Carl Kruse

Charlotte Salomon, the Painter Killed in Auschwitz between Life and Theater

By Asia Leonardi for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

Charlotte Salomon, a Berlin Jewish artist, was one of the most original and pioneering female painters of the 1900s. Her work “Life? or Theater? ” condenses her artistic career: some eight hundred compositions that trace her artistic life; an innovative style that we could compare to the contemporary graphic novel in which painting, comics, cinema, and theater come together, transmitting moments of touching historical and personal drama with immediacy and lightness.

Who was Charlotte?

Charlotte was born in Berlin in 1917 to Jewish parents: her father Albert was a surgeon and a university professor and her mother, Franziska Grunwald, was a nurse. Her mother committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window when Charlotte was nine, but the girl was told her mother died of a serious illness. It was also kept silent that this was but the latest in a series of suicides among women of the family.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Leben oder Theater. Charlotte Salamon. — From the German, Leben = Life, Oder = Or, Theater = Theater

In 1933, following the newly enacted German racial laws, Charlotte’s maternal grandparents emigrated to Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, but her father,
with his new wife Paula Lindberg and Charlotte, resisted for some time as he was able to practice his profession. In these years, thanks to Paula, a renowned soprano, Charlotte was immersed in the world of music and art, so much so that in 1935 she was accepted being the only one hundred percent Jewish person at the National School of the Academy of Fine Berlin Arts. Here she learned traditional artistic techniques, while at the same time being exposed to modern works of art of the so-called “degenerate art”, which indelibly marks her style.

Over time, her life inevitably became marked by racial discrimination and limitations and on Crystal Night on November 9, 1938, Charlotte left Berlin to join her grandparents in France, while her father and his wife took refuge in Holland.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Image of Crstal Night in Berlin, Germany — Crystal Night

One night in September 1939 Charlotte prevented the suicide of her grandmother, who had fallen into depression over the ongoing events, and in this circumstance, the painter learned of the long history of family depression. This upset the artist so, it catapulted her into moments of anxiety and despair that led her to see art as a way of salvation. Starting to paint with tireless energy that in what, two years, 1940-1942, would become her great work: “Life? or Theater?”

The bound volumes amount to 800 and when added to the preparatory drawings and sketches become more than 1300. This work of art can be defined as total and coinciding with the very life of the artist who narrates her exile in France, her daily life including her first love, in a setting that can be defined as a proto-graphic novel. The episodes are divided into acts as in a Singspiel (Austrian-German musical theatrical genre) and give life to a musical novel of exuberant expressive power, in which each table makes its own story and at the same time asks for a layered and linked reading.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Charlotte Salomon and her grandparents — Charlotte Salomon With Her Grandparents

A series of tempera with sinuous captions, rhythmic, onomatopoeic, and torrential words, which create a dual game between sound and color, sucking the viewer and dragging him into a world in which space and time blend and alternate. The expressionist lexicon is bubbly, detailed, and with rich and warm colors that recall Matisse, details of the oneiric dimension that recall Chagall, scenes of strong exasperation typical of Munch’s painting.

Charlotte outlines each event with a typical feminine delicacy, in which the language, absolutely unprecedented at the time, varies according to the subject treated. The continuous stylistic metamorphosis is testified by hundreds of sheets that directly or metaphorically touch the salient experiences of the painter’s affective and cultural training: photography, crippled negative, still image, deformed illustration.

“Now I am a document, now irony, now oneiric metaphysics, now philosophical poetry.”

The staged memory is not immediate, it is the obscene private and public of the twentieth century treated and elaborated in words, images, and music, with characters, dialogues, fractures, changes of perspectives, temporal and spatial changes: a work that hybridizes codes and different languages.

Charlotte narrates the tangle between her personal story and the collective story and in both flows dramatic plots develop, creating a perfect symmetry between the catastrophic series of external circumstances and the inner tragedies of her personal life, improving a compositional tendency that tells events through trauma: pain is processed and not removed.

An alternation of real-life and Shakespearean staging, in which Charlotte recomposes the inner rupture given by the inexorable presence of death in her family history and at the same time in European history. Through the presence of Charlotte with her grandparents Gouache infinitely replicated masks or varied in shape, she can break the fatal chain of suicides, putting the whole of
history in the picture:

“When the measure of life is full, it is necessary to start again from the theater.”

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Charlotte Salomon - Stolperstein — The “Stolperstein” for Charlotte Salomon on Wielandstr 15 in Berlin – Charlottenburg, Germany. Stolperstein – meaning “stumbling block” — are placed on the ground in front of the former homes in Germany of people killed by the Nazi regime. The Stolpersteine project was conceived by artist Gunter Denmig.

Time passes, but the terrifying wind of racial persecution blows over Europe. In 1943 she was forced to hand over all her works to a friend, and in September she married Alexander Nagler, also a German refugee. But soon the couple is jailed. After her incarceration, news about her life becomes fragmented. She died at 26, a few months pregnant, after reaching Auschwitz, perhaps on the day of her arrival following the terrible train ride to the concentration camp.

The painter was forgotten for a long time, perhaps for being too avant-garde, until Willem Sandberg organized a first retrospective exhibition at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, followed by important international milestones, and not least the choice of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev who included her in 2012 in the Documenta exhibition in Kassel saying, as Joel Cahen (director of the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam) remembers, it was “her definitive entry into the world of modern art.”

Charlotte Salomon’s work, on the other hand, finds an Italian look for the first time with the publication and full translation of her “Vita? O Teatro?”, the illustrated volume with slipcase published by Castelvecchi Editore, which today remains an artistic and literary monument, almost a total work of art of a shocking force, a work that is intensely connected to today’s world, to the modalities of communication and relationships, based on images, sounds, and intuitive messages.

Perhaps the greatest book of the twentieth century.
As a work of visual art, it is a triumph. As a novel, it is a triumph.

– Jonathan Safram Foer

Charlotte Salomon – Self Portrait

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Carl Kruse Art Blog Homepage: https://carlkruse.net

Other writings by Asia Leonardi on Andrea Liguori, Francesca Woodman, Steve McCurry and Escher.

The blog’s last post focused on the Van Gogh’s “Chair.”

Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
And old Carl Kruse blog is here.

Van Gogh’s Chair: Omens of Tragedy

By Hazel Anna Rogers for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

I first saw Vincent Van Gogh’s painting ‘Van Gogh’s Chair’ (1888) in secondary school, in the middle of an art class.

My art teacher had no particular regard for art history. She found it uninteresting, and it was never a fundamental part of the classes she taught. She was a tiny thing, my teacher, always dressed in bold, screaming colors and imaginative accessories. She more often than not wore startlingly high heels, which retrospectively I suppose must have been rather agonizing considering how long she wore them for. I remember a certain pair – they were hot pink stilettos, with some sort of adornment on the front that looked like a piece of candy.

I do believe she was quite the darling of many of the boys and it seemed like she played up to this role quite readily. Come to think of it, I reckon a few of my secondary-school teachers played up to that side of juvenile sexuality, probably to encourage good behavior and obedience. That isn’t to say it was only the female teachers. On the contrary, I have had a few (borderline) flirtatious male teachers teach me at one time or another during my secondary and college education. I have always been quite obsessed with the forbidden sexuality of those in authority, and I’ve certainly had many a teacher-crush.

Anyway, back to the art class. In my last year of secondary school, we had to paint a ‘final piece’, and deduce its contents on a separate written piece, dissecting it and commenting on the techniques we used to create it. I must say I really do despise self-reflection with regards to artwork. I know that, for myself, when I create something, whether it be written, painted, drawn, played…whatever it is, it is almost always spontaneously generated. Occasionally I will vaguely plan the ongoing trajectory of a piece I’m in the middle of so as not to lose creative fire, but I won’t generally plan prior to beginning it. Inspiration sparks at the most bizarre of times, and no plan or bullet point list tends to help me to get there, to that perfect peak of creative energy that suddenly begins to flow like a flood and ignite the best work. But, of course, one has to ‘feign’ planning in order to escape being reprimanded for not doing so. Dutifully, I searched through the limited collection of art books we had in class to search for ‘inspiration’. I came across a short text about Van Gogh, which detailed a few of his paintings along with a mini biography. I flipped through the paintings in the center of the book, then stopped abruptly. The chair looked back at me, and I stared at it. Such a lonely piece. So isolated and sedentary. I fell into a silence, and the noise of the world around me became a dull, quiet roar, like the sound of distant waves. It was like I was waiting for the occupant of the chair to return and light up his pipe. But he never came.

Van Gogh’s Chair

I had a class in art history this year, and in one of the weeks my teacher brought up Van Gogh when speaking of post-impressionism. While my teacher swept through pictures of the sunflowers, the beautiful night skies, and the vibrant cafes up on the interactive whiteboard, I thought about the chair. I decided it was essential I delve into it, that I dive into the painting that near brought me to tears upon my initial viewing of it. I was not always a believer in the dissection of art, as I was of the opinion that it would inevitably ruin the intrigue and beauty of it through over-analysis. But, through my study of literature and more advanced music theory over these past few years, I have learned that studying art in any form can bring one to enjoy a work even more than one did prior. I decided to dissect Van Gogh’s melancholic painting, to see what I could find in it, and whether I could find that lonesome character that had left his seat and his tobacco in such a hurry. Here is what I have come up with:

In deciphering ‘Van Gogh’s Chair’, an approach concerning the metonymy – substituting an object or attribute for a person or emotion – prompted by the painting I feel is essential. The chair, illustrated in oil-on-canvas, is clearly a daylight rendering, with a light source suggested as emerging from the top left, unseen, corner, and reflected onto the light-colored wood in thick, golden brushstrokes. The brightness and air of simplicity in the painting could reflect Van Gogh’s self-reflection. However, simultaneously, ‘Omens of tragedy [rumble] beneath thick smears of beaming yellow’, as contemporary poet Niall O’Sullivan suggested in a poem framed side-by-side with the image in the National Gallery.

The positioning of the chair in the center of a sombre-toned brassy kitchen tiles is to me melancholic. The chair’s emptiness creates an unsettling sense of loneliness, which is further emphasised by its asymmetry; unequal bars connected to dumpy, shapeless chair legs. Supposedly “Empty chairs had a very personal significance for van Gogh, who appears to have associated objects strongly with people” [1]. Gogh’s inspiration for the painting was most likely Victorian magazine ‘The Graphic’ which published an illustration in 1870 by Luke Filde, dubbed ‘The Empty Chair, Gad’s Hill’. This was painted after Charles Dickens’s death, a chair with no owner, yet an object so completely synonymous with its owner (Dickens) that it became an embodiment of him in itself. It is well documented that Van Gogh was a huge admirer of Dickens’ works, and supposedly wrote letter emphatically proclaiming his love for the writer, using phrases like: ‘I want to paint what Dickens has done with words’[2]. Van Gogh continued to show his admiration for Dickens through his art, and ‘The Arlésienne’ (1890), which was painted in his last year of life, depicts a Dickens novel on the table in front of the female figure. This emotionally charged use of the symbolism could certainly have affected Gogh in some way. This emotionally charged use of the symbolism could certainly have affected Gogh in some way. This emotionally charged use of the symbolism could certainly have affected Gogh in some way. The emotionally charged use of symbolism (using symbols to represent ideas, and in this case a person) in Filde’s painting could certainly have deeply affected Van Gogh, leading to his own chair portraits.

The personalizing of his own chair as being metonymically associated with himself can be furthered by his positioning of his own personal objects on the chair; the hastily painted pipe (it is believed Van Gogh followed Dickens’s prescription of smoking for melancholia) and the open bag of tobacco. These intimate objects seem to be connected with the candle depicted on the painting Van Gogh did of fellow artist Paul Gauguin’s own ‘Chair’ (‘Gauguin’s Chair’ 1888). Perhaps he considered Gauguin’s ‘light’ as essential, not only to light the tobacco in his pipe, but to light up his own work. I will comment on Van Gogh and Gauguin’s artistic relationship, as well as the significance of the contrasting chairs he painted, in a moment.

The complexity of the configuration of the painting with areas of wider, continual brushstrokes (see the first front rung of the chair) juxtaposed to thicker, busier areas (the foremost chair leg), create a distorted three-dimensional image, elevating this mundane object to something rather more sinisterly representative of a despairing mental state, potentially pointing to Van Gogh’s own mental deterioration. This supports Victoria Charles’ notion that ‘Van Gogh’s life and work are so intertwined that it is hardly possible to see his pictures without reading in them the story of his life’[3]. Does this indicate that, for Van Gogh, ‘painting had become identical with life itself’[4], the only way for him to communicate the difficulties and pains of living?

I feel that a further analytical comparison of this painting to Van Gogh’s contrasting depiction, ‘Gauguin’s Chair’, is necessary to contextually analyze this painting. Both canvases were painted once relations between the once-amicable artists had become strained due to Van Gogh’s poor mental health. Van Gogh has hoped that his artist’s studio, the ‘Yellow House’, would become a studio for himself with Gauguin as his artistic mentor. But his vision of harmonious living with Gauguin did not last long, as after 9 weeks of living together Van Gogh started falling through a downwards spiral into deep depression and bipolar disorder. After Van Gogh sliced off his ear in a fit of violent anger he was sent to an insane asylum, and his dream of working with Gauguin swiftly ended. Van Gogh painted both chairs just as his relationship with Gauguin was becoming strained.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Image of Gaguin's Chair

Gaguin’s Chair, 1888

‘Gauguin’s Chair’ is a baroque-style envisioning in its exaggerated features and emphasis on ‘tenebrism’ (the dramatic use of light and dark). It is of a deep, sensual palate that is startling richer than that used to depict his own chair. This image seems to suggest a nocturnal exoticism and complexity that appears juxtaposed to the garish simplicity of Van Gogh’s own chair. These chairs are both ‘alive, like strange creatures’[5]. Van Gogh here employs the ‘intense colours and dramatic shapes…[that] anticipated Expressionism [the use of artistic distortion to create different emotions]’[6]. The light sources – a candle and a gas-lantern – create a far more claustrophobic image than that of Van Gogh’s own chair, which is lit by external sources, symbolic perhaps of Van Gogh perceiving Gauguin as self-interested and thus self-illuminated in this painting, though one cannot say for sure he felt this sort of animosity towards his fellow artist. By all accounts, Van Gogh was utterly bewitched by Gauguin’s artwork and was highly insistent that Gauguin should come and work with him to help him better his own art. Gauguin recounts in his memoirs how much of a dutifully hardworking artist and loving man Van Gogh was prior to his ever-increasing episodes of ‘madness’. Maybe the use of this internal, unattainable light indicates that Van Gogh perceived Gauguin as his last hope, hope that was swiftly dwindling.

Another aspect of the painting I wish to briefly discuss is its musicality, as I believe it is integral to understanding Van Gogh’s artistic technique. Before moving to The Yellow House, Van Gogh articulated to his brother Theo that the paintings he so viscerally envisioned he would come to paint in Southern France would be ‘a symphony in blue and yellow’[7]. Van Gogh’s persistent application of ‘words related to music – such as ‘harmony’, ‘piano’, ‘note’, ‘register’, ‘clarion’ and ‘scherzo’’[8] in written correspondence during his life can be used to analyse the painting of his chair. This painting seems indeed an homage to the so-called ‘Yellow House’ gallery he so dearly endeavoured to pursue with Gauguin. Its vibrantly warm autumnal palate echoes the ‘dark ochre to bright cadmium’[9] that Van Gogh ‘was continually comparing [to] the sounds made by the piano’ [10] during his piano lessons in Paris. The melodic use of a simple base palate in this painting isolates the chair in its own lonesome song, lingering on the edge of a climax into chaos. To me, that is what this chair evokes. An all-consuming loneliness fuelled by rejection and solitude. An attempt to create an image out of a void of emptiness, to make beauty from estrangement and a desperation to connect. I find it achingly beautiful and overwhelmingly sad. In this piece I feel that I can hear the profound music that so deeply affected Vincent – Wagner, Beethoven, Berlioz – and inspired his own creation. This chair, to me, is a painting of Van Gogh himself, of his life, a life despairing for a friendship and a dream so soon blighted, fearful of the darkness yet to come.

Bibliography:

Natascha Veldhorst, translated by Diane Webb, Van Gogh and Music: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018)

Josephine Cutts and James Smith, Intro by: Lucinda Hawksley, Essential Van Gogh (Parragon Publishing, UK, 2000)

Victoria Charles, ‘Vincent Van Gogh’, (Parkstone Press International, 2012)

Ed. Ingo F. Walther, Impressionist Art, (Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis, Koln, 2016)

Guardian Online: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2004/mar/06/art

The National Gallery Online: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-van-goghs-chair

Quoted in Thompson, Paige, ‘How Vincent Van Gogh was Inspired by the Works of Charles Dickens’, pub. In ‘Sotheby’s’ (URL: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/how-vincent-van-gogh-was-inspired-by-the-works-of-charles-dickens), July 29th 2019

[1] Josephine Cutts and James Smith, Intro by: Lucinda Hawksley, Essential Van Gogh (Parragon Publishing, UK, 2000)

[2] Quoted in Paige Thompson, ‘How Vincent Van Gogh was Inspired by the Works of Charles Dickens’, pub. In ‘Sotheby’s’ (URL: https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/how-vincent-van-gogh-was-inspired-by-the-works-of-charles-dickens), July 29^th 2019

[3] Victoria Charles, ‘Vincent Van Gogh’, (Parkstone Press International, 2012), p. 7

[4] Ibid. 324

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ed. Ingo F. Walther, Impressionist Art, (Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis, Koln, 2016), p. 326

[7] Natascha Veldhorst, translated by Diane Webb, Van Gogh and Music: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018), p. 1-2

[8] Ibid. p. 2

[9] Ibid. Anton Kerssemaker, pg 7

[10] Ibid. Anton Kerssemaker, pg 7

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Blog Homepage: https://carlkruse.net
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com

More writing by Hazel Anna Rogers here and here.
The blog’s last post discussed Activist Art.
Carl Kruse is also on TED.

Activist Art – Art as Protest

by Rosie Lesso for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

Art and politics have a closely intertwined relationship going back millennia. But it is only in the past 100 years that artists have embraced art as a form of political protest, one that can educate, inspire or instigate change. Known as ‘activist art’ or ‘protest art,’ this fusion of art and activism is daring, provocative and confrontational, attempting to speak for the voiceless and marginalized, challenging political leaders, institutional managers and individuals to make change. In our social media driven society the impact of activist art is more relevant than ever, able as it is to reach large international audiences with pressing issues of the day, such as climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, racism and the abuse of power.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Diego Rivera - The Uprising

Diego Rivera, The Uprising, 1931, image via MoMA and The Observer

The boundaries between acts of public protest and performance art are porous and blurred, so it can be hard to trace back a clear historical narrative for today’s activist art. But some of the most influential artists to first experiment with a fusion of politics and art were the German Dadaists, whose ridiculous, nonsensical poetry and performance art was fueled by angry defiance against the barbarism of the First World War. In the 1920s and 1930s the Mexican Muralist Movement brought their political agenda out into the streets with sprawling public murals that condemned the ruling class, capitalism and the church, calling for Mexico’s ordinary workers to lead the country into the future. Picasso’s huge, frieze-like Guernica of 1937, was a more harrowing message to the public, conveying the horrific brutalities of the Spanish Civil War with broken, dismembered bodies and screaming, tortured faces.

Yayoi Kusama, Anti-War, Brooklyn Bridge, 1968, image via ARTnews

Anti-war sentiment continued through the 1960s and 1970s as artists raged against the Vietnam War with happenings that reflected the dawn of the hippie era. Yayoi Kusama tried to kill hate with love, staging naked protests on the streets of New York, while Chris Burden deliberately wounded himself to bring home the realities of unseen suffering. Other sociopolitical issues that found their way into artistic forms of protest during the 1970s and 1980s are battles still being fought today, sometimes by the same voices that arose during that time. These include feminist artists who rejected the gender biases of the past, and ethnically diverse groups who continue to rally against marginalization.

The Carl Kruse Art Blog - Guerrilla Girls Image

Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?, 1989, image courtesy Guerrilla Girls

One of the most outspoken groups of this era were The Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous, all-female group based in New York who aimed to subvert what they saw as the “male, pale, stale, Yale,” biases of the art world with a series of jarring and satirical poster campaigns. Wearing gorilla masks to conceal their identities, they pasted posters bearing embarrassing statistics across the streets of New York throughout the 1980s, challenging art institutions to address sexist and racist discrimination. Still an active group today, The Guerrilla Girls continue to create posters, performances and videos highlighting wider societal inequities, embracing Instagram and YouTube as further platforms for the dissemination of ideas. As well as educating the wider public about art world discrimination, their campaigning has played an active and important role in the rising inclusivity of museums and galleries worldwide.

Pussy Riot, Punk Prayer, 2012, image via TV Guide VG

The Guerrilla Girls undoubtedly had a profound impact on the feminist Russian protest group Pussy Riot, who first stormed onto the international art scene in 2012. Dressed in balaclavas and brightly colored clothes, they staged a series of pop-up events across Moscow directed against Putin’s regime, speaking against the segregation of women, racially diverse groups and LGBTQ+ individuals. Their most notorious art protest, Punk Prayer, was staged at Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in 2012, where they performed an obscenity-laced song highlighting their country’s institutional sexism and racism and calling “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, chase Putin out!” Posted online, their stunt quickly went viral, before making its way to the enraged Russian authorities. Accused of hooliganism and religious hatred, several members were imprisoned after the event, but their activist stunt had already earned them an international following, raising a warning to the world about the destructive impact of Russia’s government.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - The American People Series Photo

The American People Series #20: Die, 1967, image via The New York Times

Given how raw racial politics continue to be, it is perhaps no surprise that many protest artists have chosen to address this troublesome issue. African-American artist, activist and educator Faith Ringgold’s imagery since the 1970s has been jarring and influential. Her violently direct painting The American People Series #20, Die, 1967, addressed the brutality of New York’s 1964 race riots, highlighting the violence of a racially divided America with a universal language that is as relevant today as it was in the 1960s. Ringgold deliberately exposed the violence of the events, noting, “If [the media] did show a photograph or a picture of any kind of riot, they never showed the blood…So I wanted to make sure that I put the blood in there, because I knew that blood meant death, and that’s what happened at those riots.”

Faith Ringgold, Tar Beach #2, 1990

In the 1980s Ringgold turned to the unlikely medium of story quilting, embracing this uniquely feminine language as a tool to present a more unified, hopeful vision of life for African Americans. The much-celebrated stories and imagery of her ‘Tar Beach’ quilts of the 1990s have more recently been expanded by Ringgold into a best-selling children’s book celebrating the power of imagination, whose goal is to inspire a new generation of young people about acceptance and hope.

Marc Quinn, A Surge of Power, 2020, image via RTE, more here.

When Black Lives Matter protests raged across Europe and the U.S. earlier this year following the tragic death of George Floyd, a whole arena of artists responded with pop-up performances, artworks and events. One of the most memorable was by British artist Marc Quinn in Bristol; when a group of protestors pulled down the statue of a former slave trader and left an empty plinth in its wake, Quinn produced a bronze statue of British BLM protestor Jen Rein and installed it in its place, titled A Surge of Power, 2020. Some criticized him of opportunism, while others praised his ingenuity and kinship with the cause, even if the statue was subsequently removed by local authorities. But Quinn’s collusion with protestors in this work is an important part of the worldwide debate surrounding public art monuments, with many asking whether it is time for monuments of problematic figures from the past to be removed and replaced (See other Carl Kruse blog posts, Statues and Monuments, and Columbus Beheaded.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Photo of Ai Wei Dropping Vase.

Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, image via Public Delivery

Like Quinn, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is another artist who has staged many well-publicized stunts since the 1990s, most frequently directed at the oppressive nature of the Chinese government. One of his most publicized projects involved dropping a valuable ancient Chinese urn in Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, to signify his anger at Communist China’s erasure of cultural memory. More recently, Straight, 2012, was made in response to the tragic collapse of a school in China during an earthquake which killed 5,000 children. Ai spent four years making this work, gathering a huge mass of broken reinforcement bars from the building’s wreckage and bending them into a series of wave-like forms to echo the motion of the earthquake. Ai’s tragic memorial to this horrific event was also deeply embarrassing for the Chinese government, highlighting what Ai saw as blatant corruption, negligence and needless suffering brought about by the building’s poor construction.

BP or not BP?, Trojan Horse political protest outside the British Museum, 2020 image via Trebuchet Magazine

The role institutions play in climate change is another hot topic for today’s activist artists, and the activist theater group BP or not BP? is one of the United Kingdom’s most influential to emerge in recent times. Earlier this year they amassed a large gathering outside the British Museum for two full days to protest against BP’s sponsorship of the exhibition Troy: Myth and Reality. With them they brought a four-meter-long Trojan horse hiding protestors inside, while they projected a light display onto the museum’s façade reading “BP Must Fall.” Described as a “creative takeover,” the event pushed for the British Museum to sever ties with the multi-million pound oil-company. As group member Sarah Horne pointed out, “For too long, the museum has sided with its mega-polluter partner rather than the communities it is meant to represent, many of whom are already experiencing the intensifying impacts of our changing climate.” The attention-grabbing antics of this anti-oil campaign group have already persuaded prominent arts institutions to sever ties with BP, including The Royal Shakespeare Company, Tate Britain, The National Theatre and The National Galleries of Scotland, proving some arts institutions are more willing to work with and be influenced by activist artists than others.

Kara Walker, Fons Americanus, 2019, Tate Modern, (detail). Photo: © Tate (Matt Greenwood), image via Tate Modern

Tate Modern (for a visit there and commentary check out our post here) chose to turn towards, rather than away from its past when they invited African American artist Kara Walker to create a Hyundai Commission for the huge Turbine Hall in 2019. Her totemic water sculpture Fons Americanus was designed as a parody of the traditional Victorian water fountain, filled with grotesque stories of exploitation related to the history of slavery. Water here becomes a potent emblem of the transatlantic slave trade on which so much of Britain was built, gushing through violently contorted, caricatured figures as a brutal reminder of the horrific past.

It is no accident that this rising tower is sheet-white, a jarring reminder of the violence that constructed white colonialism, but there is also a nod to here to the whiteness of the sugar industry in which Henry Tate built his empire. Although slavery had been abolished by the time Tate was making his name, the sugar industry before him was entirely reliant on the grueling work of slaves. Tate Modern has openly acknowledged this past, writing, “it is … not possible to separate the Tate galleries from the history of colonial slavery from which in part they derive their existence.” But working with artists and bringing the past out into the light allows a vitally important rewriting of history to take place, one which can lead towards a more inclusive future through the power of art.

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Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
The last post was on Andrea Liguori. The one before that was on Steve McCury.
Carl Kruse has another old blog here.

Andrea Liguori, a Wonderful Mind in Berlin

by Asia Leonardi for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

Into the urban traffic of Berlin so many people are walking, with them come ideas from all over the world, sometimes changing the surrounding environment. This is the case of Andrea Liguori, an architect from Palermo who has now lived in Berlin for many years. I had a pleasant chat with Andrea, where he told me about his work, his love for architecture and painting.

What brought you to Berlin, Andrea?

“What brought me to Berlin? A girl; sometimes happens that love takes you around the world … sometimes you move for work, other times because you meet someone who moves something inside you. What I always point out is that it’s not so important how you got there but why you stayed there. In my case the reasons for staying were mainly the business aspect, Berlin is a beautiful reality, there is room for all: but also so much competition, and you have to
live with this. for an architect like me there is so much to do, and many possible niches… Here the field of architecture is very interesting because new construction sites are always opening, and Berlin has also an important role in the history of architecture, it was one of the headquarter’s of the Bauhaus.”

Carl Kruse Blog - Andrea Liguori - Wood House

Woodhouse by Andrea Liguori

How did you start your career?

“My very first experience was working in a studio in Palermo with two partners, an experience that I abandoned once I moved. Here I started working in the studio of an architect who spoke Italian, and it was useful for me to start learning German. Gradually I got to know the local reality, I built new acquaintances, and I started being able to do some more personal projects. Today I am a consultant for a studio, with which I design new buildings, such as hotels and apartments … but I also have my studio, where I take care of my projects, which mostly concern bars, restaurants, or small villas.”

And how do you divide yourself between the two activities?

“Since I am an external consultant, I can manage my time based on the importance of the projects I have. I work a lot, I often stay up late, I work on weekends, but all in all, when you find something you like it’s a hobby, and you feel like you never work. I’m not saying it’s exactly like that, because sometimes the tiredness is real, but I enjoy it. I never get bored because I like to differentiate. I’m also into furniture design. Me and a friend of mine have a company in Palermo, we design lamps, objects, we have also worked as
designers for Italian firms. In short, I have a holistic approach, I deal with a bit of everything that has to do with the world of drawing, design, architecture.”

Andrea Liguori – Hotel in Georgia

How do your ideas arise, and how do you put them into practice?

”With architecture, there is a study of reference manuals, while the creative process in design is more important and lighter. It comes from the experience as an individual when you go to a place or buy an object, you look at it, you
are interested, you think about possible changes …but the best ideas always
come in moments of leisure, of freedom, as the theory of creative idleness explains: when you are relaxed, maybe take a shower, an interesting idea comes to your mind more easily.”

How did you experience the lockdown? Was it a
period of greater creativity?

“When we are busy with everyday commitments there are many bureaucratic issues to complete, emails to write, accountants, lawyers, appointments to deal with. During the lockdown, all of this has slowed down a bit, I felt less pressure, and thus creativity increased. I have never been bored, thanks to my other passion that is painting… I paint with watercolors. Three or four years ago I also held a watercolor paintings exhibition in Palermo inspired by places in my city, and I keep painting to this day. I feel a little homesick now and then, but it relaxes me, I like the subject, and I continue to paint.”

Foro Italico in Palermo. Watercolor by Andrea Liguori

Was there a project that had left a mark on you, or that you particularly enjoyed doing?

“There is no more important project than others, everyone has their importance. Projects are a bit like children for an architect. I like traveling a lot, and I try to do projects all over the world, and those have a special flavor to me, even if it’s a smaller project. For example, at the moment I am working on the project of a large hotel here in Germany but I enjoyed doing a very small boutique in Miami, Florida last year because it was an opportunity to
discover a new world, a fun place … They are all projects born thanks to public relations, it is important in my opinion to convey your passion to others, you manage to involve them, and they call you and ask you for advice. Social networks also have their weight, with Instagram I share things that maybe don’t have much to do with my work but that give the idea of my vision of the world, of what I like to do, and maybe if there is someone who knows me
and sees himself in my posts he looks for me, calls me and the affinity is
born.”

Andrea is a fascinating man, with a firm and confident gaze; he knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. His university love continues to blossom day by day: he lives with his partner in his Berlin apartment. What struck me most about Andrea is the dedication and commitment he puts into his work, his delicacy in the choice of words, which reveals a brilliant creative intuition, typical of a successful architect. Transforming an idea into something real is what I admire most about architecture, and about art in general: Berlin’s urban planning is varied, always open to new construction sites, always new, always changing, ready to welcome those who, like Andrea, dare to put their personality into this wonderful city.

Carl Kruse Blog - Andrea Liguori - President of Italy

Andrea Liguori with Italian President Sergio Mattarella

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Homepage: Carl Kruse Art Blog
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other posts by Asia Leonardi are here, here and here.

Berlin related posts on the blog include the Boros Bunker art gallery and coverage of Berlin artist Yury Kharcehnko.
Carl Kruse is active in Berlin with the Ivy Circle.

Steve McCurry: Vulnerability Made Immortal

By Asia Leonardi for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

Member of the Magnum, Steve McCurry graduated in 1974 in Cinematography and Theater from the University of Pennsylvania. He began work as a freelance photographer in the late 1970s, dispatching reports from India and Afghanistan, the countries with which his work is most identified. The turning point in his career happened in 1979, when he entered the Afghan areas controlled by the Mujahideen, shortly before the Russian invasion. He returned, crossing the border with rolls of film sewn between his clothes.
His color images, which combined the art of reporting, travel photography, and social investigation, have been published in countless publications, but Steve McCurry’s name remains particularly attached to National Geographic, of which he made the most famous cover of all time. (As an aside, and now sadly defunct, Carl Kruse was active on National Geographic’s “YOUR SHOT” for several years).

There is a paradox in Steve McCurry’s photography. On a technical level his photos are
practically perfect, serene, characterized by the strength and liveliness of color, but they tell
disturbing stories of poverty and uprooting, hunger, and desperation. It might seem perhaps a lack of empathy with the photographed subjects, but in
reality, it is the opposite. His images are the result of
scrupulous research, made through long journeys
and exhausting waits for the perfect moment. So he tells how he managed to take the famous
photo in which he portrays Sri Lankan fishermen balancing on bamboo rods: “First I studied the
places and fishing techniques, then I found the right place and a point of view convincing and before shooting I went back three times: in the late afternoon, early in the morning and after sunset. In the end, I chose the light of 7 when the sky is completely covered .”

McCurry’s approach is mainly anthropological, culture, religion,
and traditions are present in his images. McCurry does not seek the dazzling and explicit shot, his photographs tell the events by placing them in a broad context. As he tells the Italian journalist Mario Calabresi, to be a photagrapher you have to “immerse yourself” in the reality you want to represent. This is how he recounts his experience during the monsoons in India, during which he made a reportage that would have given him world fame: “That year I understood that to succeed, I had to enter in the filthy water, covered with mud, full of waste and dead animals: to fulfill my project, I had to accept all
risks, including that of getting sick and dying.”

As is clear from his photos, Steve McCurry pays attention to the human being: “Most of my photos are rooted in people. I look for the moment when the most genuine soul appears, in which the experience impresses on a person’s face. I try to convey what a cultured person can be in a wider context that we could call the human condition. I want to convey the visceral sense of beauty and wonder that I found in front of me, during my travels when the surprise of being a stranger mixes with the joy of familiarity .”

The American photographer was one of the first to describe India and Asia using color photography. Before him, the subcontinent had been told practically only in black and white. Mccurry’s India, on the other hand, is composed of an infinite variety of bright and contrasting visions, smells, and flavors to which only color can do justice. This also gives rise to some criticisms, especially from those who believe that black and white unquestionably has a ” depth ” and “substance” that color photography will never be able to reach. But one of the characteristics of great photographers is that they know how to go beyond the limits of a medium and in doing so create a new standard.

Steve McCurry, undoubtedly, has this characteristic and his photography is universally appreciated for its beauty and humanity.

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The Carl Kruse Art Blog home page is at https://carlkruse.net
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other posts on great photographers in the blog here and over here
Carl Kruse is also on Dwell, taking in their beautiful images of design and architecture.

More on Action Painting

One of our readers wanted more on action painting, the technique highlighted in our previous post on Jackson Pollock, and our resident writer Asia Leonardi — who wrote the original Pollock piece — was happy to oblige with a quick survey. Take it away Asia!

Action painting is as an immediate, free, spontaneous painting in which the entire body of the artist is involved in the creation of the work, whose execution is entrusted to the gesture of the arm; a painting made with splashes, stains, dripping from the brush or directly from the can on the canvas’ surface, which is often placed in a horizontal position.

Jackson Pollock at Work

The resulting signs form a chaotic image, an irrational and informal intertwining of colors and lines, the result of a casual gesture that wants to bring the surface the hidden motivations of the unconscious, thus linking itself to contemporary philosophical positions of an existentialist matrix.

Carl Kruse Art Blog- Action Painting Team Event

Action Painting. Team Event, Kitzbühl

The work of art becomes the expression of an exasperated subjectivism, of the automatic action of the unconscious, the canvas is the means and intermediary between the material, the color, the sign and the artist’s unconscious, at the point that Jackson Pollock writes “When I paint I don’t have the exact perception of what is happening, only after I finish I realize what I have done…”

Carl Kruse Art blog - Jackson Pollock Number 1A

Jackson Pollock, Number 1A, 1948

Action painting is the expression of a state of mind, the burst of a charge of energy, the explosion of an inner drive that does not express itself according to a predetermined project but almost automatically follows an uncontrollable impulse of the deep, with obvious references, albeit with completely different formal outcomes, to Expressionism, for the violence of language, to Dadaism, for the charge of rebellion, to Tachisme, for what concern the technical aspect (in spots), but especially to Surrealism.

Like Surrealism, action painting enhances the supremacy of the unconscious, the automatic value of the result, which does not depend on conscious formal or conceptual choices but is the result of pure gestures of a psychic automatism that freely outlines form and content, And irrationally, it does not want to explain, only to express.

Franz Kline, Meryon, 1961

This cultural current gathers artistic personalities that are also very different from each other, united by a widespread sense of anguish and discomfort for the horrors of war, a manifestation of the degeneration of the myth of rational modernity, united in a general attitude of reaction that leads them to withdraw into the unconscious, looking for themselves, their anxieties and the unfathomed depths of their psyche: the result of this inner descent will produce, depending on the artist’s personality, works full of violent desperation, or even of restlessness and meditation. Consecrated as the greatest representative of action painting and abstract expressionism, Jackson Pollock represented an important moment in the artistic research of the last century, especially for American culture, contributing significantly to the affirmation of the United States as a new center of art in the second half of the 20th century.

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Carl Kruse Art Homepage.

Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com.

There is a great article on Action Painting over at Widewalls, including a how to video to paint like Jackson Pollock.

When did we Stop Criticizing Art?

by Hazel Anna Rogers for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

When I was around 13, I visited the Tate Gallery at the Liverpool Docks in Northern England primarily to see an exhibition of J.M.W. Turner and Cy Twombly, a starkly contrasting set of artists and the latter of which I actually had next-to-no prior knowledge of. Turner’s tableaux were mesmerizing, a sheer cacophony of violent maritime depictions in furious reds and oranges juxtaposed to ominous grey skylines. The walls of the gallery were filled with gloriously calm sunsets at sea alongside terrifying raging flames and waves that curved and swayed and spat like sharks feasting on shoals of fish. It was wonderful, an utterly overwhelming delight for the senses.

Carl Kruse Blog - Painting by JMW Turner

“Fishermen At Sea,” J.M.W. Turner (1796) – Image courtesy Tate Gallery

In the next room on I was suddenly surrounded by Cy Twombly’s enormous canvases. Scrawls of paint had been twirled and splatted and daubed onto the huge white expanses creating a graffiti-like effect, some with the appearance of words. I hated it. It felt all wrong, an expression of seeming carelessness towards the production of his masterpieces. After having wandered dreamily through Turner’s paintings, this felt like a punch in the eyes, a pointlessly unartistic exposition in the name of ‘art’. Yet, I felt unable to say anything against those huge, grotesque paintings, being observed as they were by a silent audience of respectful spectators.

“Untitled (Bacchus),” Cy Twombly (2008) – Image courtesy of Tate Gallery

I understand the differences in artistry and approach to creation much more now than I did at 13. I understand that the process of creating a masterpiece is not prescriptive, nor is it defined by one particular artistic style. I also understand that the emotions I felt, being surrounded by Twombly’s scribbles, were valid sentiments, and likely would have pleased Twombly himself should I have recounted them to him. But that doesn’t discount my anger, my frustration that art with no merit except its colossal size and thus imposing presence should be beside the tender daubs of someone like Turner. The art world has always had opposing views on what is, or is not, art, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I don’t disagree that Twombly’s paintings are art. I also don’t wish to debate what ‘beauty’ is with regards to art, as it isn’t always relevant. A piece of art can be incredible without being beautiful. I just want to understand how it is we came to the art world of today, of the 21^st Century, where we no longer criticise art.

I am in a generation bewitched by social media, a generation that is unashamedly narcissistic and that relishes self-importance. It is also the generation that produced the Instagram poet Rupi Kaur, along with her pages of simplistic, immature poetry. I have been to slam poetry contests where the winner was crowned not for poetic merit, but for loudly proclaiming how much hardship they had endured through their life. If I sound embittered, it’s because I am. Bygone eras are much the talk of mine and past generations, times when music was exciting, when people wrote letters, when people read books and wrote ones just as wonderful. I often think about the jazz scene of 1920’s Harlem, a sea of exciting talent emerging from an ever-increasing black population, with such greats as Fats Waller and Willie The Lion Smith striking piano keys in the jazz clubs that popped up left right and centre as New York became the epicentre of jazz in the 1930s. It’s that feeling of ‘You had to be there’. I have no doubt in my mind that the musicians playing in Harlem in the 1920s were often showered with tomatoes, booed off-stage, and not invited back until they were better in their respective trades. To be criticised is to be encouraged, to have the drive to get better, to show how good you can really be if you put your mind to something.

Part of the problem with new art is its audience. We can no longer heckle bad poets and bad musicians, or tell people that their paintings are unimaginative or uninspiring. We live, strangely, in a social climate that tells us we need ‘trigger warnings’ for certain books we read, while we watch poets read lines that shout about how they were bullied, raped, oppressed, and harassed without a metaphor in sight to disguise their meanings. And we sit, stony-faced, silent, and clap them, congratulate them on how brave they are to tell us all how much we should pity them. Art is no longer questioned, at least not within the younger generations that I am often amongst.

I remember when I was 15 and won the Young Poet Laureateship for the region where I grew up. Time and time again I would write poems, and time and time again my family would tell me they needed improving, or that they weren’t good at all. Criticism was a wonderful thing for me. It allowed me to grow as an artist, to shape my language into something subtle, sharp and resonant. I was better for it, a more rounded poet and writer, and never once did I resent feedback on my writing, be it bad, or worse, dismissive.

In a world obsessed with art but unable to distinguish the good from the purely egotistical, we find ourselves stranded. I still fell as though I am in that gallery, looking at Twombly’s artwork, perplexed and unimpressed. We discussed the paintings when we went back to school. Twombly’s paintings were ‘experimental’, ‘disturbing’, ‘interesting’, and ‘thought-provoking’. The space to say how much I hated them disappeared quickly as an overriding sentiment of respect for Twombly’s art overtook the classroom. Was it because it was in a gallery, thus it had to be worthy of our awe and wonder? I can’t say. But I think back on that day where I remained silent, and I also think about what would have happened if my family had praised my poetry when they in fact thought it flawed, meaningless and dull. And I will toast to the day that I have the courage to stand up and tell a bad poet what I really think of them, when I have the courage to tell my friend that her indie alternative jazz band needs to get their act together, because all of their music sounds the damn same. I will praise the day that someone tells me they didn’t like my poetry performance, that it was crass or forced or unintelligent, and I will relish the possibility of self-improvement under the motivation of their harsh words. In a world that censors negativity in the face of art, I hope that we can learn to speak our minds once again.

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Carl Kruse – Ars Lumen Home Page – Here
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Last blog post was on Escher
Another post by Hazel Anna Rogers – Music, Memory, the Cloud
Carl Kruse is also on Pinterest.

Infinite Worlds Upside Down – The Interior Landscapes of Maurits Cornelis Escher

by Asia Leonardi for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

The graphic art of Maurits Cornelis Escher is different from that of any other artist, instantly recognizable to millions of people around the world, representing an always compelling combination of art and mathematics.

Escher’s world, which explores issues of infinity and paradox, of impossible geometry and perspective distortion, is animated by a playful imagination and the unexpected, crafted with precision and an extraordinary attention to detail.

Born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, on June 17, 1898, Escher did not shine particularly well in the early years of school due to health problems, yet, he showed artistic talent and in 1919 he enrolled at the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He began studying architecture (a subject that would have fascinated him throughout his career) but after a short time, switched to the decorative arts with courses in drawing and wood engraving. Escher left school in 1922 and went on a tour of Spain and Italy that would significantly influence his later works.

During his travels, he met Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924, and for the following 11 years, the couple lived in Rome. Escher explored Italy far and wide, creating sketches and drawings, many of which reveal a growing interest in perspective distortion. Later, the artist would take these early elaborations to the extreme, basing his works on “impossible objects,” such as the famous and confusing Necker’s Cube and Penrose’s Triangle.

Under Mussolini’s regime, life in Italy became intolerable and in 1935 the family moved to Switzerland. 1936 was an important year for Escher and saw the transition in his works from natural landscapes to interior landscapes. He also saw the beginning of a lifelong fascination with tessellated shapes, inspired by a visit to the Alhambra. Escher called this new technical elaboration the “Regular Division of the Plane”. In 1937 the prints Still Life and Street and Metamorphosis I already testified to the essence of many of Escher’s new concepts: ambiguity, impossible reality, metamorphosis, altered perspectives, which would become dominant themes for the rest of his career.

After moving to Belgium in 1937, Escher returned to his Nazi-occupied country in 1941, where he would remain until 1970. These were years of great production and inspiration. After the war, the exhibitions earned him international fame and honors, including a knighthood. In the course of his life, Escher made 448 lithographs, woodcuts on wood or heads, and over 2000 sketches. His images bring to life the unreal, the paradox and the incomprehensible, with results that few others have equaled. In 1970 Escher moved to a retirement home for artists where he continued to have a studio. He died on March 27, 1972.

“I always move between puzzles. Some young people come to me to tell me: yours is Op Art too. I have no idea what Op Art is. I’ve been doing this job for 30 years.

Smaller and Smaller, 1956 | wood engraving and woodcut in black and red-brown printed from four blocks | 38 x 38 cm

Smaller and Smaller is an extraordinary example of Escher’s “Regular Division of the Plane” and also testifies to the artist’s interest in infinity. The lizards, arranged so that noses and tails coincide, are elegantly arranged in a vortex until they disappear into the infinitely small in the center. The work was created in 1956, the year that marks the moment when Escher began to take a research interest in expressing the infinite with tessellations. His interest was piqued by discussions with the mathematician Harold Coxeter, during which the two studied the possibility of combining the artist’s principle of “Regular Division of the Plane” with Coxeter’s geometric figures.

Escher himself often pointed out that he did not receive a formal education in mathematics, however, in works such as Smaller and Smaller and others, he achieved perfect accuracy within complex geometric theories. As Coxeter reiterated in 1995 “Escher is absolutely accurate, down to the millimeter.”

“Only those who measure themselves against the absurtd will achieve the impossible. I believe it’s in my basement..Now I go up and check.

Other World (Another World), 1947 | wood engraving and woodcut in black, light browning green printed from three blocks | 31,5 x 26 cm

Other World, also known as Another World, the first of Escher’s prints to explore his idea of relativity, is a study of the relationship between objects. The artist presents to the viewer a structure with five open walls, with almost identical Romanesque arches that offer a view on a series of different panoramas. The two arches at the base present an upward perspective on space, the two upper ones look down on a lunar landscape and the two in the center on a lunar horizon. The image, therefore, creates a paradox: each floor could be both the zenith and the nadir of the structure, so everything is relative depending on where you look. The image also features a bird with a human face perched on three arches, while a horn hangs from three other arches. The bird is the representation of a small sculpture donated to Escher by his father-in-law, and is present in several works by the artist.

“Are you really sure that a floor cannot be also a ceiling?”

Bond of Union, 1956 | lithograph 26 x 34 cm

The heads of a man and a woman float in the darkness and are formed by a single spiral ribbon that also joins them for the forehead. Infinite space-time is suggested by the spheres, similar to small planets, suspended in front, behind and inside the heads. Bond of Union is one of Escher’s most representative works and was inspired by the reading of “The Invisible Man”, the novel by H. G. Wells in which the hero has his head wrapped in bandages.

In this work, once again, the image expresses the artist’s exploration of the infinite. Moreover — an uncommon aspect of Escher, more interested in paradox, geometry and unreality than in “human” issues — he recalls the myth of Adam and Eve, and the bonds that keep men, women, and all humanity together. In this sense it is one of Escher’s most touching and most surprising works.

“The things I want to express are so beautiful and pure.”

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Carl Kruse Art Blog Homepage is here.
Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Also by Asia Leonardi: The Photography of Francesca Woodman, Jackson Pollock’s Hymn To Freedom.
The official Escher website: https://mcescher.com/
Find Carl Kruse on Hackernoon.

Jackson Pollock’s Hymn To Freedom: Action Painting

by Asia Leonardi for the Carl Kruse Arts Blog

The antithesis between abstract and realistic art, which lasted for a long time in the 1950s, was overcome during the decade which — although difficult to reduce to a common denominator — can be grouped under the definition of “informal.” This term, used for the first time in 1951 by the critic Georges Mathieu, obviously in its French sense, appears to be preferable to others — tachisme, that alludes to a painting with irregular spots (tache = spot); action painting, which refers to a sort of submission of the language to gesture, to action; lyrical abstractionism — precisely because of its generic nature, which lends itself to giving a minimum of unity to not very similar experiences.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Jackson Pollock - The Deep — Jackson Pollock, The Deep, 1953, Centre Pompidou, Paris

Informal art, not only a European phenomenon, has its roots in the climate of mistrust in the cognitive abilities of reason, that arose following the Second World War. The deep devaluation of conventional means of expression — form and color — leads artists to focus their explorations on material, sign and spot. The premises of the informal are to be found in works by fairly isolated artists, active in the last years of the war in New York (Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning) and Paris (Wols, Jean Fautrier, Jean Debuffet). But mostly, it is in America where action painting arises, and indeed, Paris has lost its role as artistic capital since then.

Common elements are the detachment from history, even from the history of art, and often the refusal of political commitment: for many weighed the disappointment felt in having seen the hopes lit at the end of the conflict gradually vanished. The philosophical currents of the time (above all existentialism) accounted for the precariousness of life and paralyzing anguish, and from which there was no escape by gestures of revolt. The artist, having relations with reality become precarious, anxiously looked for an original and primitive artistic creativity.

The movement was influenced by the art of the Russian Vasilij Kandinsky, but also by surrealism, which sought to express the unconscious most directly and spontaneously. The main thrust, which gives impulse to the movement, is fueled by the artist’s need for improvisation, spontaneity and motor movement. The artist acts by giving free rein to his unconscious, and in this way he frees himself from the anguish and his restlessness with the physical movement of painting.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) founder of American action painting, sought in a technique of automatism, similar to certain surrealist proposals, the way to free creativity from the unconscious. In this way he made his painting progressively more abstract until he made his first works in 1946 with the procedure called by himself, dripping, consisting in dripping, precisely, the color from a brush or a stick onto the canvas spread on the floor. The movement of the artist’s hand created an intricate set of lines on the surface, according to a more or less convulsive “rhythm” that has quite reasonably been compared to a piece of jazz music. Art, for Pollock, therefore loses its cognitive purposes, becomes an act of violent, angry participation, a testimony to the malaise in which the new generations find themselves.

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Jackson Pollock - In action

Pollock also said that, spreading the canvas on the ground, it was better to walk around it and he felt an integral part of the picture. In the course of his experimentation he made some studies on the radiation of the Native American Indians and realized that the prayers addressed to the “Gods” took place through repeated turns of the Indians around the fire, during a state of trance and semi-awareness. From this experience Pollock associated the canvas to the fireplace, and the painter to the shaman. This union will transmit all of its most intimate interiority to future paintings, thanks to an accurate and spiritual escape from reality.

It is the artist’s ego that looms completely over the painting, and it is the painting itself that commands like the fire in a shamanic rite. Action painting never shows nor expresses an objective or subjective reality, but releases a tension that has accumulated in large quantities in the artist. It is an action not conceived and not planned in the ways of execution and in the final effects. It expresses the artist’s malaise in a well-structured society where everything is planned; it is a violent reaction of the artist-intellectual against the artistic-technician. “When I’m inside my paintings,” said Pollock “I’m not fully aware of what I’m doing. Only after a moment of awareness I realize what I have achieved. I am not afraid to make changes or to spoil the image, because the painting has a life of its own. I try to get it out. It is only when I happen to lose touch with the painting that the result is confusing and poor.”

Pollock’s drippings do not want to hit the viewer with colors or with a pleasant appearance, but only be the testimony of the artist’s life and presence. This is why observing the painting does not convey anything to us; because we have to think about the action that happens first, what Jackson did on the canvas. The painting is only the result, the work of art is the process of creation. To help understand the purpose of his works, in the 1950s Jackson began a collaboration with his friend and photographer Hans Namuth, creating some extraordinary photo shoots that portray the artist at work. There are more than 500 black and white shots where we see Pollock using brushes as sticks and “splashing” the paint directly on the canvas. Jackson chooses huge canvases for two specific reasons: the first is to represent the power of the United States, which after World War II will become the first world power. The second is to show the artist’s physical strength, who also sees the canvas as a sort of “gymnasium”.

The constraints of reason have little to do with art. Dripping is a true hymn to freedom, to the point that Pollock soon stopped giving a title to his works to limit himself to numbering them. If there had been a title, he argued, the observer would have been conditioned in some way. The canvases had to speak to each one only through color, leaving aside all that was rational. Words included.

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Homepage: https://carlkruse.net
Contact: info AT carlkruse DOT net
Also by Asia Leonardi: The Photography of Francesca Woodman
MOMA’s artist page on Jackson Pollock here.
Also find Carl Kruse and his photographs on Fstoppers.

Yury Kharchenko – Upcoming Hamburg and Berlin Exhibits

by Carl Kruse

It has been a busy season for my artist friend Yury Kharchenko with the completion of several new works, the latest being a series that is generating controversy though the artworks have yet to be publicly exhibited. In these latest works, Kharchenko depicts comic and pop culture icons at the entrance to Auschwitz, with the unmistakable towers of death juxtaposed in the background, creating conflict and tension by bringing two worlds together that never should have met. The works include Scrooge McDuck Protects his Money in Front of Auschwitz and a series titled Waiting For A Super Hero, all raising the question why didn’t a Superman or a Batman or any Disney hero save the Jews? The super heroes always saved everyone but why not now? One of Kharchenko’s main preoccupations is whether what happened before — the horror of the Holocaust — could ever happen again.

Carl Kruse At Blog - Scrooge McDuck — Scrooge McDuck Protects His Money In Front of Auschwitz

Carl Kruse Art Blog - Waiting for a Super hero - Yury Kharchenko — Waiting For A Super Hero (In front of Auschwitz)

Meanwhile, a work by Kharchenko, “House of Hope, Number 2″ (oil on canvas 2019), formerly of the Paul J. Schupf collection, has been donated to the Colby College Museum of Art as part of the last will of Mr. Schupf who passed away December 4, 2019. Besides Kharchenko’s work, Schupf was one of the largest collectors of Francis Bacon, Alex Katz and Richard Serra, works that will now be featured at the Colby College Museum of Art. For more information on the museum visit: https://www.colby.edu/museum/

Yury was also featured in a New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/world/europe/germany-identity.html ) on the topic of Jewish/German identity in Germany – a prominent thread that runs through his art — where he defiantly says he is a German Jew in spite of, or maybe because of, the armed guards in front of his son’s school in Berlin.

In the latest news, Yury will participate in the upcoming “Heart: 100 Artists. 1 Mission” project at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (one of the largest art museums in Germany) that runs from October 20 through November 8, 2020. The exhibition then re-launches at the Berlinische Galerie from November 18 through 26, 2020.

The “Heart, 100 Artists. 1 Mission” seeks to raise money for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and to help projects that aid refugees in Germany. In a government-approved lottery, the project will sell tickets for Forty Euros a piece with the money from the first 25,000 tickets handed over to the UNHCR. Each ticket gives the participant the opportunity to get an artwork from the exhibition, all of which have been donated by the 100 participating artists, including Yury. The list of artists is available at https://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en/heart-100-artist-1-mission

The exhibition is organized by the U.N. Refugee Aid – Germany in an effort to strongly express solidarity and support to the many millions of people fleeing their homes due to conflict and poverty. Since its beginning in Bonn, Germany in 1980, this organization has worked to ameliorate the living situation for refugees and to help them fully integrate in new host countries.

For those in Berlin, I will be at the opening of the Berlinische Galerie on November 18th if you would like to stop by.

Learn more about Yury’s art at https://yury-kharchenko.com

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Carl Kruse Art Home Page
Latest blog post on the art of Francesca Woodman.

Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT org