Longing for Summer

Being caught in a deep-freeze right now, I fondly look back to the summer months spent in Vienna and surroundings, and later in Montreal:

AUSTRIA SUMMER 2008


FAMYLY RAPP IN AUSTRIA, SUMMER 2008


MONTREAL SUMMER 2008

De Es Schwertberger

De Es

A few days ago, my friend De Es had been featured with a page on facebook by someone unknown.
Since De Es has no control over that page, both Leo Plaw and myself, on behalf of De Es whom we were in contact with, reported the unauthorized page to Facebook Administration and I am happy to announce that the page was deleted. De Es has since joined our group of Visionary Artists on facebook.

Please visit his website:

http://www.dees.at/

Personal Information:

De Es Schwertberger (born Dieter Schwertberger 1942, Gresten, Austria), commonly known simply as De Es (since 1972), is an Austrian artist, painter and modeller. His work has been shown in exhibitions in New York City, where he lived for a short time, and Switzerland.
In 1973 De Es went on to serve as the assistant to Ernst Fuchs, at the Summer Academy in Reichenau. It was in this time that De Es went through the Stone Period, in which his art work consisted mainly of objects and people made from cracked rock and stone. De Es moved to SoHo, New York City in 1975, continuing his Stone Period of art work. In the 1979 he opened his own Gallery, Studio Planet Earth, before ending the Stone Period with a series of 'Time-Portals' paintings.
De Es' 1980s period of work opened with his work on the vast Transformation cycle of paintings, depicting 'Planetarians' (fictional beings invented by De Es), which were displayed at the Dome of Peace exhibition in 1980.
In the early 1990s he continued with the Planetarian sculptures, with an outdoor exhibition of forty Planetarians at Gurten Mountain, near Bern, Switzerland, marking the 800th 'birthday' anniversary of the city. In 1993 he published his book Heavy Light, a selection of his work from throughout his life. He also started work on another book, Prime Matter, which covered his Stone Period, which was published over the following years.
He lives and continues to work in Austria.

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

In 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope took the image of a millenium, an image that shows our place in the universe. Anyone who understands what this image represents, is forever changed by it.

Go to the Hubble Website for a wealth of fascinating facts and images:

Germaine Greer on Hirst critic Robert Hughes | Art and design | The Guardian

Note to Robert Hughes: Bob, dear, Damien Hirst is just one of many artists you don't get!

Hirst has his defenders. Germaine Greer thinks Hughes (and the rest of us poor and unwashed masses) simply "don't get it". My question to Greer would be: "What is there not to get?" Nothing he does is really very clever (other than his uncanny ability to bilk nouveau rich people and con curators) - I believe the 'work' is simplistic to the point of childish exhibitionism, and perhaps that is the appeal for Greer and the moneyed Lemmings, much like the stockmarket investors getting fleeced by BRE-X Fools Gold (the then corporate Headquarters Sign in Calgary looked as if designed by bling-artist Hirst).
Post-Modernism is gasping it's last breath, with Guillermo Vargas Habacuc and Piero Manzoni as 'fine' examples of it's decline. Hello Tate Gallery: How about a group show with Hirst?
Greer lectures us from a podium of superiority, the "illuminati literati", which is laughable and sad at the same time.
The Guardian also ran a poll, titled: An artistic licence to print money? And guess what: 87.7% thought Hirst was a Huckster.
But Greer and her ilk know better, of course.
I wonder if former BRE-X VP John Felderhof owns a Hirst - naw, he is to smart for that. But what is conceivable is that they could probably be neighbors in the Cayman Islands (as long as Hirst and his rotting fish are located downwind, I guess).

Germaine Greer on Hirst critic Robert Hughes Art and design The Guardian