TAUBA AUERBACH

Tauba Auerbach, born in 1981 in Frisco.

She's so elegant, and methodical in her optical trickery. I love her works.

Auerbach has a background in typography and an interest in scientific books. Her work can be described as an exploration of semiotics, with a playful hint.

Like a scientist, she dissects language as a code of symbols and a conduit for ideas.

She's (like me and Lewis Carrol, etc.) so into anagram (a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another), which historically has been utilized to carry secret messages or hidden meanings and by great writers such Carroll and most of all, Nabokov.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2010 Quarry, Whitney Museum Construction Site Installation, New York

2010 New Year, Western Bridge, Seattle

2009 Here and Now/And Nowhere, Deitch Projects, New York

2008 Passengers, Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco, California

2008 The Uncertainly Principle, Standard (Oslo), Oslo, Norway

2007 The Answer/Wasn’t Here, Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, California

2006 Yes and Not Yes, Deitch Projects, New York

2005 All Time, All the Time, San Francisco Art Commission, San Francisco, California

2005 How to Spell the Alphabet, New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California

A lovely week

I've spent the most happy week with one of the most brilliant contemporary young artists, Matt Leines, and his adorable girlfriend, Anni Altshuler, also an artist who makes beautiful prints with lovely girls, both members of the fabulous Space 1026.

The left this morning for Philly and i'm so sad; hope i could go to Philly in the summer, though!

Matt was here in Milan for his first solo show at Galleria Patricia Armocida, Time Before Time.

You totally have to see the show: is one of the best shows of this year!

Here some links...

The Gallery website

Anni's Flickr

Space 1026

Matt&Anni working at the gallery installation:

Some days I think this:

Courtesy of Steve Powers

As Nico said, i don't do too much talking these days.

This Steve Powers' artwork seems to be pretty appropriate.

IAN CURTIS R.I.P.

Jessica Grindstaff & Erik Sanko

I've found on the Selby's, this amazing photos of Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko's place.

It is my dream home, in every shade, every detail. I simply love it.

Actually, Jessica Grindstaff is a talented artist, you can see her dioramas here:

www.jessicagrindstaff.com

Jessica also creates weird prizes broches.

Erik Sanko makes wonderful marionettes and he's also a musician, in the band Skeleton Key.

all photos © todd selby 2010, all rights reserved.

One of the preizes made by Jessica...I definitely want one of them.

conjoined twins always enchanted me.

Mary Chulkhurst and Elisa Chulkhurst (1100–1134) (also known as the Biddenden Maids) are one of the earliest known set of conjoined twins. According to local tradition, the Biddenden twins were born in Biddenden, Kent, England in the year 1100. The twins were joined at the hip, although illustrations also depict them joined at the shoulder. They reportedly lived until 1134, when Mary died from illness. Eliza was asked if she wanted to be separated from her twin, and she answered, "As we came together we will also go together". She died about six hours later. The two left their estate of about 20 acres (8.1 ha) to the churchwardens of Biddenden. The rent from this property was to be used to provide a dole of bread and cheese (and later beer and tea) to the poor of the village on each Easter Monday. There are various documents referring to this tradition dating to the 1500s. The first mention of the twins in print was in the late 18th century, and there is considerable doubt about whether they existed or are simply a tradition that developed around the Chulkhurst Charity. Even if they existed, the period they lived may have been as late as the 16th century.

I want this book

This is a book by Todd Selby, a view of creative hipsters and their houses or spaces. I'll order it on Amazon, since is already sold out...

Drawing Room Confessions

A game played at the end of the nineteenth century in England and France. The game consisted of a fixed questionnaire answered by the players to reveal their tastes, aspirations and personality. Marcel Proust is the most famous player of this game. In his teens, he answered a questionnaire in English in a 'confessions album' that belonged to one of his friends. Later, in his twenties, he produced a second version in a French album called Les Confidences de Salon or Drawing Room Confessions.

Blond redhead, here we go again!

Today i've returned to be a redhead.

My english rose essence.

A new piece for my art collection...

©Ericailcane

anagramma del martedì mattina

My name...

Anagramma del lunedì mattina

HAVE FUN...

art to cut out

Beatrice Pasquali is a young artist from Verona.

She made this images to cut out, taken from her artworks,

for inventing stories or playing with them like children.

(you can watch her art at www.beatricepasquali.it)

Beatrice Pasquali © Tutti i diritti riservati.

Scent of Norfolk.

I'm in love with this cake.

Lavender Pound Cake

2½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. vanilla extract

½ tsp. baking soda

4 eggs

½ tsp. salt

1cup sour cream

2 cups sugar

¼ cup milk

1 tbsp. dried lavender flowers

Drizzle: (see Note)

¼ cup water

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter,

1 tbsp. dried lavender flowers softened

¾ cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 8½ x 4½ x 2⅝-inch loaf pans.

2. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in medium-size bowl. Pulse ½ cup of the sugar

with the lavender in a food processor until the lavender is ground.

3. In a large bowl, beat butter, lavender-flavored sugar, remaining 1½ cups sugar

and vanilla until fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after

each. In a small bowl, combine sour cream and milk. On low speed, alternately

beat in flour mixture with sour cream mixture in 3 additions, beginning and

ending with the flour. Divide between pans.

4. Bake at 350° for 55 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Cool on rack 10

minutes. Remove cakes from pans and let cool completely.

5. Drizzle: Microwave water and lavender for 30 seconds on high power. Let steep

5 minutes. Strain out lavender flowers and discard.

6. Once cake is cool, whisk together 4 teaspoons of the lavender water with the

confectioner’s sugar. Drizzle over both loaves. Slice and serve.

Harvest lavender on a dry morning when a few flower buds are just beginning

to open. Wrap small bunches with a rubber band and hang out of direct sunlight.

Once dry, rub the flowers off the stalks and store in an airtight container. Make sure

that you’re not storing any flowers that are moldy or wet.

Alice in Wonderland syndrome

I actually think i can suffer of it...But only on odd days.

The name “Alice in Wonderland” syndrome was coined by Todd in 1955 to describe the phenomena of micro- or macrosomatognosia, i.e. altered perceptions of body image,which had first been described by Lippman in the context of migraine some years earlier. It has subsequently been suggested that Dodgson’s own experience of migraine, recorded in his diaries, may have given rise to his descriptions of Alice’s changes in body form, so graphically illustrated in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel. These have been interpreted as somesthetic migrainous auras. However, Blau has challenged this interpretation on chronological grounds, finding no evidence in Dodgson’s diaries for the onset of migraine until after he had written the Alice books. Moreover, migraine with somatosensory features is rare,and the diaries have no report of migraine- associated body image hallucinations. Podoll & Robinson have discovered an earlier drawing by Dodgson suggesting that he did in fact suffer migraine aura symptoms before writing the Alice books, but the illustration suggests a right paracentral negative scotoma rather than micro- or macrosomatognosia.

Other conditions may also give rise to the phenomena of micro- or macrosomatognosia, including epilepsy, encephalitis, cerebral mass lesions, schizophrenia, and drug intoxication. It may be speculated that the latter is relevant to Alice since her experiences occur after drinking

from a phial (“DRINK ME”) and after eating cake (“EAT ME”).

Andrew Larner is the editor of

our Book Review Section.He is

a Consultant Neurologist at the

Walton Centre for Neurology

and Neurosurgery in Liverpool,

with a particular interest in

dementia and cognitive disor-

ders.

The pdf of the entire article: http://www.acnr.co.uk/pdfs/volume4issue6/v4i6history.pdf

Pouring tea.

This morning i woke up, i poured my Ceylon Green Tea and i read Virginia Woolf's essay on Jane Austen (in The Common Reader, The Hogarth Press, London, 1925).

To me, it was like the two writers were having a nice and smart conversation in front of a cup of Darjeeling Tea, with scones and muffins.

So i've made a literary diorama to make this conversation possible.

Madeleines au tilleul and egg cups...

Amplified Proust.

for 30 madeleines:

flour 150g
sugar 180g
butter 150g
eggs 3
1 lemon peel
baking powder, one spoon and 1/2
dried and minced lime blossom flowers, 2 spoons

Mash all ingredients together, and leave the dough to settle for two hours. Fill the madeleines moulds and bake for 15 minutes half turn.

Yesterday i found the silver egg cup i used when i was two...It has a little bump on the cover.

I remember throwing it on the floor because i didn't wanted to eat the egg anymore.

My Proustian memories are everyday stronger...

Albertine, crystallized in a ceramic figure smiles at me, holding Monsieur Marcel's reading glasses.

Old times.

My Wonderland is the attic of my boyfriend's grandparents.

Curiosity is the only key to enter this diaphanous world of dust and memories.

"Shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth."

"Go and catch a falling star
Get with child a mandrake root
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot..."


John Donne



Mandragora (that belongs to the Nightshades family- Solanaceae) has always been my favourite plant.

When i was a child i wanted to be a witch. I also had a little witchcraft handbook... There were many recipes with mandarake root and i always wished i had a mandrake in my garden.
Witches also used the root to sculpt their magistrellus, a lucky charm.

Now i'm in love with a mandrake doll.





"...Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday."

Shakespeare, Othello.