Purple, White, Red and Rothko

Do not trust

your first glance.

This has nothing whatever

to do with France.

Mark Rothko’s untitled 1953 painting, dubbed “Purple, White, and Red” since its first exhibition in Venice in June of 1970 (four months after the artist’s suicide), was fully acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1984, but even the avid museum-goer may never have seen it.  In response to the renewed interest in Rothko stemming from the success of John Logan’s 2010 Tony Award-winning play Red, and the recent Goodman Theatre production of the play, the Art Institute has, after many years out of sight, re-displayed the work directly across from the Rothko even the one-time tourist may have seen there – his untitled “orange” work acquired by the Art Institute in 1954.    

Those fortunate enough to see Red, which closed yesterday, may remember Rothko’s monologue regarding the Caravaggio painting, The Conversion on the Way to Damascus (1601).  Rothko explains that the painting was commissioned specifically for a poorly-lit corner in Cerasi Chapel at the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome (where it has remained to this today).  Caravaggio decided that if his painting could not be illuminated properly (a major concern of Rothko’s throughout his career, and highlighted in Red), he would illuminate the painting from within.  This was achieved through dramatic chiaroscuro (a shift from light to dark), and, although its invention is credited to Leonard da Vinci, it became known as Tenebrism (or “Caravaggesque tenebrism,” as Caravaggio became known for, and synonymous with, the technique.)

Rothko certainly applied this Baroque-honed technique to his abstract expressionist “Purple, White, and Red” (possibly the very painting to which the title character rushes in his moment of inspiration sparked by the monologue).  But unlike Caravaggio, whose intention was to create a realistic encounter with God by thrusting a bright light upon his work, Rothko used the technique to create a realistic, metaphysical “doorway into purely spiritual realms” by simulating light radiating from the work.    

But the meaty magic of this Rothko is not confined to its triumph of chiaroscuro.  (Unfortunately, due to an over-abundance of gallery lighting, the viewer cannot fully appreciate the work’s self-luminescence.  Rothko would not be pleased.)  At first glance, the painting looks like a modern variation of the French flag.  It is not.  The three-dimensional, puffy, misshapen, weather-worn bricks stick out several inches from the canvas as they hover, fighting dispassionately to free themselves from the force that holds them in position, separated by clouded and misty voids.      

The viewer may be so astounded by the theatrical “Purple, White, and Red” that he or she may not remember to turn around and pay tribute to “Orange.”  Let’s hope the Art Institute does not see the closing of Red as sufficient cause to lift this work from its nail, but, instead, gives a gentle nudge to the dimming mechanism.    

Figure with Not Enough Meat

The Fat

In 1946, figurative painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992), a descendant of Sir Francis Bacon, the champion of the scientific method, began painting variations of Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (c. 1650) – his “Screaming Popes” series.  One of the surviving works in this sequence, and perhaps the most famous of them, Figure with Meat (1954), was purchased by the Art Institute in 1956.    

The catalog essay provided by the Art Institute explains that this “grotesque, almost nightmarish” painting expresses “the ethos of the postwar era” by using hanging meat, inspired by Rembrandt’s Carcass of Beef (1657), to present the pope as both “a depraved butcher” and/or “a victim.”  This “existential view of damnation” has found its way into popular culture, placing it forever into that category of works artists simply must know.    

The Fork

According to Clive Bell’s influential work on criticism Art (1913), we must now toss all the aforementioned information aside.  Bell was a champion of formalist criticism, which proclaims, as he describes in his landmark book, that “to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions.”  If a work of art is “good,” it should illicit “aesthetic emotion” (an emotional experience) - on its own.  Its context – its history, what it represents, etc. – is irrelevant.  Once the fat is yanked away, what will be left for consumption?

The Meat

Removing Figure with Meat from its context, and ignoring the blanket of praise thrust upon the work, one is left with a painting that is, at best, lack-luster and confusing.  The work fails to achieve the terror and revulsion that other works in this series, particularly the terrifying Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (owned by the Des Moines Art Center), do at a glance.  The screaming pope of this work more resembles a smeared image of the cranky, middle-aged, blind, wheelchair-bound Hamm of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Endgame (1957).  The painting is covered by glass (as Bacon intended), which distracts the viewer with the sight of his or her own shadowy image.  

The Meal

The aesthetic experience of Figure with Meat leaves one famished, and has the fright factor of a wall hanging in a poorly-devised, ineffective haunted house.  Although speaking of art criticisms today, a line from James Elkins’s book What Happened to Art Criticism? sums up this baffling work of Francis Bacon best: “There just isn’t enough meat in [it] to make a meal.”    

Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery

by Jason Buhrmester (Three Rivers Press, 2009)

This nostalgic heist novel, set in Baltimore and New York City, invents a clever solution to the infamous unsolved robbery of Led Zeppelin in 1973.  The facts are these: Led Zeppelin was staying at the Drake Hotel in New York City during their Madison Square Garden tour dates.  On the last of those dates, more than $200,000 was stolen from the band’s safe deposit box at the hotel.  The money was never found, and the hotel was sued for damages.  Aside from the names of Led Zeppelin band members and staff, everything else is the result of Buhrmester’s imagination.         

"I want to rob Led Zeppelin.”

Patrick, a 20-year-old Baltimore native, returns home from New York City to assemble the old gang for one last job.  He returns on the day one of the guys, Alex, is to be released from jail after serving eight months for breaking and entering.  The rest of the group consists of Frenchy, the manager of a record store and rock ‘n’ roll impersonator, and Keith, a car stereo installer and thief.  The four friends worked for Tony Mancini, a “three hundred pound caveman” whose various business endeavors were designed to steal from wealthy customers.  They were thieves.  They are still thieves.  And Patrick has a plan for a heist that none of them will be able to resist (even if it was Patrick last idea that got Alex locked up).  With the help of Alex’s Uncle Danny, a master and novice criminal at once, the gang will navigate a violent and strangely-religious world in an attempt to pull off the greatest heist in rock ‘n’ roll history.     

The characters are criminals, and, although the gang members are concerned for one another’s safety, they live in a criminal’s world.  It is a dangerous, violent, manipulative world in which people ask how you are and where you are going so they can rob you or keep a mental record of how to destroy you later, should they have to.   

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

Among the typical (but not tepid) twists and turns of a heist novel plot is an effortlessly evolving critique on the nature of theft in our world.  On the very first page, we learn that Patrick would “sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night to make a lunch just so I could pocket my lunch money.”  The lunch money became Black Sabbath records.  This high school scam was probably put aside when he realized he could steal the food and the records.  And the car stereo.  And whatever else he wanted sitting unguarded in the places in which people kept their nice things.  If you ask him to watch your purse, it will be returned to you minus any cash.  You will find it in your heart to forgive him.

The last mention of theft is an accusation mentioned throughout the book: Led Zeppelin stole many of their songs from other bands.  “Someday somebody’s going to clean these British boys out for what they’ve done.”  Frenchy, who earns money on the side covering and copying rock ‘n’ roll icons insists, “Everyone borrows, man.  That’s just music.”  In Patrick’s world, the lesser feel justified in stealing from the greater, and vice versa.  In the world of rock ‘n’ roll, the greater feel justified in stealing from the lesser, and vice versa.  Perhaps, all bullshit aside, this is the great cycle of our own hypocritical world – we all steal from each other.

If you steal a song from someone and do better with it than they did, is it yours?  How about someone’s guitar?  Is there a difference?  Did Jason Buhrmester steal this book about theft?  In the acknowledgements the author thanks his brother for “creating so many of the ridiculous situations in this dumb little book” and a long list of people “whose lunatic behavior may have found its way into these pages somehow.”  In this way, Buhrmester acknowledges the thieving nature of a writer’s process.

As you read this book, the plot will twist and turn along with your grasp on what is right and wrong.  Either road should be an engaging one for any day tripper.  The book will also have you tugging on the character's t-shirts to get the f@#k out of there.    

Real Steel at Navy Pier IMAX Theatre

Surrogate.

The Navy Pier IMAX boasts the largest screen in Chicago at 60 x 80 ft., but even a screen that size cannot make a film bigger (or better) than it is.  Ultimately, the film is merely a second-rate surrogate for the real steal behind it.    

Based on “Steel,” a 1956 short story by Richard Matheson, Real Steel is the story of a robot boxing trainer/agent/operator named Charlie Kenton (played by Hugh Jackman) who is suddenly forced to deal with his son, Max Kenton (played by Dakota Goyo), following the death of the boy’s mother.  Together, they train a robot how to fight and dance. 

Charlie has a tragic flaw – he is too cocky.  “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall.”  His son’s haughtiness is a magnified version, but so is his business sense.  In the hands of a child, the two are as much a blessing as they are hazards to humility (and, later, humanity).  The more compelling film may be the sequel in which Max Kenton has either gone the way of Clarence Darrow or P.T. Barnum.

The world of Real Steel, about ten years in the future, is one in which people live via surrogate.  Seldom is there a battle, figurative or literal, one fights mano-a-mano (hand-to-hand).  Perhaps this is our fate.  We already live a great deal through surrogates.  Laws are made by a representative government.  Virtual reality in its many forms continues to grow as a popular source of entertainment.  Speaking itself has been replaced by, oddly enough, man-a-mano communication in the form texts and internet messaging.  Man also uses surrogates to regain the self he was given.  Stephen Hawking uses an electronic voice synthesizer to communicate.  Runners with prosthetic legs run marathons.    

But can technological surrogacy be harmful?  The film seems to feel that living through surrogates isn’t such a bad thing.  The robots dish out and take the punches, and the humans hold the controls and cheer.  You can even tell your father you love him, and vise versa, by coming to the theatre and letting the movie do it for you. 

The danger of surrogates lies in that very distance they create between people – the ones that conceive the task and initiate action.  For instance, if you want to call one of your 14-year-old classmates a faggot and tell him to kill himself, you don’t need to be the kind of person who can say it to his face.  You can send him a message online.  Not that I advocate doing that.  I don’t.  If you want to do that, you should go fuck yourself.      

And after you’ve fucked yourself, ask why you are considering a technological surrogate to go further than you yourself are able to go.  Charlie Kenton explains to his son that a transition from human to robot boxers was necessary because boxing fans demanded more and more violence until it was no longer possible for human boxers to satisfy them.  (Feel free to wander down this road, but I must return to the review…)

One compelling issue in the film is the robot’s awareness.  We know the robot “is” Charlie and Max, but is it alive?  We have evidence to believe this, but this reality isn’t given its due.  It’s an aside.  It’s something you can ponder when the film is dragging and does nothing more than confuse people down the path. 

But the film is not without merit.  (It “coulda been a contender…”)  One must recognize the attempt to create a movie about robot boxing with a depth uncharacteristic of the genre.  Had it not structured itself so closely to the 1973 Peter Bogdanovich film Paper Moon, the performance of Dakota Goyo (playing Max Kenton) would not appear flat next to the award-winning performance of then-10-year-old Tatum O’Neal. 

Perhaps the film will prove a beneficial surrogate to boys and their fathers, who, while watching the film together, or apart, will have unspoken moments of understanding neither could communicate at home.  Or it will just be awkward.  

Ha-Why, Oh, Ha-Why, Can’t We Move On From This

Fifty years ago, a woman appeared on a stage in New York City and gave a drug-induced performance of nostalgic tunes, some of which were of a questionable nature.

The woman was Judy Garland, and the venue was Carnegie Hall.  The album was the highlight of it's time, but now its contents sound like something you would hear coming out of certain kinds of bars.  It should be stamped "irrelevant" and placed in the back of a very deep, locked drawer.     

If you pumped me full of red ones and blue ones, I could probably give a performance of “Swanee” that would knock your socks off.

At times, the album conquers up images of America’s racist past.  Garland passionately performs “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody,” “Swanee” and “After You’ve Gone” with the descending glissandos characteristic of minstrel songs.  All three songs were recorded by Al Jolson, the most popular minstrel star of his time, who would perform them in black-face.  It is through these “Old South”-glorifying ballads that we see the true roots and spine of Judy Garland.  She was a minstrel.  In fact, she once sang a song that announced it with pride:

“For oh so many years I’ve been a minstrel girl,

singing for my supper in the throng.

And in that time my world has been a minstrel world,

and the history of my life is in my songs.”

Minstrel shows became popular decades before the Civil War, and, with the help of Judy Garland, the beloved menstrual minstrel, the music has endured to the present day. 

Judy at Carnegie Hall

July 10^th marked the 50^th anniversary of the release of Judy at Carnegie Hall, the recording of Judy Garland’s landmark performance at that venue.  The album notes describe Judy’s performance on that evening of April 23, 1961 as “probably the greatest evening in show business history,” a claim that is seldom disputed to this day.  Garland celebrated 50 years of American music that night, performing songs by, among others, Harold Arlen, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart, Alan Jay Lerner and Fredrick Loewe, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer. 

Judy Garland became a household name in 1939 when she starred as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, the film in which she introduced Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow.”  Garland would go on to great personal and professional triumphs and failures (all of which have been documented and debated ad nauseam in both credible and non-credible forums). 

The performance and recordings are a matter of continued interest.  Vanity Fair published a detailed account of the evening, as well as the days preceding it, in May.  Rufus Wainwright recreated the concert in 2007.  A documentary film, which recalls the historic event through the eyes of those who were there, is in production, and due to be released in 2012.

From the overture to the final (fourth) encore, the album is a master class in communicating songs - not just the music and lyrics, but also the story - to an audience.  Every instant is Garland at her very best – complete with the signature Garland vibrato.  The final verse of the "Almost Like Being in Love" and "This Can’t Be Love" medley is a punctuation contest between Garland and the orchestra.  The collective, relentless pulse, with just the right amount of cymbal, intensifies into an inescapable awe.  "Do it Again" is a masterpiece of phrasing.  Her rendition of “The Man that Got Away," a Garland signature, is complicated and raw.  Garland alternates between moments that tremble with despair then melt away, and explosive, cathartic moments that shake one's foundation.  

By the time we reach “Over the Rainbow,” we have already been through quite a bit.  Her rendition is filled with longing and sadness, and we are reminded: we have lost a great, irreplaceable legend.  The album continues to inspire generations of musicians, and is widely know as the gold-standard for live performance.    

Garland ended the historic concert with a soaring rendition of Fred Fisher’s Prohibition Era “Chicago,” highlighting the great sites of our wonderful, windy town:   

"On State Street, that great street,

I just wanna stay, I just wanna stay.

They do things they don’t do on Broadway.”