Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Happy Earth Day - When the Earth Moves Film





When the Earth Moves reclaims the authentic story and original vision of Earth Day as a bipartisan and socially just environmental movement and highlights the need for people across generations and on both sides of the political aisle to play an active part. It also calls attention to the urgent need for Americans to unite around a common goal and purpose.



Jersey 4 Jersey - Bruce Springsteen & Patti Scialfa





Land of Hope and Dreams and Jersey Girl

Happy Earth Day!

by Gregg Chadwick

"The thing that really surprised me was that it [Earth] projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile."


— Michael Collins, Apollo 11





Gregg Chadwick
30”x36” oil on linen 2020 

My oil on linen painting Terra Nostra was inspired by the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the first photograph taken by a human of the globe from space. On December 7, 1972, the astronauts on board Apollo 17 looked out of their spacecraft and saw the entire earth illuminated by the sun. It glowed like a blue jewel. From then on, our conception of our shared earth changed. Eugene Cernan, the pilot of that flight said to Al Reinert in an interview in Atlantic Magazine: "You have to literally just pinch yourself and ask yourself the question, silently: Do you know where you are at this point in time and space, and in reality and in existence, when you can look out the window and you're looking at the most beautiful star in the heavens -- the most beautiful because it's the one we understand and we know, it's home, it's people, family, love, life -- and besides that it is beautiful. You can see from pole to pole and across oceans and continents and you can watch it turn and there's no strings holding it up, and it's moving in a blackness that is almost beyond conception."

I thought it important to get a sense of what NASA astronauts described as the Overview Effect. From space the Earth is revealed to be fragile with a thin atmosphere. And from space, there are no boundaries. No lines demarcating countries or regions. We are united as citizens of earth and we need to protect each other and our planet. 

I first became aware of the fragile nature of our planet as an elementary school student. For Christmas one year, I asked my parents for the book “Wildlife in Danger” published by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). They are still an important organization providing information, plans, and hope for our endangered earth. Worried about the environment as a kid, I drew pictures of animals constantly. Now I am bringing out a series of paintings inspired by the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, 2020, that shed light on climate change, the beauty of the natural world, and our place with other species.




Wednesday, April 15, 2020

L.A. Love!

Elizabeth Warren Endorses Joe Biden for President



Let's Go! 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Barack Obama Endorses Joe Biden





Barack Obama Endorses Joe Biden for President!


Monday, April 13, 2020

Congrats Wisconsin for Electing Judge Jill Karofsky!










Congrats Wisconsin! Despite massive GOP voter suppression, progressive judge Jill Karofsky is projected to defeat @realDonaldTrump-endorsed Justice Dan Kelly in Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Huge upset & defeat for attempts to undermine voting rights https://thehill.com/…/491622-democrat-backed-candidate-wins… #wi #wiunion #ThankYouForVoting

Andrea Bocelli: Music For Hope - Live From Duomo di Milano

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II joins former Vice President Joe Biden for a discussion on faith

Must Listen: Here's the Deal with @RevDrBarber and @JoeBiden

https://www.buzzsprout.com/961768/3325225-here-s-the-deal-with-rev-dr-william-j-barber-ii-on-faith


Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II joins former Vice President Joe Biden for a discussion on faith and its intersection with today’s most pressing issues.
Episode Guide:
  • 1:29 Reverend Barber Joins the Show
  • 3:21 Reverend Barber Discusses Poor People's Campaign Response to COVID-19
  • 10:08 Vice President Biden on Poverty and COVID-19
  • 15:48 Reverend Barber on Faith and COVID-19
  • 21:44 Vice President Biden and Reverend Barber on Health Care
  • 33:30 Vice President Biden on Legacy and Faith 
  • 39:51 Listener Question
Note: This episode was recorded on 4/9/2020

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Nurses Save Lives!





Gregg Chadwick
Nurses Save Lives
(Marching to Save the School)
60"x48" oil on linen 2019
Collection UCLA School of Nursing 



Gerhard Richter: Painting After All



Get an inside look at a master painter at work in this feature-length documentary, streaming here for a limited time, premiering Saturday, April 11, 7 p.m.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition at The Met Breuer, Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, the film will remain available to stream through early July.
Much of this documentary is set in Richter's studio in Cologne, where the filmmaker quietly observed the artist's painting process, and in particular how he creates his large abstract series. The film follows Richter through mesmeric cycles of painting, viewing, and judging. Interspersed throughout are shorter sequences from historical interviews and footage of other aspects of Richter at work, including his interactions with curators, assistants, and family. Filmed principally in 2009, the documentary concludes with the artist completing a large series of mostly white abstract paintings.
The film is available for purchase at Kino Lorber (DVD and Blu-Ray) and Kino Now (digital download).


Credits:
Directed by Corinna Belz

© 2011 Zero One Film / Terz Film / WDR / MDR

Friday, April 10, 2020

Mama Virtual


MAMA VIRTUAL from Jeny Amaya on Vimeo.

MAMA VIRTUAL, directed by 18th Street Arts Center's communications associate Jeny Amaya, materializes the virtual sphere that transnational mothers construct in order to maintain contact with their children and families back in their home countries. Separated from their children, these Central American mothers externalize this virtual realm through their performance of the “mother’s touch” through the touchscreen of a phone, digital images, phone cards, and other mediated technologies.

 Watch the other film part of this series here.

Thursday, April 09, 2020

21st Century Pauper Fields

Patrick Stewart Reads Shakespeare's Sonnet #18





Sonnet 18. Perhaps the most well-known sonnet in the book. Speaking of the book, a little backstory on that too. #ASonnetADay

Because His Music Lives - John Prine: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert





From Ann Powers' remembrance of John Prine, who died yesterday at the age of 73: “He hadn’t been well, off and on, for many years, but he also seemed oddly indestructible. Everyone’s love and need for his presence wove protection around him. But we are living in a time when no concept of protection seems adequate. Acknowledging that, I turned to Prine’s music. This is how we honor our losses as music fans: by holding close the recordings that keep a voice resonant past mortality.” Click here to read the full remembrance: https://n.pr/34ixO20

Bruce Springsteen Assures Listeners "Better Times Are Coming"

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

Yo-Yo Ma Plays Dona Nobis Pacem





Yo-Yo Ma Plays Dona Nobis Pacem (“grant us peace”) #songsofcomfort




Linda Goes to Mars - John Prine and Bill Murray



Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Listen Now to Michael McDermott's New Song "What In the World"

Stop what you are doing right now! And turn on this fire breathing new single from my visionary friend Michael McDermott.  Michael writes: “Watching the norms of this country be deconstructed and the behavior of he who will not be named, I often just found myself saying aloud ‘What in the world?’ I was in a cab on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago shooting a video for my last record when the chorus of this came to me.  The next day, I immediately went to see if those rapid-fire lyrics would fit and lo and behold I had myself that downtrodden anthem I’d always dreamed of.”



Now listen to Bob Cesca's podcast with Michael McDermott:
Bob writes - "My guest ... is singer songwriter, Michael McDermott. The new album, What In The World, drops on June 5. In addition to chatting with Michael about his life and music, he performed three of his songs, live here on the show, and at least one will make you cry -- in a good way. We also talked about everything from drugs to Trump to Stephen King, and a lot more. I’m a total fanboy, so this was a rare privilege for me. You should be downloading his albums everywhere you get your digital music, and I assure you, you will absolutely fall in love with his work, as I have. Find him on Facebook and at Michael-McDermott.com. "


Thank You Healthcare Workers!



Extubation Dance at UCLA!



Inspiring post from UCLA physician
Yes, patients do recover from . And yes, my team does do an dance every time we liberate someone from a . @uclaimchiefs @UCLAHealth @atscommunity @GiladJaffe @HungryDes @NoCoughEng

Monday, April 06, 2020

Thoughts on Michelangelo in Our Time of Crisis



by Gregg Chadwick

Frequent readers know that I enjoy the wit and erudition of Tyler Green. His Modern Art Notes Podcast is always worth a listen. The latest episode, embedded above, features art historian William E. Wallace and curator Julian Brooks.


Wallace discusses his latest book - “Michelangelo, God’s Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece.” Wallace's new book is available on Bookshop
 Tyler writes :"The book offers a rich and lively biographical examination of the last two decades of Michelangelo’s life, a period when he became the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other buildings, even as he continued to sculpt and draw." 

Michelangelo
The Florentine Pietà
 1547-55

Wallace's discussion of Michelangelo's late Pietàs is exceptionally interesting. These are two of my favorite sculptural works by Michelangelo because of their incomplete nature. 



Michelangelo 
Two Views of the Rondanini Pietà 

1564
Castello Sforzesco, Milano

photos by Gregg Chadwick
I have spent hours in the company of Michelangelo's two late pietàs in Florence and Milan. 
There is an intently spiritual nature to these sculptures. The marble seems to flicker like candlelight. Form seems to melt with time. My painting La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life) was inspired by my visits to the Castello Sforzesco which houses Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà. Watching a couple stroll through the garden along the castle wall reminded me of the hope that new love brings. Life flickers with light and hope in these moments. Now, as the Covid-19 crisis rages through Northern Italy and the world, I am brought back to the time that I painted La Vita Trasparente. I think of my friends in Milan, Verona, and Trento. Many are health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic. Today, it seems that the curve may be breaking in Italy. I hope this is a positive shift. I send my thoughts to all of you caught up in this struggle. Take care my friends. 


Gregg Chadwick
La Vita Trasparente (The Transparent Life) 
48"x38" oil on linen 2014
Private Collection, New York


In the second half of this podcast Tyler Green chats with Julian Brooks who co-curated with Emily J. Peters, the exhibition “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master” at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Brooks explains to us how Michelangelo used his drawings. Brooks discusses Michelangelo's studies for his unfinished and now lost Battle of Cascina, with detail and excitement. I wrote about Michelangelo's drawings after viewing the monumental 2017 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. My thoughts then


These drawings are sumptuously beautiful, and set the stage for the rest of Michelangelo's artistic life. Michelangelo's touch is all over these works. The use of chalk in many of the drawings, rather than pen and ink, opens up a sensuous physicality that feels more like flesh than stone.
A map of desire seems to be drawn across the back of many of Michelangelo's figures. In the gallery I think of the poetry and art to come - Cavafy, Isherwood, Bachardy, Bacon, and Hockney.


Sadly, the Getty is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is scheduled to be at the Getty through June 7. The catalog is available on Bookshop






The Artist's Sketchbook: A Personal View by Charles Ritchie



Inspiring lecture by Charles Ritchie - artist, and former associate curator, department of modern prints and drawings,  at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

The National Gallery writes: "In this lecture held on October 27, 2019, in conjunction with the month-long Sketching is Seeing program at the National Gallery of Art, Charles Ritchie presents varied approaches to collecting ideas. For example, do artists fill a sketchbook from front to back or do they open it to an empty space and begin working? Does writing accompany the drawings and how might it relate to the images? Are the drawings and/or writings employed for developing skill, or are they compost for the creation of other works, or does the book document completed works? Using his experience as a keeper of a sketchbook/journal, Ritchie explores the creative practices of some of his favorite artists including Isabel Bishop, Paul Cézanne, Eugène Delacroix, Alberto Giacometti, and Edward Hopper, among others, and he touches on formative manuscripts by Emily Dickinson, Jack Kerouac, and Wallace Stevens. The presentation concludes with a meditation on some of the forces at the core of drawing and writing: the desire to remember, the spirit of play and improvisation, and the essential ingredient―curiosity."


Sunday, April 05, 2020

Max Richter: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert





Wow!

Nina Simone "Suzanne" (1969)





In 2018, I was in Montreal following the trail of Leonard Cohen. Two years later in the midst of our global pandemic, Nina Simone's version of Cohen's "Suzanne" strikes me deep in my soul.

#RIP Bill Withers

Words of Hope



Saturday, April 04, 2020

Take a virtual tour of the brilliant Raffaello exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome



Take a virtual tour of the brilliant Raffaello exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome

The Soul of Our Nation