by Jean Marie Carey | 6 Jan 2014 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, Music

Franz Marc’s Deer in the Snow at the Lenbachhaus; Persona
The article M83: Why Music Is Contemporary Art on the Installation website provides an excellent forum, in the comments section, for the discussion of the title subject.
I like M83 a lot and agree that their sound is ambitious beyond poptronica though as commenters on the Installation site point out this is not necessarily because of compositional enterprise or chord progression For me the attraction is the “celebrate the apocalypse” mood of “Midnight City” or the spoken “created sample” in “OK Pal:”
“We’re walking in the streets – or what’s left of them,
I take your hand, and the city is slowly vanishing.
There’s no crowd anymore, no cars, no signals.
But in the middle of the road, a purple and mellow shape is floating.
The shape of our mutual dream.
Stay calm, hold me tight, give it a chance to take us away.
We will live, we will dream on the shadow of our world.”
I had a dream the other night that incorporated both this song and the painting in the photo, Franz Marc’s Deer in the Snow (1911). In the dream a good friend of mine who recently has been through a difficult time was one of the deer, but hampered by a hank of rope or net caught between her hoof and head. The reindeer tender freed her, and despite being “caught,” my friend as the deer, didn’t have any broken bones, or even any bruises or lost fur. I hope she will be OK like the deer in the dream. In the dream, I heard the music from “Midnight City” (which reminds me of this friend). I don’t know why anyone would think people (and animals) don’t see colors or hear music in dreams…maybe everyone does and they just forget.
by Jean Marie Carey | 26 Jan 2011 | Art History

We went to look at the American Modernism show at the Tampa Museum of Art but mainly to experience some avant garde, modernist — experimental, really — music presented by the University of Tampa’s Minaret New Music Ensemble. One of the best parts of the event was Bradford Blackburn’s Ph.d. dissertation, Phrase and Rephrase 3/2, a concerto for Harry Partch Ensemble with live augmentation with Donald Martino on bass clarinet and cellist Lowell Adams. Our hearts were stolen, though, by microtonal guitarist, composer, and luthier Ron Sword.
This was one of the best things we’ve seen in Tampa. The park outside the museum is very lovely too and gets a lot of use, even on a cold Wednesday night.


