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‘Little Lamb of the GOP’ painting
12.22.2010
05:43 pm
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Little Lamb of the GOP: oil on panel 36” x 24”
 
“Little Lamb of the GOP” from Michael Caines’ Perfect Happiness series.

Michael’s work is currently showing at:

Mulherin Pollard Projects
317 10th Ave (between 28th & 29th)
New York, NY 10001

(via BB Submitterator)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.22.2010
05:43 pm
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Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre: The Ruins of Detroit
12.21.2010
03:47 pm
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French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have documented the decline and decay of Detroit through its buildings and structures that were once source of civic pride (schools, churches, hotels, stations), but now “stand as monuments to the city’s fall from grace.”

Over the past decades, Detroit has suffered a post-industrial decline far worse than any other American city. The once booming city has seen its population fall from 2.5 million in the 1940s, to just over 1 million today, with 1 in 3 people unemployed.

Marchand and Meffre have published a book of their stunning and quite beautiful photographs. Each plate reveals a hidden history of Detroit, detailing an evolutionary process, where:

Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.

The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time : being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of things.

Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.

More images from this collection can be viewed here.
 
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More Ruins of Detroit by Marchand & Meffre, after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.21.2010
03:47 pm
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O, You Pretty Thing: The Wonderful World of Andrew Logan
12.20.2010
09:44 pm
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I once met the artist, sculptor and jewelry-maker, Andrew Logan at a Divine concert in Edinburgh, circa 1984. He was charming and delightful and showed me a selection of his jewelry designs, including a ring with a tiny book attached. He told me there was nothing written in it yet, and full of youthful enthusiasm, I offered to write him something. I did, but never sent it. A pity, for opportunity only ever comes once.

Andrew’s work mixes Pop Art with Neo-Romanticism, and a pinch of English eccentricity. He is the only living artist with a museum in Europe, of which music maestro Brian Eno said:

‘Andrew’s work doesn’t offer that much to the would-be catalogue mystifier: if you start saying anything too pretentious about it, it sort of laughs in your face. It’s hard to place, because it doesn’t really quite belong anywhere, guilelessly straddling a number of heavily contested boundaries - such as those between art and craft, between art and decoration, between pop and fine, between the profane and sacred. But I don’t think this straddling is some sort of ideological position that Andrew has contrived - it’s just where he happens to find himself when he makes the work he wants to see.’

While the art critic and writer John Russell Taylor said:

‘Logan has achieved something beyond the reach of any other 20th Century British Sculptor, even Henry Moore: he has managed to open his own museum, dedicated entirely to his own work and carried it off with showbiz flair.’

Born in Oxfordshire in 1945, Andrew studied to become an architect at the Oxford School of Architecture, graduating in 1970, he then gave that all up to start a career as an artist, believing:

“Art can be discovered anywhere.”

He mixed with Duggie Fields, and Derek Jarman, and became an influence on Jarman’s early Super 8 films, which documented the social scene around Logan and Jarman’s studios at Butler’s Wharf.

In 1972, he started the now legendary the Alternative Miss World, a creative, free-reign competition, which was more about transformation than beauty. The event was filmed and made Logan rather famous.

But his work as an artist continued, and he was acclaimed for his beautiful and fun jewelry, used by such fashion designers as Zandra Rhodes; while his fabulous sculptures celebrated classic form with whimsy. 

Logan has generally found himself near the front of cultural developments. In 1976 his studios were the setting for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s Valentine Ball, at which the Sex Pistols made their debut.

Since then, Logan has exhibited his sculptures and designs across the world - from London to St Petersburg, California to Baltimore.  His lifesize horse sculptures, Pegasus I and Pegasus II were displayed at Heathrow Airport, and his Icarus sculpture hangs in Guy’s Hospital. His jewelry was presented by Emmanuel Ungaro in Paris, and more recently it inspired designs for Commes Des Garcons.

This short documentary from Channel 4’s 1980s series Alter Image gives a delightful introduction to the wonderful world of Andrew Logan. Enjoy.
 

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.20.2010
09:44 pm
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Digital Tattoo: next-level audio/visual art from Berlin
12.18.2010
02:06 pm
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Berlin has always been a bastion of innovative cultural work, and one excellent example of this is the Digital Tattoo Productions outfit.

Comprised of the husband/wife team of video artist and animator Edna Orozco and sound artist Dean “Tricky D” Bagar, Digital Tattoo have executed video-mapping-and-sound projects on historical sites in both their home countries of Colombia and Croatia.

They also recently worked on the body-centered dance theatre piece Quia, performed in Bogota and excerpted below. Check it out and keep an eye and ear out for these folks…
 

Digital Tattoo- QUIA from digital tattoo on Vimeo.

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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12.18.2010
02:06 pm
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One of the best galleries of classic rock artwork that you’ll ever see
12.17.2010
04:53 pm
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Joe Albanese has put together an outstanding collection of classic rock picture sleeves on his Facebook page. This might be the best gallery of images like this I’ve ever seen. Truly outstanding stuff on display. These are but the tip of the iceberg.
 
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Thank you, Douglas DeFalco!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.17.2010
04:53 pm
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Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart RIP
12.17.2010
04:47 pm
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Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart has apparently died at the age of 69 after many years of rumored ill-health. I’m in shock at the moment. He was one of my greatest musical heroes and one of the most powerful and distinctive vocalist/lyricist/composers of the last century.  Play Orange Claw Hammer (below), an a capella powerhouse from Trout Mask Replica as loud as you can and know that there was a real depth of feeling in the man’s work that went beyond weirdo freakishness. Bon voyage, good captain. We’ve lost a true original.
 
via Rolling Stone :

Don Van Vliet, who became a rock legend as Captain Beefheart, died today from complications from multiple sclerosis in California. His passing was announced by the New York-based Michael Werner Gallery, which represented his work as a painter. His Trout Mask Replica was Number 58 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. “Don Van Vliet was a complex and influential figure in the visual and performing arts,” the gallery said in a statement. “He is perhaps best known as the incomparable Captain Beefheart who, together with his Magic Band, rose to prominence in the 1960s with a totally unique style of blues-inspired, experimental rock & roll. This would ultimately secure Van Vliet’s place in music history as one of the most original recording artists of his time. After two decades in the spotlight as an avant-garde composer and performer, Van Vliet retired from performing to devote himself wholeheartedly to painting and drawing. Like his music, Van Vliet’s lush paintings are the product of a truly rare and unique vision.” Van Vliet leaves behind a wife, Jan. The two were married for more than 40 years.

 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Leaving your holes open with Captain Beefheart: 1969 interview LP

Posted by Brad Laner
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12.17.2010
04:47 pm
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Phill Niblock’s 1968 filmed portrait of Sun Ra: The Magic Sun
12.17.2010
11:46 am
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Phill Niblock, himself a notable composer in his own right, made this lovely, minimalist filmed portrait of Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra in 1968. Shooting them on a rooftop in high contrast black and white and focusing in on fingers and mouths, this is as good an excuse as any to take 17 minutes out of your day to enter the waking dream world of Le Sony’r Ra.
 


 
Niblock’s portrait of Max Neuhaus after the jump…

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Posted by Brad Laner
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12.17.2010
11:46 am
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A Complete Disorientation of the Senses: William Burroughs’ and Antony Balch’s ‘Cut Ups’
12.16.2010
06:43 pm
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It caused nausea and vomiting when first shown at the Cinephone, Oxford Street, in London. Some of the audience demanded their money back, others hurled abuse and shouted “That’s sick,” and ““Its disgusting.” This was the idea, as writer William Burroughs and producer, Antony Balch wanted to achieve a complete “disorientation of the senses.”

Balch had a hard-on for the weird, unusual and sometimes depraved. It was a predilection born from his love of horror films - one compounded when as a child he met his idol, Bela Lugosi, the olde Austro-Hungarian junkie, who was touring Britain with the stage show that had made him famous, Dracula. Film was a love affair that lasted all of Balch’s life.

He also had a knack of making friends with the right people at the right time. In Paris he met and hung out with the artist Brion Gysin and druggie, Glaswegian Beat writer, Alexander Trocchi, who was then writing porn and editing a literary mag called Merlin, along with the likes of Christopher Logue. Through them, Balch met the two men who changed his life, Burroughs and Kenneth Anger.

Anger helped Balch with his ambitions as a cinema distributor, getting him a copy of Todd Browning’s classic Freaks, which was banned the UK, at that time. Balch paid Anger back when he later released his apocalyptic Invocation of My Demon Brother as a support feature.

Burroughs offered Balch something different - the opportunity to collaborate and make their own films.  This they did, first with Towers Open Fire, an accessible montage of Burroughs’ routines, recorded on a Grundig tape recorder, cut-up to Balch’s filmed and found images of a “crumbling society.” Put together stuff like this and the chattering classes will always take you seriously. But don’t doubt it, for it was good.

But it was their second collaboration, Cut Ups which for me is far more interesting and proved far more controversial. Cut Ups was originally intended as a documentary called Guerilla Conditions, and was filmed between 1961 and 1965 in Tangiers and Paris. It included some footage from Balch’s aborted attempt to film the unfilmable Naked Lunch. The finished material was collated and then conventionally edited - but the process didn’t stop there, no. For Balch divided the finshed film into four sections of equal length, and then...
 

 
Bonus clip of ‘Bill and Tony’ after the jump…
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

William S. Burroughs’ The Junky’s Christmas


 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.16.2010
06:43 pm
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The Beautiful & The Damned: Photos of LA punk rock 1978-84
12.16.2010
01:42 pm
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If you are looking for a great Christmas present for one of your rock snob friends, you could certainly do worse than picking them up a copy of Ann Summa’s new book of classic Los Angeles punk photos, The Beautiful & The Damned. I look at a look of books like this and turn my nose up at them, usually for the fact that most punk-era photographs have become way overfamiliar, but this is certainly not the case with Summa’s work, as much of the work here is previously unpublished.

Taken from 1978 to 1984, the images are mostly of L.A.‘s original punk bands such as The Germs, The Screamers, X, the Cramps and the Gun Club, and some of the more avant garde “art stars” of that scene like the Kipper Kids and Johanna Went. Visiting groups from the UK are represented, too in Summa’s book and include The Clash, PiL. Magazine, The Fall, The Slits, Bow Wow Wow and the Pretenders. New Yorkers like Lydia Lunch, Television, James Chance, Laurie Anderson and Talking Heads are also included as well as a few “elder statesmen” who influenced the Los Angeles punk scene: Captain Beefheart, David Bowie and Iggy. What amazing work on display here.

The Beautiful & The Damned was edited and has an introduction by Kristine McKenna, a mark of quality and distinction itself in this household. You can’t go wrong with this one for certain “types” on your holiday shopping list, that’s for sure.

Buy The Beautiful & The Damned at Amazon.

A gallery of Ann Summa’s work on Boing Boing

The Beautiful & the Damned website

Ann Summa website

Below, one of the greatest (and sadly unrecorded) bands of the original Los Angeles punk scene, The Screamers, performing “Vertigo,” live at Target Video.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.16.2010
01:42 pm
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‘Film’: Buster Keaton and Samuel Beckett’s avant-garde masterpiece
12.15.2010
06:26 pm
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Film, based on a script by Samuel Beckett, was made in 1965 and stars Buster Keaton. While Alan Schneider gets director’s credit, Beckett made his only trip to America (NYC) to supervise the making of the film and is generally considered to be the film’s actual director or, at the very least, a very present influence on its creation.

Beckett admired Keaton and chose him to play the character of “0.” Keaton, who was old and struggling with alcoholism, agreed to appear in the film despite not caring much for the script. Keaton wasn’t discriminating when it came to money gigs. The fact that Beckett had flown to Los Angeles to woo him was certainly a factor in Buster’s decision to do the movie.  Little did he know at the time, or ultimately care, that he was starring in what is considered by many to be a small masterpiece.

Beckett describes the theme of Film thusly:

Film is about a man trying to escape from perception of all kinds - from all perceivers - even divine perceivers. There is a picture which he pulls down. But he can’t escape from self-perception. It is an idea from Bishop Berkeley, the Irish philosopher and idealist, “To be is to be perceived” - “Esse est percipi.” The man who desires to cease to be must cease to be perceived. If being is being perceived, to cease being is to cease to be perceived.’

According to film scholars Katherine Waugh & Fergus Daly:

Beckett sets his film in the year 1929, the year Un Chien Andalou was made (and of course the first year of the sound film). In addition the film opens and closes with close-ups of a sightless eye which would seem to refer to the notorious opening sequence of Un Chien Andalou in which a human eye is sliced open with a razor blade. In fact ‘Eye’ was Beckett’s original title for Film.

For a detailed and entertaining reflection on the making of Film read this piece by Alan Schneider.

Film is silent. Beckett intended that the script be read live during screenings. Here it is in its entirety.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.15.2010
06:26 pm
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