021 The Art of Not Sitting Pretty

Alice Neel, The World in A Selfie and Circus Company

In the piano room of Alice Neel’s Upper West Side apartment via NYTimes

Hi friends

just a quick one this week since I am on the road.

Most fascinating feature this week was to read into Alice Neel and her approach to create. Rarely have I encountered a painter that is able to show intimacy and naked skin in such a strong and far from vulnerable way. See the NYTimes article on her apartment here, a video portrait on her early years here and a book on “The Art of Not Sitting Pretty” here.

Feel free to send me your articles, open job vacancies, thoughts, projects at any time

Have a lovely Sunday 🖼

Julia

---

LINKS

• Article Between the love for productivity and the urge to “do nothing” (quoting the wonderful Jenny Odell here) runs a very fine line. A super read in the New Yorker on why we’re so tired of optimizing our work lives, and what we should do about it (LINK)

• Interview Wanting what you don’t have but others have: envy has been a driving force of capitalism ever since. Texte zur Kunst publisher Isabelle Graw speaks to author Joseph Vogl in an inspiring conversation titiled “Verdinglichung unserer Seelen” (German only, LINK) Thank you, Claudia, for sending 🙏🏻

• Business Vestiaire Collective has just become the first second-hand fashion platform in the world to become B Corp Certified (LINK)

• Architecture 11 Berlin-based female designers got together to form a collective named Matter of Course, initiated by AD Germany (LINK)

• Podcast Apple just announced the release of a security improvement towards the spying software Pegasus. The Guardian produced an investigative five part series on the spectacular data leak case (LINK)

• Music Circus Company is an independent french music label and they just know how to assemble an easy Sunday tune mixtape (LINK)

---

📚 BOOKS

“The World in a Selfie” dissects a global cultural phenomenon. For Marco D’Eramo, tourism is not just the most important industry of the century, generating huge waves of people and capital, calling forth a dedicated infrastructure, and upsetting and repurposing the architecture and topography of our cities. It also encapsulates the problem of modernity: the search for authenticity in a world of ersatz pleasures.

The author retraces the paths of historic travelers and created a book that takes you around the world without leaving your house, sharing all his vast knowledge about the history of desired destinations and an almost scientific investigation on why humankind has been drawn to Wanderlust all along (LINK)

---

📆 CALENDAR

• September 17th, 19.30h // Panel “But where are you really from?” Vanessa Vu speaks to Sinthujan Varatharajah about that tiring question in her latest conversation format “Klassenzimmer” at Schaubühne Berlin (LINK)

• September 21st, 19h // Free Online Lecture Anna Zimmermann, the woman behind @holisticbizguide hosts a business accelerator program on how to develop a blueprint to create and launch your desire-driven dream business using your intuition in a strategic way (LINK)

---

👯‍♀️ FRIENDS

What a joy to work with the Canadian Fine Jewelry brand Mejuri on the preparations and execution of their launch in Germany. They recently published their global Icons campaign (as seen above: model Binx, with Christy Turlington on further images) and are excited to roll out their business in good old D-land. (LINK)

---

💌 THE END 💌