Welcome • Codex Seraphinianus • Belloli, Falkenstein and Weston at PMCA

Welcome to my new blog! For those of you familiar with my old blog, the new one will be more of the same. I’ll be talking about art, art books, other books and occasionally, topics that fall more broadly under the umbrella of culture.

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Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus

I have a favorite coffee table art book these days. It doesn’t just sit on the table like a trophy to show how cultured I am (I have others for that :-). I keep it open and turn the page every couple of days to marvel at and be inspired by its display of unbridled imagination in the service of simple colored pencil drawings. Part art book, part encyclopedia, Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus catalogs an imaginary world in an unknown language, hand-written in a beautiful and indecipherable script invented by Serafini himself.

First published in 1981, this 2013 edition has been redesigned by Serafini and includes new illustrations. The gifted Serafini, who lives in Italy, is also an architect, ceramist, glazier, painter, sculptor, designer, opera director, set designer, and critic.

Leafing through the Codex at random you might find a series of ten diagrams showing the metamorphosis of a couple making love becoming a crocodile who then leaves the bed and slithers away. Another random sampling shows a chart of sixteen types of eyes, while opposite are rainbow colored teeth, odd dental contraptions, toothpaste coming from tubes in delightful coils and arabesques, and a game board where the objective seems to be to propel a recently extracted tooth from your mouth into a goal at one end of the board.

©Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini,
Rizzoli New York, 2013

Over and over again your eyes dart to the script for clarification, only to be reminded you’re on your own – you don’t know this language.

Then there’s a page with schematics showing a fried egg from above and in two elevation views, connecting grid lines running throughout. Beside it you see three fried eggs in perspective on a grid with a single vanishing point. Dashed lines, colored lines and annotations (in the unknown script) tell a story but you’re not sure what it is. On the opposite page a child sits suspended in front of an open refrigerator in a cantilevered seat that he operates with a lever.

Video: Deciphering the Secrets of Codex Seraphinianus by Great Big Story

The only known languages in this book, are in the form of a pamphletted essay by Serafini titled DECODEX and inserted into a pocket on the inside back cover. Written in Italian and translated into five other languages, Serafini tells the story of how the Codex and its invented language came into being. At the end, he confesses who the “true” author of the Codex is, explaining that he, Serafini, “was merely its manual executor.” This tongue-in-cheek confession only adds to the surreal deliciousness that is the Codex Seraphinianus.

Click here to buy from Amazon.com

I’ve just learned that Rizzoli will be releasing a new book by Serafini in October, PULCINELLOPAEDIA SERAPHINIANA. From the press release: “As he famously did in the Codex, Luigi Serafini, has created PULCINELLOPAEDIA SERAPHINIANA in a unique language all its own, and has filled it with fascinating and mysterious illustrations that will no doubt prompt devotees to obsessively try to decipher the artist’s intention.” I, for one, can’t wait!

Click here to pre-order from Amazon.com

A New Interim Director and a Pair of Stellar Shows at PMCA

Installation snaphot of Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture
at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, taken by the author.

Good news for my adopted hometown, Pasadena, CA. Curator and former Director of Gallery Programs at the Armory Center for the Arts, Jay Belloli has been appointed Interim Director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. He is also curator of the current not-to-be-missed exhibition Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture which runs at PMCA through September 11.

Almost hidden in a back room behind Belloli’s masterfully presented Falkenstein show is Significant Details, an awe-inspiring exhibition of high contrast, black and white photo abstractions by Brett Weston, the lesser-known but no less talented son of Edward Weston. I’m so disappointed there is no catalog for Significant Details. Over half of the works on view have never been shown before, so this is our only chance to see them for now (on view through September 11).

Untitled (Wall, Europe), 1971. Silver gelatin print, 8 x 10 inches,
The Brett Weston Archive. Courtesy Christian Keesee Collection, 2016

Make an afternoon of it. Take the Gold Line to the Memorial Park Station. Have lunch at the Himalayan Café in Old Town. (My vegetarian recommendations are saag paneer, chana masala and bhel-puri, a delicious Indian street food made from puffed rice and vegetables.) Walk the few blocks to the PMCA. The PacAsia Museum is next door and the Armory Center for the Arts is only a block from the station.