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 A favorite - The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago We all have certain objects we own that have more meaning than other objects in our lives. A favorite sweater, a household item given to us by a family member, our cell phone, a beloved book, can all be touchstones that anchor us to a sense of connectedness in our life. It’s always been this way for us. Museums are great places to see objects that are revered and held in high esteem for a multitude of reasons. They are anchors to the past and learning as well as examples of what we have valued throughout time. Even our pets often have objects that are beloved. Certain objects are just important. And then there is art… Many of the objects created by artists are one of a kind. They are unique and have an expressive quality that you either appreciate or not. They differ from the favorite sweater you chose off the rack or ordered online. Unless the sweater was made for you it’s simply one of a multitude of sweaters being worn by many. Sure you can individualize some of these objects like your phone to some extent but still it’s a phone like thousands of others around you. Creating a piece of art brings something into the world that literally didn’t exist before it was created. It’s almost a magical act of creation. It’s exciting! Here’s a caveat… Art has a very long history. What we do now is influenced by that history. We almost can’t escape that fact. For a few fantastic examples check out the previous post by Mari, “Visiting the Moderna Museet in Stockholm - and Other Museums We Can't Stop Talking About” However, that doesn’t change the fact that when we create something new and different we truly have brought something new into the world. "Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met." Fran Lebowitz Art for me is a part-time endeavor. It satisfies the creative urge that often calls to me. Here are a few examples of recent work with obvious artistic shout outs to those who came before. Things Cubed - A series that continues to grow.
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 Book at the Moderna Museet Bookstore Our spring trip to Europe was all about renewing our inspirations and dipping our brains and toes in some of the best art museums (according to us). Our Journey began in Stockholm, Sweden, although it not the best place to acclimate to the 8 hour time change. The sun was rising around 3:30 A.M. and setting around 10 P.M. As we quickly learned, Stockholm had nearly 18 hours of daylight per day! Insert jet-lag nightmare here. You may have heard of the Moderna Museet back in 1993 when eight works by Picasso and Georges Braque, the French cubist, valued at some $60 million, were stolen. Responsible for housing one of Europe's finest collections of modern and contemporary art, the Moderna Museet was certainly one of the highlights of our trip to Europe this spring. They had over 35 pieces of Duchamp's alone in their permanent collection! After Stockholm we spent some time in Amsterdam. There we visited several museums, amongst them the Van Gogh Museum, which merited almost an entire day. Lost in Van Gogh's brush strokes you're transported to another time. You are there in his studio witnessing his latest painting, dabbing the finishing touches with a stroke so famous and so unique. Tragically, like many creative geniuses, Van Gogh ended his own life, two gunshot wounds to the chest, taking his last breaths in his brother Theo's arms. One can bear witness to their strong relationships in the hundreds of letters they exchanged while they were apart, The letters chronicle Vincent's life like an autobiography. All art has the potential to be powerful and create strong and even unfamiliar reactions inside us, but in particular I think we had the strongest "aha' moments at the Van Gogh Museum. To mix feelings up further, the temporary exhibit at the Van Gogh was 'Easy Virtue' depicting prostitution in French Art from 1850 to 1910. The exhibit examined how the theme of prostitution was dealt with by over 40 different artists. It included rare private and public collection works by Van Gogh himself, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso among others. A fitting and interesting introduction to Amsterdam and the Red Light District. In Amsterdam we also visited the Stedelijk, and the Moco Museum (which was exclusively featuring works by Banksy and Warhol). In Paris, we never miss the Louvre but this time we also visited the Georges Pompidou Center to see the Paul Klees exhibit as well as Espace Dali to see a great collection of Salvador Dali's work. Finally, in London we went to the Tate Modern. Interestingly, a whole section of the Tate was being prepared for a major Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit. This was of course an interesting fact to us Santa Feans.  Francisco is one of our newest client’s at Artotems Co. A talented artist, his speciality is the ancient greek method of encaustic painting. Francisco Benitez considers himself an atemporal archaeologist who excavates lost and forgotten styles of painting long assigned to the shadows to reveal the ever-transient nature of the human psyche. Trained in a rigorous atelier program at the Art Student’s League in New York, he frequented museums and copied old master paintings in order to master their techniques and conceptual strategies. However, impelled by an emotional/psychological impulse, he initially embraced a Caravaggesque approach to his subjects, in which narratives were weaved about the subjects as light sculpted their forms out of shadow. Always concerned with presenting the human psyche in all its complexity, Benitez later discovered the ancient Romans and Greeks, and in his desire to fuse the gravitas of history with the psychological narratives of his subjects, he embarked on a new series of works in encaustic, one of the most ancient painting techniques known to humanity, and one of the most difficult to master. As the Fayum portraits of Ancient Egypt attest, wax not only served to embalm the dead but to resurrect and revivify the subjects represented. By using the ancient tools and restrained palette of the Greeks, Benitez has isolated the psyche and placed it on center stage, whereby the viewer brings his/her subjectivity to the work and in effect initiates a complicit relationship with memory, history, and the geological layering of the collective human experience through the represented individual. Born in 1967 in Taos, New Mexico, into a family of performing and visual artists—Maria and Cecilio Benitez—he obtained his BFA from the University of New Mexico, after having studied in Granada, Spain, the Art Student’s League, and St. John’s College. Besides actively showing in the US, he has also lived and exhibited widely in Europe, especially in France and Italy, where he has participated in a number of museum and gallery shows.
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