Juarez Machado : a bit outré!?

I like the art of Juarez Machado, provactive, stylish and definitely sexy. The following text has an interesting use of english in french ("elle est trop hard" which roughly equates to the English expressing "a bit outré")

JUAREZ MACHADO ET LA FERIA DE BEZIERS

lundi 27 juillet 2009  Actu  Alerter la modération

Les autorités muncipales de Béziers ont refusé la proposition du Galeriste Pierre Pastre qui leur proposait pour affiche de la Féria de Beziers cette superbe oeuvre du célèbre peintre brésilien Juarez Machado. Motif invoqué : elle est trop hard. Chacun appréciera.et au besoin rira, car l'affiche acceptée au lieu et place, due à  l'imagination de Jean Nouvel a du être placardisée au lieu d'être affichée, le publiciste ayant utilisé sans son accord l'image du rugbyman Chaval qui a fort mal pris la chose. Résultat : Toutes les affiches ont du être détruites devant huissier? Qui de quatre palettes de tee shirts qui ont fini déchiquetés, broyés, compactés et de 50.000 programmes officiels qui ont du être pilonnés. Quant à la toile de Machado, elle a trouvé acheteur pour...un bon prix.

Ci dessous  l'oeuvre de Juarez Machado

http://blog.francetv.fr/MOTAMOT/index.php/2009/07/27/133687-juarez-machado-et-la-feria-de-beziers

It is an amusing story too!

outré |oōˈtrā|

adjective

unusual and startling : in 1975 the suggestion was considered outré—today it is orthodox.

ORIGIN French, literally ‘exceeded,’ past participle of outrer (see outrage ).

I love Brighton

This is one of my favourite photo's of 2009... Brunswick Square in the sunshine, the bright red colours, Myriam looking radiant and my boyfriend's new hair cut which make's me think of the 80s and the Thompson Twins:

In 1977, the original Thompson Twins line-up consisted of Tom Bailey (born 18 January 1954, Halifax, Yorkshire[3]) on bass and vocals, Pete Dodd on guitar and vocals, John Roog on guitar, and Jon Podgorski (known as "Pod") on drums.[4] Dodd and Roog first met when they were both 13 years old.

Arriving in London with very little money, they lived as squatters in Lillieshall Road, London. Future Thompson Twins member Alannah Currie lived in another squat in the same street — which is how she met Bailey. It was in this ramshackle and run-down house that they found an illegal way of "borrowing" electricity from the house next door. Bailey described themselves (laughingly) as "spongers" (meaning parasites) back then, as they were living on very little and scavenging everything they could lay their hands on. He even said that the only instruments they had were bought, or had been "stolen or borrowed". Dodd managed to get a council flat not far away. Their roadie at that time was John Hade, who lived in the same house, and who later became their manager...

At the end of 1983, a new single, "Hold Me Now", was released. The song was an international chart success, peaking at #3 in the US in the spring of 1984, becoming their biggest American hit,[7] and also hitting #4 in their native UK where it became the band's biggest seller earning a gold disc.[11] Further hit singles followed in 1984 with two UK Top 3 hits; "Doctor! Doctor!" and "You Take Me Up" (which reached #2, their highest UK chart placing,[2] and earned a silver disc).[12] Further singles included a new version of the album track "Sister of Mercy", and "The Gap" (though this was not released in the UK). The corresponding album, Into the Gap, was one of the biggest sellers of 1984, selling five million copies worldwide and topping the UK Albums Chart.[2] The band also embarked on a world tour in support of the album.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_Twins

radiant |ˈrādēənt|adjective1 sending out light; shining or glowing brightly : a bird with radiant green and red plumage. See note at bright .• (of a person or their expression) clearly emanating great joy, love, or health : she gave him a radiant smile.• (of an emotion or quality) emanating powerfully from someone or something; very intense or conspicuous : he praised her radiant self-confidence.2 [ attrib. ] (of heat) transmitted by radiation, rather than conduction or convection.• (of an appliance) designed to emit such energy, esp. for cooking or heating.

Royal Academy's Wild Thing: Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska & Gill

After a very nice coffee and chocolare brownie in the Royal Academies members room watching the snow fall, we proceeded to the exhbition of three of the great artists/sculptors of the 20th century. 

Probably Epstein and his rock drill are better known than Eric Gill, both are better known than ....

Seeing Epstein's Rock Drill scultpture in it's full glory was dramatic. I have sense the torse version before in the Tate, which is very striking on it own; especially when you realises that this peace is now nearly 100 years old.

My image of Eric Gill was rather shattered by mother's revelations regarding his terrible, private life. This was totally at odds with the image I had of Gill. His drawing are beautiful, his calligraphy/very fine pen work are distinctive and his naturalistic/romantic full-breasted mother and child stone statues are absolutely adorable. However his private life, despite an appearance of being religious was depressingly awful, as mother pointed out - "you wished you didn't know about him".

The suprise highlights for me were the work's of Gaudier-Brzeska and the images of Ezra Pound:

The exhibition contains more than 90 works featuring mainly sculptures, drawings and pastels. With rooms dedicated to the work of each sculptor the exhibition focuses on the key achievements of each artist and reveals their impact on British sculpture. The show brings together spectacular works, including Epstein’s robotic masterpiece Rock Drill, Gaudier-Brzeska’s innovative carving of Birds Erect, and Gill’s controversial carving of the sexual act called Ecstasy.

The title of this exhibition is taken from the American poet Ezra Pound, who vividly remembered meeting Henri Gaudier-Brzeska for the first time in 1913. Pound was impressed by the young Frenchman, and likened him to “a well-made young wolf or some soft-moving, bright-eyed wild thing.” But those last two words also sum up the feisty and daring spirit of rebellion driving the young Jacob Epstein and Eric Gill.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/wild-thing-epstein-gaudier-brzeska-gill/

It is tradgic to think that  Gaudier-Brzeska talents were lost in the first World War.

White heat - Meng Yang Pan

I recently spent a very pleasant short break in London with my mother.

The lunch time piano concert by the superbly talented Meng Yang Pan, she played with breath taking fluency and passion. It was incredible to see such a perfect and skilled performance. 

The music: Scarlatti, Haydn, Poulence and Liszt was varied from the gentle and melodic to the crashing complex cords of Liszt. My mother commented that she didn't look heavy enough to have played this last piece. Her whole body and in particular were very expressive as she throw herself into this work body and soul.

I really was quite breath-taking to see such a powerful young talent perform at her very peak. 

Watching her perform, I was reminded about a recent article about measuring brain activity in an MRI scanning. The article compared popular past times and activities like go to the gym, having a drink, ... not surprisingly top of this "pop chart" was sex.. However watching this incredibly intense performance I couldn't help feel that her level of engagement was off the scale and it made wonder if the "white heat" generated by a top perform must be hard to rival in their person relationships. I could help wondering if being "better than sex" might also be a bit of a burden?

The setting - St James Church Piccadilly is a beautiful old church with lovely stained glass windows and fine carvings and fittings. According to Mum, it was a "Wren Church".

Feel the pain (Empathie extrême?)

This is an interesting story about MRI scans demonstrating that some of us really do "feel the pain"

Deux chercheurs britanniques, Jody Osborn et Stuart Derbyshire, de l'École de psychologie de l'Université de Birmingham, pensent maintenant l'avoir vérifié scientifiquement.

Ils ont exposé 108 participants à une série d'images de situations douloureuses, comme des athlètes blessés ou des patients recevant une injection. Ils ont utilisé la technique d'imagerie à résonance magnétique qui permet d'étudier le fonctionnement du cerveau en observant les régions cérébrales activées lors d'une tâche ou d'une émotion.

Environ le tiers des sujets ont dit avoir non seulement ressenti une émotion au moins sur une image, mais aussi avoir vite ressenti une douleur à l'endroit exact de la blessure.

Watching horror movies makes me quite sick... "Antichrist" (Lars von Trier) was truly terrible (except I liked the idea that the woman was the evil character and the man/husband was the victim).

empathie

nom féminin
(calque de l'allemand Einfühlung)

• Faculté intuitive de se mettre à la place d'autrui, de percevoir ce qu'il ressent.

Oedipus and climate change

The idea that the Oedipus myth also has a link between the quality of the land and the quality of the ruling class intrigued me:

Natasha Mitchell: Well many would be surprised possibly to hear that you've pulled out the Oedipus myth, for example, and applied it to climate change. I mean just a reminder, you know Oedipus unknowingly came to fulfil a prophesy that he would kill his father king and marry his mother Queen Jocasta and the result was that that happened and the city of Thebes became overrun with plagues and failed crops. Isn't that the story -- what's that got to do with climate change?

Jonathan Marshall: Well the myth does several different things: it talks about balance, it talks about the relationship between violence and knowledge. Oedipus does not want to know things, he does know certain things and he tries to avoid them from coming out. All the way through there are people trying to kill each other to avoid the consequences of their knowledge, like Laius tries to kill Oedipus when he's a child.

Natasha Mitchell: His father.

Jonathan Marshall: His father, yes, but also the land itself rebels against the rulers and I think this is quite an important myth which we don't talk about nowadays that in fact the quality of the land, the life of the land reflects the quality of the ruling class.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2746165.htm#transcript

Checking this on wikipedia, I think I see the connection:

As Sophocles' Oedipus the King begins, the people of Thebes are begging the king for help, begging him to discover the cause of the plague. Oedipus stands before them and swears to find the root of their suffering and to end it. Just then, Creon returns to Thebes from a visit to the oracle. Apollo has made it known that Thebes is harboring a terrible abomination and that the plague will only be lifted when the true murderer of old King Laius is discovered and punished for his crime. Oedipus swears to do this, not realizing of course that he himself is the abomination that he has sworn to exorcise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus

In my life, I am very frustrated at the dangerously slow pace of government and big business regarding adapting to a low carbonworld