On April 14, Medium posted an article from their series, My Favorite Corner of SF, which features a special place in the town called Frisco. (Click for rabbit hole about that nickname). Sunny Chanel picked the southwest corner of Market and Octavia the location of Grooves, a record store she inherited from her parents and Top's Coffee Shop, opened in 1935.
This piece of Americana so delighted Bob Dylan that he painted it as part of his Beaten Path Series.My search for the Dylan image lead me (online) to Shanghai's Halcyon Gallery which ran a retrospective of over 250 artworks spanning the 1970 drawings (remember the cover of Planet Waves) through the more recent, Beaten Path acrylics.
In celebration of Bob's 79th birthday, I am exploring the artwork which may have been exhibited (September 28, 2019 through February 2020).
Writings and Drawings 1973
This collection includes Dylan's lyrics from Bob Dylan (1962) to Greatest Hits (1971) and his drawings from that way back then. You'll recall that era spans post-motorcycle accident (July 1966) and Big Pink and Woodstock (town, not the festival)
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| "She Belongs to Me" |
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| Minstrel Boy |
I can see a lot of Woody Guthrie influence in this endeavor.
Drawn Blank 1994/2008
Originally published in 1994, Drawn Blank is a series of landscapes, hotel scenes and nudes that Dylan created whilst (sic) on tour from 1989 to 1992. They were enhanced in 2007 and enlarged digitally to create 320 original paintings. Selections shown are from Castle Fine Arts.
Asia Series 2010
In this Medium article, the author takes on Dylan's Asia Series, Gagosian Gallery, appropriation, forgeries, and the capitalist nature of the art world. And that many of the Asia Series works are copies of photographs but sell for a lot of money because the artist is (probably) Bob Dylan.
New Orleans Series 2012
Of New Orleans, Dylan writes “There’s a thousand different angles at every moment. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem.”
Revisionist Works 2012
Dylan has long been a willful contextualizer of his own source material. All personas are interchangeable. His diverse musical output spans a wealth of genres. His Revisionist art provides a glimpse of an artistic process that is equally maverick and elusive.
Yeah, like they said. These are large silk screens about 4 feet tall.
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Sharon Stone on the cover of Playboy. Not Sharon Stone getting an autograph during the Rolling Thunder Review.
Motels, backstreets, alleys, store fronts and country roads.
Here's what Bob has to say about all of these...
"There is nothing to suggest these paintings were inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud or that they were based on any mental images that occur in dreams, no fantasy worlds, religious mysticism or ambiguous subject matter. In every picture the viewer doesn’t have to wonder whether it’s an actual object or a delusional one. If the viewer visited where the picture actually existed, he or she would see the same thing. It is what unites us all."
And let's allow Douglas Heselgrave to retort...
Attempts to see things as they are – whether through the emptiness of Buddhism or the neant of Sartrean existentialism – haven’t been very successful at offering clarity. We still insist on a truth that is often nothing more than a hodgepodge of subjectivity and seemingly endless loops of personal associations.
Mondo Scripto 2019
Click this link for a beautiful collection of the illustrations that Dylan used to accompany the hand written lyrics for this collection.
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| "Blowin' In the Wind" |
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| "All Along the Watchtower" |
Dylan's birthday celebration continues tomorrow with a look at the films of/with/by Bob.
Looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteFrom Halcyon Gallery: "Bob Dylan's Retrospectrum at Museum of Modern Art Shanghai has now finished and the exhibition will be travelling to Beijing opening at the Today Art Museum this Summer. "
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