Senin, 23 November 2009

Classic Nude Sculpture: Art or Porn?

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned.

Whenever I’ve gone by Titian’s great “Venus With a Mirror,” sitting topless in the Renaissance rooms at the National Gallery of Art, or Canova’s marble “Naiad,” lounging a floor below in the no-kini of a classical goddess, carnal thoughts have come to me.

If only I’d been keeping up with the latest scholarship, I’d have had a more up-to-date reaction: full-blown, panting lust.

After well over a century of prim coverups, literal and metaphorical, of the sexual content of the greatest nudes in art, experts have been waking up to the erotic, even pornographic, potential. “I think it’s essential we understand them as objects in the context of men wanting to look at naked women,” says Amelia Jones, a pioneer of feminist art history who teaches at the University of Manchester in England. Over the past decade or two, most of her colleagues have abandoned the genteel distinction between the chaste “nude,” and pictures of the pruriently “naked,” meant to get a rise out of viewers.

The new view: Flesh is flesh is flesh.

As usual, Marcel Duchamp had hammered all this out before others, as we can see in an important show now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It digs deep into the making of his “Etant Donnes,” the wildly explicit peep show Duchamp left to the museum when he died in 1968. Duchamp’s last work did for pornography what his urinal “Fountain” had done for men’s-room plumbing back in 1917: It made clear that there’s nothing so out of bounds in our culture that it doesn’t have artistic repercussions.

But before considering Duchamp and his final word on lusty aesthetics, we need to go back to beginnings and take a more licentious look at Titian and Canova and their times.

The men of the West, even at their most refined, have long had a Playboy culture.

During the Renaissance, seedbed of most later art, inns and taverns flaunted naughty pictures. We know this because fine-art nudes were attacked for looking like them. And they were in retail circulation: In the 1520s, some of the great cultural figures of Rome published a set of sonnets called “The Positions,” with anatomically correct illustrations. The pope was not amused. The engraver did jail time, the writer and the illustrator had to skip town, and almost all copies of the work were destroyed.

That’s the context in which a nude like Titian’s so-called “Venus With a Mirror” was being ogled.

There’s evidence that “ogled” gets the looking right. In 1544, a Roman cardinal asked a subordinate to visit Titian’s studio in Venice and report back on a painting he’d commissioned of the myth of the Greek princess Danae. A subject, wrote the subordinate, that Titian had made so sexy it would get the strictest puritan going. Compared to the new painting, the report went on, Titian’s earlier nude, the so-called “Venus of Urbino,” might as well have been a nun — though for centuries now that “Venus,” one of the Uffizi’s greatest treasures, has been considered the pinnacle of refined taste. It turns out Mark Twain may have been right about the Uffizi’s “Venus” when he ranted that “the attitude of one of her arms and hand” makes it “the obscenest picture the world possesses.”

As late as 1800, even a less “active” naked lady, depicted in Goya’s famous “Nude Maja,” seems originally to have been kept behind another picture of her, clothed.

The two pictures were among other nudes, including the great “Rokeby Venus” by Velazquez, described as “obscene paintings” in a document from 1814. The next year, the Inquisition subpoenaed Goya about them.

When Canova created his “Naiad,” at almost exactly that time, the sensualism of his nymph must have been at least as striking as any ideals she represented. Canova sent a copy of his “Naiad” to George IV of England — an infamous playboy and a collector of pornography — and asked for it to be installed on a rotating base. That would have allowed a patron to take in a foot-first view up her legs, across her naked haunch and right up to her come-on glance.

It’s not only female flesh that has been seen as getting viewers hot beneath the collar. Michelangelo’s “David” was fig-leafed when it first went on display, and one prelate described the artist’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, distinctly un-fig-leafed, as a bathhouse scene and tried to have it destroyed.

Our new habit of not censoring the most pungent art may be throwing cold water on it. One of the most infamous pictures of all time is the “Origin of the World,” a close-up on a naked woman’s crotch painted in 1866 by the great French realist Gustave Courbet. It was originally meant for a Turkish roue in Paris, and when he gave a peek to his most privileged visitors, they must have felt a thrill at seeing the work of a great artist married to (“mated with” might be more accurate) forbidden flesh. But ever since the picture passed into public hands, the “Origin” has felt almost tame. In a recent Courbet survey in New York, “it was just another landscape — with hair,” says David Rosand, a senior art historian at Columbia University.

Nude flesh has been made safe by art, and in the process lost its potency. Experts have set about restoring it.

The British scholar Charles Hope is famous for talking about Titian’s racier pictures as mere “pinups.” Several other art historians have raised objections — but only to Hope’s “mere.” They’ve insisted that the stunning erotic power of such masterpieces enables all the complex things they do. We don’t have to choose between seeing these works as erotic objects, even in a full-blown Web-porn mode, and seeing them as tremendously important, sophisticated art.

With Duchamp, we’re talking rumpled sheets and cigarettes.

The Philadelphia show goes into every detail of the making of “Etant Donnes,” which took place in absolute secrecy between 1946 and 1966. (“Etant Donnes” is French for “Given That,” which is short for the full title “Given That: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas.”)

The piece is far too extreme for us to illustrate.

“Etant Donnes” is a peep-show diorama in 3-D. To see it, you peer through two eyeholes pierced in a weathered barn door, mounted on the far wall of a dimly lit little gallery. What you get when you look through is a pleasant country landscape. And, in the foreground, the perfectly rendered torso and splayed legs of a naked blonde, fully “Brazilianed,” as we’d say today, thrown onto her back on a pile of branches, with one hand holding a lamp.

As many scholars have insisted, what we’re seeing, really, is a woman lighting the aftermath of her own rape, as hard-core as any image could be — so extreme that it’s almost more forensic than sexual. I wouldn’t describe this piece, as the show’s catalog does, as merely “a recumbent nude in a bucolic landscape setting” that captures the “erotic frisson” of Duchamp’s affair with his model and represents “an open and desiring body.” How many desiring women would choose to lie, naked and exposed, on a bed of sticks? Jones, the art historian and Duchamp expert from Manchester, believes “Etant Donnes” creates “a visceral reaction for women. . . . I don’t see how you can engage with that work without being uncomfortable.”

Duchamp may have been running a kind of test: If art could “cleanse” the erotic, could it whitewash evident pornography?

The answer — luckily for Duchamp and the survival of his work — seems to be yes. On its Web site, the Philadelphia museum says the piece offers “an unforgettable and untranslatable experience to those who peer through the two small holes” — true, but the most thoroughgoing euphemism I’ve come across.

The show itself, and its impressive catalog, builds a classic image of the artist as hardworking genius. What it doesn’t quite do is put a spotlight on the extreme imagery itself and what it means — maybe because, in an age where porn is only a mouse-click away, we’ve lost the ability to recognize its force.

Yet that imagery is crucial to Duchamp’s “woman with the open [legs],” as he called his nude, because it lets him be direct about how art can work.

As conceptual artist Les Levine once said, the piece has “a cultural power equal to Leonardo’s ‘Mona Lisa.’ You can’t stop looking at it. It puts questions in your mind.”

Questions such as: Do we dare sidle up to Duchamp’s peephole and confront our own invasive need to gape — at flesh, and at art?

The Washington Post

Kosovo honors Bill Clinton with statue Large crowd of ethnic Albanians turn out to welcome ex-president

PRISTINA, Kosovo - Thousands of ethnic Albanians braved low temperatures and a cold wind in Kosovo's capital Pristina to welcome former President Bill Clinton on Sunday as he attended the unveiling of an 11-foot (3.5-meter) statue of himself on a key boulevard that also bears his name.

Clinton is celebrated as a hero by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority for launching NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 that stopped the brutal Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.

This is his first visit to Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia last year.

Many waved American, Albanian and Kosovo flags and chanted "USA!" as the former president climbed on top of a podium with his poster in the background reading "Kosovo honors a hero."

Some peeked out of balconies and leaned on window sills to get a better view of Clinton from their apartment blocks.

To thunderous applause Clinton waved to the crowd as the red cover was pulled off from the statue.

The statue is placed on top of a white-tiled base, in the middle of a tiny square, surrounded by communist-era buildings.

"I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me," Clinton said of the gold-sprayed statue weighing a ton (900 kilograms).

He also addressed Kosovo's 120-seat assembly, encouraging them to forgive and move on from the violence of the past.

Image: Clinton statue in Kosovo
Armend Nimani / AFP - Getty Images
"I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me," Clinton said.

The statue portrays Clinton with his left arm raised and holding a portfolio bearing his name and the date when NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, on March. 24, 1999.

An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed during the Kosovo crackdown and about 800,000 were forced out of their homes. They returned home after NATO-led peacekeepers moved in following 78 days of bombing.

Leta Krasniqi, an ethnic Albanian, said the statue was the best way to express the ethnic Albanians' gratitude for Clinton's role in making Kosovo a state.

"This is a big day," Krasniqi, 25 said. "I live nearby and I'm really excited that I will be able to see the statue of such a big friend of ours every day."

14,000-strong peacekeeping force
Clinton last visited Kosovo in 2003 when he received an honorary university degree. His first visit was in 1999 — months after some 6,000 U.S. troops were deployed in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission here.

Some 1,000 American soldiers are still based in Kosovo as part of NATO's 14,000-strong peacekeeping force.

Police in Kosovo upped security measures ahead of Bill Clinton's arrival by adding deploying more traffic police and special police.

NATO officials said the peacekeepers were also on alert, although no additional security measures were taken.

Statue

A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger.[1] Its primary concern is representational.

The definition of a statue is not always clear-cut; sculptures of a person on a horse, called Equestrian statues, are certainly included, and in many cases, such as a Madonna and Child or a Pietà, a sculpture of two people will also be. A small statue, usually small enough to be picked up, is called a statuette or Figurine.

Many statues are built on commission to commemorate a historical event, or the life of an influential person. Many statues are intended as public art, exhibited outdoors or in public buildings for the edification of passers-by, with a larger magnitude than normal words could ever have for the common man.

On rare occasions, statues themselves become historic and inspire their own historic events. In 1986, when the Statue of Liberty marked her one-hundredth anniversary, a three-day centennial celebration in her honor attracted 12 million. The guest list was unique. "We invited all the great statues of the world to her birthday party and created giant puppets to represent them," said Jeanne Fleming, director of the event. "Each one arrived accompanied by native music."

There is an urban legend concerning a code for mounted statues, whereby the horse's hooves are supposed to indicate how the rider met his end. One hoof off the floor would indicate the rider died of wounds received in battle, or perhaps was just wounded in battle; two hooves off the floor would indicate the rider was killed in battle. An examination of the equestrian statues in most major European cities shows this is not true. If it ever was true, the practice appears to have died out in the 19th century. [1][2]

Statues are amongst the wonders of the world, with the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the Moai of Easter Island among the wonders of the modern world.

Senin, 16 November 2009

JOKO DOLOG STATUE

Joko Dolog can be found on Taman Aspari Street. This statue is a Buddhist statue. It is said to have been made in the year 1289 in honor of the funeral of King Kertanagara, who was the last king of Singosari. It is believed to have been carried to Surabaya about 300 years ago. The statue can be found directly in front of the mansion of the governor of East Java, and the aroma of incense remains in the air as it is still a popular pilgrimage site.

A stone image of the Buddha Akshobya, curiously matching the description of the ‘"missing statue" at Candi Jawi, can be found today in a small secluded park in Surabaya. Known locally as Joko Dolog, the statue displays a lengthy Sanskrit inscription, carved neatly around its base. When it was translated for the first time early this century, the inscription was found to reveal important historical information dating from the period immediately prior to the founding of Majapahit. Translated in the year 1289 by a Buddhist scribe named Nada, the contents are roughly as follows

It is said that many years ago, the sage Mpu Bharada divided the land of Java into the kingdoms of Janggala and Panjalu (Kediri), with the purpose of settling a dispute between two brothers over succession. The division was created magically, by means of holy water sprinkled out of a jar from the sky. However, during the reign of Sri Wishnuwardhana the country was reunited to the joy and benefit of all. The ruler, of whom the statue is said to be a portrait, was Wishnuwardhana’s son, Kertanagara, who commissioned the image as a symbol of this unification.

The information contained in the Joko Dolog inscription is especially interesting because it appears to establish the authenticity of certain historical figures and events, previously known only from ancient Javanese literature. The story of the division of Java by the sage Mpu Bharada is of course well known, and refers to the reign of King Airlangga in the 11th century. On the other hand, by giving Wishnuwardhana the credit for having reunited the country, the inscription has cast some doubt upon the reliability of traditional literary sources. This is true in regards to the story of Ken Angrok and Ken Dedes, which has been dismissed by some as complete fabrication.

Yet, since the 1975 discovery of a number of inscribed copper sheets originating from the region of Kediri, new light has been shed on the early years of the Singosari period. Known as the inscription of Mula Malurung, issued by King Kertanagara in 1255, it mentions the names of Wishnuwardhana, Tohjaya, as well as a number of other kings who have previously been unknown to historians. Finally, and most interestingly, the Mula Malurung inscription appears to suggest the existence of Ken Angrok, thus at least confirming a historical basis for a story which was regarded almost entirely as a myth.

Four Faced Budha

Simply, Surabaya city have one of tourism object that become a real spectacular in South-East Asia, Four Faces Deity Statue or Four Faced Buddha monument. This Four Faced Buddha Monument get appreciation of MURI as the biggest and highest Four Faces Deity Statue in Indonesia. A nine meters statue that have 225 square meters width is still have not contested by other similar statue.

Four Faced Buddha monument, has overall height 36 meters (including dome) opened on 9 Novembers 2004, and finish about fund 4 billion rupiahs. It is built in farm with a width of 1,5 hectares, in centered is farm, placed by building with length 9 meters, wide 9 meters and height 36 meters. If we saw altogether contain number 9, why it's numeral 9? Because taking similar monument reference in Thailand, and numeral 9 also have separate meaning for Buddha member.

The statue building the Four Faced Buddha place shaded, encircled by 4 pillars that colored by golden green, contains of 3 parts, which is statue, Buddha statue, and Buddha throne. It has been equipped with lightning rod at top of the statue, while statue Buddha and the throne has each 9 meters height.

See this building model, of course almost looks like Four Faced Buddha Monument in Thailand, the difference only the statue that in the higher Thailand statue but its statue building is higher then in Surabaya. Besides resemblance of a real big measure, the statue that have four faces and four hand tides, arranged in layers by gold in all it body part. It is said to make a perfect veneering process of this gold, is intentionally delivered kampoh material or original gold paper from Thailand (there is also mentioned kimpo paper). Complete with it worker, with veneering expense or ritual giving of this chasuble is reach 1,5 Billion rupiahs.

About Four Faced Buddha statue meaning or also there is mentioning it Four Faced Deity, bring four kindness philosophy that owned by Buddha, that is patience, liberal, fair (unbiased), and meditated. This four kindness is also had a meaning of, Buddha is a presentation of affection of fellow being, assist whoever without discrimination, and devoted in prayer or application that submitted in ritual procession. While on Buddha eight hands, there are holy book, holy water, defense weapon, fight weapon to against the badness, holy book, prayer beads, chest, and cupu.

Besides the philosophy, this place also offer idea to become the centre of Buddha member observance, finite later would many visitors coming to this place. Besides to see the four faced deity statue, in this place, we will see four high white elephant statues about 4 meters in every corner, three lotus decorative pools, and a meditated space. This complex is also decorated of 12 lamps that made from bronze and copper.

In it frontage, we meet a place that sell some pray equipment like candle and frankincense, this place later the also can buy the souvenir typical of Buddha four faces statue.

How about you, do wish to make this tourism object as your tourism purpose? Or may like to think about have photograph with Four Faced Buddha Monument background, as if stay in Thailand, or possible you wish to pray... all up to you, because this place is open generically, and admission charge free, only fare payee stepped into Ria Kenjeran Beach area.

THE MONUMENT OF JALESVEVA JAYAMAHE

("In the sea we are glorious")

Monument of Jalesveva Jayamahe (Monjaya) is great evidence and very amaze suborder masterpiece. An endowment of high history value, as the reflection of the highness of Indonesian nation as the maritime nation one. The other meaning of this statue figure is as the readiness symbol to receive the devotion from generation to the next generation.

This monument is a statue as high as 30,6 meters, which sustained by a building as high as 30 meters. This statue depict a Commandant of Indonesian Maritime Army complete with his honor sword upstanding to stare towards the sea fully confidence and seriousness ready to dash against the wave and go through storm, which have shown, that is the aspiration of Indonesian nation.

Monument that built by The Staff Leader of Indonesia Maritime Army initiative by then, Admiral TNI Muhamad Arifin and designed by Nyoman Nuarta can function also as Guide Lamp tower (Lighthouse) for ships sailing in its vicinity. There is giant gong Kyai Tentrem under the monument, which has 6 meters diameter and heavy more than 2 tons.

Monument of Jalesveva Jayamahe taken away from TNI AL motto that means, "In the sea we are glorious" its height is 60 meters. The building consisted of concrete building domed four floors 30 meters that taken as copper statue fulcrums as high as 30 meters. At part of this building wall is made the history of maritime combatants warrior diorama (TNI AL) since revolution physical era until 90-an year.

While its boom building functioned as TNI AL Museum and also as "Executive Meeting Room". The statue depicts a Colonel of Indonesia Maritime Army with clothes on duty ceremony (PDU 1). His right hand is akimbo and his left hand holding a commando sword. The colonel eyes stare to the wide sea. At the base orbicular building floor, there is Kyai Tentrem gong.

According to the Head of TNI AL Staff ‘Laksamana Madya Arief Kushariadi’, this statue heroic is intentionally given colonelcy. "Because the colonel is the heroic leader enter matured phase and ready to enter the terrace position,” he said. Why looking into the sea? "Because our future at the ocean," he repeated. The Side of Navy, said Arief, "we also hope that this monument will become the maritime tourism in Surabaya”.

This monument is built since 1990 and opened in December 1996 that is jousting with the Republic of Indonesia Armada day on 5 Decembers 1996 by President Soeharto, with expense of Rp. 27 billion. The statue is mentioned as the second highest in world after Liberty Statue, 85 meters, is reside in New York port mouth. The numerical colonel become militant and has skin copper.

It designer, Nyoman Nuarta, the famous statue maker from Bandung whp also create a copper statue of Garuda Wishnu Kencana in Jimbaran, Bali. Nyoman prints the statue body in his workshop in Bandung in module cuttings form. After it had complete, then it brought to Surabaya and matches each other. To make the statue, Nyoman Nuarta get 3000 copper tons from PLN, 60 tons from Telecommunication Departments, and a number of ex- bullet exuviate coppers.

The reason of Monjaya built is because of an idea, which however it’s a nation advance must still tread at its history. Mean, "The Big nation is the nation which able to esteem the merit of it hero ". From many kind of hero and meritorious that have been doyen in blazing the way, uphold and fill independence of nation and NKRI, included in it of the warriors from the Indonesia Maritime Army. It is countless the sacrifice, which they have rendered. Even they gave their soul. Only partly small from they which we recognize and his name have been immortalized to become name of Republic of Indonesia Battleships.

Besides as appreciation sign and souvenir from generation of router that still alive, it is also expected able to give a motivation to continue their struggle towards reaching of aspiration of Navy which great, powerful and Professional in place of NKRI which prosperous and fair.

Without minimizing the historic events happened in Sibolga, Tegal, Pasuruan, Bali or it doesn't matter in this Indonesia fatherland history of Ujung as part of heroic town Surabaya region of course cannot be locked out of history of Indonesia Maritime Army, that is struggling march of Kaigun SE 21/24 Butai events on 3 Octobers 1945, what marked with the oath of the ‘Bahariawan Penataran Angkatan Laut’ (PAL) that is " I volunteer and candid to sacrifice good and chattel and also Body and soul for the State and the Nation".

In the event of the next Indonesia Maritime Army history performance, Ujung has vital importance role, that is the basis (Base Home) the biggest Indonesia Maritime Army war ships hitherto, so that not too joke when some of publics named Surabaya town as seaman town or Navy town.

In consequence it is competent when Monument of Jalesveva Jayamahe is built in Ujung Surabaya. Besides, it also expected the establishment of this monument can add the glorious of Ujung Surabaya that mean add to respect Surabaya as the heroic city and Indarmadi (Industry, Commerce, Maritime and Education).