Qu’ils Mangent de la Brioche

More neon art at Laumeier, this one by David Hutson himself. This was hard to me to read at first because what look like R's to me in the second word are actually N's. This is the original French of the famous words attributed to Marie Antoinette, usually rendered in English as "let them eat cake," the words she supposedly spoke after being told that the peasants had no bread.

There are problems with the story. The word brioche doesn't actually mean cake. It is a very rich bread with lots of egg and butter; it would have been as unaffordable to the masses as cake. However, there is no evidence that Marie spoke these words. They have become part of a legend.

Note the unusual bread slicer in the lower right. It resembles Le Rasoir National, a clever compliment to the words.       

Big Boy

More signs from the neon art exhibit at Laumeier Sculpture Park. I don't  remember these restaurants and signs when I was growing up in the Northeast but I sure do from the time I hit the Midwest. They were sometimes called Bob's Big Boy. No relation but, like this guy, I was a lot heavier back then. (I'm about 70 pounds lighter that at the time of our wedding.)      

This a very old sign. Note the character: cut-away coat, vest and bow tie - formal evening wear. And spats! Now, if only he could do something about his hair and teeth. They give him a baby-like look..                                                                                  

Now All We Need Is Sex And Rock & Roll

More of the neon art exhibit at Laumeier Sculpture Park. I wonder what selection of drugs might be helpful this morning. We won the House but lost our much-admired senator, Claire McCaskill, to a young man who has spent his first two years in political office making a shambles of the Missouri attorney general's office.

At least there won't be any horrible legislation passed by Congress in the next two years.     

Freezer Fresh

Those are two words I don't expect to see together. If you buy frozen salmon at the supermarket, is it fresh?

This is from the current indoor exhibit at Laumeier Sculpture Park. It is about the restored old neon signs and neon sculpture of David Hutson. I suppose the big sign is about ice cream, although it's hard to be sure. It's certainly not acceptable by today's standards.The small sign in the back is part of Hutson's expression of Claes Oldenburg's artistic philosophy.        

Madeleine Monday

There was an event Saturday evening at Laumeier Sculpture Park called Light The Way. The reference is to the monumental structure at the end of the park's great lawn. It was mostly for children: lawn games, crafts, face painting and so on.

Ellie had a great time. The adults did not. It was cold. The lines at the food and beer trucks were awful. There was a least a half-hour long line for face painting; we were fortunate to talk her out of that.

The kid was happy to pose with  Tony Tasset's Eye. Her Nepalese leopard hat added a certain touch. I didn't know which picture I preferred so I used both. Below, she is enclosed in the arms of Niki de Saint Phalle's Ricardo Cat.  

       

Triangle, Sphere

Back at Laumeier for a bit. I really need to shoot some new material but I really need to go to work today. (It occurs to me that I am the oldest of four siblings and the only one who hasn't retired.)

This is a bit of clever geometry -  Mark di Suvero's Bonibus, which feels like a Calder made of steel beams rather than floating, amorphous planes. And then there is the all-seeing eye. Can you hide from it in the woods behind?

Yeah, Lots

Can we save American democracy?

Will the rich devour the poor? Will it lead to attempted revolution?

What is the president's appropriate diagnosis?

What are the odds that in 50 years a big percentage of current jobs will be automated and a chunk of Florida will be under water?

Will the Cardinals win the pennant next year?

Is this the best time in history to be old? And many more...

This golf cart was on the grounds of Laumeier Sculpture Park, I suppose to get the staff across its large expanse. The sign must be directed at visitors. It could, as the saying goes, open up a can of worms.

        

The Way

The other object that everyone remembers after a visit to Laumeier Sculpture Park is Alexander Lieberman's The Way. These photos lack scale since no one is walking by. The diameter of the tube flat on the ground is greater than my height, and I'm rather tall.

The pieces are made from disused oil tanks that are painted cadmium red. I sometimes imagine legions of people whose jobs were lost to automation marching through.

Remember, supermoon tonight.                 

Big Brother Is Watching You

So I had to go to a hardware store last weekend a bit further out in the suburbs. As usual, I needed blog material and had no ideas. The store was very near Laumeier Sculpture Park, a 76 acre haven of art and nature amidst our suburban sprawl. Hadn't been there for a while so let's go see what's up. 

Many visitors' strongest impression of the park is Tony Tasset's Eye. The description in this link strikes me as art babble but there is no question of its power. Think of it as a metaphor of what every web site you ever visited has done to you.    

St. Louis In Civil Rights History

Most Americans have heard of Dred Scott but not many of us  know the meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that bears his name. The case was about the status of enslaved people who had been held captive while residing in a free state. Those states and territories held that a slaveholder forfeited his property rights to his enslaved individuals within their boundaries and where there was no law to support his controlling the slave. Congress had never before addressed whether slaves were free if they set foot upon free soil. Scott, a slave of an army surgeon. moved with his family between free and slave territories with his owner's military postings. 

Scott eventually sued for freedom in St. Louis. The case found its way to the Supreme Court which, in a notorious decision made in 1857, ruled that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States and had no right to bring suit in its courts. The outrage over the decision was one of the factors that lead to the Civil War.

This bust is located in our Laumeier Sculpture Park. Scott died in St. Louis in 1858 at the age of 59.                      

Crossing

A bridge for Triangle Man? This is Dan Graham's Triangle Bridge Over Water at Laumeier. Click the link or look at the placard below. I like this one a lot but it was too tight to shoot from inside.

These last few days' posts teach a lesson. You can't look at serious art and just say to yourself that's cool or what a pile of junk.  You have to stop, maybe sit for awhile, and think. What associations does the object bring to you? Why does it look like this, in this particular setting? What could it possibly mean? It takes a bit of creativity and an open mind to appreciate what's going on. Repeated exposure helps.

Low on material again. I shot at the Arch yesterday for the first time in ages. Maybe I'll run a few days' worth. Then over to Kansas City Thursday and out into the prairies of Kansas to see Mrs. C's family. It has a lot to offer visually.   

Madeleine Monday

I'm trying to finish the family photos from Andy and Claire's wedding so I can get the album done. Edited this one over the weekend.                       

Ghost Town

There are trails through the hilly woods at Laumeier with surprises around many turns. This one stopped me for a while. Where is everyone? Why are so many windows and doors missing? Was there a sudden environmental disaster? 

Contemporary sculpture raises lots of problems of interpretation. According to the sculptor, Tea Mäkipää (yeah, me neither), The Dogs of USA from Not Without My Dog isn't about human spaces and habitations. It's about dogs, sort of. See the placard in the last picture. You would never guess if you hadn't read it. If nothing else, it is an argument for complete subjectivity.     

Stuck

There is no information on Laumeier's website about this enormous tire, partly buried in the earth. The standing cutout of what looks like a businessman is Jonathan Borofsky's  Man with Briefcase at #2968443 (some explanation here). It looks like the tire would like to rise up and roll over the figure, which reminds me of R. Crumb's Whiteman and, for some reason, an iconic photo of James Joyce (I think it's the hat). These could be interpreted innumerable ways. Have at it.                 

The Way

One of the most popular sculptures at Laumeier and my personal favorite is Alexander Liberman's The Way. The monumental work was designed for the site. Everyone has different interpretations. To me, it looks like an enormous, ruined gateway from a lost civilization, possibly ancient, possibly alien, placed in St. Louis for safekeeping. The park's website refers to the guns of a giant battleship. Either way, it conveys disarray and power. Maybe it is a metaphor for inevitable decay.          

The Vision Thing

The phrase was coined by someone else, but here it is, in your face, a mote in your eye bigger than your whole body. Tony Tasset's Eye is the must-have-a-snap sculpture for visitors to Laumeier Sculpture Park. However, it's something you need to think about for a while. The description on the park's website (click the link) is a bit of art babble. Better if you can sit by it and consider the associations that come from this disembodied organ, 12 feet / 3 2/3 meters in diameter. I think it's terribly creepy.                   

Dark Jurisprudence

Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).  Homer Plessy v. John Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). Two of the worst decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. (There are those of us who think they are not through trying.) The first one ruled that people of African descent, whether slave or free, could not be citizens and therefore could not file suit in federal court. The second established the notorious "separate but equal" principle, legalizing institutional discrimination against black people, until it was repudiated by the Court in 1954. The details are too complex for this blog but you can read an excellent summary of the Scott case here and Plessy here. Together, they mark the worst of legalized racism in this country.

At Laumeier Sculpture Park, Scott and Plessy, depicted by identical style busts and pedestals, gaze at one another. Canadian (!) sculptor Ken Lum created The Space Between Scott and Plessy. Click the link to see for yourself.                     

Ernest Trova

I finally made it out to Laumeier Sculpture Park on Sunday afternoon. In 1968, a rich woman left her large suburban estate to St. Louis County for the benefit of the public. In the following years, it became one of the most important outdoor sculpture spaces in the United States. I didn't get through all of it but I shot a nice sample. 

We start with St. Louis' most famous sculptor, the late Ernest Trova. This is an example of his iconic image, Falling Man, with his pot belly and slight hunchback, armless, lurching through space to an uncertain future. Most versions are sleek with completely smooth surfaces. This one has an unusual variation, appearing to be wrapped in bandages or even mummified. And yet it continues to stride across the park. 

TOMORROW: can you make art about some of the worst decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court?                            

The Way

The Way is the most massive work in Laumeier Sculpture Park.The name suggests religious fervor and conviction to me, the one path to salvation, nirvana or perfection. Except that there are so many ways, and so many incompatible with one another. You can see a picture of the whole thing and learn a bit about it on the park's web site here. It is as imposing as certainty.

I mentioned that yesterday afternoon was the closing performance of the St. Louis Symphony's 2012-2013 season. They played Act III of Alban Berg's Wozzeck (gee, it must have been miserable to walk around all day being Alban Berg) and the Beethoven 9th. OMG, as they say. This may be a second or third-tier city but we certainly have a first-tier orchestra. It's a treasure.         

If They're Entertained, They'll Spend More

There was a music tent on the way in to the exhibition area at the art fair. This group looked and sounded very 40's and they were pretty hot. They didn't play the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B but they might as well have.

The St. Louis Symphony season ends today with your faithful blogger and spouse in attendance. They are doing the last act of Wozzeck and Beethoven's 9th. Talk about agony and ecstasy. O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere.
   

Art Fair At Night

One of our two big annual art fairs opened last night. This one is at Laumeier Sculpture Park. Its 105 acres/42 hectares are a wonderful place to wander. With a cool evening and threat of rain, the fair was lightly attended. Good for photographers.