The wind was up and the temperature was down. Spirits were in the air and I tried to lasso them into my work in the studio with some minor success. Venturing into the realm of the abstract is always a bit dicey. The truth about art comes out. It's not all pretty. Some of it's boring and some of it's spectacular with a thing going on that's hard to define other than the presence of spirit.
So the movie yesterday, Personal Shopper, was about spirits both benevolent and malicious. It was a bit of a horror film, but more psychological than anything else. Kristen Stewart stars in this French made genre piece set in Paris. She is a psychic or at least trying to be as she tries to contact her deceased twin brother who was a spiritual medium and agreed to give her a sign from the "other side" once he passed away.
She keeps telling people "I'm waiting," referring to this sign when they asked what she does in Paris. In the mean time she supports herself by working as a personal shopper (hence the name of the film) for an impossibly rich celebrity who is never home but communicates through notes and text messages sending Kristen Stewarts character to Cartier for jewelry and exclusive designers for one of the kind clothes. She drops $4500 in one store for a belt and two handbags.
But the sign never seems to come and Stewart (who looks beautiful, wan and malnourished in a reprise of her earlier role in "The Clouds of Sils Maria" by the same director Olivier Assayas, where she played the under appreciated personal assistant to Juliette Binoche's fading movie star) - begins to doubt her ability to read psychic phenomenon. In her search for ways to make contact she comes across artists who dabbled in psychic encounters. She watches a film of Victor Hugo holding seances and talking to historical figures. She learns about Hilma af Klint a Swedish artist from the 1890's who was creating abstract paintings before Kandinsky, Miro, Klee and any of the early abstract painters.
Eventually Stewart makes contact with a spirit and there are tortured scenes of her riding a train and being texted by this presence which we can't tell is her brother or even if it is a friendly spirit. It's very suspenseful, plays with notions of grief and loss and disconnection of technology which are bypassed by spirit and emotion. Assayas won best director at Cannes for this and Stewart plays a nervous, introspective yet complicated role. Worth seeing.
Hilma alf Klint was a follower of Rudolf Steiner who was founder of the field of Theosophy, which combines science and spiritualism. Steiner was interested in the spiritual aspect of the arts and later went on to found the famous Waldorf Steiner schools, which work on a theory of philosophical freedom. She created huge colorful, geometric and symbolic painting which were in part derived from contact with spirits through seances and spiritual visions and the occult. Jung had a similar experience in his own self analysis using the creation of mandalas which he documented in the Red Book. Klint forbid her paintings to be shown during her lifetime, stipulating that they could not be shown until 20 years after her death (in 1944). She believed her paintings, which like automatic writing, were dictated by higher powers and represented a visual language that would not be understood during her life time. She is now credited with influencing the abstract movement that was to follow in the 20th century.
I saw a collection of her paintings at the New Museum in the fall as part of the Collections exhibit. Many of them bore symbolism and colors which remind me of the chakra system, which is vibrational has a color scheme relation to rainbow spectrum, which is also vibrational. Much os this relates to Reiki work which uses the natural vibration/ energy of the body for healing. So her paintings have a familiar resonance for me. Painting is for me a spiritual process involving shape and color. Maybe some of those shapes and colors are the passing of spirits of those I have known and lost; who are now memories that leave glancing impressions on the page.
Speaking of spirits and movies, Spirited Away by Miyazaki is one of my all time favorites. If you haven't seen it you should.
So the movie yesterday, Personal Shopper, was about spirits both benevolent and malicious. It was a bit of a horror film, but more psychological than anything else. Kristen Stewart stars in this French made genre piece set in Paris. She is a psychic or at least trying to be as she tries to contact her deceased twin brother who was a spiritual medium and agreed to give her a sign from the "other side" once he passed away.
She keeps telling people "I'm waiting," referring to this sign when they asked what she does in Paris. In the mean time she supports herself by working as a personal shopper (hence the name of the film) for an impossibly rich celebrity who is never home but communicates through notes and text messages sending Kristen Stewarts character to Cartier for jewelry and exclusive designers for one of the kind clothes. She drops $4500 in one store for a belt and two handbags.
But the sign never seems to come and Stewart (who looks beautiful, wan and malnourished in a reprise of her earlier role in "The Clouds of Sils Maria" by the same director Olivier Assayas, where she played the under appreciated personal assistant to Juliette Binoche's fading movie star) - begins to doubt her ability to read psychic phenomenon. In her search for ways to make contact she comes across artists who dabbled in psychic encounters. She watches a film of Victor Hugo holding seances and talking to historical figures. She learns about Hilma af Klint a Swedish artist from the 1890's who was creating abstract paintings before Kandinsky, Miro, Klee and any of the early abstract painters.
Eventually Stewart makes contact with a spirit and there are tortured scenes of her riding a train and being texted by this presence which we can't tell is her brother or even if it is a friendly spirit. It's very suspenseful, plays with notions of grief and loss and disconnection of technology which are bypassed by spirit and emotion. Assayas won best director at Cannes for this and Stewart plays a nervous, introspective yet complicated role. Worth seeing.
Hilma alf Klint was a follower of Rudolf Steiner who was founder of the field of Theosophy, which combines science and spiritualism. Steiner was interested in the spiritual aspect of the arts and later went on to found the famous Waldorf Steiner schools, which work on a theory of philosophical freedom. She created huge colorful, geometric and symbolic painting which were in part derived from contact with spirits through seances and spiritual visions and the occult. Jung had a similar experience in his own self analysis using the creation of mandalas which he documented in the Red Book. Klint forbid her paintings to be shown during her lifetime, stipulating that they could not be shown until 20 years after her death (in 1944). She believed her paintings, which like automatic writing, were dictated by higher powers and represented a visual language that would not be understood during her life time. She is now credited with influencing the abstract movement that was to follow in the 20th century.
 |
| Painting by Hilma alf Klint |
I saw a collection of her paintings at the New Museum in the fall as part of the Collections exhibit. Many of them bore symbolism and colors which remind me of the chakra system, which is vibrational has a color scheme relation to rainbow spectrum, which is also vibrational. Much os this relates to Reiki work which uses the natural vibration/ energy of the body for healing. So her paintings have a familiar resonance for me. Painting is for me a spiritual process involving shape and color. Maybe some of those shapes and colors are the passing of spirits of those I have known and lost; who are now memories that leave glancing impressions on the page.
 |
| Painting by Hilma alf Klint |
Speaking of spirits and movies, Spirited Away by Miyazaki is one of my all time favorites. If you haven't seen it you should.
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