(Female Figurine (front and back), fired clay, Cucuteni, Drăguşeni, 4050-–3900 BC; Botoşani County Museum, Botoşani: 7558. Illustration to a review of “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000–3500 B.C.” at NYU.)
november 22–november 25
Books
- Eloy Urroz, The Obstacles, trans. Ezra Fitz
- Eva Huttenlauch, Nicolaus Schafhausen & Monika Szewczyk, eds., Sung Hwan Kim: Source Book 6
- Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo (trans. Margaret Sayers Peden)
Exhibitions
- “Pedro Friedeberg,” Reyna Henaine
Films
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by Werner Herzog
- Mon oncle, dir. Jacques Tati
- L’École des facteurs, dir. Jacques Tati
amaryllis
(Piet Mondrian, Amaryllis (1910). Watercolor over pen. 49.2 × 31.5 cm. Private collection.)
pedro friedeberg: an introduction
“I was born in Italy during the era of Mussolini, who made all trains run on time. Immediately thereafter, I moved to México where the trains are never on time, but where once they start moving they pass pyramids.
My education was first entrusted to a Zapotec governess and later to brilliant mentors such as Mathias Goeritz, who taught me morals, José González, who taught me carpentry, and Gerry Morris, who taught me to play bridge.
I have invented several styles of architecture, as well as one new religion and two salads. I am particularly fond of social problems and cloud formations. My work is profoundly profound.
I admire everything that is useless, frivolous and whimsical. I hate functionalism, post modernism and almost everything else. I do not agree with the dictum that houses are supposed to be ‘machines to live in’. For me, the house and it’s objects is supposed to be some crazy place that make you laugh.
Americans do not understand Mexicans and viceversa. Americans find Mexicans unpunctual, they eat funny things and act like old-fashioned Chinese. When André Breton came to Mexico he said it was the chosen Country of surrealism. Breton saw all kinds of surrealist things happen here every day. The surrealists are more into dreaming, into the absurd and into the ridiculous uselesness of things. My work is always criticizing the absurdity of things. I am an idealist. I am certain that very soon now humanity will arrive at a marvelous epoch totally devoid of Knoll chairs, jogging pants, tennis shoes and baseball caps sideway use, and the obscenity of Japanese rock gardens five thousand miles from Kyoto.
I get up at the crack of noon and, after watering my pirañas, I breakfast off things Corinthian. Later in the day I partake in an Ionic lunch followed by a Doric nap. On Tuesdays I sketch a volute or two, and perhaps a pediment, if the mood overtakes me. Wednesday I have set aside for anti-meditation. On Thursdays I usually relax whereas on Friday I write autobiographies.”
(from his official site.)
november 18–november 21
Books
- Heather Green, No Omen
- Ernest Hilbert, Aim Your Arrows at the Sun
Exhibits
- “Robert Morris: Films,” Hunter College Times Square Gallery
- “Marcel Broodthaers: Ne dites pas que je ne l’ai pas dit – Le Perroquet,” Peter Freeman Gallery
- “Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World,” The Drawing Center
november 6–november 17
Books
- Henry Green, Loving
- Henry Green, Living
- Henry Green, Party Going
Exhibits
- “Dense-local y Del Exilio al Insilio ¿somos todos extranjeros?,” Labratorio Arte Alameda, México, D.F.
- “Pedro Friedeberg: arquitecto de confusiones impecables,” Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, México, D.F.
- “Los desmembrados,” Museo Nacional de Arte, México, D.F.
- “Remedios Varo y la literatura: para leer a Remedios Varo”/”Hecho en casa,” Museo de Arte Moderno, México, D.F.
- “De la tierra a la luna”/”Yo uso perfume para occupar más espacio”/”Yoshua Okón: Ventanilla única,” Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, México, D.F.
- “Tauromaquia: mano a mano”/”Colección Alejandro Alvarado,” Museo Nacional de la Estampa, México, D.F.
- “Robert Waters: Taparrabo,” Ex Teresa Arte Actual, México, D.F.
- “Salón de Estampa, seis décadas de producción,” Salón de la Plástica Mexicana, México, D.F.
- Museo Mural Diego Rivera, México, D.F.
- Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, México, D.F.
- Museo de Arte Popular, México, D.F.
- Museo Franz Mayer, México, D.F.
- Museo Templo Mayor, México, D.F.
- Casa Luis Barragán, México, D.F.
- “Luis Urrutia: Límites de luz,” Casa Lamm, México, D.F.
- “Sandra Gamarra: Selección natural”/”Jorge Méndez Blake: 3 bibliotecas,” Galeria OMR, México, D.F.
- “Jay Chung & Q. Takeki Maeda: Outtakes and Excerpts,” Gaga Arte Contemporáneo, México, D.F.
what’s water?
For David Foster Wallace
This guy got lost in the snow. Then found.
Then came a sense of having lost the snow
or lost water or some infinite thing.
He watched the ME channel, day in and
day out. He couldn’t help it: An old fish
swam by some little fish, asking,
how’s the water? The skeletons in one
show taught parables about greed, envy,
and lust, to show that vices lead to loss.
This little rat got obsessed with
weight lifting and sex, for example.
She preened on, licking her tail & feet.
But the rat had already been lost, clearly,
or had already lost. From the beginning,
she looked thirsty. Her dark eyes peered out
as if toward some infinite thing, some body
of water from which to drink,
across which might be a horizon.
The guy remembered his time in Alaska
when, close to death, he had longed for God
with a purity that felt close to God, how
afterward the longing ebbed, and even
snow went back to being a hassle, often
dirty. The skeleton said truth every time
the rat said beauty. In the wild, you have to
melt snow before you drink it. He had known
that much, to separate the air from water.
(Heather Green, from No Omen.)
noted
- Klaus Scherübel’s exhibition “Mallarmé, Het Boek” at S.M.A.K., Ghent (through December 6) explores Mallarmé’s book to come. (See here and here.)
- At the Drawing Center this Saturday at 4pm, Cynthia Carlson, Matt Keegan, and Barbara Zucker will be reading from Raymond Roussel’s Impressions of Africa (as well as T. S. Eliot) as part of the exhibition “Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World”.
- Jessica Burstein on Mina Loy at the Poetry Foundation.
- New books from Love Among the Ruins are worth picking up.
- Stephen Mitchelmore and Richard Crary on Gabriel Josipovici’s Everything Passes (previously).
october 31–november 5
Books
- Sybille Bedford, A Visit to Don Otavio: A Traveller’s Tale from Mexico
- Tony Cohan, Mexican Days: Journeys into the Heart of Mexico
- Carlos Fuentes, Where the Air Is Clear (trans. Sam Hileman)
Films
- Les diaboliques, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
- Il divo, dir. Paolo Sorrentino
- Velocità, dir. Tina Cordero, Guido Martina & Pippo Oriani
- Stramilano, dir. Corrado D’Errico
- Thaïs, dir. Anton Giulio Bragaglia
- Excelsior, dir. Luca Comerio
- Amor pedestre (Love Afoot), dir. Marcel Fabre
- Des pieds et des mains (Feet and Hands), dir. Jacques Feyder & Gaston Ravel
- Fait-divers (A Collection of Facts), dir. Claude Autant-Lara
- Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday), dir. Jacques Tati
Exhibits
- “Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156–1868,” Met
- “Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans,” Met
l’amoroso menzogna
(Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’amoroso menzogna (1949).)