Back from five days in Chicago. Fun? Greek food, Millers Pub, the Art Institute and the grubby, noisy pool of humanity that inhabits most urban cores. I stayed in the 'burbs, which, with unusual snowfall, limited my travel options.
I did get to see the Edvard Munch show that opened there recently. Munch succeeded in building an image of a tormented, mentally ill aberration. His portrait, above, with the light source below, highlighting his craggy features, was done intentionally to promote that image.
Some of the most striking pieces, beyond his famous and much manipulated "The Scream" are his woodcuts. Most are four color prints made with two blocks. His use of stark contrast and large solid areas of black and white made it possible to ink only certain sections and use one block for two colors with amazing effect.
It was inspiring to see so much emotion derived from so little line and form. The most exquisite work, obviously, was in the creative thought prior to the first cut.
I sound like a boring textbook, don't I?
On the music front, I was having a chicken Caesar in a sports bar in the B concourse at O'hare and there's my playlist, at least a lot of it, on the background track. Even down to the old, 4/4 Der Kommissar by Falco. This isn't high art, just some tech-ish, funky 80"s shit.
It was a little scary to know that I must have things in common with some unknown sound company out there. Maybe these tracks are created with some complex algorhithm that goes through protocols matching age/income/mental stability with cheesy radio playlists and comes up with weird tracks. Anyway, it seemed like a sign, that is if I were into superstition.
Oh, were you waiting for the good type? My older brother teaches typographic design, history of design and something else I can't remember. He designs fonts and they are for sale at several of the on-line font sources or at his site, Nobodoni.com. Check it out.
Sorry George for the miniscule plug, it just got buried under the Chicago blather. Your site looks very nice.
More later.
2 comments:
Thanks for the plug. Any plug is a good plug. As for your music comment I run into that too. I will go in somewhere and the music changes to something I like. Tonight we were in a restaurant with bland background music, then after the food came it was the Doors. Everyone in the place was born after Morison died except for four old guys having dinner together. By old I mean my age. I wondered sho would pick the Doors for restaurant music?
Your blog was featured... or something. I went to search other blogs on the home page and I saw Finegan Thompson and was totally shocked. Way cool! I'm really excited about that. By the way this is Rah, if you hadn't figured that out.
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