you have been here sometime: July 2010

I’m a gross machine…
I’m in love with ghosts.

-Matthew Dear

prepare! mr. dear is back.

"Matthew Dear’s Black City can’t be found on any map. It’s a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives. Like most literary Gothams, Black City is a place to love and hate, as seedy as a nightclub’s back room and as addictive as heroin.

Matthew Dear, the musician, may live in New York City, but the Matthew Dear of Black City inhabits a sound-world unlike any other: a monument to the shadowy side of urban life that bumps and creaks, shudders and wakes up screaming in the middle of the night."

----------------------------

arthur russell
cover, by
ana caravelle,
nonprojects

I will find
More to see
I will see
More to find
It'a a two way, two way street
The more I look ahead
The more I see behind

image by bernadette beunk

Ivan Terestchenko
and his visit to
Jean Cocteau's home.

I was lucky to receive some photos from Ivan Terestchenko detailing Jean Cocteau's newly opened home turned museum. Ivan's ability to "see" spaces, and feel them impresses me to no end. I'm honored to have crossed paths with him, and I've spent many late nights looking at these photos of Jean Cocteau's belongings and home.

I'm hoping to post some more images very soon,
along with an informal interview with Ivan, asking him about he discovered his drive for photography, and what interiors truly inspire him.

"Jean Cocteau purchased his home in Millyla- Forêt in 1947. He lived there for the last seventeen years of his life. Once he had attained success, Milly became a sort of refuge, far from society life. The irises and peonies, the fallen leaves and climbing ivy, the fruit trees in the orchard, the cats and dogs were always there for him.

The poet could come to rest, be with his companion, Edouard Dermit, welcome friends, read and write in the gardens, cross the two little bridges over the chateau moat and the river to go stroll in the park, work late in his office or his attic studio. Today, that house is intact thanks to Edouard Dermit, who, after Cocteau’s death, preciously preserved an exceptional inheritance that included antique furniture, objets d’art, works by Manet, Doré, Picasso, Bérard..."

--------

"It's the house which was waiting for me. I am living in this retreat, far from the bells of Palais-Royal. It gives me an example of the absurd magnificent stubbornness of the vegetable kingdom. I rearrange the memories of former countrysides where I used to dream of Paris, as later I used to dream in Paris of taking flight.

The waters of the moat and the sunshine reflect on the walls of my room their false shimmering marbles. Everywhere spring is jubilant."

Jean Cocteau - La Difficulté d’être

MAISON JEAN COCTEAU
15, rue du Lau 91490
Milly-la-Forêt

Ivan Terestchenko
and his visit to
Jean Cocteau's home.

------------------------------------

Mr. Blue and Mr. White
(unlikely accomplices to this crime.)

An accomplice has the same degree of guilt as the person he or she is assisting, is subject to prosecution for the same crime, and faces the same criminal penalties.
As such, the three accomplices to the bank robbery above can also be found guilty of armed robbery even though only one stole the money.

One passage reads,
"Important he said. Draw this and that, that matter or this dilemma,
this equation of that test followed by occasional self-loathing
and thrashing and an abrupt departure."

Mr. Blue and Mr. White
(unlikely accomplices to this crime.)

1. Stephan Van de Burg, go here to see more of the portfolio.
2. 1970s Round bi-color formica body ottoman/coffee table with a chrome base and a top covered in blue vinyl.
3.Traces Blue VII, Joyce Kim, 2009, Acrylic on canvas, leather, framed printed text, at Marian Spore Brooklyn.

------------------------------

Nicolas Carone,
1917-2010

"One of the last surviving Abstract Expressionist painters,
died on July 15 at his home in Hudson, N.Y."

"Mr. Carone was present at the beginning of the New York School and friends with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Lee Krasner. But his best work may have come long after the style faded, in the large paintings in shades of black, white and gray that he made during the last two or three decades of his life. The shifting lines and layered brushwork of these works most completely integrated the classical figurative tradition he absorbed during his earliest art studies and the instinctive painting processes of Abstract Expressionism.

Mr. Carone was born in June 4, 1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the eldest of seven children of Italian immigrants. He grew up in Hoboken, N.J., where his father was a bartender, and began drawing at age 4. When he was around 11, his mother sent him to the Leonardo da Vinci Art School on East 10th Street in Manhattan, which offered instruction for a small tuition. "

read Roberta Smith's NYT article here..

---------------------

Mario Dal Fabbro 1913-1990
3 pieces
of furniture.

Born in Italy in 1913.

"MARIO DAL FABBRO studied both at the R. Superior Institute for Decorative and Industrial Arts at Venice, and the R. Magistero Artistico. He graduated with high honors in 1937. Before his advanced education, Dal Fabbro worked in his family's furniture design shop.

Always able to combine the theoretical with the practical aspects of construction, Dal Fabbro's early experience helps account for his later success in the technical and creative fields of furniture design. Between 1938 and 1948 -- before immigrating to America -- Dal Fabbro created designs for private individuals and various furniture houses in Milan. "

Mario Dal Fabbro 1913-1990
3 pieces of furniture.

--------------------------------

what comes around goes around.

an Amazon reviewer,
aka Amy Hilliard from Virginia writes:

"this book is the equivalent of a bad art house movie. It has out-of-focus pictures of grungy looking rooms taken at unflattering camera angles in bad lighting.

If you are someone who likes to polish up "diamonds in the rough," you may like this book. Because I think only people that can look at junk and find some intrinsic value in it will like this book. However, those people will probably like the book titled Big City Junk better..."

Thanks Amy for the tip! I purchased it immediately off your glowing review!

Mondoblogo recently introduced me to Dominiqe Nabokov from with his two recent postings on his excellent blog. Check it out here.. She also has an interview in the new Apartamento, #5.

"Photographer Dominique Nabokov has documented the living rooms of well-known Parisians - artists, writers, designers, intellectuals, and the occasional celebrity. The rooms vary widely from one another in terms of formality and decor, but they are all equalized under the gaze of Nabokov's camera. Each room is shot simply as it happened to appear on that particular day, without any people.

Using discontinued Polaroid Colorgraph type 691 film, (which provides a full-color transparency in four minutes), Nabokov does not use special lighting, or allow the rooms to be rearranged or touched by a stylist. The result is a series of fascinatingly deadpan photos that puts an ironic slant on the celebrity interior genre. These peeks into the living rooms of celebrated Parisians will provide hours of voyeuristic pleasure.

The book includes more than seventy living rooms of such diverse Parisians as Jean-Paul Goude, Andree Putman, Christian Liaigre, Ingrid Caven, Jeanne Moreau, Victoire de Castellane, Loulou de la Falaise, and Jacques Grange, to name a few."

--------------------------------

the" safe"
house (room)

A safe room or panic room is a fortified room which is installed in a private residence or business to provide a safe hiding place for the inhabitants in the event of a break-in, home invasion, or other threat.

“The idea of a “safe house” is something that has a particular resonance with me. They are supposed to be places where you are out of harm’s way but due to the fact that people only end up there as a direct result of some sort of forced upheaval of normal life, in my mind, they strike me as being cold and lonely. It’s a terrifying thought that in a flash you can lose your identity, your family, your friends.

-Pariah

------------------------------

3 stools

Howe London
93 Pimlico Road London

“I studied as a sculptor therefore form and texture are primary. Design must be pure and have great qualities which achieve timelessness. I want my furniture to survive and be appreciated for a long time, like the antiques I also sell. I love research and academic discoveries which tell you more about a piece, but the mood created by the design, scale, colour or condition is what really inspires me.”

Christopher Howe

"Christopher’s career has been a fascinating one; in 1986, having just left Goldsmith’s College of Art, he took on a derelict shop in a small street in Belgravia. It opened with a small loan and stock found in markets and borrowed from friends, relying only on candles for lighting. A year on, after some building work the shop re-opened with a window displaying a Gae Aulenti lamp and a pair of Pierre Paulin white vinyl Tulip Chairs, an innovative style which has remained the essence of Christopher’s approach to antique dealing ever since."

go here to see the entire collection.
stunning and timeless...

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L & Q #8

We are Linger&Quiet.
We live in Portland Oregon.
We love music.
And we made this for you.

thanks g and m for another beautiful podcast.
download number 8 here...
now, if we can only get them to come to los angeles!

Curtiss Maldoon- Sephryn (Linger and Quiet Space Edit) (Purple Records)
Antena - Achillies (Numero Group)
NRBQ- Only You (Rounder)
Roy Harper- Goldfish (Big Ben)
Slowdive- In Mind (Creation Records)
Roger Sherman- Say You Love Me (Self Released)
Grateful Dead- Unbroken Chain (MQuiet No Noodles Edit) (Grateful Dead Records)
Psychic TV- The Orchids (CBS)
Moon Duo- A Little Way (Woodsist)
Subway- Crystalline (Lo Recordings)
Paul McCartney- One Of These Days (Columbia)
Seahawks- Omega Beach (Captain’s Log)
Incredible String Band- Air (Elektra)

Linger & Quiet:
Linger & Quiet are Matthew Kwiatkowski and Genevieve Dellinger. Happily partnered in Portland Oregon, they stay busy making music mixes in their 1927 bungalow on Brooklyn Street. When they aren’t playing with music at home, they can usually be found at their monthly party NIGHTCLUBBING at Holocene, or playing records at favored haunt Valentine’s. If they aren’t any of those places, check the park. They are probably there, drinking coffee and playing with their dog and riding bikes around their awesome town.

----

--------------------------------------------

the painter must meet the furniture maker.
pt 1.

joe baer
vs
jens risom

the painter must meet the furniture maker.
pt 1.

joe baer
vs
jens risom

--------------------------

the
light
will
eventually
come
for
us.

"One day I read an interview with the Algerian film director, Abdel Kechiche. He stated that his cinema was the reflection of his life, his personal story. My father died when I was three and I experienced very strong emotions and a great deal of suffering. I don’t like to interpret these emotions, but I sometimes think that they gave rise to my sense of revolt in relation to bourgeois false appearances and social injustice. If I am interested in the world of poor people, it is because I enjoy being with people who have difficult lives, and who have stories to tell. My life involves thinking about my photography work every day; it is about interpreting other people’s thoughts, expressing my ideas, having experiences and understanding how to do things. I can not imagine myself separately from my work.

What is important?
What makes me get out of bed every morning?
What attaches me to this place?
How can I continue to evolve?
These are the questions I ask in this work and for me the answer lies in the feelings one has for others, in the love for one’s family.

These are the basic, essential things."

- Andre Cepada

the
light
will
eventually
come
for
us.

1 and 2. Andre Cepada... here....
3. Andrew Moore.

-----------------------------

Portrait of a Man
pt. 25

Manly Pursuits:
Thomas Eakins

more portraits here...

July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916

--------

“I never knew of but one artist, and this is Tom Eakins,
who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be rather than what is.”

– Walt Whitman

-----------

Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins ,
at LACMA
July 25, 2010–October 17, 2010

Manly Pursuits: The Sporting Images of Thomas Eakins celebrates LACMA's 2007 acquisition of Eakins's great sporting painting, Wrestlers, 1899. The exhibition will examine the work in a broad thematic context, providing a rare opportunity to consider the history of sporting images in the oeuvre of this icon of American nineteenth-century art. While his rowing paintings and swimming images were each the focus of special exhibitions, no show has ever been devoted to the varied array of sporting images Eakins depicted. Moreover, while Eakins exhibitions have been increasingly frequent on the East Coast, they have been rare at West Coast venues. Manly Pursuits will trace Los Angeles's long but little known association with Eakins's art.

Since the 1990s, Eakins has emerged as a major figure in sexuality studies in art history, for both the homoeroticism of his male nudes and for the complexity of his attitudes toward women. Controversy shaped much of his career as a teacher and as an artist. He insisted on teaching men and women "the same", used nude male models in female classes and vice versa, and was accused of abusing female students. Recent scholarship suggests that these controversies were grounded in more than the "puritanical prudery" of his colleagues (as had been assumed). All the known evidence in the scandals in his life involved heterosexual behavior, so the thesis that he was a latent homosexual or bisexual remains compelling, but unsupported. Today, scholars see these controversies as caused by a combination of factors such as the bohemianism of Eakins and his circle (in which students, for example, sometimes modeled in the nude for each other), the intensity of his friendships with men, including Samuel Murray, and Eakins's inclination toward provocative behavior.

Robert Henri writes:

"Thomas Eakins was a man of great character. He was a man of iron will and his will to paint and to carry out his life as he thought it should go. This he did. It cost him heavily but in his works we have the precious result of his independence, his generous heart and his big mind. Eakins was a deep student of life, and with a great love he studied humanity frankly. He was not afraid of what his study revealed to him.

In the matter of ways and means of expression, the science of technique, he studied most profoundly, as only a great master would have the will to study. His vision was not touched by fashion. He struggled to apprehend the constructive force in nature and to employ in his works the principles found. His quality was honesty. "Integrity" is the word which seems best to fit him. Personally I consider him the greatest portrait painter America has produced."

Portrait of a Man
pt. 25

Manly Pursuits:
Thomas Eakins

See all the
Portraits of Man series
HERE.

lazy
weekend
listening:
gemini, virgo,
and julian lynch,
and more.

1.Julian Lynch, Mare.
"Lynch once worked for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and now studies ethnomusicology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and you can hear those diverse influences at work on Mare: The music is recorded on humble equipment, is rough around the edges, and pulls liberally from lots of different genres. There are traces of drone, noise, and African percussion, for instance, alongside more traditional pop and rock elements. His instrumentation is unusual and eclectic, incorporating clarinet, watery guitar lines, shuffling maracas, and delicate drum work. But where bedroom pop tends to be somber and even unsettling at times, Lynch's music is very much at ease with itself. And it sounds very organic. Tracks are experimental in composition but ultimately echo the mood of folk or country-- music that feels like it should be played outdoors."

2. Boing Poum Tchack, Behind a Lovely Thing, Pt III.
trust me, you are gonna need some hours to kill with this one. a mental massage, a call to air.
go here....

3. Virgo
"Some might go as far as to say that their debut EP from '89 as Virgo Four is arguably the finest house music 12-inch ever created. I'm inclined to agree, and if you've ever heard the strutting space-age bleep-house of "In a Vision" or the euphorically melancholic reggaematics of "Take Me Higher" before, it's likely that you will too.

4. Gemini, Wild Nothing
"Gemini finds Tatum constructing a striking, solitary monument to just about anyone who moped, sulked, or bedsat their way through the 1980s. His love of dreamy, fuzzy, handcrafted guitar-pop isn't far removed from the Radio Dept. or the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but he displays a more comprehensive and widespread commitment to classic indie pop sounds. Revivalism notwithstanding, his craftsmanship is undeniable and the details are spot-on."

------------------------------

Alberto Pinto Interiors:
Paris, France and beyond.

"Borrowing from various cultural influences from his earliest childhood, Alberto Pinto, an inescapable actor of interior design, has built his works on the interbreeding and mixture of genders from more than baroque to less than bare. After having attended the “Ecole de Louvre” in Paris, he created a photography agency in New York (USA) specializing in decoration and interior design. It is during these shoots in Mexico, England, Italie or India that he acquired his taste for design, the sense of volumes and the game of colors. All these elements become decisive for the rest of his career."

"Refusing to conceive narrow and closed universes, he naturally oriented himself towards “big projects”. Used to rising to challenges which would scare others away, he particularly appreciated being given gigantic spaces in which he put together styles and very different periods in an always perfect harmony. Strengthened by his experience and always looking for new challenges, Alberto Pinto specialized himself in atypical places such as large yachts or private jets."

Alberto Pinto Interiors: Paris France

----------------------------------

3 lamps.

the future
has (left)
determined
the past.

1. Angelo Mangiarotti, Ventagli table lamp, Italy, 1987 alabaster, enameled steel
2. Sergio Asti, lamp, 1990, via Wright Auctions.
3. Leslie Larsen, 1955, table lamp.

--------------------------------

when rugs become stories become paintings.

"Then I saw it, just when I felt I couldn’'t take another step,
a place I thought more and more was just a myth."

"Boucherouite refers to a form of rag from rural areas of Morocco created from wool, cotton, synthetic fibers, Lurex, Nylon and plastic. Changes to these materials began in the 1960's and 70's. What is especially unique about them is the wild poetry of their compositions; they are part of and beyond a tradition from no one region. Thus, the rugs are woven in a creative, improvisatory style by the weavers whose choice of colors and textures gives the rugs the feeling of painting. They are a new cultural form created from necessity meeting personal aesthetics.

The world is naturally postmodern, however, the supreme intention of these artists is utilitarian. In a very odd way, these pieces are a liberation from tradition, while at the same time that they uphold it. But there are no rules, and there is no way to look at a rug, and pinpoint exactly where it comes from.

They are Pan-Moroccan."

via calvin morris gallery

"The heat made the sand shimmer in the distance and it only got hotter and hotter so we decided to travel at night to spare the camels and ourselves. I cut myself opening a can of sardines, everyone saw but no one said anything. I had to take care of myself now. The hills of sand turned red then orange, then violet, and finally blue as the white sun fell. We walked until I lost count of my 52 days.

I wore turban and long cotton cloaks of the camel drivers. Then I saw it, just when I felt I couldn’t take another step, a place I thought more and more was just a myth. The mud brick houses clustered around a spot of green that I knew must be the oasis. It was Tombouctou."

- Katherine Bernhardt,
Canada Gallery

------------

when memories deceive.

Curtis Jere 1975
vs
Rachel Whiteread 2001

facade:
2. An artificial or deceptive front:

Untitled Monument, 2001

"It's a simple trick, but an effective one, and the associations it conjures â€" heaviness and lightness, earth and heaven, death and life â€" are thought-provoking and manifold [...] Whiteread's Monument, as light and gleaming as the plinth is dark and squat, is the only one of the four commissioned pieces to allude directly to the plinth's defining emptiness.

She sees it not as a space to be filled, but as an absence to be acknowledged, and she does it well."

""This dazzling anti-monument monument looks like a glass coffin, but its watery transparency relates to the large fountain that dominates the Trafalgar plaza. Following the aquatic theme, Whiteread's Monument evokes the scene of the1805 naval battle for which the square is named."

"With Untitled Monument (2001), (also variously known as Plinth or Inverted Plinth), Whiteread became the third artist to provide a sculpture for the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Her sculpture was an 11 ton resin cast of the plinth itself, which stood upsidedown, making a sort of mirror-image of the plinth. It was said to be the largest object ever made out of resin, taking eight attempts to produce due to the resin cracking."

Good Mass = stability.
Curtis Jere lamps appear to be one large mass, though it's only a FACADE.
Rachel Whiteread has the ability to let our memories not crack or fade. Thank you.

--------------------------------------------------------------

2 lamps by
Umberto Riva

2 lamps by
Umberto Riva

-------------------

paths.
&
small
worlds.

It is a small world! Recently my path crossed with a few new friends. A small world, made smaller by the internet. Read below: written by Cosmic Dust Co. (go to her tumbler here..)

"on my recent trip home to LA, a good friend of mine just moved into an amazing duplex in echo park/downtown. i had to opportunity to meet her wonderful neighbor david, who coincidentally runs the blog you have been here sometime. we got to talking and when he found out that me and my friend who were visiting, were living in new mexico, he just had a feeling that i was behind cosmic dust and nomadic way, and my friend was behind inside inside, et al. intuitive to say the least. check out his recent post about earthships and the documentary garbage warriors. "

Happy to have Inside next door to me for a few weeks. And was delightful to meet Comsic Dust / Nomadic Sun and share some conversation on the back porch. Thanks for introducing me to the idea of Earthships you guys. Hoping to plan a journey to New Mexico at some point, then onto Marfa, the Lighting Fields, and ending in Austin, Texas.

Lots to see and understand...

----------------------------

stop
making
(sense)
tense.

stop
making
(sense)
tense.

1. Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi, 1959 mahogany, enameled steel
2. Peter Marigold
3. Jacques Adnet, 1950

conceptual salvage and interiors

when cabinets
have a story.

the dresser
by Rupert Blanchard

"Every drawer has a history, i could go on for ages just telling you about my history with the drawers but here is a short run down of where i discovered each drawer used in the piece above:

3 Victorian mahogany chest drawers from Wimbledon, London //
6 Haberdashery Shop drawers oak and glass from Battersea, London //
3 Singer sewing machine table drawers from a factory in Shoreditch, London //
2 oak fitted wardrobe drawers from Margate //
1 very small drawer made from scrap wood by my friend Martin Bates //
1 teak fronted 50s office desk drawer from Clapham, London //
2 Art Deco dressing table drawers from Clapham, London //
1 oak sideboard fitted cutlery drawer from Margate //
1 Victorian mahogany office cabinet drawer from Margate //
1 foxed mirror from a hall stand from Wimbledon edged with teak from a science lab table from Northampton and
a handle found in Brick Lane."

Rupert Blanchard is.....

"An art director specializing in
conceptual salvage and interiors"
- Adam Carr (Today Is Boring)

via tell you today. thanks g!
go to Rupert's site here...

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