Joseph Stella. American. 1928. First Light
Mell Daniel. American. 1923. The Forest.
Arthur Dove. American. 1940. Willows.
Gustav Klimt. Austrian. 1910 or earlier. The Park.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
MoMA: Living in the Age of the Machine
" 'We are living in the age of the machine,' remarked Paul Haviland, a New York-based photographer, writer, and art critic, in 1915, the year after Word War I began. Artists across Europe, Russia, and the United States responded in various ways to this period's increasing mechanization, industrialization, and public awareness of the machine's destructive potential.
Some used the tools of draftsmen or engineers to construct precise, hard-edged images bearing no trace of the artist's hand. Others embraced the camera or exploited the power of photomechanical reproduction. Still others created works from machine-made objects, redefining the creative act as primarily a matter of selection, not craftsmanship. At stake was not only the role of the artist, but the existential status of the human subject, haunted by the fear that it might soon be replaced or rendered irrelevant. This fear resonates today in our age of artificial intelligence and rapidly accelerating technologies."
Museum of Modern Art Gallery 505: https://www.moma.org/calendar/galleries/5691
Oskar Schlemmer. German. 1924. Figurines in Space: Study for the Triadic Ballet
Charles Sheeler. American. 1923. Self-Portrait.
El Lissitsky. Russian. 1922. Composition.
Mural on the US Post Office near Moynihan Penn Station
College Reunion: Skies
The place where Alan and Cyane met, August 26, 1978; movie theater below.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
May 18 Memorial
Die Marschallin, from Act I of Der Rosenkavalier, an opera from 1909
Music by Richard Strauss, Words by Hugo von Hoffmannsthal (59 through 106 minutes into opera):
"There is nothing you can do about the passing of time.
Time is a strange thing.
At first we live our lives and time means nothing.
Then, suddenly, you're aware of nothing else.
It's all around us and also within us.
It seeps into our faces;
It trickles across the mirror and flows into our skin.
It also flows between me and you
Silently as an hourglass.
Yet at times I can hear it
flowing inexorably.
Sometimes I awaken in the middle of the night.
I go to all the clocks and I stop them.
Yet, one must not be afraid of time.
Even Time is a creation of the Father who created us all...
Today or tomorrow or the next day you will leave me.
I do not say this to torment you.
I am speaking to myself.
We must be light of heart and light of hand,
holding and taking, holding and letting go.
Those who do not
are punished by Life
and God has no mercy on them."
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