Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Exhibition Seeks Rightful Owners for Nazi Loot

from a catalog Works on Paper -1999 solo exhibit Marguerita

Thousands of works of art stolen by the Nazis are still not back in the hands of their rightful owners. A new exhibition in Jersualem is trying to fix that -- visitors can file a claim for the works on display if they recognize their property.
An exhibition with a difference has opened in Israel. Visitors will have the option of taking the paintings home with them -- provided they can prove they are the works' rightful owners.

The exhibition "Looking for Owners: Custody, Research and Restitution of Art Stolen in France during World War II," which runs through June 3 at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, shows 53 paintings which were looted from their rightful owners by the Nazis. The works, which include paintings by major European artists such as Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Edgar Degas, come from France's collection of unrestituted works of art, known as the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR).

The Nazis took around 100,000 art works from France during World War II, either by looting or commercial transactions. The Allies then repatriated some 60,000 works to France after the war, with the intention that they be returned to their proper owners. Around 2,000 unrestituted works were given to France's national museums in the early 1950s and are now stored or exhibited in museums around France, including in Paris' Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay.
The MNR collection came to the attention of the general public in 1995 when author Hector Feliciano published his book "The Lost Museum," which looks at the Nazis' schemes to steal art. Since then, claims have been made for various MNR works and several have been returned to their true owners.
The new exhibition, which is co-organized by France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Communication, aims to help that process along. "What we expect from this exhibit is that a miracle will occur and someone will come here and say 'that belongs to me,'" French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said Monday night, in remarks quoted by the Jerusalem Post.

P.S. I wonder if the family of Richard Kallert,the IIIReich Transportation Chief,who invaded my mother's home and building in Krakow,then sending her mother in law from the 4th floor to her Death, and my mother to Auschwitz?
Would they return what belonged to her, like the Cellini sculpture,Polish art,jewelry and other assets?


Details of the works exhibited will be published on the Israeli Justice Ministry's Web site, to help the rightful owners identify their property. Restitution requests -- together with the appropriate documentation to identify ownership of the piece -- can then be addressed to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.A companion exhibition, "Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust in the Israel Museum," looks at the history of works which were looted during World War II and subsequently brought to Israel. The exhibition, which also runs until June 3 at the Israel Museum, includes work by Marc Chagall, Egon Schiele and Alfred Sisley, among others.

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler organized a systematic looting of Europe's art treasures with the help of art experts who compiled a secret "wish list" of works to be stolen. His aim was to transform his hometown of Linz in Austria into the art capital of the Third Reich. According to experts, between 250,000 and 600,000 looted artworks remain unclaimed and are still held by museums, governments, and private collectors around the world.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,536344,00.html


"On dit qu'il ne faut pas remuer le passé, qu'il ne faut pas avoir les yeux sur la nuque, qu'il faut regarder devant et ne pas s'acharner à ouvrir de

vieilles blessures, a-t-il dit. Les blessures ne sont pas encore fermées. Elles vibrent dans le sous-sol de la société comme un cancer sans répit. Leur seul traitement est la vérité, et ensuite la justice. L'oubli est à ce prix."Le nom de Macarena Gelman résume le cheminement tortueux de son identité. Macarena, c'est le prénom choisi par ses parents adoptifs uruguayens. Gelman, le nom de sa famille biologique et notamment de son grand-père, le poète argentin Juan Gelman. Un nom qu'elle ne porte que depuis trois ans.
Macarena est la fille d'Argentins disparus durant les années de plomb des dictatures militaires sud-américaines. Née en captivité en Uruguay, elle ignorait tout de son origine jusqu'à l'âge de 23 ans. "Je suis passée par une phase de recueillement personnel, il m'a fallu du temps pour comprendre ce qui m'est arrivé", confie-t-elle, de passage à Paris.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Gefilte fish forever


drawing by Marguerita

Quenelles are ground light meats or fish poached in liquids that have varying sauces for accompaniment. The Romans started it, the French Lyonnaise perfected it and the Jews call it Gefilte Fish.

5 pounds ground white fish, pike and carp
5 pounds of fish heads and bones
2 onions
1 tsp white pepper corns
2 leeks
3 eggs beaten
2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper corns
1 bunch of carrots
1/2 cup matzoh meal or bread crumbs

Make court boullion with fish heads, 1 onion, 2 carrots, leeks, salt, peppercorns with enough water to cover for one hour or more.

Mix ground fish with eggs, meal/crumbs, 1 grated onion and form into balls. Poach in court bouillion with 4 slice carrots for at least an hour till firm to touch. Cool or can be served warm. It will be more firm the next day.

Accompany with Fresh Horseradish sauce. Grate 1 lb fresh horseradish with cooked grated beets (red or golden) mix with 1/2 cup vinegar (any type) and 1/4 cup sugar.

Serve with Matzoh or water biscuits

For a great hors d'oeuvres make balls large enough to slice and cut with a star cutter and place on water biscuits topped with the horseradish.

So What?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4FAKRpUCYY

Friday, April 18, 2008

The Pope: Vox Populi,Vox Dei

“Man puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like you or me,” said a scruffy man pushing a shopping cart full of empty bottles and cans on Thursday in front of the building where the pope is staying.

Joseph Ratzinger : The Pope and voice of Christ

my mother's arm- A.26.427


What the Nazi experience seems to have bred in Joseph Ratzinger, or the preexisting trait it reinforced in him, was a kind of distancing, a pattern of removing himself from unpleasantness, isolating the pure ideal — of the faith, the church, the family, the nation — from the inevitable corruptions of the world. This approach fosters a sense of remoteness in his remembrances, a detachment that may strike many as cold. In fact, it is problematic when a churchman who places such a high priority on personal rectitude and individual holiness appears unreflective about his own history. And if it is even more problematic when that churchman becomes the Supreme Pastor of the Roman Catholic Church, the leader of the ongoing dialogue with Judaism.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/a-key-moment-in-benedicts-relationship-with-the-jews/index.html?hp

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Xodó by Dominguinhos


Born in the State of Pernambuco (Northeast Brazil), Dominguinhos started his music career in his childhood, playing with his brothers in a trio called Os Três Pingüins (The 3 Penguins). At that time he could already play the 8-bass accordion, which has been his lifetime companion. At the age of 7, Luiz Gonzaga, the King of Baião (a very popular Brazilian rhythm from that region), heard the boy playing and was so impressed that he gave Dominguinhos his address in Rio de Janeiro. Six years later, when Dominguinhos moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro, he paid a visit to Luiz Gonzaga and was given an accordion by the master. In the 1950’s and 60’s, Dominguinhos made a living by playing boleros and samba-tunes at casinos, gafieiras (ballrooms), popular restaurants, night-clubs and on Radio Nacional, whose cast he joined in 1967, the year he recorded his first LP. He became well-known in the Brazilian music scene and since then he has been invited to take part in recordings and tours with Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Maria Bethânia. He has also become known for his songwriting. In collaboration with Gilberto Gil, he wrote some songs, such as "Lamento Sertanejo" and "Abri a Porta". His greatest hits are "Tantas Palavras", with Chico Buarque, "De Volta para o Aconchego" (with Nando Cordel), recorded by Elba Ramalho and "Isso Aqui Tá Bom Demais". Dominguinhos has recorded over 30 albums, written movie soundtracks and consolidated his career as songwriter and accordionist. He has already won 4 Sharp awards.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dominguinhos-eu-so-quero-um-xodo/2665885437

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6hHX9iZ0ck

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Igor Mitoraj




Igor Mitoraj
[German-born Polish Sculptor, born in 1944]
Igor Mitoraj (born 1944) is a Polish artist born in Oederan, Germany.

He studied painting at the Kraków School of Art and at the Kraków Academy of Art under Tadeusz Kantor. After graduating, he had several joint exhibitions, and held is first solo exhibition in 1967 at the Krzysztofory Gallery in Poland. In 1968, he moved to Paris to continue his studies at the National School of Art.

Shortly afterwards, he became fascinated by Latin American art and culture, spending a year painting and travelling around Mexico. The experience led him to take up sculpture.

He returned to Paris in 1974 and two years later he held another major solo exhibition at the Gallery La Hune, including some sculptural work. The success of the show persuaded him that he was first and foremost a sculptor.
Having previously worked with terracotta and bronze, a trip to Carrara, Italy, in 1979 turned him to using marble as his primary medium and in 1983 he set up a studio in Pietrasanta. In 2006, he created the new bronze doors and a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.
Mitoraj's sculptural style is rooted in the classical tradition with its focus on the well modelled torso. However, Mitoraj introduces a post-modern twist with ostentatiously truncated limbs, emphasising the damage sustained by most genuine classical sculptures.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Sipapu


A Hopi word, is a small hole or indentation in the floor of kivas used by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples and modern-day Puebloans. It symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first emerged to enter the present world. More generally, it functions as a reminder of the Puebloan's earthly origins.sipapu, or Spirit hole, symbolizing the passage through which the first people emerged from mother earth.
Like people today, the Anasazi (or Ancient Puebloans, as they are increasingly called) were presumably complex beings with the ability to make decisions, good and bad, about how to react to a changing environment. They were not pawns but players in the game.Looking beyond climate change, some archaeologists are studying the effects of warfare and the increasing complexity of Anasazi society. They are looking deeper into ancient artifacts and finding hints of an ideological struggle, clues to what was going through the Anasazi mind.“The late 1200s was a time of substantial social, political and religious ferment and experimentation,” said William D. Lipe, an archaeologist at Washington State University.

“You can’t have a situation where it just happens that hundreds of local communities for their own individual, particularistic reasons decide to either die or get up and move,” Dr. Lipe said. “There had to be something general going on.”
When scientists examine the varying width of tree rings, they indeed see a pernicious dry spell gripping the Southwest during the last quarter of the 13th century, around the height of the abandonment. But there had been severe droughts before.
“Over all conditions were pretty darn bad in the 1200s,” said Timothy A. Kohler of Washington State University. “But they were not maybe all that worse than they were in the 900s, and yet some people hung on then.”
Even in the worst of times, major waterways kept flowing. “The Provo River didn’t dry up,” said James Allison, an archaeologist at Brigham Young University. “The San Juan River didn’t dry up.”
“Climate probably explains a lot,” Dr. Allison said. “But there are places where people could have stayed and farmed and chose not to.”
Some inhabitants left the relatively lush climes of what is now southern Colorado for the bone dry Hopi mesas. “Climate makes the most sense for this big pattern change,” Dr. Lipe said. “But then you think, So they went to Hopi to escape this?”
Hopi was far from an anomaly. “The whole abandonment of the Four Corners, at least in Arizona, is people moving to where it’s even worse,” said Jeffrey Dean, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/science/08anasazi.html?em&ex=1207800000&en=860f80b9b2e42547&ei=5087%0A

Sunday, April 6, 2008

What is happening to the koalas?


The future of the koala, perhaps Australia's best-loved animal, is under threat because greenhouse gas emissions are making eucalyptus leaves – their sole food source – inedible.
Scientists warned yesterday that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were reducing nutrient levels in the leaves, and also boosting their toxic tannin content. That has serious implications for koalas and other marsupials that eat only, or mainly, the leaves of gum trees. These include a number of possum and wallaby species. "What we're seeing, essentially, is that the staple diet of these animals is being turned to leather," said Bill Foley, a science professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. "This is potentially a very significant development for the future of some marsupial populations. Life is set to become extremely difficult for these animals."
Climate change could help to explain decreases in the numbers of brushtail possums and greater gliders (a large possum) in certain parts of Queensland where none of the usual factors – disease, hunting, loss of habitat – appears to be to blame. Jane De Gabriel, a zoologist at ANU, told The Australian newspaper that brushtail possums had been found to breed more prolifically in woodland areas where the protein levels in eucalyptus leaves were high. "This suggests that in areas where nutrient levels are inadequate, animals will not be able to reproduce successfully," she said. "What follows are extinctions of wildlife populations. It's pretty scary stuff."

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/koalas-in-danger-805228.html

Saturday, April 5, 2008