Room For Squares: Josef Albers & Revolutionary Russian Art

Dear web log,

                     What have I been doing?  Well, I went to the St Petersburg Gallery on Saturday, by chance, since we were really on our way to the Josef Albers exhibition up the road, the famous London road being Cork Street, which is full of galleries and should therefore be bombed as soon as I am king because Art is dead and useless, isn't it? Smartly bombed, that is, leaving the Albers and Russian Revolution In Art exhibitions intact because both are brilliant. 

Here are Alber's Bass Clefs. I think that's what they are, only LJ's got the notebook.

Albers created a series called Homage To The Square, as you probably know. I couldn't help thinking of Hank Mobley's album, No Room For Squares, whilst walking around...

I don't think Josef had the same squares in mind whilst painting the series, but he may as well have done because, let's face it, squares are going to dig his squares.

Onward, comrades, to the glorious revolutionary people's republic of constructivist Art!

This exhibition was a knock out, featuring many artists that I'd not heard of, none of whom I remember and they're all in LJ's notebook. Sorry, that's not very helpful, but then, this is a web log entry, not an online magazine, so what do you expect? Like Number Two in The Prisoner, you want information, perhaps. And as Number Six replied, you won't get it, not about the artists, anyway. Go to the gallery site. Go to the exhibition if you live in, or intend to visit, London. It's on until September. 

The Soviet revolutionary communist social experiment is over, but I sense many view communism with a kind of fondness faced with the debacle that is capitalism today. The manifesto and other related books pop up on my friends' Facebook pages now and again. No doubt they're looking for wisdom that will clarify why capitalism 'isn't working'. perhaps they're right to do so. I haven't read political theory since I was an anarchist for three months in 1986. 

That's Lenin atop the sculpture, by the way. I'm currently reading Andrei Codrescu's The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, coincidentally. So far so great and I highly recommend it. This quote from Tzara sums up why I continue with this blog, I suppose: 

                              'If I continue to do something, it is because it amuses me, or rather because I have a need for activity which I use up and satisfy wherever I can.'

TTFN