The other side of Dostoevsky...(7/6)

A very short and yet destined routing in St Petersburg brought me to the home of Dostoevsky, now the museum to commemorate the great Russian writer in town. Located at the corner of Kuznechny and Yamskaya, the address is now next to the local market where everyday life goes on. My memory is still in the freezing Moscow when I first visited to his apartment in childhood time adjacent to the asylum. Now here when he passed his last part of life with his family in St Petersburg. His surrounding always provided him with a visionary world of imagination with his faith and belief. His working table and chair, his cigarette case, the dimmy environment filled up with the soul of the karamazov brothers. A clock clicked still at the moment on 28 January 1881, the eternity of life and death...

Zaver...(15/1)

The current exhibition at muzeum hlavniho mesta Prahy gathers the belief of the research findings of the ritual and burial system in ancient times in Czech. It is a small scale yet serious exhibition...though appropriately set its light at an exhibiting place focusing on anthological and historical ground of the 'Czech' people (or better say the tribes of ancient people dwelling in the area now defined as Czech), the finding of the presentation is not comprehensive enough. There lacks an authoritative commentary and it is not convincing for its presumption and 'generalisation' for a visitor like me. It is definitely difficult to draw any conclusion about how ancient people looked at death and handled death. The current evidence from excavation is not conclusive for us to understand the topic. As cited in the exhibition, Burial remaining of the different stages of the Stone Age were found in various regions of the country and based on the manner of the burial arrangement revealed, there is a similarity that researchers agree on such as the direction of placement of dead bodies as well as the gesture and position the bodies were aligned. The exhibition believes that people at old times were more open to death, or perhaps it was that death would be a more common thing happened within the tribes. From time to time, the dead bodies were either buried or incremented. Other means of disposal may be difficult to reveal at our times. The significance of corpse direction the researchers look at may be relevant in relation to the importance of nature in the past. People might believe in their gods and goddesses, and the direction could be an interpreted expectation of an unknown world that they symbolised in their knowledge world. People are always evolving in a wish about the unexplainable. The display was good and it ended with a query of the way we should look at this unknown world. Death is as unknown as life.
When looking at the description of the stone ages finding, my mind was like wandering at the primitive world of the 2001 space odyssey...

Some paintings...(3/12)

Met the paintings of Marie Laurencin in Orangerie, and claimed to be much inspired by Picasso, she demonstrated indeed a very stylish drawing on human portraits and colouring...her pastels were light and beautifully contrasted, and her style from the current view actually resembles a lot the Japanese comic work, or I would say, there is quite a dose of Japanese painting sketch found on her paintings. Her work appears like the fallen leaves, and this is intrinsic. Apparently her focus was on feminine figures. I like quite a lot her portrait on Coco. A slight touch of bitterness under an elegant post. Perhaps because of the similarity with the Japanese style, the only scaleable museum on her work is found in Japan at present.

Expos of the month...(26/11)

A wrap up of some expos I visited in 30 days...


- Yves Klein, corps, couleur, immatériel (Centre Pompidou)
- Robert Rauschenberg, Combines (Centre Pompidou)
- Marie-Antoinette: pièces à conviction (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales)
- 100% Africa (Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao)
- The matter of time, Richard Serra (Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao)
- Interseléction and Fatex (Parc des expositions, Villepinte)
- Il était une fois Walt Disney (Galéries Nationales de Grand Palais)
- Arte per l'umanita (Victoriano, Roma)
- Exposition (Galeria Lapidaria)
- Musei Capitolini (Roma)
- Musei Vatican (Roma)
- Casa di Goethe (Roma)
- Iliade (Colosseum, Roma)
- Absolutmental (Les Abattoir, Toulouse)
- Peintre des signes, Victor Gray (Espace Croix Baragnon, Toulouse)
- Les passions de l'Ame (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse)
- Double je (Château d'eau, Toulouse)

Bilbao...(29/10)

This is a city of angel and devil. It is dualism. It is a city of revival - at least, this is what I feel...located at the northern part of Spain, the city is the sixth largest city in Spain, and since the debut 14th century, the city developed itself into a flagship of industrial centre in Spain. In addition to its advantageous iron mining and shipbuilding industry during the industrial revolution, the prime location of the city at the estuary of the Nervion river enabled its outcast activities in logistic management, trading and trade business. The city was the wealthiest city in Spain in early 20th century going hand in hand with Barcelona and Madrid, and it was the centre of exchange with other European countries, notably UK. However, the city lost its shining magic in the post-war decades as industries were delocalised and its logistic hub influence was shared with other sea port and regions in Spain. Major factories and industrial set-ups were closed down in the 70's and 80's and the city was facing a problem of decrease of population. The city wisely commenced its urban renewal programme and revived the city into a modern centre of culture and tourism.

The Bilbao Ria 2000 ('BR2K') was established in the late 1980's. As a unique public body formed by various public companies and governmental divisions, the organisation coordinates the urban development projects as a centralised management base. I did not know exactly how this could work, but apparently it functions powerfully in aiding the regeneration projects. Perhaps a more influential participation of public bodies would offer a collective and more efficient output for construction works. Comparatively the Urban Renewal Authority (or ex-Land Development Corporation) in Hong Kong is less capable in terms of the 'collective' development. But then the nature and the mission of the two organisations are basically varied. BR2K, being a non-profit making organisation, is composed of public shareholders including the public land management corporation named SEPES, the Bilbao Port Authority, ADIF and FEVE (railway companies) together with the Basque Government, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, the Bilbao and the Barakaldo Town Halls etc. It acquires the land in old districts from its shareholders for planned upgrade and enhancement. It bears the resources and the risk of development while it resells the plots after development to finance its work. It receives around 9% of its development funds from EU as well.

The visit to Bilbao was an interesting one. To me, Bilbao is well-known because of Athletic Bilbao, the soccer team having its long history since 1928. Indeed the team is one of the three teams (together with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona) which plays always in the first division without ever been delegated. The evidence of influences and exchanges with the British in Bilbao can be seen on the design and colour of the jersey of Athletic Club. The red and white stripes are believed to be influenced by the two south England soccer teams - Southampton and Sunderland.
The old town in Bilbao was actually renewed, but the spiralling nature of the small streets is kept in good shape. Like San Sebastian, quite some nice old style restaurants and cafe shops can be found along the streets including Somera, Artekale, Tendería and Plaza Nueva.

The major purpose of the trip to Bilbao is to visit the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. Completed in 1997 by Frank Gehry, the building is another live demonstration of the contemporary architecture. Using titanium for the facade of the structure, the work injects a vivid nature to the waterfront in Bilbao. The exhibitions inside Guggenheim at the moment were not extremely inspiring but it was still a pleasant experience to walk around inside. The works of Frank Gehry have a denoted character of his playtime with space and cyber-touch. His Gehry Tower at Hanover and the Dancing House in Prague are both his twisted lego for space and light with the influence of Le Corbusier and Gaudi. In Paris, he has two major works namely the Cinémathèque Française and the Disneyland Resort.
Other impressive architectural works in Bilbao I came across include Joaquin Rucoba's elegant Teatro Arriaga, Severino Achucarro & Valentin Gorbena's Estacion de Santander, the Zubizuri Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava (by the way, the official website of Calatrava is very nice, go check out on http://www.calatrava.com) and the metro station exits done by Sir Norman Foster.
Though Bilbao is regarded as the capital of Basque, I see that the city is more intergrated to the Spanish economy and development. The Basque sign with a flowery shape of five circles can be found easily in Bilbao but the basque culture and elements appear to be less significant as that in San Sebastian or in Biarritz. Hotel Artetxe is a two star hotel on the hill slope in Bilbao and it serves good dining dishes. It was memorable watching the Champions League of FC Barca vs Chelsea there.

Five billion years...(5/10)

At the moment, Palais de Tokyo presents its five billion years project with interesting picks of contemporary artworks. It would be a one-year project and along the year to come, there would be moments when the 'isolated' time and space bring up reaction to possibilities...the use of the term 'parasites' for installation pieces is superbly true. The works give a life to the museum, and the museum hosts a continuation of recognition among arts, human and distance. There are parasitic entities existed in every domain of time flow and development, and I am definitely one of those in my life. Some installations are actually quite inspiring and interesting. One section of this five billion years displays imitated constellation photos of the eve of bombardment. Named the day before, it drew my opportunistic attention on my focused shadowplay on the dark side of the photos/drawings. It appeared to be a chasing night of hunters and preys before the attack of the next day.
Playing with running time, some works like twistle (2003) and glassworks (2006) were examining the collusion of seconds and senses. If you face it, you feel it. Flying tape (2006) by Zilvinas Kempinas is a floating tape of memory and record, and under the current, visitors experience a deviated pattern of the recording medium.

Message d'Andrée (2005) is my favorite of the collection. Joachim Koester captured the romantic-pathetic aspects of 'voyage polaire' - the exposure of lights and chance adventure initiated by the Swedish adventurer Salomon August Andrée. The story has been a glorified history of 'people vs nature' in the late 19th century, and during the race of adventurism in the era, Andrée got his support and funding from the movement of nationalism in Sweden, and he successfully launched out the plan to pass through the ice-land to the other side of the continent, but not the plan itself. This was a plot of human ambition perhaps. Something we may see unrealistic can be a golden rule in the past. In all cases, history repeats. Remastering the defect photos left by Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel who lost their lives in 1897 during the attempt to fly over North Pole with their Örnen - a hydrogen balloon manufactured in the workshop of Henri Lachambre in Paris, Koester developed a moving image of black dots and bright lights with noise. This is the beauty of abstraction.

Printing Spree...(2/8)

Printing was an invention of a century, and surely it has catalysed a turning moment of human history to a prelude of our information society at present...'Communication' has never been the same word as it was in the past since the commercialisation of printing technology. Reviewing the economic and cultural development of France since the 19th century, printing technology carried in fact a very decisive role in the diameter of communication dimension as well as collective social development in the country, particularly in Paris, be it a stabilisation of society or a stipulation to riot and ideological reform. When one understands the number of circulation of newspapers in France in the last decades of the 19th century in France, one could imagine how developed the printing industry was at that moment and how effective the movement was in cultivating the modernism of Paris. Of course, printing was not founded by the French, and there must be more interesting findings on the printing history in those founding countries like China and Germany, but similar to other industries of the good old times, I find it fascinating to trace back some forgotten path of the development in Paris where industries and human activities assured the shinning moment of this focal point of the World at its time.
Having had special attention on the 'other side' of the story when I look at old-time publications, advertising posters, antique books and old maps in the occasions of exhibitions on old Paris or antique bookstores, the mystery of the 'making of’provokes me a lot with the lure to review the old printers in Paris and the French-made printing machine in the 19th century, and finally I got some impulse after visiting the Musée de l'Imprimerie at Nantes recently. The info hereof notes a few Parisian printers and printing machine producers I have encountered in the past few months.

Massiquot - the paper cutting machine invented by Guillaume Massicot and obviously it is a very important component in the printers' daily operation at the time. The antique model I encountered at the Musée de l'Imprimerie was produced at 16 rue Amelot, Paris.

A. Foucher - it should have been a famous brand of printer, but I do not obtain much information about the brand except the two addresses where the machines were produced: 62 Boulevard Jourdan and 18 rue de Varenne. Apparently the printer model does not produce anymore.

E. Ravasse - it was located at 203 rue Lafayette and 61 rue Monmartre, and no information can be found about the brand of the printer.

Lhermite Succrs - it was situated at 208 Faubourg Saint Martin, and again no information can be retrieved.

Poirier Frères - it was a printing house located in the Loire Valley region founded in 1875. It printing included works of Grosse Duperon and in 1894, it released a coloured map of canton of Mayenne under the book 'petite géographie du département de la Mayenne'.


Intertype - this is an amazing machine I found at Musée de l'Imprimerie. It is an adaptation of the US-produced Linotype for editing and printing. The machine was manufactured by Société Intertype owned by Hermann Ridder. Ridder was the editor of 'Gazette de New York' and the machine enabled the printing to be done in France. Similar machines existed such as the Typograph manufactured in UK. As per the demonstrator at the Musee in Nantes, the machine was firstly produced in 1884 but Internet info shows that the machine was primarily released in March 1913. I suspect the person referred to the history of Linotype instead.

Imprimerie LeMercier - the company was a big name of lithographic printing during the late 19th century. I first came across the name of the company from the posters of Alphose Mucha. At the time, the posting of Mucha's posters fully expressed the taste and preference of the Parisian on pop-art and culture of the time. The famous posters with Sarah Bernhardt since 1894 including the theatre plays of Gismonda, La Samaritaine, Médée, Hamlet, Lorenzaccio etc were all printed by LeMercier. Mucha's works were also disseminated through the printing of Imprimerie F. Champenois. The printer was located at 66 Boulevard Saint Michel in the 1900's, and well, the flowing time leaves behind only an identical address of the clinical centres for organisations like Comité National contre Maladies Respiratoires at present. Famed with LeMercier during the Belle Epoque of Paris were there also Chevalier and Gobait who printed artworks of other important artists such as Horace Vernet, Fragonard, Perrot, Daguerre etc.


Marinoni - it is a huge rolling machine used for the printing of large papers including newspaper of Le Petit Journal. On every issue of the Journal, a small line appeared at the right hand bottom on the second last page of the paper, 'imprimé sur la machine rotative chromo-type de MARINONI' and so there is no doubt how influential the machine was during the era. Indeed, Marinoni's printing kingdom began since 1849 when he set up his workshop at rue de Vaugirard. He introduced the gas motor (latterly known as the 'Lenoir Motor') since 1860 and then invented his 'rotative' model in 1867. The machine attracted distinctive focus of spotlights at the World Expo, and 8,000 machines were claimed sold in 1886. He took the position of director of Le Petit Journal since 1883 and introduced colour printing to the Journal in 1889, thus bringing a breakthrough to the Journal and raised the circulation level to a flying height. An interesting document has been compiled by Musée des Arts et Métiers of Paris at
www.arts-et-metiers.net/pdf/carnet_marinoni.pdf.

History does leave its footprint on its printing spree.

Tropico-Vegétal...(19/7)

Not until the ninth night of the programme of Tropico-Vegétal did I visit the tropical forest in Palais de Tokyo tonight, and quite directly to the point, it was humid and hot inside the exhibition hall...the museum is one of my favourite places for arts and installations in Paris, and indeed paying 20€ for a yearly membership is really a good buy. The museum is spacious in a sense that it nicely (and simply) makes use of the space for the seasonal installations it has, and the essence is the experience and feeling of the visitors and the interaction in between the artworks and experiments. This time, the tropical palace was decently set up, and so there can be indoor forest and plantation, a tropical park, a journey to the zoo as well as a fantasy with the crocodile. The "Land Mark" of Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla was quite pleasant especially when it was using the curving area in the museum. The installation is rather simple but the space offers a strengthening effect to it. The video "Zoo" by Salla Tykkä was a funny approach to put the tropical element into a Hitchcock-style thriller. The video attempted to explore the relation between human and nature, psycho and empirical, but obviously, it must be a work sponsored by Canon, and the focus of the Canon camera on the screen makes it a good piece of advertising video. The sound effect in the video is very appalling.

A duo techno-pink group from Brazil named Tetine played in the evening. Their performance was just so-so, and apart from the sexy dressing of Eliete Mejorado and her iMac as control of their sequencing and music, I did not have much recall about the show. Quite disappointed indeed. Their video projection was the copied & pasted and yes, it could improve a bit the atmosphere of the performance and keep it away from total boredom. Luckily, I got a tequila sunset to ease my mood.
I passed by the bookstore in the museum, the one that appeals me quite a lot, and I found a videocassette of Bill Viola - the Passing. It's been long time since I have seen his work.