Ten Thousand Hours

I had a peep of the book In the translated version, in Spanish, called here 'Fuera de serie', meaning 'Out of the Ordinary - may not be the original name in English as the Spanish tend to, often, give their own names that have little or nothing to do with the original (!!), in movie titles for instance, as well as books. It was by Malcolm Gladwell, where he remembered that in the year 1964, reaching the phenomenal success worldwide, The Beatles were not as most thought some newcomers. They have been together as a group since 1957. And between 1960 - 62 they have travelled 5 times to Hamburg in Germany where they played long stretches of weeks or months, 8 hours every night. "When their success broke out with an enormous bang in 1964, they had by then played, live, 1,200 times! "What was so extraordinary of this is that nowadays, the majority of bands don't play 1,200 times during their entire musical career!" so described Gladwell, who saw in the quartet from Liverpool of England the confirmation of the so-called 'rule of the 10,000 hours', according to which it's the minimum period of required practicing to become outstanding in any field. I am very much a fan of The Beatles. That is another book I need to buy; in this case, lucky me, I will try to borrow as I know the owner of the book!! Tags Beatles,10,000Hours

Current Mood: Cheerful

Pop Art

Anyone who likes modern art would know the name Jeff Koons. A new book just published in Spanish (also in English, Italian and Portuguese) about this artist's life and work, 591 pages priced at €49.99 that, at a quick mental calculation, is about $75.

Very few present day artists stir up as much controversy as Jeff Koons. For some he was the monster that had created the unstoppable art market sustained by millionaires without more knowledge of art than the quoted value of it in an auction; for others he was a genius of marketing, like Damien Hirst, or the Japanese Takashi Murakami, that instead of art, do merchandising, very expensive, but merchandising nevertheless. The fact that Koons or Hirst have been disputing in recent years the honoured title of who is the more expensive artists, live, no doubt has contributed to foster arguments of the critics.

There is yet another group that holds the belief that Koons has opened up new routes to the current wave of modern pop art (his is classified as pospop or neopop) and therefore deserve acknowledgement in the history of art.

His work is sometimes explicitly sexual - who doesn't remember the series of photographs openly pornographic, with his wife Llona Staller, better known as Cicciolina - and almost always irrelevant. But, as it usually occurs with controversial or problematic figures, to emit a well informed justification, it's advisable to dig deep into the subject first.

This monographic volume of the artist details meticulously his career, from his early fascination by Dali and Duchamp till the present, with his own declarations.

Sculpture by Koons, titled 'Pink Panther' (1988). Can't say I am too impressed.

Tags: popart

Current Mood: Artistic

Painted Photography

The German artist Gerhard Richter, has constructed his work on a permanent dialogue - confusion - of painting over existing photographs. La Fundación Telefónica, within the framework of PhotoEspaña, is exhibited his art work, the major part of it unedited. The exhibits, ''Fotogafias pintadas' (Painted photography) collected 400 images belonging to a private collector, rarely shown to the public. Most are 'home-made' snapshots, from the family album of the artist, to which he applied layers of paint until they emerge as a new form of art, same images but very different looks and feel, inviting the spectator to reflect on the confrontation between reality and abstraction or abstractness, between objective and subjective. I can't quite decide whether I like this form of art or not; I have not seen many to decide one way or the other. it's just different. I think any creativity is good, as long as it doesn't mutilate the original to make it become any less in it's artistic value. Tags:paintedphotos

Current Mood: Artistic