[A Second-time Rendezvous] on Christer Stromholm's [Nana]

Who was she? Where'd she come from? At which point did she notice Stromholm and his camera? One can look at the photograph of [Nana] taken in Paris during the 1950's and draw blanks to numerous questions. All that we know, is that Stromholm spotted her, his unquestionable depth of eye, at which time she spotted him and what followed was a photograph of [Nana] captured for all time.

Stromholm was lenient, ubiquitous, a hair-triggered snapper who rarely missed any vision worth pursuing, which again, we are brought full circle to the question as to who she was and why it is that Stromholm felt the need to circle around twice, an act rarely committed due to his very disposition, to revisit this woman?

Were they lovers? Mutual admirers? Him the artist driven and pulled by the compulsive, creative urge and she the whore whose only virtue was a whore's existence? Did she, in this slaggish existence, demand money of Stromholm or allowed him to titillate himself while she enjoyed the beloved intrigue of being notice?

All questions, no solid answers; but what we do have, is [Nana]'s and Stromholm's rendezvous, in black and white record........

[Toulouse-Lautrec's Regular] Ladies & Gentleman, Suzanne Valadon

            There is no certainty many can draw from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrait of Suzanne Valadon, alone, propped in ennui, at a table, a bottle of wine at both her leisure and sole company.

Is she a regular? In what Paris haunt does she meet the inebriate state she’s bound to meet? And if not that very state of intoxication, is she planning to meet another to replace that intoxication with momentary flames?

            So much can be drawn from a portrait, particularly one of a woman who mothered the great Montmartre artist Maurice Utrillo, at beck and call to Lautrec, to Jean Renoir, to Edgar Degas, all of which could have been the possible father of Maurice, who’d developed an abuse of his own for alcohol by the age of 10, presumably, at the very moment Lautrec’s brush made congress with canvas, could have been in the depth of his many wanderlusting fits, walking the streets of Paris, in utter displace of a boy of his age.

            But during that very portrait, Valadon has no interest in Maurice’s whereabouts, nor her own; she’s unkempt, she has shredded the beauty the myth of Art History has passed down to us as heirlooms; and where myth makes immortal, witnessing a vision in abstract depth reminds us that before immortality was conceived, flesh and blood, trial and tribulation, bludgeoning at the spearhead of blunt objects, strangulation by garrote, has all left their mark as to remind us, no one reaches a timeless time without their time in timeless torture.

-Dontrell Lovet't

[The News of Amedeo Modigliani's Death]

            You could say she looks familiar, perhaps a woman you’ve seen while walking down the crowded sidewalks in a city you’re not a native of; her olive features appears she may be a descendant of that boot shaped peninsula in southern Europe, the one that lost its might and will to fight at the decimation of the Roman Empire, transforming itself into a nation of seduction rather brute force. Modigliani is Italy, and so is she, Marie, the daughter of the people, appearing in 1918, in the 24 year of Modigliani’s life, 2 years prior to his death. Perhaps it was an homage to a death he knew was impending, an inevitable obituary one writes, savoring their own vanity, so gargantuan, the subject of death itself fails to render it obsolete.

            This voice, all canvas, all olive texture in the frame, form and symmetry of Marie, is latent, then and now, a war-cry given a century after the conclusion of a war that has wiped clean a nation once occupied by its own illusions. Does this explain the grey emptiness in the eyes of Marie? Or the elongated stretch of her body, as if she herself is peering through a window with a distorted view as to investigate the gossip of a world gone quiet herself? And does she ever conclude those rumors to be of substantial truth?

            Indeed she does; so she pulls her hair behind her neck, wraps it in a dense black tie, dresses herself too in black, becoming two years prior, an attendant at the burial of her creator, her peace spoken from the dazzling arches of dulled lips.

-Dontrell Lovet't

[Olga] Pablo Picasso's right-side immortal

          Anyone who has ever had the initiative to visit Paris, that is for its rich history as an artistic mecca, may have become familiar with the adoration of Parisiennes; Napoleon III and Olga Picasso, two, some would say, with as much inclination as the next, defined an era of art between Napoleon’s reign and Olga’s zenith.

          Born in the Russian Empire in 1891, in what is today Ukraine, Olga’s childhood ambition to be a ballerina was the very dream that brought her face to face with Pablo. Already making a name for himself as an artist, Picasso designed the costumes for [Parade], Sergei Diaghilev’s and Jean Cocteau’s collaborative ballet, which took center stage at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. And as classic Picasso, propelling charm, intelligence and the spell of the artist, Olga departed the touring ballet as she delved into a freefall love affair with Picasso, who invited her back to live with him in Paris upon their return from Barcelona that very year.

          Almost a year since the day they met, in 1918, Olga Khokhlova became Olga Picasso in the observation of Max Jacob and Jean Cocteau. While the Great War (the war to end all) was coming to a final yet destructive close and the Great Influenza became its predecessor, taking the life of both August and Rose Rodin, Olga became Pablo’s first wife and the mother of his first-born child and son, Paulo. The birth of Paulo was the birth of their deterioration as a couple. After discovering Pablo’s affair with his 17-year-old Paramore, Olga took Paulo and moved to southern France, filing for the divorce which Pablo would refuse due to, under French Law, having required to divide his estate evenly with Olga. Olga would be married to Picasso until her death in 1955 but with Picasso, when those four years of inseparability was abundant, Olga picked up the brush, familiarized herself with acrylic, led Pablo to place vivid vision on bland canvas, creating unimaginable masterpieces. It came be said that Olga, as his muse and wife alone, was another era in the many Pablo Picasso would begin, but the only to eroded across all the rest.

          Evolutionary Biologist would postulate that monogamy for most humans is such a difficult feat inasmuch we, as a species, weren’t meant to be monogamous and with that very postulation, Pablo isn’t given an out or exclusion from breaking his vows, even in biology, a man’s crimes committed are always his to be held accountable for. If the “Non-monogamy” postulation so happens to prove solid, then too is its other half, the part which makes marriage so much more a beautiful becoming, something that endures, if love is enough to deter two humans from their own biological pull, stay afloat against the falling waves of overwhelming odds, dance in the dazzle of “temporary insanity,” an act that has been known to prolong its effects. Pablo’s legacy required 9 decades to solidify; between 1917 and 1921, was all that was needed for Olga, her reparation, the part of the estate she was denied, having endured love for such a restless soul as Pablo, so that our admiration of her sacrifice, can find its place to dance on her tongues as she once dance in Chatelet.

-Dontrell Lovet't