Notes

Can One Be

too light(-hearted)?! I don't think so.

Anyway

I am a fan, indeed, just like many, many people. Artists just couldn't make a living unless there were. A good read concerning this phenomenon - if you happen to get a copy - Obsession - Collection published by Gerhard Theewen.

Tuchfühlung - Body Contact - What It Taught Me

When first seeing this toilet in an abandoned train station, I immediately had the idea of Eros, something erotical growing in this place. And the impulse of darkening it and at the same time investing it with the colour and smell of linseed oil, that are so attractive to me.
On the opening night strolling around I witnessed yet another reaction I had not foreseen, but grew very fond of. An acquaintance of an artist on seeing this space broke out into a hysterical gay laughter. Now judging from that, he also related some memories I had not anticipated. I love it ;)!

Tuchfühlung - Body Contact

I still fondly remember working on this piece of installation art. Packing the car with boards, a ladder, nails, hammer, paint and most important boiled linseed oil. What I did not realise was that the space was rather scarce for a ladder and I was quite relieved when I was low enough to nail the boards standing on the window sill. Luckily I managed though the plastering was going off and even more luckily no board crashed down on somebody's head during the exhibition.

All's Well That Ends Well

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none" - Shakespeare's Catholicity

That's Entertainment - An Example

HIV: The Musical from Joseph Patrick on Vimeo.

There's definitely a lot I love about this shortfilm, but especially that while it could just have presented the dire facts, it makes them into an entertaining movie and even more adds a satire on the musical business.
I'm actually looking forward to their next effort, which is entitled "Little Red One" ;)! Go for it!

That's Entertainment

Does there have to be a difference of the either-or kind between "art with a captal A" and entertainment?! I often wonder. If Art is not entertaining to some degree and entertainment vacuous, why not skip it and rather settle for the and-or kind of Art and entertainment. No, Art is not better if it's hard to grasp ;)!

SKIP THE ROPE das pop from caviar brussels on Vimeo.

Maybe it's only hard to catch sometimes, but probably it should be as tempting as to say, "Catch me, if you can!"

That's True Entertainment - What I Love About Chesterton

Today I've read "The Moderate Murderer" by G K Chesterton, part of "Four Faultless Felons", which can be found here.
This story encompasses all I love about Chesterton. First of all and not least it is great entertainment and one may read it as just a clever mystery story. But like in all truly great entertainment, eg Shakespeare or Dickens, there are different layers to it and it is also a philosophical discourse. I won't give away too much, when I'm saying that it is about moderation. On the one hand it is quite original, on the other hand it is a very old tale.
Chesterton reveals himself again as the great thinker of common sense and among the (modern) philosophers he thereby proves to be the exception. Another one that comes to my mind is Emmanuel Levinas with his focus on every day life.

Let's Make Fools of Ourselves ;)

Self-Portrait ca 1987

It is true courage to make a fool of oneself ;) and here is the quest:
"For if this book is a joke it is a joke against me. I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. If there is an element of farce in what follows, the farce is at my own expense; for this book explains how I fancied I was the first to set foot in Brighton and then found I was the last. It recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. No one can think my case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him: I am the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne." - G K Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Barnett Newman

A postscript to this one.

The sensation I felt whenever encountering one of Barnett Newman's works of art is that he is actually presenting a psychic or psychological situation. It's not like the spectator looks from the outside at something like Prometheus Bound or Lema Sabachtani - The Stations of the Cross, but I sort of became the subject. I felt like Prometheus bound, with the great heaven of despair hanging over me with just this little bit of hope left, I for once became Christ. This is Newman's great accomplishment and I cherish this a lot.

Witzig - Funny

Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain - G K Chesterton






For more than a decade I've been trailing the German word "witzig", now initially it just means funny, but to me it has a certain kind of aftertaste, which leaves me actually despising it. For "witzig" to me has always the implication of making fun of other people and their supposed shortcomings, yet I'm not sure if the joke one day will turn upon those who believe themselves to be so "witzig".

In the 1990s I read a review of an exhibition of works by Gerhard Richter by a Swiss art historian. These works of art were pretty traditional landscape paintings. Now this art historian in his article begins to make fun of the spectators he encountered at that exhibition because they were having real emotions and experiences regarding the landscapes that are depicted. So secretly at the exhibition and quite frankly in his review he was laughing about these experiences because to him these images were all fake. Me, I couldn't help thinking on the contrary that whoever makes fun of such emotions is in many aspects a poor or at least poorer person than the ones he comments on. Eventually I suppose the laugh will be on him.

The Coming Thing

This article about a new school of painting very much reminded me of the time Raimund Stecker revealed a lot about his view on art. Funny btw that revelation like Raimund's are mostly uttered in the least probable circumstances, like here in a car while driving to a restaurant in Münster, where we wanted to celebrate the final meeting of the semester.

For years Raimund's assumption that there was something like "authentic" art kept me busy figuring out how to do it. No surprise that in the end it was an actor, mainly a stage-actor, Michael Pennington, who finally provided the answer to my quest. For his art really depends on the moment, this tiny, teeny-weeny speck of almost nothing. I suppose one can be well prepared, but then it just is as soon done as over again.

Just For The Occasion - Lip Service

A funny cloud indeed and one that is paying lip service rising to the ocassion. I just wonder where the heart is at, but then I guess time will hopefully tell. For the time being though I pay my respects and regards to the one who dared ;)!

Abstract Art

Definitely and correctly Newman argues that even though his art might be abstract, meaning it is not a depiction of an object, it nevertheless has a subject. For me it certainly had a physical effect.

Shyness

On the first meeting my daughter's singing teacher remarked that she appeared to be shy, though he used another expression I cannot quite recall, something in the vein of being quite delicate and sensitive. He went on saying that people with these features usually make for the better vocalist because they are quite better in expression. Furthermore he assured that the art of singing is not at all about singing out loud, but the lower one can sing and still keep the right note, the better.

I always thought being shy was something undesirable until he turned this notion quite to the contrary. It's utterly sweet indeed.

Shame

is a feeling that is not popular nowadays any more - maybe it just has grown completely extinct. What do we feel actually ashamed of, what limits are there to the things that might be expressed and shown?! A shame indeed, back in the 1930s Max Ophüls could still believe that shyness and shame were the epitomes of youth(fulness) and therefore were moving and adorable. How wonderful it is/was to be aware of one's own nakedness and the other one's as well in the same instant. On the other hand this may be only pleasant to the beholder, whereas the protagonist would rather like to hide away instantly. In effect I never want to grow up or so unconcerned that I would miss this sensation. It does reveal a much deeper concern and awareness of oneself's and for all it's worth the other.

Gedanken zur Schauspielkunst - Thoughts About Acting

And I really adore good acting!!



Ich denke, Herbert Fritsch geht hier den ersten Schritt in die richtige Richtung. Furchtbar, sich vorzustellen, zu welcher Selbst-Entblößung er sich getrieben fühlte. Vielleicht wäre der nächste Schritt einer mehr hin zur Inter-Aktion, zwischen den Schauspielern und zwischen Schauspieler(n) und Publikum. Gutes Theater hat für mich immer mit Interaktion zu tun, mit der Möglichkeit mit wenigen Mitteln, fast mit Nichts, untereinader ganze Welten zu erschaffen, wie beim guten alten Shakespeare mit These und Antithese.

My thoughts are that Herbert Fritsch takes the first step into the right direction. Awful to imagine to what degree of self-exposure he felt driven. Perhaps the next step would be to more interaction between the actors and between the actor(s) and the audience. Great theater according to my taste has always to do with interaction, the possibility to create inbetween with just a few props, almost nothing, whole worlds, just like Shakespeare antithetically.

What's Reality Anyway II

Though the last post might have been fun, there is also a sinister side to a wide and open perception. When I was at the Biennale in Venice in 1997, there was a work of art entitled "Secret Missile" (if I remember correctly) on display. This one really haunted me, but when I talked to other people about it, they did not seem to have noticed what I have noticed, except for one and this thankfully made me certain that it hadn't been a delusion.

The work of art consisted of a collage of photos and stills from films. Among them, one that made me very particularly feel sick. It was a sequence from a film showing frame by frame what looked like and for all I know actually was the execution of partisans in WWII .The most terrible thing to me was that I was given the ability to go back and forth, resurrecting the people again and again, just to let them die again and again. All of a sudden I was hit by the terrible notion of why people would film such things, a sickening and disgusting game.

What's Reality Anyway?!

When it's got to do a lot with one's perception! I remember diving for something that I perceived lying around while I was walking about and my companion was very puzzled by my move. At least it got me a nice necklace made of wooden beads ;)!

The Sweetest Kiss

 that I ever got, was one that I got unexpectedly in a swimming pool. It was a blessing and I still feel blessed ;)!

Tired

Sometimes the hero is deservedly tired and also tied up.

 Stripped off all fancy.

Roots

Thoughts About Detroit

I've been thinking about Detroit and its troubles and have reached the conclusion that it is also part of the American way of life. Apparently the average American family moves every five years. Thus, if there are no jobs or opportunities in one town they are likely to move to the next. There appears to be no deep rooting and the mere figures of Detroit losing more than half of its population seem to support this.
I wonder if it is time to revise and reverse this attitude for the sake of Detroit?!

"A Day For Detroit"

And an image and a song that somehow fits. It was inspired by an artist, Jeroen Peeters, who claimed wasteland in Brussels to grow a garden on.


Absynthe Minded - as it ever was from Mikros Image Belgium on Vimeo.

Lines

                                     "My  Lord says, 'Listen, boy! Come check those lines on my faces. You're thinking I'm too old to see what is going on, but I know your story.' "

Inspiration All Over

and it this time, like in so many cases, took the second glance. I did not like it yesterday and today I absolutely like it, just again the reversed Max Imdahl ;)

Stuck in Reverse and Renaud is rocking away on his fiddle...

F = Fake

Having somehow been made aware of this sketch yesterday, I started thinking about forgery, especially art forgery, for this one appears so obviously to be one, since the style seems so much at odds with other da Vinci sketches and rather displays stylistic features of the 20th century, like the sharp outline. Yet it took decades to discard it as such.
About art forgery there is this theory that the fake items will for some reason always display features that are prominent for the era in which it actually was faked. Though in retrospective it becomes easy to discern these features, the experts at the time will hardly recognise them.
For some reasons I'm sympathetic to art forgery because I feel that it does not so much affect art itself but rather ridicules the art market.

Inspiration

Bodylanguage is something that intrigues me a lot, and not only in movies, but also in the theater or at concerts. Frankly there is nothing that beats a live actor as an inspiration for unexpected poses, like D W Griffith, who generally told the actors exactly what to do, said to Lillian Gish: "Surprise me!"

Coincidentally

I'm always intrigued by coincidence, eg when I discovered a flyer in a DVD box advertising movies that star two of my favourite actors  ;)

Inspiration

Thanks!!!

"I Want You To Go With Me" ;)!

It's got a nice groove and move! Turn, turn, turn...

What I Learned About Belgium

Apparently Belgium, more particular Flanders, is one of the few countries,where the intellectual and artist is drawn to live on the countryside and not in the big cities.
One day Bert Ostyn, singer with Absynthe Minded, was asked what he was planning for the day and he responded that he would be digging some pond.

The Truth Lies Somewhere Inbetween

There are two songs about my first name that keep popping up on my favourite radio station, Studio Brussel, from time to time.

One is this and it hits home because while I was in America they sort of pronounced my name like this ;)



The other one is French and the odd thing is that they do not use the usual French form Danielle, but Daniela, possibly because of the lalala ;)!



PS: From the early times when first realising it, I've been rather intrigued by the meaning of the name and I solemnly vowed never to judge somebody, because "my judge is God" ;)!

Why I Love Musicians

Maybe we ought to be listening more. After years of being deprived of creative surroundings, at least those offered by an academy, one day I walked with my three children into the local music school. Though the office was located in a basement and definitely a pretty ugly one, I felt instantaneously an air of creativity and freedom there. Refreshing indeed to meet people who are very free in most aspects and who on seeing you make some ironic remarks that were not hurting but rather destined to lighten the atmosphere.

Now that my children have been attending this school for several years, I've come to fully realise what is truly attractive about musicians, which is that they do not need much to perform their art. They can do it any time and any place ;), eg Zita Swoon in a supermarket...

A Crookéd Mile

Everything crookéd is so much more alive and inspiring than those straight things. I'd love to sit down and listen to all this wonderful weird stuff and see what it does to me...

Strange Days indeed -translated

Strange times, when someone, who is generally called a "comedian" (I refer to the German meaning, which rather implies a stand-up comedian), but according to himself is rather a comic actor - in fact he is the very fine and subtle German actor, Christoph Maria Herbst, and he would get awarded the Iffland-Ring by me -, utters "Gnothi Seauton" and truly means it, and tells much more about art than a lot of other people and discourses.



Up till now just a translation of this post.


PS: Maybe ( and I love this word) there are some other people around here that are far underestimated but the more and greater artists indeed. I truly revere them, especially when considering all these pretentious people just sporting their "spores" ;)!

Balance

Unwittingly these wonderful guys from Brighton carried me virtually and really through some pretty awful time and I'm rather grateful to them ;)!

Zu-versicht / Confidence Reliance

Sometimes the world or the perception of it gets rocked.

"Niet so quaet ten erghens toe goet/Nil est tam pravum quin ad quemque valet usum/Nothing is so bad that it may not be of some use"
Jacob van Maerlant

Espérance

"I am a great sinner"

Pope Francis. 

Emmanuel Levinas' only complaint about the Roman Catholic faith was that it loves the sin too much. Yet later he confessed to Jacques Derrida that the difference between him and  the lecturer they were both listening to, was that he was Protestant, whereas he, Levinas, was Catholic...

With My Head In The Clouds

... and streams flowing at my feet. I travelled a road less travelled on Monday - in fact it was just a narrow trail with branches hanging sometimes pretty low. There was nobody else on Monday. On Tuesday as I went there again and this time all the way to the "Schwarzer See", regretfully without the clouds,  I met just six people and the lake I had entirely to myself.