GIACOMO BALLA

"All things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing"

Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) was an Italian Futurist painter born in Turin, Italy. Balla grew up studying music and turned to art upon the death of his father. Primarily self-taught, Balla's early works consist of landscape, portraits, and caricatures. He worked in Rome, where he became strongly influenced by modern industrialism, as well as the work of Marinetti. Around this time he became involved with the Futurists and helped them to write their Manifesto in 1910. He officially joined them stylistically around 1912, exploring topics of motion, machinery, and scientific advancements. Balla's style resided in this realm until 1930, when he shifted to an Impressionist approach and incorporated figurative subjects. Balla had a great impact on his contemporaries and those to follow, acquiring talented students such as Boccioni and Severini.

Abstract Speed- The Car Has Passed, 1913

Balla's Abstract Speed- The Car Has Passed is held in the Tate's collection and is a prime example of Futurism, "a movement which aimed to convey a sense of speed through art, seeing it as typifying the spirit of the modern age." The work was originally part of a triptych that sought to convey motion of the landscape as seen from the view of a car's passenger. The Futurists proclaimed: "The gesture which we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a fixed moment in universal dynamism. It shall simply be the dynamic sensation itself."

Streetlight 1910

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912

Hand of the Violinst, 1912

Speeding Automobile, 1912

Futurist Manifesto: We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

Abstract Speed and Sound, 1913

Lines of Speed and Forms of Noise, 1913-1914

Swifts: Paths of Movement and Dynamic Sequences, 1913

The painting above was inspired by photographic images of animal locomotion that surfaced around this time. Balla portray's the bird's trajectory in space.

Study of Materiality of Lights and Speed, 1913

Mercury Passing in Front of the Sun, 1914

Sculptural Construction of Noise and Speed, 1914-1915

MIROSLAW BALKA

Miroslaw Balka is a Polish contemporary sculptor (b 1958). He attended the Warsaw Academy, where he made his first notable sculpture centered around the themes of rite of passage and graduation, and accompanied it with a ritualistic performance. In the 80s he matured into figurative sculptural pieces using "symbolic materials," such as ashes and wood, and in the 90s moved toward non-figurative forms that possessed anatomical qualities reflective of the human figure, (beds, coffins, etc). One example of this type of work is noted by the Artbook, below.

190 x 30 x 7, 190 x 30 x 7, 50 x 42 x 1, 1993

This piece, entitled 190 x 30 x 7, 190 x 30 x 7, 50 x 42 x 1, consists of two identical plates of steel on the wall and one square of carpet on the floor that reflect the dimensions of Balka's body in space. The steel plates are ritualistically smeared with a strong smelling soap, possibly to express a "process of washing and cleansing," as noted by the Artbook. The three pieces loom nostalgically in reminiscence of fleeting marks of human existence, while the medium speaks to an alternate industrially materialistic world, in existence within and throughout humanity. As the Tate notes, Balka's work is strongly conveyed through personal and inner experience, which he has maintained throughout his career. " The persistence of personal narrative associations could be seen as an assertion of the individual against the collectivisation of life... while the use of ordinary industrial materials suggests a protest against the influx of western consumer capitalism into Eastern Europe." The Artbook provides another take on the piece, saying that Balka evokes a "quiet sense of the sacred that can be found in even the most humble existence."

"Silent and dour, his often wretched objects take on a certain sacredness, dignity, and even grandeur, but instead of being expressions of faith, his vessels, wooden constructions, and depictions of the human body are empty relics." (MoMA)

Untitled 1985-1990

Fire Place, 1986

History 1988

Moulting, 1988

Angel of St. Adalbert, 1988

Oasis (C.D.F.), 1989, currently on display at the Tate

Installation, 1990

"250x380x0,3, 190x60x59, 190x60x59", 1994

"250x380x0,3, 190x60x59, 190x60x59", 1994

'As wretchedness and grandeur are brought together, a sense of the sacred is felt. Perhaps it is Balka's humble means that succeed in evoking reverence in the viewer.'

290 x 190 x 89, [diameter]20 x 23, [diameter]20 x 23 1995

Zeitnot, 1996

3 x (57 x 50 x 50) , 2003,

Blue Gas Eyes 2004

250 x 700 x 455, 41 x 41/Zoo/T (2007)

Balka recently had a solo show this spring at University of Massachusetts entitled Gravity, as well as works in many major group exhibitions including a retrospective in Copenhagen featuring work produced after 1959.

JOHN BALDESSARI

"If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art."

John Baldessari (b. 1931) is an American conceptual artist from National City, California. He studied art at San Diego State College, exploring painting, photography and textual art. As he reached artistic prominence, his art moved in all directions- photography, printmaking, installation, sculpture, film and video, still maintaing a strong interest in linguistics and semantics. His work is streaked with irony,  humor, and double entendres,  his message riddled with scorn for the popular. Highly analytical, Baldessari's work creatively depicts societal contradictions and incongruences in ways reminiscent of Art & Language. Baldessari has remained faithful to imagery, distinguishing him from the typical conceptual artist. His work is at times arbitrary, humorous, frustrating, exposing, alluring, discomfiting and confounding. 

Four Men (With Guns Pointed at their Heads), 1988

The Artbook chose a piece of his that juxtaposes the unsettling imagery of faceless men at gunpoint with the nonchalant American diner/cafe experience. There's emphasis on both the conceptual irony as well as the composition. The visual experience is fractured, giving Baldessari complete control over how the viewer is perceiving and adjudicating his work. 

(I think he intended the composition to resemble a hand gun)

From the Whitney Biennial: 

"For the last five decades, John Baldessari has constantly reinvented himself, working in a variety of media and forms including painting, photography, books, sculpture, and exhibition design. Although typically associated with Conceptual art, the only consistent aspect of the artist’s work—aside from his commitment to mining the archives of art history and the mass media—is his defiance of expectations."

I found a series of Baldessari's work that I liked in particular, entitled "Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Forehead." He recently exhibited (through August 2009) this series at the Mai 36 gallery in Zurich. Here, like many of his other pieces including the one by the Artbook, he uses recycled photographs in conjunction to one another to create odd, sometimes antithetical relationships, engaging compositions, and eye grabbing color combinations. His works seem at once allegorical and completely nonsensical, creating a type of visual syntactical dissolution.

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Three UFOs Aloft

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Three Persons (with Boutonnieres and Handshake

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Woman (with Semaphore Flags)

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Two Arms (Pointing in Opposite Directions)

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Person (in Palm of Hand)

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: Man Looking at Figurine
Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: People (Upside Down),

Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads: (with Apple)

The rest of the pieces below come from MoMA's collection. In picking these out, I tended to gravitate towards the visual representations over the linguistic, but I did include one of his text pieces to give a more well-rounded sense of his work. He has been very prolific in his lifetime; this is only a small representation of a much greater body. 

Untitled, 1973

Two Figures (With One Shadow) from the portfolio Hegel's Cellar, 1986

Untitled, 1986

Untitled, 1986

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 1988

Untitled, 1989

Untitled, 1989

Study for Splattered Faces, 1990

Junction Series: Landscape, Seascape, Bodybuilders (One Flexing for Admirer), 2002

He also has some great conceptual film pieces, which can be found at this link and are conveniently accompanied by short descriptions. I really appreciated his piece entitled, "I Am Making Art," (can be seen by clicking the "video" icon next to the title at the above link) in which Baldessari repeats the title phrase while making slow, jerky movements with his body. I was able to find an excerpt of another one of his films on youtube, which I've included below. Enjoy!

LEON BAKST

Lev Rosenberg (Leon Bakst) was a Jewish artist born in Russia in 1866, just barely making the cut off for the Artbook. He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, as well as the Academie Julian in Paris. Rosenberg had his first solo show in 1889, where he adopted the pen name "Bakst" from Baxter, the surname of his grandmother. He rose to fame with his illustrations in his periodical World of Art, which he cofounded with Sergei Diaghilev, an influential art critic and ballet dancer. World of Art became a strong Russian artistic movement at the turn of the century. Bakst moved into stage design in the early 20th century, constructing sets and costumes, as well as painting the dancers of the Ballet Russes (Diaghilev among them). This is where he found his niche, revolutionizing the world of theatre through striking color usage and elaborate motifs in both costumes and sets. He is associated with the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. The Artbook brings to light a piece from this time period entitled "Costume Design for 'Oriental Fantasy,' " shown below.

"Costume Design for 'Oriental Fantasy' " depicts an ornamented dancer, focusing primarily on the patterning of the costume. The materialistic elements of the dancer's garb triumph, accentuating theatrical presentation and arousing nostalgia of the 19th century obsession with Eastern exoticism. With "fantastical" elements of Chagall and Oriental decorative patterns reminiscent of Klimt, this beautiful painting serves as one of the many examples of Bakst's great contribution to dramatic costume design and Russian art as a whole. 

Below are other examples of his work. His designs for Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty (1921) received particular acclaim amongst the rest. 

Portrait of Zinaida Gippius, 1906

Ida Rubinstein as Cleopatre, 1909

Costume for Tamara Karsavina in "The Firebird," 1909

La Sultane Bleu, 1910

Narcisse Bacchante, 1911

Design for the Costume of a Pilgrim, 1911

Fantasy on Modern Costume, 1912

Legend of Joseph Potiphar's Wife, 1914

The Wolf, Sleeping Beauty, 1921

Phedre and Theseus, 1923

Bakst's relationship with Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes declined in 1922, and was subsequently followed by terminal illness of which he died from in 1924.