How Vienna in 1900 Gave Birth to Modern Style and Identity

The Viennese Waltz differs from other waltzes in the speed of the rotation—a dervish-like dance in which the dancers are spun out of their normal existence. That dizzying disorientation helps turn their world upside down. At the turn of the twentieth century, Vienna stood at the heart of a similar kind of waltzing whirlwind in which artistic and cultural forces acted to disorient a whole generation and set the tone for a new, modern reorientation for all Western society. In Vienna 1900: Style and Identity, which runs at the Neue Galerie through June 27, 2011, we rediscover just how influential that city and time were for all that followed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Caught up in our own dizzying times, we can see much of our own disorientation (and perhaps solutions to problems of style and identity) in the amazing cast of characters assembled in Vienna 1900. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Vienna in 1900 Gave Birth to Modern Style and Identity."

[Image: Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951). Gaze, 1910. Oil on cardboard. Belmont Music Publishers, Pacific Palisades. Courtesy Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna. © 2011 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/VBK, Vienna. Photograph © Arnold Schönberg Center, Vienna.]

[Many thanks to the Neue Galerie for the image above from, press materials for, and a review copy of the catalog to the exhibition Vienna 1900: Style and Identity, which runs through June 27, 2011.]

Rainbow Connection: Rock Music Illuminated by Andi Watson

“It never phased him that we’d call out different tunes from the stage and change the set around endlessly to stop from being bored,” Radiohead front man Thom Yorke says of the group’s lighting and stage designer Andi Watson. “It meant that it became less of a show of self aggrandizement for the artist, impressing an audience for its own sake and filling a huge space, and more a response to what was really happening musically night by night.” In Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was: The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson, Christopher Scoates and others examine just how Watson sculpts light to help audience connect with the music of acts such as Lenny Kravitz, Oasis, Counting Crows, and especially Radiohead, with whom Watson’s worked since meeting them in 1993 up to and including their last tour in support of In Rainbows. Using the whole spectrum of aesthetics and technology, Watson’s “rainbow connection” with audiences not only draws heavily from artistic influences of the past, but also spotlights a brighter, greener future for the field of lighting and stage design. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Rainbow Connection."

[Many thanks to Chronicle Books for providing me with the image above and a review copy of Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was: The Lighting and Stage Design of Andi Watson by Christopher Scoates, with a foreword by Thom Yorke and essays by Dick Hebdige and J. Fiona Ragheb.]

[All apologies to Kermit the Frog for borrowing the title of his hit song for the title of this post.]

Beautiful, Dark, Twisted: George Condo at the New Museum

Kanye West's album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out too late to be nominated for the Grammy Awards being held tonight, so we’ll have to wait until next year to see the master provocateur in action. Those familiar with the cover artwork of West’s album won’t have to wait so long to see more of the art of George Condo, star of the exhibition George Condo: Mental States, running at the New Museum through May 8, 2011. When West specifically went looking for an artist who could stir up a controversy, he found the perfect partner in Condo, whose works fulfill the requirements of dark, twisted, and, most of all, beautiful, but in a haunting, “where have I seen this before” kind of way. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Beautiful, Dark, Twisted."

[Image: George Condo, Figures In a Garden, 2010. Acrylic, pastel, and charcoal on linen, 78 x 108 in (198.1 x 274.3 cm). Collection Laura and Stafford Broumand. © George Condo 2010]

[Many thanks to the New Museum for providing me with the image above and other press materials for the exhibition George Condo: Mental States, which runs through May 8, 2011.]