Michael Rees's Social Object: Sculpture and Software exhibition at CAM

Michael Rees has created a software that allows a visual language to emerge from text and the results are incredible. There are several languages available, involving different images for different words and letters, and anyone can make up their own language once they know what they want to show/say. Moving to the next level is creating an actual object from the 3D image on the computer screen, which the software program also allows you to do.
“The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.” - Marcel Duchamp. Rees used this as a jumping off point for the work you see with the sewer pipes!

Google Chrome and Bob Partington

Bob Partington was an important part of the team that put that Google Chrome video together. To say he's a great artist is a bit of an understatement. He's a genius. Here are some pics from the party for them. Bob of course built all the sets...

The Art of Wine Making: Les vins de Castelmaure

Castelmaure was one of several vineyards that I visited in Languedoc. I love when they make it clear that the wine is still made by hand, and not by machine. I liked this vineyard too because it was very "artsy". They used color, and had stories for everything; very poetic ones written on the labels of the bottles and on a big board at the entrance where you taste the wines.

Some pictures from the Jardin du Luxembourg

Avatar

"Sometimes you just want to retreat into a James Cameron movie and forget about the "real" world ;)" - Facebook post from a few days ago.

I saw this movie in Europe (without 3D goggles) and I still loved it. There was a discussion on facebook last week which I got involved in, unfortunately I think. Usually I never get into those silly discussions, but I was on vacation and had time. It's amazing the lowest common denominator people get down to in those discussions. I mean the lowest. After awhile I gave up but not before telling the loud mouth dumb asses just how dumb I thought they were. God knows it's no easy task to do anything, much less write, produce and direct a movie. And anyway, the question of what's art and not art is old already. If we are to judge by what's being sold as art in galleries and what's being written about in magazines etc., who the hell knows? And forget about commercialism. After all, we are in America and still a capitalist society.

Like I said on my facebook post, but substituting "tableau" for "a work of art"; "Le premier mérite d'un tableau est d'être une fête pour l'oeil"-Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). Same applies to movies. For those out there who love beauty, who embrace the idea of alternate realities, of other worlds or dimensions, who value nature, spirituality and the unity between all things, this is a great movie to see.

Musee National Eugene Delacroix

The exhibition "Une passion pour Delacroix: La collection Karen B. Cohen" goes through April. It's worth seeing what passion as a collector can accomplish. I believe this collection will go to the Met at some point. To know more about this exhibition click here.


Eugène Delacroix. Coucher de soleil. © New York Collection Karen B. Cohen

Regis R: Prince of Plastic

I think it was Leo Castelli who said something to the effect, you know the quality of an artist's work by looking at his character. Well Regis R has tons of character and it doesn't hurt that he was a designer in the studio of Philippe Starck. I met him in the fall during the Slick art fair and this time we sat with his manager at Cafe des Deux Moulins in Pigalle and chatted about all things art.




Image courtesy of http://itopus.blogspot.com/2008/06/regis-r-prince-of-plastic-in-casa-vogue.html

Paul de Pignol

I met this artist at a friend's dinner where we played with her rabbits all evening. She's been friends with him for more than a decade. He sculpts and draws in the tradition of Giacometti and shares a sculpting studio with another artist on the outskirts of Paris but draws in a small studio that looks out over the city and the Eiffel Tower. It was incredibly fun to go around with him one day. You had the sense of being way back in the last century, perhaps 75 or more years ago when Paris was still the center of the art world. If you click the title you'll get to his website and see more of his work.

The Queen's Gallery Buckingham Palace

What a wonderful exhibition of Treasures From the Royal Collection. Some of the best old masters are on view here. It's a good reminder that royals have been some of the biggest patrons of the arts, commissioning works, before the whole contemporary art buzz made "collecting" such a game of keeping up with the Joneses.


Pythagorus advocating vegetarianism. c.1618-30.Sir Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders.Acquired by Queen Victoria.

The Browser One Year Anniversary and Christmas Party

The Browser's first anniversary and Christmas party in a wonderful art deco building in West London was a mix of intellectuals, fashionistas, art worlders and finance guys. Al Breach certainly knows how to throw a party, stateside or abroad ;)