many a museum to be had
hit the pompidou centre today - it's actually quite good that lucy is working becasue this way i can see all those things that she's already "done" here. was lucky enough to catch the 'sons & luimieres' exhibition, which was a history of sound and light in 20th century art. some incredible shit in the early 20th really puts one's ideas of modernism into perspective (ie: that everything people do now was created around the turn of the century). it's quite difficult to imagine people like kandinsky and picasso sitting around painting all of this extreme abstract stuff while some more powerful idiots were starting a big disastrous and archaic war. i guess that shows you how much further ahead art is than mainstream politics and media.
best part of the exhibition was an interview with john cage who was a pioneering american post-modern composer/artist. none of his stuff, which comes across as "old" to one familiar with the discord and anti-traditional composition of abstract electronic music (just listen to a community radio program at about 2am in the morning and you'll know what i mean), was cliche'd. infact this guy wasn't even trying to be post-modern, he just was. and the method was even stranger, he would create a patchwork of sounds by tossing 3 coins and squaring all results which gave him 64 different possible combinations of sounds which he then randomly arranged on a massive sheet of composition paper which artists then followed (i think maybe even at their own whim....). yes sounds like a complete waste of time but in 1960 i guess that was cool and the idea was to mimik the "random chance" of nature through music. or so mr cage believed
anyway i will go back to the roots of subversive art sometime later this week, the musee d'orse and the louvre are still on the waiting list but i think my brain needs some recovery time after the pompidou. booked some more cheap flights yesterday but still struggling with the decision of whether "to eurail pass or not to eurail pass" for our travel around france and the up-and-coming tour down south to portugal and spain. must go home now and get the dins on for the workin girl. we had a delightful and wine-filled evening with marylin georgeff (the ex-journo of previous blog fame) and her info-freak french doctor husband who pretty much knows everything and was, to top it all off, quite funny. i guess a bottle of vinegar french red each makes most things funny but the point is that the night carried on late and lucy began work early so she will no-doubt be starving and knackered by the time she gets home tonight.
maybe some more museum commentary in a day or two, hopefully i'll be hanging out with katie gould over the next few days but she hasn't contacted me and was meant to arrive yesterday.
katie are you out there?! call me!
haven't heard of any fresh airline tragedies in the news so thats a good sign. doubt she will be reading this post anyway so looks like i'm the lone-stranger again tomorrow.
best part of the exhibition was an interview with john cage who was a pioneering american post-modern composer/artist. none of his stuff, which comes across as "old" to one familiar with the discord and anti-traditional composition of abstract electronic music (just listen to a community radio program at about 2am in the morning and you'll know what i mean), was cliche'd. infact this guy wasn't even trying to be post-modern, he just was. and the method was even stranger, he would create a patchwork of sounds by tossing 3 coins and squaring all results which gave him 64 different possible combinations of sounds which he then randomly arranged on a massive sheet of composition paper which artists then followed (i think maybe even at their own whim....). yes sounds like a complete waste of time but in 1960 i guess that was cool and the idea was to mimik the "random chance" of nature through music. or so mr cage believed
anyway i will go back to the roots of subversive art sometime later this week, the musee d'orse and the louvre are still on the waiting list but i think my brain needs some recovery time after the pompidou. booked some more cheap flights yesterday but still struggling with the decision of whether "to eurail pass or not to eurail pass" for our travel around france and the up-and-coming tour down south to portugal and spain. must go home now and get the dins on for the workin girl. we had a delightful and wine-filled evening with marylin georgeff (the ex-journo of previous blog fame) and her info-freak french doctor husband who pretty much knows everything and was, to top it all off, quite funny. i guess a bottle of vinegar french red each makes most things funny but the point is that the night carried on late and lucy began work early so she will no-doubt be starving and knackered by the time she gets home tonight.
maybe some more museum commentary in a day or two, hopefully i'll be hanging out with katie gould over the next few days but she hasn't contacted me and was meant to arrive yesterday.
katie are you out there?! call me!
haven't heard of any fresh airline tragedies in the news so thats a good sign. doubt she will be reading this post anyway so looks like i'm the lone-stranger again tomorrow.
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