Word: motif
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they say in Hollywood argot, will be the banquet for 500 thrown by Nancy Reagan. The dinner will be held at 20th Century-Fox on sound stage No. 9, recently vacated by the cast of M*A*S*H (see VIDEO). A western theme and a Main Street, U.S.A., motif were rejected as insufficiently classy. Instead the set will be decked out with bucolic backdrops and a large central fountain to give the atmosphere of a park. The dinner is considered informal. In California that can mean décolletage and gold chains for the men and metallic spandex pants...
...basic motif of these prints is racing circuits. The places the new prints are named after-Imola in Italy, Pergusa in Sicily, Talladega in Alabama-are all professional speed tracks; their plans, sinuous and flexing, are echoed in the serpentine calligraphy of the images. Naturally, though, they are much more than layout. Stella's drawing, in a print like Pergusa Three, has a kind of wristy expansiveness; its loops and contours recall 1930 Picasso, as does Stella's elegant play with collage in the lacy patches within the curves. At times, as in Talladega Three II, the printed...
Mauro does not remain impervious. "If only the insane would keep quiet," he sighs, repeatedly overhearing the muffled curses that stream through Marta's door. Doors and locks soon emerge as a motif--Mauro is endlessly closing doors, turning the key in the four locks of his front door, inspecting the locks on telephones. The physical boundaries manifest his compulsion to separate all that is sane from the insane, the acceptable from the shocking, and the inside from the outside...
...decade of travail, long silences and undoubted artistic growth, comes as a reassuring surprise. A tale of loves won and lost on a ten-day Mediterranean cruise, The Painted Lady is more than entertaining; its verve and humor disguise a serious work. Sagan's cruise has a musical motif; the deluxe passengers have each paid $15,000 to listen to a virtuoso pianist and a celebrated diva perform aboard a ship pointedly christened Narcissus. The lure is also gastronomical: "The port of call determined the musical work, and the musical work determined the menu. These delicate musical relationships, hesitant...
...sensibility the Mona Lisa, and Gustave Courbet's rosy, meaty image of two lesbians-one of them Whistler's mistress-sprawled in amorous sleep. At times, as in All Abordello Doze 3, 1982, the degree of interference by overprinting, cutting and juxtaposition almost buries the motif in a landslide of variations, and yet Rauschenberg's close, laconic grasp of form saves the effect from chaos. The montage of alien images, clamoring for attention, cancels the peculiar voyeuristic steaminess of Courbet's original...