modern world etc

Quote of the day: "Now, click on advanced settings. Which is a bit of a misnomer..."

A great advantage of flexible working arrangements is that I can take advantage of half-price Monday admission to galleries and the like. I proposed on Saturday night to dear Michel, a student, that we visit the KunstHausWien – ViennaArtHouse – yesterday, and we would have, but he had to do respond to something in the peer review process as he is a big shot of some sort in biochemical futurism. So I went alone, a quick pop over the border,* from the centre of Bratislava to the centre of Vienna in less time than it takes to navigate London Bridge station get from Lewisham to Islington. This is a total aside, but it’s such a nice feeling to be able to nip there and back and not feel required to spend eight hours in museums to make it worthwhile (the train is about seven quid, though).

The upshot being that I am on the lookout for a good biography of Friedensreich Hundertwasser – fine artist, architect (social housing, waste incineration, public toilets, kids’ care home), theorist on semi-utopian ways of living in accordance with ‘nature’ – who changed his name to ‘Peace-empire Rainy-day Multicoloured’, lectured naked and visited godknowshowmany countries. They didn’t even have one in German at the shop. Amazon doesn't look promising : (

His visionary bit – a lot of oppositional stuff about nature and humans, particularly urban life, and the ‘illegal occupation’ of nature by people – attracted my skeptical side at first, but I came away not thinking he was saying anything unachievable or undesirable, and certainly not crazy. Just stuff that would need some fundamental shift in the western psyche, and a bit more localism and pride in community than is fashionable, at least in metropoles. And the media be damned (ECO LOONIE GETS HANDS ON HOSPITAL). Wouldn’t need an increase in what is already spent on public works… just a bit of reeducation for architects and builders, and a social
willingness to live in a place that looks like The Shire.

Lots of his paintings were pretty cool, too, occasionally with names to die for (Two envelopes on a long voyage, People (compliment to trees)). And flags, and stamps, and all sorts. Quite a revolutionary revolutionary (to my eyes), in that he was often into tradition and parochialism, albeit on a world scale. Involved in 'policy issues' and such like, and extrovert in spreading his message, but maybe because he is an artist, no proper biography. He's been dead eight years now. (Opportunity to make some money?...) I mean, the Taschen book of this and that, lots of lovely pictures, is well and good, but it won't do what Roland Huntford did for Fridtjof Nansen, or what Roland Bainton did for Martin Luther.

* I love Schengen. I asked the machine at the "UK Border" in Brussels whether he has any inside info on when the UK would join. He told me such an idea was a 'waste of time', and called forward the next traveller in line, to feign a glance at their photo page and send them on their way.