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fifthimageart · 6 years ago

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Bloom & Decay Thesis Draft VII

Introduction

It's funny how specific moments, memories of situation and context, eventually become nothing more than abstract and confused fleeting moments. Looking back, memories announce themselves as degrading reels of film, playing over and over, with subtle variations depending on how forcefully we try to change the moments long since experienced. However, even in the best imagined outcomes, reality molds the mind back to the inevitable result of the things that have already come to pass. So much of our early lives, simple joys, and ignorant based bliss, lost into the void of the mind and it's need to distinguish our pasts, presents, and futures.

In writing on the Destruction of Art Symposium, which was a month-long symposium focused on the exhibition of destructive works that took place in 1966 London, Art historian Kristine Stiles describes Destruction in art as not being the same as destruction of art. Moreover, went on to write that the destruction in art addresses the negative aspects of both social and political institutions, and manifests as an attack on the traditional identity of the visual arts themselves. While these artists were responding to their overarching philosophies of destruction in the form of ephemeral art object and performance based works, there was never an established movement nor manifesto solidifying the practice. While the symposium itself was formulated by the artist Gustav Metzger, who coined the term ‘Auto-Destructive Art’ seven years prior, it would seem final meditations of both destruction and decay as being separate from any particular cannon following the month-long event would end there.

Embracing the passing of time and it’s inherent destructive nature, as now memories and their icons are left to decay and new found freedom to transform & bloom into the unrecognizable, Post-Opulence aims to reveal the contemporary mimesis of permanence as nothing more than shadowy reflections of a luxurious modern projection of both the ideal and iconic state. In practice, it creates deep afflictions and inaccessibility to a conventional aesthetic, through variable acts of destruction toward the art object. Post-Opulence highlights power invested in a sought idealized form, to then create struggle over the former realized art object through its breaking, burning, and eventual revelation of new form. Additionally, Post-Opulence makes reference to both actions and signals of changed circumstance & time, as all eventually fades again into nothingness. Chaos, just as with peace, are the described primordial uncarved blocks (FR)* of the multiple realities of the physical, spiritual, and ideological. Taking control, and shaping the narrated lives of both gods and the individual instances of humankind alike, chaos is its own independent force manifested before all others. The poet Paul Eluard states ‘I must not look on reality as being like myself’*, but how is this so? In regard to what starts as an observed object of interest, the reasons in which we look upon it reveals more about our internal selves, as well as the relationships we have with these internal moments that take shape below the surface of the skin. However, initial impressions are arguably narrowed perceptions of a truth born of an impure examination. The Post Opulent are the neo-agents of Chaos, bringing about a lux et voluptas to both the totalitarian regimes of problematic art institutions, and the worship of commodity through the icons they create.

It is important to note the way in which visual communication has evolved since the birth of the image, and how visual communication and culture were key in terms of survival and production of both community and culture since the Upper Paleolithic. However, how have we progressed in regard to the way in which we in a broken capitalist culture, invest in the ideals of the ideal, consume art, and adorn creation as a half-realized concept; keeping in mind that no product of creation can or will exist in its most opulent or idealized form forever. Additionally, within a culture that both appropriates and consumes the aesthetic and moral principles of it’s would be counter. Mass media, as an example, serves us daily reminders of the realities of our modern day capacity for destruction, disruption, and decay. Through it, catastrophe and their sediments are made both palatable and distant, creating a cognitive distance as a kind of means of not looking, alienation, and disassociation. The question as to whether or not art object can both accurately describe reality and catalyze redemption, is one I put before Post-Opulence to answer, through the reclamation of destruction within the infrathin moments between a completely destructive process and inherent aesthetic manifestation. The contemporary ways of viewing of this progression/interaction with the perceived and ‘finalized’ art object, mirrors Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality, in which reality itself is formed from an endless reproduction of the real. Moreover, Developing into a relationship of equivalence, indifference, to then the extinction of the original*. In short, the way in which mass production has shaped our way of viewing, has destroyed and altered the relationships we have with our own experienced reality. Additionally, it has created a perceived hierarchy of these two visual forms of completion and degradation into two opposing icons of status.

In our own western cannon, following the end of World War II, iconoclasm via the abstract form (i.e. Tachisme and Abstract Expressionism) became the predominant means of cultural expression within a mass episode of cultural forgetting within the western world, in that there were no means of both accurately confronting and aestheticizing the horrors of the post-war world that remained grounded in both it’s reality and truth. In the destruction of recognizable imagery, In favor of the abstract form, reality was even further removed and that unpleasantness successfully buried. This brings to question the role of the Icon in relationship to our visual memory, and how the representation of our realities are chosen, with history and its sediments being presented to us as abstract entities that reject the creation of concrete memory and experience. As the physical presence of Icons manifest, transform, and are replaced over time, truth and origin destroyed as they are given new rendering and context.

Take for example some earlier burial practices of Mayan idol sculpture, and the way in which people would continue to engage with sculptures after they were both unmade and broken by foreign forces. As attackers would destroy them as a means of attacking the ideology, the communities would then go on to salvage and reclaim what remained to use as building material for new offerings, structures, or other sculptures.

This being said, the visual experience should not be reinforced to seek the supplementation of images and icons, but rather embrace the decay of them as concrete evidences of what was. In addition, carry the sediments of said decay into new forms of linear narrative. While representation is inherently untruthful as an imitation of reality, Modernist ideology called for the delusion of it and is thus much more dangerous. Where the physicality of the made form is a manifestation of tangible truth, paintings manipulate the texture of the mind. To quote Harold Rosenberg, “Art as action rests on the enormous assumption that the artist accepts as real only that which he is in the process of creating”. In what could’ve been unknowingly hinted by him at the time, was the potential for narcissism in self-referential types of art that creates a volatile iconization of itself in the form of artistic commodity.

‘What is needed is not a definition of meaningful imagery but the development of our perceptive potentialities to accept and utilize the continual enrichment of visual material.’ - Richard Hamilton (Group 2: Richard hamilton, John McHale and John Voelcker), ‘Are they Cultured?’, in This is Tomorrow, ed Theo Crosby, Whitechapel Art Gallery/Whitefriars Press, London, 1956, unpaginated*

Where Auto-Destructive Art and Post-Opulence split, is the intention in the embodiment of a specific set of ethical and political ideals. Where the theory of Auto-Destructive Art was an attack on the capitalist art market through an art lacking material form, Post-Opulence is rather a rejection of the idealized state of material form, as well as an attack on the notions of iconization through similarly problematic traditional gallery systems. Additionally, there are three key notions within the manifestos of auto-destructive art that I recognize as being problematic. First, aside from acknowledged relationships to Dada, Auto-Destructive Art lacked a being a complete theory to the extent that reproduction of the first manifesto in the second edition was needed as a ploy in which to validate the movement. In contrast, Post-Opulence takes into account the conceptual history of the destructive process/destruction of object outside of the narrowed scope of any particular contemporary practice of the western canon. Secondly, in the second manifesto it is the stated intention of Auto-Destructive Art to reflect the power ‘man’ has over natures being. Within Post-Opulence, the relationship between maker and these natural and chaotic forces is innately symbiotic. Lastly, the work of Auto-Destructive Art began to be defined by its political motivation, and thus created icon and symbolic metaphor. These, being the conceptual and ideological frameworks that Post-Opulence aims to destroy & transcend.

Chapter I

Post Opulence, Auto Destructive Art, and the DIAS

Metzger viewed people as being vessels of the unresolved and suppressed aggressions against ourselves and the greater society. Moreover, That our predisposition toward destruction served as a threat to the continuation of the illusion of balance and control. It is for this reason that he rationalized that due to this conflicting unconscious allure, that art celebrating this pleasure would be quickly rejected*(GMB).

Chapter II

On the Destruction of Ideology to Contemporary Practice: Post-Opulence and Iconoclasm

If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire. Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate and it is universal. - (PF/GB)

Icon and sacred object have always served as powerful means of instilling pillars of power. While we may think of the word icon in soley western terms, such as digital representation of files or in relationship to objects of Christianity, this use of object or image as vessel to areas beyond our conceptual understanding is a cross cultural phenomenon that has spanned throughout time. From the objects of polytheism and pagan era deity worship, to contemporary vessels such as photographs that capture and represent memory, all can fall within the theoretical principle of the ‘Mimesis’. This, being the concept that all artistic expression and creation are nothing more than a re-representation and imitation of nature. In this sense, the destroyer and iconoclast, inadvertently has a specific aesthetic sensibility and potential to create an even greater work that nearly captures our truer reality than the object that was set out to be destroyed. Aesthetically and socially speaking, we now exist in a time where iconoclasm thus can be argued to present itself as an evidence of progressive victory over historically problematic institutions.

Repeatedly in the essay of Aesthetics, Hegel describes the making process as both equally destructive, as well as simultaneously creative - In the example of the melting pot and the witches brew. The latter being:

‘A forge in which “everything murky, natural, impure, foreign, and exorbitant” is consumed in the purifying fire of the “deeper spirit.” The fire strips away what is “formless, symbolic, unbeautiful, and misshapen”—the nocturnal phantasmagoria of the animal, the irrational, [ ], the pre-human, the nonhuman—just as it draws into relief [her- ausheben] the spiritual identity of human and divine. “congealed light” is both the residue and the exemplary manifestation of this fire (the product presents the perfect image of its own process of production) —an anticipatory image of enlightenment caught in frozen stone.’

The instances of iconoclasm are best known and defined by the Byzantine and Protestant Reformation periods. Finding its strongest cultural association as being solely socio-religious in nature as being a polemic, rooted in the Greek word for ‘war’ polemos. Iconoclasts not only culturally transformed the previous idea that the universe consisted of many deities, but even as time transformed these newly installed institutions of monotheism, these powers would likewise find themselves a target of others against their icons. In this way, iconoclasm would better be described as a neutral conceptual construct that has evolved in relationship to the culture that creates the environment that breeds it. Reframing the negative associations of the destruction of Icon based on Byzantine era victors and influences, iconoclasm serves as both aesthetic strategy and political tool.

The legitimacy of the destruction of the icon has found both evolution and intersection within whole practices of sociopolitical life and contemporary aesthetics. The French Revolution, being one way that iconoclasm found its most drastic shifts in narrative. Following the period in which it was defined by a religious targets, French revolutionaries destroyed artworks and portraits of the wealthy, as these symbolized the luxury, vanity, and opulence of the aristocracy. However, as the social valuation of art itself began to grow, these revolutionaries evolved once more this concept of iconoclasm, and created new techniques to destroy and transform symbolic meaning. This being done by means of renaming, rededication, and removals from sites where display and interpretation can be institutionally controlled. Hugo Ball, a key theorist and practitioner of the Dadaists in Zurich, took this concept of reframing in the realm of iconoclasm by motivating the movement though complex thinking on language, philosophy, theology, mysticism, history, and politics. Not only did the views of Dada contractic Christian mysticism, but makes case of the Church as an ‘Outdated, hierarchical repository of power. Dada was at an intersection between iconoclasm, anarchism, and aesthetic experience. Moreover, viewed the iconoclastic movements as being a singular mold of both religious and secular, although its participants would claim one or the other. While the use of the term iconoclasm in Balls essays were in relationship to a historical ‘Bildersturm’, it was treated as an important means of force in political conflicts that continued to resonate into the twentieth century.

‘Because man is unable to escape the concrete, all abstraction, as an attempt to manage without the image, leads only to an impoverishment, a dilution of, a surrogate for the linguistic process. Abstraction breeds arrogance; it makes men appear the same as or similar to God (even if only in illusion). De facto, it weakens his closeness to God, his na ̈ıvete ́, his faith; that clinging, grasping force that is a prerequisite for all receptivity and all devotion. It is hard to see how abstraction and culture can be reconciled.’

However, following the two World Wars, in response to the treatment of architecture and what was deemed ‘degenerate art’ by the Nazi party, physical destruction of art for political reasons became socially impermissible. While Art has found itself better protected and culturally valued, the aesthetic use of the destroyed image and reclamation of meaning has once more found its way at the dawn of modernism.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, modernism provided the western world with a means of dealing with the traumas of war and its disasters. Anselm Kiefers work, as an example, conceptualized at as not only a means of exhuming memory, but as a means of confronting it and its emotional resonance as well. Despite the recreations of iconic and monumental forms to serve as allegory reconciling his personal lineage, having been born in 1945 germany as the country was attempting to reform their previous identity, Kiefers work is conceptually materialized with the aim of reconciliation in a period of dismantlement between both Living and Prosthetic Memory in postwar Germany. The first being memory linked to the lived experience of an individual, and the second being memories that are circulated in the public, yet experienced with one’s own body forming an experiential relationship.

In the same period, Gustav Metzger began coining the term Auto-Destructive Art in 1959. Auto-Destructive Art as being acutely being concerned with the problems of the aggressions of the individual, as well as those within the greater society. It was against a system that was viewed by Metzger as being the maker of its own destruction (In response to WWII, Industrialization of war and increased nuclear armament). In three separate manifestos, he goes on to criticize privileged institutions and their dominion of Natures both physical and in relationship to the society.

Auto-Destructive Art Manifesto Pamphlet, Gustav Metzger cir.1960

Eventually Clement Greenberg, a prominent art critic of the mid-twentieth century and during so championed abstract expressionism, also adopted a new iconoclastic ideology. Where his rejection to representation was not due to a personal dislike of the narrative image, but rather out of necessity as aesthetic progress called for it. Here, iconoclasm has found itself transforming into a tool of progress and creation of a linear narrative, rather than solely as a tool of regression and destruction. The concepts and aesthetics of the artistic field grew in relationship with the post war period which today are still taught as fundamental knowledge. However, Abstract Expressionism removed a necessary conflict between ‘Advanced Art’ and the dominant culture, in that it kept alive the social and political norms of the west, and thus became an icon in both its material reality and lack of image.

Modernism left open the questions surrounding whom truly carries the authority over the conventions of art, and its institutional value. However, in the failure of challenging the dominant American culture at the time, it would seem the case that those contemporary institutional powers (Which were problematic and white-male dominant) would in fact be the answer. To that point, and the institutionalization of Art itself in the development of higher conceptual frameworks belonging to those who can access it, has transformed Art into a vessel of a flawed social order. In recent years however, we have seen a progression toward the dismantling of this resonant flawed modernity in both iconoclastic aesthetics and social interventions. As an example, following the events of Charlottesville, there was a wave of stated illegal and legal instances of iconoclasm of Confederate monuments in Durham, North Carolina, and Baltimore, Maryland. While the subject is still one between proposed heritage and social progress, iconoclasm now manifests as an aesthetic tool that still makes the propositions of progress, however through actual physical instances and evidences of destruction.

During the same year as this Iconoclastic wave, Contemporary Artists Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson) came out with their two-person exhibition White Man On A Pedestal (WMOAP), opening at Pioneer Works in 2017:

Installation view of ‘White Man On A Pedestal’ at Pioneer Works, 2017

‘Pioneer Works is pleased to present White Man On A Pedestal (WMOAP), a two-person exhibition by Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson), from November 10 – December 17, 2017. WMOAP questions a prevailing western history that uses white-male-heteronormativity as its persistent model.

Both artists approach WMOAP from an individual practice that is responsive to their experiences as black women operating in a system of white male supremacy. At a time when removing Confederate statues—literally white men on pedestals—are cultural flashpoints of whiteness and class, Garner and (Robinson) play with the size, texture, and scale of white monumentality itself, referencing both real and imagined figureheads of historical exclusion’

Installation view of ‘White Man On A Pedestal’ at Pioneer Works, 2017 Iconoclasm has thus served as a subtle force of change, beyond the conventional ideas surrounding it as simple brutality. The questions remain open in the aesthetic exploration of the destruction in art, vs. the destruction of art. Moreover, aesthetic iconoclasm being a matter of politics, art, and navigated areas of intersection in relationship to the greater social body.

Chapter III Post Opulence & Its Functions Related Practices of Destruction

The question of space begets a number of alternative intention and action in relationship to Post-Opulence. In terms of the art object, having been manifested in the studio, typically falls prey to the very goal in which it is institutionally groomed to aspire to. The first rejection Post-Opulence makes of the traditional space, is of the neutral walls innate foreshadowing of the morbid display of the stinted and mummified. There’s something interesting about the ways in which both new (or rather transformed) object and form, inadvertently manifest from the object left to the mercy of both time and the space. Looking at city streets and various attempts at a particular idealized design or structural outcome, Metzger would argue that we are currently existing in a space created of our own filth. Subtle vibrations that erode and split concrete, progressions fated to obsoletion, Institutions that conform us to a deformed and self-destroying society of development, are all things present in the more open minds of the day (GMB*). However, working through the rot, there are moments in which de/composition inherently manifest foundational aesthetic principles, though perceived as negative moments of degradation & incompletion. It’s in these moments of viewing through the scope of Post-Opulence, where viewed sites of decay, bloom into new sites of aesthetic reclamation.

In these moments, seemingly about nothing, are sediments of our own daily rituals over time. Moreover, are an example of the ways in which we engage with what is left. Post-Opulence meditates on comprehensive aesthetic systems, and refers back to the fundamentals of both the physical and metaphysical in acknowledgement of absolute reality that all things are in a state of decay, and made to eventually become nothing. Moreover, through that nothingness there can be found revelations of the infinite potential for new and transformed aesthetic experience of the real. As we view decay as being dark, morbid, spoiled, or fleeting, it is an equal element in an interlocked relationship to the perception of bloom as being lighter and louder in terms of having the idealized texture of vitality. The latter, being an allegory for the treatment of the art object, space, and contemporary icon, as we operate in a means in which to preserve longevity and a holding onto the opulent form.

Conclusion and Assertion An Intention in the Contemporary

#Post Opulence

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saintaugustinerp · 6 years ago

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Congratulations Julia! Your OC has been accepted, with a title change to the name of The Callow with the faceclaim Manu Rios. Please be sure to check out the accepted applicants checklist! Also be sure send us a link to your blog within the next twenty-four hours. Welcome to St. Augustine!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/alias: Julia

Age (18+) : 24

Gender/Preferred pronouns: She/Her

Timezone: CST

IN CHARACTER

Character Label: The Déraciné (Or The Disenchanted, The Somatic, or The Ardent)

Character Name: Arlo Loveless

Age (18+): 19

Gender/Pronouns: He/Him

Desired Faceclaim: Manu Rios

Home Town: Los Angeles, CA

Three Positive Traits: Affable, Altruistic, Idealistic

Three Negative Traits: Guarded, Restless, Tender

Major: Performance

Year: 2nd

Quote: “Before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way.”

Character blurb: If his smile was any more radiant, he would have soaked the prism of colors of the train station and coaxed its deep rays into a nimbus around his chestnut crown. The anxious flicker of his gaze cemented his nervousness and the grip on his Tumi bag brought his knuckle bones to the surface in anticipation, kissing delicate flesh with each shift of his grip. Arlo Loveless was molded by the callous fingers of a sculpture and brought to life with an offering of heart shaped truffles blessed with prayer, but perhaps such a description was far too generous; he was alone, after all, and resorted to his embarrassing habit of fiddling with the gold necklace on his neck during times of self conflict. Eventually, the words dotting the tip of his tongue dissolved like sugar as his gaze on a boy occupied by his phone drifted back to the tiny patch of concrete he’s temporarily claimed as his own– he will find his voice eventually, but for now, he waited to be retrieved by his chauffeur unaccompanied.

Developed Head Canons:

He was born into the lap of luxury, the personification of Americana: His mother’s maiden name is Luciana Ruiz, daughter of a Spanish immigrant. After becoming the successful leading lady in a handful of Broadway productions, her fame doubled after being featured in her first Blockbuster romantic movie Fields of Violet with Harrison Loveless. Their convincing chemistry was fueled by offscreen romance and they married soon after, with every detail plastered on the gossip tabloids. They stayed there through Oscar nominations, memorable controversies, and the birth of their two children– with Arlo being the youngest. Currently, their net worth has easily exceeded the hundreds of millions and their lavish lifestyle has reflected such. Arlo was never taught to budget, why would he have to? There was money to burn, and with the disconnect from the idea of ‘cost’ diminishing each passing year, he’s grown quite fond of the game ‘how much is ____?’ each time he visits the little market at St. Augustine.

His parents are highly involved Scientologists: The organization fed off of rich, eager celebrities like his parents. Millions of dollars donated meant he was treated like royalty at every gathering and his naivete attitude towards the malpractices of its leaders continued up until the age of 14, when he walked in on a disciplinary hearing of a member. From then on, the smiles seemed less genuine and the hologram of pure bliss associated with Scientology began to crack.

He is a paranoid heart and a lonely doll: Because of his parent’s world renowned reputation, he has always been under the paparazzi spotlight. Every social media, no matter how anonymous he’s tried to be, has hundreds of thousands of followers. Scientology has a habit of keeping track of their members as well, wanting to contain them in a snow globe of cultlike utopia. His school was filled with peers bred from Scientologist families. His tutors, his nanny, everyone he’s been in contact with all have some tie to the religion. Because of his status, Arlo grew up friendless– children thought him as vain and selfish while parents were intimidated of allowing their children to play with someone who can bring harm to their spawn with a mindless negative comment. When his parents heard about his loneliness, Arlo suddenly found himself with a best friend– alas, upon his discovery that Leo was planted in his life like everyone else, he became more wary.

His acceptance into St. Augustine was not without protest: Coming from an acting family created a window of opportunity for him to follow suit. His first performance was in a movie when he was three years old. With a few scattered appearances, Arlo has become quite good at faking confidence as an actor from his self conscious real life. At 13, he became fixated with art instead, particularly oil paints. With the pressure of his revelation over Scientology clear in his mind, he applied to St. Augustine for art and Julliard (under his parents’ insistence) for performance when he turned 18. He got accepted into both, but in his desperate plea for independence and freedom, he succumbed to his parents’ bargain of allowing him to study in St. Augustine, but for performance instead.

He is desperate– a songbird who sings praises and a hawk who demands Good: Arlo has already deemed himself as paranoid; he knows he’s a fretful person, and he tries his hardest to hide his fear so he won’t screw up his chances at real friends. Hungry, he called it, hungry for friendship to the point of buttering his words with compliments and little white lies with the purest intentions. Maybe he sounded manipulative, but his intentions are pure and his desire to good will not ever waiver. Arlo’s nervous temper personified itself as a nibbling sense of inadequacy; he doesn’t think he’s worth the trouble, but he desperately wants to be worth something. Sheltered, oblivious and naive– but ready to explore, if not for the forsaken need to take his first step shutting down his body system.

Love; love is all you need: And he craves it. His mother’s films created little snapshots of things that could happen, may happen, will happen. They’ve been quoted by lovesick girls and red eyed heartbreakers and her own son has been captured by the allure. His parent’s love for each other proved the existence of soulmates, but Arlo’s blind faith has been jeopardized by his desire to throw himself into the depths of the ocean and wait for someone to pull him into safety. He anticipates that he will drown, but for now he teeters on cliff’s edge, waiting for the lifeguard to take their seat on their tower before he jumps.

Plot Ideas:

Although Arlo excels in performance, he still placed himself in a few art classes because he enjoys them. He hopes to make friends in both concentrations, maybe some who show the same passion he has.

The New Reality gives him a lot to explore, particularly with people who aren’t around him for a simple purpose. His pursuit of happiness, friends, and a detox from all that he’s learned about his religion will give him a lot of whiplash. He will need an anchor, and in return, he hopes to be a statue of comfort for those who need him.

Once the slip up from Scientology happened, the blemishes began to shine. He’s been a witness to violence just a room away and a bystander to unabashed verbal thrashing. Arlo worries that he appears cold for not batting an eyelash at death or its friends, but violence doesn’t hold the same levity for him than it does others. If anything, the death of the Good Samaritan brought curiosity and a guilty desire to eavesdrop on the gossip circling it.

His search for love is neverending, but he prays whoever captures his heart will be gentle with it. He shatters easily, particularly so when his romantic vulnerability is open to one person at a time.

He grew up with privilege like the Mad King and the Golden Heir, but their popularity makes him nervous, as if one wrong word will condemn him to mockery.

The Reveler and The Purveyor intimidate him because he doesn’t think he’s cool enough or sharp witted enough or ready to dive deep into sinful indulgences like they do.

The Guileless and The Wallflower are possible friends due to their gentle nature; he is in need of confidence, and perhaps they can patch up his slowly deflating self worth with a pep talk and some warm cookies.

The Meteorite and The Analyst provide intelligence he knows he does not harbor, but their diligence in trying to uncover the truth is admirable to him.

Writing Sample:

When he first stepped foot into his human anatomy art class he didn’t expect to be met with an extremely handsome Italian eating an apple, dressed in an open robe and an extremely tight pair of sky blue trunks. Arlo’s eyes quickly zoomed around the room in a desperate attempt at locating the farthest seat away from the model, but to his dismay, his classmates have beat him to it. Intimidation, it seemed, was universal; some of the students looked amused, others discomforted, but most were making small talk that he wished he could partake in one day. This was only the fourth class; it’s normal to not have any friends still, right? Or was a pathetically revealing of his piss poor social skills– yeah, that was probably more accurate. So, without further ado, he shuffled to his seat right up front, placed his bag down and began to load his sketchbook upon the isle with a gentle bat of fuzz off of the creamy pages.

Arlo was preoccupied with taking out his charcoals when he heard the professor introduce Mario, bringing a chorus of hellos from the students. Once he looked up again, he realized that the man had even less to wear– in fact, he was completely nude. Nude and poised with his body draped over the leather couch in the center of the room like an olive skinned Rose, ready to be drawn like one of his French girls. Hiding the flush on his cheeks with a weak wipe of his sleeve upon his face, he cleared his throat and focused on sketching the figure starting with geometric figures. The classical music his professor put on didn’t help his nerves, nor did Mario’s gaze every single time he peeked over his sketchpad to inspect the curve of his jawline.

After about an hour, he noticed his Burnt Ember color dwindling on its last legs. Arlo quietly snuck a glance over to the girl on his right to see if she was using hers at the moment. Cautiously, he wiped his cheek again (streaking himself with a thin line of charcoal in the process) and conjured up a small, shy smile.

“May I..um.. borrow t-that one, please?”

She didn’t know her smile in return would make his entire day and her gentle push of her charcoal tin towards him prompted the most beautiful sense of pride welling in his chest. For now, he bit down on his bottom lip and focused on adding a bit of ember to Mario’s cheekbone, trying to contain his grin.

Other:

Muse inspo !

poetry

insta 1 ;; insta 2

album ;; Actual Playlist

#callow #rp #rpg #roleplay #accepted

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ramadavaranasikatesar · 3 years ago

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Searching for a Hotel near Varanasi Fort which also has the best Restaurant in Varanasi

One of the oldest living cities in the world, lying on the banks of the holy River Ganga breathes Varanasi. For centuries, the mystic of this place has been attracting pilgrims from across India as well as abroad for the serenity and the holiness of the city. The city is dwelling for ancient domes, ashrams, priests, narrow lanes with shops filled with Benaresi sarees. Varanasi represents the colorful and fascinating India. The city hits nostalgia in terms of street food and is famous for silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.

The land of Varanasi (Kashi) has been the ultimate pilgrimage spot for Hindus as it is believed that one who is graced to die on the land of Varanasi would attain salvation and freedom from the cycle of birth and re-birth. The Ganges in Varanasi is believed to have the power to wash away the sins of mortals. The Ganges is said to have its origins in the tresses of Lord Shiva and in Varanasi, it expands to the mighty river that we know of. The city is a center of learning and civilization for over 3000 years.

As history quotes that Varanasi was the capital of the kingdom of Kashi during the time of the Buddha and was home to the first Aryan settlement in the middle of the Ganges valley. The city remained a center of religious, educational, and artistic activities as attested by the celebrated Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzag.

On one side you will find intimate rituals of life and death being performed on the Ghats and on the other the busy alleyways or watch the sunrise from a boat for an unforgettable experience. Varanasi has the finest river frontage in India with miles of ghats for religious bathing. An array of shrines, temples, and palaces rises tier on tier from the water’s edge.

The Ramnagar Fort is located near the Ganges at a scenic location on the eastern bank, opposite to the Tulsi Ghat. It was built by Kashi Naresh Maharaja Balwant Singh in 1750 as the inscriptions on the outer ramparts of the fort date it to the seventeenth century. The building was constructed with creamy-colored chunar sandstone in a typically Mughal style of architecture. The fort houses the Veda Vyasa Temple, a museum, and the king's residential complex. The fort has many carved balconies, open courtyards and pavilions. Only a part of the structure is open for public viewing as the rest of it is the residence of Kashi Naresh and his family. The fort palace appears very vibrant and colourful when beatified during the one-month-long Ram Lila festival where different episodes of Ramayana are enacted. This place is definitely must visit in one's itinerary.

If one is looking for a premium staying option near Varanasi Fort, the Ramada Varanasi is your place to go. As the city offers rejuvenating experiences and breathes purity, one can definitely experience the state of nirvana. Explore the city’s rawness with Ramada Varanasi Katesar by Wyndham. After marking its grand presence in over 95 countries, Ramada Varanasi Katesar situated near Ganga Ghat provides you the ultimate comfort and premium experiences. The hotel is situated near to a mere distance of just 7.5 Km from Ganga Ghat and 10.6 Km from Varanasi Railway Station. This is the perfect place to enjoy luxurious services and amenities along with the beautiful and serene landscape of the surrounding area. Ramada Varanasi Katesar is sure to become your perfect getaway in Varanasi.

Varanasi is known for delightful cuisine experiences and Ramada offers you the best. The hotel offers multiple dining options to a patron. Ramada’s Arzoo is one of the best Indian restaurants in Varanasi. The restaurant offers culinary delights that makes it truly amazing and one can also witness the chefs live in action at the open kitchen. The place offers a tempting buffet and a full a-la-carte menu with a seating capacity of 102 guests and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Indian cuisine is known for the art of using the right spices in every dish, not just for its flavor but for its nutritional and medicinal value also. Relish delectable national and international cuisine that will surely satiate your taste buds. The culinary maestros reflect the blend of so many cultures and authentic flavours in their dishes. The rich heritage of Indian cuisines can be experienced in another best Indian restaurant in Varanasi- Masala Root. An elegant dining space where one can cherish authentic Indian flavous full of spices made with love.

Unwind and relax your mind and soul and witness the scenic beauty of the Varanasi with Ramada Varanasi Katesar where the epitome of luxury and comfort awaits you.

#best Restaurant in Varanasi #Best Indian restaurant in Varanasi

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healthmaria · 6 years ago

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The Freedom Trail in Boston

Street decoration near the Old South Meeting House in Boston

The Freedom Trail and Black Heritage trail leading to King’s Chapel and Burying Grounds

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial at School Street Boston. A UnionArmy Civil War hero who died in battle leading his all-black regiment at Charleston, SC

Longfellow Bridge crossing Charles River in Boston

So much history is available in the city and given to you by posters, signs, buildings, monuments, old churchyards and live actors from the birth of America and the revolutionary days when ”taxation without representation” became unbearable for the colonists in North America.

You can walk along the Freedom Trail on your own or in a group with a guide in a historical costume. On summer evenings you can take part in haunting ghost walks with the perfect settings of the old churchyards where people were buried in many layers in the days of the colonial settlers.

The marked red trail highlights the American Revolution and ideals of freedom of speech at the 16 historical sites. I would like to mention a few of them in this post.

Boston Latin School Site and the Benjamin Franklin Statue

A statue of Benjamin Franklin where his old Latin School once was

At School Street a mosaic in the pavement and a sculpture of Benjamin Franklin mark where the oldest American Latin school used to be. Unlike four other founding fathers in the Latin school, Franklin didn’t complete his schooling. In spite of that, he was one of America’s brightest men and famous for inventing things, postal offices and his part of the founding of The United States. B. Franklin was born in Boston in 1702 and died in Philadelphia in 1790. He is the only signer who signed four of U.S.A.’s revolutionary documents. He actively spoke out against slavery and for protection of Native American rights.

Old South Meeting House

Old South Meeting House, once the biggest building in Boston. Built 1729 by Puritans and saved from demolishing by activists 1877

Some of the prominent people who have spoken at the Meeting House

Voices of Protest at the Puritan House Old South Meeting place

Dr Joseph Warren (1741-1775) died in the Bunker Hill Battle

Inside the Old South Meeting House

Inside the Old South Meeting House. Quote from George Washington

The Boston Tea Party met at the Old South Meeting House. 5000 colonists crowded on December 16, 1773, to decide what to do with the taxable tea at three ships in the harbour. At a given signal from Samuel Adams, men disguised as Mohawk Indians dumped the tea leaves of a value of $1 million in today’s value in the Boston Harbour. Martial laws were established, and English sailors and soldiers were sent to enforce a blockade of Boston.

Statue of Samuel Adams at Faneuil Hall

A Statue of Samuel Adams, Merchant and brewer orator and Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Faneuil Hall used for trade and meetings up to the American Revolution

Samuel Adams 1722-1803, A patriot. He organised the revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence

The Bunker Hill Battle

At the Bunker Hill battle, a young doctor Joseph Warren died as a hero on June 17, 1775. A few months earlier he sent Paul Revere to warn fellow patriots about the arriving Englishmen at Lexington and Concord which was the start of the American Revolution.

I did not reach that historical sight this time, so here is a picture from a trip in 2009 where my interest in American history started.

Statue of Colonel William Prescott, The Bunker Hill Battle June 17, 1775, in front of the obelisk. “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” (Unknown who really said that).

Granary Buring Ground, King’s Chapel’s Buring Ground

I am moved to see the many old gravestones, many with skull and bones as a symbol of the ever-present death at the time.

King’s Chapel Burying Ground with some of the graves of famous Bostonians from the time of the Mayflower Pilgrims and first settlers

The tomb of Founding father, Samuel Adams(1722-1803) at Granary Burying Ground near Boston Common

The grave of Founding father John Hancock (1737-1793) at Granary Burying Ground near Boston Common

Lawyer, political activist, pamphleteer “Taxation without Representation is tyranny”.

Samuel Adams, famous for his part in starting the American Revolution is buried at the third oldest US graveyard, Granary Buring Ground as well as Another Founder John Hancock and James Otis.

At King’s Chapel Buring Ground Henry and I observed that Stars and Stripes flags on the graves were collected by an official at the place. We asked him if he could tell us where to buy such flags as we wanted to put some on the fallen WWII U.S. Airmen’s graves in Denmark. The man didn’t waver one second but gave us the whole bunch to bring home. Now we had to walk with a lot of graveyard flags through Boston without drawing too much attention to us. Henry wrapped them in a big plastic bag, and they continued with us the whole long trip. I later found out that Memorial Day or Decoration Day is a holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country’s armed forces. It is observed every year on the last Monday of May, and the flags are put on the graves on that occasion.

Old State House

The Declaration of Independence was first read to the people of Boston from the Old State House balcony on July 18, 1776. Now the building serves as Boston’s Revolutionary Museum.

Old State House from a distance

Old State House with the balcony from where the Declaration of Liberty was read in 1776

Plaquette on the Old State House

Old State House inside

Boston Common and the Public Garden

The common was purchased from the first settler by the Puritan colonists for them to graze their livestock. In the corner of Boston Common is the old Central Burying Ground. Just before leaving for the Amtrak train to Philadelphia, I got a few photos of little children’s gravestones. The loss of children was immense at the time.

Central Burying Ground in Boston Common. A girl died three weeks old in 1790

Central Burying Ground in Boston Common. A small angel is carved above the gravestone of a four-month-old girl dead in 1792

The British “Redcoats” overflowed the Common on their way to the battlefields of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. Here I made that grave mistake to ask a “Blue Coat” if he was British!

“I am LaFayette” at Boston Common ready for a guided tour

No, Madam, I am LaFayette!

I had only just arrived, and the history was not present yet.

Boston Public Garden

“Make way for ducklings” in Boston Public Garden by Robert Mc Closkey 1987

Give way for the ducklings in Boston Public Park

Adjacent to The Common is the Public Garden where you can find the goose mother and her ducklings from famous children story from 1941 “Make Way for the Ducklings”. In addition to the bronze ducklings, the Public Garden is the first American botanic garden. I had to wait a long time to get a photo without a lot of children and adults wanting to sit on the ducks.

USS Constitution

Across the Charles River is the visitor centre for the first Naval warship USS Constitution. George Washington ordered six of these battleships to be built as a navy was essential to the newly founded country. You pass through security check before entering the “Old Ironsides” as it’s nicknamed. In 1812, she fought the British Frigate HMS Guerierre and cannonballs seemed to bounce off as if she was made of iron.

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Naval officers are actively serving at the ship which is still sailing out for events, and when we visited last summer, we were lucky to hear a live choir performance of Christian young people, on board in the Charlestown Naval Yard. I will show you more on this ship in a future post.

In Boston, you can find other walking trails like the Irish Heritage Trail and the Black Heritage Trail.

Historical Boston The Freedom Trail in Boston So much history is available in the city and given to you by posters, signs, buildings, monuments, old churchyards and live actors from the birth of America and the revolutionary days when ”taxation without representation” became unbearable for the colonists in North America.

#Boston #History #The American Revolution #The Cradle of North America #Travelling

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goldeagleprice · 5 years ago

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Finnish Designer Receives COTY Lifetime Achievement Honors

By Thomas Michael

The winner of this year’s Coin of the Year Lifetime Achievement award – Reijo Paavilainen.

This year’s recipient of the Coin of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, Finnish sculptor, coin and medal designer Reijo Paavilainen, actually began his artistic career as a painter. However, Paavilainen quickly moved to a more three-dimensional expression with various aspects of sculpture, one of which is the design of commemorative coins. Mr. Paavilainen is perhaps the only designer to win an overall COTY award for his first coin design, the bold 1985 50 markkaa commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Kalevala, known as the Finnish national epic. One of the most iconic coin designs in modern history, the Kalevala silver 50 markkaa set the standard for use of medallic traditions and style in the design of modern commemorative coinage. Perhaps it was a matter of numismatic tastes finally accepting a long evolution of medallic design making its way into the realm of coin design, but Paavilainen’s Kalevala coin struck a solid chord with collectors.

One the most iconic of all Finnish coin designs, Paavilainen’s classically medallic representation of The Kalevala National Epic won the Coin of the Year Award in 1987.

Paavilainen went on to design more Finnish coins than any other artist, and his coins continued to stretch our imagination and acceptance. Recognition of the beauty in Paavilianen’s work is evidenced in the many international art competitions and over 100 Finnish art competition awards presented to him over his long and storied career.

In 1992, Paavilainen won a COTY Most Artistic award for his 1990 100 markkaa silver commemorative for the 50th Anniversary of the Disabled War Veterans Association of Finland. In 1996, a third Paavilainen coin won the COTY Most Artistic category: the 1994 100 markkaa silver commemorative celebrating the European Athletic Championships. The following year, Paavilianen’s dynamic design for the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations won both the Most Artistic and Best Silver categories of the COTY and went on to win the overall Coin of the Year award, creating another milestone in COTY award tradition. To quote from author Donald Scarinci’s Coin of the Year book, “Paavilainen’s design depicts a stylized dove with olive branch on the obverse. Both the obverse and reverse of the coin use straight lines with part of the central image breaking through. On the obverse, the dove’s wings are stylized to cut a line between the relief and the field. On the reverse, two straight lines forming a triangle against the edge of the coin separate the relief from the field. The curved branch breaks the line.” In my opinion, these are the fine, purposeful and elemental choices that raise the caliber of Paavilainen’s work in coins and medals to a higher level.

We admire the use of straight lines in design elements to divide the devices and fields of this commemorative for the 50th Anniversary of the United nations, struck in 1995.

Paavilainen’s coin designs continue to romance collectors and influence the art of coin design. With over 40 commemorative coin designs to his name, Paavilianen has a very large body of work from which to choose highlights. However, there are four 10 euro silver commemorative coins we should mention here that greatly pleased Paavilianen as well as many modern coin collectors, this author included.

Mikael Agricola, Finnish man of letters, is considered by many to be the Father of Literary Finland. In 2007, a silver 10 euro commemorative honoring Agricola was designed by Paavilainen. It features the facial features of Agricola gazing out from a mass of beautifully orchestrated letters. A quill and pen obverse design completes this bold approach in classic fashion.

The Father of Literary Finland, Mikael Agricola, gazes out at us from his world of letters on this 2007 silver 10 euro commemorative designed by Reijo Paavilainen.

The following year, Paavilainen created a very stylized design for the commemorative silver 10 euro for Mika Waltari, Finnish author of the best-selling novel The Egyptian. Waltari was quite prolific and wrote, in addition to novels: plays, short stories, poetry, film scripts, essays, and even comic strips. Waltari lived and worked in Helsinki from his birth in 1908 until his death in 1979. The coin features classic Egyptian elements but is executed in a flowing and modern artistic style.

Known for his best-selling novel “The Egyptian”, Mika Waltari’s commemorative coin features sleekly executed Egyptian elements created by Reijo Paavilainen.

Minna Canth was a Finnish author and social activist in the area of women’s rights. Far ahead of her time, Canth sought freedom of thought and expression for women in a time when society was fairly closed to that idea. Canth’s strength and public advocacy made her a polarizing figure during her 19th-century life, but she became the first woman to receive her own Flag Day in Finland in 2007. Canth’s Flag Day is, fittingly, directly in line with Finland’s Day of Social Equality. Paavilianen’s design for the Minna Canth silver 10 Euro shows her face, as a half mask peering out at the holder of the coin, as she reminds us of the righteousness of equality for all.

A strong woman and polarizing figure in 19th century Finland, Minna Canth focused her writing on equality and women’s rights. Canth was born in 1844 and died in 1897, but the half mask of Canth in Paavilainen’s coin design continues to express her character and vision perfectly.

In 2011 Paavilainen completed the ultimate work in designing a coin to honor Finish designer, Kaj Franck. One of the most influential figures in the world of design and applied arts, Kaj Franck made items of daily use. He designed them simply, practically and with elegance. Paavilainen’s coin would have to do the same and he achieved this in a classic way, conveying the feel of Franck’s work in both the 2011 silver 10 euro’s design and the coin’s stylized packaging. In many ways, this coin and its carefully crafted packaging initiated a new phase of numismatic acceptance. Just as he did with his 1985 Kalevala 50 markkaa, in ushering in the broad acceptance of medallic tradition in the coin field, with the Kaj Franck commemorative, Paavilainen paved the way for an integrated approach to unifying design and packaging for modern commemoratives.

Every Finnish kitchen displayed the simple elegance of Kaj Franck designs, and Paavilainen brought that feeling through to collectors in this 2011 commemorative coin design.

The post Finnish Designer Receives COTY Lifetime Achievement Honors appeared first on Numismatic News.

#Precious Metals

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anthonywashrosado · 5 years ago

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The Advancement of the Sacred Image of Madonna and Christ in the Italian Renaissance

The sacred image of Madonna and Christ played both a devotional and maternal role in the advancement of Italian Renaissance art. It’s dynamic role in the lives of Renaissance-era devout Christians sustained the generational vitality that has produced modern day, globalized Christianity. A visual aid was required, by the western canon of art, to be mounted within churches; to enable followers to worship Saints and participate in prayer. This was not the same case for Islamic art, since it denounced idolatry of a humanized Prophet. This juxtaposition of iconographic religious ideologies renders all western religious art determinable by western canonical standards, or value judgments. Christianity still demands that its subjects worship objects, created as associative models of the Saint referenced. It was understood that these inanimate objects, whether painting or sculpture or decorative art, were distinct from Mary and the Lord themselves. The general consensus among Christians was that artworks could not hold the power of the holy figure, but contained enough spiritual essence to be used as symbols during prayer. As western art revolutionized in style, technique and form, so did the presentation of Jesus and the Virgin. Specifically, during the Italian Renaissance, advanced and relevant techniques in painterly education, which were lighting, spacing, tone, anatomical proportionality, and three-dimensionality, were implemented to better depict Mary and her Son.

The Annunciation is the precursor to the three most prominent scenes of Madonna and Christ: the birth, presentation, and lamentation. There was ample freedom in recreating the Annunciation because artists in the Renaissance were capable of illustrating diversely imagined scenes of an angel passing the Christian God’s message to Mary. The wealth of options that

artists of this era had to portray the varying elements of this scene were, and are, nearly limitless. Allegories of biblical events were privileged more creativity than factual, or historical, events pertaining to human history. This autonomy was credible only if the three main parts of the story were adequately referenced: the moment before the angel arrives, the message retrieval, and Mary’s inevitable reaction. Simone Martini decided to place the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary on opposite sides of the center of the frame, facing each other in his 1355Annunciation(Figure 1). Gliding over the calla lillies is the quote, “Ave Maria, gratia plena. Dominus tecum.” This Latin phrase translates to, “Greetings, most favored one. The Lord is with thee.” This was the message being passed.

Mary was to carry the son of the Christian God in her womb. She sits, enthroned in a golden seat with intricate floral designs. In her left hand she mirrors the representation of the lilies’ purity by having the bible slightly parted, with her thumb acting as a place-holder for the passage she was reading. Martini effectively captured her in the middle of this holy act. She is dressed in the original blue drapers with detailed insignia on the hems. Mary pulls at the collar of her dress to gesture her surprise and shock. Her counterpart kneels before her, in a golden dress and brown cape with plaid on its interior. The angel’s halo shines and their elegant wings spread skyward. Their head leans forward, as if expressing to the Virgin that they mean her no harm.

Aside from an abstract model of a sun made from birds in the center pointed arch, the space is filled with the curiosity of this angel’s appearance. The spectator can identify Mary’s hesitation. She does not yet comprehend the miracle that the bible claims is bestowed upon her. On either side of the columns that enclose this scene are St. Ansasus, the patron saint of Siena (on the left) and Stu. Julietta (on the right). St. Ansasus stands with his focus on the audience,

with a feather in one hand and staff in the other. He is a direct symbol signifying commitment to Christianity and the holy word. After being secretly baptized by his nurse, St. Ansasus grew to be known as a devout Christian. Though tortured and imprisoned, he culminated a passion for his spiritual practice and preached the word of his Christian God. This persistence resulted in his decapitation by order of Diocletian. St. Julietta similarly maintains her symbolism of pious Christian devotion. She predominantly represents the story of a mother taking pride in her son’s death due to its martyrdom for Christianity. She stands with a cross and a palm leaf. She and her son, Cyricus, were held captive because of their religious denomination. While she was tortured, her son scratched the face of the governor who, in turn, killed Cyricus by throwing the three year old down a flight of steps.

St. Juletta did not immediately mourn the loss of her child. She praised his ability to act in favor of Christianity and his martyrdom. After enduring more brutality at the hands of men, she was beheaded. These Saints could be perceived as precedence for the trials Jesus and Mary confronted. Martini combines these three stories within a Gothic altarpiece. Spiral columns segment the the separate yet united stories. Each arch highlights each Saint and the desire for elevation, which emboldened the aesthetic prowess of the painting. The intricacy of texture and form enabled adoration of these stories, to a degree that arguable surpasses previous depictions of the Annunciation scene. The oval faces of the individuals and frieze poses example the naturalistic mission of human form in early Italian Renaissance art. Later, implementations of detail in the anatomical framework progressed Renaissance artists’ realistic renderings of Madonna and Christ.

In the original story of the birth of Christ, Mary is not in a glorified position nor is there a midwife present to help her in the caretaking of Jesus. The setting, which is of course interchangeable in grandiose paintings, is merely a shed. The actual process of labor is skipped, or not mentioned, in the original version. This presumes Mary did not suffer during childbirth. She stands during labor, to more efficiently produce baby Jesus. Only Joseph is present, presiding as bother her emotional support and creating a cradle for his son out of hay and a saddle. Finally, Mary’s veil is used to wrap and protect her newborn. The Virgin’s position during birth is uncommon because she is not in a lavish setting, as the mother of the Christian God’s son has always been portrayed. The climate is as manipulatable as the shed. Sometimes it is snowing, other times the sun is blazing obvious heat. Their geographic location can agreeably be placed in the middle east. This factor is crucial in determining whether Jesus was melanated, or non-melanated person traveling in the sun for years without a tan to evidence his laborious lifestyle. Nonetheless, a blonde or brunette Jesus is the iconographic visual representation of Christ during the Italian Renaissance and across the western world today.

Artists, like history-tellers of their era, betrayed historicity and exhibited ornate scenery to amplify reverence to the divinity of Christ’s birth. In Giotto’s 1305 Madonna and Child (Figure 2) in the Arena Chapel, the Virgin is placing her son into the arms of her midwife. Albeit damaged due to weathering and other external forces, this fresco still holds true to his painterly language and the prerequisite narrative details for creating this scene. Baby Jesus and his mother look into each other’s eyes. Their halos shimmer a gold that stands out from every red, green, or brown pigment in this piece. A circle is formed within the arms of Mary and the body of baby Jesus, causing a central point that is difficult to detract one’s spectating eyes from. In clothing

incomparable to that of the Virgin’s extravagance, the midwife does not pull focal attention from the holy act she witnesses. The exchange between mother and child reflects an obvious curiosity of the other’s presence, which reads as enticing and visually intriguing. Another word is love; the unconditional kind. The eye of the taurus and beam in the background are two sections of the painting that return the viewer to the main event of the work. In addition, the detailed fabric differs from the texture of the haloes. This makes it difficult for the audience to avoid the stunning embrace of this private and exposed moment. This first image of Madonna and her child has been documented in exceedingly numerous ways. Each artist embellished and exemplified the moment in which Christ was born as a means of properly encapsulating the Christian ideal amongst painters of the same faith.

With the ability to alleviate any immediate dangers, Madonna is today a globally praised Saint. During the Italian Renaissance, works of her would be crowded by religious followers mesmerized by her beauty, symbolic values, and nurturing holy presence. They relied on her for safety, erecting glass-encased sculptures and paintings in cities across Italy. Advancement in the expression of this scene lies in the improvement of three-dimensionality, textural differentiation, and realistic anatomical form. All of these qualities are exampled when comparing Cimabue’s 1280 Virgin and Child Enthroned(Figure 3) and Giotto’s 1310 Ognissanti Madonna(Figure 4). With the same pentagonal frame, the two pieces illustrate Madonna enthroned and presenting the baby Christ seated on her lap. In Cimabue’s version, the Virgin holds Jesus on her left knee and motioning for the spectator to approach him with her right hand. She is surrounded by angels, who are two-dimensionally stacked atop one another. Below her golden throne are four Prophets or Saints, two of which are gazing at the spectator above them.

The serpentine shapes of the throne and drapery construct the outline of the throne and drapery, however the two seem to be on the same plane. Proper dimensionality is evidenced in Giotto’s version, where below Madonna’s feet is a curved portion of the throne which is more reminiscent of an archway than a simple semi-spherical line acting as architecture. Giotto paints a Mary who allows Christ to present himself. She gives him a place to sit and the autonomy to define himself. Although she does not dramatize the importance of his existence, this version grounds this scene’s significance in Christian history; as well as the relationship between mother and child. In terms of anatomical proportionality, it is more overt that Jesus is sitting in Giotto’s painting. This is due to Cimabue’s lack of expertise in constructing form in harmony with three-dimensional shading and foreshortening.

In Ognissanti Madonnathe ripples in her drapery extends to her knees, yet in Virgin and Child Enthronedthe audience can only make out a foot and two knee bumps. The audience can assume it is her left foot, however Cimabue’s greatest feat her was in his exquisite gold leaf installments. The shading within the throne of Giotto’s Madonna has has ample space for her to lean back into if she please. Also, the wings of angels are foreshortened, creating a focal perspective that is realistic for the viewer. Cimabue’s angels are identically stacked, but they are more realistically in a crowd in Giotto’s painting. Not only does there seem to be more of a presentation, Giotto’s angels differ in gender-binary sexes and facial features which displays the authentic diversity of human anatomy. Due to his apperception of spatial awareness, Giotto actualized an image that realistically exhibited Madonna, Christ, and their guests.

Where Cimabue’s scene is cramped into the frame, Giotto’s is a focused snapshot of a detail from a larger picture; with breathing space between objects so the spectator can

competently decipher the painting. This allots the viewers the option of being part of this painted presentation, which can only be said for Giotto’s interpretation. Cimabue’s scene is overcrowded and lacks enough planes to produce three-dimensional realism. In more ways than one, the image of Madonna presenting her child was expressed similarly in most Italian Renaissance art. This included the use of detail, shading, lighting, vibrant colors, symbols, and more techniques to evoke worship via aesthetic excellence.

The trilogy’s final scene is the moment after Christ’s death, Lamentation.To portray the birth or Annunciation, there is free-range regarding the ways in which types of beauty are implemented. However, it is agreed that expressing a still-framed tableau of a mother’s response to the murder of her first-born child, who was killed for the sins of Christians, is far more difficult to accomplish. It is complicated to choose an avenue to aid the viewer in empathizing with Christ and his Sacred Mother, while displaying visceral death. Routes taken spanned from figures with a calm demeanor looked toward a pale and dirtied Christ nailed in stigmata, to a muscular and neoclassical Jesus that is far more picturesque.

Later in the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo constructed an advanced sculpture for St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City: his 1499 Pieta (Figure). He chooses a beautiful moment that is filled with an emotional silence. Madonna sits with her dead child’s limp body splayed on her lap. Her head is bowed, looking not in any specific direction, in deep thought. One arm holds the upper body of Christ from falling, close to her body; her core; her womb. Her other hand extends, yet is still close to her son. This is a moment of inexplicable grief. The position of her hand can be seen as a gesture of mourning because it is not tense nor in motion. It has a peaceful undertone. Further expressing her last act of maternal care, her legs spread to the length of

Christ’s torso. Her right leg rests on a higher portion of the ground, lifting Christ’s frail body. Her draper, though large and magnificent, is cleverly sculpted. A swoop in the fabric emphasized her heightened leg and makes it clear to the viewer that she is supporting her son’s body.

To idolatrize and respect the authenticity of Christ has been a struggle for many Italitan Renaissance artists who attempted Lamentation. Michelangelo returns Jesus to the place from whence he came, which cycles the spectator from the final to the first of the three sacred images of Madonna and Christ. He carved Jesus into a realistic form that portrayed the beauty of Christ the individual and the starvation that kills any human body. Christ’s head hangs past Mary’s elbow, released of all tension of his no-longer-living body. This is how a dead head would hang without support to the rear of one’s skull. The skin on Christ’s right underarm is pinched upward, responding to the position he is held in and decaying process of his body. Pietaproves, even in death, the bond between a mother and her child is identifiably powerful.

Michelangelo chose an instance of silent realization for Madonna. She tenderly comforts the body of a son who died for the sins of Pieta’s Christian viewers. This new approach, opposite of the exaggerated gestures of sorrow and pain in previous interpretations, is utilized to help the audience sympathize with both figures. The skill and emotionality of Pietareflects the advancement of Italian Renaissance art, which was built upon the foundation of earlierartist who discovered while exploring new methods and styles. The Italian Renaissance gave way to generations of artists that would both teach and influence one another in various ways to successfully mend their effectivity regarding narrative coherence. The sacred image of Madonna and Christ developed via artists who tampered with medium, space, form, expression, levels, three-dimensionality, anatomical proportionality, lighting, shadow, texture, and setting; to teach

uneducated Christians and remind the devoted of the emotional factors pertinent to Christ’s birth, life, and sacrifice.

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paige-s-pages · 5 years ago

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“AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Delicate and dainty, Queen Anne’s Lace is a popular pick for wedding bouquets — but the white flower also has a long history as a naturally occurring contraceptive. The alleged power of its seeds, when chewed and ingested, to prevent pregnancy after sex, are recorded in ancient writings by Hippocrates to Pliny the Elder to physicians like Pedanius Dioscorides and Scribonius Largus, as historian John M. Riddle chronicles in his book on herbal abortifacients, Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Yet, to turn to these oil-filled pips — or to many of these natural remedies — is to take a risk, as they are, to this day, experimental treatments.

The complicated, at times ugly, histories of plants used in the West for both birth control and increased fertility is revisited with unexpected beauty and simplicity in jane says, an ongoing series by New Zealand photographer Ann Shelton. Drawing largely from Riddle’s tome, Shelton selected about a dozen living specimens, arranged each one in separate vases in the style of Japanese ikebana (with other plants), and photographed the sculptural bouquets against an array of colorful backdrops.

The resulting prints are currently on view at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki as part of Shelton’s retrospective, Dark Matter. Curated by Zara Stanhope, the exhibition centers on series that explore themes from trauma to female authorship through photos that often conflate fact and fiction. jane saysis one of the most startling works, seemingly innocuous at first glance, like Taryn Simon’s similarly vivid replicas of floral arrangements at diplomacy talks. Enlarged, Shelton’s photographs hang as monuments to narratives largely forgotten, overlooked, or excluded from the canon of Western medicine. Most people are unlikely to look at a cluster of ginger, quirkily tucked in a low pot, for instance, and immediately think, “period inducer!”

The series doesn’t take a hard and clear stance on abortions rights, but it highlights nagging issues of control at the root of these herbal regimes. Shelton’s reference to ikebana, which she learned over a few months, is fitting, with the rigid and purposeful intertwining of stems, twigs, and buds serving as a poetic metaphor for the unseen agencies over human bodies these plants purportedly assert — an extension of the control women have taken over their own livelihoods. However, the striking images beg the question of why women turned to these herbal treatments. Did they attempt these remedies because they had freedom to choose, or were these their only options? Control, of course, is also exercised through the suppression of freedoms.

Shelton herself is asserting control within the discourse of contraception, which men have long dominated — as evidenced by the aforementioned ancient thinkers — and still do. Literally taking these plants into her own hands, she first sources them from sites near her home before carefully arranging them to photograph. The process for each could take days, involving careful nurture of the plants. The final, highly constructed images are the product of female authorship, of determined management of unregulated specimens that may serve as a woman’s only solution. Photographed at the peak of life, the bouquets embody both the enhanced fertility some seek, but they also allude to desired termination — the gathered flora all eventually withered and are now long dead.

Bodies are absent in jane says, with Shelton instead relying on language to address the power dynamics surrounding the culture of abortifacients. Its title arrives from the 1988 song by Jane’s Addiction, which addresses problematic, haunting drug use. But “jane says“ more simply presents the series as an amplifier of women’s voices, with “Jane” serving as a placeholder name for those anonymous individuals who grapple with issues of conception. The two words equate to a demand, suggestive of women who claim the right of ownership of their bodies no matter their diverse stories.

The titles of the individual photographs not so subtly showcase the menacing responses to this seizing of charge. Bestowed names such as “The Vixen,” “The Hysteric,” “The Comfort Woman,” and “The Courtesan,” they remind of the variety of stigmas through history often attached to women who seek both fertility treatments and birth control. Following each diminutive is the featured plant’s more sterile, Latin name. Reading this combination of fiction and fact transforms each arrangement into an organism with personality, photographed as if for a studio portrait. Shelton leaves us with the choice to either sympathize or condemn.

The images themselves don’t offer clues to each plant’s specific medicinal powers, but visitors can take away a poster filled with quotations about abortifacients Shelton collected over the course of her research. Besides Riddle, she also consulted literature by women, including Margaret Sparrow, a leading advocate of women’s reproductive rights in New Zealand; by historian Londa Schiebinger; and by herbalist Susun S. Weed. Their writings reveal how Quinault Indians consumed an infusion of pompom-like thistles, captured in Shelton’s photo, “The Child Bride,” to induce temporary sterility; how Māori would boil the leaves of native poroporo, featured in “The Courtesan,” and drink the broth as a contraceptive. Some quotes touch upon plants Shelton has not photographed, like the peacock flower (flos pavonis), whose seeds African slaves and Indians in Dutch-colonized Surinam once used to prevent pregnancy. Many of these sentences were spoken by two women during an accompanying performance, “The physical garden,” which was enacted a number of times throughout the exhibition’s run.

Although Shelton’s research is based on historic usages of these plants, her arrangements are uprooted from the past and presented as contemporary, living bouquets. It’s impossible to view them and not consider the discourse around these treatments in today’s age, particularly those that may be used as contraceptives. Women around the world continue to fight for control over of their reproductive rights: in New Zealand, abortion remains criminalized by law, which sets aside an exception for the procedure if approved by two certified consultants; for those of us in the United States, we’re witnessing threats to essential health service organizations like Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, interest in herbal alternatives to terminating pregnancy is currently on the rise, facilitated by online guides such as Sister Zeus, which features instructions on using herbs as emmenagogues or fertility boosters (along with plenty of disclaimers). The question of the past lingers, but with a telling tack-on: why are women resorting to long-debated means of abortion, when we now have scientifically approved, modern medical solutions?

As Shelton learned firsthand, acquiring these plants isn’t exactly easy. Her arrangements are limited to the plants she could find in her home region; at times, she used a stand-in specimen from the same botanic family. Of course, the internet eases our ability to procure these herbs. But jane says raises pertinent concerns about limits to access. Making a selection of these ancient plant remedies visible today, the series reminds that laws that limit abortion do not eliminate the need for one and instead make the procedure more dangerous. Mesmerizing to behold, the elegant floral works are like artworks in multi-hued vacuums, and they subtly send the same warning message: look, but don’t touch.

Voon, Claire, Hakim Bishara, Laura Raicovich, Jasmine Weber, Hrag Vartanian, and Ilene Dube. “Bouquets Highlight Plants Used to Control Women's Reproductive Health.” Hyperallergic, April 13, 2018. https://hyperallergic.com/370164/eves-herbs-a-history-of-contraception-and-abortion-in-the-we/.

#jane says

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micaramel · 6 years ago

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Artist: Jasmin Werner

Venue: Kunstverein Braunschweig

Exhibition Title: The Wheel of Life

Curated By: Miriam Bettin

Date: December 8, 2018 – February 17, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Kunstverein Braunschweig

Press Release:

Under the title The Wheel of Life Jasmin Werner will present a selection of new works in the Remise of the Kunstverein Braunschweig. In her sculptures and installations the artist brings together symbols, rituals, and ambivalences from culture, religion, and sexuality in self-designed (reference) systems. The result is a subtle and ambiguous game of codes: disguise and desire, innocence and sin, eternal youth and mortality, rise and fall. The iconologically charged stairway serves as her leitmotif here. Drawing on the tradition of the stairway as an element of prestige and distinction in architecture, Jasmin Werner’s modular systems of aluminium and threaded rods symbolise wobbly career ladders, individual life plans, and social status.

Jasmin Werner’s research into the symbolism and cultural history of the stairway led her to the field of scalalogy [German: Scalalogie] and its founder Professor Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Mielke. The Friedrich-Mielke-Institut für Scalalogie at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg is devoted to research and teaching in all areas that are technologically, artistically, literarily, philosophically, historically, or otherwise intellectually concerned with the stairs of our world. The institute presides over a unique and internationally renowned collection of original stairway components as well as numerous models of designs and stairways that have been realized in varying dimensions and materials. Jasmin Werner integrates a selection of these architectural models into the exhibition: modified conveyor belts, seemingly unstable escalators and conveyors made of stamp rolls on which the individual stairway models are presented as part of a production cycle. At its end: a neo-liberal platitude slogan printed on t-shirts. “You were born an original, don’t die a copy” recalls a factory of desires and dreams where everything seems possible, namely contemporary capitalism, in which newly won freedoms consist of an abundance of possibilities and culminate in a self-centered drive for personal fulfilment.

Jasmin Werner’s Ambivalent Escalator (Sanssouci) and Ambivalent Escalator (Beim Laufen die Schuhe besohlen) are continuations of her Ambivalent Ladder series from 2017. Combined with stairway elements, the conveyor belts, a technology that has been used to transport goods since the industrial era, have been transformed into non-functional escalators. These rolling stairs were developed as a way of transporting people towards the end of the 19th century and soon became common in shopping centers and subway stations, which were supposed to stimulate the economy. The mechanic noises of the conveyor belts on the Remise’s ground floor are mixed together with the accompanying soundwork Stepping Sequence by Bradley Davies.

The rollers in The Frightened Gods Of Fortune, Cylindrical Stamps quote early cylindrical seals. According to tradition, these were the major kind of seal in the Middle East. The representations engraved into the cylindrical seal’s lateral surface are important iconographic sources. They show battle scenes between humans and animals, demonstrating the strength and superiority of their owners. Jasmin Werner has converted the seal into stamps, which appear as part of the conveyor belt and as stamp prints in the exhibition (The Frightened Gods Of Fortune, Conveyor Belt). Mounted to the walls vertically, they thus become prayer wheels (The Frightened Gods Of Fortune, Prayer Wheel I + II). This series of works draws on Robert Rauschenberg’s eponymous work from 1981.

The Wheel of Life promises a life in perfect balance. In guidebooks, it often appears as a graphic tool for self-optimization, whereas in Buddhism this depiction presents elaborate symbolic images of the different stages of life, from birth to reincarnation. The exhibition creates a portrait of the subject of capitalism, searching for happiness, freedom, and success somewhere between consumption, creativity, and spirituality, between competition and self-actualization.

SCALALOGIA

On the occasion of the exhibition, a catalog will be published by the Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König in cooperation with the Friedrich-Mielke-Institut für Scalalogie. Drawing on the format of the book series “Scalalogia – Schriften zur internationalen Treppenforschung” [“Scalalogia –Writings on International Stairway Research”], which was published in 20 volumes in total by Friedrich Mielke, the exhibition catalog will include installation views, photographs of single works, and texts that deal with aspects regarding the history of art and architecture in Jasmin Werner’spractice as well as images and descriptions of the architectural models on view.

With contributions by Miriam Bettin (Kunstverein Braunschweig), Philipp Kleinmichel (Zeppelin Universität), Harry Thorne (Associate editor, frieze), Sophie Schlosser (Friedrich-Mielke-Institut für Scalalogie), Chloe Stead (Freelance writer and critic).

Jasmin Werner (*1987 in Troisdorf) lives and works in Cologne. In 2016 she completed her studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Her works have been shown in solo exhibitions at Gillmeier Rech, Berlin (2017), M.I / mi1glissé, Berlin (2016), and RM, Auckland (2014) as well as in group exhibitions at Braunsfelder, Cologne (2018), Saloon, Brussels (2018), and the Folkwang Museum, Essen (2017). In 2017, Jasmin Werner completed a residency at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul. The presentation in the Remise at the Kunstverein Braunschweig is the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition.

Link: Jasmin Werner at Kunstverein Braunschweig

Contemporary Art Daily is produced by Contemporary Art Group, a not-for-profit organization. We rely on our audience to help fund the publication of exhibitions that show up in this RSS feed. Please consider supporting us by making a donation today.

from Contemporary Art Daily http://bit.ly/2GBqwgd

#micaramel

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gambinijournal · 6 years ago

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The History and Theory of art as Method

Thomas Struth,

Art Institute of Chicago 2, Chicago 1990

The nineteenth century was a very interesting period of many changes where the art become public, photography was born and there was also Industrial Revolution. Those three events/ innovations were relevant to each other and connect together. Art becomes public, many people have an access to the newly built museums and galleries. The viewers could study paintings and admire sculptures, the general knowledge of the society grows with the new experience.

As not everyone had opportunities to own a painting or to be a sculptor there was a need to produce a visual image more simply, cheaper and quicker way than traditional craft trade. Some painting and sculptures were finished after good few years since the artist started. As I said there was a need to innovate something what could speed up the process of making an image. Photography was born. A black box full of magic where you can produce a copy of reality in few hours at the beginning. Photography from Greek means “drawing with light” so why photographs were not considered as an art but more as a scientific experiment? As at first scientists were trying create durable images by recording light on photographic film or paper. The Industrial Revolution allowed the scientist experiment on new chemicals and minerals. Those experiments did not have anything to do with art. So how come the argument raised up about photography to be considered as one of the mediums of Art. At the beginning of twentieth century nearly everyone in western world could afford portable box which records the moments. A larger knowledge of art, access to the camera and daily work in the factory for instance created that unusual observer/ watcher who is able to catch a fracture of the second on the paper and produce pretty realistic image. As photography was more accessible to average person some of the artists went to explore this medium in art-ish way.

With birth of the photography the argument arises regarding relation of photography to the art and how artists adapt themselves to the situation. Some of the painters collaborated with a new medium some of them become photographers and some of them said NO to the photography as a acceptation of the medium in art. I would like to quote David Bate from from his book “Art Photography”:

“When Daguerre submitted his invention to the French government, a committee of artists, led by the painter Paul Delaroche, were asked to report on its potential uses, including its artistic value. Several painters - Thomas Couture, Jean-Francois Millet and Charles Daubigny - then students with Delaroche, immediately took up photography, although their fame is now for their contributions to painting. Delaroche concluded that photography ’has rendered in immense service to the arts’, although it has never been very clear exactly what this service was. Some imagined - and perhaps still do - that photography would be simply an aid to art, for artists to reproduce paintings and record exhibitions, or to help make preliminary preparations for artworks. Later many others had a more radical vision that art would be usurped by photography because of its speed and veracity, and for its apparent democratic accessibility.”

Sitting here now in the library writing this text and read about how this medium settles in within an art I have to admit that Photography did take over the Art and not only. First the photograph was used as a meta-archive to record physical private collections, cameras were recording events and exhibitions. Portraiture, landscape, evidence we have a photograph as The Art its own hanged on the wall of the galleries. The mass production of images allowed people to see places, paintings and sculpture without leaving the house. In “Photography as Art” Volker Kahmen says: “...the photograph, and not only the reproduction of a painting, has found its niche - first and foremost in the book, secondly in the touring exhibition. This shift in function shook art, freed it from its fundamental cultural principles and removed its veneer of autonomy.”

Photography spread like some sort of disease to many different branches of communication such as newspapers, photo books, social media, advertising, it has been heavily used in propaganda and has a huge impact on mass culture and social behaviour. At some point the medium loses the first function of copying/represents the reality and goes into something more complex. The beautification issue within aesthetics and what should be considered as Art photography or Photography considered as Art. What is the criteria for photography within art? It should be also considered that not all photographs were made in purpose to be hanged on the white wall of the gallery. For instance Eugene Atget work highlighted by Berenice Abbott and surrealists movement. Artists gave us an opportunity to look at those photographs different way than just a record of old Paris before redevelopment. The study of Atget’s work were focused on aesthetics, architecture, surreal approach to the subject and dual understanding between reality and dream.

There is no clear and straightforward answers about relation within art and photography. Both have impact on each other, photography can influence the art and art can influence photography. In my opinion this relationship in addition with painting and art installations give to the artist freedom and autonomy to express him/herself in creative way. The photography is very much in central of contemporary debates in art.

#5imag016w #journal task #art history #art photography #Eugene Atget #beyondtheframe #advanced methods #westminsteruniversity #BAPhotography #reflective text #photography as art #art as photography #furtherresearch #art theory

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fifthimageart · 6 years ago

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Thesis Introduction/Chapter I - Draft II

Bloom & Decay:Beyond Opulence aka.Toward a Fetish for Destruction

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Introduction

In writing on the Destruction of Art Symposium, which was a month-long symposium focused on the exhibition of destructive works that took place in 1966 London, Kristine Stiles describes Destruction in art as not being the same as destruction of art. Moreover, went on to write that the destruction in art addresses the negative aspects of both social and political institutions, and manifests as an attack on the traditional identity of the visual arts themselves (ks). While these artists were responding to their overarching philosophies of destruction in the form of ephemeral art object and performance based works, there never was an established movement nor manifesto solidifying the practice. While the symposium itself was formulated by the artist Gustav Metzger, who coined the term ‘Auto-Destructive Art’ seven years prior, it would seem final meditations of both destruction and decay as being separate from any particular cannon following the month-long event would end there.

Embracing the passing of time and it’s inherent destructive nature, as now memories and their icons are left to decay and new found freedom to bloom into the unrecognizable, Post-Opulence aims to reveal the contemporary mimesis of permanence as nothing more than shadowy reflections of a luxurious modern projection of both the ideal and iconic state. In practice, it creates deep afflictions and inaccessibility to a conventional aesthetic, through variable acts of destruction toward the art object. Post-Opulence highlights power invested in a sought idealized form, to then create struggle over the former iconic object through its breaking, burning, and eventual revelation of new bloom. Additionally, makes reference to both actions and signals of changed circumstance & time, as all eventually fades again into nothingness.

In our own western cannon, following the end of World War II, iconoclasm via the abstract form became the predominant means of cultural expression within a mass episode of cultural forgetting within the western world, in that there were no means of both accurately confronting and aestheticizing the horrors of the post-war world that remained grounded in it’s reality and truth. In the destruction of recognizable imagery In favor of the abstract form, reality was even further removed and that unpleasantness successfully buried. This brings to question the role of the Icon in relationship to our visual memory, and how the representation of our realities are chosen, with history and its sediments being presented to us as abstract entities that reject the creation of concrete memory. As the physical presence of Icons manifest, transform, and are replaced over time, truth and origin destroyed as they are given new rendering and context. In terms of the destroyed icon/object, questions in regard to a distant history should be contextualized again as a sense of excitement of mysteries to be solved, as well as answers to be found. As acts of destruction are not registered in the same way of those of traditional (commercial) production, Iconoclasm stems from the situational and the variable, where there is no belief in proscribed image. Take for example the earlier burial practices of Mayan sculpture*, when people would continue to engage with sculptures after they were both made and broken by foreign forces. As attackers would destroy them as a means of attacking ideology though the breaking of icon, the community would then salvage and reclaim what remained to use as building material for new offerings, structures, or other sculptures. (I,I) (I,III)

The visual experience should not be reinforced to seek the supplementation of images and icons, but rather embrace the decay of them as concrete evidences of what was. Moreover, carry the sediments of said decay into new forms of linear narrative. While representation is inherently untruthful as an imitation of reality, Modernist ideology called for the delusion of it and is thus much more dangerous. Where the physicality of the made form is a manifestation of tangible truth, Paintings color the texture of the mind. To quote Harold Rosenberg, “Art as action rests on the enormous assumption that the artist accepts as real only that which he is in the process of creating*”. In what could’ve been unknowingly hinted by him at the time, was the potential for narcissism in self-referential types of art that creates a volatile iconization of itself. (I,II)

Referring back to to Auto-Destructive Art, it found manifestation (or lack thereof) not only in the physical practice of destroying works, but also by means of the manifesto/lecture format. Much like Post-Opulence, acting somewhat beyond a means of a self-authoritative artistic practice, Auto-Destructive Art worked as a synthesis of the aesthetic values of destruction, and the performative aspects of public/collective engagement. Specifically to Post-Opulence, the lecture/manifesto takes form in events which I’ve come to call ‘burnings’, in which art is taken, completely burned, and the remains both distributed and left to their next incarnation. The burnings have manifested as a social form of catharsis and community building, with the focal point being this intention and draw to a process of destruction. Here, Post-Opulence begins to integrate the art and social practice, into a celebration of the post-apocalyptic and aestheticization of the decaying form. ‘What is needed is not a definition of meaningful imagery but the development of our perceptive potentialities to accept and utilize the continual enrichment of visual material.’ - Richard Hamilton (Group 2: Richard hamilton, John McHale and John Voelcker), ‘Are they Cultured?’, in This is Tomorrow, ed Theo Crosby, Whitechapel Art Gallery/Whitefriars Press, London, 1956, unpaginated* Where Auto-Destructive Art and Post-Opulence splits, is the intention in the embodiment of a specific set of ethical and political ideals. Where the theory of Auto-Destructive Art was an attack on the capitalist art market through an art lacking material form, Post-Opulence is rather a rejection of the idealized state of material form, as well as an attack on the notions of iconization through similarly problematic traditional gallery systems. Additionally, there are three key notions within the manifestos of auto-destructive art that I recognize as being problematic. First, Auto-Destructive Art lacked any type of grounded history, to the extent that reproduction of the first manifesto in the second edition was used as a ploy in which to validate the movement. In contrast, Post-Opulence takes into account the conceptual history of the destructive process/destruction of object outside of the narrowed scope of any contemporary practice and the singular western canon as a whole. Secondly, in the second manifesto it is the stated intention of Auto-Destructive Art to reflect the power ‘man’ has over nature. Within Post-Opulence, the relationship between maker and these natural and chaotic forces is innately symbiotic. Lastly, the work of Auto-Destructive Art began to be defined by its political motivation, and thus created icon and symbolic metaphor. These, being the conceptual and ideological frameworks that Post-Opulence aims to destroy & transcend. (II,I) *Expand

Chapter I: Root/Relevant Philosophies and Theories - Post Opulence

There’s something interesting about the ways in which both new (or rather transformed) object and form, inadvertently manifest from the functional object left to the mercy of both time and the space. Looking at city streets and various attempts at a particular idealized design or outcome, there are moments in which de/composition is inherently born, though perceived as negative moments of degradation & incompletion. In terms of Post-Opulence, what if the ways of viewing such things were radically shifted? For example, through the scope of Post-Opulence, the construction site wall becomes a completely autonomous, and more importantly anonymous, social practice of creation through destruction of an original idealized state. Moreover, the unintentional care of the graffitied and clearly long-since weathered billboard.

(Not Pictured)

These moments, seemingly about nothing, are sediments of our own daily rituals over time. Moreover, are an example of the ways in which we engage with what is left.

Post-Opulence meditates on comprehensive aesthetic systems, and refers back to the fundamentals of both the physical and metaphysical in acknowledgement of absolute reality that all things are in a state of decay, to eventually fade and thus become nothingness. Moreover, that it’s from that nothingness that revelations of the infinite potential for new and transformed aesthetic experience of the real is only then possible. As we view decay as being dark, morbid, spoiled, or fleeting, it is an equal element in an interlocked relationship to the perception of bloom as being lighter and louder in terms of having the idealized texture of vitality.This, being an allegory for the treatment of the art object, space, and contemporary icon, as we operate in a means in which to preserve longevity and a holding onto the opulent form.

#Post Opulence

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theeprogression · 7 years ago

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A Guardian at the Gates of Harlem

Naqi Cruz

October 6th 2017

A Guardian at the Gates of Harlem

Black America is in the process of reevaluation, conducting a critical analysis of its existence. It is not an unprecedented phenomenon for us to experience this state of mass reflection. We have replicated it throughout the generations. It is a necessary evolutionary experience that leads to organized action such as Abolitionism, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and even today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement. Furthermore, there’s a correlation between our mass reevaluation and the occurrence of once seemingly unfathomable revelations about the American ethos, the condition of humanity and Black identity. From these revelations come targeted organized action, a natural progression. So it should be no surprise we are casting a critical gaze upon the symbols of white supremacy so blatantly apparent in our society, such as certain flags and monuments. This is a noble and absolutely necessary endeavor. Nonetheless, it is also important to appreciate artworks that pay tribute to the progress of Black America. This past September, I chose to evaluate the form and content of the Frederick Douglass Memorial in what I once considered the Southern border of West Harlem in New York City. This memorial symbolizes Black perseverance overcoming detrimental circumstances.

I discovered this memorial in the summer of 2010, the year it was constructed. The six year anniversary of the site’s official dedication was on September 20th, 2017. I cannot thank sculptor Gabriel Koren and designer Algernon Miller enough for this priceless work of art. The entire memorial sits atop a traffic circle surrounded by residential buildings, specifically located on Central Park North and Frederick Douglass Blvd. (West 110th street and 8th Avenue). The bronze sculpture of Frederick Douglass is considered to be of “heroic scale” according to its official description. However, it is of relatively modest size compared to its Central Park South-Columbus Circle counterpart. That is, the memorial site and statue itself is much less grand than the Christopher Columbus monolith that dominates Columbus Circle, just a few miles south of the Douglass memorial. The seventy-six foot Columbus construct dwarfs the eight foot Douglass statue. Although they are two separate works, their scale ratio is symbolic. The Columbus statue towers over the affluent traffic circle, surrounded by high end retailers, corporate giants like Time Warner and even President Donald Trump’s International Hotel. It is fitting the Columbus monolith is located among a concertation of phalli named after the pirate himself. Relative to other statues of notable leaders, one could argue the Columbus monolith projects a scaled hierarchal concept. This glaring inconsistency becomes more obvious when one contemplates the individuals' merits and experiences in the context of their era and circumstance. Christopher Columbus is infamous for spending the better years of his life orchestrating the oppression of others and pillaging their native lands. Mr. Douglass on the other hand experienced unfathomable hardships throughout his life-long battle to rid himself and others of oppression, an oppression birthed in the superiority complexities like “Manifest Destiny.” As the case with the majority of Black Americans in the early 1800s, Mr. Douglass was born into slavery and raised not to know his heritage. Illiteracy, malnutrition and bodily harm are but a few of the affects caused by enslavement he endured. He ultimately seized his freedom and became magnificently successful in spite of unparalleled physical and psychological oppression. Undeniably the Frederick Douglass memorial symbolizes much more than the amount of construction materials used or land allotted for the project. It is a portrayal of his intellect, perseverance and honor. Three ideals Douglass upheld while withstanding several adversarial ideologies. He was subjected to systematic psychological oppression and overcame it. Such comprehensive oppressive ideology produces violent manifestations like slavery and the Jim Crow laws. This memorial signifies our powerful heritage and the protracted war of Black Americans to protect our heritage.

The three-dimensional bronze Douglass sculpture is in a naturalistic style despite being increased in scale to eight feet. The surface is smooth to the touch. It is flanked by geometrical cubic and triangular blocks made of granite and a bronze fountain wall complete with flowing water (all of which are three-dimensional constructions). Mr. Douglass’ facial expression can be described as hardened. His gaze is aimed northward up Fredrick Douglass Blvd, overlooking Harlem, like a lighthouse overlooking its harbor. The free-standing Douglass sculpture is leaning slightly more on his left leg with his left arm relaxed. His right hand is resting firmly on a lectern, he was a renaissance man and a noteworthy orator.

The memorial consists of two-dimensional aspects as well. A constellation of stars depicting the Big Dipper and the North Star are engraved along the fountain wall. These inscriptions represent the stars that were utilized as navigational tools to reach the Underground Railroad, the elaborate network of secret routes and safe houses organized by revolutionaries, abolitionists, and humanitarians so slaves could escape bondage and seize their freedom. The written words are another aspect of two-dimensionality and are engraved on the memorial. These words are actual quotes from Fredrick Douglass himself! Many of them express powerful ideals with letters all capitalized such as, “RIGHT IS OF NO SEX – TRUTH IS OF NO COLOR…” part of the motto for a weekly paper he published called The North Star.

This memorial and the life of Fredrick Douglass are invaluable testaments. Still, almost 200 years since the birth of Frederick Douglass in 1818, America still struggles with achieving equal rights and enforcing justice. Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, activist, orator, writer, publisher, and statesmen among many things. He would have been an enemy to someone like Columbus. The pioneering actions of Mr. Douglass are prime examples of so-called American values. As a leading forefather not only in advocating for Black people, but on behalf of advancing the rights of women and the preservation of the union through his consultations with President Lincoln, Frederick Douglass is among those who dedicated their lives to the multifaceted battle for collective emancipation of body and mind. This can seldom be compared. This battle is one Black people around the world still struggle with today and this memorial represents the infinite potential one can conjure even in the face of the bleakest circumstances.

#BLM #blackHistory #ows #frederick douglass #abolotionist #art #memorial #Harlem #New York City

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ramadavaranasikatesar · 3 years ago

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As history Quotes that Varanasi was the Capital of the Kingdom of Kashi

One of the oldest living cities in the world, lying on the banks of the holy River Ganga breathes Varanasi. For centuries, the mystic of this place has been attracting pilgrims from across India as well as abroad for the serenity and the holiness of the city. The city is dwelling for ancient domes, ashrams, priests, narrow lanes with shops filled with Benarasi sarees. Varanasi represents the colourful and fascinating India. The city hits nostalgia in terms of street food and is famous for silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.

As the city offers rejuvenating experiences and breathes purity, one can definitely experience the state of nirvana. Explore the city’s rawness with Ramada Varanasi Katesar by Wyndham. After marking its grand presence in over 95 countries, Ramada Varanasi Katesar situated near Ganga Ghat provides you the ultimate comfort and premium experiences. The hotel is situated near to a mere distance of just 7.5 Km from Ganga Ghat and 10.6 Km from Varanasi Railway Station. This is the perfect place to enjoy luxurious services and amenities along with the beautiful and serene landscape of the surrounding area. Ramada Varanasi Katesar is sure to become your perfect getaway in Varanasi.

So what’s all in the neighborhood of Ramada Varanasi Katesar?

One should not miss watching the evening Aarti on the Dasawamedh Ghat. and the boat ride along the Ganga River offers the quintessential Varanasi experience. It takes one through different Ghats and former palaces, giving a full tour of the area. Apart from this one can relish an evening or a morning walk along the Ghats. The vibe of these ghats is extremely peaceful. A guided half-day Sarnath Car tour from Varanasi with a local in AC Car is a must in one’s itinerary. During this journey, one can get an in-depth introduction to the world-renowned Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddha is believed to have given his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. Explore multiple local sites of interest, including the Sarnath Archeological Museum and Chaukhandi Stupa Varanasi is famous for various temples, however, Kashi Vishwanath temple is one of the most famous temples in Varanasi. The Temple stands on the western bank of the holy river Ganga and is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the holiest of Shiva Temples.

One of the world’s oldest civilizations, an all-embracing confluence of religions, traditions and customs. The highlights of Varanasi lie in the treasure of its ghats, silk sarees, food, art, streets and most importantly its people. Unwind your mind and soul with a luxurious stay and comfort. Relish it all with Ramada Varanasi Katesar where premium services and delightful delicacies are waiting for you all.

#Ramada Varanasi Katesar #best Indian restaurants in Varanasi

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nofomoartworld · 7 years ago

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Hyperallergic: From the KKK to Darfur, Reflecting on Evil as a Deliberate Act

Evil: A Matter of Intent at Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, installation view (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

MIAMI — A new exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, Evil: A Matter of Intent, examines the exigencies of cruelty — what it takes to create it and the methodology that allows it to exist. Evil is not, the artists here purport, something intrinsic to humanity, not by birth, anyway. Acts of evil are deliberate. Evil is a choice.

Before traveling here, this exhibition was previously at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion. There, it didn’t include the blood-red KKK King Kleagle robe, a kind of pièce de résistance for the Miami show. King Kleagles oversee a given geographic area of the Klan and are responsible for recruiting new Klansmen, and this particular robe, from the 1940s, comes at an unnerving time, on the heels of the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville.

Evil: A Matter of Intent at Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, installation view

When I was very young, the KKK were my biggest fear, both because of who they targeted and the mythological quality of their symbolism — it seemed childishly bold to set representations of Jesus aflame, as if Jesus would approve. It was as if they’d do anything to justify their hatred and, as Evil reveals, my childhood assumptions were correct. A weapon accompanies the robe: a literal stick of wood carved into sharp points, its user part resourceful Boy Scout and part warmonger. Evil is easy to carry out, so long as the perpetrator is determined. Even a stick will do.

The rest of the exhibition is huge, with more than 70 works (painting, sculptural pieces, photographs, ephemera) from 1940 to the present, with each addressing evil in its various incarnations: racism, abuse, slavery, rape, murder, acts of terrorism, systemic violence, and the destruction of cultural heritage. There’s a poster for the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, circa 1918, regarding the Armenian genocide in Turkey. The poster reads “LEST WE PERISH” and an accompanying plaque notes that it’s still illegal to discuss the World War I-era massacre of Armenians.

Children’s drawings collected from refugee camps in Chad (by organization Waging Peace) depict the genocide of non-Arab, black Africans in Darfur. Homes rendered in crayon burst into flames; soldiers shaded with colored pencil shoot at the bodies of running passerby. The child artists are named and quoted; a girl named Aisha says, “It is very kind to send us food, but this is Africa and we are used to being hungry. What I ask is that you please take the guns away from the people who are killing us.”

Evil: A Matter of Intent at Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, installation view

Sometimes evil is less obvious than the murder of children; it can be systemic and hidden, and Hedy Pagremanski’s pencil drawings of homeless New Yorkers portray them as victims of a system that allows the mentally ill, those who’ve lost their homes to unaffordable housing, and war veterans to end up on the street. Other sorts of evil are more insidious and subtle. Trix Rosen’s “SIN STREET,” a sendup of a pulp fiction film poster, reads “THE BEAUTIFUL BRUNETTE HAS A FACE AND FIGURE THAT COULD LEAD A MAN … TO MURDER,” implying that women’s sexuality is itself guileful.

Women are common victims in Evil. Steps away from the KKK robe is a cluster of delicate silk belts by Andi Arnovitz, each stamped with quotes by women who’ve suffered domestic abuse. Titled “Beaten out of Them,” they come in an array of colors. The red belts feature quotes by women who are no longer alive. One reads, “surviving the violence was easy, he didn’t want to kill me,” which is unsurprising enough to still be nausea-inducing.

Andi Arnovitz “Beaten out of Them” (2013) (detail), silk, buckles, grommets

Global or universal examples of evil are useful, but an American exhibit ought to be self-reflective. Luckily, it is. Leonard Meiselman’s oil painting, “Hiroshima, a Child’s Shirt,” is a reminder of our own government’s role in these sorts of atrocities. Faith Ringgold’s seemingly cheerful lithograph, “Here Comes Moses,” is bright and primary-colored, featuring a young slave making his way toward “freedom” (a house on his path is literally emblazoned with the word). Text surrounds the print: “Aunt Emmy said he’d find us one day … He lost his mother and father on the way. ‘They’ll never find me in this storm but we will all find freedom. God willing. We were born to be free. I will never give up,’ said Moses.”

Evil: A Matter of Intent at Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, installation view

The age-old question of evil is brought to task, too: How are we implicated? It would feel unproductive (though admittedly cathartic) to display cruelty as cruelty, a thing that simply exists. Jacqueline Nicholls’ “Who Is Righteous?,” part of a series in which she draws one page of the Talmud each day, draws upon page 55 . Here, it is said that the righteous will be branded with a tav (the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet) in ink, and the wicked with the same letter in blood. But who is truly righteous, asks God’s attribute of justice, if they cannot prevent wickedness in the first place? Who is without sin? Ben Shahn’s lithograph, “Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By,” illustrates the Biblical quote Elie Weisel often called upon — Leviticus’s “Though shalt not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” The blind eye turned to evil, this kind of denial, is mentioned throughout the exhibition as evil’s potential equal.

There is a great deal of honesty in Evil, particularly in its assertion that atrocity is rooted in both a fear of the other and a need for power. That said, I do wish that, given the exhibition’s placement in the Jewish Museum, there had been work contending with the state of affairs in Israel and Palestine.

The museum is housed in two former synagogues that once served as the first Jewish congregations on Miami Beach; the Kleagle robe is surrounded by sacred Hebrew symbology, trapped by that which would spur its wearer’s hatred. There’s poetry in placing a symbol of white supremacy and hatred exactly where it ought to be: in a museum, vulnerable and exposed.

Evil: A Matter of Intent continues at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (301 Washington Ave, Miami Beach) through October 1.

The post From the KKK to Darfur, Reflecting on Evil as a Deliberate Act appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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ramadavaranasikatesar · 3 years ago

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Ramada Varanasi Katesar is the Best Hotel in Varanasi

One of the oldest living cities in the world, lying on the banks of the holy River Ganga breathes Varanasi. For centuries, the mystic of this place has been attracting pilgrims from across India as well as abroad for the serenity and the holiness of the city. The city is dwelling for ancient domes, ashrams, priests, narrow lanes with shops filled with Benarasi sarees. Varanasi represents the colourful and fascinating India. The city hits nostalgia in terms of street food and is famous for silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory works, and sculpture.

Ramada Varanasi Katesar offers superior rooms, premium rooms and suites options as well. The rooms are well equipped with all the modern amenities such as a work desk with high-speed internet access, electronic safe in room, tea/coffee maker, iron & ironing board (on request), hairdryer, LED TV, pool and much more. Superior and Premium rooms offer plush king/twin beds with modern decors. Whereas suite offers a large area separate living room from the main bedroom making it perfect for entertainment space along with chic decor and a jacuzzi to pamper yourself. Varanasi is known for delightful cuisine experiences and Ramada offers you the best. The hotel offers multiple dining options to a patron. Ramada’s Arzoo is one of the best Indian restaurants in Varanasi. The restaurant offers culinary delights that makes it truly amazing and one can also witness the chefs live in action at the open kitchen. The place offers a tempting buffet and a full a-la-carte menu with a seating capacity of 102 guests and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Indian cuisine is known for the art of using the right spices in every dish, not just for its flavor but for its nutritional and medicinal value also. Relish delectable national and international cuisine that will surely satiate your taste buds. The culinary maestros reflect the blend of so many cultures and authentic flavours in their dishes. The rich heritage of Indian cuisines can be experienced in another best Indian restaurant in Varanasi- Masala Root. An elegant dining space where one can cherish authentic Indian flavous full of spices made with love.

So what’s all in the neighbourhood of Ramada Varanasi Katesar?One should not miss watching the evening Aarti on the Dasawamedh Ghat. and the boat ride along the Ganga River offers the quintessential Varanasi experience. It takes one through different Ghats and former palaces, giving a full tour of the area. Apart from this one can relish an evening or a morning walk along the Ghats. The vibe of these ghats is extremely peaceful. A guided half-day Sarnath Car tour from Varanasi with a local in AC Car is a must in one’s itinerary. During this journey, one can get an in-depth introduction to the world-renowned Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddha is believed to have given his first sermon after attaining enlightenment.

Explore multiple local sites of interest, including the Sarnath Archeological Museum and Chaukhandi Stupa Varanasi is famous for various temples, however, Kashi Vishwanath temple is one of the most famous temples in Varanasi. The Temple stands on the western bank of the holy river Ganga and is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the holiest of Shiva Temples. One of the world’s oldest civilizations, an all-embracing confluence of religions, traditions and customs. The highlights of Varanasi lie in the treasure of its ghats, silk sarees, food, art, streets and most importantly its people. Unwind your mind and soul with a luxurious stay and comfort. Relish it all with Ramada Varanasi Katesar where premium services and delightful delicacies are waiting for you all.

#Resorts near Ganga Ghat #Resorts near Varanasi Airport #Hotels near Varanasi Fort #Best resort in Varanasi #Ramada Varanasi #Resorts in Varanasi #Best hotel in Varanasi

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