Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light (A Post-Script)

"Christen Købke found his true self as well as his artistic themes in his close surroundings. He was not John Constable, nor Caspar David Friedrich, but in a strange way he was in some respects like them, just as one might find, without any real explanation, a flower growing where no-one would expect it. In Denmark, we have taken quiet pleasure in this, but since there is nothing better than to be able to share, it gives us even more enjoyment that in recent years Købke has come to occupy a place of honour in the context of the period between Napoleon and the European ideals of freedom."

– HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark
Extract from the foreword to
'Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light' by David Jackson

Certosa di San Lorenzo (A Post-Script)

"People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die."

- H H Munro (Saki)
Reginald - Reginald on Christmas Presents

There is (sadly) no Chartreuse in evidence at the Charterhouse of San Lorenzo, but the Statute of 1582 did provide as follows:

"Noi diciamo che il vino non conviene ai monaci, ma poichè nel nostro tempo non si può convincerli noi vi consentiamo, a questa condizione che mai non ne berremo a sazietà, ma con misura."

A rather pragmatic attitude and, all things considered, a pretty appropriate approach for a religion based on the commemorative supping of wine!

Kurta Carousel at the Art Oasis

I came across Zain Mustafa's 'Carousel' quite unexpectedly at the Art Oasis at the Wafi in Dubai this afternoon. At first glance, it wasn't particularly exciting: eighteen plain white kurtas, each emblazoned with a word from Allama Iqbal's poem from the Bang-e-Dara (Call of the Marching Bell). The transliteration from the Urdu read, 'Hazaroon saal nargis apni bey noori ray rothi hay, Bari mushkil say hotha hay chaman mein deedawar paida'. This was accompanied by a rather cryptic English translation which read, 'For thousands of years Narcissus weeps at her ugliness. It is with great difficulty that someone is born in the garden (of Eden) with eyes'. What was intriguing was the story behind each kurta, written in English in a neat cursive hand on a large yellow label attached to each garment. Difficult to tell if these were true or simply made up – they were certainly plausible enough to be affecting.

A random selection:

"Name: Muna
Age: 22 years old
Nationality: Emirati
Sex: Female
Recent graduate in architecture. Just married. Killed in a fatal car crash on Sheikh Zayed Road – was not her fault. Kurta was bought for her by her brother. Found in car at crash scene. Muna had dreams of becoming an internationally acclaimed architect."

"Name: Antonio
Age: 38 years old
Nationality: Spanish
Sex: Male
Financial analyst at the DIFC (Dubai International Financial Centre). Collector of ethnic items of clothing. As part of his collection, a kurta was hanging over his bed on his bedroom wall as a piece of art in his villa in the Meadows. During the rains last January, his house leaked, flooding his bedroom. Much to his sadness, he had to throw away the kurta."

"Name: Michiko
Age: 18 years old
Nationality: Japanese
Sex: Female
Fashion photographer's assistant. Travelling with a well-known international fashion photographer in her first time out of Japan. She was on a yacht for an editorial photo shoot wearing her kurta as a fashion statement. A sharp turn of the yacht and turbulent waters caused her to fall off and drown. Her kurta was found floating."

"Name: Luke
Age: 35 years old
Nationality: Australian
Sex: Male
Lived in Dubai for six years with his wife and two kids. Deported along with family for indecent exposure on the beach. Accidentally picked up someone else's shopping bag with kurtas at the mall. Kurta found in his home being used as a cleaning rag."

The Unguarded Moment

"As a photographer, I am sustained by the rhythms of everyday life: the routines of herding and fishing; the chanting of prayers and the hawking of wares. Where do humans sleep? How do we feed ourselves? How do we keep warm? For me, documenting the infinitely varied ways we meet these fundamental human needs has proven to be a profound journey indeed.

The sequence of images that follows is not tied to specific events or cultures, but is instead suggestive of the vast tapestry of human experience and my chance encounters with silhouette and shadow, water and light, spire and sky. In this exhibition, I wanted to create for the audience [sic] a sense of beauty and wonder I'm confronted with during my travels when the shock of the strange rubs against the delight of the familiar.

These frictions - between past and present, the sacred and the profane, the domestic and the exotic - invigorate me. My impulse is to share them, to draw a circle of stillness around them so they can touch and inspire others.

[...]

In the end, I can't imagine another way of living. My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. Here are the results of this restless curiosity - a selection of those precious, unguarded moments I was fortunate enough to witness."

- Steve McCurry
Introduction to the Unguarded Moment
A photographic exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum

It was good to find McCurry's portrait of Sharbat Gula, the 'Afghan Girl' (pictured above), in the exhibition. I remember that arresting gaze - those extraordinary eyes, so startlingly green - staring out at me from the cover of a back issue of a National Geographic magazine, which I used to read as a schoolboy. A haunting image that has the power still to mesmerise.

Viceregal Lodge

"...Despite its modest size and toy-town appearance, Simla was [once] one of the most powerful places on the face of the earth. For seven months out of every twelve, this cool Himalayan eyrie replaced sweltering Calcutta, and later Delhi, as the capital of the mighty British Indian Empire. [...]

Every year, as the heat on the plains below became unbearable, a mass migration of Europeans took place up to the many hill-stations built along the southern slopes of the Himalayas. But one particular exodus, which has been likened to Hannibal's army crossing the Alps, was quite different from all the others. This was the annual departure for Simla of the Viceroy and his Council, together with their senior advisers, aides and families, not to mention cohorts of retainers. Towards the end of March or the beginning of April they made their way there from Calcutta, 1,200 miles away, by train, tonga, rickshaw and pony. Hot on their heels followed a small army of civil servants, Indian clerks and other functionaries, while behind them toiled a long baggage-train laden with filing cabinets and other official paraphernalia. 'Government out of a suitcase,' one Viceroy called it. Then, every October or November, the caravan rolled once more, bearing the Great Ones back to their splendid offices and residences in the winter capital, and their minions to more humble ones. And so it went on, year in and year out, from 1864 to 1939, when the practice ceased, though in 1911 the great trek was considerably shortened when Delhi replaced Calcutta as the new imperial capital."

- Peter Hopkirk
Quest for Kim - In Search of Kipling's Great Game

Pictured above is the old Viceregal Lodge in Shimla. Difficult to imagine that an entire sub-continent was once ruled from this august but isolated edifice... Here too, away from the throng and bustle of the plains, was where Partition was decided.

Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture (A Post-Script)

"The Barbican art gallery has just launched its major spring show, devoted to the architecture of Le Corbusier. The many vigorous reactions, for and against, have reopened all the powerful arguments about the legacy of modernism and about Le Corbusier’s influence on buildings you either love or loathe.

One thing is certain: this exhibition is in the right place. The Barbican Centre, which opened in 1982 after years of planning, was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, who were directly inspired by Le Corbusier’s vision for utopian living. The Barbican’s high-density urban housing, linked by high walkways away from street level, was a quixotic enterprise at the time, and has often been criticised since. But now it is recognised as an iconic, unique undertaking (“There is nothing quite like the Barbican in all British architecture,” says Pevsner). [...] In fact the whole centre is surely a superb example of a form which has spawned too many inadequate imitations. Le Corbusier shouldn’t be blamed for all the awful, substandard copies of his ideas, any more than Rachmaninov can be blamed for all those slushy film scores derived from bad imitations of his music."

- Sir Nicholas Kenyon
The Diary, FT Weekend edition, March 7/March 8 2009
(http://http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cf2e22e2-09dc-11de-add8-0000779fd2ac.html)