Sunday Soundtrack - Such Sweet Sorrow & the Sculptures of Fernando Mastrangelo.

Such Sweet Sorrow. from raloup on 8tracks.

I put together this playlist earlier in the week with relationships in mind; some tracks for savouring bittersweet moments.

Yet after events back in Italy this weekend, sorrow doesn't feel sweet at all. It has been senseless, entirely unwarranted, and horribly inescapable.  

The sculpture pictured in the "album art" is in fact made of sugar, and is by Brooklyn-based artist Fernando Mastrangelo. He works in many unusual materials; over on Hi-Fructose, J. L. Schnabel has pinpointed their striking and strange beauty:

Due to the unique nature of the materials, the sculptures take on a feel of fragility, highlighting the themes of destruction and faith.

Untitled (sugar)

This Too Shall Pass (salt)

See more of Mastrangelo's work and read the full piece here. 

Sunday Soundtrack - The End Of The World.

Skeeter Davis - The End Of The World

It's rather obvious I ended my weekend with the last three episodes of Mad Men Season 3, in an adrenaline-filled rush.

Such Sweet Sorrow; Sam Wolfe Connelly.

Alex.

Bleary Night.

Backfill.

The sheer gorgeousness of these graphite works by Sam Wolfe Connelly have set my teeth on edge. Especially Alex; the grief on the girl's face is almost too exquisite. I wish I could purchase a print... If you have more money than I do at the moment, you can make it your own here. The piece's backstory gives it even more power:

"This is a portrait of the one girl [I] used to treasure more than anything.

Her expression in the drawing is actually from a photograph I took some time back, of her crying right before she left me. She never knew that this photo was taken. I had no reason of even why I took a picture of her, or what possessed me to keep it. Immediately after I had taken it I had forgotten about it, up until right before my show when I found it digging through my things. So, I turned it into a drawing."

See more of his work here.

Letters of Note - So Much Love (Richard Feynman).

Richard Feynman & Arline, from here.

This is a post lifted from one of my favourite blogs, which I would urge everyone to follow. Letters of Note is dedicated to sharing correspondence which deserves a wider audience and is curated by Shaun Usher. As a devotee of snail mail, this blog makes me smile. Sometimes I worry what biographers will do in the future - now that our online lives so often reduce correspondence to a few facebook posts.

This incredibly moving letter is the perfect antidote to all the Valentine's mush making its way around the internet.

In June of 1945, Arline Feynman — high-school sweetheart and wife of the hugely influential physicist, Richard Feynman — passed away after succumbing to tuberculosis. She was 25-years-old. 16 months later, in October of 1946, Richard wrote his late wife the following love letter and sealed it in an envelope. It remained unopened until after his death in 1988.

October 17, 1946

D’Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart.

I know how much you like to hear that — but I don't only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing.

But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can't I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the "idea-woman" and general instigator of all our wild adventures.

When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.

I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I'll bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I — I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don't want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you.

I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.

PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address.

Freedom To Create (Cape Town 2011).

When I was in Cape Town in November/December, I walked through the Company's Garden and was lucky enough to see the Freedom to Create 2011 Exhibition, shown on panels along the main pathway.

Freedom to Create is a non-profit organisation investing in the cultural foundations of societies to foster harmony and understanding. It focuses on regions of the world where there is the greatest need to change mindsets, believing that freedom of creative expression is key to a just society.

It was an incredibly moving exhibition, and as I walked through the gardens it was touching to hear snatches of conversation sparked by the artworks - and to share my own thoughts with the friend I was walking with.

I've included a couple of the pieces from the exhibition below. I would encourage everyone to take a look at the full selection over on Freedom to Create's facebook page (where the images and information below are from).

Nermine Hammam
Egypt
Metanoia
Mixed Media

Nermine has spent her life trying to reveal the underbelly of society, searching to show what usually goes unseen. For ‘Metanoia’, she spent three months living, eating and sleeping with the patients of a state-run mental asylum in Cairo, pushing herself to the limits of her creativity and endurance to tell this story to the world – a story that the Egyptian government tried repeatedly to ban, further dehumanising the inhabitants of the asylum.

Nermine hopes that her pictures will provide a window into a completely unknown Egypt, drawing attention to the atrocities going on behind closed doors across a country continuing to go through turmoil. Through her creativity, Nermine is looking to provide a transparent and honest dialogue to ensure that Egyptians continue to change and grow post Revolution.

Ayad Alkadhi
Iraq
Pieta II (from Widow Nation series)
Painting

Ayad’s work depicts the human condition under extraordinary political and social circumstances, in particular the drastically changing political background of the Middle East. This image (after Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà’) depicts an Iraqi mother in traditional robes holding a picture of her dead son – a negative of an image of a real victim of the Iraqi war, a translator for the American troops, who was beheaded on tape by Al-Qaeda. Ayad’s work focuses on the mothers and wives of those who died during the Iraq war, each one as much a victim of the atrocities as the loved one in the portrait which they hold.

Ayad hopes with his work to tell the story of those living under extreme circumstances, gently alerting each viewer to the suffering of their fellow man or woman and igniting a spark of compassion for people to support and campaign for a better life for everyone.

66 Years Ago Today...

From here.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. And we remember those who lost their lives there, and in every other Nazi extermination camp across Europe, as well as those who have suffered since, and still suffer, the horrors of genocide around the globe.

We said, "Never Again."

Cambodia.

Bosnia.

Rwanda.

Darfur.

But that is why we have to say it again. Louder.

I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor.

A Disposable Camera in Cape Town - Memorials.

A while back I posted some pictures from my trip to South Africa.

I spent some time debating with myself over whether or not to create this second post.

One of the main reasons I started this blog was as a release from the stress and sadness my studies can induce, and to give myself a space dedicated entirely to aesthetics. However, as my course progresses I have begun to consolidate a belief that undertaking a degree in human rights entails a certain kind of world view, and it isn't one that you can just switch off. This is one of the reasons I have decided to share these photos.

When I was in Cape Town, I visited several memorial sites to shootings and killings that occured during the apartheid era. For me, these memorials present a deeply significant intersection between art and human rights, and between aesthetics and grave abuses.

The monument in Langa township, dedicated to the memory of anti-pass law protesters who were killed by the apartheid security forces.

The Amy Biehl memorial in Gugulethu township. A white university student and anti-apartheid activist, she was killed by a group of black male protesters returning from a rally. They were pardoned by the Truth & Reconcillation Commission, Biehl's parents supporting the decision and forgiving her murderers.

The Gugulethu Seven memorial, in Gugulethu township - marking the spot where seven anti-apartheid activists were shot. There used to be plaques with names on, but these were no longer there, possibly stolen to be melted down for money. There was an intense tragic irony to this memorial - glossy marble next to shacks.

The Trojan Horse memorial in Athlone township - dedicated to the memory of three youths (aged 11, 15 and 21), and located at the sight of the ambush where they were killed by security forces. This monument was extremely moving in that it "fit" in its surroundings, and incorporated the original graffiti with the names of the victims.

Goodbye, Bert.

1943-2011.

A revolutionary guitarist.

R.I.P.

"Sadness is a blessing, Sadness is a pearl, Sadness is my boyfriend, Oh sadness I'm your girl."

I love everything about this.

Haunting.