Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer who, along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, pioneered minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's style of composition influenced many groups, his innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts. These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have influenced contemporary music in the US. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains. Writing in The Guardian, music critic Andrew Clements suggested that Reich is one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history"; the American composer and critic Kyle Gann has said that Reich "may... be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer". Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Leonard Reich.
When he was one year old, his parents divorced, Reich divided his time between New York and California. He is the half-brother of writer Jonathan Carroll, he was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff. While attending Cornell University, he minored in music and graduated in 1957 with a B. A. in Philosophy. Reich's B. A. thesis was on Ludwig Wittgenstein. For a year following graduation, Reich studied composition with Hall Overton before he enrolled at Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. Subsequently, he attended Mills College in Oakland, where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed Melodica for melodica and tape, which appeared in 1986 on the three-LP release Music from Mills.
Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, Phil Lesh and Terry Riley. He was involved with the premiere of Riley's In C and suggested the use of the eighth note pulse, now standard in performance of the piece. Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with twelve-tone composition, but he found the rhythmic aspects of the number twelve more interesting than the pitch aspects. Reich composed film soundtracks for Plastic Haircut, Oh Dem Watermelons, Thick Pucker, three films by Robert Nelson; the soundtrack of Plastic Haircut, composed in 1963, was a short tape collage Reich's first. The Watermelons soundtrack used two 19th-century minstrel tunes as its basis, used repeated phrasing together in a large five-part canon; the music for Thick Pucker arose from street recordings Reich made walking around San Francisco with Nelson, who filmed in black and white 16mm. This film no longer survives. A fourth film from 1965, about 25 minutes long and tentatively entitled "Thick Pucker II", was assembled by Nelson from outtakes of that shoot and more of the raw audio Reich had recorded.
Nelson never showed it. Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley, whose work In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, It's Gonna Rain. Composed in 1965, the piece used a fragment of a sermon about the end of the world given by a black Pentecostal street-preacher known as Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the last three words of the fragment, "it's gonna rain!", to multiple tape loops which move out of phase with one another. The 13-minute Come Out uses manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by Daniel Hamm, one of the falsely accused Harlem Six, injured by police; the survivor, beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise’s blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are played in unison.
They slip out of sync. The two voices split into four, looped continuously eight, continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns. In 1999, Rolling Stone magazine dubbed Reich "The Father of Sampling" and compared his work with the parallel evolution of hip-hop culture by DJs such as Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash. Melodica applies it to instrumental music. Steve Reich took a simple melody, which he played on a melodica recorded it, he sets the melody to two separate channels, moves them out of phase, creating an intricate interlocking melody. This piece is similar to Come Out in rhythmic structure, are an example of how one rhythmic process can be realized in different sounds to create two different pieces of music. Reich was inspired to compose this piece from a dream he had on May 22, 1966, put the piece
Art
Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts, expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, the aesthetic dissemination of art; the three classical branches of art are painting and architecture. Music, film and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of the arts; until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts. Though the definition of what constitutes art is disputed and has changed over time, general descriptions mention an idea of imaginative or technical skill stemming from human agency and creation.
The nature of art and related concepts, such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. In the perspective of the history of art, artistic works have existed for as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art. One early sense of the definition of art is related to the older Latin meaning, which translates to "skill" or "craft," as associated with words such as "artisan." English words derived from this meaning include artifact, artifice, medical arts, military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of all with some relation to its etymology. Over time, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Kant, among others, questioned the meaning of art. Several dialogues in Plato tackle questions about art: Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses, is not rational, he speaks approvingly of this, other forms of divine madness in the Phaedrus, yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetic art, laughter as well.
In Ion, Socrates gives no hint of the disapproval of Homer. The dialogue Ion suggests that Homer's Iliad functioned in the ancient Greek world as the Bible does today in the modern Christian world: as divinely inspired literary art that can provide moral guidance, if only it can be properly interpreted. With regards to the literary art and the musical arts, Aristotle considered epic poetry, comedy, dithyrambic poetry and music to be mimetic or imitative art, each varying in imitation by medium and manner. For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, poetry with language; the forms differ in their object of imitation. Comedy, for instance, is a dramatic imitation of men worse than average. Lastly, the forms differ in their manner of imitation—through narrative or character, through change or no change, through drama or no drama. Aristotle believed that imitation is natural to mankind and constitutes one of mankind's advantages over animals.
The more recent and specific sense of the word art as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art emerged in the early 17th century. Fine art refers to a skill used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of more refined or finer work of art. Within this latter sense, the word art may refer to several things: a study of a creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's experience with the creative skill; the creative arts are a collection of disciplines which produce artworks that are compelled by a personal drive and convey a message, mood, or symbolism for the perceiver to interpret. Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. Works of art can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted on the basis of images or objects. For some scholars, such as Kant, the sciences and the arts could be distinguished by taking science as representing the domain of knowledge and the arts as representing the domain of the freedom of artistic expression.
If the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. If the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand and design are sometimes considered applied art; some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference. However fine art has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression; the purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art. The purpose may be nonexistent; the nature of art has been described by philosopher Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture". Art has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exp
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor is a leader of a college or university either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor is a ceremonial non-resident head of the university. In such institutions, the chief executive of a university is the vice-chancellor, who may carry an additional title, such as "president & vice-chancellor"; the chancellor may serve as chairman of the governing body. In many countries, the administrative and educational head of the university is known as the president, principal or rector. In the United States, the head of a university is most a university president. In U. S. university systems that have more than one affiliated university or campus, the executive head of a specific campus may have the title of chancellor and report to the overall system's president, or vice versa. In both Australia and New Zealand, a chancellor is the chairman of a university's governing body.
The chancellor is assisted by a deputy chancellor. The chancellor and deputy chancellor are drawn from the senior ranks of business or the judiciary; some universities have a visitor, senior to the chancellor. University disputes can be appealed from the governing board to the visitor, but nowadays, such appeals are prohibited by legislation, the position has only ceremonial functions; the vice-chancellor serves as the chief executive of the university. Macquarie University in Sydney is a noteworthy anomaly as it once had the unique position of Emeritus Deputy Chancellor, a post created for John Lincoln upon his retirement from his long-held post of deputy chancellor in 2000; the position was not an honorary title, as it retained for Lincoln a place in the University Council until his death in 2011. Canadian universities and British universities in Scotland have a titular chancellor similar to those in England and Wales, with day-to-day operations handled by a principal. In Scotland, for example, the chancellor of the University of Edinburgh is Anne, Princess Royal, whilst the current chancellor of the University of Aberdeen is Camilla, Duchess of Rothesay.
In Canada, the vice-chancellor carries the joint title of "president and vice-chancellor" or "rector and vice-chancellor." Scottish principals carry the title of "principal and vice-chancellor." In Scotland, the title and post of rector is reserved to the third ranked official of university governance. The position exists in common throughout the five ancient universities of Scotland with rectorships in existence at the universities of St Andrews, Aberdeen and Dundee, considered to have ancient status as a result of its early connections to the University of St Andrews; the position of Lord Rector was given legal standing by virtue of the Universities Act 1889. Rectors appoint a rector's assessor a deputy or stand-in, who may carry out their functions when they are absent from the university; the Rector chairs meetings of the university court, the governing body of the university, is elected by the matriculated student body at regular intervals. An exception exists at Edinburgh, where the Rector is elected by staff.
In Finland, if the university has a chancellor, he is the leading official in the university. The duties of the chancellor are to promote sciences and to look after the best interests of the university; as the rector of the university remains the de facto administrative leader and chief executive official, the role of the chancellor is more of a social and historical nature. However some administrative duties still belong to the chancellor's jurisdiction despite their arguably ceremonial nature. Examples of these include the appointment of new docents; the chancellor of University of Helsinki has the notable right to be present and to speak in the plenary meetings of the Council of State when matters regarding the university are discussed. Despite his role as the chancellor of only one university, he is regarded as the political representative of Finland's entire university institution when he exercises his rights in the Council of State. In the history of Finland the office of the chancellor dates all the way back to the Swedish Empire, the Russian Empire.
The chancellor's duty was to function as the official representative of the monarch in the autonomous university. The number of chancellors in Finnish universities has declined over the years, in vast majority of Finnish universities the highest official is the rector; the remaining universities with chancellors are University of Åbo Akademi University. In France, chancellor is one of the titles of the rector, a senior civil servant of the Ministry of Education serving as manager of a regional educational district. In his capacity as chancellor, the rector awards academic degrees to the university's gradua
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner is one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work takes the form of typographic texts. Weiner was born in the New York, the son of a candy-store owner. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School at 16, he had a variety of jobs—he worked on an oil tanker, on docks, unloading railroad cars. After studying at Hunter College for less than a year, he traveled throughout North America before returning to New York. Weiner is regarded as a founding figure of Postminimalism's Conceptual art, which includes artists like Douglas Huebler, Robert Barry, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt. Weiner began his career as an artist as a young man at the height of Abstract Expressionism, his debut public work/exhibition was with what he called Cratering Piece. An action piece, the work consisted of explosives set to ignite in the four corners of a field in Marin County, California; that work, as Weiner developed his practice as a painter, became an epiphany for the turning point in his career.
His work in the early 1960s included six years of making explosions in the landscape of California to create craters as individual sculptures. He is known during his early work for creating gestures described in simple statements leading to the ambiguity of whether the artwork was the gesture or the statement describing the gesture: e.g."Two minutes of spray paint directly on the floor.." or " A 36" x 36" removal of lathing or support wall...". In 1968, when Sol LeWitt came up with his Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, Weiner formulated his "Declaration of Intent": 1; the artist may construct the piece. 2. The piece may be fabricated. 3. The piece need not be built; each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership. Weiner created his first book Statements in 1968, a small 64-page paperback with texts describing projects. Published by The Louis Kellner Foundation and Seth Siegelaub, "Statements" is considered one of the seminal conceptual artist's books of the era.
He was a contributor to the famous Xeroxbook published by Seth Siegelaub in 1968. Weiner's composed texts describe process and material, though Weiner's work is exclusively language-based, he regards his practice as sculpture, citing the elements described in the texts as his materials. An important aspect of audience participation in Weiner's work is site-specificity. In SOME LIMESTONE SOME SANDSTONE ENCLOSED FOR SOME REASON he recast the iron weighbridge of the Dean Clough carpet factory, incorporating the words of the title as an embossing inscription. Since the early 1970s, wall installations have been Weiner's primary medium, he has shown at the Leo Castelli gallery. Weiner works in a wide variety of media, including video, books, sound art using audio tape, performance art, installation art, graphic art. In 2007, he participated at the symposium "Personal Structures Time-Space-Existence" a project, initiated by the artist Rene Rietmeyer. In 2008 an excerpt from his opera with composer Peter Gordon – The Society Architect Ponders the Golden Gate Bridge – was issued on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike.
In 2009 he participated in the art project Find Me, by Gema Alava, in company of artists Robert Ryman, Merrill Wagner and Paul Kos. A comprehensive retrospective of Weiner's nearly 50-year career was organized by Ann Goldstein and Donna De Salvo at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2007–2008. Major solo exhibitions of the artist's work have been mounted at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D. C. Institute of Contemporary Arts, Dia Center for the Arts, New York, Musée d'Art Contemporain, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum Ludwig, Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Tate Gallery in London. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1988/89 and in Arnhem The Netherlands, in 1993, he has participated in Documenta V, VI, VII, as well as the 2005 Venice Biennale, the Biennale de São Paulo in 2006, the Venice Biennale and European Cultural Centre in 2013 with his work'The Grace of a Gesture'.
10 October – 20 December 2015 WITHIN A REALM OF DISTANCE: Lawrence Weiner at Blenheim Palace at Blenheim Art Foundation, Oxfordshire 25 October 2014 – 19 April 2015 Straight Down to Below: Lawrence Weiner, Woodhorn Museum, Scotland 26 September 2014 – 23 November 2014 Lawrence Weiner: All in due course at South London Gallery, London 21 September 2013 – 5 January 2014 – Lawrence Weiner: written in the wind, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 2013 – MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona March 1 – May 13, 2012 Lawrence Weiner: NO TREE NO BRANCH at The Jewish Museum, New York May 19 – June 19, 2010 Lawrence Weiner in the House of Art, České Budějovice, Czech Republic May 27 – July 19, 2008 Lawrence Weiner: Water in Milk Exists at Kino Mascotte, Basel November 15, 2007 – February 10, 2008 Lawrence Weiner: As Far The Eye Can See at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York March 22 – December 9, 2007 Lawrence Weiner: Inherent in the Rhumb Line at National Maritime Museum, England- Weiner is represented in New York City by Marian Goodman Gallery, in London and Milan by Lisson Gallery, in Paris by Yvon Lambert Gallery, in Los Angele
Arthur Lismer
Arthur Lismer, CC was an English-Canadian painter and member of the Group of Seven. He is known for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage. At age 13 he apprenticed at a photo-engraving company, he was awarded a scholarship, used this time to take evening classes at the Sheffield School of Arts from 1898 until 1905. In 1905, he moved to Antwerp, where he studied art at the Academie Royale. Lismer immigrated to Canada in 1911, settled in Toronto and took a job with Grip Ltd. From 1916-1919 Lismer served as the President of the Victoria College of Art. In wartime Halifax, Lismer was inspired by the shipping and naval activity of the port, notably the painted dazzle camouflaged ships; this work came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook who arranged for Lismer to be commissioned as an official war artist. His best-known work from the war years depicted what he observed and learned about in Halifax, Nova Scotia: Mine sweeping, convoying and harbor defense, he did some sketches of the Halifax Explosion.
The collaboration of four artists at Grip evolved into the Group of Seven, whose work was intended to contribute to the process of giving Canada a distinctive national voice in painting. The group was known for its depictions of the North American wilderness, he worked with the cadre at Grip. Arthur Lismer's style was influenced by his pre-Canadian experience, where he found the Barbizon and post-impressionist movements a key inspiration. Collaborating with the group of artists who would, in 1919, become the Group of Seven, Lismer exhibited the characteristic organic style, spiritual connection with the landscape that would embody that group's work; that same year, he became the first artistic director of the Hart House Theatre until 1921. During the Centennial of the City of Toronto, in 1934, Lismer was on the Pictures Committee, his work in art education was effective. For example, he started a children's art program at the Art Gallery of Toronto, which became successful in the 1930s. Several members of the Group of Seven including Lismer became members of the Canadian Group of Painters.
The gallery L'Art français exhibited his works. Lismer was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1967, he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. Lismer died on March 23, 1969 in Montreal and was buried alongside other members of the Original Seven at the McMichael Gallery Grounds. In Toronto, Lismer Hall, the auditorium at Humberside Collegiate Institute is named in his honour, he painted one of the largest murals in Canada for the school during the 1930s that hangs on the auditorium's walls today. Canadian official war artists War artist War art Brandon, Laura.. Art and War. New York: I. B. Tauris. ISBN 9781845112370. Bright Land: a Warm Look at Arthur Lismer. Toronto: Merritt. ISBN 9780920886076. Art and the Great War. New York: E. P. Dutton. OCLC 422817 Grigor, Angela Nairne.. Arthur Lismer, Visionary Art Educator. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. ISBN 9780773522954. A Concise History of Canadian Painting. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195406641.
Dalhousie University
Dalhousie University is a public research university in Nova Scotia, with three campuses in Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, medical teaching facilities in Saint John, New Brunswick. Dalhousie offers more than 4,000 courses, 180 degree programs in twelve undergraduate and professional faculties; the university is a member of a group of research-intensive universities in Canada. Dalhousie was established as a nonsectarian college in 1818 by the eponymous Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie; the college did not hold its first class until 1838, until operating sporadically due to financial difficulties. It reopened for a third time in 1863 following a reorganization that brought a change of name to "The Governors of Dalhousie College and University"; the university formally changed its name to "Dalhousie University" in 1997 through the same provincial legislation that merged the institution with the Technical University of Nova Scotia. There are two student unions that represent student interests at the university: the Dalhousie Student Union and the Dalhousie Association for Graduate Students.
Dalhousie's varsity teams, the Tigers, compete in the Atlantic University Sport conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Dalhousie's Faculty of Agriculture varsity teams are called the Dalhousie Rams, compete in the ACAA and CCAA. Dalhousie is a coeducational university with more than 18,000 students and 130,000 alumni around the world; the university's notable alumni include a Nobel Prize winner, 91 Rhodes Scholars, a range of other top government officials and business leaders. Dalhousie was founded as the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie desired a non-denominational college in Halifax. Financing came from customs duties collected by a previous Lieutenant Governor, John Coape Sherbrooke, during the War of 1812 occupation of Castine, Maine; the college was established in 1818, though it faltered shortly after as Ramsay left Halifax to serve as the Governor General of British North America. The school was structured upon the principles of the University of Edinburgh, where lectures were open to all, regardless of religion or nationality.
The University of Edinburgh was located near Ramsay's home in Scotland. In 1821 Dalhousie College was incorporated by the Nova Scotia House of Assembly under the 1821 Act of Incorporation; the college did not hold its first class until 1838. In 1841 an Act of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly conferred university powers on Dalhousie. In 1863 the college opened for a third time and was reorganized by another legislative act, which added "University" to the school's name: "The Governors of Dalhousie College and University". Dalhousie reopened with one tutor; when it awarded its first degrees in 1866 the student body consisted of 28 students working toward degrees and 28 occasional students. The first female graduate was Margaret Florence Newcome from Grafton, Nova Scotia, who earned her degree in 1885. Despite the reorganization and an increase in students, money continued to be a problem for the institution. In 1879, amid talks of closure due to the university's dire financial situation, a wealthy New York publisher with Nova Scotian roots, George Munro, began to donate to the university.
Munro is credited with rescuing Dalhousie from closure, in honour of his contributions Dalhousie observes a university holiday called George Munro Day on the first Friday of each February. Located at the space now occupied by Halifax City Hall, the college moved in 1886 to Carleton Campus and spread to Studley Campus. Dalhousie grew during the 20th century. From 1889 to 1962 the Halifax Conservatory was affiliated with and awarded degrees through Dalhousie. In 1920 several buildings were destroyed by fire on the campus of the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Through a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, King's College relocated to Halifax and entered into a partnership with Dalhousie that continues to this day. Dalhousie expanded on April 1, 1997 when provincial legislation mandated an amalgamation with the nearby Technical University of Nova Scotia; this merger saw reorganization of faculties and departments to create the Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning.
From 1997 to 2000, the Technical University of Nova Scotia operated as a constituent college of Dalhousie called Dalhousie Polytechnic of Nova Scotia until the collegiate system was dissolved. The legislation that merged the two schools formally changed the name of the institution to its present form, Dalhousie University. On 1 September 2012 the Nova Scotia Agricultural College merged into Dalhousie to form a new Faculty of Agriculture, located in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia. Dalhousie has three campuses within the Halifax Peninsula and a fourth, the Agricultural Campus, in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia. Studley Campus in Halifax serves as the primary campus; the campus is surrounded by residential neighbourhoods. Robie Street divides it from the adjacent Carleton Campus, which houses the faculties of dentistry and other health profession departments; the campus is adjacent to two large teaching hospitals affiliated with the school: the IWK Health Centre and the Queen
Eric Fischl
Eric Fischl is an American painter, printmaker and educator. He is known for his paintings depicting American suburbia from the 1980s. Fischl grew up on suburban Long Island, his art education began at Phoenix College for two years, followed with studying at Arizona State University. Followed by studying at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he received a B. F. A. in 1972. He moved to Chicago, taking a job as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Between 1974 and 1978 he taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it was at this school where he met painter April Gornik. In 1978, he moved back to New York City. Fischl is a trustee and senior critic at the New York Academy of Art and President of the Academy of the Arts at Guild Hall of East Hampton. In addition to receiving Guild Hall's Academy of the Art's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994, Fischl was extended the honor of membership to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006. Fischl has embraced the description of himself as a painter of the suburbs, not considered appropriate subject matter prior to his generation.
Some of Fischl's earlier works have a theme of adolescent sexuality and voyeurism, such as Sleepwalker which depicts an adolescent boy masturbating into a children's pool. Bad Boy and Birthday Boy both depict young boys looking at older women shown in provocative poses on a bed. In Bad Boy, the subject is surreptitiously slipping his hand into a purse. In Birthday Boy, the child is depicted naked on the bed. In 2002, Fischl collaborated with the Museum Haus Esters in Germany. Haus Esters is a 1928 home, designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1928 to be a private home, it now houses changing exhibitions. Fischl refurbished it as a home and hired models who, for several days, pretended to be a couple who lived there, he took 2,000 photographs, which he reworked digitally and used as the basis for a series of paintings, one of which, the monumental Krefeld Redux, Bedroom #6 was purchased by Paul Allen featured in the 2006 Double Take Exhibit at Experience Music Project, where it was juxtaposed with a much smaller Degas pastel.
This is by no means. Twenty years earlier, reviewing a show of 28 Fischl paintings at New York's Whitney Museum, art critic John Russell wrote in The New York Times, " sets up a charged situation with his incomparable subtlety of insight and characterization, he goes away and leaves us to figure it out as best we can; that is the tactic of Fischl, though the society with which he deals has an unstructured brutality and a violence never far from release that are different from the nicely calibrated cruelties that Degas recorded."Fischl collaborated with Jamaica Kincaid, E. L. Doctorow and Frederic Tuten combining paintings and sketches with literary works. For many years Fischl resided in New York City, with his studio located in Tribeca. In 2000 he moved to Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York with his wife, landscapist April Gornik, where they share a home and matching studios. Danto, A. C. Enright, R. and Martin, S.. Eric Fischl, 1970-2007. New York: Monacelli Press
