I demand unconditional love and complete freedom. That is why I am terrible.
Hexagon Comb Vase, designed by Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny and 40,000 honeybees.
“ As for the stars, they are always on.
Joseph Brodsky
The Execution of Leonard Siffleet by Yasuno Chikao
Yasuno Chikao commissioned the photo above, of himself executing Leonard (Len) Siffleet in Papua New Guinea. There were three men in Siffleet’s group, all executed by beheading after two weeks questioning at Aitape Beach, surrounded by Japanese and native onlookers. The photograph was found in the pocket of a dead Japanese soldier (not Chikao) a year later.
Chikao himself was reported variously as having been killed in battle, captured and sentenced to hanging, and captured and sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
From Wikipedia on their capture:
“After Pattiwal rejoined Siffleet and Reharing, they attempted to make their way to the Dutch border. They were ambushed by a hundred native villagers near Aitape and, after a brief melée during which Siffleet shot and wounded one of their attackers, the group was captured and handed over to the Japanese. Interrogated and tortured, the team was confined for approximately two weeks before being taken down to Aitape Beach on the afternoon of 24 October 1943.”
“ I’ve made work to take my revenge against injustice, both personal and political. But now, standing back, I wonder if art can become an act of forgiveness. The object stands gleaming, big enough to love anyone, forgive anything.
Liza Lou
It came to us very late:
perception of beauty, desire for knowledge.
And in the great minds, the two often configured as one.
To perceive, to speak, even on subjects inherently cruel—
to speak boldly even when the facts were, in themselves, painful or dire—
seemed to introduce among us some new action,
having to do with human obsession, human passion.
And yet something, in this action, was being conceded.
And this offended what remained in us of the animal:
it was enslavement speaking, assigning
power to forces outside ourselves.
[…]
But the facts persisted. They were among us,
isolated and without pattern; they were among us,
shaping us—
Darkness. Here and there a few fires in doorways,
wind whipping around the corners of buildings.
-Louise Glück
Irving Penn. 1917-Today.
Curves are just exceptionally beautiful lines.
“ Atheists put on a false courage in the midst of their darkness and misapprehensions, like children who when they fear to go in the dark, will sing or whistle to keep up their courage.
Alexander Pope
Here’s my proof that the half-moon is usually good luck. This is the night I took pictures of everything around us.
Francis Bacon telling a story. Isabel Rawsthorne stands behind him.
