Images from the summer

So I have got back some film that I shot this summer but I did not have a chance to scan the negatives, so basically there is no image to this visual blog...


Anyhoo,


I was shooting water lillies up north, they are black and white shot with the holga, of course you cannot look at these little water thingies without thinking of Monet and his work. Back in 1992 I went to where he lived and worked, Giverny, it was just like walking into the paintings. I should find some of those pics and scan them, especially as I am not in them so you cannot see how tragically long my hair was at the time.

I digress, here is a link of those paintings that are in the oval galleries of the Orangerie, in the tuileries garden in Paris a short hop from the Louvre, if I remember correctly, which I may not. I looked up the name, the painting series is Les Nymphéas, 4 paintings in this oval gallery so you are surrounded by nature paintings, it is way better than it sounds.

The Link is a VR tour ( a la late 1990s!) of the 2 rooms, 8 paintings, be careful! It moves really fast with the panning you can lose your mind rapidos.

Actually at the gallery, you will also find Chaim Soutine painting(s?) there is the one of the altar boy

He also did this famous painting of a flayed beef, a homage to Rembrandt's Flayed Ox

this is Soutine's

This is Rembrandt's painting

And this is Francis Bacon

I think the text in the Bacon picture that was added by my cursor going over the image when I took the screen shot, saying "francis-bacon-painting" kinda adds something.

I love the thick rich painting style of Soutine, you can see how he has elaborated on the brush strokes of Rembrandt and perhaps has visually indicated where painting like this can go under the brush of Frank Auerbach, whose oil paintings famously sag from being wet for decades.

Here is a little video about him

William Kentridge

This is a South African artist who is I guess a draughtsman who films his ever changing charcoal drawings and creates incredible films from them (shot on the same sheet of paper). I believe I watched this one in Chicago in 1997 and since I was just there, here is that film. Much of Kentridge's work relates to Apartheid and the treatment of people, there are always modern articles in his work (telephones and other office objects figure prominently) and the stripe suited businessman is always a main character. The fragility of the human is seen again and again.

Obviously the title is taken from the bible's story of Belshazzar's Feast, the hand writes these words on the wall of his palace and Belshazzar is dead by morning.

There is a beautiful painting of this in the National Gallery in London, UK. The Rembrandt painting is just a literal visual of this biblical tale-although it is a fantastic portrayal of these events.



To be honest though, when I am in the Rembrandt room, I look at his young self portrait: haughty, full of expectation and then you walk into the other room where one of his last self portraits hangs- he looks absolutely at the viewer with honesty and no pretensions.





please check out the National Gallery and the Art Institute of Chicago

Cabbagetown Festival

The Cabbagetown Festival came and went. Basically, if you call rampant capitalism with very little to offer the consumer, then you would call this a festival. Don't get me wrong, people had a great time- just tables of crap for sale, everything all the junk someone keeps in their house (good) to dubious cooked sandwiches and this jerk selling a bike bell that he rang for 8 hours repeatedly (bad).


I just walked around with an old Yashica Twin Lens camera and took some shots, bumped into some friends and got annoyed at the "dragon drum" people as their drumming made the roof of my apartment vibrate in a menacing way, like it was seconds from collapsing Jericho styles.