Big cat

November 25th, 2008 by Steve Curati

Large cat, originally uploaded by meltingman.

The new turbine hall installation by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is good.

As soon as you push through the plastic curtains and find yourself looking at banks of bunk beds, it feels like a sort of mass evacuation isolation ward. There are raised wall-mounted industrial lights and a constant dripping. Like ‘The Crack’ from last year, it places you in a new, uncomfortable post-event London. The Crack gave a feeling of physical insecurity (or at least it did me), that maybe our foundations aren’t as solid as maybe we’d like to think. This seems more of an amalgamation of fears expressed. Biological. Social.

The separate items at the far end of the hall don’t sit as well together, but an oversized cat skeleton and a large screen are a fantastic combination for anyone with a camera.

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Briliant!

Dave Brubeck with young Russian violinist

“During a visit to Moscow in the 80’s, Dave Brubeck met the faculty and students in Moscow Conservatory. While he was improvising on a “Ei, uhnem”, a Russian folk song, a young man downstage stood up to play Stéphane Grappelli-style violin jazz with him.”

(by afahsu)

via @openculture

(via Ai Weiwei Piles 1,200 Bikes On Top Of Each Other, For Dazzling Effect | Co.Design)

Infographic: The Changing TV Landscape

(via Iconic Photographs With Their Subjects Removed)

“I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.”

austinkleon:

Ronald Searle, Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole

47 jewel-like drawings by Ronald Searle made for his wife, Monica, each time she underwent chemotherapy. On New Year’s Eve 1969, Monica Searle was diagnosed with a rare and virulent form of breast cancer. Each time she underwent treatment, Ronald produced a Mrs Mole drawing ‘to cheer every dreaded chemotherapy session and evoke the blissful future ahead’. Filled with light and illuminated in glowing colours, the drawings speak of love, optimism and hope. Like the mediaeval illuminated manuscripts such as the 15th-century Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, to which the title of this book refers, the 47 drawings are on an intimate scale and were never intended for publication.

When asked about the drawings, Searle said, “I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.” Here’s a little more about them:

Prior to the cancer shock the couple had bought a decrepit house in the south of France and, despite her illness, Monica continued to devote her time making this house a home.

Devastated with his wife’s diagnosis Ronald did the only thing he knew how to do to cheer her up. .. draw.

Before every chemotherapy session he gave his wife a painting. Monica was depicted as a mole, a very happy mole celebrating life in their new home. (The Mole idea came after their discovery of a large celler that they made into a cosy room)

‘Everything about them had to be romantic and perfect,’ says Ronald. ‘I drew them originally for no one’s eyes except Mo’s, so she would look at them propped up against her bedside lamp and think: “When I’m better, everything will be beautiful.”

Searle died last week at 91.

(Images via bluedoorbooks)