artista del mes: lourdes grobet

About a year ago, my dear friend DE introduced me to the work of Lourdes Grobet. It happened when I accompanied her to the frame shop to pick out the perfect mat that would do justice to the amazing image she wanted to mount. I was immediately drawn to the artist's distinct aesthetic in the depiction of a Mexico that was blatantly forbidden to me while growing up in the city. Nowadays, outside the restrictions and dogmas of a rather culturally sheltered (read bland) upbringing, I'm able to recognize and admire the vision of portraying and commenting on a lifestyle, a social phenomenon of unapologetic fervency for wrestlers and fans alike.

©Lourdes Grobet. Solar, archival pigment print, 20x20 in. (edition of 15), 1980

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Mexico  City in 1940, Lourdes became another artist directly impacted by the "ruptura" movement, with a remarkable academic background and a most impressive group of preceptors: Kati Horna, Gilberto Aceves Navarro and Mathias Goeritz. The artist is mainly known for her Lucha Libre photographs, however, her body of work is extensive, polarizing and in constant transformation, representing the traditions of a segment in Mexican urban culture.

IN HER OWN WORDS: MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM HER INTERVIEW WITH ANGÉLICA ABELLEIRA

• "The teachers that most influenced me early on were Mathias, Gilberto and 'El Santo'--The Man In The Silver Mask."
• "Photography was a solution to all my concerns: image, technique, mass reproduction and social relevance. I consider this last quality fundamental, because it's how you participate in the course of history. At one period in time painters were the visual documentary-makers. It's a role that photographers play in the present: writing history through images."
• "...the members of my family were all sports fanatics and body worshipers. That pointed me towards wrestlers, whom I hadn't been allowed to see live because of gender issues. I had promised myself not to take photos of indigenous people or with a folkloric bent, but when I started taking pictures of the wrestlers... I found that underbelly of Mexico I was so interested in. Meeting the wrestlers gave me a new perspective. The one that most impressed me was El Santo. He's someone I also consider a teacher of mine."
• "If I hadn't been a photographer I would've been an anthropologist."

©Lourdes Grobet. El Santo, archival pigment print, 20x20 in. (edition of 15), 1980

©Lourdes Grobet. Blue Demon, archival pigment print, 20x20 in. (edition of 15), 1980

©Lourdes Grobet. Paisajes Pintados / Painted Landscapes, colour slide, 6x6 in. 1981

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http://www.lourdesgrobet.com

lgrobetdu@yahoo.com

closer to our heart*

Finally! FINALLY!

Today Rush was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Finally! FINALLY!

Rush runs deep in my system. And we go way back.

My older brother and his friends introduced me to the band. I was ridiculously young. First it was Closer To The Heart, then Tom Sawyer. Years later I would discover Time Stand Still all on my own.

It was during art history class in University that Tom Sawyer (the song) came immediately to mind when the work of Kazimir Malevich was introduced. Twenty something years later, it is easy to understand how that association was established given that the artist had a very particular philosophy. He "described his aesthetic theory, known as Suprematism, as 'the supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts.'"--Gallery label text for White on White, MOMA, 2006

Kazimir Malevich, White on White, 1918. Oil on canvas, 79.4 x 79.4 cm. MOMA

Music as an art form easily captures this pneuma, including Rush's unadulterated sounds and tenets. Looking back, the biggest revelation was not the fact that I had made that particular connection, Malevich=Rush. It was the full understanding of the possibilities of working this theorem inversely (certain that Malevich was not listening to Rush while creating his art work). Meaning, how music, if allowed, can become an inexhaustible resource to the visual artist.
Close your eyes and listen. What do you see?

Rush performing Tom Sawyer in Cleveland. Time Machine Tour, 2011.
From the album "Moving Pictures", 1981.

elements of textile print design: tessellations

I have been pondering about this particular topic for a while now, given that it is important to delve a bit in it while delivering introductory lectures and demos in repeat pattern. The general perception seems to be that tessellations are a very intricate form of design. The fact of the matter is that some of them can be impossibly complicated, but in terms of repeat pattern design, they tend to be rather simple and straight forward.

The immediate reference most purists think of whenever tessellations are mentioned are the  incredible mosaics in the ancient cultures of the Middle East. An excellent example of this influence is found in Granada, Spain.

Mosaic from the Alhambra, in Granada, Spain

The mosaics at the Alhambra inspired the tessellation work of M.C. Escher, the ultimate Shape Meister according to a more contemporary school of thought.

M. C. Escher, Pegasus, tessellation 105

Of course, those involved in the textile arts will think of tessellations in terms of quilting patterns.

Madeleine quilt (detail) by Kate Busby.

What most of us refer to as a design unit (the bread and butter in the discipline of textile print design) is, in reality, a simple tessellation unit. Though in printed fabrics the outline that defines the design unit is usually not evident, the tessellation is truly stipulated by the limiting lines of said unit (horizontal and vertical) within a precisely measured coordinate system.

From left to right: 1-Tessellation unit or design unit (established as a straight repeat, a.k.a. square repeat, a.k.a. side repeat, a.k.a. full drop repeat). 2-Design units in repeat, side, by side, by side, by side. Tiled or tessellated on the horizontal and vertical planes (tessella-Latin-tile).

Design units printed in repeat without the defining outline, except for that at the top left, which references the limiting lines of the tessellation [the example is another variation of pears, ©ana galindo for inkfibre].

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Sting's Desert Rose song with Cheb Mami (from his album Brand New Day, 1999) has what I always perceived as an "Alhambra" sound (that is my immediate Middle East reference, though it is in Spain). A true tessellation of talent and cultures.

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Reference material worth your while:

• Book, Escher on Escher by M.C. Escher / Translated from the Dutch by Karin Ford
  A glimpse into Escher's work in his own words. Succinct, eloquent, enlightening, I found it quite reminiscent of Italo Calvino's Six Memos For The Next Millenium. An excellent reminder of why we want to pay attention to detail and why we want to create something remarkable. There is a Toronto connection.

  

• Blog post by George Woideck, click here.