Hmm, this thing about friends. They are the ones we trust. And they are also the ones who¹s judgment we trust. Sometimes forgetting what their experience is, what their background is. We let down our guard and *bam*, here comes advice, or a comment, or some remark. Some of it is good. Some friends really know what is going on with our lives, they truly care. But it might just sometimes happen that a person who gives the advice just does not know enough about the circumstances, or life, or both, to say the right thing. Sometimes a friend is hurt, or maybe just preoccupied with other events. So the advice turns into a sharp and poisonous object. And because we receive it with our guard down, it hurts much more than coming from another person. And the pain lasts longer too.
Life is difficult. If is not easy to live. It might be easier for some and tougher for others, but all in all, it is not easy. And because of that we should always assume that the other person could be hurt by what we say, or at least thrown off their track. Writing is worse than saying things, but a conversation under friends is a very intimate setting, almost like writing.
One needs to recognize these things and be very careful. One also needs to have the wisdom to see as many of the factors involved as possible and to take words for their true meaning. Some "friends" want to be hurtful, or even need to be, in order to heal their own wounds. Fighting back leads only to escalation. Hmm... This was a very strange evening. Very strange.
Not very happy.

There are new images in the 600x250 gallery. And there is a search function on the site now. The search field is placed on this page only for now.
I was thinking about starting "Poly-Blogs" on the site. Blog based conversations about various topics. Stay tuned.
It is raining in New York. I realized today that the Subway station on 23rd street was built 1918.
Have a great day.

*******
Am 30.01.2002 um 13.55 Uhr kam er auf die Welt, mit strammen 4480 Gramm und 55 cm Größe. Nach den großen Strapazen der Geburt sind wir sehr glücklich, ihn in unseren Armen zu halten und bald mit ihm nach Hause zu kommen.

All denen, die an uns gedacht und uns die Daumen gedrückt haben sei vorab unser allerliebster Dank gesagt. Auch für die Glückwünsche, die uns jetzt schon erreicht haben, möchten wir uns bedanken. Wir sind zwar telefonisch nicht gut zu erreichen, aber wir haben sicher bald Gelegenheit, uns zu sehen.

Liebste Grüße,
Nicolas, Luitgard und José

*******

There are no bad feelings, no bitterness, no fear even. Just a soft , warm and all embracing. All is peaceful and the moment seems quite magical.
What can be better than finding out that a friend is maybe not lost, not gone. It feels good to know that not everybody is walking away in moments when friends are the most important ones.
The flow of things is more enchanting than one could have hoped for. And life is filled with most wonderful surprises. In abundance for all of us.

The sun is not up yet and this heave set guy in the building across Broadway is running up the stairs for the last 10 minutes or so. On a stair master, in front of a television set. The movement is so violent that there is almost an illusion of the entire building shaking.
What is going on in his head? How does his brain feel, fed with all that fresh oxygen and then exposed to morning television? It could probably handle so much more than it is offered. His body too, it thinks it is going places. Yet it is not. Hmm... Ok... He stopped. I somehow still do not understand these gyms. It is fun keeping a regimen and looking at a number on a display ensuring that the thing done here is healthy and good. But it would be so much better to do actual work. Maybe hack some wood, or carry come stones up a hill. Even riding a bicycle for 40 miles in the morning surely beats a stair-master, no?. (is it called stair-master, because the users are stair-slaves?)
The Hungarian Pavilion on the Venetian Biennale last year was filled with workout machines by Antal Lakne that mimicked real world work tasks. There was the paint-master, a machine that simulated the task of painting a wall, the cell phone master, a really heavy model of a cell phone with incredibly hard to press buttons... There was also a wave master... Hmm, it might have been a creation of Chris Ware.

It feels good not to be a brain surgeon. The blog went through a serious operation and is somehow less than perfect, but nobody got hurt. It is ok. No real problems. I wonder why the formatting of the page is broken the way it is now...
i guess i will find out tomorrow.
good night.

*******
Luis ist endlich da! Gesund und munter beglückte er uns um 22:46 am 28.01.2002. 3780g bei 52cm von Kopf bis Fuss ist er bereits jetzt eine runde Aussicht!!!

Es grüssen euch die überglücklichen Eltern
Alex & Lawrence
*******

If designing websites were like cooking, then Chong and Flemming might have just prepared something of a meaty meal for a swarm of pretty hungry sharks. Within a few hours of going live, the guest-list of jenniferaniston.com, their most recent web design project, was filled with passionate and lengthy comments by fans from all over the world. Ok, we are not talking about design critics leaving their mark, but obviously quite obsessed fans who found one of the functions of the site so tempting and easy to use that it might soon result in the largest portion of it. (and a funny one on top of that, a hilarious read.) Just the fact that it is possible to build something that so perfectly hits a nerve feels pretty encouraging. Some of the "guests" actually comment on the design of the site in a way as if Jennifer and Brad were the designers, and not Ophelia and Tom. (Yes, it is the same Tom, on who¹s design we based portions of this very site...) Another encouraging factor is the size of Chong & Flemming. They are a small, international team, with offices in London and Los Angeles. They are somehow what we believed the web could be when it all started. They prove (and the above project is really the tip of the iceberg here), that it is still possible, to create very extraordinary things, using talent passion and good energy no matter what the size of the team.
(I think Blogger is a one man show.)
Way to go. And congratulations...

perfect timing again. another golden sunrise over Manhattan. Where does the sun set right now? It is so comforting to know that there is a sunrise and a sunset 24/7/356 on this planet. Manhattan is built for Sunrises and Sunsets. The silver skin of some skyscrapers just waits for these moments. Ok, nothing really waits for anything here....
And the Sun moves on too. The golden 30 seconds are over. now.

"It is all about the first kiss, you know. There is the time before the first kiss, and then there is the time after. The time before the first kiss matters most somehow. And then you somehow synchronize and things just steer into certain places." Sabine used to paint angels. They were relatively large paintings in very fresh and bright colors. She had short hair and this laugh that was not as loud, but as disarming as the Dalai Lama¹s.
And Sabine was smart. She was really intelligent, she knew what she wanted, she would get it. She was a tough cookie, a good cookie, a bright mind. Soft-spoken, gentle, but tough.
She was from the DDR, you know. From the east, just like me, except from the German part, the part that was the Eastern block to the power of ten. She somehow managed to get out of there, of course, and was with us, as one of the first semester students at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach.
She somehow had reasons to leave, Offenbach was just a Zwischenstop (a stop over) for her. She really wanted to paint more, better, make better art. There were more reasons, good reasons, bad reasons, she was in controll of all the reasons. She went to Düsseldorf. This is where she really wanted to be. This is where she knew she belonged.
I saw Sabine Moritz this morning, on page 19 of the New York Times Magazine. With her daughter Ella, and her son Moritz and her husband. Gerhard Richter.
She still paints. And she is still soft spoken. Her Children look a little bit like the angels; they mainly look like her. They seem as smart and as ready to go places. There is more to this photograph by Struth, much more. Sabine sits on the ottoman of the Eames chair, she is in front of the lillies, the window, holding the belly of her daughter.
Richter holds on to a glas table. Behind him "spielt die musik", behind him also: a painting of a scull, behind glass, the corner. His son Moritz ready to leave, ready to run. This is not about the first kiss anymore. This is about the steering precisely into very certain places. She is an extraordinary woman and an incredibly extraordinary artist. And I think she knows it too.
Article.

there is this golden over manhattan again.
right now. with a very clear sky.

I know, I know, this blog is suddenly turning into a black board, but I am working on a freelance assignment and would not like to abuse my client¹s time, by writing a blog during working hours.
The message below is from Layla, about her studio, here on 22nd street.
give her a call.

********
chelsea studio facing back (very quiet) on 22nd (between 7th and 8th) available immediately - includes fireplace, big bathroom, p/t doorman, elevator building (7th floor), laundry in basement. very convenient location
- same block for C,E and 1 & 9 trains, one block east to F train. pet friendly building.
rent stabilized - no broker fee for *$1165.70* (wow) until august 15!
call (212) 242.9088.

********

I think I might go over to greet the doorman later. And I agree that the area is pretty nice.
More later...

a single oval cloud crossed the sky before sunrise in new york.

As a little starter for today, a message from Stephanie Aaron. Stephanie runs a design firm in Downtown Manhattan. She does a lot of work for the American Museum of Natural History among other things, so chances are that you have seen and admired her work. ( I admire her work, every time I go to the AMNC.) Here is her message, which has nothing to do with design, but, as we all know, designers need to eat too:

A book that contains only two drawings. And they are not even in color. The same book shows the same thing from two sides. No really straight lines in the drawings. Most of the paper remains untouched. The book has no back. It opens to both sides. And it shows a place where most people do not even have the room to actually ever open this little book completely. I¹ve just received my copy today and it is even better than I thought. The book is called Manhattan Unfurled and it was drawn by Matteo Pericoli. There are dates on both 22foot long drawings, somehow indicating that it took from 5/98 till 6/99 to draw the West Side and from 6/00 till 12/00 to draw the East Side. Obviously the East side has less to offer visually and it takes some serious convincing from the publishers to draw it at all.
Did he really draw it from a boat cruising around Manhattan? Does he really think we will believe that he was on a boat on the Hudson in the middle of the winter, with a pencil, but no camera? hmm...
Spaß beiseite. This is an excellent book. It invites to embark onto a journey around Manhattan, or just straight for the building where one lives. (If in Manhattan). And then there is this soft, smooth sky over the city. Should this book be taken away from adults, just given to children, with a pencil?, crayons? Yes! There are no confusing words. Words have been banished into a little brochure with a legend and an essay by Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker magazine¹s architecture critic. I have yet to read the essay, so no comments here. The little booklet also contains a visual key identifying important landmarks and streets. For those who do not know Manhattan really well, I guess. And yes, the Twin Towers are in the book. Twice. From the east and from the west. And I am not planning on changing anything about it. (No editing out, or anything like that.) I might quite possibly take some watercolors though... and paint the town red.

Blast from the Past. witoldriedel.com
it is funny ad it is sad.
soooooon.

Almost famous.
Nellie just added one of the Mona Lisa photographs as an illustration to her Nil¹s Blog Archives. Which is a very nice thing to do. She flipped the picture but gave me a credit line.
Eric REDD Feliciano gave me a homepage placement. I feel very honoured. The link goes directly into the catalogue. I did not know about it, until a friend, who admitted to read this blog, told me that he followed a link out of this blog onto Eric¹s page and straight into the catalogue.
It is a world wide web after all.
Thank you Neille. A big thank you to Redd.
Redd is currently working on a fashion site and I am very much looking forward to seeing the results.

Going Beta
Finally some movement on the site. There are more and more visitors reading this blog and there might be more and more visitors who might in some way be interested in what it is that I actually do. For all of them who would like to know, or know again, there is a beta version of a cataloguewith samples of some work. It is the commercial work for now, and it is only in alphabetical order. I should be able to expand on the catalogues very soon. Tom Flemming, the great designer from London (now in Los Angeles), allowed me to use his ingenious design for an online catalogue. It looks very simple and is so easy to update that I can not wait to feed more of the CDs and digital files into the site. I think Tom should offer the system as a package for designers. Almost like a portfolio package for those who would actually like to show some work and not only their ability to code an interface. I am sure you all know the sites that have an intro movie and specially composed songs only to culminate in some pretty mediocre work. I guess not everybody would profit from having a system that would make it possible to have access to the work, just the work and nothing but the work. It would be nice to have a little application that would just translate a database of work into a sortable, searchable website that could become as much of a standard as the Din A4 sheet of paper.
The catalogue is Beta, so please email me your comments and helpful notes. Some of you already do. Thank you.
And one more thing. I am missing a lot of work. Most of my work from before 1996 was backed up on a CD that broke in half. (I have never seen anything like this before.) Much of the work from the early Organic days was backed up in a compressed file that now contains many empty folders. My mac must have crashed when I was backing up. I am missing all the work I did for Barnes and Noble, all the work for Avis, all work for Fragrance Counter, especially the Calvin Kline pieces, the work for Music Boulevard, the Music*Now presentation with elaborate animation the almost famous *boo* presentation that got us the big international advertising budget. If you have any of this material somewhere on your Hard drive please forward it to me. Thank you. Also, if you find that we worked together on a project and I forgot to give you the right credit, or made a mistake with your email address, please email me.
Have a great evening.

working, working, working... slowly, slowly, slowly...
more soon...
(and now "soon" actually means *soon*) :*)

Your Pictures are here.
What a happy brand experience. My iPhoto prints are here and they came with this cozy and happy feeling of a letter from Santa. Except it is a letter from Apple, a white envelope with a blue aqua Apple logo on the envelope. Under the apple, in grey Garamond Condensed italic: "Your Pictures are here.". And here they are. The 8x10 prints came in this envelope, the larger prints arrive in a tube. The pictures have their own index print with its own Apple logo and are "Specially printed for Witold Riedel", by Kodak Print Service. Excellent job. The prints are printed on Duralife paper... and are printed by... Ofoto!. Wait a second, wait a second... I have known of ofoto for a while now. They are a Kodak company and they are the photo service of amazon.com. It was easy to make online albums with them, but I somehow never liked the way they then presented the photos online, so I never used their printing service. Until now, obviously. The first assumption can only be that ofoto offers the service and that Apple now uses them and forwards the benefits charging a premium to the Apple iPhoto community. A quick price check reveals however that the Apple iPhoto prices are the same as on the ofoto website. And this is all surprising in all the good ways.
My next step will now probably be to get a better screen in addition to my brave powerbook lcd. The prints came back in colors that are a bit too happy and a bit too saturated in general. It is not the fault of Apple¹s service, (even though the larger print is even more saturated than the 8x10s.) but the fault of me not paying enough attention to the scans which were still made by my reliable photo shop on the corner.
I took another look at some digital cameras in the sony style store yesterday and I am not going to buy a digital camera yet. My little Leica Minilux, just has a better lens. The resolution depends on the speed of the film, but it shoots at a frame per second and without any compression. I also had the feeling that the lcd preview of the digital cameras slowed me down. It is one thing to focus on the subject and shoot a series of pictures. It is a very different thing and a very distracting one, to have the semi instant confirmation on the lcd screen. Suddenly the screen turns into a semi-reality and reality just races on, in real time. And it is different than filming with a camera and differnt than taking Polaroids. The disconnect is just long enough to be a bit confusing. It is probably just a first impression. More to come.

Danish for Beginners.
There are hardly movies with Subtitles in Germany. Every movie seems to be dubbed. When in Germany, I had the opportunity to see "Cast Away" dubbed, and then "Shrek", which is especially funny, because Schreck is the German Word for fright, scariness, fear, sometimes even Shock... how appropriate. Watching "Shrek" dubbed felt a bit like having one¹s parents decide to switch voices for an afternoon. Mom¹s voice becomes dad¹s voice and vice versa. Maybe, if you had a dog in your family, they could have just switched voices in some creative way. Mom could start growling, and the dog would just use dad¹s voice to say, "hey, hey, hey hey..." all afternoon long.
Nobody really barks in Shreck, but I somehow had the feeling that Tom Hanks in Cast Away and the donkey in Shrek were one and the same actor, oh and they both spoke German.
Ok, this is not the best example. It is rare that movies in Germany come with subtitles. Subtitles are something special. They are reserved for something we almost understand, like Schwitzerdütsch (Swiss German, one of the three Languages spoken in the country, where accounts have no names). I think this is how they are being used on American Television too. If we almost understand what somebody from a far away village says, then, just to make sure we know what is going on, there is a grammar corrected version as subtitles. Then there are those live subtitles, sponsored by your local Dodge dealers, which somebody actually types at the television station, but that is a different story.
I remember seeing Star Wars with subtitles, when I was maybe 8? It was a summer day in Bytom, in Poland and my Uncle Janek and I walked miles and miles to see this great movie. And it was great and it had subtitles, and I really knew the first 3 words of every scene. It was not so bad. It was pretty obvious what was going on and my Polish education of antique history was at that time good enough to make me predict the outcome of the entire movie, and the rest of the trilogy. (I could not predict JarJar Bings... He is really a Lucas creation.)
One feature of Polish television that I keep forgetting about and which throws me back into my childhood every single time I travel there, is the "Lector voice over". This one is really great. It is like being 5, sitting with your older brother in front of the television. He really wants to go out on with his friends, so he hates having to be there with you. But father grounded him, so now this really angry older brother has to read all the subtitles to you. All of them. He becomes the angry voice of every single character in the movie. And he hates it. So there might be a woman on screen, screaming and throwing dishes at this strange looking American guy, while your brother sadly proclaims "I hate you, and I am going back to my mother."
It seems to be always the same voice, always the same sad, sad voice. Absolutely no other emotion than sadness. A voice just loud enough to make it impossible to hear the original language if you actually understand it. It is a very unique experience. Kojak comes to my mind now, but I remember Dynasty as well, and yes, ALL of the characters in Dynasty had the same sad voice, of the same sad man. A lector. Oh, when the credits appear on screen, he just reveals his name. Same voice.

Enough. I am obviously going on and on about subtitles and voice-overs and all this was triggered by "ITALIENSK FOR BEGYNDERE", or "Italian for Beginners", a new Danish movie out in New York theaters on January 18th, expanding February 1st. (expanding... They will make the pie higher.) I was lucky enough to see a pre screening and yes, I do recommend this movie. The subtitle experience alone is worth it. The movie is in Danish, with English subtitles set in helvetica and in Italian, with English subtitles set in helvetica *italic!*.

Italian for Beginners is the 12th Dogma¹95 Movie. And since it is a Dogma¹95 Movie, the camera is never on a tripod, the ing is natural, the actors very spontaneous and natural. And because the movie is a Danish movie, it feels so incredibly different. The movie somehow does not feel like a movie at all. It is more like a sketch, with the lines just very, very slowly becoming more and more dense. We first see just s outlines of actions, characters and it takes time for real hues to develop, for anything to really touch the characters. All feels a bit grey emotionally, drawn with a really, really hard pencil.
Andreas (Anders W. Bertelsen, "Mifune"), a young, freshly widowed minister arrives in a small Danish suburb, to temporarily replace an old, crazy since widowed pastor. The suburb is inhabited by very sad characters, who, as a balance to their sad lives, take Italian lessons at the local community center. As the movie unfolds, each one of the characters finds a very special place for themselves, may these places even be on the opposite sides of the spectrum of life.
The movie starts off as a very , very rough sketch and it turns into a sweet and at times very funny happy human landscape.
I do not think I will ever be able to understand Danish. I wish I could see this movie and understand this harsh Language, the linguistic opposite of Italian, as it seems.
Please see this movie, if you have a chance. It is a good thing to support European cinema. Even if it feels so very, very unusual to the the average American viewer.
However, I do not think that an average American viewer would read this blog. Have a great evening.

Oh, right on time... The new Danish language set has just arrived for Mac osX.

A beautiful, beautiful day.

NEUE GALERIE, Alte Tricks.
It was not a very cold day today, it was however pretty windy, so the blue sky was rushed, the clouds flew by, running eastwards.
Neue Galerie was the destination of today¹s excursion, a plan soon abandoned. A line, from the steps of 1048 5th Avenue, (which is, quite honestly an 86th Street address) all the way to the Avenue; 50 Decked out Upper East Siders maybe? The Guards had this cold and superior look on their faces, while the visitors huddled like a flock of freshly shaven sheep, trying to avoid the January wind. Great, New York¹s Upper East Side has a new Hot Spot. It is a child of passion and the fathers are Sabarsky and Lauder. Their creation seems like a great addition to the Upper East side, I am sure Ralph Lipschitz will come by to look at the art. I do not want to say too much. I feel that I might need to take a second look. The choice of location, theme, and period mke it seem like more than a child of passion. It feels like a child of two brilliant men with good funding and an excellent investment strategy. Neue Galerie is no Barnes Foundation, the sly remote estate of a passionate man who decided to buy art that was "relatively cheap" at that time to create his own Gesamtkunstwerk, and in the process, to somehow help the artists who became the pieces in his collection, by making suggestions, or giving them the opportunity to work in his house. (ok, also an investment strategy) Neue Galerie is not going to help Schiele or Klee, it will not help Beckmann or Grosz. It is not really a "Neue Galerie". When Otto Kallir opened Neue Gallerie 1923 he was attempting "to capture an innovative, modern spirit". What is Neue Galerie New York trying to capture?
More and hopefully more balanced comments on the Galery once I manage to take a walk inside, not just on the website and over the pages of their Seriously heavy Catalogue, not available online, only in their pretty themed Book Store, right next to the Design store, right next to the themed Café. (This reminds me however of our visit to the studio of Mark Kostabi once. He had a book about himself made to fit exactly between two large monographs on Michelangelo and Picasso.) Hmm...

One more little episode. Wherever I see Egon Schiele : The Complete Works. I am a bit surprised how used the book appears. Even the dustcover on my edition, which I bought at König¹s in Cologne has this sly abused look. The book is superior to anything I have read on Schiele and is so elaborately linked and cross referenced that it surpasses the information architecture of some well designed WebSites. This did not seem to be most important feature for the gentleman in his 50¹s who almost knocked me over to get the book at the book store at the Neue Galerie. I thought that it would be nice to recommend the book to him, since it is really excellent. He already seemed to know his favorite pages however... and his sweaty palms could hardly keep up the weight of the tome. Hmm...
Pretty daring, this "Neue Galerie" after all. No entry for persons under 13 and those under 16 only if accompanied by an adult. I really hope not this sweaty palmed gentleman, who sees Schieles work with probably far more passion than the painter¹s contemporaries.
Maybe the Neue Galerie is actually a quite brillinat strike of genius.
Let¹s elaborate some other time.
Have a great monday.

Please read about Lacquer, and then have a better understanding of this Buddha statue:Seated Buddha, Tang dynasty (618­907), ca. 650

Sundance Film Festival is on. And for the first first time the relevance of the event is multiplied by the participation of my hero and long time friend, Tom Flemming, with his animated 2:40 feature "Between". Not only does he participate in this year¹s festival, we can also vote for him and maybe help him to get this new and shiny Audience Award. If I could only figure out how to vote for his movie. (Which is quite brilliant, and he should win!). I will keep trying... cheers. Have a great day.

Forgot one more thing. A New York Institution, Coliseum Books on Broadway (there was only one and now they lost their lease) will close on the 18th. The place was packed with New Yorkers getting a bargain. So I got some too. The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige, Wilhelm Wagenfeld: (1900-1990) and Alex Katz : A Retrospective.
(Ok, I also got the Sieff book, Jeanloup Sieff : 40 Years of Photography of which the first 20 seem best, but this one was an impulse buy...)
The Hiroshige book is quite mervelous. Two sketchbooks reprinted, with comments and more information.
The Wagenfeld book has my favorite salt (or pepper) shaker on the cover (the original 50¹s version) from the max and moritz set which he designed for WMF in the 50¹s and which is still available in Germany. (the salt and pepper shaker look the same, but because they are made out of glas, it does not really matter).
Alex Katz is just an american classic, somehow loved and then again ignored by the public. The two pieces which i see every day seem strikingly simple, yet are amazingly complex. I am a bit surprised that Black Pond (1989) is still available at Parkett, for not so much. It is a very nice piece.
Ok... enough. Do not want this post to be the first post of tomorrow.
Good night. Gute Nacht. Dobranoc.

Brilliant.
There are times when an exhibition manages to be a multiplier of the pieces included, not just a sum. The show "Passions" (joy, fear, sorrow and anger) at the James Cohan Gallery which closed today was one of these excellent exhibitions.
The Gallery is placed on the second floor, so the entrance is very much predictable. And what a grand and humorous Entrance it was. The centrl piece of the exhibition appeared to be a Lucas Cranach painting (how did they get it into this Gallery?) of Maria with Jesus and John the babtist (peeking in). Jesus eating a grape, gazing into his predetermined future, his mother almost seductively gazing, knowingly into the same. (John has no clue.) What a striking image. The frame (all complete with fake woodworm holes) plays tribute to this sly rounded image on a wood panel. Excellent wo, a true master. (The painting was actually for sale for under 1Mill. hmm, one can become a stuart of great art for a few days in the life of this painting)... ok, i am going off on a tangent. Let me write more about the entrance. So there is the Cranach. Glorious, right on, excellent work, timeless, timeless. And sly to the left above it, two clocks. Timeless?, They are off by just three seconds, they are off though. The piece is Called "The Perfect Lovers" by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Brilliant little piece. Off, but right on time. Perfect lovers... talking about perfection, in front of this composition Jeff Koons and his then wife Ilona Staller (La Cicciolina) as an incredibly kitchy marble bust, straight out of a Baroque couriosity cabinett. Funny. The whole arrangement framed on the left by am Irving Penn Portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Winsor with an expression on their faces that clearly indicates, how done they are with the photo session. On the right the famous cute picture by Helen Levitt of a mother changing something in the carriage of an overly extatic boy. The image is called, like many of her pictures, "New York" And how very New York all this really is.
The Exhibition was actually triggered by Bill Viola and we went to see it because of the Alex Katz piece that was in the exhibition, which turned out to be a portrait of Ursula, I think, this one with something that looked like a strongly corrected hairline, and another one of the Louise Bourgeois fabric sculptures, which in this case looked like a plush version of the blood head "Self" by Marc Quinn.
The whole place felt like a very well composed piece. A great exhibition with an excellent sense of humor, and a good sense of composition. All the passions had their own little shrine, similarly composed as the first wall, the one of joy? It was just great seeing the great juxtapositions of Viola vs. David vs Mueck, or From left to right: Nan Goldin, vs Giovanni Battista Crespi, called Il Cerano versus Andres Serrano (intended?) vs. Alice Neel.
Or Cindy Sherman next to Dürer¹s "Melancholia" (another one that knocks your socks off)...
Am I going on too much? The exhibition was pure joy. (Except maybe for the most annoying piece by Bruce Naumann, at least i think it was by him, a clown, the most annoying clown.
Ok, enough. The exhibition was excellent. This day was quite packed with fun. A very talkative girl on the bus to the gallery, a brilliant 77 year old democrat, with his own food out of a jar, on the way back. Very New York, very great day.
Oh, just one more magical moment. New York can be such a small city sometimes. When leaving a note in the Gallery book, I noticed that just minutes before, a dear friend signed in. Feeling warm just because of that. New York is a small town. It was Julia Oschatz, (hello Jule) who said it best, back then in 1993 or so, when she traveled to New York, to live in the Städel Apartment, yet ended up living in the Chelsea Hotel. "The city is only as big as you make it. There is the grand New York, too big to be really ever comprehended. And then there is the tiny New York; the bakery, the newspaper man, the guy in the deli. People who fail in New York because of its size just never manage to find their own tiny New York. The big New York just crushes them, because it gives them always more than a human could possibly handle. The survivers in New York are the ones who can find their own little city, by just puzzling together the best places and best people whom they love most. The city has many of those for every one." It does. How can one not love New York?
Tomorrow, more.
Neue Galerie?

The grain, it is all about the grain. A
1600ASA Film has to be more grainy. and it is. The advantage is, of course that one can shoot at night without a tripod, which is pretty crazy. Or in a museum, no flash, just walk by shootings. More later. Will need to dig a bit deeper now.

The Jade plant got a serious haircut today. i have seven little plants now, and the mother plant is tied up into a nicer shape. she is turned into the right angle too. Let1s just hope she survives. It was a pretty serious operation.

Ok, gotta go. have a great evening.

Oh, iPhoto and Apple Script, the fun never ends.AppleScript - iPhoto Scripts
Well, the fun does end sometimes, iPhoto does have a few bugs. (annoying ones too). But we know that there is somebody fixing those right now.
The fun never ends!

There are moments sometimes when I think that most of my little world is explored and that the next corner is just going to hold the same promise as the thousands of corners i already know. These are the most horrible moments, because they show a stagnation and a contraction of my little mental universe. I am very afraid of these moments and try to work towards a place where the darkness opens up again, and where can be seen. I look for moments where I realize that not all is explored, not all has ended. (And all this does not mean, of course that i am some sort of thrill seaker, it is just that i enjoy a certain level of balance, stagnation is not balance) These happy and enning experiences can be really wonderful. They can be tiny; like discovering a new way to draw a line, or enormous; like a new way to draw a line. Today was one of the enormous experiences.
I bought some nice and slow film yesterday (50ASA) and some happy and fast film (1600ASA) and after the great experience with the audience at the louvre, i was ready to take slow pictures of the entrance hall at the Metropolitan, some slow pictures of some art, as well as some flashless, but superfast pictures of the Metropolitan visitors. How would they differ from the ones at the Louvre? Many visitors at the Louvre were American, would many visitors at the Metropolitan be European?, French. My little excursion took me to the Robert Lehman Collection, because of the date i had with Joséphine Eléonore Marie Pauline de Galard de Brassacede Béarn, princesse de Broglie, by Ingres (1975.1.186). Ok, i was certainly not the first one to take pictures here, but it was just very pleasant. There are several Gems in the Lehman Collection. Some of them in the darker rooms, "Portrait of a young man" by Hans Memling (1975.1.112) being one of them (there are several Memlings in the Collection, or even just the background in "Saint Eligius" by Petrus Christus (1975.1.110), what a masterpiece. So the Lehman Collection was a great experience. There were some visitors there, some guards, who seem to be trained to escape from cameras. I felt as if i had a gun and not a leica at times. They would just see me move that thing and gone they were. So i had to sneak up on them. Making no noise, coming from the back. It was a bit like hunting. The American Wing was quite a pleasant place to visit too, but then i took the stairs. Yet instead of taking pictures of the great entrance hall, i went into the Asian Art Collection wing. I know this sounds really silly, but in the six years in New York, I somehow never managed to find my way to the depth of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Asian Art Collection. The experience was spectacular. It was as if a large hand picked me up very softly and placed me in a completely different museum, with clocks running much slower, with fewer visitors, with incredible, beautiful, beautiful sculptures. It was just room after room filled with georgeousness. And it just did not make any sense to look at any of this work through the camera. It was almost as if the statues disappeared when approached with this "new technology" firlefanz. So fast film or slow film, i just had to put the camera aside and just slowly, and quietly explore. Schopenhauer remarked in "Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit" that the English language describes joy as a selfreflective task. One Enjoys Oneself in Paris. Since my experience was so good that the exploration was pure joy, i obviously Explored Myself in the Asian Art Collection of the Met. Pure Joy.
The Japanese Wing was so perfectly arranged. The reading room. WIth three monitors, and seven chairs was just such perfect oasis of harmony... All I can say is "Ah". I am just not even going to start to describe the places that are or art that is... there on the second floor of the Met. The Chinese Garden (with unbelievably beautiful rocks) is worth a visit alone. I am not going to write about any of this. Maybe later, maybe once I went there several times. I think i have a new favorite place at the Met. And yes, it was this moment, that lastet for maybe three hours that just reminded me that i know absolutely nothing, that i have seen absolutely nothing yet. This moment reminded me that there is so much i will never even know existed. And this moment made me very, very happy.

on a completely differnt note, my photoshop (a real shop, not a piece of software) here on 94th street, (i recommend) will now scan my pictures at a higher resolution. ("Ultra " instead of "High") and so things are looking brighter on that front too. I am not going to get paper prints of my photographs anymore. I will only order the one or two per roll that actually are ok. Please tell this to my friends the trees.
There are some beautiful trees in , btw, especially in the wintertime, now that they are bare. We have some beauties here. Take a look.
Ok, i am going off topic here.
My Jade Tree, which i grew from a two leaf baby to a 20inch monster will need some grooming in the next few days. Does anybody know anything about wiring little trees? She went wireless for a while, but i think we will need to work on some serious reshaping. So she can breathe again.
Have a wonderful evening. All the best.
Seated Ganesha, 14th­15th century

Bad day, i guess, missed a promised lunch, saw a show in grand central and failed to feel the right emotions, could not see past the s imperfection of the execution. received unpleasant mail from a dear, dear friend. today was not a very good day.
Bought some film. Some film. Some relatively slow film (50asa) for some long time exposures. and some 1600asa film for some quick encounters. but it all does not matter, if the world is not a happy place tonight.
hmm... now back to the drawing board.
Arbeit macht glücklich.
sad...

Blogger was down when i was ready to blog. And this is the second time i am trying to blog something today, and let us hope it works. Watched the Apple iNote by Steve Jobs yesterday and it was all so exciting. An Article in der Spiegel today is filled with bitter irony, the journalist was basically not able to connect to the server and just wrote this article about it, oh and about the new iMac, which looks like a blob. The article also gave some insight into his family life but tried so hard to balance both sides of the force again. This forced objectivity is so transparent, so obvious, so sad. And sometimes it is a cover for plain lack of knowledge. There was a product review in Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung when I was in Germany, and it went on and on about the iBook. The Author might have seen the iBook, and might have touched it, but he certainly did not use it. The only positive features he could find in the computer were the *clever mechanism to put both mouse buttons under one cover* (There is no second mouse button), and the firewall interface. (Firewire?). New York one today announced that Apple is the company that decided to abandon innovation and just focus on the design of computers. Oh boy. I do sound like somebody who has an apple tattoo somewhere, don¹t I?
I thought the iMac design was a joke at first, but now it feels more and more comforting to know that there is somebody out there who also believes in the dissapearance of computers. Computers will just become more and more integrated into whatever we do anyway, and they will less and less be obviously computers. The screen of the new iMac just floats over the table. The computer itself is just a clevely designed stand. The modular design will allow apple to finally increase the screen size of the iMac, without redesigning the whole package. If 17" Monitors become cheaper, there will be a 17" iMac, then one with 21" and so on. The base itself is only a space limiter, but not a technology limiter. All in all, the new iMac is a good idea. And a new step in design. Remember all the translucent crap that just exploded all over the market place after the release of the original iMac? All the semi translucent watches, calculators, radios, even Karim Rashid¹s new chessgame is in some ways just an aftershock of this tranlucent plastic epoch. Not only is the CTR dead, but so it JelloPlastic. Except for the osX interface, still filled with throbbing jello buttons. But these are eventually on their way out as well.
Why does not anybody write about iPhoto? Is this a marketing channel that just went undetected under the radar yesterday? This Application which is basically a clever storefront is going to change so much, once people understand, that it is possible now, to publish Coffee Table books, right out of bed, or even from the bathroom. I am so excited about iPhoto. It is a consumer product, but what a great consumer product it is! I was able to just throw some pictures on it and it cleverly sorted them behind the scenes, recognizing that there were separate rolls of film from which the pictures came. Then i was able to just group the pictures into galleries, just like playlists, something we learned from iTunes. And with some simplest clicks was it possible to just publish a little online Gallery, including slideshow and all. A December day at the Louvre It took 15 Minutes to do this. THis does not mean anything really, and time should never be a factor when it comes to quality of things, but it was a pleasant experience. (It was fun). So then there is this "book" button. And not only does the software allow me to use several templates to arrange the images. It also groups the images intelligently, so outside shots with not so much detail appear on one page, some detailed close up shot gets a whole page. This is work of a desiger; a designer is supposed to help to develop this kind of drama that turns content into a great story. Now this is done with a free software.
There are some more details that just prepare us for some new fluidity in operating systems. There is a feature in iPhoto which allows to seemlessly zoom into pictures and which cleverly knows what pictures to zoom on. And when adding comments, to a photograph, the software just seemlessly zooms to the textfield. This is what the user cares about this second, so this is what should matter most. I think there is more ahead of us than we thought there is. Computers will slowly turn into invisible software running environments. Software will pay more attention to what we want to do. And we will be able to expand our world a bit more and seamlessly by being able to publish in more and more convenient ways from the comfort of our chair, or bed, or starbucks.
I am so certain that all of the above will sound really funny in a week. It will be hillarious in a year, and will then progressivly get funnier and funnier.
Just like one of the first reactions to the phone: "Every city should have one". (And I can not find who¹s quote it is.)

Alex sent me some information on Roe Ethridge. His work is pretty excellent, and it is encouraging that he is doing some of the stuff I am attempting, and that he is doing a pretty great job with that.
Lannie and Patsy Napping looks great. He seems to have some of this great sense of humor from William Wegman¹s early work. Roe Ethridge was born 1969.

SawExtreme Beauty at the Met today, and it was a tiny but good show. Packed, as expected on a Sunday. Good thing that the items were locked away behind glass, it felt like a bird exhibit at the AMNH. One thing that became very obvious again when looking at the work was that there are several not necessary even parallel worlds of style. It is a bit like Sushi not really being the food Japanese people eat. When watching Tampopo, it almost seems as if sushi did not exist in Japan. For some people in the west, Sushi is the embodiment of Japanese food. Extreme Beauty was like a presentation of sushi. Some of the pieces were from 1999 or 2000, but nobody would really wear them, unless they wanted to stage something very specific. (Ok, the name of the show is extreme beauty, and not H&M, the successful years) It just makes one wonder how much of the older clothing presented really participated in daily life. hmm...

PBS had some more of Sister Wendy and the American Collection. While the show is really great and very approachable and such a sweet feature, I really wondered what her husband would say to all this.
: )

und so beginnt es also, das verflixte siebte jahr mit der stadt, von der ich mich habe fortreissen lassen, weil sie so war wie meine unbewusste erinnerung an heimat. deutschland war es irgendwie nicht. war es nicht. deutschland hat sich nie nach heimat angefüllt. es hat sich nach etwas sonderbaren angefühlt, fast so als würde eine ganze nation realität spielen. irgend etwas war da nicht ganz gut, es blieb sonderbar.
mein erstes new york baute ich in polen, als ich alle meine legos aufeinandertürmte, eine skyline baute, eine wie sie sein sollte. eine stadt war ein zusammenhängendes urbanes erlebnis für mich. und so akzeptiere ich teile von washington nicht als stadt, oder zumindest viel weniger als teile von katowice, oder paris, oder eben new york.
das erste mal kam ich nach new york 1993. die firma für die ich damals arbeitete hatte eine ganz vornehme adresse auf der 5th avenue. das sollte ja eine recht gute gegend sein, sagte Klaus KM7 Mai, der ja schon mal in New York gearbeitet hatte. ganz vornehme adresse. das war sie dann auch. eine adresse. wir kamen über die george washington bridge nach manhattan, und fuhren die westside highway entlang. es war ein leicht verregneter grauer tag. die gebäude die gen westen, zu new jersey ausgerichtet sind wirkten damals sehr furchteinflüssend. und dann war da diese batman kirche. so weit von allem entfernt, in einem schwarzen meer des verbrechens, auch einem riesigen felsen. allein bei dem gedanken verdunkelt sich der himmel. (jetzt gehe ich gerne hin, zur riverside church. es ist wohl meine lieblingskirche in manhattan.) wir fuhren an der 46ten strasse rein, glaube ich. und alles wirkte einfach wie zu hause. es war so als sei ich nur eben mal weg gewesen und jetzt wieder zurück. ich kannte diesen ort. ich war von hier. es überlagerte sich mein bild von polen mit dem bild von deutschland mit allen orten, die ich bisher gesehen hatte und das ergebnis war vor mir. das war einfach die stadt, die das zu hause war. ich dachte ja noch nicht dass ich hier jemals leben würde, aber der ort war es. zu hause.
ich kam dann immer wieder zurück und immer war alles anders. es waren immer andere launen der stadt, aber immer wieder erkannte ich sie wieder, immer wieder war sie wieder erkennbar, und sprach so viel deutlicher meine sprache als irgendein ort den ich hinter mir gelassen hatte.
das hat sich nicht geändert. ich gehöre wohl einfach hierher. auch wenn vieles sonderbar und nicht einfach ist, dann soll es eben so sein. dann spiegelt es mich auch einwenig wieder.
heute wurde ich in der subway von einem sehr zugeknöpften typen angepöbelt, weil ich mich vor ihn in den zug gedrängt hätte. einen leeren zug wohl gemerkt, und ich hatte mich nicht vorgedrängt. der typ war offensichtlich nicht ganz beisammen, aber auf eine so ordentliche weise, und so ausgesprochen elegant. er war wütend auf mich, und doch wünschten wir uns am ende der fahrt ein frohes neues jahr. es ist ja schliesslich new york. dann half ich irgendwelchen touristen am times square zu ihrem zu kommen. dann fuhr ich zu chris nach astoria. die subway tauchte in queens auf und es war alles neu, ich war wieder tourist, alles sah anders aus. im hintergrund die leicht vernarbende skyline, mit dm woolworth building nun deutlicher denn seit 1969. die türme waren so alt wie ich. grob gesehen. in astoria nahm ich bilder auf von einem kleinbus, der wohl auf die seite gefallen sein musste. er hatte keine fenster mehr, war leicht zerdrückt. offensichtlich ist niemandem was passiert. ein frischer frischebaum hing an der hinteren sitzbank. chris lebt ganz grossartig in einer riesigen wohnung. nur eben nicht in manhattan. wir fuhren in die stadt rein, hatten burger bei fanelli¹s mit jess. sahen die tom friedman show noch einmal. und auch eine ausstellung die wohl von künstlern gemacht wurde, die im residency programm des world trade center gearbeitet haben müssen. so eine art mulpha, nur eben anders. auch gute arbeiten waren durchaus dabei. danach gleich daneben in den neuen rem koolhaas prada laden. ein übermässig gestylter laden auf drei sonderbaren stockwerken, mit sehr lustigen details, wie umkleidekabinen die gerade dazu einladen mehr in ihnen zu tun, als sich umzukleiden. lustige details, sehr einfallsreich, auch wenn sie zusammen genommen nicht unbedingt mehr wert zu sein scheinen als jedes für sich. menschenmengen, die den laden wie disneyland betrachten. wir auch. hemden für $350, kleider ab $4000. zu dumm, und nicht sehr schön.
jess und chris wollen zu 20 restaurants, wir schauen uns noch in soho um, dann gehen die beiden knete kaufen, um kleine skulpturen zu machen. so wie tom friedman eben. ich will noch fotos schiessen, in der nacht, mit der telelinse, aber dann ist es doch zu kalt, ich nehme den erst besten zug nach hause. auf dem anrufbeantworter wartet ein angebot. ein grosser kosmetik konzern sucht eine neue agentur, und jetzt werden wir wohl eine zusammenstellen, ein team und an die sache ordentlich rangehen. ich liebe new york.
als ich am vierten januar 1996 im hotel remington auf der 46. strasse aufwachte, weil ich keine wohnung hatte, so gegen 5 vielleicht, oder pünktlich um 5, da wurde mir erst klar, dass ich zum ersten mal kein tourist war. jetzt sollte alles ernst werden. und es wurde auch wahnsinnig ernst. ich rechtfertigte seitenlang in mein buch, wie ich in dieses hotel gelangt war, und wie es der einzige richtige weg war. ich hatte so viel in deutschland gelassen. so viel liebe. ich stellte mir vor, dass ich nur kurz hier alleine sein würde in new york und dass ich dann die teile meines herzens wieder alle zusammenstückeln könnte, weil die liebe, die ich in deutschland gelassen habe so stark sein würde, dass sie wie ein magnet mir folgen würde. das klappte so wohl nicht ganz. und jetzt wird es wohl auch nicht wirklich klappen. es ist jetzt alles anders. irgendwie. ich kann gar nicht mehr zurück. bin hier auch schon eine gute weile. bin offensichtlich schon ein teil der stadt.
und war es eine richtige entscheidung?, war es denn wirklich das einzige was ich tun konnte, hierher zu kommen?... es gab bestimmt auch andere wege. das glaube ich jetzt schon. der weg den ich jetzt 6 jahre gelaufen bin, war einer der steinigsten und verwundendsten, aber auch steilsten und voller ungeahner aussichten. und irgendwie ist es alles erst der anfang.
komm doch her. wenn du es so weit gelesen hast, dann solltest du auch hierher kommen... und dann fängt eine ganz neue geschichte an. ja?... traue dich. komm.

It is exactly 6 years ago that i came to live in New York. To celebrate this event, Citigroup Sign will be Replacing Those 3 Sixes at the Top of the 666 building. What a crazy six years. And good six years. A wonderful six years. And a very tough six years. A very eventful six years...
I know, I know. This does not say anything about the actual six years. It was the morning of the fourth of January, when i woke up in the Remington Hotel on 46th Street, and started to realize that I am absolutely, positively, not a tourist, and that this is going to be some rough ride. I also realized that the little money that i had with me would not last for very long. Hmm...
Happy New Year, again... I am now entering "Das verflixte siebte Jahr" with New York. This is going to be a good one. : )

Happy New Year. This one will be great. Sure about this one. No doubt. The morning was great already. A message from a dear friend, pictures not expected, so nice. Drawings, reflections, enough discipline to get the right amount of drawings done per day.
And some excellent reading. One great moment of my visit to Toronto was when I came across the publication announcement of Richard Ford¹s new book, a collection of stories really, A Multitude of Sins. The book will be available in the States in February, but readers in Canada and England already are allowed to read the stories, of which some have been published before.
I was lucky enough to be in Canada, so I was able to get a copy of the book, and what a great book it is. Richard Ford¹s language is like a really rich, creamy piece of chocolate cake. The reading feels so soft and warm. And under the cover of this warmth and sweetness is a brilliantly strung story composition. He manages to develop the characters in a way that makes the stories into touchable experiences. Brilliance. The theme is quite delicious too, failing, confused, complex relationships. What a read. Read "Under the radar" twice today, with such de. Such dirty multilayered illustration of a bad situation. The first sentence sets the stage for a perfect tragedy, and the story just manages to slowly take us down the slope to worse and worse. The situation gets worse, the story and the language keep the deliciously sweet, sly southern flavor. Just the first sentence is so good, i have to quote it here. This should not be a copyright problem, since I am obviously advertising the book here... "On the drive over to the Nicholsons' for dinner - their first in some time - Marjorie Reeves told her husband, Steven Reeves, that she had had an affair with George Nicholson (their host) a year ago, but that it was all over with now and she hoped he - Steven - would not be mad about it and could go on with life."
Just one Sentence...
Happy New Year.
Everyone.
Cheers