shut your trap and take some snaps.

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Gvstav Klimt: The Magic of Line

Living in the LA area brings forth slews of opportunities as art exhibitions/walks, concerts, festivals, and flea markers are usually readily available to her denizens. Gustav Klimt's exhibition at the Getty is just another way for art afficiando's to gather round in ye old air conditioned museum room and gawk at his erotic sketches. Or maybe just a way to help college students pose a few impressive lines to the ladies next to their Klimt "dorm-room posters that lets everyone know they're artsy," as one LA Weekly columnist put it. Mind you, I am writing this as I face my wall adorned with Mucha and Klimt drawings. 

Cliche college posters aside, there is no doubting that Klimt is an exceptional painter, muralist, and sketcher. There have been whispers in the naysayers arena who purport Klimt's work is "superficial and merely demonstrative." Which can be true in many senses if you are looking primarily at his paintings like The Kiss (college room poster #1 and Danielle Steel book cover. yikes.) or Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (college room poster #2). But the Getty does a great job at steering away from his quintessential golden paintings and leave attendees with over 100 drawings on loan from the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Old characterizations of superficiality are thrown away and replaced with simplistic lines showing Klimt's uncanny ability to render his models as living and breathing creatures. One sketch that really encapsulates that last sentence is called Fishblood (shown below).

This sketch garnered a second look from me as I realized it was done on some sort of quasi cardboard box material. The backsides were folded and it actually appeared sloppily bent, save for the beautiful art work presented on the front. As I thoroughly scanned the painting (at one point my face almost fogging up the glass), I couldn't help but notice Klimt's perfectly intricate lines maneuvering their way across the canvas and the women floating across with this captured sexual abandon. I was immediately envious at Klimt's ability to draw with such profundity and precision as I am a person who can barely draw a stick figure without screwing up the triangle and box shaped outfits. As I sauntered from sketch to sketch there was no doubt a prevalent theme of angelic women floating in a dream state, lost in a current of autoeroticism. I then wondered to myself what his intentions were in drawing all these women in such positions. Were these femme fatales just a mere fantasy to Klimt whom he womanized and lusted over? Or were these women vessels in which a certain state of truth could be gleaned? Although Klimt rarely commented on his work and no real intention can be known, he did favor the epigram "Nudas Veritas" meaning "in nakedness is found truth." (Whereas I favor the epigram "In Vino Veritas" -- in wine [there is] truth. I think Klimt and I wouldv'e gotten along swimmingly). Klimt actually painted a beautiful golden spectacle of art titled "Nudas Veritas" and included a Freidrich Schiller quote alongside it: If you cannot please everyone with your deeds and your art, please a few. To please many is bad.

"Kissing is the supreme achievement of the Western world."

I am not the biggest Tom Robbins fan since I picture him writing his books next to a thesaurus furiously sifting through the pages in search for antiquated/obsolete words that ultimately detract from his stories. Maybe his friendship with Terrence McKenna and Timothy Leary were too influential on his books for me to handle...? However, I do respect his original tales that are usually threaded with indelible quotes and ultimately make up for his bizarre lexicon. In this particular entry (given to me by a devout T.R. fan), Robbins writes about the necessity of kissing in a 1990 issue of Playboy. And it goes a little something like this:

"Beware the man who considers kissing nothing more than duty, a sop to the "weaker" sex, an annoyingly necessary component to foreplay. That man has penis plaque in his arteries and will collapse under the weight of intimacy. Send him off to the nearest golf course while those of us who are more evolved celebrate the unique graces of the kiss. No other flesh like lip flesh! no other meat like mouth meat! the musical clink of tooth against tooth! the wonderful curiosity of tongues!"

Two things: I need to use the phrase "penis plaque" more and oddly enough yesterday was national kissing day. I didn't know this until after I decided to write this post. I'm thinking I might have received telepathic messages from the high frequencies of yesterdays snogging.

wanderlusting.

I'm a little ashamed at how little I have been writing in this blog after I told myself I would make a conscious effort to write regularly...but life and friends and perfunctory tasks and the LA hustle and bustle seem to always get in the way. I also have a bit of a problem admitting I actually write on a blog as a Los Angeles resident. Might as well become a struggling actress and work part time at a cafe while I'm at it...right?

Anyways, I wanted this blog to be specifically designated around non personal issues and concentrated towards issues I found intriguing and/or inspiring. The last thing I wanted was this thing to become an online diary. I have a little red notebook I carry around with me where I jot down interesting facts and musings about things from Astrology to information about my new obsession with "The Dollars Trilogy." Sergio Leone is a spaghetti western deity, by the way!! Writing on here was supposed to be a digital manifestation of my little red book. I also wanted to steer away from personal ramblings about my life because I believe that websites like Facebook and Tumblr have come to a state where privacy, anonymity and mystery become null and void. Personal lives become publicly exploited and the information scattered around my news feed become bombarded with mundane commentary from people I wish never met or from people I wish I could suddenly see asphyxiate. And then it makes me wonder why people like to expose themselves so much to the world...join a nudist colony, guys!! ... amiright?! Also, seems like vis a vis conversations lately have been over run with gossip and "he did this" and "she did that's" which ultimately make me question the strength of an honest and genuine humanity. Sounds harsh, I know. This seems to be the mental climate I've been living in for a while. I am one step away from living in a musty old room, clad in a "Catitude" muumuu and denouncing the rowdy neighbors kids. (can't wait).