Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Can You Read This?

A few weeks ago I was tagged by The Girl With The Blue Bow for this handwriting game. Sorry it took so long, Christianna! Here it is in all its messy, sloppy glory.

1. Name and blog title
2. Blog url
3. Write "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
4. Favorite quote
5. Favorite songs - right now and of all time
6. Favorite artists
7. A phrase you say often
8. Tag new people to play


I swear I used to have better handwriting, but I haven’t worked for over three years. Since I mostly just type at home, I don’t have the practice anymore and it gets illegible quickly. My husband can never read the bottom of the grocery or to do lists.

And if you couldn't read that, the phrase (well, word) I say most often is ew. I know, I’m like a 13 year old girl. Check out this clip of Jimmy Fallon and Emma Stone and you’ll get an idea what it’s like to hang out with me.


I’m not that bad, I promise. It’s a pretty funny clip though!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

BURBERRY PRORSUM Plaid Pea Coat AW11





There are too many options from Burberry Prorsum's new Fall/Winter 2011 Collection including this very cool Plaid wool Pea Coat with leather trim. Available now @ MrPorter.com for $3195.

KITSUNÉ Two Button Corduroy Jacket in Dark Green AW11









I have a similar sportcoat as this from Kitsuné by Band of Outsiders and I just love it more than anything in my closet. There is nothing that says 70's more for a man or woman than wearing a green cord jacket. Available now @ MrPorter.com for $765.

TRUSSARDI 1911 Wingtip Brown Sneaker Boot AW11







Trussardi's Wingtip Sneaker Boots are so superdopefresh! That's a new slang word that I came up with! Just kidding but seriously this, whatever it is considered, is such a great combination of classic wingtip mixed in a boot silhouette with a sneaker sole. Available now @ Restir.com for $819.35.

SPERRY TOPSIDER Cloud Logo AO 7-Eye Wool and Leather Boot AW11



These new Sperry Wool and Leather Boots look marvelous but the only thing is that Sperry soles don't do too well on ice and I had to learn that life lesson the hard way! Available soon @ SperryTopsider.com for $140.

VERSACE Military Wool Coat AW11







I guess Versace is making a strong comeback this season and here is another great-looking piece in a black wool Military Coat with gold button and buckle details with yellow stitched button holes. Available now @ NET-A-PORTER.com for $4675.

VERSACE Leather Hobo Bag in Royal Blue AW11







I am now obsessed with the color Royal Blue now and this Versace Leather Hobo Bag comes in the richest hue of royal blue that is so pleasing to the eyes. It has to do with the leather material used of course that makes it look so perfect and the quality of the leather. The gold details also compliment it perfectly! And why not a gold tassel to top it off with. Such a perfect piece! Available now @ NET-A-PORTER.com for $1795.

Nolan Is Three!?

Today is Nolan’s birthday. I can’t believe I have a three year old. My baby is no longer a baby, three is a full on kid. That totally breaks my heart. Look at this little guy:







But we had a really fun baseball bash in the backyard over the weekend for his birthday. Stay tuned...

'HUMAN VALLEY': DOMINIQUE GONZALEZ FOERSTER WITH TRISTAN BERA AND FRIENDS. A ONE YEAR PROJECT AT KUNSTHALLE ZURICH













HUMAN VALLEY – The other side of contemporary history



SUMMER: «BALZAC NOUVELLE VAGUE»

FROM 13 JUNE 2011-– 14 AUGUST 2011



AUTUMN: «L’amour en e Majeur»

suivi de village à trois: ménage bête

a proposition by Heike-Karin Föll, Jean-Michel Wicker and Gregorio Magnani

26 AUGUST – 30 OCTOBER 2011



WINTER?

SPRING?



The French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (born in 1965, lives and works in Paris) is known for her film projects, photographs, room installations, collaborations with other artists, scenographies and display situations. Her room installations describe particular moments, evoke atmospheres through memories and projections and enable the emergence of transitory locations. The relationship of the individual to his or her “environment” – between the physical and spiritual “interior” and the “exterior” – is the focus of attention here.



The Kunsthalle Zürich invited Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster to create an area for lingering on the ground floor of the Museum Bärengasse. Working in cooperation with Tristan Bera (born in 1984, lives and works in Paris), they created a hybrid space containing books, films and display cases which are continually open to new uses and the contents of which change according to the different projects being, herald a fictitious and real programme.



Reminiscent the entrance of a small cine-club but also a Godard domestic scenotope (Une femme mariée, 1964) and including a projection room for oblique documents, HUMAN VALLEY is a oneyear display for hybrid presentations of borderline topics. It is also a collective and organic process, open to new encounters along the way...



The project starts with «Balzac Nouvelle Vague» or the question how the French Nouvelle Vague has been shaped by the Balzacian ambition of fiction as big as life – like Eric Rohmer who structured all his cycles in relation to la Comédie humaine, Jacques Demy’s recurring characters coming back from film to film, which is a Balzacian literary finding, or like François Truffaut whose main characters are obsessed with Balzac from Antoine Doinel in Les 400 coups (1959) to Pierre Lachenay in La peau douce (1964), including Jean-Paul Belmondo reading La Peau de chagrin (1831) in La sirène du Mississippi (1969) or Delphine Seyrig quoting Madame de Mortsauf from Le Lys dans la vallée (1835), which Godard also wanted to shoot in 1966, but also like Jacques Rivette who adapted four novels of Balzac.



Often seen as a classical dry author with endless boring descriptions, Honoré de Balzac is the inventor of an incredible optical system that operates with an endless number of characters, and stages them on the front page or the background of a panoramic series of novels. He also invented the notions of prequel, sequel and spin-off among other exciting literary findings. Some of his characters, La femme de trente ans, La Torpille, Eugène de Rastignac, have become archetypes for social studies and in Brazil a forty-year-old woman is now known as a balzaquiana. His less famous, dark and fantastic oeuvre had a large influence, first on the decadent novels and then on the noir modern literature. And as Godard says: “We always talk about an old movie but never about an old Balzac novel...”



In the Bärengasse frame of HUMAN VALLEY – like savage detectives or a combo of passionate readers and movie-goers – Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tristan Bera present their sentimental research on stimulating links between Balzac and the Nouvelle Vague. In relation to this presentation of the first chapter of HUMAN VALLEY there will also be a reading by Catherine Millet (fall 2011) and film screenings – see list on www.humanvalley.ch



After «Balzac Nouvelle Vague» HUMAN VALLEY will invite guests to present their own borderline research – check dates on www.humanvalley.ch



On Sunday, 12 June, HUMAN VALLEY will also present a new gang of fanzines by:

Jean-Michel Wicker

Pablo Leon de la Barra

Jean-Max Colard

Gisele Vienne & Dennis Cooper

Philippe Rahm

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster & Tristan Bera



Become a member of the HUMAN VALLEY club by sending an email to club@humanvalley.ch and receive invitations to exclusive events by invitation only.



Tristan Bera (born 1984, lives in Paris). Fond of Decadent aesthetics and cross-over exhibitions, he worked on mainstream shows like Dada (2005/2006) at the Centre Pompidou, Richard Wagner, visions d’artistes (2005) and Gainsbourg 2008 at Cité de la Musique in Paris, and worked at Studio Frédéric Sanchez (2008). He received a MA in philosophy and a BA in art history in 2009. He is currently working at Le Pavillon/Palais de Tokyo’s creative lab. Now preparing the shooting of a short film together with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and working on a book about J.K. Huysmans.



Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (born 1965, lives in Paris). Her practice includes environments, films, stage, and architecture. Recently Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster created the site-specific work Desert Park (2010) for Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil, and performed K.62/K.85 with Ari Benjamin Myers in New York and Bruxelles and T.1912 at the New York Guggenheim Museum in 2011. Among her recent solo exhibitions are projects for The Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2008); MUSAC – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon (2008); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris / ARC, Paris (2007). Now preparing the shooting of a short film together with Tristan Bera.



www.kunsthallezurich.ch

Monday, August 29, 2011

DOLCE & GABBANA Gold Plated Crystal Cameo Drop Earrings





Dolce & Gabbana's newest earrings are so beautifully done with gold plated cherubs with baby blue crystals. Available now @ NET-A-PORTER.com for $375.

'FREDDIE ON THE PLINTH', UNOFFICIAL 4TH PLINTH PROPOSAL BY ALEKSANDRA MIR



Feddie Mercurie at the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, a proposal by Aleksandra Mir







Freddie Mercury model at Irena Sedlecka's studio





Freddie Mercury models at Irena Sedlecka's studio





Freddie Mercury at current location in Montreaux





Freddie on the Plinth is a proposal by artist Aleksandra Mir to bring the statue of Freddie Mercury back to London on loan from Montreux for one year and to place it on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Sign The Petition! http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/petition/



Dear Friends,



For the last 9 months I have been working on documenting the life story of Irena Sedlecka, a now 82 year old Check sculptor who was a celebrated Socialist Realist superstar in Prague before she came to London in 1966. Here she initially supported herself and raised three children by making souvenir models for the shop at the British Museum, slowly returning to her trade in sculpture via 'Talking Heads' in marketing and eventually, twenty years later, landing the commission to create a monumental statue of Freddie Mercury in 1995. This is where Socialist Realism and Glam Rock truly meet.



It has been fascinating and incredibly humbling to learn from a true master, not only of sculpture, but of life itself. Read my interview with Irena here:



http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/interview/




The statue itself has an equally fascinating fate. It currently lives in Montreux, where Freddie's rock star exuberant pose, once struck at Wembley stadium now faces the calm waters of lake Geneva. It is has become a popular pilgrim site for fans from all over the world who gather here on what would have been his Birthday, September 5th, yet it seems oddly misplaced.



To make use out of all of this, I have now also created an independent and unsolicited proposal to bring this masterpiece back on loan to London for one year, to return Freddie from his exile and to put him on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square. But also, for our generation to take a good look at and experience 'Sculpture' again and maybe to shake up our investment in it a little.



If you like the idea, please read more and sign my petition. It would mean a lot to have my friends blessing before I unleash this on the Freddie Mercury fans!



http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/petition/




Thank you!



Aleksandra Mir



PS. The project is - not - an invited or even official 4th plinth commission, so it really can use your support. Forward this mail and break free!



*****

Freddie on the Plinth Proposal

Freddie on the Plinth is a tribute to two people with an unlikely but beautiful connection: the legendary rock star Freddie Mercury (b 1946 – d 1991) and a Czech sculptor called Irena Sedlecka (b 1928). As a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Sedlecka was awarded the State Prize for excellence and thereafter created many socialist realist large-scale commissions before fleeing the Communist regime for England in 1966. It was in London, after Freddie’s death from AIDS in 1991, where she received the commission to create a larger-than-life memorial statue in bronze of the rock star.



At that time, 20 years ago, the remaining members of Queen and the executors of Freddie’s estate decided to commission the memorializing bronze statue as the whereabouts of Freddie’s ashes was a closely guarded secret. The statue depicts him at the height of his rock-star power performing at Wembley Stadium, his body in full-stretch rock exuberance, triumphantly gesturing towards an imaginary sea of mesmerized fans. Facing the statue, it is as if you can hear the crowds screaming, the band playing and Freddie’s heart beating – a living spirit captured in bronze by a sculptor at the height of her powers.



Despite the statue’s excellence, Freddie’s enormous contribution to music and the love of his many fans in the UK and worldwide, it was rejected by Westminster Council amidst rumours about homophobia, fear of AIDS and vandalism. Numerous attempts to place the statue on public view elsewhere in London failed and a permanent home for it was never found. Instead, the work was offered to the city of Montreux, Switzerland where the band kept a recording studio, where Freddie had found a retreat from the paparazzi and where the gift was welcomed with open arms. So the statue, with its bursting energy and urban soul was placed facing the quiet and calm waters of Lake Geneva. It has since become a site of pilgrimage for fans from all over the world who gather here every year to mark Freddie’s birthday.



Freddie on the Plinth is also an independent, unsolicited proposal to bring the statue of Freddie Mercury back to London, on loan from the city of Montreux for one year and to place it on the empty 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square: to honour both Freddie Mercury’s and Irena Sedlecka’s artistic legacies; as an exploration of the connections between socialist realism and glam rock; to contemplate the void created by all silences; and to channel love through the celebration and sheer expression of life.



Let's put Freddie on the Plinth

Sign the Petition!

Below are the links that you need to sign the petition, to read the amazing and fascinating interview with Irene herself, and see photographs of the statue as it was being made, and cast.



From Jackie, president of the official Queen fanclub:

"I am in Montreux this coming weekend, to sit with friends from all over the World, in the shadow of the great man - to have that fantastic and beautiful statue here in London, however briefly, would be a dream come true."



Freddie on the Plinth - Petition

http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/petition/



Freddie on the Plinth - Proposal

http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/proposal/



Freddie on the Plinth - Interview

http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/interview/



Freddie on the Plinth - Picture Show

http://www.freddieontheplinth.co.uk/pictures/