Artist of the Day: Man Ray

"American in  Paris " won the Oscar for best picture in 1952. It starred Gene Kelly as a former soldier who remained in France after World War II to scratch out a living as a struggling artist.

Man Ray, photographic self portrait

I suppose you could call Man Ray the original "American in Paris ."  He was a U.S. citizen who spent the formidable years of his remarkable career in France .  Frequently mentioned as one of the most influential artists of the 20^th Century, Man Ray was highly respected as a painter, photographer and cinematographer. In fact, some critics credit him as the original performance artist.

The eldest son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Man Ray was Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890. 

He went by the nickname "Manny" for a while before shortening his first and last name into a single distinctive moniker.

Man Ray, Surrealist

An early admirer of advant-garde school of art, Man Ray walked away from a conventional career to pursue the life of a true Bohemian. He was heavily influenced by the European modernists of the day and went on to play a defining role in both the Dada and Surrealist movements.  Those forces would help to steer the young American artist away from a traditional path as a painter, and encourage his development in other media.

Man Ray, Dadaist

Man Ray would leave his imprint across a broad spectrum of art. For example, he assisted Marcel Duchamp in the exploration of "kinetic" or moving art, which would lead to Duchamp's most famous piece, "Nude Descending Staircase."  It was in the field of experimental and fashion photography, however, that he would rise to the level of internationally acclaimed maestro.

Man Ray, Fashion Photographer

Settling into the Parisian Montparnasse artists' quarter in 1921, Man Ray attracted numerous notable artists to his studio.  Greats such as Jean Cocteau and James Joyce would pose for a Man Ray portrait.  He was among the first to experiment with solarization, and ultimately the American expatriate's work was soon showing alongside the likes of young Picasso in France 's leading art galleries.

Ray returned to the United States during the Nazi occupation of France and resided in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1950, where his photographic skills left a profound and pioneering mark on the fashion industry. Ultimately, however, Ray was frustrated by America 's lack of appreciation for his filmmaking, painting and sculpture, and so he  returned to France where he remained in residence until his death in 1976.

Artist of the Day: Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock 

I remember as a child being introduced to the work of Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and likening the randomly appearing drizzles to the drop cloth of a frenetic house painter.

What I didn't know or appreciate at such a tender age is that Pollock was a pioneer of abstract expressionism made famous by the likes of Pollock peers and contemporaries such as William de Kooning and Mark Rothko.

Jackson Pollock's "Number 1" (1948)

It was an intellectual movement likely spurred on by Pollock's wife, an abstract painter of considerable distinction herself, and also seasoned by the painter's boyhood exposure to Native American art growing up in Arizona and travelling throughout the Southwest.

Avoiding any perceivable point of emphasis, Pollock's drip technique" (he would poke holes in the bottoms of tin cans to distribute his pigment) and paint pouring techniques evolved into a signature style. Using household and industrial paints instead of artists' oils, it is little wonder that I and others would compare his work to spilled residue on the protected floors of some remodeled room.

Some called Pollock's style "action painting." It gave rise to an entire philosophy of paint application, in which a given artist would strive toward spontanaity and randomness rather than calculated construction of a tangible image. Pollock named his paintings by number, rather than assigning any formal description or title to them.

 Pollock Patron Peggy Guggenheim

Pollock ultimately attracted the patronage of megaheiress-turned-Bohemian Peggy Gugenheim and  skyrocketed to fame following a 1949 Life magazine feature which posed the question: "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" 

Popular response to the article was highly critical. One person complained that Pollock's paintings were like "a mop of tangled hair I have an irresistible urge to comb out."  

Attempting to translate his avant garde approach to art to the layman, Time magazine nicknamed Pollock "Jack the Dripper" in a 1956 article and allowed Pollock himself to make startling contrasts between traditional methods of painting and the pioneering approach of an abstract expressionist.

"My painting does not come from the easel," he explained. "I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor... On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting. I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting."

 At ease painting on the floor, Pollock liked to literally be in his paintings

As random as his creations may have seemed to the eyes of a child, Pollock claimed that he approached his paintings with a general idea of how he wanted them to appear. Ultimately his canvases expressed a tension between the uncontrollable and the controllable, creatively contrasting the realms betwen order and chaos.

It might be said that Pollock's life imitated his art. He was an alcoholic whose personal pendulum swung deeply into the darm realms of chaos. His premature death in an automobile crash certainly lends credence to that perspective. It also elevated his fame to that of a rock star, whose meteoric rise inevitably leads to a dramatic burnout.

Actor Ed Harris played Pollock in the 2000 film by the same name

Hollywood found Pollock's story dramatic enough to create a feature length film. Ed Harris directed  and played the main role in "Pollock" (released in 2000) after Harris' father noted that his son bore a strong likeness to the painter. Marcia Gay-Harden played Pollock's wife.

Artist of the Day: Sabato Rodia

There is a community in South Los Angeles that you have probably never visited. It isn't on the map of the stars; there are no tony boutiques or hip outdoor cafes there; none that I'm aware of. 

Image from the Watts Riots

 This once predominantly African-American community is probably best known for its famous 1965 riot, which began when a Highway Patrol officer pulled over Marquette Frye. Tired of what the residents perceived as police harrassment, a crowd gathered and began throwing rocks. The police attempted to respond with force, but were met with equal determination by an angry community.

This all occured during a racial flashpoint in history, in the midst of the American Civil Rights movment.  The community was like a tinderbox and the arrest of Frye was the spark that set things ablaze. The confrontation grew so violently out of control that the National Guard was called in.

When the riot was over, 35 people were dead, including a fireman, a police officer and a sheriff's deputy. More than 1,000 people were injured and over 4,000 were arrested. Close to 600 buildings were left smouldering or in ashes and a bitter anger continued to simmer just below the tense and uneasy surface.

Devastating aftermath of the Watts Riots

A government commission investigated the 65 riots and identified high unemployement, poor schools and inferior living conditions as contributing factors to the riots. Few efforts were made however to address the problems or repair damages. Consequently, there was another riot almost 30 years later, also known as the Rodney King Uprising.

This is unfortunately Watts' most lasting legacy. Unfortunate because within this community is one of the most amazing examples of folk art in the United States - a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which are almost 100 feet high. The Watts Towers, as they are known, were the creation of a single man with little more than window washing equipment, a motely collection of discarded railroad tracks, pipes, rods and rebar, porcelain tiles and glass bottles.

Sabato Rodia

 Between 1921 and 1954 an eccentric Italian immigrant by the name of Sabato Rodia toiled in obscurity, bringing an inexplicable vision gradually into shape with no assistance or encourgement from anyone else. 

Born in Naples, Rodia came to the United States as a teenager to live with his brother in Pennsylvania. After his brother died in a mining accident, Rodia moved west and eventually settled in Watts. Except for the fact that, during the time he was building the towers, he preached as an evangelical minister in a Mexican tent-revival church, One might describe Rodia as a recluse.

Rodia's creations weren't well received by his neighbors and his artwork met with frequent vandalism. The bungalow where he lived was ultimately burned down. Sadly, the artist sold his property in 1955 and moved away, never to see his masterpiece again. It was eventually condemned by the City of Los Angeles.

Some arts patrons bought Rodia's property four years later for $3,000 in order to preserve the towers. When the City found out about their intentions, it attempted to demolish the towers before the transfer went through. but The Watts towers had already become famous and huge opposition arose from all over the world. 

The new owners, NicholasKing and William Cartwright, teamed up with the curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and area artists, and  activists to form the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts. They ultimately negotiated with the city to spare the structures.

In 1975 the original Rodia property was deeded the site to the City of Los Angeles, which eventually deeded it to the State of California. It is now designated as a State Historic Park and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark.

The towers, which have survived both Watts riots, suffered minor damage in the Northridge Earthquate of 1994, but they were subsequently repaired and the site was reopened to the public in 2001.

In his later life, Rodia resided in Martinez, California, where he shunned repeated requests for interviews from artists, architects and journalists. He is said to have sworn never to return to his creation, saying that part of his life was over.

Rodia in his younger years

Refusing any material assistance or offers of kindness from admirers, Rodia spent his remaining hears in a run-down boarding house. He suffered a stroke and was admitted to a convelescent home where he died just weeks before the original Watts riots.

Artist of the Day: Edward Kienholz

Edward Kienholz

 

My first exposure to Edward Kienholz occurred when I inadvertently stumbled upon his once controversial creation, "Back Seat Dodge '38" one day while wandering casually through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

 

 The LA Board of Supervisors tried to ban "Back Seat Dodge '38"

 

Kienholz is known as an "installation artist," a term which evolved from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s to describe those whose work transcends far beyond the traditional tableau of fixed focal points and the strictly visual impact of framed artwork to engage the viewer's entire sensory experience. Imagine instead a series of integrated sculptures representing something more akin to a giant diorama or theatrical stage set.

 

He was also a pioneer of the Funk Art Movement, a progenitor of emerging artists such as David Gilhooly or Viola Frey who starting to use junk materials or "the leftovers of human experience," as Kienholz called it, to express their thoughts and ideas.

 

David Gilhooly is one example of Funk Art Movement artists.

 

I was immediately and powerfully attracted to the bawdy "Back Seat Dodge," and completely unaware that the sculpture, which portrays a couple fucking in the back seat of a car, gained a large dose of publicity/notoriety/celebrity in 1966 when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors tried to label the sculpture as pornographic and ban it from LACMA .

 

Ah, but some 40 years later, there I was in a very public section of the museum, feeling awkwardly voyeuristic and somewhat conflicted as parents with curious children in hand passed casually past.

 

"Ed always said that the best installation was one that would make it look like you came upon this couple at night, up at a necker's spot on Mulholland Drive," said Lyn Kienholz, who was married to the artist when he created the sculpture in 1964 and who sold it to the museum in 1981. "It would only be illuminated by the car's headlights and the light inside the car." 

 

Kienholz's "Roxy's" depicts a World War II-era whorehouse

 

Kienholz was famous for creating live-scale rooms, including time period decor. In one work, "Roxy's" he built the interior of a World War II bordello, including a portrait of General McArthur, a June 1943 calendar, and  era magazines to express early memories of his budding sexuality as a teenager. The room features macabre figurines, artistic interpretations of whores crafted from dolls, mannequins and human bones.

 

Kienholz had no formal artistic training. The Washington state native worked as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital and a vacuum cleaner salesman, among other things, before settling settled in Los Angeles and opening a series of art galleries. He is today famous for projecting the gritty, sometimes vulgar aspects of human existence with an almost whimsical flair.  While it once shocked a city, "Back Seat Dodge" almost had me giggling like an embarrassed adolescent who has stumbled upon something taboo yet fascinating.

 

In 1975, not long after moving to Idaho with his wife, Kienholz received a Guggenheim Award. For the next twenty years the couple traveled frequently to Berlin , where the artist had a strong following. He died in 1994.

Artist of the Day: Paul Stanley

Kiss front man-turned-painter, Paul Stanley

 

Merriam Webster defines a "dilettante" as a person having superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge.  

 

When one thinks of the traditional, text book dilettante, a dabbler comes to mind; a desultory or superficial enthusiast who jumps from hobby to hobby according to his or her fleeting whims.

 

In this digital age of celebrity worship I believe that we are witnessing a new class of dilettantes: cross-over stars who gain instant acclaim when venturing out of their chosen field and into another. 

 

Take for example the child film star who decides to try his or her hand as a recording artist, or the all-star athelete who aspires to be a rapper. And then there is the "rocker as painter" category, to which Kiss front man Paul Stanley qualifies.

 

I am not suggesting that all trubadors who turn to canvas for expression are to be quickly dismissed. Some, such as Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia have actually shown promise with a palate and a paintbrush. I will even allow honorable mention for Ron Wood and John Mellenkamp, but I think I will draw the line with the star-faced glam rocker.

 

Stanley: Self portrait or self indulgence?

 

To his credit, Stanley was originally an arts major and graduate of the prestigious high school of Music and Art in New York City. "Paul has returned to his passion for painting, to share with you the deep emotions his art conveys," says a promotional piece from the Wentworth Gallery, where his work was recently exhibited.  Still, I doubt that the show would be creating many ripples in the art community if the focus was on the art and not the artist.

 

I saw Stanley's works on display in a gallery on Prospect Street in La Jolla not long ago. I suppose they were kind of fun and might add some spice to a hip bachelor pad or lusty loft somewhere on LA's wild west side, but I'm not prepared to drop the big ticket price and support an aging rocker's vices with that sort of pricey patronage.

 

Stanley original: Fine art, or Drek?

 

No, I think that good art endures, but portraits by pop glam band members from the 1970s probably won't won't have any lasting impact or significantly appreciating value. Anyway, if I were to invest in celebrity art, I think I might prefer the menacingly moody perspectives of shock rocker Marilyn Manson or the whimsy of Ringo Starr. 

 

I wonder if Keith Haring or David Hockney ever gave it a whirl on the drums or electric guitar? Just curious. 

 

For some samplings of rock stars-turned-artists, click here.

 

Artist of the Day: Xu Zhen

Mount Everest: the world's highest mountain - or so we are told

Mount Everest is the highest point on planet Earth, or so we are told. Few of us have ever been to its pinnacle, and those who have likely didn't bring a tape measure.

The public takes it by faith that Mount Everest is 29,028 feet high, although a well-publicized variation in measurements leaves some wiggle room for skeptics. How many, when presented with such facts, ever stop to wonder:  "How in the hell do you measure a mountain anyway?"

Radhanath Sikdar a mathematician and surveyor from India, was the first to identify Everest as the world's highest peak in 1852. Employing trigonometry, he calculated Everest's peak to be exactly 29,000 feet.  Now here is where it gets interesting. Fearing that such a perfectly round number would deminish his credibility, Sikdar added two feet to his estimate.

Xu's Expeditionary team, allegedly standing at the top of the World

As if to mock and spoof the inexact metrics of mountains, Xu Zhen, one of China's leading contemporary artists, claims to have scaled the world's highest mountain and sawed off the top 1.86 meters, a measurement equal to his own height. 

Xu then moved his alleged top of the mountain downhill for exhibition, theoretically putting one of the most rarified places on earth within access of the world's masses. The icy display is preserved in a specially made glass refrigerator. 

The tip of Mount Everest on display in a museum. (Or is it?)

Without the other 29,000 feet and some change to act as a pedastal however, the magnificence of this tip-top piece of trivia is greatly diminished. To enhance the gravity of Xu's work of art, he had included a documentary along with the exhibit, which shows his expedition team carving away the top of Mt Everest.

Is the whole concept contrived, or is it authentic? My impression is that Xu revels in the ambiguity and uncertainty, and that such doubt may actually underscore his artistic message - a message which mocks and ridicules the abstract yet defining metrics upon which the public lends so much credence when celebrating the conquest of superlative mountain peaks.

Artist of the Day: Andrew Wyeth

If someone asked me to name five great American paintings from the 20th Century, I would definitely include "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth.

I can't remember when or where I first saw that young woman, sprawled awkwardly upon a broad, golden field, but it definitely left an impression.

                                                  "Christina's World," by Andrew Wyeth

Later, as my knowledge of art expanded and I learned more about various painters, I wanted to know more about "Christina's World." I discovered that the subject of the painting was Christina Olson, a neighbor of Wyeth's who suffered from Polio.

I also learned that altough Olson was the subject of Wyeth's painting, she wasn't the model. The woman you see above was actually Wyeth's wife, Betsy. The background, which I assumed was Kansas , Nebraska or somewhere in the midwest, is actually Cushing , Maine . In fact, the farmhouse there still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Helga Testorf, a neighbor and favorite model of Wyeth's

"Christina's World," in my opinion, is not the defining work of Wyeth, who passed away just a few years ago at age 91. As captivating as that painting is, the artist's secret portraits of Helga Testorf tell a much more fascinating story.

From 1971 to1985, Wyeth rendered nearly 250 images of his neighbor without the knowledge of either Wyeth's wife or Helga's husband. News of the Helga portraits, when they were revealed to the public, sent shockwaves through the art world.

Wyeth painted Helga during somewhat secretive sessions than neither Wyeth's Helga's spouse knew about. The paintings were stored at the home of Wyeth's student/neighbor. In 1986,  Leonard E.B. Andrews purchased nearly the entire collection of Helga paintings, preserving the collection mostly intact. Only Helga herself held some of the remaining few works from that now famous series.