Category Archives: Art

Robert Mapplethorpe’s Life Work Given to Los Angeles Museums

by Cimaxion

As I was driving yesterday, I was thinking about my latest film work and muddling through half-formed thoughts about how, whether anyone likes it or not, Los Angeles is the center of art in the United States.  New York has become too much associated with the 20th century’s industrial approach to art.  Los Angeles, it seemed to me inside my comfortable car, is where it’s at.

Today it was announced that the work of American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has been given in joint trust to the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Well, there you have it.

Enjoy the gift, Los Angeles, because you’ve earned it.

If you want to learn a lot more about Mapplethorpe and an incredible drive for artistic expression, read the National Book Award winning memoir by Patti Smith, Just Kids.

Dreams That Money Can Buy – 1947 Underground Feature Film by Hans Richter

by Cimaxion

Inspired by a Hans Richter film posted by Dangerous Minds, I went looking for more. I found this extraordinary gem, Dreams that Money Can Buy, which is a low-budget feature film produced and directed by Richter with some of his incredible friends in 1947. They shot the film in a New York loft. It’s essentially an underground experimental film about a guy who gets an apartment and worries about how to pay the rent. When he discovers that he has the power to see into his mind through the reflection of his eye, he seizes upon an idea to create a business selling dreams to people who are unhappy with their lives.  So of course the film features seven surrealist dream sequences!

Brilliant! Some of the people involved with this fantastic film were Max Ernst, Paul Bowles, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, John Cage, Fernand Leger, and Man Ray.

You can watch the film in its 8 YouTube parts right here or you can go download it from Archive.org.

Part 2

Parts 3 – 8 after the jump!

Continue reading …

Ghosts Before Breakfast – Surrealist Short by Hans Richter

by Cimaxion

Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds posted about this 1927 film by Hans Richter. Considered one of the first examples of surrealist film, it’s a daydream that uses stop-motion animation to make people and objects do totally irrational and impossible things. Richter was a part of the Dada movement in art which rebelled against ordinary life and assumptions, attempting to expose the meaninglessness behind modern life. Out of Dada came the Surrealist movement.  The music for this version is from a new score by Nikolai von Sallwitz.

Thank you Mr. Metzger and Dangerous Minds!

Know No Truth – A Film About a Painter by Joe Martino

by Cimaxion

This beautiful film by Joe Martino features painter Landon Richmond working and talking about his perspective on the pursuit of one’s art and expression. It’s a very direct and moving film. I agree with every word that comes out of the painter’s mouth. And I like the way he says it without a trace of pretension or irony. He’s interested in facing the darkness in his art and he recommends this fearless approach as a general principal. You have to be able to look directly at anything.  Richmond also acknowledges the place that chaos occupies in his work – the willingness to not necessarily understand where it is that you are going but to go nonetheless.  I really enjoyed hearing this painter’s words today and will keep them in mind for quite some time.

You can see lots of Landon Richmond’s paintings and a web comic at KnowNoTruth.com.


Maybe One Day Everything Will be Beautiful – by Landon Richmond