Behind the Curtain

The Simplification of Life

Image from The Library of Congress' 1930s-40s in Color set

"Of course, the current mode of life is so greatly wasteful, and we have come to consider so many things as necessaries – whether in food, furniture, clothing or what not – which really bring us back next to no profit or pleasure compared with the labor spent upon them, that it is really difficult to know where the balance of true economy would stand if, so to speak, left to itself. All we can do is to take the existing mode of life in its simpler form...and work from that as a basis."

Excerpt from Edward Carpenter's "The Simplification of Life," from England's Ideal, 1887.
Read the entire essay at the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture or on Google books.

Susan Harrison's Recollections

Image and text © by Susan Harrison

I've spoke about the wonderful Flickr set Mom's World before. There are some new images and stories up, and I absolutely love the imagery that the story below conjures up.

"The Marine Room supper club on Lakeshore Drive is what drew us to Chicago in 1949. In those pre-television days we turned to radio for entertainment, snuggling on the couch on Monday nights listening to Lux Radio Theater, on Saturdays we cleaned the apartment to Dragnet, and sometimes we danced in the living room to the fabulous sounds from the Marine Room. It struck me as the epitome of elegance and sophistication: the music, the occasional clink of a glass, the broadcaster’s sotto voce description of the stylish décor and formally gowned patrons, and the big-band music. Dancing in the Marine Room was number one on our list of Chicago must-do’s."  (Excerpt from Susan Harrison's narrative, Edgewater Beach Hotel Marine Room)

Read the rest of the story here and see more from Mrs. Harrison's photo and narrative collection here.

I was just at the Chicago History Museum this weekend and saw that they have one of the bronze signs from the Edgewater Hotel on display along with some nice interior shots of the hotel and its history. It was really interesting to read about the hotel while remembering this prose from Mrs. Harrison.

Words + Image

"Mel Chin directs his creative energy toward urgent problems that must be resolved if life on earth is to survive. His artist medium is the land that has become so laden with toxins that it is incapable of sustaining life or generating edible vegetation...Chin revives the polluted field by growing and harvesting special plants that thrive n the heavy metals in the soil. These leaching plants are called 'hyperaccumulators.' At the end of each growth cycle they are incinerated so that the cadmium, zinc, and lead they absorbed can be extracted from their ashes and recycled. With each harvest, more and more toxic metals are removed from the soil, bringing Chin closer to his goal – creating purified earth."

Words: Linda Weintraub, Art on the Edge and Over
Image: Mel Chin, Revival Field

Words + Image

"A world view in this sense is not something found 'out there,' but is something individuals construct and create. The issue of what beliefs we hold is therefore crucial. For instance, a belief that resistance to the dominant social structure is futile, because the structure is too ruthless or too powerful, will have the effect, if accepted by enough people, of stabilizing the relations of dominance. What we are learning is that for every situation in our lives, there is a thought pattern that both precedes and maintains it, so that our consistent thinking patterns create our experience. People give legitimacy to all social institutions, no matter how powerful those institutions seems to be, and they also have the power to withdraw legitimacy.

Although it may seem as if the individual in today's world has little power, the truth is that only we have the power to transform our situation: there is no one else."

Words: Suzi Gablik, The Re-enchantment of Art.
Image: James Turrell, Skyspaces

Words + Image

"It's all far too isolated. Isolated helplessness within the damned concept of 'formal creativity.' That is a term I reject utterly. During this stage, when someone has made a clichéd drawing, the marvelous thing to say is, 'What a darling little nose you've drawn there! Just look at that! Here, I'll show you an anatomical atlas so you can find out what kind of nose you've just drawn.' Then you show them all the different shapes there are. Maybe then the student takes an interest in anatomy.

It's Important to expand, to get away from the unusable concept of formal creativity. It's creative when a person occupies himself with anatomy, or with geography. You can take the stupid little nose the student has drawn as a starting point and get some concepts across to him...he gets interested, and he'll see that forms have context, that they have responsibility. You can't just tell a person to do something 'creative.' You have to think about the extended connections."

words: Joseph Beuys
image: Telegraph Media Group

Rebirth

I had no idea that the movie Birth of Nation existed until Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky) remixed it and created Re-Birth of a Nation. I highly suggest you view an excerpt from the piece and read Miller's essay on this work, it is haunting and quite impressive. Miller will be coming to Savannah in April and I'm curious if he will show this work or if he will refrain because of the south's history.

Miller also recently produced a song on Yoko Ono's newest album. You can hear it here.

An excerpt from Miller's essay:
...Griffith was known as “the Man Who Invented Hollywood,” and the words he used to describe his style of composition -“intra-frame narrative” or the “cut-in” the “cross-cut” – staked out a space in America’s linguistic terrain that hasn’t really been explored too much. Griffith’s films were mainly used as propaganda – “Birth of a Nation” was used as a recruitment film for the Ku Klux Klan at least up until the mid 1960’s, and other films like “Intolerance” were commercial failures, and the paradox of his cultural stance versus the technical expertise that he brought to film, is still mirrored in Hollywood to this day.

Words + Image

"Any incentive to paint is as good as any other. There is no poor subject. Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement."

Image: Sidney B. Felsen, "Rauschenberg," 1991
Words: Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled Statement, 1959

Words + Image

"I shot for the moment of magic. It was a moment of scorpionic truth. White purity. Sacrifice. Ready. Aim. Fire. Red, yellow, blue - the painting is crying, the painting is dead. I have killed the painting. It is reborn. War with no victims."

Niki de Saint-Phalle created "shoot paintings" by firing a rifle at works that had ballons full of paint attached to them.

Image: Niki de Saint-Phalle, Shooting Picture, 1961
Words: Niki de Saint-Phalle, 1987

Words + Image

"[The Artist] has chosen to live within direct experience, no longer representative...he aspires to live, not to see. He immerses himself in individuality because he feels the necessity of leaving intact the value of the existence of things, of plants or animals; he wants to take part in the oneness of every minute in order to posses above all the 'autonomy' both of his own identity and the individuality of things. He wants to feel his vitality in order not to feel that he is a solitary vital individual."

Image: Michael Garlington, "The Fishmonger's Daughter"
Words: Germano Celant, "Introduction," in Arte Povera, 1969.

Words + Image

Moment of adorable silence. But the song of the world rises and I, a prisoner chained deep in the cave, am filled with delight before I have time to desire. Eternity is here while I was waiting for it. Now I can speak. I do not know what I could wish for rather than this continued presence of self with self. What I want now is not happiness but awareness. One thinks one has to cut oneself off from the world, but it is enough to see an olive tree upright in the golden dust, or beaches glistening in the morning sun, to feel this separation melt away. Thus with me. I became aware of the possibilities for which I am responsible. Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.

words: Albert Camus, Notebooks: 1935-1951
image: Tracy Emin, Sometimes I Feel Beautiful