pompidou dreamlands
05 July, 2010
28 April, 2010
Edvard Munch – The Anti-Scream
Munch was an artist inspired by literature and poetry but drawn to macabre moments of illness and death. The women wear ghoulish expressions, looking out from dark recesses of eyes where circles traced and retraced wear deep into the paper.
He painted alfresco amid the fjords and hills, mirror-like reflections in bodies of water later replaced with violent brushstrokes and buildings like cages when alcohol became his muse. Layer upon layer of each painting was a beginning from which coats were removed attributing a superimposed quality is to his work.
19 April, 2010
They Dance
I haven’t stopped since last Friday when Femi Kuti and the Positive Force performed in St Germain en Laye. For a week I’ve been dancing around my living room to the jazzy Afro beat. When a concert really sinks in by the end everyone is moving together, driven by the force of the music. And the waves that pulsed through the crowd are summoned even now as I listen.
When the Positive Force took the stage at the cozy black-box venue of La Clef they started slow letting the audience warm up with them. People are reserved in France, at restaurants they speak in whispers to avoid disturbing surrounding tables so it goes without saying they don’t dance much. Instead, when the music really speaks to them heads bob or feet are tapped to keep the time, however, they refrain from engaging shoulders or rears for fear of looking ridiculous.
The horn, guitar and keyboard players dressed in matching pastel polyester resembled a 70’s Caribbean band while the three ample-figured women singing back-up were clothed in tribal skirts of fringe, black of skin peeking out from sashes of bead and faces painted in dots and lines. Slowly led into the rhythm by their undulations to even the jazziest of birdsong the crowd was enticed to move.
When he laid down his horn and sung a sermon unfolded, of presidents with too much power, of the riches of Africa, of happiness. And why weren’t we happy in France, he wanted to know, always on strike. When the power was taken away from the kings we shouldn’t have stopped in our country because those same men still prevail in Africa today. “I want you to do something for me. I want you to do something for yourself. You better ask yourself why the richest continent get the poorest of the people,” he sang. “Al-la-la-la-la,” the call and the response.
I revelled in it all. Sometimes, in moments under wide blue of sky listening to the music of tree branch waverings I declare nature my church, but it was the music that spoke to me that night. He raised his voice and kept time with a hand that pumped fast as a piston. The climax of the night before the lights went down Beng, Beng, Beng. “She said love me, don’t stop. Don’t move too slow.” And we didn’t danced to a frenzy.
I haven’t stopped since last Friday when Femi Kuti and the Positive Force performed in St Germain en Laye. For a week I’ve been dancing around my living room to the jazzy Afro beat. When a concert really sinks in by the end everyone is moving together, driven by the force of the music. And the waves that pulsed through the crowd are summoned even now as I listen.
When the Positive Force took the stage at the cozy black-box venue of La Clef they started slow letting the audience warm up with them. People are reserved in France, at restaurants they speak in whispers to avoid disturbing surrounding tables so it goes without saying they don’t dance much. Instead, when the music really speaks to them heads bob or feet are tapped to keep the time, however, they refrain from engaging shoulders or rears for fear of looking ridiculous.
The horn, guitar and keyboard players dressed in matching pastel polyester resembled a 70’s Caribbean band while the three ample-figured women singing back-up were clothed in tribal skirts of fringe, black of skin peeking out from sashes of bead and faces painted in dots and lines. Slowly led into the rhythm by their undulations to even the jazziest of birdsong the crowd was enticed to move.
When he laid down his horn and sung a sermon unfolded, of presidents with too much power, of the riches of Africa, of happiness. And why weren’t we happy in France, he wanted to know, always on strike. When the power was taken away from the kings we shouldn’t have stopped in our country because those same men still prevail in Africa today. “I want you to do something for me. I want you to do something for yourself. You better ask yourself why the richest continent get the poorest of the people,” he sang. “Al-la-la-la-la,” the call and the response.
I revelled in it all. Sometimes, in moments under wide blue of sky listening to the music of tree branch waverings I declare nature my church, but it was the music that spoke to me that night. He raised his voice and kept time with a hand that pumped fast as a piston. The climax of the night before the lights went down Beng, Beng, Beng. “She said love me, don’t stop. Don’t move too slow.” And we didn’t danced to a frenzy.
31 January, 2010
James Ensor 1850-1949 Belgium
I sympathised with his inability to take criticism. We are so quick to judge. Isn’t it enough to just have painted or written something for yourself?
He didn’t enjoy comparisons to the Impressionists seeing his Expressionism as aloof, but thick slathers of beige sky framed seascapes that court the same distortion of line present in their work.
Canvases that mark the pinnacle of Ensor’s career: the macabre scenes of masked personages and skeletons represent an exaggerated reality of vanity and absurdity. They wore delirious expressions like the absinthe drunk of Lautrec and Van Gough’s canvases that radiate green and reminded me of the Grateful Dead’s album covers, all skulls and roses.
The masks, double edged, present one image when another lies underneath. In this incarnation his ego was protected from the criticism that wounded him. “I like these masks because they offended the public who received me so badly.”
I sympathised with his inability to take criticism. We are so quick to judge. Isn’t it enough to just have painted or written something for yourself?
24 January, 2010
Erik Truffaz & Sly Johnson's - Sunday Afternoon Jam
In comfy theater seats on a winter's afternoon we watched as they wove a web of music. Traffaz's trumpet echoing Miles and the acid jazz of the 70's. Philippe Garcia laying down dub beats that changed everything. Layers upon layers, differnet loops were incorporated. Then Sly Johnson would begin and break the trance beboxing, singing soulful verses and scratching records in his mouth. Sunday bliss!!
In comfy theater seats on a winter's afternoon we watched as they wove a web of music. Traffaz's trumpet echoing Miles and the acid jazz of the 70's. Philippe Garcia laying down dub beats that changed everything. Layers upon layers, differnet loops were incorporated. Then Sly Johnson would begin and break the trance beboxing, singing soulful verses and scratching records in his mouth. Sunday bliss!!
13 December, 2009
There is an urgency to the shopping on Boulevard Haussmann but outside Printemps, Paris’ oldest and largest department store, crowds assemble around each window. Russian stacking dolls open and close rhythmically, in the dead of the forest a table is laid in the finest crystal and women in beaded gowns promenade with fur coated animals. Amid the crowd, in repurposed shopping carts roasted chestnut are peddled by the cone full.
15 November, 2009
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