Teddy Roosevelt’s diary entry from the day his wife died. He never spoke of her death again.
(Source: threeoverten)
Reblogged from wildcatskitchen with 72,168 notes
Owners with their black cats, waiting in line for audition in movie “Tales of Terror.” Photograph by Ralph Crane, Hollywood (1961 )
Reblogged from ophicoddity with 3,295 notes
Video by qrotozoa productions, composed of 7500 images shot in Fron, Norway over 12 hours. Backing track: Boards of Canada, A Beautiful Place in the Country. (via Dangerous Minds).
Roman Opałka (1931-2011)
Time as we live it and as we create it embodies our progressive disappearance; we are at the same time alive and in the face of death–that is the mystery of all living beings. The consciousness of this inevitable disappearance broadens our experiences without diminishing our joy. There is always the omnipresent idea of nature, of its ebb and flow of life. This essence of reality can be universally understood; it is not only mine but can be commonly shared in our unus mundus.
Roman Opałka - “Rencontre par la séparation”, AFAA, Paris, 1987
In 1965 Roman Opałka started painting numbers. As we would logically expect, he started at 1, and continued without end in sight or mind. The artist’s task, entitled “OPALKA 1965 / 1 — ∞” was a project which, once started, would be measured and limited by the lifespan of the artist. Ambitiously titled “1-∞”, the personalisation of the process through the inclusion of the artist’s name in the title effectively ensured that the task would be never-ending, but would also, somewhat paradoxically, have a definitive, fixed end date: the mortality of man would never allow Opałka, or any other, to reach infinity. Thus the project became, in a way, a measurement of time: not time stretching ahead into infinity, but the time and life of one man, who is actively engaged with the slow and inevitable movement towards his death.
The first digit was painted in white at the upper left-hand corner of a black canvas, continuing horizontally, digit by digit, then row by row until the canvas was completely covered in numbers. When one canvas (or “detail”) was complete, another one would be begun, picking up numerically where the last had finished.
Whilst the shade of grey of the background would change, becoming lighter and lighter as time progressed, the digits were always painted in white, and each of these canvases have the same dimensions: 196 x 135cm. In 1968, Opałka added further personalising elements to his documentation of time, tape-recording his voice recanting each number he painted, and taking a snapshot of his face in front of the canvas at the end of a day’s work.
One might initially assume or expect that this project, methodical and heavily detailed, would be boring, uniform and uninteresting to behold. In reality, the opposite is true. Often, when we consider a painting or an artwork, the task of understanding the meaning or appreciating the technique of the artist leads us away from consideration of the physical creation of the piece, of the physicality of the artist and the connection between the final outcome and its creator, even more so when considering the entire oeuvre of an artist. However, when we consider Roman Opałka’s work, we cannot avoid the consideration of dedication and perseverance of the artist in his endeavour.
That said, in addition to the conceptual and theoretical aspects of the work, the aesthetic power of these canvases is not to be underestimated. As the numbers are hand-painted, there is an inevitable variation of size, slant and the fading between paint applications leads to a hazy, cloud-like and floating effect, and is also reminiscent of a representation of electrical impulses. The ethereal nature of the canvases increased as the background greys lightened, eventually becoming white-on-white.
As we trace the increase of the size of the number, the lightness of the background, we also follow the ageing of a man: the greying of the hair, the wrinkling of the skin. Essentially, we are tracing the path from youth, marching quietly towards death. The idea of death permeates the work of Opałka completely. To the human mind, the concept of infinity chiefly presents fear, wonderment and anxiety over our limitations, our incorrigible finiteness.
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Olafur Eliasson, Viewing Machine, 2001-08. Stainless steel, 190 x 530 cm, Inhotim, Brasil.
Creating an effect of reflected light with six mirrors forming a hexagonal tube, this work by Olafur Eliasson is based on the principles of a kaleidoscope. Etymologically, the word “kaleidoscope” is formed from the Greek words kalos (beautiful), eidos (form) and scopos (watcher): “watcher of beautiful shapes,” which the artist has reinterpreted as the work’s title, Viewing machine. The visitor is invited to maneuver the machine toward a point of interest inside or outside the gallery space. Through superimposed reflections, a myriad of forms is exposed. Internationally, Eliasson is one of the most visible artists working today. His often large-scale installations artificially re-create natural phenomena in order to examine the perception of light, time, gravity, movement and sound. Recurring elements in his production are steam, water, fire, wind or the sun. In Viewing machine (2001–2008), as with other works by the artist, the experience and the process of perception, rather than physical laws, are central to Eliasson’s interests. The sculpture functions as a tool for modifying our vision of the world, and the pleasure and playfulness in Eliasson’s work is, last but not least, nothing other than the joy of perceiving, learning and realizing ourselves.
