MONTARlaBestia (Riding the Beast) Exhibition, Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley

Recently, I saw a deeply moving and technically impressive exhibition at Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley, titled "MONTARlaBestia (Riding the Beast)".

According to the poster, "the train known as 'La Bestia' carries half a million Central American migrants a year on a dangerous journey across Mexico towards the United States. Through art and poetry, the Colectivo de Artistas Contra la Discriminación explores the meaning of 'riding the best'."

Below are several of those touching images, together with the accompanying poetry, documenting the struggles and suffering of those desperate people, and some of them will haunt me for a long time.












 



































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Reformation 500 - Commemoration Exhibit at Graduate Theological Union Library, UC Berkeley

To commemorate the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Graduate Theological Union Library, UC Berkeley is presenting a special exhibition (February 13, 2017 - May 31, 2017) featuring "historical works by Martin Luther and his contemporaries, along with the ways Protestant anniversaries have been celebrated through the years. The exhibit cases will include a Luther Bible (1535 with hand colored prints) as well as early editions of works by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Jean Calvin, Johann Eck and others."


Commemorating 500 Years of the Reformation 1517-2017


Visitors were greeted by two figurines - Martin Luther by renown artist Ottmar Hörl, created in 2010, playful and serious.


Martin Luther, Ottmar Hörl, 2010, Graduate Theological Union Library, UC Berkeley

The old bibles, prints, and reproductions of old paintings were endlessly fascinating; however one felt about the man, his opinions, and the ultimate impacts on mankind, one had to appreciate the strength and the enormity of his influence on generations to come.


Martin Luther, Master I. B., 1630, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.


Reverendi Viri D. Martin Lutheri SS Theologiae Doctoris, 1617


The 95 Theses & Dr. Martin Luther, Lovis Corinth, reproduction 1968


A Replica of the Luther Medal of 1817 & Luther Medal 1917


Martin Luther preaching, detail from the altarpiece of the Church of Torslunde


Anti-Catholic Allegory depicting Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, Reproduction


The Icon as Iconoclash, Joseph Koerner


The Devil Playing the Bagpipe, reproduction


The Bible, 1599


Bible, German, Luther, 1535, Wittenberg


The Apocalypse, The Throne, Four Living Creatures, Seven-sealed Book and Lamb, Lucas Cranach's Print (1522)


Das Acht Liederbuch, Nürnberg 1523/24


Marburger Gesangbuch


Torgau Seal, Here First Church Built That was Specifically Protestant


Piece of wood from the oaken pulpit from which John Knox preached at Stirling, Scotland, 1559


The Sacrifice of Isaac, Rembrandt, Etching, 1655


Erasmus of Rotterdam, Albrecht Dürer, 1526. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth


Catholic Responses to Martin Luther and the Reformation, 1631

One of the showcases, containing some lighthearted artifacts such as board game Luther, demonstrated how deeply Luther has entered into people's awareness.


Luther: Das Spiel (Board Game)


500 hundred years had passed, yet some of the religious disputes and strife unleashed by his powerful argument are still haunting humankind today. Time for somber reflections.


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Swedish Artist Cecilia Edefalk at Berkeley Art Museum

For the past thirty plus years, Berkeley Art Museum has curated more than 220 MATRIX exhibitions to actively engage with living artists since the program's inception in 1978. In the Museum's new location, Matrix 261 (June 20 - October 16, 2016) showcases an amazing Swedish artist Cecilia Edefalk, whose personal and moving employment, reinterpretation, and reinventing of daily objects of growth and decay, manifested in her sculptures, paintings, drawings and photographs, were touchingly melancholic, achingly beautiful, and strangely comforting.

The most eye-catching objects were a 2008 group titled "Minne", birch branches in various shapes and shades, made of silver nitrate on bronze, whose sheen and rust emitted an otherworldly beauty.













A group of classical mask replicas, based on Roman marble mask of Marcus Aurelius, infused with twigs and leaves in various shapes and formations, formed the second large group of the exhibition.  Those unusual "crowns" made these masks stranger looking, and we suddenly sensed something hidden beneath those perfect and immobile faces.













The balance of the exhibition included a single birch branch in a corner of the large hall - "Weeping Birch Stem", which invoked a palpable sense of loneliness.





She also gave us something whimsical such as a "Birch Shoe" and a three-dimensional frame made of birch "branches" below, though the "Birch Show" was also echoed in a poignant painting, titled "Weeping Birch Mother". Even laughter mixed with tears.


Birch Shoe, Bronze, gold leaf, 2010, & Weeping Birch Mother, Oil on linen, 2010



Some pieces on canvas generated perhaps less buzz, but they were just as valuable and more instructive as they demonstrated the breadth of her works and her methods behind those fascinating sculptures, with the insights "behind the scene" offered in this 2010 piece of tempera and charcoal of birch wood on linen, "Weeping Birch Shadow".



A 2002 series of 12 oil and acrylic on linen paintings, "To view the painting from within", illustrated how she approached those fantastic masks.







A series of a 2016 tempera on linen painting, " The Meadow," were also quite interesting.



Cecilia Edefalk didn't strive for faddish, self-conscious avant-garde status or shock value so often plagued contemporary art; she dived deep into her private world full of feelings and background stories, which she generously shared with us, and we responded in kind.


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