FLUXUS

Dick Higgins
18 x 24, oil on canvas, 2016

Many of the paintings seen on this site have been created on top of older paintings. Some were my own, often demos for painting classes, others are done on found paintings. The reason for this is economic and practical rather than aesthetic. Economic because amateur paintings can be found at thrift stores for a fraction of the money it would cost to prepare your own, practical because starting a painting is easier when something is already there than on a blank canvas. When making a mark on an existing painting it becomes dynamic. The act of violating a painting by someone else creates a tension between two realities. Until this week I had never used a portrait painting by someone else. My intention was to maintain a lot of the original painting in my own. At the end only the eyes of the original remained visible. The following image shows the process. I started with pastels.

The finished painting is a portrait of Dick Higgins, part of my renewed interest of the sound recordings by artists from the Fluxus movement. This interest was raised by the exhibition Re:Sound, featuring the work of Philip Corner, at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in Fort Myers, Florida. The Higgins song in this year's top 100 is In Memoriam from 1961. It's the second time the track is in the top 100, and thus my second painting of Higgins ten years after the first. In Memoriam is made available for anyone to listen to on the fantastic site UbuWeb. The following are the words introducing In Memoriam: "In Memoriam was made of assembling loops a dub a phonograph record of 16th century dance music. The dance is heard, simultaneously, up to sixteen times as fast and sixteen times as slow as the original, backwards as well as forward, giving a sort of cinematic effect." 

Bajabula Bonke

Hugh Masekela
Oil on canvas, 5 x 5 inches, 2016

The Promise of a Future is a 1968 record by Hugh Masekela that introduced the world to the ubiquitous tune Grazing in the Grass. Hugh Masekela is a South African trumpet player who began his career playing for Albert Herbert in 1956. He joined the Manhattan Brothers in 1958 before joining the orchestra for the movie King Kong. At the end of 1959 he formed, with Dollar Brand and others, the Jazz Epistles, the first South American group to record a jazz LP. Masekela, always vocal in opposition to the apartheid regime, fled the country in 1960. He ended up in Manhattan two years after being a Manhattan Brother, married and divorced Miriam Makeba, all before his smash hit Grazing in the Grass made him a rock star at 29. The Promise of a Future is a great Afro-Jazz album and the Bajabula Bonke (The Healing Song) my favorite track.

Scandalishious

Ann Hirsch performing as Caroline in Scandalishious 
to Donna Summer's Last Dance in 
Caroline's Official Goodbye Video
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

It's time to announce a textbook I've written, not about music this time, it's about art. You are an Artist! An Interactive Approach to Art History will soon be issued in a digital format and a few months later in print. There are a few places I allow my art work to be shown. These are small portrait illustrations in the margins next to a discussion of an artist. This one here of Ann Hirsch is the last one submitted. The portrait may double for the Top 100 2015/16. As part of my 'research' on Ann Hirsch, I watched about twenty of the 200 videos Hirsch posted, while still an art student, on her Caroline's fun fun channel on YouTube. These videos, created between 2008 and 2010, are five to ten minutes each and are fun to watch. They're actually kind of addictive. In most videos she introduces a song to which she will dance. The introductions are great. In her sweetest innocent voice (she plays an 18 year old character called Caroline—Hirsch was 23 at the time) she addresses her audience and talks about topics ranging from feminism, haircuts, art, her clothes, love, literature, and online bullying. Hirsch managed to get an enormous online following and over two million views. She directly addresses her audience, and interact with many through the commentary board. She dances to a wide range of music in her videos. The Smiths, Animal Collective, the New Pornographers are a few. In one video she dances laying down to Freda Payne's Band of Gold and cries. In the last video Hirsch posted in the Scandalishious series, Caroline's Official Goodbye Video, she dances to Donna Summer's Last Dance. She had to stop as Caroline because she soon would be found out. A bit later she featured as herself ("I'm Ann, and I'm an artist") on VH1on national television, in a reality show called Frank the Entertainer.

The Man Comes Around

Johnny Cash
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016.

“It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” was a Greek proverb, but it was also familiar to the Jews and anyone who made a living in agriculture. An ox goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.” 
(Copyright 2002-2016. Got Questions Ministries.) ...I always wondered what it meant.

The Fugs

Ed Sanders of the Fugs
Oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

Frenzy is a song from The Fugs' second, a self titled album from 1966. The song features, like their name, not so subtle references to the act of making love. They are also known for their not so subtle political satire. Frenzy was written by Ed Sanders, who together with Tuli Kupferberg, headed the band. Liner notes on the LP The Fugs were written by Alan Ginsberg.

The Russian Enigma

Nadya Tolokonnikova
oil on canvas, 7 x 5 inches, 2016

Over the last few weeks this site enjoyed a spike of visitors, nearly all from Russia. I've been trying to figure what caused this sudden interest. To no avail. The only music coming from Russia in this year's top 100 wasn't painted yet, until today. May it serve as bait. I like to know ho or what linked to this site. There have been a number of Russians in the top 100 the past few years, I've painted portraits of Alexander Scriabin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Reet Hendrikson, a portrait of a Chukchi shaman, and no less than five Pussy Riot paintings. Well, here's number 6. The that's being illustrated by this painting is Kill All Sexists! in a version from the HBO documentary film Punk Singer. Can I add that Nadya Tolokonnikova is one of the most beautiful women in the world?