I’ve watched more movies than lately. This is partially because the Wisconsin Film Festival was in town two weeks ago, but not necessarily the only reason.
I recently watched City of God about slum life outside of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. The movie was excellent: the videography, the story, and music all came together quite nicely. I enjoyed how they explained the life of the narrator and his situation through short biographies/stories of other City of God citizens. While the story seems to be about the narrator, Rocket, it is really about the ability of the slum to create success and destroy it in its various forms. Everything came together in the story to balance hope, reality, and pain.
I was very excited to see JCVD when it played as a part of the Wisconsin film festival. I had seen previews -it’s tapping into meta-fiction had me a bit excited. The premise: a movie about Jean Claude Van Damme as a washed up actor getting sucked into a hostage situation, starring none other than Jean Claude Van Damme himself. Not only is it commentary about his life as an actor, it blurs the line between his actual life and his action movies, but… it’s still a movie. Sounds like an excellent idea. Well, I wouldn’t know how it was. Why? Well, it was a midnight showing, and I had gone out with friends for a while beforehand. So I fell asleep about 10 minutes into the film and woke up promptly at the credits. It seems as though the general consensus was “great idea, poorly executed.” I’ll probably get it on Netflix.
Filed under: art
I found this article to be very interesting. An artist turned doctor turned artist. An expensive route to being an artist I guess, but it very much is able to “illuminate the mundane” in a completely different way: CT scans.
Visually very cool as well, check out the barbie (image from NYTimes.com).
Filed under: Running, art, cars, life, madison, photos | Tags: madison, Running, snow
I was able to run 10 miles in the windy, blowing snow last Saturday and hold an 8:00/mile pace.
I haven’t run as much this week. The weather really hasn’t helped with that: between Monday and Tuesday we got a ridiculous amount of snow. Monday night it started out as ice, which I had to scrape through about a solid 1/8 inch covering my entire car. Tuesday, I was on the way to work when WPR tells me that officially we shouldn’t leave home unless necessary -it should have sunk in when I was the only non suv on the road and my car (which is decently heavy) felt like a sled.
So, I did some running and cross-training indoors, then I tried a longer run outdoors tonight. There is an insane amount of ice, especially on hills. My run was more dancing, balancing, hopping, and slipping than anything else.
I did manage to make it six miles.
Oh well. It is winter.
Tuesday morning:
Filed under: art, madison | Tags: george segal, madison, madison museum of contemporary art, MMoCA, street scenes
I’ve actually been to this exhibition 3 times now at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. First by myself, then with friends from Madison, then with a friend from school. I really enjoy this exhibit and think it’s extremely well put together. It helps that Segal is an excellent artist: he takes the time to painstakingly create these ghastly figures and then recreate the environments in which he sees them. The sparse backdrops in the gallery at the MMoCA really match the works’ color scheme and make them stand out.
I love comparing Segal’s Bread Line with Edward Hopper’s paintings of the great depression -it really illustrates the difference between installation and painting.
This one is my favorite:
The Diner
(The artist statement next to the work adds much, go see it.)
Filed under: art, life, myself | Tags: eggplant parmesan, louise bourgeouise, rummage sales
My mom sent me a recipe for eggplant parmesan derived from the one at the William Sonoma website. I had been extolling the virtues of the vegetables at the farmer’s market and about how good the eggplant looked. Her reaction: “Well, you’ll love this.” It’s eggplant, cheese, tomatoes, a bit of garlic, and lots of olive oil. It’s quite good. It does take some time… and you’re using the oven and boiling down tomatoes while it’s hot out side. I think it’s worth it.
eggplant by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
In other news, this month’s ARTNews magazine reviewed a Louise Bourgeois exhibition in New York (I need to live there to have easy access to these things). This reminded me that about two weeks ago I went to a garage sale that was housed inside a basketball court. Over the top of the metal cages there was a giant blue tarp. The man running the show with the long beard and ragged old wallet full of bills called it “The Danger Zone.” This man also said he was a national-caliber Scrabble competitor. Inside the Danger Zone there were tables covered with old dusty junk with price tags, mirrors, and books. Wooden chairs hung from the cage’s walls and from poles in the center. It bore striking resemblance to Louise Bourgeois’s Passage Dangereux (see below) which simply translates to “Dangerous Passage.” A weird coincidence with the name (somewhat), but I guess there’s the possibility that it’s intentional.
Louis Bourgeois is a wonderful artist. She’s in her late nineties and still as sharp and as productive as ever. She was a surrealist associated with Léger and now she has become personally renowned for her sculpture and installation works.
Louise Bourgeois, Passage Dangereux, 1997. Taken from the book Themes in Contemporary Art by Gill Perry and Paul Wood
Do these look similar to you?
From Ana Mendieta’s Tree of Life series (1970s)
Wifredo Lam’s La Jungla (1920s)
Filed under: art, life, madison, myself | Tags: Farmer's Market, Fresco, Harvest, madison, MMoCA, Restaurant Week, TL Solien, Wisconsin
As a recently new member of the Madison, Wisconsin community, I’m just beginning to explore what the town has to offer.
Last Saturday I went to the Farmer’s Market and was able to get my vegetables. The market surrounds the capitol building’s square and offers anything from flowers, to venison, to cheese, to fresh basil. I picked up plenty of basil, red onions, garlic cheddar, spinach, basil, and sweet corn all at good prices and all organic. I also made sure to pick up a whole-wheat chocolate chip scone. In addition, this farmer’s market was packed with people including Obama campaigners on each corner and a religious groups singing on one. Women with giant tattoos ran a flower stand while amish men with large beards and black hats sold vegetables. It was diverse, it had free samples, and was wonderful.
The next stop was the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA). It’s just off of the square on State Street in beautiful glass-paneled building. The museum itself is very small, but offers interesting exhibitions and is free to the public. I’m personally excited to have a Contemporary Art Museum nearby, Milwaukee cannot claim this -the closest three are in Madison, Sheboygan, and Chicago. The featured exhibition was that of TL Solien, a Madison native, entitled “Myths and Monsters.” It was comprised of many very expressive paintings from the 1980s on of cartoonish characters melded into backgrounds, objects, and each other, often using specific styles of paper or mixed media. One series was based on the story of Moby Dick. One could group it into the Neo-Expressionist “movement” of the 1980s in that it is painting and holds visual similarities to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel (both use paint and have an “expressive” style), but it clearly addresses different themes and appropriates very different images. It also appeared that they were conducting some sort of installation in a lower gallery that included long colored plastic strips. These also were in the stairwell as seen above.
The MMoCA’s rooftop houses the restaurant, Fresco, which I will be trying out later this week. This week is “restaurant week” in Madison, meaning that many fine places are offering set three-course menus for a $25 fixed price. Tonight I went to Harvest and had a grilled squid appetizer (okay), a skirt steak with patatas bravas and a salsa (really good), and a slice of chocolate cake (also very good). Needless to say, I’m enjoying the promotion for these restaurants ($25 is how much many of the entrées would normally cost). I’m interested in the pork loin with coconut risotto.
I was browsing around on the internet the other day and came across the Nine Inch Nails’ friends playlist on YouTube. I’m quite familiar with Ladytron, and consider myself a fan, and Queens of the Stone age, but nothing else really struck a chord. Eventually, I clicked on the video for “Turnstile Blues” by Autolux (below). Anything with “blues” in the title has to be at least okay, right? Well, it wasn’t blues and it borders much more on My Bloody Valentine’s dream pop/shoegazing. The soft vocals and guitar mesh well with strong precise drumming. The last album was released in 2006, but a new one is apparently in the works. Enjoy.
1. Radiohead – In Rainbows
2. Spoon – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
3. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
4. White Stripes – Icky Thump
5. Daft Punk – Alive 2007
6. The National – Boxer
7. Battles – Mirrored
8. Justice – Cross
9. LCD Soundsystem – Sounds of Silver
10. Simian Mobile Disco – Attack Decay Sustain Release
