Loris Greaud, originally uploaded by pablogt.

Loris Greaud’s Cellar Door at Palais de Tokyo here in Paris leaves me with no emotion… but people like it, so here it is for you to leave me a few comments on what you think about it… slideshow

Take a look a the artwork of a good friend of mine Laurent de Raucourt:

Recently (five months ago) I saw the movie Le Samourai by Director Jean-Pierre Melville recommended to me by a respected miami artist and seconded the same night by dig. So I eagerly put it on top of my netflix list. I saw it and made notes while I watch it in the hopes of making some comments about it here. Time passed and today I decided to do it with the music background of Cansei de Ser Sexy.

I have to say that these are the type of movies I need to see. It confirms the idea in my head that there is art cinema out there to be explored. Since, I have seen many other Melville movies, but none is as good as Le Samourai. The first thing I noticed about the first shot that lasted like an eternity, it was a movie painting without the moving. Little by little I notice someone on the right side of the frame. It was Alain Delon, other than being one of my mother’s idols, I always noticed that many talked about him as if he was a joke because he starts every sentence about himself with “Alain Delon thinks …” all in the third person sentences, and always about himself. At least that was the way he was portrayed by Les Guignols and it always made me laugh about Delon. Yet this movie changed all that. This movie is a Masterpiece.

I think Melville was influenced by Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard and I can imagine movies by Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog and John Frankenheimer’s Ronin are influenced by this one. This movie definitely did not have any blah-blah. There was not dialog during the first 10 minutes. There was a very Japanese / American thing to this movie. Every car and the clothes were very Americana while the personality of the protagonist was very japanese Bushido style. He spoke with few words, filled with passion and straight to the point. He was detached from everything and everybody. A scene where he is stealing a car is so powerful it needed to be seeing many times. He seems lost, without hope, or future, suicidal… it ends with a suicide by cop scene. Every frame seems pure. There is an elegance of iconography that lets you know everything without words. A bit like a medieval church in film. It is 1966 but it feels like it happened at any time. The solitude feeling of this movie is universal and timeless. At one point during the movie I wrote in in my notes “he is me, I am him” I do not feel that now but apparently while I was watching I did. The formal beauty of this movie makes it a kind of cinema that I would like to shoot myself. It was in my opinion a controlled form of minimalism that we don’t see today in cinema, a very silent movie that focused on masculinity and the beauty of being a true gentleman. What can I say, I admire being gentile and true, as it is hard to do that these days where everybody is right and there is not need to have guilt or personal regret for anything we do.

Yan Pei Ming, originally uploaded by fil himself.

This man has long being inspirational for me, as I mentioned in my previous post he was my teacher in Ecole de Beaux Arts Dijon(by the way, since I graduated the state has change the name of the school to just “school of art” and has taken the fine out of the fine art equation). He seduces you while cooking amazing Chinese food in an enormous round table in his house. He was the first to buy me one of my large scale drawings. He still lives in Dijon doing portraits for the rich and art projects for the government from what I see from this far. Yesterday I was chatting with a friend in france now living in Paris and she told me she hated Ming because all he was doing as an artist was to make great projects with the government…. selling out! she said. now, I can not imagine how much money this might be for him… but it has to be good. I have to admit I did not know what to say to her, she is not an artist but she had a defined opinion about it already and I did not. I have being thinking about it since yesterday. The institutional artist funds is something no artist can avoid in France since the private section is lacking enormously behind. I would like to have a set opinion on this matter but it changes very quickly in my mind. I still don’t know what to think… can you guys give me some comments…

Check out this social art event in the streets of paris organized by JEROME SANS & and one of my favorite art writers NICOLAS BOURRIAUD. Nuit Blanche is a night where everybody parties in paris from 7pm till 7am while checking some great contemporary artists, including one of my teachers Yan Pey Ming and an artist I admire Xavier Veilhan

nb2006.paris.fr

I need to add that this is a French event that now is being taken in other cities as well, a bit like fete de la musique has being exported to cities like Miami, nuit blanche has being exported to cities like Toronto, Madrid, Rome and coming soon also New York and Tokyo, why not Miami?

Some of us jump to make ourselves more desirable, and some us to make other artist’s dreams a reality.

This article here below explains a facet of our risky chosen career that up to this point escaped me all together. I saw it happened here in Miami with some good artists but was not aware of the game.

The First Gallerists’ Club
By DOROTHY SPEARS
Published: June 18, 2006

In my first podcast published March 11, 2006, I spoke about the artists behind the artists. This article here explains well what I meant to say.

Looks Brilliant on Paper. But Who, Exactly, Is Going to Make It?
By MIA FINEMAN
Published: May 7, 2006

I just received, hot off amazon Collecting Contemporary By: Adam Lindemann

The first quote on the book can give you an idea what the book might be about. ‘Art is about life, the art market is about money.’ —Damien Hirst. The book contains 40 interviews with the biggest players in the global art market.

Check out dr andy warhola from australia.

Dr Andy Warhola has a Phd in Sensitivity in the Arts and if the arts gives you the shits this series is made for you! Art? Why is it so stupid? Architects? Why do they hate clients? Dr Andy tells you what it’s all about and what’s NOT art!

http://andywarhola.blogspot.com/

The surprising thing of his podcast for me is that I agree with most of it myself.

please let me know what you think of it.

Here is what happens to artists when they work for Art Galleries, Art Centers and Museums for long; they drink a beer! What else did you expect? Suicide? Although it is almost recommended, we just keep going on the sidelines, making the art centers and recognized artist’s dreams come true.

 

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Hi guys…

three people only know about this blog for now.

ok…

well today I…

fuck this.

check my new painting… here