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So this post is all about regular people who have for whatever reason, taken things to the next level. Each of these characters began life as a regular person and became something more. As always, the all of my LACMA Netsuke images and labels are visible in their Flickr set, also, I’ve started a Flickr group for images of netuske and inro, where you can see all of my netsuke images, and some from other folks as well.

The Netuske

above - Daoist Immortal Riding Hat on Waves - The contextual narrative behind this image is unimaginable to me. Daoist Immortals, referred to as Xian, are often portrayed riding on various beasts. This guy is surfing the waves on a hat. I wasn’t able to find any real reference to anyone riding a hat - maybe the artist just got really loose designing this guy. The carving on him is great, the way he looks straight forward with real intensity, and of course the tiny soul patch gives him total surfer cred. The label is here.

above - Immortal with Toad - You can’t really see it, but I assure you there is a toad hanging out on his shoulder. There were actually two images of Immortals with Toads on display in the netsuke room when I was there, but I only shot one. Some light Googling gives me the impression that this is a depiction of the Xian Liu Hai, who is is traditionally accompanied by an auspicious three-legged toad, which is often shown sitting on his shoulder. Unfortunately, since I can’t see the toad, I can’t really count its legs for confirmation of that, but how many guys with toad companions can there be. Liu Hai is perceived to be a symbol of luck. Label is here.

above - Rakan: Buddhist Disciple of Exceptional Merit - Rakan is the Japanese term for an Arhat, which is one who has become enlightened to such a degree that they will no longer be reincarnated. Label is here.

above - Shoki: The Demon Queller - Shoki appears to fullfill the counterpoint role to the Oni in Japanese mythology. Not as popular as the Oni, however, Shoki’s mythological role (awesome link - lots of historical stuff and images) is to chase them and other demons out. According to the I have no idea what is up with the huge platform sandals - I’ve found a few other depictions of Shoki online, and none of them are rocking those shoes. Usually he seems to be wearing boots of some kind. The label is here.

above - Ikkaku: The One-Horned Immortal - This guy is a bit of a mystery. He’s described as an immortal, which makes me think that he’s a Daoist immortal of some sort, but I’ve only been able to find reference to a One-Horned Immortal in the Noh play Ikkaku Sennin, which describes him both as a Sennin and as a Rishi. A Sennin appears to be somewhat synonymous with a Daoist Immortal, or Xian, but a Rishi appears to be an analogous or separate concept. Regardless, this fellow has obviously gone a bit beyond his normal life through religious practice of some sort. I’m completely unawares as to the nature of the woman he’s carrying on his back, as I don’t think she’s a familiar of some sort, which is what this kind of figure might normally be accompanied by. More likely she’s a participant in a narrative of some sort.

Lately, I’ve become very aware at the huge role that India has had in shaping Japanese belief, through the practice of Buddhism, and I keep coming across references to Hinduism, which has no real adherents in Japan. I’ve also become somewhat aware that a sort of distinctly non Judeo-Christian-Islamic sort of polyreligiosity is common in much of Asia, including Japan, which I find to be a bit of an alien concept. Label is here.

I managed to make a quick visit to LACMA to visit the netsuke room in the Japanese Pavilion, the day before their presentation of 18th & 19th century netsuke went down. I didn’t know that they even changed things out there before.

The netuske room at LACMA is possibly an ideal display solution for netsuke. The long cases allow the viewer to see both front and back, and the lighting is very controlled, allowing one to get an excellent view of these tiny objects. Being able to see the back of them gives you a constant reminder and instight into their functionality as objects, something that the front only display at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco doesn’t allow for.

I’ve become obsessed with netsuke. They are simultaneously useful everyday objects and seemingly purposeless pleasure objects. As I don’t wear kimono on any kind of regular basis, I’m largely ignorant of their life as useful objects. Through my martial arts related practices, I’ve come to realise that the nature of Japanese clothing provides novel opportunities for storing items, and that netsuke and inro probably fill in some of the gaps that are left.

What I really liked about the exhibition on view when I visited was that there were numerous examples of the same subject. It’s hard for me to fully understand just how everyday some of these objects and images are, especially given their relative complexity, but seeing the same subject multiple times has really further tickled my imagination about the narratives contained within netsuke as objects. I shot so many netsuke, that I’m going to visit some of them by subject. All of my photos from LACMA are in their Flickr set for your viewing pleasure.

Baku: Monster that Eats Nightmares

Damn. That’s one hell of a billing. Wikipedia provided the most thorough description of this benevolent spirit that I could find. What makes Baku so interesting is not just his interesting name and job, but the fact that this chimeric little beast has an elephant’s nose. Mythology is filled with cliches - men with horns, men with the lower bodies of animals, animal headed men, but with the notable exception of Ganesha, I can’t think of many mythological beasts that have elephant trunks. Even in the wide world of science fiction character design, I can’t think of many elephantine beasts.

It’s so easy to imagine a Baku sniffing around, finding nightmares with his vacuum cleaner nose and sucking them up. It seemed like such a weird beast and I was really surprised to see five different interpretations of Baku at LACMA. He must have been quite the popular little spirit.

above - Baku is on guard. The carving on this Baku is really tight and he has really expressive eyes. His trunk is held closely to his face.

above - I like to imagine that this Baku is making some kind of mighty elephantine roar. This piece was featured as a LACMA Artwork of the Month.

above - I think this Baku might be a seal, as well as a netsuke. The carving on this one is less precise, and conveys less motion and tension than the others.

above - This one is really tiny, but I like the sinuous nature of his pose. I like to imagine Baku as a sly creature.

above - A dude riding on Baku. I have no idea what the symbolism of this piece is supposed to convey

I shot a ton of stuff during my visit to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and I’ll go on and on about what a bitchin’ place it is when I get to the bulk of the stuff in the next post or so. The first thing I did when we got there was check my bag, and lo and behold, the tiny room containing the Howard Finster exhibition that I was super excited about seeing.

I have a weird childhood memory about Finster’s work. One of his pieces was the first piece of contemporary art, and definitely the first piece of folk art that I bumped into as an adolescent. I ordered a dozen CDs from the BMG Music Club, right after getting my first CD player. Somehow, I ended up with a number of CDs that I didn’t order, and some that I did. I remember ordering an early Talking Heads album, and I received the CD for Little Creatures and the David Byrne album, Uh-Oh, instead. Being as much of a godless fascist as an adolescent can be, I immediately returned them, angry at the religious imagery on the cover, without even listening to them. Years later, I would assemble a full discography of the Talking Heads on vinyl, the Byrne album Rei Mono is on my “music for dinner parties” playlist forever and I think the Tom Tom Club are titans of music that walk the Earth. So anyways, that Little Creatures cover by Howard Finster is burned into my head - always a reminder not to judge things by their appearances.

Back to the show. The show was in a tiny room in the lower level of the museum, known a the Reva and David Logan Gallery of Illustrated Books. It’s about 10 feet square, and all the art was in wall cases, with one piece in a central vitrine. A kiosk playing an interview with Finster conducted by Eleanor Dickinson, who’s collection comprises the exhibition, played in one corner, providing the perfect soundtrack for the occasion. You can see all of the pieces I shot (I’m not sure if photography was allowed, but no one was looking, and I had to go for it) in my Legion of Honor Flickr set. The two pieces below I’d like to highlight because they’re unlike anything of Finster’s I had seen before.

above - Law Breakers - I love this piece. It seethes with frustration that I can really relate to. That frustration you have when you know how ridiculous someone’s behavior is and you just have to sit back and watch them run in circles, wasting everyone’s time. It bleeds truth and the composition is perfect for the message. I hope he somehow circulated a lot of these little guys.

Above - Eleanor Dickinson - Howard Finster’s portrait of artist and collector Eleanor Dickinson. While his other paintings show how he sees celebrities, biblical figures or objects, this is a really intimate painting of a “real person” whom Finster has a relationship with. There’s a special dignity in this piece that is absent in his work, and something about it seems slowed down and comfortable.

What attracts me to Finster’s work is his belief that art and words can change people, that you can have some effect on the greater world, and that frankly, art can matter. While I’m not sympathetic to his religious beliefs, his work seems to be filled with a sincerity of conviction that’s sorely lacking in most artworks. He seems unconcerned with the competitive nature of the art world, and his desire to be prolific and spread his message is a more meaningful purpose or goal than most artists can make claim to.

Just after returning to town from SF, I got a message from Alex Lilly. He was having an opening that night in LA and wanted to remind me, which is good, as I was too jet lagged and tired to otherwise remember where and who I was supposed to be.

Jancar Gallery

I hadn’t been to Jancar before, either now or as a toddler year old when it was in it’s previous incarnation. I was really pleased to see a tight little space on the 13th floor of a Wilshire office building transformed into a venue for highly political art. Kudos to Tom Jancar for being willing to show Alex and Kim Hubbard’s works - I can’t imagine that he expects any great income from selling Alex’s portraits of burning military vehicles, nor from Kim’s pencil drawings of largely anonymous resistance figures. I ran into a whole bunch of South Bay folks at the opening, too - Ron Linden, Marie Thibault, Maggie Tennesen, Linda Day, which was cool.

The gallery itself is a tight space, and I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s evening by shooting a ton of photos. I really liked the layout, though, and it’s a surprisingly sympathetic space to showing art, largely because the tremendous sense of space created by the windows which overlook Los Angeles takes some of the edge off of the limited square footage.

Alex Lilly

Alex was in my Contemplating Apocalypse exhibition at the Brewery Project in September, and I’m eager to work with him again. He’s possibly the most dedicated political person I know, and his work reflects it clearly. He’s also a tremendously talented landscape artist, who’s work I see as a return to classic modes of study and observation. His work in this show was a series of highly glossed paintings of military vehicles on fire in locales such as Beirut, Grozny and Iraq. I think he sees these destroyed vehicles as symbols of people’s triumph over military oppression and domination. As someone who spends a lot of time reading about 4th generation and asymmetrical warfare, I’m moved by the tremendous history of the reversal of fortune of nation states that lies in the heart of each burning tank.

at top - Alex is shown with one of his recent political posters. Alex makes some of the most pointed and direct posters that I’ve ever seen, they have a quality that seems to reject wit in exchange for raw emotion and response.

above - Visiting with Alex at the show was also an opportunity to return his Contemplating Apocalypse work, three paintings on a much larger scale, which he’s transporting home by stuffing them into a big duffel. Carrying it off he looked like a real honest to god cat burglar, so I made him pose for this photo.

It’s been a few months since my last trip to the de Young, and I managed to squeeze in a quick, almost closing time visit to the museum, after spending an afternoon at the Legion of Honor.

My opinion of the museum remains - it somehow seems incredibly badly organized and I’ve become convinced that the building itself is the source of the trouble. I can’t seem to get past the idea that each room was put together as a reflex of some kind, with the curators just phoning in their jobs. There are tremendous objects in the de Young, and I can’t seem to feel intimate with them. I can’t put my finger on it, though.

I’ve spoken with several other artists, both in and out of the Bay Area, and no one I’ve talked to seems to enjoy the new museum. Maybe it just looked good on paper, or in theory, and it doesn’t work out in the real world. Maybe it needs some time, and maybe some new acquisitions and curatorial staff to really find itself. Art writer Tyler Green has been going on about the shockingly dumb placement of bars over the murals in the Piazzoni room, which is a piss poor way to protect the works (which it doesn’t), that serves no direct purpose other than to interfere with the viewer’s experience.
As always, all of my de Young photos are in my Flickr set, the pieces below are just ones I want to run on about here.

above - William Morris, Canoptic Jar - Buck - My current fixation on deer and deer-like animals of all types continues. The whole thing is made from amazingly executed blown glass and I find myself drawn to this piece. I’m intrigued by the pseudo-historical nature of the anthropomorphised bucks on the side of the jar. View a close-up of the head here, and the label here.
A side note - this piece is in the museum’s “glass room”, an embarrassingly tight U-turn of a space that holds about 300% of the work that it should, and is almost impossible to feel comfortable in. It seems almost designed to create museum traffic jams and docent anxiety. You simply cannot manage to spend any time, or get any variety of perspective on the work in this room, including this piece.

above - anonymous, detail from Original tattoo designs - It was a real pleasure to come across this 19th century Freemasonry oriented tattoo flash in the de Young. It was in a hallway teaser show of American folk art. The history of tattooing in European and American culture is an area that really, really needs some serious scholarly attention, and it’s nice to see that important documents like this are working their way into museum collections. You can see the whole sheet here and the label here.

above - Don Ed Hardy - Johnny Dishoner - I really only shot this piece to illustrate a point. I’m somewhat mystified about the elevation of tattoo flash to fine art, but I’m really surprised that neither of the above pieces is described as “flash” or “tattoo flash”. I don’t want to nitpick, but that is the widely known vernacular for that is used to describe these objects. I really feel that by calling them “original designs” (I would doubt that they are original - a lot of flash is just tracings and duplications of popular designs) as the top piece does, or by not describing the Don Ed Hardy piece as an example of flash somewhat dumbs down the presentation.  You can see the label for this piece here.
Afterthought

After re-reading the post above, I can’t help but feel that there’s something about the bumbling at the de Young that makes me “conspiratorially minded”. Could there be some sort of plot to create a museum that can’t seem to get its shit straight? More likely, there’s an internal corporate culture that somehow tolerates what I see as numerous failures to handle what is really an excellent collection in a competent manner.

I just spent two days doing studio visits and meeting with artists in San Francisco, and I returned to the Asian Art Museum with a little more time to look and a roomier compact flash card in my camera. I shot a lot of stuff last time, so this time I really just focused on getting better shots of some of the netsuke and inro in their collection, which is mostly what I’m going to ramble about below. As always, the bulk of my photos are in my Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Flickr set.

I keep being impressed with well designed and run the AAMSF is. They have docents that remain vigilant, yet barely noticeable, and they do a phenomenal job of placing pieces in a way that makes sense to visitors. Although the primary display areas of the museum are composed of small to medium size spaces, you never feel either a pressure to “keep moving” or that anything is crammed in. I also really like how they go to some lengths to accommodate their Chinese visitors by having label text in Chinese. Even though I can’t understand it, I really feel that the museum is making a serious effort to engage a key portion of their tourist audience.

The museum also has one of the best gift shops I’ve ever seen. It somehow manages to be huge and at the same time seem totally out of view. They seem to be making an effort to sell real quality Asian handicrafts there, and not the kind of predictable crap that most major museums are hawking.

Netsuke & Inro

Above - I’m in love with this piece. I don’t know if he’s singing, screaming, shouting, yelling, chanting or what, and I don’t know the purpose of the box in his hands. This is about 2″ tall and there’s so much expression in his posture and face that I’m in awe.

Above - a man fights with an octopus. There’s a great symmetry here between the man and the octopus. Is he a fisherman who’s caught something that needs wrestling, or the victim of a dangerous, roving land octopus (a Japanese relative of the prairie squid perhaps?). I really don’t know. Maybe he caught the octopus with his wife and is trying kick it out of the house.

above - I’m not sure what’s up with the combination if insects and food images. I’ve got another image where a fly sits at the bottom of a serving dish of some kind.

above - something tells me there’s a whole style of netsuke that this belongs to, but I’m pretty mystified by the concept of “pile of food” netsuke. This is the only one I’ve ever seen like this.

above - I managed to get a really good photo of this piece. The sheen on that lacquer is insane.

Other Stuff

above - According to Wikipedia, an Arhat is someone who has become enlightened. I really like the depth of expression on this figure’s face, and I think that the crack only enhances the character of this piece - that crack was meant to be there. Front view here and label is here.

above - the AAMSF has an amazing room that’s all Chinese carved jade and crystal. They do an amazing job at lighting it so that you can really see everything at it’s best. I found this piece to be really funny in a “Honey, where did I put that solid jade axe?” sort of way.

above - Last time I was at the museum I somehow failed to take a good close shot of this face mask. I love the detail on this piece.  Every part of the mask, from the tiny hinges to the flower motif is exceptionally well executed.  The nose is beautifully formed and the real beauty of this mask is the line work that creates a real dynamic sense of contour and shape.  The line work is reminds me of the line work of Maori moko, as well as giving the mask a woven appearance.  One of the functional details that I like in this mask is the sinuous curve that follows the cheekbone down to the chin.  Not that I’m an expert on armour functionality, but it seems to me that may have been intended to provide a reinforcement against potentially metal shattering horizontal blows to the face.

Well, I had a preliminary look at an amazing collection of work by Myrna, spanning multiple eras, on Monday. There was some amazing stuff, and I’ll be making a separate trip to photograph and document it all. The most interesting thing (to me) were three photos of Myrna that were with the collection. I’ve started a Flickr set of Myrna Shiras related items, which I’ll be updating as I can. I’m off to San Francisco to do studio visits, but before I go, here she is.

My fixation on the artwork of Myrna Shiras continues. Some folks have started contacting me about Myrna and her work after finding the images I put up on Flickr via Google. I love how Google can bring people together when search terms about obscure things are involved.

One of the people that’s contacted me is Robert Mohler of Salem, Oregon, who sent me the above image of a Shiras piece that he’s owned for twenty five years. Thanks Robert!

More Myrna News

Through a rather convoluted work related connection, I’m going to see a major collection of Myrna’s paintings on Monday. Given that I’ve only seen three of her pieces, it will really be the first time I get some kind of perspective on her output as an artist.  So, in other words, more coming soon!

I never saw the Old Old Getty Villa, so I’ve got nothing to reference the design of the new one, but I finally got my ass in there and was able to enjoy the collection. It’s got to be one of the stranger museums, being built around such a narrow collection with what amounts to a blank check.

The main building is modeled after the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Given that I’ve never lived in any place bigger than a 2 bedroom house, I gotta say, I could live in the Villa, easy, and I’d finally have a place to really show off my LEGO collection if I did. It’s big inside, like no house should be. I had trouble being impressed or really getting anything out of the architecture, as I just couldn’t relate to the scale. It sure is beautiful, though.

On to the collection. I was really turned on to see the collection. I’ve been developing a semi-secret obsession/fixation regarding Athena/Minerva that I just can’t explain. It may be the product of my imagined personal “sourcelessness”, but a lot of my obsession springs from her presence on the Great Seal of California, which has more to do with my sense of semi-nationalistic identity. So I figured I’d get a chance to shoot multiple images of works featuring her image to add to my collection of reference photos.

Although the Villa is divided into spaces that are somewhat small and intimate, it really works as a layout. There’s a lot of similar objects and the divisions really make it easy not to be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of stuff. They also do a bang up job of organizing stuff - I never once had the feeling that something was totally out of place. I’ve got to give real props to the curators on this one. They do a damn good job of lighting the place too. Because most of the objects tend to be made from stone or metal, you aren’t in a low light environment designed to protect the objects, which is nice.

There’s a bit of a weird crowd at the Villa, a lot of tourists, which means some jackass is always touching something or moving against the stream of traffic, or speaking loudly. But the environment is good, so you don’t mind it, and it wasn’t crowded at all. I have the worst museum experiences when I’m in a crowded, tourist ridden environment, but that wasn’t the case here. One of the things that makes a difference is that all of the Getty facilities have really top notch docent staff.

On to the highlights. My full Getty Villa in Malibu Flickr set is here if you want to skip my chatter and just look at the pics.

Above - Nemesis. How awesomely bad is it that both the Greeks and the Romans had a goddess of retribution (this one is Roman). I’m a big fan of mythologies that support divine intervention in this life, not imagined justice in an unseen afterlife. I came across this piece in a small room, and was really turned on by it. Side views here and here, and the label is here.

Above - Statuette of a Comic Actor wearing an Animal Mask. One of the things I love about early theatre (I know next to nothing about theatre, FYI) is that you used to be able to play totally non-human roles convincingly simply by putting on a mask. I wish more of this happened today in theatre and film - it would be much more visually interesting than all of this green screen/CGI/dude in a fur suit crap. Proof in metal that G.I. Joe wasn’t the first action figure. There were a ton of these at the Getty, they’d be worth more to scholars today had they been left Mint in Box, I’m sure. Label is here.

Above - Mosaic Floor with a Boxing Theme. There’s always a lot of sports related stuff in any Greek or Roman collection. This piece is interesting, for one reason - the boxers are wearing caestus, leather gloves re-enforced with metal. People wearing these routinely fought to the death. Good times, good times… Label is here.

Above - Female Figure (Star Gazer). Cycladic figures are a mystery, seemingly timelessly well designed. They look like modern art, but they were made at the dawn of Western civilization. I really like the way that this figure looks upwards to the sky. Due to the massive looting and forging of these images, we’ve been left with a bigger mystery than we might otherwise have been. I’m especially drawn to these figures. For a while I was drawing figures similar to these after having a series of eerie dreams in which a race of blue & white striped skinned pre-humans laid buried in dirt mounds in Africa who’s bodies were “like batteries”. Don’t ask me to explain it. Front view here, and the label is here.

Above - Spouted Horn with Stag. One of my other obsessions is images of stags and other game animals. I’m fond of hunting images, and “manly symbols” in general and stags are a pretty universal theme. This piece is a drinking horn, the distinction that most of the wine that was drunk in the ancient world was watered down to some degree, but drinking horns were for drinking wine straight and getting solidly drunk. A detail view of the stag’s head is here, and the label is here.

Above - Storage Jar with Achilles and Ajax Gaming. Another manly image - two soldiers gaming, watched over by Athena (this is my obligatory Athena/Minerva image). I love this particular style of Greek ceramics, like the Cycladic figure above, it shows that lo-fi can out style hi-fi any day of the week. Full shot of the jar here, and the label is here.

So that’s a little selection from my trip to the New Old Getty in Malibu. LA is blessed with a number of really amazing museum collections and this is one of the best of the best. I wish more museums would delve into having more focused collections of historical objects - right now it seems like all of the museums are busily blowing million after million on nailing down the last remaining “fine art” pieces by a sadly limited pool of over-hyped artists. Museum collections have become little more than “greatest hits” samplings from a small pool of vetted artists, and the historical focus on that limited pool is distorting both art an non-art history, IMHO.

Addendum - I just published this post and I immediately realised that I can’t put it out there without mentioning the Getty’s trouble with possibly looted or stolen artifacts.  Just the other day the LA Times ran a story on the “big ass” Aphrodite that the Getty acquired in 1987 for $18 million, and how it has a checkered past, and Greece and Italy are currently claiming that over 40 artifacts in the collection were looted or have checkered pasts of some kind.  I’m really not informed enough to go into detail, but from what I’ve read some fishy business has definitely gone down.  The kind of “cultural colonialism” that built the museum collections that do exist today is no longer acceptable and we have to get past it.  I’d like to see an environment where the museum world is more concerned with loans of valuable, well cared for works, than it is with acquisitions.