Gain Black Mountain College: Experiment In Art Imagined By Vincent Katz EBook
in a basic sense art cannot be taught, and we do not try to, Yet paradoxically, it can be learnedin the beginning from other artists, and then from oneself, "
Robert Motherwell
This is another deep and broad examination of one of the currents inth century art, Like Kay Larson's examination of John Cage, it reflects history and a much larger cultural reach than just the tiny community that was foryears Black Mountain College.
It's amazing that so much ground can be covered inpages, From its conception as a visual artoriented school led by the Bauhausinfluenced ideas of Josef Albers, to its literary disintegration under poet Charles Olson, with explorations in textiles, music, performance, and publishing along the way, Black Mountain incubated and birthed many of the threads that continue to influence all of American culture today.
Somehow Katz manages to touch on all the permutations of Black Mountain, For it did evolve and change continuously, and it ended when it seems to have exhausted its momentum for renewal,
The collaborative and reciprocal experience at the school cannot be overemphasized, The students and instructors learned by doing with others, They were challenged and supported, fed and given room to experiment and explore, Process, not product. There was no "core curriculum" of facts to
be learned and parroted back, Education, deliberately, was not "standardized", Albers, though he could be rigid in his own work and viewpoint, set the tone by encouraging many artists with a "multiplicity of approaches" and temperaments, to come and share their ideas.
" there were many people and many possibilities, . . "
John Cage
"We try to become alert and watchful of the world around us and we begin to see, "
Black Mountain Bulletin,
"These pieces were like sparks which glowed, briefly, and were done, "
Pete Jennerjahn
", . . how to use oneself, and on what, "
Charles Olson
", . . it is not the things in themselves but what happens between things where the life of them is to be sought, "
BMC prospectus,
"It was real, we felt it, "
Fielding Dawson
Who, today, would make such statements about their education Where, today, is our Black Mountain, our Bauhaus Where is the vision, the giveandtake, the mingling or ideas, and where is the excitement in learning The place for new ideas to be formed, for nurturing a fresh eye and an open mind, away from test scores and "likes"
Teachers, artists, musicians, performers, writers, visionariesreading the list of names in the index alone is overwhelming.
The book is also profusely illustrated, and connecting the work to the people gives real dimension to the text,
You could go many places from here,
Which is exactly the point, A beautiful, heavy book chronicling the story of Black Mountain College from several different perspectives, The Brody chapter on music had the best information on the earlys and the music created by Lou Harrison and John Cage that I've found anywhere.
Although it lasted onlyyearsand enrolled fewer than,students, Black Mountain College was one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice.
Its art teachers included Josef Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell, and among their students were John Chamberlain, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothea Rockburne, and Cy Twombly.
The performing arts teachers included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, Roger Sessions, David Tudor, and Stefan Wolpe, and among the literature teachers and students were Robert Creeley, Fielding Dawson, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, M.
C. Richards, and John Wieners. One of my recent favourites, Absolutely essential for anyone interested in how community can nurse the creative spirit, This this is my all time favorite art book, And I'd own a copy of it if it wasn't out of print and being sold fordollars,
A lot of folks are familiar with the Black Mountain area, but how many are familiar with its artistic past and the role it played on the national level Artists from all areas, visual, performing, dance, music, sculpture came together to teach others and hone their craft.
They created a school that attracted some of the best in the world and the work produced by them was mind blowing, This book captures it all in candid and posed photographs with easy to read history of this remarkable place,
This is a must read for any fan of art, regardless of time period or type, It shows what can happen when people can come together and create,
Comment This is a great book on Black Mountain College, a fascinating place, There's a lot of stuff out there amp this is a good one to start with, Underwhelming. Only the barest mention of Ruth Asawa Elegant, intelligent, and balanced, If you don't know anything about BMC, except what you've heard, go here first, Vincent Katz is a poet, translator, art critic, editor, and curator, .