På Cinemateket


Mannen på Taket (The Man on the Roof) dir. BoWiderberg (1976) / Elvira Madigan dir. Bo Widerberg (1967) /  The Trial dir. Orson Welles (1962) / Kärlek 65 (Love 65) dir. Bo Widerberg (1965) / Tabu, a Story of the South Seas dir. F.W Murnau (1931) / Los Olvidados dir. Luis Buñuel (1950) / C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in The West) dir. Sergio Leone (1968) / Death in Venice dir. Luchino Visconti (1971) /

Every Tuesday and Saturday at Spegeln cinema, runs the Malmö branch of Cinemateket - a sort of film society organized by the Swedish Film Institute, showcasing films from throughout the history of cinema - spotlighting the oeuvre of directors, actresses, or focusing on a specific theme. It has allowed me to not only watch examples of classic cinema on the large screen, but discover new favourite directors, such as Malmö's own Bo Widerberg; see films from Argentina to Scotland, from the early silent days to present offerings.
There should really be something like this in every city - it's regularity and variety means there is always something too look forward to, with the opportunity to see films you may never otherwise have had the chance to see.

Above are some posters of my favourite films seen at Cinemateket, many have become some of my all time favourites - I love leaving the cinema feeling 'so deeply moved'. I would recommend seeing any, and all of them.

At Golden Dawn

Kris djing in style in a typically flamboyant shirt at Golden Dawn, Auckland. One of the two occasions he dj-ed there during our trip. The second time also featured a tag-team cameo of Alex and I, recapturing the records in the summertime feeling of living together at Rocky's. Good times all-round.

Blå bilder




Eugene and Chris Carr fishing off the rocks / the queue of people waiting to board the ferry from Rangitoto / Kris surveying the landscape while walking towards Islington Bay, Rangitoto / reclining rods on the wharf near Okahu Bay, Tamaki Drive. Taken with a Konica C35 EF.


After months of dulling grey Malmö skies, which seem to have seeped into my head and clouded my memories of my trip to Auckland like a heavy fog, things are looking up. The Spring equinox has come and gone, officially opening the season, and with daylight savings beginning tomorrow evening and positively balmy temperatures of 14 degrees, blue skies and long light evenings loom ahead of me. And finally, showing some photos of my 6 weeks in New Zealand doesn't feel like looking at Oz from the greyscale of Malmö's Kansas.

Though the actual weather in Auckland left much to be desired (daily surprise rainfall, blustery gales,constant cloud cover) I cannot help but associate the holiday with the colour blue, spending days clambering over rocks of Rangitoto, having 2 hour swims in the sea two times a day, fishing around the rocks at Matakatia and failing to catch anything, following the bays around Tamaki Drive, kayaking on the sailfish built by my uncle and grandfather, or rowing in the dory before it mysteriously vanished from the beach one morning never to be heard of again. Fate to this day, is unknown.
I could never live anywhere that wasn't near the sea. Swimming in the rain is one of the best feelings, and so is swimming in the early morning.

Looking at these is making my feet itch, wanting to take my new Marni for H&M swimsuit down to the beach for a dip. I now have three pairs of togs, and all of them are blue. Must be something subconscious about wanting to blend into my surrounds.

Attention to detail

two works by Daan Van Golden at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, and two views of Martin Creed's installation at sketch, London.

Daan van Golden
His relatively small but diverse body of work is characterized by an acute attention to detail. References to important works from art history, as well as to less exalted images from commerce, pop-music and daily life are important components of his work. Van Golden has never been too concerned about prevailing artistic trends and has always carved a path of his own. His art does not consist of large brushstrokes, but of a much more modest gesture: his paintings are the result of a labour-intensive process, whereby a visual motive is explored in a very careful and precise manner.

Martin Creed at sketch:
Work No. 1347 consists of 96 different types of marble, in a formation of zigzagging lines across the floor, while Work No. 1343 is a new work specially made for the restaurant in which every single piece of cutlery, glassware, lamp, chair and table is different.

Attention to detail is an important thing. Something I seriously consider and take pride in with my work. While I appreciate the grand gesture, the found object, and the impersonal minimalism, there is something about labour intensive finely detailed craft which resonates with  me. Details are what give things credibility and authenticity apparently - at least this is what people praise and/or complain of in any televised period drama. The measure of something.

I like to think of details slowly building themselves up, accumulating numbers until their presence is inescapable. I strive to create a sort of push/pull effect - where the audience must step back from the work to take in the full picture, but afterwards are pulled close to see how the image is made.

It is in the details that one finds the clues in a murder mystery ("The Murder Mystery" could pretty much be a concept by which I question the meaning of life through my art practice). Red herrings too. It could just be the way a person phrases a sentence that gives the game away. I like to try and watch out for it, pick up the clues en route, and form an educated guess as to whom the perpetrator could be. It rarely, if ever happens like that however.

At this point it feels apt to admit that every single school report card given to me used the word 'diligent' in some capacity. It is a word that follows me around, and during my final year of art school, finally infiltrated my studio.

Before I used to sit on an idea, shape it like a bit of clay in my head, bolstering it with various concepts, cultural references and the like. My idea process changed while my work changed, and it took on a more insular, patient, labour-orientated facet, and all this time spent working, was also spent thinking, and both started to influence and build upon each other, and also from the music playing while this working and thinking process is going on. Hmm, sounds pretty wishy-washy. Bit new-age, 'organic'.

I guess what I am trying to with my writing these days is a similar method to working and thinking simultaneously. Trying to reach some level of clarity just by typing sentences around some of the thoughts in my head. Different ways of saying the same thing.  These days I just start writing things down/typing things out, seeing where they will lead me and how often I repeat myself.

And by-the-by, I am convinced that Van Golden's work of the young girl cartwheeling is out of sequence. Surely the 3rd and the 4th images should be switched around to give a complete cartwheel? But maybe, that is the whole point of it - that the details don't add up.

Sad songs


 Chuck Jackson's debut 1962 album was 'I don't want to cry!'. Along with Lesley Gore's debut 'I'll cry if I want to' and Steve Alaimo's 'Every day I have to cry' both released in 1963, the album featured tracks solely devoted to the subject of crying.
Not only amazing collections of misery-laden songs, the covers for these three records have to be some of the best I have seen, the expressions of sorrow on the face's of Gore and Alaimo especially perfect, while the dark Lynchian anguish on Jackson's debut seems ahead of it's time.
These three portraits would make an excellent triptych, and the track listings read like a emo's teenage poetry.


I don't want to cry! (Chuck Jackson)

I Don't Want to Cry
Tears on My Pillow
My Willow Tree
In Between Tears
Tear of the Year
I Cried for You
Lonely Teardrops
Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying
Salty Tears
I Wake Up Crying
A Tear
A Man Ain't Supposed to Cry


I'll cry if I want to (Lesley Gore)

It's My Party
Cry Me A River
Cry
Just Let Me Cry
Cry And You Cry Alone
No More Tears (Left to Cry)
Judy's Turn to Cry
I Understand
I Would
Misty
What Kind of Fool Am I?
The Party's Over


Every day I have to cry (Steve Alaimo)

Every Day I Have to Cry
I Don't Want to Cry
My Heart Cries for You
I Cried All the Way Home
Cry Me a River
I Wake Up Crying
Side 2
Cry
She Cried
Don't Cry
Cry of the Wild Goose
Cry Myself to Sleep
Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

I have been listening to a lot of Chuck Jackson recently. Perfect Saturday morning music. Though I think the time calls to this to these three collections of tearful tunes back to back, while waiting for winter to hurry up and stop trying to prolong it's stay. Sad songs and grey skies, go well together.

Lakes of Note


Have at long last been able to hang up my dear friend Claire Cooper's amazing work 'Notable Lakes part iv', a graphically compiled collation of lakes, both real and fictitious. The shapes of the Real Lakes are plotted on one side, and the Fictitious ones on the reverse (or vice versa).

I love the way the semi-transparent paper allows both sides to be visible - the overlapping of the dots creates an interesting variation in tone. After in initial quandary, I decided to hang it with those plastic poster holders, they rather exacerbate the feeling of looking at some kind of high school geography class OHP projection of how the world looked at some point in history.
It does make for an easy and painless transition from Notable 'real' Lakes to Notable 'fictitious' ones however.

Because it does look like a map. Occasionally I will look at it thinking how much lake xxv 'Taal Lake' could almost pass for Brazil. I asked Claire to send me one which she had folded, how she originally envisioned the work. The sharp creases keeps the work from being completely flat, and the poster holders do their job of helping it keep it's shape. The folds give a worn physicality to the work that the flatness and sheen of the paper would have overpowered. I think they give the work more character.

This is the second piece of art I have bought, along with my friend Ash's brilliant piece The Travelling Mime. I look forward to expanding my collection, especially with my works by my exceptionally talented friends.
I would also recommend Claire's various Internet endeavours, Olio Ataxia, as one half of Diamonds & Wood, and not to mention her War and Peace tumblr: dedicated to film stills from the 1968 mammoth adaption of Tolstoy's War and Peace and a personal fave.

EFFEMINACY - Kah Bee Chow






A few slightly blurred images from the opening of Kah Bee's masters show, Effeminacy. I was wandering through the show when a friend of mine came up to me, and as a way of saying hello queried "where's the cat?". Thinking she meant the video of internet sensation Maru, I told her about it. Only to be corrected "No, Kah Bee said there was going to be a real, live cat wandering through the show". I said I had seen no evidence of such an event, but considering Kah Bee, I wouldn't put it past her. When I found the artist, wearing a friend's baseball cap at a jaunty angle and with a long stemmed red rose between her teeth, I asked her to set the record straight on these cat rumours. KBC admitted at some point during the installation's run, a cat would feature. I really hope this was not just the opening night enthusiasm and alcohol intake talking.
With various cylindrical forms and structures covered in carpet it really is a cat-scratching haven. Or a Grecian-meets-Babylonian themed cat café, at the very least.

I noticed your walk changed as you went through the show. The layout, the scattering of objects across floors, strategically placed to dictate movement, forced the viewer to alter their gait to a delicate prowl. Almost like dance steps. One, step, two steps, pivot, crouch down to examine a video or an ikebana oasis, and up again. Repeat. You could almost feel rather cat-like yourself.

In her own words:

"When I was four years old, I came across a pack of crayons on the new lounge suite in the living room. I started testing out what the crayons could do and I learned I could leave markings on the textured upholstery of the sofa; a revelatory assignment. So I got to work that afternoon, I worked hard, attacking the surface with manic and more manic scribblings. I worked to colonize this expansive territory, smearing waxy residue over the entire set of furniture. I would use up one crayon, move onto another and another. It was exhilarating work. I had found my calling.

When my father returned home from work, I don’t recall what happened immediately after – but suffice to say, I didn’t anticipate the response that would come. At some point, I was placed outside the House. I clutched onto the grill of the gate outside our home, wailing like the banished offspring of an all-powerful God.
When I was finally allowed back into our house, I remember my father’s back turned towards me. He didn’t have a shirt on, he was on his knees, sweating profusely, scrubbing the sofa with his life."

and

"I channel the savages when I eat watermelons. Oranges also. They taste better when your teeth tear the flesh off the rind; puncturing the sacs so the juices run and collect into a pool inside your mouth. It doesn’t work with a mediocre orange. I once read: “We love beauty within the limits of political judgment, and we philosophize without the barbarian vice of effeminacy."


Barbarian vice of effeminacy: imagine this paradoxical compatibility.


Effeminacy pours from an excess of refinement not reined in by a soundness of thinking; it rings of aristocratic overkill, a persistent, eternal infantilism afforded by privilege. How does the barbarian; the cannibal fall for the effeminate? Where do they even meet? I could not draw a line around a territory, not because one belongs on the outside and the other within, but because they operate as a kind of corrupting impulse; their shared lack of restraint comes to surface but eludes arrest. They don’t meet up for coffee and they don’t scope out each other’s Facebook profiles; they are criminals on the run, they go chasing waterfalls."



Colour field



Multi-coloured: home-made chorizo pizza on handmade oven towels, and a wooden puzzle of the British Royal family - King George V and Queen Mary of Teck. The puzzle was deceptively hard, as none of the pieces were cut in the same manner - just a series of bizarre splotches of colour. Wonderfully, the maker had deemed it inappropriate that a member of the Royal Family should be subjected to half a face on a puzzle piece, therefore all heads are given their own complete piece, and the rest of the pieces sort of congregate around them. It makes one think that the design for these pieces was most likely done by hand.

Pizza devoured and puzzle completed while staying at my Granny's apartment (note the Focus de Luxe cutlery).
It feels as though my summer holiday pursuits nearly solely consisted of eating delicious food, drinking New Zealand beers, swimming, rowing, reading and puzzling.

Doing things







I finally bought a new bicycle this weekend. It is rather splendid actually, as you can see above, a lovely 'pearl blue' they call it. Goes like a dream, and is long awaited. I have spent two years riding around on a trusty Crescent mini-bike, which I had become quite attached to, but knew it was time for an up-grade and an up-size. Bizarrely, in one of those moments which make you start to believe in conspiracy theories, after having purchased my new set of wheels from the small and quaint corner bicycle store Abrahams Cykel, I returned to my faithful old mini-bike only to discover it's back wheel had completely deflated. Flat as a pancake. It was as if it now knew it was surplus to requirements. Without my new bike I would have had a long defeated walk back home in the rain. Fate? I think so.

While in New Zealand I irreparably tore my favourite shirt - a vintage Liberty print cotton number found at Spitalfields Market in London. I still have the mentality of 'going out clothes' ingrained in me, and I have a reluctance to wear my best threads for anything but a special occasion. For some reason, it is always my best clothes that I rip, pill, stain or burn - usually when I am trying my hardest to look after them. I bought this paisley patterned shirt from Weekday yesterday - attracted by the monotone feel in such a busy pattern. It is probably the loudest shirt I own. I have discovered (decided?) that patterns don't feature prominently in my wardrobe, I motion towards single coloured/plain items, with the idea to 'jazz them up' with silk scarves and interesting jewellery (otherwise known during daylight hours as my work lanyard with my library ID card on it). I am rather 'digging' this psychedelic shirt though - will most likely be placed on the going out clothes list to avoid any clashes with the aforementioned lanyard.

Went to Malmö Konsthall last weekend to check out the exhibition of Swedish artist Gerhard Nordström, and was struck by his remarkable ability to paint leaves. The works were large, made of multiple panels, oil on hardboard perhaps. The leaves appeared sharply in focus from a distance, only blurring into painterly marks as one edge towards the painting. Light and shade were rendered deftly in the dappled foliage, so many different shades of greens, and yellows, never blacks. I can imagine Nordström with an easel painting en plein air, deciding 'Today, I will only paint leaves' as a way to test his skill and hone his craft, a painterly equivalent of scales on the piano. (writing this I am reminded of a part of Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, along similar lines.)

And when I am not riding my bike, buying clothes or looking at art, I am working on my embroidery. A busy pattern, white on white, the stitches sort of my way of painting leaves, steadily built up into a greater mass.

Interiors (Sweden)



A few views of our new room, main feature our new multi-purpose Ikea book shelf/desk unit. Kris's old lamp, a classic 1970's design by Anders Pehrson for Ateljé Lyktan called 'Tube' has pride of place.

The room has two large windows with both bamboo rolling blinds and a lucky find of some perfect sized second hand curtains in a rather thick luxurious fabric. (I don't want to be awakened at 3am every morning during summer with glaring sunlight, when sunrise is early and streams through our eastward facing windows. However, during winter it has been a pleasant wake up call, when the sun doesn't rise often before 8am.)

In one corner Kris displays his his collection of guitars, he took an acoustic one from his parent's house upon which to teach, but no evidence of this has yet eventuated. Diagonally opposite is a bookshelf housing his vinyl collection, with maybe a dozen of my own slotted in at the end. Moving countries requires much downsizing and I have not started to rebuild what records I had except for somehow finding 4 Fleetwood Mac records, and miraculously, the self-titled debut of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which at the moment rests in front of all the others so I can glance over at it and not believe my luck.

Above the secretary which I adopted from the kitchen hang an embroidery Granny made for me, and one I made for her. It is nice to have a piece of furniture where I can put my knick-knacks and jewellery and such, and then fold the top up to keep secure all the daily detritus I deem important in spilling over.

It is strange looking critically at the room sometimes and realising how few possession I have accumulated, even after two years of living here. Yet I don't feel like I am lacking much (saying that, I would like to funnel some of the funds I currently spend of clothing into other endeavours: books, records, paintings and drawings, nice plates, jewellery.) When I think of my room in New Zealand, I can remember having so much stuff, but hardly any particular objects spring to mind.

Interiors (New Zealand)



Seeing where people live, how they display their possessions and what to them makes a livable and harmonious environment are a never-ceasing area of interest. I think my extended family have always had impeccable interiors, successfully reflecting their personalities and aesthetics.

Granny's flat, complete with many amazing artworks installed Salon-style. There was nearly no free wall space, every available square inch utilized for displaying her collection.  Staying here for one week while in NZ made me fully appreciate framing works/pictures, and I have been scouring second-hand shops in Malmö hunting down suitable frames with which to house my few prints and drawings, mainly done by myself.

Harriet and Chris' living room at their flat in Onehunga. A great mix of leather, lacquer and vinyl. Wooden floors, wooden walls, open brick fireplace. The best thing about houses in NZ is the abundance of wood, something sorely missing in our Swedish apartment. Swedish apartments have lots of things going for them - double glazed windows, central heating, ornately plastered ceilings - but linoleum floors and concrete walls are not the best sometimes.

Both these interiors made an impression on me, knowing as I did, that after my holiday in NZ we would be moving rooms to the largest on the in flat, complete with walk-in wardrobe and an opportunity to arrange and rearrange my still rather meagre but slowly growing collection of possessions presented itself.

A trick of the light

It's not often an idea or an artwork will stop me in my internet/google reader trawling, but whenever it does it is always instantly rewarding and I (metaphorically) give myself a withering look and disappointedly shake my head, wondering why I don't make more of an effort.
Via Junkculture I stumbled upon these remarkable photographs of Antarctic icescapes, by Belgian architect  Francois Delfosse, deftly created with simply a plastic bag and some clever lighting. The trick with the scale is beguiling - I originally saw these as a sort of large scale sculptural installation: as if the plastic had frozen and gallery goers were free to traverse it.
And as one commentator noted on Delfosse's flickr, it is reminiscent of the crevasse Tintin falls into in 'Tintin in Tibet' - the bowels of the icy abyss illustrated by Hergé in blues, greys, purples and blacks.

On his website a series of postcards are available, including the series of Antarctic 'scapes, and a particularly wonderful image of the Bermuda Islands, as a quavering mirage. I especially like the way the dark, faceted and enclosed plastic bag Antarctica series feel when juxtaposed against the flat, one-hued and sparse open water surrounding the scarcely visible islands. I also have no idea of its 'authenticity', and I think I prefer to keep it that way.

I am always interested in people who appear to share interests of my own, ongoing projects which have been on a bit of a back burner of late involve both icy landscapes and mirages, in however a non-photographic capacity. I also seem to have compiled a large amount of primarily blue postcards, in particular from New Zealand, which I am wanting to do something with, but may also have to add these three images to the growing pile.

Focus de luxe



Swedish designer Folke Arström's stainless steel cutlery "Focus de luxe".

I scanned this image at work from a book about Swedish Industrial Design which was to be inter-loaned.
I was flicking through it hoping to find an image of the cutlery set my Granny had.

And all of a sudden, there they were.

Originally introduced at the H55 architecture and design exhibition in Helsingborg, the cutlery has been back in production since 2006, and would be a wonderful merging of beautiful design, Sweden, and happy memories of dining in style with my grandmother, should I purchase a set.

A blue island in a red desert









































"Once there was a girl on an island. She was bored with grown ups, who scared her. She didn't like boys, all pretending to be grown ups. So, she was always alone. Among the cormorants, the seagulls, and wild rabbits. She had found a little isolated beach where the sea was transparent and the sand pink. She loved that spot. Nature's colours were so lovely and there was no sound. She left when the sun went down.
One morning, a boat appeared. Not one of the usual boats, a real sailing ship, one of those that braved the seas and the storms of this world. And, who knows... of other worlds. From afar, it looked splendid. As it approached, it became mysterious. She saw no one aboard. It stopped a while, then veered and sailed away. She was used to peoples' strange ways and was not surprised. But no sooner back on shore ... there! (sound of singing). All right for one mystery, but not two!
- who was singing?
The beach was deserted. But the voice was there, now near, now far. Then it seemed to come from the sea, an inlet among the rocks, many rocks that she had never realised looked like flesh. And the voice at that point was so sweet."
- who was singing?
"Everybody. Everything."

Story from Michelangelo Antonioni's sumptuous 1964 colour film 'Il Deserto Rosso'.
I wrote this passage down in my journal after watching Il Deserto Rosso last year, the use of the vignette in the narrative, it's contents, imagery and tone all reflected similar thoughts I had about a series I am working on at present. I enjoy taking the time to take down something in my own hand, to go back and reread.
Also, I think the people's handwriting will be completely illegible in twenty years.

Malmö - grey city





Photographs taken around Malmö by Kris and I at the beginning of December. Taken with our new Konica C35 EF camera - picked up at a 2nd hand store (that kind of new), making a pleasant change from the safety net that is documenting in digital.
Above are snapshots of various local landmarks and such - Margaretapaviljongen in Pildammsparken; the Rose Fountain in Folkets Park; our street - with a couple of those windows being our apartment; Kris taking a constitutional in Pildammsparken; Kronprinsen - covered in a mosaic of millions of tiny blue tiles; and a self portrait riding the elevator at work.

I am intrigued as to see how the roles of film we took whilst holidaying in New Zealand turned out. (And if my photography skills have improved to a commendable level).While the camera seems to cope admirably with the greyness of a wintery Malmö, I am not sure how it has done with the overbearing brightness of New Zealand in full summer swing (maybe it was fortuitous that it rained almost the entire time we were there.)

You can find the rest of the roll on Kris's flickr.

Foliage Flourish


It is not uncommon these days to come across an installation of a young artist complete with the cursory gesture of the placement of an overly-considered potted plant - usually derided in my eyes as some sort of counter-balance to the generic minimalist neutral hued rectangular forms which staidly take up space.

These images though hark back to the days where the foliage was not necessarily part of the art but part of the atmosphere. Carefully cultivated plants used to litter the Walker Arts Center, sometimes appearing so out of place it makes you wonder if they were not 'planted' there by rogue Intervention Artists.

It does have an interesting effect however - some of the photos grouped together from the Walker Archives could be mistaken for foyers and waiting rooms of upper crust lawyers. It is also rather fascinating how the presence of the plants seem to fulfill the absence of an audience in most of the images - they take on a sort of personality, having heavy handed critiques in corners, or sidling up to a painting for a closer inspection of the brushstrokes.

Just like ash trays in libraries and Benson & Hedges sponsoring cricket, I can't see pot plants in galleries making a comeback in the near future. However, I will be moving into a new room this weekend, giving me the space and the opportunity to install a few artworks by friends I picked up last year, alongside a well placed potted plant to keep them company.

more images and a little background info about 'Plant as Decorative Element in a Gallery' on Off Center.

Enlarge

click image to enlarge

On Thursday I am flying out of Copenhagen Airport to Dubai International Airport, en route to an idyllic holiday in New Zealand. Dubai International's Terminal 3 building is one of the largest buildings in the world by floor space - and here is how the airport looked in 1965.

Share and Share Alike

 




Animals upon each other, an image from a wall of an old shoemakers in Santiago, Chile / James Franco wearing a Sal Mineo t-shirt, as part of his project Rebel at Art Basel Miami in collab with Ed Ruscha, Douglas Gordon, Paul McCarthy, Harmony Corine (who took this photo) and others / a 1972 postcard of 'Kvarteret Korpen', a street block made famous by Malmö's resident auteur (and my now favourite director) Bo Widerberg in his 1963 film of the same name. The original 1930's block was torn down and this seaweed green and dirty white monstrosity was erected in its place. Every block in Malmö is named, Kvarteret Korpen meaning 'The raven block/quarter'. My apartment is only two blocks up the road in Kvarteret Kråkan' (the crow block) / Pablo Picasso in a backwards bull head /

Karen Barbé . 01 Magazine . Famgus Vykort . Miss Moss .

If I could still share things on Google Reader, maybe I would have shared these. Just a collection of images that have caught my eye, or reflect my surroundings and thoughts on things