Gustav Klimt at The Getty Center, Los Angeles

Ever since I can remember my parents have always tried to instill a sense of art and culture in my life. I guess this is one of the reasons I became an art history major, and I don't regret it for a second. I remember a few very specific experiences that I've had in art museums with my parents. I remember being shuffled through the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa at age 10, and being quite unimpressed. I remember seeing Modigliani paintings for the first time and my father asked me why I thought the eyes were painted without pupils, I believe I was 16 and it was my second visit to Europe, I didn't have an answer for him until I studied modern art in college. I've been lucky to see so many different works of art in my life and to have parents that care so much about art, which is why I'm very excited to tell you the story of me and Gustav Klimt.

Gustav Klimt, Thalia and Melpomene, 1898

Before I gazed into the pupil-less eyes of Modigliani's women in Europe I was able to experience a little bit of Europe right here in Los Angeles, California. In 2006 LACMA had a special exhibition of five paintings by Gustav Klimt from the collection of Adele Bloch-Bauer (Klimt's portrait of her is probably his second-most well-known painting). I don't think I had been exposed to Klimt before this time, and I remember my mother being especially excited about seeing the works. If I recall the situation today as I remember it from six years ago, she rushed me to LACMA one day after school just to see these paintings. We spent quite a bit of time in the relatively small room, and I could see that my mother was completely taken by seeing these works in person, and that she was happy to be sharing the experience with me. To me this was one of the major stops on my art education timeline.

After seeing these paintings I did some further research on Klimt, and I fell in love with his works. They were quite different from anything else I had seen and so uniquely beautiful that I couldn't imagine passing up any opportunity to see his works in person. I was very excited to learn that an exhibition of his drawings would be up at the Getty this year, and after seeing it I can tell you that it is worth your time.

Gustav Klimt, Goldfish, 1902

Looking at Klimt's drawings is a completely different experience from looking at his paintings. His paintings are generally very beautiful, compositionally refined, and full of intimate details and color choices. His drawings, on the other hand, are rough, full of life, and they carry a different kind of beauty than his paintings. Many of the sketches are accompanied by a small reproduction of the paintings they were made for, and in a few cases I found the drawings to be more full of life and intrigue than the paintings.

Gustav Klimt, Kiss to the Whole World, part of the Beethoven Frieze, 1902

In some cases, the drawings are the only things that exist because the paintings have been destroyed. One of my favorite Klimt paintings falls under this category, Medicine. The painting was completed in 1901, and unfortunately was destroyed by the Nazis in 1945, along with a few other beautiful paintings by Klimt from around the same time. The painting demonstrates a surrealist ideal of convulsive beauty, which I wrote about briefly in my art history thesis. The ideal comes from Andre Breton and his second novel, Nadja (1928) in which he states, "Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all." In my mind this idea deals with the juxtaposition of something being so beautiful that in order to balance out the beauty one needs to create a dark environment for the beauty to reside in. This basic idea is present in many of the sketches shown in the exhibit, and it may be a default visualization because of the medium, but I feel it is the way in which the artist has chosen to create the quick and breathing compositions we now see before us. 

Gustav Klimt, Medicine, 1901

This exhibit is one of the better organized exhibits that I have been to recently in the Los Angeles area, and I highly recommend you visit before it closes. 

The Getty Center is open Tuesday-Sunday, at 10 am every day. The Klimt exhibit is open until September 23rd. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/klimt/

Jacques Tati was an Artist

I just recently re-watched Playtime which is one of my favorite Tati films (not that there are many to choose from, but I think Mon Oncle will remain my favorite for a long time). When I re-watch any of his films, I watch for three things: Subtleties, Slapstick and Sound. When it comes to a Tati film, if you're not looking for those three things as well, I hate to say it but... you're doing it wrong! You cannot enjoy his films by just watching them as if they are like any other film out there. Tati was an artist and you need to concentrate on the details he created in his art.



I'm not exactly a film buff. I haven't seen every film out there, I never studied cinema, but I can surely have a right to my opinions on film, especially when I can classify a film as a work of art, right? So my question when re-watching Playtime is, does it still hold up after all these years? I was born in 1989, so I have no idea of what life was like in 1967. I don't know what life was like before 1991, so how can I judge the quality of a film from a time in which I did not live? You could say the same thing about a Renaissance painting (I did study art history), but I truly have no point of reference for film.

I understood the qualities of Tati's sense of humor at age 15. I thoroughly enjoy every one of his films to this day, but when thinking about showing them to people my age or younger, I'm not so sure they would be too pleased with what they were getting themselves into.

Playtime is just over two hours long, has practically no dialogue, and has a very thin if non-existent plot. When there is dialogue it's either in mumbled French (translated through subtitles) or very clear English (that must have been dubbed over and to me is almost always unnecessary for the film). The real communication in the film is done through body language. It's subtle, but it's worth paying attention to how people are interacting with one another across the screen.

The film begins with a French couple sitting together in an airport. The wife is asking her husband if he has everything, like his cigarettes, and tells him he needs to button the top button of his coat or he'll catch a cold. There are some subtitle translations of their conversation, but if you could turn those off and just watch their body language with one another, you'd be able to figure out their entire relationship and conversation. It's choreographed down to the second.



You don't need an amazing sound system for this film, but you should have your sound turned up for the entirety of this film. In the scene (posted above) where Hulot (Tati) is waiting for a meeting you can hear everything from the florescent lights humming to the sound the chair makes when someone stands up from it. The first scene (in the airport) prepares you for this, because there are many sounds, but they are presented slowly and separately. When I was younger and I watched Playtime for the first time, I was told to pay attention to the sound in the film, and I remember very clearly the week after I watched the film, I could hear every sound imaginable around me. Tati presents sound in such an idealistic sense that you can't help but continue to "listen" even after the film is over.

I don't want to ruin the slapstick element for you at all, but I will tell you that the majority of it lies in the nightclub scenes closer to the end of the film. So in case you watch the first hour and are utterly bored (because it's not exactly a fast and exciting plot line) you'll know you have something to look forward to in the second hour.

My one complaint about the film is the presence of the many Hulot doppelgangers in the film. Playtime was the first Tati film that I saw, so I had no idea who M. Hulot was, and I couldn't guarantee that people who see the film today would have already seen M. Hulot's Holiday or Mon Oncle. The element may have been hilarious when the film was created, especially for fans of M. Hulot, but now it seems somewhat passé and uninteresting for new viewers.

When The Illusionist came out a couple of years ago I went to see it, and I left with my heart thoroughly warmed. The film is not only a love letter from a father to his daughter, but because Tati only wrote the script but had nothing to do with the production, it was a love letter to Tati and his career (although some critics would argue that the film is not at all good, so don't take my word for it). If you want to watch that first, I would say go for it, and then watch Mon Oncle, and then round out your watching party with Playtime. Then at another date watch M. Hulot's Holiday, because you can only laugh so much in one evening before your insides begin to hurt.

To answer my own question, I think the general message of Playtime, and also Mon Oncle and Trafic, deals with consumerism and how we are obsessed with the future of the materialistic world. These ideas are extremely present in today's society, just on a different level. So yes, the films do stand up to a degree... so why are you sitting here reading my ramblings, go update your Netflix queues!

Dear Oakland,

I love the way you smile. I know that times can be tough for you, and some bad things have happened while I've lived with you, but somehow you still manage to have the most beautiful smile. Maybe you think I'm crazy, how can a city have a smile? But you do.

Oakland, you have changed me. You have made me a better person. You have made me more aware of the people around me, and also of myself. Now that I've lived with you, I am more brave than I was before, and I thank you for that. Thank you for opening my eyes and ears and making me perceive the world in a new light, the light of Oakland.

Still, I cannot believe that I have to leave you, because it is you that has made me feel more alive than I've felt anywhere else. It is you who has shown me my life and my dreams. You have inspired me to create and to destroy and that is a beautiful thing. You are a beautiful thing, Oakland, and I never want to forget that.

Oakland I want to thank you. Thank you for all of the friends you have given me, for all of the food you have given me, for the education you have given me, for the love you have given me, and for the secret places you have given me.

I cannot wait to be within you again.

Love,

Alyssa

Last Day

07/03/2012

This morning we went to the Galleria Borghese which was just as wonderful as I remembered it. I had a great time looking at all of the works in the collection and knowing that I learned something in the last four years of college! It is truly a wonderful feeling, for me, to be able to look at a work of art in a gallery like this one and be able to identify it to a degree, and also to be able to talk about it.

My brother and his girlfriend were 100% disinterested in any knowledge I had to offer, and so they went off on their own and that's fine. My mother, as always, was enraptured with every word I had to say. It's nice to have her so invested in what I've learned, but she is my mom, so in a sense it is kind of her job, right? My dad was halfway interested. There are some pieces that I could say a lot about and he would get bored halfway through things I would be saying, not the most captivated audience member, but at least he tried. My dad and I have very different ways of looking at art, and I feel like I learn a lot when I'm looking at art that he is showing me, but I never feel the same way when I am showing him art.

After visiting the Galleria Borghese we walked through the park and then went to the Galleria Nazionale D'Arte Moderna. We did not actually go inside the museum because we were pretty worn out from the Borghese. Instead we just ate salads at the cafe. Yes. Remember that salad I told you about a year ago. Radicchio, Pear and Pecorino? I had that again and it was delicious.

It wouldn't have been a trip to Rome without doing the tiniest bit of shopping, so we did some shopping  and then regrouped at the hotel.

For dinner we ate at AL34 which is a delicious restaurant run by the cutest family. They have definitely become a tourist stop, as they have been written up in all of the books, but the food is still fantastic. We had a raw zucchini salad which was divine, and I had some meatballs that were fantastic. Oh the food there is so good. GO THERE IF YOU ARE IN ROME!

The last thing I did in Rome was take a short walk with my brother and his girlfriend up the Spanish Steps and a little to the north, and then back to the south to our hotel. We didn't speak much to one another which is fine, but it cemented my decision about our sibling relationship, and I was glad to be sure of that.

The last thing I wrote in my journal was: "I can't wait to be home."

I know I had a great time on this trip. I learned a lot about myself and my family and all of the places I visited, but I'm at a transitioning point in my life and it has been very difficult to feel as though I cannot be in one place, and if I am, I cannot be happy there.

Thanks for traveling with me.
xoxo

Return to Rome

07/02/2012

I think it was nice to be back in Rome. We checked into our beautiful hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps (with a rooftop bar that has an incredible view of the city... the perks of being a travel agent's daughter) and then proceeded to explore the city. We ate lunch at Il Brillo Parlante which is the restaurant where mom and I had our first dinner in Rome last year. We ordered salad, pizza and pasta and shared it three ways. A delicious meal in my opinion, although dad was unimpressed (and I thought I was hard to please).

Our major visit of the day was to the Galleria Doria Pamphilj which was absolutely incredible. I'm not quite sure what to make of it at this point... still... one month later as I'm writing this. The gallery is inside a beautiful 16th Century palazzo which is just smack dab in the center of Rome. It is extremely easy to miss, in fact we did miss the entrance at least once. The walls in each room are filled from floor to ceiling with works of art. Everything from Titian to Memling to Vasari! The collection is stunning and so difficult to take in, especially because there are probably only ten wall labels in the entire collection, and there are well over 100 works on view (maybe closer to 200?). We were mostly excited to learn about some new (old) artists that we had never heard of before. I'll have to go through my list and organize it, but if this blog becomes what it used to be (posting artworks) I will definitely post some works by these artists.

Before dinner we went to the rooftop bar of our hotel to have drinks. I wasn't too pleased with the drink selection (they don't really like gin in Rome, and I cannot have a Spritz (aperol, prosecco, soda water) like every other person in Rome) so I ordered a White Russian because I know what it tastes like and I saw no problem with it. Apparently it's an after dinner drink, and while the waiter and bartender did not seem to care or to judge me for ordering this, my brother gave me loads of shit for ordering it. Although it's nice to try new things, I know that some types of alcohol get me seriously drunk, and that's never what I'm looking for. I'm not a lightweight, but I'm not going to order cocktails with champagne or tequila because they don't do me right, and most of the cocktails had champagne or tequila.

For dinner we went to an Osteria where everyone else ordered things they were unhappy with, and I ordered Tortellini in Brodo which was fucking divine. I'm really sad that my family was unhappy with some of the food choices they made on this trip, especially in Rome, but I saw the kind of place we were eating and I knew that even though it was 1,000,000º outside Tortellini in Brodo would be prepared just right, and it was.