Wassilly Kandinsky, Der Blaue Reiter, 1903

The name of the movement is the title of a painting that Kandinsky created in 1903, but it is unclear whether it is the origin of the name of the movement as professor Klaus Lankheit found out that the title of the painting had been overwritten.^[1] Kandinsky wrote 20 year later that the name is derived from Marc’s enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky’s love of riders, combined with both love of the colour blue.^[1] For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal (see his 1911 book On the Spiritual in Art).

Der Blaue Reiter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and Gabriele Münter. Der Blaue Reiter was a movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with Die Brücke which was founded the previous decade in 1905.

I couldn’t resist. One of my friends took this photo. I was crazy about Legos as I kid I literally donated half my closet to bins full of Legos and a desk to build on.

Blue Legos

The London Eye

Le Bateau de Larmes – The Boat of Tears

At the Pompidou

I also took this at the Pompidou. It’s by Jean Michel Othoniel from the exhbit “My Way” (In reference to the Frank Sinatra Song). It was my favorite piece in the whole museum. His glasswork is beautiful and I love the way it’s reminiscent of both sea and sunshine. I also found an excerpt on it that I thought was really meaningful.

“Apparently [Jean Michel Othoniel] was in Miami and saw an abandoned boat on the beach. It had been used by people from Cuba to escape Castro’s regime. He had the boat shipped to Europe and mounted a wonderful canopy of glass over it much like his work with the station at Port-Royal. The poignancy of the title and the unknown fate of those who sailed in it add an emotional dimension to a crude wooden boat topped with a fairy-tale explosion of glass beads. It gives an almost epic slant to a sad story of those wishing to escape deprivation and repression to try their luck in a new land”

François Morellet, Reinstallations

 

I took this just over a week and a half ago at the Pompidou in Paris, France. It’s installation art by François Morellet. In his pieces he used all kinds of different materials – neon tubes, pieces of wood, adhesive tape on walls, metal sheet and more. He wanted the exhibition to be characterised both by elegenge of concept and beauty of effect. Really neat exhibit!!

Acqua