Peter Bardazzi

Study for Constructivist Chaos

2012-01-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

Leopard on the Water by Peter Bardazzi

2012-01-11T22:29:00.000-05:00

The Journey by Peter Bardazzi

2012-01-10T13:40:00.000-05:00

Lighting for the Moving Image

2011-12-31T22:07:00.004-05:00

I am teaching my famous lighting for the moving image course again starting Thursday January 26. Everything that is important about color and light for film and video will be taught here in an exciting way while learning from the masters. Lecture and hands on. For information and to register, contact:

Ron Amato | Chairperson | Photography Dept. | Fashion Institute of Technology
ron_amato@fitnyc.edu | 212.217.5502 | W. 27th St. and 7th Ave., Rm D344, NYC 10001

Talking Commodity Art

2011-12-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

Tiger Screaming at the Mask of God

2011-12-06T12:47:00.000-05:00

Art World Atlas

2011-11-29T20:41:00.001-05:00

World Art Atlas published by Guy Bleus.
Peter Bardazzi map page.

Portrait Of Vincent Van Gogh

2011-11-05T18:43:00.000-04:00

Self Portrait at the End of the Movie

2011-10-24T00:18:00.000-04:00

The Odyssey

2011-10-20T01:21:00.000-04:00

How To Establish An Art Career

2011-10-07T23:10:00.000-04:00

How to Establish an Art Career

Self Portrait with White Gloves and a Gun

2011-09-24T13:42:00.001-04:00

art-ZINE

2011-09-07T07:28:00.004-04:00

I am in a special exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa,
Japan called art-ZINE. Curated by Ritsuko Takahashi. If you are nearby please try to see it. Thanks. Peter

Imitation of Paradise Lost

2011-08-26T09:35:00.001-04:00

Peter Bardazzi

2011-07-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

Peter Bardazzi in his studio. Photo by Eva Qin

SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 Art Gallery exhibition in Hong Kong

2011-07-16T23:59:00.001-04:00

I am pleased to announce that I have chosen to be on the final selection committee for SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 Art Gallery exhibition in Hong Kong.

http://www.siggraph.org/asia2011/art-gallery-committee

Peter Bardazzi's studio

2011-07-14T12:59:00.000-04:00

Peter Bardazzi next to the Diver painting. Photo by Eva Qin

Walking home from my studio in Bushwick Brooklyn

2011-07-14T00:45:00.001-04:00

Going home from my Bushwick Brooklyn studio to Manhattan.

They used to call this the ghetto, now it's the new art fronteer. hmm..Photo by Eva Qin.

Bardazzi's Studio

2011-07-07T12:00:00.000-04:00

Peter Bardazzi in his studio by Eva Qin holding fire painting

studio shot

2011-07-05T23:41:00.000-04:00

Peter Bardazzi in his studio by Eva Qin

Portrait of the artist Peter Bardazzi by Eva Qin

2011-06-10T22:07:00.000-04:00

Graduation Rehearsal with Two Warriors

2011-05-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

Tiger at my Forest's Door

2011-05-07T16:37:00.000-04:00

My Tiger Story

2011-04-16T09:28:00.000-04:00

Talking Crayons

2011-04-08T21:21:00.001-04:00

This is dedicated to Asayo and the people of Japan

2011-03-29T22:59:00.001-04:00

This is dedicated to Asayo and the people of Japan.

Love in the mist of chaos: large drawing 2011 by Peter Bardazzi

Caught on video: Rodney King: The twentieth anniversary

2011-03-05T23:20:00.001-05:00

Caught on video: Rodney King: The twentieth anniversary. What makes the Rodney King video culturally important is that it’s the first “peoples” video with massive distribution under a new dynamic. The new dynamic was that the watchman was being watched for the first time and recorded. The whole idea up to the Rodney King episode was that you are being watched by this watchman, the authorities/police who made you feel like you were being watched. Feeling like you are being watch is the ultimate control. The Rodney King video meant that the surveillance cameras were now in the hands of the prisoners too and they caught the authorities doing something very wrong. So now even the authorities are afraid, that’s what’s so important.
In this culture we want to see everything that is visible. Sometime I think we are our own big brother and surveillance system. Look at youtube, facebook etc. all the pictures and videos besides being fun, I believe are a means of control. Everyone is watching and being watched waiting for someone to screw up. It is interesting that after Rodney King beating there was the obsession with video taping and reality TV

Egypt Libya Egypt Libya

2011-03-05T00:43:00.001-05:00

Balla

2011-03-01T22:15:00.001-05:00

Once they called me a Futurist. Balla, collage on paper by Peter Bardazzi

My Lighting for Film Course - part 1

2011-02-28T00:30:00.001-05:00

"Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression."

My Christmas Card is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of Art

2011-02-15T23:54:00.007-05:00

My Christmas card is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art

I had a cubist day

2011-02-12T23:28:00.002-05:00

I had a cubist day today.... saw the Picasso Guitar show...it's a journey through an extraordinary space.. guided by charcoal lines, newspaper and a little color... see it at MOMA

Nikko Japan

2011-01-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

Two Days in Washington DC

2011-01-15T23:18:00.003-05:00

Love Sex Metrocard

2010-12-22T00:01:00.003-05:00

The Flower of Carnage

2010-11-28T00:19:00.001-05:00

Man Ray

2010-11-15T21:04:00.003-05:00

Man Ray by Peter Bardazzi

My homage and portrait of an unlisted signal.

My paintings at Whitney Museum of American Art

2010-09-20T11:22:00.003-04:00

My paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

recent drawings

2010-09-19T17:39:00.008-04:00

The Head of a Monkey Screaming at the Mask of God

2010-09-09T23:39:00.004-04:00

The Head of a Monkey Screaming at the Mask of God

by Peter Bardazzi oil on paper 2010

Japan

2010-08-27T22:32:00.000-04:00

Japan

2010-08-27T22:26:00.004-04:00

Japan

2010-08-27T22:09:00.004-04:00

2010-08-27T11:25:00.004-04:00

My new feeling is that to enjoy/live life it must be a near death experience. You must operate on the perimeter or edge of society where culture is born, enriching and sometimes comes with dangerous experiences that nourish you. And if you are lucky you will find life or a person who flourishes at the edge of the abyss to join you.

Bardazzi's Farm Ville and Restaurant near the train Station

2010-06-17T17:56:00.001-04:00

My Moondog story

2010-05-31T10:31:00.009-04:00

MY MOONDOG STORY: I met Moondog twice. When I was a kid in New York I used to see this man dressed up as a Viking Warrior, or Norse mythological god.....spear, helmut and all the rest..full costume, completely wild.....just standing there! Staring into the void that is our society. He would give copies or recite his poems to you for small donation. He stood there like a fierce poetic sentinel in Manhattan mostly around 6th Ave. and 53rd street. After several encounters we started talking, it was then that I realized he was blind and was looking beyond us all! But the most amazing thing was that he stood on a street conner for almost 20 years! He was constantly harassed by the police especially about his spear. Then a few years later when I was a freshman in art school I met him again in person. To my astonishment he showed up as the model for my drawing class in full Viking regalia. We spent hours together ... me drawing him and he reciting his poetry. It was a terrific experience and at the end of the day he gave me one of his original poems on paper. I did not know at the time that he would become a great composer. But you sensed that something would happen that would not be ordinary in the future. You also had the feeling that something extremely serious and important was going on ...I felt it was really all about the dark activity of the “will” which I related to, and the struggle and pain of artists that are in opposition to society. The question that kept spinning in my head was: what is it to be civilized or uncivilized in our so-called civilization/culture? What does it mean to have two primordial conflicting instincts operating at the same time? I still stay with these questions today, but in the end he created great music, got it produced and now I can enjoy it and move on with my life. But the standing on a corner for 20 years still haunts me today.

Wired

2010-04-18T17:38:00.000-04:00

To truly understand life, one has to renounced and deny life and the universe for a time. That's the price you pay. That sounds fatel but it's true. Speaking about the universe and life is almost a resurrection in relation to ones own life then. Your ideas about life (art, love, etc.) are another "life" coming from a place where one does not speak! So, to live in speech, love, expression, and true life, one must pass through the death of life without speech.

iPad

2010-04-08T21:03:00.003-04:00

Today we live in a global society where art and communication have become so imbedded in our culture that they have lost their original meaning. More importantly in this new culture, technology has now become an ideology....at least in perception. Specifically I am referring to the euphoria and consumer frenzy for the iPad. In this new market place sociological factors are trumped by the products integral attachment to the new ideology. In a strange way this is close to the Marxist formula where ...” ideology is an instrument of social reproduction”. These new devices now have a voice in saying how society will be arranged besides being its tool, or we give them permission to that, and we also allow them and their designers to define what this ideal arrangement will be. I know that ideologies are systems of abstract thought with the purpose of offering change in society. But remember that this is a society that is dominated by the profit motive, including Apple's intense profit motive, and yet this society is also anxious to safeguard the purity of it's cultural values, but now justifies itself by ideologies that inevitably call for our closer inspection and attention.

The Four Gates to the Red City

2010-03-06T18:31:00.003-05:00

Contemporary art finds itself in a peculiar situation. It attacks the culture and more specifically the society from which it has arisen. It criticizes society and yet wants to be accepted by that same society. If one of arts true missions is to be subversive then artists must be careful to watch that the marketing of their art does not reduce its revolutionary power.

Peter Bardazzi

Bardazzi's one and a half minute film course

2009-12-07T23:27:00.002-05:00

Japan trip

2009-10-26T13:02:00.003-04:00

Donald Duck: Dressed and Undressed

2009-10-15T00:40:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-25T09:57:00.004-04:00

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

2009-04-17T16:49:00.002-04:00

Artists Statement

2009-04-10T22:33:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-27T21:12:00.006-04:00

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2008-12-31T00:56:00.001-05:00

New Keith Harring Book

2008-11-25T09:12:00.003-05:00

My photo was featured in the new Keith Harring book.

Kill Bill

2008-10-05T00:33:00.009-04:00

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

2008-09-12T23:23:00.007-04:00

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/

new paintings

2008-06-25T09:00:00.004-04:00

Peter Bardazzi

new paintings

2008-06-23T19:53:00.008-04:00

Peter Bardazzi

painting 2008

studio 2008

The Last Stop

2008-05-07T22:54:00.002-04:00

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

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

2008-04-16T22:31:00.009-04:00

"Odysseus at Troy"

Peter Bardazzi

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

2008-03-30T00:08:00.008-04:00

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

2008-01-20T21:08:00.000-05:00














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

2007-11-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

The Road Map to Hell (working title)

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.

9/11 Terror Plane

2007-09-11T09:01:00.000-04:00

Satan's Kids

2007-08-23T09:57:00.000-04:00

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The combat veteran interviewed by me is Frank Desiderio. Frank served in the US Air Force from 1943 to 1945 and flew fifty bombing missions over Germany, Austria, Italy and France including the final bombing campaigns against Berlin and Vienna. He actually flew a bombing mission over Berlin on the day Germany surrendered. He was a Tech Sergeant in 376th Bomber Group, 515th Squadron (Satan’s Kids) stationed for the most part in Lecce Italy. During the war he was awarded two Air Medals with Oak Leaf Clusters, three Unit Citations and the Good Conduct Medal. Later he received another medal by the governor of New York. All his missions were flown in a B-24 Liberator. Frank Desiderio is 86 years old and lives in Brooklyn New York.

2007-03-27T23:42:00.000-04:00

Los Angles Times

Count on Johnny Depp to deliver eccentricity; The 'Pirates' actor is one of many who are regularly called on to take unpredictable liberties with their roles.

Steven Rosen. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 8, 2003

Abstract (Document Summary)

One clear way, it would seem, is if [Johnny Depp] is involved as an actor. At 40, he has been playing unusual and often quirky characters throughout his career, starting with his first major starring roles in John Waters' "Cry-Baby" and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands." He has brought a unifying element to his eccentric parts, according to Peter Bardazzi, director of new media at New York University. Depp offers a contemporary vision of "the third sex." And in "Pirates," he says, it has proved resonant.

Bardazzi wonders if, in "Pirates," Depp has connected with a young audience (and maybe their nostalgic parents) in a way that recalls the impact of the longhaired, beaded male hippies of the 1960s. "It's a kind of expression of something that's not a traditionally male mold but also not female. Johnny Depp is a bohemian. He's countercultural."

[Jerry Bruckheimer] says he gave Depp leeway in determining his performance to a point. "You don't hire Johnny Depp and not let him do what Johnny Depp does -- create characters," he says. "He had something in his head he wanted to play, and I wanted him to do that. If I didn't want him to create a character, I would have hired someone else."

Full Text

"Eccentric" is not usually the first word used to describe a movie star's galvanizing performance. "Sexy," "tough," "romantic," "powerful," "charismatic" are far more common. In fact, "eccentric" often has been a code word for unpredictability or downright weirdness -- not words associated with box office success in a blockbuster world.

But Johnny Depp has changed that this summer. His turn as Capt. Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is, first and foremost, eccentric. Bedecked in a resplendent array of post-Carnaby Street glad rags, wearing heavy eye shadow, beaded long hair and a braided beard, he is certainly not the typically fierce and fearsome pirate of lore.

He isn't romantic in any traditional sense, either; he weaves and tilts like an ambulatory bobblehead or a rock star on a high. (He has said Rolling Stone Keith Richards was a role model for the part, and his mellifluous voice is like David Bowie's.) And Depp's turn is not a clear-cut humorous performance, either. It's just exotically different.

And that difference has played a key role in making Disney's "Pirates" a massive hit -- more than $200 million in domestic gross revenue to date and going strong, with modest weekly declines and positive word-of-mouth ever since its July 9 opening. "I'm not sure how much credit I give him for opening the film -- he has not been the kind of actor who does that," says Reagen Sulewski, analyst for the Box Office Prophets Web site. "That belongs to [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer. But in terms of carrying the film, he lifts it and carries it on his back."

The effect of Depp's portrayal -- commercially and culturally -- is a victory for mysterious eccentricity (a very human trait) over computer-generated special effects. But by making eccentricity hip (and a hit) for a mass audience, it has also raised questions about what constitutes an eccentric performance and, to paraphrase the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart on pornography, how do you know it when you see it?

One clear way, it would seem, is if Depp is involved as an actor. At 40, he has been playing unusual and often quirky characters throughout his career, starting with his first major starring roles in John Waters' "Cry-Baby" and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands." He has brought a unifying element to his eccentric parts, according to Peter Bardazzi, director of new media at New York University. Depp offers a contemporary vision of "the third sex." And in "Pirates," he says, it has proved resonant.

"In 'Pirates' he's a feminine influence, but not a gay one," Bardazzi says. "He's the only one in the film with eye makeup that's outstanding, and he doesn't have a relationship with a woman. And if you look at Depp's film history, he played Ed Wood, and that character was a cross-dresser."

Bardazzi wonders if, in "Pirates," Depp has connected with a young audience (and maybe their nostalgic parents) in a way that recalls the impact of the longhaired, beaded male hippies of the 1960s. "It's a kind of expression of something that's not a traditionally male mold but also not female. Johnny Depp is a bohemian. He's countercultural."

Bruckheimer says he gave Depp leeway in determining his performance to a point. "You don't hire Johnny Depp and not let him do what Johnny Depp does -- create characters," he says. "He had something in his head he wanted to play, and I wanted him to do that. If I didn't want him to create a character, I would have hired someone else."

Eccentrics on the rise

Oddball performances of one sort or another are showing up more frequently in artier movies. Certain postmodern directors, such as Waters, the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson, seem to encourage wildly surreal, often menacing performances as a way to ironically undermine our complacency toward movie naturalism. It's a way to be edgy. Lynch alone has given us Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell in "Blue Velvet," Nicolas Cage in "Wild at Heart" and Robert Blake in "Lost Highway." The Coen brothers' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" was nothing but such offbeat performances, even while poignantly evoking the "weird old America" (to use writer Greil Marcus' term) of the past.

Should an eccentric performance be one that fits into the film's general tone and vision, or should it conflict with it? If the former, two famous roles in Billy Wilder films -- Gloria Swanson's haughty, reclusive actress in "Sunset Boulevard" and Tony Curtis' flippantly irreverent, Cary Grant-like turn in "Some Like It Hot" -- would fit the bill.

Is it one that playfully spoofs our expectations of an actor's existing image and past roles -- Humphrey Bogart in "Beat the Devil" or Marlon Brando in "The Freshman"? Or is that parody? Many of Brando's characters are intentionally extraordinarily peculiar. So is he at his most genuinely eccentric when his character seems most ordinary, as was his therapist opposite Depp in 1995's "Don Juan DeMarco"?

"To me, an eccentric performance goes against the grain of a movie and becomes a movie in itself," says Dennis Bartok, head of programming at Hollywood's American Cinematheque. "Sometimes it becomes so great in and of itself that it becomes more interesting than the movie."

He singles out Val Kilmer's "sly and fey" interpretation of the tubercular Doc Holliday in 1993's "Tombstone" as an intentionally eccentric performance. And he sees Tony Bennett's Hymie Kelly, the Jewish-Irish pal of Stephen Boyd's actor Frankie Fane in 1966's "The Oscar," as a perhaps unintentional one: "He rushes into every scene like a linebacker carrying a football."

Bardazzi tends to share that view and cites Donald Sutherland's intentionally contemporary (for its time) portrayal of Sgt. Oddball, the tank commander in 1970's World War II caper film "Kelly's Heroes," as another example of an actor choosing to give his character an over-the-top eccentricity that seems to stand apart from the movie he's in. He also gives an example of an actor who is never eccentric: Tom Hanks. "Even when he plays a gangster, he's all- American."

But other definitions of eccentricity are more expansive. "Eccentric acting means character acting," explains Lorinne Vozoff, artistic director of L.A.'s Theatre Group Studio, which teaches Method acting. "All it means is you grab a hold of something and use it."

She sees it as a way an actor fights predictability and resists becoming pigeonholed. "There's an enormous difference between being a movie star and being an actor," she says. "Once you're a movie star, they want to slide you into a slot and do that certain kind of role again."

She considers Maggie Smith's performance as the spoiled aunt in "Gosford Park" a quintessential eccentric performance. And she cites Edward Norton as an exemplary actor who always justifies his characters' eccentricities in their personalities.

Ultimately, Bardazzi gives this definition of a great eccentric performance: "It transcends what it's supposed to be." He believes Depp reaches that transcendent level in "Pirates" because "he remains human although you can't identify him with any recognizable human out there." Maybe that's why everyone seems to love him this summer, when movies seem so predictable.

Credit: Special to The Times

2007-03-08T21:04:00.000-05:00

the decent by peter bardazzi

Success of Mexican directors has deep roots

2007-02-25T14:42:00.000-05:00

Success of Mexican directors has deep roots

By James Hebert
UNION-TRIBUNE ARTS WRITER

February 25, 2007

'Babel” grabbed seven Oscar nominations, including best picture. “Children of Men” bagged another three. “Pan's Labyrinth” earned six, is a heavy favorite in the foreign-film category and recently became the top-earning Spanish-language picture in U.S. history.

The Mexican cinema seemed to burst forth so abruptly in 2006 that a startled movie-watcher might have wondered, “What in the Salma Hayek is going on here?”

But what has seemed like a sudden flood of cinematic wonder from south of the border has actually been bubbling up for some time.

“Children of Men” director Alfonso Cuarón, who's been making movies in Mexico since the early 1980s, directed Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1998 film of Dickens' “Great Expectations” and earned an Oscar nom for his 2001 Spanish-language hit “Y tu Mamá También.” He directed a “Harry Potter” installment in 2004.

Alejandro González Iñárritu of “Babel” made waves in 2000 with the highly regarded “Amores Perros” before directing Sean Penn and Naomi Watts in 2003's “21 Grams.” (Both movies are similar to “Babel” in their unconventional, episodic structure.)

And “Pan's Labyrinth” director Guillermo del Toro has been making fantasy-and horror-laced movies like “Cronos,” “Mimic” and “Hellboy” on both sides of the border for more than a decade.

The trio has high visibility this year not just because of the unprecedented number of nominations for Mexican film artists (Adriana Barraza is also nominated as best supporting actress for “Babel”) but because the three directors are so closely linked, products of the same Mexico City film scene.

The location of their apprenticeship suggests that the roots of those filmmakers' modern appeal – a possible reason that their sensibilities resonate with audiences – might lie even further back in history.

Peter Bardazzi, a media scholar and artist who has lectured in film at New York University, points out that the trio's films all show elements of surrealism to some extent, and Mexico City has been a fertile ground for that artistic school dating back decades.

The kind of odd imagery and convention-defying narrative that brings surrealism to mind has been popping up more in mainstream entertainment lately, from the time-bending ethos of movies like “Memento” to the sheer weirdness of “Being John Malkovich” and ... well, pretty much anything else by Charlie Kaufman.

Bardazzi sees the influence of the French surrealist André Breton (who spent time in Mexico) and, in particular, Luis Buñuel – the Spanish-born director of such classics as “Belle de jour” and “Un chien andalou” – in the work of the “three amigos.”

There's even a biographical parallel: “In 1946, Buñuel moved to Mexico to escape Spain's fascist regime, and he goes on to make a film about children who can't escape – 'Los Olvidados,' ” Bardazzi notes.

“In 'Pan's Labyrinth,' Ofelia (the movie's child heroine) escapes from the horrors of the same fascism through myth and dream – in a film made 60 years later.”

Mexico also has been a place of significant political turmoil in recent years, from the Chiapas uprising in the mid-1990s to last year's bitterly disputed presidential election, plus the ever-present debate over U.S. border issues.

That kind of climate provides thoughtful, ambitious film artists like the three nominated directors with plenty of raw material. And the way they've achieved entry into the Oscar club is sure to encourage filmmakers from elsewhere in the developing world to dream big.

For those filmmakers, the idea of Hollywood success might not seem so surreal after all.

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20070225-9999-lz1a25mexican.html

my first painting

2007-02-24T00:38:00.000-05:00

My first painting at age 11- Iwo Jima by Peter Bardazzi

Tube Painting - exterior - from the Culture Couch

2007-02-21T23:57:00.000-05:00

http://www.bardazzi.com/web_paintings/power_1_bardazzi.htm

THE CULTURE COUCH

2007-02-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

Academy Awards

It’s the surrealist connection in Mexico to Guillermo del Toro Guillermo, Alejandro Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón. Other topics are Children, Terror and Eroticism, Reality and Existence, Scorsese and Eastwood’s theater of violence and Spielberg’s Hollywood. Below are my
notes in paragraph and list form.

A) I am interested in the way its visual information travels through the culture and attaches itself to us, but there seems to be something fascinating going on especially in terms of the Mexican directors, it’s the Surrealist connection by way of Andre Breton and Luis Buñuel to Pan’s
Labyrinth and Babel and to some extent Children of Men.

B) Reality is here but existence is elsewhere.

• Reality is here and existence is elsewhere is at the heart of Pan’s Labyrinth. The theory of existence elsewhere in real and tangible dreams form comes from Andre Breton, the French surrealist theorist who was very close to the Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel. In 1946 Buñuel moved to Mexico to escape Spain's fascist regime and goes on to make a film about
children who can’t escape, Los Olvidados. In Pan’s Labyrinth Ofelia escapes from the horrors of the same fascism through myth and dream. A film made sixty years later.

• The great god pan is dead, turned into the devil by civilization and the police state. Pan is reborn by Guillermo del Toro Guillermo. Pan’s fire and blood are back as guide to Ofelia’s elsewhere beyond death. In surrealist films and art it’s the mixing of states of reality with dreams
that place the viewer in that elsewhere. In Children of Men there is also an escape to the “human experiment” from a dying civilization to the other elsewhere. This is clearly a surrealist influence that could be traced to Bunuels later films like Belle de jour, The Exterminating Angel, etc. I
could explain this if we speak. Besides Buñuel, there were other surrealists and intellectuals that arrived in Mexico and left their mark in mexico including Leonora Carrington, (child erotic art)
Breton, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, etc.

For the surrealist the labyrinth was not a place to be lost in, but a place to lose yourself. It is governed by chance not order. It is also a door to enter the world of existence. It’s Ofelia door to freedom.

• Note: Leonora Carrington did a painting called Laberinto in Mexico City.

B) Babel, children and the “Exquisite Corpse”.

• Babel is structured like the celebrated Surrealist game, the Exquisite Corpse more than one might think. In the paper version, unrelated images are connected to form a bizarre and unique final image. What is important is that the images and process that you are connecting are always concealed from you the viewer till the end. There are some other surrealist techniques used in the film including a photograph of the father with the rifle and the child/adolescent eroticism. The Japanese Chieko exposing herself erotically is right out of a Leonor Fini painting.
Leonora Fini was close to Leonora Carrington and Frida Kahlo who were all admired by Breton and Bunuel. These paintings are readily seen in Mexico City.

• There are other surrealist implications like the title Babel and more on the horrible reality of children in our culture and their erotic tension etc. but more importantly these films seem more like art than most of the other nominations that are more like commercial products.

• Mexico as a vantage point: Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico to Touch of Evil. Like in the 60’s and early 70’s in Italy, France, Germany and Spain.

New unlisted signals from the Culture Couch

Scorsese and Eastwood go flat on their roots: The Theater of Violence and commercialization of two artists.

It is a good opportunity to look at the history of Clint Eastward and Martin Scorsese in terms of their being born in separate but beautiful cinematic theaters of violence.

• Clint Eastwood has a place in history as an actor and filmmaker, but it was Sergio Leone that made him the symbol of a great genre. This new mythical western genre was in part the saga of crime and revenge taken to hallucinatory levels by an Italian’s director’s vision of America. This was the new theater of violence, viewed through “close-ups” of killers in the act of revenge and brutality. Ultimately it was the creation of the first “shooter warrior” in the west. (Note: Kurosawa influenced Leone). Fast forward after a great career culminating with Million Dollar Baby to making a war movie as seen through the eyes of the Japanese, through the eyes of Clint Eastwood. It all come full circle when you see Lieutenant Ito with a samurai sword in hand and you think of Kurosawa.

• Letters from Iwo Jima lacks heart and emotion that young people can attach to, and does not make a statement. In its desire to be a-political it becomes political. It represents the apathy, of the people who are upset by war but won’t do anything about it.

• Also in war the enemy is a threat and has a deadly presence even off camera. In this film the enemy is always one-dimensional whether Japanese or American. Its actually very flat representation for the carnage that went on. There are there or four main locations and they lack cinematic depth and act more like sets. There are the beach shots, rocky crevasses and the caves and tunnels. The caves could have been powerful metaphors for claustrophobic terror or Eastwood’s Labyrinth.

• Martin Scorsese is great but he was greater at the beginning. His desire to be crowned by Hollywood cost him his art. He was the choreographer of Brooklyn and Little Italy’s theater of violence. He was so deep into the super-charged image of the gangster that you thought there was an unseen other world that would be his next film. But he turned around and went for the light and Hollywood. Beautifully still, Mean Streets, Ragging Bull, Goodfellas etc remain with us. What would have happened he went deeper into his original creation?

Hell Cafe Test

2007-02-02T00:06:00.000-05:00


Scene from Cafe Dante

2007-01-21T20:21:00.000-05:00

water color, oil and coffee on paper - 2006 - peter bardazzi

2007-01-15T17:56:00.000-05:00

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"Fortune" - oil on paper - 30x40 - peter bardazzi

2007-01-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

Print for sale by Peter Bardazzi

2006-11-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

WHEN Peter Bardazzi, a film professor, took his students at the Fashion Institute of Technology to see “Flags of Our Fathers” last Sunday, they were surrounded in the theater by gray- and white-haired people who seemed genuinely touched by the movie’s depiction of the marines who took Iwo Jima. But the young men and women with Mr. Bardazzi, he said, found it tough to sit through...................................
(for the rest go here) at the New York Times

2006-10-07T21:06:00.000-04:00

The First American Soldier Killed in Iraq

2006-09-11T17:19:00.000-04:00

"Sept. 11, 2001"
This was the drawing I did on the night of Sept. 12, 2001

2006-09-11T01:22:00.000-04:00

Two Devils by Peter Bardazzi - oil on canvas- 2004
http://www.bardazzi.com/web_paintings/seventeen_bardazzi.htm

2006-09-05T01:05:00.000-04:00

Collection of a Lifetime
At the opening at the Neuberger Museum, Purchase NY, July 2006

2006-08-26T01:31:00.000-04:00

The Leopard Man Crosses the Ocean to Visit Something Horrifying
http://www.bardazzi.com/

2006-07-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

THE COLLECTION OF A LIFETIME:
"Little Egypt"
Neuberger Museum. July 09, 2006 - September 03, 2006.
http://www.bardazzi.com/

2006-04-27T23:06:00.000-04:00

Lou Mottola has acquired the painting “Pope Innocent” from me.

http://bardazzi.com/web_paintings/lepords-tigers-bardazzi.htm

2005-11-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

Chaos-70x90-peter-bardazzi
http://www.bardazzi.com/

2005-10-11T21:20:00.000-04:00

The end of the machine age or is it? Painting 1971 by Peter Bardazzi
http://www.bardazzi.com/

2005-10-09T22:07:00.000-04:00

"Barsisa" 96x72, oil on canvas. Peter bardazzi
http://www.bardazzi.com

2005-10-07T16:20:00.000-04:00

"The Decent" 120x96" oil on canvas, 1969. © 2005 Peter Bardazzi
http://www.bardazzi.com/web_paintings/paintings_1_bardazzi.htm