Frances Bean Cobain, Celestial Splendor; graphite, ink & glitter on paper; 12″ x 14.5″ via Flavorwire

Kelly Hartog reports from Mail Online on Frances Bean Cobain’s first art show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in East Los Angeles. Hartog cites the late rocker Kurt Cobain’s now teenaged daughter’s show as exactly what you would expect: exponentially creepy. Under the pseudonym Tim Fiddle, Cobain’s exhibit of notebook sketches entitled “Scumf***” is a montage of ghoulish cartoons and figures, with grotesque themes and captions. This troubled artistic expression from the 17 year old, who is due to inherit a sizable chunk of dough from her late father’s estate next month, is utterly predictable and indeed disturbing, writes Hartog. The drawings in the exhibit, each priced between $250 and $400, have reportedly all been sold.

The Independent’s Michael Glover discovers a quiet majesty in Camille Pissaro’s painting Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich. The 1871 Impressionist piece can be found peeking out from a corner of one of the extravagant rooms at the Courtauld Gallery in London. In contrast to its surroundings, the modestly sized painting depicts a dutifully lumbering train chugging into town, as a lazy gray smokestack wiggles its way to the top of the canvas. Glover comments that the beauty of the piece is found in its understated elements: a smaller canvas, a subtle earthy toned palette, and a nondescript subject matter. For Impressionists such as Pissaro, the key to unlocking the beauty of life was found in the hushed and murmuring spasms of light and color changes throughout the day. Glover finds that Pissaro perfectly demonstrates this canon.

Arshile Gorky, Organization, 1933–36, oil on canvas, 49 3⁄4 x 60 in via MOCA

A new evaluation of the life and art of Arshile Gorky is currently ongoing in an installation called Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective at the MOCA Museum in Los Angeles. Paul Schimmel, writer for The Curve on the museum’s website, chronicles Gorky’s life and evolution as a cubist painter, in his latest segment from a four part series. Schimmel describes the abstract artist’s move towards cubism during the Great Depression, as Gorky was influenced by surrealism and biomorphic shapes like those found in the works of Joan Miró. Progressing into the early 1930s, he continued to paint scrambled surrealist images that explored themes of inner combat or struggle, inspired by the slaughterhouse and cockfight paintings of André Masson. One such example is Composition, completed in 1939, which displays bird figures juxtaposed with waxen colors against a stark white background.

Laura Cumming of The Observer politely slams a new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London entitled Sargent and the Sea, highlighting John Singer Sargent’s nautical paintings and sketches. Curators are excitedly pumping up the volume of the exhibit, calling it important and a different side of the American artist. Cumming disagrees, and points out that Sargent is hardly knowledgeable on the subject of the ocean, having certainly never studied it as intensely as someone like Monet. Many of the paintings display social beach themes such as naked children playing in the sand, without truly conjuring the magic of the ocean. Curators’ enthusiasm for the exhibit does not make up for sordid work that is clearly aimed at pleasing a sunshine-hungry audience—in Cumming’s eyes, it is Sargent’s most boring work.

Similarly, John Perreault of Artopia finds flaws in the new survey of Andy Warhol’s “second act,” named Andy Warhol: The Last Decade, going on now through September 12 at the Brooklyn Museum. Perreault embarks on an-depth study into past Warhol exhibitions, and comparatively insists that various segments of this current exhibition should have been left out, including Warhol’s yarn pieces and short series of egg paintings. Perreault admits that since the pop artist’s pieces were so vast during the span of his life, it is admittedly hard to create a show to please all. He changed the face of art to not be “starving” but commercialized, something that is controversial even today. However, his work inarguably continues to inspire and cultivate a love for pop, and Perreault concludes that in the end, that is what is most important.

Laura Lawson paints when writer’s block strikes and writes when painter’s block strikes. She has studied fine art at LCAD and is pursuing a degree in journalism. Recently diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, she strives to bring hope to those without vision through her blog. She is currently working on her first book about coping with vision loss.

Toy Story 3 via Cinetopia

“All good things must come to an end.” A poignant proverb, and so pertinent to the Toy Story franchise it hurts. Since the first film hit cinemas in 1995, Pixar’s ragtag band of children’s playthings which come to life when their owner’s backs are turned have not only delivered the two best films in Pixar’s canon (an admirable achievement in itself), but set the gold standard for not just animation, but filmmaking in general.

Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) are now as synonymous with movies as Don Corleone and Darth Vader, icons of a new generation of motion pictures which has made Pixar arguably the best and most consistent studio in the world. We’ve followed the toys’ travails for fifteen years, and have sat with bated breath as the final chapter was first rumoured, then made, and now released: but if this really is the end, it could seldom be better.

The story is classic Pixar: it’s as much (maybe even more so) an adults’ film for kids as vice versa. Andy is all grown up and about to depart for college, his loyal-to-a-fault favourite toys languishing unused in a toybox for years, all the others given away. Accidentally donated to Sunnyside daycare centre, their initial joy is thwarted by violent toddlers and dictatorial Lots-o-Huggin Bear (Ned Beatty). Woody, threatening his own future at college with Andy, returns to save them, and they make a final bid for freedom and one last playtime with their owner . . .

Already, it’s clear that Toy Story 3 is far superior to its lesser imitators and contemporaries. The film, helmed by Lee Unkrich – TS1 and 2 director John Lasseter now runs Disney’s entire animated wing – does not principally concern itself with cheap laughs (Shrek 3) or OTT referentiality (Shark Tale), instead focusing on two key themes: abandonment and family. Handling such profoundly complex concepts, in a manner communicable to both children and adults, is incredibly difficult, but you’d never guess it watching Toy Story 3. For a film whose main characters are all toys, there’s more human emotion in this film than in any other I’ve seen this year.

As with all the other Pixar heavyweights, it all starts with a phenomenal script. The ‘clever jokes slipped inside simpler ones’ method has long been a hallmark of the studio’s best films (Toy Story’s ‘staff meeting’ sequence stands out), and here there’s an embarrassment of riches. Satires on office life, prison dramas and family dynamics are all present, handled with such deftness and intelligence it puts dozens of comedies to shame.

The comedy itself, however, is somewhat different from the first two films. Woody and Buzz are no longer relied upon to carry both the plot and the comic relief, instead principally dealing with the former. Mr. Potato Head, Hamm and Rex are the comic backbone of the film: Hamm’s sardonic quips wryly delivered by Pixar good-luck-charm John Ratzenberger, Rex’s alternating timidity and panic never better from the mouth of Wallace Shawn, and Potato Head’s world-weariness at its peak, Don Rickles’ old-school New York Jewish twang bitterly remarking the constant struggles facing the group. Michael Keaton’s Ken is also a brilliant creation, not so much in the closet as poking his head out of it.

Of course, the lead duo still offer some of the movie’s best laughs (I won’t spoil it, but Buzz’s ‘reset’ button delivers a hilarious ten minutes), but they now bear the emotional weight of the film even moreso than before. Almost like arguing parents, they struggle to leave Andy, Woody clinging onto the past while Buzz tries to move on. Much like in the first film, when Woody refuses to accept Buzz’s ascendance up the toy hierarchy, here he is still living in that same fantasy, trying to recapture the glory days of Andy’s childhood – his ploy to get Andy’s attention by stealing his mobile phone is heartbreaking in its desperation.

Despite all the laughs – and there are many – the film is, for huge parts, a tragedy on an almost Greek level. The toys are never out of the woods, from trying to escape Sunnyside to the climactic set-piece on a rubbish heap. The tangible villain of the piece is Beatty’s Lotso, a tyrant fuelled by the anguish of being abandoned (Pixar again going above and beyond to deliver an affecting backstory) who tries to trap them in daycare with help from the terrifying muscle Big Baby, but in reality the enemy is rejection.

For all their Herculean efforts, we somehow know from the first minute that things won’t go back to being the same for the toys, a fact tellingly revealed by the scenes with Andy’s mother, as she struggles to accept her first-born’s departure. Andy’s family is explored here – no longer the Tom-and-Jerry-esque pairs of legs walking around – and their fleeting screentime only reinforces this fear of abandonment we share with Woody, Buzz et al. The now-small family of toys know they must stick together, and the more tribulations they endure, the more heavy the emotional wallop the film carries. The smaller ensemble are like the last of the Mohicans, and their sense of family is ultimately what they must rely on to carry on, no longer loved as they once were and inseparable form one another.

Toy Story 3 is without a doubt the film of the year, and really ranks up with the first two as Pixar’s best output to date. The wit, the emotion, the sheer humanity of the film is what makes it so unforgettable. Although tagged as a ‘kids film for adults’, this is the first where the opposite seems more likely: the message of the film, difficult to swallow as it may be, is that life moves on, and if we aren’t willing to change with the times, we will be left behind, whether toy or human. And now, it’s time for us to realise Toy Story is gone: just like Woody and Buzz, we’ve got to move forward, a lump in our throats but joy in our hearts.

10/10: One of the most staggering cinematic achievements of the past 5 years, not just visually, but emotionally. A fitting end to what must now surely be named the greatest film trilogy of all time, Toy Story 3 delivers on absolutely everything, from humour to sadness to poignant observation. They may be child’s playthings, but Woody, Buzz, the Potato Heads, Hamm, Rex, Jessie, Slinky Dog and Bullseye have played with adult emotions once again, and saying goodbye is heartbreaking. They might miss Andy, but not nearly as much as we’re going to miss them.

Luke Grundy is a fervent assimilator of media living amid the bright lights of London, England. If he’s not watching films or listening to music, he’s probably asleep, eating or dead. An aspiring writer, journalist and musician, he is the creator of movie/music blog Odessa & Tucson and lives for epistemology.

Emmanuel Polanco via My Love For You

In the Voice of a Minor Saint

I came at a wee hour
into my miniature existence.

I keep my hair close cropped
that my face might fit in lockets.

My heart is small, like a love
of buttons or black pepper.

On approach, I notice how
objects grow and contours blear.

That’s what comes of nearness.
I have an ear for the specific,

as St. Apollonia minds the teeth,
and Magnus of Fussen, hailstones.

I dwarf gloom with my cachet sign:
one good hand conceals

my one good eye,
halving all disaster.

Originally published in Kaleidowhirl

Summer’s End

Noon wounds me with its bees, its burning.
I weary of the season, whitewash
and blind arrows.

The sun has come to steal my outline,
come to sort me,
stretch me along its javelin.

Succumb, it says, when
already the heat is lurching south
in one long exhalation.

Every night I’m more in love
with sleep. Closing my eyes

I let each blue dram
trickle back into my iris.

Originally published in Yemassee

Vestment

On the morning of my ruin
I will dress in a vest of bees
as the sun crimps the sky
and light spreads, tight,
intricate as a honeycomb
over the home I’ve chosen.
The bees will cloak me; goldenly
close they’ll wander me,
those I once feared,
those who seal the suit of mail
no other ruin can sting.

Originally published in Blood Orange Review

Pococurante

No rain came and only the hardiest would live.
I played nature’s yes man; it said starve
and by god I nearly did,

my kerchief flapping half-heartedly
in the weak-tea wind, letting the sun
settle everything.

Even the light grew eucalyptal,
a radiant weight, a soother. Days
turned to dust that couldn’t fly;

they phantomed, bogging down
the awnings, like the bygones
I’d sworn went by.

As I grew tired, I forgot how silt
gets thick around the doilies.

As I grew tired, it slipped my mind
that the fan, in sweeping air aside,
must also partake of air.

I grew tired and didn’t see the sun bulge
and land like a flimsy insect on my arm,
where it deposited its pouch of itch.

Idling on the balcony, all I could do
was note the ocean, its one wave
rising, languid as a wrist.

Dollhouse

There is a sink that won’t be filled
that won’t offer water

Rooms without doors
Children on their backs in bed

There are chairs tucked up to the table
docile where sedation reigns

Little house, in death the snow
will cover you like a doily

Wolves will circle your horses
frozen beside the sleigh

Sarah J. Sloat is the author of In the Voice of a Minor Saint (Tilt Press, 2009), a poetry chapbook. Her work is widely published online and in print, and can be found in Apparatus, Blood Orange Review, Leveler, Opium, Prick of the Spindle, RHINO, and elsewhere. She grew up in New Jersey and now works for a news agency in Frankfurt, Germany. “Dollhouse” and “Pococurante” are new poems, and the other three appear in her book. You may visit her blog, The Rain in My Purse, here.

Special Thanks to Kathleen Kirk, official poetry editor for Escape into Life, whose poems may be found here, and her blog here.

Why So Panicky? (2004) oil on linen 84 x 144 inches via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Sad Boor (2003) oil on linen 84 x 144 inches via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Sonic Youth Day (2007) oil on linen 60 x 102 inches via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Luck, Fear, Regret (2003) Oil on Linen 56 x 78 inches via Andrea Rosen Gallery

I’m Not Cool and I Know It (2005) oil on linen 53 x 65 inches via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Cygnet Committee (2008) Oil on LInen 77 x 104 inches via Friedrich Petzel Gallery

Home Alone All Grown Up (2008) oil on linen 35 x 28 inches via Friedrich Petzel Gallery

I’m banal, we’re all banal. I think that’s the point right? Yep, that’s it. -Sean Landers

Two Excerpts from ArtForum:

“If misery loves company, Landers might be consoled by his art’s part in a larger esthetic and cultural tendency that wears its asocial attitudes and nonintellectual dispositions, its paranoia and its delusions of grandeur, its adolescent tendencies and its obsessional leanings, on its sleeve. He deserves to be singled out, though, for taking it over the top: his efforts to show that the inner idiot is in control are totally convincing. The work gives us little opportunity, perhaps little inclination, to identify with an expressive “consciousness,” to appreciate esthetic accomplishment, to enjoy the irony of institutional critique. What’s left?”

“Thus we are constantly brought back to the form itself: is it novelistic, diaristic, parody, critique? Is it literary at all? Is it art? Does it matter? Landers’ comic language of mundanity divorces his Conceptual and Minimal frameworks from their earlier functions, substituting solipsism for self-reference, routine for serial repetition.somewhere between artistic fiction and ruse.” (full review here)

In the Artist’s Own Words:

“My views tend to align themselves with three old dead guys who, at one point in their lives, sported some utterly fantastic beards. It began with Thoreau’s treatise on simplicity, gradually moving to include Tolstoy’s writings on purpose, and finally somehow wrapping things up with William Morris and his ideas about work and society. To be a little less broad for the unfamiliar, this trifecta championed a life that is far from the media addicted consumerist society we live in today.”

“Influences are a funny thing. We are the sum of our experiences, and as we change, so do the things we admire, which again, in turn, further changes us. I’m not sure what caused me to abandon the Church of David, but these days my aesthetic and theoretical alignments tend to be broader and more malleable. Fervent devotion to a specific way of seeing and speaking is just another discarded piece of my past, next to those seasons of Angel on DVD. Everything influences what I do, but there is a small crowd that helped pave the way, and continues to do so on a regular basis.”

“There’s something to be said about distilling a central theme or idea of a film down to it’s core and translating it into a simple, iconic image. It’s a nice exercise that shows just how limitation can breed possibility and eliminate distraction: by setting yourself a series of self-imposed obstructions, your focus becomes more refined, and communication becomes key.”

“Less can be more, just as long as imagination and a willingness to explore trump aesthetic complacency. If there’s anything that this exercise taught me, it was that. And, for better or worse, that lesson has kept both my process and my work from staying the same.”

From Brandon Schaefer’s Blog

Brandon Schaefer’s Website

Brandon Schaefer on Twitter

Thanks to the Accidental Optimist for finding this artist!

Punchme General (1972), Lithograph via Art Net

Sophie Rostopchine Contessa di Segur (1974), Etching via Art Net

Ripensamento “Reflection”, Oil on canvas via Art Net

I coniugi Arnolfini – La coppia (1976), collage, medals, and acrylic on fabric via Art Net

Le plus beau du quartier (1988), Oil on heavy paper reported on canvas via Art Net

Parta a Sei (1964), oil, collage, cotton wadding, upholstery via Friedrich Pretzel

Artist Bio:

Artist, attorney, ironist, writer, sharp critic, and political dissenter, Enrico Baj brought an urgent, refreshing and unique voice to the art of his time. In 1951 he founded the Movimento d’Arte Nucleare (the Nuclear Art Movement, or Art for the Nuclear Age) with Sergio Dangelo whose manifesto stated that its members “desire to demolish all the ‘isms’ of painting that inevitably lapses into academicism, whatever their origins may be.” Baj took inspiration from the most radical notion of Surrealism (he joined the COBRA Group in the late 1940s), adhered to Ubu’s sardonic and rocambolesque spirit and André Breton (in Le Surréalisme et la peinture) claimed him for his movement. His work was acclaimed by Gillo Dorfles as kitsch pioneer and embraced by artists like Asger Jorn, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst. Baj’s work reflected a necessity for continuous re-evaluation and renovation in which the experimental process took precedent over the realized objects. (via Freidrich Pretzel)

Enrico Baj’s Facebook Fan Page

Thanks to Carmelita for finding this artist!

A conservator at work on the Garima Gospels via The Art Newspaper

Hiding out in a remote Ethiopian monastery for what could have been over a millennium, a set of illuminated manuscripts called the Garima Gospels have been newly unearthed. Recent radiocarbon dating conducted at Oxford suggests that the Gospels were completed between 330 and 650 AD, making them the oldest surviving illuminated manuscripts in Africa. The isolated monastery that has protected the manuscripts for so many years is located in a remote mountainous region in Tigray. It is unclear how the Garima Gospels were successfully kept hidden for so long, as the history of the monastery itself is debated, and many such manuscripts have long been destroyed. The find is both astonishing and exciting to researchers and historians, who cite the early Byzantine-style manuscripts as an important key to unlocking the history of the production of early Christian manuscripts, and the spread of Christianity throughout Africa.

The Martydrom of St Lawrence: is it the work of the maestro? via Irish Times

Also in art news this week, another find has art historians chattering—a new Caravaggio painting may have been unearthed. In a year when the famous Baroque maestro’s name has been splashed across the headlines time and time again, and only a few days shy of the 400th anniversary of his death, it seems almost too good to be true. The painting, discovered by the Vatican and entitled The Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, depicts a semi-nude man about to be roasted by angry flames. Although it is indeed a beautiful composition and appears to the untrained eye no different than Caravaggio’s other works, experts remain dubious. Ongoing analysis will need to be conducted to prescribe the painting its true parentage, but in the meantime, the work is being hailed as authentic in the city of Rome, where Caravaggio celebrations run rampant this week.

Norman Rockwell (American, 1894–1978). The Tattoo Artist, 1944. via Brooklyn Museum

Well-recognized and beloved American illustrator Norman Rockwell will be honored in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum entitled Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera. The exhibition follows a two-year project sponsored by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts, which carefully catalogued photographs, notes, and paintings assembled by the artist. Rockwell achieved huge notoriety largely through his many magazine covers for The Saturday Evening Post, painting often humorous and stylized scenes of everyday American life. The illustrator preferred to work from photographs, setting up entire scenes and using friends and family members as his models. The Brooklyn exhibition, which runs from November 19, 2010 to April 10, 2011, focuses primarily on the artist’s convention of painting from photographs, and features many original works.

Michelle Obama to Host Design Award Ceremony via Art Info

This week, first lady Michelle Obama will host the 2010 National Design Awards sponsored by the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum. The program bestows awards to design firms or artists that celebrate brilliant design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world. Obama is well known for her championed support of the arts, especially in regards to up-and-coming fashion designers. This year, nominations came from over 2,500 leaders from every kind of design field, ranging from fashion to industrial design. Winners are selected from a diverse jury made up of prominent figures in the design world. In addition, a teen fair will be held in Washington later this week, with highlights such as a keynote address by Bravo darling Tim Gunn.

Quantitative Chemical Analysis Sheds New Light on Leonardo Da Vinci’s Faces via Art Daily

For the first time ever, a quantitative chemical analysis has been done on several Leonardo Da Vinci paintings from the Louvre Museum—including the Mona Lisa—without extracting any samples. Findings published by researcher Philippe Walter show the many layers that compose each painting, including several minute coatings of glazes that helped create the “sfumato” technique for which the master is so revered. Walter and his team of scientists used a technique called X-ray fluorescence, conducted in the rooms of the Louvre, to determine the composition and thickness of each layer. Da Vinci’s paintings fascinate, largely due to their smoky lifelike appearances, as the artist was obsessed with achieving perfect realism. The results obtained in this study help to understand the master’s search towards making his art look alive.

Laura Lawson paints when writer’s block strikes and writes when painter’s block strikes. She has studied fine art at LCAD and is pursuing a degree in journalism. Recently diagnosed with the degenerative eye disease retinitis pigmentosa, she strives to bring hope to those without vision through her blog. She is currently working on her first book about coping with vision loss.

Tough man: Viggo Mortensen plays violent Russian gangster in Eastern Promises via Mail Online

David Cronenberg, famous for making seminal headfuck flick The Fly in 1986, burst back onto cinema screens about five years ago, releasing A History of Violence and Eastern Promises within two years of one another. Both starring Viggo Mortensen as a more-than-meets-the-eye protagonist, the former received mixed responses – some lauding it as his best work, others deriding its plot – but the latter was far more evenly received, most critics praising it as an unflinching modern-day gangster thriller which should be roundly praised. Me? I’m not so sure.

The film follows midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) as she tries to protect an orphan born at her hospital: the child’s mother was a prostitute who was forced to work for the Russian mafia, and the mob don’t want the secrets of her diary to get out. Anna has the diary, but feels a connection with the child and doesn’t want to cross gangster boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and Kirill’s ‘driver’ Nikolai (Mortensen). But unfortunately, she can’t elude them, and the more she learns about their activities, the more panicked she becomes . . .

Cronenberg’s movie, set within the grubby confines of London in which Guy Ritchie usually operates, follows Anna’s attempts to escape the attentions of the mafia – they want the diary, she wants justice for the child’s mother. In places, the cinematography recalls Ritchie’s fantastic Lock, Stock – the focus is on realism and authenticity, London’s streets are uniformly grey – and recent TV shows like the BBC’s Luther. It’s not an uncommon portrayal of the Big Smoke, thus much of the film seems a bit too familiar: chases down alleyways, dumping bodies in the Thames etc. etc. However, it’s an apt rendering of the town given the film’s content, and its outlook which is fairly pessimistic.

The film alternates between English and Russian (along with the occasional spurt of Arabic) and looks behind the curtain of mafia activity, in this case the restaurant the mob is using as a legitimate front. The violence is pretty up-close-and-personal, from an associate’s throat being cut on screen to a fabulous sequence in a bathhouse. Occasionally, the film does lurch into sensationalised territory, notably in its grim sex scene and liberal use of claret, but generally you feel it’s necessary and fitting not to pull punches in a film so fixed in the real world.

As for Mortensen, it’s difficult to think of him on better form. His Nikolai is a fully-fleshed, intricate character who steals the show scene after scene. Whether cutting the fingers off a dead enemy or talking motorcycles with Anna, you never question his past, motives or reality: Nikolai’s tattoos depict his past, and Mortensen’s fakes were so well-researched and accurate people dodged him in restaurants if he didn’t wash them off after a day’s shooting. Also important to note is a great turn by the always-fantastic Vincent Cassel, whose Kirill alternates between petulant rage, overpowering jealousy and conniving malignance, and an excellent performance from Watts, who complicates Anna’s motives brilliantly, making us question whether she’s on a moral mission or a selfish one.

However, despite these strengths, there are problems with Eastern Promises, notably in its plot. As with many thrillers it’s crammed with plot twists, but rather than fully exploring each, they rush by in a flurry of clues. Of particular annoyance to me was a late twist on Mortensen’s character, which felt very shoehorned and was only addressed for a couple of minutes. When it happens, you’d think its importance would merit more screentime, but alas this is not the case.

And this labyrinthine plot isn’t aided because the film never seems sure of what it wants to be. In turn it comes across as a tragedy about lost innocence, a mob flick, an unlikely romance and a family drama. Admirably, it tries to juggle them all, but it drops the ball a couple of times as the movie progresses.

The interesting family dynamic of mob father-and-son is all broad brushstrokes – he’s a waster, father feels ashamed and so on – and the really intriguing prompt to the story (the exploitation and enslavement of underage Eastern European girls as prostitutes) is just used as a springboard for the problems facing Watts’ Anna. When these girls are being so frequently and ruthlessly exploited, her problems really seem insignificant. The message of the film’s opening is that this kind of crime is endemic and needs to be stopped, yet the entire movie is spent bemoaning the misfortunes of a single woman who seems to search out trouble. Note how she returns to the restaurant to berate the gangsters even after the matter is over, for reasons which don’t seem entirely magnanimous, rather selfish.

It’s a very uneven piece, all told. When Eastern Promises leans on its actors or action it’s excellent, when it does so on the plot it creaks like a Victorian floorboard. Scenes between any combination of Cassel, Watts and Mortensen are excellent, the bathhouse scrap verging on virtuoso, but the movie’s overly contrived sequence of twists undercut all its good work and make it ultimately underwhelming.

6/10: Almost like a Guy Ritchie film without the tongue-in-cheek humour or quality of plot, Eastern Promises is nothing if not exceptionally grim, but were it not for a trio of excellent central performances it would languish amongst poorer contemporaries. Despite having enough ideas to propel itself along, it suffers from having too much plot with not enough exposition. Worth watching for its excellent acting triumvirate, but lacks the intelligent intricacy to be anything approaching a seminal effort.

Luke Grundy is a fervent assimilator of media living amid the bright lights of London, England. If he’s not watching films or listening to music, he’s probably asleep, eating or dead. An aspiring writer, journalist and musician, he is the creator of movie/music blog Odessa & Tucson and lives for epistemology.

Sigmund Freud, by Max Halberstadt, 1921 via Wikipedia

One way to interpret a work of art like a painting, is to think of it as dream made manifest in the physical world. Though Freud’s theories have been questioned by many thinkers, we will use his method of dream interpretation as an approach to analyzing a painting. One element to consider in a painting is the artist’s use of color. Does a great deal of red, for example, reveal a suppressed passionate temperament or obsession in the artist?

Sigmund Freud, by Max Halberstadt, 1925 via Swann Galleries

Freud thought that certain shapes/objects symbolize sexual content; such as the idea of a gun or a zeppelin balloon having phallocentric connotations. He also claimed that the influence of the “family romance” or the power of the relationships between family members on the psyche of an individual as having a huge role in how that person relates to others throughout his/her life. This childhood experience becomes the “primal fantasy” that plays out throughout one’s life. Therefore, characters in a portrait painting might symbolize the artist’s relationship to his/her family.

Édouard Manet, Olympia, oil on canvas, 1863 via Wikipedia

The art historian Donald Kuspit (2002), gives an in-depth critique of the family dynamics that might have influenced the emotional relationships in the artist Eduoard Manet’s life. Kuspit analyzes how these emotional dynamics affected Manet’s self-perception as revealed in his art. For example, looking at Manet’s nude Olympia circa 1863, he claims it is a courting of the incest-barrier with the prostitute standing in as a substitute-object for Manet‘s mother.

This is just scratching the surface of how to analyze works of art and there are several avenues of theory that can be applied to understand the meaning of a work of art; a sociological perspective, historical and many others.

If this subject interests you, and you would like to learn more, you may read my MA thesis below.

I attained my MA in Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. I’m also an artist and designer, where you can find my work on my website. I’m also on Twitter.

José Garcia Montebravo was a self taught artist who died just a few weeks ago in his hometown of Cienfuegos. Even though he did not have a formal art education, he was an educated man with an understanding of art, both current and historic.

When he discussed his influences, Montebravo referred to the Cuban avant-garde as well as artists from the past. Yet, Montebravo has a highly defined personal artistic voice; his work is very much his own, not in any way derivative.

Although known for his stunning representations of women, elegantly depicted alone on paper or canvas, Montebravo has also created other works that are more exotic and complex.

Many of these are composed of groups of figures. These works are unusual, in that in most cases the figures do not interact. They are placed in a row, as if the artist has done 3 or 4 portraits on one page. On occasion, a connection between the figures is implied, but never made clear. Furthermore, some of Montebravo’s figures are curious, at times with angel wings or mechanical parts.

This series is like a study that might be found in a sketchbook. They feel as if they are about process, rather than a finished project. But it is clear that Montebravo sees these efforts as completed works, signing them and releasing them to galleries.

For more information on Montebravo and other artists from Cuba, visit Indigo Arts, a gallery representing many important international artists.

Scott Rothstein is an artist who writes primarily about self-taught art and artists informed by traditional culture. His own work can been seen in several American museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Rothstein has lived in Philadelphia, New York City, New Delhi, and Tokyo. He is currently based in Bangkok. He blogs at Art Found Out.

Where Land Slides (2009) acrylic on wood panel 14 x 18 inches

My work investigates the incongruous architectural elements in contemporary urban environments. The original impetus behind this exploration, which I’ve been doing for the last 8 years, was the catastrophic events of 9/11 and the impact these events had on our environment, and subsequently, society itself.

Before 9/11 I had been doing a type of portraiture which slowly transitioned into landscape as I became more interested in the surroundings of my subjects versus the subjects themselves.

I’m a native New Yorker and after 9/11, something permanent in my landscape disappeared; it’s as if the urban environment died. I’d never regarded buildings or architecture as more than symbols or monuments to someone else’s ego, memory, or beliefs. But after the fall of the World Trade Center I began to see buildings as organic living things– and in a way–human.

Verdant Shore (2010) acrylic on wood panel 14 x 18 inches

This really triggered something in me. All of a sudden I realized I could make portraits of buildings. But that was only the beginning and really did not touch on the psychology I sought to explore and convey. Interestingly, the post-9/11 period was the beginning of one of the largest housing booms in NYC and the rest of the world. Watching this unfold, and living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the time, I saw the equivalent of an invasion. Like a mushroom growth or an infestation of a colony of termites.

I found this urban explosion simultaneously engaging and frightening. The fervid development of every last inch of real-estate was essentially creating a new urban reality. Buildings sprouting up all over would often supplant or encroach older buildings. New constructions fused with older constructions. Expansion was everywhere.

Destination Journey (2006) Acrylic on Wood Panel 56″ x 62″

And so, from this urban chaos, it became apparent to me that the choice of what kind of building and where to put it was essentially irrelevant and lacked planning. It was more the result of a practical necessity guided by commercial interests.

At first I hated what I saw but then I began to distance myself and consider it aesthetically. I interpreted the randomness as a sort of parallel to the shanty towns in Jamaica or the favelas in Rio. I took notice of the colors of the building materials; and the structures designed around the buildings like netting and scaffolding.

I thought if there was a way to distill the temporary and all its ephemera, isolating key pieces into a painting, then I would be able to elevate the visual signifiers that speak to this period of transformation.

Farthest Sometimes 20 acrylic on wood panel 40 x 50 inches

I love beauty, and always have tried to find it around me, despite my surroundings. You could say I’m torn down the middle between naturalism and urban life. I have tried to depict these juxtapositions in my work. For example, a glorious mountain range may serve as a backdrop to a new construction condo.  These environments exist in the real world; outside of my paintings.

In a painting, depictions are often idealized and encapsulated. They speak to a utopia or a world in harmony at least on an aesthetic level. I don’t want to paint propaganda, nor do I want to take what for me would be the easy way out and paint distopias or post-apocalyptic nightmares.

My initial reaction to 9/11 was painting buildings with explosions on, in, or near them. But that evolved–quite literally those explosions turned into flowers. I live in a new construction condo myself so how can I hate it? And yet, I look around and wonder how long this unbridled urban expansion can last?

Surrender (2007) Acrylic on wood panel 39 x 48 inches

The conceptual idea of transformation has a firm place in my painting process. Though my work looks highly rendered and the surfaces are very finished, there is an active process of editing that goes on in the making of my work. I usually work on wood or plastic panel and I apply paint mostly by making customized stencils out of tape and frisket. Similar to screen printing, I apply paint in layers to build objects like buildings.

Memento Mori 2008 Acrylic on wood panel 48 x 54 inches

I also paint elements free hand, integrating them with the more graphic elements. I am keenly interested in the dialogue between diverse painting techniques. Because the painted edge and texture are important to me, I often paint things like the sky last. This creates a shallow, embedded quality to the visual elements underneath. It often works well to maximize the visual tension on the painted surface, challenging the logic of what naturally should be in front or behind.

Eloping on Destiny’s Credentials 2008 Acrylic on wood panel 40 x 56 inches

As the picture develops, there inevitably comes a point for revision. This is done by sanding and reworking areas to bring them back to a zero state. Huge areas of the painting can disappear and only traces of these revisions are visible in the end. To varying degrees, I conceal these corrections. This allows me to maintain the precise finished look of the work I aim for–without forfeiting spontaneity and improvisation.

In the end, the surface texture of the painting undergoes revisions as well. I often treat areas of the painting with varying degrees of varnish. I may apply a glossy element on top of a matte background or introduce granulated textures next to flat surfaces to accentuate the interplay of larger shapes within the painting.

Tender of the Flock (2007) acrylic on wood panel 43″ x 60″

There are unfinished building projects around the corner from me in East Williamsburg. Already vegetation and animal life have taken residence there. Some might look at this and see degradation but I see another vestige of my core philosophy, that we are constantly in a state of change. There is an undeniable entropic force at play in nature and it challenges our modern, human perseverance.

The combination of old and new materials and the stark contrast in line and color have become key elements for me to communicate the ongoing transformation of life. I would like to find beauty and peace in the world I live. And so, like a zen gardner, I can subtly coax the world around me into something meditative and worth pondering.



The work of Dean Monogenis can be found on his website. His paintings can also be found on Collette Blanchard Gallery and Walter Maciel Gallery.



This autobiography is part of the Escape into Life Lives of the Artists project.

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