Archive for January, 2011

To think the fragment is to think the eternal return of a rupture, to get the drift of a rift, a fundamental fissure, a groundbreaking ground. Dan Mellamphy, 1998

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Recently I took part in a residency program in Budapest, I was living in Buda for a month and from Buda I walked often down hill to Pest with a soft smile touching all over my face. The city carries a gentle silent, for moments I thought I was taking part in a silent movie, in one of those movies that once were screened in the glorious New York Café at the Pest side of the city. I walked a lot, I saw the Danube and everyday I practiced the art of remembering. To remember is obligatory in Budapest and when you remember in Budapest you might not want to comeback because in Budapest like in Havana the present is willing to happen only if a better future comes by.

With subtle care I took memories into my hands and with joy I decided to be focus exclusively on fragments. During a month I didn’t pay attention to anything else but just fragments. Little pieces that I know once belonged to a complete picture, to a picture that once made complete sense.

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Blood Mountain Foundation – Artist in residency: Diango Hernández. ‘a kiss, a hat, a stamp’ in collaboration with Valéria Fazekas and Tom Sloan - 18.11.210-30.01.2011

Categories: objects, places, shows

We are the KÖ… So lets start giving

DnA

Posted on January 26, 2011

We love to waste some boring Sunday evenings checking out store front windows at the KÖ, we look at those windows with a lot of hope and as little nocturnal butterflies we get attracted by the city lights and bang our heads against sparkling glass plates. My mother standing in front of a store window told me once – keep watching son, watching is for free!

I’ve been thinking how a city would be if everywhere it would feel like in the KÖ, yes! Like it feels in that Düsseldorf eccentric Mecca of fantasies; a complete city vibrating like it vibrates in that concrete showcase of refined textures and porcelain legs. A city where all the inhabitants are wealthy and are permanently dressed in fancy outfits. A true Utopian society can’t be related at all with the equal distribution of its poverty, therefore the miracle can only happen when in a society every single individual is born rich and dies rich, healthy and extremely well educated

Anyway, sometimes the KÖ it seems to be that Utopian place, (a doubt allowed here) -I am not sure if wealthy people would enjoy so much a world with shared diamonds or a world that has as motto: Rich men of all countries, united!!! True that boulevards are made for walking, but walking on a boulevard is not a simple task to accomplish, specially if you plan to transform your walk into a beautiful moment. When you don’t know the basics of how-to-walk on a boulevard you better take the street next to it because the magnetic forces of this particular type of streets are really high, they concentrate enormous amounts of contagious substances that could radically affect not only the way you walk but also the way you look at things. The best you can do if you decide to have a walk on the KÖ is to go to Heinemann and look for your lucky Champaign praline, take it home and in the evening while enjoying it think that everything that surrounds you it is as tasty and beautiful as this little round wonder is.

Categories: architecture, books, places

Glass windows my friends

DnA

Posted on January 17, 2011

You might be risking everything if you arrive to a German museum two minutes after 5:00 pm especially on a Sunday afternoon, as we knew and expected, the museum’s doorman while smoking a cigarette in front of the main entrance door, said -’Entschuldigung’ it is too late-. In fact the museum was still open and we could see through the big glass windows that someone was giving a guided tour to a group of Sunday’s art lovers.

The big windows generously invited us to watch inside, we walked around the castle facade and there it was the first window and our first friend, the view couldn’t be more magic and revealing. In a beautiful gesture the big window surrounded me with huge sparkling glass wings giving an extraordinary view of James Lee Byars works. I understood today that glass, mirrors and water are the three most important materials we need for building a good friendship but also don’t forget to use them in order to allow the ‘late visitors’ to have a look inside.

Lee Byars with the help of the impertinent doorman and the windows of the Schloss Benrath delivered today a hard to forget experience. It is maybe time to see art again only through windows.

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James Lee Byars, ‘The Perfect Axis’. Foundation Schloss and Park Benrath