Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Richard Serra 1938-2024








Sadden to learn of Richard's passing. I knew him in the early late 60's early 70's meeting him for the first time in the late 60's probably at Max's sitting at Robert Smithson's table. He was formidable in statue and looks being like a worker off from his job, which he liked. He was strong and attractive and I was intimidated by him me being a young and unknown artist. He came on strong to me, kinda scaring me with his looks and pointed questions to me. I stood my crowd and although we never became close we respected each other. His work had a lot of meaning for me and in odd ways in his early work I took from it what I needed. In the late 70's I had a big show at Kent State and without my knowing the curators sent out letters to various artists asking what they thought of my work, these responses were to be published in the ugly catalog that they did. If I had known I would have forbidden it, but I didn't know. One day my phone rang and it was Richard. From my memory the conversation went something like this. "I'm very embarrassed Ira Joel because I got a letter from kent state asking me to write something about your art, I did it, but I forgot to put in the envelope and mailed an empty envelope to them." I laughed and told him it was ok. I sure would have liked to have known what he thought. I got my wish many years later when on my umptieth application for the Guggenheim I asked Richard via emails if you would write a letter of recommendation for me, which he did. I didn't get the Guggenheim, hell if Richard Serra couldn't get me the grant why bother which I haven't ever again. Anyway here is the letter which I treasure and sad good bye to a great artist.


"I have known Ira Joel Haber’s work since 1969 and I recall his early shows at the Fischbach Gallery which I took great interest in. His early floor pieces and constructed configurations later developed into three dimensional boxes, a mixture of Cornel, Schwitters and urban detritus lifted from arcane places: flower shops, flea markets, urban Americana. The scale of his work has always interested me in that he could describe discreet miniature volumes that implied an enormous scale. I can place Ira Joel Haber in an updated lineage from Cornel to Dove to Hartley. What is particular in his work is not only the scale in relation to part but the intensity of the interaction of color as well as the drawing in his constructions. Ira Joel Haber’s work has been present on the scene for over 40 years and has had considerable influence on the work of other sculptors, painters, photographers and interestingly enough, filmmakers. I would consider Ira an outsider who has retained the status of an artist’s artist.

I cannot think of anyone more deserving of a Guggenheim Foundation Grant. I would like to give the highest recommendation and it is my sincere hope that Ira Joel Haber will receive a Guggenheim Foundation Grant.

Richard Serra

Thursday, March 21, 2024

M. Emmet Walsh 1935-2024


 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

early spring 2024 mixed on cardboard


 

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Experiment in Terror 1962

 








Directed by Blake Edwards in a no frills black and white fashion and like some of his fellow directors of the period ie Sidney Lumet and John Frankenheimer started out in the golden age of television which served them well. In “Experiment” (which might be seen as an experiment in movie making) the plot concerns a scary bad guy who tries to force a bank teller to steal a lot of money for him. The taunt screenplay was written by the The Gordons a husband and wife mystery writing pair who based it on their novel “Operation Terror” who also did stuff for t.v.


Over the memorable opening credits we see the bank teller driving home from downtown San Francisco over the bay bridge played by the late great Lee Remick who delivers the goods. This was her first film with Edwards in 1962, she would later that year make “The Days Of Wine and Roses” with him which got Remick her only Oscar nomination, This is a beautiful opening that sets up the story nicely and has Henry Mancini's great jazzy menacing score over it. We are already getting tense with worry and also expectation.

As soon as Kelly/Remick enters her garage she is assaulted gently and warned harshly by the scary guy who gives her his plans for the robbery. He scares her and us. The fine black and white cinematography by Philip Lathrop has a t.v. Look to it, not cheap but certainly economical and also did notable work in the early years of television including Peter Gunn, Rawhide and Mr. Lucky.

Remick is warned not to go to the police so of course she immediately gets in touch with the F.B.I., and her call is interrupted by the scary guy who is in her house and attacks her, once again warning her. The scary guy also has asthma and speaks in a creepy raspy voice which ads to the scares and gives the F.B.I. An important clue to who it might be.

The F.B.I. Agent is played by Glenn Ford as John Ripley( believe it or not) who is strictly straight up and down and all business as he starts an investigation into the case. There are some subtle hints of flirtation between him and Remick but nothing comes of it, and this lack of romance works well for the plot.

Edwards uses lots of close-ups and shock like cut aways to give the audience some jolts most of them work well, and his use of the city is strictly non touristy. Remick who shares her house and life with her teenage sister played by Stefanie Powers tries to go on with her life, but the power that the scary guy has over her is never far away. There are some well remembered sequences including a nightmarish scene in a mannequin designers studio, a stake out in a singles pick up bar, a bit in a ladies bathroom where the scary guy enters in old lady drag and the final showdown at a baseball game played in Candlestick park that “B” boy Don Siegel would lift for his “Dirty Harry” another San Francisco scary guy thriller 9 years later. Important to the film is Henry Mancini one of the great film composers of the last century who scored many of Blake Edwards films and television shows. Oh yes the scary guy is played by Ross Martin. One of the ten best films of 1962.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Oddball Magazine

Thursday, March 07, 2024

Lucas Samaras 1936-2024








Another marvelous artist has passed. His work meant a lot to me as a teenager.

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Mixed on Board March 2024


 

Micheline Presle 1922-2024



 

Saturday, March 02, 2024

David Bordwell 1947-2024


 

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Oddball Magazine.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Two mixed on board Feb. 2024



 

Monday, February 26, 2024

Steve Paxton 1939-2024


 

Friday, February 16, 2024

Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez 1949-2024






 

Darling 1965

 


The first time I saw this movie I was 18 years old and went with a friend to the long gone Art Theatre in Greenwich Villiage to see it. I had started to go to the village at around the age of 15 mainly in the afternoons and I had also started to see more “adult movies” usually at our local “art” theatre The Astor which was on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn. I was looking for sophistication in my life and I found some of it in this engaging film. I thought it was wonderful at the time, so adult and knowing and I fell forward towards Julie Christie in a fantasy sexual way.

Happily upon seeing the film again after so many years I can raise my hand with reasonable delight over it. Sure its dated and sometimes the director John Schlesinger uses a heavy hand in the many instances of irony that he was known for using in his movies. Its here in the charity ball scenes with all the opulent wealth and privilege rubbing up against the young male “negro” servers dressed in 18th century costumes. The irony begins right at the start of the film when a billboard about hunger in African is being covered up with one of Julie Christie as the most recent cover girl of a fashion magazine and the subject of an interview which winds its way through the movie. The contradictions between what she says and what is shown abounds with falsehoods and fiction.

Privilege and disgust rub up against each other in this world of glamour and glitz in swinging London and we are viewers and voyeurs when Christie as Diana Scott moves and shakes her way up the image market and ladder. Diana is shameless in her need to be known and seen and she uses her extraordinary beauty to get what she wants and what she thinks she needs.

This was Julie Christie's big breakthrough movie, the one that got her an Oscar and world wide attention. No doubt about her being marvelous in the film, and her beauty was boundless and breathtaking. She starts her climb with her relationship with Dirk Bogarde who is a journalist and very very serious, he is also terrific in this role. The problem with Diana is that she is basically superficial and flighty, and easily bored. Bogarde has weight and demand and he even leaves his wife and children to move in with her. Doomed from the start this relationship goes quickly down the tubes especially when Diana lands on the snake and rake played by Laurence Harvey a public relations executive who takes Diana on and turns her into a fashion model-star and drains her of any humanity that she still has. But she is a willing host.

The film is far from perfect and some of the sequences are almost laughable especially the “La Dolce Vita” like party where the guests play a truth game that gets wilder as the evening progresses with some of the men getting up in drag. There is the usual cliched predatory lesbian drooling over Diana which was common in the early and mid sixties, but the gay Schlesinger evens this out with one of the best realistic depictions of a gay man seen so far at that time and was well played by Robert Curram as Diana's photographer friend who she takes a short holiday to Italy with. Both of them have a sex romp with a hot Italian bi waiter (alas not at the same time) and she also meets a prince who she will later marry and becomes a real princess which brought to mind another princess named Diana especially in the scenes of a depressed Christie wandering through her palatial palace lost but not found.





This was John Schlesinger's 3rd film, he had previously directed two lovely “kitchen sink” movies “A Kind of Loving” and “Billy Liar” which was a mini miracle film for Christie. Schlesinger received his first directing Oscar nomination for “Darling” and would win best director one at the end of the decade for “Midnight Cowboy” along with a final Oscar nomination for his masterpiece “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Besides winning Christie an Oscar the film also won the original screenplay and black and white costume Oscars. One of the ten best films of 1965.

Monday, February 05, 2024

Better Late Than Never

 Just found out that two of my drawings were published in New Croton Review In the Fall?? They never notified me with a link and I had to research it on my on own, going back to old emails. Any way here is the link to the magazine and my two drawings. 

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=pkvaEAAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PA24&hl=en



Sunday, February 04, 2024

Late Winter collage. Mixed on paper


 

Saturday, February 03, 2024

Don Murray 1929-2024




 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

New piece. Mixed on Paper. January 2024


 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Chita Rivera 1933-2024





 

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