Plus9 (-15) Plus18 - 12 neat links from 2008

Weegee... Summer, The Lower East Side, 1937. From the Weegee Collection at Amber Online. "...Classic documentary photographs of New York taken between the 1930s and the 1960s. The work was given to Amber by Weegee's widow Wilma Wilcox following Side Gallery's organisation of the first tour of his work in the UK in the early 1980s." (January)

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." (February)

Miroslav Tichý at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. "...Using self-made cameras, constructed from tin cans, bottle caps and plastic, Tichý captured the poetry of everyday life in photographic images. Making only one print from each negative, Tichý created compositions featuring mainly anonymous female characters who lent themselves unwittingly to his practice. Taking mothers, students, waitresses and others as his live models, situated on park benches, sunbathing, or even on TV screens, these intimately scaled black and white prints often feature hand-drawn details and a washy, mottled print quality. Some of the works feature elaborate ink or watercolor, cardboard framing elements. The resulting works fall dynamically between painting and photography, between image and object, embracing chance, and time in a unique process of presentation and production." (March)

La Lupe... Fever (1961, .mp3 audio 02:45) (April)

Scott Teplin: Alphaville at Adam Baumgold Gallery. "...The visitor to this exhibition becomes a present-day undercover detective Lemmy Caution, the protagonist of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film, ALPHAVILLE, for which the show is titled after. Teplin has filtered the city of Alphaville through his own imagination and drawn a world devoid of people - only evidence of their domestic and work environments remain for exploration." (May)

Kai-Ray... I Want Some Of That (1961, Brite Star 2267 .mp3 audio 03:10). (June)

GUTAI - 5 Videos, 1956-1962. "...Japanese avant-garde group. Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Gutai Art Association) was formed in 1954 in Osaka by Yoshihara Jiro, Kanayma Akira, Murakami Saburo, Shiraga Kazuo, and Shimamoto Shozo. The word has been translated into English as 'embodiment' or 'concrete'. Yoshihara was an older artist around whom the group coalesced and who financed it. In their early public exhibitions in 1955 and 1956 Gutai artists created a series of striking works anticipating later Happenings and Performance and Conceptual art. Shiraga's Challenge to the Mud 1955, in which the artist rolled half naked in a pile of mud, remains the most celebrated event associated with the group." (July)

Charlie Feathers... Cold Dark Night (.mp3 audio 02:18). Recorded in 1968 at Select-O-Hit Studios in Memphis, TN. Found on the album That Rock-A-Billy Cat (1979, Barrelhouse BH-014). (August)

Esther Pearl Watson... Clothes from the Future (acrylic on panel, 8" X 10"). From Works by Esther Pearl Watson. Angels and UFOs. (September)

Making It Real: Photomontage Before Photoshop at Keith de Lellis Gallery in New York. "...a group exhibition of photographic-montage produced in the 19th and 20th centuries using low-tech, pre-computer age ingenuity. These hand-wrought and darkroom created images have been painstakingly produced by innovative photographers who developed the technical know-how and craftsmanship, to forsake reality for the 'constructed image.'" (October)

Rosnah & The Siglap Five... Gembira Ria (.mp3 audio 02:36). An exceptionally cool track from 1966 Malaysia. (November)

Ros Sereysothea.... Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy "I'm 16" (.mp3 audio 03:59). More information at Khumer Music and A voice from the killing fields, Nik Cohn's May 2007 piece from The Observer Music Monthly. (December)

Rediscover The Beauty of Prints

Tomoko Sawada... Early Days 15 (1997, Gelatin Silver Print, edition of 15). From the exhibition Rediscover The Beauty of Prints at Gallery Toki no Wasuremono in Tokyo.

Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar. Photographs by Taryn Simon.

Poser Psychotic

The Ponys... Poser Psychotic (.mp3 audio 03:45). From the album Turn The Lights Out (2007, Matador Records ole-735).

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Visions In My Mind

Trailer (QuickTime Video) for Hiroshi Sugimoto: Visions In My Mind - a film by Maria Anna Tappeiner. From Ufer! Art Documentary. (jp)

Joyeux Noël

Angus B. McVicar... Girl Dressed as Christmas Tree (1927). Joyeux Noël et très bonne Année de gmtPlus9(-15).

Photographs

Fusao Hori... Woman At The Bar (1930, Gelatin silver print, Hand written credit by Shoichi Hori, son of the artist, in Japanese in pencil on the verso). From a recent auction of Photographs at Phillips de Pury & Company.

Works by Yoshiyuki Iwase

Yoshiyuki Iwase... Radiant Ama (1950, Silver Print). From Works by Yoshiyuki Iwase from the estate of Yoshiyuki Iwase.

Frans Zwartjes - Six Films (1968-1971)

Frans Zwartjes - Six Films (1968-1971) at UBUWEB Film. "...The incomparable Frans Zwartjes is a filmmaker, musician, violin-maker, painter and sculptor. In the late-60s he was one of the first Dutch visual artists to take up film, initially to document his performances and soon after as an independent medium perfectly suited to his way of creating visual art. His mind-bending works caused a furor, with psychological black-and-white imagery of heavily made-up and over-dressed actors from his circle of friends."

Tour of Dollywood, USA

Pork rinds in the baby carriage... Astropop's Tour of Dollywood, USA.

Cute and Pop! 60s Girls Comics by Eiko Hanamura

PingMag... Cute and Pop! 60s Girls Comics by Eiko Hanamura. "...Eiko Hanamura started her career as a manga artist in 1958 and is much loved as a pioneer of girls comics in manga culture. Many of you will remember from your childhood seeing the painting of a girl with big bright eyes and long eyelashes. Eiko has been working as a manga artist for half a century and is still energetic about exhibiting her works in France, or collaborating with crafts people."

Christmas music on the sitar

Jayram Acharya... Jingle Bells (.mp3 audio 02:45) and Santa Clause Is Coming To Town (.mp3 audio 02:29). From Christmas Music (1967, Odeon EMOE. 503). From Radiodiffusion Internasionaal Annexe.

Communion Photographs

Communion Photographs (Glass Plate Negatives, pre-1930). From Time Tales - a collection of found photographs.

People's Park

Lens Culture... People's Park - photographs and text by Kurt Tong. "...Last year I was helping my mother sort out all the family photographs. Apart from the customary family portraits in front of the same Christmas trees and behind birthday cakes, most of the photos taken of my brother, my sisters and me were during our day trips out at various parks."

Issei Suda: Human Memory

Issei Suda... Obanazawa, Yamagata Prefecture (from the series: 'Fushi Kaden'), 1976, vintage silver print). From the exhibition Issei Suda: Human Memory at Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. "...Photographs from Issei Suda's best-known series 'Fushi Kaden' from 1978 will be shown, along with a selection of works from his retrospective monograph 'Human Memory.' With his portraits and street scenes the artist comprises an original position in Japanese photography of the 1970s and 1980s."

Santa Claus, The Original Hippie

Homer & Jethro... Santa Claus, The Original Hippie (.mp3 audio 02:45). From the 1968 album Cool Crazy Christmas with Homer & Jethro (RCA Victor LSP-4001). From WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

Industrial Milwaukee: Images of P&H Electric Cranes

Industrial Milwaukee: Images of P&H Electric Cranes at the WHS. "...Alonzo Pawling and Henry Harnischfeger met while both were employed at the Whitehill Sewing Company of Milwaukee. Several years later, in 1884, sensing Milwaukee's growing need for a dependable machine and pattern shop, the two combined their resources and with a simple handshake, started the business that would one day service 90 percent of the world's surface mines and revolutionize the machinery industry with the invention of the electric crane."

Scratch

Inside The New Ark: Lee 'Scratch' Perry at Home at The Afflicted Yard. Also...Radio Scratch: Junior Byles at Eternal Thunder. Thank you, DMc.

Joel Stoehr: Tower of Babel

Joel Stoehr: Tower of Babel at Pierogi 2000 in Brooklyn, NY. "...Working with laser cut museum board and materials typical to architectural model making, Joel Stoehr has created a sculpture inspired by New York City entitled Tower of Babel. In this work, Stoehr re-imagines the city as an all encompassing, infinitely expanding tower, unable to be parsed into particular neighborhoods or boroughs."

Objets dans l'objectif

Emmanuel Rudnitsky, dit Man Ray... Objets (1926, Tirage argentique). From Objets dans l'objectif at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. (fr)

Russian Graphic Art and the Revolution of 1905

Zarevo (No.3, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia, publisher: A.K. Kasatkin). From Russian Graphic Art and the Revolution of 1905. "...On Sunday, January 9th, 1905, Tsar Nicholas II ordered troops to fire on a peaceful procession of workers demonstrating in St. Petersburg, unleashing a storm of strikes, mutinies, violent uprisings, and brutal reprisals that raged across Russia for well over a year. Known collectively as the Revolution of 1905, these upheavals transformed the political landscape and set the stage for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed. Bloody Sunday also marked an important watershed for Russian graphic artists. With the momentary collapse of censorship, over 300 different satirical magazines were published during the Revolution of 1905, more than had seen the light of day in Russia during the entire 19th century. Most of them survived for only a few numbers before the censors caught up. Yet the ouput was impressive all the same."

Atom Age Vampire

Atom Age Vampire (1960) - Seddok, l'erede di Satana. "...After a beauty is mangled in a car accident, a researcher uses a treatment he has created to restore her to her former self. However, the treatment comes with a high price...."

Revenge of a Kabuki Actor

Trailer (QuickTime Video) for AniMeigo's release of Revenge of a Kabuki Actor (1963, directed by Kon Ichikawa).

Works by Zhang Haiying

Works by Zhang Haiying - including the "Anti-Vice Campaign" series and his most recent "Action Figures."

Stephen J & M Palmer: 1882–1965

Stephen J & M Palmer: 1882–1965, December 12, 2008 – January 31, 2009 at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL. "...Stephen Palmer produced a massive record of Christian faith in the guise of roughly 400 known and recently discovered gouache paintings on paper. As private devotional works, they demonstrate the layered complexity and subversive potential of religious images. As artifacts uncovered, they speak about an era. As a collective effort, they hold clues to reconstructing the psychology and motivations of an individual driven by an obsessive-compulsive mysticism."

A Husband in Paris

Lens Culture... A Husband in Paris - photographs and text by Katarina Radovic. "...Potential 'husbands' for an attractive Eastern European girl were all asked to pose with her so she could see what kind of couple they would make. This funny and thought-provoking project by Serbian photographer Katarina Radovic is not as far-fetched as it might seem."

Western Silent Films Lobby Cards Collection

Hoot Gibson in "King of the Rodeo" with Kathryn Crawford (1929, Lobby Card). From the Western Silent Films Lobby Cards Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. "...These lobby cards and publicity fliers include both photographic and artistic renderings of scenes and characters from the films being publicized, and often prominently display the names of actors and film studios. Lobby cards were introduced in the 1910s to complement movie posters and were designed for display in the lobbies or foyers of movie theaters. These eponymous artifacts were intended to lure pedestrians into the theater by advertising dramatic, key scenes from the movie or highlighting popular actors."

Searching For Heaven

Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls... Searching For Heaven (1981, Illusive IVEX-3 .mp3 audio 02:56). From Little Hits.

America and the Tintype

Nanny and Child (ca. 1860, tinted tintype). From America and the Tintype at the International Center of Photography. "...One of the most intriguing and little studied forms of nineteenth-century photography is the tintype. Introduced in 1856 as a low-cost alternative to the daguerreotype and the albumen print, the tintype was widely marketed from the 1860s through the first decades of the twentieth century as the cheapest and most popular photographic medium. Because of its ubiquity, the tintype provides a startlingly candid record of the political upheavals that occurred during the four decades following the American Civil War, and the personal anxieties they induced. The tintype studio became a kind of performance space where sitters could act out their personal identities, displaying the tools of their trade, masks and costumes, toys and dolls, stuffed animals, and props of all sorts. This uniquely American medium provides extraordinary insights into the development of national attitudes and characteristics in the formative years of the early modern era."

Venus Revisited: The Photography of Wingate Paine

Wingate Paine... Untitled (1964-65, Vintage gelatin silver). From the exhibition Venus Revisited: The Photography of Wingate Paine at Steven Kasher Gallery in New York. "...In Mirror of Venus Wingate Paine created an icon of the 1960s Sexual Revolution. Though innocent by today’s standards, Paine’s photography pushed the limits of what was considered acceptable art photography. The book illustrated playful, strong, modern women posing in flagrante delicto for an enamored photographer. With the help of his wife, Natalie Paine, who directed a major New York modeling agency, Paine enlisted three remarkable models as collaborators: Sandy Brown, Carla Moliere and Scarlett ?. Printed in ten editions and four languages, Mirror of Venus gave the world a glimpse into a private realm that was both elegant and earthy, both sexy and pure.

purpose 8 - enfance

purpose 8 - enfance (Childhood). "...purpose wished to dedicate a lively, bountiful, colorful issue to childhood. A great many photographers, whose work we appreciate, answered our call. Their photographs, heirs of a tradition that blends documentary rigor and poetic expression, are suffused with tenderness, curiosity, humor, nostalgia... they touched us a great deal. Sometimes they show moments of intimacy veiled with modesty. Sometimes they seem to translate a childlike imagination which reminds us of our own experiences, our past sensations and feelings."

Martin Klimas: Flowers

Martin Klimas: Flowers at Foley Gallery in New York. "...To produce his 'Flowers' sequence, Klimas arranged classic, elegant still lifes of blossoming flowers placed in vases, nestled against vibrant monochrome backgrounds. The photographer then makes just one photograph, set off by the sound of impact as a spring-fired projectile bursts the vessel into a bedlam of fragmenting pieces. The resultant image is deemed successful only when the height of tension exists between poised, inert flower and its rupturing container." More at Martin Klimas Photography.

Frank Ward: Crossing Siberia

Frank Ward: Crossing Siberia at photo-eye. "...The Russian experience, and the Russian world view, is one of a different era. Petersburg and Vladivostok are modern, thriving cities, but in between is a seemingly unending, relentless expanse of decaying environments and expanding environmental challenges."

Lost In Slovenia

Lost Art... Lost In Slovenia - photographs by Louise Chin and Ignacio Aronovich.

RIP: Odetta Holmes

RIP: Odetta Holmes.

Art and China's Revolution

Art and China's Revolution at the Asia Society. "...Art and China's Revolution" is the first-ever exhibition to focus on the revolutionary spirit of Mao's China from the 1950s through 1970s. Bringing together large-scale oil paintings, ink scroll paintings, artist sketchbooks, posters, and objects from everyday life - many seen for the first time in the United States - the exhibition is a comprehensive, in-depth presentation of this historical period."

Kim Keever: Photographs

Kim Keever: Photographs at Kinz, Tillou + Feigen Fine Art. "...Kim Keever's large-scale photographs are created by meticulously constructing miniature topographies in a 200-gallon tank, which is then filled with water. These dioramas of fictitious environments are brought to life with colored lights and the dispersal of pigment, producing ephemeral atmospheres that he must quickly capture with his large-format camera."

Works by Daniel Masclet

Daniel Masclet... Vielle petite poupee (c.1940s, Vintage gelatin silver print). From Works by Daniel Masclet at Gitterman Gallery in New York. "...Daniel Masclet (1892-1969) was a central figure in French photography from the 1930s to the 1950s. Most known for organizing the groundbreaking 1933 exhibition of nude photography and its corresponding book, Nus: La Beauté de la femme, Masclet's own artistic achievements in photography have been largely overlooked in the United States."

Pulaski Road, Chicago

Romantic Club, Pulaski Road near 48th, Chicago. One of a collection of signs and sights from Pulaski Road, Chicago at Interesting Ideas.

Horace Bristol: Capturing Life, Celebrating A Century

Horace Bristol: Capturing Life, Celebrating A Century at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, CA. "...Bristol's photographs cover a broad sweep of 20th Century history and were published extensively by LIFE Magazine in the 1930's. His poignant portraits of migrant farm workers in California’s Central Valley, in collaboration with John Steinbeck, later inspired the novel The Grapes of Wrath gaining him recognition as a prolific photographer of his time."

Don't Think I've Forgotten - Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll

Trailer (QuickTime Video) for Don't Think I've Forgotten - Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll. A documentary by John Pirozzi currently in post production.

Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy "I'm 16"

Ros Sereysothea.... Chnam oun Dop-Pram Muy "I'm 16" (.mp3 audio 03:59). More information at Khumer Music and A voice from the killing fields, Nik Cohn's May 2007 piece from The Observer Music Monthly.

Tenebrae factae sunt

Pascal Aubier... Tenebrae factae sunt - With the boys, the girls and the Beatnicks from the Bus-Paladium (1966, 11 min, Flash Video). "...Pascal Aubier started out as an assistant on Paris Vu Par in 1963/64 for Claude Chabrol, Eric Rhomer, Jean Rouch, Jean-Daniel Pollet and Jean-Luc Godard. He later worked on Pierrot le fou and Masculin féminin. While working on the latter film, he made his first short - Tenebrae factae sunt. It features young French mods, dancing in a club to a live, obscure rock band (The Ingoes). The short was used to open for Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis in theaters."

The Rockford Files

Archie Ulm... The Rockford Files (.mp3 audio 02:54). From WFMU's On The Download.

Benjamin Jones: Sins and Virtues

Benjamin Jones... Burning Your Friend (2008, graphite, colored pencil and collage element on paper). From the exhibition Benjamin Jones: Sins and Virtues at Barbara Archer Gallery in Atlanta, GA. "...Benjamin Jones creates haunting images that reveal a distinct visual language. Subjects include current events and icons of popular culture; however, his most consistent subject is himself. Inhabiting an intriguingly indefinable space, each of these poignant self-portraits reveals the artist's innermost feelings and insecurities. Mixing whimsy with horror, humor with malevolence, Jones' forms become vehicles for messages about the struggle of life and all its paradoxes. These seductive and intimate drawings, paradoxical in themselves, create a tension between the purity of their intuition and the refinement of their presentation."

Zoe Strauss. America: We Love Having You Here

Zoe Strauss. America: We Love Having You Here at Bruce Siliverstein Gallery. "...Strauss’ choice in subject matter reveals much about her life and work as an artist as well. Having gotten her start photographing the same neighborhood in which she lives, Strauss has consistently 'shot what she knows' and has maintained an extremely personable approach to her subjects. From her earliest works on, Strauss has concentrated on the overlooked in America. Whether its overlooked citizens, environments, or the objects therein, Strauss has aimed her lens at those things we cannot or choose not to see. In her latest project, Strauss has taken her camera on the road in an attempt to create an apt portrait of the United States."

Images du monde visionnaire

Henri Michaux and Eric Duvivier... Images du monde visionnaire (1964, 38 min). "...Images du monde visionnaire, an educational film by Henri Michaux and Eric Duvivier which was 'produced in 1963 by the film department of Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz (best known for synthesizing LSD in 1938) in order to demonstrate the hallucinogenic effects of mescaline and hashish.'"

Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary

Maureen McCabe... Ionia (2007, Mixed media box construction). From the exhibition Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary at Hollis Taggart Galleries. "...Since the first-quarter of the twentieth-century, box construction has become a unique expressive device for many artists, as exemplified by the varied approaches of Joseph Cornell, Pierre Roy, Leo Rabkin, Lucas Samaras, Maureen McCabe, Elspeth Halvorsen, and Ted Victoria, seven artists featured in our upcoming exhibition 'Image in the Box: Cornell to Contemporary,' November 20, 2008- January 10, 2009. Comprised of 59 works covering the period from the 1920s to the present, the assemblage of box constructions presented evokes magical journeys of the imagination, captures the poetry within the most unassuming everyday objects, and conjures the mysterious, the playful, the beautiful, and sometimes, the dangerous. The works offer a keyhole aesthetic into hidden desires, forgotten dreams, or personal obsessions. At the same time, many also present motifs rooted to the particular sites, historical events, and aspects of popular culture that define the realities of twentieth-century life."