Nicolás de Lekuona

A few works by Nicolás de Lekuona (1913-1937).

Famous Blue Raincoat

Jennifer Warnes... Famous Blue Raincoat (.mp3 audio 05:34).

Elvis Impersonation by Johnny Cash

Elvis Impersonation by Johnny Cash on Val's Ford Town Hall Party, 1958 (RealVideo 02:56).

Works by Max Yavno

Max Yavno... Tail o' the Pup (1949). From Works by Max Yavno at Jan Kesner Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.

Chambi Collection

Chambi Collection - Classic documentation of Peruvian life developed between 1920 and 1973. "...Martin Chambi born in 1891, lived and worked in Cuzco from 1920 until his death in 1973. He practiced as a local and commercial portrait photographer. His studio was frequented by some of the most prominent members of Cuzco society. He photographed weddings, parties, dances, fiestas, but with such skill and perception that his work conveys, 'with unexpected intensity the structure and mood of a complex colonial society meeting the 20th century.'
Chambi was 'a contemporary historian, at least by instinct, and not solely a record maker.' He was as interested in the Inca past as he was in Peru's present and future. Photographs of the Indian life of the time occupy a large place in his output 'more by virtue of his alert consciousness of his environment than as a market response. He was among the earliest to have done real photographic justice to Macchu Picchu,' (probably the most spectacular Incan archaeological site)." See Also... Archivo Fotografico Martin Chambi.

Telling Tales: Contemporary Women Cartoonists

Jenni Rope... Tuesday (2003, Collage and watercolor on paper). From Telling Tales: Contemporary Women Cartoonists at Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, NY. "...Long a boys club, comics have, since the rise of the late 1960s underground, opened up to women as a medium like any other. Unfortunately, most current historical surveys are notable not only for the absence of women artists but also the absence of women as protagonists or even subjects in the medium itself. And while a gender-based exhibition might marginalize women even further, Telling Tales seems necessary as a slight corrective to the usual historical narrative.
The seventeen artists included here were chosen for their unique points of view and their idiosyncratic approaches to cartooning. All are free from the usual stylizations of comics, making stories that rely as much on line and mark as narrative and dialogue. Each artist has made an indelible mark on the medium, including Aline Kominsky Crumb, who helped revolutionize comics drawing with her scratchy line and brutal abstractions; Debbie Dreschler brings an unthinkably dense patterning to the medium; while Renée French's lush pencils convey meaning in each stroke. Younger artists, such as Lauren Weinstein and Amy Lockhart, have appropriated old genres, such as confessional and superhero comics, and used them for their own purposes. The larger story of these artists is swiftly evolving and Telling Tales will be just the first chapter of this long artistic narrative."

Surprising Origins: Florentine 18th-century wax anatomical models as inspiration for Italian horror

Annette Burfoot... Surprising Origins: Florentine 18th-century wax anatomical models as inspiration for Italian horror (Kinoeye Vol 2, Issue 9, 13 May 2002). "...La Specola has always been open to the public, and to all classes thereof, so long as they were clean and presentable. As such, this museum in particular, but also the emerging visual culture of modern science in general, opened up the new empirical world to venues beyond the traditional closed doors of its courtly and priestly patrons. Following the practice of dramatic display of dissection (performed in semi-public 'theatres'), these models can be read as a type of contemporary popular culture. And one of the display's main draws was the journey into the mysterious terrain of the body's interior, with the most exciting scene of all in the gynaecological room."

Hold On, Hold On

Neko Case... Hold On, Hold On (.mp3 audio 02:46).

We Heart Gocco

Wizna Wada... Little Love. From the exhibition We Heart Gocco at The Wurst Gallery. "...For over 25 years, the print gocco screen-printing system has been used in Japan. The small plastic device was marketed at families for making greeting cards and sold in toy and hobby stores. Since it's peak during the 1980's, gocco's sales have declined in the Japanese market with the advent of home computers and printers. Outside Japan, however, appreciation for the gocco system has only just begun. For artists who cannot afford to own or don't have the space for a traditional screen-printing set-up, gocco has offered a way to mass produce everything from postcards to wedding invitations to mini-comics to limited edition art prints as you see here. Each print in this show is limited to 50 numbered pieces."

Let's Talk Dirty In Hawaiian

Petty Booka... Let's Talk Dirty In Hawaiian (.mp3 audio 03:25).

Anxiety, Ethics and Horror

Anxiety, Ethics and Horror - Georges Franju's Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1959) by Elizabeth Cowie (Kinoeye Vol 2, Issue 13, 9 September 2002). "...The very title of the film is gruesome - its words institute a cruel verbal play, for how does one imagine eyes without a face? Perhaps as separated organs lying on a table, an image whose more horrifying correlative for me is of the empty eye sockets from which these ocular globes have been wrenched. Or should the focus be on the missing face as setting for the eyes? Here what is meant is not the displacement of the eyes from their proper place/face, but the displacement of the setting itself. But what is behind the face?"

Animal Vegetable Video

Sam Easterson... Desert Tarantula (2004, QuickTime Video). From Animal Vegetable Video - Outfitting Animals and Plants with Helmet-Mounted Video Cameras. Also... Sam Easterson: Bird-Cams at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York, NY.

Thank God For The Radio

The Kendalls... Thank God For The Radio (.mp3 audio 02:57).

Works by Charles H. Traub

Charles H. Traub... Chicago, 1976 (Vintage gelatin silver print). From Works by Charles H. Traub, September 22 - December 2, 2006 at Gitterman Gallery in New York, NY. "...Gitterman Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of vintage black and white street photographs from the 1970s by Charles H. Traub (b.1945). The exhibition is concurrent with the release of the book Charles H. Traub (Gitterman Gallery, 2006) which includes 40 pages, 33 images, and an essay by Marvin Heiferman. Charles H. Traub once used a lens shade one size too small for his square-format camera. The vignetting caused by the mistake emphasized the intimate perspective of the photographer’s vision. The square format and proximity to his subjects charged his images with an immediacy that celebrated the character of the times."

Works by Jockum Nordström

Jockum Nordström... Hymn-Book (2006, Collage on paper). From Works by Jockum Nordström at David Zwirner Gallery in New York, NY. "...Elegantly constructed, Nordström’s settings are often frighteningly benign, yet they allude to
decisive themes: manual labor, overt sexuality, and everyday social dynamics. The exhibition will include several collages as well as a number of new works on paper. Each of the works offers a glimpse of an eerily private encounter or a sinister tryst."

Night Things All About Me

The Amazing Criswell... Night Things All About Me (.mp3 audio 02:24). Crazed dialogue and music from Orgy of the Dead (1965, directed by Stephen C. Apostolof, written by Edward D. Wood Jr.).

Eye 4 Photography

Max Dupain... Rush Hour, Kings Cross (1938, silver gelatine photoprint). "...A slow shutter speed and a wet night have given this flow of traffic from Darlinghurst Road and William Street into Bayswater Road an impression of tempo and drama. Max Dupain understood the effect of light, which he used to define form and to simplify his images for greater impact. He wrote that many of his photographs were made 'with the intention of securing a fragmentary impression of passing movement or changing form'. He didn't subscribe to artifice." From the exhibition Eye 4 Photography at the State Library of New South Wales.

Bride of the Monster - Movie Clip

Bride of the Monster - Movie Clip (.wmv video 01:49). "...Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi) has his assistant Lobo (Tor Johnson) throw a victim into the dreaded killer octopus pit in this scene from Ed Wood, Jr.'s, Bride of the Monster (1955)."

Un bel di vedremo

Maria Callas... Un bel di vedremo from Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly (.mp3 audio 04:43).

John Sowden House

Was that the John Sowden House, 5121 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, CA. (the former home of Black Dahlia murder suspect Dr. George Hodel) seen in the debut episode of NBC's Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip? Yes! See also... Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder.

Works by Faustinus Deraet

Faustinus Deraet... In A Hurry (2003, Gelatin Silver Print). From Works by Faustinus Deraet at Verve Fine Arts. "...After a couple of years of taking photos, I realized that sometimes being in the right place at the right time I could take a good photograph. While showing this early work to some professional photographers, I realized that my concept was partially correct. As part of their feedback, I was told I was in the process of "finding my eyes," and that there was something missing: I needed to use my heart. Even though I felt I was using my heart already, I decided to follow the advice and start again."

Pink Box - Inside Japan's Sex Clubs

Pink Box - Inside Japan's Sex Clubs by Joan Sinclair. "...Pink Box is the world’s first look inside Japan’s second largest industry. While living near Tokyo, Joan Sinclair heard rumors referring to Japanese men's clubs with mirrored floors and fantasy decor, but never saw any photographs of these private clubs. With nothing more than a list of contacts, she returned to Japan to shoot Pink Box. Slowly, with great patience and persistence, she gained entrance into this private world. For most, Joan’s photographs will be the only glimpse they will ever have of some of Japan’s most elaborate sex clubs: the fake train, the fake classroom, the almost extinct no-panty lounge."

Warhol's Candid Camera

Michael Musto... Warhol's Candid Camera - Drugs, Speedos, horrifying hair (we're looking at you, Dianne Brill)! Andy's famous friends are caught with their guards down in a new collection of his snapshots (Radar Magazine, 09/21/06). "...In 1968, a girl who looked like Lili Taylor shot Andy Warhol at close range in the lobby of his Factory. Miraculously, he survived, wig slightly askew. Almost 20 years later, his worst fear was more fully realized when he succumbed to tragically mundane complications of gallbladder surgery. But even that event could only be called death in the most literal, physical sense, what with his work and his overwhelming impact on pop culture - not to mention the legions of people who to this day pleadingly screech, 'I knew Andy Warhol!'"

Abunai Puroresu Asobi

Abunai Puroresu Asobi (Asahi Newsreel .wmv video 00:52). Dangerous Pro-Wrestling Play; Legendary Japanese professional wrestler Rikidozan warns kids against copying his moves in the school yard. Via Zaeega. (jp)

RIP: Al Casey

RIP: Al Casey. "...Born on October 26, 1936 in Long Beach, California and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Al Casey ws already a veteran of the local music scene by age seventeen. As a member of The Sunset Riders, he was featured on radio and television as well as playing on the first Viv sessions for Lee Hazlewood. It was Casey who first introduced Hazlewood to Sanford Clark in 1956. Together they made 'The Fool' the first of many national hits from Phoenix, Arizona. Casey took Duane Eddy under his wing while Duane finished up high school in Coolidge. All the while playing on dozens of sessions, from country to rock, square dance to jazz. Casey thrived in the confines of the several small studios at the time. He played most stringed instruments, including the piano, as well as arranging many of the charts for the dates. Casey gained loads of experience while backing many of the national country acts in Phoenix and the smaller clubs all over the state." Also... Listen to Surfin' Hootenanny by Al Casey with The K-C-Ettes (1963, RealAudio 02:08) and check out the Al Casey Discography at Rockin' Country Style.

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour at White Man Stew. "...Welcome to Theme Time Radio Hour… Themes, Schemes and Dreams… with your host, Bob Dylan." Thank you, DMc.

Michael Kenna: Hokkaido / New Work

Michael Kenna... Kussharo Lake Tree, Study 3 (2005, Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan). From the exhibition Michael Kenna: Hokkaido / New Work at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...With more than twenty books published on his work, Michael Kenna shows no signs of slowing down in his endless pursuit of nature’s haunting beauty. Whether working in his native England, Easter Island in the South Pacific, the coastal towns of France or the islands in Japan, Kenna seeks places of solitude which speak volumes about humanity. His newest book, Hokkaido, continues his passion for Japan. As stated by Nazraeli 'he Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido has abundant natural forests, clear lakes, and magnificent mountains. It is perhaps best known for its intense and brutal winters. Snow and ice make many parts of the island inaccessible and the local Sea of Okhotsk routinely freezes over. Kenna has been photographing throughout Hokkaido, in these extreme conditions, for the past several years.'"

Somewhere in America

Speedbuggy USA... Somewhere in America (.mp3 audio 03:38).

Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880–1910

Edison Manufacturing Company... Panorama Waterfront and Brooklyn Bridge from East River (1903, 140 feet, Producer: Edwin S. Porter; camera: Edwin S. Porter, The Library of Congress, Paper Print Collection, neg. no. 1799). From Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880–1910 at Grey Art Gallery at NYU. "...Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1880–1910 explores the links—both deliberate and coincidental—between the earliest movies and other American visual art forms at the beginning of the 20th century. The first exhibition to integrate cinema into a history of American art, Moving Pictures features approximately 100 artworks and 50 films."

Casa da Flor

Thank you to Vida Fuleira for reminding us about Casa da Flor - linked to long ago on the old gmtPlus9 site in Japan. "...The Casa da Flor (House of the Flower), which is considered a masterpiece of spontaneous architecture in Brazil, must be preserved. It was built, from 1912 on, in São Pedro da Aldeia, state of Rio de Janeiro, by a black, poor man who earned his living at the local salt-works and who hardly had any kind of formal schooling. Between 1923 and 1985, when he died, Gabriel Joaquim dos Santos, guided by his dreams and a fertile imagination, kept embellishing his home with the materials he would pick up at the local domestic refuse heaps and civil construction waste piles. In order to preserve and make widely known Gabriel's house and his work, a group of admirers created, in 1987, the Society of Friends of Casa da Flor, currently Cultural Institute Casa da Flor, a civil, non-profit organization."

More Than Coffee Was Served: Café Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna and Weimar Germany

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner... Gentleman with Lap Dog at the Café (1911, Colored woodcut on paper, Private collection). From the exhibition More Than Coffee Was Served: Café Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna and Weimar Germany, September 19 - November 25, 2006 at Galerie St. Etienne in New York, NY. Our favourite gallery in NYC. "...The café and its evening offshoot, the cabaret, have come to assume near-legendary status in the history of European modernism. While the first European cafés date back to the mid-seventeenth century, industrialization and the growth of bourgeois capitalism in the nineteenth century transformed these once humble institutions into grand establishments in which members of an increasingly diverse society could meet, not just to drink coffee, but to read, write, play cards, chess or billiards and to discuss the burning issues of the day. The café thus helped establish the public face of 'bohemia': that self-selected cadre of intellectuals whose mission in life was to oppose and undermine the philistine values of their elders. Paris, which gave us the word 'café,' was in some respects the birthplace of café and cabaret society, but the Viennese paradigm of the Kaffeehaus was equally important, especially in Central Europe."

Silvio Barile's Sculptures and Pizza Restaurant

Silvio Barile's Sculptures and Pizza Restaurant in Detroit, MI (35 Photos). A Flickr set by Joey Harrison.

Taller de Gráfica Popular

Angel Bracho... ¡Victoria! Los artistas del Taller de Gráfica Popular nos unimos al júbilo de todos los trabajadores y hombres progresistas de México y del mundo por el triunfo del glorioso Ejército Rojo y de las armas de todas las naciones unidas sobre la Alemania nazi, como el paso más trascendente para la destrucción total del fascismo (1945, poster, linoleum-block printing, Princeton University. Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections. Graphic Arts, 2-13-G, map drawer A8). From Taller de Gráfica Popular. "...The Taller de Gráfica Popular (known as TGP) was founded 1937 by the talented Mexican artists Leopoldo Méndez, Luis Arenal, and Pablo O'Higgins. The TGP became the first self-supporting art workshop in Mexico to create and publish their own work. Their work had a variety of objectives; some overtly political, some comic, and some artistic. The Princeton University Library has collected TGP prints by Alberto Beltrán, José Chávez Morado, Francisco Mora, Rufino Tamayo, and Alfredo Zalce."

John S. Kiewit Photography Collection

John S. Kiewit... Lottie Johl House (Bodie, CA., June 1974). From Ghost Town in the John S. Kiewit Photography Collection at the Donald C. Davidson Library ot the University of California Santa Barbara. "...John S. Kiewit was born on July 5, 1948 in Los Angeles, California and grew up on the beaches of Malibu, where his father was an avid surfer. During his childhood, Kiewit accompanied his parents, Ralph and Oralee Kiewit, on numerous trips to Europe and the South Pacific, which instilled in him a lifelong love of travel. He also developed an interest in photography, and at the age of 16 he began to document his forays into the less-traveled areas of the western United States.
In school, Kiewit found inspiration in the works of photographers such as Edward Weston and Walker Evans, and decided to major in photography at Santa Monica College. He then intended to enroll at the famous Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, but changed his mind when he encountered conservative attitudes at the school. Instead, he chose a program in 'visual anthropology' at San Francisco State, which led to a quarter-century of wandering the back roads of the American West with his camera."

Mishima

Philip Glass... Mishima (.mp3 audio 06:38). From the film Mishima, 1985, directed by Paul Schrader. Still banned in Japan?

My Poncho Pony

Patsy Montana and the Prarie Ramblers... My Poncho Pony (RealAudio 02:46).

Toy Camera Contest

Markus Puustinen... Last Snowfall - First Prize in the Toy Camera Contest at FILE Magazine. "...Markus used a Holga 120GFN camera and Kodak BW 400CN film to shoot this image in the center of his hometown Helsinki last spring."

Manuel Carrillo

Manuel Carrillo... Untitled (n.d. Gelatin Silver Print). From Works by Manuel Carrillo at Verve Fine Arts in Santa Fe, NM. "...Manuel Carrillo was born in Mexico City in 1906 and his destiny as interpreter of his own people would not be revealed until almost half a century later. At the age of 16, in 1922, Carrillo left Mexico for New York where he pursued several odd jobs before becoming an Arthur Murray waltz and tango champion. During this period in New York, he settled down to work for the Wall Street firm of Neuss Hesslein and Co., but in 1930 he returned to his beloved Mexico. There he began working for one of the pioneers of the Mexican tourist industry Albert L. Bravo. Carrillo later abandoned that position to become the general agent for the Illinois Central Railroad's office in Mexico City, where he stayed for thirty-six years, until his retirement. At the age of 49, he joined the Club Fotografico de Mexico and the Photographic Society of America. His first international exhibition, titled, 'Mi Pueblo (My People), was held in 1960 at the Chicago Public Library and depicted daily life in rural Mexico."

Chris Scarborough

Chris Scarborough... Untitled (Raquel) (2005, digial c-print). From Works by Chris Scarborough - drawings and manipulated photography.

Bunny

Linda Kramer... Bunny (1970, oil stick & pencil on paper). From Corbett vs. Dempsey - Modern Art & Uncommon Objects in Chicago, IL.

Manholes of Japan

Osaka Manhole - from the ever-intrepid Edward McGregor. From Manholes of Japan (215 images) at frangipani.info photography.

Works by Maura Holden

Maura Holden... Tantric Djinni (1995-2005, pencil and blue pencil on paper). From Works by Maura Holden. "...In her meticulously rendered, illusionistic drawings and paintings, Maura Holden creates richly detailed, self-contained worlds, in which fantastic primeval landscapes and cities made up of elaborate multi-tiered buildings emerge from banks of billowing fog or stand out against glowing, turbulent-looking skies.
The human figures and gargoylish creatures populating these realms are most often frontally posed in confrontational stances, to somewhat unnerving effect. These are powerful, visionary images, evoking a deep sense of the uncanny." - Tom Patterson, Raw Vision #56.

Band Your Belly

The Ethiopians... Band Your Belly (1976, Belmont .mp3 audio 03:11).

Greta Pratt: Nineteen Lincolns

Greta Pratt: Nineteen Lincolns. "...These men all belong to The Association of Lincoln Presenters. They are passionate about Lincoln and spend time studying, reading and performing for school groups, community celebrations, and senior citizen centers. Each one started this unusual occupation for a different reason, but all became completely immersed in the ideals of Abraham Lincoln.
I photographed the men singly to allow each the opportunity to portray their idea of Lincoln." From Greta Pratt.

The Unconscious Art Of Demolition

The Unconscious Art Of Demolition - a Flickr group photo pool.

Shin Tanaka

Shin Tanaka... Spiky Baby (Series 03). From Shin Tanaka - paper art, graffiti, and tees.

Close To Home: Photographs by Margaret Sartor

Close To Home: Photographs by Margaret Sartor. "...Family portraiture has long served the function of preserving memory, of making transitory experience into something that can be handed down or carried with us, providing a shield against time, a salve for loss. Beauty and wonder are easily found in the strange and the far away, but the deepest, and perhaps most fragile, beauty often lies in the faces that are literally the most familiar and the lives to which we are bound by history, blood, and love." More at Margaret Sartor.

Tomoko Sawada: Early Days

Tomoko Sawada... Early Days / 31 (1996, gelatin silver print). From Tomoko Sawada: Early Days. Photography by Tomoko Sawada at MEM Gallery in Osaka. Via Japan-Photo.info - a blog about Japanese photography seen from abroad.

The Films of Jack Goldstein

Jack Goldstein... Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975, QuickTime Video 02:10). "...Goldstein's iconic two-minute tour de force, brings media's subliminal power to the fore. The roar of the movie studio's trademark lion here is looped into a (neurotic) repetition, making it easy to discern that the picture moves partly in reverse. This attempt to pass off 'backward' for 'forward' - a quirk of the source material underscored by Goldstein's manipulation - stands as a particularly compelling visual analogy for the cyclical nature of history and exploitation, as well as for the endless diet of recycled stories Hollywood dishes out." From The Films of Jack Goldstein at UBUWEB.

All For One, One For All

All For One, One For All. Works by Frédéric Barthes, Nezaket Ekici, Joy Episalla, Ebru Erülkü, David Kramer, Dominic McGill, Istvan Nyari, Yoshua Okon, Samuel Rousseau, David Russon, Peter Schlör, Paul M. Smith, Cédric Tanguy, and Suzanne Wright - September 15 - November 4, 2006 at Aeroplastics Contemporary in Brussels, Belgium.

Mondo Topless - Cowgirl

Russ Meyer... Mondo Topless - Cowgirl (1966, .wmv video 02:58). According to Images Journal, "...To fill out the movie and give it an international flavor, Russ Meyer cannibalized his own Europe in the Raw. So in addition to the new footage with dancers/strippers gyrating in American locales, Meyer also takes his audience through the Moulin Rouge in Belgium, the Casino du Paris in Hamburg, the Atlantic Palace in Copenhagen, and the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris."

Works by Ele D’Artagnan

Ele D’Artagnan... Fallofaniz (Sex Trinty, 1977, mixed media on paper). From a brilliant exhibition of Works by Ele D’Artagnan at K.S. Art in New York, NY. "...KS ART presents Italian artist Ele D’Artagnan’s second one–person show in New York, featuring his visionary drawings and watercolors from the 1970s. D’Artagnan (1911–1987), a trained actor, self-taught artist, and vagabond extraordinaire who floated in and out of the Italian Surrealist scene, made drawings employing a cosmic sexuality and psychedelic line that anticipate the vital work by numerous young artists today. D’Artagnan’s libidinally charged drawings had, for the most part, never previously been publicly exhibited before his first exhibition in 2003 at KS Art; five of these drawings were recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art."

Least Wanted: A Century Of American Mugshots

Least Wanted: A Century Of American Mugshots, September 14 - October 28, 2006 at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York, NY. "...Hookers, stooges, grifters and goons. Punks, sneaks, mooks and miscreants. These are the Least Wanted. Men and women. Elderly and adolescent. Rich and poor. Mostly poor. These photographs are part of a collection of over 10,000 American criminal mugshots ranging from the 1880s to the 1970s that I gathered over the last ten years. Least Wanted is a poetic encyclopedia of discarded portraits set free from the steel file drawers of police departments and prisons. Created as utilitarian instruments, they survive as extraordinary visual artifacts. Bored, sheepish, proud, coy, tough, defiant, bounced, and bruised. Innocent-until-proven-guilty faces that stare back at the camera with unmistakable individuality. This is central casting for the Late Late Show of an unvarnished reality. Small-timers. Fallen through the cracks." Also... Randy Kennedy... Grifters and Goons, Framed (and Matted) (New York Times, September 15, 2006).

Works by Dr. Erich Salomon

Works by Dr. Erich Salomon at Iwan Baan Photography. "...Dubbed the 'King of Indiscretion,' Dr. Erich Salomon (1886-1944) was one of the world’s first photo journalists and the inventor of candid camera photography. With his fast, extremely light-sensitive camera, he turned the numerous conference rooms of international politics into 'unsafe territory' during the interbellum: the Reichstag in Berlin, the League of Nations in Geneva, the conferences on German reparations in the Hague. But it was not just famous politicians of the era, such as Sir Austen Chamberlain, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, whom he caught in his lens at unguarded moments, but also Albert Einstein, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, composer Richard Strauss and Marlene Dietrich." Also... Erich Salomon: Vintage Work at Hasted Hunt Gallery.

The Witch's Vacation

Bruce Haack and Norman Bridwel... The Witch's Vacation (1974, Scholastic Magazine/Records, .mp3 audio 06:33).

Richard Quinney Collection

Richard Quinney... World Trade Center Buildboard (1969). From the Richard Quinney Collection at WHS. "...Forty years ago, workers began to erect the World Trade Center. Before it was finished, Wisconsin sociologist Richard Quinney was on hand with his camera to document its contruction. His color slides remain a poignant reminder of the community of people who created the Twin Towers and the dream that they represented to the architects, contractors and craftsemen who brought them into being."

Bee Flowers: Megastructure

Bee Flowers... Megastructure. "...Today, Russian urban space consists almost entirely of concrete panel houses of only a few types that are spread across the entire nation, making most cities look alike. Cities here have expanded outwards from the center in planned construction thrusts, and with technological progress allowing for ever higher structures to be erected, the tallest buildings stand at the very edge of the the city, such that the built environment closes with a show of force. There is no gradual transition: since urban sprawl was impossible in the absence of free enterprise, the Socialist City has no suburban state. At the city's outer limits, the landscape alters abruptly and radically." From Bee Flowers.

Once Upon a Honeymoon

Once Upon a Honeymoon (1956, Fairbanks Productions). "...Delightful musical made to promote color telephones as a decorator accessory in the home." Via We Make Money Not Art. Cheers!

Jill Greenberg: End Times

Jill Greenberg... Apocalypse Now. From the exhibition End Times - photography by Jill Greenberg at Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. "...Following her enormously successful series 'Monkey Portraits', which debuted in October 2004, Jill Greenberg’s new work takes a more serious turn and has already hit a national nerve. 'End Times' combines beautiful, poignant imagery, impeccably executed, with both political and personal relevance. Greenberg’s subject is taboo: children in pain. She utilizes this uncomfortable image as a way to break through to the pop mainstream and begin a national dialogue. Jill Greenberg's images are sharp and saturated, stunning and quirky; her work is soaked with realism and imagination."

The Model (live)

Kraftwerk... The Model (live) (RealVideo 03:41).

Electric To Me Turn

Bruce Haack... Electric To Me Turn (.mp3 audio 01:53). From the album The Electric Lucifer (1970).

Jacob Aue Sobol: Sabine

Jacob Aue Sobol... Sabine. "...Sobol originally set out to take photographs in Tiniteqilaaq. Even the name of the place implies the ends of the earth: the strait that runs dry at low tide. After five weeks he had had enough. He took his black and white photographs and headed home - albeit with the sense that his village portrait was distorted. Four months later he returned to face a society that had far more layers and levels of meaning than he had seen at first. And that is when Greenland captures him. The mountain landscape lies transparent and luminous, and the frozen waters lure him. He makes friends among the hunters, who take it upon themselves to train him. When this new existence suddenly starts to function– despite the arctic cold he can provide himself with food – the pampered motherland to the south shrinks into the pallid past and he resolves to test his strength against East Greenland’s basic, existential challenges. But behind this decision lies his true motivation: Falling in love with Sabine." From Jacob Aue Sobol.

Elizabeth Shreve: Our Flesh and Blood

Elizabeth Shreve... Our Flesh and Blood: Being Unknown. From the exhibition Elizabeth Shreve: Our Flesh and Blood, September 8 through October 28, 2006 at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...Shreve’s sumptuously painted canvasses are really journeys which lay bare the introspective self, expressing a world that possesses her, filled with an awareness of the depth and complexity of the everyday engagement with life. Her vision is, in part, about a form of experiencing that feels and is open to a much broader range of human emotion; accepting pain, grief, and joy without the indulgences of judgment that limit not only our vulnerability, need, and fear but also our sense of realness."

Orelhão: Brazilian Pay Phones

Orelhão: Brazilian Pay Phones - photographs by Louise Chin and Ignacio Aronovich of Lost Art. "...Public use phones in Brazil exist since the 1920s, but the payphones known popularly as 'orelhões' (literally, 'big ears') were created in 1970 by Shanghai-born architect Chu Ming Silveira (1941-1997). Chu Ming was head engineer at CTB (Brasil Telephone Company) and created the first fiberglass design named CHU-1. These classic designs were first presented to the public in Rio and São Paulo in 1972. Since then the design has remained vastly popular, but some touristic destinations in Brazil have created their own designs, some of which are presented on this page. The phones in this small gallery were photographed in: Porto Seguro (Bahia), Bonito (Mato Grosso do Sul), Palmas (Tocantins), Aracaju (Sergipe), Fortaleza (Ceará), and other cities throughout Brazil." More at orelhao.arq.br, site oficial do orelhão e de sua inventora Chu Ming Silveira. (br)

Rabbit by Run Wrake

Run Wrake... Rabbit (QuickTime Video). "...When a boy and girl find an idol in the stomach of a rabbit, great riches follow, but for how long?" From Run Wrake. More about Rabbit by Run Wrake, including some great fill stills at Animate!

Alexandr Hackenschmied

Alexandr Hackenschmied. "...Alexandr Hackenschmied (Hammid) (1907-2004) is one of the most significant personalities of Czech film and photograph avant-garde. In the beginning of the 30's he was a distinct promoter of world avant-garde movements and he organized one of the first avant-garde film projections in Prague, showing various films including those of Man Ray.
While in Czechoslovakia he made several short avant-garde films (Aimless Walk, Prague Castle and others) and he co-operated as a director of photography, film editor and art advisor at many other films (The Earth Sings, November and others). He published several articles on film and photography."

Star Trek Theme (end title)

Alexander Courage... Star Trek Theme (end title) (.mp3 audio 01:31). From Star Trek Soundtracks.

Stick Like Glue

The Beau Brummels... Stick Like Glue (.mp3 audio 02:10).

Humphrey Spender's Worktown

Humphrey Spender's Worktown. "...Between 1937 and 1938 Humphrey Spender took over 900 pictures of Bolton at the request of Tom Harrisson, one of the founders of the Mass-Observation project.
Humphrey Spender's 'Worktown' photographs offer a fascinating insight into the lives of ordinary people living and working in a British pre-War industrial town."

Forgotten Faces: Chinese and the Law

Forgotten Faces: Chinese and the Law at Public Record Office Victoria. "...These superb photographs of Chinese prisoners are portraits of some of the tens of thousands of Chinese who came in the nineteenth century to the Victorian goldfields, a place they called Hsin Chin Shan (New Gold Mountain).
The Chinese left behind harsh conditions at home and usually the Chinee lodges helped to fund their sea voyage to Australia. Many died on the way. The lives and struggles of those who survivied in the strange new land have also been largely forgotten. The majority of the Chinese diggers wanted to return to their families. By 1901 fewer than 8,000 Chinese remained in Victoria.
A very small proportion of the Chinese immigrants committed crimes and were imprisoned. The prison registers and photographs offer a fascinating and rare glimpse into their lives. These and other records held by Public Record Office Victoria give us an insight into their personal, economic and social circumstances."

Indian Portraits by De Lancey Gill

De Lancey W. Gill... Portrait of Geronimo (March 1905, platinotype). From Indian Portraits by De Lancey Gill. "...De Lancey W. Gill was the last - and most prolific - of about a dozen photographers who worked with Indians for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). Between the 1850s and the 1930s, many tribal leaders went to Washington DC to meet with government officials, providing an excellent opportunity to make a visual record of them in a systematic way."

Vik Muniz: Pictures of Junk

Vik Muniz: Pictures of Junk at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, NY. "...Muniz uses photography to create images out of non-traditional materials - from chocolate to peanut butter and jelly, from dirt to toys. The work raises questions about the nature of representation. For this exhibition, the artist has created new images in the series Pictures of Junk. Working with garbage -- outmoded exercise bikes, crushed soda cans, rusty chains and old tires -- Muniz creates works after mythological subjects by famous painters, from Cranach's Apollo and Diana to Bourguereau's Orestes Pursued by the Furies. In this series, Muniz meditates on the artist's eternal quest for the ideal in regard to specific historical environments. The choice of subject is aimed at exposing idealization as rhetorical simplification, as forms of Greek Gods and their cautionary antics appear - systematically crafted emptiness amid post-industrial rubble." More Works by Vik Muniz at Rena Bransten Gallery and at Vik Muniz's Personal Site.

Hi-Tone

Pep Torres... Hi-Tone (.mp3 audio 02:08).

Toei Yakuza Movie Posters

Jingi no Hakuba (Graveyard of Honor, Toei Pictures 1975, directed by Kinji Fukusaku. From this neat collection of Toei Yakuza Movie Posters. (jp)

Kinji Fukasaku - Truth, Hope and Violence

Midnight Eye... Kinji Fukasaku - Truth, Hope and Violence. "...International acclaim and recognition for his work may be far less than that received by Akira Kurosawa, Seijun Suzuki or Shohei Imamura, but there has been no director in the history of Japanese cinema whose films have been as consistently successful as Kinji Fukasaku's. Though his status in the West may be relatively (and undeservedly) obscure, Fukasaku's films have had a major impact on Japanese cinema, both in and outside the mainstream."

Bernd Arnold: Power and Ritual

Bernd Arnold: Power and Ritual - The Cologne Salvation (Das Kölner Heil) as part of the cycle 'Power and Ritual.' "...To this day there is no expression in the German language that has experienced such a radical semantic turnabout in meaning since 1933 as the term 'Heil.' Its use as a part of the Nazi Salute placed a taboo upon the word in the era following the war, so that its former, far more complex meaning, as still recognized during the 19th century, eventually became obsolete. It is only very recent that the religious sciences have-rediscovered the term in its fundamentally religious sense. A renewed definition of the historically tainted term therefore still seems to be necessary today, as its use - particularly in theology - remains indispensable, in that it calls up the very motivation of any religious action." More at Bernd Arnold Photogrpahy. (de)

Banksy vs Paris

Banksy vs Paris - a flickr set, 10 photos. Also... The Punking of Paris Hilton (Flash Video 03:22).

Blame It On the Bossa Nova

Eydie Gorme... Blame It On the Bossa Nova (.mp3 audio 02:30).

Roswitha Guillemin

Roswitha Guillemin... Les panneaux de Nemo and Et Dieu créa la Miss. A nice collection of photographs of stencil graffiti by Nemo and Misstic by Roswitha Guillemin of Paris, France. From Works by Roswitha Guillemin - Carnets, mail art, photo. (fr)

Just Nel

Just Nel. Photography by Nel of Stuttgart, Germany.

The World is Waiting for the Sunrise

Les Paul and Mary Ford... The World is Waiting for the Sunrise (.wma audio 02:12). Smoke!

Le Monstre

Georges Méliès... Le Monstre (The Monster, 1903, .mpg video 02:55). "...Set against an exotic backdrop of pyramids, the Nile, and a great the Sphinx, Georges Méliès' The Monster (Le Monstre) seems, at first glance, to be a typical Méliès magic film in which a bearded magician demonstrates a series of tricks with an animated skeleton in front of a single well-dressed spectator. The effects are similar to those used in Méliès films ranging from The Vanishing Lady (1896) to The Infernal Cauldron (1903), and in many ways this is a rare instance of a Méliès film in which the magic tricks are actually upstaged by the elaborate scenic backdrop." From Georges Méliès Digital Video Files.

Un Jardin a Sauver

Un Jardin a Sauver - Le jardin humoristique de Fernand Chatelain. "...Le projet de sauvegarde du jardin humoristique de Fernand Chatelain a été initié par la Mairie de Fyé, propriétaire du terrain depuis 1996, l'association Fernand Chatelain et l'association Hourloupe." Also... Fernand Chatelain, avant, après at Animula Vagula. Happy Birthday! (fr)

Framed Nihonga Paintings

Tateishi Harumi... Karyudo (Hunters, 1939, Painting on paper in mineral pigments mounted as a framed panel, depicting hunters in the snow. Signed on the lower left with a seal form signature by the artist). "...this painting was first exhibited at the 3rd Shin-Bunten in 1939, when it was acquired directly from the artist by the art patron and collector Hosokawa Rikizo. Along with the rest of his painting collection it entered the Meguro Gajoen Museum Collection after the War, from which it was acquired by Kagedo in 2003. It is illustrated in the Nittenshi, volume 13, page 410, number 105, and in Tateishi Harumi Ten, page 38, number 26." From Framed Nihonga Paintings at Kagedo Japanese Art in Seattle, WA.

Stop And Let Me Tell You

Little Marcy... Stop And Let Me Tell You (.mp3 audio 01:19).

Universal Pictures' The Mole People

Universal Pictures' The Mole People - the screen's most exciting adventure in horror - a terrifying story told in 500 photos. Also... Famous Monsters of Filmland Cover Gallery. All at Monstrula - Die deutschsprachige Monsterfilm-Ressource. (de)

Walkin' On The Moon

Lucia Pamela... Walkin' On The Moon (1969, .wma audio 03:09).

RIP: Gene Simmons

RIP: Gene Simmons. "...Gene Simmons was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1958. While playing different clubs in the Memphis area in his early years, Gene's unique style and down to earth manner caught the prized attention of Sam Phillips, owner of the infamous 'Sun Records' company. It would just be a matter of days before the fast-acting Sam Phillips would add Gene to his impressive list of stars signed with Sun Records: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich.
As his musical career was continuing to develop, Gene was approached and joined the famous "Bill Black Combo" as lead singer. Together, the Combo gained national attention and made appearances on popular television shows which, of course, included 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and 'American Bandstand.'" Also.. I Done Told You (B-side 1958, Sun 299 .mp3 audio sample 00:35) from the Gene Simmons Discography at Rockin' Country Style.