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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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I'm finally reading Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. Here's my favourite bit so far. This is from the chapter where Leibniz arrives on a boat to make connections with the natural philosophers in England. Our narrator Daniel Waterhouse is acting as host. Leibniz seems to know his way around already.
"You have been to London before, Dr. Leibniz?"
"I have been studying London-paintings."
"I'm afraid most of those became antiquarian curiosities after the Fire – like street-plans of Atlantis."
"And yet viewing several depictions of even an imaginary city, is enlightening in a way," Leibniz said. "Each painter can view the city from only one standpoint at a time, so he will move about the place, and paint it from a hilltop on one side, then a tower on the other, then from a grand intersection in the middle – all on the same canvas. When we look at the canvas, then, we glimpse in a small way how God understands the universe – for he sees it from every point of view at once. By populating the world with so many different minds, each with its own point of view, God gives us a suggestion of what it means to be omniscient."
Help me start my research! Please answer these questions. You can post in the comments section below or email me.
1) Do you think there is a difference between the way women and men make art?
1b) If 'yes' describe that difference.
2) Have you ever been told that there is a difference between the way women and men make art?
2b) If 'yes' describe the incident and the artwork(s) involved. You may, of course, keep the people in your anecdote anonymous to protect privacy.
3) How old are you?
4) Are you a man or a woman?
THANK YOU!
Okay, so the other day when I went to the AGO and posted about the sculpture and landscape shows, the reason I went was to accompany a visitor who wanted to see the Christo show. At the time I decided not to bother posting my extreme distate for Christo's work, as why give it the attention. But now the "Gates" are going up in Central Park, and so there's a bit of discussion here and here but not there about what a dreadful idea it is.
I say Christo is good for kids: "See, art can be anything you want it to be ... especially if your arrogance supersedes your aesthetic judgement and you don't mind inflicting your massive ugly whims on everybody else."
It is supposedly a good thing that Christo pays for it all himself out of his hard work selling maquettes, etc. But I find it even more frustrating that the guy just moves his ideas forward, without peer review, or, and this may be the only time I say this, market validation. I know he has to go through lots of bureaucratic hoops, and maybe the fact he's able to pull off the required permissions means that he has some cultural credibility, but I'm not convinced. This quote from today's NY Times is chilling:
The [police] department is dispatching helicopters that broadcast live aerial feeds, building a 24-hour command center in the Loeb Boathouse at the park and adding several hundred police officers to the park's 125-person police force. There will be 20 officers on horseback and 43 on scooter patrol. In addition, the artists have hired a 36-person private security team to maintain round-the-clock surveillance. Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said the artists would reimburse the city for any costs it incurs, including the increased security.As if littering the park with yellow fabric weren't oppressive enough, there's gonna be massive surveillance and police presence protecting the stuff as well. How nice for everyone.
