One of the last appearances of Mady Mesplé - La dame de Monte-Carlo (Francis Poulenc)

"Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated" Alphonse de Lamartine ("L'Isolement", Méditations Poétiques - 1820)

Flowers from Sylvia, Bjorn and Sarah

Opening tonight at Bethanien, Berlin

Trio A - Yvonne Rainer

Watch it all here

No manifesto - Yvonne Rainer

No to spectacle.
No to virtuosity.
No to transformations and magic and make-believe.
No to the glamour and transcendency of the star image.
No to the heroic.
No to the anti-heroic.
No to trash imagery.
No to involvement
of performer or spectator.
No to style.
No to camp.
No to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer.
No to eccentricity.
No to moving or being moved.

Valeria's rainbow

www.christodoulospanayiotou.com is online

Good morning

Nina Simone improvises around her feelings and wonders about "the conditions that produced a situation that demanded a song like that" - Feelings

Francoise Hardy and Isabelle Huppert are sending "personal messages" of confusions and hope - Message Personnel

... and the translation

Existentialist pop - Dalida repeats the stylized movements of human despair and sings loudly about the unbearable solitude - Pour ne pas vivre seul

Pour ne pas vivre seul - Lyrics

Pour ne pas vivre seul
On vit avec un chien
On vie avec des roses
ou avec une croix
Pour ne pas vivre seul
On's fait du cinéma
On aime un souvenir
une ombre, n'importe quoi
Pour ne pas vivre seul
On vit pour le printemps
et quand le printemps meurt
pour le prochain printemps
Pour ne pas vivre seule
Je t'aime et je t'attends
pour avoir l'illusion
de ne pas vivre seule
de ne pas vivre seule
Pour ne pas vivre seul
des filles aiment des filles
et l'on voit des garçons
épouser des garçons
Pour ne pas vivre seul
D'autres font des enfants
des enfants qui sont seuls
comme tous les enfants
Pour ne pas vivre seul
On fait des cathédrales
où tous ceux qui sont seuls
s'accrochent à une étoile
Pour ne pas vivre seul
Je t'aime et je t'attends
pour avoir l'illusion
de ne pas vivre seul
Pour ne pas vivre seul
On se fait des amis
et on les réunit
quand vient les soirs d'ennui
On vit pour son argent
ses rêves, ses palaces
mais on a jamais fait
un cercueil à deux places
Pour ne pas vivre seul
Moi je vis avec toi
je suis seule avec toi
tu es seul avec moi
Pour ne pas vivre seul
On vit comme ceux qui veulent
se donner l'illusion
de ne pas vivre seul

As Not To Live Alone (lyrics in english)

As not to live alone
We live with with a dog
Surround ourselves with roses
Or worship a cross
As not to live alone
We choose make believe
Loving a memory
A shadow, any old thing
As not to live alone
We live for spring and when spring is gone
We live for next spring
As not to live alone
I love you and I'll wait
It give me the illusions
That I'm not all alone.
As not to live alone
Some girls love girls and some boys marry other boys
As not to live alone
Some have children
Children who are alone, like all children.
As not to live alone
We build cathedrals,
where all the lonely souls hang on to a star
As not to live alone
I love you and I'll wait
It give me the illusions
That I'm not all alone.
As not to live alone
we make friends
and we gather
the nights of boredom
we live for our money
our dreams, our positions
but we have never made
a coffin for two
as not to live alone
i live with you
I am alone with you
You are alone with me
as not to live alone
we live like those who wants
to give themselves the illusion
not to be alone

Antony singing If It Be Your Will

So long (an important distinction)

Intervista - Federico Fellini, 1987

Self-cannibalism and fast food obscure deviations

Valerie Knoll for Act I: The Departure in Artforum

November Paynter for the Taipei Biennale in Bidoun

Rolf Wienkotter for Horror Vacui in Spike

Burkard Meltzer on If tomorrow never comes for Frieze

Some months ago, Freymond-Guth & Co Fine Arts moved into a former car repair shop. Aside from the narrow window across the large doors, the two exhibition spaces offer a retreat from the bustle of the surrounding neighbourhood. For the solo exhibition and one-work show by Christodoulos Panayiotou, part of the gallery gained a slide-projected view out into an unexpectedly Neapolitan night. Only the projector’s rhythmical clicking briefly interrupts the glare of the photographs of firework displays gathered from the archives of two Naples daily newspapers for the slideshow If Tomorrow Never Comes (2007). It should be noted that the occasions for these photographs may not always have been happy ones, since fireworks are used in Naples both for popular festivals and by the Camorra to transmit sensitive messages.

Although the photographs date back to the early 20th century, historical orientation during the slideshow is near impossible. As both newspapers print their pictures in black and white, even today, the firework displays are reduced to a range of greys and appear almost interchangeable – even if the various motifs span an entire century. This difficulty of historical orientation allows the work to awaken paradoxical hopes. What was once captured on film as news and then apparently vanished forever is brought to light again – if only for a few seconds – in the projector’s endless loop. Removed from the context of day-to-day reporting, isolated from any text, the pictures now stand out from the background. A simple trick, but one which in Panayiotou’s work creates a distinctive sense of time, which seems to expand again and again during the viewing process.

In many cases, the press photographer’s camera is pointed out over the sea, which amplifies every effect of the light during the firework display like a huge mirror. The bundles of light spread out like rays above the water and briefly illuminate the Gulf of Naples with its boats and promenades. Sometimes, historical buildings, lampposts or a shoreline make their way into the foreground. Brightly lit by a powerful flash, trees and bushes are starkly outlined against the night horizon. As a result of the peculiarities of photographic imaging, various light sources merge with the haze of burning gas from the fireworks. And the long exposure carefully archives the arcs described by the rockets. Only in photography can visual traces from a given time-lapse be visualized together in a single image.

The spectacular light events almost transform the mechanical re-presentation of a slideshow into a performative act that permanently reverses the camera’s recording process: instead of capturing light waves, a firework display becomes visible on the gallery wall with a click from the projector. For a moment there is darkness, and then the next bright rocket trace lights up the here and now – thanks to an event that was recorded during a brief time-span several decades ago and then archived. Whether using photographs, sound recordings or video installations, Panayiotou’s works perform an exchange between the act of recording and the act of showing that is capable of developing a time structure all of its own.

Translated by Nicholas Grindell

Burkhard Meltzer