Alexandre Alexeieff is most famous for inventing pinscreen animation with his wife Claire Parker. You know those neat little pin-art frames you can get? It's like that, times a thousand.
A good portrait shouldn't just be a good photo; it should capture the essence of the subject and intoxicate you with its incredible sense of intimacy. This is why I love Mark Seliger's work.
I had to fly home early, cutting my two weeks in Singapore down to two days. Gone were the dreams of meandering luxuriously through the final leg of my trip; instead, we rushed through the town in a haze of taxi-rides, rooftop bars, hawker centres and family dinners.
Here are some other things I did:
Thomas Doyle creates these amazing small-scale dioramas depicting the surreal underbelly of suburbia. Each scene exists within a glass enclosure; an isolated memory preserved for all eternity. The craftsmanship alone is staggering, but the subject matter propels it into the realm of the spectacular.
Simon and I went to the Diwali Festival yesterday afternoon. It was grand. We ate samosas and curries. We watched in amusement as eager teens competed in a Bollywood talent competition, which inexplicably involved a dance-off between a group of Michael Jackson impersonators and a street gang. We sampled gooseberry candies. We sipped on mango lassis. We briefly contemplated joining the ridiculously long queue for free readings.
The highlight, though, was stumbling upon the laughing clown game. Seriously. I squealed so loudly that I'm pretty sure Simon was embarrassed to be seen with me. But the thing is, the laughing clown game defines my childhood. I grew up near the Gold Coast, and when I was good my parents would take me to Grundy's, an indoor carnival. I'd ride the carousel. I'd play the laughing clown game. I'd have my face painted, tiger-styles. We'd have lunch near the Statue of David replica. We'd go down to the beach, where I'd run around giddily before collapsing melodramatically in the sand.
On our way to the Piazza del Popolo, Leon and I stumbled upon this makeshift open-air museum brimming with trinkets and inventive displays. Because it was nearing five and he was about to pack up, the cute old man running it gave us some pictures he'd drawn on the back of a cardboard box.
It was my highlight of Rome.
Cole Rise's photography has an almost paranormal appeal.
These are moments in time that seem like they should never have been
captured. Moments that should have been
lost in time.
But weren't.
Robert Longo's The Sickness of Reason reminded me of this great interactive installation at Macro (museo d'arte contemporanea Roma) - Foster, You're Dead (2008), a collaborative project between artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and architect Neil Logan.
Robert Longo's illustrations are, in a word, breathtaking. You know how when you're a kid, you think of artists as having this superhuman ability to perfectly capture reality, and then you grow up and realise that reality is subjective and that you can draw things however you so desire? Well, Robert Longo is eight-year-old-me's superhero artist. He's also twenty-three-year-old-me's superhero artist.
