Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Orpheus and Eurydice in the 21st Century: R.B. Kitaj, Rilke and Arcade Fire (Part 1)

by Gregg Chadwick


Last night the L.A. Louver Gallery held a rousing discussion: R.B. Kitaj's Life & Passion, with Tracy Bartley (director of the R.B. Kitaj studio), Derek Boshier (artist), David N. Myers (professor and chair of the UCLA History Department), and Paul Holdengräber (curator, instigator and Director/Founder of LIVE from the New York Public Library).


Titian
Orpheus and Eurydice
 15 9/16" x 20 7/8" oil on wood ca. 1508–12
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

photo courtesy Metropolitan Museum, New York

As I listened to the conversation, I scanned the room full of many of Kitaj's last paintings and was struck by the realization that in these artworks Kitaj was attempting to bring his deceased wife Sandra  back from death - Kitaj as the poet/artist incarnation of the mythic Orpheus would bring Sandra (his Eurydice, taken too soon) back from the underworld. These vibrant paintings were not just a testament to their passion but instead an almost alchemical journey into the mystery and abyss of life, loss, and love. 

In the myth, Orpheus travels to the underworld to win back the life of Eurydice, who was bitten by a serpent (seen above in the left vignette of Titian's painting from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy) and died shortly after the two wed. Orpheus plays music of such beauty for Hades, master of the underworld, that he allows Eurydice to return to Earth with Orpheus.  But with the strict condition that Orpheus walk in front of Eurydice and never look back during their journey from the depths. Overcome by an anxious fear, Orpheus breaks his discipline and turns to look back at his reborn Eurydice only to cause her to vanish forever. 

R.B.Kitaj
Los Angeles No. 27 (Go Down)

 36" x 36" oil on canvas 2003–4
photo courtesy L.A. Louver Gallery

When I reached home, Reflektor - the new album from Arcade Fire, was already downloading onto my computer. The songs on this album also engage with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. 



Auguste Rodin’s marble statue of Orpheus and Eurydice, from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, graces Reflektor's album cover.  This image portrays the essential kernel of the myth, the mytheme of not looking back, which is also reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife escaping from Sodom and the Grimms' folk tale Hansel and Gretel.


Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Blue
24"x30" oil on linen 2013

(Currently curated by Director Rebecca Wilson on Saatchi Online into featured collection)

My new painting Mulholland Blue also engages with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In my work, an Orpheus-like character in the foreground vanishes as a green dressed Eurydice figure slips into the distance. The distant lights of the city glisten in the night air. Does she stand for a moment to view the world she will never return to? Or is our 21st century urbanity the underworld?

In upcoming posts I will consider these questions as well as diving much more deeply into R.B. Kitaj, Rilke, and Arcade Fire. Next up in Part 2: Rilke Releases Eurydice. 







Monday, October 28, 2013

New York City Man - Lou Reed

by Gregg Chadwick

"Lou Reed gave us the street and the landscape - and we peopled it."

 - David Bowie in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"

Well hey, man, that's just a lie
It's a lie she tells her friends
'Cause the real song, the real song
Where she won't even admit to herself
The beatin' in her heart
It's a song lots of people know
It's a painful song
A little sad truth
But life's full of sad songs
Penny for a wish
But wishin' won't make you a soldier.
With a pretty kiss for a pretty face
Can't have it's way

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay
 - From the beginning of the "Slipaway" section of Lou Reed's song Street Hassle.
    Uncredited spoken vocals by Bruce Springsteen.


Annie Leibovitz
Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson 
Coney Island, New York, 1995
Silver Print



When I found out about Lou Reed's death yesterday morning from Rolling Stone's twitter feed I turned to my Lou Reed playlist and put Reed's cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's haunting blues number - See That My Grave is Kept Clean along with Antony and the Johnsons' song with Lou Reed - Fistful of Love, and Reed's elegiac urban hymn Berlin, on repeat. 


For many of us who came of age and under the influence of the New York City of the 1970's and 1980's, Lou Reed was New York. While at NYU working on my grad degree in art, Reed's music provided an aural map for my explorations across the city. Reed's staccato talk/singing proved to be a gruff yet tender guided tour through my artistic and lovelorn ventures. Often while on the A train, Marty Fogel's Junior Walker fueled sax riff on Reed's Shooting Star would blare in my walkman's headphones. And Walk on the Wild Side always seemed to accompany me across Washington Square. 


Gregg Chadwick
Ghosts of New Amsterdam
24"x36" oil on linen 2013


Reed's urban suite New York kept me close to the city I loved even as I moved west to California. On a trip back to Manhattan a few years later, a friend who had opened a restaurant in the Village told me that she thought that she had been given a sign that she would make it, because Lou Reed was becoming a regular at her joint. 

Not long after, Reed and his song Why Can't I be Good rumbled across the screen in Wim Wenders' cinematic sequel to Wings of Desire - Far Away So Close. Lou Reed's future wife, performance artist, composer and musician Laurie Anderson, also provided powerful music for the film. On a recent artistic excursion to Berlin, memories of these two films and Reed's album Berlin brought to light elements of the city that I had missed in the past. 





 


Much like an author will write about an event or a place to learn what they feel, I will create a series of artworks to understand what I have seen. I pushed my interaction with Berlin into a recent ongoing series of monotypes fueled partly by the visions of Lou Reed, Wim Wenders, Bertolt Brecht, and David Bowie



Gregg Chadwick
Brecht's Song
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011


As Gavin Edwards wrote in Rolling Stone,"While many musicians have made Berlin albums, Lou Reed's Berlin (1973) is the wrist-slashing standard against which they're all judged. When the record concluded with the epic ballad Sad Song, it felt like the whole world was shutting down." Berlin forces us to wrestle with the dead as we walk through its haunted and enchanted streets. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. In the city of Berlin, the political and the personal merge, as evidenced in Lou Reed's Berlin album and David Bowie's recent song Where Are We Now?. In Berlin we are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age and die, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. 



Gregg Chadwick
Rauch Licht (Smoke Light)
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011


During the last years of his life, Lou Reed continued to work with and inspire younger musicians and artists. One of the most fruitful of these mentorship/collaborations was his work with Antony, of Antony and the Johnsons. John Hodgman in the New York Times recounts how the cover image of Antony's EP, I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy "caught the attention of the producer Hal Willner, who bought the EP and played it for Lou Reed, with whom he was working at the time:

'I said, 'Who is that?' Reed recalled. 'So we set out to find him, and he was a few blocks away as it turns out.' ''


Lou Reed invited Antony to tour with him throughout 2003, and every night Antony would sing Candy Says, Reed's haunting tribute to Candy Darling. Caught in the video below, Lou Reed, one of the most influential musicians of the rock era, looks across towards Antony with an expression of pride and wonder. Lou seems mesmerized by what he described as Antony's double tracking and unusual harmonies. Reed had said that he could listen to Antony sing all day. In this video we witness a legend passing on his wisdom and inspiration to another.




Antony and Lou Reed Perform Candy Says



More Videos Below:




Lou Reed & David Bowie Discuss Reed's Album Transformer

 in the documentary "Rock 'n' Roll Heart - Lou Reed"




In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989, Lou Reed explained that he and Bruce Springsteen were both recording albums at the Record Plant in New York City when an engineer suggested inviting Bruce over to record the "Slipaway" vocals on Reed's song Street Hassle. The last line was Reed's, written with Springsteen's Born to Run in mind:

Y'know tramps like us, we were born to pay


More at:

Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview
Antony Finds His Voice


  
Lou Reed greets Chuck Close in front of Close's 2012 tapestry Lou 
    published by Magnolia Editions; photo by Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg


August 2013

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Today - 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios Continues!

Revolutions


Gregg Chadwick
Revolutions
48"x36" oil on linen 2013

Please join me today for the 9th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios!

  Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm

My new painting, Revolutions, was also inspired by the amazing closing party held by Social Media Week-LA on Friday, September 27th at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
Deep House legend Marques Wyatt kept the party going all night. Caught up in the whirl of light and music, I knew I had to get it down on canvas. Come by my studio today and see the result. 

Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.


Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph:  310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459 


http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com

www.greggchadwick.com

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Please join me tonight for the 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios!



Gregg Chadwick
Superstition
28"x28" oil on panel 2013
Please join me tonight for the 9th Anniversary of the Santa Monica Art Studios!

 Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm and Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm.

My new painting, Superstition, was inspired by the amazing closing party of Social Media Week-LA which was held on Friday, September 27th at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
More paintings will be unveiled tonight and I would love to see you!

Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.


Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph:  310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459 


http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com


Friday, October 11, 2013

Springsteen Releases A Poignant Thank You

by Gregg Chadwick




Bruce Springsteen released a beautiful new video as a thank you to fans that sets highlights from the just completed Wrecking Ball tour to a new recording of  “Dream Baby Dream.”

Video edited by Thom Zimny, shot by Chris Hilson. 
Audio produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen, mixed by Bob Clearmountain.


Read Bruce's personal thank you to fans:






Monday, October 07, 2013

9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios on Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm


Gregg Chadwick
Mulholland Blue 
24"x30" oil on linen 2013

Please join me for the 9th Anniversary of Santa Monica Art Studios on Saturday, October 12, 6-9 pm and Sunday, October 13, 1-5 pm.
I will be giving a sneak peek of my new artwork and would love to see you!

Also all of the painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and mixed media artists who call Santa Monica Art Studios home will open their working spaces for the event.
Hope to see you soon.
Gregg

Gregg Chadwick
Vanishing Point
30"x40" oil on canvas 2013


Santa Monica Art Studios
3026 Airport Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90405
ph:  310.397.7449
fax: 310.397.7459 


http://www.santamonicaartstudios.com

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Reminder: Obamacare starts Tuesday, October 1 2013 (whether the GOP shuts down the government or not)


The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

Statement by the Press Secretary

Today Republicans in the House of Representatives moved to shut down the government.  Congress has two jobs to do: pass budgets and pay the bills it has racked up.  Republicans in Congress had the opportunity to pass a routine, simple continuing resolution that keeps the government running for a few more weeks.  But instead, Republicans decided they would rather make an ideological point by demanding the sabotage of the health care lawRepublicans have tried and failed to defund or delay the health care law more than 40 times, and they know this demand is reckless and irresponsible. The President has shown that he is willing to improve the health care law and meet Republicans more than halfway to deal with our fiscal challenges, but he will not do so under threats of a government shutdown that will hurt our economy.  Any member of the Republican Party who votes for this bill is voting for a shutdown.  It's time for the House to listen to the American people and act, as the Senate has, in a reasonable way to pass a bill that keeps the government running and move on.
RT : Reminder: Obamacare starts Tuesday, whether the government shuts down or not 

Learn More About Obamacare Below:


Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Killing elephants for kicks on NBC Sports Network?

by Gregg Chadwick

Calvino's Elephant
Gregg Chadwick
Calvino's Elephant
30"x40" oil on linen 2011
Private Collection, Arcata, California



"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.




An Open Letter to the Chief Executive Officer of NBCUniversal 



Dear Stephen Burke,

As Chief Executive Officer of NBCUniversal you oversee the vast and important array of news, sports and entertainment networks that make NBCUniversal a leader in global media. In many ways the world looks to you and NBCUniversal for not just entertainment but inspiration. With this in mind, it comes as a visceral shock to me that in a recent episode of Under Wild Skies, a man with a weapon shot pointblank and brutally killed an African elephant on television on your NBC Sports Network. In agonizing detail your film crew documented the suffering animal's futile attempts to run free and its unfortunate demise at the hands of a human with a gun. Do the values of NBC really fall in line with this type of programming? The tracking, hunting, and killing of an endangered species does not fall under anyone's rational definition of entertainment or sport. In almost every country across the globe killing an elephant is illegal and would guarantee a lengthy prison sentence. With this in mind I request that NBC cancel Under Wild Skies and help protect threatened wildlife around the world by supporting responsible wildlife conservation in your programming.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this vital matter.

Sincerely,

Gregg Chadwick





Sign a petition calling for an end to Under Wild Skies at the link below.


Killing elephants for kicks? please stop airing episodes of sponsored show promoting violence towards .

Thursday, September 19, 2013

For My Brazilian Friends



A Brazilian wedding proposal during She's the One




Sociedade Alternativa by the Father of Brazilian Rock the late Raul Seixas


beijo da metade-luz (kiss of the half-light)

Gregg Chadwick
beijo da metade-luz (kiss of the half-light)
48"x72" oil on linen 2005
private collection 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Homage to Victor Jara

by Gregg Chadwick


"As every cell in Chile will tell, the cries of the tortured men. Remember Allende in the days before, before the army came. Please remember Víctor Jara, in the Santiago Stadium. Es Verdad, those Washington Bullets again."
-from Washington Bullets, The Clash - 1980

"And in the world a heart of darkness, a fire zone. Where poets speak their heart, then bleed for it. Jara sang, his song a weapon, in the hands of love. Though his blood still cries from the ground."
- from One Tree Hill, U2 - 1987



Víctor Jara
September 28, 1932 – September 16, 1973
Chilean Poet, Teacher, Theatre Director, Folk Singer, Songwriter, Political Activist
photo courtesy Victor Jara Foundation

 
In Santiago, on the 40th anniversary of the CIA backed coup in Chile, Bruce Springsteen gave homage to Chilean poet and activist Víctor Jara  by performing Jara's poignant song Manifiesto. The 1973 Chilean coup ushered the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet into power and marked the beginning of a bloody era in Chile. Thousands of people were arrested, tortured and killed by the military.

In Philip Sherwell's must read interview in The Telegraph - Joan Jara, Víctor's widow, recounts their last phone conversation on the afternoon of Sept 11, 1973:

"Victor called me to say that he couldn't get home because of the curfew, that he loved me and urged me to stay home and take care of the girls," she said. "What he didn't tell me was that he couldn't leave because the university was surrounded by tanks and under siege."

From a smuggled message, Joan Jara was informed that Víctor was among 800 students and faculty members taken from Santiago's Technical University on September 12, 1973 to Estadio Chile (Chile Stadium) where thousands were being held by the Pinochet government. 



Koen Wessing
Estadio Chile During the Coup
September 1973
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Many of those detained were tortured and killed by Pinochet's shock troops. Víctor's captors brutally beat him, smashing his hands with rifle butts and then, according to fellow prisoners, the guards mockingly suggested that Víctor play guitar for them with his battered hands. Defiantly, Víctor sang part of Venceremos (We Will Win), a song supporting deposed President Allende's Popular Unity coalition.



September 1973 - Estadio Chile (Chile Stadium)

Jose Paredes, one of Víctor's captors recently recounted in court how he and other soldiers from his regiment witnessed their superior officer Lieutenant Barrientos torture Víctor Jara and other prisoners held in the arena. Paredes then describes Víctor's death:

"After that, Lieutenant Barrientos decided to play Russian roulette, so he took out his gun, approached Víctor Jara, who was standing with his hands handcuffed behind his back, spun the cylinder, put it against the back of his neck and fired." Then Lieutenant Barrientos ordered his troops to follow up with a machine gun coup-de-grace. Víctor's bullet riddled body was dumped on a street outside Santiago. 

 A few months later in New York, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs headlined a benefit in honor of Jara's life and work.


Joan Jara managed to escape from Chile to London with their two daughters and a number of Víctor's literary and musical works, including a poem Víctor wrote while imprisoned in Estadio Chile. Víctor's last untitled, unfinished work is a cry for hope amid brutality and injustice. 

Joan spent the next 10 years travelling the world bearing witness to the brutal coup in Chile, eventually moving back to Santiago in 1983. Joan established the Víctor  Jara Foundation to keep her husband's memory and artistic legacy alive and she continues to fight relentlessly to gain justice for him in death. 





September 12, 2013
Bruce Springsteen Sings Jara's Manifiesto in Santiago

 On September 12, 2013 in Santiago, Chile, Springsteen introduced his version of Jara's Manifiesto with heartfelt words in Spanish:

"En 1988 tocamos para Amnistía Internacional en Mendoza, Argentina, pero Chile estaba en nuestros corazones. Conocimos a muchas familias de desaparecidos, con fotografías de sus seres queridos. Fue un momento que se queda conmigo para siempre. Si ya es un músico político, Victor Jara continúa siendo una gran inspiración. Es un regalo estar aquí y lo tomo con humildad."

Translation via Backstreets

"In 1988 we played for Amnesty International in Mendoza, Argentina, but Chile was in our hearts. We met many families of desaparecidos, which had pictures of their loved ones. It was a moment that stays with me forever. A political musician, Victor Jara, remains a great inspiration. It's a gift to be here and I take it with humbleness." 


Springsteen and the E Street Band followed up Manifiesto with We Are Alive, off of his latest album Wrecking Ball. The final track on Wrecking BallWe Are Alive, is a folk hymn that weaves together death, sacrifice, memory, and transcendence. The song opens with the sound of a record needle scratching across vinyl - a nostalgic warmth that conjures up the history of recorded music. The sounds of We Are Alive bring us from Edison's wax cylinders, to vinyl LP's, to digital tracks. The words of We Are Alive lead us through the history of the struggle for human rights in the United States. Like a folk spirit cut loose from Dicken's A Christmas Carol,  the singer of We Are Alive touches down in three stages of our country's life: the historical past of the 19th century, the recent past of 1960's Civil Rights era, and the contemporary reality of new immigrants trying to reach this land of promise.  On September 12, 2013 in Santiago, Chile - We Are Alive also connected to global injustice and Nixon era America's brutal sins abroad. Víctor Jara's life and music continue to inspire resistance and revolution. Jara's Nueva Canción (New Song) continues to be sung in Latinoamérica and across the globe.




Bruce Springteen with Nils Lofgren on Guitar Sings Víctor Jara's Manifiesto 
(September 12, 2013 - Santiago, Chile)



Víctor Jara - Manifiesto (1973)


MANIFIESTO
Víctor Jara


Yo no canto por cantar
ni por tener buena voz,
canto porque la guitarra
tiene sentido y razón.

Tiene corazón de tierra
y alas de palomita,
es como el agua bendita
santigua glorias y penas.

Aquí se encajó mi canto
como dijera Violeta
guitarra trabajadora
con olor a primavera.

Que no es guitarra de ricos
ni cosa que se parezca
mi canto es de los andamios
para alcanzar las estrellas,
que el canto tiene sentido
cuando palpita en las venas
del que morirá cantando
las verdades verdaderas,
no las lisonjas fugaces
ni las famas extranjeras
sino el canto de una lonja
hasta el fondo de la tierra.

Ahí donde llega todo
y donde todo comienza
canto que ha sido valiente
siempre será canción nueva.

I don't sing for love of singing, 
or because I have a good voice. 
I sing because my guitar 
has both feeling and reason. 
It has a heart of earth 
and the wings of a dove, 
it is like holy water, 
blessing joy and grief.
My song has found a purpose
as Violeta would say. 
Hardworking guitar, 
with a smell of spring.

My guitar is not for the rich no, 
nothing like that. 
My song is of the ladder 
we are building to reach the stars. 
For a song has meaning 
when it beats in the veins 
of a man who will die singing, 
truthfully singing his song.

My song is not for fleeting praise 
nor to gain foreign fame, 
it is for this narrow country 
to the very depths of the earth. 
There, where everything comes to rest 
and where everything begins, 
the song which has been brave 
will be forever new.

(Many thanks to Salvdor Trepat at Point Blank for lyrics and translation.)







Víctor Jara - Chile Stadium (his last song) English translation

Translated by Joan Jara. Read by Adrian Mitchell. From the album Manifiesto.

Lyrics Below:

Untitled - (Estadio Chile)
Víctor Jara


Somos cinco mil

en esta pequena parte de la ciudad.

Somos cinco mil

¿Cuantos seremos en total

en las ciudades de todo el pais?

Solo aqui, diez mil manos que sembran
y hacen andar las fabricas.
¡Cuanta humanidad
con hambre, frio, panico, dolor
presion moral, terror y locura!
…¡Y Mexico, Cuba y el mundo?
¡Que gritan esta ignomonia!
Somos diez mil manos menos
que no producen.
¿Cuanto somos en toda la Patria?
La sangre del companero Presidente
golpea mas fuerte que bombas y metrallas.
Asi golpeara nuestro puno nuevamente.
¡Canto que mal me sales
cuando tengo que cantar espanto!
Espanto como el que vivo
como el que muero, espanto.
De verme entre tanto y tantos
momentos de infinito
en que el silencio y el grito
son las metas de este canto.
Lo que veo nunca vi,
lo que he sentido y lo que siento
hara brotar el momento…


There are five thousand of us here

in this small part of the city.

We are five thousand.

I wonder how many we are in all

in the cities and in the whole country?

Here alone
are ten thousand hands which plant seeds
and make the factories run.
How much humanity
exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain,
moral pressure, terror and insanity?
Six of us were lost
as if into starry space.
One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed
a human being could be beaten.
The other four wanted to end their terror
one jumping into nothingness,
another beating his head against a wall,
but all with the fixed stare of death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
slaughter is an act of heroism.
Oh God, is this the world that you created,
for this your seven days of wonder and work?
Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress,
which slowly will wish more and more for death.
But suddenly my conscience awakes
and I see that this tide has no heartbeat,
only the pulse of machines
and the military showing their midwives’ faces
full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world
cry out against this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hands
which can produce nothing.
How many of us in the whole country?
The blood of our President, our compañero,
will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns!
So will our fist strike again!

How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel



  



 More at:

Eight Charged With Víctor Jara's Murder in Chile

More on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Wrecking Ball Tour