Saturday, June 1, 2024

Renger-Patzsch - Hundertwasser - Frankenthaler - Arp

Albert Renger-Patzsch
Stapelia grandiflora
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Albert Renger-Patzsch
Euphorbia grandicornis
ca. 1920-25
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Albert Renger-Patzsch
Gudrun Mathis
ca. 1927
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Albert Renger-Patzsch
Portrait of a Halligen Islands Woman
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Irinaland over the Balkans
1971
screenprint
San Diego Museum of Art

Friedensreich Hundertwasser
La Barca
1969
screenprint
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Venice
1968
screenprint
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Hundertwasser - Galerie Karl Flinker - Paris
1967
lithograph (exhibition poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Frankenthaler
Bridges
1995
color etching
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Frankenthaler
Freefall
1992
color woodblock and stencil print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Frankenthaler
Blue Current
1987
color aquatint, etching and lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Helen Frankenthaler
Ariel
1996
color woodblock print with etching and aquatint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Hans Arp
Plastron et Fourchette
ca. 1922
painted wood relief
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Hans Arp
Gris-Noir
1966
lithograph
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Hans Arp
The Sun Recircled
1966
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Hans Arp
Constellation
1928
lithograph
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Atlantis

Being set on the idea 
     Of getting to Atlantis,
You have discovered of course
     Only the Ship of Fools is
Making the voyage this year,
As gales of abnormal force
     Are predicted, and that you
     Must therefore be ready to
Behave absurdly enough
     To pass for one of The Boys,
At least appearing to love
     Hard liquor, horseplay and noise.

Should storms, as may well happen,
     Drive you to anchor a week
In some old harbour-city
     Of Ionia, then speak
With her witty scholars, men
Who have proved there cannot be
     Such a place as Atlantis:
     Learn their logic, but notice
How their subtlety betrays
     A simple enormous grief;
Thus they shall teach you the ways
     To doubt that you may believe.

If, later, you run aground
     Among the headlands of Thrace
Where with torches all night long
     A naked barbaric race
Leaps frenziedly to the sound
Of conch and dissonant gong;
     On that stony savage shore
     Strip off your clothes and dance, for
Unless you are capable
     Of forgetting completely 
About Atlantis, you will
     Never finish your journey.

Again, should you come to gay
     Carthage, or Corinth, take part
In their endless gaiety;
     And if in some bar a tart,
As she strokes your hair, should say
"This is Atlantis, dearie,"
     Listen with attentiveness
     To her life-story: unless
You become acquainted now
     With each refuge that tries to
Counterfeit Atlantis, how
     Will you recognize the true?

Assuming you beach at last
     Near Atlantis, and begin
The terrible trek inland
     Through squalid woods and frozen
Tundras where all are soon lost;
If, forsaken then, you stand,
     Dismissal everywhere,
     Stone and snow, silence and air,
Remember the noble dead
     And honour the fate you are,
Travelling and tormented,
     Dialectic and bizarre.

Stagger onward rejoicing;
     And even then if, perhaps
Having actually got
     To the last col, you collapse
With all Atlantis gleaming
Below you yet you cannot
     Descend, you should still be proud
     Even to have been allowed
Just to peep at Atlantis
     In a poetic vision:
Give thanks and lie down in peace,
     Having seen your salvation.

All the little household gods
     Have started crying, but say
Good-bye now, and put to sea.
     Farewell, dear friend, farewell: may
Hermes, master of the roads
And the four dwarf Kabiri,
     Protect and serve you always;
     And may the Ancient of Days
Provide for all you must do
     His invisible guidance,
Lifting up, friend, upon you
     The light of His countenance.

– W.H. Auden (1941)