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| "Gestalt Educational Programme Concludes" International The News, Pakistan, 28.11.2011, City News, p. 14 Ref. Mariano Akerman, Lecture on Modern Art and Collage Contest Prizes German Embassy, Islamabad, 22.11.11 |
28.11.11
International The News
3.11.11
Theory and Design in the Age of New Objectivity
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| Pakistan Observer, 3 November 2011, p. 9 |
Gauhar Zahid Malik, "Embassies of Switzerland and Germany present 'Gestalt': Theory and Design in the Age of New Objectivity, Fifteen Educational Lectures by Mariano Akerman, Architect and Art Historian," Pakistan Observer, Pakistan, 3 November 2011, Twin Cities, p. 9
20.10.11
The Gestalt Program: Answers to Your Questions
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| Mariano Akerman: Bridging Cultures |
1. The Swiss Residence: The Gestalt Program as Meaningful Configuration
What is the Gestalt Program?
The Gestalt Program involves a series of fifteen educational activities that take place in Pakistan in October-November 2011 . It counts with the generous support of the Swiss Confederation and the Federal Republic of Germany. Promoting participation, the Gestalt Program includes lectures, training sessions, workshops, and a collage contest, with numerous prizes.
Why this Program may be special?
The Program is the result of a personal research and emerges from the desire to sharing its fruits with both teachers and students in order to stimulate their productivity and inventiveness.
Which are the main topics to be considered in the Program?
One of them is the Theory of Perceptual Organization, as formulated by the Gestalt school researchers during the Goldene Zwanziger, the Roaring Twenties. Another comprises the achievements of the Bauhaus, whose contribution can still be felt in our lives daily.
2. Islamabad College for Girls: The Theory of Perceptual Organization
If a person only perceives the parts and not the whole, is that person abnormal?
No, not necessarily. In general, and as it emerged from the Gestalt school experiments, under normal conditions a human being tends to perceive a totality, because our brain is holistic and integrates the information that receives. Sometimes, because of different factors, one may not perceive the whole, but some parts. This does not necessarily mean abnormality. Let's remember that the Gestalt researchers were mostly interested in what happens with the regular pattern of the human mind and not with the exceptions in particular. Besides, the fact that a person doesn't perceive something at one moment does not signify that the person won't be able to perceive that in another. Instead of being preoccupied about who is abnormal and who isn't, we should keep in mind that our perception as human beings is dynamic. In this world everything changes, and so does our perception.
As the rabbit-duck image is shown, why is it that some people perceive first the duck and why that some perceive first the rabbit?
The rabbit-duck is an extraordinary double-image which proves that most people tend to "read" complex figures too quickly. And in this case, most people tend to see either this or that, but not both. Only a few usually realize they are contemplating a double-edged figure. Concerning why a person perceives one thing or another first, this is simply connected with our pre-existences and probably with other factors as well. The problem studied by the a Gestalt researcher may not be why one perceives this or that thing first, but whether one is able to shift his/her viewpoint in order to see something else. The point here is whether we are able to show some flexibility in our perception or not.
Some pieces of paper pasted on a page: are they a collage?
Although the term collage comes from the French coller that means "to paste," pieces of paper pasted on a page do not necessarily constitute a collage in the strictest sense of the term, which is both artistic and holistic. In a true collage, one needs to transcend the parts in order to obtain an integrated whole. As a result, a true collage will not be an aggregate of parts but a truly organic unity. That's why Max Ernst was fond of saying that feathers may make the plumage, while glue does not necessarily make a collage: Si sont les plumes qui font le plumage, ce n’est pas la colle qui fait le collage.
3. International School Islamabad: Gestalt in the Collage
The boy misrepresents the image.
No. He simply perceives it in a way which is different from yours. Now it is your turn to try to see things from another viewpoint, the boy's.
4. Departamento de Español, National University of Modern Languages: La idea de collage y su relación con el todo integrado
¿Por qué se asocia el término "Gestalt" con la totalidad y sus respectivas partes?
Porque la Escuela de la Gestalt se dedica a estudiar la relación que existe entre el todo y sus respectivas partes.
Para la Gestalt, ¿qué importancia tiene la relación que se da entre el todo y sus respectivos componentes?
Una importancia fundamental: dicha relación es de primordial significación tanto para la teoría y los experimentos desarrollados por los investigadores de la Gestalt.
¿Prevalece siempre el todo sobre las partes?
No. A veces las partes adquiere una gran importancia y pueden llegar a amenazar a o incluso a prevalecer sobre el todo. En ese caso, tales partes funcionan como un árbol que no nos deja ver el bosque.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre agregrado y sistema?
Los componentes de un agregado se hallan asociados accidentalmente o solo por casualidad; los componentes de un sistema son concebidos según un determinado diseño y con el fin de trabajar en conjunto, ya sea para alcanzar cierto propósito o llevar a cabo un función específica.
Desde un punto de vista artístico, ¿un collage ideal implicaría un todo cuyas partes se hallan perfectamente bien integradas?
Claro que sí.
¿Por qué a veces no es fácil discernir los componentes que constituyen ciertas estructuras?
Por un lado, los componentes pueden a veces haber sido amalgamados. Por el otro, las estructuras de la realidad no siempre se caracterizan por ser claras y sencillas.
¿Por qué el Guernica de Picasso presenta un todo confuso?
Existen varias explicaciones posibles. Una de ellas es que su cuadro evoca el momento del estallido de una bomba sobre una indefensa población civil española.
5. Alliance Française d'Islamabad: Collage et intégration
Exercise : poser des questions
Qu'est-ce que c'est la théorie de la Gestalt?
Qui a developpé cette théorie? Quand? Où?
Comment définir le mot "collage"?
Y a t-il a des règles pour intégrer des parties dans un collage?
6. Post-Graduate Government College for Women Rawalpindi: Gestalt
Does everyone perceive things in the same way?
Not always. There are of course certain thing that most of us will perceive in the same way. And there are other things that each person will perceive in a different way.
Why we perceive the whole and not the parts?
Because our mind operates in a holistic way.
Why Gestalt psychology studies the whole and not the parts? Aren't the parts important?
The Gestalt psychology studies both the whole and the parts. As a matter of fact it focuses in the ways they relate one another. In this last sense, the parts are as important as the whole.
Can Gestalt psychology help us to cope with or even overcome the harsh realities of life?
Yes, of course.
Can looking at things holistically help us to overcome our prejudices?
Not only it can it also should do so, after all and despite our differences all human beings have much in common, haven't we?
Was the Gestalt theory applied to the visual arts?
Yes. It was first incorporated in the Bauhaus in the 1920s. Artists such as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky painted and developed their own theories basing themselves on the Gestalt achievements. Others applied the Gestalt principles to elaborate new fabrications of universal value.
Being you an architect, how is it that you are interested in psychology?
I don't see why I shouldn't be interested in psychology. One can be an architect and simultaneousy be interested in quite a number of other things. Well, I suppose that's my case.
7. COMSATS UNiversity: Gestalt Theory and Bauhaus Design
Under construction
What is the Gestalt Program?
The Gestalt Program involves a series of fifteen educational activities that take place in Pakistan in October-November 2011 . It counts with the generous support of the Swiss Confederation and the Federal Republic of Germany. Promoting participation, the Gestalt Program includes lectures, training sessions, workshops, and a collage contest, with numerous prizes.
Why this Program may be special?
The Program is the result of a personal research and emerges from the desire to sharing its fruits with both teachers and students in order to stimulate their productivity and inventiveness.
Which are the main topics to be considered in the Program?
One of them is the Theory of Perceptual Organization, as formulated by the Gestalt school researchers during the Goldene Zwanziger, the Roaring Twenties. Another comprises the achievements of the Bauhaus, whose contribution can still be felt in our lives daily.
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| Mariano Akerman, "Gestalt Program as Meaningful Configuration: Its Shape and Content," lecture Swiss Residence, Islamabad, 20 October 2011 |
2. Islamabad College for Girls: The Theory of Perceptual Organization
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| The parts and the whole |
No, not necessarily. In general, and as it emerged from the Gestalt school experiments, under normal conditions a human being tends to perceive a totality, because our brain is holistic and integrates the information that receives. Sometimes, because of different factors, one may not perceive the whole, but some parts. This does not necessarily mean abnormality. Let's remember that the Gestalt researchers were mostly interested in what happens with the regular pattern of the human mind and not with the exceptions in particular. Besides, the fact that a person doesn't perceive something at one moment does not signify that the person won't be able to perceive that in another. Instead of being preoccupied about who is abnormal and who isn't, we should keep in mind that our perception as human beings is dynamic. In this world everything changes, and so does our perception.
 |
| A tigger-rabbit |
The rabbit-duck is an extraordinary double-image which proves that most people tend to "read" complex figures too quickly. And in this case, most people tend to see either this or that, but not both. Only a few usually realize they are contemplating a double-edged figure. Concerning why a person perceives one thing or another first, this is simply connected with our pre-existences and probably with other factors as well. The problem studied by the a Gestalt researcher may not be why one perceives this or that thing first, but whether one is able to shift his/her viewpoint in order to see something else. The point here is whether we are able to show some flexibility in our perception or not.
 |
| A collage by Ernst |
Although the term collage comes from the French coller that means "to paste," pieces of paper pasted on a page do not necessarily constitute a collage in the strictest sense of the term, which is both artistic and holistic. In a true collage, one needs to transcend the parts in order to obtain an integrated whole. As a result, a true collage will not be an aggregate of parts but a truly organic unity. That's why Max Ernst was fond of saying that feathers may make the plumage, while glue does not necessarily make a collage: Si sont les plumes qui font le plumage, ce n’est pas la colle qui fait le collage.
3. International School Islamabad: Gestalt in the Collage
The boy misrepresents the image.
No. He simply perceives it in a way which is different from yours. Now it is your turn to try to see things from another viewpoint, the boy's.
4. Departamento de Español, National University of Modern Languages: La idea de collage y su relación con el todo integrado
¿Por qué se asocia el término "Gestalt" con la totalidad y sus respectivas partes?
Porque la Escuela de la Gestalt se dedica a estudiar la relación que existe entre el todo y sus respectivas partes.
Para la Gestalt, ¿qué importancia tiene la relación que se da entre el todo y sus respectivos componentes?
Una importancia fundamental: dicha relación es de primordial significación tanto para la teoría y los experimentos desarrollados por los investigadores de la Gestalt.
¿Prevalece siempre el todo sobre las partes?
No. A veces las partes adquiere una gran importancia y pueden llegar a amenazar a o incluso a prevalecer sobre el todo. En ese caso, tales partes funcionan como un árbol que no nos deja ver el bosque.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre agregrado y sistema?
Los componentes de un agregado se hallan asociados accidentalmente o solo por casualidad; los componentes de un sistema son concebidos según un determinado diseño y con el fin de trabajar en conjunto, ya sea para alcanzar cierto propósito o llevar a cabo un función específica.
Desde un punto de vista artístico, ¿un collage ideal implicaría un todo cuyas partes se hallan perfectamente bien integradas?
Claro que sí.
¿Por qué a veces no es fácil discernir los componentes que constituyen ciertas estructuras?
Por un lado, los componentes pueden a veces haber sido amalgamados. Por el otro, las estructuras de la realidad no siempre se caracterizan por ser claras y sencillas.
¿Por qué el Guernica de Picasso presenta un todo confuso?
Existen varias explicaciones posibles. Una de ellas es que su cuadro evoca el momento del estallido de una bomba sobre una indefensa población civil española.
5. Alliance Française d'Islamabad: Collage et intégration
Exercise : poser des questions
Qu'est-ce que c'est la théorie de la Gestalt?
Qui a developpé cette théorie? Quand? Où?
Comment définir le mot "collage"?
Y a t-il a des règles pour intégrer des parties dans un collage?
6. Post-Graduate Government College for Women Rawalpindi: Gestalt
Does everyone perceive things in the same way?
Not always. There are of course certain thing that most of us will perceive in the same way. And there are other things that each person will perceive in a different way.
Why we perceive the whole and not the parts?
Because our mind operates in a holistic way.
Why Gestalt psychology studies the whole and not the parts? Aren't the parts important?
The Gestalt psychology studies both the whole and the parts. As a matter of fact it focuses in the ways they relate one another. In this last sense, the parts are as important as the whole.
Can Gestalt psychology help us to cope with or even overcome the harsh realities of life?
Yes, of course.
Can looking at things holistically help us to overcome our prejudices?
Not only it can it also should do so, after all and despite our differences all human beings have much in common, haven't we?
Was the Gestalt theory applied to the visual arts?
Yes. It was first incorporated in the Bauhaus in the 1920s. Artists such as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky painted and developed their own theories basing themselves on the Gestalt achievements. Others applied the Gestalt principles to elaborate new fabrications of universal value.
Being you an architect, how is it that you are interested in psychology?
I don't see why I shouldn't be interested in psychology. One can be an architect and simultaneousy be interested in quite a number of other things. Well, I suppose that's my case.
7. COMSATS UNiversity: Gestalt Theory and Bauhaus Design
Under construction
10.10.11
Gestalt Educational Program
"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception." -Aldous Huxley
Theory and Design in the Age of New Objectivity. Fifteen lectures, training sessions, and workshops, by Mariano Akerman. October-November 2011
1. Gestalt Program as Meaningful Configuration
2. The Theory of Perceptual Organization: The Whole and the Parts
3. The Bauhaus: Form and Function in the Machine Age
4. Common Sense meets the Irrational
5. Gestalt and Bauhaus: A Matter of Perception
6. Modern Art and Design in the Age of New Objectivity
7. Innovation meets Tradition: Is Ornament a Crime?
8. Gestalt Theory and Bauhaus Design
9. Design and Arbitrariness: A Matter of Calculated Provocation?
10. Creation and Commitment
11. The Parts and the Whole: Gestalt in the Collage
12. La théorie de la Gestalt et les arts visuels modernes
13. Diseños Bauhaus y "Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno"
14. History, Language, and Education in the 1920s
15. The German-Swiss Contribution to the Age of New Objectivity
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| Gestalt Principles: Unity, Symmetry, Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, Figure and Ground. A Composition by Mariano Akerman, September 2011. Theory of Perceptual Organization: "The whole is different from the sum of its parts." |
Resources
20.8.11
Conferencias y curso de arte, Casa Argentina, 1999-2000
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| "Curso de Arte," Boletín de Casa Argentina, 12.1999 y 6.2000 |
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| Invitación a conferencias y curso de arte Interamérica y Casa Argentina, noviembre de 1999 |
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| Programa del curso "Cómo apreciar una obra de arte" Casa Argentina, enero-julio de 2000 |
BOLETÍN DE CASA ARGENTINA : CURSO DE ARTE
A. Diciembre de 1999. El arquitecto Mariano Akerman, artista plástico y M.A. en Historia del Arte, dicta un curso sobre el tema "Cómo apreciar una obra de arte", destinado a analizar los contrastes entre el arte tradicional y el arte moderno. El curso fue precedido por dos conferencias introductorias, que fueron seguidas con gran interés por un numeroso público.
B. Julio de 2000. El arquitecto Mariano Akerman inauguró el curso "Cómo apreciar una obra de arte", el 2 de enero, marco destinado a iniciar a los asistentes en los fundamentos para una lectura de la obra de arte tradicional y moderna. El curso ha sido seguido por un entusiasta grupo de aficionados al arte en reuniones bimensuales, clausurándose el curso a fines de julio.
CASA ARGENTINA BULLETIN: ART APPRECIATION COURSE
A. December 1999. The architect and artist Mariano Akerman, MA in art history, gives a course on the theme "How to appreciate a work of art". This course is aimed at analyzing the contrasts between traditional and modern art. The course was preceded by two introductory conferences attended by a large public with great interest.
B. July 2000. The architect Luis Mariano Akerman opened the course "How to appreciate a work of art", last January 2, a framework aimed to instruct the attendees to the bases for an understanding of the traditional and modern art work. This course was attended by an enthusiastic group of art lovers in bimonthly sessions, closing at the end of July.
A. Diciembre de 1999. El arquitecto Mariano Akerman, artista plástico y M.A. en Historia del Arte, dicta un curso sobre el tema "Cómo apreciar una obra de arte", destinado a analizar los contrastes entre el arte tradicional y el arte moderno. El curso fue precedido por dos conferencias introductorias, que fueron seguidas con gran interés por un numeroso público.
B. Julio de 2000. El arquitecto Mariano Akerman inauguró el curso "Cómo apreciar una obra de arte", el 2 de enero, marco destinado a iniciar a los asistentes en los fundamentos para una lectura de la obra de arte tradicional y moderna. El curso ha sido seguido por un entusiasta grupo de aficionados al arte en reuniones bimensuales, clausurándose el curso a fines de julio.
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| "Art Appreciation Course," Casa Argentina Bulletin, 12.1999 and 6.2000 |
CASA ARGENTINA BULLETIN: ART APPRECIATION COURSE
A. December 1999. The architect and artist Mariano Akerman, MA in art history, gives a course on the theme "How to appreciate a work of art". This course is aimed at analyzing the contrasts between traditional and modern art. The course was preceded by two introductory conferences attended by a large public with great interest.
B. July 2000. The architect Luis Mariano Akerman opened the course "How to appreciate a work of art", last January 2, a framework aimed to instruct the attendees to the bases for an understanding of the traditional and modern art work. This course was attended by an enthusiastic group of art lovers in bimonthly sessions, closing at the end of July.
2.8.11
Art, Education and Leisure
MARIANO AKERMAN: BRIDGING CULTURES
by Sara Mahmood
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| Mariano Akerman, Innerscape, watercolour detail, 2005 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan. As the last slide vanished from the screen, the sizeable crowd gathered at the German Embassy auditorium on the evening of May 12th, 2010, broke into animated applause. Had they checked their watches, members of the audience would have found to their astonishment that they had been held spellbound for an improbable two hours and fifteen minutes. Not many lecturers on German art could have inspired such rapt attention.
One of the good things about life in Islamabad these days is the sparkling presence of Mariano Akerman. Combining a formidable knowledge of the art canon with his exceptional skills as a teacher, the Argentinean painter and art historian Mariano Akerman has an unusual capacity to enthral his audience. One of a rare breed, he is a scholar who delights as much as he informs. Presenting German art to a lay audience and holding them spellbound for two hours is one proof. Another is the enthusiastic response of Pakistani student audiences to the opportunity Mariano provides for them to probe their own artistic heritage and its relationship to the art of other civilizations. Building bridges between cultures — between east and west, between scholar and layman — he describes as his vocation.
Earlier this year in Islamabad, Mariano delivered a series of thirty-five lectures to a group of adult enthusiasts eager to deepen their understanding of the visual arts. Beginning at the beginning with how to appreciate a work of art, the series moved on to trace unexpected themes and linkages that brought the art canon to life in new ways. Here is the testimony of one participant to Mariano’s teaching style and breadth of perspective:
“Some of the topics are quirky areas of art appreciation I had never considered, but all are stimulating. It is particularly interesting to be drawn into discussions during these lectures rather than simply taking part in a dry question and answer formula.”
Communicating his ideas about art to those interested in learning is described by Mariano as fulfilling his need to balance the independent views of the scholar with the human impulse to share. Not that giving is entirely one-way traffic. As well as enriching the audience, the teacher in the course of teaching engages in a dialogue with himself, which in turn helps to deepen his own understanding.
As a child growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mariano recalls the perplexing experience of discovering Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in a quaint encyclopaedia. It was his earliest conscious exposure to the influence of the imaginary. During his teenage years, he spent a good deal of time with his aunt Moroca, herself a painter. It was she who first taught him how to paint, while sharing ideas such as the potential of automatism and free association. Mariano benefited too from Moroca’s extensive art library, which introduced him to the fantastic world of Hieronymus Bosch and the work of the Surrealists, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and especially Yves Tanguy.
As a student at the School of Architecture in Buenos Aires, the young scholar chose visual communication as one of his elective subjects: his graduation project focused on the relationship between boundaries and space. Mariano's work was deeply informed by Lao-Tsu’s observation that clay is shaped into a jar, but it is “the emptiness inside” that holds whatever one wants. Several critics have pointed to the strong connection between Mariano’s architectural training and the style he developed as a painter in the eighties, when he became a highly acclaimed exhibitor in the art galleries of Buenos Aires. The critic Monique Sasegur noted “his theoretical formation rests on his architectural career; the rest is lived experience.”
Another critic, Bernardo Graiver, reviewing Mariano’s first one-man exhibition, wrote: “He distances himself from banal preoccupations, suggesting and evoking not disorderly experiences, but unexpected ones—those that belong to the empiric-meditative creator. Submarine jungles of arched stems and smooth leaves, beings that sing with a growing audacity, and warm soft organisms awake in an ample harmony of composition.”
The work of this period features organic designs that enclose and soften the “unexpected” subject matter: Alice in a group of figures standing before a window, the recurring egg motif, majestic birds emerging from natural forms. These pictures seem to portend the change that is about to happen. In 1991, Mariano leaves Argentina and since then has returned only for short visits. The portrait of the “authentic lady” that he paints shortly before his departure depicts a society woman exuberantly attired in zany hat and striking neckwear. Yet, the odd thing about the painting is that her armless egg-shaped torso comes to a stop at the hip. The egg motif suggests hatching and giving birth to life. It may point to the fact that the painter is about to embark on the adventure of life outside the nest.
One critic of this period decried a “decorative” aspect in Mariano’s work. However, the critic Sasegur assigned this aspect its own importance; in a memorable phrase she summed up the artist’s work as “ornamental, expressive and powerfully hoped.” In this respect Mariano was influenced by the thinking of architect Robert Venturi, whose Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture he read in the mid eighties. By championing the eclectic approach of postmodernist architecture, Venturi sought to mitigate the exclusivist “either-or” approach of modernist architects such as Mies van der Rohe. “Less is more” was the mantra that encapsulated the modernist movement’s devotion to the principle establishing that form follows function. “Less is a bore” was Venturi’s spirited riposte to the pared down modernist approach.
Venturi also emphasized the fact that contemporary designers are heirs to a wide diversity of artistic influences. While Mariano criticizes much of postmodernist architecture for connecting with the past in a superficial fashion, he nevertheless admires the work of the postmodernist architect Louis I. Kahn, whose powerful designs draw on diverse historical sources. The Hurva, which is one of Kahn’s most daring and celebrated projects, wraps ancient ruins around a modern sanctuary.
Post Argentina, Mariano’s artwork includes both figuration and abstraction. He explores a variety of techniques, especially watercolour and collage. His work, developed over many years in Asia, shows his mastery of line, colour and texture in relatively small, intimate panels, strikingly grouped and beautifully framed.
It is also after leaving Argentina that Mariano expanded his work as scholar, communicator and teacher of the History of Art and Architecture. In Pakistan, he has targeted students in a wide range of educational institutions. Among them are Fatima Jinnah University, The National College of Art, Quaid-i-Azam University, The National University of Modern Languages and COMSATS. Mariano is particularly enthusiastic about his interaction with young Pakistani audiences. “Young Pakistanis are very curious about their pre-British past and how to connect with it. There is a freshness in the way they engage. Exposure to information and ideas helps them formulate the right questions to help them uncover the richness of their past.”
It is the combination of his intoxicating enthusiasm with his breadth of interest as an independent scholar that enthrals Mariano’s listeners. As noted by the student quoted earlier, he brings unfamiliar “quirky” areas of the art canon into focus. One of these areas is “the art of the Grotesque.” Defined by Mariano as an aesthetic category comprising double-edged configurations, the Grotesque has a long tradition in the visual arts, beginning with the fantastic hybrids found in the artificial caves or grottoes of Nero’s Domus Aurea in Rome. This style of ornamentation was studied and copied by Renaissance artists such as Ghirlandaio and Michelangelo. In the early sixteenth century, Raphael and Giovanni da Udine developed it into a complete system in the loggias of the Vatican Palace. In this context, the grotesque is ornamental; it is only later that it becomes prevalently deformed and visceral, even hideous.
Tracing the development of the Grotesque in the visual arts, Mariano’s research on the art of what Freud called “The Uncanny” highlights new connections while making evident the subtle transformation of Grotesque Art throughout the ages. “The Grotesque,” as he explains, “is neither attractive nor repulsive, but both at once. It is a problematic, double-edged realm where the one aspect always goes hand in hand with the incompatible other thus creating a visual paradox.” Central to Mariano's examination of the Grotesque is the work of Francis Bacon, one of the most important painters of the last century, whose shockingly brutal pictures also contain the extraordinary power to exhilarate and set free.
As an artist, Mariano continues painting and holding art shows. He has received more than twelve prizes in both art and education. Mariano likes to remind one that his priorities include his work as scholar and teacher. Anyone who navigates his site at http://akermariano.blogspot.com will be surprised by the originality of his ideas and the variety of links on offer, each with a wealth of illustration from the scholar’s always expanding archives. Moreover, each link brings a different piece of the jigsaw into focus. New connections emerge bridging cultures in unexpected ways. A visit cannot be highly enough recommended.
_____
Sara Mahmood is from Wales and has lived in Pakistan for over 20 years. Apart from being a regular contributor to Blue Chip Magazine, Sara drafts reports and teaches analytical writing skills. She also writes book reviews for the Dawn Books & Authors and for Libas. Her chief interest is reading widely in poetry and fiction, particularly modern developments in writing around the world.
Further references on Mariano Akerman
Artwork
Lectures, Seminars and Workshops, 2005-2010
The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Pakistan Drawing and Painting Workshop
Educational Activities
Blue Chip Magazine. Launched in 2004, Blue Chip has emerged as Pakistan’s premiere business magazine. Featuring the latest economic data as well as regular telecommunications, energy, capital markets and industry updates, Blue Chip has become an indispensable decision making tool within all levels of the private and public sectors. The magazine currently has a circulation of 6,000 copies a month primarily to Pakistan’s private sector including all levels of the financial sector from junior executives to senior management, all levels of industry including the telecommunications, energy, textiles and IT sectors. Blue Chip is also widely circulated in Pakistani government departments including the Ministry of Finance, the Board of Investment, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Competition Commission, the State Bank of Pakistan, the Ministry of Health and the Planning Commission. It is circulated among all the embassies in bulk, particularly the Saudi, UAE, Chinese, US, UK and Argentine embassies which are then sent on to the various ministries abroad. Blue Chip is currently available on all PIA, Etihad and Cathay Pacific international business class flights originating from Pakistan.
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| "German Art" was the first lecture of a series ten Mariano Akerman devoted to the topic in Pakistan. |
One of the good things about life in Islamabad these days is the sparkling presence of Mariano Akerman. Combining a formidable knowledge of the art canon with his exceptional skills as a teacher, the Argentinean painter and art historian Mariano Akerman has an unusual capacity to enthral his audience. One of a rare breed, he is a scholar who delights as much as he informs. Presenting German art to a lay audience and holding them spellbound for two hours is one proof. Another is the enthusiastic response of Pakistani student audiences to the opportunity Mariano provides for them to probe their own artistic heritage and its relationship to the art of other civilizations. Building bridges between cultures — between east and west, between scholar and layman — he describes as his vocation.
 |
| Mariano Akerman lecturing on the French imagery and that in his works, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, April 20th, 2010 |
Earlier this year in Islamabad, Mariano delivered a series of thirty-five lectures to a group of adult enthusiasts eager to deepen their understanding of the visual arts. Beginning at the beginning with how to appreciate a work of art, the series moved on to trace unexpected themes and linkages that brought the art canon to life in new ways. Here is the testimony of one participant to Mariano’s teaching style and breadth of perspective:
“Some of the topics are quirky areas of art appreciation I had never considered, but all are stimulating. It is particularly interesting to be drawn into discussions during these lectures rather than simply taking part in a dry question and answer formula.”
 |
| Videoconference: Mariano Akerman giving his lecture "Creativity in French Art" from the National College of Arts in Lahore, April 2010 |
Communicating his ideas about art to those interested in learning is described by Mariano as fulfilling his need to balance the independent views of the scholar with the human impulse to share. Not that giving is entirely one-way traffic. As well as enriching the audience, the teacher in the course of teaching engages in a dialogue with himself, which in turn helps to deepen his own understanding.
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| "German Art: Its Peculiarities and Transformations," lecture by Mariano Akerman, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Islamabad, 12 May 2010 |
As a child growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mariano recalls the perplexing experience of discovering Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in a quaint encyclopaedia. It was his earliest conscious exposure to the influence of the imaginary. During his teenage years, he spent a good deal of time with his aunt Moroca, herself a painter. It was she who first taught him how to paint, while sharing ideas such as the potential of automatism and free association. Mariano benefited too from Moroca’s extensive art library, which introduced him to the fantastic world of Hieronymus Bosch and the work of the Surrealists, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and especially Yves Tanguy.
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| Akerman, Rococo soirée at a Medieval Princess' House, gouache, 1979-80 |
As a student at the School of Architecture in Buenos Aires, the young scholar chose visual communication as one of his elective subjects: his graduation project focused on the relationship between boundaries and space. Mariano's work was deeply informed by Lao-Tsu’s observation that clay is shaped into a jar, but it is “the emptiness inside” that holds whatever one wants. Several critics have pointed to the strong connection between Mariano’s architectural training and the style he developed as a painter in the eighties, when he became a highly acclaimed exhibitor in the art galleries of Buenos Aires. The critic Monique Sasegur noted “his theoretical formation rests on his architectural career; the rest is lived experience.”
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| Akerman, Memory, mixed media collage, 2009 |
Another critic, Bernardo Graiver, reviewing Mariano’s first one-man exhibition, wrote: “He distances himself from banal preoccupations, suggesting and evoking not disorderly experiences, but unexpected ones—those that belong to the empiric-meditative creator. Submarine jungles of arched stems and smooth leaves, beings that sing with a growing audacity, and warm soft organisms awake in an ample harmony of composition.”
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| Akerman, Crystalline, First Movement, gouache, 1986 |
The work of this period features organic designs that enclose and soften the “unexpected” subject matter: Alice in a group of figures standing before a window, the recurring egg motif, majestic birds emerging from natural forms. These pictures seem to portend the change that is about to happen. In 1991, Mariano leaves Argentina and since then has returned only for short visits. The portrait of the “authentic lady” that he paints shortly before his departure depicts a society woman exuberantly attired in zany hat and striking neckwear. Yet, the odd thing about the painting is that her armless egg-shaped torso comes to a stop at the hip. The egg motif suggests hatching and giving birth to life. It may point to the fact that the painter is about to embark on the adventure of life outside the nest.
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| Akerman, Your Honour, pencil, ink and watercolour, 1989 |
One critic of this period decried a “decorative” aspect in Mariano’s work. However, the critic Sasegur assigned this aspect its own importance; in a memorable phrase she summed up the artist’s work as “ornamental, expressive and powerfully hoped.” In this respect Mariano was influenced by the thinking of architect Robert Venturi, whose Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture he read in the mid eighties. By championing the eclectic approach of postmodernist architecture, Venturi sought to mitigate the exclusivist “either-or” approach of modernist architects such as Mies van der Rohe. “Less is more” was the mantra that encapsulated the modernist movement’s devotion to the principle establishing that form follows function. “Less is a bore” was Venturi’s spirited riposte to the pared down modernist approach.
Venturi also emphasized the fact that contemporary designers are heirs to a wide diversity of artistic influences. While Mariano criticizes much of postmodernist architecture for connecting with the past in a superficial fashion, he nevertheless admires the work of the postmodernist architect Louis I. Kahn, whose powerful designs draw on diverse historical sources. The Hurva, which is one of Kahn’s most daring and celebrated projects, wraps ancient ruins around a modern sanctuary.
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| Louis Kahn, Hurva Project, cross-section, 1968. Computer graphic by Kent Larson, MIT |
Post Argentina, Mariano’s artwork includes both figuration and abstraction. He explores a variety of techniques, especially watercolour and collage. His work, developed over many years in Asia, shows his mastery of line, colour and texture in relatively small, intimate panels, strikingly grouped and beautifully framed.
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| Akerman, Inner Constellation, watercolour, 2005 |
It is also after leaving Argentina that Mariano expanded his work as scholar, communicator and teacher of the History of Art and Architecture. In Pakistan, he has targeted students in a wide range of educational institutions. Among them are Fatima Jinnah University, The National College of Art, Quaid-i-Azam University, The National University of Modern Languages and COMSATS. Mariano is particularly enthusiastic about his interaction with young Pakistani audiences. “Young Pakistanis are very curious about their pre-British past and how to connect with it. There is a freshness in the way they engage. Exposure to information and ideas helps them formulate the right questions to help them uncover the richness of their past.”
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| Akerman, Tell Me about It, collage, 2010 |
It is the combination of his intoxicating enthusiasm with his breadth of interest as an independent scholar that enthrals Mariano’s listeners. As noted by the student quoted earlier, he brings unfamiliar “quirky” areas of the art canon into focus. One of these areas is “the art of the Grotesque.” Defined by Mariano as an aesthetic category comprising double-edged configurations, the Grotesque has a long tradition in the visual arts, beginning with the fantastic hybrids found in the artificial caves or grottoes of Nero’s Domus Aurea in Rome. This style of ornamentation was studied and copied by Renaissance artists such as Ghirlandaio and Michelangelo. In the early sixteenth century, Raphael and Giovanni da Udine developed it into a complete system in the loggias of the Vatican Palace. In this context, the grotesque is ornamental; it is only later that it becomes prevalently deformed and visceral, even hideous.
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| Akerman, Renaissance Grotesques, educational plate |
Tracing the development of the Grotesque in the visual arts, Mariano’s research on the art of what Freud called “The Uncanny” highlights new connections while making evident the subtle transformation of Grotesque Art throughout the ages. “The Grotesque,” as he explains, “is neither attractive nor repulsive, but both at once. It is a problematic, double-edged realm where the one aspect always goes hand in hand with the incompatible other thus creating a visual paradox.” Central to Mariano's examination of the Grotesque is the work of Francis Bacon, one of the most important painters of the last century, whose shockingly brutal pictures also contain the extraordinary power to exhilarate and set free.
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| Francis Bacon, Lying Figure in a Mirror, oil, 1971 Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao |
As an artist, Mariano continues painting and holding art shows. He has received more than twelve prizes in both art and education. Mariano likes to remind one that his priorities include his work as scholar and teacher. Anyone who navigates his site at http://akermariano.blogspot.com will be surprised by the originality of his ideas and the variety of links on offer, each with a wealth of illustration from the scholar’s always expanding archives. Moreover, each link brings a different piece of the jigsaw into focus. New connections emerge bridging cultures in unexpected ways. A visit cannot be highly enough recommended.
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| Akerman, Idyll, water-soluble pencil and collage, 2011 |
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Sara Mahmood is from Wales and has lived in Pakistan for over 20 years. Apart from being a regular contributor to Blue Chip Magazine, Sara drafts reports and teaches analytical writing skills. She also writes book reviews for the Dawn Books & Authors and for Libas. Her chief interest is reading widely in poetry and fiction, particularly modern developments in writing around the world.
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| A group of students contemplating Akerman's collages after his lecture "Vers l'art libre et moderne," National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, March 18th, 2010 |
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| Details from Mariano Akerman's paintings. As Van der Rohe once put it, “God is in the details.” |
Further references on Mariano Akerman
Artwork
Lectures, Seminars and Workshops, 2005-2010
The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
Pakistan Drawing and Painting Workshop
Educational Activities
Blue Chip Magazine. Launched in 2004, Blue Chip has emerged as Pakistan’s premiere business magazine. Featuring the latest economic data as well as regular telecommunications, energy, capital markets and industry updates, Blue Chip has become an indispensable decision making tool within all levels of the private and public sectors. The magazine currently has a circulation of 6,000 copies a month primarily to Pakistan’s private sector including all levels of the financial sector from junior executives to senior management, all levels of industry including the telecommunications, energy, textiles and IT sectors. Blue Chip is also widely circulated in Pakistani government departments including the Ministry of Finance, the Board of Investment, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Competition Commission, the State Bank of Pakistan, the Ministry of Health and the Planning Commission. It is circulated among all the embassies in bulk, particularly the Saudi, UAE, Chinese, US, UK and Argentine embassies which are then sent on to the various ministries abroad. Blue Chip is currently available on all PIA, Etihad and Cathay Pacific international business class flights originating from Pakistan.
17.6.11
German Lectures
Online resources, accessed 17.6.2011
I. German Art: Its Peculiarities and Transformations
a) Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/en/09__Education__Culture/1__Cultural__Projects__ISLA/Akerman__Kunstvortragsreihe__2010__1__Seite.html
b) Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/de/01a__Bilaterale-Beziehungen/KU/Kunstvortragsreihe__Akerman__2010__1__Seite.html
c) PDF brochure
d) Asterisk 14.5 + Asterisk 21.5
II. The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
a) Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/en/09__Education__Culture/1__Cultural__Projects__ISLA/Akerman__Kunstvortragsreihe__2010__2__Seite.html
b) Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/de/01a__Bilaterale-Beziehungen/KU/Kunstvortragsreihe__Akerman__2010__2__Seite.html
c) brochure front ; brochure back
d) Behance
e) Asterisk 10.11 + Asterisk 21.12
I. German Art: Its Peculiarities and Transformations
a) Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/en/09__Education__Culture/1__Cultural__Projects__ISLA/Akerman__Kunstvortragsreihe__2010__1__Seite.html
b) Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/de/01a__Bilaterale-Beziehungen/KU/Kunstvortragsreihe__Akerman__2010__1__Seite.html
c) PDF brochure
d) Asterisk 14.5 + Asterisk 21.5
II. The German Contribution to the Visual Arts
a) Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/en/09__Education__Culture/1__Cultural__Projects__ISLA/Akerman__Kunstvortragsreihe__2010__2__Seite.html
b) Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Islamabad
http://www.pakistan.diplo.de/Vertretung/islamabad/de/01a__Bilaterale-Beziehungen/KU/Kunstvortragsreihe__Akerman__2010__2__Seite.html
c) brochure front ; brochure back
d) Behance
e) Asterisk 10.11 + Asterisk 21.12
6.6.11
Reflexions, Quotations and Remarks
Mi quehacer plástico es un asunto colectivo. Yo pinto una historia personal, pero la mía es también la historia del pueblo: la manzanita nunca cae lejos del arbolito (5.6.2011).
El pintor-historiador es el único que pinta el alma; los demás pintan sólo para los ojos (La Font de Saint-Yenne, Réflexions, 1752).
30.5.11
Mariano Akerman Fine Art • Contemporary Artworks
Paintings and Collages
En movimiento | In Motion | En mouvement, 1990
acuarela, tinta y collage | watercolor, ink and collage | aquarelle, encre et collage
• Nicole Myrand Collection, Accra, Ghana
Cielo de proyectos | Sky of Projects | Ciel des projets, 1990
acuarela | watercolor | aquarelle + collage
• Nicole Myrand Collection, Accra
1. Centauro | Centaur | Centaure, 1990-1
tinta china | Indian ink | encre
2. Mar Muerto I | Dead Sea I | Mer Morte I, 1991
tinta y acuarela | ink and watercolor | encre et aquarelle
• Nicole Myrand Collection, Accra
3. Mar Muerto II | Dead Sea II | Mer Morte II, 1991
tinta y acuarela | ink and watercolor | encre et aquarelle
• Nicole Myrand Collection, Accra
4. Sheba, 1995
sanguina | sanguine
5. El pensamiento encapsulado | Thought encapsulated | La pensée encapsulée, 2001
tinta y collage | ink and collage | encre et collage
6. Ondulante | Undulant | Ondulant, 11.9.2001
lápiz | pencil | crayon
7. Constelación A | Constellation A, 2004-5
crayón y acuarela | wax crayon and watercolor | crayon et aquarelle
• Matthieu Declercq, The Hague
8. Constelación B | Constellation B, 2004-5
crayón y acuarela | wax crayon and watercolor | crayon et aquarelle
9. Recuerdo | Recollection | Souvenir, 2005
acuarela y lápiz | watercolor and pencil | aquarelle et crayon
10. Oro y Cenizas | Gold and Ashes | Or et Cendres, 2001
tinta y acuarela | ink and watercolor | encre et aquarelle
11. Principio creación-destrucción | Principe création-destruction, 2004
acuarela | watercolor | aquarelle
12. Noga, 2004
acuarela | watercolor | aquarelle
• Micheline Assier Collection, Islamabad
13. Constelación interior | Inner constellation | Constellation intérieure, D 1-5
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle, 8 x 50 cm
• Sidra Khan Collection, San Francisco
14. Vanidad de vanidades | Vanity of Vanities | Vanité des vanités
crayon y acuarela | wax pencil and watercolor | crayon et aquarelle
• Micheline Assier Collection, Islamabad
15. Constelación interior | Inner constellation | Constellation intérieure, A 1-5
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle, 8 x 50 cm
• Rafael Foley Collection, New York
16. Orión—Una tierra prometida | Orion—A Promised Land | Orion—Une terre promise
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle, 25 x 19.3 cm
17. Constelación interior | Inner constellation | Constellation intérieure, E 1-5
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle, 8 x 50 cm
• Rafael Foley Collection, New York
18. La Edad de la Sabiduría | The Age of Wisdom | L'Âge de la Sagesse, 2005
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle
• Mariana Figueroa Sánchez, Beirut
detalle | detail | détail
19. Constelación interior | Inner constellation | Constellation intérieure, E 1-5
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle, 8 x 50 cm
• Rafael Foley Collection, New York
20. Paisaje interior | Innerscape | Paysage intérieur
acuarela | watercolour | aquarelle
detalle | detail | détail
21. Flor de ceibo | Ceibo Flower | Fleur de ceibo
técnica mixta | mixed media | technique mixte
22. Algunas preguntas | Some Questions | Quelques questions, (2000) 2011
acuarela | watercolor | aquarelle, 36 x 15.5 cm
• Dr Jenny Naseem Collection, Islamabad
23. Memoria | Memory | Mémoire, 2009
collage
• Micheline Assier Collection, Islamabad
24. Tell Me about It, 2010
collage, 45 x 45 cm
25. Asuntos espinosos I (gramos 453 materia viva) | Prickly Matters I | Affaires épineux I, 2009
collage, 27.5 x 19 cm
26. Asuntos espinosos II (gramos 453 materia viva) | Prickly Matters II | Affaires épineux II, 2009
collage, 27.5 x 19 cm
27. Las cosas que te digo | The Things I tell You | Les choses que je te dis, 2010
collage, 45 x 45 cm
• Sidra Khan Collection, San Francisco
28. Jardín indokushi | Hindu Kushi Garden | Jardin Hindou Kouchi, 2011
collage, 45 x 25.5 cm
• Hosai Rahimi Collection, Islamabad
29. Idilio | Idyll | Idylle, (2001) 2011
lápiz y collage | pencil and collage | crayon et collage, 45 x 25.5 cm
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