Speed of Life

Gregg Chadwick The Road to Mandalay 40"x30" oil on linen 2007 Gregg Chadwick's new exhibit "Passports From the Realm" opens January 4, 2008 at the Julie Nester Gallery in Park City, Utah. "In old Arabic poetry love, song, blood and travel appear as four basic desires of the human heart and the only effective means against our fear of death. Thus travel is elevated to the dignity of the elementary needs of humankind." - Czeslaw Milosz on the poetry of travel Movement, travel and pilgrimage are themes of the 21st Century that often appear in my paintings. Travel can involve a physical relocation or it can exist in the realm of the senses. Recently I attended "A Gathering of Hearts Illuminating Compassion," an interfaith meeting in San Francisco. The Dalai Lama was the keynote speaker at the event. He entered the packed hall, briskly moved up the center aisle, but stopped briefly to greet an elderly Tibetan woman a few feet from where I was sea...

12/17 Paris, Palais Omnisports De Bercy

Today marks the ten year anniversary of architect Richard Meier's Getty campus perched on the hills of Brentwood. Christopher Hawthorne in the Los Angeles Times explains: "The design seemed reflective of Los Angeles architecture in another, almost paradoxical way. If the whole idea of L.A. art and architecture was to ignore the idea of fitting in, to reject slavish conformism, then wasn't the Getty a supreme example of precisely that attitude? Turning its back on the notion that it needed to match the spirit of Los Angeles in some prescribed way -- didn't that make it somehow truer to the city than a row of palm trees or a red-tile roof?" "Perhaps more to the point, the Getty joined a long line of L.A. landmarks that sit at a dramatic remove from the city around them -- most notably Griffith Observatory and Dodger Stadium and houses by John Lautner, Pierre Koenig, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles and Ray Eames, and many others." The Getty has not been immune ...

Online Videos by Veoh.com Marquis C.'s SOUTH CENTRAL DAYS. The Los Angeles Times has a powerful article on the power of art to speak of troubled streets and difficult choices. Budding filmmaker Marquis Calhoun found his passion for film at Camp David, the youth detention center not the presidential compound,during a filmmaking class taught by the award winning filmmaker Alex Muñoz. John L. Mitchell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer writes,"Every year for the last five years, the class of teenagers has produced a number of dramatic scripts and, eventually, short films about the precarious twists and turns of a harsh life on the streets." "But this year, one student's story was different: Marquise Calhoun's screenplay focused on death -- his own." Watch the film. Read the article. And visit the website for Films by Youth Inside. Powerful stuff. Films by Youth Inside Scripting what he knows

Henry Lerolle “The Organ Rehearsal” 1885 New space has been found at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The 19th century galleries have reopened with a slight expansion and newly exhibited works. Henry Lerolle's "The Organ Rehearsal" was found buried in the museum's stacks, dusted off and now hangs next to more familiar French masterworks.

Gregg Chadwick "Sea of Stories" 40"x30" oil on linen 2007

Gregg Chadwick "The Saffron Road" 40"x90" oil on linen 2007

march, paint, write, meditate, work, pray, hope, and create a free Burma. Saffron Revolution

RB Kitaj has died at his home in Los Angeles. Gregg Chadwick "School of L.A. (RB Kitaj - Westwood 3/08/07)" 40"x30" oil on linen 2007 Courtesy: Lisa Coscino Gallery RB Kitaj has been a major influence on my artwork and my artistic life since my early years at UCLA. It is with great sadness that I must now write of his exit. I was fortunate to meet RB Kitaj a few months ago as he spoke at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. He seemed full of life as he began to lecture to an audience that he assumed would be mostly young art students. Instead the audience was a cross-section of L.A.' s art world - a smattering of current art students, as well as some former students come to pay homage to a revered master, a group of mid-career painters, art dealers, curators, museum directors, family members, and an adoring public. But the crowd could never be enough. RB Kitaj's sadness at the loss of his wife Sandra Fisher hung in his voice as he spoke of their love beneath p...

Bruce Stringsteen and Arcade Fire - State trooper Uploaded by trendwhore Ottawa - 10/ 14/ 07 Win and Regine from Arcade Fire joined Springsteen on stage to play Bruce's “State Trooper” and Arcade Fire's “Keep The Car Running” More from brock and ryan at trendwhore

Los Angeles - October 6, 2007- the renowned peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh led a silent procession through the UCLA campus in honor of the monks in Myanmar and their current struggle with the military junta. Thich Nhat Hahn was on the UCLA campus today to present the keynote speech No Death, No Fear at UCLA's Mindfulness and Psychotherapy: Cultivating Well-being in the Present Moment Conference. With each step conference attendees were encouraged to think "I am here".

The One Word Project , curated by JT Kirkland, opens at the Arts Club of Washington in the District of Columbia on August 28th. The genesis of the project was a call by Kirkland in 2004 from his blog, Thinking About Art . The Arts Club of Washington summarizes the project: " The One Word Project is a deliberate enactment of the 'conversation' between artist and viewer. Interested in seeking new ways to capture pure creative response, curator J.T. Kirkland distilled the traditional artist interview to its most basic element: a single word. After digesting the work of a self-selecting group of artists, Kirkland prompted each with a word of his choosing, to which each artist was asked to respond in approximately100–500 words. The resulting statements—which vary in length, approach, and relevance to the original word—offer a written correlative that informs and enhances the viewer's appreciation of the artist's work." JT Kirkland's site Thinking About Art an...

The complete version of Pearl Jam performing "Daughter" at Lollapalooza Eddie Vedder and the band have posted the following on their website: LOLLAPALOOZA WEBCAST: SPONSORED/CENSORED BY AT&T? 08.08.07 "After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast. When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them. During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast: - "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and - "George Bush find yourself another home." This, of course, troubles us as arti...

Aphrodite Currently at the Getty Museum, Malibu The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has crafted a deal with the Italian government to return 40 disputed antiquities to Italy. The Los Angeles Times is reporting "that most of the artifacts will be returned within the next few months." "The agreement includes one of the most prized works in dispute, a 5th century B.C. statue of the goddess Aphrodite, which will remain on display at the Getty until 2010, the ministry said. Italian authorities believe the 7-foot statue, bought by the Getty for $18 million in 1988, was looted from an ancient Greek settlement in Sicily." No agreement has been reached on the ancient Greek bronze - "Statue of a Victorious Athlete" - found off the coast of Italy in what the Getty Museum describes as international waters. The Italian government disputes these claims. The deep waters holding lost treasures of antiquity have been described as "the Blue Museum" by the writer Ph...

Woke up this morning to a haunting image of Mamadou Diallo and his young son walking by a mural of his deceased cousin Amadou Diallo. Amadou Diallo was mercilessly shot by the NYPD as he reached for his wallet in an attempt to placate the undercover cop's demands. More than once, because of this event, I have told my son, "If an officer stops you - Promise me, you always be polite. And that you'll never. never run away. Promise that you'll always keep your hands in sight." I stood up against the stage as Springsteen and the E-Street band sang these words in Bruce's homage to Diallo - "American Skin" - during the "Rising" tour. Clarence Clemons' face was streaked with tears as he intoned the refrain "41 shots". Enricsalas' YouTube video is a poignant mash-up of Springsteen and the E-Street Band's brave rendition from a series of concerts in Madison Square Garden, that some members of the NYPD naively picketed, overlayed...

Ingmar Bergman Opening Sequence of Persona

The Central City Opera is featuring paintings by Gregg Chadwick as images for each of the operas in their current summer season: La Traviata, Poet Li Bai, The Saint of Bleecker Street and Cendrillon. Details at: Central City Opera

Gregg Chadwick L.A. Sushi diptych 6" x 8" oil on linen 2007

Images by (left to right): Christian Nold, Lordy Rodriguez, Nina Katchadourian, and Joyce Kozloff. ARENA 1 is pleased to announce the opening of a group exhibition of work exploring space and meaning through the various devices of "mapping." Working in the USA, Britain and Australia, all 19 artists in the show employ maps as resource material, not as an exploration of actual geography or the time/space continuum but rather as a matter of charting, subverting or deconstructing the very idea of mapping as a representation of the world. The artists themselves are as varied in their approach to this process as the number of directions by which we can transverse any physical position in space. Each has plotted a uniquely personal route that is fanciful, interpretive or politically driven to re-form the map of the imagination. Like the telephoto function, ZOOM +/- references a familiar orientation, then moves quickly to a point of abstraction in the artists' paintings, photogr...

The role of the artist according to Jesse Malin is to put you "right there in a time and place so you can smell it." Ryan Adams once said of his close buddy. "He's a kick-ass storyteller," the wonder boy remarked when he had just finished producing Jesse's first album. "Jesse's songs are so good they hurt my feelings. He doesn't just sound like he's singing the songs. He sounds like he IS that person."

"The idea that it is some kind of calculated insult is an absurdity. The real insult - to the intelligence and decency of 'the world's 1.5 billion Muslims', for whom people such as Mohammed Ejaz ul-Haq presume to speak - comes from the ignorance and paranoia of leaders who feel so threatened by a novelist that they'll call for him to be killed." -Hari Kunzru (author of Transmission & The Impressionist ) The noted author of The Satanic Verses , Haroun and the Sea of Stories , Midnight's Children and The Ground Beneath Her Feet has been knighted by the Queen of England and the newly minted Sir Salman has again become a lightning rod for criticism from extreme and irrational voices. Heinrich Heine's line from, "Almansor", is once again a call for constant vigilance: "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." ("Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.") —Heinrich He...

Claude Monet (1840-1926) "Waterloo Bridge, Temps Couvert" 25½" x 39 1/8" oil on canvas 1904 "I adore London, it is a mass, an ensemble, and it is so simple. What I like most of all in London is the fog. How could English painters of the nineteenth century have painted its houses brick by brick? Those fellows painted bricks that they didn't see, that they couldn't see... I so love London! But I only like it in the winter... It is the fog that gives it its marvellous breadth. Its regular, massive blocks become grandiose in this mysterious cloak."(Monet, quoted in J. House, ""Monet's London: Artists' Reflections on the Thames" 1859-1914). The painting is one in a series of views from the Savoy Hotel that Monet painted in London in the years before World War I. The High Museum presented a fascinating exhibit on Monet in London almost twenty years ago. The catalogue written by Grace Seiberling is well worth finding.

Édouard Manet A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (detail) 1882 Oil on canvas 37 13/16 x 51 3/16 in. The Samuel Courtauld Trust, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London Manet's magnificent and mysterious "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" graces the Getty Museum in Brentwood until September 9th, 2007. Normally housed at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London in the imposing Somerset House, we are fortunate to be able to view the painting in Los Angeles. Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" is painted in rich buttery strokes of oil paint. The physicality of the pigment gives tangible visual weight to a scene which combines the still presence of the barmaid with the flickering mystery of the mirror behind the bar. The Getty has placed the work in a room with a mirror on the opposite wall to help spur a dialogue between viewer and painting. We are asked a series of provacative questions on the Getty's webpage on Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" ...

Ganesh Study 12"x9" oil on wood 2007

Listen to a clip from RB Morris'"Empire" Download RB Morris' New Album "Empire" at Digstation RB Morris has a new album out which is available as a download from Digstation. As I mentioned last year after his gig at the Getty, RB's new song "Empire" is a musical poem of political and personal hubris for our times. In early 2008 - RB Morris, Phil Cousineau and I will be leading a workshop on creativity at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. Details to follow. Last year I wrote that Lucinda Williams has called him the "greatest unknown songwriter in the country." Recently at the Edinburgh Castle in San Francisco, I heard RB Morris play the greatest unreleased song in the country - his post September 11th lament - "Empire ". "Empire" is a heartbreaking look at America today. It would fit right in on Neil Young's "Living With War", Pearl Jam's new album, The Dixie Chicks' new collection, Springsteen...

www.instantkarma.org

For the White Book on Matisse’s Table by the Dahlias, Peaches, Water Glass There are two kinds of love and we’ve known both. Two kinds of love: the one that thrills and one that satisfies. Thrilling love compresses time it speeds your heart. The satisfying kind turns days to summers looks to lives. They are two kinds, two courses one cycle short one long neither engendering the other flowing separate harmonious or discordant. Not partial to a party my thrilling lover may satisfy tomorrow my satisfying love may suddenly thrill. We want to weave them but always fail for they are of such unequal lengths to not be braidable. They are played and what we can is tune ourselves to each rhythm to love each way ...

Gregg Chadwick Buddha for Bamiyan 115" x 86" oil on linen 2007

Left to Right: Diebenkorn and Sean Scully at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University Periodically, I visit the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Recently, I was struck by the juxtaposition of Richard Diebenkorn and Sean Scully in their permanent collection. The wall label next to Sean Scully's "Angel" (illustrated above) indicates that insight may be generated by the presence of free and unburdened space. Scully calls "Angel" a child of air travel.

Good Night Texas! Wayne Thiebaud "Freeways" oil on canvas 1979 The zeitgeist returns to California. Pelosi in D.C. The Dallas Mavericks on their way home to Texas. Santa Monica, UCLA, and the Warriors' amazing Baron Davis moves on in the NBA playoffs, while we continue to enjoy the visions of Wayne Thiebaud and Ed Ruscha.

Gregg Chadwick Yakushi Nyorai (The Healing Buddha) 12"x12" oil on linen 2007 From the upcoming Venice Art Walk -on May 20, 2007- which benefits the Venice Family Clinic

The Bay Area has enjoyed a weekend of great weather, great art (Picasso and Brice Marden at SFMOMA) and great basketball- Baron Davis and company now are one win away from a historic playoff upset. Davis scored 33 points as the Warriors beat the Dallas Mavericks by a score of 103-99 Sunday night and hold a 3-1 lead over the Mavs in their first-round playoff series. Dallas Maverick's fans watch in disbelief as their team is bewitched by Baron Davis and the Golden State Warriors Golden State's Monta Ellis

Mstislav Rostropovich gave an impromptu concert at Checkpoint Charlie after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. photo- Reuters Listen to an excerpt from Rostropovich's performance of Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major: I. Prelude Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich has died. He will be remembered for his music and his brave efforts to keep the arts free from censorship and tyranny. This story from the Los Angeles Times is particularly poignant: "In July 1991, Rostropovich performed a concert in Prague to fulfill his 1968 promise to play there when the last Soviet soldier left Czechoslovakia. A month later, when he heard that hard-liners had put vacationing Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev under house arrest, seized power in Moscow and surrounded Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin in the republic Parliament building, Rostropovich, at considerable personal danger, raced from Paris to Moscow, sweet-talking his way past KGB guards at the airport, to stand ...

An image of the full sun in 3-D. This photo was captured by SECCHI/Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope on March 20, 2007, and combines 4 different wavelengths into one image. Photo courtesy of NASA NASA describes the program: "STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program (STP). This two-year mission, launched October 2006, will provide a unique and revolutionary view of the Sun-Earth System. The two nearly identical observatories - one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind - will trace the flow of energy and matter from the Sun to Earth. They will reveal the 3D structure of coronal mass ejections; violent eruptions of matter from the sun that can disrupt satellites and power grids, and help us understand why they happen. STEREO will become a key addition to the fleet of space weather detection satellites by providing more accurate alerts for the arrival time of Earth-directed solar ejectio...