Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Arbuses & Winogrands

Diane Arbus
Self Portrait in Mirror
1945
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

 
Diane Arbus
Girl with Governess with Baby Carriage, N.Y.C.
1962
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
A Castle in Disneyland, California
1962
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
A Husband and Wife in the Woods at a Nudist Camp, N.J.
1963
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Russian Midget Friends in a Living Room on 100th Street, N.Y.C.
1963
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Diane Arbus
A Flower Girl at a Wedding, Connecticut
1964
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Bishop by the Sea, Santa Barbara, California
1964
gelatin silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Diane Arbus
A Family One Evening in a Nudist Camp, Pennsylvania
1965
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Woman with a Locket in Washington Square Park, New York
1965
gelatin silver print
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Diane Arbus
Two Ladies at the Automat, New York City
1966
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Woman in her Negligee, N.Y.C.
1966
gelatin silver print
Milwaukee Art Museum

Diane Arbus
A Woman with Pearl Necklace and Earrings, N.Y.C.
1967
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey
1967
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Man at a Parade on Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C.
1969
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
This is Eddie Carmel, a Jewish Giant, with his Parents
in the Living Room of their Home in the Bronx, New York

1970
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Diane Arbus
Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Maryland
1970
gelatin silver print
Saint Louis Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Untitled (27)
1970-71
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Tod Papageorge
Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
1967
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Garry Winogrand
Staten Island Ferry
1971
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Garry Winogrand
Beverly Hills, California
1979
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Garry Winogrand
Metropolitan Opera
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from A Village Life

The death and uncertainty that await me
as they await all men, the shadows evaluating me
because it can take time to destroy a human being,
the element of suspense
needs to be preserved –

On Sundays I walk my neighbor's dog
so she can go to church to pray for her sick mother.

The dog waits for me in the doorway. Summer and winter
we walk the same road, early morning, at the base of the escarpment.
Sometimes the dog gets away from me – for a moment or two,
I can't see him behind some trees. He's very proud of this,
this trick he brings out occasionally, and gives up again
as a favor to me –

Afterward, I go back to my house to gather firewood.

I keep in my mind images from each walk:
monarda growing by the roadside;
in early spring, the dog chasing the little gray mice,

so for a while it seems possible
not to think of the hold of the body weakening, the ratio
of the body to the void shifting,

and the prayers becoming prayers for the dead.

Midday, the church bells finished. Light in excess:
still, fog blankets the meadow, so you can't see
the mountain in the distance, covered with snow and ice.

When it appears again, my neighbor thinks
her prayers are answered. So much light she can't control her happiness –
it has to burst out in language. Hello, she yells, as though
that is her best translation.

– Louise Glück (2009)

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Reckonings

William Eggleston
Untitled
1983
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 
William Eggleston
Untitled (Baby Doll Cadillac)
1973
dye transfer print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Joseph Cornell
Celestial Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova
ca. 1940
collage and tempera on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Joseph Cornell
Marine Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova
ca. 1940
collage and tempera on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Luca Giordano
Susanna and the Elders
ca. 1670
drawing
British Museum

Luca Giordano
The Institution of the Eucharist
ca. 1695
drawing
British Museum

Tracey Moffatt
Doll Birth
1972
offset-print
(photolithograph with letterpress)
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Tracey Moffatt
Laudanum
1998
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Mike Slack
Shrubs of Death #0620
2014
inkjet print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Mike Slack
Shrubs of Death #0638
2014
inkjet print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Richard Bosman
Man Overboard
1981
color woodblock print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Richard Bosman
The Wave
1987
color woodblock print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Gilbert and George
to be with art is all we ask
1970
offset-print (book cover)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Gilbert and George
A Guide to Singing Sculpture
1973
offset-print (book cover)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Laurie Simmons
The Love Doll, Day 30 (Meeting)
2011
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Laurie Simmons
Pushing Lipstick (Full Shadow)
1979
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from A Myth of Devotion

When Hades decided he loved this girl
he built for her a duplicate of earth,
everything the same, down to the meadow,
but with a bed added.

Everything the same, including sunlight,
because it would be hard on a young girl
to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness.

Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night,
first as the shadow of fluttering leaves.
Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars. 
Let Persephone get used to it slowly. 
In the end, he thought, she'd find it comforting.

                  *              *            *

He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.
First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.
In the end, he decides to name it
Persephone's Girlhood.

A soft light rising above the level meadow,
behind the bed. He takes her in his arms. 
He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you

but he thinks
this is a lie, so he says in the end
you're dead, nothing can hurt you
which seems to him
a more promising beginning, more true.

– Louise Glück (2006)

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Papapetrou - Lalique - Hickey - Cazneaux

Polixeni Papapetrou
The Harvesters
2009
inkjet print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Polixeni Papapetrou
The Caretaker
2009
inkjet print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Polixeni Papapetrou
The Sand Traveller
2009
inkjet print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Polixeni Papapetrou
The Watcher
2009
inkjet print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

René Lalique
Vase with Bacchantes
1930
glass
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

René Lalique
Davos Vase
1932
glass
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

René Lalique
Biskra Vase
1932
glass
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

René Lalique
Design for Necklace
ca. 1901
gouache and ink on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dale Hickey
Blue Studio
1982-83
mixed media on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dale Hickey
Dark Window with Pink Flask
1983
acrylic on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dale Hickey
Untitled no. 5
1986
enamel and oil on canvas
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Australia

Dale Hickey
Garage Doors
1988
mixed media on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Harold Cazneaux
The Ermine Coat
1931
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Harold Cazneaux
The Apache
1924
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Harold Cazneaux
Phillida Cooper in Ballet Dress
ca. 1932
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Harold Cazneaux
Anna Pavlova costumed for Don Quixote
1926
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

The Novelist

Encased in talent like a uniform,
The rank of every poet is well known;
They can amaze us like a thunderstorm,
Or die young, or live for years alone.

They can dash forward like hussars: but he
Must struggle out of his boyish gift and learn
How to be plain and awkward, how to be
One after whom none think it worth to turn.

For, to achieve his lightest wish, he must
Become the whole of boredom, subject to
Vulgar complaints like love, among the Just

Be just, among the Filthy filthy too,
And in his own weak person, if he can,
Dully put up with all the wrongs of Man.

– W.H. Auden (1938)