Philadelphia Museum of Art: Paint the Revolution II

Philadelphia Museum of Art: admission ticket. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con Traje de Terciopelo / Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926). Wherever you go, she's watching you.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con Traje de Terciopelo / Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress (1926). Still keeping an eye on you. Are you being naughty or nice?

Philadelphia Museum of Art: art on a wall. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States (1932). With frame. Hard to believe it's so little: 31 x 35 cm. 

Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States (1932). Without frame, a clearer look. 

Handy map of Center City Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is in the upper left pocket. A wonderful walking city, with plenty of mass transit options included. I lived in the Washington Square area for a year, back in the 1990s. Loved it!

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Paint the Revolution

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the approach. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016.

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the steps. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: the interior. Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910-1950. November 27, 2016. Information here.

A beautiful exhibition, nicely designed.  It'll be interesting to compare with the new exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art: México 1900–1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, and the Avant-Garde. Information here.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

"The Italian:" The Life and Times of Tina Modotti (1896-1942)

Time is a trickster, compadres!  It's been two years since I last posted about Tina Modotti (1896-1942), but she sticks with me. Haunts me with her distant look and life's arc. 

After finishing Patricia Albers' Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 1999), I came across Margaret Hooks' Tina Modotti: Photographer and Revolutionary (London and San Francisco: Pandora, 1995, 1993). Both are absorbing, as befits their subject. By now I've gotten to catch some of her photographs during my travels and will keep those eyes open for more.

The quick version. Tina Modotti emigrated from Italy as a teenager, joining a small family foothold in San Francisco. Others would come later. Immigrants! Tina's arrival was nicely timed between the great earthquake of 1906 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. 

Tina did various and sundry to make ends meet, and then became an actress! She also engaged with artist-photographer Bohemian types. She became involved with "Robo" de l'Abrie Richey, dandy poet, and Edward Weston, photographer. She was also friends with Ricardo Gómez Robelo (1884-1924), who would later help her when she lived in Mexico. Richey died in Mexico and Modotti broke off her romance with Weston (more or less). She became closely engaged with the Mexican cultural scene and increasingly aware of the erupting global socio-political situation.   

Diego Rivera, En el Arsenal, 1928, Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico City.

Also in Mexico, Tina became jumbled in with Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Guadalupe "Lupe" Marín (1895-1981), Gómez Robelo (her friend from California days), and Comrade Concha Michel. By the time Rivera painted En el Arsenal (above), others were on the scene, too: Xavier Guerrero (1896-1974), the Cuban Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929) -- the Che Guevera of his day -- Frida Kahlo (1907-1954),  and Vittorio Vidali (1900-1983). 

They all or most became (at least nominally) Communists -- when not enjoying various Bohemian distractions. Some, like Modotti, Vidali and Mella (all three pictured in the right foreground of Rivera's painting) became hardcore communists. Mella was gunned down right before Tina's eyes while they were walking down the street. Her life's story to date was plastered over the newspapers as scandal, with Modotti referred to as "The Italian."

In 1930, she made it to Berlin with the help of International Red Aid (MOPR), just barely escaping the clutches of Italian fascists, who would have killed her. After several harrowing cloak and dagger years, Modotti and Vidali headed into the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939),  Modotti as "Maria" and Vidali as "Comandante Carlos." After Spain fell, they returned to Mexico. After Pearl Harbor and the German Declaration of War, the US became coalition partners with the Soviet Union, strangely enough -- such is the bizarre kaleidoscope of history. 

Poor Tina died of heart failure at age 45. Her life had been anything but bland, though. She'd shifted in her immediate relationships from namby-pamby men to the ruthless Vittorio, from Bohemian actress to grim operative. She had mixed with wildly creative artists and became for a time an excellent photographer of the Mexican proletariat. 

What an arc, from Italy to Mexico and stations in between! I would love to have met her!

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit (Detroit Institute of Arts, 2015) is packed with good stuff. I love it! The Detroit Industry murals, check, along with other Detroit works by both artists, plus from during their San Francisco stay -- (their place of work there was located at 716 Montgomery Street); New York City; and, first and last, Mexico. Their Detroit stay ran from April 1932 to March 1933, though in September of 1932, Frida hurried off to Coyoacán, Mexico, to be with her dying mother; she returned late in October. While in Detroit, Diego focused on his large-scale murals; Frida completed several important smaller-scale works of her own.   

One of the stellar works created by Frida Kahlo while in Detroit in 1932 is shown here: Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos / Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and The United States. Between pages 93 and 96 of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, there is an almost full-size repro (the actual dimensions are given as 12.5" x 13.75" / 31.8 x 34.9  cm.). 

 
Also included in Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are several telegrams and letters from the period. One from Frida to Guillermo Kahlo, her father (who was German-born) in Mexico, is dated November 21, 1930, when she was living in San Francisco. In it she describes how happy she is to have received a letter from him. "The only thing I didn't like is that you told me that you're just as quick-tempered as always, but since I'm the same way, I understand you very well and I know that it's very hard to control yourself; anyway, try your best at least for mama, who is so good to you . . ."  (page 124). What a character. And what a treasure, their art, for Mexico, Detroit, San Francisco and the world. 

Happy Labor Day in the USA! 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Tina Modotti, 1896-1942

Lately I've been submerged in the life and times of Tina Modotti (1896-1942) as she makes her way from Italy to California to Mexico to Germany to Russia to Spain and back to Mexico. Her raucous friendships and work with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and various other artists, photographers, writers, explorers, travellers, revolutionaries and rebels flash by as in a dream machine. 

In Patricia Albers' Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 1999), it's 1930 and she's made it to Berlin with the help of International Red Aid (MOPR), just barely escaping the clutches of Italian fascists, who would have killed her. It's a fascinating, often wild ride. 

Even now, Tina Modotti can be seen depicted in Diego Rivera murals created in the 1920s. She in turn, having documented much of his artwork through photography, often using a single-shot Graflex camera, left for posterity many picture-artifacts to muse over.

Today's Rune: Journey.   

The Wild Ones Revisited

Belle Isle sojourn, Detroit, in the early 1930s.  Love is a many-splendored thing. I wonder what Frida Kahlo is thinking as she fiercely eyes an apparently napping Diego Rivera.

From the artists of the Great Depression to the artists of the Great Recession, a salute!

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

"I Paint What I See"

A pivotal scene in front of one of Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry frescos at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) in HBO’s Hung got me to snooping through old newspaper files. One 1933 article claims that Diego Rivera, a large man, lost a hundred pounds during his Detroit year (mostly 1932), after studying Ford’s River Rouge plant, roaming around with Frida Kahlo and creating masterpieces.

My favorite pertinent news piece so far is “DETROIT IN FUROR OVER RIVERA ART: Murals Symbolizing the City’s Industrial History Threatened With Destruction” (New York Times, March 22, 1933):

“I am in a curious position,” explained Rivera. “The official Communist party of this country has expelled me from membership; and now the conservative element attacks me. However, my public is made up of the workers – the manual and intellectual workers. The religious are attacking me because I am religious: I paint what I see. Some society ladies have told me that they found the murals cold and hard. I answer that their subject is steel, and steel is both cold and hard. . .” The paintings are finished, he concluded, and he does not intend to alter them.

He did not alter anything. The DIA showcased them. Rivera and Kahlo have long since died, but the murals remain in Detroit for all to experience.


Frida Kahlo staring weirdly at Rivera while he apparently dozes off, Belle Island, Detroit, 1932. . . 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.  

HBO's Hung: 1) Comedy. 2) Marxian Love Song to Detroit.

HBO's Hung works on a bunch of levels. It's got everything but the kitchen sink packed into half hour episodes, including the nature of: economic exchange; societal values; gender differences and commonalities; human desire; comedy; family; friendship; love; sports; metro Detroit as microcosm of late capitalist society.  And it works no matter how you take it, lacking only physical violence -- the more typically macho American response to thwarted dreams. All in all, a subversive and brilliant show, with a strong cast. 

If you think "Marxian" is too strong a read, check out a most telling scene in the season 2 opener between Lenore, Tanya and Ray in front of one of Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry frescos at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA),* discussing life. No joke.

Today's Rune: Wholeness. *(Production of Automobile Body and Final Assembly, 1932-1933).

This Wheel's On Fire

Today I was going to post in praise of books, too, but for now, a shout-out to Motor City Burning Press. Check the link below or on ye olde sidebar for the fifty dollar logo contest. Lots about Detroit to work from. What does Detroit mean to you? To me, it means the Red Wings are about to win tomorrow night! But much more than that, of course. Cars, Industry a la Diego Rivera, sports, music, architecture, the new press and art in general. The people. Race relations. A powerful symbol of the USA for a century. Tons of history going way back. Here's a chance to make your mark and earn some running money:

http://motorcityburningpress.blogspot.com/

Photo of "The Big Tire" on I-94 by moi, Erik D. France, while driving. Multi-tasking, you know.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Industry

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has reopened with easier access for anyone interested. An extra incentive for Metro Detroit residents -- local public libraries are stamping free passes to the DIA and most other cultural venues in the area. The program lasts through October 2008, and you can get stamped for guests, too. The DIA pass, which lasts a week per patron, is good for up to four people.

Today, I mostly looked at Diego Rivera's gigantic Detroit Industry Murals of 1932 -- from the Great Depression. Beautiful, fierce, fresco. Rivera didn't sugar coat industrial labor.


It's a little like the giganticism seen in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (released in 1927, but set in the year 2026). Rivera's vision is quite sobering, warm and dreamy all at the same time.

If there are people still living on Earth five hundred years from now, and if they study history, Edsel Ford and Albert Speer may seem like the same guy. As far as the "rational organization" of industrial production of the 1930s and 1940s by engineer-types, anyway.


And will anyone be able to distinguish between Benito Mussolini, Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush in 2507? Mussolini, the eerily prescient fresco by Diego Rivera pictured above, was finished at the New Worker School in New York in 1933. Is that a prsioner at Abu Ghraib, a Gitmo torturer, or a leader of the Ku Klux Klan?

The more things change . . .


Najoua Belyzel, North African French singer -- her birthday. Part fantasy, part science fiction, at least in dress. . . . .

Today's rune: Breakthrough.

Let in snow, let it snow, let it snow. . . . .

Industry

Real lives are endlessly fascinating but impossible to really fathom. Books and movies and other forms of magic provide tidier glimpses. Such is the case with Julie Taymor's Frida (2002), a colorful "biopic" about Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek. By the end of the film, one absorbs the basic rhythm of Kahlo's life, catches something of her vision, and indirectly witnesses her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera. Their time in Detroit is not covered directly, but it hardly matters. One gets the idea. Taymor is currently completing Across the Universe (2007), a fictional tale set in the 1960s that includes, reportedly, the Detroit Riots of 1967.


Another really good, edgy biopic is Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), based on Roger Lewis' biography. Geoffrey Rush is excellent in the lead role, with Charlize Theron well-suited to the role of Britt Ekland. Sellers, like Diego Rivera, was extremely talented yet monstrous in personal relationships. Pretty damned interesting stuff with some playfully innovative flourishes and entertaining soundtrack.


Caroline Trentini sees something other-worldly.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Frida Kahlo (Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón), Sebastian Cabot, Merv Griffin, Bill Haley, Janet Leigh (b. Jeanette Helen Morrison), Pat Paulsen, Della Reese (b. Delloreese Patricia Early), Dave Allen, Ned Beatty, Burt Ward (b. Bert John Gervis, Jr.), G.W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone, Nathalie Baye, Geoffrey Rush, 50 Cent, Caroline Trentini.

Ciao!

The Ides of February

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera on Belle Isle, Detroit, 1932. Interesting dynamic. The Great Depression in full swing during the creation of the Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).

Starting on Belle Isle on a hot Sunday in June, the 1943 Detroit Riots ended with thirty-four people reported killed. American-on-American violence during the Second World War.

"Detroit Moan"*

Two big flags at half-staff frozen
Neon sign reads OPEN
Cracked snow.

*Erik Donald France, 2/1/07; title from Victoria Spivey song, 1936

Today's Rune: Protection.

Birthdays: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Susan Brownmiller (b.1935).

Hasta La Vista!

The Wild Ones

Today is the birthday of Diego Rivera (12/8/1886-11/24/1957). A majestic example of his painting can be seen at the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) downtown. Edsel Ford commissioned the work during Great Depression years 1932 and 1933. Frida Kahlo accompanied him. According to Rivera: “Never before had a woman put such agonizing poetry on canvas as Frida did at this time in Detroit.” There's a sumptuous book on Rivera's output that includes telling photos of the two painters -- Linda Bank Downs, Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals (DIA, 1999). And there's a rowdy biopic about the two, the painters' version of Walk the Line -- Frida (2002), directed by Julie Taynor, starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina.



It's also the birthday of precocious badboy Jim Morrison (12/8/1943-7/1/1971):

"Yeah, that's right baby I am a Sagittarius, the most philosophical of all the signs... But anyway, I don't believe in it, I think it's a bunch of bullshit myself. . . . . I don't know what's gonna happen man, but I'll tell you this: I'm gonna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames" (Jim Morrison, An American Prayer, 1978)

Another book worth checking out, with heavy input from the surviving band members and also from members of Morrison's blood family (including his father): The Doors by the Doors with Ben-Fong Torres (Hyperion, November 2006).

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Bon Voyage!

The Hotel Chelsea

Along with Leonard Cohen, first we’ll take Manhattan. Set up headquarters at The Hotel Chelsea, otherwise known as The Chelsea Hotel.

For anyone who really loves the arts and wants easy access to a large culturally-packed chunk of the city at a reasonable price, it’s worth checking out their website. This is not a luxury hotel, but it is a working one, with long-term residents and reasonable amenities (like a refrigerator and coffee maker). I love it for its low-key ambience, excellent location and intense history, among other things.

Here’s a sampling of people who’ve stayed (and created) in The Chelsea time-space intersection:

Sarah Bernhardt; Mark Twain; Edgar Lee Masters; Hart Crane; Henri Chopin; Thomas Wolfe; Édith Piaf; Frida Kahlo; Diego Rivera; Dylan Thomas (until the end); Nelson Algren; Henri Cartier-Bresson; Julius Robert Oppenheimer; Charles Jackson (The Lost Weekend); Jean-Paul Sartre; Simone de Beauvoir; Willem de Kooning; Jasper Johns; Vladimir Nabokov; Arthur C. Clark (drafting 2001: A Space Odyssey); Stanley Kubrick; Shirley Clarke; Arthur Miller (After the Fall); Rebecca Miller; Tennessee Williams; Gore Vidal; Brenda Behan; Brion Gysin; William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch); Jack Kerouac (On the Road); Bob Dylan (Blonde on Blonde); Bob Neuwirth; Edie Sedgwick; Mary Woronov; Brigid Berlin; Nico; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix; Grace Slick and The Jefferson Airplane; Leonard Cohen; Joni Mitchell (“Chelsea Morning”); Kris Kristofferson; Jane Fonda; Donald Sutherland; Dennis Hopper; John Cale; Sam Shepard; Patti Smith; Robert Mapplethorpe; Iggy and the Stooges (“We Will Fall” – Room 121); Sid Vicious; Nancy Spungen; Dee Dee Ramone; Grace Jones; Miloš Forman; Uma Thurman; Ethan Hawke (Chelsea Walls); Gaby Hoffman.

Though no comprehensive history of the place and its guests has yet been published, there's Chelsea Horror Hotel (2001) by Dee Dee Ramone and the upcoming Chelsea Hotel Manhattan by Joe Ambrose, to be made available on February 1, 2007 (cover pictured above).

Don’t confuse this Hotel Chelsea with the London version or with Elvis Costello’s bitingly great song, “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea.”

I most certainly do want to go back to The Chelsea.

Hotel Chelsea
222 W 23rd St
New York NY 10011
Telephone: (212) 243-3700
Fax: (212) 675-5531

Today's Rune: Growth.

Bon voyage!