Curio Cabinet

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

Here's a tradition that's sure to brighten anyone's day. The woman in the above picture is lighting clay lamps in Colombo, Sri Lanka for a religious ceremony associated with Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. A Hindu may arrange these candles in a row in front of their homes, in a symbolic gesture of letting in light and banishing evil. Called deepa, these rows give the holiday its name. Across India, the origin story of Diwali takes on various incarnations, with a prominent northern story being that of King Rama's return to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana. In any case, the five days of Diwali bear traditions like cleaning the house on the first day, decorating with clay lamps and colored powders called rangoli on the second, and taking part in Lakshmi puja—a prayer and feast devoted to the goddess Lakshmi—on the third day. The fourth day marks the new year (according to the Hindu lunar calendar), and the fifth and final finds brothers visiting married sisters. Sounds like a lot to be joyful about!

 

Below: more Diwali celebrations at Madan Mohan Malviya stadium in Allahabad, India, shopping for fireworks, and a Sikh in Amritstar celebrates the festival, though his religion would mark the day Guru Hargobind Ji, the Sixth Sikh Guru was released from prison.
 

Image credit & copyright: Dinuka Liyanawatte, Verma, Raminder Pal Singh, Narinder Nanu, EPA, AFP, Getty Images, Reuters, Shuttershock
 

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

Title: The Party
Artist: Marisol (1930-2016)
Created: 1965-1966
Medium: painted wood, mirrors, plastic, cloth, TV set, and accessories
Dimensions: variable
Current Location: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
 

Ever feel overwhelmed in social situations? Marisol can relate. The French-born artist was known for her quiet shyness, which stemmed from losing her mother to suicide at age 11. But at the height of her popularity in the '60s, she often found herself the center of attention at art-related gatherings—often getting more press than her famous friend, Andy Warhol. Marisol expressed her social anxiety in 1966's The Party. 15 life-size wooden sculptures, all sporting the artist's facial likeness, ignore one another despite being dressed to the nines for a high-end social event. Note the oddly contemporary screen-obsessed woman in the yellow patterned dress; we've all been there before. Marisol's hard-to-characterize body of work—which drew influences from Colombian folk art, pop art, dada, and more—was one of the reasons she's been largely excluded from art history. In 2017 Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery announced they'd be acquiring her entire estate, including over 100 of her whimsical sculptures. Great art speaks louder than words!

 
Image credit & copyright: Toledo Museum of Art via Hyperallergenic
 

Title: Distanced Figures 3

Artist: George Condo (b. 1957)
Created: 2020
Medium: oil on canvas
 

Strange art may be just the thing for these strange times. It certainly seemed that way at the recent Frieze New York art fair, which took place online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Distanced Figures 3, a piece by contemporary artist George Condo, fetched a selling price of $2 million at the show. The piece features a man and woman, rendered in a cubist-caricature style with their faces and bodies separated into geometric shapes. Their features, from the man's oversized nose to the woman's goofy smile, look cartoonish, as if ready for a silly night at the opera, or a vacation from a "wascally wabbit". This feeling is enhanced by the way the figures stare straight at the viewer, standing side by side as if deliberately posing from a distance. The painting's bright colors, mostly electric blues and violets, adds to its surreal feel and emphasize the feeling of distance for which the piece is named. Condo's art often portrays and provokes uncomfortable emotions. It's easy to see why he refers to his unique style as "psychological cubism"!
 

Below: two more of Condo's paintings, Big John and The Laughing Cavalier.
 

Image credit & copyright: George Condo/Simon Lee Gallery/Artists Rights Society (ARS)/Hauser & WIrth
 

That's an unusual way to make a mess in the kitchen! Photographer Patty Carroll's long-running series Anonymous Women has grown particularly popular during the coronavirus pandemic, as we all struggle to make ends meet. In Cooking the Goose, a mannequin falls apart as she tries to cook in her oven, stir with a ladle, and talk on the phone at the same time. She wears powder-pink capri pants, heels, and a sweater, to match her picturesque kitchen full of beautiful vintage appliances. All of Anonymous Women's shots feature similar female mannequins attempting (and failing) to complete household tasks in hyper-perfect domestic settings, to spoof the societal expectations faced by women. But in the isolated tedium of quarantine, Anonymous Women has found a second voice. Speaking directly about her photos' relation to stay-at-home orders, Carroll recently said, "It is hard to ponder larger issues when we are confined to our homes… nevertheless, all of my photographs are about those simple, ordinary, yet overwhelming tasks that we carry out every day." Here's hoping we keep it together better than Carroll's mannequins!
 

Below: two more photos from Carroll's Anonymous Woman series, Pie Eyed and Cleaned Out.
 

Image credit & copyright: Patty Carroll
 

Title: Game Changers

Artist: Banksy
Created: 2020
Medium: pencil on paper
Current location: Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, Hampshire, England
 

Street artist Banksy never attaches his real name or face to his politically-charged works, yet his art is revered all over the world. This month, Banksy donated a new piece, entitled Game Changers, to Southampton General Hospital in the U.K. It shows a boy playing with a cap-clad nurse doll while fictional heroes, like Batman, sit unused in a nearby basket. The powerful image celebrates health care workers during the Covid-19 crisis. The boy's reverence for the nurse is clear, as he holds her high in one hand, as if making her fly through the air. The entire image is black and white, except for the Red Cross logo, on the nurse's uniform, making her a beacon amongst stark surroundings. Banksy included a note with the donated artwork, stating that he hopes it "brightens the place up a bit, even if it's only black and white." When lockdown ends, Game Changers will be auctioned to raise money for Britain's National Health Service, allowing it to have an even greater impact. That's what we call being the change you want to see in the world!
 

Image credit & copyright: Banksy