There is also - as you will find below - a 'moving picture' version (though movement is suitably minimalist) resulting from a collaboration between photographer Wilson ("one of the world's masters of drama and light") and VOOM HD Networks ("the pioneer in HD television"), the result of which is "a groundbreaking video series of high-definition portraits for the 21st century..."
Hmmmm...
OK, OK... I'll stop making partisan use of inverted commas and let them pitch you the pitch without further interruption!
So, now you know... Here's Brad...
Over the past two years, Robert Wilson, one of the most exciting and influential innovators in theater, art and design, has been working with VOOM HD Networks as an Artist-in-Residence to create the VOOM PORTRAITS. These stunning works of art, so far numbering over thirty, have captured superstars and royalty, ordinary people and extraordinary animals, in a series of high-definition video portraits.
Each VOOM PORTRAIT is a set piece developed by Wilson in collaboration with his subjects, and draws inspiration from movies, art, history and more. For example, Winona Ryder is the character “Winnie” from the play “Happy Days” by Samuel Beckett (above); the portrait of HRH Princess Caroline of Hanover is inspired by her mother, Grace Kelly’s, role in “Rear Window,” as well as by the 19th century portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent; Willem Dafoe is a monstrous creature from a horror movie.
Varying in length between 2 and 15 minutes, the VOOM PORTRAITS seem at first glance to be traditional still portraits. But then, the sitters perform a simple act—a small movement, a blink, a tap of the foot—and the experience of watching them changes entirely. The clarity of HD technology heightens these subtle effects, and an accompanying soundtrack adds an additional element of drama.
Ah, well, as the Devil comments in Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'The Conundrum of the Workshops':
"It's pretty, but is it ART?"
[Read more about Robert Wilson's Voom Portraits ; read the full text of Kipling's poem]
7 comments:
Huh! The only pretty thing there was Brad's torso! And no, I do not think it is art. If it is, then the dustpan & brush sitting on the window sill in my loo is art too!
I guess I'm just old fashioned... give me a Rubens, a Memling or a Dali...
I think my imagination does a much better job of having Brad Pitt shooting liquid at me.
I've never been a fan of conceptual art. Duchamp's "Fountain" is only good for its originally intended purpose.
I actually laughed out loud when i saw this - and not in a good way.
Even Brad Pitt does not make this interesting to me. So I doubt Wynona Ryder would either.
Naughty, naughty, QENNY!
Me neither, SILLY BILLY.
Which century are you in?. At the very least we should be grateful that conceptual art fosters debate about art & attempts to makes sense of the times in which we live or have you forgotten how radical the Impressionists were in their time? 100 years on & Art is supposed to remain at a standstill whilst all else advances? It's worth the risk of failure to express an idea. Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better as Sam Beckett said. Embrace the new,be tolerant of change which is demanded of us all the time in a social context -why not art?
Fair comment... It is undeniably true that every era's rebels become the creators of every later era's masterpieces...
I just can't help thinking that this is probably more about promoting Voom HD Networks' products than producing 'art', but then art has also always had to contend with counting the costs of sponsorship and patronage...
Actually, your poetry is very good - or, at any rate, the poems I've read are... :-)
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