Artist Manifestos… 29.1.2014

On New Year’s Day I received the following manifesto from my friend, the Baroness, and it brought back a world of wonderful and exciting memories of when we were young and would stay up all night talking about art and music and discovering the power of a great art manifesto. Since then, quite a lot has changed for both of us, but the inspiration and passion that can be felt while reading a well written art manifesto still is not lost on me.

The artist manifesto dates back to 1909 with the Futurists, an Italian art movement, and it increased in popularity until the beginning of World War II. After that, the artist manifesto seemed to have died out, but lately there has been resurgence in writing art manifestos and most contemporary manifestos can be found on the Internet. Wikipedia has a pretty exhaustive list of artist manifestos if anyone is interested in checking a couple out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_manifesto

Linear Construction by Naum Gabo

My favorite art manifesto is “The Realistic Manifesto”, written in 1920 by brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner. In terms of its historic significance, it is essentially a declaration that Russia has something to offer the West in regards to art: Constructivism. One of the closing sentences contains the most memorable phrase I have ever read and it has been stuck in my head since I read it almost twenty years ago: “We assert that the shouts about the future are for us the same as the tears about the past: a renovated day-dream of the romantics.” I have always thought that would make a great book title some day: “A Renovated Day-Dream of the Romantics” :)

Monde by Antoine Pevsner

Recently, I have been looking into applying for grants in order to seek assistance to frame my I Ching project and one of the books that I have been using is Gigi Rosenberg’s “The Artist’s Guide to Grant Writing: How to Find Funds and Write Foolproof Proposals for the Visual, Literary, and Performing Artist”. I have been struggling with writing my Artist Statement for months now – I know that I need to write it, I just had no idea on where or how to start it – and, then, I read yesterday that Ms. Rosenberg compares the Artist Statement to being your own personal manifesto… and, suddenly, I have a direction.

Has anyone else found this approach to writing their artist statement helpful? Or were you able to find inspiration elsewhere? Whose artist statements do you admire? My suspicion is that I am over-thinking this and any advice regarding artist statements would be greatly appreciated.

Jenn White

White Rooster Studios

Update: The I Ching Project… 22.1.2014

A New Year has begun and next week will usher in the Year of the Horse, which makes this the perfect time to review and see what the status of the I Ching Project is. As of 22 January, 2014:

30	Completed I Ching Paintings
8	Paintings in progress
4	May be re-worked or re-done
42	The project has hit the 65% mark!

The eight paintings that are in progress are in the final stage, so this means that there are only the four that I am considering re-working and 22 “new” paintings left to work on, which makes my goal of completing the I Ching Project by my birthday (the end of September) this year highly attainable.

When I began this project in April of 2013, I had absolutely no idea of where it would take me or even if the goal of completing a series of 64 mixed-media paintings was even feasible - thoughts of quickly running out of ideas immediately come to mind - but over the course of the past 8 months I have learned quite a lot about myself and have discovered that: I have no limitations IF I continue to believe in myself, my abilities and my project.

One of the most important goals that I had hoped to accomplish when I began this project was to overcome my persistent artist block, but ultimately it became about making art FUN again… to reclaim the joy of discovery, to lose myself once again in the studio, and to see just how far I could push an idea. ALL that and more has been accomplished over these past few months – and there is still so much more to do and experience.

Recently, I came across a quote by Lester Bangs that really hit home with me: “The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.”The first reaction is to argue that art IS serious… and, yes, there are significant arguments that it is, but art CAN be fun, playful, exciting, joyous, passionate and life-altering.

So, ENJOY your art – and PLAY.

In my previous blog post: People's Choice Award and Works in Progress, I added several works in progress pics. I thought it would be interesting to see a couple of the "in progress" pics and the "completed" pics side-by-side:

#31 Attraction - in progress

#31 Attraction - completed

#58 Truth - in progress

The pictures below are all recently completed mixed-media paintings:

#49 Revolution

#61 Serenity Within

#33 Retreat

I have just uploaded a new folder on the White Rooster Studios Facebook page, please check out the new designs and, please, feedback is encouraged and always welcome!!

Jenn White

White Rooster Studios

Book Review: The Monuments Men… 8.1.2014

In anticipation of the George Clooney film, “The Monuments Men”, which opens next month, I thought this may be a good time to discuss the book it was based on: "The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History" (September, 2010) by Robert M. Edsel.

When most of us think of World War II, the far-ranging impact that the war had on Europe’s cultural and artistic legacy doesn’t immediately come to mind. “The Monuments Men” tells the story of a small group of men and women from several countries who worked together to preserve this legacy, without the help of which some of our most prized artistic treasures would have been lost forever.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first portion of the book, which deals primarily with the development of the MFAA, the idea of which pre-dates America’s involvement in the war. I quickly found myself becoming entirely vested in the question top museum directors in the United States posed regarding the impact a war could have on cultural, historical and artistic treasures and how they took the initiative and held meetings to discuss what they could do should the war come to us.

The MFAA at its height boasted approximately 350 members from all levels and disciplines within the art community: museum directors, pioneers in conservationism (a new art at the time), curators, art scholars, artists and architects, but at its inception, there were fewer than 12 MFAA men on the ground in France. Edsel tells the story of those men and their struggle to perform the tasks they faced within an Allied Army that initially didn’t know what to do with them and how they overcame the limitations of supplies and transportation.

The remainder of the book includes chapters focusing on the following:

Monte Cassino, the Benedictine Abbey in Italy destroyed by controversial Allied bombings in February of 1944. 

The saving of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The theft and ultimate recovery of Michelangelo’s “Bruges Madonna” – rumored to be the only piece of sculpture to leave Italy during the artist’s lifetime.

Jan Vermeer’s “The Astronomer"

 Jan van Eyck’s “The Ghent Altarpiece”

The near destruction of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in Milan, Italy.

·                                                   Edsel also details several of the most well-known Nazi art depositories:

Merkers Salt Mine – This is where the Nazi gold reserves and most of their artistic treasures were hidden.

Altausse Salt Mine - This mine needed to be dug out as most of the tunnels were collapsed in a bid to save the artwork from Hitler’s Nero Decree.

Neuchwanstein Castle (aka Mad Ludwig’s castle) took the MFAA approximately six weeks to remove all of the artwork stored there.

Edsel provides an update on the status of the artwork in the final chapters of the book which includes a short list of major artworks that are still unaccounted for (approximately 10,000 pieces), including the personal collection of SS Chief Heinrich Himmler (rumored to have been burned), the Amber Panels of Peter the Great (looted from the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg and believed to be destroyed) and Raphael’s “Portrait of a Young Man”, said to be the most important piece missing. Out of curiosity, I Google imaged Raphael’s painting to see if there was a photo of it somewhere and there was a hit for a short article stating that in 2012 the painting had been discovered in a bank vault and had recently been returned to Cracow, Poland.

Raphael’s “Portrait of a Young Man"

My reading for the past nine months has been primarily non-fiction and this was my first “military” non-fiction book, so I was highly relieved to find a minimum of military jargon and tactics. I found myself being thoroughly caught up in the search for the missing artwork, yet, at the same time, I was absolutely horrified at the audacity of the thefts. I had the good fortune to have been able to make several trips to Europe in the early 2000’s and am now acutely aware that my visits to the great museums of France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands could have been vastly different had not for the hard work and determination of the MFAA.

Edsel has also written: “Saving Italy”, a companion book to “The Monuments Men”, and “Rescuing Da Vinci”.
Anyone who wishes to learn more about the Monuments Men, please check out: www.monumentsmen.com.

The film is expected to be released on 7 February, 2014.

Jenn White

White Rooster Studios