I’ve been on a bit of a consumption binge lately. Needing to consume – purchasing, consuming movies, books, knowledge. Just trying to break out of my rut, watching the same Family Guy episode for the umpteenth time while glazed over.

This weekend I watched Summertime, a movie from the 50s starring Katharine Hepburn. I’m not sure that I have ever seen one of Hepburn’s movies before, but I decided I really don’t care for her. At all.

However, the movie itself was good. It had technicolor on its side, and it was set in Venice which made me long for another trip there. It’s already being planned in my head. Heavy wine drinkers need apply.

One of the things that struck me about this movie was Hepburn’s character – she arrives in Venice, and she carries this film camera with her everywhere, capturing every moment, preserving it on film. She doesn’t really experience anything – the only contact she really has at this point is with the other tourists at the hotel. A hot blonde and her artist boyfriend, the proprietor of the hotel (who offers her some fine Italian drink, which she decides to mix with bourbon), and some tourist-old-couple she met on the water taxi.

Then she meets a man – the man. He sets her heart (or something else) aflutter, but she spends the next half hour acting like an ass instead of enjoying the moment. Then she gives in, and the camera disappears. She begins to experience Venice, experience love and life, and the camera is no where in sight for the rest of the movie. Of course, I guess she should have acted like an ass – turns out he is married. But that is beside the point.

I have to wonder if the obsolete camera is intentional as she begins to experience Venice. Does this mean David Lean felt the same way I do? That the camera somehow abstracts you from reality, from the moment, even though it is capturing that moment for a lifetime or more? That the camera interferes with your ability to experience by placing a mechanical device and a lens between you and life?

Filed under:
Italy, Movies, Observances, Others Art, venice by Courtney

House on a Hill, Rome

There’s something about this photo that reminds me of Arbus’s similarly titled photo – A House on a Hill, Hollywood. It’s one of my two favorite photos of hers (the other being the Disneyland castle), and the dialogue generally surrounding these photos is how atypical it is for her to have taken more of a landscape photograph, as she normally works in portraiture. Thus, there’s a lot of discussion on what this means – photographing a house on a hill, photographing a castle at a theme park. Most often, the thought is she is photographing what is not there – i.e. the content of the house is missing in Hollywood; it’s just a shell (read what you will into that). Things aren’t always what they seem.

A House on a Hill, Hollywood, by Diane Arbus

The mood of the two photos feel the same to me. Somewhat gray (though in Arbus’s work this is achieved via B&W), clouds in the sky, perspective, and what’s not there. It’s obvious in Rome what is left is a piece of magnificent architecture, and what’s left hints at what once was, but is no longer. Whether that be as simple as part of the house is missing, or a great society that has come and gone… well, I’ll leave that to you to read into.

Filed under:
Italy, My Art, Others Art, Rome by Courtney

A while back, during the wedding planning mania, I stumbled across the work of a couple of artists that really piqued my interest. I never got around to posting it, so I will now. Both were posted on yumsugar, one of my favorite daily reads.

The first of the two is a book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio. The premise of the book is something fairly simple but pretty astounding when all binded together. The artists photographed families around the world with the food they consume in one week. The amount of money they spent on the bounty is also noted in the captions.

While I do find the pictures fascinating, I can’t help but wonder how they picked the families. Did they decide to pick the family in Chad to prove a point of the lack of food in Chad? Is there not a rich family in Chad that would have photographed much differently? And what about the U.S. families? They seem to be middle-income. Was there not a lower-income family that they could have photographed?

Of course, this is why I need to go buy the book. Maybe they chose the most representative of the country as a whole to feature (i.e. most of Chad has a $1.23 to spend on food, and most Californians spend $159.18 per week). Or, maybe they took artistic liberties and showed families that would prove whatever point they wanted to make. I will only know once I search out this book and read it.

The other artist I discovered is like a mix of Cindy Sherman and Sandy Skoglund. Her name is Daniela Edburg, and she has some fantastical photos, mostly featuring food. In her series Drop Dead Gorgeous the subjects are consumed by the food, dying by an OD on MnMs, or being chased by a tornado of cotton candy.

It was refreshing to see this work. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at any art that has impressed me much — not sure if this is my fault or if there’s just been a lack of impressive art lately, but I’m glad this is changing for the better for me.

Filed under:
Influences, Observances, Others Art by Courtney