Fig.1 short animated introduction to Israel–Palestine situation created by Jewish Voice for Peace.
"The Mass Observation Project (MOP) is a unique UK–based writing project which has been running since 1981. ... [it] differs from other similar social investigations because of its historical link to the original Mass Observation and because of its focus is on voluntary, self–motivated participation. It revives the early Mass Observation notion that everyone can participate in creating their own history or social science. The Mass Observers do not constitute a statistically representative sample of the population but can be seen as reporters or 'citizen journalists' who provide a window on their worlds.
The material is solicited in response to 'directives' or open–ended questions sent to them by post or email three times a year. The directives contain two or three broad themes which cover both very personal issues and wider political and social issues and events.
"This new instrument, known as the 'Grand Letar,' is the invention of Letritia Kandle shown here playing it. She designed it and had it built specially for her. The instrument as 26 strings and a lighting effect that is very new and novel, being he first instrument to change color while it is played.
The string grouping used on the I 'Grand Letar' which has complete harmony has been studied and developed by Miss Kandle over a period of six years, the development being derived from an eighteen string triple–neck Hawaiian guitar which he also designed and had built for her. Miss Kandle has played coast to coast programs over NBC and has done electrical transcription work for RCA. She also has had her own string ensemble for which she did all the arranging.
Miss Kandle demonstrated this instrument at the recent manufacturers convention in New York City."
(Down Beat, 1937)
"Designs New 24 String Guitar", Down Beat Chicago, October, 1937 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/–RWXEdfUowkI/UKYBHr–Te2I/AAAAAAAABd0/1lOE20w_nC8/s1600/LetritiaDownBeatArticle.jpg]
"00:25:43 Wide view of the new House of German Art, a museum dedicated to Nazi–approved artwork, with long, white columns. 00:26:03 Across the street, INTs of the 1937 exhibition of Entartete Kunst ['Degenerate Art'] on the second floor of the Institute of Archaeology. Room 1 with 'Kruzifixus' [Crucified Christ] sculpture by Ludwig Gies (1921), formerly in Luebeck cathedral. 00:26:66 Room 3 with 'Maedchen mit blauem Haar' [Girl with Blue Hair] by Eugen Hoffmann. Wall text refers to a Kandinsky piece 'Zweierlei Rot' (1928) purchased for the National Gallery in Berlin for 2,000 marks as 'paid by taxes from the working German people.' 00:26:39 Wide view of the crowds in Room 3, including the mocking inscription by Georg Grosz, 'Nehmen Sie Dada ernst! Es lohnt sich.' [Take Dada seriously! It's worth it.] Male docent showing visitors Room 3 with 'Springendes Pferd' [Jumping Horse] by expressionist Heinrich Campendonk from the National Gallery and the small painting 'Um den Fisch' [Around the Fish] by Paul Klee. 00:27:13 Visitors moving through Room 3, looking at sculptures beneath an inscription in wavy lines, 'We act as if we were painters, poets, or whatever, but we...are just putting one giant swindle over on the world....' 00:27:24 Exhibit lobby with large head sculpture 'Der neue Mensch' [The New Man] by Otto Freundlich (1912), which was used for the cover of the exhibition guide. 00:27:37 EXTs, people coming out of the building, car and bicycle pass by on the street. Large sign over exhibition entrance: 'Ausstellung 'Entartete Kunst' Eintritt frei.' [Exhibition 'Degenerate Art' Free entrance.] INT, Room 4 with 'Der Strand' [The Beach] by Max Beckmann. 00:28:00 Profile view of two women looking at paintings by Ernst Kirchner and Oskar Kokoschka in Room 4 with 'Sitzender Mann' [Sitting Man] by Erich Heckel of the artists' group 'Die Bruecke' [The Bridge] and 'Die Mulattin' [The Mulatto Woman] by Emil Nolde behind them. Men view works in Room 4 and move through exhibit. 00:28:33 Room 5 with 'Bahnhof in Koenigstein' [Koenigstein station] by Ernst Kirchner, 'Blumen und Tieren' [Flowers and Animals] by Heinrich Campendonk (1926), 'Handstand' by Willi Baumeister, 'Im Kanu' [In the Canoe] by Jean Metzinger, 'Komposition' [Composition] by Piet Mondrian (1929), 'Stilleben' [Still Life] by Karl Schmitt–Rottluff (1932). 00:29:07 The inscription over the doorway from Room 6 to Room 7, 'Sie hatten vier Jahre Zeit.' [They had four years' time.] In Room 1, 'Christus und die Suenderin' [Christ and the Sinner] by Emil Nolde (1929). Visitors before the Dada wall in Room 3, pan to right."
"In a masterstroke of design, the curator of Chaos and Classicism, Kenneth Silver, chose a work of art to illustrate the Nazi annexation of neoclassicism that at first glance is anything but threatening. The Four Elements by Adolf Ziegler decorated the walls of Hitler's Munich apartment. A member of the Nazi Party, Ziegler was charged by Hitler in 1937 to stage–manage the purge of modern art in the notorious Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Ziegler's depiction of four nude women who symbolize fire, earth, air and water, the four elements of nature recognized in antiquity, personifies little but the pretentious sterility of culture under the Third Reich. Yet, it is the perfect embodiment of the banality of evil."
(Ed Voves, 4 October 2010)
Fig.1 Adolf Ziegler, The Four Elements: Fire, Water and Earth, Air, (Die vier Elemente. Feuer, Wasser und Erde, Luft), before 1937, Oil on canvas, three panels, left to right: 170.3 x 85.2 cm, 171 x 190.8 cm, and 161.3 x 76.7 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderner Kunst in der Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.
"This diagram was meant as a challenge to the prevailing art world hegemony. It was created to prove the argument that graffiti and street art were already at the center of the art world whether they were officially recognized or not.
Utilizing the same graphic vocabulary as Alfred H. Barr, Jr (the first director of MoMA for the cover of the catalog for Cubist and Abstract Art exhibition in 1937) to create an impression of authority equivalent to his diagram. The Feral Diagram picks up chronologically where Barr left off, thereby subverting and redirecting the officially recognized historical trajectory.
Six years after the first draft of this diagram, the acknowledgement of graffiti and street art as important movements within the fine art community, if not the most important movements at the beginning of the new millenium, has come to light with major museum retrospectives, a never ending stream of books on the subject, websites, products, etc."
(Daniel Feral, 2011, Flickr)
Fig.1 revised "Feral Diagram 2.0" version.
"Mana Waka, working title Canoe, is a feature–length documentary made to launch New Zealand's 1990 centennial celebrations. The documentary has a fascinating history. Princess Te Puea Herangi of the Turangawaewae Marae, Ngauruawahia, was a great Maori leader committed to work that would uphold, and be used for the benefit of, the Maori people. During the late 1930s she conceived the idea of celebrating the 1940 centennial of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by re–building the seven wakataua/war canoes of the Great Fleet, According to legend these canoes had journeyed from Hawaiki to Aotearoa some 25 generations previously. Princess Te Puea asked stills photographer R.G.H. (Jim) Manley, who had not previously made a film, to film the re–building, and he did so over a period of three years. Up north in the Puketi Forest, a great kauri tree was felled for the building of the Nga–toki–matawhaorua canoe which is now housed at Waitangi. Two totara trees from the Oruanui Forest provided the timber for the canoes that were carved and built at Turangawaewae."
(Helen Martin, 8 July 2011, Onfilm Magazine)
Fig.1 Still from "Mana Waka": NZ 1990 Documentary prod co Nga Kaitiaki o Te Puea Estate and the Turangawaewae Marae Trust dir Merata Mita camera R.G.H. Manly (filmed 1937 – 1940) ed Annie Collins kai korero/narrator Tukuroirangi Morgan film preservation Te Tumu Whakaata Taonga The New Zealand Film Commission, Ngā Kaitiaki Ō Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua The New Zealand Film Archive, NFU Laboratory, NFU Sound finecut Nga Kaitiaki o Te Marae o Turangawaewae sound Merata Mita, David Madigan, Chris Verberg, Mike Hedges, Annie Collins. 85 minutes.
