Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Dali in Atlanta





Here's Ken outside the High Museum in Atlanta along Peachtree Street.

The High Museum is featuring an exhibit of Salvador Dali's paintings. My friend Ken and I took in the show recently. I brought with me a certain disdain for Dali as a self promoter.  I was quickly impressed by the man's skill, intellect and hard work. He was clearly a master whose paintings challenge your visual perception with their scale, detail and bizarre subjects. Ken's son, Will, put it most simply, "weird!".

There were two documentary films featured in the exhibit which I had not seen before.  I listened to him narrate a "happening" which featured a pig sty and female model while he directed a small crew in a TV studio. It gave me a better understanding of his thinking and the term, "Dada".  He had a wonderful accent speaking English. If you follow along you hear him rattle off directions and nonsense that becomes a kind of "blah, blah, blah". That is until you pick up a few more words.  He brings you back to a sudden understanding of his idea. He entices you in, lulls you with run-on sentences, then snaps you back to attention. He was very amusing.

There is also a scene or photo I recall where he kissed Andy Warhol. This section of the exhibit labeled him a favorite of the "jet set". I came out of it with a genuine admiration and affection for the man and his art.

Returning home to St. Augustine I found a postcard on my office wall with a Dali painting. I had forgotten it was there. Its not featured in the exhibit. I have it because of the bicycles.


Sunday, September 5, 2010

Art Walk Jacksonville


The Jacksonville Art Walk is held each first Wednesday evening of the month. Registration is free once an artist is approved and space is available in Hemmings Park right across the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Downtown Library.
I took the time to prepare an exhibit of my prints for the September Art Walk. My focus was to promote online print sales which feature images based on my paintings on canvas and recent paintings with a computer. I am very pleased with the quality of the printing and brilliance of the inks on paper. These prints were framed and matted examples with complex designs, subtle colors with intense brush work. My web site, http://michael-velkovich.artistwebsites.com, does a good job of displaying the image with a special magnifier to zoom in on the details of texture and brush strokes.

Space is limited in this setting and it is a challenge to produce a display that must be very portable and quick to assemble and take down. It all has to fit inside an SUV! I was thinking of all the trade show designs I had seen. Inside the pop-up display tent you might notice projected animations of my paintings. These were like time lapse recordings of the drawing and painting process. The coated cloth inside the "big top" served as the silver movie screen. As it got darker the animations could be seen through the fabric from a distance.

Carolyne could see that the crowd flow was behind us. We quickly reversed the entire display to take advantage. I hadn't done a sidewalk show in decades but the location encouraged me to try it this time. I captured some photos of our visitors and folks in the park but I wouldn't post them without their permission. People were very nice and took interest in the pictures as they enjoyed their evening walk. Heavy rain spoiled the ending as we hustled to pack up and protect the pictures.