by Jean Marie Carey | 18 Feb 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Dogs!
Assistance Dog in Training at CAA 2013
During the session “Reframing Painting: A Call for a New Critical Dialogue,” in the midst of a wonderful paper called The “Irrelevance” of Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings by Christina Chang of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, I noticed this handsome assistance-dog-in-training was sitting almost right in front of me. What amazing good fortune, and what a great place for an assistance dog to train (and if he or she is training to help people with certain types of disorders, a lot of likely assist-ees).
Even while being mesmerized by the talk my body began to pay more attention to the dog. He or she was a Labrador-type dog but with lustrous long hair, with cowlicks and widow’s peaks leaping to and fro. My fingers itched to twirl and smooth those curls and I could not help but wondering what is really important.
The dog was a bit anxious and needed to go outside so his person, and nice woman who I exchanged smiles and eye contact with, took him before the session closed. I couldn’t find them again. I would like to know more about them both…
by Jean Marie Carey | 17 Feb 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
It was actually a very solemn week and past few days but in recounting some stories it’s easier to begin with flashes of humor, and there were a few extremely funny episodes to report.
The first was while visiting the Cloisters. After viewing the very disturbing (to me) tapestries of the allegorical (but very graphically woven) hunting of the unicorn we came upon this:
Called a Palmesel; this model dated 1470 is from a church in Mellrichstadt – perhaps I should have guessed that such a fun crazy object would come from Bavaria – and apparently they continued to be quite popular in the beautiful south to the relatively modern times, protected from the Reformation.
We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is another whole story I will get to…but, in trying to dash through the rooms and rooms of Impressionism to come out in the relatively tiny alcove of the good stuff, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted this:
I think he means “peniche.”
M^2 knew what time it was but the group of admirers who were lingering to count the dots or whatever were perplexed by our laughter so as you can see I had to share this important re-enactment with them. It’s kind of hard to explain anyway, but the people seemed amused and we were also very cheerful.
by Jean Marie Carey | 7 Feb 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
Zwei Wölfe, Franz Marc, 1913
“Furr” – Blitzen Trapper
Yeah, when I was only 17,
I could hear the angels whispering
So I droned into the words and
wandered aimlessly about till
I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
or a wolf to be exact.
The sound sent shivers down my back
but I was drawn into the pack.
And before long, they allowed me
to join in and sing their song.
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
we would gladly get our fill,
howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn.
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong.
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were turned to
instinct and obedience to God.
You can wear your fur
like the river on fire.
But you better be sure
if you’re makin’ God a liar.
I’m a rattlesnake, babe,
I’m like fuel on fire.
So if you’re gonna’ get made,
don’t be afraid of what you’ve learned.
On the day that I turned 23,
I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree.
When suddenly a girl
with skin the color of a pearl,
wandered aimlessly,
but she didn’t seem to see.
She was listenin’ for the angels just like me.
So I stood and looked about.
I brushed the leaves off of my snout.
And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees.
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees.
So I took her by the arm
we settled down upon a farm.
And raised our children up as
gently as you please.
And now my fur has turned to skin.
And I’ve been quickly ushered in
to a world that I confess I do not know.
But I still dream of running careless through the snow.
An’ through the howlin’ winds that blow,
across the ancient distant flow,
it fill our bodies up like water till we know.
§ § §
*(Actually February 8) This year’s anecdote: In the frustration of inertia I went back to as yet untranslated Marc letters, and I found some correspondence that looked interesting about when FM went to visit the Brücke at the beginning of 1912. FM was only supposed to be gone for a few days but actually disappeared for, like, three weeks – this was noted by KBoyV who wrote annoyed notes almost every day commenting on the the situation, i.e. “You left on 2 January and were supposed to return on 5 January and it is now 12 January!”
FM sent some cheerful postcards but made no mention of being in any hurry to return to being, as FM put it, “henpecked.” (FM went to Berlin around the holidays anyway, to visit his perplexed in-laws, camp out on the doorstep of the von Eckhardts, continue investigating the musems, and generally “see what was going on.”)
FM was very intrigued by the crazy goings-on at the Brücke hangout, trying to remain unfazed in the midst of what must have been, even by FM standards, extreme partying situations, nonetheless reporting breathlessly in letters (“OMG these guys are doing DRUGS and stuff!..” and [this is an actual quote, not my interpretation for the modern times] about people “doing goblin-like gymnastics and cartwheels.”
The Brücke had made all their own furniture, wall hangings, murals, even ceramics, lamps, glassware and stuff, and despite the CD cases, pizza boxes and beer bottles strewn around it looked like kind of a cool studio to hang out in. Anyway, a repeated theme in people’s observations and sometimes FM’s own about himself is that he was, sometimes, kind of clumsy or as KBoyV frequently remarks “awkward.” The Brücke dudes finally agree to let FM put some of their stuff in the second Blue Rider show. Meanwhile, FM keeps accidentally busting up their handmade furniture. On 19 January 1912, there was actually the classic sit-down-on-a-chair-and-it-breaks pratfall.
HM was finally dispatched to Berlin to get FM detoxed from opium, teenagers, or whatever, and back on the train home to Bavaria (this lead to a typically digressive and huffy mini-festo on the annoying tendency of trains to go, you know, directly from place to place instead of just cruising around for a while). FM remarked to HM upon departing that even though the place was pretty much already trashed when he got there, it looked like “a couple of giant bears had turned everything over” by the time he left…
From (more or less): Franz Marc: Briefe, Schriften, Aufzeichnungen. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1989, S. 60-66
