Please don’t deceive me when I hurt you; It just ain’t the way it seems…

Debut giuliano Fujiwara womenswear collection designed by Masataka Matsumura for autumn/winter 2010/11. Sleek mix of Eastern and Western design themes, including some origami-inspired pleating and garment folding. Check out the menswear too at www.giulianofujiwara.com

Karl Holmqvist, Die Dame, 2008
Courtesy: the artist and dépendance

On Parables.
Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.

Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.

Another said: I bet that is also a parable.

The first said: You have won.

The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.

The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

Photography by Darren Almond

Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity, is a major group exhibition in which contemporary artists explore—and on occasion recreate—the condition of weightlessness on earth. The exhibition will present the work of multiple national and international artists, including three newly commissioned pieces for the exhibition. Distributed throughout the public spaces in the building the exhibition is itself un-tethered from the confines of the traditional gallery exhibition paradigm.

Arts Catalyst • Benjamin Bergmann • Denis Darzacq • Edith Dekyndt • Chris Doyle • William Forsythe • Julia Fullerton-Batten • Thom Kubli • Tomás Saraceno • Jane & Louise Wilson • Xu Zhen

Dancing on the Ceiling will bring together artworks that use the metaphor of floating or weightlessness as an expression of the relationship of the individual to social, political or personal contexts. In addition, several of the pieces relate to lightness as akin to an agility of mind, freed of entrenched perspectives.

Curated by Kathleen Forde, Curator of Time-Based Arts, the exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalog including essays by Italo Calvino as well as interviews with commissioned artists Chris Doyle and Thom Kubli.

The exhibition is also contextualized by a series of related performances, talks, films, and events; see the schedule for complete information.

Robert Longo, “Men in the Cities”, 1980s

NB: Don’t miss Aaron Schuster’s essay on levitation, love, and space sex in SB5!

David AKA Baibar comes from Andalucia. Jaen, a little town surrounded by mountains. He is one of the few local tattoo artists. Actually he most certainly is the best there. But thinking of it, he might be the best of Audalucia. He now also guests at LTW Barcelona. Sharing a booth next to Jondix. Watching David work reminded me of some of the world’s best Artists. He just knows, make you think he just reveals forms that are already there. After all, maybe he is one of the best in Spain. Hidden treasure. Says Jondix. The only reason why we will not know if he is one of the best of the world is that he doesn’t care. It is all about good work, not fame, not being presumptuous and starve for recognition. David also makes some amazing-looking and incredibly good tattoo machnes. He knows about the fabrication of Damascus steel, brutality & subtlety. With their Steam-Punk look, between bio-mechanical exoskeleton & industrial relique. Some treasures must remain hidden but deserve a legend.

During the stretching sessions of my dance courses, I often happen to broadcast Grace Jones’ Corporate Cannibal piece and while working on the elongation of specific muscles & muscle group, I ask my students to focus on the experience of fascination, which I interpret to be at the crossroads of the imaginary and the corporeal.
Rather than asking how one would have to define the ontological status of fascination, I actually wonder why fascination proves to be a paradigm “par excellence” to cover, that is to say, both nominate and legitimate, contemporary artistic experience?

Pleased to meet you, pleased to have you on my plate
your meat is sweet to me
your destiny
your fate

i’m the spark, make the world explode
i’m a man-eating machine, i’ll make the world explode
corporate cannibal…