Right:'pencil burst', pencils, 2009
image © tom friedman
Left: '1.000 hours of stare, stare on paper,1998
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Bubble gums, toilet paper, toothpicks, plastic drinking straws.... Tom Friedman transforms these ordinary, everyday materials into unexpected and beautiful artworks. Friedman's such art making has roots in a breakthrough that he experienced when he was a graduate student. Having realized that art should not be defined by its formats, he emptied his studio completely, painted everywhere white, and lighted the space with fluorescent light fixtures on the ceiling. In this almost like a sensory-depriving space, Friedman started his new explorations by bringing objects one by one, once again."
"Many years ago, I was influenced by Zen Buddhism. I had an epiphany when I heard the story about the dog. The Zen Master said to his student, "it's not 'It's a dog!' ...It's just Dog! Dog! Dog!" To me, the direct experience is what art, even what life, is all about. Subject and object can and do, in those great moments, dissolve into themselves, leaving us in simple wonder. The direct experience, the thing itself, Not Something Else ."
(From Artist Statement)" (read more here)
In 1,000 Hours of Staring (1992-97), a blank piece of paper stared by himself for 1,000 hours, Friedman raises questions about the boundaries that have been drawn around artistic activities.
What happens when a great actress portrays a great opera singer?
Franco Zeffirelli's "Callas Forever" is one of the answers.
Fanny Ardant has a great career and has interpreted many amazing women.
Here it is what Michelle Placido thinks of her:
"The thing about her that struck me most was her way of observing, and how she moved before shooting a scene. First thing in the morning, five minutes before shooting, most actresses in their dressing rooms are all busy with their makeup, with the lights ... they're almost, how can I say it, flustered. Instead Fanny is reserved, and this interior elegance leaves its mark, she transmits it to everyone around her. And this enticing capacity of communicating the "essential" gets effortlessly carried over onto the set. To some extent, I feel like I've "stolen" from her a kind of introspectiveness that came over me before shooting a scene."
"William Blake (1757-1827), English artist, mystic and poet wrote Songs of Innocence (1789): a poetry collection written from the child’s point of view, of innocent wonderment and spontaneity in natural settings which includes “Little Boy Lost”, “Little Boy Found” and “The Lamb”;
