Chris Duncan

Nice Interview with this Nice Artist from Oakland

Car Accidents

Back in Tokyo

Henry Miller

Recently I read Henry Miller, The Paris Years written by the photogrpaher Brassai. Brassai was somewhat of a friend of Miller's while he was in Paris. He appears in many of Henry's novels. It is a great read if you have any interest in Miller. It offers great insight into his motives and relationships. The following is a passage on the concept of fiction and reality in Henry's oeuvre:

"No artist has ever suceeded in rendering nature on canvas, just as no author has ever truly been able to give us his life and thoughts." "Autobiography is the purest romance." "I began my writing career with the intention of telling the truth about myslef. What a fatuous task! What can possibly be more fictive than the story of one's life?" Henry Miller

"Truth and Reality are not terms that can be defined in any conventional way in Miller's work. Reality is limitless and indefinable. It is never raw fact, which, Miller believed, was actually nothing but surface. Facts offer only their own version of events, and it would be a mistake to assume that human documents-intimate diaries, autobiographical jottings-place us squarely in the heart of the matter. Reality must include thoughts, memories, dreams, everything that one can imagine or invent about a subject. "Fiction is always closer to reality than fact." Facts are feelings and thoughts-they are assimilated and digested. Life, therefore, cannot be grasped either by realism or by naturalism, but only through dreams, symbols, and storytelling. Because historical fact is not what happend, but what people's imaginations make of what happend, reality is myth and legend. "

"Miller never believed the truth to derive from a pecise notion of facts and events, but instead from the flood of images that are unleashed in his imagination by these facts, from what he finds within, from what he wants to give of himself. He would agree with Aragon that "nothing is ever more lifelike than our imagination, our pure imagination." Or else, "We can only capture the truth through the power of imagination."
Brassai

Chicago

Chicago

WARHOL

Interview this week released its new issue as a tribute to its founder, Andy Warhol, who would have been 80 this year. The magazine has some great interviews with Warhol, Georgio Armani, Marc Jacobs, and some people who were involved with Warhol. The only thing is that the cover with Jacobs as Warhol looks a little scary, but don't be decieved. Andy Warhol died about twenty years ago, yet his influence is everywhere today. His works are still being made. I recently saw a pair of shoes made by Royal Elastics. Hysteric Glamour in Japan makes T-shirts with his images and posters. Popular graffiti poster artists like D*Face or Banksy use his imagery. Andy Warhol doesn't seem to have died. His whole notion that the best art is business art can be seen as the foundation for young kids starting there own clothing brands these days. Takashi Murakami, who recently had two enormous retrospectives in NY and LA, has an art factory much like Warhol, and does high profile collaboprations with Louis Vuitton. Andy Warhol might not be the only influence, but his traces are certainly there.