Denver, Colorado Cityscapes

As I said in another recent post, not too long ago I was in the city of Denver, Colorado. Here is a quick view of downtown Denver through the eyes of my digital camera with some help from my digital editing.

commissioned by Denver artist Lawrence Argent, 2002

I really like this one (above) It's a giant blue bear sculpture looking into a building. Big sculptures that give the landscape a surreal feeling always appeal to me.

The badminton darts on the lawn of the Nelson Atkins Museum (left) Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen) in Kansas City is another well-done example of this. (It's like you stumbled onto the lawn of a giant). The orange ribbons thing in NY's Central Park though? (Orange Central Park gates, by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 2005) I don't get it, there didn't seem to be a theme to it other than well, orange banners; really a laborious process with not much surrealistic affect if you ask me.

Another sculpture from Downtown Denver, (photo and color effects by me). I couldn't find the sculptor's name for this one, if you know it, make a comment. The last photo below is a clock tower I saw on our way to the art museum that was glowing purple.

Views of Kansas City

I have two sets of images to share with you today. The first set are photos taken by me, (slightly altered with my digital magic), and are views of the downtown River Market area of Kansas City. (Images are property of me, Ed Tajchman). You can see the Mighty Muddy Mo (the Missouri River) in the last one there.

Photos are by Ed Tajchman ©2008, all rights reserved.

This second set of photos takes us inside the city for a much closer view. These are some works of art on the sides of buildings, what one might call murals or graffiti. These works are copyrighted by the artists that created them. I use them here in fair use, (lo-resolution photos for critical review/news). The lion face I know is done by a local artist who calls himself "Scribe". If any of the artists want to be identified, they can email me, (link is on the sidebar).

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Salvador Dali on Portraits

The enormous ego that Dali had concerning himself, his work, and his personal style, is no secret of course. I think if Dali could have convinced subjects to somehow more resemble their portraits he absolutely would have.

"The reason that some portraits don't look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures."

-Salvador Dali

Thank Goddess Dali never had this power, else we would have some very unnaturally strange people walking around, (which might be fun for us, but certainly not for the person themselves). Looking back at Dali's life and work; I find his enormous ego funny and endearing at times, other times it is simply overbearing and distracts from his paintings. As I have said in my other quotes from Dali, my humble opinion is that I don't think surrealism (the movement Dali helped pioneer) was at the forefront of modern art. I am much more a Duchamp fan myself, and wonder what kind of work Dali would have done had he been a tad more conceptual. Let's not forget though that surrealism gave us in many ways what is an unmatched contribution to the world that is still reverberating, an unparalleled commitment to the imagination, and for that I am forever grateful.

Thoughts on Surrealism

Although I do appreciate Salvador Dali's insanely incredible collection of paintings he produced, (ab0ut 8000), I disagree with a lot of his philosophy when it comes to painting. This quote lends to the notion that although Dali was a master of representing reality in a new way, he had difficulty reinterpreting it:

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing."

-Salvador Dali

He considered himself quite radical with his surrealistic style. But in my book, when for example the Dada movement, and the first formally non-representational paintings were produced decades before Dali became successful, this is just not true. Of course he is a master painter with great style, I'm just saying he wasn't on the forefront of modern art, that is for sure. Fellow Spanish painter Picasso was born 23 years before Dali, and Picasso's style is years ahead of his. But I'm not putting down the man by any means, I am just saying I don't personally dig art that is so reliant on already known images, even if they are all twisted about.

Cubist Self Portrait, Salvador Dali, 1923.

Salvador Dali Quote

"Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision."

- Salvador dali

This is an interesting quote to me because it pertains to that Dada element of modern art that is contrary to tradition, but more so because as much as Dali was inventive and groundbreaking with his vision, his methods were purely academic. He was a supporter of realism, and as crazy has his compositions were, they were still painted and drawn using classical methods in a realist style. Conceptual art much more destroys the shackles of limiting vision than surrealism did, and a lot of great conceptual art like the Dada movement, abstract expressionism, and the idea of sculpting light has art; happened before and during Dali's heyday.