my kid could paint that (2007)

I found this documentary some time ago, years after it was presented. the trailer at the end of this post describes the story well enough.
I guess what makes some documentaries important is the gift of the director to "smell" the story before it actually becomes worth it. what makes it exceptional thou is the ability of the director to focus his position about it without interfering with ours (audience).

Amir Bar-Lev is particularly successful in this. He was there from the very beginning, he gives the elements of the story and he state his presence in the scene, and I found this very honest of him. the story involves a little girl and he questions the moral aspects of the documentary itself.
obviously every director intrisecally gives a "cut" to his material, few seconds more on the eyes of a person or few less can really change the perception that we have about him/her, but Bar-Lev calls his presence. and this is important for whoever is watching the movie.
I really suggest watching the extras of the dvd, they give further elements to question the world of art and the story itself.

beautiful losers

when my youth was on fire (and my back in one piece) I used to skate. I went on skating for years in my legendary neighbourhood called "Mirafiori Nord" in the surprisingly quite pretty suburban area that crowns the Mirafiori Fiat factory. the grain of the asphalt was rough and hard to ride, there were no structures at all and we used to grind and slide pretty much anything with an edge. he board and the trucks were just not sliding without approaching the obstacle with a wild anger.
occasionally we were getting duplicates of VHS tapes from the unites states and we were gathering in someone's sittingroom to look at these pros. it was magical. we used to hear about these tapes for weeks before actually seeing them and it really was a "happening". I never agreed with my mates about who was the coolest guy in most of the videos, it was mostly a guy called Ed templeton. I was mad for him, to me he was using skate to communicate about himself. he wasn't particularly gracious or technical (compared to the others) but he really really really wanted to make the trick he was doing and he was ejoying it to the fullest. he really really wanted to skate and he was never showing off. tight trousers (far more than an outsider in the early nineties), sixties shoes and skating on pretty much anything with an edge.

I was pleased to find out that already at the time he was part of a fantastically REAL art scene that has been beautifully described in the documentary "beautiful losers" (2008). I extremely recommend it. to put it as IMDB.com does: "The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups, or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically. More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way."

agile, mobile, hostile

the real, underground, unpretentious rock and roll scene showed me a lot about life. it showed me that it works on his own rules and that these rules don't make sense/apply to the society as we know it. if you ask me, it pretty much goes in anthitesis with it. the more you are a winner, the more you get success, the more you kinda get away from the real rock and roll.
there's people out there whose life is a monument to all this.
Andre Williams is one of them. it's hard to describe him for me and that's why I really love the documentary agile, mobile, hostile. it's more than a documentary, is kinda like "some time spent with him".
it's far from a glorification. it's rough, direct and it doesn't give a strong personal poit of view.
you can watch it here. now. free.

time is an artist

Time wears out the key in the hole. No matter how hard, no matter who's turning it. Time is working in silence, when the town is asleep or when you're miles away with your mind. It doesn't forget, for it's always there. At work. It apparently never leaves anything undone, unaccomplished. No no. Time modifies friendships, moulds consciences and shapes skylines. In silence. At work. You weren't there when time was already there, and you weren't aware when it was no longer there.
There are just a few who can recognize its masterpieces: a worn out book, a yellowish old polaroid picture, a rock that faces the Ocean or the sign of a canvas that used to hang from a wall. Nobody lives there. But time does.
So, let's recognise it: time is the most talent-gifted, solitary and patient artist. And probably the less paid.
The next time you do something special, take your time.

AMA project e manuele mandrile

manuele mandrile e' uno di quelli che mi sono sempre piaciuti.
qui posto un suo lavoro per l'universita'.
e' frutto di una collaborazione tra studenti e un professore per esplorare la fertile terra di nessuno tra arte, musica e architettura. il risultato e' stupendo, ed estremamente godibile.
partendo da un quadro di El lissitzky e un brano di Lutoslawski lui ha sviluppato un progetto di cui, se vorra', ci parlera' poi lui nei commenti.

david hepher e le durrington towers

qui a londra si inizia a parlare di abbattere le durrington towers.

a vederle adesso si resta affascinati, richiamano subito il fascino della paleoarchitettura e della decadenza del sogno di offrire una buona architettura sociale nei sobborghi. quest'ultima frase non è efficace, ci riprovo: casermoni popolari con annessi servizi che ghettizzano le persone.

siamo sinceri, ci piacciono perchè sono mastodontiche, non banali e perchè sono un pò il simbolo di una zona dove è meglio non andare.

c'è un pittore però, nome david hepher, che è innamorato di queste torri sin dai primi settanta, e le rispetta per quello che sono.

la cosa mi ha fatto riflettere, perchè questo tipo di architettura è un grande esempio. hepher ha iniziato a difenderle trent'anni fa, e ora che si parla di abbatterle per cercare di tagliare la testa alla locale microcriminalità, sporcizia e malaffare che vi si annidano. io sono con hepher, il problema non è insito nella struttura, il concetto è buono, l'estetica delle torri è affascinante, e ormai fanno parte dello skyline di quella parte della città. sarebbe un errore abbatterle.

segni sulla sabbia

ne avevo sentito parlare anni fa, ma con la memoria che mi ritrovo, ovviamente avevo dimenticato il nome enon riuscivo piu' a trovarlo. probabilmente voi tutti lo conoscete gia'.
questa immagine e' una realizzazione di Jim Denevan.
lui cosa fa: cerca una spiaggia, cerca un bastoncino e si mette a fare segni nella sabbia. segni di dimensione sovraumana, sia come estensione che come percezione. li si apprezza nella trama piu' poetica, solo dall'alto. che sia con aereo, con elicottero o piu' semplicemente arrampicandosi su un vicino monticello o quant'altro.
il punto e' che quando sei li' dov'era lui, hai uno spazio. aree. percorsi. protoarchitettura. allontanandoti da esso, e andando verso il cielo, cambia la percezione, e cambia l'oggetto.
si vedono cerchi perfetti (nb - jim non ha attrezzi se non il bastoncino e non misura), pattern delicati e geometrie.
le poche persone che hanno la fortuna di trovarsi vicino a queste realizzazioni le esplorano, le percorrono, le abitano.
poi jim se ne va, e in poche ore il risalire della marea inghiotte di nuovo la sabbia, e la restituira' tale e quale Jim l'aveva trovata.
ma a quel punto lui sara' gia' da un'altra parte a ricominciare tutto da capo.

http://www.jimdenevan.com/