Inside Australia's largest & most exciting international festival of contemporary art

 

I am going to spend the next two weeks visiting the Sydney Biennale, the most exciting art festival of Australia.

 The popular Cockatoo Island is used as a site for the 3^rdevent running, as is Pier 2/3, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), and a new addition: Carriageworks.  

Tomorrow will start my discovery, but today I did my first virtual tour on the net and fell in love with this two artists, so I decided to share some details with you:

  Tiffany Sing - Knock On The Sky Listen To The Sound, 2011

Tiffany Singh’s philosophies and practice encompass influences as varied as modernism, eastern and western spiritual beliefs, Jungian psychology and ancient cultures. With Maori, Indian and Pacific Island decent, her cultural diversity enables her to draw from the many pools of knowledge, philosophy and mythology.

Cecilia Vicuña, Born 1948 in Santiago, Chile, Quipu austral 2012

Lives and works in New York, USA 

In the Andes, people did not write, they wove meaning into textiles and knotted cords. Five thousand years ago they created the quipu or knot, a poem in space, a way to remember, involving the body and the cosmos at once, a tactile, spatial metaphor for the union of all. The quipu, and its virtual counterpart, the ceque – a system of sightlines connecting all communities in the Andes – were banished after the Conquest. Quipus were burnt, but the vision of interconnectivity endures underground. Cecilia Vicuña began making quipus in the 1960s as an act of poetic resistance. She created a ‘quipu that remembers nothing’, an empty cord to hear the earth listening to us.

Amazing wright? Have you visited the Biennale yet? Any Tips?

By the way  the Biennale is FREE and is on from till 16 Sept.

For more details click here 

xoxo

Lesley

What is Postmodernism?

It is a cliché to say that we live in a Postmodern world, yet only few people know what it really means. Untill a few days ago I was one of them. But now days I belive there is no excuse to be ignorant: we have access to information so easlly! Just lazyness can stop us!
So I ve decided that once a week I will make a post about an interesting art aspect that can help us be more cultivated! Last week it was Xu Bing today is going to be about Postmodernism.

The most important figure of Postmodernism is Jean Francois Lyotard.
If we had to describe postmodernism as a philosophical movement we should describe as a form of scepticism. Scepticism about authorities, received wisdom, cultural and political norms,…
In other words Postmodernism is the rejection of most of the western values, were revaluation becames very important.
Postmoderism has of course influenced the work of many artists from the music world to the art world, among all the so called postmodernist artists my favourite would certainly be Anselm Kiefer.

                 Karfunkelfee (2009) by Anselm Kiefer

In his work Kiefer refelcts about the violences, atrocities and paradoxes of human history.
I hope that you enjoyed this article and awakened your curiosity and thristh of knowledge and made you want learn more about the subject.
Remeber what Dante Alighieri wrote:
"you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge"
xoxo

Lesley


 

Versatile Blog Award

I wasa so happy wensday morning when a bit reluctantly because of my bad flu and my hopeless internet connection I decided to have a tour on my blog, to discover to my huge surprise that I had be honoured by Debbi from Yankee Burrow Creations the Versatile Blogger Award!

So cool!!!!

 

 

First of all a BIG BIG thank you to Debbi!

You can have a look to her versatile blog

by clicking here .You will see It is a very nice blog.

 

 

As everything in life there is a few rules that the awarded blogger has to respect..

•  Add the award to your blog.
•  Thank the blogger who gave it to you.
•  Mention 7 random things about yourself.
•  List the rules.
•  Award it to 15 bloggers.
•  Inform each of those 15 by leaving
  

   a comment on their blog.

   

 So now lets get to most fun part.. 7 random facts..

• I am an Italian artist who lives in Australia with her Australian fiance' who is also an artist.
• I am not sure I know what random means
• I am learning to crochet and I find It very relaxing and can actually be funky!
• I love to read all product etiquette and medicine leaflets
• My Blog will be dedicated entirely to Australia this moth (recipes, artists,...)
• I am moving back to Europe soon and I am very exited about it
• I love cooking new recipe from all over the world

But now enough about me ...It is time to announce the winners...
...dandara daaaaa...and the Award goes tooo:

 

 

I invite you to surf trough the pages of the awarded blogs, as they are really really cool and I am pretty sure you will find something interesting in them.

It is a quite eclectic selection of blogs from all over the world, from small craft blogs to some of the most known food bloggers of the world...

 

TOP 15 VERSATILE BLOGS :

 

 

http://lasagnathecat.blogspot.com.au/ ,  http://a-painting-mom.blogspot.com.au/,
http://q-linda.blogspot.com/ , minibonbons.blogspot.com.au, stephanielevy.blogspot.com, http://rioritajewelry.blogspot.com, janethillstudio.com/blog, http://www.blacksburgbelle.com/blog/, cocokelley.blogspot.com, www.joysilk.blogspot.com, www.inspiredtaste.net,
jessicahart.net,
blog,decor8blog.com,
eatlikeagirl.com/about,
www.stylemepretty.com

Always keep smiling

xoxo

Lesley

XU BING – When Dreams come true -

As I child I started to invent a secret written language than no one else could understand except me, It turn out that It was too time consuming and too complicated, but I still vividly remember the excitement that this project had raised in me.

So you can imagine my joy, when as an adult, I discovered that some one had done something very similar, but in a far more magical, intriguing and esthetically wonderful way.

                                   Xu Bing, "Book from the Sky" 1987

This someone is the Chinese artist Xu Bing, among his great artworks, my favorite is : “Book from the Sky (1987)”  an elaborate an fascinating installation.
Xu Bing’s “Book From the Sky” is an installation made of books, scrolls and printed sheets of paper with what seems in appearance “Chinese” texts, in reality he made up 4000 characters that seemed Chinese but were completely made up by him.

You can imagine the confusion and disbelief of the audience.
The delicate subjects here treated are the role of traditional culture in our contemporary world, the trustworthiness of information, and the vainness of life.

The artist consecrated three years working on this mind-blowing project.

                                            Xu Bing, "The Living Word" 2001

Fascinating, no?

Film Festival - On a crazy ride with Leos Carax

I love Film Festivals in general, I think is the best way to enjoy the very top movies that are happening all over the world, It is a way to dream and reflect and of course escape reality.
The good news is that from the 6 - 17 of June the Sydney Film Festival is happening here in Sydney.
Yesterday I went to see Holy Motors made by  French filmmaker Leos Carax.
It is an amazing movie, rich in colours, music and craziness and contains a  subversive weirdness. A weird mixture of science fiction and surrealism. Holy motors has surprised me and remind me a bit of my favourite movie ever : Mulholland Drive of David Lynch

Follows the Official Movie trailer of Holy Motors:

A famous Hollywood Reporter calls it 'exhilarating, opaque, heartbreaking and completely bonkers.'

Have you seen it?What do you think?


Another Movie that I will suggest seeing is : Marina Abramovic: The artist is Present, I went to see her exhibition in Milan this spring and since I am a HUGE fan!

Enjoy


xoxo


Lesley