The I Think Project V

London in Creative Writing - Tate Modern: “I’m here but nothing” by Yayoi Kusama

Reasonable Folly of Polka Dot Splinters of Light

The room is soaked in a blue shadow studded with fluo polka dot stickers: blue, green, red, yellow. The blueness lays on the TV, the sofa, the table, the chairs, the glass on the table, the shelves, the books on the shelves, the floor. The polka dots are splinters of light originated from the tail of a nuclear comet – that’s why their colours don’t fade even after reaching the ground.

I sit on a chair and I wait for them to cover me, but they don’t come. I don’t feel uncomfortable because everything in the room is entangled with polka dots, I feel uncomfortable because I’m not. I am a dark shadow in a world of coloured spots.

This folly created by an obsessive red-bobbed manga character looks really balanced to me. Light and darkness, colours and blueness, even the equidistance between polka dots. This is an intriguing-but-not-creepy kind of folly, the reasonable folly that can be canalised into a piece of art.

Yayoi Kusama will be at Tate Britain until June 5.

The I Think Project IV

Hunger Issue 2 Summer 2012

Summer means hunger: sun, strawberries, sex. If your hunger encompasses inspiration, culture and the unexpected, then have a bite of the summer issue of Hunger magazine. Photography, journalism, fashion, music, arts, beauty are first class, like a champagne glass in the French Riviera. Just they are much edgier, like a champagne glass in the French Riviera with Iggy Pop in the Seventies.

What’s in this champagne then? Circus artists, crows and doll heads. A jewellery photoshoot where jewels are all the models wear. An interview with Monica Bellucci, an insight in the Borough of Art – the East End, haute couture as seen by designers who are “a cut above”. And this is just the first glass.

The editor’s letter clearly reminds us why we are always hungry: “I love you for having faith, for believing that print isn’t dead and that magazines are still worth the paper they’re printed on.” As worth as, let's say, champagne in France?

Indulge in your hunger.

Clerkenwell Design Week

Who: 3 exhibition locations plus 40 showrooms, music, talks, events... an itinerant theatre and a pop up bar!

What: interior design, architecture, graphics, visual and concept creativity

When: 22-23-24 June

Where: Clerkenwell, London

How: free (online registration)

Why: inspiring, eclectic, cutting edge...a nice stroll in the sun in a beautiful part of London

Venue 1: The Farmiloe Building

Southbank Centre

Etsy

Venue 2: Museum of the Order of St John

Solar Tree by Ross Lovegrove

Venue 3: House of Detention

Model: Muse or Mirror of Vanity?

I open a fashion magazine and I get stuck on the ads looking at the stunning Chanel-Alice Dellal connubial. Punk allure, edgy classicism, inelegant fascination, all of this is shouted by the glossy page. There is much beauty in this image, but is the something more that makes it stunning. Alice Dellal is an unconventional beauty, and more than that, she is the embodiment of the Chanel’s campaign. She is more than a model, she is a muse.

I would like to reflect on the word muse, starting from the origins, in ancient Greece, where human beauty was born and chiselled in marble. The muses were the goddesses of arts and science, the sources of knowledge, which was then considered in high esteem and not a rare alternative to everyday life lobotomy. Art was precious and inspiration was so rare and sublime it was deemed divine. When artists still had a role in society and were still able to produce priceless beauty, muses where the ones who granted them this role. Were they beautiful? Like all the Greek gods and heroes, they were. But that’s not why they were given divine honours.

Back to the future, today’s finest art is fashion, and the modern muse is the model… Is she? Some models are pretty bodies in a wonderful dress, pretty faces in fashion magazines, luxurious accessories for the rich and famous. They look the same, talk the same, think the same… Do they do that at all? It’s the 21^st century, baby, objects matter more than people, clothes matter more than models. Art is not divine anymore, everybody thinks he’s an artist and anything beautiful, nice or ugly is inspiring. Do we still need muses?

Yes, we do. Among all those flesh and blood ghosts on the catwalks, there still walks the Greek type muse. She inspires the designer, or the designers, enhances the garments, instead of merely wearing them; she is the one for whom they are especially made. In a world where fashion is more conceptual than wearable,(and sometimes even not wearable) piece of art more than accessory, it is difficult to forget the primary and most simple reason behind the industry of glitters and stilettos: women. And some of them are more than beautiful, they can even make an ugly dress look pretty, to paraphrase the muse Kate Moss.

At the beginning it was Audrey Hepburn with Givenchy, and she was so inspiring that Audrey style and Givenchy style were the same thing. Of course Givenchy made gorgeous things, but they looked even more gorgeous on his muse. And certainly Audrey was more than a “sunny funny face”. Can we say the same about today’s models?

The answer again is on glossy paper, and especially Dolce&Gabbana ad for the lipstick Monica, inspired by Monica Bellucci. The Italian model and actress, proud of her curves, not afraid of aging and dedicated mother, is THE muse. With a sensual voice that could betray a divine origin, she makes unconventional choices and doesn’t compromise with society’s and Hollywood’s un-ethics. She is the ultimate icon in Dolce&Gabbana’s S/S 2012 campaign, displaying traditional, archetypical and stereotypical Italy. And what says Bella Italia more than Monica Bellucci? Not Madonna for sure.

London in Creative Writing - Storm in a Teacup

The Top Hats Tea Party

The Mad Hatter and Willy Wonka would love it. They would buy some vintage Vivienne Westwood and think those are quite futuristic clothes for somebody who was somebody under Queen Victoria or in the Sixties. They would choose the clothes to match their top hats and their teacups.

They would buy some vintage candies, sold in their vintage jars at the counter. They would not eat them of course – why should they eat anything not containing any chocolate or tea? But those candies are so colourful they make you ecstatic, like chocolate and tea do. They would buy them to match their folly and their hats.

Then they would sit in the back garden, the one you can see from the window at the back of the shop, one on the chair and one on the sofa, they would have their tea and their chocolate and they would talk about what those people always talk about. And they would be really proud of their hats and their vintage candies… what’s a mad tea party without them anyway?

The I Think Project III