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| Sunday, 4 January 2004 |
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Colours of India Branka Skific Ridichi will hold her fourth exhibition of paintings - colours of her native Dalmatia and her spiritual homeland, India at the Finomenal Gallery, Galle Face Court 1, Colombo 3 from January 8-15.
Branka's landscapes manifest her fascination with environment and an almost childish ability to wander about with her eyes wide open. Her paintings attempt to recognise the images of beyond, images we never experienced but somehow feel familiar with. These are images that cannot be comprehended at first sight. They demand time and time again, new glances, almost casual looks without intention to understand. Until all of the sudden one gets drawn into the world framed in Branka's paintings discovering the fresh ability to share a dream, to be surprised and innocent again.
In 2001 she presented herself in the Bertrand Kass Gallery in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2002 at Studio Palazzi in Venice, Italy and later in the year at the Sesvete Gallery in Zagreb, Croatia. After living for a year in Colombo, these canvases represent her work and impressions of Sri Lanka. Born in Zadar, Croatia, Branka graduated in History of Art at University of Zagreb. After graduation Branka started to work as teacher and translator, but after a few years of teaching decided to dedicate her time to documentary films and painting. ######### A square in Paris and an exhibition for marlene dietrich : The film legend and ambassador for fashion Marlene Dietrich - 1901-1992 - American actress and signer of German origin, This is now the name of a square in Paris not far from the Galliera museum where, for the first time in France, a cult exhibition is devoted to the woman who was a living film legend as well as an ambassador for fashion. Both are located right near the apartment where Marlene, a Parisienne by adoption, spent the last 17 years of her life. It is the double homage that Paris pays to a free woman whose life was a constant performance and who strove to shape her own myth without ever setting a boundary between her life as a star and her everyday life, so completely did she identify with the roles that she played. She had started to create her myth at the age of eleven by changing her first name from Marie Magdalene to the invented name of Marlene which would become a legend itself. She was born in Schoneberg near Berlin on 27 December 1901. She was good at playing the violin and had intensively studied music before deciding, in 1922, to become an actress. The making of the Blue Angel, in 1929, with the film director Josef von Sternberg who would become her Pygmalion and would direct her in six other films including "Shanghai Express", "Blond Venus" and the "Scarlet Empress" marked an essential turning point in her life. She was now a star, shaped, by her mentor, into the three archetypes of the flapper, the androgyne and the femme fatale. She would enhance this triple image of herself with unclassifiable elegance (often imitated but never equalled) which she would never abandon. "I am not an actress. I am a personality", she would say after meanwhile having given up the cinema to begin a new career as a music-hall singer and entertainer. When inaugurating the Place Marlene Dietrich and the exhibition, the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, emphasised that Marlene had been "one of the greatest fashion figures of the 20th century and one of the finest ambassadors for French haute couture". The astonishing wardrobe displayed at the Musee Galliera, the city of Paris fashion museum, bears this out with more than 250 items, presented on their own or combined to recreate figures, with suits, dinner jackets, long gowns, housecoats, and sportswear accompanied by their accessories: bag, shoes, hats, gloves, etc. All these outfits, complemented by some 50 photos some of which are projected on the walls and ceilings, had been worn by Marlene between 1930 and 1970, on the screen or on the stage as well as in her private life. They come from the Film Museum in Berlin which owns the complete collection, i.e. some 3,000 items of clothing, 1,000 objects from her private life (including 70 handbags, 150 pairs of gloves, 400 hats and 430 pairs of shoes), 16,500 photos as well as thousands of written or sound documents (books, correspondence, amateur films and posters), paintings, furniture and luggage. Her daughter Maria Riva, who had not wanted the collection to be dispersed, recounts that Marlene had "hated fashion but loved style". She wore clothes without setting a boundary between her profession as a star and her everyday life, sometimes appropriating clothes from films to wear them in town (such as the leopard-skin coat from the "Blue Angel") or, on the contrary, buying items of clothing, thinking that they could be useful in a film. So, while wearing creations by Hollywood couturiers with panache (including by the famous Jean Louis for her shows), she gradually became a real ambassador for Paris haute couture, frequenting, before the Second World War, Elsa Schiaparelli ("my mother would go mad in her fashion house", Maria declares), Madeleine Vionnet, Lucient Lelong, Maguy Rouff, Paquin and Patou, and after the war, ChristianDior, Balenciaga and Chanel where she was a regular customer. This did not prevent her from going to men's tailors where she would order men's suits which she was just as fond of wearing as the flimsy negliges and which were one of the most original elements of the "Dietrich style" (a "Dior Monsieur" straw hat and several "Grand Sport" caps which were very fashionable after the war also figure in the exhibition). Marlene also very actively participated in creating her professional wardrobe ("my stage costumes are works of art") about which she was extremely demanding and perfectionist. The exhibition entitled "Marlene Dietrich, the creation of a myth" is divided into two major parts, before and after the war, during which Marlene, who had left Germany in 1933 and did not return until 1945, became "Officer Dietrich", singing on the front for the American G.I.s Paradoxically, she wore haute conture to cheer up the troops who adored her. As she was not in the services, she joined the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), created in 1942. These voluntary workers, who did not have the right to wear a military uniform, nevertheless wore uniforms inspired from them, and Marlene's were very elegant. A wander through the exhibition immediately reveals the rather modest view that Marlene had of her own body. Curiously, she did not find herself terribly beautiful. She did not really like low necklines and, in certain outfits, to compensate for a lack of sleeves, she would wear very long gloves of which she had an incredible collection. She also set the fashion for evening gowns going right up to the neck. Her most beautiful evening gowns include the brown silk dress by Balenciaga, worn in 1966 at the gala evening at Palais de Chaillot where she was introduced to General de Gaulle. A gold lame trouser suit is the work of Chanel and, among her town clothes, she so greatly liked Courreges trouser suits around 1970 that she bought the same one in two different colours (which, moreover, she did quite often when she liked a model), one white and the other black, her favourite colours. However, she did not disdain jeans (particularly a pair of patchwork jeans from the 1960s-70s) nor elegant sportswear not forgetting to wear the Legion d'Honneur of which she was so proud (with the rank of Commander at the end of her life). The exhibition ends in apotheosis with the sumptuous white swandown coat created for by Jean Louis in 1957. - Claudine CANETTI |
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