Approx. 2,200m from the hypocenter
Ushita-machi (now, Ushita-minami 1-chome)

"A tremendous flash of light stabbed like an arrow yet filled every space. I was in the entrance hall, just about to leave the house. The blast blew me, the house, the walls, and all our furniture away. I lost consciousness and lay buried under the rubble until I heard my mother's voice calling me."






Child's skeleton in the rubble
Drawings and text / Tomiko Ikeshoji (Kubo)
August 7, 1945
Approx. 1,500m from the hypocenter
Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital Senda-machi 1-chome

"In the ruins of a private home outside the hospital grounds, I found the skeleton of a child. At that instant, mysteriously I saw on those bones the cute face of a child. It was a face without injury, without suffering, the face of a first or second grader. I was overwhelmed. Why was such a child here? Yet I never even shed any tears. When I went to that spot again in November, the child was gone, probably recovered by family. Nearby, some tiny sprouts were coming up."

Artwork and Text from: "Hiroshima Survivors" at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.


Hiroshima Ceremony, August 6, 2005

Artist Focus Groups for the Mineta San Jose Airport

ARTIST FOCUS GROUPS
for the
MINETA SAN JOSE AIRPORT
PUBLIC ART ACTIVATION

Three meeting dates/times/locations to choose from:

Tuesday, August 9, 2005 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
San José Museum of Art, 110 South Market Street, San José

Saturday, August 13, 2005 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco

Monday, August 15, 2005 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Works/San José Gallery, 30 North 3rd Street, San José


The Mineta San José International Airport Public Art Master Plan creates a framework for a unified program of Art & Technology that will identify San José as a diverse global center for innovation and change.

Gorbet+Banerjee, a multi-disciplinary artist team was selected as the Arts Activation Team to identify sites and design appropriate infrastructure (platforms) to accommodate the Airport Public Art Program. The initial phase of their design process is to meet with the regional arts community in a series of meetings to inform the design of a number of flexible artwork. Input from a wide array of artists working in both traditional and technologically influenced media is welcome.

For further information, please contact:
sanjosepublicartprogram@sanjoseca.gov

Art Bloggers Conference in Montreal

Thanks to Zeke, an Art Bloggers Conference will be included in Artivistic, an international art conference set for September in Montreal.

From the Artivistic Website:
"Artivistic :an international transdisciplinary event on the interplay between art, information and activism that will take place September 22 to 24, 2005, in Montreal QC (Canada).

Integrating performances, exhibitions, interventions, workshops and panels by diverse practitioners and theorists in a multilingual setting, Artivistic is part of an evolving landscape of inclusive events which celebrate the power of engaged art as a catalyst for positive change.

The event aims to promote open transdisciplinary + intercultural dialogue and research on activist art, to create and facilitate a human network of diverse peoples, and to inspire, proliferate, activate."

Bastille Day

"Rue Mosnier with Flags"
Édouard Manet
25 3/4 x 31 3/4 in. oil on canvas 1878

On a day of national celebration in France, the Getty Museum's collection of French paintings provides a link to Paris.
The AP reports today that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the guest of honor, joined French President Jacques Chirac on the official reviewing stand at the Place de la Concorde to view the Bastille Day Parade. Brazilian President Silva was invited to the observances as part of "the year of Brazil in France," which aims to promote economic and cultural ties between the two countries.

After the parade finished, Chirac and Silva stood at attention outside the presidential Elysee Palace as sirens sounded across Paris to observe two minutes of silence in solidarity with London.

Manet's "Rue Mosnier" was painted two years before July 14th was declared the French national holiday in 1880. The holiday is known as the Fête Nationale in France and commemorates the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by an angry mob on 14 July 1789, sparking the revolution that rid France of its monarchy.

From the Getty's description of Manet's " Rue Mosnier with Flags":
" The French government declared June 30, 1878, a national holiday: Fête de la Paix (Celebration of Peace) which marked France's recovery from the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 and the divisive Paris Commune that followed. From his studio's second--floor window, Édouard Manet captured the holiday afternoon with his fluid brushwork in a harmony of the reds, whites, and blues of the French tricolor.

The urban street was a principal subject of Impressionist and Modernist painting; many artists aimed to show not only the transformation and growth of the Industrial Age but how it also affected society. Manet's eyes saw both elegant passengers in hansom cabs and, in the foreground, a worker carrying a ladder. The hunched amputee on crutches, perhaps a war veteran or beggar, passes by fenced-in debris left from the construction of a new train track. Manet's sensitivity to the associated costs and sacrifices tempered his optimistic view of national pride and newfound prosperity."

Modernkicks has more on the birth of Liberté.

Anna's Blogospheric Grid

Anna Conti has captured the world of art blogs
in a tight grid. Links to each. Click away.

Rock el Casbah

“Unity is a universal message.”
Rachid Taha

Backstage at a Clash concert in the early '80's, the young French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha pressed a demo tape of his own mix of punk, rock and middle eastern music into Joe Strummer's hands. Rachid Taha didn't hear back from the Clash. But shortly after their backstage meeting, the Clash's "Rock the Casbah" made it onto vinyl. The song could have been written by Taha. “I like Joe Strummer. We have the same obsession - freedom,” says Rachid. When he heard of Strummer's recent death, Taha recorded his own version of the Clash song: "Rock el Casbah" as a tribute.

Watching video clips during the first Iraq War, Taha heard the Clash song blared by US troops during the short engagement with Iraqi forces. – “I wanted to show that this is not a war song, but much more a peaceful song.”

Rachid Taha’s "Rock El Casbah", sung in Arabic, is a sly cover of the Clash classic and provides a nice entree into the power, intelligence and humor of his own music. Rachid Taha's stance against racism, hypocrisy and nostalgic ghetto complacency, have earned him a fearsome reputation in France, North Africa and the Arabic world.

A cultural figure with powerful views on racism and injustices in French society, his music reflects these tensions and has, in Brian Eno’s words, an energy and confidence arising out of his belief that music can still change the world.

Says Rachid: “I’m a proletarian, I’m of the people… so I’m protesting. For me the music’s a protest. So all my songs are like this because I wanted to stop making metaphors. I said it’s time to speak out now.”


Gregg Chadwick
"Medina Memories"
38"x38" oil on linen 1992-2005

Rachid Taha quoted by BBC's 'The World':

"When I hear George Bush, and when I hear Osama bin Laden, I hear two bedouin nomads. The only difference he says, is that one of them is from the desert of Texas and drives an SUV, and the other is from the desert of Saudi Arabia and rides a dromedary." Taha says Bush and bin Laden come from similar well-heeled backgrounds. And both, he says, use a similar fundamentalist rhetoric.

Taha's "Rock el Casbah" is on "Tekitoi" (Who Are You?), Rachid's first album after the September 11 attacks.The title track is sung as a dialogue between a young Frenchman and a young Algerian. They ask each other “Who are you?” This question, Taha says, “is part of the healing process. If you start to recognize that we are the same, then you don’t want to do something bad to someone else.”

Rimi Yang: Solo Exhibit at Artamo Gallery, Santa Barbara

RIMI YANG —
TRANSITION
JULY 6 — 31, 2005

*Photos from Opening Reception: Rimi Yang at Artamo Gallery


Rimi Yang
"sublimely unemphatic"
72"x48" oil and encaustic on canvas 2005


From the Artamo Gallery:

"Rimi Yang’s first solo exhibition presents her newest work, which shows the artist’s progression from classic drawing and figurative painting to total abstraction and reflects the transition in her life from a culture driven by tradition into a new world of non-compromised expression.

Rimi Yang’s compositions are borne from a method of automatic painting in which she allows her feelings to take hold of her in the course of execution. In avoiding conscious renderings of a preconceived idea, Rimi responds to the emotions of the given moment,
reaching within her soul for guided inspiration as she gives form to her thoughts with the use of tangible materials."


11 W. Anapamu Street
Santa Barbara, California 93101

Phone
805-568-1400

Email
info@artamogallery.com

Anna Conti: "Another Way to Look at the City"

As part of the City Streets exhibition at the STUDIO Gallery, painter and art blogger Anna Conti will present an artist talk:
"Another Way to Look at the City"

Sunday, July 10th, 3 - 4 pm

From the STUDIO Gallery:

"Anna is one of the gallery's most popular painters, and we're delighted to have a number of her pieces in the City Streets show. Whether she's painting realistic cityscapes, her popular Doggie Diner series, or her collaborative "bean paintings" of toys from the Musee Mechanique, Anna's work always captures the mood of the City. We hope you'll join us for Anna's talk, see the show and of course have some refreshments."

STUDIO Gallery
1718A Polk Street
San Francisco
415-931-3130
http://STUDIOGallerySF.com

London

"Stainless Light"
38"x38" oil on linen 2005

London's "Guardian" reports on today's bombings:

"It was about three minutes after we left King's Cross, when there was a massive bang and there was smoke and glass everywhere. I was standing near a window, and I've still got some in my hair."

"The lights went out, and, with the smoke, we couldn't breathe, and we sort of cushioned each other during the impact because the compartment was so full."

"It felt like a dream, it was surreal."
- Fiona Trueman, 26, who was on a train a few minutes south of King's Cross when it exploded.


London Tube Attack
-photo by Adam Stacey

Continual updates on the "Guardian's" blog: guardian blog
Photo coverage on flickr: London pool

A Topaz Pilgrimage

On this Independence Day, I think of the Americans who were forced from their homes and businesses on the west coast to internment camps spread across the US interior by President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942.



During the 1940's, the town of Topaz was one of the largest cities in Utah. Like most towns, there were houses, gardens and elementary schools. Unlike most towns, there were barbed-wire fences and guard towers marking the city line.


George Matsusaburo Hibi
Guard Tower - Topaz Camp
22" x 18" oil on canvas 1944

On June 11th 2005, in the Utah desert , a group of ageing Japanese Americans boarded buses for a dusty trip back to the Topaz Internment Camp to remember the 60th anniversary of their release from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.


Hisako Hibi
"Western Sky"
oil on canvas July 1, 1945

Topaz internment camp opened on September 11, 1942. Situated 140 miles south of Salt Lake City, the high desert winds stirred up frequent dust storms which cut through the wood and tarpaper shacks built to house the internees.

The internees at Topaz were primarily from California and almost completely urban in origin.

One of the internees was the painter Hisako Hibi(1907-1991). At Topaz, Hisako Hibi and her husband, George Matsusaburo Hibi, taught art in the camp schools.

The work of Hisako Hibi was featured in a recent exhibition in the De Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University in California.
The exhibition also marked the publication of Hisako Hibi's: "Peaceful Painter: Memoirs of an Issei Woman Artist"

Hisako Hibi
"Homage to Mary Cassatt"
24" x 20" oil on canvas 1943

Topaz was closed on October 31, 1945. It was not until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1988 that the US Government officially apologized for the unjust incarceration. Upon release, the Hibi family moved to Hells Kitchen in Manhattan. Hibi worked as a dressmaker to support her family and continued to paint.

Her husband,George Hibi, died within two years but Hisako stayed on, raised her children, and studied at the Museum of Modern Art. Hisako Hibi continued painting for the next forty years and, after she returned to San Francisco in 1954, exhibited her work in numerous group and solo exhibitions.


George Matsusaburo Hibi
"Men Painting, Sunset, Topaz"
20" x 24" oil on canvas 1944

Hisako Hibi's posthumous memoir has generated rich reviews:

"This is a beautiful and inspiring book. The words and paintings of Hisako Hibi add an important chapter to the still-unfolding story of what Japanese Americans experienced during the World War II internment. They also tell the story of a remarkable life, one that illustrates the indomitable spirit of the Issei, the pioneering first generation."
—James D. Houston and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, authors of Farewell to Manzanar

"With her luminous art and the grace and poignancy of her words, Hisako Hibi tells her remarkable journey as an immigrant woman, wife, mother, and artist. Her story of survival and accomplishment is made all the more extraordinary by the gentle wisdom of her voice."
—Kimi Kodani Hill, author of Topaz Moon

"Through her words and art, the remarkable Hisako Hibi conveys the harsh challenge of life within the Tanforan Assembly Center and the Topaz internment camp, as well as the generous, resilient spirit that enabled her to endure and prevail. Her compassion and creative drive infuse this engaging memoir."
—Valerie Matsumoto, Professor of History/Asian American Studies, UCLA

As an American, I celebrate the achievements of our country. And as an American, I remember the mistakes and injustices of our past. Hisako Hibi and more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were unjustly imprisoned behind barbed wire. In the midst of another war, I remember where the fear of an unknown enemy can lead our country. I stand with the ageing veterans of Topaz and declare,"Never Again."

Hisako Hibi Archive at UCLA

Shahzia Sikander on the Practice of Art

In this exchange between Shahzia Sikander and Art:21 on the nature of art practice, the conversation touches on the place of spirituality in contemporary art. Art:21 defines spirituality as follows:

Spirituality
A questioning of humanity's place in the universe, marked by an interest in self-reflection, mortality and meditation. Spirituality is often associated with things that are mysterious, felt before they are understood, and beyond the scope of human thought, time and history. Distinct from religion, spirituality is an attitude and not an organized set of rituals or beliefs.

Conversation between Shahzia Sikander and Art:21:

ART:21: Do you see any links between praying and fasting - practicing your religion - and the process of making art?

SIKANDER: I think the hard part is when you're out of practice.

ART:21: The hard part of what?

SIKANDER: Oh, the hard part of the lack of discipline is when I feel less productive. Like, if I am painting regularly and there is a certain structure and certain discipline that is being brought into the studio, my mind works better, I have better ideas. I'm able to accomplish far more. I'm able to move on to the next stage. But the minute that discipline leaves the studio, everything gets very scattered. And even times in life when things have gone to extremes, I do get back into a certain notion of spirituality where I need to be by myself, or I need to read, or I will fast, or I will do things which make sense tome, and which allow me to come back to that space. So the same way when I am working large and I paint and I do murals, and the next thing is I come back to miniature painting. It's just this whole dichotomy of experience. I do always come back to miniature. I can hate miniature for a while and I want to move ahead because it's frustrating, because of all the different reasons of doing something so labor intensive without much critical structure, which becomes exotified, and which takes years to make. So it's like always, "Why do I do this?" And I let go and do something else, but I always come back to it. And maybe because by the sheer act of doing it is what gives me a certain sort of peace.

Tut, Tut ... Just Another Entertainment Event?

by Gregg Chadwick

It's all things Tut in L.A. this week. I happened to be in the bowels of LACMA yesterday and the energy was high. Security was tighter than usual and media types were everywhere. Look forward to long lines, expensive merchandise and fluff pieces appearing in news outlets across the country.

My major problem with the exhibition is the way that our museum has been hijacked to serve corporate interests:

"I hate to say this, but it's very similar to how we would go market another entertainment event, like a major awards show or sporting event," says Tim Leiweke, president of AEG, the sports and entertainment presenter that developed Staples Center, among other venues, and is financing the exhibition."

Royal diadem found on the head of Tutankhamun 

when the British archaeologist Howard Carter opened his coffin.

The objects in the exhibition are magical. They bring us to another time. And they help illumine the artistic legacy of Africa and what is now the Arabic world. But there is something of the grave robber in all of this. Howard Carter removed the crown (shown above) from Tutankhamun's head and, as documented in the recent National Geographic cover article on Tut, Carter desecrated Tutankhamun's well preserved corpse which had become tightly fastened to his coffin by laying the mummy in the scorching Egyptian sun to melt the hold between Tutankhamun's body and its 3200 year-old resting place.

Tutankhamun's legacy should inspire reverence for humanity, not for gold or the dollar.

Members have to pay a hefty surcharge to get tickets and non-members are asked to shell out up to $30. Is this about scholarship? Or history? Or art? Or is it more along the lines of Peter Keller's diamonds and dinosaurs and mummies:

"I've often said that if I could start a museum from scratch, it would be diamonds, dinosaurs and mummies — those are the three home runs in the museum world," says Peter Keller, president of the Bowers Museum.

Look where the mad pursuit for home runs got Barry Bonds. Should we put an asterisk next to Tut's future attendance records?

I hope that the exhibition leaves LACMA in a sound state when Tut is over and the crowds clear. But I wonder, what does the financial deal with AEG look like? I worry that this will set a precedent of art exhibitions being run by entertainment presenters. Is this the start of a trend?

My reverence for LACMA runs deep. When I was 11 and just starting to paint, I would carry a sketchbook around the museum and make visual notes on the paintings. Later while at UCLA, LACMA was my artistic refuge. Currently, I have a painting illustrated on their website. It is my hope that the massive media attention on Tut will not pull the museum too far off course.

I'll return to LACMA during Tut but look for me in the Japanese Pavilion.

Resources:
National Geographic: kingtut.org

LACMA: Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs: June 16, 2005–November 15, 2005

Quotes from Diane Haithman in the LA Times: the return of king tut

Monotypes at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

Opening June 17 at the
SJICA: Monotype Marathon XI

Exhibition: June 17 - July 9, 2005
Closing Reception and Auction:
July 9, 5:30 -8
An exhibition of over 125 prints produced in a marathon weekend of Bay Area print workshops.



Gregg Chadwick
"Whispers of Siam"
33"x20" monotype 2005

Notes on the Monotype Process:

Spontaneity characterizes the monotype. A monotype is made by brushing printer's ink or oil paint onto a smooth surface such as glass or a metal plate. The image is then transferred to paper before it dries, using a printing press or other means of pressure.

Because most of the image is transferred in the printing process, only one strong impression can be taken, hence the term monotype (one print). Additional impressions of the residual image are sometimes printed (ghosts). They are significantly fainter than the first pull, yet at times these lighter open images are more successful as works of art.

The personal nature of the monotype suited experimental artists from William Blake to Edgar Degas to Milton Avery.

The English artist William Blake used the monotype process to fashion works of great depth and mystery. Blake's monotypes were created with egg tempera painted onto board, which rendered a textural surface when printed onto paper. Blake would then go back into the works with ink and color to develop the imagery.


William Blake
Pity (color monotype) - 1795


The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, exhibition from 1997: "Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America" produced an informative video on The Monotype Process.

JL writes in on Masterpieces of Persian Painting

JL at modern kicks wrote in with the original source for the contemporary art in Iran link in the article below. It was originally on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website under modern and contemporary art in Iran. JL was particularly pleased to see the work of Farah Ossouli discussed.

Farah Ossouli (Iranian, born 1953)

poster paint on heavy cardboard

Both Farah Ossouli and the Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander "appropriate the language of miniature painting, yet re-present it in a contemporary idiom." Nice clip of Shahzia excerpted from the PBS documentary series Art:21 — Art in the Twenty-First Century.

JL also dreams of going to Iran one day. Any way that we can arrange an art blogger tour to Tehran?

Masterpieces of Persian Painting at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

Currently on view at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is the exhibition "Masterpieces of Persian Painting". In Saturday's International Herald Tribune, Souren Melikian reviewed the show, prompting Charles T. Downey's dreams of visiting Tehran one day. Tyler Green has also been caught in the exhibition's spell. Most importantly, even viewed on-line, the works are gorgeous. In lieu of a published catalog, a significant number of the works in the exhibition are accessible via the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art's website:

"Masterpieces of Persian Painting"

"The Flower and the Bird"

Mohammad Yusof

Indian Moraqqa’

First half of 17th century

Golestan Palace

While researching some of the artists in the exhibition I came across an article on contemporary art in Iran which provides a nice introduction to a culture that is sadly undervalued in the West.

Mohammad Ehsai (Iranian, born 1939)

The Echo of the Word

160 x 310 cm oil on canvas 1990

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

Not the Caravaggio Code

Jonathan Harr's new book "The Lost Painting" is being billed by Random House as the true story of a search for a lost Caravaggio. The book is scheduled to be released in November. "The Lost Painting" will be remembered as one of the last works pitched to the press by Jonathan Karp who resigned this week as the editor in chief at Random House.

Dinitia Smith reported in the New York Times on this years BookExpo America at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan:

"Jonathan Karp of Random House optimistically called Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting" "a page-turning work of suspense about the mysteries of a religious painting."

"We showed lots of restraint," Mr. Karp said. "We didn't call it 'The Caravaggio Code.' "

Rembrandt at the Getty

by Gregg Chadwick

The exhibition "Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits" opens today at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Rembrandt

"Hendrickje Stoffels, Possibly as the Sorrowing Virgin"

30 7/8" x 27 1/8" oil on canvas 1660

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tyler Green's thoughts on the exhibit during its first stop in D.C. bring up an important question, "No one knows why, near the end of his life, Rembrandt painted so many religious figures who devoted their lives to spiritual goals and who were killed for it. Arthur Wheelock, the NGA curator who put together this show, brought these paintings together in an effort to spark some thought on the question."

Tyler Green's superb piece concludes with an echo of Lawrence Weschler's "Vermeer in Bosnia" by providing a wartime context to Rembrandt's portraits of martyrs:

"Just as now is a time of battle in the Middle East, so too was the Netherlands in Rembrandt's time. In the seventeenth century the Dutch fought wars with the Spanish and the British. The First Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1654 (and naval skirmishes continued for years), just a few years before Rembrandt began the paintings shown here.

As with Vermeer's paintings, you'd never know that Rembrandt lived surrounded by war. (The presence of several hushed Vermeers in a gallery adjacent to the Rembrandt show underscores this point.) Rembrandt's quiet portraits reject blood and violence in favor of humility and introspection. I can't help but think that's part of why they still look so great today."

Tyler's recognition of the humility and introspection in Rembrandt's late portraits is a point that bears repeating. I had a chance to speak with the painter Chester Arnold this weekend whose "To Never Forget: Faces of the Fallen" exhibition of memorial portraits of American troops killed in action in Iraq continues to travel across the country. Sadly, Arnold's exhibition continually needs updating as more troops fall in Iraq. But Chester Arnold and the group of artists that he has gathered continue to create poignant images with a humility and introspection that Rembrandt would understand.


"Rembrandt's Late Religious Portraits" runs until August 28th and is accompanied by a wide range of lectures and events.

To start things off at the Getty: Thursday June 9th at 7:00pm, Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. - curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and organizer of the exhibition, discusses Rembrandt's late work and will explore the spiritual nature of the assembled paintings.

Bashō's Haiku and the Evening Cool

by Gregg Chadwick

As the evenings grow longer in late Spring and voices from the clubs down the hill from my studio drift in on the breeze, I feel a human quickening that the 17th Century Japanese poet Bashō would have understood. Art's ability to speak across the centuries never fails to inspire me and provide hope for the future.

I am currently reading "Bashō's Haiku", translated by David Landis Barnhill. Barnhill's translations from the original Japanese are crisp. Each word is chosen carefully and the original verse order is maintained. These translations have an almost clipped brevity - like a Zen master's clap to focus his students. Barnhill's deft word choice allow Bashō's images to suggest layers of meaning without overlaying a modern American voice onto the poems.

Gregg Chadwick

"The Porcelain Sea"

48"x38" oil on linen 2005

Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) was born into the samurai class, but rejected that world after the death of his master and became a wandering poet and teacher. During his travels across Japan, he became a lay Zen monk and studied history and classical poetry. His own poems contain a mystical quality expressed through images from the natural world.

Barnhill explains that " in the early 1690's, Bashō began to emphasize lightheartedness and day-to-day subject matter, promoting a new aesthetic of "lightness" (karumi)."

One of Bashō's poems describes this lightness of being through a description of vibrant nights in Kyoto:

The evening cool at riverside, Fourth Avenue," they call it. From early Sixth Month with its evening moon to the moon at dawn just past mid-month, people lining up along the river in platforms drinking sake and feasting as they party all night long. Woman wrapped in showy sashes, men sporting fashionably long coats, with monks and old folks intermingling, even apprentices to coopers and blacksmiths, everyone carefree and leisurely, singing up a storm. Yes indeed, life in the capital! 

river breeze-
wearing pale persimmon robes,
the evening cool
kawakaze ya / usugaki kitaru / yusuzumi
- Bashō 1690

Global Art

Wanted to thank:

Hans Heiner Buhr in Georgia (not the state- the country) for his comments on Silk Road.
hans heiner buhr

Marja-Leena Rathje from Finland (now resident in Canada) for her comments on Lalla Essaydi.
marja-leena rathje

Linden Langdon for her work in Tasmania.
linden langdon

Vvoi in Portugal for his thoughts on contemporary art.
vvoi

And Laila Carlsen from Norway (now in SF) for her friendship, inspiration and amazing work.

Laila Carlsen

"Dance"

60" x 45" oil on canvas 2005

Laila - when can we expect your blog?

Lucian Freud in Venice

Update: May 2008 -Painter and Model: Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping Sells for $33.64 Million

Both Franklin and Todd pay homage to the Lucian Freud article in the London Times .

Lucian Freud

"The Painter Surprised by a Naked Admirer"

54"x42" oil on canvas 2005

This painting will be the most recent work in a a retrospective exhibition, curated by William Feaver, on show this summer at Venice's Museo Correr (12 June-30 October 2005). The exhibition is organised by the Venetian Civic Museums on the occasion of the 2005 Venice Biennale.

Cherry Blossoms and Kamikaze

by Gregg Chadwick

While glancing at the schedule for this week’s National Critics Conference (May 25-28, 2005) at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, I came across the description for Elizabeth Zimmer's "Kamikaze Writing Workshop." Obviously the word "kamikaze" has shifted in tone and meaning since it first entered the American vocabulary during the last years of WWII. I doubt that Zimmer’s criticism class will make a fiery plunge into the conference hall as a final project. But I was reminded of the important work being done in the fields of aesthetics and history by Emiko Ohnuki – Tierney at the University of Wisconsin.

Cherry blossom send off.

Kamikaze means "divine wind" in Japanese, and originally referred to a miraculous typhoon that saved Japan from a Mongolian invasion force in the 13th century. The Japanese Navy used this term to describe their suicide attack planes. In America, the word "kamikaze" describes actions that are reckless or dangerous to the point of being suicidal. The term "kamikaze" is now applied to a wide range of situations, including terrorist suicide bombings, reckless drivers, and out of control classrooms.

This free use of the word kamikaze tends to inhibit our understanding of a key question. Why did almost one thousand highly educated "student soldiers" volunteer to serve in Japan's tokkotai (kamikaze) forces near the end of World War II, even though Japan was losing the war? In “Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History” Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney shows how the Japanese state manipulated the symbol of the cherry blossom to convince young soldiers and sailors that it was their honor to "die like beautiful falling cherry petals" for the emperor.


Cherry blossoms served as the primary symbol of kamikaze pilots. And their fiery descents into American fleets were likened to falling blossoms in the spring wind. The image is poignant and powerful. Young girls would line the runway and wave branches of cherry blossoms as the pilots took off on their attacks.

Emiko Ohnuki - Tierney reports that many former students from Japan's elite universities died as kamikaze pilots: “In October 1943, military draft deferment ended for students in liberal arts and law, although the deferment continued for students in such fields as engineering and natural sciences.” Many of these former students joined special units to carry out suicide attacks on Allied fleets. Emiko Ohnuki - Tierney estimates that one thousand student soldiers died as kamikaze pilots.


Drawing on diaries never before published in English, Ohnuki-Tierney describes these young men's agonies and even defiance against the imperial ideology, “Passionately devoted to cosmopolitan intellectual traditions, the pilots saw the cherry blossom not in militaristic terms, but as a symbol of the painful beauty and unresolved ambiguities of their tragically brief lives.”


Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History
by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
University of Chicago Press, 2002