swansong

Alexander McQueen's Final Collection Presented In Paris | Huffington Post

Alexander McQueen's final collection was presented as part of Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. Robert Polet, chairman and chief executive officer at Gucci Group, told WWD: "It was a very moving experience to take a deep and serious look at his last collection. It showed Lee's unique talent to create pieces of beauty that touch many of your senses, leaving one enriched....Although the sense of loss afterwards, I found overwhelming."

The collection, inspired by the Old Masters of painting, was rich and filled with color and texture. All the patterns were cut by McQueen before he died by suicide on February 11th. "Each piece is unique, as was he," McQueen's fashion house said in a statement that was released with the collection. "It was all inspired and developed and all patterns were cut by Lee," Alexander McQueen Chief Executive Jonathan Akeroyd told Reuters. "It was well under way and the development was very much in final stages, so it was just about carrying on finishing the pieces," he said after the show. "We had four weeks to finish his work."

You can often gauge the state of mind, emotions, and soul of the artist by reading into his works alone.

In this case, it seems McQueen was finally reaching a point where his anger, cynicism, misgivings, and perhaps inner turmoil converged with a maturing sense of the world and an acceptance of its complexity, contradictions, and staggering beauty. A sign of a more or less volatile harmony.

Then his mother, the only person he truly ever trusted and felt completely safe with his entire life, left him.

This final collection is a masterpiece of masterpieces. Though I absolutely loved each and every outfit, this is my firm favourite of them all:

ms. olsen

^ Art Night concert in the Chinese courtyard of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. I snapped the pic just after I finished my volunteer work as docent in one of the galleries and would have stayed longer if I weren't so hungry and needed to get home.

Last night was the seasonal Art Night in Pasadena. As a docent of the Pacific Asia Museum I volunteered to plant myself in one of the galleries and talk to patrons-at-large and answer any questions they have.

The crowd was wonderful, a great mix of ethnicities and other backgrounds - mixed race couples and families, high school and art school students, hipsters, old school patrons, art ladies, and all others spanning all ages. It was cool for me because instead of the typical cut and dry academic talk that seems to characterize many docents, I sort of 'gossiped' about the objects, brought out their humanistic traits.

I was in part inspired to talk this way by my old costume history professor, Ms. Olsen. When I was studying in the undergrad program at the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 80s, I took a couple of her courses. She was this incredible, beautiful older Austrian blonde, all 6 feet of her, with amazing facial bones, gleaming white smile, lean athletic body, and northern blue twinkly eyes. You know, the kind of eyes that knowingly look you up and down, as if saying "You need to get the fuck over your inhibitions and make mad passionate love to the world!"

This wasn't surprising of her considering she was a former costume designer for The Goodman Theater in Chicago. And when she wasn't teaching at the Art Institute (her classes were always held in the fall term) she was out on her ranch near Teton Village in Wyoming, working with her staff of sexy cowboys I bet.

Ms. Olsen was always at least several minutes late for class (which was usually scheduled from 6 to 9pm). She didn't really walk in late, instead she strode in, as if energized from a victorious battle. And she usually did it wearing her signature Tyrolean hat, full length wool bouclé knit Missoni cape on which in intarsia was rendered in its entirety the Swiss Alps (complete with snowcaps), and her customary brown leather riding boots. Enter stage right!! Half the time her excuse was: "Well, I'm sorry I'm late but you know those gay guys always make you wait, even when you just meet them for a drink!"

Ms. Olsen didn't so much lecture in class as hold court. And when she held court, it wasn't so much a somber event as it was a huddled gossip session. About what a bastard Henry VIII was to poor Ann Boleyn, say. Or how they were such bastards in 16th century Venice to pass sumptuary laws forcing Jews to wear yellow patches on their clothes. ('bastard' was one of her choice words). Ms. Olsen relished her gossip sess --- I mean, lectures.

I could only hope that my tours at the museum could be at least half as evocative and intriguing as Ms. Olsen's lectures (but without the colourful choice words, unfortunately). I miss her.

politically illiterate, I

^ Kara Walker, My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. Installation, the Whitney Museum of Art (2007). "When Kara Walker cut out paper silhouettes of fantasy slave narratives, with characters — black and white alike — inflicting mutual violence, she attracted censure from some black artists. At least some of those objecting had personal roots in the civil rights years and an investment in art as a vehicle for racial pride and spiritual solace."

- On Race And Art, ARTADOX.com

I don't know how to politic (yeah, I use this word as a verb, never mind how erroneous that is). I never really grew up being aware of, much less acting on, the political world and how it affects - i.e. controls - my world.

> Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author, feminist, former politician, public speaker, and champion and advocate of human rights, is one of my personal heroes. Her book, Infidel, which serves double purpose as both autobiography and political testament, ignited a white hot worldwide controversy and, for me, was a very emotionally and politically difficult read. Because of her political beliefs and outspoken views on the negative effects of dogma - particularly Islamic dogma - she has become a target of death threats and lives her life in hiding, under close 24/7 security watch.

Some of my siblings have always been politically passionate or at least have some understanding of what goes on and how it works, but not I. My oldest sister was a hardcore activist when she was college age, she's a card carrying atheist, and today she still considers herself a socialist. The youngest sister is very much against illegal immigration. "Mom and Dad came to this country and brought all of us here with them legally! Why the hell don't those illegal immigrants do the same?!" she says. My fourth oldest brother has a lot of nasty - and truthful - things to say about loudmouthed fundamentalist Christians who lobby for various legislation in order to force all Americans to live according to the demands of the Bible.

^ "Calling things by their name" | Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the balls to confront and shed an unforgiving light on what most politicians - and for that matter most of us Americans - too often stupidly and cowardly try to avoid in our liberal and 'politically correct' conversations and action. As Americans are we really that scared and uninformed that we run away from this?

I did have some exposure to politics when I was in art school in the late 80s. Or perhaps it was more like exposure to politicizing. I discovered some really good contemporary (and often controversial) artists like Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Jonathan Borofsky, Andres Serrano, and Adrian Piper. Through these artists I discovered that creative individuals are very capable of inspiring, galvanizing, and solidarizing other individuals to think, decide, and act, often times through profoundly creative works.

< Andres Serrano, Piss Christ. 1987. Cibachrome print mounted on Plexiglass.


I remember one year in school when, as part of a group exhibit, an undergrad student set up an installation using a wall-mounted lectern on which was a log asking people to write in their opinions on the proper use and display of the American flag. However, in order to access the log to write, they had to either step on, or around, an actual flag placed on the floor directly under the lectern. This ignited a seriously hot controversy at the time and ended up being on the news locally, nationally, and internationally. Patriotism or blind idolatry? Conditional respect or unchecked worship? Freedom of free speech or act of treachery (or worse, treason)?



> Untitled (rape series), 1992; various all white fabrics, red embroidered text. Visionaries AIDS Benefit Fashion Show, Cairo Nightclub, Chicago. This series of women's clothing represents the extent of my interest in the political at the time, exploring issues of cross historical treatment of women, sexual violence, chastity, purity, repression, attraction and repulsion, and conflict.

I experimented with politically and socially charged art myself, particularly after receiving my undergrad degree. But I never really pursued it with great determination and intense curiosity like those artists whose work I admired did, and I think it was because I was too self-absorbed to do so, much like so many - too many - other Americans. Today I realize that was a mistake, I should have followed my gut instincts and forged such a path to its natural directions, wherever they may lead. That would've been the true direction for me as an artist.

Today I'm very closely watching the goings on in these weeks leading up to the election on November 4. I've never been so political before in my life, never been so involved in, so passionate about, and so scared for, the direction my country is going and what it means globally.

But I still can't really articulate the fundamentals of what defines liberalism and republicanism, and all the other isms and whatnots that make up this stupefyingly complicated world of politics. I have a bit of liberalism in me, but I also passionately believe in the kind of elemental conservatism that Ayaan Hirsi Ali believes in.

I have a lot of homework and a lot of catching up to do in order to further define where I stand in the world. Thank god for Wikipedia and 'the Google'.

deep inside the music, literally

"In conjunction with Creative Time, Playing the Building is an installation by David Byrne that transformed a 9,000 square foot abandoned room in Lower Manhattan's Battery Maritime Building into an instrument for the summer. An antique pump organ controls devices that create sounds using the building's infrastructure, including heating pipes, metal beams and pillars.

For a special event last month, curator Mark Beasley invited accomplished musicians to perform an improvisational piece with the building. The result is a captivating musical experience."

- coolhunting.com

*Sigh* ...I wish I could be there, in that building, deep inside it as a musical instrument, deep inside the music.

stroke of fake

^ Art Authentication: a taste of fakery | The entire episode on Nova scienceNOW (13 min.)

If you're a reasonably good judge of character you can spot fakery in someone perhaps right away (or perhaps not, how unfortunate for them). Sometimes a bit of scientific knowledge or psychology helps. But what if it isn't a person? What if it's a work of art created by a master and worth tens of millions of dollars? In this case, a lot of science helps a great deal. Well, that and a very keen eye, patience, a bit of scrupulous detective work, and luck.

The full version of this Nova special focuses on the cutting edge computer technology involved in discerning the authentic van Gogh from a counterfeit made by the very skilled painter, setting up a suspenseful forensic game of cat and mouse. I'll not tell you if the scientists and art experts were spot on with the real work or put on the spot by the fake. You'll just have to watch the video and see for yourself.

< Starry Night, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, by Vincent van Gogh, 1889. Oil on canvas. The Museum Of Modern Art, New York.

This one is hands down my favourite piece from van Gogh (btw, the proper pronunciation is 'vuhn-HOC', as I learned from watching the video - I am soooo much smarter now! LOL!). I never tire of gazing into it and surrendering, as if in a dream. It's magical, dynamic, engulfing and I feel like I could, at any second, be lifted off the ground and swirled up in the atmosphere by the effervescence of the indigo night sky and I feel the cooling breeze and see the faintest glow of moonlight on my skin. Van Gogh was nothing if not a unique visionary to bless the viewer with such an emotionally and psychologically charged transfixing experience through the deceptively simple brush stroke on humble canvas.

Related:
Nova scienceNOW
Vincent van Gogh Gallery
Vincent van Gogh | Wikipedia

william wegman

^ William Wegman Short Films. Knock yerself out.

He is one of my favourite and cherished artists, a maverick and frontiersman bravely exploring the surreality, irony, absurdity, darkness, and profound existential hilarity of human nature. I first discovered his videos and photographs while in high school in the early 80s when I took summer classes at The Art Institute Of Chicago (where I subsequently got my Bachelor Of Fine Arts degree). One of the classes I took was video art and we got an introduction to the relatively new medium as a powerful experimental tool for expression. To see the incredible and varied possibilities of video we watched some works by innovative, avante garde artists like Vito Acconci, Bill Viola, Andy Warhol, and of course, William Wegman.

I'd go on but for now I'll let William Wegman himself explain it (a full gallery of his stuff is there).

I would sooooo love to have a doogie like this.

Related

William Wegman | Wikipedia