Then we went to Angelo’s Ristorante for excellent Italian food which  Richard got to order with a silly Italian accent – good fun.  For appetizers we had Formaggio di Capra e Rosti di Patate Croccante and Camembert. The main event was Ravioli alla Pizzaiola and Tagliatelle con Vedura e Zafferano.

For desert we went to Stardust which has a cute and crafty gift shop downstairs and a pretty cafe upstairs. Picked up the ring at left from the gift shop. Under £4 and a bit of fun. Upstairs, it’s a shame there weren’t more people there – the couches are the kind you sink into and the coffee and lemon cake were yummy. It seems like a perfect spot for students to camp out in with laptops and to just hang out.

I then attempted to recreate the artwork on the wall of Stardust, a photograph of a sculpture just outside.  It is a 2008 sculpture called Seachange by Laura Johnston.  It is meant to recall the hull of a ship and the shipbuilding heritage of the area as it transforms into something new. [Part of the Sunderland City Centre Public Art Trail]

Unfortunately it was raining so we didn’t want to spend too much time attempting to get the shot. You can see my few attempts on flickr.

I got distracted from the original mission of recreating the photo in the cafe because I loved the trees being reflected in the steel:

Seachange sculpture in Sunderland

To get out of the rain we headed into Primark and picked up some cheap and cheerful shiny, pretty things – a sparkly bracelet for £2 and some pillar candles for £1.75 each. The little charge you get from picking something up for £2 and £10 is really the same and lasts about the same amount of time (and £100 doesn’t really last ten times as long) – it’s a good thing to remember. We then stopped off at Richard’s to pick up the cute and stinky Florence and set off for Hartlepool.

I am a terrible navigator. Hopefully this will change when I learn how to drive. After a number of phone calls to Kev to set us back in the right direction we had a nice relaxed evening with some gewurztraminer from Chile via Morrisons and a quick sweet and sour chickeny bits with rice dish a la Kev.

Mostly it’s just the two of us but it was nice to have company too.  It’s easy to forget when you get into you routine.

There are neat photos – old and new, sculptures made out of car parts and paintings made using remote control cars. There are design drawings for cars up as well as some actual cars in the gallery including an F1 car covered in UV Paint to illustrate the air flow on race cars and loads more items.

Some of the items mock  high concept “Modern Art” or the presenters or the show. It is a good mix of items and a fun way to spend an hour. It’s a shame there isn’t a program for this exhibition : )

If you do go be aware that mima has a ground floor gallery, go up two flights for another gallery and then up one more flight for a peak into the mind of the Stig.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Missing that last 1/2 a star because of the noise accompanying what’s in the mind of the Stig.

Top Gear, the BBC and Middlesbrough Council and mima have been working on this for a while – apparently the footage they filmed in Middlesbrough will air on December 20 in this new Top Gear season according to the Middlesbrough Football Club website. The presenters were around this past Saturday and Sunday – 7,000 tickets were snapped up in less than a day and an additional few thousand were given away by the presenters in Riverside Stadium – Middlesbrough’s Football Ground.

—-

Translation for my American friends:

Top Gear is a funny series about cars on the BBC with 3 presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May (who is also doing an awesome series about toys at the moment). It is also on BBC America I believe.

mima is the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art , Middlesbrough is where I work – it is in the north east of England in Tees Valley. It is a half hour from Durham-Tees Valley airport, two hours by train from Newcastle. It is also about to be the latest home of a Big Wheel in centre square, if you go to mima you can go see it being constructed.

Based in Paris, Patrick Zachmann has been a freelance photographer since 1976 and focuses on “long-term projects on the cultural identity, memory and immigration of different communities.” The exhibition at the Hartlepool Art Gallery focuses on China from within and in its diaspora.

There are larger, moody, black and white photographs inspired by Chinese cinema of the 30s. There are also smaller postcard-like color photos full of smiles. As he described it last night, one set (the black and white) exposes the seedier face of China that which they do not want shown. The mafia, prostitutes and drug dealers, protesters in 1989 Tiananmen Square all feature in eye-opening, visually stunning photographs. The other set (color photos) feature the public face of China and it’s communities in the diaspora. These are glossy photos of proud moments and cultural celebrations. They are his vision as a “Long Nose” an old nickname for Westerners in the region.

He seemed pleased and somewhat bemused that the exhibition was hung in a (former) church. His work deals with reality and illusions and facades and he felt it appropriate to the setting.

He shared that he worked on this project from 1987-1995. He spent 6 years shooting the photographs and 2 years working on the book of the exhibition and the show. It was shown in 10 countries in Asia, though not in China.

He traveled to China for the first time as a journalist wanting to write a story on 1930s Chinese cinema. During that visit his interest in the region grew. He was determined to return through unofficial channels in a private exploration of what lay to the side of the spotlight the country shines on it’s achievements and was able to do so with the assistance of a man with underworld ties whom he refers to as W.

I asked him if he ever felt in danger while taking some of the photos. At first he responded in the negative but after giving it a few moments of consideration could think of at least 4 or 5 dicey situations he had been in that should be classed as dangerous. The resulting photos are an amazing document.

He is currently working on another project dealing with China called Chinese Confusions. He feels that people feel lost at this moment. Older people feel lost as older districts are razed to make way for modernity. Younger people feel lost as society moves so very quickly, and while feeling an attraction toward Western models, still maintaining a Chinese identity and a duty to their traditions.

Ying Zhu, Ph.D describes the cinema that intrigued him initially as follows, “If China today is in the midst of a massive and massively ambivalent transformation, it is not the first time. In the 1920s and 30s, China was similarly engaged in a great identity crisis, and Shanghai was at its forefront. Shanghai was the city where Western influences were most keenly felt even as anti-Western (anti-imperialist) nationalism also thrived, and where China’s richest and poorest people lived side by side…Shanghai came to symbolize the allure of modernity and cosmopolism [sic]… Shanghai ushered in Chinese cinema’s first golden era, producing many of the Chinese classics, including Goddess (1934), Song of the Fishermen (1934), Street Angel (1937), and New Women (1934). The Shanghai depicted in these films was corrupt and promising at the same time.”

The China and Chinese depicted in Patrick Zachmann’s photographs can be described similarly.

I asked him what he thought of the Olympics. He was very against China hosting the Olympics. It seems to him like China has won in every respect. Not only is China an economic superpower the Olympics has allowed them to win hearts and minds in the international community. Additionally, with support from Asia Societies in the U.S. many schools, from elementary schools to universities, are now teaching Chinese in language curricula (1, 2, 3) Also see this Beijing Evening News summary of a NY Times article on the Olympics. As the blogger who did the side-by-side comparisons of the article puts it, “every single statement that could possibly be seen as negative – and there’s quite a lot – has been expunged from the Beijing Evening News article, and almost every nuanced phrase that carries any negative connotations has been turned into one of unqualified praise.” It would be the equivalent of looking at only the glossy photos in Patrick Zachmann’s exhibition.

While walking through the exhibit my overwhelming sense was of the universality of the issues he is dealing with in his photography. Migration, wanting to build better lives for families and how we are perceived as individuals and communities are struggles common to the human endeavor. If you are in the Northeast this exhibition is definitely worth a special trip.

Patrick Zachmann‘s Eye of the Long Nose is on at the Hartlepool Art Gallery 13 September – 9 November, 2008.

I had the privilege to meet Chris Schwarz through my work. He was an extraordinary human being. If you are ever in Krakow, go to the Galicia Jewish Museum to see his amazing, life’s work.

From the Galicia Jewish Museum website, a description of the museum and their permanent exhibition. [The catalogue of the permanent exhibition Photographing Traces of Memory is beautifully produced in English and Polish and is highly recommended.] :

The Galicia Jewish Museum exists to celebrate the Jewish culture of Galicia and to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, presenting Jewish history from a new perspective.

The permanent exhibition, Traces of Memory, is a contemporary look at the Jewish past in Poland.

The exhibition features the work of photographer Chris Schwarz, with texts by Prof. Jonathan Webber (UNESCO Chair of Jewish and Interfaith Studies, University of Birmingham, UK). Over a period of twelve years, they traveled together town by town and village by village, gathering material that offers a completely new way of looking at the Jewish past that was destroyed in Poland. The exhibition pieces together a picture of the relics of Jewish life and culture in Polish Galicia that can still be seen today, interpreting these traces in a manner which is informative, accessible, and thought-provoking.

The exhibition is divided into five sections, corresponding to the different ways in which the subject can be approached:

Section 1 is entitled Jewish Life in Ruins, with all the sadness of confronting the past.
Section 2, Jewish Culture as it Once Was , displays remaining signs of the original culture.
Section 3, Sites of Massacre and Destruction shows the horror of the Holocaust.
Section 4, How the Past is Being Remembered recognizes the efforts to preserve the traces of memory, and
Section 5, People Making Memory Today, shows people involved in recreating the memory of the Jewish past in Poland today.

A talented photographer, Chris came to Poland on an unrelated job, filming a documentary. He noted that the remains of Jewish life in Galicia were going undocumented. He was concerned that the existing iconography of the Holocaust and Jewish life [in Poland] were very limited. He then proceeded to make it his life’s work to rectify the situation.

In addition to producing and hosting high quality exhibitions and housing an excellent bookstore, the gallery has since become a center of community life, with concerts and classes, and a newsletter that chronicles local Jewish activities and culture.

I hope they continue to go from strength to strength in fitting tribute to Chris.

Chris Schwarz went about his chosen path in a thoughtful, humble way, with a sense of humor and irony, a clear purpose, and a wonderful, sensitive way with people. He was a special human being. He will be greatly missed.

Found an old website of his which describes work he has done.

Update: From the August Newsletter of the Galicia Jewish Museum:

Messages of condolences can be sent to
info@galiciajewishmuseum.org
from where they will be taken and placed in the official Book of Condolence at the Museum.

Obituary from The Times Online

Obituary from The Boston Globe (NY Times News Service)

Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art

Went to a preview of Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art at The Jewish Museum. Got free tickets through Dor Chadash. Went with Jocelyn and we both agreed to go in quick, check out the stuff, and leave before anyone gave a speech.

The image in the postcard is Pavel Wolberg‘s “Qualqilya (Outskirts)”, 2002. It is a small exhibit with some quality stuff. Though “New” is a bit relative here, most of the works are from the early 2000′s, I had seen many of the works in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem when I was living in Tel Aviv from ’99-’03. Among the artists featured are Pavel Wolberg, Miki Kratzman and Gillian Laub. I was surprised not to see any works by Adi Nes and I’m pretty sure I was at the protest featured in the film by Amit Goren.

The museum has free admission on Saturdays if you want to check it out through August 5th, 2007.

eBoy - FooBar

Saw this poster on boingboing and couldn’t resist it. You can get one from here.

UPDATE: She’s got a website now: http://www.linallagunociani.com

The Treatment

Went to see the treatment by Eve Ensler at The Culture Project tonight. Dylan McDermott (Eve Ensler’s adopted stepson) is a soldier with post-traumatic stress over torture he committed in the line of duty. Portia is the psychologist and soldier tasked with the job of getting the goods on his superiors and treating his disorder.

It had some interesting ideas [about psychological trauma, treatment and torture, transferrence, duty and military life] but didn’t go deep enough with these ideas instead just bludgeoned the audience with a simple message in flat-out exposition about the rules having changed, rules are good, we need them blah blah blah. At some point he says something about not wanting to talk about his mother and then spilling out his guts about his mother. Isn’t that a tired trope at this point?

The playwright should be given credit for using her work to protest something she finds unjust. We don’t seem very involved with this war like Vietnam…maybe it’s because we have cable now – it is not the only thing going on in your living room. The cynical part of me sees it also as an attempt to be relevant – The Vagina Monologues came out in 1996.

It’s like Colombian artist Fernando Botero‘s new paintings based on Abu Ghraib now on exhibit at the Marlborough Gallery. He is a talented artist, known for his pleasant figures with exaggerated proportions (ok they’re fat). Someone may want to tell him prisoners don’t usually look like that. On the one hand, good for him for protesting something ugly with his work. On the other hand according to a recent New York Magazine piece: “The buzz, helped Botero pieces break records at auction this year, two selling for over $2 million each.”