Weekly Photo Challenge: Home

Living in an empty loft, an abandoned factory, filled with childhood memories …

hammock originally uploaded by Frizztext

As I was a child, 1950-1955, aged 5-10, the ELBA company in my hometown Wuppertal, Germany, produced stuff for bureaus in clear colors: yellow, red, blue; about 1950 I searched in the trash boxes daily, coming from school – and like a Piet Mondrian I created collages with those colored stripes; nowadays the buildings are empty; years ago the company left to Tunis, North Africa, where it has been much cheaper to produce. I still love these abandoned buildings, the great LOFT-rooms with instant daylight: I will live there, in those quiet rooms, only needing a hammock, a small table, a chair, one small bed – and of course my notebook for my daily wordpress blog …

title=”Mondrian’s descendants – NYC map” by Frizztext, on Flickr / painted by myself acrylic on canvas (1mx1,20m) as a tribute to the last ideas of Piet Mondrian in that cold winter, New York 1944, short before he died …
you cannot find this painting in any museum of the world, because I painted that for my own pleasure, oil on canvas – trying to feature the similarity of Piet Mondrian’s last painting “Broadway Boogie Woogie” to a modern Manhattan city map – read my amazon review on MONDRIAN www.amazon.com/review/RICJD0Z5F8D5G/ (english)

“It is proper to the way of living,” the man of letters Jean Paul noticed, “that one is polite also against himself “. However, Mondrian painted manically compulsively out of a fear against the chaos of the world daily. Although it did not feed him, he could not quit this activity, he continued to work, got a pneumonia in that cold New York winter [slaving away in the unheated studio for three days non-stop] and died before he could finish his “victory Broadway boogie-woogie” painting. A tribute to the city of New York which on the other hand almost let him starve, the money at least did not reach for having the heating on. Nevertheless he loved this town full of jazz, dance and boogie-woogie (he liked to dance there). His paintings are telling a tribute to this pulsating, dynamic Big Apple. Burst from the desert of the Dutch landscape, in saved to the liver Paris, escaping the racial world of the Nazis – like many other artists did. While however painters like Max Beckmann were getting a university-chair offered in New York, this luck did not fall to Mondrian. With an astonishing optimistic colour joy he managed to compensate the real sadness. His last work, Broadway boogie-woogie almost works like a city centre Map: Horizontally numbered the Avenues streets — only the slash of Broadway breaking out of this grid is missing vertical. One is filled with consternation occasionally, out of which suffering art can arise. Mondrian may have been assessed compulsion neurotically — however if he could set such harmonious works against this hell — his compositions against the chaos of the world are fascinating forever. The effort must be done – though it has been a hard life for Mondrian …

+ www.amazon.de/review/RLQZELG2YZ75A/ (deutsch)
“Zur Lebensart gehört, daß man auch gegen sich höflich sei,” bemerkte der Literat Jean Paul. Mondrian aber malte manisch aus Angst gegen die Ungeordnetheit der Welt, täglich, zwanghaft. Obwohl es ihn nicht ernährte, konnte er nicht von dieser Tätigkeit lassen, arbeitete besessen weiter, hexte sich im kalten New Yorker Winter [drei Tage non-stop im ungeheizten Atelier schuftend] eine Lungenentzündung an den Hals und starb bevor er sein “victory broadway-boogie-woogie”-Bild beenden konnte. Eine Hommage an New York, das ihn andererseits fast verhungern ließ – zumindest reichte das Geld nicht zum Heizen. Und dennoch, eine Hommage an eine pulsierende, dynamische, voller Rhythmen steckende Stadt, voller Jazz, Tanz und Boogie Woogie. Aufgebrochen aus der Öde der holländischen Landschaft, hineingerettet ins lebendigere Paris, vor den Nazis geflüchtet wie viele andere Künstler Richtung USA. Während jedoch Maler wie Max Beckmann in New York eine Professur angeboten bekamen, wurde Mondrian dieses Glück nicht zuteil. Umso erstaunlicher, mit welch optimistischer Farbenfreude es ihm gelang, die reale Tristesse zu kompensieren. Sein letztes Werk, der Broadway Boogie Woogie – es wirkt fast wie eine City Map: senkrecht die Avenues, waagerecht die durchnummerierten Straßen – es fehlt einzig der Schrägstrich des aus diesem Raster ausbrechenden Broadway. Zuweilen ist man bestürzt, aus welchem Leiden Kunst erwächst. Mondrian mag zwangsneurotisch veranlagt gewesen sein – aber wenn er dieser Hölle solch harmonische Werke entgegensetzen konnte – fasziniert nicht dann die Beschäftigung mit ihm, seinem Leben, seinen Kompositionen gegen die Ungeordnetheit der Welt?
+

Related Articles

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Home (dailypost.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Home (thebloggingpath.com)
• Featured Blogger: Dietmar Fritze – Philosopher. Photographer. Musician & more… (eof737.wordpress.com)
• Piet Mondrian (simonjanes.wordpress.com)
• De Stijl and Its Legacy (quazen.com)
• What Was Mondrian’s Approach to Art? (socyberty.com)
• Mondrian, Another Dutch Master from Holland (cheesemonger.wordpress.com)
• Mondrian and De Stijl at the Pompidou Centre, Paris – review (guardian.co.uk)

read more about MONDRIAN and the PRINCIPLE OF ABSTRACTION at https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/abstraction/