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Franz West
The Ego and the Id

The Ego and the Id is internationally acclaimed artist Franz West’s newest and largest aluminum sculpture to date. Soaring 20 feet high, the piece consists of two similar but distinct, brightly colored, looping abstract forms, one bubble gum pink and the other alternating blocks of blue, green, orange, and yellow. Each of the forms curve up at the bottom creating stools that invite passersby to stop, take a seat, and directly engage with the artwork. The sculpture is only truly complete once the viewer interacts with the work. The Ego and the Id is consistent with the artist’s overarching desire to produce sociable environments for viewing art using his signature combination of whimsy and monumentality.

Created specifically for West’s first comprehensive American retrospective this past fall at the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Ego and the Id borrows its name from one of Sigmund Freud’s best known texts, in which he explores the ego’s battle with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world. Removing the gallery walls heightens the connection between West’s work and Freud’s work, allowing these forces to intermingle with the streets of New York City as a backdrop.

Franz West began his career in mid-1960s Vienna during the height of a local movement called Actionism. His earliest sculptures, performances, and collages were a reaction to this movement, in which artists engaged in displays of radical public behavior intended to shake up art-world passivity. In the early 1970s, West began making a series of small, portable sculptures called “Adaptives” (”Paßstücke”). The Ego and the Id is in many ways an oversized version of an “Adaptive.” The sculpture also directly relates to the artist’s furniture installations, which transform galleries, museums, and public spaces into lounge-like environments. West has described the correlation between his plaster objects and furniture installations as a way to put dreams on earth; “The Adaptives would be the dream and the chairs and tables would be the Earth.”

About Franz West

Franz West lives and works in Vienna, where he was born in 1947. He has exhibited internationally for more than three decades in galleries and museums, and at major festivals including Documenta IX (1992) and Documenta X (1997), Kassel, Germany; Sculpture Projects in Münster (1997); and the Venice Biennale (1988, 1993, 1997, 2003, 2007). His first major American retrospective, Franz West, To Build a House You Start with the Roof: Work, 1972-2008, debuted at the Baltimore Museum of Art (2008), and then traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2009). His work has been exhibited at Gagosian Gallery, New York (2008); Gagosian Gallery, London (2006); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2003); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2003); and Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2001). He had a solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1997.

Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park
East 60th Street & 5th Ave.
New York, NY
Web: www.publicartfund.org

VIEW EXHIBITION

Patricia Correia’s passion for the arts started in the late 1970s when she was marketing the glass art designs of her brother Steven Correia. Her innovative marketing approaches created a new American market for contemporary decorative art and spearheaded the movement of luxury glass art found at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Harrods, and Cartier. Within a few years Correia Art Glass (CAG) became a multi-million dollar business with wide presence, and attained respectability in decorative arts evidenced in permanent collections including the Smithsonian Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, and the White House.

The Patricia Correia Gallery opened in Santa Monica in 1991. She represented both emerging and established artists for the next over 18 years, including Patssi Valdez, John Valadez, Ann Chamberlin, Llyn Foulkes, Richard Godfrey, and Gronk. She fondly reflects, “I started the gallery with this beautiful thought of promoting art and artists, and as you get into the business, you realize there are many more facets than that. That’s the ground breaker, and then it goes from there.” When asked to what she attributed her many successes, she replied, “I always had a natural instinct to sell. In all honesty, it is my passion: I’m passionate about the arts and in making a difference by helping both artist and collector and, so, creating a world with more communication.”

Now more than ever, it is important for artists to understand and to find avenues into the the art market. The art world is comprised of many genres, many levels, many institutions and many connections. The artist needs to grasp how these are structured to be successful. Patricia Correia shares her wide experience and many insights, and outlines the different paths an artist may take when seeking representation. Patricia explains, “You have to sell to survive. I know a lot of artists think commercialism is an ugly word, but, once you put that out there on the block, it is commercial. You, the artist, put it out there for critique, for review, for the pleasure and purposes of others. And these others have opinions and you need have to realize: that is commercial, period.”

Special thanks to New York City-based singer and songwriter Frank Bango and Richy Vesecky for allowing the use of the song, You Always Begin by Saying Goodbye, from the album, The Sweet Songs of Decay. www.frankbango.com.

Video interview by Veronica Aberham

For more information on Correia Art Glass go to www.correiaartglass.com

Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008)

Directed by Matt Tyrnauer

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

In a now-famous line quoted from one of Sigmund Freud’s letters, the Austrian psychologist asked, “What does a woman want?” For centuries, men have sought an answer. Many have offered their opinions, but one man, true to his character, believes he has the definitive answer. Known to the world as Valentino, fashion designer Valentino Garavani is a decisive artist who does not second-guess his instincts. Early in his life, Valentino’s instincts told him that women want beauty. Subsequently, he has devoted his entire career to achieving two goals: designing enchantingly beautiful fashions and making women feel more beautiful. His many celebrity clients, which in the past included Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and Audrey Hepburn and now number among them Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lopez, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett and Julia Roberts, exhibit an admirable loyalty: for example, Valentino designed wedding gowns for Kennedy (to Aristotle Onassis) and Lopez (to Chris Judd); best actress award-winning Roberts chose a vintage Valentino gown for her appearance at the 2001 Academy Awards; and Hathaway, who met Valentino on the set of The Devil Wears Prada, describes him as a close friend. (Valentino made a cameo appearance in the film.)

Although he retired in 2007, 77-year-old Valentino has not stood still. During 2009, he has appeared on Oprah, attended openings of Valentino: The Last Emperor, a film directed by Vanity Fair correspondent Matt Tyrnauer, and signed books at stores to promote Taschen’s publication of Valentino: A Grand Italian Epic. The volume consists of texts in English, French and German; drawings, advertisements, magazine shoots and press articles; interviews conducted by Tyrnauer with 20 Valentino collaborators; and an essay by Suzy Menkes, fashion writer for the International Herald Tribune. An Art Edition (100 autographed copies) contains four signed prints of original drawings from the 1950s and ’60s, and a Collector’s Edition (2,000 autographed copies) features special finishing and a clamshell box. For readers who missed out on those sold-out runs, the 576-page homage is available in a more modest but still quite impressive trade edition.

Tyrnauer’s documentary takes a less comprehensive, yet telling focus to the man and his career. Admirers and clients will glean much insight from it, while the film might be the best beginning for those who know little of Valentino beyond his signature red gowns. Valentino’s rise from aspiring designer to international legend began early in his primary-school years in Voghera, Lombardy, Italy. Even then, Valentino was attracted to men’s and women’s fashions. He apprenticed with his aunt Rosa and designer Ernestina Salvadeo. Sympathetic to their son’s passion, Valentino’s mother and father encouraged him, at age 17, to move to Paris. After working with Jacques Fath, Balenciaga, Jean Desses and Guy Laroche, in 1959 Valentino opened his own fashion house in Rome.

The film touches on biographical details but Tyrnauer’s intent, apparently, was to capture Valentino’s essence. Certainly, Valentino’s designs are paramount, but his personality and relationships are key to the mystery of Valentino’s unrivaled mastery. The evidence of a gorgeous array of gowns viewed from creation (drawings, draping on models, hand sewing, finishing) to runway modeling, demonstrates that Valentino remains beguiled by Hollywood glamour from the 1930s and ’40s. Similarly, his lavish lifestyle (museum-quality homes in Italy, France and New York; an entourage of six pampered pugs, bejeweled and minty-breathed; and celebrity-laden soirées) ranks far beyond Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Valentino lives in a self-made dream world (without sewing machines), reveling in uncompromising beauty and accomplished by his own will and determination.

The strength of Valentino’s will becomes clear through Tyrnauer’s portrayal of the designer’s bond with his long-time business partner and former lover, Giancarlo Giammetti. Previous to his 2004 Vanity Fair article on Valentino and Giammetti, Tyrnauer has stated, he had no experience of fashion journalism. Fascinated by their bond, Tyrnauer decided to capture it on film. The pair met in 1966 in a cafe in Rome, a pivotal event on which Tyrnauer capitalizes as iconic of the curious nature of their relationship: Valentino and Giammetti disagree on the identity of the cafe, and neither are willing to relent during a discussion held so many years later.

Typically, when meeting a differing viewpoint, Valentino becomes quiet and brooding. He shakes his head as if resigned to cope with such lamentable mistakes. His stance in this segment echoes countless times in the film; for instance, when he and Giammetti disagree over the number of ruffled panels on a show-stopping gown, and the display of designs at a retrospective of his career held at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome. Part of a three-day extravaganza during July 2007 for Valentino’s 45-anniversary fashion show, the retrospective plan offends Valentino’s sensibilities. (So does the museum.) Seeing the gowned mannequins fixed ceiling-high onto walls, viewers will likely agree that Valentino’s garments achieve their grandeur on the sylph-like models and real-life women who wear them. Even more, the circus-like description of a planned event at the Temple of Venus overlooking the Colosseum appalls him. By this time, viewers will realize long before he begins to brood that, however elegant the circus, Valentino wants no part in it.

The rest of the film focuses on the evolution of the company, now a billion-dollar fashion empire, formed by Valentino and his partner. Through two corporate takeovers, the last in 2007, Valentino has survived. Some may say that he was forced to retire from the company. No doubt convinced that a new age of businesspeople and designers did not share his vision of beauty, Valentino does not appear to be troubled by having to take a new direction. In fact, he seems more able to pursue his vision in his own way, free from corporate pressures. His women’s and men’s ready-to-wear lines, perfumes and accessories can be purchased at new boutiques established in such high-profile locations as Bangkok, Buenos Aires, New York, Honolulu, Dallas and Atlanta. And for the rest of 2009, at least, he will be busy attending more film openings and book signings.

Shot at the Temple of Venus event, the final scene of Tyrnauer’s documentary is as breathtaking as one of Valentino’s gowns. Just like the designer’s hand-sewn and embellished creations, the spectacle was a one-of-a-kind event. More of a Roman carnival than a circus, the display succeeded in capturing Valentino’s essence, that elusive beauty that is rare but enlivening. Congratulations to Tyrnauer for doing the same.

Andrea Arroyo’s “Temptation” exhibit features over thirty new paintings on canvas and panel.

“Deconstructing the female form and featuring it in simple, sensual lines… Arroyo’s paintings celebrate femininity and strength as she uncovers themes of gender, race and identity. Her work deconstructs the female form through the fluidity of movement on bold, brilliantly colored wood panels.” Where Magazine, 7/09

Andrea Arroyo is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Groundbreaking Latina in the Arts Award, Harlem Arts Alliance Award, New York City Council Citation Award for Achievement in Art, Puffin Foundation Award, and Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She was also named the Official Artist for the Latin Grammy.
Her works have been widely exhibited in galleries and museums and are in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Mexican Art, and the New York Public Library and in private collections in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Europe and Japan.

ANDREA ARROYO “TEMPTATION” EXHIBIT

ArtHaus Gallery,
411 Brannan Street,
San Francisco, CA  94107.
Phone:  415-977-0223.
Free and open to the public.

Directed by Stephan Elliott

Screenplay by Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

This year, admirers of Noel Coward’s sophisticated comedies of manners have reason to rejoice. Opening earlier in 2009 on Broadway, a new production of Coward’s three-act farce, Blithe Spirit, features a deliciously loopy Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcadi, a spiritualist who unwittingly brings forth the ghost of a novelist’s first wife. Wife number one’s appearance shatters wife number two, who winds up a ghost herself by the end of the play. For those who may not make it to Broadway, Coward (1899-1914), whose talents ranged far as playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, can be celebrated in movie theaters. Filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1928 as a silent dark comedy, Coward’s Easy Virtue has achieved new life in director/screenwriter Stephan Elliott’s (The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert) mostly successful adaptation. The film opened in July to theaters in the U.S.

Coward wrote Easy Virtue in 1924, early in his career, when he was 25-years-old. First staged in 1941, Blithe Spirit is a mature work. Coward punctuated his plays with some of the most wicked and witty dialogue penned for the stage. In Blithe Spirit, his characters’ repartee is fast and furious, with little time left for a breath between barbs and instances of exaggerated physical comedy. David Lean directed a well-received film version of Blithe Spirit (1945), starring Rex Harrison as the husband and Margaret Rutherford as the medium.

The dialogue in Coward’s earlier works is not as frenetic, and this is true for Easy Virtue. The storyline can be laid out fairly simply: While traveling abroad, a young Englishman, John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) is captivated by a daring, ravishingly beautiful American, Larita Huntington (portrayed with mixed results by Jessica Biel). Impulsively, he marries Larita, to the horror of his iron-willed, tradition-bound mother and his two sisters, Marion (Katherine Parkinson) and Hilda (Kimberley Nixon). Larita has many strikes against her as an American racecar driver who doesn’t ride horses; is morally against hunting; sports a movie star-quality platinum blonde hair-do; appears dazzling in an evening gown; and is on her second marriage. These qualities enchant her new husband, but at heart John Whittaker is an English schoolboy. Raised on a country estate and boarding-school educated, he aspires to nothing more than a shallow, traditional way of life that repels his thoroughly modern bride. By turns, Barnes is suitably suave and playful. Certainly, Biel looks the part of the daring American femme fatale. And she is marvelous dancing the Can-Can. Though her character falls flat at times, from the start viewers will be on her side and continue to route for her against her vicious in-laws.

John and Larita’s “brief” sojourn to Surrey to meet the family runs well beyond Larita’s expectation and tolerance level. She is perplexed by her in-laws exceeding eccentricities; old-maid Marion is a bitter pill and Hilda’s obsession with news reports of the recently departed is creepy. Kristen Scott Thomas as mother-in-law does Coward proud. Trying to keep the failing estate solvent may have withered Mrs. Whittaker’s beauty, but her stubborn resolve to remain in control of her property, family and cherished way of life would daunt the fiercest warrior. A manipulative, scathing critic of her son’s bride, Mrs. Whittaker loses no opportunity to puncture, with her daughters’ assistance, Larita’s self-esteem, even stooping to surrounding the allergy-prone Larita with vases of flowers at every opportunity.

For her part, Larita does everything wrong, speaks her mind and bonds with John’s father, played to perfection by Colin Firth. A dark horse whose place is the family baffles Larita until she learns of his past, Mr. Whittaker has become superfluous to his family, an unreliable and, occasionally, threatening figure in their quiet country life of fox hunts, tennis games, cricket matches and gala social events. But Larita finds more allies than the mysterious Mr. Wittaker. Choosing to call the cook (Joanna Bacon) by her name (a truly American gesture), Larita also bonds with Furber, the butler (Kris Marshall), whose subversive aid helps Larita through some sticky situations (among them, a rather unfortunate incidence involving a beloved family pet).

Coward purists might be troubled by a major plot change in which, rather than a divorcé, Elliott conceives of Larita as a widow convicted (but acquitted) of her husband’s murder. Yet this detail helps make Larita’s character and attachment to Mr. Whittaker more convincing. For the English upper classes during the early twentieth century, a divorce was, indeed, scandalous. Today, the notion loses much of its weight. Larita might seem to be a typical, Jazz-age adventurer, seeking thrills by traveling, racing cars and snagging a rich husband, but the loss of a husband through serious illness and an economically sketchy history has resulted in her devil-may-care attitude. Mr. Whittaker is cast adrift after seeing his comrades gunned down, while Larita loses something precious and knows it. Their ability to leave it all behind comes, in his case, from being lost; in hers, from a desire to experience life again.

Some may consider Elliott an odd match for Coward. The playwright excelled with perceptive skewering of upperclass English values and lifestyles. Elliott remains faithful to Coward’s intentions and admirably pulls off his own diversions; his risks pay off. Elliott restores Easy Virtue to the light comedy that Coward meant it to be, a romp through the hilariously superficial social lives of upper-class English clans that also satisfies with substance. (In his autobiography, Coward did not acknowledge Hitchcock’s film.)

Produced by Elliott and Marius de Vries, the soundtrack is a mix of old and new, as well. It features several songs composed by Coward (Mad Dogs and Englishmen, for example), popular hits from the 1920s and ’30s by Cole Porter and other popular composers (Mad About the Boy, Makin’ Whoopee, etc.), and contemporary songs (Car Wash, When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going).

At one point in her tangle with the in-laws, Larita retorts to one of John’s sisters, “Timing is everything.” This line sums up Coward’s artistic manifesto. Calculated for supreme effect, each line and action in Coward’s best works evinces an exquisite sense of timing. Given Coward’s success, it might be unfair to expect the same from Elliott. The real marvel is that, new to Coward’s work, Elliott created a lively, diverting and, ultimately, moving portrayal of upperclass England between the wars.

Russian master Nicoli Seroff (Armin Mueller Stahl)
teaches young John Talia (Trevor Morgan) how to paint.

Local Color (2006, released July 2009)
Directed by George Gallo, with a screenplay by the director

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

George Gallo’s feature film examining the complex relationship between a young painter and his mentor is a moving coming-of-age tale that, at times, dangerously skirts the line between poignant and cloyingly sentimental. But as the renowned artist whose life and work is its subject believes, art is sentiment. In fact, it is the “common ground” of humanity. Throughout the film, this Russian Impressionist painter, Nicoli Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl), lectures on art to teenager John Talia (Trevor Morgan); most likely, though, Seroff’s words are intended to convince himself of what he knows is everywhere but can no longer find: Beauty. As Seroff rages against the so-called “progressive” artists and intellectuals who cannot find beauty in the world, he struggles with his own loss of the source of genuine art.

An only child, John is isolated from his peers and his parents. His preference for visiting museums over playing sports and racking up girlfriends marks him as an easy target for the boys in his neighborhood. Phobic of homosexuals and Communists, John’s father, John Sr. (Ray Liotta), is solidly working class. John’s obsession with painting scares him. Still, he tries to understand his son’s motivation, bringing John to have his paintings framed and enrolling him in a local school with an art program (and plenty of attractive girls). Set in 1974 in the suburbs, Mr. Talia’s fears reflect barriers facing young artists at the time.

Fortunately, John is stubborn. He’s read all of the classic texts on painting, constantly sketches and knows, deep inside, that he has talent. Encouraged by the owner of the frame shop (Charles Durning), John continues to work on his own. Then he sees one of Seroff’s paintings in the shop and embarks on a series of frustrating but, ultimately, successful trips to the painter’s home. Despite Seroff’s liberal use of profanities and hostile behavior, John somehow wiggles his way into Seroff’s life. When Seroff offers to take John to his country home for the summer, John sneaks away for the chance of lifetime.

Seroff, in fact, does set John to painting (the porch, for example). And John learns to hang wallpaper. He also has his share of cleaning to do. Along with profanity, vodka is Seroff’s chief comfort. No longer willing, or able, to paint, he hides behind invectives against modern art. While John shares Seroff’s commitment to representational work, he becomes tired of the aging painter’s rants, as well as the abuse that Seroff hurls his way. There are a few rays of sunshine for John: Seroff feeds him well, offers plenty of alcohol and introduces him to a beautiful neighbor named Carla (Samantha Mathis), who bakes Seroff apple pies and brownies.

John begins to wonder about the bond between Seroff and Carla. As he learns more of their histories, his single-minded focus expands. The pain of losing a loved one, John grasps, has blinded Seroff to beauty. Seroff only sees the ugliness of the world, just as those he accuses of ruining art, represented by art dealer Curtis Sunday (Ron Perlman), who is trying to help Seroff ignite his career.

Earlier in life, director Gallo studied with Lithuanian painter George Cherepov (1909-1987) and had three one-person exhibits in New York City. Clearly, the director drew on his personal experience to create such vivid characters. John expresses every artist’s yearnings. Nearly all of his intellectual and emotional life is devoted to art. Whether painting or thinking about painting, John is consumed by a need to say something meaningful and to find a way to do it. As he develops his skills, John helps Seroff to remember the reasons for making art. When Seroff shows John his studio, the painter tells the boy that he paints to tell the world that he was here.

Gallo frames the film with narration by an older John looking back on his time with Seroff. While meant to provide back story, the dialogues are a bit heavy handed. Another quibble: In one scene, Seroff draws dealer Sunday into a exposé of the “progressive art” charade by pretending that paintings by mentally handicapped children were done by a master. Sunday falls for it, of course, provoking the dealer’s embarrassment and gales of laughter from Seroff, Sunday’s girlfriend and John. Some viewers may feel uncomfortable with such ploys. Overall, most viewers will find much to appreciate in Gallo’s portrayal of two painters, one at the start of life and one near its end, committed to art for art’s sake. Certainly, the film will resonate with artists at any stage in their careers.

Unveiling by Suzanne M. Wolfe (Paraclete Press, 2004)

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

Executive editor of Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion, which just celebrated its twentieth anniversary of publication, author Suzanne M. Wolfe also teaches at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. Her first novel, Unveiling, proves her to be an eloquent writer, capable of producing the most lyrical language and creating believable characters with emotionally powerful inner lives while building a suspenseful plot. Unveiling is a riveting mystery surrounding the authorship of a fifteenth-century triptych located in a chapel in Rome, but Wolfe’s grasp of human realities and divine potentials transforms the story into a parable of sorts where love and loss are the constants and simple kindness, generosity and courage are the balm salving the most wounded of souls.

Art restorer Rachel Piers is sent to Rome by her museum (a mid-size New York City institution whose reputation has been boosted by a recent project led by Piers) and the Apex Corporation to work on a triptych located in a chapel that has, like many churches in Italy, suffered from neglect and decay. The project, a joint effort by Piers’s museum and one in Roman, is being overseen by the pompous Dr. Persegati, director of the Roman State Institute for Conservation, a man for whom art and money are inseparable parts of a successful equation. Piers’s experience with her recent “success” has made her wary of corporate sponsorship and its implications; the fact that dollars spent by philanthropic corporations require payment in return in the form of prestige and, frequently, removal of works from the countries where they were created.

On Piers’s team are Donati, an Italian who specializes in chemical analysis and dating; Dr. Nigel Thompson, a prominent expert on sabbatical from the National Gallery in London, where he is chief curator of the medieval collection; and Pia Amata, a research assistant. Donati’s intimate connection to the church and chapel profoundly impact Piers’s perceptions of their work: Donati’s tender care for Brother Angelo, who has Down Syndrome; his practice of genuflecting and making a sign of the cross as he leaves the church; and his embrace of socialism and open hostility for mega-businesses. Piers is also confused by Donati’s apparent disregard of protocol. (He smokes in the lab and puts his feet on the church pews, for example.)

Their work on the triptych is intended by the sponsors to ratify authorship by Rogier van der Weyden, one of the two most celebrated Northern Renaissance painters (the other being Jan van Eyck), but soon Piers and her team discover a number of discrepancies from van der Weyden’s late style that indicate a different hand. Pressure from Persegati and Piers’s own concerns for her career and that of her team members make it clear that the truth is not always paramount in the highly politicized international art community. Prestige and money, reputation and dollars; the stakes are high and, with Donati by her side, Piers’s developing consciousness matures swiftly.

For many years, Piers’s work as restorer served to keep her from unraveling, providing her with the comfort that the triptych has provided to countless visitors to the chapel for centuries. Early in Wolfe’s novel, she relates that Hooke’s Law is the only thing that Piers remembers from physics class: If a spring is stretched too far by an inordinate weight it can never return to its original tension. Piers seems to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. A few clunky references to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center conjure images of wounded souls suffering from such stress and are Wolfe’s only missteps. Physical and emotional trauma in her teenage years left Piers fractured. Later, marriage to an ambitious, self-absorbed architect who, perhaps, reminded her of her ambitious and self-absorbed mother, added to the pain. In fact, her recent divorce has led Piers to Rome and what proves to be a life-altering experience of personal restoration.

Whether she has Piers and Donati pondering the story being told in the triptych (the Flight Into Egypt, Lamentation, Deposition or Crucifixion?); looking for pentimenti (or “repentences,” retouchings and other alterations); or discussing the composition of pigments and use of Dragon’s Blood (typical for manuscript illumination but not for painting), Wolfe gets the details of modern restoration just right. While the triptych’s fascinating history threatens to overshadow Piers’s personal history, Wolfe remains in control and, in the end, demonstrates that the fine art of restoration extends to individual lives. Restored by Donati’s attention, his mother’s simple kindness and her team’s support, Piers finds the courage to proclaim the truth of the triptych’s authorship and accept her own emotional truth. As Piers says in her presentation of the facts at a gala event, surrounded by wealthy and powerful museum personnel, a representative of Apex and the press:

“To quote the head of restoration at the Pratt Institute: ‘Each painting is unique and contains the secret of its own history.’ In order to lay bare this secret, we must be able to piece together clues in order to see, if you’ll excuse the pun, the big picture.

But what may at first appear to be the truth may turn out to be quite otherwise and the prudent conservateur learns to keep an open mind.”

Piers might have added that the prudent conservateur learns to keep an open heart. Certainly, her experience in Rome has proven that such a heart will be well rewarded.

Oskar KOKOSCHKA (1886-1980)
Rudolf Blümner, 1910. Oil on canvas. Private Collection, New York

“Focus: Oskar Kokoschka” exhibition presents Kokoschka paintings and drawings from the Neue Galerie collection.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was a key figure in the history of Expressionism. He first gained notice with his appearance in the seminal Vienna Kunstschau of 1908. Gustav Klimt, president of the Vienna Secession, described the artist as “the outstanding talent among the younger generation.”

Kokoschka received his greatest acclaim for his portraits. He was able to fix his reactions to a sitter directly on the canvas, without preparatory studies. The subjects of his portraits are illuminated from within, rather than from an exterior light source. In this way, Kokoschka animates his sitters. As the artist himself once stated, “Human beings are not still lifes.”

In addition to his oil portraits, the exhibition includes a selection of the artist’s drawings. Graphic works that Kokoschka created for the Wiener Werkstätte demonstrate his swift passage from Jugendstil to Expressionism, and from illustrator to artist.

Neue Galerie New York
1048 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028
Phone: (212) 628-6200
Web: www.neuegalerie.org

This summer, British sculptor Antony Gormley is creating a living monument occupying the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London.

Every hour, for 100 days, different participants that were selected from thousands that registered to participate will be able to create their own vision of what may be expected from the public. Each participant can do anything they want or nothing at all, the artist will have no restrictions.

“Through elevation onto the plinth, and removal from the common ground, the body becomes a metaphor, a symbol… In the context of Trafalgar Square with its military, valedictory and male historical statues to specific individuals, this elevation of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art allows us to reflect on the diversity, vulnerability and particularity of the individual in contemporary society. It could be tragic but it could also be funny.”
Antony Gormley

The first three participants are a housewife from Sleaford, a nurse from Brighton, and a London student from Sri Lankan.

You can see a live feed by going to www.oneandother.co.uk

THE BROTHERS BLOOM Rachel Weisz as Penelope Stamp and Adrien Brody as Bloom

The Brothers Bloom (2008)

Directed by Rian Johnson

Reviewed by Cindi Di Marzo

There are no untold lives, only badly told ones. This bit of wisdom comes from Stephen, the leader of an infamous two-man band of con men known as the Brothers Bloom whose career began before either brother had reached their teenage years. The Brothers Bloom is director Rian Johnson’s sophomore effort, after Brick (2006), which garnered Johnson an impressive roundup of accolades (including a Best First Film citation from the Austin Film Critics association and a Best Original Screenplay award from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle). A mix of tall tale, legend, slapstick comedy and screwball romance, The Brothers Bloom stars Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) as Penelope, an isolated, socially deficient heiress who Stephen, played by Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac) identifies as an easy mark. As the mastermind who scripts elaborate, literary schemes, step by step, that will snare their victims, Stephen guides his younger brother, Bloom, into a romance with Penelope. As Bloom, Adrien Brody (The Pianist) is just the sort of tormented, soul-searching and sensitive man to capture Penelope’s heart, while Stephen’s approach to life (artful conning for kicks and cash) entices the wild woman inside the sheltered heiress, the girl who has been yearning to break free of her chains.

Johnson opens the film with scenes from the brothers’ early years as child delinquents, shuttled from one foster home to another because of their shady shenanigans. From this, viewers may either assume that Stephen is genetically programmed for crime, a talented novelist-in-the-making gone wrong or a bored genius with no parental supervision. Whatever the case, it is clear that Bloom was never cut out for a life of crime. In some ways an easy mark himself, Bloom easily falls in with Stephen’s schemes, swayed by the force of the older brother’s personality and his own indecision. When Johnson switches from these scenes of early childhood to later years, after the brothers have pulled off enough beautifully planned and classically executed cons, Bloom is so confused that he no longer knows what is real and what is part of the act.

Although each actor pulls off his or her role to perfection, the women in the cast steal the show. Weisz’s goofy Penelope is hilarious; the scene in which she reveals to Bloom her many talents, developed through years of seclusion in her parents’ mansion, will have viewers rolling their eyes and laughing out loud. (How could Bloom resist a woman who has mastered the harp, origami, martial arts, acrobatics, juggling, card tricks, Spanish guitar and nearly every foreign language? And that’s just scratching the surface.)

While she rarely speaks, Bang Bang, played by Rinko Kikuchi (nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Babel) is another show stealer. According to Stephen, Bang Bang knows, perhaps, three words in English (Campari being one of them). Nevertheless, as the brother’s sidekick, Bang Bang picks locks, builds explosives and orchestrates their detonation, has expert aim with a gun, arranges all of the behind-the-scenes details of Stephen’s schemes and manages to put together a knock-’em-dead wardrobe, perfect for conning or the runway.

Adding to the fun and pushing Johnson’s wacky storyline over the top, Melville (played by Robbie Coltrane and referencing Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man), and Diamond Dog (played by Maximilian Schell) are stereotypically opportunistic and wicked, respectively.

The perfect con is one in which everyone gets what they want, including the mark. This additional bit of wisdom from Stephen, witnessed through countless schemes and scams, transforms Johnson’s film from a fun romp and quirky love story to a deeper meditation on life, love and destiny. Predictably, Bloom and Penelope fall in love; Melville gets a cut of the stake; Black Dog gets revenge; and Bang Bang gets to detonate explosives, dress the part and have a good time. But what does Stephen get? This is the question that will linger in viewers’ minds as they leave the theater. In the end, they may decide that Stephen’s last scheme was, indeed, perfect, equal to the great Russian novels in irony and pathos.