#New Museum - Nuremberg State Museum of Art and Design | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

armthearmour · 3 years

Text

The Work of Kunz Lochner: Master Armourer

Part 1/3

Many armors from the 16th century survive, complete or near complete, but few are as resplendent as the works of eminent armor, Kunz Lochner. Born in 1510 in Nuremberg, the young Kunz was the son of an already well respected armorer whose name he shared. By 1543, the young Master Kunz would find himself in the employ of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (r. 1556-1564), and would become the court armorer of Ferdinand’s successor Maximilian II (r. 1574-1576).

For Ferdinand, Lochner made this fabulous parade armor. Etched across the breastplate with the madonna and child, a common motif in German armors of the period, the backplate also sports the crossed staves and firesteel which marks the wearer as a member of the illustrious Order of the Golden Fleece. The helmet, though not original to the armor, has been associated with it since at least the 19th century.

For Ferdinand’s eventual successor, the future Emperor Maximilian II, there survives a near wholly complete armor, along with several other elements of the garniture, which Lochner made about 1546. This armor is not only elegantly etched, but also tastefully gilded with a pattern that repeats on all the surviving elements. Three helmets belonging to this garniture survive, a closed burgonet and two close helmets. One close helmet bears an articulated steel bib, typical of Italian styles of armor, while the other is fitted with a rotary cuff designed to integrate directly to the armor’s gorget, typical of the German design. An associated vamplate, the piece which would affix to a lance, also survives.

Also among Lochner’s German clientele were wealthy lords, such as the Duke of Saxony. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City there sits a pair of associated armors both marked 1548, one made for horse, the other for man. Etching on the peytral of the horse armor marks it as having been made for Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxony, and the associated armor for man, similarly etched, was formerly part of an extensive garniture, of which little survives. Even the breastplate and gauntlets on this beautiful armor are later restorations.

Lochner’s reputation, however, extended well beyond the bounds of the German states. He attracted the attention of other high profile clientele to the East, including Gustav I Vasa, King of Sweden (r. 1523-1560). One complete armor which Lochner made for Vasa ca. 1540 survives in the Livrustkammaren, Stockholm. Very much in the German style, the etching and gilding on this armor recall Lochner’s previous works, while the delicately embossed floral patterns provide a new, and unique twist.

Also at the Livrustkammaren, Gustav Vasa’s crowned helmet (of an armet construction) survives as well. This piece, which is also attributed to Lochner, is one of the very few and very rare crowned helmets to survive.

749 notes · View notes

paulriedelposts · 4 years

Text

Neues Rathaus, Architecture, Construction and Concept

Neues Rathaus, The New Town Hall is one of the most popular architectural designs in Bavaria. Its location in Munich is towards the northern part of the famous Marienplatz square. The hall hosts notable events such as council meetings and musical concerts. Neues Rathaus is a rich detailed architectonical work, and you will have the best of time touring this great showplace. However, before you visit, there are many things you should know about Neues Rathaus.

Neues Rathaus Construction

Prior to the construction of Neues Rathaus, there was an Old Town Hall known as Altes Rathaus. Inadequate space in the Old Town Hall led to the construction of Neues Rathaus. After the decision to build a new town hall, Marienplatz was elected as the proper construction site. Georg Hauberrisser supervised the design of the first building. The construction took place between 1867 and 1874. There was a need for subsequent expansion since the building could not contain the administration at that time. To get enough space for this new building, the administration had to buy properties around Dienerstrasse and Weinstrasse regions. Georg Hauberrisser also designed Rathaus expansion in 1887. The latest design incorporated four complexes. This occupied the whole North side of the Marienplatz. Further constructions after this were the erection of a new tower, keystone construction, and repairs after World War II. For the construction of Neues Rathaus, Georg Hauberrisser got his inspiration from the famous Brussel’s Rathausturm. Jan van Ruysbrieck, a belgium architect, was the mastermind of this design in 1449.

Building Concepts

Neues Rathaus contains construction material such as stones and bricks. The tower is one of the masterpieces of this building. Its height is about 85 meters; you can get there with the elevator designed to meet modern standards. Reaching the top is a complete fun, and tourists look forward to this. From there, you can enjoy magnificent sights of the Marienplatz and a great view of the whole of Munich city. Before getting to the top, there is the 3rd floor of the building. This is the most important part of the Neues Rathaus. It has a very spacious area where most of the important events take place. Third-floor is also one of the most attractive parts of the building. The walls are adorned with beautiful designs and the original canvas of famous Munich artist, Carl Theodore Pilotis. There is also another room in the building designated for the display of artworks. This room looks like a mini-museum. It has top-notch designs with art carvings and gems all around. The second floor of the building is where you will find the Neues Rathaus library. It is a very big library with numerous book sections. Like every other part of the town hall, the library is well designed with quality materials.

Rathaus Glockenspiel Clock

This could arguably be the most interesting and famous feature of the Neues Rathaus. Located on the main building’s tower, the Rathaus Glockenspiel is a distinct feature of Neues Rathaus reconstruction. People gather around the Neues Rathaus to watch the play performance of the clock every day. The Rathaus Glockenspiel display twice a day when it chimes at 11 am and 12 pm. These stories are ancestral tales from past centuries. Rathaus Glockenspiel has more than 40 bells and over 30 human-sized figures used for this display. There are 2 halves of Rathaus Glockenspiel, each half its own story. The upper half displays a friendly battle in honor of the famous marriage of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata von Lothringen. There are 2 team battle knights of the human-size figures.. The first team with blue and white colors represent the Bavaria Knights. The second team in red and white colors represents the (bad guys) Lothringen Knights. At the end of the battle, the Bavarian knights are usually victorious. The second chime commences the second display in the bottom half of Rathaus Glockenspiel. The story is about the traditional coopers’ dance in Munich. The dance is a culture that has been practiced for generations in Munich. The dance started as a result of a plague that affected the people of cooper from 1515 to 1517. Due to this, they invented this dance to help take their minds off fears from the plague. They believed that dancing helped them through this difficult period. Since then, they have performed it every seven years in the city of Munich. The next one is in 2026. Each of these shows last a period of 12 to 15 minutes based on the sound scheduled for that particular day. To bring the show to an end, a large cock at the top of the Rathaus Glockenspiel would crow thrice.

Rathaus Glockenspiel Construction

Again, Georg Hauberrisser is the brain behind the design of Rathaus Glockenspiel. In fact, the idea of incorporating a clock into the Neues Rathaus building was his. Karl Rosipal's first donation is for the first set of human-size figures to play performance. However, there is more to this. The administration decided that they do not want to have the participation of a Jewish man in the construction of the Rathaus Glockenspiel. Unfortunately because of the Jewish descendants, Karl's donation is being refunded to his family in 1934. During World War II, Rathaus Glockenspiel got small damage. Hence, it's usage got casually in the ensuing years. During those periods, it underwent necessary repairs to bring it back to a better state. The next repairs of the Rathaus Glockenspiel took place in 2007 prior to Munich’s 850th anniversary. They got rid of the bells and human-sized symbols, cleaned, and the bad ones got recovery. Also, other parts of the clock like the bell holder, springs and steels got new looks. This maintenance cost about 750,00 Euros, of which 650,000 Euros is donation from Munich’s citizens.. The German Foundation for Monument Protection (Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz) gave the additional 100,000 Euros. For the summer Olympics in 1972, the clock chimed at 12 pm and 5 pm instead of the normal time of 11 am and 12 pm.

The Night Watchman and The Guardian Angel

Another common tradition of the Neues Rathaus is the watchman. At night around 9 pm, a beam of light shines on the 2 sided window. The watchman always roams the left side. Dressed in a loose garment, he usually carries his lamp and horn. In this period, Rathaus Glockenspiel plays some nice tunes. The first one is from the award-winning movie Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. He then wraps it up with the lullaby song of Johannes Brahms. After this, the guardian angel returns to the tower, and then it’s time for light out in the Neues Rathaus. This is how the city of Munich is being put to bed by the New Town Hall every night.

The Rathaus Glockenspiel Gallery

Above the huge clock is the Rathausturm gallery which you can access with the lift. The gallery’s sight is astonishing, especially on a bright sunny day. Some of the beautiful views to enjoy include the Holy Spirit Church, the Talburtor, the whole of Marienplatz, St. Paul’s church, etc.

The Town Hall Facade

Town Hall St. Johann, the town hall facade, is a striking resemblance of the Neues Rathaus. Georg Hauberrisser is also responsible for the architectural design of the Town Hall Facade. Since there was only 1 design for Town Hall St. Johann, it has a more balanced look than the Neues Rathaus whose construction spanned 3 periods. Hauberrisser combined various sections of buildings, with different heights, for the town hall facade. He made use of facade claddings and designs extension to come about this. People are comparing the works from Hauberrisser with the ones from Friedrich von Schmidt, who is his teacher. Friedrich von Schmidt built Viennese Town Hall as well as its facade. Hauberrisser usage of various decorations, features, balconies, and claddings gave his designs more life and made them look intriguing. His works were also linked to those of Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung in Berlin. His creativity and how he designed the Town Halls to fit the city of Munich looked similar to the works of Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung.

Neues Rathaus Reconstruction after WWII and the American Contribution

Neues Rathaus suffered damages during the airstrikes of World War II. After the war, there was a need for a rebuilding process. During this period, an additional floor rose upon the Neues Rathaus. Before the end of the 90s, the rebuilding process was fully completed with the help of American donations. The windows design contains motifs from religion, cultural, international and regional background. Although these got torn apart towards the end of World War II, they were all restored during the reconstruction process.

Monuments in the Neues Rathaus

Neues Rathaus buildings statues are made from mainly bricks and limestone. Built on a landmass area of 9159 meters square, the whole building covers about 77% of this land area. The free areas are well decorated to meet the taste of the Neues Rathaus. There are various monuments in the Neues Rathaus. Just in the middle of 2 complexes in the Marienplatz, there is a statue illustration of Prince Regent. Other monuments include those of the four earliest kings and founders Munich, a water fountain, and many other historical illustrations.

More Features of the Neues Rathaus

The rooms in the new town hall are 400. Behind the main building that faces the Marienplatz is a park known as Marienhof. Here, the basement is home to the famous Ratskeller restaurant. The restaurant is always busy with tourists trooping in and out every day. The last floor has a lot of rooms rented out as shops to petty traders. This is where you can get your goods as a tourist. Also, this floor houses the visitor center office where you can make various tourist inquiries. On the first floor, is probably the largest balcony you have ever seen. This place hosts elaborate events like concerts, award presentations, etc.

Events in Neues Rathaus

The Neues Rathaus hosts most of Munich’s major events. There are various rooms for this purpose. There is a conference room for events like the city council. The hall also houses various fragments of the city’s administration and also the Mayor’s office. The Mayor’s office location is underneath the Rathaus Glockenspiel. Looking at the huge clock from this position is a very beautiful sight. The town hall is also hosts musical concerts, award ceremonies, various kinds of receptions and sports team meetings.

Do you want more?

So there you have it. You are definitely in for a fun time in the Neues Rathaus. It is such a huge place, so you have to schedule the tour carefully. Don’t worry about that, with me you would have the best tour possible. Finally, don’t forget to bring your cameras along, you can take amazing pictures here!

City tour in German Paul's Beer and Food Event

Walking Tour with Paul

Visit the Ratskeller

Visit Donisl Read the full article

0 notes

180abroad · 5 years

Text

Day 169: Frankfurt

From a historical and economic perspective, Frankfurt is fascinating. It was one of the largest and most powerful cities in the Holy Roman Empire. It was where emperors were selected by an electoral college, and it was the home of the first trade fairs in Europe. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Frankfurt an epicenter of attempted democratic reform. Today, it remains one of the most important cities in Europe for trade and finance. It is home to the EU's central bank and one of Europe's largest stock exchanges. It's train station and airport are likewise among the busiest in all of Europe.

From a tourist perspective, Frankfurt is a bit odd. Despite being such an important city, the historical tourist quarter is quite small. Unlike Munich and Nuremberg, Frankfurt was rebuilt as a fully modern city after WWII, filled with gridded streets and steel skyscrapers. Just a few blocks around the medieval city hall and cathedral were preserved for posterity. A few hours proved more than enough for us to feel that we had gotten a good taste.

Of course, it probably didn't help that we visited on a Monday, when most of the tourist shops and attractions were closed.

Yeah, we probably could have planned our visit better, but having planned every other part of the trip to the point of exhaustion, we tried to give ourselves the gift of going with the flow for once and just seeing what happened. I have to admit that it didn't come easily to me, and I constantly had to fight a rising frustration that we were missing out on things because we hadn't planned enough. We definitely did miss out on some cool things, but that's bound to happen no matter what.

After a calm hour-and-a-half train ride east from Oberwesel, we arrived at Frankfurt's central station. With plenty of time and very little planned, we decided to buy tickets for the City Sightseeing hop-on hop-off tour buses. It was a lot cheaper than it had been in London, but there was also a lot less to see.

The entire route took less than an hour, and the commentary track wasn't nearly as interesting--a lot of pointing out which banks owned which skyscrapers. More interestingly, we did get to appreciate the city's peculiar love of odd statuary.

Still, even if the bus tour was a little underwhelming, it was a nice way to get our bearings. Plus, it dropped us off right at the entrance to the city's historic core.

The first sight to greet us there was the red-brick Church of Saint Paul. Architecturally, it is interesting for being round rather than cross-shaped. Historically, it is interesting for being the site of Germany's first democratically elected parliament.

In 1848, a wave of democratic revolts surged across Europe from Ireland to Romania. Germany (then a confederation of largely independent states) was caught up as well, and Frankfurt became the epicenter of a movement to unite all of Germany into a single democratic nation. A provisional parliament was set up in the Church of St. Paul, and for a while its success seemed inevitable.

But as it so often happens, forming a government proved much harder than forming a revolution. The monarchs and aristocrats stood aside and bided their time while the provisional parliament endlessly bickered over the details of the proposed constitution. Eventually, the parliament collapsed under the weight of its own frustrations and disillusionment. Two decades later, Germany was instead unified under the autocratic rule of the King Wilhelm I of Prussia and his ruthless chief minister Otto von Bismarck.

The church was the first historic structure in the city to be repaired after WWII, and it was honored as a symbol of Germany's commitment to a democratic future.

Upstairs from the ground-floor museum is the church's main hall, a towering and impressively airy space that is now used for concerts instead of religious services. Along the circular wall hang the flags of Germany's 16 federal states.

Moving further into the old town, we soon reached Römerberg, the old town square. At one end stands the Römer building, which as served as the town hall since 1405. It was also where Holy Roman Emperors celebrated after being coronated at the nearby cathedral. Like everything else here, the Römer was almost entirely rebuilt after WWII. As far as we could tell, they did a great job.

At the center of the square stands a statue of Justice without a blindfold, keeping careful watch over the Römer. At least, it usually does. Today it seemed to have gone on vacation--whether voluntary or not, we couldn't say.

On the ground nearby, I found a bronze memorial for a Nazi book burning that took place in the square in 1933. Around the edges of the plaque reads a quote by the 19th-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine. Roughly translated, it reads: "The burning of books is but foreplay to the burning of people."

I wanted to say something about how chillingly prophetic those words proved to be, but of course they weren't prophetic at all. As we've learned by this point, the Nazis didn't do anything new; they just did it bigger and on camera.

The square was fairly quiet since it was a Monday and most of the tourist shops and exhibitions were closed. After getting a last look around, we headed over the two small blocks to Frankfurt Cathedral.

The cathedral, officially known as the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, is a hulking Gothic construction of red stone. Despite the high vaulted ceilings, the atmosphere felt dark and heavy to me. One small but fun design element involved the walls.

See how the walls are made of cleanly cut and squared red stone? Look again.

The walls are actually covered in red plaster and painted with thin red lines to give the illusion of mortared stone. Apparently this was all the rage in medieval German church design.

The church has some beautiful art and altarpieces on display, but the real reason I was so interested to visit was a small room tucked behind a small door in a side chapel, so inconspicuous that I searched up and down the transepts twice before noticing someone going through it.

It was in this small room that the most powerful lords and clergy of the Holy Roman Empire would gather to each time it came to choose a new emperor. Granted, for most of that time it was little more than a rubber stamp to continue the Habsburg dynasty, but still. Imagine if, once in a generation, the governors of all 50 US states gathered to elect a new president for life in a dark little room like this.

Turning south, we walked a couple blocks down the river Main. Walking out onto the 19th-century wrought-iron Eiserner Steg bridge, we were treated to a wonderful view of the city skyline.

The rest of our visit was mostly spent shopping. Jessica had hoped to find a scarf for a somewhat niche German soccer team, but we never did find it. I had better luck at a Samsung store, where I picked up a USB adapter to replace one I'd lost at some point during the previous week. I also made a small detour to look at some pens.

For some reason I was under the impression that Faber-Castell was headquartered in Frankfurt, when actually it is headquartered in a castle just outside of Nuremberg. Still, it was fun to visit this little shop and admire some nice pens. Upstairs, we got to play with a set of watercolor pencils.

Nearby, there was also a broad square dominated by a statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was born in Frankfurt. I'd always just known of Goethe as the guy who wrote Faust, the iconic story of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil for knowledge and power.

In Germany, however, Goethe isn't any mere writer. Imagine Shakespeare and Leonardo da Vinci combined, but an even bigger deal--that's what Goethe is to Germany. Not only is Faust often credited as the greatest thing ever written in the German language, Goethe also dabbled extensively in science and philosophy in addition to writing an overwhelming volume of novels, plays, and poems.

Like Mozart, Goethe was a prodigy and recognized for his genius at a young age. Also like Mozart, Goethe spent pretty much all of his adult life far away from the home city that so proudly claims his legacy.

As we made our way back to the train station, we walked through a few blocks of clean, high-density skyscrapers, a lovely park, and then a grim half-mile of brothels and open-air drug use. There are three parallel streets leading from the train station into downtown Frankfurt, and apparently it makes a big difference which one you choose.

Back at the train station, we picked up a couple bottles of "apple wine," a local specialty for us to enjoy on the train ride back. It was basically a very dry, somewhat bitter cider, much like the cidre sec we had in Normandy.

One last bit of excitement for the day: For the most part, Deutsche Bahn--the German train service--was easily the most reliable of all the ones we used in Europe. Even the Swiss trains let us down by comparison. But as we waited for out train home to leave Frankfurt, the departure time came and went. There was some jolting and screeching, and some lights flickering on and off. And more time went by. Our glasses of apple wine were long finished. Then, a voice on the PA system announced something in German, and everyone bolted off the train. Naturally, we followed.

As it turned out, two cars of the train that needed to be separated had become locked together, and the engineers couldn't get them apart. So the speaker had told us to head over to the next train, which was leaving in just a few minutes--plenty of time for a prompt German traveler. Luckily, we had plenty of prompt German travelers to take our lead from.

Once on the new train, everything was back to clockwork, and we enjoyed a smooth hour and a half ride back to Oberwesel. We didn't get very good seats due to the last minute change. We spent the first twenty minutes or so on fold-down chairs in the bike storage area. The train emptied out quickly enough as we escaped the urban sprawl surrounding Frankfurt, however, and a quiet hour and a half later we were back home.

Overall, I probably wouldn't recommend visiting Frankfurt the way we did, but I'm still glad we went. For anyone interested in visiting Frankfurt, I would recommend either a well-planned day trip that connects its various sights or staying in the city and using it as a base to explore the nearby towns and villages along the Rhine.

#180abroad #oberwesel #germany #frankfurt #travel #history #medieval #architecture

1 note · View note

micaramel · 4 years

Link

Artist: Jennifer West

Venue: JOAN, Los Angeles

Exhibition Title: Future Forgetting

Date: February 28 – April 26, 2020

Organized By: David Matorin

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of JOAN, Los Angeles

Press Release:

Conversation with artist Jennifer West and special guest, writer Norman Klein moderated by curator and writer Lauren Mackler.

JOAN Los Angeles is pleased to present Future Forgetting, a solo exhibition of new film and sculptural works by Jennifer West. In this homecoming exhibition–the artist’s first solo show for more than 8 years in her native L.A.–West turns her lens on the city itself, bringing her ongoing exploration of the materiality of film to bear on matters of memory, place, and preservation. The exhibition is comprised of two major “analogital” works (West’s term for her hybrid video-films), and an ancillary Zine of the type West has created for all her solo exhibitions, documenting the thoughts and process surrounding the work. Future Forgetting’s zine is not confined to the printed page but takes form as a sculptural display of text, images and objects.

Each piece of Future Forgetting draws inspiration and figurative or literal material from the Los Angeles River–the often dry, concrete-encased waterway that curls through the notoriously heterogeneous quarters of the city in a circuitous comma, connecting the disparate parts of L.A. like independent clauses of a sentence. The show’s title is inspired by the epilogue of novelist and urban historian Norman Klein’s influential text “The History of Forgetting” (1997), in which he describes the “erasure of memory” that repeats itself in the constructed mythology and physical infrastructure of Los Angeles, as well as the deceptive veneer of downtown L.A.’s urban renewal. Future Forgetting uses the physical texture of film to describe Los Angeles as both a place and an image at once–an unstable construction that erodes and replenishes with time’s ebb and flow.

The large video projection, 6th Street Bridge Film (2020) is a transfer of intentionally damaged, discolored, tinted, dyed, and etched 16mm film. The footage documents the last days of the 6th Street Viaduct–the iconic L.A. river-spanning bridge that included an access tunnel which allowed motorists and film crews (permitted or otherwise) to drive from the street onto the river’s concrete embankments. Its downtown location is famous for its long list of cameos in Hollywood films such as “Point Blank” (1967), “Grease” (1978), “Repo Man” (1984) and “Terminator 2” (1991). The viaduct was demolished in 2016 for concerns over its structural integrity despite obtaining an L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument designation. The city is replacing the bridge with a new design set to open in 2022. In West’s film, a cross-section of Angelenos assembles to commemorate the bridge’s passing. Film and car enthusiasts, graffiti writers, photographers, and urban explorers drive, walk, and linger upon the bridge’s expanse and the river below for the last time. In 2019, West re-entered the riverbed below the viaduct’s former location with the film she’d shot three years prior. Unspooling the developed rolls, she submerged her reels into the river’s water, dragging them through the algae, sediment and detritus picked up on the river’s journey through the city. The treatment destroyed her original film prints but she preserved them, along with the river’s imprint on their surface, on 16mm negative stock. The surface discoloration and decomposition seen in the film’s 4K video transfer are the results of this process–using the river as a treatment for its own image.

The second major work originates further upriver at the Arroyo Seco Confluence in South Pasadena. For years during walks near her home, West had observed a preponderance of shattered TVs in Arroyo Seco’s seasonally dry riverbed. Apparently thrown from surrounding bridges to the cement below, the perplexing gesture seemed born partly of careless disregard and partly of destructive malice, but she imagined how it could be a kind of silent protest against consumer society, planned obsolescence or the tyranny of images. The cinematic, apocalyptic image of L.A.’s barren river littered with cast-off electronics inspired her to preserve the evidence of these futile acts of violence against disposable technology. She began collecting the splintered fragments of circuit board or mirrored and translucent screen intermingled with other flotsam and jetsam that had washed downriver–old CDs and stereo pieces; electric organ keys and torn audio speakers; broken golf clubs from the Arroyo Seco Golf Course, and stray arrows from Pasadena Roving Archers. West arranged the random sampling of scavenged debris by type and filmed it in 16mm on green screen backgrounds. The filming’s irreverent style echoes the miscellany of the dredged collection. The artist’s cat is glimpsed walking in and out of frame, occasionally settling in the center, indifferent to the film production in process. During the film’s telecine transfer, a loose electrical cable caused the background screen to flash from green to magenta. West includes this glitching footage in a further embrace of indeterminacy and accident. The resulting work, Archaeology of Smashed Flatscreen Televisions Thrown off Bridges (2020), is an installation of flatscreen monitors facing upward from the floor, each showing a different section of her collected things. West displays her collection on top of each monitor’s screen, doubling the fragmented objects with their immaterial likeness in 16mm below. The taxonomic display is like an archeological case study of L.A.’s physical evidence–artifacts of our moment seen from some future time when our ecologically inevitable fate has already taken place.

Jennifer West is an artist who has explored materialism in film for over ten years. Born in Topanga, California, West lives and works in Los Angeles. She received an MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and a BA with film and video emphasis from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She has lectured widely on her ideas of the “Analogital” and is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Fine Arts at USC’s Roski School of Art and Design. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Frieze and Mousse Magazine. West has produced eleven Zine artist books which were recently acquired by the Getty Museum. Her work is in museum and public collections such as and the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kadist Foundation (San Francisco/Paris), Zabludowicz Collection (London); Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Depart Foundation (Rome); Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania; Henry Art Gallery (Seattle); Rubell Collection (Florida); Saatchi Collection (London), among others. Significant commissions include Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 2016-2017; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Art Night, London, 2016; High Line Art, New York, 2012; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 2010; and Turbine Hall at TATE Modern, London, 2009. Her solo exhibitions include: Emoji Piss Film, Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis, 2018; “ Is Film Over?, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China (2017); Film is Dead…, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 2017; Action Movies, Painted Films and History Collage, Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Nuoro, 2017; Flashlights Filmstrips Projections, Tramway, Glasgow, 2016; Aloe Vera and Butter, S1 Artspace, Sheffield, UK (2012); Paintballs and Pickle Juice, Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nuremberg, (2010); Perspectives 171: Jennifer West, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, (2010); Lemon Juice and Lithium, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2008); White Room: Jennifer West, White Columns, New York, (2007).

Link: Jennifer West at JOAN

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/2RCWk9f

#micaramel

0 notes

newestbalance · 6 years

Text

Buried Alive Beneath a Road? An Australian Artist Explains

SYDNEY, Australia — On Thursday evening, Australian artist Mike Parr buried himself alive under a busy road in Hobart, the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

For 72 hours Mr. Parr has been entombed in a 25-square-foot steel box just underneath Macquarie Street, in front of the colonial-era Town Hall. He has water and bedding but no food. Cars, most unaware that he is there, drive right over him.

On Sunday night, Mr. Parr, 73, emerged to a cheering crowd.

Mr. Parr is no stranger to extreme acts, having once sown his lips together to highlight Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. But “Underneath the Bitumen The Artist,” his third and final piece for the annual Tasmanian festival Dark Mofo, is his most provocative.

The act of performance art, he says, is meant to honor the hardships of both the convicts whom the British brought to Tasmania, and the Indigenous people whom the British slaughtered there. He said the burial symbolizes the burying of Aboriginal history — particularly the Black War, a 19th-century conflict fought between British settlers and Indigenous Tasmanians, who were virtually wiped out.

Before his burial, I caught up with him in his Sydney studio and adjoining home. Over a hot pot of tea, Mr. Parr, who is genial and grandfatherly, with a big, warm laugh and mischievous sense of humor when talking about his punishing performance work, described what drew him to his voluntary internment.

The following has been lightly edited.

Why are your performances always so extreme?

The simple answer is they enable me to think. At one significant level, I’m sort of incurable.

What about the pain?

I can manage the pain but I can certainly feel tons of pain — and that is what flows through the work, the immediacy and the intensity.

You’ve said “Underneath the Bitumen” was inspired by Kazimir Malovich’s “Black Square,” a 1915 painting that has been called the starting point of abstract art.

I was thinking about abstraction, the null of the image. The roads are a kind of oblivion. We all drive in a kind of oblivion.

You first wanted to do this piece of performance art, which reflects on totalitarianism and the victims of violence, in Nuremberg, Germany.

Because of the Nazis. That was the wound I was sticking my finger into.

So why Tasmania?

It was a shock to me that half of the convicts transported went to Tasmania.

That’s an aspect of Tasmania, together with the Black War, that is very disturbing and sad — that everybody knows about but doesn’t want to know about.

Roughly 90 percent of Aboriginal Tasmanians were slaughtered in the Black War of the early 19th century; yet some of their descendants have spoken out against “Underneath the Bitumen”, calling it an insult. What are your thoughts?

I can’t be responsible for other people’s attitudes. It’s silent, it’s an anti-memorial, therefore it provokes people to work all of these questions but it doesn’t try to control debate.

One issue cited is that you didn’t consult with Aboriginal Tasmanians …

If you’re going to start consulting with people in order to do an artwork, how does that end? That’s not responsible political art. It’s populist. You’re trying to be all things for all people. We’re reimposing censorship at all levels now. I think it’s partly political correctness and partly political opportunism too.

Whilst buried, will you be frightened? What about the practicalities?

I am always very anxious before performances and I do a lot of meditation. I’ve got a bucket but I will be reducing food intake probably two days out.

I’ll have my toothbrush, and the book, sketch pad, small bottles of ink and steel pens and pencils. I might leave drawings there.

You have tried to do this performance in other cities in Australia, but were denied permission. Why has it worked in Hobart?

It’s the Tasmanian ethos. I think there are advantages in being small. We’ve got an extraordinary man in David Walsh but he’s totally idiosyncratic and self-willed. You can’t do this sort of thing in the mainland. Impossible.

(Mr. Walsh owns the art museum in Hobart that is hosting the Dark Mofo festival.)

What do you think of the state of art in Australia?

It’s moribund. A lot of snap, crackle and pop but nothing of any real substance.

There has been concern in Australia about the government becoming a “nanny state,” and whether this is leading to artistic and cultural conformity.

It can all be dressed up as deep social concern and progressive attitudes but finally it’s a form of censorship — you’re stopped.

[Sign up for the Australia Letter for more discussion of Australia and the world.]

The notion of difference is all right as long it’s packaged and wearing designer clothes but as long as it becomes too raw you can stop it like that. It’s like fighting your way through the Sargasso Sea. Everyone has to be managed — all of the challenge and extremity, all of the difficulty goes out of art and culture if that’s the case.

Have you ever failed at doing a performance?

I had this funny experience in 1981 where I was invited to do a performance in Adelaide, in a very beautiful old heritage listed building. I announced I was going to smile for 24 hours. But I realized about three minutes into this one, this is impossible — very quickly your facial muscles start to ache. It was this catastrophic performance for me as I kind of tried to force my way through it. It so disorientated me that for quite a few years, I stopped doing performances and obsessively drew.

Are you worried you won’t come out on Sunday?

I haven’t thought of that. No, no no I’m coming out definitely! I have all sorts of performance plans!

The post Buried Alive Beneath a Road? An Australian Artist Explains appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2t5sqOp via Everyday News

#News #Online News #World News #Today news #health News #Social News #Forex News #World The News

0 notes

dragnews · 6 years