PEDIAMENOPET'S FUNERAL CROWN

This crown (though oversized in diameter) looks like it could be a headdress for Lady Crawley.  The era of Downton Abbey saw the opening of Tutenhkamun's tomb in 1922, reviving Egyptomania and impacting the burgeoning Art Deco style.  Unbelievably this piece is over 2000 years old and was worn around the mummy bandages of Pediamenopet (Petamenophis).

The Louvre is the home of this artifact and there is a discrepancy between their didactic text and the internet, but from what I can gather, Pediamenopet was a high priest and official serving multiple Pharaohs around the 25th and 26th dynasties (760-525 BC).  His tomb (#33 in the Theban Necropolis) is massive, with multiple levels and 330 meters of corridors inscribed with important texts such as the Book of the Dead. His resting place is larger than many Pharaohs and this crown, evoking a myrtle wreath, is a symbol for a person of great social importance. 

Myth has it that Pediamenopet was a renowned magician and left a curse. While exploring the tomb, both a French scholar in 1798, and a German archaeologist in 1874, fell down the 7 meter long shaft that leads to Pediamenopet's burial chamber.  Recently an Egyptian archaeologist made the same fall but survived with considerable injury.  The metal plate intended to cover the shaft seemed to have disappeared....

Story of Pediamenopet's curse : http://www.aawsat.net/2010/09/article55249244
Reopening the tomb : http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/petamenophis.htm

INSIDE THE TEXTILE MUSEUM

The  4th floor of the Textile Museum of Canada is not open to the public and houses their extensive collection in storage.  Walking through rolled carpets and wrapped artifacts is both enticing and frustrating as prying fingers are not allowed.  While there, we met up with Hillary Anderson, head conservator, while she unpacked and checked the condition report for the upcoming exhibition From Geisha to Diva: The Kimonos of Ichimaru.  Ichimaru (1906 - 1997) was a reknowned Geisha who became a recording artist in the 1930's.  Through her carreer as a singer, she continued to dress in full Geisha regalia.  The exhibition, opening on January 29th, comprises her collection of kimonos; these garments tell a story of transition from tradition to glitz and glamour.  The exhibition runs through to April 11th.

THE BEACH AT SAINTE ADRESSE

The Musée D'Orsey houses a vast collection of 19th and early 20th century artwork in a renovated railway station.  By presenting the Impressionists with work that was more critically acclaimed at the time, you can truly grasp how radical and shocking painters like Monet, Degas and Renoir really were.  The space is arranged so that you see the "popular" work first, (massive, finely painted depictions of gods and heroes intended to get attention at the yearly Salon) then head upstairs and find great contrast through the smaller scale, mundane subjects, vibrant colours and sometimes violent brushwork.  With all this in mind, I found myself marvelling at Monet's "La Plage de Sainte Adresse"; he captured the breeze and smell of the day, while being totally cavalier when painting his chatting fishermen.  

Today being Sunday, I checked out the Marché de Montreuil.  This sprawling flea market is for champion rummagers.  Huge piles of clothes for 2 or 3EUR need to be ransacked with a brave heart. This painting reminded me of Monet's fisherman so I talked the guy down and brought it home, only to discover that Jean-Pierre Guillier has done a very nice copy.  Sure beats a postcard.

Photo credit

KATIE BETHUNE-LEAMEN

We visited Katie Bethune-Leamen's apartment just as the cold was setting in on Toronto. With many distractions from her cat Quincy we watched the sun set over the Landsdowne No Frills and talked about residencies, the North and Hologram TuPac.

Bethune-Lehman's work is immediately engaging because of it's deceptively simple and sometimes-comic nature.  This straightforwardness belies inner layers that seek back to the myths and mysterious at humanity's core.  She seems to have a fascination with the cold places and the things that fall into them from beyond our stratosphere.  Ghosts, mummers, icebergs, hats, meteors and explorers people her work.  Whether wearable sculpture, video, performance or object, she has a way of presenting work that seems to reveal the making, yet trick the viewer as to what they are actually experiencing.

The "hologram" of Tupac (that was not a hologram but a Victorian parlour trick) that showed up at Coachella in 2012 holds an enduring interest for Bethune-Leamen.  Blue masks of many shapes and media referencing this event are throughout her apartment, propositions of things to come. 

In recent years Bethune-Leamen has participated in many residencies including: Fogo Island Arts Residency, off the coast of Newfoundland; SIM Residency in Reykjavik, Iceland and in 2014 she will be the artist in resident at LKV in Trodheim, Norway.  She describes residencies as a way to "trouble the practice". Taken away from familiar materials and routines, she has a knack for creating ritualized and powerful work using what is at hand: both mundane materials, the beauty and magnitude of the surrounding land and people she meets along the way.