AntwerpPhoto

Wednesday market, Brugge Markt

A very interesting day out with friends on Wednesday causing me to miss the market on the Markt and thus no flowers, fruit, salads or vegetables. That market is SO essential. So yesterday to Proxy for fruit etc and an on-the-impulse drop-in to the lovely handbag shop, Daneels, nearby to buy leather gloves. It is closing down in October after at least 30 years in its present position as the up-market, solidly reliable

Nordzandstraat, Brugge

shop for leather goods and it will be missed. It is shocking at present to see so many shops empty or about to be abandoned in Brugge, simply on the two main shopping arteries of Geldmanstraat leading to Zuidzandstraat and Steenstraat leading to Nordzandstraat. Last week I counted six vacant shops with more winding down. One hears that it is a sign of the times and changing shopping habits chiefly because of the Internet, but it adds rather a desolate touch to the bustling city we know and love.

The day out was to Antwerp to see an important photography biennial by AntwerpPhoto in the

Keith Richard in younger days.

former Pilot House, the erstwhile departure point for Antwerp’s harbour pilots. It is a protected building, normally not open to the public and is a neo-Renaissance palace dating from 1890 standing impressively on the banks of the River Scheldt. It is, in fact, greatly in need of lots of tlc and money while a decision is made about its future. However, its down-at-heel appearance and feel was splendidly attuned to the several photo exhibitions, particularly that on the ground floor; 1-2-3-4 by Anton Corbijn. It involved iconic images of world-class rock ‘n’ roll stars like Depeche Mode, The Rolling Stones, U2, Metallica and Nirvana. Corbijn moved to London in 1979 following the bands he admired and wished to photograph. There were some stunning images but the rather seedy musicians photographed in depressing warehouses, down-at-heel spaces and grimy wastelands, felt at home in the decaying exhibition space. A perfect fusion in fact.

Prix Carmignac photo of refugees, penned up.

The second exhibition was the Prix Carmignac which gave opportunity to photojournalists to explore in depth a region at the centre of global conflict where human rights and the luxury of free speech barely exist. The results were graphic and profoundly moving. The third exhibition,
Iconobelge, showed the work of 34 Belgian photographers who, each in his own distinctive manner, recorded the world around them. Although not a retrospective, nor a collection, it showed the personal search by distinguished photographers among their archives to produce an exhibition of rich imagery and powerful moments, snapshots in the purest sense. Michael Wolf, the fourth show, was an extended study in megacities documenting both architecture and local culture. His Architecture of Density showed Hong Kong’s skyscrapers as almost endless abstractions while his Tokyo Compression demonstrated human density trapped, for instance, in the metro where every centimetre of space is crammed.

Iconobelge celebratory photograph

Old Hongkong apartments

The one exhibition which took my breath away was the Prix Carmignac with its large wrenching photographs of black refugees, stripped of dignity, safety, humanity, their collective suffering vividly and individually endured stoically, fearfully and endlessly. The very worst aspects of human behaviour were generally implied; immigrants shown routinely humiliated, tortured, starved, sold and bought as animals, terrified and degraded. I have never read or seen a stronger case for both remedial and punitive action in any publication or exhibition before. The eloquence of this Prix Carmignac photography should move mountains.

Mick Jagger in drag, Glasgow 1996

Anton Corbijn

Prix Carmignac photo of 

women just sold.

Paris and Picasso

And shortly after my last blog was published, I whizzed off to Paris to meet my California-based daughter over to a medical conference in the City of Light. And a lovely interlude, that was. Super, and rare, to spend a couple of days with my darling eldest and great to return to Paris after about a quarter of a century! I shared her room in Claridges on the Champs-Elysees; a bit of a thrill to be there and more so considering the facilities and 

Fraser-Claridges Champs Elysees, 74.

Part of the main internal courtyard.

quality plus the lovely view below the balustrade down to a huge courtyard below. 

We had a gentle time, wandering, stopping to savour the view or have a coffee, checking out Montmartre, the Seine, the boulevards. Best of all perhaps, we had a long trip to the Musee d’Orsay to see the just-opened Picasso, Bleu et Rose, an absolutely wonderful and huge exhibition of these two periods of his early painting life. [A joint exhibition by the Musee d'Orsay and the Musee Nationale Picasso-Paris] The extraordinary inventiveness and richness of talent just pulsated from the many, many works of art on view from the period between 1900 and 1906. Picasso arrived in Paris at the Gare d'Orsay in 1900 aged only 18 but already a precocious and confident artist.

 The seven years, with Picasso dividing his time until 1904 between Barcelona and Paris, show a huge range of styles  with evidence of artistic experiments and explorations, emerging. His palette of bright colours, and his subjects, reminiscent of the Post-Impressionism of Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh gradually shade into the blues and mauve monochromes of the Bleu period, [1901-1904] and eventually the rose pinks and reds of the 'Saltimbanques' period [1905- summer 1906] He also moved from depicting aspects of modern life, like the theatre and became immersed in representing the melancholy impoverished and inadequate like lonely absinthe drinkers and poor prostitutes.

Young Harlequin with Acrobat 1905

 It was a magical and privileged interlude for me not tainted by a last-minute dash Sian had to find me hanging around for the Thalys, from her Eurostar departure point, fortunately both in la Gare du Nord! I had claimed my passport from the room safe while the room was dark, early that morning and she slept. I had known I wouldn’t need my passport in the Schengen Area but couldn’t quite bring myself to leave it at home! So I had taken it from among a number of things in the safe and popped it directly into my handbag. Only, inadvertently, I had taken hers and subsequently, she, mine, without either of us thinking to check the name. But potential disaster was averted!

La Femme en Chemise [Madeleine] 1905

A favourite.

And a technicolour sky from my terrace to welcome
me back home to Beloved Brugge!