Saturday, April 03, 2004

I remember the first time I read Interview magazine, at the time it was published in a large format: 17 inches by 9 or something like that. I used to buy it along with LA Style magazine (no longer published). During this time I remember seeing photos of Madonna and Sean Penn together. They were the Hollywood couple at the time, similar to Jay-lo and Ben Afleck. Like the twenty-first century couple, the eighties lovebirds made a movie together. However, as we all know, the Jay-flo frenzy ended in a no-marriage zone. Glad that hype is over.

But going back to Interview, I had no idea what the magazine was about. I used to simply look at the pictures. I remember Winona Ryder and Rodney Dangerfield's photographs (why do I remember them? I do not know...), and I kept buying the magazine month after month not really knowing what it was about. I only looked at the pictures. I did not read much at this time. I bought magazines only if they looked cool, and Interview looked really cool. After a few months, though, the format was changed to a more standard size. And the magazine did not have the same presence. I just stopped buying it. I did not know that it was Andy Warhol's until much later in my life, and it took a few more years for me to find out that Andy was an artist. I did not care for his art at this time -- but I liked his hair.

Jodie Foster was just a kid in 1976. I remember seeing Taxi Driver a few years ago and I was just struck by how fragile she looked in the film. De Niro was also amazing. Interestingly enough Foster always plays roles of women who are willing to take charge of a situation. I remember her in Silence of the Lambs, and later in the Panic Room, always playing a strong character struggling to stay on top of the situation--taking charge.

I heard from someone in the industry, who has a daughter in the business (her daughter is a star as well), but whose name I will not say out of respect for having shared this information with me--so let's just call her a "source." In any case, she explained to me that it is well known in the Hollywood industry that Jodie Foster is gay, but the media does not even mention it because "they like her." Yep, I remember those words, and I know this is gossip, but this is what she told me, that the Hollywood media loves Jodie and therefore would not make an issue of her sexuality. And when I come to think of it, all of her movie roles are quite "manly" -- or maybe that is the wrong word, strong character would be better. But what I mean I guess, is that she is not easily labeled as "feminine" in the stereotypical way. She obviously problematizes the idea of gender--cool. I think she is extremely sexy -- hot if you want to be more precise. But perhaps she should be more open about her sexuality? Then again, that is her private life. In any case, here I am writing about it, and I am sure it is not the first time because somewhere over the rainbow someone must have written something similar in a blog, somewhere... I do not want to be the first on this one. The issue has been brought up by the gay community.

When I heard of Coco Brown I thought Andy was referring to the porn star... but unfortunately this was not the case. Andy is not as exciting at times.

So, as I have been reading about the Wyeth family in the last few days, I started to wonder if their work was dismissed as illustrative by the art-elite--especially during high modernism. In Jamie's bio I learned that indeed New York critics dismissed the work of his father and him. This may be due to the fact that Jamies's grandfather, N.C. Wyeth, made a living as an illustrator, and both, his son and grandson followed his rigorous training in drawing and painting, with an illustrative approach. N.C. created covers for Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe. He did have quite a successful career as an illustrator. Maybe this is why Andy hung out with them. After all, he too was a commercial artist in the early period of his professional career.

I learned quite a bit about old money in the United States today. The Winterhur Estate was the house of Henry Francis du Pont. The du Pont family is of French decent, and made their fortune in explosives and textiles. The du Ponts were counter-revolutionaries. This term is actually connected to 1791, which can only mean a direct connection to France, their country of origin. Today the Winterhur estate exhibits the collection of antiques that Henry du Pont became obsessed with. The du Ponts acquired a high profile in the arts when in 1961 Jacqueline Kennedy, the First Lady, asked Henry du Pont to head the Fine Arts committee.

Andrew Wyeth is the son of N. C. Wyeth. N. C. became a successful illustrator. Some of his work appeared in the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Amazing to see that to this date, the Post has kept its look consistent. I actually tried to find some of Wyeth's illustrations, but all I ran into were Norman Rockwell posters. I have a better understanding why Andrew Wyeth developed landscape paintings: his father influenced him. N.C. Wyeth's work and studio is now featured as part of the Brandywine Museum.

While visiting the Union Square website, I learned about the New School in New York. A set of important thinkers are behind the foundation of this institution. John Dewey was one of the founders and the faculty included Franz Boas and Bertrand Russell. It's exciting to read about some of the important people who have taught there, including dance performers like Martha Graham. But then again, these individuals may not have been as well-known at that time.

I was not aware that Parsons is actually an academic division of the New School. Any time I see a website for an art school--especially one with lots of pictures--I feel like going there and start all over again, as though I never attended one, not too long ago (or so I would like to think).

As to Barbara Walters, she is claimed to be a person offering her viewers "firsts" in TV experience. According to her biography, she was the first to interview Fidel Castro and Monica Lewinsky, among many others.

But Barbara never showed up to Andrew Wyeth's party. His watercolors are rather unexpected (I myself am not sure what I mean by this). I did not think one could get away with painting this type of subject matter, especially in watercolors, after 1950 and still have a career. But then again Wyeth had been at it as a Wyeth.

The Seattle Museum is currently exhibiting work by DJ/artist Christian Marclay. I honestly do not know much about Marclay, although I should because, afterall, I also use music as part of my work. The introduction to his interview is quite interesting. He uses turntables and records with a willingness to destroy the source material for the sake of performance. Yet, he is not willing to play with CDs in the same way as he does with records. He claims that it is because CDs do not skip like records.

Marclay seems to be different from DJ Spooky. Paul Miller (Spooky) is a straight ahead performer with the tables, while Marclay, at least according to the little bit I read about him, pushes the record to the point of deterioration. According to the Museum's website, Marclay has a four DVD projection as part of the exhibition (which these days is the equivalent of video), remixing footage of Hollywood films. The website unfortunately does not have any images or footage of this installation.