Archive for the 'Art & Photography' Category

My top priority during my visit to Barcelona a couple of weeks back was to look at the buildings created by Gaudi. It is astonishing that his strange, swirly, hallucinatory architecture was built during the late 19th century and the early 20th century - they seem so modern, surreal and fresh today. Even in our present time, with London’s Gherkin, the humping turtles of the Sydney Opera House and the desert-inspired buildings of Zaha Hadid vying for eye-grabbing attention, Gaudi’s buildings from over a hundred years ago still pack a punch.

We tend to assume Gaudi set out to be radical and anti-establishment in his designs just because they were so unconventional alongside the traditional classic architecture of the 19th century. But in fact he was a staunch and conservative Catholic, appears to have taken his inspiration from nature. An article in The Age quotes:

“Nothing is art if it does not come from nature, as from nature come the most beautiful and extraordinary shapes,'’ he said. “Furthermore, nature is the masterpiece of the Creator.'’

This accounts for the curved lines of his designs and the a-symmetry that characterizes his work. His furniture looks like its been shaped out of vines. His rooftop chimneys look like rocks eroded by the timeless wind. The pillars of the Sagrada Familia Temple are palm trees. Tiles are shaped to give the sense of water.

Click on the photo below to view a slideshow of some photos from our Gaudi journey:

Like many geniuses, Gaudi was not always appreciated in his lifetime. Not many people understood his work and if not for the wealthy industrialist Eusebi Guell who became his patron, Gaudi might have sunk into obscurity. George Orwell famously “thought the Sagrada Familia was “the most hideous building in the world'’ and thought the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up during the Civil War when they had the chance.” Even Guell apparently did not like Gaudi’s designs - according to Wikipedia:

Reportedly on one occasion Gaudí said to Güell, “Sometimes I think we are the only people who like this architecture.” Güell replied, “I don’t like your architecture, I respect it.”

For me, it was the trip we did to Montserrat up in the craggy mountains that really brought home Gaudi’s creative inspirations. We saw the mountains from a distance as the train chugs across the plains outside Barcelona. Within an hour, we were in the foothills, taking the funicular train up to the ancient monastery built up against the rocky face of the steep mountain. Erosion had shaped the rocks into standing figures and we could imagine them as aliens or fat man or angry warriors. Walking high up on dusty paths above the man-made buildings, heading towards the ruins of ancient hermitages, we saw rock figures tower above us and craggy sentinels line the spur down the side of the mountain, passed the bare branches of gnarled trees blasted by wind. This was Gaudi in all his glory.

My cross-cultural view tends to focus eastwards and southwards to South East Asia and the Far East - inevitably, since my roots are in Malaysia and Chinese culture. But there is of course so much more world out there. So from time to time, I’m going to explore blogs from other countries and cultures here on Fusion View to widen my horizon and learn a bit more about the world beyond.

To start off this globetrotting journey, I came across the photoblog, A Unique View of the Arctic by Thomas Laupstad in Norway, who says on the About page, “I want to show you northern Norway from my point of view.”

He has some fantastic photos of Norwegian landscapes and captures that special northern light beautifully.

He writes that he took this photo in February. “At this time of the year the sun is only shining for a hour or two and in this photo the sun has disappeared below the horizon. The golden reflections are coming from sunshine higher up in the snow filled mountains. It was a very beautiful sight.”

I’ve never been to Norway and it seems unimaginable to me to go through months on end where there is only an hour or two of sunlight. I find it difficult enough here in the UK when it gets dark at 3.30pm in December. It must be so strange to wake up in the dark, spend the day in the dark and go to bed in the dark.

Thomas also has other amazing photos on his blog - one of a pine forest covered in snow, also taken in February. Of this one, he writes, “I think the scene looks like it is taken straight out of “The Chronicles of Narnia” with all the snow hanging on the Norway Spruce.”

If you’re a reader from Norway or a Scandinavian country - or with family or roots there, I’d love to hear from you - do add a comment or email me.

Here is a fun video showing the Mona Lisa being painted using Microsoft Paint. There’s some funky music to go with it if you enable the sound on your PC.

I think Leonardo would’ve been amused, given that he was an innovator and was always experimenting with different ideas. I imagine that he would have been a geek had he been born today!

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Xavier Salomon, the curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, talks to me about his own pan-European roots and about the fusion art of Canaletto, the great Venetian painter who came to London in 1746. Canaletto painted famous London scenes with his Italian eye, staying in this vibrant city for 10 years. Xavier talks about what London might have been like at that time and why Canaletto came here for his painting. He also talks about his personal experiences of European art and what it takes to become the curator of one of the most respected art galleries in the UK.

You can listen to the podcast of our convesation (about 31 mins 50 sec) using the grey player below.

To find out more about the Canaletto exhibition, which is on until 15 April, go to www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Above: Canaletto’s painting of Westminster Bridge, London.
Top: Photo of Xavier, thanks to Ingrid Beazley

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My invitation to submit pics of your gardens prompted Lucy in South London to send in this photo. She explains that the pic was not taken during January this year but is from the summer of last year. No matter. It’s a great view through the open door, hinting of the warmth that awaits us in the UK, come spring and summer later this year – and her little doggy Claude is just too cute to ignore. (Maybe someone will be inspired to knit a woolly version of him….?)

You can also compare this with pics of Di’s South African garden, here.

Following my invitation last week to Fusion View readers to send in photos of their gardens, regular reader Di from Durban sent in two pics of her garden in the heat of the African summer. How gorgeous to be able to splash about in your own private pool in the middle of January….

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I’m a gadget freak and I just love any new technology that’s clever and innovative - and useful. Dulwich Picture Gallery have a great new initiative, using PDAs (handheld digital devices) to enable visitors to interact with the beautiful Baroque art in its collections.

The PDA connects via wi-fi in the Gallery to a selection of art “trails ” that will take you to different paintings. There are questions and fun tidbits of information to discuss and debate with your friends, making the whole experience of visiting this art gallery interactive and very 21st century. That great innovator Leonarda da Vinci himself would have approved!

Here is a video of Ingrid Beazley*, E-Learning Programme Developer, talking to me about the DiGit Art Trails at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I met Ingrid giving a demo of the PDAs at the Gallery this morning and asked her spontaneously to tell me about them, capturing it on my mobile phone and uploading it onto Fusion View within an hour of getting home - I just love the wonders of modern technology!

You can hire a PDA at the PDA desk when you go to the Dulwich Picture Gallery at weekends. It costs £3 on top of your entry ticket, which is pretty good value. To find out how to get there, click here. To find out more about the Gallery, go to http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/.

*Ingrid is also Chair of the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Disclosure: I am involved with the Friends of the Dulwich Picture Gallery as member of their film club team, GalleryFilm, and I am also helping them with their social media strategy. The Friends support the work of the Gallery by their annual subscriptions which in return give Friends discounts on Gallery events. The Friends also raise funds for the Gallery through active volunteer activities - for example, all profits from the film club go to the Gallery. To find out more about the Friends, click here

We’ve had traffic chaos and tragedy in the UK in recent weeks because of freakishly high winds. The photo below is from the BBC news website. Click on it to go to their site where there are other photos of chaos on the roads and elsewhere around Britain.

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Here’s your chance to own a piece of genius. The Tate has set up an appeal to stop a major Turner painting from going to an overseas buyer who has paid £5.8million to buy the painting. However, there is a temporary export ban until 20 March 2007. The Tate are trying to raise enough funds to keep the painting, The Blue Rigi, in the UK with an innovative new media campaign, offering the likes of you and me the chance to “buy a brushstroke”.

You can “Buy a Brushstroke” by clicking on a small square on the painting - or as many squares as you like and it will calculate the amount of your purchase for every click you make. Or if you prefer not to give in to your consumeristic, acquisitive urge, you can make a regular donation online as well! Find out more at The Art Fund.

As a global, fusion sort of person, I am ambivalent about the nationalistic tone of such campaigns to save great art “for Britain”. On the other hand, as someone who enjoys and appreciates art, I can understand why anyone, any group, any country and any nation might not want art that was made in their country by one of their own to go outside the “tribe”. Who does art belong to? Should it belong to anyone?

I’ve been reading “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde about the commoditisation of art and its impact on creativity, culture and society. A very simplistic summary goes something like this: Creativity is a gift. Creativity makes art. Art is a gift. Once you capitalise a gift (as in “being a capitalist”) by buying and selling it, what happens to the creativity? Does it become the servant of capitalism? Can you be still truly creative? (I haven’t got to the end yet but what I want to know is: if you don’t engage with capitalism as an artist, how are you going to pay the bills?)

Let me know what you think.

In contrast to last week’s film “Real Men Knit”, for those of you guys who prefer the smell of gasoline in the morning to the click of knitting needles, here’s how to make art with a chainsaw.

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