The Following Morning ...

L.A. - looking very sci-fi to me.

From my iPhone - L.A.

To my pleasure and surprise, when I checked in to the Sunset Tower Hotel, I was informed I was being upgraded to a suite with a balcony and city view. But best of all, when I got in from dinner, the view from my room was this spectacular moonrise over L.A.!

Welcome!

More on the excellent but exhaustive Henri Cartier-Bresson show at MoMA to come - but as I sit in the Jet Blue terminal waiting for my flight to L.A., I ask you - "Is this anyway to greet people at the entrance to a photography show?".

Kick-Ass

This weekend I went to see "Kick-Ass" which turned out to be one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a long time. Best described as teen comedy meets Quentin Tarantino, it kept me riveted with its film-making brio, story telling, interesting characters, and sheer entertainment value.

I usually find movies derived from comic books predictable and boring, especially in the plot lines of the villain who is trying to take over the world/destroy our hero. But "Kick-Ass" has a much more engrossing conflict, dimensional characters, and two genuinely interesting and talented young leads.

The movie is generating some controversy over the fact that Chloe Moretz, who plays the profanity spewing, villain slicing and dicing, Hit-Girl was 11 when the film was shooting. And I have to respect that many people might be offended by an 11 year old greeting bad guys with the c-word before killing them all. So that should be the litmus test of whether you see the film or not.

(With that warning, if you want to see what I'm talking about - click here.)

From The Sartorialist

For the last couple of months, The Sartorialist has been soliciting contributions from his readers of stylish snapshots from their family albums. The results, as you can see are both sartorially and photographically quite impressive!

I'm being lazy and haven't added the captions that identify and in many cases add charming anecdotes or recollections to the pictures - but if you're curious - just got to The Sartorialist and browse backwards.

FACEBOOK HELP - PLEASE!

Many people have written and posted to tell me that they have tried to link to this blog on Facebook only to be told that "the site contains material that has been reported as inappropriate by some people".

Does anyone know how to fix this? Does anyone know how this might have happened? Would posting something like an Edward Weston nude have triggered this? Any Facebook honchos out there who can help?

Thanks,
James.

The Photographer Is Also Present

I don’t think that there’s any question that the art world event of the moment is the exhibition, “Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present” at The Museum of Modern Art. A retrospective of work by one of the pioneers of peformance art, the centerpiece of the show is Ms. Abramovic herself, who sits silently at a table in the museum’s atrium, facing an empty chair. She’s scheduled to sit there all day, every day, for the run of her show. The museum estimates that she will sit for 716 hours and 30 minutes. Visitors to the show are welcome to sit opposite her for as long as they want and while most sit for about 15 minutes I gather some people, mindless of the lines behind them, have sat it out with Ms. Abramovic for the entire day.

Unremarked on is that a photographer working for MoMA has been there to record every interaction, taking a picture of each participant and noting the time they spent in the chair. The photographer, Marco Anelli, has posted all these pictures to flickr and there’s a slide show on MoMA’s own website – both worth looking at. It’s clearly a feat of endurance in it’s own right and it has the fascination of putting a face to the world of art lovers as well as capturing something of what the experience means to them. It’s a nice addition to the school of discrete observation pioneered by Walker Evans and Harry Callahan and once you get going clicking through the different faces, you'll find it quite addictive.

The artist, Marina Abramovic. Day 16. 600 minutes.

13 minutes.

386 minutes.

75 minutes.

10 minutes.