http://cargocollective.com witness the whatness Sat, 05 May 2012 08:30:24 +0000 http://cargocollective.com en http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Marianne-North http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Marianne-North Sat, 05 May 2012 08:30:24 +0000 witness the whatness 3343348 'A painter who travelled, rather than a traveller who painted.’ I hadn't heard of Marianne North until a recent visit to Kew Gardens where there is a wonderful gallery dedicated to her work. Its walls are covered from floor to ceiling with her paintings made all over the world during her solo travels during the 1800s. A remarkable woman, artist and explorer. <img src="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/Marianne_North01.jpg" width="336" height="500" width_o="336" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/Marianne_North01_o.jpg" data-mid="17169626" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/800px-Marianne_North_Gallery_821.JPG" width="670" height="502" width_o="800" height_o="600" src_o="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/800px-Marianne_North_Gallery_821_o.JPG" data-mid="17169625" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/Nepenthes_northiana_by_Marianne_North.jpg" width="670" height="944" width_o="2048" height_o="2886" src_o="http://payload52.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/3343348/Nepenthes_northiana_by_Marianne_North_o.jpg" data-mid="17170083" border="0" align="left"/> nepenthes northiana 'A painter who travelled, rather than a traveller who painted.’ I hadn't heard of Marianne North until a recent visit to Kew Gardens where there is a wonderful... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Frida-Kahlo http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Frida-Kahlo Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:27:10 +0000 witness the whatness 2934781 <img src="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/KahloDIAPhoto-corrected-250p.jpg" width="250" height="189" width_o="250" height_o="189" src_o="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/KahloDIAPhoto-corrected-250p_o.jpg" data-mid="14941860" border="0" align="left"/> “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” <img src="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/frida and nickolas-thumb-375xauto-4196.jpg" width="375" height="388" width_o="375" height_o="388" src_o="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/frida and nickolas-thumb-375xauto-4196_o.jpg" data-mid="14939681" border="0" align="left"/> One of my most memorable experiences of Mexico is visiting La Casa Azul in Coyoacan, once lifelong home to my heroine artist Frida Kahlo, now a museum dedicated to her life and work. <img src="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/afridafest6a_small.jpg" width="345" height="500" width_o="345" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/afridafest6a_small_o.jpg" data-mid="14940398" border="0" align="left"/> Diego and Frida in the kitchen My favourite room was the kitchen, as it breathed love, life and passion for her and Diego Rivera's relationship. It was beautifully decorated with a playful sensibility and thoughtfully arranged displays of all things culinary. I do believe that the kitchen is a heart of a home and hers was wonderful. Minimalism for me projects no emotional charge in to interiors and only a personal touch can truly bring a room to life. <img src="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/Untitled.png" width="603" height="298" width_o="603" height_o="298" src_o="http://payload31.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2934781/Untitled_o.png" data-mid="14940861" border="0" align="left"/> “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” One of my most memorable experiences of Mexico is visiting La... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Lim-Boon-Keng http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Lim-Boon-Keng Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:25:52 +0000 witness the whatness 2852180 Time to feature some more personal connections. This fine man is my great great grandfather. What I enjoy most through learning about my family history on both sides is that everything always comes back to Scotland in some way... <img src="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/lbk.jpg" width="236" height="336" width_o="236" height_o="336" src_o="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/lbk_o.jpg" data-mid="14498588" border="0" align="left"/> Lim Boon Keng, OBE (林文慶; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lîm Bûn-khìng) 18 October 1869 – 1 January 1957 was a Chinese doctor who promoted social and educational reforms in Singapore and China. Lim was of Chinese Peranakan descent, with ancestry from Hai Teng district in Fujian, China. Lim was born as the third-generation of a Straits Chinese Peranakan family in Penang. His father Lim Thean Geow, had moved his family to Singapore when Lim was a young boy and was later enrolled into Raffles Institution. However, the demise of his parents during his childhood inspired Lim to enter a medical career. In 1887, Lim became the first Malayan to receive a Queen's scholarship, and entered Edinburgh University. He graduated in 1892 with a First Class Honours degree in medicine. <img src="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/queen-sscholars.jpg" width="181" height="200" width_o="181" height_o="200" src_o="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/queen-sscholars_o.jpg" data-mid="14498036" border="0" align="left"/> Queen's Scholars, LBK seated left. In December 1896, Lim married Margaret Wong Tuan Keng, daughter of Wong Nai Siong of Foo-chow, China. Margaret was a refined, enlightened and well-educated woman who had visited England and America. She died in 1905, leaving four sons. The eldest was my great grandfather, Dr Robert Lim Kho Seng (1897-1969). He was Minister of Health in the Nationalist Government of China until the outbreak of the civil war in 1948 when he resigned to become Professor of Physiology at the University of Illinois, U.S.A. <img src="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/SE08-2_09.jpg" width="154" height="235" width_o="154" height_o="235" src_o="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/SE08-2_09_o.jpg" data-mid="14498216" border="0" align="left"/> Margaret In 1911, in the last days of China's Qing Dynasty, Lim was appointed Medical Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior under Prince Su. He was also appointed Inspector-General of the hospitals in Beijing and he represented the Chinese Government as their delegate in international medical conferences in Paris and Rome. He was also a director of the International Hygiene Exhibition in Dresden, Germany. When Dr Sun Yat-sen became provisional President of the Chinese Republic in 1912, Lim was appointed Sun's confidential secretary and personal physician. However, when Sun gave in to internal bickering and allowed Yuan Shi Kai to become President, Lim resigned from Chinese government service. <img src="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/TheFamily TreeBig.JPG" width="670" height="433" width_o="2048" height_o="1324" src_o="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2852180/TheFamily TreeBig_o.JPG" data-mid="14498355" border="0" align="left"/> Family tree, which my mother is on but is incomplete. http://exhibitions.nlb.gov.sg/limboonkeng http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Boon_Keng Time to feature some more personal connections. This fine man is my great great grandfather. What I enjoy most through learning about my family history on both... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Hannah-Hoch http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Hannah-Hoch Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:33:50 +0000 witness the whatness 2820585 I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve. 'In post-war Berlin Hannah Höch met and established a relationship with Raoul Hausmann, one of the driving forces behind Dada. Together they set about learning the techniques of photomontage. Whereas for many of the other Dadaists, this art form was an interesting experiment, later discarded, for Höch it was the beginning of life-long love affair.' <img src="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/35.jpg" width="315" height="403" width_o="315" height_o="403" src_o="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/35_o.jpg" data-mid="14326274" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/Grotesque1963.jpg" width="372" height="550" width_o="372" height_o="550" src_o="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/Grotesque1963_o.jpg" data-mid="14325972" border="0" align="left"/> Grotesque (1963) <img src="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/tumblr_lb85w1RVUR1qztk1wo1_500.jpg" width="500" height="679" width_o="500" height_o="679" src_o="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/tumblr_lb85w1RVUR1qztk1wo1_500_o.jpg" data-mid="14325986" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/hannahhoch.jpg" width="182" height="354" width_o="182" height_o="354" src_o="http://payload26.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2820585/hannahhoch_o.jpg" data-mid="14326001" border="0" align="left"/> It’s not Dada that is nonsense--but the essence of our age that is nonsense. —The Dadaists I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve. 'In post-war Berlin Hannah Höch met and established... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Eva-Hesse http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Eva-Hesse Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:41:04 +0000 witness the whatness 2782664 'Shortly before her death, Eva Hesse described her subject as ‘the total absurdity of life’. Indeed, one of the chief characteristics of her work is a vein of subtle humour that runs from the self-deprecating, abject quality of her early self-portraits to the quirky fetishism and playful repetitions of her later sculpture. Yet in other ways her achievement could not be more serious. Working in what was then very much a man’s world, she pursued her ambition to become a great artist with single-minded determination.' <img src="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/String-1024x804.jpg" width="670" height="526" width_o="1024" height_o="804" src_o="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/String-1024x804_o.jpg" data-mid="14122584" border="0" align="left"/> The drawings could be called paintings legitimately, and a lot of my sculpture could be called paintings, and a lot of it could be called nothing - a thing or any object or any new word that you want to give it. <img src="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/HESSE_231.jpg" width="670" height="998" width_o="1268" height_o="1890" src_o="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/HESSE_231_o.jpg" data-mid="14122652" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/hesse_mainpic.jpg" width="310" height="306" width_o="310" height_o="306" src_o="http://payload24.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2782664/hesse_mainpic_o.jpg" data-mid="14122552" border="0" align="left"/> 'Shortly before her death, Eva Hesse described her subject as ‘the total absurdity of life’. Indeed, one of the chief characteristics of her work is a vein of... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Manuel-Alvarez-Bravo http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Manuel-Alvarez-Bravo Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:35:49 +0000 witness the whatness 2760438 When I work it´s by impulse. Not in the sense of planning a photograph in advance. I work by impulse. No philosophy. No ideas. Not by the head but by the eyes. Eventually inspiration comes. Instinct is the same as inspiration, and eventually it comes. <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760438/488_1203506750.jpg" width="670" height="983" width_o="1022" height_o="1500" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760438/488_1203506750_o.jpg" data-mid="14005642" border="0" align="left"/> La Hija de los Danzantes / The Daughter of the Dancers (1933) I first discovered Bravo after buying a small book of his work in a gallery in Oaxaca. It opened a whole new world to me of Mexican photographers. I like his work in particular as it has such a real quality but at the same time a surreal feel. <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760438/images.jpeg" width="200" height="252" width_o="200" height_o="252" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760438/images_o.jpeg" data-mid="14005775" border="0" align="left"/> Dibujo www.manuelalvarezbravo.org When I work it´s by impulse. Not in the sense of planning a photograph in advance. I work by impulse. No philosophy. No ideas. Not by the head but by the eyes. ... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Julio-Cesar-Pena http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Julio-Cesar-Pena Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:47:55 +0000 witness the whatness 2760135 Julio is an indescribable, one of a kind person. His energy, enthusiasm, commitment and passion for both life itself and printmaking will never leave me. Ailsa and I spent a week at Taller Grafica in Havana with the wonderful Julio, who taught us lino cut printing, amongst other things... <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/1-la-parada-xilografia-2001-dimensiones-variables-4000-cuc-5-de-10-copia.jpg" width="556" height="345" width_o="556" height_o="345" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/1-la-parada-xilografia-2001-dimensiones-variables-4000-cuc-5-de-10-copia_o.jpg" data-mid="14004251" border="0" align="left"/> La Parada Xilografica <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/cogetu1.jpg" width="490" height="345" width_o="490" height_o="345" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/cogetu1_o.jpg" data-mid="14004218" border="0" align="left"/> Cogetu <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/julio-ailsa.JPG" width="670" height="452" width_o="1818" height_o="1228" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/julio-ailsa_o.JPG" data-mid="14004865" border="0" align="left"/> Ailsa and Julio <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/taller grafica.JPG" width="670" height="452" width_o="1818" height_o="1228" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/taller grafica_o.JPG" data-mid="14004875" border="0" align="left"/> the studio <img src="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/studio.jpg" width="670" height="1005" width_o="1400" height_o="2100" src_o="http://payload23.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2760135/studio_o.jpg" data-mid="14004916" border="0" align="left"/> Taller Grafica Julio is an indescribable, one of a kind person. His energy, enthusiasm, commitment and passion for both life itself and printmaking will never leave me. Ailsa... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Helene-Grimaud http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Helene-Grimaud Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:52:08 +0000 witness the whatness 2758592 “It must sound completely demented, but new repertory has always manifested itself to me. I wake up obsessed by a piece, or what I know about a piece.” HG <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758592/hg1.jpg" width="670" height="856" width_o="800" height_o="1023" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758592/hg1_o.jpg" data-mid="13996853" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758592/6a00d83451c83e69e20120a933c89d970b-800wi.jpg" width="670" height="768" width_o="800" height_o="918" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758592/6a00d83451c83e69e20120a933c89d970b-800wi_o.jpg" data-mid="13996815" border="0" align="left"/> “It must sound completely demented, but new repertory has always manifested itself to me. I wake up obsessed by a piece, or what I know about a piece.” HG ... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Antoni-Tapies http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Antoni-Tapies Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:01:40 +0000 witness the whatness 2758414 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012 "I worry about everything. I need to know everything. I tend to live in a state of anxiety with the feeling that life is some kind of great catastrophe." AT <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758414/tapiesstudio.jpg" width="670" height="489" width_o="685" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758414/tapiesstudio_o.jpg" data-mid="13996009" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758414/SuV_Tapies_4794.jpg" width="670" height="827" width_o="2048" height_o="2530" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758414/SuV_Tapies_4794_o.jpg" data-mid="13995773" border="0" align="left"/> "My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it. There is a crisis of values today. In the spread of modernity, we have made great technological advances, but man at the same time has become more cruel than ever, destroys more than ever." AT 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012 "I worry about everything. I need to know everything. I tend to live in a state of anxiety with the feeling that life is some... http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/Pedro-Abascal http://cargocollective.com/witnessthewhatness/following/witnessthewhatness/Pedro-Abascal Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:47:04 +0000 witness the whatness 2758375 "A keen sensitivity beyond the limits of the anecdotal and descriptive." I was lucky enough to meet and spend time with Pedro whilst in Havana during 2006. It was the Havana Biennial at the time, which he had an exhibition in. I'll never forget his wise words of inspiration and encouragement. A true artist and I hope never to lose touch. <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758375/pa2.jpg" width="640" height="422" width_o="640" height_o="422" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758375/pa2_o.jpg" data-mid="13996684" border="0" align="left"/> <img src="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758375/pa.jpg" width="640" height="422" width_o="640" height_o="422" src_o="http://payload22.cargocollective.com/1/6/199486/2758375/pa_o.jpg" data-mid="13996621" border="0" align="left"/> Abascal is a leading exponent of contemporary Cuban photography, with a peculiar sense of observation and a keen sensitivity beyond the limits of the anecdotal and descriptive when give their work a high symbolic value, making pieces of great beauty, strength and a distinctive expressive trademark. "A keen sensitivity beyond the limits of the anecdotal and descriptive." I was lucky enough to meet and spend time with Pedro whilst in Havana during 2006. It was...