Your Weekly Mixx – Enjoy! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of nine contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. Visit the Submissions page for information on how to have your art featured in the Weekly Mixx.
Max Ernst: 1891-1976
Max Ernst was born on April 2, 1891 in Brühl, Germany. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
Ernst studied philosophy at the University at Bonn in 1909 and was influenced by the ideas of Freud, Nietzsche and the Max Stirner. In 1911 Ernst became associated with August Macke and joined the Rheinische Expressionisten group in Bonn. He exhibited for the first time in 1912 at the Galerie Feldman in Cologne. In 1913 he met poet Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay and traveled to Paris. In 1914 he met Jean Arp, who was to become a lifelong friend.
From 1914-1918, Ernst served in the German Army. He continued to paint, influenced semi-Cubist, semi-abstract motifs following Delaunay, Arp and Apollinaire. “Like many German writers and artists he was scarred by his experience of the war; it led him to reject the values of his family and class and to join in with the provocative, critical stance of the Dada movement.”
Ernst married art historian Louise Strauss in 1918. Between 1919 and 1920, he collaborated with Johannes Baargeld in Cologne on an exhibition and a series of publications similar in style of the Dada activities in Zurich and Berlin. In 1922, Ernst left his wife and child and moved illegally to Paris, where he lived and collaborated with French poet Paul Elouard and his wife Gala.
“After 1918 Ernst rarely employed conventional techniques in his paintings. His early work shows that he was a technically skilled painter and draughtsman. Between 1918 and 1924 virtually all his paintings and prints were based on the principle of collage, and this practice remained central to his later work. Ernst’s major paintings of 1921–4 do not employ collage, but their composition is based on the collage principle. Ernst’s definition of collage as ‘the culture of systematic displacement’ and ‘the exploitation of the chance meeting of two distant realities on an unfamiliar plane’”
From 1925-1927, Ernst developed the frottage technique which he said was a form of automatism. In 1926, he produced a series of drawings called Histoire naturelle that he exhibited and published. “The drawings were made by placing sheets of paper over different objects such as floorboards and leaves, and rubbing with a stick of graphite. Through precise selection, combination, control of texture and some discreet additions, he was able to build up delicate, surprising images of fantasy landscapes, plants and creatures. He adapted this fundamentally simple technique to painting in the form of grattage, by which textures and patterns were made through simultaneously rubbing and scraping off layers of paint. Representational forms were then extracted from the whole by means of overpainting.” Ernst used variations on the technique in most of his paintings for the next several years, especially in the Forest series.”
Ernst held successful exhibitions between 1925 and 1928, and became a “fashionable” artist in Paris. In 1926 he painted sets for Diaghilev’s production of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in collaboration with Joan Miró. In 1927, Ernst married Marie-Berthe Aurenche and painted After Us—Motherhood, using calm, harmonious forms and warm colours. “This painting, along with the three versions of Monument to the Birds, illustrates Ernst’s growing preoccupation with bird imagery during this period.”
In 1929, Ernst renewed his interest in collage producing the ‘novel’, La Femme 100 têtes (‘The woman with 100 heads’). The book consisted of 124 captioned pictures which were made by adapting images taken from late 19th-century illustrated magazines. From 1929 to 1932, Ernst also created a series of collages featuring ‘Loplop, the Bird-Superior’. “In these and other collages Loplop represents the artist himself and presents a sequence of tableaux illustrating Ernst’s technical methods and ideas.”
During this period, Ernst supported the ideas of the Surrealists. “Andre Breton’s novel Nadja and Dalí’s advocacy of the ‘paranoiac-critical’ method were important background influences on his work. Ernst renewed his solidarity with the group in his collage Loplop Introduces Members of the Surrealist Group.”
From 1925 to 1931 many of Ernst’s works carried imagery that was “violent and menacing. This aspect of his work became more prominent after 1933, partly in reaction to the political and social climate of the time.” Ernst (as well as many other German artists and writers) was condemned by the Nazi cultural authorities.
During the 1930s Ernst became increasingly well known. He exhibited at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York and in 1936 and 1938, participated in the large international Surrealist exhibitions in London, New York and Paris.
At the outbreak of WWII, Ernst was interned as an enemy alien. With the help of Peggy Guggenheim, was able flee to New York in July 1941. Ernst married Guggenheim in 1942 and became a leading figure among the art community in New York. His marriage to Guggenheim was short, and in 1946, Ernst married American artist Dorothea Tanning.
In New York, Ernst developed a technique using paint dripped from a suspended, swinging can and renewed his belief in the “unconscious sources of his work.” Many of his paintings of this period employ the technique of decalcomania where “rich, unpredictable patterns were obtained by either taking an impression from, or sponging, layers of liquid paint: figurative motifs were then developed by overpainting.”
In 1946 Ernst and Tanning settled in Sedona, Arizona, and in 1948, he gained American citizenship. Between 1943 and 1950 he created a series of paintings in a controlled geometric style and produced a number of sculptures.
In 1953 Ernst and Tanning returned to France where he had his first major post-war retrospective at Knokke-Het Zoute. Ernst became a naturalized French citizen in 1958. His reputation grew steadily after his return to Europe and in 1954 he was awarded a Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale. In the following years, major exhibitions of his work were held in New York, Cologne, and Stockholm. Major retrospectives of his work were held in New York and Paris in 1975.
Max Ernst died on April 1, 1976 in Paris. He was interred at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Sources: MoMA, Olga’s Gallery (images), Guggenheim, Wikipedia
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International Women’s Day 2016 – Women in the Visual Arts
Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts – XXII
1. Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 and is used to describe artistic fields which are influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism (a style that uses pared-down design elements). In visual art, postminimalism art uses minimalism either as an aesthetic or conceptual reference point. More an artistic tendency than a particular movement, postminimalist artworks are typically created with everyday objects, using simple materials, and sometimes take on a formalist aesthetic (emphasizing compositional elements such as color, line, shape, texture, and other perceptual aspects rather than iconography or historical and social context). Noted post-minimal artists include Eva Hesse and Richard Serra. Contemporary metal artist Richard Sturgeon uses the everyday materials of steel and rock to play with the concepts of balance and tension. Wikipedia
2. Louise Bourgeois Sunday Salons: Louise Bourgeois moved from Paris to New York in 1938 after marrying art historian Robert Goldwater. In 1962, the couple moved to a brownstone Chelsea apartment at 347 West 20th Street, where Louise lived for the rest of her life. Beginning in the 1970s, Bourgeois hosted Sunday salons at home where, for the next thirty years, students and young artists would come and talk about their work. Entry was open to all, with Bourgeois’ number publicly listed. Bourgeois held these salons, which she dryly referred to as “Sunday, bloody Sunday”, on a weekly basis until her death in 2010, at the age of 98. AnOther Mag
3. The Brighton Cats: LOLCAT photography is nothing new. During the 1870s, Brighton photographer Harry Pointer (1822-1889) became well known for a series of carte-de-visite photographs which featured his pet cats. Pointer began by taking conventional photographs of cats resting, drinking milk or sleeping in a basket, but from around 1870 he specialised in photographing cats in a variety of poses, placing them in settings that would create a humorous image. Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities – a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera. He soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption and he began selling the photos. Purchasers sent the small cartes-de-visite as tiny greetings cards and the popularity of Pointer’s distinctive cat photographs increased. By 1872, Pointer had created over one hundred captioned images of cats that were collectively known as “The Brighton Cats”. Photo History Sussex
4. Papier Collé: Georges Braque’s Fruit Dish and Glass is the most famous and possibly the first Cubist papier collé, a collage made of pasted papers. In the summer of 1912, Braque and Picasso were working in Sorgues in the south of France. Braque later recalled that one day, while wandering around the nearby city of Avignon, he noticed a roll of faux bois wallpaper displayed in a shop window. Braque waited until Picasso departed for Paris before incorporating pieces of the mechanically printed, fake wood grain paper into a series of charcoal drawings. These fragments from the real world add significant meaning to the fictive world of the picture: they can be interpreted as the front drawer of the table (onto which Braque drew a circular knob), the floor, or the wall of the bar. This collage marked a turning point in Cubism. Braque later said “After having made the papier collé, I felt a great shock and it was an even greater shock to Picasso when I showed it to him.” Met Museum
5. Aerial Perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance. As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases, and the contrast of any markings or details within the object also decreases. The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift towards the background color, which is usually blue, but under some conditions may be some other color (for example, at sunrise or sunset distant colors may shift towards red). Aerial perspective was used in paintings from the Netherlands in the 15th Century, and explanations of its effects were written about by polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci who used aerial perspective in many of his paintings including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Atmospheric perspective was used in Pompeian Second Style paintings, one of the Pompeian Styles, dating as early as 30 BCE. Wikipedia
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 142
Jean (Hans) Arp: 1886 – 1966
Born on September 16, 1886 in Strasbourg (then part of Germany), Jean (Hans) Arp was a pioneer of abstract art and a founding member of the Dada movement. After studying at the Kunstschule, Weimar from 1905 to 1907, Arp attended the Académie Julian in Paris.
In 1909, Arp moved to Switzerland where in 1911 he was a founder of and exhibited with the Moderne Bund group. One year later, he began creating collages using paper and fabric and influenced by Cubist and Futurist art. Arp then traveled to Paris and Munich where he became acquainted with Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and others.
In 1915, with the onset of World War I, Arp moved to Zurich, feigning mental instability to avoid military service. It is here where he met and collaborated with Sophie Taeuber, creating tapestries and collages, and whom he married in 1922.
In 1916, Arp became part of the founding group of the Zurich Dada artists. Their aim was to encourage spontaneous and chaotic creation, free from prejudice and the academic conventions that many believed were the root causes of war. For Arp, Dada represented the “reconciliation of man with nature and the integration of art into life.” At the end of the war, Arp continued his involvement with Dada promoting it in Cologne, Berlin, Hannover, and Paris.
Although Arp was committed to Dada, he also aligned himself somewhat with the Surrealists, exhibiting with the group in Paris exhibitions in the mid-1920s. He shared their notion of unfettered creativity, spontaneity, and anti-rational position.
Arp and his wife also had close ties to Constructivist groups such as De Stijl, Cercle et carré, Art Concret and Abstraction–Création, all of which aimed to create a counterbalance to Surrealism as well as to change society for a better future.
In the early 1930s, Arp developed the principle of the “constellation,” and used it in both his writings and artworks. While creating his reliefs, Arp would identify a theme, such as five white shapes and two smaller black ones on a white ground, and then reassemble these shapes into different configurations.
In the 1930s, Arp began creating free-standing sculpture. Just as his reliefs were unframed, Arp’s sculptures were not mounted on a base, enabling them to simply take their place in nature. Instead of the term abstract art, he and other artists, referred to their work as Concrete Art, stating that their aim was not to reproduce, but simply to produce more directly. Arp’s goal was to concentrate on form to increase the sculpture’s domination of space and its impact on the viewer.
From the 1930s onward, Arp also wrote and published poetry and essays. As well, he was a pioneer of automatic writing and drawing that were important to the Surrealist movement.
With the fall of Paris to the Germans in 1942, Arp fled the war for Zurich where he remained, returning to Paris in 1946. In 1949, he traveled to New York where he had a solo show at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Gallery. In 1950, Harvard University in Cambridge, MA invited him to create a relief for their Graduate Center. In 1954, Arp was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale. Retrospectives of his work were held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 1958 and at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, in 1962.
Jean Arp died June 7, 1966, in Basel, Switzerland at the age of 80. His works are in major museums around the world including a large collection at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg.
Sources: Guggenheim Museum, MoMA
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 128
Your Weekly Mixx – Cheers!
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 127
Your Weekly Mixx – Enjoy!
Aurora Robson: Recycled Art
Aurora Robson was born in Toronto, Canada in 1972 but grew up in Hawaii and has lived in New York for 20 years. She has a BA in Visual Art & Art History from Columbia University and is a certified structural welder. Robson currently lives and works in Brooklyn with her husband, cinematographer Marshall Coles and daughter Ona.
Robson uses everyday waste such as discarded plastic bottles and junk mail to create intricate sculptures, installations, and collages. Over the years, Robson has intercepted tens of thousands of bottles, saving them from their ultimate destination at the landfill or costly recycling plants. The fate of her junk mail follows a similar path and have now become part of her stunning ink collages.
“Deeply concerned about the natural environment, Robson sees herself as an eco-activist who uses her art to address urgent issues poetically, not polemically. She is best known for assembling cast-off plastic bottles, which she colorfully paints, into wildly inventive hanging sculptures the smaller ones sometimes containing LED lights and large works that fill entire rooms.” (Art in America Magazine Oct. 2009)
In addition to her work as an artist, Robson is Director/Co-founder of Lumenhouse, a photo studio, artist in residence program, exhibition space and community/cultural event space located in Brooklyn. She is also the founding Director of Project Vortex, an international organization of artists, architects and designers working with plastic debris – working with Project Kaisei to reduce the amount of plastic debris littering our oceans and shorelines.
Robson’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows across the United States, and has been featured in magazines such as Art in America, Juxtapoz, Artworld Digest, and the cover of Arts Houston to name a few. Most recently, she was awarded the 2010. The Arthur Levine Foundation Grant.
To see more of Aurora Robson’s work, visit AuroraRobson.com.
See stuffed toys made with recycled sweaters.
Jean (Hans) Arp: 1886 – 1966
Born on September 16, 1886 in Strasbourg (then part of Germany), Jean (Hans) Arp was a pioneer of abstract art and a founding member of the Dada movement. After studying at the Kunstschule, Weimar from 1905 to 1907, Arp attended the Académie Julian in Paris.
In 1909, Arp moved to Switzerland where in 1911 he was a founder of and exhibited with the Moderne Bund group. One year later, he began creating collages using paper and fabric and influenced by Cubist and Futurist art. Arp then traveled to Paris and Munich where he became aquainted with Robert and Sonia Delaunay Vasily Kandinsky, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, and others.
In 1915, with the onset of World War I, Arp moved to Zurich, feigning mental instability to avoid military service. It is here where he met and collaborated with Sophie Taeuber, creating tapestries and collages, and whom he married in 1922.
In 1916, Arp became part of the founding group of the Zurich Dada artists. Their aim was to encourage spontaneous and chaotic creation, free from prejudice and the academic conventions that many believed were the root causes of war. For Arp, Dada represented the “reconciliation of man with nature and the integration of art into life.” At the end of the war, Arp continued his involvement with Dada promoting it in Cologne, Berlin, Hannover, and Paris.
Although Arp was committed to Dada, he also aligned himself somewhat with the Surrealists, exhibiting with the group in Paris exhibitions in the mid 1920′s. He shared their notion of unfettered creativity, spontaneity, and anti-rational position.
Arp and his wife also had close ties to Constructivist groups such as De Stijl, Cercle et carré, Art Concret and Abstraction–Création, all of which aimed to create a counterbalance to Surrealism as well as to change society for a better future.
In the early 1930′s, Arp developed the principle of the “constellation,” and used it in both his writings and artworks. While creating his reliefs, Arp would identify a theme, such as five white shapes and two smaller black ones on a white ground, and then reassemble these shapes into different configurations.
In the 1930′s, Arp began creating free-standing sculpture. Just as his reliefs were unframed, Arp’s sculptures were not mounted on a base, enabling them to simply take their place in nature. Instead of the term abstract art, he and other artists, referred to their work as Concrete Art, stating that their aim was not to reproduce, but simply to produce more directly. Arp’s goal was to concentrate on form to increase the sculpture’s domination of space and its impact on the viewer.
From the 1930′s onward, Arp also wrote and published poetry and essays. As well, he was a pioneer of automatic writing and drawing that were important to the Surrealist movement.
With the fall of Paris in 1942, Arp fled the war for Zurich where he remained, returning to Paris in 1946. In 1949, he traveled to New York where he had a solo show at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Gallery. In 1950, Harvard University in Cambridge, MA invited him to create a relief for their Graduate Center. In 1954, Arp was awarded the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale. Retrospectives of his work were held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in 1958 and at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, in 1962.
Jean Arp died June 7, 1966, in Basel, Switzerland at the age of 80. His works are in major museums around the world including a large collection at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg.
Sources: Guggenheim Museum, MoMA
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