Category Archives: Basil King

ART Basil King Critique Martha King

Death and the Green Man

February 24, 2013 – 3:17 pm

Basil is looking for the Green Man across the globe…being of the opinion that our interfaces with nature are irritants across many cultures.  Irritants that make oysters create pearls.  Irritants that are never solved.  Being of the opinion that no culture lives in “harmony” with nature. (Sorry Rousseau.)  And that cultures around the world have tried everything from domination and extirpation to complete surrender to handle it.

ART367646

Madonna and Child with Saints, altarpiece c.1520, Girolamo Dai Libri (Italian Veronese, 1474-75, 1555), tempera and oil on canvas. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY

This painting at the Met is usually explained as having to do with death and resurrection (the dead tree, the burgeoning green one, a peacock as bird of resurrection perched on the lifeless limb) – all central Christian issues. Why else would the Mary and the Christ Child be so subordinate visually to this great green growth? To this marvelous and hypnotic tree?

What you see as you look up at this  is TREE – both dead and alive. It’s not clear to me that there are two trees. It’s a laurel, known to have both living and dead parts. Even if there are two of them, here they are as close as the twins of a single impulse. And that peacock, large, silent, with tail relaxed, not displayed—has quiet green highlights around the eyes on its tail.

I’m thinking the Green Man is often “explained” as a holdover from the religions that  preceded and were overwhelmed by Christianity.  The Green Man pops up, carved by the odd rebellious craftsman at work on a church ceiling or in the corner just by the last pew. A holdover. A bit like the foxes that still live in Central Park.

But I’m thinking it’s possible to consider the tree in dai Libri’s altarpiece a Green Man. Not hidden or even cryptic but towering, full of force, and most of all representing life that is not “our” human life.   The aliens are here already.  And they have always been. What’s more it’s our life and our death that literally depend on them.

 

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ART Basil King Martha King

LOOKING: Process, Progress and a Predella

February 12, 2013 – 4:47 pm
It starts here

It starts here

Basil’s diptych “A Predella for the Green Man”  (mixed media on two canvas panels, together measuring 42 inches high by 12 feet long) is complete. Process and progress from July 2012 to January 2013 was documented in photos by Sanjay Agnihotri and Martha King (with the more amateur shots by MK). See the slide show here. See also the blog page, above.

“Looking for the Green Man”  (mixed media on four canvas panels, 8 feet wide together with the two tallest panels each 74” high) was started in 2009.  We distributed a photo of this work as our holiday greeting in December 2009 (see thumbnail) but early in 2010 Baz hid the painting behind black cloth.

Back in 2009...

Back in 2009…

 

It was off. It was not done. He waited.  In January 2013 when “A Predella” was complete, he was ready to begin again.

The two paintings are now on view in his studio.

Studio table...sometimes waiting is working

Studio table…sometimes waiting is working

 

 

 

 

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ART Basil King Martha King Movies Poetry

Students at UNNCArts comment on “Basil King: MIRAGE”

November 18, 2012 – 3:53 pm

 

Julian Semilian

 

Filmmaker and poet Julian Semilian screened the film for his students in experimental film at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (Winston-Salem). (The school’s ‘movie street’ is seen above.) He sent these comments:

I can see why Nicole insisted on blu ray. It looked spectacular. It also made a huge difference seeing it on a large screen.

This is the first time that my students were THAT talkative after a movie. One of the comments was that this was a film made by an artist about an artist. They emphasized this more than once.

We had looked at films about other artists (Motherwell, Rothko, Bourgeois, Eggleson, Robert Frank) but never before did they feel that involved. The main thing…they liked was that the filmmaker stayed out of the way of the subject….They loved the construction, blending the art with Baz’s reading of his auto-biographical poem, so that we get to know the fusion and mirroring of Baz and art. And they really appreciated seeing the art so large. At the end…I spoke to them about Black Mountain (only one student knew a little about it), some of the other principal characters, and about Frank O’Hara. Next week I am going to read them some O’Hara poems. All in all, a splendid evening. I felt happy and proud to make a connection between the generations.

 

 

 

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ART Basil King Movies

Beverly Film Festival features “Basil King: MIRAGE”

November 8, 2012 – 12:07 pm

The screening is this Friday, November 9, at 8:00pm, in the first festival showing of Nicole and Miles’ wonderful documentary. For folks near Beverly, Massachusetts, check out the details here:

http://www.beverlyfilmfest.com/

The film has been entered in a number of other festivals over the coming months.  More news about the film here:   http://basilkingmirage.net/news.html

And for an overview of the event at Anthology Film Archives on September 22 check out the blog page above.

 

 

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ART Basil King Exhibitions Martha King Movies Poetry Prose Readings

UPDATE on Basil’s Arc

September 17, 2012 – 3:25 pm

Please note a few key program changes: the film begins promptly at 5:15.

The reading of King’s writings at 3:20 will feature Joe Elliot, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones, Martha King, Mitch Highfill and Michael Mann.

The basic plan is unchanged: “Basil’s Arc – The Paintings and Poetics of Basil King” at Anthology Film Archives on September 22, 2012, starts at noon and ends at 6pm.

The focus is the visual art of Basil King and includes conversations (illustrated with slides), original music inspired by King’s images and texts, and culminates with the debut screening of Basil King: Mirage, a film created by Nicole Peyrafitte and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, commissioned by the Friends of Basil King.

PROGRAM

12:00 noon   - Doors open.  Coffee.  Book table for examination or sale.

12:20  KIMBERLY LYONS:  Welcome remarks.

BURT KIMMELMAN: On the Friends of Basil King and why the Friends made this event.

12:40  DANIEL STANIFORTH:  “The Green Man,”  a music video.  Staniforth’s original music and images from King’s The Green Man paintings.

1:00   “Origins and Sources”

ANDREW LEVY, MC, with EDNA AUGUSTA, HARRY LEWIS, and TOM PATTERSON: Tom Patterson on why Basil is not an “outsider” artist but a “hidden insider artist.”  Harry Lewis on two paintings done when King was in high school and how they relate to King’s mature art. Edna Augusta, archivist, on her experience of discovering King’s art.  Open for audience questions and comments.

2:15    “The Poetics of Basil King’s Art”

VINCENT KATZ, MC, with TOM FINK, PAOLO JAVIER, and BARRY SCHWABSKY:  A wide ranging, conversational dialogue that tackles themes including hybridity, embodiment of image, poetic and visual line and color, spatiality and surface, and engagement with precursors in King’s work.  Open for audience questions and comments.

3:20     “Selected texts by Basil King”

MITCH HIGHFILL, curator, with invited readers, and a performance of  “I have a little song” with original music by NICOLE PEYRAFITTE and text from King’s Mirage.

4:00  “Place and Placelessness in Basil King’s Art”

KIMBERLY LYONS, MC, with WILLIAM BENTON, LAURIE DUGGAN, and GEORGE QUASHA: Taking off from King’s points of arrival, arriving at unknown ground, and figuring the where his paintings bring us to. With reference to the American and the European, geographic and minute, local/personal and art historical. Open for audience questions and comments.

5:10  NICOLE PEYRAFITTE and MILES JORIS-PEYRAFITTE, filmmakers: Brief remarks about the making of the film, shot in Basil King’s studio January, 2012.

Premiere of the 22-minute film, Basil King: MIRAGE

5:45  KIMBERLY LYONS:  Brief concluding remarks. All are invited to the B Bar and Grill, East 4th Street at Bowery, after the program. Cash bar.

Basil and Martha King in the studio

 

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ART Basil King Critique Movies Poetry

September 22: Basil King at Anthology Film Archives

June 10, 2012 – 12:17 pm

The Friends of Basil King will present “Basil’s Arc – The Paintings and Poetics of Basil King” at Anthology Film Archives,  32 Second Avenue at Second Street, New York City, on Saturday, September 22, 2012, from 12 noon to 6 pm.

Sponsored by Lunar Chandelier Press — this free event includes conversations about King’s visual art illustrated by slides, with critics and poets including Edna Augusta, William Benton, Laurie Duggan, Tom Fink, Mitch Highfill, Vincent Katz, Burt Kimmelman, Harry Lewis, Kimberly Lyons, Tom Patterson, George Quasha, Corinne Robbins, Barry Schwabsky, Lilly Wei, and others….

Along with these discussions there will be performances of original music inspired by King images (“The Green Man”  by Daniel Staniforth) and King text (“I Have a Little Song” from Mirage, by Nicole Peyrafitte).

"Two Kings--Green" - from the King of Diamonds series, mm/canvas, 44" x 60", 2011, ©Basil King.

Brief selections from King’s texts will be read by invited poets.

The highlight of the event will be the debut screening of a 22-minute film portrait, Basil King: MIRAGE, commissioned by The Friends of Basil King, and created by Nicole Peyrafitte and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte.

Save the date! You are invited!

 

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ART Basil King Martha King Poetry Writing

Learning to Draw continues

April 30, 2012 – 11:37 am

Oh Arcimboldo, who brings portraits of George Bellows, Hubert Selby, Charles Darwin, Gustave Courbet, Joan Mitchell, Agnes Martin, D.H. Lawrence, David Hockney, Edward Hopper, Fielding Dawson, Gene Swenson,Amiri Baraka, Eva Hesse, Nicholas Poussin, and Norman Rockwell out into view, one  following after the other?

Calligraphy for Portraits - marking pens on Stonehenge paper, 26" x 40" - 2011

Basil King continues Learning to Draw in a lovely hand-sewn chapbook called Portraits  from Mark Lamoureux’s Cy Gist Press. Nine black & colored ink drawings, from Basil’s “Calligraphy for Portraits” series are included.

$8 prepaid, includes s&h.   Edition of 50, so hurry.  Order online:      http://cygistpress.blogspot.com

 

 

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ART Basil King Martha King Movies Readings Writing

“After the Movie”

March 7, 2012 – 4:46 pm
art by Basil King - March, 2012

“After the Movie, for Nicole and Miles” - mm/canvas, 48” x 34” - © Basil King, 2012

The movie making upended us both more than we expected.  Like moving studio or household to a new place…many old corners get excavated.  It’s supposed to be cleansing – a chance to toss out detritus – and it is until suddenly it’s, “I did WHAT?”   Or worse: “Why didn’t I finish this?  Follow that?  Give a good answer?” Why didn’t I save….”

I had gone through boxes and books of old photos, looked for lost documents, written to people about lost works.  Finding too many unanswered questions. Baz –six years after publication—was asked to read all of Mirage aloud so excerpts can be on hand as voiceovers for the film.  He hadn’t remembered how autobiographical it is.  Reliving through reimagination.  Art is?  Mirage is.  Mirage: a poem in 22 sections.

In addition my contributions to the job of persuading friends and collectors to contribute funds for the completion of the film –an ongoing effort, by the way–

Please scroll down for the trailer and the DONATE button!

–we both came to a dead stop in our own work.   Mine is still in recovery, as I’m sorting for another different way to enter. Baz has bounced back. See above.  AND:

 

graphic, Basil King, March 2012

“The House that was a Card” – mm/paper, 40” x 26” - © Basil King, 2012

art, Basil King, March 2012

“Mr & Mrs/Mrs & Mr Heart” –mm/canvas, diptych, left side, 48” x 34” - © Basil King, 2012

 

art - Basil King, March 2012

Mr & Mrs/Mrs & Mr Heart, diptych, right side, 48" x 34", c Basil King, 2012

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