Lepopisana

This year’s La Biennale di Venezia consists of nine trans-national pavilions or families of artists, according to themes their works of art tackle. There are for example Pavilion of Artists and Books, Pavilion of Time and Infinity and Pavilion of Shamans. I thought artworks dealing with books and writing I would find the most appealing. There were quite a number of them, all of them fascinating, but writing in itself wasn’t the most interesting part. It’s what writing does, the way it connects people, different ages in history and different cultures that got me thinking. What a small thing a person does means to the society at large, and what works of art can do to the community artists live in. The role of art changes with time. From (mostly) depicting the world we live in, through numerous mutations, it evolved into an important “ingredient” of a community. Art is a space for reflection, individual expression and freedom. Considering this, art generates the pluralism of voic...

Drevesa ... Včasih se sprašujem česa vse se spominjajo. Sprehod po gozdu podnevi je fenomenalen. Ponoči? Ne spraviš me tja za noben denar. Zakaj se mi zdi tako strašljiv? Gotovo ne zaradi živali, niti zaradi šumov, ki se jih zlahka da pojasniti. Pravzaprav ne vem zakaj. Morda so mi ta strah vsadile raznorazne zgodbe in zgodbice. Morda pa je enostavno tako kot je in zgodbe nimajo nič s tem. Morda se zgodbe napajajo iz resničnosti in so dovolj stare, da si jih nihče ni izmislil. Samo gledal je drugače nanje. Ta nit razmišljanja gre lahko v nedogled pa raje ne bo. Sprehod po gozdu je boljši. Podnevi, jasno.

This year, when M and I went to the seaside I decided to bring a watercolour sketchbook and paint a bit when I felt like it. Well ... the plan was to paint every day, but I didn't. It was OK at the beginning, but then, I got sucked in David Grossman's book or we were out having a beer while listening to an old Red Hot Chili Peppers album in a neo-baroque-like (or whatever) bar.  I painted this one turning my back to the television where The Age of Adaline dubbed into German was on. Every now and again I asked M what was going on and he would explain. Neither of us speaks much of German, but M was at least watching the film while I was trying to merge a moth with diamonds, softness with rectangularity. Like dubbing a film into German.  * Ko sva se z M-jem letos odpravljala na morje, sem s seboj vzela skicirko in barvice, da bi tu in tam malo slikala. No, ideja je bila, da bi slikala vsak dan. Od začetka je še šlo, kmalu pa je me popila Grossmanova knjiga ...

Enkrat za spremembo se je res zgodilo to, ker so vremenoslovci pred časom obljubili. Prišli so Indijanci. No, ne dobesedno, ampak, če sem v prejšnjih objavah ugotavljala, da je prišel Lucifer in še nekdo pa se trenutno ne spomnim kdo, zakaj ne bi še Indijanci. Nastopilo je indijansko poletje. Glede na to, da se dnevi vedno bolj krajšajo in bi bilo tole poletje pametno izkoristiti, sva se z M-jem odpravila na izlet. Nisva človeka, ki jima je dovolj en cilj. Raje se voziva, tokrat od doma do Logatca, čez Podkraj in naprej čez Predmejo in Ajdovščino do gradu Rihemberk. Samo en teden prej sta se tod okoli potikala I in B pa se je I pritoževal, da gradu sploh ni videl. Ne vem kam je gledal, ker ga pravzaprav sploh ne moreš zgrešiti. Verjetno je I-ja bolj zanimala cesta, kot bi vsakega zglednega voznika morala. Pred časom sem na facebooku spremljala (pa tudi v Primorskih novicah je bilo) kako so se domačini zorganizirali in lastnoročno očistili grad, zato sva se odločila, da vidiva ali j...

I'm reading Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I read it before, quite some time ago and all I remember is the feeling I was reading poetry. When the autumn read for the Book Oblivion Book Club was announced I was pleasantly surprised Jessica chose Invisible Cities. I was looking forward to reading it again, seeing it with different eyes. And I am ... seeing it differently. Not only it being poetry, the language is beautiful and the cities Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan have a quality of not really existing, of being apparitions.  Last week I went to La Biennale di Venezia. On the floor of The Hungarian pavilion, I noticed an inscription. There were lots of them, but for me, this one stood out. Invisible cities. In Venice, and invisible city itself. The exhibition in the Hungarian pavilion is called Peace on Earth, which is an utopia in itself, an invisible city. The project consists of many past and future utopias, challenging the viewer to consider their relationship...

In one or two of my previous posts I mentioned how S. suggested I should read David Grossman. When I was killing time in a bookshop (where else) I saw a book by Grossman. I didn't even check what it was about or if it was for me. I just bought it, on a whim … because of S. I remember him saying Grossman doesn't write about holocaust. See under: Love is about holocaust, bit differently. Momik is a child growing up in the fifties in Jerusalem. His parents, relatives and neighbours survived the holocaust, but they refuse to speak about it in front of him. They mention the Nazi beast, but they never say what it is supposed to be. One day granddad Anshel enters Momik's life. He survived a concentration camp in Poland. He seems confused; he talks to himself in an incomprehensible way, like he was telling a story.  Momik would like to understand Anshel's story and write about it. Later in life he would also like to write about Bruno who was killed by an SS off...

Pred časom sem brala o Mona Lizi, češ da je pravzaprav instalacija in da k njej obvezno sodi dvajset japonskih in ameriških turistov s fotoaparati in kamerami, da bi jo obiskovalec Louvra doživel v celoti.* Priti v Benetke, ko ni nikogar, je misija nemogoče. Tudi izven sezone so tam turisti s fotoaparati in kamerami, na Rivi degli Schiavoni pa stojnice z raznoraznim kičerajem, ki jih domačini gotovo ne potrebujejo. Zato bi lahko rekla, da so tudi Benetke instalacija. Pa tudi beneški Bienale je sam po sebi instalacija. Vreme za obisk Bienala je bilo včeraj idealno. Megličasto in sivo. Za trenutek se je pokazalo sonce, vendar je takoj postalo neprijetno vroče in vlažno. Sivina je za sprehajanje med paviljoni v Giardinih ravno pravšnja. Nekaj objav nazaj sem ugotavljala, da nimam fotografije Benetk, čeprav vanje vedno pridem po vodi. Tokrat jo imam, pravzaprav več njih, vendar nobena fotografija ni taka, ki bi jo človek pričakoval od turista. Če govorim o Benetkah, se ne štejem...

Rada imam vodo. Nekaj hipnotičnega je v njej. Všeč mi je vonj vode in njen zvok in njena zenovska mirnost, ki je tako varljiva.  Pred mnogimi leti, ko sem bila v obsesivni fazi branja kriminalk (še vedno jih berem, vendar ne več obsesivno), sem brala Podobo v kamnu (A Likeness in Stone) J. Wallis Martin. Spomnim se prvega poglavja, mislim, da je deževalo, ko so ljudje opazovali kako voda zaliva hiše v dolini, ki se bo spremenila v akumulacijsko jezero. Že takrat mi je bilo zanimivo kaj se dogaja s hišami potem, ko jih zalije voda ... V soboto sva bila z M-jem na izletu ob Velenjskem jezeru. Velenjsko je eno od treh Šaleških jezer, ki so nastala nad velenjskim premogovnikom, potem ko se je zaradi izkopov lignita s časom posedel teren. Nekoč so bila na tem mestu naselja in kmetijske površine. Za razliko od akumulacijskega jezera v knjigi, se je zalivanje dolin dogajalo postopoma pa tudi naselja niso bila izseljena na hitro. Predstavljam si, da so hiše počasi propadale, st...

This is not for you, says Mark Z. Danielewski at the beginning of the book. Oh, but it is. When I was a kid I was afraid of the dark. I used to think that if I can't see anything, I could be anywhere. Perhaps during the night when the blinds were drawn too tightly and I couldn't see anything, I wasn't in my room. Perhaps I was somewhere else, or nowhere. I still don't like darkness. It unnerves me. And I don't like silence and cold. The scariest part of House of Leaves is darkness and what it can do to a person. Or what a person can do to him-or-herself while thinking too much about things. It's always us, isn't it? In the centre of the book is The Navidson Record, a short film, which doesn't exist, as we are told in the foreword. Will Navidson and his family recently moved in the house on Ash Tree Lane. Soon they discover their house in bigger on the inside as it is on the outside. Later, a hallway appears where nothing but a solid wall was...