Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
two parts
UMETNICI KAO DETEKTIVI
(RAŠA TODOSIJEVIĆ I MARINELA KOŽELJ )
(Levi deo) ove slike smo kupili u Beogradu 1980 ili 1981 godine u komisionu kod raskrsnice London. Taj komision danas više ne postoji. Na slici a ni na njenoj poledjini nema zapisa koji bi ukazao na autora slike, na portretisanu ličnost, na zemlju porekla ili godinu nastanka. Jedino pretpostavljamo da je slika nastala pre Drugog Svetskog Rata. Svako obaveštenje i sve sugestije u vezi ovog lepo naslikanog portreta (ili možda autoportreta) su dobrodošle. Slika nije na prodaju.
Mesto nastanka: Nepoznato.
Vreme nastanka: Nepoznato
Autor: Nepoznat.
Portretisana ličnost: Nepoznata.
Tehnika: Ulje na tankoj dasci.
Dimenzije slike: 13 cm x 17,5 cm. U Beogradu, Maj 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
urbanophilia
Hak
The City in its final form went back barely 20 years. In origin, however,
What the geomantic sages could not control were the infringements of the barbarians. When the British sought to expand their hold on Hong Kong in 1898, with a 99-year lease covering the whole of
The situation was never resolved, and for the next 90 years of British rule the City remained an anomaly: within British domain, yet outside British control. The Chinese officials left for good in 1899, but whenever the colonial authorities tried to impose their will, the remaining residents threatened to turn the attempt into a diplomatic incident. And so it remained until the Second World War, when the invading Japanese delivered the first body blow, tearing down the huge granite walls and using them to build
The City may have effectively ceased to exist, but the area?s status as a diplomatic black hole was not forgotten, and in the chaos of the War?s aftermath it proved the perfect place of asylum for many of the hundred thousands of refugees pouring south to escape famine, civil war and political persecution as the Communists gained control in China. Surrounded now only by walls of political inhibition, the City became the place where they could get their breath back; where they could live as Chinese among other Chinese, untaxed, uncounted and untormented by governments of any kind.
And so, the
But for most, the main priority was survival and their needs were little different from anyone else?s: a life without interference with water, light, food and space. Of these water was the most indispensable and in the early years the only way to get it was to go down. And so that?s what they did, sinking some 70 wells in and around the City, to a depth of some 300 feet. Electric pumps shot the water up to tanks on the rooftops from where it descended via an ad hoc forest of narrow pipes and connections to the homes of subscribers. Only in the last 20 years were Government stand-pipes installed around the City to provide safe drinking water.
To run the pumps and to light up the City?s many alleys required electricity and initially this challenge was tackled in a similarly robust fashion: it was stolen from the mains, often by Hongkong Electric employees who lived within the City boundaries. Only in the late 1970s, after a serious fire (much the most terrifying hazard in the City), were the authorities allowed in with their meters.
Thus was the substructure of urban life roughly but workably banged into shape. And out of all the chaos and apparent lack of real organisation, a sort of society began to flourish. Soon, there were factories of every description, small shops and even schools and kindergartens, some of them run by organisations such as the Salvation Army. Medical and dental care were no problem, as many of the residents were doctors and dentists with Chinese qualifications and years of experience, but lacking the expensive licences required to practice in the rest of the Colony. They set up their clinics on the edges of the City and charged their patients a fraction of what they would pay elsewhere.
For the moments of relief from toil, there were many restaurants on the City?s fringes and embedded deep in its heart were a temple and a ?yamen?, relics of the City?s distant past. And so life went on. Every afternoon the alleys were alive with the throb of hidden machinery and the clacking of mahjong tiles, while up on the roof, in cages not much smaller than some of the City?s homes, cooed hundreds of racing pigeons, joined there by children playing after school.
And here, in this richness and diversity, lies what was truly fascinating about the City. For all its physical shortcomings, and there were many, its residents had succeeded in creating a true community - and, ironically, one that was to flourish in the City?s final years, after the authorities had moved in to arrange the clearance and the Triads had been forced to move out. Photographed by Greg Girard and Ian Lambot during the City?s last years, this exhibition offers a glimpse of that unique community and of the extraordinary architecture that had evolved over the years to support it.