Art History – TalkingGrid

Posted on July 16, 2015August 22, 2015 by Frau Kolb — 3 Comments

May in Manhattan

Miraculously, I managed to pop into Manhattan twice in one month! My first visit, the city had burst into color. Cherry blossoms, tender pinks dominated the street trees. Yes! It was a beautiful visit, spent mostly on the Upper West Side. That trip was gratifying. Yet, on my more recent journey to Manhattan in May, I spent time in intimate discussion, closeness with two of my favorite people in the world.

The Mysterious Madame L., a beauty with a superior mind, and Mr. Constantine Finehouse, concert pianist. In town to participate in a clinical trail at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Hospital. Seeing my little Columbia University fellows, my comrades on extensive romps all over Manhattan, now grown up and immersed in their respective professions, one in the Law and the other in Music, is heartwarming. I came back to The West Coast ready to cope with the reality of my cancer complications, medications, and DRAMA. I returned ready to take action to stop the cancer progression which would soon threatened my life.

The trip to New York City was altogether healing and I managed to cram a good amount of art viewing, with a visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and into the embrace of my dearest friends. Madame L, graciously, invested days into lounging in my grateful company at one-hotel-or-another on Lexington Ave. Champagne in no short supply… We had a great time, as usual. Reading, agreeing, and finding beautiful details to savor. We ate and walked, talked and listened. We reveled in the BLISS that is pure friendship, understanding. Yet, I was tired. Fatigued. Anxious and ill, very ill. She made everything better by being with me. We barely noticed that I vomited, after every lavish meal. Together, my inability to move, became lounging rather than aching. Thank goodness, Madame L was there, keeping me company, sharing secrets, and showing me how flowers grow between cracks in city streets, the poetry of small gestures, and the beauty of sacred pennies (rusted with time and invested with meaning), AH! I love you, Madame L.

However, It was the Male Muse’s, Constanti ne Finehouse, who made my day with Cuban Lunch from a quick, bright, restaurant across the street from Memorial Sloan Kettering, Hospital. He had the right idea bringing his car and making sure I had food that speaks to my heart before retiring back into the hotel room’s spacious king sized bed. We slept. Exhausted.

In the evening, the gallant Finehouse, concert pianist out of Boston, very cool dude, went out and returned with chicken soup and the nastiest but most welcome “New York,” Cheesecake. What a thoughtful human! What a friend! He drove all the way down from Boston to take care of me on a vulnerable day of medical treatment. (I had no idea at the time that soon, I’d consider myself sprightly in comparison to my current shape.)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Finehouse

The city, ever vibrant and packed with much to do was a backdrop to the intense days of conversation and camaraderie. One’s school chums, those met while picking up polish at Columbia University may be the very best remedy for whatever deficiencies in brisk, ardent, and inspiring connection which have afflicted my sensitive soul, lately. Mutual understanding is so precious a gift, exchanging it makes us rich. My New Yorker and Bostonian buddies, The Mysterious Madame L & the favored Mr. Constantine Finehouse, revered concert pianist, and long-term Talkinggrid supporter, made copious amounts of time to connect and cocoon with a very willing me. Ah!

Good times were had, dinner at Amelie on 8th street in the West Village, where that atmosphere was very French, followed by desert at one of my favorite places, since my teenage years, the utterly charming Cafe Reggio in the West Village!

At the Forager with lovely young woman, a new friend... more news later. — At the Forager with lovely young woman, a new friend… more news later.

Saturday Brunch at The Forager, recommended by Blossom V, artist based in New York. There I met up with a young writer, a woman of talent and enormous appeal. We ate and then Madame L. returned to fetch me, and we returned to the gentle sweetness that is our very comfortable and sincere friendship.

I took time on Sunday morning to PoP into The Bliss Spa on Lexington, so close to my hotel for some Spa Time at The Bliss Spa, where I enjoyed the eucalyptus scrub, with viccii shower, and lemon sage mini-massage. Patricia, a former Cruise-Ship Entertainer, had a light touch and a warm heart, making me feel much better, for a moment. (Running out for a quick scrub is a must if you want to remain feeling, open and receptive to the beauty that is living, especially, on a whirlwind weekend spiked with medical drama, trip to New York City.

The Shield she wields looks like it has a big crack down the middle.

Astoundingly, Madame L. and I managed to hit The Pompeii Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of my absolute favorite places on Earth, before tripping into, “China: Through the Looking Glass,” a smashing, throbbing homage to the cult of cut, fabric, and history in the superb Fashion Exhibit that will knocked my porcelain socks OFF! In a few steps,we crashed into another world, each room was inspired and dark, lights focused on the embroidery, so tight as to bogle the mind, far away from the mundane, and into the temple of commerce where The Image of Fashion Design as a route is loudly tooted as a glorious path to personal salvation.

On Saturday Evening, I poured myself into a fine new knit dress and rolled west to Broadway, on my little black mule sling-backs, balancing, because I had tickets to see, Wolf Hall Part Two, “Bringing Up The Bodies,” the play is by author Hillary Mantel, a gem. The acting was stand out and the lead, an English stage actor, Ben Miles, carried the character of Thomas Moore rise to the height of power in the possibly unfair beheading of our eternal beloved bad good girl, the controversial, Anne Boylen.

When I wasn’t out buzzing around, I was resting in my hotel room. I’m sorry to say that I missed a meeting with a great artist and best on-line buddy. We had dinner party plans and I was supposed to be her date for the evening. She is one of my favorite people and it was a disappointment not to find the strength to make it to our planed meeting. I failed to find the strength to make it, instead having a bit of quality time hugging the toilet bowl… but, that happens when you are in advanced cancer treatment.

Posted on December 8, 2014December 14, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 1 Comment

The New Muse: Kathy Goodell in San Deigo!

Gently, a day is taking shape. This visit is chiseled from the veined marble of long understanding. Kathy Goodell and Frau Kolb are friends with a connection that spans decades in this life and the infinite in some other plain of existence, past lives playing a prominent role. Yet, this is our first time spending an entire week under one roof. Will we get along?

Hartmuth Kolb is pleased to visit Point Loma in San Diego, California

Frau experiences refreshed awareness that life is phenomenological blooming of energy, fleeting blooms on the edge of time, the wind of ideas stirs reflection, when in the company of this refined Contemporary Art Muse. Thus, OPEN to talks on closing acts and end game strategy, we embrace a day of deep talks, woven into the breezy fabric of classic San Diego sight seeing.

We wake up early, as usual. The morning zips past. At noon we were at San Diego International Airport, picking up our friend, a soul sister and personal Art Muse of Talkinggrid, Kathy Goodell, a human flowering of loveliness and edgy intelligence has arrived! She is easy to spot, looking fashionable, in her HUGE sunglasses and “Op Art,” silk blouse. She is a powerful Muse. We rush to greet her. She embraces us with the warmth. BIG HUGS! Flowing kisses. “Hello! Hello!” All around, our day is off to a rip roaring good start!

Kathy Goodell looking lovely with BIG SUN GLASSES in San Diego with Frau Kolb and The Family

On the way to lunch in Little Italy, in San Diego, The Art Muse of Talkinggrid, Kathy Goodell’s winning personality is like a shawl, comforting. In my world, Goodell is famous not just for her expansive and intellectually daring sculptures and art installations, but also for being a person whose personality is at crossroads of glass and metal, transparent grace, fragile, yet of enduring strength and lasting fortitude. Her artistic oeuvre touches on the accidental, dreamy and quasi scientific in scope. Her art work moves me. She is a venerated teacher of art, mentor to many, with a following that spans generations, continents. She graciously speaks to my little children about the recent Henri Matisse, exhibition, up now in New York City, now, connecting with them immediately, tending to that sacred spark, an interest in art, which we hold dear.

Muse Goodell is loving the organic food market, Jimbo's in San Diego! — Muse Goodell is loving the organic food market, Jimbo’s in San Diego!

Always creating, Kathy Goodell, takes in San Diego

I painted this portrait of our amusing guest in a burst of inspiration, joy.

Goodell's good looks inspire artists, young and old. — Goodell’s good looks inspire artists, young and old.

Goodell by Annabella — Annabella, age 8, makes a nice drawing of Kathy Goodell.

My Kid finds Goodell a worthy subject for a portrait.

Goodell, simply, oozes neon talent. She is one of those beings that lives and breaths the mystical condition of being a “True Artist,” a multi-faceted creature, adventure ready. She thrills me with her floating free generosity of spirit, her cool fashion sense, and her quick mind. She is a favorite of the lively Contemporary ART MUSES, a female goddess of great creativity and wit, a source of artistic inspiration to many a young and an old artist, both inspiring to art legends and generations of students. Goodell is friend who has earned the extra attention not just from Frau Kolb but from all her army of adoring students, all grateful for her indefatigable encouragement and support.

Imagine being a real Contemporary Artist, an art professor, paid for your expertise in art, a Guggenheim Grant recipient, Best Friend to Frau Kolb, Star of Talkinggrid, and international MUSE! A respected person known for knowing about ART! Think of that… Imagine being known as an Contemporary Artist and being a woman respected for her solid creativity and staggering productivity? Now, go Google yourself. What does Google say about you? Google Kathy Goodell, you will discover a woman at the crossroads of American History, a person of singular interest, and tremendous charisma. Be impressed. I am.

We drive to the Historical and Natural Preserve of Point Loma, gladly paying $5.00 per vehicle entrance fee. We look about and then decide to visit the Light House. “I Love LENS!!!” Goodell purrs. Up into the little hill we go, which like so many such relics from a time past, seems tiny, a little precious jewel of a home, which once housed the keeper of the lonely lighthouse and his family. The rooms, spick and span, chamber pots under the beds, pitcher and bowl for washing one’s face, a little guitar in the corner, hand made quilts… the usual American frontier artifacts of a time just recently past, idealized as formerly simpler.

Point Loma is a lovely vista point from which you can see all of downtown San Diego, Bay and Harbor.

The Point Loma lens are so beautiful. Old glass, it captures the room around it, the light, the rainbows, upside down and inside out, the play of here and there is OTHERWORLDLY. One could image that these objects might somehow be portals to different dimensions. Doorways into space. The infinite.

Excellent iphone image of the LENS at Point Loma in San Diego. — Excellent iphone image of the LENS at Point Loma in San Diego by Talkinggrid Muse, Contemporary Artist, Kathy Goodell.

In Goodell’s company I find myself thinking about the perpetual. What is FOREVER? Our friendship is a lasting one, the seed of which was a casual comment Goodell made as the young Frau Kolb… I wasn’t Frau Kolb then… I was a very young woman working in an Italian Restaurant in Soho, when Kathy came in to dine. I waited on her. She saw something in me. That we became like family is a testament to her OPEN heart and generosity of spirit. Her friendship is an unwavering source of good in my life and I hope to be forever that in hers. All this LOVING makes me think of DEATH. Death.

The finality of it… really, each of us only has a few close friends in this world. Goodell is one of mine. Thus, with her I discuss the grand plan, my vision(s). We share the minutia of our days and compare notes about people that admire us, her, and/or me. We know a number of the same people, being that we are both California/New Yorkers: girls who wear the robes of Muses, forming a Muse Team, inspiriting each other to new heights.

Actually, when I die, I’d like for my tombstone to say: “Artist, Mother, Friend!” I’ve always enjoyed imagining my own funeral. I like the idea that ALL MY X Boyfriends might come together to mourn me. A handful of handsome men in tuxedos, of course. They would drink whiskey, or ambrosia, make toasts, boasts, and talk about what a pain in the ass I was. Hartmuth, my husband, would defend my memory! I would attend the event, as a sexily clad ghost, wearing a gigantic black hat bedecked in veils. The men, steadily drinking might glimpse me here, there. However, I vow, not to linger… wouldn’t want to get stuck as a wandering spirit, on this side of the river Styx.

I ask Kathy Goodell:

What three words would you chose for your tombstone?

“OH MY GAWD!” She answers.

Who do you imagine might most weep when that moment of dropping a handful of dirt on the casket arrives?

“Besides YOU, Frau?” She asks, hazel eyes twinkling. (Of course, Goodell, did not really say that… but I can dream. If I really asked her this question, I think she would say her niece would be there, eyes a flood.)

What achievement(s), as a public person, artist are you most proud of?

“As a public person… I have to think about it for a minute… That my art might infect some with a sense of the eternal.” She answered, really.

How do you expect to be remembered?

“All depends on who is doing the remembering.” She says reminding me that every memory is but a flickering candle in the unceasing wind. Who cares how we are remembered when so much of what is remembered is tarnished in the self serving act of remembering? We live but for a flashing instance, to be forgotten is inevitable. Yet, by making great art Goodell is among those that will leave an enduring legacy.

I ask Goodell a handful of earthy questions (above) on her second day in San Diego. Each day here Goodell tells me of at least one beautiful story of her life and her development. She is a San Francisco native, successful transplant to New York, with an international exhibition record and a following that spans generations. As a child she was curious about religions, not finding the perfect spiritual fit she designed her own rituals, methods of observance. Her family, long established in the United States, has historically interesting characters galore. She is a person whose personal history is fascinating and instructive to the extreme. I would like to learn more about her and a week in her gracious company, leaves me longing for more of her causal bounty/beauty.

I’d like to share with you, more of Goodell’s Goodies, stories, images and a creative perspective unlike any other. I am inspired by Goodell’s tenacity, wit, and inner glow. She represents the mature woman we’d all like to become, a person that owns herself and holds her own in any situation, a woman I admire. As Goodell prepares to depart we sit next to each other and I relinquish a little control over the image I want to project of her glory. Her unwavering modesty, overrides, my desire to BANG a DRUM, toot HER HORN, and CELEBRATE like a champion gladiator her enduring brilliance, her remarkable SHINE.

Acrylic on canvas,4th of December 2014 © Frau (Caridad) Kolb

Posted on September 6, 2014September 6, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 3 Comments

A Step Into The Profound, at The Louvre in Paris, France with Frau Kolb

Behold the mind spinning splendor of a crystal chandelier at the Louvre, in Paris France!

In discovering a tossed away strip of silence, amidst the droppings of the ever hapless hordes, I found more than just an empty moment, which I picked up and folded, wrapping a bit of that precious silence, to be found… anywhere/anytime that one requires restoration… into a small shawl of contemplation. A snatched treasure, a chunk of sweet folded silence, which works as shawl of contentment around my sometimes fragile body. I rediscovered myself, my purpose… wandering the halls of the Louvre, again.

Sit with me! Let's have an imitate art chat... tell me... what are you thinking of painting, next? — Sit with me! Let’s have an imitate art chat… tell me… what are you thinking of painting, next?

Tourists, everywhere… Frau Kolb, no different, really… just taking in the eight miles of art… the whole grand history of theft and creation, slavery and the evolution of social norms. We stroll, and time peals back and reveals its secrets in rooms decorated to meet the taste of Napoleon.

Look! Frau Kolb, texting The Muse, Ms. Crane, begging the beauty to join us for an art rich afternoon at the Louvre in Paris, France.

At the Louvre, I feel at home. Hungry! We stop for lunch… the Angelic, a restaurant inside the Louvre. We sit down. I am aglow with pleasure. The sights! The Winged Victory of Samothrace! Ah! What splendor! What a treat! Ah! To be so far away from home and… oh… we are not so far from what we seek to avoid… there is a slick blond, one of those viciously expensive looking, women whose face is always freshly moisturized and glistening from a four-hour hydration and suction, green mud, facial(s). The woman announces to everyone within a one mile radius that she is American, from Miami, no less! Her blue eyes WIDE with determination, an indefatigable will to communicate, with the quiet bookish looking French couple seated just across from her, “We have gone to hugely expensive formal restaurants, two nights in a row!” She is agog with wonder. How is it even possible that such a HORROR could exist??? She continues, “Could you recommend something more casual?” She wails.

Frau Kolb at Lunch at Angelina, a cafe inside the Louvre Museum in Paris, France

My husband, Hartmuth Kolb, saying something smart, phone and lens in hand, as he prepares to document the situation, at the Louvre, in Paris, France.

Hartmuth Kolb’s, priceless, photo of the ceiling at Angelina in The Louvre Museum in Paris France, Summer 2014

I feel sorry for her. She is in Paris, the birthplace of the casual bistro, the superlatively casual corner cafe… NO ONE NEED ASK FOR A RECOMMENDATION! No. No one. Not a single person need ask an entire room of strangers a question so stupid. Nope. Moreover, we do not care to know that you have eaten, nor where. Please be quiet. Frau Kolb was having a sublime moment. Frau Kolb was feeling a tense joy of self importance, savoring her much anticipated arrival at the world-famous LOUVRE, center of world LOOT, and to share it with this… clearly rich, pampered, loud, spoiled, BABY of a woman… well… that offends Frau Kolb’s refined sensibilities.

Loud American women and their public announcements of vacuity interfere with an on-going fantasy of sublime independence from the generall noxious environment, which I hold dear.

After lunch, we keep moving, allowing ourselves the pleasure of walking deeper into the bowels of the museum… ah! See the foundation… oh! Words, in blue neon, adorn big thick underground walls from when this building was a castle… a fortification, a keep, and all of the rest. We emerge into the throng of gawkers into the venerated Egyptian wing. Snippets of conversation catch our ears and hang like rings around the unfolding art adventure which is a much awaited and desired trip to the most extraordinarily well stocked cultural treasure house, in the world.

An ancient Egyptian kitty… how very human… we animals are!

Frau Kolb is taking in the pictorial art of the ancient Egyptians at the Louvre in Paris, France

“Ack! Egyptian ART!” Exclaims the tubby girl in tank top and flip-flops to her following, of two boys about her age, and of a sheepish devoted sort. “Ya’ take the body of a human and stick it with an animal head!” She waves her hand dismissively at the vitrines housing objects whose history, provenance, and miraculously enduring meaning is of religious intensity to me… to us… the treasures of north African antiquity, dismissed by a slightly overweight, grossly underdressed, loud, person of probable mixed European, background. What else is new?

The Pharaoh Taharka offering two wine cups to the Falcon God Hemen. XXII Dynasty, at the Louvre in Paris, France.

Ok. We move on. A few steps further, away from the girl and her companions, we fall into that slow and unwinding revelry which is waking up to the profundity of human ingenuity, triumphs in the face of daily examples of mass ignorance threaten to cloud our hope in humanity. We see and sense and experience the sacred that is really there in these sumptuous objects invested with human thought, values, intelligence, and priceless concentration.

Nature deserves veneration, no? Our leaders need to remember what the ancient knew.

Posted on August 17, 2014August 18, 2014 by Frau Kolb

Frau Kolb & Eternity: The Winged Victory of Samothrace

I had to go back to the Louvre. I had to give myself more time. The minutes in front of The Mona Lisa left me with an unsatisfied hunger. I had seen and not experienced the overseen, bullet proof, Mona Lisa. I walked back to moment and I played it again.

The crowds were no less intimidating. Yet, I found something… else… in the experience. Yes, I did. Among thousands of people all rushing, pushing, and ticking off ART selfies to prove their level of cultural depth. I found… well, first I noticed this couple. They were in the same room as the Mona Lisa Pandemonium but they were far removed from the panic, the frenzy. Taking strength from their connected, centered, energy. I let myself walk away from the Mona Lisa.

I sit myself down and forget where I am. The crowds disappear as I focus on The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Not too far away I sat down. I took my sketch book out. I began to draw. Then the magic happened.

Frau Kolb Takes in The Winged Victory of Samothrace in Paris, France

We capture the fleeting, made stone, in antiquity with our high tech gadgets.

Panoramic picture of the culture hungry hordes invading the Louvre in search of the enduring, by HC Kolb, Paris, France, Summer 2014

“Why are you bothering me? Can’t you see I am in the middle of something!”

“Thank you for leaving me alone… now I can see what I am doing.” Frau Kolb at the Louvre, Paris, France. Summer, 2014 and forever.

“Ok, now, I’ve got it…” Frau Kolb on NOT noticing this great backpack behind me, at the Louvre, in Paris France, Summer 2014.

“I am totally focused. Screw the crowds!” Frau Kolb sketching The Winged Victory of Samothrace in Paris France at the world famous Louvre.

“Peintures Italiennes, are that way! GO!” Thank goodness for signage, otherwise we’d all be so LOST!

Glorious side view of “The Winged Victory of Samothrace,” all pictures associated with this piece are the copy written work of HC Kolb, Summer 2014Suddenly, I was alone. It was only me and the eternal curves of, another desperately famous work of art, yet not held in the distancing grip of bulletproof glass and wave of smart phone camera clicks.

Suddenly, I was alone. It was only me and the eternal curves of The Winged Victory of Samothrace, another desperately famous work of art, yet not held in the distancing grip of bulletproof glass and wave of smart phone camera clicks.

As soon as I focused my eyes on her, The Victory of Samothrace, opened up to me. I saw how marvelous she really is! Her wings are powerful! They look entirely proportionate to the strident female body. She is stone. Yet the artist’s mastery over stone is complete, pure virtuosity. A fluttering cascade of transformations occurs as you allow your eyes to rest on her heavily reconstructed form. She is at once static and full of a vitality that one associates with LIFE, living, good health. She is a harbinger of good news, Victory!

She is on the brink of activity, in the midst of being a viable being, larger than life, monumentally scaled, yes… but entirely of this world. Proof of the higher orders in which all creatures meld into hybrid forms of superlative wonder. The wings, feathers articulated with scientific detail, might be those of an actual bird… which one, I don’t know… but I sketch their basic shape and take in the realization of a very complex idea, in this most enduring modality of marble.

The total visual transformation of stone into wet drapery covering the ripe body of a perfectly formed female, invites awe. Her arms are missing, yet I can’t image what they might have added to what looks like a perfect composition. (However, there exist scholarly drawing and replicas which depict the complete Victory.) Perched the prowl of a triumphant ship, looks about to fly away with the elegance of a swan, the ease of a heron. Water, “splashing up,” on the statue would have made the illusion complete. Imagine that! Imagine the effect that this sculpture would have had in its time upon people not desensitized to the static marvel of marble. Ancient people, steeped in ritual, ready and willing to contemplate the profound wonder offered by spiritual symbolism. People for whom this work must have held significance deeper than its mere representational (of the impossible) value, because it was stone yet looked like a living being, ready to reward those that have fought, and triumphed.

The crowds swarming past, determined to get their image of five-centuries-of-fame, and run to the next GREAT thing… on a packed itinerary… Yet, they do not disturb me. I draw in my red book, on a page after a Cafe sketch, and before another Cafe doodle, sandwiched between my habitual sketches, I now have my own “Winged Victory,” mine is no where near as perfect as the reconstructed masterpiece, yet she is a personal reminder to fly above the petty problems and annoyances which threaten to confuse one’s mind and push a person toward the abyss of popular culture’s all encompassing oblivion.

Frau Kolb finds herself sketching Winged Victory, for NOT a long time, just forever.

Posted on August 10, 2014August 11, 2014 by Frau Kolb — 1 Comment

Witness: The Mona Lisa, The Queen of Visual Kitsch, Rule the Universe!

We get out of bed and make our way to the museum early. We are on a mission! Armed with a marked up map and specific instructions, thanks to Stephanie at Panoramic tours, we know just where to go, Underground. It is the most direct route. We were going to see HER.

THE LADY with THE ENIGMATIC SMILE. A painting, imbued with a creepy load of personality. “She,” rules the space around her. Yet... how does a painting become more important than the living, breathing, beings around her? — THE LADY with THE ENIGMATIC SMILE. A painting, imbued with a creepy load of personality. “She,” rules the space around her. Yet… how does a painting become more important than the living, breathing, beings that bestow her power?

Of course, we did not expect to have any, “alone time” with her. We knew that she is “everybody’s darling.”

What we got was much worse… we were reminded of how meaningless, insignificant, and trite our Bucket Lists are. We were, 100% a part of the herd of humanity, snapping an image of La Gioconda, before being pushed out of the way by the next, equally determined tourist/pilgrim with a smart phone or a canon camera, at the ready.

Once, she was stolen, by a “crazy Italian,” convinced that she wanted to go home.

(FOOL! She loves to be up there, behind bullet-proof glass, the absolute center of an ongoing panic, a perpetual craze, which occurs with clocklike regularity, from the moment the museum opens, until the last tour bus leaves, in the world famous and celebrated Louvre Museum, in Paris, France.)

Seeing her… I did NOT see her. She was invisible. I saw the flash of cameras, the crazed LOOK of… hunger? Yes, HUNGER for… what? Recognition, perhaps… we seek to see THE ORIGINAL, THE MOTHER IMAGE from which all the tacky little key chains, coffee mugs, calendars, and other scraps or fragments of the sacred, the untouchable, THE ORIGINAL, the a priori … which is stamped on the faces of the ART STARVED crowds… “Art starved?” You ask… Well… Yes, that is what I witnessed.

I saw adult infants reaching for the teat of certified beauty and established aesthetic certainties. The queen of conformity, The Mona Lisa is the mental rabbit foot, the proof that one is CULTURED, cultivated, worthy of living. Having documented the sight of her with a selfie, we are FREE, to turn on backs—forever—on the little revered painting by Leonard d’ Vinci, the original Renaissance Man. (I believe, we all want some of the milky charm that sprays from this eternal fountain.)

She and she alone sits and is worshiped by i-phone clicks and selfie sticks, wielded with an alarming lack of grace. She is photographed so many times per day, and visited by so many people, NONE of whom really see her. Instead, they ignore each other, pulling and tugging—fighting—to see her?

We all wish to solve the mystery. She is a treasure, that is for certain. Yet, why? How is it that a painting can stimulate such visual appetite, cultural hunger? The standing whiff of desperation around her is a grand spectacle. Frau Kolb was a part of it; flaunting her own needy and naked desire to be beautiful, famous, loved, and celebrated. We all want a piece of that excitement. The thrill of being seen as significant, worthy, ein Schatz (which means, “a treasure,” in German). We all want to be valued, special, celebrated or at least accepted. Don’t we?

Well, long ago, a German cultural critic, Walter Benjamin (15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) wrote an essay which, I’ve tried to read, many times. Yet, I simply don’t understand it. He speaks about, “the Aura,” of the work of art and… how that aura was lost via reproduction, which is not… or is… I can’t tell which… a BAD thing. Opps! (I know… I studied art history, I really should be able to understand what Benjamin or Theodor W. Adorno, who responds to him. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” is the article by Benjamin which I regret falling to comprehend, because that is the heart of the matter…) Mona Lisa’s pull is in the ease with which her high impact and mysterious image can be turned into endless reproductions! Yes. She reproduces like it is nobody’s business. She sells!

Mona, with her come-hither looks is forever… a siren, beckoning tourists, to the crush… to the HORROR of Invisibility. Since we are all NOBODY in comparison with the famed Dame!

Leonardo d’ Vinci’s Mona Lisa is reproduced in cheap prints on coffee cups, deli napkins, and shopping totes… enough “kitsch,” (A wonderful German word, which art historians LOVE, which means… crap art we get a KICK out of like… whoopee cushions of culture…) to populate a cosmos of gaping landfills. Clearly, the tightly guarded ORIGINAL work of art was painted by Leonard d’ Vinci, a time traveling genius, who had the political savvy to die in the arms of a French King, (no less!). Moreover, Leonardo may have understood, precisely how to make an immortal image, one which could easily be pressed and passed on, a type of female figurative currency. Yet, she is nothing special, really… She is not even… BIG… she’s not even Marilyn… platinum blond….but she is pure POP, contemporary art, that is for certain. Who among us can verify that the painting we think we see is not a poster?

The “painting,” sits behind bullet proof glass and must have a red velvet rope around her. I mean… if she were not the real thing who among the millions that snap a picture in a year could tell? Certainly NOT I! I got no where near enough to see the genius, the otherworldly, Uncanny hand of the master! One barely has time to snap a selfie before being pushed out of the way by someone convinced that their need for a selfie is greater than yours.

Frau Kolb among the crowds, visiting the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, France. Summer, 2014

I believe that when The Muse of Talkinggrid, Ms. Crane said, “Fuck the Mona Lisa!” She was nailed a sentiment I share. Why all the fuss? Mona Lisa’s tripped out, picture perfect, made for selfies image, is as vapid as that of two bit hussy. We refuse to be humiliated! We are better than THAT! Well… actually, we (husband & I) fought the crowds to see her. We pushed. Shoved, each other… Actually, Harmuth never pushes, but is not a person anyone can dismiss. Ms. Crane is likely not to have pushed anyone because she is,The Muse, after all and people really do respect her “Aura.” Frau Kolb is convinced that “the Aura,” of La Gioconda is one more example of a sheepish desire to fold into the herd, while feeling superior and civilized.

I did not see a single person that looked satisfied by their brush with the inordinate tourist crowds mobbing Mona. After grabbing a snap of her, across the room and over the heads of a gaggle of other anonymous gaping gawkers, every visitor I saw looked cranky, disappointed. One and all, we are NOTHING in the face of Mona Lisa’s FAME, her radiant reputation! She rules.

The actual work of art, as it hangs for “public pleasure,” at the Louvre, the painting is erased by the mass unseeing of the image under a storm of “distracted,” self absorbed, self appointed, “art critics” of mostly ZERO integrity (this, of course, includes me… I too have fallen, stooped, and hustled to see the Lady behind glass… only to encounter what I knew would be a monumental waste of human energy, in search of sacred… something… Which, of course was NOT there. There is only a flimsy experience of emptiness, in an overcrowded museum hall, where all the other paintings are made utterly invisible, erased, by the frantic crowds clicking images of themselves and the beast that is desire for recognition, reputation, and singularity; which may be the fuel that gets all the tourists out of bed and ready to face challenging crowd conditions for so little reward, paying for the privilege of being one more ART LOVER! Hah!

We, at Talkinggrid, admit to being vain. We want, no less than anyone else wants, our “brands,”to endure; our own five centuries of fame. We want to be Marilyn, the American La Gioconda, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and The Venus de Willendorf rolled into ONE, mega MOM, a super being, with an ample bosom, ready to feed the entire world. Yet, few are willing to do the exercise, the calisthenics required, of those that seek enduring glory. Few are going to die in the embrace of royal patrons, either.