Art Star: ERNESTO CAIVANO

ERNESTO CAIVANO

Born
b. 1972 Madrid, Spain--Lives and works in New York CityEducation
2001 MFA Columbia University

1999 BFA The Cooper Union

Caivano, as with most artists has explored a number of different themes within his work. One body of work in particular comes from concepts, inspirations, departure points that is unique, strange, and unexpected. Critics describe his work in a narrative framework using literary language to describe it. It has been observed to be "in line with the slippery divide between abstraction and representation (or legibility and obscurity)."

The New York based artist here shows the process of telling an ongoing epic story. These drawings tell an ongoing epic story. They are visualizations of excerpts from After the Woods,"a fantastical tale written by the artist that involves a man and woman, separated for a millennium, who attempt to reunite in an unspecified post-apocalyptic future. During their time apart, he has become a knight with the power to aid the evolutionary development of plants and she a spaceship who symbolizes (and fosters advances in technology. Caivano's protagonists consistently encounter exotic creatures throughout their journey, and even transmit messages written written on the wings of birds the artist calls "Philapores," who, incapable of normal flight, travel through dust, water, and other matter." (Brian Sholis)

His work is informed by:

Albrecht Durer (prints and drawings)

William Blake (Romantic visions)

Early Modern explorations of abstraction

Fractal geometry

Contemporary telecommunications technology

Advanced scientific inquiry

Fables and fairy tales of medieval literature

etc...

Art Stars: The Native American Artists of the Great Plains

PLAINS INDIANS DRAWINGS

THE GREAT PLAINS
The Great Plains region as we define it covers much of 10 states of the United States, comprising nearly one in seven U.S. counties: Colorado,Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma,South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming

Dead Calvalry Horses

Artist: Red Horse

Tribe: Lakota

1881

"A profound sense of history has long compelled Indian peoples of the Great Plains to chronicle their lives pictorially. As the nineteenth century progressed, the trickle of white explorers and traders across the continent and up the great rivers turned into a veritable flood tide of soldiers and settlers. Their presence changed Plains life irrevocably. Plains Indians adopted a new medium for recording their visual histories, obtained through their contacts with whites: they began to draw in bound ledger books--commonly used for inventory be traders and military officers--using pens, pencils, and watercolors. They also worked in small notebooks and on drawing paper." (Berlo 1996)

Sinte Riding at a Gallop

Artist: Sinte

Tribe: Lakota

1886

Inspection of Indian Prisoners, Fort Marion

Artist: Making Medicine

Tribe: Cheyenne

1876-77

Cheyenne Village Scene: Women's Ceremony with Large Hide

Artist: Red Horse

Tribe: Cheyenne

1876

Pencil, crayon, and ink

8-3/4 x 11-1/4 in.

Top: A Meeting with Three Crows

Middle: A Meeting with Two Crow Men and Two Women

Bottom: A Meeting with Three Crows

Artist: Unknown

Tribe: Cheyenne

1890s

Watercolor, crayon, and pencil

7-15/16 x 12-1/2 in. each

Troops Assembled Against a Cheyenne Village

Artist: Bear's Heart

Tribe: Cheyenne

1876-77

Wicoun Pinkte Maka Kin Ta Wicokunze Oyake Pelo

(They Said Treaties Shall Be The Law of the Land)

Artist: Francis Yellow

Tribe: Lakota

1995

Ink on antique map

27-1/2 x 17-1/4 in.

"Plains Indian drawings tell many stories. But writings about these drawings have focused too much on one set of questions, based on European models: Who is the artist? Who is depicted? What are the identifying details of the narrative? These drawings have seldom been treated as complex works of art rather than simple historical or ethnographic documents (Lessard 1992). Yet the unraveling of ethnographic details is only one narrative thread in a complexly woven story. We sadly underestimate the evocative power of these works if we unwind only that thread. To most art historians and Native scholars in the 1990s, what is of greater interest are the subtleties of interpretation involving social, religious, and economic history and artistic biography, which reveal each work as an individual creative phenomenon within a complex social nexus." (Berlo 1996)

In Berlo, J.C. (Ed.) 1996. Plains Indian Drawings 1865-1935: Pages From a Visual History. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers.

Art Star: ROMARE BEARDEN

ROMARE BEARDEN

BIOGRAPHY

b. September 2, 1914, Charlotte, NC

d. March 12, 1988, New York City

Romare Bearden, painter and collage maker, fills his works with the symbols and myths of the American black experience.

Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1914. Soon after his birth, his family moved to New York City's Harlem. During the mid-1930s, when Bearden was a student of George Grosz at the Art Students League, he founded the "306 Group" for black artists living in Harlem.

Romare Bearden is among the preeminent artists of his generation. His powerful works represent the places where he lived and worked: the rural South; northern cities, principally Pittsburgh and New York's Harlem; and the Caribbean island of St. Martin.  His life and art are marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, performing arts, history, literature and world art. 

Throughout his career Bearden also made forays into abstraction, usually with musical associations.  Bearden was also a celebrated humanist, as demonstrated by his lifelong support of young, emerging artists.

Links:  National Gallery of Art

           The Metropolitan Museum of Art--"Let's Walk the Walk"

               Romare Bearden Foundation

Art Stars: The Community of Djenné

 

Marketplace

Marketplace

Marketplace

THE GREAT MOSQUE

The Building of the Great Mosque
Running time for this section starts at 10:09 (begin video there)

The Great Mosque of Djenné is a large banco or adobe building that is considered by many architects to be one of the greatest achievements of the Sudano-Sahelian architectural style. The mosque is located in the city of Djenné, Mali, on the flood plain of the Bani River.

DESIGN

The walls of the Great Mosque are made of sun-baked earth bricks (called ferey), and sand and earth based mortar, and are coated with a plaster which gives the building its smooth, sculpted look. 

The walls of the building are decorated with bundles of rodier palm (Borassus aethiopum) sticks, called toron, that project about 60 cm (2 ft) from the surface. 

The toron also serve as readymade scaffolding for the annual repairs. Ceramic half-pipes also extend from the roofline and direct rain water from the roof away from the walls.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE

The entire community of Djenné takes an active role in the mosque's maintenance via a unique annual festival. 

This includes music and food, but has the primary objective of repairing the damage inflicted on the mosque in the past year (mostly erosion caused by the annual rains and cracks caused by changes in temperature and humidity). In the days leading up to the festival, the plaster is prepared in pits. It requires several days to cure but needs to be periodically stirred, a task usually falling to young boys who play in the mixture, thus stirring up the contents.

Men climb onto the mosque's built-in scaffolding and ladders made of palm wood and smear the plaster over the face of the mosque.

Another group of men carries the plaster from the pits to the workmen on the mosque. A race is held at the beginning of the festival to see who will be the first to deliver the plaster to the mosque.

Women and girls carry water to the pits before the festival and to the workmen on the mosque during it.Members of Djenné's masons guild direct the work, while elderly members of the community, who have already participated in the festival many times, sit in a place of honor in the market square watching the proceedings.

UNESCO

In a fascinating session at Dumbarton Oaks’ latest conference on cultural landscapes in Sub Saharan Africa, Charlotte Joy, an anthropologist at University of London, delved into Mali’s convoluted history with UNESCO World Heritage program and one local community’s efforts to preserve a cultural landscape people still call home.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was formed with the rest of the UN System in the mid-1940s. Its philosophy, said Joy, was always to “foster inter-cultural dialogue through education.” The idea behind the organization was to “construct peace in the minds of men,” not just through disarmament and economic development. The thinking was if cultures could better understand each other, they would go to war with each other less.

In 1972, after years of debate about what constitutes significant cultural value and the best ways to preserve the sites that embody it, UNESCO’s member states signed the World Heritage Convention and, six years later, formed the first World Heritage List. Today, the list, which includes some 962 sites, is seen as a critical tool for spreading knowledge about cultures.

The Great Mosque, 1910

SEE ALSO:

• African Architecture
• Islamic architecture
• List of mosques
• Islam in Mali

List of Museums and Galleries

SEATTLE ART VENUES

Seattle is a rich city for cultural and artistic engagement. There are many different view locations. This list is a document of some of the well known spaces that you might be interested in checking out.

MUSEUMS

Seattle Art Museum - downtown - entry fee required - free 1st Thursdays (May 1st)

Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park- downtown - entry fee required - free 1st Thursdays (May 1st)

Seattle Asian Art Museum - Capitol Hill - entry fee required - free 1st Thursdays (May 1st)

Henry Art Gallery - UW- free for UW Students- flash your ID!

Frye Museum of Art - First Hill - all events and lectures free

Wing Luke Museum - IDistrict - entry fee required

Northwest African American Museum - Rainier Valley - entry fee required

EDUCATIONAL CENTERS

Seattle Pacific Art Center- Seattle Pacific University

Photographic Center NW

Hedreen Gallery - Seattle University

Jacob Lawrence Gallery - University of Washington

Cornish College for the Arts Gallery

Steele Gallery - Gage Academy of Art

GALLERIES

all free for visitation. Typical hours will be 11-5 Tues-Sunday

Pioneer Square Area

Grover Thurston Gallery

G.Gibson Gallery

Greg Kucera Gallery

PUNCH
Gallery 4Culture

James Harris Gallery

SOIL

Linda Hodges Gallery

Foster White Gallery

Platform Gallery

Roq La Rue Gallery

Suyama Space

Capitol Hill area

Vermillion

Ghost Gallery

Vignettes
Cairo

Woodside Braseth Gallery

Winston Wachter

Blindfold Gallery