Good Bye Andersa!

Time to move out 3/3

Starring: Miss Polski 2006 (just the sister of flatmate Pan Piotrek), Pan Piotrek and I.

After Chmielna with its unbeatable skyline, after the Fankytrros' Zabki-commune which is just too deep to be described, it is now the turn of Andersa. The flat where Miss Poland 2006 spent two nights and the author of this blog was in the other room. And he didn't realize. For the records and to avoid any kind of future hold against - apparently her boyfriend was also there.

Next station and last stop: Imielin. At mARTa's flat.

Somehow sad won't move out every second week anymore. Again, a former stagiaires at the European Commission is saving my ass. May I repeat that once again: God Bless Europe!

Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki: a first time.

Talkin' about 1968, today I finally went to Zachęta, the National gallery of modern art. I have been there a couple of times before but just in the basement, the headquarter of a seriously cool bar of which I can't remember the name.

Zacheta is hosting a temporary exhibition on 1968. Not much on Poland, though. Which kind of disappointed me, as this was somehting I'd really like to see trasposed in art. Being afraid that I won't ever be able to feel it otherwise.

There was this room dedicated to the so called "sex revolution", somehow a bit too strong with the explicit broadcasting of videos that did not seem to offer a deeper level of reading other than the easy sexy-unconventional hit. Or perhaps I just missed it, distracted by all this nudity. Or may be it is just a natural reaction of the local artists to that backword catholic conservatorism that here in Poland seems to be reviving. Something like the Colbert, Family-and-Religion-though of Mr. Tremonti - Italy's treasurer and Mr. Bossi - Italy's leader of the North League, a party representing the interests of some Northern Italians.

However, on a different section of the gallery was also shown a retrospective of Włodzimierz Pawlak. "Painter, performer, poet, art theoretician – he had until now never had either a comprehensive solo exhibition or an exhaustive publication about his work. The Zachęta show is the first retrospective presentation of the artist’s oeuvre, covering the years 1984–2008.
The structure of the exhibition, which presents the paintings in a chronological sequence, has been dictated chiefly by the need to present the main threads and themes of Pawlak’s practice. The first section are works from the Gruppa period (1982–1989), usually referring to contemporary events, politics, or history, as well as works of existential and autobiographical themes. The second section are the Journals and white paintings (1989–2004), a colour the artist believes to be formally and symbolically supreme. Shown here are also the Painted-over Paintings, the artist’s earlier works which he painted white in the early 1990s, thus returning to the issue, tackled in his graduation project and present in his practice since then, of ‘creation-destruction’. The third section features paintings devoted to the analysis of theoretical painting problems, the patrons of which are Kazimir Malevich and Władysław Strzemiński (from 1988), with series such as The History of Colour, Notes on Art, The Logical Space of the Picture. Shown in this section are also Pawlak’s sculptures-objects, built with everyday items, found objects, and painting utensils. In a way, these sculptures are appendixes to the paintings, their three-dimensional, spatial equivalents".

I wanted to post some pictures of his work but there is really not much on the internet, except the new solid cover of this blog.

Libertè Egalitè Compètition

Questo pezzo è stato scritto di ritorno a Vancouver nel Maggio 2006, dopo otto mesi in Canada e tre settimane in Europa. La versione originale la potete trovare su Gheminga. Mi sembrava giusto ripubblicarlo prima che il quarantennale del '68 finisse, così come la crisi di cui sotto. Un ricordo particolare non può non andare a Violina che nonostante le condizioni pietose in cui versavo dopo due semestri di graduate studies (chi ha studiato seriamente in Nord America sa) mi ha accompagnato in giro per Parigi per due settimane come se niente fosse e mi è sempre stata accanto, facendomi scoprire - come al solito - tutta la bellezza che solitamente mi sfugge.

Sarà stato il ritorno in Europa dove tutto è così vecchio e pesante. Sarà che dopo aver visto (gl)i Champes Elysèe con tutte quelle bandiere francesi tra alberi e negozi e la libreria della Sorbona murata e in ricostruzione e le facce della gente per strada, di quelli che hanno detto no alla costituzione europea, ma anche degli unici coetanei che riescono ancora a scendere in strada e protestare per qualcosa (e vincere)... Sarà che dove sono stati detenuti il re Luigi di turno e, poco dopo, Robespierre, prima di essere giustiziati, ci ho visto una mostra fotografica sulla Senna. Sarà che è un po’ che ho questo pensiero per la testa e mi chiedo: ma perché non sono nato negli anni ’50? C’era Elvis, che sarei stato troppo piccolo per apprezzare, ma c’era. E poi sarei cresciuto al tempo in cui lo showbiz, al limite, erano Beatles e Rolling Stones, con John Lennon che convive con Yoko Ono e scrive Imagine, con il periodo d’oro del rock‘n’roll. Magari sarei anche riuscito a vedere i Pink Floyd quando il genio, prima di impazzire e scomparire, era ancora tra loro sul palco. Avrei capito cosa vuol dire la parola punk e Jim Morrison non sarebbe stato un sosia di Val Kilmer. Avrei potuto passare giornate nei parchi con persone convinte che pace e amore siano due cose importanti, magari fumando un po’ di ganja o mangiando funghetti (senza eskimo per rispetto del profeta degli appennini). Gridare spensierato a vent’anni che le vie da percorrere per un mondo migliore passavano per forza attraverso la giustizia sociale (e cioè che anche l’operaio vuole il figlio dottore), che voglio tutto e subito. E la cosa bella è che ci avrei creduto. Avrei creduto in tutto questo. Sarei vissuto nell’epoca in cui l’immaginario collettivo del migliore dei mondi possibili non era di molto lontano da quello dei cartoni animati, dove con idee semplici si rispondeva a problemi complessi. Con buona pace del materialismo storico e della critica marxista (interessante contraltare di tutta questa leggerezza, peccato che si sarebbe rivelata totalmente sbagliata come la storia meglio di chiunque altro ha inesorabilmente dimostrato). Ed invece sono nato negli anni ’80, con trenta anni di ritardo su quel mondo in cui, nonostante tutto, mi avevano preparato a vivere. Libertè, Egalitè, Compètition. Uno slogan postmoderno, non poteva essere altrimenti. Suona piuttosto bene, ma è difficile da gridare. In tre parole quel tanto famigerato e frainteso ideale che è anche l’unica vera novità concettuale della mia generazione: il mercato. Chi mi sa spiegare perché mi han regalato tre volte "Never Mind" e mai "The dark side of the moon"?

Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction...

... posing a "mega-catastrophic risk". This is not Hugo Chavez latest tall story, it's how Warren Buffet - the richest person on earth in 2008 according to Forbes magazine - defined the derivatives (complex financial instruments) at the microphones of BBC. Yes the same Media Company of Ed O'Brian of Radiohead from the post of yesterday... however this is not the point now that a financial crisis comparable only to that of 1929 is ongoing. Mr. Buffet - a very famous insider, perhaps "the insider" - used this expression not today or yesterday, after the notice of the failure for bankruptcy of Lheman brothers, America’s fourth-largest investment bank.

Mr. Buffet just said that five years ago. Yes five. That's probably why he came up with such a brilliant expression. Financial weapons of mass destruction. It was the time of the media preparation for the U.S. troops invasion of Iraq. In those days I remember I took part in Amsterdam - where I was doing the Erasmus - to a world-wide demonstration for peace (nothing spectacular though). Perhaps people had something else to be concerned with and didn't really take the words of the guru of finance seriously. But what about the people in the finance sector?? Sometimes I just have the feeling that many people know and knew everything - it can't be otherwise - but they were just sure that in any case they would have not paid directly in case of a crisis cause they had better information than others and would have made it on time to hand the hot potato off on someone else belonging to that rest of humanity who didn't share the same access to information.

For that matters, you can still read the BBC full article here or watch the Faithless video below. Mr. Burret and Maxi Jazz. Apparently different. They said one thing. Five years ago. Not yesterday.

Faithless - Mass Destruction
Za�adowa�: bebepanda

Radiohead intend to return to the studio "in the near future" according to BBC interviewing Ed O'Brian

Arena Civica - Milano - 18 June 2008
Reckoner 15 Step The National Anthem All I Need Nude Airbag The Gloaming Dollars And Cents Arpeggi Faust Arp How To Disappear Completely Jigsaw Falling Into Place A Wolf At The Door Videotape Everything In Its Right Place Idioteque Bodysnatchers House Of Cards There There Bangers And Mash Just The Tourist Go Slowly 2+2=5 Paranoid Android

The concert of the year before I went to that of Sigur Ròs at the Amfiteatr w Parku Sowińskiego here in Warsaw. However, they still own - and firmly - the first place in the category "the best concert of all times": Arena di Verona - 30 May 2001. And with that there's not much to compete.

Team Cafè Mesita!

Saturday it was a cold day in Warsaw. Some 13/15 Celsius degrees. Like today. I had just moved out from Zabki to Ul. Andersa and the coffee machine was still in my first flat at Chmielna. It was with even greater pleasure so that I attended the opening of "La Mesita" in Ul. Sienna 93- the book-cafè of Magda, Sebastien - my colleague at CASE - and their beautiful son Ernest who turned to the age of one just today. It was an amazing relaxing afternoon and, since the very first moment I stepped in, this place felt just so familiar! ! On the way back I also managed to drop by my previous flat in Chmielna to pick up the coffee machine that I used this morning to prepare my first "Andersian coffee". And I have to say that after the one at La Mesita mine was at best just drinkable. Congrats to Team Mesita and best of luck for the times to come!

Funkitarro's Legacy

Everything I would have expected from Warsaw but to find a supposedly Czech former stagiaire at the European Commission... who turned out to be instead from Warsaw, who came to this amazing bike trip to Terespol at the border with Belarus, who's been hosting me for the last week in a flat iniside a psychiatric hospital in the very outskirt of Warsaw... but I would have never imagined he would have also turned out to be a funkitarro head as the author of this blog is. These days the hit has been playing loud at least ten times a day down in the funky-commune Ząbki. Some things are just written before history even started. Someone calls it DNA. Others chance. Or this is just another of the many proofs of the existence of god (mp3 shuffle being the next closest one).