BAST: Devilwood

BAST: Devilwood, August 25 - September 23, 2007 at New Image Art Gallery in West Hollywood, CA. "...BAST is an artist whose roots are as much tied to Brooklyn as rice is to China. He was raised on a healthy dose of break dance culture where the order of the day was learning from the streets and gaining fame by gracing its walls. With roots planted firmly in the pavement it is easy to see why destruction and precarious situations are often depicted in his work. The medium is often addressed the same way, treated as if it had been left out in the rain, then later beaten to a pulp for good measure - before being brought inside and nursed back to health.
BAST's work continually incorporates a smug sense of humor, twisted story lines and his own spin on Americana - in a 'gold front teeth' sort of way. Guns, grenades and Molotov cocktails are often waiting to be unleashed by a host of Disney and WB characters who seem to use their weapons as carelessly as kids use water balloons, often asking the question, 'What if cartoon characters ruled the world?'"

Paris

Daido Moriyama... Paris (from Visions of Japan).

Linda Lee

The El'Dorados... Linda Lee (1960, Rock-Highland 109 .mp3 audio 02:36).

Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story

Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story. "...In 1949, photographer Don Normark visited Chavez Ravine, a close-knit Mexican American village on a hill overlooking downtown Los Angeles. Enchanted, he stayed for a year and took hundreds of photographs documenting community life. But little did Normark know that he was capturing the last images of a place that was about to disappear—within a few short years, the entire neighborhood would be gone. CHAVEZ RAVINE: A Los Angeles Story tells the story of how this Mexican American community was destroyed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone awry."

Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York

Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York. "...GET LOST is a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary.
GET LOST brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future.
An exercise in emotional geography, GET LOST sketches the coordinates for an endless drift across the streets and myths of downtown New York."

Noisy Requiem

Trailer (QuickTime Video) for Tsuito no Zawameki (Noisy Requiem, 1988, directed by Yoshihiko Matsui). (jp) Also... a Review of Noisy Requiem at Midnight Eye. "...With Noisy Requiem, Matsui finally found his own unique voice: slow-paced, intense, cruel and telling a tale of epic proportions. It took him 5 years to realize the movie but when it finally premiered in 1988, it became an instant success on the Japanese underground scene. Punk rockers and other outsiders especially could easily identify with the characters prompted into vicious acts after repeated rejection, and their numbers were big enough to turn the film into a (modest) financial success. The movie still shows up occasionally on the Japanese underground cinema circuit and it still has plenty of hard-core fans."

Born for Hard Luck: Peg Leg Sam Jackson

Born for Hard Luck: Peg Leg Sam Jackson - a film by Tom Davenport (1976, Davenport Films). "...A portrait of Arthur 'Peg Leg Sam' Jackson - black harmonica player, singer, and comedian who made his living "busking" on the street and performing in patent-medicine shows touring southern towns. Footage includes excerpts from one of his last medicine shows, videotaped at a county fair in 1972, and material filmed near his home in South Carolina in 1975. The performance includes harmonica solos, songs, a parody of a chanted sermon, folktales and reminiscences, and three buck dances."

A Dozen Disputed Tourist Destinations

A Dozen Disputed Tourist Destinations. "...The tourist paradise and the police state may very well go hand and hand. A flourishing tourist sector adds to the economy and the international prestige of a country, political prisoners, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, murder, and disappearances, notwithstanding. The tourist usually remains unaware of the signs of violence and repression. In many cases this ignorance is a matter of choice. The adversaries of the police state are well aware of the impact of tourism and try to mobilize public opinion on this very point. They advocate international sanctions and boycotts, morally appeal to the individual traveler or organize bomb attacks to frighten tourists. A dozen of these controversial tourist destinations, from 1933 until now, are presented below. The viewpoint is always that of the opposition."

Wright's Wendingen Edition

Wright's Wendingen Edition. "...In 1925, a series of articles that had appeared in the Dutch art periodical Wendingen was published in Holland as The Life-work of the American Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. This publication consists of essays by leading architectural theorists of the time, including Wright himself, Rob Mallet-Stevens, Erich Mendelsohn, Lewis Mumford and Louis Sullivan. These essays are coupled with photographs and plans of many of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings. This publication, known today simply as The Wendingen Edition, helped to cement Wright's reputation as the leading American avant-garde architect of his day." From
The George Fox Steedman Architectural Collection. Also... Het tijdschift Wendingen an overview (in Dutch) of Wendigen magazine including covers from 1918 to 1931.

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death

Corinne May Botz... Three Room Dwelling (Gun in Kitchen) (from the series The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 2003, C-Print, Edition of six). From Works by Corinne May Botz at Bellwether Gallery in New York. "...In 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' photographer Corinne May Botz explores a collection of eighteen crime scene models that were built in the 1940's and 50's by a progressive criminologist Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962). The crime scene models, which were based on actual homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths, were created to train detectives to assess visual evidence. Like a forensic detective herself, Botz meticulously re-traces Lee’s footsteps with her camera and lights. Her large-scale color photographs shrewdly frame the idiosyncratic and haunting details from these captivating murder scene dollhouses. Such noir fiction shuttles between the detective photography of Weegee and the dollhouse narrative photography by Laurie Simmons to explore the dark side of domestic life." Also... Frances Glessner Lee at Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body.

Works by Adia Millett

Adia Millett... I Love You (rifles) (2005, c-print, edition 1 of 5). From Works by Adia Millett at Mixed Greens Gallery in New York. "...Plastic covered couches, glass angels, ornate gold frames, dimly lit dollhouses, dusty silk roses, needlepoint crosses, chandeliers, hand guns and cockroaches are a few tools I use for developing composition. Here is where art steps off of the canvas and into the bedroom of some complete stranger, where the viewer can become the art. I attempt to promote a space where site specificity, found objects, craft, concept and form create a dialogue for characters to develop and memories resurface."

Hanky Panky

Johnny Hudson & The Rip Tides... Hanky Panky (1960, Challenge 59062 .mp3 audio 02:37). From Probe is Turning-on the People!

Works by Richard Wathen

Richard Wathen... Agathe (2007, oil on linen). From Works by Richard Wathen at L&M Arts in New York, NY. "...Richard Wathen's subjects are often posed in eerie isolation against mono-chromatic voids, but this seeming singularity of focus belies the complexity of the images. His paintings are initially familiar, and the direct gaze of his subjects offer the thrill of intimate connection. However, this seduction is quickly subverted by disquieting details and the illusion of recognition gives way to a layering of unexpected meanings and unanswered questions."

Works by Aimée Beaubien

Works by Aimée Beaubien at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...My earliest recollection of a collaged body was observed on my great-grandmother's refrigerator door. Gertrude Bastien's (1896-1982) eighty year old face had been cut out of a snapshot and taped to the body of a plus size model cut from an advertising environment and dressed only in control top panty hose. In my body of work I have mined Gertrude Bastien's photographs and captions. I join her images with my own and collage a network of her descriptions inscribed on the backs of her photographs into the titles of the individual pieces such as They sure are living dolls, oh I tell you all full of pep growing up fast."

The Great Happiness Space - Tale of an Osaka Love Thief

Trailer (QuickTime Video) for The Great Happiness Space - Tale of an Osaka Love Thief. "...introduces an extraordinary hidden world of Japanese nightlife in Osaka's Cafe Rakkyo. The denizens of this glamorous demi-monde, dedicated to partying till they drop, are captured by first time documentary producer/director, Jake Clennell with candid and poignant insight. Presided over by the charismatic, enigmatic Issei, the number one 'host boy' in town, the club offers a new twist on the ancient geisha tradition. Glamorous host boys make beautiful young women laugh, feel good about their lives - and pay handsomely for their pleasure. In this secret, outcast society of wealthy young people, money seems to mean easy gratification."

Mohair Sam

Charlie Rich... Mohair Sam (1965, Smash Records .mp3 audio 02:07). I recall from Carless Love, part two of Peter Guralnick's brilliant biography of Elvis Presley, that when the Beatles visited Elvis' home in Bel Air during their second USA tour in 1965 Elvis was playing bass along to Mohair Sam. Also... Mohair Sam | No Hair Sam (Flash Video 04:04). Charlie Rich performs Mohair Sam followed by April Stevens doing her response, No Hair Sam. Thank you, DMc.

You Know It Ain't Right

Little Bob & The Lollipops... You Know It Ain't Right (1969, JIN 225 .mp3 audio 02:25). Brilliant! Thank you, DMc.

My Little Sue

Terry Lee & The Poor Boys... My Little Sue (1959, SOMA 1116X45 .mp3 audio 02:25) bw Driftin' (1959, SOMA 1116X45 .mp3 audio 01:56). "...Formed in 1955, Terry Lee & The Poor Boys was North Dakota’s first rock and roll band. Four years later, in August 1959, the Poor Boys, led by lead singer/rhythm guitarist Bob Becker, traveled to the Kay Bank studio in Minneapolis to record 'My Little Sue,' a Gene Vincent/Buddy Holly-influenced rockabilly disc released on Soma. 'My Little Sue' was a KXGO 'Pick Hit of the Week' and, with only 500 pressings, has since become one of the most highly sought-after rockabilly 45s in the world." - Fargo Rocks, The Movie

Alcatraz - Five Hours On The Rock

File Magazine... Alcatraz - Five Hours On The Rock. "...Alcatraz - Five Hours On The Rock is a set of toy camera images of the famed island's federal penitentiary by photographer Robert Vizzini. Robert describes the impetus for his project: 'Growing up, prison pictures and gangster films made a big impression on me. It was Bogart, Cagney, Raft in the moral dramas that portrayed life behind the walls and what got you there. Fortresses populated by guards and inmates - cauldrons of fear and hatred.' Robert's decision to use a Diana and black and white film is inspired: the resulting images compliment the subject perfectly. Dark, moody, even creepy - these images capture the bleak beauty of the prison whose reputation is as notorious as the men who were imprisoned within its walls."

Gerald Slota: Found

Gerald Slota: Found at Hasted Hunt Gallery in New York.

I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)

Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman... I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good) (1941, Columbia 36721 .mp3 audio 03:18).

Works by Chen Nong

Works by Chen Nong. Brilliant hand colored photography. From Meeting Place FotoFest Beijing 2006. "...In October 2006, FotoFest International, China Hewlett Packard and a team of Chinese photographers and businessmen collaborated to create an international portfolio review program for Chinese photographers. Modeled on FotoFest's portfolio review program in Houston, TX, the Meeting Place FotoFest Beijing was an unprecedented event in China. From 278 Chinese photographic artists, this web gallery presents 34 artists selected by participating reviewers." Also... don't miss the night-time b/w Photographs by Feng Bin.

Keith Carter: Under Saturn

Keith Carter: Under Saturn at G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle, WA.

Imogen Cunningham: Vintage Photographs, 1910-1973

Imogen Cunningham: Vintage Photographs, 1910-1973 at John Stevenson Gallery in New York.

The Black Market

Stuart Semple... Kurt Lied (2007, Mixed media on canvas). From The Black Market exhibition at Anna Kustera Gallery in New York. More Works by Stuart Semple at his personal site.

Mattia Biagi: Black Tar

Mattia Biagi... Tar Tofu Robot (2007) and Works in Tar (.wmv video 27:35). From Mattia Biagi: Black Tar. "...Biagi’s idea of the TAR collection was born during a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Entranced by the texture of the mysterious tar bubbling up from the ground, he dipped his shoe into the tar and saw the juxtaposition of ancient and modern life in a moment of epiphany. Biagi’s TAR Collection transforms the familiar into the surreal. Each object is immersed in a special mixture of tar that Biagi has formulated in his studio. Every object reacts in a different way, thus he developed a special technique to immerse them in tar, creating various layers but maintaining the original shape. In order to contain the movement of the odiferous tar, Biagi then uses a specially formulated glaze. The darkness that covers these iconic objects immortalizes and connects them to a unique concept of aesthetic beauty."

Hasil Adkins on Ghoul A Go-Go

Hasil Adkins on Ghoul A Go-Go (Flash Video 04:50).

Curtis Moffat: Experimental Photography and Design, 1923–1935

Curtis Moffat: Experimental Photography and Design, 1923–1935 at the Victoria and Albert Museum. "...Moffat was born in New York in 1887. He studied painting there and then in Paris, and in 1916 he married the English actress and poet Iris Tree, daughter of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. While in Paris, Moffat collaborated with Man Ray, producing portraits and abstract 'photograms', or 'rayographs'.
Moving to London in the mid 1920s, Moffat opened an interior design company and gallery in Fitzroy Square. The company sold Modernist furniture by some of the best designers of the day, as well as African sculpture. It was here, throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, that Moffat also produced stylish photographic portraits of leading figures in high society and the arts."

Honey House

The Quest... Honey House (.mp3 audio 02:42). From the album Questing (Singapore, 1966, EMI 330SX-7775).

Cinema of Transgression

Cinema of Transgression at UBUWEB - including Where Evil Dwells by David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner (1985). "...Loosely based on the story of the 'Satan' teen killer Ricky Kasso. Starring Joe Coleman, Rockets Redglare, Natz, Nancy Coleman, Baby Gregor, Scott Werner and others."

Works by Jorge de la Torre

Jorge de la Torre... Frida y Diego. From Works by Jorge de la Torre at la galerie in Brussels, Belgium. (be) "...Les graveurs sont des gens curieux. Le cinéma, les journaux, les ordinateurs, le monde entier est passé à la couleur depuis un demi-siècle, eux non. Une corporation un peu à part, une caste. Des transmetteurs d’un savoir faire, d’un art de faire qui marqua la bascule du moyen âge en Renaissance. Des perpétuateurs d’une esthétique doublée d’éthique. Des sortes de résistants. Un pied dans le passé, parfois les deux.
Jorge de la Torre fait exception, de façon singulière. Lui prend pied dans le présent. Et refuse la gravure toute faite, seule attitude digne de son illustre homonyme (véritable, son nom est la traduction littérale de...Georges de la Tour, le grand peintre français du XVIIe) auquel rien ne le rattache hors le souci de radicalité.
Il existe beaucoup de graveurs, il existe peu de styles. Les graveurs semblent toujours faire écho à la tradition. Pas de la Torre. Non pas parce qu’il fasse de la gravure moderniste, au contraire. Simplement, lui, tourne le dos à tous les « bons genres » de la gravure néo-académique : la xylographie archaïsante (fort prisée par la BD dite nouvelle, chez Fremok ou L’Association), le photoréalisme décalcomaniaque pour grisailles urbaines, la matière noire, le clair obscur. Non, la gravure, il la réinvente, à partir de presque rien, le trait, le trait partout visible comme un point de départ hypothétique, hasardeux, risqué."

Mad World

Michael Andrews with Gary Jules... Mad World (.mp3 audio 03:40). From the soundtrack of the film Donnie Darko (2001, Enjoy Records ENJOY003).

Easy Rider

Easy Rider at Yancy Richardson Gallery in New York. Photographs by Jeff Brouws, Tim Davis, William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Allen Ginsberg, Frank Gohlke, Bette Gordon & James Benning, Ernst Haas, Todd Hido, Jodie Vicenta Jacobson, Lisa Kereszi, Justine Kurland, William Lamson, Dorothea Lange, Danny Lyon, Nathan Lyons, Christian Patterson, Ed Ruscha, Lise Sarfati, Victoria Sambunaris, Stephen Shore, Mike Smith, Rosalind Solomon, Alec Soth, Mark Steinmetz, Joel Sternfeld, Garry Winogrand and others."

Inochi Project: Thumpity Thump, Milk, & Sha-La-La

Takashi Murakami... Inochi Project: Thumpity Thump, Milk, & Sha-La-La. "...Before the animated video came the sculpture 'Inochi' (Life). Subsequently, Murakami conceived of the idea to create a 'commercial' for the sculpture as if it were a car or any other high end leisure product. He worked with the highest profile commercial filmmaking company in Tokyo on all aspects of the project including script, casting, sound, look and concept of the project. It became perhaps the first and certainly the most ambitious CGI animated film in the contemporary fine art world." Via Sex and Blogs.

Sunglasses After Dark

Dwight Pullen... Sunglasses After Dark (1958, Carlton 455 .mp3 audio 02:08).

Project for a Revolution in New York

Project for a Revolution in New York at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York. "...In the 1960s and 70s, the contemporary art world’s attention was focused almost exclusively on American artists working in New York. The art being made in Europe outside Britain - the continental NeoDada, Imaginary Realism, and Post-Surrealist Pop of continental Europe - was largely overlooked by American artists, dealers, curators, and collectors, and to this day much of this important work remains largely unknown. Taking its title from the 1972 avant-garde novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Project for a Revolution in New York includes the work of over a dozen artists from France, Germany, and Italy, many of whom have never before exhibited in the United States.
The artists included in this exhibition made work in an environment where surrealism was a living tradition, and still a transgressive one. Working in a pop idiom very different from that of their American counterparts, they were influenced by their surrealist heritage and the philosophical developments in Europe at the time, notably the rise of the nouveau roman, cinema’s nouvelle vague, and poststructuralism and deconstruction in French literary theory. Almost all men, this group of artists also made work charged with a particular postwar eroticism, and the female body is a common subject, often simultaneously glorified and manipulated."

Jason Langer: Secret City

Jason Langer: Secret City at Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York.

Party-Party

The T-J's... Party-Party (1958, Lindy KB 740 .mp3 audio 02:09). From La Crosse, Wisconsin - recording on Lindy Records - also of La Crosse. Also... a T-J's Discography at Rockin' Country Style. And... Jack Roubik and The T-j's at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

Lee Hazlewood... These Boots Are Made For Walkin' (.mp3 audio 03:15). From the album The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood (1966, MGM 4362).

Eighty-eight Years with the Pack

Eighty-eight Years with the Pack. "...On August 11, 1919, Earl 'Curly' Lambeau and George Calhoun gathered a group of young athletes together and made football history. For it was in a back room of the old Green Bay Press-Gazette that the Green Bay Packers football team was organized. This weekend, as the Packers travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers in preseason action, we look back on the team's founding and look ahead to a new book for kids on Curly Lambeau, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press."

Night Chicas :: Hans Neleman

Night Chicas :: Hans Neleman at Zone Zero. "...Night Chicas is an anthropological tour through a damaged landscape of various Guatemalan prostitutes. Photographer Hans Neleman travels over the bodies of these women conscious that their stories are best unearthed through the vessels of theirtrade. Neleman captures the sober awareness that resonates warily, and sometimes proudly, that the women are marked, but not defined by their bodies.
Complex in its aesthetic sociological intention, the photographs inhabit a doubleness on virtually every page. An environment of poverty is visually enhanced by the camera’s facility for representing the unalloyed beauty of the women, while using the settings as painterly backdrops that accentuate their somber existence."

The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection

The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection. "...The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection of the South Texas Border Area, a collection of over 8,000 items, is a unique visual resource documenting the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the early 1900s. Donated by the Runyon family to the Center for American History in 1986, it includes glass negatives, lantern slides, nitrate negatives, prints, and postcards, representing the life's work of commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley."

Works by Mihael Milunovic

Works by Mihael Milunovic at Galerie Piece Unique. "...Naturally attracted by everything that contains emblems and symbols, Mihael Milunovic managed to divert the culture of the logo by going to the roots of heraldry. For him, the emblem is only the 'skin' of the object, its true nature being in its 'virtual inside.' From this principle, he begins to imagine objects which appearance he removes to reveal the incomprehensible contents–of what makes the body of the symbol–putting forward social and political questions to create a consciousness and produce a more critical reception in these new representations. For his works, the artist uses as well painting, sculpture, photography, installation as sound and video."

Outside In

Lori Field... Ragedy Ann and Andy (2007, color pencil drawing on rice paper, thread, encaustic, beeswax, and collage). From the exhibition Outside In at Judy A Saslow Gallery in Chicago, IL. Works by Clyde Angel, Dewey Blocksma, and Lori Field.

Joseph Cornell: Rose Hobart

Joseph Cornell: Rose Hobart (1936, USA 17 mins). "...The first and greatest American Surrealist, Joseph Cornell is best known for his boxes. The best of his mysterious assemblages of dime-store tchochkes and paper ephemera in little hand-made cabinets perfectly realize the elusive sublime at the heart of Surrealism, while avoiding the juvenile theatrics of his European colleagues.
However, Cornell was also one of the most original and accomplished filmmakers to emerge from the Surrealist movement, and one of the most peculiar. Just as the ascetic and introverted Cornell himself held Surrealism at arms length, borrowing only those elements that suited his interests and temperament, his films superficially resemble those made by other Surrealists, they are in truth sui generis. Only a handful of his contemporaries understood the genius of films like his Rose Hobart — an unfortunate situation exacerbated by Cornell's own obstinate resistance to public screenings. No one made films even remotely similar to Cornell's for almost thirty years, and even now the perfect opacity of his montage remains unrivalled."

Ignacio Fletes Cruz: Nicaraguan Primitivista Painter

Ignacio Fletes Cruz: Nicaraguan Primitivista Painter at Indigo Arts Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. "...Ignacio Fletes Cruz is a veteran of the 'Primitivista' painting movement which arose during the upheaval of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, and has continued to flourish under both the Sandinista and subsequent governments. These largely self-taught painters work in a naive style typified by scenes of community life, lush flora and fauna, and pastoral utopias, executed in bright colors and intricate detail. The paintings recount the folklore of Nicaragua and events in the country’s history. The 'Primitivista' movement originated on the island of Solentiname in Lake Nicaragua, where Father Ernesto Cardenal had formed a small utopian Christian community in 1966. The community attracted worldwide attention as a center of art, poetry and the ideals of liberation theology. But it inevitably became a target of the repressive Somoza regime. In October 1977 the National Guard invaded the island and completely destroyed the community in a rampage of killing and rape. The survivors went into exile and many joined the Sandinista revolution. They ultimately prevailed with the overthrow of Somoza in 1979. Father Ernesto Cardenal became the Minister of Culture of Nicaragua, and the surviving peasants returned to rebuild Solentiname."

Gary Baseman: Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou

Gary Baseman: Hide and Seek in the Forest of ChouChou at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, CA.

Outrepart

Outrepart - Images from everywhere. Good one, Omer.

De Keizer van Monera

De Keizer van Monera (Flash Video 24:29) - A Portrait of Gerard Van Lankveld, Emperor of Monera. Also... more about Gerard van Lankveld in the current edition of Raw Vision.

Carl De Keyzer: Zona and God, Inc.

Carl De Keyzer: Zona and God, Inc. at Robert Koch Gallery. "...The vibrant color photographs from De Keyzer's Zona series capture surreal images of life as a detainee in the post-Soviet prison camps. On a trip to Krasnoyarsk, Siberia he was introduced to Camp 27, a former gulag turned model camp that functions as both a prison and a propaganda tool, shown to visiting ambassadors and Western media crews to boast the merits of the post-Soviet penal system. At a destination that often conjures notions of frigid temperatures and bleak, lifeless landscapes, De Keyzer found the unlikely juxtaposition of inmates in army uniforms posed by Russian militia guards against a Disney-esque backdrop of cartoon-like statuary and vividly painted fairytales of knights and gladiators. De Keyzer's photographs present bizarre scenes from the lives of real prisoners in a strangely fabricated reality." Also... more Works by Carl De Keyzer at his personal site.

Richard Bram: Big Hair & True Love

Richard Bram: Big Hair & True Love. "...All of these photographs were made in Louisville, Kentucky, between 1989 and 1995 at three annual events: The Kentucky Derby Festival Chow Wagon, Louisville Strassenfest, and the Kentucky State Fair. I do not know any of the people in these photographs. The titles, whenever possible, come from the t-shirts they have chosen to wear in public, or from signs in the background. Any judgements are your own." From Richard Bram, Photographer.

P. Nicolas Ledoux

P. Nicolas Ledoux - PNL. (fr)

Works by Charlie Roberts

Works by Charlie Roberts at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.

HB, Amy

Happy Birthday to my daughter Amy - 14 years old today.

Guess I'm Falling in Love

A-Bones... Guess I'm Falling in Love (.mp3 audio 03:18). We'll link to nearly anyone doing a VU cover.

Early Landscape Photography of the American West

Early Landscape Photography of the American West at the NYPL Digital Gallery. "...Over 200 large albumen prints from the 1860s and 1870s of American Western landscape. The locations and photographers include mammoths views of Yosemite Valley by Carleton E. Watkins and Charles L. Weed, the route of the Union Pacific Railroad through the Rocky Mountains by A.J. Russell, the Geographical surveys west of the one hundredth meridian (the Wheeler survey) by Timothy O'Sullivan and William Bell, and a collection of mammoth views by William Henry Jackson."

Tom Duncan: Narrative Polychrome Sculpture

Tom Duncan: Narrative Polychrome Sculpture. "...I started making sculpture as a small child when my aunt gave me my first clay set and made a clay figure. She then clothed the figure with brown paper and attached it with a string. I was AMAZED. My aunt didn't have any particular skill, but I couldn't have been more impressed if it had been Michelangelo showing me how to carve marble." Also... Works by Tom Duncan at Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York.

Morton Bartlett: The Sweethearts of Mr. Bartlett

Doll, You Oughta Be in Pictures (New York Times, August 8, 2007). "...Morton Bartlett is already considered a great outsider artist by many. But his achievement gains new dimensions in a revealing show of his photographs, drawings and sculptures at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea. Bartlett, who was born in 1909 and died in Boston in 1992, is known for making a group of about 15 ivory-skinned, anatomically complete plaster sculptures of young children and adolescents. Most are female, and he fashioned exquisite wardrobes for them. Then he took small, haunting black-and-white photographs of the figures, usually clothed but sometimes naked." Also... Morton Bartlett: The Sweethearts of Mr. Bartlett at Julie Saul Gallery. Brilliant!

Beetle Bug Bop

The Collins Kids... Beetle Bug Bop (.mp3 audio 02:20) b/w Hush Money (.mp3 audio 02:15). The Collins Kids' first single (1955, Columbia 4-21470).

Kathie Olivas

Kathie Olivas... Cosmic Girl / Post Apocalypse (2007, oil on canvas). From the series Ghosts and Martyrs by Kathie Olivas. "...My current body of work, entitled the 'Misery Children' series focuses on the constant social desire to assign 'cuteness.' This often serves as a means to make something innocent and more appealing, therefore, non-threatening. Perhaps this allows us to comfort ourselves. My questions are based on the discomfort of 'what if' - what if these sweet creatures had other ideas? What if they knew something we were afraid to open our eyes to? Would they protect themselves; would they be able to adapt to a war torn environment and develop their own defense mechanisms?"

The Lizard Cult

The Lizard Cult at Clementine Gallery in New York, NY. "...In the 1970's at East Texas State University, (now A & M commerce), Art Professor Lee Baxter Davis and his most devoted students were referred to in the local vernacular as 'The Lizard Cult.' Davis, an artist and regional icon who has only recently gained wider recognition, composes deeply personal and exhaustively complicated psychological narratives steeped in his own eccentric brand of fire and brimstone mythology. These richly layered ink and watercolor drawings reveal not only the vision and insight that made Davis such a compelling teacher, but the tremendous influence he had upon his students' ideas about art and art-making."

Drawing on Identity: Inkameep Day School & Art Collection

Drawing on Identity: Inkameep Day School & Art Collection. "...The drawings in this virtual exhibition were created by children of the Osoyoos Indian Band who attended the Inkameep Day School, near Oliver, British Columbia, on the Nk'Mip Reserve. Between 1932 and 1942 these students and their teacher Anthony Walsh worked together to create drawings, paintings, stories and plays that honoured traditional Okanagan language and culture. The arts became a way for the students, aged six to sixteen, to depict their everyday realities and their evolving sense of identity, growing up in mid-twentieth-century British Columbia. Their world was complex, layering Okanagan traditions and stories, old and new ways of life, an evolving agricultural economy, and North American popular culture."

'California Dreaming' With Henry Diltz

'California Dreaming' With Henry Diltz (Digital Journalist, August 2007). "...In the world of rock n' roll photographers, there are none as extraordinary as Henry Diltz. A founding member of the Modern Folk Quartet, Diltz is as much at home as a musician on tour, as he is a visual historian of the last four decades of popular music. The rapport he has developed with his musician friends enables him to capture the candid shots that convey a rare feeling of trust and intimacy with his subjects. For over 40 years, his work has graced hundreds of album covers and has been featured in books, magazines and newspapers. His unique artistic style has produced powerful photographic essays of Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jimi Hendrix and scores of other legendary artists."

Wisconsin's Fair-est Season

Alice in Dairyland With Sheep. From Wisconsin's Fair-est Season - The Wisconsin State Fair at the Wisconsin Historical Society. "...From prize-winning cows to cream puff-eating contests, from Alice in Dairyland to marching bands, from gravity-defying rides to miracle cleaning products, the Wisconsin State Fair is a celebration of the traditional, the kitsch and the off-the-wall that is unique to the state. The State Fair has been going strong in Wisconsin for more than 150 years, but these days the fair is quite a different event than the first one held in Janesville in 1851 to showcase the state's agricultural advances."

Jeremy Blake, 1971-2007

Jeremy Blake, 1971-2007. Tribute page at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen. "...Mr. Blake began to make a name for himself in the late 1990's with digital projections that combined colorful abstract geometric forms with photographic images - poolside cabanas, Modernist interiors, patio lights, skylines - that suggested scenes from movies. Some art critics described the work as Color Field paintings set in motion. He called much of his work 'time-based paintings," and wrote that he drew his subject matter from a fascination with "half-remembered and imaginary architecture" and images borrowed from "Hollywood's psychic dustbin.'"

The Gobbler Supper Club TV Commercial

The Gobbler Supper Club TV Commercial (Flash Video 00:30). An old local television commerical for The Gobbler Motel and Restaurant in Johnson Creek, WI. The Gobbler was designed by architect Helmut Ajango.

Kohei Yoshiyuki: The Park

Kohei Yoshiyuki: The Park at Yossi Milo Gallery. "...an exhibition of black-and-white photographs by Japanese photographer, Kohei Yoshiyuki. The Park is a series of photographs, taken with infrared film and flash, in three Tokyo parks (Shinjuku, Yoyogi, and Aoyama), where people gathered for furtive sexual encounters, both heterosexual and homosexual, and where spectators gathered in the darkness to watch and join. Love Hotel shows a series of grainy, abstract photographs of anonymous couples from video screen images taken from tapes that were left behind in rooms-by-the-hour hotels." Via Alec Soth.

Le Coup Du Charme

Les Vautours... Le Coup Du Charme (1962, Festival FX 45 1298 .mp3 audio 02:26).

a point in space is a place for an argument

Alfred Jensen... My Oneness, A Universe of Colours (1957, Oil on canvas). From the exhibition a point in space is a place for an argument at David Zwirner Gallery. "...Deriving its title from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s seminal text, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the exhibition will include a selection of works by thirty artists: Hans Accola, Lynda Benglis, Forrest Bess, Julien Bismuth, Andre Cadere, John Chamberlain, Raoul De Keyser, Vincent Fecteau, Isa Genzken, Mary Heilmann, Eva Hesse, Alfred Jensen, Mike Kelley, Rachel Khedoori, Lee Lozano, Michael Mahalchik, Gordon Matta-Clark, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Joe Overstreet, Steven Parrino, Jason Rhoades, Dieter Roth, Niki de Saint Phalle, Fred Sandback, Katy Schimert, Al Taylor, Paul Thek, and Cathy Wilkes."

John Arsenault

John Arsenault... Patriotic Overload. From Self Portraits by photographer John Arsenault.

POPcentric

POPcentric at Gering & López Gallery. "...This group exhibition will feature new work by thirteen internationally known artists including Dimitrios Antonitsis, John Armleder, Guido Bagini, Michael Bevilacqua, Liz Craft, Dexter Dalwood, Carl D'Alvia, FISCHERSPOONER, KAWS, Christian Lemmerz, Bruce Richards, Mario Schifano and Francesco Simeti. Curated by artist Michael Bevilacqua and gallerist Sandra Gering, this exhibition surveys a new generation of Pop artists continuing the exploration of pop themes while employing new techniques drawn from popular mass culture."

The Russians Are Coming

Val Bennett... The Russians Are Coming (1968, Trojan 640, Island 3146, Produced by Bunny Lee, aka "Take Five" .mp3 audio 03:40).

Česká grafická moderna

Česká grafická moderna. Czech Graphic Modernism at Art Gallery Chrudim Svetlana a Lubos Jelinkovi in Chrudim, Czech Republic. "...26 Artists which have created the history of Czech modern art."