Michele Roohani

Glass has always fascinated me - they call Antoine Leperlier, an unclassifiable artist, a glass sculptor.I  was transfixed by the unusual works of art by Leperlier in Musée nationale de ceramique.

He’s using old text and adages like “et in Arcadia ego” to emphasize his take on time and human history. interrupted movements in glass like pictures taken on high speed film. frozen poetry.

“chaos” has a special place in Leperlier’s work; “continual struggle between permanence and flux, cosmos and chaos, being and nothingness”…

the only other artist that i know in this caliber would be the great Dale Chihuly.

“Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”

i thought for a long time that this quote is from Abraham Lincoln but i just found out that Elbert Hubbard is the author; the version i knew was a bit more modern than the above mentioned original:

“Never explain - you’ll bore your friends and your enemies will not believe you anyway.”

Hondarribia is a jewel of a region in the spanish basque country; i stayed in Parador to be close to Charles Quint, one of my favorite Habsburgs.

i was astonished by the tenacity of these people in regards to their language, Euskara. i am weary/wary of nationalistic sentiments - the idea that you can do better acting independently rather than collectively and that the people who spoke the same language or shared a common ethnicity should fight to build their own nation?states scares the hell out of me. Nazis and Fascists were ultra-nationalists - ETA hardly has anything to do with these two (even though it has plenty to do with other bloody mess) but i am frightened by talks of racial purity and xenophobia. i don’t want to see people, each having their own ethnic flag planted in their backyards; santa monica, california would be a very colorful city…

on the lighter side of the spectrum, spain is the country of tapas and tintos,

and sometimes carajios (an espresso with an added shot of alcohol) while watching your favorite matador at the neighborhood bar.

Living in Los Angeles, i was kind of blas� about seeing Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum last week but i was surprised by this stunning building that looks somehow “liquid”. it floats majestically on the river Nervion.

the building’s exterior with its titanium sheathing is smoothly fluid, the curves unending. i understand now why they call Gehry not a mere architect but a “starchitect”!

i have to admit that i didn’t care about the much hyped Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition.

the museum’s interior is amazing with a central atrium that reaches 50 meters high - an orgy of glass, steel, limestone and light; CONTINUITY reigns supreme…

Richard Serra’s sculptures in bilbao were a revelation to me and i was glad to catch him on Charlie Rose last night; the breathtaking installations, the sheer space-cutting size of the steel sheets, the spirals and mazes they made were just spellbinding. he will be at the Grand Palais and the MoMA with excess baggage.

aside from this, Bilbao is a boring city.

i have great images from this region but they need to be sorted out; these are my first impressions of this beautiful Basque region, south of france and north of spain.

to many, happiness is as simple as this:

coming from warm and dry california (with omnipresent washer/dryers), i was amused to see that everywhere i went in hondarribia, the laundry was hung out to dry even in the rain.