Lascaux Cave

Not only do these books describe and compare prehistoric art forms and practices from varied cultures, they also present a scientifically plausible and intriguing context for why these ancient works were created by early Homo sapiens.

It’s widely believed that prehistoric cave paintings, presented in darkened, cavernous environments, were meant to inspire awe and reverence and this is still the case today.  Who hasn’t been awe-struck after viewing the cave paintings from Lascaux, Altimira or the most recently discovered Chauvet caves?  Picasso is often quoted as having said, “After Altimira, all is decadence.”  Though this statement has never been substantiated, we can all relate to its intent.  I have never had the good fortune to visit any of these caves myself (now many closed to the public), so I asked artist, Norine Spurling, about her impressions having visited over twenty caves in 1988 with a group from Princeton University.  She was gracious enough to share some of her thoughts with me.  This is an excerpt from her notes, written in the dark, upon entering Niaux Cave in the Ariege region of southern France.

Very long walk into unprepared floor through very narrow low openings.  Rocky floor, puddles – some very large.  Symbols on right side; red dots, black dots, vertical lines arranged in very specific ways.  Up a wide bank into a large domed cavern, very high, very wide.  Wide curved niches on the right side with paintings.  Large bison facing each other; very small Ibexes, very small horses, large horse, one deer.  Bison – red dot in front of front leg.  Some arrow-like marks.  Horse drawn with winter coat; Ibex with rings on horns.

As we moved into the large cavern, lights [were] taken away from us.  [We] moved into the center of this great, vaulting space, Lali spoke, her voice echoed against the dome.  My knees were cut out from under me.  Emotions bubbled….[in a ] kind of holy resonance.  As we moved to the large panel, I came as close as I could and crouched and sat on the floor in awe and intoxication.

[I] had to kneel or crouch, bow down, in this ancient holy place.  Ancient peoples must have felt the need to mark this soul stirring mystical experience by some means.  Mere symbols not enough – it requires a place, a visual metaphor, a ritual, none of which match the original experience but manage somehow to call up a memory of it.

Norine Spurling, Niaux Cave, 1988

bison, Niaux Cave

The description of the entrance to Niaux in The Mind in the Cave is remarkably similar to the description by Norine Spurling.  At the time of her trip in 1988, it was thought that such cave paintings dated back only as far as 10,000-15000 years ago.  It was only a short six years later in 1994 when the cave paintings in the Chauvet caves were discovered and dated to about 32,000 years ago.  This was much earlier than anyone thought this type of imagery might have been created and gives a broad hint that humankind has been using imagery for a very, very long time.

In his books, Lewis-Williams contends that these images, as well as other prehistoric works, were created as attempts by our ancestors to make sense of their dreams and altered states of consciousness.  He goes further to posit that similar, iconic geometric images that are seen in different prehistoric cultures around the world came from deep within the human mind.  This is due to hard-wired neurophysiology, in which various levels of altered states generate similar geometric shapes in all humans as well as similar experiences of vortex-like tunnels sometimes followed by similar visionary hallucinations.  However, the interpretations of these visions differ in their final form based on the cultural context of the individual experiencing them.  For example, perception of the visions experienced by Hildegard von Bingen, a Christian mystic from the 12 century, differ greatly from the images based on beliefs in animal spirits that more than likely inspired the European cave painters of the Upper Paleoloithic between 10,000 to 40,000 years ago.

However, shared, iconic geometric images have been documented in the field of Neuroscience and Lewis-Williams references some of this research data to support his conclusions.  This is a reminder about what a remarkable time we live in, in terms of discovering and understanding our human origins.  This is not only now possible because of the technological age we live in but it’s also because of our current perceptions about our own evolutionary past.  These developments are very recent within the context of our emergence as a species which science dates to about two-hundred thousand years ago.  Darwin’s theories were published less than two-hundred years ago.  The recognition that the now famous cave paintings in France and Spain were, in fact, created by our prehistoric ancestors was not verified until a scant one hundred years ago.  These represent mere seconds within our historical timeline on this planet.

Though science can be used to gain a better understanding of some prehistoric art, throughout his books, Lewis-Williams links the creation of most prehistoric art to a combination of animal spirit worship, shamanism and altered states of consciousness across diverse cultures. These are also recurring themes in most theories behind the origins of these images within the fields of anthropology and cognitive archeology.  Though any interpretation remains open to debate because there is no written record to definitively prove any theory, it’s hard to argue with some of these ideas because of the emotional impact these images still have on us today.

In his following books, Inside the Neolithic Mind and Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion, Lewis-Williams elaborates on ideas introduced in The Mind in the Cave and how creation of prehistoric imagery, along with ritualistic activities, formed a basis for early religious practices with the eventual formation of social stratification.  If you are interested in reading these books, it it best to start with the The Mind in the Cave as both later books build on that one.  I found them all fascinating to one degree or another.  They are all written for the interested layperson but with strong academic over tones.  So, be prepared for some challenges.

While reading these books I also viewed Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, his recent documentary on the Chauvet Caves (beautiful but I could have lived without the albino crocodile ending); and Visions, Margarethe Von Trotta’s biopic of Hildegard von Bingen, the medieval, Christian mystic.  A fascinating film about a fascinating woman.  Lewis-Williams references Hildegard in his last book.  Both films are now streaming on Netflix.

                          

Scenes from the House Dream: Circle Street, 2 channel video, audio and mixed media installation, detail of model, 2003. Collection of the artist.

Quite often, this created a sameness to installations and entering a darkened gallery space to view works at an alternative venue became a standard, if not, a cliched experience.  Over time, it became much less common, albeit rare, to experience an exhibit that utilized this environment in a consummate way.  I often longed for the day when newer technology afforded the artist more latitude in producing works within more flexible lighting conditions.  However, during a recent trip to Toronto, I was reminded that there are always exceptions to every rule.

Scenes from the Dream House exhibit consists of about twenty works most of which are dioramas or miniature settings that evoke alternative feelings of intimacy, spookiness or something down-right magical.  Each piece demands an irresistible voyeurism which compels you to look at the obsessively detailed scenes constructed by this artist.  The creation of these miniaturized night scenes of suburban streets, wooded camping sites, hotel rooms, kitchens, ocean vistas, and more would be an impressive accomplishment in and of itself.  But then there is the added magical element.

Scenes from the House Dream: Airport Hotel 2 channel video, audio and mixed media installation, detail of model, 2004. Collection of the artist.

Each piece comes alive with the movements of spectre-like people or objects filling these miniature worlds with ghostly illusions of activity.  Ghostly is an accurate description as these are projected images that appear partially transparent as they move within the pieces.  There is an inescapable cinematic quality to these darkened, night-scene “sets” which are reminiscent of such films and television such as Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Twin Peaks, the X-Files and for me, the Halloween scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. But there is something more going on here than filmic allusion.

Scenes from the House Dream: Airstream, Single channel video, audio and mixed media installation, detail of model, 2003. Private collection.

These dioramas feel like the work of an obsessed miniature hobbiest who has gone off his meds or perhaps one of Santa’s elfs – on special assignment.  Only in this case, Santa would be Hitchcock, David Lynch or Chris Carter.  But this also makes these works refreshingly accessible to just about anyone who isn’t afraid to stumble around in the dark to see them.  I encourage anyone to get there to see this show before it closes.   It’s on view at the MOCCA through December 31.

MOCCA (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art), 952 Queen Street West, Toronto

http://davidhoffos.com

                          

On a recent trip to Toronto (see articles – Travelogue: Toronto), I saw the film Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as a documentary and “The world’s first Street Art Disaster Film”.

Bansky, Exit Through the Gift Shop

My first thoughts after seeing the film was how unexpectedly entertaining it was.  It was also refreshing to see how simple, direct, cheap and effective Street Art is as an art form.   It’s a far cry from being simple graffiti or public vandalism.  It has become an effective vehicle for certain savvy artists to get their images – and message – directly in front of large, public audiences while circumventing the gallery/museum machinery.

An obvious message  from the film is how highly commercialized the art world has become.  (The title is the dead-give-away referring to the signage used at museums exhibiting large block-buster art spectacles with souvenirs marketed to the public like Happy Meals.)  Art and money – an eternal necessary evil, I suppose.  Be that as it may, contemporary art as commodity turns out to be one of the major themes deftly skewered in this film.

It is purportedly a documentary about the street art movement and purportedly made by premiere UK street artist, Banksy.  I say this because some believe this film is, in fact, another artistic prank perpetrated by Banksy on the unsuspecting public.  Whatever the truth is, it really doesn’t matter.  It’s informative, provocative and entertaining on many different levels.  So, if we are being “punked” by Banksy – that’s just fine with me.  I hope as many people see this film as possible.  It sheds light on the mysterious world of the street artist and also pokes fun at how dysfunctional art presentation and distribution actually can be.  It begins with Banksy sitting hooded and silhouetted as he explains how the film was started and how it’s trajectory changed dramatically along the way.  (continued in Film / Media)

                          

I have waited for the opportunity for my friend Jake to have a free weekend to visit TO with me.  He recently had a couple of free days so we took advantage of them and met there in mid-May.  I had expressed an interest in seeing the Banksy documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, and he, of course, wanted to check out some beer places while we were there.  We decided on a few things that would fit comfortably into a 36-hour window of opportunity.

Aside from the endless culturally diverse things to do there, the other reasons I hit Toronto are for the food and great beer.  I had wanted to see if we could get into the audience taping for the CBC Talk Show, The Hour with George Stroumbouloploulos (Strombo), but our schedule didn’t work out.  The Hour has become my favorite interview show on television.  It’s on CBC weeknights at 11 pm EST or you can catch it online. The format primarily consists of two interviews conducted by Strombo along with news updates.  It’s casual, hip and unlike late night TV in the US., Strombo does not wear a suit and tie (the Johnny Carson obligatory Late-Night legacy uniform). He has interviewed everyone from social activists to Hollywood stars. (The US Late Night programs seem very dated compared to this show – they could take a lesson from it. The only Late Night host who seems to buck the system now is Craig Ferguson – and he’s from Scotland.) I have been to an audience taping for The Hour and it’s actually a lot of fun.

After ruling this out, we decided to go to some of my favorite places, The Fish Store in Little Italy, Victory Cafe in the

The Fish Store

Annex and Prague Fine Food Emporium on Queen St. West.  We also swung by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) to look at the exterior installation mounted on the front facade by Barbara Kruger for the CONTACT Photography Festival.

We started out at lunch time and made our way to the Little Italy section of town. I wanted to take Jake to The Fish Store (657 College St. at Beatrice), a tiny storefront that sells – well, fresh fish.  But they also have a small take out menu with one of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten.  Thankfully, it was a warm, sunny day and we were able to grab one of a handful of tables outside in front of the store.  We went in to order our sandwiches both deciding on the Sockeye Salmon which is served on a Portuguese roll with lettuce and tomato with a mild vinaigrette.  It’s almost impossible to describe how great this sandwich is but the accompanying picture does much to tell the tale.  Everything about this is fresh – fish, produce and roll.  In fact the rolls, come from the bakery across the street, Golden Wheat (652 College St.) – a good place for dessert if you have room left over.

Sockeye salmon sandwich at The Fish Store

The fish itself is sauteed perfectly and it’s large enough to make it a great meal by itself. The good news is that two sandwiches plus drinks cost $22 Cdn. This is a great deal all the way around.  If you want to have a more leisurely and full meal, there are many small neighborhood restaurants along College Street to pick from.  But if you want to do something special, keep going west for a few blocks and treat yourself to a wonderful meal at the Portuguese place, Chiado (864 College St.). This place pulls out all the stops flying fresh fish in from Portugal daily.  Just be prepared to spend a lot more for a meal there.

Once we ate lunch, we headed to Yorkville to the Cumberland Theater (159 Cumberland St.)  to see Exit Through the Gift Shop.  This neighborhood is filled with designer clothing shops, pricey restaurants and small art galleries.  The Four Seasons Hotel is just around the corner on Avenue Rd. This is a hub for stars visiting during TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival).  So, if you don’t want to be crushed by fans – I suggest not coming here during the festival.  The Cumberland Theater is basically an upscale art house in the middle of all this decadence.  The screening room itself was rather small and probably very nice to see certain types of films there.  After seeing the film, it felt ironic that it was playing in such a monied neighborhood.  We really enjoyed this film and you can read about it in the Film / Media section of this site.

From here we planned to have beers and food at the Victory Cafe. This is a great pub at 581 Markham St. just south of Bloor West.  So, we took the Bloor subway to the Markham St. Station and walked a couple of blocks south to get there. The Victory has an outdoor patio for imbibing during the nice weather but we prefer to go inside and sit in a booth near the bar so we can see all the taps.  Jake was in pig-shit heaven when he saw all the beer selections.  Forever addicted to cask conditioned English bitter ales, wherever he goes he always tries whatever is available on cask.  He started with a pint of Mill St Cobblestone Stout – and never looked back after that. To see a full list of what they have on tap visit their website at www.victorycafe.ca.  For eats, their menu has many typical dishes you might find at a pub.  I had their pulled pork sandwich and Jake had their chicken curry. Both were filling and tasty.  I have also read that their macaroni and cheese is among the best you can get in the city.  So if that’s your preference, I recommend it.  After several rounds of great ales, I dragged Jake out of there and we headed south to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).

The AGO is a world class museum.  The building was re-designed by architect Frank Gehry in 2008 and is stunning from certain vantage points.  I wanted to see the exterior photo installation by artist Barbara Kruger which was installed for the city-wide photography festival, CONTACT, which is held annually in May. We got there with plenty of daylight remaining for me to take some photos of her installation.  I had mixed feelings about it. Barbara Kruger has been an iconic artist, a woman who has pioneered this field.  I have an enormous respect for her accomplishments.  But I couldn’t help comparing this installation with the street art I had seen in Banksy’s film the day before. This installation was a pure example of her established style – so there were no surprises here.  But the most interesting thing was that I thought it was essentially an example of “institutionalized street art”.  And, it was no doubt expensive to mount.  It felt stilted – and dated.

AGO, detail, Barbara Kruger installation Untitled (It)

All the things that good street art is not.  Still, this was a very ambitious installation that ran the length of the front facade of the building.  After a good long look, we headed to the next pub on our list for a night cap.  Smokeless Joe’s (125 John St.) is a very small pub with many great beers both on tap and bottled.  This pub is very small and in a basement location so if you aren’t looking for it specifically – you can walk right by it.  To enter, you have to walk down some steps and once inside – it is a long narrow room with the bar almost the length of the room.  During the nicer weather, you can drink outside in their small street side patio.  I have been to this place during different seasons and weather conditions.  By far, I love coming here in the dead of winter to drink beer because you feel like you are in a warm, cocoon protected from the outside cold with genial company and always with great beer.  We both had a pint of Durham County ESB – and Jake had more after that – and we talked about the itinerary for the next day after which we stumbled back to our hotel.

We had to catch flights in the afternoon the following day so we had just enough time to eat a late morning breakfast.  So, that morning we took the tram down Queen St. West and ate a great breakfast at Prague Fine Food Emporium (638 Queen St. West).

This is great deli/diner which specializes in Czech foods. It’s on the small side so when we arrived all the tables across from the deli counter were filled. So, we sat at the window on stools which actually gave us a great view of the street.

Prague Fine Food Emporium

Jake chose the Palacinky stuffed with strawberry, banana, and orange covered with blueberry yogurt compote. The Palacinky is a cross between a crepe and a pancake. Stuffed with the sweet fruit and blueberry sauce – it was a delicious and satisfying beginning to the day. I had the Czech-Break which is a plate filled with bread dumplings, scrambled eggs and kielbasa. The kielbasa tasted more like ham than sausage but was good nonetheless. The bread dumplings were small pieces of savory french toast grilled with scrambled eggs and the kielbasa. We debated getting apple strudel to go but decided against it – this time. I have had this before and it is heavenly.   After our meal, we caught a cab and headed for the airport.  Jake was impressed with this city and we both promised ourselves that we would be back soon.

The Fish Store    657 College St.

Cumberland Theater   159 Cumberland St.

Victory Cafe   581 Markham St.    www.victorycafe.ca

Art Gallery of Toronto (AGO)    Queen St. West   www.ago.net

Smokeless Joe’s    125 John St.

Prague Fine Food Emporium    638 Queen St. West  www.theprague.ca

A few other recommended things to do and places to go in TO:

The Hour    CBC Broadcasting Centre   25 John Street    www.cbc.ca/thehour/tickets.html

MOCCA   Museum of Contemporary Canadian Arts   952 Queen Street West   www.mocca.ca

St. Lawrence Market    92 Front Street East    www.stlawrencemarket.com

C’est What   67 Front Street East    www.cestwhat.com

Distillery District    Parliament and Mill Sts.   www.thedistillerydistrict.com

Rodney’s Oyster House   469 King Street West    www.rodneysoysterhouse.com

By the Way Cafe   400 Bloor Street West    www.bythewaycafe.com

Chiado   864 College St.   www.chiadorestaurant.com

Lee Garden   331 Spadina Ave   www.leegardenrestaurant.ca

Rol San  323 Spadina Ave

                          

Banksy, http://www.banksy.co.uk

Not surprisingly, Banksy was looking for someone to document his ephemeral works.  Through other street artist contacts such as Shepard Fairey, he met Guetta who taped his artistic activities and helped him navigate the terrain during his first visit to L.A. It turns out that Guetta was a huge Banksy fan – who, by then, was very well-known as one of the best street artists in the world.   So for Thierry, this was a dream come true.  Banksy had been anonymously creating street art in the UK and progressively internationally since the late ’80′s / early ’90′s.  What separated his works from simple urban graffiti and other street art was that his works were visually compact political and/or social statements that were usually stenciled onto buildings, underpasses, bridges, etc.  He targeted social inequities, disproportionate hierarchies of power and excesses in consumerism.  His pieces were and are often clever, amusing and very accessible.  They play directly to the sensibilities of the everyday passerby.

In addition to being a great street artist, Banksy is also a first rate provocateur poking fun at the pretentiousness and superficialities of consumerism, politics, and the institutionalized

Banksy, Chimps in Parliament

contemporary arts world.  One of his better known pranks was the surreptitious placement of his own pieces on the walls of major museums and galleries in London and New York.  He said, “To actually (have to) go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring.  It’s a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.”  To their credit, the British Museum added the piece he mounted in their galleries to their collection.  Out of necessity, he has remained anonymous.  After all he, and the others who practice this craft, are considered vandals in the eyes of the law.

But he has also parlayed this anonymity into a legendary mystique which has only added more of a cache to his work.

Banksy, website, http://www.banksy.co.uk, under Shop

Though he likes to poke fun at the art world with a rather large pointy stick, he has also benefitted greatly from their interest in his works which are now sold for hundreds of thousand of dollars – which is something he also makes fun of.

So for Thierry Guetta, someone who had been documenting many street artists around the world, meeting Banksy was akin to winning the lottery.   Little would Bansky know that this would be a true collision of two very different perceptions of reality.  Banksy encouraged Thierry to begin putting his footage together for his documentary.  What resulted was an incomprehensible visual disaster called, Life Remote Control. In Exit, Bansky says of this mess, “I didn’t know if I believed he was a filmmaker or a mental patient.”   It was very clear that Thierry was not capable of putting a coherent film together.  So, Banksy suggested that Thierry hand his footage over to him to work on and encouraged him to create his own street art and launch his own show while Bansky and friends did the editing.  What

Banksy, http://www.banksy.co.uk

followed this well meaning reversal of roles provided a very different and unexpected sharp turn in direction for the second half of the film.

That would be the improbable story of Thierry Guetta’s adventures as a newly “minted” street artist called Mr. Brainwash and the monster art show, Life is Beautiful, he organized in L.A. in a former CBS studio warehouse where he eventually sold $1,000, 000 worth of derivative pop art works to a large number of people who believed he was an important artist.  While Banksy’s small team of editors lost their minds combing through hundreds of hours of his tapes to find a few usable seconds of footage, Mr. Brainwash mortgaged his house to create his monster art show which consisted of hundreds of works resembling other artists’ styles including Warhol, Bansky, Shepard Fairey, etc.  As you watch the film, it does not seem to occur to Mr. Brainwash that he is doing anything wrong – just creating his art.  And, because he had helped Banksy and Shepard Fairey in the past, they both helped him with this show and gave him some endorsement quotes – which he exploited to the hilt.  Banksy’s endorsement, a razor-sharp, double-edged sword comment, was posted on Shepard Fairey’s blog, obeygiant.com.  It reads as follows:

“Mr. Brainwash or MBW is the moniker of an eccentric French filmmaker.

MBW has spent the last nine years attempting to make the ultimate documentary about graffiti art. But whilst filming many of the world’s most renowned street artists at work MBW began putting his camera aside and making art of his own. He has graduated from a few hand drawn stickers to giant billboard sized paste-ups, eventually becoming one of the most prolific street artists in California.

MBW does not fit the stereotype of your average street vandal. His artistic process chiefly consists of throwing random modern cultural icons into a blender and turning it up to eleven. The results are by turns profound, provocative and inspirational.

“Life is beautiful” is the first exhibition ever mounted by Mr Brainwash. It takes place in a former Hollywood studio complex and will feature over three hundred paintings, sculptures and prints alongside an installation made from 100,000 shoes and a life-size re-creation of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”.

“Mr. Brainwash is a force of nature, he’s a phenomenon. And I don’t mean that in a good way.”
– Banksy”

The inexplicable success of Mr. Brainwash’s show is the obvious point of the second half of the film.  Bansky says, “I don’t know what it means.  Maybe Thierry was a genius all along, maybe he got a bit lucky.  Maybe it means art is a bit of a joke.”

There is speculation all over the web about whether Mr. Brainwash is a creation of both Banksy and Shepard Fairey to use as a vehicle to pull off another prank but I’m not sure that’s the case here.  They did help him with his show but the person that is Thierry Guetta seems to be very tough to control.  Let’s just say he appears to have the attention span of a child – and I don’t mean that in a good way.  And it doesn’t really matter because the point is made – if you know how to promote something well enough you can get people to buy it no matter if it is a pile of crap or not.

Near the end of the film, in full silhouette, Bansky says he used to think it would be great if everyone created art.   He adds, “I don’t say that so much now.”

I think this is a good thing.

                          

Coni Minneci, "Cindy Sherman", oil on panel, 2006, from A-Z An Historical Survey of Women Artists. On view April 30-June 5 at the Houghton Gallery, 171 Cedar Arts Center, Corning, NY

This series of imaginative paintings has an underlying theme that playfully highlights women artists through the ages.

This series will also be shown at Buffalo State College in the E.H. Butler Library from September 1- 24 (see details for both exhibits below).  To learn more about this series from the artist, take a look at our post, A to Z and Beyond, under the Interview section of this site.

Another piece that we made with this artist can also be found in the same section about another series of her works entitled, Home. This piece entitled Home: A film with artist Coni Minneci and her dad, Dan, took a completely different and whimsical direction than previous interviews we’ve done.  Originally, it was meant to be a companion piece to complement an exhibition of digital photo-collages by the artist.  These works were created in response to her experience of transitioning her aging father from their family home into an assisted living center.  At Coni’s urging, we included footage of her dad, Dan, in his new home.  It became immediately clear why Coni wanted us to do this.  Her father, Dan, is a delight to be around.  And all of us who face the prospect of dealing with aging parents, should hope that it will be with someone who is as pleasant and positive as Dan.  I urge everyone to take a look at this piece so that you can see that while moving towards senior years can

be a challenge, it can also be a time filled with enjoyment.  You only have to witness Dan’s warmth and operatic sense of humor to understand what I mean.

Coni Minneci A – Z An Historical Survey of Women Artists
April 30 – June 5, 2010     
171 Cedar Arts Center, Houghton Gallery, 155 Cedar Street at East 1st St.Corning NY 14830   
Opening Reception:  Friday, April 30,  5:30 – 7:30 pm    
Gallery Talk with Artist: Saturday, June 5, 1:00 – 2:00 PM     
Gallery Info: HoughtonGallery.org

Coni Minneci A – Z An Historical Survey of Women Artists
Sept. 1-24, 2010    
Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, 14222     
E.H. Butler Library, Circulation Gallery      
Lecture: Sept. 21, 2010    
info: coniminneci@gmail.com

                          

Coni Minneci, Untitled, photo-collage, digital print, 2009, from her series Home

Underlying all this energy is an unflappable and infectious positive attitude that carries her, and others, through every activity to successful completion.  We have included two short interview pieces with Coni, Home: A film with artist Coni Minneci and A to Z and Beyond.  Each piece describes a different series of her works.

As I was organizing an exhibition of her collage works, I gained a much deeper understanding about where this energy and positive attitude actually comes from. Home, was a collection of digital photo-collages that Coni had produced while she was helping her aging dad, Dan, move from their family home into an assisted living center. The pieces themselves were digitally scanned, hand-assembled images of her father’s family home juxtaposed with images form her current home.   She found this to be a therapeutic and productive outlet in dealing with the bittersweet emotions that emerged after her daily trips from one home to the other.  Most who deal with this responsibility find it emotionally taxing and Coni was no different. But she always added that because her Dad was so much fun to be around, he made it quite pleasant and, in fact, sometimes down right fun and entertaining.

I had planned to record an interview with her about her artwork to complement the exhibition. But she urged me to include footage of her dad, Dan, in this piece so that others could see what a wonderful person he was. And, she was right. Consequently, the interview became a film about the pieces she created but also about the inspiration behind the work – her dad. I hope you enjoy this film as much as we did making it. Dan is a force of nature – of the jovial sort.  He likes to sing familiar tunes but with the added twist of his own customized lyrics. It is a joy to be around him and it became very clear where Coni gets all her boundless energy and positive attitude.  The world is a far better place with these people in it.

If you would like to see a current and an upcoming exhibition of Coni Minneci’s artworks, check out the information below.

                          

Coni Minneci: A to Z and Beyond

                          

Interview with Joanna Raczynska
Part 1: Family History and World Politics

Interview with Joanna Raczynska
Part 2: Film and Media Works

Interview with Joanna Raczynska
Part 3: Professional Life

begin transcript

Part 1: Family History and World Politics

ER: Tell me about the chronology and geography of your childhood.

Joanna Raczynska

JR: In a nutshell I was born in England in Wimbledon in 1970 to Polish parents who were both US citizens at the time. Still are, really. I was born as I said in in 1970 in a very sort of…my parents lived in a very affluent part of England known as Esher Surrey.  So, my Dad had a really good job with an American company based in England that paid him basically in US dollars when the US dollar was really strong…which we may never see again. Which wouldn’t be necessarily a bad thing. So, my childhood was very privileged and my parents were very loving. I have absolutely no bad memories. I had a great childhood. My sister and I had everything we ever wanted. We went on holidays. We had a top rate education. We had lots of friends. First and foremost, our parents loved us very much. And gave us everything they ever could. Having said that, my sister and I also grew up with stories about WW2. Both of my parents were born before the War. My father in 1929 and my mother in 1930. So when the war broke out in ’39, they were both young children but they were still able to remember their experiences. I’ll go into that a little bit longer. So basically I grew up hearing first hand stories; first person point of view about WW2 which was very intense and is something that shaped my world perspectives. So I think growing up in Europe, period; especially with parents from Central Europe – you can’t help but be well informed. Unless you really totally have morons for parents or block that area out completely, it just seems to me you live in Europe then you probably have very strong connection to history and to war, basically.

ER: Your parents were accomplished professionals in their fields. Tell me about their personal histories.

JR: Their personal histories are very long. I have my version of their personal history they have theirs especially my father’s which is very well polished and have been repeated so much…polished from repetition. My father died in 2004. And as I said earlier he was born in 1929; survived WW2; he was in Warsaw, he was a young boy, 15 years old in 1944 when the Warsaw uprising started and ended he fought in that; he saw many of his friends killed. And then he saw his country, including his father, my grandfather, – and he saw his country taken over by a hostile country, Russia. And basically left Poland because he could. His mother, my grandmother, was born in Buffalo, NY in 1905. Because of this, she had US citizenship. And it just so happened that her parents, who had come in the late 19th century to Buffalo which at the time was a very affluent city, if not the most, one of the top three most affluent cities in the States at the time. They had come in the late 19th century to get away from strife in Poland and they did fairly well in Buffalo, had kids, then took the kids back after WW1 in 1919 or 1920 they returned to Poland. So my grandmother was born in the States and then returned to the Warsaw area where she married my granddad and they had two sons. Long story short is, my dad had US citizenship; he got out of Poland in ’45 after having been a POW; having been arrested and imprisoned by the Germans and having escaped twice and released in ’45; made his way to the States where his mom, my grandmother, his brother were in NYC at the time. I don’t know if I mentioned this but my grandfather was shot and killed by the Germans -by the Nazis- in ’42 I believe. So that’s sort of his story in a nutshell. He came – you know he left Poland – he went through Italy, joined some Polish forces in Italy right immediately after the war and then from that area of the world went through Scotland and England and got in touch with his mother, my grandmother, through the Red Cross and ended up in NYC doing odd jobs. Meanwhile, my mother also – her father had been killed in 1940. He was a Polish officer who was shot by the Russians in one of the Katyn massacres of 1940. It is very well known now there is a great film by Andrzej Wajda all about it. Very interesting in terms of the very fact that it’s been made. The Russians..even Putin now is denying that the Russians were responsible for the Katyn massacres. Even after admitting a decade or two ago that the Russians were the ones that killed these poor people. Anyway these are the stories I grew up with. My Mom stayed in Poland after the war and her mother was imprisoned by the Soviets for her underground activities which is what my father feared that he would go to jail and be executed or just spend the rest of his life in jail or not be able to find a job because he was part of the Uprising which was not tolerated by the Russians. So my maternal grand mother was in jail. My mother decided she needed to make a living and do something and she’d always enjoyed dancing so she actually went to school quite late and became a ballerina eventually becoming Prima Ballerina for about eight or nine years with the Warsaw Ballet Company in Warsaw, Poland. Which is amazing to me not because it wasn’t an achievement in and of itself but because she never joined the Communist Party. And it was almost unheard of for anybody to make it into the corps of the ballet without having been a member of the Communist Party. So she must have been really good. Long story short is my mother’s family my father’s family knew each other. They met at a party through one of my father’s aunts when my father was actually visiting Poland. He was working after he got his degree as a Civil Engineer. He ended up working – ironically enough – for a German company in West Germany and would travel back and forth between the States, Germany and Poland because he had this marvelous facility for language. Her was fluent in five or six languages I think. Five definitely. They certainly were accomplished professionals. My Dad studied to be a Civil Engineer but ended up being sort of a not-practicing Civil Engineer. He ended up being a businessman doing alot of work behind the Iron Curtain for US companies, petroleum companies, in the ’70′s which again, he had great stories from. My mother – world class performer – had a very strong career but a career that was short-lived as all ballet careers are – when your time comes you either teach or retire. And my mother was ready to retire when my father proposed to her so they got married in ’62 and ended up moving to Germany for a little while where my Dad was working and then back to the States where my Dad had his citizenship to D.C. They had my sister in ’65 so my sister was a US citizen by birth. And then my dad got a job in England.

ER: How did your family background influence your decision to pursue a career in the arts? What were your parents’ reactions to this decision?

JR: I didn’t really…I don’t think I consciously decided that I was going to work in the arts. Just through happenstance and connections, personal friends, I ended up getting jobs in the arts. You know I got my first BA from the University of Maryland, College Park, in English Literature and I wanted to be a journalist. I was always interested in documentaries and in nature shows and things like that and having been reared on the BBC – and that’s what I wanted to do – I wanted to pursue Journalism. But I wasn’t interested in doing just the facts kind of Journalism. I’ve always been interested in first person point of view probably primarily because of my parents’ experiences and my strong family history in story telling too. So I was more interested in the subjective – in the subjective recall of past events – memory in other words. And so I took a lot of writing classes and wrote a lot about – I wrote a lot of fiction in my first undergraduate degree. And I also did alot of research into Women’s Studies and Women’s Rights issues and I got really drawn into film from a theoretical and critical standpoint not a production standpoint. Anyway, I graduated and took the first job I possibly could after having worked some retails jobs which were awful. But anyway bottom line is my dad – I remember my father always asking me “How are you going to… you have an English degree, that’s great.” He didn’t really acknowledge the Women’s Studies certificate because he thought that wasn’t that important. He was quite old-fashioned and plus a certificate didn’t really mean much to him. But neither my mother or my dad ever encouraged me to pursue the arts. As a kid I loved to draw. Always drawing and always doodling and painting. My parents liked it but they always thought it was a hobby. And then the English Literature part my parents could understand the journalism desire and maybe that was why I initially wanted to choose journalism because my parents would think of that as a real career. As a young person in late teens early twenties I mean I think that everyone is sort of struggling to figure out – especially then, if not for the rest of your life- you struggle to figure out who you are what you can contribute and why. And so I was not different – you know, I’m still pretty much that way. It just so happened that I got a great job in a museum called the Octagon Museum in D.C. after having lived in NYC working for Harper Collins Publishers – which was an awful job. It was in the Children’s book division and I thought people who worked in children’s books would be really cool to work with. They were like the most barbaric people I ever met – really cut throat and that didn’t last long. Came back from NY and went as an intern initially at the Octagon Museum as I said in D.C. through which I met some wonderful people. The curator was fantastic. That really sparked my interest again in museums. I’d always enjoyed museums as a kid – great museums in England, Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery and all that. So during this time at the Octagon I decided to go for another BA . This time the University of Maryland Baltimore County which is a very small Department of Visual Arts. I went in for a concentration in Design and graduated with my concentration in Film and Video primarily because I got to take some classes with some really great experimental filmmakers. One of whom was Hollie Lavenstein who’s currently teaching in Alabama and the other teacher I really learned a lot from was Mark Street who is a experimental filmmaker now teaching in NYC, living and teaching there. So it was a great experience. As soon as I got to UMBC in 1996, I was able to transfer enough credits so that I could just take electives and get accreditation – you know the second BA which in hindsight maybe I should have done an MFA but I didn’t. And I noticed when I took film related classes whether they were in lighting, writing screen plays, production – that is camerawork, editing – everything behind the camera basically. It sort of just brought everything together – all my interests in journalism or in factual events in real life but also the subjective interpretation of that. So some of the poetry of it some of the experimentation of it – it seemed – it still seems very exciting and really something that gets my blood going, my pulse going. It’s hard to find a job in production. I did get some production assistant positions and so forth in commercial TV but that’s just not what I was meant to do.

Part 2: Film and Media Works

JR: And I started making, in ’96-’97, all of these sort of non-fiction films in 16mm. And I decided, I chose to use my parents as my primary subjects because they were and they still are the most interesting people I ever met. Growing up my family didn’t take home movies – we have no Super 8 or Regular 8mm or early video. None of that. But my dad did one day record audio of my sister and I just sort of mucking around. I think I was around three or four and she would have been seven or eight, just like singing and arguing and being silly and all that. And my dad saved this tape and it’s great to hear him as a young man, as a father, and my mom in the background which is interesting. It was great to hear him interact with me as a little girl and with my sister as a little girl. And it was like basically this tape is a treasure so I was excited by the possibility in school of using this as a sound track and I started building one of my first films, The Essential Chair, around this. I just sort of as I said started synthesizing and uniting all of these aspects and issues I was interested in including Socratic principles and referencing other works of art which seemed really really exciting. My parents never encouraged me in the arts. My mother, especially the ballerina, she never encouraged my sister or me to dance. In fact, she discouraged us saying it was incredibly competitive and incredibly difficult, painful and short-lived. And she really didn’t understand why we would choose to do something like that. Why we would choose a career n the arts when it’s so competitive and really not commercially driven. I mean like any parents my parents were worried about how my sister and I – how we would survive – how we would pay the bills.

ER: We see a lot of references to the past in your video works and curated projects. In your earlier works, this is personal with references to your cultural and family background from Poland. Can you tell me about Signature of Things.

JR: I made Signature of Things I think in 2004. I think I finished it in Buffalo and I think it was after my father died. It was definitely after he got very ill. He had an aneurism that burst in ’98 and left him paraplegic and he survived but for seven years he was very, very ill in a wheelchair. And it was interesting and difficult to say the least. I don’t know what else to say about that except that I made Signature of Things in a way for me to remember him. We didn’t have any family footage when we were growing up or as a family. And so I decided it would be great to shoot some film of him to have personally- moving images of my dad. And some of the 16 mm film of him is in the hospital after his second operation I think . So it’s a memory of him, a memory of his body, a memory of his person. And also of this monumental change in and steady decline of him, of my father. So it was very difficult to make and it took a long time to make and its a very short piece. I spent a lot of time agonizing – well not agonizing it wasn’t that dramatic – wondering and deciding on how to represent instead of just tell, you know, what ..my love for him and my admiration of him. So this desk that was his father’s which survived WW2 and was not only an antique but to me an historic sort of object that survived all this warfare and miraculously got cleaned up and sent to my dad. I decided to use that as a stand in for my father for my grandfather – my father’s lineage, the patriarchy of my family, in a way. And I shot it, I videotaped it and the dust around it, around the same time my parents were moving out of their home they had bought in Bethesda Maryland we’d lived in for about twenty years. They lived in for just about that long. So it was at a very monumental time in my family’s history and so to me Signature of Things is a very personal a very personal document full of symbols that mean something to me and to my family. And I don’t necessarily expect or believe that anybody would – who doesn’t know me or an objective viewer would get anything more out of it than what there is. But to me it’s just really a document, a way to remember.

ER: Tell me about your feelings about Poland during these very different time periods, Pre-War and Post-War.

JR: I don’t know how to answer this. All I can really say about that, again the stories I was told by my family by my parents specifically, even though parts of my mother’s family still live in Poland and I am in touch with them thankfully. Apparently between the wars, between WW1 and WW2, Poland was a democratic nation and had its own government and things were going fairly well for Poland in terms of the general population. Now my family is not Jewish, my family is an old Polish family from old Polish stock on both sides. We can trace our family names back to the 14th century. So I can’t speak for other groups in Poland. I don’t know what it was like for them. But for my parent’s families things were pretty great between the wars. That’s what I’ve always heard anyway. And then after WW2 everything went to hell. I have no personal experience with any of this, I never lived in Poland. I’ve only visited and I’ve only heard these stories so again my memory is second hand and my interpretation of those stories is what it is. I mean I don’t want to romanticize the idea of pre-War Poland or even Post-War era. I don’t believe that is helpful to anyone. So in a way, I’d like to – I have in the past- tried to explore these ideas of what homeland is and what one’s country means a little bit more experimentally. Sort of use symbols and signs and sounds that hopefully question this idea of patriotism and of history in general and of objectivity and all that stuff. So the last piece that I made that I’m really proud of is Good Faith Effort which was finished in 2007 or 2008 – I can’t remember but not so long ago. But it was a piece that I shot in Warsaw that has a lot to do with my family history but also with the general sort of memories of young people of the Solidarity movement at a time in the ’80′s when there was Martial law in Poland but there was a lot of upheaval and a lot of political and social strife more so than there had been the decade before. And I thought people always ask elderly – old people get to be asked about the past quite a lot. Young people don’t really get to talk about the past – on camera at least. So I found several different subjects who were about my age who were teenagers or sort of on the cusp, pre-teens, on the cusp of puberty around the time of 1989 though I was a little bit older in ’89 I was 19 years old but these kids were like 12-13 -14-15 – that’s kind of the age in ’89 I was going for. I asked people to reflect on sounds and images or memories that they could recall from those times. And I got some beautiful very poetic just beautiful responses and some of them didn’t make them into the final cut for various reasons. And it was such an exciting project to m only because I’ve always wondered what it would be like if my dad, my Mom hadn’t left Poland and if we had had a chance to live there, going back I also day dream and fantasize about there never having been a WW2 and what that would be like. I probably wouldn’t be here. But you know that kind of speculation which takes into account the very direct – extremely direct- impact of historical events on day-to-day life. Again, in Europe I think it’s different than the States. It s just different in the States. So much warfare so much upheavel has happened in Europe it affects people. Even WW2, even events of the 20th century are now influencing today, our lives and Poland’s future and all that.

ER: What do the people of your parents’ generation feel about the current culture in Poland?

JR: I don’t know what the people of my parent’s generation think. Just this past weekend my mother was tickled to tell me about David Lynch, the US director who is opening up a cultural film center and production in Lodz which is a very well known city in Poland where the Polish Film School is. And it really has been a great city and David Lynch chose it. to start the next phase of his life. So my mom was very excited to tell me about this; very excited to hear good news from my cousins. So I’m sure my dad would be tickled too. She obviously still worries about Russia’s influence on the rest of the world not only Poland. Anyway, who the hell knows what’s going to happen there.

ER: You also explore mass media influences in Wee for a Wii. What prompted you to make that piece?

JR: I basically made it for a Termite TV Program about water. (This camera is sitting on top of my daughter’s high chair because I couldn’t find my tripod. Tells you how long ago I shot anyhting.) So Wee for a Wii was commissioned for an half an hour program about water for Termite TV. Termite TV is a collective of filmmakers based in Buffalo and Philadelphia primarily. Been around for a long, long time and every so often as a collective we produce these half hour programs. They play at festivals and around the world really. And also get broadcast on TV. So I made that piece because I heard the story of that woman who ended up drowning herself for a couple of Justin Timberlake tickets which I thought was so sad.

Part 3: Professional Life

ER: You have created many film/media programs as well as curated media exhibits in your career to date. Tell me a bit about these projects.

JR: So you asked me about my career path…. Thanks to you, Ellen, I got to do a lot of curating of gallery exhibitions that as an independent curator I wouldn’t have had a chance to do otherwise. My work as Media Arts Curator at Hallwalls was fantastic but I was programming for a cinema space not for an exhibition space which is very different; it’s a very different animal. So, working at the Carnegie was an eye opener a real learning experience and very rewarding and all of that. One of the main projects that you asked my husband, Will Redman, who is a composer and performer; you asked us to come up with basically an exhibition that didn’t cost anything and was quick and easy and directly produced. And we ended up doing what was called Eyes and Ears which was a collaboration between over two dozen artists. We invited some visual artist – some film and video makers – to produce graphic scores that were silent or near silent that is time based, real time scores, incorporating whatever they wanted visually with little or no sound to be interpreted; that is, played as a score by musicians from the Open Music Ensemble which was a collective of new music performers in Buffalo, NY. So, Eyes and Ears 1 was a huge success. People turned around these videos and then the performers rehearsed them and played live at an opening and live at a closing at the Carnegie. This exhibition was very simple, I think it was six TV’s / monitors with six dvd players. Six disks, each of which had two pieces on it that were looped. Very simple. But I just remember the opening and the closing concerts as being full of such energy and happiness and joy and it was just really eye opening and very rewarding. Everyone did this for free which to me is incredible. So, it was a very exciting time. Eyes and Ears 2 which was sort of an off shoot of this first project was held just a one night with no exhibition component; one night event performance at Hallwalls a couple of years ago and we have a dvd of Eyes and Ears 1 that’s available through Hallwalls’ site but nothing really to show for Eyes and Ears 2 which is a little bit sad.

Another film and media art program that I did at the Carnegie and involved – actually the last one I did- was called Every Day Splendor – use what you got or something like that. It had a lot of different artists from all over the world actually.

ER: In Nonfunctional Seasonal Confessional you admit that your urge to create works has diminished. Do you think this is a result of having a very demanding job.

JR: That video, that little video is.. I wouldn’t take it too seriously. It wasn’t intended as really an insight into my psyche or anything like that. It was an experiment at the Experimental television Center in Owego, NY which is run b Sherry Miller Hocking and her husband Ralph Hocking. They started the Experimental Television Center, years ago, decades ago, and what they basically do, among other things, is have artists residencies with all of this analog but also some digital equipment players and different video effects; monitors and various machines from the dawn of video to today. And you can go there with your source material and just have a ball. It just like a fun do what you want atmosphere with a huge matrix that you… it was an experience that was incredible and i found it fun to be there by myself and record using TV cameras, little TV cameras and remotes, and just mucking around. And the whole idea of the Nonfunctional Seasonal Confessional is just a – you know – just a spoof of the confessional video that was so popular in the late ’80′s and the early ’90′s. So, it’s really just kind of a spoof. The idea of diminishment of wanting to make work – I think everybody always questions why they do something. Anybody who is making video art should and I think , you know, it’s never enough and as just personally i always think I can always do better. So, that’s just my little psychosis.

ER: Tell me about your new position at the National Gallery of Art.

JR: The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. has an amazing film program that was founded and is still led by Peggy Parsons who started it in 1978, I believe. She curates and the gallery shows beautiful films, art films – films about art, also incredible features, shorts, experimental works, etc. in the original format in the way the artist intended. So one of the very few venues ,let alone museums in this area that actually projects 35 mm film, doesn’t project any dvd’s if we can help it, and original format videos. Everything from analog, 3/4″ tape to HD Cam, Blu Ray if we have to, even though that’s a consumer format, and digital files, etc. So, it’s really an amazing place. My job, it’s officially Assistant head to the Department head, or assistant head of the department but I’m also referred to as the Assistant Curator, helping Peggy basically with all the administrative aspects of running a film program at a museum. And also helping with some research and I’ve had the opportunity..she’s given me the opportunity to organize a couple of different film series. There’s one I’m working on now that’s going to be in May of next year to celebrate- I think it’s the 150th anniversary of Chopin’s death or birth – I should have looked that up. Anyway, so I’m doing a series working with the film archive in Warsaw and really the job is all I could have ever hoped for. Every day’s a new day.

ER: Where can we see your work?

JR: I have some video clips on line at jraczynska.com which I have not updated in a very long time. But if anybody would like to see my work, I would be happy to send them a disk. So, let me know.