Me Decade, Part Two

A few weeks ago we visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It's an excellent museum, with a very interesting collection that is curated very well. I really enjoyed walking the galleries--they've done a great job at making it all fit together.

They had one or two Andy Warhols on view. Warhol is enjoying a surge in popularity right now, which might just be money-related (that is, collectors desire art because other collectors desire it). It seems to me that Warhol is the ultimate self-referential artist.

Warhol did art that was about art. It was about itself. Look at me, I'm a soup can. That's all, a soup can. I'm on display in a gallery, so I must be art. Do you think I'm art? Maybe you think I'm art because other people think I'm art. Or maybe you've read a commentary that explains that I'm actually a symbol of how embedded mass consumerism has become, so we don't understand what art is anymore. But I remain just a soup can. Actually, a painting of a soup can. Not an impression of a soup can, but an actual soup can.

Looking at art that is about itself can be fun sometimes. But I suppose artists would have to watch themselves, because they wouldn't want their art to become about fun. Then it would risk not being about itself.

There was a painting of Annie--the actual word Annie--in exactly the logo from the stage musical. It was done in a medium brown on a field of yellow. I stood there looking at it, asking myself why this artist would paint the word Annie. Then I read the title. "Annie Done in Maple Syrup." And then I laughed. It's exactly what it was--a painting of Annie spelled out in maple syrup, including a few random drips. Why this was painted is still a mystery, but it doesn't matter. I enjoyed looking at it.

Sometimes artists dialogue with each other, or argue with each other, via their art.

It's perfectly fine for artists to speak to other artists via their work, but looking at the work can be tiresome. I suppose there can be entertainment value similar to watching pundits argue on television.

But mostly it's a high-class form of navel gazing. And why would I want to watch someone gaze at his or her navel?

Maybe if it was a very interesting navel.

My Kid Could Paint That

2001: A Space Odyssey

Quote of the day:
“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
--Andre Gide

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” one of the most influential, important and controversial movies of all time.

When it came out, there was a huge buzz about the film, and people flocked to it. Many of those people came out of theatres shaking their heads and saying “huh?”

Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” is rightly celebrated for its groundbreaking special effects. But its plot and narrative style are highly unconventional and will always leave a lot of people baffled or bored.

There’s been a ton written on the movie’s possible symbolism and meaning, including in this very long but entertaining exchange. In other places, critics and viewers, while admiring the special effects, have been skeptical about the film itself. It’s been dismissed as ponderous, pretentious and opaque.

I saw “2001” shortly after it was released. I was amazed by the visuals, and blown away by the music. But I had no idea what it was about.

In the 1980s Merrie and I rented the VHS and watched it on our 19-inch RCA TV. We were bored out of our skulls--we turned it off before it was over. We realized much later than the film depends on both the immensity and subtlety of its visuals and its soundtrack. Thus it is impossible to grasp on a small grainy screen with a tinny-sounding speaker.

In truth, “2001” is a great work of art. Think about it. All great works of art are both highly affecting and subject to ongoing interpretation. Rarely do artists explain what their work means, once and for all.

I think it’s clear that the film does contain allusions to both Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and Homer’s “Odyssey.” Kubrick points to the former by using Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as the movie’s theme. As for Homer, “Odyssey” is part of the movie’s title, so that’s not exactly a stretch.

A key to the film is that the dialogue is sparse and banal. That’s because the movie is not about our relationships with each other.

What is “2001” about? I’m not sure anyone can say definitively. Sure, it’s about our relationship with technology. But it’s also about our relationship with everything else.

To me, it is about the scope of human life and development in the context of an incomprehensibly vast universe--a universe so vast that it contains other lives beyond our imaginings.

It’s the hugest theme possible for a movie.

Art For Art's Sake

Quote of the day:
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved--loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
--Victor Hugo

Observation of the day:
From Joni Mitchell, who commented during the documentary All We Are Saying that the press had gotten stupider and shallower in the last 20 years.

Is art created for an audience, or just for itself? The reasonable answer, as always, is both.

How does this happen? Gramophone columnist Armando Iannucci makes a relevant comment in the July issue. He begins with the paintings of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851).

Turner is best known for his distinctive landscapes and vividly rendered ships at sea. But the last paintings of his life, which were not appreciated at the time and remain under the radar today, are more exercises in color than in depiction.

They are still landscapes, but the colors have so taken over that the paintings foreshadow not just impressionism but also Rothko-style abstraction. Iannucci suggests that if you know the earlier paintings and encounter one of the very late paintings you might think that that Turner was going “mad.”

Iannucci recalled his own delight in seeing the paintings in the context of Turner’s whole career when he visited an exhibition at the Tate Museum. It seemed to him that the paintings were a logical and extraordinary culmination of an amazing creative life.

And it is at that culmination that the artist could finally just create art just for its own sake. In the process, something new is begun.

One of the musical examples Iannucci brings up is the Beethoven String Quartets. He says they are “works that are built on a lifetime of writing for these forces, and yet this time written through with a willful disobedience of the standard rules of quartet composition, whether in length, number of movements, or in development of the material.

“In the late quartets I always hear the sound of Beethoven saying ‘At last, this is really what I’ve always wanted to say.’”

Georgia O'Keeffe On My Mind

Quote of the day:
“If you’re naturally kind you attract a lot of people you don’t like.”
--William Feather

Quote of the day no. 2:
“Myth is the step by which the individual emerges from group psychology.”
--Sigmund Freud

Years ago Charles Kuralt did a wonderful interview of artist Georgia O’Keeffe, who lived her later life in the countryside outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two things stick with me from that conversation. They both are responses to a question about how she found inspiration for her work.

O’Keeffe said that one way she found inspiration was to listen to Beethoven. But not just any Beethoven. It was the piano sonatas. And it wasn’t just any version of the piano sonatas. It was Rudolph Serkin’s recordings. When Kuralt asked her if she listened while she was painting, she emphatically said no--she simply sat and listened.

She also talked about the more-obvious inspiration of her natural surroundings. I remember watching as she attempted to describe how the quality of light synergistically met the landscape to create other-worldly moments.

That effect is indeed very hard to describe, yet it is real. There is something about how the altitude and latitude affects sunlight--it is both bright and slightly muted, and direct yet strangely angular.

Whatever the exact cause, the quality of light brings a unique beauty to much of New Mexico and Arizona.

Fat is on the Flag

Historical event of the day:
On this day 143 years ago, Abraham Lincoln delivered the most-important speech in American history. It was four minutes long--just 10 sentences. It followed a two-hour oration that has long been forgotten. Lincoln’s speech became known as the Gettysburg Address.

Musician quote of the day:
“That people actually still like us is staggering, really.”
--Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones

Related trivia of the day:
Number of tractor-trailer rigs required to transport the last Rolling Stones world tour: 54.

Technology quote of the day:
“The problem may be that our world has become overrun with gadgets that do more than ever because they can, not because they should.”
--John Maeda, MIT Professor, in today’s "Parade."

Did you hear about art student William Gentry? His senior project was pulled from the Clarksville, Tennessee art museum just 18 hours after being put on display. It was called “The Fat is in the Fire” and consisted of three U.S. flags with phrases such as “Poor people are obese because they eat poorly” and more than 40 smaller flags fried in peanut oil, egg batter, flour and black pepper.

This conflict is just silly. The problem of America overeating is not silly. The principles for which the flag stands are not silly. But this conflict is silly.

Art is always a matter of taste. But being offended by this exhibit is idol-worship. This artist is not denigrating America or American principles in any way, or even questioning them. He is making a creative statement of a well-known fact. Our biggest nutritional problem is overeating and poor choices, while in many developing nations there are no choices. A billion people live in situations in which nothing edible is ever thrown away and there is no Diet Coke because every calorie is vital.

I suspect that Benjamin Franklin, Dolly Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln would all respect and admire this art work.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Democracy and Coolness

Extraordinary quote of the day, and follow-up to "Look Out! Plunging and Plummeting!":
“Procter & Gamble yesterday posted a 33 percent jump in its first-quarter earnings....”
--Associated Press, today.

What makes this quote extraordinary is that none of the usual three hyperbolic “s” words are used: soar, spike or skyrocket. Seems like we have trouble getting through a day without hearing that something or another is plunging, plummeting (see stories on real estate prices) or soaring, spiking or skyrocketing (see stories on real estate prices 18 months ago).

Bumper sticker of the day:
“Commit random acts of coolness.”

Number of non-duplicate mailings about a single California assembly race we received last Monday:
Eight.

Average number about the same race received daily since October 20th:
Three.

Political quote of the day:
“Democracy is working because public attitudes remain the dominant influence--not ‘big money’ or ‘special interests.’ But it is not reassuring. The trouble is that public opinion is often ignorant, confused and contradictory, and so the policies it produces are often ignorant, confused and contradictory--which means they’re ineffective.”
--Robert J. Samuelson, "Newsweek," November 6, 2006

Political quote of the day no. 2:
“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.”
--Charles Bukowski

Artist quote of the day:
“Low-toned dismal-colored painting.”
--Georgia O’Keeffe, describing impressionism. She also said this:

“Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”

Who is Our Designer?

"We shop at cookie-cutter stores in cookie-cutter malls and eat at cookie-cutter restaurants, not because the food is special but because it is familiar."
--Leonard Pitts

One of my favorite TV shows is "House Hunters." I'm not alone, because it is the most-popular show on HGTV. Each episode features someone shopping for a house and considering three different possibilities. It is rigidly formulaic yet oddly satisfying. Not only do we get to see inside lots of houses, but we see how people select where they will live.

Some people seem keenly aware of their own needs and choose based mostly on affordability, comfort and convenience. Others choose based on specific features and extra size. Sometimes someone makes what I think is an irrational choice to live an extra 30 minutes from his/her workplace to get an unnecessarily larger house.

Every once in a while a very interesting house is shown--perhaps a charming, unusual design or a vintage house in wonderfully-preserved condition. I find it rewarding when these houses wind up being chosen.

There's a spread in this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune about a one-of-a-kind midcentury house, lovingly and passionately restored to its original design. (See it at http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060903/news_mz1hs03moder.html)

In restoring the house, the owner, Keith York, committed a number of "House Hunter" no-no's, including installing the same model cooktop and oven as in the original design, and removing two bedrooms from the side of the house, reducing the overall square footage. He's quoted in the story as saying he's thinking of moving the rear wall back to its original position, further reducing square footage.

As I read this I realized that many of us have allowed our homes to be, in effect, designed by realtors for sale, rather than allow our homes to be designed simply to live in. Good realtors are good stewards of "what sells." In a way, they carry contemporary taste and trends--at heart, I think this is what is fascinating about "House Hunters."

Surely our homes are more than interchangeable commodities. If so, who is our designer?

(photo by Paul Body)

Powerpoint

Jacques Barzun, in his cultural history "From Dawn to Decadence," defines “Mannerism” as the downward curve of artistic intensity in which perfection increases as inspiration decreases. Thus, “perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest art.”

Perfection is not a necessary characteristic of the greatest Powerpoint presentation either. But, as in every creative endeavor, a perceived intensity born out of inspiration is what ultimately separates the good from the bad.

Powerpoint’s supremely reductive nature makes it very difficult to use effectively. To me, the goal of a tool like this should be to organize information in a way that is compelling, clear and substantial. Instead, what I most often see is platitudinous regurgitation in the form of colored shapes, arrows and lists. It may be that we can do better, but I think this tool is simply overused, or is used as a replacement for creativity rather than as a vehicle for it.

Truth, Maturity and Art

"Like many of the people I had read about, I set out on a long journey to find truth and beauty. As usual, the road led straight back to the beginning: home, country roads, the sun setting through the woods."
--Joyce Sutphen, poet

“Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.”
--Edith Wharton, writer