Happy Birthday

What a perfect day for a birthday cake.

Helga Steppan

Helga Steppan's photography is so simple but so fascinating. Groups of belongings arranged by colour into classical compositions are immediately enticing and call into question all sorts of identity, ownership and authorship issues. The Man & Eve gallery website states;

'Belongings Apart' questions the extent to which an object or possession can ever represent its owner or hold particular meaning and invites the audience to discover its own associations in the work.

I can't help wondering how this will be affected once someone owns a print of the photographs, and if/when they sell it and so on.

Surreal Things

I finally got round to seeing the Surreal Things exhibition, just in the nick of time! Surrealism is quite easy to dismiss thesedays as being gimmicky and all too familiar, but seeing such a huge amount of work all in the same place was really overwhelming. It really helped give a sense of the works originality - concepts that really were dislocating and difficult and against the grain. However the use of recognisable repeated motifs fueled the transition of the style from shocking, to becoming talked about to eventually becoming appropriated into all areas visual culture. Dr MF Agha, the art director of Vogue at the time, put it really well;

"What is a snobbish art scandal today is an accepted style tomorrow and a merchandised style the next day."

The World is Going Simpsons Mental

First, a series of 7-11 stores across America magically turn into Kwik-e-Marts. Then Homer's svelte donut-wieldng figure appears alongside the Cerne Abbas giant. Now they've upstaged the world of fashion in this months' Harper's Bazaar with some help from Linda Evangelista.
I get the impression we haven't seen it all yet...

I'm back!

No, I haven't forgotten you, little blog. I've been in Lisbon! A bit hot, lots of touristy things, lots of tiles, lots of custard tarts, and a nice pointy sign.

A step up from bunnies and eagles...

VW Phaeton Shadow Plays
Uploaded by traianbasescu

Another example of simple=brilliant.