Monday 30 September 2013

You Simply Gotta Know

There was this day Jasper Johns stopped to be a painter for me:

At a retrospective in Cologne Johns presented a series of prints. It was the same outline printed in different colour combinations. Like in a lab he would do them and at the end he presented the one and only solution/print that was right and got framed. My thoughts on walking past this scientific line-up was that as a painter he should have known the right colours and combination from the start.




While I was painting the poster for my school's English drama group's performance of Peter Shaffer's 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun' (I was Felipillo btw), I realised that the colour was not correct - even in the process I told a friend. When the same person went to Aachen to have my original painting colour copied, I got a phone call from her saying that she could copy it but the copy would not be true to the original and she had to select a tint. There were two options and on hearing that one of them was reddish, I immediately told her that I wanted it to have been more red in the first place. On her return presenting the result she commented that the copies were better than the original. My reply was that I had already told her beforehand ;).

Renaissance

































 a much wilder time - wild thoughts - wild fights - boundless expressiveness

In-novation rather than advancement

Wouldn't it be great to start afresh, to conquer the world once again, like every generation should?!

Sunday 29 September 2013

Aquarelle


What I've learned to love about watercolour painting is the fact that it's so unforgiving. Every step, every line is there and will remain there, no matter how hard one tries to undo it, thereby rendering this technique presence and actuality, sheer and translucent. Layer by layer, maybe also the closest one can get to a third dimension on a two-dimensional piece of paper ;)!

Saturday 28 September 2013

What Makes Me Me ;)

There are probably a lot of things that make me me, but one I really love is my uncle and his attitude. It was at my aunt's wedding and my uncle, her brother, was alrerady slightly drunk, when we, the children, asked him the following conundrum: "From which glasses may one not drink?" Not really waiting for his reply we all began to scream: "The eyeglasses." He just said: "Well, let's see.", took off his glasses, poured out some wine into one of them and drank it. Point taken ;)!


Why ;)

















did I know while reading Chesterton's story 'Tower of Treason' that the strictest character would be the treasonous perpetrator from the moment he was introduced?!



Friday 27 September 2013

Fond Memories Coming Back

































In contrast to yesterday's post I do have some pleasant memories coming back and obviously they are too many to even mention. There is my discovering one of my favourites, Thierry de Cordier and his wonderful mind, or sitting in front of Titian's Assumption of the Virgin after a cleansing rain shower, for the tension in my art class was too much for me to take.


A very private conversation with Luc Wolff, an artist from Luxemburg, on his outpost on Giudecca was great. We talked about his feelings about the curator of the Biennale and I told him that I liked his installation art much better than Anselm Kiefer's paintings. He even presented me with two catalogues and added that tey were not for sale and only nice people would get them for free.

Then there was the attendant at the Argentinian pavillon who regretted, after my inquiring for a catalogue, that there was none. Yet, when I was about to leave he came yelling after me and gave me one of the last copies of a catalogue that was only meant for special guests on the opening night.

The experience I still cherish the most, though at the time it felt pretty odd and weird, was taking my time to travel out to the isle of San Lazzaro degli Armeni to have a look at Atom Egoyan's contribution. What actually tempted me about it, was that Egoyan explored the painter Arshile Gorky and I had read Barnett Newman's tribute to him. The first thing when entering the boat was that the driver on hearing my destination commented that I would not actually like to go there, for transfers were rare and I would have to wait for three hours. I insisted nevertheless. When I was on the island I realised that I was the only person visiting the exhibition. But I was not the only person present because the island is dominated by an Armenian monastery. So somewhere but not visible for me there must have been monks. Odd also the fact that the island is situated inbetween Venice and its beach, the Lido. It was summer and there surely was a lot of traffic on the water, but none would come to this island. Thus I had this otherworldly sensation of being surrounded by people I could not see and being quite remote yet looking out on the busy life - in retrospect a wonderful experience.

Thursday 26 September 2013

Art And Time

I remember a discussion about how to force a spectator to spend preferably more time in front of a work of art. There were the most fantastic suggestions, but eventually nothing can or should force anybody. Later in 1997 in Venice I came across a work of art that actually was designed with this in mind, but then it's probably telling that I do not remember much about the actual sculpture but the fact that every so-and-so many minutes so-and-so many people were admitted into some room for so-and-so many minutes. All the time I was calculating how many people could possibly see this sculpture if the exhibition ran so-and-so long, and of course you could fancy yourself being one of the so-and-so many people on this earth, who had actually seen it. It sort of shortened the time I spent waiting, but once I was admitted these thoughts were so predominant that the actual thing became redundant, or let's say it could not quite live up to the thoughts surrounding it. A clever piece of advertisment though and something that reminded me of wasting time in a theme park ;)!

Either it's in the work itself and the spectator responds to it, or not.

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Funny, Eerie And So Utterly True

Some things are and especially this song, up to the point where the laughter freezes ;)


Weapon Of Choice

...to anybody invested with intellect is wit. It's awesome to perceive how the penny drops slowly. Sometimes it's very, very slow, the change from the self-congratulatory smirk of ill-perceived victory to the doubtful expression of 'You just didn't say what I begin to realise just now?!'. I'm always obliged to make people finally think. You're welcome. I'm also glad that my son has realised the same power ;)!


Tuesday 24 September 2013

When

When choice is no longer the option, because everything goes and must go, then everything will go until it's gone.

I love to choose - though I might take my time - because it makes me happy, because it makes me real ;)

Incidentally

Queen Mab

I sometimes have the strangest dreams and because of their weirdness they tend to stay with me for years.

And then suddenly when they have almost vanished, when I've been searching high and low to discover their twisted meaning, they all of a sudden start to make sense ;).

Monday 23 September 2013

Felt Like The Refrain



When I passed Peter Brook kissing his hellos in Stratford-upon-Avon ;)

I Don't Buy It


A birthday rant

Once I heard a comment by somebody who was a native from Suriname and had settled down in the Netherlands. He was wondering about a situation that appeared paradoxical to him. On the one hand there were the Dutch people who were not suffering from any shortage, who to his perception were rich, and yet they were unhappy. On the other hand there were the people from his native Suriname who lacked a lot of things and yet they were smiling a lot.

I keep on wondering at the way of the prevalent economic system and asking myself the question if it is designed to fulfill needs or to create needs one would not have without it. Is happiness its aim or is it rather unhappiness and envy resulting in avarice?


Sunday 22 September 2013

A Wer(e)wolf

Der Werwolf

Ein Werwolf eines Nachts entwich
von Weib und Kind und sich begab
an eines Dorfschullehrers Grab
und bat ihn: Bitte, beuge mich!

Der Dorfschulmeister stieg hinauf                                        
auf seines Blechschilds Messingknauf                                  
und sprach zum Wolf, der seine Pfoten                                 
geduldig kreuzte vor dem Toten:                                           

"Der Werwolf" - sprach der gute Mann,                                
"des Weswolfs, Genitiv sodann,                                            
dem Wemwolf, Dativ, wie man's nennt,                                 
den Wenwolf, - damit hat's ein End."                                    

Dem Werwolf schmeichelten die Fälle,                                  
er rollte seine Augenbälle.                                                       
Indessen, bat er, füge doch                                                      
zur Einzahl auch die Mehrzahl noch!                                      

Der Dorfschulmeister aber mußte                                           
gestehn, daß er von ihr nichts wußte.                                       
Zwar Wölfe gäb's in großer Schar,                                           
doch "Wer" gäb's nur im Singular.                                     

Der Wolf erhob sich tränenblind -                                            
er hatte ja doch Weib und Kind!!                                             
Doch da er kein Gelehrter eben,                                               
so schied er dankend und ergeben.           


 Christian Morgenstern

The Wer(e)wolf

One night a werwolf escaped
from wife and child and went   
to a village teacher's grave      
and begged him:"Please, inflict me!"   

The village teacher ascended
onto his tin-plate sign's brazen knob
and spoke to the wolf, who crossed
his paws patiently before the dead man.  

"Der Werwolf" - the good man spoke
"Des Weswolfs - the genitive then, 
dem Wemwolf, dative it is called
den Wenwolf - that's all." 

The werwolf was flattered by the cases
he rolled his eyeballs,
Yet, he begged, add, please,
to the singular the plural!

The village teacher yet had to
admit, he knew nothing of it.
Namely, wolves there are plenty
yet to "Wer (who)" there's just a singular.

The wolf got up blind with tears -
after all he had a wife and child!! 
Yet, because he was no scholar
he vanished in thanks and obedient.

translation by me

The End of Wisdom


Then he told her; but it was an effort, and he felt for the first time that he was living in two worlds. As he walked where the town opened into a country road, he had suddenly realised that he was happy. His cure was complete. The disease of disdain for common things no longer devoured his brain, and yet his appreciation of the common was no nearer to the vulgar. Indeed, the common things around him, the stones in the road, the weeds in the ditch, stood out with a distinctness that was the reverse of flat. It was as if he had felt the third dimension for the first time. It reminded him of something his friend had said about religion, as compared with the mere herding of Capitalism and Communism. "There is a delicacy about the Day of Judgment." It was at least supposed to deal with individuals."Yes, that's it," he said to himself. "They used to say in the sight of God we are all equal. But if you only say that, it sounds flat; like all those flat-faced Bisons. No, in the sight of God we are all distinguished. We may be damned; but, damn it all, we're distinguished."


excerpt from "The End of Wisdom" by G.K. Chesterton included in 'G.K.  Chesterton - Collected Works: Volume XIV: Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Mystery Stories'

Saturday 21 September 2013

Courage In The Face Of The Inevitable

Still smiling at this lonely figure on the stage, just a man with his guitar representing the entire band and the only comment: "The others were supposed to be here, too....(awkward pause), but they are obviously somewhere else ( and not playing as supporting act here in Genk with me)." This was true courage, Sir Yes Sir ;)!


Deep Dark Truthful Mirror

Anton Walbrook in Der Student von Prag
Raimund Stecker once said commenting on Gerhard Richter's mirrors that it is probably only the artist who is able to stand his own image in the mirror.

There is also the marvellous movie Der Student von Prag (1935), where the student's reflection becomes detached. Here's my review.

Anton Walbrook 1930
Yet there is always the other side of it, the mere superficial reflection exemplified by Narcissus. Doomed to be forever lost in outward beauty until one becomes the grotesque carricature of one's own features, a more horrible ending than that of the poor student of Prague.




Friday 20 September 2013

Christian Morgenstern

Fragment of a letter taken and translated from "Über die Galgenlieder/ On the Gallows Songs"

Moreover (a sense of ) humour is after all just (a sense of) humour  and always has its very own meaning and - seriousness. Yes, it's its mission, at least nowadays, to lighten or crumble a little bit people's dull, gloomy seriousness, that the materialistic presence entangles them in.

Embraced by a time, that essentially receives its slogans from scholars and is thus condemned on all sides to impasse, he (the contemporary human being) feels that he can breathe more freely when confronted with such verse. Like the atmosphere of overwhelming severity and clumsiness of the so-called physical plan, that is decreed today with all the bitter seriousness of an era, that has become spirit- and godless, is cheerfully corrected, burst, yes, sometimes even apparently turned topsyturvy.

Thursday 19 September 2013

Moments of Sheer Magic



I wonder if I could ever tell too much about this short scene, but it surely incorporates everything I would like to see on whatever screen. Firstly the acting and chemistry is superb, and even if I've expressed the view that Julius Carry - probably by singing - steals the scene, nothing is less true, for there is no good acting without good interacting, and both performances are magnificent. Then the screenwriting is also marvellous in the way it manages to lighten this grave situation, giving the actors scope to play out ambivalent emotions. I do not quite know if I should cry or smile and eventually I will always end up doing both ;). And finally I love the way it reaches far beyond it's actual setting, it makes me grasp the meaning of this song 'Amazing Grace' in an unsurpassed scope.

If You Ever

come across a copy of 'A Part of Myself: Portrait of an Epoch' by Carl Zuckmayer, read it. It's an autobiography recounting the most hilarious life and person. There are truly hair-raising parts, eg when he is living in Berlin in the early 1920s and venturing to take up a criminal career out of sheer necessity without actually being fit for it, or when he narrowly escapes the Nazis in Austria, taking one of the last trains out. What really intrigues me is the coincidences like the story of a tapestry, that he oddly encounters again. Probably it's sometimes the little things that are the most miraculous.
There are simply so many different 'lives' this man has lived as soldier in WWI, as honoured playwright, as short-lived Hollywood screen writer or as farmer in Vermont and it's refreshing to see how each time he manages to make the best of it, a book full of hope. A book also dedicated to all the friends he had and lost, those who survived, those who died, those by whom he felt betrayed. As this, it is a great document of his appreciation and love and sometimes also disappointment.


Wednesday 18 September 2013

Wow Michael



I'm getting goose bumps all-over. Michael really gets it, the right rhythm, the right pace, the right pause. Simply marvellous.

Solid

"We are all tied to trees and pinned with pitchforks. And as long as these are solid we know the stars will stand and the hills will not melt at our word. Can't you imagine the huge tide of healthy relief and thanks, like a hymn of praise from all nature, that went up from the captive nailed to the tree, when he had wrestled till dawn and received at last the great glorious news; the news that he was only a man?" - The Poet and the Lunatics, Chesterton

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Basically What I'm Good At




























I've come to realise that what I'm really good at and what satisfies me a lot is giving people confidence to actually do what they would like to do. So here it is, take a look at your heart and go for it ;)! You are probably the person picked out to do whatever particular thing it is that you fancy. Don't let yourself be disheartened, there's somebody there who will understand.

Two - Dimensional

"...well, he was the kind of thoroughly good man who thought that telling the truth was as right as cleaning the teeth. It would be like loving somebody quite flat - only in two dimensions."
The Ecstatic Thief, Four Faultless Felons by GK Chesterton

Monday 16 September 2013

Satire
































A writer, who being a poet has written his first novel -  I was fortunate enough to get a copy before its official release and really loved it -, told me that his publisher was not very excited at the prospect that it is a satire. The publisher's reasoning was that people do not grasp satire today anymore.

Just wondering about this statement I asked myself why.

Eventually I reached the conclusion that values are probably shifting too much nowadays.

Another reason might be that the art of truly listening to somebody is diminishing. People are just looking for information and do no longer regard the context.


Sunday 15 September 2013

Just To Please You III



Kirsten: If there is anybody who knows how to write a good song, it's you. How for heaven's sake do you accomplish writing a timeless song?

Bert: It's impossible to say, and especially a timeless song, I should not know. But eventually I simply enjoy writing songs and when it comes down to it, to me it's just a matter of loving to play the guitar. I eventually do care for a good tune. I'm busy doing it, of course I'm busy doing it as much as possible, but you'll never know if it's gonna be successful. You should not think about it as long as you are busy. It's rather helpful, if you purposely do not consider this at all, because then thoughts like 'We're not good' won't cross your mind either. If you are busy anyway, just keep doing it an enjoy it. I think that's the bst attitude.

Kirsten: What comes first in your case the lyrics or the tune?

Bert: With me it's always the lyrics, because certain words are very important for the rhythm of the lyrics. A good tune is also very important. You're playing the guitar or sitting at your piano. Everything goes, but to me the lyrics are important. It is the way I give structure to my songs, qua phrasing, rhythm. It's just like in HipHop, it's also very important in pop music. How you place your words, where you place them. It's all about impact. If you want to tell something, then you want to have as much impact as possible. And in this case it is about the rhythm of the lyrics.

Kirsten: Absynthe Minded's lyrics are in English. Is it easy for you to write in English?

Bert: I've never had doubts about it. In the past I did it though I was not actually able to. From an early age I've been listening to English music. That's after all the language of Rock'n'Roll. Telling a lot with just a few words. Maybe in my case it was helpful that I began reading English books at an early age. I believe that it is a very beautiful language. I love English culture. It's something I enjoy just like writing songs.

Kirsten: You enjoy a lot of things.

Bert: Because I like doing it, that's it.

Kirsten: What I've noticed (concerning Studio Brussel's contest for new bands 'de nieuwe lichting') that sometimes there are sometimes applications that feel alright to me, but when the lyrics, the English is so terrible, that I cannot listen to it. What#s your advice concerning this?

Bert: In that case my advice would be: If you want to be taken seriously in another language, you have to learn to command it. Mind you, I had troubles myself, you can listen to some Absynthe Minded albums, and if you look closely, if you listen carefully, there are some difficulties, like the English 'th', I've sinned against this. I Do not believe that you have to do a British or an American accent. I rather see it as a universal language. I realise that I have an accent, but at least I'm getting the grammar right. Remove all uncertainties. If you want to tell people something, you cannot leave them asking themselves 'Why has he said this?'

Kirsten: If you are uncertain, let somebody who commands the English language have a look at it. Then you are certain.

Bert: Indeed. And let him listen to it as well, it's also a matter of pronunciation.

Kirsten: Certainly it's not necessary to apply for you anymore, but imagine you would apply for our contest. Which song would you chose?

Bert: I believe 'Mercury'. I could have chosen something else, but I believe it's a song that, if you listen to it, would make you want to attend a live performance. That's what I would do. Should I have to apply, I would choose something that makes people say 'They are playing well. I would love to see them perform'. That's when you have to prove your ability. Maybe the recording or production of your demo was not good, but on stage everybody is the same, and that is the moment when you have to go for it. So if you convince any member of the jury that he or she wants to see you live, that's a step ahead.

Kirsten: Absolutely. They have to perform live, so that would be quite logical. Bert, merci for your help. See you soon!

Bert: Thank you very much. Salut!



Saturday 14 September 2013

Happiness Endangered


For all these thoughts endangering true happiness.

Too strongly denying the differences, yet always emphasising them by inventing new, less abusive terms for these differences, that to my perception are but superficial. Something I'm not actually interested in, the colour of the skin, the gender. Losing the ability to look for the transcendent beyond all these differences.

I'm feeling sorry that the art of satire is slowly dying, along with the ability to truly communicate.

A difference may also be a distinction.

A personality may yet just become a person.




Friday 13 September 2013

What's Reality Anyway?!

There is as far as I'm concerned a difference between reality and truth. Things might be as unreal as fairytales or a stageplay, yet they can and often do contain a truth.

Art,especially poetry, relies on this and on you investigating into it.

"Beware of the implications"



Thursday 12 September 2013

Just To Please You - My Best Attempt

at trying to translate the interspersed utterings



Number One, everybody on Jan:

Renaud: Jan, everybody regards him like Chris Martin from Coldplay.
Bert: A multi-instrumentalist, very talented genre player. If obstacles have to be cleared/ the knot has  to be cut, if Jan says  'Yes', then it will be 'Yes'.
Renaud: Enormously powerful!




Number Two, everybody on Jakob:

Bert: Jakob was the last to join us, he is the youngest member of the band. Nevertheless he has been with us for a long time now, so this does not really matter. It was not easy for him because in the beginning we were just a group of four, we performed without drums, for years we had been doing this and at a certain moment he has joined us. Yet, we felt that this is what we would be doing from then on. He is a drummer who understands this, songs and their structure. How you have to deal with this.
 Jan: That's not bad.


Number Three, everybody on Sergej:

Bert: And Sergej is also a multi-talented instrumentalist bass, contrabass, keyboard, vocals, beats sometimes, though not really for Absynthe Minded yet, but 'You never know'. Autodidact!
Jan: The techie of the band. All the time busy looking for better material, looking for a solution, the link between the crew and the band (True, in Krefeld he also was, though he was a little bit sulky, telling the crew to leave it, Daniela). He is the bridge between these two.
Bert: The software and the hardware he knows everything about it, interface, also recording. After all our first demo was recorded at his house in Ghent at the Dampoort (not so sure about "Dampoort", but that's what I've understood ;) ).


Number Four, everybody on Renaud:

Bert: Golden boy - I've founded the band with him. Together in an apartement we too the decision to form a band and he said that he knew a fairly good bassist, Sergej, and then I said that I knew a fairly good pianist, Jan, and then we formed the band. He believed one of my demos to be very good and so we got to know each other.
Renaud: I had a  taste to do something old-style, "Club de France" (probably he is referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Club_de_France ), something jazzy, pop jazz, including strings, some swing.
Bert: In the meantime the violin has been heavily oversteered, you won't recognize it as a violin. He is somebody who is experimenting with sound. Just like all of us. And yes...
Renaud: Merci!


Number Five, everybody on Bert:

Renaud: Bert is our mate, he is our mate, the band's songwriter. He writes more and more beautiful songs, he has always done it. When I got his first demo about ten years ago, I thought it unbelievable what he was doing. This was very original pop music. That's what intrigues me about Bert, his struggle to make wonderful pop music.
Sergej: Businesswise, he does whatever a frontman has to do, he sometimes 'sells his own grandmother' (the original Dutch expression, the same as in German btw, would translate: 'walks over corpses'), that's alright, in some situations it is good. He simply does what a bandleader has to do, making decisions.
Jan: He is the great power driving us ahead, he does not like to stand still, he wants things to get ahead. This is good for us as a band. And a good singer.
Renaud: You cannot look past us any more, we are a fixed mark in Belgian pop music - Voilà, he has done it: Bert Ostyn.
Voice from the off: Bad driver though.



Let's Face It II



Interesting to watch how Bent Van Looy takes Hollywood at face value, quite open and frank.

F for Fake, but still if one does as he does, there might be just a little, maybe even not a little bit, of truth hidden beneath all of this. Maybe reality is never so harsh as in a place where there seems to be so little care for it. Yet maybe this may only be discovered the way he does it, by strolling around.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Remembering That I Once Saw An Excerpt

I had to check Orson Welles' documentary of the Basques and it turned out a wonderfully insightful piece of filmmaking.

It also reminded me of a conversation I once had with a 90-year old woman, where we both agree that we would not like to be children nowadays.

Welles' view opens up something quite unique and rarely heard of. Imagine for example being late, and not just late, but eight days late. A miraculous time and place, where this might happen.






Let's Face It

"I was up all night..." ;)


Tuesday 10 September 2013

I Am A Fan

Admittedly I am a fan and sometimes it just shows. So when the opportunity presented itself and I was oddly aware of it, I made my husband buy me Ronald Colman's copy of Justin Huntly McCarthy's novel 'If I Were King' for my birthday. I felt it was only fair because this was the first movie starring Colman that I've ever watched. Quite interesting btw what one might learn about people's habits from their books.


Oh, the Longing

A funny thing to be unexpectedly reminded of, when watching a film director and an actor spending an evening in Kiew, was the actor's sudden remark that art is not democratic. We had the same discussion at academy, which resulted nevertheless in the suggestion of a "democratic wall", on which everybody may present his or her work of art. The most telling thing of course is that we never ever actually worked this one out ;).

Further reading recommended: Arthur C Danto's The Transfiguration of the Commonplace and please read till the end, because like very common in philosophy one may only understand the issues, if one has read the ending. I remember sitting in the seminar where we were reading this book and I had been apparently the only one, who had read the final chapter, because I had to deliver a talk on it. Every time somebody would not understand the point of the book, I would say: "Wait, because once I will have talked you will understand!"


Monday 9 September 2013

Something Particular


Things That Made People Laugh - And Me Along

Way back at the academy I once uttered that I didn't want to paint paintings for people's living rooms. Some time later there was the academy feast and my professor, Jochen Zellmann, introduced me to the principal, art historian Manfred Schneckenburger,  by saying: "Here is somebody who does not want to paint for living-rooms." He just smiled and said: "Oh, you should take a look at my living room!"

Yet, the truth is that I still do not want to paint anything that is just ornamental, though I wonder, how to achieve this impossiblity.


Sunday 8 September 2013

Mercy

 


Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent?
I cannot do it better than in gyves,
Desired more than constrain'd: to satisfy,
If of freedom 'tis the main part, take
No stricter render of me than my all.
I know you are more clement than vile men,
Who of their broken debtors take a third,
A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive  again
On their abatement: that's not my desire:
For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though
'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it:
'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;
Though light, take pieces for figure's sake:
You rather mine, being yours: and so, great powers,
If you will take this audit, take this life,

Cymbeline, William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene IV

I wonder what happened to the drawing, for I presented it to Michael Pennington, who said that he would frame it.

Kudos

to everybody who can say: "What, in fact, was the true beginning of my end?"



There is a current of meaning flowing in this question that makes me rejoice. Not in the least, by the way, because of its manifold, paradoxic nature.

Saturday 7 September 2013

Contemplation






























Jacques Derrida II

Vincent Willem van Gogh 118

What I really like about Derrida's approach to philosophy is that I've always got the notion that he takes me on a journey. Thereby considering all the diversions possible.

There is that lecture on Van Gogh, Heidegger and Meyer Schapiro included in the  compilation "The Truth in Painting". What really stuck in my mind - it's been in the 1990s that I read it and Raimund still has my copy of the book - is how Derrida shows that Van Gogh's actual painting of a pair of shoes had been taken hostage by both, Heidegger and Meyer Schapiro, in their fight over ideologies. On the one hand there is Heidegger making them out to be a peasant's pair of shoes, which of course is tainted by  Nazi ideology. On the other hand Meyer Schapiro, realising this flaw, reclaims them to be an industrial worker's, thereby fitting them to a socialist world view. In the end I was asking myself - and I feel that Derrida implied it- whose flaw is greater, the one's, who is obviously infatuated with an ideology, or the one's, who sees somebody else being infatuated with some ideology and only goes and substitutes one for the other. As far as I recall Meyer Schapiro was present, when Derrida presented it.

Friday 6 September 2013

Jacques Derrida

This smile I seem to come across a lot...

This time it belongs to Jacques Derrida, who is asked which philosopher he would like to be his mother (concerning the father, he has made his choice btw).





What I love about Derrida that at this point he is contemplating to be his own mother or even stranger giving birth to his own mother. And even stranger I sort of do relate.

The distinction between (male) philosophy and (female) thinking made me think of the fairy tale of  The Peasant's Wise Daughter.


Just for the Occasion - Christian Morgenstern








because on facebook people were (again) discussing what art is and may do.
My prose translation of Morgenstern's poem:

On a Stage

On a stage there stands a tree,
taken from the edge of the closest forest.

It's overlapped on the right hand side
by a rock made of canvas,

however on the left, wonderful,
a lawn made of goat hair greens.

In the stalls little Cohn
bursts asunder full of utter illusion.

Little Cohn was made the judge
of what is art and what is not.


Thursday 5 September 2013

Absurdity
































Given to fly and with my head in the clouds, must I be considered shallow? Maybe there are more directions than just down.


"Kneel not to me; The power that I have on you, is to spare you; the malice towards you, to forgive you. Live; and deal with others better." - "Nobly doom'd!; We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law; pardon's the word to all." - Cymbeline, William Shakespeare

Why I Adore My Village

and its inhabitants.

After WW2 there was this woman who got pregnant from a British soldier who deserted her. The grandmother-to-be's comment was: "It's alright, no matter what, we will raise the child. The bad thing  is though that we (as Germans) won't be able to understand it."

BTW if anybody believes this to be just silly, it's definitely quite the contrary!

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Gentleness


































"Do one thing every day that scares you", though I do not even trust the sunscreen to that extent, it's still a good advice. So I once again tried my luck with fingers.

And then there came this wonderful song with these wonderful lines and absolutely made my day:
"Would you  paint my face, I wanna be a tiger, cause a tiger when in need can be so fierce, though my fur's made of rust, and my whiskers soaked in blood, I hope I'll a tiger when you're here" - Such a terrible gentleness behind that painted face.


Tuesday 3 September 2013

That's Entertainment

That's truly entertaining entertainment ;)!!!!


PS : James Ensor

He appears tp be very absent minded ;)! Maybe, just maybe he nevertheless cares a lot...


James Ensor

On the very day I first saw this photo at an exhibition in Brussels, I very much felt like this. As we passed a building near Aachen's main train station on our way back, I did not realise that at the very moment people were held hostage in it. The same strange sensation again when a helicopter was passing pretty low just about our heads during a family celebration on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Later on, on the radio we learned that a prisoner had escaped from a nearby prison, his accomplices hijacking a helicopter and its pilot. One can be so close and yet worlds apart.

Eccentricities

The weird and strange, I love it. Maybe because it is diverse and feels pretty alive by putting in perspective the ordinary. Food for thought here, jumping up and down and sometimes to wonderful conclusions.

Monday 2 September 2013

Kairos
































talk about this perfect moment, when everything falls into place. Upside down ;)!

Point Well Taken

Now this is a wonderful take on it all at approximately 28:30 min and I wish a lot of spiritual moments yet to come ;)!



Sunday 1 September 2013

It's Always "Her"

Either here

 

and/ or here,




who is addressee and inspiration. I'd love to sit and listen like Mary, Martha's and Lazarus' sister.

Why, Oh Why...

is it so hard to draw hands?! The hand drawing the hand. I remember a sketch by Terry Gilliam, where everything is perfect, a Renaissance Madonna, up to where the artist draws the hand, which is an awful mess. I love hands though because they are quite expressive and tell a lot, and they are best when it's obvious that the person in questions employs them rather frequently.

"Giacometti's fingernails are always black, yet he never appears to be scruffy, not a single trace of pose adheres to him." -  Henri Cartier-Bresson

Check Mauro Pawlowski's hands here.



"She walked into my life the ridiculous and sublime"...