Ai-Da the robot painter

Is she threatening to artists, or threatening to women?

Ai-Da at a tea party photoshoot for the Telegraph, photo by Nicky Johnston. A real woman would have cleaned the silver before entertaining.

My programmer husband forwarded a story from the Telegraph that was headlined, “Meet Ai-Da: the robot artist giving real painters a run for their money.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about just yet,” he told me.

I don’t—but some abstract painters might. “From a basic set of parameters, such as a photograph of some oak trees, or a bee, the robot has rendered abstract ‘shattered light’ paintings warning of the fragility of the environment that would look at home in a top modern gallery,” read Ai-Da’s press release.

One of Ai-Da's paintings. I predict she sells out.

Ai-Da is programmed to sample the colors in the photograph and then reiterate them on a canvas. Such algorithms are basic in computer science. They can sometimes mimic thought, but they lack the intuitive connections that real thinking requires. It’s wonderful that they’ve given Ai-Da a hand to make images the slow, tedious way, but the final results are no more creative or meaningful than a screen-saver.

She is programmed to do a more than this, but she was just delivered from the factory in April, so we must be patient with Baby Girl. She can sketch with a pencil and uses facial recognition technology to draw human faces. Apparently, her coordinate system is programmed in three dimensions, because she can sculpt, after a fashion. Her art videos are included in the show. She can read aloud. Then, too, so can my phone.

And her sculpted bee, which is substantially less-effectively rendered than a 3D laptop project would be.

She’s much faster than a human painter. There’s no dithering about light levels, values, composition or meaning, so she can knock off a large canvas in about two hours.

Of course, the real artists are the team that programmed her. That, as you may imagine, is extensive: scientists from Oxford, a robotics firm from Cornwall, and engineers from Leeds.

“Thematically the exhibition questions our relationship with technology and the natural world by presenting how [Artificial Intelligence] and new technologies can be simultaneously a progressive, disruptive and destructive force within our society,” droned the blog Director of Finance. That’s a beautiful parody of the artist’s statement, made funnier because the artist herself has no brain.

Ai-Da in her studio. Note the artfully-daubed flowing painter's smock, along with her immobilized feet, photo by Nicky Johnston.

Ai-Da is having her first solo show at St John’s College, Oxford. If I were in England, I’d probably go, just to see how seamlessly engineers have put the software on my laptop into a large, unwieldy machine.

There’s really no reason for Ai-Da to have a body except to personalize her; she might as well be a hand moving through space, as at the Ford factory. Curator Aidan Meller, who spearheaded the project, conjured up a female minion. Her press photos are set in a studio of campy femininity. But other than her Stepford Wife expression, wig, and long flowing dress, she’s really just a large machine with excessively large hands and feet.

Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, artists have understood the distinction between machinery and mind. Nobody has yet been able to program an Ai-Da with a Big Idea, the one that gets artists jumping out of bed in the morning and working for a year with no guaranteed return. Nor is there enough money in making paintings to justify building lots of robotic painters. She’s a freak of engineering, and nothing more.

I’m feeling more threatened by the fact that this drone is called a “she”. There’s been a creeping expansion of my personal personal pronoun recently. It’s accompanied by the trappings of what men perceive to be feminine, without any real deep understanding of womanhood. Referring to boats as “she” is as far as I want to see it go in the material world.

The dubious environmentalism of modern public art

Plastic netting covered with LEDs, blowing over St. Petersburg's old pier? Sounds more like an environmental disaster than public art.

Artist's rendering of the proposed sculpture at night, courtesy of city of St. Petersburg, FL.

The Statue of Liberty has stood in New York Harbor since 1886. Conceived as a statement about the end of slavery, it has come to represent us as a nation of immigrants. Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC is another monument that speaks profoundly to Americans. The National War Memorial looms over the most important government buildings in Ottawa with its message of remembrance. Even the Eiffel Tower was designed as a symbol of modern science and industry. Such meaningful public art exists worldwide, in large cities and small towns.

Enter modernism, with its stubborn refusal to accommodate meaning. “The Kelpies” by Andy Scott rise 30 meters next to the Forth and Clyde Canal. They are best appreciated zooming past on the M9. They capture nothing of Scotland and certainly nothing of the shapeshifting, devious magic of the mythical beasts. There was Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates. I walked through it many times, trying to catch the magic. The magic, I decided, was in the coffers of nearby stores that catered to tourists. Then there’s Penetrable, by Jesús Rafael Soto. These urine-colored plastic shower curtains so disfigured Frederic Church’s Olana that they've been extended for another season.

Artist's rendering of the proposed sculpture during the day, courtesy of city of St. Petersburg, FL.

The latest entry into the debate is a proposed sculpture at St. Petersburg, FL, by Janet Echelman. The $3 million net sculpture will be “made of the same material that is used for astronauts’ spacesuits,” said the Tampa Bay Times. I’m not sure what that means, since spacesuits contain nylon, Dacron, Neoprene, Mylar, Gortex, Kevlar, and Nomex. Another source said the sculpture would be polytetrafluoroethylene, or Teflon. Yum.

It will span about 390 feet and be high enough that it can’t be molested by humans waving hockey sticks, said Echelman. A member of the arts commission asked about fishing poles. Echelman hadn’t considered them. She should. I imagine there are fishermen quite capable of reeling in that sculpture on 130 lb. test line.  

And the sculpture will—of course—be brightly lighted, with LEDs in various bright colors.

Artist's rendering of the proposed sculpture at night, courtesy of city of St. Petersburg, FL.

Ironically, the park for which it is slated was created to preserve waterfront green space. Spa Beach is officially a passive park, meaning that permanent structures (anything that will last more than six months) are banned. No problem. City Attorney Jackie Kovilaritch has said that "a substantial change of use" ordinance will be introduced to fix that pesky problem.

Echelman assures the city that her work is designed to be wind-resistant and that a consortium of engineers say it won’t end up as junk plastic in the ocean. Pardon me, but we’ve all heard that before.

Artist's rendering of the proposed sculpture at night, courtesy of city of St. Petersburg, FL

There’s the question of light pollution and the possible impact on seabirds and sea creatures, none of which can be predicted with certainty. But mostly, to me, it’s a question of where people can go to get away from the endless energy, anxiety, and bustle of the ever-expanding human colony.

Let this be a monument of sorts, then—to the death of any sort of real environmental stewardship, to the end of our love of green space, a funeral marker for a planet that once knew how to sleep at night. 

America’s first black woman artist

Edmonia Lewis was a Neoclassicist, but her work explored issues of race and gender before these were even concepts.

The Death of Cleopatra, 1876, Edmonia Lewis, courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The first school of American women sculptors arose, paradoxically, in Italy, around Massachusetts-born Harriet Hosmer. These women went to Rome to take advantage of trained carvers and craftsmen and the access to pure white Carrara marble. Along with their male peers, they mined the rich vein of Neoclassicism. America was wealthy and the monument business was booming.

For women artists, there was the additional advantage of breaking away from the social strictures of home. Carving stone is hard physical work, considered uniquely unfeminine in the culture of the time.

Not that they escaped completely. There were plenty of conventional men among the expatriates. Henry James famously described them as “that strange sisterhood of American ‘lady sculptors’ who at one time settled upon the seven hills [of Rome] in a white, marmorean flock.”

Edmonia Lewis, c. 1870, courtesy National Portrait Gallery.

“One of the sisterhood,” James continued, “was a negress, whose colour, picturesquely contrasting with that of her plastic material, was the pleading agent of her fame.” Ouch.

He was referring to Edmonia Lewis, who is now considered the first prominent American female minority artist. Devoutly Catholic, she created many religious works, much of which are lost. Her oeuvre also included portrait busts and classical themes.

Lewis was born in Greenbush, Rensselaer County, New York, in 1844. Her father was of Haitian descent and her mother was Mississauga Ojibwe and African. Lewis was orphaned by the age of nine and adopted by two aunts who lived near Niagara Falls and sold souviners to tourists. At age 12, she was sent to a Free Baptist abolitionist school in central New York, and went from there to Oberlin College. After a childhood of absolute freedom, the strictures of civilization were uncomfortable.

Old Arrow Maker, 1872, is nominally an illustration of a passage from the Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It’s also an evocation of Lewis’ own childhood. Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.

“Until I was twelve years old I led this wandering life, fishing and swimming and making moccasins. I was then sent to school for three years… but was declared to be wild—they could do nothing with me,” she recollected.

At Oberlin, she was accused of poisoning two friends with an aphrodisiac, a nod to her Haitian background. From that point, she was a marked woman. Another accusation, of stealing, prevented her graduation and she moved to Boston to take up training in sculpture. Again, her relationship with her mentor and teacher, Edward Augustus Brackett, broke down into acrimony.

Lewis’ Portrait of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, c. 1866, was one of the sales that enabled her to leave Boston for Rome. Courtesy Museum of African American History.

Meanwhile, she was lauded as a success in the Abolitionist press, bringing commissions and attention before she was fully prepared to deal with them. She left for Rome and a new start.

At the height of her popularity in the ‘60s and ‘70s, her studio was frequented by visitors fascinated by her charm and exotic clothing and background.

Lewis’ most celebrated sculpture was the monumental Death of Cleopatra, created for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Cleopatra killed herself after the death of her lover and ally, Mark Antony. In the 19^th century imagination, she was Africa, he was Europe.

The public was accustomed to depictions of the dying queen as regal, calm and composed. Lewis’ depiction is of a sprawling, inelegant woman, on her throne, in the throes of death. As she did so often in her work, she was quietly looking at issues of race and gender in a novel way.

Clifford has a friend

Max, 2003, by Florentijn Hofman, from the artist's own website.

If you were born after 1963, you’re probably familiar with Norman Bridwell’s children’s book, “Clifford, the Big Red Dog.” Since 2003, Clifford has had a real-world double in the Netherlands, a large, red, eco-friendly sculpture of what we would call a German Shepherd, named Max.

Max, 2003, by Florentijn Hofman, from the artist's own website.

At 40X26X82 feet, Max towers over the village of Leens in Groningen province. He was built from locally sourced, low-impact materials like potato crates, pallets, wood, straw and rope, and bound together with wire. He was then wrapped in bright red shrink-wrap.

His creator, Florentijn Hofman, is a Dutch artist whose other work includes a rubber ducky floating in Hong Kong’s harbor and hippo in the Thames.

Max, under construction in 2003, from the artist's own website.

It took two months for him to build the dog, with assistance of local youth. “Max is the watchdog which guards the farm as a cultural heritage,” writes Hofman. Leens itself is a tiny village in a marsh which has been more or less occupied continuously since the Iron Age.

Max, under construction in 2003, from the artist's own website.

I promised details on my 2015 Maine workshop today, but they’re not ready. Still, don’t forget my holiday sale, or the workshop, which I promise to roll out tomorrow. Really.

A true warrior queen

Zenobia in Chains, 1859, by Harriet Hosmer. The American sculptor Harriet Hosmer portrayed Zenobia twice. This version depicts Zenobia being paraded through Roman in Aurelian’s Triumph. It is impossible to read this statue retrospectively without considering it as a commentary on the dual American questions of the age: women’s rights and abolition. It just figures that when Hosmer showed it in Europe, many questioned whether a woman would have been capable of producing such a monumental work.

My friend K Dee recently put together a photostream of portraits of women to “help me remember, in case I ever start to forget, which sort of female image I find reflects a healthy civil society, and which I do not.” I’m not sure I’d call the collapsing Roman empire a ‘healthy civil society’ but Zenobia is certainly one of its heroines.

In the third century AD, the Roman Empire was coming unglued. Emperors were assassinated, a Persian revolt couldn’t be put down, generals were locked in power struggles, and the frontiers were open to attack. The governor of the eastern provinces chose to deploy his legions to defend his territory rather than fight with other Romans.

Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, modeled c. 1859; carved after 1859, by Harriet Hosmer. “I have tried to make her too proud to exhibit passion or emotion of any kind; not subdued, though a prisoner; but calm, grand, and strong within herself,” wrote Hosmer.

In the usual manner, he too was murdered.  His son, Vaballathus, was named rex consul imperator dux Romanorum and corrector totius orientis of the new Palmyrene Empire. That was a mouthful for a child who was barely walking, so the real power behind the throne was his mother Zenobia.

Zenobia was the daughter of a governor of Palmyra. While she claimed she was a descendent of the Ptolomies and Dido, Queen of Carthage, she was more likely a Romanized Syrian with some Egyptian and North African ancestry. She was well-educated and fluent in Greek, Aramaic, Egyptian and Latin. And of course—because she is a queen of legend—she was beautiful. It is probably true that she rode, hunted, fought, and drank like her male officers, or she could not have commanded them in the field.

Who knows how long the Romans might have ignored her had she contented herself with governing Syria and its surrounds? But by 269, Zenobia was on the move. She conquered Egypt and beheaded its Roman prefect. She proclaimed herself Queen of Egypt.

From that to the absurd: the Duchess of Devonshire dressed as Zenobia for her own Jubilee Costume Ball in 1897. Playing dress-up Zenobia has been popular forever, it seems.

Her victory was short-lived. By 273, Rome had reestablished enough equilibrium to challenge Zenobia. The Emperor Auralian arrived in Syria and crushed Zenobia’s army near Antioch. Zenobia and her son were captured along the Euphrades as they fled by camel.

Aurelian took Zenobia and Vaballathus as hostages to Rome, parading Zenobia in golden chains during his Triumph. Nobody knows whether Zenobia was executed or pardoned, for she disappeared from history at this point. Legend says she was married off and lived to bear several daughters.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Really big art

Bronze Colossus of Constantine, 4th century Roman. Not the one you expected, was it?

Having finished the first of my seven large (48X36) paintings for my upcoming show at Roberts Wesleyan, I’ve been thinking about why people are motivated to make really big art.

Roman emperors erected colossi of themselves to publicly declare their omnipotence. Nero had a bronze one that stood a staggering 30 meters tall. Rather than just trash it, his thrifty successors modified it into a statue of the sun god Sol Invictus. It was eventually moved to the Flavian amphitheater we now refer to as the Colosseum. The thing stood around until the 4th century AD before being melted down.

The most familiar colossi to the modern viewer is the great marble Colossus of Constantine. After Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, he decided to complete the Basilica begun by Maxentius, crowning it with this enormous statue of himself.  All we have left are the hands and face, since the bronze body was also eventually pillaged and melted.

Colossi of Memnon, 14th century BCE, Egyptian

The oldest colossi remaining those made by ancient Egyptians, including the almost completely eroded Sphinx and the Colossi of Memnon. These twin statues depict a seated Amenhotep III , his hands resting on his knees and his gaze facing east towards the river. The smaller figures carved in the front throne are his wife, Tiy, and his mother, Mutemwiya. These figures were meant to guard Amenhotep's mortuary temple. In its day, this was the largest and grandest temple in Egypt.

The taller of the two Buddhas of Bamiyan, 554 AD, before its destruction by the Taliban.

Gandara art is the syncretic art that happened with the meshing of Greek and central Asian cultures from the time of Alexander the Great until the 7th century AD. Among the art produced in this fusion were the colossal Buddha sculptures carved into hillsides and caves, including the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were dynamited by the Taliban in 2001.

This statue of Vladimir Lenin in Dubna stands 25 meters high. It was completed in 1937.

The former Soviet Union loved colossi, erecting enormous statues of Lenin and Stalin for the same propaganda reasons as employed by the Roman emperors two millennia earlier. And we Americans have our Statue of Liberty and the heads carved at Mt. Rushmore.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! 

Dissidence and the triumph of audacity

Nadia Jelassi with two of the figures from her sculpture, Celui qui n’a pas.

Until her arrest in August of last year, artist Nadia Jelassi was unknown in the West. (As of this writing, she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry.) She might have remained unknown, but for her arrest on August 17, 2012 in Tunis for ‘breach of the peace and moral standards.’ She faces a five-year prison term.

Tunisian women prior to the Arab Spring revolution enjoyed secular freedoms we don’t associate with an Islamic state, including access to higher education, the right to divorce, and freedom from the hijab. This was by no means feminism as Americans understand it, but it was not the locked-down oppression of benighted fundamentalism, either. Women played an unprecedented role in the protests that brought down the Tunisian government, so the rise in religious zealotry in the power vacuum that appeared after the revolution was particularly sad.

And the work as a whole.

Jelassi’s sculpture, “Celui qui n’a pas,” above, is an emotional response to the position she and other Tunisian women find themselves in. It obviously references the threat of stoning, which unfortunately makes it an implicit criticism of shariah. (Stoning is a legally-sanctioned punishment in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, and some states in Nigeria.)

“Unlike what I used to do, it was not nuanced. I needed to shout, to express something raw. But I don’t think I sacrificed sculpture,” said Jelassi, who says her controversial work was a continuation of the textile portraits she had been producing.

“Celui qui n’a pas” was shown without controversy at the El Abdelleya gallery in Tunis until July 10, when one Mohamed Ali Bouazizi photographed works in the gallery that he personally considered “religiously offensive.” He took these images to a suburban mosque, where he gathered up a group to return to the gallery. This small mob was blocked by a larger one of the artists’ supporters.

Although Bouazizi attempted to foment violence against the gallery, he was not responsible for her arrest. The following day, a wave of violence sparked across Tunisia, prompting a police response and curfew. “Nobody lodged a complaint against me,” said Jelassi. “It was the State Prosecutor, the representative of the Justice Minister who opened the case.”

Jelassi’s protest was emotional and unscripted. Compare her to Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. He has long been known in the West as a visual artist; his work has been shown and is in prestigious public collections worldwide. To westerners, his sculpture and photography are not dissident, but to Chinese eyes, his work is inherently rebellious, because he magnifies the forms and traditions of the West rather than those of China. Our first instinct is not to say, “Oh, that’s so Chinese!” but to say, “Oh, that’s so contemporary!” The refusal to conform to the ideals of the government, to put himself outside the Chinese propaganda machine, was his fundamental rebellion.

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, Ai Weiwei, 1995, three gelatin silver prints, each 148 × 121 cm.

But while Ai’s visual work is subtly anti-Chinese, his major protest took the form not of visual art but of intentional political theater. On January 10, 2006, he began to compose daily essays critical of the Chinese government. These rapidly attracted an international following. By mid-2009, he was being investigated by the Chinese government, and his communication with the outside world was completely suppressed in July of that year.

(As so often happens with political activism, the government’s attempts to suppress Ai’s work contributed to its success. He has been the subject of a book and a movie, and he is as visible in his absence as he was while blogging.)

Last week, I wrote about the limits of audacity as a virtue in art. Absent a message, it is nonsensical. But audacity is the necessary springboard for a genuine cri de coeur. All over the world, there are suffering people, but very few among them can use their talent to give voice to that suffering.

What a high calling that is.