Showing posts with label surrealism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surrealism. Show all posts

Monday, June 08, 2009

Little Ashes (2008)***: Federico Garcia Lorca and Salvador Dali Were An Item



A romantic story about the young life and loves of artist Salvador Dali, filmmaker Luis Buñuel and writer Federico Garcia Lorca. In 1922, Madrid is wavering on the edge of change as traditional values are challenged by the dangerous new influences of Jazz, Freud and the avant-garde. Salvador Dali arrives at the university, 18 years old and determined to become a great artist. His bizarre blend of shyness and rampant exhibitionism attracts the attention of two of the university's social elite - Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Buñuel. Salvador is absorbed into their decadent group and for a time Salvador, Luis and Federico become a formidable trio, the most ultra-modern group in Madrid. However as time passes, Salvador feels an increasingly strong pull towards the charismatic Federico - who is himself oblivious of the attentions he is getting from his beautiful writer friend, Margarita. Finally, in the face of his friends' preoccupations - and Federico's growing renown as a poet - Luis sets off for Paris in search of his own artistic success. Federico and Salvador spend the holiday in the sea-side town of Cadaques. Both the idyllic surroundings and the warmth of the Dali family sweep Federico off his feet. Salvador and he draw closer, sharing their deepest beliefs, inspirations and secrets, convinced that they have found a kind of friendship undreamt of by others. It is more that a meeting of the minds; it is a fusion of souls. And then one night, in the phosphorescent water, it becomes something else. --© Regent Releasing

The Faithless Wife By Federico Garcia Lorca



So I took her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lighted up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives.
Without silver light on their foliage
the trees had grown larger
and a horizon of dogs
barked very far from the river.

Past the blackberries,
the reeds and the hawthorne
underneath her cluster of hair
I made a hollow in the earth
I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver,
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o’-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brilliance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold.
That night I ran
on the best of roads
mounted on a nacre mare
without bridle stirrups.

As a man, I won’t repeat
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me more discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from the river.
The swords of the lilies
battled with the air.

I behaved like what I am,
like a proper gypsy.
I gave her a large sewing basket,
of straw-colored satin,
but I did not fall in love
for although she had a husband
she told me she was a maiden
when I took her to the river.


Autosomodization By Salvador Dali



I thought it was an interesting, although trite movie, considering the background is the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Robert Pattinson (Twilight) was excellent as Dali, despite what critics say. ***

RENEGADE EYE

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

All Souls: The Frida Kahlo Cult

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), will present a major exhibition of the artist’s paintings spanning her career. Curated by art historian and world-renowned Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera and Walker Associate Curator Elizabeth Carpenter, Frida Kahlo premieres at the Walker October 27, 2007–January 20, 2008, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and SFMOMA.








All Souls: The Frieda Kahlo Cult
by Peter Schjeldahl
November 05, 2007


There are so many ways to be interested in Frida Kahlo, who was born a hundred years ago an died forty-seven years later, in 1954, that simply to look at and judge her paintings, as paintings may seem narrow-minded. No one need appreciate art to justify being Kahlo fan or even a Kahlo cultist (Why not? The world will have cults, and who better merits one? In Mexico, Kahlo’s ubiquitous image has become the counter-Guadalupe, complementing th numinous Virgin as a deathless icon of Mexicanidad. Kahlo’s ascension since the late nineteen-seventies, to feminist sainthood is ineluctable though a mite strained. (Kahl struggled not in common cause with women but, single-handedly, fo herself.) And her pansexual charisma, shadowed by tales of ghastly physical and emotional suffering, makes her an avatar of liberty and guts. However, Kahlo’s eminence wobbles unless her work holds up. A retrospective at th Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis proves that it does, and then some. She made some iffy symbological pictures an a few perfectly awful ones—forgivably, given their service to her alway imperilled morale—but her self-portraits cannot be overpraised. They are sui generis in art while collegial with great portraiture of every age. Kahlo is among the winnowed elect of twentieth-century painters who will never be absent for long from the mental museums of future artists

Read the rest of the article here

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RENEGADE EYE

Monday, June 25, 2007

Token Open Thread Excluding Spam: Blog Surf



Occasional poster here Sphinx at Morning Fire has a long post about the Palestinian situation. It is worth reading, with much to discuss, as the nature of Hamas, Fatah and the boycott of Israeli academics.

I have been having correspondance with a surrealist blogger at The Midlope, including talking about Trotsky's relationship with Andre Breton and Diego Rivera

One of my favorite blogs is Histologian. This Greek journalist has a story about agent provocateurs in large demonstrations including the anti-globalization movements. The Republican Party convention will be in St. Paul, MN, and I expect it to be a provocateurs gathering.

Louis Proyect The Unrepentant Marxist, has a story about the checkered history of "The Nation Magazine", initiated by after Cindy Sheehan quit the antiwar movement, she denounced the Democratic Party. "The Nation" and the MSM left out her attacks on the party. The magazine goes back to the days of the abolitionists. Even at that time, their politics was as sharp as a butter knife.

ADDENDUM

My friend wrestled Chris Benoit when he was a rookie, wrestling in Calgary. He was a loose cannon even then. My friend saw him hit a child in a wheelchair. That was a glimpse of things to come. Benoit didn't have a steroid problem, he always was a sociopath. The murders were not rage killings, they were ritualistic and planned.

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Anything else on your mind?
RENEGADE EYE