Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Gertrude Bass Warner Collection, 1903-1929

The Gertrude Bass Warner Collection, 1903-1929 at the University of Oregon. "...The collection consists of approximately 5,500 lantern slides, many hand-tinted. Most of the images are presumed to have been taken by Mrs. Warner, or her husband and son, on their travels; some were purchased from commercial sources. Many of the images feature Shinto ceremonies, the subject of an unpublished manuscript. An important series are the 38 Ainu slides of University of Chicago anthropologist Frederick Starr (1858-1933), acquired in 1937. There is also a collection of 34 World War I recruiting posters from Britain and Canada.
Many of the slides are identified on handwritten labels, presumably by Mrs. Warner. Most can be dated only from context and comparison with her letters and travel diaries."

Photographs by Stanley Greenberg

Photographs by Stanley Greenberg at Gitterman Gallery. "...Stanley Greenberg’s work is an investigation of sites often inaccessible to the people they serve. His photographs make us wonder at the extraordinary places that most of us are unaware of and the evolution of technology required to create them. They remind us of how much public space, and the knowledge of it, is now kept from us."

Joy Division

Strictly Film School... Joy Division. A review of Grant Gee's documentary about the band. "...Grant Gee frames the documentary of seminal band Joy Division as a city symphony that mirrors Manchester's revitalization - a convergence of musicians and friends coming of age during the city's decline from its heights as the cornerstone of the Industrial Revolution, as equally marked by the rebellious angst of a vibrant punk music scene and the groundbreaking modernist fiction of writers such as William S. Burroughs and Franz Kafka, as they were by the constant flux of their grim environment under the repressive conservatism of the Tory party government headed by Margaret Thatcher (a figurative social institutionalization that, as Peter Hook suggests, was reflected in the area's wide-scale construction of high-density housing to replace war-era ruins, as well as dilapidated houses that fell to neglect with the economic downturn)." Also... The Trailer for Joy Division (Flash Video 01:39).

Lhasa Nights

Lhasa Nights Lhasa Nights by Kabir Mansingh Heimsath. "...This short series reflects my reaction to a standard photographic representation of Tibet as something static and objectively distant. By focussing on Lhasa I mean to emphasise the contemporary urban nature of a city that is too-often associated with a mysterious past. As with other cities, Lhasa provides constant and sometimes intimate contact with strangers – people who we may or may not see tomorrow – and these photos, all taken in public spaces or accessible venues, deal with that specifically urban experience."

Tara McPherson: Lost Constellations

Tara McPherson: Lost Constellations at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York. "...The painted portraits in Lost Constellations depict adventurous super-heroines from an alternate universe, crossing dimensional planes of time and space. McPherson considers the idea of parallel existence through the use of multiple views or angles on a subject, inspired by the Einstein cross (a phenomenon caused by gravitational lensing) while her series of bodily transfigurations convey principles on the physical manifestation of thought. A reoccurring cast of female characters appear in various states of action — fighting battles and growing toward self-discovery. Using her signature bold and graphic style, Tara’s imagery explores love, loss and loneliness through variations on strength, vulnerability and female empowerment. Concepts of non-verbal communication and the evolution of spoken language are explored as well, along with an interpretation on the circle of life — represented through transitional properties of water particles: gas, liquid and solid."

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Warpath

Lenny & The Star Chiefs... Warpath (1959, Mark M149 .mp3 audio 02:28).

Two important Henry Darger Exhibitions

Two important Henry Darger Exhibitions... Dargerism: Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger, April 15 - September 21, 2008 at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, NY. And... The Henry Darger Room Collection, through June 28, 2008 at Intuit - The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago, IL.

USUGROW

Natty Dread / Roots Model (From Natty Dread / 2004). From Skateboards by USUGROW.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Elvis Stole My Gal

Huey Long... Elvis Stole My Gal (1962, Fidelity S-4055 .mp3 audio 01:57).

Falk Corporation: Images of a Milwaukee Manufacturing Giant

Falk Corporation: Images of a Milwaukee Manufacturing Giant Falk Corporation: Images of a Milwaukee Manufacturing Giant at WHS. "...Once known almost exclusively as a manufacturing and brewing powerhouse, Milwaukee owes at least part of its reputation to the Falk Corporation. Long before the Falk name became synonymous with the manufacturing of industrial gears, the company was known as a Milwaukee brewery established by Franz Falk and Frederick Goes. The site that Falk and Goes chose for their brewery, named the Bavaria Brewery, was a narrow strip of land in the Menomonee Valley, which is the location of Falk's main plant today.
Following a devastating fire that destroyed much of the brewery in 1892, the company was sold to Frederick Pabst. Falk’s youngest son, Herman, took this opportunity to branch out into manufacturing, beginning with wagon couplings and then moving on to electric street railway supply, and then to a process known as “cast welding” to create a solution for the poor joints between rails. The work also included a variety of foundry work, and finally in 1910, gears."

Kensaku Shioya: Nocturnal Shadows

Kensaku Shioya: Nocturnal Shadows. From Studio Aika - works by Japanese photographer Kensaku Shioya.

Yuriy Ribchinskiy, Retrospect

Yuriy Ribchinskiy, Retrospect at the Moscow House of Photography.

Mirella Ricciardi: Diary of an African Photographer

Mirella Ricciardi: Diary of an African Photographer. "...Born in Kenya, then still a colony of British East Africa, to an Italian father and a French mother, Mirella Ricciardi grew up on the shores of Lake Naivasha in a household which was both sophisticated and wild. She was married at twenty-five to the Italian adventurer Lorenzo Ricciardi, who swept her off her feet and hired her as the photographer on the film he was making in East Africa. She bore him two children, both girls. Marina, their eldest daughter, died of cancer at the age of thirty-six.
Mirella's first book, Vanishing Africa, was published in 1971. An international bestseller, it made her reputation; one reviewer wrote that it was 'a masterpiece of photographic excellence'. She has since published four other photographic books - Vanishing Amazon, African Saga, African Rainbow and most recently, African Visions."

Frank Paulin: Out of the Limelight

Frank Paulin: Out of the Limelight at Bruce Silverstein Photography. "...the first retrospective exhibition of work by the New York based street photographer Frank Paulin. Featuring over one hundred prints produced during the last half of the 20th century, including over fifty vintage works from his 1957 exhibition at Helen Gee’s famed gallery and café Limelight, this exhibition unveils the work of an important American documentarian."

RIP: Joe Gibbs

RIP: Joe Gibbs.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Europop

Europop Europop at Kunsthaus Zürich. "...Pop Art is not primarily a matter of technique, form or style, but rather of attitude. Purveyors of Pop Art identify themselves by the positions they take on the basic issue in their field, the industrialized commercial imaginary as disseminated in advertising, magazines, leisure activities and cinema. These include plain naïveté and admiring emulation; an ironic caricaturist’s way with the icons of billboards and glossy weeklies; a critical, at times subversive commentary; and finally, the cynic’s exploitative borrowing of the expressive vocabulary of commercial art."

Travelling in Time and Hope: The Photographic Art of Pavel Štecha

Travelling in Time and Hope: The Photographic Art of Pavel Štecha. "...I was impressed by photographs from the time of invasion, August 1989. I lived through those moments myself, too, right in Prague, but it would take many pages to describe all that Mr. Štecha compacted in one single photograph - and I doubt I would tell it all. Definitely not so well as he does with his artistic eye, the eye of his camera."

Checkpoint ECHO

The Penetrators... Checkpoint ECHO (.mp3 audio 03:01).

Friday, February 22, 2008

Ediciones Eloísa Cartonera Book Covers

Ediciones Eloísa Cartonera Book Covers. "...Following Argentina's economic collapse in late 2001, the Eloisa Cartonera company arose from the ruins in Almagro, a lower middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. In a broken-down shop on Guardia Street, young writers and artists have established an art gallery and bookshop that serves as the public face of Eloisa Cartonera, a publishing house that makes original books from recycled cardboard and cheap prints and sells them for less than 5 pesos ($1.60) each, about a third the price of a conventional paperback. The book covers are printed with rough stencils and poster paints."

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Frankie's Rock

Willy Tremian's Thunderbirds... Frankie's Rock (1959, Swastika J-1001 .mp3 audio 02:24). Also... Don't miss the label scans for both the Swastika Records and Cuca Records releases.

Works by Rudolf Bonvie

Rudolf Bonvie... YouTubearbeit 2 (2007, Auflage 5 Expl. édition de 5). From Works by Rudolf Bonvie.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Tata Ronkholz: Fotografien, 1978-1985

Tata Ronkholz: Fotografien, 1978-1985 Tata Ronkholz: Fotografien, 1978-1985 at Galerie Michael Wiesehöfer in Köln, Germany. (de)

Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz: Islands

Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz: Islands at P·P·O·W. "...In their recent work Martin & Muñoz have created a series of panoramas and snow globes that image island landscapes buried in ice and snow. This is a world imagined, and in a physical sense one where perhaps continents have slowly been swallowed to a point where only the tops of mountains and high places survive as dry land. Vast oceanic emptiness separates lines of evolution and communication, science reverts to philosophy and history to myth. Dissolution continues until there are parts of the world that no longer have knowledge of each other."

Dave Cooper: Bent

Dave Cooper: Bent at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Culver City, CA. "...Dave Cooper was born in Eastern Canada in 1967, 18 years later he began his professional career, making what were then called "alternative comics". Gradually Dave made a name for himself and honed his craft. After about a decade his comics had gained a solid cult following, and praise from such luminaries as Robert Crumb, Art Spieglman and David Cronenberg."

Hommage à Léo Ferré

Miss.Tic... Hommage à Léo Ferré (Résidence universitaire, Orly 2007). (fr)

Click!

Gu Xiong... Forbidden City Starbucks (2001, c-print, editon 1 of 5). From the exhibition Click! at Diane Farris Gallery. "...Proliferated in both popular and fine arts, photography is a highly social medium. Despite its potential for manipulation and alteration, the photographic image still retains a certain amount of authority as a documentary record. Gu Xiong’s Forbidden City Starbucks, originally shown at Diane Farris Gallery in 2001, documents the existence of a Starbucks café in China’s Forbidden City. The controversial establishment of the Starbucks in the historical setting caused a seven-year battle that finally resulted in its removal in July, 2007."

The Bee Side

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore... The Bee Side (1967, Decca F 12551 .mp3 audio 04:53). The very appropriately titled b-side to Pete and Dud's The L.S. Bumble Bee, posted yesterday. Thank you, DMc.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Warm Leatherette

The Normal... Warm Leatherette (1978, Mute 001 .mp3 audio 03:24). The first Mute single - recorded by founder Daniel Miller.

Works by Wim Delvoye

Viae Crucis - Station XI. Crucifixion: Jesus Is Nailed To The Cross Wim Delvoye... Viae Crucis - Station XI. Crucifixion: Jesus Is Nailed To The Cross (2006, Cibachrome marouflé sur dibond). From Works by Wim Delvoye at Galerie Guy Bärtschi in Geneva.

Peat, Salt & Moondust - Panoramic Fictions By Kahn & Selescnik

Peat, Salt & Moondust - Panoramic Fictions By Kahn & Selescnik at Aeroplastics Contemporary. "...The Englishmen Kahn and Selesnick – both born in 1964 – have been collaborating since 1988 : first creating installations combining painted portraits on plaster panels and bread, honey, and wax sculptures displayed in wooden ritual architecture. Tired of working locked up in a studio, they returned to photography on location, experimenting with 360-degree panoramic photographs set in the English countryside, and eventually integrating costumes and sets in vast productions rife with curious anachronisms. In 1996, their first large exhibition of photographic panoramas, The Flight Series, was a body of work that brought to fruition the various components that would become the team´s primary modus operandi: story and history intertwined to weave a personal mythology, accompanied by museological display of found and fabricated artifacts and archives. The Flight Series recounts the story of a fictional expeditionary brotherhood, the Royal Excavation Corps; its visual "documentation" depicted on sepia-toned panoramas appears historically accurate for the era in which the R.E.C. was said to have been active, the 1930s. The exhibition also included two R.E.C. gliders allegedly used in aerial reconnaissance."

Works by Eva Eun-Sil Han

Eva Eun-Sil Han... Complex Mind (collage, cut+paste, crayon gris_sur papier trouvé). From Works by Eva Eun-Sil Han.

The L.S. Bumble Bee

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore... The L.S. Bumble Bee (1967, Decca F 12551 .mp3 audio 02:45). Thank you, DMc.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Ghana Movie Posters

American Commandos American Commandos (Poster: Hand Painted in Ghana by Leonardo). From Ghana Movie Posters. Also... Killer ops canvas - Ghana Movie Posters at the Dutch Poster Museum. (nl)

Crash

The Primitives... Crash (1988, PB 41761 .mp3 audio 02:31).

Photographs by Arnold Odermatt

Photographs by Arnold Odermatt at James Kelly Contemporary in Santa Fe, NM.

Touchless Automatic Wonder

FILE Magazine... Touchless Automatic Wonder. "...a selection of work by Lewis Koch, contains images created over the last twenty years. The selected images highlight a pervasive theme in Koch's work since the 1970s: the idea of "found text" seen as eccentric voices in the everyday landscape."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

RIP: Kon Ichikawa

RIP: Kon Ichikawa.

James 'Buddy' Snipes

James 'Buddy' Snipes James 'Buddy' Snipes at Garde Rail Gallery in Seattle, WA. "...James 'Buddy' Snipes is one of the few remaining African-American folk artists from the Deep South that is still creating important and relevant works. This show features work from our recent visit with Buddy near his home in Alabama."

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

House that was Home

Lens Culture... House that was Home - photographs by Oyvind Hjelmen. "...n this series, he documents the last bits of once-prized possessions in an old house, as the house is gradually emptied after the person who lived there has died." More Works by Øyvind Hjelmen at his personal site.

Diebenkorn in New Mexico: 1950–1952

Diebenkorn in New Mexico: 1950–1952 at NYU's Grey Art Gallery. "...Between January 1950 and June 1952, Richard Diebenkorn was enrolled in the graduate fine arts department at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Supported by the G.I. Bill and distanced from the art worlds of both coasts, Diebenkorn produced astonishingly mature and beautiful works which have, until now, remained relatively unknown. Diebenkorn in New Mexico: 1950–1952 brings together approximately fifty paintings and drawings from this period for the first time."

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Works by Cynthia Consentino

Works by Cynthia Consentino Works by Cynthia Consentino at Ferrin Gallery in Cummington, MA. Also... Rabbit and Wolf Girls at Cynthia Consentino's Site.

Chinatown Amsterdam

Chinatown Amsterdam. "...In 1972, Chinatown in Amsterdam was photographed by Ab Koers. The IISG received this photo collection in 2006. Ab Koers originally took these photographs in and around the Binnen Bantammerstraat for a reportage, which appeared in the magazine Avenue in 1973. This reportage, made together with journalist Nico Polak, was characterised as 'stunning and outstanding' in the book De rafelrand van Amsterdam (The frayed edges of Amsterdam)."

Anything You Want

The Spiders... Anything You Want (.mp3 audio 02:30).

Works by Thomas Allen

Thomas Allen... Breathtaking (2006, Chromogenic Print). From Works by Thomas Allen at Light & Sie Gallery in Dallas, TX. "...Photographer Thomas Allen uses the salacious pulp art drawings of the '40s and '50s that covered books such as 'I Married a Dead Man' and 'Marijuana Girl' and gives them a new dimension - the third. Allen arranges one set of pictures close up while obscuring the other, and creates a different context in the process. He gives each piece a brand new storyline, though never quite strays from their cheeky origins. Known internationally for his collaboration with reknowned designer Chip Kidd, Allen brings the physical format of the paperback book and expands it into a three-dimensional fantasy."

Radio Rumpus Room's List of Found Band Names

Radio Rumpus Room's List of Found Band Names. I like 'The Bong Invaders' - a headline from a 1965 Milwaukee Sentinel article referencing trespassers at Richard Bong Recreation Area in Kenosha County, WI.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Night Rider

Dick Dale & The Del-Tones... Night Rider (1963, Capitol 5098 .mp3 audio 01:47).

Dominique Bollinger: Rome and Surroundings

Dominique Bollinger... Monteporzio #1 (Rome, 2005, Toned silver gelatin print, Edition: 25). From Dominique Bollinger: Rome and Surroundings at Meter Gallery. "...in this series on his adoptive home, Dominique Bollinger has recast timeworn, imperial Rome as a city of angles and private shadows. Reveling in the juxtaposition of man-made and natural shapes, Bollinger's lens is drawn to the vines overtaking a second story apartment or frail branches drawing dark silhouettes on their impervious stone neighbors."

Photographs by Marise Laget

WHS Sampler Collection

WHS Sampler Collection. "...From the 17th century to the late 19th century young girls learned embroidery skills by creating samplers. They would use these skills later in life to create fancy needlework or simply mark linens so they could be sorted correctly after being washed. Proud parents often showed off the finished samplers by having them framed and hung in the parlor. Supposedly, gentlemen admirers judged a future wife's skill at sewing by perusing these samplers.
The heyday for samplers in the United States occurred between 1780 and 1840, so not many were made in Wisconsin. Ohio seems to be the state furthest west where girls regularly did sampler work. Still a number of New England and New York families brought samplers with them when they moved to Wisconsin. Women may have brought their own, but more likely these samplers represented the work of their mothers or grandmothers and served as mementoes of those left behind."

Chris Ware: Drawings for New York Periodicals

Chris Ware... New Yorker Cover; Thanksgiving - Family (2006, Ink and colored pencil on paper, 28" x 20"). From the exhibition Chris Ware: Drawings for New York Periodicals, February 1 - March 15, 2008 at Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York. "...The 40 drawings in the exhibition include the complete 30 weekly drawings comprising one chapter of the in-progress book 'Building Stories' which inaugurated the 'Funny Pages' in The New York Times Sunday magazine in 2005. In addition, the exhibition will feature the four different Thanksgiving cover drawings that were published simultaneously by The New Yorker in 2006 as well as the fifth cover that was released only online by The New Yorker. Other drawings by Chris Ware done specifically for the New Yorker will also appear in the exhibition."

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Tell Me More

The Tempters... Tell Me More (1969, Philips FS-8038 .mp3 audio 03:42).

Cindy, The Doll Is Mine

Cindy, The Doll Is Mine (2005, directed by Bertrand Bonello, Flash Video 14:15). Asia Argento plays both photographer Cindy Sherman and Sherman's blonde model.

Crying In A Storm

Emy Jackson and The Smashmen... Crying In A Storm (1965, CBS LL-742-JC .mp3 audio 02:41). From Garage Hangover.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Love Is Over, Love Is Done

Love Is Over, Love Is Done Bonnie Guitar... Love Is Over, Love Is Done (1958, Radio 101-45 .mp3 audio 02:03).

Photographs by Asako Narahashi

Photographs by Asako Narahashi at Blog Galerie Priska Pasquer.

The Roman Vishniac Archive

The Roman Vishniac Archive at the ICP. "...The Roman Vishniac Archive of more than 3,000 prints was loaned to ICP by the photographer's estate in 1992. This important archive features renowned images of the Jewish ghettos in Eastern Europe taken between 1936 and 1939, and comprises vintage gelatin silver prints, later gelatin silver prints, and albumen prints. Also represented in this collection are Vishniac's New York City studio portraits from the 1940s and microscopic images of cells, insects, and animals from the 1950s and 1960s."

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Detour Art

Detour Art - Self-taught Art Discoveries Along The Backroads.

Monkey Man

Baby Huey & the Babysitters... Monkey Man (1965, Satellite 2013 .mp3 audio 02:27).

Niba

Rubber Rabbit #8 Niba... Rubber Rabbit #8 (terracotta, enamel, oil). From Works by Niba at Mondo Bizzaro Gallery in Rome. "...Niba is a young Italian artist. She creates fetish, pop and bizarre artworks using terracotta, ceramic, enamels, acrylics and oil. Her sculptures are completely hand made." Also... More Rubber Rabbits at Niba's Personal Site.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Erased Lynching

Ken Gonzales-Day... Erased Lynching. "...The Wonder Gaze, presents a series of appropriated lynching postcards and images in which the lynch victim and the ropes have all been been removed; a conceptual gesture intended to direct the viewers attention, not upon the lifeless body of lynch victim, but upon the mechanisms of lynching themselves: the crowd, the spectacle, the photographer, and even the impact of flash photography upon this dismal past. The perpetrators, if present, remain fully visible, jeering, laughing, or pulling at the air in a deadly pantomime. As such, this series strives to make the invisible - visible." From Ken Gonzales-Day.

Quite A Party

The Fireballs... Quite A Party (1961, Warwick 644 .mp3 audio 01:51).

Five Rare Books From the 1960s by Bern Porter

Five Rare Books From the 1960s by Bern Porter. "...Several of Porter's books from the 1960s are gathered here on UbuWeb, three of them for the first time anywhere, with an essay by Porter's collaborator and literary executor, Mark Melnicove. Titles include: Aphasia (1961), cut and assembled commercial and soft news language into a found poetry that is still original and fresh; Scandinavian Summer (1961), where Porter cut out pages from Scandinavian, Russian, and American newspaper archives at random, bound them together, and called the result a book; 468B Thy Future (1966), a book written entirely in computer code; The Wastemaker (1926-1961) where texts are divorced from their sources and disguised in a new tone, not intended by the original author; and Dieresis (1969) where the photographs in the book are the modern equivalents of ancient ideograms, capable of being read as texts."

Bazooka Production dans Libération

Bazooka Production dans Libération Bazooka Production dans Libération. Scans of the work of Bazooka published daily in the French newspaper Libération during the summer of 1977. From Bazooka's Public Library. (fr)

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No 8)

Jimmie Rodgers... Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No 8) (1931, Victor 23503 .mp3 audio 02:59).

Steele Vision: The Face of Italian Cult Cinema

Bright Lights Film Journal... Steele Vision: The Face of Italian Cult Cinema. "...There are certain cohesive ingredients. Cult films usually have an element of unease — anarchy, transgressing certain taboos; they are almost always excessive and camp and speak to the counterculture. Certainly, most have an aura of irreverence, and are usually made on low budgets, therefore requiring a certain energized spontaneity, somewhat like graffiti. After all, film is so porous, and to my mind, so oddly occult, that I think that film itself absorbs odd energies like a living skin."

Andrea Modica: Fountain, Colorado

Andrea Modica: Fountain, Colorado at Edwynn Houk Gallery. "...After moving to Colorado in the late 1990’s, Andrea Modica became interested in the unique world of the slaughterhouse, and the professional and personal lives of those who make the slaughterhouse their livelihood. Modica’s artistic curiosity was initially met with resistance, as several slaughterhouses suspected photographers to be critical of their trade. Word of mouth, however, led the artist to the Bakers, a family that runs their own business in Fountain, Colorado. The Bakers permitted Modica to enter their family sphere, producing a sensitive collection of photographs that yield the same intimacy expressed in previous projects such as: Treadwell and Barbara."

LP Cover Lover

Norman Petty Recording Studios

Norman Petty Recording Studios in Clovis, New Mexico. Joe Beine's photo-blog offers a great behind the scenes tour of one of the more important recording studios in the US.