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MoMA, 11 West 53rd Street, NYC
by navema
The almost 9-foot tall Grande Femme Debout II (1959-60) was bought by the Gagosian Gallery for a world record $27.4 million at Christie's auction in New York City on May 6, 2008.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Alberto Giacometti (10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgonovo in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known Post-Impressionist painter.
Giacometti attended the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. In 1922 he moved to Paris to study under the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, an associate of Auguste Rodin. It was there that Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be regarded as one of the leading surrealist sculptors. Among his associates were Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, and Balthus.
Between 1936 and 1940, Giacometti concentrated his sculpting on the human head, focusing on the sitter's gaze. He preferred models he was close to, his brother and the artist Isabel Rawsthorne. This was followed by a unique artistic phase in which his statues of Isabel became stretched out; her limbs elongated. Obsessed with creating his sculptures exactly as he envisaged through his unique view of reality, he often carved until they were as thin as nails and reduced to the size of a pack of cigarettes, much to his consternation. A friend of his once said that if Giacometti decided to sculpt you, "he would make your head look like the blade of a knife." After his marriage to Annette Arm his tiny sculptures became larger, but the larger they grew, the thinner they became. Giacometti said that the final result represented the sensation he felt when he looked at a woman.
His paintings underwent a parallel procedure. The figures appear isolated, are severely attenuated, and are the result of continuous reworking. Subjects were frequently revisited: one of his favorite models was his younger brother Diego Giacometti.
In 1962, he was awarded the grand prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale, and the award brought with it worldwide fame. Even when he had achieved popularity and his work was in demand, he still reworked models, often destroying them or setting them aside to be returned to years later. In his later years Giacometti's works were shown in a number of large exhibitions throughout Europe. Riding a wave of international popularity, and despite his declining health, he traveled to the United States in 1965 for an exhibition of his works at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Giacometti died in 1966 of heart disease and chronic bronchitis in Switzerland.
Giacometti was a key player in the Surrealist Movement, but his work resists easy categorization. Some describe it as formalist, others argue it is expressionist or otherwise having to do with what Deleuze calls 'blocs of sensation' (as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis Bacon). Even after his excommunication from the Surrealist group, while the intention of his sculpting was usually imitation, the end products were an expression of his emotional response to the subject. He attempted to create renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting not the human figure but "the shadow that is cast." His figures resembled the way he looked upon himself.
Scholar William Barrett in Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1962), argues that the attenuated forms of Giacometti's figures reflect the view of 20th century modernism and existentialism that modern life is increasingly devoid of meaning and empty. "All the sculptures of today, like those of the past, will end one day in pieces... So it is important to fashion ones work carefully in its smallest recess and charge every particle of matter with life."
Other legacy
*Giacometti created the monument on the grave of Gerda Taro at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
*Giacometti and his sculpture L'Homme qui marche I appear on the current 100 Swiss Franc banknote.
*According to Dr. Michael Peppiatt in a lecture at Cambridge University on July 8, 2010, Giacometti, who had a friendship with author/playwright Samuel Beckett, created a tree for the set of a 1961 Paris production of "Waiting For Godot.
The legend of Sisyphus tells about a hero who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld.
Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; on the top, the rock rolls down again and Sisyphus has to start over.
Sisyphus, who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task, as the absurd hero..."
For Albert Camus "The struggle itself is enough to fill a (wo)man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy!?!?!?
movie still from
"pierrot le fou" (1965)
starring:
Jean-Paul Belmondo
&
Anne Karina
directed by:
Jean-Luc Godard
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
Setup of the exhibition
BETWEEN REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
Finiteness & Eternity
Admont abbey – Museum of contemporary art
6 September to 4 November 2012
Curator: Michael Braunsteiner
Birth, life and death, remembering, fading and forgetting: the boundaries and the spaces in between. That is the subject of this exhibition. Some areas of the museum display works from the Abbey’s own holdings, drawing on the wealth of objects available. Others reveal the subject naturally inherent in them in the manner of a zoom. Different genres begin to communicate with each other. Past, present and future interweave:
In the furnishings and books of the baroque library and in the museum of natural history, you can find all of the questions of “Remembering and Forgetting” that interest us – and quite probably several answers, too. In the museum of contemporary art, current art on the topic communicates with historical books. In P. Gabriel Strobl’s museum of natural history, stuffed animals, ethanol-preserved specimens, countless plants and insects appear to be alive – and yet they are all long dead.
Only human intervention has saved the specimens from decay and rot. The fight against the ravages of time is also evident in the museum of art history. We try to preserve the finest art works for as long as possible, in most cases for many years and even centuries. But not for ever. Against the backdrop of the philosophy of existentialism, the paintings and prints of Hannes Schwarz (b. 1926) explore the depths of this important topic.
The baroque columned hall presents the multimedia experience of the Dramatic Poem, generally believed to be unperformable, to the music of Robert Schumann’s “Manfred”. The poem is based on a text by Lord Byron, originally conceived as an Anti-Faust. This work, directed and visualised by media artist Johannes Deutsch in 2010, and only performed three times at the Düsseldorfer Tonhalle, is concerned with a man who believes his life to be at an end, begging to be able to forget and finally dying from grief. Original drafts and storyboards give an insight into the creation of this total work of art.
Everything has an expiry date. Without exception. And in the end? What then?! We human beings are all different. Some believe that it’s all over then. Others say they will be reborn into this transient world. Christians believe and hope – believe in God and hope for eternal life after death. And some believe quite different things. Everyone thinks that they know that they are right. What do you think?
Humankind has pondered these questions from the very beginning. They are focal topics above all in religion, philosophy, science and art. Admont Abbey with its richly varied museum and library is the ideal place to explore the most burning, timeless and topical questions of our human existence.
God's Standard of Justice:
www.theawaitedone.com/articles/2015/07/10/gods-standard-o...
Just how fair is God's system of justice, really? This article weighs in.
I was gonna upload some more Tori Amos pictures but this whole Decemberist thing kinda threw me off balance, so if you're looking for them come back tomorrow and they'll be here...
So:
I've started noticing people on the bus. Not in the, hey I'm not the only one who uses public transportation sort of way, more the, hey I recognize your face and see you everyday on this bus kind of way.
Which leads me to think, am I one of those people to? Do they also recognize me? And if they do is that a fortunate sign? Is it good to be "one of the regulars" a recognizable face in the crowd? Is it an unfortunate sign? I'm not sure. What does it mean to be able to pick out a few random faces that have no names or identities just on the fact that we ride the same bus day in, day out?
I wonder, do they have fictitious back stories for me, like I have for them? How do random strangers who only notice me for the mere fact that we spend 17 minutes sitting or standing near each other everday perceive me?
I mean, I know how I percieve them. I know the varied and ludcrious biographies I've made up for them. The different names. The different occupations and love lives. It's sometimes none too flattering or gracious. Who am I to them? Other than the fat balding guy with glasses who always has a book.
Who am I to myself really? Which is where I'm going with this whole thing, trying to tie it back in with the Mask post.
Who am I to myself. What is my relationship between personal identity and the person I actually am.
I wasn't really clear the other day with the whole Mask thing. While I am interested in perception and the subjectivity of perception and the philosophical and neurological ramifications of the discussion I wasn't really getting at that. While it's a perfectly legit interpretation of what I was talking about, and while I do think about perception more than the next guy, I was more getting towards the existential doubt of idenity.
Now I'm not talking about the Who am I, why am I here, what are my goals, how do I become succesful Tony Robbins self help bent on existentialism, I'm more talking about the What am I, What is my relationship between my "conciousness" and my physical body and brain, What is the physical universe Rene Descartes kind of existential bent.
A few years ago I was under a lot of stress and such things that will be better documented in a private post later, but anyway I was in a mental place where I was questioning the nature of reality a lot.
I've read Descarte's Meditations. That seemed to work well for him, so I sat down one day and tried to go through an equivalent line of reasoning. First I had to prove to myself that I existed.
Rene Descarte got through it pretty easily.
I on the other hand to this day have not gotten past step one in any form of satisfying manner. I'm still not clear on what epistomological or emprical proofs there are that show that I exist.
But anyway for practical purposes I moved on. I allowed myself to accept for the time being that being able to form the mere question of existence proved I existed.
My second step, prove to myself that a physical universe outside my own "mind" existed. Prove there were other "existing" and "concious" things, i.e. people. Again I hit a roadblock which I am faced to this day. But again, practical purposes lead me to move on.
And that's basically what it boiled down to up into this point. Practicallity. I enjoy being alive. I enjoy whatever "existence" and "conciousness" are. Even if other people aren't real I generally enjoy most of them. Sensorarly pleasure are still pleasant regardless of what it is and what my relationship to it is.
So for practical purposes I must except this state of doubt to:
What I am.
What the world I percieve is.
What the world I don't percieve is.
What the other so-assumed concious people are.
and so on.
What the really strange this is is that as I type this I feel this rising panic in me. Some kind of profound anxienty rising up in my trying to prevent me from typing this or continuing this line of reasoning. As if something in me or something external to me is trying to stop me.
I've paced around the apartment ten or fifteen times. Drunk countless cups of water. Done all kinds of nervous habitual things to keep myself busy. Some kind of strange euphoria washing over inside me.
What if this is all there is? That's the happiest and saddest thought to me. This is it. Liberating and confining. If you've guessed yet, I'm not a dualist, but that's for another time.
with love,
TN
It's now six weeks since my Total Knee Replacement surgery and I have borrowed an old exercise bike to strengthen the muscles around the knee and to increase knee flexion beyond the present 120°.
Indoor cycling is a bit boring and BBC Radio 4 consistently provides the best talking-programmes to engage my interest.
Each day this week I'm cycling and listening to the 14-minute adaptations of At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell (2016).
"Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the Rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, "You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!"
From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life - of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.
At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the ‘king and queen of existentialism’ - Sartre and de Beauvoir - to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live."
Week 2 Dogs (2) (1006 – 1010)10/06 – 10/10/2019 ID 1009
Henry Koerner American (born in Vienna, Austria), 1915-1991
Under the Overpass, 1949
Oil on Masonite
In 1938, Henry Koerner immigrated to America from Vienna to escape persecution by the Nazis. Koerner later learned that his family members were among the millions of Jews who were systematically murdered in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. The artist described how that personal trauma and the general destruction wrought by the violence and chaos of the war made him feel that “Reality had turned into surreality…’normal’ life into existentialism.”
Under the Overpass is a meditation on the transience of life and pain of loss and death. The changing colors of the leaves and the streaks of rust on the overpass evoke time and decay. What looks like an urban streetcar or trolley could represent the train that transported the Koerner family to the concentration camp. Scholars believe the artist’s mother is the crying woman in the yellow dress as well as the woman on the train (sitting next to his father). The scene is intentionally ambiguous. His magic realist style—visible in the painting’s hyper-realistic details, improbable shifts in scale, and elimination of shadows—creates a low-frequency sense of confusion and unease in the viewer.
Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 2012.33
From the Placard: Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Koerner
Quadralectic Architecture - Marten Kuilman (2011).
quadralectics.wordpress.com/4-representation/4-2-function...
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Nan ELLIN (1997) wrote a book and several articles on the relation of fear and city building. She stated that fear has never been absent from the human experience and that protection from invaders might be the principal incentive for building cities. Ellin noted that the city-as-a-save-place has recently become associated with danger and a lack of safety. This trend started, in her opinion, in the year of the French Revolution (1789) and the conception of the panopticum by Jeremy Bentham.
The nature of fear changed in the early twentieth century when a modern type of industrial city developed, with an emphasis on time management. The city became a machine itself, reflecting a mechanical efficiency in its division of functions (zone regulations). Mass produced houses were the backbone of the new city development. Ellin pointed out that the acceleration in the rate of change and the decline of the public space were the main reason for an increased sense of insecurity.
Three different type of response were pinpointed: retribalization (a search for ‘roots’), nostalgia and escapism. The retirement communities are a form of separatism, just like the ‘gated communities’ (of which there are some twenty thousand in the United States alone). Security is a big issue here, materialized in high fences and sophisticated security equipment, with the ‘safe room’ as the ultimate place of security. The nostalgic response is reflected in renovation of old houses and the revitalization of warehouses and factories as living quarters. Another option of escapism is the building of fantasy worlds, like theme parks (Disney Land) and huge recreational buildings, like stadiums, convention centers and mega-stores.
Fear as a psychological entity is something for the young, inexperienced adults facing the complexities of life and for the elderly and retired. In the latter case fear is often related to the end of their visible visibility period, known as death. Fear, as an instinctual emotion, is the most persistent and all-embracing of the four basic human emotions: fear, aggression, nurture and desire. The Greek word for fear is phobos, which points in a psychiatric context (phobia) to an intense and irrational situation, activity, things or persons. Emotional intensity is an important constituency of fear, which can be translated as a heightened visibility. The psychological entity of fear, as seen in a quadralectic context, is the emotion, which breaks loose shortly after a maximum approach (intensio) to one-self is experienced.
The theme of anxiety and fear is closely related to the existentialism of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855). He placed in his book ‘The Concept of Anxiety’ (1844) the psychological entity of unfocused fear in an environment of sin, with a reference to Adam, who was forbidden to eat the apple (of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). The prohibition implied a form of freedom, either to eat or not to eat. Kierkegaard drew the conclusion that Adam’s state of initial bliss was the result of ignorance, which ended with the predicament of losing his freedom when consuming the ‘knowledge of good and evil’. The result is a state of anxiety, and a lost innocence.
The events unfolding around the ‘first sin’ can be compared to the philosophical-quadralectical implications of the ‘first division’ – and touches in many aspects the same psychological bedrock. The First Quadrant (I) was visualized as the place in a communication without any boundaries or divisions. The First Quadrant embodied – on a psychological level – an unknown situation before division (choice). The very moment of division – seen in Kierkegaard’s terminology as a ‘leap’, when ‘sin’ suddenly comes into the world – creates the freedom to choose (i.e. the type of division thinking). The position of this event is in a quadralectic communication situated at the border of the First and Second Quadrant. The Second Quadrant (II) is characterized by freedom and experimentation in a ‘state of innocence’ (of division thinking). Kierkegaard’s anxiety is produced by a state of ‘nothing’, which holds ‘a possibility of the repetition of the originary forced choice prior to its actualization’ (CAMERON, 2007; p. 99).
The group of young adults and the elderly, who are the most vulnerable to the effects of fear, could be seen in a wider, quadralectic perspective. These hypothetical clusters – with their lost innocence – can be placed on a universal communication graph (CF-graph) of an average human life with a duration of eighty years (fig. 755). The increased awareness takes place in the fourth part of the Second (II, 4) for the young adults and in the second part of the Fourth Quadrant (IV, 2) for the elderly. The marker points of fear are approximately between the CF-values 8 and 9 in an upward movement with increasing CF-values. The Observational Presence (OP) – which is the position in time of the observer (writer) – is in 2009 (when this graph was created).
Fig. 755 – The position of the prominence of fear as a psychological entity on the universal communication graph compared to an average human life of a duration of eighty years (upper figures) and to a projection of the European cultural history (lower figures).
The young adults are in the process of leaving their family homes to enter a vast moving world of uncertainty. The elderly people face the other side of the coin, with diminishing movement and a need to face the accomplishments of their life. A temporary review of life can cause disappointment and fear. Failure might be caused by bad luck, lost chances or other reasons, but there is no way to recover the past. The lack of perspective in the future can aggravate the situation, leading to the elementary emotion of fear.
The period of a real, material setback in a communication is situated at the Second Visibility Crisis (SVC). This position in the Third Quadrant (III) is different from the fear experienced in the Second and Fourth Quadrant. The former deals with life threatening experiences, while the latter two positions of fear have a more imaginary nature. The position of the SVC is indicated in the European cultural history around 1650 and in a common human life around the age of forty-eight years.
Further observations into the historical consequences of this observation could lead to interesting conclusions with regards to the behavior of modern cultural units. For instance, it would place the present geopolitical situation of a young, adolescent American cultural entity and an elderly European cultural presence in a similar position with respect to their relation to a heightening of fear.
Two different cultural settings recognize each other in a most basic human emotion: the former pursuant to a major blow of their self-confidence after the events of the 11th of September 2001 and the latter as a realization of the approach of (cultural) retirement. Many of the political decisions taken today might have, for these very reasons, the innate characteristics of fear.
Nan ELLIN (2006) proposed a new sense of diversity in her book ‘Integral Urbanism’ as a remedy against the fear-measures of fortifying the city, but also against the wrongly attempted dismantling of boundaries and distinctions. Master planning is rejected, integral urbanism aims at connection, communication and celebration. The city should be given back to the people as a playground for the interaction, regardless of their background.
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Architecture of Fear - Nan Ellin
Princeton Architectural Press, 1997 - Architecture - 320 pages
"Architecture of Fear" examines the ways in which the contemporary landscape is shaped by our society's preoccupation with fear, as apparent in home design, security systems, gated communities, semi-public spaces (shopping malls, theme parks, casinos, office atriums), zoning regulations, and cyberspace. This fixation also manifests itself in efforts to provide public parks but control the problem of homelessness. The essayists in "Architecture of Fear" explain that such disjointed efforts exacerbate rather than eradicate the sources and perception of fear and insecurity. Thus, in contrast to alarmist, apocalyptic treatments, the contributors offer concrete, level-headed suggestions for proaction, not reaction, to counter both real (actual crime) and perceived (media-magnified) problems in contemporary society.
"I assure you I'm quite conscious of my position. Shall I tell you what it feels like?."
Salut-S
Vega 12-B 2.8 80mm lens
Ilford HP5+ film
Kodak HC-110 developer (solution A for 4 min. @ 72 F.)
Scanned from negative
I have known Michael Carter for quite awhile and we have shared many adventures together. He is known to be one of the last true beatniks living in the East Village. He is a writer, poet and a Zen beer master. To give an example beer mysticism: A Zen beer master, a Taoist beer master and Michael Carter walk in to a bar. The bartender comes over and asks what they will have, the the Zen beer master says: 'that which can be called beer is not the true beer...'the Taoist beer master stares at the bowl of peanuts, after a while he ceases to see the peanuts; he no longer sees the bowl, then after another while he once again sees the peanuts and bowl as before... finally Michael Carter opening his third eye looks over at the others and says: 'I'll have what they're having...'
Michael is an East Village icon of sorts or sorted. Michael has produced thousands of art events in New York. He produced, created and participated in wacky art happenings, readings, musical performances and video presentations. He has appeared as his alter ego "Vindaloo" creating artistic ruckus and mayhem in his path. He is more known for being a poet giving fiery readings in cafes and clubs. He was also the editor and publisher of Redtape literary magazine. The East Village magazine communicated innovative artistic ideas with the collaboration of writers, artists and visual artists. Redtape featured comics, fiction, poetry, graphic art, and photography. It also provided a venue for both established and emerging artists and writers of the downtown New York scene. It was published between the years 1980 to 1992 and had a strong impact on the New York downtown scene. Michael would have monthly Redtape events with readings, art shows and music.
Michael formed a band in the 80's/90's with Julius Klein called Vacuum Bag. They were known for their wild shows and the unexpected behaviour of the singer, Michael Carter. Michael would often lose himself with emotion, go in a trance and jump from table to table, standing on bars half naked screaming. Unfortunately Vacuum Bag does not exist anymore, but you can still catch Michael Carter reading his poems in a dark bar or cafe. He really is the last Beatnik and one hell of a beer mystic. He is a full pledged member of the writer's beer mystic group The Unbearables. Michael is a featured writer in their various publications such as"Between C & D" and "Peau Sensible". Michael is the author of a book of poems called, "Broken Noses and Metempsychosis".
Michael Carter sometimes goes into a trance while reading and has visions. He is a strongly influenced by existentialism. He must have been channeling prophecy with the following, from his 1982 poem: “terror is released in lower manhattan/and the terrorists neither carry guns/nor subvert the state/but simply buy it off with promises."
The best way to close is to read one of Michael's poems. It speaks for itself.
La Mairie '89
Nearly full moon, black Jewish star
Lofted above inscrutable, cabalic hebrew
Same street where only fifty years ago
Hitler's dicks rounded up the usual suspects
And dispatched them to eternity
While Cocteau behind shuttered doors
Bewailed bold Eurydice's plight
And Picasso played socialist apostle
Both of 'em prancing bacchanals
Upon these high gates which once boasted
The skewered heads of nobility
Oui, in Paris this year they celebrate the guillotine
Doubtless the apex of Western Civ...
There's a slight slope to these streets
How the blood must run easily
Into the gutters
Like fresh spring rain
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II (1/6), 1960, bronze, 188.5 × 27.9 × 110.7 cm (National Gallery of Art)
When my mind wanders, or at least when I let it wander, it always seems to take a trip to Europe. Paris seems like a nice stop for now :)
Robert Indiana, an American Pop artist known for his "scuptural poems," is best known for his "LOVE" with a titled "O." This image, first created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, was included on an 8 cent United States Postal Service postage stamp in 1973, the first of their regular series of "love stamps." This sculptural version in Shinjuku in one of many. The others can be found on the Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn, NY; along Sixth Avenue in New York; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Scottsdale's Civic Center, in so called "LOVE Park" in Philadelphia, the New Orleans Museum of Art's sculpture garden, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, at the Museum of Modern Art at Brigham Young University, on the campus of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, outside the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan, at the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas, and on the world-famous Orchard Road, Singapore.
Infamously, Indiana failed to register a copyright for the work, and found it difficult to deter unauthorized commercial use. The image has been reproduced in countless times in varying forms, including sculptures, posters, and 3-D desk ornaments. It has been translated into Hebrew, Chinese, and Spanish. It strongly influenced the original cover of Love Story, the Erich Segal novel. It was parodied on the Rage Against the Machine album cover for Renegades, as well as the cover for Oasis' single Little by Little from the 2002 album Heathen Chemistry. Recently it has been parodied by London artist D*Face with his "HATE", the "A" tilted similarly. The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders, frequently used in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia's LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.[
Indiana moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, that gradually moved toward what Indiana calls "sculptural poems". Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court.
Indiana, born Robert Clark,moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and, of course, "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court. Despite his early success at the center of the art world, Indiana retreated to rural obscurity in later life. Indiana has lived as a resident in the island town of Vinalhaven, Maine since 1978.
visit his youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/Pajarillo57 - he is a professional guitar teacher and concert performer in Russia, Ukraine, Dniepropetrovsk - Dniepropetrovsk Conservatory - he studied at the Leningrad Music College + at the East-Ukrainian University in Lugansk and is now a professor in Dniepropetrovsk, National University - Andrey founded a brand-new flickr photo-stream: www.flickr.com/photos/52586516@N07/ would nice, if you would make a comment there ... my wordpress article about Andrey Shilov and "Russian Strength":
"The Luxembourg Palace (French: Palais du Luxembourg, pronounced [palɛ dy lyksɑ̃buʁ]) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Medici, mother of King Louis XIII. After the Revolution it was refashioned (1799–1805) by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building and subsequently greatly enlarged and remodeled (1835–1856) by Alphonse de Gisors. The palace has been the seat of the upper houses of the various French national legislatures (excepting only the unicameral National Assembly of the Second Republic) since the establishment of the Sénat conservateur during the Consulate; as such, it has been home to the Senate of the Fifth Republic since its establishment in 1958.
Immediately west of the palace on the Rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President; and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare (62-acre) green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and large basins of water where children sail model boats.
The 6th arrondissement of Paris (VIe arrondissement) is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, it is referred to as le sixième.
The arrondissement, called Luxembourg in a reference to the seat of the Senate and its garden, is situated on the Rive Gauche of the River Seine. It includes educational institutions such as the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and the Institut de France, as well as Parisian monuments such as the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, the Pont des Arts, which links the 1st and 6th arrondissements over the Seine, Saint-Germain Abbey and Saint-Sulpice Church.
This central arrondissement, which includes the historic districts of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (surrounding the abbey founded in the 6th century) and Luxembourg (surrounding the Palace and its Gardens), has played a major role throughout Parisian history and is well known for its café culture and the revolutionary intellectualism (existentialism, authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir) and literature (writers Paul Éluard, Boris Vian, Albert Camus and Françoise Sagan) it has hosted.
With its cityscape, intellectual tradition, history, architecture and central location, the arrondissement has long been home to French intelligentsia. It is a major locale for art galleries and fashion stores, as well as Paris's most expensive area. The arrondissement is one of France's richest districts in terms of average income; it is part of Paris Ouest alongside the 7th, 8th and 16th arrondissements, as well as the Neuilly-sur-Seine inner suburb. The 6th arrondissement is the smallest in Paris in terms of area covered.
Paris (French pronunciation: [paʁi]) is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,150,271 residents as of 2020, in an area of 105 square kilometres (41 square miles). Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, science and arts. The City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2020 population of 12,278,210, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €709 billion ($808 billion) in 2017. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, and ahead of Zürich, Hong Kong, Oslo and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong Kong, in 2018.
The city is a major railway, highway and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris–Charles de Gaulle (the second busiest airport in Europe) and Paris–Orly. Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily; it is the second busiest metro system in Europe after the Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, but the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015 Paris is especially known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2019, with 9.6 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay, Musée Marmottan Monet, and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe, and the Musée Rodin and Musée Picasso exhibit the works of two noted Parisians. The historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site, and popular landmarks in the city centre included the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, on the Île de la Cité, now closed for renovation after the 15 April 2019 fire. Other popular tourist sites include the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, also on the Île de la Cité; the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889; the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900; the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées, and the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur on the hill of Montmartre.
Paris received 38 million visitors in 2019, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and China. It was ranked as the second most visited travel destination in the world in 2019, after Bangkok and just ahead of London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris. The 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. The city hosted the Olympic Games in 1900, 1924 and will host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, as well as the 1960, 1984 and 2016 UEFA European Championships were also held in the city. Every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Well that's just about the hottest thing ever is what that is.
(Taken at last night's Literary Nudes event)
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889 at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward, a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900.
Nietzsche's body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. His early inspiration was drawn from figures such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favor of perspectivism; his genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and his related theory of master–slave morality; his aesthetic affirmation of existence in response to the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; his notion of the Apollonian and Dionysian; and his characterization of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and the doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome social, cultural and moral contexts in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health.
After his death, his sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts, reworking his unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism; 20th century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th and early-21st century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, psychology, politics and popular culture.
Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm). Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche [de] (née Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
Artwork by TudioJepegii
view on black: www.flickr.com/photos/frizztext/4887777983/lightbox
black gospel, native Americans, African tribes, Aborigines, Gypsies - there's a long list of inspirations - and oppressions ...
"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still."
"Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
friedrichnietzsche.free.fr/17.php
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
----------
voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org
2011年首獎 2011 First Prize
蔡昌吉 / 台中大安
拍攝動機：
當年過半百之後，人的身心靈總是處於衰退老化狀態。焦慮、不安、空虛、膽怯...隨著時間一一迎面而來，自2010年起興起了參加新光三越國際攝影大賽的念頭。目的：一來活化自我的身心靈，二來考驗攝影技能是否退化。從上網、填表、送件、等待、失落、驚喜...，過程中一切的酸、甜、苦、辣...點滴在心頭，相當慶幸這兩年來的收穫頗豐，讓自己有了「老而不休」的真實體現。
攝影心得：
存在哲學指出“生命是一種不斷被拋入某種現實情境的歷程，而生命一開始即為面向死亡的存在”。因此，海德格爾指出，人必須正視死亡，從恐懼中明白自己活著的重要性。
我以“貼近土地，面對死亡，體現存在”作為攝影表現中影像的核心，藉由影像展現對死亡與生命存在意義的描述。並以時間化為「此在之存有」的寓圖，讓生命中憂心、虛浮、陷落與醒覺...在自我中開顯「存在」的真實。
Tsai Chang-chi / Ta’an Township, Taichung
Why I Took These Pictures :
Once you’ve passed the half-century mark, you tend to go downhill, both physically and mentally. Slowly, feelings of anxiety, restlessness, emptiness or timidity start cropping up. So when in 2010 I heard about the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi International Photo-Taking Contest, the idea of participating soon took hold of my mind. I saw it as a way of revitalizing my body and mind, and also a chance to find out how rusty my photographing skills had become. I downloaded the form online, filled it out and sent it in. The period of waiting and uncertainty was followed by a very pleasant surprise—basically the whole process was an emotional roller coaster for me, but I’m glad I went ahead with it, because the last two years were filled with interesting experiences and have made me realize that in spite of my age, I’m still capable of doing something positive and meaningful.
What I Learned :
Existentialism tells us that to live is to be thrown into the world, and having to deal with reality. From its very beginning, all existence must face its own death. Or, as Heidegger puts it, we all need to look death in the eye, because confronting our worst fears helps us to realize the importance and value of being alive.
At the heart of all my photographs, then, lies the basic principle of staying rooted in my native soil while maintaining a constant awareness of my own mortality. In this way, I can achieve a truthful expression of my own existence, and, through my motifs, offer a personal account of life and death and what they mean to me. Time is distilled into the present moment. The photograph serves as an allegory for all the doubts and uncertainties, the vanity and insubstantiality, the dissipation but also the awakening, the process of becoming aware: I become the medium through which reality manifests itself.
I must have walked this path 100 times or more, and every time I've thought that folly is worth a photograph. But every time I've also assumed that I'd have to get closer to the folly to make a photo work well. But now I have a 300mm lens, I tried this shot from the path, and I like it. To me, the folly loses its appeal when you get close to it. For me, maybe because I associate it with this walk along the path, it only really makes sense as a view from the path. It is not, as Kant would have it, really a thing-in-itself. It is not just about its 'thingness', its solitary identity as a thing. No! It's bound-up heavily with its associations (i.e. experienced from the path), at least for me. Pity Kant isn't here to discuss it with me.
Interestingly (or not), I would agree with Kant in the purest sense of agreeing that the folly does exist as a 'thing'. I don't deny it a solitary identity. But I do think it's experienced - at least by me; at least here - as a part of an environment. Also interestingly (a word I overuse), it's words that push me into talking of 'things' as if they were separate, as if they were nouns. Photos don't push us that way, at least not so much. We don't have to name things. We just say 'look at the picture - experience the picture'. In fact, we say nothing (unless we write, write, write....). Words push us into naming 'things'. And by naming, we bring those 'things' into life, into existence. Kind of. They kind of exist anyway, unless you're Richard Rorty, playing devil's advocate, and being non-essentialist.
My argument there probably flags up differences between aesthetic theory and theories of existence. I agree that the folly exists as a thing on its own with essential qualities of its own, but I experience it as part of this landscape. Well, I say I agree that it exists as a thing on its own, but the fact that I don't experience it that way maybe means I also don't fully agree that it exists on its own. I might accept it exists on its own in some theoretical sense, but hey, I've never seen it own its own or experienced it on its own.
(I apologise to Kant if I've misunderstood him here, but he does talk a lot about thing-in-itself. Although I get the impression he might have used that as a means to an end. Which he should have made more explicit if he was! Anyway, if not Kant, I can hang it on Plato. Everyone else has, if everyone else is Richard Rorty. Which they are! And Rorty's dead too now, which is a pity.
And if nothing else, I can't imagine too many landscape photos are tagged with 'kant', 'rorty', and 'plato'. Here's hoping some philosophy undergraduate plugs those into Google and finds their way here. If that's you... HELLO! HAVE A LOOK AROUND :-)
And after.... As I read back over this, I wonder how much I squirm and how chippy I'm being, or not. Some of this is my little rant against 'science' in writing theory - how scientists are big on naming things. Once 'they' name things, they assume that those things exist. They might accept that such names are 'constructs' (i.e. a way of approaching - tentatively and critically naming), but then they go ahead as if they exist anyway. I suppose I do that too - I've named this photo "Powderham Folly...". But then at least I had the self-reflexive dignity to undermine myself.
Rorty was being chippy about science too, seeing that maybe science had taken precedence over philosophy, and that people weren't so much interested in the 'big questions' anymore. As someone from an artsy background, gradually becoming middle aged, I'm realizing that a lot of people don't take artsy theories seriously. I'm becoming more and more irrelevant. To me, Rorty's theory is pressing. Kant is pressing too, and Baudrillard, and Nietzsche.
But to be fair to science, they're not all stuck fast to naming and essentialising things. I watched some Brian Cox last week talking about 'the big bang'. The gist of it, I think, was that everything was crammed into something a billionth the size of a grain of sand. Then that thing became unstable and kind of exploded. Except it didn't explode, as such, because whatever it did, that doing created time and space. So what was 'it', and 'what' did 'it' 'do'? None of it really has a name as far as I could tell from Brian. Most of what he had to go by here was some understanding of physics and some observations that the universe 'thing' was constantly expanding. Brian seemed happier with his photos than with the talking bits. He was good at the talking too though! Yay Brian!!
The question remains unchanged no matter how many conquests are implemented. Even if at some point “man” manages to beat the odds he has put on himself and the existence of finite. “The deadly tedium of immortality” in a constant attempt to achieve the sterile. We pass to the “trans” state and we enjoy, though complaining, the hyper-realistic with the secret desire of eternal youth. We suck the beast which was created by the Divine element as full image and likeness. The thermodynamic cage in an already alleged entropic balance. The planet is ours! That is what the hypocritical honesty of the motivated Ego requires. An endless wind blowing towards a hypothetical “dusk” and opposite the fluttering, towards an unexpected “dawn”. Building consisting of foundational stereoscopic structures adjacent strongly in a shimmering sphere yet seemingly exist in a harmony. It is the view of the transient, the ephemeral, through the eyes of the anhydrous inevitable. I wonder what is the purpose of all this? It makes sense to seek a “reasonable” and an enlarged subjectivity that encapsulate the desired laconic? Is a form of awareness feasible, in which the distant perspective would fit in the “individual” ? Maybe, but remains a challenge set in the background of the need to overcome or at least control the brittleness of this equilibrium, that only the mantle of the present, of the every present, translates into unbreakable pseudo-continuum.
my little tribute to Louis Armstrong - read my comments to this song in my daily column EXISTENTIALISM www.flickr.com/groups/existentialism/discuss/721576243747... - comment by Melanie (msamaclean): Mr. Armstrong put on somewhat of a happy facade for the general public, but had some very hard feelings for the state of race relations here, quite understandably, & did not think he was treated as an equal by many of his fellow entertainers or employers...
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Lincoln is infested with right-wing bible-bashing cults.
This one has nothing better to do than stand outside Barclays Bank taking turns berating busy shoppers about their sinful worldly existence.
Metaphysical discourse of any kind should be welcome in this age of bland humanism.
But surely we deserve something a little more up to date than Jesus With A Pitchfork?
Here's a city where people suffering from alleged madness and genuine desperation coming in one direction routinely lurch into the welcoming arms of concerned happy-clappers from the other, usually via some fluoridated pharmaceutical intervention of an SSRI nature. That'll sort them out.
There is something of a problem locally with demonic possession, hearing voices, yes, gabbling unintelligbly, yes. Social Services is holding a corporate review of the situation with a view to establishing a Demon Monitoring Unit with responsibility to the Dept of Xenolalia and Glossolalia at the Peter (As Chairman of the Health Authority I Put Fluoride In Them) Hodgkinson Psychiatric Unit.
Column hectares of Lincoln newspaper letters pages are devoted to dire warnings, complete with biblical quotes, of the influence of Harry Potter on children's desire to get involved in witchcraft.
There's no such thing as a white witch, they opine, evidently hoping for a revivial of popular assent to the existence of a few black ones upon whom they can vent their sexual frustrations.
A good slogan might be: "Down with thongs, in with tongs, out with their tongues." Poor Miss Rowling.
In the midst of this primitive superstitious timewasting, perhaps a sermon on string theory from the local philosophy society would make a nice change from this fantastical question-begging over what God says about you not believing in God.
Unfortunately it meets at the Bishop's Palace, part of the cathedral, suggesting that even the non-shouty metaphysicians have not progressed very much further than their anti-telephone brethren depicted here.
I suspect they chose that venue because the more "normal" godbotherers want to keep a shifty eye on any rival isms that might be taking hold, such is the competition for fee-paying disciples.
Paranoid? But then what is God but a big conspiracy theory?
Worse even, the Bishop's Palace do is actually a philosophy COURSE, where after a brief loss leader event you go and pay quite a large sum to listen to someone else's rather eggy philosophy.
This illustrates the fascinating thing about philosophy - that going on courses about it or even spending years on it at university is acceptable, even admirable behaviour for a human being to indulge in.
But actually HAVING a philosophy, or discussing "reality" or "existence" outside these confines, is a risky, oddball (and in a thudheaded provincial nuthouse like Lincoln even dangerous) thing to do.
At least with these street philosophy vendors you get a free show, and you can take your own eggs if you desire.
Over twenty years this group has dwindled from a peak of about nine, to four.
Due, I suspect, to the group's lack of a proper business plan and a well-defined market niche, the sinful shoppers have failed to flock to this particular version of what Jesus said.
Right wing or wrong, in a battle between mindless consumerism and mindless deism these are the losers.
If only the public wanted a saviour, instead of a saver.
But a few theologico-financial schisms away the Plymouth Brethren are thriving, a sort of inbred, Amish-style, our-children-are-not-mixing-with-the-Devil-yes-that's-you group with their very own computerless, telephoneless, televisionless, outsiderless and doubtless clueless "school".
Where the fruits of their irrepressibly naughty loins are educated about how great it is not finding out about things or meeting other people, except God and his chosen representatives.
Better hide the razor blades on the top shelf, maw.
.
"Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
friedrichnietzsche.free.fr/17.php
Secrets revealed of the Abode of Chaos (112 pages, adult only) >>>
"999" English version with English subtitles is available >>>
HD movie - scenario thierry Ehrmann - filmed by Etienne Perrone
----------
voir les secrets de la Demeure du Chaos avec 112 pages très étranges (adult only)
999 : visite initiatique au coeur de la Demeure du Chaos insufflée par l'Esprit de la Salamandre
Film HD d'Etienne PERRONE selon un scénario original de thierry Ehrmann.
courtesy of Organ Museum
©2011 www.AbodeofChaos.org
Saint-Germain-des-Prés (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ de pʁe]) is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the north, the rue des Saints-Pères on the west, between the rue de Seine and rue Mazarine on the east, and the rue du Four on the south. Residents of the quarter are known as Germanopratins. It forms part of the Latin Quarter.
The areas cafés include Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore, le Procope, and the Brasserie Lipp, as well as many bookstores and publishing houses. In the 1940s and 1950s, along with the rest of the Latin Quarter, it was the centre of the existentialist movement (associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir). It is also home to the École des Beaux-Arts, Sciences Po, the Saints-Pères biomedical university center of the University of Paris, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, and the Musée national Eugène Delacroix, in the former apartment and studio of painter Eugène Delacroix.
History
The Middle Ages
Until the 17th century the land where the quarter is located was prone to flooding from the Seine, and little building took place there; it was largely open fields, or prés, which gave the quarter its name.
The Saint-Germain-des-Prés Abbey in the center of the quarter was founded in the 6th century by the son of Clovis I, Childebert I (ruled 511–558). In 542, while making war in Spain, Childebert raised his siege of Zaragoza when he heard that the inhabitants had placed themselves under the protection of the martyr Saint Vincent. In gratitude the bishop of Zaragoza presented him with the saint's stole. When Childebert returned to Paris, he caused a church to be erected to house the relic, dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint Vincent, placed where he could see it across the fields from the royal palace on the Île de la Cité. In 558, St. Vincent's church was completed and dedicated by Germain, Bishop of Paris on 23 December; on the same day, Childebert died. Close by the church a monastery was erected. The Abbey church became the burial place of the dynasty of Merovingian Kings. Its abbots had both spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the residents of Saint-Germain (which they kept until the 17th century). Since the monastery had a rich treasury and was outside the city walls, it was plundered and set on fire by the Normans in the ninth century. It was rebuilt in 1014 and rededicated in 1163 by Pope Alexander III to Bishop Germain, who had been canonized.
The church and buildings of the Abbey were rebuilt in stone c. 1000 AD, and the Abbey developed into a major center of scholarship and learning. A village grew up around the Abbey, which had about six hundred inhabitants by the 12th century. The modern rue du Four is the site of the old ovens of the monastery, and the dining hall was located along the modern rue de l'Abbaye. A parish church, the church of Saint-Pierre, also was built on the left bank, at the site of the present Ukrainian catholic church; its parish covered most of the modern 6th and 7th arrondissements. The fortifications of King Philip Augustus (1180–1223), the first recorded walls to be built around the entire city, left Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés just outside the walls.
The Saint-Germain Fair
Beginning in the Middle Ages, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés was not only a religious and cultural center, but also an important marketplace, thanks to its annual fair, which attracted merchants and vendors from all over Europe. The Foire Saint-Germain was already famous in 1176, when it allocated half of its profits to the King. The fair opened fifteen days after Easter, and lasted for three weeks. The dates and the sites varied over the years; beginning in 1482 it opened on 1 October and lasted eight days; in other years it opened 11 November or 2 February. Beginning in 1486, it was held in a portion of the gardens of the Hôtel de Navarre, close to the modern rue Mabillon. There were three hundred forty stalls at the fair of 1483; Special buildings were erected for the fair in 1512, which contained 516 stalls. The fair was also famous for the gambling, debauchery, and the riots that ensued when groups of rowdy students from the nearby university invaded the fair. The buildings burned on the night of 17–18 March 1762, but were quickly rebuilt. The fair continued annually until the Revolution in 1789, when it was closed down permanently.
The Renaissance
At the end of the 16th century, Margaret of Valois (1553–1615) the estranged wife of King Henry IV of France but still officially Queen of France, decided to build a residence in the quarter, in lands belonging to the Abbey near the Seine just west of the modern rue de Seine, near the present Institut de France. She built a palace with extensive gardens and established herself as a patroness of literature and the arts, until her death in 1615.
17th–18th centuries: theatre and the first cafés
In 1673 the theatrical troupe in the city, the Comédie-Française, was expelled from its building on Rue Saint-Honorérue Saint‑Honoré and moved to the left bank, to the passage de Pont-Neuf (the present-day rue Jacques‑Callot), just outside the Saint‑Germain quarter. Its presence displeased the authorities of the neighboring Collége des Quatres-Nations (the present Institut de France) and in 1689 they moved again, this time to the rue des Fossés des Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés (the modern rue de l'Ancienne‑Comédie), where they remained until 1770. The poor condition of the theater roof forced them to move in that year to the right bank, to the Hall of machines of the Tuileries Palace, which was much too large for them. In 1797 they moved back to the Left Bank, to the modern Odéon Theatre.
The first café in Paris appeared in 1672 at the Saint-Germain Fair, served by an Armenian named Pascal. When the fair ended he opened a more permanent establishment on the quai de l'Ecole, where he served coffee for two sous and six deniers per cup. It was considered more of a form of medication than a beverage to be enjoyed, and it had a limited clientele. He left for London, and another Armenian named Maliban opened a new café on the rue de Buci, where he also sold tobacco and pipes. His café also had little commercial success, and he left for Holland. A waiter from his café, an Armenian named Grigoire, born in Persia, took over the business and opened it on rue Mazarine, near the new home of Comédie-Française. When the theater moved in 1689, he moved the café to the same location, on the rue des Fossés‑Saint‑Germain. The café was then taken over by a Sicilian, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, who had worked as a waiter for Pascal in 1672. He renamed the café Procope, and expanded its menu to include tea, chocolate, liqueurs, ice cream and configures. It became a success; the café is still in business.[4] By 1723 there were more than three hundred eighty cafés in the city. The Café Procope particularly attracted the literary community of Paris, because many book publishers, editors and printers lived in the quarter. The writers Diderot and d'Alembert are said to have planned their massive philosophical work, the Encyclopédie, at Procope, and at another popular literary meeting place, the Café Landelle on the rue de Buci.
The Treaty of Paris
A significant event in American history took place on 3 September 1783 at the Hotel York at 56 rue Jacob; the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Britain and the United States, which ended the American Revolution and granted the U.S. its independence. The signing followed the American victory at the Siege of Yorktown, won with assistance of the French fleet and French army. The American delegation included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay. After the signing, they remained for a commemorative painting by the American artist Benjamin West, but the British delegates refused to pose for the painting, so the painting was never finished.
The French Revolution
Because of its numerous printers and publishers, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés, and especially the Cordeliers Section of what is now the 6th arrondissement, became centers of revolutionary activity after 1789; they produced thousands of pamphlets, newspapers, and proclamations which influenced the Parisian population and that of France as a whole. The prison of the Abbey of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés, a two-storey building near the church, was filled with persons who had been arrested for suspicion of counter-revolutionary motives: former aristocrats, priests who refused to accept the revolutionary Constitution, foreigners, and so forth. By September 1792, Paris prisons were quite full. The former king and queen were political prisoners and were moved from the Tuileries Palace to the old Knights Templar towers on the right bank, where there was less risk of rescue or escape. France was at war; the Duke of Brunswick had just issued his menacing manifesto, stating that if the former monarchy were not restored, he would raze Paris, and his troops were only a few days away. Now these political prisoners began to be viewed as a genuine threat, should any of them be conspiring with France's enemies. In what was a planned but inhumane tactic, politicians at Paris sent bands of criminals, armed mainly with pikes and axes, into each prison. Although at least one deputy from the Convention accompanied each band, the results were horrifying. Hundreds of prisoners were cut down in the first week in September. As Englishman Arthur Young noted, the street outside one prison literally ran red with blood. The former Cordeliers Convent, closed by the revolutionaries, became the headquarters of one of the most radical factions, whose leaders included Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins, though both would be run out by ever more extreme factions. The radical revolutionary firebrand, Swiss physician Jean-Paul Marat, lived in the Cordeliers Section.
The Monastery of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés was closed and its religious ornaments were taken away. The buildings of the monastery were declared national property and sold or rented to private owners. One large building was turned into a gunpowder storeroom; it exploded, wrecking a large part of the monastery.
Another large monastery in the quarter, that of the Petits-Augustins, had been closed and stripped of its religious ornamentation. The empty buildings were taken over by an archaeologist, Alexandre Lenoir, who turned it into a depot to collect and preserve the furniture, decorations, and art treasures of the nationalised churches and monasteries. The old monastery officially became the Museum of French Monuments. The paintings collected were transferred to the Louvre, where they became the property of the Central Museum of the Arts, the ancestor of the modern Louvre, which opened there at the end of 1793.
The 19th century
The École des Beaux-Arts
The École des Beaux Arts, the national school of architecture, painting and sculpture, was established after the Revolution at 14 rue Bonaparte, on the site of the former monastery of the Petits-Augustins. Its faculty and students included many of the most important artists and architects of the 19th century; the faculty included Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Gustave Moreau. The students included painters Pierre Bonnard, Georges Seurat, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and the American Thomas Eakins. Architects graduated from the school included Gabriel Davioud, Charles Garnier, and the Americans Julia Morgan, Richard Morris Hunt and Bernard Maybeck. The painter Eugène Delacroix established his residence and studio at 6 rue de Furstenberg and lived there from 1857 until his death in 1863.
Haussmann
The vast public works projects of Napoleon III and his Prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann in the 1860s dramatically changed the map of the quarter. To reduce the congestion of the narrow maze of streets on the Left Bank, Haussmann had intended to turn the rue des Ecoles into a major boulevard, but the slope was too steep, and he decided instead to construct boulevard Saint‑Germain through the heart of the neighborhood. It was not completed until 1889. He also began a wide south to north axis from the Montparnasse railroad station to the Seine. which became the rue de Rennes. The rue de Rennes was only completed as far as the parvis in the front of the Church of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés by the end of the Second Empire in 1871, and stopped there, sparing the maze of narrow streets between boulevard Saint‑Germain and the river.
Oscar Wilde
The quarter was also the temporary home of many musicians, artists and writers from abroad, including Richard Wagner who lived for several months on rue Jacob.
The writer Oscar Wilde spent his last days in the quarter, at the small, run-down hotel called the Hotel d'Alsace at 13 rue des Beaux‑Arts, near the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He wandered the streets alone, and spent what money he had on alcohol. He wrote to his editor, "This poverty really breaks one's heart: it is so sale, so utterly depressing, so hopeless. Pray do what you can." He corrected proofs of his earlier work, but refused to write anything new. "I can write, but have lost the joy of writing", he told his editor. He kept enough sense of humor to remark: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go." He died on 30 November 1900, and was first buried in a small cemetery outside the city, before being reburied in 1909 at Pere Lachaise.
The small hotel where Wilde died became famous; later guests included Marlon Brando and Jorge Luis Borges. It was completely redecorated by Jacques Garcia, and is now a five-star luxury hotel called L'Hotel.
The 20th century: non-conformism
In the first half of the 20th century, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés and nearly the whole of the 6th arrondissement, was a densely populated working‑class neighborhood, whose population was declining. The population of the 6th arrondissement was 101,584 in 1921, and dropped to 83,963. In the postwar years, the housing was in poor condition; only 42 percent of residences had indoor toilets, and only 23 percent had their own showers or baths. By 19-0 the population of the 6th fell to 47,942, a drop of fifty percent in seventy years. In 1954 workers represented 19.2 percent of the population of the quarter; 18.1 percent in 1962.
In the years after World War II, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés was known primarily for its cafés and its bars, its diversity and its non-conformism. The bars were a popular destination for American soldiers and sailors after the war. It was also known as a meeting place for the largely-clandestine gay community of Paris, which at the time frequented the Café de Flore and the Café Carrefour, an all-night restaurant.[12] Because of its low rents and proximity to the University, the quarter was also popular with students from the French colonies in Africa. There were between three and five thousand African students in the city; their association had its headquarters at 184 boulevard Saint‑Germain and 28 rue Serpente. Because of the number of workers, it also hosted an important bureau of the French Communist Party.
Jazz
Immediately after the War, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés and the nearby Saint-Michel neighbourhood became home to many small jazz clubs, mostly located in cellars, due to the shortage of any suitable space, and because the music at late hours was less likely to disturb the neighbors. The first to open in 1945 was the Caveau des Lorientais, near boulevard Saint‑Michel, which introduced Parisians to New Orleans Jazz, played by clarinetist Claude Luter and his band. It closed shortly afterwards, but was soon followed by cellars in or near Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés; Le Vieux-Columbier, the Rose Rouge, the Club Saint-Germain; and especially, Le Tabou. The musical styles were both traditional New Orleans jazz and bebop, led by Sydney Bechet and trumpeter Boris Vian; Mezz Mezzrow, André Rewellotty, guitarist Henri Salvador, and singer Juliette Gréco. The clubs attracted students from the nearby university, the Paris intellectual community, and celebrities from the Paris cultural world. They soon had doormen who controlled who was important or famous enough to be allowed inside into the cramped, smoke-filled cellars. A few of the musicians went on to celebrated careers; Sidney Bechet was the star of the first jazz festival held at the Salle Pleyel in 1949, and headlined at the Olympia music hall in 1955. The musicians were soon divided between those who played traditional New Orleans jazz, and those who wanted more modern varieties. Most of the clubs closed by the early 1960s, as musical tastes shifted toward rock and roll.
Existentialism
The literary life of Paris after World War II was centered in Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés, both because of the atmosphere of non-conformism and because of the large concentration of book stores and publishing houses. Because most writers lived in tiny rooms or apartments, they gathered in cafés, most famously the Café de Flore, the Brasserie Lipp and Les Deux Magots, where the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and writer Simone de Beauvoir held court. Sartre (1905–1980) was the most prominent figure of the period; he was a philosopher, the founder of the school of existentialism, but also a novelist, playwright, and theater director. He also was very involved in the Paris politics of the left; after the war he was a follower (though not a member) of the Communist Party, then broke with the communists after the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and became an admirer of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, then of Mao-tse Tung. In 1968 he joined the demonstrations against the government, standing on a barrel to address striking workers at the Renault factory in Billancourt. The legends of Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés describe him as frequenting the jazz clubs of the neighborhood, but Sartre wrote that he rarely visited them, finding them too crowded, uncomfortable and loud. Simone de Beauvoir (1902–1986), famous philosopher, the lifelong companion of Sartre, was another important literary figure, both as an early proponent of feminism and as an autobiographer and novelist.
After the Second World War, the neighbourhood became the centre of intellectuals and philosophers, actors, singers and musicians. Existentialism co-existed with jazz and chanson in the cellars on the rue de Rennes. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Juliette Gréco, Léo Ferré, Jean-Luc Godard, Boris Vian, and François Truffaut were all at home there. But there were also poets such as Jacques Prévert and artists such as Giovanni Giacometti. As a residential address Saint‑Germain is no longer quite as fashionable as the area further south towards the Jardin du Luxembourg, partly due to Saint‑Germain's increased popularity among tourists.
Abduction
On 29 November 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka, the leader of opposition to the government of the King of Morocco, was kidnapped as he emerged from the door of the Brasserie Lipp. His body was never found.
Transportation
The area is served by the stations of the Paris Métro:
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Mabillon
Literature
Many writers have written about this Parisian district in prose such as Boris Vian, Marcel Proust, Gabriel Matzneff (see La Nation française), Jean-Paul Caracalla or in Japanese poetry in the case of Nicolas Grenier. Egyptian writer Albert Cossery spent the later part of his life living in a hotel in this district. James Baldwin frequented the cafés, written about in Notes of a Native Son. Charles Dickens describes the fictional Tellson's Bank as "established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris" in his novel A Tale of Two Cities.
Economy
At one time numerous publishers were located in the area. Gentrifying real estate values then intervened. By 2009 many publishers, including Hachette Livre and Flammarion had moved out of the community.
(Wikipedia)
Das Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés [kaʀtje sɛ̃ ʒɛʀmɛ̃ de pʀe], kurz Saint-Germain [sɛ̃ ʒɛʀmɛ̃], ist ein Stadtviertel in Paris. Es ist das 24. Quartier der französischen Hauptstadt und liegt im 6. Arrondissement südlich der Seine im Stadtgebiet Rive Gauche. Das zentral in der Innenstadt gelegene Viertel ist nach der dort ansässigen Abtei Saint-Germain-des-Prés benannt und wird vom Boulevard Saint-Germain durchzogen.
Geschichte
Der Namensgeber der Abtei, Germanus von Paris, ließ die Kirche im Jahr 558 AD auf Weideland hinter der Île de la Cité errichten. Daher der Zusatz des Prés, auf den Wiesen.
Das Viertel spielte jahrhundertelang eine wichtige Rolle im Geistesleben Frankreichs. Das dort gelegene Priesterseminar von St-Sulpice (Paris) bildete berühmte Persönlichkeiten aus. Das Viertel galt in der Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts als Zentrum des französischen Existentialismus um die Philosophen Jean-Paul Sartre und Simone de Beauvoir. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés gibt es berühmte Cafés wie Les Deux Magots oder Café de Flore, die teils schon in den 1920er Jahren, spätestens ab den 1950ern, zum Treffpunkt von Intellektuellen und Künstlern wurden. Literaten, Musiker, Schauspieler und Filmschaffende wie Boris Vian, Juliette Gréco oder Jean-Luc Godard wurden zwischen den 1950er und 1980er Jahren mit dem Viertel assoziiert. In der Rue des Beaux-Arts residierte ab 1955 die berühmte Galerie von Iris Clert.
Heutzutage ist Saint-Germain-des-Prés ein Anziehungspunkt für Touristen. Die Bewohner von Saint-Germain-des-Prés werden im Französischen als germanopratins bezeichnet. Dieses Gentilizium steht wie oft im Französischen der lateinischen Wurzel näher als der Lokalitätsname selbst (frz. pré; lat. prātŭm, Wiese, Aue).
Das Quartier im Film
1949: Rendez-vous de juillet (Jugend von heute) von Jacques Becker
1950: Pigalle-Saint-Germain-des-Prés von André Berthomieu
1951: La Rose rouge von Marcello Pagliero
1958: Les Tricheurs (Die sich selbst betrügen) von Marcel Carné
1965: Episode Saint Germain des Prés (in Paris gesehen von...) von Jean Douchet
1973: La Maman et la Putain (Die Mama und die Hure) von Jean Eustache
1986: Autour de minuit (Um Mitternacht ) von Bertrand Tavernier
Das Quartier in der Musik
1950: Léo Ferré bringt das Chanson À Saint-Germain-des-Prés auf einer Schellackplatte heraus. 1953 und 1969 erscheinen jeweils Neuaufnahmen. Auch andere Interpreten tragen das Chanson vor: Henri Salvador (1950), Hélène Martin, Cora Vaucaire, Anne Sofie von Otter (2013)
1961: Guy Béart komponiert Il n'y a plus d'après… (à Saint-Germain-des-Prés) Auch Juliette Gréco hat das Lied in ihrem Repertoire.
1967: bedauert Léo Ferré in dem Chanson Quartier Latin die Veränderung des Viertels im Vergleich zu seiner Studentenzeit von 1930.
1991: Michel Sardou nimmt La Main aux fesses auf, wo er das Viertel als «Saint-Germain-des-Clébards» betitelt.
Das Quartier in der Literatur
1956: Ed van der Elsken: Liebe in Saint Germain des Prés. Schaden Verlag, Köln 1999, ISBN 3-932187-04-0. („vintage reprint“ der 1956 im Rowohlt Verlag erschienenen Ausgabe.)
(Wikipedia)
"Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)
friedrichnietzsche.free.fr/17.php
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