Kings And Pioneers

Morning Rain Membrane

The water on the window

rolls down the long glass pane,

and taps against the barrier

of my peaceful morning.

Inside is dry and known,

the rain a membrane like a womb.

It beats irregular over the noise

creating space and clarity.

To be able to choose

to go to a room

with pouring rain an amenity

No silence, only raindrops

no noise, only rain

would be the ultimate luxury.

While on a excursion to visit the photo truck the JR has been sending around France to collect portraits for his Pantheon installation, I took a walk around the Corbusier landmark house on whose grounds the truck was parked.

In all kinds of disrepair, I wonder if my 7,5 euro ticket will go towards the electricity bill, or the salary of the lady punching the cash register. And I hope that somewhere there is a fund building up that will take care of some of the disrepair you'll see in the images below.

The house, built between 1928 and 1931 as a weekend home for the Savoye family, was called "les Heures Claires."

The Bright Hours

And it incorporates all Five Points of New Architecture: Stils, roof gardens, open-plan, free-floating facade, horizontal window.

It is a really divine and modern system of in and outdoor spaces that all loop back together into themselves. Maximizing on light through the use of expansive windows and few internal structural supports, divisions are used effectively to delineate purpose and privacy. If ever you have a chance to pass through the Pstisian suburb of Poissy, make this a certain stop.

A City of Texture

Textures seen around Paris- age, weather, renewal, force, mixed media, portals, passageways, stone, wood, glass, wild, manufactured, organic, designed...

Pointe City at Le Bal, Paris

Mikhael Subotzky & Patrick Waterhouse

A visual story of the Ponte City tower in Johannesburg. Through photographs and found objects, a view of the lives that were housed inside over it's three decades in existence. There were several vignettes of found objects mixed with large format photographs of the building in various stages of disrepair, and of the tenants between 1975 and 2007.

This group of photos are of the vacated spaces, with photographs of the people who lived in them superimposed.

This was a wall of found objects in covered in photographs, cassette tape covers, books, CVs, Posters, love letters, manifestos, and everything else one might find in piles of papers or forgotten in drawers...

The following Photos from Le Bal Website

This photo was next to hand written drafts of letters requesting ("I herby beg") for refugee status and many official documents refusing asylum or forms asking about your history, where you are from, why you left, did you seek help from local authorities and are you able to go back?

At Le Bal

Excerpt Series inspired by Alejandro Cesarco

This series was created as a way to document moments of text that stand out in a body of work and tell their own story in a new context. A kind of copy and paste.

works inspired by artist Alejandro Cesarco, after a recent visit to his exhibit at le Plateau in Paris.

FROST

from The New Yorker February 10, 2014

Bet The Farm: Robert Frost's turbulent apprenticeship.

From Harpers February 2014

The Oa: The pleasures and perils of whiskey by Colin McAdam

from The New Yorker February 3, 2014

Full Fathom Five: Derek Walcott's seascapes by Adam Kirsch

Going the Distance: Excerpts from David Remnik's piece on Barak Obama

This excellent article by David Remnik for the New Yorker provides a balanced and deeply transparent view into the thoughts and process and politics of Barak Obama, the 44th President of the United States. Here are some excerpts worth saving:

“The President always takes the long view.” Valerie Jarrett

“One thing that I always try to emphasize is that, if you look at American history, there have been frequent occasions in which it looked like we had insoluble problems—either economic, political, security—and, as long as there were those who stayed steady and clear-eyed and persistent, eventually we came up with an answer.”

"Obama is exactly like all my friends. He would rather read a book than spend time with people he doesn’t know or like.” Joe Manchin

“When you don’t build those personal relationships,” Manchin told CNN, “it’s pretty easy for a person to say, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ ”
Comes to a close with:

"(Obama) said he hoped that one day he might be able to take a walk in the park, drop by a bookstore, chat with people in a coffee shop. “After all this is done,” he said, “how can I find that again?”"

“He travels light.” John Podesta on Obama's circle of friends

"the nature of not only politics but, I think, social change of any sort is that it doesn’t move in a straight line, and that those who are most successful typically are tacking like a sailor toward a particular direction but have to take into account winds and currents and occasionally the lack of any wind, so that you’re just sitting there for a while, and sometimes you’re being blown all over the place.”

“I have strengths and I have weaknesses, like every President, like every person,” Obama said. “I do think one of my strengths is temperament. I am comfortable with complexity, and I think I’m pretty good at keeping my moral compass while recognizing that I am a product of original sin. And every morning and every night I’m taking measure of my actions against the options and possibilities available to me, understanding that there are going to be mistakes that I make and my team makes and that America makes; understanding that there are going to be limits to the good we can do and the bad that we can prevent, and that there’s going to be tragedy out there and, by occupying this office, I am part of that tragedy occasionally, but that if I am doing my very best and basing my decisions on the core values and ideals that I was brought up with and that I think are pretty consistent with those of most Americans, that at the end of the day things will be better rather than worse.”

And concludes with Obama's last comment:
“I just wanted to add one thing to that business about the great-man theory of history. The President of the United States cannot remake our society, and that’s probably a good thing.” He paused yet again, always self-editing. “Not ‘probably,’ ” he said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”

Le Plateau Art Space Paris

Alejandro Cesarco at Le Plateau Paris. This space inspires me each time because I find new works that make everyday things feel more special through someone else's lense. The world becomes more bearable because within the most banal moment you can learn to find inspiration and beauty.

I love these works that put things like book indexes in a new context for reexamination. I like the scientific quality of the piece on regret that is taken from the four literary genres: Romantic, Comic, Tragic & Ironic, with photographe from Jean luc Godard's film 'Une Femme Mariee'