Vidal Sassoon

Vidal Sassoon, a documentary by Craig Teper, is an extraordinary journey into the life of a man, who has forever changed the way women look and carry themselves. The eye-opening biography of Vidal Sassoon shifts the focus from his multimillion world-renowned empire and takes the viewers back to his humble beginnings at the time of the Great Depression and his childhood in the Jewish orphanage. A medley of biographical information and the endearing comments of the artist himself create an entertaining yet informative film, gradually exploring Sassoon’s laborious path to recognition.

A scene at the synagogue stands out in its almost voyeuristic zoom into the private and highly spiritual nostalgia of Sassoon: “72 years ago, this is where I used to sit. I was a choirboy. The choir master...he’d rap my knuckles on occasion…(laughs)…’cause, you know, we were kids and we were naughty at times. But they were charming services. They were very warm, very gentle. Right now at this moment…I don’t know if I did then…I was far too young. But right now, I am feeling rather spiritual. There is a sense of peace here.” Vidal Sassoon steps off the pages of Forbes magazine and lets the audience glance at the real man, who had many challenges on his path yet learned and incorporated his experiences successfully into a vision that was revolutionary.

“Great architects was where I came from. That was my inspiration. The Bauhaus architecture. For me, hair meant geometry, angles of bone structure. Cutting uneven shapes as long as it suited that face and that bone structure. So it meant in essence getting away from the old-fashioned. I say old-fashioned but very pretty. I can’t knock it. It was beautiful hairdressing. But it wasn’t for me. I wanted to eliminate the superfluous and get down to the basic angles of cut and shape.”

As the film reminisces of Nancy Kwan in Vogue and the revolutionary Five-point haircut of Grace Coddington, a collage of images forms and dazzles the imagination. The 1960’s that were at once innocently playful and fiercely innovating marked the era of new creative frontiers and kick-started the career of passionate personal involvement, persistence and self-sacrifice. And that, my friends, is more than inspiring at the beginning of the work week : )

The Deep Blue Sea

Exquisite, challenging and gut-wrenching… To define Terence Davies’ “The Deep Blue Sea” is as to answer 

"Is it worth it to live your life with full abandon?" In richness, perhaps. In tranquility, an indisputable no. If one could bottle all the expressions of cathartic suffering, brooding crossroads of choices and bitter-sweet ecstasy of passion into one emotion, the resulting concoction would give birth to this film. Rachel Weisz delivers an impeccable performance as Hester Collyer, a young wife of a successful judge whose passionless marriage drives her to a toxic fascination with the former Royal Air Force pilot. Hester is an oozing volcano of contradiction: vulnerable to the sight yet simmering with the strength of conviction. She is a woman caught at the edge of the precipice: cruel as it may seem in her decision yet fiercely convinced in its propriety. The rational all-forgiving husband William (Simon Russell Beale) and boisterous new flame Freddie (Tom Hiddlestone) are the screaming symbols of the old conservative bourgeois world trampled over by the invigorating, yet awfully disoriented new era. What starts as a breath of fresh air, winds down into an overwhelming struggle of decisions, isolation and shame. Samuel Barber’s violin concerto accompanying the film gives this journey of emotional discovery a haunting, ephemeral quality while the painterly vision of photography makes the film an aesthetic treat.

Pan American Unity

The central ideologies of Marxism lied in their opposition of capitalism, industrial exploitation and unfair domination of the few rich bourgeoisie over the masses led to starvation by the means of economic competition. In his essay American Marxism Today Norman F. Cantor posits that there were three main doctrines of Marxism: labor theory of value, capital as a substance of its own life, dehumanization and alienation of the worker by the bourgeoisie (Cantor 234-235). The goal of Marxism is to bring the human face back to the industrial worker and give him the voice to resist the pressure of the “false consciousness” propagated by the dominant capitalists in order to shelter the workers from seeing their own disadvantages (Cantor 237). The socialist realism painting, as a way of speaking to the masses, becomes the focal point of socialist agenda. Bringing art to the masses, making it available and easily understood, has both an educational quality to it as well as that of equality of artistic experiences taken away from the elitist and intellectual few. A great example of a painting having socialist realism style and symbolic qualities is Pan American Unity mural, painted by Diego Riviera in 1940 for the Golden Gate International Exposition and now located at the San Francisco City College. The mural, mounted at the Diego Riviera Theater, is a magnificent work of art in both its stylistic grandeur as well as symbolic depth, all at 1,800 square feet of powerful imagery. The work is impressive and although not painted by a Soviet Union artist reflects many elements of socialist realism painting prevalent in the country due to Diego Rivera’s sympathizing with the communist ideology. In socialist realist works emerging in early 1930s the art was no longer elitist, directed at the narrow group of intellectuals, but targeted masses, uniting them under the didactic purpose of celebrating new ideology and loyalty to the communist party. There was a strong focus on people uniting in labor, doing it with pride and energy and promoting the advancement of the country to the productive future. Glorification of the new classless society was also targeted with a highly optimistic imagery of tireless muscular men and women working side by side for the betterment of their community.

In her interview for CNN, Julia Bergman, an archivist of Diego Riviera for City College of San Francisco and his passionate admirer, shares her take on Riviera’s Pan American Unity: “It's replete with the fruits of men's and women's labor: breathtaking pyramids, bridges, a dam and even an island. Indigenous Mexican artists are seen here creating works of utility and beauty. Art is shown being reconciled with technology. Workers mine, fell trees, embroider and farm. A female and male architects confer as an ironworker looks on.”[1] One would be curious to ask how could Diego Rivera paint a mural that so closely resembled an art movement strategically chosen by the Soviet party to promote ideals of Communism while painting for the International Exposition sponsored by the country priding itself on the capitalist ideology?  The work indeed resembles the stylistic characteristics of the communist artists in the Soviet Union. However, its main purpose stays with the celebration of the merging of the great Latin American resourcefulness and American technology in quest of international union, equality of the people and productive advancement.  And since, vividly described by Cantor, United States in the years preceding the creation of the mural as well as following it had many socialist undercurrents in both academic and political circles, it was only fair that such symbolic work would eventually surface. Pan American Unity speaks of the great advancements of human labor and admires the strength of mankind subjugating nature to its will with the power of technology created by its intellect. The theme of unity is unveiling throughout the work: unity of men of different races working shoulder to shoulder in creating a new world, the synthesis of what looks like ancient tribal craftsmanship with the power of technological advancement, tools and machines. Diego Rivera explains in his autobiography My Art, My Life the idea behind the creation of Pan American Unity:

In this mural I projected the idea of the fusion of the genius of the South (Mexico), with its religious ardor and its gift for plastic expression, and the genius of the North (the United States), with its gift for creative mechanical expression. Symbolizing this union - and focal point of the whole composition - was a colossal Goddess of Life, half Indian, half machine. She would be to the American civilization of my vision what Quetzalcoatl, the great mother [sic] of Mexico, was to the Aztec people. (Rivera 151)

Diego Rivera does not entirely promote the communist ideology but tones his approach down to the general outlook of the international attitude created by industrialization and mechanization – productivity, technological advancement and social awareness of laboring class. I think that the most powerful image is purposefully put in the center of the mural, its focal point zooming into the image of the godlike creature, half-woman with her raised palm in gesture of power and leadership and half-machine made out of metal rods and bolts. The dark skin tone of the Goddess’ hand points at her Indian heritage and the ornamented wood- and stonework boast artisan skill prevalent in the Aztec Empire and now Mexico. The machine part, symbolized by the stamping press is the technological advancement of the American civilization with its machinery and industrial development. According to Rivera, the four turquoise spots strategically placed on the palm of the goddess’ raised hand signify her intent to stop the tyrannical horrors of impending World War II.[2] The theme of war is another topic explored throughout the work and is seen in two opposing dimensions. The first one is the war as political revolution necessary for change and liberation of society that Rivera admires and portrays with such figures as Simon Bolivar and Miguel Hidalgo as well as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln. The first war is righteous and necessary for society’s needs and is based on concept of human rights and freedom from oppression. The gaseous war cloud on the right side of the painting, however, represents the war that is poisonous and tyrannical and “encompasses dictators Stalin (portrayed with blood-tipped pickax as the murderer of Trotsky), Hitler, and Mussolini to represent the onset of World War II, a war that in 1940 he perceives to be totalitarian aggrandizement.”[3] The wars in Pan American Unity are necessary if led by the intention of breaking away from oppression and toxic if pursued under violent and egocentric leaders.

I think that one has to take the mural increment by increment until the whole work combines into symbolic whole, all parts falling correctly into place. I can see the stone workers, goldsmiths, potters, weavers, loggers and many other workers being productive, creating without sense of exhaustion or unhappiness. I also see tools and machines of labor: carving knives, axes, paint brushes, cranes and tractors. According to Amy Dempsey, the social realist art works have distinctive characteristics that set them apart: “Paintings approved by the State typically showed men and women at work or playing sports, political assemblies, political leaders and the achievements of Soviet technology, all portrayed in a naturalistic idealized fashion, in which the people were young, muscular, happy members of a progressive, classless society, and the leaders heroes.” (Dempsey 168) All of these stylistic characteristics can be seen in Pan American Unity – the united labor of energetic healthy workers of different races, their leisure presented with the bathers as well as prominent leaders of generations past. However, it is ironic that although socialist realism painting was supposed to be populist in nature and easily understood even by the uneducated masses, Pan American Unity is an intricate symbolic work that in contemporary time should be read on multiple levels requiring presupposed knowledge of pressing socialist and international agenda as well as acquaintance with leading political figures of the time.

Bibliography:

Cantor, Norman F. American Marxism Today. The American Century. HarperPerennial, 1998

No author sited (August 31, 2001). The Art of Work: Diego Rivera. CNN on the Web. Retrieved October 29, 2011 from http://articles.cnn.com/2001-08-31/business/rivera.mural_1_mural-diego-rivera-labor-day?_s=PM:CAREER

Rivera, Diego. March, Gladys. My Art, My Life: An Autobiography. New York: Citadel Press, 1960

Dempsey, Amy. Socialist Realism. Styles, Schools & Movements. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2010

Zakheim, Masha (1998). Pan-American Unity. Historical Essay. Retrieved October 29, 2011 from http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Pan-American_Unity

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[1] The Art of Work: Diego Rivera. CNN on the Web.

[2] Zakheim, Masha. Pan-American Unity.

[3] Zakheim, Masha. Pan-American Unity.

Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition at De Young is a sight to behold.  De Young museum has been completely transformed to recreate the world of the great visionary, l’enfant terrible of the French couture. Losing myself in the labyrinth of passages and mesmerized by the sensory overload of images, sounds and textures, I have found the exhibition to be an excellent overview of Jean Paul Gaultier’s creative portfolio. As you walk into the gallery, you are greeted by the blinking and talking mannequins that at first gave me a rather uneasy feeling – but, hey, I am scared sh..less of clown costumes, and any other dubious characters (Santa Claus/Easter Bunny included) that apparently make children smile yet reduce a grown woman to tears! Not quite…but close enough. In the head of the group of mannequins, donning Jean Paul Gaultier’s dresses, was the plastic designer himself, introducing the collection and making random amusing remarks:

As you proceed further into the gallery, you are surrounded by photography showcasing designer’s innovative collections and hinting at their erotic themes.

The famous cone-bra and corsets are displayed behind the window highlighted by the soft lighting that draws you into its playful kinkiness. The photograph of Madonna as well as costume sketches for her tours decorate the walls:

 I am used to be slightly disappointed by the scale of traveling exhibitions brought to SF as just when I get ready to be absorbed in the presented art works, I usually find out that what I have already seen is the “entire” exhibition. Jean Paul Gaultier’s collection proved to be different. Having been surprised by the mannequins, seduced by the sensual photographs and introduced to Jean Paul Gaultier’s biographical timeline printed boldly on the wall, I was ready to see a few more pieces and go home satisfied. When two more enormous rooms, packed with mannequins and flat-screen tvs featuring fashion shows and costumes created for the film productions opened up, I was shocked. Since I do not intend to disclose all the hidden treasures of that fashion “dungeon”, marked by many references to BDSM, punk culture and can-can’s lifted skirts, I would like to share a few images that really stroke my fancy.

Otherworldly headdresses:

Surreal wedding gowns:

Humorous play on traditional costumes:

Having been teased by this preview, hurry up to De Yong!  The exhibition ends on August 19, 2012!