Category: Art

Art, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Shifting the Silence to Find the Meaning: 95-Year-Old Artist, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on How to Live and How to Die

Fernando Kaskais

“The universe makes a sound — is a sound. In the core of this sound there’s a silence, a silence that creates that sound, which is not its opposite, but its inseparable soul… Silence is a flower, it opens up, dilates, extends its texture, can grow, mutate… It can watch other flowers grow and become what they are.” BY MARIA POPOVA “When you realize you are mortal you also realize the tremendousness of the future. You fall in love with a Time you will never perceive,” the polymathic poet, painter, novelist, and philosopher Etel Adnan (February 24, 1925–November 14, 2021) wrote at … Continue reading Shifting the Silence to Find the Meaning: 95-Year-Old Artist, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on How to Live and How to Die

Art, History, Media&Culture, PhotographyLeave a comment

Inside the New Allen Ginsberg Photography Exhibit at Tibet House US

Fernando Kaskais

Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends features never-before-seen photos by the famous Beat poet By Alison Spiegel Ayear and a half into mask-wearing and social isolation, the new Allen Ginsberg photography exhibit at the Tibet House, Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends, is a welcome reminder of the power of friendship and human connection. Immediately disarming and full of emotion, the forty black-and-white photos, some of them never seen before, also remind viewers of the personal side of Tibetan Buddhism—that even a Buddhist lama considered to be one of the great teachers of our time and one of the last lamas … Continue reading Inside the New Allen Ginsberg Photography Exhibit at Tibet House US

Art, Media&Culture, Music, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

The Gifted Listener: Composer Aaron Copland on Honing Your Talent for Listening to Music

Fernando Kaskais

“There are few pleasures in art greater than the secure sense that one can recognize beauty when one comes upon it… Recognizing the beautiful in an abstract art like music partakes somewhat of a minor miracle.” BY MARIA POPOVA “Even poetry, Sweet Patron Muse forgive me the words, is not what music is,” the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote to a friend, adding the requisite flamboyance of a 1920s radical: “Without music I should wish to die.” Months after Millay’s death, Harvard offered its prestigious Charles Edward Norton Professorship of Poetry for the 1951–1952 academic year to the composer Aaron Copland (November … Continue reading The Gifted Listener: Composer Aaron Copland on Honing Your Talent for Listening to Music

Art, History, Literature, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

The Blue Horses of Our Destiny: Artist Franz Marc, the Wisdom of Animals, and the Fight of Beauty Against Brutality

Fernando Kaskais

Tragedy and transcendence in the search for the spiritual in nature. BY MARIA POPOVA “Do you need a prod? Do you need a little darkness to get you going?” wrote Mary Oliver in one of the masterpiece from her suite of poems celebrating the urgency of aliveness, Blue Horses. In the bleak winter of 1916, in the thickest darkness of World War I, several enormous canvases dappled in pointillist patterns of color appeared across the French countryside, as if Kandinsky or Klee had descended upon the war-torn hills to bandage the brutality with beauty. But no. The painted tarps were military camouflage, designed … Continue reading The Blue Horses of Our Destiny: Artist Franz Marc, the Wisdom of Animals, and the Fight of Beauty Against Brutality

Art, Media&Culture, Music, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Music, Meditation, Painting—and Dreaming

Fernando Kaskais

A conversation with Philip Glass and Fredericka Foster Philip Glass and Fredericka Foster We are on the phone, freewheeling about our practices: music, art, and meditation. Another day, we are in Philip’s kitchen, sitting at a wooden table. Behind us are comfortable couches and a private outdoor space. Philip’s partner, the artist Saori Tsukada, is working with flowers in the urban garden surrounding the house. —Fredericka Foster Philip Glass (PG): I was talking once to Gelek Rimpoche [1938–2017] about meditation, and I asked him, “Isn’t it just paying attention?” Yes, he said, “that’s absolutely what it is.” Meditation is a nice fuzzy word that we … Continue reading Music, Meditation, Painting—and Dreaming

Art, Media&Culture, Music, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Bob Dylan on Emotion, Vulnerability as the Price of Integrity, and Music as an Instrument of Truth

Fernando Kaskais

“You must be vulnerable to be sensitive to reality. And to me being vulnerable is just another way of saying that one has nothing more to lose.” BY MARIA POPOVA Self-knowledge might be the most difficult of life’s rewards — the hardest to earn and the hardest to bear. To know yourself is to know that you are not an unassailable fixity amid the entropic storm of the universe but a set of fragilities in constant flux. To know yourself is to know that you are not invulnerable. The honest encounter with that vulnerability is the wellspring of art: Every … Continue reading Bob Dylan on Emotion, Vulnerability as the Price of Integrity, and Music as an Instrument of Truth

Art, Media&Culture, Photography, TechnologyLeave a comment

Spectacular Drone Views Of Giza Present the Pyramid in an Unusual Perspective

Fernando Kaskais

All photos © Alexander Ladanivskyy, shared with permission By CHRISTOPHER JOBSON Ukrainian photographer Alexander Ladanivskyy travels the world in search of spectacular images including idyllic scenes of Icelandic waterfalls, ancient mountain cities in Jordan, and the collision of history and modernity in Nepal. Last April, he teamed up with the Ministry of Tourism in Egypt to shoot one of the most photographed landmarks on Earth: the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Not satisfied with recreating perspectives found on postcards and Instagram feeds, Ladanivskyy instead used a drone to shoot the 4,600-year-old structure squarely from above at different altitudes. The series offers … Continue reading Spectacular Drone Views Of Giza Present the Pyramid in an Unusual Perspective

Art, Curiositys, Unbelievable, WHAT THE FUCK ?Leave a comment

WHAT THE FUCK ?

Fernando Kaskais

World’s First Invisible Sculpture Sells for a Whopping $18,000 By Spooky  An invisible sculpture created by Italian artist Salvatore Garau recently acquired by a private collector who paid a whopping 15,000 euros for it during an auction. If you’re one of those people who just can’t understand how someone can pay large sums of money for digital assets like video game skins, accessories or increasingly popular non-fungible assets (NFTs), then the sale of Salvatore Garau’s immaterial sculpture is really going to do a number on your brain. Titled “I am” the invisible work of art basically represents a void, a … Continue reading WHAT THE FUCK ?

Art, Brain, Media&Culture, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

Changed by art

Fernando Kaskais

Gazing at a painting feels like an almost magical encounter with another mind but what real effects does art have on us? Ellen Winner is professor of psychology at Boston College and senior research associate at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her most recent book is How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2018).  Edited by Nigel Warburton Scenario 1: suppose you’ve been gazing intensely at Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait (1659), which hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and later you’re told that this was actually a painting made by a deep-learning machine that had internalised Rembrandt’s style through exposure to his … Continue reading Changed by art

Art, Japan, Media&Culture, PhotographyLeave a comment

Japanese Food Artist Uses Toast as Her Canvas for Edible Masterpieces

Fernando Kaskais

By Emma Taggart  Since it’s the most important meal of the day, many of us are pretty particular about how we like our breakfast. Toast is a staple for most, but for Japanese designer Manami Sasaki, slices of bread aren’t just tasty snacks—they’re her artistic canvas. She meticulously tops toast with colorful ingredients to create edible designs based on Japanese art and geometric patterns. These breakfasts aren’t the type of meal you can quickly prepare and eat as you run out the door. Sasaki spends hours cutting and positioning each ingredient on the toasted bread with perfect precision. For one eye-catching spring-inspired … Continue reading Japanese Food Artist Uses Toast as Her Canvas for Edible Masterpieces