Slow Down
I’d like to share with you one of my all-time favourite movie scenes – from the somewhat overlooked 1995 film, Smoke. In this film, Harvey Keitel plays Auggie, the owner of a tobacco shop. Auggie’s pet project is to photograph his tobacco shop. Every day he goes across the street and takes, what is basically [...]
Generation Slash Revisited
Chase Jarvis recently posted a copy of his interview with Juxtapoz magazine. It’s a great read if you are into photography, fine art of just the whole big creative thing. A few lines really stood out for me, “And for what it’s worth, I’ve been told my whole career that being a hyphen, that not [...]
Dalí, Subversive Humour And Learning To Be An Artist
My favourite film of 2011 was Midnight in Paris. Among the many memorable scenes there is a wonderful moment when Owen Wilson’s lead character meets Salvador Dalí, played by Adrien Brody. Of course, the real life Dalí was every bit as over the top and amusing to behold as Brody’s portrayal suggests. Yesterday I stumbled [...]
December Wallpaper
This image was created recently in Oaxaca. Earlier in the day, David duChemin had made the comment that there didn’t seem to be a lot of photographers shooting still life images these days. That got me thinking, what other classic styles of photography were perhaps being under-experlored today? My mind quickly wandered to surrealism. Now, [...]
7 Kinds Of People You Need In Your Creative Universe
Sustaining yourself in a creative endeavour, be it photography, music, design, writing or any other art, requires relationships. You can’t do it alone. People won’t just “discover” your work and you’ll struggle to bounce back from the inevitable setbacks and disappointments. Moreover you’ll need folks that can help you stay true to your goals, focussed [...]
Being Harold Pinter
Is truth in art the same as truth in everyday life? That question animates many debates about the role of politics in art; be it photography, music, film a or theatre. That same question forms the core of the Belarus Free Theatre’s daring production, Being Harold Pinter. This is a controversial and critically acclaimed work, [...]
Do It Everyday, Over And Over, Again And Again And Think About It
You know those articles – the ones that give you lots of neat little suggestions to improve some are of your life – 25 ways to be a better parent, 5 ways to become a famous guitarist, or 10 ways to improve your love-life? Tips? Yeah, I hate those. Tips; not the money you leave [...]
Twitter As A Quote Engine
Twitter is used in a lot of ways. One purpose I like is sharing quotes. I’ve always been, even from childhood, a fan of a good quote. I used to love thumbing through our family book of quotes and have dropped good quotes into essays, sermons, articles, blogposts and everyday conversation. Lately, I’ve even started [...]
Looking For Mies
Looking for Mies is a production by Zuni Icosahedron staged as part of the Architecture Is Art Festival, here in Hong Kong. I had the opportunity to attend this afternoon’s matinee performance and I’ve very glad I did. Mies Van De Rohe is a towering figure in contemporary architecture and whilst most of us are [...]
Drawing A Line In The Sand
Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who won her country’s version of the national “Got Talent” television contest. She creates an animation, in real-time, using a backlit sandbox, to depict her nations struggle during the Second World War. Like a lot of people, I’ve mesmerised by her work and performance. If you haven’t already seen [...]
On Being An Artist
I’m not an artist. I can recall having “been” certain things – I was a banker, I was an academic. These days I call myself a musician and a writer, but it’s a tenuous claim if you go by output, by impact on the world. I was thinking about this while reading Hazel Dooney’s excellent [...]
West Kowloon Cultural District (Improving Hong Kong 3 of 3)
There are some good intentions behind the proposals for the new West Kowloon Culturual District. Hong Kong does need more venues, especially a larger venue for ballet and classical concerts and a large auditorium for touring pop, jazz and rock acts (who often bypass Hong Kong all together). Hong Kong also needs to diversify its [...]
From Around The Blogosphere This Week
Violencia en las iglesias a fieles teledirigidos – Forms of symbolic violence that are seen in churches. I’ve been pondering, for some time now, writing a piece on asymmetrical relationships and symbolic violence and this excellent list is more food for thought. Dear Crazy, Deranged Fools, I’m Stating A Newsletter – Hugh is starting a [...]
Hong Kong Arts Festival – I/In
One of the fastest selling events in this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival was I/In, a collaboration between dancer Akram Khan and actor Juliette Binoche. Khan has performed a number of times at the HKAF and two years ago I reviewed his magnificent show Sacred Monsters. I/In is a risk that neither artist needed to [...]
Hong Kong Arts Festival – Karbido: The Table
Saturday afternoon we enjoyed one of the more unusual and original performances of this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival. Karbido is a production from Poland that pushes the idea of found music built from everyday objects in fresh and interesting directions. The stage was set in the round, with an ordinary looking square wooden table [...]
Why Spanglish Made Me Cry
Some of you may not know this, but, for most of the 80s and 90s I had long hair, seriously long hair, not unlike the seattle grunge look (though more eddie vedder than kurt cobain). A little later, in ’95 I decided to cut my hair, for two simple reasons; a) i was sick of [...]
Creative Districts In Hong Kong?
Someone looking to move to Hong Kong posted an interesting question today on one of the ex-pat forums. They were wondering if there was a district in Hong Kong with an artsy vibe, like the 3rd in Paris or Chelsea in New York. The consensus from the respondents was that Hong Kong can’t offer that. [...]
Re-Modernism
Re-Modernism. It’s something I’ve been thinking about. It seems to describe a lot of current trends. It’s a word-suggestion that you may find helpful. Technorati Tags: Re-Modernism
Things I’m Reading
Here’s the closest bookshelf for the month of March. Concerning The Spiritual In Art – Wassily Kadinsky Art And Social Change: A Critical Reader – ed Will Bradley and Charles Esche The Lucifer Effect – Philip Zimbardo The Secular Age – Charles Taylor The Luminous Dusk – Dale C. Alison Jr Ain’t Too Proud To [...]
The Song Remains Different (Week 10)
The Great 2008 Mac Pro Migration is finally complete. In the end I decided to drop the original boot drive for another Samsung F1 750GB, so I now have three rives that are so quiet, I can’t hear the computer in normal operation. Amazing! This week is fairly quiet, which means a lot of time [...]
Chanel Mobile Art
phone022 Originally uploaded by fernandogros. Today was the opening of the Chanel Mobile Art exhibition here in Hong Kong (atop the old Star Ferry Carpark). It’s a tour of contemporary art, exploring the themes of gaze, identity, skin and the evocative French phrase “empty your bag.” It’s an at times depressing, but in the end [...]
Creators
Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney is Paul Johnson’s follow-up to the excellent Intellectuals. In Intellectuals, Johnson explored a unifying them; that intellectuals are people who care more about ideas than people. This involved looking at the tension between the outward persona (and ideals) and the personal lives of some key thinkers. [...]
Veritasse
A short while back I was browsing the art and design section of our local newsagent when a new title caught my eye. Hiding in between ID and Architectural Digest was something called Veritasse. Even more intriguing was the magazine’s subtitle – “Christian Art and Style.” Confession time – I laughed out loud at that [...]
The Ten Most Common Photographic Mistakes
The Best Article Every Day is an aggregator-blog, collecting insightful and provocative posts from all over the blogosphere. It has also become a solid fixture on my personal A-list of blogs I read most days. The Ten Most Common Photographic Mistakes is a post they highlighted recently, from Andre Gunther’s excellent photography blog. It’s the [...]
Fernando Gros is a musician, photographer & writer based in Singapore. Born in Santiago de Chile, Fernando grew up in Sydney and has also lived in London, Delhi and Hong Kong.