Easter Island Heads....Have Bodies!

The Easter Island heads have bodies! It's not known exactly why the bodies were buried or if they are buried on purpose. The figures were carved between years 1250 and 1500 by the Rapa Nui people. Archaeologists have documented 887 of the massive sculptures, known as moai, carved on the Chilean Polynesian island of Easter Island. The Easter Island bodies were news to us, but apparently archaeological research on the island located 2,000 miles west of Chile began over century ago, in 1914.

Photo: courtesy the Easter Island Statue Project.

Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955–1980

Don't miss this great exhibition at MoMA, New York. Only two weeks left - on view until July 19, 2015. 

“Latin America in Construction” recalls a not-so-distant time when architects and governments together dreamed big about changing the world for the better. From Cuba to Chile, Mexico to Argentina, cities in the region boomed. The task of providing everybody with homes ultimately proved unmanageable: proliferating slums outpaced new construction; poverty rose. By the 1980s, a pitiless neoliberalism swept aside much of the abiding faith in public largess and its social agenda. 

Even so, what got built through the 1970s in places like Havana and Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Lima included some of the most inspired architecture of the modern age. The show is an eye-opener, rectifying a long-skewed, Eurocentric worldview, shedding light on a period neglected for generations outside the region. It’s the sort of exhibition MoMA still does best." NYTimes Review

Miguel de Cervantes, Father of the First Modern Novel

The Reason Cervantes Asked To Be Buried Under A Convent

" It was Miguel de Cervantes' dying wish to be buried inside the walls of Madrid'sConvento de las Trinitarias Descalzas, where a dozen cloistered nuns still live today, nearly 400 years later. Cervantes, born in 1547, is the most famous writer in the Spanish language. But the world would never have read his literature if it weren't for the Trinitarian nuns. Cervantes believed he owed his life to them. That's because before Cervantes wrote his two-volume masterpiece, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, the author had some chivalrous adventures of his own.

As a young man in his early 20s, he fled Spain for Rome, after wounding a nobleman in a duel. By 1570, he returned home and enlisted in the Spanish navy. He went to war to defend the pope — and got shot in twice in the ribs, and once in the shoulder — an injury that left his left arm paralyzed.  And it was only then that he got kidnapped by Algerian pirates.

"He was taken prisoner. He spent five years — five terrible years — as a slave, as a captive," says historian Fernando del Prado, With Cervantes enslaved in Africa, his family appealed to the Trinitarian nuns. They managed to raise a ransom and deliver it to the pirates — which won Cervantes his freedom."

Time is brief,
anxieties grow,
hopes diminish,
and yet my desire to live 
keeps me alive.                 The Trials of Persiles and Segismunda, Miguel de Cervantes

Lina Bo Bardi

Lina Bo Bardi at 100: Brazil’s alternative path to modernism 

Lina Bo Bardi's buildings are shaped by love, people are at the center of her projects. At Sesc Pompeia, her masterpiece, old men play chess and children play with building blocks. People sunbathe on a boardwalk called “the beach”. 

Viva Lina! An Italian in Brazil

So much passion, love, life! Lina was on constant pursuit of the essential and the functional, the ability to innovate and the place people the center of every project. 

Brazil is on my radar! Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955–1980, will be on view at MoMA March 29–July 19, 2015. Looking forward the exhibition.

Cesare Deve Morire

Caesar Must Die is a  poetic expression of freedom and life. The story takes place at the high - security Rebibblia Prison in Italy. The real inmates prepare a performance on stage "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare.

“Caesar Must Die” is a really poetic film in addition to being realistic. It’s also notable that three of the inmates taking part in the play became involved with art after being released; two of them wrote books on freedom, while Striano started acting. The film transformed both actors and the audience, allowing them to peer beneath the surface. This could lead us to the notion that art will be our savior, even if Caesar must die!

Directors: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Wild Tales

Wild Tales is  a story about love, deception, the return of the past, a tragedy, or even the violence contained in as everyday detail, appear themselves to push them towards the abyss, into the undeniable pleasure of losing control.

Wild Tales is a great new movie from Argentina, nominee for Oscar Best Foreign Language Film 2015.  Don't miss it! Enjoy!