This is an image from my upcoming exhibition, "Between Two Poles: A Bipolar Themed Solo Exhibition. I am very excited about this.  The concept for this presentation came about as a result of the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity.  

Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison's book, "Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament" makes a compelling point with substantial data that many successful creative works were the result of people having bipolar disorder.

The revelations and connections that can be made in hypo-mania, and possibly mania, can be the very fuel that sparks high levels of creativity in a variety of professions.   The number of visual artists, actors, authors, writers and scientists who live with bipolar are staggering.

When I looked at the work I had created over the past few years, there is a duality to my work.

Right now, I am looking to seek funding to support for my solo exhibitions, actually two. One will be at the Shemer Fine Arts Center, Phoenix, Arizona.  I will have a second one is Scottsdale.   We are working out the details. The Shemer Show will open late January. 

My Kickstarter is where you can support my project.

I am very excited about this exhibition.

Sing Lady Gaga

Perhaps she should do this, acoustic music?


Lady Gaga Sings 


A man sang Paparazzi as a ballad with minimal accompaniment.  I always wondered how this song would sound if Lady Gaga performed it with just a piano and her voice.   By accident looking for how to fix a pc issue — I found this video.   I always thought there was so romantic about this song about longing.   If you have ever fallen hard for someone indifferent to you, this is the song.  It has a haunting melody.   Gaga does a great piano intro.   She reminds me of Prince in that they both are accomplished musicians and can do big grand big scale songs, but can take it down to do something compelling.  

My big want list for Lady Gaga is to do an entire suite of songs with just her voice and a few acoustic instruments.  That side of her would be interesting to see.  She has a fine voice and she does have an ability to turn out a melody.

On a side note, and I was speaking to a certain someone —he will go nameless—who said I had no sense of fashion.  Well, I went from spending time in G.Q. and Interview in the 80’s and 90’s and turned to art and gadgets.  It was a slow move.  I loved clothes, but then I loved art supplies, assorted things that glitter.

She does do it big!  What if she scaled back to just her voice and the music?

My point is that I always appreciate high fashion.  It is not as superficial as it seems. If you love art, it makes sense to love clothes that turn you into art.

That is what Lady Gaga does.  She makes there huge creative moves and they have some meaning.  The steak dress was high conceptual art making a statement. I thought it was a great idea.  They always treat artists like so much meat.  You are just a commodity not a person.

I said this because someone trashed Gaga for her clothes.  Well I think she does a great job.  If I were in her position, I would do the same thing. Paper suits, oversized hats, I mean the Talking Heads did this and no one was upset.  Gaga goes further and some people’s children have an episode over it.

Margaret Cho had the right idea.  When they put you on the worst dressed list, you probably are the best dressed.  I say take risks.
As long as it is about style, art and having something to say, you will usually get it right.

If not, you will be someone they all talk about later.

Domestic Violence A Drawing

Domestic Violence A Drawing

I have decided to upload every day drawing that has not been seen, or on exhibition, daily.  I have a whole section of my oeuvre that has remained unseen.   Much of this work is not typical of my current work, although I am seeing connections.   As I was going through my drawings, I realized just how many were figurative. 

 Much of the work I have shown have been abstract.  The process of looking back is always educational.  It also shows what works, what was a near hit, near miss and ideas worthy of further exploration.

At the time I created this piece, “Domestic Abuse,”I was living in downtown Phoenix.  My environment was vastly different from the one I have now in many ways and my work often reflected that world.   Ideas from the news, or people I knew and met were all subject matter.  My art was very much a diary of what I encountered. 

In retrospect there was a “dream like” quality to my life back then.   To this day, I do not know how I survived during that period.   I was self-sufficient, but it was a struggle.  I managed for a long time on dreams, aspirations, frustrations, debt, a living room for a studio and art.    Flash forward a few years and I have a dedicated space as a studio.  I envisioned these things happening, but had no idea how I was going to move forward. 

 It is funny how I was able to predict where I would be then.  I had a picture of the future, and I wanted that picture.  I suppose that is part of art, romantic wildly unbelievable wants that you hope become very real.

Art is always a struggle.  It was then, and it is now.  But I have always held on tenaciously to my art.  It has never been compromised to the point where I was embarrassed with what I created.  I held on to my vision with steel like determination.   My feeling has always been that you owe yourself, your patrons and the public the very best work possible.  It is a duty to expand, grow and develop.  To become stagnant is the ultimate sell-out. 

“Domestic Abuse” was my comment on violence in the home.  Personally, I have never tolerated any form of physical abuse.  It is horrific that we have confrontations that end in pain, destruction and sometimes death.   At the time I created this drawing, a crime had been committed that was drawing a great deal of media attention.  The details escape me.  

What remained of my memory was that this work was centered on the type of images shown to victims of violence.  The images are black and white generic people with notation on where a wound was delivered and the like.  They had a minimalist feel to them being that they were stark black and white line drawings.

I took the images I had seen in the New Times of those crime aids and transformed them into a prisma color drawing.   The tension between the dark image and its source was contrasted with bright colors.  I liked the contrast.  The notion of this kind of duality has been present in a number of pieces I have created.   The gathering of dark subject matter with bright bold up beat color has always had an attraction to me.   Aesthetics mean a great deal to me. 

One of the reasons, among several, that I create art stems from the simple fact that I like beauty.  What I am referring to is not the saccharin  common placer definition of beauty, but something richer that is often ignored.   Finding beauty in the unlikely has always held an attraction for me.  “Is there in truth no beauty?”  I have often asked that question.  “Is there no beauty in truth?”

Check out My web site

Miley Cyrus Tries Again, Sex Sells, But What and Why

Sex, Eroticism, Art and why does this have to be so cheap.



It is all about shopping.


I am not offended, but I am bored. What I do not understand is how this is of any real interest? I would find this interesting if Cyrus was making a statement. If she had something meaningful to say and this was part of that expression, then I would find this interesting. Sex has always been fascinating. It is the best indoor sport every invented. There are so many interesting things that can be said about it and there are people how are doing just that. 

This on the other hand is just near nudity. If she showed up naked, and was saying something by doing so, that would have been interesting. Just wearing pasties is not all the profound.
This is not about being prudish. I enjoy art and nudity in art. I do not think there is a problem there. But if you are an artist, musical, literary, etc, I expect a lot more than a simplistic stunt.

Sure, going to a party in pasties is going to get attention. But none of this makes you "edgy" "sexy" or particularly interesting.
The human body nude is a great thing. To turn it into something cheap and sensational is to me an insult.

While I am on the subject, why do we make sex and sexuality so vulgar?
Why do places and things associated with sex have to be so cheap and sleazy? Why can't these things be placed in a more artistic more elevated space?
I really think the reason why I like sex and eroticism in art is because they are elevated, never turned into trash.

All Miley Cryus did was take the human body and exploit it for attention.
Of course, she is not alone.

Madonna started this idea that you can flash you butt and somehow you are interesting.
I know a whole slew of male models who are a lot more interesting than this and they do not reduce sex and nudity into something vulgar and disgusting.

So my whole point is to make sex "upscale" sex, respect nudity and eroticism and stop using the human body for cheap stunts designed to draw attention to yourself for attention and money.
At the very least men and women in the sex industry are a lot more honest about what they are doing and why.
Plus, men and women in the sex industry are a lot more interesting that Miley Cyrus with this latest weak and pathetic bid for attention.

An article about this on Huffington Post

#mileycyrus #kurvonbehrmann

More Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll: An Insider View

There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll by Lisa Robinson

A book Review by: Kurt von Behrmann

                Access is crucial to any journalist. However, acquiring it in the rarefied realm of contemporary music presents special challenges. The biggest obstacle is gaining the trust of musicians, particular those who have achieved stratospheric success.  Lisa Robinson had entrée into that world, and all that comes with it, the good, the bad, the ugly and even the boring.

 “There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll” chronicles Robinson’s encounters with acts that achieved iconic status and those that were seminal in the underground music scene of 70’s in New York.  The thrust of the book focuses on her stint as a traveling journalist with the Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin.   Both from the U.K., wildly successful and huge fans of African-American music, their respective tours included the obligatory chartered jets, stretch limos and the inevitable conflicts that place egos and artistic integrity into battles of the wills.

                Robinson correctly notes that unless you are part of the self-indulgence that comes with the rock and roll highlife – quick sex, long drinking bouts, endless supplies of drugs and the usual mayhem that accompanies creative people on the road, you are on one tour and they are on another.  Robinson was not a part of the party.   It is obvious from her observations she was aloof from the debauchery. 

                Even if you were not a participant in the shenanigans, it seems a little odd that a reporter would not want to be front and center to the action, if there was any.  Clearly things were happening on tour, but Robinson has either turned a blind eye to the excesses or had no real knowledge of them.  What emerges rather quickly is that Robinson is both fond of her subjects and a little protective of them.  This certainly fosters great friendships, but it hardly makes for exciting reading.

                If you are expecting an expose of the behind the scenes workings of pop music in high gear, you will be disappointed.  A Wendy Williams type of insider providing the “hot topics” is not here.  There are no truly sordid stories here that one may not have read about elsewhere.  

                But, that doesn’t meant that Robinson has nothing of importance to say.  What she does communicate well is the excitement of being on tour and the attendant luxury that comes with huge global success.  She does convey some of the wonder and thrill of perpetual jet travel, meeting the famous and staying in high end hotels in exciting cities.  There is plenty of that here.   

                But there is also a down side.  There is the unexpected consequence of having some so much so soon and so often that it can lead to a type ennui.  After a while the travel becomes tedious and one hotel starts to look very much like the other.  When your world becomes work, travel and work, even with the trappings of success, it can lead to a blur. Even the performances themselves suffer from the unrelenting pressure to maintain stardom.  It is hard getting to the top, and just as hard staying there.  The fear of slipping into irrelevance is omnipresent when you are a proven winner.   

                Robinson captures those feelings, but she seems to be unable to draw any conclusions from what she sees.   She makes note of the chemical dependencies and one night stands with groupies, but she never looks deeper to ask the penetrating question, why?

                Robinson seems content to list her encounters with high powered Rock and Roll acts, but seldom offers up any type of conclusions or assessments of what she has discovered.  There are comments here and there, but nothing that really sums up what all of the travel, music and mayhem was really all about.   There is clearly meaning here, but it feels decidedly ambiguous.   While ambiguity can be a useful tool for an artist, it can ruin a reporter.

                Short of funny anecdotes, or stinging gossip, Robinson does manage to get a few digs in from time to time.  For the most part, she genuinely likes her subject and makes no bones about that.  But, if a celebrity doesn’t connect with her, the dislike is openly expressed.

                One can argue about the talents of Madonna, but one cannot deny that she was a game changer.  Utilizing the emerging world of music videos, hers were about image and sexuality married to dance music.  Like her or not, she created the template for solo female acts that is still in use today.   

                Robinson did not feel the need to accord her a place in the pantheon of game changers in contemporary music, which is her choice.  But she had no problem finding her distant and self-absorbed.  Robinson was looking for something more from Madonna.  Whatever that something was, it left a substantially negative bad taste in the author’s mouth.

                Allegedly, according to Robinson, Sir Elton John didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the material girl either.  “The only thing she has done for the gay community is take their money,” supposedly said Sir John.   

                Another musician that “irked” Robinson was Yoko Ono.  For a period of time, John Lennon and Robinson enjoyed some rather detailed exchanges.  Ono was also included on some of these conversations. The relationship was cordial.   In one of the books better crafted moments, Robinson makes a surprising revelation about Ono. It doesn’t speak well of her. It also provides a dramatic moment that is much needed in a narrative that at times seems to be monotone at moments.

                A thread that comes up periodically are the conflicts of fame and creativity.  Robinson outlines the phases of a band from garage to recording studios and the price paid for success.  It is in the words of the musicians themselves that one witnesses a self-awareness that is worldly, wise and a bit cynical.

                Common to all of the bands are the years of struggle. The battle to make music, be seen, be heard and obtain that most sacred of documents, “a recording contract” are the first phase.  Following the support of a record company, sales start, recognition and fame follow, if lucky.  With the fame comes the money, the acclaim, the awards, the adulation and sometimes the hangers on.

                In the world of popular music, it is an unstated rule that you can’t appear too ambitious.   The image of a musician is someone who loves what he or she does and the other aspects of success are incidental.  The truth of the matter is that all successful musical acts are wildly ambitious.  They simply do not put it in print.

Madonna, early one, happened to be very open about her ambitions.  For acts based on usurping authority and traditional values, ambition and success can be the death of a muse and the annihilation of artistic integrity.

                Robinson does successfully touch upon this point at several times. It is worth noting.  The biggest problem for an act is both success and obscurity.  If you are a maverick and a rebel, a certain kind anyway, you need the edge that comes with the struggle.  If you hang onto your principles and play long and hard, you win an audience and have a muse.  But, if you fail to reach an audience, you are forever stuck in a bohemia where you have limits and restrictions on what you can do.  Certainly, you can inspire and brave new ground, but without some support of some kind, your art dries up and evaporates.   One cannot stay in the underground for too long.   If you do, you  risk sliding into obscurity.

                Should success hit, you have support, an audience and fame.  Now your work hits worldwide and everyone knows you.  First comes acclaim and then the monetary rewards.  Now come expectations.  Then come the compromises that arrive with fame.  Without notice, you are living the type of life your musical was critical of, and now you may well risk losing the muse that inspired you to create music in the first place.

                Sure, these are simple scenarios, but they do reflect the winning and losing side of fame and the downside of remaining a cult act.   Robinson does bring light to the conflict and a few other realizations that add up to the fact that life on the road is never easy, and trust is a dicey concept when you are successful and everyone wants a piece of you.

                Conclusion

                Lisa Robinson’s tour through rock and roll from underground bars in New York to world tours, makes for fascinating reading if for no other reason that peering into the inner lives of successful musicians is always intriguing.  There Goes Gravity depends on the reader having that interest.  Flowing in and out of time, sometimes it becomes awkward going from one tour to the next awkwardly going in and out of sequence.  The repetition of some statements doesn’t help.  Also annoying are some rather clichéd lines that crop up from time to time.

                This is not a particularly poorly written book, but neither is it a particularly exciting one.  What should have been a world of wonder and ideas starts to seem rather pedestrian.  The biggest failing of the book is the failure to capture the personality of the musician in question. Too quickly the book feels like a fleeting note pad of meetings, conversations and events that don’t add up to much more than descriptions.  Minus any analysis, all that is left are descriptions.    The occasional biting comments help. The provide some change in rhythm.  A few stories of seedy activity or self-importance ruining an image supply some spark, but they cannot become a substitute for real insight.

                This is not a bad diversion.  It does open a door into a world few enter, and that is the main selling point of the book.  For an insider view, it should have been significantly more insightful and definitely more fascinating.

The Purge: Anarchy is a thriller that has a lot to say, and it is alarming

Social Criticism In A Major Motion Picture?

By: Kurt von Behrmann

The Purge:Anarchy Web Site

The Purge: Anarchy

If “Dawn of the Battle of Planet of the Apes” was a thinly veiled commentary on contemporary wars, “The Purge: Anarchy” is one on class conflict.  Carefully crafted between the carnage are acidic criticisms of the blatant hypocrisy of a society that openly extols the virtues of Christianity and democratic government while simultaneously engaging in barbarism.  The dichotomy between the “haves” and the “barely have anythings” is at the core of the movie and serves as a leitmotif that underscores the real rationale for “the purge.”

                The premise here is that for one day out of the year from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM all crime is legal.  Murder, rape and theft are all permitted.  All public services are suspended until the “purge” ends. This includes hospital services.  The concept behind all of this “anything goes” violence is that it offers an outlet for frustrations that have been building up during the year.  Since its implementation this annual event has resulted in reduced crime rates, lower unemployment and an overall more stable society.  That is the official reason.  The reality is more sinister.

                A yearly cathartic for everyone as a guaranteed right as a U.S. citizen, one does have the option to participate or not.  Accepted as an inevitable stabilizer of society and a tool to eliminate undesirable actions, the purge is open to all, but not necessarily of equal benefit.  Proclaimed as an event that has positive results for all, it is an equalizer that places everyone on a level playing field.   Here is where rhetoric parts company with reality.

                The real purpose of the purge is to eliminate the poor.  It is nothing short of open class warfare.  Marketing this mass scale chaos to those with the most to lose, the government in this dystopia have succeeded in convincing the general public that this is not only for its own good, but a God given right. 

                Those able to afford it barricade themselves behind protective alarms systems.  The “uber” affluent live far enough away from the danger zone that they remain safe.  Those living at the poverty level in the inner city receive the brunt of the violence.  Their protection amounts to little more than locked doors and boarded up windows.  Downtown has become a battle ground.

                Not everyone is accepting the purge.  A group of dissenters realize what the actual objectives of it is, and they are willing to do something about it.  They are ready to fight back.  

                For those who benefit the most out of a nation where violence eliminates the poor and devastates the middle class, the super wealthy enjoy the security and rewards that their status gives freely.  They have so much that they transform purge night into a perverse form of entertainment. 

In what can only be described as viciously sadistic, the patrician class pays for victims to be brought to their mansions and murdered in the most violent manner possible.  Beneath the veneer of civilization and opulence resides a disturbed world where the weak are decimated and the very rich amused.  

The contrast between posh environments and unrestrained violence creates a disturbing tension.  As the economically advantaged luxuriate in the comforts affluence confers and all of its shameless sense of superiority and entitlement, the very things that create humanity in its highest form have been trashed in order to satisfy some very ugly frightening yearnings.  Nothing feeds an out of control ego as well as debasing those perceived as inferior.

Money is at the core of everything, along with power.  In this new America that “The Purge: Anarchy” has created, the ultra-affluent have turned the poor into procurers of the poor that are willing to sell out their own class for money.  In one scene we see our protagonists captured and thrown into a van thinking that their lives are going to end then and there.  We discover quickly that the down and out have been paid to find anyone on the streets and serve them up as entertainment for a crowd of the privileged. In a “Hunger Games” like game, the unarmed helpless are prey for armed opponents. 

The interesting connections that this film makes is that both the middle class and the disadvantage share more common ground than is often considered in the public arena.   A white police sergeant, an African-American waitress struggling to make ends meet, her daughter and a young middle class white couple are all of equal in value in this world.  None of them have any extra advantages.  What they in fact share is that they are little more than pawns to be played with and little more. Their lives mean nothing. What this film makes clear is that race is not so much of a divider as is class.  It is an idea not often explored in films, particularly in Hollywood where big spectacles are the rule.  To see it presented in a mainstream film is very edgy.  

Another element that this film handles rather well, and with chilling effect, is the love of not only violence, but of guns.  The imagery here is disturbing.  In one scene we see a woman wielding a very large gun on the edge of a building shooting anyone and everything below.  As she delights in her actions, she mentions how this is God’s will.  The connection between religious beliefs being closely connected to uncontrolled pointless violence is an alarming irony that makes a huge statement.  The criticism of a society that places such value on arms is on display.  It is not a pretty scene.

A particularly disturbing scene involves a society matron introducing freshly acquired victims to be killed for sport.  As she accepts bids to see who has the honor of gunning down the helpless, she described a particular weapon.  In detail she rhapsodies the virtues of a specific gun.  The disturbing image of a mature woman dressed well talking about guns with such warmth is an congruency that underscores the ridiculous nature of gun worship.  

Summer blockbusters are primarily entertainment.  Frequently, all too frequently, they are little more than insubstantial entertainment.  At their best they are harmless diversions.  When they hit rock bottom, as many do, you are subjected to lowest common denominator dripping in dreck nonsense that robs you of money and time.  

“The Purge: Anarchy” provides, thrills, drama and some engaging performances.  There are no weak links.  The big surprise here is that something is being said between the lines, and it is reflective of where we are as a nation politically and socially.  The issues that our society confronts are not given a space in the mainstream media.  Pop, fluff and not so subtle propaganda are have totally replaced serious discussions.  This is just what makes it so intriguing that a big spectacle film has more to say about inequity, class distinctions and open hypocrisy than what no passes for news.

An ominous line comes up when a character asks the question of when this will all end.  The answer is ominous and somewhat prophetic.   “This will end when it is their blood.”  I may not have the line totally accurate, but it does paint a picture of the future that is disturbingly accurate regarding what has historically been, and what potentially could be.