Cocktails with a Curator: The Frick Pairs Weekly Art History Lectures with Cocktail Recipes

in Art, Food & Drink, Museums | January 25th, 2021

Once upon a time, not so long ago, First Fri­days at the Frick were a gra­cious way for New York­ers to kick off the week­end. Admis­sion was waived, par­tic­i­pants could take part in open sketch­ing ses­sions or enjoy live per­for­mance, and cura­tors were on hand to give mini lec­tures on the sig­nif­i­cance and his­tor­i­cal con­text of cer­tain prized paint­ings in the col­lec­tion.

Rather than pull the plug entire­ly when the muse­um closed due to the pan­dem­ic, the Frick sought to pre­serve the spir­it of this long­stand­ing tra­di­tion with week­ly episodes of Cock­tails with a Cura­tor, match­ing each selec­tion with recipes for make-at-home themed drinks, with or with­out alco­hol.

Much as we miss these com­mu­nal live events, there’s some­thing to be said for enjoy­ing these wild­ly enter­tain­ing, edu­ca­tion­al mini-lec­tures from the com­fort of one’s own couch, drink in hand, no need to crane past oth­er vis­i­tors for a view, or wor­ry that one might keel over from lock­ing one’s knees too long.

Deputy Direc­tor and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Cura­tor Xavier F. Salomon makes for an espe­cial­ly engag­ing host. His cov­er­age of James McNeill Whistler’s Sym­pho­ny in Flesh Col­or and Pink: Por­trait of Mrs. Frances Ley­land, above, touch­es on the artist’s affin­i­ty for but­ter­flies, music, Japan­ese themes and build­ing his own frames.

But the great­est delight is Salomon’s tal­ent for imbu­ing 19th-cen­tu­ry art world gos­sip with a sense of imme­di­a­cy.

Sip a sake high­ball (or a vir­gin san­gria-style refresh­er of plum juice and mint) and chew on the true nature of the artist’s rela­tion­ship with his ship­ping mag­nate patron’s wife.

Sake High­ball
sake (of your choice)
club soda (as much/little as need­ed)
lots of ice

Alter­na­tive Mock­tail
plum juice
ice
cut orange, lemon and apple (san­gria style)
mint leaves
sug­ar (as need­ed)

Salomon returns to con­sid­er one of the Frick’s most icon­ic hold­ings, François Bouch­er’s roco­co Four Sea­sons.

Com­mis­sioned in 1755 to serve as over-door dec­o­ra­tions for King Louis XV’s mis­tress Madame de Pom­padour, they now reside in the Frick’s ornate Bouch­er Room.

Salomon draws com­par­isons to anoth­er swoon­ing Frick favorite, Jean-Hon­oré Frag­o­nard’s series Progress of Love. While the roman­tic nature of these works is hard­ly a secret, Salomon is able to speak to the erot­ic sig­nif­i­cance of dol­phins, grapes, and tiny 18th-cen­tu­ry shep­herdess bon­nets.

Those who are respect­ing COVID pro­to­cols by court­ing out­doors this win­ter will wel­come Salomon’s thoughts on Winter’s cen­tral fig­ure, a coquette rid­ing in a sleigh dri­ven by a well-bun­dled man in Tar­tar dress:

Her hands may be warmed by a muff, but her upper body is com­plete­ly exposed. It’s a com­bi­na­tion of lux­u­ry and seduc­tion typ­i­cal of Bouch­er, all treat­ed in a fan­ci­ful, even humor­ous man­ner.

Also, is it just us, or is Cura­tor Salomon tak­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy his Proust-inspired Time Regained cock­tail in a kimono? (A perk of the vir­tu­al office…)

Time Regained
2 oz. Scotch whisky
0.75 oz. Dry ver­mouth
0.5 oz. Pis­co
0.25 oz. Jas­mine tea syrup (equal parts of jas­mine tea and sug­ar)

Alter­na­tive Mock­tail
Cold jas­mine tea
One spoon­ful of gold­en syrup
Top with ton­ic water

Salomon hands host­ing duties to col­league Aimee Ng for Ver­meer’s Mis­tress and Maid, one of three works by the Dutch Mas­ter in the Frick­’s col­lec­tion.

Here the dra­ma is less explic­it­ly informed by the boudoir, though there’s a big reveal around the 10 minute mark, thanks to recent advances in infrared reflec­tog­ra­phy and some well-coor­di­nat­ed art sleuthing.

As to the con­tents of the mes­sage the maid prof­fers her ermine trimmed mis­tress, we’ll nev­er know, although those of us with ready access to the Dutch spir­it gen­ev­er can have fun spec­u­lat­ing over a glass of Gen­ev­er Brûlée.

Gen­ev­er Brûlée
2 oz gen­ev­er
1 tea­spoon brown sug­ar
A few dash­es of clas­sic bit­ters
A dash of orange bit­ters
A splash of sparkling water
Gar­nished with a caramelized orange slice

Alter­na­tive Mock­tail

Juice of half an orange
2 dash­es orange blos­som water
A splash of sparkling water
Gar­nished with a caramelized orange slice

To explore a playlist of every Cock­tails with a Cura­tor episode, cov­er­ing such notable works as Velázquez’s King Philip IV of Spain, Claude Monet’s Vétheuil in Win­ter, and Hans Holbein’s Sir Thomas More, click here.

To read more in-depth cov­er­age of each episode’s fea­tured art­work, along with its cock­tail and mock­tail recipes, click here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vis­it 2+ Mil­lion Free Works of Art from 20 World-Class Muse­ums Free Online

14 Paris Muse­ums Put 300,000 Works of Art Online: Down­load Clas­sics by Mon­et, Cézanne & More

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Muse­ums, and Free Books from Uni­ver­si­ty Press­es

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She most recent­ly appeared as a French Cana­di­an bear who trav­els to New York City in search of food and mean­ing in Greg Kotis’ short film, L’Ourse.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Original Colors Still In It

in Art, History, Museums | January 18th, 2021

It’s a good bet your first box of crayons or water­col­ors was a sim­ple affair of six or so col­ors… just like the palette belong­ing to Amen­emopet, vizier to Pharaoh Amen­hotep III (c.1391 — c.1354 BC), a plea­sure-lov­ing patron of the arts whose rule coin­cid­ed with a peri­od of great pros­per­i­ty.

Amenemopet’s well-used artist’s palette, above, now resides in the Egypt­ian wing of New York City’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art.

Over 3000 years old and carved from a sin­gle piece of ivory, the palette is marked “beloved of Re,” a roy­al ref­er­ence to the sun god dear to both Amen­hotep III and Akhen­aton, his son and suc­ces­sor, whose wor­ship of Re resem­bled monothe­ism.

As cura­tor Catharine H. Roehrig notes in the Met­ro­pol­i­tan’s pub­li­ca­tion, Life along the Nile: Three Egyp­tians of Ancient Thebes, the palette “con­tains the six basic col­ors of the Egypt­ian palette, plus two extras: red­dish brown, a mix­ture of red ocher and car­bon; and orange, a mix­ture of orpi­ment (yel­low) and red ocher. The painter could also vary his col­ors by apply­ing a thick­er or thin­ner lay­er of paint or by adding white or black to achieve a lighter or dark­er shade.”

(Care­ful when mix­ing that orpi­ment into your red ocher, kids. It’s a form of arsenic.)

Oth­er min­er­als that would have been ground and com­bined with a nat­ur­al bind­ing agent include gyp­sum, car­bon, iron oxides, blue and green azu­rite and mala­chite.

The col­ors them­selves would have had strong sym­bol­ism for Amen­hotep and his peo­ple, and the artist would have made very delib­er­ate—reg­u­lat­ed, even—choic­es as to which pig­ment to load onto his palm fiber brush when dec­o­rat­ing tombs, tem­ples, pub­lic build­ings, and pot­tery.

As Jen­ny Hill writes in Ancient Egypt Online, iwn—col­or—can also be trans­lat­ed as “dis­po­si­tion,” “char­ac­ter,” “com­plex­ion” or “nature.” She delves into the specifics of each of the six basic col­ors:

Wadj (green) also means “to flour­ish” or “to be healthy.” The hiero­glyph rep­re­sent­ed the papyrus plant as well as the green stone mala­chite (wadj). The col­or green rep­re­sent­ed veg­e­ta­tion, new life and fer­til­i­ty. In an inter­est­ing par­al­lel with mod­ern ter­mi­nol­o­gy, actions which pre­served the fer­til­i­ty of the land or pro­mot­ed life were described as “green.”

Dshr (red) was a pow­er­ful col­or because of its asso­ci­a­tion with blood, in par­tic­u­lar the pro­tec­tive pow­er of the blood of Isis…red could also rep­re­sent anger, chaos and fire and was close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Set, the unpre­dictable god of storms. Set had red hair, and peo­ple with red hair were thought to be con­nect­ed to him. As a result, the Egyp­tians described a per­son in a fit of rage as hav­ing a “red heart” or as being “red upon” the thing that made them angry. A per­son was described as hav­ing “red eyes” if they were angry or vio­lent. “To red­den” was to die and “mak­ing red” was a euphemism for killing.

Irtyu (blue) was the col­or of the heav­ens and hence rep­re­sent­ed the uni­verse. Many tem­ples, sar­copha­gi and bur­ial vaults have a deep blue roof speck­led with tiny yel­low stars. Blue is also the col­or of the Nile and the primeval waters of chaos (known as Nun).

Khenet (yel­low) rep­re­sent­ed that which was eter­nal and inde­struc­tible, and was close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with gold (nebu or nebw) and the sun. Gold was thought to be the sub­stance which formed the skin of the gods.

Hdj (white) rep­re­sent­ed puri­ty and omnipo­tence. Many sacred ani­mals (hip­po, oxen and cows) were white. White cloth­ing was worn dur­ing reli­gious rit­u­als and to “wear white san­dals” was to be a priest…White was also seen as the oppo­site of red, because of the latter’s asso­ci­a­tion with rage and chaos, and so the two were often paired to rep­re­sent com­plete­ness.

Kem (black) rep­re­sent­ed death and the after­life to the ancient Egyp­tians. Osiris was giv­en the epi­thet “the black one” because he was the king of the nether­world, and both he and Anu­bis (the god of embalm­ing) were por­trayed with black faces. The Egyp­tians also asso­ci­at­ed black with fer­til­i­ty and res­ur­rec­tion because much of their agri­cul­ture was depen­dent on the rich dark silt deposit­ed on the riv­er banks by the Nile dur­ing the inun­da­tion. When used to rep­re­sent res­ur­rec­tion, black and green were inter­change­able.

via My Mod­ern Met

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Won­ders of Ancient Egypt: A Free Online Course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia

Harvard’s Dig­i­tal Giza Project Lets You Access the Largest Online Archive on the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids (Includ­ing a 3D Giza Tour)

Pyra­mids of Giza: Ancient Egypt­ian Art and Archaeology–a Free Online Course from Har­vard

The Met Dig­i­tal­ly Restores the Col­ors of an Ancient Egypt­ian Tem­ple, Using Pro­jec­tion Map­ping Tech­nol­o­gy

Take a 3D Tour Through Ancient Giza, Includ­ing the Great Pyra­mids, the Sphinx & More

What Ancient Egypt­ian Sound­ed Like & How We Know It

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She most recent­ly appeared as a French Cana­di­an bear who trav­els to New York City in search of food and mean­ing in Greg Kotis’ short film, L’Ourse.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Take a New Virtual Reality Tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

in Museums, Technology | January 15th, 2021

You can go to the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art today, and in real life at that. This isn’t true of all the world’s great art insti­tu­tions, still shut down as many are by mea­sures in response to the past year’s coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. But then, none of them have offered a dig­i­tal vis­it­ing expe­ri­ence quite like The Met Unframed, recent­ly launched in part­ner­ship with cell­phone ser­vice provider Ver­i­zon. For a peri­od of five weeks, any­one can join and freely roam a vir­tu­al recon­struc­tion, or rather reimag­in­ing, of the Met and its gal­leries. There they’ll encounter paint­ings by Pol­lock, Van Gogh, and Rem­brandt, as well as work by cur­rent artists and majes­tic arti­facts from antiq­ui­ty.

“Upon enter­ing the web­site, vis­i­tors are wel­comed to the museum’s Great Hall with a view of Kent Monkman’s dip­tych mist­ikôsi­wak: Wood­en Boat Peo­ple (2019),” writes Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Hakim Bishara. “From there, ban­ners offer broad the­mat­ic con­cepts — Pow­er, Home, Nature, and Jour­ney — through which vis­i­tors can explore the gal­leries.”

Embed­ded in cer­tain pieces of art, you’ll find not just his­tor­i­cal details and audio-tour expla­na­tions but mini-games, which “include triv­ia ques­tions and rid­dles that encour­age close obser­va­tion of the art­works and labels. A game called ‘Analy­sis’ uses the Met’s infrared and X‑ray con­ser­va­tion scans of paint­ings to reveal under­draw­ings and oth­er hid­den details of well-known paint­ings.”

Win enough such games, and you’ll get the chance to “bor­row” the art­work you’ve clicked to dis­play, through aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, in your space of choice — for fif­teen min­utes, at least. At Art­net, crit­ic Ben Davis writes of plac­ing here and there around his apart­ment Fred­er­ic Edwin Church’s Heart of the Andes, Jacob Lawrence’s The Pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and a Baby Yoda-scaled ver­sion of Rem­brandt’s Self-Por­trait. He even makes a seri­ous if ulti­mate­ly frus­trat­ed effort to win dig­i­tal bor­row­ing rights to the ancient Egypt­ian Tem­ple of Den­dur, one of the Met’s pièces de résis­tance since the late 1970s.

To expe­ri­ence The Met Unframed for your­self, just head over to its web site and use your phone to scan the QR code that comes up (if you’re not brows­ing on your phone in the first place). You’ll then be tak­en straight to the vir­tu­al Great Hall, which you can nav­i­gate by swip­ing in any direc­tion — or phys­i­cal­ly mov­ing your phone around, if you’ve enabled gyro­scope mode — and tap­ping the icons glow­ing along the ground or on the walls. The com­bi­na­tion of high tech­nol­o­gy, his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence, depop­u­lat­ed but ele­gant­ly designed set­tings, puz­zle chal­lenges, and a score in which syn­the­siz­ers meet ambi­ent noise will remind vis­i­tors of a cer­tain age of noth­ing so much as the adven­ture games of the ear­ly 1990s, espe­cial­ly Myst and its clones. But then, what does a muse­um do if not unite the past and the present?

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Unbe­liev­ably Detailed, Hand-Drawn Map Lets You Explore the Rich Col­lec­tions of the Met Muse­um

Down­load 584 Free Art Books from The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art Puts 400,000 High-Res Images Online & Makes Them Free to Use

Down­load 50,000 Art Books & Cat­a­logs from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art’s Dig­i­tal Col­lec­tions

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­terBooks on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Discover Tokyo’s Museum Dedicated to Parasites: A Unique and Disturbing Institution

in Biology, Museums | January 4th, 2021

Pho­to by Guil­hem Vel­lut

Weary as we are of hear­ing about not just the coro­n­avirus but virus­es in gen­er­al, shall we we turn our atten­tion to par­a­sites instead? The Meguro Par­a­sito­log­i­cal Muse­um has been con­cen­trat­ing its intel­lec­tu­al and edu­ca­tion­al ener­gies in that direc­tion since 1953. Locat­ed in the epony­mous neigh­bor­hood of Tokyo, it hous­es more than 60,000 species of par­a­site, with more than 300 on dis­play at any giv­en time. “On the first floor we present the ‘Diver­si­ty of Par­a­sites’ dis­play­ing var­i­ous types of par­a­site spec­i­mens with accom­pa­ny­ing edu­ca­tion­al movies,” write direc­tors Midori Kamegai and Kazuo Ogawa. “The sec­ond floor exhibits are ‘Human and Zoonot­ic Par­a­sites’ show­ing par­a­site life cycles and the symp­toms they cause dur­ing human infec­tion.”

Pho­to by Guil­hem Vel­lut

We’ve here includ­ed a few choice pic­tures from the muse­um, but as Cul­ture Trip’s India Irv­ing warns, “the real-life spec­i­mens are far worse than the pho­tographs; some of the dis­plays present pre­served par­a­sites actu­al­ly pop­ping out of their ani­mal hosts.”

She names as “the most repul­sive item on view” a tape­worm “rough­ly the size of a Lon­don bus — it is the longest tape­worm in world and is exhib­it­ed along­side a rope of the same length so vis­i­tors can get a phys­i­cal feel for just how enor­mous it actu­al­ly was.” What oth­er par­a­sito­log­i­cal muse­um could hope to com­pete with that? Not that any have tried: the Meguro Par­a­sito­log­i­cal Muse­um proud­ly describes itself as the only such insti­tu­tion in the world.

Pho­to by Guil­hem Vel­lut

“Some of the dis­plays are mere­ly dis­turb­ing, while oth­ers are slight­ly more ghast­ly,” writes Men­tal Floss’ Jake Rossen. “If you’ve ever want­ed to see a pho­to of a trop­i­cal bug prompt­ing a human tes­ti­cle to swell to the size of a gym bag, this is the place for you.” Like many oth­er muse­ums, it did shut down for a time ear­li­er in the pan­dem­ic, but has been open again since June. (If you hap­pen not to be a Japan­ese speak­er, guides in Eng­lish and oth­er lan­guages are avail­able in both text and app form.) If cur­rent con­di­tions have nev­er­the­less kept Japan itself out of your reach, you can have a look at the Meguro Par­a­sito­log­i­cal Muse­um’s unique offer­ings through this Flickr gallery — which gets many of us as close to these organ­isms as we care to be.

Pho­to by Steven L. John­son 

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er the Japan­ese Muse­um Ded­i­cat­ed to Col­lect­ing Rocks That Look Like Human Faces

The First Muse­um Ded­i­cat­ed to Japan­ese Folk­lore Mon­sters Is Now Open

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of the Müt­ter Muse­um and Its Many Anatom­i­cal­ly Pecu­liar Exhibits

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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John Waters Gives Art Collection to The Baltimore Museum Of Art in Exchange for Getting Its Bathrooms Named After Him

in Art, Film, Museums | November 16th, 2020

It’s not unusu­al for an insti­tu­tion to rec­og­nize a major benefactor’s gen­eros­i­ty by nam­ing some­thing in their hon­or — a wing, an atri­um, a library, a gym­na­si­um, a con­cert hall…

But bath­rooms?

It’s a fit­ting trib­ute for the Pope of Trash, film­mak­er John Waters.

So fit­ting that he him­self sug­gest­ed it when donat­ing 372 prints, paint­ings, and pho­tographs from his per­son­al col­lec­tion to the Bal­ti­more Muse­um Of Art.

With Har­vard, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado at Boul­der, New York City’s New Muse­um of Con­tem­po­rary Art and famed down­town per­for­mance venue Dixon Place all boast­ing restrooms that dou­ble as tem­ples to phil­an­thropy, Waters is not the first donor to be lion­ized in latrine form…

But he is sure­ly the most famous, thanks to a career that spans six decades, includes numer­ous books and exhi­bi­tions of his pho­tog­ra­phy and sculp­tures, in addi­tion to his infa­mous cult films.

Waters got his start as an art col­lec­tor at the age of 12: he spent $2 on a Joan Miró poster in the Bal­ti­more Museum’s gift shop:

After tak­ing it home and hang­ing it on my bed­room wall at my par­ents’ house, I real­ized from the hos­tile reac­tion of my neigh­bor­hood play­mates that art could pro­voke, shock, and cause trou­ble. I became a col­lec­tor for life. It’s only fit­ting that the fruits of my 60-year search for new art that could star­tle, antag­o­nize, and infu­ri­ate even me, ends up where it all began—in my home­town muse­um.

Muse­um direc­tor Christo­pher Bed­ford calls Waters a “man of extra­or­di­nary refine­ment” as well as “a local trea­sure.”

Cura­tor Asma Naeem adds that Waters’ dona­tion, in addi­tion to being one of the largest gifts of art in recent his­to­ry, is also one of the “most per­son­al and indi­vid­u­al­ized, show­ing the true stamp of the donor’s taste, eye, and predilec­tions.”

Among the 125 artists rep­re­sent­ed are Mike Kel­ley, Cindy Sher­man, Roy Licht­en­stein, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Waters him­self. (The muse­um host­ed a ret­ro­spec­tive of his visu­al art two years ago.)

Waters is per­son­al­ly acquaint­ed with many of the artists in his col­lec­tion, and has a strong pref­er­ence for ear­ly work. “They were nev­er blue-chip artists,” he told The New York Times. “They became that lat­er.”

In an inter­view with the CBC’s Car­ol Off, Waters reflect­ed that he loves art that inspires out­rage:

…because I’m in on it. You final­ly learn to see dif­fer­ent­ly if you like art. And it’s a secret club. It’s like a bik­er gang where you learn a spe­cial lan­guage, you have to dress a cer­tain way. I love all the ridicu­lous elit­ism about the art world. I think it’s hilar­i­ous.

In addi­tion to the two bath­rooms in the East Lob­by, a rotun­da in the Euro­pean art gal­leries will also bear Waters’ name.

The muse­um has pledged to nev­er deac­ces­sion the works in the col­lec­tion, and Waters spec­u­lates that it’s only a mat­ter of time until a gen­der-neu­tral bath­room bear­ing his name will also be made avail­able to patrons.

“I loved going [to the BMA],” he told Bal­ti­more Fish­bowl:

When I was a kid, that was a huge world that I was turned onto. Thank God my par­ents took me.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Grow­ing Up John Waters: The Odd­ball Film­mak­er Cat­a­logues His Many For­ma­tive Rebel­lions (1993)

John Waters Designs a Wit­ty Poster for the New York Film Fes­ti­val

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth is Life with­out A*Holes

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Five Minute Museum: A Stop Motion Animation Shows the History of Civilization at Breakneck Speed

in Animation, Comedy, Fashion, History, Museums | November 13th, 2020

Exper­i­men­tal direc­tor and ani­ma­tor Paul Bush’s 2015 short film The Five-Minute Muse­um, above, is the dizzy­ing anti­dote to stand­ing, foot­sore, in front of a vit­rine crowd­ed with Ancient Greek amphoras or exquis­ite­ly craft­ed pock­et watch­es and won­der­ing, not about his­to­ry, cul­ture or the nature of time, but whether you can jus­ti­fy spend­ing $15 for an under­whelm­ing cheese and toma­to sand­wich in the muse­um cafe.

It’s a break­neck stop motion jour­ney through the his­to­ry of civ­i­liza­tion via six muse­um collections—three in Lon­don and three in Switzer­land.

Pre­sent­ed pri­mar­i­ly as stills that flash by at a rate of 24 per sec­ond, Bush groups like objects togeth­er, “there­by allow­ing the tri­umphs of human endeav­or to be seen even in far cor­ners of the land, by the bedrid­den, the infirm and the lazy.”

His sense of humor asserts itself the minute an assort­ment of ancient shards appear to ren­der them­selves into not just a state of whole­ness, but an entire up close soci­ety in close-up. It doesn’t take long for these ves­sels’ clash­ing of war­riors to give way to a com­pos­ite por­trait of idle youth, whose flir­ta­tions are stoked by a num­ber of man­ic pipers in rapid suc­ces­sion, and Andy Cow­ton’s orig­i­nal music and sound design.

It’s a shock when Bush slows down and pulls back to show the source objects in their muse­um cas­es, qui­et as a tomb, the sort of dis­play most vis­i­tors blow past en route to some­thing sex­i­er, like a dinosaur or a block­buster exhib­it requir­ing timed entry tick­ets.

Oth­er high­lights include a live­ly assort­ments of guns, hats, chairs, and plas­tic toys.

If you start feel­ing over­whelmed by the visu­al inten­si­ty, don’t wor­ry. Bush builds in a bit of a breather once you hit the clocks, the bulk of which pre­sum­ably hail from the Bey­er Clock and Watch Muse­um in Zurich.

The inge­nious ani­mat­ed short was 10 years in the mak­ing, a fact the artist mod­est­ly down­plays:

It’s very sim­ple. Sim­ple sto­ry, a sim­ple tech­nique and that’s what I like. Poet­ry should be a lit­tle bit stu­pid. This is what Pushkin says, and I try and make my films a lit­tle bit stu­pid as well.

In addi­tion to the Bey­er Clock and Watch Muse­um, you’ll find the fea­tured arti­facts housed in the British Muse­um, the Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um, London’s Muse­um of the Home (for­mer­ly known as the Gef­frye Muse­um) as well as the Lucerne His­tor­i­cal Muse­um and the Bern His­tor­i­cal Muse­um.

Expect a much slow­er expe­ri­ence.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A Vir­tu­al Tour Inside the Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Muse­um

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

Take Immer­sive Vir­tu­al Tours of the World’s Great Muse­ums: The Lou­vre, Her­mitage, Van Gogh Muse­um & Much More

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Muse­ums, and Free Books from Uni­ver­si­ty Press­es

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Help your­self to her free down­load­able poster series, encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to wear masks. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Experience the Bob Ross Experience: A New Museum Open in the TV Painter’s Former Studio Home

in Art, Museums, Television | November 11th, 2020

Bob Ross is as renowned for the gen­tle encour­age­ment of his voice as for his speedy tech­nique: indeed, these very qual­i­ties are syn­ony­mous with the name “Bob Ross.” His revival in recent years has as much to do with the de-stress­ing effects of his permed onscreen per­sona as with our awe, iron­ic or oth­er­wise, at his kitschy pic­ture-per­fect land­scapes in under an hour. He’s become as much a saint of pub­lic tele­vi­sion as Mr. Rogers and even more of an inter­net icon.

But unlike most oth­er fan­doms, the devot­ed lovers of Bob Ross have had no place to call their own. They might show up in Bob Ross cos­play at com­ic con. Yet no Bob Ross Con has made the scene. Leave it to Ross’s orig­i­nal Joy of Paint­ing stu­dio to fill the gap with a muse­um ded­i­cat­ed to the paint­ing instruc­tor. The Bob Ross Expe­ri­ence is part of a larg­er cam­pus of build­ings called Min­netrista in Muncie, Indi­ana, found­ed by the Ball fam­i­ly of Ball mason jars. It’s an “immer­sive exhib­it,” fea­tur­ing “orig­i­nal paint­ings and arti­facts” and “inspir­ing vis­i­tors with Bob’s mes­sage of fear­less cre­ativ­i­ty.”

What more could you want from a Bob Ross muse­um? Well, maybe a ful­ly-online expe­ri­ence these days. For now, you’ll have to make the trip to Muncie, where locals pay $8 a tick­et (kids $6, 3 & under are free) and non-res­i­dents shell out $15 ($12 per kid, etc). There may be nowhere else you can see Ross’s hap­py lit­tle trees in per­son. As Ayun Hal­l­i­day wrote here recent­ly, “sales of his work hov­er around zero.” Almost all of his paint­ings, save a few owned by the Smith­son­ian and a few pri­vate indi­vid­u­als, reside in stor­age in North­ern Vir­ginia, where an exhib­it came and went last year.

Ross him­self, who honed his method dur­ing short breaks in the Air Force, hard­ly ever exhib­it­ed in his life­time; he was a made-for-TV painter with a small mer­chan­dis­ing empire to match. Now, fans can make the pil­grim­age to his cre­ative TV home at the Lucius L. Ball house. Swoon over per­son­al relics like his keys and hair pick and, of course, “the artist’s palette knife, easel, and brush­es,” writes Colos­sal. “Many of the arti­facts are free to touch.” A cur­rent exhi­bi­tion at the Expe­ri­ence, “Bob Ross at Home” through August 15, 2021, show­cas­es “a few dozen of the artist’s can­vas­es, many on loan from Muncieans who got the works direct­ly from Ross.”

Not only can you hang out on set and view Ross’s paint­ings and per­son­al effects, but you can also, Art­net reports, “sign up for $70 mas­ter class­es with cer­ti­fied Bob Ross instruc­tors.” That’s $70 more than it costs to watch the mas­ter him­self on YouTube, but if you’ve already made the trip…. One only hopes the instruc­tors can chan­nel what George Buss, vice pres­i­dent of the Expe­ri­ence, calls Ross’s best qual­i­ty, his gen­tle fear­less­ness: “He takes what looks like a mis­take and turns it into some­thing beau­ti­ful.” And that, friends, is the true joy of the Bob Ross expe­ri­ence.

via Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Watch Every Episode of Bob Ross’ The Joy Of Paint­ing Free Online: 403 Episodes Span­ning 31 Sea­sons

What Hap­pened to the 1200 Paint­ings Paint­ed by Bob Ross? The Mys­tery Has Final­ly Been Solved

Watch 13 Come­di­ans Take “The Bob Ross Chal­lenge” & Help Raise Mon­ey for The Leukemia & Lym­phoma Soci­ety

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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William Blake’s Paintings Come to Life in Two Animations

in Animation, Art, Museums, Poetry | September 4th, 2020

The poet and painter William Blake toiled in obscu­ri­ty, for the most part, and died in pover­ty.

Twen­ty some years after his death, his rebel­lious spir­it gained trac­tion with the Pre-Raphaelites.

By the dawn­ing of the Age of Aquar­ius, Blake was ripe to be ven­er­at­ed as a counter-cul­tur­al hero, for hav­ing flown in the face of con­ven­tion, while cham­pi­oning gen­der and racial equal­i­ty, nature, and free love.

Reclin­ing half-naked on a “a fab­u­lous couch in Harlem,” poet Allen Gins­burg had a hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry encounter where­in Blake recit­ed to him “in earth­en mea­sure.”

Dit­to poet Michael McClure, though in his case, Bob Dylan’s “Gates of Eden” served as some­thing of a medi­um:

I had the idea that I was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing, that it was William Blake’s voice com­ing out of the walls and I stood up and put my hands on the walls and they were vibrat­ing.

Blake’s work (and world view) con­tin­ues to exert enor­mous influ­ence on graph­ic nov­el­ists, the­ater­mak­ers, and cre­atives of every stripe.

He’s also a dab hand at ani­ma­tion, col­lab­o­rat­ing from beyond the grave.

The short above, a com­mis­sion for a late ‘70s Blake exhi­bi­tion at The Tate, envi­sions a roundtrip jour­ney from Heav­en to Hell. Ani­ma­tor Sheila Graber parked her­self in the Sculp­ture Hall to cre­ate it in pub­lic view, pair­ing Blake’s line “Ener­gy is Eter­nal delight” with a per­son­al obser­va­tion:

Whether we use it to cre­ate or destroy—it’s the same ener­gy. The prac­tice of art can turn a per­son from a van­dal to a builder!

More recent­ly, the Tate gave direc­tor Sam Gains­bor­ough access to super high-res imagery of Blake’s orig­i­nal paint­ings, in order to cre­ate a pro­mo for last year’s block­buster exhi­bi­tion.

Gains­bor­ough and ani­ma­tor Renald­ho Pelle worked togeth­er to bring the cho­sen works to life, frame by frame, against a series of Lon­don build­ings and streets that were well known to Blake him­self.

The film opens with Blake’s Ghost of a Flea emerg­ing from the walls of Broad­wick Street, where its cre­ator was born, then stalk­ing off, bowl in hand, ced­ing the screen to God, The Ancient of Days, whose reach spreads like ink across the grit­ty facade of a white brick edi­fice.

Sey­mour Mil­ton’s orig­i­nal music and Jas­mine Black­borow’s nar­ra­tion of excerpts from Blake’s poem “Auguries of Inno­cence” seem to antic­i­pate the fraught cur­rent moment, as does the entire poem:

Auguries of Inno­cence

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heav­en in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infin­i­ty in the palm of your hand 

And Eter­ni­ty in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heav­en in a Rage 

A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons

Shud­ders Hell thr’ all its regions 

A dog starvd at his Mas­ters Gate

Pre­dicts the ruin of the State 

A Horse mis­usd upon the Road

Calls to Heav­en for Human blood 

Each out­cry of the hunt­ed Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear 

A Sky­lark wound­ed in the wing 

A Cheru­bim does cease to sing 

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Ris­ing Sun affright 

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Rais­es from Hell a Human Soul 

The wild deer, wan­dring here & there 

Keeps the Human Soul from Care 

The Lamb mis­usd breeds Pub­lic Strife

And yet for­gives the Butch­ers knife 

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbe­liev­ers fright

He who shall hurt the lit­tle Wren

Shall nev­er be belovd by Men 

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall nev­er be by Woman lovd

The wan­ton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spi­ders enmi­ty 

He who tor­ments the Chafers Sprite

Weaves a Bow­er in end­less Night 

The Cat­ter­piller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Moth­ers grief 

Kill not the Moth nor But­ter­fly 

For the Last Judg­ment draweth nigh 

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall nev­er pass the Polar Bar 

The Beg­gars Dog & Wid­ows Cat 

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 

The Gnat that sings his Sum­mers Song

Poi­son gets from Slan­ders tongue 

The poi­son of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot 

The poi­son of the Hon­ey Bee

Is the Artists Jeal­ousy

The Princes Robes & Beg­gars Rags

Are Toad­stools on the Misers Bags 

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent 

It is right it should be so 

Man was made for Joy & Woe 

And when this we right­ly know 

Thro the World we safe­ly go 

Joy & Woe are woven fine 

A Cloth­ing for the soul divine 

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine 

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Through­out all these Human Lands

Tools were made & Born were hands 

Every Farmer Under­stands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eter­ni­ty 

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight 

The Bleat the Bark Bel­low & Roar 

Are Waves that Beat on Heav­ens Shore 

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death 

The Beg­gars Rags flut­ter­ing in Air

Does to Rags the Heav­ens tear 

The Sol­dier armd with Sword & Gun 

Palsied strikes the Sum­mers Sun

The poor Mans Far­thing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labr­ers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 

Or if pro­tect­ed from on high 

Does that whole Nation sell & buy 

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death 

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rot­ting Grave shall neer get out 

He who respects the Infants faith

Tri­umphs over Hell & Death 

The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Rea­sons

Are the Fruits of the Two sea­sons 

The Ques­tion­er who sits so sly 

Shall nev­er know how to Reply 

He who replies to words of Doubt

Doth put the Light of Knowl­edge out 

The Strongest Poi­son ever known

Came from Cae­sars Lau­rel Crown 

Nought can Deform the Human Race

Like to the Armours iron brace 

When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow

To peace­ful Arts shall Envy Bow 

A Rid­dle or the Crick­ets Cry

Is to Doubt a fit Reply 

The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile

Make Lame Phi­los­o­phy to smile 

He who Doubts from what he sees

Will neer Believe do what you Please 

If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 

Theyd imme­di­ate­ly Go out 

To be in a Pas­sion you Good may Do 

But no Good if a Pas­sion is in you 

The Whore & Gam­bler by the State

Licencd build that Nations Fate 

The Har­lots cry from Street to Street 

Shall weave Old Eng­lands wind­ing Sheet 

The Win­ners Shout the Losers Curse 

Dance before dead Eng­lands Hearse 

Every Night & every Morn

Some to Mis­ery are Born 

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to End­less Night 

We are led to Believe a Lie

When we see not Thro the Eye

Which was Born in a Night to per­ish in a Night 

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 

God Appears & God is Light

To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 

But does a Human Form Dis­play

To those who Dwell in Realms of day

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Enter an Archive of William Blake’s Fan­tas­ti­cal “Illu­mi­nat­ed Books”: The Images Are Sub­lime, and in High Res­o­lu­tion

William Blake Illus­trates Mary Wollstonecraft’s Work of Children’s Lit­er­a­ture, Orig­i­nal Sto­ries from Real Life (1791)

William Blake’s Mas­ter­piece Illus­tra­tions of the Book of Job (1793–1827)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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