SPECIAL ISSUE ON PHOTOGRAPHY, CHOREOGRAPHY, MUSIC, PARISIAN CABARET AND WORLD'S ART
SPECIAL ISSUE ON PHOTOGRAPHY, CHOREOGRAPHY, MUSIC, PARISIAN CABARET AND WORLD'S ART
WORLD ARTS & CULTURE
MAGAZINE
i The Painters of Sorrow and Hope, by Maximillien de Lafayette.
i The bohemian days of early Parisian Cabaret.
Profile of American Geniuses: Max Waldman: The world's greatest photographer. Paul Taylor, the god of poetry in motion on stage. Bella Lewitzky, the unsurpassed Diva of American contemporary dance...
MONTHLY HERALD
WORLD ARTS & CULTURE
CONTENTS (PART I). PART II & III OF CONTENTS ARE ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES
EDITORIAL
Editorial:....................................................................................................................................................................................3
PAINTERS OF SORROW
Cover Story: The Painters of Sorrow: Martiros Sarayan.was born to a farmers family near Rostov on Don, in the small Armenian populated town of Novy- Nakhichevan. Martiros Saryan is my hero! This is a man of an utmost integrity, an infinite goodness, a full devotion to his homeland and immense affection toward others. He never sought fame or wealth. One single thought was constantly on his mind “ARMENIA”. All his life, Martiros was obsessed and possessed by the love of his country and the survival of his countrymen and countrywomen. Early in his career, he established a name for himself in Russia and got plenty of opportunities to leave his half destroyed and impoverished country to the United States. ...............................................................................4-7
Jansem: After the Second World War a realist artistic expression dominated the art communities in France. This new trend depicted sentiments of solitude, sadness, and intellectual existentialism. This movement became the main vehicle of expression for numerous avant-garde artists including Jansem. He lost his father at an early age. This paternal loss deeply affected his artistic creativity. In addition to this unfortunate mishap, Jansem had ......................................................................................9
Orakian:
GERARDO ORAKIAN
(1901-1963) came to Italy from Turkey. His very
original, somber colored paintings, with
purposeful
contrasts of light, portray the deprived lives of the working people, which
he presents side by side, as if embracing one another. In Orakian's
expressive paintings lies the sad sentiments of the past' and modern times,
of someone who has been deprived of his birthland and suffers the fate of
the migrant. The artist's desire to return to Armenia never materialized,
although a great part of his works found its way into
Armenia..............................................................................................................................................10
Minas: His tragic death ended his fifteen years period of creative activity during which time Minas produced five hundred paintings, almost the same number of graphic works, twenty murals, and designed over ten theatrical decors. It seemed that destiny was pursuing the artist. The fire that engulfed his studios destroyed more than a hundred pieces of his works. The earthquake of 1988 destroyed part of his murals and ruined his home-museum, built in his birth village of Jajur. The spiritual father of Minas is Sarian. Minas became the continuator of the work of the great master and the symbol of the new found renaissance in national art. If, in the works of Sarian...........................................................12
Hagopian:
Galentz:
A survivor of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. French art historians called
him “L’homme sans enfance”, meaning "who had no childhood”. In fact, Galentz
grew up in an orphanage in Beyrouth, Lebanon. Inside and outside the
orphanage, he encountered hard times and faced life with bitterness and
despair.
PAINTERS OF HOPE
T
he
Painters of Hope:........................................................................................................................................................19-30
DAWN OF CUBISM
Cubism:
The Dawn of Cubism. The birth of abstract art in Russia. Cubism is a
name suggested by Henri Matisse in 1909) is a non-objective approach to
painting developed originally in France by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
around 1906. The early, "pre-Cubist" period (to 1906) is characterized by
emphasizing the process of construction, of creating a pictorial rhythm, and
converting the represented forms into the essential geometric shapes: the
cube, the sphere, the cylinder, and the cone. Between 1909 and 1911, the
analysis of human forms and still lifes (hence the name -- Analytical
Cubism) led to the creation of a new stylistic system which allowed the
artists to transpose the three-dimensional subjects into the flat images on
the surface of the
canvas.........................................................................................................................................................................31-51
TABLE OF CONTENTS (PART II)
MOVING PICTURES ART
Pictures: They came, they saw and they were awed. Bill Viola, the American video artist many critics compare to a modern Raphael, last night showed why he inspires almost religious wonder in his devotees. The Passions is not merely the first major video show ever staged at the National Gallery - that bastion of the classical tradition - but one where the public can come and quietly weep if they feel so moved without shame or embarrassment. Which is apt. Since the idea for the show came out of a moment of catharsis when Viola broke down when his father lay dying, and cried uncontrollably in front of a medieval diptych of a weeping Madonna and Christ crowned..........................................................................57
DANCE
Dance:
Over the years, Richard Alston's dancers have performed to some of the
world's greatest musical scores. But they have also appeared in some of the
dullest costumes, which makes Julien Macdonald's contribution to Alston's
work Shimmer even more of a fashion event than it first appears. True to
form, Macdonald has produced a wardrobe of delicately meshed, intricately
jewelled tunics for the nine dancers (male and female alike). His colours
are outrageous - and perfect - but more magically still, these costumes
settle around the dancers' bodies like live skin, adding a shape-shifting
airiness to Alston's choreography. The score for Shimmer is piano music by
Ravel, and there are moments when
Alston's...........................................58
THEATER
Theater:
Charlie's Trousers. According to a certain Geordie rumour, Newcastle
narrowly missed out to Liverpool in its capital of culture bid because Paul
McCartney was seen slipping brown paper packets to the judges. And why would
the former Beatle do that? Well, his wife comes from Sunderland. This, and
many other pieces of scurrilous gossip, find their way into Alan Plater's
extremely funny - and even-handed - analysis of Tyneside's reorientation as
a "post-industrial, information-based, leisure-oriented society". Kev has
found a role for himself guarding the art in a former factory. It's lonely,
wiling away the small hours in a room full of high-minded concepts, with
nobody to talk to but the burglars. ...Endgame: A tatty, threadbare
curtain rises to the accompaniment of a circus drum-roll. Clearly Matthew
Warchus sees Beckett's play as an apocalyptic vaudeville and, given the
presence of a virtuosic duo like Michael Gambon and Lee Evans, this makes
sense. It also overcomes the faint Endgame-fatigue resulting from the play's
third London revival in eight years. Cyril Connolly pointed out that while
Waiting For Godot is a fresh assault on a universal problem, Endgame "is the
statement of a private one". By that he meant that it not only reflects
Beckett's vision of life as a meaningless farce, the fractious dependence of
the blind master, Hamm, on his
oppressed..............................................................59
FILM
Film:
A secret stash of naughty silent
films turned up in a Paris attic, and producer Michel Reilhac knew he had
to put them on the big screen. Our great-grandparents were rather less
prudish than we might imagine. Decades
before pornography became big business, naughty French people were
making dirty films for the fun of it. In The Good Old Naughty Days, a
collection of 12 silent films from the earliest years of the 20th century,
nuns, priests, teachers - even a dog - play out sexual dramas in a wide
variety of inventive positions, locations and logistical arrangements.
And, unlike the stars of today's films for the one-handed viewer, everyone
looks like they're enjoying themselves. Even the dog. "The difference is
money," says Michel Reilhac, the French director and producer who put The
Good Old Naughty Days together. "These films were made as a joke by people
who had no idea of performing to the camera, and you can tell: the way
they carry themselves is entirely natural. By the 1930s people realised
that
they....................................................................................................................60-62
CABARET
Cabaret:
The bohemian days of early Parisian Cabaret.
In
the closing decade of nineteenth century Paris a new period
retrospectively christened La Belle Epoque (The beautiful period) was
born. As its name suggests, the Belle Epoque was characterized by relative
calm, prosperity, enterprise and social freedom. Most importantly for our
story, the Belle Epoque gave birth to a new culture of entertainments
immediately recognizable as modern. To mark the centenary of the French
Revolution, a revolution against privilege and inequity, Paris staged the
Universal Exhibition of 1889. Here, a variety of amusements and new
technologies serviced wondrous worker and bourgeois alike. This 'level of
enjoyments' as.....................................................63-76
BOOKS
Books: The Ten Best Books of the Month...........................................................................................................................77-75
Memoirs: Newly published memoirs of Nobel Prize-winning author Elias Canetti contain devastating attack on Iris Murdoch. She is regarded as one of the most accomplished writers of post-war Britain. Hundreds of thousands of fans still buy and borrow her novels. The touching tale of her life with her husband John Bayley, her descent into ill-health and her eventual death five years ago in the film Iris only served to strengthen her standing. But Elias Canetti, the Nobel Prize-winning writer who shared tender moments with Iris Murdoch as her lover, has savaged her in newly published posthumous memoirs, in which he rubbishes her .....................................76-84
NEWS OF THE ARTISTS AND STARS
Oprah: Oprah makes best-dressed list Vanity Fair group her with most fashionable women................................................................................................................................................................85
Bob Marley: Between Art, Culture and Obscenity.
Liberals
use Marley as a password, and I've lost count of the number of times people
have said to me: "I don't know much about reggae music but I like Bob
Marley." Some Rastafarians see him as a modern-day prophet; there is a band
in New Zealand who have dedicated themselves to doing Marley cover versions;
there is a tribe in South America that worships him. My mum loves him, and
so do I. Not only do I think he was one of the greatest musicians to appear
on planet earth, I think he was a really nice bloke. When I was just a kid,
a struggling unknown poet ranting on the streets of
Birmingham...........................................................................................87-92
David:
Michelangelo's
statue David may be clean in time for his 500th birthday this year, but
experts are concerned that his left ankle may not be strong enough to keep
him standing forever. A team of experts at Bologna University has begun
analysing tiny cracks in the marble masterpiece's left ankle since
restoration work began on the statue last September. "The ankle is weak,"
said Franca Falletti, director of Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia, where
the statue is housed. "It's a problem we need to watch closely." Analysts
are able to study the exact size and depth of the cracks now that more than
a century of grime and wax deposits have been gently brushed and sucked out
of the statue's "skin". David's melancholy pose, with his left leg bent at
the knee, makes his left ankle perhaps the only design fault in this figure
of male perfection, clearly strained by the 5,572kg of marble above. Most of
the cracks are thought to have developed before 1873, when the statue was
..................................................................................................................................93
MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITIONS
Museums: What's New at the National Gallery of Art? Mark Rothko. A special installation of nine works by Mark Rothko (1903-1970), long recognized as one of America's foremost artists, will celebrate the centenary of his birth. The works by Rothko are related to two mural commissions--the Seagram murals and the Harvard murals--which date from the late 1950s and early 1960s, respectively. Most of these related works have been exhibited at the National Gallery only once before, and showing them together in the open space of the concourse will create an opportunity to examine the process behind these major projects. This special installation also celebrates the 25th anniversary of the East Building. Additional centenary events include the first American screening of a new biographical film at the National Gallery...............................95-98
Gallery: 25 Glorious Years at the National Gallery of Art...............................................99
WORLD CULTURE
World Culture: The Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, Timothy Clifford, discovered a puzzling drawing in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The drawing had been attributed to Perino del Vaga, a contemporary of Raphael. After one glance Clifford concluded that it was actually the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti. The very recent discovery of this artwork has not allowed other scholars to offer opinions, but, in an unprecedented move, curators have added the drawing to the Michelangelo Exhibit currently at the Chicago Art Institute. Scholars will now have a chance to test Clifford’s attribution..................................................................101-103
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (PART III)
INTERVIEW
Balsamo:
How sweet success is. But, it comes with a heavy price; doubt, fear,
perseverance, rejection, incertitude, years of hard work, desperation, immense
talent, innovative creativity, competition, persistence, stubborn
determination and self-confidence. Maestro Vincenzo Balsamo is a living
example of the difficult and sweet moments in the life of a great artist.
Balsamo Vincenzo was born in Brindisi, Italy, in 1935. Today, he lives in
Verona. He toured the globe and was received as a living legend. He had his
ups and downs, highs and lows, but never gave up. He left his hometown on a
train heading toward Rome, the capital of the art world. He went alone,
unknown with a few Liras in his pocket. In a sense, his trip to Rome is not
quite different from the conquest of Ulyssis. He had to prove himself to the
toughest critics and most demanding high society of the Immortal City. The
competition was unmerciful. Rome was saturated with world-class artists and
the most famous painters of the
era...................................................................................................................................................................................107-118
PROFILE OF AMERICAN GENIUSES
Outstanding: Legends and pioneers of contemporary dance in America.
The religions of ancient Greece, Crete and Rome are extinct now but the gods, the goddesses and dancers of Olympus are still vibrant in our dreams and fragile hopes. The sublime deities came to life through poetry, music and dance. They belonged to literature, fantasy, art and dance. In the firmament of human imagination, they defined their divine circle, and continued to hold it within the winds of the human mind and the grace of dancers...On the dethronement of Saturn, Jupiter with his brothers Neptune (Poseidon) and Pluto (Dis) divided dominions and depicted landscape for those who could write poetry, sing and dance. Dancing was the divine medium. Nothing has changed today. On stage, dancers mesmerized us. They transport us to a parallel world. The Muses were the daughters of Jupiter and Minemosyne (Memory). They presided over songs and dances, and through the ecstasy of dancers graceful movements prompted the memory. They were nine in number, to each of whom was assigned the control over literature, art, and science. Dance was the ultimate divine science in motion.....Today, on the magical carpet of contemporary dance, half human-half divine dancers and delightfully mad and genius choreographers recaptured those divine moments...through the shadows of goddesses dancers on stage...and run away with it...They are THE DANCERS and the CHOREOGRAPHERS! We will visit some of them.............................................................................................................119-120
Paul Taylor: Paul Taylor been called a genius; a legend; a cultural icon. Time calls him "the reigning master of modern dance," and the New York Daily News declares him to be "the best choreographer in the world." But Paul Taylor considers himself, above all, a reporter whose job is to observe us and record his impressions. Twice a year, he dutifully leaves behind his shore-front cottage, his scarabs and butterflies, his wildflowers and the furniture he's made solely from driftwood, to enter a dance studio and "report." Whether investing everyday movement with breathtaking beauty or reminding us that we are not as removed from our prehistoric ancestors as we like to think, he rivets us with astonishing inventiveness, poignancy and wit. As prolific as ever after 49 years, he recently completed his 119th work..................................................121-123
Dancers: America Dream Dancers:......................................................................................................................124-125
Bella:
Bella Lewitzky. She was one of the
greatest and the best of the best in the business. Bella Lewitzky, the
divine diva of the American contemporary dance.. Unquestionably, Ms.
Lewitzky is a legend and a world leader in the field of modern dance. She
has been selected by the President of the United States to receive the
prestigious National Medal of Arts. The award is given to individuals and
groups who in the president's judgment are deserving of special recognition
by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth,
support and availability of arts in the United States. The National Medal of
Arts ceremony took place in the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington
D.C. on January 9, followed by a black-tie dinner at the White House
honoring the award
recipients..............................................................................................................................................126-132
Max
Waldman: Max Waldman, the
World's Greatest Photographer. Max Waldman focused his medium,
photography, on the nude, the actor and the dancer, with a palette of
texture, form and light. He photographed a vision that remains in our mind
after his images are no longer before our eyes. Many influences contributed
to his visionary world. Images at once dramatic, melancholic , despairing
and tormented, are rooted in his favorite artists; Bosch, Goya, Daumier and
Rembrandt. Yet these images take life form the Renaissance, Shakespeare and
the classical music he loved..............................133-141
CAREER ADVICE
Career: How to Succeed. The International Success. The Ford Motor Company launched a marketing campaign for the Ford Pinto in Brazil with hopes that sales would take off at a gallop. But enthusiasm turned to embarrassment when Ford executives discovered that "pinto" is a Portuguese slang term meaning "small penis." Ford quickly changed the name to Corcel, the Portuguese word for "horse." Ford found out the hard way that learning customers languages, including colloquialisms, is vital to international business success. But, just enrolling in a crash course in another language won't do the trick. As more and more companies go global, astute businesspeople are finding that knowledge about other countries' cultures and customs can enhance their working relationships--and thereby affect their..................142-146
ART HISTORY, CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION
Art
Restoration: Versailles Having A Face Lift
LEGENDS
Legends:
Mistinguett. Besides being the world’s first greatest cabaret super vedette,
Mistinguett according to the French had the most beautiful legs in the world.
Even, when she died in 1956 at the age of 73, French people were telling
each other : « Lorsqu'elle mourut en 1956, à 73 ans, elle fit la une de la
plupart des journaux de Paris. - On chuchotait encore qu'elle avait les plus
belles jambes du monde. », meaning : even at 73, people were whispering that
Mistinguett had the most beautiful legs in the world.”
GALLERY AND ART PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK
Gallery:
One of my favorite American art publications is ARTIS SPECTRUM of Agora
Gallery. You can visit them at:
http://www.artisspectrum.com I like this magazine because
it has an international flair. It is rich in contents and the wide variety of
subjects from photography to healing power of faith, from art reviews to very
intelligent and informative editorials. Truly, a delightful and stimulating
art magazine. The Editor-in-Chief, Angela Di Bello, a lovely lady who
is an authority in the field. She is making sure that
the..................................................................156
ERICA SAYS SO!!
Erica:
THE WORLD’S MOST VIRTUOSI AND BEST ACCORDIONISTS. The Most Highly Paid Actor
in the History of Motion Pictures! THE BEST PIAF
SINGERS IN AMERICA!
DIVAS
Divas: Maria Callas Best Recordings. Despite an effective career which did not even last 18 years, Maria Callas will probably go down in history as the most important singer of the second half of the 20th century. What made her unique in her time was her attention to verbal nuance and matching gesture. Yes, there were singers who trod that path a few decades earlier, but plentiful aural and visual documentation is lacking for Lotte Lehmann, Claudia Muzio or Rosa Ponselle, to name just a few. And while we can hear Callas in almost all her roles and at various stages in her career, the plentiful photos unfortunately do not compensate for the skimpy live visual coverage. Callas is an artist who needed the stage to come to life; even if she brought fascinating moments to almost all of her studio incarnations, listening to some of the "unofficial" versions allows us to appreciate the artist at her full worth. It is worth considering what made Callas so special at a time when Renata Tebaldi and Zinka Milanov were in full triumph at the Metropolitan Opera. Both Tebaldi and Milanov possessed a lushness of voice which was never a Callas attribute.....................................167-172
JUDAICA
Art:
The joyful sorrow of Judaica.
German gold
is an artist with a heart bigger than life,
a Jewish theologico-philosophical visionary with
a spiritual outlook at the world, a brilliant Russian
artist with warm feelings and affection toward people and nature. You
got to love this man who has so many qualities, virtues, goodness and
immense talent.
Two
elements constitute his human fabric: Talent and
humility. To me, German is a mixture of Leo Tolstoi, Victor Hugo and
Titian......163-175
IN MEMORIAM
Terry
Frost: One of Britain's leading visual artists, Sir Terry Frost, died
earlier last year. Many tributes to Terry's life and work have appeared in the
national press: he was a influential figure to many artists in the fifties,
sixties and seventies. Few may appreciate, however, that one of his best shows
was his last. Frost's Tate St. Ives showing in February 2003, part of an
omnibus project called 'Painting Not Painting,' was a splash of fresh paint.
It was bold, physically challenging - and a great success. At the heart of the
show was an ambitious installation painting, Contrasts In Red, Black and White
(2002/2003) built from 27 separate canvases, each one relating to the next,
all tailored to one specific space within Tate St
.Ives..........................................176-177
