Die Antwoord / Roger Ballen (video)
An unnerving video by Die Antwoord “I Fink U Freeky”, directed by Roger Ballen.
Ed Ruscha’s Sunset Strip interactive
You probably know Ed Ruscha’s Sunset project, in which he photography all the houses along Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. He published this project in the book simply called Every Building on the Sunset Strip.
Getty has created a beautiful website – a piece of art on itself – that allows you to explore the project.
https://12sunsets.getty.edu/map/narrative?d=0.42006&mode=no-map
Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
The world was too big, even for the huge talents of Leonardo Da Vinco Walter Isaacson wrote a biography of one of the world’s biggest geniuses.
Da Vinci was a strange guy. He was extremely curious. So curious, that he hard a hard time finishing things. Always on the way to the next thing, and many other things at the same time.
He didn’t make things easy for himself. He was interested in so many things: painting, drawing, sculpture, engineering, science, urban design, biology, anatomy, physics. The list goes on.
What also did not help him was his perfectionism. If it couldn’t be perfect, he lost interest, or kept on improving forever. The Mona Lisa was a life-time’s work. He carried it around for decades, constantly improving it. A huge wall fresco in Florence, The Battle of Anghiari, he abandoned because he could not produce it the way he wanted. The invention was more important to him than the execution, improving more important than delivering. He had many book ideas, but finished none.
But this immense breadth of interests and his doggedness is also the core of his genius. He invented things that others could not see. He combined knowledge that was not combined before. He approached art with a scientific approach. He made anatomic drawings with artistic quality. He wanted to know everything about anything. Isaacsons calls him the personification of the universal mind.
In the last chapter Isaacson lists the lesson we can learn from Da Vinci’s life. (Da Vinci was a keen list-maker himself.)
Be curious, relentlessly curious.
Seek knowledge for its own sake.
Retain a childlike sense of wonder.
Observe.
Start with the details.
See things unseen.
Go down rabbit holes.
Get distracted.
Respect facts.
Procrastinate.
Let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Think visually.
Avoid silos.
Let your reach exceed your grasp.
Indulge fantasy.
Create for yourself, not just for patrons.
Collaborate.
Make lists.
Take notes, on paper.
Be open to mystery.
A good article that summarizes the lessons, is this: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/05/20-life-lessons-leonardo-da-vinci/
Some of these lessons, when applied undisciplined (like Da Vinci), can lead to the perfectionism and chronic inability to ship we have seen in Leonardo’s life. Despite his extreme talents, the world was too big, even for Leonardo Da Vinci.
Photographers’ Sketchbooks
Yesterday I wrote about Bryan Formhals. He is the co-author of Photographers’ Sketchbooks. The book describes and shows how artists, not just photographers as the title suggests, create, try out, design, figure out, make notes, iterate, channel their creative endeavors. The books features Roger Ballen, Rob Hornstra, Peter van Agtmael, and many others.
Bomb of inspiration.
A Piece of Art – podcast
Abbi Jacobson must be a tireless centipede. Amongst all the things she does, she hosted the podcast A Piece of Work, about modern art. The Moma and the podcasting company WNYC Studios produced this fantastic series.
Wikipedia (May 2020) tells us Jacobson is planning to do another series. Let it come.
Maria Popova’s Brainpickings
Brainpickings, the beautifully intense mind sprout by Maria Popova. She write about books, philosophy, writers, thinking, tenderness, music, art, love, the beauty of life, and more I can safely say.
All these beautiful essays…
Started as a simple email list, the site has grown into a monumental achievement showcasing the richness of what the Internet can bring humanity.
A History of Pictures
In the format of a semi-dialog, David Hockney and Martin Gayford in A History of Pictures discuss the history and various aspects of picture-making.
Beautifully illustrated.
The most interesting thing is that Hockney seems not to have a very high regard for photography.
“… I question photography. A lot of people don’t, they accept the world looks like a photograph.
“But colour photography couldn’t get tones like those [Vermeer] as is has to rely on the dyes or printing ink. Those aren’t like paint, and never will be.”
“… I don’t know whether photography is an art. Some photographers considered themselves artists, and some didn’t
… Good photography does require intelligence and imagination but aa lot of it is very mechanical.”
Vermeer, Caravaggio, Degas, Delacrois, a few of the painters mentioned in the book that used photographic techniques for their paintings.
“Photography came out of painting and as far as I can see that’s where it is returning.”
Hellen van Meene in Huis Marseille
Panoramas of death. Strange coffins with almost dead bodies. Grandchildren stand mourning alienated next to the coffin. A dog too. In the film, a cat in the polder that doesn’t seem to want to be photographed and disappears from view. The panorama that does not want to be a panorama because it is upright. A dress blows in front of the coffin, which has been placed on a touching pair of yellow bricks so that it stays upright.
Surely the best is the image of nothing, or of what was.
In the other half of Huis Marseille show Koos Breukels photographs of his son. Can’t stop thinking: what a brat.
Figuring
Maria Popova announced her book, Figuring. First time in my life I have pre-ordered a book. It is arriving in February 2019. Maria Popova is the creator of one of the world’s best blogs: Brain Pickings.
