Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s

Laurie Anderson performing How to Yodel at Soup and Tart, the Kitchen Gallery, New York 1974
"This Spring Barbican Art Gallery presents Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s. This is the first major presentation to examine the experimental and often daring approaches – from dancing on rooftops to cutting fragments out of abandoned buildings – taken by these three leading figures in the rough-and-ready arts scene developing in downtown Manhattan during the 1970s."
Art Daily, Pioneers of the Downtown Scene: a walk on the wall side, YouTube - Laurie Anderson Trisha Brown and Gordon Matta-Clark Pioneers Of The Downtown Scene New York 1970

History of Hip-Hop Vol. 8: 1986

"Tracklist after the jump!
The Beastie Boys – Posse In Effect
Joeski Love – Pee Wee’s Dance
Rodney O & Joe Cooley – Everlasting Bass
Eric B. & Rakim – My Melody
Sweet Tee & Jazzy Joyce – It’s My Beat
Boogie Down Productions – South Bronx
MC Shan – The Bridge
Original Concept – Knowledge Me
Kool Moe Dee – Go See the Doctor
Salt ‘N Pepa – My Mic Sounds Nice
King Tee – Payback’s A Mutha
Run DMC – Dumb Girl
Ultramagnetic MCs – Ego Trippin
Just Ice – Cold Getting Dumb
Eric B. & Rakim – Eric B. For President
Biz Markie – Make The Music With Your Mouth Biz
Stetsasonic – 4Ever My Beat
Heavy D – Mr. Big Stuff
Kool G Rap – It’s A Demo
Steady B – Bring The Beat Back
Word Of Mouth feat. DJ Cheese – Coast To Coast
The Beastie Boys – Time To Get Ill
Run DMC – Peter Piper
Dj Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Live At Union Square"
The Rub

Modulations: Cinema for the Ear (1998)

"Iara Lee's compelling documentary chronicles how sound technology has eclipsed traditional modes of performance in much recent pop music. Without passing aesthetic judgments, Lee focusses on how the manipulation of sound has allowed d.j.s and sound mixers to fill the spot once reserved for composers, sometimes with impressive creativity."
amazon, Modulations - Cinema For The Ear 1/8, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8

Woodsmen and River Drivers

"Men and women who worked for the Machias Lumber Company before 1930 share their recollections of the logging industry in Maine when they cut trees by hand, hauled logs to the river with horses, and floated them down to the mill. Remarkable documentary footage from the 1930's illustrates this dangerous and exhausting work. The memoires include stories about death on the job and the ballad 'The Jam on Gerry's Rock'."
folkstreams

27 sounds manufactured in a kitchen - John Cage

"In his short film '27 Sounds Manufactured in a Kitchen,' legendary experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992), perhaps most famous for 4'33'', grabs your attention with some incredibly agile editing, then lectures you on the advantages of a macrobiotic diet. It's exactly how every rambly old person who is also an avant-garde artist should behave. (Artinfo)"
YouTube

Christian Marclay - Part I: Race to ‘The Clock’

"A three-part saga of trying to see the last day of Christian Marclay’s The Clock at the Paula Cooper Gallery."
The Paris Review - Part I: Race to ‘The Clock’, Part II: Escape to Newark, Part III: Time’s a Goon

Jammin' the Blues (1944)

"Jammin' the Blues is a 1944 short film in which several prominent jazz musicians got together for a rare filmed jam session. It featured Lester Young, Red Callender, Harry Edison, Marlowe Morris, Sid Catlett, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones, John Simmons, Illinois Jacquet, Marie Bryant, Archie Savage and Garland Finney. Barney Kessel is the only white performer in the film." Tinker Greene via Clu Inglehoffer.
YouTube - Jammin' the Blues (1944)

Stephan Balkenhol

"Since approximately 1982 the larger-than-life human figure and head, carved straight out of a block of wood, have determined the sculptor's creations. Stephan Balkenhol treats wood with traditional tools, always considering the wood as a living substance. Grooves, cracks, chips and fissures remain visible and document the sculpting process."
Art Directory, Brown, Contemporary Art Daily, Google

Julian Merrow-Smith - Postcard from Provence

The Road to Les Baux
"Postcard from Provence is a daily diary in paintings by British artist Julian Merrow-Smith, following the changing seasons of his adopted home in the Vaucluse, in the South of France. His still life paintings are inspired by objets trouvés, pottery and seasonal produce from the local markets whilst many of his landscape paintings represent scenes within walking distance of his studio."
Postcard from Provence, 1

Times Square of the 1980s: A Short Documentary

"Siegel captures a pre-Disneyfied Times Square at night two decades past. As seen from a teenager's point of view, the short film includes voice-over interviews with local teenagers. A great blast from the past and a reminder of the importance of an era where so many of our current influential artists gained traction."
Juxtapoz - Times Square of the 1980s: A Short Documentary

Dion and the Belmonts

Wikipedia - "Dion and the Belmonts was a leading American vocal group of the late 1950s. The group formed when Dion DiMucci, lead singer, (born July 18, 1939), joined The Belmonts - Carlo Mastrangelo, baritone, (born October 5, 1938), Freddie Milano, second tenor, (born August 22, 1939), and Angelo D'Aleo, first tenor, (born February 3, 1940) in late 1957."
Wikipedia, W - The_Belmonts, YouTube - I Wonder Why, A teenager in love, Donna the Prima Donna, Runaround sue, The Wanderer, Ruby Baby, Abraham, Martin And John

Simon Schama's Power of Art - Rothko

"A documentary about the american abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. A BBC program."
Simon Schama's Power of Art - Rothko, part 1 of 7, 2 of 7, 3 of 7, 4 of 7, 5 of 7, 6 of 7, 7 of 7

African Women Djembefola

"African women playing djembe in Guinea, West Africa"
YouTube

Joanna Neborsky

"The rise of the literary animation. As previously reported, Teleportal Readings has begun producing delightful animated videos of author readings. Also Electric Literature has been making beautiful animations of single sentences. One of our favorites was Joanna Neborsky‘s take on a line from Patrick deWitt‘s 'The Bastard'."
MobyLives, Joanna Neborsky, A Journey Round My Skull

In Your Dreams

"Shoveling snow away from the movie entrance, Chilicothe, Ohio: photo by Arthur Rothstein, February 1940"
Tom Clark: Beyond the Pale

David Rawlings And Gillian Welch: NPR's Tiny Desk Concert

"David Rawlings is a remarkably gifted producer, session guitarist and singer who's most widely known for his contributions to other musicians' work — particularly his longtime partnership with folk and traditional country artist Gillian Welch."
npr - David Rawlings And Gillian Welch

February 2009: Gillian Welch

Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond

"Michael Nyman's book is a first-hand account of experimental music from 1950 to 1970. First published in 1974, it has remained the classic text on a significant form of music making and composing that developed alongside, and partly in opposition to, the postwar modernist tradition of composers such as Boulez, Berio, or Stockhausen."
amazon, Google

RE/Search Publications

Wikipedia - "RE/Search Publications is an American magazine and book publisher, based in San Francisco, founded and edited by Andrea Juno and V. Vale in 1980. It was the successor to Vale's earlier punk rock fanzine Search & Destroy (1977–1979), and was started with $100 from Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. RE/Search itself began as a tabloid-sized magazine."
Wikiedia, Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale, YouTube - John Waters on RE/Search's "Pranks!"

Trouble Funk

Wikipedia - "Trouble Funk is an American R&B and funk band from Washington, D.C. They helped to popularize the Washington, D.C. funk subgenre go-go. Among their well-known songs is the go-go anthem 'Hey Fellas'."
Wikiedia, last.fm, wat - HEY FELLAS, YouTube - Good To Go, Still Smokin' (The Tube 1986), Drop The Bomb (1982), Let's Get Small (1982)

Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution

"I thought I knew something about Kraftwerk, and Krautrock for that matter, till I saw the documentary DVD 'Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution' by Thomas Arnold. The DVD takes us on a journey through late 60s, early 70s Germany where lingering depression and shame from WWII inspired a new generation of youth to find new freedom and expressions in pop music."
Synth ME, amazon, veoh - Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution

Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage

Mary Georgiana Caroline, Lady Filmer (English, 1838–1903)
"Most often, our special exhibitions highlight important aspects of the Met's collection or explore areas of curatorial expertise, but occasionally they give us the chance, instead, to present a type of work that's entirely absent from the collection. Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage is one such instance."
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYT - The Pastime of Victorian Cutups, YouTube - Women's Work: Albums and Their Makers

Swoon

"Swoon is a street artist originally from Daytona Beach, Florida. She moved to New York City at age nineteen, and specializes in life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of figures. Swoon, real name Caledonia Dance Curry, studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and started doing street art around 1999."
Wikipedia, gothamist, SWOON, YouTube - Walrus TV Artist Feature: Swoon Interview from "The Run Up" , Swoon presenting her work at MoMA, (Part 1 of 2), (Part 2 of 2)

Hand Catching Lead (1968) - Richard Serra

"1968's Hand Catching Lead was Serra's first film (youtube will try and tell you it was made in 1971, but that's youtube). Serra claims it was an attempt to break into the 'intimidating' medium of film, inspired by the 'great freedom' he saw expressed in Warhol's work and the 'tentative, experimental' nature of films like Yvonne Rainer's Hand Movie and Line."
UbuWeb

‘A Vanguard of Friends’ - Dan Chiasson

Jane Freilicher: The Painting Table, 1954
"Tibor de Nagy, the iconic midtown gallery, has been celebrating its sixtieth anniversary with a show that doesn’t so much trace its history as distill its early essence. 'Painters & Poets' includes drawings, chapbooks, letters and well-known paintings that emerged from the fantastic collaborations between Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers, O’Hara and Joe Brainard, Brainard and John Ashbery, James Schuyler and Grace Hartigan, among many others."
NYR Blog

"Adios Nonino" - Astor Piazzolla

"It's useless to understand the somber poetry nestled beneath these melodies thirsty of calm and hope whose sleepless inspiration always searches elusive roots, he is the son of immigrants who desperately left their native lands and never returned, so this genetic heritage makes the Argentinean gazes America with European lenses, loaded of a devouring blend of nostalgia and homesickness that never finds shelter. Let these sounds convey you to unknown landscapes and unexplored horizons, due the tango is the loyal swan's song and inseparable partnership of a never-ending journey. - Hiram Gomez Pardo"
amazon, YouTube - "Adios Nonino"

Betye Saar

Record for Hattie, 1974
Wikipedia - "Betye Irene Saar (July 30, 1926 in Los Angeles, California) is an American artist, known for her work in the field of assemblage. ... In the late 1960s Saar began collecting images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Little Black Sambo, and other stereotyped African American figures from folk culture and advertising. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into statements of political and social protest."
Wikipedia, Betye Saar, npr - "Life Is a Collage for Artist Betye Saar", YouTube - Racism - Part 1, Part 2, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, The Resurrection of Aunt Jemima, The Influence of the African Diaspora, Artistic Style

Different Trains (1988) - Steve Reich

Wikipedia - "Different Trains is a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988. ... The work's three movements have the following titles: America-Before the War (movement 1), Europe-During the War (movement 2), After the War (movement 3). During the war years, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his parents, who had separated. Years later, he pondered the fact that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe instead of the United States at that time, he might have been travelling in Holocaust trains."
Wikipedia, amazon, Literature of the Holocaust
vimeo: Different Trains part 1-America before the war, part 2-Europe during the war, Different Trains part 3-America after the war
Neil Haydock: different trains - part one (Video), part 2, part 3, part 4

Brion Gysin exhibition ‘Alarm’ in Paris at Galerie de France

William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, The Third Mind, 1965
"‘Alarm’, a new Brion Gysin exhibition in Paris at Galerie de France opened on 19th February and runs until 02 April 2011. La Galerie de France was one of the private galleries that supported and exhibited Brion Gysin’s work during his life time. This exhibition features works from private collections."
Brion Gysin - Video

Robert Grenier

Wikipedia - "Robert Grenier (born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 4, 1941– ) is a contemporary American poet associated with the Language School. He was founding co-editor (with Barrett Watten) of the influential magazine This (1971–1974). This was a watershed moment in the history of recent American poetry, providing one of the first gatherings in print of various writers, artists, and poets now identified (or loosely referred to) as the Language poets."
Wikipedia, EPC, Review: Robert Grenier – 64 (The Irony of Flatness, Bury Art Gallery, 19 July – 8 November), Robert Grenier: A Survey, CAPITALIZATION in Grenier's Series: Poems 1967-1971, SENTENCES. Robert Grenier.

A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey - A Tribute

"We received an email earlier this week from Richard Vezina to let us know about a rather impressive homage he's put together celebrating the work of the late, great Stanley Kubrick. Described as a 'visual-analysis', the 13-minute video juxtaposes imagery from all of the director's films (barring Spartacus, which Richard doesn't consider to be an original Kubrick movie), and really is an exceptional tribute to the legendary filmmaker and his unique visual talents."
Flickering Myth

September 2010: 2001: Space Odyssey
May 2009: Stanley Kubrick

The Aggrovators

Wikipedia - "The Aggrovators were a dub/reggae backing band in the 1970s & 1980s, and one of the main session bands of producer, Bunny Lee. The line-up varied, with Lee using the name for whichever set of musicians he was using at any time. The band's name derived from the record shop that Lee had run in the late 1960s, Agro Sounds. Alumni of the band included many musicians who later went to make names for themselves in reggae music. Legends such as Jackie Mittoo, Sly and Robbie, Tommy McCook, and Aston Barrett were all involved with the band at one point or another."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Ten Pieces In One, Sun Is Shining Dub, Jah Jah Dub, Doctor Seaton, Take Five, Blood Version, A Natty Version

Talking Union and Other Union Songs - The Almanac Singer

"Pete Seeger, in a conversation with Tim Robbins for Pacifica Radio (2006), talks about The Almanac Singer, Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays, John Handcox, Theodore Dreiser, Alan Lomax, Millard Lampell, raising money for records (Songs for John Doe), The Daily Worker, Folkways reissue of 'Talking Union' with additional recordings by The Songswappers (including Mary Travers, Erik Darling), Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Truman etc., and sings (parts of) 'Why Do You Stand There In The Rain?' and 'The Strange Death of John Doe' (model for Bob Dylan's 'Man On The Street')."
YouTube - The Almanac Singers, Smithsonian Institution - Talking Union and Other Union Songs, I Don't Want Your Millions (Almanac Singers.), Talking Union, Pete Seeger & Arlo Guthrie - Union Maid, Pete Seeger - Which side are you on, Pete Seeger - We shall not be moved, Almanac Singers - Roll The Union On, Bucky Halker - Casey Jones, the Union Scab, Miners Lifeguard (Wilsons), Pete Seeger & The Weavers - Solidarity Forever

The Tower

Wikipedia - "The Tower (XVI) (most common modern name) is the sixteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most cartomancy Tarot decks. It is not used as part of any game."
Wikipedia

La Seine

A walkway along the Right Bank near the Tuileries
Wikipedia - "The Seine (French: La Seine, pronounced: [la sɛn]) is a major river and commercial waterway within the regions of the Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie in France."
Wikipedia, Paris History: La Seine, YouTube - The Seine, Paris, La Seine à Paris

On Line

"Drawing conventionally has been associated with pen, pencil, and paper, but artists have drawn lines on walls, earth, ceramics, fabric, film, and computer screens, with tools ranging from sticks to scrapers to pixels. Looking beyond institutional definitions of the medium, On Line ... argues for an expanded history of drawing that moves off the page into space and time."
MoMA