Ai Weiwei: Making Sense

Study of Perspective

These are shots done during a visit to the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Making Sense in London’s Design Museum. All pictures were done with my Leica M262 and a WWII area Summitar 50mmF2.

Ai, as he is referred to through the exhibition, is a well known global artist, advocate for freedom of speech whose constant conflict with his home country makes the background of his work.

Untitled (hand made cannon balls made of Porcelain)

The change from hand craft to mass production, the speed of changes in China over the last 30 years, the rush to modernisation are all themes that are exploited in his work.

Lego and vintage Chinese woodworks

Glass helmet

A lot of the work exposed are challenging the perspective between the actual way they were made and what hey represent. The construction site protective helmet is made of glass, the cushion of which it rests is in marble not foam.

The iron reinforcing concrete made of marble, the Iphone of cut-out jade.

Some pieces refers to recent events that happened in China, the rod to the collapse of badly build buildings, the snakes made of schoolbags to lives lost in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Some pieces like the glass, wood or metal seems to be realised in a very detailed and technical manner. Some others are closer to ready made like the broken porcelain tea pots and ceramics below.

250,000 porcelain spouts

Pieces of broken pottery salvaged from the destruction of Ai’s studio by the Chinese authorities in 2018

And one of the big pieces is an arrangements of Palaeolithic tools picked up on markets ( likely a single big market).

Below , the same shot with the Summitar wide open, showing the effect of selective focus.

If my memory serves me well, three selections of pictures are completing the exhibition, some of earlier works in Ai Wei Wei first atelier, some of the construction of the Nest for Beijing Olympics (Ai participated before withdrawing from the project), them a series about transforming landscape in Beijing Hutongs.

Nice show, but a bit short, worth visiting nonetheless.

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Anandpur Sahib

The city is one of the most sacred places in Sikhism, it is a big hour drive from Chandigarh.

The main Gurudwara is situated on a hill, you walk up from the parking.

It is quite beautiful and offers a great view on the surrounding area.

This place receives a lot of pilgrims as it is the place where the last two Sikh Gurus lived, so it is quite interesting to see the infrastructure. Below a hall were pilgrims can rest.

And below a young Sikh guarding the guesthouse for pilgrims (we unfortunately could not visit one).

The communal kitchen of this Gurudwara is also hudge. They have big pots.

In the kitchen he lady below started singing while making chapatis.

Finally a good shot of the chapati making machine:

Next we walked to a nearby temple with a sacred well a hundred stairs below ground.

From the outside there is a beautiful view on the Virasat-e-Khalsa, the museum of Punjab and Sikhism.

This museum is very well done, interesting and didactic, although it may sound a bit propagandist or proselyte , it gives a lot of information on the history of Punjab and Sikhism. I think it is a must do, to help memorize or clarify the things we learned through our trip.

SINGAPORE NATIONAL GALLERY – Part 2

This is a follow up of the last post;

As this was the first outing of the year,  I could not resist bringing along a second camera, the Nikon F photomnic with the original 50mmF1.4 non AI.

When I did the write up of the film shots of 2015, I noticed the Nikon F only went out of the box once and this is not fair, I have some interesting lenses that can attach to it and it should hit the road more often this year.

The batteries from the stock seems to be still working; I pulled from the fridge a roll of Rollei retro 80s. This is the first time I use this film, I read you can shoot it at 100. This film is expired for a bit more than a year, but sitting in the fridge that probably does not matter. When I bought the Nikon F  a few years back I grabbed two measuring prisms and both although far from mint provide accurate measuring, at least as good as the handled meter.

Same as for the Hasselblad shots, all the pictures are made handheld, the 50mm is the equivalent of the 80mm Planar on the Hassie, not the best for architecture shot, but both cameras are already quite heavy so I could not consider bringing another lens (anyway the wider I have with the connection prong is 35mm).

The Rollei film performed quite well. It has as expected fine grain, it is quite contrasty, the scanning is easy as the negs are quite flat, the film has an odd blueish tint. Some of the shots have some deep blacks, and nice grays. The measuring seems to be not always on, but maybe it is more due to the meter of the F than to the characteristics of the film. This film seems to show some character and I’ll get some more when I can. I’ll probably test with another camera, the EOS1M which has better metering capabilities.

There is not much more to add about the National Gallery from my last post, maybe that the place boasts a few restaurants (at least 3 or 4) and the prime minister of Singapore was treating a Princess of Thailand the way we visited.

 

Singapore National Gallery

The first outing of 2016 of the Singapore Photowalkers(SGPW) organized by Bernard Goh was at the newly opened National Gallery. An opportunity to bring out the Hasselblad and a roll of Rollei RPX 25Iso that I imagined well suited for Architecture.

The National Gallery is a museum displaying local collections, in a new building mixing contemporary architecture and two buildings form the colonial Area: the city hall an dthe high court.

Inside and outside the mix of the two style is visible.

Tripods are not allowed inside so all shots are handheld around 1/60s at F4. The film is very easy to scan with the old Epson V500 and the lab did not do a bad job with it.

I can let you judge the results.

I also shot a roll of Rollei Retro 400s which turned out to be so badly underexposed it is unusable. If is the second roll now, shall I blame the lab or the film? Actually I also manage to screw up another roll of 400s in the EOS1N, but I pushed that one by 1 stop. In doubt I’ll stay away from if from now on.