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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Zhou Xun

Zhou Xun

Zhou Xun was born on 18 October 1976 in Quzhou, Zhejiang, China. She is an internationally acclaimed Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as the four most promising young film actresses in China with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Vicki Zhao, in the early 2000s.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Sienna Miller

Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller was born on December 28, 1981 in New York City. She is an actress and model. She is a good friend of Keira Knightley now a days.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Riyo Mori
Riyo Mori
Riyo Mori
Riyo Mori

Riyo MoriRiyo Mori won the Miss Universe 2007 title in Mexico City, Mexico on May 28, 2007. “My mind went blank,” she said of the winning moment.

Riyo Mori was born on December 24, 1986 in Aoi-ku, Shizuoka, Japan. She is a vivaciuos Japanese dance instructor. Mori was crowned Miss Universe Japan on 15 March 2007 by outgoing titleholder Kurara Chibana.

In Miss Universe 2007 competition she achieved the highest score in the swimsuit competition, which advanced her to the top ten and the evening gown competition, in which she placed fourth. At the conclusion of the competition, she was crowned Miss Universe, becoming the second woman from Japan to hold the title. Mori is the eighth Asian woman to win the pageant, the most recent being Lara Dutta of India who was Miss Universe 2000. She received the crown from last year's winner, Zuleyka Rivera of Puerto Rico.

Congratulations to Mori.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

...at the Lost Virginity World, by Dominic Wilcox.

Vidya Balan

Vidya Balan

Vidya Balan was born January 1, 1982 in Palakkad, Kerala. She is an Indian actress based in Mumbai, India. In 2005, Balan made her Hindi film debut in Parineeta.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Raima Sen

Raima Sen

Raima Sen was born on 11 November 1981. She is an Indian film actress. She is the daughter of actress Moon Moon Sen and the granddaughter of legendary actress Suchitra Sen. Her sister, Riya Sen, is also in the Bollywood industry.

She made her debut in the film Godmother, which was a critically acclaimed success, but her minor role may have been overlooked in favour of the protagonist, played by Shabana Azmi.

Her breakthrough role came when she starred in the Rituparno Ghosh's film Chokher Bali. She won much praise for her role as the simple, submissive Ashalata.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Perizaad Zorabian

Perizaad Zorabian was born on October 23, 1973. She is an Indian actress who made her debut with Nagesh Kukunoor's movie, Bollywood Calling.

She also acted in the film Morning Raga with co-star
Shabana Azmi.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Mandira Bedi

Mandira Bedi

Mandira Bedi was born on April 15, 1972 and brought up in Mumbai. She is an Indian Bollywood actress, who shot to international fame first as television star in the soap Shanti and then as a television presenter during the 2003 Cricket World Cup and also in 2007 Cricket World Cup. She was also one of the main villains in the hit Indian drama Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, in which she played role of Mandira.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Neha Dhupia

Neha Dhupia

Neha Dhupia was born on August 27, 1980 in Cochin. She is an Indian model and actress. She was crowned Miss India in 2002 and competed at Miss Universe 2002, placing in the top ten.

She rose to popularity with her bold role in the movie Julie and often considered a sex symbol in Bollywood movies.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Nandita Das

Nandita Das

Nandita Das was born on November 7, 1969 in Delhi, India. She is an Indian actress. She is known for her critically acclaimed performances in the films Fire, Earth directed by Deepa Mehta, Bawander directed by Jagmohan Mundhra and Amar Bhuvan directed by Mrinal Sen. You can know more about Nandita here.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Jesse Randhawa

Jesse Randhawa

Jesse Randhawa is model from India.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Jharana Bajracharya

Jharana Bajracharya is a Nepali model-turned-film actress. She was crowned Miss Nepal in 1997, at the age of sixteen. She was also the first representative for Nepal at Miss World.

Sayali Bhagat

Sayali Bhagat

Sayali Bhagat was the winner of the Femina Miss India World 2004 contest. She entered the modeling industry, followed by bollywood and will soon appear in her first hindi film The Train, co-staring Emraan Hashmi and Geeta Basra. The movie is scheduled to released in the summer of 2007.

Natalie Gulbis

Natalie Gulbis

Natalie Anne Gulbis was born on January 7, 1983 in Sacramento, California. She is an American professional golfer who plays on the U.S. based LPGA Tour. Gulbis is considered to be the only LPGA sex symbol.

She played in her first LPGA tour event as an amateur at the age of 14. She placed in the top-10 in four consecutive major championships from the 2005 LPGA Championship to the 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Indeed, it looked suspicious.
You see, the combination of a mouth and a flower is usually considered sensual.
But in Ursula Sokolowska's art? This may be erotic. Actually, it may be considered sexual. But there is something too disturbing about it to make us think of a feminine, sensual image. The way the mouth is open, somewhat like at a medical exam - and then there's the projected image, which highlights some of the traces while completely eliminating, flattening out others. Thus, the mouth is both deep and shallow. The image spreads, but is strangely attached to the body that supports it.
See another example, my favorite:
Here, the limits are out-of-focus, only the lips remain crystal clear. And the void inside. This is one of the most purely baroque images I know, combining an apparent decorativeness with a powerful tension between the still and the life. As if beneath the surface of artistic illusion we received a sudden gust of reality.

And now, the proportions change. Sokolowska seems to focus more. Focus more on herself, and just focus more. The images can be seen as absolutely terrifying. Like some nightmare, some horrific vision.
And this is a vision, a vision of the artist's past, images of her childhood as the child of Polish immigrants. What we see are all the scary things one might associate with emigration: poverty, tough family relations, a feeling of loss and despair. A small child in hostile surroundings, be they a forest or a kitchen. And from time to time, the mother figure.


The child's face is taken from old pictures. And projected on faceless dolls. It actually looks like this face does not belong here. Which is possibly the most frightening.


But then, we should not forget the distance that is played out when using projection. Once again, the depth and the shallowness/surface play a subtle game. What we see is not a memory. It is a highly formalized game with memory. What captivates in these images is the uncertainty as to whether the form has made the ground safe enough for us to look. After all, a girl is staring at us from the picture. Funny thing, to use the technique of projection. As in a Freudian projection. Or in an image that is sent away from us, just to appear again. Paradoxically closer than the original.

Tabu

Tabu

Tabassum Hashmi aka Tabu was born on November 4, 1970 in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. She is an award-winning Indian actress who has acted in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and English films. She has won the coveted Indian National Film Award for Best Actress twice once for Maachis (1996) and other for for Chandni Bar (2002). She is considered as one of the finest and most versatile actresses in the country and best known for her critically acclaimed acting in many films rather than achieving box office success. Her biggest international hit to date has been the film The Namesake (2007).

Recently, she appeared as in a supporting role for Fanaa (2006) with Aamir Khan and
Kajol. She will soon appear in Cheeni Kum along with Amitabh Bachchan and Paresh Rawal.

She is the niece of
Shabana Azmi.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Meera


Meera is Lahore based Pakistani movie actress. She worked in joint production between India and Pakistan on her first Bollywood project Nazar, directed by Soni Razdan and released in February 2005. It immediately landed in trouble with the Pakistani Government, who objected strongly to a scene where she kisses the hero (played by Ashmit Patel of India), on religious and moral grounds.



And here is the original.


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An absolutely delightful organization called the Szpilman Foundation (whose motto is "Organizing Moments for People") (and who unfortunately has a lot of their site in German) is for the 5th time organizing an absolutely delightful event:



The SZPILMAN AWARD is awarded to works
that exist only for a moment or a short period of time.

The purpose of the award is to promote such works whose

forms consist of ephemeral situations.
The project is brilliant. I still haven't been able to figure out why one of the elements of the prize (besides a 'dynamic amount of money') is a residency in the Polish village of Cimochowizna. But hey, they pay for transport and all!
As for the winners. Well, so far I am not convinced... Which might mean there is room for one of us! The projects I seem to like the most are the ones made by the very people from the Szpilman Foundation (outside of the contest context), such as creating a performance with a lot of strangers and extremely little time.

Of all the finalists and winners of the Szpilman Award from previous years, my favorite one, I think, is this one:


Shannon Bool, Partially Renovated Floor

Shannon Bool purges the floor in her studio at the academy of arts
of the paints and muck of the last 15 years in order to bring back the
original oak parquet.

I am ready to admit that it's very simple, and that similar works have been around for a couple of years. And I like it.
What I like about Bool's work is the sense of transparency. In her later works she insists even more on the relation between what is found (and so, present, previous, old) and what is introduced (see her portfolio on the link on this page). There is an element of vandalism that is always intriguing. Still, I find that this earlier work is so special precisely because it plays the vandalism card like a double-edged sword. For once, we can say that the original, wooden floor is the vandal! This is something to think about, in many contexts. Art history, architecture, urbanism, but also more general: the offense of going back.

Another question is if this should qualify for the Szpilman Award. Generally speaking, many of the selected works do not seem to be as ephemeral as one might want them to be. They are too well documented, too gallery-conscious, too stable, and that, to me, makes them problematic. Not that I insist on total formal rigor, only the time factor seems to me like the very essence of the Award. Beyond the fact that it makes the works often difficult to "sell", or at least to consider on par with other types of art, it simply is about something slightly different. Lighter, maybe.

This is extremely difficult. Trying to analyze yourself as an artist is a hell of a job. There seems to be never enough distance, and especially in contemporary art the frontiers are blurred, not only between genres, but also between types of activity. Some ideas are half-realized, some become realized too quickly, or in a direction I don't necessarily find ideal. The core I am left with is a very unstable one. Of course, this is probably saying more about myself than about the general state (!) of being a "contemporary artist".
The Artist's Development Toolkit is perfect for someone who already knows fairly well what he is doing and where he is heading. It helps in organizing ideas, in realizing the roads that still remain under-explored, and above all, in looking at the (mainly production-based, not artistic) obstacles in your career in a cool, distant way. All this through a self-help methodology. You answer questions, than you read your questions and get some suggestions on how to analyze them. (Don't forget to click on the little "+" signs, they give you extra info that is often much better than all the rest).
To someone really confused, it might bring only despair. It doesn't give answers, doesn't guide you. And we're not talking artistic guidance, but production, career guidance.
It is also an extremely long process. For the patient ones.


So if you're patient, not too lost, not too desperate, if you have a specialized field you're working in, a public, if you pretty well know where you are heading, this may help you. If you really, really need help, then maybe it's better you go and get some - and maybe use this as additional support.
Let me know how it worked out for you!

Oh, and if you want more artist resources, see here.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Rachel Weisz


Rachel Weisz was born on March 7, 1971 in London, England and grew up in Hampstead. She is an Academy Award-winning English actress. She got wide audience recognition for her lead role in a popular serio-comic horror movie The Mummy. She recently turned down the role of Evelyn O'Connell for The Mummy 3.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Some of the most brilliant work being done these days is tautological. (And when that is not bad, it is good). It brings about the best of what is absolutely unspectacular - while managing to keep it at an incredibly low-profile level. It brings about thrilling experiences of the nearly-left-over or nearly-forgotten. At the same time it gets eerily close to both the esoteric and the trivial. And that is a fascinating tension.
If the depth of art cannot be imposed, doesn't that signify there is room for fetching the trivial and bringing it all the way to the esoteric? Isn't this a road we make constantly, constantly redefining what we mean by trivial, and what is too far out?



See more of Lefkowitz here and here. Buy his work here.

PS: Have you noticed how this trunk (named Stump 2 by it's author) is elephant-like?

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Tyra Banks


Tyra Lynne Banks was born on December 4, 1973. She is an African american television personality, Daytime Emmy nominated, author, actress, singer, executive producer, talk show hostess, and retired supermodel.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Ducky


Cathryn Jiggens, Ducky

What is this flight that doesn't take off, what are those hands that do not belong to the body, what are those wings that need rescuing, and this all too closed eye, and this all too open beak? What are the fingers whose tips have drowned?

Laetitia Casta


Laetitia Marie Laure Casta was born on May 11, 1978 in Pont-Audemer, Normandy, France. She is a French supermodel and actress. Time magazine once named her one of the top ten most influential people of the year. Laetitia Casta has appeared on over 100 magazine covers and has been credited, along with Tyra Banks, and a few others, with bringing back the notion of the voluptuous models.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007


Charisma Lee Carpenter was born on July 23, 1970 in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is an American actress. She is best known for playing the character Cordelia Chase in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Kim Clijsters


Kim Clijsters was born on June 8, 1983 in Bilzen, in Flemish Region of Belgium. She is a former World No. 1 ranked, in singles and in doubles, female tennis player from Belgium.

During her professional career, she won 34 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She won the U.S. Open singles title in 2005 and the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002 and 2003. She won the French Open and Wimbledon women's doubles titles in 2003.

Clijsters' tour-best nine titles for the year, which she also achieved in 2005, is the most since Martina Hingis won 12 titles in 1997.

She announced her immediate retirement from tennis on her Web site on May 6, 2007.

Monday, May 7, 2007

You know the idea.
Now go here - and see where you get.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Bryce Dallas Howard

Bryce Dallas Howard was born on March 2, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. She is an American actress known for her roles in the M. Night Shyamalan-directed films The Village and Lady in the Water, and for her role in Spider-Man 3 which also stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.

Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran is leading lady in Tamil movie Sivaji opposite superstar Rajnikant. She will also appear very soon in two Hindi films and a Telugu movie Munna. Nayanthara is doing a special number in Sivaji. View more about Shriya here.

Indrani Das Gupta

Indrani Das Gupta is one of the hottest models on Indian Fashion scene. Indrani wanted to be a lawyer but the world of fashion was more interesting and intriguing and she started her modelling career at age of 18. She was the winner of the Society Achiever's Award for glamour in 2002.

This gorgeous Bengali girl is an economic graduate from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Notes on «Para onde vai a luz quando se apaga?». Premiere May 4, 2007, Culturgest.

1. The performance does not concern the disappearance of light. Rather, it is about the disappearance of shadow. The shadow of causality, of logic, of story-ness, the shadow of the human realm as we know it. Here, what we have are states. Functions. The performers don't act, they remain in action. The very first scene, where the musician walks along all the walls of the stage scratching them with a small microphone, says it all: this is going to take time, and you better deal with it. If you're not happy with it, you might just as well leave now. I will remain as long as it takes. And when it's over, it's simply gone. This doesn't need to lead anywhere but here, to the sound table. It doesn't need to tell a story other than my trip from there to here. Unsatisfied? Yes, I can understand. But can't you just appreciate it, for what it is - somebody's notion of honesty?

2. What is your function? Are you being the person that listens? Or the one that speaks? Are you the guy that draws lines? Are you the dancer girl? And what does that mean? Do you fit in when you do your thing? Do you ever not fit in? What comes out of your standing here?

3. The dancer girl - Márcia - never actually dances. She sort of warms up, tries a jump or two, prepares her body. She gets comfortable. And leaves. While she does that, a snail race is being prepared. During the general rehearsal, when Lenaic put the snails, she didn't align them to make them advance in the same direction, and they just dispersed all over. I asked her after if it was on purpose. She said no, and at the premiere they are quite carefully aligned. And I miss the havoc. I regret having asked the question.

4. The risk is huge. About half of the show is improvised. The structure remains, but the way of filling in, of respecting the tough rules of Real-Time Composition, is up to the performers, and depends on every show. It can always go wrong. It would really make more sense to see two show in a row, every time.

5. The general rehearsal goes very bad. They are aggressive, tired, unimaginative. They choose either the simplest and flat solutions, or they jump off into something completely nonsensical and unrelated. Things seem chaotic. The show ends with a quote from Deleuze, about how happiness/joy empowers. It sounds ironic.

6. The premiere goes incredibly well. Everything is right. The improvised parts all come together. The performers are strong, at first still somewhat too heavy and inexplicably over-present (too dramatic, too «significant», as if they were constantly in the middle of to be or not to be), but the performance quickly gains a good pace.

7. At a certain point, Lenaic leaves the stage with a microphone, and we hear her describing everything she sees. At the same time, Gustavo remains on stage alone, creating an abstract and quite beautiful installation. She walks up to a security guard and starts asking her questions. When asked about what was important to her in working here, the guard answers that the people she meets: «So many good experiences and good encounters. Different people. Artists, normal people...» The audience bursts with laughter. Gustavo keeps on with his paper line.

8. These beautiful visual images, all created in front of our eyes. Imagine witnessing the creation of an installation. One that includes spoken text, and maybe an actor or two, from time to time. But really, it's just like watching a construction sight. Exciting, boring, curious.

9. I talk to the performers after the show. They all seem very happy. Only at a certain point Cláudia, João's long-time collaborator, looks at me and says: «Oh my god, what is it going to be like tomorrow? I don't know why it goes well when it goes well. I still don't know.»

10. For the neophytes: don't expect a fridge.

To see a video of a fragment cut from the final version of the show, go to re-al.org, then click on Artistas - João Fiadeiro - Para Onde Vai A Luz Quando... - Filmes - 1.

Friday, May 4, 2007



After World War 2, Karl Jaspers wrote a by now classic text about guilt, The Question of German Guilt. In his taxonomy, one of the categories of guilt is the "metaphysical guilt", which could be explained as the guilt for not sacrificing ourselves to help others. That is, living our lives and not doing everything we can to make a difference.
The question is, how far can we go? Shouldn't we abandon all forms of art (and entertainment), then, if we are to concentrate all efforts on saving the world? Is there an actual possibility that it would change something?
Of course, that sounds rather extreme. (And that's why Jaspers considers this a metaphysical guilt, shared by everyone and beyond the possibility of making it disappear in any way but through self-sacrifice). But somewhere here lie very difficult issues: why should one spend my time making quite self-centered installations when one could be working in an effective, world-changing organization? Should art be justifiable, like any other product, service, activity?
It isn't about art giving the possibility to do more. Because quite frankly the above video is an exception, and works exactly because it is one. Maybe, it is about the possibility of assuming uselessness?
Beauty is a great motivator. Indeed. (In João Fiadeiro's most recent performance (soon more about that), a sentence from Deleuze (roughly remembered by me): «I started reading Leibniz's Ethics. I am discovering that joy brings more power to act»)
But can we honestly say we make art, and see art, to motivate us? Isn't it a goal in itself? And if so, can't we spend our energy in a better way? How dare we make art?

Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst

Kirsten Dunst was born on April 30, 1982 in Brick, New Jersey. She is a Golden Globe-nominated American actress. She is known for her roles in Interview with the Vampire, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and Bring It On, as well as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man film series.

Her performance in Interview with the Vampire earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination, the MTV Award for Best Breakthrough Performance and the Saturn Award for Best Young Actress. In 1995 and 2002, she was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Tupur Chatterjee

Tupur Chatterjee is a model from India. She is grandaughter of Veteran filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

Tupur has modelled for Titan, Pond's, Thums up, Daewoo and Airtel commercials. She has also walked the ramp with almost every top designer in India.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger

Kimila Ann Basinger was born on December 8, 1953 in Athens, Georgia. She is an Academy Award-winning American film actress and former fashion model. She started her modelling career by winning the Athens Junior Miss contest when she was 16 only and followed that up by winning the title “Junior Miss Georgia".

She was a James Bond girl in Never Say Never Again (1983), where she starred opposite Sean Connery.

Addart

Here's a brilliant step in the long and often difficult challenge of playing the market's rules as an artist. More precisely, the idea is to use the same mechanism that keeps ads away from our web browsing - and turn it into art.
Adblockers are pieces of software that help filter out the commercials that appear on most web pages. Addart goes a step further - and replaces the empty left-over space with, you guessed it, art. So what you get is actually a sort of a virtual art gallery in all the places where you had publicity. Wouldn't it be nice to apply that in real life?
The work is still in prototype mode, but looks promising.
In the example below, the publicity is replaced by Mario Bros. clouds.


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