Ski... out of the box

These guys just awesome and I am so jealous!

Wakeboard and skate in Berlin, wakeboard in Istambul, ski in Caen and Reims.

Mediocrity and envy

There is this guy about whom I posted few months ago. He is miserable, feels miserable and his only grace is his ability to make people he despises feel also miserable. I have hardly met anyone more jealous and envious as him. People adulate him in order to take care of their own back.

As I read a magnificent piece by Enrique Serna, I can't stop thinking of him again. Serna quotes Helvetius:

"Mediocre people have a sure instinct to recognize talented people and flee from them".

Serna writes:

"Una de las pocas frases de Heráclito recogidas por la posteridad condena al pueblo de Éfeso por la expulsión de Hermiodoro, su mejor filósofo. “Merecerían los efesios adultos ser ahorcados todos y dejar a los jóvenes la ciudad, por haber expulsado al más útil entre ellos mismos, diciendo: ‘Que no haya entre nosotros nadie que sea el mejor, que lo sea en otra parte y con otros’”. El odio del hombre mediocre al talento superior, o de la colectividad al genio, se convirtió desde entonces en un tópico difícil de rebatir, porque la envidia forma parte de la condición humana y la envidia del talento es una de sus variedades más tóxicas."

The text reminds me of The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell. There is a chapter on Envy. According to Russel, who fathered three kids, envy is due to a bad education. When parents prefer one child over another, the second child will try hard to get their estimation and will develop an envy instinct towards his beloved sibling.

So, now, every time when I think of that poor guy or meet any envious person I just feel some sort of pity for them. They probably were very unlucky children, perhaps they suffered a lot. I just cannot take them seriously anymore.

Tech murdering

Salvador Novo (and his generation) was so excited when the radio started to become popular, that he predicted the death of libraries:

Hay que aceptar la muerte de las bibliotecas como fuentes de conocimientos. Hoy corresponde a la radio impartirlos por las dos orejas simultáneamente [...]

Then, in the late 70s, video killed the superstar.

Nowadays, we barely read anymore, we became completely video oriented, our patience for reading drains exhausted after 140 characters. Moreover, iPhones and iPads killed the laptop.

More Caillebotte

There was recently an exhibition in Frankfurt on the paintings and photos of Gustave Caillebotte. The catalogue has a great sosias on its cover!

Reference: Karin Sagner & Max Hollein, Gustave Caillebotte. An Impressionist and Photography: Katalogbuch zur Ausstellung in der Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt

Berlinostalgie

Den Mann kenne ich, im Haus bin ich zig Mal gewesen. Alle Art von Erinnerungen bekam ich, als ich den netten Mann wieder sah und hörte... Berlin, Berlin...

Es ist Teil einer ganz dolle Sammlung Porträts von Berliner. Wenn ich bloss noch dort wäre!

Catwalk

Just shot my first catwalk. It was really fun. Now I understand much better Mr Sartorialist and folks. It's just awesome to shoot pretty girls in bikini...

Beneath the convergence point: FC Gundlach, Greg Lotus

F.C. Gundlach, Op Art Swimsuit (1966)

Greg Lotus, Wagon Wheel (2005)

Luis Barragán, Zinedine Zidane

Guest-post de Tato.

No solamente los dos son pelones y altos (Zidane mide 1.86 y Barragán medía 1.90), también comparten la elegancia, la clase, la inteligencia y la timidez. "La timidez me ha ayudado a triunfar", decía Zidane. Son tipos solitarios y serenos.

A los dos les dijeron el mayor elogio que puede recibir un artista venido de otro artista:

"Las Capuchinas Sacramentarias es la mayor obra de arquitectura". Tadao Ando

"Zidane es el mejor jugador de la historia". Maradona

Even more female Christs

This post refers to this and this.

Free Pussy Riot protester (2012)

 Daido Moriyama??

 

Terry O'Neill, Raquel Welch, Los Angeles (1970)

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon (1982)

Bettina Rheims & Serge Bramly, I.N.R.I (1999)

 Sam Robbin Grave, Plastic Christ (2012?)

Annie Leibovitz, Diamanda Galás (1992)

Man Ray, Nue au bandelettes (1929)

Louis Joseph Raphaël Collin, Femme crucifiée (1890)

Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled (2008)

Let yourself be surprised

There is this German saying which cute Tanja taught me once and changed my perception of life: Lass dich überraschen! Let yourself be surprised!

I remember once trying to get to the Boros Sammlung, a conspicuous art collection housed in a bunker in downtown Berlin. The people were surprised by a big rock blocking the door. Most of them were older Germans and they got really pissed off. My reaction was, according to the savvy saying, to start laughing: the rock was an element of chaos which was messing our standard daily life. As it happened, it was an art work itself.

That's one of the reasons why I love philosophy and art: it forces you to see things the other way round.

That's exactly the spirit behind this new art work on the façade of a museum in California: a peeing dog. That's what art is allegedly to do, right? To provoke and surprise, to interrupt your train of life.

Richard Jackson, Bad dog (2013)

 

Roberto Gaviria Cobaleda

Roberto Gaviria Cobaleda

Contado por Hermilda Gaviria, madre de Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria:

Mi papá [Roberto Gaviria Cobaleda] vivía en Cañasgordas y llegó a ser alcalde del pueblo, pero sobre todo fue contrabandista. En Urabá compraba whisky, lo traía por entre el monte en un ataúd, con todo y comitiva de deudos, cuatro señoras y señores vestidos de negro, que lloraban al pasar por los resguardos de rentas. El ataúd lo enterraba en el cementerio y por la noche, cubierto por la oscuridad, sacaba la caleta y la llevaba a una tienda donde perforaba huevos, les sacaba la yema y la clara, les inyectaba el whisky, y los vendía a los bebedores. Como los sapos [chismosos] han existido toda la vida, lo delataron. Pero alguien alcanzó a alertarlo: vea, don Roberto, pilas, que lo tienen en la mira, lo tienen analizado. Pero don Roberto, como si no hubiera oído, salió como de costumbre con su cajón y lo llevó al cementerio a darle cristiana sepultura. Enmedio de la ceremonia le cayeron: "¡Queda preso!" "¿Y por qué? ¿Y yo qué he hecho?" "¡Usted trae contrabando!" "Yo no traigo contrabando." "¿Y qué trae usted ahí?" "Nada, yo no traigo nada." "Lo vamos a abrir." "Ábralo." Lo abrieron y vieron el cajón lleno de piedras. Y, decepcionados, dijeron: "No, este no es contrabandista, este es un viejito loco".

 

Alonso Salazar, La parábola de Pablo, p.37

Helmut Newton dixit

Save the wall!

This might sound terrible because this is a paradox. In order to prevent past mistakes and barbaric acts, we have to keep our memory alive. So, in order to prevent beheadings by guillotine, we have to restore guillotines and put them in museums and talk about it. The same goes for concentration camps or the Berlin Wall.

But this week, a stupid investor decided to tear down the Wall (which is not longer a wall but a historic-memory device) because he feels it is not good for his private aims, namely, money. He wants to build a 14-storey apartment building and he needs the wall out of his sight. 

Yeah, right! And what about the people who died there? And the people looking for an explanation when they visit the former Wall? And the artists who intervened it? All that does not matter for plain minded guys.

But ok, shit happens. The problem here is: what about the government? Where is the hero of old days, Wowereit? Where is Merkel? Where is –for fuck's sake– common sense?

As M wrote today on her wall: "Berlin, you were so different when we met!". Yes, indeed.

Join me signing this petition.

Red rooms

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The kiss (1892)

Matisse, The dessert (Harmony in red – The red room) (1908)

Matisse, Reclining odalisque (1927)

Diana Vreeland

 

 David LaChapelle

 Marie Antoinette's in Versailles

 White House's

Berlin's Roter Salon

Jeniffer Lawrence's fall goes artsy

Kevin Winter

Peregrine Honig

P.E. Sharpe

I love the Toulouse-Lautresque aesthetics:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec