Aziz Art October 2018
History of art(west and Iranian)-contemporary art
History of art(west and Iranian)-contemporary art
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AZIZ ART<br />
<strong>October</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
František Kupka<br />
Seo, Young-Deok<br />
Guy Laramée<br />
Dia Azzawi
1-František Kupka<br />
6-Guy Laramée<br />
10-Felice Varini<br />
13-Seo, Young-Deok<br />
15-Dia Azzawi<br />
Director: <strong>Aziz</strong> Anzabi<br />
Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi<br />
Translator : Asra Yaghoubi<br />
Research: Zohreh Nazari<br />
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com
František Kupka 23 September<br />
1871 – 24 June 1957 also known<br />
as Frank Kupka or François<br />
Kupka,was a Czech painter and<br />
graphic artist. He was a pioneer<br />
and co-founder<br />
of the early phases of the abstract<br />
art movement and Orphic Cubism<br />
(Orphism).Kupka's abstract works<br />
arose from a base of realism, but<br />
later evolved into pure abstract art.<br />
Biography<br />
Education<br />
František Kupka was born in<br />
Opočno (eastern Bohemia) in<br />
Austria-Hungary in 1871. From<br />
1889 to 1892, he studied at the<br />
Academy of Fine <strong>Art</strong>s in Prague.<br />
At this time, he painted historical<br />
and patriotic themes. Kupka<br />
enrolled at the Academy of Fine<br />
<strong>Art</strong>s in Vienna, where he<br />
concentrated on symbolic and<br />
allegorical subjects. He was<br />
influenced by the painter and<br />
social reformer Karl Wilhelm<br />
Diefenbach (1851–1913) and his<br />
naturistic life-style. Kupka<br />
exhibited at the Kunstverein,<br />
Vienna, in 1894. His involvement<br />
with theosophy and Eastern<br />
philosophy dates from this period.<br />
By spring 1894, Kupka had settled<br />
in Paris; there he attended the<br />
Académie Julian briefly and then<br />
studied with Jean-Pierre Laurens at<br />
the École des Beaux-<strong>Art</strong>s.<br />
World War I<br />
Kupka served as a volunteer in the<br />
First World War, and is mentioned<br />
in La Main coupée by Blaise<br />
Cendrars. Cendrars describes him<br />
as a "proud soldier, calm, placid,<br />
strong"... but really too old to be a<br />
soldier, being at least 25 years older<br />
than the rest. When the regiment<br />
set out from Paris for the front in<br />
Picardy (they marched all the way<br />
on foot) Mme Kupka met the<br />
column as they arrived at the La<br />
Défense roundabout, near where<br />
they lived. She marched with them,<br />
carrying her husband's bag and his<br />
rifle. She would have marched all<br />
the way to the front, but at the end<br />
of the first day the colonel had her<br />
arrested and sent back to Paris. She<br />
later made her way to the front<br />
lines to spend time with her<br />
husband. Kupka himself left the<br />
front due to frostbite in the foot,<br />
caused by nights in the trenches<br />
waist-deep in freezing water. 1
Career<br />
Kupka worked as an illustrator of<br />
books and posters and, during his<br />
early years in Paris, became known<br />
for his satirical drawings for<br />
newspapers and magazines. In<br />
1906, he settled in Puteaux, a<br />
suburb of Paris, and that same year<br />
exhibited for the first time at the<br />
Salon d'Automne. Kupka was<br />
deeply impressed by the first<br />
Futurist Manifesto, published in<br />
1909 in Le Figaro. Kupka's 1909<br />
painting Piano Keyboard/Lake<br />
marked a break in his<br />
representational style. His work<br />
became increasingly abstract<br />
around 1910–11, reflecting his<br />
theories of motion, color, and the<br />
relationship between music and<br />
painting (orphism). In 1911, he<br />
attended meetings of the Puteaux<br />
Group (Section d'Or). In 1912, he<br />
exhibited his Amorpha. Fugue à<br />
deux couleurs, at the Salon des<br />
Indépendants in the Cubist room,<br />
although he did not wish to be<br />
identified with any movement.<br />
Creation in the Plastic <strong>Art</strong>s, a book<br />
Kupka completed in 1913, was<br />
published in Prague in 1923.<br />
In 1931, he was a founding<br />
member of Abstraction-Création.<br />
In 1936, his work was included in<br />
the exhibition Cubism and Abstract<br />
<strong>Art</strong> at the Museum of Modern <strong>Art</strong><br />
in New York City, and in an<br />
important show with another Czech<br />
painter, Alphonse Mucha, at the<br />
Jeu de Paume in Paris. A<br />
retrospective of his work took place<br />
at the Galerie Mánes in Prague in<br />
1946. The same year, Kupka<br />
participated in the Salon des<br />
Réalités Nouvelles, where he<br />
continued to exhibit regularly until<br />
his death. During the early 1950s,<br />
he gained general recognition and<br />
had several solo shows in New York.<br />
Between 1919 and 1938 Kupka was<br />
financially supported by his good<br />
friend, art collector and industrialist<br />
Jindřich Waldes who accumulated a<br />
substantial collection of his art.<br />
Kupka died in 1957 in Puteaux,<br />
France.<br />
Work<br />
Kupka had a strong interest in color<br />
theory and freeing colors from<br />
descriptive associations (which is<br />
thought to have possibly influenced<br />
other artists like Robert Delaunay)
Margit Rowell described his<br />
painting The Yellow Scale<br />
(c. 1907) as "Kupka's first<br />
attempt to come to terms with<br />
color theory in which the result is<br />
both personal and<br />
successful".Although a<br />
self-portrait, the subject of the<br />
painting was the color yellow.<br />
Around 1910 he began developing<br />
his own color wheels, adapting a<br />
format previously explored by Sir<br />
Isaac Newton and Hermann von<br />
Helmholtz. This work in turn led<br />
Kupka to execute a series of<br />
paintings he called "Discs of<br />
Newton"<br />
(1911–12).<br />
Planes by Colors<br />
The Colored One<br />
Reminiscence of a Cathedral<br />
Blue Space<br />
Works in Peggy Guggenheim<br />
Collection, Venice, Italy:<br />
Study for Woman Picking Flowers<br />
(Femme cueillant des fleurs), ca<br />
1910<br />
Study for Amorpha, Warm<br />
Chromatics, Chromatique chaude<br />
and for Fugue in Two Colors (Fugue<br />
a deux couleurs), ca 1911-1912<br />
Vertical Planes (Plans verticaux),<br />
1911–1912<br />
Study for Organization of Graphic<br />
Motifs I (Localisations de mobiles<br />
graphiques I), ca 1911-12<br />
Around a point (Autour d'un point),<br />
ca 1920-1925<br />
Other works include The Cathedral<br />
(Katedrála).
Guy Laramée<br />
BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
In the course of his 30 years of<br />
practice, interdisciplinary artist<br />
Guy Laramée has created in such<br />
varied and numerous disciplines as<br />
theater writing and directing,<br />
contemporary music composition,<br />
musical instrument design and<br />
building, singing, video,<br />
scenography, sculpture,<br />
installation, painting,<br />
and literature. He has received<br />
more than 30 arts grants and was<br />
awarded the Canada Council’s<br />
Joseph S. Stauffer award for<br />
musical composition. His work has<br />
been presented in United States,<br />
Belgium, France, Germany,<br />
Switzerland, Japan, and Latin<br />
America.<br />
From 1984 to 1988 he composed<br />
music for contemporary dance:<br />
Daniel Soulière and Danse Cité,<br />
Carol Ip, Suzanne Lavoie, Andrew<br />
Harwood). After 1988 he composed<br />
and designed sound scenography<br />
for theater: (Larry Tremblay, 1987-<br />
88; Robert Lepage, 1992-93; Jean-<br />
Frédérique Messier, 1993-95;<br />
Volker Hesse, Switzerland, 1993);<br />
Lou Simard, Germany, 1994; Claire<br />
Gignac and La Nef, 1995-2004;<br />
Rachel Rosenthal, USA, 1999-2000.<br />
His research in non-tempered<br />
tunings and multiple layer<br />
polyrhythms led him to found TUYO<br />
in 1987, an ensemble performing<br />
microtonal and gestural music on<br />
invented instruments. He directed<br />
this ensemble until 1991.<br />
Since 1986, he has authored<br />
several interdisciplinary works: Les<br />
Éléphants sont venus mourir ici,<br />
1986; Théorie du Désert 1991;<br />
Marche de Nuit 1994-96, BIBLIOS<br />
2005-6 and co-authored several<br />
multidisciplinary works (URNOS,<br />
2004 ; Ici et là, 2004). He has<br />
written the scripts and directed the<br />
following short films: Marche de<br />
Nuit, with Henri-Louis Chalem,<br />
1996; CrystalKey Bee, 1997). He<br />
was the artistic director of<br />
PluraMuses, a company devoted to<br />
producing multi-disciplinary works<br />
and was also involved in the<br />
Meduse cooperative in Quebec<br />
City. He initiated and coordinated «<br />
L’espace traversé », a pan-Canadian<br />
conference on interdisciplinary art<br />
practices (See the bilingual book<br />
published by Le Sabord: L’Espace<br />
traversé). 6
Parallel to his artistic practice, he<br />
has pursued investigation in the<br />
field of anthropology. His fieldwork<br />
includes ethno-musicography of<br />
the Fetish ritual in Togo (1986),<br />
oracular imagination among<br />
healers in the Peruvian Amazon<br />
(1993-95), and concepts of<br />
creativity and imagination among<br />
contemporary artists (M.A. thesis,<br />
2002). Ethnographic imagination is<br />
an important characteristic in his<br />
artistic work.<br />
Although his work has been<br />
presented in museums and<br />
galleries (Marche de Nuit hosted by<br />
the Montreal Contemporary <strong>Art</strong><br />
Museum, 94; « Quelle belle<br />
journée pour mourir ! », Méduse<br />
1997), its appearance in the<br />
context of gallery exhibition is<br />
relatively new (2004). Nevertheless,<br />
at the end of 2011 his work will<br />
have been included in 15 solo and<br />
more than 20 collective shows. Half<br />
of these have been in international<br />
exhibits.
Felice Varini born in Locarno in<br />
1952 is a Paris-based, Swiss artist<br />
who was nominated for the<br />
2000/2001 Marcel Duchamp Prize.<br />
Mostly known for his geometric<br />
perspective-localized paintings in<br />
rooms and other spaces, using<br />
projector-stencil techniques,<br />
according to mathematics<br />
professor and art critic<br />
Joël Koskas,<br />
"A work of Varini is an anti-Mona<br />
Lisa." Felice paints on<br />
architectural and urban spaces,<br />
such as buildings, walls and streets.<br />
The paintings are characterized by<br />
one vantage point from which the<br />
viewer can see the complete<br />
painting (usually a simple<br />
geometric shape such as circle,<br />
square, line), while from other view<br />
points the viewer will see ‘broken’<br />
fragmented shapes. Varini argues<br />
that the work exists as a whole -<br />
with its complete shape as well as<br />
the fragments. “My concern,” he<br />
says “is what happens outside the<br />
vantage point of view.”<br />
Carcassonne<br />
Felice Varini, project "Concentric,<br />
eccentric" with concentric yellow<br />
circles, at Carcassonne for the 7th<br />
"IN SITU, Heritage and<br />
contemporary art" event in May<br />
<strong>2018</strong> to celebrate the 20th<br />
anniversary of the inscription on<br />
the World Heritage List of UNESCO<br />
In May <strong>2018</strong>, Varini's project<br />
"Concentric, eccentric" saw large<br />
yellow concentric circles mounted<br />
on the monument at Carcassonne<br />
as part of the 7th edition of "IN<br />
SITU, Heritage and contemporary<br />
art", a summer event in the<br />
Occitanie / Pyrenees-<br />
Mediterranean region focusing on<br />
the relationship between modern<br />
art and architectural heritage. This<br />
monumental work is to celebrate<br />
the 20th anniversary of<br />
Carcassonne's inscription on the<br />
World Heritage List of UNESCO.<br />
Exceptional in its size and its<br />
visibility and use of architectural<br />
space, the exhibit extends on the<br />
western front of the fortifications<br />
of the City. The work can only be<br />
fully perceived in front of the Porte<br />
d'Aude at the pedestrian route<br />
from the Bastide.<br />
10
The circles of yellow colour consist of thin, painted aluminium sheets,<br />
spread like waves of time and space, fragmenting and recomposing the<br />
geometry of the circles on the towers and curtain walls of the<br />
fortifications. The work will be visible from May to
Seo, Young-Deok born1983, Korea<br />
Academic Career<br />
2009 Graduated from the department of Environmental Sculpture,<br />
University of Seoul<br />
2011 Entered the department of Environmental Sculpture, the<br />
Graduate School of the University of Seoul<br />
Awards<br />
2008 Received the Grand Prize, “The 9th National Undergraduate and<br />
Graduate Students Sculpture Competition”<br />
Solo Exhibition<br />
<strong>2018</strong> ‘Human Connection’, Opera galley, London<br />
<strong>2018</strong> ‘Meditation’, Liquid art system, Italy<br />
2017 ‘Meditation’, SeongNam art center, Cube Museum, SeongNam,<br />
Korea<br />
2016 ‘The Gray Man’, Opera Gallery, Paris, France<br />
2015 ‘Mordern Life’, White Room Gallery, Capri, Italy<br />
2014 ‘Link’, Gallery SODA Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey<br />
2012 ‘Modern Times Infection’, Gallery SODA Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey<br />
2011 ‘Dystopia’, Insa <strong>Art</strong> Center, Seoul, Korea<br />
2009 ‘Modern Times’, Gallery of University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea<br />
13
Dia Azzawi<br />
born 1939 is an Iraqi born patiner<br />
and sculptor, now living and<br />
working in London and one of the<br />
pioneers of modern Arab art. He is<br />
noted for incorporating Arabic<br />
script into his paintings. Active in<br />
the arts community, he founded<br />
the Iraqi art group known as New<br />
Vision and has been an inspiration<br />
to a generation of young,<br />
calligraffiti artists.<br />
Life and career<br />
Dia Azzawi was born in al-Fadhil,<br />
the oldest traditional<br />
neighbourhood of Baghdad, in<br />
1939.His father was a grocer in the<br />
city centre and Dia was the third of<br />
ten children in the family.<br />
Azzawi studied archaeology at the<br />
College of <strong>Art</strong>s in Baghdad,<br />
graduating in 1962 and later<br />
studied at the Institute of<br />
Fine <strong>Art</strong>s, under the guidance of<br />
the eminent Iraqi artist, Hafidh al-<br />
Droubi, and graduating in 1964. By<br />
day, he studied the ancient world,<br />
and by night he studied he studied<br />
European painting. Azzawi<br />
#explains, "This contrast meant<br />
that I was working with European<br />
principles but at the same time<br />
using my heritage as part of my<br />
work." His exposure to archaeology<br />
would influence him greatly as an<br />
artist, and he drew inspiration from<br />
the ancient myths of Gilgamesh<br />
and Imam Hussein, a Muslim hero.<br />
Azzawi then continued to study art<br />
at the Institute of Fine <strong>Art</strong>,<br />
graduating in 1964.<br />
In the 1950s, he began working<br />
with Iraqi artist, Faeq Hassan, who<br />
was involved with an arts group<br />
called the Pioneers. This group<br />
aimed to locate a continuity<br />
between traditional and<br />
contemporary Iraqi art. During this<br />
period, he began to develop his<br />
own aesthetic, and was inspired by<br />
dramatic moments in Iraq's history.<br />
While enrolled at art school, he<br />
joined the local art group, known as<br />
the Impressionists, founded by his<br />
professor, Hafidh al-Droubi in 1953.<br />
While Azzawi was not particularly<br />
drawn to impressionism as a style,<br />
the group encouraged artists to<br />
experiment with different styles,<br />
and also to pursue local themes as<br />
subject matter.<br />
15
Through his involvement in this<br />
group, he began to explore Arab<br />
cultural history and mythology,<br />
which became recurring themes in<br />
his work.He continued his active<br />
involvement in Iraq's arts<br />
community by joining the group<br />
known as the Baghdad Modern <strong>Art</strong><br />
Group, founded by the artist and<br />
intellectual, Shakir Hassan Al Said,<br />
in 1951, and later the New Vision<br />
Group, for which he wrote the<br />
manifesto, which was published in<br />
a Baghdad newspaper in 1968.<br />
During a turbulent political period<br />
in Iraq, Azzawi served as a reservist<br />
in the Iraq army between 1966<br />
and 1973, where he witnessed<br />
many atrocities. Through this<br />
experience, he learned that he<br />
needed to speak for those who<br />
have no voice. A number of his<br />
works are expressly designed to<br />
give a voice to those who have<br />
been silenced through war and<br />
conflict.<br />
He held the positions of Director<br />
of the Iraqi Antiquities<br />
Department in Baghdad (1968-76)<br />
and <strong>Art</strong>istic Director of the Iraqi<br />
Cultural Centre in London, where<br />
he arranged a number of<br />
exhibitions. He was the<br />
inaugural editor of the magazine,<br />
Ur (1978-1984) - a provactive new<br />
journal published by the Iraqi<br />
Cultural Centre in London.He was<br />
also the editor of Funoon Arabiyyah<br />
(1981-1982) and a member of the<br />
editorial board of the scholarly<br />
journal, Mawakif.<br />
He was still living in Iraq when he<br />
witnessed the demise of the<br />
avantgarde art groups. At this time,<br />
he became more actively involved<br />
in the arts community. In 1968, he<br />
founded the pivotal Iraqi art group,<br />
Al-Ru’yah al-Jadida (New Vision)<br />
and wrote its manifesto, Towards a<br />
New Vision, which is co-signed by<br />
Ismail Fatah Al Turk. Al-Ru’yah al-<br />
Jadida represented a freer art style<br />
which encouraged artists to remain<br />
true to their own era., but also to<br />
look to heritage and tradition for<br />
inspiration. In this respect, it sought<br />
to maintain the broad trends of the<br />
prior art groups, such as the<br />
Baghdad Modern Group, but at the<br />
same time acknowledging that<br />
artists were already developed a<br />
more free style.
This group promoted the idea of<br />
freedom of creativity within a<br />
framework of heritage. He was also<br />
a member of the group One<br />
Dimension founded by Shakir<br />
Hassan Al Said, which rejected the<br />
earlier modern Arab art movement<br />
as being too concerned with<br />
European techniques and<br />
aesthetics.<br />
In the late 1970s, after Iraq came<br />
under the control of Saddam<br />
Hussein, Azzawi left his native land<br />
and settled in London where he<br />
met his first wife, the Swedish<br />
born, Shashten Finstrom, who<br />
worked at the Patrick Seale Gallery,<br />
where Azzawi had his first solo<br />
British exhibition, in 1978.<br />
Azzawi now spends his time living<br />
and working in both London and<br />
Doha. In 1991, he was plunged<br />
into despair when his saw the<br />
destruction to his homeland<br />
associated with the Gulf War. He<br />
shut himself away in his home for<br />
several months, concentrating on<br />
his art and producing a series of<br />
works, including the Balad Al Sawad<br />
[Country of Blackness] series of<br />
"violently drawn images of<br />
terrified, crying and screaming<br />
faces, haunting images of despair."<br />
He is one of the pioneers of the<br />
modern Arab art world, with a<br />
special interest in the combination<br />
of Arabic traditions, including<br />
calligraphy, into modern art<br />
compositions<br />
Works<br />
Azzawi was part of the generation<br />
of people that saw their countries<br />
and homelands fall to bloody<br />
dictatorships and wars, and so<br />
much of his work is a commentary<br />
on the destruction and devastation<br />
of Iraq due to war and invasion. His<br />
piece, My Broken Dream , a<br />
colossal monochromatic work, four<br />
meters in height and ten in length,<br />
is an assemblage of shapes, limps<br />
and swords, and it is an attempt to<br />
document a peoples pain, and in<br />
the written statement of the<br />
artwork, he writes, “Iraq is my inner<br />
soul." In addition, Azzawi doesn’t<br />
only give voice to his own plight,<br />
but to those who are silenced as<br />
well, including that of Palestine and<br />
Iraqi Kurdistan. One example,
The Land of Sad Oranges, is a<br />
set of black and white drawings<br />
consisting of faceless heads and<br />
limp bodies, based on the short<br />
story of the same name by<br />
Palestinian writer, Ghassan<br />
Kanafani.<br />
Azzawi was inspired to draw<br />
this set after Kanafani, a close<br />
friend of his, was murdered in<br />
1972 by the Mossadand in these<br />
drawings, he tries to explore the<br />
condition of statelessness and<br />
particularly the effect it has on<br />
the individual. In an interview<br />
with Saphora Smith for the<br />
Telegraph in 2016, Azzawi said, “I<br />
feel I am a witness. If I can give a<br />
voice to somebody who has no<br />
voice,<br />
that is what I should do,” and with<br />
this work he tries to document<br />
the inner struggle of refugees<br />
and explore themes of exile and<br />
displacement.<br />
The art historian, Nada Shabout,<br />
has classified Dia Azzawi's work as<br />
belonging to the School of<br />
Calligraphic <strong>Art</strong> (also known as<br />
the Hurufiyya movement) using a<br />
style termed calligraphic<br />
combinations, which means that he<br />
combines abstract, freeform and<br />
classical styles<br />
His works are held in prestigious art<br />
galleries, art museums and public<br />
collections including in both the<br />
West and the Middle East: Vienna<br />
Public Collection; British Museum,<br />
London; Victoria and Albert<br />
Museum, London; Gulbenkian<br />
Collection, Barcelona; The World<br />
Bank, Washington D.C.; Library of<br />
Congress, Washington D.C.; Institut<br />
du Monde Arabe, Paris; Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Paris; Bibilotheque<br />
Nationale, Paris; Pier Gardin<br />
Collection, Paris; Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Baghdad; Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Damascus; Museum of<br />
Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Tunis; Arab Museum<br />
of Modern <strong>Art</strong>, Doha; Adel Mandil<br />
Collection, Riyadh; The Saudi Bank,<br />
London; Jeddah International<br />
Airport, Saudi Arabia; Riyadh<br />
International Airport, Saudi Arabia;<br />
The United Bank of Kuwait,<br />
London; Development Fund,<br />
Kuwait, Una Foundation, Morocco;<br />
Jordan National Gallery of Fine<br />
<strong>Art</strong>s, Amman; and the British<br />
Airways Collection, London.
A number of his works, formerly<br />
held in the Iraq National Museum<br />
of Modern <strong>Art</strong>, were subject to<br />
the looting that occurred in 2003<br />
following the US invasion of Iraq.<br />
At least one of these, The Lost City,<br />
rated as one of the top 100<br />
missing works, has since been<br />
repatriated. The stolen artworks<br />
have been involved in controversy<br />
within art circles. A private Iraqi<br />
seller, offered The Lost City, for<br />
sale with a $50,000 price tag,<br />
to a gallery in 2011, in spite of<br />
the fact that it was listed by<br />
Interpol as a stolen artwork. With<br />
the assistance of the gallery, US<br />
Embassy in Baghdad, Interpol and<br />
the FBI, the work was eventually<br />
recovered and returned to the<br />
rightful owner, the Iraq National<br />
Museum of Modern <strong>Art</strong>.<br />
He has promoted Arabic art and<br />
culture through both his writing<br />
and his art. He has published some<br />
fourteen books, numerous articles<br />
and has edited art magazines. He<br />
was the <strong>Art</strong> Director of the<br />
International Magazine of Arab<br />
Culture, between 1978 and 1984.
http://www.aziz_anzabi.com