Updated Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009 at 07:24 EST
TAKEAWAY: Photography lovers, you are in for two special treats this weekend: Ron Reason puts his “summer” photos on display, with a special salute to Berlin and its historic sites; meanwhile, in Camaguey, Cuba, the Galería Taller Larios, exhibits photos of enchanting Sardinia by Italian photographer Alfredo Cannatello AND: Bucharest notes from Mario: the incognito reporter, the priest and the blessing of the sex shop PLUS: Pure Design download: Stand Alone Photos
Chicago: Ron Reason’s captures his summer’s highlights
Images from the Ron Reason exhibit: a tour of the Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial
Ron Reason spent much of the summer balancing newspaper design work (including collaborating with Garcia Media on the launch of the daily NEXT in Lagos, Nigeria) and personal pursuits, specifically, his growing interest in photography.
As some readers of this blog may know, last year Ron expanded his passions for the art world by running a part-time gallery out of his design studio in Chicago. Over the course of a year he hosted 10 exhibits, ranging from paintings to fiber arts to screen printing, as well as a bit of his own photography. Six of the exhibits were selected as highlights by the Galleries pages of the Chicago Reader. (An entertaining overview of some of the featured artists can be found here: http://www.artwithinreason.com/gallery/index.html )
This year Ron takes his interests to the next level: fewer exhibits, focusing more on his own work, and narrowing his subject matter. Exhibits will be less frequent (he says: “the day job beckons!”) and move out of the design studio and into other spaces around Chicago, in hopes of reaching more diverse audiences. The first effort is this weekend, opening Friday Sept. 25, 2009, when Ron co-hosts a group benefit show for the second year with Chicago’s innovative Firebelly Design firm. (Check out their innovative designs on their web site, starting at the “portfolio” link: http://firebellydesign.com/) Last year Ron and Firebelly raised $2,000 for arts programs in Chicago public schools.
“History’s Playground”: Ron’s lens focuses on Holocaust Memorial
The exhibit this year will be an anchor of the Pilsen East 39th Annual Artists Open House weekend. All proceeds from their show will benefit two charities dear to Ron and Firebelly: The Hope Library, which Ron helped start in the slums of Nairobi while working on the redesign of The Standard newspaper last year, and a foundation started by Firebelly to lend a helping hand in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood – coincidentally named “Reason to Give.” (web: http://reasontogive.org/) Just one of the many synergies between Ron and his friends at the socially-conscious Firebelly. “Their motto is actually ‘good design for good reason’ – at one point I realized I either had to sue these people or join forces,” laughs Ron. “Joining forces has been more fun.”
Ron’s photo work in this show is titled “History’s Playground” and focuses on a narrow slice of his observations from the summer.
“While touring Berlin, I visited the Holocaust memorial – actually titled Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The site itself is quite moving – solid stone structures that depending on the vantage point, from outside or within, can resemble a graveyard, canyons, a futuristic maze, or a cityscape.”
Ron adds that no specific meaning is implied, according to the site’s creators. More on the memorial site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe)
“While making my rounds on the site, I noticed a group of school kids darting about – suddenly appearing here or there, playing hide and seek, not concerned at all, at least for a moment, with the solemnity of the place. I thought: that’s life, we honor what comes before us and simultaneously move forward. I just started shooting and had to be quicker than the kids. The finished images, about a dozen, for me recall the final lines of ‘Angels in America’ – the world only spins forward …”
Ron says “work from the Firebelly crew will appeal to type and design nerds of all kinds – they’ll show letterpress prints, type drawings, font design, collages, engraved wooden speech bubbles, 8-bit art, t-shirts, posters and more.” The exhibit is free and open to the public. For those in Chicago, see website below for more about the show, hours and directions: http://www.artwithinreason.com
In Camaguey, Cuba: At the Larios Gallery
An image from the many that will appear in the Cannatello exhibit at Galería Taller Larios this weekend
The gallery of renowned Cuban environmental artist, Orestes Larios Zaak, is a busy place these days. This weekend, Larios opens a photo exhibit titled “Sardegna: Una Isla Por Descubrir” (Sardinia: An Island to be Discovered), with a collection of photos by Italian photographer Alfredo Cannatello.
The exhibit opens September 26 at 8:30 pm at the Galería Taller Larios, in Camaguey, the eastern Cuban province. According to Larios:
This is a special collection, unique in its perspective about landscapes and interesting people of the island of Sardinia, a place where medieval traditions are kept very much alive. It is a place where one can still see a horse and carriage, slowly moving us from here to there, as if time had stood still, which, in some ways, it has here. This is Cannatello’s first Cuban exhibit and we are very proud that our Galería Taller Larios is the host for a very special event.
For photography lovers, two great occasions to celebrate.
Bucharest: 12 dailies say good morning here each day
That is Romania’s The Palace of the Parliament (Romanian: Palatul Parlamentului) in Bucharest, a multi-purpose building containing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Palace is the world’s largest civilian administrative building (The Pentagon is the largest overall), most expensive administrative building, and heaviest building.
The Palace was designed and nearly completed by the Ceau?escu regime as the seat of political and administrative power.
Bucharest citizens wake up to at least 12 daily newspapers, as seen here
We are here to start work on a rethinking of Romania Libera, one of Romania’s oldest newspapers (1877) and one where a visit to the archives show the rich history of Romania and the many changes and styles of government, culminating with teh 1989 revolution that saw the harsh rule of Nicolae Ceau?escu eliminated from power.
Now at least 12 dailies vie for attention daily in the busy streets of Bucharest, in a variety of styles—-from the very colorful downmarket tabloids (Can Can), to the more formal and classic newspapers, such as Romania Liberia, Adevarul and Evenimentul and Cotidianul.
In terms of format, one runs the full gamut from the short tabloids, as in Cancan, Gazeta Sporturilo, and 7 Plus, to the wider tabloid, Pro Sport, then the Berliner-style tabs ( I don’t think they are true Berliners from just taking a quick look), Cotidianul, Gandul, and Avevarul, to three sizes of broadsheets as in Romania Libera, Ziarul Financiar and Evenimentul.
Important to notice that for Romanian journalists and their audiences, the investigative report is where the action is.
“Corruption runs rampant in Romania,” says Dan Cristian Turturica, editor in chief of Romania Libera. “But if we all we do is mention corruption, the readers are totally apathetic about it, which is why we go beyond to deal with the people beyond the corruption, sort of the telenovela aspect of it.”
And “telenovelas” they are. Romania LIbera is famous for its “reporte incognito” or “the anonymous (hidden) reporter” specials, which run about once a month, and are part of a multimedia package.
Bless that sex shop, please
One of the most popular of such reports, says Turturica, was one about priests who offer their services to give “blessings” to homes and establishments for a fee. It is customary in Romania, says Turturica, that one can have a priest come and offer a blessing of one’s home, especially around Easter. A small fee is paid to the priest.
So, says Turturica, we wondered out loud if priests would have objections to giving their blessings to such establishments as sex shops, bordellos, and even abortion clinics.
Not at all, says Turturica as he smiles. “Our reporters planned to have owners of sex shops and bordellos cooperate with us. We contacted the priests who, for a fee, would bless both of these establishments, no questions asked. You would have to hear the audio in some of these encounters between the priests and the prostitutes at the bordellos. Not only were the priests giving a blessing to the establishments, but also asking the prostitutes questions about their practices in detail.”
Yes, the “incognito reporter” reports are quite successful, says Turturica, and everytime one appears, Romania Liberia sells more.
“We see ourselves as journalists with a mission here. There is much to be achieved. We have to train our audiences to be better consumers of information, after years of living in a world where information was propaganda. Each day we come in and we see ourselves as warriors.”
When the warrior journalists go under camouflage, the fun begins.
And now for the mega text driven newspaper?
Nostalgia newspaper in Romania: here you can read and read and read again, all text, all bold, with seven different fonts displayed on two pages!
It is said here that some people suffer from a case of nostalgia for the bad old days of communism. It happens in almost every country in the Eastern European landscape. I found one such example yesterday at the fitness club of the hotel. A woman attendant engaged in conversation with me, and in broken English told me how she “missed the Ceau?escu years, the days when everyone had a job, and a house, and my mother had her pension…now a few have a lot of money, and the rest like me, nothing.”
I asked her about the stories one read about the very dictatorial Ceau?escu, and his wife, Elena, described as brutal by many.
“Oh, no,” said the woman at the fitness center. “Elena was not brutal, she was just a tough woman.”
Different folks, different strokes.
And if newspaper readers want a slice of nostalgia from the communist years, as in a newspaper full of text, they can turn to Tricolorul, here, four pages of mostly long stories, very bold, very heavy. I am told that Tricolorul is, indeed, a retro look at the way it was, a party newspaper that celebrates the ideology of the Ceau?escu era.
Heidi Klum at the Emmy’s: baby almost in attendance
Supermodel Heidi Klum and husband Seal will be parents again in two weeks. Heidi was captured by photographers at the Emmy’s ceremony in Los Angeles and Luxembourg’s free daily, L’Essentiel carried the image in today’s editions. Somehow I had not seen this photo of Heidi in any of the other publications I sampled about the Emmy ceremonies.
Pure Design: Stand Alone Photos
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Jacky belongs to Frank Deville. The Luxembourg-based pooch is an “avid reader” of the German newspaper, Bild Am Sonntag. Every Sunday Jacky picks stories and interesting graphics in Bild Am Sonntag , the German newspaper.
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TheMarioBlog post #375