Wednesday, September 23, 2009

jazz at Newport

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1960) - a film about jazz at Newport - is available online to anyone here.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

1936 painted in 1960

1958-60, oil and charcoal on canvas. Although he was only 21 when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Robert Motherwell was deeply affected by the conflict, and would make over 200 works on the subject. I found this one at MoMA and took the photo with my iPhone (forgive the poor quality). A monumental canvas, stark imagery, an apparently symbolic use of color (smoldering blackness...of death?... against vital whiteness...of life?...) convey passionate feelings. And we know which side Motherwell was on: the side of the Republic, a lost cause. MoMA acquired this canvas in 1998.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Zukofsky's home-made recording


The 22nd episode of PoemTalk is a discussion of a poem written in the 1940s but recorded, at home, onto a reel-to-reel player. Click here for program notes and a link to the discussion.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

fun cocktail glasses

...that belonged to my wife's parents.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Alex Katz at Bowdoin


This untitled oil painting is Alex Katz in 1960 - rendering a landscape in Skowhegan, Maine. The canvas is in the permanent collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. As I write this, it's on exhibit at the college through 2010, part of a show called "Grounded: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting."

In 2006 there was a show of Katz' 1960s paintings at PaceWildenstein. (Here's a review of that.)

Here are his one-man shows of the era:


Compare the 1960 landscape with this one--below--of 1972:


(The 1972 piece is a silkscreen, called "Sunset: Lake Wesserunsett IV.")