This blue marble

– and yet it spins

Tag Archives: art


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The Phantom of the Opera

Geronimo-Rauch-as-The-Phantom-and-Harriet-Jones-as-Christine-in-Phantom-of-the-Opera.-Photo-by-Johan-Persson The phantom of the opera: what an exciting book from a different world for a 17-year-old! History, ghost story, and romance all entwined. Half a lifetime later I finally saw the original production in London, at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Oh the glitz and glamour, the mystery, the troubles of love! Also, oh the numbers of Asian tourists taking selfies in an eerie glow produced by cell phones in the dark theater. And what class: a play in its 29th year could be bland, worn out, a conveyer belt production. But not the Phantom: spotless, gorgeous scenery and costumes, a Christine with an angel’s voice, and a Phantom with true acting skills.

Two hours later, as I walked back to the hotel, I could not help but wonder how Gaston Leroux would have felt, had he known that his book was being staged and acted out still 100 years after it was written? Would he have written a different kind of ending, knowing that 100 years later, to have a crippled, deformed face does not lead to a loveless life spent in hiding and desperation?

phantom(Top image courtesy of The Phantom of the Opera).

(London, United Kingdom; June 2015)


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Ready for tonight’s performance

Riga-4Red velvet, a huge crystal chandelier, and four kilograms of gold make worthy premises for tonight’s performance. How lovely it would be to sit up there on the first balcony when the first tunes for the Barber of Seville shoot into the air. But alas, it was not to be this time.

Upstairs was a gorgeous red room with high windows that was once used as the rehearsal room for the ballet. This time its walls heard the most soulful arias accompanied by a single piano. And this was no rehearsal but a lovely surprise. How lucky we were.

Riga-3(Latvian National Opera, Riga, Latvia; January 2015)


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Finnish inherited blindness

aaltohouse-2

There were white surfaces, and light wooden floors. Clean edges and no frills. There were practical tables, durable chairs, and simple lighting. And it was all so Finnish we did not think it was all too marvelous. We shrugged; of course the home we grew up in had several Savoy vases. Of course we ate our kindergarten lunches on the Stool 60 and the table with L-shaped legs. They were designed by a Finn to be used by Finns.

And so it was difficult to set our minds on the wavelength of quiet reverence of the American party that joined us on our tour of Alvar Aalto’s home. What did they see that we did not? I washed my thoughts with images of American homes, focused really hard, and stared squinting at the Tank chair. After some effort I began to catch glimpses of how different the zebra upholstery and the simple curved frame was from everything that was ordinary across the Atlantic. How our fellow tourists saw the boxy, minimalistic shape of the house so extraordinary, and how everything Aalto is both Finnish and resonates so with the Japanese. I blinked – and the magic was broken. I was back in a room that felt homely and familiar.

Aalto is wired into our cultural inheritance, and it surfaces with symptoms of inherited blindness for things others consider singular. Things we consider for granted others collect as design items.

As I stepped back out into the bleary January Saturday I wondered how much we could learn about ourselves if we could only step out of our own cultural contexts? And how much more beautiful and wonder-full the world would suddenly become?

aaltohouse-1(Alvar Aalto house, Helsinki, Finland; January 2015)


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A blood-red world

Tatemodern-2Up on the third floor of Tate Modern there is a room with six blood red paintings on its walls. It is guarded by human eye by day and by mechanical eye by night. In the center stands a long bench. Those who take the time to sit down will eventually feel things. The feeling that filled me was the world pressing upon me, and it was not a pretty world. It was an oxblood world.

Mark Rothko painted the nine Seagram murals for a fancy restaurant but they made people feel shut in and trapped, which is not good for business. Who knows if this was the train of his thought or not when he took back the paintings and returned the money. Today six of the paintings hang in Tate Modern in London in a room of their own.

After a while I closed my eyes and to my surprise the same images lingered, as an imprint of fleshy negatives stuck on my retina. I gave up, opened my eyes, and gazed at the paintings again. They had transformed into a window toward a blood-red world where everything was wrong.

Oh, such a relief it was when we finally found our way back to a place where light is white and warm and not red and cold, and where the water of the Thames on this rare day reflected the blue sky. And where one could simply sit down, order a wonderful risotto with a fabulous verdeho wine, and breathe. The world isn’t doomed quite yet.

Tatemodern-1 (London, United Kingdom; October 2014)


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The riddle before the ladies’ room

botanistThe dinner debate of the evening: is the ladies’ room the one with the butterfly on the door, or the snake? Butterflies are beautiful and ladies love them, but the prettiest ones are always male. And Eve of the Bible teamed up with the snake, didn’t she?

It is advisable to retain a certain grade of sharpness when first visiting the necessary room at The Botanist on Sloane Square. Or perhaps gender is encouraged to remain only a rethorical question?

(London, UK; October 2014)


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Random encounters in Gothenburg

Hotelpost-2Each morning as I stepped down into the hotel lobby, this rhino was dolefully observing the guests from a different spot. Perhaps the hotel houses elves cart the poor thing around the halls at night?

Never do I leave Gothenburg without a cinnamon roll the size of a pizza plate from Café Husaren. And this time also a  gigantic chocolate meringue that barely fit into a lunch salad box. Until next time, when I intend to sample the EP-sized chocolate cookie.Husaren-2 (Gothenburg, Sweden; August 2014)


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The woman who makes people cry

Artbasel-1

“Let’s go to the cocktail party at the Jewel Box”, my friends said. “Free drinks if you see a five-minute film? Great deal”, I replied. And there was valet parking, and willow-wispy artsy chic ladies mingling with smartly cut young men. And champagne and laughter under the stars next to a sparkly glowy ruby cube.

Just before midnight we walked inside and up flights of depressing concrete stairs, and into a world of an endless, deep red sunset. The air vibrated with a deep bass hum and a soulful crying tune. Bubbles and chatter waned away as we dove into shadows and loneliness. Slowly, slowly, a raven-haired woman appeared in front of us, floating mid-air without a single thread of clothing, carrying the sorrows of every grieving mother in the world in her eyes. Some years back she made so many people cry by just a silent stare across a table. This time she did it through the silver screen.

And I could not help but feel we had only seen the beginning and that it was all our hearts could handle.

(‘A portrait of Marina Abramovic’ by Matthu Placek screened at Art Basel in Miami Beach; Florida, USA; December 2013)