Published November 17, 2009 by Molly
Images via finsbry
An interesting feature in the Guardian UK last year had Jonathan Jones placing Maurice Sendak in the context of classic illustration, pop art and the history of picture books. An excerpt:
The picture book as we know it today – a simple illustrated book for the young – originates in the 18th century and expresses the empirical philosophy of John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers, who held that what we can see and demonstrate is more real than what we are told. Language is a set of signs that denote the things we see – and in the first alphabet primers and Mother Goose nursery rhyme books, with their woodcut illustrations, you find this common sense world view being translated into books that span the gap between pictures and words, babyhood and literacy.
Maurice Sendak’s art is a rich fabric of references; it is very consciously rooted in these early children’s books, and the tradition of Hogarth and Blake.
Published June 25, 2009 by Molly
The Yayoi Kusama show currently exhibiting at New York’s Gagosian Gallery a is either a splendidly appropriate birthday present to the 80-year-old artist or a free public service for the masses. Either way, it’s worth a pilgrimage to pay tribute or just ponder the void.
A staple of New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, Kusama is known for her psychedelic repetitions and floating dot patterns, both of which originated in hallucinations from a neurotic disorder that Kusama first experienced at age ten.
The exhibit’s crown jewel, the above “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity”, is a dazzling installation of white lights draped from the ceiling and reflected on four walls. A shallow pool of water on the ground completes the illusion, and taken in total the installation is an apt expression of infinity (a concept dear to Kusama).
If you can’t get to the exhibition, sate your curiosity with a peek at Kusama’s MySpace.
Subscribe to RSS