30.10.12

Gourmandises. La cuisine de Pimpinelle




pimpinelle /pɛ̃.pi.nɛl/ féminin
  1. (Botanique) Genre de plantes (pimpinella) de la famille des apiacées qui compte environ 150 espèces d'annuelles, de bisannuelles et de vivaces, on les trouve en Europe, en Afrique du Nord, en Asie, et en Amérique du Sud.


















1, 2 Photographies J'attends
3,4,5 Photographies Brussel's kitchen


Des carrelages métro patinés par le temps, de la vaisselle graphique, des ustensiles de cuisine choisis par des filles qui aiment mettre la main à la pâte, un mélange de minimalisme et de vintage, le goût du beau et du bon. Une sélection rigoureuse d'épicerie fine, de livres de recettes, de romans, d'essais et de livres d'art, le don des trouvailles justes et des associations qui ménagent la surprise,  mais aussi des ateliers culinaires et d'arts plastiques et des petits plats faits maison... La jeune femme qui a ouvert cette petite boutique est convaincue que nous sommes ce que nous mangeons et que nos goûts alimentaires et notre culture de la table en disent long sur  nous-mêmes et notre rapport au monde. "Eat symbols, Petites conserves maison d'Alice, Healthy junk food, Atelier d'écriture créative et gastronomie", l'agenda des ateliers et des événements est en soi tout un programme.



57 rue de Flandre
Bruxelles










29.10.12

Diamants sur canapé. Le monde enchanté de Franck et Marianne Evennou
























Photographies Franck& Marianne Evennou





Les créations originales des deux artistes sont à retrouver sur le blog de Marianne Evennou et de Franck Evennou





18.10.12

Egarements. L'innocence des objets.



"Everything you never wanted"
Luke Newton























Cerise Doucède, Les attachésphotographie installation, 2011
 2, 3,4 Cerise Doucède, Egarements, photographies installations, 2012 
5  Orhan  Pamuk, L'innocence des objets, Gallimard, 2012
Luke Newton, Sale, solo exhibition "Everything you never wanted", 
 Galerie Rabian Moussion, 2012


Les objets sont-ils innocents? De quoi est fait notre rapport aux objets du quotidien qui nous entourent? La relation n'est pas toujours aussi pacifiée et aussi lisse qu'elle n'y paraît.  Comment négocions-nous avec cette prolifération de divinités minuscules qui nous imposent leurs lois et leur tyrannie? Petits rituels, petits arrangements, tocs et conjurations en tout genre nous aident à tenir à distance les fantômes de nos peurs, de nos obsessions et de nos fantasmes. Quand le diable est dans les détails et que le dérisoire l'emporte sur l'essentiel... Dans son livre Les choses, Georges Pérec nous montrait l'aliénation d'un jeune couple à la matérialité dans une société du bonheur et du loisir, leur dissolution dans le vide et le plein de leurs aspirations à jamais frustrées, leur goût transformé en mythologie par la publicité. Tous les éléments du théatre de la société de consommation étaient en place. Aujourd'hui, Luke Newton se réfère à  Marcel Duchamp pour nous confronter à des objets devenus des icônes. Cerise Doucède met en scène des intallations photographiques qui montrent des portraits de personnages en proie à leurs démons du quotidien, assaillis par des objets qui  leurs sont devenus indispensables, menaçants, inutiles ou pesants. Ces objets deviennent le lieu de déplacement d'affects et constituent un artefact d'attachement qui les entrave.




Cerise Doucède
Exposition au Café de Flore à l'occasion du Parcours Saint Germain
du 16 octobre au 30 octobre 2012









14.10.12

Awakening. Carver's Carved Cathedrals


"We live in all we seek."  Annie Dillard, For the Time Being


















1  Cologne cathedral photograph 2 Andy Warhol Drawing,
 illustrations from the book David Hockney, Secret knowledge , Thames and Hudson, 2006
 3  Andy  Warhol, Cologne Cathedral, Screenprint, 1985 
4   Senlis cathedral at night from my window,  photography  J'attends...
 5 Senlis Saint Frambourg church seen from my window, photography J'attends...      










The blind man got down from the sofa and sat next to me on the carpet. He ran his fingers over the paper. He went up and down the sides of the paper. The edges, even the edges. He fingered the corners. 
“All right,” he said. “All right, let’s do her.”
He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand.
“Go ahead, bub, draw,” he said. “Draw. You’ll see. I’ll follow along with you. It’ll be okay. Just begin now like I’m telling you. You’ll see. Draw,” the blind man said.
So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a hose. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy.
“Swell,” he said. “Terrific. You’re doing fine,” he said. “Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it’s a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up.” 
I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn’t stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of the fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded.
“Doing fine,” the blind man said. 
I took up the pen again, and he found my hand. I kept at it. I’m no artist. But I kept drawing just the same. My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the sofa, her robe hanging open. She said, “What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know.” I didn’t answer her. 
The blind man said, “We’re drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on it. Press hard,” he said to me. “That’s right. That’s good,” he said. “Sure. You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you? You’re cooking with gas now. You know what I’m saying? We’re going to really have us something here in a minute. How’s the old arm?” he said. “Put some people in there now. What’s a cathedral without people?”
My wife said, “What’s going on? Robert, what are you doing? What’s going on?” “It’s all right,” he said to her. “Close your eyes now,” the blind man said to me. I did it. I closed them just like he said.
 “Are they closed?” he said. “Don’t fudge.” “They’re closed,” I said. “Keep them that way,” he said. He said, “Don’t stop now. Draw.” 
So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now. Then he said, “I think that’s it. I think you got it,” he said. “Take a look.
What do you think?” 
But I had my eyes closed. I thought I’d keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do. “Well?” he said. “Are you looking?”
My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was inside anything.
“It’s really something,” I said.

“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things  —a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring —with immense, even startling power.” 
Raymond Carver


Le temps est venu de passer de Senlis à Cologne et de m'installer là pour l'hiver. Comme les hirondelles je réinstallerai  mon nid senlisien à la belle saison. Je replanterai mon jardin, je reverrai la statue sans tête qui a l'air de flotter dans l'air au-dessus des toits, la flèche dentelée de la cathédrale et les toits de Saint Frambourg et de Saint Pierre. J'emporte avec moi l'odeur du feu de cheminée et je te salue Colonia.  Je me réjouis de revoir ta cathédrale qui ravit mon coeur comme le dessin d'un enfant. Et qu'il me soit donné de voir!  

  










Les dessins de la cathédrale de Cologne sont tirés du livre de David Hockney, Secret Knowledge Rediscovering the lost techniques of the  Old Masters, Thames & Hudson, 2006.


"In the book Hockney also points out that Andy Warhol, known for tracing, never could have drawn the Cologne Cathedral without tracing from a slide projection.
The drawing would not have looked like this if he had stood in front of the Cathedral and drawn it from straight life. His skill was to know which lines were the most important."
via arcspace








11.10.12

Cycling up. Jamesplumb: Furniture Narratives and Hybrid Symbolism

























1 Triffid Ladder, an antique dried flower replaces the leg of a neglected old wooden ladder.
2&9 For Richer for Poorer from the Concrete Stitches series - broken and abandoned furniture is rendered functional again by casting concrete in, on, and around the pieces.
3&4 From this day forward, Movable interior, April 2010, Milan
5&6 The duo's interior in World of interiors, July 2010 
7 Portrait of James Russell and Anna Plumb by Andrew Meredith Photographer for Elle decor Italia


JAMESPLUMB is a design duo of British designers headed by two artists under one name, James Russell and Anna Plumb. The designers salvage forgotten treasures and lovingly restore them, giving them a new life and a new function. Curiously, the ethos of the duo is inscribed at the heart of their made up name, created from a hybridation of their two names. They use the same fusion process in their creations, celebrating the union of two seperate objects, eventually becoming one. The symbolism of marriage narratives is suggested in the name of their Concrete Stitches collection, 'For Better or Worse', 'Richer the Poorer', 'Until Death Do us Part'. The duo is a couple in life. Do they reassert their pledge of mutual support and love by inventing new narratives together, fighting against the erosion of time and menace of decay?
The overlooked, discarded and time-worn find  a new identity and  a new story under their hands. New tales that might have gone untold reveal the  victory of love and hope over death.

They had their first international exhibition From This Day Forward curated by Diana Marrone for the Fuorisalone during Milan Design Week 2010.  












9.10.12

Market Forces. Gentrification, Regeneration or Degeneration?





































Hoxton Market, Shoreditch, 1910/ East St Market, c.1910/ Porters at Smithfield Market, c.1910. Photographies © Spitalfields Life 2009-12


Broadway Market is located in East-End London, in the Borough of Hackney. Barrow boys have been welcoming shoppers to Broadway market since the 1890s. It is one of London's oldest market located on the ancient drover's road from Essex to the slaughterhouses of Smithfield. This busy food  market dwindled over time until it was limited to a couple of stalls in the early 2000s.  It has been revived on 8 May 2004 when a  food market was launched on Saturdays.  The ongoing development of the area has sparkled a debate about the perceived gentrifiction of Hackney, the greed of some 2012 Olympics game developers and the dubious way a couple of ancient tenants of shops have been evicted from their small premises like Tony Francesca or Spirit. 
"Regeneration sounds like one of those unproblematically good ideas. It is a term you hear a lot from government ministers. One imagines love and attention being poured into a neglected place. But, as Patrick, one of the people who took over Francesca's, puts it, "when local people hear the word, they feel afraid. They feel attacked." The arrival of money into an area always leaves winners and losers, but the more I discover about what has really been happening here, the more I have come to feel angry about the callous way in which the process is being handled. Is this regeneration or degeneration?"
Some people are pessismistic and wonder if landlords will eventually drive the independents out and replace them with franchises.
To know more about the issue, you might be interested by Hari Kunzru's article in The Guardian. I could not find any more recent article on what happened to Tony Francesca's café but I understand from what I read in The voluptuous manifesto that it just disappeared. I would be interested to learn more about it. I am going to investigate further and let you know if I can find something. May be you know better about it? 
The photographs of old markets of London come from a very special blog - which is much more than a blog and has also become a book.  Spitalfields life is signed by the genteel author who tramp the streets of East-end London in search of simple daily life treasures. I have just begun ramaging through it and I cannot but strongly recommend it to you. Next time I will tell you more about Mr Pickleman (photo 4).






8.10.12

A New Frontier Myth. In Search of East End...


Lire et écrire la ville





























Forty locations, Fifteen haunts and Seventeen streets
  © Gilbert and George, Musée d'art moderne Saint-Etienne, avril 2005 
 All other photos © Jattends








It would not be easy today to find some hopeless conservative using the term East End as a pejorative word, associated with the stigma of poverty, foreign immigration and violence. It is now difficult to imagine how remote the East End of London must have seemed in the late 1960s. "The cultural uptake of the Hoxton scene – as a highly potent image of newness, hipness and fashionability – by the mainstream of not only the art establishment, but the worlds of media, advertising, fashion, design and property development was extraordinarily rapid.(...) In fact, to the social anthropologists at work in advertising agencies and market research offices, the word "Hoxton" was both noun and adjective. This old London district became the latest shorthand to denote what trend analysts have officially described as "urban edgy" – meaning the new, monied, inner-city consumers for whom a knowledge of contemporary art would be right up there with their aspirations for a Thameside loft apartment, a holiday in a hip hotel and their fondness for Pret A Manger sandwiches."
The new bohemia of the British contemporary art scene is now firmly settled in E1. Many artists from the YBA (Young British Artists) live and work in the area. Tracey Emin has her home in Fournier Street, Gilbert and George have been resident there since 1965. "They had been attracted to the East End not simply by the affordability of property – much of it formerly industrial, or almost wholly derelict – but also by the need to declare a barrier of sensibility between themselves and the prevailing cultural climate. "* 
Where is the new barrier of sensibibility and the new frontier to be found now ?


*Michael Bracewell, Gilbert & George - true pionneers of East end art, The Telegraph, 31 mai 2004