Venice, November

[imomus]

My second visit to the Venice Biennale didn't change my opinion that the best piece (well, the most suggestive for my current interests) is Sergio Vega's room about Latin Amerian utopias. Vega's exuberant neologisms (Modernismo Tropical, Burlesque Marxist Wave and Dionysian Stretch) are exactly the sort of cut-and-paste genres I find so suggestive (tonight I'm playing a show of "vaudeville concrete", for instance). Vega's interest in bringing out the shamanistic and voodoo elements of Modernism (and the "crocodile brain") takes us to unexpected places (a giant blue crocodile emerging from a Modernist villa, for instance, or parrot phone boxes). But there's other fun stuff; I liked Korea and Germany's pavilions, and enjoyed climbing to the top of Austria's artificial mountain, or imagining Iceland's bizarre folk rites were the new Bjork-Barney movie.

If you're hungry for stuff to read, my new piece for AIGA Voice, "Conceptual Design: building a social conscience", has just gone up on the AIGA Voice site. The article mentions Åbäke, whom I first met in the presene of one Neil Scott. Neil has just published the amusing interview he conducted with me in a restaurant somewhere in South London on that occasion, How To Live Like Nick Currie.

Comments

[chuckdarwin.livejournal.com]

A good link at the bottom of that page, there (http://www.monadas.net/momus/)

[(Anonymous)]

Will Nick "Tintin" Currie be writing with Robbie Williams next?

[neil-scott.livejournal.com]

Vega's piece is brilliant, although isn't the carpet and furniture a bit worn now?

Also, did you get half your entrance money back via Tino Sehgal's piece in the German pavillion like this girl? (http://www.tmcq.co.uk/reviews/venice-51)

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

You look pretty scared at that photograph above to the left of that office photo.

Burlesque Marxist Wave

[(Anonymous)]

When I saw the titles of the Vega pieces I actually thought they were your own! Actually the descriptions of his works that you describe reminds me of your gallery piece with Mai. Good luck with the show

Richard

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Really nice photo montage, btw.

[iamcoreyd.livejournal.com]

no photos of the entire building from the outside?

[jina---.livejournal.com]

you wanted to be a popstar???
didn't you know fame costs everything and has no meaning? :)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

…When you're not working it's a very strange situation because you are living in a world where everyone else is stressed and aggressive, trying to make money...It's often very disappointing walking around because life is not made to be lived in. It's made to be travelled through on the way to the next dollar.

Depends on where in "life" you live. Best to live outside life, sometimes.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

i like my chairs sun-dried..sweep sweep..doesn't it smell nice..mmmmm..i just read it...i like your hat...she's got sweet titties..she doesn't mind...mmmmm...she goes: mmmm ..lick a little bit..that's fine.. i don't mind...
we sort something out.

[lemmy-caution.livejournal.com]

I've added you to my friends list, if you don't mind too much.

[jasongtokyo.livejournal.com]

… When you're not working it's a very strange situation because you are living in a world where everyone else is stressed and aggressive, trying to make money. Life is not about money if you don't work.

Great lines. Trying to achieve this state in Tokyo is definitely a challenge (but still not as tough as being a full-time member of the workers' army).

Urban Dictionary

[(Anonymous)]

Have just discovered you are in the Urban Dictionary, under nipposexual.You probably knew.