Bibbe and friend

Love him or hate him, Beck Hansen’s family tree is jaw-droppingly cool. Not only was his maternal grandfather Fluxus artist Al Hansen, his grandmother was actress and poet Audrey Ostlin Hansen, and his mother Bibbe Hansen was, among her many incarnations, one of Warhol’s youngest Factory “Superstars” as well as an artist, actress, and musician in her own right.

Not long before she appeared in Warhol’s 1965 films Prison and Restaurant at the age of thirteen, Bibbe was in a short-lived girl pop group with Jack Kerouac’s only child, Jan Kerouac, called The Whippets.

Bibbe and Jan were twelve years-old in 1964 when they formed The Whippets in New York City with their friend Charlotte Rosenthal, using Whippet as their collective surname. The group formed when they met songwriter Neil Levinson one day while trying to panhandle for bus fare. The Whippets made one recording for Laurie Records, the Beatle-themed novelty single “I Want To Talk To You,” written by Levinson with the B-side “Go Go Go With Ringo,” written by Beatles zealot DJ Murray the K’s mother, Jean Kauffman. The song sold well enough in Canada to reach the pop charts. Any prospects of an ongoing music career were cut short soon after the recording session when Bibbe found herself in a state juvenile detention center.

Bibbe told Scram magazine the story of the group’s formation and brief life in 2005:

Charlotte Rosenthal, Janet Kerouac and I were all downtown street kids in 1964 New York City. While panhandling, we three met songwriter Neil Levinson (“Oh, Denise”) and hustled busfare from him. On the bus ride we fell to chatting. The Beatles had just come out big in the US and Neil had written a girl-song response to “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Would we be interested in hearing it? We met him later that day at Steinway Studios on 57th Street and together finished the lyrics and music for “I Want To Talk With You.” It was a classic girl group riff and we dug it. That same day we went to a half dozen record companies auditioning the song without any takers. As a last resort, Neil called Colpix label’s Don Rubin from a payphone. When Don said he would see us we ran all the way over to the audition. We sang the song and within the next couple days we were signed to Colpix and to DuLev Productions. DuLev was Levinson’s company with his partner, Steve Duboff. For the B-side Neil brought in pal Jean Murray (Jean Kauffman) who had co-written the Darin hit “Splish Splash” with Darin and her son, DJ Murray the K. Oh, that she only wrote us another “Splish Splash!” Instead it was the rather silly and insipid “Go Go Go With Ringo.” We loved the A-side but weren’t too wild about the Ringo song. Over the next few weeks we rehearsed daily, shopped for matching outfits and had 8x10 glossy promo pictures taken. At one point we were introduced to the group The Tokens who apparently were now 1/3 owners of our act along with Dulev (1/3) and Jean Murray (1/3). Our percentage was apparently not accounted for under this bookkeeping arrangement. Similarly, I have no idea how Don Rubin and Colpix were supposed to get their cut.

Within a few weeks we were recording. The record was pressed—at least dj copies. We got a box of these records to split between us. I believe it was released however briefly but nothing much happened with it. I heard our masters were sold to Laurie Records at one point. Later I heard we’d charted somewhere in Canada. Shortly before she died, Janet Kerouac told me her Rhino Records lawyers were looking into that and had found that we were owed a little bit of money. Apparently not enough to bother collecting from what I can tell.

The Whippets, “I Want To Talk To You,” 1964:

 
Patti Smith has a passion for the Bloomsbury Group, the influential set of upper-middle class writers, artists, philosophers and intellectuals, who came to prominence in England during the early twentieth century and lasted, in various forms, until the 1960s.

The Bloomsbury Group took its name from the district in London where its main associates lived and worked. These included the writers Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey; the artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, and Dora Carrington; economist John Maynard Keynes; and diarist Frances Partridge.

When not in London, the Bloomsbury Group gathered at their rural retreat Charleston Farmhouse, in Lewes, Sussex—the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. In recent years, one of Charleston’s regular visitors has been Patti Smith, who describes the farmhouse as “like home.”

In 2006, Smith was interviewed by the BBC’s Culture Show at Charleston Farmhouse, where she was photographing the “tea cups and saucers,” the bed where Vanessa Bell died, and the personal accoutrements of the artistic life.
 

 
Mummenschanz are one of those artistic movements that frustrate me with their peerlessness; they’re both difficult to describe and woefully under-appreciated outside of artsy circles and/or their native Switzerland. Founded in 1972, The Mummenschanz Mask Theater was the baby of Bernie Schürch, Andres Bossard, and Italian American Floriana Frassetto. Each member had some of level classical training, and together they possessed a collective resume including writing, acrobatics, dance, acting, and mime. Immediately delving into high-concept performances with ingenious abstract props, the group chose “Mummenschanz,” a German word for pantomime as their moniker.
 

 
By 1973, Mummenschanz were touring the USA, Canada, and South America. In 1976, they performed on The Muppet Show (you can see one of their segments above), and from 1977 to 1980, performed a three year run on Broadway that clocked in at 1,326 performances. Though the line-up has changed, (Andres Bossard passed in 1992 due to complications from AIDS, and Bernie Schürch gave his last performance in 2012), Mummenschanz has never stopped performing or writing new material. Now they give workshops, open to amateurs, pros, hobbyists, and even children. Describing these workshops, their website enthusiastically declares, “There is movement, there is dance, there is laughter – loads of. There may sometimes be sounds of crying, but they are tears of joy.”

And that is what’s great about Mummenschanz: there is absolutely no trace of pretension in their work or artistic philosophy. They’re just weird, brilliant people doing strange and wonderful things, and they want everyone to enjoy it with them. Below is a 1974 feature on Swiss TV. The beginning shows some of their more elaborate props, and at the end you can see the same clay mask routine from The Muppet Show, but with an entirely different audience reception and tone; it’s like watching a completely separate performance.  I dare you not to be impressed.
 

 
The other day I came across this intriguing picture of Nike boxes mashed up with Warholian Brillo boxes with no accompanying explanation. They were so well executed that it seemed like they might be legit, a new trendy way that Nike has decided to ship their precious shoes, but then I realized that the size of the box is all wrong and so it must be a fake of some kind. The truth lies somewhere in between.
 

 
In Portland there are occasional Nike-themed art exhibitions, almost certainly with approval and funding by the indomitable Oregon sports apparel company itself. The shows are done under the banner “Nike Graphic Studio,” and you can see some of the artworks—all of them Nike-related, but some more obliquely than others—on this Tumblr.

This work is called “Keep It Clean,” and it was (rather excellently) executed by Oregon-based artist Lonny Hurley, who in addition to various art projects also has done gig posters for the Melvins, Built to Spill, Bob Dylan, Mudhoney, and the Electric Six. The September 2011 exhibition in which it appeared was called Nike Graphic Studio 1.0 (there has since been a 2.0 and a 3.0), and it was held at the Compound Gallery in Portland.
 
Here’s a Warhol Brillo box for comparison (Warhol did these in several different ways, but this one is the one Hurley was seeking to imitate):

 
If you’re so inclined, you can buy one of these boxes from Compound Gallery for $75.

Here’s a brief video about the Nike Graphic Studio 2.0 show. “Keep It Clean” doesn’t appear in it, but other works from Nike Graphic Studio 1.0 do appear in it, so I don’t know what’s up with that.

 
via WXN&MLKN

Keith Haring at the Tokyo Pop Shop
 
Keith Haring had the great good fortune to become one of the most iconic and recognizable of the downtown artists of the 1980s—and while it was fairly obvious that he was gay and that his sexuality played some role in his work, a lot of people may be unaware that, on certain occasions, he expressed that side of himself far more fully in his art. Not all of it was fit for T-shirts or refrigerator magnets, in other words.

In 1989 Haring took over the second-floor bathroom of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Center on 13th Street in Greenwich Village—the exact address is 208 West 13th Street—and turned every blank surface he could find into an astonishing tableau of his familiar figures throbbing with every kind of imaginable urge. The title of the mural is “Once Upon a Time.” In effect, it’s a pre-AIDS bacchanal, and the images are at once reminiscent of a smutty Hieronymus Bosch and (this might just be me) the stately public friezes that Gustav Klimt instigated in fin-de-siècle Vienna, which at the time were considered shocking (they don’t seem shocking today). There’s a lil’ Picasso in there, too.

A year and a half ago, the restoration on the site was completed—the space has been converted from a bathroom to a meeting room. According to the LGBT Community Center’s website, the mural is currently “under wraps” because of construction, but ordinarily it’s available to be viewed by the public (however, I’m not certain of the viewing times; it’s not a museum, so it’s probably best to call in advance).

These pictures are pretty NSFW—I think they’re very nice but your cubicle co-worker might not share the opinion.
 

 
More after the jump…

 
My French isn’t quite good enough to figure out what’s going on in Kris Kool, an ultra-psychedelic journey to Venus, Mars, and Saturn, which turn out to feature puzzling geometrical landscapes with a pansexual phantasmagoria of nubile kaleidoscopic enchantresses in the full complement of Peter Max-ian primary colors. You’d never guess it was from 1970, now would you?

Philippe Caza is a respected French illustrator, and this was his very first graphic novel. You can download the whole thing for just €7.00 (about $10)—and it comes with “quelques bonus”—“some bonuses,” including “early research, original black and white” and a few other things. Caza explains that the original print run got bogged down in some legal difficulties. It would be great to see this thing get published properly. I suppose it would help to understand French but it seems almost beside the point….
 

 

 

 

 

 
via 50 Watts

 
In 1959—three years before his breakout solo exhibition at Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery in New York—Andy Warhol teamed up with a well-known socialite named Suzie Frankfurt to produce a slim satirical cookbook mocking the trendy French cuisine recipe books that were all the rage at the time. It was called Wild Raspberries, named in jest after the Ingmar Bergman movie, Wild Strawberries, that landed on U.S. shores the same year. Frankfurt took care of the text, Warhol did the illustrations, and none other than Julia Warhola—Warhol’s mother—did the lettering. Warhol hired several young men to help with the illustration—some have argued that this cookbook was the genesis of Warhol’s later assembly line method of art production. 
 

Andy Warhol and Suzie Frankfurt, Wild Raspberries
 
Frankfurt appears to have been a pretty interesting woman. She was an interior designer and worked at Young + Rubicam in the 1950s, the same time that Warhol was working as a commercial artist. As her New York Times obituary put it in 2005, “A bohemian hostess, the flame-haired Ms. Frankfurt was known as a creative catalyst as well as a celebrity decorator. The designer Gianni Versace, for example, credited her with introducing him to America when he was largely unknown, not to mention also introducing him to Studio 54.”
 

 

 
More recipes after the jump…..

 
I adore these images of cassette tape spines lovingly labeled and decorated from the caveman days.

I don’t miss cassette tapes at all, but the bespoke folk art aspect of these is kind of funky fresh, you have to admit…
 

 

 
More mixtapes after the jump…
 

 
A massive lot of Hollywood memorabilia is going up for auction next week at Bonham’s, including, among many, many wonders, Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen‘s prison uniforms from Papillon, a revised final draft of the Citizen Kane screenplay, and an astonishing and lovely nude painting of Clara Bow (once owned by Bela Lugosi).

The big draw seems to be the actual Maltese Falcon, the eponymous prop from the classic Bogart film, probably the single most famous Macguffin in the history of cinema, and I would argue that in the entire history of narrative fiction, this item ranks with the Golden Fleece.
 

 

The auction will star the legendary lead statuette of the Maltese Falcon, from the classic 1941 film noir of the same name. A pivotal character in its own right, the statuette is arguably the most important movie prop ever, and is central to the history of cinema. The statuette has the archival Warner Bros. inventory number and an impressive exhibition history, including appearances at the Pompidou Center in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Warner Bros. Studio Museum in Los Angeles. Bonhams will present Sam Spade’s burgundy leather chair from the same remarkable film, among other Maltese Falcon highlights (est. $150,000-200,000).

The auction is curated by TCM, and bidding begins on Monday. Good luck.
 

 
My childhood Saturdays were spent at the cinema enchanted by the fluttering beauty of the images on the screen. It wasn’t just the story, or the acting, but the sets, the costumes, the props, the number of scales scored on the back of a Harryhausen dinosaur, the special effects that made Dracula vanish into dust, the superimposition, the incredible backdrops and painted mattes.

One Christmas, I received Denis Gifford’s classic book A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, which I read and studied more assiduously than my schoolbooks, and learnt almost by heart. Indeed, there was once a time when I could recount with ease all of the casts and crews of Universal and Hammer horror films—what strange portfolios we invest in our childhood knowledge. One of the names I noted was Bob Cuff, a matte painter, and model maker, whose name appeared on several of my then-favorite films: The Day of the Triffids, The First Men on the Moon, The Masque of Red Death, and One Million Years BC.

As you no doubt know, a matte painter creates painted representations of a landscape, set, or distant location, which allows the filmmaker to create wonderful illusions of real or fantasy environments that are usually far too expensive to build. It’s a technique that’s been used since Norman Dawn painted crumbling mansions on glass for Missions of California in 1907, and has been used extensively in cinema ever since.

Today, it’s all cold clunky digital, which for me lacks the beauty and craft of the matte paintings by artists like Bob Cuff. I was, therefore, delighted to discover a site dedicated to Cuff’s long career in film with examples of his work from Dr.Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, The Princess Bride, right up to his last film before retirement,Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking.

Cuff’s work is beautiful, painterly and seamlessly adds an incredible richness to all of the films he worked on. Alas, Cuff died in 2010, but at least his wonderful artwork lives on.

Check here to view a gallery of Bob Cuff’s work.
 

‘Richard III’ (1955) Director: Laurence Olivier, Matte painting: Bob Cuff.
 

‘Alexander the Great’ (1956) Director: Robert Rossen, Matte painting: Bob Cuff.
 

‘I’m Alright Jack’ (1959) Director: Roy Boulting, Matte painting: Bob Cuff.
 

‘First Men on the Moon’ (1964) Director: Nathan Juran, Matte painting: Les Bowie Co. with Ray Caple and Bob Cuff.
 

‘Monty Python’s The Life of Brian’ (1979) Director: Terry Jones, Matte painting: Bob Cuff.