BRIGHTER DEATH

Autumn 2006

2006-10-24T01:39:00.000+08:00

the autumn of 2006 was one of the best times of my life. it remains a secret as to where i had been.

EFD

2006-10-24T00:54:00.000+08:00

I am very sad that one of my favourite places in the world has vanished. EFD Records in Hong Kong is one of the most interesting and most difficult-to-find music stores I have visited in the world. Recently, it has closed down, but I would like to share some photos with those who have never been to this special place. thank you to Klaus Barbie for making these memories possible.

France - Netherlands - Spring 2006

2006-05-28T02:32:00.000+08:00

My apologies for the vanishing. i have just returned from Europe, and I have just started on a new job which leaves me with little time to live.

Bibliophile

2006-01-30T23:10:00.000+08:00

Have you ever wondered about the contents of my library? Here's a tiny part of it.

Three bloggers, namely : Hermes, Simple American and Transience found themselves morbidly fascinated with the previous Gunter Brus post. So, I have picked out a G.B. book cover, and two Hermann Nitsch book covers as the highlights.

Since i have mentioned Gunter Brus, it is a terrible injustice to omit Hermann Nitsch. He is a crucial figure of the Viennese Actionists who staged the culmination of his life's work as the 6-Day Play of his Orgies Mysteries Theatre at the Prinzendorf Castle. Briefly, it is a celebration of tragedy as an affirmation of life with the safe abreaction of Dionysian energies within the containing framework of a play.

Gunter Brus

2006-01-28T02:22:00.000+08:00

Gunter Brus : Self Painting (Film Action)

Studio Sailer, Vienna, December 1964

Gunter Brus is one of the pioneering figures of the Viennese Actionists of the 60s along with Hermann Nitsch, Rudolf Schwarzkogler and Otto Muehl. His art extends beyond action painting into Actionism which incorporates the body as the art event and the final artwork. The Actions are documented with photos and film (available as Kurt Kren : Action Films DVD).

Phantom Interceptors

2006-01-23T03:12:00.001+08:00

I still have not adjusted to the idea of publicizing my private experiences, and I am more interested in filling the emptiness with pictures. Horror vacui. Nevertheless, the pictures do reveal a bit about myself. Briefly, I will explain the significance of the profile picture which I have chosen – Gerhard Richter ‘Phantom Interceptors’. He occupies a complex position of ambivalence which I will try to explain. Basically, and superficially, the blurred photorealism of the Phantom Interceptors is a distancing effect. As a youth, he had been traumatized by the bombings of Dresden. During the Cold War, he witnessed foreign military presence in a country which has been split into the East and West after a history of attempted unification. Richter refuses to attribute political meaning to his painting by commenting that ‘I am a specialist in airplanes’. He has been accused of escapism because of his apolitical stance. He claims that “Ideologies are always the seducers and exploiters of ignorance; they justify war”. Understandably, his aversion to ideology is a consequence to two totalitarian regimes which he had the misfortune to experience – National Socialism and East German communism – before locating to West Germany where he considers himself an outsider. Of course, he can only be sceptical, and the only ideology he could subcribe to is anti-isms. No, he is not neurotic. By voiding the paintings of a historical context, he has not contributed to a total amnesia of Germany’s traumatic history. In Onkel Rudi, his uncle is portrayed in Nazi military uniform and concentration camps photos in his compendium of source material called Atlas would point to the opposite. Fascism and its associated atrocities continue to exist in his consciousness, resulting in a defiance of all ideologies.

I find it quite difficult to write about Richter. But, I hope you would have understood something of it.

Good Night

2006-01-14T00:56:00.000+08:00

Sign

2006-01-07T22:21:00.000+08:00

A few years ago, I came across this sign while walking down a street in Melbourne.