October 30, 2012

Berlin's street art


Das hier ist wirklich geil! Berlin rocks!

Während die Amis, sich bloss mit einem Film über New Yorks Zerstörung amüsieren.


October 28, 2012

An angel is coming closer




Andrew Perkins, Angel (2011)


October 24, 2012

My life with a yahoo


 Luis Quintanilla, Yahoo Boss (1947)



I just got rid of a yahoo, what a relief.

Yahoo is a word coined by Jonathan Swift and refers to a cruel, filthy guy who lacks of scruples due to his ignorance

According to Wikipedia's entry:

"Swift describes them as being filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of protagonist Lemuel Gulliver, who finds the calm and rational society of intelligent horses, the Houyhnhnms, far preferable. The Yahoos are primitive creatures obsessed with 'pretty stones' they find by digging in mud, thus representing the distasteful materialism and ignorant elitism Swift encountered in Britain. Hence the term "yahoo" has come to mean "a crude, brutish or obscenely coarse person".

Indeed: there is a filthy mentality according to which people are an obstacle, rather than an opportunity and a help. Instead of teaming up, yahoos make your life miserable and they remain immerse in mediocrity. Hélas!

I am not going to waste my time with people who are unable to understand this very piece, since they don't even know English, and who have a vital horizon as limited as their tiny office, which they rarely abandon. Yahoos tend to become fat toads.




October 20, 2012

Ghost beckons


 
At Hamlet (act 1, scene 4), you read: "Ghost beckons"...




That is exactly how I felt this morning when I woke up.

He died 17 years ago, and he still appears in my dreams and fears, is still present in the way I act and react.

What is it to be done with ghosts, if they are not to be killed?




Mario Testino dixit




"I compare life to a party, and when it's over, its over. I didn't feel I needed children, either. People feel they need children because they're leaving something behind. I don't need to leave anything behind. The only thing that concerns me is the now."

Whole interview at The Guardian


October 16, 2012

Felix Baumgartner



Drawing by a kid called Felix Baumgartner some decades ago


 


October 11, 2012

Teotihuacán: Marianne Gast, J.L. Borges



Marianne Gast, Autorretrato en Teotihuacán (1954)


Paulina Lavista, Borges en Teotihuacán (1973)



Vulgar, brazen, crass: Stalingrad, Damien Hirst



Jonathan Jones blogs today about Damien Hirst, who is responsible both for building the young generation of British artists and, unfortunately, of becoming an art-dictator.

His new piece (Verity), a colossal statue still to be erecten at Ilfracombe's pier, which is "vulgar, brazen, crass".

Jones also points out the similarity between Stalingrad's monument to the famous battle in the city (1942) and Hirst's new (art?) work.


Verity

 The Motherland Calls! (Mamayev Kurgan)




October 10, 2012

Art, copyright and plagiarism



Regarding art, plagiarism and coypright issues, I recently heard somebody using a stupid argument: how come is Andy Warhol not in jail? He was trying to defend his own copyright abuse arguing that it was art.

But there is a huge difference between Warhol and him, between the 1962 and 2012, etcetera. Directors at Campbells felt honored when they learned about the Tomato Soup series, and the Product Marketing Manager sent him in 1964 this letter.




October 9, 2012

Mona Lisa bullshit



Every now and then there is bullshit poping up regarding Mona Lisa: the Spanish version, the earlier version, the bones of the woman, this and that.

Stop it! It is just a merchandised way to draw attention.

Leonardo was indeed a man of genius, but this fuzz is nonsense. Look rather at these images...



X-ray


Emissiograph



Best paid Latin American art



This is how the most expensive Latin American art looks like.


Rufino Tamayo, Trovador (1945)
7.2 million USD in 2008 at Christie's


Frida Kahlo, Raíces (1943)
5.6 million USD in 2006 at Sotheby's


Roberto Matta, La revolte des contraires (1944)
5 million USD this year at Christie's



Wifredo Lam, Ídolo (Oya/Divinité de l'air et de la mort)
4.6 million USD this year at Sotheby's


Diego Rivera, Baile en Tehuantepec (1928)
3.2 million USD in 1995 at Sotheby's


Rufino Tamayo, Rebanadas de sandía (1950)
2.2 million USD in 2011 at Sotheby's


Best year ever for Latin American art was 2008, with an income of 71.5 million USD for Christie's + Sotheby's. The last five years, collectors have paid 195 million USD for Latin American art.


October 8, 2012

Get free! Be productive!


If you know Miranda July, you know that it is impossible not to fall in love with her...

Check her way of getting free and becoming productive. I am, by the way, sicked of cultural consumerism.


Herbert Spencer dixit


"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."


 And I thought of all those fools and crazy people that Garry Winogrand took pics of...









Hugo (The) Boss


He did it again!

Shit!








October 5, 2012

Captain Latin America



We are in the middle of a big fuzz. We need Captain Latin America to rescue us! Oh, please...





October 1, 2012

Parties: Julius Schulman, Helmut Newton


Julius Shulman, Cocktail hour at the Spencer residence in Santa Monica (1950)


 Helmut Newton


Happy families: Julius Shulman, Josef Heinrich Darchinger



This is how a happy family amuses herself shortly after the II World War in California (1947). Life is beautiful and the sun shines. The victory!


This is how a happy family amuses herself long after the II World War in Germany (1964). Life is colorful and the sun shines again. Das Wirtschaftswunder!



Roof gardens: Tazumal, Rockefeller Center





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