This is not a Mercedes commercial, but a movie made by students. It’s in German, but you don’t need to know the language. Pay particular attention to the shape in which the boy lies on the ground in the closing scene: a swastika.
Masterful.
Category: Art
Laguna Beach Arts Festival – Pageant of the Masters
Have you ever attended an event, or visited a special place, that was so unique, so different from anything you had ever experienced, that you realized right while you were there that you’d have no way to describe it to others back home later, that the only way to “get” this was to be right there in the middle of it?
Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time was such an experience for me. Watching the Cirque du Soleil show Ka in Las Vegas was like that. Experiencing the show Sleep No More in Manhattan also qualified.
The Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters is such an experience. I know of no other place in the world that puts on an event like it, and just as it is difficult to convey the experience to anyone, I find it very challenging to describe it here.
The Pageant of the Masters has been put on since 1932, and this year it’s the 80th anniversary. The venue is an outdoor amphitheater and it starts at 8:30 pm, just ask dusk turns to dark. I estimated that the theater holds more than 2,000 people, and they seem to fill it up every night from the end of June to the end of August. There is very little advertising, the event is not cheap – it’s like going to a concert and it lasts for about two hours.
While the day in Laguna Beach was hot and sunny, the night turns chilly right away and savvy Pageant goers bring jackets, sometimes blankets and definitely binoculars. You can also rent blankets and binoculars.
There is a narrator that guides the audience, and a full orchestra plays specially composed music and sometimes sound-effects.
Essentially, the object of the Pageant is to recreate real paintings or other famous artworks using stagecraft and human actors. This does not sound very exciting when written, but imagine this:
The stage and theater are completely dark. Music plays, and the narrator talks about a period of ancient Rome and describes the history of a fountain. Suddenly the lights come on and on the dark stage there is that fountain, with all detail.
This picture shows the fountain. The five humans, various Roman gods, in the fountain are real actors. They do not move. They are as frozen as the marble of the real fountain in Rome would be. Not a finger, not a hair, not an eye moves. The scene is in front of the audience for maybe a minute or two, while the narrator describes the various features of the artwork, or its history, and makes it come to life. Then, as abruptly as it appeared, the lights go off, and it’s gone.
The narrator transitions to the next work of art, and then it appears. Most of the art are paintings, some of which we recognize, of course.
They always “build” one scene right in front of the audience. The stage hands push in the scaffoldings turned around with the lights on. The audience then sees the actors climb up into their positions, all while the narrator describes what is going on. The stage hands then turn the scaffolding around, the backdrop comes down, the actors move into their final positions, the curtain closes around the painting boundaries and then – presto – the lights come on and what was a scene of stage props and actors moving around turns into a frozen painting where nothing moves and you’d swear you’re looking at the original in a museum. When this happens, an audible gasp escapes from the several thousand people in the audience, expressing disbelief of what just happened in front of their eyes. A painting materialized.
Every year, the grand finale of the Pageant, is the same: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. It is an image so powerful, so real, so authentic, it gave me shivers.
I was literally experiencing art.
Moon over Swiss Alps
Of all the “supermoon” pictures people have posted and shown this last week, this is my absolute favorite, taken by my good friend. No tricks, just a good zoom, taken from the balcony of where they’re staying in Switzerland. Where are my hiking boots?
Imaginary Movie: Delayed
This is a whole new type of art!
Somebody, in some unnamed airport, sat on the floor across from these two people. They were strangers. He noticed that they had been talking animatedly for over an hour, and took this clandestine picture. He never knew who the two strangers were. The two never knew that their picture was taken.
He then posted the picture on Reddit, and it climbed to the top of the first page this morning. There was lively discussion and speculation which you can see here.
Then, somebody else turned it into an imaginary movie and created the poster above. See the discussion here.
These two strangers undoubtedly went on their flights, their separate paths, most likely never to meet again. Maybe they exchanged names, maybe not. The person who took the picture does not know who they are, and they don’t know of his existence.
Yet, if they search the Internet with the right keywords, or if they browse in Reddit today, they will be utterly astonished about their role at the very top slot of a popular website.
The art of a moment in time, forever frozen.
Painting: Path in the Woods
D. ‘Bodhi’ Smith Opening at Temecula Gallery
My photographer artist friend has a new show opening in Temecula today.
Backing up Art
Last weekend I went to the San Diego ArtWalk Event. I go to check out the work of other artists and to get inspired. I always come home with a head full of ideas.
I also recently wrote about backing up of work as much of it nowadays is stored in digital format. That includes programming code, prose, poetry, digital photography, and music. Then it occurred to me that it’s just about impossible to back up paintings, other than with photographs like the one above.
This painting sits on the floor in my office, as you can see in this photograph, not 8 feet from where I am sitting.
If my house burned down while I was gone, or if somebody broke in and stole it, all that would be left would be photographs and memories. You can’t back up original art, including painting, glass, sculptures, mixed media and pottery. I am sure there are other forms.
The Brown Sisters
Four sisters had their portrait taken every year since 1975.
When I watched this, I saw the grace of life, and the brutality of life, as it swept over them, and over me.
I was reminded that this single life, this one shot, is all I really ever have, and how precious it all is.
Chills, goosebumps and tears.
Painting: Wild Daisies
A month ago I went on a bike ride in the neighborhood wetlands, spotted a little stand of red in the corner of my eye, turned around, climbed down the embankment and took a snapshot. I am not really sure if they are “wild daisies” but that’s good enough for me. Please correct me if you can identify the flower and I will retitle it.
This is the resulting painting.
What a Difference Photographic Technology Makes
Both of the above photographs are of the same 24″ x 18″ painting I did in 1980. I took the one on the left with my normal film camera in the fall of 1980 and saved only a paper print in a photo album. Over the years it yellowed, as many old photographs do. I scanned it in 2002, preempting another 10 years of aging since.
The painting belongs to the Jamestown Arts Council in Jamestown, New York, and it hangs in their offices.
My artist friend Jennifer stopped by and took a photograph of it with her state-of-the-art digital camera. That’s the picture on the right. I didn’t remember how bright and colorful it was.
Floor Mat Art – by Iris Potter
Here is an entirely new type of art. Artistic floor mats can brighten up a kitchen, entryway or any room quite unexpectedly. The possibilities seem endless. Check out Iris Potter’s website.
Review: Sleep No More
After seeing Sleep No More in New York I found that it was a theater experience of an entirely different kind, one I won’t forget, and one I can’t quite digest, embrace, praise or review.
The McKittrick Hotel was completed in 1939 in Chelsea and was intended to be New York City’s finest and most decadent luxury hotel of its time. Six weeks before opening, and two days after the outbreak of World War II, the legendary hotel was condemned and left locked, permanently sealed from the public. Until now, as one huge stage for the immersive play Sleep No More.
The play is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Since I knew that, I actually bought a summary to read beforehand – alas, I couldn’t do it.
Methinks a Shakespeare reader I am not…
Since the play was highly recommended as one of the most amazing art events ever, I went in without any knowledge of Macbeth. I don’t think it made any difference in my experience.
I arrived at the theater early for the 7:00pm opening. I was customer number six, based on my coat check ticket number.
After entering the theater I was ushered up a poorly lit flight of stairs and down a maze of almost completely black hallways. This served to disorient me right away. I wore sturdy sneakers and I was glad, because the floor was often uneven. I felt hesitant to even make steps sometimes, since I could see nothing. Eventually I figured out that the hall was narrow enough that I could simply touch both sides and guide my way in. After some twists and turns I arrived at a smoky bar reminiscent of the 1930 era in New York, complete with bartenders and guests, all in period costumes. I sat down and waited, while more and more guests made their way into the bar. I ordered a staff-recommended absinthe shot – $10 a shot, holy shit! – and I could have used five more to get into the right spirit. The few minutes at the bar helped leave New York City behind and slowly get immersed in the macabre world of Sleep No More.
An usher took me with a group of about 20 people, gave us masks and told us the rules of the game.
If you have seen the movie Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise you may remember the scene at the mansion, where all the guests – and hosts – were masked. In Sleep No More, all audience members have to wear masks like these. There are facilitators who wear black masks, and the actors don’t wear any masks. We were also told we were not allowed to talk, neither to each other, nor to the black masks, nor to the actors.
We entered an elevator very reminiscent of the one in the Haunted House in Disneyland, quiet, in masks. They wanted to break up groups and couples, so they let off just a few people at different stops.
After I got off the elevator on one of the five floors of the hotel, I was completely alone. The entire set is very dark and spooky. I explored mazes, dusty rooms, creepy cubby holes, and here and there a ghost with a white mask would appear stumbling about. Nobody ever talked, of course, so the guests became part of the scenery.
The sound track changed from place to place, some sound reminiscent of the Eyes Wide Shut scenes and of Cirque du Soleil. Everything was very dark. It was hard to see wherever I went. It took quite some time until I actually found actors doing something. Pretty soon I learned to look for the groups of spectators standing around to see some action.
The actors never talked. Sometimes they cried, yelled, shouted, screamed, but none of the utterances were in English. They were – otherworldly. They told entire story by pantomime and dance.
The hotel was huge, with five stories of rooms, halls, mazes, dead-ends, and stairs. Since the action goes on in different places at the same time, it was impossible to follow and see everything.
After about 45 minutes I started to have my fill. I had roughly paced through all the rooms, I had seen most of the characters, and I had already figured out that I didn’t really “get” what was going on. The actors did a lot of dancing, break-dancing-like dancing, spinning, twirling, swinging, jumping along walls. Scene after scene of dancing got old for me. Dancing conventionally on the floor, dancing on tables (lots of different tables), dancing on the bar, behind the bar, on the pool table, guys throwing around the girls, sometimes violently, in different scenes and different locations, became repetitive. I wandered around mildly bored and looked for interesting happenings.
There was a lot of blood, a fair amount of nudity, and a lot of ritualistic behavior that, I am sure, made sense to some people, but not me. I picked an actor and followed her around, as much as possible, to see scenes I might have missed otherwise.
Powerful effects like strobe lights, extremely loud music and drums, laser, bizarre outfits, complete nudity, lots of blood and shocking violence, all with masked, silent, throngs of spectators standing around definitely transported me into another world for a few hours.
I stayed until the event was over at 10:00pm, and suddenly found myself on the streets of Chelsea in the middle of the New York nightlife – and all the people without masks looked kind of weird.
Was it worth the $90 I spent on my ticket not counting the absinthe? Definitely!
Would I recommend it? Cautiously.
It was definitely something I had never quite experienced before, like a really weird movie except I was in it. Since guests cannot talk or interact with anyone, this is the perfect thing to go to alone. Nobody noticed that I didn’t have a date.
Most reviewers called it amazing. Some thought it was a total waste of money and time.
To me, it was a very macabre trip, and I had bad dreams that night.
Wife of the Alchemist
Thom Puckey is an artist with an impressive resume and collection of work. Most of his recent work in all in marble. His website is surprisingly, perhaps characteristically minimalistic. There are no thumbnails, unusual for an artist. It’s all written in fine print. Once I was there, however, I was captivated. Please check out this amazing artist.
