I don't know if this counts as "strange music," but a few weeks ago I heard Kim Carnes's "Bette Davis Eyes" on the radio, and it made me want to make a collage about a celebrity. So I looked through a photograph book and found this image of Marilyn Monroe, snapped in 1960 by Eve Arnold. In 1962 Marilyn Monroe said, "I do not consider myself a kind of merchandise but I am sure that many people do not see anything else in me... That is what annoys me: a sex symbol becomes an object. I hate being an object."
Machinery photos (1900) taken by Bernd & Hilla Becher are of blast furnaces that turn iron ore into molten metal, which is then poured into a mold.
I would never have thought that pictures of blast furnaces would go so well with a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, but by gosh they do!
ReplyDeleteSuch a strange photo of MM, what with the guy (Eve Arnold's assistant?) positioning her head just so, arranging her for the next shot where she's fully "on" and radiant for the camera... great stuff, and yes, I think Bette Davis Eyes is strange music, it has an odd quality about it, something grainy in her voice that sounds like the look of its accompanying video.
Thanks! The molten iron connected in my mind with a sort of corny notion that our society poured poor fragile Marilyn (hence dragonfly wings) into a mold....
DeleteAnd the metal chair is made from that same process too... I didn't spot that they were dragonfly wings there, I thought they were battleships, seen from above, but now you mention it, they are of course wings!
DeleteInteresting and complex piece, Fi. You really get deep and I am glad you explained the collage, which you usually do, so thank you!
ReplyDeleteI always worry about my providing explanations, though. Shouldn't the art stand on its own, without words?
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