tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31749689972458616232024-03-18T05:47:26.346-04:00Missives from the Art WorldGerald StiebelGerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comBlogger751125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-61488088357777246312024-03-17T13:54:00.003-04:002024-03-17T13:54:46.385-04:00Coast to Coast to CoastIf you have followed my Missives for a while, you know that we collect Native American Art, the vast majority of the pieces being Hopi with a fair number of others from Pueblos in the Southwest. Needless, to say there is Native American art from many other areas. “Coast to Coast to Coast; Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection” currently on view at the Albuquerque Museum presents particularly striking examples. The title is not a misprint, for this exhibition looks at both historic and contemporary Indigenous art from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic coasts.<br /><br />The source of the art in this show is a museum that was started by private collectors, photographer Robert McMichael, and his wife, Signe. They started collecting Canadian art in 1952 and in 1965 donated not only 194 paintings but also their house to the province of Ontario. At first, the McMichael’s continued to live there as unpaid curators and open by appointment and to the public on Sundays. Over the years both the building space and collections grew into many different areas of Canadian and Indigenous art ...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjvGPotuBebO3hemSs-jj9FVfsN-84Lb7XQzWnw0ICOAfcwU5fZAiyjLovWBFcOvPox8qz0fvv0IBHcZRj4DTWsS9oOyxvz4Fmxf4PPWfcLxi7-FU1-rjNC8nA4sC7xrDN71Y-BkUUR56rdSlWgOragYcYYUutPN4bJU2gqJbcg2fMvCRsPxgYU1pezI/s1251/McMichael%20Museum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="1251" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjvGPotuBebO3hemSs-jj9FVfsN-84Lb7XQzWnw0ICOAfcwU5fZAiyjLovWBFcOvPox8qz0fvv0IBHcZRj4DTWsS9oOyxvz4Fmxf4PPWfcLxi7-FU1-rjNC8nA4sC7xrDN71Y-BkUUR56rdSlWgOragYcYYUutPN4bJU2gqJbcg2fMvCRsPxgYU1pezI/s320/McMichael%20Museum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />The exhibition is absolutely stunning with works of art in many media. There is so much to draw from that I am illustrating just a few of my favorite things. <br /><br />One of the first to greet you is a painting by Kent Monkman, Cree, “Wedding at Sodom”, 2017. Here the artist focuses on the allegory of the American frontier to speak about transgender and gender nonconformity at the forefront of contemporary culture.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmqKcEtUXQ9Kykb2MW01VUY2_jcz_cka6SlcAKYWxzrpMr9yOLUHkYSqggl_dXAnNYupg1cE_bhzW5Fjedx3tcPp0mAecGYSVHzed9kCnzB4nxtJuMp1hZvmS-EqGa3wfT71G9aqfX7IOiUTK2uWcTh8F_X7y2TZtJ1hPsJeAUBjPXzxvYKF-jPsItPU/s2258/Monkman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1460" data-original-width="2258" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmqKcEtUXQ9Kykb2MW01VUY2_jcz_cka6SlcAKYWxzrpMr9yOLUHkYSqggl_dXAnNYupg1cE_bhzW5Fjedx3tcPp0mAecGYSVHzed9kCnzB4nxtJuMp1hZvmS-EqGa3wfT71G9aqfX7IOiUTK2uWcTh8F_X7y2TZtJ1hPsJeAUBjPXzxvYKF-jPsItPU/s320/Monkman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />One of the earliest pieces in the show is a Raven Rattle created around 1860. Good that it was protected in a vitrine because I was so tempted to make off with it.😎. It is attributed to Albert Edward Edenshaw, Haida, because of its similarity to a similar piece attributed to the artist in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The label tells us that “This reclining bear figure usually signifies a shaman in the process of transformation from human into an animal form. It denotes the connected tongues of the transfer of esoteric knowledge between the animal and human spirit worlds.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8bT5DAeIB7Lvd0NYf_q_JOZ9cQZANHBa1p0rwDW3BFAPSyck2bPc4KYS4ZoTcev3yaKwhmpKJrtkzoZFgyk03AAyEYiqh16J4t2pBmEhnk-tqS5S8s2FVfRsgShHB2HD0-qOmXhy-g1mGko6W6-DiFLYhLHyNr-AWzc_6Uz6p8hgmM8jinYkOxVKHUxM/s4032/Rattle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8bT5DAeIB7Lvd0NYf_q_JOZ9cQZANHBa1p0rwDW3BFAPSyck2bPc4KYS4ZoTcev3yaKwhmpKJrtkzoZFgyk03AAyEYiqh16J4t2pBmEhnk-tqS5S8s2FVfRsgShHB2HD0-qOmXhy-g1mGko6W6-DiFLYhLHyNr-AWzc_6Uz6p8hgmM8jinYkOxVKHUxM/s320/Rattle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I am far from an expert, but this Transformation Mask made by Art Thompson in 2002 is the greatest I have ever seen. It was made for trade but recalls a ceremony in which one being can suddenly be transformed into another. The label informs that it illustrates a popular story in Coast Salish culture, “Here the whale on the exterior of the mask opens to reveal Pook-Ubs, the spirit of a drowned sailor who has been eaten by the whale”.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE1PRsM_21CJ5WO-LLbLylrs_k2Lnk0lP3l1nTCilaK1cx3VrBzRtdZTS0Sl1E3s3Lb2Nw46pUxB5UuFlv7XkuCZBGxogMbbfueeP47DZSzCeHUjzsug56M1fTOO6mv-lsDkipF7BPnAUsrRJ4Zoks0aT9t3nOJAFQoLDeCWUUnOx9SCOpKy9BsnuISU/s4032/Tranformation%20Mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigE1PRsM_21CJ5WO-LLbLylrs_k2Lnk0lP3l1nTCilaK1cx3VrBzRtdZTS0Sl1E3s3Lb2Nw46pUxB5UuFlv7XkuCZBGxogMbbfueeP47DZSzCeHUjzsug56M1fTOO6mv-lsDkipF7BPnAUsrRJ4Zoks0aT9t3nOJAFQoLDeCWUUnOx9SCOpKy9BsnuISU/s320/Tranformation%20Mask.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Button blankets are always fascinating and, as far as I know, it is a unique art of the Pacific Northwest. Here is one by Jut-Ke-Nay, Haida, in 1997 called “Legend of the Golden Spruce”. This button blanket is part of a series about a 300-year-old tree of special significance to the Haida which was cut down by a non-indigenous logger in that year.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlwcFDQspTqQgpYLQsYm2TDPj93sYuhyOfxcClwP4DUwK5OffUGL6OAKOPb05Y0M0lttB5lcSUzkx-DXTqJK9iVigpP81x0pgYvgaAvcfo4zOHQA99HP7iiT9ip3SthyphenhyphenltvsyTM1ef2lQm5FZtUfHzOD3EBgk3bWNUfKHMtar_NeCYlmDa1LwnEntP3Q/s4032/Button%20Blanket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlwcFDQspTqQgpYLQsYm2TDPj93sYuhyOfxcClwP4DUwK5OffUGL6OAKOPb05Y0M0lttB5lcSUzkx-DXTqJK9iVigpP81x0pgYvgaAvcfo4zOHQA99HP7iiT9ip3SthyphenhyphenltvsyTM1ef2lQm5FZtUfHzOD3EBgk3bWNUfKHMtar_NeCYlmDa1LwnEntP3Q/s320/Button%20Blanket.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br /> “Iceberg Ice” is by Timootee (Tim) Pitsiulak, a skilled Inuit hunter as well as an artist. Unfortunately, he died the year after creating his masterpiece in 2015. He was a keen observer, and this is clearly a commentary on climate change in our world today. The large-scale image is created entirely with colored pencil on paper.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmZx0wcg3oRJDVsNBt3Gw7xnAvEHLn2jhuCE-aUyEqpsIBXiquTuwdOt5Z2qOdwOSUy0niPYrn5CQeK7F7ovCPmSZ3Cj2e7_NqRXHRtkulvjbQOmQyalM4cUu9Mi4Lh-k-gg7x887c6zYamlIKYqi5-lIcP2tTvPSmqhenMPyDib-O8UA-Wek_kRPOpqU/s4032/Iceberg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmZx0wcg3oRJDVsNBt3Gw7xnAvEHLn2jhuCE-aUyEqpsIBXiquTuwdOt5Z2qOdwOSUy0niPYrn5CQeK7F7ovCPmSZ3Cj2e7_NqRXHRtkulvjbQOmQyalM4cUu9Mi4Lh-k-gg7x887c6zYamlIKYqi5-lIcP2tTvPSmqhenMPyDib-O8UA-Wek_kRPOpqU/s320/Iceberg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Finally, there are three stunning masks made in 2005 by the artist Henry Speck, Jr. hereditary chief of the Tlowitsis people. “They evoke 3 stages of transformation of the Hamat’sa Raven, a great cannibal bird that came from the north and would scoop people up and take them away”. Speck danced these masks in various villages in Alert Bay. The dance occurred at important occasions such as weddings when loved ones were lost, and at naming ceremonies.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4qnUpsvNUvCfOnq0DbE5XamQc6OuN-nJWsVCHbkOleXxXYwwjqpO0HKirnNvtXVr874f1lCOkzXhbtr_1xq0CEDMDibrwP08-3a7tpdrft-BPqb8RQY5rK7zpw29lbUHed0mdUsa5z39sG-GwB3CMmbQVXFYiyHFmVWTprbxC94o0kW-P_Mch9vS2Bec/s4032/Crooked%20Beak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4qnUpsvNUvCfOnq0DbE5XamQc6OuN-nJWsVCHbkOleXxXYwwjqpO0HKirnNvtXVr874f1lCOkzXhbtr_1xq0CEDMDibrwP08-3a7tpdrft-BPqb8RQY5rK7zpw29lbUHed0mdUsa5z39sG-GwB3CMmbQVXFYiyHFmVWTprbxC94o0kW-P_Mch9vS2Bec/s320/Crooked%20Beak.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />You have one month left to see “Coast to Coast to Coast” and pick your own favorites. I urge you to make an effort to get to the Albuquerque Museum before the show closes on April 21, 2024.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-34282458767570510982024-03-10T16:41:00.006-04:002024-03-10T16:41:43.003-04:00The Art of Nazi Propaganda PostersNow that our country seems hell-bent on achieving a right-wing Maga autocracy, I have become obsessed with the comparison to 1930s Germany. The last members of my immediate family left their homeland after Kristallnacht, the first organized Nazi violence against all Jews, in contrast to their previous individual acts. On a single night, November 10, 1938, nearly 8,000 Jewish-owned businesses, schools, hospitals, and homes were destroyed.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXUmAkFziD0Slo4mGSHFZGf5QVReHpsTE2yaplK952RFomKv-uq59qviC8f23BRQcKjYVDpYenpyeUDib4iGVEaLc_U9xPyUxocFSpdhY6Rh_3DH1TYxkNwDc1WTUCs1xLzSaA9vLxy_oiJcRqtH4dctH7ou9XQK39ty23TjEPj-T42vzDRsWUwLsldA4/s764/Kristallnacht.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="550" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXUmAkFziD0Slo4mGSHFZGf5QVReHpsTE2yaplK952RFomKv-uq59qviC8f23BRQcKjYVDpYenpyeUDib4iGVEaLc_U9xPyUxocFSpdhY6Rh_3DH1TYxkNwDc1WTUCs1xLzSaA9vLxy_oiJcRqtH4dctH7ou9XQK39ty23TjEPj-T42vzDRsWUwLsldA4/s320/Kristallnacht.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><div> <br />My parents had already left in 1934. The only explanation I received from my father was that when he was thrown out of University in Munich in 1933 he knew he wasn’t wanted. When I finally decided to face it and learn still more about Germany in the 1930s, one of my sources was a book called, “The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic”, written by Benjamin Carter Hett in 2018.<br /><br />Nazi was a derogatory German term for backward peasants that was applied to the extreme right-wing National Socialist German Workers Party. In the book, Hett brings up an interesting subject that I had never thought much about before. Propaganda was an important component in Hitler’s rise to power in the second half of the 1920s and the early 1930s. <br /><br />The Nazi propaganda machine led by Joseph Goebbels, who became Reich Minister of Propaganda in 1933, was sending out clear messages addressing the German people's fear of uncertainty and instability with the Great Depression, and runaway inflation.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGbZ5yUGCH6NNQuu2xh3UTc6rvboKAzNd4zzw86eZCisoy1P4k4YqMHPMElzfLaGAWTge7X4fT1bLinvIJExo2IwnJf-zIXVyC4X_C1fd5eXhVFHoj5CM_ZSCdCZig5t5PHZYcIzACFSsykk0bHjeCggpJ9wIOuxp_WH5GcrFUNHtjG20Iqxs3-eqIRUo/s1234/Our%20Last%20Hope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1234" data-original-width="850" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGbZ5yUGCH6NNQuu2xh3UTc6rvboKAzNd4zzw86eZCisoy1P4k4YqMHPMElzfLaGAWTge7X4fT1bLinvIJExo2IwnJf-zIXVyC4X_C1fd5eXhVFHoj5CM_ZSCdCZig5t5PHZYcIzACFSsykk0bHjeCggpJ9wIOuxp_WH5GcrFUNHtjG20Iqxs3-eqIRUo/s320/Our%20Last%20Hope.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><div><br />Much of this focused on Communists and Jews as enemies of the German people. Although Goebbels did not have television, or the internet (or Russian interference) he made use of the modern media of the time such as films and radio, as well as traditional tools of newspapers and art in the form of posters. The dual enemy is personified in one example, “The Eternal Jew”.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnQoKo0bAIRuBE8C-sd1HG4mWTgJ0UPXhyphenhyphenv5UHXRAayUTZCzjf3ji_erjuDZHVKFq7DAkVTf0c-4W5gHkdkz4_X3X94G-8Ds5l3UqcOMudNro13cA3uWz0m43QH_sUV1UVfjOrWG51ejLSeq345Y0mzS-PWIYYHQybAoUZ6UT7u8gka-i2oBKreLzkeU/s1610/The%20Eternal%20Jew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1610" data-original-width="1136" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSnQoKo0bAIRuBE8C-sd1HG4mWTgJ0UPXhyphenhyphenv5UHXRAayUTZCzjf3ji_erjuDZHVKFq7DAkVTf0c-4W5gHkdkz4_X3X94G-8Ds5l3UqcOMudNro13cA3uWz0m43QH_sUV1UVfjOrWG51ejLSeq345Y0mzS-PWIYYHQybAoUZ6UT7u8gka-i2oBKreLzkeU/s320/The%20Eternal%20Jew.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><div><br />The poster showing a worker demolishing the Saxon Parliament Building which bears the label “International Finance” conveyed how the Nazi leader could solve Germany’s economic distress, which was exacerbated by the reparations that had to be paid under the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRAK51BRPlL3G3S3nxrD83jykQQL2XOgKUW6DPbipGTJrycyX4MTbZcn7zmqc1AAd3EAeNgyHXQ1O83CqY_ndNDQuE3urSpVt7rPMV-yP9EAIQzsOtRx2S1PQehTYGu59xightn_J-nyZvKYKCGFWakjsc-IHeCtuzwVQ7nmq5z5TgyQnZ5JhEt9NoWo/s1274/Demolishing%20the%20Parliament.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="878" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRAK51BRPlL3G3S3nxrD83jykQQL2XOgKUW6DPbipGTJrycyX4MTbZcn7zmqc1AAd3EAeNgyHXQ1O83CqY_ndNDQuE3urSpVt7rPMV-yP9EAIQzsOtRx2S1PQehTYGu59xightn_J-nyZvKYKCGFWakjsc-IHeCtuzwVQ7nmq5z5TgyQnZ5JhEt9NoWo/s320/Demolishing%20the%20Parliament.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br />This image of Hitler before a host of followers became known as ‘The Hitler Myth’. After all, he was only a private first class in WWI and was never promoted to sergeant because his senior officer did not think he could lead! The text reads “YES, Führer we are Following You”.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDilbps5uPFH-Thwd8DaYluoU6vskOWX-XoApS3Q6y3LhNRA_9S-2bqOo87q4EAxjkYp78Z1Ql1yOjehyxSrwW4CN53h5dd-v57wjWg0Ewba8gsMSlTrFt5FdSBQIBbMBF3uRJnbbxPy41VRR15dPxyXYN5Zg-aMzHM6DBZW9ZA2_aSSThtoRaGs7_OAU/s1332/Yes,%20Fuhrer%20we%20are%20following%20you.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1332" data-original-width="956" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDilbps5uPFH-Thwd8DaYluoU6vskOWX-XoApS3Q6y3LhNRA_9S-2bqOo87q4EAxjkYp78Z1Ql1yOjehyxSrwW4CN53h5dd-v57wjWg0Ewba8gsMSlTrFt5FdSBQIBbMBF3uRJnbbxPy41VRR15dPxyXYN5Zg-aMzHM6DBZW9ZA2_aSSThtoRaGs7_OAU/s320/Yes,%20Fuhrer%20we%20are%20following%20you.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><br />Most of my readers will have heard of the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich in 1937 ...<div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=degenerate+art">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/search?q=degenerate+art</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>What I did not know about, though it makes perfect sense, was that there was also a list of prohibited music. The banned composers were usually of African and Jewish descent but there was other music also proscribed.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zEon-M0HARpau_RAYX-jm5SrFEsHWWPpz3BQ6RDs8K2ZYmw-bzZ7eng51Mi1ckQjGhObZ3U8QCoAbSCx8Rui7hKyzhFUk9oRARUjyJR_vYgKijhnBhn3Jj651JTurJrtokcshxu2ntGh_6V03W6ktNwNBFfSOow2xApjpeh4_b0qQHK2Boku2LhWaIg/s1854/Degenerate%20Music%20and%20Art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1166" data-original-width="1854" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zEon-M0HARpau_RAYX-jm5SrFEsHWWPpz3BQ6RDs8K2ZYmw-bzZ7eng51Mi1ckQjGhObZ3U8QCoAbSCx8Rui7hKyzhFUk9oRARUjyJR_vYgKijhnBhn3Jj651JTurJrtokcshxu2ntGh_6V03W6ktNwNBFfSOow2xApjpeh4_b0qQHK2Boku2LhWaIg/s320/Degenerate%20Music%20and%20Art.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Here is the poster for the 1935 Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of Will”, commissioned by Hitler and directed and produced by Leni Riefenstahl. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRX_3R777_CkfBPCgfkrpeDXlXDld5Nd3BY6rBbiA83OHXy42N0ZYeUu6nCX3oMRkXvLkpt-Kkmo6NWSefhq83IVBJmAlzLbjvzhIrF4p4SIymn6Z_4IjPf2rYcTALetRYIeSL1mwTSpL9dTGv3YtTT7rcD4CmMNfJqYtkRhnti_VmpXOuEYQxvsju-d0/s1214/Triumph%20of%20Will.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1214" data-original-width="632" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRX_3R777_CkfBPCgfkrpeDXlXDld5Nd3BY6rBbiA83OHXy42N0ZYeUu6nCX3oMRkXvLkpt-Kkmo6NWSefhq83IVBJmAlzLbjvzhIrF4p4SIymn6Z_4IjPf2rYcTALetRYIeSL1mwTSpL9dTGv3YtTT7rcD4CmMNfJqYtkRhnti_VmpXOuEYQxvsju-d0/s320/Triumph%20of%20Will.jpg" width="167" /></a></div><br />The striking graphic art of many of the Nazi posters made them as effective as they were meant to be. As I have written before, all art is political, and history proves that it can provide a powerful assist on the road to disaster.<br /> </div><div><br /></div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-8856462550124965682024-03-03T16:43:00.000-05:002024-03-03T16:43:00.656-05:00 Marcus AmermanMy wife, the curator, would tell you that a good exhibition will tell you a story. I would say a good exhibition is one you enjoy. We have seen one that does both so I would qualify it as a success.<br /><br />The exhibition is called “Pathfinder: 40 Years of Marcus Amerman” and you will find it at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am on the Wheelwright Board of Directors. However, I have been visiting the Museum for the past 30-plus years before joining the Board two years ago and this is one of the best shows I have ever seen there.<br /><br />Marcus Amerman (1959-) is a multidisciplinary artist of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma. He is known as a bead artist, glass artist, painter, fashion designer, and performance artist. Amerman received a BA in Fine Art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, with additional art study at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He also had a residency at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Here is Amerman at the opening of his exhibition.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKy8le8emM_MgvnIsbu-0JR3MltZmNT80-uzKIVo1C2f3bKB4zDDREbdyTZE6-iDwRGX509zVhyrCJR8jiYAX3wNRsQjZXi2HKHbRZGqUigsqy09O0kMvUxr7d7GQDII1wlfnZjm8WJV1XfXxf7jeL_WcJQj2gJ-6dZJCTMxMEJCbJy8li5DrtoQX8zU/s4032/Marcus%20at%20Opening.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKy8le8emM_MgvnIsbu-0JR3MltZmNT80-uzKIVo1C2f3bKB4zDDREbdyTZE6-iDwRGX509zVhyrCJR8jiYAX3wNRsQjZXi2HKHbRZGqUigsqy09O0kMvUxr7d7GQDII1wlfnZjm8WJV1XfXxf7jeL_WcJQj2gJ-6dZJCTMxMEJCbJy8li5DrtoQX8zU/s320/Marcus%20at%20Opening.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>He learned at the early age of 10 how to create art with beads from his aunt. Since his bracelets are sold commercially, he is best known in that category and has been referred to as a "photobeadalist". For more of my commentary on beading ... <div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2017/06/beads-universe-of-meaning.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2017/06/beads-universe-of-meaning.html</a><br /><br />Amerman has mastered the technique to the point of creating true portraits where the subjects are clearly recognizable. To illustrate the point here is an image of Buffalo Bill standing with a group of eight Native Americans. They are identifiable leaders of the Crow and Pawnee Nations. Amerman copied an 1866 photograph using 120,000 beads in 120 different colors! Here is Amerman’s work and the original photograph. He said in a video that accompanies the exhibition that “it is said that the photo steals the soul of the Indian and I believe my beading steals it back”.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9wyji32r2qS-WgNk8QY8wjNF7ojtdyOqy-0SpH8WaP-c4C8x4sAuY371h_tfP_oOAhXpTLRaJCN1ghsdCb3nI_8JlU94wLKT6-PwZknPm9nzE276oQhH1m2cETHcWNVpKSpZ8cVDbak83OrWe3Mm-T5lwm3DGbUXlxN2yERmcM0klT4HmANm6DwO1fk/s3851/Buffalo%20Bill%20Beaded%20work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2287" data-original-width="3851" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9wyji32r2qS-WgNk8QY8wjNF7ojtdyOqy-0SpH8WaP-c4C8x4sAuY371h_tfP_oOAhXpTLRaJCN1ghsdCb3nI_8JlU94wLKT6-PwZknPm9nzE276oQhH1m2cETHcWNVpKSpZ8cVDbak83OrWe3Mm-T5lwm3DGbUXlxN2yERmcM0klT4HmANm6DwO1fk/s320/Buffalo%20Bill%20Beaded%20work.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH1FtMKzLcsUICncI74MxDuHOK5HGGbhF1clr2ikQNJc7l4u-lb7qWDMmn3H78LwZb8qyvpiDscIa6PTEpNghZUIFDyqQu_p0l2cIcmpamsKplAGSUcI8riL27TJxzGQC7uiQfUuLgW2evmaJAbscKt2j5QEvdF4q_zUwmt8zlv_SCzBYehPCJe-s2ld4/s1010/Buffalo%20Bill%20Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1010" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH1FtMKzLcsUICncI74MxDuHOK5HGGbhF1clr2ikQNJc7l4u-lb7qWDMmn3H78LwZb8qyvpiDscIa6PTEpNghZUIFDyqQu_p0l2cIcmpamsKplAGSUcI8riL27TJxzGQC7uiQfUuLgW2evmaJAbscKt2j5QEvdF4q_zUwmt8zlv_SCzBYehPCJe-s2ld4/s320/Buffalo%20Bill%20Photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>For this exhibition, the Museum commissioned Amerman to create an image specific to the Wheelwright. He used historic photographs of the Museum’s co-founder, the Navaho artist and medicine man Hastiin Klah. In the lower half, he depicted the figure of Klah before the Museum building that he did not live to see, while in the upper field, he abstracted Klah’s features in the searchlight beams of the opening celebration.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eIAULsAIhcgzwRyzRxub_QV4h5Ns9XpbpZlcA7Zf_z1wkB-duRBUTXocfmKum2JM2W9cWgOXao4nFOy3oOdFitGob1VNCwP673gc1q2Cbf97HQqT9XbSut9X_6Rw1g35gWGKhMWlRlZGW7bt4HFPgIoHsTJ28iJ-JUsqMIjzKNjBGa01arDa9X6Z5-g/s3331/Hastiin%20Klah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3331" data-original-width="2187" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eIAULsAIhcgzwRyzRxub_QV4h5Ns9XpbpZlcA7Zf_z1wkB-duRBUTXocfmKum2JM2W9cWgOXao4nFOy3oOdFitGob1VNCwP673gc1q2Cbf97HQqT9XbSut9X_6Rw1g35gWGKhMWlRlZGW7bt4HFPgIoHsTJ28iJ-JUsqMIjzKNjBGa01arDa9X6Z5-g/s320/Hastiin%20Klah.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje0i11R-LCr3mDaWm97ssKtUlo7EnU_Mvtt9EjOLeqpzyY3aOoVFWaZISICWcXLitXhMCmWE4V1F_Z7xftW99dmNLPd21mtGmhHloaA_mWHhMthcHIH6gmxeOnrFGbU2IWcNGHKtOS1W3DjKMoopAbOgJ6jChfjGeFezaU_vowulK2rsU_-sVyGPBH3aE/s1598/%20Aerial%20Image%20Wheelwright.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1598" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje0i11R-LCr3mDaWm97ssKtUlo7EnU_Mvtt9EjOLeqpzyY3aOoVFWaZISICWcXLitXhMCmWE4V1F_Z7xftW99dmNLPd21mtGmhHloaA_mWHhMthcHIH6gmxeOnrFGbU2IWcNGHKtOS1W3DjKMoopAbOgJ6jChfjGeFezaU_vowulK2rsU_-sVyGPBH3aE/s320/%20Aerial%20Image%20Wheelwright.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Amerman has a wonderful sense of humor. His college roommate told us that he would play practical jokes and when his victims chased him into his dorm room they would find no one there because he had figured out how to “hide behind a wall”. <br /><br />He often assumes the guise of his alter ego, Buffalo Man. In the photographic parody by Cara Romero, “The Last Indian Market”, he is posed at the center of other Indian artists participating in the Market. A life-size figure of in the outfit and mask he fashioned for his Buffalo Man stands In the Wheelwright show. He created the character around 2002 and in 2008 is quoted as saying, “Beadwork is my gun, painting is my bow and arrow, fashion is my lance and installation is my coup stick”.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP84AfkRHLBnxh9EYcRIqhnkVHN5eHsPhGJgyB8BqQXF0oNUbjmFzJD9eV3mhFBI_HL33MIYzqNTPmP7zYu4fQ3Q_md182dMv7TzYaTnYWMeNokYq_1TW9gagfvbl4rjAv61vdPeakVSF1H-hHbIi9VZo1wHk-oychVZMZkDmRhFUS4aalagIhcn35QUw/s1228/Last%20Indian%20Market.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="1228" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP84AfkRHLBnxh9EYcRIqhnkVHN5eHsPhGJgyB8BqQXF0oNUbjmFzJD9eV3mhFBI_HL33MIYzqNTPmP7zYu4fQ3Q_md182dMv7TzYaTnYWMeNokYq_1TW9gagfvbl4rjAv61vdPeakVSF1H-hHbIi9VZo1wHk-oychVZMZkDmRhFUS4aalagIhcn35QUw/s320/Last%20Indian%20Market.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yAX5BF-qtFS3agQdP1Ru-J1yvPc8mdlWjGvzUEQGMgIuaYFfaTkn43rPAvRmogNWs0IvcdAJaz_IxPNiljsq56RV-IzaCUo1LKLx32VlgmlBzxYGkMfDNSFWJZPa2q9wK0mVlaS3sDwe4y0HnLrRufewXdKARkFcc0Shf0WvvI89RP2kaK6hXZ5EZdQ/s4032/Buffalo%20Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2yAX5BF-qtFS3agQdP1Ru-J1yvPc8mdlWjGvzUEQGMgIuaYFfaTkn43rPAvRmogNWs0IvcdAJaz_IxPNiljsq56RV-IzaCUo1LKLx32VlgmlBzxYGkMfDNSFWJZPa2q9wK0mVlaS3sDwe4y0HnLrRufewXdKARkFcc0Shf0WvvI89RP2kaK6hXZ5EZdQ/s320/Buffalo%20Man.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />Amerman can’t stop himself from turning the most mundane objects into works of art. Here is one of his hubcap shields. When we were invited to his studio/residence we saw the profusion of objects he hordes for use in one or another of his various creations.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqzW2m7VWBn_5rPmjuw0cakgEdOBQmxKdfTi7Eo4PfTXUTonBo71HZiuOx1BuGcXa4IZWiICyJ0RbIEuKHDBXzxENqUu_Uxrto0T6nhK3Li0-af6NlD1QattibilOQ5D_XOGm27DR5ma9KyUZouCqTeuwV-pYGJ5nn5FtCeShwe4Zv6l69pP4hlVqeVE/s4032/Hubcap%20Shield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqzW2m7VWBn_5rPmjuw0cakgEdOBQmxKdfTi7Eo4PfTXUTonBo71HZiuOx1BuGcXa4IZWiICyJ0RbIEuKHDBXzxENqUu_Uxrto0T6nhK3Li0-af6NlD1QattibilOQ5D_XOGm27DR5ma9KyUZouCqTeuwV-pYGJ5nn5FtCeShwe4Zv6l69pP4hlVqeVE/s320/Hubcap%20Shield.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />He has said that he enjoys painting the most and finds it the most satisfying. Here are two images, before and after, where no explanation is necessary. Ameriman’s moving vision of 9/11 in two paintings that come at the end of the show.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9PoOuRX11VLdQHPAS4-yIkzj2Ro-xbmhKii44tJ5F-d3BelrYwJw2JTDgp_tA_p3zI7iJKQiN5TA_Wuayy7nGQwdLFsYKaqrl6aHFC9FfmSo_uuX8vDE7I3CT4NZ0p992Ny0J5DFOfLCOSTml8BGZ8ouPgERYER4hM_g7KuatMgpwAw4G2h8jFcu2dI/s3602/9_11%20A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3602" data-original-width="2727" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb9PoOuRX11VLdQHPAS4-yIkzj2Ro-xbmhKii44tJ5F-d3BelrYwJw2JTDgp_tA_p3zI7iJKQiN5TA_Wuayy7nGQwdLFsYKaqrl6aHFC9FfmSo_uuX8vDE7I3CT4NZ0p992Ny0J5DFOfLCOSTml8BGZ8ouPgERYER4hM_g7KuatMgpwAw4G2h8jFcu2dI/s320/9_11%20A.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1aXg-j-NXwdJoXTTU83sS-OSl3s1K27ERNfR9U9H2_NwFbL1ty6bokVYYi-YMLVsdXAwagw1gNQiNcubUGyw0zA5FG_I1mWB-JltluUiqKov4cAnvHgBgf339W_GCG56oCRv7gXfquxAluHrufGKHM38sIJSfPXNAAQA1LGXluysS_Q_RGwOeQ4QKsU4/s3238/9_11%20B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3238" data-original-width="2656" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1aXg-j-NXwdJoXTTU83sS-OSl3s1K27ERNfR9U9H2_NwFbL1ty6bokVYYi-YMLVsdXAwagw1gNQiNcubUGyw0zA5FG_I1mWB-JltluUiqKov4cAnvHgBgf339W_GCG56oCRv7gXfquxAluHrufGKHM38sIJSfPXNAAQA1LGXluysS_Q_RGwOeQ4QKsU4/s320/9_11%20B.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-79060478189815427142024-02-25T16:28:00.000-05:002024-02-25T16:28:19.393-05:00Art at Risk in MuseumsNo question that theft is a risk to art in a museum. Just put the word ‘theft’ in the search engine on the Missives’ site and you will find a lot of articles on both theft from outsiders and staff as well.<br /><br />In recent times we have the protesters who have decided that the best way to get attention is to splatter soup or paint on a famous work of art. These pieces are usually protected behind glass so the damage to the actual work of art is minimal … but not necessarily.<br /><br />Vandalism isn’t new and a half century ago two great masterpieces were vandalized. In 1972 an unemployed geologist took a hammer to Michelangelo’s Pieta, and in 1975 Rembrandt’s Night Watch was slashed by a man who said he was sent by the Lord. (Image of the Pieta and then Rembrandt)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6GMlkHMUA7iXT3gwwiVQU7zX6myhLe0Zo5o5Wq1MK4cs99R0kCKi1yVnHBh6x-wc26IL1jBDLp10Qszm__Xn62TGYl_3MBawxnsje4anBr0nOMlst1W1bF0EA4oTrbZmhuxKQ2dvz-RXaaBUuEn8lo-PRYhNxxVm0S-CwyrVzKTKZ9QQ-ZDZ4InvNJnA/s1796/Pieta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="1796" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6GMlkHMUA7iXT3gwwiVQU7zX6myhLe0Zo5o5Wq1MK4cs99R0kCKi1yVnHBh6x-wc26IL1jBDLp10Qszm__Xn62TGYl_3MBawxnsje4anBr0nOMlst1W1bF0EA4oTrbZmhuxKQ2dvz-RXaaBUuEn8lo-PRYhNxxVm0S-CwyrVzKTKZ9QQ-ZDZ4InvNJnA/s320/Pieta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrucMZicVKYwxEpgbmFCZpXciSdtZTyKvBnjxRQz39bb5Wm5Pr2aNhuBCnfy7MRm_4M7SUpy9dgh-FBM0guAUdqyeNIS4AtohFq3u7lEaVMbXDP9cfv8nKsGuEywn2GAKxKgjLSHGYYTGLknFN4g62lisvC0q7A0DVEe1imfpsu5kVDNvH2FloUh1QXU/s1760/Rembrandt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1244" data-original-width="1760" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrucMZicVKYwxEpgbmFCZpXciSdtZTyKvBnjxRQz39bb5Wm5Pr2aNhuBCnfy7MRm_4M7SUpy9dgh-FBM0guAUdqyeNIS4AtohFq3u7lEaVMbXDP9cfv8nKsGuEywn2GAKxKgjLSHGYYTGLknFN4g62lisvC0q7A0DVEe1imfpsu5kVDNvH2FloUh1QXU/s320/Rembrandt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Serious damage can occur without vandalism. In 2002 the pedestal holding a life-size statue of Adam carved by Tullio Lombardo (1455-1532), an important Renaissance sculpture given pride of place in the Metropolitan Museum, collapsed. The accident happened after hours, and security cameras recorded that there was no human interference. The marble fell and broke into so many fragments that 12 years of restoration work were necessary for the sculpture to be put together again and go on view. To learn more: <br /><br /><a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/exhibitions/2014/journal49_riccardelli_pp048-116.pdf">https://www.metmuseum.org/-/media/files/exhibitions/2014/journal49_riccardelli_pp048-116.pdf</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIg3yGX_NJcqQBygVhff_rhx4InhZa-zJjJoWzDfuVe6CYVnoELVMb_s1yQpDp1km9JuGDBtv-cQ7QLLfdMQ2eLbkjyozT5NN_2lmVR6JI0djn0lWKX3e82ZMv2aT5twu-DmIp7wmcR5ZdI3ytW6KObOGTePjxFMzMwIHRLM8Kl99BaFml6Zxmf5xqrI/s1462/David.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1462" data-original-width="1258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXIg3yGX_NJcqQBygVhff_rhx4InhZa-zJjJoWzDfuVe6CYVnoELVMb_s1yQpDp1km9JuGDBtv-cQ7QLLfdMQ2eLbkjyozT5NN_2lmVR6JI0djn0lWKX3e82ZMv2aT5twu-DmIp7wmcR5ZdI3ytW6KObOGTePjxFMzMwIHRLM8Kl99BaFml6Zxmf5xqrI/s320/David.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>When there are losses, you can always count on an insurance company waiting in the wings and this is where my idea for this Missive originated. In an article on Artnet on February 14, 2024 Jamie Valentino cited the report of Hiscox, a well-known insurance company in the art world that “an unexpected danger is keeping art museum on high alert”, and termed it a “pandemic”. Not men with guns and ski masks but rather the museum visitors taking selfies!<br /><br />In 2022 The Spanish press reported an example of the newest hazard: an Italian tourist tripped while attempting to take a selfie in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. As she fell she grabbed hold of a piece of the wallpaper which was part of a Ballet set done in 1933 by Alberto Sånchez.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLg5h7UO5V22mjB_oGZ8acUed8lGdfmZ8FsEpEJGPJoR6_NgbZh1YjKJIzMvsyhYM6JKN6F4Ap894gw5AgdlPEx7pLw_BRi4ENajEPQaVsGFsxT6hwy_FNNucP2d8BV6J0Wt7r89jom0DUCIEnetaxPocTqJzy24e92X7BJAMFmYPv5XSaIcQfWR2WeZk/s1568/Ballet%20Set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="926" data-original-width="1568" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLg5h7UO5V22mjB_oGZ8acUed8lGdfmZ8FsEpEJGPJoR6_NgbZh1YjKJIzMvsyhYM6JKN6F4Ap894gw5AgdlPEx7pLw_BRi4ENajEPQaVsGFsxT6hwy_FNNucP2d8BV6J0Wt7r89jom0DUCIEnetaxPocTqJzy24e92X7BJAMFmYPv5XSaIcQfWR2WeZk/s320/Ballet%20Set.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>The British Museum is just one of the many institutions around the world that are taking note by including in its official Visitor Regulations “The use of ‘selfie sticks’ (or similar devices) is not permitted within the Museum.”<br /><br />In Hyperallergic Sara Rose Sharp reported the advice of Laura Doyle, senior vice president of Fine Art at the Chubb insurance company, that private collectors who lend pieces to museums should ask about how objects will be displayed and protected. “We also recommend that protective glazing (glass or plexi covering a work) be added in some cases to help prevent accidental surface damage, such as from selfie sticks and other similar items,” <br /><br />The illustration below for the Hyperallergic article that cites “visitors more focused on stunting for the ‘gram than having an ecstatic art experience” is captioned "God, please, can't you see I'm busy right now?"<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD6-b07bRfRfK7s67wEJwAOgClVRVGZic7mzC73Bb6k5YreMW0OZXyiRDwrI_bnpUM-SSgLZX9kBDSXJSohEW1FJTgnQyfTKR9EggcEXoQNm0ciVdIFTdDytKRKOmT84NqfhuP2AjIxRckySEj_dBboEPlK_x_371kC4AkrScZFn0_WkTteAfZdfivPbA/s936/God%20I'm%20Busy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="936" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD6-b07bRfRfK7s67wEJwAOgClVRVGZic7mzC73Bb6k5YreMW0OZXyiRDwrI_bnpUM-SSgLZX9kBDSXJSohEW1FJTgnQyfTKR9EggcEXoQNm0ciVdIFTdDytKRKOmT84NqfhuP2AjIxRckySEj_dBboEPlK_x_371kC4AkrScZFn0_WkTteAfZdfivPbA/s320/God%20I'm%20Busy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-9244068876273669152024-02-18T21:40:00.001-05:002024-02-18T21:43:18.301-05:00Judging a Book by its CoverDespite the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover” that cover not only serves to protect and decorate, but it can also convey a good deal more. In a 2017 article by Curator Lee Hayes at the University of Adelaide writes, “A binding tells us as much, if not more, about a book’s provenance than an owner’s signature or bookplate. It assists librarians and historians to date and place a work. It provides insight into an owner’s economic and social standing.”<br /><br />This is not lost on the experts and pundits who, as I have written before, we get to see in their homes in televised interviews. Though some chose their kitchens as a backdrop, more chose their libraries. Aesthetically I love the background of a wall of leather-bound books but, it is also fascinating to see these personal collections, paperback and hardbound, with the latest book they have written prominently displayed. <br /><br />The Grolier Club in New York, founded in 1884, is “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts”. It currently has an exhibition called “Judging a Book by its Cover” that includes this Book of Hours created in Paris, in 1673, by Michel Dauplet who possibly created the binding as well.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8lkSSPdNXhwBJheX8TjJyNAV__88fs2jxVXpVYB7Xc0GdTc6fr9XUvi72H13Z3p14yDoClGCqtmX6v5R0EVKBQnroOlLe7W27-YpcqtRqaaMpqXbo7vzgnSIAP8R2Wov-ybXaUoDEOiqK-WEI7-TEdMVBeB2vN5CoHWHJ_dlgD2TbxGz6wYySOkSxv8M/s1548/Dauplet%20Book%20of%20Hours.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="1376" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8lkSSPdNXhwBJheX8TjJyNAV__88fs2jxVXpVYB7Xc0GdTc6fr9XUvi72H13Z3p14yDoClGCqtmX6v5R0EVKBQnroOlLe7W27-YpcqtRqaaMpqXbo7vzgnSIAP8R2Wov-ybXaUoDEOiqK-WEI7-TEdMVBeB2vN5CoHWHJ_dlgD2TbxGz6wYySOkSxv8M/s320/Dauplet%20Book%20of%20Hours.png" width="284" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div> <br /> A leather-bound book tells us that the content is highly thought of as money has been spent on its binding. In past centuries goldsmiths and artists created bindings for works treasured by wealthy patrons. In our gallery, if an important catalog of a major collection was old and falling apart we would have a binding made for it, but of course, it would only have the title stamped on it. <br /><br />The book cover can demonstrate the importance of the book or simply be used to entice the reader. If you look up how many books are published every year the figures vary enormously but the figure I found most often was 500,000 to a million. What sells the book aside from interest in the subject and good reviews? The book cover which makes it stand out among the profusion of titles. In any bookstore, people are browsing even if they came in for a specific book. What catches their eye they take it down to look at. Which cover would you pick?<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVEu3ZZLWOIFJPnkrMBQ6QrPqgo-us7nbRlhxSUYwcNgL7sqbUcuUmndwvTOoYH3HCF0PlhFEuZlxwEMkeDm23gSuY3PkJlNoVCXb6Lh7OgZ2U-VyQuciJ2mUbgIQI9b7Pga1zrPbtA3Sxgu4zNb3j8vurmUifilcUsnWXrZZD96IGb-2eq3O4kW0lTAE/s1440/4%20book%20Covers.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="958" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVEu3ZZLWOIFJPnkrMBQ6QrPqgo-us7nbRlhxSUYwcNgL7sqbUcuUmndwvTOoYH3HCF0PlhFEuZlxwEMkeDm23gSuY3PkJlNoVCXb6Lh7OgZ2U-VyQuciJ2mUbgIQI9b7Pga1zrPbtA3Sxgu4zNb3j8vurmUifilcUsnWXrZZD96IGb-2eq3O4kW0lTAE/s320/4%20book%20Covers.png" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>When my wife and I were starting out and wanted to collect Art Nouveau we scoured street fairs, secondhand bookshops, and country antiques stores for hardcover books published in the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century. At that time even popular fiction often had covers stamped and colored with original Art Nouveau designs.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVIM0zJK9ykuw5jMC8GYQMRAYdXG7pmphoxH-l22veMerCeHY6yHdsKRqa44cCy17Lspm00vanUeq9-0YpTkcDpmZBQstxzlgdapEBqObnZ2t7RK-KojxqcJ4WfYyE5hgK-1pSoW8mBLIqKCW8w705qH9lLNnnz4bUoF5cAyGTPnxQnKEPnyUNEB6shAU/s930/AN%20Book%20Cover.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="628" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVIM0zJK9ykuw5jMC8GYQMRAYdXG7pmphoxH-l22veMerCeHY6yHdsKRqa44cCy17Lspm00vanUeq9-0YpTkcDpmZBQstxzlgdapEBqObnZ2t7RK-KojxqcJ4WfYyE5hgK-1pSoW8mBLIqKCW8w705qH9lLNnnz4bUoF5cAyGTPnxQnKEPnyUNEB6shAU/s320/AN%20Book%20Cover.png" width="216" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I was maybe 10 years old when an Israeli cousin was often in New York. He was invited to the seder celebration for the holiday of Passover. He brought me a Haggadah with beautiful illustrations of the story of the Exodus with a stamped patterned leather cover inset with a bronze relief plaque showing Jerusalem. Though I am not religious I treasure this object.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtG50HuAWlfug-QerYPzJ-FXLNqyCAsiaun3CzCCTLN8qZ0UgedevzuiV9-ILSVQj-Zko9bflYuAoFdNIauWLG5ZetpHc2xs8RDrD9lPMaYr2nvqhGwHU9hNkVQf7eRA-4utDDSyfbIEEFM_tetFa81d5c8555AwGaoSs7k5e99EfbBFcjq2wCuTuLJK8/s4032/Haggadah.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtG50HuAWlfug-QerYPzJ-FXLNqyCAsiaun3CzCCTLN8qZ0UgedevzuiV9-ILSVQj-Zko9bflYuAoFdNIauWLG5ZetpHc2xs8RDrD9lPMaYr2nvqhGwHU9hNkVQf7eRA-4utDDSyfbIEEFM_tetFa81d5c8555AwGaoSs7k5e99EfbBFcjq2wCuTuLJK8/s320/Haggadah.HEIC" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj4jGebH7X4NyDeX4zMIOsAiVmbxKRxOlcSIsTSHH1OIbpiIVUAnnlxfCjvmyKJEF1sFBgYEYzb-S3vUhNaYIjMRF8fYut0ZjOaPFzd2q4YQk9BF1aZR6AyOOBPqTNMCUNWvKz0qSOA_hdVLGzUBkoo-1EzM5nI5uijByeujIAbwqSaedp69DoZ7QecCI/s4032/Haggadah%20Illustration.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj4jGebH7X4NyDeX4zMIOsAiVmbxKRxOlcSIsTSHH1OIbpiIVUAnnlxfCjvmyKJEF1sFBgYEYzb-S3vUhNaYIjMRF8fYut0ZjOaPFzd2q4YQk9BF1aZR6AyOOBPqTNMCUNWvKz0qSOA_hdVLGzUBkoo-1EzM5nI5uijByeujIAbwqSaedp69DoZ7QecCI/s320/Haggadah%20Illustration.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-88666657578867723502024-02-11T13:24:00.000-05:002024-02-11T13:24:09.749-05:00N. Scott MomadayAuthor and poet N. Scott Momaday (1934-2024) was one of the most famous Native Americans of our time and with good reason. In 1969 he became the first Native American to earn the Pulitzer prize for the book “House Made of Dawn” which is now often required reading in English classes.<br /><br />The international legend, a member of the Kiowa nation, was born in Lawton Oklahoma, and died last month at his Santa Fe home.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBvonH7yB0TaO6ENA_NaOQPajCXM0PyBZTfsXHNE9X2nfzqJ0xDOW89GSoeG-QAu04UY3xm57i7FpAbJRn2c58jvUFTr_9IDQRmUAOl4hwIzN29rFkcDIbm-k-UplFx6ZgEc8-3XZeHYLvyV-fuzoGe1ZRlRJ2MSwfdo1h1JWQLPasfsM_fK8rvUyV3Q/s1479/Momaday%20as%20child.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1082" data-original-width="1479" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBvonH7yB0TaO6ENA_NaOQPajCXM0PyBZTfsXHNE9X2nfzqJ0xDOW89GSoeG-QAu04UY3xm57i7FpAbJRn2c58jvUFTr_9IDQRmUAOl4hwIzN29rFkcDIbm-k-UplFx6ZgEc8-3XZeHYLvyV-fuzoGe1ZRlRJ2MSwfdo1h1JWQLPasfsM_fK8rvUyV3Q/s320/Momaday%20as%20child.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>He went to the University of New Mexico for his BA and went on to Stanford for an MA and PhD in English Literature. He became a tenured professor at Stanford, the University of Arizona, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been a visiting professor at Columbia and Princeton universities, and in Moscow.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsBi2KRPpZMPUXMrJXAayqqHkHH2x-ApXI3YIP8OUQSdzEREp4lWQ9gNFO5pPyAlaTpkFPVhAVISpSeU89UpSjM598vT88yDyMnHis6RCwLGj8vGRCw88B2BEzDLvOVSFQFPoi1cctFp-Dvj6M8yOu39LeK1OdtqO8f-VCVf2QeVtdAecLsiJL0BQbcY/s966/Momaday%20Teaching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="770" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCsBi2KRPpZMPUXMrJXAayqqHkHH2x-ApXI3YIP8OUQSdzEREp4lWQ9gNFO5pPyAlaTpkFPVhAVISpSeU89UpSjM598vT88yDyMnHis6RCwLGj8vGRCw88B2BEzDLvOVSFQFPoi1cctFp-Dvj6M8yOu39LeK1OdtqO8f-VCVf2QeVtdAecLsiJL0BQbcY/s320/Momaday%20Teaching.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Photo by LaVerne Harrell Clark</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In 2007 President George W. Bush presented Momaday with the National Medal of Arts for his writing, preserving Native American art and the oral tradition.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhimfcoYlUuPHlHofvm_UDp9w8r2nfi9s76472daWVWgg5O9H-l-zQ7mQUZoziNo1OVxZzMXTjz4bDuQrlQ58ht2VDEauIvBFQBrsxH1oxExSP5HL31-aei30YwRRpa-8cpnMqsfeCRJLVa7MJpYgv9eL8_kjvqOz2kvo04Ypnz6z2v_o2YpH8V8q8kk_4/s602/Bush%20&%20Momday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="602" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhimfcoYlUuPHlHofvm_UDp9w8r2nfi9s76472daWVWgg5O9H-l-zQ7mQUZoziNo1OVxZzMXTjz4bDuQrlQ58ht2VDEauIvBFQBrsxH1oxExSP5HL31-aei30YwRRpa-8cpnMqsfeCRJLVa7MJpYgv9eL8_kjvqOz2kvo04Ypnz6z2v_o2YpH8V8q8kk_4/s320/Bush%20&%20Momday.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In 2019 Momaday sat down to discuss the latter with Robert Redford and if you have the slightest interest I would urge you to listen to the entire ten-minute discussion ... </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfW2wlUK_wE&t=2s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfW2wlUK_wE&t=2s</a><br /><br />Momaday was able to continue the Native tradition of storytelling through his writings, both in prose and poetry. His works include more than 13 books of poetry, plays, prose, and children’s stories. Another well-known Native American author, Sherman Alexie, said of Momaday’s writings that they were “one of the primary foundations for all Native American literature.” <br /><br />Of course, Momaday was eager to communicate the culture of his Native American background for all to appreciate. He produced a limited edition of Kiowa folk tales which was later enlarged with passages related to Kiowa history. His concern over people being able to live in harmony with nature permeates all his poetry.<br /><br />Visual art plays a role in Native American lives and that carries down even to generations who become teachers or lawyers. Momaday illustrated his anthology, “In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991” with 60 of his own drawings.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8yz8SjEljSJzpxoEdIoO43EuHGVFyilUxYMRyh3EbjEjQxXblWpcUreIl6XbM0zB7N54129zD9yANxzUjNRIdbvCM3phT11rG5Lxr2PYrbGkCi4nsv-8f8YjcQNL-W1w7qdlMINeD0od-BEMozwlR4eJF6Sm8iKBTujsWaQLWo6tQXheyYYJrOG7zHc/s1415/Momaday%20with%20drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="1415" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn8yz8SjEljSJzpxoEdIoO43EuHGVFyilUxYMRyh3EbjEjQxXblWpcUreIl6XbM0zB7N54129zD9yANxzUjNRIdbvCM3phT11rG5Lxr2PYrbGkCi4nsv-8f8YjcQNL-W1w7qdlMINeD0od-BEMozwlR4eJF6Sm8iKBTujsWaQLWo6tQXheyYYJrOG7zHc/s320/Momaday%20with%20drawing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />An example of Momaday’s range and depth is the poem below, "Standing Before an Old Painting of the Crucifixion" ...<br /><br />I ponder how He died, despairing once.<br />I've heard the cry subside in vacant skies,<br /><br />To continue, follow link below ...</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-an-old-painting-of-the-crucifixion/">https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/before-an-old-painting-of-the-crucifixion/</a></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-88236217777292969322024-02-04T20:35:00.000-05:002024-02-04T20:35:22.897-05:00Another CultureI probably have said this before but when we moved from Manhattan to the southwest it was far more culture shock than if we had moved to almost any country in Europe.<br /><br />We wanted to understand the new cultures that we were encountering. Though we were both interested in the Hispanic and Native American cultures that we were being introduced to my wife concentrated on the former and I on the latter. I knew, of course that there were many Indian tribes, but I did not know that there are 574 Federally recognized Native American tribes and many others that are not recognized. Obviously, there is no way to learn everything about them, but we try to understand as much as possible, particularly about those in the southwest.<br /><br />I had a friend in New York who years ago told me she was a Cherokee, a registered Cherokee. I countered that I was the son of German immigrants. That seemed to be an appropriate quid pro quo. I did not really understand the difference between just saying you are Cherokee and being registered as a member of the tribe.<br /><br />According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), in order to be considered Native American you must have one fourth Native American Blood and/or have membership in a government recognized tribe. If you wish to enroll in a tribe, you must first identify the tribe to which you believe you belong, establish your ancestry, and then contact them to find out what their requirements are, since each one is different.<br /><br />You have probably seen the New York Times article of January 26 or similar reports that the Museum of Natural History in New York is closing its Native American galleries and many museums are putting curtains over their displays in compliance with new Federal rules requiring Native consultation before display or research of cultural items. It is possibly overdue as I have learned that here in Santa Fe, some Native parents do not want to take their children to certain museums that may have objects that according to their culture they are not allowed to see.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBoKB_Gi_DTzImcza5AXRC6k_BrvBlqIRp0TYXAXuICtVUQLkyIlN0zVOi57NfBLBdgNTlkbK8u2qDFti4d5OgUdcvWlS__XRuUCOEtOmkFwNlnU0H6Dq20ocsd8LwmAGipUuyewieL_ww6bCwpa6tQdUoYfh74NcodPj1oQgdPVO6BAqP_vJchb5GZw/s2510/Museum%20Natural%20History.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1676" data-original-width="2510" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyBoKB_Gi_DTzImcza5AXRC6k_BrvBlqIRp0TYXAXuICtVUQLkyIlN0zVOi57NfBLBdgNTlkbK8u2qDFti4d5OgUdcvWlS__XRuUCOEtOmkFwNlnU0H6Dq20ocsd8LwmAGipUuyewieL_ww6bCwpa6tQdUoYfh74NcodPj1oQgdPVO6BAqP_vJchb5GZw/s320/Museum%20Natural%20History.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Many tribes have been actively trying to revive their cultures and languages that were decimated years ago by what the white man called manifest destiny. “Go west young man go west”, ---this was at the expense of those who originated here.<br /><br />The new regulations require a review of museum holdings and the removal from view of any items that may offend. I have no problem understanding the desire to have human remains returned to their families and I have never understood the bizarre reasons for holding onto them in the first place.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KHvpGdp5IwUbPvtMK-nxrLDB3uhapaxCZ2f9DkpSKJtC1Ql7VEFf3Nhv1nefgaAhqztGq1qgk8ktAMR9lrNZTZ256qAIK3OBuAqusbroE5_h67MSWZGhQvzzUybdvg3eYM6ElVclpi8Q2XqEPWTfTxX2RBMvjq-dtnyMNjzu7YVe4AOtJtYV_EJAz7s/s1336/From%20Video.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1336" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KHvpGdp5IwUbPvtMK-nxrLDB3uhapaxCZ2f9DkpSKJtC1Ql7VEFf3Nhv1nefgaAhqztGq1qgk8ktAMR9lrNZTZ256qAIK3OBuAqusbroE5_h67MSWZGhQvzzUybdvg3eYM6ElVclpi8Q2XqEPWTfTxX2RBMvjq-dtnyMNjzu7YVe4AOtJtYV_EJAz7s/s320/From%20Video.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/uc-berkeley-has-been-slow-to-repatriate-native-american-remains-some-may-be-lost-forever-164452421712">https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/uc-berkeley-has-been-slow-to-repatriate-native-american-remains-some-may-be-lost-forever-164452421712</a><br /><br />It is more difficult, however, to know what other holdings are not acceptable. It seems that even works that are made today by Native Americans can be offensive either to their own tribe or to another. Also, different members of a tribe may disagree on what should be shown and what not. Some tribes are trying to find consensus, and many have appointed their Governor (the head of the tribe) or their Cultural Preservation Officer to speak for the tribe on these issues. Others simply do not wish to engage. <br /><br />Obviously, there will be a need for each museum to find a way of coping with these issues and there are bound to be disagreements. From what I have learned the essential is to begin the process of dialog and consultations.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyp27a7Lfq1g-VxpfuqpCjl3YGnEOozx0KSREHE4o8Y87ooclaN-YVINHW9jx5uJerefiVgvNdI34xJGzEJTjsdtctmteWF0K1tBkT5_sd6rnxRpEWCMhEVta9txMscxhGBxrzACUb7sJT5xaCMBGkHW-o7zPnVKMdacs7JSlpoYzsEgAhQoiCz3Vm_-k/s1541/Cleveland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1173" data-original-width="1541" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyp27a7Lfq1g-VxpfuqpCjl3YGnEOozx0KSREHE4o8Y87ooclaN-YVINHW9jx5uJerefiVgvNdI34xJGzEJTjsdtctmteWF0K1tBkT5_sd6rnxRpEWCMhEVta9txMscxhGBxrzACUb7sJT5xaCMBGkHW-o7zPnVKMdacs7JSlpoYzsEgAhQoiCz3Vm_-k/s320/Cleveland.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />There is a tried and true saying that something is never as good as it seems nor as bad as it seems, and so it will be with this issue. Slowly but surely institutions will develop a methodology of how to go about respecting the beliefs of “the other”.<br /><br /> </div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-36163196481851360852024-01-28T15:21:00.003-05:002024-01-28T15:21:28.908-05:00Establishing the Value of a Work of ArtWhat prompted this thought was twofold. First the question from a lawyer about how works of art were priced and then a story about Hunter Biden’s art sales. <br /><br />As you have probably read Hunter Biden is an artist and he has gallery representation. Some of his paintings have been priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Crazy prices for an artist whose only claim to celebrity is being the son of a president. But wait a minute, is that crazy? Examples of lathe turning that have been associated with the daughters of Louis XV whom he instructed in this hobby have been highly valued. In the past, I have bought and sold works with royal associations for a premium, and I would pay a premium for an object that belonged to JFK!<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_0-TGnS6Pv0Cp-bUsWp514G6DtiOscgkgKBlPCbXSkPh9TW_MUXcLX6y66LoQLm6MNk_pJhLJZfVALXJ-AWJs7vTPazbfCYI3yDA4gq3aHoeOK3dmK_1YMX3zQeUprO_ABuhd6QPVjmpxA2lm3MjOGrxjHEIRwu4ExY9MfNxMm8RiKNskUrsaNElStw/s1495/Hunter%20Biden%20paintings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1105" data-original-width="1495" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_0-TGnS6Pv0Cp-bUsWp514G6DtiOscgkgKBlPCbXSkPh9TW_MUXcLX6y66LoQLm6MNk_pJhLJZfVALXJ-AWJs7vTPazbfCYI3yDA4gq3aHoeOK3dmK_1YMX3zQeUprO_ABuhd6QPVjmpxA2lm3MjOGrxjHEIRwu4ExY9MfNxMm8RiKNskUrsaNElStw/s320/Hunter%20Biden%20paintings.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />In this day and age, artists are usually introduced to the world by a dealer who believes in their art and works to get their creations into private collections then to exhibitions, and finally to museums. With each success, their work will increase in price. At some point, it will come to the auction houses’ attention where a guess, called an estimate, will be made of what the work might bring if there is more than one person who would like to acquire it. Through the process, an artist will become more and more “established”. At that point one would be able to find a basis of comparison and, depending on the quality of the example, establish a price range. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler a German-born art collector who became a major French art dealer and was a champion of the cubist movement represented artists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkcsu11INylPrNBngHpHah7PYEnbrytJsj1r59pK_3ycomyuONgFhHBd1aGuly-q1flHI1PLithmTWmdb6yun7949hDL8ZXx7vDqSKd5He9XiV5z7mpP-HtrdqieXXaCyVjeM3jQpF1SZiW1RuurRKLmt733ZwsSmAmNyaSU4HGllSGLI0u6YTgffOcM/s1320/Picasso%20-%20Braque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="992" data-original-width="1320" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkcsu11INylPrNBngHpHah7PYEnbrytJsj1r59pK_3ycomyuONgFhHBd1aGuly-q1flHI1PLithmTWmdb6yun7949hDL8ZXx7vDqSKd5He9XiV5z7mpP-HtrdqieXXaCyVjeM3jQpF1SZiW1RuurRKLmt733ZwsSmAmNyaSU4HGllSGLI0u6YTgffOcM/s320/Picasso%20-%20Braque.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A gallery in Melbourne Australia called Art & Collectors has a publication in which they came up with another definition of an established artist. “Established artists have hit icon status. They have exhibited extensively nationally or internationally in reputable institutions, been written about, and entered the cultural discourse. At auction, their status is reaffirmed by consistently high bids.”<br /><br />Dealers often speak of clients who buy with their ears, not with their eyes. Astute collectors first use their eyes and then listen to the story. If the work has been owned by a collector renowned for his knowledge and taste that aids us in believing that it is worth the bid or asking price.<br /><br />Every once in a while, you hear about a price at auction that has nothing to do with the usual prices for the artist’s work. This can be caused by a “disease” called auction fever, and one must be careful not to catch it. One can get so caught up in the moment trying to prove yourself by outbidding a rival. It may turn out you are bidding against the house, or an arrangement made between the owner and auction house.<br /><br />Of course, if you have a work of art with a legendary name like Monet, you can decide what you think the price should be by looking up prices his work has brought and where this example might fit in his oeuvre. However, if you are speaking of Leonardo or Vermeer where there are a limited number of accepted works the price can go as high as the market will bear. How would one value the last remaining Vermeer in private hands, “Young Woman Seated at a Virginal” belonging to Thomas and Daphne Kaplan in their Leiden collection.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ9_W8ZhClwG6etQFgAtPSK_E-lVuahZ32lq3vxD88ekxrS532cxbVtDvgIlUBySZldfTnQ5b1e8_f7vUB6_pfYXYbXqASDxylOwmNq4gGUh3s1Mj_yd5vIsWA5icjkG8pqJNH6SAHP85IIelp56ytXaL73Ufe_8sLLnAqxePCGzTqkJI0v53DMZxLY4/s994/Vermeer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="781" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ9_W8ZhClwG6etQFgAtPSK_E-lVuahZ32lq3vxD88ekxrS532cxbVtDvgIlUBySZldfTnQ5b1e8_f7vUB6_pfYXYbXqASDxylOwmNq4gGUh3s1Mj_yd5vIsWA5icjkG8pqJNH6SAHP85IIelp56ytXaL73Ufe_8sLLnAqxePCGzTqkJI0v53DMZxLY4/s320/Vermeer.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br />Sometimes a work of art hits the taste of the moment and brings a huge price at an auction but then later very little, as tastes change. Do your research and unless you are a gambler, never buy art as an investment. The art market is far more fickle than the stock market.</div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-38861497368083208352024-01-21T19:16:00.002-05:002024-01-21T19:16:24.793-05:00Protest ArtA few years ago I wrote about Protest Songs ... <div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2021/09/does-anything-ever-change.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2021/09/does-anything-ever-change.html</a><br /><br />But what about protest in Visual Arts? Protest art is not new ... I have read that there are early examples in ancient Egypt protesting the Pharaohs and the ruling class.<br /><br /> Art can be challenging, and some created to influence the viewer in a specific cause may continue to resonate. You might see the British artist Bansky’s “Vigil Candle Burning a U.S. Flag”, as a statement about the latest political news but you would be wrong. It was painted two weeks after George Floyd was killed in May of 2020 and Banksy said, “People of color are being failed by the system ... the white system.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuebYfeIfcxaeefmW9Sl_hcO6RQgHFlMdDUX607c0tXOcgGcMW3Nlc4IFhL0jlcQZlrX4DrRj3yf3j92dRqdn93jJNWna2FfOQ4CaUBU5q6Kebhq1VDJp1RVOEE_IfqiOCLreZjwPiXLaTEgaQIBKK64_mhlPM_HJqiYe-_J9JLjIlnPmcFHvZV0CSUIQ/s995/banksy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="948" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuebYfeIfcxaeefmW9Sl_hcO6RQgHFlMdDUX607c0tXOcgGcMW3Nlc4IFhL0jlcQZlrX4DrRj3yf3j92dRqdn93jJNWna2FfOQ4CaUBU5q6Kebhq1VDJp1RVOEE_IfqiOCLreZjwPiXLaTEgaQIBKK64_mhlPM_HJqiYe-_J9JLjIlnPmcFHvZV0CSUIQ/s320/banksy.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><br />What sparked this Missive was seeing the exhibition of the work of Nicholas Galanin, a Tlingit and Unangax artist from Alaska, at our local Kunsthalle, SITE Santa Fe. His work protests how the treatment of Native Americans by the Whites since their arrival on this continent. One of the subjects he addresses is the boarding schools that Indian children were forced to attend. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has reported that the Indian Boarding School System lasted from 1819-1969. The repeated goal was “Kill the Indian Save the Man”. It was a white supremacist belief that if you stripped indigenous people of their culture, they could become “civilized” and integrated into Anglo society. To this end, Native children were dragged off from their families with small handcuffs like these which Galanin made into an object of art in 2014 by engraving them with indigenous motifs.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjALBI4PkVPGMYTUFyZeRL23zkRWDhydHT_K3glSxhFMm_AXc8ayM-NOyWObtFrKSfCRCJW9zaCDmj6bUM426KfNXFJgD0zAv52rE-S267OL9sEHs5_1ya61msKVDuHl3Iqskc8FX-HeMppMArgsXoWjF6WZ7cBfzX6W3ZPR7wzF8Xie4go5n7qB2qh7vg/s1396/Handcuffs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="1396" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjALBI4PkVPGMYTUFyZeRL23zkRWDhydHT_K3glSxhFMm_AXc8ayM-NOyWObtFrKSfCRCJW9zaCDmj6bUM426KfNXFJgD0zAv52rE-S267OL9sEHs5_1ya61msKVDuHl3Iqskc8FX-HeMppMArgsXoWjF6WZ7cBfzX6W3ZPR7wzF8Xie4go5n7qB2qh7vg/s320/Handcuffs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A work that Galanin calls “Loom” is a series of prefab school desks and chairs stacked in the form of a Northwest Coast totem pole. Whitewall Magazine expresses my reaction precisely, “a gutting allusion to the North American practice of residential schools which forced Indigenous families to send their children away to facilities where conditions were so severe as many as half never survived to return home”.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJDzIYculkE3MbMeUHkKE8O9d6j0k2EFZ99BJzOkH2lWEFaQ0_iCLkoSXNpeBNdgMNlytKQ25Hz_v1LqkCtC8SMx7hmCFuK9wX6jcJDYl02Uu8PC9TO7jPd5Szd83pWQxdzW48qKXA9DnB8B4GFVXmqsJQor2LRRAUUFiSb478Rp1XualtI1becgp3ezQ/s1652/Loom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1652" data-original-width="1132" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJDzIYculkE3MbMeUHkKE8O9d6j0k2EFZ99BJzOkH2lWEFaQ0_iCLkoSXNpeBNdgMNlytKQ25Hz_v1LqkCtC8SMx7hmCFuK9wX6jcJDYl02Uu8PC9TO7jPd5Szd83pWQxdzW48qKXA9DnB8B4GFVXmqsJQor2LRRAUUFiSb478Rp1XualtI1becgp3ezQ/s320/Loom.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><br />In 1941 the brilliant black artist, Jacob Lawrence protested Jim Crow in the South with his “Migration Series“ His 60 images are devoted to the millions of African-Americans who fled the South to the more tolerant North in search of better lives. Each one grabs you with its color and strength and leads you to the details of what it is about.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgReM-N4G7nTUk1wbWdFb3bhn_VfVB7rTaIQ4T96e0kN9VIQG3o9t_e42gtJnDrl6YRg61lme34hhODAF9svtH58s3W9dttTg3bxh5YowNhXzyL3ur4I-_BWMdrHiMKivQoWNYj34GN1HFLkyOcBF_etcwIvH2EpDKWDftL5FLicRJhEKfH4m80wamDONU/s1780/Jacob%20Lawrence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1780" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgReM-N4G7nTUk1wbWdFb3bhn_VfVB7rTaIQ4T96e0kN9VIQG3o9t_e42gtJnDrl6YRg61lme34hhODAF9svtH58s3W9dttTg3bxh5YowNhXzyL3ur4I-_BWMdrHiMKivQoWNYj34GN1HFLkyOcBF_etcwIvH2EpDKWDftL5FLicRJhEKfH4m80wamDONU/s320/Jacob%20Lawrence.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />When Michangelo’s sculpture of David proved too heavy to raise to its planned location atop the Cathedral of Florence it was installed in front of the city’s government offices, the Palazzo Della Signoria. Positioned so David appeared ready to launch his rock in the direction of Rome, it became a defiant threat to the former ruling Medici family who had fled there in exile. When the Medici returned David became the focal point of protest riots. Why did the sculpture appear in the Daytona Beach News-Journal last March in an article by C.A. Bridges? Because Michelangelo’s art was again at the center of protest as the principal at Tallahassee Classical School in Leon County resigned after three parents complained that the required Renaissance art class, which included "David" as well as the "Creation of Adam" fresco and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," upset their children.<br /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRmsbvPPZ6-N-Oplv8rADjMOfySV_WLA1xIHUYI2LSL-YSVtg4RRjLpqd5ywz85CITKLvfE7fztP0NBiOeifO1dPR54_J44FC8rNvU6sHxnBMfCrrzF0_Q34RD_9yg1YiiHfiB3nMv16FS9PM38LYewwn2eondSdiZQLEUPI3KO3W3JFeJe13V2h5nGY/s1423/David.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1423" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRmsbvPPZ6-N-Oplv8rADjMOfySV_WLA1xIHUYI2LSL-YSVtg4RRjLpqd5ywz85CITKLvfE7fztP0NBiOeifO1dPR54_J44FC8rNvU6sHxnBMfCrrzF0_Q34RD_9yg1YiiHfiB3nMv16FS9PM38LYewwn2eondSdiZQLEUPI3KO3W3JFeJe13V2h5nGY/s320/David.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />To avoid any hate mail, I won’t show any examples of religious art but over the centuries there has been plenty of explicit art for and against various religions throughout the ages.<br /><br />But, to conclude, this work created in 1989 by the Gorilla Girls shows still another kind of protest.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdHEFAtN9-RiIfMkn7HPfmoRLNiEdr5sLLBj5PJm43IRwfZPFZP1rNs2FQpCmD0iXGa4sQiukIhA-FqWdW5o3RSglHfSvMtgD73usq52O_wYxmoOQnO9IbG5TEiE47JzDQI-ZLGbzGYUidf9xjbwDuNY0tZJvfvTizujsFW9CwSfiYnAc4xFT8tSH9QeY/s1986/Guerilla%20Girls,%201989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="1986" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdHEFAtN9-RiIfMkn7HPfmoRLNiEdr5sLLBj5PJm43IRwfZPFZP1rNs2FQpCmD0iXGa4sQiukIhA-FqWdW5o3RSglHfSvMtgD73usq52O_wYxmoOQnO9IbG5TEiE47JzDQI-ZLGbzGYUidf9xjbwDuNY0tZJvfvTizujsFW9CwSfiYnAc4xFT8tSH9QeY/s320/Guerilla%20Girls,%201989.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-75420369544608432082024-01-14T19:08:00.002-05:002024-01-14T19:08:54.722-05:00The Power of Music The other night we watched the movie “Maestro” about Leonard Bernstein, which had me thinking about music that I love and not necessarily Bernstein’s music. Then to my surprise, I found a Missive by the same name written over a decade ago. I have written about music every now and then and if you go to my Missives page and put music in the search box you can scroll down through them.<div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2013/06/hershey-felders-maestro-art-of-leonard.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2013/06/hershey-felders-maestro-art-of-leonard.html</a><br /><br />My takeaway from the current movie is how difficult it is to be married to a man who is possessed by his profession, in this case, music, and a homosexual at the same time.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLale83aEW4ofsOQYAry_stK5QD0pbYJ4zXX_s0OBNcsnAeHQbCDG1HmW7zvaPuClBNwRRipQKdXQ1FOmdZo-7V1oz8FW3qiQa6Gh2PUh3cOcyA2ME0zTkxWEH63UA0MDkiB5z97U8-N9z1mBuC4QpUNXksDhfCzfsQKCloaUIVk4EwUURsRGKy87x_4/s1200/Bernstein.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="806" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqLale83aEW4ofsOQYAry_stK5QD0pbYJ4zXX_s0OBNcsnAeHQbCDG1HmW7zvaPuClBNwRRipQKdXQ1FOmdZo-7V1oz8FW3qiQa6Gh2PUh3cOcyA2ME0zTkxWEH63UA0MDkiB5z97U8-N9z1mBuC4QpUNXksDhfCzfsQKCloaUIVk4EwUURsRGKy87x_4/s320/Bernstein.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I also found the film rather depressing, but I was seeing it from the perspective of a 79-year-old. After that, I went to YouTube and listened to Peggy Seeger singing “All in the Mind”. There is no direct correlation, but the film sparked that emotion in me. </div><div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PKQTlfgJDE4?si=pqWYCTsbddYIQnOK" title="YouTube video player" width="500"></iframe> </div><br />“Maestro” might strike a totally different chord for you but that is the point. On the Pfizer website, I found this, “Listening to (or making) music increases blood flow to brain regions that generate and control emotions.” taken from an article by L. Jäncke, L. (2008). Music, memory, and emotion. Journal of Biology.<br /><br />After seeing a good movie, it tends to live on in my head. This dates back to when I was a child in the late 1940s and ’50s. Those were the days when the Westerns were the hit movies. After seeing High Noon (1952) with Gary Cooper I came out of the theater imagining a six gun on my hip singing the theme song and that song would be triggered by other Western movies. <div><br />
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</div><div> </div>The same happened with the Gene Autry television show where the theme song was “Back in the Saddle Again”. <div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X2TZCz191gE?si=35FlTd1XoSsJjkl9" title="YouTube video player" width="500"></iframe> </div><br />In an article in “The Back Stage” (November 2021), Deezer D. writes that scientists Schulkind, Hennis, Rubin, and Professor Ira Hyman state, “a song triggers an emotion that matches the emotion felt at the time the event happened. To evoke memories, sensations need precise connections.”<br /><br />Speaking with a psychiatrist who recommended meditation I told him I sometimes plugged into music. He agreed that too could work. Shahram Heshmat Ph.D. wrote in “Psychology Today” (October 2021), “Music provides a means of escape. Music distracts our minds from the outside world.”<br /><br />We all enjoy different kinds of music. My father was a classical music buff, I have about 15 feet of his vinyl! As a child and teenager, I was exposed to all kinds of classical concerts and opera. It came to the point where I went because I felt it was the right thing to do. My father would refer to the “hit tunes” in an opera, but always with the caution to stay until the end because one of those “hit tunes” was in the final act. From Verdi’s La Traviata by the 3 Tenors. <div><br /></div><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300
" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l7eHO_PEWLk?si=hew55qEtAdBiA64d" title="YouTube video player" width="500"></iframe> </div><br />A psychologist once told me that 50% of people who live past 90 have Alzheimer’s and the famed singer, Tony Bennett, who died last year at age 96 suffered that fate. Yet, he remembered and could still perform the songs he had made hits.<br /><br />To answer the doubters, from the “Psychology Today” article mentioned above, “However, not everyone experiences intense emotional responses to music. Roughly 2 percent of the general population do not experience chills. This incapacity to derive pleasure specifically from music has been called musical anhedonia (sometimes called tone-deafness).” <br /><br />Unfortunately, they are missing a lot!<br /><br /> Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-14923292787825857022024-01-07T16:15:00.000-05:002024-01-07T16:15:37.033-05:00Attracting A Younger GenerationI am on the board of the Lensic Performing Art Center here in Santa Fe and a question that comes up all the time is how can we attract a younger audience while at the same time not neglecting our loyal and older constituency.<br /><br />This is obviously not a new issue, and every generation has to approach it anew.<br /><br />I would venture that this may be an even greater problem in museums. My wife, Penelope, and I often discuss the fact that there is no such thing as a museum of contemporary art and even a museum of modern art is transient. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has many Picassos though some have already referred to him as an Old Master!<br /><br />Penelope was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum and at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon. Even though at the Met she worked to extend the decorative arts collection up to the present, she is now upset by what she finds art museums’ excessive emphasis on contemporary art at the expense of their other collections, all in hopes of attracting a younger generation. It is, indeed, a delicate balance. Here is an image of the installation of one of two 11 X 22 foot paintings by Kent Monkman (1965 -) being installed for a time in the Great Hall of the Metropolitan.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDf52xsBdQn-QXtAzK7V76VZmLCFh3-2ejwcJfe74lKMcmtzTR4s4UHIxk6nlpm_gu7MWY69SqXUfTJNucoYjZGCLxqLP_aCRqqO3MHBF35Qce95I_C2t1ioADNicg9ll88Fq1iQCWphnTYRwZnKBbRvwAjPCEfB18-WxA1EHtLchKGHls5vszGImotMM/s1710/Monkman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1164" data-original-width="1710" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDf52xsBdQn-QXtAzK7V76VZmLCFh3-2ejwcJfe74lKMcmtzTR4s4UHIxk6nlpm_gu7MWY69SqXUfTJNucoYjZGCLxqLP_aCRqqO3MHBF35Qce95I_C2t1ioADNicg9ll88Fq1iQCWphnTYRwZnKBbRvwAjPCEfB18-WxA1EHtLchKGHls5vszGImotMM/s320/Monkman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The Art Institute of Chicago does Teen Workshops and a teen council, which is “a group of 15 creative and passionate youth artists, leaders, and organizers who collaborate with museum staff to reimagine the future of cultural institutions through teen-designed digital and live engagements.”<br /><br />When we were at the Metropolitan Museum last May they had an exhibition about the legendary clothing designer Karl Lagerfeld. We saw the young folk standing in long lines to get in. Would they visit the rest of this museum full of old art? Honestly, I don’t think many did, but while they were there some may have visited another section of the museum, and they may have told their friends that they found something “really cool” there.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5D5LPvnxVN8-x0uaEYdLeIDL6tPzd_PZBlnBqive-Pb3q8POf1n8ATaGg5i7qa-vs3QgbENH6aocDSKaurzzL4s6LNeCNd11WFA8VVvLKekshcBW5s4AM3bSgL5rqMgUeM5ALrOd_FBTDLgxnYnS7zByZhaRSNi50Nqi8GGQrEnV-7LLp4rPYP7yctkg/s1646/Lagerfeld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1646" data-original-width="1618" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5D5LPvnxVN8-x0uaEYdLeIDL6tPzd_PZBlnBqive-Pb3q8POf1n8ATaGg5i7qa-vs3QgbENH6aocDSKaurzzL4s6LNeCNd11WFA8VVvLKekshcBW5s4AM3bSgL5rqMgUeM5ALrOd_FBTDLgxnYnS7zByZhaRSNi50Nqi8GGQrEnV-7LLp4rPYP7yctkg/s320/Lagerfeld.jpg" width="315" /></a></div> <br />The American Alliance of Museums has its own suggestions. One that sounds most apt is, “Your average millennial has 9.3 social media accounts, according to a 2019 Global Web Index report. So make sure you’re using social media in a way that will appeal to a younger audience.” They also speak of the use of technology which I wrote about earlier this year. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2023/06/museums-in-age-of-artificial.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2023/06/museums-in-age-of-artificial.html</a><br /><br />Yesterday, the Frick Collection closed an exhibition of the work of Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017). The Wall Street Journal wrote, “inspired by European masterpieces but rooted in his own milieu, the painter produced dazzling portraits of African-American subjects.” The Financial Times wrote “Now that he’s posthumously become the superstar he always deserved to be, one of his favourite museums, the Frick Collection, has gathered 14 of his paintings in a show that stands alongside its permanent collection of works by Rembrandt, Bronzino, Velázquez and Van Eyck. They look utterly comfortable among such rarefied company.” How better to blend the old and the new and bring in a different and younger crowd.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4m4Ltj1JQthLRhfCGZV2aLvIEf00Tmn56x0nA67C0jw1vYLNlnAeycT9dvMtggjvytzM2EGSr-TN3jn8TqS3adiNYXlhYxVUGLbjCDTg5v1UhGHuX2x7OU5pM5vxRKYNnVeOex-moHRxVDSgOSBBmQOGWv_9s1tJxOjIgLBIEkLtpfedg5_dzpg6pK0s/s1532/Hendricks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1532" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4m4Ltj1JQthLRhfCGZV2aLvIEf00Tmn56x0nA67C0jw1vYLNlnAeycT9dvMtggjvytzM2EGSr-TN3jn8TqS3adiNYXlhYxVUGLbjCDTg5v1UhGHuX2x7OU5pM5vxRKYNnVeOex-moHRxVDSgOSBBmQOGWv_9s1tJxOjIgLBIEkLtpfedg5_dzpg6pK0s/s320/Hendricks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Of course, it is best if the kids want to go to the museum in the first place. Forty years ago, Sesame Street produced a movie called “Don't Eat the Pictures” taking place at the Metropolitan Museum. The concept was that the Sesame characters get locked in the museum after hours and go on a chase to find Big Bird. In the process, they see many areas of the museum. It is a one-hour show and not at all academic.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE1r-8N_jOecGWbZZGOiJihkYJxv0qHVDa6iU5lgWf8aQYDjh1aV3607Du89g70zvZu2PB2jGqhml4sG33_WDrsF_mjU15a_ADd68uhkNuJpFARggV3pM6biI4RSpyVvDD8T3uAnJPBnQgEaLh0y_NFWnl6AEfzpRF8KeGWsUaqI4XJSsGnoyXuzdvT4/s1465/Cookie_Monster_Don%2527t_Eat_the_Pictures_photo.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE1r-8N_jOecGWbZZGOiJihkYJxv0qHVDa6iU5lgWf8aQYDjh1aV3607Du89g70zvZu2PB2jGqhml4sG33_WDrsF_mjU15a_ADd68uhkNuJpFARggV3pM6biI4RSpyVvDD8T3uAnJPBnQgEaLh0y_NFWnl6AEfzpRF8KeGWsUaqI4XJSsGnoyXuzdvT4/s320/Cookie_Monster_Don%2527t_Eat_the_Pictures_photo.webp" width="218" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Not sure what has been done since, but this is the best way to introduce the young to a foreign place. Make them curious.Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-50762034182956693472023-12-31T11:23:00.002-05:002023-12-31T11:23:44.195-05:00Caspar David FriedrichHappy New Year to all. It took me a moment to realize I had to start a 2024 folder for this Missive and that this is my 15th year of writing them! I am therefore treating myself to writing about one of my favorite artists, at least a favorite from the early 19th Century.<br /><br />Germany is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of their beloved painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). The Hamburger Kunsthalle is kicking it off with “Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age”. The exhibition opened on December 15 and will run until April 1 with 60 paintings by Friedrich and 100 of his drawings as well as selected works by the artist’s friends including Carl Blechen, Carl Gustav Carus, and Johan Christian Dahl. The Kunsthalle will not be the only museum celebrating this occasion, there will be additional shows in Berlin and Dresden.<br /><br />Friedrich was a major figure in the movement that became known as Romanticism. The Tate Museum website defines it as “the movement in art and literature distinguished by a new interest in human psychology, expression of personal feeling and interest in the natural world.” Our current concern over climate change and the efforts of much of the world to slow it down seems another reason to celebrate this artist who captured our relationship with the natural world so beautifully. In 1823-1825 Friedrich painted “The Sea of Ice” which is now in the Hamburger Kunsthalle but could not be sold in his day. His imagined view of the Arctic resembles recent imagery of global warming though not on anyone’s radar in the artist’s day.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfAilOzzXpWHoed4KavfEpHAY978jRJm5c7lns8-8XnamUZurliacT4l291oJkwsK65ZHWoPB8YKLYVkXBU_GWzRA61K65EserkZ7xtnna3bq2FG9OVuTP1zO6klhJFT4XOdESPCQwAD49FO1J1MYJNwqB3K16ct2RKPe6o0v9WGtybGiJhnXE0wc_ys/s1194/The%20Sea%20of%20Ice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1194" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpfAilOzzXpWHoed4KavfEpHAY978jRJm5c7lns8-8XnamUZurliacT4l291oJkwsK65ZHWoPB8YKLYVkXBU_GWzRA61K65EserkZ7xtnna3bq2FG9OVuTP1zO6klhJFT4XOdESPCQwAD49FO1J1MYJNwqB3K16ct2RKPe6o0v9WGtybGiJhnXE0wc_ys/s320/The%20Sea%20of%20Ice.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Friedrich’s figures never face the viewer but are gazing out and away. We do not know if they are actually looking at an event or gazing reflectively into the distance. This image of “Two Men Contemplating the Moon” (1825-1830) is from the Metropolitan Museum.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbiLFoB1NFj_x-GxKmlLJYVxV52ubqPwDPSXWwgWhDjr2f-5e5UEmbmJaLW9YP5454JyyFYTlgzSYN48RF33GSGtI9m1j2LJjt3V6hPQeNRz831pre5GJl-2aUA8OLPyPi2LtHt9NYlesNU6Nj82HfIl-Fncz8iYbFPnOgZD_8v7EN3IGbFYLSrx46UKs/s1672/Two%20Men%20Contemplating%20the%20Moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1340" data-original-width="1672" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbiLFoB1NFj_x-GxKmlLJYVxV52ubqPwDPSXWwgWhDjr2f-5e5UEmbmJaLW9YP5454JyyFYTlgzSYN48RF33GSGtI9m1j2LJjt3V6hPQeNRz831pre5GJl-2aUA8OLPyPi2LtHt9NYlesNU6Nj82HfIl-Fncz8iYbFPnOgZD_8v7EN3IGbFYLSrx46UKs/s320/Two%20Men%20Contemplating%20the%20Moon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Friedrich suffered from lifelong depression. His childhood had been marked by the death of his mother two sisters and his younger brother, who he witnessed drown after falling through the ice. One can feel his loneliness in his work. This painting “The Tree of Crows” (1822) in the Louvre reminds me of what Georgia O’Keeffe said in 1921, "I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj34i2n9AHdVE8i8ErKbi6XPPvR1O13KwJTWPlrlYF-_aNdKBzY8_LiyLiIWPJtUbQfLds2I7pmRj9sOogIgPjvtsxq2Xm5feFE_GtQDQE7GzopUajduvfVMtn9pUD7cXHT1GFRsWkE-StHLw0_f_PK7a6AIaeFCE_uZzLIpBBS07xc1DKQw99NyFYmAaM/s1846/Tree%20of%20Crows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="1846" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj34i2n9AHdVE8i8ErKbi6XPPvR1O13KwJTWPlrlYF-_aNdKBzY8_LiyLiIWPJtUbQfLds2I7pmRj9sOogIgPjvtsxq2Xm5feFE_GtQDQE7GzopUajduvfVMtn9pUD7cXHT1GFRsWkE-StHLw0_f_PK7a6AIaeFCE_uZzLIpBBS07xc1DKQw99NyFYmAaM/s320/Tree%20of%20Crows.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Having always been taken by Friedrich’s paintings, which I find all-encompassing, I never paid that much attention to his draftsmanship. I have discovered that his drawings are, quite marvelous. In this self-portrait (1802) in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, he seems to capture his melancholy. Again, we wonder what he is thinking about. Is it something he wishes to do or is he daydreaming or brooding? His work always conveys this introspection which infuses the viewer with that same feeling of soul searching.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Z6Rh1M9oqniVhjN2UWm2VyF6WQ1hTB-vNLSoOFI7NxaYNGFX_lWhELx97dCFwJofkr5UjB1qW0bT27zdoremgZSFycoESV8oa07kVTRlrScZWgIAex3BkmE59gUCWXz-RrDGqY8BJ3emqxhpBHhh-DzLnKaas7hQ9LxDSntdSJslsW-kdBVVDX2zG0o/s1416/Self%20Portraid%20Drawing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1416" data-original-width="1126" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Z6Rh1M9oqniVhjN2UWm2VyF6WQ1hTB-vNLSoOFI7NxaYNGFX_lWhELx97dCFwJofkr5UjB1qW0bT27zdoremgZSFycoESV8oa07kVTRlrScZWgIAex3BkmE59gUCWXz-RrDGqY8BJ3emqxhpBHhh-DzLnKaas7hQ9LxDSntdSJslsW-kdBVVDX2zG0o/s320/Self%20Portraid%20Drawing.jpg" width="254" /></a></div> <br />I will finish with a quote by Friedrich. “Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.” For me, the painting that says it all is “The Wanderer over the Sea of Fog” (1817-1818) in the Hamburger Kunsthalle. I have always loved the mountains more than the sea, and this image reminds me of the experience of being high above the clouds and looking down on them. I also interpret this painting as a symbol of hope and inspiration.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF_q9Tw3TxCmSYG7MqP218rhncZtgrbMOt9IjTJ0SjlRo_KdU2oyQq6Ywa-GDXIXdVRLJxvwdXAo91rGk8KTL7HRfUnVuKBuxwZ4yUXS29ltexEnGfXSohZsKva3eE1JiBlX25EfsZkhl6BTsagqXwSp5AjmOgednQHLtAGJzjNPYMQiWAD3Va390Fj8E/s1428/Sea%20of%20Fog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1428" data-original-width="1122" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF_q9Tw3TxCmSYG7MqP218rhncZtgrbMOt9IjTJ0SjlRo_KdU2oyQq6Ywa-GDXIXdVRLJxvwdXAo91rGk8KTL7HRfUnVuKBuxwZ4yUXS29ltexEnGfXSohZsKva3eE1JiBlX25EfsZkhl6BTsagqXwSp5AjmOgednQHLtAGJzjNPYMQiWAD3Va390Fj8E/s320/Sea%20of%20Fog.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-4823859999243462062023-12-24T22:06:00.000-05:002023-12-24T22:06:58.632-05:00The Tarot DeckI think this is an appropriate day to look into something unrelated to the holidays, -- Tarot cards. What got me curious about the Arcana Tarot Deck of Cards was a book I just read, “The Cloisters” by Katy Hays. It is a mystery at the Cloisters, the medieval branch of the Metropolitan Museum seven miles north of the main building, where they are putting together an exhibition about Tarot cards. There are secrets galore including who believes in the abilities of the Tarot cards to predict the future and who does not. As the game that is being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, the central figure must decide whether she is truly able to defy the cards and shape her own destiny.<br /><br />The Tarot game deck is thought to date back to the 1430s in Italy. Other sources say it was already in the early 1390s. Then the deck was used for a game called tarocchi, which was similar to Bridge and it became popular throughout Europe. The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York has a deck made for the Visconti-Sforza family and believed to be by Bonifacio Bembo (1447-1480). Here from the deck is the Wheel of Fortune ...<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JckhN2EhzAqElKR0Kg8Z7cDgMu0bnfWgZLNjiH5uH4vHrhwtzcsXuc_p-XGR-GS398bPgj36WMagySKDHunffOSfiessFLr52UTuJIolAfh4F45nBb6dw3YXkus_NSGWpcl8dBO99WwcSob3uLA1e07sOZdF89bkmTvdK2Dymdrf3C7lZ01vI5wVlN4/s1336/Wheel%20of%20Fortune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1336" data-original-width="702" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8JckhN2EhzAqElKR0Kg8Z7cDgMu0bnfWgZLNjiH5uH4vHrhwtzcsXuc_p-XGR-GS398bPgj36WMagySKDHunffOSfiessFLr52UTuJIolAfh4F45nBb6dw3YXkus_NSGWpcl8dBO99WwcSob3uLA1e07sOZdF89bkmTvdK2Dymdrf3C7lZ01vI5wVlN4/s320/Wheel%20of%20Fortune.jpg" width="168" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>The modern-day card game has 52 cards in 4 suits including numbers and face cards. The Tarot deck has 78 cards in it. The “major arcana” consists of 22 cards also known as trumps. And the minor arcana of 56 cards. The major arcana have images of various forces, characters, virtue and vices. Some believe Tarot is just a game and others believe in its mystic powers. The British Museum has an 18th century deck Published in Germany by Johanes Neumur but with French titles and Italian suits.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReMmxsIeIzyCAJi2N2utBNvDu77wMdT44lYG9kAWItIeKNXgYzxR00rj3nV6uHY6c7qCwoEnD-MY9w93xKeO4Iapog6ebbokOkbUIBxEI-u4SaUPXRfWll4jO_jqaq6F-7bHGyTZ_HeCmHQnSzP-u0bmpZl1RKj5XcJ1NBjMyfnp9aFaTocchyphenhyphengErMHQ/s1212/British%20Museum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="918" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReMmxsIeIzyCAJi2N2utBNvDu77wMdT44lYG9kAWItIeKNXgYzxR00rj3nV6uHY6c7qCwoEnD-MY9w93xKeO4Iapog6ebbokOkbUIBxEI-u4SaUPXRfWll4jO_jqaq6F-7bHGyTZ_HeCmHQnSzP-u0bmpZl1RKj5XcJ1NBjMyfnp9aFaTocchyphenhyphengErMHQ/s320/British%20Museum.jpg" width="242" /></a></div> <br />As time went on the Arcana deck of Tarot cards became more than a game. The derivation of the word Arcana is from the Latin arcanus meaning “secret”. It was often used to speak of the mysteries of the physical and spiritual world. Alchemists pursued the arcana of nature in their search for elixirs that would turn base metals into gold.<br /><br />Coincidently, we were given a set of Tarot cards at a recent talk at Evoke Gallery given by an artist we greatly admire, and whom I have written about in the past, Patrick McGrath Muñiz. <a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2013/12/patrick-mcgrath-muniz.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2013/12/patrick-mcgrath-muniz.html</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN9MzjRl40vsOwsNwH_CJtB_krwNNGQI61hSdoSWGzUcJedSVouOMx-RFX21ECImnooL4_7Voi5FWOHHcVWeAnkKsF6qyaHixXkzwYM5Y4uKbkHYf5aKYN447VfRpVWSWHl4sFtZHExfKzjFsbgMh_eLum8qBPilQR7H_MCuTlnZFZUzGaxqZYRTey8Oo/s1238/Muniz%20Tarot%20Deck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1238" data-original-width="924" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN9MzjRl40vsOwsNwH_CJtB_krwNNGQI61hSdoSWGzUcJedSVouOMx-RFX21ECImnooL4_7Voi5FWOHHcVWeAnkKsF6qyaHixXkzwYM5Y4uKbkHYf5aKYN447VfRpVWSWHl4sFtZHExfKzjFsbgMh_eLum8qBPilQR7H_MCuTlnZFZUzGaxqZYRTey8Oo/s320/Muniz%20Tarot%20Deck.jpg" width="239" /></a></div> <br />He has introduced imagery from the Tarot in his paintings for close to 20 years and in 2021 he published his own deck the “Tarot Neocolonial de las Americas”. The most powerful card in the Tarot deck is that of The Fool, here he is from Muñiz’s deck and inspired by his best friend.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4u6Off8kdZGssYDDMzNpb4trcKSUj6pnSt5hnm1Ian_SLMzyOzyzYm-Lq59FnJM7pr4Wd556eyvHj16q2T7zG54Lqz72zPsHHNftbtsuoiVyNkJp2EIzVboIrZtC3tyzQZ4-ovUJkdRVxV81-ptNzbjlmMiW-J6WTZPso2k2jxksfseTz0sgQ-mxlNc/s4032/The%20Fool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq4u6Off8kdZGssYDDMzNpb4trcKSUj6pnSt5hnm1Ian_SLMzyOzyzYm-Lq59FnJM7pr4Wd556eyvHj16q2T7zG54Lqz72zPsHHNftbtsuoiVyNkJp2EIzVboIrZtC3tyzQZ4-ovUJkdRVxV81-ptNzbjlmMiW-J6WTZPso2k2jxksfseTz0sgQ-mxlNc/s320/The%20Fool.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Muniz’s deck has specific meanings as he addresses current and historical social issues in the Americas in his art. Muniz talks about his development of Tarot figures as archetypes for patterns of behavior. This fits with the definition I found of archetype as “a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures.” <br /><br />How do you “read” Tarot cards? If you want to be cynical, the answer is any way you want to, as they can have both positive and negative meanings. It seems that 3 and 5 card spreads are most popular. You shuffle the cards and place them in 3 or 5 piles. You then read each card individually based on its placement in the spread and finally see how they blend to form an overall story imbued with layered meaning.<br /><br />Maybe this will be clearer:<br /><br />1. Choose a deck of tarot cards that speaks to you. <br /><br />2. Familiarize yourself with the meanings of the tarot cards. ...<br /><br />3. Set your intention for the reading. ...<br /><br />4. Shuffle the cards and focus on your question or intention as you do so. ...<br /><br />5. Lay out the cards in a spread. ...<br /><br />6. Interpret the cards in the spread.<br /><br />Confused yet? Good. As you can tell I am one of the doubters, though it seems like great fun to pursue this endeavor. To my surprise I found there are even classes on how to study and learn about the cards.<br /><br /> Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-46389793537378529672023-12-17T19:17:00.001-05:002023-12-17T19:25:01.717-05:00The Case For Ugly ArtI did a search of my Missives and in the past 14 years, I have used the word “ugly” in less than 2% of them. One of my schoolmates, way back when said, “The Evil is in the mind of the beholder”. That goes for the word “ugly” as well. How often have you seen a couple and you think one of them is so good looking how can that individual be with that ugly person? Obviously, that is not how they see each other.<br /><br />We have been taught to think of art as beautiful in one sense or another even though that term is now often disparaged. When we see unpleasant subject matter such as Judith Slaying Holofernes (ca. 1616-1618) by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593- ca. 1656) we can still react to it as a beautiful painting.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6MeMJpctGAPutcu3iGt3OVGv9dGfZfjIcqN7nD7J2oAroDPDpEreZlj4o1TRdFgS4yNQDVTq9U2xpSG4bd1Lsx8OV3fOduBs-UfPkF0trFHqilBgQ-glcZN1yLYJnwrQs8brhbKloELM3utra8SYPq0GqI8tBdBdoGWW12nU-ZnryZzh0MQx1ApSnKo/s1516/Judith.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1516" data-original-width="1290" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6MeMJpctGAPutcu3iGt3OVGv9dGfZfjIcqN7nD7J2oAroDPDpEreZlj4o1TRdFgS4yNQDVTq9U2xpSG4bd1Lsx8OV3fOduBs-UfPkF0trFHqilBgQ-glcZN1yLYJnwrQs8brhbKloELM3utra8SYPq0GqI8tBdBdoGWW12nU-ZnryZzh0MQx1ApSnKo/s320/Judith.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>This past July Ayanna Dozier published an article, “Why ‘Ugly’ Paintings are so Popular” in the on-line “artsy.net”. It delves into an exhibition at Nahmad Contemporary in New York called “Ugly Painting” curated by Eleanor Cayre and Dean Kissick. Their definition of ugly painting is artists who make “deliberate use of grotesque, garish, or abject styles of brushwork, representation, composition, or coloring to form a singular vision. Painting that is bold, confrontational, and confident, rather than pretty, decorative, polite, conservative, or overly realistic.” Of course, they are just speaking of contemporary art. One of the paintings in the show by Connor Marie, called “Pork, 2023” is an unpleasant commentary but beautifully painted.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs03I2Ya99qUmc-nHAF2mf1bi_hkWdeVGU7rSAf7sMsbv3NMQi3H6Psyl3P0VEceq4bV9J3BzAxrg5xFohaXFdR4rmEVz6WhcpQA-dg6ujf-JuJaKl4gvYp0_Nah7WjXgLAQM_1xGVL8xhseI6xye3n3JhQjupZ8J3PriGaUv48j1Rs2twa8_Yu7ZOXSw/s1736/Pork.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1430" data-original-width="1736" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs03I2Ya99qUmc-nHAF2mf1bi_hkWdeVGU7rSAf7sMsbv3NMQi3H6Psyl3P0VEceq4bV9J3BzAxrg5xFohaXFdR4rmEVz6WhcpQA-dg6ujf-JuJaKl4gvYp0_Nah7WjXgLAQM_1xGVL8xhseI6xye3n3JhQjupZ8J3PriGaUv48j1Rs2twa8_Yu7ZOXSw/s320/Pork.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />They go on to say, “Ugliness can be powerful, moving, and even sublime. Many great historical works were considered unpleasant in their time because they broke with convention or simply because they were extremely grotesque.” A prime example is a painting I have reproduced before titled “The Ugly Duchess” (circa 1513) by Quentin Massys (1466-1530) in the National Gallery in London.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIDoVqo2sMyeqp4McHwwmtK4B_mIz8Q52HwiehPc6cOxXEuLemurWmhvAbVEtXVN4YDPtanDShrhQbY2fpgq77CM2tZCG5__YCn08jKCjyPV-PB7otIS-9bMfAxEc-jRYJKlIigNzu4zbeTzfJfss_jdayfPnvF30PG8VnohnxS2-x0J0renXZedUvVrk/s1190/Ugly%20Duchess.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="842" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIDoVqo2sMyeqp4McHwwmtK4B_mIz8Q52HwiehPc6cOxXEuLemurWmhvAbVEtXVN4YDPtanDShrhQbY2fpgq77CM2tZCG5__YCn08jKCjyPV-PB7otIS-9bMfAxEc-jRYJKlIigNzu4zbeTzfJfss_jdayfPnvF30PG8VnohnxS2-x0J0renXZedUvVrk/s320/Ugly%20Duchess.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br />Do we have to rethink what is ugly and what is beautiful or are they just part of a single spectrum?<br /><br />Willem de Kooning’s “Woman 1” (1950-1952) is an example of what could be deemed ugly. I had a professor who said Willem de Kooning (1904-1997). painted women as if they had fallen out of a third-story window. In this painting, we can hit all the points that Cayre and Kissick make, and by that measure, I would tend towards ugly!</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCksgJlT2m5938W-6FXADdMcHjOASlPNkjDLYuU4upXo_59-kFwQBJ5atrrHOghtJXHeg2Ru0Bvy7ocuYdQPjw9ZzhmvOJCstmKSWMg7us-_B2S53JF_PSkkg6NhsMZqUjNV1BSV8XLtzWGYwHBIfM03GGwav7EKzHUQlfwpxMuZrtYSJhn57OhjSr1o/s1218/de%20Kooning.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1218" data-original-width="922" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCksgJlT2m5938W-6FXADdMcHjOASlPNkjDLYuU4upXo_59-kFwQBJ5atrrHOghtJXHeg2Ru0Bvy7ocuYdQPjw9ZzhmvOJCstmKSWMg7us-_B2S53JF_PSkkg6NhsMZqUjNV1BSV8XLtzWGYwHBIfM03GGwav7EKzHUQlfwpxMuZrtYSJhn57OhjSr1o/s320/de%20Kooning.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I could go on and on with subjective thoughts on what is ugly in art. Next time you visit a museum or a gallery and have an initial visceral reaction to a work of art consider where you would put it on the beautiful/ugly scale and see it through different eyes.<br /><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-30731563609743868552023-12-10T18:08:00.001-05:002023-12-10T18:08:17.371-05:00What’s So Funny?There are so many ways to look at art and I started to think about the artists who are intentionally poking fun at the world or inadvertently creating an image I find funny. Humor is always in the mind of the beholder. That is why you can sit in a comedy club doubled over with laughter while the person sitting next to you is trying to figure out what you think is so funny.<br /><br />One of the Old Masters who seems to be enjoying himself is Pieter Breughel the Elder (1526/30-1569). In the Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin you will find a painting called “Netherlandish Proverbs” of 1559. All kinds of mayhem are going on: notice the guy hitting his head against a wall on the left and that one fellow who seems to be digging a grave for the man crawling away at the bottom center. There are many other vignettes that viewers of the period would have recognized as illustrating proverbs that make fun of human behavior.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDnnBerjP6CrRGKRGr5M8YbqGiFQ3yy5gfHhUnHfgBio5-IkhoI2A3-P4lDkRMXzldyFQ9Q1-SSJrtU-NhfyLb0aqXNrh2giHJRZSRLheOPZzUQSB6F7VnAjHi4xY2jxT2C7hN5hUtI6uRDRK_iF5GoTOzEjwGvGAAZBKS7DOj3pqw4DaIy0KiWw3FrM/s2160/Breughel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1518" data-original-width="2160" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQDnnBerjP6CrRGKRGr5M8YbqGiFQ3yy5gfHhUnHfgBio5-IkhoI2A3-P4lDkRMXzldyFQ9Q1-SSJrtU-NhfyLb0aqXNrh2giHJRZSRLheOPZzUQSB6F7VnAjHi4xY2jxT2C7hN5hUtI6uRDRK_iF5GoTOzEjwGvGAAZBKS7DOj3pqw4DaIy0KiWw3FrM/s320/Breughel.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I particularly enjoy this painting by Pere Borrell del Caso (1835-1910), “Escaping Criticism’ (1874), in a private collection (Bank of Spain, Madrid). Aside from the ironic title, seeing the figure jump out of the frame as if to join the viewer adds to the humor.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgczOagEZK1q6W9P2T3ZYvguXD-JDsqVLnKcN1ST5gMRIsHYyy0GMkUjZ8BwC_I6yV4rZx7CkqktCRKk61k3eeCWIUcTx4doBOQudl1ejqIrJI3GvtWDBQ6wprVTEtCKuQ-ZuO5CJn8-3pzmWQcIVTgZ5XzCBgKpXguONsBrILp2Br1ucMwJRCYNTi-NCc/s1662/Borel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1662" data-original-width="1338" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgczOagEZK1q6W9P2T3ZYvguXD-JDsqVLnKcN1ST5gMRIsHYyy0GMkUjZ8BwC_I6yV4rZx7CkqktCRKk61k3eeCWIUcTx4doBOQudl1ejqIrJI3GvtWDBQ6wprVTEtCKuQ-ZuO5CJn8-3pzmWQcIVTgZ5XzCBgKpXguONsBrILp2Br1ucMwJRCYNTi-NCc/s320/Borel.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>This painting by Domenichino, “St. Cecilia with an Angel Holding a Musical Score,” ca. 1617 has a couple of points of humor to my eyes. Not only is the angel holding the score above his head trying in vain to get St. Cecilia’s attention, but she is so distracted it looks like she is going to poke him in the tummy with her bow.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlvDydLD9DcnIAsn7x7ghh0Xk-Q8NjAmVZJXwflAedUMgAeEbpttRrb6GDxjet86YCsUOCXNHST47KnjzZZXVRB0j4tL-3zCRrVZsGEhesyU-1KXdqPI4F1HL-Dma5WMGzUswbtoWUsLyYuKRZ8pi7yAML_x_7-u-S2p-3R7-Om8O_9i9yA2jhCDKOzk/s1540/St.%20Cecelia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1540" data-original-width="1282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlvDydLD9DcnIAsn7x7ghh0Xk-Q8NjAmVZJXwflAedUMgAeEbpttRrb6GDxjet86YCsUOCXNHST47KnjzZZXVRB0j4tL-3zCRrVZsGEhesyU-1KXdqPI4F1HL-Dma5WMGzUswbtoWUsLyYuKRZ8pi7yAML_x_7-u-S2p-3R7-Om8O_9i9yA2jhCDKOzk/s320/St.%20Cecelia.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In the Gazette de l’ Hotel Drouot an auction was announced for December 18-20th that includes a painting by Giampietrino (circa 1500-1550) titled “Ecce Homo” or Behold the Man. The image of Christ with hands bound and a crown of thorns as Pontius Pilate presented him to the hostile crowd was a traditional subject for private devotion. But instead of an inspiring picture of suffering and resignation, what about this Christ’s countenance? To me he seems to be glancing toward one of his tormentors as if to say “This is so tiresome. Let’s get on with it”.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0qJbyHcjGJArifzXoniEJGhunW0JMjap4FQSXC_USWxPl5kAGenETkim9Tsp6FhPMuv3JJzUBj31CjES_yex-_GRmNIAM-y68NrxYRRO0OZ6_U4AWkwnCk3MmR6OswAbRfbXF0puZLdJ-q2WAsd9j5ZUgvy7wUD8iyQgYQJfa8798Bh4edYfW40QA9Es/s1334/Ecce%20Homo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1134" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0qJbyHcjGJArifzXoniEJGhunW0JMjap4FQSXC_USWxPl5kAGenETkim9Tsp6FhPMuv3JJzUBj31CjES_yex-_GRmNIAM-y68NrxYRRO0OZ6_U4AWkwnCk3MmR6OswAbRfbXF0puZLdJ-q2WAsd9j5ZUgvy7wUD8iyQgYQJfa8798Bh4edYfW40QA9Es/s320/Ecce%20Homo.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>I thought I would take a look at our own collection. As a child I loved works of Honoré-Victorin Daumier (1808-1879). The painter, sculptor and graphic artist often did cartoons for the newspaper. As a birthday present my parents went to Walter Schatzki’s on 57th Street in New York that specialized in the graphic arts and bought me this original newspaper clipping. The title is “The Auction House” and the story in the caption loosely translated says, “My wife told me to bring her my portrait painted in Paris…..But that doesn’t look like you….I know that but I will have the face touched up and that will cost me less than to have it done from scratch!”</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9W0Lwxgm8Oym92nM8l1XhX1qhvcg7nTiO3289fciZ7RHkHiREYShqjW7FUHbxtnnjtFLvG80olPSRkItFcU1ZeAbdAJ1NEZUXG9eT9uP4zLrzoCgyI_UkaUCb4GMSMVFo4Hu2uJBeiE0KlN-rEZXnB-XS_BGJcWljZ7oOnE8kfGPpWOFCuNOKZo_9MK8/s3724/Daumier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3724" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9W0Lwxgm8Oym92nM8l1XhX1qhvcg7nTiO3289fciZ7RHkHiREYShqjW7FUHbxtnnjtFLvG80olPSRkItFcU1ZeAbdAJ1NEZUXG9eT9uP4zLrzoCgyI_UkaUCb4GMSMVFo4Hu2uJBeiE0KlN-rEZXnB-XS_BGJcWljZ7oOnE8kfGPpWOFCuNOKZo_9MK8/s320/Daumier.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />To finish up in the 20th century we have a well-known image from the early 1950’s, that seems appropriate for the season, Norman Rockwell’s “The Jolly Postman”. All the children want their presents before the postman has reached their house. Guess they caught on that Santa is not going to come down the chimney and Amazon didn’t exist yet!</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoI05MEE68xWNsDvy8gZxn6r3BiDDO0eN1GWofsiOHQYszUPsPtbLa_yubHSmGdoQUXSNAA0V66pFOyOl0qU4JurKqTzqik0QD9AcrCGeNNhgUt9t9Jq3Qv1ghgakPl67j2YE_JMDdwzMuXcAeXOZ7uYIpX2OruDcbtZ0Kkm4wQggyYvwHusX7ILUijp4/s1202/Rockwell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1202" data-original-width="1034" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoI05MEE68xWNsDvy8gZxn6r3BiDDO0eN1GWofsiOHQYszUPsPtbLa_yubHSmGdoQUXSNAA0V66pFOyOl0qU4JurKqTzqik0QD9AcrCGeNNhgUt9t9Jq3Qv1ghgakPl67j2YE_JMDdwzMuXcAeXOZ7uYIpX2OruDcbtZ0Kkm4wQggyYvwHusX7ILUijp4/s320/Rockwell.jpg" width="275" /></a></div> <br />Tip for parents: If you take children, kicking and screaming, to a museum, tell them to look at the paintings and see what they might find funny or let them make up what the stories might be. They will enjoy the experience far better!<br /><br />To illustrate the point from a book called “Parenting Advice to Ignore in Art and Life” by Nicole Tersigni this example from many old masters with comments. This Ercole de’ Roberti (1451-1496) in the National Gallery, Washington D.C.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vFds0IRAXNv7Mo9l-V7yS1oOC7FyD6uu7dB_r081C-7F1t-Gyb91x64Dbr38t0sHyWTmjEngWKHN_4EswJiEyyUsbCaUew91t9fxFsHnKI9fAaKlRkQ3Gbu4eEr0RqiAMFIF1l8Mcnu8cHzl7Uda6K3BhYCD0SWh6xY84JlxfjrTHeD81QD9F9nZufo/s4032/Mother%20&%20Children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vFds0IRAXNv7Mo9l-V7yS1oOC7FyD6uu7dB_r081C-7F1t-Gyb91x64Dbr38t0sHyWTmjEngWKHN_4EswJiEyyUsbCaUew91t9fxFsHnKI9fAaKlRkQ3Gbu4eEr0RqiAMFIF1l8Mcnu8cHzl7Uda6K3BhYCD0SWh6xY84JlxfjrTHeD81QD9F9nZufo/s320/Mother%20&%20Children.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-24310368988565455622023-12-03T19:32:00.000-05:002023-12-03T19:32:45.843-05:00The BacksideWhen we speak of paintings it is always the image on the recto (front) that we speak of. It has been painted over a primer so that the paint will stick to the canvas or the knots in the wood will not interrupt the flow of the paint. How often, however, do we speak of the verso (the back) of the canvas or panel. What goes on there?<br /><br />An exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid has taken on this question. It is called in English “On the Reverse” and will be up until March 3, 2024. I love the idea of going into a gallery where all the paintings have turned their backs on us! Some of the works are installed so that you can see the view the artist intended as well. This exhibition of one hundred works drawn from the Prado’s own collection and 29 other museums covers a span of 400 years.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNaDjFJnRkm8qqZ0tlhgS87s6TD6ysfhJkJux8x6lWxNGfidn-9ycuTRcV8w_fvZZ1tp_ZPafr9TivS1F4bF_KS9gxvQmEX7I5If4kV-5DwABHIPweRoDWQaXyj02LIGeQLzWDeFRVMRqdSPZcQEqDTQQ96mUbb-jOputNrzt0NsxEvWaLpTHVUChOU9o/s3640/Gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1580" data-original-width="3640" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNaDjFJnRkm8qqZ0tlhgS87s6TD6ysfhJkJux8x6lWxNGfidn-9ycuTRcV8w_fvZZ1tp_ZPafr9TivS1F4bF_KS9gxvQmEX7I5If4kV-5DwABHIPweRoDWQaXyj02LIGeQLzWDeFRVMRqdSPZcQEqDTQQ96mUbb-jOputNrzt0NsxEvWaLpTHVUChOU9o/s320/Gallery.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />As an art dealer, I had to look at the backs of pictures to see if the canvas was thin or had already been relined, or whether the stretcher needed reinforcement. There is, of course, so much more to see there. There are hints at, or explicit acknowledgment of, provenance and other surprises. Sometimes there may be a preparatory sketch or an idea for another work. Here is a work from the Prado’s own collection of “The Holy Family” by Bernard van Orley (1487-1541) together with its verso showing the artist’s elaborate inscription.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Wlvkjb3Kd6fyqAhzojnJm52LHo51E6vBSsEwMJr6VJ765vWcXGLVaOYAu8sY0fXJLRHMnhPrvFhblygXCPu-QTc9xO8mYKDvDGD5Opc2k_mWEZhz0ze4edYSoCxYKO9zHdm0qF0-HRPPcXOHdaY1AhiLmyHVtr_10vgiKb8dm6Eg2komi0HEcDNyabg/s3808/van%20Orley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1564" data-original-width="3808" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Wlvkjb3Kd6fyqAhzojnJm52LHo51E6vBSsEwMJr6VJ765vWcXGLVaOYAu8sY0fXJLRHMnhPrvFhblygXCPu-QTc9xO8mYKDvDGD5Opc2k_mWEZhz0ze4edYSoCxYKO9zHdm0qF0-HRPPcXOHdaY1AhiLmyHVtr_10vgiKb8dm6Eg2komi0HEcDNyabg/s320/van%20Orley.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>The Getty Museum shows the versos of 320 paintings in their collection pages online. There they write about what one might find like wax seals of previous, handwritten inscriptions as well as customs stamps if the picture crossed borders.<br /><br />Here is a picture Diana and her Dog 1717-1720 by Sebastiano Ricci ( 1659-1734) from the show with the labels on the back - information that might be gleaned by the art detective.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnWaQWcoY2-sLl2lV0ANXqxuWZ1P3zSJeYfpg_DDFmOCnP_KL2VutSND66QDu5BS188w5uKJ1sFmpFduk9MWMI5miVNzbQF-5WV4CyjbneTzxR2ddRqQhTe18x_3NvMhTOTkn4-VVF-OL8lrfB5XGpBfepLqi5LxSW93YK_LKWuPuN-eLwo93sNdb6d0/s3826/Diana%20&%20her%20dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1912" data-original-width="3826" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYnWaQWcoY2-sLl2lV0ANXqxuWZ1P3zSJeYfpg_DDFmOCnP_KL2VutSND66QDu5BS188w5uKJ1sFmpFduk9MWMI5miVNzbQF-5WV4CyjbneTzxR2ddRqQhTe18x_3NvMhTOTkn4-VVF-OL8lrfB5XGpBfepLqi5LxSW93YK_LKWuPuN-eLwo93sNdb6d0/s320/Diana%20&%20her%20dog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />A happy surprise is if you might find a preparatory sketch or a picture by a student such as this by Anibale Carracci (1560-1609) and students from the Prado.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7FvEzSypwn_AbAVooJoyrhp2SgG0dxM-EYxW0MxTmY4ClJlCOcevZYe-x7fYeL7dwVIxsKFBuxcpsZ-e_J1dSkCea0nTJysNssSGEN6MD5iP7zR6WCeXKGHVgmdaWlsYDE5n2YluLd37Esxc39H6QQncMQyyQdfOVDVGg7Gk7ugg0W94lqobhrFO_-s/s1062/Carracci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="843" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG7FvEzSypwn_AbAVooJoyrhp2SgG0dxM-EYxW0MxTmY4ClJlCOcevZYe-x7fYeL7dwVIxsKFBuxcpsZ-e_J1dSkCea0nTJysNssSGEN6MD5iP7zR6WCeXKGHVgmdaWlsYDE5n2YluLd37Esxc39H6QQncMQyyQdfOVDVGg7Gk7ugg0W94lqobhrFO_-s/s320/Carracci.jpg" width="254" /></a></div> <br />The artist Cornelius Norbertus Giesbrechts (circa 1630 – after 1683) made the verso the subject of his painting “Trompe l'oeil. The Reverse of a Framed Painting” circa 1670, in the National Gallery of Denmark. Was the artist making fun of clients or dealers who would immediately look at the back of a picture presented to them?<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik-6-46fAndLWi58O-u9f5B7j2x_WfTNlLquKRZKHJkzkzKLNdegZXQyaXlH_K1nfOQnFwb4DrfwT07ya-mgpgNzGwqGv61BS7K1PIWhlq8cB6k_9MTOId6xFcPr8yBRJGxICMBxnpj0ASTX7d2yTKyFnj_VNiZeUdWaMMtCztsfhDmD3K8Vg9Q3mwebs/s1776/Giesbrechts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="1776" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik-6-46fAndLWi58O-u9f5B7j2x_WfTNlLquKRZKHJkzkzKLNdegZXQyaXlH_K1nfOQnFwb4DrfwT07ya-mgpgNzGwqGv61BS7K1PIWhlq8cB6k_9MTOId6xFcPr8yBRJGxICMBxnpj0ASTX7d2yTKyFnj_VNiZeUdWaMMtCztsfhDmD3K8Vg9Q3mwebs/s320/Giesbrechts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>On Christie’s website, I found this verso of a still-life by Ben Nicholson (1894-1982). Though you may not be able to see it in the illustration the artist has included his address in Cornwall on the bottom, left.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EFdL48yqZvQ41PfhriR6W6UgfNxw6x6x1CHDWBYcUnOAWGAYrwM9egiTToHDuiD_zaGjpQtVnyzU8dWh0wLr-NAQkSvkiYY_Nx3y97TLR49VTTBB93uGLPUgrIi5aD47-lNboxle7RrfRBp0gaOzmF9kugAXI1WR62UQ8dnu5CysJxvPzeo_yCI7b18/s1264/Ben%20Nicholson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1264" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EFdL48yqZvQ41PfhriR6W6UgfNxw6x6x1CHDWBYcUnOAWGAYrwM9egiTToHDuiD_zaGjpQtVnyzU8dWh0wLr-NAQkSvkiYY_Nx3y97TLR49VTTBB93uGLPUgrIi5aD47-lNboxle7RrfRBp0gaOzmF9kugAXI1WR62UQ8dnu5CysJxvPzeo_yCI7b18/s320/Ben%20Nicholson.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Perhaps the most surprising painting in the Prado exhibition is by Martin Mytens (1648-1736) “Kneeling Nun” circa 1731, from the Stockholm National Museum. Mytens took the theme quite literally completing his seemingly pious frontal image with a rear view. Do note the nun peering in the window on the front whose view you only catch onto when you see the back. The picture belonged to the Swedish Ambassador to Paris who presumably kept the verso of the pious image to enjoy privately or with select friends.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcfJgCcLBuMqdTVmTyBq5gQjdnxns_GUpXMv1ZRhhQaoP7yjYNUEQvVRZ0iE5bYfRKD3BVaK1bQBw6tZoPoPWR6pOdoYssp0iRklJDSG1LCO5hlkhKSAqaAiEv1GKKiRz8jwumdIkD-nkb3EEbpVYr2MuLbCufvtHx_p-Na9oRGYroLVcjO-K94YU3ow/s1472/Kneeling%20Nun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="1112" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcfJgCcLBuMqdTVmTyBq5gQjdnxns_GUpXMv1ZRhhQaoP7yjYNUEQvVRZ0iE5bYfRKD3BVaK1bQBw6tZoPoPWR6pOdoYssp0iRklJDSG1LCO5hlkhKSAqaAiEv1GKKiRz8jwumdIkD-nkb3EEbpVYr2MuLbCufvtHx_p-Na9oRGYroLVcjO-K94YU3ow/s320/Kneeling%20Nun.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh6FbMdcdrPyN2Y0hP1RD5MhknDT8rubxJRb6UNBuafeQZ3fWH4XJ7YbAz9EOS-i0mOo_-F2oyhz-vWjGRhQZmv6Gl-zz7I5c-ecgAF3y4j8PmBdKIf8Y-m-j9AwKdVNhlHHhyphenhyphenqaJjFNW8UCoZIkqXWCnGrCi3pWbVw8qHDDYcxVzY6D0Ed7HuC2X5JlI/s1486/Kneeling%20Nun%20Posterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1486" data-original-width="1114" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh6FbMdcdrPyN2Y0hP1RD5MhknDT8rubxJRb6UNBuafeQZ3fWH4XJ7YbAz9EOS-i0mOo_-F2oyhz-vWjGRhQZmv6Gl-zz7I5c-ecgAF3y4j8PmBdKIf8Y-m-j9AwKdVNhlHHhyphenhyphenqaJjFNW8UCoZIkqXWCnGrCi3pWbVw8qHDDYcxVzY6D0Ed7HuC2X5JlI/s320/Kneeling%20Nun%20Posterior.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>The next time you want to acquire a painting you might want to take a look at the verso as well, but please make your priority looking at the recto and don’t be seduced by the verso.<br /><br /> </div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-56935259614468752032023-11-26T18:37:00.002-05:002023-11-28T10:30:58.095-05:00I’m Scared As Hell And Can’t Take It AnymoreMy wife tells me that one of my former readers believes that I only write about politics. Yes, I have written a few Missives on politics but only a small percentage in comparison with the circa 750 I have posted since 2009.<br /><br />In all good conscience, I feel I need to do it again and it always seems to be about the same issue that has only gotten much worse since 2016. Therefore, I have adapted my title from the 1976 film “Network”.<br /><br />The news is full of the growth of antisemitism that is building in this country and for that matter all over the world. The fear is that “they want to replace us”. I honestly don’t understand how such a tiny minority of the world population could accomplish that? This is not a new phenomenon, and it rears its ugly head from time to time. However, this and the new republican party (no capital letters here) have reached a much scarier pitch than ever before.<br /><br />I thought that nothing could get worse than when I wrote a second time about Trump over five years ago. <a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2018/03/forewarned-is-forearmed-redux.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2018/03/forewarned-is-forearmed-redux.html</a> I even said that I did not think he was a Hitler, German magazines say otherwise.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSrZlfDks-2B8NJ4baRMkNJd03igA3JCrMDD5KjZD1p4LIyuJ0z19uU2QZMYWOd-oBH5SRHKNhfiimcS30NJ8KTUSPCSaWNTaB3joyXhQmiHF6A97bxkzeOdqav1HeyPWAMZfhhU5-ElHpgv8nZThzAD2yBQFwxsOxr8YIN0Xcpus3gtjprgH8D4xwVE/s1398/Stern%20Trump.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1398" data-original-width="1046" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSrZlfDks-2B8NJ4baRMkNJd03igA3JCrMDD5KjZD1p4LIyuJ0z19uU2QZMYWOd-oBH5SRHKNhfiimcS30NJ8KTUSPCSaWNTaB3joyXhQmiHF6A97bxkzeOdqav1HeyPWAMZfhhU5-ElHpgv8nZThzAD2yBQFwxsOxr8YIN0Xcpus3gtjprgH8D4xwVE/s320/Stern%20Trump.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In the referred to Missive there is also a cartoon showing Trump’s love of Putin. Now, however, the situation has gotten so, so much worse. A short while ago the former president and his army of acolytes started to speak of “CAMPS”. Why is that word so familiar? Oh yes, Hitler created work camps not just for Jews, though they were by far the most afflicted, but for all those he felt were inferior or a threat. In a speech in the Reichstag on 30 January 1941, Hitler claimed that the Nazis had only copied from earlier British camps, which had existed, but as you know the Nazi concentration camps became unique in one respect!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhul0MVsJoK2p-3qSrm6HCvrBLE361vi8mTdnkeAr13eTP2GFMODLyIrr7NKCbHBAkVFLBfIdg8tkM478229Iv2E88spegbuxLZgoSXin7Gpq9wqQ5oOKzwv93kVrTVOZkBGoHBUY1nDFvzoowK7AWyJEY2DtvDTuB77yKT74Qsir1TC0sQRW_1pwcVDwM/s1280/Trumo's%20Camps.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="952" data-original-width="1280" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhul0MVsJoK2p-3qSrm6HCvrBLE361vi8mTdnkeAr13eTP2GFMODLyIrr7NKCbHBAkVFLBfIdg8tkM478229Iv2E88spegbuxLZgoSXin7Gpq9wqQ5oOKzwv93kVrTVOZkBGoHBUY1nDFvzoowK7AWyJEY2DtvDTuB77yKT74Qsir1TC0sQRW_1pwcVDwM/s320/Trumo's%20Camps.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Like Hitler Trump wants to get rid of the undesirables. If you think that is an exaggeration here is the headline from CNN, “Trump plots mass detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants should he regain power”. In May Reuters wrote that if elected again “he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrants in the country illegally” and further he “said in a campaign video posted to Twitter that he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to stop what is known as birthright citizenship”.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvZ4QViTemsnKvwSrppk32JHBbLEOv3QBT79CCrIzdsZD-xSDZwfxaljQQy2N1ipW3_lJi7x_nSVgYAbAM3iDW6APoHmWQn-I2PcLUtoCKhupmwW-LqqAwfiq1HDbth80cnnuf9BbkbUkPwFWiI17UojRyU4ieL94MBFPmVdcbIBR1r8_Lv2PMWXgIW8/s1160/Erasing%20Birthright.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1160" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBvZ4QViTemsnKvwSrppk32JHBbLEOv3QBT79CCrIzdsZD-xSDZwfxaljQQy2N1ipW3_lJi7x_nSVgYAbAM3iDW6APoHmWQn-I2PcLUtoCKhupmwW-LqqAwfiq1HDbth80cnnuf9BbkbUkPwFWiI17UojRyU4ieL94MBFPmVdcbIBR1r8_Lv2PMWXgIW8/s320/Erasing%20Birthright.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Never mind that the latter is codified in the Constitution. But he also said regarding the 2020 election “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution”.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqK84gNTr4YZ29NMarhbL7JjplcBb705gCQpeTsWH4xR8HjeHxzyEy2IKPiT8BPwqjwJ3ZgMo1x8mcmjEJ8KLlkOaN5cCLIUHqbh_0eA8AQei7gSNcS8m9TLf-CrBVwpAM85AWWcqQ46SRDKc13W1idSEB-PMtpCxRI2IdQaS5YhGv6OPSyVnDb4J6wkI/s1334/Shredding%20the%20Constitution.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="1334" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqK84gNTr4YZ29NMarhbL7JjplcBb705gCQpeTsWH4xR8HjeHxzyEy2IKPiT8BPwqjwJ3ZgMo1x8mcmjEJ8KLlkOaN5cCLIUHqbh_0eA8AQei7gSNcS8m9TLf-CrBVwpAM85AWWcqQ46SRDKc13W1idSEB-PMtpCxRI2IdQaS5YhGv6OPSyVnDb4J6wkI/s320/Shredding%20the%20Constitution.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />We want freedom of speech but there used to be limits, such as, you can’t cry fire in a crowded theater. Now the public seems to want screaming and sensational statements. Situations have to go to extremes for the press to call it like it is, but foul rhetoric is spewed across our headlines every day while congressmen criticize social media for not policing hate speech. <br /><br />I am damn right to be scared and you should be too.<br /><br />Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-65143481366556189962023-11-19T19:42:00.000-05:002023-11-19T19:42:44.191-05:00The Frick Collection’s Last Exhibition at the Frick MadisonAs a writer, a number of museums grant me privileges that I wish I could make full use of. I get press notices and releases and can, at least in theory, go to press previews. Living in Santa Fe I cannot easily take advantage of many.<div><br />Recently I received an invitation from the Frick Collection for the preview of their final exhibition in their Madison Avenue space. By the time you read this, the exhibition will have opened. It will neither be the largest nor the most complicated they have ever done though it definitely must have been a masterstroke of International Diplomacy. The exhibition is called “Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini”.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyg3KPkhd34BpjVPm8GMZBicRFAoFDmQqoMjQgxH3uG447NTzF1tCr307mlO7P_8YJ3FspmWA0J4eq3I0JDudjbIGm_UCbQW6TJeyUJEX6sRss-XYcrGFZRvxmW7YXrhep5BGNam5AkvTkUbe1T2zuOVu5WAq99dOKU7i-78aF3gBW4sYN8dANmR9DycA/s1796/Exhbition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1796" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyg3KPkhd34BpjVPm8GMZBicRFAoFDmQqoMjQgxH3uG447NTzF1tCr307mlO7P_8YJ3FspmWA0J4eq3I0JDudjbIGm_UCbQW6TJeyUJEX6sRss-XYcrGFZRvxmW7YXrhep5BGNam5AkvTkUbe1T2zuOVu5WAq99dOKU7i-78aF3gBW4sYN8dANmR9DycA/s320/Exhbition.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>If you have read these Missives for a while, you already know that “St. Francis in the Desert” by Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516). has been my favorite painting in the Frick, since I was a child. It is being placed “in dialog” with Vienna’s Kunsthistoricsches Museum “Three Philosophers” by Giorgione. Only six works are generally accepted by Giorgione’s hand, and it is not a common occurrence for a museum to lend a prized work of such importance. Think of the risks involved in transatlantic shipments and the concerns of having another institution dealing with one of your precious “children”. Should, god forbid, something happen to this picture that is being sent to an institution over 4,000 miles away, the political fallout alone would be seismic!</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8ZKT5AevC2nohdAoeqARu3X1oXq3FZeuIgs4q4bsJjIhFr38xuO2sdRmXlNDpir6kdX5_OjW1chiKHcxE6rogAyFOt8zm-EhjAAUMi2RlwKm4nUaA34TbBO_EEwnPUUepTAANfhXzEy5EtJd-EVn5x4fk8tlLRrQ9glClYwAoB6Nn0Hg1AZPHDWtOi4/s1580/Giorgione%203%20Philosphers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="1580" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8ZKT5AevC2nohdAoeqARu3X1oXq3FZeuIgs4q4bsJjIhFr38xuO2sdRmXlNDpir6kdX5_OjW1chiKHcxE6rogAyFOt8zm-EhjAAUMi2RlwKm4nUaA34TbBO_EEwnPUUepTAANfhXzEy5EtJd-EVn5x4fk8tlLRrQ9glClYwAoB6Nn0Hg1AZPHDWtOi4/s320/Giorgione%203%20Philosphers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Giorgione (circa 1477/78 – 1510), is one of the earliest and most influential Renaissance painters although there is little known about him. Since he died young at 32 or 33, Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574) in his Lives of the Artists, stated that the cause was probably the plague of that period.</div><div><br />Giovanni Bellini painted a dozen times as many paintings. I venture that “St. Frances in the Desert” is his best and most famous. By now you are wondering, so, what do these two works have to do with each other? The answer is quite simply that they were owned by the same collector, a Venetian nobleman, Taddeo Contarini (circa 1466-1540). It is thought that quite possibly “The Three Philosophers” was commissioned by Contarini as the companion piece to “St. Francis in the Desert”. According to the Vice-Director and Chief Curator of the Museum, Xavier F. Salomon, Contarini is best known for owning these two masterpieces. Let me not forget to say that Salomon has written an accompanying book about these two masterpieces and their owner, available at the Museum and on Amazon.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2_K2lJw8xeJvYuaDf63RRupIV3IqwNSsrjLHwW9L2Ir-3Ojykly2tWxQCvxKdWDk8GJTTfNyhhVpSDcOR2YVT093AKSVZc7qkyZW2ukY3UqukG1Q3G5OZhIwSxtkpYFvWaQlp0us6qNHhKtBcFuhwam4Tv_QhS7me2cwGHN3spomITqeeiFO8Wqe138/s1230/Bellini%20St.%20Francis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1084" data-original-width="1230" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp2_K2lJw8xeJvYuaDf63RRupIV3IqwNSsrjLHwW9L2Ir-3Ojykly2tWxQCvxKdWDk8GJTTfNyhhVpSDcOR2YVT093AKSVZc7qkyZW2ukY3UqukG1Q3G5OZhIwSxtkpYFvWaQlp0us6qNHhKtBcFuhwam4Tv_QhS7me2cwGHN3spomITqeeiFO8Wqe138/s320/Bellini%20St.%20Francis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br />The Kunsthistorisches Museum entry on their painting says that it has been seriously cut on the left-hand side. In a paper by Patrick Boucheron, he writes, “The cavern clearly once dominated the original picture, of which 20 centimeters of the left side was chopped off in the eighteenth century – which explains why the first accounts of the workplace such emphasis on the scenery.”</div><div><br />The many questions that surround these complex works may be illuminated either in the show or in the accompanying book. Why the title of Giorgione’s “The Three Philosophers” is accepted today though it had had other titles such as The Three Astronomers, The Three Ages of Man, and The Magi in the past. Why was the painting cut?</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSB009AKvQHhmg8PY82vKWUapxkY1PLCCx_pGeA1Qrm_aXp7ReIKlZKu3pzViHc_r_Q5hX7ofhzE0VZx_OQ_Ww6QsuwdnS-uXn4KIUmXVkQznRGJtHWjk4Eb9DeKiE-0l-NfFoMWtJFgEbgEpKxnzyNVKbeSrIvYh6ji72w05q68sw0lt6ydpisJECyz4/s1008/Astronomer1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="716" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSB009AKvQHhmg8PY82vKWUapxkY1PLCCx_pGeA1Qrm_aXp7ReIKlZKu3pzViHc_r_Q5hX7ofhzE0VZx_OQ_Ww6QsuwdnS-uXn4KIUmXVkQznRGJtHWjk4Eb9DeKiE-0l-NfFoMWtJFgEbgEpKxnzyNVKbeSrIvYh6ji72w05q68sw0lt6ydpisJECyz4/s320/Astronomer1.jpg" width="227" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BYtumXhYRf9gefEiPSfh_j9BprMwuioFus_lDe3D4UXXeQBXh0qMVYi9Fkm4TA8ZkQJ5vSBHw79m69og84xPrIGukhoI_X8GL-6-tWlNPWmhJ5LZo0vwxN17bILcH_a7z2RkD9Sv324nfnxX9v8oCAH_v4VBSPuww4UP9wn2e3PltEIa10m0cj1J7AM/s536/Astronomer%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="364" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2BYtumXhYRf9gefEiPSfh_j9BprMwuioFus_lDe3D4UXXeQBXh0qMVYi9Fkm4TA8ZkQJ5vSBHw79m69og84xPrIGukhoI_X8GL-6-tWlNPWmhJ5LZo0vwxN17bILcH_a7z2RkD9Sv324nfnxX9v8oCAH_v4VBSPuww4UP9wn2e3PltEIa10m0cj1J7AM/s320/Astronomer%202.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><div><br />There are other questions regarding St. Francis. Are we viewing a “stigmatization by light,” a symbolic portrait, or Francis singing a hymn of his own composition? There is so much symbolism in the landscape. He may be in the desert, but you can see a town very nearby.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0BxYIiievftLQMyrwjaEfMblOZKpEQO8KP0YTdQTio-ecmLn41nV6yjQnYBVsE8cR8TIKMxfybIV87hV6c_kvdBretot9EsA5X-Sczafb2iIRMI4Unriv3DCCIOV1kFdgwJH4BdXKEGqi9-hM4GXvyDA6VW3mztsI-ayRpvwV0NATZyheejNyYszWo5g/s1344/Bellini%20Detail%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="1344" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0BxYIiievftLQMyrwjaEfMblOZKpEQO8KP0YTdQTio-ecmLn41nV6yjQnYBVsE8cR8TIKMxfybIV87hV6c_kvdBretot9EsA5X-Sczafb2iIRMI4Unriv3DCCIOV1kFdgwJH4BdXKEGqi9-hM4GXvyDA6VW3mztsI-ayRpvwV0NATZyheejNyYszWo5g/s320/Bellini%20Detail%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoFfjD5vghZtjAK8-O7SVEFU4QX4jwGmyR6Pq50dOoVugg6IWlpe-PqjIDV8a-ulago_c2kO2kgys1vgcoG019i-gjiCXkDgCSZh4sm0A228lH_n6JaiBm6LHRQH3pNie7jkc6X6uc5c4k3Jajh-TwthIctvKsgp1WAt2ppGDC9n1gSucfJWdRobvJbJs/s1184/Belliini%20Detail%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1184" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoFfjD5vghZtjAK8-O7SVEFU4QX4jwGmyR6Pq50dOoVugg6IWlpe-PqjIDV8a-ulago_c2kO2kgys1vgcoG019i-gjiCXkDgCSZh4sm0A228lH_n6JaiBm6LHRQH3pNie7jkc6X6uc5c4k3Jajh-TwthIctvKsgp1WAt2ppGDC9n1gSucfJWdRobvJbJs/s320/Belliini%20Detail%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />Viewing these two paintings together as their original owner did provides the opportunity to study and analyze their meaning, or simply look and enjoy two masterpieces. The exhibition will be on view until February 24, 2024, at which time the Philosophers will go home to Vienna and St. Francis will head home to his mansion on 70th Street.</div><div><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-31029539300882313932023-11-12T18:17:00.007-05:002023-11-12T18:20:27.055-05:00Is the Old Masters Market Dead and Gone?From time to time there is an article like the one in the New York Times published by Scott Reyburn in January of this year. “Obsessed by the Present, Who’s Got Time for Old Masters?” The great majority of works sold by the auction houses are from this century or the last. The category of Old Master paintings, traditionally ranging from the 13th century to 1800, has recently been extended to late in the 19th century as well. I was astounded when someone said to me when speaking of Old Masters, “You mean like Picasso?”. I found it a bit absurd at the time but now I am beginning to wonder.<br /><br />Life decisions are rarely made for one reason alone but rather are due to a whole lot of contributing thoughts and actions. However, in my case, the closing of my gallery, Rosenberg & Stiebel, aka Stiebel, Ltd, the primary factor was that collectors did not seem to be interested in old art anymore. I saw more and more of my colleagues going into more recent art.<br /><br />When I started in the business in the mid-1960s, if you had a good Old Master painting or drawing almost every major collector and many museums came knocking on the door to take a look. Of course, there were a number of galleries with good pictures which made for a healthy market.<br /><br />Today, it seems that everyone wants the newest in an iPhone or a contemporary artist’s work. I believe that to some extent it was always the case that many want to be of the moment and at the forefront of whatever is going on. Of course, in terms of art it is easier to understand and deal with what has been created here and now, rather than long ago. <br /><br />Last August Artnet’s Lee Carter did an interview with Paul Henkel, who is a dealer in contemporary art and collects in that field. Although he is the son of Katrin Bellinger, the renowned art dealer, and expert in Old Master drawings, I was still surprised to learn that when asked if he could steal a work of art with impunity which one it would be, he said Caspar David Friedrich’s (1774-1840) “Two Men Contemplating the Moon” (circa 1825-30) in the Metropolitan Museum. Friedrich happens to be one of my favorite artists as well and I would put him in the Old Master category.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xhe3UFkUvX4Rio2k9lGAiIWe3GSxyO9VLFO-tMQdX1pLV4NVxh8hbnrwdJm568ICyGZbrwzFfG3ctw9yDRLEKXD-OH83nmSY-4D8JWK4K_DQCzewBDFcknHkhGeB-oZOzhoBEOhOsJMwugEclIEolzG8JEkaM-jBZu5RBc_kUNaFFvcWiiCWrQdD0TI/s912/Caspar%20David-Friedrich.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="912" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0xhe3UFkUvX4Rio2k9lGAiIWe3GSxyO9VLFO-tMQdX1pLV4NVxh8hbnrwdJm568ICyGZbrwzFfG3ctw9yDRLEKXD-OH83nmSY-4D8JWK4K_DQCzewBDFcknHkhGeB-oZOzhoBEOhOsJMwugEclIEolzG8JEkaM-jBZu5RBc_kUNaFFvcWiiCWrQdD0TI/s320/Caspar%20David-Friedrich.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Needless to say, there will always be more available from the present and recent past than from centuries ago. Ergo, there are more collectors in this area.<br /><br />I honestly don’t think that has changed, but what has changed is the fortunes that collectors are willing to spend on these recent works of art. While money used to be a word one spoke of quietly, today wealth is flaunted. What better way to show off than to outbid everyone in the auction room and sales of modern art offer many more opportunities.<br /><br />Everyone is attracted to celebrity, be it the name of the artist or the collector. Sometimes both bring added value. If you have material from a name like Rothschild everybody pays attention. In this fall’s sale at Christie's New York of works from the French Rothschilds, the highest-priced painting was Gerrit Dou’s (1613-1675) “A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window” (ca.1653–57), which was estimated at $3 to 5 million and brought just over $7 million. At the Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, auction Sandro Botticelli’s (1444/5-1510) “Madonna of the Magnificent” brought $48,480,000. My father had a sarcastic expression in German that translates, “For some people that is all the money they have”!!!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9aPQVDf8jcjdWEpsDPZBP6S0rH0OnbgUrUK5rXbO9sAgkMyPGzhKwBIlNUrc52G29BFHyM3ek8_qXZV9KQTsKSSPiCaHbjZl2Q7i6p2jJ48V4tpGy7s5y80o4BeFvgF2rHI0quRVkbDiR8jz7EksMndbv0R6Mv7vhm1bTLzKKZTTaxhcVD_FWaHiNFGM/s1545/Gerrit%20Dou.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1545" data-original-width="1114" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9aPQVDf8jcjdWEpsDPZBP6S0rH0OnbgUrUK5rXbO9sAgkMyPGzhKwBIlNUrc52G29BFHyM3ek8_qXZV9KQTsKSSPiCaHbjZl2Q7i6p2jJ48V4tpGy7s5y80o4BeFvgF2rHI0quRVkbDiR8jz7EksMndbv0R6Mv7vhm1bTLzKKZTTaxhcVD_FWaHiNFGM/s320/Gerrit%20Dou.jpg" width="231" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmU7RtAcHkM667H6n_z6fJisrO3wIg0uqZFH6B2gasEyaQ0eP2QqcKNoCWaql_QPYc76fJDcOPRKnB6GuLZWJFsesuW-TH1DTahwJ9VcSQU6-IBkYiE-DHH9hxL0Zy9fKQafjhCI8wprblLXTK_gV9AC-85dXZFLjkxJg_aos2_g7TD9kovV497nLW6c4/s1394/Madonna%20of%20the%20Magnificent.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1394" data-original-width="1364" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmU7RtAcHkM667H6n_z6fJisrO3wIg0uqZFH6B2gasEyaQ0eP2QqcKNoCWaql_QPYc76fJDcOPRKnB6GuLZWJFsesuW-TH1DTahwJ9VcSQU6-IBkYiE-DHH9hxL0Zy9fKQafjhCI8wprblLXTK_gV9AC-85dXZFLjkxJg_aos2_g7TD9kovV497nLW6c4/s320/Madonna%20of%20the%20Magnificent.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div> <br />The entrepreneur and collector Thomas Kaplan (1962- ) said in an interview with Cheyenne Wehren this past March at TEFAF (The European Fine Arts Fair) that when, as a child, his mother trying to expand his horizons took him to the Museum of Modern Art he told her that he wanted to go back to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Rembrandts. When he became head of an investment firm, he figured there were no more great Old Masters to collect. In 2003, however, he happened to be seated next to Sir Norman Rosenthal, then exhibition secretary at the Royal Academy of the Arts, who encouraged him to look again. In subsequent years, with the help of some of the major dealers in the field, he built a collection of 250 Dutch 17th-century paintings and drawings. He dubbed it the Leiden Collection, after Rembrandt’s hometown. You can measure the importance of his holdings by his loans of numerous paintings to museums including the Pushkin in Russia, the Louvre, and the Met. And yes, his collection includes 11 Rembrandts and a Vermeer.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscQhdYIWkNnNqTQEcRDeTj6u8cafd_KWqlmIVIELfx-wHSA2jCINrPUmbkJTjlIg_d2d91zv-r6KKjE4OkLwDurbmCIMQvdnio3DhIqg1clTgEkAlS8-8bmpUM_VZ1NQkwfndQwqkM2so8qeCNEwh4acg0iS3JxLkhVsbQBvJ8DdlkkMaPAVSCsDrgeQ/s1556/Kaplan%20TEFAF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1556" data-original-width="1030" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscQhdYIWkNnNqTQEcRDeTj6u8cafd_KWqlmIVIELfx-wHSA2jCINrPUmbkJTjlIg_d2d91zv-r6KKjE4OkLwDurbmCIMQvdnio3DhIqg1clTgEkAlS8-8bmpUM_VZ1NQkwfndQwqkM2so8qeCNEwh4acg0iS3JxLkhVsbQBvJ8DdlkkMaPAVSCsDrgeQ/s320/Kaplan%20TEFAF.jpg" width="212" /></a></div> <br />In an article in the Magazine Apollo of January 30, 2023, “How Healthy is the market for Old Masters?” Jane Morris summed it up nicely: “Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the Old Master market has remained the same while everything around it has grown. The rarity of great works by the most famous Old Masters means they can compete in value with expensive impressionist, modern, and contemporary works.”<div><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-45976972798086345102023-11-05T19:18:00.000-05:002023-11-05T19:18:50.062-05:00O’Keeffe/MooreLast week we went down to the Albuquerque Museum to see an exhibition of the work of both Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Henry Moore (1898-1986). This is a traveling exhibition called logically enough “O’Keeffe and Moore” originated by the San Diego Museum of Art and curated by Anita Feldman, San Diego’s Director for Curatorial Affairs.<br /><br />As I have quoted a former museum director before, the art museum “is a small corner of the entertainment world”. It follows that the curators and/or director are responsible for enticing the art interested public to come for a visit. They must think of exhibitions that either show a new concept or a twist on something old to achieve this goal. Even though bringing together works by an artist like Vermeer can be a big draw, that can only be attempted once in a generation.<br /><br />For the current exhibition Ms. Feldman brought together works by O’Keeffe and Moore because they “pioneered and shared a coherent vision and approach to Modernism.” She sees a common denominator between them in their reliance on found objects. I liked the fact that the exhibition centered on recreations of the artists’ studios, O’Keeffe’s in New Mexico and Moore’s in Hertfordshire, England, both filled with a number of those found objects. No need to identify which is which here.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaI1dFO7q772L_r8ThKFnX6VK2GzrBUa7mZ5LuRjAtZfpo8tz3D8yttA60HbhQmdXvv1Cn8vWGQMuKK7YM5aa_ZviLtx-Q9WtsGx1SxoSQD68VbkFqM9wjUSTBDSRxxRffLSNjhuk9hRvk5-YbodFJUGryegzXv0jyP7JErQRztCeyps2lg_TPNprtl5o/s4032/O'Keeffe's%20Studio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaI1dFO7q772L_r8ThKFnX6VK2GzrBUa7mZ5LuRjAtZfpo8tz3D8yttA60HbhQmdXvv1Cn8vWGQMuKK7YM5aa_ZviLtx-Q9WtsGx1SxoSQD68VbkFqM9wjUSTBDSRxxRffLSNjhuk9hRvk5-YbodFJUGryegzXv0jyP7JErQRztCeyps2lg_TPNprtl5o/s320/O'Keeffe's%20Studio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV2k1AHl6MWoKKVvrEelV_SnuzGbj-3w0bonqpnApopKgwKB-K67Va62IZnlC0oFgScOiDgmA2yd8s0BzvvdA9ACUzyDEGjRpdanoH7oggkzH-Eh_91mgX6W7OVFy-8FuZF_imFe0mkk2YER7dSggAjojSk0tdtHDj1IZq-eK7aflASu2xJfoI8L16zd0/s4032/Moore's%20Studio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV2k1AHl6MWoKKVvrEelV_SnuzGbj-3w0bonqpnApopKgwKB-K67Va62IZnlC0oFgScOiDgmA2yd8s0BzvvdA9ACUzyDEGjRpdanoH7oggkzH-Eh_91mgX6W7OVFy-8FuZF_imFe0mkk2YER7dSggAjojSk0tdtHDj1IZq-eK7aflASu2xJfoI8L16zd0/s320/Moore's%20Studio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The two artists lived and worked almost 5,000 miles apart and met only once at the Museum of Modern Art during a Retrospective of Henry Moore’s work in 1946. O’Keeffe had her retrospective there a few months earlier. Hers was the first MOMA retrospective ever done for a female artist. <br /><br />I must admit I have trouble understanding what O’Keeffe and Moore have in common beyond the fact that at a time when most abstraction was geometric theirs was more organic. True they both found inspiration in the forms of bones they collected. However, the basic difference I discern in their art is confirmed in the two interviews shown in the exhibition: Moore’s work is born in his head while O’Keeffe’s comes from her gut. His is analytical while hers shows love and passion. <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>O’Keeffe clearly loves the Southwest and the land and feels before she paints. Here is her Black Place II from the Vilcek Collection and “Pelvis with Distance” from the Indianapolis Museum of Art.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGwZzSYSleWmAdClBrCw_Gtd3h-pS8VhZaCNqYis23nL2kVYr6-cp8ZZSV0IObrYIQjbxPqTcvNW_3-0I1VaTn89ekY7Koduhca5rL8QRW7HKYpm0egaOv1hohFAqvZBmpAb71a3BRq98ScXk1jhrfnaXHIPccoDN4CNW-xlgO4tH4QoWslGyXCWfp14/s1188/Black%20Place%20II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1188" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGwZzSYSleWmAdClBrCw_Gtd3h-pS8VhZaCNqYis23nL2kVYr6-cp8ZZSV0IObrYIQjbxPqTcvNW_3-0I1VaTn89ekY7Koduhca5rL8QRW7HKYpm0egaOv1hohFAqvZBmpAb71a3BRq98ScXk1jhrfnaXHIPccoDN4CNW-xlgO4tH4QoWslGyXCWfp14/s320/Black%20Place%20II.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGzt73QRwWgctrVYrPAD-V5kuUNwfui7ZUM_2BZe3wmeItlKFQ3vCbPyePKX2WX7OtgeP2gb2EViI8O0uzPnvnLKWmV0nE9Oy73uHIbOXvAVstv9PV2AyNImgScKR0vvNQQqmGkXnrA60EY_gJw8Vatu97p9OUA1qp0Y2j-aA7M59whYpYgdDbkmci7E/s1569/Pelvis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1569" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGzt73QRwWgctrVYrPAD-V5kuUNwfui7ZUM_2BZe3wmeItlKFQ3vCbPyePKX2WX7OtgeP2gb2EViI8O0uzPnvnLKWmV0nE9Oy73uHIbOXvAVstv9PV2AyNImgScKR0vvNQQqmGkXnrA60EY_gJw8Vatu97p9OUA1qp0Y2j-aA7M59whYpYgdDbkmci7E/s320/Pelvis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Moore plays with forms and models in his studio. When blown up in bronze in situ, they do come alive and have a calming effect. In the show is this “Reclining Figure” (1968) in wood almost 8 feet wide, one or Moore’s working models for a work which was to be over 40 feet at I.M. Pei’s Dallas City Hall. The final work was split up so that the public could walk through it. Here is the model and an image of the final altered work in situ.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoVzpIejYn3bbmcS4Y5S7sm2VPS3NnhQWkEGC8MQ6XbuLXuW7jwQ7S2TT66qZooXgc9r8CSspWxBR5ugXLtWdu6p-fWR_Bq7NE8kF5up-M2HFWCAMHZha6C8uEoVLAlJTrnwNIzvEgH_H4Tpp8-Lrov9HnH80RgbotGG8ILD9kUhzRdvU0sKzM2oMqiN8/s4168/Wood%20Model.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3208" data-original-width="4168" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoVzpIejYn3bbmcS4Y5S7sm2VPS3NnhQWkEGC8MQ6XbuLXuW7jwQ7S2TT66qZooXgc9r8CSspWxBR5ugXLtWdu6p-fWR_Bq7NE8kF5up-M2HFWCAMHZha6C8uEoVLAlJTrnwNIzvEgH_H4Tpp8-Lrov9HnH80RgbotGG8ILD9kUhzRdvU0sKzM2oMqiN8/s320/Wood%20Model.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXO5NNRsuHgH80wsJBNBXk50PPqkddIz0w8rhfNHjE-xm53stAJZmfPje-CHEuMSHWfesmQNWs8WfPQhiQkt-wiZK5TGf1jGsFrk9mPdfuNlAMz9VWKyhQUBOHjHaSt2uI1BSQZQPpcR6RANsxNHyrmErqPNAZ4VuJsNk3gFHYS6SqygFUkoKyHn6XMA/s1512/Dallas%20City%20Hall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="1512" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXO5NNRsuHgH80wsJBNBXk50PPqkddIz0w8rhfNHjE-xm53stAJZmfPje-CHEuMSHWfesmQNWs8WfPQhiQkt-wiZK5TGf1jGsFrk9mPdfuNlAMz9VWKyhQUBOHjHaSt2uI1BSQZQPpcR6RANsxNHyrmErqPNAZ4VuJsNk3gFHYS6SqygFUkoKyHn6XMA/s320/Dallas%20City%20Hall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Ending on a whim this image of Moore’s “Moon Head” of 1964 in porcelain with O’Keeffe’s painting of a “Clam Shell” from 1930 in the background appealed to me. Here works by the different artists do seem to have something in common. If you don’t see what I do, join my wife!<br /><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fZbiDbeMpYPPOiUBXT3iHf8Tp3ZlpseyfqNR7I7qFpjqjPBArC2Vqn4NvrsS9Gmu48tViYPhirU_5ZLUwPAiYwXasFvHOkS7IcWuSTGeob-311rz1cxiJCYFfCE6AzJU1i7y-sYi1tR9nRV32GfOrggDod-hpG8KCO4DSKndYQ9OFCjRfsbJBosLN8c/s4032/Moore%20Porcelain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fZbiDbeMpYPPOiUBXT3iHf8Tp3ZlpseyfqNR7I7qFpjqjPBArC2Vqn4NvrsS9Gmu48tViYPhirU_5ZLUwPAiYwXasFvHOkS7IcWuSTGeob-311rz1cxiJCYFfCE6AzJU1i7y-sYi1tR9nRV32GfOrggDod-hpG8KCO4DSKndYQ9OFCjRfsbJBosLN8c/s320/Moore%20Porcelain.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-35621079701273988112023-10-29T15:56:00.000-04:002023-10-29T15:56:27.594-04:00Keeping Indigenous Art IndigenousWhat a strange title. Well, it is not mine. That is the title of an article in the October 9th issue of Bloomberg Business Week by Erin Vivid Riley. What is even more surprising is that the article centers on Santa Fe. Not that this is not an issue, but Santa Fe and its art world are not a subject usually found in an international business magazine.<br /><br />Personally, I am very happy to see it. I found I did write about this subject 8 years ago in a Missive called Truth in Marketing. At that time the Mayor of Santa Fe recommended to the State Legislature a Truth in Marketing law but there has been little result. <br /><br />The 1990 federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which addresses the issue says “It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced” and the penalties can be quite severe.<br /><br />Unfortunately, it is rarely enforced and there are no state or city regulations against false advertising. <br /><br />The issue is especially important to Santa Fe as the city depends on tourism and Native American art is a major draw, yet so many shops offer counterfeit wares. <br /><br />Over half a century ago I remember a story about a Japanese town named USA where they could label their production “Made in USA”. In more recent times it is said that in China there is a town calling itself Zuni so that they can sell fetishes made at Zuni. Traditionally for the people of the pueblo of Zuni, fetishes, the small carvings made primarily from stone, have protective significance. They have also become a form of Native American art for collectors and tourists. While some made with sought-after stone like turquoise may be expensive many made by Zuni artists can be acquired for under $100.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsPqtcMh2X8BD2NjZr7ka5ijufkMA36oclUrEwguhrceNB7x0XVCN-wz8igwAZbRbq6oSkg9UPFiDFm_saLk0rG3mDc1xPIuwBfpnVyOQdQM66MoboZ6Vz1imFE7oefOgHYFOJ9-GFoRIbtchXi__dytRgCYi9vXSsLuKZiI2OAkvyMx1UHbfL0HpDIxg/s4032/Fetishes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsPqtcMh2X8BD2NjZr7ka5ijufkMA36oclUrEwguhrceNB7x0XVCN-wz8igwAZbRbq6oSkg9UPFiDFm_saLk0rG3mDc1xPIuwBfpnVyOQdQM66MoboZ6Vz1imFE7oefOgHYFOJ9-GFoRIbtchXi__dytRgCYi9vXSsLuKZiI2OAkvyMx1UHbfL0HpDIxg/s320/Fetishes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Larry Barker of KRQE News posted a story in May of 2021 and wrote about an Albuquerque businessman with several shops of so-called Native American art. His source, however, was not the artists but rather a sweatshop in Cebu City, the Philippines which produced millions of dollars worth of fake Native American-style jewelry. They would obtain legitimate pieces make molds and reproduce the objects over and over again. Once in a while, the Feds do step in under the Indian Arts and Craft Act (IACA). At that time they arrested three people involved in selling counterfeit Native American art from the Philippines, but that is the exception, not the rule. The possible penalties are not meted out severely enough to stop the illicit market.<br /><br />The fake art, especially jewelry, is often cheaper because the real thing is laboriously handmade by Indian artists who depend on that income to support their families. I don’t understand why bother coming to Santa Fe if you will settle for a fake. Do people go to Paris in order to buy rip off designer couture? If you feel that your friends won’t know the difference, why not buy online? Here are some images of the real thing.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxs-Tq0nTISBldSONzH94I4mpe3G6eVLeh6IzLrtI_U4kG2UHdaUzbAIHfykGKGeO8nGNoYR5IsU6tZ8lMC1Qsh5toR9mnFxhmf6z1W78oRpFFzhuIqehpW8t9Vmdvef51wmaNOd2bSL6Gzb1kKhtryh8I3rVk9ktzScuUIi8DriT3M8PYCKcqSdOFP4c/s2616/Indian%20Jewelry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1592" data-original-width="2616" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxs-Tq0nTISBldSONzH94I4mpe3G6eVLeh6IzLrtI_U4kG2UHdaUzbAIHfykGKGeO8nGNoYR5IsU6tZ8lMC1Qsh5toR9mnFxhmf6z1W78oRpFFzhuIqehpW8t9Vmdvef51wmaNOd2bSL6Gzb1kKhtryh8I3rVk9ktzScuUIi8DriT3M8PYCKcqSdOFP4c/s320/Indian%20Jewelry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />It should not be a question of “caveat emptor” but the best way to be sure of authenticity is buying from trustworthy dealers, and there are many. Ask at the museums that exhibit Native art, not for a list that they won’t give you, but for galleries you might visit to find specifically, katsinas or ceramic pots or jewelry etc.<br /><br />You can also come to Santa Fe for the SWAIA Indian Market, where, on the third weekend of August, more than 200 Native American artists gather to exhibit and sell their art. Authenticity in techniques and materials is vigilantly regulated at this event. I know that when we have friends and relatives coming to town, we are very careful to tell them which shops and galleries they can trust to sell the real thing.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Gk95Uw_3pIPh6o7EfTd0L5kn_HHlp855EYib0pGLaOafZWK9JWtx9o9jpHE177bbcMPkcdmfXo1cXUaiYy3HBQ2xf9ZjEdjmqH5F2C5hsd6fJCHl7uYcH_m_xRFiQey8E6K_qlFdH5Q_CWjYCYPo6B4lurlNyGJuQXMFtbA-biiaJjgDIfDx4C0x0_Y/s1378/Indian%20Market%201.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="1378" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Gk95Uw_3pIPh6o7EfTd0L5kn_HHlp855EYib0pGLaOafZWK9JWtx9o9jpHE177bbcMPkcdmfXo1cXUaiYy3HBQ2xf9ZjEdjmqH5F2C5hsd6fJCHl7uYcH_m_xRFiQey8E6K_qlFdH5Q_CWjYCYPo6B4lurlNyGJuQXMFtbA-biiaJjgDIfDx4C0x0_Y/s320/Indian%20Market%201.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNosqahBg6oyLOv9PBjWArEIrLJ9__FdmtpMBP7lWMoSlxjgImWg30Hql1-F4nGe5D1CBtShofXV31UIKzSNyoJWtov4HNiw5IYJQRNXHmhefZuJf2Ecp5SHi0sOpakszs9FSzRJNR5XB6I1_6na0dEBNIISTC10jMZP2ex9tRkFkGRT5CvUZQm18CJk/s2810/Indian%20Market%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2140" data-original-width="2810" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNosqahBg6oyLOv9PBjWArEIrLJ9__FdmtpMBP7lWMoSlxjgImWg30Hql1-F4nGe5D1CBtShofXV31UIKzSNyoJWtov4HNiw5IYJQRNXHmhefZuJf2Ecp5SHi0sOpakszs9FSzRJNR5XB6I1_6na0dEBNIISTC10jMZP2ex9tRkFkGRT5CvUZQm18CJk/s320/Indian%20Market%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-15985257479624782842023-10-22T21:28:00.000-04:002023-10-22T21:28:28.294-04:00Losing a LanguageMy parents were German refugees, and I was born before the end of World War II. They did not want me associated with Germany, which was still the enemy, so they were determined that I be as American as possible and therefore only spoke English with me. Having lived both in England and France after escaping Germany they spoke all three languages fluently, so this was not a problem. Of course, they spoke German with each other, so I had to learn some in self defense! I have a friend who came over somewhat later and her parents did not wish her to forget Germany, so they only spoke German to her at home. Today I wish that my parents had spoken German to me, but they were right not to at the time.<br /><br />I recently read a story in the Smithsonian Magazine and the National Museum of the American Indian in an article called “Waking a language from its slumber” by Kasike Jorge Baracutay Esteve. He has been a cultural activist wishing to bring back the Taino language to the indigenous people of the Caribbean. This has become an important issue to many tribes in the States as well. My first thought was … why?<br /><br />A fascinating paper called “Native Language Revitalization: Keeping the Languages Alive and Thriving” by Amy M. Gannet at Southeastern Oklahoma University goes into the subject in great depth. Every other sentence is footnoted so maybe it is a Phd thesis. She says that there are approximately 7,000 languages in use today and that by the end of this century 50-90% will be extinct. Again, why is this happening?<br /><br />I believe I have found a major reason as regards the Native Americans. You have probably heard about the Indian Boarding schools where the relatively new Americans wanted to “tame the savages” by teaching the Indians Anglo ways. You have maybe heard Governor Ron de Santis say, something to the effect that there was nothing here until we came. This unfortunately was, and seems still is, the attitude of many.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPjKE6w_fuBnw57upIlqs_QZRT_CL3Kyu4VKbQ-zAnEL9F-4UO-s6PTp1AkDfHk16KsA9BJuQ03cQwlPGRmOZhnv7mNed7G6PzpFZ4pSQ3QBO94iNwRANhTur3LgFTLG0bEZc1CtlMpJZwD7OK2MT4X6PjyESqlAttkRRVXZWf-n_jL6Z4VP9WOEPrkA/s2348/Indian%20Boarding%20Schools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1548" data-original-width="2348" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPjKE6w_fuBnw57upIlqs_QZRT_CL3Kyu4VKbQ-zAnEL9F-4UO-s6PTp1AkDfHk16KsA9BJuQ03cQwlPGRmOZhnv7mNed7G6PzpFZ4pSQ3QBO94iNwRANhTur3LgFTLG0bEZc1CtlMpJZwD7OK2MT4X6PjyESqlAttkRRVXZWf-n_jL6Z4VP9WOEPrkA/s320/Indian%20Boarding%20Schools.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Native Americans have kept much of their culture alive with traditional arts and ceremonies that differ in each tribe. However, as Native languages were forbidden in Indian boarding schools and any use was punished, graduates seeing the Anglos were taking over, and many wished to have their children assimilate, which was the idea. As a result, a dwindling number of tribal elders retained fluency.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6oNmNtPHCTDFR6yCj9gxjxCuOlyDlMtkYB9UtFp5QC393lkjE9pgWUpFHZA2YhyphenhyphenGF1k6JD3RYmJBNzQPUdA9mZgS6WRfs2HVEyK2G2w9OEvLlRLYvdvfySzodhklHJjQM2F55oSrwyeTJZSNK_i0LRlxyUDexFjso3_-bsnhlWC-VZPamU5_bCmYhdY/s1511/Native%20American%20Langauages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="951" data-original-width="1511" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6oNmNtPHCTDFR6yCj9gxjxCuOlyDlMtkYB9UtFp5QC393lkjE9pgWUpFHZA2YhyphenhyphenGF1k6JD3RYmJBNzQPUdA9mZgS6WRfs2HVEyK2G2w9OEvLlRLYvdvfySzodhklHJjQM2F55oSrwyeTJZSNK_i0LRlxyUDexFjso3_-bsnhlWC-VZPamU5_bCmYhdY/s320/Native%20American%20Langauages.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">Some of the Native American Languages</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>In 1990 Congress passed the Native American Languages Act (NALA) to allow the use of Native American languages as a medium of instruction in schools giving the children the right to express themselves and be educated in their native language. In 2006 Congress went further enacting the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act to help keep Native American languages alive through language immersion programs. <br /><br />Language is part of cultural heritage. An element of understanding is lost in translation, particularly in imparting stories of the past where words have no modern equivalent. Even though Latin and ancient Greek lie at the root of modern Western languages and continue in scientific vocabulary their study has been dropped from the school curriculum. Only specialized scholars can access the great works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Homer in the original. Per example <br /><br />A fragment of the second book of the Elements of Euclid, the ancient Greek mathematician, was discovered in 1897 at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh9r09JWe3iWogL_06fBiEt9z7B_T0aFzjJ7wFwyXlp8uQZr3-xZ7LRzmjv3XDw0veRjeEViMpJIABa9SHvmJMvBUIUjR2vMV7Tw55l-nHoKI-tPOdw6hvQBjfGrU-mZ7979Ar4apm-gR0BUO9EyWM0d5-T1WCrPqPm78ao6SwZyUDW7hlzFJazrVxs8/s2744/Euclid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1686" data-original-width="2744" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigh9r09JWe3iWogL_06fBiEt9z7B_T0aFzjJ7wFwyXlp8uQZr3-xZ7LRzmjv3XDw0veRjeEViMpJIABa9SHvmJMvBUIUjR2vMV7Tw55l-nHoKI-tPOdw6hvQBjfGrU-mZ7979Ar4apm-gR0BUO9EyWM0d5-T1WCrPqPm78ao6SwZyUDW7hlzFJazrVxs8/s320/Euclid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>My wife speaks French fluently and can get along in Spanish. I can get along in French and German though the latter is better. Obviously English is our native language yet there are certain words and phrases we say to each other in another language because their exact meaning cannot be translated. Here is a simple expression, “attention”. It is even the same word in English but in French, it might be said to someone as a warning, ie watch out if there is a step or other hazard ahead.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0zOD0c72GNEeQJv_kzy5A_qk0YKaptOE2qwCZ4a90p2yYOCZ28Euk4BB7CEIkVhkQCEl2pDpkys7EwmBkliVGp2ZWfvhJ68cjPFhwHo6IOi7Clfgx6AolVwIqebdSA6PppBInlimxumFbFfQZ5WAqq4DNCnBHi9AE8Fsejfd8RR0saVTnznDQkPF6uD4/s1374/Attention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="1374" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0zOD0c72GNEeQJv_kzy5A_qk0YKaptOE2qwCZ4a90p2yYOCZ28Euk4BB7CEIkVhkQCEl2pDpkys7EwmBkliVGp2ZWfvhJ68cjPFhwHo6IOi7Clfgx6AolVwIqebdSA6PppBInlimxumFbFfQZ5WAqq4DNCnBHi9AE8Fsejfd8RR0saVTnznDQkPF6uD4/s320/Attention.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />Bringing back all languages that are dying out may not be possible but for those that can be revived an important understanding of history and identity can be passed on to future generations.<div><br /><br /></div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-9487538124883039902023-10-15T20:12:00.001-04:002023-10-15T20:15:13.335-04:00Protecting Cultural Property and PreemptionI have written quite a few times on the subject of Cultural Property including a whole series of Missives last year. If you go to <a href="http://geraldstiebel.com/">https://www.geraldstiebel.com</a> and put cultural property into the search box you can scroll down through them ...<br /><br />This, however, is from a different angle, the laws on Preemtion. In 1976, about the time I started to get involved in this isssue, a paper was published by Pace Law Faculty Publications called “Protecting America’s Cultural and Historical Patrimony”. The author, James J. Fishman made a case that we should have a law of preemption in this country. He cited the example of an auction where marble bust of Benjamin Franklin by the important French sculptor, Jean-Antoine Houdon, that had been in this country since 1785, went to a European collector outbidding an American who was considering giving it to the the White House House… a noble idea, no doubt. What goes around comes around and the bust bought at the time by the British Railway Pension fund as an investment has found its way back home and is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjww3j2NuwtHJ7Qc3YAU-8jOxDbB2JY-8uAYAv28lpNyN2RMEBZwzmg_PBdj-6VDOM2m7u17-i2mOUcylK2GCl3EtVeqllxNa3kv0pGNErMaqfdLagzlztza_epYarhAxFqhNUgFzr2X6K39HpSTffHMRQD0dqSiq9N-mIcZReFgoPzT7fHe8jlYNBXrAI/s1396/Houdon%20Marble.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1396" data-original-width="1052" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjww3j2NuwtHJ7Qc3YAU-8jOxDbB2JY-8uAYAv28lpNyN2RMEBZwzmg_PBdj-6VDOM2m7u17-i2mOUcylK2GCl3EtVeqllxNa3kv0pGNErMaqfdLagzlztza_epYarhAxFqhNUgFzr2X6K39HpSTffHMRQD0dqSiq9N-mIcZReFgoPzT7fHe8jlYNBXrAI/s320/Houdon%20Marble.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Fishman compared this to a small bronze relief of the Virgin and Child by the master Donatello. In that case after the bronze was sold in England to an American art dealer, Eugene Victor Thaw. The British government refused to grant the buyer an export license. This was necessary at the time, for any object worth over £4,000 purchased by a foreigner. The buyer was stuck between the preverbial rock and a hard place! The Donatello was held for the mandatory three months and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired it.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9wnJVPmlClLrXN8b_1cJSzvSKhDavhVtAZlgvOQyxKWxEYTT5VNv2Hkm47W2FrzmacfbsUkgIvI6MJHuU-Ti_oNMJYQI_ZK69fnMASa1aI5VTPiYmK43rMhhBzik7cR0-BD5M4MdwF1ivcbIP89VC7F7jOVs1COg9qOhuxM7uXB0FKQ1SRuQLoqgos8/s1546/Donatello%20Bronze.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1527" data-original-width="1546" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9wnJVPmlClLrXN8b_1cJSzvSKhDavhVtAZlgvOQyxKWxEYTT5VNv2Hkm47W2FrzmacfbsUkgIvI6MJHuU-Ti_oNMJYQI_ZK69fnMASa1aI5VTPiYmK43rMhhBzik7cR0-BD5M4MdwF1ivcbIP89VC7F7jOVs1COg9qOhuxM7uXB0FKQ1SRuQLoqgos8/s320/Donatello%20Bronze.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>France also has an export law but they have an additional interesting twist when it comes to an auction. Just a few months ago The Gazette Drouot, the publication of the Paris auction building where various auction houses stage their sales, announced the sale, in Versailles, of a very rare intact terracotta by François Anguier (1604-1669). It is the model for a funerary monument for Jacques de Souvré (1600-1670). It sold for the record figure of $2.85 million. The winning bidder, who must have sweated through a heated bidding war, was in for a very unfortunate surprise. From a far off corner he heard that a French museum was preempting the sale!<br /><br />I have witnessed this outcome more than once sitting in a Paris auction room, when after the hammer dropped, I heard a voice shouting “préempté” and saw the face of the would-be purchaser. The museum curator, in this case from the Louvre, has a maximum figure at which he is authorized to buy the piece. If the object brings that price or lower they pay the price and it is theirs. In this case the Louvre could match the unprecedented figure because the terracotta was the preparatory work for the marble which was already in the museum’s collection.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigoSkbogeTp1rmXd-ZxxQjlxQhTKu3_w_c15A9bXjlzEfGvEVZvY7FGFlfb-_bjYYC_6ROjJTXauLbPdHtIdT-0nOOsJwDQeQkJb1MzLgbO4St-kmfKLKXwQ9J9aJsIKbEiE7ctpuPW_9f6lPOA4FoaJt_JgsaC9ReWsz0sAkaIJ4NMu6kOK2_nfVYJyE/s1542/Anguier%20Terracotta.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="1542" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigoSkbogeTp1rmXd-ZxxQjlxQhTKu3_w_c15A9bXjlzEfGvEVZvY7FGFlfb-_bjYYC_6ROjJTXauLbPdHtIdT-0nOOsJwDQeQkJb1MzLgbO4St-kmfKLKXwQ9J9aJsIKbEiE7ctpuPW_9f6lPOA4FoaJt_JgsaC9ReWsz0sAkaIJ4NMu6kOK2_nfVYJyE/s320/Anguier%20Terracotta.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ajlH_RuqwSYvzCIjtoQOtSU4y8F2OGof6DwFzX9MQZuNarKhixNuzOFpSBSgTQu2iK8e3LYaWkNkzqKidIBIaraUSxC5unKW7uzsU9BTI6UvD997p0TK_fE32A3Wcgrpvy-jxTMySjCwRxDNXVs7I8RTJNrinfkTlPnbxKD3YgK5gVvSOylCxwITykc/s1132/Anguier%20Marble.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1132" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4ajlH_RuqwSYvzCIjtoQOtSU4y8F2OGof6DwFzX9MQZuNarKhixNuzOFpSBSgTQu2iK8e3LYaWkNkzqKidIBIaraUSxC5unKW7uzsU9BTI6UvD997p0TK_fE32A3Wcgrpvy-jxTMySjCwRxDNXVs7I8RTJNrinfkTlPnbxKD3YgK5gVvSOylCxwITykc/s320/Anguier%20Marble.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>If you want to know more about preemptions here is an excellent French article. <a href="https://magazine.interencheres.com/art-mobilier/preemption-quand-les-musees-encherissent-en-vente-publique/">https://magazine.interencheres.com/art-mobilier/preemption-quand-les-musees-encherissent-en-vente-publique/</a><br /><br />UNESCO has a list of 3,111 National Cultural Heritage Laws regarding export and import laws many covered by Memoranda of Understanding (MOA). Should you wish to find out all of them <a href="https://en.unesco.org/cultnatlaws/list">https://en.unesco.org/cultnatlaws/list</a><br /><br />Often these laws exempt from regualtion works of low value or from more recent periods.England and France have become more liberal requiring export licences only for works with higher values. In 2020, after years of lobbying, the Italian authorities, who are the most stringent, relented a little. The rule that only works by living artists or those that died less than 50 years ago could be exported without licensing review was amended to those by artists who died over 70 years ago and were valued under €13,500. Older works of art, regardless of value, still require an export license.<br /><br />In 2022 the U.S. Congress passed the first law to protect American cultural property and it was in aid of Native Americans. The full title of the new law is the Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony Act (STOP Act). Kate Fitz Gibbon, a lawyer with a specialty in Cultural Property, wrote in “Cultural Property News” “The STOP Act’s stated goal is to prevent the export of objects that were obtained in violation of federal laws, the Native American Graves Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA). However, the STOP Act has also been described as giving Native American tribes the power to halt overseas sales of a far broader range of Native American objects, effectively locking them within U.S. borders.” <br /><br />The new law is meant to protect objects deemed sacred by the tribes from leaving the country. The regulations that must follow remain to be seen and hopefully they will reflect the guidelines and not stifle the legal trade and collecting of Native American art.Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-37963004954124329502023-10-08T20:13:00.000-04:002023-10-08T20:13:46.913-04:00Museum Insider TheftThe vast majority of museum employees are honest hard-working people, but those who are not are more intriguing. <br /><br />As you know from my Missive on September 17 “How Many is Too Many” the British Museum has fired the curator who was accused of stealing 2,000 (now rounded down to 1500) objects and selling them on eBay.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2023/09/how-many-is-too-many.html">https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2023/09/how-many-is-too-many.html</a><br /><br />Much if not most of a museum collection remains in storage. Therefore, it is the easiest place to pluck objects from as you don’t leave any blank spaces on a wall or in an exhibition case.<br /><br />On April 7, 2023, Daniel Cassady reported in Art News that two years earlier an aide at the Museum of the Plains Indian on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana went on a 4-month pillaging spree. He was caught on a security camera trying on various moccasins to see which might fit. Not all the objects he filched have yet been retrieved. The piece that was featured was a Great Plains Men’s fur necklace with grizzly bear claws and brass beads.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ngdYPib4PS8OpgR_mIRYgF-HWjX4bq3UBzFSHetssOayOLPfG-CKu4gD7YG80G9YbUhSWgqkClIcsqNaSQHWcIjOaVToq9Mr6a4c74OkotCAmxV7r3Mnpsr9PocEPtpu6XsnaU9EQNg8ZzuaQYEcycIkELPnpntQ4WBSY_pVrs0sJP-OACKazPM-tVQ/s1205/Bear%20Claw%20Necklace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1205" data-original-width="1039" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ngdYPib4PS8OpgR_mIRYgF-HWjX4bq3UBzFSHetssOayOLPfG-CKu4gD7YG80G9YbUhSWgqkClIcsqNaSQHWcIjOaVToq9Mr6a4c74OkotCAmxV7r3Mnpsr9PocEPtpu6XsnaU9EQNg8ZzuaQYEcycIkELPnpntQ4WBSY_pVrs0sJP-OACKazPM-tVQ/s320/Bear%20Claw%20Necklace.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Most published examples of employee theft that I could find happened abroad. It may be that since American museums depend on donations from the public to survive, they keep inside jobs as quiet as possible. It could also be that in the U.S non-curatorial museum employees prefer cash. At the Field Museum in Chicago, an individual in charge of ticket sales pleaded guilty to pocketing cash receipts of over $335,000. At the Whitney Museum employees in a similar position, one was accused of stealing $850,000 and another a paltry $30,000!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHnR7vuxwUokd8TAvgboYw-c00aEyir9hUdd5IJyNddZUwVc5Err3ehmMlElQGdtrseOFTLxVg_qytwNjP4l-1BAuEKf2gnBMF4ZmKkQ7E4cgqjg1Epq_ItRruktFZmi9_ZpQA7A4VTMoOuwnu2ttp-Lq7nPyg9qjbGHT6UKoLZWExnNqAYrHIVvaOA54/s1604/Embezzlement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="1604" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHnR7vuxwUokd8TAvgboYw-c00aEyir9hUdd5IJyNddZUwVc5Err3ehmMlElQGdtrseOFTLxVg_qytwNjP4l-1BAuEKf2gnBMF4ZmKkQ7E4cgqjg1Epq_ItRruktFZmi9_ZpQA7A4VTMoOuwnu2ttp-Lq7nPyg9qjbGHT6UKoLZWExnNqAYrHIVvaOA54/s320/Embezzlement.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In Guangzhou, China a former library curator at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, was charged with selling authentic art works and replacing them with fakes that he forged on his own. Prosecutors claim that he took advantage of his post to steal more than 140 works between 2002 and 2010, including traditional Chinese paintings by renowned artists Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTUWxaqx7aMC4aAhyphenhyphen5uzigfwpEK9fPaUHQ6gd0Kzy_1PWDuIQe9BuJJeA8aG7jtXqvF3oXaa-zNLThBqH6dskDjA_S6orddEAGOFQzLELLn80GETa1-9Fgv7x8x62Hb31dsl-bbrFfO1LmflTcWW5IR-Cb7Uts3iYc0MpkAVYOw-wgd_2EpwHjGqogtXs/s2288/Chinese%20Painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1454" data-original-width="2288" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTUWxaqx7aMC4aAhyphenhyphen5uzigfwpEK9fPaUHQ6gd0Kzy_1PWDuIQe9BuJJeA8aG7jtXqvF3oXaa-zNLThBqH6dskDjA_S6orddEAGOFQzLELLn80GETa1-9Fgv7x8x62Hb31dsl-bbrFfO1LmflTcWW5IR-Cb7Uts3iYc0MpkAVYOw-wgd_2EpwHjGqogtXs/s320/Chinese%20Painting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In the Macedonian Capital, Skopje six employees including the museum’s director were convicted in 2015 of stealing 162 artifacts from the state-owned museum and selling them abroad.<br /><br />Most thieves get caught eventually even though they try to sell their purloined goods as far away as possible from where they stole them and as annonymously. But some don’t and are caught right away. On September 25 Jo Lawson-Tancred reported the following story in ArtNet News regarding a serious “dummkopf” and I use the word advisedly for the translation of the German word is bonehead or fool. <br /><br />This unidentified employee worked in the collections management department of the Deutsch’s Museum in Munich. His modus operandi was to take paintings that were in storage and put copies in their place. He stole 3 paintings between 2016 and 2018 then gave them to an auction house, Ketterer, in the same city telling them they had belonged to his grandparents. One painting, Franz von Stuck’s “The Frog King” of 1891, sold to a Swiss gallery for $74,000 leaving the employee with around $50,000 after various fees were deducted. When questioned about their research of the provenance a spokesperson for Ketterer said it had “simply not been possible to identify them as stolen”!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKBOJiA7KiF_Y-Cozppd1jTg-vywfefZw1h7s7ZG97M4WhIQG4oG3qgyS_U9UitxqVvhuzs88ct9mYBSGgEciF17XYkYY-CsoiYsVfxXEQj8kj4H-Vlc72om-_2kxYmmJcedH4XPVSt3TG4YFz_HQxaCRSaLZyVr_q-AsHBPjvrCRlcu_t27AteyfXrE/s1364/Von%20Stuck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1364" data-original-width="1255" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKBOJiA7KiF_Y-Cozppd1jTg-vywfefZw1h7s7ZG97M4WhIQG4oG3qgyS_U9UitxqVvhuzs88ct9mYBSGgEciF17XYkYY-CsoiYsVfxXEQj8kj4H-Vlc72om-_2kxYmmJcedH4XPVSt3TG4YFz_HQxaCRSaLZyVr_q-AsHBPjvrCRlcu_t27AteyfXrE/s320/Von%20Stuck.jpg" width="294" /></a></div> <br />Note to thief, do not put art you have stolen from the museum in a public auction for all to see and certainly not in the same city as your museum!!!<br /><br /> </div>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3174968997245861623.post-91031862776813807432023-10-01T19:55:00.000-04:002023-10-01T19:55:10.282-04:00ChatGPT Art ExhibitAt a museum an exhibition curator comes up with the concept and is responsible for its realization. It is not just picking out the works to be assembled but also negociating loans beyond their museums own holdings. This often means arranging for conservation of the works to be shown. Then they work with an exhibit designer so that the installation conveys the story they wish to tell. <br /><br />Sometimes a life changing experience can begin with a joke. (Our living in New Mexico is such a story but for another time.) In the case I am writing about it is an exhibition that started that way. The chief curator, Marshall Price, at the Nasher Museum at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, offhandedly suggested at a curatorial meeting that considering a shortage of staff and the need to fill a hole in the museum’s exhibition schedule why not outsource an exhibition to Artificial Intelligence (AI)! His staff enthusiastically latched on to the concept.<br /><br />Logically enough they decided that the title of the show would be, “Act as if you are a Curator: an AI Generated Exhibition”. This addresses what people fear most: that AI will take their jobs away. To begin Price’s colleagues Julia McHugh and Julianne Miao had to enter their dataset (a structured collection of data associated with their concept for the show) as well as some prompts to refine the idea. Why? For one thing the show was to come from the museum’s own holdings and how could AI know the collection without the information first being put into the database. AI made a suggestion for a title from a description of the collection already on-line, “Art Across Cultures: Celebrating Diversity in the Nasher Collection”, but I am not sure that would have brought in a great number of visitors.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstJ6Y0Prdyw_PPEMm6stmI_mHfCeL_VcCFb_Nbw50zBt6IVSDUFzEwBN8Fy3tytspEC5_8DTFNI85DrJZnnFIrHNmql1W8Gk8cMfEVc3EqERKvZUuaz32WJAo2u2Duu1IoDidcatlObhV-c1IoLJyUAvrHW8HZWH_SHE-WmereISovKC73ewIiznTXaM/s1716/Image%20Nasher%20Show.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="739" data-original-width="1716" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhstJ6Y0Prdyw_PPEMm6stmI_mHfCeL_VcCFb_Nbw50zBt6IVSDUFzEwBN8Fy3tytspEC5_8DTFNI85DrJZnnFIrHNmql1W8Gk8cMfEVc3EqERKvZUuaz32WJAo2u2Duu1IoDidcatlObhV-c1IoLJyUAvrHW8HZWH_SHE-WmereISovKC73ewIiznTXaM/s320/Image%20Nasher%20Show.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>In a review in the New York Times Zachary Small quotes from his interviews. Chief Curator Marshall Price said of the exhibition created under his auspices, “I would say it’s an eclectic show, visually speaking it will be quite disjointed, even if it’s thematically cohesive.” Price added on the positive side, “It was a new lens through which we could see and understand our collections”.<br /><br />Curator Julia McHugh said of their exhibition, “It made me think really carefully about how we use keywords and describe artworks,” McHugh said. “We need to be mindful about bias and outdated systems of cataloging.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWRBJ5o8Wj7wHYrCssojctIF9gaJC9VCrmyhcB8tJCgc1L93ZsWleJPWfeRlIRUV_OQabneOqDNUf5yivbKYsMXLZwo-1EBpiSMWdiS3UL_F9IlOzeKiJVzsnzsHAJcm62HxO6z4dKXW56cSsP0GUatn_EY74yzvWDoMtA9tQyMfuh9JzhZHJ2bdIEPI/s1169/Nasher%20show%20Curators.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="1169" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfWRBJ5o8Wj7wHYrCssojctIF9gaJC9VCrmyhcB8tJCgc1L93ZsWleJPWfeRlIRUV_OQabneOqDNUf5yivbKYsMXLZwo-1EBpiSMWdiS3UL_F9IlOzeKiJVzsnzsHAJcm62HxO6z4dKXW56cSsP0GUatn_EY74yzvWDoMtA9tQyMfuh9JzhZHJ2bdIEPI/s320/Nasher%20show%20Curators.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>The success of an AI exhibition basically depends on the algorithm that creates the show, i.e.the process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.<br /><br />AI had already been used in the artworld. The Bucharest Biennale last year was organized by an AI named Jarvis. Dorian Batycka in an article in Artnet News wrote that Jarvis was developed by DERAFFE Wien, led by Răzvan Ionescu, a Romanian software engineer. Right off the bat It spit out the following, “I am AI Jarvis […] I can do whatever human curators can do: research, write texts, select artists, and in the future, I will be able to work with architectural structures.” However, it is “still unable to complete many of the mundane, administrative tasks often left to curators”, “we do not yet have a system that implies programmatically checking with the artists if they can attend, if their paperwork can be completed, and all the other administrative aspects.”<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiak9H1bbQzHFetlN6TRVfhcYId5KZaBw4Em_6QUjsqZqR-gFmwtzaPOam5XcGZdMbg0xrsc-gqmDduRsIKdi47l-_V6IPrksr3SUckyy9EZefTqqQCmtwwBs_ZwoGdtkhD94OGPxbRpdmgry9g3S4NyFDruv84AlE6Extv3Nr7vBKgNXDVVM4g3g7vvQ4/s1471/Jarvis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="967" data-original-width="1471" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiak9H1bbQzHFetlN6TRVfhcYId5KZaBw4Em_6QUjsqZqR-gFmwtzaPOam5XcGZdMbg0xrsc-gqmDduRsIKdi47l-_V6IPrksr3SUckyy9EZefTqqQCmtwwBs_ZwoGdtkhD94OGPxbRpdmgry9g3S4NyFDruv84AlE6Extv3Nr7vBKgNXDVVM4g3g7vvQ4/s320/Jarvis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />I read a 2021 Bloomberg.com article by Flavia Rotondi about a museum in Bologna, Italy using cameras and AI to see how long people stood in front of works of art, what they pointed to and what they ignored. There were unexpected findings. For example, regarding visitors looking at a 14th-century diptych by Vitale degli Equi, data showed that “attention was immediately attracted to the ‘busier’ representation of Saint Peter’s blessing, to the right,” said Bologna Musei President Roberto Grandi. He was surprised to find that many visitors simply skipped the diptych’s left half. These findings can lead to ways to bring more attention to installation, juxtaposition with other works and lighting.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66SozTbziogV83IEuP2vq_8HNgIO3LaFbpPpT7YypRWxxWT8JaNoIdnhfseZzAq-1W0kDstGyMSGAwaaHkgQkEiIXVK8c1sKKxeC_419HC_XYfUqcyJvQSyM3du-OFoNcVye-mL8LJV0i7zqixofN5J22A2rLsSxSFyYHkZUuC1_915Y4Ev2G9tAjv3A/s1201/Diptych.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="1201" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj66SozTbziogV83IEuP2vq_8HNgIO3LaFbpPpT7YypRWxxWT8JaNoIdnhfseZzAq-1W0kDstGyMSGAwaaHkgQkEiIXVK8c1sKKxeC_419HC_XYfUqcyJvQSyM3du-OFoNcVye-mL8LJV0i7zqixofN5J22A2rLsSxSFyYHkZUuC1_915Y4Ev2G9tAjv3A/s320/Diptych.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <br />A Nasher press release sums it all up: “While museum professionals are far from relinquishing control of exhibition making and interpretation, this exercise is a powerful way to explore the applications of AI in the creative realm as related to curatorial authorship and expertise, the subjectivity of the selection process, and the future impact of technology on museums.”<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span>Gerald G. Stiebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15193602274020829489noreply@blogger.com