Log24

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Obiter Dicta

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:00 am

"I am haunted by humans."
(Search for the source at Google.)

"Art worldlings are one thing, Hollywood another."
(Search for the source at Log24.)

These quotations were suggested by two obits this morning:

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Art Wars

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:00 pm

Frederick Hart’s 1982 sculpture “Ex Nihilo” for Washington’s National Cathedral—

Related material — Tom Wolfe on Frederick Hart, said to have been
published in The New York Times Magazine  of Sunday, Jan. 2, 2000—

In 1982, Ex Nihilo  was unveiled in a dedication ceremony. The next day, Hart scanned the newspapers for reviews… The Washington PostThe New York Times… nothing… nothing the next day, either… nor the next week… nor the week after that. The one mention of any sort was an obiter dictum in The Post ‘s Style (read: Women’s) section indicating that the west facade of the cathedral now had some new but earnestly traditional (read: old-fashioned) decoration. So Hart started monitoring the art magazines. Months went by… nothing. It reached the point that he began yearning for a single paragraph by an art critic who would say how much he loathed Ex Nihilo… anything, anything at all!… to prove there was someone out there in the art world who in some way, however slightly or rudely, cared.

The truth was, no one did, not in the least. Ex Nihilo  never got ex nihilo  simply because art worldlings refused to see it.

Art worldings are one thing, Hollywood another.

Al Pacino’s moving wall sculpture in “The Devil’s Advocate” (1997)—

“After the film’s initial release, sculptor Frederick Hart sued Warner Bros.
claiming that a large sculpture prominently featured in the film
(on the wall of Al Pacino’s penthouse apartment) is an unauthorized copy
of his work ‘Ex Nihilo,’ displayed at the entrance of Washington’s Episcopal
National Cathedral.” — IMDb

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