Miami Dade College’s 39th Miami Film Festival, EMILIO ESTEFAN Present A Change Of Heartand Croqueta Nation (World Premiere) at Silverspot Cinema, March 11 & 13
WHAT:
GRAMMY Award winning musician and producer, Emilio Estefan, will present a marquee screening tonight of his 2017 hit movie, A Change of Heart starring Jim Belushi and Gloria Estefan, at Miami Dade College’s 39th Miami Film Festival. The star will walk the red carpet and participate in a pre-screening Q&A with the Festival’s Executive Director Jaie Laplante.
Additionally, Estefan will be back this Sunday to premiere his short film, Croqueta Nation, with Co-Producer Bruno del Granado at the close of MDC’s Miami Film Festival. Set in Miami, this feel-good and playful story follows Carlos Gazitua, CEO/owner of Sergio’s Cuban Restaurants, as he sets out to make croqueta history by making the world’s longest croqueta. At Sunday’s film screening, guests will sample the six-foot-long croqueta courtesy of Sergio’s Cuban Restaurants, beer from Festival sponsor Estrella Damm, and enjoy a comedy act from Only In Dade.
Miami-born filmmaker Guillermo Alfonso directs this epic tale of a small culinary snack from Miami and will also be in attendance, while Estefan is the film’s executive producer. Croqueta Nation features local celebrities who join in the fun including WWE champion Dana Brooke, Iheart radio host Enrique Santos and the Mayor of Miami Francis Suarez.
WHEN:
Friday, March 11, 2022 – A Change of Heart (Marquee Screening)
6:00 p.m. – Media Check-In
6:30 p.m. – Emilio Estefan on red carpet
7:00 p.m. – Pre-screening Q&A with Emilio Estefan and Miami Film Festival’s Executive Director Jaie Laplante
Sunday, March 13, 2022 – Croqueta Nation (World Premiere)
1:00 p.m. – Media Check-In
1:30 p.m. – Red Carpet
2:25 p.m. – Post-screening Q&A with Emilio Estefan, Bruno del Granado, Guillermo Alfonso, Carlos Gazitua
WHERE:
Silverspot Cinema
300 SE 3rd Street, #100
Miami, FL. 33131
***PARKING*** Met 3 parking lot, located at 250 SE 3rd Avenue (Whole Foods parking lot). Miami Film Festival is validating parking tickets ($10).
Celebrating cinema in two annual events, Miami Film Festival (March 4-13, 2022) and Miami Film Festival GEMS (November 3-9, 2022), Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival is considered the preeminent film festival for showcasing Ibero-American cinema in the U.S., and a major launch pad for all international and documentary cinema. The annual Festival welcomes more than 45,000 audience members and more than 400 filmmakers, producers, talent and industry professionals. It is the only major festival housed within a college or university. In the last five years, the Festival has screened films from more than 60 countries, including 300 World, International, North American, U.S. and East Coast Premieres. Major sponsors of Miami Film Festival GEMS include Knight Foundation, Telemundo, American Airlines, Estrella Damm, Telemundo, NBC6 and Miami-Dade County. The Festival also offers unparalleled educational opportunities to film students and the community at large. For more information, visitmiamifilmfestival.com or call 305-237-FILM (3456).
‘Don’t Say Gay’ / Queens of the Revolution / Miami Film Festival
“Rebecca Heidenberg’s insightful new documentary Queens of the Revolution introduces a community of queer people who have remained in Cuba during its dynamic and sometimes dangerous history to form Mejunje, a safe space in Santa Clara, that they can call their own. The documentary is a testament to their resilience and a gentle treatise on what it means to lead a queer revolutionary life.” B.L. Panther, The Spool
“In Queens of the Revolution, we witness world builders, carving out a safer, more beautiful, and entirely new place to call home.” Sara Hutchinson, The Austin Chronicle
SYNOPSIS Queens Of The Revolution is a portrait of El Mejunje, a cultural center in Santa Clara that paved the road for LGBTQ+ rights in Cuba. Since 1985, El Mejunje has offered refuge for people marginalized under Castro and a stage for their drag shows, punk rock and spoken word performances. From the beginning, El Mejunje’s performers risked persecution and violence from both the Cuban state and society at large. The subjects of Queens of Revolution offer oral histories of violent oppression alongside riveting, jubilant performances. The film highlights the bravery of people who have fought for their lives and identities for decades. Meandering through the streets of Santa Clara, into the homes of drag performers and on to the stage, the film tells the story of Mejunje through a chorus of voices. This community was violently persecuted but instead of fleeing, they chose to stay and fight for change in the country they love. We follow them as they look towards the future, bringing the ethos of inclusion and diversity fostered by Mejunje to the country at large with touring performances in Cuba’s rural hinterlands. This is a story about resilience, resistance, and survival. Granted exclusive access through years-long relationships with El Mejunje’s community, Queens of The Revolution also offers a template for activism through grassroots organizing and performance. In a time of increasing government legitimized hostility towards LGBTQ+ citizens in the United States and in many places around the world, the film proposes a remarkably successful model for the preservation of diversity in the face of intolerance, brutality, and hate.
CREW BIOS REBECCA HEIDENBERG Producer/Director/Editor/Director of Photography Rebecca is an independent filmmaker and a partner at Dreamsong, an art gallery, residency and cinema in Minneapolis. Her production company is Koan Films and “Queens of the Revolution” is Rebecca’s debut feature-length film. After studying Communications and Photography at the University of Pennsylvania, Rebecca worked as a curator and gallerist in New York City for over 10 years and was the Co-Founder and Director of RH Gallery, a multidisciplinary art space in TriBeCa. In 2018, she completed a Master’s Degree in Media Studies at The New School and was awarded the distinguished thesis award for her short film “The Water Children,” a personal essay film about pregnancy loss and a late-term abortion, which premiered at Anthology Film Archives. Rebecca is currently in post-production on “Janus”, a short film about migration, which weaves together stories about refugees crossing borders and is anchored around Walter Benjamin.
XIMENA HOLUIGUE Associate Producer / Field Producer Ximena is a facilitator, project manager and curator of interdisciplinary projects in Cuba. She was the Assistant Curator of the 2105 Havana Biennia and since 2016, she has been the project manager of the Montreal-Havana art exchange, funded by the Montreal Arts Council and led by the RCAAQ institution in Montreal. Ximena has acted as a facilitator for the TV Series Infiltration by Urbania Productions, Interrupt this Program with CBC Productions and as an Associate Producer for the Cuba! exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History.
KRISTEN BROWN Director of Photography Kristen is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Montreal. Her work in film grew out of a decade of work as a community organizer on projects in Canada and internationally in a range of areas including LGBTQ+ rights, housing rights, community agriculture, music, arts, and advocacy for marginalized communities. Kristen received a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from Concordia University, Montreal. She is currently in the development phase of her next feature documentary, which is being produced by Cinema Politica Productions.
LANI RODRIGUEZ Sound Recordist/Production Assistant Lani is a designer and illustrator from the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her Master’s Degree in Media Studies from the New School. Lani is the co-founder of Backtalk Videográfica, a visual resistance art studio that creates media which informs, provokes, and meets today’s urgent need for complex storytelling. RAÚL E. GUTIERREZ GARCIA Sound Recordist/Production Assistant Raúl (El Yuca) is a freelance photographer and videographer based in Santa Clara, Cuba and a proud member of Mejunje’s community.
When Africans were brought to the United States, their culture was stripped from them. As the enslaved people were packed into the bottom of ships, they were chained to other people who did not speak the same languages or share the same cultures. There was a concerted effort on the part of the enslavers to keep like-people separate in order to weaken them and eliminate communication between them for fear of an uprising. Once enslaved, they were prohibited from performing rituals or practicing the religions they had before being captured, so they became creative in how they could hold on to some of their culture without being punished. From the start of this country, African American culture developed separately from that of the dominant culture because black people were prohibited from participating except if they were the main attractions singing or dancing for the entertainment of white audiences. While African Americans have been producing visual art in this country since slavery, only recently have they been accepted into mainstream culture.
Early African American painters like Robert S. Duncanson, (b. 1821), who was best known for his landscape paintings, had no formal training. He learned to paint by copying prints and European artworks. He is the first internationally known African American artist. And today his work hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Artist, Edward Mitchell Bannister (b. 1828) was able to gain some education in the arts at the Lowell Institute, and while slavery was still an institution until 1865, he created ties with abolitionists to establish a livelihood as an artist. Henry Osawa Tanner (b. 1859), the first internationally acclaimed African American painter, attended the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts and studied in Paris. Tanner’s most famous work, The Banjo Lesson, is a painting of an elderly black man teaching a young black boy how to play the banjo. While we’re able to look at these artists’ works in museums today, they faced hardships to be artists. According to the Smithsonian American Art Museum website, Edward Mitchell Bannister was harshly critiqued by a reviewer who said, “… the negro has an appreciation for art while being manifestly unable to produce it.” This statement was published in the New York Herald in 1867.
While the 19th century canon of black artists is scant, the most celebrated time for the arts in black history, the Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937), ushered in a wave of black visual artists. At the time, African American people were better able to afford education to obtain degrees in the arts. Because Alain Locke was a champion of the arts, his assessments of the movement established norms for black art. While the visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance tend to be overshadowed by authors and musicians, the visual arts of the period were salient to the time, as well. Artists like Aaron Douglas, Hale Woodruff, and Augusta Savage played a huge role in establishing black aesthetics in an art world that wouldn’t readily accept them. While they created their own opportunities in Harlem, their presence made it known that African Americans can create great art and that they possess the artistic and cognitive skills to do so. The Harlem Renaissance was a time for visual artists to create aesthetics distinct to the black experience in the U.S. This movement also steered the art of Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden who would go on to be well-known African American artists within the dominant culture. Although the Great Depression (1929-1939) devastated the country, it also created opportunities for African American artists. With aid from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Augusta Savage was able to lead the Harlem Community Center and The New Deal’s Federal Arts Projects encouraged black artists to create art for upliftment.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a decrease in the emergence of African American artists, as the country became more concerned with equality and race relations. But there was a movement to preserve the legacy of African Americans through the establishment of museums. In order to preserve the rich history of African Americans, the following museums were established: The African American Museum (formerly the Afro-American Cultural and Historical Society Museum) in Cleveland, Ohio was formed in 1953; the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, California (formerly the East Bay Negro Historical Society, Inc.) started as a private collection in 1946, and opened to the public in 1964; and DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago, Illinois was founded in 1961.
As the Black Power Movement surged in the late 1960s, so did the Black Arts Movement. According to the MoMA website, one of the most famous artists of the time, Charles White, who is known for chronicling African American subjects in his work, stated, “Art must be an integral part of the struggle. It can’t simply mirror what’s taking place. … It must ally itself with the forces of liberation.” Jeff Donaldson one of the founding members of AfricCOBRA also emerged from the movement as a major artist. The collective of African American artists, AfriCOBRA, which is still in existence today, formed in Chicago in 1968 because they wanted to develop a black aesthetic and serve black liberation. This period was a time of black revitalization. The Civil Rights Movement had gained some traction, and The Black Power Movement attempted to establish black pride and racial empowerment among the people. And the artists of the period wanted the same.
The 1980s, we can say, belonged to Jean-Michel Basquiat. The ever-present art star that passed away too soon, Basquiat is the patron saint for many black artists today because he did the unprecedented: He achieved art world superstar status as a black man. The myth of this man is what will make this era in black art history especially remembered. He allowed those black artists successful in contemporary art today, the space to do that.
The postmodern era of the 1990s, saw the dominance of the black female artist. Black women artists, Emma Amos, Deborah Willis, and Renee Cox gained recognition for their work in a way that black women hadn’t done before then. Today, African American women can be found exhibited around the world. In 1990, Lorna Simpson was the first black woman to present art at Venice Biennale, allowing the most marginalized of people in the United States, black women, to take center stage as the world looked on. From the outside it might have seemed all was right in the world. During the 1990s more marginalized artists than ever were accepted into the mainstream art world, allowing them exposure, and thus the compensation to create lives as full-time artists. There were and continue to be a compendium of voices and perspectives on exhibit that attempt to critique the establishment.
And as Thelma Golden and Glen Ligon put it as we entered into this millennium, the arts were in a state of post-blackness. But what of the aesthetics that the intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement tried to instill? Have they been co-opted? Are we taking them for granted? How have they morphed as they’ve been more widely accepted into the mainstream? While more African Americans than ever are making art today, do they tend to play to the dominant culture? Are there any successful black contemporary artists relishing in black culture, or would that be too black to be accepted? Can black artists today get away with being unapologetically black?
The Guardian published, “The roots of the US black art renaissance: ‘It wouldn’t have been OK in any other city’” an article by Patrice Worthy on October 23. The article, about the Atlanta art scene, describes the proliferation of black art in the city. More people moving to urban centers across the country seems to be having a positive effect on the visual art world. The decentralization of New York as the art world, and the rise of social media as a networking tool has helped artists around the country to gain some traction with their careers in art. But it also seems to be destabilizing as there is no general consensus as we’ve seen with the Harlem Renaissance or Black Arts Movement. Although the artists working at either period were able to move and spread their awareness to other parts of the country or world, and often did, the New York area served as the center. Worthy is pronouncing that Atlanta is the center of the contemporary black art renaissance.
Because black people were ostracized from the dominant culture through slavery, the culture they create has formed isolated from mainstream culture. Throughout history, African American culture has formed in the confines of the black community and may have entered the mainstream culture, but for the most part, it is developed in isolation from the influence of the dominant culture. Is this still the case? Black people have contributed greatly to the larger American cultural landscape by way of their culture. While some of it may be co-opted and filtered into a whole new form by the dominant culture, it’s important for black people to be aware of their history and they should be made known of the contributions they do make to the fabric of the country.
Would you buy stock in BAIA if you could? Well we invite you to join us in becoming a monthly supporter, starting at just $3 a month YOU become a stakeholder and begin to help us transform lives through art. We are growing the BAIA team and will use your contributions to hire more team members for the purpose of creating more educational and marketing resources for schools and universities about african american artists both past and present.
BAIA FOUNDATION
WHO WE ARE
BLACK ART IN AMERICA™ (BAIA) is the leading portal and network focused on African American Art in the nation. BAIA’s mission is to document, preserve and promote the contributions of the African American arts community. THE BLACK ART IN AMERICA (BAIA) FOUNDATION is a 501c3 organization that applies what we’ve learned over our 12 years as a multifaceted arts company to facilitate the growth of artists while cultivating the relationships and opportunities that bring Black artists and communities together.
THE BAIA FOUNDATION believes that a significant challenge for communities of color is their lack of access to and education on the visual arts, particularly those that effectively reflect and represent themselves.
Goals of THE BAIA FOUNDATION:
To center the legacy of African-American art and artists through visual art, literature, lesson plans, oral histories, and the distribution of our bi-monthly magazine
To promote intersections between art and activism in Black neighborhoods and schools while encouraging a strong sense of purpose and unity and using art as a catalyst for economic development
To create opportunities for Black artists and writers to grow by facilitating their skill sets, giving them the space and tools to create, and expanding their professional networks.
2022 – Initiatives:
Distribute BAIA, the mag, to the 107 HBCUs in the country
Design art centered lesson plans for middle schools, summer camps, and homeschoolers
Fund artists lead community impact based workshops and programs targeting the youth and seniors
Launch (virtual) professional development series
Institute marketing assistance for African American Museums and Cultural Centers.
How to Get Involved:
Become a stakeholder who helps us transform lives through art.
The Constructivists sought to influence architecture, design, fashion, and all mass-produced objects. In place of painterly concerns with composition, Constructivists were interested in construction. Rather than emerging from an expressive impulse or an academic tradition, art was to be built.
What is Constructivism art examples?
Constructivism in Two-Dimensional Art
In ‘Pure Red Color, Pure Yellow Color, Pure Blue Color‘ (1921), for example, constructivist painter Alexander Rodchenko reduced the art of painting to its simplest form, in a tryptic of colored squares.
What is Constructivism in art appreciation?
What Is Constructivist Art? Constructivism was a Russian avant-garde art movement that used geometric shapes and industrial materials. Constructivists created artworks that reflected communist ideals, dedicated to benefiting the common good, and promoted a utopian society.
What was the main goal of constructivism?
The seed of Constructivism was a desire to express the experience of modern life – its dynamism, its new and disorientating qualities of space and time. But also crucial was the desire to develop a new form of art more appropriate to the democratic and modernizing goals of the Russian Revolution.
Why is constructivism theory important?
Constructivism is crucial to understand as an educator because it influences the way all of your students learn. Teachers and instructors that understand the constructivist learning theory understand that their students bring their own unique experiences to the classroom every day.
What is the origin of constructivism?
Constructivism can be traced back to educational psychology in the work of Jean Piaget (1896–1980) identified with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget focused on how humans make meaning in relation to the interaction between their experiences and their ideas.
What are the characteristics of Constructivism art?
The basic formal characteristics of Constructivist art, included the use of geometric or technoid primary forms, arranged in a space or surface in harmonious order. Constructivist painters rejected bright, colourful palates and experimented with the effects of light and movement.
What is constructivism and examples?
Constructivism calls upon each student to build knowledge through experience such that knowledge can’t simply be transferred from the teacher to student. As such, teachers play a facilitation role. For example, a school that has students pursue their own projects with the teacher playing a advisory role.
What is your definition of constructivism?
Constructivism is based on the idea that people actively construct or make their own knowledge, and that reality is determined by your experiences as a learner. Basically, learners use their previous knowledge as a foundation and build on it with new things that they learn.
What is the main focus of constructivism?
Constructivism is based on the idea that people actively construct or make their own knowledge, Constructivism’s central idea is that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning. This prior knowledge influences what new or modified knowledge an individual will construct from new learning experiences (Phillips, 1995).
What are the types of constructivism?
Typically, this continuum is divided into three broad categories: Cognitive Constructivism, Social Constructivism, and Radical Constructivism.
What are the advantages of constructivism?
Constructivism promotes social and communication skills by creating a classroom environment that emphasizes collaboration and exchange of ideas. Students must learn how to articulate their ideas clearly as well as to collaborate on tasks effectively by sharing in group projects.
Constructivism:
Constructivism is a style that emerged in Russia, in c.1913. Constructivism completely rejected mimetic representation and was a consistent form of geometric abstract art, which as reflected in its name, was characterised by a high level of technical and mathematical perfection. The Constructivist avant-garde movement also served a social function, in that it was intended to put architecture, painting and sculpture in the service of society, as universal and collective art, The basic formal characteristics of Constructivist art, included the use of geometric or technoid primary forms, arranged in a space or surface in harmonious order. Constructivist painters rejected bright, colourful palates and experimented with the effects of light and movement. Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953) was the key exponent of Constructivist sculpture. His counter reliefs (from c. 1914) were the most important part of his sculptural oeuvre. As part of an ongoing focus on Pablo Picasso’s Cubism, Tatlin abandoned any association with materiality in his works, adopting pure geometric and technoid solutions, using their material character, tension and weight ratio. These works also represented a necessary step of development towards Machine Art, which Tatlin also founded. With the term “proun” (which derives from “pro unowis”) El Lissitsky (1890-1941) defined a reference point for his geometric-abstract art, which manifested itself in paintings, sculpture and large installations. László Moholy-Nagy’s (1895-1946) artistic output was also predominantly influenced by Constructivism. In the 1920s, he executed technoid, kinetic objects and in 1930, created his first “Light-Space Modulator”, which was constructed from sticks, metal discs, glass plates and light sources, which generated a fascinating abstract play of light. The main exponents of Constructivist art were El Lissitzky, Vladimir Tatlin, László Moholy-Nagy, Naum Gabo, Katarzyna Kobro, Antoine Pevsner and Alexander Rodchenko. Constructivism provided the conditions for contemporaneous (and non-contemporaneous) artistic movements such as Suprematism and Machine Art.
Big Bang Rafael Montilla Kubes in Action Street Art
Portafolio Artístico
Tú me dices: “Me encanta crear, pintar… ¡qué sé yo! de tantas áreas artísticas que manejo y que, según mi familia, debería proyectar y que alguien las conozca y las valore”. Yo te respondo que si sientes el arte visual como parte de tu vida es el momento de proyectarte, como una catapulta, a que muchas personas te conozcan y reconozcan. ¿Alguna vez escuchaste el término “portafolio artístico”? ¿Has escuchado que para ingresar a alguna institución o proyecto te exigen ese “bendito portafolio”? Pues no es otra cosa que reunir en una sola carpeta tus creaciones; esas que te hacen sentir orgulloso, que te han brindado elogios de algunas personas, conocedoras o no de arte. En fin, una muestra de lo que has hecho y haces, relacionado con arte, visual o no. Algo que hable de ti y lo haga bien. ¿Te gusta la fotografía, el dibujo o la pintura? O más bien te inclinas hacia el diseño y o el interiorismo? Hay quienes se sienten motivados por el diseño de modas. Algunos más audaces lo hacen por la escultura o la arquitectura. Y habrá artistas que se sienten identificados con los comics y dibujan maravillas. Aquí te vamos a presentar algunas recomendaciones para preparar ese famoso Portafolio Artístico que tantos dolores de cabeza puede producir. La primera es: Reunir tus creaciones, las más recientes, donde demuestras tu talento, experiencia, trayectoria… La cual puede ser corta o larga, no importa, lo que nos interesa es reunirlas. Tu me dirás: ¿Y eso para qué? Por si quieres optar por un empleo, o simplemente continuar profesionalizandose. —No tengo mucho tiempo dedicado al arte. No importa, se necesitan solamente algunas piezas representativas de tu estilo y originalidad, así como tus preferencias. No te preocupes porque tu amiguito reunió una muestra “así o asao”, es tu imaginación y creatividad lo que hace tu portafolio algo individual, único e irrepetible. Lo primero que recomiendan los expertos es que ¡Comiences ya a crear! Esto significa: dedicar tiempo a que tu talento se vuelque a tu inspiración. En segundo lugar: ¡Observa y crea..! Todos los artistas, novatos o no, deben incluir esos dibujos que han realizado en un momento de ocio, cuando observaban algo que los inspiró. Escenas de la vida real… Eso está cargado de detalles maravillosos y enriquecerán tu portafolio. No dudes en plasmar cualquier concepto o idea que encuentres interesante, con los colores que te provoque, con lo que te recuerde alguna experiencia de vida. Esto significa que no te reprimas, confía en ti y añade tu toque particular. Algunos pasan un mes diseñando la portada de su portafolio para que luzca atractivo, yo te aconsejo que nunca una fachada puede valer más que el contenido, eso es lo que se busca: “calidad”, es mejor que cantidad.
Te traigo algunas sugerencias que te servirán de apoyo en el momento de armar y lograr tu atractivo portafolio profesional Sé tú mismo. La originalidad es clave en ese momento. Refleja quién eres y es tu tarjeta de presentación. Es lo que te diferencia de los demás. ¡Y, por supuesto tú no quieres ser del montón..! La calidad de tu habilidad. Es importante destacar por encima de la cantidad.Es preferible una pequeña muestra, digamos 10 a 20 imágenes con tu mejor trabajo que muchas imágenes que no sean tan dignas de elogio. Coherencia y consistencia en el trabajo. Aunque seas múltiple en tus habilidades, es importante mantener una continuidad y destacarse en una o dos técnicas, recuerda que “el que mucho abarca, poco aprieta” y es mejor evitar incluir exceso de obras que desentone. De ti y de tu buen juicio depende la escogencia de lo que sea conexo y coherente. La Paciencia es una cualidad y la mejor forma es encontrar la oportunidad adecuada para introducirse como artista con un concepto sólido. No abrumar queriendo mostrar todo lo que hay en ti en una sola presentación. Se recomienda mostrar tu serie más sólida y adecuada y confiar en que se te abrirán las puertas para exponer tu trabajo y todos sus aspectos. Actualizar tu carpeta de trabajo es obligatorio. Cada cierto tiempo debes revisar y desechar lo que a tu criterio ha quedado obsoleto. Ya sea porque tus habilidades técnicas han mejorado o porque ya no estás interesado en promoverlas. ¿Y qué me dices del orden? Teniendo en mente a las personas que vayan a ver la muestra de tu obra, lo más lógico es presentarte de una manera cuidada, sencilla y adecuada. Un ejemplo podría ser agruparlas por temas, por técnicas y/o estilos. O bien por su orientación o agrupación. ¿Cómo debo ordenar las obras? Sencillamente, de la manera que tú quieres que las vean. Por supuesto que la mejor debe abrir el grupo, ya que la primera abrirá la puerta a las demás. Y que tu segunda mejor obra sirva para cerrar el portafolio, para que quede esa última buena impresión. ¿Debe ser personalizada? Si. No te olvides de ese detalle, y deberás incluir toda la información que te hayan solicitado y la que consideres conveniente. Puedes preguntar qué es lo que quieren ver y qué tipo de información exigen. También es necesario información de las imágenes, formato, etc. Procura mostrar lo más reciente de tu trabajo, indicando siempre las técnicas o herramientas que usaste para lograrlo. En lo posible, evita repetir imágenes, así no sean la misma, pero si son parecidas no causa buena impresión.
Ser profesional, es importante, porque además de tu trabajo se te va a valorar a ti como persona con la que trabajar. No significa que tengas un título universitario, se trata de irradiar esa profesionalidad que representa el hecho de prestar atención a los detalles, crear una carpeta cuidando la calidad en las imágenes y textos que la puedan acompañar; sobre todo mostrar don de gentes y amplitud mental. ¿Cuántas obras incluir? Los expertos recomiendan no menos de diez, pero respetando: 1, tu estilo; 2, pulcritud y habilidad y 3, integración armónica de la muestra. Siempre deberás mostrar obras terminadas, incluso si incluyes imágenes del proceso creativo o bocetos. Un último consejo: Si no te sientes listo, no vayas a crear un portafolio. Ser honesto es lo mejor y así podrás evitar una decepción. Ya ves que la paciencia es la mejor consejera. Espera, confía y produce, son los mejores consejos para estar seguros de mostrar lo mejor de nuestro talento.
“BEYOND MONET”, LA EXHIBICIÓN INMERSIVA DE UNO DE LOS MÁXIMOS EXPONENTES DEL IMPRESIONISMO, CLAUDE MONET.
“BEYOND MONET, THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE” SE ENCUENTRA EN MIAMI, CON UN MUNDO MULTISENSORIAL DE MÁS DE 400 OBRAS DEL PINTOR FRANCÉS.
Tras el éxito arrasador de “Beyond Van Gogh” con millones de boletos vendidos en Estados Unidos y el mundo, ahora pueden visitar en Ice Palace Studios de Miami, “Beyond Monet”, la exhibición inmersiva del máximo exponente y creador del impresionismo Claude Monet. Esta fascinante propuesta cultural, lleva a los asistentes a un mundo multisensorial, presentando más de 400 obras emblemáticas del pintor francés (www.miamimonet.com)
“Beyond Monet” ofrece al público un vistazo a las emociones, pensamientos y sueños de Claude Monet combinando tecnología con piezas diseñadas a la perfección. Las impresionantes imágenes del artista, rodean todas las superficies del salón, desde el piso hasta el techo, sumergiendo a los invitados al interior de las pinturas, que cobran vida fuera de los marcos a través de proyecciones animadas y tecnología de vanguardia. “Beyond Monet” es toda una experiencia inmersiva para despertar los sentidos, ambientada a la perfección por una banda sonora.
Cortesía fotos: Beyond Exhibitions
Despues de ingresar al Garden Gallery, los visitantes llegan al área más grande de la exhibición. Inspirándose en el Musée de l’Orangerie de París, el hogar de las obras maestras de Monet, los asistentes pueden caminar libremente por el Infinity Room, un espacio de forma ovalada, y cautivarse con las pinturas más icónicas del artista como la serie “Nenúfares”, “El puente japonés”, “Impresión, sol naciente” (el cuadro más famoso de Monet pues es el que dió origen al estilo impresionista), entre otras obras, que pueden ser apreciadas por diferentes tipos de público, amantes del arte y la familia en general.
Cortesía fotos: Beyond Exhibitions
“Beyond Monet” se basa en el éxito global de “Beyond Van Gogh” que estuvo recientemente en el Ice Palace de Miami por 6 meses recibiendo a más de 200 mil asistentes. Abarca 50.000 pies cuadrados, lo que la convierte en una de las exposiciones inmersivas más grandes de Estados Unidos. Creada por el responsable de Beyond Van Gogh, el franco canadiense Mathieu St-Arnaud, uno de los mejores diseñadores audiovisuales del mundo y su equipo creativo de Normal Studio.
“Beyond Monet,The Immersive Experience”: Tickets a la venta en www.miamimonet.com Ice Palace Studios: 1400 N. Miami Ave. Miami, FL
“Beyond Monet”, una experiencia inmersiva como ninguna otra, la nueva forma de apreciar el arte.
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All you need to know about Geometric Abstract Art…
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In 1852, renowned writer Gustave Flaubert wrote a letter of what today seems like a premonition of what was about to happen back then in the world of art: “Perhaps beauty will become a feeling useless to humanity, and art [will become] something half-way between algebra and music.” Little time after this words were written down, meaning and representation would radically change the limits of visual perception and understanding through a series of artists and styles that would define the geometric abstract art movement and the different artists and facets that have represented it.
Cezanne and Seurat began to complete Flaubert’s prophecy, setting preconditions for abstract geometric art. Cezanne created his art on the strict and specific laws of geometry, treating nature through different figures like a cylinder, a sphere, a cone, everything seen through perspective, in a way in which every possible side of an object in the composition would be directed towards a central point. Cezanne attempted to go beyond nature and find the laws that composed it, hence his allegory of the divine which would later influence other painters as well. Seurat on the other hand, found harmony in an almost musical perception of reality, highlighting use of primary colours and simple shapes. He said “Art is Harmony. Harmony is the analogy of the contrary and of similar elements of tone, of colour and of line, considered according to their dominance and under the influence of light, in gay, calm or sad combinations”.
0,10 Exhibition: A section of Suprematist works by Kazimir Malevich exhibited for the first time.
These two artists established the grounds for what was to come afterwards and we now recognize purely as fauvism and even expressionism which would be the transcendental basis of geometric abstraction. Geometric abstraction arrived after many decades of figurative painting where sensitive images of detailed landscapes, and portraits of pompous characters where featured in many paintings. This fundamental change consisted in the use of simple geometric figures (squares, circles, triangles) combined inside subjective compositions that lived inside surreal spaces. There was no reference to the real world, only fictional, utopic scenarios as if the goal was to say that painting is something that simply one does. It was born as a reaction towards the excess of subjectivity of the visual artists of previous movements in an attempt to distance themselves from the purely emotional. Abstract geometrical art tried to be precise, sticking to the rules of nature and science.
Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915, oil on linen, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Image By Kazimir Malevich – Tretyakov Gallery, Public Domain
Piet Mondrian, Composition with color fields, oil on vanvas, 48cm x 60.5 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
One of the pioneers and most emblematic artists of abstract geometric art was Kazimir Malevich, who founded the Suprematist movement. His purpose was the search of an absolute and pure expression, nonfigurative, unlike customary art. During his twenties Malevich established contact with Larionov, which opened the doors for him to new experiences and international relationships, getting to know fauvists, cubists and Italian futurists, playing a huge role on his own creations. His first experiments lead him to create this movement, based on an acute visual language which consisted of abstract geometric figures and neutral colours. He developed his work between 1912 and 1923. Along with his career, he created a series of numerous black and white geometric abstract art paintings. In 1915 he presented his most iconic and historically transcendental piece, called Black Square. Malevich promoted values of logic, mathematics and objectivity contrary to the subjective sensitive technicality of art established then. Claiming superiority in the abstract arts, this piece also rejected mainstream art of the moment and was considered the beginning of a new current, representing the death of conventional art, opening the doors to a new tradition of art.
Piet Mondrian, Composition number iii, oil on canvas, 19 ¾ x 19 ¾ in. (50 x 50.2 cm), 1929.
Another transcendental exponent of modern abstract geometric art Piet Mondrian. He would be initiated in the art world by his uncle Frits, a landscape impressionist painter. The early youth days of Mondrian, influenced mostly by Amsterdam’s pictorial environment, included still life paintings, landscapes and academic studies. In order to survive, young Mondrian created copies of paintings that were exposed at the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and drawing illustrations for books. Around 1901, he took on a trip to Spain to watch the bullfights, he was completely shocked and entered in a sort of mystical crisis that leads him to isolate himself in search of a new order, a new synthetic law. Between 1907 and 1908, he started getting in touch with fauvist artists before going to study cubism based on straight lines. During those years, he created a series of now-famous geometric abstract art paintings simply called “composition”.
Theo van Doesburg. Simultaneous Counter-Composition. 1929-30. Oil on canvas. 19 3⁄4 x 19 5⁄8” (50.1 x 49.8 cm). The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection
In 1914 Mondrian went back to the Netherlands and in 1917 established a connection with Theo Van Doesburg with whom he created the “De Stijl” (The Style) magazine and its manifesto where we would write many theoretical articles of how art was supposed to be done. He created his first compositions of blue, yellow and red compact rectangles on a white background with primary colours and abstract geometric art with black and white. The purpose of his art was to re-establish the balance between man and nature. In 1920, due to disagreements with Van Doesburg Mondrian separated from the De Stijl movement and started getting in touch with the Bauhaus current and its players. Layer in his life he moved to New York, where we stopped using lines and started substituting them for rectangles and squared figures. Mondrian’s painting changed to be based completely on absolute thorough mathematics. He pretended to create a mix between art, matter and spirit to capture neo-plasticism (De Stijl) the universal harmony (using right angles and primary colours): an approach which goal was to discover the deep spiritual essence of reality and life. In the De Stijl movement, the principles that dominated artistic creation were always absolute abstraction, no reference to reality was allowed, and the language was restricted to lines and right angles, the three primary colours (blue, yellow and red) and the three non-primary colours, grey, white and black.
Theo Van Doesburg, CompositionVIII_(The Cow), circa 1918, oil on canvas, Height: 37.5 cm (14.7 in); Width: 63.5 cm (25 in), Museum of Modern Art
Famous geometric abstract art painter Van Doesburg, (co-founder of De Stijl) created a series of figurative studies to abstract them into geometric figures composed of lines, colourful rectangles and squares. He would later move on from the movement’s aesthetics by inserting lines of different lengths and widths and colours, this would be a cause of rupture with Mondrian inside the De Stijl since the artist was taking a different path to the one established in the manifesto. Van Doesburg lived a vivid political and educational life, establishing contact with different Bauhaus and constructivism artists, he even got involved in architecture and was a key promoter of the Dadaist movement all across Europe. Since the role of Van Doesburg was so essential to the De Stijl, the movement was not able to survive after his death, although many members stayed active and in touch with each other. Many of its original artists, especially Mondrian continued however to create artworks that would be heavily influenced by the current.
Bart Van der Leck, Composition, 1918, Oil on canvas, 21 3/8 x 16 3/4 (53.5 x 42.5). Tate Museum
Bart Van der Leck, was another transcendental member of De Stijl, who despite having participated for a brief period of time, was extremely meaningful for the movement. Even though the artist refused to sign the manifesto, he created a series of geometrical abstract artworks in which his conception of geometrical painting and his colour palette had a determining influence on the creations of Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg. The artist would later still create realistic and figurative paintings and would sporadically continue experimenting with geometrical abstraction without sticking to the previously established rigid geometrical rules of De Stijl.
Bart van der Leck, Study for Compositions No. 7 and No. 8, 1917, Gouache on tracing paper, 100 x 154 cm, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Geometric abstract art has had many different stages and facets across the history of art starting from the early XX century and expanding towards the present day. The influences of geometric abstract art could be seen along with different decades and continents, having also new waves in Latin-American art during the 60s and 70s. Its influence can still be identified in contemporary art and other movements of the XX century.
Cover image: Theo Van Doesburg, CompositionVIII_(The Cow), circa 1918, oil on canvas, Height: 37.5 cm (14.7 in); Width: 63.5 cm (25 in), Museum of Modern Art.
In the Netherlands constructivist art looks back on a long tradition. The group “de Stijl” originated in the 1920s and in the course of time came to shape the development of constructivist art decisively, so that it is today considered by art critics to be one of the main directions in classical modern art. The creed of the “de Stijl” group still influences art, architecture, and industrial design in the Netherlands today, in that it continues to live as a creative maxim in the aesthetic program “Less is more”.
Bob Bonies can be considered to be a successor of the “de Stijl” movement in as much as he did not just restrict himself to free art alone but extended his artistic work to architecture, industrial design, and art teaching, and exemplified the aim of those pioneers who wanted to use their artistic ideas for shaping their surroundings. Moreover, he can also be considered a pioneer of the second generation, as his constructivist painting imparted a new impetus to the geometric direction of art in the Netherlands of the 1960s.
Prototyp, 1965, acrylic on wood, 30 x 30 cm
Were one to look for a conceptual motif in Bonies’ art work, one would in the first instance cite the theory of Josef Albers on “The Unity behind the Many” and “The Many behind the Unity”. His method, however systematic it may be, is directed less towards the programmatic and more towards investigating the potential of variables. Thus Bonies’ art work does not develop in a serial way as is usual in the constructivist domain, but rather in a sequence of cycles of works whose themes recur with varied points of view. The only fixed factor in Bonies’ investigation over many years into color and form is his handling of colors: he has always used and today still uses only four colors, namely the three primary colors red, yellow and blue, the secondary color green (as the complementary color of red) and the noncolor white. On the other hand, he has given the handling of form as well as of format a more open interpretation. His vocabulary of forms includes differently weighted categories of areas with linear edges (stripes of varying thickness, triangles, and rectangles) arranged in the three classical directions horizontal, vertical and diagonal, and has in the last years been extended to include the circle as well as the circular segment. The basic colors and forms appear in different systems of arrangements, of which there are, as regards their number and combination, essentially two types of picture. First there is the closed and contained absolute shape of the square which dominates Bonies’ work and which also occurs standing on a corner (diamond), and then there is, so to speak, the polarly opposed type, the “shaped canvas”, which is sometimes included in the shaping of the picture. This novel shape was developed by American artists during the 1960s and was intended to free them from the traditional rectangular pictorial shape in order to achieve a congruence between picture and format, as well as at the same time attaining an enhanced objectivity.
Were one to seek a common denominator for Bob Bonies’ process of visualization which now encompasses nearly four decades, one would surely find it in the dynamic extension based on a tension-laden balance of forces. Thus, for example, Bob Bonies combines progression with rotational moment in a square format and at the same time quasi extends the construction beyond the boundaries of the picture (Without Title, 1986, p. 22). Or he achieves a displacement of the diagonal axis in a “shaped canvas” by flapping open the upper part of the picture (Without Title, 1987, p. 30). This virulent dynamization of elements has in the last years been further heightened by a return to the method of omission practised in the 1960s (Without Title, 1966, p. 19) or the inclusion of the circular segment (Without Title, 2002, p. 29). In the multipartitioned pictures, several parts constituting the whole are omitted, leaving the completion of the gaps to the imagination (Without Title, 2003, p. 42). Furthermore, the basic system of proportional partitioning in the multipartitioned picture is now harder to comprehend. Thus, in recent years his intention has distanced itself from the initial elementary order and has proceeded in the direction of increased complexity, without, however, renouncing his reductionist convictions. The pictorial organization continues to be based on the interpretation of progression, rotation, displacement of axes and omission, but the extensive character of the most recent works is more strongly accentuated.
Prototyp, 1967, acrylic on wood, 30 x 30 cm
In view of the prevailing social background, it is not difficult to interpret this tendency to break through the boundaries as a characteristic of Bonies’ democratic understanding of art and his typical open-mindedness. Willy Rotzler has used the medium of sailing to describe Bonies’ work. He considers his works to be “sheer as a sail, reduced to minimal essentials”, and they suggest “a dry cheerfulness and distant vision, as is typical of a coastal, seafaring people” (Rotzler, Willy: Bob Bonies und Nelly Rudin. In: Zwei Künstler aus zwei Ländern – Nelly Rudin, Bob Bonies. Zuger Kunstgesellschaft (ed.), 1989). Bonies’ paintings appear cheerful and composed, inspired by the pioneering spirit of the 1960s, as if the artist were at all times prepared to send his pictorial intentions across the seven seas.
Preface
Bob Bonies has, with his particular form of art, taken up a direction which can be considered to be a successor to the de Stijl movement. His works are a continuation and development of the principles of this art form which originated in the Netherlands. He has extended the strict reduction to the three basic colours by including green in his large works. Not only in this way, however, but also in formal ways has he endeavored to shift the boundaries of his preceding generation. He paints segments of circles which he combines with strictly rectangular shapes. Bob Bonies is an impassioned innovator. Thus he demonstrates through his art, which has connections with hard-edge painting as well as with the classical shaped canvases, that a composition constructed solely according to aesthetic criteria loses nothing in the way of relevance or freshness.
Formally, Bob Bonies is interested in the phenomenon of movement. This he achieves not only by juxtaposing the three basic colours with green, leading to a differentiated sense of depth, but also by placing the different shapes and forms in an irritating way relative to one another within the picture. These subtle effects help to demonstrate to the viewer how sensitive his spatial perception is.
It is a pleasure for us to extend our hearty thanks to Bob Bonies for his dedicated help. It was not only his “Haagse Hopjes” but also his honest enthusiasm for this exhibition which made the preparations really enjoyable. We also thank Naomi Duveen, who accompanied the preparations with many good proposals and suggestions. Our sincere thanks are due to Dr. Elisabeth Grossmann, director of the “Haus Konstruktiv” in Zurich and a friend of the Arithmeum from the beginning, who has agreed to contribute an article to this catalogue and to speak at the opening.
As always, we are especially grateful to our sponsors, without whose continued support this exhibition would not have been possible.
Biography
1937
Born in The Hague.
1960
After five years of professional art courses in The Hague and Stockholm, he has his first exhibition in 1960 at the Observatorium Gallery in Stockholm. During these years he frequently meets with Olle Baertling. At the end of this period he establishes his studio in The Hague.
1962/63
Visits the United States and Canada, where he paints abstractly. He marries Hanneke Schuitema there.
1964
He settles in Wassenaar near The Hague.
1964/65
Once back in the Netherlands, the development of his work is characterized by a continued reduction of pictorial elements, forms, and colours. He not only paints, but also constructs reliefs and spatial structures out of fibreglass and aluminium as multiples (“art for the people”).
1965
He joins the “Bond voor Beeldende Kunstenaars” (BBK).
1966
He became board member of the BBK.
1965/66
Marks the beginning of fifteen years of cooperation with Riekje Swart of the Swart Gallery in Amsterdam.
1966
First one-person exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Participates in the international exhibition “Forms of Colors” in Amsterdam, Berne and Stuttgart, with Albers, Bill, Judd, Kelly, Lohse, Newmann and Stella, among others.
1967
First meeting with Richard Paul Lohse in his studio.
1969
Cooperates with choreographer Hans van Manen to create the ballet “Squares”, the pre- mière of which was performed by the “Nederlands Dans Theater” in the “Théatre de la Ville”, Paris.
1971
One-person show at Galerie Teufel, Koblenz.
1972
Cofounder of the trade union “Bond voor Beeldende Kunstarbeiders (BBKA)”, whose chairman he becomes.
1972 onwards
Is active as member of various consulting bodies among others of the ministry of cultural affairs concerned with the integration of the plastic arts, architecture, and municipal planning.
1972 onwards
Realization of numerous commissions in public buildings.
1976
One-person show at Galerie Teufel, Cologne.
1979
One-person exhibition in the Gemeente Museum in The Hague with “shapes” and constructions.
1981
Retrospective exhibition in the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven.
1981 – 1988
Worked with the dancer Naomi Duveen to produce several different performances with the overall title “Danswerk”.
1988 – 2001
Director of the Free Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague.
1989
Together with the couturier Frans Molenaar and the composer Simeon ten Holt, he realizes the “Constructivistic Triptych” which is exhibited in Utrecht and Tokyo.
1991 onwards
Visits the United States annually to work there. He stays, in particular, in New York, Marfa (Texas, Donald Judd), and Taos (New Mexico, Agnes Martin).
1991
Comprehensive exhibition entitled “Bob Bonies, Works from the Years 1965-1991”, in the Hoffmann Gallery, Friedberg.
1993
Marries Naomi Duveen.
1999
Invitation to participate in “The Quindao International Art Exhibition” held in the Municipal Museum in Quindao, China.
2001
Rehearsal of the ballet “Squares” by Introdans, Arnhem.
2001 onwards
After retiring from the directorship of the Free Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, he once again devotes himself fully to his own artistic work.
Bob Bonies in Conversation
How did you discover art for yourself? When did you decide to become an artist?
I began to find art exciting somewhere back in the middle of the 1950s. I was at middle school at the time – without much success, to be honest. Thus the question arose as to whether I would be better off learning something practical. My father was a photographer, and so it was only natural to consider whether that might be something for me, too, or perhaps interior designing or decorating. So I started at the Academy of Art when I was only sixteen years old. The director, an artist himself, said to me: “Oh well, now you’re here we’ll start you off learning to draw”. At that time the drawing classes were naturally traditional – we sketched models realistically. I worked very enthusiastically, which my parents noticed, and eventually they said: “If you want to continue doing this, then we’ll support you”. So I stayed at the “Vrije Academie voor Beeldende Kunst”. After that I studied for some time at the Royal Academy in The Hague, where I concentrated on sculpture. That, too, was handled completely traditionally, figuratively. My interests were, however, wider than that. I was also interested in interior layout and design. So I then went to the “Konstfackskolan” in Stockholm, which is a college for arts and crafts. It was there that I first became aware of Olle Baertling’s work, which impressed me deeply at the time. I often returned to Stockholm, right into the 1960s, and on this foundation I then decided to become a professional artist.
Prototyp, 1965, acrylic on wood, 30 x 30 cm
Where was your first exhibition?
My first exhibition was in 1960 at the end of my training in Stockholm. I then returned to the Netherlands, where I have lived and worked as an artist ever since.
Was it very difficult to get going as a young artist? How did you orientate yourself in those days?
The first years were naturally very hard. In those days I was doing abstract painting and sculpture, lyrically abstract. In the Netherlands, COBRA was all the rage as modern art, for example Karel Appel, but I had a different idea of art. In 1963 I visited America and there I saw a totally different form of art, one not normally seen in Europe. This visit certainly influenced my work, which underwent a large reduction in style in the space of three or four years.
Were there any artists in those days on whom you modelled yourself?
There were such artists, American ones. When I was in America, I lived for a while in Washington D.C. It was there that I got to know Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. Another such artist was Clyfford Still whom I very much admire. I consider him to be an absolutely top painter. When looking at a painting by Clyfford Still, it is difficult to explain why I feel such an affinity for his work, but I do and have done for many years.
Do you think that your roots have something to do with the direction of art which you have chosen?
I am from The Hague, I was born there. The Gemeentemuseum in The Hague has the most extensive collection of Mondrian’s works in the world. I was always very interested in the de Stijl movement. I studied the works of Theo van Doesburg, Mondrian, and all the others with great interest. That was always part of my baggage, as it were, wherever I went. But at the time I had no idea that I would go in that direction myself.
What else appealed to you apart from the de Stijl movement? What else contributed to your development of form and colour?
I was extremely interested in the development of modern art in Russia: Malevich, Tatlin, and Lissitzky. The connection between de Stijl and Malevich and the Russian artists at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the freedom and breadth of the American avantgarde, were the three main roots from which my further development sprang. Thus one can, I think, see today, that my work is partially the continuation of a certain European tradition and at the same time also has a certain connection with America. In this sense I am, after all, a loner, as I have always been in the Netherlands.
Your particular form of art sprang from these roots, but surely also from modern ones?
Yes, also from modern ones, but on the other hand, from the American standpoint one perceives the European traditions. That’s what makes my work different.
Can you say something about the development of the pictorial language of your pictures?
That was a long path over a period of forty years, concentrating on the question as to how far one can go with restrictions and reductions without losing all the tension in the picture. Today, I don’t need to start from the beginning every morning. My work now has a large, firm basis. With every completed painting one gains in experience, which one can then invest in the next one. I now feel completely at home in my work. I don’t need new inspiration every single day. What is essential for me is not to lose track and go astray, but to follow and deepen my path consistently. I need to be convinced of my own work and have full confidence in it.
In constructivist art, and also in your work, what matters in the end is the picture itself. The creative process plays only a minor role as no expressive strokes of the brush are involved. Can you imagine your works of art being created by some other media rather than by painting, or would that entail the loss of some essential element?
In constructivist and also in concrete art the restrictions of the media used must be concentrated totally differently. The more sparse and restricted the media become, the more difficult it is to work. You can, for example, see that clearly in Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, from which one can learn a great deal.
Prototyp, 1974, acrylic on wood, 30 x 30 cm
The original idea of constructivist art was to induce people to see the world around them in a new way, to integrate art into their lives. To what extent do you think this has been achieved so far?
In the middle of the 1960s I established my own studio near The Hague, and I also intended to become engaged politically. I was filled with the idea that art was for everybody. “Everybody is an artist”, Beuys once said. I found this idea fascinating, but who wants to be an artist? On the other hand, I still believe in the goals of constructivist art. The constructivist artist wants to open a door for people to enter through, or a window for people to look through in order to see a different kind of reality. I believe that is the purpose of the artist and his art. For me, constructivism as a concept is still highly topical, especially in this visual era with its enormous two-dimensional visual flood through television and advertising. I think it is very important that something with a deeper quality is available. That is why I believe that artists have a definite and proper place in society today, as they have always had in the past.
By what criteria do you judge whether one of your pictures has turned out to be good? Does it ever happen that you paint a picture which you liked when you sketched it but which doesn’t satisfy you when it is finished?
Yes, that could happen. But with my way of working I am given several chances to judge my work. I have a lot of experience with the form and effect of colours and with judging the quality and quantity of colour. I also have a lot of experience with questions of format. My first sketches are small and also large, then I make prototypes and at the very end I decide on the actual format and paint the picture one-to-one.
You have restricted yourself not only in your pictorial language, but also in your choice of colours. Does it ever happen that you wake up in the morning and say to yourself: today I want to paint in purple, or in orange?
Neej, neej, neej, I haven’t done that for decades. Since the 1960s I haven’t painted in a subjectively colouristic way. I use colour for contrast, for perceiving forms. Different colours act differently in the way they form contrasts: red is the number one and blue is its main contrasting colour, then comes yellow and finally, in contrast to red, there is the fourth colour green. I have in the past never used more than four colours. Each of these I also use for a special direction in space: vertical, horizontal, diagonal. In my paintings I aim to achieve a synergy between the three-dimensionality or the construction of my picture on the one hand, and the real space in which the picture exists on the other. This correspondence between pictorial space and surrounding space is what makes up the actual quality of the picture. In this sense I also see myself as a spatial constructor. For forty years now, I have been using only the primary colours plus green and white. The same goes for forms. Only now am I actively using compasses again, something I have hardly done in the last twenty years, during which I worked mainly with squares and rectangles. I am now connecting up with the past again, not only with respect to compasses. When one considers the essence of the picture and concentrates the possibilities, then one needs no more but fewer means. In this sense I also feel a great affinity for Ad Reinhardt or Agnes Martin.
What they express in their pictures is not usually so direct. Your paintings are quite different – they are utterly direct on account of the clarity of their colours and forms.
Certainly my pictures express themselves more directly. When one studies them, one doesn’t immediately feel compelled to look for a psychological meaning, or for a particular experience, as one would with artists who choose their colours subjectively.
In spite of the clear directness of your paintings, do you not sometimes want to reach the viewer emotionally, or is that completely impossible with your paintings?
No, that is not impossible. Just as it isn’t impossible for me to paint an emotional picture. There is an emotional component in me too, namely, when I decide when it is enough. Then I find that it can’t be less either. Thus there is always also a subjective component. And it has to be like that, that is typical, that’s what art and artists are all about.
By what criteria can one judge the quality of works of constructivist artists?
Today the category of constructivist art is rather wider than it used to be. Often concrete art is also included. When painting, I proceed very systematically, but the pictorial quality is of more importance to me than the programme. That is the main difference. There are several different birds in the constructivist tree and each one sings its own song. It is difficult to say in general what constitutes a good piece of art. One must judge from a historical perspective. If, for example, one looks at the works of Robert Mangold with their picturesque surface, then that is somewhat irritating. On the one hand this has something to do with the constructivist conception of the picture, and on the other it is cosmetic, with an awfully false romanticism. But when one considers his development, then one must agree that he deserves the position that he holds. He has crossed certain boundaries. One can honestly say that his is a very comprehensible and good form of art.
How do you proceed in detail when you begin a new painting?
When I now set to work in my studio, I proceed completely traditionally: canvas on dovetailed wooden frame. I usually paint with a brush, that is quick and efficient.
So your skill with the brush still plays a role in the creative process?
Not as a means to an end. In my work manual skill is not strictly necessary in order to achieve my aim. But the direct contact with what is being represented is certainly necessary, with the result that there are little nuances in the use of colours – not colours as colours but as matter. Colour saturation plays a decisive role. I can’t leave that to anyone else. Or perhaps I could, but I don’t want to. That remains an essential point. When one judges the end result, then one can also perceive this, one experiences it. Colour quantity always also influences colour quality, and this constitutes a subjective component of the judgment of the picture. I like to be in control here. In this way I am thus also a colourist.
With regard to your work “Kunst am Bau”, what was your artistic relationship to architecture?
Whenever I was commissioned to do such a project, I had the chance to work together with people of other disciplines. We always strived for a synthesis. I was involved in an interdisciplinary team comprising a constructor, an architect, and an artist. That was really exciting. Of course, as an autonomous artist I always had to restrain myself a bit.
Were you also able to contribute as an artist outside your own studio?
From 1988 to 2001 I was director of the Vrije Academie in The Hague. That is a totally different facet in the life of an artist. For many years I was also a consultant for art projects in the Netherlands, and was responsible for all commissions. Seen as a whole, one can certainly say that I did not spend all my time in my studio. I think it’s important for an artist to orientate himself more broadly and not to spend all his time with brush and palette in his studio.
When you were director of the Academy, did you try to convert the students to your ideas?
No, never. It is very important that each one of them follows their own path and discovers art in their own way. I have never ever tried to impose my own conception of art on others because I know, that is fruitless. Students who are receptive for that sort of influence soon become passive, or imitators.
Can one really learn art at an art academy?
It is practically impossible to learn art, but one can create a climate or offer an environment which one hopes will inspire young students. In the end, however, each one of them must make their own way as an artist. And that’s not too much to expect. Of course, one can act as an example as well, one can show them that it is worth while to persevere and not to let oneself be led astray too easily, which unfortunately often happens. Selling pictures, following trends and fashions, and the promise of quick success all play a role. In this sense real art is something quite different. Quick success doesn’t exist here.
Of course, the question always remains whether quick success is also lasting success.
That is indeed always the question these days. When one is a professional artist, then one becomes part of a system with all its associated marketing. In the fine arts, quick success is usually strived for, especially by the non-artists involved, who want to become rich quickly. One should really try to stay clear of that environment as much as possible.
How do you recognize lasting values in constructivist art? Do you find in your own work that you painted something thirty years ago which you still like just as much today?
Naturally not everything is always as good today as it was thirty years ago. But at the same time one can realize that it was necessary to paint a certain picture at that time in order to go a step forward. There are long lines and also short moments, and both should be judged in concert, and at the end one can say that this is a good artist and another perhaps a not so good one.
But usually every artist will assert to be a good one!
Yes. One tries to go a step forward every day, or at least as often as possible. But one cannot always produce top quality work.
Have you ever destroyed a picture, or thrown it away, or at least placed it in a corner?
No, or nearly so. There are pictures which I hardly ever look at, and others which I enjoy hanging in my rooms. But that’s the same with every artist. And moreover, different viewing times make different judgments possible. There are certain periods when I love Mondrian’s pictures, and others when I say that I have painted much better ones myself. Things are not static, they are dynamic, and the same holds when judging one’s own pictures.
Is there nothing, then, that you consider to have really lasting value as a work of art?
Naturally, I have several icons or experiences tucked away in my mind, of which I say that they have a constant quality for me. Brancusi’s sculptures, for example, and some of Mondrian’s pictures. They will last. Then there are also some pictures of Malevich from the 1920s. Several pictures from that period are the absoplute pinnacle for me.
classical musicMany classical ballet works are performed with a classical music accompaniment. Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, The Nutcracker, refers to the music itself, as well as the dance moves, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.
Why is music important in ballet?
During a dance performance, music plays an important foreshadowing and guiding role in dancers’ body movement, stimulates dancers’ inner throbbing and gives more passion to dancers, so that they will have the strong desire for performance.
What ballet has the best music?
Top 9 ballet recordings
Port De Bras Vladimir issaev
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet.
Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker.
Tchaikovsky Swan Lake.
Stravinsky The Firebird.
Delibes Coppélia.
Ravel Daphnis et Chloé
Adam Giselle.
Khachaturian Spartacus.
How do you choose a ballet song?
Consider Age Appropriateness. …
Stay Away From Top-40 Songs. …
Make Sure Everyone Loves It. …
Look for Must-Haves.
What are the 7 movements of ballet?
Noverre analyzed ballet movement into seven basic categories. These are known as the seven movements in dancing. These are plier (to bend), etendre (to stretch), relever (to rise), sauter (to jump), tourner (to turn), glisser (to glide), and elancer (to dart).
How is music connected to ballet?
Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance.
How does music affect ballet?
Dance needs music to set the mood, drop the beat, and create the motivation needed to start moving. Music has that ability to make us feel a certain way, which is why it plays such an immense role in dance. Different styles of music create various types of beats, which all correspond to a specific dance style.
What are the qualities of ballet music?
A huge element of ballet music is a strong rhythm. The music must be expressive to capture the plot of the ballet. Leitmotivs, or simply motivs, are signature tunes for each character. Most ballets have pit orchestras, especially for classical and romantic ballets.
Who is the most famous composer for ballet?
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the composer behind some of the most well-known ballet titles we have – The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. He was born in a small town in Russia called Votkinsk in 1840.
