Engaged In The Temple Of Abstraction

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Searching for the truly authentic image: Gerhard Richter’s paintings invite a deep engagement. Abstraktes Bild 809-4. Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

We are finding more reasons to pay attention to this publication each time we dig deeper into it. This artist, his art form, this writer, and the intersection of these ideas are all worth the 30-40 minutes this article grips your attention for:

I was in my teens when I first started to really look at paintings. Although I didn’t just look, I bathed in them, and I was perpetually teased by my friends for the tremendous length of time it took me to navigate an art gallery. This pleasure of looking and of being completely absorbed in painting has remained constant; whether ancient or modern, figurative or abstract, and whatever the style, I am prepared to give every work the chance to lure me in.

What is so compelling? When art was an adjunct of religion, its power was clear. But from the Renaissance on, painting, at least in the Western tradition, has preoccupied itself as intensely with secular as with overtly religious subject matter, or else with no subject at all. Continue reading →

Recommissioning, Stronger Attention To Our Oceans

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Folks we respect and admire, not retiring nor shrinking from the challenges, but rethinking what’s next, state their case here on opening day:

‘Outstanding opportunity for change’ – Global Ocean Commission launches

The Global Ocean Commission, an independent body of international leaders, launches today (12th February) with the aim of reversing degradation of the ocean and restoring it to full health and productivity.

Chaired by former Costa Rican President José María Figueres, South African cabinet minister Trevor Manuel and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband MP, the Commission brings together senior political figures including former Heads of State, Foreign Ministers and Finance Ministers from around the world, alongside business leaders and development specialists. Continue reading →

Changing Business Models

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hikers on a mountain

Patagonia’s connection to the wilderness has a big impact on the company’s approach to environmental issues, says Vincent Stanley, vice-president of marketing at Patagonia. Photograph: Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty Images

From the Guardian‘s Sustainable Business blog:

Patagonia plans global campaign for responsible capitalism

The outdoor clothing and equipment company says we need to develop very different measures of success if we are to prevent environmental collapse

In the true spirit of adventure, mountaineering and surfing company Patagonia reaches one summit and immediately searches for an even tougher peak to climb.

Fresh from taking a pot shot at our consumerist society with its challenging “don’t buy this jacket” advertising campaign, Patagonia now has the whole capitalist system in its crosshairs. Continue reading →

Bicycle Information & Chitchat, UK Edition

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We are not in the business of selling books nor promoting purchases at any particular outlet, but we do have a thing for bicycles.  More would be good.  Better regulations would be too.  Safety rules that everyone follows, check.  A book that covers these and other topics? Yes.  Will zany be more effective than serious-wonky?  Judge for yourself. Only certain island nations can pull off this sort of thing:

‘Cycling is the King of A to B. Whatever our differences, we love one another: Lycra mankini or tweed trousers tucked into your sock? Traffic lights – a suggestion or an order? Racer or hybrid, helmet or commando, freewheel or fixie? Nothing sours the bond.’ Zoe Williams Continue reading →

Paddy Field – Kuttanad, Alappuzha

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Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor

With its abundant paddy, Kuttanad has been termed the “Rice Bowl of Kerala”. Kuttanad is a large area made up of land from the three adjoining districts of Alappuzha, Kollam and Kottayam. Most of Kuttanad consists of paddy fields that spill out into vast stretches inland from the backwaters. Heavy monsoon rains bring top soil and minerals from the high ranges of the Western Ghats, depositing them in the low-lying Kuttanad region in a periodic replenishment that keeps the soil fertile.

Continue reading →

Taking The Geek Out Of Greek

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We have already sung Stephen Greenblatt‘s praises several times, but why stop there? He has done something remarkable, making classicism classy:

Glories of Classicism

FEBRUARY 21, 2013

Stephen Greenblatt and Joseph Leo Koerner

The Classical Tradition

edited by Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis Belknap Press/ Harvard University Press, 1,067 pp., $49.95

Over a thousand pages in length, with some five hundred articles surveying the survival, transmission, and reception of the cultures of Greek and Roman antiquity, The Classical Tradition is a low-cost Wunderkammer, a vast cabinet of curiosities. Take the entry on the asterisk: you learn that this ubiquitous critical sign, named from the Greek for “small star,” originated in Ptolemaic Alexandria, where the great textual scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium and his student Aristarchus of Samothrace used them to mark repeated lines in the Iliad and Odyssey.

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A Few Etruscan Tombs

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Polyphemus the Cyclops (Tomb of Orcus)

The Etruscans are, for all their great cultural influence on the Romans, a  poorly understood people. We know they once dominated northern Italy and much of its western coast and that they interacted extensively with not only the Romans but also many other native Italic tribes in the 1st milennium BC. Some of this contact is reflected linguistically: the modern English word “person,” deriving from Latin persona, entered the Latin language from Etruscan phersu Continue reading →

If You Happen To Be In Brooklyn

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In anticipation of Raxa Collective’s collaboration with colleagues in Ghana starting this month (more on which soon), we are particularly susceptible to any mention of Ghana in the news and El Anatsui has been on our radar recently.  There is plenty to make us optimistic about Ghana’s future, not least its contributions to fine arts.  This show just opening at Brooklyn Museum looks worthy of a visit:

The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction. Continue reading →

Thought For Food

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Since the launch of this site in 2011 we have made a commitment to point out as many news stories, analyses and other documentation as possible with positive, proactive examples of how we can best deal with issues that matter to us.  However, some of the less pleasant information we find is essential reading or viewing. Case in point here with the BBC segment in a series from last year about food. Disturbing. Important. Worth an hour of our time:

In the past year, we have seen food riots on three continents, food inflation has rocketed and experts predict that by 2050, if things don’t change, we will see mass starvation across the world. Continue reading →

Badami Cave Temple, Karnataka

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Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor

The Badami Cave Temple in Karnataka was the capital of the early Chalukyas, who ruled much of that area of India during the 6th and 7th centuries. Badami is a treasure trove of Indian rock-cut architecture and sculpture. It is set in a picturesque countryside at the mouth of a sandstone ravine . The caves overlook a large lake known as Agasythya Teertha.

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Coffee Rust

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John Vandermeer. A mild infection of coffee rust on a tree in Mexico.

John Vandermeer. A mild infection of coffee rust on a tree in Mexico.

Several contributors to this blog live(d) and work(ed) in Central America and know exactly what you mean. Those of us based in south India–where there is high quality arabica growing in the Coorg-Chikmagalur corridor–are hopeful that this “rust” is contained quickly.  So, Dear John, please succeed:

Until this year, John Vandermeer, an ecologist and coffee researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, had never lost a tree to fungus. Continue reading →

Collaboratively Clean City

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Jose Beceiro, the Director of Clean Energy Initiatives eat the Chamber of Commerce in Austin, Texas notes the role of collaboration in his city’s remarkable economic development:

As one of the first smart-grid-powered communities, a revolutionary technology incubator, and the host of a conference promoting clean energy investment; Austin, TX has proven itself a leader in the clean technology sector, and the region is poised to continue making significant strides in building a strong clean  Continue reading →

Mammals, Emotions And Human Intelligence

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Close cousins: a gorilla family in Rwanda. Photo by Charles L Harris/Gallery Stock

Close cousins: a gorilla family in Rwanda. Photo by Charles L Harris/Gallery Stock

Another great item in a publication we recently started following:

‘If he grabs you, just go limp and let him throw you around. If you tense up, he’ll take it as a dominance challenge.’

‘Um. Okay.’ Continue reading →