March 31, 2008

Paz 94


Hoy cumple 94 años el maestro Octavio Paz. Mi primer encuentro con Paz se debe gracias a esta fotografía que significó, para mí, el descubrimiento del retrato. Creo que ningún otro retrato me ha marcado tanto como éste.

Estos últimos tiempos leo sistemáticamente a Paz. Estoy ahora a la mitad de su obra estética. Me impresiona la manera sus artistas descubiertos como, por ejemplo, Hermenegildo Bustos o Martín Ramírez. Me estimula su interpretación del muralismo mexicano y las conexiones que hace con la vanguardia americana. Es obvio que no se está de acuerdo con él siempre, pero sí siempre nos azuza a pensar.

A Paz sólo puedo adscribirle lo que él mismo dice respecto del muralismo: "Lo maravilloso no se hereda: se conquista" ("El precio y la significación" en sus Obras completas, tomo 7, p.323).

March 30, 2008

Pritzker Prize for Jean Nouvel?

Jean Nouvel was awarded with the Pritzker Prize. Although I am just a dilettante, I cannot quite understand at all his contributions to modern architecture. Of course he is good, that is indeed doubtless.

But if you compare the Philharmonie of Berlin (1963, by Hans Scharoun) with the Philharmonie of Paris (to be opened in 2012) he is constructing in La Vilette, I think both concert halls look quite similar.


Or have a look at the London Gerkhin (2004, by Sir Norman Foster) and at Nouvel's Torre Agbar in Barcelona (2005).


I really like his Louvre Museum extension
project in Abu Dhabi, although I am still not sure about the negative effects of the light on the art works. We have to check that.


March 26, 2008

Boycott Beijing 2008



The political misuse of the Olympic Games is well-known. It is an ingenuity to pretend that such a misuse is not going to happen this summer, if it is not already on track. It is absurd to cheer for Beijing knowing what is going on in that country. And I am not comparing the Nazi regime with the Chinese one.

I can bet that History will reproach us not having boycotted these Olympic Games.



And believe me: I would love to see Kiira Korpi, Amy Acuff, Yelena Isinbayeva, Silke Spiegelburg..., just to name a few.


March 23, 2008

Cuando las imágenes se vuelven música


Premisa 1: Kandinsky pretendió "pintar" la música. Ya antes Pitágoras y los otros cofrades habían "visto" los patrones musicales del mundo.

Premisa 2: Jena y Munich se disputan la originalidad del primer planetario (moderno) del mundo. En realidad, la idea de construirlo surgió de Oskar von Miller, el director del Deutsches Museum de Munich, hacia 1905, y lo comisionó a la compañía Carl Zeiss, famosa por sus lentes, de Jena. En esta ciudad, pues, se construyó y probó satisfactoriamente en 1923. Se llevó entonces el proyector a Munich, y allí se estrenó publicamente un año más tarde. Sólo entonces se pudo establecer en Jena un planetario, que aún existe: tiene 82 años y no sólo conserva la madera original de las paredes y las butacas de aquel entonces, sino que justo en el centro puede verse el proyector, uno de los más modernos del mundo. La pantalla es exactamente media esfera, y suma más de 800 metros cuadrados de superficie.

Conclusión: Así como la música crea una atmósfera que envuelve a quien la escucha, el planetario de Jena con su proyector lo envuelven a uno con un efecto más propio de la música que de las imágenes.

Corolario: Por aquí vino hace unos meses ya Peter Greenaway y además de mostrarnos algunos fragmentos de The Tulse Luper Suitcases y el trailer de Nightwatching, comentó la necesidad urgente de acabar con la "tiranía" del cine que consiste en sentarse todos viendo en una misma dirección. El planetario podría acabar con esa tiranía.

Lo que vi esa noche en Jena fue un video de efectos especiales sintonizado con las mejores rolas de Pink Floyd. También puede verse un musical de Queen.




March 17, 2008

St. Gay-orge

Al parecer fue Franz Geringswalde, un integrante del taller de Jakob Naumann, en Altenburg, Alemania, el que hizo esta escultura de St. Gay-orge, a principios del siglo XVI en madera de tilo. Se trata de la representación más jotesca que haya visto en mi vida de un soldado y un cazador de dragones.

Se encuentra en la planta baja del Schlossmuseum de Weimar.


March 13, 2008

Don't miss it! Help yourself!


Most funny moment: the cameraman trying to have a close-up of Larry Mullen Jr, and falling down on the stairs ("Sunday, bloody Sunday").

Worst moment: Bono huging like 50 seconds a girl.

Best songs: "Sunday, bloody Sunday" & "Where the streets have no name".

Disappointment: "One".

Surprise: Accoustic version of... guess!

Really cool: The Edge's t-shirt resembling the national coat of arms of Iturbide (something like it).

Best performances: Bono singing Pavarotti's bit of "Miss Sarajevo" & obviously: The Edge's chiming, shimmering's guitar playing "One".

A must: to watch it again.


A tip: do not sit in the center of the theatre, but on a side, in order to jump and react freely.

March 5, 2008

Saul Bellow dixit

Epigraph of the magnificent novel "Saturday", by Ian McEwan


"For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organised power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed old-fashioned Values? You - you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. Or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for instance, is the way it runs."

Saul Bellow in New York

Giordano Bruno in Berlin

There is a certain atheistic institution in Germany fighting against God (is it possible at all to fight the Invisible?) and the three major religions: Christianism, Islam and Judaism. In order to do that and like a symbol of the evolutionary and illustrated humanism they want to develop, they just inaugurated last Sunday a new statue-memorial of Giordano Bruno in Potsdamer Platz, one of the most populated places of Berlin. I like this picture because of the two crosses on the ceiling.

But rather than the expressionist German statue, I really prefer Giordano's statue in Campo di Fiori, because he is stepping forward, and perhaps also because of its Darth-Vader-look.


I also prefer these Italian girls than those blue German guys.


March 4, 2008

Museo dell'ombrello e del parasole

In order to prepare my visit to the Museum of the umbrella in Weimar next week (I'm really excited about visiting it, and waiting for it several months), I visit the page of the Museo dell'ombrello e del parasole.

Again, a photo by Doisneau ad hoc (because I listened today in the Philharmonie a septet playing Beethoven, and the cello girl reminded me of my dear Darkie Girl and the rainy day she was wearing a top hat).

By the way, my most beloved painting depicts some umbrellas. The best way to visit Paris is being covered from the light rain under a black umbrella. I thought that before knowing the existance of Caillebotte. Voilà!

I do like umbrellas.

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