The Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago opened to the public today. As a member, I got to see it yesterday, and boy am I glad I made it out. It’s phenomenal! Daniil and I made a day of it, and I’m really glad he insisted we see it first since the line wrapped around the special exhibit balcony by the time we left.

The photograph above, labeled as Hyères, France, 1932, was one of our favorites from the collection. I’d seen several of his photos before as a number of them belong to MoMA and The Met in New York City, including this one. But it really caught Daniil’s eye as well. As I would discover over the course of the afternoon, he is really intrigued by the use of lines in art. I, however, am more about motion and what’s not in the frame. We spent the afternoon guessing how each other felt about each photo.

The portion of portraits was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. It makes me jealous because of all the cool people I will never know that he captured. Such as Truman Capote.

And Albert Camus.

And Ezra Pound.

Cartier-Bresson is one of my favorite photographers, and he shot almost exclusively in black & white. An admirable commitment for a modern man such as himself.

I highly recommend it. The man travelled far and wide as a photojournalist. I was lucky to have a native Russian give his own opinions on the Soviet Union portion. The photographs from newly Communist China are also breathtaking. If you can make it, go.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I really enjoyed the evening. It was a thought-provoking night that posed more questions than answers, and I propose that it is better this way. How can actors tell us who we are? They can only tell us who they are, and, in fact, that is what they spent the evening doing. Greg Allen asks us who we are and that is his thesis. In reality, he is asking us who will we be.

I AM A CAMERA runs through March 13, 2010 on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets can be bought through Brown Paper Tickets.

Blank pages are pregnant with possibility. You could put anything down a glaringly white (or ivory, or whatever) piece of paper, and it’s exactly that potential that is so exciting and alluring. It’s also terrifying. Why, what is one to do if one puts the wrong thing down on that precious paper? What if you make a mistake? Or worse: what if it’s stupid? This is perhaps the single reason why I respect any artist: they all are putting themselves out there and opening themselves up to ridicule. It’s definitely the hardest part of the process for me.

I know I am a capable writer, and most of the writers I encounter in workshops and what-not tend to agree. And yet, every single person I have ever been in a workshop has, in some form or another, encountered the irrational fear and shame that I have in my work. Though I am proud to say this has improved greatly over the years, especially the confidence I have in my criticism. In a shocing reversal, Wren the Critic is more confident than Wren the Writer. This must indicate that I’ve grown more confident as a writer, too.

Back to my original point: blank pages are frightening things to deal with. The boxes and boxes of blank notebooks in my parents’ basement can attest to this. I’ll fully admit I’m a bit of a perfectionist: revision-as-process is my modus operandi. Yet another thing I’ve been working to change in my approach. My academic writing is always a one step process. I’ve never done a full revision of anything academic. Ever. And I’m sure that comes out in my blog posts, as well. How many times have I gone off on a tangent in this post already?

What really made me start thinking about all this is that I bought a new notebook today. A new notebook that prompted my mother to chastise me about all the boxes in the basement. It’s no secret I have trouble marring pages. Especially in purposeless books.

But this moleskine has a purpose. I’m consolidating my life into one place: calendars, planning, writing, ideas, random notes, etc. Not exactly an original idea for a moleskine, but it’s an effective plan. I slapped some indexing tabs on (in?) it and have broken in the spine. It’s all ready for some ink.

And I did the most important thing: I marred every single page. There are no blank pages in my new notebook now, which means there is nothing to fear about sullying them more. And I’ve already gotten some meaningful use out of five pages. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.

Via 4otos. Way more examples there, too.