Monday Morning Museum 2011

Andreas Achenbach - German Landscape Painter - 16 May 2011
Eugène Atget - French Photographer - 31 October 2011
George Wesley Bellowa - American Ashcan School Painter - 4 July 2011
Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat - French Academic Painter - 15 August 2011
Félix Henri Bracquemond - French Art Nouveau Engraver - 21 November 2011
Pieter Bruegel The Elder - Flemish Nothern Renaissance Painter - 31 January 2011
Annibale Carracci - Italian Baroque Era Painter - 9 May 2011
Mary Stevenson Cassatt - American Impressionist Painter - 14 March 2011
Paul Cézanne - French Post-Impressionist Painter - 23 May 2011
Alvin Langdon Coburn - American-born British Tonalist Photographer - 14 November 2011
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot - French Realist Painter - 27 June 2011
John Constable - English Romantic Painter - 5 December 2011
Lucas Cranach the Elder - German Northern Renaissance Painter - 18 July 2011
Edgar Degas - French Realist / Impressionist Painter and Sculptor - 21 March 2011
Eugène Delacroix - French Romantic Painter - 12 December 2011
André Derain - French Fauvist Painter and Sculptor - 10 January 2011
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins - American Realist Painter - 10 October 2011
Walker Evans - American Social Realist Photographer - 4 April 2011
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin - French Post-Impressionist Painter - 21 February 2011
Francesco Lazzaro Guardi - Italian Rococo Era Painter - 25 July 2011
Katsushika Hokusai - Japanese Ukiyo-e Printmaker - 8 August 2011
Winslow Homer - American Maritime Art Painter - 24 October 2011
Edward Hopper - American Scene Painter - 26 December 2011
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky - Russian-born French Expressionist Painter - 6 June 2011
John Frederick Kensett - American Hudson River School Painter - 11 July 2011
André Kertész - Hungarian-born American Photographer - 30 May 2011
Gustav Klimt - Austrian Art Nouveau Painter - 7 March 2011
Joseph Christian Leyendecker - American Golden Age Illustrator - 19 December 2011
Édouard Manet - French Realist / Impressionist Painter - 19 September 2011
Francesco di Giorgio Martini - Early Italian Rennaissance Painter and Sculptor - 7 November 2011
Oscar Claude Monet - French Impressionist Painter - 14 February 2011
Berthe Morisot - French Impressionist Painter - 3 October 2011
Charles Nègre - French Photographer - 1 August 2011
William Lamb Picknell - American Landscape Painter - 5 September 2011
Robert Rauschenberg - American Pop Artist - 28 March 2011
Pierre-Auguste Renoir - French Impressionist Painter - 3 January 2011
Hubert Robert - French Rococo Era Painter - 17 October 2011
John Singer Sargent - American Portrait Painter - 13 June 2011
Elsa Schiaparelli - Italian-born French Desinger - 28 November 2011
Georges-Pierre Seurat - French Pointillist Painter - 25 April 2011
Charles Rettew Sheeler, Jr. - American Precisionist Painter and Photographer - 26 September 2011
Cindy Sherman - American Photographer - 17 January 2011
Edward J. Steichen - Luxembourgeois-born American Tonalist Photographer and Painter - 7 February 2011
Thomas Sully - English-born American Portrait Painter - 2 May 2011
Joseph Mallord William Turner - English Romantic Painter - 22 August 2011
Anne Vallayer-Coster - French Rocco Era Painter - 28 February 2011
Anthony van Dyck - Flemish Baroque Era Painter - 12 September 2011
Vincent Willem van Gogh - Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter - 24 January 2011
Rembrandt van Rijn - Dutch Baroque Era Painter and Engraver - 18 April 2011
Jacob van Strij - Dutch Landscape Painter - 20 June 2011
Jacometto Veneziano - Italian Early Renaissance Painter - 11 April 2011
Johannes Vermeer - Dutch Baroque Era Painter - 29 August 2011

Image: "Monday Morning Museum" logo created by Adrean Darce Brent

Zócalo: “Do Artists Have A Moral Responsibility In War?”

This was not my first time at a Zócalo event, though the venue itself, the Petersen Automotive Museum, was a first time experience for me. Although I am a museum goer, I really didn’t have much interest in this automotive museum as I don’t drive and know nothing about cars. But after checking in with the people from Zócalo and having time before they would let us into the actual space for the Alan Riding talk, I wandered around the first floor of exhibits. In addition to the beginning history of automobiles, there were also auxiliary aspects related to passenger cars – gas station, streetcar, design studio – and a clearly marked definite order in which to view the exhibits. Very helpful. As I was just walking around the floor to pass the time, I didn’t engage in the exhibits as I normally do in an art museum. But there were visually interesting vehicles, so I took pleasure in looking at them. At least I could admire the cars aesthetically if not from an engineering perspective.

Finally, fifteen minutes before the talk was to begin, people were allowed to take the escalator to the second floor - but only if you had received a wristband at the check in table (these days it’s all on the wrist). The seating was black, cushioned folding chairs and I settled in as comfortably as I could and prepared for the lecture. Alan Riding is actually on a book tour for his new non-fiction title And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. I was drawn to this talk by the question of morality presented, especially in combination with culture and Paris during a conflictive time in France’s history. I know that I would simply answer the lecture’s title as YES and ask a different question – “What Are The Moral Responsibilities Of Artists During War?”

Riding began by commenting on the United States/United Kingdom level of moral response by artists and writers to the two current wars. It is hardly a blip, except perhaps for Hollywood stars and Riding doesn’t believe real attention is paid to them – after all what do they know? Because of the social and political stature they enjoyed by being close to the institutes/people in power, there is more of a tradition of artists taking a stand in Latin America when things become ugly. The usual choices were – stay and endorse military regimes, stay and remain silent, stay and take up arms against the regime, or leave and campaign against a regime abroad – few did the former, many did the later (among them Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Ariel Dorfman, Isabel Allende).

The occupation in France produced similar categories into which artists, writers, intellectuals made their choice – stay and support the Nazis and (for a time, Communists), which Riding calls “true believers” (one of them was Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, known as Céline); stay and remain silent (although he could have left Paris, Pablo Picasso chose to continue working while avoiding contact with Germans); stay and fight (Albert Camus joined the Résistance); and leave (many moved to unoccupied France, as well as other countries). During the occupation performers performed (Édith Piaf, Danielle Darrieux, Maurice Chevalier) because of the need to work and writers wrote, sometimes clandestinely, because of the need to keep publishing in existence. After the war, accusations of collaboration were leveled against some of the artists and writers and the degree of interaction someone had with the Germans determined their fate. Showing moral guidance was important even if everyone was just trying to survive the occupation.

After the lecture and Q&A there was a reception for Alan Riding at another port of the second floor, but I decided to skip it. I liked the lecture and I thought of what I would do in the same situation. Would I be brave enough to risk expressing my position, even with taking precautions or would I try to stay out of the limelight? Such were the questions I pondered on the bus ride home. Will have to read Riding’s book to learn more about this time of Parisian life.

Images:
Left: Alan Riding from the website zocalopublicsquare.org
Center: Zócalo email header
Right: Front cover of And The Show Went On: Cultural Life In Nazi-Occupied Paris from the website and the showwenton.com