Ahh Contemplation

There is...

a kind of love that knows no jealousy and little did I know that while contemplating posting this, exactly this would happen to me. Cheers to all you lovely folks out there!

Are you working hard or hardly working?!*

What I like about this song is its apparent silliness that is yet purposeful and revealing as an outsider's look on Europe. Looking back my own view on Europe as a teenager and when I was in my twenties appears to differ (yet just maybe it does not actually) because at that time Europe appeared very young to me. Mine is the generation that had the advantage of travelling, again speaking a lingua franca, English, that enabled us to communicate in Europe and being able to cherish the vision of a European union. The youthfulness of Europe was nevertheless bought by the loss of a generation in WW2, thus in the 1960s and 1970s Europe was indeed very young. I feel grateful for growing up in the 1970s.

* (Chilly) Gonzales in ARTE's "One Shot Not"

Very Sweet

Somebody - I bl***y well am aware of his name - said the following addressing me: "You are so sweet, because you do not know how beautiful you are."
My reply: "You can not do this to me! Do you know how old I am?! I'm forty...!"
Or the same in German: "Du bist so süß, weil du nicht weißt, wie schön du bist!" - "Das kannst du mir nicht antun, weißt du eigentlich, wie alt ich bin?! Ich bin vierzig...!"

Anonymous or Why the Question of Authorship Actually Does Matter!

Of course one might argue that the Shakespearian plays should and actually do speak for themselves, as they have done during the past four centuries, sometimes more regarded sometimes less. And it would be just fine if we would leave it at this, but like the movie "Anonymous" - which as a piece of fiction is just fine, but whose director's "scientific" ambitions reveal a quite different approach - shows to some people the author and his biography are most eminent. A viewpoint that gets important in the 19th century and this surely comes as no surprise when one realises that this is the age, when acient myths are getting researched, eg in Canterbury we were told that the Victorians ventured to open Edward, the Black Prince's, grave or that it was also them that went looking for the two princes in the Tower allegedly murdered and buried by order of Richard III. An odd century that on the one hand went out to demystify and on the other hand developed a strong sense for the occult.
What we really lose, if we take the Shakespearian plays as mere depiction of autobiographical  events, is the idea that there is relevance beyond this, we are in a way limiting the plays' impact and their catholicity. In January Peter Brook expressed the viewpoint that the great thing about Shakespearian plays is exactly this catholicity, one can at no point extract the author's point of view as he gives expression and his art to depict the most differing ideas and parties. Thus like in Jaques' soliloquy "All the world's a stage", he presents all the world on stage. Of course I do understand that in our contemporary world of antagonism, where it's "either/or" and never "and/or",  it becomes very hard to imagine a human being who simply portrays it all, who gives the Lord what's the Lord's and the Emperor what's the Emperor's. But this again rather illustrates our shortcomings and never Shakespeare's. So eventually this whole business becomes a very modern phenomenon, but also a very dangerous for mind-numbing one: the utter nonsensical and depressing belief that only eminence can produce eminence.

Nightwatching VII

or where is the place of the artist?

As for the social status of the artist there is an interesting point raised in this movie, when first of all Rembrandt is confronted with  his (humble) origins as a miller's son from Leiden, but yet more interestingly yet, when socially higher ranking people (his orderers) imply that he has dirty hands - though he proves to them that at that moment and in this situation they actually are as clean as theirs.

In a consequence the artist falls inbetween the working classes, having to live of their hands' work, and the ruling classes, who do not get their hands "dirty" and rather living of their prestige and intellectual/ financial background. I surely love the idea that the artist is the one, who by his own choice does not distinguish between those two possible attitudes/ ways of living, but he is the one incorporating both, thereby living what Derrida would call the "and/or" rather than the "either/or".

Why Is It That?!

...phenomena tend to be regarded from just one side nowadays (or even in the past), when there might just be at least two sides, if we but cared to have a look?! This might though sometimes take some mental or physical effort, but hey are we not able to spare some of that?!



Adolf Wohlbrück/Anton Walbrook: "..., denn Liebe belohnt sich in sich selbst/...for love rewards itself within itself"

Life and Art

Lately I've got into drawing, something people have been suggesting, but something that never was evident to me. The thing I've come to find is, that was interests me most, like in any art btw, is the living potential a line can have, and especially so, if it does not serve to seperate two colour fields from each other. This way it becomes an unique utterance, irrevocabel and irrepeatable. In a time when it is hard to find living people because people are rather absorbed by merely surviving, a great luxury indeed.

Driving in my car listening to the radio

How single instances can stay in the memory to that extent that the situation is remembered in almost every aspect and how they sometimes coincide in an odd way.
First instance I'm driving in my car in the spring of 2000, when all of a sudden there is announced on the radio that Ian Dury has died; I still remember the street, the light and the traffic lights.
Next I'm also driving in my car looking for an unoccupied space on a parking lot, it's almost Christmas, when all of a sudden space and time get irrelevant because again on the radio I get informed that Joe Strummer has died.
The last, but the first one in the row was Salvador Dalí, which occured when I had only just my driving licence and I was taking friends home after school.
Every time my favourite radio station would announce these information as news bulletins, interrupting their programme for it...

Novelty and Art III

Strange to read in an apostille in a paper that the commentator wishes pop music to be "new", while moaning the fact that the charts are dominated by digitally remastered reissues of older albums/ bands. Also he criticised the fact (?) that people have turned from consumers into users. Then he links the consuming attitude to owning and sometimes destroying, but also on the positive side to getting inspired by, and the using one to getting bored easily. Maybe it is just me being not so much up-to-date with expressions, but I always believed consuming had a rather passive connotation and would also fit in with a mere user's attitude and why is it bad to listen to music that dates back to the 1960s or 1970s?!
Oddly there are points that I could so much agree with like that music, even pop music should be inspiring, yet I wonder why this should be limited to "new", maybe better contemporary, music, and why I do have the feeling that notions get twisted here?!
Still I do rather share, like way back in the 1990s when in a seminar on New British Art the subject of contemporaneousness was raised and I was to have the final word later on with a presentation of Derek Jarman's Garden(something that I felt was also transcendenting the contemporary, even by the most fragile means), Thierry De Cordier's view "Je n'ai absolument rien à voir avec le XXème siècle" or Barnett Newman's notion that he corresponds with artists from the past and that he was sure that they would somehow understand what he was doing.

 

 

The Calling - To Have or To Be?

"Not a whit, we defy augery: there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, it's not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come - the readiness is all. Since no man owes of aught he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be."

Petals on a wet, dark bough

Looking forward to the winter, when the boughs of the elder, the black chokeberry, juneberry and the oleaster are covered by tiny white spots thanks to the birds.
The fact that I planted an elder is probably owed to Derek Jarman.

To Be Or Not To Be

Once I've put all my courage together and resolved  to take a work of art to a seminar or rather some informal talk we had afterwards entitled "Um den Punkt gesprochen/ Talking around the point". "As it was supposed to be something small that can be carried around easily, the thing I came up with was "To be or not to be" and so I did deliver the entire soliloquy in English - my dearest lovely professor did not understand a word, but it enabled us to dsicuss more formal aspects like the flow and the melody -, but what it actually did to me was giving me the oportunity to discover my own definition of Art with a capital "A", which turned out to be something that each time you visit it would show you some new aspects, things you have not been able to notice before. Something as alive and complex as life itself or nature.
To me it's always quite nice to walk outside into the garden and simply watch and listen to eg the bees and bumble bees humming around in the lavender, what a gorgeous sight. And then I remember my mother commenting that if one has not got the time to look after one's garden, one should use concrete to cover the space, what a hostile view. I'd rather have a wild garden than concrete, but then my mother's view simply reflects the common attitude today, a shame. There have been so many gifts we received, a walnut tree or some holly, that have just started growing, most probably due to some birds...

"Nachdem der bunte Vogel der Phantasie ihn seit langem verlassen hatte, kam eines Tages das graue Huhn der Depression/ After the multicoloured bird of fantasy had left him for a long time, the grey hen of depression appeared."

The All Together

is a wonderful film and one I nearly missed because of a preposterously wrong, negative review on imdb - note to myself, as far as sense of humour or historic setting in a film is concerned, never ever let yourself be discouraged by the average imdb user, for your sense of humour and your view on the importance of correct historic setting in a film differ too much from their average taste! Back to The All Together, what I really loved about this film was that it makes fun of a lot of phenomena of modern life and culture, not least  of itself, right from the beginning ;D. Some of the issues targeted are the media, especially TV and TV presenters, gangsters, British and American relation and their mutual language, modern art, eg monochrome painting (I myself do monochrome paintings ;)), real estate, French movies, Jehova's witnesses etc, and it not just entertains but it revealingly challenges these matters - maybe it was just me but at one point I was reminded of the abominable Gunther von Hagens and his Körperwelten/ Body Worlds, something that has been bothering me a lot and that I learned to have a laugh at thanks to this movie. Last but not least I truly enjoyed the soundtrack...

Artistic Freedom

Years ago incited by Gerhard Theewen I have been trifling with the subject of art forgery and since there is a prominent court case at the moment taking place in Germany, this subject became eminent again...
As I was studying fine arts at an academy at that time my views could and can but be those of an artist and not surprisingly at the time and now I did and do endorse it. Firstly I would feel very flattered if somebody would venture to forge my works. But the really big issue was and is to me the great artistic freedom this would lend me, instead of reproducing the selfsame over and over again to satisfy whatever market there is - and even in the current case only lost and non-extant "unknown" paintings were forged - this would give me time to move ahead to discover unknown territory...

Maybe unrelated, but I really like Michael Franti! And Some more:

How to live with art - Tafelreliquiar

Often I've been thinking that art should be part of everyday life and should also be something that one can carry around - not just in one's mind but for real. Similarily often I found the most intriguing pieces at exhibitions the sketchbooks, something the artists have lived with and something that had the air of having been loved , adored and lived.
Something similar though in a religious context I once came across at an exhibition at the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne, they displayed some panel reliquaries that were rather small and could be carried around.

In Memoriam Heinz Bennent

I was very sorry to read in the paper this morning that Heinz Bennent has died. The regretfully rare times I saw him perform his art, which was, I'm afraid to say, always either on tv or in films, were always memorable events. His calm and intensive acting style made any of the characters he portrayed intriguing, maybe it was also his voice and the very slight familiar accent that captured me.

Nightwatching Part VI

The acting in this movie is so inspired and inspiring that from a mere still my imagination drove me to draw this gesture, as I was wondering what was going on outside the frame.















This is the actual screen capture

I suppose soon this person will take some action, To be or not to be and he looks like chosing the active not being part, taking arms (his special ones) against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them...

In Memoriam Max Imdahl

As today is the anniversary of  Max Imdahl 's death, which I only now realise and somebody only recently has been reminding me of him, I present a short eulogy on why I admire this man.

First of all young Max Imdahl wanted to become an artist, a painter, so he rented a studio and worked for hours until he was satisfied with the outcome, then he would leave. Yet when he returned in the morning to have a second look at his painting, he would find everytime that it was not as great as he had imagined or remembered. Thus he simply quit painting and instead became an insightful art historian and more than this a true mediator of art. In this function he would not just remain in the exclusive territory of academic discours but would rather seek to educate people, also those from the working classes. And reading accounts of his seminars the brilliant effect of him not lecturing anybody but instead asking questions and having respond his audience was that he would get the most amazing and true comments on modern art, the result being that he enabled people to make up their own minds about art and gave them the self-confidence to do so. Keep the spirit alive!

Strange Days Indeed

most peculiar Mama.

I must admit to some ignorance on my part, when it comes to Northern Soul music, but after watching The All Together, I've begun to look for it and here is something from the movie's soundtrack, most intriguing

And there is something absolutely happening and going on in this song, oddly it made me think of another song, where there are things happening but nothing going on

Sign of the times, so where did the going on get lost, or/and is it more a question of culture and maybe not lost at all?!

PS: I will have a hard time now figuring out which song to pay and ask for during the spitefully final edition of Studio Brussel's Music for Life campaign and yes, I do give a shit, as well ;)!

Erich Fromm, Zen Buddhism etc

 At the moment I'm reading Erich Fromm's To Have or To Be? and I am frankly shocked by the fact how much up to date this still is. There is however one premise I would be more cautious about, which is contrasting "Western" (industrial) and "Eastern" culture and their attitudes towards life and nature and generalising by giving unique examples of artists' work to illustrate certain tendencies, eg the attitude towards living creatures which is pictured in the "Western" world as an attitude of supremacy and disection and in the "Eastern" as one of amazement and regard - there are also in "Western" culture examples of people with high regard for anything living and not just in the Middle Ages, eg there is James Ensor and his deeply rooted contempt for what he terms "vivisectors", people who disect living creatures. At least now I do have a hint why Zen Buddhism became so intriguing and predominant to some artists in the 1980s and 1990s, though I could never buy it myself because it is not my cultural and personal background, cf http://das-unmoegliche.blogspot.com/2011/05/dazu-bin-ich-zu-katholisch.html (it's in German!).

Yet the attitude of loving and sharing that Fromm forwards against the industrial attitude of having and spending is one I've been cherishing a lot in my life. 

And apperently Gotye shares it also and something else I like about him is his Catholic attitude to the music he is inspired by, Soul or  South American Tango etc

Unbedingt - Unconditional

I love the word "unbedingt", firstly for its meaning which is unconditional but also how it refers in a negative way to thing/object  - German "Ding". In this way one might translate it with "devoid of a thing/an object". Like floating absolutely free, like defining one's life from the ending...To be or not to be

Nightwatching on a special night

Have been watching the night tonight with husband and children. Pretty special to watch all these shooting stars and even odder to try to picture one because as usual the sheet of paper is white and the colour is black, so suddenly light becomes the negative...the white setting the dark ablaze with its negativity. Though it would be better to choose a dark paper and add some white, still there are different shades of black that would get lost this way

Left of Center

If only I could but talk continued

Listening to this just right now, it is absolutely something I wish somebody, ie to go home to where his people live to collect a little bit of happiness, something he is more than entitled to ;). Love your work!

Italo's Propositions

One of my alltime favourite writers, Italo Calvino, was asked in the 1980s to deliver six lectures on issues he believed important for the next millenium at Harvard University. Spitefully he could not accomplish the whole cycle because he died in 1984, yet one issue he got to talk about was Leggerezza - Lightness, something that has impressed me probably to a degree I only begin to realise now, though back in 1997 I fought to have my "Examensausstellung" (an exhibition a student of fine arts at a German Academy has to devise at the end of his/her studies) named exactly this and lost because my professor did not fancy it.
When drawing the line has to be executed most light(-heartedly), lest the sketch becomes compulsive and dull.

If only I could but talk

about what is really on my mind (without giving away too much of what is not really mine, yet oddly close to my heart) ;) ...








So here to divert me a little bit, this one is both at once spooky and erotic.

Novelty and Art II

I wonder when the artistic vision was substituted by mere ideas, in a sort of Platonic fashion. I wonder but if Raimund would consider handing me back "Die Wahrheit in der  Malerei/ Truth in Painting" by Jacques Derrida after more than a decade, I could again study this book a bit closer ( more on Derrida is yet to come), for I do remember that there Derrida discusses the term parergon, which as far as I remember he interprets as the framework. Maybe just, maybe to focus this aspect is the great novelty of 20th century art, eg Marcel Duchamp or "The White Cube" in the 1990s.
Yet I have seen a very interesting exhibition in the late 1990s, where the artist has endeavored to examine the phenomenon vice versa. There were photographs on display which documented a quite different exhibition. The artist - I'm sorry I cannot remember the name - had taken facsimiles of paintings that were on display at the local museum, the Capodimonte, in Naples and had put them in an every-day context, eg there was laundry hanging somewhere and inbetween one would get glimpses of a painting or there was a painting attached to a staircase somewhere in the city of Naples and people were passing by, yet always noticing the paintings. To me the outcome was that great art does not need a framework, a parergon, it just shines out even in the quite ordinary daily life.And this would be something to achieve ;). BTW about movies I do feel the same, the best directed, greatest styled movie would become dull for me if content and acting are bad, yet give me a marvellous performance and even a bad script and grainy cinematography I would not even notice.

Some saucy birds

I nearly forgot about these birds back in 1988. The location is St James Park, London and the instructor is a saucy Cockney in his own words!

Jeugd Sentiment

Having watched and enjoyed Nativity a lot, memories of my study tour to England began cropping up and I simply had to share this photo. As happens with me sometimes, there are also songs closely connected to some experiences and the one that immediately came to my mind is the following - I'm glad it is the longer album version, which we also listened to on our bus and little did I know at that time that Münster, the birthplace of the artist, would become very important in my future life -...

Diachrony Coincidental

Angelhead

I've tried so hard to catch the several dimensions of this vision, there and yet introspective, the coincidence of diachrony...

Metamorphose

When going for a stroll especially in autumn, the strangest things happen with my imagination. Things tend to transform and all of a sudden I'm imagining things. Like these rather innocent piles of sugar beets turning into a horrible and haunting image.

There used to be a lot fog in the month of November - though this has been changing the last decade with hardly any more - and lost without any recognisable landmarks in it in a very rural area, time and place got indistinctable and anything was possible to the mind.

Yet sometimes metamorphosis is more surprising and irrevocable. Like was the case with this frog and its mates.

They looked very alive on one early spring day in the 1990s, but this only disguised the fact that they had frozen to death sometime during the winter.

Nightwatching Part IV

Spending a portion of the night outside I've realised that we, modern people, can never ever regain the night, for we have abolished it by conquering it with light. Even on such a moonless night when the moon has set early, it is still lit by our artifice/artificiality and yet I can surely feel the longing. I hope that some of you have been more lucky, even if the police interfered ;).

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