Sweet Pickles

Nikon Advertising: FAIL

Have you seen Nikon's latest commercial featuring Ashton Kutcher?  I can't find a video to embed, but it's the one in which he appears to be crashing some event at an art gallery.  Within the 30-second spot, we see Asston Kooch-hair act like the snickering bully on a junior high school field trip to a museum, physically harassing some stereotypical artsy dude, rolling his eyes condescendingly at some stereotypical artsy chick, and snatching another guy's pocket square and using it to dust off his camera lens and then stuffing it back in the guy's pocket.  I don't get the whole premise.  If Asston is so above art exhibits, WTF is he doing there all dressed up?  Is he supposed to be Punk'ing the gallery?  All I can say for sure about this commercial is that it's making me NOT want to buy a Nikon Toolpix Coolpix camera. 

This gives me the sads.

Half of my favorite couple in postmodern art, Jeanne-Claude, has died.  Her obituary in the NYTimes includes a nice slideshow.  I feel like the world will be less filled with wonder :(

If you've never seen the documentary about hers and Christo's Umbrellas project, I recommend it highly.  It's exciting, humorous, touching, and awe-inspiring.  And Jeanne-Claude's sass is definitely the star of the documentary. 

In her honor, here are my Top 3 favorite projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude...

 
Running Fence.  1976.  Sonoma and Marin Counties, California.

 
Surrounded Islands.  1983.   Biscayne Bay, Florida.

 
Umbrellas.  1991.  A joint project in Tejon Pass, California (pictured above) and Ibaraki, Japan.

Before we empty the Louvre and the Met and the British Museum...

This piece in the NYTimes challenges our recent, often naive, assumptions that all antiquities should be repatriated to the modern governments currently ruling over the geographic region from which the artifacts and art objects originally emerged.  Whether I agree with them or not, some arguments for repatriation are reasoned and not without merit (e.g., Athens' call for the Elgin Marbles).  However, too often, I find the nationalist demands emanating from places like Cairo, Rome, and Ankara to be cynical, and the tactics to be extortionary.  Before we empty the Louvre and the Met and the British Museum, I want some assurance that their contents can be properly preserved and protected (how's that for alliteration?), and that the world's access to them will be reasonably easy and safe.  For example, in light of the Luxor massacre, I'm not all that eager about the idea of the Nofretete Bust leaving Berlin for Egypt.  And if the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities is antisemitic, then I'm even less eager about it. 

Thanks, D-Hug!

In case you aren't a regular reader of WCFC (in which case, you're a weirdo), the slut who runs that site has found and shared a great link to the web's greatest Venn diagrams.  She already posted the best one, but here's my personal fave:

What's on TV right now.

Art:21 on PBS.  Specifically, a new episode I've never seen, titled Systems and featuring my favorite artist of the past decade who works in two dimensions, Julie Mehretu!  At the 2004 Whitney Biennial, her work (a sample below) totally sucked me in and consumed a lot of my time (in a good way).  If my #1 dream job (rich patron and career-making collector à la Charles Saatchi), #2 dream job (director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art à la Philippe de Montebello), or #3 dream job (architecture critic for the New York Times à la Ada Louise Huxtable) never materializes, my #4 dream job would be the gallerist representing Julie Mehretu! 

 

Empirical Construction. 2003.  Acrylic and ink on canvas, 9'8" x 14'7"

Oh, snap!

Frenchie just sent me this gem.  I plan to use it as the title slide in the lecture I do called "I Don't Get It." 

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' Favorite Paintings of The Annunciation

Henry Ossawa Tanner.  The Annunciation.  1898.  Oil on canvas.  Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunciation).  1850.  Oil on canvas.  Tate Gallery, London.


Francisco de Goya.  Annunciation.  1785.  Oil on canvas.  Collection of the Duchess of Osuna, Seville.

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite Greek statuary

Phaidimos.  Moschophoros (The Calf-Bearer).  c. 570-560 BCE.  Marble.  Acropolis Museum, Athens.

'The Rampin Rider'.  c. 550 BCE.  Marble.  Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Mausolus.  c. 350 BCE.  Marble.  British Museum, London.

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite Roman statuary

The so-called ‘Togato Barberini’ portrait of a Patrician/Senator wearing toga and carrying two imagines (portrait-busts of ancestors).  1st Century BCE.  Marble.  Centrale Montemartini, Capitoline Museums, Rome. 

Livia Deified.  Early 1st Century CE.   Marble.  Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid. 

Augustus as Pontifex Maximus.  After 12 BCE.  Marble.  Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome. 

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite still lifes

Le Corbusier.  Still Life.  1928-1931.  Oil on canvas.  Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

Juan Sánchez Cotán.  Still-Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber.  c. 1600.  Oil on canvas.  Museum of Art, San Diego, CA.

Audrey Flack.  Royal Flush.  1973.  Oil over acrylic on canvas.  Private collection, Paris.

Just ask Allison what happens to those who disappoint me!

Today I introduced the group project in my art appreciation class.  Each group will be required to produce a travel brochure titled "Seven Wonders of the Non-Western World."  After arranging all 44 students into ten groups, I set the scene for them.  It went a little something like this...

"This class is an ad agency.  Each group is a different R&D (Research and Design) team.  A large travel company has invited our firm to submit proposals for an ad campaign promoting educational tours to international visual arts destinations.  The name of the ad campaign is "Seven Wonders of the Non-Western World."  The name of our firm is D&D.  My name is Amanda Woodward, and I will not hesitate to destroy your careers if your work doesn't meet my specifications." 

And they got it!  I had wrongfully assumed that a Melrose Place reference would be too old for most of them. 

Blogthings Quizzes: The Art Series

You Are Palatino

You consider yourself to be creative and artistic. And you'd like everyone else to know it! You take design and aesthetics seriously. You like everything in your life to be unique and beautiful - but never gaudy!

What Font Are You?

You Are Surrealism

Dreamy and idealistic, you've created a world that is all your own. It's very likely that you've either dabbled in drugs or are naturally trippy. You are always trying to push beyond the boundaries of your culture and society. You believe that art, love, and freedom can change the world.

What Art Movement Are You?

Who Should Paint You: Roy Lichtenstein

Larger than life, your personality overshadows everyone in the room A painter would tend to portray you with a bit of added flair!

What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite portraits of children

Until I started doing these lists and including art, I never realized how much of Titian's work I like. If you had asked me before how I felt about Titian, I probably would have been like, "He comes after Raphael and before Tintoretto." It may be time for Sweet Pickles to have another look at ol' Titian.


Titian. Ranuccio Farnese. 1542. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.


Gustav Klimt. Mäda Primavesi. 1912. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


Egypto-Roman mummy-portrait from the Fayyum. Eutyches, Freedman of Kasanios. 2nd Century CE. Encaustic on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite portrait busts

Queen Nofretete.  c. 1360 BCE.  Painted limestone.  Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin.

Marcus Agrippa.  c. 25-24 BCE.  Marble.  Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Andrea del Verrocchio.  Lorenzo de' Medici.  1478.  Painted terra cotta.  National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Top 3 List: Sweet Pickles' favorite self-portraits

Titian.   c. 1570.  Oil on canvas.  Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Tamara de Lempicka.  1925.  Oil on wood.  Private collection.

Pablo Picasso.  1900.  Charcoal on paper.  Museu Picasso, Barcelona.

Guess where Sweet Pickles will be on Dec. 19!

At the DMA, baby!  For our birthdays next month, my homeslice T-Bagg (president of Texas Women Art Travelers, and mother of my godchildren) and I are giving each other tickets to go see Tutankhaman and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs!  Although I prefer to transliterate his name as Tutankhamun, and would argue that earlier reigns in Dynasty XVIII's Empire Period represent the 'Golden Age of the Pharaohs', the important thing is that the boy-king is coming to Big-D!  Well, not the mummy, but some of the most famous pieces found in his tomb. Here are my Top 3 objects that I'm most excited about seeing:

an alabaster stopper for one of the Canopic jars containing the king's embalmed viscera...



the king's crook-and-flail scepters...



a gilded fan (originally with ostrich plumes)...



And one of my archaeological heroes, Dr. Zahi Hawass, will be giving a talk at the DMA. Yes, he may be more of a show-horse than a work-horse, but I still love him! Unfortunately, he'll be in Dallas in March, and I doubt that I'd be so lucky as to have Spring Break overlap with his presentation.

Drawing vs. Painting

M-Em found this gem.  I'm going to use it in the Art Appreciation course I'm teaching next semester!

Now, this is the job for me!

I never even saw the position advertised, in either the Memphis Commercial Appeal or the Jackson Clarion-Ledger!  I can't believe nobody called me.  So, what?  They're discriminating against sexy people now??

What ever happened to...

the frame-able reproductions of the prints of Patrick Nagel???  (or, as M-Em describes them, the "Cry, bitch! Cry!" posters)  I mean, I realize the designer has been dead for a long time, but isn't it time for this aesthetic to make it's retro-cool comeback yet?  Sweet Pickles is ready.  And I bet Simon Le Bon is too.

I love Cindy Sherman, put another dime in the jukebox, baby!

If Art Basel is any indication, it looks like Cindy Sherman's still doing her thing!  Go, Cindy, go!

R.I.P.

Robert Rauschenberg was always LA's favorite artist.

Doesn't this look cool?!?!

Read more about the piece (and the artist) here.