Surrealism and its DADa

“Concepts of Modern Art” is a great book edited by Nikos Stangos. Every chapter is brilliantly described by an expert of that subject such a Vorticism or Fauvism. There are many beautiful and helpful explanations of origin, evolution and death of each movement but today I want to point out that of Dada and Surrealism. These two paragraphs are revealing and shocking due to its resemblance with activities carried out in pre-Columbian cultures, for instance. But it basically explains what Dada and Surrealism were, their intentions and their ends. I recommend its wholly lecture but anyway, here, the extract I underline.

Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917

Tree, Child, Book.

    More than a month ago we performed our book launch in our Peter Pan’s discovered oasis. It sounds as a lie, Doesn’t it? I don’t know how you feel it but for me it was like a thousand years ago. Actually, what was a thousand year ago is the first text I sent you and started shaping what would be our book. Our Book! Be Calm, I’m not writing you to ask for anything else, I’m gonna leave you alone, as alone as  kilometers there are between us. This that you are reading is just a excuse to thank you and remind you none word had been born without your photographies, that the final result took from my texts as much effort as your images  coming out.

Phidias' light

    Athens, 450 B.C. After the battle of Plataea, the definitive expulsion of Persians and the "Peace of Callias" a process of building and embellishment of the city is carrying out driven by  Pericles. Crowning the Acropolis, the Parthenon works begin at 447-446 B.C. It is dedicated to Athena Parthenos (the Virgin). Apart from religion reasons, the building is a demonstration of  civic  pride  and  commemorates  achievements of Athens under the patronage of Athena. The sculptural program is run by Phidias that together with an army of stonecutters  and  apprentices of all skill levels, giving life to metopes, frieze,  akroteria and a spectacular pediment, the most crowded of greek art.

The more I seek the more I find.

    A few weeks ago we were wandering by Weymouth Quay and suddenly we saw a massive building, on whose façade one may read “Brewers Quay”. That building was an old distillery reused for art and craft shops. Dozens of little shops occupied both floors, offering a motley route where there were machinery, products and workers before. You could find Victorian style furniture, 1980’s football cards, jewelry, books or clothes. Then we might say, a sale and purchase warehouse, so it was a good place to rescue hidden treasures.

Artistic Justice

 I am far from being a good art historian, I am even far from being a intelligent person. I am ignorant of many, many important things concerning art. But also, I am getting bored with reading wise people showing off their art skills, telling to everyone that they are connaisseurs of the whole art world. Last example has been a supposed discovery of a chinese artist, Chan Hwee Chong.  “Art with Capital Letters” “unsurpassable” “He had to be asian”. He is a completely unknown artist for me and I do not want to underrate either his background or his work but it’s time to shut some mouths (and keyboards) up. Everybody knows what is Faber-Castell. You and me have ever had a pen of this trademark. In order to show their pen’s quality, they made a deal with Chan Hwee Chong by which he had to use those pens for making a specific portraits. These specific portraits are:  Girl with a Pearl Earing  (Vermeer), Self-Portrait (Van Gogh) and Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) through a tremendous technique. It all begins in a central dot, a unique spiralling line starts growing up building the picture. Certain diversions and pressure make shadows, shapes, and spatial depths through which the original portrait is re-designed. See below some pictures of it: