JaZzArt en València

I really got into these phenomenal girl groups much later, but I knew right away that I was hooked on their sound, the harmonies and the melodies. Actually many of the great bands of the 1960s were influenced, and I mean like The Beatles and the Stones…

The 60’s definitely were the golden age for girl groups… Some of the most popular ones were: The Supremes (no doubt supreme), The Ronettes (my favourite), The Shirelles, The Shangri-Las, Martha and The Vandellas (Absolutely phenomenal), and The Crystals, among others not so famous… These groups like The Marvelettes, The Chiffons, The Angels), created a lasting legacy with songs about love, heartbreak, and teenage life, becoming cultural touchstones. Too bad this musical tendency does not exist anymore. The talent is missing as today mediocrity is hailed as greatness…

So not only did the girl groups influence pop but also R&B…

Hope you like them…

CHEERS

MUSIC & DANCE

Within a beating heart that keeps the 3/4 time of the waltz, the 4/4 time of the ballad and the 6/8 time of the rumba,

surrounding the air that vibrates, resonates, and lightens each note,

the violin and the guitar spar with the drummer, while the drummer converses with the bass about the very essence of the universe, for such is music, and such is the dance…

(C.2025/Francisco Bravo Cabrera/10/12/2025/Valencia, España)

* For my readers who might not yet know what an «Euro-ku» is… Well it is my way, as a Westerner, to honour the Japanese traditional poem, the Haiku. Being that I do not speak or write in Japanese I have re-created the beautiful Haiku into something that Westerners can easily create. First, we do not need to keep the Japanese syllabic content, as we are not writing in Japanese and our languages are quite dissimilar. Second, we must keep a continued thought and not let our phrases drift off into outer space never to be fully understood or recovered. and third, and this is the novelty part, we must accompany our Euro-ku with an original illustration, be it a painting, drawing or photograph by the author. That is all you need to create something new from an old tradition, and still maintain respect and honour

CHEERS.

Lo que quieren es la pasta…

Yo no busco que nadie entienda mi arte; el arte no necesita ser entendida. No hay que buscarle la quinta pata al gato, ni esperar algo lógico, racional o realista. Lo único que necesita el arte es un componente emocional y que logre una reacción visceral y emocional en el observador. Tiene que existir esa comunicación…

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I do not seek for anyone to understand my art; art does not need to be understood. There is no need to split hairs , nor to expect something logical, rational, or realistic. The only thing art needs is an emotional component that achieves a visceral and emotional reaction in the observer. That communication must exist…

GRACIAS – CHEERS

A veces vemos una obra supuestamente de arte y decimos «qué mierda» y quizá lo sea, pero es que hay obras de arte que realmente son de mierda. Si no lo sabias te invito a que veas el vídeo…

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How many times have we looked at a supposed artwork and thought it was complete shit? Many… But did you know that some art is really shit? Well, take a look at the video…

CHEERS

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».

CHEERS

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.

CHEERS

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.

CHEERS