The Bartender Never Gets Killed

Rollei is now up on  the ‘bay,

Kinda sad, end of an era. On the other hand I really can’t imagine ever going back to a film workflow…

I’m going to be selling some rollei stuff on ebay over the next week. First to go is this, a mint extension hood.

My trusted rollei 2.8f Xenotar  goes up next with leather case, metal hood, metal caps, a couple of rolleinars… Yeah I know I could get more splitting the stuff up but I’d rather sell the set in one go.

No time today for a comment from me, but this came up today on the BBC news… It is my favourite painting.

Pablo Picasso’s monochrome painting of the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica remains one of his more famous works. The tapestry version just unveiled at London’s Whitechapel Gallery usually sits at the UN, acting as a powerful visual statement against the horrors of war. But there is much meaning beneath this famous work, writes Picasso expert Gijs van Hensbergen.

It is the horse that takes centre stage in this apocalyptic knacker’s yard where nothing seems to make any sense. Are we in a bull ring, a village square or a plywood theatre set?

The horse’s screaming dagger-shaped tongue and its death-head nostrils focus our attention directly on the terrible pain and suffering that pulls us repeatedly back to witness the horror. If this is a bullfight it has gone horribly wrong, defying all logic of the corrida.

THE BOMBING Operation Rugen took place on 26 April 1937 during Spanish Civil War German and Italian bombers allied with nationalists pounded town in Basque country held by Republicans Deaths estimated between 200 and over 1,000 Much of town flattened Bombing brought to international attention by Times journalist George Steer

No horse is ever run straight through with a spear in a plaza de toros, as the horse of Guernica has been. In an early version, hidden under layers of paint, Picasso had bent the horse’s head down to the ground in submissive defeat.

Here, in the final version, even in its dying moments the horse remains defiant. It may be the last gasp but down to the right of its crooked knee a plant sprouts a few anaemic leaves as the only symbol of hope. Did the horse represent the Spanish people, Picasso was asked? He refused to answer.

Throughout the history of painting the horse has become the universal symbol of man’s companion in war, understood by every culture. Guernica was a horrific example of saturation bombing – not the first, nor the last. From Coventry to Dresden, from Hiroshima to Baghdad, people have forged a powerful empathy with this fatally wounded horse.

The Bull, of all the protagonists in the painting is the only one that remains calm and dispassionate. Picasso was quizzed if the bull represented the Spanish dictator Franco but the truth appears far more complex. With its statuesque head, and lozenge eyes it watches the drama unfold.

In many depictions of artists in their studios, most notably Velazquez’s Las Meninas and Goya’s Family of Charles IV, both in the Prado, and known to Picasso from his early youth, the artist anchors the left border of the masterpiece.

THE TAPESTRY Normally hangs at UN At Whitechapel Gallery to mark reopening Donated to UN by Nelson Rockefeller in 1985 In lead-up to Iraq war, tapestry was covered by blue cloth for US media conference Although denied, critics said this was because of anti-war message More variations in colour compared with painting

Throughout the 1930s Picasso had increasingly depicted himself in the guise of the bull and the minotaur, half-man, half-bull. In his Vollard Suite of etchings, again and again the potent minotaur violates, rapes, caresses and treats with tenderness his beautiful, voluptuous, female victim.

Picasso loved in-jokes, secrecy and the rituals of ancient Mediterranean cultures. Fascinated by the Roman cult of Mithraism and the ritual slaughter of the bull by the Sun God Mithras, Picasso places the bull’s head between a jagged naked light bulb, a crowing cock and a screaming mother – the Virgin Dolorosa (paraded through every Spanish street during Holy Week).

What are we to make of Guernica’s confusing compendium of images weighted so heavily with religious content? The Bull watches the sacrifice. If it is Picasso is it a mere impotent witness? Or, is it the cause of this tragedy?

Early on, in the first few days of painting Guernica, Picasso placed his own self-portrait – recognisable by his characteristic swept-over hairstyle – in the position of this decapitated bust. Turned over, with his gaping mouth to the sky, the final version becomes a kind of “everyman”.

Some see in the smashed bust, severed arm and broken sword, which frame the base of the painting, distant echoes and memories of the horrific earthquake that rocked Malaga destroying 10,000 houses in Picasso’s early childhood. It is possible. Picasso had an extraordinary memory and throughout his life kept all the gates to his deep and fertile subconscious wide open.

PICASSO Born 1881 in Malaga, Spain Studied in Madrid First visiting in 1900, Picasso spent much time in Paris Helped create Cubism but worked in several styles Died in 1973, aged 91

At his father’s knee, in Malaga’s Cafe de Chinitas, he would have heard the story of the Arab fakir Ibrahim al-Jarbi, sent to kill the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the final desperate days of the Christian reconquest of Spain, after 750 years of rule by the Muslims. Al-Jarbi was caught, chopped into pieces and catapulted over the walls of Malaga’s Arab fort.

It was an epic legend that was repeated in Malaga like a mantra and would have fired the imagination of any impressionable young boy. But the source is perhaps closer to hand.

Just months before painting Guernica, Picasso had been asked to create a series of prints to raise funds for the Republic. The Dream and Lie of Franco is a savage attack by Picasso on Franco’s regime. Portrayed as a swollen monster, Franco proceeds through a series of scenes to desecrate and destroy all in his path, including a classical bust.

As director of Madrid’s Prado gallery, in exile, Picasso felt a deep loathing for the military machine that was prepared to visit indiscriminate violence upon his people and bomb the Prado, while also peddling propaganda about the Republic’s alleged war on culture.

The mother screams and screams, but nothing will bring her child back. No god and no amount of divine intervention can breathe life back into the limp rag doll. Her dress has fallen off her shoulder, the swaddling clothes of her child open up to reveal a range of stubby little toes.

Everywhere we look across the painting we see gesture – fingers like sausages, hands carved with lines and an array of clasping, grasping fists. Her grief has depersonalised her. Her eyes are tears. Her tongue a dagger pointing up to the Bull’s steaming nostrils.

For Guernica, Picasso produced almost 70 preparatory works that included sketches and paintings, many in black and white but some in dramatic colour. An early sketch for Mother and Child – which travels the entire history of the image including Michelangelo’s Pieta – showed the mother and child descending down a ladder.

Picasso, as the Prado’s director in-exile, knew the collection inside out. No artist, or anyone with sensibility, could fail to be drawn to the museum’s extraordinarily poignant Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden – arguably, the greatest Christian image ever created.

Picasso, as was his will, cannibalised it and gave us this pathetic timeless image of an inconsolable woman that we see repeated today in the newsreels transmitted from Gaza, Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan.

Picasso’s life while painting Guernica represented the worst period in his life. His mother and sister still lived in Barcelona and it was impossible to know where Franco might bomb next.

Picasso’s personal life in Paris had become immensely complicated. His wife Olga Khokhlova, a Russian ballet dancer, had become increasingly unhinged as she discovered the artist’s infidelities, and wished to sue him for half his estate. This included his works of art – some unfinished, others his working archive.

His suppliant mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, a Grecian beauty less than half his age, had given birth to their daughter Maya and was farmed out to the country for weekends away. Into the empty space came Dora Maar – a dramatic dark-haired beauty, who was as exotic and erotic as an artist could ever ask for.

He first met her on the terrace of the Deux Magots cafe in Paris staring deep into his eyes as she stabbed her fingers through her gloves playing dare with a knife.

In many ways Dora was his intellectual equal. She took photographs of Guernica in progress and also, as it happened, painted many of the markings on the flank of the dying horse.

One day, unexpectedly, Marie-Therese came up from the country to see Picasso in his Paris studio. He was up the ladder painting and Dora was in the room. The fight between the two women was left to run its course by Picasso, who transferred it and distilled it into the image we see today.

Three women at war, three graces, three fates, three women mourning at the cross, all readings are viable. But we must also remember that the woman holding the torch we have seen before – she is Liberty leading the people and, of course, Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty – a copy of which Picasso passed every morning in Paris while walking the dog.

From Modern Art Obsession…

3. Hiroshi Sugimoto photographs at Gagosian Gallery have had their prices reduced from $450,000 to $360,000.    Gasp… like what is that?

Even at $360,000, MAO would consider that price to be totally RIDICULOUS for a new Sugimoto photograph! While MAO loves some of Sugimoto’s work.. there’s NO WAY in any sane world, anyone but a total fool would pay $360,000 for a single Sugimoto photograph.

We love this Gagosian press release quote..

In 1980 he began working on an ongoing series of photographs of the sea and its horizon in locations all over the world, using an old-fashioned large-format camera to make exposures of varying duration….

By returning to the same subject repeatedly, he reveals the subtleties that he…..

Perhaps, That “HE,” Sugimoto, hasn’t managed to do anything new or original in years? Except raise his prices beyond reality? Ok.. maybe MAO is being a bit harsh.. So no disrespect to Sugi…but we’re just saying…Hmm..it’s something to think about.   Should a single newly printed Sugimoto photo sell for more than the average price of a house in most parts of the U.S. ?  Maybe MAO is missing something..? like an extra $360,000 to burn on a new and dull Sugimoto photograph.

Personally I think Todd Deutsch’s approach is more understandable,

In a few days I turn 40.  In a few months our fourth son will join the family fray.  Time to rethink where things are headed.  I am growing weary of weighing the pros and cons of edition sizes, where to send packets, trying to decide which competitions to enter, and on and on.  Strategy, strategy, strategy.  Position, position, position.  What I am learning is that I am really not that guy.  All the effort comes at the expense (emphasis on ‘expense’) of what I love about making and looking at photographs.  Of course I still want the pictures I make to be seen, but right now I am looking for ways to be more like myself in the process.  More emphasis on rhythm, less emphasis on melody.

So, I have decided to occasionally offer small prints for sale.  11 x 14 inch c-prints.  No editions.  Just prints.  As many (or as few) as the world wishes to soak up.  And cheap, too.  30 clams including shipping. (Larger versions of many of the images will still be available in the editions we have grown to expect.  After all, there is a place for those as well.)

Although maybe somewhere in between would be the ideal?

LAY FLAT is a great new photo mag which, rather than being bound, presents the reader with individual prints. It is an idea I’ve often thought would be a really nice thing to own.

Also includes writing by…

One Credo After Another
by Tim Davis

Close Readings
by Darius Himes

The Secessionists Revisited: Artist Collectives in the Age of the Blog
by Cara Phillips

A Telephone Conversation with Mike Mandel
by Shane Lavalette

The Crisis of Experience
by Eric William Carroll

Castaways vs. Utopians
by Jason Fulford

Well, it has been a while…

Thanks for all the emails, and apologies to all those who wrote and I didn’t reply. Last year was hell health-wise and I spent a lot of time moving between Spain and England for treatment, and I didn’t have a regular Internet connection, so I was bulk deleting huge amounts of emails. Not being able to see clearly for long periods of time also disconnected me from photography. The upside of that was I started using my ears a lot more and reconnected with electro-acoustic composition which is what I was initially trained in, so I’ve been learning Supercollder (the title is about the most basic command you can do with SC) and reconnecting with my roots – although in my day it was Revox tape machines, razorblades and modular synths!

I’ve recently started teaching photography, which I’m enjoying a lot, and this has really got me started with images again. My workroom is full of cut up proofs stuck on boards to form montages.

I’ll be posting work from time to time, but until then have a look at Patrick Shanahan’s new site, which has a new series up, ‘Momentary Presence’ – as well as being now very slick.

I have found myself often drawn to the same kind of subject matter, but I’ve never attempted, and don’t think I could make it work, the combination of landscape with the political.

Shanahan has travelled through 9 different countries documenting how the political change in Eastern Europe has affected the landscape. Momentary Presence is

“…  an  attempt to find a photographic language that can express the consequences of the collapse of communist control and the establishment of a fragile new European community, subject to the new pressures of capitalist expansion,commerce and tourism.“

I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking what I’m up to. The sad things is recently work has gone pear-shaped and I’ve needed to fight to get new contracts, taking much time away from the blog and photography. I’ve also been suffering from recurring bouts of Uveitis , the treatment of which leaves my unable to see in the right eye, so photography and tapping in front of a screen are a real chore! Anyway, the blog is not dead, and I’ve not stopped doing photography – in fact I’m having so much ‘thinking’ time I’ve some good ideas about how to develop the new ‘Philosopher’ project. Thanks for all the good wishes.

Just got back from my holidays. Had a good time and managed to see some great art.

First up was some recent work by Chema Madoz (o en castellano) . His webby is out of date and I really prefer the work from 2000 onwards – there is much more bite to it, including a series on flags as nationalist symbols which I liked.

A lot of his recent work would fit in the ‘I’d buy it if I could afford it’ category.

I also took a trip to the Wurth museum in Logroño.

A great place to view art. All this group’s museums are set in industrial parts and form part of the working environment for the employees as well as the public. Favourite of the show – as always when I see one – was a Caro piece…

I especially like his table top sculptures, I’ve never seen anything so physically heavy that gives the impression of grace and airiness

I’ve been wanting to see some of Rinko Kawuchi’s Aila work for a while, prints are so different from books…

and I like it. Simple, well ‘drawn’ images that have a consistent naivety I like. Couldn’t make these images for love nor money!

The work of Luisa Lambri was new to me.

as was the work of Jorg Sasse

I also got to see some ‘old’ friends,

I’ll be posting more links later, together with some work from the trip. Happy New Year!

I’m away for the holidays now until 6th January, so things will be even slower around here than normal! We always go to my wife’s home town, Logroño,

the capital city of La Rioja, where the wines come from, for my birthday and Christmas (48 this year, where does the time go?!).

I’ve just received a hand-made card from Bee Flowers,

which was a great treat. Bee also has some work in this month’s edition of Ojo de Pez , I’ve got a copy on order but not seen it yet. Bee has also has a new project which I’ve seen a draft of. He’s using a really interesting strategy to structure the images, but I’m sworn to secrecy for now.

Anyway, Happy holidays!

Update,

As usual I published this too quickly. Spending some time on Bee’s site I see he has some new work…

Ok, this never even crossed my mind, but when I mentioned my ex-wife in a previous post, Pauline Thomas, this is NOT her!

Thanks to Bee for one of those jokey exchanges where everyone is talking about something different!