It tastes like...
Who What Where When...

Inspirations  It's all about... transformation

Painting

Photography

Music

Cinema

Writing

 

Painting

Did you know that painters like Renaissance have been the most intelligently using art. I'm not bored when I look at a painting. That's also probably due to the fact that I love photography. Anyway artists, that's all people want to hear about...

So artists: Easy, Frida Khalo for first. I think she is the woman I love the most on earth, with Evita. They are both from south america, I don't know if it is related. But the story of Frida is inspiring in a different way. She used to like painting, she had a photographer for father, and I think this was important. Then, you never know what life wants for you and I think she pretty well handled hers even if it was only pain if you really are objective. She found ways to avoid it, or to express it so she could live with it. I would have never found her courage so brave if I hadn't seen her pictures face to face. I know here since the day I found a reference of her in an advert from Jean-Paul Gaultier. Then, I started being curious, but couldn't see any frame. I wanted to watch the movie about her from the time Madonna was supposed to play it. I haven't seen it before two years ago, at last. Then, I went to London, and I saw her exhibition at The Tate Gallery. I almost cry. Well, or felt her pain. Those pictures are all about feeling happy as much as possible when pain is omnipresent. Since, I worked for a publishing house and I found a children book about her, quite amazing, really telling the truth to the children, I almost cried. This was so naive and sad. So here is my first.

So here is my first. Second, I wouldn't know. Sophie Calles, But she is more of a plasticienne, or a photographer. I don't know. Installation maybe. She made an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the National center of modern art of Paris, and that was about a journey to Japan. A strange story told like a diary, one day was one frame. With a room for the event that made her change all her plans. I found her smart, amazing.

I just found my third, this one is a real painter. I just saw his exhibition in the same museum, still in Paris. Yves Klein. I would have never believe the video I was shown when I was studying art in High School if I hadn't the opportunity to see then for real what it was. And this is amazing. He is mostly famous for his blue monochromes labelised Bleu Klein. This blue is stuning, and the pieces of paintings and sponges sculptures he made were incredible. He also used fire. Fire as a sculpture-performance, but also fire as another kind of paint. A very interesting an innovating work.

Then, I could say the Nouveau Realistes, Surréalistes and the Pop artistes made my world, but they are too many to really tell their name. I would say Arman, Cesar, De Saint-Phalle et Tinguely, Magritte, Man Ray, Miro...

And to finish, yes as a painter, I would say Walt Disney. I saw a restrospective exhibition about him in the Grand Palais in Paris, and all is about painting. At first. The amazing painting in London from peter pan first scene, the inspirations for the scene of the wood in Blanche Neige... and his work with Dali!

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Photography

Nan Goldin, definitely the one. She troubled my world in an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou. At half of the exhibition, I had to sit down, not feeling so good. The exhibition was all her personal work. Some may say she is not a photographer but a story teller. That's right, there was too much history in her pictures. More meaningfull than esthetic. Actually, I also liked the texture. A yellow coloration, a heavy and intimate universe. Really real

Cindy Sherman. All about fake, the exact opposite actually. That's interesting to compare them both. Cindy created everything, the situation, the objects, organic or materials, choose a light, a view, and in the end, everything seem so real and unpleasant. It's all about embarrassement. Or maybe not.

Alain Fleischer. When I had the examination in photography to integrate a shool of photography in Paris, Louis Lumiere, I had to compare a picture of him, happy days, to a picture of Cindy Sherman. I failed! Really not inspired. Anyway, then I saw there was an exhibition at the Maison Eupeenne de la Photographie in Paris, and then I discover that was the same person. Quite a surpise. He made more things about reflexion in mirrors, and my favorite in Cadre et Miroir Series.

Andreas Gurski, famous photographer who takes very large pictures of crowds, buildings and situations in a very graphic way. It's as if he couldn't find anything messy, there was always a line, a construction, a organisation to his pictures. There are usually no shadow and the colours are bright.

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Music

It would be easier to say I love everything. So I'll try something. I was raised surrounded by the music my mum was listening to. Meaning wold music, like Canarian music (Spain) flamenco and concerto for guitars, Indian music from Ravi Shankar or others. Classical music, loads of Mozart and Wagner mostly. Gregorian cantos. And celtic with Loreena McKennitt and I can't remember his name right now. Then I turned on the radio all by myself and i discover Rock, with U2, Pulp, Nirvana, K's choice, Red Hot, Off Spring, Metallica, Skin, Alanis Morissette, No Doubt, Green Day but also boys band like Boyzone, Back Street Boys, Spice Girls and Take That. I found out who was Madonna that became one of my favorite singer and one of the woman still alive that I respect the most, Mylene Farmer and Michael Jackson. Then, Dance music was on, and I liked Ace of Base and E-type, two bands from sweeden. That's all that I can remember. Then, there was rap and R&B music coming on the radio. I remember Notorious Big, Foxy Brown, Tony Braxton, Babyface, Coolio, Daddy Lord C, DesRee, Eternal... I don't remember their name, but south East Americans were good.
Anyway, there I changed a little, and went back to french music, that I still didn't know at that time. And old music in general. At 16, I discovered Bonnie Tyler, but also Nina Simone, Tracy Chapman, and french singers like Jean-Jacques Goldman, Francis Cabrel, Enzo Enzo, Sylvie Vartan and so many others. I went a little gothic for a while, but i have no name to tell except Dead Can Dance. Then I turned Indie, with Venus, Mercury Rev, Death in Vegas and other bands that i discovered in concerts like Tom McRae.
Then it become messier, inspirations given by friends, for instance Tetes Raides, La rue Ketanou, Sinsemillia, Benabar, Calexico, David GRay, Massive Attack, Coldplay... Finally, after listening to feminine rock soundtrack, I'm now into Indigo Girls a lot, Joan Baez, Heart. My last discovery, Kaki King...

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Cinema

I still don't know why, but I am crazy about movies. Usually, I identify with some characters, and the movie can suck, I am so into it for a while! Example: Matrix, Jackie Brow, Pourquoi pas Moi, Le plus beau metier du monde, The army of the twelve monkeys, Twister, Deep Impact, Deconstructing Harry, Hollywood Ending, About a boy, The fountain, The man with rain in his shoes, Loving Annabelle, Imagine Me and You, Harry Potter, Sense and sensibility, Men in Black, The siege, Hot Shot, What women want, something's gotta give, Je ne suis pas la pour etre aimé, Four weddings and a funeral, The horse wishperer, The game, Star Wars, Mulholland Drive, X-men, Thomas Crown, The english patient, Todo sobre mi madre, Pedale Douce, Le gout des autres, Constantine, Snow Cake, The constant gardener.

Actors that I love: Not so many men, so shortly: Hugh Grant, Mel Gibson, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Gerard Depardieu, Woody Allen, Pierce Brosnan, Alan Rickman.

Maggie Smith, Carrie-Ann Moss, Rachel Weiz, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas, Amira Casar, Jessica Kara-Hunger, Lena Headey, Catherine Deneuve, Renee Russo, Helen Hunt, Tea Leoni, Marisa Paredes, Linda Fiorentino, Annette Benning, Michèle Laroque, Agnès Jaoui, Diane Keaton, Emma Thompson...

Directors: Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Agnes Jaoui, David Lynch, Nancy Meyers, David Fincher, Ang Lee, Tarantino, Mimi Leder...

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Writing

Books first: A year in the Merde, The Brooklyn Follies, Sense and sensibility, A prayer for Owen Meany, Fried Green Tomatoes, La fée Carabine, Et si c'était vrai..., The perfume, Mesaventures de Minty Malone, Harry Potter, Mrs Dalloway (if only Sally Seton was more present), Notre Dame de Paris,

Authors: Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell, Ryu Murakami, Daniel Pennac, Roald Dahl, Patrick Raynal...

I feel quite empty now! This page is so filled...