Streetwalking the Metropolis

I am attempting to give my second dissertation, and all of the reading and notes that have been haphazardly collected over an extended period, a direction. The dissertation is about Women walking and writing about walking in London between the World Wars, there might be a little surrealism involved, some chorography and a lot of feminist discussion. Beyond that I can offer little else by way of explanation.

Walking the streets of Barcelona, thinking, daydreaming, creating stories and then returning to look in detail at the city itself, I began to experience my dissertation. To walk in the city is to feel at one moment utterly alive, a part of an energy and movement beyond us, and then at the next moment to feel overwhelmed, lost in the dark and foolish for wandering aimlessly. I understand both these emotions from my walkings in Barcelona. I love walking the city and this time I decided to document it, writing and photographing as I weaved my way through the metropolis. I am not the first to do this, but am tying myself to a tradition.

Lee Miller in Blitzed London

The city overwhelms us with a superflux of sensory data; sounds of cars and people, signs, posters, architecture, rubbish, the lives of other people, windows in to other worlds, lights and shadows. Lee Miller was associated with the surrealist movement in Paris, working with the artist Man Ray, but she came in to her own independence as a photographer and war correspondent for Vogue magazine. Her incidental photographs of blitzed London, of sculptures and pianos amongst the rubble have a bleak beauty which communicates the power and the desolation of a city destroyed and its accidental surrealism.

Berenice Abbott in New York

In 1929 Berenice Abbott closed her studio in Paris and came to New York City, a city she recognised as having exciting potential for her photography. She spent six years documenting the city, a city that was beginning to change, to be destroyed and regenerated.

'Abbott's project was primarily a sociological study imbedded within modernist aesthetic practices. She sought to create a broadly inclusive collection of photographs that together suggest a vital interaction between three aspects of urban life: the diverse people of the city; the places they live, work and play; and their daily activities. It was intended to empower people by making them realize that their environment was a consequence of their collective behavior (and vice versa).'

Brassai in Paris

Hungarian artist, Brassai, spent his evenings in night-time wanderings of the city of Paris and began to document it. Brassai captured the feel and atmosphere of the city at night; going in to bars and back alleys, as well as focussing on the beauty of fog and light in the dark streets.

These photographers have left behind them documents of their own personal impression, as well as capturing some inherent element of the city itself. We might look at these photographs and see things which we recognise, but perhaps the perspective and the essence of the vision is something beyond us; a thing which only Miller, Abbott and Brassai feel as intensely as the photograph suggests.

So here are a few of my own attempts to document my time in the sloping labyrinth of Barcelona. For me the city was filled with light and it was the ways in which buildings and spaces manipulated light which interested me.

So much of Barcelona is buildings climbing parallel up steep hills, occasionally there are street escalators to help you out. The escalator focusses perspective and reflects the light of the setting sun.

I like this street photo because of the angle which curves inwards and the lingering Christmas decorations which seemed so incongruous with the bright January sun.

Strolling through parks in the dazed shadows of trees, this menage of women captures the living sense of the city.

Now I just have to decide what all of this means and how women use their mappings of the city.

Barcelona- Design City

This is a fairly long photo-essay and a tribute to the beautiful city of Barcelona. Part of my aesthetic overload while I was there was because the whole city, even down to the minutest details, is a visual feast. I was torn between sweeping panorama's and being drawn in by the details of tiles, paving stones and iron balconies. It made me think about the way in which cities are designed; how being an architect must be partly about distinctive, individual vision and partly about conceiving your ideas within the whole so that they command a kind of fluidity.

Street lamp near L'Arc de Triomf, this green-grey wiring plays with the shape and growth of the palm trees all around it.

An old window grate, there is beauty even in the desolate.

Grating on the Arc De Triomf, even the tiniest details are planned out.

Looking out through the bench which weaves in to one of Gaudi's lamp posts on Passeig de Gracia.

The beach at Barceloneta has undergone a more recent regeneration, crisp lines and striking shapes keep it modern.

These benches on the beach, with their long shadows and a shape which curves into your body, are works of sculpture in themselves.

Even my coffee cup was a careful work of Spanish design, using graphics here from Pedro Almodovar's film 'Attame!' (Tie me up! Tie me Down!). I love Almodovar so this coffee was a highlight.

The paving stones designed by Gaudi on the Passeig de Gracia. On this street it is necessary to keep your eyes alert, to look from the ground to the road and up in to the balconies and facades of buildings to be satiated.

Here is Gaudi's lamp post in greater detail, tangling in to the blue sky.

At Parc Guell, Gaudi has produced an artist's theme park; a bench mosaicked from salvaged tiles runs along the plateau like a lip.

All of the tiles are different, adapting in colour and pattern as the wall travels. It is tempting to take my camera to the whole thing, but I will leave you with only a few examples.

Sunday Selections

So I decided to continue with the Sunday Selections at Frogpondsrock because it is quite fun indulging my inner photographer. These photographs are of reflections in water, but they reveal new worlds and intoxicating possibilities. Two worlds are merged and turned upside down, to leave us with only a giddy sense of perspective.

Sunday is all about escapism. So here are the reflections to lose yourself in.

The Eyes of Paris

So here is your first art-story from Barcelona. On my final day I made a slightly exhausted trip to MACBA (The Museum of Contemporary Art) and stumbled upon some photographs by Brassai from his Graffiti Series.

Technically stunning, light partially illuminates the rocks and throws shadows in to crevices to create photographs of subtle perfection. Taken over a period of thirty years the images are of Parisian Graffiti that Brassai stumbled upon during his wanderings of the city.

They capture something primitive, they are like newly discovered cave-paintings; the naive cave-paintings of the contemporary. Incidental mark-making which is unaware of its potential to outlive its authors and speak in the future. They become, focussed by Brassai's lens, monumental statements of archetypal stories.

Presenting to us the innocent stories of children's book, faces like masks and dream-creatures, I wish I had stumbled upon graffiti this good. But I am satisfied, at least, to have stumbled upon Brassai's photographs.

Wandering Barcelona

I am back from Barcelona! I bet you didn't notice I was gone, well that is probably because I did this clever thing called post scheduling so that my blog wouldn't be lonely while I was away. Anyway I bought an Art Ticket and tried to get round as much of Barcelona's art as was physically possible in three days. I think I had a bit of an art overdose actually, partly because the whole city is such a visual feast. I need to do some scanning and uploading first but I have so much to tell you about; Anna Maria Maiolino; the sculpture of Picasso, Miro and Julio Gonzalez; Benet Rossell; the Barcelona aesthetic and Gaudi; and Jewellery designed by artists such as Dali, Picasso and Alexander Calder. Too much to tell you in fact, so don't forget to come back and look. For now, because I am tired and unorganised, here are some words of Spanish wisdom.

'To see is a privilege, and above all the greatest privilege is to see the things which no one sees: works of art.'

There is a difference between seeing and perceiving. I think that this is what these words mean. In art we have to see beneath the surface, to that other realm, the beyond.

'

Translating Art

When I wrote about Wu Guanzhong, I quoted him and mentioned how beautiful I find Chinese in translation. There is an inherent poetry and an innocence of language which can be seen in this translated title. 'I could never see a blossom/ After I grew up' could fluidly open a poem or a folk-tale, but it is beautiful not for its complexity. Unfortunately translation is not always quite so elegant or successful, and this is a post dedicated to those failed moments, where pretentions become absurd and quite funny too. Posters for new art shows, directions for interaction, I hope you enjoy them.

And here are some words of wisdom for aspiring artists, click on the photograph to make it bigger. Of course, the Western baby is speaking with a hint of irony.

Barbican, beautiful, bleak

My friend was a little bit late to meet me and so I found myself with some time to 'explore Barbican architecture'. I found myself wondering whether the Barbican was beautiful or bleak in the grey rain. The housing estate which surrounds it and the centre itself is a complex of towering layers of concrete, fountains, water features which all enclose. High walks, stairwells and sheltered passageways all confuse your sense of direction. If it is not beautiful, it is certainly impressive.

Wikipedia tells me that the centre was designed by Chamberlain, Powell and Bon in the Brutalist style. Brutalism emerged in 50's and 60's and took its name from the French Beton Brut or 'raw concrete'. The Barbican is 'raw concrete', testament to a time when concrete inspired awe and wasn't the symbol of Post-War hopes degrading to bleak council estates. The Barbican is built in an area which was badly bombed during the Second World War and is a solid attempt at regeneration. I think my sense is more that it was beautiful once. Now housing the YMCA and London flats it feels entirely at odds with the wet, wet water gardens and aquatic plant-life.