African Art

I long to revisit West Africa, this time focussing on the area from Ghana to Benin. I love Nigerian culture, I am really excited by Ibeji twin figures, ashanti art, of course Yoruba Benin bronzes and other great works from the region. I am particularly interested to see how the apparently spreading influence of Islam is changing or influencing the sculpture and other traditional arts of the area. I suspect soon the art of crafting anthropomorphic figures of wood and bronze will sadly fade and nonfigurative art will start to assert itself, as in Islam it is considered tabu to try to replicate the human form. 

I am particularly keen to get thoughts of my mentor on this, Dr. Jean Bourgatti, expert on African Art and a true believer in all things Nigerian. 

Benin culture has no parallel on earth, closest being ancient Greece. To call the art of Africa “primitive” is pejorative and untrue. The ancient bronzes of Benin are incredibly lifelike and represent a naturalized ideal in sculpture that is uncommon in art of the time. Would love to get back to that world. Again. Especially the Afro-Cuban Voudou angle. To be blogged again soon. Stay tuned.

GLOW SHOW a WHOA!!

GLOW in Santa Monica last Saturday night was…

peculiar. Imagine tens/hundreds of thousands of Angelenos promenading peacefully along the famous boardwalk–er, cement walk and up to the pier, with its new Ferris Wheel and carny workers and arcade all above a tremendous plinth of sea aged wood…

Electronic blips and bleeps disguised as arrhytmic dance music permeates the perimeter, and light art installations are set like sculpture in the sand. Projections on fabric, iridescent man made jelly fish float on the sea…

Everyone is stoned. A lanky teen is asking me for acid. Parents are with their teens. Stoned.

It’s cool. Really cool. Really, really cool. The air is warm, the marine layer sporadic. 

It’s like three in the afternoon. The Benetton generations lounge on blankets on the sand, emulating the daytime weekend crowds minus the sun and sunscreen. It’s three ayem, and this bizarre tableau will go on til dawn, to be replicated again in a year. 

As Your (Shadow) President

President Oldenkamp. Doesn’t roll off the tongue so well. But this isn’t about image. It’s about how I–as your president–plan to turn around the USA.

 

First, thank you for not voting Republican. If there ever was a noble aspect to that party, well, that’s a distant memory. It’s the Land of the Selfish White Man and needs a major overhaul. Witness the link to the Judiciary Committee. Contrast the Republicans on the RIGHT of course to the Dems on the LEFT. http://www.judiciary.house.gov/about/members.html 

It’s time to set some rules here. 

1. Universal Health Care. Period. End of Story. If you want elective or VIP service, pay accordingly. Everyone else, cover us and cover us now, encourage medicine in schools, and fund stem cell and other state of the art r & d. 

2. Schools. Fix ’em. Pay teachers. Bring back the arts. Public schools are our lifesblood.

3. Gays in the Military. Guess what? They’re already there. So, leave ’em alone. As your C0mmander-In-Chief, I will not allow bigotry in the armed forces. 

4. Gay Marriage. Not a threat to anyone. Opposition to gay marriage is opposition to all marriage. Think about it. 

5. Marijuana. Legalize it. Make the swab test or blood test a police tool to combat hard core stoned drivers. That should be the only restriction. Tax it like hell and pay for our crumbling infrastructure while getting the criminals out of our forests. Win, win, win.

6. Nuclear Weapons and Power. Buh-bye. Why risk the entire planet for an energy source or cataclysmic weapon? It’s beyond crazy. People all over Europe are still metastasizing the fallout from Chernobyl. It’s forever, people. Harness the winds, tides and sun. 

7. Immigration. We have ten guest worker programs already on the books in the U.S. Enforce them, pay workers a proper wage, and if we pay fifty cents more for a head of lettuce, it’s still a lot cheaper than a gallon of gas. 

8. The U.N. Beef it up. Give it some juice. Make it the world defender, not us. Let’s work on things here at home.

Thanks, and I look forward to your vote for my SHADOW PRESIDENCY 

this November.

Roy Rogers Oldenkamp, Hollywood, July 2008

The Exquisite Mind of John Saladino

Photos Above: Saladino sofa, top. CB2 contemporary sofa set, above.

The 80’s were renowned for the concept of High-tech, and the uber-God of this genre, John Saladino, has been proven prophetic once again. A glance through contemporary furnishings will give you an idea of the importance of the work of Saladino since the 70’s. His stripped down, eclectic style is the current rage, and much of his original furnishings influence what we sit on and place drinks or plasma screens on today. The book High-Tech, the bible of the movement, was vastly influential at the time, and spreads of Saladino’s work graced Architectural Digest and other trade publications. His use of raw plywood as flooring, exposed ductwork and steel fixtures presaged an entire era, and is still referred to today. 

Granted, a cursory glance through his website, http://www.saladinostyle.com shows his atelier producing more classic, Palladian style interiors, elements are still evident, particularly in the pared-down colour palette and spare furnishings devoid of excess decoration and detail. A trained architect, Saladino understands form and function and integration of aesthetic and shelter. The amount of merit his work has received has been largely under-appreciated and a revival of interest in his early and middle period work should be the next big thing to influence our culture. Oh, wait: it already is: let’s just disseminate to the masses. 

Penn Jilette is not convinced about global warming…a skeptic.

Is it fascist to be skeptical and break away from the commonly held belief, to think that the prevailing wisdom might be suspect? Why, normally, Question Authority is a valid phrase, beyond the bumper sticker aspect of its’ ringing message. However, when it comes to something with such catastrophic potential as GLOBAL WARMING, well, might one think it would make sense to sound the alarm NO MATTER WHAT and get things moving in a green direction? Does Penn actually think there is no rational wake-up  call with a huge preponderance of evidence in the favor of accepting the concept? I mean, really, so we cut back on the waste we as humans spew by the trillions of tons onto our verdant landscape. As for me, one look at the North Pole is ample evidence, and DICK Cheney’s headline today of suppression of Global Warming evidence is further fodder for impeachment for the most broken down regime to ever assault our shores, a Tammany Hall clusterfuck of dogmatic demagogues that has set back humankind decades, if not centuries.  Holy hell.