This is a cool shot of Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire in the National Gallery of Canada, which was part of the Sixties in Canada exhibit last spring. I love the feeling of standing next to a larger-than-life painting in a gallery.
Today, I would melt into the red stripe in hopes of feeling fearless, full of passion, full of power, full of fire.
... Especially since I just got a call from Chez Lucien's - I start my first shift tonight. Mon véritable baptême de feu!
6 commentaires:
was this not the scandal piece from years ago... a million bucks for three stripes?
Well I do like a bit of controversy sometimes!
shit, eh? a million bucks. I love art, but I don't necessarily think that it should've been sold at that price. Is it WORTH a million bucks? That's as speculative as asking, "what is art?", which brings up a, well, million (hee hee) subjective opinions. But should it be sold at million is another question. Anyway, don't get me started on that stuff, I'll get everyone groaning by the end of my bla bla.
But have you seen the mamma spider sculpture that now adorns the front of the National Gallery? That was pretty damn expensive too, and while it's cool, it did piss me off. Sure, they can't afford to let people in for free in their permanent collections anymore, but they can afford big scale pieces worth many millions, and big-ass parties to celebrate their anniversary...
Yeah, I've seen that "Large-Assed" miss spider. I liked it, but I'm with you, what's the dillio on the charges to see the permanent collection?????
If you know anybody out there who could use a $1 000 000 piece of beadwork, let me know, K? I'll get right to work....
LMAOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jewels
Web research now shows that an actual book was written on the subject
Voices of Fire: Art, Rage, Power, and the State
University of Toronto Press © 1996
One reviewer said:
'The essayists stay light on their feet with lucid writing that gives insight into why and how Voices of Fire became a symbol for other social, political, and economic uncertainties of the time.'
Could be a good read Cams- I wont find it at the Bedford Library.
wow, you win the Camille's In Awe of Me award for the day. I never thought of delving any deeper, so this is great - you know how much I like to rummage through and read the details. I will try and get my hands on this so that I can form a better educated and sound opinion on this whole $1 million-for-stripes issues. Being both an art lover and chronic fence sitter, I suspect I may change my mind on the subject, or at least feel more understanding towards it.
Hope all is well dear, miss you and love you...
Dan, thanks for lighting the "fire" under me to instigate more research! Here's some basic info about the artist's background, and about the actual creation of the piece:
Coming of age as an artist in the atmosphere of moral crisis that, in America as elsewhere, pervaded the post-war period, Barnett Newman believed that a completely new art was needed. After studying at the Art Students League, New York, in 1922 and again in 1929, Newman destroyed most of his work and stopped painting from 1939–40. In his view, Western art – sidetracked by a search for beauty and formal perfection – had lost contact with "man's natural desire for the exalted, for a concern with our relation to the absolute emotions." Newman felt that an art of the sublime was both necessary and possible in his time, but that to achieve it artists would have to free themselves from the past and paint as if painting had never existed. "Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or 'life,'" he wrote, "we are making it out of ourselves, out of our own feelings."
Three essential ideas shaped his thoughts and work. The first, derived from the writings of the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, was his belief in the responsibility of the individual to free himself from all dogma, whether of the right or the left. The second, inspired by the Kwakiutl art of the Northwest Coast, was his understanding that the abstract shape had its own reality and could convey ideas and feelings directly, without reference to the visual world. The third, occasioned by his reaction to Indian mounds seen on a visit to Ohio, and later deepened by his insight into the Jewish mystical concept of makom – the "place" where God is – was his desire to create a sense of place in his paintings that would have a similar mystery. This feeling of being located was, for Newman, the fundamental spiritual dimension of art; by his attention to place in his paintings he hoped to give the viewer a "feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality, and at the same time, of his connection to others, who are also separate."
In 1967 Newman painted Voice of Fire for the American pavilion at Montreal's Expo 67. At this time Americans were confronting the moral dilemmas raised by the war in Vietnam. According to the artist's widow, he was deeply preoccupied by the conflict. The painting does not allude directly to the war, but by making each viewer conscious of where he or she stands, it opens up a moral and spiritual dimension that is profoundly expressive of its place and time. In Voice of Fire the "zip" is the red band that is placed exactly in the middle of the blue ground.
In 1968, Newman painted Yellow Edge. Thought to be his last work, it consists of a single narrow band of yellow on a black background. It was painted in the work-room of his apartment. Newman died of a heart attack on 4 July in 1970.
... Fascinating.
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