Friday, May 25, 2012

Dalí in New York

Dalí in New York (1965, directed by Jack Bond) at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Filmmaker Jack Bond and Salvador Dali got together at Christmas 1965 to make Dali in New York, a highly entertaining film. Dali devoted two weeks of his life to creating extraordinary scenes for the film, performing 'manifestations' with a plaster cast, a thousand ants, and one million dollars in cash. When he confronts the feminist writer, Jane Arden, sparks fly. 'You are my Slave! I am not your slave. Everybody is my slave.'"

Dupree Shake Dance

Champion Jack Dupree... Dupree Shake Dance (1941, Columbia 37335 .mp3 audio 02:41).

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Photographs by Roger Mayne

Photographs by Roger Mayne at Gitterman Gallery in New York. "...n 1954 Mayne moved to become a photographer, but it was not until 1956 that he discovered Southam Street. It was a street in a working class neighborhood of West London that would be demolished to make room for high-rise apartments. During the five years Mayne photographed there, it was full of energy: teddy boys, jiving girls, and kids playing in the street. Mayne also photographed other streets of West London and similar working class neighborhoods in Britain. For Mayne even the empty streets and dilapidated buildings had 'a kind of decaying splendor.' Though modernization ended community life in the streets, Mayne’s work preserves the spirit of that time. By 1959 Mayne’s images were so indicative of this period that Vogue used them to illustrate teenage styles. Colin MacInnes used one of his images on the cover of Absolute Beginners, a novel told in the first person by a teenage freelance photographer living in West London that commented on the youth culture of the time."

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Minnesota Mugshots

Minnesota Mugshots at These Americans. "...Lieselotta Muenchuber and various other characters were subjected to the process."

Pétra Werlé: Aime-moi mon amour!

Pétra Werlé: Aime-moi mon amour! - Sculptures en pain cuit et mie de pain at Galerie Béatrice Soulié in Paris. (fr)

Pimp My Mary

Pimp My Mary at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery. "...Il progetto Pimp my Mary nasce dall'esigenza di comunicare un forte dissidio e distacco dalla commercializzazione dell'icona quanto tale. La spiritualità, per definizione distaccamento da tutto ciò che è materiale e terreno, ai giorni nostri, è diventata consumismo: le madonne che, come soldati, si ergono in fila negli scaffali dei rivenditori ricordando le lattine nei distributori automatici che vengono servite, consumate e magari collezionate."

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Stewart Home - Short Films of the Eighties & Nineties

Stewart Home - Short Films of the Eighties & Nineties at UbuWeb Film & Video. "...Ten rarely seen films by the British artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist, which combine pulp novel sensibilities with pornography, political agit-prop, and historical references to punk rock and avant-garde art. These vintage shaky Super-8 and VHS works include promotions for Home's books, advertisements shown at independent cinemas, Situationist film remakes and much more."

Dorothea Lange – A Photographers Journey

Dorothea Lange – A Photographers Journey at Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Tetsuo - The Iron Man (ending)

Let's all watch the final few minutes of Tetsuo - The Iron Man (1989, directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, Flash Video 02:57) the full trailer of which is permanently on the top page of gmtPlus9(-15).

Les Amies de Place Blanche

Lens Culture... Les Amies de Place Blanche - photographs by Christer Strömholm. "...Originally published in 1983, Les Amies de Place Blanche focuses on the transsexual community living around the Place Blanche district of Paris in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The book established Christer Strömholm’s reputation as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century. The exquisite new version of the book includes the original essays by Strömholm and publisher Johan Ehrenberg as well as newly commissioned texts by Jacky and Nana, two of the women who feature in many photographs in the book. The introduction is by Hélène Hazera, a leading French journalist, actress, director, and television producer who is also a transsexual." More... Works by Christer Strömholm at his personal site.

Naked Before The Camera

Naked Before The Camera at the Met in New York, NY. "...Since the beginning of art and in every medium, depicting the human body has been among the artist's greatest challenges and supreme achievements, as can so easily be seen by Museum visitors walking through the galleries of Greek and Roman statuary, African and Oceanic art, Old Master paintings, or Indian sculpture. Tapping veins of mythology, carnal desire, hero worship, and aesthetic pleasure, depictions of the nude have also triggered impassioned discussions of sin and sexuality, cultural identity, and canons of beauty. Controversies are often aroused even more intensely when the artist's chosen medium is photography, with its accuracy and specificity—when a real person stood naked before the camera—rather than traditional media where more generalized and idealized forms prevail."

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Brancusi: The Photographs

Brancusi: The Photographs at Bruce Silverstein Gallery. "...Featuring over 40 original prints, each made by Brancusi himself, this exhibition reveals Brancusi’s visionary dedication to the photographic medium as means of personal expression—an art form that the artist explored parallel to his sculpture. The photographs are integral to understanding Brancusi as an artist as they indicate that he was not only fully aware of photography’s power to guide, control, and enhance the viewer’s experience of his three-dimensional works, but also to completely transform them into new works of art. By physically placing and positioning his sculptures in his studio, Brancusi creates complex compositions that often incorporate radical lighting; his photographs express a unique pictorial vision that moves decisively beyond mere documentation and firmly establishes Brancusi as one of the most remarkably innovative image-makers in the history of the medium."

The Cure | Shoulder Arms

Saw two Charlie Chaplin films with my daughter last night - The Cure (1917) and Shoulder Arms (1918) - both with live organ accompaniment.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Camboia Genocide – Memories from Tuol Sleng Prison

ASX... Camboia Genocide – Memories from Tuol Sleng Prison. "...Tuol Svay Pray High School sits on a dusty road on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the high school S-21 and turned it into a torture, interrogation and execution center. Of the 14,000 people known to have entered, only seven survived. Not only did the Khmer Rouge carefully transcribe the prisoners’ interrogations; they also carefully photographed the vast majority of the inmates and created an astonishing photographic archive. Each of the almost 6,000 S-21 portraits that have been recovered tells a story shock, resignation, confusion, defiance and horror. Although the most gruesome images to come out of Cambodia were those of the mass graves, the most haunting were the portraits taken by the Khmer Rouge at S-21."

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Rogue Taxidermy

Rogue Taxidermy at La Luz de Jesus Gallery. "...The Rogue Taxidermy 2012 Biennial, curated by Robert Marbury, features 25 of the most interesting artists working in taxidermy today. Rogue Taxidermy, a mixed-media art utilizing taxidermy materials, is more closely related to surrealism than to mainstream taxidermy. The work in this show spans genres and materials to expresses the individual artist's approach to and love of natural history and preservation."

Battle Royale

Trailer (Flash Video 01:39) for Battle Royale (2000, directed by Kinji Fukasaku).
Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and his Contemporaries at MAM. "...Posters of Paris examines the story of the French artistic poster in all its complexity. In addition to the posters themselves, this exhibition features rare preparatory drawings and watercolors, maquettes, and proofs to show how the artist went from idea to final execution. The show will highlight work and artists well known to the public—Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Mucha—as well as artists less familiar, but equally as powerful in their impact on the affiche artistique in fin-de-siècle Paris."

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

The Silver Buckle Press Collection

The Silver Buckle Press Collection at UWDC. "...Silver Buckle Press is a working museum of letterpress printing dedicated to preserving the craft of fine printing through educational programming, publications, exhibitions and tours. The Silver Buckle Press holdings of books, wood and metal type, hand presses, and printing equipment are part of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries. Books in the Silver Buckle Press Collection database represent printing history materials from our reference shelf. This core sample was chosen to make hard-to-find items available to students and researchers. The database consists primarily of type specimen books. Type specimens were issued by type and printing equipment manufacturers as sales catalogs. Another category of type specimen books in this collection were in-house specimens made by commercial printers to show prospective customers what types the business had available for job printing.

Tulip Book

Tulip Book at the IISH. "...122 images of tulips, painted by Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburch (1571-1638) and 16 images by Adriaen Jansz. van Witvelt (ca. 1581-1638)."

Charles Bukowski Audio Archive (1968-86)

Charles Bukowski Audio Archive (1968-86) at UbuWeb Sound. "...A slew of orphaned and bootlegged recordings, inlcuding at-home performances, readings, radio shows & interviews. Included here are At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968), 70 Minutes in Hell (1969), King of Poets (1970), Poems and Insults (1973), Hostage (1980), Do You Use a Notebook? (1986) and Bukowski Lives! (undated)."

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Soundhog - The Delian Mix : Radiophonics and Electrosoniks

Soundhog - The Delian Mix : Radiophonics and Electrosoniks. "...May 5th, 2012 would have been Delia Derbyshire's 75th birthday. In an attempt to celebrate this in some way, I've put together an hour's worth of music and speech. Obviously it features a fair amount of Delia's work, and her voice in conversation. However, I've also added in pieces and interviews from some of her colleagues at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, as well as a few pieces from non-RW composers who were (seemingly, at least) working towards similar goals during the 1950s and '60s." via... Metafilter.

Looks like Kyle

The 6-year-old boy in this video looks just like my son Kyle when he was the same age.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Picturing the Baraboo, Dells and Devil's Lake Region

Picturing the Baraboo, Dells and Devil's Lake Region at the WHS. "...Harry Ellsworth Cole (1861-1928) was a 'nature lover and history lover.' That's how historian Louise Phelps Kellogg remembered her colleague in her forward to Cole's book, 'Stagecoach and Tavern Tales of the Old Northwest.' The collection of Cole photographs at the Wisconsin Historical Society reflect those two loves. Although a native of Indiana and a journalist by trade (Cole was co-founder and editor of the Baraboo Daily News), he worked tirelessly to document and preserve Sauk County's and Wisconsin's natural beauty and history. Cole photographed scenic views of the Dells and Devil's Lake area as well as geological features throughout Sauk County. By including people in a number of the views, he provided a frame of reference for both physical scale and historical context."

She's Lost Control

Joyce D'Vision... She's Lost Control (Flash Audio 02:13). So wrong, and yet so right.

Daniel Johnston's Space Ducks

Daniel Johnston's Space Ducks - an infinite comic book of musical greatness.

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Works by Evelyn Hofer at Danziger Projects. "...Evelyn Hofer was born in Marburg, Germany in 1922 and died in 2009 in Mexico City. In the years in between, Hofer created a body of work that both looked back to the tradition of August Sander and anticipated the color work of William Eggleston, causing her to be called 'the most famous unknown photographer in America' by New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer – a devout supporter of her work."

Paul Caponigro - Veiled Yet Revealed: Masterworks from Fifty Years

Paul Caponigro - Veiled Yet Revealed: Masterworks from Fifty Years at Soulcatcher Gallery. "...Paul Caponigro (born 1932) is an artist who places technical perfection in the service of an intense, mystical sensibility. He has described his photographs as 'dreams locked in silver.' .They allow us, 'if only for brief moments, to sense the thread which holds all things together.' .Caponigro's first one-man exhibition took place at the George Eastman House in 1958; since that time he has photographed and exhibited throughout the world. .He has received multiple grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, and continues to delight the photographic community with his glorious photographic dreamscapes."

No New York: James Chance & The Contortions, live at Max's Kansas City, 1979

Dangerous Minds... No New York: James Chance & The Contortions, live at Max's Kansas City, 1979. "...James Chance, one of the most iconic players of NYC’s 'No Wave' scene, married the avant garde improvisational free jazz of Ornette Coleman to jagged, angular funk riffs that were straight out of James Brown, creating a squalling brand of chaotic jazz-punk-funk unlike anything that had been heard before."