September 30, 2005
Extraordinary photographs at the Met's new exhibit The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult recall a vastly different world, one of ghosts, extraworldly phenomena, and astounding photographic techniques that still tantalize the imagination even after 100 years. Recall that our previous world--the one before technology seemingly conquered everything except our own mental ghosts--was endowed with spirits, phantasms and vital occult forces, and these were everpresent forces in daily life. Whether Swiss mountain legends found in the Alpensagen or rumors of Tibetan oracles, everyday life in Europe (and the United States) more than a century ago grappled with these phenomena, and the pioneers of photography certainly did their share to capitalize on and reflect these extraworldly forces. The world that led to the Mesmeric mania of 1851; the world of Madame Blavatsky and her followers; the world of seances...none of these simply cropped up overnight. All the more reason why this exhibit is so utterly fascinating. It took until 1913, when Wegener's Der Student von Prag arrived on the big screen to see moving images of a doppelgänger, but decades earlier photographic techniques had already produced such fantasies as the ghost of Abraham Lincoln (learn more about this in the exhibit).
Photo: Eugène Thiébault (French, b. 1825), Henri Robin and a Specter(1863)
Tags:
medium, met, occult, phantasms, photography, spirits
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Posted on 9/30/2005
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September 23, 2005
The children of Marx and Coca-Cola was how Godard described the two main characters of his 1966 classic Masculin Féminin, though I can't find anywhere how Andy Warhol described the main characters of his 1971 Bad. Since MF just came out on DVD, I thought I'd reflect on the crumbling New York City of Bad, replete with the creepy lady in Queens who runs both an electrolysis business ("hold still, hold still!") and a charming string of female contract killers out her home. In Bad, trash is everywhere in the streets; a baby gets thrown out the window; and later we see Brigid Polk tell two women who look like precursors of Laverne and Shirley: "You gotta kill a dawg, and you gotta kill him dirty." Polk's character hates her neighbor and his dog, which she describes in great length. (Hopefully you've read The Philosophy of Andy Warhol or the Diaries to read other dizzying manifestoes, such as about apartment cleaning, by Warhol's female pals.)
How to contrast the imperial superego of mid-sixties Paris of MF and Godard's later Weekend with the early filthy id of New York City? I won't bother. Rent the DVDs and watch these charming worlds in flux, then reflect on how compared with our big cities five years into the new millennium, things probably weren't that bad back then after all. Both are brilliant movies worth watching over and over.
Tags:
andy warhol, bad, godard, masculin feminin
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Posted on 9/23/2005
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September 07, 2005
Hurricane Katrina has absolutely taken the wind from the sails of WTC reconstruction, and the wind might not blow this way again. Santiago Calatrava's design for the transportation hub is terrific, and it was great so many officials were here to celebrate. But it's all a bit of an enigma at present; here we are four years later with a gaping hole in the ground, and the worst natural disaster in American history has just happened. Over a million people need immediate and long-lasting relief. Do our needs pale in comparison? Is funding for the WTC memorial in jeopardy? Will the squabbling over the Freedom Tower and memorial ever cease? Are the victims of Hurricane Katrina more needy? I certainly haven't got the answers to any of these questions.
Tags:
freedom tower, hurricane, katrina, wtc memorial
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Posted on 9/7/2005
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