Art. Me.

A good sip of coffee matters.

Coffee.

of which many of us have become a serious addict, not just for its caffeine, but for that dense, initial flush so strong that it inevitably brings us back to the times of having good companies, of working hard, or simply, of waking up to the sunday tranquility. 

In fact, nothing matters more than the nostalgia in the air of coffee. Such is the first and most important key to announcing a good sip. 

But of course, one cannot simply find a cup to be outstanding when its smell and taste is awfully off. In terms of the practicals, like wine, the nose and taste is ought to be considered.

A class earlier at La Caféothèque, Paris focuses on such details. The following are the basic extracts.

1. The surroundings of the coffee plant

Like an infant, the growing plant takes in its surroundings. An avocado tree, a mineral-rich river, a field of flower blossoms— its smell and taste are heavily influenced. Sadly, the many packs of coffee beans available today aren’t revealing the unique character of their origins because many coffee manufacturers mix and pack together coffee beans from different regions, in an effort to balance and complicate the character of their coffee. 

The Question is: would you prefer staying loyal to one type of bean from a particular harvest so as to know coffee at its most original, un-cosummated form, or to a blend articulated meticulously for the “best possible smell and taste”?

2. The art of coffee roasting

When a coffee bean is roasted, the heat forces the trapped aroma in the bean to be released. Hence, not only is the quality of the bean, but a good roast is also a determining factor to creating a good sip with a wonderful aroma. 

A good roast means that the temperature would be just right, as well as the time spent. As to what is “just right,” for each type of bean— that is the knowledge of an expert.

3. Water temperature

92 degree Celsius. Just like tea, adding water that is too hot would exhaust the tea leaves too quickly; whereas water not hot enough would result in the failure of bringing out the full potentials of the leaves. 

4. Bon dosage

taste with a spoon—meaning a small but fulfilling sip. Smell the Coffee near the curvature of the spoon half-dipped in. Chew the coffee for its taste. Swallow and wait for the aftertaste. 

Pop Art not so pop

Lichtenstein’s Brushstroke with Spatter

In the 1960s, Lichtenstein created a new kind of art that was often regarded by many as reactionary against Abstract Expressionism. While the Abstract Expressionists rejected representation in their works, Lichtenstein incorporated images that were easily identifiable from newspapers and comic strips into his paintings. And while the Abstract Expressionists enacted private, individual emotions through painting, Lichtenstein painted works that resemble the industrially reproduced prints, which were impersonal and cold. Painting right after the boom of Abstract Expressionism, Lichtenstein seemed to protest against the already well-established art movement. However, in an interview with the Art News in 1963, Lichtenstein suggested the opposite. Rather than reacting against Abstract Expressionism, Lichtenstein grew out from it; he adopted and expanded upon some of its visual language. 

Although Lichtenstein painted recognizable objects, he only did so to have pure forms available to react on and to interact with. His intention was not so much to depict an object, but to experiment with its forms. In Brushstroke, he painted the image of “paint,” in blue and yellow. His careful rendering of the shape of the two paints reveals his vast interest in exploring the formal aspects of the “paints.” For example, he manifested the irregularity in the shape of the blue paint by juxtaposing it with the fluid and consistent contours of the yellow paint. He also chose to encircle the shape of the blue paint with a thinner black outline, so that the angular parts of the shape could be emphasized. On the other hand, he surrounded the shape of the yellow paint with much thicker and rounder lines, so that the yellow form appears sleek and smooth. His efforts in altering the shape and contour of the “paint” are strictly out of a concern for formal qualities, and have nothing to do with depicting “paint.” The attention he spent on the form does nothing to make the object more recognizable or realistic; he seemed to not care much about the depiction.

In Brushstroke, Lichtenstein took the subject matter of Jackson Pollack’s art—“paint,” so as to prompt a viewer to juxtapose his piece with the Abstract Expressionist’s. For a viewer, confronting a piece which strongly reminds him of Pollack’s art, the viewer may automatically respond to the painting in the same way he responds to Pollack’s. He would imagine the moment Lichtenstein splashed the blue paint onto the canvas and would sense the spontaneity of the splash. He would also reconstruct the process when the artist swiped the yellow paint across the canvas and would contemplate on the duration and force of the action. Of course, the viewer would realize that none of the process they imagined had occurred; that Lichtenstein purposely created an illusion of splashed paint to trick viewers into thinking that the painting was created using Pollack’s method. Yet this successful trick is not just a parody to mock Pollack’s painting, it brings out a much more important message about Lichtenstein’s piece. When confronted by Brushstroke, the viewer automatically looks beyond the level of object depiction; they are not satisfied with simply knowing that Lichtenstein is depicting “paint.” Instead, they proceed to imagine the painting actions of the artist and think of the artist’s interaction with the paint. In doing so, the viewer has already treated the canvas as a painting ground for reactions and interactions with the paint, they started to pay attention to the how the artist handles forms and composition in the painting.

why even bother?

How often do you look for that tiny rectangular piece of paper next to the art piece? Why look for a description when you have the real and actual art right in front of your face?

and how often do you fall in love with a piece only after you read the artist’s statement? Why read the artist’s introduction of the piece, when whatever the artist has to express is supposedly in the piece itself?

So. are words, after all, superior to art? Do words reveal the concepts and feelings of the artist better? Or perhaps our need to search for a written description, or the artist’s need to explain verbally and literally, refelct this shared sense of insecurity when it comes to communicating via art?

and how ironic it is that this blog is about writting about art

to make things even more complicated, here is a quote about art which I love from the Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (prefeace):

“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim…All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”

The War on Cheese

Such a funny, but serious passage. Seriously.

This is about the paintings admitted into the European Salon in the 19th century:

In his 1860 novella, Jules Champfleury [art critic] described a session of a Salon jury in which a painting of a cheddar cheese by an English artist has just been accepted. Next submitted is a canvas by a Northern painter portraying a Dutch cheese. This cheese had hardly been admitted when there arrived a third painting, this time of French Brie by a Parisan artist. By then the jury had had enough cheese, so they refused the Brie. The French artist’s greif over the rejection of his Brie was particularly intense because he considered his rivals’ cheeses as not having the quality of true realism.

To calm this agitated artist, a philosopher acquainted with his picture offers him the reason for the jury’s rejection. “In France” he says, “painting with ideas in one’s head is not liked. There is an idea in your painting, and that’s what got you excluded. The members of the jury accepted the English cheddar and the Dutch cheese because neither contained anything subversive; but they judged your Brie to be a demagogic picture. The very idea of it must have shocked them. It’s a poor man’s cheese…”

The Plight of Contemporary Art

Just read something great from Leo Steinberg, published in Harper’s Magazine long ago in 1962, when modern art was considered “contemporary”

The following is an excerpt:

—————————————————————————————-

“Look, if you don’t like modern painting, why don’t you leave it alone. Why do you worry about it?”

For some people, an incomprehensible shift in art, something that really baffles or disturbs, is more like a drastic change—or better, a drastic reduction in the daily ration on which one has come to depend—as during a forced march, or while in prison. And so long as there are people who feel about art in this way, it is uninteresting to be told that there are also snobs who pretend to feelings they do not possess.

…In the old days, one’s first reaction would have been to exclaim—“This man can’t draw.” But we have the painter’s preliminary studies for the individual figures of this picture—a succession of splendid drawings—and these show Matisse to have been one of the most knowing draftsmen who ever lived. Yet, after so many preparatory sketches, he arrives, in the completed painting, at a kind of draftsmanship in which his skill seems deliberately mortified or sacrificed…And perhaps Matisse was trying to make his individual figures disappear for us, so that we should be forced into recognizing a different system.

…Contemporary art is constantly inviting us to applaud the destruction of values which we still cherish, while the positive cause, for the sake of which the sacrifices are made, is rarely made clear.

Modern art always projects itself into a twilight zone where no values are fixed…In other words, it is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as a bad risk. And we, the public, artists included, should be proud of being in this predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to life, and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life.

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I thought to myself: this is so great, Finally we have met an art historian who is willing to admit that he DOES NOT understand contemporary art. Not that he is incapable, it is really what the art is supposed to evoke!

today, when you enter an art gallery or a museum space, it really should not be a problem if you simply don’t know what this piece is about! As Steinberg pointed out in the above, perhaps confusion, frustration and incomprehension are what you ought to possess. Art cannot move forward if we stick to our comfort zone; if we only permit the 19th century landscape paintings, Impressionist nudes to be called “art” After all, these so called traditional, legitimate art styles were also once too avant-garde for the public of its time.

And certainly, if we do not understand, we cannot just ignore it. The sacrifices an artist made in order to push art to its extreme deserves at least some contemplation. and I think, our courage to break through the discomfort and the desire to understand the avant-garde are what move us forward to the future of art.

“Modern Dance”: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

I don’t know anything about dance, including modern or contemporary ones. So I tried to use my knowledge in art history to analyze what seemed to be me, a bizarre but extremely beautiful dance.

The Moon Water by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre is roughly an hour long. For the first 3 mins, I kept asking myself “What is this?” The dancers, very slowly but elegantly twisted, spinned and turned their bodies, or body parts while the Six Suites for Solo Cello by Bach was played as background music.

I guess if Modern Art at the 50s-60s was all about the concept of “art”, of internalized emotions expressed privately on a canvas, then projected to the public—Modern dance can be thought of similarly.

It is all about the body, the movement, the beauty of stretching the muscles in a certain way on the dance floor. If traditional dancing has to function with a context, a specific costume, a narrative, or a setting, then modern art must be about going against these extra elements. It wants to illustrate simply what the concept of “dancing” is.

Then I looked at the program notes and found a description of the Moon Water:

“To the Chinese, Moon Water, or shui yue in Chinese,

is a metaphor of two things.

One is a Buddhist proverb:

“Flowers in a mirror and moon on the water are both illusory.”

The other describes the ideal state of Tai Chi practitioners:

“Energy flows as water, while the spirit shines as the moon.”

The choreographer takes these famous quotes as a springboard

to create a poetic rendering of the Taoist philosophy.

Moon Water is a study of the real vs. the unreal, effort vs. effortless, yin and yang, and in the end, a study of time.”

and I thought to myself, it is about the energy flow within the dancers, just like the Tai Chi. Borrowing from the Tai Chi moves, the dancers focused on the internal happenings (emotions, energy, breathing). Halfway through the performance, I could feel the building up of tensions that has overwhelmed the dancers and was subtly leaking out to the audience.

And what about the description of Moon Water being “illusory?”

After the performance, I overheard someone talking in the bathroom “If you think it is, then it is, if you think it’s not, then it’s not.” wow, how Zen!

but I think the woman was right. For Modern paintings such as Mark Rothko’s or  Jackson Pollack’s, what can you say about them? It is what you think it is. You can read it in whatever way you like and it becomes real for you. That is the power of their art.

Similarly, for Moon Water, if it is about movements, then so be it. People could also read it as narratives, as a forming of environment, as an interpretation of the music, etc. It is all illusionary, but real at the same time.

So I guess my first question “What is this?” was exactly what the dance tried to evoke. It wanted to de-familiarize you, bring you out of the comfort zone to a journey of interpretations and discovery.

Then something great happen. The machine that was playing the music suddenly broke, so the music stopped. I had great respect for the dancers. Without music, they were still able to dance together, with a rhythm among themselves.

And this is the time that showed me how “dance” could simply survive without music. How “dance” was really about the movement itself. I thought about a scene in Amadeus, in which Mozart’s performers had to dance without music. Without the orchestra, that ballet was CRAP. The king immediately ordered Mozart to play music for the dance, and everything felt right again.

Here in Moon Water, it’s “unfortunate” the music stopped, but the essence of the dance did not disappear. If anything, I think this “unfortunate” incident brought me to understand what dancing is all about. I heard more clearly the dancers’ breathings, the twisting sounds of their feet, the noise made when they stepped on the floor or jumped on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmzMCetOM6w

Let’s talk about art influence.

“I am influenced by art”

This is such a strange, abstract feeling. I wanted to start this blog by telling how art has influenced me. But I was quickly stuck. Is “influence” a one-moment thing? or does it occur over a long period of time? How and when do I know that I am “influenced” by art.

I guess there are a few steps.

First, you know it when something strikes you. Then, you adopt the specific elements that is striking and internalize them. You make them into your own. And somehow, one day, you will find that certain things you do or say will engage some of these internalized elements. Then you can say: oh I am influenced by this thing.

It’s amazing, in the process of “being influenced”, there is imitation, borrowing, learning, remembering, transforming, using and expressing. It’s a great process that connects you and the outside world.

so with this premise, I will start talking about the art that I found striking. I won’t be talking just about the art, but MY thoughts on them. This blog is not about these art, but how I connect myself with the world through art.