Midnight Atlantic City

Midnight Atlantic City

by | 6 Jan 2014 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, Music

Franz Marc's Deer in the Snow at the Lenbachhaus; Persona

Franz Marc’s Deer in the Snow at the Lenbachhaus; Persona

The article M83: Why Music Is Contemporary Art on the Installation website provides an excellent forum, in the comments section, for the discussion of the title subject.

I like M83 a lot and agree that their sound is ambitious beyond poptronica though as commenters on the Installation site point out this is not necessarily because of compositional enterprise or chord progression For me the attraction is the “celebrate the apocalypse” mood of “Midnight City” or the spoken “created sample” in  “OK Pal:”

“We’re walking in the streets – or what’s left of them,
I take your hand, and the city is slowly vanishing.
There’s no crowd anymore, no cars, no signals.
But in the middle of the road, a purple and mellow shape is floating.
The shape of our mutual dream.
Stay calm, hold me tight, give it a chance to take us away.
We will live, we will dream on the shadow of our world.”
I had a dream the other night that incorporated both this song and the painting in the photo, Franz Marc’s Deer in the Snow (1911). In the dream a good friend of mine who recently has been through a difficult time was one of the deer, but hampered by a hank of rope or net caught between her hoof and head.  The reindeer tender freed her, and despite being “caught,” my friend as the deer, didn’t have any broken bones, or even any bruises or lost fur. I hope she will be OK like the deer in the dream. In the dream, I heard the music from “Midnight City” (which reminds me of this friend). I don’t know why anyone would think people (and animals) don’t see colors or hear music in dreams…maybe everyone does and they just forget.

“One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity” by Miwon Kwon

by | 1 Jun 2007 | Art History

“One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity” by Miwon Kwon reprinted in Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985 edited by Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung.

Architectural theorist, occasional curator, and UCLA professor of contemporary art history Miwon Kwon dissects the meaning of the word “place” as it pertains to art in public places and the changing role of the installation-maker in “One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity.” This essay which originally appeared in the influential journal October in 1997 was such a success in the critical theory community that Kwon published a book-length updated edition in 2002.

Kwon makes several points though her primary thesis is simply that site-specific art has changed greatly since the so-to-speak groundbreaking days of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and smaller but no less controversial pieces such as Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc ((“One Place After Another: Notes on Site Specificity” by Miwon Kwon reprinted in Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985 edited by Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden, Masachusetts, 2005). 32)) along with notions of commerce and integrity.
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