Category Archives: mid-life crisis

So long for now/ Au revoir les amis/ Adio pana una alta, prieteni!

Since all things end at a time or another and since my energy is not, unfortunatelly, unlimited, I’ve decided to limit myself to one blog only, the most visited, “Van Gogh & I”. I’ll try to do there what I was doing on my other blogs too… Of course, I will not delete this present blog and those interested would be able to browse it and to comment, if they so wish… I promise to answer. So that’s it, folks: so long and have a good, interesting life…

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J’ai décidé d’abandonner, du moins pour le moment, ce blog. Mon énergie n’est pas, malheureusement, illimit et je vais garder seulement un blog, celui qui marche, apparement, le mieux: ‘Van Gogh & I‘. Il devra me suffire et je vais essayer d’écrire là ce que j’écrivais dans mes autres blogs. Bien sur, ceux intéréssés pouront fureter toujours ce blog and laisser leurs commentaires, s’ils/elles le désirent. Je promets d’y répondre. Au revoir, donc, mes amis et j’espére que vous allez avoir une bonne, intéressante vie…

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Pana una alta, adio, dragi prieteni! Fiindca energia mea nu e fara limite am decis sa ma limitez la un singur blog, cel cu cresterea cea mai rapida, ‘ Van Gogh & I‘. Voi incerca sa fac pe un singur blog ceea ce faceam pe 3. Desigur, nu sterg blogul de fatza si daca vetzi dori, il vetzi putea explora fara probleme si comentata, daca vetzi dori. promit sa raspund prompt si va dorest o viatza buna si interesanta…

Ion Vincent Danu

Dan Quixote

I’ve wrote something lately: about Nietzsche. Again… But it puzzles me and I’m not yet entirely satisfied. So I’ll entertain you (I hope so!) with a drawing – well, a graphic work – I used to do quite often in the years of my depression… 2000-2001… I have entitled it Dan Quixote because I always felt a bit like battling the windmills since I’ve become a full time artist… At the time, I was experimenting with composition and new graphic techniques; I’ll have to tell you one thing: depression has it’s bright side, paradoxically… If you are an artist, it could happen very well that your creativity – and productivity – increase very much, a lot, during depression. Well, not if you are catatonic (I never was)…but a bit of depression can stimulate the hell of your peripheral vision, can encourage you to explore roads you wouldn’t take otherwise… I’m not saying get depressed to get creative; I’m just saying, if this is the case and you ARE depressed, and this increase your creativity-productivity, why not take advantage of it? Even the worst situation MUST have some good sides… When somebody dies, someone else inherits… It’s sad, it’s cruel, maybe, but these are the facts of life (you can call it Wall Mart philosophy or such but it doesn’t make it less true… I remember reading an interview with Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver. When he wrote the screenplay made famous by Martin Scorsese and Robert de Niro, he was depressed au bout, comme disent les francophones…

Dan Quixote

Two bitches

Usually, I love animals, especially if they don’t bite me… But reading this story, about a bitch (a real bitch, a DOG bitch) who inherited 12.000.000 usd really made me mad. It seems that her master, another bitch (condemned to prison for fiscal evasionism; she said “only poor people pay taxes”… and their financial empire was 4 billiards worth!) left her the 12 millions so that “Trouble” (that’s the first bitch’s name) could bite everybody without being kicked… It seems, La Presse Canadienne writes, that her annual expenses are about 300.000 $… don’t ask me how can “she” spend 300.000 USD a year! I could live quite well for 15 years with what the bitch spends in a year! See, when communist propaganda in my former communist country, Romania, wrote about this kind of eccentricities, we didn’t believe it. “Propaganda!” But La Presse Canadienne is not a communist agency and the fact are there – you can check them. No wonder the little bitch receive death menaces and had to be moved somewhere in Florida… It all comes to slogans but can you avoid thinking that the “overture” song of Malcolm in the Middle is untrue? That life is unfair? Just imagine the number of PEOPLE whom could be helped to work and live decently with 12.ooo.ooo USD! Even if usually, as I said, I love animals (if they don’t bite, like Trouble) some high end, snobbish, immensely rich REAL bitches could make you REALLY mad! (or puke!)

Here is the story (in French):

http://tinyurl.com/325nso

Two bitches

Metropolis

 Big city

I’m not absolutely sure that Bucharest, with his 4 million people, qualifies for a “metropolis”… for me it was that… A big city, hysterically agitated, cruel, tense, inhuman, full of sound and fury… I never had a chance to know it better, to see also its “good” sides… I had some relatives and some friends, over the years, in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, but never yet had the time, the patience, the chance to know it otherwise. I was a stranger there. Afraid to be robbed. Prone to be a victim of all those big city slicks, of all the gypsies and notoriously (for the provincial sucker I felt I was) dishonest taxi drivers and stuff…

Since I’ve bragged I was a photographer (well, still am, not dead yet…) I will show you this time a photo I took when I was no more than a young adult (he-he-he, many years ago…) . It was taken with a very primitive camera, well know at the time in a URSS allied country like Romania, a “Smena’. Almost the equivalent of a disposable camera in US, not very complicated but with a good, sharp objective. The films weren’t much better, in those days of communist Romania: if you got an east-German made Orwo film you had top quality…

The place: before the “Patria” cinema, somewhere on one of the main boulevards of Bucharest. People were circulating upstream and downstream without even looking. For me, young provincial, it was shocking this big city indifference of the people. I was naive, of course. What could have you done? Call the Ambulance? The lying man was a victim of some robbery or simply a drunkard? Was he dead or still breathing? What should I do? Eventually, I took a picture. I’m not proud of the way I solved the dilemma… But them, it wasn’t my town. I had no friends there. I was myself, almost as the man laying there, a stranger in a strange land…

The Little Redhood

Litlle Redhood

I was a lot of things in my life. Photographer was one of them. Here is a photo I took one or two years before immigrating with my whole family to Canada. Of course, the litlle redhood is my daughter and the place is an orchard near my native town of Sibiu, Transylvania. A place called Cisnadioara where there is, not far away, on a high hill, a very old castle, well preserved. A place where somebody smart (and rich) could shoot a movie with Dracula, for instance… A small village where it should be good to live (eventually to paint) if the rich people from Sibiu wouldn’t have already bought most of the houses and lands…

Getting drunk, as a solution…

“Life is cruel” – “life is real” – isn’t it what they say in some classic songs?

Well, just because Supertramp or Freddie Mercury said it in a song it doesn’t make it untrue automatically… But I would say that, in my humble experience, life is cruel only because it’s indifferent. Why is “real”, well, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Freddie about that (yes, I know he’s dead…) Anyhow…being in what the French call “une disposition massacrante” I need (and badly!) some (auto) encouragement… All I could find was a famous (?) text by Charles Baudelaire. (I’m too damn nervous and angry to translate it so I hope you know French; sorry!)

“Enivrez-vous

Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là: c’est l’unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? (Good question!) De vin, de poesie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.

Et si quelquesfois, sur les marches d’un palais, sur l’herbe verte d’un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous reveillez, l’ivresse déjà diminuée, ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l’étoile, à l’oiseau, à l’horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l’étoile, l’oiseau, l’horloge vous répondront: “Il est l’heure de s’enivrer! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martirisés du Temps, enivrez-vous sans cesse! (OK) De vin, de poesie ou de vertu, à votre guise.”

Charles Baudelaire, “Sa vie, son oeuvre”, p. 407, Bibliothèque Fixot, Paris, 1992.

Since I have no wine, some poetry (see above) and very little virtue (I don’t brag about it, anyway), I have to get drunk with what I have: ink and colors, pens and brushes, or, in other words, drawing and painting. I add a sample.

Depressing OGMs

Essential loneliness / Singuratate fundamentala

couple.jpg

I’ve chosen this drawing to illustrate this title. It’s a couple, they probably make love – or have sex – together. But they are essentialy alone. Same as we are… each and everyone

There will be a lot to say: no, I’m not alone, I have a wife, a lover, children, parents, friends, etc.

The truth is – and it’s sad, very sad (as I am tonight) that we are, finally, alone. No lover, no wife, no children, no friend (and I value friendship a lot) can fill in the emptyness, the essential loneliness we feel sometimes. Happly, it doesn’t happen often. A few minutes, maybe, in a lifetime. If you are moderately smart, you’ll recognise it. If not it will be only a very unpleasent feeling, a strangeness, something you will put aside as quick as you can, trying to forget about it… If not, you will be prone to cleaning rifles accidents, like Hemingway and his father…

Why do we feel it? I don’t know. It could be a negligent word from some of your dear ones, a mean remarks of a person you thought (how stupid can one be?) was a friend, the fact that your child doesn’t have 2 minutes to ask how are you? Or a stranger’s mean look, with no reason that you know (maybe he or she doesn’t like your mug, as simply as that?)

Very few of us will wish to analyse too much this odd, unpleasent, sickening feeling. Neither do I.

But then, maybe I am disturbed?

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Am ales desenul acesta al unui cuplu pentru a ilustra titlu de mai sus. Probabil ca cei doi fac dragoste – sau au sex – impreuna dar, in mod esentail, ei sunt singuri. La fel ca fiecare dintre noi. Fara exceptzie.

Vor fi multzi care sa spuna: nu, eu nu sunt singur, am o nevasta, o iubita, copii, parintzi, prieteni, etc. Se poate. Dar adevarul este – si e trist, foarte trist (asa cum sunt eu in seara asta) – ca fiecare suntem, pana la urma, singuri. Nici o iubita, nici o nevasta, nici copiii si nici prietenii (si eu am o idee foarte inalta despre prietenie) pot sa umple golul acele, singuratatea noastra fundamentala pe care o simtzim uneori. din fericire, nu se intampla prea des. cateva minute, poate, intr-o viataza de om. Daca esti destul de destept, vei recunoaste momentul, cand se intampla. Daca nu, va ramana doar ca o senzatzie neplacuta, ca un sentiment bizar, ca ceva ciudat, ceva de care te grabesti sa scapi cat mai repede si incerci sa uitzi… Daca intarzii prea mult s-ar putea sa ai accidente de curatzat pusca, ca Hemingway si tatal sau…

De ce se intampla? Habar n-am de ce. Poate sa fie un cuvant aruncat neglijent de catre cineva iubit. Sau o remarca rautacioasa din partea cuiva pe care (oare cat de prost potzi fi?) l-ai crezut prieten, sau faptul ca copilul tau nu are 2 minute ca sa te intrebe de sanatate… Sau, pur si simplu, o uitatura urata de la un strain sau straina (de ce? cum ai putea stii? poate ca nu le place moaca ta?)

Foarte putzini dintre noi vor vrea sa analizeze pe indelete acest sentiment, bizar, neplacut, care-tzi provoaca greatza. Nici eu nu vreau.

Dar, cine stie? poate ca sunt deranjat?

DADA, DAnu, de Chirico and Andre Breton…

I was always fascinated by the quirks and quarks of fate… the way hasard make things happen…

This is a shorted story of my artist name, Danu. In my native language, Romanian, it means YES-NO, sort of Yang-Yin, if you want. My mother-in-law called me that, long time ago, Danu being a diminutive for “Dan”… But this is just the first layer in the cake…

About 6-7 years ago I was browsing on the Internet and I fell over a text of memories from the begining of the DADA mouvement (founded, mainly by a compatriote, Tristan Tzara). I was already calling mysel Ion Vincent Danu, here and there… I was simply shoked reading that in a certain day in February 1916 Tzara and his friends fauded officially the DADA mouvement, at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich! Because I was born exactly the same day, exactly 40 years later! Some coincidence! DADA (yes-yes in Romanian) and DANU (yes-no) ! It really shocked me to see this “simetry of the fate” (Sting would say: “the secret geometry of chance”…) From that moment on, I started to call myself, sistematically, Ion Danu or Ion Vincent Danu…

Later on, continuing to study the surrealism (which , chronologically and not only, was the NEXT level of the Dada mouvement, a lot of the first DADA members became surrealists – Tzara and André Breton being some of the most importants…) I fall upon this Giorgio de Chirico painting:”Le cerveau de l’enfant” (Child’s brain):

Le cerveau de l’enfant

It’s a painting from 1914 and de Chirico was considered by the surrealists like a sort of “founding father”, just like Lautremont was in the literary side of the mouvement. André Breton bought this painting and had it with him a long, long time, until 1964 when he sold it (for he wasn’t too rich either…) to the Stockholm Museum for 250.000 F.

You can see that the eyes of the mature (almost old “father” character in the painting) are closed. (It seems that only that way the child could look at him…) André Breton made a photographic “interpretation” of his painting and the character in his photo (unfortunalelly I don’t have at hand…) had the eyes OPEN…

I was inspired by all these little quirks and quarks of cultural history and made my own interpretation of it: I figured the old guy as myself (I already have the bladness and the hair on the chest, I only had to change a bit the galic moustache into a greyer barbiche) The main “quirk” was that I open ONE eye and let the other close… and I have written all the DADA – DANU history over the table (and the orange book was intitled DADA-DANU). There are also some other changes that I let you discover… Ingenious, eh… Well, here it is the “old gorilla” in all his splendor:

Dada danu

The Ghost of Madness…

This is the title of one of my “kind of abstract” little paintings (acrylics- see bellow). It is also a temptations and a problem for a lot of artists… I don’t know if a connection – a causal relationship – between madness (well, call it mental sickness if you want) and artist (geniuses, at the highest…) was made before Schopenhauer… He is although the one who made this connextion famous…

The number of artists who were (a bit or a lot) crazy, mad, excentric, loony, etc. is not at all small. To cite a few : Hugo van der Goes, Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Dali (by his own confession), Jackson Pollock, etc. Since suicide is considered by some the extreme symptom of mental illness, a lot of others could enter the ranks : Pascin, Rothko, Nicholas de Staël… And I limited myself to painters only…

Of course, the myth of the “cursed artist” (l’artiste maudit) is the general, public perception of this, in a very simplified manner. But to study the phenomenon would take volumes and volumes…

One thing is clear: if the above mentionned artists were mad they create their art only when they were perfectly lucid. I do not know a single mentionable work of art created during a crysis… but a mentally ill artist has a different, an original view of the world, a visionary one, sometimes… If we are to believe Jean Dubuffet we need to be a bit crazy and we are never crazy ENOUGH in order to create original art… Maybe it’s true, maybe not…

The Ghost of Madness

The worst thing/ Le pire/ Cel mai rau lucru…

 Racines

In a letter addressed to his mother and sister Wil (April 1890) Vincent Van Gogh wrote:

…”When I found out that my paintings had some praising and I read the article in question*, I was immediately afraid that this will depress me. It’s almost always like that, in the life of the painter; SUCCES IS THE WORST THING that can happen to him…”

( * the “article” is the famous G.-Albert Aurier article in “Mercure de France” (January 1890)

Was Vincent supersticious? Why was “succes” scarying him so much? And why is “succes the worst thing” for an artist?

I just ask the questions for now… And there is maybe another one, quite weird, an hypothesis which is not totally absurde: in the motives (because one thing is for sure, Vincent did not commit suicide just for ONE reason…) of his suicide, isn’t it this fear of succes ANOTHER one?

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Dans une lettre qu’il écrit a sa mère et soeur Wil, en avril 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dit:

…” Quand j’ai appris que mes oeuvres avait eu un peu de succès et que j’ai lu l’article en question, j’ai craint immédiatement que céla me décourage. Il en va presque toujours ainsi, dans la vie du peintre; le succès est ce qu’il y a de pire…”

Était Vincent superstitieux? Pourquoi le “succès” lui faisait tant peur? Et pourquoi est-t-il le succès “la pire de choses” qui peuvent arriver a l’artiste?

Pour le moment, je ne fait que poser les quéstions. Mais il y a une, encore plus troublante, qui fait place à une hypothese peut-être pas aussi absurde que ça: dans les motifs (parce qu’ily a eu plusieurs, ça c’est sur) qui ont poussé Vincent au suicide, la peur de succèes n’est-t-elle aussi de mise?

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Într-o scrisoare din aprilie 1890, adresa mamei si surorii sale Wil, vincent Van gogh scria:

…”Când am aflat ca lucrarile mele au avut un pic de succes si am citit articolul în chestiune, m-am temut imediat ca asta ma va descuraja. Asa se întâmpla aproape întotdeauna, în viatza pictorului; succesul e lucrurl cel mai rau care i se poate întâmpla…”

Era vincent superstitzios? De ce succesul îl înspaimânta ? Si este oare succesul “cel mai rau” lucru care i se poate întâmpla unui artist?

Deocamdata nu fac decât sa pun întrebarile. De fapt, mai este înca una, tulburatoare, care face loc unei ipoteze care nu e asa de absurda cum poate parea; între motivele (fiindca în mod sigur, n-a fost doar unul singur…) care l-au împins pe Vincent la sinucidere, nu se afla oare si frica de succes?

A scarecrow…un épouvantail… o sperietoare de ciori…

scarecrow-ideogram-copy.jpg

When I saw “The Scarecrow”, Jerry Schatzberg‘s movie, with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman, I was 17-18 years old… I had no idea the film got a Palme d’or à Cannes in 1973… But I’ve felt this was a great movie, a movie which could taught me something, something misterious, something important, about life… More than 30 years latter I was adopting the scarecrow ideogram as my signature... I felt it was an appropiate signature for myself, an old geezer, ravaged by diabetes and depression, looking a lot older than he really is but not without some humour… Of course, it’s a lot more complicated than this, but that’s the essence of it…and the main motivation.

That’s why, since 2006, most of my paintings and drawings are signed also or exclusively with this sign (see above)

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J’avais 17-18 ans quand j’ai vu “L’Épouvantail” , le film de Jerry Schatzberg, avec Al Pacino et Gene Hackman. Le fait que le film avait obtenu La Palme d’or 1973 au Festival de Cannes ne m’était pas connu mais j’ai senti que ce film-là avait quelque chose d’important, mysterieux, à m’apprendre sur la vie… 33 ans après je faisait du signe de l’épouvantail ma signature. D’un façon mystérieuse, je sentais que c’était là le symbol appropié pour moi, petit vieux, dévasté par le diabète et la depression, à l’aspect 10 ans plus vieux que l’age réel, mais qui ne manque pas un peu d’humour… Bien sur, c’est plus compliqué que ça, mais c’est cette réference filmique et cette motivation fondamentale qui a fait que, partant de l’année 2006 le signe de l’épouvantail apparaissait sur la plupart des mes oeuvres (voir plus haut).

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Aveam 17-18 ani când am vazut filmul lui Jerry Schatzberg, “Sperietoarea”, cu Al Pacino si Gene Hackman. Desi habar n’aveam ca luase Palme d’or în 1973 la Cannes, am simtzit ca filmul acesta avea sa ma învetze ceva important, desi misterios si difuz, despre viatza

33 de ani mai târziu, aflat în situatzia unui batrânel usor caraghios (silly looking, din cauza ravagiilor diabetului si depresiunii nervoase, mi-am ales simbolul Sperietorii (creatzie proprie, binentzeles) ca “semnatura” a mea, pe cele mai multe din lucrarile mele de dupa 2006. Sigur, e mai complicat…dar aceasta este geneza si motivatzia esentiala a acestui simbol (pe care-l putetzi vedea reprodus ceva mai sus).

Link to the Schatzberg movie: http://tinyurl.com/2kn9bx ( this is in French) and

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070643/ (English)

Wild stuff… fuckée… chestii salbatice…

A few days – or is it weeks? – ago I’ve discovered some drawings I draw in a pretty fucked up period of my life… 2001-2002… I was depressed (and not mildly! REALLY depressed, almost ready  to kill myself or maybe some others… I’m ok now, don’t worry, I am not dangerous anymore…)

I had a big beard, a savage beard, and some prissy old lady would cross over the street, clutching their purses, when they catch a glimpse of me… So, this drawing is quite wild (but this blog isn’t written for nice, prissy, old ladies, eh?)

Mother Earth

I won’t translate this neither in French nor in Romanian. Too damn tired for that… and it’s odd but my feeling is that “wild stuff” is the best aproximative “translation” for this drawing… So enjoy (if you can…)

I join also a “Sinister Self Portrait” to show you what I mean speaking about “savage beard”… In fact, I I would have meet myself on the street, I would have myself cross over…

Sinister self portrait

Auto-portraits…

Genre classic de la peinture, révélateur et plus ou moins intimiste, l’auto-portrait peut être aussi un sorte de test pour la sincérité de l’artiste, pour ses qualités et défauts… Il se livre comme tel aux spectateurs éventuels… comme un agneaux se livre, malgré lui, au boucher…

Voilà un auto-portrait de moi-même, looking a bit silly, (c’est vrai!)… Pour moi, c’est un petit rituel… chaque année, j’essaie de me dessiner ou me peindre, le 31 décembre… Des fois, le “blues” de fêtes est trop fort et je ne réussis pas.. donc je le fais plus tôt… ou plus tard… De tout façon, je me reconnais dans cet auto portrait qui me montre comme un petit vieux mal allant (à l’intérieur, dans la carcasse, c’est le prince, le génie, qui aimeriez bien avoir l’allure de Charles Bronson mature…et son démarche de féline)

(Ceci est dédié à une amie cosmopolite qui parle beaucoup de langues – mieux que moi, à part le Roumain, ha,ha!) et qui, des fois, as la bonté de se pencher sur mes choses… elle a aussi un nom de fleur très (bonne) odorante…

Auto-portrait 12 09 05