Thursday, March 17, 2005
An Art Addict
I have a confession to make : I am an art addict.
Of course - like most of you - I'm no Bill Gates and don't have the money to buy any original paintings worth millions of dollars...
I do have some passable paintings though...some original local watercolors, some oils from the Philippines, Myanma and China by unknown artistes...a couple of tibetan landscapes that I bought from Lhasa...and some copies of famous paintings, notable ones include copies of still life by Chardin, and 17th Century Dutch Still lifes (de Heem, Van Huysum, etc) , Cezanne, and one matisse which I bought from those little galleries in Ho Chi Minh...where they have these artists copying famous paintings full time....
May be my most valuable possession is a pen sketch of a naked man jerking off by Khalil Ibrahim...on a student drawing paper.
I got this for free too....the story is like this...Khalil has a good friend who is a self tought artist in Kelantan... Khalil used to go to his home a lot when he comes to Kelantan but many times this guy is out. What Khalil normally do is to make a quick sketch of any thing that suits his fancy and pins it on the guy's door....but this guy is basically stupid and always throw these sketches away...except this one that I happened to come across before he threw it away...rumor has it that Khalil has a folio of erotic drawings hidden somewhere....I wish I can get hold of them!!
And I have many art books.... ranging from Expressionists, impressionists to old masters...and I have tons of Christies and Sotheby auction catalogues...Some Chinese auction catalogues too that I bought in Beijing (Panyiyuan weekend market) and Chengdu....
And whenever I go anywhere overseas my first visit is almost always the art museums...hence I'm proud to say that I've visited The National Art Gallery in London many times. I've also been to the Tate before it was split into Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Tate Britain, V&A (all in London), MOMA, The Guggenhiem, Frick's Collection, The MET (all in New York), Paul Getty Museum (LA), Guggenhiem in Venice, Rijkmuseum, Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), The Louvre, Musee D'Orsay (Paris), Juresalem Museum (Israel), and all the national museums in Asean countries (Jakarta, Manila, HCM, Yangon...but funnily not yet in Bangkok though I visited Bangkok for more than 10 times in the last 3 yrs!...too much distraction in Bangkok obviously), NSW museum in Sydney and many other smaller exhibitions and galleries....
You must have tought that I'm a millioniare gallivanting all over the globe visiting art museums.....but nothing is further from the truth...in fact right now I only have RM100 in my saving account to tide me over till the next pay check...I live by borrowing from the modern day pirate...credit card by other name.....the trick is I tailor my professional duty/visits overseas to my personal interests!!...my only remaining goal is to go and see the collections in the Uffizi (Florence Italy), the Prado (Madrid) and the rest of the major musuems in Europe....one day soon I hope...
Oh hey…I just visited Moscow recently…Last Feb 05 to be exact… visited The Historical museum at the Red Square…& Pushkin Museum ….don’t have enough time to visit the other great galleries…and I went back the long way..via the great trans-siberian Moscow to Beijing six day six nights train journey…but that’s another story ….for another time…
..
Of course - like most of you - I'm no Bill Gates and don't have the money to buy any original paintings worth millions of dollars...
I do have some passable paintings though...some original local watercolors, some oils from the Philippines, Myanma and China by unknown artistes...a couple of tibetan landscapes that I bought from Lhasa...and some copies of famous paintings, notable ones include copies of still life by Chardin, and 17th Century Dutch Still lifes (de Heem, Van Huysum, etc) , Cezanne, and one matisse which I bought from those little galleries in Ho Chi Minh...where they have these artists copying famous paintings full time....
May be my most valuable possession is a pen sketch of a naked man jerking off by Khalil Ibrahim...on a student drawing paper.
I got this for free too....the story is like this...Khalil has a good friend who is a self tought artist in Kelantan... Khalil used to go to his home a lot when he comes to Kelantan but many times this guy is out. What Khalil normally do is to make a quick sketch of any thing that suits his fancy and pins it on the guy's door....but this guy is basically stupid and always throw these sketches away...except this one that I happened to come across before he threw it away...rumor has it that Khalil has a folio of erotic drawings hidden somewhere....I wish I can get hold of them!!
And I have many art books.... ranging from Expressionists, impressionists to old masters...and I have tons of Christies and Sotheby auction catalogues...Some Chinese auction catalogues too that I bought in Beijing (Panyiyuan weekend market) and Chengdu....
And whenever I go anywhere overseas my first visit is almost always the art museums...hence I'm proud to say that I've visited The National Art Gallery in London many times. I've also been to the Tate before it was split into Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Tate Britain, V&A (all in London), MOMA, The Guggenhiem, Frick's Collection, The MET (all in New York), Paul Getty Museum (LA), Guggenhiem in Venice, Rijkmuseum, Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), The Louvre, Musee D'Orsay (Paris), Juresalem Museum (Israel), and all the national museums in Asean countries (Jakarta, Manila, HCM, Yangon...but funnily not yet in Bangkok though I visited Bangkok for more than 10 times in the last 3 yrs!...too much distraction in Bangkok obviously), NSW museum in Sydney and many other smaller exhibitions and galleries....
You must have tought that I'm a millioniare gallivanting all over the globe visiting art museums.....but nothing is further from the truth...in fact right now I only have RM100 in my saving account to tide me over till the next pay check...I live by borrowing from the modern day pirate...credit card by other name.....the trick is I tailor my professional duty/visits overseas to my personal interests!!...my only remaining goal is to go and see the collections in the Uffizi (Florence Italy), the Prado (Madrid) and the rest of the major musuems in Europe....one day soon I hope...
Oh hey…I just visited Moscow recently…Last Feb 05 to be exact… visited The Historical museum at the Red Square…& Pushkin Museum ….don’t have enough time to visit the other great galleries…and I went back the long way..via the great trans-siberian Moscow to Beijing six day six nights train journey…but that’s another story ….for another time…
..
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I got into your blog when researching for what people thinking about Thailand. Thank you so much for your information...
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