The odd man out

The goal keeper is the oddity in a football team : it’s the only player that during the game can use all of his body, including his hands to play, also he’s the only one that during a game, spends most of his time confined to a delimited zone of the pitch, the penalty area. Like the goal he defends, he is somehow a target himself.
I used to play football all the time and there was always something in the goalie that strike him as a different breed from the rest of us - a different kind not only of player, but also of person. He could be either the craziest on the bunch, or the coolest of us all, the wise man or the joker…no middle ground for this guys.

…..xxx…..

Pain is a big, dark wall that imposes itself between you and the world.
You’re a small vehicle going through a starless night in hostile country. One thing you’re sure of - you got leave there soon.
Looking for comfort, that’s all you can think of.

…..xxx…..

You are alone in the goal area and a big guy is coming fast at you, you’re pretty sure he’s going to strike the ball at you with all his might, somehow you try to get his eyes, you make yourself bigger, you try to look huge, hide the goal from his sight, your body is all he can see, you even use a strident colored sweater as to attract attention…you do your best, but he has the ball and he is free from pressure, he’s an experienced guy, he knows he can beat you…
He’s a young one, he’s quick but he’s overjoyed and he believes in his soul that free from the defenders, he has just to quick hard to get the ball through you…
You get the ball, you saved a certain goal…you don’t get the ball, the guy scored, either way he’s the one making the news later, on account of his skill or his lack of it, you’re just not news.
Well, you can get into the news, if you do manage to get badly injured, for instance having your skull bone kicked in by an over rushed, over roused striker…

…..xxx…..

Some things you can’t share, some things you just can say out loud, you keep them to yourself, bury them inside your heart. You’re one of the guys, you can follow them everywhere you have to go, you even have the guts to lead them - when they’re feeling down, when they’re beat and conceding defeat, you shout at them : “Go on you punks, you motherfuckers, show them you have balls, we can do it…we can do it, just you help me.” and you kick the ball deep into the other team’s defense.
You play along, but there’s this cloud inside you, sometimes you even lose track of the game : “- Jesus, how did they get here so fast ?”.

…..xxx…..


A goalie is ready to die any day, he has to stand still over the goal line and wait for the penalty. He has to let go, take a deep breath go into the net, grab the ball kick it away…the game is not over, it will start again, till you lose the will to play.

…..xxx…..

Robert Enke (24 August 1977 — 10 November 2009 was a German football goalkeeper.

Enke played at leading clubs in several European countries, namely Barcelona, Benfica and Fenerbahçe, but made the majority of his appearances for Bundesliga side Hannover 96 in his homeland.

He won eight full international caps for the German national team between 2007 and his death in 2009, and was part of the squad which finished as runners-up in Euro 2008. At the time of his death, he was widely considered to be a leading contender for the German number one spot at the 2010 World Cup.

On the 10 November 2009, Enke committed suicide by leaping in front of a train.

the golden age of spanish painting

If you can, read this, please

Nubes de un cielo que no cambia

"Algún día seré el guardián / de tus paisajes desaparecidos, / en la fiesta de pétalos, / de luz / en los orgasmos que no vivo".

Oda

Oda a la cebolla

Cebolla,
luminosa redoma,
pétalo a pétalo
se formó tu hermosura,
escamas de cristal te acrecentaron
y en el secreto de la tierra oscura
se redondeó tu vientre de rocío.
Bajo la tierra
fue el milagro
y cuando apareció
tu torpe tallo verde,
y nacieron
tus hojas como espadas en el huerto,
la tierra acumuló su poderío
mostrando tu desnuda transparencia,
y como en Afrodita el mar remoto
duplicó la magnolia
levantando sus senos,
la tierra
así te hizo,
cebolla,
clara como un planeta,
y destinada
a relucir,
constelación constante,
redonda rosa de agua,
sobre
la mesa
de las pobres gentes.

Generosa
deshaces
tu globo de frescura
en la consumación
ferviente de la olla,
y el jirón de cristal
al calor encendido del aceite
se transforma en rizada pluma de oro.

También recordaré cómo fecunda
tu influencia el amor de la ensalada
y parece que el cielo contribuye
dándote fina forma de granizo
a celebrar tu claridad picada
sobre los hemisferios de un tomate.
Pero al alcance
de las manos del pueblo,
regada con aceite,
espolvoreada
con un poco de sal,
matas el hambre,
del jornalero en el duro camino.
Estrella de los pobres,
hada madrina
envuelta
en delicado
papel, sales del suelo,
eterna, intacta, pura
como semilla de astro,
y al cortarte
el cuchillo en la cocina
sube la única lágrima
sin pena.
Nos hiciste llorar sin afligirnos.

Yo cuanto existe celebré, cebolla,
pero para mí eres
más hermosa que una ave
de plumas cegadoras,
eres para mis ojos
globo celeste, copa de platino,
baile inmóvil
de anémona nevada

y vive la fragancia de la tierra
en tu naturaleza cristalina.

De Odas elementales (1954) - Pablo Neruda

blow it open

Postscript


And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open

Mama !

Colic

renal colic,
sharp, severe pain in the lower back over the kidney, radiating forward into the groin. Renal colic usually accompanies forcible dilation of a ureter, followed by spasm as a stone is lodged or passed through it. See also urinary calculus.
Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

Holden Caulfield

J.D.Salinger, texts



if you get as far as here, read also this

Art sale

Escrevi ao pintor : - Tenho pouco dinheiro, gosto do quadro, o que se pode arranjar ?
Ele respondeu-me : - Lamento já o vendi ao galerista, arranje com ele, deve ser possível adquiri-lo em prestações...
Entretanto, enviou-me uma reprodução do mesmo, o que me fez ficar-lhe muito grato.

commute

The kid sitting in front of me tries to write a song, in a furious tempo that he beats with is right leg. Facing him is a beautiful young girl, trying hard just to have a little more sleep…Oh, Morpheus…
Soon, I have to climb the stairs that bring me to the glaring morning sun and the large avenue, in it, another long, listless day…

(have you noticed that commuters, do tend to be mute ?)

No - wait...

João Penalva

Photos, videos, installations

Portuguese-born London-based João Penalva’s large-scale retrospective is a selection of works reflecting on a number of his artistic considerations together with the approaches and strategies he applies.
Penalva started his career at the beginning of the 1970’s as a dancer. From 1970 to 1973 he studied ballet, the Graham and the Cunningham techniques at the London Contemporary Dance School, later he worked with choreographer Jean Pomares and then with Pina Bausch. Influenced by Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg and Beuys among many others in the beginning, he has been engaged in the visual arts since 1976. At that time he exclusively painted, later texts and narrativity became fundamental and inseparable parts of his art.
It seems that the specificity of Penalva’s work lies in the exuberant application of written and oral texts. Tracing the visual and verbal evidences he, as an artist, guides his viewers through and thus makes them aware of the role they play as interpretators, of the subjectivity of their approaches and of the necessarily fragmentary nature of reception.
The group of works in the exhibition creates for one another the context in which the viewer will inevitably raise the question of authenticity after a while. Listening to and reading these stories one seems to arrive at the next page of a collection of short stories rather than perciving the static images of an exhibition space. The question is then whether these stories are true and if yes, to what an extent? Unlike reading a novel where you would not ask Who is this Madame Bovary actually?
The way Penalva uses various references to visuality and the history of representation makes the viewer aware once again of the culturally determined and coded nature of the „gaze”.
“If it looks like Kurosawa it does so because you hear the language of a Kurosawa film. But if I were to use the same image with the voices of Swedish actors, Bergman would be your cultural reference and you would immediately identify it as unmistakably Swedish…” (João Penalva)

www.ludwigmuseum.hu

Gosto

Ricardo Leite

I'm feeling lucky...

Twilight

Carlos Irijalba, (Spain, 1979) presents us with an exhibition about the way in which Western culture builds reality through the use of artificial light. In Twilight, Irijalba relocates a light tower from a football camp to one of the last rainforests of Europe, between Spain and France. The focus shifts away from the habitually illuminated scene, to the intentionally hidden one. The artist generates an amalgam of contrasts: western culture, which reconstructs reality with lighting effects with eastern concepts that are more aware of shadows. We are faced with a critique of the society of the spectacle, the insignificance, the noise and the general conformity that dominates contemporary culture.

Carlos Irijalba has recently returned from an artist residency in Beijing. He has received many grants and awards, including the Guggenheim Photography Scholarship, the First Purificación Garcia Photography Award and the Marcelino Botin Foundation Grant. He graduated in 1998 from the Pamplona School of Art and continued his training at the University of the Basque Country where he obtained his Fine Arts degree. He also studied in Berlin at the Universität der Kunst with Professor Lothar Baumgarten and is currently at a residency at ISCP New York. His work is included in public collections such as the Coca Cola Foundation, the Artium Contemporary Art Museum of Vitoria, the IVAM, Spain, among others. He has exhibited throughout Europe, New York, Tokyo and Beijing and this will be his first solo show in Miami.

Dina Mitrani Gallery opened in November 2008 and specializes in international contemporary photography. The gallery currently represents eight emerging and mid-career artists and will be offering a lecture series and photo-based books. The gallery is committed to promoting its artists, as well as working with independent curators to produce unique group exhibitions.

For more information, please contact dinamitrani@gmail.com.

Antígona

Frederic Leighton (British, 1830-1896)

Antigone

Painting Date: 1882

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 23 3/4 x 19 1/2 in (58.5 x 50 cm)