SOLO - Sense of Life Objectivists Now we're at the halfway point of our architectural debate over at my main blog 'Not PC,' here's a brief meditation on what architecture is all about. In five words or less: giving meaning to our lives. To quote the late Claude Megson, "If it doesn't have meaning, then you're just wanking." Read on now for the thousand-word meditation... . . *** WHEN HILLARY AND TENZING reached the top of Everest for the first time, the story goes that Tenzing fell to his knees and gave thanks to the spirits that had helped their journey; he prayed to each of the four winds, and he carefully placed in the ground a small stake on which prayer ribbons were attached. While he was doing this, Hillary stuck a flag in the ground, unzipped his fly and took a piss. We each mark our territory in very different ways.
SOLO - Sense of Life Objectivists What is Objectivism? Let its founder speak first. Asked to specify Objectivism's essentials standing on one foot, Ayn Rand, standing on one foot, said: "Metaphysics: Objective Reality; Epistemology: Reason; Ethics: Self-interest; Politics: Capitalism." Writing about this episode later, she went on to say: Objectivism v. Existentialism - Chewing on Ideas - Objectivist Living Dr. Hazel E. Barnes, Ph.D is best known for translating Jean-Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness." She also wrote several books about him and existentialism. In one of her books, "An Existentialist Ethics," published in 1969, she has a chapter called "Egoistic Humanism: Ayn Rand's Objectivism," which compares Sartre's existentialism with Rand's Objectivism. Although the chapter is much too long to copy word for word and post here, I will try to paraphrase the gist of that article in my own words and then respond with my own views:
The Buffett Formula “The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.” — Charlie Munger “Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.” — Charlie Munger Most people go though life not really getting any smarter. Why? The Stories That Only Artists Can Tell Here is a pitch for artists to write their own stories, their autobiographies, because there aren't many fine artists who have done so. A handful have -- including Thomas Hart Benton, Man Ray, James Rosenquist, Leroy Neiman, Larry Rivers, Margaret Bourke-White, Eric Fischl, Anne Truitt (if you count her published diary entries), Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali (neither of whose books were intended to be revealing, so they hardly count at all) -- and occasionally some artists have written essays for catalogues (usually about their art). However, the most important artists of the past century or so have been content to let others write about them. Why does that matter? A couple of reasons: First, it seems to me that artists talk about different things when describing themselves than do their biographers and commentators.
The Eccentric Artwork of Rebecca Horn If Rebecca Horn is not a cult artist, it’s hard to define what we mean by ‘cult artist’. But the truth is that Horn isn’t really viewed as a cult artist at all. From her distinctive looks, to her body of work that spans five decades and includes whispering Chinese voices in the dark, rattling hanging typewriters, Donald Sutherland dancing with snakes, and a woman wandering around with a horn protruding from her headpiece, Horn’s career is brimming with the kind of eccentric material that would normally see an artist labelled ‘cult.’ Horn, born in Germany during the latter stages of the Second World War, sits alongside Joseph Beuys and Anselm Kiefer as one of her nations greatest contemporary artists. Like Kiefer, it is easy to point to her homelands tumultuous recent history as providing a backdrop for her art, particular in light of her attempt to recreate Germany’s past for Skulptor Projekte Munster.
The Gravity Defying Paintings of Jacek Yerka I’m a big fan of the surreal art of Hieronymus Bosch (for me, Bosch was the first surrealist before surrealism was even a thing), and Polish surrealist Jacek Yerka says Bosch was one of the reasons he decided to throw himself full pelt into art, after seriously considering a career in astronomy. You can actually see his love of both astronomy and Bosch in his wonderfully odd paintings that defy gravity; bedrooms are turned upside down, 15th century Flemish towns are uprooted from the ground by giant stony heads, whilst libraries suspend reservoirs. It’s all delightfully playful, hints at mystery and myths, whilst pooling dreams for subject matter and Dutch renaissance art for technical inspiration.
Profile: Michael Bierut: Statement I grew up in Ohio in the 60s in a suburban milieu where design was seldom seen and never discussed. My parents encouraged my interest in art, which was in my pimply junior high school days a first a hobby, then an obsession, and finally a refuge. My earliest clients were my classmates who needed decorative lettering for the fall sports banquet, posters for the senior play, and convincing simulations of R. Crumb for their notebook covers. I still remember the thrill of discovering that this method of servicing the varied worlds of jocks, drama nerds and stoners wasn’t just fun but actually had a name: graphic design.
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