Also today is the birthday of American artist, R. B. Kitaj who passed away in 2007 at age 75… Here Amerika: Baseball, 1983-4 From an appreciation of Kitaj: “Like the painter’s “favourite anti-Semite,” the poet Ezra Pound, stricken by pale visages in a station of the Metro, Kitaj is arrested by the sheer physicality of the world. His works are the afterimages of the awful (and awe-provoking) perception that the Word has been made flesh. Awful, because in the flesh, rather than in Goya’s sleep of reason, Kitaj finds monsters. For him, a Jew come late to a contemplation of the meaning of his Jewishness, the Holocaust represents the major event of European history in this century. And in grappling with this legacy of violence, Kitaj asserts that the Holocaust, like so many other tragedies throughout history, was enacted not by nations and armies but by individuals who bear responsibility for their acts. Kitaj sees their motives as often charged with a cruel sexuality.” Click thru for more…

Also today is the birthday of American artist, R. B. Kitaj who passed away in 2007 at age 75…

Here Amerika: Baseball, 1983-4

From an appreciation of Kitaj:

“Like the painter’s “favourite anti-Semite,” the poet Ezra Pound, stricken by pale visages in a station of the Metro, Kitaj is arrested by the sheer physicality of the world. His works are the afterimages of the awful (and awe-provoking) perception that the Word has been made flesh. Awful, because in the flesh, rather than in Goya’s sleep of reason, Kitaj finds monsters. For him, a Jew come late to a contemplation of the meaning of his Jewishness, the Holocaust represents the major event of European history in this century. And in grappling with this legacy of violence, Kitaj asserts that the Holocaust, like so many other tragedies throughout history, was enacted not by nations and armies but by individuals who bear responsibility for their acts. Kitaj sees their motives as often charged with a cruel sexuality.”

Click thru for more…