Sundays with Clyfford Still: An Inconvenient Artist (18)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still. I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 18 in the series. You can read the other posts here.

We are spirits in the material world: 1947-H no. 3 by Clyfford Still (Credit: SFMoMA)

In this piece about an upcoming exhibition at the Clyfford Still Museum that compares Clyfford Still with reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh, Judith Dobrzynski opines, “I think Still made a huge, egotistical mistake – preventing comparisons of works by other artists side-by-side doesn’t make him look better, it makes him look afraid. Wouldn’t this have been far more interesting if the van Gogh works were actually present, instead of there in reproductions?”

The Ultimate Fate of the Universe: Let It Rip!

Artist’s (not mine) conception of the end of the universe. (Credit)

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The hypothesis relies crucially on the type of dark energy in the universe.

All my hypotheses should rely on that.  Because that’s about the coolest thing a hypothesis could rely on.

I’m too sick this week to write much, so here’s some Lee Krasner from another art blogger. Enjoy.

IMAGE OBJECT TEXT

Lee Krasner, Untitled, 1948

After I came back from a trip to New York with students in the spring I wrote a lot here about the art I saw in galleries there. One thing that I didn’t write about at the time was a small painting I saw at the Metropolitan Museum; the relevant page on the Met’s website has been open in a browser tab on my laptop ever since I think, but it was seeing Mel Brimfield’s Clement Greenberg – Lee Krasner = Jackson Pollock that brought Lee Krasner’s painting back to mind. Though Krasner’s career was played out in the shadow of that of her husband Jackson Pollock, her contribution to twentieth century American modernism, and to abstract expressionist painting in particular, was considerable. Unlike Pollock’s action paintings, this work is modest in scale 76.2 x 63.5 cm to Autumn Rhythm‘s 266.7 x 525.8cm…

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Everyone in the world should read this.

Radfem Hub

Please reblog this radical feminist analysis of the Pussy Riot controversy.

Recently there has been lots of noise around the arrest of three members of Pussy Riot, a Russian anarchist female punk band. The media almost unequivocally represented them as the modern heroines of our time, fighting for freedom, democracy, sexual liberation and peace against a dark and ruthless dictatorship (articles are to be found in the NYT, Le Monde. The Guardian, etc.) Feminist groups all over the Western world are sending links and petitions to “free pussy riot”, and demonstrations have even been organised in support of the group by big institutionalised organisations such as “Osez le féminisme” (dare to be a feminist).

Now while I support without ambiguity the liberation of Pussy Riot’s members, it’s worth pausing for a minute to ask ourselves, as radical feminists, what the political dynamics are…

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Thanks, New York Times!

Photo credit: Just Cook It

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Hi there, readers from the New York Times!  Glad you stopped by.  Thanks for putting my blog stats through the roof.

I was in New York once.  JFK airport is the worst place I have ever been stuck for three days straight.  But New York has a lot of good art and some great pizza.

I am totally sucking up to you all in hopes that one of you will mail me some bagels.  I can’t get any damn bagels in Eastern Europe.  It’s killing me.

Your friend,

M.K. Hajdin
(P.S. If you want to see a little of my art, click here.  Also there’s some on this blog under the category / tag “art”.

Spot the Misogyny: The polite liberal sexist

It’s another episode of Spot the Misogyny!

The Russian punk group who was recently sentenced to two years in prison has already been covered to death by other sources. Though it does raise an issue about how willing people are to notice misogyny when it happens in other countries, but turn a blind eye to it when it happens in their own.

Sundays with Clyfford Still: A hundred million birds fly away(17)

Welcome to Sundays With Clyfford Still. I’m your host, M.K. Hajdin.

This is number 17 in the series. You can read the other posts here.

For this painting, I’d build a wall.

– Tiffany Weber

CSM – 4619 by Clyfford Still. Photo: Tiffany Weber

I am still in the process of researching this, but I will talk more about this painting and symbolism of birds in Clyfford’s work in future posts.

When I first saw CSM- 4619 I was immediately reminded of the song in the video clip below.  (Read the Youtube comments; they’re surprisingly eloquent.)

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Leave a comment below, or tweet with the hashtag #clyffordlove.

Antique poster of the day

Eugenie Buffet by Lucien Métivet.  Credit

I like her haunting stare.

Best of the Spam Filter, August 2012

My spam filter has been clogged with much hilarity lately.  I just had to share some with you,  internet.

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Let’s meet our spammers for August! 

Many of them are from Brazil, for some reason.

From Retrotisements – check this site out

hi!,I like your writing so much! share we communicate more about your post on AOL? I require an expert on this area to solve my problem. Maybe that’s you! Looking forward to see you. *tangled web of spam links*

Me: Okay, but there’ll be an extra charge for house calls in AoHell.

My life: Nice people. And puppies.

Apples on the tree

Today I woke up at 6pm from day 5 of Metformin coma with no groceries in the house.  Off I went, on foot, to the nearest large-ish supermarket, 4km away.

Strange weather:  rainy, but too hot to be refreshing.  I got to the store 15 minutes before they closed, bought more stuff than I could comfortably carry while holding a huge umbrella, and was on my way back when a little red car stopped and someone hailed me in English.