Holy Cow!

Holy Cow!

Holy Cow!

Toni Meneguzzo, an international renown photographer and a very likeable guy from Italy recently presented his latest impressive and personal project called „Go Shala“! In the Berlin fashion store Quartier 206 you can find some of those extraordinary 90 pictures of holy cows on display.

„Go Shala“ is an anthropological research on the Hindu tradition of Holy Cows, uniquely painted and dressed only during specific ceremonies and celebrations.

Collecting these images of the Hindu Cows in India took Toni five years overall – travelling throughout the country and always on the look out for these amazingly painted animals.

 

Bildschirmfoto 2016-06-29 um 22.56.04 Bildschirmfoto 2016-06-29 um 22.56.17 20 Bildschirmfoto 2016-06-29 um 22.55.56

25

Dotty-cow-003

Bildschirmfoto 2016-06-29 um 22.55.45

 

As Toni Meneguzzo describes it himself, you see this art painted on a walking canvas. The cow is carrying the painting while being the painting itself:

„Adorned with garlands of fresh flowers, with decorations of colourful shiny trinkets, the cows are prepared, and this is the most striking design element, painting their coat and horns with organic pigments that have specific references: the pink is used to reflect the color of the skin of Radharani, who is the companion of Krishna, the shepherd of the cows; the yellow of turmeric is the solar divinity that illuminates the world, and so on.

The pigments are thrown on the animal with an artistic flair that recalls the informal painting of Jackson Pollock.
The sacredness of the temple, the Go Puja, is celebrated by painting the bindi in the middle of the forehead of the animal, just like all the faithful humans.
After making the photograph, the animals were cropped, making them float on the milky white, to emphasize the artistic work done by the locals on the cows because the surrounding rural and bucolic scenery is so imbued with Indian folk icon to mitigate the stylistic and artistic contributions used to celebrate the perpetual ritual of life and the sanctity of the animal.“
There is a book available with all this beautiful cows and you´ll find out more about Toni at his website: www.tonimeneguzzo.com

IMG_4953

Toni and me

 

All photos by Toni Meneguzzo.

 

Charlottes Paintings

Charlottes Paintings

Charlottes Paintings

It is such a sad story to tell – about the short life of Charlotte Salomon. Just by chance I heard of this german painter, who was murdered 26 years old at KZ Auschwitz 1943.

Charlotte Salomon Selfportrait

Charlotte Salomon selfportrait

A friend of my daughter had to talk about her in school  and I was instantly fascinated. This young girl Charlotte painted in 18 months more then 1300 gouaches in an expressionistic style!

Charlotte Salomon

Charlotte_Salomon_-_JHM_4175

Charlotte_Salomon_-_JHM_4925

She used to live in Berlin Wilmersdorf just a few streets away from where I live – and in front of her house you find a „stolperstein“, a golden stone in the pavement to remember her and all the victims of the shoa. There are so many of those stones around here.

Stolperstein_Wielandstr_15_(Charl)_Charlotte_Salomon

The 16th of April is Charlottes birthday – a good day to remember her and her wonderful paintings and not forget about all that suffering and sorrow that has happend around here.

Berlin Art and Style

Berlin Art and Style

Berlin Art and Style

Wanna know what is the upcoming  – really promising future place to be for Berlin art? It will be the former factory compound at Lehderstrasse 34 in Berlin Weissensee initiated by Jonas Burgert, a german shooting star artist. For the “NGORO NGORO” exhibition this venue invited the public for a few days only at the gallery weekend and hosted an incredibly diverse exhibition of paintings, sculpture, multi media, installations and more. It reminded me of the former “Tacheles” in Berlin – the same inspiring attitude. So here are some pictures to give you an impression:

img_0134

Johanna Boccardo

Johanna Boccardo

img_0164

Jonas Burgert

img_0167 img_0184 img_0171 img_0183 img_0157   img_0195

It was a fantastic evening in a great environment with interesting people. Pure inspiration, just how I like it :) I also took a few pics of some visitors, (thank you again)! My favourite is the first one right down below…

img_0188img_0169

img_0187 img_0191 img_0189

An atmosphere just like in the good old glory Berlin days of the 80 and 90s  – hope there is more to come at the next Berlin gallery weekend 2016!

Diese Website benutzt Google Analytics. Bitte klicke hier wenn Du nicht möchtest dass Analytics Dein Surfverhalten mitverfolgt. Hier klicken um dich auszutragen.