Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1879-1916) really captures the interior world of New England’s past–despite the fact that he never traveled there. But there are similarities to the sparse style one finds in Scandinavia, there’s more reference put on the empty spaces than the clutter.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Lensed by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Eva Mendes solidifies herself as this century’s Rita Hayworth.
Photos: W
Once, I had a dream I could fly and it’s true what they say–flying in a dream is the most divine form of happiness. In those moments, which felt like hours, I was weightless and carefree. I don’t have a life that is a nightmare, but I understand the need to get swept away and just float upward in the midst of going, going, going like a shark to my next destination. All of a sudden, I wake up and I’m one year older.
I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is.
—Benjamin Button
This image had me a feeling a little nostalgic–yesterday I found out that a girl I knew had died. She was fourteen and decided to commit suicide. The thing is, I didn’t know her well. When I was a little kid, she was the baby at a few birthday parties and other social gatherings. It’s interesting how that baby grew up and made such a monumental decision. You look at a two year old and they seem so satisfied by the little things, it’s hard to imagine that one day it could all become so complicated. So irreversible.
Der Frosch by Christina Kruse (model turned photographer) is one of those images that lets the mind wonder to all sorts of scenarios: The nerdy girl in pigtails, isolated from her peers, finds solace in the science laboratory bonding with various specimens. All of Christina’s work is an obvious labor of love, she’s someone who is exploring what it means to be an artist after spending so much time in front of the camera as a muse for others. The results are a great mix of self-portraits where she takes control of her image and portrays herself as she wants to be seen.“I didn’t show anything to anyone for a long time. But I think that’s good. Doing things by myself meant that I didn’t just teach myself to take pictures, but that I also got to teach myself how to see,” Kruse told Style.com.
Essential Reading: Christina’s Reisebuch 1-5, a special edition book she put together comprised of collages, drawings, and photos she has composed over the years.
Photo: Christina Kruse/Steven Kasher Gallery, NYC
She looked so happy…didn’t she?
Neda Agha-Soltan (January 23, 1982 – June 20, 2009)
There are some stories that stick with us, that affect us more than the countless other disasters currently happening in this world we live in. The debacle that was the Iran elections a year ago still sticks in my mind, particularly the girl who would become the symbol of what those elections meant to the youth of Iran–Neda. HBO’s new documentary, For Neda, was a fascinating portrait of an ordinary girl who became an extraordinary icon in death. Her family and friends bravely went on camera and shared their memories of a young woman desperate to see the world and fight against the injustice so prevalent in her surroundings. The most stunning part of the documentary was that most of the footage was comprised of cell-phone videos taken during the time when people took to the streets and protested. Ten years ago, Neda’s death would’ve been covered up and she would just be another victim of a corrupt government–but today she is remembered and her story is told. We can make the argument that technology is ruining us socially, but it’s empowering us in so many other unique ways.
Dark as roses and fine as sand
I feel your healing and your sting again.
I hear you laughing, and my soul is saved.
On forgotten graves you cry.Crawl like ivy up my spine
Through my nerves and into my eyes
Cuts like anguish or
Recollections of better days gone byBut it’s alright
When you’re all in pain
And you feel the rain come down.
Oh, it’s alright
When you find your way
Then you see it disappear
Oh, it’s alright—Chris Cornell, Sunshower
Coco & Igor
For people who like the escape of the summer movie season, it has been a remarkably dismal showing thus far. But I have good news in the form of Coco & Igor–the film based on the affair between the designer, Coco Chanel and the composer, Igor Stravinsky. For those who delight in visuals, you will not be disappointed, the first fifteen minutes of the film is one of the most brilliant prologues I’ve ever seen. Beginning in Paris, 1913, at the opening of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring with a ballet performance led by Nijinksy. Chanel arrives and takes her seat amongst the bourgeoisie, who are scandalized by the rhythmic music and primitive dance technique. I watched confused as the crowd broke out into a riot at what they were witnessing on stage and it wasn’t until I came home and read up on this performance that I realized the problem was exactly the same issue we have today. This crowd was still stuck in the 19th century and were revolting against the modernity of the 20th. Here we are, ten years into the 21st with people still hanging onto the past–history is always repeating.
The film fast forwards to 1920 and by this time the war is over and everyone has crossed over. The next 90 minutes will be appreciated by anyone who goes to a movie to see. Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelson perfectly inhabit the complex historical figures they are meant to represent and Mouglalis, in particular, plays Chanel in a way that one can imagine this woman adapting to the rules of 2010 with absolutely no struggle. Chanel was a famous mythomaniac, an orphaned child who rose up in a time when there was no TMZ to expose your past. With a natural regality and plenty of useful skills, she was one of the first women to truly have power. When she invites Stravinsky and his family to live in her home, it’s on her terms. Stravinsky’s wife is horrified by not only Chanel’s 20th century independence but also her aesthetics. But her coldness only makes Stravinsky’s music more passionate and the film ends up depicting one of the truest enactments of an affair. The way it starts out so erotic and intense, and then how it seems to run its course in a rather natural way. The anger and resentment turns into a certain kind of peace in the end.
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Tagged film