The Journal of a Disappointed Man

I slip and slide through my life, trying to get a grip on the rail. I'm grasping in the dark for a switch that'll turn on some almighty bright white light and thus, illuminate the way, the path, make everything clear as day. And every breath I take seems to be quickly rolled up behind me and filed away in memory. Only a particular scent or dose of weather can pinprick the past and even then, the drawer opens flirtatiously for just a moment. 

I have lost touch with everyone I went to school with, everyone in the village where I spent most of my formulative years, everyone I went to college with, everyone I ever worked with. They too, are filed away, often angrily slamming the drawer behind them, over something I said or something I didn't say. 

My lovers cannot be traced. I know. I've tried. I've taken trains to their cities and stood on street corners in the miraculous off-chance that they might wander by. But each time, I have returned home, defeated and had to force myself to sleep so that my heart didn't kill me. 

I began my autobiography at 23 years old, with the intention that I wouldn't live 'til 25. But I'd done nothing, loved no-one, said nothing of any great importance by that time. The journal of a disappointed man. 

I took a position at the Natural History Museum but left after only 3 months due to allergies. Whilst deluding myself that I could reinforce the scientist's power of detached analysis with a poetic intensity, I would cough up my guts on the glass that held the giant stuffed man-o-war. I had a gift of incisive and candid comment, but I failed to ignite it when faced with the apple-cheeked Irish girl who served the tea in the basement canteen. Drunk most nights, in the Black Swan on Canal St, I would attempt to put my own complicated nature under the microscope of a beer glass. I walked home alone, opening the air with bolshy, slurred dictums against religion, ethics, love and life itself. 

Lonely, penniless, paralysed by the guilt of never having told my father I loved him, I wander hospital corridors, posing as a visitor. I have wept, enjoyed, struggled and overcome but I remain disappointed.

Piano Magic

Breath

Mouth

Breath

In

Out

Open

Breath

Urban View

I.

Berlin - Urban View

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

Lurking Nature

Lurking Nature

a photo exhibition by Anargyros Drolapas

curated by Apostolis Artinos

Έκθεση φωτογραφίας του Αργύρη Δρόλαπα με τίτλο: «Lurking Nature»

Επιμέλεια: Αποστόλης Αρτινός

Εγκαίνια: 15 Μαρτίου 2013

Διάρκεια έκθεσης: 14 Μαρτίου – 14 Απριλίου, 2013

Ώρες λειτουργίας της έκθεσης: Πέμπτη – Κυριακή / 12 μ.μ – 12π.μ., στο χώρο του

Μουσικού παραδοσιακού καφενείου Εν Ελλάδι,

στην Παραδοσιακή συνοικία Χάρμαινα,

Άμφισσα.

«Στην έκθεση Lurking nature του Αργύρη Δρόλαπα, από-καλύπτεται ένα μυστικό πεπρωμένο ζωής. Η μορφική καθήλωση της φύσης στις σιωπηλές της ομοιώσεις. Μια ζωή κυριολεκτικά εγκαταλελειμμένη στη νύχτα που τη διαπλάθει και ζωογονεί. Αυτή η νυχτερινή ζωή της φύσης που της αποβάλλει τη φυσικότητά της στην έλευση ενός άλλου ίχνους, ενός ίχνους που στερείται “φυσικότητας”, μιας και είναι αυτό το ίχνος του Έξω.

Εκτεθειμένα τοπία που διασώζουν το σκότος που τα περιβάλλει και εμπεριέχει στο αστροποβόλο φλας της μηχανής ή στα φώτα ενός αυτοκινήτου. Ένα αμήχανο πάντα φως που δεν φωταγωγεί αλλά που περισσότερο δια-γράφει αυτό το σκοτάδι. Η φύση εδώ μοιάζει να χει αναλάβει την μυστική δυναμική των μορφών της. Ένα ερημικό περιβάλλον ζωής που αναγνωρίζεται στη καταγωγική του σιωπή και μόνο. Η ορατή πλευρά των μορφών εντοπιζόταν άλλωστε πάντα από την τέχνη στην αόρατη πλευρά της, όχι στην εξαντλητική αλλά στην εξαντλημένη φωτοχυσία της αδιαφάνειας και διασποράς.

Μια συστάδα δέντρων λοιπόν που φωτίζεται άθελά της από τα φώτα ενός αυτοκινήτου, ένας μοναχικός φοίνικας που ανεμοδέρνεται μέσα στη νύχτα, μια βουνοκορφή που ετοιμάζεται να δύσει μαζί με το φως της, οι βαθιές σκιές μιας φυλλωσιάς, διαγράφουν ένα ρομαντικό περιβάλλον και μάλιστα στις πιο χελντερλιανές του εκδοχές. Η νύχτα, διαφαίνεται εδώ ως ο οίκος της φύσης, ένα περιβάλλον οραματικών εναισθήσεων. Μια προσδοκία. Μια οξυμένη ακοή. Μια οξύτητα, που γίνεται μάλιστα και μια οντολογική στάση, μια ποιητική πρόσβλεψη και πρόσληψη του κόσμου. Η στιγμή μιας ακίνητης αναμονής, κυριολεκτικά όμως εν τω μέσω της νυκτός. Μια δι-έγερση. Η διέγερση μιας φωνής, ενός σημαίνοντος, ενός σημαίνοντος άλλου, ενός άλλου πριν από κάθε γραφή, πίσω από κάθε λέξη. Ένα “δάσος συμβόλων” που εγείρεται, αδύναμο, αδύνατο, αποσυρόμενο μόνο.»

Αποστόλης Αρτινός

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illusions

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."

--Mark Twain

"I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change."

--Bob Dylan

"The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them."

--Victor Hugo

"I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions."

--Alexander McQueen

Berlinische Galerie

Berlinische Galerie

The Berlinische Galerie is one of the newest museums in the German capital and collects art from Berlin dating from 1870 to the present day – with both a local and international focus.

Founded in 1975, the State Museum reopened in its own building close to the Jewish Museum in 2004, moving into a spacious industrial hall that has been rebuilt to provide 4,600 square metres of exhibition space. Fine art – painting, graphics, sculpture, multimedia – photography, architecture and artists’ archives provide a rich source, whose interdisciplinary relationships create exciting dialogues.

Its outstanding collections include Dada Berlin, the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and the Eastern European avant-garde. The art of the divided and reunified city of Berlin provides another focus

The collection of Berlinische Galerie differs in a fundamental way from those of other museums in the capital. This is not a collection with royal roots, but one founded by citizens of the city in 1975 and that since then has grown with great enthusiasm. In addition, the collection is unusual due to its specialization on art created in Berlin since 1870. This makes Berlinische Galerie unique as a museum, something exceptional. The specialization on the art of a single region should not be understood as a limitation, but should be considered a way of proving the collection with a unique focus.


 

From a current point of view, the decision to base the collection on this guiding principle now seems almost prophetic, for it was impossible at the time of the museum’s founding to imagine that Berlin would develop from an isolated, highly subsidized city fragment into an international center of art.

While the focus was first placed on acquisitions from the realm of painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings, with the photography collection, the architecture collection, and the artist archives additional areas of the collection have been added that exemplify the dynamic principle of reflecting on aesthetic practices.

The special development of the history of art in Berlin is closely tied to recent political history. The various parts of the collection enable an exciting conversation among the disciplines, and various media interact with one another in the collection’s presentation. Organized thematically, the museum tells the history of art in Berlin with varying emphases.   [ + more ]

A birthday and a live

A birthday

and a party/live

Feauturing Sugahspank, Mc Yinka, Alex Retsis

at  En Elladi, Xarmaina, Amfissa

BorderLines

Borderlines

Land

Sea

Sky

BΒ

I.

B is for Buildings

B is for Berlin

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

As animals they inhabit time

"Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time."  ---C. S. Lewis

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"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
-- Erich Fromm

"It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions." ---Mark Twain