BAST

At long last... BAST.

Wasps, Geese, Pear Tree

Wasps, Geese, Pear Tree - Directed by László Csáki. "...A wasp, four drunk geese, a man with a fiery temper, and one very unfortunate pear tree.
One day, Jack, a real estate agent from Florida, was trying to sell a sunny property to my grandma. His sales pitch wasn’t going too well, when half way through my grandmother came up with another idea: 'Why don’t you distribute my whiskey instead of talking nonsense all day long?'"

Mudras

File Magazine... Mudras. "...a selection of photos of 'mudras' (Buddhist hand gestures) taken by photographer Dennis Cordell. These portraits, shot in black and white using a medium-format Hasselblad 501CM, are of young monks at Gyud Zin monastery in Ladakh, India taken during the summer of 2006. Each monk is presenting a 'mudra' which represents an offering to the Buddha. The delightful juxtaposition of the religious iconography with the boyishness of the young monks makes the portraits in this project wondrously expressive and heart-warming."

Julie Blackmon: New Work

Julie Blackmon: New Work at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...The Dutch proverb 'a Jan Steen household' originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings. The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. I am the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 years ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real."

Tiny Fine Art

Liezel Rubin... Devil's Son (Silver Gelatin Print, Ed:1/50, 5" x 7" framed: 8" x 10"). From Tiny Fine Art - Tiny Original Artwork.

Nobuhiko Obayashi: Experimental Films, 1960-68

Nobuhiko Obayashi: Experimental Films, 1960-68 at UBUWEB.

Dance With The Guitar Man

Duane Eddy & The Rebelettes... Dance With The Guitar Man (1962, RCA VICTOR 47-8087 .mp3 audio 02:43).

A Birthday Party

Lens Culture... A Birthday Party - Photographs by Vee Speers. "...Some of the innocent ones dress as princesses, dancers, spacemen, or angels — sublime and stunning. Some boys choose the macho images of soldiers or gladiators. Other young party-goers seem more in touch with their dark sides, and arrive as gleefully-mean rodent exterminators or scowling torturers of baby dolls. The scared ones seem as if they were dressed bizarrely by Mommy Dearest and forced to participate against their wills in this nightmare freak show."

A Selection of Exceptional Vintage Photographs

A Selection of Exceptional Vintage Photographs. "...Stephen Daiter Gallery is pleased to present this exciting collection of rare vintage photographs. The images range from early abstract/experimental work from the 1920s and 30s by Paul Citroen, George Hoyningen-Heune, Gyorgy Kepes, Germaine Krull, Walter Peterhans and Josef Sudek; to mid-century documentary photographs by Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, William Eggleston, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Wayne Miller, and Weegee."

Daniel Peacock: Sweet Spot

Daniel Peacock: Sweet Spot at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. "...One canvas at a time, Daniel Peacock creates a universe founded solely on the logic of visual delight. His paintings surprise, amuse, occasionally frighten, and always illuminate unmapped areas of a invisible world we can't help but recognize as our own."

You'll Never Change Me

Lonnie Allen... You'll Never Change Me (1961, VAL-HILL 1005-45 .mp3 audio 02:38).

David Shrigley: Monotypes

David Shrigley: Monotypes at Galleri Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen. "...Shrigley constructs a world of his own upon the rubble of the world. Chaos and dislocation (of the body, society, and language) do not occur obsessively from one work to the next for no reason. Instead they seem to express a fundamental mistrust of the fluency of pictures and transparency of meaning. Nevertheless, the artist is endowed with an exceptional aptitude for producing eye catching images and turning our attention to the absurdities of life."

Susan Meiselas: Pandora’s Box

Susan Meiselas: Pandora’s Box, July 25 – September 8, 2007 at the Cohen Amador Gallery in New York. "...The Cohen Amador Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition 'Pandora’s Box,' color photographs by internationally renowned, award-winning photographer Susan Meiselas. The images, featuring a New York S & M club, are from her 2001 book of the same title. Through this series Meiselas portrays the sadomasochistic experience, in this Disneyland of domination, as beautiful, unnerving, and ultimately, self-reflexive."

Charise Isis: American Stripper

Charise Isis: American Stripper at Zone Zero. "...For the last twelve years, I have worked on and off in the world of exotic dance (strip clubs). It is a world harshly judged by the mainstream and generally negatively depicted by the media. Strippers are often viewed as dysfunctional people on the fringe of society.
Throughout my career as a dancer I have come to know some very powerful and creative women. I have witnessed deeply moving and healing experiences and I have seen a great deal of beauty and strength within this industry.
Three years ago, I began photographing the women that I work with. At first, I wondered if I should photograph every aspect of this world, including the stereotypical “bad stuff” (exploited women with low self esteem), but I realized that I do not view the dancers in this way."

Old School

Old School at Zwirner & Wirth. Works by Louis-Léopold Boilly, Michaël Borremans, Paul Bril, Glenn Brown, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Lucas Cranach the Elder, John Currin, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Carlo Dolci, Battista Dossi, Hilary Harkness, Julie Heffernan, Karen Kilimnik, Master of Female Half-Lengths, Christopher Orr, Djordje Ozbolt, Elizabeth Peyton, Michael Raedecker, Wilhelm Sasnal, Anj Smith, Jacob Van Swanenburgh, Richard Wathen, Jakub Julian Ziolkowski, and others. "...an exhibition of paintings by Old Master and contemporary artists. Old School celebrates a re-engagement with Old Master modes of representation, which might be said to be a recent phenomenon in contemporary art. A younger generation of artists looks to the past in works that re-define and re-contextualize the techniques, themes, and imagery of their art-historical predecessors, and Old School aims to present a dialogue between old and new with a selection of works spanning the 15th to the 21st centuries."

Works by Geneviève Van der Wielen

Geneviève Van der Wielen... Les Fléchettes (2005, Huile sur toile). From Works by Geneviève Van der Wielen at La Galerie in Brussels, Belgium. (be) "...Chez cette artiste, à plus d’un titre atypique, dont l’œuvre s’égrène, sans discontinuer depuis ses début selon un imperturbable sens de la perturbation des règles de la bienséance ; certaines particularités sont des constantes.
Ainsi en est-il de l’exploitation picturale des sources de lumière, qui sont peut-être à prendre comme un souvenir des maîtres hollandais du passé."

Contemporary Art from Pakistan

Contemporary Art from Pakistan at Thomas Erben Gallery. "...a cohesive and nuanced look into the current Pakistani art scene that is beginning to garner wider international recognition. Composed of emerging, established and historical artists working in a full spectrum of media and intent, this exhibition makes legible the interconnectedness of the visual arts to the 'real world'. This interdependance often eludes viewers when presented with domestic material, but is here made manifest in each piece by particularizing it to the often misunderstood and misrepresented nature of the contemporary political and cultural climate of Pakistan. This collection of work shows a disregard for certain Western temperaments, most notably the prevalent influence of popular culture's intent to garner attention through overt subject matter. Rather, this grouping conveys highly charged material in a poetic, complex and thought-provoking manner, refusing to offer viewers a complacent or cursory experience."

Works by Izima Kaoru

Izima Kaoru... Igawa Haruka wears Dolce Gabbana (383, 2003, C-print, face-mounted to Plexiglas). From Works by Izima Kaoru at Von Lintel Gallery in New York. "...Izima is internationally renowned as a fashion photographer and had his American gallery debut at Von Lintel in 2001. He has exhibited in museums and galleries in Japan, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands. A monograph entitled Landscapes with a Corpse, 1999-2000 (Verlag Robert Gessler) was published in 2001. Izima lives and works in Tokyo."

You're Just That Kind

Little Montie Jones... You're Just That Kind (1960, JEMM 100 .mp3 audio 02:01). Also... Little Montie Jones at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Hiroshi Watanabe: Portfolio 4 - Ena Bunraku

Hiroshi Watanabe: Portfolio 4 - Ena Bunraku at Meter Gallery. "...Hiroshi Watanabe has traveled the world making portraits of people - actors, children, workers, psychiatric patients. But among his most compelling portrait series is one that focuses on a group of characters who are not, technically, people. The Bunraku puppets that Watanabe has photographed, however, have acquired a mythological status in the town of Kaware in Ena County, Japan, where they were created generations ago. And in Watanabe's remarkable photographs, they look astonishingly lifelike and powerful, almost totemlike. Watanabe has photographed each of his subjects, several of whom show signs of wear and tear, against a dark background, with a short depth of field that renders their faces in crisp focus and leaves everything else slightly blurred. The technique gives the puppets a sense of movement and the photographs a lush, rich quality."

Terayama Shuji: Experimental Image World

Terayama Shuji: Experimental Image World (7 Volume Collection) at UBUWEB. "...Poet, playright, theatre director, filmmaker, essayist, agitator and lover of all things anarchistic, chaotic, and truthful, Terayama Shuji (1936-1983) is one of Japan's most revered and respected artists. In the heady and extremist Japanese art scene of the late '70s, Terayama created a number of unforgettable and highly controversial films. EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP is his epic, sexually revolutionary and hallucinatory work from 1972 in which 'magical women act as the initiatory, yet protectively maternal sexual partners to children. The children, in revolt, have condemned their parents to death for depriving them of self-expression and sexual freedom; they create a society in which fairies and sex education are equally important and literally combinable.' - Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art."

Jim Isermann: Vinyl Smash Up, 1999-2007

Jim Isermann: Vinyl Smash Up, 1999-2007 at Deitch Projects. "...Six different vinyl pieces, made between 1999-2007 and executed in Los Angeles, Grenoble, Paris, and Frankfurt, will cover the interior walls of the gallery’s 18 Wooster Street space from floor to ceiling. Working with the subtle variations in shape and light of the gallery walls, and its various levels, Isermann adapts his vinyl designs to create a dynamic choreography of space. His vinyl wall decals give form to surfaces by means of colors, patterns, reflections, and various other haptic and optic qualities."

You Hurt My Soul

Joe Higgs with Lyn Taitt & The Jets... You Hurt My Soul (.mp3 audio 01:59). From the album Hold Me Tight: Anthology 65-73 by Lyn Taitt & The Jets (2005, Trojan Records). Thank you, DMc.

Jun Hanyunyuu: Impact Manga!!

PingMag... Jun Hanyunyuu: Impact Manga!! "...Jun Hanyunyuu is the original manga author of the film “Koi no Mon” (directed by Suzuki Matsuo) which was selected for the Venice International Film Festival in 2004. His works portray a pristine anarchy - a realistic world with a chaotic mixture of violence, eroticism and fresh humour - both merciless and intense. And the characters in his manga, while way beyond the imagination, somehow manage to present a cutting reflection of our contemporary society - the editor of a supernatural phenomena magazine, cyber-homeless men, a poverty-stricken manga artist and a cosplay girl, an Okinawan yakuza and a hitman, a household on the verge of family breakdown, a hardcore Gundam geek office worker, Confucius’ apprentice… His works have a cult following in the creative industries in Japan."

Takao Ono: New Works 2007

Takao Ono... A portrait I-2007 (oil-tempera on canvas). From Takao Ono: New Works 2007 at Gallery Toki no Wasuremono in Tokyo. Also... Eikoh Hosoe: Ukiyo-e Projections.

Le Silence de la mer

Le Silence de la mer (1949, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville). "...Le Silence de la mer – Jean-Pierre Melville’s debut film – is an adaptation of the novella of the same title by celebrated French Resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller). Clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed, it captured the spirit of the moment, and quickly became a staple of the Resistance."

Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Arcadia and Anarchy

Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Arcadia and Anarchy at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY. "...The Italian Divisionists — so called for the painting technique they employed, namely the 'division' of color via individualized brushstrokes — were active in Italy during the 1890s and early 1900s. These painters remained grounded in academic traditions culled from Italy's rich visual heritage, yet they took cues from the modernist practices happening elsewhere in Europe—primarily those of the French Neo-Impressionists, or Pointillists—and drew on chromatics and optics to develop an idiom that was all their own."

Goin' Down That Road

Ersel Hickey... Goin' Down That Road (1958, Epic 5-9278 .mp3 audio 01:48). Also... Spectopop Remembers Ersel Hickey. "...Apart from the early pictures of Elvis Presley, the defining image of rock'n'roll is an oft-printed photograph of Ersel Hickey in action: a handsome twenty-something with a pompadour, holding his guitar and shaking his right leg. He was a prolific singer and songwriter, but his only real chart success was with "Bluebirds Over The Mountain" for the Beach Boys in 1968. Again with the exception of Elvis Presley, Ersel Hickey had the most distinctive name in rock'n'roll."

Athletic Model Guild (Bob Mizer, 1922-1992)

Athletic Model Guild (Bob Mizer, 1922-1992) at Wessel + O’Connor Fine Art. "...an exhibit of vintage photographs from the Athletic Model Guild, the 1950's Physique photography studio run by Bob Mizer for almost 50 years out of Los Angeles. Originally conceived as a talent agency of male archetypes for the booming film industry, it would manage to survive the heavy-handed morality crusades of the 40's and 50's.
With thousands of servicemen idle after WWII, Mizer could find plenty of models on Venice's Muscle Beach or the streets of Hollywood. He created a one-man industry of underground photographs that could be purchased via mail-order, selected from his self-published magazine, Physique Pictorial. He started it in 1951 after his advertisements were refused by bodybuilder and health magazines of the day."

Strange Magic

Amy Granat... Interflowerzone (Hello Cowgirl) #4 (2007, Gelatin silver print, Unique photogram). From Strange Magic at Luhring Augustine. "...an exhibition of five artists working in the mediums of film and photography. These artists create works that are abstract, allegorical and scientific investigations of objects and materials. They are pushing the medium beyond its traditional objective of depiction thereby furthering its formal and expressionist potential."

Karine Laval: Leisure

Karine Laval: Leisure at Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York City.

Lizard Stick

The Upsetters... Lizard Stick (.mp3 audio 04:27). From the album Baffling Smoke Signal (2002, Heartbeat CDHB 252). Thank you, DMc - who, along with me, hopes you're purchasing loads of Jamaican music from Pressure Sounds.

Works by Sean Samoheyl

Works by Sean Samoheyl.

Action Packed

Ronnie Dawson recording as 'Ronnie Dee'... Action Packed (1958, Back Beat 522 .mp3 audio 02:13).

Be Bop à Lula

Les Chaussettes Noires... Be Bop à Lula (1960, EP Barclay 70369 .mp3 audio 01:59).

On s'est aimés une nuit
Te souviens-tu nos 1000 folies
Mais ce bonheur, c'était trop beau
Il a fini dans un sanglot

Be bop a lula, she's my baby
Be bop a lula, où donc es tu partie
Be bop a lula, si je m'ennuie
Si je m'ennuie

Also... a Scopitone from 1961 (Flash Video 01:52) of Les Chaussettes Noires performing Be Bop à Lula.

VIP: very important photographs

František Drtikol... Draped figure behind seated nude (c. 1928, gelatin silver photograph, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra). From VIP: very important photographs from the European, American and Australian photography collection 1840s – 1940s at the National Gallery of Australia. "...The exhibition covers all genres of photography– portraiture, landscape, urban photography, social documentary, photojournalism, celebrity work, still life, advertising; photographs as single images but also as found in albums and books; cut up, collaged and hand-coloured, images made with the most advanced cameras of the day to images made without a camera at all; and from the intimate to Bayliss and Holtermann’s nine-and-a-half metre long panorama of Sydney Harbour. Photography, in other words, in all its wondrous diversity."

Road Runner

Bo Diddley... Road Runner (1959, Checker 942 .mp3 audio 02:47).

Fresh Takes: Re-visiting Early Work of Some Familiar Faces

Fresh Takes: Re-visiting Early Work of Some Familiar Faces, July 13 – August 31, 2007 at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...Carl Hammer Gallery is pleased to close its annual exhibition season showcasing the artists who have had significant exposure and a large following of collectors and admirers within the Chicago art scene for so many years. It is a refreshing look back at, not on that which they are currently creating, but of the early work which placed each of them indelibly into an international art community’s consciousness."

Francesca Woodman: Swan Song

Francesca Woodman: Swan Song at Victoria Miro Gallery in London. "...Released for the first time by the Estate of Francesca Woodman, the five photographs from a series entitled Swan Song were originally produced for the artist's graduate exhibition at Rhode Island School of Design in 1978. Forfeiting the intimate scale characteristic of her work, these one metre square images move the medium of photography away from its expected format of flat print on the wall by exaggerating the scale, and alluding to an alternative space. The five prints in this exhibition all share a similar rhythm and pattern that marks the continuity within the series. The same props are used throughout - fur, feathers, wire and a white sheet that both covers and supports Woodman's elongated, fragmented body. The prints were deliberately torn in order to resist the square format of photography as well as, when unframed (as they were installed in her graduate exhibition), to further soften the edge between the image and the wall."

Last Station

Last Station. From Photosynthesis - photography by Aleksej Zagar.

Text Messages

Ilona Granet... Are You Mice or Men? (From the Series, "Emily Post, Updated & Extended," 1989, Silkscreen on metal, ed. 3/55) and Felipe Jesus Consalvos... Arsenic Complexion Wafers (c. 1920-50, Mixed media collage on paper). From the exhibition Text Messages at Adam Baumgold Gallery. "...The exhibition will include paintings, drawings and sculpture by 34 artists for whom words or text is a significant element in their work. The artists included in 'Text Messages' are: Ed Ruscha, Robin Tewes, Saul Steinberg, Adam Dant, Chris Ware, Alexandra Grant, Joe Brainard, Lawrence Weiner, Scott Teplin, Marc Bell, Annabel Daou, Jacob El Hanani, Vivienne Koorland, Jules Feiffer, Martin Wilner, Jane Laudi, Aline Kominsky Crumb, Jules De Balincourt, Robert Crumb, Joe Amrhein, Lee Etheredge IV, Bette Blank, Daniel Johnston, James Castle, Felipe Jesus Consalvos, Robbin Ami Silverberg, Adriane Herman, Anthony Campuzano, Alice Attie, Jenny Holzer, Ben Vautier, Arman and Alyssa Pheobus."

Obedience

TMN Galleries... Obedience. Art by Shepard Fairey - Interview by Nicole Pasulka. "...Even if you’ve never heard his name, chances are you’ve seen Shepard Fairey’s stickers, posters, and stencils on lampposts in New York City, or peeking out from doorways and street signs in one of the countless countries where his street art has traveled. With a large-scale installation at Jonathan Levine in New York City, Fairey brings his sense of humor and outrage to his gallery work. Born in Charleston, SC in 1970, Shepard Fairey lives and works in Los Angeles."

Tetsuo Title

Tetsuo Title (Flash Video 01:24). Title sequence for 'Testuo - The Iron Man' (1989, Kaijyu Theater, directed by Shinya Tsukamoto).

Denjin Zaborger

Denjin Zaborger (Episode 1, 1974, P Productions, Japan). "...A bionic vigilante avenges the death of his scientist father by using his invention, a lethal transforming robot/motorcycle, to fight his murderers, the evil Sigma Organization led by the wheelchair-bound cyborg Dr. Akunomiya. A great show with a cool robot that transforms into an even cooler motorbike - I wish I had one of those! Although the quality of this video rip isn't that great, the usual colourful, bizarre characters and action win through. Also, at least, it has English subtitles for added enjoyment. The theme music is by the brilliant and legendary Japanese soundtrack composer Shunsuke Kikuchi." From 55 Bells. Bravo, 55 Bells!

Photographic notes from a madhouse

Lens Culture... Photographic notes from a madhouse - photographs and text by Lauren E. Simonutti. "...The problem with insanity is that you can feel it coming, but when you tell people you think you are going crazy they don’t believe you. It is too distant a concept. Too melodramatic. You don’t believe it yourself until you have fallen so quickly and so far that your fingernails are the only thing holding you up, balanced with your feet dangling on either side of a narrow fence with your heart and mind directly over center, so that when you do fall it will split you in two. Split equally. So there’s not even a stronger side left to win." Also... lauren.rabbit's photos - photographs by Lauren Simonutti at Flickr.

A Show of Emotion: Victorian Sentiment in Prints & Drawings

A Show of Emotion: Victorian Sentiment in Prints & Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. "...Sentimental subjects span many genres of artistic expression, from highly finished exhibition watercolours to music sheet covers. In Victorian England these scenes of tender feeling became associated with the domestic sphere, as they were ideal for display in family rooms and traditionally female spaces such as the parlour.
The popularity of sentimental pictures coincided with technological innovations in the print trade. This meant that images could be produced quickly and cheaply to maximise profit, thus opening the image market to a greater audience.
Many of the works in this exhibition had mass appeal and were used in periodicals and advertising. This unashamed commercialism contributed to the reputation of sentiment as an expression of insincere emotion, and the popularity of such pictures was bound up in questions of taste."

Women Empowered: Photographs by Phil Borges

Women Empowered: Photographs by Phil Borges at Soulcatcher Studio. "...For over 25 years, Phil Borges has been visiting and documenting indigenous and tribal cultures around the world. His images tap deeply into the human spirit of his subjects. Through his various exhibits, books, and educational programs, he strives to promote cultural diversity. Borges is the founder of Bridges to Understanding, an online classroom program connecting children from indigenous and tribal cultures with their urban contemporaries for the purpose of exploring and preserving cultural diversity. He also teaches and lectures internationally, and is co-founder of Blue Earth Alliance, a non-profit organization that sponsors photographic projects focusing on endangered cultures and threatened environments. The recipient of numerous photography and humanitarian awards, Borges has hosted television documentaries for the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. His photographs have been exhibited widely and can be found in numerous museum collections. He lives with his family in Seattle."

She's Not There

Neil MacArthur, aka Colin Blunstone... She's Not There (1969, Deram 7524 .mp3 audio 03:21). CB's remake of his big hit with the Zombies.

Haiti Unmasked: Photographs by Child Domestic Workers

Kids With Cameras... Haiti Unmasked: Photographs by Child Domestic Workers. "...These children become expert mask-wearers. Masking is part of that invisibility inherent to their position. They wear the faces that are expected of them and often required of them; no one really sees the child underneath the masks. A mask is a place of interaction and engagement - it is the center of a dialogue. It is the heart of collaboration between an audience and a performer, between the one who is seeing and the one who decides what is seen."

Fill 'er Up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations

Fill 'er Up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations. "...Fill 'er Up travels throughout Wisconsin to profile a number of historically significant gas stations — unique buildings that changed the way we live and have become symbols of various stages of the automotive age. 'Gas stations developed innovations that become standard everywhere. They were on the forefront of changes in marketing. They were the pioneers of the commercial strip,' said Architectural Historian James Draeger.
The first filling stations were crude shacks but backlash from the neighbors resulted in stations that looked like little houses designed to blend into the neighborhood. In Platteville one such station, built in the early 1930s, is still in operation. English cottage-style brick stations with blue tile roofs were built in Monroe and La Crosse during the mid1930s. Both structures are examples of the Pure Oil Co.’s distinct style designed by architect Carl Petersen.
Wadham’s, a Milwaukee oil company, built stations that displayed an Asian influence. Today two of the few surviving examples of these pagoda-like structures, designed by Milwaukee architect Alexander C. Eschweiler, stand in Cedarburg and West Allis."

Julie Mack: On The Move

Julie Mack: On The Move. From Julie Mack Photography.

Ten Years of South Park

Ten Years of South Park by Tom Huddleston. Part of the feature What is Animation? at Not Coming To A Theater Near You.

The Haitian Spirit: Paintings, Sculpture and Vodou Banners

The Haitian Spirit: Paintings, Sculpture and Vodou Banners at Indigo Arts Gallery. "...Doubtless the most spectacular Haitian art form is the sequin-covered Drapo Vodou or 'Voodoo Flag.' Vodou banners derive directly from the practice of the Vodou religion, a syncretism of traditional African religions brought to Haiti by slaves, with the Catholicism of their former masters. The banners are traditionally the work of practicing vodou priests and their followers. They are displayed in the vodou sanctuaries and are carried at the commencement of a ceremony. Each flag depicts the vévé symbol or image of the loa to which it is devoted. The flags are made of shiny silk fabrics to which have been sewn a brilliant mosaic of sequins and beads. A full-size banner typically contains 18,000 to 20,000 sequins and may take ten days to complete."

The 365 Days Project, Part 2 (2007)

Hisao Shinagawa... More Money, More War (1984, Rock 'n' Roll Records 4Z9-04970 .mp3 audio 03:37). From The 365 Days Project, Part 2 (2007). "...UbuWeb is pleased to be co-hosting and archiving the second installment of Otis Fodder's magnificent 365 Days Project. The first project was completed in 2003 and can be accessed here as well. 365 days of cool and strange and often obscure audio selections. Some words to describe the material featured would be... Celebrity, Children, Demonstration, Indigenous, Industrial, Outsider, Song-Poem, Spoken, Ventriloquism, and on and on and on."

Joseph Keppler: Puck Magazine 1877

Joseph Keppler... The Theatre of War – The Latest Spectacular Tragedy (Puck Magazine Centerfold; Vol. 1 No. 9, May 9, 1877). "...In the lower box on the left, Franz Joseph I of Austria stands next to England's John Bull. Across from them on the right, sits Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany. Between them a skeleton conducts an orchestra of cannons, bombs and rifles. Above the stage, a hydra-headed plaque surrounded by the legend Theatrum Mundi (Theatre of the World) is flanked by skulls and bones that drip blood onto the stage." From Joseph Keppler: Puck Magazine 1877.

Ports Bishop: Truck Stop

Ports Bishop: Truck Stop. From Ports Bishop Photography.

Seonna Hong: Our Endless Numbered Days

Seonna Hong: Our Endless Numbered Days at Oliver Kamm 5BE Gallery in New York, NY. "...Our Endless Numbered Days is a darker, more introspective step into the world of a girl where ominous black birds, bears and horses loom and languish as harbingers of some kind of doom. These silhouettes, outlines of our actual selves, cause tumult and discomposure in the mind of the protagonist. But it may be that this chaos is the appropriate provocation for change, forward momentum, and even hope."

Two-Thirds Primary

FILE Magazine... Two-Thirds Primary. "...a selection of red and blue Polaroids by photographers Rod Hunting and Tiffany Paige. For over a year, Rod and Tiffany have been biking around the south Chicago area, exploring their neighborhood and taking Polaroids; Rod takes the red images and Tiffany handles the blue."

All Grown Up

Gore Gore Girls... All Grown Up (.mp3 audio 02:51). From the album Get The Gore (2007, Bloodshot Records BS142).

Musica Formosa: Taiwan Indies

Nipples... Spotted Rabbit (.mp3 audio 05:36). From Musica Formosa: Taiwan Indies (Petite Mort #28). "...They say that Taiwan has the largest species of exotic flowers in Asia and, as we discovered last spring, the same can be said about it's music scene. From our trip we chose three bands that form a mini-sampler. From the youthful pangs of Bad Daughter (WWR), to the pop genre hopping sound in Nipples (WWR), and the loungy duo Natural Q (A Good Day), we hope dispite of the language barrier thier music will lead you in search of other exotic blooms from this small island."

Experiments in Advertising: The films of Erwin Blumenfeld

Experiments in Advertising: The films of Erwin Blumenfeld. "...In an in-depth examination of Erwin Blumenfeld’s film archive featuring the full index of the photographer’s unedited film clips, Penny Martin considers the photographer’s six years of film-making in relation to his stellar photographic career and argues that what began as a commercial experiment came to represent an important process of visual recapitulation and revision towards the end of the photographer’s life." Also... Compulsive Viewing: The Films of Guy Bourdin. "...Guy Bourdin was a groundbreaking image-maker who had a profoundly influential impact on fashion photography. His fashion editorial and advertising was published principally in French Vogue from the mid-1950s through to the late 1980s, where it had its greatest impact in the decade of the 1970s."

Authors: Photographs from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature

Alonzo Chappel... Washington Irving (1873, Stipple engraving, Likeness from a daguerreotype, in the possession of his family). From Authors: Photographs from the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. "...Hundreds of portraits – prints and photographs – picturing more than 120 authors writing in English, primarily from the 1860s to the 1920s, and later, organized alphabetically by sitter."

Art in Odd Places

Christin Couture... Voyeur 01 | 02. "...Paintings of a left eye and a right eye that, through their positioning on opposing brick niches, create a field of voyeurism between them. These paintings are based on an historical reproduction and are done in a 19th-century-made-contemporary style. Visible to pedestrians even when the garden is closed." From Art in Odd Places 2006.

Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945

Lotte Jacobi... Klaus and Erika Mann (c. 1928–1932, gelatin silver print, Dietmar Siegert Collection). From the exhibition Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. "...The story of photography's phenomenal success in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria during a time of tremendous social and political upheaval is presented in the first survey ever done on this subject. Drawn from several dozen American and international collections, this exhibition is unprecedented in its scope with approximately 150 photographs, books, and illustrated magazines that explore such topics as photomontage and war, gender identity, life and leisure in the modern metropolis, and the spread of surrealism. Recognized masters such as László Moholy-Nagy and Hannah Höch are included with about 100 lesser-known but historically important contemporaries, such as Karel Teige, Kazimierz Podsadecki, Károly Escher, and Trude Fleischmann."

Classic Beauty: Part 2, Photographs of the Male Nude

Classic Beauty: Part 2, Photographs of the Male Nude, June 21 - September 15, 2007 at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York. "...Following the success of last summer’s CLASSIC BEAUTY: Photographs of Female Nudes, Throckmorton Fine Art is pleased to announce CLASSIC BEAUTY: PART 2, Photographs of the Male Nude.
A mixture of vintage and new, the exhibition will offer works for both classic and contemporary audiences, while also exploring the history of male nude photography. On display will be nineteenth century examples by Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden, one of the earliest known photographers to take still nudes of males, as well as works by the Baron’s cousin, Guglielmo Pluschow."

Joseph Brown: Milwaukee Photograph Archive

Joseph Brown... Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. From Joseph Brown: Milwaukee Photograph Archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society. "...Joseph Brown (1851-1928) was a commercial photographer in Milwaukee whose work had all but vanished from sight until the Wisconsin Historical Society acquired and digitized it earlier this year. For several decades Brown and his sons took hundreds of pictures of Milwaukee streets, apartment buildings, docks, shipping, parks, railroad yards, factories, and other urban sites for reasons that are not clear. The images may have been contract work for property owners, insurers or other parties who wanted a documentary record. Despite his decades of work and volume of output, Brown's work generally escaped the notice of curators at Wisconsin's cultural institutions. After his death in 1928 and the dissolution of the firm after World War II, his archive of 8-by-10-inch glass-plate negatives fell into private hands."

Jon Langford

Jon Langford at Garde Rail Gallery. "...Welsh singer/songwriter Jon Langford is known for his paintings, 'worn in' like a pair of old Levi's, that pay tribute to American music legends such as Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash as well as dusty Western depictions of gun slinging skeletons and dueling cowboys. These beautifully layered paintings suggest the mileage that only a tour bus can rack up!
Jon Langford has been well known since the 1970's as founding member of the British rock band The Mekons. Hailing from Wales, Jon moved stateside in the 1990's, landing in Chicago, and started other projects such as The Waco Brothers and Pine Valley Cosmonauts."

The Old Order and the New: P. H. Emerson and Photography, 1885-1895

The Old Order and the New: P. H. Emerson and Photography, 1885-1895 at J. Paul Getty Museum. "...This exhibition explores British photographer Peter Henry Emerson's decade-long work to document the people and landscape of the Norfolk Broads, a network of freshwater rivers, lakes, and marshes in East Anglia, on England's eastern shore. Drawn to rural subjects, Emerson was fascinated by the region's traditional ways of life and concerned that they were threatened by industrialization and tourism.
From 1885 to 1895 Emerson used the latest photographic processes to document the region's traditions and landscape, which he felt was in danger of disappearing. The new technology of photomechanical reproduction made it possible for Emerson to mass-produce his photographs and to create a prolific output of books, portfolios, and individual works on the subject."

I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me

Asobi Seksu... I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me (.mp3 audio 03:09).

Milking The Cash Cow

Casey McKee... Milking The Cash Cow (2007). Recent works by Casey McKee.

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (Flash Video, Kyvadlo, jáma a nadeje, 1983, directed by Jan Svankmajer, with Jan Zácek, based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Pit and the Pendulum"). "...This nightmarish version of Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum,' filmed in beautiful black and white and almost utterly devoid of dialogue, is both the best Poe adaptation I've ever seen and probably the closest I've ever seen a film come to evoking a nightmare. A good deal of this effect comes from the fact that the film is shot from a first-person view. You are the star."

Illegal Dub

Dub Trio... Illegal Dub (.mp3 audio 03:17). From the album New Heavy (ROIR RUSCD 8298). Makes a good soundtrack for The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope below.

Works by Andrew Saftel

Works by Andrew Saftel at Bill Lowe Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. "...Southern painter and sculptor Andrew Saftel chronicles his own personal and artistic journey while simultaneously evoking the passage of humanity within modern civilization through his mixed media constructions on wood panel, which incorporate found objects that have an aura of historical significance. 'I am attracted to the story in these objects, and the fact that they were made and used by someone else in other times… they bring a sense of personal history to the work,' Saftel explains."

Kent Rogowski: Bears

Kent Rogowski: Bears at Foley Gallery. "...In this body of work Rogowski presents a delicate and sensational series of teddy bear portraits. The bears appear different than ordinary stuffed animals. They have been turned inside out, re-stuffed and sewn back together, transforming them, creating entirely new creatures. The result of this enabled metamorphosis is a new kind of bear, sometimes grotesque or pathetic but often rather endearing. These new emblems no longer sustain the perfect image of childhood, but break apart this image into a complex picture of youth and development.
Photographed on a stark white background, the bears are removed from any relevant or meaningful context. They are placed in an environment where they appear as specimens to be studied, separate from any memories a viewer may associate from their own teddy bear experience. The neutral setting emphasizes comparisons between the bears. The revelations of the bears' innards are strong analogies of how people may differ from the inside out."

Theoretical Girls

Theoretical Girls... Lovin In The Red (.mp3 audio 03:14). From the album Theoterical Record at Acute Records. "...After 24 years in relative obscurity, NYC no-wave group theoretical girls is finally getting their due. Having released only one song during their short, four-year existence ('U.S. Millie' from ROIR's the great new york singles scene), Jeff Lohn's super group exemplified, intellectualized, and deteriorated the existing precepts of music as art. Alongside mainstays DNA, Mars, Lydia Lunch, James Chance, and a tapestry of other like-minded artists, core members Margaret Dewyss, Wharton Tiers, Glenn Branca and Lohn, ambitiously balanced instantly accessible pop songs with the rhythm-heavy tactics of no wave. The result was a distinct choreography of catharsis and style, range and passion, serendipity, and deliberation all filtered through the burgeoning punk rock gristmill."

UbuWeb Vu: Kenneth Goldsmith

Archinect... UbuWeb Vu: Kenneth Goldsmith (June 26, 2007). "...Artist, critic, poet, writer, and Web provocateur Kenneth Goldsmith is one of those rare individuals who create their own gravity. The breadth of interests and activities that have characterized his twenty-three year career alone is enough to command respect, but perhaps chief among Goldsmith's accomplishments is the creation of the online avant-garde archive UbuWeb. Founded in 1996 as a sort of experimental destination and laboratory for various forms of poetry, UbuWeb has blossomed into a premiere educational resource and essential location for all forms related to the avant-garde."

Historical Postcards of New York City from the Picture Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library

Historical Postcards of New York City from the Picture Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library. "...The end of the 19th century was the beginning of the golden age of postcards. Advances in printing and photography allowed the mass production of captivating visual images affordable and available to everyone. Swept up in a fad that hasn’t yet lost its appeal, millions of people at once began collecting and sending a visual record of their travels and tastes.
A fascinating historical peek at all five boroughs of New York City from the 1890’s until the 1920’s is provided through the 500 postcards newly added to the NYPL Digital Gallery. The postcards also illustrate emerging lithographic and photographic printing styles. Among the examples digitized are oil paintings, tinted photographs, colored lithographs, line photoengravings, relief prints, inkless intaglio prints, linocuts, hold-to-light cards, and cards with highlights delineated by glitter."

Barbara Traub: The Burning Man

Barbara Traub... Barbie Death Camp & Wine Bistro. "...Burners can sip fine wine in Dixie cups while checking out a display of nearly one thousand Barbies in various states of action and expiration." From Barbara Traub: The Burning Man (Digital Journalist, July 2007).

Günter Grass: Graphic Work, 1972-2007

Günter Grass: Graphic Work, 1972-2007 at Steven Kasher Gallery. "...Steven Kasher Gallery is proud to present a survey of the graphic work of Günter Grass. The exhibition will present over 75 examples of Grass’ etchings, lithographs, and drawings, in a selection made by Grass himself. This visual oeuvre is both a means to re-examine his literary work, and an intricate, intellectual body of work in its own right.
Günter Grass is well known as a master of the literary medium, a Nobel Prize winning author who has defined German literature in the second half of the twentieth century. What is less well known is that he is also a major visual artist, who works in a diverse array of media.
Grass’ writings are inconceivable without his visual art for two very particular reasons. Firstly, during the slow, intimate processes of painting and drawing he develops ideas for new novels, and after he has completed a book he quickly moves back to his studio and drawing table. Secondly, he created the dust jacket illustrations for many of his first editions, which has lent his literary works a distinctive aesthetic."

Mississippi

Half Japanese... Mississippi (.mp3 audio 03:48). From the album Hello (2001, Alternative Tentacles).

Trailer for Basic Tsukamoto

Trailer for Basic Tsukamoto (QuickTime Video) - available on July 17 from Pathfinder Pictures. "...Interview with world renown cult director Shinya Tsukamoto. This interview covers how and when he started creating his own world of cinema, exactly the way he thought it should look."

Campaign (Senkyo)

Trailer (Flash Video) for Campaign (Senkyo) - a documentary by Kazuhiro Soda. "...Can a candidate with no political experience and no charisma win an election if he is backed by the political giant Prime Minister Koizumi and his Liberal Democratic Party? This cinema-verite documentary closely follows a heated election campaign in Kawasaki, Japan, revealing the true nature of 'democracy.'" Also... an Interview with Kazuhiro Soda at Midnight Eye.

All Had a Good Time

All Had a Good Time (New York Times, July 1, 2007). "...An interactive look at a hand-hooked rug featured in 'The Great Cover-Up' at the American Folk Art Museum."

Youth and Life

Youth and Life at the University of Minnesota Libraries. "...Youth and Life was a 48-poster series, designed to educate teenage girls and young women about the dangers of sexual promiscuity and urged them to embrace moral and physical fitness. It was adapted in 1922 by the American Social Hygiene Association from 'Keeping Fit,' a similar series for boys and young men."

Lori Nix by m ss ng p eces

Cool Hunting... Lori Nix by m ss ng p eces. "...In our 79th episode we visit the Brooklyn studio of Lori Nix who photographs epic scenes of destruction and grandeur, natural wonders and glittering metropolises, magnificent architecture and heroic landscapes that all have one thing in common—they're all fake. Lori gives us a tour behind the artifice, showing us how she meticulously crafts the miniature sets using found objects and model-making materials."

Lazy Days

The Byrds... Lazy Days (.mp3 audio 03:28). From the Legacy edition of the album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Thank you, DMc.

Kyoto Panorama 360

QuickTime VR of the Rock Garden at Ryoanji - my favourite temple in Kyoto. From Kyoto Panorama 360 - Panorama Sightseeing Tour of Kyoto. Outstanding! (via Metafilter).