OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY 2013 Moscow Kremlin (+small video)

Last week-end my daughter and I were in Kremlin Concert Hall on ballet. After show we eventually learned that will have place the the Olympic Torch relay. It was much nicer than I could expect. Few people, kind and inconspicuous security, perfect weather and a lot of fun for children ))

В прошлое воскресенье ходили с дочкой на балет в Кремлевский дворец. Попали на эстафету Олимпийского огня. Все было неожиданно очень мило - мало людей, очень ненавязчивая и незаметная охрана, прекрасная погода и много радости детям...

THE ANGST

There was such a place in Moscow where I was sure my angst was living... I have painted this place. Yesterday I walked close and realised that there is no such a building any more... But there is no reason for my angst to be scared - he have where to live now forever...

В Москве было такое место - ничего особенного, но когда я хожу мимо, я точно знаю, что из черной дыры в одном сарайчике на меня всегда смотрит мой страх...
Несколько дней назад я закончила рисовать свой Страх... Вчера я обнаружила, сарайчик снесли. Но Страху нечего бояться - ему теперь навсегда есть где жить...

IL GIARDINO

Did some work on pictures i made last year in the awesome botanic garden of the austrian artist André Heller in Gardone at Lake Garda, Italy - a really amazing place.

You can find more about it here: Giardino Botanico - André Heller

More Photo at my homepage

UPDATE OF MY HOMEPAGE...

I have updated my homepage - you can find there now some of my latest works...
Chris deMatté . Fine Art Photography

And meanwhile in Russia... ;-)

Vadim Gushchin Exhibition 
THE ART OF CREATING ART...

Being in Moscow I visited today (again) the "Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography" to have a look at an exhibition which description sounded quite promising...

Quite an interesting exhibition with about 80 photographs of trivial everyday objects. Technically well done, nice lighting...it reminded me on my first year at the photographic college when we had to do a lot of this things to learn about lighting technics...

But then I came across a quote of Vadim Gushchin...

"I am - an artist.  I mean, I consider myself as an artist more than a photographer, although, of course, and I am also a photographer, because what I do is photograph."

Here we are again... The big question "What is art?"...

And then I found this on the gallerie's website:

"Staying in the genre of still life, the photographer developed his unique architectural style - clear, concise and extremely expressive. Meticulously examine the possibility of visual, Guscin created a real "saga about the subject" - a philosophical register of the material world around us, "poetic catalog" of things, in fact the same - thinking about time and about the person.".

And this reminds of a story a colleague once told me: He was sending some of his pictures to a famous museum in Paris, but they where returned to him on the ground that they didn't fit into the museum's portfolio (another saying for "we don't like your work"...). After some times my colleague asked a friend who called himself "philosopher" to write some text fot the same pictures. He got this text (and admitted that he didn't understand half ot what his philosopher friend had written) and sent the pictures together with the text to the same museum - and this time they where exepted...

Maybe beeing sucessfull in art doesn't need some unique work but just good (self-)promotion?

Here are some more examples of Gushin's work:

Don't misinterpred me: I like his work. Technical clean. Nice done prints... But is it "art"?

I personally like Guy Boudin's sentence about photography and art much more:

"Whether or not I create art is not of importance. For me, photography is a mean of expressing my wonderment at objects or certain people, a way of celebrating the poetry of nature or the melancholy of passing time."

DRIVING IN RUSSIA...

Being up to the north of Russia in the last few days - at least as far north as one can get in a few days. And at least as far north as the road conditions there are allowing it...

One of the best streets up north...

By chance I found a story in an Austrian newspaper: http://derstandard.at/1373514313457/Mann-stahl-russische-Strasse.
It's in German, but in a nutshell it tells about somebody who tried to steal a whole road in northern Russia. 


*Man has stolen Russian road
Dismantled a total of 82 concrete panels with a crane truck
Moscow - In a night action a 40-year-old man tried to steal an entire street in the north of Russia. The thief had broken down with a crane truck a total of 82 concrete panels of a highway as the police in the Republic of Komi told. During loading of the items on truck riparians became aware of the man. The police arrested the road thief at a traffic control.
The stolen plates that connected the village with the River Partscheg, would have a value of 200,000 rubles (4,500 euros). The thief faces two years in prison. In Russia road parts such as gutters keep disappearing  and are sold to commodity traders.*

Taking into account the road conditions up there I somehow Ihave the feeling that it was not the only road that was stolen... ;-)

LET THERE BE LIGHT...

Working on my book about Moskau Metro I spent again some days "underground". One of the (many) fascinating things in the Moscow Metro is the lighting. Here are some examples (fast edited)...

Annino Station

Annino Station

Aerport Station

Mayakovskaya Station

Mayakovskaya Station

Kurskaya Station

 Wir hörten: 80 000 Arbeiter 

Haben die Metro gebaut, viele noch nach der täglichen Arbeit 

Oft die Nächte durch. Während dieses Jahres hatte man immer junge Männer und Mädchen 

Lachend aus den Stollen klettern sehen, ihre Arbeitsanzüge 

Die lehmigen, schweißdurchnäßten, stolz vorweisend. 

Alle Schwierigkeiten – 

Unterirdische Flüsse, Druck der Hochhäuser 

Nachgebende Erdmassen – wurden besiegt. Bei der Ausschmückung 

Wurde keine Mühe gespart. Der beste Marmor 

Wurde weit hergeschafft, die schönsten Hölzer 

Sorgfältig bearbeitet. Beinahe lautlos 

Liefen schließlich die schönen Wagen 

Durch taghelle Stollen: für strenge Besucher 

Das Allerbeste. 

(Bertolt Brecht, Inbesitznahme der Metro)