+-+sluik.JPG)
I write this because of the previous contributions about Barcelona and Seoul. Are these both the same kind of gentrifications? Or could we speak in one case of city development and in the other of city destruction? Just asking. I have a confession: I had to look up the word Gentrification and realized I should have known the word decades ago but I guess it is one of those fashionable expressions like zero emissions, self sustainable building and new market economy nobody knew a while ago or remembers in a few years time. I continue with a second confession: I am conservative which means I treasure what I know and doubt the new. The progress I see around me is often of a de-evoluting kind. Now that Darwin is mentioned: Fittest in survival of the fittest is usually interpreted as the strongest but actually just means which fits best. The weakest or strongest do not fit best. Oh, look around you. Tell me what do you see...lalala etc.
Our human planet is multiplying fast. To deal with its growth of inhabitants drastic measurements are needed or we should stop reproducing right now, which is as disastrous, at least for humans. I am just a former contemporary artist, born in the Lowlands, and I have no answers to it but I am still willing to ask silly questions in public. Communism and capitalism have in the last 2 decades proven to be inadequate systems for future progress. All people who live today solely for financial profit can be classified as living dinosaurs. I know I do some wishful thinking here. Time for me to put both legs on the ground again. In Bergen that means into the snow for the moment.
Already in an earlier post I wondered about the time issue of things. I like to introduce a new term: TURM: Temporary Urban Ready Mades. (In German Turm means Tower). I want to use it now especially for the snowmen which have risen around me in fast amounts in the last few days. I live on an urban estate in Bergen with 149 other families with young kids. Our population has increased in the last 4 days with 23! Although not unwanted these persons are still not to stay. Already melting away while I write this. Beautiful they are but nobody gives a f... when they have left the planet again. One or two children tears might me shed. Would it not be a blessing if more things behave just like the snowmen and why did Darwin or God not include them in their theory? I know... I am a flying snowman.
I also realize that my selection of pictures could have been a little bit more modest but this way 11 of these snowmen and snowwomen are longer lasting or even virtual-eternal.
I have just returned from Tromsø in the north of Norway - actually quite far into the Arctic Circle. During the two days I was there I experienced snow storms, strong wind, then mild weather, melting snow and rain, then dropping temperatures and frozen slush. These morphing snowmen seem somehow to correspond to this increasing instability of winter weather.
ReplyDeleteyes, the snowman is good; it is an often quoted ironic idea by Walter Grasskamp, who wrote (see below) that the snowman might be the only acceptable sculpture or monument in public space because of its fading matter.
ReplyDeleteUnerwünschte Monumente. Moderne Kunst im Stadtraum. Hrsg. München 1. Aufl. 1989; 2. Aufl. 1992; 3. erweiterte Aufl.
Last week in Prague I discovered another urban snow version. I have put some visual examples on:http://famu-u2-praha.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHEY, one of the snowmen ran off !!!!
ReplyDelete(I have nothing to do with this, haha)