View allAll Photos Tagged existentialism
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
They sit under the dim, flickering candles and the glow of a dusk-soaked horizon. Their faces are drawn tight with the weight of unspoken truths. The city below sprawls like a labyrinth of enchanted uncertainties, its lights starting to blink like fractured stars as if taunting them with the chaos they’ve chosen to leave behind or perhaps walk into. Their glasses, half-empty or half-full depending on one’s disposition, quiver in their hands with every shallow sip.
The man, his jacket glinting as though armoured against his hesitations, stares at the woman with a tender and probing gaze. But his eyes don’t rest entirely on her; they pierce through her, reaching toward a reflection of himself.
She, wrapped in the blood-red softness of her dress, sits poised but restless. Her lips parted slightly, perhaps to say something, but the weight of their journey and the choice to abandon one life for another seals her words before they can escape.
Perhaps it is a subtle act of rebellion for them to sit together, sharing their time over the remnants of the past. They will raise their glasses in a tentative toast to a future that may prove as fragile as the amber liquid within them. And, arrive at the crushing realisation that freedom does not equate to instant salvation; rather, it forges the endless burden of choice yet to come.
Arcangelo Sassolino, site specific installation
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Cineaste365 (December 19, 2013 - DAY 069) - Today's Cineaste365 goes to Agnes Varda's "Cléo from 5 to 7".
Fantastic! That is my feeling of “Cléo from 5 to 7″ after watching it. Agnès Varda does a remarkable job of writing and directing a film that chronicles a woman’s life and to see her go through these wide range of emotions and the feeling of existentialism and looking at her life around the people around her.
In the beginning, we see how Cléo truly is. A popstar who shows how vain of a woman she can be. When she looks at the mirror and tells herself that “As long as I’m beautiful, I’m even more alive than the others”, one can immediately look at Cléo and see the lifestyle she has lived. Frivolous and possibly a lifestyle of a queen, buying whatever she wants and reacting to when she hears her music and letting people know that is her on the radio. But it’s when we see those layers of Cléo stripped down. She is now in despair and has left that life that she has lived temporarily to be alone and to get the biopsy results. Giving her a chance to see life differently when faced with her own mortality.
The film has style, it has grace, we see Cléo going through many areas of Paris, driving through Paris as we are like a passenger as we watch the scenery from the front window and of course, the film is also known for its inclusion of the short silent film “Les fiances du pont Macdonald” which feature a newly married Jean-Luc Godard, actress Anna Karina, Georges de Beauregard, Jean-Claude Brialy, Daniele Delorme, Alan Scott, Eddie Constantine and many other popular celebrities and directors from the French New Wave.
The editing is creative and artistic, in fact the inclusion of art in the film is a beautiful touch to a film that has so many enjoyable things going for it. But most importantly is how Varda was keen on detail. Wherever there is a clock (may it be in various restaurants, cafe’s to clocks out in the middle of the stress of Paris, we see the time). Varda and crew were determined to capture the clock at the time Cléo is near it and that the time coincides with what is happening with the film.
Speaking of Paris, what I loved about the film is how we see Cléo in various areas around Paris, the artwork of Hans Baldung Grien (which prior to the film, I always found his artwork hauntingly creepy) and to make a comparison of what I enjoyed about Eric Rohmer’s “My Night at Maud” from 1969 about using the camera and driving through Paris and the viewer is like the passenger, Varda uses this technique many years prior to the film and I just love seeing that incorporated if the scenery is worth capturing and in this case, cinematography in this instance and also of Cléo walking around Paris was well-done!
“Cléo from 5 to 7″ captures Paris in the early 1960′s. A lot of the locations we see in the film are no longer and personally, I don’t know if a film can be shot today with as much access or detail or in such a way as Agnès Varda was able to capture Corinne Marchand walking around in public with not much worry about rabid fans trying to get into the film. You see eyes looking straight at the camera (in fact, these people are probably wondering why they were being filmed) but it captures the time of people in Paris so innocently, and its a shame that some of the locations shot are no longer around. The cinematography is breathtaking and again, the editing is well-done! The film is literally a visual time capsule of Paris from yesteryear.
Luciano Minguzzi (Bologna, 24 May 1911 - Milan 30 May 2004) was an Italian sculptor who exhibited from the 1930s onwards. In 1951, he was chosen to design the fifth door of the Duomo in Milan. This period in the artist's career was marked by a series of powerful plastic works featuring acrobats, contortionists and playing children. From the late 1950s into the 1960s, his sculptures included references to concentration camps, gas chambers and other war-related themes. It was also in this period that he introduced bas-relief into his work, often made of bronze with iron inserts. He experimented with different styles of work, such as semi-abstract sculpture. Luciano Minguzzi's art constantly expresses an aesthetic attraction to all aspects of life that normally remain hidden, such as sex, wounds, death, all the elements in which he can find primal force to set nature in motion. Although a convinced atheist, he also often touches on sacred themes, so that his sculptures are seen as emblematic expressions of visceral existentialism.
Title of the work: Six persons
More about this work:
This work of art can be admired at the Middelheim open air museum at Antwerp: www.middelheimmuseum.be/en
Luciano Minguzzi (Bologna, 24 mei 1911 – Milaan 30 mei 2004) was een Italiaanse beeldhouwer die vanaf de jaren 1930 exposeerde. In 1951 werd hij uitgekozen om de vijfde deur van de Duomo in Milaan te ontwerpen. Deze periode in de carrière van de kunstenaar werd gekenmerkt door een reeks krachtige plastische werken met acrobaten, slangenmensen en spelende kinderen. Vanaf het einde van de jaren 1950 tot in de jaren 1960 bevatte zijn beeldhouwwerk verwijzingen naar concentratiekampen, gaskamers en andere oorlogsgerelateerde thema's. Het was ook in deze periode dat hij bas-reliëf in zijn werk introduceerde, vaak gemaakt van brons met ijzeren inzetstukken. Hij experimenteerde met verschillende stijlen van werk, zoals de semi-abstracte sculptuur. Uit de kunst van Luciano Minguzzi spreekt voortdurend een esthetische aantrekkingskracht op alle aspecten van het leven die normaal verborgen blijven, zoals seks, wonden, dood, alle elementen waarin hij oerkracht kan terugvinden om de natuur in beweging te brengen. Hoewel overtuigd atheïst, sneedt hij ook vaak sacrale thema's aan, waardoor zijn sculpturen worden gezien als emblematische uitingen van visceraal existentialisme.
Meer over dit werk: search.middelheimmuseum.be/details/collect/148301
Dit werk kan bewonderd worden in het openlucht museum Middelheim in Antwerpen: www.middelheimmuseum.be/nl
Luciano Minguzzi (Bologne, 24 mai 1911 - Milan 30 mai 2004) était un sculpteur italien qui a exposé à partir des années 1930. En 1951, il est choisi pour dessiner la cinquième porte du Duomo à Milan. Cette période de la carrière de l'artiste est marquée par une série d'œuvres plastiques puissantes mettant en scène des acrobates, des contorsionnistes et des enfants qui jouent. Dès la fin des années 1950 et dans les années 1960, ses sculptures font référence aux camps de concentration, aux chambres à gaz et à d'autres thèmes liés à la guerre. C'est également à cette époque qu'il introduit le bas-relief dans son œuvre, souvent en bronze avec des inserts en fer. Il a expérimenté différents styles de travail, comme la sculpture semi-abstraite. L'art de Luciano Minguzzi exprime constamment une attirance esthétique pour tous les aspects de la vie qui restent normalement cachés, comme le sexe, les blessures, la mort, tous les éléments dans lesquels il peut trouver une force primitive pour mettre la nature en mouvement. Bien qu'athée convaincu, il aborde aussi souvent des thèmes sacrés, de sorte que ses sculptures sont considérées comme des expressions emblématiques d'un existentialisme viscéral.
Titre de l'œuvre: Six personnages
Cette œuvre peut être admirée au musée en plein air Middelheim à Anvers: www.middelheimmuseum.be/fr
Welcome! I am Doublexuan- the owner and head chef of Bistro Palooka. We offer free food here to selected orders daily. Be as outrageous and creative as you can, for there is nothing we do not serve here! I rely on you, valued customers, for the success of my Bistro!
You can order your free food at Bistro Palooka now!
the famous composition by Paul Desmond "TAKE FIVE" on guitar, not played on piano as performed by Dave Brubeck - guitarist: Andrey Shilov, Ukraine
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Nathalie Djurberg
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
self-portrait with mirror - I've added a mirror to visualize my double playback method: at first I play the rhythm guitar chords; secondly I try to create some melody lines; equipment (blue): JamMan LOOP by DigiTech, Utah
I had a dream a few nights ago. My grandmother was telling me that "...used to have to walk to school during the hottest part of the summer wearing nothing but wool. The path was completely dark, couldn't see a thing. Dogs would bite me the whole way. That was how I knew I was going down the right path."
She told me this as I was choking a prostitute with my foot via the prostitute's request. Originally the prostitute was a male robber, but once I pinned him down with my foot he turned into a she and became a prostitute. The other robber got away.
Before all this a genie was telling me that he'd always be there for me. "Just rub a lamp or bottle or whatever..." He then got very picky and went into details, "No bongs, nothing made of glass that looks like a silly straw. Those things make me sick. Arizona Ice Tea bottles are nice because of their wide spacious opening." After infinite years of life in innumerable vessels this particular genie's favorite portal into our world was thru an empty bottle of Arizona Ice Tea. That felt right for some reason. Maybe this is where reason begins fail; at out inability to see the naked essence of the Arizona Ice Tea bottle and all we see is an Arizona Ice Tea bottle.
What does this have to do with the photo? All meaning is plastic. Thus 'The Meaning To Life' is also plastic. Your existentialism is dead if you want.
With that death comes a seemingly anarchy of possibilities.
As an optimist I say this, dogs will bite at you the whole way.
Martin Richman San Antonio River art installation at Lexington Avenue Bridge next to the Tropicana Hotel and Municipal Auditorium.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Jean-Paul Sartre, (1905–1980), Philosoph , Schriftsteller
and
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), Philosophin
eagle1effi phyloso_photoartist (1957- 20??.. =) :-))
-
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre
(21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980),
commonly known as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Existentialism.
-Simone de Beauvoir
(January 9, 1908–April 14, 1986)
was a French writer and philosopher.
She wrote novels, monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography in several volumes.
She is now best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, and for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.
- eagle1effi found over 80.000links
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
blog.miazine.com/2009/12/robert-indiana-one-through-zero-...
Robert Indiana
One through Zero
Stainless steel
ART BASEL 2009
Robert Indiana is born in New Castle, Indiana and later relocated to Indianapolis where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School. He 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".
In 1962, Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery hosted Robert Indiana's first New York solo exhibition.
He has since enjoyed solo exhibitions at over 30 museums and galleries worldwide. Indiana's works are in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including sweetMOMA jesus, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam, The Netherlands; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Brandeis Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts; Albright-Knox Gallery of Art, Buffalo, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.; Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the Los Angeles County Museum, California, among many many others. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like EAT, HUG, and, his best known example, LOVE
Albert Camus: author; philosopher; playwrite; journalist; member of the French Resistance; goalkeeper and a man who even managed to look subversively smooth while smoking a pipe.
James Dean readily confessed to modelling his 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' image on Camus' 'La Peste' cover picture.
His novel, The Fall, was also the source of Mark E. Smith's band's name and The Cure's first single, Killing An Arab, was based on Camus' novel L’Étranger (The Outsider) about French colonialism and injustice.
When asked which he preferred, the Theatre or Football, without hesitation he said "Football".
These pictures have been gathered from all over the net, some from sites so cool you have to wear gloves to type their web addresses. The music is I Can't Stand It by the Velvet Underground, which though made after Camus' death, sort of sums up his existential approach to life: "It's hard being a man (or woman) living in a garbage pail". Although, where the 13 dead cats and a purple dog that wears spats come into it, only Lou Reed knows. I think Camus, who was well known for his dancing ability would have been a Velvets' fan.
In his study of suicide, The Myth of Sisyphus, Our' Albert compares the human condition to that of the Greek king punished by being compelled to roll an huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. Camus says, in the end , you have to imagine Sisyphus happy with his lot. In other words: "Life is tough - deal with it. You have to make your own happiness out of the apparent absurdity of existence"
The tragic irony of James Dean stealing Camus' style in life, was that Camus 'copied' Dean in death. He was killed in a car crash in 1960, five years after Dean died in the same way, aged 47.
Right, now, where were we? "Albert! Albert! Over 'ere. Sur Mon tête Son"
Full video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8OW5qLnlgs
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
1. me, 2. existentialism, 3. , 4. , 5. lamp, 6. , 7. Mom & daughter, 8. ,
9. sweet embrace, 10. Grazie, Giovanni, 11. , 12. me, 13. Grazie, Giovanni, 14. se avessi avuto un grandangolo......., 15. lovers, 16. *bigfoot*,
17. , 18. , 19. peace flag *stop the war with your hand!!!*, 20. walking on the seashore, 21. Grazie, Giovanni, 22. Red hole, 23. 87 anni........., 24. ...,
25. business call, 26. winx amiche per sempre part 2. La rivincita di Aisha, 27. Faccia di c....!, 28. L'amore è anche questo., 29. uh??, 30. non è mai troppo tardi per innamorarsi.., 31. , 32. Che sete!,
33. Turchese/Turquoise, 34. io&babbo natale, 35. tiger, 36. , 37. *, 38. , 39. flickr.com/photos/67895093@N00/2369165120/, 40. shining,
41. , 42. "the mask of kimba", 43. antichi sapori, 44. , 45. psycho-mutation, 46. , 47. also sprach Zarathustra, 48. paws,
49. Matisse tail, 50. the thoughtful dancer, 51. *, 52. , 53. winx amiche x sempre part 1: Bloom all'attacco, 54. ohm... yoga meditation, 55. non bisogna gettare i rifiuti per terra!!, 56. non è solo Napoli,
57. heavenStairs, 58. studying, 59. little kimba, 60. , 61. fior di rugiada, 62. mi porti a spasso?, 63. me and my friend, 64. ,
65. candles, 66. amore sgrammaticato, 67. Gargano, Foresta Umbra, 68. silence together, 69. , 70. PROCIDA, 71. superficie, 72. rebecca
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
original daily self portraits
1 Dec 2007
russellhiggs.shutterchance.com/image/2007/12/01/saturday-...
21 Feb 2009
russellhiggs.shutterchance.com/photoblog/saturday_21022009_/
18 Sept 2008
russellhiggs.shutterchance.com/image/2008/09/18/thursday-...
“You won't find Christ in the church - you won't find Krishna in the temple - you won't find Jehovah in the synagogue - you won't find Allah in the mosque - the only place they reside is in the humans. Lend a hand to a human in misery and it'll be the highest service to the lord.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mad About Humans: World Maker's Almanac
what is funny is relative, what is true is even more relative
are you an existentialist in a minibus
you are too much of an existentialist to even buy into existentialism
fuck that, are you hungry, do you want to get something to eat
does it depress you
yeah it obviously depresses you, obviously
you could write a funny poem using words from other languages
you could hold a book in your hand that people pretend to remotely understand
for two hours during a lecture in class
you could say that about anything
because you are an existentialist
will you please stop saying that, it's really annoying
your computer is broken
the spacebar is broken
you bought a block of cheese
i drew a comic in your notebook of someone spilling coins all over the floor
the woman who gave a lecture today was extremely attractive, we agreed
but it was because she was fucking genius
i drew a comic in my notebook
on monday we did the first free lunch monday and took a man named jim to eat at kentucky fried chicken
because that was where he wanted to eat
he was forty five and we were both twenty one because it was recently your birthday
he ate a three piece chicken meal and we didn't eat anything
he said thank you like a hundred times and answered our questions with one word responses
we talked about what we could do to make the situation a less of an "us and them" type thing
when it was your birthday i sang you happy birthday on thumb piano
i made you a card and bought you lunch
you said it was a great birthday even though you missed home
i was extremely happy sitting on the corner because i saw three strangers hugging each other
they were dressed very nicely
they looked very excited to see each other
they hugged each other what appeared to be very hard, very good
the place was very busy and loud and there was a lot of social pressure, i am sure
but it was quiet in my head and i was watching people smile at each other and i even saw a boy talk to a guy passing out bibles
without acting extremely annoyed
the man passing out free bibles genuinely thought he was helping people, genuinely believed he was helping people
and what is not to appreciate in that?
i felt extremely happy
Image taken as companion to Naskar's 2022 sonnet, "If I Must Die."
“If I Must Die (The Sonnet)
I have no desire to die as just,
Another writer like that bard fella.
If I must die as a writer, I will die as,
The first multi-cultural writer of historia.
I have no desire to die as just,
Another founder of a sect or nation.
If I must die as something, I'll die as,
One of the founders of human unification.
I have no desire to die as just another,
Coldhearted scientist or pompous philosopher.
If I must die as a scientist and philosopher,
I'll die as the one who made love truth's driver.
But above all that, I have no desire to die, period.
Cowards die, whereas I, am already martyred.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervish Advaitam: Gospel of Sacred Feminines and Holy Fathers
Isamu Noguchi, Gregory (Effigy), 1946, cast 1964, bronze, 175.6 x 41 x 41.9 cm (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville) © estate of the artist
Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.
Jean-Paul Sartre
playing with the Man Ray group
www.flickr.com/groups/man-ray/discuss/72157600006647641/
original image from Grand Paul
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.
Doorways have symbolized the boundary between realities since Giovanni di Paolo's 1422 classic Door (the title loses something in the translation). The following decades saw a startling number of young painters, inspired by di Paolo's work, painting nothing but doors, doorways, arches, even gates. No, I'm kidding about the gates, of course. But the Door Movement had a profound effect on the general acceptance of doors in society. As a result, orders for new doors increased by a very large number, like, um, 20,534.2%. And di Paolo, who had cleverly patented the doorknob, was poised to become the third-richest man in the civilized world (which, at the time, was Italy, Greece, and the nice part of France. I'm sorry, that should have read "the nice region of France." Wait, um...yeah, just Italy and Greece, then).
Only one thing stood in di Paolo's way: the Catholic Church. Under Pope Martin V: The Final Frontier, the Church had secretly funded the manufacture of a staggeringly large number of door latches. It was the Pope's plan to flood the market with these cheap latches, then sweep in and secure the rights to the doorknob from a financially devastated di Paolo. That was the last anyone ever heard of Giovanni di Paolo.¹ And that's basically the story of how doorways represent the boundary between realities.
Meanwhile, a recurring theme in my absurdist-caption work is what is reality, and what does it want from us? It's a topic Theodor Geisel dealt with in his treatise on mental illness, Horton Hears a Who! Terry Gilliam would again address the subject in the 1985 classic, Hot Shots: Part Deux. Philip K. Dick wrestled with the question until the last year of his life, when he inexplicably started writing 18th-century period fiction featuring gruff-yet-sensitive pirates and ample-bosomed heroines under an assumed name (oddly, Philip L. Dick).
¹ I should mention at this point that I wrote this entire piece with Leonardo Da Vinci as the protagonist before I realized I couldn't get away with so drastically altering the timeline (of human history, don't you know...), and so I was forced to hunt down the only other Italian painter of the period who could possibly have been involved in this completely factual series of believable events, which I did not make up.²
² Come to think of it, if I were to do this one again I would keep di Paolo as the original painter and cast Da Vinci as the doorknob inventor who's ultimately crushed by the Church. Or not.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagertorv
Pleisch's tearoom was here where Kierkegaard often visited with his professors. Amagertorv 4. Entry 37. where George Jensen is now.
Le Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France
I headed south to le Cimetière Montparnasse. After the Paris churchyards closed in the 18th century, a full three quarters of a century before the English closed their urban churchyards, four great cemeteries were laid out to the north, east, south and west of the city. Pere Lachaise is the most famous, Montmartre the most aesthetically pleasing, but Montparnasse probably the most interesting. I spent about three hours and three hundred photographs pottering about. Some of the famous graves are easy to find because they are well documented, and visitors have placed tributes on them. For example, the first grave I went in search of, Samuel Beckett's, has metro tickets placed on it by visitors as a mark of having waited for something.
I already knew where Beckett's grave was, but two others in the same section were more difficult, as I did not have exact locations. I eventually found the grave of Phillipe Noiret, an actor I very much admired particularly for his role in my favourite film, Cinema Paradiso, but also for his role in Le Cop, which has criminally never had a DVD release with English subtitles. There were no public tributes on it, merely a plaque from his wife saying 'pour mon Cher Philippe' and a picture of a horse. While I was photographing it, four gendarmes, two men and two women, passed behind me and came across to see why I was photographing it. "Noiret!" exclaimed one of the men, and then "mais pourquoi le cheval?" wondered one of the women. But they didn't stop for me to explain, for I had read an article about Noiret about fifteen years previously in a copy of La Nouvelle Observateur while staying in a hotel in Boulogne, and I knew that he had bred horses in his spare time.
The other grave I had hoped to find in this section was that of Susan Sontag, but I couldn't track it down.
The joint headstone of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir is easily found by the main entrance, and I thought it rather sweet that they were remembered together. Despite all their efforts for existentialism and feminism, it was like a headstone in a quiet English churchyard which might have 'reunited' or 'together in eternity' inscribed on it. I think he wasn't pleasant company, and while she was certainly more intelligent than he was she made intellectual arrogance respectable. I photographed their headstone more out of interest than admiration.
Admiration was at the heart of my search for a gravestone lost in sections 6 and 7 which I think is not found often. It is for the surrealist photographer Man Ray. I was delighted to find it after barely 20 minutes searching. He designed it himself, and in his own handwriting into the cement it says 'unconcerned, but not indifferent', which could be taken as rebuff to Satre and his circle I suppose. Charmingly, beside it like the other half of a book is a photograph of him with his wife and the inscription 'Juliet Man Ray 1911-1991, together again'. Enough to leave De Beauvoir spluttering into her Pernod.
You can read my account of my travels at pariswander.blogspot.co.uk.