Granary Books

Turning Leaves of Mind, 2003
"For over twenty years, Granary Books has brought together writers, artists, and bookmakers to investigate verbal/visual relations in the time-honored spirit of independent publishing. Granary's mission—to produce, promote, document, and theorize new works exploring the intersection of word, image, and page—has earned the Press a reputation as one of the most unique and significant small publishers operating today."
Granary Books, Jacket magazine, ARTBOOK&, Too Much Bliss: Twenty Years of Granary Book

Nouveau Réalisme

Travailleurs Communistes by Raymond Hains
Wikipedia - "Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism) refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group, titled the 'Constitutive Declaration of New Realism,' in April 1960, proclaiming, 'Nouveau Réalisme - new ways of perceiving the real.'"
Wikipedia, New Realism, Google

Chris Cutler

Wikipedia - "Chris Cutler (born January 4, 1947) is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of a number of other bands, including Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu and (briefly) Gong/Mothergong."
Wikipedia, Chris Cutler, Perfect Sound Forever, ReR, YouTune, (1), (2)

Baltimore Orioles

Wikipedia - "The Baltimore Orioles are a professional baseball team based in Baltimore, Maryland. They are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since 1992, the Orioles have played their home games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The 'Orioles' name refers to the official state bird of Maryland. Nicknames for the team include the O's and the Birds."
Wikipedia

Elizabeth Forbes

Zandvoort Fishergirl, 1884
"Canada-born Elizabeth Adela Forbes, nee Armstrong, was one of the leading women artists of her day. Her marriage to Stanhope Forbes was a partnership of equals, and their School of Painting was very much a joint enterprise."
Penleehouse, Cybermuse

Einstein on the Beach

Wikipedia - "Einstein on the Beach is an opera scored and written by Philip Glass and designed and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It also contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)

Fascinated by the Orient: Aurel Stein (1862-1943)

"The Hungarian Orientalist, archaeologist and explorer Sir Marc Aurel Stein was interested in the meeting points of the great civilizations of the East and the West. His name and works have become inseparable from the history of the Silk Road, which was not merely an Eurasian trade route linking China with the Mediterranean, but a conduit of ideas, beliefs, styles of art and technologies."
Fascinated by the Orient, Aurel Stein, British Explorations in Chinese Central Asia

The Sites of Latin American Abstraction

"The exhibition intends to explore a rarely addressed aspect of Latin American abstract art: To what extent the simultaneous development of an abstract movement in different artistic centers (Argentina and Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela) responded to the cultural and socio-political need of reconsidering, on the basis of modernist art, the prospect of a previously much-discussed Latin American identity."
cifo, LA Times, YouTube

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Wikipedia - "The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial acts of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of a 'slave power conspiracy'."
Wikipedia

Dick Cavett

Wikipedia - "Richard Alva 'Dick' Cavett (born November 19, 1936) is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues."
Wikipedia, NYT, SHECKYmagazine, YouTube - John Lennon, Ono, Lucille Ball, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Raquel Welch, Groucho, George Harrison, Katharine Hepburn, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Bette Davis, Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal Feud, Bobby Fischer, Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Cassavetes, Falk, and Gazzara, etc., Marlon Brando, Frank Zappa, Sly Stone, Ray Charles

Talking drum

Wikipedia - "The talking drum is a West African drum whose pitch can be regulated to the extent that it is said the drum 'talks'. Talking drums are some of the oldest instruments used by west African griots and their history can be traced back to ancient Ghana Empiretimes."
Wikipedia, U. Mich, Talking Drum Studio, YouTune, (1), (2), (3)

Arriving and Outgoing Mail

Patrick Derible
"historian in culture and art, sometimes collARTagist" ... Roland Halbritter
Arriving and Outgoing Mail Art

Archie Bell & the Drells

Wikipedia - "Archie Bell & the Drells was a Houston, Texas, based R&B vocal group, one of the main acts on Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube

Tamara de Lempicka

La Dormeuse
Wikipedia - "Tamara de Lempicka (Łempicka) (May 16, 1898–March 18, 1980), born Maria Górska in Warsaw, in partitioned Poland, was a Polish Art Deco painter and 'the first woman artist to be a glamour star.'"
Wikipedia, Google, Tamara de Lempicka

I Ching

Wikipedia - "The I Ching (Wade-Giles), 'Yì Jīng' (Pinyin), Classic of Changes or Book of Changes; also called Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. The book contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy or the West African Ifá system. In Western cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose."
Wikipedia, I Ching

Wire

Wikipedia - "Wire are an English rock band formed in London in October 1976, (and intermittently active to the present) by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed (né Grey) (drums). They were originally associated with the punk rock scene, appearing on the Live at the Roxy WC2 album - a key early document of the scene, and were later central to the development of post-punk."
Wikipedia, Pink Flag, MySpace, "Pay attention: I am Wired!", last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4 - Pink Flag), (5 - Pink Flag), (6 - Pink Flag), (7 - Pink Flag), (8 - Chairs Missing), (9 - Chairs Missing)

Austin Kleon

"Austin Kleon is a writer, cartoonist, and designer living in Austin, Texas."
Austin Kleon

Yvonne Rainer

Film About a Woman Who... (1974)
Wikipedia - "Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934, San Francisco) is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental."
Wikipedia, sense of cinema, Video Data Bank, YouTube, (1), facebook

Augustus Pablo

Wikipedia - "Horace Swaby (June 21, 1953 – May 18, 1999), better known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer and keyboardist, active from the 1970s onwards. He was known for his devotion to the spiritual Rastafari movement."
Wikipedia, last.fm, Augustus Pablo, ARTIST direct, El Rocker's, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)

American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915

George Bellows, Cliff Dwellers, 1913
"Between the American Revolution and World War I, a group of British colonies became states, the frontier pushed westward to span the continent, a rural and agricultural society became urban and industrial, and the United States—reunified after the Civil War under an increasingly powerful federal government—emerged as a leading participant in world affairs."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Resource Library

The Kitchen

Ikue Mori at The Kitchen
Wikipedia - "The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary art space in New York. The Kitchen was founded in Greenwich Village in 1971 and it takes it name from its original location, the kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center."
Wikipedia, The Kitchen

Vassar Clements

Wikipedia - "Vassar Clements (April 25, 1928 – August 16, 2005) was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz."
Wikipedia, Vassar Clements, MySpace, YouTube, (1), (2)

Gabriele Münter

Dorfkirche in Riedhausen bei Murnau, 1908
Wikipedia - "Gabriele Münter (19 February 1877 –19 May 1962) was a German expressionist painter who was at the forefront of the Munich avant-garde in the early 20th century."
Wikipedia, artnet, BNET, Google

Kenneth Koch

Wikipedia - "Kenneth Koch (27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry, a loose group of poets including Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery that eschewed contemporary introspective poetry in favor of an exuberant, cosmopolitan style that drew major inspiration from travel, painting, and music."
Wikipedia, Academy of American Poets, PennSound, The New York Review of Books

Collection Rotation: Meara O’Reilly

Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Black Cañon, Colorado River, Looking Below, Near Camp 7, 1871
"In my own research, I try to find a disputable balance between scientific and subjective perception. I’m interested in the idea of learning as a beautiful physical experience or performance or even a game—creating a situation where individual perception of a piece can be as much a part of the process as the artist’s intent or an objective material-based truth."
SF MoMA

Anarchism

The True Inwardness of the Central Labor Union - Merely Puppets in the Anarchist Editor's Hands
Wikipedia - "Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state to be unnecessary, harmful, or otherwise undesirable, and favor instead a stateless society or anarchy. Individual anarchists may have additional criteria for what they conceive to be anarchism, and there is often broad disagreement concerning these broader conceptions."
Wikipedia, Spartacus, Social Anarchism, The Anarchist Library

Lindsay Cooper

Wikipedia - "Lindsay Cooper (born 3 March 1951) is an English bassoon and oboe player, composer and political activist. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She has collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group."
Wikipedia, last.fm, AllMusic, YouTube, (1)

Railway transport modelling

Wikipedia - "Railway modelling (UK, Australia, Ireland and Canada) or Model railroading (US) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale, or ratio. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, tracks, signalling, and roads, buildings, vehicles, model figures, lights, and features such as streams, hills and canyons."
Wikipedia, (1), vimeo

Anton Corbijn

"Don van Vliet, alias 'Captain Beefheart', is one of the most influential, misunderstood, talked about, admired, copied, treasured, loved and quoted musicians and yet he is still an obscure and mysterious artist."
UbuWeb

Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht

"Weill came of age at the end of World War I, in a Europe that was both spiritually exhausted, ghastly, frightening, desperate -- and remarkably creative. The carnage of World War I had shattered the smug 19th-century illusion that Western societies had achieved perfect, rational civilizations under wise, benign leaders. When the smoke cleared and the millions of bodies were buried, every art form underwent radical change, from old styles of simplistic (and often schmaltzy) charm and harmony to new, terrifying visions of fear, dread, satire, revolt and despair."
Gordscafe, Three Penny Opera, Wikipedia - Kurt Weill, W - Bertolt Brecht, YouTube, (1), (2)

Jah Wobble

"Fascinating collusion of East, West and down-deep dub This could well be one of the greatest things to have come out of Liverpool’s status as Capital Of Culture 2008. Wobble’s commissioned collaboration with a selection of handpicked traditional Chinese musicians came to a wonderful blossoming conclusion with a series of gigs that blended Chinese music with his own hefty dub leanings. This album is the beautiful extrapolation of those unique moments."
MySpace, YouTube

Brooklyn Royal Giants

Wikipedia - "The Brooklyn Royal Giants were a professional baseball team based in Brooklyn, New York which played in the Negro Leagues. They were one of the premier professional teams before World War I, winning multiple championships in the East. During the 1920s, under the ownership of Nat Strong, a white New York City booking agent, the team fell into somewhat of a decline, and did very poorly while in Eastern Colored League."
Wikipedia, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Brooklyn Royal Giants, Google

Cabaret Voltaire

Wikipedia - "Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England. Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement. Their earliest performances were dada-influenced performance art, but Cabaret Voltaire later developed into one of the most prolific and important groups to blend pop with dance music, techno, dub house and experimental electronic music."
Wikipedia, W - Cabaret Voltaire (Zürich), brainwashed, last.fm, MySpace, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)

The Wicker Man

Wikipedia - "The Wicker Man was a large wicker statue of a human used by the ancient Druids (priests of Celtic paganism) for human sacrifice by burning it in effigy, according to Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentary on the Gallic Wars). In modern times the figure has been adopted for festivals as part of some neopagan-themed ceremonies, notably without the human sacrifice element."
Wikipedia

Kid Creole and the Coconuts

Wikipedia - "Kid Creole and the Coconuts is an American musical group created and led by August Darnell. Their music incorporates a variety of styles and influences, in particular 'American and Latin American, South American, Caribbean, Trinidadian, Calloway' and conceptually inspired by the big band era."
Wikipedia, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, MySpace, YouTube, (1), (2), (3)