Not Worth Breakfast?

An anonymous  Swiss art collector has offered to buy Peter Silverman “lunch and dinner and caviar for the rest of my life if the painting ever does get sold.”

Silverman purchased Profile of the Bella Principessa at the Ganz gallery in New York on behalf of an anonymous Swiss collector in 2007 for about $19,000.

Peter Paul Biro, a forensic art expert, said that a fingerprint on what was presumed to be a 19th century German drawing of a young woman has convinced art experts that it’s actually a work by Leonardo da Vinci.

(Biro is the expert that was called in to authenticate Terri Horton’s alleged Jackson Pollock work. His findings were dismissed.)

Bella Principessa has now been valued at $150 million – IF it truly is a da Vinci.

Spiritual America – 2005 Replaces 1983

The Tate Modern was visited two weeks ago by a London police unit that deals with obscene publications.

As a result, the museum has removed a work by artist Richard Prince of a ten year old, nude, oiled and made-up Brooke Shields and replaced it with a 2005 version of the work.

Additionally, the exhibition catalogue has been withdrawn from sale.

I find the newer work to be pedestrian, commercial and uninteresting at best.

Interestingly, the questionable work  was the subject of an earlier litigation.

In the 1980s photographer Garry Gross sued Prince over Spiritual America, a work that consisted of a blown-up copy of a picture Gross took.

Mr. Gross said, The photo has been infamous from the day I took it and I intended it to be.

I suppose the lesson is to be carefully what you wish for.

That Didn’t Take Long

12,500 people visited Miroslaw Balka’s exhibit, How It Is, at the Tate Modern on opening day today with only one incident – a  man walked straight into a wall, receiving a lump on his nose and having blood on his suit.

I wonder if he is related to the people who tripped over Doris Salcedo’s work two years ago on its opening day at the Tate…

What do we think?

Are the Brits accident-prone?

Is it the overwhelming distraction of art?

Is it the massiveness of the Tate?

One recalls there were no incidents involved in the 2003 Olafur Eliasson exhibit…

My misanthropic feelings are summed up quite succinctly in this review, aptly titled Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall Is Wasted On The Public.

Please take a few moments to read it in its entirety.

Granted, I am all for bicep kissing while in a museum, but respect should be paid nonetheless.

To Be Unnerved And Unsettled

How It Is by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka is the 10th annual commission in the Tate Modern’s Unilever Series.

It is raised six feet six inches off the ground so that visitors can wander underneath before walking up a ramp and entering the container to immerse themselves in complete, utter blackness.

The work has been built by a structural metalwork company, Littlehampton Welding, and the interior walls are lined with a soft flock that is ten times blacker than normal black paint.

The title of the installation is inspired by Samuel Beckett’s novel How It Is.

Balka alludes to many subjects in the work  – the biblical Plague of Darkness, black holes in space and images of hell. He said the piece should be seen as being about everything and nothing – a space for contemplation.

He added, You can shape this yourself. The shape you create is not just about your body, it’s about your mind.

Another Gal Making History

It’s official.

Zenyatta tied the record of Personal Ensign by taking the Lady’s Secret race in Santa Anita today.

The five year old mare came from her usual spot at the back of the pack and powered through the stretch to remain unbeaten in her stellar career.

Trainer John Shirreffs said, Thirteen in a row. Personal Ensign … I mean, it’s historic. It’s a once in a lifetime horse, believe me. You don’t see Zenyattas. They come so seldom.

Here’s the race:

Coincidentally…

The Nobel Peace Prize winner was announced today.

I cannot say anything more than to quote the great T.S. Eliot - The Nobel is a ticket to one’s own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it.

In a pleasing bit of  synchronicity, yesterday the BBC announced the results of its poll celebrating National Poetry Day, which asked Brits to name their favorite poet, and the winner is…

Nobel Prize Winner T.S. Eliot!!!! That’s right! You HAVE been paying attention!

The sad thing that occurred to me is that if this poll had been conducted in the US, I doubt if anyone could have come up with the name of ten poets, let alone their FAVORITE.

Let’s see, there’s Dr. Seuss…and it’s all downhill from there.

Here is the complete list of Britain’s favorite poets according to the BBC poll:

1. T.S. Eliot
2. John Donne
3. Benjamin Zephaniah
4. Wilfred Owen
5. Philip Larkin
6. William Blake
7. William Butler Yeats
8. John Betjeman
9. John Keats
10. Dylan Thomas

I especially was fond of how the BBC reported the polling  – as if it were an exciting horse race -

TS Eliot won the poll in a tight final, narrowly pipping John Donne at the post.

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Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. –T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, II (The Sacred Wood, 1922)

Marilyn Monroe, Cindy Crawford…Marge.

The November issue of  Playboy is hitting the stands with a once-in-a-lifetime cover girl…Marge Simpson – yes, the blue beehived matriarch of America’s most loved dysfunctional family!

Scott Flanders, the recently-hired chief executive of Playboy Enterprises, said the Marge Simpson cover and centerfold was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It had never been done, and we thought it would be kind of hip, cool and unusual.

The magazine will also feature an article entitled, The Devil In Marge Simpson.

It was not revealed if Mr. Flanders is in any way related to Simpson’s star, Ned Flanders, making this cover a blatant act of nepotism.

Irving Penn – 1917 – 2009

Photographer Irving Penn passed away today.

During his lengthy career in which he specialized in fashion phtography, Penn’s work has been acclaimed for a curious unworldliness, a clarity of purpose, and a freedom of decision.

John Szarkowski, then the Museum of Modern Art’s  director of photography wrote,

The grace, wit, and inventiveness of his pattern-making, the lively and surprising elegance of his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light make Irving Penn’s pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes.

Alberto Giacometti, Paris 1950 by Irving Penn

All ABout All About Steve

So, the other day whilst at work, I got into a discussion with my friend The McMunster and he asked me if I had seen the new Sandra Bullock movie. I looked at him, and replied that I wouldn’t consider The Proposal very new, but that I had seen it and it was all you could want in a romantic, Sandra Bullock comedy.

He then informed me that there was ANOTHER film, entitled All About Steve, in which she, to quote him, looked very HOT , with long blonde hair.

This got my attention, as naturally it would.

Well.

I saw the film today.

It was one of the most painful of cinematic experiences and ranks as the Second Worst Film I have ever sat through in a theatre.

Happily. I am not alone in my views.

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 6% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 72 reviews, with the consensus report saying:

All About Steve is an oddly creepy, sour film, featuring a heroine so desperate and peculiar that audiences may be more likely to pity than root for her.

Many critics have described the film as the worst they have seen this year, and the lowest point in Bullock’s career, displacing Speed 2: Cruise Control.

Forty Years.

Truly, I just can’t imagine working with the same people for forty years.

Then again, since that is practically ALL of my life, I can’t imagine doing ANYTHING for that amount of time.

Forty years ago, Tim Hauser put together a sophisticated little singing group he hoped would make a few hits.

The Manhattan Transfer went on to top music charts in Europe, and to dominate the US jazz vocal scene for four decades, winning TEN  Grammy Awards in both pop and jazz categories (they have received seventeen nominations.)

In 1981 they were the first group to win Grammys in both the jazz and pop categories — for Boy from New York City,” (pop) and Corner Pocket (jazz).

Four years later, the group’s album tribute to Jon Hendricks, Vocalese, earned 12 nominations, the same as Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It won two Grammys.

Still touring and recording, they have just released their 28th CD, The Chick Corea Songbook.

Cheryl Bentyne, who joined the Transfer in 1978, replacing original member Laurel Masse, explained what the group was trying to do:

Art cannot get stale — then it’s not art anymore, then it’s just repetition. Art is being bold and taking a chance. If you don’t get out on that ledge once in a while, there’s no point.

Hauser added:

Creative differences? We thrive on creative differences! We can’t agree on anything. It takes us forever to agree.  But There are certain guidelines that have to transcend personal feelings.

I think underneath all of that we all genuinely like each other. And we all understand that what we do collectively is greater than what we do individually.

Here is definitive clip of their astounding vocal abilities, featuring members Janis Siegel, Tim Hauser, Alan Paul and Cheryl Benytne in Jean-Paul Gaultier designed costumes (well before he met Madonna)…this is probably the best a cappella singing you’ll ever hear…