Hemingway at Les Deux Magots Paris

Thanks to Ionarts for this image of Ernest Hemingway and Janet Flanner at the Café Deux Magots in Paris. Talk about setting the table.

Keep Calm and Carry On: Wahsoh

Keep Calm and Carry On: A new print, Wahsoh (2008) by Matthew Rose for KEEP CALM GALLERY is now available exclusively through the web site.

The edition is signed, dated and numbered, edition of 50, A2-sized (18" x 25") full-color print on fine acid-free paper, printed by Lalande Digital Art Press Paris. Price: 55 UK Pounds. This print is typical of Matthew Rose's increasingly mad world. Originally a 50 x 50 cm collage exhibited in "Herzschmerz" in 2006 Berlin at Gallery Tristesse Deluxe, the piece was destroyed (and has subsequently been remade). Here, obsessive worlds of sex and language collide in a miasma of metaphor and mistaken identity. The artist takes his collage technique to not only reading and spelling, but seeing and hearing, with this unique "all-over" piece.

Click on the image above to enlarge Wahsoh.

Two exhibitions by Matthew Rose are planned for May and June. In May, The David Turner Gallery, in Atlanta, Georgia will present more than 30 large-format prints from the A Perfect Friend series as well as a series of drawings and collages for the gallery's inaugural exhibition. In June, Galerie Rosella Junck, Augustrasse 28, Berlin will feature new collage works, drawings and objects in a show entitled "A KICK IN THE KUNST."

E-mail Keep Calm's Lucas or Hayley to purchase by clicking here : KEEP CALM.

Rice Riots 1918

Suzuki Shoten in Kobe, burned during the Rice Riots of August 11 1918

With Walmart now rationing rice in the US, and food riots and rationing in place in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries, it might make sense to take a look at what happened 90 years ago.

From the Wikipedia: The Rice Riots of 1918 (米騒動 kome sōdō?) were a series of popular disturbances that erupted throughout Japan from July to September 1918, which brought about the collapse of the Terauchi Masatake administration.

A precipitous rise in the price of rice caused extreme economic hardship, particularly in rural areas where rice was the main staple of life. Farmers, when comparing the low prices they were receiving due to government regulation, with the high market prices, had tremendous hostility against rice merchants and government officials who had allowed the consumer price to spiral out of control. The rice price increase came at the peak of a post-war (World War I) inflationary spiral that also affected most consumer goods and rents, and thus urban dwellers also had considerable scope for grievances. However, the Siberian Intervention further inflamed the situation, with the government buying up existing rice stocks to support the troops overseas, which further drove rice prices higher. The government failed to intervene in economic affairs, and rural protests spread to the towns and cities

Climate Porn

© Greenpeace/Lombardi

From the Greenpeace weblog: "Well, with all this talk of "climate porn", some of our activists in Amsterdam have gone one better - they've set up a "Green Light District" in the heart of Amsterdam's Red Light District by replacing the red light bulbs with green, energy efficient ones, and taking over a few of the windows - dressed normally, of course!

It's all part of a Dutch campaign for to get 1 million extra energy efficient lightbulbs installed in the Netherlands.

Broken Window Theory

The Broken Window Theory, interesting reading.