MSB brainstorming

26 December 2008

Gene Colan wins Cartoon Art Museum's Sparky Award




San Francisco, CA: The Cartoon Art Museum is proud to announce that Gene Colan is the recipient of the 2008 Sparky Award, which was presented to him by CAM founder Malcolm Whyte during the museum's "Salute to Gene Colan" on Thursday, December 4, 2008.

The Sparky Award is named in honor of Charles "Sparky" Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. Schulz was nicknamed "Sparky" after the horse Sparkplug featured in the comic strip Barney Google. The Cartoon Art Museum would not exist without benefactors like Sparky Schulz and his wife, Jeannie. The Sparky Award is presented on behalf of the Cartoon Art Museum and the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Library.

The award celebrates the significant contributions of cartoon artists who embody the talent, innovation and humanity of Charles M. Schulz. Past recipients include Schulz himself, Sergio Aragones, Gus Arriola, Carl Barks, Will Eisner, Creig Flessel, Phil Frank, Lou Grant, Chuck Jones, Ward Kimball, Gary Larson, John Lasseter, Stan Lee, Bill Melendez, Dale Messick, John Severin and Morrie Turner.



Live testimonials were given by several notable collaborators of Colan's, including writer Steve Englehart, comic book inkers Steve Leialoha and Joe Rubinstein, and Daniel Cooney, a former pupil of Colan's, who is now a professional comic book artist and a professor at the Academy of Art University. Written testimonials were provided by Mike Richardson and Diana Schutz of Dark Horse Comics, Paul Levitz of DC Comics, and Dean Mullaney of Eclipse Comics, and a video tribute was provided by Colan's longtime friend and collaborator Stan Lee. Mr. Colan was interviewed onstage by noted author Glen David Gold, the lead curator on the Cartoon Art Museum's current tribute exhibition, Colan: Visions of a Man without Fear, which is on display at the Cartoon Art Museum through March 15, 2009.

For more information about Gene Colan, please visit his website, http://www.genecolan.com
General information about the exhibition is available at the museum's website, http://www.cartoonart.org

21 December 2008

Proximity Magazine's Theory Column: Artists Write; DAVID REED: "Jackson Pollock and Piero della Francesca Ride Lonesome"



Proximity magazine number 3 has just been released. One of the features, as mentioned before here, is edited by your friendly EuroShark. I am organizing short theoretical essays from other active artists. The Proximity editors are also gracious enough to allow us to publish the essays on Sharkforum as well as in their magazine. They would love subscribers, though!

This issue and the next issue feature a wonderful two part essay I solicited from renowned NYC painter, David Reed, titled Jackson Pollock and Piero della Francesca Ride Lonesome. Here is the first part ...

Artists Write: Thinking While Making Things

Proximity's first essay for its Theory Series is by the renowned New York painter David Reed. In addition to exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the world he recently helped organize the significant exhibition "High Times - Hard Times, New York Painting 1967-1975." His article will be presented in two parts.

Jackson Pollock and Piero della Francesca Ride Lonesome, Part 1

-- David Reed

As a young painter I went to live and paint in the desert of the Southwest. I was fascinated by the unlimited, unlocated space of Jackson Pollock's paintings and felt that I had found an equivalent in the vistas of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. By painting the Big Space of the landscape I hoped to better understand Pollock's space and learn how to use it in painting. At the time I didn't realize how much my view of this space -- both in the landscape and in Pollock's paintings -- had been determined by the western movies I had seen while growing up.

Budd Boetticher's Ride Lonesome (Ranown/Columbia, 1959) is a spare, 73- minute CinemaScope western, shot in only 12 days. The director of photography is Charles Lawton, Jr., and the script is by Burt Kennedy. It is seventh in a series of eight westerns starring Randolph Scott, directed by Boetticher and produced by Scott, Boetticher and Harry Joe Brown. Westerns are always variations on classic prototypes. The films in this cycle continue classic western themes, yet they also break these traditions in wildly inventive ways. Since the same star, director, producers, writers, and cinematographers worked together in this series, the films are unusually collaborative in conception. Watching this film, one senses the freshness of quick, instinctive decisions.

To be understood, this movie must be seen on a large screen in CinemaScope. Then the screen opens to vision as does a painting by Pollock. The space and light are vast and unlimited, yet the story is very simple. This contrast creates the tensions and meanings in the movie.

The narrative is a journey lasting 72 hours, 3 days and 3 nights. Alternations of day to night and of night to day mark each of the three main locations: the Wells Junction swing station, Dobie's corral, and the hanging tree.

There are six characters in the story, five men and one woman: Ben Brigade (Randolph Scott), Sam Boone (Pernell Roberts), Billy John (James Best), Frank John (Lee Van Cleef), Wid (James Coburn), and Mrs. Lane (Karen Steele).

All the scenes are outdoors, surrounded by swirling dust and distant mountains. There is a visual balance between the human figures and the landscape. Neither dominates. This is like the balanced figure/ground relationship in Jackson Pollock's overall space and it has the same effect. Watching this movie, one is constantly visually alert, scanning the whole landscape and trying to take it all in. One is always aware of how each detail it fits into the whole.

More than most directors of Westerns, Boetticher has an rare appreciation and understanding of horses. They appear in most scenes. The first line is 'spoken' by a horse; the second, to a horse. Horses are as important as the human characters, tying them to the landscape. When Boone proposes to Mrs. Lane, inviting her to live a fantasy life with him on his ranch, she is saddling her horse, and he walks towards her leading his. It's almost as if the horses need to talk and the humans are simply there to help them.

Ride Lonesome is not a psychological western. It's about movement through space, time, location and light. The only interior scene is a view out from the swing station porch. This framed view of the landscape is the fulcrum from which the journey begins. We watch Brigade, Mrs. Lane, Boone, Billy and Wid file by individually. Later we see Frank and the boys ride through the same framed view, repeating the path followed by the others -- one so clear it could be diagrammed.

There are two contrasting locations: Santa Cruz, where Billy is to be turned in, and Boone's homestead in Socorro. The domestic interior life which Boone fantasizes he can live with Mrs. Lane and Wid is unlike anything in the outdoor scenes. However, having viewed the landscape from an interior at the station, we feel Boone can reach his goal.

It's tempting to write of composition when writing of the scenes in this movie, but as in Pollock's paintings, that is really not what is going on. The camera is almost always moving, showing figures from below when close-up and from above when further away. There is a classic CinemaScope scene in which the camera travels alongside Brigade and Boone as they ride talking on horseback. As we move along with them we are aware before they are of the Mescaleros appearing over hills on the far left of the screen. Motion either from the camera or within the scene is what is important, not composition. Boone doesn't just leave a scene, he throws Wid a rifle. We identify with this movement and CinemaScope gives the gesture a remarkable naturalness, as direct and immediate as the gestures in Pollock's paintings.

Just before he charges Brigade in their final showdown, Frank sits motionless on his horse and one notices the trees blowing gently behind him. This movement in the trees, while Frank and Brigade are frozen, has an eerie but naturalistic quality. At this moment of final confrontation we don't identify with the human characters but with the landscape instead.

End of Part 1, to be continued next issue.

20 December 2008

Juliana Beasley, Holiday Print Sale



As Lisa Hunter, the Intrepid Art Collector reports, "here's a treat for serious collectors: Juliana Beasley, heir apparent to Toulouse-Lautrec, is having a holiday print sale. She's selling four images from her series "Last Stop: Rockaway Park" in a nice size (18x18) for $250 to $300.

These images were shown at Freize and are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But you don't need to read her CV to know that Beasley's the real deal. This holiday edition is limited to 15 prints, so don't dawdle."

The image is "Leopard Lady" by Juliana Beasley.
See her website for more images.

15 December 2008

Out of Sequence, Krannert Art Museum Video

A super short (2 min. 35 sec.) TV video clip of the exhibition "Out of Sequence: Under Represented Voices in American Comics," which is on exhibition at the University of Illinois' Krannert Art Museum. This video tours the exhibition with its co-curators, Professor John Jennings and PhD candidate Damian Duffy. Mark Staff Brandl's corner Panels painting-installation and Covers paintings in the spinner rack are prominently featured.
https://youtu.be/e_CFzxdRv7k

01 December 2008

EuroShark Mark Staff Brandl Interviewt auf "Bad at Sports"



The EuroShark ("EuropaHaifisch") wird auf der preisgekrönten Website Bad at Sports interviewt. Wie die auf dem Blog schreiben: "Episode 170: Mark Staff Brandl. Duncan MacKenzie interviewiert Mark "the EuroShark" Staff Brandl, Theoretiker, Kunsthistoriker, Professor, Künstler und Kritiker für Art in America, Sharkforum und Bad at Sports.


The EuroShark is interviewed on the award-winning podcast website Bad at Sports! Episode 170: Mark Staff Brandl. As they write on their blog, "Duncan "the fieldmouse" MacKenzie interviews Mark "The EuroShark" Staff Brandl, theorist, writer, professor, artist, and contributor to Art in America, Sharkforum and Bad at Sports."

Go on over, listen streaming or download the mp3 and listen to it on your iPod. Then join in the discussion! Link: click here!

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