Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Aurora Robson, DZIA, Adonna Khare, Emilia Dubicki, Hiroshi Watanabe, Nicole Dextras, Darryl Cox, Jr., Lorraine Roy and a video by Istanbul-based new media agency Ouchhh. Inspired by the iconic work of Buckminster Fuller, AVA_V2 / Particle Physics_Scientific_Installation was created by using projection mapping on a hemisphere structure made of semi transparent fabric, requiring the installation to have six projectors. We developed our own technology which enabled the mapping to be projected in all 360 degrees. This installation and its structure were designed with assembly/disassembly in mind, thus allowing the installation to be re-performed anywhere in same conditions.
Auguste Rodin: 1840-1917
Auguste Rodin – photo by Edward Steichen ca 1911
Born on November 12, 1840, in Mouffetard, a working-class district of Paris, France, Auguste Rodin is considered to be one of the most important sculptors of modern times. He began drawing at the age of 10, and at 14, attended the Petite Ecole – a special school for drawing and mathematics. Rodin was a promising student but failed three times to gain admission to the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
From 1858, and for the next two decades, Rodin worked for several masons, and ornamentalists, who supplied decorative objects and embellishments for buildings.
The death of Rodin’s sister in 1862, led him to join the Catholic Order of the Pères du Saint-Sacrement. However, it was to be a brief stay. He was encouraged by its head, Pierre-Julien Eymard, to devote himself to art, and so Rodin left the order in 1863. The following year, in 1864, he met and began living with Rose Beuret, who would become his life-long companion. She gave birth to their son Auguste Beuret that year.
Rodin’s reputation as a modeler grew, and from 1864-1872, he worked with the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, as his chief assistant. During this time they traveled to Brussels, Belgium where Rodin participated in the decoration of the Palais des Académies, painted a series of landscapes of the Soignes forest, and made some lithographs to illustrate the satirical magazine Le Petit Comique.
In 1875, Rodin spent two months in Italy studying Donatello and Michaelangelo both of whom had a significant affect on his work. Rodin said, “It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture.”
The Bronze Age, Rodin’s first recognized masterpiece, was exhibited in 1877 at the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire in Brussels, and then at the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris. The life-sized male nude was such a departure from academic sculpture that Rodin was accused of casting from a live model – a charge that was disproved by photographs the artist kept on which the sculpture was based.
The 1880s proved to be Rodin’s most productive period in his life. During this time he began The Gates of Hell, a monumental sculptural group depicting scenes from Dante’s Inferno in high relief. He also created a series of realistic portraits that were exhibited in the Salons after which critics began to describe him as a “great artist and the best young sculptor in modern France”. He also created such well-known works as The Monument to the Burghers of Calais, The Thinker, and The Kiss. It was also during this period that Rodin met Camille Claudel with whom he had a stormy affair until 1898.
In 1895, Rodin purchased the Villa des Brillants in Meudon which he had rented since 1893, and started to build up his collection of antiques and paintings. By this time, Rodin had become one of the most famous artists of the time. He was host to royalty, politicians, young artists and writers, and the social elite. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, published a study of Rodin in 1903 and served as his secretary from 1905 to 1906. Rodin’s work was exhibited throughout Europe and the United States and he received honorary degrees from universities including Oxford, Jena, and Glasgow.
Rodin’s popularity as a sculptor often overshadows his total creative output. He created thousands of busts, figures, and sculptural fragments over his lifetime. He also painted in oils and in watercolours, and the Musée Rodin holds 7,000 of his drawings and prints in chalk, charcoal, and drypoints.
Wanting to give permanence to his work, Rodin offered France his entire collection if they agreed to establish a Musée Rodin. In 1916, after much negotiation, the French government designated the Hôtel Biron on the Rue de Varenne, where Rodin had been renting rooms since 1908, as a future Musée Rodin, and received in turn donations of work owned by the artist.
Rodin suffered a severe stroke in March of 1916. In February 1917, he married Rose Beuret, two weeks before her death. Rodin died that same year on November 17, 1917. He was buried next to Rose and a cast of The Thinker was placed next to their tomb in Meudon.
For more information about Rodin, visit the Musée Rodin website which presents a collection of his sculptures, sketches, and paintings. For a more in-depth biography, visit the source links below.
Sources: MoMA, National Gallery of Art, Wikipedia
Roy Lichtenstein: 1923-1997
Roy Lichtenstein was one of the most influential and innovative artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He is primarily identified with Pop Art, a movement he helped originate, and his first fully achieved paintings were based on imagery lifted from comic strips and advertisements and rendered in a style mimicking the crude printing processes of newspaper reproduction. These paintings reinvigorated the American art scene and altered the history of modern art. Lichtenstein’s success was matched by his focus and energy, and after his initial triumph in the early 1960s, he went on to create an oeuvre of more than 5,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, murals and other objects celebrated for their wit and invention. (from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation) For in-depth information about Lichtenstein’s life and works, visit the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation website.
The nine-minute video below, Roy Lichtenstein: Diagram of an Artist, from the TATE brings together archival footage of Lichtenstein. at home and at work in his studio, as well as interviews with his wife Dorothy and friend Frederic Tuten, to create an intimate portrait of the artist.
Image credit: Roy Lichtenstein, Left: In the Car – 1963 | Middle: Woman with Flowered Hat, 1963 | Right: Nurse, 1964 All images © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein
E. E. Cummings: Writer and Visual Artist
Born on October 14, 1894, most people know E.E. Cummings, the writer. As a poet, Edward Estlin Cummings was very popular throughout the 20th century and received tremendous critical acclaim. Less well-known is Cummings’ accomplishment as a visual artist. Cummings considered himself as much a painter as a poet and he devoted a tremendous amount of time to his art. He also produced thousands of pages of notes concerning his own opinions about painting, colour theory, the human form, the “intelligence” of painting, and his thoughts about the Masters.
Cummings painted primarily in oils on canvas, canvas board, particle board, cardboard, and sometimes burlap. His painting is generally divided into two phases. Between 1915 and 1928, he produced large-scale abstractions which were widely acclaimed. He also produced very popular drawings and caricatures that were published in The Dial journal. Between 1928 and 1962, Cummings created primarily representational works including still lifes, landscapes, nudes, and portraits.
Cummings spent the last ten years of his life traveling, attending speaking engagements, and at his summer home, Joy Farm, in Silver Lake, New Hampshire. He died on September 3, 1962, at the age of 67 in North Conway, New Hampshire of a stroke.
For a more in depth look at the art of E. E. Cummings, visit EE Cummings Art.com.
Source: EE Cummings Art, Wikipedia
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 175
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Michael Adamson, Bordalo II, Guennadi Kalinine, Christina Mrozik, Derick Melander, Molly Wood, Oleg Oprisco, Nicole Watt and a video on the installation “Narcissism : Dazzle room” by Shigeki Matsuyama. This installation is one of a series of dazzle camouflage themed works the artist has been creating since 2013.
Dazzle camouflage was a type of ship camouflage used during World War I. As its name suggests, it was meant to dazzle and confuse the human eye. In an era where radar technology did not exist, an enemy vessel’s range and heading needed to be visually identified for targeting. The complex black and white patterns painted on ships with dazzle camouflage made it difficult to ascertain whether a target was moving closer or farther away and prevented accurate firing.
The person in the room covered with dazzle camouflage uploads selfies to social media while surrounded by a larger self representing narcissism. In an era where much communication occurs over social media, metrics such as likes and follows fulfill our desire for recognition; however, the ease of which we can obtain validation from others leads to the growth of this desire, and we attempt to satiate it using our self-image or “larger self.” The boundary between self and self-image is unconsciously blurred by dazzle camouflage, and as a result, we ourselves cease to recognize our own boundaries. (via vimeo)
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 172
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Gemmy Woud-Binnedjik, Brad Jesson, Iva Gueorguieva, Rachel Ducker, Warren King, Coroso Zundert, Gemma Capdevila, and short video Aether – a spatial audio-visual collaboration between musician Max Cooper and architects Satyajit Das and Regan Appleton. It plays on the beauty of fundamental natural forms – waves, surfaces, symmetries and surreal landscapes, as the building blocks and underlying structure of the world around us – a modern interpretation of the luminiferous aether.
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 171
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Antony Gormley, Flora Borsi, Herakut, Kyle Stewart, Max Serradifalco, Murray Mcculloch, Scott Marr, Tony Cragg and a video by More Than who recently commissioned a unique art exhibition for dogs from British artist and inventor Dominic Wilcox. Wilcox’s interactive exhibits include ‘Cruising Canines’ – an open car window simulator, ‘Dinnertime Dreams’ – an oversized 10 foot dog bowl filled to the brim with hundreds of play balls to look like dog food, and ‘Watery Wonder’ – a series of dancing water jets that jump from one dog bowl to the next for dogs to chase. A selection of paintings and drawings created in a dog’s colour spectrum are also on display at the exhibition for the visiting dogs to enjoy.
Andy Warhol: 1928 – 1987
Born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol was a painter, printmaker, and filmmaker and a pivotal figure in the formation of the Pop Art movement.
Warhol was the son of working-class Slovakian immigrants. His frequent illnesses in childhood often kept him bedridden and at home. During this time, he formed a strong bond with his mother. It was what he described as an important period in the formation of his personality and skill set.
Warhol studied at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University), majoring in pictorial design. In 1949, he moved to New York City where he quickly became successful in magazine illustration and advertising, producing work for publications such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and the The New Yorker.
Much of Warhol’s work in the 1950s was commissioned by fashion houses and he became known for his whimsical ink drawings of I. Miller shoes. In 1952, Warhol’s illustrations for Truman Capote’s writings were exhibited by the Hugo Gallery in New York and he exhibited at several other venues in the 1950s including a 1956 group show at the Museum of Modern Art. Warhol received several awards during this decade from the Art Directors Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Warhol was enthralled with Hollywood celebrity, fashion, and style and by the early 1960s these interests were reflected in his artwork. Borrowing images from popular culture, Warhol’s “Pop Art” paintings were characterized by repetition of everyday objects such as soup cans, Coca Cola bottles, and 100 dollar bills. He also began painting celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Most of Warhol’s paintings were produced in his studio, he called “The Factory”, with the help of assistants. Photographic images were screen-printed on to painted backgrounds and mechanically repeated – a process that mimicked the manufacturing industry and parodied mass consumption. During the Factory years, Warhol associated with and “groomed” a variety of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, writer John Giorno, and filmmaker Jack Smith.
Warhol worked prolifically in a range of media including painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, and film. Between 1963 and 1968 he produced more than 60 films and about 500 short “screen test” portraits of his studio visitors. His most popular and successful film was Chelsea Girls, made in 1966.
On June 3, 1968, Warhol and art critic/curator Mario Amaya, were shot by Valerie Solanas after she was turned away from the Factory studio. Warhol’s wound was almost fatal and would affect him physically and mentally for the rest of his life. (Amaya was released after treatment for bullet grazes across his back.)
The 1970s was a quieter decade for Warhol who concentrated more on portrait commissions for celebrities such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, and others. He founded Interview Magazine and in 1975 published “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” which expressed the idea that “Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art.” During the 1970s Warhol was also involved in a number collaborations with young artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring.
In general, Andy Warhol was consistently ambiguous on the meaning of his work and appeared indifferent and ambivalent. He denied that his artwork carried any social or political commentary.
Warhol died in New York City on February 22, 1987 of a cardiac arrhythmia while recovering from routine gallbladder surgery. In his will, almost his entire estate was dedicated to the “advancement of the visual arts”. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was founded in that same year and it remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the United States today.
Sources: MOMA, Guggenheim, National Gallery of Canada, Andy Warhol Foundation, Wikipedia
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 167
Your Weekly Mixx! 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. This week, we feature the work of David Breuer-Weil, Floyd Elzinga, Gilles Bensimon, Gil Maia, Igor Melnikov, JR, Marchal Mithouard (aka Shaka), Mohau Modisakeng and Zeng Fanzh.
Edgar Degas: 1834-1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas was born on July 19, 1834, to a wealthy banking family in Paris, France. Educated in Latin, Greek, and ancient history at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Degas initially intended to study law, briefly attending the Sorbonne’s Faculté de Droit in 1853.
In 1855, he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts with Louis Lamothe, learning the traditional Academic style with its emphasis on line and the importance of draftsmanship. Degas was also influenced by the paintings and frescoes he saw during several trips to Italy in the late 1850s.
Degas exhibited his history painting “The Misfortunes of the City of Orléans “ at the Salon in 1865, but following that he began focusing on painting scenes of modern life. He favoured themes of ballet dancers, laundresses, milliners, horse racing and other every day scenes. His interest in ballet dancers increased in the 1870s and he produced over 600 works on the subject. In his later years, Degas created works of women bathing, entirely without self-consciousness and un-posed.
From the late 1860s onward, Degas also produced many small sculptures in wax. He concentrated on the subjects seen in his paintings–horses, dancers and women washing. His interest in this medium increased in the mid-1880s in part as a result of his failing eyesight.
Before 1880, he generally used oils for his completed works, which were based on preliminary studies and sketches made in pencil or pastel. After 1875, he began using pastels more frequently, even in finished works, and by 1885, most of his more important works were done in pastel. In the mid-1870s Degas returned to the medium of etching and began experimenting with printmaking media such as lithographs and monotypes.
Degas saw his work as “Realist” or “Independent” and did not like being labeled an “Impressionist” even though he was considered to be one of the group’s founders, an organizer of its exhibitions, and one of its core members. Like the Impressionists, his aim was to capture moments of modern life, yet he had little interest in painting plein air landscapes and his use of clear, hard outlines, set his works apart from the other Impressionists. An observer of everyday scenes, Degas captured in his works, natural positions and movement of the human body.
Degas continued working until about 1912, when he was forced to leave his long-time studio in Montmartre. He never married and any emotional relationships he may have had, remain uncertain. Edgar Degas died on September 27, 1917, at the age of 83.
Sources: MET Museum, MOMA, Wikipedia
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