CULTURAL GRATITUDE

I have so many good memories of travel and exploration. I like to put myself in tricky situations and see new and developing worlds.  I am not alone. Every time I see the wonderful film director Stephen Frears he says to me "When is Pablo Ganguli going to organise another week end of cultural explosion" Where people meet and discuss many ideas?. I have now been lucky enough to go to quite a few of his week ends of culture, where art meets fashion, poetry meets photography, film meets a shoe or hat designer. A mish mash of celebs, socialites, glamorous blondes, artists, musicians and film directors, thinkers, witches, and intellectuals. Pablo has talent with a big T. Not always easy to deal with, people of his nature cannot be. They are perfectionists. He has ideas, big ideas that are genius and ballsy. He thinks in a large bubble. He talks to me on Skype his face speaking from a tab and distant land. The new modern world of crazy mass communication. Let's face it nobody is far from an iPad or computer these days. Pablo and Tomas Auksas have put together a vibrant pop up photographic show,  watching what celebrity is capable of in New York, with telephones and new technology. To be shown at the W Hotel Lexington Avenue for four weeks from 26th June 2014.

It is nearly impossible to think of original ideas for art shows, as everything has been done, but Liberatum, thinks out of the box, giving chances to new artists and supporting the old. 

Michael Nyman with Amanda Eliasch

Another  thinker in this realm is Susan Johnstone who runs The New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles. However her creations are shown in one place. Pablo is global, From the Red Square to the Bosphorus, From Sunset Boulevard  to Times Square, from the heat of New Delhi to the coolness of Berlin, many of us have free loaded at his week ends, where we can explore our deeper soul. I shall not forget  Istancool 2011 where I entered flustered from an aeroplane, into the traffic and smog of Istanbul,  just to listen to Sam Taylor Wood, my favourite French Poet Sophie Call and Michael Stipe. Think about it,  in life where are their cooler events?. Of course any old PR company can put together people, but only a few people can create magic with impact.

So my congratulations to Pablo Ganguli from Liberatum; Marina Cicogna from Rome; Julia Peyton Jones from the Septentine Gallery;Hans Ulrich Obrist; Charles Finch and Marco Mueller who have this rare quality of mixing interesting people in a boiling cauldron of thought. Julia Peyton Jones is hosting the Marina Abramovich Show, and the others work speaks for itself. Amanda Nevill who is head of the British Film Institute. All of whom have made my life a little more exciting and encouraged me to think, here is a moment of written gratitude.