ASTERISK: 11.2010

23.11.10

Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art

Dürer, Self-Portrait, oil, 1498

The much expected lecture "Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art" was given today at the Islamabad College for Girls, where lecturer Mariano Akerman met the unprecedented number of 400 Pakistani students.

The event took place at the Islamabad College for Girls and was kindly organized by Prof. Rabya Qadir, who gathered an incredible number of students and teachers from her Institution and from four other neighbor educational centers among which the Imperial International School F10/3, the Federal Government School for Girls G6/1-3; the Federal Government Junior Girls Model School G6/3; and the Federal Goverment Boys Secondary School No.8 F6/2.

"Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art" is part of Shape and Meaning, a program of educational lectures on the German contribution to the visual arts. Aiming to bridge cultures and people, the program counts with the generous support of the German Embassy in Islamabad.

Mariano Akerman explored and discussed artworks and masterpieces by forerunners of German imagery, including Albrech Dürer, Balthasar Küchler, Christoph Jamnitzer, Johann Esaias Nilson, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, Ludwig Meidner, Karl Schmidt-Rothluff, Franz Marc, and Max Ernst.

Dürer, The Large Turf, watercolor, 1503

Johann Georg Hertel (after Jeremias Wachsmuth), Winter, Rococo Music, Fancy Dress Ball, etching, 1750-60

Max Liebermann, Country Tavern at Brannenburg, oil, 1893

Franz Marc, Deer in Flower Garden, oil, 1913

Students were interested in topics such as the development of the artist as an individual in the 16th century, the various trends dealing with the imagination in the 17th century, the 18th-century notion of artificiality, and the main differences between Impressionism and Expressionism in German Art.

In a memorable gesture, tokens of friendship were given to the representative of the German Embassy and to the lecturer. The meeting was closed with a cup of local tea and a general desire of meeting once again soon.

Dürer, A Young Hare, 1502

Event brochure, November 2010

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts - Five Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, German Embassy Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Education & Culture

Deutsche Kunst - Form und Bedeutung. Eine Vorlesungsreihe von Mariano Akerman, Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad, 3.1.2011, Kulturelle Beziehungen (Andreas Dauth).

Selected masterpieces at the German Art Gallery

21.11.10

Pensamientos encapsulados

1. No hay belleza excelente que no posea cierta rareza en su proporción (Sir Francis Bacon).

2. Cortarán todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera.

3. Realidad no es solo aquello que percibimos con los cinco sentidos: nuestro mundo interior también es parte de ella (Chagall).

4. Si no tienes un sueño... ¿cómo podría volverse realidad?

5. La imagen ficticia posee su propia verdad (Giordano Bruno).

6. Sólo con imaginación es posible sacar de la nada un mundo.

7. Los que sueñan sólo de noche son seres limitadísimos: desde el vamos ya se perdieron todo lo que es posible soñar durante el día.

8. Extraordinario no significa necesariamente útil.

9. La vida es sólo un sueño, pero, por favor, no me despiertes.

16.11.10

PARADOXICAL TIMES

An anthology of paraphrased texts and memorable images.

Ours are no doubt paradoxical times.

Today we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment.

We have more experts, but also more problems.

We say more, but understand less; plan more, but accomplish less.

We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals.

We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies, but have less communication. We are long on quantity, but short on quality.

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, but love too litte.

We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships.

More leisure and less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition; fancier houses, but broken ones.

We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get to angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, and smile too seldom.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to make a new friend.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life.

We’ve added years to life, not life to years.

We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space.

Life can be about enjoyment, not only about survival.

Every day, every hour, every minute... is special. Yet, you don’t know if the coming one will be your last.

The way we perceive things has an effect on our understanding. Nevertheless, visual perception cannot always be trusted.

Definition of Paradox. A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself. For example, the statement "I never tell the truth" is a paradox because if the statement is true, it must be false, and if it is false, it must be true. In everyday language, a paradox is a concept that seems absurd or contradictory, yet is true.

Proverbial paradox. The Book of Ecclesiastes is an example of proverbial literature and its statements should thus not be taken as absolutes. The nature of Ecclesiastes is paradoxical. It may be a dialogue of a man debating with himself, "torn between what he cannot help seeing and what he still cannot help believing" (Kidner, Wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, 91), or a challenge to the man of the world to reconsider his own position, encouraging him to seeking something less futile. At any rate, the book of Ecclesiastes relates to other Ancient Near East texts with similar content and methodology (eg., A Dialogue About Human Misery and Pessimistic Dialogue Between Master and Servant; The Man Who Was Tired of Life; the book of Job). In such texts, problems are discussed and resolved via dialogue. The formulations of Ecclesiastes are meant to provoke thought:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

This rethorical verse affirms the ephemeral character of humankind, against the background of the ever-standing earth. Or, likewise, the permanence of the earth is merely the foil against which the restless coming and going of human beings is outlined. The theme is monotonous repetition, and thus analogue to aimless and futile human existence.

Paradoxically, parts of the text seem to suggest that there is no value in life, yet parts of it very strongly suggest the opposite.

The resolution for Ecclesiastes' paradox is found in the very last verses and the answer to whether happiness is better than sorrow is, proverbially, that each is better than the other at various times and by various situations, because life is complex, not simple.

There is nothing more whole than a broken heart. —Mendel of Kotzk

Platypus, Vanitas vanitatum, The Eye's Mind, Crazy Optical Illusions

10.11.10

Shape and Meaning

The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Five educational lectures by Mariano Akerman

German Art. The contribution of German artists and their colleagues working in Germany encompasses the development of the print as an artistic means in its own right (Albrecht Dürer), outstanding formulations concerning the Grotesque (aesthetical category), the subjective approach of Romanticism, fusing the visible with the spiritual (Caspar David Friedrich), incursions in Impressionism (Max Liebermann) and Jugendstil (Max Laeuger and Ephraim Moses Lilien), the conjunction of Primitivism and the Soul (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rotluff), the simplification of the image leading to abstraction in 20th century art (Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky), sharp criticism of the bourgeoisie and the aftermath of WWI (Otto Dix and Georg Grosz), the exploration of the absurd and the apparently irrational nature of dreams (Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim), and a logical amalgamation of the arts and crafts to supply normative archetypes to the industry as developed in the Bauhaus (Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe).
Problematic is the effect of totalitarianism on German Art, while luminous are the contributions of a number of German independent artists during WWII (Kollwitz, Heartfield, Weber) and other post-war painters such as and Anselm Kiefer.
Mariano Akerman explores these and several other aspects of modern art while considering the historical context of a select group of German masterpieces. As a whole, Akerman’s collection of images underlines how diverse and meaningful German Art is.

Mariano Akerman. Born in Buenos Aires, Akerman studied at the School of Architecture of Universidad de Belgrano (Argentina), completing his education with a prized graduation project on the limits and space in modern architecture (1987).
Abroad from 1991, he received a full British Council Grant and researched the visual imagery of Francis Bacon (1995) and the architectural projects of Louis I. Kahn (1997). A professional art historian (Suma cum Laude, 1999), he contributes regularly to Knol and the Encyclopédie Larousse since 2009.
In Asia, Akerman developed the educational series of lectures From Van Eyck to Magritte (2005), Arte Argentino (2006), In the Spirit of Linnaeus (2007), Raisons d’être—Art, Freedom and Modernity (2008-10), and German Art, Its Peculiarities and Transformations (2010; see review by Ishrat Hyatt).
Specializing in visual communication, architect and art historian Mariano Akerman is an experienced educator. He gives lectures at renowned institutions such as Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Argentina, the National Museum of the Philippines and the National College of Arts in Lahore. Only in Pakistan, he has given more than twenty lectures ad honorem (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, 2008-10).
An artist himself, Akerman exhibits his paintings and collages since 1979 onwards. Mariano Akerman has received more than twelve major international prizes.

Terminology
Deutsche Kunst – German art
Kunstgeschichte – Art History
Druck – Print
Gesamtkunstwerk – A total, all-encompassing artwork
Traumwerk – Dreamwork
Das Groteske – The grotesque
Gemütlich – Familiar, cosy, homely
Lebensangst – Fear of life
Knorpelornamentik – Gristly, cartilaginous ornament
Jugendstil – Art nouveau, Modernism
Die Brücke – The Bridge
Der Blaue Reiter – The Blue Rider
Neue Sachlichkeit – New Objectivity
Entartete „Kunst” - ‘Degenerate’ [Modern] Art
Schwarze milch – Black milk
Einfühlung – Empathy

Four quotations

• I belong to those who from darkness to light aspire. Goethe (1749-1832)

• Nobody will give you freedom. You have to take it. Meret Oppenheim (1913-85)

It is not what they built. It is what they knocked down.
It is not the houses. It is the space between the houses.
It is not the streets that exist. It is the streets that no longer exist. [...] It is not what you have forgotten, what you must forget.
What you must go on forgetting all your life.
[...] The workers are dismantling the houses of the dead. [...]
It is not what he wants to know.
It is what he wants not to know.
It is not what they say.
It is what they do not say.
James Fenton, A German Requiem, 1981

• Black milk of dawn we drink it at sunset we drink it at noon and in the morning we drink it at night / we drink and we drink it [...] / Your golden hair Margarete / Your ashen hair Shulamith. Paul Celan, Todesfuge (Death Fugue), 1947-48

MEDIEVAL ART. Conrad von Megenberg, Stephan Lochner, Matthis Grünewald, RENAISSANCE and BAROQUE ART, Albrecht Dürer, Jakob Bink, Hans Holbein, Pieter Paul Rubens, Christoph Jamnitzer, Justus Junker, Balthasar Küchler, Johann Heinrich Keller, Friedrich Unteutsch, Simon Cammermeir, Joahnn Heinrich Keller, Johann Esaias Nilson, ROMANTICISM. Philipp Otto Runge, Jeremias Wachsmuth, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Rudolf Bühlmann, REALISM, Karl Eduard Biermann, IMPRESSIONISM, Max Liebermann, Lesser Ury, SYMBOLISM, Carl Strathmann, JUGENDSTIL, Max Laueger, Ephraim Moses Lilien, EXPRESSIONISM, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Gabrielle Münter, Ludwig Meidner, NEUE SACHLICHKEIT, Otto Dix, George Grosz, DADA and SURREALISM, Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Meret Oppenheim, Hans Arp, Max Ernst, BAUHAUS, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, RESISTANCE ART, Karl Schwesig, John Heartfield [Helmut Herzfeld], Käthe Kollwitz, POST-WAR ART, Andreas Paul Weber, Ernst Kahl, Alfred Wols, Hans Hartung, Thomas Grunfeld, Anselm Kiefer.

The Shape and Meaning Lectures Program on the German Contribution to the Visual Arts
1. Looking at Pictures and Learning from Art
Islamabad College for Girls, 23 November 2010
2. The Grotesque in German Art. Its Nature, Transformations and Importance in Aesthetics
Islamabad College for Girls, 8 December 2010
3. Modern Art
Post-Graduate College for Women, Rawalpindi, 9 December 2010
4. The Bible and the Visual Arts
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 10 December 2010
5. Bible-inspired Symbolism in German Art
Khatoon-e-Fatima School, Islamabad, 14 December 2010

Event brochure, November 2010

Shape and Meaning: The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Educational lectures and workshop program
Islamabad and Rawalpindi, November-December 2010