02/12/2017

Bristol à la Médiathèque musicale de Paris (MMP) : samedi 13 janvier 2018


 On prépare 2018...

Premier rendez-vous : Nantes, le 11 janvier
Puis la Médiathèque Municipale de Paris le samedi 13 janvier

Et enfin, une petite surprise bristolienne autour de mon anniversaire...
Novembre a été un mois merveilleux. Janvier s'annonce plus chaleureux que d'habitude!

A bientôt,
m



ANIMATION
Mélissa Chemam : 
En dehors de la zone de confort
Médiathèque musicale de Paris (MMP)




Rencontre littéraire avec Mélissa Chemam, auteure du livre "En dehors de la zone de confort, de Massive Attack à Banksy, sur la ville de Bristol" (éd. Anne Carrière)
  Melissa Chemam, journaliste indépendante, a publié en 2016 En dehors de la zone de confort, un ouvrage qui témoigne de l'histoire et la vie artistique de la ville de Bristol, construit autour du parcours du groupe Massive Attack et de son leader, Robert Del Naja. 
Elle y explore, à travers une foule de témoignages, les florissantes scènes musicales et le street art d'une cité qui a hérité, de son passé complexe et parfois peu avouable, un métissage d'une richesse inouïe. 
A l'occasion de cette rencontre littéraire, elle abordera les thèmes de son ouvrage : la place de la musique dans nos sociétés, du street art, de l'engagement en art... 

INFORMATIONS
PRATIQUES

Médiathèque musicale de Paris (MMP)
8 porte saint eustache
75001 paris

DATE

Le samedi 13 janvier 2018 de 16h à 18h

S'Y RENDRE

  • Ligne 4 : Les Halles (89m) ou 4 : Étienne Marcel (283m)

PLUS D'INFOS




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Lien vers Que Faire à Paris ?

https://quefaire.paris.fr/39649/melissa-chemam-en-dehors-de-la-zone-de-confort


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The Art of Semaan Khawam



Displaying the art of a Syrian artist, who left for Beirut and is now in London, UK.


Portraits (oil on canvas) and drawings:





Paintings and landscapes:








Words, in French:


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His work is available; check his Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Semaan-Khawam-Art-650398968326816/



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Introduction, by the Sana Gallery:
http://www.sanagallery.com/semaan-khawam

Semaan Khawam is a Lebanese painter, designer, graffiti artist, actor, writer and poet, born in 1974. His work has been featured at personal or collective exhibitions at, amongst others, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, the Joanna Seikaly art gallery and the Nada Debs gallery. 

In his work, Khawam shows the power of art to challenge official state censorship, sectarianism and limits on freedom of expression in the Middle East.


Albareh Art Gallery:

The self-taught multidisciplinary Khawam is a painter, sculptor, graffiti and installation artist whose work is informed by the daily reality of the city that he lives in.
Khawam’s uses his work to draw attention to political contradictions, social injustice, the lack of cultural appreciation and other uncomfortable  realities.  
Early in 2012, he spray painted an armed soldier on a wall in Gemmayzeh to remind people of the Lebanese Civil War, something that he feels has been forgotten.  
His arrest for this act drew international attention to the limits on free speech and artistic expression that Khawam and other Lebanese artists work within inadvertently but also ironically reinforcing his earlier messages.


Extract from an article:

Semaan Khawam - Bird and Birdman 


"He draws heavily on his Syrian identity, but he is also Lebanese, having spent much of his youth in the city’s hot neighborhoods along the fiery sectarian strife’s demarcation lines of the late 80s and early 90s. Like the community of displaced contemporary Syrian artists that has carved a place within the fabric of the Lebanese capital’s bohemian districts since the beginning of the Syrian crisis two years ago, he grapples with issues of injustice, discrimination, war, totalitarianism, nationalism, and his own identity. 
But his is a world apart from defeatist homilies they produce en masse and that are filling art repositories from Beirut to Dubai. He is restless and defiant, butting his head against institutional and social suppression and daring to raise a finger at a tepid discourse ushering an ever rising tidal rehash of abated artistic performances across the Arab world. An insomniac with an impoverished style and rebellious young looks, he casts himself as the protagonist in his own work."

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Last words:

“I have never won a single battle against tyranny or oppression, I just turned them into paintings,” Semaan Khawam.

30/11/2017

Travels of Love, Sounds of Love, Memories of Love


 Sorry, a bit of a night dwelling in the past.
So much travel through these blogposts.
Revisiting...

#TB

Sometimes, when I meet people, I fall in love in just a few seconds...

Not with them, people are bound to come and go, to be free!
But with a music, a place, a story.

And that can always stay with me :)

In 2013, I fell in love with a few Iranian songs:

http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.fr/2013/02/persian-sound-kourosh-yaghmaei.html


Kourosh Yaghmaei - 'Leila'





Kourosh Yaghmaei - 'Gole Yakh' (Winter Sweet)





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Back From The Brink
Pre-Revolution Psychedelic Rock From Iran : 1973 - 1979
Now-Again Records / Stones Throw / Discograph

Buy the album here:
http://www.amazon.com/Back-From-The-Brink-Pre-Revolution/dp/B005HOM6U6/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_title_popover

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“It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.”

― Kahlil Gibran

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But you don't really have to forget... Just let them go, keep the love, and let some other visitors come in... 



Somalia's Golden Age of Music


 Such an interesting video shared By Okay Africa on Somalia's most vibrant time for music in the 1970s...

I've been myself to Somalia twice, to Hargeisa and Berbera in Somaliland, a self-proclaimed independent region in the north of the country, 2011 and to Mogadishu, the capital, in 2012.

And it is not a country you can forget! It was moving towards more peace at the time, but since 2016, conflicts have been on the rise again.

But culturally, Somalia always remained vibrant and divers and very appealing. Music has been a means of expression throughout its different diaspora in North America and in Europe.

I really hope to go again someday, I had so many projects inspired by Somalia and Somali people.

All the best to this unique country.


How the 70s Became Somalia's Golden Age of Music







Published on 28 Nov 2017

In this explainer, learn what political, social, and cultural forces forged Somalia's golden age of music, what caused its demise, and why a new golden age is happening right now.

Motion Graphics: Peter Blanco
Script: Vik Sohonie
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If you have been following this blog since 201,1 when I created it, you must have seen posts about Somalia!


Here are a few reminders: 

About a very interesting book, Getting Somalia Wrong, by BBC reporter Mary Harper:

About the political situation in Somalia in 2010/12:

Pictures:







29/11/2017

On Beatriz Gonzalez



 HEALING BEAUTY.... 


 Some say a picture is worth a thousand words...
What about a painting then?
Just want to share insight into the marvelous exhibition I saw in Bordeaux last week, opening the Year of Cultural Exchanges between France and Colombia.

Beatriz Gonzalez, at the CAPC:

A series of heartfelt paintings on family, inner life, shared and especially female pain and mainly about healing, catharsis through sharing and crying out. My constant theme. 
A nice insight into the art of a continent I know too poorly...





















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23.11.2017 -> 25.02.2018 

BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ

Rétrospective 1965–2017

Dans la Nef du musée
Une exposition du CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, du Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid et du KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
Manisfestation organisée dans le cadre de l'Année France-Colombie 2017.
Cette exposition bénéficie du soutien de l'Institut français et du ministère colombien de la Culture.
Cette exposition est reconnue d'intérêt national par le ministère de la Culture/Direction générale des patrimoines/Service des musées de France. Elle bénéficie à ce titre d'un soutien exceptionnel de l'État.
Elle reçoit également le soutien de Catherine Petitgas
Remerciements à la Galería Casas Riegner, Bogotá et à Ana Sokoloff.

Artiste emblématique et fondamentale de la scène artistique d’Amérique latine, Beatriz González a marqué des générations d’artistes et de penseurs. Son travail, qui dépasse les limites de la peinture par la multiplicité des supports utilisés, convoque l’histoire, la politique, l’humour, le privé et le public.
En 1964, elle adopte un mode opératoire auquel elle restera fidèle par la suite, en faisant d’une image issue de la presse colombienne une série de tableaux. Les archives qu’elle collectionne montrent que l’imagerie populaire façonne son œuvre et constitue un terrain de recherche et de création fertile, dont elle extrait le folklore et le pittoresque. S’appuyant souvent sur la documentation photographique des reporters de presse, certaines œuvres de Beatriz González expriment aussi la douleur provoquée par la violence et la mort. Au sujet de cet aspect de son travail, Boris Groys affirme que loin de chercher la neutralité par l’appropriation qu’elle fait des images de presse, « sa peinture reste personnelle et même intime » dans la mesure où « elle trouve le moyen de faire des journaux quotidiens son propre journal intime et, inversement, de faire de son propre journal intime un outil politique »
Beatriz González s’intéresse également à la représentation des icônes de la culture populaire (des idoles sportives aux politiciens en passant par les leaders religieux) et à celle des cultures indigènes et de l’art précolombien. Ses productions, qui apparaissent parfois comme des ready-made aidés, se déclinent sur divers supports incluant des meubles et des rideaux. Toujours en activité, l’artiste qui se décrit ironiquement comme une « artiste de province », accompagne les vives mutations sociales et politiques de la Colombie.
Réunissant peintures, dessins, estampes, sculptures et installations, cette première grande exposition rétrospective de Beatriz González en Europe, permettra de découvrir un ensemble d’environ 130 œuvres réalisées entre 1965 et 2017.
Commissaire : María Inés Rodríguez
Architecture de l'exposition : Terence Gower & Estudio Beatriz González

Beatriz González
Artiste et pédagogue établie à Bogotá, Beatriz González est née en 1938, à Bucaramanga, Colombie. À travers le dessin, la peinture, l’illustration et la sculpture, elle traite de sujets en lien avec le contexte historique et culturel colombien. Elle a participé à de nombreuses expositions individuelles et collectives dans différentes institutions en Amérique latine, aux États-Unis et en Europe. Ses œuvres sont présentes dans les collections du MoMA, de la Tate Modern ou du Museum of Fine Arts de Houston, entre autres. Outre la Documenta 14 en 2017, elle a également participé à la Biennale de Venise en 1978 et à celle de Sao Paulo en 1971.

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-> Curator(s): María Inés Rodríguez
-> Artiste(s) Beatriz González
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-> Nef du musée
-> Voie d'accès pour personnes handicapées
-> Tarifs : Entrée du musée, 7 € (plein tarif) ; 4 € (tarif réduit)


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Lean more in English on the Tate Modern's website:


Beatriz González is a Colombian painter, associated with the Pop Art movement. She grew up in Colombia in the 40s and 50s, during an era of political unrest known as La Violencia (The Violence).
Initially González was a traditional painter, inspired by Vermeer and Velazquez, but later began to refer to the mass media as a source of inspiration instead. She used bold colours and flat figures to represent images taken from magazines and newspapers as a means of documenting the political and social climate of her homeland. With characteristic tongue-in-cheek humour,  González calls these her ”underdeveloped painting[s] for underdeveloped countries.”
I painted the joy of the underdeveloped… Mine was a provincial type of art without horizons, confronting the everyday. 
Interview with Tate, 2015



International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People


Message from:

 
Dear Melissa,

Today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Here at War on Want, we believe the best way to show solidarity is to take concrete steps to end our government’s complicity in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
Ask your MP to take a stand for the rights of Palestinian children.
Israel holds over 6,000 Palestinians as political prisoners. Over 200 of them are children below the age of 18. 
Palestinian children, some as young as 9 years old, are arrested and tried in Israeli military courts, detained in prisons and detention centres away from their homes and families, and denied their most basic rights.
The UK Government knows about these systematic violations, and it must take action now to stop them.
Richard Burden MP has tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the UK Government to pressure Israel to end the widespread and systemic human rights violations suffered by Palestinian children in Israeli military custody
This EDM has already been signed by MPs from across political parties. Other MPs can sign on too, so they need to hear from constituents that this issue is important for you. 
Please email your MP and ask them to sign the EDM, and to support the call for the UK Government to call Israel to account over its violations.

In Solidarity,
Ryvka Barnard
Senior Campaigner (Militarism and Security), War on Want

P.S. If you can make it to London next week, come see a free exhibition we're hosting: ‘Memory Metamorphosis: an exhibition on Palestinian memory’ at the Menier Gallery.


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MEMORY METAMORPHOSIS: AN EXHIBITION ON PALESTINIAN MEMORY





DATES: Tuesday 5 December to Saturday 9 December 2017
OPENING TIMES:
Tuesday: 11.00am - 5.00pm
Wed-Fri: 11.00am - 6.00pm
Saturday: 11.00am - 4.00pm
LOCATION: Menier Gallery (Lower Ground Floor Gallery*), 51 Southwark Street, London SE1 1RU
*We regret that the gallery is not wheelchair accessible.

War on Want is excited to host an exceptional exhibition of artworks by established and emerging artists based in Gaza, Jerusalem and New York. Memory Metamorphosis: an exhibition on Palestinian memory features painting, collage, film and photography, inspired by interviews with Palestinians in the diaspora about their memories of home.
Memories establish a connection between personal and collective past, heritage and history. They give shape to identity that has been fragmented by displacement and life in exile. There are over 6 million Palestinians living in diaspora; most were displaced or expelled over the past 70 years by war and occupation. When a people’s history, culture and existence are being altered, erased or appropriated, holding onto their memories and creating their own historical record can be seen as an act of resistance.
Discover the artists:
Alongside this exhibition we will be showcasing the powerful documentary photography of award-winning photographer, author and film-maker Rich Wiles, who has been based in Palestine for many years. His work explores notions of home, identity, resistance, and has been published and exhibited widely.
You can see some of Rich's work here, capturing the stories of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention for a project by War on Want and Addameer: Prisoner Support and Human Rights Centre.


28/11/2017

Karl Marx - 1818 / 2018


On May 5th, 2018, Karl Marx would have been 200 years old.
Today, I had the pleasure to learn that the British Library, in London, is organising a special event.
 
The British Library was an important place in the life of Karl Marx. Exiled in London from 1848, he researched a lot of his work in that building and later wrote most of the Capital.  
The Library will be presenting an exhibition and hosting a series of events on Marx from May 2018 to mark the commemoration of his work and writing.
 
As part of this season, they may plan an event, which will particularly look at the way Marx has been portrayed in writing, film and on stage... 
Among participants are expected Jason Barker, director and producer of the 2011 film Marx Reloaded (and author of the forthcoming novel Marx Returns) and playwrights Richard Bean and/or Clive Coleman, who wrote the play Young Marx

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           Exciting news !
           More soon.

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More on our film, The Young Karl Marx, that I still hope will find a distribution in the UK around that time (- Come on, England, you need it!):

We also leant today that Raoul Peck's film will be released on April 29, 2018 in Japan, in a forty cinema, under the title: "Marx · Engels".

As a reminder: in the United States, the release date is confirmed for February 23rd.



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Trailer:





27/11/2017

Lhasa - 'Rising'


 If you know me, you know I love this woman like a soul sister.
And that I believe musicians live forever.
She, especially, does live in my heart. She left us at the age I have now.

Thanks to Naomi Klein for putting this song on her list on her interview with BBC Radio 4...


Concert Privé : Lhasa - 'Rising' - Bouffes du Nord



Lhasa interprète "Rising" lors de son concert privé Fnac aux Bouffes du Nord, le 11 mai 2009. 


This venue is my favourite theatre hall, by the way.



Lhasa - 'Rising' [Official Music Video]





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Lyrics


I got caught in a storm
And carried away
I got turned, turned around

I got caught in a storm
That's what happened to me
So I didn't call
And you didn't see me for a while

I was rising up
Hitting the ground
And breaking and breaking

I was caught in a storm
Things were flying around
And doors were slamming
And windows were breaking
And I couldn't hear what you were saying
I couldn't hear what you were saying
I couldn't hear what you were saying

I was rising up
Hitting the ground
And breaking and breaking

Rising up
Rising up