Kate Moss: self-portrait in lipstick

'Who needs blood when you've got lipstick?', Kate Moss's self-portrait in lipstick

This upcoming Saturday, London’s Lyon & Turnbull will auction this work by Kate Moss.

Nan Goldin, Hugo Glendinning: Tilda Swinton

Tilda Swinton by Nan Goldin

Tilda Swinton by Hugo Glendinning

Tilda Swinton can transform into malleable intensities on screen, and even more so in photographs. Without video’s pacing and courting every micro-expression of her craft, the camera captures one spontaneous movement at a time. On screen, Swinton’s character development shows through in economized gesture. In photographs, her gestures are magnified. The economical becomes summary. Interestingly enough, in the films of Derek Jarman, Tilda has that magnification of gesture that precedes inconography, the same quality I see in her photographs, regardless of photographer.  But perhaps that is unfair to compare her performances on screen with Jarman with Tilda’s other films: Jarman––unpredictable; Swinton––unimitable.

Salvador Dalí: Landscape Near Figueras

Salvador Dali Landscape near Figueras

Salvador Dali described his paintings as “hand-painted photographs”, but not even that description could prepare one for the multi-faceted narratives of his film sketches. Finally, I was able to see Destino, Dalí’s collaboration with Walt Disney on a remarkable animation that is compliments Dali’s flowing forms and transitional landscapes.  Here, a pre-Surrealist landscape showing an idyllic serenity through Impressionist talent. This is one of Dali’s earliest known works, and I could not help but compare these qualities to the landscape treatments in Destino.  It also reminded me of Richard Billingham’s recent work in the UK countryside.

Thomas Edison on ethics

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”
- Thomas Edison

Aristotle on Excellence

“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
—Aristotle