mirror mirror on the wall

Hiroshi Kobayashi

Zhang Xiaogang

Yue Min Jun

OK, so I just re-read my blog, in the hopes of starting it again and I am embarrassed - enough to apologise to anyone who has been reading my pretentious babble. Sorry! I will strive to be useful from now on, which is exactly why I am re-starting this blog.

My interests are simple: Art, Fashion, Food and sometimes Money. I have had the opportunity to live on three continents this year - Europe, North America and now Asia. I failed to write about the U.S. this time and shame on me, given the momentous changes going on right now - but so be it. I will watch from Asia and try to learn more about the implosions and such from my adopted city, HK. You may find me dabbling in all of the above or less or more depending on my moods.

For now, the auction world excites me and this is all I will know for the next week. HK has a voracious appetite for and it seems a rather avant garde appetite towards contemporary Asian art. Ironically it isn't the auction houses calling the shots, but the buyers - as a penniless bystander I merely enjoy the back and forth. If I had the $$s, I would buy a Hiroshi Kobayashi painting. In this present economic climate, Chinese contemporary heavyweights like Yue Min Jun and Zhang Xiaogang are unable to hold their (presumed inflated) prices of 2006 - and their paintings are either left unsold or sold for far less than expected - shame really as they're both incredible artists. Yue Min Jun shot to fame in HK mostly thanks to Schoeni Art Gallery - a gallery with an uncanny ability to pick out winners.

"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit"

OK, much much pressure here. A good friend who also happens to be a brilliant blogger told me to be "creative and funny" in my blog. Actually he said "try to be creative and funny", and he meant it in all earnestness. Horror is me, as I sit down to write this - reaching into the very contrived recesses of my brain to scrounge up some witticisms. Well, sorry, can't do it. But I have posted a great one by Banksy for your entertainment. He will always be my fall back.

Happy London Day!

So, Indians have been coming to London and England to work, study, live, eat, drink, play, suffer, lose, win...for centuries really. But Indians aren't the only ones...Banksy, breathes and lives and disparages London. London in March and April is all about China in London. China at Liberty's, China at the V&A and then again back to India and the news of Tata and the Jaguar dowry or lack of it. The point I am trying to get at is that this world is NOT small as we would like to imagine - to suit and appeal to our sense of irony and false illusion of comfort - it never has been; in fact it is enormous and we are lucky to witness small exaggerated slivers of it in every corner.

Say cheese

London's Borough market - part tourist attraction, part voyeur's dream, part food maven's heaven, part staged history, part weekend escape.

Of Banksy and east london

A Banksy pilgrimage is a must for any wannabe 'Londoner'. Start at Essex Road, walk up to Angel, then to Old street and East London - move on after that to Bethnal Green. Revel in the walk and inhale the textures and smells and sights that are Banksy's London.

'If the foolish, call them "flowers"'

London had flower stores in abundance back in January - some open till very late at night - imagine what it will be like come summer. Even the local corner shop will have voluptuous bundles of flowers. The shops are little shacks, bursting and gaudy - what I would give for handfuls of these flowers - but where to fit them in the 3 sq mt patch I call a home.

London calling

Why a blog and why now? simply:
(A) I am easily overwhelmed in short staccato bursts, by visuals, smells, sounds, ideas, monstrosities, silhouettes, words, tastes, textures
(B) My little moleskin is bursting at its spine, and
(C) It's a useful waste of time