I have a Passion for Art. A Passion for what people try to translate from themselves and from our societies.
Constantly seeking for what is going on around, I decided to start this blog to share my points of view and discoveries.
I believe Art is a land where we should never stop believe in humanity. Cause Life is the best Art production (and director) ever-
Ask me anything
May 12, 2012
Craig DAMRAUER
New Math
2010
I found this quote (shall I say definition?) quite interesting. It actually came up with about 249 others equations, most of the time about human relationships.
So many people, related or not to the art sphere think that modern art should not be called art. We all have heard before “this is not art, this is bullshit, my dog could do better…” so what?
The impact of modern art on our society always fascinate me. No matter if we understand it or not, it often makes us react strongly. And if it doesn’t, than I suppose we can say that it’s not good. Or at least not for us as a person. Cause that’s what is interesting from my window: be able to feel the artwork—or not.
So the question is not to say if a work of art is technically well produced or not (although of course it can be a plus) but to see if it produce any kind of reaction over ourselfes.
If you could admirate Olympia, back in the days, who can say if you would have loved it or hated it as the majority at that time? However, it is nowadays known as one of the most important artwork of the world. So if we stick to this exemple (which is one among millions others) we can say that the way we look upon art is dictate by the code of our society and the “culture du bon goût” that is related to the decade we are living in. It also proves that hate something reveals the interest of it.
Anyway, this “attempt to quantify the world using words and basic math” is simple and catchy. A great feelings sum up and way to bring back litterature lover and scientist together.
And please, if you feel like you can create something, do it-
These are great shots made by Kofron a while ago. I choose these ones as they clearly celebrating United-States through their framing, low angle-shot, colours, subjects…
Celebrating yes, but in a very special way. I like the omnipresence of the sky over the nation (the small flag in a never ending blue space) and the sense of humor you can appreciate with the dog as a powerful chief. Little Arby leader, you’re the exact reflection of American pride.
An interpretation of America executed with a fresh eye-
83 artists, 108 artworks from the 40’s to nowadays which try to cover about 60 years of electronic display around the world. As a « wordasart-hunter », I definitly had to check this exhibition, curated by David ROSENBERG.
If the idea is good -as nobody in France ever had presented a show around this medium- it would have been a bit more relevant to organize the artworks. Indeed, there is absolutly no logical in the way the work of art are display. Jumping from Joseph KOSUTH in 1965 to Tracey EMIN in 1998 (picture 2) including Jason RHOADES in 2004 (picture 1) an impression of disorder may disturb the spectator who would like to find a piece of coherence in this luminous accumulation.
From then on, the concept « neon » presented as an auto sufficient moto appears as quite dull. Fortunately for ROSENBERG, it is difficult to fail an exhibition with neon as central feature as it is such an attractive medium !
If we can’t find any instructions (except a small introduction text at the entrance), the colorful atmosphere announced with High heels on the moon by Sylvie FLEURY, Rêvez ! from Claude LEVEQUE or Contained Radiance by Laddie JOHN DILL will leave you smiling, which is, in a way, already good in our grey moody world.
Cause that is, to me, the main asset of this show : how lights can affect your morale ? Why writing « Just love me » in pink is better or, let’s say different, than if it was written in orange ? pass the preconceived idea that love has to be pink, there is a real impact on our sensibility regarding the colour that is used. As pantings, these neons reveal themself through a sense of humour, tragedy, emptyness and will be felt differently just as much as different people will stare at them.
I can hear some skeptical : Come on ! These neons are not art, they are just signs !
Well, indeed, they are signs and if these ones are called art, it doesn’t mean that all the signs you will see tonite are art. The question is not to say « this is art » or « this isn’t art » but to think about how we could make something becoming art from a primary state medium. Although the first function of a gaz station sign is to inform drivers, Jeff BOUWS implacably transformed them into art by shooting them. This is an exemple among many others but it totally reinforce the idea that the way we are looking at somehing is what make these thing becoming art, or not.
Reverse convention-
This work should be turned off when I die (picture 3) by Stefan BRUGGEMANN created in 2010 come with a sort of, shall I say « dramatic scale » . The strict atmosphere produced by the black box you’re entering in, as if SB wanted to remind you that you will end up in a black box anyway, dead though, and the blinding message clearly appears as a memorial. A memorial celebrating life instead of death and nurse to disappear with the artist or at least to lighting off. And you know what? It works.
Before I die I want to fully accept myself and reach my full potential
Before I die I want to go to NY with my wife
Before I die I want to share a piece of cake with an alien
Before I die I want to أستحقخلافةالأرض،أعمرها.. وأتركذكرًاطيبًا
Before I die I want to make a difference
Before I die I want to viver intensamente com minha familia
Before I die I want to fuck Jessica Alba
Before I die I want to go to Disney World
Before I die I want to 證明我能為他人的快樂與笑容，努力而活過
Before I die I want to die fast
Before I die I want to быть доктором и спасать жизни людей
Before I die I want to faire le tour du monde !
…
This project has something universal.
Candy CHANG is an artist, designer, and urban planner who likes to make cities more comfortable for people.
It started in New Orleans a year ago when she turned a wall of an abandoned house (picture 1) into a huge blackboard with a simple inscription on it :
Before I die I want to ________________________ giving the opportunity to all people around to write down their deepest wishes.
She created a huge interactive work of art which reached our neighbours. Indeed, although Before I die was born in New Orleans, the concept has been travelling since (a toolkit is available on her website) and so, citizens of London, Montreal, Amsterdam, San Diego or Querétaro already had a chance to participate to this beautiful team adventure. Last wall was in Brooklyn, on the corner of Adam Street and Fulton Street Mall (picture 2) and has been removed 2 months ago.
A powerful way to share dreams, ideas, distresses, to realise that no matter where we are, the place we are coming from, we are all together in the same ship. Also, the need to feel real special is common to all of us. But have something in common doesn’t mean we are not unique. And that is all about this great art work: share our loneliness, state of mind and personality by expressing ourselves next to someone esle. Little invisible connection embodied by colourful chalks on a blackboard. Same feelings but different ways to experienced them. Same questions but different answers. Same hopes but different ways to express them. Same fears but different ways to hide them.
I have been very touched when I have red all these confessions scrolling over my screen. Sentences from all over the world and so many similar things. Funny one. Sad one. Terribly human anyway.
If you were not in BK lately and before the arrival of the project in your city, an internet page has been designed to extend the project as much as possible.
Anonymous or not, if you are looking for a way to confessed something and as a person in an ocean of thougths, share your dreams:
Here is a quite good video showing the fiendish Solveig REDIGER-LIZLOW having sex with a horny trash touch.
Certainly violent, provocative and dark, it is also well directed and imbued with interesting references.
The sharp-eyed game and the influence of a demon on the women evoke Rosemary’s Baby, directed by POLANSKI in 1968 (itself based on the novel of Ira LEVIN published a year earlier). If the women is not the victim anymore, she is acting under a diabolic impulse that reminds POLANSKI’s interpretation.
As a gorgeous krakenlike creature, she’s hunting and trapping Cédric BLAISBOIS himself and is close to the mermaids of Homère: young, amazingly attractive, a little agressive glimmer in her eyes and…terribly psychotic at the end.
A Partizan production (of course) that reinterprets men antique fear of women. Women as a beautiful & dangerous subject they should be wary all the time.
Although this piece was created in 2006, I thought 2012 should start this way. Actually, this work of art draw her strength from her timelessness.
Fiona Banner is an artist from England who has been working with letters & text her entire career. And what can be better than words to express creativity ? To express Life ?
It’s a theory as many others. I believe images without words sometimes miss something. I believe words were meant to be. I believe words are some kind of magic stuff we have invented to develop all our others artistic behaviour. I believe words came to allow music, painting, sculpture, photography, cinema and every kind of story to be told, to be showed, to be felt. To Be. Or… not to be?
Because yesterday basically left them as you are this noon. Because we still don’t know where tomorow will lead us. Because we still trying to find ourselves. Because we still don’t know which way is the best and because there isn’t just one. Because uncertainty stay the option human feel to improve themselves, to go further on, to overview their fears and limits, to dream about something, someone, somewhere else, I found this art work simply smashing.
Ladys & Gentlemans, I am pleased, super-duper proud to blog this young femme fatale directly from the Wild Northern Territories, I’ve named Finland.
A 16 years old incredible piece of rhythm that I discovered on SoundCloud last night through the golden “followers library” of Kelly.
A striking vocal work that bring us to the air, on the top of the atmosphere, somewhere distances do not exist anymore. A beautiful “touche-à-tout” artist in progress that reminds me, among others, of Grace Slick perfoming Triad for Jefferson Airplane back in the 70’s.
Please, check her profile and make sure you play Don’t Try to Tease Me, Thoughts, Eagle as well as August before turning back to your busy lifes. You will have, at least, one revelation today.
What makes a moment special ? Is it the moment itself or the person you are with ? Is it the idea you have about it instead of the reality or the reality undressed ? Regarding my experiences, the best moments I had in my life are those I spent on my own. But…
Today is a magical day. Today is a blessing day. Today is a day that may appear as yesterday to you. But it isn’t. Today is January 15. Today, one of us is 25 years old. Today is one of the 6 840 507 000 human being birthday. Today is a day that should not disappear behind the night.
Today I wish I could stand by you, hold your hand and whisper you how great, sweet and powerful you are. How handsome you are. How brilliant is gonna be your life. Today I wish I could share a piece of cake with you, remembering our memories, listening to your fears, projects and dreams.
De Cadillac, de longues et linéaires voies en bitume de Judée, de motels fluorescents capturés par l’objectif de Juliette M. parce que je suis sévèrement attaquée. De chapeaux texan, de Marlboro grillées, de poteaux électriques et de socquettes à volettes. De sexes alcoolisés. D’alcool asexué et de whisky desséché. De lapins mais pas de lézards. D’une épopée psychologique non fantastique. D’un voyage aux frontières du réel, entre pellicule photosensible et sensibilité photogénique.
Voila de quoi il sera question lors des quelques 120 000 prochaines lignes qu’engendrera la plume, fruit des méandres écorchés de mon inconscient étranglé.
5.40pm. Le transistor se met en branle et laisse s’échapper la voix nasillarde d’un publiciste du fin fond du Tennessee à en juger par son accent ‘‘hound dog’’. J’attrape mon paquet de Marlboro posé sur le tabouret qui me sert de table de chevet, mon compatriote FM s’égosillant au sujet d’une lessive apparemment révolutionnaire.
Je grille ma première bouffée de fumée. Particule orgasmique de ce monde inaccessible. Les quelques rayons du soleil qui transpercent les persiennes défoncées de l’unique fenêtre de la pièce m’apprennent que la journée a été belle.
Mr lessive a laissé place a Johnny Cash et son stupide tube du moment au sujet d’une ligne de conduite à faire swinguer trois chimpanzés. Un tube qu’ils disent. Il me booste définitivement hors du plumard ou plutôtdu matelas outrepassé qui me sers de couche.
CHEAP&FRIENDLY, voila ce qu’annonçait l’effroyable néon externe sur la 16 highway descendant du Michigan. Auberge de routier poussiéreuse ou le moindre whisky coute 3 fois celui que je trouvais dans mon authentique Chelsea coffee de Brooklyn. Le loyer bon marché et la tenancière agréablement fourni, aguicheuse, de celle qui vous baise en un battement de cil me remettent d’aplomb. Julie, JJ qu’elle se fait appeler. Elle vous attrape par l’épaule en collant ses énormes nibards sur votre torse en hurlant à tue tête des idioties du type’’ Ecoutez tous ! Phil, c est trop mon pote ! pas vrai philly baby ?’’.
Pas vrai en effet. Mais la vision d’elle à quatres pattes devant mon sexe endurci prend naturellement le dessus et j’acquiesce docilement à ces frasques de rombières. Après tout, si elle peut m’être utile, autant lui faire plaisir.
« I’m leaving today, I wanna be a part of it, New York, New York… »
Let’s not be intellectual. Precisely, let’s be passionate and by passion, I mean empty of any bon sens.
I went to cinema without background on this movie as I am tryingnot to be parasite by any kind of words or a priori before I am about to discover a work of art. Trying to be as pure as possible to explore the work itself and so, be able to catch his atmosphere as deep as I can. Huge exercice in our « informative decade » but so much better. Indeed, if nobody, nothing tells you how to feel about something, then you are 300% free to experienced it as your own sensibility reacts to it. To experience truth- How exciting is that ?
So I went to see Shame. Wow. That was impressive. A New York tale. Loneliness (Earth) downtown. Where people, if they are around, actually are nothing than the reflection of your distress and lack of understanding of life and reason to be.
« I wanna wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep… »
Sex. Sex without the Love touch humanity imagined to make it prettier than it is. To humanize it. Sex as an impulse, a death wish, a silencious and violent scream to sadness in a never ending shifting crowd.
Have you ever been in Love with someone ? Have you ever experienced this incredible force that make you burn inside but with somebody else ? If you did, you probably went through the long black tunnel that comes after all blow away stories wondering what it was all about- If you didn’t, then you probably still trying to understand why ? Why nobody seems to matches yourself. Why, in this multitudes of souls, none smile to you. None of them allow you to Love it. To make Love to it.
Sex & Love. Sex without Love or Love without sex. Another complex chapter of our lifes.
Does he love me ?
No, but he desires you, for sure- Maybe ?
I want him to Love me.
Well, good luck with that.
Brandon and Sissy. Archetypes of self-loathing. Solitude’s children. A small casting for brilliant performances. A movie which tells you nothing more than it has to : I am here but I don’t know how to Love. How to Love you. How to Love myself. So I am having sex without any consideration for the other. Cause that’s the only playground I found to distract myself. If I don’t, I will probably kill myself.
So many lost fellows around.
« If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you New York… New York »
Because you can get lost in New York more than anywhere else in the world and because you are alive, you are free to look for yourself.
Speaking about childhood, some of us are still stuck in a moment between past and… past.
Margaux is one of these girls exploring her child part again and again through her drawings.
Many people think illustration isn’t Art. Well, I can’t tell myself. But if art has to deal with feelings and humanity, then Berthe & the lightness is a little piece of art. A wanted “mise en abyme” in which Margaux is able to do whatever she wants.
Isn’t art the theater of our undreamed lifes?
Speak with a cat. Why not? I am still trying to speak with one of them myself.
Human & Animal. Human Vs Animal. Animal Vs Human. Animal we Love you. Animal we kill you. Animal we eat you. Animal we don’t understand you. But is there something to understand? Complex story.
I am always a bit exasperated with this people crazy about their puppies, cats etc… Youknow, those you don’t know if they love their animal or if they just want to showthey are able to love something (not to say someone). It might be “cool” to say “oooooooo, you’re SO LOVELYYY!” to an animal instead of saying “I love you” to someone especially because you don’t love anyone but yourself. Sometimes, you don’t even love yourself.
So if animals are Margaux’s playground, it looks dangerous to me. Nevertheless, the way she personifies them always make me smile and that’s the plus.
After all. Vous êtes des animaux.
Have a look to her new blog. I guarentee a colourful and great moment in your geek night/day-
“Voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind”-Roger CAILLOIS-
Slides are so much fun. Don’t you remember these kids noon with your mates at the park?
HÖLLER is a 51 years old artist who questions our perception, logic & humor sense through heaps of funny work of art.
Test site offers a possibility of self-exploration by a sliding process.
Six smaller slides have been installed in galleries and museums at the same time. Test site, the biggest one, has been placed at the Tate Modern and transformed the hall in a huge playground substituting the elevators for the most adventurous visitors.
There are two dimensions in this art work: the observation of the sliders through this transparent pipe and, for the bravest, the experience itself which push them into a delightful anxiety state. Adrenalin yes. But the good one. The one you looking for when you go to Six Flags to release the tension you stored up. The one you actually need to escape your responsibilities and feel like Peter Pan again.
According to the artist, the swirling space of the turbine hall can be seen as a prototype for an even larger enterprise, in which slides could be introduced across London or in any city.
Would life be different if we were sliding every day? Can we, seriously, think of a slide approach in our architectures?
Few weeks ago, when Kelly came back from his trip to Georgia, USA, he was working on this track. It was just few rhythm at that time. But it was already fucking beast.
I am awlays asking myself why do I love so much a painting, a movie, a song. What does this work of art mean to me to make me love it this way? There isn’t one right answer. The only thing I can tell is whatever a piece of creation makes us feel something, it is because it brings us to experienced, shall I say to “re”experienced a memory, a particular state of mind, an idea or a rêverie. In any case, it shows us that no matter where we are, what we are doing, the person we are talking to, we always react regarding our personal lifes. And so is the person next to you. It is all about sharing.
I can’t tell if this brand new jewel makes me fly because my double masculin composed it, because it is imbued with Bambi spirit’s or just because it is attractively produced. I can only write you my sweet passion for it. Allow you to love it as much as I do.
I would like this one in exclusivity for up-and-around!
Deal.
Here we are. Light sounds for a sparkling Christmas-
The next French director generation is not that far !
Few weeks ago, I had the chance to take part of this short film. Directed by 3 young students from the ESRA (Ecole Supérieur de Réalisation Audiovisuelle), L’Angoisse, which has been shoot at a sub station west of Paris, is a well down gamble if we consider it as their very first production.
But it would be unfare to talk about it only regarding his academic sense.
Indeed, the success of this film comes from the cameragenic actor Jeason DEPINAY who mimes anxiety with a maturity that we appreciate. As much as from the choice of the music which cleverly justified the character’s state of mind and so, our.
In the original script, all the story was supposed to happend in the station. But for some unexplain reasons, the choice of a furtively subway shooting (which have been difficult not to say chaotic to manage) is finally one of the assets of the movie as it reinforce the idea of a nightmare space that would not have been so clear if all the scene had been shooted in the Métro.
Executed with a fresh-eye, in a professional and a funny atmosphere, here is one of the young creative afternoon we all will remember-
