Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 216 – Frida’s Pain and Penny’s Portraits

Frida and Diego by Shadowland

Frida and Diego by Shadowland

Listen up:

Or Download HotFRM 216 (43:20 80mb)

In today’s show we once again visit the Art Gallery of Ontario.  First to see the art and life of the famous artistic pair Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.  Among the things we discuss are Frida Kahlo’s cause of death.  Drag-on and I speculate that Frida died of cancer, but the truth, I’ve discovered,  is that no one actually knows.  She had so many health problems in her life.   I get a new perspective on her art and how her pain informed it.  Next we stop by to see the restoration and preparation of the a soft sculpture called Floor Burger.  It’s being readied for its trip to the MOMA in New York where it will be on display this month.  Other soft sculptures by the same artist Claes Oldenburg will be exhibited as well. The highlight of our visit is Evan Penny’s odd fantastical, mildly horrific hyper realism.  Or is it hyper artificialism?    Even with all of the works that we see and as hard as we studied the exhibit descriptions, labels, and explanations, we still walked away perplexed, off balance and unsettled –  a little like leaving a funhouse where the mirrors distorted us and our world and the tilted floors left us rather dizzy.     Have a listen and see what you think – then go see all the Evan Penny you can.

Links:

Frida and Diego at the AGO

Evan Penny at WarmPhotos.net

Pridesource Article on Evan Penny

Evan Penny at the AGO

Claes Oldenburg at the MOMA

More Evan Penny

Evan_Penny_15

Evan Penny – Detail

The Floor Burger by Claes Oldenburg

The Floor Burger by Claes Oldenburg

Advertisement

Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 180 – How To Podfade Properly

Commuters sit in rush hour traffic on the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto. (Kevin Frayer/Canadian Press)

Ninja spends her evening commute (Torontonians have the longest commute in the world) discussing her plans to podfade. Not so gracefully.  She is inarticulate about being an INTJ and highway traffic patterns.  Talk turns to vampires and tips at Hooters. She shares the not seen Tim Burton exhibition at MOMA from their NYC trip and the fabulous and edgy work at the New Museum in the Bowery.  A tongue sticks itself out at me.

A Tongue in a Wall

Urs Fischer's Tongue in the Wall

Listen to the show at: