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Category Archives: Surrealism

The images of Thomas Dodd: A photographic journey through art history

05 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in art blog, art criticism, art nouveau, Arthur Danto "Live Flesh", Brainstorm by Thomas Dodd, Claudia Moscovici, Claudia Moscovici art criticism, contemporary photography, digital photography, Dogma by Thomas Dodd, fine art, fineartebooks, Gustav Klimt, Maxfield Parrish, postromanticism, René Magritte, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Someday by Thomas Dodd, Spellbound by Thomas Dodd, Surrealism, The images of Thomas Dodd: A photographic journey through art history, Thomas Dodd photography, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

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"Behind the Veil" by Thomas Dodd

“Behind the Veil” by Thomas Dodd

The images of Thomas Dodd: A photographic journey through art history

by Claudia Moscovici

To explain the conceptual revolution that occurred in art at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, some art historians claim that photography eliminated the need for representational art, or the kind of art that tries to imitate “nature” by depicting faithfully what the eye can see. We can add in parentheses, as E. H. Gombrich observes in The Story of Art, that the notion of the representation of what the eye can see has changed throughout the history of art. Needless to say, it too is shaped by social assumptions. Nonetheless, the difference between a kind of art that aims at faithful visual imitation of the three-dimensional qualities of physical objects and one that doesn’t remains relatively easy to discern.

The invention of photography had a lot to do with the move away from visual representation. To say that photography eliminated the need for representational art, however, is an overstatement. Undoubtedly, the invention of the camera encouraged artists to experiment with other means of representation in the same way that the invention of machines displaced hand-made crafts. The camera probably did for painting what the industrial revolution did for artisanship. But that doesn’t mean that artisanship—or hand-made beautiful objects—are no longer valuable. For what the human imagination, sensibility, eye and hand can create will always be somewhat different from what can be made with the aid of machines. The texture, sense of color and vision that are captured by painters are not identical to those that photography can produce, even though photography can bring us closer to visual reality and even though photography is also artistic. The painterly photography of Thomas Dodd illustrates that rather than replacing painting, photography can transpose and “immortalize” it, so to speak, in a new medium. In fact, Thomas Dodd, an Atlanta-based photographer whose works are featured in galleries and magazines throughout the world, offers a journey through art history. His images allude to the paintings of some of the best-known artists in the world, including William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustav Klimt, the Pre-Raphaelites, Maxfield Parrish and René Magritte.

"Aphrodite" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

“Aphrodite” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau  (http://www.bouguereau.org/)

During the nineteenth-century, the painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) came to epitomize the standards set by the French Academy for Salon art: a polished execution and idealized genre paintings that focused on mythological themes and usually represented women and girls of an other-worldly beauty and perfection.  During the second half of the century, however, the Impressionists, though originally ridiculed by critics, set new aesthetic standards for art. The changes they created became irreversible. The Impressionists’ greatest contribution to art was not so much to change the notion of painting as representing what the eye can see—or the standards of verisimilitude that had been dominant since the Renaissance—but to alter what the eye should see as well as where and how it should see it. Their violation of the rules of the Beaux-Arts system was not revolutionary—in the sense of transgressing its underlying premises or goals–but it was thorough, in the sense of changing almost all of the means of reaching those goals. The Impressionists considered that the best forum to observe and represent nature would be in the open air—which is why their works were called plein air paintings–where the play of light and shadows would be most natural, striking and intense, rather than under the dim and artificial lighting of the studio. Furthermore, the art students in the academies conveyed the three-dimensionality of forms by means of the subtle shading which was first perfected by the Renaissance masters. The Impressionists, on the other hand, evoked a sense of three-dimensionality by representing the dramatic contrasts of color that could be observed in vibrant sunlight. In seeking to capture visually the play of light and shadow—and its transformations—the Impressionists used rapid brushstrokes to produce paintings that looked rushed and unfinished as opposed to the well-rounded, glossy and polished forms and subtle shadings respected by the Beaux-Arts system. Similarly, rather than depicting a posed or characteristic angle of the objects painted, Manet and the Impressionists showed objects from uncharacteristic, and often, truncated perspectives. This truncation of subjects and objects, which is especially obvious in the paintings of Renoir and Degas, openly acknowledges the incompleteness of our field of vision and powers of representation.

 

The Little Sheperdess, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The Little Sheperdess, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Sometimes photography preserves and honors our artistic heritage, despite the irreversible changes that occur in the history of art. This is certainly the case with the photography of Thomas Dodd, who devotes several of his images to experimenting with the rich artistic legacy of Bouguereau. “Spellbound” retains the same softness and fluidity of forms and represents a similarly idealized feminine beauty that we found in the nineteenth-century French master. The woman’s sweeping movement, in a veil-like dress that envelops not only her, but the entire image, creates an aura of mystery. The focus, however, lies in her gaze: bold, powerful yet undeniably feminine. As if to emphasize that she’s the center of this imaginary narrative, Dodd surrounds the female figure with soft clouds that dissipate, at the corners, in a painterly roughness that seems created by a palette knife in oils. This contemporary image, however, doesn’t reproduce Bouguereau’s works. It borrows from and pays homage to them, taking us on an evocative voyage through art history.

"Spellbound" by Thomas Dodd

“Spellbound” by Thomas Dodd

While “Spellbound” only alludes to Bouguereau’s paintings,  “Maybe Someday” deliberately mimics their setting and figures. The woman in this image (below) has a very contemporary look. Yet she appears cast in a Bouguereau painting, as if she were an actress on a painted stage. Her sideway glance, her costume, her posture, the clouds that surround her: all these gestures and props appear staged by Bouguereau, over a century ago. But her slim face, her painted toenail, her tossled hairdo remain contemporary, reminding us that the past cannot be fully recreated or brought back in its original form. It can only be taught, respected and evoked.

Maybe Someday by Thomas Dodd

Maybe Someday by Thomas Dodd  http://thomasdodd.com/

Maxfield Parrish

The American painter and illustrator Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) was an iconoclast, though many see him as a traditionalist. He deliberately went against the modernist trends in art of his times to bring back Neoclassical standards. He is known for his luminous paintings, pastoral settings and idealized Neoclassical imagery. In the painting “Daybreak,” the girl’s calm repose has an angelic quality, as if she herself, not only her state, were in a liminal space, somewhere between reality and dream.

"Daybreak" by Maxfield Parrish

“Daybreak” by Maxfield Parrish

With digital photography and a masterful control of light, Thomas Dodd captures the spirit of Maxfield Parrish in the image “Daydream”(below). Like Parrish, he depicts a young woman, dressed in a white in a flowing dress, at sunrise (or sunset), when the light changes–and play of shadows–are most colorful, nuanced and intense.

"Daydream" by Thomas Dodd

“Daydream” by Thomas Dodd

Gustav Klimt

There are certain art movements that never go out of style: Art Nouveau can be counted among them. Highly stylized yet in harmony with nature; ornamental yet profoundly philosophical; sexually daring and controversial yet utterly refined, Art Nouveau continues to please the public. It’s therefore not all that surprising that one of Dodd’s biggest artistic inspirations is the Art Nouveau movement, particularly the works of Gustav Klimt. As we know, art Nouveau is an ornamental style of art, architecture and decoration, which peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century, sometime between 1890-1905. Seen as, quite literally, the “new art”, Art Nouveau employed ornamental, floral motifs and stylized, curvilinear forms that are coming back in style today. Although the Art Nouveau movement was greatly influenced by the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, some of the its main motifs and decorative designs were also associated with even more popular artists, including Gustav Klimt, Antoni Gaudi and Louis Comfort Tiffany, each of whom adapted and reshaped the movement according to his unique artistic style.

"The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt

“The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt

In his article “Live Flesh” (“The Nation,” January 23, 2006), the critic and philosopher Arthur Danto describes Klimt’s gilded, ornamental paintings as efforts to depict erotism to its limits, transcending, and perhaps immortalizing, the flesh: “Klimt, of course, depicted lovers clasped to each other in intense erotic embrace. There is nevertheless something operatic about Klimt’s lovers, as if they were figures in a myth. Like Tristan and Isolde they are caught up in the sweep of passion as the music swells around them. Sex is somehow meant to be transfigurative, a way of transcending the sweaty realities of the flesh depicted.”

"Echo" by Thomas Dodd

“Echo” by Thomas Dodd

This is precisely what Thomas Dodd does in his image “Echo,” an homage to Klimt. Although the painting doesn’t have the usual art deco floral motifs, the background becomes a gilded decoration which envelops the delicate face of the young woman. With her lips half-open and her eyes closed, the young woman’s state seems to waver between dream and fantasy. The erotism in this image, like the one depicted by Klimt’s paintings, is powerful yet subtle. Dodd’s image suggests a beauty not only beyond the realm of the possible, but also already transcendental, as the human form blends into the golden background: fluid yet at the same time, somehow, dry and crisp like a gilded leaf pressed for ages between the pages of an old book.

"Dogma" By Thomas Dodd

“Dogma” By Thomas Dodd

René Magritte

When we look at the image “Dogma” (above), it becomes clear that Dodd finds inspiration in Surrealism as well: particularly in the works of the Belgian modernist artist René Magritte (1898–1967) . Surrealist art often combines the best of both worlds: a “realistic” representation of objects, which requires talent and technical skill, and a fantastic imagination that takes us past the threshold of the rational and the knowable, so we can explore the mysteries of the subconscious. Surrealism offers an escape from the real world yet also probes the depths of a perhaps truer and deeper reality: the reality of human desire; of our dreams and nightmares; of our hopes and fears; of our collective past and a visionary future we can barely imagine. Surrealism can also be playful: at least in the hands of an artist like Miró as well as in Magritte‘s linguistic imagination, whose paintings are filled with visual puns and paradoxes.

"Not to be Reproduced" by Rene Magritte

“Not to be Reproduced” by Rene Magritte

In “Dogma” the young woman, looking poised and professional, holds firmly with one hand a book. Yet her head dissipates, along with the memorized and predigested knowledge of the book, into thin air. The background around her, rather than sustaining life, appears caustic, as if an acid were spilled upon the image to destroy its contents. Knowledge can be fleeting and even harmful.

Brainstorm by Thomas Dodd

Brainstorm by Thomas Dodd

One of Dodd’s most interesting Surrealist images, “Brainstorm”, depicts a more complex process of creativity. Dodd explains that “Brainstorm,” also called “Woodshedding“, refers to a phenomenon called “woodshedding” in Jazz music, whereby a musician shuts himself in a woodshed to practice and improvise new songs until he or she creates is satisfied with the performance. This creative process plays a central role in all kinds of creativity, be it music, the plastic arts, creative writing, or photography. As Thomas Edison famously stated, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration”. For further information about Thomas Dodd’s painterly photography, please take a look at his website http://thomasdodd.com.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com 
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A Surrealist Futurism: The Art of Adam Martinakis

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in A Surrealist Futurism: The Art of Adam Martinakis, Adam Martinakis, Adam Martinakis art, aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, fine art, fineartebooks, postromanticism, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Surrealism, the art of Adam Martinakis

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A Surrealist Futurism: The Art of Adam Martinakis, Adam Martinakis, Adam Martinakis art, aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art, art blog, art criticism, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, futurism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Surrealism, Surrealist photography, the art of Adam Martinakis, The remains of a Memory by Adam Martinakis

by Adam Martinakis

by Adam Martinakis

The cosmopolitan artist Adam Martinakis was born in Poland, grew up in Greece and lives in England. His style combines a unique mixture of Surrealism and Futurism and his genre can be described as highly versatile. Adam creates sculptures, intallations, and 3D models (via digital photography).

by Adam Martinakis

by Adam Martinakis

Although many of his works would fit right in as the posters for science fiction movies, they are, quite literally, multidimensional, not only in form but also in content. These silent humanoid figures speak volumes about the complexity of romantic love; the angst of the human condition (reminsicent of Edvard Munch’s expressionism); the pieces of our personalities and external influences that compose each and every one of us socially and psychologically.

by Adam Martinakis

by Adam Martinakis

There’s a clear scientific bent to Martinakis’s images and installations, as many of the human figures are positioned within structures that look like the orbits of planets or the makeup of atoms, reminding us, as did the ancient philosophers, of our material place within the universe.

The remains of a memory by Adam Martinakis

The metaphysical dimension of Adam Martinakis’s artwork is very evident in the sculpture “The remains of a Memory,” which reveals both the physical closeness of the lovers and the ephemeral nature of their temporal bond. Like the lovers themselves, memory and existence are inseparably intertwined. As their memory of each other disintegrates, so do their bodies. Adam Martinakis combines art, philosophy and science to create works of art that make profound statements about the human condition.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754

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The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming of a Perfect Imperfection

17 Thursday May 2012

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, artistic photography, avant-garde, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, Dan Andrei, Dan Andrei photographer, Dan Andrei photography, passion, passion in art, passionate art, photography, postmodernism, postromanticism.com, Romanian photography, surreal art, Surrealism, Surrealist art, Surrealist photography, The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming a Perfect Imperfection

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aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Alin Galatescu, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic photography, Claudia Moscovici, Dan Andrei, Dan Andrei photography, Dan Andrei's photography, Dan St. Andrei, Dan St. Andrei photographer, Dan St. Andrei photography, danandrei.com, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, history of art, Marcel Proust, modern art, photographer Dan Andrei, photography, postmodernism, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanian photography, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, sensuality, Surrealism, Surrealist photography, The Photography of Dan Andrei, The Photography of Dan St. Andrei: Dreaming a Perfect Imperfection

Romanian-born photographer Dan St. Andrei adopts a philosophical approach to the art of photography. He states: “Life is eventually an eternal attempt to understand your purpose, to build up and mold, to grow and to define yourself … I would like to discover daily reasons to love myself.”  His images take on so many different styles and approaches: from the fetishism of his sensual fragments; to the poetic dynamism of his photographs of dancers; to the reflexive and dream-like quality of his dystopic utopia images, which he calls, in a deliberate pun,  Mytopia.

If his photo series have any common thread, it’s in depicting life, as Dan St. Andrei himself puts it, as “beautifully imperfect.” The beauty lies in the aesthetic impact, since Dan St. Andrei’s images are not only beautiful but also dreamy, even haunting. The imperfection is revealed in the human emotions and anxieties they reflect, holding a mirror to both what we reveal and what we hide within. As the artist puts it, through the art of photography, he searches “for  the meanings and hidden motivations that put our world into motion.”

It’s difficult to imagine a world without fantasy, without dream. This would be a world devoid of possibilities, without a future. Dan St. Andrei captures our dreams and hopes in motion, as they develop, both literally from the camera as well as figuratively in our minds. He states: “There are moments when we ask ourselves about our purpose in life, about its meaning and our motivations. There are moments when we ask questions about life, as it is or as we imagine it to be.” The gap between reality and dream is not unbridgeable. It’s often connected, in fact, by art and our imaginations: “There are moments when we allow our imaginations to roam free; in which we allow ourselves to dream.”

Dan St. Andrei captures the dreamer in each of  us, whether we’re artists or not. After all, it’s our dreams that make more bearable our imperfect reality; that help us change it for the better; that give us hope and a sense of drive and direction in life. Without these aesthetic dreams, we risk getting bogged down in the routines and responsibilities of daily life. The dreamer in us, the artist explains, “lives through these moments” when life’s “imperfection becomes beautiful.” This may be only our personal vision–a fantasy–or what, if we follow our dreams, we make happen in real life.

There is also a sense of nostalgia in Dan St. Andrei’s images, as he suggests bygone eras. He does this without melancholia however, even adding a ludic touch, as in the fashion series below, photographed by Dan St. Andrei and created with the help of the talented stylist, Alin Galatescu.

Andrei Octav Doicescu aptly stated:  “The present disintegrates, first in history, then in nostalgia.” Nostalgia is an acute, often painful, awareness  of an irretrievably  lost past that we still long for in the present. But Dan St. Andrei shows us the past doesn’t have to evoke sadness. The past can reappear in our present as a playful celebration of previous epochs, in our imaginations, in art and of course in history. 

Like a Proustian search for lost time in pictorial form–a search for lost love, for impossibly perfect social structures, for the (unattainable) fulfillment of our sensual and sexual desires–Dan St. Andrei’s photography captures the peregrinations of our search for meaning in a life deprived of certainties. You can view his portfolio on his website, http://danandrei.com/.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

http://www.amazon.com/Romanticism-Postromanticism-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0739116754


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Philippe Pache’s Postromantic Reveries: The Shadows of Our Dreams

05 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Art and Emotion, art blog, art criticism, art education, artistic photography, Christian Coigny, Claudia Moscovici, dreams in art, fashion, fine art, fineartebooks, modern art, passion, passion in art, passionate art, Philippe Pache, Photograper Philippe Pache, postromantic photography, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensual art, sensuality, surreal art, Surrealism, Swiss photography, Women in Art

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art, art blog, art criticism, art history, artistic photography, Claudia Moscovici, contemporary art, contemporary photography, dreams in art, dreams in photography, fine art, fineartebooks, fineartebooks.com, history of art, Philippe Pache, Philippe Pache postromanticism, Philippe Pache's Postromantic Reveries: The Shadows of Our Dreams, philippepache.com, photography, postromantic art, postromantic movement, postromantic photography, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, sensuality, Surrealism, Surrealist photography, Swiss photography, the photography of Philippe Pache, women in art

Philippe Pache was born in 1961 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was educated at the School of Applied Arts of Vevey. Since 1982 he has held solo and group exhibits in galleries and museums all over the world, including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris and the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

For centuries soft shadows in painting expressed mood, emotion and intimacy at least as much as color can. Da Vinci used chiaroscuro to convey the ambiguity of human expression; Caravaggio to highlight the drama and tumult of life; Vermeer to hint at blooming youth and the inner world of thoughts and emotions; La Tour to suggest simple faith and pensiveness.

The Swiss photographer Philippe Pache (http://www.philippepache.com/) relies upon this time-tested technique in painting to bring life, drama and, above all, reverie and contemplation to artistic photography. His nudes exude beauty and tranquility. They are exquisitely posed yet look completely natural. The focus of his images is on how each gesture and expression—the body itself—reveals a rich inner world of thoughts and feelings. The interplay of light and shadow not only highlights the depth of human subjectivity, but also marks the fluid boundaries between humanity and nature. Some of his portraits, though always beautiful, are facial landscapes of light, contour and shadow.

They gleam with the insentience of the mountains, sea and land that sometimes surround them; they become one, interchangeable with their magnificent natural settings. The beauty of femininity captured by Pache goes beyond realistic visual representation. It is the landscape of haunting and delicate dreams. Sometimes, as in the photograph called Cecilia, below, there’s no clear distinction between dreamer and dream. The beautiful young woman, bathed in fiery reds, sleeps peacefully as she, herself, is depicted as a figment of our imaginations, as a dream. Recognizably beautiful yet also indistinct, she floats above the dark shadows and red sheets that envelop her like a vapor.

Dreams are often vague and fragmentary. When we wake up, we rarely remember the whole “picture”: just those frames that broke through the veil of sleep and rose to the surface of our consciousness. Since we often dream about our deepest fears or most poignant desires, the fragmentary, partial nature of our dreams is perhaps nature’s way to protect us from ourselves: from what we either pursue or try to escape most in life.  In Joined Hands, the photograph below, Pache once again captures both dreamer and dream. This image reveals an angelic young woman dressed in white, with her hands joined in quiet resignation or  fervid prayer: we’ll never know which, since in Pache’s postromantic reveries, the dreamer remains as partial and mysterious as her dreams.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

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Barna Nemethi’s AllHollow: A New Dada Springs from the World of Marketing

27 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, Alina Huza, AllHollow, Andy Warhol, art blog, art criticism, art education, art for art's sake, art history, art movements, artistic photography, avant-garde, Barna Nemethi, contemporary art, Curtea Veche Publishing, curteaveche.ro, Dada, Dadaism, fashion, fine art, fineartebooks, Griffon and Swans, griffon.ro, Grigore Arsene, Hugo Ball, Iren Arsene, Iulia Cirstea, l'art pour l'art, modern art, modernism, modernity, Neo-Surrealism, new Dada, new Surrealism, Oana Paunescu, originality in art, Patru Paunescu, photography, pop art, postmodern art, postmodernism, postromanticism, postromanticism.com, Romanian art, Romanian Association of Editors, Romanticism and Postromanticism, surreal art, Surrealism, Surrealist art, The Hunt, Tristan Tzara, Vlad Fenesan, Will Vendramini, Wonderland, Zuzanna Buchwald

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Newton’s third law of physics postulates that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. However, things don’t work out as neatly in the world of art. There are some rules that govern the world of art, but as they say, those are meant to be broken by new and innovative artists. One of the most creative and irreverent art movements was Dada, founded by a Romanian poet, Tristan Tzara. Like Surrealism, which later sprung from it, Dada was a broad cultural movement, involving the visual arts, poetry, literature, theater, graphic design and–inevitably–even politics.

Born in the wake of the devastation caused by WWI, Dada rejected “reason” and “logic,” which many of its artists associated with capitalist ideology and the war machine. Despite becoming internationally known for so many visible artists and poets, the Dada movement could not be pinned down.  Its aesthetic philosophy was anti-aesthetic; its artistic contribution was anti-art. As Hugo Ball stated, “For us, art is not an end in itself… but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction? Even in the anti-rationalist world of art? Maybe so. But what actions might we be speaking of, today? It’s hard to pick and choose among the many dangers facing the contemporary world: the ever-present threat of terrorism; the backlash of democratic superpowers sometimes even against the innocent and the helpless; the plutocratic mentality threatening to engulf the free world; the homogenizing reign of pop culture; the standardization and what Marx would call the “object fetishism” that has reached unimaginable proportions in the globalized capitalist market.

Looking at the world through critical eyes can reveal a very discouraging picture. But maybe we need such so-called “nihilist” reactions from artists to avoid the bland conformity that threatens to normalize even phenomena which should, by all rights, shock us. Few would know about these modern phenomena better than Barna Nemethi: a young Romanian artist who grew up in a new capitalist market, which developed rapidly under his eyes, largely due to the efforts of his generation. By chance (or good fortune), as the son of Iren and Grigore Arsene, Barna also grew up at the center of Romanian culture. His adoptive father is the President of the Romanian Association of Editors and, along with his wife, Iren, the head of Curtea Veche Publishing, one of Romania’s most prestigious and largest publishing houses. Barna followed in his parents’ footsteps by becoming the Managing Parter at Curtea Veche Publishing (http://www.curteaveche.ro/) and the Executive Manager of the Advertising Company Griffon and Swans  (http://www.griffon.ro/). He’s also a very talented film director and photographer.

But perhaps Barna Nemethi’s most ambitious, subversive and dynamic project is AllHollow (http://www.allhollow.com/), a new online magazine that combines photography, journalism, (anti)aesthetic philosophy, fashion, film and art. In the April issue, Laura Cosoi pays tribute to the legendary pop artist Andy Warhol by dressing like him and shooting video clips in which she imagines and recreates how he’d react to contemporary gadgets, such as the ipod.

The clips are quite stylish, but there’s a good measure of irony and humor in the tribute, as Laura emulates Warhol’s slow, meticulous style, in the vimeo clip below:

http://vimeo.com/21645424

The April issue of AllHollow also includes Wonderland (Concept by Oana Paunescu, produced by Alina Huza and filmed by Patru Paunescu, directed by Vlad Fenesan and photographed by Barna Nemethi).  The film and the photo shoot both mediate the boundaries between high fashion (modeled by Iulia Cirstea) and new Surrealism/Dada images and scenes.

The set itself has dream-like inconsistencies and juxtapositions. A spectacularly beautiful woman, dressed in a combination of nightgown/ballerina outfit and black fishnet stockings, lies on a metal bed above which hangs…a giant fish. She’s surrounded by three manechins, which seem evocative of feminine and masculine roles.

http://www.allhollow.com/#1168104/Wonderland-Motion

The “heroine”  moves with the mechanical, slow and sometimes sensual abandon of someone trapped in a dream, or perhaps unwittingly trespassing the boundaries between dream and reality. The images and the model are so hauntingly beautiful that they belong in a high-fashion shoot. Yet, at the same time, the incongruous setting and absurd array of props surrounding the model makes the entire scene evocative, open-ended in meaning and surreal. There is no dominant theme, no obvious plot: nothing to trap the model in any structure other than the aura of the fantastic itself.

I can’t write about AllHollow without also alluding to The Hunt, a series of photographs taken by Barna Nemethi in Manhattan, which features the models Zuzanna Buchwald and Will Vendramini. Like Wonderland, there’s a Surrealist mood and more than a touch of Dadaism in these images. The handsome man sometimes wears a funny animal mask, sometimes not. He’s simultaneously presented as a stalker/predator in search for his languid prey and as an attractive potential date for the beautiful woman.

The Hunt makes  light of–while also making viewers attuned to–the strange (yet normalized) mating/dating rituals  that men and women commonly engage in. But, simultaneously, like practically all of Barna Nemethi’s  series, this set of images could easily function as a high fashion photo spread that seamlessly combines impeccable stylishness and subversive creativity.

For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. This happens in the laws of physics and sometimes also in the more erratic world of art. In the case of Barna Nemethi’s innovative AllHollow project, however, the action and the reaction come from the same source. Barna Nemethi’s film and photography represent a new Dadaism full of artistic innovation and subversion at the heart of the marketing world that it simultaneously perpetuates and transforms.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

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In all Seriousness: Playing with Toyism

23 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by Romantic and Postromantic Art in aesthetic philosophy, aesthetics, After the end of art, art and activism, art blog, art criticism, art education, art history, art movements, Arthur Danto, Claudia Moscovici, Dada, Dadaism, Dejo, fine art, fineartebooks, Miro, pop art, postmodern art, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Surrealism, Toyism

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aesthetics, art criticism, art movements, Claudia Moscovici, Dada, Dadaism, Dejo, In all Seriousness: Playing with Toyism, Miro, modern art, modernism, pop art, postmodern art, postromanticism.com, Romanticism and Postromanticism, Surrealism, Toyism, toyism.com

In modern art, there are a number of movements that placed playfulness and fantasy at their center: Surrealism, of course, but also Dada and pop art. Toyism is the latest movement in this tradition: it subverts the canon to put the fun back in art. What’s interesting about this game-like movement is the fact that it’s rule-bound. In this respect, it goes against the postmodern assumption that anything goes in art. Since the 1960’s, we’ve come to believe that art is what the artists and public make it to be: it’s a realm with consecration (since some artists become better known than others), but no formal rules or boundaries.

Toyism has some affinities with postmodern pop art, but it’s more quirky, introspective and rule-bound. In the early 1990’s, Dejo, a Dutch artist and musician, introduced Toyism to the public. The membership of this group oscillates, usually between 13 and 20 members, but it cannot exceed 26 members: one for each letter of the Roman alphabet. The artists, including the founder, all work under pseudonyms, to allow for greater creativity and freedom.

Their works are figurative and narrative: they represent recognizable objects and every picture or sculpture tells a story. They tend to use bright and distinct colors, rather than mixtures, for greater contrast and visibility. For this reason, Toyist art is very eye-catching. Although a lot of it looks playful and fun–similarly to Miro’s Surrealist doodles–it often deals with serious themes. The Toyists work in many media and genres–including paintings, silkscreens, giclees, prints, jewelry and sculptures–so if you think this kind of art fits with your style or vision, give them a try on http://toyism.com/.

Claudia Moscovici, postromanticism.com

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