Still Life – Glove and Newspaper

13th May 2020, Museum of Modern Art, New York (virutually)

Over the past five weeks, I looked at art through a variety of themes: Places & Spaces, Art & Identity, Transforming Everyday Objects, and Art & Society.

A year ago, I was enjoying Joan Punyet Miro’s exhibition Birth of the World in MoMa, New York. It seems almost symbolic that I have chosen to explore his oil painting titled Still Life – Glove and Newspaper from 1921, (Paris) for my final assignment of my first online course Modern Art & Ideas!

His painting seems so relevant now at this COVID-19 pandemic. One can find all of five themes which we have been exploring in the past five weeks.

Quoting: You have to be an International Catalan; a homespun Catalan is not, and never will be, worth anything in the world,” declared Miro after his first visit to Paris, in 1920. The five objects on the table – Miro’s own glove, cane, an artist’s portfolio, a newspaper, and a pitcher adorned with a Gallic rooster – compose a symbolic self-portrait of a Catalan artist abroad.

iPhone photo (2019) of the original oil painting displayed in MoMa New York

I feel that his still life painting captures a mixture of a self-portrait (identity as Marc Chagall in his I and the Village from 1911), places and spaces reference to his homeland Spain and also, transforming everyday objects just like Meret Oppenheim’s philosophy behind her surrealistic masterpiece) – making this painting so flat, as well as being political and making a statement about belonging with his newspaper hint.

I really like that Miro included his portfolio in his painting as he truly demonstrates that he is an artist and he wants to highlight this to the public. His work has made a strong impression on me as the way he uses colour balance, styling and assembling objects on the table, how he uses his own identity to stand out from the crowd when he is living and working abroad. It resonates with me a lot as I am doing the same, using my Czech identity and roots in my creative work too.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - Gathered by Lukas

18th May 2020

Here are my three handpicked and freely styled bunches of daffodils to lift our moods during Mental Health Awareness Week and share some beautiful flowers from home #MyChelseaGarden.

The poem by Wordsworth celebrates the relief from isolation that he felt in the company of daffodils.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

– William Wordsworth (1815)

E-postcard from Home - Iconic Images of COVID-19 Pandemic

My parents, Josef and Hana, in Eastern Bohemia

Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is one of the most iconic images of the Great Depression. The challenging circumstances portrayed in Lange’s photographs are reminders of what many are experiencing today.

I had been looking for an image that speaks to me - and all of us - at these uncertain times. I have struggled until I got this e-postcard from my home in the Czech Republic, from my parents. I see fear, love, and hope. This photo expresses the circumstances we are now facing as a society and feels emblematic for our time.

#HoldStill2020