JaZzArt en València

Y eso es muy común… digo yo, ¿No?

Toni Morrison, née Chloe Ardelia Wofford, (Ohio, 1931- New York 2019),​ was a North American novelist, essayist, editor and professor. She was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Morrison from an early age was very much attracted to literature and writing. She studied Humanities at Howard University and also received a Masters degree in Literature from Cornell. In 1955 after her graduation she began teaching at Texas Southern University in Houston, and later at Howard as well as in other academic centres throughout her years.

Morrison wrote about such topics as self-identity, racial discrimination, violence and slavery. With her unique narrative style she was able to deeply explore the psychological attributes of her characters. Always a fighter for civil rights and equality, she was very well respected and admired in the literary world.

In 1960 she became the first Black female fiction editor for Random House, New York…

Her most famous novel «Beloved«, (1987), is about slavery in the United States and how it affected the life of a mother and daughter. For this novel she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988…

Other novels are «Tar Baby»; «Love» and «Song of Solomon«. These works explore issues of identity, violence, family and the search for liberty. Her work always reflects her ideas of social justice and truth…

Toni Morrison, like myself, greatly admired President Bill Clinton (for me the best president the US has had in modern times) and in an article in The New Yorker she said: «…Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.» («Talk of the Town: Comment» October 1998. The New Yorker).

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Toni Morrison, née Chloe Ardelia Wofford, (Ohio, 1931- New York 2019),​ was a North American novelist, essayist, editor and professor. She was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Morrison from an early age was very much attracted to literature and writing. She studied Humanities at Howard University and also received a Masters degree in Literature from Cornell. In 1955 after her graduation she began teaching at Texas Southern University in Houston, and later at Howard as well as in other academic centres throughout her years.

Morrison wrote about such topics as self-identity, racial discrimination, violence and slavery. With her unique narrative style she was able to deeply explore the psychological attributes of her characters. Always a fighter for civil rights and equality, she was very well respected and admired in the literary world.

In 1960 she became the first Black female fiction editor for Random House, New York…

Her most famous novel «Beloved«, (1987), is about slavery in the United States and how it affected the life of a mother and daughter. For this novel she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988…

Other novels are «Tar Baby»; «Love» and «Song of Solomon«. These works explore issues of identity, violence, family and the search for liberty. Her work always reflects her ideas of social justice and truth…

Toni Morrison, like myself, greatly admired President Bill Clinton (for me the best president the US has had in modern times) and in an article in The New Yorker she said: «…Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.» («Talk of the Town: Comment» October 1998. The New Yorker).

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7) Marina Abramović. The «grandmother» of performance «art». Frankly speaking I didn’t always feel the same way about this grandmother, but once her complete life of «art» played out I saw that she was no artist that I could call valuable or useful to art history. The way she uses people is akin to abuse and the way she manipulates the observers (or admirers) is a total farce. Her supposed «chance» meeting with Ulay, her one time partner, was contrived. And contriving art is okay by me, but don’t pass it off as real. Therefore she makes my list. Perhaps I am not as disgusted with her as I am with many of the others that populate this top ten, but…

8) Tracy Emin. Let’s start by saying that her claim to fame came when her «Bed» became a work of art. Frankly it is a disgusting piece and it may just show how untidy and unclean she could be or could have been. I don’t know, I’ve never met her. At least if she did sleep on such a bed. The bed is surrounded with vodka bottles, used condoms and all manner of rubbish. Whatever it is, if art it is, it is bad, useless art. She cannot draw or paint, as you can plainly see in the photograph below. Yet, she is held as one of the great artists of the UK.

9) Fernando Botero. The painter of volume, as he calls himself. But those silly little fat figures that he paints are not representative of volume. If you want volume look at the figures of Rubens or the portraits by Jenny Saville. Botero’s do not even represent cartoons. Everything he paints is the same. All the figures have the same blank or withdrawn expression. There is no magic, no power, no charm in his work, therefore he is most definitely in my list.

10) Keith Haring. This artist and social activist made it to the top of the art world by making doodles. Yes, similar to the ones we all made in our high school notebooks when we were bored in class. There is no aesthetics in his work, and absolutely no rhyme or reason. They could have easily been made by a seven year old. And for a seven year old they might have seemed like art, but really, it is not good art at all for someone that considers himself an artist. He started out making these doodle on or close to galleries. Why didn’t he make them on truck stops on an interstate highway?

Well here it is my top 10 most useless artists. I can re-arrange them as they are all really number one. And please understand that my words (passionate as they might be) are not meant to cast any aspersions on the artists themselves. I dislike their work. I do not know them, never met any of them and do not know anything about their lives or personalities. This is for sure not an attack ad hominem. It is an attack on their supposed «art».

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4) Romero Britto. Well Britto should take up a lot, if not most, of the slots in my ranking of my worst ten artists (my opinion). Really I should not even include him as an artist, because he is not. He is a mystery. I cannot understand why or who would purchase one of his atrocities. He stands next to the great bad ones like Miró and Kahlo. Yet those were simply bad artists, Britto is not an artist. And if you search, you find nothing about hi, He says he never studied art, and that is quite evident when you see his «works» which resemble a kindergartner’s colouring book. I will let you be the judge.

There really is no reason to put any more as they are all the same.

5) Jean-Michel Basquiat. The «enfant terrible» of the 1980’s. The boy-man who wanted to become famous and rich, and who managed it. I must say that I do respect him a bit more than most of the others, but I still consider him a terrible artist. His mother trained him in the arts and he profited from it, to a certain extent. He was a «graffiti artist» for a while, an abstract musician, a painter, a bohemian, a bum on the streets, and a spoiled brat who did not know how to live and ended up the way he did. Suicide by overdose of drugs. His works are uninspiring and quite cliché, boring to the max and do not, nor have they ever proffered anything to art history. The fact that he was always around the «greats» of his time contributed to his posthumous success. As to the value of his works, well, that is a mystery just like with Britto.

6) Damien Hirst. If anyone can be called a non-artist (besides the ones I have already mentioned) is Mr. Hirst. He thought he had invented the circles of colour, he put a shark in formaldehyde (which he did not mix well and the shark began to rot and had to be replaced) and he made a skull with diamonds who no one bought and who was secretly purchased by a group which included himself… He does not know anything about painting, drawing, well, nothing about art at all. Well, if I could put all the «artists» I have mentioned as number one on my list, I would.

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A veces cuesta trabajo y a veces no vale la pena, ¿Qué pensáis?

1) Frida Kahlo. Mediocre, did not know how to draw or paint. At best a naïve artist, but hardly even there. It is hard for me to even call her a bad artist, because I tremble to use the word «artist» when referring to her. However, since her death they have converted her into the «queen of merchandising».

Need I say more about this supposed artist that never added anything to art history? (Sorry if you are a fan. I am hot here to discourage you. This is simply my opinion).

2) Joan Miró. Boring to the extreme. He never experimented, he never searched. He did not even mix colours. What for? Buy the tubes, they already come mixed and then «create» a series of paintings using simply the colours (primary ones) as they come out of the tube. Finish series in ten minutes. If his family had not opened the Joan Miró foundation where would all those canvases be? I suspect collecting dust in some attic or basement. However, I do believe he was a smashing good sort of chap.

3 A + B) (A)Yoko Ono. If she had not married John Lennon (who she did her best to seduce back in the late 1960’s), nobody would have ever heard of her. And that would have been hunky dory. The only thing she does worse than art is singing, composing and performing. Cannot say anything else about this woman, except that she may actually also be Yayoi Kusama, there is a likeness, no? That allows me to segway to #3 (B), Yayoi Kusama. Great curtain designs for the home of a blind man…

Let me be clear on this very important point. I am judging only the art that these artists have brought to the world. I do not know these people personally therefore I make no judgements on their personality, lifestyle or anything like that. It is nothing personal. If you are a fan of any of these or of any of the ones in the forthcoming part 2, I am so sorry, but this is my opinion based upon a lifetime of study in art and art history. And I also base these opinions on common sense and good taste.

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Well, what can I say about Queen? All I can say is that they are a phenomenal band that sounds as good today as they did back in the 1970’s when they ruled!

Queen was formed in 1970 with Freddie Mercury, (vocals and piano); one super guitarist Brian May, and drummer Roger Taylor. Bassist John Deacon arrived to the band a year later. They were the most powerful band around, uniting prog-rock with hard-rock and then pop-rock and great videos on MTV, back in the day. There has been a ton of band, both in the UK and in the US and the world, that have said they were influenced by Queen, and I believe it.

Made in Heaven (1995) was the last Queen album with Freddy Mercury. It reached number one in the UK and number 58 in the US. It was Queen’s best selling album. In 1997, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon recorded the group’s final song «No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)«. One of the few Queen songs that does not feature the lead vocals of Freddy Mercury. The song was included in Queen Rocks, a compilation album from 1997.

Queen’s last appearance was at the 1990 Brit Awards which honoured the band’s contribution to British music. Freddie Mercury was given a posthumous award in the 1992 Brit Awards for his contribution to the music world. Queen was awarded the best single award for «These are the Days of our Lives«, from the album Innuendo (1991).

Almost all of Queen’s songs are phenomenal, but I had to choose one. Here it goes and I hope you like it.

«These Are the Days of Our Lives» is attributed to all of the members of Queen but it was really mostly written by drummer Roger Taylor. The song was released as a single on the 5th of September, 1991, Freddy Mercury’s birthday. The song is included in the 1991 album Innuendo.

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This is my first of May tradition, to listen to The Bee Gees sing this song. Since I am not a Marxist I do not celebrate the Workers Day. Although I am not an American, I tend to think that Labour Day, as it is celebrated in the US on the first Monday of September, is a much more appropriate occasion to honour every worker of the world.

I hope you like the song…

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Meet Malc Wright, an Interview by Francisco Bravo Cabrera

Please follow the link to the entire article/interview

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