What is contemporary?
Images from the un-official Kids video.
A while ago I heard on the radio a bizarre song, with a circus-like theme and a low-fi rendering; I liked it, and soon discovered that it was Kids from MGMT. It soon has become a big hit, as their entire album. And now I’ve discovered this video, not produced by the MGMT guys, which is… just beautiful.
To the question “what is the spirit of your time?”, “what expresses it?”, which is quite problematic to answer while being immersed in it, I would answer with a link to the video above, to the expressions of the two actors in it, the quotes of the quotes… . Don’t ask me why.
Un breve sfogo politico
La prima dichiarazione di Renzi, il nuovo sindaco di Firenze, che alla fine mi è toccato votare, è “vado a pregare sulla tomba di La Pira”. Come è possibile dare alcun credito a uno che va a bisbigliare frasi confidenziali a tracce di metallo alcalino terroso ??? E soprattutto, perchè dargli questo rilievo? C’è di che gloriarsene?
Come si fa a farsi rappresentare da questa “sinistra”? Che c’entra il credere nella giustizia distributiva con le superstizioni personali di chiunque? Maledizione! Maledizione!!!!
Loris Cecchini – a contemporary artist
 The Painted Distances (Pinus sylvestris) 2008, 3D drawing printed on Hahnemuhle cotton paper, polyester resin, laser-cutted PETG, urethane rubber, alluminium rivets, steel wire, plummets, handmoulded transparent PETG box on zinced plate Sunday I went to see Loris Cecchini’s exhibition at the Lugi Pecci center for contemporary art in Prato – one of the very, very few remaining centers for contemporary art in Tuscany. I knew a few Cecchini’s works from having seen them at the Galleria Continua is San Gimignano, but this exhibit in Prato is a wide scoped overview of his works. Which are… just beautiful. He manages to be poly-materic and always express and preserve good taste in expression: non trivial. |
 A Zeppelin-house by Cecchini - with my daughter inside. |
Kavalier & Clay – by Michael Chabon
I read this novel after discovering Chabon in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, which is a nice “hardboiled” (not that much) detective story that imagines an alternate history. I already liked the style, freedom and the playfulness of the writing, and the human thickness of the characters. So then I got Kavalier & Clay: and there, there is more, much more. Though the characters are somehow less real, the story somehow inconsistent (Sammy’s suddenly abandoning fatherhood after 12 years…), written by a younger writer, the novel manages the rare feat of evoking in detail and with competence the early world of comics, the beauty and innovation of the ideas needed.
And this set in New York of the late thirties, drawn in dark inked backgrounds, with the shape of jewish Prague outlined on the background… beautiful. Its a graphic novel where the graphics are only described in language! I obviously have a penchant for graphic novels, though I am not an enthusiast of the superheroes here depicted, and through this book one can learn a lot also about comics creation. It is one of those books that used the author to get written.
When a novel sails through a body of knowledge managing to respect its nature, it is a great result: another example of such is Measuring the World (Die Vermessung der Welt) by Daniel Kehlmann.
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