Friday 19 October 2012

If


    If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

(Rudyard Kipling )


Wednesday 17 October 2012

Rotterdam art thieves take valuable paintings in dawn heist

Rotterdam art thieves take valuable paintings in dawn heist

Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse, Freud and Monet are among the artists whose works were stolen from Dutch gallery



  • The Guardian,

Ewa Beniak-Haremska






http://www.ewabeniak.com/paintings.htm






Gustav-Adolf Mossa

Gustav-Adolf Mossa was born in Nice on 28th January 1883. His father Alexis Mossa (1844-1926), was himself a painter from Nice who produced many posters for the Carnival of Nice at the end of the 19th century and would strongly influence the career of his son. Up to 1900, Gustav-Adolf studied at l'École des Arts Décoratifs de Nice where he familiarised himself with Art Nouveau. At the same time, his father introduced him to landscape art, the use of watercolours, and the surroundings of Nice, thus enabling him to develop a pictorial technique. As early as 1900, however, after the visit of the universal exposition, he was taken by the Symbolist movement and Art Nouveau.

In 1901, Mossa created his first major Symbolist canvas: Salomé or the Beginning of Christianity. Also at this time he undertook a series of trips to Italy in company of his father, where he visited Genoa, Pisa, Siena and especially Florence. It is also at this time that, in the tradition of his father, he produced his first works for the carnival in Nice. At the end of 1902, Gustav-Adolf Mossa returned to Nice where he submitted his works to the Carnival competition. In 1903, he returned to Italy with his father, visiting Mantua, Padua and Venice. 1904 to 1911 was a particularly productive period; his output included Symbolist paintings, carnival scenes, watercolour landscapes, plus poems and plays. In 1908, he married Charlotte-Andrée Naudin. In 1911, he discovered Flemish primitive art and abandoned symbolism.

In 1914, during the First World War, Mossa was mobilised and gravely injured. Drawing from this experience of war, he went on to produce a canvas that he completed in 1916: The Sad Hours of the War. He divorced in 1918 and the following year his mother died. His work on landscapes, illustrations and manuscripts continued, but with a lot less than intensity. He remarries in 1925 with Lucrèce Roux, who remained his wife until her death in 1955. After the death of his father in 1926, Gustav-Adolf Mossa took his place as curator of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice. After the death of his second wife, he married for a third time in 1926, to Marie-Marcelle Butteli, who Mossa renamed Violette.

Only after Gustav-Adolf Mossa died in Nice on 25th May 1971, was his Symbolist work rediscovered. It had been kept concealed by Mossa from a public that had known him essentially by his work as a printmaker for the Carnival of Nice.


http://www.phespirit.info/pictures/patchwork/p015_info.htm








the selby

the selby  -
Stephan Landwehr - owner of the Grill Royal and Bilderrahmen Landwehr
in his house - Berlin - March 20, 2012





Sunday 14 October 2012

VIGELAND Park, Oslo, Norway


Norman Rockwell




Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978) is famous for his paintings and illustrations of traditional small town life. For more than 40 years, 322 of Rockwell's art prints adorned the covers of Saturday Evening Post. Throughout his lifetime, his paintings were also featured on the covers of Boy's Life, Life Magazine, The Country Gentleman and many more. In his younger years, Rockwell was refused by the U.S. Navy during the World War I because he was eight pounds underweight. He was eventually enlisted, but never saw any action because of his position as a military artist. During his lifetime, Rockwell had three wives and three children. His three children were all born to his second wife, Mary Barstow. Rockwell's work was admired by many and he was commissioned to paint portraits for four U.S. presidents, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He also painted portraits of political leader Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and Judy Garland. "Sunset", "Freedom to Worship" and "Before the Shot" are just a few of Rockwell's most famous art prints. During his lifetime, Rockwell produced more the 4,000 original artworks. The Norman Rockwell Museum, located in Massachusetts, is home to many of his original paintings and illustrations.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Damien Hirst’s Giant Nude Statue Ready for Public Installation Despite Locals’ Complaints

 

http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/10/08/damien-hirsts-giant-nude-statue-ready-for-public-installation-despite-locals-complaints/ 

 

 

“Verity,” Damien Hirst’s 70-foot-tall statue of a nude pregnant woman — with half her innards exposed, anatomy textbook-style — brandishing a sword, is all set to be hoisted into place at a seaside location in Ilfracombe, Devon, where it will stand for the next 20 years on loan from the YBA despite complaints from local residents.
The large public sculpture, which arrived today in the small town on a flatbed truck, the Telegraph reports, despite the town council receiving over 100 complaints and a report from residents accusing the artwork of being
outrageous, immoral, bizarre, obscene, offensive, disgusting, distasteful, embarrassing, grotesque, disrespectful, insensitive, inappropriate, a monstrosity, tasteless, ugly, vulgar and not in good taste.
“Verity” is being kept at a temporary location near the harbor before while finishing touches are made. It will be hoisted into place, weather permitting, on October 17 and 18.



Whatever locals’ moral or aesthetic objections may be, North Devon economic development manager Ellen Vernon says they will be offset by tourism and parking revenue. “The offer of the loan of ‘Verity,’ a significant and unique artwork created by the world’s greatest living artist, is felt to be of immeasurable value to the community of Ilfracombe in terms of its regeneration value and potential to improve the town’s tourism offer,” she told the Telegraph. “Costs associated with ‘Verity’ are of sufficiently small scale to be felt to be reasonable for the regeneration benefit expected, and in addition car parking revenue would be expected to increase, so off-setting such costs.”
Meanwhile, images of the in-progress statue (above and below) being hoisted from the artist’s studio, have appeared on Hirst’s website, giving a better sense of the scale and level of detail of the towering sculpture.



— Benjamin Sutton
(Photos: Courtesy the artist, photographed by Steve Russell © Damien Hirst and Science Ltd.)
http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2012/10/08/damien-hirsts-giant-nude-statue-ready-for-public-installation-despite-locals-complaints/

Monday 8 October 2012

Creativity



A study published in the June issue of the Journal of Aging and Health found that higher openness predicted longer life, and other studies this year have linked that trait with lower metabolic risk, higher self-rated health and more appropriate stress response. The researchers found that only creativity—not intelligence or overall openness—decreased mortality risk. One possible reason creativity is protective of health is because it draws on a variety of neural networks within the brain, says study author Nicholas Turiano, now at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “Individuals high in creativity maintain the integrity of their neural networks even into old age,” Turiano says—a notion supported by a January study from Yale University that correlated openness with the robustness of study subjects’ white matter, which supports connections between neurons in different parts of the brain.

Because the brain is the command center for all bodily functions, exercising it helps all systems to continue running smoothly. “Keeping the brain healthy may be one of the most important aspects of aging successfully—a fact shown by creative persons living longer in our study,” Turiano says.

He also cites creative people’s ability to handle stress—they tend not to get as easily flustered when faced with an emotional or physical hurdle. Stress is known to harm overall health, including cardiovascular, immune and cognitive systems. “Creative people may see stressors more as challenges that they can work to overcome rather than as stressful obstacles they can’t overcome,” Turiano says. Although studies thus far have looked at those who are naturally open-minded, the results suggest that practicing creative-thinking techniques could improve anyone’s health by lowering stress and exercising the brain.
— Creativity Predicts a Longer Life: Scientific American (via myserendipities)


Wednesday 3 October 2012

how is it possible...

how is  it possible... - after spending  7 years studying i only today discovered google scholar...





Monday 1 October 2012

aluminium boys

Gregor Gaida’s Aluminum Boys Destroy Art Gallery Floors

 

 

Artist Gregor Gaida (previously) lives and works in Bremen, Germany. His figurative sculptures often depict aggressive, even violent people engaging with eachother under unknown circumstances, as with this pair of mischievous aluminum boys titled Attaboys. Gaida says that he often bases his figures off of images found in magazines and books.
The found footage is often no more than an impulse that is no longer discernible in the further development of the shape. Analogous to photography, my objects are three-dimensional snapshots. The characters are frozen in movement and often cropped along imaginary image borders. I transport the fragmented character of photos into the third dimension. Simultaneously, when dealing with color and options of shaping, painterly characteristics appear. Thus, the life-sized special interventions are formally attributed to sculpture but are equally part of painterly and photographic categories.
Attaboys appears to be a reinterpretation of another set of sculptures from 2008, Kind und Kreide II, where two similar boys are seen drawing a line with chalk. I don’t know if the artist intends to draw a parallel between the two works, but I’m going to go with it. It leaves me wondering what they’ll be up to in four years from now. If you happen to be in Germany you can see Gaida’s work at PARROTTA Contemporary Art in Stuttgart through August 4th. All imagery courtesy the artist and PARROTTA Gallery. (via anita leocadia)

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/07/gregor-gaidas-aluminum-boys-destroy-art-gallery-floors/

 

 

monday...major project