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May 27, 2010

mmm...something sweet....



Hmm...Let's see....What do we have for dessert today? It looks like something with nuts and smells so sweet...Oh, it's baklava!!!

Are u surprised? It is baklava but prepared in a very unique Azerbaijani style. We call it 'pakhlava'. It is usually cooked for special occasions. However, sweet lovers won't refuse it any time. If you have eaten Turkish baklava before, you will definitely find baklava different since it is sweeter. Although pakhlava has more solid texture, it tenderly melts in mouth and leaves unforgettable sweetness:)))
Would you like to try it? I challenge you, Not a Zebra friends, to make it and have a taste:) Just give it a try and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us:)))

Here is the recipe:

~The Traditional Azerbaijani Pakhlava~
Makes about 40 pieces.
Dough:
1.5 cup plain flour, sifted

100g butter at room temperature, chopped

100g natural yogurt

1 egg

1 tbsp baking powder

1 pinch salt


Filling:
200g (2 cups) almond meal

50g blanched almond (roughly chopped)

80g walnuts (roughly chopped)

150g (3/4 cup) sugar

1.5 tbsp ground cardamon


Syrup:
2 full tbsp sugar

2/3 cup water

1/5 ground cardamon


Extra ingredients:
200g (1 cup) melted unsalted butter

1 egg – lightly whipped

40-45 almond kernels


Preparation:


1. To make the syrup, place the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Stir over a medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil. Add ground cardamon. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool it completely.

2. Grease of a 20 x 30 cm baking tray.

3. Combine all nuts, sugar and cardamon in a bowl.

4. Preheat oven to 140°C fan.

5. Combine all ingredients of the dough in a large bowl and knead it until the dough is well smooth. Then divide it into 10 pieces. Two of them have to be a little bit bigger than the rest. Roll all the pieces of the dough into ball shapes. Cover them with a plastic wrap while working with 1 ball at a time. Take one big ball; roll it on lightly floured surface until approximately a 20 x 30 cm sheet. Place it carefully in greased baking tray, adapt to tray. Brush the sheet lightly with melted butter. Roll one small ball in a 20 x 30 sheet. Place it on the greased (first) sheet in the tray. Brush the surface with butter and spread about ¼ cup of filling evenly over. Repeat with remaining balls up to last big ball. Do not brush and spread the last sheet!!! Outline rhombus forms on the surface of last sheet. Then cut them into rhombus shapes. Brush tops of cut rhombus forms with lightly whipped egg. On the middle of each rhombus form stick almond kernels. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden brown. Reduce temperature to 120°C fan and continue baking for 20 minutes.


6. As soon as the Pakhlava comes out of the oven, pour the cold syrup over it and place the Pakhlava in the turned off oven again for 5 minutes. Cool it completely in the tray.


7. Enjoy the Pakhlava with a cup of tea with lemon.



Stay tuned with Not a Zebra!!!

May 9, 2010

i received this email from the art journal i am currently subscribed to called ART AGENDA. and this email talks about how modern art now is ranked by the amount it can sell for. interestinig rant about the standing of contempary art, a must to glue into all art students journals !!!! enjoy.


__________________________________________________________________
April 29, 2010



Kendell Geers

Master mistress of my passion, 2010

Plaster and broken glass

87 x 60 x 75 cm








Kendell Geers:

Handgrenades from my heart

21 April – 29 May 2010



Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

Rue de Livourne, 35

1050 Brussels

Belgium



http://www.galerierodolphejanssen.com


Kendell Geers at Galerie Rodolphe Janssen



Contemporary Art has painted itself into a corner. The old Avant Garde's demand for constant renewal can no longer compete with the market demand for fresh blood, novelty and the dictates of fashion. The classic art historical concept of Movements and Manifestos have been superceded by seasons and sensations. Artists are as a result no longer judged by their historical resilience but according to their most recent auction sale. A young unknown Indian or Chinese painter can now be "ranked" higher than Duchamp or Manzoni according to the ubiquitous top 100 lists that proliferate in Art Magazines polluting the space between the advertising and advertorial.



The reality of the contemporary art market demand is that artists have neither the time nor the opportunity for real structural renewal, nor the space for philosophical growth and development. Instead of interrogating history or killing their idols, artists, and their market, seem content with slight of hand aesthetic adjustments and cynical asides.



The Avant Garde itself was a reaction to the dehumanising effects of the growing industrialisation of European culture and the increasing insensitivities that Capitalism defined itself by. Through the twentieth century our predecessors were more than happy to rape the planet, abuse their neighbours, and decimate any culture, faith, tradition in the subjugation of every form of life in their pursuit of profit by any means necessary. The golden age of reckless abandonment is thankfully now over and Capitalism hangs on by a single golden thread and the potential role of the artist in society never been more critical. As the planet increasingly claims back what is rightfully hers and our fragile human existence is ripped apart by tsunamis, droughts, famine, earthquakes, riots, religious wars and as the world economies swing into full frontal bankruptcies, what, if any, is the role that art could play?



The exhibition "Handgrenades From My Heart" is a meditation upon "Negative Space" and chance, a return to the human body as both subject and object in art. Only our bodies do not lie for the day we learn to speak is the day we learn to lie, even if our desires and intentions be for the contrary.



In strictly classical terms, "Negative Space" is defined as that which lies outside or around the subject, image or form, generally unnoticed but essential in framing our perceptions. It could also be understood as the "empty" space between letters, the unspoken invisible silence between words, the pause for breath and the undescribable unutterable thought on the tip of the tongue that never finds expression. Negative space is the gap of light between your fingers, the sweat in the palm of your hand, the frustration of something slipping away, slipping through your fingers, just out of reach. Marcel Duchamp called it "Inframince" being the difference in displaced volume between a clean shirt and the same shirt worn once, or the taste of one's mouth lingering in exhaled smoke.



For some years now I have tried to explore this notion of a Negative Space or Inframince in my drawings and performances, through the impossible containment and fluency of ink being directed and influenced by forces beyond my control. The virginal white paper stands out in contrast with the kinetic expulsion of natural forces, the shadow of a liberated energy field. For "Handgrenades From My Heart" I have tried to translate this energy principle into the third dimension using Plaster of Paris and bronze.



Slipping through my fingers in an ocean of endless possibilities, the warm visceral liquid plaster or wax eventually finds a moment of eternal rest in between infinite potential states of being. Defined according to the laws of chance and dictated to by the laws of nature, the forces of gravity are moulded by the vision of my desires as the work of art finds a unique form conjured out of a states of endless proposals. The sculptures embody a channelling of form in the negative space between intention and desire, between thought and form.



Shunning the superficiality and ego capitalism of contemporary trendiness, I decided to instead embrace the shamanic praxis of Joseph Beuys, weaving into it the spirit of artists like Cesar, Orozco, Nauman, Klein, Benglis, Manzoni and Bourgeois. This project follows on from "A Guest + A Host = A Ghost," my last exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery in London, which was a game of chess and an interrogation of Marcel Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even." According to the logic of Duchamp's own switch from the cerebral 2 dimensionality of the transparent Large Glass towards the visceral opacity and confrontational eroticism of "Etant Donne" the intellectual dandyism of the found object gave way to a shamanic ritualisation of erotic forms and matter is spiritualised whilst spirit is materialised.



I make no excuses for my radical subjectivity and propose a shift in the ways we understand the artist today. Following the earthquake in Chile the planet has already shifted on its axis and our quotidian concepts of time and reality need adjustment. We no longer live in a world of infinite resources and endless opportunities and the planet demands an "Archaic Revival" on a global scale in order to bring our world back from the cliff edge of complete collapse. Art can lead the way through the embodiment of archetypes that shine in the darkness and fill the emptiness of a spiritual bankruptcy with love and hope.



41 Essex Street, New York City, 10002 USA

info@art-agenda.com
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