Curio Cabinet

Title: The Ten Largest, Youth
Artist: Hilma Af Klint (1862-1944)
Created: 1907
Medium: tempera on canvas
Current location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York
 

Swedish painter Hilma Af Klint certainly kept things close to the vest—or smock. Trained in traditional portraiture and landscape painting, Af Klint also produced dozens of secret abstract paintings inspired by her mystical experiences. The work above, currently on view at New York's Guggenheim Museum through February 3, 2019, is part of a series depicting humanity in various stages of development. The zygote-shaped blue-and-white circle in this image hints at the theme of youth, as do the bright eggs towards the bottom. While the shapes suggest an understanding of the laws of math and science, Af Klint's process was decidedly not intellectual. "The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings," she said. "I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless, I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brushstroke." The idea of a powerful and mysterious force moving through her came from Af Klint's deep involvement in turn-of-the-century spiritual movements. She was a member of a group of female artists called de Fem (The Five) that regularly held seances and deciphered messages from otherworldly spirits, a common practice at the time. Hmm, we just felt a little tingle in the spine!
 

Below: more of Af Klint's works, including a 1932 painting that may anticipate World War II; a spherical work called Picture of the Starting Point, and another spherical work called The Dove.
 

Image credit & copyright: Hilma Af Klint
 

We tend to think of "street photography" as gritty and real, but Gregor Sailer's Potemkin villages is the opposite: constructed and deceptive images of town streets. Salier documented 25 fake towns—often painted or plastered over to deceive the eye—located across the world, like the above image of "Harlem, New York"… in Sweden. The "Potemkin villages" nickname comes from Russian governor Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, who constructed fake settlements (to hide decaying ones) in order to impress Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. In some cases, dilapidated buildings with plastered-over exteriors still exist in certain Potemkin villages in Russia, though in other places, the out-of-place facades serve different functions. For example, the above Swedish storefronts are part of AstaZero's full-scale test environment where traffic accidents are reproduced to study future road safety issues; and in a Chinese faux village, recreations of Henley-on-Thames give the spaces a distinct olde English flair. Sailer's images potently question relationships between reality and made-up appearances, and how the camera can fool the eye.
 

Below: Salier's work was published in December 2017 in The Potemkin Village, and the shots were recently featured at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in Arles, France (which is a real place). More of Salier's images, including Russia, Ufa & Suzdal; USA, Junction City; and China, Thames Town.
 

Image credit & copyright: Gregor Sailer
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Still in summer mood? José Lourenço's Ice Cream series is here to remind you of some sweet treats in paint form. Lourenço has a knack for whimsical color-blending; he layers dozens of different paint colors into a marbled pattern atop brushes of different sized-bristles and gives his creations playful titles, like Tutti Fruitti and Lava Ice Cream. Sadly, his creations are not edible, but his Instagram feed displays a wide range of playful creations, like neatly tiled hexagonal ends of colored pencils; heart collages made of toy ladybugs, legos, and red earbuds; and the Instagram logo itself arranged from jewelry beads! We're most partial to Lourenço's Ice Cream creations, but he's so inventive that if he ever did decide to get into the culinary world, he could give unicorn frappuccinos a run for their money!

 

Below: more images of Lourenço's Ice Cream dreams.
 

Image credit & copyright: José Lourenço
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives in honor of National #2 Pencil Day.
 

Title: The Getaway
Artist: Pejac
Created: 2017
Medium: pencil on pressed wood
 
Spanish street artist Pejac is bringing the outdoors in. In The Getaway, he delicately adapts his linework to existing patterns on his "canvas." But instead of using a traditional canvas, Pejac draws on a pressed wood board, the same kind found at your local hardware store. Armed with only a pencil, Pejac turns the textured background into a rich landscape of jumbled planks and debris. We're so convinced that the environment is in the process of being swallowed by an ominous dark hole that it's no wonder the deer is making his escape. Both the subject matter and use of repurposed wood are meant to draw attention to a recurring theme in Pejac's work: our relationship with the environment. "The beauty of the pressed wood seems to hide the arrogance of man in its relation with nature," says the artist. Arrogance that, like the encroaching shadow, may catch up to us if we're not careful.
 
Below: a close-up of The Getaway.
 

 
Image credit & copyright: Pejac
 

Title: Continental's Boeing 777
Artist: Peter Max (b. 1937)
Created: 1999
Medium: paint on airplane
 

German-American artist Peter Max was lucky enough to have a Boeing 777 serve as a canvas for his work. In the late 1990s, the psychedelic painter collaborated with Continental Airlines to doll up one of their commercial planes to celebrate New York City and the new millenium. Max used many of the same colors found in his canvas paintings: a sunny bright yellow, a bold red, and a calm blue. The overall effect pays homage to the shades of the sky—where the work of art would spend much of its time for the next several years, carrying people out of New York and often being photographed by surprised passengers in other planes. Though the Max plane has since been painted over, its seven years of airtime encouraged brightly colored art on planes owned by other airlines. Max's plane draws on a long tradition of art on aircraft, which dates back to World War I, when ground crews would often paint beautiful women onto the noses of military planes to boost the morale of pilots before they headed to Europe. We're sure spotting this beauty in the sky would've pepped up an otherwise humdrum flight!
 

Below: another Peter Max painting called Buddha Moon; the artist Don Allen admires nose art he painted on a World War II fighter plane.
 

Image credit & copyright: Peter Max and Cleveland Plain-Dealer
 

When Henry David Thoreau talked about building castles in the air, he probably never dreamed these planes were possible. Nick Gleis has an unmatched portfolio of aviation history in photos—having shot B-25 Bombers, Boeing 747s, and Gulfstream IIIs, to name a few—though it's the interiors of lavish private jets from the '80s and '90s that have captured the eye of the public. For over 30 years, Gleis' clients have been aircraft completion centers eager to have marketing and advertising shots of their crafts (pun intended). Through those contacts, Gleis has been invited to shoot the private planes of the ultra-rich, like Russian oligarchs and royals from Saudi Arabian and Dubai. While some news outlets have questioned Gleis' decision to work for people who've made their wealth in "variously unethical ways," the photographer side-steps the query, claiming that he only works with those who wouldn't put his life in danger by having him enter their country. He also justifies the work as an opportunity to discover unique features of aircraft design, and develop his own techniques for photographing every opulent touch, like the curved and chromed detailing on the walls and roof in the above photo. Because who needs lifestyles of the rich and famous when there's lifestyles of the tycoons, barons, and kingpins to aspire to?
 

Below: more shots of private plane interiors by Gleis.
 

Image credit & copyright: Nick Gleis
 

Title: The Dominion of Light
Artist: René Magritte (1898-1967)
Created: 1954
Medium: oil on canvas
Current location: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
 

Surrealist painter René Magritte may be best known for pairing unusual objects—like his infamous bowler hat and green apple duo. But later in his career, he became obsessed with another type of unlikely combination. The scene depicted in the bottom half of The Dominion of Light is a traditional exploration of light on a quiet residential street; the street lamp emits a small halo inviting the viewer in. The bright, daytime sky above, however, proves rather disarming—and gives the work the surrealist edge Magritte was known for. Debuting to acclaim when it was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1954, the strange painting was accidentally sold to four buyers instead of one. Magritte rolled with it; after the exhibition, he created three identical works for the additional customers. What started out as a practical fix turned into a passion. Magritte painted the daytime/nighttime scene 23 more times over the next few years. "I find the evocation of night and day is endowed with the power to surprise and enchant us," he said of the paintings in 1956. Consider us enchanted!
 

Below: more paintings in The Dominion of Light series.
 

Image credit & copyright: Charly Herscovici / Brussels, Artists Rights Society

Thanks to Jesse Owens, the 1936 Olympic games didn't turn out to be the triumph Adolf Hitler hoped they'd be. 82 years ago this month, the Nazis were at the height of their powers, and Germany's leader wanted the Olympics, held in Berlin, to demonstrate the country's growing power and prosperity. For the international audience, the Nazis downplayed the regime's growing repression of Jews and other minorities; still, they wanted the Olympic games to be a showcase for Aryan racial superiority. But Jesse Owens, an African American sharecropper's son, smashed those expectations by winning four track and field gold medals. Hitler refused to congratulate Owens, and German newspapers derided the victories by claiming that "negroes" were not actually people, but an "auxiliary force" required to fortify the mediocre American team. When people expressed outrage on his behalf, Owens, a dignified, soft-spoken man, would occasionally point to the reception he received back home: "When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus," he said. "... I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either."  

Below: Owens salutes the American flag after being awarded one of his gold medals at the Berlin Olympics.

Image credit & copyright: Hulton Archive/Getty Images; WikiMedia Commons
 

Actress Mae West once said "too much of a good thing can be wonderful," but she may not have felt that way about having her portrait taken. West, who was born August 17, 1893, agreed to be photographed by Diane Arbus for a 1965 feature in Show magazine. When the photographer arrived at West's home, she was greeted by burly male attendants and taken to West's gold and white bedroom with the expectation that Arbus would reinforce West's personal mythology as a brazen sex symbol. But for Arbus, taking portraits wasn't about flattering or airbrushing the subject; her goal was to capture unique moments—warts and all. When the feature ran in Show, West was furious about the photos' harsh light—and not just because soft lighting wasn't used to erase her wrinkles; she thought the images made her look dated. West enjoyed a modest revival of her career in the '60s, and in retrospect Arbus's photo of the star in a powerful seated pose perfectly depicts the strength of a woman who wrote her own comedic plays and movies—and single-handedly saved Paramount Pictures from going bankrupt with her 1933 film, She Done Him Wrong.

 

Below: more images from the Arbus-West photoshoot.
 

Image credit & copyright: Christie's, Diane Arbus
 

Title: Blue Boat
Artist: Raimonds Staprans (b. 1926)
Created: 1994
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 68 x 60 in (172.7 x 152.4 cm)
 

A beautiful summer day should be enjoyed with company, right? Not if contemporary painter Raimond Staprans has a say in the matter—his familiar settings, however inviting, eventually inspire profound loneliness. In Blue Boat, which depicts the shining San Francisco Bay, he pared the visuals down so much, all we're left with is abstractions of light and color: blue bands unfold from the harbor, and taper off to lighter hues as they near the brilliant horizon. A closer inspection of the boats reveals more of these thick strips of color. A barren isolation permeates this vast waterscape, down to the most rudimentary details, producing the effect of farsightedness. According to Staprans, he constructs unresponsive settings like that of Blue Boat's "from the ground up in absolutely abstract terms." However certain these boats look from afar, they lack the concrete detail needed to anchor their form!
 

Below: more of Staprans' paintings, including: Sunshine Pears (2006); Still Life With Equally Spaced Items (2010); The Sunshine Table #3 (1988-1999).
 

Image credit & copyright: Susan Adamé