Modernism Inc.

Don’t miss the new documentary series Pretend It’s a City featuring New York icon, author, humorist, and social critic Fran Lebowitz in conversation with friend Martin Scorsese (who directed the series) discussing life if New York City with topics ranging from money to the arts, wellness to books. Lebowitz is known for her two books of essays Metropolitan Life (1978) and Social Studies (1981). Photo of Fran Lebowitz by Brigitte Lacombe for Vanity Fair, December 2010

Happy Valentine’s Day image: Cover of Jim Dine by John Gordon, Whitney Museum of American Art / Praeger, New York, 1970. #HappyValentinesDay #jimdinehearts #jimdine #modernart #contemporaryart #artbook #rarebook #popart #figurativeart #workonpaper #oiloncanvas #painting #art #fineart #modernisminc @the_adaa @sfartdealers

Earnest, hard working and kind we celebrate the Year of the Ox! Artwork: LE CORBUSIER [1887-1965], "Taureau Trivalent, 1963, collage, gouache, & India ink on paper #lecorbusier #taureau #painting #gallery #painter #architect #designer #design #swissart #frenchart #art #purism #20thcenturyart #avantgarde #oiloncanvas #museum #russianart #modernism #modernisminc #modernismincgallery

Duncan Hannah: Imagined Journeys on view now at Modernism through February 27th. View the online catalogue with essay by Robert Flynn Johnson at the link in bio. Pictured:... Duncan HANNAH The Time Machine, 2008 oil on canvas 14 x 9 inches @the_adaa @sfartdealers@duncanhannah #duncanhannah #art #artwork #artexhibition #contemporarypainting #painting #oilpainting #acryliconcanvas #oiloncanvas #contemporaryart #figuration #artgallery #modernism #modernisminc #sanfrancisco #ADAAGalleries t#artgalleries #artdealer#arts #artsy #artworld #artistic #literature #penguinclassics #penguinbooks #fiction #nostalgia #figurativepainting #representationalpainting

In the Paris Sky Maurice TABARD [1897-1984], "Dans le Ciel de Paris," 1947, gelatin silver print @the_adaa @sfartdealers... #mauricetabard #tabard #surrealism #surrealistphotography #vintagephotography #gelatinsilverprint #classicphotography #portraitphotography #photoexhibition #museumcollection #paris #parisphotography #eiffeltower #toureiffel #blackandwhitephotography #solarization #superimposition #photomontage #avantgarde #modernism #modernistphotography See more

Celebrating color with the Arnoldis! @chuckarnoldi @the_adaa @sfartdealers #essentialart #art #painting #inspiration #creativity #gesturalabstraction #intuition #beautiful #contemporary #sfartgallery #modernism #modernisminc #abstractart #abstractpainting #abstraction #artist #oilpainting #fineart #color #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #oiloncanvas #acrylicpainting #acryliconcanvas #losangeles #sanfrancisco #charlesarnoldi #chuckarnoldi #californiapainting #californiaabstraction

Books play an integral part of our daily life and work at Modernism. We are pleased to share with you each week some of our treasured volumes. This week we present Jazz Modernism from Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce. Written by Alfred Appel Jr., this book discusses how the jazz of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker fit into the great tradition of modern arts between 1920 and 1950. Alfred Appel compares the lay...ering of sex, vitality, and the vernacular in jazz with the paper collages of Picasso, and the vital mix of high and low culture found in Joyce. He shows how the musical construct of jazz was pared down by the masters as sculpture was in Calder’s hands or prose in Hemingway’s. He makes clear how Armstrong and Waller tore apart and rebuilt Tin Pan Alley material in the way that modernists in the visual arts arrived at wood assemblage and scrap-metal sculpture. And along the way, he recalls live jazz performances during the 1950s by Armstrong and John Coltrane, among others, and the night Charlie Parker played to a visibly thrilled Igor Stravinsky at Birdland. Making connections as illuminating as they are unexpected, Alfred Appel places classic jazz in the cultural and historical context of modernism while celebrating the music of jazz and the artists who created it. Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf. New York 2002 Cover: photograph of Louis Armstrong by Philippe Halsman #bookoftheweek #bookworm #bookstagram #artbook #jazz #modernjazz #modernart #arthistory #DukeEllington #LouisArmstrong #Matisse #Joyce #Picasso #artandmusic #modernism #modernisminc

#BookoftheWeek Books play an integral part of our daily life and work at Modernism. We are pleased to share with you each week some of our treasured volumes. This week we present Mythologiesby Roland Barthes [1915-1980], published in 1957. ... The book is a collection of fifty-three essays on French popular culture and mass media. In Mythologies Barthe writes about such things as food, horoscopes, religion, advertising, toys, photography and detergent, all being elements of mass culture that are imbued with ideology that provides society with myths. For Barthes, a myth is a perceived cultural reality that carries an order of cultural significance where semiotic code is perceived as fact, therefore assuming a degree of power and authority. All around us, in pop culture, media, and politics, there are codes and symbols that govern our choices. They express myths of success or happiness. Barthes’ rationalizes that these myths must carefully be deciphered and debunked. Barthes’ ideas have continued to have a major influence on the way we study media. His belief in the need for a rigorously critical view of mass media, advertising, and political spectacle has become more pressing than ever. Publisher: Hill and Wang, New York, 1972 #bookoftheweek #bookworm #bookstagram #booknerd #readinstead #RolandBarthes #shortstories #French #massmedia #media #mythology #semiotics #semiology #sociology #literature #linguisitics #brainwash #codification #popularculture #modernism #modernisminc

...Thinking green! Featured: James HAYWARD, ABSTRACT #184 (cadmium green), 2013, oil on canvas on wood panel JAMES HAYWARD: WORKS 1975-2007, Essays by Dave Hickey, Frances Colpitt, and Jason Smith, 2007, Modernism Inc., San Francisco... #jameshayward #painting #paint #painter #contemporary #impasto #monochrome #monochromatic #oilpaint #abstract #abstraction #abstractpainting #art #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist #artist #green #thinkinggreen #greenaesthetic #color #colorgam #colortheory #gestural #gesturalabstraction #gesturalart #texture #surface #artgallery #modernism #modernisminc See more

#BookoftheWeek Racism may indeed carry out the doom of the Western world and, for that matter, of the whole of human civilization. When Russians have become Slavs, when Frenchmen have assumed the role of commanders of a ‘force noir,’ when Englishmen have turned into 'white men,' as already for a disastrous spell all Germans became Aryans, then this change will itself signify the end of Western man. For no matter what learned scientists may say, race is, politically speak...ing, not the beginning of humanity but its end, not the origin of peoples but their decay, not the natural birth of man but his unnatural death. Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951 Hannah Arendt is one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century. In her works, she grappled with the dark events of that century, probing the nature of power, authority, and evil, and seeking to confront totalitarian horrors on their own terms. This week we present Thinking in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt on Ethics and Politics which focuses on how, against the professionalized discourses of theory, Arendt insists on the greater political importance of the ordinary activity of thinking. Indeed, she argues that the activity of thinking is the only reliable protection against the horrors that buffeted the last century. Its essays explore and enact that activity, which Arendt calls the habit of erecting obstacles to oversimplifications, compromises and conventions. Publisher: Fordham University Press, 2009 #bookoftheweek #booklover #bookshelf #bookstagram #booksharing #bookworm #philosophy #philosopher #hannaharendt #ethics #freedom #truth #humanity #womeninphilosophy #womenphilosophers #theory #thinking #thought #critique #hope #power #politicaltheory #antiracism #modernism #modernisminc See more