For Flanders ...

Remember ...?



Ay Marieke ...!

Claude who ...?

Enjoy ... while I try to get my Internet connection restored ... oh, the blessings of technology!

Cuba Has No Jailed Dissidents

Art Daily: "¡CUBA! - A Voyage through This Island's Art and History, from 1868 to Today"

Organized and presented by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from January 31 to June 8, 2008, ¡Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today, which brings together some 400 works of art, will be the first exhibition to showcase the art of this Caribbean island, which Christopher Columbus described as “the most beautiful land eyes have ever seen.”

Thanks to the involvement of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Fototeca de Cuba, and the collaboration of many collectors and museums in the United States, including the MoMA, this exhibition will draw a broad panorama of Cuban art and history.(...) >>>

She's back ...!

On 21st December we reported on her abduction from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. We are very happy to say today that ... Picasso's "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch" is back:


Art Daily: "Brazilian Police Recover Stolen Picasso and Portinari"

Brazilian police have recovered the two paintings, a Picasso paintings and a work by Candido Portinari that were stolen last month from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. The police also arrested two suspects. The works are valued at around $56 million and were found in Sao Paulo. Pablo Picasso’s "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch" is estimated to be worth 50 million dollars, and "The Coffee Worker" by Brazil's Candido Portinari, estimated at nearly six million dollars. Neither of them had insurance. (...) >>>

- Caption: Candido Portinari (1903 - 1962), "The Coffee Worker" -

Just listen ...

No good video is available for "Blue in Green"... who cares? ...

Midweek Entertainment

This week's entertainment comes to you from a musical comedy by Hans Liberg. It's a little bit dated, containing allusions to a diaper (nappy) commercial campaign that focused at the time on the physical boy/girl distinctions and its consequences for the nappy design industry. Neverthess ... enjoy!

The Great Impression!

ArtDaily: "Sotheby's February Impressionist & Modern Art Sale"

Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern art in London on Tuesday, February 5 will bring to the market major works by many of the leading names in the field – among them Picasso, Jawlensky, Sisley, Monet, Cézanne, Renoir and Franz Marc. Together with the rest of the series of sales, they carry a combined estimate in excess of £100 million, making this among the highest value series of sales Sotheby’s has ever staged in Europe. ... >>>

- Caption: lot 72, Raoul Dufy (1877-1953): "Le Casino" -

Here's the catalogue "Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale". The details of the auction are as follows:

Auction Date: 5 Feb 08, 6:30 PM
Location: London, New Bond Street

Don't get confused: a day later the following auction takes place: catalogue "Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper".

Auction Date: 6 Feb 08, 10:00 AM
Location: London, New Bond Street

- Caption: lot 125, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): "La Fenêtre à St Raphaël. Carte d'invitation" -

"Naima"

More gorgeous fruits from the tree of "objective subjectivism". John Coltrane live in 1965 with "Naima". Regretably the names of the other musians are lost in the mist of time ...

Open letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown

In recent days we have been posting on the plight of Lionheart.

Euro-Med (bless them) have now come up with the following initiative!

We kindly request the readership to follow suit and send an email to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The link to the email form on the site on Downing St. 10 is here.



Mr. Prime Minister
Gordon Brown

As I see from several blogs (Gates of Vienna, Politically Incorrect and others) a warrant for an arrest has been issued against a Christian British blogger, who uses the pseudonym "Lionheart". As far as I can see from his blog, all he has done is to bring the truth about Islam - as it it is written in the Quran and the Hadith. And as we see it described every day in our MSM. I am a Dane, and we Danes have had a very high opinion of the UK and its democracy ever since World War 2. We were liberated by British forces after 5 years of German nazi-occupation.

Today many Danes are beginning to see the UK as an equivalent to a dictatorship, which your fathers so gallantly fought. The repression of the right of free expression as demonstrated in the case of Lionheart has sparked deep surprise - even contempt with many Danes. Please, change this new British Image. Stop this insane persecution of Lionheart and others who tell the truth about the Islamic occupation - and about any other kind of undemocratic behaviour.

Respectfully

Anders Bruun laursen
former Consultant Ophthalmologist
Toftevej 3
DK-4140 Borup

New Year's Resolution? We Help You Kick the Habit!

At Politeia: (...) the smoking habit is supposedly one of the hardest things to do, until one realises that the stories surrounding smoking and the associated withdrawal symptoms are just myths.

The debunking of these myths - erected on the one hand by the promotional policies of the tobacco companies, and on the other by the victim-based legal industry - is about eighty percent of the work of nicotine 'rehab' (...)

Smoking today does nothing for your public image, nor does it settle the nerves, or assist concentration. Smoking paves both the pulmonary system and the teeth with tar, causes cancer, and stinks.

Kicking the habit on the other hand leads to a better health and freedom from addiction, not to mention the relief - wow! - of being able to sit through an entire meeting without having to balance the prevailing weather conditions against the intensity of 'the urge'! (...)

Is your New Year's resolution to kick the habit and regain control over your own actions? (...) the beauty of the reality method is, that it doesn't involve will-power. (...)

Keep the above in mind, and above all - ignoring the urge isn't lethal! (...) If health issues are at stake, do not delay (...)

Good luck! And by all means, drop us a line if you think it may help.

Read it all and regain control over your life >>>

So What ...?!

I'll tell you what! Whereas subjectivism in ethically mutually exclusive areas leads to doom and destruction, and is thus a gigantic No-No, this video shows that in art subjectivism can go a long way, as long as rooted in objectivism!

A happy cooperation and a funny Universe ... more from this collection next weekend, and the one after that ...

For now here are Miles David and John Coltrane with "So What" from the most famous jazz album of all time, "Kind of Blue"...

A Van Gogh Treasure for a Greek Partisan's Daughter

The daughter of a Greek World War II resistance fighter, writer Doretta Peppa has come into an unique inheritance: a sketchbook said to contain early original drawings belonging to Dutch impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890).

The portfolio - lost since World War I - is thought to date back to 1880, the year Van Gogh enrolled at the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels.

The as yet unauthenticated notebook has been kept in an Athens bank vault since appropriated by the Greek resistance during Nazi occupation. It was accompanied by a photo of Van Gogh. The confiscation allegedly took place during a raid on a Nazi supply train as the Germans pulled out.

Sketches and drawings contained in the notebook are early studies of masterpieces "The Potato Eaters" (1885) and a version of "Portrait of Père Tanguy" (1887).

Greek law recognizes Mrs Peppa as the owner of the notebook. She said she thinks the rare portfolio might sell for more than $5 million at auction. It's an inheritance from my father and no one asked for it," she told The Telegraph. "It's mine."

The Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said to get quite a few requests for authentication from people who believe they own a work by Vincent Van Gogh.


- Caption: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Portrait of Père Tanguy (1887-8) -

Exceptional Beauty and Outstanding Merit

Artdaily: "Acquisitions at the Barber Institute, 1991-2007"

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham (UK), presents Exceptional Beauty and Outstanding Merit: Acquisitions at the Barber Institute, 1991–2007, on view through 20 January 2008. More than eighty masterpieces have been purchased for the Barber Institute’s collection by the Trustees during the last seventeen years, under the directorship of Richard Verdi. (...)

This exhibition, which takes its title from Lady Barber’s vision, enshrined in the founding Trust Deed of 1932, celebrates these outstanding acquisitions and features all the newly acquired paintings and sculpture. Alongside these will be a representative group of the works on paper by artists including Pietro da Cortona, Matisse and Egon Schiele. It is accompanied by an explanatory gallery leaflet and a series of lectures. >>>


Caption: Henri Matisse (1869-1954), La leçon de musique, 1917

Supporting the Troops!

A Hearty Thanks and a Very Happy New Year
to the Troops and their Families,
in particular the boys and girls of the
Dutch/Ozy NATO contingent in Uruzgan!