I had a crush on photographer Simen Johan‘s serie Until the Kingdom Comes.
He depicts an unsettling natural world hovering between reality, fantasy and nightmare, merging traditional photography with digital methods.
There is an exhibition of his work at the gallery Yossi Milo in New York, finishing December 23rd.
It reminded me of the work of Andrew Zuckerman, whom I wrote about in this post I’ve never been to Africa.
If you did not get any luck at the lottery for the London Olympic Games, there are plenty more reasons to come to London next summer. Here is a good one & there are still some tickets left:
Pina Bausch‘ Dance Company, Tanztheater Wuppertal will be performing a serie titled World Cities the month leading to the Olympics, in honour of the upcoming games. While Ms Bausch, the Grande Dame of modern dance, died in 2009, her company still carries her legacy. This serie is an ambitious staging of the choreographer’s 10 works inspired by cities.
Viktor (Rome) - Nur Du (Los Angeles) - Como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si (Santiago de Chile)
Ten Chi (Saitama) - Der Fensterputzer (Hong Kong) - Bamboo Blues (Kolkata)
Nefes (Istanbul) - Agua (Sao Paulo) - Palermo Palermo (Palermo)- Wiesenland (Budapest)
Honestly, you don’t need to be an adept of modern dance to appreciate Bausch’ work. I have taken my husband several times and even he has enjoyed it (!) You can book tickets here.
And if you really can’t travel, then you can still watch Pina, a beautiful documentary made by German film director Wim Wenders (one of my favorites director. ever.)
Paris Photo art fair is opening this week (oui!!) and there’s a whole serie of interesting exhibitions to coincide with the show. One I will stop by to visit is Dubai(land) at the very resourceful gallery Olivier Waltman in Saint Germain Des Pres.
Aleix Plademunt is a Spanish artist who has explored the theme of trompe l’oeil in Dubai through photography. His Dubai(land) work is an ironic clin d’oeil to this DubaiLand.
all images courtesy of Galerie Oliver Waltman, Paris
See also this post for some ironic artistic clin d’oeil on Dubai…
I am still pinching myself. Could this really be a photography? Is this really the scale of the megalomaniac Dubai World project? Could we – ie. the humanity – be so arrogant as to think we can defy nature in such a grand proportion? Because we all need to take in a bit of responsibility, don’t we?!
A highlight in our visit to Frieze Art Fair London this week end was this massive piece from Andreas Gursky - Dubai World III. On sale for 450,000 pounds if you’d like to make the world your own.
Read here if you’d like to know more how Dubai World was made “a destination that allows investors to chart their own course and make the world their own”
Ps: did you know there’s a good education program for children 5 and above at Frieze?
Just recently graduated from The Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, artist Hanemaai has designed one smart of a travel tool, based on the idea that the few items that you decide to take on a trip are the ones that ultimately define your identity. This is a double identity object: a suitcase and a display at once.
“Each time I move, I stretch myself out, looking here, looking there, arranging myself all over the different rooms. In stretching myself out, moving homes for me is coming to inhabit spaces, coming to embody them, where my body and the space in which it gathers cease to be distinct” Hanemaai
A few pieces are being produced. If interested, contact Hanemaai directly on via her website
Tomorrow June 2nd is the opening of the exhibition The World Belongs to You at the Francois Pinault Foundation, to coincide with the opening of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition comprises the works by 40 artists from 20 countries.
This installation from artist Huang Yong Ping is particularly striking: a resin cave, sculptures of buddhas and talibans, projected bat’s shadows.
Photo Marc Domage. Courtesy of the artist and galerie kamel mennour, Paris
The World Belongs to You brings together works by artists from different practices, generations, and backgrounds, exploring artists’ relationships to history, reality and its own representation. “The exhibition revolves around major themes of contemporary history: from the breakdown of symbols, to the temptation of self-withdrawal and isolation, the attraction of violence and spirituality in a troubled and globalised world” (words from the curator Caroline Bourgeois).
I have always dreamt to visit Venice during the biennale. What a perfect opportunity this would be…
Sydney is a great place to stop and rest after our intense travelling in South East Asia. It’s a very welcoming city to the family, big enough to offer plenty to do yet relaxed and stylish, and very child-friendly. There are not that many big cities in the world that offer great beach living with cool city lifestyle. I can think of Rio, or Tel Aviv but Sydney really is in another league..Oh if it wasn’t soooo far from everything, we could easily see ourselves raising our children here.
The famous Sydney Opera House above, and the famous Bondi beach below.
The beaches of Bondi-Tamarama-Bronte-Coogee are a great base with a family, and only 15-20 min drive to downtown. We ended up in Coogee, renting the Annex which is a nice family apartment managed by the Dive Hotel. Coogee is not as cool and lively as Bondi, but it’s super child friendly with a great playground overlooking the ocean, a ladies & children pool in the sea, and a great long beach. Breakfast facing the waves from the terrass of Barzura is a must. Another wonderful brunch place is Swell on Bronte beach. With courage, there is a 3 hour cliff walk from Coogee to Bondi along the coast. We did the abbreviated version from Bronte to Bondi, 30min with a stroller and many steps. It’s highly recommended.
After the walk to Bondi beach, it’s a good idea to stop for ice creams with a view at the swim club Icebergs, or get a babysitter in order to enjoy a diner tete-a-tete in the very hip top floor restaurant. Or family dinner at North Bondi Italian, a casual and delicious noisy place facing the surfers. Or just a glass of Australian wine at The Shop a few blocks behind the beach in Bondi. This b&b in North Bondi seems like a good address to bookmark but it was full for us, or this hotel for a more established place. Or these websites also had lots of apartments to rent that seemed well located (but we planned way too late..): Rent-a-Home and Stay-z.
If the weather is warm and sunny (which it is most of the time between December and March!), it’s nice to split the day between morning visits and afternoon at the beach, with a lunch break in one of the many cool spots in town. They know a thing or two about fooding in Sydney.
Children will love taking a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbor, and getting off to visit the Wildlife World and the exciting aquarium (best to buy the combo tickets). Lunch break at Chinta Ria for Malaysian family food is a good option afterwards, right in Cockle Bay.
Another half day can be spent starting at the incredible Sydney Opera House (we got to listen to a concert of classic music Passion with Brahms last night, a nice prelude to Valentine’s day!!), then walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens to finish at the Art Gallery NSW where there’s a good cafe with kids pack. Or the Museum of Contemporary Art right near Circular Quay. March will see Art Month in Sydney, a month-long festival of arts in the city, with family programs as well. Too bad we’ll be gone by then.
For more art, head to Danks Street in Waterloo where you will find Danks Street Depot at number 2, the David Bramley gallery and Sonoma bakery for lunch break. And for a pleasant leisure stroll, walk the streets of charming Paddington area, stopping for Italian ice cream at Alimentari on William Street.
You see those charming houses with wrought iron balconies all over in Sydney. Love them. And a reminder that this country is a rich land of iron and many other commodities. Hence 1US$=1AU$ right now…a very expensive city for the visiting tourist.
And another afternoon can be spent in the arty / trendy area of Surry Hills, where one of Sydney’s coolest kids store Kido has a new shop on Crown Street, not far from Mrs Red & Sons another shop worth a visit. We had amazing sushi at Toko for early dinner with the children (everyone eats really early in Sydney!). Or the Italian Pizza e Birra next door seemed like a deliciously stylish alternative.
I could go on and on with good spots for meals in Sydney, because we ate really well in many design-driven places. The Foodie 100 article from Travel Leisure has lots of good addresses, and I am carrying a print for every country we go to.
We have not had a chance yet to walk the Harbour Bridge, maybe on our return from the Blue Moutains. I hear there are some great climbs organized on the bridge (top ten world’s heart pounding experiences), but am I still allowed this kind of adrenaline-filled activities now that I am a mother?
Street 240 in Phnom Penh is the epicenter of the bohemian expat community. Most work for NGOs or for the U.N., as very few corporations have offices in Cambodia. So it’s not your typical expat community (such as in HK or Singapore). There’s a laidback atmosphere with several shops and cafes that are quite tasteful. Here are some places that I liked, in addition to the ones already featured by Vanda in the interview I published last week.
WaterLily is a jewelry shop, where everything is designed and made in Cambodia by a French woman who’s been living in PP since 1996.
The Shop is a delicious place to stop for lunch, a smoothie, and freshly baked croissants.
Chocolate is perfect for a..chocolate fix made locally by Belgian owners (of course!).
And nearby the Galerie X-em La (N° 13, Rue 178 Phnom Penh) had a very interesting exhibition of Cambodian artist EM Riem. He painted on rice bags the portraits of many children who entered the Khmer Rouge torture site of S21, a former high school, and never came back. His work is based on b/w photographic archives. It’s very moving.
In Phnom Penh, we were reminded of the atrocities and the genocide committed by Pol Pot’s regime in the 1970′s. The figures are hard. In those 4 years, 2 million people died in a country with less than 15 million people. Everyone knows someone who disappeared, and many scars are still open. This is also Cambodia.
We saw a hilarious exhibition on a recent family trip to Paris, at the Fondation Cartier. Takeshi Kitano, the wonderfully ingenious movie director / actor / TV host / you name it is expressing his multi-talents for the first time ever in a museum. His installations will have the whole family marvel, and the older ones laughing very hard. That is, if you appreciate a good dose of sarcasm.
Ok, this is is not PC at all (not to be translated to the little ones). In the exhibit, Takeshi Kitano poses the question:
Why Dinosaurs Have disappeared from Planet Earth
Because you can’t see when they put their hands up…
Because they don’t know how to wipe themselves…
Because they started to do drugs…
Ok. Ok. I know it’s not for everyone. But trust me, the exhibition has a bit for every age. Funny yet touching and surprising. It’s on til September 13th 2010. Just a few more days to LOL.
