Not ever ForgITTEN again

Fans of color, hello!

Tonight I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition "Itten and Klee" in the Kunstmuseum in Bern, guided by one of the curators herself, Monika Schäfer. 

I have to admit, I hadn't done any research beforehand and I had never heard about "Itten" before so I didn't know what to expect. Is "Itten" a place? A theory or idea? Or is it maybe another person? Pretty soon, almost immediateley it was clear to me, that "Itten" was also an artist of the same era as Paul Klee (1879-1940). Johannes Itten (1888-1967) is also, like Klee, a swiss artist from the 20th century. Not having heard from him before shamed me a little since his works, as I learned, are quite extraordinary. 

The theme of the exhibition was color itself. The cosmos of color to be exact. Both artists spent an enormous amount of time studying colors. Several rooms of the exhibition were just dedicated to show their theoretical approach on color. They both were groundbreaking in our modern understanding of color, colorschemes, colorinteraction etc. And both artists worked their findings on color and their experiments into their works. In a very systematic, almost mathematical way.

The great thing about getting led through an exhibition by someone who created it, is that you get to hear alot of anecdotes. For example one about this piece "Encounter" from 1916 by Johannes Itten. It seems quite systematic, clear composition, colorful. Eventhough you can't see an actual object or something in perticular there is a rather sad backstory. A close personal friend of Itten had taken her life, shortly before this work originated. The greyish spiral that represents the tragic loss meets the more lively and colorful spiral in an intertwined "Encounter". This piece represents a great deal of pain on the artist's part. 

Since I haven't really encountered Itten before, I will focus on another series of works by him, which I thought was enchanting. "Spring", "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter" are four works of a series from a private collector that were created in 1963. You can again see the focus on the demonstration of colors and how they work together. Itten, more than Klee, also tried to apply the study of colors to other fields of sciences or areas of different focuses. For example he tried to categorize different signs in colors, or feelings and even traits of character. This series although represents his application of color to the different seasons of the year which in my opinion he managed to achieve beautifully. 

The Picture in the Picture.

Good evening to you,

So, this is something I always love to see. When we went to the National Gallery of Art in Tirana we were browsing through the paintings and sculptures, most of them with a socialist and communist theme.

One painting although caught my eye. And it wasn't because I thought it was espeacially beautiful, but something about it seemed familiar. Then I saw what it was. In the first room I had allready seen a picture which was now included in the picture I was now looking at.

So this is the painting I was looking at. "Në studio" which means in the studio was created 1979 by Vilson Kilica, an Albanian painter. He was also the first director of the Academy of Arts in Tirana, the capital of Albania, in 1966. So, back to my discovery. Here you see a painting which shows us the studio of a painter, who is also shown here, most probably Kilica himself. He is working on a piece and there are numerous other paintings hanging on the wall. There is also another man in the painting who takes up most of the space but that wasn't what I saw first. My eye immediately went to the landscape painting in the middle of the picture. The first of the three.

It seemed familar and indeed it was. 20 minutes earlier I had seen that exact painting in another wing of the museum.

It's a painting by Vangjush Mio (1891-1957), named "Sigeni i Pogradecit" which means the lake of Progradec. Mio is one of the most known Albanian artists and he is also known as the first impressionist painter of Albania. And indeed there are lots of parallels to the famous impressionists like Monet and Cezanne. The theme of the landscape, the light, dusty coloration, the characteristic style. 

So, this painting, now at the Gallery here in Tirana, was most probably in the studio of Kilica. Of course the frame changed, but it is the same picture here as it is in the painting. Isn't that great? The artist as a collector - love it!

African Pastels.

Evening,

So, I‘ve mentioned Stanley Sibanda allready. He is a new and exciting visual artist, based in Bulawayo. I had the chance to take a look at his studio, which is located in the studio-building the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo provides for young and newcoming artists. 

I always love to see where artists create their work, their environment, their view out of the window. 

Stanley Sibanda, 37, is married and has two children. In 2007 he decided to focus his life entirely on art and painting.

His work is similar to alot of other Zimbabwean artist. The themes he pics are mostly based on rural life scenes such as busstations, farming men and women but also landscapes and animalportraits, which are the common themes. I know it sounds a little touristy, but the way he paints is very different from the others. For some reason african artist or pictures with an african background always use vibrant glowing colors. The continent seems to have this image of an almost violent colorscheme, which is in fact only true at sundown, when the sun turns everything into a flaring red. Breathtaking, But most of the time, the countryside is dusty and almost colored in pastel tones.

Sibanda takes on this colorscheme of pastels and the feeling of dust and sand in the air and paints the most lovely pictures. Sure, it‘s still the same themes, but they feel much more realistic and honest and not as mainstream and as i said before, not touristy. I really hope Sibanda evolves over time and finds a way to cut loose from traditional imgarey and find a more individual way to express his extraordinary talent in painting. 

That's quite Noble.

Hello Readers,

Once again, I would take some time and bring you closer to a rather contemporary artist I've grown fond of. His name is Paul Noble and I've come across his work, which is mainly drawing and sculpture back in Switzerland when I had a seminar about Hollands surrealist scene. Noble participated in an exhibition under a similar titel.

Noble is a british visual artist, born in 1963. He lives and works in London and allready had multiple shows all over the world. He's also represented in some galeries,  including the one here in Paris that I visited to see some of his works.

I was in particular interested in this piece, called "The Egg" for obvious reasons from 2004. It is huge and its pencil on jesmonite, a composite material used in fine arts.

It's covered with small sections which, at first sight appear quite cute, because it's mostly animal doing funny things, wearing funny clothes. Like these squares:

But then you look closer and see that the scenes are actually quite horrible. Like the one above the boxing moles, where a human gets shreddered in a mincer. With every look you see these cute animals doing horrible things to people. But only things, that people also do with/to animals. For example grind them up for meat and food or use them as guides, helpers, slaves... Like the fox using a man as, i guess, a seeing-eye-human. 

Noble touches ground with surrealism, is witty, portrays questions of everyday life and double standards in a funny way, that is also quite shocking if you bother to look twice. 

My Childhood King

Good evening children and adults,

Due to wonderful weather, the beginning of summer here in Paris, I haven't been as motivated to follow up on my artfancies. It's just too beautiful outside to spend time at the museums...

With that said, there are other possibilities! For example the "Nuit européenne des musées". It is an event that happens in all the major cities in europe, at least the ones cool enough to participate! The big museeums and institutions keep their doors open until at least 23:00 at night - and you can visit them for free!! Plus it's at night, so you don't miss a beautiful sunny, warm, summery day.

Anyways, me and my friends chose a museum, we all hadn't visited before, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. But mostly we chose it for the current exhibition: "Les histoires de Babar". It was the clear choice, everyone knew who Babar was, eventhough we all grew up on different continents.

So, hooray, we saw a very cute and amazing exhibition about the famous elephant-king in the dashing green suit. I'm sure by now even your memory found the lovely emperor again.

It was fascinating to learn, how the story of Babr and his family evolved and got created in the first place.
One night in 1930, Cécile de Brunhoff, a mother like most, starts telling a story of a small  elephant who has to flee the jungle for the city after a hunter kills his mother. The children of Cécile were so fascinated by the story that they told it to their father, a painter, Jean de Brunhoff - the creator of Babar. The first edition of "Histoire de Babar" was published in 1931.

The exhibition carried alot of the original artwork for the books by Brunhoff, aswell as different letters, notes, sketches and objects of Babar-merchandise. The exhibition also showed how the story of Babar evolved through time, how the royal family grew and how the stories were adapted to new media and a new generation of children. Cartoons and computergames included. There was also a display of the first Babar-stuffed animal and the latest.

The exhibition was so lovely and it made me think back to those days were me and my sister used to cram infront of those colorful books and find out, what Babar and his family and animalfriends were up to now.

Olympia.

Hello Friends,

I must tell you, it is very fun to (sometimes) actually understand art. And to understand what a piece of art you've never seen before is referring to, critizing, meaning, saying etc.

So when I saw this piece at Pompidou I very much enjoyed it, because I knew something about it (which is sometimes hard with the things at Centre Pompidou - sorry)

Maybe you know the original masterpiece on which this quite funny artist is basing his wood and plastic sculpture on? Larry Rivers, an US-artist, created this piece in 1970 under the name of "I like Olympia in black". 

It's funny, because most artworks that quote another piece do not make it that obvious. Ok, I'll solve the mystery for you if you still don't know which piece was the inspiration for this. It was the very famous Edouard Manet, who painted the famous "Olympia" from 1863-65 (which currently hangs at Musée d'Orsay here in Paris).

As you can see now, Rivers clearly took Manets painting as basis for his own work. The woman, olympia has the same posture, the bed is the same, and also the servant. The great thing is, that he duplicated the entire thing he built in wood and turned the colors around - hence the title of Rivers' piece. Olympia isn't white anymore, shes's black and is now being served by a white maid. Even the cat in the right bottom corner had to switch colors. It is obviously a statement against the skincolor-bias between servants and employers, or the skincolor-bias in general.

A really witty example of turning something old in something contemporary in a new way! 

Flemish.

Hey there,

So after all this modern art, I thought I needed some more accesable art. And by that I mean paintings. Paintings are probably my favorite medium of art, since they are the most traditional.

So I've heard about this small exhibition about flemish art at the Institut  Néerlandais, the Netherland's Cultural Institution in Paris. It was called "Un Univers intime. Tableaux de la Collection Frits Lugt" and it was A-MAZING!! First of all it was the perfect sized exhibition so you could totally enjoy and take all of it in. Second it was kind of a secret tip, so there weren't as many people. Very pleasant. Third - the space was absolutely beautiful and put to good use. And then, fourth, I have never seen an exhibition guide be so good. Seriously, it was one of the best organized, planed, executed and best explained exhibition I ever had the pleasure of visiting! Plus I really enjoy that era of painting so that was a bonus aswell. Frits Lugt mostly collected flemish and dutch paintings and artists of the golden age and gives a wonderful overview of painting in that time and area.

One painting that especially caught my eye was a tableau "Festoons, Masks and Rosettes of Shells" by a so far unknown artist to me, Jan van Kessel Senior in 1656. It a very peculiar display of alot of differnet kinds and types of seashells. The shells in the picture are arranged so they build different kinds of festoons, masks and rosettes. It is the only known work that represents so many different kinds of decorative and anthropomorphe assemblies of shells at that time. You have to imagine, that at that time it was not easy to have a full knowledge of different kinds of domestic and exotic shells. The artist probably had to collect and find and make sketches of shells for a long time to aquire such an extensive collection of shells. It made me be amazed and giggle at the same time! 

Of course there were alot of traditional flemish landscapes and peasant-life themed paintings and also some portraits. But the oeuvre by Kessel Senior was my favorite one.

A History in an hour.

Oh wonderful readers,

I can't say it enough - Paris is great! I mean, just the other day I was walking around in the Marais as suddenly the biggest rainstorm broke loose! It pourred down rain and in my search of shelter I just jumped into the nearest dooropening. And yes, it was a museum.

The Musée Carnavalet is located in a beautiful old mansion that served as manor for one of the oldest families in France and then as a hotel. It is beautiful and has an even more stunning yard in its court. So there I was, standing in a Museum. Of course I was going to look at it!

It is, as I discovered, a rather famous parisian history Museum that displays the history of France, and especially Paris through different artifacts. It takes you on a tour through time as you walk through the different rooms who are all decorated in the way of the time displayed and discussed in that particular room. Very charming. After you've seen several pieces of furniture of different time eras (and that really closely - more close than you could ever get in those big Museums!) you get led into the changing exhibitions space which harbours some lesser known historical painters and artists and changing expositions.

One piece in particular caught my eye since the person displayed is very a-typical for the way it's painted.

It's a piece by Robert Humblot of "Juliette Greco" the famous french singer and actress, in 1956, right next to some brilliant impressionist works. I loved the pose of the woman, holding a very strange animal, a cheetah, and wearing an even more bizarre outfit. The greys and blacks of the painting had a wonderful effect with the burgundy red of the wall. It seems like a normal portrait painting in the tradition of historical portraiture - apart from the obvious modern influences like clothes, hairstyles and weird pets. But the pose of the woman, the plain background and the important "accesoire" (here the pet), to describe the character of the woman, all remind us of a classical portrait.

And, as it was almost closing time, I rushed, sadly, through the rest of the wonderful Museum only to find this at the end:

A stunning hall, completely painted and furnished to create an overall look and impression of a majestic ballroom in the Art Noveau Style. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

It should rain more often if this is the result. 

Dark Art Paris 2012 in a Light Grand Palais

Hey Fun-Friends,

This year the Grand Palais was host to one of the most famous artshows in France and maybe the world. Art Paris was/is back in town!!

A place where the leading galleries and institutions display the current trends and the upandcoming new artists! What a marvel. Plus, the Grand Palais is just unbelievable in beauty of construction! Me and my enthusiastic friend managed to find a time where we both could make it so we ended up going two hours before it closed. That decision ended up to be very smart since almost everyone had gone home allready and the eveningsun flooded the entire glass-covered Palais.

The beauty of the setting wasn‘t displayed in the works though. The art was mostly very gloomy, dark and scary with a strong hint of voyeurism. At some point you even get turned into one yourself:

You felt observed and followed and the works were dark and frightening. There was a lot of deconstruction of images aswell and ugly materials like trash and old iron made into new pieces of art. If you really want to call them that.

There were some colorful and pop-arty works, which makes sense because neon-colors aren‘t only in style in fashion right now, but also in art, but there was always a certain edge to them. For example this galery who displays an artist who took violant themes, like guns and munition and turned them pretty.

But overall it was still a beautiful artfair with beautiful pieces and a strong fotorealism and sculpture trend.

Monets Masterpiece!

Bonjour mes amis de l'art,

The Musée de l‘Orangerie is one of my favorite places so far! It is so incredibly beautiful, that you actually do not want to leave - ever! Of course I‘m talking about the two oval rooms where the astonishing paintings by Claude Monet are displayed. The paintings of the famous waterlilies were actually painted especially for those rooms. It is wonderful. I won‘t bore you with details because this is really something everyone needs to see for themselves. So here are some pictures to give you a little preview.

In addition to the waterlilies you can view the collection by the famous artpatron Paul Guillaume which includes Matisse, Renoir, Picasso, Cézanne and Modigliani. It is an overviewable selection of high quality works that really leaves you wanting more if anything else. Wonderful. 

At the time there was alo a temporary exhibtion about Debussy and how different artists influeneced his musical career and work. A really well organized and fluent exhibition - much like Debussys music itself. Quite intruiging actually. There were pieces of art, paintings and such, artefacts of that times like musical instruments, letters and notes plus photographs. And everything was of course accompaigned with Debussys beautiful classical music. If I hadn‘t walked right to that exhibition I probably wouldn‘t have chosen it, but now that I‘ve seen it I‘m glad I did. If that makes sense. Go see it is what I mean.

Sea of Tranquility

Dear artsy ones,

Ah yes, the famous Musée d‘Orsay. I had the pleasure to visit it several times last month, due to alo-hot of people who came to visit me in the best city in the world!

So - Musée d‘Orsay. It is the place, that harbours most of my favorite art. It is huge and always attracts alot of people. Everytime I went, there was a line of at least 30 minutes. Which doesn‘t really matter, because it IS that good. Not like the stupid Louvre. 

The current exhibition in addition to the amazing permanent collection was about „Degas et le nu“ which wasn‘t as good as I had hoped. There were way too much sketches and very little large scale works displayed in a too little space with horrible lighting. A little disappointing. 

But after the, let‘s say average, exhibition you have the entire rest of the wonderful Musée D‘Orsay at your feet. Because you could never look at everything at once, I chose the orientalist section on the ground floor. Breathtaking! Orientalism was triggered by the discovery and access to a new world through Napoleons egyptian campaign. It was also in that time, where the painters removed themselves from unrealistic visions of the orient and began to discover a new palette of colors, landscapes and people that resulted in a very romantic portrayal of the land where the sun rises. 

The Museé d‘Orsay mostly shows paintings of landscapes and animals in the orientalistic manor, like those of Guillaumet and de Tournemine. 

Charles Emile de Tournemine Painting - Cafe in Adalia

Sadly, one of my favorite romantic orientalist pieces isn‘t displayed at Orsay. It is Delacroix‘ masterpiece "Women of Algiers". A lucious display of the inside of a Harem. Beautiful women dressed and drapped in even more beautiful textiles, smoking the waterpipes. It‘s a painting that oozes calm and tranquility without forgetting the hot and eroticly charged surroundings. Amazing!

And then there is the beautiful building that is the Musée d‘Orsay. The old railwaystation that grew out of need is a perfect place to house one of the greatest collections of modern and impressionist art. The clocks and fassades are masterpieces of their own and are almost as iconic as the works inside. 

Giorgio De Chirico

Good Day amazing ones,

One of my personal favorites and earliest encounters in my studies was Giorgio de Chirico - one of the greatest surrealistic painters!

Much to my delight I discovered that the Musée de l'art moderne de la ville de Paris has a wonderful collection of de Chirico.

One of the things I love most about this paintings are the intense colors - especially the marine blue and green tones. I think his portrayal of archtitecture is brilliant and the different elements in the painting mostly make sense - not like the other surrealists' paintings. Tzz...
What's also always striking me is the feeling of extreme loneliness and solitude that comes from his works.

So here a selection of some amazing works by de Chirico, I'm not gonna bore you with more talking and just let the works talk for themselves.

More Tradition now...

Lovely art-lovers,

I will tell you today, what my favorite museum in Paris is (so far). And of all the ones that you should see or know!

Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris.

It's just... grand! Amazing, lovely, beautiful, well built - everything you'd want in a museum! It mostly displays modern and contemporary art in a permanent collection but it also has changing exhibitions. When I visited the museum for the first time it was a sad, grey, rainy, cold day. Perfect for a museum - plus I felt a little down and a visit to the museum always cheers me up! Aaaanyways, so I went and the first thing you notice is the great location. You have a really pretty view on the Eiffel Tower and it's right at the Seine, so a lovely walk. The second thing is, when you can actually take in the entire and monumental building! The building, which is calles Palais de Tokyo, has two wings and the musée is in the right one. It was built for the International Exposition for Art and Technology in 1937 and the official opening of the musée was 1961. The building was created in a neoclassical style which is instantly clear when you see its fassade with the big columns and the cubic appearance in the ancient greek tradition.

As I entered the building I kindof had an idea of how the inside would look and to be honest, I was a little worried. The building stands so tall, like an erratic block, demanding so much respect and almost making you fear it. But the inside were lovely! The rooms were high, but not to big, there were niches for the various artist and it had a really nice flow to it, there was a given route or circuit if you will - which negates the cubist appearance of the museum! The lighting was amazing, there were no reflections on the paintings and the pieces were extraordinarily well hung! But that's not all! The quality of the artwork was really really high and it gave you an amazing overview of the eras and of the artist that were displayed. You never got tired or felt lost in the museum which is quite an accomplishment - well done!

And one thing I also really enjoyed was the amount of people in the museum. There weren't alot of people... Which is nice, you get to actually take in the pieces of art and think about them and take your time without worrying if you're bothering someone. Very, very pleasant. But I guess also kind of sad, because the best museum (at least in my opinion) goes unnoticed by the broad public.

S'up Art-Fans. Relocation. Salut les enthusiasts de l'art

Sooo, I'm very very sorry, that I haven't been posting more of my semi-amateur artstuff but yes, I moved. All in the name of art!! Indeed I did. I moved to PARIS! So I'll be posting somewhat interesting and definetly local cultural news from the capital of Art (and France) from now on.

So, what does every art-fan do, when they first get to Paris? Yes - it's an unspoken law, you have to go to the Louvre. THE Louvre. The mother of all museums, the queen of artexhibtions and archeology, the biggest museum in the entire world. So I went, it was snowy out (that's how long ago) and it was the same. The same as always.

So here my confession: I don't really like Le Louvre. I think it's way too big, way too full, too loud, the pieces are displayed poorly and even the selection doesn't make my heart beat faster. Obviously I do sometimes still visit this grande maison de l'art but I have to say, I do not really enjoy it. As stated before, there are always way too many people there - and all they want to do is see the famous Mona Lisa. They rush to this painting, which I don't like either by the way, take a quick snapshot from like a million miles away, you can't even see anything because the glass is so thick and the lighting is horrible. And whilst these snapshotchasers do this, they miss the actual highlight of the room. Behind them, vis-a-vis of Mona Lisa, that sneakily smiling minx (sorry Da Vinci) hangs a sensational painting: The Wedding of Cana by the great master Veronese. Breathtaking! And most people just miss it, it's a shame...

What I do enjoy about the Louvre though, is the clever architecture. The famous Pyramids by equally famous architect Ieoh Ming Pei are a marvel. It definetly was a risk to combine such an important and historic building with the modern, very contrasting glass Pyramids. And I also enjoy the great collection of Flemish paintings, for I did my thesis on Rubens. Wonderful works by Rubens!

Sorry for starting my parisian art-reviews with a rant, but there are far more fascinating things to be discovered than same old - same old Louvre. Which is obviously still great. Just not one of my personal greats. D'accord... Â bientôt!

Nahmad Collection

Good Day culture fans,

I went to visit an exhibition I waited for a long time to come to Zurich. As a fan of modern art, impressionism, expressionism, cubism, surrealism... I was excited to hear, that the Nahmad family decided to make their private collection of modern art pieces public and the Kunsthaus Zurich jumped on the opportunity to display this extraordinary collection.

I won't bore you with a lot of details now, but it was a fantastic exhibition! There was everything a fan of modernists could want to see! Picasso, Miro (and a lot of it) , Kandinsky, Monet, Matisse, Modigliani, Cezanne and of course the surrealists Ernst, Dali and Magritte, who's sausage was the official poster. So much fun!

I also adored the way the Kunsthaus presented the collection. There were different sections, the rooms were themed and the walls were a dark grey. It looked stunning and really left the focus on the beautiful pieces of art. What I also enjoyed was that most of the works were framed in beautiful baroque golden frames, which gave the collection a sense of collectiveness, eventough such a broad time period was displayed.

Here's my favorite picture of the day. I took it, because I thought it was brilliant how the older guy focuses on this iPhone and the young guy reads the catalogue (and has amazing socks just by the way). The colours are very greyish, except for the red details... and of course, one of my favorites: A beautiful cubist Picasso, in a golden frame. Brilliant!

Kunst '11 in Zurich

Hello artsy ones,

A little late I would still like to tell you, what I liked best about this year's contemporary art fair in Zurich, the "Kunst 11". Luckily me and my friend got the chance to view the fair on the pre-opening event, everything was still in place, all the important people were present to explain some stuff about their fields of expertise and some artists were present aswell, which I always love.

There was definitely a big focus on photograhic art, alot of photographs in their original states, but also a huge amount of edited pictures in every way possible. And of course there were some traditional pieces of art, paintings and sketches by long-established artist, modernist painters like Miro, Picasso, Klee and such. A trend also lay with quite excentric sculptures and light-installations. Those I can always appreciate, I especially found one piece by Christian Hardeg fascinating. Different coloured neon-light-pipes, which were fitted on a huge board. It looked, if you stood infront of it, as if you are standing on a bridge over a highway by night and thousands of cars are racing towards that bridge.

The thing that impressed me and my friend the most, though, was a young american artist. As we wandered through the different showcases of the galleries one picture caught our eye. It was a woman, a portrait on a red background.

As we came closer to the picture we saw the brilliance of this rather ordinary seeming portrait. It was not a painting as we thought, but a photograph! You can clearly see the hair and the eyes, but the rest of it seems painted. Alexa Meade, the artist, was there and explained to us, that she draws on people and objects, then takes a picture. I think that is an amazing merge between painting and photography and a real skill, to be able to do that. Of course, when I came home I googled this discovery! And I was fascinated... still am. Here some pictures:

As always, the visit payed off, we had a fun and fascinating night and some good glasses of wine. Success!

Nedko.

Hey funky lovers!


As a test for the art-part (yeah, that sounds great!) of this funky blog I'd like to ease you into the works of one of my favorite artists. 


I'm talking about Nedko Solakov. He's bulgarian and I came across his work when I went to visit a Giacometti-exhibition in Zurich in 2009. As you guys know, it's a really "big and important" house and it solemnly stands like an erratic block - singled out and full of demands for respect. So I went and looked at the quite interesting but ever-same sculptures of the famous Swiss. I'm honest, it was a little boring. 
But then i saw something weird. There was a little doodle on the base of one of the Giacometti-statues. I was intrigued! What does this mean? What is this? Is this a guerillia-action of an art-rebell?? But then I saw another one! On the way top of the passage-door-thing there were two other doodles - small people who seemed to interact with eachother... and then more! Near the floor, around the lightswitches, by the infoboxes. These little men were everywhere! Plus some funny anecdote-like sentences!

As I exited the Giacometti-Halls I saw announcements that Nedko Solakov would have an exhibition soon and underneath the banners i saw the same little guys! What a great way to advertise!! I went home, more excited about Nedko, I had forgotten all about Giacometti, eager to google him. 
Oh, how I googled him. Just his website made me fall in love with his work even more! The first thing you have to do when you open his website is to choose if you'd like to enter the official or the non-official website. And he wishes you good luck with either one of them. And then he separates his work in simple and complicated works. He's so sarcastic and wonderfully light about seriousness! And he's so funny. And unconventional. The world and everything on it is his canvas. Nothing is safe.


One of my favorite series is called something like "romantic landscapes with something missing" and it's just traditional romantic motives à la Caspar david Friederich, but the key-element is missing. Isn't that great and so funny?? Well, I love it!


An example:

It's a sunset - without sun!! Brilliant! There's also a stormy sea - without a lonely boat. A lovers bench - without the bench. A rainbow - without the red stripe. Ah, he's fantastic!


Oh well, you should go check him out.


www.solakov.net


And at the moment he has exhibitions in England and Italy - if you're from there.