A Visual Tour of Wisconsin's Fine Opera Houses

A Visual Tour of Wisconsin's Fine Opera Houses at the WHS. "...Before the Web, television, radio or even motion pictures, Americans consumed music and drama in their local opera house. Although that phrase might conjure up images of Luciano Pavarotti or Maria Callas, most opera houses hosted all sorts of live theater and community events. In the decades following the Civil War, no self-respecting city or town could do without its own opera house. Many were humble affairs supported by municipal governments or charitable societies, while others were sumptuous palaces built by leading businessmen. Every opera house "proudly celebrated the community's sense of distinction and heralded a sense of civic achievement," says Shullsburg native Brian Leahy Doyle, whose recent book 'Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses' presents detailed portraits of the early history and modern renovation of 10 Wisconsin theaters."

RE:VIEW - A Group Show

RE:VIEW - A Group Show at Joseph Bellows Gallery. "...Exploring a period from the late 1960s through the early 1980's, RE:VIEW is unified by each of the fifteen artists' unique ability to distill the essence of their own particular reality. Much of the work has been mined from estates and personal archives and thus the show represents images that have been both un-exhibited and under-exhibited, offering a fascinating second look at familiar cultural terrain."

Luděk Vojtěchovský: best of... fotografie a fotogramy

Luděk Vojtěchovský: best of... fotografie a fotogramy at Galerie ART Chrudim, Světlana a Luboš Jelínkovi. (cz)

Oshima's Outlaw Sixties

Oshima's Outlaw Sixties - Eclipse Series 21 from the Criterion Collection. "...Often called the Godard of the East, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was one of the most provocative film artists of the twentieth century, and his works challenged and shocked the cinematic world for decades. Following his rise to prominence at Shochiku, Oshima struck out to form his own production company, Sozo-sha, in the early sixties. That move ushered in the prolific period of his career that gave birth to the five films collected here. Unsurprisingly, this studio renegade was fascinated by stories of outsiders—serial killers, rabid hedonists, and stowaway misfits are just some of the social castoffs you’ll meet in these audacious, cerebral entries in the New Wave surge that made Japan a hub of truly daredevil moviemaking."

Achy Breaky Ha Ha Ha

Hasil Adkins and His Happy Guitar... Achy Breaky Ha Ha Ha at Revenant Glint. Thank you! Thank you!

Hasil Adkins - Song of Death

Four Films by Jordan Wolfson

Four Films by Jordan Wolfson at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Mixing and combining opposites, playing with analogies and ambiguity Jordan Wolfson creates a distorted mix of reality, imagination and cultural critique. He investigates the relationships of technology and media merged with his own personal experience, poetically balanced somewhere between pop and conceptual art. Included here are four works, with an exclusive showing of Wolfson's newest work, Con Leche (2009)."

Unintended Light

Unintended Light - photographs by Zoltán Vancsó at Lens Culture. "...The series begins with a landing, but after seeing the first few pictures, it becomes clear that this is not one single journey, since the photos were taken in places all over the world. It is not the location and not a concrete social or cultural phenomenon or observed characteristic that is presented and which connects the images, but the 'Vancsó perspective,' which is almost a concept in itself: the gaze which creates perceptible reality anew and shows us unusual connections." More... Works by Zoltán Vancsó at his personal site.

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights at the ICP in New York. "...explores the historic role of visual culture in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for racial equality and justice in the United States from the late 1940s to the mid 1970s. This exhibition of 230 photographs, objects and clips from television and film looks at the extent to which the rise of the modern civil rights movement paralleled the birth of television and the popularity of picture magazines and other forms of visual mass media." More at... For All the World to See.

gmtPlus9(-15) = 11

gmtPlus9(-15) is now 11 years old. Happy Birthday gmtPlus9(-15).

Bern Porter: A selection of Founds including Do's, Don'ts, and Gee Whizzles

Bern Porter: A selection of Founds including Do's, Don'ts, and Gee Whizzles at UbuWeb Historical. "...In his 93 years on this Earth, he contributed to the invention of television, worked on the Manhattan Project and the Saturn V rocket, and made the acquaintances of Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Werner von Braun. He published Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, and Kenneth Rexroth, among others, and knew Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, Allen Ginsberg, and many others you might name. He exerted a profound influence on the phenomenon known as mail art, traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on cruise ships, was married three times (once happily), spent several years in Guam, was an irascible crank, theorized a union of art and science called Sciart, was briefly committed to a mental institution, wrote more than 80 books including important bibliographies of Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald, had a massive FBI file, lived and worked in Rhode Island, New York, Tennessee, California, Texas, Alabama, and Tasmania. At last he settled in Belfast, Maine, where he ran for governor, served on the Knox County Regional Planning Commission, called his house the Institute of Advanced Thinking, barraged the local paper with letters, and at the end of his life subsisted largely on soup kitchens and food gleaned from the munchie tables at art openings."

Otto Dix

Otto Dix at the Neue Galerie in New York, NY. "...More than almost any other German painter, Otto Dix (1891-1969) and his works have profoundly influenced the popular notion of the Weimar Republic. His paintings were among the most graphic visual representatives of  that period, exposing with unsparing and wicked wit the instability and contradictions of the time."

Ryuji Miyamoto: Kobe

Ryuji Miyamoto: Kobe at Amador Gallery. "...5:46 am, January 17, 1995. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 originating from a point twenty kilometers below Awajishima Island in southern Hyogo Prefecture struck the city of Kobe and its vicinity. The quake's velocity measured 818 gals in the north-south direction, 617 gals east-west, and 332 gals vertically. It shook the earth for a mere 15 seconds, enough to kill 5,000 people and destroy more than 100,000 homes and other structures. In the aftermath of the quake, the city caught fire, laying waste to an area of 1,043,000 square meters."

Olivo Barbieri

Olivo Barbieri... NYC 07. From Works by Olivo Barbieri.

Sex Beat

Alejandro Escovedo... Sex Beat (.mp3 audio 04:09). From the album Bourbonitis Blues (1999, Bloodshot BS 049). Cover of The Gun Club song.

Mark Ryden - The Gay 90's: Old Tyme Art Show

Mark Ryden - The Gay 90's: Old Tyme Art Show at Paul Kasim Gallery. "...In his hauntingly beautiful and masterfully executed oil paintings, Ryden creates his own contemporary mythologies whose archetypes include fairy tale creatures, historical figures, and pop cultural icons. Seamlessly juxtaposing macabre motifs like meat grinders and disembodied presidents with eye-pleasing ingénues and seductive landscapes, the artist produces a vision of society in which menace and comfort are inseparably interwoven. These labor-intensive canvasses deftly rework centuries of art history, combining the grandeur of Spanish and Italian religious painting with the decorative richness of Old Master compositions and the lush textures of French Neo-Classicism."

Date Farmers: Smother Your Mother

Date Farmers: Smother Your Mother at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York, NY. "...In Smother Your Mother, the tone of the work shifts focus toward themes of mental neurosis, confronting dark fears and the compelling quality of the visually or conceptually grotesque—like the irresistible need to look at a car wreck or pick at a scab. The artists say that some of the ideas conveyed are spiritual, while others are just stories, '...Christ, the devil, nightmares, candles, saying I love you, shape shifting into animals, running back home, smoking a cigarette that you found, the fear of getting your ass kicked, being mad about nothing, telling the truth in disguise.” Of the found materials used in their work, the unwanted and discarded, they say “we just make it wanted again. Ugly is beautiful.'"

Scott Hove: Iced Out

Scott Hove: Iced Out at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. "...The fake cake sculptures, with their display of beauty and potential for satisfaction, lure the viewer into a sense of anticipation. They also contain elements, not immediately seen, that create a sense of anxiety and fear. This in turn creates a visual and emotional resonance that is intended to represent what we all have to deal with in our lives everyday... the hunt for satisfaction, and the anxiety that we won't get it." More... Works by Scott Hove at his personal site.

Orly Cogan: Child’s Play

Orly Cogan: Child’s Play at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. "...Carl Hammer Gallery welcomes Orly Cogan back for her second solo appearance here in Chicago. Cogan, who has always been interested in working with and combining multiple mediums, is best known for her unique crafting of hand stitched embroidered figures on top of previously embroidered vintage fabrics. Originally made by women of previous eras, these pieces serve as the foundation for the fantastic and exotic dialogue evolving from her combining the old and the new. Indirectly, she becomes collaborator with the earlier artists by modernizing these traditional works and altering their original purpose." More... Works by Orly Cogan at her personal site.

I Must Be The Devil

The Box Tops... I Must Be The Devil (1969, Mala 12038 .mp3 audio 03:35). From Probe is Turning-on the People!

Military Camp

Military Camp - photographs and text by Árpád Kurucz. "...On November 3rd 2004, conscription and the conscripted army ceased to exist in Hungary, ending a 135-year old tradition. Conscription is no longer part of Hungarian military obligations, and nostalgia for the army is intense. This nostalgic way of thinking is felt so much that military camps are organized for children." More... Works by Árpád Kurucz.

Hideo Takiura — From Tokyo Bodies

Hideo Takiura — From Tokyo Bodies at Japan Exposures. "...Hideo Takiura was born in 1963 in Tokyo, and graduated from Tokyo Agricultural University in 1986. After working as a landscape designer for a few years, he began pursuing a career in photography. His photo book Tokyo Bodies, from which the above photo is taken, collects work shot by Takiura on the streets of Tokyo from 2000-2007 with his trusty 6×6cm medium format camera."

Käthe Kollwitz: A Portrait of the Artist - Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne

Käthe Kollwitz... Self-Portrait (1924, Woodcut on thin laid Japan paper, Signed, lower right). From the exhibition Käthe Kollwitz: A Portrait of the Artist - Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Cologne at Galerie St. Etienne in New York, NY. "...Of all the artists exhibited at the Galerie St. Etienne over the course of its seventy-year history, Käthe Kollwitz has been most closely associated with the gallery’s co-director, Hildegard Bachert. Simultaneously celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne and Hildegard Bachert’s seventieth year at the Galerie St. Etienne, the present exhibition focuses on the autobiographical core of Kollwitz’s achievement, as revealed in her self-portraits and related works. Although Kollwitz has long been revered as a champion of the oppressed, her commitment to social justice did not require an effacement of her personal identity. On the contrary, the artist’s probing of the human condition began and ended with her own experiences."