Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim, And sees the darkness coming as a cloud

It’s to me this evening something has to happen, to my body as in myth and metamorphosis, this old body to which nothing ever happened, or so little, which never met with anything, wished for anything, in its tarnished universe, except for the mirrors to shatter, the plane, the curved, the magnifying, the minifying, and to vanish in the havoc of its images.

~ The Calmative (1946), Samuel Beckett





(*Title line from Al Aaraaf, 1829, by Edgar Allan Poe. Images from Nude Sculpture - Metropolitan Museum Of Art / Photographer: Andreas Feininger.)

A Tulip for Irving

"I have always stood in awe of the camera, I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel."

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009), R. I. P.

Tulip, New York, 1967, by Irving Penn.

O, let me forever weep:
My eyes no more shall welcome sleep.
I'll hide me from the sight of day,
And sigh my soul away.
He's gone, his loss deplore,
And I shall never see him more.


Soprano: Nancy Argenta
Composer: Henry Purcell (1658/9-1695) , The Plaint, Z. 629, from Orpheus Britannicus, Vol. II (1692), from The Fairy Queen, No. 40, an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

藍

Between all the different shades of blue, there is form. And then there is the absence of form ― a freedom from resolution. There is music.

清 刺繡 峰頭十丈 Embroidery painting from Qing Dynasty, China.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665, by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).

Vase of Flowers with Blue Ground, 1956, by Sanyu 常玉。

“... if you then consider none but those whose discriminating vision has been refined through contact with literature and art, he was convinced that the eye of that individual who dreams of ideal beauty, who craves illusions, who seeks some mystery in his women, is as a rule attracted to blue and its derivatives...” 

― Joris-Karl Huysmans, À rebours, 1884

+

Pierre Fournier plays Zoltán Kodály Sonata for Solo Cello, Opus 8. Recorded in November, 1960.

北宋 官窯青瓷 Guan ware, Northern Song Dynasty, China.

元 鈞窯 天藍紫斑如意枕 Jun ware, Yuan Dynasty, China.

The Painter to the Moon, 1917, by Marc Chagall (1887-1985).

+

Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30, Movement I (1927). Recorded in 1937 by the Kolisch Quartet under Schoenberg's supervision.




Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936). Recorded in 1969 by LaSalle Quartet.

Turquoise Wine Jar, Ming Dynasty, China.

Althea, 1895, by John White Alexander (1856-1915).

+

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Opus 35. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship/ Conductor: André Previn; Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

北宋汝窯青瓷橢圓洗/ Ru ware, Northern Song Dynasty, China.

Blue Waterlilies, 1919, by Claude Monet

“The word itself has another color. It’s not a word with any resonance, although the e was once pronounced. There is only the bump now between b and l, the relief at the end, the whew. It hasn’t the sly turn which crimson takes halfway through, yellow’s deceptive jelly, or the rolled-down sound in brown. It hasn’t violet’s rapid sexual shudder or like a rough road the irregularity of ultramarine, the low puddle in mauve like a pancake covered in cream, the disapproving purse to pink, the assertive brevity of red, the whine of green.”

― William H. Gass, On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry, 2007.

+

Hilary Hahn plays Schoenberg Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1936). Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.




Leonard Pennario plays Sergei Prokofiev Vision Fugitives, Opus 22.
Complete score: 1. Lentamente 1:10, 2. Andante 1:20, 3. Allegretto 0:49, 4. Animato 0:40, 5. Molto giocoso 0:27, 6. Con eleganza 0:37, 7. (Arpa) Pittoresco 1:30, 8. Comodo 1:10, 9. Allegretto tranquillo 0:56, 10. Ridicolosamente 0:40, 11. Con vivacita 0:59.

Edvard Munch, Kiss by the Window, 1892, oil on canvas, 73 x 92cm, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo.

Pablo Picasso, La soupe (The soup), 1902-1903, oil on canvas, 38.5 x 46cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1915, oil on canvas, 151.4 x 201cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Laurie’s Ballet

Porcelain dolls, miniature houses, ballet slippers, sharply-lit stage against mysterious darkness, an abyss into one’s mind (or of one’s mind?), glistening snowflakes and iridescent rose petals, swooning whirls of tutus, Alice’s beautiful skirts and her Wonderland, a dream within a dream, an invitation to a dance—eerie yet bizarrely irresistible, that dulcet and melodious danger.

Curtains up for Laurie’s ballet.

Room Underneath (Red), 1998

Room Underneath (Gold), 1998

Room Underneath (Standing), 1998

House Underneath (Reclining), 1998

Slow Dance, film still, 2007

Pink Ballerina (Vera Ellen), 1982

Untitled (Eye to Eye), 1983

Painted Ballet (Les Sylphides), 1983

Waltz of the Snowflakes, 1983

Ballet Stage, 1983

Laurie Simmons was born on Long Island, New York, in 1949. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (1971). Simmons stages photographs and films with paper dolls, finger puppets, ventriloquist dummies, and costumed dancers as “living objects,” animating a dollhouse world suffused with nostalgia and colored by an adult’s memories, longings, and regrets. Simmons’s work blends psychological, political and conceptual approaches to art making, transforming photography’s propensity to objectify people, especially women, into a sustained critique of the medium. Mining childhood memories and media constructions of gender roles, her photographs are charged with an eerie, dreamlike quality. On first glance her works often appear whimsical, but there is a disquieting aspect to Simmons’s child’s play as her characters struggle over identity in an environment in which the value placed on consumption, designer objects, and domestic space is inflated to absurd proportions. Simmons’s first film, “The Music of Regret” (2006), extends her photographic practice to performance, incorporating musicians, professional puppeteers, Alvin Ailey dancers, Hollywood cinematographer Ed Lachman, and actress Meryl Streep. She has received many awards, including the Roy Lichtenstein Residency in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome (2005); and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1997) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1984). She has had major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); Baltimore Museum of Art (1997); San Jose Museum of Art, California (1990); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1987); and has participated in two Whitney Biennials (1985, 1991). Simmons lives and works in New York.

(*Biography information taken from Art:21.)




Slow Dance from Laurie Simmons Studio on Vimeo.
Slow Dance. 2007. USA.
35mm film (transferred to HD CAM). 4:28 min.
Directed by Laurie Simmons
Cinematography by Ed Lachman ASC
Music by Michael Rohatyn
Lyrics by Laurie Simmons



P.s. I have not written a “proper” blog entry for a while (that is, one with a fair amount of blabbering on my part), but when I encounter works by artists such as Laurie Simmons, words seem unnecessary. There is however another article which is incubating in my head at the moment, and will hopefully be my next post.