29 September 2007

istanbul light




The very majestic St Sophie, she's been church and mosque in her long life and now she's under construction, not celebrating any faith in particular and being visited by lots of tourists each day. A magnificent experience to walk through her doors.

favourites at istanbul biennale





just realised i never posted theses images from the Istanbul Biennale ... this was a favourite work about the museum pieces from the Baghdad National Museum after it was destroyed... the replicas made from recycled objects and a great sound track accompanies the work.

2. Fotofestival Mannheim Ludwigshafen Heidelberg

Last weekend the 2. Fotofestival took place in
in the three cities of
Mannheim, Ludwigshafen and Heidelberg -
it was an enormous gig : over 100 photographers/ video+ers exhibited.




The wonderful Paula Luttringer and Celina Lunsford
at the entrance where Paula and I were exhibiting.


Me feeling a little weary from a short night, background:
my video of Sleeping Angels.


Paula Luttringer and Celina Lunsford in the museum gift store.


documenta IIIII IIIIII II


Two favourites at documenta IIIII IIIIII II was
Amar Kanwar's lightning testimonies 2007.


and
Sakarin-Krue-On
Angels Painting 2007
painted with a white clay on blue painted wall (here it appears more grey than blue)

19 September 2007

Eating Up Beijing @ KodakEastmanHouseNY



The Kodak-Eastman House in Rochester, New York's Vital Signs is showing my video on pollution in Beijing, which I filmed in 2005.

The show is up until 30 September.

And this is the slowest moving video I've made to date. It sprung out of my rage towards the heavy pollution I was inhaling each day while in Beijing (I arrived in the week when there was the highest level of pollution in the city for that year... and literally couldn't see more than a block down the street.)

http://www.eastmanhouse.org/exhibits/container_72/index.php


I'm sorting out how to my work up online again... so will keep you posted.

Stuart McDonald's tv gig

Lovely friend, Stuart McDonald - film director based in Melbourne gave me this link of a series he recently worked on.

I think you need to understand the Australian paradigm to enjoy it - I watched it on my ipod last night in bed and thought it was hilarious... (would be interested to see what my friends from elsewhere think of it). Requires a strong handle of fairly unsophisticated coarse English language.

The main three characters (Ja'mie a snobby grade 11 girl, the ambitious gay drama teacher - Mr G and Jonah, a year 8 polynesian boy) are all played by Chris Lilley, the writer and associate producer.

You can download Summer Heights High :

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/summerheightshigh/#video/downloads

Image of the month



Here is for the MOST beautiful image found this month.

From Khajuraho Temple, India.

17 September 2007

Berliner_kunst_kontackter

The Berliner-kunst-kontakter is a guy who goes to openings around Berlin (and other German cities) and documents his visits by filming with a camera planted on his yellow-hard-hat (portrait of him on his webpage).

He then loads the snippets of his visit on to his website.

While I was in India in August, he visited the Bethanien Kunstlerhaus Open Studios.

My studio is about half - way through the clip, the one with lots of photographic portraits+text stuck up on the wall. It also gives you a chance to see the other studios down the corridor (briefly).

Go to :
http://www.berlinerkunstkontakter.de/

on the fourteenth line down is :
Open Studios + Ateliers | Künstlerhaus Bethanien | 08/07

16 September 2007

Sleeping Angels at 2nd Photo Festival Mannheim

Next weekend, my video of :
SLEEPING ANGELS
(music by Dan Parry, vocals by Sir Willard White)
will be exhibited along with lovely friends :

Paula Luttringer's El Lamento de los Muros - her extraordinary work on illegal prisons in Argentina
http://www.fotofest.org/ff2006/artists.php?artist=25

EJ MAJOR's Marie Claire RIP
http://www.ejmajor.co.uk

and Nicolai Howalt's work on boxers
http://www.nicolaihowalt.com/

for more info on the festival :
http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de

2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg


Ali Kepenek, Aus der Serie "Tattoo / Phoenix", 2006
"Tattoo-Snallows on Kristin Back"
C-Print in verschiedenen Größen
Copyright: Ali Kepenek
Courtesy duvekleemann berlin





2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg
Reality Crossings

22 September to 21 October 2007

http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de





The 2nd Photo Festival Mannheim_Ludwigshafen_Heidelberg opens on 21 September. The three venue cities will be presenting the Festival until 21 October 2007 under the title Reality Crossings, which is also the subject matter of the exhibitions. The curator this year is Christoph Tannert, director of Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin and acclaimed exhibition organiser in the fields of the visual arts and photography.

Reality Crossings will show international photo and video art by eighty-two artists from thirty countries. A quarter of the listed artists are German while three quarters of the contributions are from abroad. Participating artists include Tacita Dean (GB), Peter Friedl (A) and Walter Niedermayr (I). They are joined by numerous young talents, some of whom are on the brink of discovery, such as Inês d’Orey (P), Nezaket Ekici (TR), Sadaf Rassoul Cameron (USA) and Juliane Eirich (D). Three artists from three different countries lived and worked in the three cities conurbation while preparing for the 2nd Photo Festival: Beth Yarnelle Edwards (USA), Michelle Sank (GB) and Kim Yunho (ROK) have realised exciting projects here, that will also be seen at the Festival. About a quarter of the participating artists will be presenting new works or works that are being shown for the first time in Germany. This group includes projects by Juliana Beasley (USA), Via Lewandowsky (D), Mar iele Neudecker (D) and Frank Rothe (D).

With Reality Crossings Christoph Tannert has undertaken a relaunch of what used to be the Internationale Fototage, which moved from Herten into the Rhine-Neckar Triangle two years ago. Reality Crossings designates content converging on the media planes of cutting-edge photography with the realities of life surrounding us with both beauty and danger, often close to the abyss. The photographs and video works deal media-specifically with phenomena that are being currently discussed. They confront us with subjects and images that are usually -- more or less consciously -- screened out, overlooked or ignored. This year’s Festival will be more closely tied in with current trends in contemporary art than has previously been the case.

Unlike 2005, there will be no country quotas for participating artists. National bias was no longer an option for the curator.

Themed workshops and guided tours will also take place under the auspices of the Festival. Another Festival highlight will be the ceremony at which the DGPh (German Society for Photography) will award the Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Prize on 29 September 2007. This year’s prize winner is Letizia Battaglia from Sicily. She is to receive this distinction for her fight against the Mafia, in which the camera is her weapon and constant companion. Selected works by Letizia Battaglia will be shown at the Ernst Bloch Centre (Ludwigshafen).

The exhibits will be shown at thirteen different venues. This year the Festival is collaborating with various institutions in the three cities. Exhibition venues include the Kunsthalle Mannheim and the University of Mannheim, Schloss. Other exhibitions will be presented at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Ludwigshafen), the Ernst Bloch Centre (Ludwigshafen), the Palatinate Museum of the City of Heidelberg (Heidelberg), the Heidelberger Kunstverein and the Prinzhorn-Collection (Heidelberg). More works will be shown at selected venues in public spaces (for instance, Engelhorn, a department store, and the passage below the Ludwigshafen Mitte S-Bahn). A selection of video contributions will be shown at Cinema Quadrat (Mannheim), Karlstor Kino (Heidelberg) and Halle_02 (Heidelberg).

You will find more information at: http://www.fotofestival-ma-lu-hd.de

Press contact:
Goldmann Public Relations, Andrea Schmidt,
Zimmerstraße 11, 10969 Berlin, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)30-259 357 10, Fax: +49 (0)30-259 357 29,
e-mail: andrea.schmidt@goldmannpr.de
http://www.goldmannpr.de

intricate home-building


If you look very carefully, to the left of my window, a spider has created a most intricate home across the whole window space. This spider gets great morning sunlight and stunning sunsets.

I've had a very magical weekend full of connectedness and am reading A Vision of a Living World (from series The Nature of Order : An Essay of the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe) so this spider's visit seemed appropriate. By the way, I HIGHLY suggest the book.

For more info :
http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm
http://www.patternlanguage.com/
http://www.natureoforder.com/



Close up of the master of intricate home building.

wheels for berlin


I have wheels !

Today I bought a second hand bicycle from the flea markets near Prenzlauerberg (still need to find a name for her).

11 September 2007

lotus and OM hands




Here is a lotus that Jenny, my roomie found while sweeping the temple and while I was in bed feeling extremely miserable (I got bitten by a spider on my elbow and my body reacted madly - I still feel some swelling...).



OM hands
this henna stuff is soo fun to play around with.
(not my design although i played around with lots of designs) The Indian women were intrigued at the design I had put on my feet. Usually they'd flip out the way I wore my saree and re-dress me at any possible given moment... but with my wacky henna covered feet, they let that one be...

09 September 2007

Hisham Matar's book in INDIA !!!!

This is a hommage to my lovely friend Hisham !

I found his book in a store in Chennai - and of course, bought it.

As a gift to Hisham ... had his book photographed with Vishnuvi, the holy elephant who hangs out at the temple to bless visitors... even blessed the book !!

The book is the story of a nine year old growing up in Libya in the late 70s under the Qaddafi regime.

It was short listed for the Booker Prize last year and won the Guardian First Book prize. I highly recommend it. IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN by HISHAM MATAR (at last count translated into 22 languages.)




Vishnuvi, the carer and the book.


Vishnuvi takes the book in her trunk (when she dunks her trunk on you like this, it's considered a blessing...)


A lovely profile of Vishnuvi - and Hisham Matar's booooook....

independence day in India


Mother Theresa, Madana Mohan Malaviya and Mahatma Ghandi



Nehru, Indira Ghandi (I love her smile...) and Tippu Sultan.



I attended independence day at the local Sri Narayani school, where the children dressed up as great Indian leaders and gave speeches of their roles in Indian history.

I photographed the children in front of the blackboard before they headed out for their performances in front of the school. The miniature leaders delighted me.

more sri puram





Another shot of Sri Puram at dawn... I am SOOO not an early person but the beauty of this place got me up to catch sunrise almost everyday. For those who don't know, Sri Puram is a spiritual park which has an extraordinary hand-crafted, golden temple situated within the middle of it dedicated to the goddess Maha-Lakshmi.

I was there for the consecration (which was the most extraordinary experience of my life), and the day after, the images of the temple were on the front of every Indian newspaper.

When asked how the temple differed from the Taj Mahal, Sri Amma Narayani replied "The Taj Mahal was made by one person for one other person. This has been made by one person for the world."

Check out http://www.sripuram.org for more info.

Sri Puram early morning shots at lake








These were taken one morning in Sri Puram - I was lucky enough to be able to photograph inside the spiritual park before it opened, and got my bro David to come with me and experience this incredible place.

I really got into the lilies and lotus flowers during this trip as there were lots of fire puja rituals performed into the lead up of the Sri Puram's Temple consecration.

In the fire pujas, lotus flower petals were individually dipped in honey and thrown into the fire by the priests as they chanted from the vedas. All as an offering to the gods.

For more info about the Sri Puram spiritual park : http://www.sripuram.org

brother david in india




Okay -
I'm back from India - and have no idea where to start with describing the experience (overwhelming would be one word).

My gorgeous younger brother was with me for the first two weeks of the trip. It has become our annual tradition to travel together during the European summer. Last year I took him to Denmark where I had a show and I discovered what a great travel partner he is.

He blossomed in India and had a great connection to Sri Amma Narayani. He got dressed up in a dhoti by the first day and attended the afternoon and evening pujas (he managed to never get out of bed before midday which I admired).

Here he is mucking about in our room in the wee hours of the morning... his creative energy got more and more pumped and his song writing flourished. It was amazing to witness.