Leo Steinberg

Synopsis

Leo Steinberg is one the 20th century's foremost historians and scholars on the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo and other Italian Renaissance artists. 


Throughout his career, Steinberg has paid particularly close attention to the depiction of Christ in art, and in the process caused much controversy and debate. 


In addition to his scholarly work of Renaissance art, Steinberg is also a significant authority on 20th-century modern art, including the paintings and sculptures of Picasso, Jasper Johns's Flag series, and Willem de Kooning's Woman series. 


His scholarly work has consistently placed art and artists in a historical context, yet he is known for his less than formal approach to criticism by often using a first-person narrative in his essays. This style has personalized art criticism, making it experiential for readers and museumgoers.


He writes in his essay, Contemporary Art and the Plight of the 


Public, "It seems that during this first encounter with Johns's work,

few people were sure of how to respond, while some the 


dependable avant-garde critics applied tested avant-garde standards 


- which seemed suddenly to have grown old and ready for dumping. 


My own reaction was normal. I disliked the show, and would gladly 


have thought it a bore. Yet it depressed me and I wasn't sure why." 


In the works of Jasper Johns, Steinberg identifies a theme of great 


consequence that is not clear to the naked eye, that of waiting. 


Steinberg points out the "sense of desolate waiting" in Johns's 


works, which all contain objects (flags, faces, coat hangers, etc.) 


designed to move and function in a particular way, yet they are held 


absolutely rigid and still. This technique, according to Steinberg, is 


how Jasper Johns manages to invert the viewer's expectations of 


what makes for significant art. 


http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MBizOTQ2LCEJ:www.theartstory.org/critic-steinberg-leo.htm+photographs+%2B+exhibitions+%2B+leo+steinberg&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari&source=www.google.com




"...it is in the nature of original contemporary art to present itself as 


a bad risk. And we the public ... should be proud of being in this 


predicament, because nothing else would seem to us quite true to 


life; and art, after all, is supposed to be a mirror of life." 




"If a work of art or a new style disturbs you, then it is probably good work. If you hate it, it is probably great." - Leo Steinberg

"All art is infested by other art." - Leo Steinberg


The photo above is how I remembr him in the mid-1970's

Steinberg made a Foucauldian "cut" in the Dominating Discourse of art criticism.

The Cloning of Nikki Reed - All Ready for the Breaking Dawn Premieres

Nikki Reed All Cloned Now
Look Dick. Look Jane. See all the "floating signs" (excessive) of femme. Plumped lips, red lips, soft smooth kissable lips. Almost revealed boobs, large, full. Hair long, wind blown. Dress up to her crotch to reveal I can almost see her hot, wet ........ ahem. And stiletto sandals! Is this the female version of the male six-pack? See Butler on Gender Ambiguity

It doesn't matter why she did this. It just matters that she felt she had to do it. That's what's so sad. A girl who wrote and starred in a wonderful film called Thirteen when she was thirteen. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, the untalented one, who blabbed that Nikki's parents had asked her to help with their wayward daughter. Their wayward daughter put CH on the path to perceived competence all due to this wayward daughter Nikki. She wrote music with Rob Pattinson performed by his sister Lizzy. This girl is no slouch.

Why the fuck does she feel pressured to be all glossed hot. What was the matter with her before. Not a question. The nose job is obvious. I also suspect a boob job. So now she is interfaced with plastic surgery described by William Burroughs in the 1950's.

Now she looks just like the rest of them. They all look alike now. They sound alike now. Just walking talking Barbie dolls.


Here's Patti Smith with Robert Mapplethorpe her lover before he came out I guess. She looks not unlike Thirteen Nikki, eh. Patti Smith: Because the Night on youtube : Pure Passion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0brHGJ6xqbk Patti looks sort of like a boy here, especially the way boys looked in the early 70's. On the youtube video  Patti's "floating signs" are masculine, masking a raw femininity and passion. Watch and listen to her sing this song.

Thirteen

The Stolen, Circulating Wedding Picture With Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart

Stolen Wedding Picture

I know this is focusfree here but let's just focus a minute on this pic. Just simply LOOK at it. What do you see?

Isn't it just one of those pics at a group gathering that everyone has participated in. You paste a smile on and get it over with, eh? But there is one person in this photo that knows the motivation the photographer has for taking it. That's Rob. But he's in a double-bind here. 

If he says what he knows he will get joshed. Hey, don't be so paranoid. The whole world doesn't want your pic. C'mon it's just a silly photo.

No, it's not. The camera snapper is going to sell it. That person has the rights to it because they took it. No matter if they were paid to do the wedding. Maybe? Or maybe it's a fellow guest. Who knows.

So Rob complies, but not gracefully. His shirt is hanging, his sunglasses are on - two others also - his beer is in his hand - others also - but he has that grim, sullen, tight mouth of displeasure. So any soft and pleasant feelings he was having have been erased by his annoyance and held back anger. When he remembers this day, he will not remember the soft happy feelings, but he will remember the stolen pic that circled globally; the one where he was criticized for the way he was dressed for a wedding, the way his gf was criticized for having a beer in her hand when she was underaged.

Folks. That is The Perfect Crime. Another little bit of reality -  read Rob's life -  was just stolen from him. In a homeopathic dose so he wouldn't even notice. Clever: no body, no crime, no punishment, an invisible happening. A perfect crime.

How much of your life has already been stolen? How much of mine? We are all in this together, you know, as we move deeper and deeper into simulated reality. Rob just allows us to project our feelings as he is stalked by 24/7 surveillance. Projection means that you are reversing what you feel and displacing, projecting it on to another. This keeps you from knowing. Many of us are already stalked only we don't know it. Do you live near an intersection with a camera? Then you already are. Invisibly.

Here's another: Rob is happily walking his dog with his friend Tom. In a moment he will realize that he is being stalked and filmed. His lovely moment will be ruined. Another homeopathic dose of reality stolen. He goes through this every day and every night. Only he is aware of it. We are not. Our surveillance is invisible. Welcome to 1984. 

How To Do It Rob - John and Yoko's Bed In for Peace - Now Find a Cause and a Way and Take Control of the Media