Getty's "Leonardo Da Vinci" Art and Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention

Getty's "Leonardo Da Vinci”Art and Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention”

Here’s the plan. We take the day off to go on a mini vacation, jump on the tram leading us to the top of the hill of the Getty Center, surrounded by Italian travertine and Mexican cypress trees and enjoy the view towards the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica mountains before entering the focused exhibit “Leonardo da Vinci” Art and Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention.” The result of it? Within an hour we feel transformed by the mix of Californian nature and Italian culture. Latter presented to us by 17 drawings and one painting by Leonardo, along with sculptures by the Renaissance masters, Donatello, Andrea del Verrochio and Giovanni Francesco Rustici.

The exhibit, organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and the J. Paul Getty Museum, is located on the ground floor in the West Pavilion. In the right gallery close to the entrance door we get to see the marble “Bearded Prophet” by Donatello, who was the most important living sculptor at that time and master of Leondardo’s teacher Verrochio. Hence Leonardo was influenced by both of them. The sculpture is one of the five statues for the Campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore and had never before been seen outside of Florence. It served as a model for a standing figure in Leonardo’s unfinished painting “Adoration of the Magi.” What catches one’s eye, while looking at the life-sized statue, are the enlarged hands, feet and the head.

There are many sides to Leonardo, the son of a notary and a peasant woman. Leonardo the painter of the most famous painting “Mona Lisa”, the sculptor, architect, designer, writer, engineer, inventor, and geometrician; and although he made himself learn many things, he abandoned them after having begun them, yet never ceased drawing. Two adjacent galleries feature a collection of those drawings, most of them borrowed from the royal collection of Elizabeth II. Magnifying glasses attached to the wall allow us to get a close look of the fine and masterfully applied lines of each work.

In the first gallery, there’s a sketch of a child in profile that may have been a study for a bust, as one could find them on sideboards or above doors by other Florentine artists. Furthermore there’s a sketch with Michelangelo’s David with seahorses added to transform it into a figure of Neptune, the god of the sea. We also see Leonardo’s studies of the human head to show optic and aural nerves and a sketch of a head sectioned to show the cerebral ventricles and layers of the scalp compared to an onion.

The other gallery features preparatory drawings for sculptures which were never made. For instance the studies for the Sforza Monument, a work which was supposed to be an equestrian monument, if the war between the French and Milanese hadn’t come in between, showing the Milanese duke Francesco Sforza on a horseback.

A gallery across from the hallway is dedicated to one of Leonardo’s paintings, of which there are less than a dozen in the world. The unfinished painting in a mixed technique of oil and tempera on Walnut panel called “Saint Jerome in the wilderness “ has been associated by art historians with a difficult and melancholic period in Leonardo's life, an observation they based on his diary: "I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.”

The exhibition continues with the three bronze statues of Leonardo’s friend and associate Rustici. Placed in one of the high-ceilinged galleries, where natural light falls on them, the statues are the most impressive part of the exhibit, depicting a Levite, John the Baptist and a Pharisee. The statues were modeled between March and September 1508, when Leonardo and Rustici were working together. Therefore, they are essential to the exhibit, since they show Leonardo’s impact on the art world at that time. According to biographer Giorgio Vasari, Rustici finished them with Leonardo’s advice. By taking a close look, one can see similarities between a Levite and Saint Jerome, both of them having bald heads. The statues are particularly beautiful, because of their details, the folds and creases in their gowns and the various facial expressions and postures, suggesting cogitation, indignation and attention. Like “Donatello” the statues are also being shown for the first time outside of Italy.

Although the exhibit is tantalizing in many ways, since we get to see Leonardo from the point of view of a genius who left us with many ideas and unfinished works, the title of the exhibit does not reveal this. Instead one is searching for his sculptures, but ends up standing in front of Rustici’s bronze statues looking at them with awe. And in an absurd way having them there at the Getty and being outside of Italy for the first time, it takes a bit the light away from Da Vinci, although they were created under his influence and possibly based on his ideas as the exhibit suggests.

The show will be on display from March 23 -June 20, 2010

Reviewed by Simone Kussatz

Images from the Getty Center

From left to right, A Pharisee, A Levite, John the Baptist Preaching by Giovanni Francesco Rustici (1506-1511).

Study for the Sforza Monument by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

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Farewell party for Anna-Maria Hora and Markus Adrian

Berlin filmmakers Anna-Maria Hora (31) and Markus Adrian (31), who've been fellows at VILLA AURORA in Los Angeles for the past three months, celebrated their farewell party on Friday evening, March 19, 2010.

The party took place outdoors, in the beautiful garden of Villa Aurora with its view over the Pacific Ocean, located on top of the Palisades mountains on Paseo Miramar.

During their three-month-stay at VILLA AURORA , the newlywed filmmaker couple were busy. There was the welcoming reception in January, where Hora and Adrian were showing and discussing their documentary film “Klang der Freiheit” and a month later the screening of their film “Narrenspiel” (A Foul’s Game) at Goethe Institute, where they were participating in a Q & A session afterwards. On top of that they were driving down to Watts shooting a short music video “Coming from the Projects”, they've also been working on their documentary film “After the violence – Nach der Gewalt”, which is in its final stage now. The film, inspired by a photography book "Mugshot" by Jonas Mohr and Jason Porath, is about former gang members who turned into artists. Aside from this, one could see Adrian honing his skills in a screen-writing workshop, but also as a guest at the Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium at the American Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In addition, both of them were networking at the Pre-Oscar Party at Villa Aurora.

Hence, Hora and Adrian, are certainly Doers. They're living their dream and do as much as they can to make it come true. With Anna-Maria Hora already having the experience of being a camera assistant in Roman Polanski’s Academy Award winning film "The Pianist", and both of them being Villa Aurora fellows, there is a good chance we'll hear quite a bit about them in the near future.

VILLA AURORA’s new director Imogen von Tannenberg, who used to be in charge of the translation department at Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation was at the party, as well as many of Hora's and Adrian's friends, including British screen-writer Nathan Parker (Moon), German consul Klaus Fimpel and his wife Susanne, German sound editor Michael Dressel and German actor Ronald Nitschke.

Hora and Adrian will be leaving Villa Aurora and therefore Los Angeles on March 27, 2010 to go on their well-deserved honeymoon to Panama.

written by Simone Kussatz

Farewell party for Anna-Maria Hora and Markus Adrian

1. Photo: Director of Villa Aurora - Imogen von Tannenberg (left), filmmaker Anna- Maria Hora (right)

2. Photo: Filmmaker, Markus Adrian

3. Photo: Filmmaker Anna-Maria Hora (left), Actor, Ronald Nitschke (right)
with children

4. Photo: Digital media expert, Aldo Ortiz

5. Photo: Standup comedian/producer/writer Robert Klinger and girl-friend Senior Graphic Designer at Disney, Mariya Stepanyau (left), Oscar Magallanes with girl-friend (right)

6. Photo: Villa Aurora garden

Photos by Simone Kussatz

DNJ's exhibit "Night Lights"

1. Image (Bill Sosin), 2. Image (Ginny Mangrum), 3. Image (Helen K. Garber)

Three American photographers currently exhibit their work at DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Bill Sosin, Ginny Mangrum and Helen K. Garber. The exhibit "Night Lights" is a collection of night photography, made by using completely different approaches.

Bill Sosin’s “urban impressions” were taken mainly in Chicago, shot from the inside of his car in the rain, while his windshield wipers were turned off. We see droplets either resting or dripping down his window in different directions. Whereas the backgrounds of Sosin’s images - the streetlamps, red car brake lights, pedestrians on the streets underneath pendulous umbrellas or lonely objects in storefront windows - are out of focus, the raindrops on the windows are in focus. This dual presentation gives his photographs a pointillist appeal similar to George Seurat’s paintings. Although the exhibit is called “Night lights”, the lights are not the main subject in Sosin’s images. They only play a secondary role, creating the various colors in the water. And the water in its different shapes, either in liquid or vapor form, appearing in different colors, contain an energy which Sosin felt intrigued by and experimented with. Sosin’s images are not manipulated or retouched. He conducted small color adjustments on the Camera RAW file (a hi-res file format used by professionals) and altered the color and contrast of the images according to his emotional response towards them. Through the colorful presentation of the rain in a painterly manner, Sosin’s images appear positive and poetic.

The atmosphere in Ginny Mangrum’s work is quite different. The photographs were shot in black and white and then cut and pasted onto a black canvas in Photoshop. Hence, black dominates the images. As opposed to Sosin, Mangrum shot her pictures looking from the outside in. There is no energy like that in Sosin’s rain drops; instead, everything stands still. The interiors of the public places in Mangrum’s photographs, whether a hotel lobby in Honolulu or a cabin of the Bart station at the San Francisco airport, are empty and inert. Whereas Sosin played with the rain, Mangrum played with the darkness and the psychological elements of empty spaces. After several people close to Mangrum died, she experienced a sense of the void. This is reflected in her work, where she shows how powerful the presence of living beings can be by depicting their very absence. Another aspect that distinguishes Mangrum’s work from the two others' is her conscious choice not to take pictures of people who may have wandered into the frame, to avoid the tension that creates.

While Sosin and Mangrum focused on one city at a time, Helen K. Garber put two cities together. Displayed as diptychs, she juxtaposed images of Venice, California next to images of Venice, Italy. As opposed to Sosin and Mangrum, Garber presents her black and white photographs on canvas, which gives them a painterly quality. Garber’s work -- inspired by an old photograph from 1922 showing her great aunt and uncle sitting in a gondola in the canal in the Italian Venice -- are not just beautiful presentations of two cities. They deal with issues of globalization and Garber’s shattered image of Venice in Italy. When Garber visited there for the first time in 2006, she was shocked by the throngs of tourists in crowded corridors. Hence she regards globalization critically, thinking it destroys rather than adds something to both cities. This reflects in Garber’s work, which shows both Venices with the daytime tourists gone and belonging again to their permanent residents.

Written by Simone Kussatz

Edited by Peter Frank

All contents of this site (c) belong to Simone Kussatz

Sandra Bullock won her first Oscar

Sandra Bullock won her first Oscar

Sandra Bullock received an Oscar for her role as Leigh Anne Tuhoy in the film the "Blind Side" (2009), where she plays a Caucasian wife and mother of two children, who adopts a homeless African-American teenager she then helps to succeed in school and in football.

Bullock, who is known through films such as "Speed" (1994) and "The Lake House" (2006), accepted her speech with gratitude.

"I would like to thank the Academy for allowing me in the last month to have the most incredible ride with rooms full of artists that I see tonight and that I've worked with before and I hope to work with in the future, who inspire me and blaze trails for us."

Since the film is based on a true story, Bullock also thanked the real family Tuhoy who adopted Michael Oher (the main character in the film "Blind Side"), who now is an American football offensive tackle of the Balitmore Ravens of the National Football League.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to play the mother of your family. This gave me the opportunity to do something different."

When Sandra Bullock talked about her missed opportunity to thank her German mother Helga Bullock, a former opera singer who died in 2000, for all the things she had done for her, tears filled her eyes.

"I would like to thank what this film is about for me which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from. Those moms and parents never get thanked. I, in particular, failed to thank one. So if I can take this moment to thank Helga B. for making me practice every day when I got home. Piano, ballet, whatever it is I wanted to be. She said to be an artist, you had to practice every day, and for reminding her daughters that there's no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation that makes us better than anyone else. We are all deserving of love.... Thank you!"

written by Simone Kussatz

Photo by Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for best actor in a supporting role

Christoph Waltz received an Oscar

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz known through German TV series including "Tatort", "Derrick" and "Der Alte" won an Oscar for his role of the sagacious and cruel SS Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Film "Inglorious Bastards" (2009).

Waltz received this Oscar in the category Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and felt delighted, when Spanish actress Penélope Cruz handed him the Oscar. "Oscar and Penélope that's an über (more than) bingo."

Waltz, who studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater in New York and lives in London, accepted his Oscar with an emotional speech in fluent English, where he thanked Brad Pitt and others who helped him to be on board.

"Everybody helped me find a place. And this is your welcoming embrace and there's no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you."

Written by Simone Kussatz

Photo by Todd Wawrychuk / © A.M.P.A.S.

The Academy Awards 2010

The 82nd Academy Awards

The "Hurt Locker", a film based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq, won best picture Oscar during the 82nd Academy Awards, while its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman to win the directing award.

Although "Avatar" a film made by James Cameron - former husband of Kathryn Bigelow - had a vast budget and an enormous popularity, the war film won over the science fiction one.

“I would not be standing here if it wasn’t for Mark Boal, who risked his life for the words on the page and wrote such a courageous screenplay,” said Ms. Bigolow in accepting her award, which was presented to her by Barbara Streisand. "And I'd just like to dedicate this to the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. And may they come home safe. Thank you.”

Films that were also featured in the best film category include "Up in the Air", "The Blind Side", "Precious" and "District 9".

Among other winners, Christoph Waltz took best supporting actor for his performance in "Inglourious Bastards", where he played a Jew hunting Nazi officer. Mo’Nique took best supporting actress for her role as a dysfunctional and abusive mother in the film “Precious” based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire. Aside from her husband, Mo’Nique thanked Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, “because you touched it, the whole world."

Jeff Bridges, took best actor for his portrayal of a destitute country music singer-songwriter who tries to change his life after beginning a relationship with a young journalist. Although he had been nominated five times and grew up in a showbiz family, this was Jeff Bridges first Oscar. Bridges received a standing ovation. In his acceptance speech, he thanked his parents who had a great influence in his life. “Oh, my dad and my mom, they loved show biz so much. I remember my mom, getting all of us kids to entertain at her parties. You know, my dad sitting me on his bed and teaching me all of the basics of acting for a role in Sea Hunt.”

Sandra Bullock, won best actress for her performance as a loving surrogate mother in “The Blind Side.” Like Bridges, she was clearly one of the most popular ones in the auditorium, though she had never been nominated or received an Oscar before and had been best known for romantic dramas like “The Lake House “and the action film “Speed.”

"Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?" Bullock asked her cheerful audience.

The show had several Las Vegas style dance scenes and ended after three and a half hours. The highlight of the show was Ben Stiller who came dressed up head-to-toe as a Na’vi and spoke in Na’vi language to “Avatar” director James Cameron. The stage was bathed mostly in blue. During the In Memorian, Patrick Swayze, David Carradine and Michael Jackson, but not Farah Fawcett Majors was mentioned.

Where the tribute to Horror movies seemed too long, the tribute to Lauren Bacall, who received her Long-Time Achievement Award, seemed too short. The show also presented excerpts of nominated screen-plays that were projected onto a screen and read by an invisible narrator.

George Fletcher won his first Oscar for adapted screenplay and was so taken by it that he kept his acceptance speech short. "I don't know what to say. This is for everybody who works on a dream every day." In the category best documentary short subject, the Oscar went to Roger Ross Williams, who made a film about a physically disabled woman from Zimbabwe, who became part of an Afro Fusion band called Liyana, after her family had neglected her. Roger Ross William was cut off in the middle of his acceptance speech by Elinor Burkett. Since this seemed strange, he was invited by Larry King the following day to give his full speech.

The best documentary feature , presented by Matt Demon, went to Fisher Stevens and Louie Psihoyos for “The Cove”, which is a film that describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, in Japan. In his acceptance speech Stevens said: “I just want to say it was an honor to work on this film and to try to make an entertaining film that also tries to enlighten everybody.” Other than expected the best foreign language feature did not go to Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon" but to Argentinian filmmaker Juan José Campanella for “The Secret in Their Eyes” (“El Secreto de Sus Ojos”). “It is on behalf of a crew and cast that comprise mostly of people that I love and that are very close to my heart that I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language, first of all. And for letting us spend three great days in the company of incredible filmmakers.” The award was presented by Pedro Almodóvar and Quentin Tarantino.

Going into the evening the cameras kept on focusing on a somewhat grim looking George Clooney (Up In the Air) who had run along a fence and shaken hands with cheerful fans before he came into the Kodak Center. In addition, there was a short humerous film clip with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as they were sharing a bed together and being in each other's space.

The 3-D blockbuster science-fiction film "Avatar " received an award for best art direction and went to Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair. Stromberg gave a moving acceptance speech "You know, 13 years ago, the doctors told me I wasn't going to survive and I thought that this dream of standing here would never come true." The award was presented by Sigourney Weaver, who came to fame through the science-fiction film "Alien."

However, one of the most inspiring speeches in the evening came from Michael Giacchino, who received an award for Achievement in Music written for "Up", a feature which received an animation Oscar. "Thank you, guys. When I was... I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK? Thank you. Thank you."




Written by Simone Kussatz
Photo: by Simone Kussatz