The Victory Boogie Woogie - a corpse dissected

Last week I received a review copy from the Amsterdam University Press: a new book on Piet Mondrian, Inside Out Victory Boogie Woogie, edited by Maarten van Bommel, Hans Janssen and Ron Spronk. Mondrian started on the painting Victory Boogie Woogie in 1942, but it stayed unfinished because of his death in February 1944. The painting was bought in 1998 from the collector Samuel Irving Newhouse at a whopping price of 82 million Guilders (approx. 37 million Euro’s) through a gift of the Dutch National Bank to commemorate the introduction of the Euro in the Netherlands. The acquisition caused a public outrage, and even the House of Representatives raised questions about the way it was acquired. But now the painting is on victorious display in the Gemeentemuseum of the Hague, and is by now a prominent attraction of the museum.

Der aufgeklärte Künstler

Konferenz: Touché! Die magische und technische Evidenz der Medien

Veranstalter: IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften an der Kunstuniversität Linz, in Kooperation mit dem DFG-Forschungsprojekt der Universität Siegen.

Datum, Ort: 15.12.2011-16.12.2011, Wien, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Wien.

Programm: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=17901
ORF Radio Programm:  http://oe1.orf.at/programm/295462

 Vor zwei Jahren hat die holländische ‚pagan’ Musikgruppe Omnia das CD Wolf love veröffentlicht. Dieses CD trägt ein Motto des bekannten englischen Comicsautors Alan Moore, eine Rasputin ähnliche Erscheinung:

Art is like Magick … It’s the science of manipulating symbols, sounds or images to achieve changes in consciousness. It is not the job of the Artist to give the audience what they want. It’s the job of the Artist to give the audience what they need. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience, they would be the Artist.