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TRAILCAM
<https://tinyurl.com/4af22wn6> _trailcam

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VAN GOGH IN THE QUANTUM FIELDS (566 WORDS) by Rainey Knudson
<https://tinyurl.com/4j9bubtt>
I had been reading about dark matter, about how there is no such thing as empty space in outer space. How reality is not made of tiny, solid particles like billiard balls, but vibrations in underlying fields of energy called quantum fields, which are the most fundamental layer of known physics. How we ourselves are not solid matter, but part of the structure of these fields, like ripples in a vast, invisible ocean. How everything in the universe, us included, is swimming around in—is inseparable from—energies that we cannot see.
I was thinking about how “heaven” could be a metaphor for these quantum fields, which are all around us, right here, right now, only we can’t perceive them.
And then I saw this painting, and I thought: maybe Van Gogh, presumably without knowing it, was thinking about the same thing.
Towards the end of his life, Van Gogh made a series of 10 paintings based on black-and-white engravings by Jean-François Millet, an artist who had always inspired him. The copies are translations into color, into his style, of scenes of travaux des champs (work in the fields). Van Gogh’s brother Theo said they were some of his finest work <https://tinyurl.com/39ka5nsj> : “Copied like that, it’s no longer a copy.”
The figure in The Sheaf-Binder (1889) exists in a roiling field of matter, the shape of his body echoed by the shape of his surroundings. There is so much fluidity in the image—the figure himself, trying to gather it all up in his arms, his pose almost like a modern dancer, and these swirling mounds of—something—surrounding him, their liquid movement like bubbling stew or the surface of the ocean.
<https://tinyurl.com/3e38bcsk>
These churning, hay-yellow waveforms suggest a certain futility to our sheaf binder’s gathering action. No matter how many armfuls he tries to scoop up, the stuff that surrounds him will remain infinite, ineffable, spilling out all over the place. How keenly familiar! We are always trying to gather everything up, gather up life and nature and time and consciousness into some comprehensible sense of purpose. The effort is constant, and we are constantly reminded that we can never get there; there will always be more to gather, more to understand. How frustrating. How beautiful.
True, I don’t know for sure whether Van Gogh was thinking about the mystery of existence or the nature of physical matter when he made this painting. But I do know that artists see the world in ways other people do not. Artists see things differently. They intuit <https://tinyurl.com/32xd7ps8> scientific principles before the science officially exists. And it’s possible—and certainly looks this way to me—that Van Gogh was unconsciously depicting the idea, now established as quantum physics, that we exist within an infinite, interconnected fabric of reality, and that we are not separate from that reality, however isolated and alone we may sometimes feel.
He was making copies of other works at this time because he was in an asylum and had no access to models and could not go outside. So he used the work of other artists as a starting point, valuing their genius but knowing that he was relying on their work as a crutch, or at least as a springboard. As he was making these works, he kept his spirits up <https://tinyurl.com/54ujcahs> by­ saying, “I make a point of telling myself, yes I am something, I can do something.” He was; he could.
<https://tinyurl.com/ctmbd9em> _TheImpatientReader

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SOMETIMES
<https://tinyurl.com/4wmmd742> _DavidShrigley

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CALDER’S CIRCUS
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In 1925, Alexander Calder joined the circus—in a sense. As an illustrator for the National Police Gazette, he was dispatched to cover the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at New York’s Madison Square Garden. He was so captivated by the spectacle that he spent another two weeks with the circus during its run at Sarasota, Florida. The acrobats, the theatrics, the light and motion, and even the rigging—all were fuel for the young artist’s imagination.
“I love the space of the circus,” he said in 1964. “I made some drawings of nothing but the tent. The whole thing—the vast space—I’ve always loved it.”
Calder’s fascination with the circus was such that upon moving to Paris the following year, he began building his own. Cirque Calder, or Calder’s Circus, would be made up of more than 100 small sculptures, which the artist created with wire, cork, wood, fabric, and other found materials. They variously depicting horses and chariots, belly dancers and sword swallowers, aerialists and contortionists, a thick-maned lion and of course, a ringmaster. And as with any circus, Calder brought his out on tour—five years into the project, his creations were enough to fill five large suitcases.
<https://tinyurl.com/24vvs27w>
The Calder that created Circus was young, yet to embark on his famed mobile sculptures. But his knack for material and movement was apparent across his miniature forms.
Almost all of his figurines were fashioned with wire, as was his big tent. Other materials pop up in unexpected ways: corks for human heads and animal hooves, clothes pegs for a group of performers labeled “The Four Seasons,” and scraps of yarn and fabric to accent his characters’ tiny clothes and bodies. Calder’s use of everyday materials represents an early form of upcycling, “an insistent use of everyday things—reusing and tinkering and fixing and reshaping them
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Most significant of all, Calder did not create these sculptures to be immobile. “They weren’t intended to just be sculptures on display,”. “They were meant to be activated.” Calder himself, in his 1929 manuscript “Statement on Wire Sculpture,” described his project as “an elaborate circus of which animation is one of the chief characteristics.”
His wire acrobats, their feet attached to small lead weights, could be latched onto and steered across tightropes. His wooden pony, when attached to a rotating armature, could be made to gallop in a ring. His sword swallower could swallow a sword, and his man of many coats could shed many coats.
<https://tinyurl.com/2s3h85b3>
During the project’s five-year run, Calder would perform or activate Circus at small gatherings in New York and Paris, easing his entry into Europe’s avant-garde. These performances took place in art spaces and even people’s homes, advertised with flyers and invitations of Calder’s own design. Over two hours—in front of audiences that included at various points the likes of Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miró, Jean Arp, and Isamu Noguchi—Calder made his wire chariots race, his aerialists fly, and his lion roar. A musical soundtrack was provided by his wife Louisa playing records on a Victrola.
<https://tinyurl.com/2kd3ur4x>
These events, which came to number in the hundreds, were loose and ad-hoc ones; visitors sometimes had to bring their own seating, the curators said, while Calder occasionally served peanuts. The artist followed no strict script or sequence. “It’s not like the Proscenium Theater,” said Goldstein. “It was performance art. They just didn’t have that kind of language.”
These events, which came to number in the hundreds, were loose and ad-hoc ones; visitors sometimes had to bring their own seating, while Calder occasionally served peanuts. The artist followed no strict script or sequence. “It’s not like the Proscenium Theater,” said Goldstein. “It was performance art. They just didn’t have that kind of language.”
Going from Circus to his world-famous mobiles called for a giant leap in scale, but less so in concept. In his early work were already sown the seeds of Calder’s later success. Wire sculpture, for one—which the artist once considered not “to be of any signal importance in the world of art; merely a very amusing stunt cleverly executed”—would form the foundation of his revolutionary practice. The medium, he famously said, enabled “drawing in space.”
<https://tinyurl.com/3k5h77dh>
Around 1943, Calder embarked on his “Constellations” series of hanging mobiles and fixed stabiles. Emerging from his interest in astrology—as much as a response to Miró’s 1940–41 collection of tempera paintings, also titled “Constellations”—these compositions delicately balanced wire and wood forms in ways that evoked entities floating in space. They seem expansive yet connected.
<https://tinyurl.com/bdcsxejf> _artnet

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THE MOUNT WASHINGTON POST
<https://tinyurl.com/y5c3kr7n> _LisaAnneAuerbach

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CY TROMBLY DRAWINGS PAINTINGS SCULPTURE by greg
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This weekend I heard from George Lyle, who has been researching one of the least known aspects of Cy Twombly’s early career: a 1953 “retrospective” of “drawings, paintings & sculpture” at The Little Gallery in Princeton, NJ.
Twombly’s two-artist show with Robert Rauschenberg at Stable Gallery in New York opened at almost the same time, in the fall of 1953, and was extensively documented and reviewed—mostly negatively, but at least people noticed. The Princeton show, meanwhile, left almost no trace, except for a couple of letters at the AAA, in the papers of Larom “Larry” Munson, the fresh Princeton grad who ran The Little Gallery with his wife.
<https://tinyurl.com/2s3fjxu8>
But Lyle found advertisements for the show in the Princeton Town Topics, a free weekly newspaper, in both the Nov. 8 and 15, 1953. Which is interesting because the Twombly Foundation lists the show as ending on Nov. 7. What’s more interesting, of course, is that the ad misspelled Twombly’s name, two weeks in a row.
[next morning update: turns out the ads for the weeks preceding Trombly’s show are for picture framing, and encouraging folks to order their Christmas cards, so however embedded in the cultural life of Princeton, I’m gonna guess The Little Gallery was not much involved in the heated discourse of the Manhattan art village.]
_greg.org

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RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER, THE BOOK, 1973.
Artschwager was an artist who consistently followed his own path,
making it exceedingly difficult to classify his art within existing categories
<https://tinyurl.com/yd43xm78> _MichaelLobel

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DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS WORKERS MOVE TO UNIONIZE
Employees at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) announced plans to form a union on Tuesday, November 4, joining a wave of organizing that has swept cultural institutions across the United States in recent years.
DIA staff are seeking to unionize with AFSCME Cultural Workers United (AFSCME Michigan), a division of the national AFSCME union that represents workers at cultural institutions _ARTnews

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BARB'S THIS -N- THAT RAMONA, OK
<https://tinyurl.com/mprr258c> _RuralIndexingProject

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JUDY CHICAGO, HENRY MOORE GIFTS FOR HUNTINGTON by William Poundstone
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The Huntington has announced gifts funded by its Art Collectors' Council: a Judy Chicago acrylic painting from the Pasadena Lifesavers series; a cityscape of 17th-century London by Dutch artist Thomas Wijck; a 33-ft. handscroll by Qing painter Zhao Yuan; a tapestry by Raqib Shaw. These follow Art Collectors' Council gifts of a Carpeaux bust <http://tiny.cc/94ou001> and a Grafton Tyler Brown landscape <http://tiny.cc/c4ou001> announced this August.
In addition, Deborah and Jay Last have donated sculptures by Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Harry Bertoia, and Tony Berlant; and works on paper by James Whistler, John Sloan, Andy Warhol, and Frank Stella.
The Judy Chicago painting, the institution's first work by the artist, is the latest in a string of acquisitions honoring artists who had special relationships to the Huntington or Pasadena (others being Robert Rauschenberg, Kehinde Wiley, and Betye Saar). Chicago had a studio in Pasadena, and the Pasadena Lifesavers series is a pivot of Chicago's development, poised between minimalism and feminism. Chicago studied auto detailing in order to create sleek, spray-painted surfaces. The O forms represent orgasms and the artist's awareness of being "multi-orgasmic." She also said the colors create an illusion of shapes that "turn, dissolve, open, close, vibrate, gesture, wiggle." The Huntington painting measures 28 in. square.
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Deborah Last and Jay Last have donated a selection of Modern sculpture and prints. Three Points is one of Henry Moore's smallest and most experimental sculptures (it's barely 7 inches across). The three thorn-like forms approach but don't touch. The work has been understood to express menace and the anxieties of the modern age. Moore modeled it out of beeswax as war loomed. He cast it on his private kiln in easily melted lead. This led to small editions in iron and bronze (shown is a version at the Tate). Moore compared the near touch to Michelangelo's God and Adam; a car's spark plug; and the School of Fountainbleau painting of Gabrielle d'Estrées and Her Sister <https://tinyurl.com/ypbm3u53> in which the sister pinches Gabrielle's nipple while bathing. Three Points is the Huntington's first Moore sculpture, but the institution has about 330 of the artist's etchings, lithographs, and drawings, donated by the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation.
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The 1920 Man With Guitar is among the most abstract of Lipchitz's several treatments of the classic Cubist theme. It was issued in an edition of 7 in bronze. The Huntington says it's the institution's first major Cubist work. Lipchitz, a refugee from the Nazi regime, qualifies as an American artist, but Man With Guitar is an early work made in Paris.
<http://tiny.cc/q4ou001>
Searching for Flowers at Heyang augments the Huntington's small collection of Chinese paintings of gardens. It doubles as a portrait of scholar Jin Chunbo. The scroll has over 40 calligraphic inscriptions.
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<http://tiny.cc/u4ou001> _LosAngelesCountyMuseumOnFire

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IT IS THE BIRTHDAY OF THE GREAT MARTÍN CHAMBI,
<https://tinyurl.com/8ttep4nj>
the Quechua photographer
who trained his lens on Andean Indigenous life.
<https://tinyurl.com/24cmnayy> _CarolinaAMiranda

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‘I TRY TO MAKE THEM FEEL AS IGNORANT AS POSSIBLE"
<https://tinyurl.com/mub4k3ts>
On a recent autumn evening in Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast museum, the guide Joseph Langelinck paused next to a Renaissance sculpture of a man with a wooden club and challenged his flock of 18 visitors to name the mythical hero depicted.
“Hercules?” a woman in the front row proposed in a soft voice. “If you know the answer, why can’t you tell us in a way that those at the back can hear you, too?” Langelinck admonished the visitor, before challenging her to name the 12 labours in chronological order. A non-answer elicited an eye roll and a tut. “Oh god, I feel like I’m back at school,” sighed the woman, 62-year-old Corinna Schröder.
The museum advertises Langelinck’s tours, which cost €7, as “grumpy” and “highly unpleasant”, though that might still be an understatement. Over the course of the 70-minute walk, the ponytailed art historian points fingers into visitors’ faces, tells them off for checking their phones or sitting down, and berates them for their general ignorance, all while stomping through the palatial corridors of the Kunstpalast at breakneck speed.
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In spite of the rudeness, or perhaps because of it, the twice-monthly “Grumpy Guide” tour has been a surprise hit, with each one since the launch in May sold out. Anyone looking to book a spot will have to wait until next year.
“I never insult visitors directly, based on their personality or their appearance, but I insult them as a group,” said Carl Brandi, 33, the performance artist who conceived of and performs as the aggressive Langelinck. “My contempt is directed at an inferred ignorance that may not even exist. But I try to make them feel as ignorant as possible.”
Asked to explain the tour’s popularity, Brandi said people “enjoy the emotional ride”. “We all know comedy or cabaret formats where the performer’s bad mood or aggressive attitude is key to the show, it’s just not something we’re used to seeing in museums. And unlike in a comedy show, there’s no barrier between the character and the audience here,” he said.
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Under pressure to justify subsidies and state support, museums across Europe are looking for novel ways of attracting different and younger audiences via non-elite formats: Stuttgart’s House of History hosts nudist evenings in which visitors can stroll naked among the exhibits, and the Netherlands’ Museum Voorlinden offers socks-only tours for those who want to appreciate works of art in shoeless silence.
<https://tinyurl.com/sj4wsd4e> _GuardianUK

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A NEW WORK THOUGHT TO BE FROM ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI'S NEAPOLITAN PERIOD
<https://tinyurl.com/3rnas4dw> _JesseLocker

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REMOVAL OF FOUNTAIN FROM S.F.'S EMBARCADERO PLAZA FORMALLY APPROVED
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A divided San Francisco Arts Commission on Monday approved a plan to at least temporarily remove the Vaillancourt Fountain from Embarcadero Plaza, a final sign-off that means the massive artwork could be dismantled as soon as early next year.
The half-century-old sculpture's fate has been increasingly in doubt as plans come together for a $32.5 million remodeling of Embarcadero Plaza that will merge it with adjacent Sue Bierman Park.
The vote Monday came at the regular monthly hearing of the Arts Commission, which owns the concrete artwork. Action was requested by the Recreation and Park Department, which manages the site as a city park and is responsible for its upkeep.
The fountain, which was created by Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt and debuted in 1971, has deteriorated over the decades and has been dry since the pumps failed a year ago. Rec and Park officials pressed for the removal, saying it is necessary to protect the public from the site, which has been fenced off since the summer after it was deemed a public safety hazard.
The removal can proceed in 90 days, according to the California art Preservation Act, which requires that the artist be given a chance to come up with a plan for any piece of public art.
The vote Monday was 8-5 for removal with many commissioners first trying to abstain. When that was not allowed, at least three of the votes to remove were made reluctantly, commissioners said.
"The power of this piece is real," said commissioner Debra Walker before casting her vote. "It exemplifies the power of public art. But it can't stay here, in my opinion, in this condition."
Commissioner Patrick Carney countered, "My fear is that once it is removed it opens the door to never coming back. I don't want to put an art piece on the path to deaccession. This is a big step."
Vaillancourt, the 96-year-old creator of the fountain, and a vocal group of supporters have argued that it should be renovated and remain at the center of the plaza.
Reached Monday in Montreal, the artist's son and spokesperson, Alexis Vaillancourt, said, "We are disappointed," noting that a law firm representing his father has already filed a cease-and-desist letter to stop the permanent removal of the sculpture. He said attorneys may be filing an amendment to also prevent its temporary removal.
"This thing about public safety is exaggerated. I'm not sure they are being totally transparent," Alexis Vaillancourt said. "I'm sure it won't fall down in the next days or even in the next years."
The disassembly of the piece is estimated to cost $4.4 million which will be paid for by Rec and Park. It is expected to take two months, once the 90-day requirement for notification of the state is executed.
The sculpture will be moved to undisclosed off-site storage for a maximum of three years while it is determined whether it can be repaired to working order with its fountain flowing, or should be deaccessioned and returned to the artist. There is also the possibility of moving it to another location in the city. _SFChronicle

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BORN ON THIS DAY, IN 1607, THE REMARKABLY BRILLIANT & TALENTED ANNA MARIA VAN SCHURMAN.
Made this print to advertise her own genius.
A+ for complete lack of humility!
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Engraved by her with a diamond,
the poem on this glass says
”Although I seem dark, the name gives light -
Anna Maria van Schurman.“
Wonderfully self-assured woman in 1607.
<https://tinyurl.com/yd43xm78>
Working in another medium:
heraldic scissorwork by Anna Maria v
Do you know how hard this is?
But she could do it all,
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<https://tinyurl.com/pjb72as3> _Dr.PeterPaulRubens

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LEONARDO DA VINCI, HEAD OF THE VIRGIN, 1508-1512.
<https://tinyurl.com/2p9vzet4> _RabihAlameddine

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PHOTOS SHOW STOLEN BAY AREA STATUE BEING CARTED AWAY IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
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San Jose police are asking for the public’s help in finding a “beloved” local statue that was carted away in broad daylight.
The bronze “Momotaro” statue was reported missing earlier this month, cut from its stand in San Jose’s Guadalupe River Park.
This week, officials released new details about the theft and now believe the statue was cut down and taken on Sept. 25 just after 7 a.m. New photos from the day of the theft show two people appearing to take away the statue in a shopping cart. Police said the people were last seen walking north through the park.
<https://tinyurl.com/2ew2hk35> _SFGate

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TRAILCAM
<https://tinyurl.com/8tw38juh> _trailcam