“Ever since I was young, my Fathers job involved a lot of travelling and when we moved to a new city, some were smaller but others were larger: I loved to wander around the town. I loved it…
When I have a project I’m working on, I’ll basically leave my place before noon and, like a stray Dog circling ( or a Cat- or sometimes like an insect) I’ll go from alley to alley, resurface, and then enter another alley. And I’d just wander…

Then, after nightfall I’ll come home and take a shower. And then, go out again. I’ll have a drink somewhere in Shinjuku and stroll around and take photos. I’ll hit another bar and have another drink…hit the streets again: thats my method.  The Red Light District is “sexual”; the women are “sexual”, but its not only women. The city itself is “sexual”.

I guess I want to say that photography for me, isnt the most charming, unbearably fun thing I could do, but at the same time I cant help but find it, a medium and a habit that is…quite seductive”

Daido Moriyama-  An Artist At Work

In the art sense, I like that similar to tattooing , suggestive art was a rebellion and deemed despicable. I like that artist might be prosecuted for their works.

4) What is the best thing about being an artist in Brooklyn?

I wanted to live in New York and specifically be at Saved to have a platform that would put out the work and raise the level of art I could get away with doing. I could try a lot of ideas and see how they resonate very quickly and also people being more open to new things like that. New York is the center of the world for the art that im interested in. It’s often suspect but never the less, open to anything. What more could I ask for?

5) What piece of literature would you say has inspired you the most?

Well, I wish I read more than I do which I can admit is very little but of course, Marques DE Sade. Also Leonard Michaels, but, I’m more into film so that has much more of an influence on me.  Seeing the expressions with what is being said: I like that, as there isnt as much interpreting. The film draws the space and landscape it wants you to see. I know those who read hate that but I think its a more developed idea. You just dont get to change it for your own ideals. Which I like in art in general.

Immanuel Kant: A word with you dear neighbor, you were going out?

Birdkeeper: Great philosopher, the honor of your visit will serve in advance to excuse my lateness

Immanuel Kant: I will come again

Birdkeeper: Please, do me this kindness. Martin, my lad! Bring us some Franconia wine, the best.

Immanuel Kant: Now, my dear birdkeeper, do you see your dovecot?

Birdkeeper: In point of fact, I do see a dovecot. But your simple and profound remark spurs in me this sudden thought: Can I, in a single glance and impression, encompass building and sense of property, I mean my property?

An interesting problem.

Professor, can I see my dovecot?

Immanuel Kant: Indeed, Indeed. Now if I may…

Every day, every night, from my study where I work, every day of my life, since I chose to conduct my thinking with guidance from no one, I have enjoyed looking out the window at your dovecot.

Birdkeeper: Oh Professor! Then you see my dovecot!

Immanuel Kant: Nevertheless, for some time now your linden blocks my view and I no longer see your dovecot.

Birdkeeper: Yet you will notice that from here, we can see my dovecot.

Immanuel Kant: Yes, Mr Birdkeeper, but it’s no longer pleasing from my window and my work suffers for it. I feel like a gull flying against the wind.I beat my wings but no longer make headway.

Trees move, Mr Birdkeeper, do you understand? So, to calm an old man’s anxiety, I have come to ask a favor. Would you kindly cut down that tree?

Birdkeeper: Cut down a tree, Professor?
Immanuel Kant: Cut down a man, Mr Birdkeeper?

excerpt from Les derniers jours d’Emmanuel Kant, Philippe Collin, 1994

From 3/29-5/5, Howard St will be heating up with the presence of Damir Doma SILENT pop-up shop. Demonstrating that ‘diffusion’ does not equal ‘diluted’, the collection has taken on a life of its own; featuring an incredible print of hand painted stripes (which is echoed onto the walls of the shop), flashes of lush green throughout, and textured cottons and linens which give form and substance Damir’s draped & pleated silhouettes.

“For this installation I offer the audience my inner eye, an invitation into my world. The space has been transformed into a white desert – a spiritual and silent place. An arid landscape is fused with the purity of blinding white. Travellers are lost in the sands, as they become the salt of the earth.” – Damir Doma

The shop is located at 22 D Howard Street / http://silent.paperrain.com

SWISSNESS

the cross: the x-axis and the y-axis.

1. x-axis: transparency (jean-jacques rousseau)
2. y-axis: neutrality (WWII)

onto which we plot

3. the sublime (alps)
4. schizophrenia (babette straub)
5. money

and everything else in the whole wide world

So they loved as love in twain,
Had the essence but in one
Two distincts, but division none:
Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote yet not asunder
Distance and no space was seen
Twixt this turtle and his queen
But in them it were a wonder

So between them love did shine
That the turtle saw his sight
Flowing in the phoenix
Either was the other’s mine

Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called

Reason in itself confounded
Saw division grow together
To themselves yet either neither
Simple were so well confounded

That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth make this concordance one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.

Zana Bayne x Sang Bleu
video by Adrian Wilson

live music by TheShining

WED 22nd. Secret location
meet outside Shacklewell Arms
71 Shacklewell Lane e8 2eb
9:30pm

BYOB!

all original images taken from http://goreever.tumblr.com/

The gallery has worked with the artist for over 20 years, first presenting a solo show in Cologne in 1991. Realised in collaboration with Pasquale Leccese, this exhibition will take over three floors of the London gallery. On the ground floor, the gallery will present Ononimo, 1974, a large drawing in ballpoint pen, and Dossier Postale, 1969-70, a major work rarely shown in its entirety. Dossier Postale consists of a series of letters which were sent to well-known recipients, primarily artists, art critics, dealers and collectors active at the time. Boetti sent the envelopes to imaginary addresses, thus each letter was returned to the artist undelivered, demonstrating Boetti’s preoccupation with improbability and chance. Also displayed on the ground floor will be L’insensata corsa della vita, 1989, from the artist’s series of Mappas, embroidered by local artisans in Afghanistan. The colourful tapestry features a world map in which each country is represented by it’s national flag, a comment on the changing geopolitical situation of the time. The suggestive title, meaning ‘the nonsensical course of life’, is written in reverse. 

The lower level gallery pays homage to Il Muro, the wall in Boetti’s country home in Todi with its floor to ceiling hang of cards, photographs, drawings and found objects revealing the diversity of the artist’s thoughts, inspiration and curiosity in the world. The same room features Kabul Roma Roma Kabul, 2010, a 12 minute film produced by Traslochi Emotivi, an independent production company. The film includes an interview with Salman Ali, an Afghan refugee who met Boetti in Kabul while working as a waiter in the artist’s hotel and art project One Hotel, 1971-1979. Ali recounts his life as Boetti’s devoted assistant and friend, shedding light on the creative processes and day to day activities of the artist. Similarly underlining Boetti’s artistic legacy and influence will be a book created by the artist’s friends and assistants, Unpublished Materials, 2011 edited by Amedeo Martegani an d Luca Pancrazzi. The publication contains pages of correspondence, memories, ideas and projects, some unfinished or never realised, from the beginnings of his artistic career in Turin, to his travels in Africa and Asia. The exhibition will also include the portfolio Insicuro Noncurante, 1966-75. Pieced together by Rinaldo Rossi, the edition consists of 80 reproductions and provides a retrospective of Boetti’s work.

From the 28th of February until the 31st of March 2012

Please contact Reba at rm@sangbleu.com as soon as possible. The space is available now! \n\n\n\n\n\n

IRL purikura! This is my dream come true.