Lisboa

crafty

muito bonito, ver aqui

limits of photography

ENCLOSED CONTENT CHATTING AWAY IN THE COLOUR INVISIBILITY
is a work which consists of:
-an installation out of approximately 4000 books
-a looped video
-a single photograph

ANOUK KRUITHOF (1981) IS A DUTCH ARTIST WHO LIVES AND WORKS IN BERLIN, THE NETHERLANDS AND ABROAD

She studied photography at st.Joost Academy Breda from 1999-2003
In 2008/2009 she attended the artist in residences Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin and Meetfactory Prague.

Kruithof is fascinated by the emotional and mental condition of people and how this is manifested in behaviour and act in society and time in which she lives. The starting point is her personal experience or fascination with a subject and in her project based work she combines the conceptual thinking with aesthetics. In the last 6 years she examined the limitations of the medium photography. Photography is her main medium, but since 2008 she started to work with installation, video and performative actions. Her recent work shows how she determines the borders of this media. Anouk Kruithof is very much interested in the printed book as a form to show her projects. She published 3 artistbooks: Playing borders (2009), Becoming Blue (2009) and the Black Hole icw Jaap Scheeren (2006). Her work has shown internationally in ACP Sydney, MAMAC Liege Belgium, FOAM Amsterdam, Künstraum Niederösterreich Vienna, Stedelijk museum Amsterdam, Temporäre Künsthalle Berlin and museum het Domein Sittard among many others.

African hairstyles

There are hundreds of ethnic groups in Nigeria, each with its own language and traditions. Among other things which are part of these traditions are various hairstyles. These are determined by the social position of the family, and the artistic talent of the hair stylist. Among them there are special hairstyles for ceremonies such as circumcisions, a woman's becoming an adult, or the celebration of a marriage. Today it is difficult to trace the background of certain hairstyles because various ethnic groups have mixed together, and adapted to modern culture. Many hairstyles have died out, taking their secrets to the grave with them. Since 1968 Ojeikere (b. Nigeria, 1930) has been making photographs of various hairstyles he sees on the street or at work, or at celebrations. He always asks his models where the hairstyle they are wearing comes from, what its meaning is, its name, and its history. In 1961 Ojeikere became the studio photographer for the first African television station. He opened his own studio in 1975, Foto Ojeikere. During an arts festival in 1968 he decided to begin photographing Nigerian cultural life. Since then he has travelled through the country in search of subjects. It was that same year he also began his "Hairstyles" series.

Remember Jesus was one

white magic

Ree Morton, Untitled, 1971-73. Courtesy Allen Memorial Art Museum,
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Fund for Contemporary Art, 1953.

White magic is something to cherish, to always carry within you.
White magic is something to believe in - the universe thrives with it.

White magic reverses dark matter.

Litany

Love.

Love is all around, under blankets of white snow,
beneath sheets of heavy lead skies.
Love,
love is all around, singing in our hearts,
Singing in the hearts of everyone who knows and accepts it.
Love,
Love is all around, a secret endless stream.

Love.

O país do sonho impossível

foto sacada de http://bulimunda.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/portugal-de-outrora-anos-60-nao-mudamos-assim-tanto-so-no-vestuario/

Nasci em 1960 em Portugal, um país pobre no extremo ocidental da Europa. Desde 1928 que o país vivia sob uma ditadura e por esta altura o seu império colonial, restos de um passado glorioso e aventureiro, entrava na sua decadência final, precipitada por guerras de guerrilha em África que ceifaram vidas e recursos, bens dos quais o país não podia dispôr, sangrado que estava também por vagas de emigração mais ou menos constantes.
Lembro-me de uma sociedade mesquinha, que segregava as pessoas - mesmo no meu bairro, um portão e uma rede de uns 3 metros separavam a metade do bairro dos operários, da metade dos empregados administrativos, especializados ou com cargo de chefia.
Os miúdos de um lado não deviam brincar com os do outro, os vizinhos de um lado não se darem com os do outro e mesmo o lado dos empregados era melhor e mais ajardinado do que o lado de cá, dos operários, que tinha menos canteiros de flores.
O parece mal, regia a maneira como as pessoas deviam actuar e como sentiamos a presença de inúmeros olhos a espiarem os nossos passos,(muita gente escrevia voluntariamente para a policia politica e para as autoridades denunciando comportamentos como se veio a comprovar depois), assim que cresciamos um pouco e tinhamos consciência dos nossos gestos começávamos a auto-controlarmo-nos e a limitarmo-nos.
Num país assim o sonho era impossível.

We all have dreams

"But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."

"I have a dream today."

Just replace Negro by poor and white by rich...it applies.
From the Martin Luther King, Jr. famous I have a dream speech.

COP15

In the absence of true, recognized leaders people want to take the floor and speak for themselves…then you have to unleash the dogs at them.
Or make things happen - I hope so...there's a new conscience, spreading : true Gaia.

Link for the site of the conference

Beauty again

池田 学IKEDA Manabu
“Hanakamakiri.” Pen and acrylic on paper. 2004.

I would love to be really talented and to create beauty like this.

Cary Grant was cool and funny

Personal quotes:


I think making love is the best form of exercise.

I've often been accused by critics of being myself on-screen. But being oneself is more difficult than you'd suppose.

I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.

Divorce is a game played by lawyers.

I improve on misquotation.

To succeed with the opposite sex, tell her you are impotent; she can't wait to disprove it.

(with great help from Lolita's Classics blog)

Rain

Rain
by Don Paterson
May 26, 2008


I love all films that start with rain:

rain, braiding a windowpane

or darkening a hung-out dress

or streaming down her upturned face;



one long thundering downpour

right through the empty script and score

before the act, before the blame,

before the lens pulls through the frame



to where the woman sits alone

beside a silent telephone

or the dress lies ruined on the grass

or the girl walks off the overpass,



and all things flow out from that source

along their fatal watercourse.

However bad or overlong

such a film can do no wrong,



so when his native twang shows through

or when the boom dips into view

or when her speech starts to betray

its adaptation from the play,



I think to when we opened cold

on a rain-dark gutter, running gold

with the neon of a drugstore sign,

and I’d read into its blazing line:



forget the ink, the milk, the blood—

all was washed clean with the flood

we rose up from the falling waters

the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters



and none of this, none of this matters.


Read more here

to be german(2)

and then this site...

Just because

Jeune femme denudée sur canapé

Just because you're young and beautiful,
you think time is a broken record
playing the same song over and over...

Well, beautiful one, time is more like an arrow
piercing through someone's apple
in the end everybody dies.
(But no one really gets hurt
and there will always be
true beauty, regarding us
with innocent impudence.)

to be german(1)

Link here for the artist biography

Reason

“Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought”
Karl Jaspers

"Só alcançamos a verdade do nosso pensamento quando incansávelmente nos esforçamos por pensar colocando-nos no lugar de qualquer outro.É preciso conhecer o que é possível ao homem.Se tentamos pensar sériamente aquilo que outrem pensou aumentamos as possibilidades da nossa própria verdade, mesmo que nos recusemos a esse outro pensamento.Só ousando integrar-nos totalmente nele o podemos conhecer.O mais remoto e estranho,o mais excessivo e excepcional,mesmo o aberrativo,incitam-nos a não passar ao largo da verdade por omissão de algo de original, por cegueira ou por lapso."
Karl Jaspers in "Iniciação Filosófica"
(dádiva de um amigo desconhecido)

I mean no harm

Dancers

Saw a cat jump today -
he measured the distance to cover, taking his time
then jumped with ease, stopped in midair and softly landed,
where he intended to.
Perfect balance.

Everything, everyone has its balance
You shouldn’t mess up, with anything or anyone’s
Balance.
You never know what will happen next.

over the clouds

Woods people

I love trees and moss,
to walk the silent woods, looking for the geometry of everything.
It's like being away, feeling home neverthless.

I do miss people and its works,
Blood veins, flesh and skin
Wonders of the heart, inflamable souls. Minds bigger than woods.

let's turn Manhattan into an island of joy

It was about time I posted some more Ella...

two shops

There’s this street, near my job with two shops I love :
one sells books - some music on cd and films on dvd, too
Facing it, the other shop sells flowers.
(I quite don’t know which one I like better.)

Well, in this bookshop, you are free to browse the books,
People are friendly and nice, you can sit awhile there
listen to some music, even have a coffee…
No strings attached, it’s urban and modern, civil.
The florist, I just peer at, from the outside,
They left the woodwork of the building to show
painted it in pastel colors, everything seems so nice,
out of place in the middle of the city, like in a dream
also they don’t keep the usual flowers, florists use to have here :
industrial roses, look alike gerberias, colored clones all…
They have wild flowers, a variety of tree leafs and much greenery
you think of the countryside, of things tamed and wild
but mostly good.
(I think I like this shop better.)

power and poise

I guess that with great power comes poise. You have to give great speeches, to motivate a nation, sometimes you even try to be global, to address the whole World.
You may be a Nobel prize winner, but you still have to lead the businesses of war - the business of war. It comes with the territory, this power was given you for the general good, and for the general good you deploy troops, you set a date for the coming home, the only outcome possible : a victory - because that will be the common good.
And you keep your poise.

Guess we all should keep our poise, because we are entitled to have a say in defining the common good. We decide if we still allow places where women aren't citizens and girls can't go to school, we decide if we still allow places where they can maim you, because you steal, or kill you in a barbaric fashion because you're accused of adultery.
We decide if we should consider great powers, nations where people aren’t free to voice their opinions, we decide the millions who starve, the millions who don’t have homes, because everything we do contributes to that. Our leaders decide that, they decide how materials are valued, how skills are paid or they chose to let others decide that for them, all of us decide to believe in immaterial things : the market, the market laws, the deficits, the black swans.
We should all keep our poise. We decide what’s the common good. We deploy the troops. We even are the humans in the field.

Go to Frankfurt

A true feast : Boticelli

why do some artists make the canon and others don't ?

<

In 1887 Frantisek Kupka began training as an artist at the Prague academy under Frantisek Sequens, who had been strongly influenced by the Nazarener School. In 1891 the artist transfered to the academy in Vienna, where he worked under Professor Eisenmenger until 1893. In 1894 Kupka travelled to London and Skandinavia, after which he settled in Paris in 1895. Just like Lyonel Feininger and Marcel Duchamp, Kupka started off as caricaturist and drawer. He made fashion designs, drafts for posters, illustrations for books and various satirical magazines. In 1905 Kupka moved to Puteaux in the suburbs, where he got acquainted with Jacques Villon, who introduced him to a circle of painters in 1910/11,including Marcel Duchamp, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia and others. They discussed the problems of form encountered by Cubism and Futurism as well as the connections between painting and music. Kupka's works underwent a decisive development: He became the first artist in France to move from Jugendstil to Abstraction. The acceptance of the ornament as an independent element of Jugendstil lead him to the final abandonment of the natural form. The group around Villon, who called themselves 'Section d'Or', had their first exhibition at the Paris autumn salon in 1912. Kupka exhibited his abstract pictures here, which are associated with Orphism because of their proximity to music. In 1914 he voluntarily enrolled for front-line duty at the Somme. In 1918 Frantisek Kupka accepted a post as guest professor in Prague and in 1931 he co-founded the group 'Abstraction-Création' with Hans Arp, Jean Hélion, Auguste Herbin, Georges Valmier and Georges Vantongerloo, becoming a member of the group's board. This time was also marked by important exhibitions at the 'Jeu de Paume' museum in Paris. Franisek Kupka spent the Second World War in Beaugency, returning to Puteaux immediately after the liberation. In 1946 at the occasion of his 75th birthday the artist's first major retrospective was shown in Prague. In 1955 Kupka participated in documenta I in Kassel. Kupka died in Puteaux on July 21, 1957. A year later a large-scale retrospective exhibition took place at the 'Musée d'Art Moderne' in Paris, which dedicated an entire room to Frantisek Kupka.

Things change

El Perro Semi-Hundido (1820),
Goya

Things change, things change all the time
Unnoticed, unannounced change comes to you
That’s the nature of things.

You enter this room, there’s a very bright light, white walls
A nice gentleman greets you gently, invites you to have a sit
You both go over images of the inside of your body, he’ll explain things to you
Everything will be fine. Everything always works out fine in the end.
Just you be reasonable – things change,
Just you accept it.

and now for something completely diferent...

READ THIS

young madonna at the train station

You come into the station's waiting room
with a gust of wind and a daze of water,
sit quietly by the door, you took your time to compose yourself
then and only then you lift your head, you screened the room...
Oh, it was only me, plus two old ladies on the other corner,
no one that might interest you,
your gaze turned inside, inside just like that.

Oh, but I couldn't resist admiring you for a while,
you with the most perfect lips, reminding me of strawberries
now that is high Winter, a feeling of the ripeness of Summer
Oh, I envy the one who is going to drink from those perfect lips,
Young Madonna.