Whilst in Paris a couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to take part in something that I wouldn’t normally do… a friend of the artistic persuasion invited me along to an exhibition by the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin – he of the famous works including, The Thinker, The kiss and The Walking Man. But on this occasion the exhibition was dedicated to his other passion of drawing… indeed there was 300 drawings on show at the Musée Rodin. This collection is called: Capturing the model: 300 Rodin drawings 1890 – 1917.
Now I am most definitely not un connaisseur de art in its purest forms but I would consider myself artistic. And having witnessed Rodin’s work I was immediately drawn to the centralised theme of his drawings. These were essentially sketches in graphite pencil often imbued with watercolour, bringing the images to life off of the canvas. The drawings were predominantly that of the femme nue variety set in a number of suggestive poses – sitting, squatting, laying down etc.
Simple, erotic and beautiful but somewhat repetitive! This assertion is not a criticism but merely an observation of this man’s joy in repetition… and we can all get a little obsessed from time to time with the female form… even me.
Go see the exhibition for yourself if you can. It’s open until April 1st 2012 (which coincidently is April Fools day!)
Rodin Museum
rue de Varenne
75007, Paris
Phone : 01 44 18 61 10
Fax : 01 44 18 61 30
A selection of drawings – click to enlarge.
FEMME NUE ASSISE, DE FACE, LES MAINS DERRIÈRE LA TÊTE
FEMME NUE ASSISE, UN PIED POSÉ DE HAUT SUR UN GENOU ; FEMME NUE DEBOUT SANS TÊTE
FEMME ACCROUPIE VUE DE DOS, UN VÊTEMENT SUR LES ÉPAULES
FEMME NUE AUX LONGS CHEVEUX, RENVERSÉE EN ARRIÈRE
FEMALE NUDE WITH LEFT LEG OUTSTRETCHED
Now listen to this…
Joy, obsession and repetition: The pursuit of artistic pleasures…
I decided a long time ago to quit making New Year’s resolutions simply because I cannot bear to be associated with mass organised delusional mechanisms at the best of times so why should I start on the first day of the year? If you wanna change, turn your life around, blah, blah, blah then just get on with it – who’s stopping ya? I’m sure we’ll all see the difference in the new you before the year’s out… well maybe not? Having said that I do intend to smile much more in 2012 and be more happy-go-lucky like I used to do in my roaring twenties – proof being that it takes 43 facial muscles to frown as opposed to only 17 to grin like a fool… but as Einstein once remarked, Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Speaking of which, Bono and U2 having been doing just that for more years than most care to remember (fondly or otherwise)… let’s look back to a time when they were shall we say slightly more relevant for a day like today.
With only a few days remaining of 2011 Tinchy Stryder manages to wriggle free from his markers and fires in what appears to be the winner… Mario Balotelli! The referee’s a wan*er, I hear you say. Well, I can’t pretend to be a fan of referees, umpires, linesmen (assistant referees) or even the fourth official never-mind mister Stryder or super Mario but I am often intrigued by the mind-state of young Balotelli – there I said it!
Why Always Me?
Mario Balotelli is taken from Tinchy Stryders free download The Wish List Mixtape which is available here http://t.co/M5QaXBvT
Sir Jimmy Saville has died and although he was a well loved personality it would seem nobody ever really knew or got beneath the surface of the man or found out just what made him tick for 84 years. I was never that big a fan of his but the more I read about him now since his passing earlier today the more fascinating I find him. We have a few things in common but I want tell you what those things are… Instead listen to this interview… A bit odd… more like raving bonkers.
More TV adverts that I could be bothered to watch… for rather obvious reasons. The first one I seem to remember used to give me a thrill or two as a boy and the last one, which is actually a clip from a 1970s TV programme used to confuse the hell out of me. Ah, the joys of yesteryear.
Firstly I’d just like to express that I don’t know the ins and outs of the Mark Duggan story… of how and why the Police took it upon themselves to shoot him dead in a mini-cab somewhere along Ferry Lane, Tottenham on Thursday, August 5th 2011.
Needless to say I’ve seen it all before… there were the riots of 1985. I was a young man and no, I wasn’t caught up in it all… well not from the frontlines. But I was immersed in it all mentally and for me it was a terrifying but somewhat exhilarating experience. There’s this sense of putting the place where you live ‘on the map’. Ghettoes love street credibility and at some point throughout those riots way back then, the area called Tottenham – that place in London where I grew up earned its stripes. The respect was instant, the code of conduct has been immortalised and to be quite honest nothing much has really changed ever since in N17 and N15.
Sure, the crimes have progressed on a wider scale to knives and guns and the all-boys school that I went to no longer exists – ironically a housing site now proudly stands in its place. Yet needles and haystacks come to mind with regards to finding someplace decent to live in the London borough of Haringey which presides over the streets of Tottenham. Even the football team, Tottenham Hotspur have to beg for planning permission and grants in order to build a new stadium and promise to help generate jobs, opportunities and something to look forward to (a future) in order to stay in Tottenham (they want to make the Olympic Stadium in Stratford their new home)… go figure?
Man, for me, the only thing that’s changed in Tottenham over the last 30 years or so is me… and therein lays my solution to the problem. Start with yourself first as an individual and maybe somewhere along the line you’ll see that there are other ways to live and this thing called life is in fact bigger than the amalgamation of streets where you grew up and their associated postcodes. Try to be someone who get’s on the front-page or the news bulletins for a different reason (this isn’t about right or wrong) other than crime-related activity. Ghettoes have been in existence across the UK for decades and in the majority of the cases the inhabitants are still no closer to finding another way forward. Education for the most part is free in Tottenham, so too is the spirit and will power that comes from within – that’s an individual choice and a mind is still a very terrible thing to waste!
So who in their right mind would want to live like that forever? Don’t they know there’s still a riot goin’ on? And no amount of jumping on bandwagons is going to change that.
The other day a girlfriend told me that I was a ‘little bit macho’. Now, I didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or a put down? On reflection I guess there’s nothing wrong with displaying the odd rugged pose from time to time but then again on the other hand the bad rep that the ‘macho’ man has been associated with and received over the last few decades is nothing to dismiss lightly. No question, times have changed but some things will never change… It’s always cool to poke fun at stuff! So with that in mind I trawled the internet in order to find out where I ‘fitted in’ to this manly debate that was raging inside of my head. I needed answers and I needed them quick, thick and fast (macho-style). Here’s what I found…
Click on individual images for man-sized dimensions!
I feel your pain
Designed for the man with no name
Il était mince, il était beau, il sentait bon le sable chaud : l’homme macho est de retour.
No longer a question of who wears the trousers!
This should help you decide…
Be there or be a wimp
Be honest!
Get’s the job done!
Wear with pride
70s proportions
Discover the man in you!
Girls loved his Tom Selleck-like looks back in the 80s
Take the challange!
You gotta laugh…
Fight like a man!
Facebook it bro!
… for when you need a man-sized blade.
That’s a whole lotta graves!
‘Because real men don’t waste time talking’ – classic!
So my search didn’t really give me the answers that I was looking for. And when it’s all said and done I guess I’ll always be a mannish-boy that needs to grow up and take life a little more seriously!
