kottke.org posts about art
For his latest video essay, Evan Puschak tells us about Un Chien Andalou, the pioneering surrealist short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The film is particularly notable for a shocking shot in the opening scene, which, if you’ve seen it, you’ve likely never forgotten. Said Buñuel of the film:
This film has no intention of attracting nor pleasing the spectator; indeed, on the contrary, it attacks him, to the degree that he belongs to a society with which surrealism is at war.
You can watch Un Chien Andalou on YouTube:
One wonders what Buñuel and Dalí would have made of YouTube…
Nicole Nikolich is a textile artist whose current focus is making crochet artworks that reference old school technology. You can explore her work on her website, at Paradigm Gallery and on Instagram. Some of her artworks are available for sale here.
I’m a sucker for these types of projects because innovations in textile production led to the development of the first computers and the work of artists like Nikolich bring that relationship full circle. See also The Embroidered Computer.
As part of his Real Time series, artist Maarten Baas has created The People’s Clock, a timepiece that lives in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. To create the clock’s “workings”, Baas recorded more than 1000 volunteers moving as the clock’s hands over a 12-hour period. If you look carefully, you can see a single individual dressed in orange at the edge of the circle acting as the second hand:
Each of the installed clock’s faces is a looped video of that recording, synced to the current time. Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes video of how the clock was made:
See also Baas’s Sweeper’s Clock and Schiphol Clock.
I love these oversized prints of vintage Pan-Am luggage tags from artist Ella Freire. The typography and colors are just perfect. (via daringfireball)
David Altmejd’s 2017 sculpture entitled “God” is one of the most disturbing artworks I’ve seen recently, so naturally I had to show all of you. If you need further wigging out, here you go. Lots more on his website and Instagram.
I’m charmed by this fragment of Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting of Mary Magdalene that’s up for auction later this month.
For many years it was in a private collection in Germany where it lay rolled up in a cellar. The head of the saint had been cut out of the canvas, under circumstances that remain unclear, in an incident most probably linked to the chaos and looting of postwar Berlin.
Like the empty picture frames at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the rectangular hole in the painting invites the viewer to imagine what became of its former contents. Where is Magdalene’s head & shoulders now? Did it get framed as its own painting? Is it still hanging in someone’s house or tucked away in someone’s attic? Will it be reunited with the rest of the painting someday?
Btw, this painting is a copy of another of Gentileschi’s previous works, which hangs in the Pitti Palace in Florence. There are some differences between the two paintings, but at least we know what the area inside that hole looks like, mostly.
I really love these collages by Anton Elfilter (Instagram, Threads). They are digital-ish? But also not? And does anyone else see the influence of Hilma af Klint in these? (via moss & fog)
As part of his show called Hark Back to Ukiyo-e: Tracing Superflat to Japonisme’s Genesis, currently on display in LA, Takashi Murakami painted his own version of Claude Monet’s Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son. The painting is paired with Murakami’s copies of woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) that influenced the work of Monet and other abstract & impressionist artists.
Here Murakami pairs a copy of Monet’s portrait with twelve enlarged versions of ukiyo-e prints by Kikukawa Eizan and his teacher, Utamaro. Through these examples Murakami shapes a narrative of Monet’s encounter with bijinga. They suggest the elements that Monet absorbed in his study of prints: statuesque three-quarter figures; sensual outlines; parasols viewed from below; cloud-like masses of cherry blossoms; windswept skirts. Another selection, Utamaro’s Yamauba and Kintarō, is an example of a bijinga sub-genre in which women are shown with young children.
As noted by Greg Allen, Murakami used an unusual process for his reproductions:
Copying the originals, Murakami had his own intimate encounter with these features, recognizing in the process the meticulous care taken in pursuit of delicate effects. He interprets them in his signature style, composed of layer upon layer of silkscreened acrylic paint, applied with a special squeegee work application method and coated in a glossy finish.
A painting from 1633 called Vision of Zacharias in the Temple has been newly identified by Rijksmuseum researchers as an authentic Rembrandt van Rijn. It had been decades since the painting was examined — art historians have access to all kinds of new techniques and information about Rembrandt’s methods and materials.
Vision of Zacharias in the Temple was shown at the major Rembrandt exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1898. In 1960, however, it was excluded from Rembrandt’s oeuvre. A year later, a private collector purchased the work, after which it disappeared from public view. Only recently did the current owner contact the Rijksmuseum, allowing the painting to be examined again after 65 years.
The two-year investigation shows that all the pigments used also appear in other paintings by Rembrandt from the same period. The build-up of the paint layers and the handling are likewise consistent with his early work.
The painting is executed on two oak panels from trees grown in the south-east of Lithuania, a common wood source in the seventeenth century. The dimensions and construction correspond to panels Rembrandt frequently used. Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) confirms that the inscribed date “1633” is plausible.
Here’s the back of the painting (the whole analysis is interesting):
Vision of Zacharias in the Temple goes on display at the Rijksmuseum tomorrow. (via the history blog)
Ann Ballentine bought an old candy factory building in Brooklyn in 1979. She filled it with working artists and became something of a fairy godmother to them all.
It entails someone who’s not as money driven, because you’re not gouging people for huge rents, and it requires being determined to do that over a long stretch of time.
This is a lovely little short film.
In a video for the V&A Museum, stone carver Miriam Johnson hand-carves a pair of hieroglyphs “using both sunken relief and raised relief techniques”.
The video has minimal narration; mostly it’s just a master craftsperson quietly tapping away at the stone — and getting bits of rock all over the sleeve of her jumper. The effect is pretty relaxing, especially with the more rhythmic tapping for the second carving. (via the kid should see this)
I love these collage illustrations of various celebrities and famous characters by artist/designer Fries Vansevenant: Han Solo & Luke Skywalker, Notorious BIG, Heath Ledger’s Joker, Beatrix Kiddo, David Beckham. There are more on his Insta.
The excellent Poster House museum in NYC currently has an exhibition up of posters by Peter Strausfeld.
Between 1947 and 1980, Peter Strausfeld, a German refugee interned on the Isle of Man during World War II, created unique, compelling posters for London’s Academy Cinema—the city’s premier art house movie theater. Founded by Elsie Cohen in 1931, the Academy specialized in international films that eschewed classic Hollywood narratives, highlighting works by now-famous directors like Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Andrzej Wajda, and Satyajit Ray. While these films now hold cult status for cinema aficionados, in the early to mid-20th century, art house remained a novel and daring form of cinema that few theaters showcased.
Throughout his longstanding relationship with the Academy, Strausfeld created over 300 bold, predominantly single-color linocut compositions with a deceptively simple hand-printed feel.
An accompanying book is available from RIT Press. More of Strausfeld’s work can be found at It’s Nice That, Orson & Welles, and Mubi. (via the new yorker)
I know I probably say this every time I post videos like this, but I wish I’d gotten into art & art history earlier than I did. Channels like Behind the Masterpiece are so good at making this stuff come alive and their Brief History of Japanese Art scratches my recent interest in Japan itch quite nicely. I was lucky to see some of the pieces from the video on my Japan trip last fall, including the Big Buddha in Kamakura, hand scrolls, sumi-e, and so many woodblock prints. (via open culture)
The Torment of Saint Anthony is the earliest surviving work attributed to Michelangelo, painted by him in 1487 or 1488 when he was 12 or 13 years old. This is an intense painting, the kind of thing that would have resulted in Michelangelo’s parents visiting the principal’s office had the young man painted this in a contemporary 7th grade art class.
Until 2009, it was believed the painting was a copy of a documented Michelangelo original, but a restoration and x-ray & infrared scans of the work showed evidence that the painting was done by the future master.
Michelangelo’s work was based on Martin Schongauer’s engraving Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons. This video provides a great overview of the history of the painting:
(via colossal)
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