Thomas Pöcksteiner and Peter Jablonowski of the Austrian film production company FilmSpektakel have produced one of the best hyperlapse videos I've seen in a while.
A New Way To Hang Art
I hope they get their funding.
Artists and Their Personal Spaces
Dorothy Hong for the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal has a wonderful article in its Arts section focusing on the architectural spaces utilized by some of today’s top artists.
Irving Penn at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Pablo Picasso at La Californie, Cannes,” 1957, Copyright The Irving Penn Foundation
This is one exhibit I would love to attend. (April 24 through July 30.)
“Cuzco Children”, 1948, Copyright CONDÉ NAST
About Those Incredible Car Ads...
Copyright Audi USA
Antithesis
It’s not difficult to detect that many of my color abstract photography works have a philosophical theme. The catalyst for philosophy constituting the foundation of a number of such works harkens back to my undergraduate and graduate studies in philosophy (particularly political philosophy), a time I remember with great fondness because of how such studies enabled me to form much of the bedrock of not only my personal and political perspectives, but my artistic ones as well.
At first glance, antithesis seems a rather negative connotation to assign to any work. Yet my raison d’être for such a moniker is directly related to the fundamental principles inherent in all human existence.
Now don’t worry, this blog post will not be a mini-treatise in the Hegelian dialectic, for example, which is a philosophical methodology in which a conceivable proposition (the thesis) is fundamentally opposed by an equally plausible and apparently contradictory proposition (the antithesis) with the communal contradiction being reconciled by a third proposal (the synthesis). (Got that?)
No, the following very brief thought exercise is much more straightforward and yet every bit as profound, perhaps even more so.
“Antithesis” (the artwork) was created in association with the overarching thought that it is only possible to know the reality of something by knowing its antithesis, or its opposite. One cannot comprehend anything without understanding — or at least being exposed to — its opposite.
For instance, it is impossible to understand the concept of health — the true and enduring health of the body or mind — without knowing its opposite, even sickness. It is impossible to see the light for what it truly is and in all its vivid embodiment — in brilliance, radiance, in sheer energy, etc. — without having abided in darkness. It is impossible to know genuine pleasure without having experienced antithetically genuine pain.
If one engages in even a fleeting or rudimentary examination of their own existence, they will see that this is veritably the case. Alas, how could it be otherwise?
Only as a result of our experience with that which is antithesis is it possible for us to see things as they really are.
Yet it must be remembered that simply experiencing antithesis — in all of its myriad and seemingly unending forms — is not enough, in and of itself, to truly comprehend that which is real as opposed to that which is not; other principles of comprehension must come into play, of course.
Nevertheless, what is absolutely true is the fact — and the power of antithesis can be found first and foremost is that it is indeed just that, a fact — that it is absolutely impossible for us to be truly cognizant beings without it.
All cognition, i.e. true awareness, is completely dependent upon the principle of antithesis. We cannot be truly sentient beings without it. We can only truly see something when we have been forced (to whatever extent) to see (and know) its opposite.
This video represents one artist's rendition of the unique surface of Mars based upon hundreds of anaglyph images and from 33,000 reference points. The photos upon which this video is based were taken by the HiRISE (high resolution imaging science experiment) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
From the artist:
The anaglyph images of Mars taken by the HiRISE camera holds information about the topography of Mars surface. There are hundreds of high-resolution images of this type. This gives the opportunity to create different studies in 3D. In this film I have chosen some locations and processed the images into panning video clips. There is a feeling that you are flying above Mars looking down watching interesting locations on the planet. And there are really great places on Mars! I would love to see images taken by a landscape photographer on Mars, especially from the polar regions. But I'm afraid I won't see that kind of images during my lifetime.
It has really been time-consuming making these panning clips. In my 3D-process I have manually hand-picked reference points on the anaglyph image pairs. For this film I have chosen more than 33.000 reference points! It took me 3 months of calendar time working with the project every now and then.
The colors in this film are false because the anaglyph images are based on grayscale images. I have therefore color graded the clips. But I have tried to be moderate doing this. The light regions in the clips are yellowish and the dark regions bluish. The clips from the polar regions (the last clips in the film) have a white-blue tone.There are a lot of opinions and studies of what the natural colors on Mars might be. But the dark regions of dust often seems to have a bluish tone. Please study this issue on e.g sites by NASA.
While this brief video may prove to be somewhat stale to the casual observer, to a landscape photographer such as myself it represents a highly intriguing new collection of landscape topographies.
Be sure to watch in full-screen mode and in the highest resolution available to your device.
Government Funding of the Arts
With Donald Trump having announced that he will push for Congress to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, there have been quite a number of editorials in American newspapers and news magazines on this subject, both in favor of retaining the NEA, as well as those who believe its demise does not represent a tragic chapter in this nation’s history.
With this in mind, here are two opposing viewpoints on the subject. Out of all I have read during the past month, these represent what I believe to be the best arguments for each side.
Thomas P. Campbell is the director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He writes in favor of keeping the NEA.
Jeff Jacoby is a regular columnist for the Boston Globe. He favors abolishing the NEA.
The New Philistines
A few months back I called attention to an article in the Wall Street Journal written by Sohrab Ahmari on the subject of aesthetics in art. Having just completed a rereading of Ahmari’s “The New Philistines” I once again wholeheartedly recommend this important work, the primary purpose of which is to highlight the art world’s near refutation of beauty in favor of the politicization of art.
7 Museums That Offer Virtual Tours
© uhnikki
Here are 7 museums offering virtual tours.