Chicago: city of art and industry

Press, 18 March 1982, Page 16

Chicago: city of art and industry

Recently I told you of my fleeting impressions of people and shopping during a visit to the U.S.A. Today, a few more highlights from that, whistle-stop journey. Chicago,' on the edge of vast Lake Michigan, surprised me. Although I must admit I had no formed picture of the place, it was much more interesting than I had imagined. Obviously very progressive, it boasts three of the world's tallest buildings. From the shopping point of view I caught glimpes from my taxi or bus of many of the smart top-of-the-market department stores and boutiques, but didn’t have time to go into any. What I did want to do in Chicago was to spend time in the world famous Art Insti-. tute of Chicago. Having spent most of a day in the Institute, I nevertheless suffered the frustration that always occurs when you visit large galleries, knowing that you should really visit several times to have time to pause, absorb, and enjoy all the impressive works collected there.

First I looked at a large retrospective exhibition of the twentieth-century American realist, Edward Hopper. Then thrilled myself seeing one of the world’s best permanent exhibitions of Impressionist work, and the works of twentieth century artists. Two I particularly remember were Picassos — a lady in green reading a book, and a large, bold, bronze of a bowl of flowers.

The entire exhibition gives great pleasure and interest because there you are gazing at the original paintings or sculpture, so many of which you have only known through prints and books. I was interested to note that the works of art were not roped off although there were conscientious security guards everywhere. Wandering down a corridor I saw a notice with an

arrow, saying, “The Magician of Venice.” This did not register with me, but I was delighted that my curiosity led me behind the decorated screens and into a large hall where spotlights pierced through subdued lighting to emphasise one of the most captivating exhibitions I’ve seen.

The Magician of Venice was Mariano Fortuny Madrazo, (1871-1949), who was, in fact, Spanish-born. He designed and created some of the most outstanding fabrics and dresses of this century. And this was just one facet of a truly talented man. He was a painter by training, an etcher and photographer; he also became a lighting engineer, an inventor, a theatre director, set designer and an architect. He lived in Venice from the age of eighteen until his death. It was there, on the Venetian island of Guidecch that he worked, devising his radical new printing techniques of using blocks or stencils and machine to create his fabrics.

His exciting use of colour and the fact that he never used the same design or identical colour combination on any two pieces of fabric meant that each piece was individual. It was in the 1920’s that the world came to know Fortuny’s dresses and fabrics which until then had been restricted to a very small, cultural elite. The exhibition I saw consisted of more than a hundred textile and costume creations. Still-life models' painted in gold and silver displayed the coats, dresses, and jackets whilst large panels of fabrics were hung in striking combinations.

The ideas for his dresses stemmed from ancient Middle Eastern, Greek and Roman clothing, and he devised a process of the finest pleating which was kept a secret during his lifetime and is still without

absolute immitation today although the present day American designer, Mary McFadden has emulated the Fortuny pleating in her simple, elegant evening wear.

I decided that to have worn a Fortuny dress you needed to be utterly slender and graceful ... and then you needed servants so as to leave you entirely able to stand, glide and recline about with nothing to do but look divine.

On our last night in the U.S.A, we decided to have dinner in the hotel’s ground floor bar restaurant. There we discovered the Patricia Barber Jazz Trio. Patricia herself was a tall and striking woman who played the piano and sang, seemingly emotionally lost in her own world of feeling. Their music sounded simply great, so in one of the breaks we asked them to come and have a drink with us. In our conversation the group told us they wanted to travel overseas with their music, maybe the far Eastern and Australasian circuit, but they had no ideas of how to go about organising such a challenge. They were playing their

music in Chicago, all tne time hoping that someone would “discover” them and finance them into recording and touring. The competition is very tough. Plus Lady Luck plays her hand so often. Yet if this trio was an example of the local music then much of it must be very, very good. In an earlier story I mentioned that my visit to America was brief and fastmoving and that impressions were gained superficially. There was one impression which made me very uncomfortable. It had to do with religious aspects. I sense in New Zealand that we have a relaxed, rather low-key approach to our religious convictions, which doesn’t mean to suggest we don’t care, but that this is our way of going about sacred beliefs. In America I watched four television programmes and listened to two radio broadcasts, all with God as their subject. And I’m not knocking God, heaven knows when we ceased being Chimpanzees or Gibbons, we then started outlawing cannibalism, then incest, and then we yearned for and created God or gods all those thousands of years ago.

That human belief in God in all its variations continues strongly to this day. I've been informed that about one billion dollars a year is spent by evangelical and other religious groups in the U.S.A, to spread their ideas. Seeing some of the ways used to present the message to the people gave me the horrors. It can look and sound like a mass con job.

There you see the widely smiling host, or host and hostess, capped teeth and dressed for stunning effect,

halleluying and rousing the blood of what the cameras then show to look like a mesmerized and stage-man-aged audience. It would seem more than ever these days, there are greater numbers of lonely and lost people looking for solace. People without jobs, without money. Itinerant and semi-illiterate people struggling in the survival battle. People suffering from drug abuse and alcoholism. Men, women and children trying to come to terms with marriage and family breakdowns. Such people suffering from emotional and physical stress are drawn to anyone who says they will care, that they know the way, that they can help . . . through them they can'show the way to God. The Christian message is a caring message, but somehow watching and listening to the shows I happened to see and hear gave me a sense of falseness.

I wonder how much money are asked for as you get further involved? How much time and commitment is taken under coercion?

I could understand the horror of the Jones Town tragedy.

America is a vast country where the rich are unbelieveably rich, and there are a lot of them. Where the poor are very poor and there are so many more of them, and the dramas of all human life can be caught and turned into very good profit by the clever and the supercharged. One day somewhere in the future I look forward to another opportunity to visit the U.S.A. To see much more of its scenery, learn far more of its contrasts, and most hopefully of all, meet more of its people.