Warhol at UMass

The Exhibit

Last year this portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol sold for $300,000 dollars.

 


 

When Jackson died earlier this year, two months later the painting sold for a cool million, proving once again that in the art world there is no more profitable career move than to die.

Such evidence of the power of celebrity would have interested the New York artist Andy Warhol, who was fascinated with all aspects of fame and celebrity culture and the ways in which it influenced people. There is a collection of some of Andy Warhol's photographs currently on display at the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center, and a giant wall sized poster alerts the campus to the location.

I could find no record of Warhol ever visiting our Valley, but UMass Magazine reports that in 1965 a UMass art class took a field trip to New York to visit Warhol at his art studio:

 

In 1965, Deborah Wye ’66 (far right) and her classmates Sarah Kelly ’66 (left) and Roberta Bernstein ’66 (second from left) visited Andy Warhol's Factory in New York with other UMass Amherst students studying pop art under then-professor Carl Belz.

 

Although best known for his paintings, Warhol was also an obsessive photographer, taking his camera with him everywhere and shooting an average of a roll of film per day. For those who don't recall pre-digital photography, a roll of film typically took 24 pictures.

Warhol was not generally considered a first rate artist, since he never attempted to tackle any of the profound and heroic themes that concern the highest levels of art. In fact, his main interest seemed to be in the shallow and the mundane, with celebrity culture intriguing him primarily for its one dimensional and fleeting nature. Everyone could be famous for fifteen minutes, he famously said, which was both an insult to the culture of celebrity and a complement to the masses, implying that everyone has at least one virtue that would justify a flash of fame.

His photographs reflect his anti-art attitude. There is little attempt to be artistic, as he usually just whipped out his camera and clicked away very informally. The results were sometimes blurry with bad lighting and captured his subjects in unflattering poses, none of which was helped by Warhol's fondness for cheap Polaroids. However, these are not just any old cocktail party pictures, since the circles in which Warhol moved were usually populated with some of the most famous public figures of the late 20th century. The UMass display includes this Polaroid of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

In his Washington D.C. office, Senator Kennedy prominently displayed the portrait of himself painted by Warhol, as seen in this photo taken by former Hampshire Gazette/Amherst Bulletin reporter Mary Carey in January. 

Warhol was a pioneer of artistic sexual freedom in that he used homoerotic subject matter before it became fashionable.



The exhibit includes art by modern artists whose work is heavily influenced by Warhol. Serial arrangement of images and the use of repetition were common Warhol styles, reflected in this wall montage.

The artist also strives to match Warhol's sexual shock techniques.

Warhol sometimes made whimsical sculptures based on commercial products, but this box copies Warhol's work too closely.

More successful is this pile of trash - with a cherry on top! An often redeeming feature of Warhol's work was his sense of humor.

Pop art sometimes relied heavily on distortion, but certain things are recognizable no matter what.

I predict you will like this art show, so don't miss it. The UMass gallery is open Tuesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays and holiday. The Warhol exhibit is FREE and open to the public. For more information, call 545-3670 or click here.

My Pics

I resemble Warhol in that I also take my camera everywhere and photograph everyone and everything. These ancient willows at UMass far predate the skyscrapers that now tower over them.

I'm familiar with this term, but never before saw it used as a point of pride. Also, that vehicle has got balls.

A sentiment after my own heart.

The woodland way into downtown Northampton today at dawn.

Baskin's Bad Art

 

Leonard Baskin

One of the best known artists to live and work in the Pioneer Valley was the late Leonard Baskin (1922-2000). Personally I was never a fan. Here's a sculpture of an owl that is standing on the campus of Smith College in Northampton. Only Baskin could take a majestic bird like an owl and make it look squat, unbalanced and awkward. Owls also give the impression of wisdom, which is why they are often used as symbols of education, but Baskin manages to make his have an expression of blank stupidity. 

I first became aware of Baskin's work back when I was living in Northampton in the late 1970's and renting space in this great big house whose owner (a professor at Smith) was on a long tour of Asia. It was as beautiful a home as I’ve ever lived in, but its otherwise elegant reading room was almost ruined by having one of Baskin’s hideous drawings hanging on the wall. 

At the time I moved in I had never heard of Leonard Baskin before, and assumed he must be some acquaintance of the owners and that they must have hung the painting in order to humor a talentless friend. I couldn’t believe it when I later discovered that he was considered one of America’s foremost artists, and was even asked to make a contribution to the national monument to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington DC. Typically, his contribution is depressing.

Baskin is probably best known for his sculptures, but they are really just three-dimensional versions of his horrible drawings. Dark, ugly, hulking things, they are the kind of sculptures that frighten small children and cause dogs to bark. There are several to be seen on display in Northampton’s otherwise excellent Michelson’s Gallery, and it is a tribute to the other items on display in that establishment that they continue to draw customers despite having Baskin sculptures on prominent display.

The main flaw in Baskin's work is that an artist can't be considered great who cannot make something beautiful. By beautiful I mean inspiring, as in uplifting. The proper role of an artist in society is to put before the public objects whose beauty inspires the viewer to appreciate and understand what is the best that is possible, to visualize and present the ideal.

That is why the artist has traditionally had such a revered position in society. In a world where the perfect and the best are rarities, the greatest artists present us with their vision of the ideal. It is not the role of the artist to show us the world “as it really is." That is the role of the journalist. It is not the role of the artist to relieve their inner turmoil. That is the role of the psychiatrist. It is not the role of the artist to comment on the ills of society. That is the role of the sociologist, the politician and the propagandist.

The proper role of a great artist is to ask one question, “What is the most beautiful and most inspiring art I can create expressing the greatness of human race and our highest ideals?" The value of an artist in a healthy society is determined by how well their art answers that question. Therefore it is a sad reflection on the state of our society that Leonard Baskin was considered a great artist.

By the standard of art as an expression of mankind's best and highest ideals, Baskin was practically an anti-artist. His repellent drawings with their terrified, screaming faces and deformed bodies, his grotesque, menacing sculptures and all around complete negativity makes it impossible to consider him a first rate, or even a third rate artist. 

Leonard Baskin's career was one of many aberrations from a dark period in our cultural history, when we have forgotten what art is and what it should be, when we lost our way so badly that in our confusion we praised sick souls like Baskin. Our consolation is that his art will not endure. In better days we will remember to forget that we once praised him.

God's Presence



Every year since 1972 there's been a freak festival out west called the Rainbow Gathering. Last Saturday on the 4th of July they got their ultimate wish - a double rainbow! Dig this awesome video: 

 

Yoker Done Good

Northampton internet innovator Paolo Mastrangelo, now a video editor in New York City, alerts me that the fast rising comedian T.J. Jagodowski has local roots:

I am unwed, but I live with my brother in Chicago. The rest of my family is back in Massachusetts—in Holyoke, Mass. So they'll come visit. They'll take the train down and see the shows in New York usually. My mom literally loads up a van of 40 to 50 people—they'll load up a bus. My dad will cook up a bunch of snacks and they'll drive in during the day, all go out to eat in Little Italy, see the show and then go home. So these people ranging in age from 19 to 82 get back home at 4 in the morning and then drive home from the Holyoke Mall parking lot. They rally."

 

Give it Away

Food Not Bombs passing out food on the Amherst Common. 

Today's Video

Front porch music. 

 

Hometown

Tracy Kidder's Book on Northampton

 



Tracy Kidder's famous 1999 book is about a somewhat different Northampton than the one I knew when I first lived there. I first resided in Northampton in the late 1970's, just before the real estate boom that transformed Northampton from a sleepy women's college town and middle-class haven into the trendy, upscale place known as NoHo. In the '70's if anyone had asked me where NoHo was, I wouldn't have known what they were talking about.

The nickname at the time for Northampton was simply "Hamp," with the term NoHo being birthed later out of some ad exec's brain as something that sounded like a high-class New York City shopping district. A lot of downtown was boarded up when I first lived there, and because nearly everything that was open closed at night except for on the weekends, we used to complain that Northampton was so dull that they "roll up the sidewalks at five o'clock." They didn't actually do that of course, but they may as well have for all the foot traffic the downtown got after sundown.

It is a much different Northampton that Tracey Kidder writes about. The modern Northampton was born out of the loose lending practices of the 1980's, combined with a fortuitous shifting in consumer tastes. Suddenly the public decided that they wanted an alternative to the sterile, neon lit environment of the modern shopping malls, and would flock to enjoy an old-fashioned downtown experience. 

Luckily for Northampton, it had been too small to be eligible for the taxpayer redevelopment subsidies that tore down so much of historic downtowns like Springfield and Holyoke. Downtown Northampton caught this new consumer wave with nearly all of its downtown unscathed by the deadly hand of government urban renewal programs. With the help of loose (later scandals would suggest sometimes crooked) money from local banks, the quaint old structures were remodeled and restored until the formerly dowdy old Hamp made its transition into the NoHo hipster wonderland it is today.

Hometown is not the only book Kidder has written in a Valley setting. His previous book, Among Children, was about a public school teacher in Holyoke. I never read that book, but as a former and once again present Northampton resident, I felt a responsibility to read Hometown.

Purely from a writer's perspective, I admit to being impressed, in part because the genre Kidder is working in - that of following people around and writing about them - is one of the most difficult. It's hard to get people to act natural around you when they know you are going to write about them. Going about your normal routine is not so normal or routine when you have a writer trailing behind you scribbling in a notebook. There is an obvious temptation to say and do things just because you know it might end up in the book. This is the writer's version of the problem scientists sometimes have when studying nature, sometimes merely the act of observing alters what is being observed.

It is also a genre where you can easily make new friends that later turn into enemies. Most everyone likes the idea of appearing in a book, but what they really mean is that they like the idea of having their best self written about. Sometimes the subjects are not amused to realize that despite all their showboating, the writer has noticed and written about character flaws they were hoping would remain hidden or overlooked. In a certain sense each of us sees our lives in terms of a movie where we are the hero. It can turn into a problem once the subjects realize that the author has been observing them from a less exalted perspective.

But despite the pitfalls, Kidder succeeded in presenting his subjects in ways that ring true. He made a shrewd choice in making a local cop the central character. Since people never call the cops just to tell them that all is well, a police officer tends to see everybody at their worst, when private lives become public concerns because things have gotten way out of hand. That is why the book got mixed reviews in the town itself. Some Northamptonites hoped that Kidder's book would be an exercise in chamber of commerce style cheerleading, but continually returning to the perspective from a cop's cruiser meant that they would be disappointed. There are many ugly and weird scenes in this book, incidents that reveal very starkly what goes on in the shadows of downtown's bright lights.

"A great deal lay hidden and half-hidden in this small, peaceful town." Kidder writes. "Well before you understood all of it, you would feel you understood too much. Northampton wasn't New York or Calcutta. It wasn't even as large as the little cities to its south. As places go, it seemed so orderly. But what an appalling abundance it contained. If all of the town were transparent, if the roofs came off all the buildings and the houses and the cars, and you were forced to look down and see in one broad sweep everything that had happened here and was happening, inside the offices, the businesses, the college dormitories, the apartments, the hospitals, the police station, and also on the playing fields and the sidewalks, in the meadows and the parks and the parking lots and graveyards and the boats out on the river, you'd be overcome before you looked away."

Which is not to say that Kidder's book is a completely negative portrayal of Northampton. He obviously likes the place, and certain characters, such as former Mayor Mary Ford, receive almost glowing praise. There's a lot of local history too, told in a lively storytelling style that reaches as far back as the 1700's. Kidder obviously intended to approach Northampton from as many different angles and perspectives as possible.

And it works. The book starts off a bit slow, and I wondered at times how much someone who had never been to Northampton would get out of some of the details, but once you get entangled in the web of lives Kidder is portraying, Hometown evolves into a real page-turner. It is certainly not a book that would appeal only to a local readership. While we'd like to think that Kidder wrote the book primarily for us Valley denizens, it is intended, and succeeds, as a book that was written to address a national audience. You need never have even heard of Northampton to enjoy this book. I ended up caring about these subjects in an almost personal way. Now how hard can you knock a book that has that kind of effect on you?


Around Town

I was in downtown Amherst this afternoon. With the nice weather all the outdoor tables were taken at Raos Coffeehouse.

Now this is what I call a yellow truck.

Tie-dye dresses for the hip tot.

Colorful sidewalk chalk was pointing towards the Gypsy Dog Gallery.

Instead of BEWARE OF THE DOG....

Freedom Fighters

Top 10 Libertarian Celebrities

 



Everybody knows that Hollywood loves the Democrats and that the Country/Western music scene is full of Republicans, but who are the leading celebrities who are considered libertarian? There are more than you might think. I made this top ten list from a much longer list of well-known libertarians to be found at the Advocastes for Self-Government website:

CLINT EASTWOOD

Over the years, Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood has uttered many memorable lines in many memorable movies. "Go ahead, make my day," in Sudden Impact. "You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" in Dirty Harry.

But the most revealing line Eastwood ever uttered may have been to USA Today (January 25, 2004), when he said, "I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone." The quote confirmed that Eastwood is not just one of Hollywood's most honored and longest-lasting stars, but perhaps America's highest-profile libertarian.

 

DENIS LEARY

If Denis Leary's only claim to fame was "The Speech," he'd still be a hero to many libertarians. Leary delivered "The Speech" in the 1993 science-fiction movie, Demolition Man.

"I'm the enemy because I like to think. I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy that could sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs or the side order of gravy fries? I want high cholesterol. I would eat bacon and butter and buckets of cheese. Okay? I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I might suddenly feel the need to. Okay, pal?"

While perhaps as much libertine as libertarian, Leary's speech perfectly encapsulated the persona of the Massachusetts-born actor and comedian; he's a rebel outsider who relishes the opportunity to defy authority.

 

JAMES D. WATSON

James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning co-discoverer of the DNA molecule and one of history's most important scientists, says he is "very libertarian."

In the January 2007 issue of Esquire magazine, Watson declared: "I'm basically a libertarian. I don't want to restrict anyone from doing anything unless it's going to harm me. I don't want to pass a law stopping someone from smoking. It's just too dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society."

 

MARK CUBAN

Add Mark Cuban -- billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team -- to the list of people who credit novelist Ayn Rand with inspiring them to become American success stories.

Cuban read Rand's The Fountainhead "three complete times and untold number of little snippets and segments," he said in an interview on C-SPAN (March 26, 2006). He first read the book in high school, and it taught him that "it doesn't matter what everybody else thinks -- it's how you see yourself and what your own dreams are."

Rand's freedom-loving philosophy apparently also encouraged Cuban to become a libertarian. In the Austin American-Statesman (May 19, 2006), Cuban said his politics are "independent, leaning to libertarian. I vote for the candidate who I think will do the least." 

 

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG

Call Billie Joe Armstrong a punk, a neo-punk, or a post-punk popster -- but however you describe him, there's no denying that his band Green Day has had an enormous influence on popular music. However, what fans may not know about Green Day's front man, the funny and charismatic Armstrong, is that he is a registered Libertarian voter in California.

 

JOHN C. WRIGHT

Imagine a libertarian utopia. Now imagine that utopia a million years in the future. That's what science fiction writer John C. Wright does in his Golden Age trilogy -- and his daring feat of imagination has earned him respect as perhaps "this fledgling century's most important new SF talent" (according to Publisher's Weekly), and acclaim as one of the genre's most exciting libertarian authors.

In an interview on the jefallbright.net blog, Wright said the books are a rebuttal to socialist science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950), who also wrote epic, galaxy-spanning novels that took place in the distant future. "My ideas of law and economics are the opposite of Mr. Stapledon's, and so my utopia has in it everything he would leave out of his," Wright said. "He proposes a communist utopia, blissfully without private property. I propose a libertarian utopia, blissfully without public property." 

 

ROY INNIS

On February 4, 1998, Roy Innis, nationally known civil rights figure and head of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) joined the Libertarian Party. CORE is the third-largest civil rights organization in America, and differs from more traditional, left-leaning civil rights organizations in its emphasis on individual liberty -- CORE's mission statement says in part that "the most fundamental freedom for all people is the right to govern themselves."

 

PENN AND TELLER

Las Vegas headliners Penn & Teller are often described as the "bad boys of magic." You could also call them the "bad boys of liberty" -- since both the bigger, louder half (Penn Jillette) and the smaller, silent half (Raymond Joseph Teller) of the award-winning magic team are self-proclaimed libertarians.

As befitting his "loud" status, Jillette talks about his political beliefs at the drop of a rabbit-filled hat. In an interview with the Boston Phoenix (July 2-8, 2004), he said, "Well, I'm a real total-freedom nut, a libertarian, and I'm one of those crazy optimists. Let people do what they want and everything will be okay."

On the FilmForce.IGN.com Web site, Jillette said, "I'm a hardcore libertarian. I want everything legal." (October 13, 2003.) And in the Cato Institute's Regulation magazine, he described himself as "a Libertarian, pro-freedom, governs-least-governs-best, free market advocate." 

 

KURT RUSSELL

It's easy to see a libertarian streak in many of the characters movie star Kurt Russell has portrayed over the years. That libertarian streak is no coincidence; Russell himself is one of Hollywood highest-profile libertarians -- one who has talked about his pro-liberty beliefs on numerous occasions.

Russell wasn't always a libertarian. He told the Toronto Sun (August 4, 1996), "I was brought up as a Republican. But when I realized that at the end of the day there wasn't much difference between a Democrat and Republican, I became a libertarian."

 

HOWARD STERN

Stern has more than once -- both on the air and in print -- explicitly called himself a libertarian or made statements that were strongly libertarian in nature.

For example in 1984, Stern said, "I'm for personal freedom. I'm for freedom of the marketplace." In 1991, when a caller suggested that Stern pay more attention to the Libertarian Party, Stern answered, "I guess I really am a libertarian..." In the early 1990s, Stern called for privatizing many government functions and quipped, "If Donald Trump delivered the mail, you could send letters for 12 cents -- and also gamble with the stamps."

 

Smart Move

Finally, the Obama Administration is making a policy change we can applaud. According to the L.A. Times:



U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that the Justice Department has no plans to prosecute pot dispensaries that are operating legally under state laws in California and a dozen other states -- a development that medical marijuana advocates and civil libertarians hailed as a sweeping change in federal drug policy.

In recent months, Obama administration officials have indicated that they planned to take a hands-off approach to such clinics, but Holder's comments -- made at a wide-ranging briefing with reporters -- offered the most detailed explanation to date of the changing priorities toward the controversial prosecutions.

The Bush administration targeted medical marijuana distributors even in states that had passed laws allowing use of the drug for medical purposes by cancer patients, those dealing with chronic pain or other serious ailments.

While this is an improvement, it is still ridiculous that drugs that are almost totally harmful, like booze and cigarettes, are legal while marijuana, which has medicinal value, remains under government attack.

Gypsy Heart

This afternoon I stopped in at the Gypsy Dog Gallery in downtown Amherst.

It has this weird contraption in front that doesn't appear to do anything except look cool.

The gallery is named after a dog called Gypsy, shown here with her human named Chip. 

The gallery has lots of weird and wonderful art. 

Stop by and check it out. 

Two Irishmen were sitting in a pub having a beer and watching the brothel across the street. They saw a Baptist minister walk into the brothel and one of them said, “Aye, ‘tis a shame to see a man of the cloth goin’ bad.”

Then they saw a Rabbi enter the brothel and the other Irishman said, “Aye, ‘tis a shame to see that the Jews are fallin’ victim to temptation.”

Then they saw a Catholic priest enter the brothel and one of the Irishmen said, “What a terrible pity - one of the girl’s must be quite ill.”

 

Liberals Betrayed?

Obama moves rightward.

 



Just as I and others predicted, there's a rising chorus of disillusionment among those who felt that Barack Obama would bring in a true era of change. As Yahoo News reports:

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

 



When I went to the Northampton Nader rally, I reported that most of the people in the room appeared to be Obama supporters who had come out of curiosity. However, Nader had them squirming as he read the list of Obama campaign contributors, which included Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Business in every form. "Are these corporations clamoring for change?" Nader asked with a puckish grin on his face.

Now on his blog, Nader is relishing saying I told you so.

While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled "prepare to be disappointed." His record as an Illinois state and U.S. Senator, together with the many progressive and long overdue courses of action he opposed during his campaign, rendered such a prediction unfortunate but obvious.

Now this same intelligentsia is beginning to howl over Obama’s transition team and early choices to run his Administration. Having defeated Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, he now is busily installing Bill Clinton’s old guard. Thirty one out of forty seven people that he has named so far for transition or appointments have ties to the Clinton Administration, according to Politico. One Clintonite is quoted in the Washington Post as saying: "This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."

Indeed, it is hard to imagine that if Hillary had won the presidency she would have chosen more of her friends to join her in the White House than Obama has. However, in fairness to Obama, liberals always over-estimated his devotion to their cause. It was as if they ignored what he really was so that they could fantasize about what they wanted him to be. They wanted the black Ted Kennedy, but are finding out that they elected the black Bill Clinton, along with Clinton's caution, compromising and hesitancy to rock the boat. Liberals simply have to face the fact that their daydream of Obama as the Leftist Savior never existed anywhere but in their own imagination. 

Hey everybody, let's stop in at the Student Union Art Gallery at UMass and see what's hangin'. 

Talented portraitist Gage Delprete has a good display, featuring this life-sized self-portrait.

I hope this portrait wasn't of a friend, because he probably became a former friend after he saw this!

Student Jenna Fader did some portraits of llamas. I don't like llamas, they look goofy yet strangely evil. The ones they had at Forest Park in Springfield used to spit on you. 

Talented photographer Autumn Doyle offered a collection of her photos in a strongbox.

She also had some self-portraits on the wall, such as this one of her contemplating some sticks in the nude. 

There really is no better subject in art than the human form.

Stop by and see the show for yourself before the semester ends. 

Jack Frost was busy all night painting the windows in downtown Northampton.

We've been trapped in an arctic blast, but tomorrow is supposed to bring some blessed relief.

 

Walkin', talkin', breathin', tryin' to smile yourself to death - with your finger on the pulse of time there ain't no time to rest - it's a simple proposal to keep you walkin' the line - just tryin' to get back for what you borrowed in time - the moral of the story's for a limited crew, but we're gonna be there in the chosen few....