What is beauty? Is it’s appreciation reserved for the pure of heart?
Albert Speer is an interesting fellow. And a frightening one. Because he raises the question that many of us don’t appreciate. We assume that art is associated with the good. That beauty is not part of the make up of monsters. Hitler himself was a second grade artist. But so was Churchill. So are most artists.
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It is the landscape of Eliot and Pound. Uppers and blue pills. Snow drifts and psychiatric hospitals. Streetcars and shock treatments. A delusional young woman boards an airplane hoping to escape the horrors of this world. Some time during the flight she steps off the airplane into another world. In a quaint village where she takes up residence. And then begins her search for the only person who has meant anything to her. Her grandfather. But she soon finds that this village is damned. There is no escape. But one. You must be murdered.
Wiyono Sutjipto is thinking outside the box. Thats the box the parts come in. Think IKEA. And if there are pieces missing. Well, you improvise. Drill a few holes. Of your own. Rip off a piece of fire wood. Now you have arms on the end table. Wiyono has taken Ikea to the next level. Caring for that abandoned furniture by training it to act like art. He even helps out the homeless. Art. So drag that old couch back into the house. Rip it apart. Assemble it again. After a few drinks. And voila!… There it is. Outside. In the garbage. Again.
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Ferdinand Cheval went postal. He was a postman who spent most of his life building what he called the ‘ideal palace’. Everyday he would pick up stones on his route and use them to make his palace. I imagine after a few years he must have had the cleanest town in France. He often worked at night. But that didn’t go unnoticed by the town folk who thought he was… odd. Could you blame them? Near the end of his life he began to receive some kudos from people like Picasso and Andre Breton.
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There are some artists who just rub you the wrong way. Ms. Fouts sends shivers up your spine. She has a way of animating common objects and creating images that won’t leave you alone. The images are like a virus. I think that using her images with the wrong victims could prove lethal. I wonder if she is aware of the power that she wields.
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Mattijn Franssen creates fabulous images. Adventures of himself and his cat. (Many years ago I wrote a series of novels about myself and a cat called, The Adventures of Fred and Me but that’s another story.) What is so odd to me about Mr. Franssen is that he hasn’t been gobbled up by Disney. He is a Dutchman. And they are very independent. (I don’t know that but it sounds like something you say when you have no idea why someone did or didn’t do something.) I lived in Belgium for four years so I suppose its possible that my work influenced Mr. Franssen. (Possible but not likely). This guy is one terrific artist.
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“George Dawe was an English portrait artist who painted 329 portraits of Russian generals active during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
I’m using digital copies of these paintings as a basis for my own work which involves incorporating my friends, family and even some celebrities into the paintings using photoshop.”
Mr. Payne has gone to a lot of work here. And for some celebrities, it works. If they don’t look Russian, they do look like they belong in the uniform. I haven’t gone through the whole list but I don’t see any of my favourite Russian, Dolly Parton.
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One of my best friend’s sons is named Nick Genova. He is a video artist.
By chance I stumbled across another Nicholas. With a similar last name. And I liked his work. And here it is. His work moves from comic book to surreal to collage. Or perhaps it is just whim. Nicholas DiGenova.
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Ambition. These murals by Kahnjyan must be pretty impressive in the flesh. I am not a nationalist nor an Armenian but you have to be impressed by the skill and detail of this work. But there is a danger to this kind of work. It celebrates sacrifice. And bravery. But also death. And murder. 
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The Armenian people have suffered greatly. It is said that Hitler learned lessons from their misery. All too often we have seen genocide in the 20th century.
Genocide did not start in the 20th century. Or Europe. America had its own genocide. “As part of President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Policy of 1830, the Cherokee Nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and migrate to Indian Territory (now present day Oklahoma.) ” Today President Andrew Jackson would be charged with crimes against humanity.
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