Kings And Pioneers

Morning Rain Membrane

2014-04-25T09:01:00.000+02:00

The water on the window

rolls down the long glass pane,

and taps against the barrier

of my peaceful morning.

Inside is dry and known,

the rain a membrane like a womb.

It beats irregular over the noise

creating space and clarity.

To be able to choose

to go to a room

with pouring rain an amenity

No silence, only raindrops

no noise, only rain

would be the ultimate luxury.

Villa Savoye- le Corbusier

2014-03-28T04:42:00.001+01:00

While on a excursion to visit the photo truck the JR has been sending around France to collect portraits for his Pantheon installation, I took a walk around the Corbusier landmark house on whose grounds the truck was parked.

In all kinds of disrepair, I wonder if my 7,5 euro ticket will go towards the electricity bill, or the salary of the lady punching the cash register. And I hope that somewhere there is a fund building up that will take care of some of the disrepair you'll see in the images below.

The house, built between 1928 and 1931 as a weekend home for the Savoye family, was called "les Heures Claires."

The Bright Hours

And it incorporates all Five Points of New Architecture: Stils, roof gardens, open-plan, free-floating facade, horizontal window.

It is a really divine and modern system of in and outdoor spaces that all loop back together into themselves. Maximizing on light through the use of expansive windows and few internal structural supports, divisions are used effectively to delineate purpose and privacy. If ever you have a chance to pass through the Pstisian suburb of Poissy, make this a certain stop.

A City of Texture

2014-03-25T08:54:00.001+01:00

Textures seen around Paris- age, weather, renewal, force, mixed media, portals, passageways, stone, wood, glass, wild, manufactured, organic, designed...

Pointe City at Le Bal, Paris

2014-02-23T09:12:00.000+01:00

Mikhael Subotzky & Patrick Waterhouse

A visual story of the Ponte City tower in Johannesburg. Through photographs and found objects, a view of the lives that were housed inside over it's three decades in existence. There were several vignettes of found objects mixed with large format photographs of the building in various stages of disrepair, and of the tenants between 1975 and 2007.

This group of photos are of the vacated spaces, with photographs of the people who lived in them superimposed.

This was a wall of found objects in covered in photographs, cassette tape covers, books, CVs, Posters, love letters, manifestos, and everything else one might find in piles of papers or forgotten in drawers...

The following Photos from Le Bal Website

This photo was next to hand written drafts of letters requesting ("I herby beg") for refugee status and many official documents refusing asylum or forms asking about your history, where you are from, why you left, did you seek help from local authorities and are you able to go back?

At Le Bal

Excerpt Series inspired by Alejandro Cesarco

2014-02-16T15:17:00.000+01:00

This series was created as a way to document moments of text that stand out in a body of work and tell their own story in a new context. A kind of copy and paste.

works inspired by artist Alejandro Cesarco, after a recent visit to his exhibit at le Plateau in Paris.

FROST

from The New Yorker February 10, 2014

Bet The Farm: Robert Frost's turbulent apprenticeship.

From Harpers February 2014

The Oa: The pleasures and perils of whiskey by Colin McAdam

from The New Yorker February 3, 2014

Full Fathom Five: Derek Walcott's seascapes by Adam Kirsch

Going the Distance: Excerpts from David Remnik's piece on Barak Obama

2014-02-06T13:24:00.001+01:00

This excellent article by David Remnik for the New Yorker provides a balanced and deeply transparent view into the thoughts and process and politics of Barak Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Here are some excerpts worth saving:

“The President always takes the long view.” Valerie Jarrett

“One thing that I always try to emphasize is that, if you look at American history, there have been frequent occasions in which it looked like we had insoluble problems—either economic, political, security—and, as long as there were those who stayed steady and clear-eyed and persistent, eventually we came up with an answer.”

"Obama is exactly like all my friends. He would rather read a book than spend time with people he doesn’t know or like.” Joe Manchin

“When you don’t build those personal relationships,” Manchin told CNN, “it’s pretty easy for a person to say, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ ”
Comes to a close with:

"(Obama) said he hoped that one day he might be able to take a walk in the park, drop by a bookstore, chat with people in a coffee shop. “After all this is done,” he said, “how can I find that again?”"

“He travels light.” John Podesta on Obama's circle of friends

"the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

“I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person,” Obama said. “I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there’s going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, but that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse.”

And concludes with Obama's last comment:
“I just wanted to add one thing to that business about the great-man theory of history. The President of the United States cannot remake our society, and that’s probably a good thing.” He paused yet again, always self-editing. “Not ‘probably,’ ” he said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

Le Plateau Art Space Paris

2014-01-26T02:44:00.001+01:00

Alejandro Cesarco at Le Plateau Paris. This space inspires me each time because I find new works that make everyday things feel more special through someone else's lense. The world becomes more bearable because within the most banal moment you can learn to find inspiration and beauty.

I love these works that put things like book indexes in a new context for reexamination. I like the scientific quality of the piece on regret that is taken from the four literary genres: Romantic, Comic, Tragic & Ironic, with photographe from Jean luc Godard's film 'Une Femme Mariee'

Alaia is the man of the season

2013-10-08T10:00:00.000+02:00

A store opening, a major exhibit for the re-opening of the Musée Galliera, and lots and lots of buzz: here's one article with interview

Azzedine Alaia

Chic Paris Visit Guide From VD magazine October 2013

2013-10-07T09:34:00.000+02:00

The Chicest Paris destinations from VD Magazine released during Paris Fashion Week Sept 28-Oct 3 2013

Bonne Visite!

2013-10-04T22:34:00.001+02:00

You don't own me

I'm not just one of your many toys

You don't own me

Don't say I can't play with other boys

MEP Sunday Visit

2013-08-18T15:26:00.001+02:00

Always inspired by the works I see for the first time here.

There are always at least several that stand out, unexpected, in the three floors of the museum divided usually into four themes/photographers.

BIASIUCCI / PALADINOCASA MADRE

FERRANTE FERRANTI, "ITINERRANCES"

L’ŒIL D’UN COLLECTIONNEUR: SERGE ABOUKRAT, DU CLICHÉ-VERRE À PHILIPPE HALSMAN

COSTA-GAVRAS, CARNETS PHOTOGRAPHIQUES

MEP website

"How Do You Say..."

2013-08-03T03:33:00.001+02:00

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend, in France and in French. I noticed a little while into the conversation that I was struggling more than usual with my vocabulary. Am I tired? Is it the wine? But no, I realized we were talking about things that we had never really discussed before- and so I was being challenged to find words and put together ideas that were not in my current repertoire.

So this made me wonder two things. The first: do we always talk about the same things? Are we always going over the same subjects on different days as time goes on and on? (how boring)

And the second: when I’m having conversations with friends or family in English, my native language, do we also limit ourselves to certain subjects? Limiting our vocabulary and our education by sticking with the same subjects and formats and stories? This would be less noticeable because we don’t question our understanding of our native languages, but it is no less dismaying.

I think that both are probably true. After all, once we know each other there is less searching and wondering. We learn from each other at the beginning and then become part of each others worlds, thus absorbing their vocabulary and their subject matter. If the people in our lives are not very different from us, we don’t have to stretch our minds very far to meet them. If we encounter someone very different it can often be intimidating to have a conversation with them because we can’t participate at the beginning. We have to listen first, and learn.

So we can either stay in a comfort zone of similar people carrying on similar conversations, or we can seek out new people with different experiences and different vocabularies and different conversations. By doing the later, you learn and absorb and are enriched. But you have to be willing to ask questions, to not know everything, to be vulnerable.

But what you get from it is the gratification of a new friend, a new perspective, and new conversation to share with an old friend.

from emerson on transcendentalism

"A man's power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss."

Kashmiri Boaters and a beautiful blog

2013-07-04T08:37:00.000+02:00

The images from 'Search Kashmir' are so beautiful and rich- so emotional. The post compares the shots of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brian Brake, a decade apart, and then Brian Braks with Steve McCurry, four decades apart.

I feel like a need to go there and see these bodies in motion.

change

2013-06-30T11:58:00.001+02:00

Remember "Her Famed Good Looks"? (HFGL) video

I think they shut down the site a while ago for copyright issues- every editorial listed alphabetically by model, including all the way back to Jean Shrimpton and Penelope Tree.

this is the new home, as a tumbler blog: http://hfgl.tumblr.com/
The experience is very different, not as organized or as focused. You can still search by model if you go to the so-labeled tab at the top. graphically less nice. It's ok.

Maybe best to go way back in the archives. Ignore the Simpsons posts. Unless you like looking at Simpsons stills. But have a look.

Aspriational

2013-06-30T08:07:00.001+02:00

I don't like celebrity, but some celebrities just have that thing. I started this collection of images that I love because they are just plain cool.

Starting with Bruce

Gyorgy Kepes

2013-04-25T10:02:00.001+02:00

Don't really know where to begin with this work. I picked up a book while randomly browsing the library at Beaubourg, Centre Pompidou. I trust this process, and patience pays off when you discover something so striking and inspiring. As suspected, I'm not the only one who loves his work so here are some images and sources for more information and examples of his work.

My favorite fact is that he founded and taught at MIT at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Not all art is fluff.

please also see this article from the NYTimes for further discussion into the scientific value of his work

follow up post on Moholy-Nagy to come

San Giovanni Battista by Mario Botta

2013-03-28T10:16:00.002+01:00

I am really moved to go here:

Switzerland : Ticino Mogno village church San Giovanni Battista designed by Mario Botta

more great images here

and the architect Mario Botta's other funky work

including this:

WELLNESS CENTRE “BERGOASE”, AROSA, SWITZERLAND 2003-2006

see some of his sketches here

I've also been dying to go to Lausanne. This is what the journey looks like by bicycle:

World Poetry Day

2013-03-21T16:08:00.001+01:00

When are words enough? When do they suffice to express
the things inside the gut and inside the mind? Inside the heart.
When taking great care to select them, arrange them, and feel them
swirl around in your throat, slide across the tongue and
exit into the world.

The physical sensations in my body overlap with my emotions
like the boy's outstretched arms grasping at the hen whose explosive
wing pump of liberation cast a shadow monster
on the stucco wall in the bright sun of the southern hemisphere.

Conditional factors can't be hypothesized
we can only watch the bird being gathered back up into the boys retracting arms
or the feathers neaten into a linear vehicle of escape.

for their shadows to fall upon other encounters and
create monsters anew.

Artist Heinz Mack

2013-03-13T12:10:00.000+01:00

Blues

2013-03-12T06:41:00.001+01:00

A series ongoing

Cathedral Candles

2013-02-24T08:31:00.001+01:00

I thought I had a quarter in my pocket.
I wanted to light a candle
They're majestic aren't they?

Get a picture with me right in front while I light the candle
oh but damn I don't have a quarter.
Get the whole thing, all the way up to the top.

Are you getting the whole thing?
That very tippy-top candle?
_

What do we visit a church for?
A cathedral built for the worship of a God we regard skeptically
and whose name we take in vain.

If you get a shiver of emotion upon entring,
which heart string is being pulled?
Is it a testament to Man who built it?
Faith that inspired it?
Self congratulation for being there?
Gratitude for that moment?

Awe.
Boredom.
Flippancy.
Nostalgia.
Curiosity.
_

What would the men who built it think of the world surrounding today.

photo Jean Gaumy: October 1980. Pilgrims standing in front of the cave. Lourdes, France

Kim Holtermand

2013-02-14T17:13:00.001+01:00

Sunset Over River Niger

2013-01-25T06:18:00.002+01:00

listening to a BBC global newscast, the correspondent in Mali was taking a moment to witness the sunset over the river Niger citing it as one of the most beautiful sights he's seen. I was curious to see the effect of this particular couché du soleil. Here are some of the images. I would love to see this. And perhaps bring some tourism back to the area that has been abandoned by international visitors due to the unrest in the country.

festival

I love these that show the silhouette of the Fishermen, which is the prominent economy of the river.

last hours

The river Niger has its source in Guinea and runs North through the Sahara (Mali, Niger, the border of Benin) before roaming back down to the Atlantic in Nigeria

Current Sovereign Monarchs

2013-01-06T10:51:00.003+01:00

a map of current Sovereign Monarchs that I just made with photoshop according to Wikipedia out of pure curiosity. All the those overlapped with fuscia are those under the rule of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

More from Nana and Popsie's bookshelf

2013-01-01T19:39:00.001+01:00

The quality of the images isn't stellar, but it is always like a treasure hunt to look and see what is inside of the thousands of books along the wall of the upstairs hallway...here's a peek