Amedeo Modigliani arrived in Paris in the fall of 1906. Ambitious, handsome, and charismatic, the twenty-two year old avoided the more expensive yet prestigious neighborhoods like the Latin Quarter, and settled in Montmartre. In the early 1900s, this neighborhood was outside city limits and free of city taxes. Its open wastelands and numerous small vineyards, some of which still exist, were filled with inexpensive eateries and cabarets such as the Moulin Rouge, Le Chat Noir, and Le Lapin Agile. The village’s shacks, rundown wooden homes, and makeshift gardens were left largely untouched by Baron Haussmann’s ambitious plans for the city’s urbanization and reconstruction.
     Downtown Paris had maintained its fin de siècle splendor and was hailed as a jewel of modern Europe. The Eiffel Tower was the capital’s emblem. In its shadow, almost three million inhabitants roamed through one thousand kilometers of small streets, alleys, and boulevards lined with ten thousand lampposts, half a million electric lights and dozens of art nouveau subway entrances. With an increasing number of foreign artists, writers, and intellectuals streaming into a city already famous for its history and physical beauty, Paris was the cultural center of the western world.
     Modigliani was a veritable street artist of his times. He sketched constantly, but he also drank absinthe. With an alcohol content as high as ninety percent, this sweet, tasting emerald green liquor known as la fée verte (the green fairy), was popular since the 1870s. Absinthe’s bitter, licorice-like taste and reported effects of euphoria without drunkenness were caused by mixing wormwood, a plant used for medicinal purposes since 3000 B.C., with alcohol. The young Italian bourgeois painter soon became a rebellious bohemian who could be seen staggering drunkenly from place to place with Montmartre native and fellow artist, Maurice Utrillo. He bartered sketches for a glass of wine or a meal. He gave drawings to friends and acquaintances who did not keep them, traded paintings for rent, and had a tendency, unless restrained, to remove his clothes when drunk.
  Growing up in the coastal town of Livorno, Modigliani had suffered from Tuberculosis and Typhoid, which almost killed him on several occasions. Each time, his mother Eugenia nurtured him back to health, at the same time grooming his talent for painting. She took him to Italy’s greatest museums so he could study and copy classic works from well known Renaissance, Florentine and Neopolitan painters. While symptoms of tuberculosis continued to plague the young man, he restlessly engaged in spiritualism, philosophy, and literature, but painted vigorously. Virtually no work exists from those very early years. The truth is, Modigliani really wanted to be a sculptor, and painted only for a lack of something better to do.
     Amedeo rented a shed built of tile and wood on the corner of Rue Lepic, adjacent to a dilapidated building at 13 Rue Ravignan called The Bateau-Lavoir, a haven for soon-to-be famous artists who met for meals, drinks, and intellectual banter. It is unclear whether Modigliani’s increasing consumption of alcohol, drugs, and women was the result of his exploratory nature, a need to investigate sources for artistic inspiration, or to ward off his inner demons.
     Perhaps it was the stress of poverty, or disappointment with his life that led him into a downward spiral; perhaps he was feeling alone, disenfranchised, or depressed. One day, the painter Henri Doucet brought Modigliani to 7, Rue du Delta, a house rented by Dr. Paul Alexandre, a 26 year old well-to-do dermatologist who was an art enthusiast as well as a generous friend and patron. The house soon became a meeting place for gatherings; drug-filled evenings of performance, art, and conversation. The good doctor became an avid collector of Modigliani’s work, amassing more than 400 drawings, 25 paintings and several stone sculptures during the next six years.
     By 1915, Paris was a city in the midst of World War I. There were curfews and rationing. Many cafés were closed. There were few art shows, but Modigliani accelerated his production and sketched constantly. According to legend, he was exempted from military service because of poor health. He was drinking abundantly and had a tumultuous two year relationship with a British poetess and writer named Beatrice Hastings, who became a preferred model with whom he would socialize in the cafés of the Boulevard Raspail,
    The next year, Modigliani’s stature as a visual artist was confirmed when his paintings were shown alongside those of other greats of the contemporary art scene in what may have been the most important art exhibition of the time; The Salon d’Antin’s L’Art Moderne en France. Here, Picasso exhibited his famous Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. 
     By this time, Amedeo had perfected his technique, especially for portraits and nudes that would become so “obviously Modigliani” to art enthusiasts in the years to come. Looking at a Modigliani, our gaze is drawn to the subject’s face, where resides an air of melancholy or contemplation; Some are distinguished by their angularity; others, by the repetition of a dominant geometric shape. Flowing curves form arms and torsos, intermixed with prominent lines that create an almost chiseled appearance unless we are led to areas governed by softer, more harmonious contours. The eyes are almost always asymmetrical. They might be dark, closed or covered in black cross-hatchings. Othertimes, they are painted a soft, light blue-gray. “With one eye you look out at the world,” Modigliani said by way of an explanation, “with the other you look in at yourself.”
      Amedeo soon discovered another true love, a nineteen-year old girl named Jeanne Hébuterne, nicknamed coconut because of her pale complexion and reddish brown hair. She studied at the Académie Colarossi, where Modigliani often went to practice life drawings. Despite becoming a father, Modigliani continued to drink, and his health took another turn for the worse. He and Jeanne lived in great poverty, but the now thirty-five year old artist was still painting. He lost most if not all of his teeth, and began coughing up blood; a sure sign of evolving tuberculosis and impending death. Jeanne lived with Modigliani in his small, two room apartment at 8 rue de la Grande Chaumière, next door to the art academy and very close to the corner of Boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse at what is today named the Pablo Picasso intersection. They could walk to the Jardin du Luxembourg, where Modigliani had often shared a bench with former lovers, and from where they could walk past the Pantheon, to the Cathedral of Notre Dame by the banks of the River Seine. 
      Much has been written about the circumstances of Modigliani’s death. It seems he spent most of a week in his apartment, and may have seen a doctor daily. His old friend, the Chilean artist Manuel Ortiz de Zárat, visited him frequently. Jeanne, already pregnant with a second child, stayed with Amedeo constantly, perhaps feeding him only sardines and wine. “I have only a little piece of brain left...,” Modigliani told his friend, “…I know this is the end.” He died from what was presumed to be tuberculous meningitis in a Parisian charity hospital on Saturday evening, January 24, 1920. A day later, his common-law wife and unborn child died when young Jeanne threw herself from the bedroom window of her parent’s home to the cobblestone street below.


Acknowledgements: Images from SecretModigliani.com, some text excepts from Amedeo Modigliani:Drunken Bohemian or Contagious Consumptive.

A SEKOND CHANCE




Sure, others wrote on their paintings too; Niki de Saint Phalle and Keith Haring did, and so did that icon of Grafitti/Street Artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat. That was a long time ago. Sometimes their words spoke against oppression. Other times they raised awareness about social issues, but always, they formed a platform that counterbalanced the visual artistry of their drawings. 

With the Los Angeles-based street artist SEK, it’s different. His words are like road signs that lead us through his paintings, penetrating our subconscious to give even greater meaning to his visual narrative. “Some people say I’m an urban poet, but I’m really not,” he told me in a recent interview at the Container Yard in downtown Los Angeles. “Of course, like many artists, much of my work is autobiographical, but in a way that I hope makes people rethink what they’re doing, or rethink what they thought.”

This twenty-four year old autodidact reads Hemingway and Rousseau. He talks philosophy and literature. He quotes Bukowski and Scott Fitzgerald as well as he yields an ink pen or a can of paint. Yet, he barely finished high school.  “Life was rough growing up in East LA,” he said, “you know-gangs, drugs, too much alcohol…the whole works.” I asked him how he got his name, how Luis Fierros, born February 14, 1989, the youngest of three children was raised by a single mom, spent much of his time on the streets, and survived. He looked down at the table from beneath the black wool beanie that never leaves his head, “I guess I was lucky,” he said, “that’s how I got my nickname, SEK. It stands for second chance.”

He went on to tell me about drug infested neighborhoods, cutting school and fleeing confrontations with the police. He was street writing as a teenager, tagging benches and alley walls, leaving short phrases or quickie drawings with his signature box containing a three point halo and crown.  Despite several arrests and serious warnings, he hasn’t stopped. “Yeah, when I walk around town, I don’t carry as much as a Sharpie with me or it’s back to jail.” He laughed, knowing I didn’t quite believe him because a can of gold spray paint clearly protruded from his jacket pocket. He wasn’t proud of the fact he had been to jail more than once.  “I assume that’s part of paying your dues when you’re a street artist?” I asked.  “Reality,” he replied, “just day to day survival.”

SEK’s mixed media on wood panels and thoughtful works on paper or canvas reflect only in part, his street productions because they also tell a story that touches anyone who has faced hardship or recrimination. His drawings and painted words, sometimes in bold letters, often hatched out; together force the viewer to reflect on a message. SEK tells us there is one. He prompts us to follow a story in his painting, and while it may not always be self-evident, each piece of work is deeply linked to his own experiences. I wondered if he used drugs or alcohol to directly feed into his subconscious.  “Not anymore,” he replied stoically. “When I paint, I actually cover over a lot of my original work. It’s like you have to be your own worst critic, otherwise it’s too easy to believe anything you tell yourself.” 

The connection viewers have with SEK’s work differs substantially from any aesthetic value that might be derived from it. The emotions are there, you can feel them in your gut, but unlike a supercharged amygdala, they are controlled, retained, tamed in part; like when you are telling a story about your own life. It’s reminiscing, with feeling. His paintings bring the street with all its splendor and sometimes, unspoken dread, into your home and onto the wall. 

​

   
         

​    Some call it by its Swedish name, konsthantverk, artcraft that is, but when Jim Olarte, a designer by trade, now an artist; no, a craftsman; regardless, a dream-maker… imagines his work, the idea is everything.
    “Doesn’t that make it art by definition?” I asked, watching Jim finish a knot on the ten-foot high column of rope that made up the black macramé hanging from his ceiling . The object projected an aura of oriental mysticism, and, was neither purely decorative, nor functional. It has to be art, I thought.
    “Art is such a big term,” Jim replied, “I am a craftsman.”
    The issue has been debated for centuries; art or craft, craft or art. Experts say that when a functional object communicates an idea, it is art. What does one make then, of Jim’s lifelong collection of discarded lead fishing weights, found while roaming the beaches near his home in Southern California, now tied end to end and hanging in galleries and corporate lobbies, or of his fiberglass wasteland; pieces of multicolored sun-bleached fiberglass washed up on the shores after years of being thrashed by ocean waves. These orphan pieces are now strung together to form inspirational hanging sculptures that decorate, yes decorate, living rooms and luxury boutiques alike. 
    “I still don’t get it Jim,” I said, “this has to be art. What do you think of Jeff Koons?”
    Olarte laughed, pointing to a curtain made using spinal plates from hundreds of chiton shells . “I found these one by one during years of searching,” he explained. “See how decades in the ocean made the edges straight and smooth? Straightness is not natural.” I imagined the curtain would look fabulous strung across my living room wall.
    “These rocks have holes in them,” I exclaimed. On a nearby wooden table was a tray filled with what I learned were the prior homes of a clam. The Piddock clam, Jim explained, starts its life as plankton, chooses a rock, sits tight, and grows a shell so it can burrow into the rock to secure itself a permanent home.
    “Who knows how old these are,” Jim said. “I find them on the beach; it’s as if my eyes are trained to focus on the details. I can see one from among hundreds of other rocks piled on the shore.”
    I listened intently to the soft-spoken, kind-hearted man with a peaceful, almost melancholic soul. In his eyes, everything in the world was positive and beautiful. His inspirations gave new meaning to the French term objets trouvés , but Olarte’s art was livable, in fact, as in the case of the chiton curtains, had oftentimes been lived in. 
    “My life has been consumed by a knot,” Jim suddenly said. I thought he meant the knots holding the pieces of his found objects in place, each one hanging precariously, yet attached to the other by a slender piece of string or fishing line. Instead, he led me to a hand-sewn canvas bag with black macramé finishings. It hung luxuriously on the wall, a true representation of wearable art. “This,” Jim said humbly, “is Octopus bag #6. There are no more than six, and there will be no others.” I’m a guy, and not usually into bags, but this object, this piece of art, this shoulderbag…whatever you call it, was gorgeous. 
    Macramé is an art form that dates back centuries. It is based on the square knot , a knot that sits flat when tied, but comes loose easily. You know it: right over left, left over right… that makes a knot both tidy and tight. 
    Jim Olarte’s giant macramés are happenings onto themselves. His installations, like the one hung between the rocks overlooking Cameo Shores, are not well publicized, nor highly attended. They are private events, yet inspiring, and when the sun sets above the horizon, and a faint orange glow reflects gently between the hundreds of individually and lovingly tied knots that connect dozens of loops of thick nylon cord, the question of art versus craft is answered as surely as Nature’s functionality is beauty personified.

Notes:
    Chitons (placophora) are carnivorous mollusks that have the hardest teeth known to nature. Like snails, they use their tongue to rasp food from cracks and crevices found among rocks on the ocean floor.
    Found objects art is created from undisguised but often modified objects not normally considered art because they have a non-art function (the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, for example).
    Probably dating to before the Pharaohs, the square knot was used to tie off a sailing craft’s mainsails. It comes undone easily (the expression is it capsizes), so it is never used in rock climbing.