BALSE NEWSLETTER 021

 
 
 




Two weeks, at Balse.

more like 1.5 months.

Assignment in Morocco, Niigata, Tokyo, Taiwan.

2024- the year of BIENNALE ARTE 2024

jet lag je lag, bike exhausts, food poisoning, bronchitis, jet lag jet lag,

still in 2023

still

still waiting to exhale. massive

order of things. more to come.

till next time.

Charles A. Balse

 
 
 

Words of Wisdom

Lesson: LOVER LETTER from us - Tutor: Olafur Eliasson

AKADEMIE X LESSONS IN ART + LIFE, lesson 8 - PHAIDON

…We don’t pronounce ahead of time what we think we need to know. After we do something we don’t say others should do that thing. We try to learn how to learn, so we learn where we have to go by going. We evaluate and critique ourselves along the way, and together, and always, and all ways. We invite other artists and practitioners to think and do with us. We believe in risking vulnerability and practicing in the robust discomfort of uncertainty. A shared vulnerability is important. We believe in getting out of our comfort one. We believe in an economy of effort. Of making an effort. In rejections that offer alternatives. We believe in thinking and doing, in the active imagination as an agent in the world, in shaping and being shaped by the world, in causing the world to wobble differently depending where we stand. We like the world wobbling differently.

School is not a place for a safe enclosure of lessons. School is an amplifier for the world. Lessons are not fixed ahead of time or they become rules. Dogmatic. Concrete. Belaboured. The syllabus is written after the course ends. The course is endless. The curriculum emerges out of the energy and relationships in the space and the world. It emerges out of the encounters in the world. It emerges out of the social contracts for how we negotiate and engage with each other in the world. It emerges out of questions and feelings, empathy, the politics of experimentation, perceptual awareness, the responsibility of taking risks and compassion.

A philosophy of care. It emerges out of the ecology of thoughts and ideas, being conscious that we are conscious and the felt feeling of being present. It emerges out of the question: how can art change the world?

Our school emerges out of questions of why: why make a specific artwork? Why do something one way and not the other? Why put a work in an institution? What relationships does a work empower? How does a work allow us to understand and feel the conditions and constraints through which systems squeeze the world into different forms, so that what works can touch the world? Finding our ‘whys’ helps us to prioritize content, helps us sharpen a precision with tools. Sharpening our tools helps us to collaborate with others and builds openness. Simply breathing can provide the material for a workshop. Simply breathing can be a lesson plan. Breath now. Take a deep breath. Simply breathing can help us feel an awareness of where we are and what we are doing. A pause. Break. Caesura. Everyone participating shapes the lesson, makes the lesson more, makes the lesson on.

Examples of thinking doing:

1) Go outside with the group. Walk backwards for fifteen minutes through the city. Note the change in speeds. Note what changes in who approaches.

.

4) With a group stand in a circle in public space. Laugh out loud for five minutes. If you have to, fake the laughter until you make it happen on its own.

.

11) As a group, walk very, very, very, very slowly for fifteen minutes in public. Very slowly. Like you are in slow motion. Like you are conscious of every bend and muscle. Like the air is a thick viscous plasma of breath. Feel your weight on the ground. Feel the ground pushing up against you. Feel your balance shift to imbalance. Cultivate that cusp of balance and control. Cultivate the carp out of it. Feel each part of the slow motion as it is distributed through your entire body. Don’t forget to breathe.


 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 

APPENDIX:

 

ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi and his team, specializing in classical music.

 
 

COMING UP

Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony

An orchestral feast of Stravinsky and Mozart, highlighting the essences of Los Angeles and Prague.

Catherine Opie

harmony is fraught

January 11 – March 3, 2024

REGEN PROJECTS

NIGHT GALLERY JANUARY 20 - MARCH 9, 2024

WANDA KOOP

Objects of Interest

BARRÃO

Stuck Rhyme

BEN TONG

The Violet Hour

DAVID KORTY

Greensleeves

Vielmetter Los Angeles

January 13 — March 9, 2024

Celia Paul

Life Painting

New Works by Lavaughan Jenkins, Mario Joyce, Raffi Kalenderian, Kiriakos Tompolides


 

BALSE NEWSLETTER 020

 
 




Two weeks, at Balse.

Oh-, such trembling pain and deep nausea that is the food poisoning in Marrakech. Some bike exhaust, smog, with Paris, to bronchitis. Back from the Morocco assignment. And yeah, suffering. equals…delaying this issue. Yet, wonderful Sahara dunes in the sunset, that is to come, in the next newsletter.

But back to the last three weeks.

Yes, ClassicAsobi continues to be super active in NYC at the Carnegie Hall to experience the Andreas Schiff piano reporting.

some occult?

without uttering a single word - William Walker Atkinson

art of self persuasion. thought waves, radiates.

“thought pictured in mental images, and then visualized by the force of desire, will tend to objectify themselves into material things”

of course, Poetry - W.B.Yeats

Philip Guston - crapola, what Guston would have called. Italy, Woodstock. red green white, all peaking through in different ways. Created a Guston page in the timeline. Let’s add to it.

Techno - symmetry zone

Techno - Gastonia Fango

Soul Capsule

GUS GUS is back

horns, Puzzle Loop Eden Burns, Hopeless Beat Eden Burns.

Sacred Machine. bad friday, because of the guy from downstairs.

Tokyo, then Taipei, for December.

till next time. watch out for food poisoning!

Charles A. Balse

 
 
 

Words of Wisdom

  • Read Edouard Glissant every day. I would advise an inter-disciplinary approach. we can only understand the visual arts if we look at all other fields of knowledge and know what is happening in music, literature, architecture. - Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 52, Zettel 170

  • 1) You don’t have to be an artist. You don’t need the approval from others, first you need to have a conversation with yourself. 2) Don’t depend on it for money. Success is not a given. 3) Engage with culture and what’s going on in the world. How can you engage with the world through your art? Salman Toor, Artist. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 73, Zettel 171

  • You should familiarize yourself with the international gallery landscape and research their programs. Visit the galleries and get to know the artists who show there. - James Fuentes, gallerist. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 76, Zettel 172

  • Being in dialog with, fighting with, and communicating with your community of artists is the most valuable element for the success of any artist. - Paul Schimmel, curator. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 91, Zettel 173

  • More than any other job, being an artist requires you to delve deep into your own self. - Thomas Girst, cultural manager. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 112, Zettel 174

  • I call my studio “The Dream Factory.” This is where it begins and ends. It’s a living artwork, a place to network, to get inspired, communicate our brand, and sell to clients. - Daan Roosegaarde, Artist. How to Become a Successful Artist, by Magnus Resch, page 118, Zettel 175

 
 
 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 

APPENDIX:

 






ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi and his team, specializing in classical music.









 
 

Fred Wilson: Dramatis Personae

Nov 4 – Dec 22, 2023
PACE, Los Angeles

 

2024 CALENDAR

This is the live calendar for 2024. I will continue to update and track events throughout the year in this page. These will include places we visit, art exhibits and concerts scheduled and visited.

BALSE NEWSLETTER 019

 

HARMONY KORINE

AGGRESSIVE DR1FTER

15 SEPTEMBER 2023 – 14 JANUARY 2024

Hauser & Wirth, Downtown LA

 




Two weeks, at Balse.

Writing from Charles De Gaulles Airport, Paris, France. On the way to Marrakech, Morocco for photo documentary assignment. Thinking about the Moroccan rug weavers. 

First, ClassicAsobi NYC was in Boston for the wonderful Anna Vinnitskaya at Boston 11.4.2023

and just a week or so later - Symphonic Artist, Schaghajegh Nosrati, Carnegie Debut 11.13.2023

life changing performances. Should checkout his updates from the links above.

Had the chance to watch the French documentary Sur l’Adamant (On the Adamant). It was more than what I had expected. Powerful. Some quotes

I lost my freedom.

All of you are free.

You do what you want.

You can’t do what you want.

I ‘m not allowed to.

I’m sure Van Gough saw these trees. These trees, the plants.

Van Gough’s planes.

I sense the presence.

He came her, I’m sure

He came her, with an easel

He painted the barges on the Seine. Vincent did.

The plane trees, the sun, the cloud, even the sun.

The birds, the wind.

He caught the wind to paint it.

He caught the sun, he painted the drifting leaves, the wind in the trees.

In his Los Angeles cactus garden, artist Klaus Rinke’s philosophy roots his living sculptures

“when I was a young little boy, my grand mother had a cactus. When my grand mother died, the cactus went to my mother. That cactus never flowered. And one morning when my mother was really sick, suddenly that cactus was flowering, and I immediately said my mother died…and then the hospital called me and your mother is dead…...the Germans are always interested in cacti perhaps it is little similar to their soul, inside soft and romantic, and outside with a lot of needles…..the human beings are part of nature so we are not so far away from the plants. They have a soul, too...they are… earthbound, and we are earthbound, too. We are...earth creatures.”

Color Theory - color scheme, temperature, naturalistic vs unnatural

  • Color Scheme

  • Analogous

  • Complementary

  • Split-Complementary

  • Neutral

  • Monochromatic

Color as one key theme. Joseph Albers - Search Versus Re-Search: Recollections of Josef Albers at Yale, a film by Anoka Faruqee

everything he did had to do with hue. Most of the problems dealt with hue.

Albers was really a wonderful leader, keeping order and keeping eye on the ball. This may be tough, you may have to go through a lot, but don’t lose sight of why you are here and what you are doing. He was a force to be dealt with, in a good sense. You sat up or stood up when you had something to say. Since he struggled with English, you listened extra carefully. You listened very carefully, because he spoke slowly, and clearly, but sometimes looking for vocabulary ... .and in a very creative way, allowing the students, the audience he was speaking to, to finish his sentence. You can sense where he was leading you, then he paused, and let you finish the thought and the sentence, and made sure you got it. It was a very interesting technique, the way of teaching.

The story of Peter Doig

Very, quite nice house mix. Vinyl.

and

Jazz Afro Brazilian Vinyl Mix with Darsi | Kingsland Records #010

Piano, Schubert, comparisons.

Last Lecture Series: “How to Live an Asymmetric Life,” Graham Weaver

  • do hard things

  • do your thing

  • do it for decades

  • write your story

well said, and these are now part of my life guidance.

Max Cooper - Spectrum (Official video by Christian Stangl)

processing the world… time perspective, reflect a historical context, but a new meaning could be formed…attempting to access a kind of psychological space where unexpected things could creep into the process ... .our environment globally, is shifting and morphing - Anj Smith: In the Studio, as an act of rejecting the old codes.

Some techno

PLUS8132 – F.U.S.E. - F. U. (Official Audio)

and BACH - Bach - Prelude and fugue in C minor BWV 546 - Koopman | Netherlands Bach Society

and some how ended up into the world of Sitar - Yaman | Zia Mohiuddin Dagar | Rudra Veena

ronja - Nothing Makes Me Feel

and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - Exhibition Tour—Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism | Met Exhibitions - here we meet our two artists, Matisse, and Derain. Summer of 1905. Two artists worked side by side on the coast of Southern France. Imaginary colors…And Matisse once said, I think around this time, that he really only works with about four or five colors and he tries to make them either clash or sort of bounce off of each other. And what we are really seeing here is both the touch, the brushwork, and I think particularly the color, is being used purely to express his own personal vision of the place, and his own feelings about it, rather than anything approaching naturalism or realism.

Toulouse Lautrec.

till next time.

Charles A. Balse

 

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN - WHITE NOISE

November 10, 2023

Hauser & Wirth

15 SEPTEMBER 2023 – 14 JANUARY 2024

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

 
 

Words of Wisdom

  • The real value of inconsistency is that it can bring about what Milan Kundera called “sudden densities” - moments when something appears in your work that gives you an opening, some oddity or mutation that sets you off in a new direction. Variability allows your work to breath; it helps you to steer clear of tyrannies and find charm in the unfamiliar. - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #34 Be Inconsistent, Zettel 164

  • Courage can’t be measured…Every good work of art has courage in it somewhere. Grant your own art that agency. Put faith in it; let it stave off cynicism and clear a path for you to proceed…Courage is a desperate gamble that will place you in the arms of the creative angels. - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #39 Have Courage, Zettel 165

  • Don’t limit your potential by presenting yourself as just one kind of maker: a potter, printemaker, watercolorist, macramist, landscape painter, … you are an artist…We’re living in an electric moment when many artists don’t define themselves by mediums at all. They say multimedia, or say all media, or they just say “artist” and let you figure out. I once heard Robert Rauschenberg describe his combine-assemblages as not “painting or sculpture” but “poetry”. That is you: a material poet. - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #40 Don’t Define Yourself by Single Medium, Zettel 166

  • If you work hard and try to be very honest with yourself, your art might tell you almost everything you need to know about yourself. - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #45 Art & Therapy, Zettel 167

  • Art is the simultaneous coexistence of change and stability. It is less an arrow than a plasma cloud, always with us never the same. - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #58 Have Courage, Zettel 168

  • At three am, demons speak to all of us. Iam old, and they still speak to me every night. And every day. They tell you that you’re not good enough, you didn’t go to the right schools, you’re stupid, you don’t know how to draw, you don’t have money, you aren’t original; that what you do doesn’t matter, and who cares, and you don’t schmooze, and have a bad neck. They tell you that you’re faking it, that other people see right through you that you’re lazy, that you don’t know what you’re doing and that you’re just doing this to get attention for money. I have one solution to turn away these demons: after beating yourself up for half an hour or so, stop and say out loud, “Yeah, but I’m a Fucking genius.” You are, too. You know the rules. They’re your tools. Now use them to go change this world. Get to work! - - How to be and Artist, Jerry Saltz, #62 Have Courage, Zettel 169

 
 

NONMEMORY

CURATED BY JAY EZRA NAYSSAN
IN COLLABORATION WITH THE MIKE KELLEY FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS

HAUSER & WIRTH, Downtown LA

15 SEPTEMBER 2023 – 14 JANUARY 2024

 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 

APPENDIX:

 





ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi and his team, specializing in classical music.







 
 
 

BALSE NEWSLETTER 018

 
 




Two weeks, at Balse.

on face, face on - Botticelli

Tutor: artist Marina Abramovic, from AKADEMIE X, LESSONS IN ART + LIFE

Excerpts from her message

AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO INSPIRATION

  • An artist should not lie to himself or to others

  • An artist should look deep inside himself for inspiration

  • The deeper he looks inside himself, the more universal he becomes

  • The artist is universe

  • The artist is universe

  • The artist is universe

AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO TRANSPARENCY

  • The artist should give and receive at the same time

  • Transparency means receptivity

  • Transparency means to give

  • Transparency means to receive

  • Transparency means receptivity

  • Transparency means to give

  • Transparency means to receive

  • Transparency means receptivity

  • Transparency means to give

  • Transparency means to receive

AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO SYMBOLS

  • An artist creates his own symbols

  • Symbols are an artist’s language

  • The language must then be translated

  • Sometimes it is difficult to find the key

  • Sometimes it is difficult to find the key

  • Sometimes it is difficult to find the key

AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO SILENCE

  • An artist has to understand silence

  • An artist has to create space for silence to enter his work

  • Silence is like an island in the middle of a turbulent ocean

  • Silence is like an island in the middle of a turbulent ocean

  • Silence is like an island in the middle of a turbulent ocean

AN ARTIST’S RELATION TO SOLITUDE

  • An artist must make time for long periods of solitude

  • Solitude is extremely important

  • Away from home

  • Away from the studio

  • Away from family

  • Away from friends

  • An artist should stay for long periods of time at waterfalls

  • An artist should stay for long periods of time exploring volcanoes

  • An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at fast-running rivers

  • An artist should stay for long periods of time at horizons where the ocean and sky meet

  • An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky


Aspiration of Digging, diggers (‘often subtle and understated, they straddle the boundaries of techno and house, with an occasional tinge of electro’), to get back into digging into techno music whenever I open my eyes.

How Techno Shapes the Future

piano Hania Rani Warsaw

Evard Munch, ‘problem with boundaries…painting all these pictures trying to work out the problems…this 1940s self portrait of the window conveys a striking contrast between the human life force and the cold eternal death that lies inevitably ahead…’

the acute awareness that my time here is very brief - Artist Rachel Rossin on the Journey to Self-Creation - ‘I do feel that art saved my life’

‘a way to calibrate life’

and then the view of Antwerp with . ‘the beauty of waiting’ Fashion designer Pieter Mulier

preparing for my Marrakesh assignment, coming November 15th.

till next time. distilling.

Charles A. Balse

 
 
 

Words of Wisdom

  • If you are stymied by some artists, keep their names on a list and keep coming back to them. You might start with Rembrandt, unflinching in depicting the physical weight of the world, ever vulnerable. Or Contable, as elementally tactile as any artist who ever lived. Once an artist finally makes sense to you, take on a new one. You owe it to yourself as a seeing machine. - The Cezanne Rule, How to be an Artist, by Jerry Saltz, #31, Zettel 159

  • What upset the public about Expressionist art was, perhaps, not so much the fact that nature had been distorted as that the result led away from beauty…But the men who claimed to be serious artists should forget that if they must change the appearance of things they should idealize them rather than make them ugly was strongly resented. But (Edvard) Munch might have retorted that a shout of anguish is not beautiful, and that it would be insincere to look only at the pleasing side of life. For the Expressionists felt so strongly about human suffering, poverty, violence and passion, that they were inclined to think that the insistence on harmony and beauty in art was only born out of a refusal to be honest. The art of the classical masters, of a Raphael or Correggio, seemed to them insincere and hypocritical. They wanted to face the stark facts of our existence and to express their compassion for the disinherited and the ugly. It became almost a point of honour with them to avoid anything which smelt of prettiness and polish, and to shock the ‘bougeois‘ out of his real or imagined complacency. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich, page 564, Zettel 160

  • Picasso himself denied that he was making experiments. He said he did not search, he found. He mocked at those who wanted to understand his art. ‘Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird?’ Of course, he was right. No painting can be fully ‘explained’ in words. But words are sometimes useful pointers, they help to clear away misunderstandings and can give us at least an inkling of the situation in which the artist finds himself. I believe that the situation which led Picasso to his different ‘finds’ is very typical of twentieth-century art. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich, page 577, Zettel 161

  • In the past two hundred years or so, art has been treated as something we look at in clean, white, well-lit galleries and museums. It’s been made to seem passive: another tourist attraction to take a picture in front of before your move on. For most of its entire history though, art has been active: something that does thing to, or for us, that makes things happen. Holy relics in churches all over the world are said to heal. - How to be an Artist, by Jerry Saltz, #32 Art as a Verb, Zettel 162

 
 
 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 

THE VERSUS PROJECT IV: LAYER CAKE

09/16/2023 — 10/28/2023

Subliminal Projects, LA

APPENDIX:

 




ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi and his team, specializing in classical music.

Thursday, November 2, 2023 7:30 PM Zankel Hall

Performers

Sergei Babayan, Piano




 
 
 

BALSE NEWSLETTER 017

 

PACE Gallery, Los Angeles
Exhibition Details:

William Monk
West of Nowhere
Sep 9 – Oct 21, 2023

 




Two weeks, at Balse.

I wish for dance from around the world. Dance with tear of joy.

I did not kill him. That’s not the point. I am not a monster.

Digging through kompakt. Still life with glass bottle, flower and microphone. Marja Ahti. Also Shrine.

More intensity, and dance with ZAKMINA, and freshness machine women.

Preparing for Igor Levit at Disney Hall.

Winter that is wonderful opening to life. The Cosmos of Hilma Klint, actual temple several times.

Note taking, and organizing, a life long passion. A fascination.

writing is research
writing is thinking
writing is so important
there is no reason
not to work as if
nothing else matters
than writing
- says Sonke Ahrens

reading like a pro

more galleries, less museums, lately. contemporary - is the the interest. Does not mean not interested in the old, we are always interested, time does not matter, but I am interested in how I feel, how we, collectively, are feeling in this moment, and contemporary, living artists are thus important, and most interesting to me.

Contemporary Figurative Painting: The Ultimate 150 Best Painters Today

less processed. Farm to table.

Back to Tristan, the Tristan Chord. To watch the opera DVD.

Loving the very nice and trancy Miss Monique in Barcelona Brunch Elektronik.

Skateboarding absolute.

Made in LA, bi-annual, started at the Hammer Museum. Checked it out on the opening day.

Leica on film in Paris, how appropriate.

Porsche. more Porsche artisan sushi chef.

Back to painting - Gerhard Richter - “never sentimental, always direct and present. process of layers, reduction and destruction. surfaces are produced with more and more layers, adding and subtracting. sense of beauty…has to happen. something that in a way have to be created by the community. ex ngativo, taking more paint off. desire, concentration, and wish to do something. more accept what is happening“

“I always paint with my windows closed…because the sun comes in…and I could never possibly copy that. It is so much beautiful than any I can paint…” - How to look at an abstract painting | Joan Mitchell | PROGRAM

“The aim of art is to reveal and to evoke vision…art is not an object, art is an experience.” - Magic of Color - Josef Albers

on & on and on.


 
 
 

Words of Wisdom

  • Oscar Wilde said, “the moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.” Imagination is your creed, sentimentality and lack of feeling are your foes. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #5, Zettel 154

  • What’s the difference between genre and style? Style is the unstable essence and artist brings to a genre - what ensures that no two Crucifictions, say, look the same. Oscar Wilde said that style is what “makes us believe in a thing.”…A fresh style breathes life into any genre. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #6, Zettel 155

  • …serious artists tend to develop a kind of creative mechanism - a conceptual approach - that allows them to be led by new ideas and surprise themselves without deviating from their own artistic principles. As an artist, you’re always studying your environment, absorbing sensations, memories of how things work and don’t. The goal is to create a practice that allows a constant recalibration between your imagination and the world around you. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #10, Zettel 156

  • Embed thought in Material. What does this mean? An artwork should express thought and emotion ( I contend that the two can’t be separated.) Your goal as an artist is to use physical materials to make these thoughts and emotions, however simple or complex, accessible to the viewer…Erick Fischl had said that he “wanted to paint what couldn’t be said.” All artists are trying, on some level, to do the same. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #19, Zettel 157

  • A work of art cannot depend on explanation. The meaning has got to be there in the work. As Frank Stella said, “There are no good ideas for paintings, there are only good paintings.” THe painting becomes the idea…the artist can embed thought in any material. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #19, Zettel 158

  • If you are stymied by some artists, keep their names on a list and keep coming back to them. You might start with Rembrandt, unflinching in depicting the physical weight of the world, every vulnerable. Or Constable, as elementally tactile as any artist who ever lived. Once an artist finally makes sense to you, take on a new one. You owe it to you yourself as a seeing machine - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz #31, Zettel 159

 
 

LOLA GIL Who Are ( You ) Are Who

Gallery Three, Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles

September 23 - October 21, 2023

 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 

APPENDIX:

 



ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi and his team, specializing in classical music.

Buxtehude : Herr, wenn ich nur dich hab - La Rêveuse



 
 

COMING UP


SABLE ELYSE SMITH

FAIR GROUNDS

SEPTEMBER 9 – OCTOBER 26, 2023
REGEN PROJECTS

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN WHITE NOISE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

HARMONY KORINE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

William Monk, West of Nowhere, Sep 9 – Oct 21, 2023 PACE Gallery, Los Angeles

ANDY MOSES

RECENT PAINTINGS

William Turner Gallery
September 9 - November 11, 2023


THE VERSUS PROJECT IV: LAYER CAKE

09/16/2023 — 10/28/2023

Subliminal Projects

Word as Image

Norton Simon Museum

AUGUST 11, 2023 – JANUARY 8, 2024


 

BALSE NEWSLETTER 016

 
 




Two weeks, at Balse.

ClassicAsobi starting his 2023-24 season in NYC. First up, Dead Man Walking, American contemporary opera that world premiered San Francisco Opera, 2000.

Photo editing, an obsession. The curative act.

Re-arranged the lab, separating the sound room to the visual, setup a new speaker in the projection room setup - MoFi SourcePoint 10, a floor model at Common Wave Hi-fi for a discount.

Listening to a lively mix by Elli Acula, Boiler Room

Continuing with Anna Vinnitskaya.

Meanwhile, Shostakovich, and this Italian doc by Rai from ClassicAsobi.

Re-examined Daido Moriyama: the photographer who didn't look through the viewfinder

Coming back to Janine Jansen. This, Prokofiev, prescribed weekly.

Each of these nine bulls were……took up the sails….Homer’s Odyssey, to read. vain toils.

and more music:

Rod Modell - Ghost Lights Side A [AI-35]

Art Of Trance - Madagascar (Cygnus X Remix) [Platipus 1998]

Alice Neel’s work up close at Blum & Poe.

Film  - After Hours (1985) Official Trailer - Griffin Dunne, Martin Scorcese Movie HD

Jean Baudrillard: The System of Objects

Adam Smith’s value exchange. This new altruism.

Ayn Rand's Genius Philosophy: How Tough Love Can Empower You - no better tool than reason. ethical egoism. … reason is the only essential tool in our disposal. Once we accept our responsibilities of our own life and happiness, we become more creative and more productive.

Mao Fujita | semifinal 2017

Tigerhead RTS.FM Berlin at OYE Records 13.11.18

Until next time, good night.


 
 
 

Words of Wisdom

  • The great artists of subsequent periods had made one discovery after another which allowed them to conjure up a convincing picture of the visible world, but none of them had seriously challenged the conviction that each object in nature has its definite fixed form and colour which must be easily recognizable in a painting. It may be said, therefore, that Manet and his followers brought about a revolution in the rendering of colours which is almost comparable with the revolution in the representation of forms brought about by the Greeks. They discovered that, if we look at nature in the open, we do not see individual objects each with its own colour but rather a bright medley of tints which blend in our eye or really in our mind. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich Page 154, Zettel 148

  • Through art, language and therefore experience become “defamiliarized”, so we can feel and experience anew:


    The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects “unfamiliar”, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged - Victor Shklovsky

    Poetry exhibits the purest form of defamiliarization. This is because in a poem, other tasks such as telling a story, or fully and exhaustively expressing an idea, never take priority. Therefore, it is in poetry that we see most clearly and powerfully, without any other ultimate distraction, how language can be made deliberately strange, how it becomes especially “a difficult, roughened, impeded language”, in order to jar us awake. - WHY POETRY - Matthew Zapruder. page 42 - 43, Zettel 149

  • If you think that all art should be like High Renaissance painting, or like van Gogh, Eva Hesse, or Basquiat, think again. Human beings are hardwired to crave change. The universe is expanding; so are we, and so is art. Which doesn’t mean it’s getting better, or worse, only that all art was once contemporary art, in conversation with its time. yours is, too. Every choice you make - should serve not nostalgia, but your visceral present. You are an artist of modern life. That personal, specific urgency is what finds every successful work of art. - How to be an Artist, Jerry Saltz, Page 76, Zettel 150

  • Cezanne had ceased to take any of the traditional methods of painting for granted. he had decided to start from scratch as if no painting had been done before him….Cezanne had chosen his motifs to study some specific problems that he wanted to solve….- The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich, Page 543, Zettel 151

  • …in all the struggles and gropings there was one thing he was prepared to sacrifice if need be: the conventional ‘correctness’ of outline. He was not out to distort nature; but he did not mind very much if it became distorted in some minor detail provided this helped him to obtain the desired effect….he hardly realized that this example of indifference to ‘correct drawing’ would start a landslide in art. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich, Page 544, Zettel 152

 
 
 
 

Main Studies

 
 
 


 


ClassicAsobi recommends

This section features content recommended from the NYC based ClassicAsobi, specializing in classical music.

2023-24 season opens, and ClassiAsobi will be announcing all of his firsthand notes from performances attended. Stay tuned!

Check out ClassiAsobi’s first performance attendance at the Met Opera - Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking

DANIIL TRIFONOV Carnegie Recital 2019

Barenboim masterclass with Alexandre Kantorow

Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 (Orchestre de Paris, Paavo Järvi)

 
 

COMING UP


SABLE ELYSE SMITH

FAIR GROUNDS

SEPTEMBER 9 – OCTOBER 26, 2023
REGEN PROJECTS

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN WHITE NOISE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

HARMONY KORINE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

William Monk, West of Nowhere, Sep 9 – Oct 21, 2023 PACE Gallery, Los Angeles

ANDY MOSES

RECENT PAINTINGS

William Turner Gallery
September 9 - November 11, 2023


THE VERSUS PROJECT IV: LAYER CAKE

09/16/2023 — 10/28/2023

Subliminal Projects

JOSÉ LERMA

September 23 - October 21, 2023 LOS ANGELES GALLERY ONE & TWO

Nino Mier Gallery

Word as Image

Norton Simon Museum

AUGUST 11, 2023 – JANUARY 8, 2024

Made in L.A. 2023: Acts of Living

HAMMER


Franz West

David Zwirner LA

Opening October 26


 

BALSE NEWSLETTER 015

 
 




Two weeks, at Balse. To be myself.

‘any fluctuation of the mind will lead to lack of peace’, ‘as you start ignoring the desires of your mind, you will cultivate detachment.’ ‘liberating’. - Starting with headspace 8,663 minutes. Then, day 138, 30 minutes of meditating. ‘Acting objectively instead of subjectively’ ‘a mirage’

Geeked out on digital sound. fun to listen to, precise. ‘digital audio signal’. “peak to noise floor…dynamic range of a human ear is often quoted as 120 decibels…as close as you can bear it…signal to noise ratio…” and so on. You get the point. check it out.

COUCOU CHLOE — GECKO

for sure

COUCOU CHLOE - DRIFT (prod. COUCOU CHLOE)

but I don;t…sirens sounding, hawling?…

up lifting.

love icona pop - Icona Pop - Make Your Mind Up Babe

I tested the song on speaker purchased. Common Wave Hi-fi the best. Should check them out if you are in the DTLA, Boyle Heights neighborhood.

Bertrand Russel’s A History of Western Philosophy phase on audiobook.

Viktor Frankl on Why Idealists Are Real Realists. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

and yeah, this does it for mw. Friday Dunard - Aeternus. Artistic,

Confidence Man Euphoric House DJ Set | Pikes Ibiza | Mixmag - nicely

Anthony Linell - Illusion Self [NE93] - the hard, solid, and grainy? wall of sound, in the proper environment, that is something that we should do more. definitely up-lifting. so great. listen to this repetitive movement that is life.

moving on.

oh, back to A (very) Brief History of Bertrand Russell, …pre socratic era.

They emphasized the rational unity of things and rejected supernatural explanations, seeking natural principles at work in the world and human society. The pre-Socratics saw the world as a cosmos, an ordered arrangement that could be understood via rational inquiry. - wiki

Japanese way of "Finding purpose" . sky, life from the sky, your own trait, nature within you before you start, that you already have, core part of who you are, could be your strength or your weakness, to build a discipline, time and energy, pursuit, balance, flaws, stress, and consistency, passion, fire lit for a long time, aware. alchemize, nature, what you have to know, what you have to do, you are not perfect, embrace. a powerful thing, because of the flaws. keep sharpening your katana, the, shuku-mei. every life path, dwells within you, something that you cannot change. why, why do i have to be X, life teaches us, overcome, conquest, challenges and pain, beyond your fate. to learn, to heal yourself. you have to heal, you have to learn. transport, life that moves - that isdestiny. early parts, we cannot change. but the destiny, you can change with your will. your destiny is not your destination, but it is the journey itself. as you walk through your journey, it is constantly changing, as you take each step. choices that you are making is shaping up your destiny. always understand why you are making a decision. as a human being, one of your life purpose is to serve, to pay forward. life that serves. small as writing a letter.

life that serves

 
 
 

Rajiv Visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Tudors, lovely.

"Alex Katz: Gathering" at the Guggenheim, which I missed. to find future exhibition somewhere on earth in the near future.

His reductive tendencies in painting are further characterized by simplicity and heightened color, features later developed further by the pop artists. Kat’s portraits capture our eye and create a dialogue in our mind between figuration and abstraction. They take from abstract expressionism a monumental scale, stark composition, and dramatic lighting, which is flat, restrained, and minimalist. The portraits’ characteristic flat, cropped faces linked them to commercial art and contributed to the comeback of figuration.

if you ever go to Japan, you should visit Naoshima. - ChiChu Art VR Museum Cinematics

dancing. - House Non Stop

then ClassiAsobi presents this. - Lutosławski: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - I. Dotted Quarter Note = 110 - Quarter Note = 70

 
 

then this - Violin Concerto: I., every other night, daily from Friday through Sun.

many hours spent discussing Anna Vinnitskaya and her brilliance.

but, the most listened to music lately is this - L'Orfeo, SV 318, Prologue: Ritornello – "Dal mio Permesso amato" . Printed out the lyrics, suggested by ClassicAsobi. To read this month.

certainly weird, challenging one, but freshness, yes, Koze, yes. Stylish, yes. love Róisín Murphy

now - Hudson Mohawke & Nikki Nair - Set The Roof (ft. Tayla Parx)

More Recently Hudson Mohawke jumping tunes, dancy, strange dance proper.

Wait A Minute Hudson Mohawke more bouncy, staccato

AUDREY NUNA - locket (Official Video)

the highlight film, blown away, a must see, now. thanks to that Alex Andre - Close-up (1990) Trailer | Director: Abbas Kiarostami






retrospection

バルスの世界 (world of balse)

Charles Balse

 
 
 

human 1

 

human 2

 

Words of Wisdom

  • While abstract paintings that appeal to our imagination call into play the brain’s top-down processing mechanism, figurative paintings that appeal to us call into play the default network of the brain. The default network, which was discovered in 2001 by Marcus Raichle (Raichle et al. 2001), consist primarily of the three brain regions: the medial temporal lobe, which is involved in memory: the posterior cingulate cortex, which is concerned with evaluating sensory information; and the medial prefrontal cortex, which is concerned with theory of mind - that is with distinguishing between another person’s mind, his or her aspirations and goals, and one’s own mind…recent studies suggest that the default network is most active during high aesthetic experience in art. (Edward Vesesel Nava Ravin, and Gabriella Starr) This intriguing finding suggests that since activation of the default network is related to our sense of self, its activation in response to art enables our perception of painting to interact with mental processes related to the self, possibly affecting them and even being incorporated into them. This line of thought is consistent with the idea that a person’s taste in art is linked to his or her sense of identity - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science page 184, Zettel 142

  • To be abstracted is to be at some distance from the material world. It is a form of local exaltation but also, sometime, of disorientation, even disturbance. Art at its most powerful can induce such a state, perhaps most potently. - Nancy Princenthal, New York art critique - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science page 185, Zettel 143

  • We are closer to attaining cheerful serenity by simplifying thoughts and figures. Simplifying the idea to achieve an expression of joy. That is our only deed. - Henri Matisse, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science page 7, Zettel 144

  • Some birds, insects, and fish have photoreceptors that respond to the ultraviolet light (shorter wave lengths than humans can see), and some snakes, insects; and vampire bats have receptors that can respond to infrared radiations or heat (longer wavelengths than humans can see). Certainly those animals can see spectral “colors” that we cannot and their perceptions are presumably different from ours - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science page 42, Zettel 147



ClassicAsobi recommends



 
 

COMING UP

SABLE ELYSE SMITH

FAIR GROUNDS

SEPTEMBER 9 – OCTOBER 26, 2023
REGEN PROJECTS

STEFAN BRÜGGEMANN WHITE NOISE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

HARMONY KORINE OPENS 15 SEPTEMBER H&W DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES

William Monk, West of Nowhere, Sep 9 – Oct 21, 2023 PACE Gallery, Los Angeles

ANDY MOSES

RECENT PAINTINGS

William Turner Gallery
September 9 - November 11, 2023


THE VERSUS PROJECT IV: LAYER CAKE

09/16/2023 — 10/28/2023

Subliminal Projects

JOSÉ LERMA

September 23 - October 21, 2023 LOS ANGELES GALLERY ONE & TWO

Nino Mier Gallery

Word as Image

Norton Simon Museum

AUGUST 11, 2023 – JANUARY 8, 2024

BALSE NEWSLETTER 014

 
 




Two weeks, at Balse.

 
 

Sheila Chandra with kompakt,

a proper mix.




you never used listen, now you do. confident.

i like

holiday?

more sora, clap.

and is 6am, we ain’t leavin’.




French French French French pop.




techno, with Maceo Plex with Kompakt.

Words of Wisdom

  • We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest, is memory - Louise Glück, Poet, Nobel Prize winner 2020, Zettel 146

  • The forest is the root of all life, it is the womb that revives our biological instincts, that deepens our intelligence and increases our sensitivity as human beings - Dr. Akira Miyawaki, New York Times, Sunday 8/27/2023, Planting Tiny Forests and Yielding Big Benefits, by Cara Buckley, Zettel 145

  • Madonna is a cultural wrecking ball who has dared to be everything - performer, songwriter, producer, actor, director, children’s book author, muse - at a time when women were encouraged to stick to one lane. She has broken through social barriers, too, using her words and her work to confront the music industry, Hollywood, the Taliban, the Putin regime and the Vatican, to name just a few of her adversaries, over sexisum, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and hypocrisy. Because she is a woman and a popstar, critics generally dismiss her political statements as opportunistic grandstanding. But young people looking toward a future that seems closed to them see past that criticism. The novelist Sonich Kamal was introduced to Madonna’s music as a child while living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She said Madonna represented “pure, unadulterated, raw, sextual liberation” and hope: “hope that sexy girls did not necessarily die bad deaths, hope that sexy girls could rule the world. And do.” - The New York Times Opinion Essay, Take a Bow. Madonna - by Mary Gabriel 8/15/2023, Zettel 141

  • The art historian Jack Flam (2014) refers to this aspect of abstraction as “a new claim on truth”, By dismantling perspective; abstract art requires our brains to come up with a new logic of bottom-up processing. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Erick Kandel page 179, Zettel 140

  • Thus the reason art pases such an enormous challenge to the beholder is that it teaches us to look at art - and, in a sense, at the world - in a new way. Abstract art dares our visual system to interpret an image that is fundamentally different from the kind of images our brain has evolved to reconstruct. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Erick Kandel page 179, Zettel 139

  • Katz introduced a new reductionist concept into figurative art: his paintings have a flat background and lack of conventional perspective. In addition, he stressed pictorial values over narrative. He explained that “style and appearance are the thing that I’m more concerned about than about what something means. I’d like to have the style be the content, meaning, emptied of content.” (Strand 1984) - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Erick Kandel page 165, Zettel 137

  • Turell describes his work in the following terms: “My work has no object, no image and no focus. With no object, no image and no focus, what are you looking at? You are looking at you looking. What is important to me is to create an experience of wordless thought” - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Erick Kandel page 161, Zettel 135

Keith Haring - Art is for Everybody

August 6, 2023

The Broad, Los Angeles

SPECIAL EXHIBITION

Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody

May 27 - Oct 08, 2023



ClassicAsobi recommends

Sergey Prokofiev (1891-1953): Cello Sonata in C-Major, op. 119 (1949) Sol Gabetta, Cello / Polina Leschenko, Piano

Prom 52: The Boston Symphony Orchestra play Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony

BBC Proms2023

Live at the BBC Proms: Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in music by Julia Adolphe, Richard Strauss and Prokofiev.

 
 

Ultimate Selector

Select, experience, transform.

To be present, or not to be.

Every hour and day: discarding and focusing.

Consciousness. Open mind.

Courage, and gut feeling.

A constant process.

At Balse, we will share our selection process and what we learned.

We will visualize our transformation.

And for some, we hope, will be a valuable source of inspiration.

We are ultimate selectors.

Record

Welcome

start with

Flow