Category: Museum

Packing list

Posted on Posted in Adolf Konrad, MuseumLeave a comment
Adolf Konrad, December 16, 1963
➔ The Morgan Library & Museum

In December of 1963, realist painter Adolf Konrad planned to travel to Rome and Egypt, so he made a packing list — not quite the kind of list you or I might make — Kondrad’s was a water-color painted into his sketchbook. On one page he painted all the items he planned to take with him, and on the next page he painted himself wearing only an undershirt and striped boxer shorts. The items he’d painted to pack looked like paper-doll cut-outs which could be cut and glued to his paper body. He included a t-shirt, sports shirt, undershirt, dress shirt, boxer shorts, two trousers, socks, a camera, sketch books, oil paints, watercolors, inks, brushes, pencils, chalk, and a copy of Europe on $5 A Day, into which he had inserted a note which read “Ha Ha.” ➔ Margie Goldsmith for The Huffington Post

Butterfly hunting

Posted on Posted in Animal friends, Littérature, Museum, Philippe Halsman, Photography, Vladimir NabokovLeave a comment
Philippe Halsman ~ Vladimir Nabokov, Montreux, Switzerland, 1966
My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music
 My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting

Tula’s Samovars

Posted on Posted in Anton Chekhov, Museum, PostcardLeave a comment
‘To take one’s own samovar  to Tula‘, a well-known Russian idiom coined by Anton Chekhov, is similar to the Western saying, ‘carrying coals to Newcastle‘.  
[meaning: to do something pointless and superfluous]
        
➔ Арсений Николаев’s Gallery

1. Globe-shaped samovar with leaves. 1920s. Nickel-plated brass.
2. Pot-shaped samovar, magazine. Early 20th cent. Brass
3. Samovar “Florentine Vase” 1870. Copper
4. Vase-shaped samovar “The Russian Field”. 1986. Nickel-plated, Steel.
5. Semi-Vase-shaped Samovar. Late 19th cent. Brass
6. Tea-pot samovar. Late 18th сent. Red Copper.
7. Traveler’s samovar. Early 19th сent. Copper
8. Pear-shaped samovar. Late 19th сent. Brass
9. Vase-Shaped Samovar. Late 19th – early 20th cent. Copper
10. Vase-shaped samovar ”Scythos.“ 1800. Brass

wherever he laid his hat was his home

Posted on Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Art, Fashion, George Condo, Littérature, Museum, Photography, William S. BurroughsLeave a comment
 Man’s sweat-stained hat, presumably evidence in a criminal matter, atop boxes of police negatives. Location and details unknown, but possibly CIB, Sydney, ca. 1928
➔ New South Wales Justice and Police Museum
 William Burroughs, 11pm late March 1985, being driven home to 222 Bowery. Experimenting with hand held half second Roloflex exposure camera upside down for view, Burroughs phantom in street light stop sign illumination fuzzy, couldn’t move back further to focus sharper, I was in rear seat. – Allen Ginsberg  [©Allen Ginsberg Estate]
➔  The Allen Ginsberg Project
 George Condo + William S. Burroughs, Untitled, 1992. 
Barbed wire, leather waistband ammunition and gun holster, plastic Ken-doll, glasses, felt hat, vodka bottle, wood pedestal

Jean Lorrain ~ Neigilde, 1902

Posted on Posted in Charles Silver, Costume, Dance, Fashion, Jean Lorrain, Museum, OperaLeave a comment
Costume for La Mer de Glace, act III, 1909
(Robe en satin de fil métallique argenté ornée de sequin et perles tubulaires parsemées et brodées de duvet de cygne blanc)
Ballet-opéra by Jean Lorrain, music by Charles Silver
➔ Nouveau Musée National de Monaco
[photo Mauro Magliani and Barbara Piovan, 2010]