Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Self-portrait in Punk Jacket 1991-1992 Silver gelatin print
I am scanning my negatives made during the years 1991-1997 to preserve them in the form of an online archive as a process of active memory, so that the images are not lost forever. These photographs were images of my life and imagination at the time of their making, the ideas I was thinking about and the people and things that surrounded me.
Photographs are available from this series for purchase. As a guide, a vintage 8″ x 10″ silver gelatin print costs $700 plus tracked and insured shipping. For more information please see my Store web page.
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Marcus Sucking His Thumb 1991-1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Marcus in his Punk Jacket, Punt Road, South Yarra 1991-1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Marcus as The Fool (posing for the sculptor Fredrick White) 1991-1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Nude, in the Flat, Rear of Derelict House, 455, Punt Road, South Yarra 1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Self-portrait, nude with the mural ‘Two boys on a car’ 1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Nude on Floor (with Clifford Last) 1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Nude on Couch, Punt Road, South Yarra 1992 Silver gelatin print
Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958) Nude on Couch, Punt Road, South Yarra 1992 Silver gelatin print
Many thankx to the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Apple Macintosh Classic 1990 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Apple 20th Anniversary Macintosh 1997 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Apple eMate 300 1997 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Apple iMac Bondi Blue 1998 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg is showing the exhibition Stylectrical – On Electro-Design That Makes History from 26th August 2011 until 15th January 2012. The exhibition takes a look at the complex process of industrial product design in the context of cultural studies. Once again the Museum is taking up a highly topical and socially relevant subject. The focus is on the design of Jonathan Ive (b. 1967), Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, and responsible for creating all of the devices of the California based company. His products are of incomparable popularity on account of their extremely consistent and recognisable design. A quarter of the approximately 400 exhibits are products by Apple, which are shown for the first time in a comprehensive overview.
The exhibition traces a retrospective of works as well as of the company’s internal development of design, and provides a comprehensive insight into research questions of design history by means of this popular design. Along with the products designed by Jonathan Ive, numerous exhibits from the collection of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg will be shown, among them works by Herbert Hirche, Hans Gugelot, Dieter Rams, Peter Raacke, Michele De Lucchi, Hadi Teherani and Tobias Grau. The economic and environmental significance of design will be examined in cooperation with the red dot institute and the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA).
To give a product its shape goes well beyond Luis Sullivan’s often-quoted phrase “form follows function”. Various demands such as material, form, aesthetics, function, handling and usage must be taken into account during the design process and combined. Stylectrical reveals the complex steps and procedures of product design on the basis of the collected works of Jonathan Ive, it thus grants an insight into important discourses on the subject and points to new perspectives on modern design.
The exhibition is the first to show all products that were created since Ive is in charge of design at Apple. Among the exhibits are rarely seen devices such as the eMate300, a laptop from 1997 designed to be used in schools, the iMac Blue Dalmatian, and the company’s first flat screen. New products such as the iPhone 4, the MacBook Air, and the iPad 2 will also be shown. The exhibition lets the visitor trace the company’s design process of the past 14 years. Moreover, by means of these innovative products, it opens a discussion on questions of design theory about form, about use of material and about the manufacturing process. One excursus is devoted to the history of the company’s product development since its founding, with the intention to highlight the working method and special position of the design team within the company. Exhibits of the designers Hartmut Esslinger and Robert Brunner will be shown in this context, and the so-called “Snow White Design Language” will be discussed.
After the return of company founder Steve Jobs in 1997, Apple was restructured and the young designer Jonathan Ive became Senior Vice President of Industrial Design. Before long, Ive and his team caused a stir with their innovative iMac, the iBook and the Power Macintosh G3, which were all milestones of a modernised electronics design in the late 1990’s. Ive’s team turned its back on the established, uniform grey beige as a colour for computers of the past decades, and developed a colourful design made of translucent plastics.
Stylectrical shows the formal links between Jonathan Ive’s design and the works of leading creators of electronics’ design history, and it thoroughly addresses the close relation to products of the German company Braun. In this context the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg will be showing some first-rate items from its own comprehensive collection of post-war industrial design. Early works of the designers Hans Gugelot, Herbert Hirche and Dieter Rams, but also works from recent decades by Michele De Lucchi and Tobias Grau will be on display. After the evolution of design in Germany had come to a near halt during the Second World War, there were various attempts in the 1950s to pick up again where the programmatic developments of the Weimar period had left off. The probably most significant initiative was called into life in 1953 by the founders of the Ulm School of Design. Otl Aicher, Inge Aicher-Scholl and Max Bill adopted for this school the approach of the Bauhaus, which had been closed by the National Socialists. When Max Bill left the institution in 1957, the so-called “Ulm-Model” took the place of the original concept of the school. It had three relevant criteria: a new and systematic methodology of design, the promotion of interdisciplinary teamwork, and a close cooperation with the industry. Important approaches evolved during this time, which are being pursued to this day. Amongst others, the Ulm school worked for electronics’ manufacturers. The cooperation with the Kronberg-based company Braun is especially relevant; the designers from Ulm developed important guidelines that influenced the design of Braun until the 1990s, when Dieter Rams was the chief designer.
The significance of Jonathan Ive’s and his team’s ideas for the history of American industrial design, as well as their influence on all industrial products, are another focus of the exhibition. By means of the outstanding example of Apple it is possible to show how consistent design can sustainably determine the image of a company and contribute significantly to its economic success, as well as influence 21st century society and culture.
Press release from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Apple iPod 2001 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Apple Power Mac 2003 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Braun Radio-phone combination SK4 1956 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Braun Television set HF 1 1958 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Nintendo Portable game console Gameboy 1995 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Sony Walkman TPS-L2 1979 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Braun Transistor radio T3 1958 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Braun Record player PS1000 1956 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Photo: Roman Raacke
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg Steintorplatz, 20099 Hamburg
Irene Bayer (American, 1898-1991) No title (Man on stage) c. 1927 Gelatin silver photograph Printed image 10.6 h x 7.6 w cm Purchased 1983 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
This is one of the best exhibitions this year in Melbourne bar none. Edgy and eclectic the work resonates with the viewer in these days of uncertainty: THIS should have been the Winter Masterpieces exhibition!
The title of the exhibition, The mad square (Der tolle Platz) is taken from Felix Nussbaum’s 1931 painting of the same name where “the ‘mad square’ is both a physical place – the city, represented in so many works in the exhibition, and a reference to the state of turbulence and tension that characterises the period.” The exhibition showcases how artists responded to modern life in Germany in the interwar years, years that were full of murder and mayhem, putsch, revolution, rampant inflation, starvation, the Great Depression and the rise of National Socialism. Portrayed is the dystopian, dark side of modernity (where people are the victims of a morally bankrupt society) as opposed to the utopian avant-garde (the prosperous, the wealthy), where new alliances emerge between art and politics, technology and the mass media. Featuring furniture, decorative arts, painting, sculpture, collage and photography in the sections World War 1 and the Revolution, Dada, Bauhaus, Constructivism and the Machine Aesthetic, Metropolis, New Objectivity and Power and Degenerate Art, it is the collages and photographs that are the strongest elements of the exhibition, particularly the photographs. What a joy they are to see.
There is a small 2″ x 3″ contact print portrait of Hanna Höch by Richard Kauffmann, Penetrate yourself or: I embrace myself (1922) that is an absolute knockout. Höch is portrayed as the ‘new women’ with short bobbed hair and loose modern dress, her self-image emphasised through a double exposure that fragments her face and multiplies her hands, set against a contextless background. The ‘new women’ fragmented and broken apart (still unsure of herself?). The photograph is so small and intense it takes your breath away. Similarly, there is the small, intimate photograph No title (Man on Stage) (c. 1927) by Irene Bayer (see above) that captures performance as ‘total art’, a combination of visual arts, dance, music, architecture and costume design. In contrast is a large 16 x 20″ photograph of the Bauhaus balconies (1926) by László Moholy-Nagy (see below) where the whites are so creamy, the perspective so magnificent.
No title (Metalltanz) (c. 1928-1929) by T. Lux Feinenger, a photographer that I do not know well, is an exceptional photograph and print. Again small, this time dark and intense, the image features man as dancer performing gymnastics in front of reflective, metal sculptures. The metal becomes an active participant in the Metalltanz or ‘Dance in metal’ because of its reflective qualities. The print, from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles is luminous. In fact all the prints from the Getty in this exhibition are of the most outstanding quality, a highlight of the exhibition for me. Another print from the Getty that features metal and performance is Untitled(Spiral Costume, from the Triadic Ballet) by T Grill c. 1926-1927 (see below) where the spiral costume becomes an extension of the body, highlighting its form. Also highlighting form, objectivity and detachment is a wonderful 3 x 5″ photograph of the New Bauhaus Building, Dessau (1926) by Lucia Moholy from the Getty collection, the first I have ever seen in the flesh by this artist. Outstanding.
Following, we have 4 photograms by Lucia’s husband, László Moholy-Nagy which display formalist experimentation “inspired by machine aesthetic, exploring a utopian belief that Constructivism and abstract art could play a role in the process of social reform.” Complimenting these photograms is a row of six, yes six! Moholy-Nagy including Dolls (Puppen)1926-1927 (Getty), The law of the series 1925 (Getty), Lucia at the breakfast table 1926 (Getty), Spring, Berlin 1928 (George Eastman House), Berlin Radio Tower1928 (Art Institute of Chicago) and Light space modulator1930 (Getty). All six photographs explore the fascinating relationship between avant-garde art and photography, between they eye and perspective, all the while declaiming what Moholy-Nagy called the “new vision”; angles, shadows and geometric patterns that defy traditional perspective “removing the space from associations with the real world creating a surreal, disjointed image.” This topographic mapping flattens perspective in the case of the Berlin radio tower allowing the viewer to see the world in a new way.
Finally two groups of photographs that are simply magnificent.
First 8 photographs in a row that focus on the order and progressive nature of the modern world, the inherent beauty of technology captured in formalist studies of geometric forms. The prints range from soft pictorialist renditions to sharp clarity. The quality of the prints is amazing. Artists include the wonderful E. O. Hoppé, Albert Renger-Patzsch (an outstandingly beautiful photograph, Harbour with cranes 1927 that is my favourite photograph in the exhibition, see below), Two Towers 1937-1938 by Werner Mantz and some early Wolfgang Sievers before he left Germany for Australia in 1938 (Blast furnace in the Ruhr, Germany 1933, see below). These early Sievers are particularly interesting, especially when we think of his later works produced in Australia. Lucky were many artists who survived in Germany or fled from Nazi persecution at the last moment, including John Heartfield who relocated to Czechoslovakia in 1933 and then fled to London in 1938 and August Sander whose life and work were severely curtailed under the Nazi regime and whose son died in prison in 1944 near the end of his ten year sentence (Wikipedia).
August Sander. Now there is a name to conjure with. The second magnificent group are 7 photographs that are taken from Sander’s seminal work People of the 20th Century. All the photographs have soft, muted tones of greys with no strong highlights and, usually, contextless backgrounds. The emphasis is on archetypes, views of people who exist on the margins of society – circus performers, bohemians, artists, the unemployed and blind people. In all the photographs there is a certain frontality (not necessarily physical) to the portraits, a self consciousness in the sitter, a wariness of the camera and of life. This self consciousness can be seen in the two photographs that are the strongest in the group – Secretary at West German radio in Cologne, 1931 and Match seller 1927 (see below).
There is magic here. Her face wears a somewhat quizzical air – questioning, unsure, vulnerable – despite the trappings of affluence and fashionability (the smoking of the cigarette, the bobbed hair). He is wary of the camera, his face and hands isolated by Sander while the rest of his body falls into shadow. His right hand is curled under, almost deformed, his shadow falling on the stone at right, the only true brightness in this beautiful image the four boxes of matches he clutches in his left hand: as Sander titles him ironically, The Businessman.
Working as I do these days with lots of found images from the 1940s-1960s that I digitally restore to life, I wonder what happened to these people during the dark days of World War 2. Did they survive the cataclysm, the drop into the abyss? I want to know, I want to reach out to these people to send them good energy. I hope that they did but their wariness in front of the camera, so intimately ‘taken’ by Sander, makes me feel the portent of things to come. How differently we see images armed with the hindsight of history!
In conclusion, this is a fantastic exhibition that will undoubtedly be in my top ten of the year for Melbourne in 2011.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Michael Thorneycroft for his help and The National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the accredited photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Felix Nussbaum (German, 1904 – after September 1944) The mad square (Der tolle Platz) 1931 Oil on canvas 97 x 195.5cm Berlinische Galerie Public domain
Over the winter and spring of 1927-1928, Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy took a series of perhaps nine views looking down from the Berlin Radio Tower, one of the most exciting new constructions in the German capital. Moholy had already photographed the Eiffel Tower in Paris from below, looking up through the tower’s soaring girders. In Berlin, however, Moholy turned his camera around and pointed it straight down at the ground. This plunging perspective showed off the spectacular narrowness of the Radio Tower, finished in 1926, which rose vertiginously to a height of 450 feet from a base seven times smaller than that of its Parisian predecessor (which opened in 1889). Moholy attached exceptional importance to this, his boldest image: he hung it just above his name in a room devoted to his work at the Berlin showing of Film und Foto, a mammoth traveling exhibition that he had helped to prepare. Moholy also chose this view and one other to offer Julien Levy, the pioneering art dealer, when Levy visited him in Berlin in 1930. The following year the pictures went on view at the Levy Gallery in New York, in Moholy’s first solo exhibition of photographs.
The Light-Space Modulator is the most spectacular and complete realisation of László Moholy-Nagy’s artistic philosophy. Machine parts and mechanical structures began to appear in his paintings after his emigration from Hungary, and they are also seen in the illustrations he selected for the 1922 Buch neuer Künstler (Book of new artists), which includes pictures of motorcars and bridges as well as painting and sculpture. Many contemporary artists incorporated references to machines and technology in their work, and some, like the Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin, even designed plans for fantastic structures, such as the ambitious Monument to the Third International, a proposed architectural spiral of glass and steel with moving tiers and audiovisual broadcasts. (See Tatlin’s Tower.)
In the Light-Space Modulator, Moholy-Nagy was able to create an actual working mechanism. Although he censured capitalism’s inhumane use of technology, he believed it could be harnessed to benefit mankind and that the artist had an important role in accomplishing this. Moholy had made preliminary sketches for kinetic sculptures as early as 1922 and referred to the idea for a light machine in his writings, but it was not until production was financed by an electric company in Berlin in 1930 that this device was built, with the assistance of an engineer and a metalsmith. It was featured at the Werkbund exhibition in Paris the same year, along with the short film Light Display Black-White-Gray, made by Moholy-Nagy to demonstrate and celebrate his new machine.
The Light-Space Modulator is a Moholy-Nagy painting come to life: mobile perforated disks, a rotating glass spiral, and a sliding ball create the effect of photograms in motion. With its gleaming glass and metal surfaces, this piece (now in the collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University) is not only a machine for creating light displays but also a sculptural object of beauty, photographed admiringly by its creator.
Albert Renger-Patzsch (American born Hungary, 1895-1946) Harbour with crane c. 1927 Gelatin silver photograph Printed image 22.7 h x 16.8 w cm Purchased 1983 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Wolfgang Sievers (Germany 1913 – Australia 2007) Blast furnace in the Ruhr, Germany 1933 Gelatin silver photograph 27.5 h x 23 w cm Purchased 1988 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
The Ruhr region was at the centre of the German acceleration of industry in pre-war Germany, with rapid economic growth creating a heavy demand for coal and steel. In keeping with Modernist trends in photography, Sievers shot this blast furnace – the mechanism that transforms ore into metal – from an unusual, dynamic angle. It dominates the frame, appearing menacing and strange. Despite being imprisoned and beaten by the Gestapo, Sievers studied and taught at a progressive private art school until graduation in 1938. In that year he escaped Germany after being called up for military service, ending up in Australia.
August Sander (German, 1876-1964) Match seller 1927 From the portfolio People of the 20th century, IV Classes and Professions, 17 The Businessman
Robert Wiene, Director (German 1873-1938) Still from from the Cabinet of Dr Caligari 1919 5 min excerpt, 35mm transferred to DVD, Black and White, silent, German subtitles Courtesy Transit Film GmbH Production still courtesy of the British Film Institute and Transit Film GmbH
Hannah Höch (German, 1889-1978) Love 1931 From the series Love Photomontage 21.8 x 21cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Purchased, 1983
Hannah Höch made some of the most interesting Dada collages and photomontages, including Love, an image of two strange composite female. Höch’s technique of pasting images together from magazine clippings and advertisements was a response to the modern era of mass media, and a way of criticising the bourgeois taste for ‘high art’. In many of her works, Höch explores the identity and changing roles of women in modern society.
The Mad Square takes its name from Felix Nussbaum’s 1931 painting which depicts Berlin’s famous Pariser Platz as a mad and fantastic place. The ‘mad square’ is both a physical place – the city, represented in so many works in the exhibition, and a reference to the state of turbulence and tension that characterises the period. The ‘square’ can also be a modernist construct that saw artists moving away from figurative representations towards increasingly abstract forms.
The exhibition features works by Max Beckman, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Kurt Schwitters and August Sander. This group represents Germany’s leading generation of interwar artists. Major works by lesser known artists including Karl Hubbuch, Rudolf Schlichter and Hannah Höch are also presented in the exhibition in addition to works by international artists who contributed to German modernism.
The Mad Square brings together a diverse and extensive range of art, created during one of the most important and turbulent periods in European history, offering new insights into the understanding of key German avant‐garde movements including – Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus, Constructivism, and New Objectivity were linked by radical experimentation and innovation, made possible by an unprecedented freedom of expression.
World War 1 and the Revolution
The outbreak of war in 1914 was met with enthusiasm by many German artists and intellectuals who volunteered for service optimistically hoping that it would bring cultural renewal and rapid victory for Germany. The works in this section are by the generation of artists who experienced war first hand. Depictions of fear, anxiety and violence show the devastating effects of war – the disturbing subjects provide insight into tough economic conditions and social dysfunction experienced by many during the tumultuous early years of the Weimar Republic following the abdication of the Kaiser
Dada
The philosophical and political despair experienced by poets and artists during World War 1 fuelled the Dada movement, a protest against the bourgeois conception of art. Violent, infantile and chaotic, Dada took its name from the French word for a child’s hobbyhorse or possibly from the sound of a baby’s babble. Its activities included poetry readings and avant‐garde performances, as well as creating new forms of abstract art that subverted all existing conditions in western art. Though short‐lived, in Germany the Dada movement has profoundly influenced subsequent developments in avant-garde art and culture. The impact of the Dada movement was felt throughout Europe – and most powerfully in Germany from 1917-21.
Bauhaus
The Bauhaus (1919‐1933) is widely considered as the most important school of art and design of the 20th century, very quickly establishing a reputation as the leading and most progressive centre of the international avant‐garde. German architect Walter Gropius founded the school to do away with traditional distinctions between the fine arts and craft, and to forge an entirely new kind of creative designer skilled in both the conceptual aesthetics of art and the technical skills of handicrafts. The Bauhaus was considered to be both politically and artistically radical from its inception and was closed down by the National Socialists in 1933
Constructivism and the Machine Aesthetic
Having emerged in Russia after World War I, Constructivism developed in Germany as a set of ideas and practices that experimented with abstract or non-representational forms and in opposition to Expressionism and Dada. Constructivists developed works and theories that fused art and with technology. They shared a utopian belief in social reform, and saw abstract art as playing a central role in this process.
Metropolis
By the 1920s Berlin has become the cultural and entertainment capital of the world and mass culture played an important role in distracting a society traumatised by World War 1, the sophisticated metropolis provided a rich source of imagery for artists, it also come to represent unprecedented sexual and personal freedom. In photography modernity was emphasised by unusual views of the metropolis or through the representation of city types. The diverse group of works in this section portray the uninhibited sense of freedom and innovation experienced by artists throughout Germany during the 1920s
New Objectivity
By the mid 1920s, a new style emerged that came to be known as Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity. After experiencing the atrocities of World War 1 and the harsh conditions of life in postwar Germany, many artists felt the need to return to the traditional modes of representation with portraiture becoming a major vehicle of this expression, with its emphasis on the realistic representation of the human figure
Power and Degenerate Art
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 modern artists were forbidden from working and exhibiting in Germany, with their works confiscated from leading museums and then destroyed or sold on the international art market. Many avant‐garde artists were either forced to leave Germany or retreat into a state of ‘inner immigration’.
The Degenerate art exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, represented the culmination of the National Socialists’ assault on modernism. Hundreds of works were selected for the show which aimed to illustrate the mental deficiency and moral decay that had supposedly infiltrated modern German art. The haphazard and derogatory design of the exhibition sought to ridicule and further discredit modern art. Over two million people visited the exhibition while in contrast far fewer attended the Great German art exhibition which sought to promote what the Nazis considered as ‘healthy’ art.
Karl Grill (German active Donaueschingen, Germany 1920s) Untitled (Spiral Costume, from the Triadic Ballet) c. 1926-1927 Gelatin silver print 22.5 x 16.2cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
In 1922, Oskar Schlemmer premiered his “Triadic Ballet” in Germany. He named the piece “Triadic” because it was literally composed of multiples of three: three acts, colours, dancers, and shapes. Concentrating on its form and movement, Schlemmer explored the body’s spatial relationship to its architectural surroundings. Although an abstract design, the spiral costume derived from the tutus of classical ballet.
~ Berlin’s population doubles to two million people
1911
~ Expressionists move from Dresden to Berlin
1912
~ Social Democratic Party (SPD) the largest party in the Reichstag
1913
~ Expressionists attain great success with their city scenes
1914
~ World War I begins ~ George Grosz, Oskar Schlemmer, Otto Dix, Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann and Franz Marc enlist in the army
1915
~ Grosz declared unfit for service, Beckmann suffers a breakdown and Schlemmer wounded
1916
~ Marc dies in combat ~ Dada begins at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich
1917
~ Lenin and Trotsky form the Soviet Republic after the Tzar is overthrown
1918
~ Richard Huelsenbeck writes a Dada manifesto in Berlin ~ Kurt Schwitters creates Merz assemblages in Hanover ~ Revolutionary uprisings in Berlin and Munich ~ Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates and flees to Holland ~ Social Democratic Party proclaims the Weimar Republic ~ World War I ends
1919
~ Freikorps assassinates the Spartacist leaders, Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxemburg ~ Bauhaus established in Weimer by Walter Gropius ~ Cologne Dada group formed ~ Treaty of Versailles signed
1920
~ Berlin is the world’s third largest city after New York and London ~ Inflation begins in Germany ~ National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) founded ~ Kapp Putsch fails after right‐wing forces try to gain control over government ~ First International Dada fair opens in Berlin
1921
~ Hitler made chairman of the NSDAP
1922
~ Schlemmer’s Triadic ballet premiers in Stuttgart ~ Hyperinflation continues
1923
~ Hitler sentenced to five years imprisonment for leading the Beer Hall Putsch ~ Inflation decreases and a period of financial stability begins
1924
~ Hitler writes Mein Kampf while in prison ~ Reduction of reparations under the Dawes Plan
1925
~ New Objectivity exhibition opens at the Mannheim Kunsthalle ~ The Bauhaus relocates to Dessau
1926
~ Germany joins the League of Nations
1927
~ Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis released ~ Unemployment crisis worsens ~ Nazis hold their first Nuremburg party rally
1928
~ Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The threepenny opera premieres in Berlin ~ Hannes Meyer becomes the second director of the Bauhaus
1929
~ Street confrontations between the Nazis and communists in Berlin ~ Young Plan accepted, drastically reducing reparations ~ Stock market crashes on Wall Street, New York ~ Thomas Mann awarded the Nobel Prize for literature
1930
~ Resignation of Chancellor Hermann Müller’s cabinet ending parliamentary rule ~ Minority government formed by Heinrich Brüning, leader of the Centre Party ~ Nazis win 18% of the vote and gain 95 seats in the National elections ~ Ludwig Miles van der Rohe becomes the third director of the Bauhaus ~ John Heartfield creates photomontages for the Arbeiter‐Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ)
1931
~ Unemployment reaches five million and a state of emergency is declared in Germany
1932
~ Nazis increase their representation in the Reichstag to 230 seats but are unable to form a majority coalition ~ Miles van der Rohe moves the Bauhaus to Berlin ~ Grosz relocates to New York as an exile
1933
~ Hindenberg names Hitler as Chancellor ~ Hitler creates a dictatorship under the Nazi regime ~ The first Degenerate art exhibition denouncing modern art is held in Dresden ~ Miles van der Rohe announces the closure of the Bauhaus ~ Nazis organise book burnings in Berlin ~ Many artists including Gropius, Kandinski and Klee flee Germany ~ Beckmann, Dix and Schlemmer lose their teaching positions
1934
~ Fifteen concentration camps exist in Germany
1935
~ The swastika becomes the flag of the Reich
1936
~ Spanish civil war begins ~ Germany violates the Treaty of Versailles ~ Olympic Games held in Garmisch‐Partenkirchen and Berlin ~ Thomas Mann deprived of his citizenship and emigrates to the United States
1937
~ German bombing raids over Guernica in Spain in support of Franco ~ The Nazi’s Degenerate art exhibition opens in Munich and attracts two million visitors ~ Beckmann, Kirchner and Schwitters leave Germany ~ Purging of ‘degenerate art’ from German museums continues 1
1/ Timeline credit: Chronology compiled by Jacqueline Strecker and Victoria Tokarowski from the following sources:
~ Catherine Heroy ‘Chronology’ in Sabine Rewald, Glitter and Doom: German portraits from the 1920s, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, exh cat, 2006, pp. 39‐46 ~ Anton Kaes, Martin Jay and Edward Dimendberg, eds, ‘Political chronology’, The Weimar Republic sourcebook, Berkely 1994, pp. 765‐71 ~ Jonathan Petropoulos and Dagmar Lott‐Reschke ‘Chronology’ in Stephanie Barron, ‘Degenerate Art’: the fate of the avant‐garde in Nazi Germany, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, exh cat, 1991, pp. 391‐401
László Moholy-Nagy (American born Hungary, 1895-1946) Bauhaus Balconies 1926 Silver gelatin photograph
John Heartfield’s photomontages expose hidden agendas in German politics and economics of the 1920s and 30s. This image was published six months before the National Socialist Party came to power, and shows Hitler with a spine made of coins and his stomach filled with gold. The caption says that he ‘swallows gold’, alluding to generous funding by right-wing industrialists, and ‘spouts rubbish’.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880-1938) Woman in hat 1911 Oil on canvas Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
George Grosz (German, 1893-1959) Suicide (Selbstmörder) 1916 Oil on canvas 100 × 77.5cm Tate Modern Public domain
Rudolf Schlichter (German, 1890-1955) Tingle tangel 1919-1920 Oil on canvas
George Grosz (German, 1890-1945) Tatlinesque Diagram 1920 Watercolour, collage and ink on paper 41 x 29.2cm Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969) Dr Paul Ferdinand Schmidt 1921 Oil on canvas 63 x 82cm Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890-1941) New Man (Neuer) 1923 Color lithograph on wove paper 12 × 12 1/2 in. (30.5 × 31.8cm)
Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950) The trapeze 1923 Oil on canvas 196.5 x 84cm Toledo Museum of Art Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey Photo: Photography Incorporated, Toledo
Exhibition dates: 23rd November – 17th December, 2011
Curator: the artist
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Double Vision 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 23 x 26 x 7cm Shelf: 7.5 x 30 x 30cm
In the self contained world of commercial “art to go” galleries, this exhibition is the apotheosis of that form. The work is astonishingly beautiful, refined and self contained. Drawing on references to Islamic art, Brancusi (Endless Column), stalactites, wafting sea sponges and the changeable camouflage patterns of sea creatures, the sculptures are perfect in visualisation, creation, contemplation and containment.
Sitting on coloured perspex shelves the patterns spills of coloured Staedtler pencils explore “themes of flux, transformation and repetition as preconditions to our experience of the physical world.” The titles of the work hint at such an exploration: Double Vision, Trance-muter, Secretion, Losing Containment, Pattern Spill.
How I wish, long, crave to own one and I am not alone: on the opening night nearly all the sculptures were already sold! Obviously people recognise the uniqueness and beauty of this work.
And yet …
Part of me
longs
for a broken
pencil,
a
snapped t/wig,
something out of place
that puts
pattern to
shame.
For only in mutation is pattern given relevance (and this is what the irregularity of ‘spill’ is supposed to be about). The flow of the Pattern Spill sculptures are the only ones that get close to this mutation and that in a pretty, ordered way.
“What happens in the case of mutation? Consider the example of the genetic code. Mutation normally occurs when some random event (for example, a burst of radiation or a coding error) disrupts an existing pattern and something else is put in its place instead. Although mutation disrupts pattern, it also presupposes a morphological standard against which it can be measured and understood as mutation … Mutation is critical because it names the bifurcation point at which the interplay between pattern and randomness causes the system to evolve in a new direction…
The randomness to which mutation testifies is implicit in the very idea of pattern, for only against the background of nonpattern can pattern emerge. Randomness is the contrasting term that allows pattern to be understood as such.”1
Instead of pattern “something else is put in its place instead.”
I don’t get that here. Yes, these are beautiful, contemplative sculptures but one wonders how they will go on revealing themselves over months and years. I yearn for the prick of their imperfection.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Hayles, Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp.30-33.
Many thankx to Karen Woodbury Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Trance-muter 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 32 x 26 x 7.5cm Shelf: 7.5 x 30 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Secretion 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 31 x 25 x 17cm Shelf: 7.5 x 45 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Flipside 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy and incralac on perspex shelf 28 x 33 x 13cm Image courtesy Karen Woodbury Gallery and the artist
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Crossing the mirror 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy and incralac on perspex shelf 29.8 x 24.7 x 16.5cm Image courtesy Karen Woodbury Gallery and the artist
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Losing Containment 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form 1: 31.5 x 24 x 12cm Form 2: 33.5 x 33 x 26cm Shelf: 15 x 120 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) The caverns of temporal suspension (between two sites) 2011 White Staedtler pencils, epoxy and incralac 45.5 x 63.5 x 8.0cm Image courtesy Karen Woodbury Gallery and the artist
Lionel Bawden’s exhibition Pattern Spill will comprise of a range of small-scale objects created from vibrantly coloured pencils that are fused and sculpted together. By working with hexagonal coloured pencils as a sculptural material, Bawden is able to reconfigure and carve a range of amorphous shapes that convey movement and process. Bawden explores themes of flux, transformation and repetition as preconditions to our experience of the physical world.
This new body of work deals with ideas of control and collapse, surface and interior and organic patterns and energies through static three-dimensional objects. Bawden’s sculptures explore larger ideas beyond the work and relate to societal and natural systems, cycles and structures. Through his work, Bawden communicates macro ideas through micro detail. The works in Pattern spill become vessels for contemplation.
Alongside the sculptures there will also be a range of small meticulous drawings of vast hexagonal cells included in the exhibition. These drawings will act as companions to the sculptures, assisting to convey Bawden’s oblique explorations and meditations of the human condition.
Text from the Karen Woodbury Gallery website
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Pattern spill 2014 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy and incralac on perspex shelf 34 x 27 x 29cm Image courtesy Karen Woodbury Gallery and the artist
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Pattern Spill 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 30 x 23.5 x 33cm Shelf: 15 x 30 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Patttern Spill III 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 31 x 23 x 34cm Shelf: 15 x 30 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Secretion III 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 35 x 26.5 x 15cm Shelf: 15 x 30 x 30cm
Lionel Bawden (Australian, b. 1974) Elevation 2011 Coloured Staedtler pencils, epoxy, incralac on perspex shelf Form: 42.5 x 15 x 7cm Shelf: 7.5 x 30 x 30cm
Location: Aviation Museum and Library 1 – Front Wall Cases
Lockheed Aircraft Co., Burbank, California American Overseas Airlines Lockheed L-049 Constellation c. 1946 Scale 1:44 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
One of my favourite postings in a long while. As an inveterate collector how I would love to have these in my collection. What beautiful aircraft; what graceful models; what simple, gorgeous photographs by photographer Chad Michael Anderson. The Lockheed Constellation has to be one of the most delicious aircraft ever made. But the model I would take is the gorgeous Air France Breguet 763 Provence, because of it’s aerodynamic beauty and angle of flight.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to John Hill, Assistant Director, Aviation for his help and to SFO Museum for allowing me to publish the text and the photographs. Attribution for the photographs is to the SFO Museum (actual photographer unknown). Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Lockheed Aircraft Co., Burbank, California American Overseas Airlines Lockheed L-049 Constellation c. 1946 Scale 1:44 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
In 1945, in an effort to gain transatlantic routes to Europe, American Airlines purchased American Export Airlines (founded in 1937 as a subsidiary of the shipping company American Export Lines) and renamed it American Overseas Airlines (AOA). The airline then began purchasing suitable aircraft for its new subsidiary. The best choice for the lengthy route to Europe was the Lockheed Model 047 Constellation, one the longest-range and fastest airliners produced at the time. Like other airliner manufacturers, Lockheed had its own in-house model factory that constructed highly-accurately scaled models for its customers. It produced this 1:44 scale model for AOA in polished sheet aluminium and painted in the airline’s earliest livery scheme.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Maarten Matthys Verkuyl (Dutch) KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij) Royal Dutch Airlines Douglas DC-6 c. 1950 Scale 1:48 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
KLM (Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij) Royal Dutch Airlines commenced service in 1920. After ceasing operations during World War II, the airline rapidly emerged to become a leading European and international carrier during the postwar era. KLM received its first deliveries of the Douglas DC-6, both freighter and passenger versions, in 1948. The DC-6 was the first American-produced airliner to be introduced after the war. The model represents the DC-6 Princess Juliana (Koningin Juliana), which was the second aircraft Douglas delivered of the passenger version. The Dutch model maker Maarten Matthys Verkuyl fabricated the model from sheet zinc for a KLM pilot around 1950. It is one of only two produced by Verkuyl of the type using this material during this period.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Shawcraft Models, Uxbridge, England BEA Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador 1950s Scale 1:48 Wood, metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
In 1946, BEA (British European Airways) was formed as the British flag carrier for domestic and Continental Europe flights. By 1947, a number of independent airlines, including Scottish Airways, had merged with the company. In 1948, BEA placed an order for twenty of the Ambassador, a Douglas DC-3 replacement that had been under development by Airspeed of Great Britain since the latter years of World War II. This high-wing, tripletail, two-engine, mid-range aircraft was introduced in 1952 and operated by the airline until 1958. Shawcraft of Great Britain crafted the model of wood during the same decade, which accurately represents the Ambassador RMA Elizabethan, the flagship of the fleet. BEA’s comfortable Ambassador service, which was named “Elizabethan Class,” became highly popular among commuters between Britain and the Continent.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Peter V. Nelson, Reading, England Ethiopian Air Lines Convair 240 model aircraft Early 1950s Scale 1:48 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
Ethiopian Air Lines was founded in 1946 and began operating out of Addis Ababa Airport in 1947, with administrative, managerial, and flight crew support from TWA (Transcontinental & Western Airlines). In 1950, the airline acquired three Convair 240s in order to expand its routes and offer international service to Europe and Asia. These aircraft were produced by Convair of San Diego, California and developed to replace the Douglas DC-3. The sand-casted metal model represents the first aircraft to be delivered, ET-T-20, and was crafted by Peter V. Nelson in Great Britain during the same period. It was accurately painted in Ethiopian Air Lines’ vibrant early livery with the national colours of red, yellow, and green, and the Lion of Judah, the symbol of Ethiopia’s former ruler Haile Selassie – whose family traces their origins to King Solomon. Selassie played a major role in establishing the national airline, which was considered vital to the modernisation of Ethiopia after World War II.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Walkers Westway Models, London, England Capital Airlines Vickers Viscount model aircraft 1950s Scale 1:48 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
Capital Airlines originated out of a merger between Pennsylvania and Central Airlines to form Pennsylvania Central Airlines or PCA in 1936. In 1941, the airline moved its headquarters to the newly built Washington National Airport, and in 1948, changed its name to Capital Airlines. In 1955, in an effort to attract more passengers by offering technologically advanced aircraft, it became the first U.S. carrier to inaugurate turboprop-powered airliner service with the introduction of the British produced Vickers Viscount. The aircraft was originally introduced by BEA (British European Airways) in 1950, which made it the first of its kind to go into service, and moreover, it was years ahead of the introduction of other turboprop airliners. Capital purchased sixty of the aircraft and realised an increased market share nearly everywhere the Viscount flew. This sand-cast metal model was produced in the 1950s by Walkers Westway in London, England, and accurately painted in Capital’s iconic 1950s red, white, and blue livery with eagle logo.
Text from the SFO Museum website
La Maquette d’Etude et d’Exposition à Aubervilliers, France Air France Breguet 763 Provence 1950s Scale 1:50 Wood, plastic, metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
Created in 1933 through a merger of several French aviation concerns, Air France became one of the largest airlines in Europe by the late 1930s, with routes throughout Europe and to French colonies in North Africa and Asia. During World War II, the carrier moved its base of operation to Morocco, and by 1946, became nationalized by the French government and opened its first terminal in central Paris. During the latter years of the war, the French aircraft manufacturer Breguet began designing a large capacity, mid-range airliner that would ultimately become the double deck (Deux Ponts in French), twin-tail, four-engine 763 Provence. Air France ordered twelve of the aircraft, which entered service in 1953 and were operated on routes to Algiers and Southern Europe for carrying both passengers and freight. Crafted from wood by the French model maker La Maquette d’Etude et d’Exposition à Aubervilliers, the model represents the first aircraft delivered to Air France, F-BASN.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Immediately following the end of World War II in 1945, airlines and passengers benefited from a surplus of inexpensive, advanced propeller-driven transport aircraft, or “propliners.” Over the next fifteen years, commercial aviation expanded rapidly as airlines persistently requested improved propliner designs to lower costs, attract new customers, and gain advantages over competitors. In meeting these demands the manufacturers of North America and Europe developed increasingly superior aircraft. These included the jet-powered turboprop airliners that flew successively faster, higher, and farther.
Making scale models of these airliners was an important part of the design, manufacturing, and marketing process during this period. Crafted by in-house model shops or independent model makers, they represented the new designs in miniature for convenient three-dimensional analysis. Accurately painted livery schemes on the models helped the airlines to imagine the new airliner operating within their fleet. Carriers also commissioned the making of models to promote their improved services in airline offices and travel agencies. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, they were usually made of sheet or cast metal and complemented with metal bases often formed into unique streamline shapes. By the late 1950s, models began to be produced from plastic, which was easier to mold into intricate shapes and reflected the proliferation of new synthetic resins.
These models represent the age of postwar propliners, which lasted until the 1960s when faster, more fuel-efficient and propeller-less turbojet airliners began to supersede them. They are from the collection of Anthony J. Lawler, an aviation industry professional and avid airplane model collector since first seeing the De Havilland Comet – the world’s first jetliner – fly over his boyhood home in Rhodesia. Mr. Lawler has spent decades assembling one of the finest collections of scale airliner display models, most of which were acquired while working as a senior sales representative for Airbus North America during the 1980s and 1990s. His collection spans a century of commercial aviation design innovation.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Raise-Up Models, Rotterdam, Netherlands REAL (Redes Estaduais Aéreas Limitadas) Transportes Aéreos Lockheed 1049H Super Constellation 1950s Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
In 1945, Vicente Mammana Netto and Linneu Gomes formed REAL (Redes Estaduais Aéreas Limitadas) Transportes Aéreos, as a small regional Brazilian airline. By the mid-1950s, the airline had grown substantially by acquiring numerous other Brazilian airlines and expanding its routes through South America. In 1958, in order to compete with its rival Varig, REAL acquired three long-range Lockheed 1049H Super Constellations. The next year, the airline inaugurated international service between Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles with stops in Manaus-Ponta Pelada, Bogotá, and Mexico City. By 1960, REAL had expanded its Constellation service to include trans-pacific flights to Tokyo. Ultimately, however, the international service proved too costly for the airline, and in 1961, amid financial difficulties, it was acquired by Varig. Raise-Up Models of the Netherlands produced the cast-metal model of the REAL Super Constellation. It was painted in the airline’s eye-catching green livery of the late 1950s, with the slogan “Voe Pela REAL,” meaning, “Fly on REAL” in Portuguese.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Peter V. Nelson, Reading, England Trek Airways Lockheed 1649 Starliner Early 1960s
Scale 1:62
Metal, paint
Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
Founded in 1953, Trek Airways was a South African airline based out of Johannesburg with service to Northern Europe. Initially, Trek was equipped with Vickers Vikings, which required overnight stops on routes to Europe. By the early 1960s, the airline began acquiring long-range Lockheed 1649 Starliners from carriers like TWA (Trans World Airlines) and Lufthansa, which had begun to replace these models with jetliners such as the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8. The Starliner provided fast, smooth, and comfortable service, along with the range and speed necessary for limited stops on routes to Düsseldorf, Vienna, and Luxembourg. British model maker Peter V. Nielson crafted the Starliner model for the airline in the early 1960s. At the time of acquisition, the heavy, all-metal model was used as a doorstop for the airline’s storeroom.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Westway Models, London, England BOAC Bristol Britannia 300 Late 1950s Scale 1:72 Metal, plastic, wood, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
In 1957, Britain’s long-haul international flag carrier BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) introduced the Bristol Aircraft Company’s turboprop Britannia on its routes to South Africa and New York. Two years later, the airline inaugurated the first regular round-the-world Britannia service via San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. The large capacity, long-range, jet-prop-powered airliner, nicknamed the “Whispering Giant,” was significantly quieter than piston-engine airliners of the period and provided smooth, fast service with comfortable accommodations. Due to many delays in its development, the airliner was introduced later than anticipated and only operated into the early 1960s, before it was replaced by faster jetliners with similar range and capacity, such as the Boeing 707. The all-metal model was crafted in England by Westway, a prominent builder of airliner models for the British aerospace industry during the 1950s.
Text from the SFO Museum website
Raise-Up Models, Rotterdam, the Netherlands Western Airlines Lockheed L-188 Electra model aircraft Late 1950s Scale 1:40 Metal, paint Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
Western Air Express was founded in 1925, and after several mergers and name changes, became Western Air Lines in 1941. During the postwar era, Western quickly grew as a regional airline serving routes from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to the West Coast. In 1959, the airline began receiving delivery of the Lockheed L-188 Electra, a new, revolutionary turboprop airliner developed and produced by Lockheed Aircraft of Burbank, California. With medium range, a cruise speed of nearly four hundred miles per hour, and a capacity for approximately one hundred passengers, the Electra was ideal for Western’s regional needs and, initially, was instrumental in attracting a larger customer base. This large-scale model was fabricated of metal by Raise-Up Models of Rotterdam, Holland, and was painted to represent one of the first aircraft received from Lockheed in Western’s late 1950s red-and-white livery with the Native American logo.
Text from the SFO Museum website
U.S.S.R. Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-114 Rossiya Early 1960s Scale 1:100 Metal, paint, plastic Collection of Anthony J. Lawler
SFO Museum San Francisco International Airport P.O. Box 8097 San Francisco, CA 94128 USA Phone: 650.821.6700
Exhibition dates: 20th October – 26th November, 2011
Curator: Paul Hodges
Dr Marcus Bunyan holding his new Alan Constable camera at the opening of Movement and Emotion 2011. More of Alan’s cameras can be seen behind.
I have added a new Alan Constable camera to my collection. Yah!
The one I have chosen is very unusual. The camera has a third eye and a stunning glaze. The exhibition features the work of three Arts Project Australia artists: Alan Constable, Chris O’Brien and Terry Williams. All three artists explore machine aesthetics within their practice.
I really hope that the National Gallery of Victoria purchases some of these cameras. They are the most unusual and beautiful sculptural pieces I have seen in a long time.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Art Project Australia for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See more images from the Movement and Emotion exhibition.
Alan Constable (Australian, b. 1956) Not titled (three lens red camera) 2011
Marcus with jeweller Marianne Cseh at right looking at the Alan Constable camera
Opening night crowd at Movement and Emotion, Arts Project Australia
Opening night, with at left curator and artist Paul Hodges, artist Jodie Noble (seated), myself and, at right, Jonah Jones, President of the board of Arts Project Australia
Dr Marcus Bunyan giving the opening night speech for the exhibition Movement and Emotion. Read the opening night speech. I was so nervous my jeweller friend Marianne said she could see my hands shaking from where she was standing in the crowd!!
Artist Catherine Staughton standing in front of her work
Arts Project Australia
Studio 24 High Street Northcote Victoria 3070 Phone: + 61 3 9482 4484
Gallery Level 1 Perry Street building Collingwood Yards Enter via 35 Johnson Street or 30 Perry Street, Collingwood Phone: +61 477 211 699
Exhibition dates: 19th August – 6th November, 2011
Curator: Peter Boswell, Senior Curator at the Miami Art Museum
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Searchers in Rubble
2001
Vintage contact print
Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Steven E. and Phyllis Gross
And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather a force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there …
Frederick Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Sadness. And light. Hope. Amidst the inferno. Study the masterpiece Finding More Fireman (below) in the enlarged version and you cannot fail to be moved. It is all there: monumental, intimate, hellish, redemptive – salvation comes from within.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thanxk to the Miami Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Flower Offering 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Steven E. and Phyllis Gross
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Pit Looking North 2002 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Steven E. and Phyllis Gross
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Smoke and Spray 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Jeffrey Hugh Newman
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Moving the Monument 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Jeffrey Hugh Newman
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Finding More Fireman 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Charles S. and Elynne B. Zucker
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Searchers 2002 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Charles S. and Elynne B. Zucker
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Welders in South Tower 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Charles S. and Elynne B. Zucker
In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Miami Art Museum presents Focus Gallery: Joel Meyerowitz – Aftermath, an exhibition of photographs taken by the only photographer granted right of entry into Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. For nine months during the day and night, Meyerowitz photographed “the pile,” as the World Trade Center came to be known, and the over 800 people a day that were working in it. The exhibition consists of 24, recently-donated photographs, presented in the Focus Gallery section of the Museum’s Permanent Collection installation. Admission to Miami Art Museum will be free to all emergency personnel, including police and firefighters, and their guests throughout the exhibition’s run, August 19 – November 6, 2011. A special preview for emergency personnel will be held on Thursday, August 18, 2011, 4-7pm. Author and photography critic Vicki Goldberg will give a lecture entitled “What Remains” on Thursday, September 8, 2011, beginning at 6:30pm.
After September 11, 2001, the Ground Zero site in New York City was classified as a crime scene and only those directly involved in the recovery efforts were allowed inside. The press was prohibited from the site. Influenced by Walker Evans’s and Dorothea Lange’s work for the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression, Meyerowitz, long recognised as one of the pioneers of colour photography, was convinced that if a photographic record of the unprecedented recovery efforts was not made, “there would be no history.” With the help of sympathetic officials, he managed to become the only photographer granted right of entry into Ground Zero.
“I was making photographs for everyone who didn’t have access to the site,” says Meyerowitz, “I wanted to communicate what it felt like to be in there as well as what it looked like: to show the pile’s incredible intricacy and visceral power. I could provide a window for everyone else who wanted to be there, too, to help, or to grieve, or simply to try to understand what had happened to our city.”
Armed with a large-format wooden camera, Meyerowitz spent nine months photographing the site. In the first few weeks, he was chased off the site repeatedly, but over time, with the help of officials on and off site, the use of forged workers’ passes, and by assuming the “uniform” of hard hat, goggles, respirator, gloves, boots and duct taped pants, Meyerowitz became “woven into the fabric of the site.”
About the experience, Meyerowitz has written, “The nine months I worked at Ground Zero were among the most rewarding of my life. I came in as an outsider, a witness bent on keeping the record, but over time I began to feel a part of the very project I’d been intent on recording… the intense camaraderie I experienced at Ground Zero inspired me, changing both my sense of myself and my sense of responsibility to the world around me. September 11th was a tragedy of almost unfathomable proportions. But living for nine months in the midst of those individuals who faced that tragedy head-on, day after day, and did what they could to set things right, was an immense privilege.”
The photographs in MAM’s collection are from a unique set of contact prints (photographs printed on a 1:1 scale from the negatives) issued by the artist in 2006. As a group, they span the entire nine month period that Meyerowitz was on site, presenting a poignant, condensed view of the clean up effort, including portraits of the workers involved. The set is introduced by a single image of the World Trade Center towers taken by the artist in the 1980s from his apartment window.
The entire set of more than 8,000 photographs taken by Meyerowitz form an archive at the Museum of the City of New York. The Aftermath series was the focus of a 2006 book, Aftermath: World Trade Center Archives published by Phaidon (reissued this year in a special 10th anniversary edition) and an exhibition organised by the US Department of State that traveled worldwide from 2002 to 2005.
Press release from the Miami Art Museum website
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Explosion Squad Detective 2001 Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Steven E. and Phyllis Gross
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Steps Down to Plaza 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Jeffrey Hugh Newman
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Fireman at Last Column 2002 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Charles S. and Elynne B. Zucker
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Building #5 and Woolworth 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Simon and Bonnie Levin
Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) Welder and Rubble 2001 Vintage contact print Collection Miami Art Museum, gift of Steven E. and Phyllis Gross
Miami Art Museum 101 W Flagler St., Miami, FL 33130
Fredrick White (Australian) Everything 2011 Steel 210 x 120 x 250cm
A new sculpture by Fredrick White is appearing in the Lorne Sculpture Prize (now Biennale) which opened on the 16th October and continues until 5th November, 2011. The work continues the artist’s exploration into the matrix of what is seen and not seen, what lies above and below.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Fredrick White (Australian) Everything 2011 Steel 210 x 120 x 250cm
Antipersonnel. The positive pleasure of inflicting cruelty at an ambiguous physical and ethical distance. Use limited only by the imagination of the user. Detonated remotely using a laptop computer. 10 million times. US$3 each.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Foam for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Cold, distant images of building facades are associated with text. The narratives are written by Ondine Millot to describe the events that took place at the exact address of the buildings in the photographs. The spectator comes to understand that the series deals with an often undocumented consequence of human trafficking: modern slavery.
The images force us to come to terms with the upsetting reality that is hidden behind the ordinary facades. Raphaël Dallaporta denounces unbearable situations where one human being reduces another to the status of thing, and gives it depth through the distance of the photographs and his refusal to sensationalise.
Text from the Musée Nicéphore Niépce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020
In the autumn of 2010, Raphaël Dallaporta took part in an archaeological mission in the Bactriane region in Afghanistan, scene of Alexander the Great’s mythical conquest. Using a drone he designed himself, he took aerial photographs of endangered or heretofore unknown archaeological sites in a country at war. The remote controlled device was timed to take photos of unrivalled precision every five seconds. The way the images are put together with their voluntarily asymmetrical contours depict these inaccessible monuments and places at their best. The most cutting-edge technology reveals the artist’s themes – destruction, the precariousness of things. It brings to light that which was and is no longer. Is this not the very definition of all photography?
Text from the Musée Nicéphore Niépce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020
Raphaël Dallaporta photographs organs, like the encyclopaedic colour plates for an anatomy class. The legend, again, explains the origins of these silent images. The organ represented is not the issue; the reason for its presence on the slab is the issue. The apparent neutrality of the shot, according to a strict protocol (frontal shot, on a black background enabling the strong lighting of the “subject”), isolates each fragment of the body as a clue that enables to determine the cause of death. These relics of flesh and bone have a real role to play. But the way they are shot lends them a metaphysical and philosophical dimension that reminds us of life’s ephemeral nature and human vulnerability.
Text from the Musée Nicéphore Niépce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020
The body of the subject whose presumed identity is …, aged 92, was found in a ditch around 10.05am by a walker whose attention had been attracted by his dog.
The autopsy that we carried out on the body showed the presence of a state of extremely advanced putrefaction with partial skeletonisation, consistent with a death dating back one month in an outdoor environment; it is not possible to be more precise. There is no immediately detectable cause of death. No lesions suggesting recent detectable violence were observed. As for identification, the deceased is an adult male, wearing a pacemaker and an old surgical scar on the abdominal wall.
French photographer Raphaël Dallaporta (b. 1980) received the Foam Paul Huf Award earlier this year from an international jury. The prize is organised by Foam and is awarded annually to up and coming international photographers below the age of 35. A major aspect of the award is an exhibition. Observation appears at Foam from 2 September to 26 October. Characteristic of the show’s four series is the clinical, perceptive style of photography. Dallaporta’s photos possess an inner tension that stems from the beauty of the object and the serious tone of the subject. The photographer works intensively with specialists in fields relating to his series. Jury chair François Hébel (director of Les Rencontres d’Arles international photography festival) comments on Dallaporta’s work that ‘He combines involvement with a highly analytical approach to social perversities. His uncompromising, conceptual and extremely creative approach mark him as an authentic artist who stands out in the young generation of photographers.’
The landmines in the Antipersonnel series have an exquisite beauty: small, with pleasant colours and an attractive form. Elegantly photographed, simply framed and persuasively presented, their aesthetic quality is what first attracts attention. Until we realise the full purpose of their existence: pure cruelty.
Fragile features frontal and objective shots of organs and limbs taken from corpses. Dallaporta worked with a team of forensic surgeons for this series. While the physicians were looking for causes of death, Dallaporta recorded the body parts they examined and the instruments they used. The power of this work comes from the combination of apparently neutral images and texts relating to human pain.
Dallaporta also worked with experts when making Ruins. He travelled with a team of French archaeologists to Afghanistan. Using a drone – a small remote-controlled helicopter – he took numerous photos of the war-ravaged landscape. In combination, these form a single large aerial picture that also shows traces of ancient civilisations. Past and present come together in this series of almost scientific photos.
In Domestic Slavery, Dallaporta (pictures) and Ondine Millot (text) tackle the tragic reality of this phenomenon: people, many unregistered migrants, held against their will in places where their voice cannot be heard. While their names have been altered, the stories are true. Dallaporta’s clinical, unsentimental pictures of the buildings in which these modern-day slaves are kept testify to the banality of day-to-day inhumanity.
Text from the Foam website
Antipersonnel, 2004
Unknown objects seem to emerge from the darkness. The legend quickly informs us that they are anti-personnel mines. Raphaël Dallaporta deals with the object reproduced to scale and lets us imagine the consequences of its existence. There are no bloody reportage images to illustrate the mutilations caused by these devices. The photographer presents us with contemporary still life that appear inoffensive but that tend to be aestheticised by photographic techniques all the better to erase the actual use of the object.
Text from the Musée Nicéphore Niépce website [Online] Cited 29/03/2020
Type 72 blast mines are said to make up 100 million of China’s 110 million antipersonnel landmine stockpiles (Chinese officials claim this figure is exaggerated). Manufactured by China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO), Type-72s are reportedly priced at US$3 each. The Type-72B includes an anti-handling mechanism that makes it impossible to neutralise – if the mine is moved more than 8º from the horizontal, it will explode, amputating the limb that activated it.
On release from a CBU-2C.A bomb this 785 g submunition – known as the “Pineapple” – is stabilised and slowed in its descent by six fins. Each CBU-2C/A contains 409 BLU-3/Bs, of which nearly 25 percent do not explode on impact. d: 73mm W: 785g
When detonated the M-16 antipersonnel bounding fragmentation mine is shot up approximately 1.5m in the air and explodes within 0.5 seconds, creating a lethal radius of 10m. Nicknamed the “Bouncing Betty,” each mine is supplied with four tripwires (two olive-green, two sand-coloured) and a wrench. In September 2002 (the most recent statistics available) the USA had 465,330 M16s in stock.
A “Claymore” directional fragmentation mine releases 700 steel balls when detonated by a hand-turned dynamo, a tripwire or, when used with the “Matrix” system, remotely using a laptop computer. (Multiple Claymores can also be linked together using a detonator cord.) A 1996 Department of the Army filed manual states that, “the number of ways in which the Claymore may be employed is limited only by the imagination of the user.” In September 2002 (the most recent available statistics), Claymores made up 403,096 of the 10,404,148 landmines stockpiled by the USA.
Antipersonnel Bounding Fragmentation Mine, V-69, Italy. The V-69 can be set off by footfall pressure or through a tripwire. When detonated the fuse sets off propellant gases that fire the mine’s inner body 45cm above the ground. This explodes sending out more than 1,000 pieces of chopped steel. Between 1982 and 1985, its manufacturer Valsella sold around 9 million V-69s to Iraq. The mine was given a nickname by Iraqi minelayers: the “Broom”. 120mm, 3.2kg.
Exhibition dates: 28th July – 25th September, 2011
Curator: edited and curated collaboratively by Michael Semff, Corinna Thierolf, and Alexander Klar, with assistance from Pia Gottschaller and Birgitta Heid
Many thankx to the Pinakothek der Moderne for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the art work for a larger version of the image.
The exhibition, part of the AMERICAN SUMMER project, features the predominantly American holdings of drawings and sculptures from a private collection, with most of the works going on public display for the first time. What comes to the fore in this exemplary selection of largely American artists from the sixties and seventies and their impressive groups of works is the relationship between the media of sculpture and drawing. At the heart of the show lies the subtle dialogue between the conceptual ideas of ‘disegno’ [drawing] and their sensual transfer to the materiality of sculpture.
One of the private collection’s particular strengths is its focus on groups of works by individual artists. As a result, entire rooms have been dedicated to the artists Fred Sandback and Barry Le Va, while in addition larger groups of works by other artists, including Donald Judd or Gordon Matta-Clark, can be studied in detail.
The selection of exhibits creates a display of the art movements of the sixties and seventies: among them, Minimal Art, as represented by Carl Andre, Bill Bollinger, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Fred Sandback, Post-minimalism of Barry Le Va or Keith Sonnier, Conceptual Art, as represented by Sol LeWitt, and Land Art of such artists as Michael Heizer and Walter de Maria. The exhibition is enriched with works from the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München and the Sammlung Moderne Kunst.
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition: Der Raum der Linie – Amerikanische Zeichnungen und Skulpturen, edited by Michael Semff, Corinna Thierolf and Alexander Klar, with assistance from Pia Gottschaller and Birgitta Heid (containing essays from Jörg Daur, Pia Gottschaller, Birgitta Heid, Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Michael Semff, a conversation with Peter Soriano and an interview with the collector).
![Karl Grill (German active Donaueschingen, Germany 1920s) 'Untitled [Spiral Costume, from the Triadic Ballet]' c. 1926-1927](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/grill-spiral-costume-from-the-triadic-ballet.jpg "Karl Grill (German active Donaueschingen, Germany 1920s) 'Untitled [Spiral Costume, from the Triadic Ballet]' c. 1926-1927")
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