Posts Tagged ‘de Kooning’
“I think of two landscapes- one outside the self, the other within”*…
Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder’s allegory of iconoclasm, ca.1566
Although commonplace today, the landscape as a distinct category in painting only really began to establish itself in Western art during the Renaissance, a period in which natural views began to make their way to the fore of focus, no longer merely backgrounds to human figures. Perhaps an interesting quirk of this “transition” were the images which seemed to fuse the two: anthropomorphic landscapes. These images — particularly where landscapes are given the form of human heads — appear to be somewhat of a meme…
Currier and Ives print showing a young man and a young woman looking through an opening in a wall (alternatively, a human skull)
More of the story, and more (and larger) examples, at “The Art of Hidden Faces: Anthropomorphic Landscapes.”
* Barry Lopez
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As we put a human face on Nature, we might send dramatic birthday greetings to Elaine de Kooning; she was born on this date in 1918. While she was overshadowed in the public view by her husband, Willem de Kooning, for much of her career, she was an important and influential Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era, and an editor of Art News.
Her portrait of John F. Kennedy (National Portrait Gallery)
“Chelsea, please let your art speak for itself”*…
The Artspeak Incinerator Project is an interactive video installation created by artist Bill Claps. This video documents the Artspeak Incinerator in action at the MOMA, Guggenheim, Whitney, New Museum, ARTFORUM, Gagosian Gallery, and other locations.
During Armory Arts Week Claps utilized crowdsourcing and a technology interface connected to Twitter to source examples of artspeak from various art fairs, publications, and institutions throughout New York City. The artspeak was translated into Morse code (representing the art world’s distinct coded language) and digitally incinerated while being projecting onto the facades of art institutions throughout the city, releasing it into the atmosphere in a purified state…
email readers click here for video
See more– and more of Claps’ other wonderful work– at his site.
* “Ms. Patuto,” season 3 of Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven
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As we connect with our inner connoisseur, we might send bold birthday greetings to Willem de Kooning; he was born on this date in 1904. After Jackson Pollock, de Kooning was the most prominent and celebrated of the Abstract Expressionist painters, and with his wife, Elaine, Pollock, Rothko, and Kline, was at the core of what has become known as the New York School.
de Kooning has been the subject of reams of artspeak.
de Kooning’s Woman III, 1951-53
de Kooning in his studio, 1961
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