Bardazzi's one and a half minute film course

Japan trip

Donald Duck: Dressed and Undressed

Disney has a morality structure for animals and their relationship to other animals and to humans. Like, Goofy was a higher animal and wore clothes while Pluto did not (both were dogs). It is a way to control the audience and bring them into the disney world which had a hierarchy of humans to extreme animals, with lots of half animals in between. It's complex but a lot of it is based on clothes and language as the controlling factors. Pluto walked on all fours and barked (no way was disney going to put clothes on him). Donald Duck was closer to humans so got half clothes from the top down. Micky was even more human so he wore shorts like humans but no top (opposite of donald), because this was conventional acceptable summer dress for humans, not the other way around. Remember Donald Duck cannot fully master the human language of conversation when half dressed in his character. (It should be noted that Mickey wears shorts but no shirt). So technically, he is not fully clothed either. But this form of half-nudity is much more conventional among humans. So there it is more acceptable. Disney had Donald a lot more emotional and out of control than the other characters, which they thought was “less than human behavior”. So clothes and language were some of the ways Disney controlled things. The Donald Duck shower “incident” was just a way of Disney controlling a transitional moment like getting dressed/undressed and getting out of a shower/baths etc. with their morality structure. So its all about what they wear, where they wear it and how thy speak. Sound familiar.

Brian the dog on Family Guy is the opposite of all of this. He is mostly nude with human attributes and desires but they are creatively mixed with dog needs too. Brian sometimes gets extra clothes to suit the scene and the situation but they always seem like costumes. His structure is much more flexible and in tune with the moment. The Disney phenomena in terms of animation was great but their visual/morality control was corrupt and played to the worst elements of the American character.

Supermodel

Supermodel

The term “supermodel” has a supercharged definition for me, because it can hold two or more definitions simultaneously and mean different things to different people relative to their position in history. So, I like the title 'Super Models Hall of Fame' because “hall of fame’ gives it an historical context. We all know that the term “supermodel” appeared in the press and Glamour magazine in the 60’s but it was it’s cross fertilization with the pop-culture that gave certain models hyper-status and fame. I think there was a clear connection between Warhol’s “superstars”, supermodels, pop-art, fashion and the counter-culture during the late 60’s that added to the broad definition and richness of the term. It’s no accident that the fame of supermodel Twiggy had a lot do with Americans view of change coming out of England. Perceptually, for a while Twiggy was seen as important as the Beatles and the miniskirt were. I think the idea/image of the supermodel reached it heights in the late 80’s early 90’s. That’s when a models name was just as well known in the media and the household as the products they were selling and people who didn’t read Vogue knew their names and look. This was the classical period of the supermodel. What changed this and started a new supermodel definition was the introduction of actors as models. This to me is very important because the media treated them differently. When we saw Johnny Depp modeling Armani we subconsciously saw all his film too. That gave them (the actors) a kind of visual power that most models didn’t have. But the idea survived.

Today the “supermodel” is more an expression than a definition. It’s hard to see this because the media burls everything in order to say it is reality and to sell itself with concepts like “celebrity model”. In spite of this I like the term supermodel because it has historical presence like superman, super heroine, superstar, and superhero. And I think it is important to reintroduce an idea that is jammed packed with great images just like the images and characters of those 50’s DC Comics that were made into popular blockbuster films in the 90’s.

Peter Bardazzi

ZEITGEIST 2009

Artists Statement

Artist’s Statement 2009

I am a descendent of the prehistoric bones in Giacometti’s Palace at 4AM, recruited into an illusion of space and time where everything is real and metaphor simultaneously. It was that early surrealist concept of mixing separate and distinct states of reality that placed the viewer “elsewhere” that fascinated me at the beginning. But now defining the philosophical attributes of art over time is challenging to define because art today is so imbedded in our culture and it’s commerce that it has lost it’s meaning in terms of being cutting edge or avant-garde. In spite of this I draw from all media, nature, events and life experiences to make the unreal believable where nothing is questioned in the work, where everything is true because there is no reality. In a sense I make an absurd copy of an unseen world (therefore my interest in hell). I strive for a space that is panoptic where we can see everything that is visible all at once, followed by subtle depth cueing in order to keep the viewer in a story that never ends. The “seeing” part for me is always under a kind pressure because I try to express myself through the ambiguity of the juxtaposition of spaces or the uncertainty of time. I am not a political/social artist but am drawn to intriguing stories or visual elements that disturb and are outside established art or its history but at the same time I am very much aware that how the world is framed is just as important as what is in the frame even if it’s source can be traumatic or rebellious. I think of myself as an aesthetic outlaw concerned with the look of things while moving through life.

Zeitgeist 2009

Zeitgeist 2009

The next generation of our culture is already here and is sending out complex and sometimes disturbing signals. This new spirit has yet to be defined and is rapidly changing and shaping the culture, politics, communications, the planet and us. Zeitgeist 2009 is a creative attempt to witness, understand and participate in this spirit of our time.
Christopher Lee the curator and a participant in the exhibition invited a group of artists to interpret and go beyond current events in a search of a truer significance of the theme Zeitgeist 2009.
“Things have lost their original meaning in terms of being cutting edge and the power of definition has become meaningless in these troubling times,” says artist Peter Bardazzi
The resulting collective group of works and images is a window into this new landscape of our time emphasizing how important it is that we understand that culture, politics, and nature are now encoded with new meaning in Zeitgeist 2009.

The exhibition: Zeitgeist 2009
The place: Art-O-Mat Gallery, 46-46 Vernon Blvd., Long Island City NY
The dates: Starting April 19 and running through May 2009
Opening: Sunday April 19, 2009 5PM to 8PM

My First Knife Fight

HAPPY NEW YEAR

New Keith Harring Book

My photo was featured in the new Keith Harring book.

Kill Bill

WESTERN REVENGE

Part 1

What I really found interesting about Kill Bill is the way three concepts were hot-wired together, skill, ethnicity and revenge. And how this comes to life visually through the use of cultural stereotypes.

It is very clear that skill is tied to ethnicity in this film. The more Asian you are, in this case Japanese, the more skillful and deadly you are at swordplay. A good example of this is Lucy Liu’s character O-Ren Ishii. A lot of time is spent graphically portraying her “mixed” ethnic background, but ultimately we see how she feeds off the Asian stereotype as envisioned by Quentin Tarantino. Her race authenticates her skill as being superior in the martial arts. Our attention is overtly drawn to this by way of contrast, when in the mist of bloody battle with the Bride, (Uma Thurman), she says "Silly Caucasian girl likes to play with Samurai swords". But in the end according to Tarantino’s vision, it’s the sexy white girl that wins. It’s her western rage and revenge that trumps Asian skill.

Yes, the sexy white girl kills Asian women, Asian men, black women, white women and a few white males to satisfy her vengeance (and the audience’s). It’s important to remember the Bride’s vengeful rage comes from the fact that her dream of being mother and having a home is violently taken from her by Bill and his assassins. At the beginning of the story she is willing to trade in her powerful warrior skills and give into masculine needs and a family. But things go very wrong and throughout the bloody process of revenge we see that race authenticates your skill as being superior in the martial arts. But we also see that revenge can authenticate your race and make your particular skills superior to all others.

I also think the mixing metaphors and stereotypes takes place only with the metamorphosis of the Bride. She starts from the role of top assassin (we don’t see that) to her trading in her masculine power traits, skills, and violence, for the role of domesticated married woman and with a family. She will kill anyone who threatens this, or tries to take it away and that’s exactly what happens.

In the end, its more important for the Bride to overcome and kill powerful female figures than it is to actually kill bill. Everybody (especially Lucy Liu) has to play to a racial stereotype that gets shattered in the end by western revenge for the story to be successful in Tarantino world.

Peter Bardazzi
Copyright © Peter Bardazzi 2003


http://www.bardazzi.com/

Vampire Movies

Why are cinematic vampires popular in America?

Well I think it is a very sexual thing - drinking someone’s blood. But in terms of the horror/vampires genre you have to start by analyzing them as being the "other" just like Aliens was in the 80s film, other than us. Remember vampire movies started very early in the entire horror genre. Their sources were often portrayed as the dark barbarians of Eastern Europe from specific places like Transylvania. They were seen as ungodly and categorized by Western Europe and America, as the “other” to be feared.

They also have the power of conversion, which resonates at the core of American culture. In fashion, politics, religion, consumerism, entertainment we all want to be part of something larger and more powerful than we are. The actual conversion, this act of intense initiation is satisfying to the viewer because it is both sexual and violent. They insert their fangs into you and you become part of a greater evil.

Frankenstein is different, because he is a monster created by science on the screen with roots in western literature. Still he is a monsters but with less cinematic staying power than vampires and zombies because he is missing a sexual component. Even though he has faded, he may have links to criminal robots like in the ones in Blade Runner. Maybe? They were synthetic and Frankenstein was made from human parts.

I think Frankenstein was sort of a mirror or ourselves, and just combine that with the concept “sometimes we are our own worst enemies” and you have something interesting. But still they are not as interesting as vampires.

On the other hand there seem to be plenty of zombie movies today though they are not as sophisticated as vampires. The American viewer has a hard time dealing with zombies. It is its edginess that directors think will sell the movie but what I think they are selling is the Frankenstein nature dressed as a zombie. The modern zombie does not just appear, we create them and then they come back to punish us. In the beginning there were just random zombies from an unknown origin with no reason to exist. Then science steps into the later movies and we get science fiction mixed with horror. There was even an attempt to remove sex as the normal reproductive process in “ Village of the dammed”

But in the end vampires are still kind of cool. They can even be sad and loving like Gary Oldman in Coppola’s Dracula, a sort of good guy just like the fallen angel Satan before he went bad.


Peter Bardazzi
http://www.bardazzi.com/

14th Street

14th Street near Union Square by Peter Bardazzi



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new paintings

Peter Bardazzi

new paintings

Peter Bardazzi

painting 2008

studio 2008

The Last Stop

The Last Stop, 40x30, collage on paper
Peter bardazzi

The Iliad: Sing, goddess, the rage of Achilles the son of Peleus

"Odysseus at Troy"

Peter Bardazzi

Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring, Edit DeAk and Futura 2000 in Peter Bardazzi's studio.

Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring, Edit DeAk and Futura 2000
in Peter Bardazzi's studio circa 1980. This
photograph will appear in an upcoming book on
Keith Haring published by Rizzoli International.







This collage portrait of Peter Bardazzi was worked on by
Fab Five Freddy, Keith Haring, Futura 2000 and Peter Bardazzi
circa 1980 . The explosions are old Italian comic book decals.

no country for old men, there will be blood, justice, violence and the oscars

I have some interesting ideas about two or three potential nominations, No
Country for Old Men, There will be Blood, and their relationship to each
other and the wider culture. There are some other points I have been
thinking about including the concept of the hero as exemplified in The
Bourne Ultimatum, violence and justice, and TV’s influence on film etc. I
will list below shortened versions of some of these ideas and the films
they point to (mostly No Country).

1.This is not a world of reason anymore where we could get rid of
violence.  Violence and rationality are married and compatible. This is
the logic of geopolitical institutions and the way they behave in
international relations. In even the most violent global actions there is
rationality. What is most dangerous in violence is its rationality. That’s
what makes these two films deeply reflective of our times.

2. No Country for Old Men, and There will Be Blood have main characters
that are administrators of uncompromising and violent justice that
resonates well within the audience. Their justice is gruesome and carried
out in a grisly fashion abiding by its own laws. In Chigurh’s case his law
is chance skewed by fate. Anton Chigurh and Daniel Plainview are not
portrayed as traditional villains by performing meaningless acts of
violence but people who abide by rules to enforce their justice similar to
that of heroes. These films go beyond the concept of the hero and the
villain including Sweeney Todd.

3. There is a parallelism between the uncompromising and violent justice
acted out by these characters and those violent justices acted out within
our society. Watching the conflict between justice and violence in our
culture makes most viewers feel awkward. But it is exposing a breakdown in
our society when we are given absolute power to enforce our idea of
justice. Plainview and Chigurh kill their victims because their victims
fall inside a category of dishonesty and corruption. And those killed are
just casualties in getting their justice fulfilled. There is an appearance
of massive and mindless killing but it is the result of people who are
given absolute power to enforce their laws and justice onto “others” like
that done by America in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. There are no pictorial mysteries in these two films that operate on the
most basic level of being. You make a mistake in intellectualizing these
films especially with the endings; they are simply isolated logical scenes
of a much larger picture where things are spinning out of control
violently. In a sense we are revisiting the major philosophical position
of Nietzsche that “god is dead”. But in this case god is being defeated
and retreating.  Now the theater of violence takes on a different meaning.
Ultimately these films break away from the Judeo-Christian influence on
cinema in an interesting way. Usually the corrupt and criminal are
punished and the virtuous and courageous are rewarded.  In these films,
there are no heroes, god is vanquished and evil is expanding in the void.
Again, violence itself is terrible but what is most dangerous in violence
is when come out of the form of the rationality.

5.These films have literary like endings, which are alien to most
moviegoers. With No Country, the movie passes the story to the audience.
It is reinforced with Sheriff Bell looking straight into the camera
describing a dream as if he is directly engaging the audience. The wall
between film, screen and viewer is broken.  It feels uncomfortable as
Sheriff Bell passes the responsibility of the film to you. The darkness of
his dream is given to the audience and now the viewer is left to question
their own darkness.

peter@bardazzi.com

copyright Peter Bardazzi 2008

Road Map To Hell

The Road Map to Hell (working title)

by

Peter Bardazzi

A work in progress.

An image of bloated bodies lay on murky waters. A fiery explosion consumes homes in the background turning them into rubble and dust. The elderly and sick sit helplessly starving. A group of naked men have their heads down constrained with leashes. Young devilish characters loot, steal and scavenge for food and money. This looks like an image of Hell painted by Hieronymus Bosch in the Middle Ages or a scene written in the Old Testament Bible. But it is not. They are the events that have occurred in the last 5 years in New Orleans, Banda Aceh Thailand, Darfur, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Iraq.

"And now we are in hell." These are the words of man left to die in the New Orleans Superdome during Hurricane Katrina. Does it not seem like our world is turning into the predicted Hell told of the Bible, Koran, Sutras, etc. Is global warming part of the prediction of a hell? For example, the bible predicted Hell would come in the form of floods, plague, and fire. Have humans condemned themselves to a world of Hells?

This film/documentary will explore the possibilities of Hell “now”. It will travel through manifestations of Hell from several sources and investigate clues in past and present events, disasters, social upheaval, war, pestilence and strange phenomenon’s that have occurred in our present age. This is a stalking quest and discovery that takes us into nightmares both horrific and seductive, living history, mythology, punishing religion, aggression, human torture here and beyond and the signals they are leaving.