John Sebastian

Wikipedia - "John Sebastian (born John Benson Sebastian, Jr. on March 17, 1944, in Greenwich Village, New York City) is an American songwriter and harmonica player. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin' Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. His tie-dyed denim jacket is prominently displayed there."
Wikipedia, (1), John Sebastian, allmusic, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

Caribbean views: personal selections by Mike Phillips

A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave Trade, 1734
"The British Library holds a wealth of material relating to the British West Indies, as showcased in the Caribbean views online exhibition. We asked author and historian Mike Phillips to interpret and respond to this collection."
The British Library Board

Fyodor Vasilyev

Wikipedia - "Feodor Alexandrovich Vasilyev (1850-1873) was a Russian landscape painter who introduced the lyrical landscape style in Russian art."
Wikipedia

Peter Doig

Grasshopper (1990)
"Broadly coloured yet intricately detailed, this device appears to mimic the geological strata which construct the earth. The top band contains the abstraction of the sky, created from the thin veils of vivid blue masked with successive layers of dragged and dabbed paint."
Saatchi-Gallery, Wikipedia, Tate Britain

Sun Records

Wikipedia - "Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952. Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley (whose recording contract was sold to RCA Victor Records for $35,000 in 1955 to relieve financial difficulties they were going through), Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash their first recording contracts and helping to launch their careers."
Wikipedia, Sun Records, Sun Sound, PBS, npr, MyMusic

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus

LaToya Ruby Frazier
"The sweet bird of youth, alert as a robin, hungry as a gull, alights once again in Manhattan with the inauguration of “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” at the New Museum, the latest local survey of contemporary art — this one a triennial — to challenge the pre-eminence of the Whitney Biennial."
NYT, New Exhibitions Museum, (1), Hankblog, jameswagner.com

Roadside Architecture

54 Diner, Buena, NJ - Diner City
"Most of my sections are organized by state which should make it easy to find things that are near you or that are in areas you might be traveling to. If you are looking for a particular thing or place, you may want to try the search box above or at the main page of most sections."
Roadside Architecture, Roadside Art Online

Kurt Schwitters

Merzbild
Wikipedia - "Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as installation art."
Wikipedia, Kurt Schwitters, The Artchive, Cut & Paste, MoMA

The Beats

"When the country still considered literary writers and poets important public figures, these were literary writers and poets who came with luridly colorful lives, full of sex and drugs and cars, 'the best minds of my generation,' 'the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live,' cultural avatars who were often linked more by lifestyle considerations than by writerly ones."
NYT, Amazon, Graphic Novel Reporter

Coney Island

"The Coney Island History Project, founded in 2004, is a not-for-profit organization that aims to increase awareness of Coney Island's legendary and colorful past and to encourage appreciation of the Coney Island neighborhood of today."
Coney Island: History Project, YouTube, (1), CardCow, VintageViews of Coney Island, Nathans, PBS

Romare Bearden

Return of the Prodigal Son, 1967
Wikipedia - "Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911–March 12, 1988) was an American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage."
Wikipedia, Romare Bearden Foundation, Metropolitan Museum, NGA, npr

Frederick Sommer

Max Ernst
"Art is not arbitrary. A fine painting is not there by accident; it is not arrived at by chance. We are sensitive to tonalities. The smallest modification of tonality affects structure. Some things have to be rather large, but elegance is the presentation of things in their minimum dimensions."
Frederick Sommer, Wikipedia

Henry David Thoreau

Wikipedia - "He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state."
Wikipedia, VCU, The Thoreau Reader, Google

Jules Dassin

Night and the City, 1950
Wikipedia - "Jules Dassin, born Julius Dassin (December 18, 1911(1911-12-18) – March 31, 2008), was an American film director. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career."
Wikipedia, Films as director, Film Forum

Amedeo Modigliani

Le Jeune Apprenti, 1918-1919
Wikipedia - "Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) was an Italian artist of Jewish heritage, practising both painting and sculpture, who pursued his career for the most part in France."
Wikipedia, WebMuseum, Google

Fred Frith

Wikipedia - "Fred Frith (born February 17, 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor. Probably best-known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-garde rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew."
Wikipedia, Fred Frith, last.fm, Discography of Fred Frith, Paris Transatlantic, all music, Dailymotion, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8)

Luca Pignatelli

"The approach of Luca Pignatelli to the world is through architecture. His paintings evoke the Roman temples, Pompeii and ancient art, of which the artist suffers the charm. Archaeological survey on the flanks of modern architecture and in particular industry, are represented in his works by war planes, trucks and locomotives, but also in the choice of media such as tarpaulins rail."
Art Books International, Google

Mira Schendel

"During the tempestuous '60s and '80s, conceptual artists León Ferrari (Argentina) and Mira Schendel (Brazil) took on a similar, linguistics-focused approach, and the many textual drawings, sculptures, and paintings that materialized make up Tangled Alphabets."
flavorpill, Google, BNET, jameswagner.com

Anselm Kiefer

20 Jahre Einsamkeit, 1998
"Anselm Kiefer was born March 8, 1945, Donaueschingen. He is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials like straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac."
Wikipedia, WebMuseum, Paris, Google, The Met Museum

Hernan Bas

Floating in the Dead Sea with Ghost Ship Pirated by Hedi Slimane, 2003
Rubell Collection - "His work indulges in the production of romantic, melancholic and old world imagery, and makes reference to Wilde, Huysmans and other writers of the Aethetic and Decadent period in literature."
Wikipedia, The Saatchi Gallery, Google, BOMB

Ingram Marshall

Wikipedia - "Ingram Marshall (born May 10, 1942 in Mount Vernon, New York) is an American composer and a former student of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick. Though the composer uses the term "expressivist" to describe his music, he is often associated with post-minimalism."
Wikipedia, Ingram Marshall, New Albion, New Music Box, Other Minds, last.fm

Romanywg / Jeremy Gibbs

Least Wanted - 'Chicago 1221'
"JUSTICE is a concept show based on themes of Law and Order that all five artists (C215, Dan23, Bruno Leyval, Least Wanted and MC1984) have been committed to for the past three months, and have been working very hard to make it a special show."
flickr, (1)

Loris Cecchini

"Comprised of thousands of plastic balls surrounding an internal framework of aluminum ladders, the work continues Cecchini's investigation of how space is defined. Utilizing a formal vocabulary and lines of inquiry reminiscent of architects like Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Cecchini creates a nearly abstract, voluminous mass, evoking a weightless body of epic proportions."
P.S.1, BNET, Galleria Continua

Robert Longo

Wikipedia - "Although he studied sculpture, drawing remained Longo's favorite form of self-expression. However, the sculptural influence pervades his drawing technique, as Longo's 'portraits' have a distinctive chiseled line that seems to give the drawings a three-dimensional quality."
Wikipedia, Google, Robert Longo, artnet

Erik Satie

Wikipedia - "Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. He was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd."
Wikipedia, Erik Satie, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

The Great Depression

Wikipedia - "The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important economic depression in the 20th century, and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall."
Wikipedia, Modern American Poetry, PBS, The Library of Congress

Zheng Duanxiang

Coming Tempest No. 4, 2007
"The photographs of Zheng Duanxiang are not a simple record of moments in time. His manner of taking photos is much the same as that of a lost person trying to find their way in the dark; or to put it another way, a depiction that reveals the flesh and bones of reality in the dark."
55, 1918 ArtSpace

Meredith Monk - "Ellis Island"

"Meredith Monk's 'Ellis Island' is a haunting, reflective piece on Ellis Island and the immigrants who passed through there. Black-and-white, near-static shots of actors and actresses realistically portraying turn-of-the-century immigrants are combined with color shots of a modern-day tour guide conducting a tour of the buildings."
UbuWeb, Ellis Island - PDF

Bauhaus

Wikipedia - "The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during the first years of its existence. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design."
Wikipedia

Hagia Sophia

Wikipedia - "Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Seville Cathedral in 1520."
Hagia Sophia, Sacred Destinations

CBGB

Charlie Doherty - "New York natives Living Colour are no strangers to the legendary and as of 2006, deceased NYC CBGB rock club, which supported live acts for 33 years."
CBGB OMFUG Masters - Live August 19, 2005 - The Bowery Collection, CBGB - Virtual Tour, Wikipedia, YouTune

Magnificent 11

The Bellelli Sisters, Edgar Degas
"Eleven of LACMA’s permanently held artworks made the Times list. In era, subject, and form they are profoundly varied, ranging from ancient sandstone dryads to Georges de La Tour's seventeenth-century The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame to Vija Celmins’ monumental enamel-on-wood comb of 1970."
LACMA, Art Babble

Wim Mertens

Wikipedia - "Wim Mertens (b. Neerpelt, Belgium, May 14, 1953) is a Flemish Belgian composer, countertenor vocalist, pianist, guitarist, and musicologist."
Wikipedia, Wim Mertens, The Belgian Pop & Rock Archives, Discogs, MySpace, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6)

Keith Haring

Into the Groove
Wikipedia - "Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s."
Wikipedia, K. Haring, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Poetic Realism

"Port of Shadows"
Wikipedia - "Poetic realism was a film movement in France leading up to World War II. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism."
Wikipedia, The Criterion Collection