Rock Critic Greil Marcus Picks 10 Unexpected Songs That Tell the Story of Rock ‘n’ Roll

"Rock critic and scholar Greil Marcus has just released a book with Yale Press called The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs, and it appears to be an unusual take on a very hackneyed subject, as Marcus admits in the video trailer above: 'Everybody knows the history of rock ‘n’ roll,' he says, 'What if it was just about a few songs?' 'Unlike all previous versions of rock ‘n’ roll,' writes Yale, 'this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points that everyone knows.' This is not entirely true—you’ve got your Beatles, you’ve got your Buddy Holly, but you’ve also got… Joy Division. And a number of other surprising, offbeat choices that don’t necessarily sound like rock ‘n’ roll history, but certainly tell it their various ways."
Open Culture (Video)
Yale Press (Video)
NPR: The Other Rock History - A Cultural Mixtape From Greil Marcus (Video)
Pitchfork
Slate: Secret Chords
WSJ

Walter Robinson with Phong Bui

Lube Landscape, 1985
"Of all the art journals and magazines I have read and collected, I have perhaps the most affection for Art-Rite, the newsprint magazine that was given away through galleries in SoHo back in the 1970s. Free-spirited but friendly, restless and unpredictable, Art-Rite tried to operate in close dialogue with the community that nurtured it. As was observed by the artist, writer, and editor Brian O’Doherty, who mentored the upstart magazine, 'Artforum had the inside track, it was the hot center, which Art in America was trying to nudge into. But Art-Rite was on the inside of the inside track of the young generation.' ...”
Brooklynr Rail
W - Walter Robinson
Art Net: The Life and Times of Walter Robinson
YouTube: Walter Robinson Figure Studies at LYNCH THAM

Constable's The Hay Wain

The Hay Wain, 1821
"Studying the English painter John Constable is helpful in understanding the changing meaning of nature during the industrial revolution. He is, in fact, largely responsible for reviving the importance of landscape painting in the 19th century. A key event, when it is remembered that landscape would become the primary subject of the Impressionists later in the century. Landscape had had a brief moment of glory amongst the Dutch masters of the 17th century. Ruisdael and others had devoted large canvases to the depiction of the low countries. But in the 18th century hierarchy of subject matter, landscape was nearly the lowest type of painting. ..."
smarthistory (Video)
W - The Hay Wain, 1821
Artble

Rain Dogs - Tom Waits (1985)

"With its jarring rhythms and unusual instrumentation -- marimba, accordion, various percussion -- as well as its frequently surreal lyrics, Rain Dogs is very much a follow-up to Swordfishtrombones, which is to say that it sounds for the most part like The Threepenny Opera being sung by Howlin' Wolf. The chief musical difference is the introduction of guitarist Marc Ribot, who adds his noisy leads to the general cacophony. But Rain Dogs is sprawling where its predecessor had been focused: Tom Waits' lyrics here sometimes are imaginative to the point of obscurity, seemingly chosen to fit the rhythms rather than for sense. ..."
allmusic
W - Rain Dogs
Guardian - My favourite album: Rain Dogs by Tom Waits
YouTube: Rain Dogs (Live), Make It Rain, Cemetery Polka, Jockey Full Of Bourbon, Tango 'Till They're Sore
YouTube: Rain Dogs 54:16

2012 July: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, 2013 March: Burma Shave, 2013 May: "Ol' '55", 2013 July: The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), 2014 January: Blood Money, 2014 March: Telephone call from Istanbul (1987).

Defaced/refaced books: The erasure practices of Jen Bervin and Mary Ruefle

Mary Ruefle
"... Hand-stamped, letter-pressed, spray-painted, ripped, sewn, and covered in tinfoil; poems shaped like boxes, poems printed on records, poems made into pop-ups or puzzles, or rolled as cigarettes — I even spotted a tiny book hidden inside a plastic egg. The small presses occupying real estate at the AWP book fair represent a fraction of the artistic output that marks what can be seen as a resurgence of the handmade book and the book as art object in contemporary poetry practice. The exciting variety of these book-object wares suggests a vital world of poetry, visual art, bookmaking, and communal production. In these composed book-works, techniques of production, including design, collaboration, and distribution, are part of the poem. The paper, binding, page sequence, gutter, and cover all contribute to our understanding and experience of the poetic text."
Jacket2
Granary Books: The Desert by Jen Bervin
Wave Books: A Little White Shadow By Mary Ruefle
W - Mary Ruefle
Mary Ruefle
Jen Bervin

Coltrane’s Free Jazz Wasn’t Just “A Lot of Noise”

"The discovery and release of a previously unknown recording by the saxophonist John Coltrane, who died at the age of forty in 1967, is cause for rejoicing—and I’m rejoicing in “Offering: Live at Temple University,” the release of a tape, made for the school’s radio station, of a concert that Coltrane and his band gave on November 11, 1966, a mere nine months before his death. ... Yet this 1966 performance of it is very different from that of 1960, and, indeed, even from Coltrane recordings from a year or two before the Temple concert. In the intervening years, Coltrane’s musical conception had shifted toward what can conveniently be called 'free jazz'.”
New Yorker
allmusic
Pitchfork
W - Offering: Live at Temple University
Resonance Records
amazon
YouTube: Offering Live at Temple University - Documentary, Chasing Trane - A Conversation with Yasuhiro Fujioka About John Coltrane
Juno: Offering: Live At Temple University

2011 November: John Coltrane Quartet, Live at Jazz Casual, 1963, 2012 March: John Coltrane 1960 - 1965, 2012 September: "Naima" (1959), 2012 October: Blue Train (1957), 2013 April: The World According to John Coltrane, 2013 November: A Love Supreme (1965), 2014 July: New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot.

Theory of Evolution: Bonobo interviewed

"... The truth is, Bonobo’s music luxuriates in detail and betrays a deep-rooted love of sound, texture and atmosphere, whether it be of unusual or mundane provenance doesn’t matter. Green’s organic rise, rural background and lush, emotive productions are, in their own quiet way, revolutionary in a mainstream musical landscape in thrall to instant gratification, buzz cycles and click-friendly spin. For it is unquestionably the mainstream which, in typical Bonobo-style, is both a part of and, somehow, apart from."
Electronic Beats (Video)
Electronic Beats: Bonobo (Video)
YouTube: Full Performance (Live on KEXP), Bonobo Boiler Room DJ Set, Bonobo 50 min Boiler Room DJ set, Black Sands, Days to Come, Silver, Recurring, Bonobo - Nicolas Jaar - Chet Faker 1:51 hour Set, Solid Steel (It Came From The Sea-Mixed By Bonobo)1:00:03, Sweetness [FULL ALBUM] 1:12:47

Downtown: My Manhattan - Pete Hamill

"Downtown wanders all over the map in Pete Hamill's very personal take on Manhattan. It starts off in the usual place, down there at the tip of the island, but it meanders as far north as the old Thalia movie theater, at Broadway and 95th Street. Why? Because that's where the author first saw the films of Kurosawa, Fellini and Bergman, which made the Thalia a spiritual twin of the Village art houses. 'Broadway in my mind is an immense tree,' Mr. Hamill explains, 'with its roots deep in the soil at the foot of Manhattan, which is why I insist so stubbornly to my friends that the uptown places I cherish on Broadway are actually part of downtown.'"
NY Times: Hanging Tough in a City That's Always Changing
amazon
WNYC: Pete Hamill (Video)

The United States of Thanksgiving

"We’ve scoured the nation for recipes that evoke each of the 50 states (and D.C. and Puerto Rico). These are our picks for the feast. Dig in, then tell us yours."
NY Times
Smithsonian - Thanksgiving in North America: From Local Harvests to National Holiday
History: Thanksgiving: Fact or Fiction (Video)

Hipgnosis Portraits

Pink Floyd - Animals
"Their innovative cover art defines the albums of the biggest names of the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s; AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, The Police, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney & Wings, Yes and The Who, to name just a few. Their iconic designs – including Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy and Peter Gabriel’s eponymous suite – grace a staggering number of major releases."
Thames & Hudson
HIPGNOSIS: A Brief History
Guardian: Hipgnosis' mind-bending album art – in pictures

Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan (1965)

"Taking the first, electric side of Bringing It All Back Home to its logical conclusion, Bob Dylan hired a full rock & roll band, featuring guitarist Michael Bloomfield, for Highway 61 Revisited. ... Dylan had not only changed his sound, but his persona, trading the folk troubadour for a streetwise, cynical hipster. Throughout the album, he embraces druggy, surreal imagery, which can either have a sense of menace or beauty, and the music reflects that, jumping between soothing melodies to hard, bluesy rock. And that is the most revolutionary thing about Highway 61 Revisited -- it proved that rock & roll needn't be collegiate and tame in order to be literate, poetic, and complex."
allmusic
W - Highway 61 Revisited
"Searching For A Gem", Audio: Mono LPs - Highway 61 Revisited
Princeton: Highway 61 Revisited
Sundazed (Video)
vimeo: Like a Rolling Stone (vinyl), The Ballad of a Thin Man, Queen Jane Approximately
YouTube: From A Buick 6 (Alternate), Ballad Of A Thin Man, Tombstone Blues, Desolation Row, It Takes A Lot To Laugh (Live)

Konstantin Korovin

The Cafe of Yalta
Wikipedia - "Konstantin Alekseyevich Korovin (November 23, 1861 – September 11, 1939) was a leading Russian Impressionist painter. ... In 1888, Korovin traveled with Mamontov to Italy and Spain, where he produced the painting On the Balcony, Spanish Women Leonora and Ampara. Konstantin traveled within Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia and exhibited with the Peredvizhniki. He painted in the Impressionist and later in the Art Nouveau style."
Wikipedia
Olga's Gallery
YouTube: Russian Impressionist painter

France Bohbot

"France Bohbot (B. 1980, France) is a French photographer living and working in New York City. He focuses his artistic research on public spaces and urban landscapes. Rooted in his fascination with cinematographic iconography, his thematics study the relationship between individual and architecture. He is well known for his color and composition. Each one of Bohbot’s series features these photographic intentions — through their enigmatic atmosphere, documentary-style approach, and timeless feel."
France Bohbot
designboom
Thisispaper Magazine
vimeo: Behind the Scene Brisa Roché Photoshoot by Franck Bohbot

Chrysler Building

Wikipedia - "The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco style skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. At 1,046 feet (319 m), the structure was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. It is still the tallest brick building in the world, albeit with an internal steel skeleton. ... Van Alen's original design for the skyscraper called for a decorative jewel-like glass crown. It also featured a base in which the showroom windows were tripled in height and topped by 12 stories with glass-wrapped corners, creating an impression that the tower appeared physically and visually light as if floating in mid-air."
Wikipedia
New York Architecture Images
Slate: 1,776 Feet. What a Letdown.
NY Times: A Lunch Club for the Higher-Ups
YouTube: The Chrysler Building: Style in the Sky

Kraftwerk - live at Cirkus, Stockholm 2014

"The project Kraftwerk was founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Kraftwerk was part of the late-1960s experimental art scene and have had a seminal influence since 1970, when they set up the legendary Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf. They are regarded as pioneers and have inspired a myriad of musicians in different genres."
YouTube: live at Cirkus, Stockholm 2014 2:05:16

2008 April: Kraftwerk, 2011 March: Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution, 2011 March: Kraftwerk - Documentary, 2011 April: Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany, 2011 May: Autobahn, 2011 October: Trans-Europe Express, 2012 February: Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 2012 October: Radio-Activity, 2014 May: "The Telephone Call" (1987).

DJ Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues

"... So goes part of the two-minute monologue that opens DJ Sprinkles' album-length paean to early-‘90s deep house, Midtown 120 Blues. Sprinkles, an alias of multi-media producer and computer musician Terre Thaemlitz, is probably not a name that's familiar to most house heads; and with good reason, Thaemlitz's own relationship to the genre can best be described as 'complicated.' A former DJ at midtown Manhattan transsexual clubs, Thaemlitz was a first-hand witness to the stark urban contexts from which deep house first emerged -- sexual and gender crises, social stratification, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse -- an experience that clashes with the official script, the defining narrative arc of house as a collective, shared, and universally galvanizing experience."
allmusic
New Yorker - Depth on the Dance Floor: The Music of DJ Sprinkles (Video)
Pitchfork
comatonse
YouTube: Dj Sprinkles - Midtown 120 Blues, Grand Central, Part I Deep Into the Bowel of House, Grand centrak Part I (MCDE Bassline Dub), Oh, Yoko - Seashore (Sprinkles' Ambient Ballroom), DJ Sprinkles - Klinsfrar Melode

What Is Schizo-Culture? A Classic Conversation with William S. Burroughs

"This Sunday, MoMA PS1 joined with publisher Semiotext(e) to present The Return of Schizo-Culture, an afternoon of screenings, music, performances, and readings from the storied 1975 Schizo-Culture conference, which featured an array of cultural, intellectual, and artistic radicals. The conference produced a series of writings that were later collected into a book designed by a group of artists including Kathryn Bigelow and Denise Green. Taken together, the book and the papers from the conference document the chaotic downtown arts and cultural scene of NYC in the 1970s and feature an amazing collection of interviews and essays from artists, writers, and musicians including Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, The Ramones, John Cage, Philip Glass, Jack Smith, and William S. Burroughs."
Flavorwire

2009 May: Cut-up technique - 1, 2010 March: Cut-up technique, 2010 December: The Evolution of the Cut-Up Technique in My Own Mag, 2012 August: The Nova Trilogy, 2014 February: William Burroughs at 100, 2014 September: The Ticket That Exploded.

The Untamed Landscape: Théodore Rousseau and the Path to Barbizon

Cottage in Arbonne, ca. 1860-1865,
"With Camille Corot and Jean-François Millet, Théodore Rousseau (1812–67) ranks as one of the preeminent masters of the Barbizon School, a group of nineteenth-century French artists whose preferred subject was the primeval wooded landscape of the forest of Fontainebleau. The Barbizon School painters were greatly influenced by the Romantic movement, producing works inspired by the powerful forces of nature. Surprisingly, despite his pivotal role in French art and his profound impact on the development of landscape painting, Rousseau has never before been the subject of a monographic exhibition in the United States."
Morgan Library & Museum
NY Times: Into the Woods, With Sketchpad
PleinAir Collector

Broken Arrow - Neil Young (1996)

"In many ways, Broken Arrow follows the same path as Neil Young's other '90s albums with Crazy Horse. Broken Arrow floats on waves of lumbering guitars and cascading feedback, ebbing and flowing with winding solos and drifting melodies. In a typical display of artistic perversion, Young has front-loaded the album with three epics with a combined running time of just over 25 minutes. ... The album floats from song to song, with the guitars drowning out the sound of Young's voice. There are some fine songs buried amid the long jams, but the album is directionless, and that lack of direction never manages to develop a consistent emotional tone."
allmusic
W - Broken Arrow
Uncut: A Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide sampler: "Broken Arrrow"
YouTube: Big Time (Live Phoenix Festival 1996), Loose Change, Slip Away, Change Your Mind, Scattered (Let's Think About Livin'), This Town, Music Arcade, Baby, What You Want Me to Do

2008 February: Neil Young, 2010 April: Neil Young - 1, 2010 April: Neil Young - 2, 2010 May: Neil Young - 3, 2010 October: Neil Young's Sound, 2012 January: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History, 2012 June: Like A Hurricane, 2012 July: Greendale, 2013 April: Thoughts On An Artist / Three Compilations, 2013 August: Heart of Gold, 2014 March: Dead Man (1995), 2014 August: Ragged Glory - Neil Young + Crazy Horse (1990).

Is this the most wonderful sign in Soho?

"Long before Soho became Soho, Fanelli’s was a no-frills bar that served up cheap food and drinks for the men who worked in the neighborhood’s factories, plus the occasional artist or stumblebum. And at least since the 1970s, that neon sign has been affixed to the red-brick building at the corner of Prince and Mercer Streets, a wonderful sight on a cold New York City night. Fanelli’s has a long and fascinating history. The building that houses the bar apparently has been around since 1857, when a grocery store was located on the ground floor, according to newyorkartworld.com."
Ephemeral New York

Rachel Whiteread

Drawing for Water Tower, IV.
"Rachel Whiteread is renowned for her evocative large-scale sculptures, but drawing has always remained one of her core activities. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore her works on paper, most of which have never been shown before in a public gallery. These collages and drawings provide a fascinating and intimate insight into the creative process behind Whiteread’s work. While her sculptures are often large-scale and involve a team of fabricators, these paper works provide a more personal, mobile counterpoint. Nevertheless, they also share many of the themes familiar from her public commissions: texture and surface; void and presence; and the subtle observation of human traces in everyday life."
Tate (Video)
Guardian
amazon: Rachel Whiteread
W - Rachel Whiteread
Hammer: Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower Sketchbook (Video)
YouTube: Interview Pt 1, Pt 2

Sergei Eisenstein

Wikipedia - "Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (... 23 January 1898 – 11 February 1948) was a Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958). ... Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the essence of the cinema. His articles and books — particularly Film Form and The Film Sense — explain the significance of montage in detail."
Wikipedia
W - Soviet montage theory
Eisenstein: ‘Intellectual Montage’, Poststructuralism, and Ideology
theory of montage - Ewa Neumann (Video)
A Visual Introduction to Soviet Montage Theory: A Revolution in Filmmaking (Video)

Wikipedia - "Battleship Potemkin ... sometimes rendered as Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. Battleship Potemkin has been called one of the most influential propaganda films of all time,and was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958."
W - Battleship Potemkin
Battleship Potemkin by Roger Ebert
amazon: Sergei Eisenstein
YouTube: Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Full Movie 1:12:13

October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928)
W - Strike (1925 film)
Disc Spotlight: Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Strike’
YouTube: Strike! - (English Complete)
W - October: Ten Days That Shook the World
Sergei Eisenstein’s October: a monumental work
YouTube: October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1:42:23

Elmore James - Blues Master Works

"Generally acknowledged as 'the King of the Slide Guitar' among blues music enthusiasts around the world, the singer, guitarist and composer Elmore James remains an important musical influence half a century after his early death. ... On Elmore James' gravestone, in his Mississippi hometown, the inscription records that he left behind 'a powerful legacy that will remain forever in American music'. Doubtless the music of the 'King of the Slide Guitar' will continue to be heard for countless years to come, and this new collection is a welcome reminder of his classic Delta Blues style."
Spin
YouTube: BLUES MASTERS WORKS 1:09:01

2013 March: “Dust My Broom”: The Story of a Song

Aksak Maboul

Wikipedia - "Aksak Maboul (also spelled Aqsak Maboul for a while) are a Belgian avant-rock band founded in 1977 by Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis. They made two studio albums, Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine (1977) and Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits (1980), the last one with ex-Henry Cow members Chris Cutler and Fred Frith. They were also active in the Rock in Opposition movement in 1979."
Wikipedia
ProgArchives
Crammed: Aksak Maboul
soundcloud: Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul - "Chez Les Aborigènes"
YouTube: Modern Lesson (1979), I viaggi formano la gioventu, Milano per Caso & Fausto Coppi Arrive, Saure Gurke, Vapona, Not Glue, Odessa

Sturtevant: Double Trouble

"Johns 0 through 9," 1965
"Sturtevant (American, 1924–2014) began 'repeating' the works of her contemporaries in 1964, using some of the most iconic artworks of her generation as a source and catalyst for the exploration of originality, authorship, and the interior structures of art and image culture. Beginning with her versions of works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, Sturtevant initially turned the visual logic of Pop art back on itself, probing uncomfortably at the workings of art history in real time. Yet her chameleon-like embrace of other artists’ art has also resulted in her being largely overlooked in the history of postwar American art."
MoMA
NY Times: Taking Copycatting to a Higher Level
New Yorker: After Image
amazon

One Day Pina Asked... - Chantal Akerman (1983)

"A fortuitous encounter between two icons of film and dance, Chantal Akerman and Pina Bausch, One Day Pina Asked... is Akerman’s singular look at the work of the remarkable choreographer and her Wuppertal Tanztheater during a five-week European tour. More than a conventional documentary, Akerman’s film is a journey through her world, composed of striking images and personal memories transformed. Capturing the company’s rehearsals and assembling performance excerpts from signature works such as Komm Tanz Mit Mir (Come Dance with Me, 1977) and Nelken (Carnations, 1982), the director applies her unique visual skills to bring us close to her enigmatic subject."
Film Society of Lincoln Center
amazon
YouTube: "One Day Pina Asked..." (1983) Clip, Nelken, excerpt: The Man I Love, In Un jour Pina a demandé, komm tanz mit mir

2008 May: Pina Bausch, 2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009, 2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes.

In Which The Elements of Disbelief Are Very Strong In The Morning

"... Poet Among Painters by James Schuyler: I first met Frank O'Hara at a party at John Myers' after a Larry Rivers opening: de Kooning and Nell Blaine were there, arguing about whether it is deleterious for an artist to do commercial work. I was most impressed by the company I was suddenly keeping. ... This was rich stuff, and we talked a long time; or rather, as was so often the case, he talked and I listened. His conversation was self-propelling and one idea, or anecdote, or bon mot was fuel to his own fire, inspiring him verbally to blaze ahead, that curious voice rising and falling, full of invisible italics, the strong pianist's hands gesturing with the invariable cigarette."
This Recording

2008 January: Frank O'Hara, 2010 February: USA: Poetry, 2010 October: Stones: Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,  2011 October: City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara - Brad Gooch, 2012 December: USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara (1966), 2013 June: A Visual Footnote to O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”: New World Writing and The Poets of Ghana, 2013 March: Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara: The Beloved Poet Reads His “Metaphysical Poem”, 2014 June: Remembering Frank O’Hara’s Apartments, 2014 August: Lunch Poems (1964).

New York Neon

"A brilliant visual tour and history of that iconic element of the cityscape: the neon sign. Treating New York City as an open-air museum, Thomas E. Rinaldi captures the brilliant glow of surviving early- and mid-twentieth-century neon signs, those iconic elements of the cityscape now in danger of disappearing. This visual tour features two hundred signs, identified by location, with information on their manufacture, date of creation, and the businesses that commissioned them."
W.W. Norton
New York Neon Blog
The Bowery Boys
WSJ: Shining a New Light on City's Neon

Jess

Goddess Because Is Is Falling Asleep, 1954
"From the outside it appears to be a typical early 20^th century Berkeley brown shingle house. Inside, however, the former home of cineaste Pauline Kael is a trove of mid-century murals by the legendary artist Jess. And the house will soon be for sale. Kael, who wrote film criticism and helped run Berkeley’s famed Cinema-Guild Theater, a repertory house on Telegraph Avenue, in the 1950s, turned her nearby house at 2419 Oregon Street into a Bohemian hangout, attracting writers, artists, Marxists, a pretender to the throne of Russia, the filmmaker Jean Renoir, poet Robert Duncan, and Duncan’s partner Jess."
Miraculous Murals Hide Within a Berkeley Brown Shingle
[PDF] Dream House
Tibor de Nagy

2013 May: An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle

Crossing Brooklyn

"Reflecting the rich creative diversity of Brooklyn, Crossing Brooklyn presents work by thirty-five Brooklyn-based artists or collectives. The exhibition and related programming take place in the galleries and on the grounds of the Museum, as well as off-site in the streets, waterways, and other public spaces of the borough. ... The resulting work defies easy categorization, taking on diverse forms that include public and private action, the use of found or collected objects, and interactive and educational events, among others. Alongside the drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations, videos, and performances on view are several site-specific works."
Brooklyn Museum
Voice
NY Times: The Artist Next Door
YouTube: Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond

John Gutmann

"Born in Breslau, Germany, Gutmann studied to be a painter under Otto Mueller before turning to photography shortly before he emigrated to the United States, where he became known for his vivid images of popular culture. Gutmann brought a foreigner’s view to the streets of California, where he saw with fresh eyes such astonishing (to him) phenomena as multiracial crowds, drive in movies and restaurants, drum majorettes, car parks and golf links, beauty contests, tattoo parlors, and movie marquees. He was fascinated by the status of the car as an American icon and photographed unusual license plates, decorated dashboards, decals, and hood ornaments. He also took a notable series of New York City in the 1940s."
Lumiere Gallery
John Gutmann Photography Fellowship
W - John Gutmann
NY Times: John Gutmann, 93, Painter Who Became a Photographer
Fraenkel Gallery: My Eyes Were Fresh: John Gutmann (Video)

Becoming Modern

Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882
"People use the term 'modern' in a variety of ways, often very loosely, with a lot of implied associations of new, contemporary, up-to-date, and technological. We know the difference between a modern country and a third world country and it usually has less to do with art and more to do with technology and industrial progress, things like indoor plumbing, easy access to consumer goods, freedom of expression, and voting rights. In the 19th century, however, modernity and its connection with art had certain specific associations that people began recognizing and using as barometers to distinguish themselves and their culture from earlier nineteenth century ways and attitudes."
smarthistory

Pascal Comelade - El pianista del antifaz (2013)

"This page is not the embryo of a site dedicated to Pascal Comelade. It is just intended as a help, so as not to get lost in Pascal Comelade's plethorical and cosmopolitan record production. As for the 20th century, Pascal Comelade has done the task himself, in a magnificent manner, by publishing (in French) his 'Ecrits monophoniques submergés' in december 1999."
the lucidly hoptimistic fanzine
YouTube: El Pianista Del Antifaz, The Skatalan Logicofobism (Live), Sardana Mecanica, I Scream Ice Cream, Ze Crypto-Situ Cow-Boy Rides Again, Friki Serenata, Portrait de l'Artiste avec des Lunettes pour voir les Femmes à Poil, El Bolero Del Raval

2014 June: Pascal Comelade, 2014 September: September Song (2000)

The League of Outsider Baseball: An Illustrated History of Baseball's Forgotten Heroes

"From an award-winning graphic artist and baseball historian comes a strikingly original illustrated history of baseball’s forgotten heroes, including stars of the Negro Leagues, barnstorming teams, semi-pro leagues, foreign leagues, and famous players like Shoeless Joe Jackson, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Joe DiMaggio before they achieved notoriety. From a young age, Gary Cieradkowski had a passion for baseball’s unheralded heroes. ... Shining a light into the dark corners of baseball history—from Mickey Mantle’s minor league days to Negro League greats like Josh Gibson and Leon Day; to people that most never knew played the game, such as Frank Sinatra, who had his own ball club in 1940s Hollywood; bank robber John Dillinger, who was a promising shortstop and took time out between robberies to attend Cubs games; and even a few US presidents—this book is a rich, visual tribute to America’s pastime."
amazon
Infinite Card Set

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Wikipedia - "Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. ... DiCorcia alternates between informal snapshots and iconic quality staged compositions that often have a baroque theatricality. Using a carefully planned staging, he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality, trying to inspire in his picture's spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations. His work could be described as documentary photography mixed with the fictional world of cinema and advertising, which creates a powerful link between reality, fantasy and desire."
Wikipedia
Collective Shift
artnet
YouTube: PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA. PHOTOGRAPHS 1975-2012

The Old Woman - Robert Wilson, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe

"Legendary theater maker Robert Wilson returns to the Center with a brand-new theatrical production The Old Woman, based on a story by Russian author Daniil Kharms. A brilliant, slyly political story written in the 1930s, The Old Woman stars world-renowned dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov and film star Willem Dafoe. With echoes of Beckett in its deadpan narrative and humor, The Old Woman is one of the great works of the Russian avant-garde and tells the story of a struggling young writer."
UCLA (Video)
NY Times: A Duo, Dynamism and a Dead Body
Impressions From Paris: Robert Wilson's "The Old Woman" Starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe

2008 April: Robert Wilson, 2010 January: Einstein on the Beach, 2010 July: The CIVIL warS, 2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera , 2011 August: Stations (1982), 2012 February: Absolute Wilson, 2012 August: Einstein on the Blog: Christopher Knowles’ Typings, 2013 March: The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 2013 April: Death, Destruction and Detroit, 2013 October: crickets audio recording slowed way down, 2013 October: Beached, 2014 January: The Louvre invites Robert Wilson - Living Rooms.

Hi-ARTS Presents JR’s Inside Out Mi Gente / Oyáte kiŋ Photo Art Project — opening this evening in East Harlem

"Opening this evening from 6-9pm at the Hi-Arts Gallery on 304 East 100^th Street is JR’s Inside Out Mi Gente/ Oyáte kiŋ Art Project — focusing on and uniting two communities: NYC’s East Harlem and South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. Here are a few images captured yesterday while visiting the exhibit, curated by Carlos Mare..."
Street Art NYC
Alice Mizrachi (Video)
PART ONE (Enrique Torres)

Entr’Acte: René Clair’s Dadaist Masterpiece (1924)

"René Clair’s 1924 avant-garde masterpiece Entr’Acte opens with a cannon firing into the audience and that’s pretty much a statement of purpose for the whole movie. Clair wanted to shake up the audience, throwing it into a disorienting world of visual bravado and narrative absurdity. You can watch it above. The film was originally designed to be screened between two acts of Francis Picabia’s 1924 opera Relâche."
Open Culture (Video)
W - René Clair
W - Under the Roofs of Paris
Criterion: Under the Roofs of Paris (Video)
[PDF] The Art of Sound - René Clair
YouTube: Paris qui dort (1925)

The Clash: Complete control - Safe european Home - Whats my name

"Well, I just got back an' I wish I never leave now
Who dat Martian arrival at the airport?
How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic?
The Johnny on the corner was a very sympathetic
(Safe European Home)
YouTube: Complete control - Safe european Home - Whats my name

Joe Brainard - Tibor de Nagy Gallery

Untitled (Rogue River Valley Pears) 1976 collage
"The gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of selected works by the artist along with a display of his never before exhibited artist books and manuscripts, in celebration of the publication by The Library of America of The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett, with an introduction by Paul Auster. The exhibition will comprise works on paper including collages, watercolors, and gouaches. Many of the works relate to writing, including images that incorporate text as both thought bubbles as well as compositional elements. The works are humorous and often have a sweetness to them."
Tibor de Nagy Gallery
artnet
Cat Dawson on Joe Brainard

2008 February: Joe Brainard, 2010 November: I Remember, 2011 October: A State of the Flowers Report, 2011 November: Joe Brainard: A Retrospective, 2012 March: Bolinas Journal, 2012 September: I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard by Matt Wolf (2012).

Fun Maps: NYC Literary Map Highlights Authors of the Upper East Side

"To celebrate the opening of its new location at East 82nd Street and Lexington Avenue, the eyewear company Warby Parker has released an Upper East Side Literary Map and Tour that pairs classic New York authors, stories, and places to their physical locations. On 88th Street and 3rd Avenue we have Elaine’s, an Italian restaurant frequented by artistic greats such as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Simone de Beauvoir, and Leonard Bernstein. On 87th and West End Avenue one can walk by the brownstones that inspired the home of everyone’s favorite teenage detective Harriet the Spy. "
untapped cities

The Book of Legendary Lands - Umberto Eco

"Celebrated Italian novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic, and list-lover Umberto Eco has had a long fascination with the symbolic and the metaphorical, extending all the way back to his vintage semiotic children’s books. Half a century later, he revisits the mesmerism of the metaphorical and the symbolic in The Book of Legendary Lands — an illustrated voyage into history’s greatest imaginary places, with all their fanciful inhabitants and odd customs, on scales as large as the mythic continent Atlantis and as small as the fictional location of Sherlock Holmes’s apartment."
brain pickings
NY Times: Exploring Imaginary Lands With One of Italy’s Masters of Fiction
News Statesman: Umberto Eco and why we still dream of utopia
amazon

10 Things You Might Not Know About Meredith Monk

2010 Meredith Monk Collection
"In 1964 American composer and musician Meredith Monk (2000 Performing Arts) came to New York to begin an incredibly prolific and inspirational career. 50 years later multiple venues and institutions are celebrating her time in New York. Early in Creative Capital’s history, Monk received a grant for her work mercy, a collaboration with Ann Hamilton. As Creative Capital and Meredith Monk both celebrate important anniversary milestones, we thought we would do our part in honoring the artist by presenting 10 things you might not know about her work."
Creative Capital (Video)

2008 March: Meredith Monk, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time, 2011 August: Ellis Island, 2012 December: Turtle Dreams, 2013 February: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977).

Living New Deal

John Langley Howard (1934) “California Industrial Scenes” - Coit Tower mural (Detail)
"In the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the American people a 'New Deal.' Over the decade 1933-43, a constellation of federally sponsored programs put millions of jobless Americans back to work and helped to revive a moribund economy. The result was a rich landscape of public works across the nation, often of outstanding beauty, utility and craftsmanship."
Living New Deal (Video)
W - Living New Deal

Evan Holm

Ghost Umbrella | 2013
"Evan Holm is a kinetic installation artist who utilizes sound and music machinery to make sculptures which speak towards nature, tradition, music, poetry, time, and movement. His work has a poetic quality which is a must see through his beautifully documented videos on his website."
Evan Holm (Video)
vimeo: Submerged Turntable

Nuclear War - Sun Ra (1982)

"Along with Lanquidity, Nuclear War is one of the rarest discs in Sun Ra's enormous catalog. Recorded in 1982, Nuclear War disappeared until 2001 when the Chicago-based Atavistic label made it part of their exceptional 'Unheard Music Series.' Originally Ra was so sure the funky dance track was a hit, he immediately took it to Columbia Records, where they immediately rejected it. Why he thought a song with the repeating chant 'Nuclear War, they're talking about Nuclear War/It's a motherf***er, don't you know/if they push that button, your ass gotta go/and whatcha gonna do without your ass' would be a hit is another puzzle in the Sun Ra myth."
allmusic
All About Jazz
YouTube: Nuclear War, Smile, Sometimes I'm Happy, Celestial Love, Blue Intensity, Drop me off in Harlem, Nameless One Nr. 2

Little Walter - Blue And Lonesome

"I'm blue and lonesome
As a man can be
I'm blue and lonesome
Whoa-oh
As a man can be
I don't have headaches
Over myself
My love is gone away from me"
YouTube: Blue and Lonesome (Chess, Early 50s), Blue and Lonesome (Take 1)