Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen, “Oyster” Dress
"I’m Andrew Bolton, the curator of the exhibition Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. I think the title 'Savage Beauty' very much epitomizes the contrasting opposites in McQueen’s work. As you enter the exhibition, you’re faced with two mannequins—the two mannequins that I think represent many of the themes and ideas that McQueen revisited throughout his career: polarized opposites, whether it’s to do with life or death, lightness or darkness, predator/prey, man/machine."
Metropolitan Museum of Art, YouTube

C215

"C215 once called himself a streetart junkie, surrounded by stencil and grafitti everyday. If that’s so, no need for rehab Christian, you’re just fine as it is. C215’s college education in History of Art didn’t keep him captive of art in its classic forms, but stirred the fire within him to travel around the world making his own art. His urban pieces have left his mark in many countries and also in many hearts, making his work a definitive chapter in the History of Urban Art, if ever that discipline may come to exist."
Wooster Collective, flickr, Artists by curfew

All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground

Wikipedia - "'All Tomorrow's Parties' is a song by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Inspiration for the song came from Reed's observation of the Warhol clique; according to Reed, the song is 'a very apt description of certain people at the Factory at the time. ... I watched Andy. I watched Andy watching everybody. I would hear people say the most astonishing things, the craziest things, the funniest things, the saddest things.' The song was Andy Warhol's favorite by The Velvet Underground."
Wikipedia, SO MANY RECORDS, SO LITTLE TIME, YouTube - All Tomorrow's Parties, 2 - All Tomorrow's Parties, 3 - Nico, All Tomorrows Parties

A Woman Under the Influence - John Cassavetes

Wikipedia - "A Woman Under the Influence is a 1974 American drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It focuses on a woman whose psychotic behavior leads her confused husband to commit her for psychiatric treatment, leaving the family even more dysfunctional than before."
Wikipedia, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE Review – Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk d: John Cassavetes, amazon, YouTube - A Woman Under the Influence, (2), (3)

Incidental Comics - Grant Snider

"Writing and drawing, that is your calling."
Incidental Comics

Leon Russell- High Heel Sneakers - Oct 28 1964

"Put on your red dress, baby
Ya know we're goin' out tonight
Put on your red dress, mamma'
Lord, we're goin' out tonight
And-a bring along some boxin' gloves
In case some fool might wanna fight"
YouTube - High Heel Sneakers - Oct 28 1964, Roll over Beethoven, 11/18/1964, Jambalaya, On the Bayou, 2/03/1965

The History Of Dub

70s, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Black Ark Studio. Kingston, Jamaica.
"Dub started in Jamaica in the late '60s with engineer Osbourne Ruddock, aka King Tubby. Either way, Jamaica has always been a sanctuary for this type of music, and hundreds of great dub records have been produced and mixed there. Jamaican producers have been pioneers in sound engineering, with an exceptional and daring capacity to innovate in sonic terms. They all shared a fresh approach towards the use of tape machines, mixers, effects and experimentation, never scared to pick up a screwdriver and open up the equipment to fix it or alter its sound."
SOS, Wikipedia, YouTube - The History Of Dub - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - "I Put a Spell on You"

Wikipedia - "Jalacy Hawkins (July 18, 1929, Cleveland, Ohio — February 12, 2000, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France), best known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an African-American musician, singer, and actor. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as 'I Put a Spell on You', Hawkins sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him one of the few early shock rockers."
Wikipedia, YouTube - I Put a Spell on You, I Put A Spell On You (Okeh) 78 rpm

I Put a Spell on You - Nina Simone, Alan Price, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bryan Ferry, Bette Midler, David Gilmour, Marilyn Manson, Nick Cave / Bobby Gillespie / Glen Matlock / Johnny Depp / Chrissie Hynde / Paloma Faith / Eliza Doolittle - Haiti

Rodney Graham

The Avid Reader 1949
"Hauser & Wirth Zürich is delighted to present an exhibition of major new works, including three lightboxes and one film, by the Canadian artist Rodney Graham. Graham’s art examines the complexities of Western culture through strategies of disguise and quotation. Casting himself as a succession of motley characters, Graham inhabits different personae, genres and art forms, working with diverse media such as film, photography, installation, painting, music and text."
Hauser & Wirth

Glenn Ligon

Untitled (There is a consciousness we all have...)
Wikipedia - "Glenn Ligon is an American conceptual artist whose work explores race, language, desire, and identity. He engages in intertextuality with other works from the visual arts, literature, and history, as well as his own life."
Wikipedia, Whitney, YouTube

Doug Rickard - American Suburb

#82.948842, Detroit, MI. 2009, 2010
"Rickard’s series consists of color photographs of American street scenes, located using the internet tool Google Street View. Rickard takes full advantage of the technology’s comprehensive image archive to virtually drive the unseen and overlooked roads of America, bleak places that are forgotten, economically devastated, and abandoned. Collectively, these images present a startling photographic portrait of the socially disenfranchised, providing deeply affecting evidence of the American Dream inverted."
Wirtz Gallery, Doug Rickard - American Suburb

Masters of Photography - Diane Arbus

"In 1967, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York City presented New Documents -- a major exhibition of the personal visions of several photographers -- the surprise of the show was the work of Diane Arbus. On her own, against the advice of many friends, she had pursued her documentation of people on the fringes of society, and the astonishing in the commonplace."
Masters of Photography Diane Arbus Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

ABOVE

Paris, France. 2002
Wikipedia - "ABOVE (born circa 1981) has been creating public art since 1995. Above is an international contemporary street artist who keeps his identity concealed and is widely known for his multi-layer/full color social and political stencils, spinning wooden 'arrow mobile' installations, and large mural 'word play' paintings. Above started traditional graffiti of tagging freight trains in California in 1995. ABOVE moved to Paris at the age of 19 where he started painting his trademark arrow (pointing above) all around the city."
Wikipedia, Google, vimeo, Interview with Graffiti Street Artist ABOVE + Print GiveAway (video)

Boardwalk

Pleasant Valley Nature Park
Wikipedia - "A boardwalk, in the conventional sense, is a wooden walkway for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles, often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments. Boardwalks along intertidal zones are known as foreshoreways. A boardwalk along a river is often known as a riverwalk and a boardwalk along an oceanfront is often known as an oceanway."
Wikipedia

TriBeCa

Wikipedia - "Tribeca (sometimes stylized as TriBeCa) is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words 'Triangle below Canal Street', and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Chambers Street."
Wikipedia, TriBeCa in the 1970s, Tribeca Film Festival

Brian Eno performs Written, Forgotten, Remembered

"Filmed in his London studio, Brian Eno treats us to a reworked version of Written, Forgotten, from his new album with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams"
Guardian - Written, Forgotten, Remembered (Video), Instant Nuclear Family, Seven Sessions on a Milk Sea, Big Thief Trudge. Eno - Seven Sessions on a Milk Sea

The Hermit

Wikipedia - "The Hermit has internalized the lessons of life to the point that he is the lesson. The Hermit, as a kind of shamanistic hero, has made the complete journey – both the withdrawal and the return. As Joseph Campbell said, 'A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.' (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)"
Wikipedia

Talking Heads: 77

Wikipedia - "TALKING HEADS: 77 is the debut album by Talking Heads. It peaked at #97 in the Billboard Pop Albums chart and the single 'Psycho Killer' made it to #92. In 2003, the album was ranked #290 on Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Uh Oh Love Comes To Town, New Feeling, Tentative Decisions, Who Is It?, No Compassion, The Book I Read, Don't Worry About The Government, First Week Last Week...Carefree, Psycho killer, Psyco Killer - CBGBs, Pulled Up, Building On Fire, I Wish You Wouldn't Say That, Sugar on my Tongue, I Feel It In My Heart (Live at The Kitchen '76)

Beatnik

Wikipedia - "Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish misrepresentation of the real-life people and the spirituality found in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical fiction. Kerouac spoke out against this detour from his original concept."
Wikipedia

Fehlfarben

Wikipedia - "Fehlfarben is a German post-punk band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The band name is from a German printing term referring to erroneous colors in prints: singer Peter Hein was in this line of work at Xerox while in the band. Its founding members were Peter Hein (vocals, former Mittagspause ("lunch break"), Thomas Schwebel (guitar, former Mittagspause, S.Y.P.H.), Michael Kemner (bass, former 20 Colors, Mau Mau, DAF, YOU), Frank Fenstermacher (saxophone, later Der Plan), Markus Oehlen and Uwe Bauer (drums, former Mittagspause, Materialschlacht)."
Wikipedia, Ein Jahr (es geht voran), Tanz mit dem Herzen , Tag und Nacht, Gottseidank nicht in England, Paul ist tot, Wir warten, Grauschleier, Hier Und Jetzt

Boogie-woogie

Andrews Sisters
Wikipedia - "Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became very popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing."
Wikipedia, Boogie-woogie, YouTube - Meade Lux Lewis - Boogie Woogie, Boogie Woogie Dream -Lena Horn,Pete Johnson & Ammon Ammons part 1 of 2, Martha Davis - Martha's Boogie, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B, Calloway Boogie

Richard Avedon

Wikipedia - "Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American photographer. An obituary, published in The New York Times following Avedon's death said that, 'his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century.'"
Wikipedia, Richard Avedon, YouTube - Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light (1/9), (2/9), (3/9), (4/9), (5/9), (6/9), (7/9), (8/9), (9/9)

Making Art

"Toward the end of !Women Art Revolution, the performance artist Janine Antoni, who was born in 1964, recalls a moment when her professor, Mira Schor, asks if she’s heard of the work of Ana Mendieta, Hannah Wilke, and Carolee Schneeman. Antoni hadn’t, and she went to the library to learn more. She found nothing, so Schor brought Antoni clippings and catalogues she had saved at home. The moment was profound.”
The Paris Review, RAW/WAR, !Women Art Revolution, The Museum of Modern Art, YouTube

Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century

Caspar David Friederich, Woman at the Window, 1822
"This exhibition focuses on the Romantic motif of the open window as first captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810–20. These works include hushed, sparse rooms showing contemplative figures, studios with artists at work, and window views as sole motifs."
Metropolitan Museum of Art, (1), (2)

Gavin Bryars – The Sinking of the Titanic

"This piece originated in a sketch written for an exhibition in support of beleaguered art students at Portsmouth in 1969. Working as I was in an art college environment I was interested to see what might be the musical equivalent of a work of conceptual art. It was not until 1972 that I made a performing version of the piece for part of an evening of my work at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London."
Gavin Bryars, npr - Gavin Bryars' 'Sinking of the Titanic' in Concert (Video), UbuWeb (Video)

Music for pieces of wood - Steve Reich

"This piece, Music for Pieces of Wood, is a fine example of how something of interest can be made with only basic elements. Pitch is involved in the tuning of the claves, but after the piece is launched, that parameter fades more to the background. To understand the piece, imagine listening to a kaleidoscope. A pattern is established, then it shifts as with the click of the kaleidoscope. There are 58 shifts of pattern within a general 10 minute time frame. Three general sections comprise the overall form. Each section employs an additive progession to build density and is linked to the neighboring section by the underlying quarter note laid down by the first clave player."
Music for Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich, Lunanova, YouTube - Music for pieces of wood - Steve Reich

Paul Kos

Scything, 2005
"As Bay Area pioneer of conceptual art, Paul Kos helped define a West Coast approach to the form that emphasizes the elegant use of materials to explore issues of perception, social relations and life activities."
KQED Art, YouTube - KQED Spark

Studio One

Wikipedia - "Studio One is one of Jamaica's most renowned record labels and recording studios, having been described as 'the Motown of Jamaica.' Studio One was involved with most of the major music movements in Jamaica during the 1960s and 1970s, including ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub and dancehall."
Wikipedia, Studio One - The Motown of Reggae, amazon - Studio One Reggae Compilations -- Top Ten, YouTube - A TRIBUTE TO STUDIO ONE, Story Of Studio One Part 1, Part 2

The Beaches of Agnès

NYT, A. O. Scott - "And then there is Agnès Varda, the only female filmmaker associated with the Nouvelle Vague at its high-water mark and now, at 81, an artist of undiminished vigor, curiosity and intelligence. That is certainly how she appears in 'The Beaches of Agnès,' her latest film, which opens in New York on Wednesday, after winning a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) for best documentary feature in February."
NYT, The Beaches of Agnès, Roger Ebert, YouTube - The Beaches of Agnès, P.O.V. | The Beaches of Agnes: Behind the Lens | PBS

Paleocycle

"One thing is missing from the picture chronicle of the paleocycle: a photo album of paleocyclists. Not a massive album, indeed. From before the spreading of the “safe bicycle” in the 1890s and of the “bicycle craze” it has brought with itself, there are not many bike photos. Not only the bicycle, but also the camera was a new invention and a rare good. Moreover, until the end of the century the moving of any of the two wanted a full man, so the gentleman sensitive of novelties had to choose: either pedaling, or dragging the heavy camera."
Paleocycle

Thirty Second Spots: TV Commercials for Artists (1982-83)

Joan Logue
"Through an intimate and elegant use of the medium, Joan Logue's work defines the art of video portraiture. Capturing the essence of subjects that range from avant-garde artists to New England fishermen, her video portraits are minimalist dramas precisely composed, richly nuanced, and highly expressive of the character of the 'sitter.'"
UbuWeb

Kara Walker

Wikipedia - "Kara Walker (born November 26, 1969) is a contemporary African American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes."
Wikipedia, PBS - art21, Google, YouTube - Kara Walker, Kara Walker: Cut and Construct, Meditation on 'My Complement ...'

Danspace Project

Meg Chang, Jill Green, Douglas Dunn, Gabriella Hiatt, Kevin Ho, Kiori Kawai and Elaine Summers
Wikipedia - "Danspace Project was founded in 1974 to provide a performance venue for contemporary dance. Its performances are held in St. Mark's Church in the East Village area of the Manhattan borough of New York City."
Wikipedia, Danspace Project, YouTube - Potemkin Piece at the Danspace Project, Exhausting Love at Danspace Project, Persona - Danspace Project, vimeo - Unbounded - Danspace Project

BOXI

"Last Summer, while in Berlin, BOXI spoke to us about a new project he was working on - an extremely intricate six six layer hand cut stencil of a curtain made on 8mm MDF and illuminated by 12v Dimmable SMD LED's."
Wooster Collective, BOXI

A Tribe Called Quest

Wikipedia - "A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985. It was composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip (Kamaal Ibn John Fareed, formerly Jonathan Davis), rapper Phife Dawg (Malik Taylor), and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad."
Wikipedia, A Tribe Called Quest, last.fm, YouTube - Check the rhime, Electric Relaxation, Oh my god, Jazz(We've Got) & Buggin' Out, Find a Way, Scenario, Award Tour