Podcasts about Roy Lichtenstein

Pop art: caratteristiche e stile della corrente artistica che nacque in Inghilterra. Tra i suoi più noti esponenti ebbe Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein e Keith Haring.

Roy Lichtenstein, vita e opere di uno degli artisti più innovativi della seconda metà del XXI secolo e protagonista della Pop Art americana. Caratteristiche dello stile e analisi delle opere.

A Fundação Louis Vuitton, de Paris, apresenta a mostra “Pop Forever”. A exposição revisita a corrente artística que surgiu nos anos 1950, com raízes no dadaísmo, e destaca a obra do norte-americano Tom Wesselman. Patrícia Moribe, em ParisSem manifesto e sem fronteiras, o pop foi uma das correntes artísticas mais importantes do século 20 e sua influência continua forte nas artes plásticas e na música até hoje. As cores, o psicodelismo, o objeto cotidiano como fonte de inspiração, a sensualidade e o absurdo são elementos recorrentes.Quem pensa em pop, pensa em Andy Warhol. Ele era o rei em uma Nova York efervescente, onde tudo era possível. Em seu espaço antológico, The Factory, flanavam intelectuais, dramaturgos, drag queens, artistas sem-teto, celebridades de Hollywood e milionários. Ele teria cunhado a frase de que no futuro todos seriam famosos por 15 minutos – e depois cairiam no esquecimento. Um dos quadros mais famosos de Warhol, um silkscreen da série retratando Marilyn Monroe está na exposição.Mas o fio condutor da exposição é a obra de Tom Wesselman (1931-2004), que morreu em 2004 aos 73 anos.“É uma exposição dupla, pois é, ao mesmo tempo, uma retrospectiva dedicada a este artista, Tom Wesselmann, que é considerado um dos pais fundadores do movimento pop”, explica Oliver Michelon, um dos curadores. “Mas também é uma exposição dedicada à arte pop, já que é, no fim das contas, uma leitura do pop a partir da obra de Tom Wesselmann e uma interpretação um pouco mais ampla do pop, já que vamos abordar as origens do movimento, por volta de 1960, até os dias de hoje”, acrescenta.“Tom Wesselmann, junto com Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol e James Rosenquist, é uma das primeiras grandes figuras do pop”, relata o curador. “Ou seja, ele aparece na cena artística de Nova York no começo dos anos 60 com obras que mostram objetos de consumo cotidiano, formas vibrantes, enfim, que fazem a arte passar para uma nova dimensão ao se apropriar da cultura popular. É uma espécie de detonador do pop. Desde o começo dos anos 1960 até o meio da década, e depois, obviamente, sua obra também evolui.”A mostra reúne 150 pinturas e trabalhos com técnicas mistas do artista. Há também 70 obras de outros nomes do pop, além de Andy Warhol, como os recordes de quadrinhos de Roy Lichtenstein, a releitura da bandeira norte-americana de Jasper Johns e as bolinhas de Yayoi Kusama.O projeto levou cerca de dois anos para ser concretizado e teve dois curadores convidados, Dieter Buchhart e Anna Karina Hofbauer. “Nunca é fácil conseguir os empréstimos, ainda mais de artistas excepcionais como é o caso”, diz Michelon. “Também pudemos contar com o apoio generoso da família Wesselman, que nos emprestou muitas peças.”O diálogo do pop acontece com artistas contemporâneos, como Jeff Koons e Ai Weiwei, além da nova geração representada por Derrick Adams, Tomokasu Matsuyama e Mickalene Thomas, que criaram peças especialmente para a exibição.“Pop Forever” fica em cartaz na Fundação Louis Vuitton até 24 de fevereiro de 2025.  

Mujer en el baño, de Roy Lichtenstein, habla con El baño de Diana (La fuente), de Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ¿Cómo se concebía la mujer, su cuerpo y su identidad en dos siglos diferentes? ¿Cómo se representaba su cuerpo en ambas épocas? ¿Qué mitos estaban más vigentes en la cultura y qué representaban? ¿En qué sociedad fueron pintadas la Diana de Corot y la Mujer en el baño de Lichtenstein? ¿Cómo la evolución de la cultura de masas convirtió la imagen de una fotonovela amorosa en una obra de arte? Para responder a estas preguntas escuchamos a las protagonistas de Mujer en el baño´, de Roy Lichtenstein, y `El baño de Diana (La fuente)´, de Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, además de contar con Eva García, educadora del museo, y con la colaboración de la nutricionista Raquel Lobatón.

Welcome back to Print Market News, your weekly roundup of everything happening in the print world - fast and focused!   This week on The Week in Prints, we delve into record-breaking auction results for Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, with Warhol's Endangered Species set selling for an astounding $4.3 million. Upcoming auctions from Sotheby's and Bonhams promise exciting opportunities for collectors, while new releases include a Keith Haring USPS stamp and KAWS' luxury watch collaboration with Audemars Piguet. Plus, we explore global exhibitions featuring art legends like Banksy, Warhol, Hockney, and Basquiat, with highlights from New York's Luna Luna and California's largest-ever Hockney print survey.  

Welcome back to Print Market News, your weekly roundup of everything happening in the print world - fast and focused!   This week on The World in Prints, we bring you the most compelling stories shaking the art world. Italian authorities uncover a Europe-wide forgery network, spotlighting counterfeit Banksy works in a €250 million scandal. Meanwhile, New York auction week sees Keith Haring and Roy Lichtenstein works take center stage, and the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair showcases rising trends in printmaking. We also explore Hauser & Wirth's newly announced Basquiat exhibition, a landmark moment for the legendary artist's legacy. Plus, Harland Miller's latest print releases sell out in record time, and we pay tribute to Frank Auerbach's printmaking achievements.

Il s'est destiné au dessin humoristique et est devenu l'une des figures majeures du pop art : son nom est Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004). Moins connu que ses compatriotes Andy Warhol et Roy Lichtenstein, l'Américain s'installe sur quatre étages à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris avec 150 œuvres. Trente-cinq artistes d'hier et d'aujourd'hui complètent le panorama de ce courant artistique indémodable, d'où le titre l'exposition : Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & ... Pour plus d'informations :  L'exposition Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & … 

Il s'est destiné au dessin humoristique et est devenu l'une des figures majeures du pop art : son nom est Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004). Moins connu que ses compatriotes Andy Warhol et Roy Lichtenstein, l'Américain s'installe sur quatre étages à la Fondation Louis Vuitton à Paris avec 150 œuvres. Trente-cinq artistes d'hier et d'aujourd'hui complètent le panorama de ce courant artistique indémodable, d'où le titre l'exposition : Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & ... Pour plus d'informations :  L'exposition Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & … 

Fra i grandi protagonisti dell'arte statunitense spiccano John Singer Sargent, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein e Jackson PollockTutto ebbe inizio con le arti praticate dalle culture indigene; fu soltanto dopo l'arrivo degli europei che si sviluppò l'arte tipicamente occidentale che conosciamo oggi, prendendo inizialmente forma nei generi del ritratto e del paesaggio.

Audio; https://erickimphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ART-ANSWER.m4a Super Facts: https://erickimphotography.com/blog/2024/09/15/art-is-the-answer-6/ # ART IS THE ANSWER Some thoughts this morning: specifically, about art.  This past weekend, just did a quick trip down to San Diego, La Jolla, and had the insane privilege of staying by a beachfront hotel, La Jolla Shores highly recommended, and the first thing I did in the morning was just drink a cuppa coffee in the little kitchenette, and then went on a walk on the beach. The funny thing about growing up in the bay areas that we don't have any beaches… Even in Alameda where our group as a kid, the beach was disgusting and super dirty. As a consequence, I never owned a pair of flip-flops in my life, and I think I only started wearing shorts about two years ago, at the age of 34? Now living in Los Angeles, where the weather is good. Anyways, at this strange version that I don't like to dip my toes into the sand, because the feeling of sand in between my toes is unfamiliar and I don't really like it. But I said F it…  if Cindy showed out the big bucks to get the shorefeont hotel, it is only right to milk activities of walking on the beach, specifically, dipping my toes into the ocean. So I took off my vibram 5 finger shoes, and just proceeded to walk along the beach, dipping my legs and feet into the warm ocean water, which I was very surprised… It felt like a lovely 72° in the water, almost as nice if not nicer than Hawaii. Looking into the ocean, was pretty astounding. The feeling was great because if you look into the ocean, it goes on forever. To infinity and beyond. And some meditations that I had about the ocean and water was that no matter what, the ocean is instantly tireless. It keeps on waving, crashing and waving, due to the earths pull of gravity, maybe the moon in the solar system whatever,  day in and day out. Even in someways it is more virtuous than the sun, which sets at night. *** ## All art everything Almost everything can be understood in the context of art. Music as art for our ears, cinema at least the good ones, as art for our eyes, and bodybuilding as an art form for the human body, assuming that you're not taking steroids, and even in someways… Weightlifting powerlifting uplifting at the gym whatever… Should be seen as performance, performance arts! Why? I think I am probably the most entertaining person in the flesh, because I'm the only entertainer who doesn't drink alcohol smoke weed or do drugs… Also fast all day, and also lift over 1000 pounds, could lift easily lift over 10 plates at the gym.  Also, am I the only one I know who doesn't use email? Certainly I'm probably the only millennial that I know, also Cindy… Who is not on Instagram or social media. Even today I saw Cindy‘s mom installed TikTok on her phone and she is almost 70 years old. Anyways, the reason why I think this is so important is that everything is art. Even my friend Brandon Phan is currently building an art car, which is like an old-school BMW, with a modern day M3 engine. He is doing all the work himself. Anyways the reason why I feel all this is interesting, even Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein did these art car projects. And if you really really think about super super rich people… sooner or later they just get into art. Is it because they have nothing else to spend their money on? Or are they bored? Or are they seeking beauty, beyond themselves?

When embarking on your mokuhanga journey, whether through making or collecting, one name stands out above the rest: (pause) Yoshida. The Yoshida family of artists have helped create some of the most important and exciting mokuhanga prints of the last 100 years. Their designs, techniques, and marketing transformed the perception of prints in Japan and around the world.   I speak with Dr. Monika Hinkel, Lecturer in the Arts of East Asia at SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies) at the University of London and an Academic Member of the Japan Research Centre. Dr. Hinkel is also the curator of the current exhibtion (at the time of recording)  about the Yoshida family of artists, titled Yoshida: Three Generations of Printmaking, being held at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, England.   Dr. Hinkel joins me to discuss the Yoshida family, from Hiroshi to Ayomi, the exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery—the first of its kind in the United Kingdom—the Yoshida family's history, and their impact on the global art community.   Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com  Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Artists works follow after the note if available. Pieces are mokuhanga unless otherwise noted. Dimensions are given if known. Print publishers are given if known. Dulwich Picture Gallery - located in London, England the Dulwich Picture Gallery is the worlds first public "purpose-built" public art gallery founded in 1811.  Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) - was an American artist known for his innovative and boundary-defying work that blurred the lines between painting, sculpture, and everyday life. Emerging in the 1950s, Rauschenberg challenged the conventions of traditional art with his "Combines," a series of works that incorporated found objects, photographs, and non-traditional materials into paintings, creating dynamic, multi-dimensional pieces. Characterized by a spirit of experimentation and a desire to break down the distinctions between art and the real world, Rauschenberg played a crucial role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Charlene (1954) mixed media Pop Art - was an art movement from the 1950s and 1960s that incorporated imagery from popular culture, such as advertising, comic books, and consumer goods. It challenged traditional art by blurring the lines between high art and everyday life. Key figures like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein used bold colors and familiar icons to both celebrate and critique consumer culture, making Pop Art one of the most influential movements in modern art. Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmakers - is the current exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery from June 19, 2024 -  November 3, 2024.  Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) - a watercolorist, oil painter, and woodblock printmaker. Is associated with the resurgence of the woodblock print in Japan, and in the West. It was his early relationship with Watanabe Shōzaburō, having his first seven prints printed by the Shōzaburō atelier. This experience made Hiroshi believe that he could hire his own carvers and printers and produce woodblock prints, which he did in 1925.  Kumoi Cherry Tree 23" x 29 1/8 " (1926) Yoshida Fujio (1887-1997) - the wife of Hiroshi Yoshida and the mother of Tōshi Yoshida (1911-1995) and Hodaka Yoshida. Fujio was so much more than a mother and wife. She had a long and storied career as a painter and printmaker. Fujio's work used her travels and personal experiences to make her work. Subjects such as Japan during The Pacific War, abstraction, portraits, landscapes, still life, and nature were some of her themes. Her painting mediums were watercolour and oil. Her print work was designed by her and carved by Fujio.  Flower - B (1954) 15 3/4" x 10 5/8" Yoshida Tōshi (1911-1995) - was the second child of Hiroshi Yoshida and Fujio Yoshida, although the first to survive childhood. Beginning with oil paintings and then apprenticing under his father with woodblock cutting. By 1940 Tōshi started to make his mokuhanga. After his father's death in 1950, Tōshi began to experiment with abstract works and travel to the United States. Later travels to Africa evolved his prints, inspiring Tōshi with the world he experienced as his work focused on animals and nature.  American Girl A (1954) 15 7/8" x 11 1/8" Yoshida Chizuko (1924-2017) - was the wife of painter and printmaker Hodaka Yoshida. Beginning as an abstract painter, Chizuko, after a meeting with sōsaku hanga printmaker Onchi Kōshirō (1891-1955), Chizuko became interested in printmaking. Chizuko enjoyed the abstraction of art, and this was her central theme of expression. Like all Yoshida artists, travel greatly inspired Chizuko's work. She incorporated the colours and flavours of the world into her prints. Jazz (1953) 15 3/4" x 11" Yoshida Hodaka (1926-1995) - was the second son of woodblock printmaker and designer Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950). Hodaka Yoshida's work was abstract, beginning with painting and evolving into printmaking. His inspirations varied as his career continued throughout his life, but Hodaka Yoshida's work generally focused on nature, "primitive" art, Buddhism, the elements, and landscapes. Hodaka Yoshida's print work used woodcut, photo etching, collage, and lithography, collaborating with many of these mediums and making original and fantastic works. Outside of prints Hodaka Yoshida also painted and created sculptures. Abstract (1958) 11" x 15 7/8" Yoshida Ayomi - is the daughter of Chizuko and Hodaka Yoshida. She is a visual artist who works in mokuhanga, installations and commercial design. Ayomi's subject matter is colour, lines, water, and shape. Ayomi's lecture referred to by Jeannie at PAM can be found here. She teaches printmaking and art. You can find more info here.  Spring Rain (2018) woodblock installation  Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), a designer of more than six hundred woodblock prints, is one of the most famous artists of the shin-hanga movement of the early twentieth century. Hasui began his career under the guidance of Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1971), joining several artistic societies early on. However, it wasn't until he joined the Watanabe atelier in 1918 that he began to gain significant recognition. Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) commissioned Hasui to design landscapes of the Japanese countryside, small towns, and scenes of everyday life. Hasui also worked closely with the carvers and printers to achieve the precise quality he envisioned for his prints. Spring Rain at Sakurada Gate (1952) 10 3/8" x 15 3/8" Shōzaburō Watanabe (1885-1962) - was one of the most important print publishers in Japan in the early 20th Century. His business acumen and desire to preserve the ukiyo-e tradition were incredibly influential for the artists and collectors in Japan and those around the world. Watanabe influenced other publishers, but his work in the genre is unparalleled. The shin-hanga (new print) movement is Watanabe's, collecting some of the best printers, carvers and designers to work for him. A great article by The Japan Times in 2022 discusses a touring exhibition of Watanabe's work called Shin Hanga: New Prints of Japan, which can be found here.    Impressionism - was an art movement that emerged in France in the late 19th century, characterized by a focus on capturing the fleeting effects of light and color in everyday scenes. Instead of detailed realism, Impressionist artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas used loose brushwork and vibrant colors to convey the atmosphere and momentary impressions of their subjects. This movement broke from traditional art by often painting en plein air (outdoors) and prioritizing personal perception over exact representation, leading to a revolutionary shift in modern art. Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) - was a key figure in the development of abstract art, known for using color and form to express emotions and ideas without representational content. His influential writings and innovative approach helped shape modern art, making him a central figure in movements like Expressionism and the Bauhaus. Stars (1938) 13 7/8" x 10 1/4" colour lithograph  Charles Freer (1854–1919) - was an American industrialist and art collector, best known for his significant contributions to the field of art through the establishment of the Freer Gallery of Art. Freer was a wealthy entrepreneur who made his fortune in the railroad industry. In his later years, he became an avid collector of art, particularly Asian art, including Chinese and Japanese ceramics, paintings, and sculptures. Nakagawa Hachiro (1877-1922) - was a close friend of Yoshida Hiroshi and traveled to the United States together for the first time in 1899. He was a yōga painter and showed primarily in Japan. Landcape in The Inland Sea 13.94" x 20.87" colour on watercolour  The Great Kanto Earthquake - struck Japan on September 1, 1923, with a magnitude of approximately 7.9. It devastated the Kanto region, including Tokyo and Yokohama, causing widespread destruction and fires that led to the deaths of over 100,000 people. The earthquake also resulted in significant infrastructure damage, homelessness, and economic disruption. In the aftermath, the disaster prompted major rebuilding efforts and urban planning changes. Additionally, the earthquake led to social and political unrest, including widespread anti-Korean sentiment, as rumors falsely blamed Korean immigrants for the disaster. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) - born in Edo, Hiroshige is famous for his landscape series of that burgeoning city. The most famous series being, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-1859), and the landcape series, Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833-1834). His work highlights bokashi, and bright colours. More info about his work can be found, here.  Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji No. 21 Lake at Hakone 14" x 9 1/4" Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) - a designer of more than six hundred woodblock prints, Kawase Hasui is one of the most famous designers of the shin-hanga movement of the early twentieth century. Hasui began his career with the artist and woodblock designer Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1971), joining several artistic societies along the way early in his career. It wasn't until he joined the Watanabe atelier in 1918 that he really began to gain recognition. Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) had Hasui design landscapes of the Japanese country-side, small towns, and everyday life. Hasui also worked closely with the carvers and printers of his prints to reach the level Hasui wanted his prints to be.  Selection of Views of the Tokaido (1934) Bishu Seto Kilns 15 3/4"  x 10 3/8" Itō Shinsui (1898-1972) - Nihon-ga, and woodblock print artist and designer who worked for print publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962). Shinsui designed some of our most famous shin hanga, or “new” prints of the early 20th century. One of my favorites is “Fragrance of a Bath” 1930. Kasumi Teshigawara Arranging Chrysanthemums (1966) 21 7/8" x 16 1/2" Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) - is one of the most famous Japanese artists to have ever lived. Hokusai was an illustrator, painter and woodblock print designer. His work can be found on paper, wood, silk, and screen. His woodblock print design for Under The Wave off Kanagawa (ca. 1830-32) is beyond famous. His work, his manga, his woodblocks, his paintings, influence artists from all over the world.  Tama River in Musashi Province from 36 Views of Mount Fuji (1830-32) 9 7/8" x 14 7/8"  Boston Museum of Fine Arts - a museum with a rich history with Japanese artwork, especially woodblock prints. It holds the largest collection of Japanese art outside of Japan. Many of their woodblock prints are held online, here. A video on YouTube found, here, describing the MFA's history, and its collections.  Onchi Kōshirō (1891-1955) - originally designing poetry and books Onchi became on of the most important sōsaku hanga artists and promotor of the medium. His works are highly sought after today. More info, here. Nijubashi Bridge to the Imperial Palace from Scenes of Lost Tokyo (1945) 7.8" x 11.1" published by Uemura Masuro Tarō Okamoto (1911–1996) was a prominent Japanese artist known for his avant-garde works and dynamic use of color and form. His art, which includes painting, sculpture, and public installations like the "Tower of the Sun," often explores themes of chaos and modernity. Okamoto was influential in Japanese contemporary art and also made significant contributions as a writer and cultural commentator. More info, here.  Seashore (1976) lithograph 5.55" × 22.05" Oliver Statler (1915-2002) -  was an American author and scholar and collector of mokuhanga. He had been a soldier in World War 2, having been stationed in Japan. After his time in the war Statler moved back to Japan where he wrote about Japanese prints. His interests were of many facets of Japanese culture such as accommodation, and the 88 Temple Pilgrimage of Shikoku. Oliver Statler, in my opinion, wrote one of the most important books on the sōsaku-hanga movement, “Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn.” St. Olaf College - is a private liberal arts college located in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1874 by Norwegian-American settlers, it has a strong emphasis on a comprehensive liberal arts education, integrating rigorous academics with a commitment to fostering critical thinking, leadership, and global citizenship. The college is known for its vibrant community, strong programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, and its affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). St. Olaf is also recognized for its strong music program, including its acclaimed choir and music ensembles. More info, here. The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) -  is an art museum in Detroit, Michigan, founded in 1885. It is known for its extensive collection of artworks from various cultures and periods, including significant American, European, and African art. The DIA is particularly famous for Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry Murals and serves as a major cultural center with diverse exhibitions and educational programs. More info, here.   baren - is a Japanese word to describe a flat, round-shaped disc, predominantly used in creating Japanese woodblock prints. It is traditionally made of a cord of various types and a bamboo sheath, although baren have many variations.    Jeannie Kenmotsu, PhD - is the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. She specializes in early modern Japanese art, with a focus on painting, illustrated books, and prints. Her interview with The Unfinished Print about her work about the Joryū Hanga Kyōkai can be found, here.    © Popular Wheat Productions opening and closing credit - by Gordon Lightfoot - Affair on 8th Avenue from the album Back Here On Earth (1968) on United Artists. logo designed and produced by Douglas Batchelor and André Zadorozny  Disclaimer: Please do not reproduce or use anything from this podcast without shooting me an email and getting my express written or verbal consent. I'm friendly :) Слава Українi If you find any issue with something in the show notes please let me know. ***The opinions expressed by guests in The Unfinished Print podcast are not necessarily those of André Zadorozny and of Popular Wheat Productions.***                        

What you'll learn in this episode: Jennifer's unique process of layering acrylic and art images, and how she discovered her signature technique. Why the most important thing a young artist can do is find their voice. Why Jennifer rarely uses images her customers request in her jewelry. How Jennifer's work ties into the history of pop and op art. Why Jennifer sees other art jewelers as inspiration, not competition. About Jennifer Merchant: Jennifer Merchant is a studio t based in Minneapolis, MN. She graduated with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full-time artist showcasing her work in galleries, museums and exhibitions. Her work has been published in several national magazines such as American Craft, Ornament and Delta Sky Magazine. Merchant is best known for her innovative layered acrylic process in which images and prints are layered between solid acrylic. Her work is graphic with clean lines and modern aesthetic. Pieces confound viewers, appearing transparent from one angle of view while showcasing bold patterns and colors from another. Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional resources: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter Transcript: Like the op and pop art that inspires it, Jennifer Merchant's jewelry challenges your eye. Clear from some angles and bold and colorful from others, the jewelry is created by layering acrylic with images from art books. Jennifer joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she developed her technique; how she chooses the images in her jewelry; and why art jewelers need to work together to push the discipline forward. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. Today, my guest is Jennifer Merchant. Jennifer was also a guest several years ago. She thought she would be a metalsmith but segued to acrylic jewelry, which is what she has become known for: creative and innovative acrylic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. They have eye-catching graphics embedded in them. I was also surprised to learn that hand carving is sometimes involved. Welcome back. When you left college, did you know you were going to have your own business? Jennifer: Not right away. I think it took me about five years to really get the confidence together to start my own business. I definitely spent that first five years after graduation very lost and not really sure what in the heck I was going to do with my jewelry degree, especially because I went to school in Savannah, Georgia. That's where I made all my art connections and jewelry connections. Moving back to Minneapolis, I was off on my own. I didn't have a community at that point. It definitely was a number of years of wondering, “How am I going to end up using this degree that cost me so much money?” I had been waiting tables and was increasingly unhappy because I knew I had something different to offer the world. I ended up getting fired from a job. I had been speaking with a friend at work who had another friend that was putting on an art show. She had told me about it because she knew I was an artist. I remember getting fired from the job and calling her up right away, like, “I think I want to do that art show because I need to try to make some money.” It went okay, and it inspired me to say, “Jewelry is something you can do and make a living with. Let's give this a shot.” I had to move back home with my mom for a couple of years and cut my expenses way down, because I wasn't going to take out another loan to start a business. I built it very small, very scrappy. I had a second bedroom in my mom's house where I had my workshop, and I started from there doing little local events. That's where it all started. Sharon: Wow. What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to somebody who's just starting out? Jennifer: I would say when you're just starting out, really try to find your voice. Sharon: What do you do? What does one do when they find their voice? For instance, some people have found the voice, but they're homemakers or they work in an office. What do you do when you find your voice? Jennifer: I think once you know what you want to say, the next step is finding out who wants to hear it. And that is a very hard step, finding your niche and finding your people that resonate with your voice. I think the only way to really do that is to get yourself out there, get your work out there. I think with the Internet now and how accessible online stuff is, it might be a little easier to get yourself out there through social media, through the Internet, than maybe it was years ago when you had to have a physical presence out in the world. People can start by getting their work out there online and hopefully seeing who is interested, who connects with it, and then finding places in the real, outside world to continue that process and eventually find your market. Sharon: Do you have people who come to you with the image they want to include already? Jennifer: Not very often. I've had people ask me about that, but I think ultimately, I have to be drawn to the image specifically in order to be able to incorporate it in a piece. I did have a client that had a specific art piece she wanted in a bracelet for her daughter. That I was able to do because I resonated with the work and it was something that worked well within the form of jewelry. I've also had requests where someone wants family mementos or something encased in the acrylic. That's a very cool, sentimental thing, but visually, it doesn't really work with my aesthetic as well. I'm not going to do something just because I get asked for it. I also have to be drawn to it enough in order to go through with it, because it is a labor-intensive process and it is an art of passion. If I'm not super excited about the thing I'm making, it's probably not going to turn out that great either. I have tried to do things early on in my career specifically for a client that just didn't quite work out. We weren't on the same page. I think as you get more into it, you figure out the types of things you can push the boundaries on and the types of things that you can't. When someone's request is something that you can do and make them happy with, and when it's just not something that'll work out, you know. Sharon: That's interesting. So if somebody brought you their wedding photo, it depends on whether you like the wedding dress or something like that. Jennifer: Or if it has enough visual interest. I think the thing that makes my work successful is the images that I do use are interesting within a small scale of jewelry, and not all images can do that. I work with a lot of op art and pop art, and there's a lot of visual interest going on in a small space. With a photograph or something more sentimental, that's not always the case. It just wouldn't look as cool as they think it's going to. Sharon: I've seen comic books used in your work. How did you come to that? Jennifer: All of the things in my work that look like comic books are actually Roy Lichtenstein pieces. His pop art was inspired by comics, and he reimagined them into huge canvases and paintings. My jewelry does something similar, where I take Roy Lichtenstein's work and images and collect tons of books and rip out those pages and put that in my jewelry. It feels kind of meta. I've actually met some of his descendants and collectors and friends over the years, and a lot of them assure me that he would really appreciate what I'm doing with his work. It's a very similar idea as to how he repurposed art and things that he saw into something new and different. Sharon: That's interesting. I didn't know that. Did you study art history in college as you were studying jewelry and metal and all that? Jennifer: Yeah, art history is definitely part of your Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. It wasn't always my favorite class because the art history classes were about art that was ancient and a lot of religious art and that sort of thing. I think I had one class where it was modern art in the 20th century, which, of course, is the most interesting to me. But that art history background definitely sparked some interest in different art movements and art periods. Art Deco is a very favorite design motif of mine. As I was talking about earlier, I'm very inspired by pop art and op art. I think art history plays a huge role. I never thought at the time when I was in school that I would end up studying more about art history and specific artists and doing that kind of research, but it is really important to my work now. Sharon: Can you explain what the difference between pop art and op art is? Jennifer: Sure. With pop art, everyone knows Roy Lichtenstein and Warhol. They took popular things or everyday objects like a soup can and made them stylized and put them in the context of fine art as this kind of ridiculous thing. Op art deals with optical properties. A lot of op art is very linear. It kind of tricks your eye. It looks like it's moving, but it's a static image. Funny enough, when I started working with op art, I was actually collecting those optical illusions books for kids. There'd be very few usable images in there, but there'd be a few black and white, scintillating-looking, squiggly-lined spirals or something like that. That sparked my interest in optical art and looking it up outside of the context of those silly books for kids. I found out this is a whole art movement, and there are artists like Richard Anuszkiewicz and Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley that pioneered this in the 60s, when it really became a thing. I just find it so fascinating. But it's kind of funny that my two art movements that I use a lot in my work are pop and op. Like, who knew? Sharon: Do you ever use any other kind besides those? You say you like Art Deco. I don't know what you'd use for an image, but I guess you could use an Art Deco image. Jennifer: I think with Art Deco I am more inspired by the overall forms of pieces or the shapes. I like the ideas. I like the repetitive nature of Art Deco. They went from Art Nouveau, where it was all crazy and ornate, and then Art Deco kind of simplified things. It was a little more streamlined. I really like that. I think I carry those design principles through my work, not as much the direct visuals. Although if I could find great books with Art Deco prints of patterns or wallpapers or whatever, I'd love to use those. I just haven't quite found the right image sources yet for that. Finding pop art and op art books has been pretty easy for me, and the images are just so striking, so that's why I've gravitated towards those. I'm open to other types of art and other artists. I just haven't moved on yet from the things I am working on. I can only focus on so many things at a time, but I could see myself doing some collections using Rothko paintings or Gerhard Richter with those interesting images, Jackson Pollock with the splashes. Those kinds of things I could see being very interesting within the context of layered acrylic. It just depends on where my book collection takes me. Sharon: So, if we're looking at used books at a used bookstore, we should keep our eyes open for interesting things that could be used as interesting prints. Jennifer: Yeah. I actually buy so many of my books online because physical shops only have so many things, and what I'm looking for is so specific. The art sections are usually kind of small, so I've ended up finding a lot of online retailers. I've gotten pretty good at being able to figure out whether a book is going to be visually interesting based on the online listing. I will even look at the size of the book, if they list dimensions, to give me ideas. If it seems like a good coffee table art book with lots of pictures, that's what I'm trying to find. Something with lots of great images. Sharon: It sounds like people would be very interested in your leftovers. Jennifer: I have a whole shelf of these books that are like little skeletons. You can see the sections where I've really gone to town ripping pages out, and then other sections that are left. There's plenty of things I leave in the book that I think are amazing, but they just aren't going to work for jewelry. Yeah, I've got a lot of skeleton books on my shelf. I keep them. I can't get rid of them. Sharon: I like that, skeleton books. Once again, it's a Herculean task, the whole thing of starting your own business. Would you say that there is somebody that inspired you and keeps inspiring you? Jennifer: I wouldn't say it's a specific person. I think after that initial, tiny show that I did trying to sell my work, I think the most inspiring thing was seeing the other artists and seeing people that were making a living doing their work. I think that's what's really inspiring to me, finally meeting other people that were already doing what I wanted to do and realizing, “Wow, this is a viable career path.” There's not a lot of artists in my family, so no one really had any advice to give me back in the day. They weren't necessarily unsupportive, but they didn't really know how to encourage my art, either. It's been very helpful getting out there and seeing people that are doing things and just being inspired. Different artists and different people inspire me for very different reasons. Some artists, their work is the thing that inspires you, and other artists have such a great work ethic or a really creative way of marketing. I try to keep my eyes and ears open all the time, and I let inspirations muddle around in my brain. And then one day some other thing will trigger an idea. You just never know. I try to always be open. Sharon: I'm surprised; I usually see you at shows where there are a lot of other art jewelers, which is what I categorize you as. I see art jewelers, makers a lot. I'm thinking of New York City Jewelry Week, which is where I saw you once or twice. The last time I saw you, I wasn't able to say hello. I would think you'd be more—well, maybe it's the way I am, but I'd be more envious or competitive seeing all the other art jewelers, as opposed to finding inspiration. Jennifer: I don't know. I don't think of it as a competition in any way. I think it helps me a lot because my work is so different from everyone else's, so there isn't a super direct comparison. I think maybe for some other types of jewelers it might be a little different because there is more of a direct comparison with their aesthetic or their materials. In that respect, there isn't really competition. I used to be a lot more of a competitive person, but as I've gotten older and been in the business long enough and met all different artists, you just see that it's so much more about passion and drive. You can be successful doing just about anything if you're willing to put the work in. I've met so many different people with so many different types of jewelry and art, and they're successful in radically different ways. Even if some other artist is successful in a way that will never work for me, I still love learning about what they're doing. Even if it doesn't directly apply to me, there's something in that lesson, in listening to them and their story that might click something for me in an indirect manner. So, I really do try to be open and inspired by everyone, and I definitely don't see it as competition. I think it's great seeing more and more art jewelers getting work out there, making things that are big and bold and wild and weird materials. The more of it that's out there, the better for all of us, because then the consumer or the client is seeing more of it out in the world. Then when they come across my work, it might not seem as weird or as off putting. They might get it a little bit faster and a little bit easier because of all the other people that came before me and all the people that are alongside me. I think working together as a community, being inspired by each other, helping each other be successful, that can only help all of us. Sharon: Do you think when people first see your art, they don't think of it as jewelry because it doesn't have diamonds or emeralds? Do they think of it as a throw away, in a way? Jennifer: Oh, yeah. I've had the gamut of reactions to my work, and it really depends on the setting it's in as well as how people respond to it. There are definitely people out there that, to them, jewelry is diamonds and gold, and that's fine. I might not be able to change their mind. Other people see the work and, right away, think it looks cool. Maybe they didn't even know it was a bracelet, but they were drawn to it. Then when they find out it's an actual wearable piece, they're even more blown away. You never know what kind of reaction you're going to get from people. I've definitely had to do a lot of educating on my process and the materials because when someone sees a plastic necklace that costs $2,000, they kind of scratch their heads, like, “What is going on here?” And then I tell them all about the process and all the different steps and all the different things that went into it. Sometimes you win people over, and sometimes they're like, “Why bother?” I just try to pay more attention to the people that are won over and interested. If they're not, that's fine. I know my work is not for everyone, and I'm okay with that. Sharon: That's an interesting philosophy. You've given me a different perspective as well on your jewelry. Thank you for being here today, Jennifer. Jennifer: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What you'll learn in this episode: Jennifer's unique process of layering acrylic and art images, and how she discovered her signature technique. Why the most important thing a young artist can do is find their voice. Why Jennifer rarely uses images her customers request in her jewelry. How Jennifer's work ties into the history of pop and op art. Why Jennifer sees other art jewelers as inspiration, not competition. About Jennifer Merchant: Jennifer Merchant is a studio t based in Minneapolis, MN. She graduated with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full-time artist showcasing her work in galleries, museums and exhibitions. Her work has been published in several national magazines such as American Craft, Ornament and Delta Sky Magazine. Merchant is best known for her innovative layered acrylic process in which images and prints are layered between solid acrylic. Her work is graphic with clean lines and modern aesthetic. Pieces confound viewers, appearing transparent from one angle of view while showcasing bold patterns and colors from another. Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional resources: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter Transcript: Like the op and pop art that inspires it, Jennifer Merchant's jewelry challenges your eye. Clear from some angles and bold and colorful from others, the jewelry is created by layering acrylic with images from art books. Jennifer joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she developed her technique; how she chooses the images in her jewelry; and why art jewelers need to work together to push the discipline forward. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week. Today, my guest is Jennifer Merchant. Jennifer was also a guest several years ago. She thought she would be a metalsmith but segued to acrylic jewelry, which is what she has become known for: creative and innovative acrylic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. They have eye-catching graphics embedded in them. I was also surprised to learn that hand carving is sometimes involved. Jennifer exhibits all over the country. She's been an active member of SNAG, the Society of North American Goldsmiths. She is also a member of other major jewelry organizations. Jennifer is going to tell us all about why she has chosen this route and her process in general. Jennifer, welcome to the program. Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me, Sharon. Sharon: I'm glad to have you. Why did you start working with acrylics? Jennifer: I actually started working with acrylic while I was still in college at the Savannah College of Art and Design studying metalsmithing and jewelry. Our professor gave us little chunks of acrylic one day, probably with the thought of using it for die forms. But I decided, “Hey, you can cut and sculpt this very similarly to working with waxes for lost wax casting.” I liked the immediacy of the acrylic, that once you carved it and sculpted it and polished it, it was a finished piece. It had a lot of really cool optical properties. So, I always kept it on the back burner as an interesting material. Then when I graduated from college and I moved back to my hometown of Minneapolis, I didn't have the tools and equipment to keep working with metal. So, I kind of fell into, “Hey, there was that acrylic I worked with a couple of times in school. It was very interesting. Let's see what we can do with that,” because it was cheap, and I could cut it with simple tools. I started experimenting with it from there. Sharon: And you make all sorts of jewelry with it. Do you know when you start out that you'll be making a necklace or a bracelet with the pieces you have, or do they talk to you as you put them together? Jennifer: I make pieces both ways. Sometimes I'll design a piece very specifically and have an idea and a picture in my mind of what I'm making. But then there's other times, especially when I'm working with the scraps that are left over from pieces that I've made in the past. A lot of those scraps are still very interesting, and they'll be in weird shapes. Those will speak to me, and I'll create something new and different with some of those. I kind of work both ways. Sharon: I know you're in a lot of stores and galleries. Do stores tell you what to do, or do you just say, “Here it is, do you like it”? Jennifer: I'm more of a, “Here's what I've been making. Let me know which ones you like.” I think sometimes it's important to follow your own inspirations. People tend to be drawn to the things that I'm most excited to make. That being said, some galleries have different clientele bases with different price points, so they'll tell me, “Hey, these pieces were working really well.” I'll take some feedback. But ultimately, I focus on making the things that I'm drawn to. Sharon: Do you have a studio inside your home or do you have a place that you go? Jennifer: For years I did have a studio outside of my home that I really loved, but a few years ago my husband and I bought a home, and I decided to move my jewelry practice into my home. So, now I work from home. But who knows, maybe in the future I'll expand a little bit and have another space in addition outside the home. It can be kind of a challenge working at home sometimes, but I've done both. I like working both ways, so we'll see what the future has for me. Sharon: Do you have assistants who work with you? Jennifer: I've had assistants in the past. I don't anymore. I scaled my business way back during COVID and took a breather to reevaluate what I'm doing and where my motivations are. I'm only just beginning to build it back. At this point, I don't work with anyone, but hopefully in the future I can find someone to help out with some of the production. It's a little challenging to find an assistant because my process is very unique. It's not something that people know how to do, so there's a lot of training involved. When I do work with people, it takes quite a while to get somebody that can help finish pieces to the quality standards that my galleries and clients expect. Sharon: When you were reevaluating things, what did you decide? Did your method change during COVID? Jennifer: I think things just slowed way down during COVID. 2020, honestly, it was going to be my year. I had a couple of really big events planned, one of which I got to do because it was in February, but the rest all moved online. There was such a lull in events and things to participate in. I had started questioning what my motivations are, because you really have to love what you're doing in order to be an artist as a profession. We had bought a house and were settling in. I've just been taking the last few years to figure out life so I can bring my A-game to my business again. Sharon: Did you stop production because you were doing it yourself during COVID? Jennifer: I did slow way down on production. If I had a client that was interested in something, or if I had an online event or that kind of thing, that would motivate me to produce some new pieces. But there were just fewer things going on to spark that creation. I have a harder time making things just because. I like to have an outside influence, like a show that's coming up or events that are going to happen and people are going to see my pieces. When I don't know when those things are going on, I have a little bit of a harder time. I think that is why during COVID, everything slowed down for me especially. But it also gave me a lot of time to think about what I want out of my business and where I want to go. And in May, I'll be launching my first web shop where you can actually buy my pieces directly from me. Sharon: Wow. I know that's a Herculean task. Jennifer: For me personally, the web shop is an extra big step because all of my pieces, even my production work, is one of a kind because of the images I'm using within my jewelry. They're all found images from art books and other sources. So, even if it's the same shape, like the marquee hoop earring, no two are going to be the exact same. So, every time I list a piece online for sale, I have to photograph each and every single one of them. It's taken a long time to get some of those things down where I could do it quickly enough and efficiently enough to be able to post all of these pieces with the right listings. It's a lot more work than having a design where you can put a picture of it and sell 25 of them. It's been a daunting thing to tackle. Sharon: Did you have to wait until you were efficient at photographing and making them so you could just churn them out? Jennifer: My work is very difficult to photograph because it is clear and transparent from some angles, and then it's bright and colorful from others. It's also very reflective. So, trying to photograph it cleanly and communicate the piece in a single image is very difficult. My work tends to resonate more from multiple angles. It has taken years to figure out the best way to represent these pieces in an image or two. Sharon: The online shop, do you think it's your most valuable social media outlet? Is there one? What do you think that is? Jennifer: For me, I'm not huge on social media. Instagram, I think, is the most fun. It's very image forward, which is something I really enjoy. Definitely, as I launch my website, I will be on social media a lot more to market. I think up until now I've mostly worked with galleries and shops or done specific events, so I haven't cultivated my online audience as much. I'm excited to explore that new chapter and get more into it and see what I can do from my home. That way in the future, when something happens where in-person events may not be happening as much, I can still have a connection to my audience. I've been getting asked for years, “Where can I find your pieces?” Because everything is one of a kind, if it's at a gallery in California, someone in Georgia is going to have a hard time getting their hands on it. I think it'll be really nice having my own shop so that people can have one destination to go, as well as all of the others, to be able to have that access. Sharon: How did you start getting galleries and stores interested in you? Jennifer: I have been contacted by most of the places that I work with. Earlier in my career, I did a lot more events and shows and I was able to meet gallery owners. Also, early on in my career, I met some of the people that work for the American Craft Council, which is based in Minneapolis. When they saw a local Minneapolis artist at a show in Chicago and met me and thought my work was cool, they were like, “You're in our city. Let's invite her to some events.” They really took me under their wing and wrote about my work and got me out there. I got a lot of contacts just from people seeing the articles that they had posted. For me, it's been a lot of just doing what I do, and because my work is so unique and different, people that it resonates with will remember and contact me, like, “Hey, we've never seen anything like this. Let's try it out at our gallery.” I've been very fortunate in that way, where I haven't really had to go out on my own, cold calling and trying to get appointments and that sort of thing. I just try to make really interesting work, get it out there as much as I can, and then hope that it snowballs from there. So far, that's been working for me. Sharon: Wow. I think it's great that you didn't have to cold call and that people were interested in your stuff, which is very unusual. I don't know anybody who does anything like that. So, you're very lucky. Jennifer: I'm very lucky that it worked out for me because I can be a little socially awkward with the cold calling and things like that. That was never my favorite part of the business. I am fortunate that my work speaks for itself. It's kind of a love it or hate it thing, which can be its own challenge, but it's definitely unique enough where when people see it, if they're interested, they will hunt me down and ask me about it. That's been very nice. Sharon: If an outlet wants more than one, maybe they want five bracelets, do you tell them right away that you can make the five bracelets, but they'll all have different graphics? Jennifer: Yeah. I did a couple wholesale shows a while ago where it was that challenge of, “Well, here's a design, but they're all going to be different, and you're not really going to know until you get them.” I think most people that are interested in my work like that one-of-a-kind nature of it. That's part of the interest, so they trust me. If they get pieces that maybe that imagery doesn't speak to them or their clientele, we'll talk about it and I can swap it out, get them some prints and patterns that they like better. It's kind of a back-and-forth process. And the longer I work with a gallery or a person, the more I get to know what works there. Then I can tailor my offerings to them for what works. Sharon: Where do you find your images and the pictures that you put in your jewelry? Jennifer: When I first started, I was using magazines because they were readily available, fairly inexpensive, and that's how I started this whole process of layered acrylic. But the paper in those is not very good quality and the pictures fade. It's also a challenge to find enough usable content. So, then I started purchasing art books. I would become interested in a specific artist and start collecting books about their work, and those books always had a lot of really amazing images. They're printed on really nice paper with good quality inks, and they're much more successful layering than magazines. Now I exclusively use books. I've become somewhat of a rare and vintage book collector. It's a really fun part of my job, hunting down these different books, figuring out artists that inspire me to start collecting things about their work and then finding really cool images. If there's a particular book that has a lot of really great images that I like, I will start looking for other copies of it. There are certain books about Roy Lichtenstein's work. There's one about posters that has a catalog in the back with all these smaller thumbnail images, and they're so great for making earrings, things like that. I must've bought that book like 10 times. So, that's where I get my images. It's all purchased materials like books that I then rip up and cut up and put in between the acrylic. Sharon: Well, you answered the question. I was going to ask you if you cut the books up or what you do. You also mentioned that magazines got you going with layered acrylic. Can you tell us about that? Jennifer: When I was younger, I subscribed to all kinds of fashion magazines and fun things, and I would keep them after reading them. I had shelves and shelves of magazines. When I first started working with acrylic, I had this idea that acrylic has pretty cool visual properties, optical properties, and when you put images underneath it, it looks so interesting. That's when I started going through my fashion magazines, lots of issues of Vogue. I would see cool prints on dresses and things like that, and I would rip those pages out and try to fit the prints and things that were in there within my jewelry designs. That's how I got started with the whole thing. It was just cheap materials I already had. Sharon: What are your sales policies? Do you accept returns? If I'm a client and you give me something and I say, “No, that's not what I want,” do you accept returns? What do you do? Jennifer: Yeah, I do accept returns. I think it depends. If it's a piece that already existed and they buy it and it just didn't work out, or it doesn't fit quite right or it wasn't what they were expecting, absolutely. It becomes a little more of a gray area when it's a custom piece, when someone wants specific imagery and this and that. That tends to be a little more delicate. That being said, I want people to keep my jewelry because they love it, not because they're trapped. So, even a custom order, if it doesn't come out quite as they were expecting, I try to work with people to either make it right or try something new. Some of the events that I do, it's a museum show where they're handling the sales and they're getting a commission, I'm getting a commission from the sale. Even though I'm selling to the customer directly, because it goes through the museum, usually it's an all-sales-are-final type situation, just because of the nature of the commissions and if they've already paid me and then the person changes their mind. It depends on the venue through which I'm selling the work. I would say most times, yes, returns are acceptable within a certain time frame, but there are certain instances where they are final sale. But even in that situation—I had a client come a couple of years later to a show, and she had this ring. I decided, “You know what? It's a really cool ring. Let's swap it out.” She wanted a pendant. I like to be a little flexible. Like I said, I want people to have my jewelry because they love it, not because they're forced to keep it. Sharon: I'm curious; in your studio, do you have pets that keep you company? Jennifer: I do. I've got a dog and a cat. My cat, Shackleton, likes to work with me. I have two workspaces in my home. Downstairs is the shop, the studio, and then upstairs I have an office where I do the bonding and the image gathering and looking through layouts. The cat, Shackleton, likes to hang out upstairs in the office and sit on all my papers and be in the way, but be very cute. Then my dog, her name's Sophia. She tends to stay out of the studio because it's loud and dusty. She'll come in the office and hang out, too, sometimes. But I don't know. She kind of does her own thing. She lets me work. Sharon: Well, it sounds like nice company. Do you make more than one piece at a time? All the pieces and extras, let's say, do you put them in a closet and then pull them out if somebody wants them? What do you do? Jennifer: I definitely always have some inventory on hand. I think as far as when I'm making pieces, as I was saying earlier, I tend to make when I have an event or I'm preparing for something coming up. Then I'll usually go above and beyond and make extra just to have. Also, because my pieces are one of a kind and the imagery is different on each earring, each ring, each bracelet, I will make more than I know I'm going to need or sell at a specific time, mostly to have options for my clients, because all the pieces are different and have different images. You never know what someone's going to be drawn to. It's especially difficult with things that have a size, like a ring or a bracelet. Then I make tons of them because you have to have lots of options. With those kinds of things, I'll take a lot more custom orders because someone will see something in person that they love, but it's not their size. I do my best to recreate things for people. I don't generally remake things with the exact same images because usually it's impossible, but I will do my best to get something with a similar aesthetic or feeling for people. We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

A conversation with Jordan Schnitzer, the world's foremost collector of prints and multiples. In the conversation, we discuss Jordan's undeniable passion for art, his thoughts on collecting, and his unwavering support for arts programming. In particular, we delve into his support of a current exhibition at The Getty titled "First Came a Friendship: Sidney B. Felsen and the Artists at Gemini G.E.L."For over five decades, Gemini G.E.L Co-Founder Sidney B. Felsen has documented the vibrant life and creative processes at Gemini through his love of photography. This has resulted in an unmatched historical record of some of the most influential artists of the last sixty years, including Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Gehry and Julie Mehretu. Felsen's intimate photographs which capture the collaborations and friendships that have shaped Gemini's legacy, are on view at The Getty through July 7.https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/sidney_b_felsen/index.htmlhttps://www.jordanschnitzer.org/https://schnitzercare.org/https://www.geminigel.com/

ASK US ANYTHING We answer questions about eligibilty for membership THE INTERVIEW Our guest is Brad Hibbard, Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind and America's VetDogs Chief Strategy Officer. Brad works with a dedicated group of Assistance Dog Instructors who provide Guide Dogs and Service dogs for civilians, first responders and U.S. Military veterans throughout the United States and Canada. Brad talks about what goes into selecting and training a service dog, discusses the difference between service dogs and emotional support dogs, ADA rules and more. SCUTTLEBUTT Legionnaires, veterans, receive Royal Caribbean treatment during on-board salute. Making Arrangements: planning ahead for your funeral Celebrity Veteran: Pop art icon Roy Lichtenstein Special Guest: Brad Hibbard.

Mary Lou Falcone is an internationally known classical music publicist/strategist who for five decades has helped guide the careers of many prominent artists and institutions. Combining her communication skills with her background as a performer and educator, she now adds another layer: being an advocate for Lewy Body dementia (LBD) awareness. Nicholas ‘Nicky' Zann, who died of LBD in 2020, was the inspiration for this book. A popular 1950s rock 'n' roll musician who became a world-renowned cartoonist, illustrator, and painter, his work has been credited with being the inspiration for Roy Lichtenstein. Mary Lou and Nicky were a couple for 37 years.Sponsor: www.SeniorCareAuthority.com

Probst, Carstenwww.deutschlandfunk.de, Kultur heute

Probst, Carstenwww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Fazit

In s3e51, Platemark host Ann Shafer talks with Chris Santa Maria, artist and gallery director at Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl. As director of the New York gallery, Chris is responsible for showcasing and selling the print output of the storied LA workshop to enable it to keep working with amazing artists and producing incredible editions. Chris and Ann touch on Gemini's history, the structure of the workshop, how artists get to work there, and Julie Mehretu, Julie Mehretu, and Julie Mehretu. They also talk about Chris' side hustle as an artist and his intricate paper collages. Josef Albers. White Line Square IV, 1966. 53.3 x 53.3 cm (21 x 21 in.). 2011. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; ©Gemini G.E.L. and the Artist. Chris Santa Maria wrangling prints at Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York. Sidney Felsen, co-founder of Gemini G.E.L. Photo by Alex Berliner. Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, 535 West 24th Street, third floor, New York. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Chris Santa Maria hanging Julie Mehretu's print at Art Basel Miami, 2019. Julie Mehretu's etching installed at the New York gallery, June 8–August 24, 2023. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Julie Mehretu at work at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Julie Mehretu at work at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Analia Saban working at Gemini workshop. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Robert Rauschenberg working on the limestone for Waves from the Stoned Moon series with Stanley Grinstein in the background. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen, 1969. From the collection of Getty Research Institute. Jasper Johns deleting imagery from a lithography plate for Cicada, November 1981. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, 2001. Richard Serra at work on his etchings and Paintstik compositions, November 1990. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, 2001. Ellsworth Kelly (left) and NGA curator Mark Rosenthal at Gemini; Ellsworth canceling a print from the Portrait Series, February 1990. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, 2001. Works by Richard Serra and Julie Mehretu at the IFPDA Print Fair, October 2023. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Joni Weyl and Sidney Felsen at the 2019 IFPDA Print Fair, New York. Tacita Dean at work at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Roy Lichtenstein at work at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Julie Mehretu at Gemini G.E.L.'s booth at the IFPDA Print Fair, October 2023.         Tacita Dean. LA Magic Hour 1, 2021. Hand-drawn, multi-color blend lithograph. 29 7/8 x 29 7/8 in. (75.88 x 75.88 cm). ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Chris Santa Maria. Field 31, 2023. Paper college on 4-ply ragboard. 10 x 10 in. Chris Santa Maria's studio. Chris Santa Maria's studio. Chris Santa Maria. President Trump, 2020. Paper collage. 72 x 72 in. Chris Santa Maria. No. 5, 2014. Paper collage on MDF. 58 x 60 in. in the window of Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York. Ellsworth Kelly. The River (state), 2003 and River II, 2005. Lithographs. Installed during the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: The Rivers, October 25–December 8, 2007 at Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York. Julie Mehretu's etchings installed at the New York gallery, June 8–August 24, 2023. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Bruce Nauman in the curating room canceling a copperplate by drawing a sharp tool across it to destroy the image with assistance from William Padien, 1983. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, 2001. Julie Mehretu at work at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Works by Ann Hamilton and Tacita Dean in the exhibition at the New York gallery, Selected Works by Gemini Artists. January 2–February 24, 2024. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California. Daniel Buren at Gemini workshop, August 1988. Photograph by Sidney B. Felsen. ©Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, California, 2001.   USEFUL LINKS Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl. | (joniweyl.com) Gemini G.E.L. Graphic Editions Limited (geminigel.com) Chris Santa Maria Instagram accounts @chrisantamaria @geminigel @joniweyl    

A new week means new questions! Hope you have fun with these!Reverend Elijah Craig has rather dubiously been credited with inventing what kind of liquor?What Jeffery Katzenberg co-founded music label's logo was the last commission of Roy Lichtenstein before his death?Known for his novels Odd Thomas and Watchers, who sometimes used the pen names Deanna Dwyer, Aaron Wolfe and Brian Coffey?Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of which South American archipelago?There are two elements named after female scientists – name one of them. Bonus points if you can get both.The historic gunfight at the O.K. Corral included which deputy marshal who was a dentist?Found on the Falkland Islands, the Magellanic, the Gentoo and the southern rockhoppers are species of what flightless bird?In Clue, what is the professor's last name?On the show Xena, what is the name of Xena's weapon?From the Greek for "young woman," what was the general term for minor female nature deities that were typically tied to a specific place or landform?What are the three movies that James Dean starred in?MusicHot Swing, Fast Talkin, Bass Walker, Dances and Dames, Ambush by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Don't forget to follow us on social media:Patreon – patreon.com/quizbang – Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Check out our fun extras for patrons and help us keep this podcast going. We appreciate any level of support!Website – quizbangpod.com Check out our website, it will have all the links for social media that you need and while you're there, why not go to the contact us page and submit a question!Facebook – @quizbangpodcast – we post episode links and silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess.Instagram – Quiz Quiz Bang Bang (quizquizbangbang), we post silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess.Twitter – @quizbangpod We want to start a fun community for our fellow trivia lovers. If you hear/think of a fun or challenging trivia question, post it to our twitter feed and we will repost it so everyone can take a stab it. Come for the trivia – stay for the trivia.Ko-Fi – ko-fi.com/quizbangpod – Keep that sweet caffeine running through our body with a Ko-Fi, power us through a late night of fact checking and editing!

New Talk Art special episode!!!! We meet ICONIC artist Julie Mehretu, presented by BMW. #AD What does Julie Mehretu think about when creating BMW Art Car 20? Find out on this week's @TalkArt episode!@RussellTovey and @RobertDiament interview @JulieMehretu during the process for planning and creating #BMWArtCar20. To design #artcar20, Mehretu translates her signature multi-layered motifs onto the contours of the #BMWMHybridV8. Obscured photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and her iconic gestural markings create abstract visual forms across the body of the car. Mehretu's collaboration with BMW goes beyond the Art Car. Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro (@drmehret), Emmy-nominated producer, writer and co-founder of the Realness Institute which aims to strengthen the media ecosystem across Africa, will host a series of gatherings across Africa in 2025 to create space for artists to meet, exchange, and collaborate in translocal ways. Follow @JulieMehretu and @BMWGroupCulture to stay in the loop for more sneak peeks of the next addition to this legendary car collection.Ideas of time, space and place are enmeshed in the work of Julie Mehretu. Drawing is fundamental to her practice, whether in works on paper, painting or printmaking. The artist's dextrous mark-making comes together in a characteristic swirl, an act of assertion in response to social and political change. ‘As I continue drawing,' she says, ‘I find myself more and more interested in the idea that drawing can be an activist gesture. That drawing – as an informed, intuitive process, a process that is representative of individual agency and culture, a very personal process – offers something radical.'The countdown for the unveiling of the 20th BMW Art Car is underway. On 21st May, the BMW M Hybrid V8, designed by artist Julie Mehretu and set to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 15th/16th June, will be presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. The artist is already providing glimpses into her work. Additionally, it is now confirmed that the Art Car will carry the starting number 20 and will be driven by Sheldon van der Linde (RSA), Robin Frijns (NED), and René Rast (GER). The #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 will be the first Art Car since the 2017 season, where the BMW M6 GTLM designed by John Baldessari raced at the 24 Hours of Daytona (USA), followed by the virtual BMW M6 GT3 Art Car by Cao Fei at the FIA GT World Cup in Macau (CHN). In the past, the most famous BMW Art Cars have participated in Le Mans: in 1975, Alexander Calder's BMW 3.0 CSL, in 1976, Frank Stella's BMW 3.0 CSL, in 1977, Roy Lichtenstein's BMW 320i Turbo, in 1979, Andy Warhol's BMW M1, in 1999, Jenny Holzer's BMW V12 LMR, and in 2010, Jeff Koons' BMW M3 GT2. This illustrious collection is now enriched by Julie Mehretu's BMW M Hybrid V8.For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, Mehretu uses the colour and form vocabulary of an existing large-format painting from a more recent series of works: obscured photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and Mehretu's iconic gestural markings give her design an abstract visual form. She transfers the resulting image motif as a high-resolution photograph onto the vehicle's contours using a 3D mapping technique. This creates the unique artistic foiling with which the BMW M Hybrid V8 will compete in the Le Mans race. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The boys are back! We're kicking off our inaugural 2024 recording with a very special guest, and an equally special Topper Edition: the launch of our Fears Series II Capsule, codename "Project Shovel" by our good friend Nicholas Bowman-Scargill. Nicholas will be joining on this episode to take us through the inspiration and development of each of the four watches in the capsule, which pivots around a weeklong trip through some of our favorite places in Northern California. So settle in, pour yourself a cup of tea and be sure to explore the capsule collection right here before they're gone! —— Follow the boys on Instagram: • Russ: @russcaplan • Rob: @robcaplan_topper • Zach: @zachxryj —— Here are the watches featured in this week's wristcheck:  • Zach: Panerai Radiomir 1940 ref. PAM655 • Russ: Fears Brunswick 40 Topper Edition - Black • Rob: Fears Brunswick 40 Topper Edition - White • Nicholas: Fears Brunswick 40 Topper Edition - Black⁠ And here are other elements discussed on the episode this week: • Sticker pack produced by John Caplan • Images from Nicholas from 'Project Shovel' • Roy Lichtenstein 1963 "WHAAM" painting in the Tate Gallery • The USGS definition of "Fool's Gold"

Learn more at TheCityLife.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

Werbung, Konsum und Comics: Vor einhundert Jahren wird Roy Lichtenstein geboren. Er gehört mit Andy Warhol zu den Vätern der Pop Art.

Werbung, Konsum und Comics: Vor einhundert Jahren wurde Roy Lichtenstein geboren (am 27.10.1923). Er gehört mit Andy Warhol zu den Vätern der Pop Art. Von Andrea Klasen.

In our latest podcast episode we dive into the world of persuasion with the charming James I. Bond!

In Platemark s3e30, host Ann Shafer speaks with Ruth Fine, retired curator from the National Gallery of Art. Ruth was curator of modern prints and drawings there from 1980–2002, followed by an additional period working on special projects in modern art. Since her retirement in 2010, Ruth has been working on exhibition and writing projects, as well as sitting on the boards of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and others. As we are releasing this episode, Ruth has an exhibition up at the Phillips Collection featuring the photographic output of Frank Stewart. The show is up June 10–September 3, 2023. Ruth is not only a consummate scholar, but also is an artist herself, bringing to her scholarship a deep understanding of making. She knew well many of the artists who were the subjects of her projects and she has wonderful stories to tell. Join our new FB group to talk about prints, printmaking, and Platemark: https://www.facebook.com/groups/234857906002771 Episode image © Frank Stewart Lessing Rosenwald's residence Alverthorpe in Jenkintown, PA, now houses the Abington Art Center. The catalogue raisonné of the print workshop Gemini G.E.L. at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Mary Lee Corlett and Ruth Fine. The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné 1948–1993. Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1994. Ruth Fine and Robert Looney. The Prints of Benton Murdoch Spruance: A Catalogue Raisonné. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. David Bindman et al. Body Language: The Art of Larry Day. Exh cat. Woodmere Art Museum. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Ruth Fine et al. Frank Stewart's Nexus: An American Photographer's Journey, 1960s to the Present. Exh cat. The Phillips Collection. New York: Rizzoli, 2023. Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011). Untitled, 1967. Four-color screenprint. 25 3/4 x 17 7/8 in. (65.4 x 45.4 cm.). © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Chiron Press, NY. Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928–2011). Grove, 1991. Ten-color woodcut. 38 ½ x 25 ½ in. (97.8 x 64.8 cm.). © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / Garner Tullis, NY. Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997). Storming the Castle, 1950. Etching, aquatint, and engraving. Sheet: 16 ¼ x 22 ¾ in. (41.3 x 57.8 cm.); plate: 11 7/8 x 15 15/16 in. (30.2 x 40.5 cm.). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997). Published by Gemini G.E.L. The Student, from the series Expressionist Woodcut, 1980. Color woodcut with debossing. Sheet: 97.5 x 86 cm. (38 1/4 x 34 in.); image: 80.6 x 69.2 cm. (31 3/4 x 27 1/4 in.). © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Frank Stewart (American, born 1949). Alma W. Thomas, 1976. Gelatin silver print. Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Museum Purchase, Gridley W. Tarbell II Fund. © Frank Stewart. Frank Stewart (American, born 1949). The Bow, Modena, Italy, 1996. Inkjet print. Andre Kimo Stone Guess and Cheryl Peterson Guess Family Collection, Louisville, KY. © Frank Stewart. Frank Stewart (American, born 1949). Tailor Shop, Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, 1974. Gelatin silver print. Sing Lathan and Bining Taylor. © Frank Stewart. Frank Stewart (American, born 1949). Three Young Camels, Mali, 2006. George Nelson Preston, Museum of Art and Origins, New York. © Frank Stewart. Frank Stewart (American, born 1949). Radio Players Series, 1978. Gelatin silver print. Sing Lathan and Bining Taylor. © Frank Stewart.   USEFUL LINKS: Link to Frank Stewart exhibition at the Phillips Collection: https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2023-06-10-frank-stewarts-nexus YouTube video with Ruth Fine and TK Smith in the exhibition The Art of Larry Day: https://youtu.be/Ao6Rgn6jhok YouTube video of Ruth Fine's talk on Larry Day at the Woodmere Art Museum: https://youtu.be/MamE6rbOuMg  

Imagine being the mother of appropriation art and having your copycat artwork sell for more money than the original Roy Lichtenstein piece. Sturtevant can relate. Follow along with the llamas this week to learn more about Sturtevant versus The Art Critics™. For any questions or comments, email us at artdramallama@gmail.com

Was the iconic Roy Lichtenstein a great artist, a thief, or both? This is the question posed by Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation, a documentary film directed and produced by today's podcast guest, James L Hussey.“When I set out to make [the film], I viewed it as a very straightforward, intellectual, technical film about appropriation,” says James, who released the film in November 2022. “When is it OK? When is it not OK? What surprised me and surprised audiences is that [it turned] into a human-interest story.” On today's podcast episode, host and NOT REAL ART founder Scott “Sourdough” Power sits down with James to discuss Whaam! Blam!, Lichtenstein's legacy, and the thin line between appropriation and plagiarism.A key figure in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Lichtenstein borrowed directly from comic books, advertisements, and historical art sources to create bold, graphic paintings. His recognizable works are housed in the world's finest galleries and can fetch upwards of $150 million a piece—but some see him as nothing more than a plagiarist. “[Whaam! Blam! raises] this question about appropriation and whether what Lichtenstein did was right or wrong,” James tells Scott. “Like so many things, it's not always black and white. There's a lot of gray.” Today, James shares stories from the last living comic artists Lichtenstein copied from, and why they're unhappy about it: “[The art world] very casually refers to the original comic art as ‘low art,' while almost an exact copy of it, blown up and hanging in the Tate Modern, is [considered] ‘high art,'” James says, explaining that some of these comics toiled in obscurity, below the poverty line. Tune in for our thought-provoking conversation with James L Hussey on plagiarism, appropriation, and giving artists credit where credit is due.Watch the trailer for Whaam! Blam! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation here or rent the documentary via Amazon.In Today's EpisodeJames L Hussey discusses…His personal (and eclectic) comic book and art collectionWhat led him from politics to documentary filmmakingThe evolution of Whaam! Blam! from intellectual documentary to human interest storyWhy he sees working on Whaam! Blam! as “a great privilege”How appropriation differs from plagiarism, and the often fine line between the twoWhether or not Lichtenstein was a product of the ‘60s, when attribution wasn't commonThe relationship between the commercialism of art and its legitimacyHow the art world distinguishes between low and high artWhat most people don't understand about intellectual property rightsThe documentary project he wants to tackle nextFor more information, please visit http://notrealart.com/james-hussey

Peter Sobczynski is back to talk the latest and greatest in physical media. They range from the highs of Steve McQueen's Small Axe series to the lows (in Peter's estimation) of Ruben Ostlund's latest. Indies you may have missed like Holy Spider and Return to Seoul. Both him and Erik Childress reflect on the world of one of television's greatest sitcoms as well as a new Jackie Chan collection and a 4K of sci-fi David Bowie. They also take an extended look at some oddball offerings from Kino including a 1980s film remembered (by Erik at least) for its use of blackjack and credit cards as well as a most unusual Dennis Hopper film starring Jodie Foster with plenty of behind-the-scenes drama and a lot of on-screen weirdness.   0:00 - Intro 1:21 - Criterion (Small Axe, Triangle of Sadness) 9:27 - Arrow Films (The Assassination Bureau, Lover's Lane) 18:07 - Warner Archive (Storm Warning) 21:16 - Sandpiper (Stanley and Iris, Kid Galahad) 27:20 - Mubi (Holy Spider) 29:33 - Sony (Return to Seoul) 31:15 - Paramount (Cheers: The Complete Series) 34:23 - Lions Gate (The  Man Who Fell to Earth (4K)) 39:09 - Kino (The New Godfathers, Terminal Invasion, WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation, Woodcutters of the Deep South / Working Together, Backtrack, The Big Bus, Heat (1986)) 1:13:11 - Shout! Factory (Jackie Chan Collection, The: Vol. 2 (1983-1993)) 1:18:47 – New Blu-ray Announcements 1:21:09 - Outro

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://thecitylife.org/2023/04/24/u-s-postal-service-honors-roy-lichtensteins-pop-art-on-new-forever-stamps/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/citylifeorg/support

Kevin interviews comic writer/artist Tim Seeley, trailers for Star Wars & The Marvels, Fyre Festival 2, WWE x UFC, Monster Energy vs. Pokemon, and the gang asks: is Roy Lichtenstein a thief?

SHOW THEME James and Catherine dip their toes into hope before tackling plagiarism vs appropriation in pop-art SHOW NOTES 00:30 - Hope and bikes on the ceiling 02:30 - Ghosted by a chihuahua 04:15 - It's gonna take years!  05:00 - Normal American hoarder? 07:00 - No boxes from Temu! 08:40 - James debunks a dog harness  10:20 - Instagram algorithm whiners  12:45 - More whining about Lichtenstein 'It's called stealing': new allegations of plagiarism against Roy Lichtenstein 13:54 - Seeing the "Ben-Day" dots 15:00 - Disposable illustration, pop-art 16:00 - "It's called stealing", said Hy Eisman, but James has a different take!  18:00 - Appropriation vs plagiarism  20:29 - Seeing "BLAM"! 21:25 - American Art Industrial Complex squashes comic collage  23:18 - Isn't art disposable? 26:15 - Chinese website snatched James' image and used it for a logo! 29:21 - "WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein And The Art Of Appropriation" documentary  31:10 - AI similarities?  32:21 - Intellectually interesting, but not analogous  33:27 - Lichtenstein IS pop-art, Warhol isn't 34:16 - Not a transformative soup can, but good enough to steal!  35:24 - "Come play with us forever"

When you hear the name Roy Lichtenstein, an artistic style immediately comes to mind. In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein's use of comic books as an inspiration for his brightly-colored Pop Art painting was groundbreaking, and even shocking. Today, he is one of the most instantly-recognizable and widely known of all painters, and yet a quarter of a century after his death, the subject of Roy Lichtenstein's source material has unexpectedly become a hot topic once again. In the 1960s, Lichtenstein's paintings sold for thousands of dollars; in 1995, just a few years before he died, his painting Nurse sold at auction for $1.7 million, and then in 2015 the same painting hit the auction block once again, this time selling for a staggering $95 million, making it one of the most expensive paintings in the world. While marketing that sale, Christie's auction house said that the imagery in Nurse was drawn from what it called a “comic romance novel” of the early 1960s. What the auction house did not mention was the actual person who drew the original panel Lichtenstein used as source material for that painting was the golden age comic Arthur Petty, and in the world of comic art, this lack of respect for Lichtenstein's sources is a big, big deal. In museums, the artist's status may be unquestionable, but crossover into the parallel universe of comic art and Lichtenstein's status is viewed as a symbol of the disrespect to comics as an art form, and the man himself is seen as a thief who copied hard-working artists without even bothering to credit them by name. Instead of healing over time, this particular rift seems to have only become more inflamed as Lichtenstein's stock has soared. Some of the most famous voices in comics from Dave Gibbons, the artist behind the groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen to Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Maus, to Neil Gaiman, writer of the legendary comic series The Sandman have all been outspoken, blasting museums for failing to credit the unique voices of the comic book artists who inspired Roy Lichtenstein. The story of the many meanings of Roy Lichtenstein is a story of the shifting relations between museum art and comic culture, of money, morality, and the law; and of how meaning in art is always shifting. At least, that's one takeaway from the new streaming documentary WHAAM! BLAM! Roy Lichtenstein and the Art of Appropriation. This week, national art critic Ben Davis spoke to the film's director James L. Hussey to discuss the issues it raised.

In this episode Barbara shares some amazing stories and dives into how she was initially drawn toward spirituality and art throughout her life. We spoke about her journey becoming an art historian and her move to NYC where she became a well known gallerist and art dealer. We spoke about her experiences with spiritual giants like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,  Swami Satchidananda, and Yogi Bhajan.  We also dialogue about the current shift in the art world, the reasons why spirituality might have been taboo in the past, along with  the potential the spiritual in art holds for our collective future.  Barbara has so much wisdom and insight to share around these subjects and I know you all are going to absolutely love this episode!!  ------------------------ Barbara Braathen is an art historian, curator, dealer and writer.  She had galleries in New York from 1980-2005, programming an eclectic mix of contemporary styles and media.  Exhibitions included graffiti personality Rammellzee, language artist Guy de Cointet, abstract painter Joan Waltemath, sculptor Donald Lipski, Surrealist legend Charles Henri Ford, spiritual expressionist Hunt Slonem,  magic painter Peter Grass, mystic John Wells, plus tombstone rubbings by the infamous Scott Covert, paintings and sculpture of the actor Fred Gwynne, a group show "Surrealismo" co-curated with "The Godfather of Gallerists" Leo Castelli, a collaboration with the French Embassy, Richard Osterweil paintings of the Romanov family at the Russian Embassy on New York's upper east side, as well as readings in the gallery by poet laureate John Ashbery,.  Group exhibitions included works by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and many others.  Barbara Braathen Gallery was reviewed in Artforum, Artnews, Art in America, Flash Art, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and a host of other publications.  She holds a PhDC in modern art history from UCLA. Interest in spiritual subjects began while a college student in the 1960s.  Experiences in Los Angeles included close interfacing with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Swami Satchidananda, Yogi Bhajan who brought Kundalini yoga to the west, and innumerable other spiritual leaders.  She as well participated in study groups with a close circle, the principle readings being in Theosophy (Blavatsky, Besant, Leadbetter), plus Cayce, Gurdjieff, and Hindu and Buddhist writings.  She has experienced several miraculous healings.  Current studies include the anthroposophical teachings of Rudolf Steiner.  She is on the Board of Directors of Spring River School, a Waldorf-inspired outdoor school in Jacksonville Florida where she currently resides. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Braathen https://nyweekly.com/?s=Barbara+braathen https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/art-theatre/barbara-braathen-an-aesthete-in-the-art-industry https://www.laprogressive.com/sponsored/barbara-braathen See More from Martin Benson *To stay up on releases and content surrounding the show check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠my instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ *To contribute to the creation of this show, along with access to other exclusive content, consider joining ⁠⁠⁠⁠my Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠! Credits: Big Thanks to Matthew Blankenship of ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Sometimes Island ⁠⁠⁠⁠ for the podcast theme music! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/martin-l-benson/support

This week, we discuss NPD BookScan 2022 numbers, how much Roy Lichtenstein sucks, losing both Rachel Pollack and Al Jaffee, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods' box office run, and Marvel/DC movie crossover possibilities. Starring Ryan Higgins, Brock Sager, and Kevin Sharp.

Jeffrey Loria has spent time in the studios of such renowned artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, and Niki de Saint Phalle; commissioned work from Salvador Dalí; and traveled the world in search of exceptional art for his clients' collections (including Martha's!). He pursued a second, equally high-powered career following his other great passion: baseball. As the owner of the Marlins Baseball Team, he discovered top players, built a state-of-the art baseball stadium, and experienced the rare highs of winning a World Series. His new book, “From the Front Row: Reflections of a Major League Baseball Owner and Modern Art Dealer” gives readers a front-row seat to the mysterious, high-stakes, and high-profile (and surprisingly similar) worlds of Major League Baseball and Modern Art.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 164 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "White Light/White Heat" and the career of the Velvet Underground. This is a long one, lasting three hours and twenty minutes. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three minute bonus episode available, on "Why Don't You Smile Now?" by the Downliners Sect. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I say the Velvet Underground didn't play New York for the rest of the sixties after 1966. They played at least one gig there in 1967, but did generally avoid the city. Also, I refer to Cale and Conrad as the other surviving members of the Theater of Eternal Music. Sadly Conrad died in 2016. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Velvet Underground, and some of the avant-garde pieces excerpted run to six hours or more. I used a lot of resources for this one. Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga is the best book on the group as a group. I also used Joe Harvard's 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico. Bockris also wrote one of the two biographies of Reed I referred to, Transformer. The other was Lou Reed by Anthony DeCurtis. Information on Cale mostly came from Sedition and Alchemy by Tim Mitchell. Information on Nico came from Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon by Richard Witts. I used Draw a Straight Line and Follow it by Jeremy Grimshaw as my main source for La Monte Young, The Roaring Silence by David Revill for John Cage, and Warhol: A Life as Art by Blake Gopnik for Warhol. I also referred to the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of the 2021 documentary The Velvet Underground.  The definitive collection of the Velvet Underground's music is the sadly out-of-print box set Peel Slowly and See, which contains the four albums the group made with Reed in full, plus demos, outtakes, and live recordings. Note that the digital version of the album as sold by Amazon for some reason doesn't include the last disc -- if you want the full box set you have to buy a physical copy. All four studio albums have also been released and rereleased many times over in different configurations with different numbers of CDs at different price points -- I have used the "45th Anniversary Super-Deluxe" versions for this episode, but for most people the standard CD versions will be fine. Sadly there are no good shorter compilation overviews of the group -- they tend to emphasise either the group's "pop" mode or its "avant-garde" mode to the exclusion of the other. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I begin this episode, there are a few things to say. This introductory section is going to be longer than normal because, as you will hear, this episode is also going to be longer than normal. Firstly, I try to warn people about potentially upsetting material in these episodes. But this is the first episode for 1968, and as you will see there is a *profound* increase in the amount of upsetting and disturbing material covered as we go through 1968 and 1969. The story is going to be in a much darker place for the next twenty or thirty episodes. And this episode is no exception. As always, I try to deal with everything as sensitively as possible, but you should be aware that the list of warnings for this one is so long I am very likely to have missed some. Among the topics touched on in this episode are mental illness, drug addiction, gun violence, racism, societal and medical homophobia, medical mistreatment of mental illness, domestic abuse, rape, and more. If you find discussion of any of those subjects upsetting, you might want to read the transcript. Also, I use the term "queer" freely in this episode. In the past I have received some pushback for this, because of a belief among some that "queer" is a slur. The following explanation will seem redundant to many of my listeners, but as with many of the things I discuss in the podcast I am dealing with multiple different audiences with different levels of awareness and understanding of issues, so I'd like to beg those people's indulgence a moment. The term "queer" has certainly been used as a slur in the past, but so have terms like "lesbian", "gay", "homosexual" and others. In all those cases, the term has gone from a term used as a self-identifier, to a slur, to a reclaimed slur, and back again many times. The reason for using that word, specifically, here is because the vast majority of people in this story have sexualities or genders that don't match the societal norms of their times, but used labels for themselves that have shifted in meaning over the years. There are at least two men in the story, for example, who are now dead and referred to themselves as "homosexual", but were in multiple long-term sexually-active relationships with women. Would those men now refer to themselves as "bisexual" or "pansexual" -- terms not in widespread use at the time -- or would they, in the relatively more tolerant society we live in now, only have been in same-gender relationships? We can't know. But in our current context using the word "homosexual" for those men would lead to incorrect assumptions about their behaviour. The labels people use change over time, and the definitions of them blur and shift. I have discussed this issue with many, many, friends who fall under the queer umbrella, and while not all of them are comfortable with "queer" as a personal label because of how it's been used against them in the past, there is near-unanimity from them that it's the correct word to use in this situation. Anyway, now that that rather lengthy set of disclaimers is over, let's get into the story proper, as we look at "White Light, White Heat" by the Velvet Underground: [Excerpt: The Velvet Underground, "White Light, White Heat"] And that look will start with... a disclaimer about length. This episode is going to be a long one. Not as long as episode one hundred and fifty, but almost certainly the longest episode I'll do this year, by some way. And there's a reason for that. One of the questions I've been asked repeatedly over the years about the podcast is why almost all the acts I've covered have been extremely commercially successful ones. "Where are the underground bands? The alternative bands? The little niche acts?" The answer to that is simple. Until the mid-sixties, the idea of an underground or alternative band made no sense at all in rock, pop, rock and roll, R&B, or soul. The idea would have been completely counterintuitive to the vast majority of the people we've discussed in the podcast. Those musics were commercial musics, made by people who wanted to make money and to  get the largest audiences possible. That doesn't mean that they had no artistic merit, or that there was no artistic intent behind them, but the artists making that music were *commercial* artists. They knew if they wanted to make another record, they had to sell enough copies of the last record for the record company to make another, and that if they wanted to keep eating, they had to draw enough of an audience to their gigs for promoters to keep booking them. There was no space in this worldview for what we might think of as cult success. If your record only sold a thousand copies, then you had failed in your goal, even if the thousand people who bought your record really loved it. Even less commercially successful artists we've covered to this point, like the Mothers of Invention or Love, were *trying* for commercial success, even if they made the decision not to compromise as much as others do. This started to change a tiny bit in the mid-sixties as the influence of jazz and folk in the US, and the British blues scene, started to be felt in rock music. But this influence, at first, was a one-way thing -- people who had been in the folk and jazz worlds deciding to modify their music to be more commercial. And that was followed by already massively commercial musicians, like the Beatles, taking on some of those influences and bringing their audience with them. But that started to change around the time that "rock" started to differentiate itself from "rock and roll" and "pop", in mid 1967. So in this episode and the next, we're going to look at two bands who in different ways provided a model for how to be an alternative band. Both of them still *wanted* commercial success, but neither achieved it, at least not at first and not in the conventional way. And both, when they started out, went by the name The Warlocks. But we have to take a rather circuitous route to get to this week's band, because we're now properly introducing a strand of music that has been there in the background for a while -- avant-garde art music. So before we go any further, let's have a listen to a thirty-second clip of the most famous piece of avant-garde music ever, and I'll be performing it myself: [Excerpt, Andrew Hickey "4'33 (Cage)"] Obviously that won't give the full effect, you have to listen to the whole piece to get that. That is of course a section of "4'33" by John Cage, a piece of music that is often incorrectly described as being four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. As I've mentioned before, though, in the episode on "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", it isn't that at all. The whole point of the piece is that there is no such thing as silence, and it's intended to make the listener appreciate all the normal ambient sounds as music, every bit as much as any piece by Bach or Beethoven. John Cage, the composer of "4'33", is possibly the single most influential avant-garde artist of the mid twentieth century, so as we're properly introducing the ideas of avant-garde music into the story here, we need to talk about him a little. Cage was, from an early age, torn between three great vocations, all of which in some fashion would shape his work for decades to come. One of these was architecture, and for a time he intended to become an architect. Another was the religious ministry, and he very seriously considered becoming a minister as a young man, and religion -- though not the religious faith of his youth -- was to be a massive factor in his work as he grew older. He started studying music from an early age, though he never had any facility as a performer -- though he did, when he discovered the work of Grieg, think that might change. He later said “For a while I played nothing else. I even imagined devoting my life to the performance of his works alone, for they did not seem to me to be too difficult, and I loved them.” [Excerpt: Grieg piano concerto in A minor] But he soon realised that he didn't have some of the basic skills that would be required to be a performer -- he never actually thought of himself as very musical -- and so he decided to move into composition, and he later talked about putting his musical limits to good use in being more inventive. From his very first pieces, Cage was trying to expand the definition of what a performance of a piece of music actually was. One of his friends, Harry Hay, who took part in the first documented performance of a piece by Cage, described how Cage's father, an inventor, had "devised a fluorescent light source over which Sample" -- Don Sample, Cage's boyfriend at the time -- "laid a piece of vellum painted with designs in oils. The blankets I was wearing were white, and a sort of lampshade shone coloured patterns onto me. It looked very good. The thing got so hot the designs began to run, but that only made it better.” Apparently the audience for this light show -- one that predated the light shows used by rock bands by a good thirty years -- were not impressed, though that may be more because the Santa Monica Women's Club in the early 1930s was not the vanguard of the avant-garde. Or maybe it was. Certainly the housewives of Santa Monica seemed more willing than one might expect to sign up for another of Cage's ideas. In 1933 he went door to door asking women if they would be interested in signing up to a lecture course from him on modern art and music. He told them that if they signed up for $2.50, he would give them ten lectures, and somewhere between twenty and forty of them signed up, even though, as he said later, “I explained to the housewives that I didn't know anything about either subject but that I was enthusiastic about both of them. I promised to learn faithfully enough about each subject so as to be able to give a talk an hour long each week.” And he did just that, going to the library every day and spending all week preparing an hour-long talk for them. History does not relate whether he ended these lectures by telling the housewives to tell just one friend about them. He said later “I came out of these lectures, with a devotion to the painting of Mondrian, on the one hand, and the music of Schoenberg on the other.” [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"] Schoenberg was one of the two most widely-respected composers in the world at that point, the other being Stravinsky, but the two had very different attitudes to composition. Schoenberg's great innovation was the creation and popularisation of the twelve-tone technique, and I should probably explain that a little before I go any further. Most Western music is based on an eight-note scale -- do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do -- with the eighth note being an octave up from the first. So in the key of C major that would be C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C: [demonstrates] And when you hear notes from that scale, if your ears are accustomed to basically any Western music written before about 1920, or any Western popular music written since then, you expect the melody to lead back to C, and you know to expect that because it only uses those notes -- there are differing intervals between them, some having a tone between them and some having a semitone, and you recognise the pattern. But of course there are other notes between the notes of that scale. There are actually an infinite number of these, but in conventional Western music we only look at a few more -- C# (or D flat), D# (or E flat), F# (or G flat), G# (or A flat) and A# (or B flat). If you add in all those notes you get this: [demonstrates] There's no clear beginning or end, no do for it to come back to. And Schoenberg's great innovation, which he was only starting to promote widely around this time, was to insist that all twelve notes should be equal -- his melodies would use all twelve of the notes the exact same number of times, and so if he used say a B flat, he would have to use all eleven other notes before he used B flat again in the piece. This was a radical new idea, but Schoenberg had only started advancing it after first winning great acclaim for earlier pieces, like his "Three Pieces for Piano", a work which wasn't properly twelve-tone, but did try to do without the idea of having any one note be more important than any other: [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Three Pieces for Piano"] At this point, that work had only been performed in the US by one performer, Richard Buhlig, and hadn't been released as a recording yet. Cage was so eager to hear it that he'd found Buhlig's phone number and called him, asking him to play the piece, but Buhlig put the phone down on him. Now he was doing these lectures, though, he had to do one on Schoenberg, and he wasn't a competent enough pianist to play Schoenberg's pieces himself, and there were still no recordings of them. Cage hitch-hiked from Santa Monica to LA, where Buhlig lived, to try to get him to come and visit his class and play some of Schoenberg's pieces for them. Buhlig wasn't in, and Cage hung around in his garden hoping for him to come back -- he pulled the leaves off a bough from one of Buhlig's trees, going "He'll come back, he won't come back, he'll come back..." and the leaves said he'd be back. Buhlig arrived back at midnight, and quite understandably told the strange twenty-one-year-old who'd spent twelve hours in his garden pulling the leaves off his trees that no, he would not come to Santa Monica and give a free performance. But he did agree that if Cage brought some of his own compositions he'd give them a look over. Buhlig started giving Cage some proper lessons in composition, although he stressed that he was a performer, not a composer. Around this time Cage wrote his Sonata for Clarinet: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Sonata For Clarinet"] Buhlig suggested that Cage send that to Henry Cowell, the composer we heard about in the episode on "Good Vibrations" who was friends with Lev Termen and who created music by playing the strings inside a piano: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] Cowell offered to take Cage on as an assistant, in return for which Cowell would teach him for a semester, as would Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg's. But the goal, which Cowell suggested, was always to have Cage study with Schoenberg himself. Schoenberg at first refused, saying that Cage couldn't afford his price, but eventually took Cage on as a student having been assured that he would devote his entire life to music -- a promise Cage kept. Cage started writing pieces for percussion, something that had been very rare up to that point -- only a handful of composers, most notably Edgard Varese, had written pieces for percussion alone, but Cage was: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Trio"] This is often portrayed as a break from the ideals of his teacher Schoenberg, but in fact there's a clear continuity there, once you see what Cage was taking from Schoenberg. Schoenberg's work is, in some senses, about equality, about all notes being equal. Or to put it another way, it's about fairness. About erasing arbitrary distinctions. What Cage was doing was erasing the arbitrary distinction between the more and less prominent instruments. Why should there be pieces for solo violin or string quartet, but not for multiple percussion players? That said, Schoenberg was not exactly the most encouraging of teachers. When Cage invited Schoenberg to go to a concert of Cage's percussion work, Schoenberg told him he was busy that night. When Cage offered to arrange another concert for a date Schoenberg wasn't busy, the reply came "No, I will not be free at any time". Despite this, Cage later said “Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he was putting us in touch with musical principles,” and said "I literally worshipped him" -- a strong statement from someone who took religious matters as seriously as Cage. Cage was so devoted to Schoenberg's music that when a concert of music by Stravinsky was promoted as "music of the world's greatest living composer", Cage stormed into the promoter's office angrily, confronting the promoter and making it very clear that such things should not be said in the city where Schoenberg lived. Schoenberg clearly didn't think much of Cage's attempts at composition, thinking -- correctly -- that Cage had no ear for harmony. And his reportedly aggressive and confrontational teaching style didn't sit well with Cage -- though it seems very similar to a lot of the teaching techniques of the Zen masters he would later go on to respect. The two eventually parted ways, although Cage always spoke highly of Schoenberg. Schoenberg later gave Cage a compliment of sorts, when asked if any of his students had gone on to do anything interesting. At first he replied that none had, but then he mentioned Cage and said “Of course he's not a composer, but an inventor—of genius.” Cage was at this point very worried if there was any point to being a composer at all. He said later “I'd read Cowell's New Musical Resources and . . . The Theory of Rhythm. I had also read Chavez's Towards a New Music. Both works gave me the feeling that everything that was possible in music had already happened. So I thought I could never compose socially important music. Only if I could invent something new, then would I be useful to society. But that seemed unlikely then.” [Excerpt: John Cage, "Totem Ancestor"] Part of the solution came when he was asked to compose music for an abstract animation by the filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, and also to work as Fischinger's assistant when making the film. He was fascinated by the stop-motion process, and by the results of the film, which he described as "a beautiful film in which these squares, triangles and circles and other things moved and changed colour.” But more than that he was overwhelmed by a comment by Fischinger, who told him “Everything in the world has its own spirit, and this spirit becomes audible by setting it into vibration.” Cage later said “That set me on fire. He started me on a path of exploration of the world around me which has never stopped—of hitting and stretching and scraping and rubbing everything.” Cage now took his ideas further. His compositions for percussion had been about, if you like, giving the underdog a chance -- percussion was always in the background, why should it not be in the spotlight? Now he realised that there were other things getting excluded in conventional music -- the sounds that we characterise as noise. Why should composers work to exclude those sounds, but work to *include* other sounds? Surely that was... well, a little unfair? Eventually this would lead to pieces like his 1952 piece "Water Music", later expanded and retitled "Water Walk", which can be heard here in his 1959 appearance on the TV show "I've Got a Secret".  It's a piece for, amongst other things, a flowerpot full of flowers, a bathtub, a watering can, a pipe, a duck call, a blender full of ice cubes, and five unplugged radios: [Excerpt: John Cage "Water Walk"] As he was now avoiding pitch and harmony as organising principles for his music, he turned to time. But note -- not to rhythm. He said “There's none of this boom, boom, boom, business in my music . . . a measure is taken as a strict measure of time—not a one two three four—which I fill with various sounds.” He came up with a system he referred to as “micro-macrocosmic rhythmic structure,” what we would now call fractals, though that word hadn't yet been invented, where the structure of the whole piece was reflected in the smallest part of it. For a time he started moving away from the term music, preferring to refer to the "art of noise" or to "organised sound" -- though he later received a telegram from Edgard Varese, one of his musical heroes and one of the few other people writing works purely for percussion, asking him not to use that phrase, which Varese used for his own work. After meeting with Varese and his wife, he later became convinced that it was Varese's wife who had initiated the telegram, as she explained to Cage's wife "we didn't want your husband's work confused with my husband's work, any more than you'd want some . . . any artist's work confused with that of a cartoonist.” While there is a humour to Cage's work, I don't really hear much qualitative difference between a Cage piece like the one we just heard and a Varese piece like Ionisation: [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ionisation"] But it was in 1952, the year of "Water Music" that John Cage made his two biggest impacts on the cultural world, though the full force of those impacts wasn't felt for some years. To understand Cage's 1952 work, you first have to understand that he had become heavily influenced by Zen, which at that time was very little known in the Western world. Indeed he had studied with Daisetsu Suzuki, who is credited with introducing Zen to the West, and said later “I didn't study music with just anybody; I studied with Schoenberg, I didn't study Zen with just anybody; I studied with Suzuki. I've always gone, insofar as I could, to the president of the company.” Cage's whole worldview was profoundly affected by Zen, but he was also naturally sympathetic to it, and his work after learning about Zen is mostly a continuation of trends we can already see. In particular, he became convinced that the point of music isn't to communicate anything between two people, rather its point is merely to be experienced. I'm far from an expert on Buddhism, but one way of thinking about its central lessons is that one should experience things as they are, experiencing the thing itself rather than one's thoughts or preconceptions about it. And so at Black Mountain college came Theatre Piece Number 1: [Excerpt: Edith Piaf, "La Vie En Rose" ] In this piece, Cage had set the audience on all sides, so they'd be facing each other. He stood on a stepladder, as colleagues danced in and around the audience, another colleague played the piano, two more took turns to stand on another stepladder to recite poetry, different films and slides were projected, seemingly at random, onto the walls, and the painter Robert Rauschenberg played scratchy Edith Piaf records on a wind-up gramophone. The audience were included in the performance, and it was meant to be experienced as a gestalt, as a whole, to be what we would now call an immersive experience. One of Cage's students around this time was the artist Allan Kaprow, and he would be inspired by Theatre Piece Number 1 to put on several similar events in the late fifties. Those events he called "happenings", because the point of them was that you were meant to experience an event as it was happening rather than bring preconceptions of form and structure to them. Those happenings were the inspiration for events like The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, and the term "happening" became such an integral part of the counterculture that by 1967 there were comedy films being released about them, including one just called The Happening with a title track by the Supremes that made number one: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Happening"] Theatre Piece Number 1 was retrospectively considered the first happening, and as such its influence is incalculable. But one part I didn't mention about Theatre Piece Number 1 is that as well as Rauschenberg playing Edith Piaf's records, he also displayed some of his paintings. These paintings were totally white -- at a glance, they looked like blank canvases, but as one inspected them more clearly, it became apparent that Rauschenberg had painted them with white paint, with visible brushstrokes. These paintings, along with a visit to an anechoic chamber in which Cage discovered that even in total silence one can still hear one's own blood and nervous system, so will never experience total silence, were the final key to something Cage had been working towards -- if music had minimised percussion, and excluded noise, how much more had it excluded silence? As Cage said in 1958 “Curiously enough, the twelve-tone system has no zero in it.” And so came 4'33, the piece that we heard an excerpt of near the start of this episode. That piece was the something new he'd been looking for that could be useful to society. It took the sounds the audience could already hear, and without changing them even slightly gave them a new context and made the audience hear them as they were. Simply by saying "this is music", it caused the ambient noise to be perceived as music. This idea, of recontextualising existing material, was one that had already been done in the art world -- Marcel Duchamp, in 1917, had exhibited a urinal as a sculpture titled "Fountain" -- but even Duchamp had talked about his work as "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice". The artist was *raising* the object to art. What Cage was saying was "the object is already art". This was all massively influential to a young painter who had seen Cage give lectures many times, and while at art school had with friends prepared a piano in the same way Cage did for his own experimental compositions, dampening the strings with different objects. [Excerpt: Dana Gillespie, "Andy Warhol (live)"] Duchamp and Rauschenberg were both big influences on Andy Warhol, but he would say in the early sixties "John Cage is really so responsible for so much that's going on," and would for the rest of his life cite Cage as one of the two or three prime influences of his career. Warhol is a difficult figure to discuss, because his work is very intellectual but he was not very articulate -- which is one reason I've led up to him by discussing Cage in such detail, because Cage was always eager to talk at great length about the theoretical basis of his work, while Warhol would say very few words about anything at all. Probably the person who knew him best was his business partner and collaborator Paul Morrissey, and Morrissey's descriptions of Warhol have shaped my own view of his life, but it's very worth noting that Morrissey is an extremely right-wing moralist who wishes to see a Catholic theocracy imposed to do away with the scourges of sexual immorality, drug use, hedonism, and liberalism, so his view of Warhol, a queer drug using progressive whose worldview seems to have been totally opposed to Morrissey's in every way, might be a little distorted. Warhol came from an impoverished background, and so, as many people who grew up poor do, he was, throughout his life, very eager to make money. He studied art at university, and got decent but not exceptional grades -- he was a competent draughtsman, but not a great one, and most importantly as far as success in the art world goes he didn't have what is known as his own "line" -- with most successful artists, you can look at a handful of lines they've drawn and see something of their own personality in it. You couldn't with Warhol. His drawings looked like mediocre imitations of other people's work. Perfectly competent, but nothing that stood out. So Warhol came up with a technique to make his drawings stand out -- blotting. He would do a normal drawing, then go over it with a lot of wet ink. He'd lower a piece of paper on to the wet drawing, and the new paper would soak up the ink, and that second piece of paper would become the finished work. The lines would be fractured and smeared, broken in places where the ink didn't get picked up, and thick in others where it had pooled. With this mechanical process, Warhol had managed to create an individual style, and he became an extremely successful commercial artist. In the early 1950s photography was still seen as a somewhat low-class way of advertising things. If you wanted to sell to a rich audience, you needed to use drawings or paintings. By 1955 Warhol was making about twelve thousand dollars a year -- somewhere close to a hundred and thirty thousand a year in today's money -- drawing shoes for advertisements. He also had a sideline in doing record covers for people like Count Basie: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Seventh Avenue Express"] For most of the 1950s he also tried to put on shows of his more serious artistic work -- often with homoerotic themes -- but to little success. The dominant art style of the time was the abstract expressionism of people like Jackson Pollock, whose art was visceral, emotional, and macho. The term "action paintings" which was coined for the work of people like Pollock, sums it up. This was manly art for manly men having manly emotions and expressing them loudly. It was very male and very straight, and even the gay artists who were prominent at the time tended to be very conformist and look down on anything they considered flamboyant or effeminate. Warhol was a rather effeminate, very reserved man, who strongly disliked showing his emotions, and whose tastes ran firmly to the camp. Camp as an aesthetic of finding joy in the flamboyant or trashy, as opposed to merely a descriptive term for men who behaved in a way considered effeminate, was only just starting to be codified at this time -- it wouldn't really become a fully-formed recognisable thing until Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" in 1964 -- but of course just because something hasn't been recognised doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and Warhol's aesthetic was always very camp, and in the 1950s in the US that was frowned upon even in gay culture, where the mainstream opinion was that the best way to acceptance was through assimilation. Abstract expressionism was all about expressing the self, and that was something Warhol never wanted to do -- in fact he made some pronouncements at times which suggested he didn't think of himself as *having* a self in the conventional sense. The combination of not wanting to express himself and of wanting to work more efficiently as a commercial artist led to some interesting results. For example, he was commissioned in 1957 to do a cover for an album by Moondog, the blind street musician whose name Alan Freed had once stolen: [Excerpt: Moondog, "Gloving It"] For that cover, Warhol got his mother, Julia Warhola, to just write out the liner notes for the album in her rather ornamental cursive script, and that became the front cover, leading to an award for graphic design going that year to "Andy Warhol's mother". (Incidentally, my copy of the current CD issue of that album, complete with Julia Warhola's cover, is put out by Pickwick Records...) But towards the end of the fifties, the work for commercial artists started to dry up. If you wanted to advertise shoes, now, you just took a photo of the shoes rather than get Andy Warhol to draw a picture of them. The money started to disappear, and Warhol started to panic. If there was no room for him in graphic design any more, he had to make his living in the fine arts, which he'd been totally unsuccessful in. But luckily for Warhol, there was a new movement that was starting to form -- Pop Art. Pop Art started in England, and had originally been intended, at least in part, as a critique of American consumerist capitalism. Pieces like "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" by Richard Hamilton (who went on to design the Beatles' White Album cover) are collages of found images, almost all from American sources, recontextualised and juxtaposed in interesting ways, so a bodybuilder poses in a room that's taken from an advert in Ladies' Home Journal, while on the wall, instead of a painting, hangs a blown-up cover of a Jack Kirby romance comic. Pop Art changed slightly when it got taken up in America, and there it became something rather different, something closer to Duchamp, taking those found images and displaying them as art with no juxtaposition. Where Richard Hamilton created collage art which *showed* a comic cover by Jack Kirby as a painting in the background, Roy Lichtenstein would take a panel of comic art by Kirby, or Russ Heath or Irv Novick or a dozen other comic artists, and redraw it at the size of a normal painting. So Warhol took Cage's idea that the object is already art, and brought that into painting, starting by doing paintings of Campbell's soup cans, in which he tried as far as possible to make the cans look exactly like actual soup cans. The paintings were controversial, inciting fury in some and laughter in others and causing almost everyone to question whether they were art. Warhol would embrace an aesthetic in which things considered unimportant or trash or pop culture detritus were the greatest art of all. For example pretty much every profile of him written in the mid sixties talks about him obsessively playing "Sally Go Round the Roses", a girl-group single by the one-hit wonders the Jaynettes: [Excerpt: The Jaynettes, "Sally Go Round the Roses"] After his paintings of Campbell's soup cans, and some rather controversial but less commercially successful paintings of photographs of horrors and catastrophes taken from newspapers, Warhol abandoned painting in the conventional sense altogether, instead creating brightly coloured screen prints -- a form of stencilling -- based on photographs of celebrities like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and, most famously, Marilyn Monroe. That way he could produce images which could be mass-produced, without his active involvement, and which supposedly had none of his personality in them, though of course his personality pervades the work anyway. He put on exhibitions of wooden boxes, silk-screen printed to look exactly like shipping cartons of Brillo pads. Images we see everywhere -- in newspapers, in supermarkets -- were art. And Warhol even briefly formed a band. The Druds were a garage band formed to play at a show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, the opening night of an exhibition that featured a silkscreen by Warhol of 210 identical bottles of Coca-Cola, as well as paintings by Rauschenberg and others. That opening night featured a happening by Claes Oldenburg, and a performance by Cage -- Cage gave a live lecture while three recordings of his own voice also played. The Druds were also meant to perform, but they fell apart after only a few rehearsals. Some recordings apparently exist, but they don't seem to circulate, but they'd be fascinating to hear as almost the entire band were non-musician artists like Warhol, Jasper Johns, and the sculptor Walter de Maria. Warhol said of the group “It didn't go too well, but if we had just stayed on it it would have been great.” On the other hand, the one actual musician in the group said “It was kind of ridiculous, so I quit after the second rehearsal". That musician was La Monte Young: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] That's an excerpt from what is generally considered Young's masterwork, "The Well-Tuned Piano". It's six and a half hours long. If Warhol is a difficult figure to write about, Young is almost impossible. He's a musician with a career stretching sixty years, who is arguably the most influential musician from the classical tradition in that time period. He's generally considered the father of minimalism, and he's also been called by Brian Eno "the daddy of us all" -- without Young you simply *do not* get art rock at all. Without Young there is no Velvet Underground, no David Bowie, no Eno, no New York punk scene, no Yoko Ono. Anywhere that the fine arts or conceptual art have intersected with popular music in the last fifty or more years has been influenced in one way or another by Young's work. BUT... he only rarely publishes his scores. He very, very rarely allows recordings of his work to be released -- there are four recordings on his bandcamp, plus a handful of recordings of his older, published, pieces, and very little else. He doesn't allow his music to be performed live without his supervision. There *are* bootleg recordings of his music, but even those are not easily obtainable -- Young is vigorous in enforcing his copyrights and issues takedown notices against anywhere that hosts them. So other than that handful of legitimately available recordings -- plus a recording by Young's Theater of Eternal Music, the legality of which is still disputed, and an off-air recording of a 1971 radio programme I've managed to track down, the only way to experience Young's music unless you're willing to travel to one of his rare live performances or installations is second-hand, by reading about it. Except that the one book that deals solely with Young and his music is not only a dense and difficult book to read, it's also one that Young vehemently disagreed with and considered extremely inaccurate, to the point he refused to allow permissions to quote his work in the book. Young did apparently prepare a list of corrections for the book, but he wouldn't tell the author what they were without payment. So please assume that anything I say about Young is wrong, but also accept that the short section of this episode about Young has required more work to *try* to get it right than pretty much anything else this year. Young's musical career actually started out in a relatively straightforward manner. He didn't grow up in the most loving of homes -- he's talked about his father beating him as a child because he had been told that young La Monte was clever -- but his father did buy him a saxophone and teach him the rudiments of the instrument, and as a child he was most influenced by the music of the big band saxophone player Jimmy Dorsey: [Excerpt: Jimmy Dorsey, “It's the Dreamer in Me”] The family, who were Mormon farmers, relocated several times in Young's childhood, from Idaho first to California and then to Utah, but everywhere they went La Monte seemed to find musical inspiration, whether from an uncle who had been part of the Kansas City jazz scene, a classmate who was a musical prodigy who had played with Perez Prado in his early teens, or a teacher who took the class to see a performance of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra: [Excerpt: Bartok, "Concerto for Orchestra"] After leaving high school, Young went to Los Angeles City College to study music under Leonard Stein, who had been Schoenberg's assistant when Schoenberg had taught at UCLA, and there he became part of the thriving jazz scene based around Central Avenue, studying and performing with musicians like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Eric Dolphy -- Young once beat Dolphy in an audition for a place in the City College dance band, and the two would apparently substitute for each other on their regular gigs when one couldn't make it. During this time, Young's musical tastes became much more adventurous. He was a particular fan of the work of John Coltrane, and also got inspired by City of Glass, an album by Stan Kenton that attempted to combine jazz and modern classical music: [Excerpt: Stan Kenton's Innovations Orchestra, "City of Glass: The Structures"] His other major musical discovery in the mid-fifties was one we've talked about on several previous occasions -- the album Music of India, Morning and Evening Ragas by Ali Akhbar Khan: [Excerpt: Ali Akhbar Khan, "Rag Sindhi Bhairavi"] Young's music at this point was becoming increasingly modal, and equally influenced by the blues and Indian music. But he was also becoming interested in serialism. Serialism is an extension and generalisation of twelve-tone music, inspired by mathematical set theory. In serialism, you choose a set of musical elements -- in twelve-tone music that's the twelve notes in the twelve-tone scale, but it can also be a set of tonal relations, a chord, or any other set of elements. You then define all the possible ways you can permute those elements, a defined set of operations you can perform on them -- so you could play a scale forwards, play it backwards, play all the notes in the scale simultaneously, and so on. You then go through all the possible permutations, exactly once, and that's your piece of music. Young was particularly influenced by the works of Anton Webern, one of the earliest serialists: [Excerpt: Anton Webern, "Cantata number 1 for Soprano, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra"] That piece we just heard, Webern's "Cantata number 1", was the subject of some of the earliest theoretical discussion of serialism, and in particular led to some discussion of the next step on from serialism. If serialism was all about going through every single permutation of a set, what if you *didn't* permute every element? There was a lot of discussion in the late fifties in music-theoretical circles about the idea of invariance. Normally in music, the interesting thing is what gets changed. To use a very simple example, you might change a melody from a major key to a minor one to make it sound sadder. What theorists at this point were starting to discuss is what happens if you leave something the same, but change the surrounding context, so the thing you *don't* vary sounds different because of the changed context. And going further, what if you don't change the context at all, and merely *imply* a changed context? These ideas were some of those which inspired Young's first major work, his Trio For Strings from 1958, a complex, palindromic, serial piece which is now credited as the first work of minimalism, because the notes in it change so infrequently: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Trio for Strings"] Though I should point out that Young never considers his works truly finished, and constantly rewrites them, and what we just heard is an excerpt from the only recording of the trio ever officially released, which is of the 2015 version. So I can't state for certain how close what we just heard is to the piece he wrote in 1958, except that it sounds very like the written descriptions of it I've read. After writing the Trio For Strings, Young moved to Germany to study with the modernist composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. While studying with Stockhausen, he became interested in the work of John Cage, and started up a correspondence with Cage. On his return to New York he studied with Cage and started writing pieces inspired by Cage, of which the most musical is probably Composition 1960 #7: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Composition 1960 #7"] The score for that piece is a stave on which is drawn a treble clef, the notes B and F#, and the words "To be held for a long Time". Other of his compositions from 1960 -- which are among the few of his compositions which have been published -- include composition 1960 #10 ("To Bob Morris"), the score for which is just the instruction "Draw a straight line and follow it.", and Piano Piece for David  Tudor #1, the score for which reads "Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat and drink. The performer may then feed the piano or leave it to eat by itself. If the former, the piece is over after the piano has been fed. If the latter, it is over after the piano eats or decides not to". Most of these compositions were performed as part of a loose New York art collective called Fluxus, all of whom were influenced by Cage and the Dadaists. This collective, led by George Maciunas, sometimes involved Cage himself, but also involved people like Henry Flynt, the inventor of conceptual art, who later became a campaigner against art itself, and who also much to Young's bemusement abandoned abstract music in the mid-sixties to form a garage band with Walter de Maria (who had played drums with the Druds): [Excerpt: Henry Flynt and the Insurrections, "I Don't Wanna"] Much of Young's work was performed at Fluxus concerts given in a New York loft belonging to another member of the collective, Yoko Ono, who co-curated the concerts with Young. One of Ono's mid-sixties pieces, her "Four Pieces for Orchestra" is dedicated to Young, and consists of such instructions as "Count all the stars of that night by heart. The piece ends when all the orchestra members finish counting the stars, or when it dawns. This can be done with windows instead of stars." But while these conceptual ideas remained a huge part of Young's thinking, he soon became interested in two other ideas. The first was the idea of just intonation -- tuning instruments and voices to perfect harmonics, rather than using the subtly-off tuning that is used in Western music. I'm sure I've explained that before in a previous episode, but to put it simply when you're tuning an instrument with fixed pitches like a piano, you have a choice -- you can either tune it so that the notes in one key are perfectly in tune with each other, but then when you change key things go very out of tune, or you can choose to make *everything* a tiny bit, almost unnoticeably, out of tune, but equally so. For the last several hundred years, musicians as a community have chosen the latter course, which was among other things promoted by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of compositions which shows how the different keys work together: [Excerpt: Bach (Glenn Gould), "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Fugue in F-sharp minor, BWV 883"] Young, by contrast, has his own esoteric tuning system, which he uses in his own work The Well-Tuned Piano: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] The other idea that Young took on was from Indian music, the idea of the drone. One of the four recordings of Young's music that is available from his Bandcamp, a 1982 recording titled The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath, consists of one hour, thirteen minutes, and fifty-eight seconds of this: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath"] Yes, I have listened to the whole piece. No, nothing else happens. The minimalist composer Terry Riley describes the recording as "a singularly rare contribution that far outshines any other attempts to capture this instrument in recorded media". In 1962, Young started writing pieces based on what he called the "dream chord", a chord consisting of a root, fourth, sharpened fourth, and fifth: [dream chord] That chord had already appeared in his Trio for Strings, but now it would become the focus of much of his work, in pieces like his 1962 piece The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, heard here in a 1982 revision: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer"] That was part of a series of works titled The Four Dreams of China, and Young began to plan an installation work titled Dream House, which would eventually be created, and which currently exists in Tribeca, New York, where it's been in continuous "performance" for thirty years -- and which consists of thirty-two different pure sine wave tones all played continuously, plus purple lighting by Young's wife Marian Zazeela. But as an initial step towards creating this, Young formed a collective called Theatre of Eternal Music, which some of the members -- though never Young himself -- always claim also went by the alternative name The Dream Syndicate. According to John Cale, a member of the group, that name came about because the group tuned their instruments to the 60hz hum of the fridge in Young's apartment, which Cale called "the key of Western civilisation". According to Cale, that meant the fundamental of the chords they played was 10hz, the frequency of alpha waves when dreaming -- hence the name. The group initially consisted of Young, Zazeela, the photographer Billy Name, and percussionist Angus MacLise, but by this recording in 1964 the lineup was Young, Zazeela, MacLise, Tony Conrad and John Cale: [Excerpt: "Cale, Conrad, Maclise, Young, Zazeela - The Dream Syndicate 2 IV 64-4"] That recording, like any others that have leaked by the 1960s version of the Theatre of Eternal Music or Dream Syndicate, is of disputed legality, because Young and Zazeela claim to this day that what the group performed were La Monte Young's compositions, while the other two surviving members, Cale and Conrad, claim that their performances were improvisational collaborations and should be equally credited to all the members, and so there have been lawsuits and countersuits any time anyone has released the recordings. John Cale, the youngest member of the group, was also the only one who wasn't American. He'd been born in Wales in 1942, and had had the kind of childhood that, in retrospect, seems guaranteed to lead to eccentricity. He was the product of a mixed-language marriage -- his father, William, was an English speaker while his mother, Margaret, spoke Welsh, but the couple had moved in on their marriage with Margaret's mother, who insisted that only Welsh could be spoken in her house. William didn't speak Welsh, and while he eventually picked up the basics from spending all his life surrounded by Welsh-speakers, he refused on principle to capitulate to his mother-in-law, and so remained silent in the house. John, meanwhile, grew up a monolingual Welsh speaker, and didn't start to learn English until he went to school when he was seven, and so couldn't speak to his father until then even though they lived together. Young John was extremely unwell for most of his childhood, both physically -- he had bronchial problems for which he had to take a cough mixture that was largely opium to help him sleep at night -- and mentally. He was hospitalised when he was sixteen with what was at first thought to be meningitis, but turned out to be a psychosomatic condition, the result of what he has described as a nervous breakdown. That breakdown is probably connected to the fact that during his teenage years he was sexually assaulted by two adults in positions of authority -- a vicar and a music teacher -- and felt unable to talk to anyone about this. He was, though, a child prodigy and was playing viola with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from the age of thirteen, and listening to music by Schoenberg, Webern, and Stravinsky. He was so talented a multi-instrumentalist that at school he was the only person other than one of the music teachers and the headmaster who was allowed to use the piano -- which led to a prank on his very last day at school. The headmaster would, on the last day, hit a low G on the piano to cue the assembly to stand up, and Cale had placed a comb on the string, muting it and stopping the note from sounding -- in much the same way that his near-namesake John Cage was "preparing" pianos for his own compositions in the USA. Cale went on to Goldsmith's College to study music and composition, under Humphrey Searle, one of Britain's greatest proponents of serialism who had himself studied under Webern. Cale's main instrument was the viola, but he insisted on also playing pieces written for the violin, because they required more technical skill. For his final exam he chose to play Hindemith's notoriously difficult Viola Sonata: [Excerpt: Hindemith Viola Sonata] While at Goldsmith's, Cale became friendly with Cornelius Cardew, a composer and cellist who had studied with Stockhausen and at the time was a great admirer of and advocate for the works of Cage and Young (though by the mid-seventies Cardew rejected their work as counter-revolutionary bourgeois imperialism). Through Cardew, Cale started to correspond with Cage, and with George Maciunas and other members of Fluxus. In July 1963, just after he'd finished his studies at Goldsmith's, Cale presented a festival there consisting of an afternoon and an evening show. These shows included the first British performances of several works including Cardew's Autumn '60 for Orchestra -- a piece in which the musicians were given blank staves on which to write whatever part they wanted to play, but a separate set of instructions in *how* to play the parts they'd written. Another piece Cale presented in its British premiere at that show was Cage's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra": [Excerpt: John Cage, "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"] In the evening show, they performed Two Pieces For String Quartet by George Brecht (in which the musicians polish their instruments with dusters, making scraping sounds as they clean them),  and two new pieces by Cale, one of which involved a plant being put on the stage, and then the performer, Robin Page, screaming from the balcony at the plant that it would die, then running down, through the audience, and onto the stage, screaming abuse and threats at the plant. The final piece in the show was a performance by Cale (the first one in Britain) of La Monte Young's "X For Henry Flynt". For this piece, Cale put his hands together and then smashed both his arms onto the keyboard as hard as he could, over and over. After five minutes some of the audience stormed the stage and tried to drag the piano away from him. Cale followed the piano on his knees, continuing to bang the keys, and eventually the audience gave up in defeat and Cale the performer won. After this Cale moved to the USA, to further study composition, this time with Iannis Xenakis, the modernist composer who had also taught Mickey Baker orchestration after Baker left Mickey and Sylvia, and who composed such works as "Orient Occident": [Excerpt: Iannis Xenakis, "Orient Occident"] Cale had been recommended to Xenakis as a student by Aaron Copland, who thought the young man was probably a genius. But Cale's musical ambitions were rather too great for Tanglewood, Massachusetts -- he discovered that the institute had eighty-eight pianos, the same number as there are keys on a piano keyboard, and thought it would be great if for a piece he could take all eighty-eight pianos, put them all on different boats, sail the boats out onto a lake, and have eighty-eight different musicians each play one note on each piano, while the boats sank with the pianos on board. For some reason, Cale wasn't allowed to perform this composition, and instead had to make do with one where he pulled an axe out of a single piano and slammed it down on a table. Hardly the same, I'm sure you'll agree. From Tanglewood, Cale moved on to New York, where he soon became part of the artistic circles surrounding John Cage and La Monte Young. It was at this time that he joined Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, and also took part in a performance with Cage that would get Cale his first television exposure: [Excerpt: John Cale playing Erik Satie's "Vexations" on "I've Got a Secret"] That's Cale playing through "Vexations", a piece by Erik Satie that wasn't published until after Satie's death, and that remained in obscurity until Cage popularised -- if that's the word -- the piece. The piece, which Cage had found while studying Satie's notes, seems to be written as an exercise and has the inscription (in French) "In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Cage interpreted that, possibly correctly, as an instruction that the piece should be played eight hundred and forty times straight through, and so he put together a performance of the piece, the first one ever, by a group he called the Pocket Theatre Piano Relay Team, which included Cage himself, Cale, Joshua Rifkin, and several other notable musical figures, who took it in turns playing the piece. For that performance, which ended up lasting eighteen hours, there was an entry fee of five dollars, and there was a time-clock in the lobby. Audience members punched in and punched out, and got a refund of five cents for every twenty minutes they'd spent listening to the music. Supposedly, at the end, one audience member yelled "Encore!" A week later, Cale appeared on "I've Got a Secret", a popular game-show in which celebrities tried to guess people's secrets (and which is where that performance of Cage's "Water Walk" we heard earlier comes from): [Excerpt: John Cale on I've Got a Secret] For a while, Cale lived with a friend of La Monte Young's, Terry Jennings, before moving in to a flat with Tony Conrad, one of the other members of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Angus MacLise lived in another flat in the same building. As there was not much money to be made in avant-garde music, Cale also worked in a bookshop -- a job Cage had found him -- and had a sideline in dealing drugs. But rents were so cheap at this time that Cale and Conrad only had to work part-time, and could spend much of their time working on the music they were making with Young. Both were string players -- Conrad violin, Cale viola -- and they soon modified their instruments. Conrad merely attached pickups to his so it could be amplified, but Cale went much further. He filed down the viola's bridge so he could play three strings at once, and he replaced the normal viola strings with thicker, heavier, guitar and mandolin strings. This created a sound so loud that it sounded like a distorted electric guitar -- though in late 1963 and early 1964 there were very few people who even knew what a distorted guitar sounded like. Cale and Conrad were also starting to become interested in rock and roll music, to which neither of them had previously paid much attention, because John Cage's music had taught them to listen for music in sounds they previously dismissed. In particular, Cale became fascinated with the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, hearing in them the same just intonation that Young advocated for: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "All I Have to Do is Dream"] And it was with this newfound interest in rock and roll that Cale and Conrad suddenly found themselves members of a manufactured pop band. The two men had been invited to a party on the Lower East Side, and there they'd been introduced to Terry Phillips of Pickwick Records. Phillips had seen their long hair and asked if they were musicians, so they'd answered "yes". He asked if they were in a band, and they said yes. He asked if that band had a drummer, and again they said yes. By this point they realised that he had assumed they were rock guitarists, rather than experimental avant-garde string players, but they decided to play along and see where this was going. Phillips told them that if they brought along their drummer to Pickwick's studios the next day, he had a job for them. The two of them went along with Walter de Maria, who did play the drums a little in between his conceptual art work, and there they were played a record: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] It was explained to them that Pickwick made knock-off records -- soundalikes of big hits, and their own records in the style of those hits, all played by a bunch of session musicians and put out under different band names. This one, by "the Primitives", they thought had a shot at being an actual hit, even though it was a dance-craze song about a dance where one partner lays on the floor and the other stamps on their head. But if it was going to be a hit, they needed an actual band to go out and perform it, backing the singer. How would Cale, Conrad, and de Maria like to be three quarters of the Primitives? It sounded fun, but of course they weren't actually guitarists. But as it turned out, that wasn't going to be a problem. They were told that the guitars on the track had all been tuned to one note -- not even to an open chord, like we talked about Steve Cropper doing last episode, but all the strings to one note. Cale and Conrad were astonished -- that was exactly the kind of thing they'd been doing in their drone experiments with La Monte Young. Who was this person who was independently inventing the most advanced ideas in experimental music but applying them to pop songs? And that was how they met Lou Reed: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] Where Cale and Conrad were avant-gardeists who had only just started paying attention to rock and roll music, rock and roll was in Lou Reed's blood, but there were a few striking similarities between him and Cale, even though at a glance their backgrounds could not have seemed more different. Reed had been brought up in a comfortably middle-class home in Long Island, but despised the suburban conformity that surrounded him from a very early age, and by his teens was starting to rebel against it very strongly. According to one classmate “Lou was always more advanced than the rest of us. The drinking age was eighteen back then, so we all started drinking at around sixteen. We were drinking quarts of beer, but Lou was smoking joints. He didn't do that in front of many people, but I knew he was doing it. While we were looking at girls in Playboy, Lou was reading Story of O. He was reading the Marquis de Sade, stuff that I wouldn't even have thought about or known how to find.” But one way in which Reed was a typical teenager of the period was his love for rock and roll, especially doo-wop. He'd got himself a guitar, but only had one lesson -- according to the story he would tell on numerous occasions, he turned up with a copy of "Blue Suede Shoes" and told the teacher he only wanted to know how to play the chords for that, and he'd work out the rest himself. Reed and two schoolfriends, Alan Walters and Phil Harris, put together a doo-wop trio they called The Shades, because they wore sunglasses, and a neighbour introduced them to Bob Shad, who had been an A&R man for Mercury Records and was starting his own new label. He renamed them the Jades and took them into the studio with some of the best New York session players, and at fourteen years old Lou Reed was writing songs and singing them backed by Mickey Baker and King Curtis: [Excerpt: The Jades, "Leave Her For Me"] Sadly the Jades' single was a flop -- the closest it came to success was being played on Murray the K's radio show, but on a day when Murray the K was off ill and someone else was filling in for him, much to Reed's disappointment. Phil Harris, the lead singer of the group, got to record some solo sessions after that, but the Jades split up and it would be several years before Reed made any more records. Partly this was because of Reed's mental health, and here's where things get disputed and rather messy. What we know is that in his late teens, just after he'd gone off to New

On Today's Quiz there will be a Trivia Round Time for 20 new questions on this trivia podcast! Enjoy our trivia questions: What is the name for a group of frogs? There are three answers we will accept What is Neo's official name within the Matrix? What tourist attraction retreated from Lake Ontario towards Lake Erie in the last 200 years at a yearly rate of 5 feet? What type of hair product comes from the latin word for apple as the original formulation used smashed apples? Depicting a missle slamming into a fighter plane, what is the title of the 1963 diptych by Roy Lichtenstein that shares its name (but not spelling) with an English pop duo? What is the unit of measurement used to describe the amount of cloud cover at any given location such as a weather station? With break-out roles for Masi Oka and Hayden Panettierre, what was the title of the NBC sci-fi show that ran from 2006-2010? “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak” is a piece of advice from Sun Tzu, author of what 5th century military treatise? If you liked this episode, check out our last trivia episode! Music Hot Swing, Fast Talkin, Bass Walker, Dances and Dames by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Don't forget to follow us on social media for more trivia: Patreon - patreon.com/quizbang - Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Check out our fun extras for patrons and help us keep this podcast going. We appreciate any level of support! Website - quizbangpod.com Check out our website, it will have all the links for social media that you need and while you're there, why not go to the contact us page and submit a question! Facebook - @quizbangpodcast - we post episode links and silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess. Instagram - Quiz Quiz Bang Bang (quizquizbangbang), we post silly lego pictures to go with our trivia questions. Enjoy the silly picture and give your best guess, we will respond to your answer the next day to give everyone a chance to guess. Twitter - @quizbangpod We want to start a fun community for our fellow trivia lovers. If you hear/think of a fun or challenging trivia question, post it to our twitter feed and we will repost it so everyone can take a stab it. Come for the trivia - stay for the trivia. Ko-Fi - ko-fi.com/quizbangpod - Keep that sweet caffeine running through our body with a Ko-Fi, power us through a late night of fact checking and editing!

For decades, the MTA has been installing public art in subway and rail stations, commissioning works from artists like Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, and Nick Cave. The director of MTA's Arts & Design, Sandra Bloodworth, joins us to discuss the program -- and take your calls about your favorite piece of subway art.   Check out some images here.   

Season 6 is covering the artists in this year's Arts Madness Tournament. I will be releasing 64 mini episodes in 64 days to give you a quick refresher on all the different artists and artworks in the tournament. By the 1960s Roy Lichtenstein was intrigued by the ideas of pop art and began dabbling in the style. Of course, if you want fresh new ideas, the best source is often the younger generation. Roy Lichtenstein was pushed by his young son. One day in 1961, the younger Lichtenstein taunted his father holding up his copy of the Disney book Donald Duck: Lost and Found. He pointed to an illustration and said, “I bet you can't draw something as good as that?” In what can only be described as one of the greatest “so there's” of all time Roy Lichtenstein made a direct copy of the illustration painting onto a canvas four feet tall and almost six feet wide. In doing so, he was not only successful in sticking it to his son, Roy Lichtenstein became a tremendous success in the art world. Arts Madness Tournament links: Check out the Brackets Tell me which artist you think will win this year's tournament Give a shoutout to your favorite teacher (I'll send a $50 Amazon gift card to the teacher who gets the most shoutouts on this form by Feb 27) Episodes to check out for further learning: Who ARTed - Roy Lichtenstein Art Smart - Pop Art Art Smart - Abstract Expressionism Who ARTed - Zaria Forman Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. Connect with me: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tiktok Support the show: Merch from TeePublic | Make a Donation As always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brandon Zech and special guest Pete Gershon discuss the history of Houston's artist-run spaces, and also talk about Gershon's new position as Curator of Programs at the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. "If a space lasted for a year or a couple of years and then the proprietor moved on to do something else, that's hardly a failure."  See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/2022/12/04/art-dirt-discussing-houstons-alternative-spaces-with-pete-gershon This week's podcast is sponsored in part by the Nasher Sculpture Center. Muse on art, the body, and change in "Nairy Baghramian: Modèle vivant," an exhibition that The Dallas Morning News calls a “human and industrial mix.” See new works by the artist and explore the dialogue with classic masterpieces at the Nasher Sculpture Center, including Roy Lichtenstein, Aristide Maillol, and Henri Matisse. Plan your visit here: https://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/art/exhibitions/exhibition/id/1897/nairy-baghramian-modle-vivant/utm_medium/referral-paid/utm_campaign/exh-1pr-ae/utm_source/glasstire/utm_content/baghramian

Our discussion about the art and life of Clyde's favorite artist, Roy Lichtenstein. Info links: http://www.talkartpodcast.com Artists: Clyde J. Kell, Diane Hunt, Constance Brosnan. Sponsor msg: C Brosnans Jewelry Designs, http://www.etsy.com/shop/cbrosnans

Matthew Willie Garcia is an incredibly promising mokuhanga printmaker. Having only, relatively recently, begun his mokuhanga journey, Matthew has already travelled to Japan to participate in MI Lab, and is about to have his first solo mokuhanga show at COOP Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee.  On this episode of The Unfinished Print I speak with mokuhanga printmaker, Matthew Willie Garcia, about his mokuhanga journey, his technique,  and learning new ways of printing. Matthew speaks on the concept of queer mokuhanga, the generosity of the mokuhanga community, and we discuss his other forays in printmaking, compared to his mokuhanga work.  This episode was recorded before Matthew headed off to Japan to participate in the advanced MI Lab workshop in June of 2022. Please stay tuned until after the end credits for my bonus conversation with Matthew about his time at MI Lab.  Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints Twitter @unfinishedprint, or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com  Artists works follow after the note about them. Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Artists works follow after their note about them. Matthew Willie Garcia - website, Instagram Yoonmi Nam (b. 1974) - is a contemporary mokuhanga printmaker, lithographer, sculptor, and teacher, based in Lawrence, Kansas. Her work can be found, here. Her interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here. Jazz (2017) Meiji Era Prints - The Meiji Era of Japan was between 1868-1912 CE. This was a period of immense modernization and industrialization in Japan, where the Japanese economy was booming. New ideas within mokuhanga was occurring as well. Perspective, colour, through new pigments (gamboge, certain yellows), the advancement of photography, and new topics and themes (war, industry, architecture), the Meiji era print designer and publisher had a lot of choice when producing their prints.  Kansas University - founded in 1866 and is the state's flagship University. More info, here. They have a fine printmaking department as taught by Yoonmi Nam, Shawn Bitters, and Michael J. Kreuger. This department focuses on screen printing, lithography, and relief printing. Shawn Bitters - is a printmaker, painter, draftsperson, and photographer. He is Associate Professor, and Undergraduate Director at Kansas University.  Leftward (2007) Michael J. Kreuger - is a printmaker, ceramicist, painter, and animator. He is a Professor at Kansas University.  Two Moons on The River from the series Nondoing (2016) Lawrence Arts Center - is an arts space founded in 1975 in Lawrence, Kansas. More info, here.  Awagami Bamboo Select - is a heavy washi paper (170g), used in printmaking, letterpress, amongst other mediums. It can be purchased by Awagami Factory in Japan, here.  Pansion paper - is a medium-heavy, between 89-95g, paper used in printmaking.  Rives-BFK (Blanchet Frères & Kiebler) - is a type of paper made of 100% cotton, which comes in a variety of colours and weights.  Richard Steiner - is a mokuhanga printmaker who has been making prints for over fifty years. He has lived and worked in Kyōto, Japan since 1980. He is currently still making work. His interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  Nine Left, One Thanked (2017) Rebecca Salter - is the President of The Royal Academy of Arts, in London, England. She is also an artist who has written two books about Japanese woodblock printing, Japanese Woodblock Printing (2001), and Japanese Popular Prints (2006). She worked with the Satō Woodblock Print Workshop, documenting their process. Her interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  riff (2021) David Bull - is a Canadian woodblock printmaker, and educator who lives and works in Japan. His love of mokuhanga has almost singlehandedly promoted the art form outside Japan. His company, Mokuhankan, has a brick and mortar store in Asakusa, Tōkyō, and online, here.  bokashi -  is a Japanese term associated with the gradation of water into ink. There are several types of bokashi. For more information regarding these types of bokashi please check out Professor Claire Cuccio's lecture called “A Story in Layers,” for the Library of Congress, and the book Japanese Printmaking by Tōshi Yoshida, and Rei Yuki. Below are the following types of bokashi. This is from the Yoshida book: ichimonji bokashi - straight line gradation ichimonji mura bokashi - straight line gradation with an uneven edg. Ō-bokashi - a gradual shading over a wide area atenashi bokashi - gradation without definition futairo bokashi - two tone gradation Marvel Comics - is an American comic book publisher founded in 1961. Famous for Spider-Man, Wolverine, and the X-Men.  Jack Kirby (1917-1994) - was an artist and comic book innovator who focused on narrative in his work. More info can be found at the Kirby Museum, here.  from The Eternals (1976) Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) - was an American Pop artist, who worked in New York City. His early work was based on comic books, and later developed into abstract and the melding of different types of Western artistic genres such as Cubism, and Futurism. More info on Lichtenstein's work can be found, here, at the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.  serigraphy - is another word for the art of silk screen printing. Silk screen printing can be in on various materials, silk, canvas, paper.  reduction printmaking - is a process in printmaking where the printmaker cuts away on a piece of wood, or linoleum. After every carving, the printmaker makes an impression with pigments, beginning with lighter colours, gradually using darker colours. William H. Mays has a fine description of reduction on his website, here.  Cameron Bailey - is a mokuhanga printmaker based in Queens, New York. He works predominantly in the reduction method. His interview with the Unfinished Print can be found, here.   Paul Binnie (b. 1967) - is a Scottish born, mokuhanga printmaker, painter, and portraitist, based in San Diego, California. Paul's theme's in all of his mediums are of landscapes, beautiful men and women, as well as the kabuki theatre. You can find more information about his work, here, and on his Instagram, here.  Romanticism - was a Western art movement in the 1800's focusing on imagination and emotion. Coming after the Enlightenment, a period of order and morality, Romanticism focused on the power of nature, and the chaos of the world. More info can be found at the MET, here.   mudabori - is a technique in mokuhanga where the printmaker carves away unwanted wood in their key block during the colour separation process when planning their work. Power Grip - made by Mikisyo, Japan, Power Grip are wood carving tools of various types. Usually used by beginners, but are used by woodblock printmakers of all levels. masa paper - is a machine-made Japanese washi. Can be used in printmaking and is 100% sulphite pulp.  codex - is a type of book binding in the Western method and is a precursor to the modern book.  Japanese book-binding - in Japan the binding of books began with scroll books based on the Chinese method. Other binding methods evolved over time, such as flutter books (sempūyō) and butterfly books (detchōsō). By the Edo Period (1603-1868) and with the relative peace of the period, paper began to be produced at a steady rate creating a demand for books. Tale of Genji. and Tales of Ise were published for the very first time in this form. * Jon Lee - is a mokuhanga printmaker and tool maker based in Arizona. His interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  LO912 (2009) Gotō Hidehiko (b.1953) - is a mokuhanga printmaker and tool maker based in Japan. He makes and teaches seminars about the construction of the mokuhanga tool, the baren.  Nothingness (Kyomu) [2010] Chihiro Taki (b. 1988) - is a mokuhanga printmaker who lives and works in Japan. She helps to teach students at MI Lab as an instructor.  とばり - Shroud of Night  Michiko Hamada - is a mokuhanga printmaker based in Japan. She is an instructor at MI Lab. Her Instagram can be found, here.  AB and K ball-bearing baren - is a type of baren used in mokuhanga. It is considered an alternative to the traditional hon baren which is made of a bamboo sheathe, and cord. The ball-bearing baren is made up of plastic, metal, and ball-bearing balls of various types.  Bumpōdō - is an art store based in Tōkyō, Japan, and founded in 1887. The website can be found here, in Japanese. The English pdf, can be found, here.  Lucy May Schofield - is a British printmaker who works in mokuhanga, book binding, byōbu (screens), kakemono (scrolls). Her work has been shown all over the world. Her website can be found, here. Her Instagram, here.  The Mokuhanga Sisters - are a mokuhanga collective consisting of Yoonmi Nam, Mariko Jesse, Lucy May Schofield, Melissa Schulenberg, Kate MacDonagh, Katie Baldwin, Mia-O, Patty Hudak, and Natasha Norman. Instagram CfSHE Gallery - is a gallery located in Chiyoda, Tōkyō. It is associated with MI Lab. More info, here. Their Instagram can be found, here. MI Lab - is a mokuhanga residency located in Kawaguchi-ko, near Mount Fuji. More info can be found, here.  * Ikegami, Kojiro, and Barbara B. Stephan. Japanese Book Binding: Instructions from a Master Craftsman. New York etc.: Weatherhill, 1990. © Popular Wheat Productions opening and closing musical credit -Life is What You Make It,  by Diamon D from his newest record, The Rear View. (2022) logo designed and produced by Douglas Batchelor and André Zadorozny  Disclaimer: Please do not reproduce or use anything from this podcast without shooting me an email and getting my express written or verbal consent. I'm friendly :) Слава Україну If you find any issue with something in the show notes please let me know. ***The opinions expressed by guests in The Unfinished Print podcast are not necessarily those of André Zadorozny and of Popular Wheat Productions.***  

Episode No. 487 is a summer clips episode featuring curators Marshall N. Price and Elizabeth Finch. Price and Finch are the co-curators of "Roy Lichtenstein:  History in the Making, 1948-60." The exhibition examines Lichtenstein's early work, with particular attention to Lichtenstein's synthesis of European modernism, American painting and contemporary vernacular sources. The exhibition is on view at the Colby Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University through January 8, 2023. The excellent exhibition catalogue was published by Rizzoli Electa. Indiebound and Amazon offer it for about $33. From Waterville, Maine, the exhibition will travel to the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, NY, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Price and Finch are curators at the Nasher and Colby, which originated the show, respectively. For images see Episode No. 487. 

One's mokuhanga journey takes many twists and turns. One can begin that journey at any age, at any time. For Andrew Stone that journey began at the age of 40, where in the last  fifteen years or so, Andrew has done a deep dive into the nuances of the art form, from technique, to tools. His exploration into what makes mokuhanga, mokuhanga, is fascinating and important.  On this episode of The Unfinished Print, I speak with mokuhanga printmaker and baren maker Andrew Stone. We speak about his Florence Baren Project, his own mokuhanga, his life in Italy, his meeting with baren maker Hidehiko Gotō. We discuss his philosophies on mokuhanga and baren making, what it takes to make such a beautiful tool like the baren, and how they function and work.   Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints Twitter @unfinishedprint, or email me at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Andrew Stone - Lacrime di Rospo blog April Vollmer - is a mokuhanga artist based in New York City. She has been working in the medium for over thirty years. Her book, Japanese Woodblock Print Workshop, is a classic of the genre and a fantastic instructional book to begin mokuhanga. Andrew's wine label prints - here is one such print Andrew describes in his interview.  David Bull/Mokuhankan - David Bull is a Canadian mokuhanga printmaker and business owner based in the city and Prefecture of Tōkyō, Japan.  His company, Mokuhankan, has promoted the making of mokuhanga via the hanmoto or collaboration system of making woodblock prints, where the image begins as a black and white copy, evolving into a multi-layered colour woodblock print through a series of designers, carvers, and printmakers.   etegami - meaning image letter, etegami is a style of calligraphy which was created by Kokei Kunio in the 1960's, by writing his own distinct style of calligraphy on New Years postcards.  Although, sending postcards on New Years has been a tradition in Japan since the 700's. By using watercolours on washi, Kunio creates beautiful postcards which lend a hand to the ephemeral nature of the season and the medium.  lithography - is a printing process which requires a stone or aluminum plate, and was invented in the 18th Century. More info, here from the Tate.  Shin hanga - is a style of Japanese woodblock printmaking which began during the end of the Ukiyo-e period of Japanese printmaking, in the early 20th Century. Focusing on the foreign demand for “traditional” Japanese imagery and motifs such as castles, bridges, famous landscapes, bamboo forests, to name just a few.  Shin hanga was born in 1915 by Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) when he found Austrian artist Frtiz Capelari (1884-1950) and commissioned Capelari to design some prints for Watanabe's feldgling printing house . From there shin-hanga evolved into its own distinct “new” style of Japanese woodblock printing. It lasted as this distinct style until its innevitable decline after the Second World War (1939-1945). Pop art - is a an art movement generally connected to post war America and commodification. Artists such as Andy Warhol (1928-1987), and Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) are well known pop-artists. Rebecca Salter - is a British artist who focused on mokuhanga early in her career, and painting in later life. She is the President of The Royal Academy of Arts, London. Her book Japanese Woodblock Printing is a classic of the genre. Her interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  International Mokuhanga Conference - is a conference conducted by the International Mokuhanga Association for Japanese woodblock printing. It is held every two years and is themed. More info can be found, here.  Mara Cozzolino - is a mokuhanga artist, based in Turin, Italy. Mara's subjects tend to be landcapes and trees. Mara is also the IMC Publicity Advisor. Her interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  Annie Bissett - is a mokuhanga artist and designer based in Rhode Island, USA. Annie's subjects vary, from landscapes, politics, and even tarot. You can find her interview with the Unfinished Print, here.  California forest fires - The State of California in the United States, has dry, hot weather. Because of climate change, this has been exacerbated by a higher population, deforestation, and heavy use. Forest fires have become common yearly events. Impressionism - is a 19th Century art movement where the art is defined by visible brushstrokes, pastel colour, and the depiction of natural light. Artists associated with his movement are, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Claude Monet (1840-1926).  Fauvists - a group of artists and an art movement of the early 20th Century who focused on the painterly and lasted only a short time, 1904-1908. It is influenced by the Impressionists and is also considered a break from that. A few artists of this short movement are Henri Matisse (1869-1953), André Derain (1880-1954), Jean Puy (1876-1960), amongst others.  Secessionists  - is an independent art movement, and historical break of the avante garde from the conservative ideals of European art. This period was from the late 19th to the early 20th Century. Started in Germany (Munich Secession) and then onto Vienna led by Gustav Klimt  (1862-1918). The several secessionist movements of the late 19th century (Munich, Vienna, Berlin) was grouped as one movement in the 1970's by art scholars.  hanashita - is a thin sheet of gampi paper that is pasted, reverse side, on a piece of wood. This is a guide, carved onto the block and is generally used for the key block and subsequent colour blocks. Methods such as acetate with water based pigment, can also be used rather than the thin gampi paper, which can cause misregistration if not pasted correctly. Biomass plants in the EU - biomass is a form of energy which uses trees as energy. Large biomass plants can be found and subsidized by federal governments in Europe. They take in biological materials such as wood residue, energy crops and other agricultural residues and convert these items into energy. There are both pros and cons for this type of energy generation.  shina - is a type of wood used in mokuhanga. It is part of the linden family of trees. This wood is produced in various parts of the world, such as Japan and Russia. Not all shina is created equal so buyer beware. basswood - is a type of wood from the linden family of trees, soft and generally grainless. Can be used in mokuhanga.   Florence, Italy   - the capital of the Tuscany region of Italy. Famous for its renaissance architecture, and culture. Large art galleries, such as the Bargello National Museum, and the Uffizi Gallery, are located here. fabriano artistico - is a machine made Western watercolour paper, which can be purchased in rolls and sheets. Guerra Pigment - is a family run pigment store located in Brooklyn, New York. Holbein -  is a pigment company with offices located in Japan, The United States, and Canada. They offer high end gouache, watercolour, and pigment pastes.  Paul Furneaux - is a Scottish mokuhanga artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He makes abstract mokuhanga, mixed with wood and other mediums.  sizing recipe -  sizing is a term used for a recipe, containing animal glue, alum, and water. It is used to coat your paper, dried, and then remoistened and printed with,  to keep your pigments from bleeding in the paper. Sizing, in the short term, keeps your prints bright and colourful, although over time it has been proven that heavy sizing can deteriorate the print. Some recipes can be found, here, and here. McClains - is an online, and brick and mortar store located in Portland, Oregon, USA. It sells mokuhanga tools, books, and educational items. McClain's interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  takenogawa bamboo skin -  is a bamboo skin, made from a bamboo leaf, which covers the coils on your baren. You can wrap them yourself or have them sent to Japan to be wrapped professionally. Be sure to buy more than a few baren skins as you'll go through a few when wrapping your own baren. Gotō baren clinic Ginza - called Baren Juku, and located in the Ginza, Tōkyō. It was started in 2012. tannin - are a class of molecules which are found in amino acids and alkaloids. They are found in tree bark, wood, leaves, fruits, seeds, plants. They protect the tree from bugs and other infections. Gotō Huidehiko's book on baren -  Mia-0 - is a mokuhanga artist based in Tōkyō, Japan. Her work can be found, here.  Terry McKenna - is a mokuhanga printmaker based in Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan. He studied under Kyōto-based mokuhanga artist Richard Steiner. Terry also runs his own mokuhanga school in Karuizawa. His interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here. Richard Steiner's interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  John Moss -  is a mokuhanga artist based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. His work focuses on landscape. His work can be found here. His interview with The Unfinished Print can be found, here.  murasaki baren - is a mid-range mokuhanga baren. “murasaki” meaning “purple” , come in two types of weight (medium and heavy), and two types of sizes (10cm and 12cm). They are reasonably priced baren.  gomazuri - is a mokuhanga technique where slight pressure is used with pigments too make a “spotty” image, what look like sesame seeds. It can add depth to your prints.  baren suji zuri - is a Mokuhanga technique used with the baren and by the baren to create a circular design and can be layered with various colours. Paul Binnie's Black Storm (2016) is a fine example. Yuki baren -  is a heavy ball bearing baren made in Japan. It is used to print large flat colours.  Padua, Italy - is a city in the North of Italy, the Veneto region. It is famous for its frescoes and religious heritage. More info can be found, here.  bokashi - is a mokuhanga technique, where the pigment fades from a heavy colour to a softer, broad colour. Made famous by prints designed by Hokusai and Hiroshige, this technique is, for me, the most popular technique utilized by  mokuhanga printmakers. There are various types: Ichimoji-bokashi or straight line graduation, used in the above mentioned Hiroshige and Hokusai prints. Ichimoji-mura-bokashi or straight line gradation with uneven edge. Ō-bokashi or wide gradation, Ate-nashi-bokashi or gradation without definition. Futa-iro-bokashi or two tone gradation, and ita-bokashi or softer-edge gradation, where the block is cut in a specific way to achieve this style of gradation. All of these styles of bokashi technique take practice and skill but are very much doable.  © Popular Wheat Productions opening and closing credit music - Rob Swift, A Turntable Experience, from trhe album Soulful Fruit (1997) logo designed and produced by Douglas Batchelor and André Zadorozny  Disclaimer: Please do not reproduce or use anything from this podcast without shooting me an email and getting my express written or verbal consent. I'm friendly :) Слава Україну If you find any issue with something in the show notes please let me know. ***The opinions expressed by guests in The Unfinished Print podcast are not necessarily those of André Zadorozny and of Popular Wheat Productions.***      

In 1964, Life Magazine ran with Lichtenstein on the cover and the text read “Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?” Lichtenstein responded to criticism of his work saying “I think my paintings are critically transformed, but it would be difficult to prove it by any rational line of argument." Seems like kind of a weak defense. Basically, ‘I think my work is good, but there's really no rational argument in favor of it.' I mean its a bold move. I'll give him that. He painted Look Mickey after his son taunted him saying he couldn't paint something that good. There is something I really love about the idea that basically his entire career was the ultimate “so there” to a child. I mean doing your work out of spite is one thing, but doing it to spite your child, that's some next level pettiness. My guest this week was The Real Michael Lee, a musician, graphic designer and comic artist based out of Iowa. You can find him at www.therealmichaellee.com and or go to his links page to check out all the different spaces he occupies online. In this episode, we dropped a lot of names. Take a minute to look through my back catalog to learn more about Jack Kirby, Pablo Picasso's Guernica, Diego Rivera, Ernie Barnes and Andy Warhol. As I said in the show, feel free to leave a comment on the message boards at Goodpods, the platform with the good sense to feature Who ARTed on their recommendations list and where I am frequently ranked number 1 for visual arts. Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. Connect with me: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tiktok Support the show: Merch from TeePublic | Buy me a coffee As always you can find images of the work being discussed at www.WhoARTedPodcast.com and of course, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. You might hear it read out on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices