Parties

Nov. 2nd, 2008 10:31 am
collisionwork: (vile foamy liquids)
Great Halloween party at the home of Matt & Dina Gray on Friday night.

The theme(s) was/were "Come as a Corporate Logo/Mascot" or "Fine Art, that is, come as Jackson Pollock or come as a Jackson Pollock."

Berit and I went the latter route - she taking on Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror, and I, as mentioned here before, not thinking then that I'd actually go this route, got a dusky red sweater and black pants and went as Mark Rothko's No. 14, with identifying card, as you'd see next to the work in a museum -- which became the joke, as people would look at me and ask, "What are you?" and I'd hand them the card or hold it next to me - which was better for the joke but spoiled the image a bit - and stand very still. I was surprised how many people actually got this and laughed (or, well, groaned appreciatively), but considering some of the artwork on display, maybe I shouldn't have.

I took quite a few photos, but because of the party lighting - not only low, but VERY red-tinted - my camera, which usually works well in low light, got poor results. It was better with flash, but of course those don't look too great.

So, behind the cut - because these are probably only of interest to friends of those of us there who aren't on Facebook and seeing all the shots of that night posted by many of us who were there - are a few of the better shots from the evening . . .

Matt & Dina Rose Gray's place - Halloween 2008 )



Today I go see a show for the NYIT Awards. Glad I realized about daylight savings time or I'd have been there WAY early and in a foul mood. Saw the final performance of The Master of Horror last night and then Bride of Sinister Six at The Brick. Busy.

Tuesday night is the Election Night Special performance of Lord Oxford at The Brick, followed by watching the Election results there - we're figuring out how to stream the video to the big big screen. I'll probably drag in my old TVs as well, hook them to antennas and switch channels around, then maybe point a video camera at them and broadcast that on the screen as well.

I've been wanting to do the whole night with us on the Brick staff as the "Brick Action News Team," as if we're covering the Election ourselves, live video camera and microphones, delivering insane, non-sequitur commentary on what we're seeing, but I don't think that'll happen, as much fun as Berit and I have been having with the idea:

IAN: (loud, cheerful) This is Ian W. Hill, media supervisor of the Brick Action News Team, live from the bar area at the rear of the theater, throwing you now to Berit Johnson in our state-of-the-art Brick SuperMedia SkyBooth. Berit, can you hear me?
BERIT: (flat, joyless) Yes, Ian, of course I can hear you.
IAN: That's incredible, Berit, you're coming through with amazing clarity!
BERIT: Ian, I'm four feet above you.
IAN: Well, that's great, Berit! Boy, that new Brick SuperMedia SkyBooth is really something, huh?
BERIT: It's the tech booth, and I'm right over you, you don't have to shout.
IAN: Well, that's terrific! Say, isn't it great seeing our Democracy in action?
BERIT: I'm a Socialist, Ian, you know that. This is all a Capitalist farce between two barely-differing segments of the Money Party that rules the State.
IAN: Hey, great, it takes all kinds to make up our fine country!
BERIT: I'm cutting your damn microphone, Ian.

Probably, we'll just stock up on food and alcoholic beverages and have a suspenseful (?) viewing evening.

See you on the other side of this piece of history . . .

collisionwork: (Tulse Luper)
Tyler Green, over at Modern Art Notes, has asked for his readers to assemble another list (previously, he asked for our favorite buildings - mine are HERE).

This time, in light of the fact that a Thomas Kinkade painting will be adapted for the silver screen (aw, jesus fuck a bagpipe!), we're asked for five paintings that we think actually SHOULD have a future in the motion picture medium.

Now, as a lover of both painting and film (the latter being my first love, the medium I think and feel in; the former being the perfect, pure medium I aspire to the qualities of), this is harder for me than it might seem, for my general rule for any medium is that the best work in any art form is usually that that is pure and true to that medium. Great films, novels, plays, etc. don't translate as great in media other than their own.

So, no Pollocks on my list.

My first thoughts were of Hopper and Vermeer. David Lynch once mentioned two of his favorite artists as being Bacon and Hopper, but the latter only "for film." I understand this - I don't necessarily like Hopper all that much, except he's very inspirational in a cinematic sense. There are a few painters like this, not so great on the wall, maybe, but great as static filmmakers (when I was at NYU Film School, Robert Longo was rather popular among my my fellow students - lots of 16mm black-and-white second-year films of men in suits fighting . . . most of them not bad, actually).

Hopper has also been pretty well done in film by now, too, perhaps best in Herbert Ross' film of Dennis Potter's Pennies from Heaven. So, no Nighthawks.

And Peter Greenaway has pretty much dealt definitely with Vermeer in a filmic context in A Zed & Two Noughts. So, after considering The Music Lesson, I decided to go elsewhere.

I also considered and discarded works by Goya, Duchamp, Rothko (one which, I discovered less than an hour after I dropped it from my list, is about to go under the gavel), and a different de Chirico from the one I settled on.

In the end, I had to leave behind some of my own feelings about the works as paintings, and just see them as worlds I'd love to fall into, or frozen stories that I want to see the "before" and "after" of.


So here they are . . . )

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