Lehman Brothers - New York City

The business bank Lehman Brothers closes its doors...
I'm wondering what's gonna happen to the superb building in which it had its New York offices next to Times Square.










Untwist is the company that manufactured this LED screens. More info on their website: http://www.untwist.com/

Erwin Olaf - Paradise

Erwin Olaf is a Dutch photographer born in 1959.


Olaf lives in Amsterdam since 1980, his work got praised in 1988 with the "Chessmen" series, showing naked bodies (obese or pregnant women, young and vivid young men) enbodying the different pawns of a dusty chess game.


Through his work, the artist explores different themes like gender, sensuality, humor, despair and grace...


"Paradise", that I chose to represent here, is a series of photographs from 2001 focusing on a dark and baroque world inhabited by obscure clowns that express both happiness and sadness.


Erwin Olaf also got some attention in 1999 with the flamboyant and provocative visuals of a Diesel campaign that won the Lion d'Argent in Cannes. We also remember his beautiful white and red creations for Lavazza.


Olaf twork on video too, he directed some more or less disturbing shorts in the 2000s.


To close the series, the artist presented a series of portraits of the characters of the scenes. Important: click on the images to enlarge them, they're quite big, enabling you to observe the details of those peculiar faces.


Erwin Olaf's website: click here!

So weird...

(click to enlarge)
Line 1 - June 18, 2008

Madonna: "on a cover of *all* magazines"

As usual, Madonna doesn't go halfway and when she promotes her new album, the press goes along with her. She was on the cover of the British music magazines Q. More surprisingly, she's also on the cover of a special ecology issue of Vanity Fair, the US magazine founded in 1913.

She's also on the covers of 3 international editions of Elle: US, UK and... France of course!



Interview (created in 1969 by Andy Warhol) was the first this year to talk about the diva's new album and introduced a new picture from the Steven Klein photoshoot (also used for the cover of Hard Candy, to be released on April 29, 2008).

Finally, in France, Madonna can also be seen on the cover Figaro Madame for their fashion issue.

Painted Wagons

Some more graphic mutilations of the Paris subway (line 3).


I'm more and more seduced by the ephemeral state of this works. Also, I love their growing complexity.


I promise I'll try to know more about the artists nex time.


Below, one of my favorite...


Pictures taken between March and April 2008.

Jan Saudek

When browsing the Taschen books of his photographs, this Czech photographer born in 1935 took me in his universe. Very easy to identify, his universes repeat themselves to infinity and Jan Saudek multiplies the shoots on an often common base: nudity worked in not so varied settings with hand painted colored photographs giving it a special texture.


Saudek has an obsession with dressed/undressed models. He uses this principle to illustrate the playing cards he composed with two figures back to back with each other upside down (some examples here).


Sex has a huge importance in this photographer's work, especially with atypical profiles like overweighed ladies or people with a specific physical trait. Saudek took many pictures of contortionists. In this extent, this freak-show theme might shock or disturb with this weird and black beauty...Le sexe prend une importance immense dans le travail de ce photographe, notamment lorsqu'il s'agit de profils atypiques de personnes obèses ou ayant une particularité physique bien prononcée. Saudek a également photographié beaucoup de contortionnistes. Dans ce sens, son travail se rapproche beaucoup d'un esprit de Foire (ou Freak show) pouvant déranger ou choquer par sa beauté noire et étrange.


His website both in English and Czech introduces the entirety of his work, from the 1950s to today.

My creations for the CD I mix

Metro Line 3: slowing down?

I notice a fewer number of painted wagons. On the other hand, lots of remains or less happy tags can be seen here and there...


Here are the latest I could see (January 2008).

Dignity

Question: Which one of these characters keeps his dignity?

Remark: Ray-Bans for more discretion? Not sure...

Another so-called "stolen" picture...

Line 3: contaminated

I can't help noticing that the street art is growing. I think the RATP - which apparently already took some mesures to erase these works - will end up reacting very badly.
I can also notice I'm not alone to take pictures...
Some of these pieces are interesting, colorful and inventive. Sometimes, like here, the sign is preceded by the inscription "Line 3 Lover" (in English)...
Pictures taken between December 2007 & January 2008.
The writings can be huge....