after a little look around National Museum and much more of Kallang Airport (minus East Block) this Biennale, my recommendation is please check out Nedko Solakov-Liao Jiekai's site-specific artwork at the latter's famous control tower.
yes, my favourite so far is located at the most shining locations of them all. it is the very spiral stairs that lie beneath the tower. to be honest, i was blown away. by its intelligence, its simplicity, how powerful it proves to be, and the story behind it.
the acclaimed Bulgarian artist was commissioned by Singapore to do up something for the Biennale. one tiny problem: Solakov is aviophobic. that means he has a fear of flying and cant possibly come create a site-specific project. i dont know if it's mocking or ironic but somehow it ties in nicely that his work's at an airport.
it became an impetus for what transpired. he in turn invited SIngapore to send an artist to Sofia to understudy his style and bring back his ideas. artist and filmmaker Jiekai did just that, chronicled in a documentary screening at the very site now. he returned and created a Solakov piece with his own local twist.
Solakov is famous for the words he scribbles everywhere in his site-specific works, which are combinations of important messages he wants to bring across and ingenious observations. he had told Jiekai, let's not bring anything into the site, just enter the tower and start scribbling what you find and think up, let the site speak for itself.
and we have art.
you'll find scribbles implying portraits; portraits that dont exist but that you must imagine. you'll find scribbles noting the dust, the hand and footprints. you'll find scribbles that give a twist to the most minute of details, like a crack in the wall or peeling paint. scribbles note the abandoned pail, the exit sign, the fire extinguisher, the door handle, the light switch. one window faces the Marina Bay skyline, and there are scribbles; another faces the demolished National Stadium, and there are scribbles. Jiekai even pokes fun at Solakov, scribbling below the tv that the documentary's the latter's way of stealing back some limelight. the site's so detailed that organisers apologise in a sign that cleaners had accidentally removed hair and feather that were part of the artwork.
truly, the lines between reality and art have been blurred.
i fail but the event synopsis explains much better: "The 'work of art' in this instance is the actual training, the knowledge and experience of the artist’s touch – the mental and physical ways Solakov inhabits, and works with, space."
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
我走之后, 你会想念我吗?
when you start asking how much you mean to her, if she'll miss you, how much she cares about you... you probably love yourself more than you love her.
im trying very hard to stop loving myself.
i'd never understood how love is sacrifice. i'd believed that love is fair. or we try to. it goes both ways. there's reciprocation.
here lies the laughable irony that both of us had thought i'd be gone in a while, i wont take it seriously... yet now i have reasons to suspect, you are of special importance to my soul.
sacrifice.
it's much easier said, than how painful it is to do.
There are some truly great players and managers that have never won the biggest prize in football.
"My biggest wish is to win the Champions League in this shirt," Gianluigi Buffon said.
Javier Zanetti, before beating Bayern Munich last year, expressed his desire to reach the sport's pinnacle.
"The Champions League is more important than the Scudetto," he said.
"You are not great until you have won the Champions League," Arsene Wenger said.
In contrast, there are some players who hoard medals at home that their talents barely deserve. Life is full of winners and losers—life isn’t fair either—so it’s to be expected that some lesser lights somehow find their way into the top drawer of European football.
Here, giving hope to Sunday footballers across the land, are the 10 worst players to win a Champions League final. To qualify, a player must have started the match and ended with a winner medal since the Champions League era began with Marseilles' 1993 win against Milan, and be inestimably shit.
10. Dida, Milan, 2003 and 2007
Dida is an extremely shoddy goalkeeper and the only player on this list to have started and won the Champions League final twice.
Dida joined Milan in 1999, and began life behind Christian Abbiati and Sebastiano Rossi in the pecking order. He leaped into the starting lineup in 2000, just in time for AC Milan's trip to Elland Road to face a young, injury-ravaged and out-of-form Leeds United side. Of course, Dida threw the ball into his own net, and Leeds won 1-0.
He’s got quite a reputation. He’s basically the Serie A version of David James.
His first Champions League win actually came courtesy of some quality saves in a penalty shootout against Juventus—three to be exact. His second was the '07 final, where he gained some level of revenge over Liverpool with a 2-1 win which he had very little to do with. However, it’s no coincidence that he soon lost his place first to Zelijko Kalac, then to Christian Abbiati, before turning free agent.
9. Christian Karembeu, Real Madrid, 1998 and 2000
Karembeu has the honour of being the only player to make this list who has won both the Champions League final and the World Cup final as a member of the first XI. However, his second title, in '00, came as an unused substitute.
The lad’s obviously got pedigree, so what on earth is he doing on this list? Just ask fans of Middlesborough. In his one season there, he played abysmally for five months, merely okay for the next four, and then packed his backs and went for a working holiday with Olympiakos.
They really should have bought Karembeu when he was actually somewhat good, instead of a few years afterwards.
Notably, Karembeu is also the only Champions League winner ever to play for Kettering FC. Strange? Yes, very. He also has a famously hot wife.
8. Ivan Campo, Real Madrid, 2000
Ivan Campo is one of two Champions League winners to play for Bolton Wanderers. One was Real Madrid's most inspiring and influential captains of all time, Spain's one-time top goalscorer and possibly the most respected player ever to some out of the country. The other was this idiot.
Sadly, I cannot lay my hands on the footage of Ivan Campo's last stand at Real Madrid. In short, he’d started having panic attacks on the pitch, and suddenly and randomly played opposing strikers in on his own goal.
Real grew tired and shipped him off to Bolton on loan until the end of the season, where he confirmed his insanity by deciding that he liked living in Bolton more than Madrid and opted to stay for six more years. As well as his stupid hair, he’ll always be remembered for this goal:
7. Ludovic Giuly, Barcelona, 2006
Every now and then, a player hits a streak of freak form that is as inexplicable as it is short lived. Leon Osman does it once every couple of seasons. Emile Heskey did it for Liverpool once upon a time.
The same happened to Ludovic Giuly, only he was fortunate enough to be playing in the Champions League knockout phase when it did. He almost single-handedly carved teams apart, scoring himself and laying on goals for Morientes as Monaco tore past Real Madrid and Chelsea en route to the final against Jose Mourinho’s Porto.
Few eyebrows were raised when he was snapped up by Barcelona.
It is surprising, because Ludovic Giuly is, in fact, a painfully average winger. After all, he’s only managed 17 caps and scored three goals for France (against the Faroe Islands, New Zealand and Cyprus). He’s now back at PSG, lost somewhere in the French league, where he belongs.
6. Paul Lambert, Borussia Dortmund, 1997
Here’s your first British Champions League winner. A couple of years before Beckham, Giggs, et al brought home the trophy from the Nou Camp, Paul Lambert had remarkably won the Champions League less than a year after playing for Motherwell. That he marked Zidane off the field in the final is even more remarkable.
Before we get carried away though, we should remember who we’re talking about here—a really, really average, boring-to-watch defensive midfielder with merely average qualities.
He was no more than a cog in a Dortmund machine that was fortunate to reach the final, and capitalised well on a Juventus side that choked on their big day.
Lambert himself spent only one season at Dortmund before returning to play for Celtic, guaranteeing him some silverware with the minimum of effort. He’s won trophies with Celtic, Dortmund, and St. Mirren, played against Brazil at the World Cup, and captained Celtic to the UEFA Cup final. How the f**k did he manage that?
5. Oleguer, Barcelona, 2006
Catalan militant Oleguer Presas was one of just three Spanish players (all Catalan) to start the final against Arsenal. With over 125 appearances for Barca under his belt, what’s he doing on this list? History has a habit of smudging reality, so let's remind ourselves of the actual events of that evening:
Oleguer loses his man, and Sol Campbell heads Arsenal into the lead.
Oleguer is taken off in the 71st minute, to be replaced by Juliano Belletti.
Ten minutes later Barca are 2-1 up and Belletti has scored.
So, had Oleguer not been taken off, it’s probably realistic to say that Barcelona may not have won the match, and he would have escaped this list.
Oleguer is also a raving lunatic, having said that. In the unlikely event of him receiving a Spain call-up, he would reject it as he is Catalan.
An economics graduate, he drives a van to training and is in trouble with the police for his involvement in a riot in 2003. He also has written newspaper articles criticising the Spanish government for their treatment of a convicted ETA terrorist.
4. Jesper Blomgqvist, Manchester United, 1999
Jesper Blomqvist is better than Pele.
Unfortunately, there are only three Champions League winners he isn’t worse than.
Lars (Jesper is a middle name, but way cooler) was a promising youngster with IFK Gothenburg before spending a year each with Milan (where he was rubbish) and Parma, where he was a bit better. For some reason, United snapped him up. £4.4m was a lot of money to pay at the time for Ryan Giggs' backup, and he rarely started a game, picking up an FA Cup medal as an unused substitute.
However, his luck came on the famous trip to the Nou Camp, as suspensions to Paul Scholes and Roy Keane meant that a midfield of Blomqvist, Butt, Beckham and Giggs was the only real option available to Fergie. He didn’t much fancy Jonathan Greening against Stefan Effenberg.
Blomqvist was anonymous for most of the game, and in circumstances eerily similar to those of Oleguer, was replaced by Teddy Sheringham towards the end of the game. Thereafter serious injury restricted him to just 37 games in nine years, and he retired in 2008 after a short spell with Enkoping—whoever they are.
3. Milan Baros, Liverpool, 2005
The whole point of being a striker is to score goals. If you’re playing up front, that is the minimum expectation—from time to time, pop the ball into the back of the net. Has any European-level striker been as bad at that as Milan Baros?
I mean, he didn’t look bad when he was at Banik Ostrava, and the elite took note. Of course, it’s usually Liverpool who sign the duds, and so it proved when they snapped up Baros. A few goals in his first few games had people excited, but he quickly became very frustrating very quickly, and it seemed he was on his way out of Anfield.
In the main, he was extremely good at running forwards whilst looking at his own feet. Then came one of those inexplicable runs of form, just in time for Euro 2004.
Rafa kept him, and as such he got his chance in the '05 Final, Liverpool’s famous comeback. He lasted 85 minutes, and his replacement, Cisse, scored in the shootout. Since his time at Liverpool, he has flattered to deceive at Aston Villa, Lyon and Galatasaray, always falling out of favour and being criticised for not scoring enough.
But he’s had his year, in 04-05, and nothing can take that away from his bumbling boots. A friend of mine summed up Baros by once expressing surprise at something he’d done. He had turned someone inside out or made a staggering goal-line clearance.
“Did I really just see Milan Baros look up?” he asked.
2. Finidi George, Ajax, 1995
If you’re an Ipswich fan, you’re probably already in tears having read his name. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.
He went from winning the Champions League with a stunning Ajax side filled with talent that would return to the biggest game in European football the very next season -- represented on no less than eight occasions by old boys in subsequent finals -- to being considered one of the worst signings ever made by Ipswich Town. I mean, it’s not like he was just a hanger-on in that Ajax team...
George's arrival, on inflated wages and with ego in tow, rocked the boat which had propelled Ipswich to the UEFA cup and a win against Inter Milan. They were a cohesive, hard working unit which was expertly balanced and reliant on every player pulling their weight. Their reward was that famous night at Portman Road.
George was a square peg in a round hole, and it pretty much capped off a slow slide into obscurity, from Ajax, to Betis, to Mallorca, to Ipswich, back to Mallorca, and into oblivion…
However, has a descent from Champions League winner into obscurity ever been quite as quick and painful as that of…
1. Djimi Traore, Liverpool, 2005
“Don’t blame it on the Hamman, don’t blame it on the Biscan, don’t blame it on the Finnan, blame it on Traore. He just can’t, he just can’t, he just can’t control his feet.”
Djimi Traore, my goodness. Without him on the team, it’s highly likely that Liverpool would have had it all to do once again. Of course you could argue that they would never have been in that situation to begin with, but that’s not too kind on Traore, who can’t help being totally out of his depth.
He didn’t ask to be distantly the worst player on the pitch. He just tried really hard and got his moment. Then again, he did give away the free kick from which Milan took the lead in the first minute.
Of course, Traore has had other moments. The one that springs immediately to mind was this one against Burnley in the FA Cup, which denied fans of Bournemouth a trip to Anfield. Lord knows what he was trying to do, but we really should keep him away from those Zinedine Zidane videos in future.
After his Champions League final appearance, which came about only because Riise was playing in midfield and Josemi was completely shit, his decline was alarming. He moved to Charlton, where he only ever got 11 games, and Portsmouth, where he was even more anonymous, showing up 13 times in 2 years in between loan spells at Rennes and Birmingham. He’s now playing for Monaco, who aren’t very good these days.
But the story of Djimi should be a positive one. The message is that any player, no matter what their ability or heritage, can reach the very top of the game, if only briefly, through no more than hard work and a lucky break. So keep at it, and you could one day follow in the footsteps of Djimi Traore.
