Deep Art Nature

Lettrism

Gil J Wolman, Métagraphie, 1954
"Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and political theory. The movement has its theoretical roots in Dada and Surrealism."
Wikipedia, W - Letterist_International, Lettrism, A Man of Lettrism, at the Intersection of Visual and Textual Language: Gil J Wolman, "Why Lettrism?", Guy-Ernest Debord, Google.
YouTube - "Lettrisme, letterism, letrismo, poesia sonora", Orson Welles, Lettrisme Centre Pompidou, Lettrisme, Nevada (Lettrism).
"Venom and Eternity", 1951 (UbuWeb, Isidore Isou. Stan Brakhage.)

Wikipedia - "The hobo nickel is a sculptural art form involving the creative modification of small-denomination coins, essentially resulting in miniature bas reliefs. The nickel, because of its size, thickness, and relative softness, was a favored coin for this purpose. However, the term "hobo nickel" is generic, as carvings have been made from many different denominations."
Wikipedia, Original Hobo Nickel Society, Google, BuzzFeed, History of The Hoboes of America, Jeff Davis, YouTube - Creating the Modern Hobo Nickel

The End

"Modern cinema can be so obsessed with realism that it leaves questions unanswered, tangential storylines half-told and characters in more-or-less the same situation you found them in. Just like real life. Not so in the halcyon days of the silver screen; back then your character would follow a strict plot and inevitably find love, after which they’d have the good grace to let you know that everything had been happily resolved by dissolving into a giant 'The End' sign, usually with a trumpeted fanfare thrown in for good measure. The End is a beautiful archive of final credits that lets you relive those golden days of predictable storytelling. Ah closure, I’ve missed you old friend."
It's Nice That, Guardian: And finally ..., flickr

1979, Germany - Patti Smith

"4/22/1979 Patti Smith Group at Rockpalast TV"
YouTube - Frederic, Gloria, Because The Night, Rock N' Roll Nigger, 25th Floor, Revenge, 7 Ways Of Going, Dancing Barefoot, Redondo Beach, So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star, My Generation, Jailhouse Rock

You? Me? Us? - Richard Thompson

Wikipedia - "You? Me? Us? is an album by British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson released in April 1996 via Capitol Records. It was Thompson's fourth album for the label, his fifth with Mitchell Froom producing and his second to be nominated for a Grammy Award. Thompson's son from his first marriage (to Linda Thompson) Teddy sings backing vocals on disc 2."
Wikipedia, BeesWeb, YouTube - The Ghost of You Walks, Put It There Pal, Cold Kisses, Woods of Darney, Burns Supper, Dark Hand Over My Heart, Hide It Away, Baby Don't Know What To Do With Herself, She Cut Off Her Long Silken Hair

The Participatory Art of JR (in the Bronx)

"French street artist JR partnered with Bronx’s Hunts Point Alliance for Children to present 'Through A Mother’s Eyes,' a community art project which involves inhabitants of Hunts Point in South Bronx, in images taken by and of themselves. Participatory art at its finest."
charles le brigand, Gothamist

The Blues Project

Wikipedia - "The Blues Project is a band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and originally split up in 1967. While their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles, they are most remembered as one of the earliest practitioners of psychedelic rock, as well as one of the world's first jam bands, along with the Grateful Dead."
Wikipedia, amazon, The Blues Project and Seatrain, YouTube - Flute Thing , Steve's Song (Live), I Can't Keep From Crying, Wake Me, Shake Me, Cheryl's Going Home, No Time Like the Right Time, You'll Go, I'll Go With You

Michelle Stuart

Paradisi, 1986
Wikipedia - "Michelle Stuart through her art has created complex, multifaceted investigations of the relationship between nature and culture for over four decades,. Her artworks range in scale from monumental earthworks to intimate talismanic sculptures. In the seventies, Stuart became known as a pioneer in the use of nontraditional materials, introducing into her art earth, seeds, plant parts, ash, fossils and archaeological shards. Her body of work is informed by her interest in archaeology, anthropology, cartography, botany, biology, exploration, literature and history. It addresses the metaphysical while remaining profoundly rooted in its own materiality."
Wikipedia, Michelle Stuart

Angola Soundtrack: The Unique Sound Of Luanda (1968-1976)

"Samy Ben Redjeb, founder of the famed German label Analog Africa, is yet another man who couldn't resist the undeniable allure of vintage Angolan popular music. Part of a larger, and growing, trend that has seen popular Angolan music featured in such widely known media outlets as NPR, Portuguese film festival IndieLisboa, and of course Maianga's 2009 realease Comfusões 1, Redjeb's release is one of the most complete and original compilations of the golden era of Angolan music that money can buy, up there with such well known classics as Soul of Angola and Angola - The Greatest Songs from the 60s and 70s."
Caipirinha Lounge, The Quietus, YouTube - Jovens do Prenda, Farra na madrugada, Alliace Makiadi -Passeio por luanda, Jovens do Prenda,Ilha Virgem, Ferreira do Nascimento, Maconga Me Chiquita, Os Bongos : Pachanga Maria

Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin

SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
Wikipedia - "Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (Ankara, 1957 - Istanbul, 2007) was an artist, writer, educator and curator. He studied aesthetics and the philosophy of art and sociology in Istanbul and Paris-I Sorbonne. Alptekin worked as a press photographer and an art, media and design critic."
Wikipedia, Walker Art, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, frieze, vimeo - Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin Sergisinden

Frippertronics

Wikipedia - "Frippertronics was a specific tape looping technique used by Robert Fripp. It evolved from a system of tape looping originally developed in the electronic music studios of the early 1960s that was first used by composers Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros and made popular through its use in ambient music by composer Brian Eno."
Wikipedia, Fripp & Eno, Signs & Symptoms, Interview with Robert Fripp in Guitar Player, YouTube - Robert Fripp: Frippertronics, Interview, Fripp & Eno - The Heavenly Music Corporation, Eno & Fripp - Air Structures (Live Paris Olympia May 28th 1975), Eno/Fripp - An Index Of Metals, SoundCloud: Frippertronics - Soundscapes - Bleeping & Droning (Video)

Christian Wolff

Wikipedia - "Christian G. Wolff (born March 8, 1934) is an American composer of experimental classical music. Wolff was born in Nice in France to German literary publishers Helen and Kurt Wolff, who had published works by Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, and Walter Benjamin. After relocating to the U.S. in 1941, they helped found Pantheon Books along with other European intellectuals who had fled Europe during the rise of fascism. The Wolffs published a series of notable English translations of mostly European literature, as well as an edition of the I Ching that would prove influential upon John Cage after Wolff gave it to him as a present."
Wikipedia, vimeo - Roulette TV: CHRISTIAN WOLFF, vimeo - Changing the System, part 1: discovering the possibilities

San Francisco Renaissance

Kenneth Rexroth, 1957
Wikipedia - "The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts, Ralph J. Gleason) felt this renaissance was a broader phenomenon and should be seen as also encompassing visual and performing arts, philosophy, cross-cultural interests (particularly those that involved Asian cultures), and new social sensibilities."
Wikipedia, University of Virginia - The Beats and the San Francisco Renaissance, City Lights, A Brief Guide to the San Francisco Renaissance, amazon - San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, 1955-1960, amazon - The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century, Google - The San Francisco Renaissance: Poetics and Community at Mid-Century

Jerome Bel - Veronique Doisneau (2005)

"A woman stands onstage at the Paris Opera. She talks with a quality that is soft, open, a bit hesitant. A light pink rehearsal sweater, reminiscent of little girl dance tights, frames her 42 year-old woman’s body. This uneasy relationship between girl and woman is one of the elements that choreographer Jerome Bel elicits so naturally and poignantly in Veronique Doisneau (both the name of the performer and the name of the performance). In his piece, seen in a film version at Baryshnikov Arts Center on Sunday, Mr. Bel literally gives voice to an artist whose primary job has been to be beautiful and quiet, not drawing attention to herself."
Reflections on Dance, YouTube - Veronique Doisneau, 1, 2, 3, 4

The War of the Worlds - Orson Welles

Wikipedia - "The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds."
Wikipedia, YouTube - War Of The Worlds radio spoof by Orson Wells

Decaying Yusuf Hawkins memorial mural renewed by Gabriel Specter

""In the wake of the 22nd anniversary of Yusuf Hawkins’ brutal murder, Gabriel Specter acts to ignite the teen’s memory, once more, in New York City’s collective consciousness. On August 23, 1989, a racially motivated mob murdered 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. A mural in his honor has stood in Bedford-Stuyvesant since then, but years of neglect, vandalism and aging paint have left it unrecognizable. The murder shook modern race relations in New York City and is linked to the undercurrents that sparked the Crown Heights Riots and the election of New York’s first black mayor, David Dinkins."
Wooster Collective, Wikipedia, NYT: The Death of Yusuf Hawkins, 20 Years Later

Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Wikipedia - "Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 - September 4, 1973) was a lawyer, folklorist, and performer of traditional (folk and country) music from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname 'Minstrel of the Appalachians'."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Dogget's Gap, Bascom Lamar Lunsford Minstrel of Appalachia Festival, Step Stones, Lost John Dean, Swannanoa Tunnel

Jay-Z and Alan Lomax

"Why does folk music collector Alan Lomax have a copyright interest in 'Takeover' by Jay-Z? I learned the answer from Creative License: The Law And Culture Of Digital Sampling by Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola. It’s a companion book to the invaluable documentary Copyright Criminals. The story of Jay-Z and Alan Lomax isn’t quite as epic a copyright fail as the Biz Markie lawsuit or the story of 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' but it’s still pretty absurd. So here’s Jay-Z’s 'Takeover.' As you might expect, it contains salty language."
Ethan Hein's Blog (Video)

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Angela Davis
"The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is an incredible documentary with an equally incredible story behind it. The film, which opens in New York this week, is constructed entirely from hundreds of hours of archival footage of the black power movement, footage that’s not just rare, but unseen; it was shot by a Swedish news crew in the 1960s and 1970s, then left untouched in a Swedish TV station’s cellar for 30 years, where it was discovered by documentary filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson."
Trove of Unseen Footage Revives History in ‘The Black Power Mixtape’ (Video), NYT: Power to the People, but Quietly, Netflex, IMDB: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Video), Angela Davis: The Black Power Mixtape, Democracy Now: Interview with Danny Glover

The Encyclopedia of 9/11

"Here in New York City, we heard it first, the drone of the plane down the West Side, surprisingly loud. Then, if we were outside, our heads pointed in the right direction, we could see it: the dull-red gash in the North Tower, smoking ominously. Just as we’d begun to absorb this strange sight, wondering what pilot could have been so dim as to steer his plane into one of those towers on what seemed the clearest, bluest September day anyone could remember, came a second plane, then a terrible blossom of flame, then the billowing smoke enshrouding downtown."
The Encyclopedia of 9/11 - New York Magazine

Being There - Wilco

Wikipedia - "Being There is the second album by Chicago-based rock band Wilco. Despite its release as a nineteen-song double album, Being There was sold at a single album price due to a deal between lead singer Jeff Tweedy and Reprise Records. Released on October 29, 1996, the album was an improvement for the band in both sales and critical reception as compared with their first album, A.M.."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Misunderstood, Far, Far Away, Monday, Outtasite (Outta Mind), Forget The Flowers, Red-Eyed and Blue, OUTTASITE (OUTTA MIND) - LETTERMAN 1997 TV, I Got You, What's the World Got in Store, Hotel Arizona, Say You Miss Me, Sunken Treasure, Someday Soon, Someone Else's Song, Kingpin, (Was I) In Your Dreams, The Lonely 1, Dreamer In My Dreams

Dispatches (1977) - Michael Herr

Wikipedia - "Michael Herr (born 1940, in Syracuse, New York) is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches (1977), a memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine (1967–1969) during the Vietnam War. The book was called the best 'to have been written about the Vietnam War' by The New York Times Book Review; novelist John le Carré called it 'the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time.'"
Wikipedia, amazon, NYU, YouTube - Dispatches by Michael Herr (Book Trailer)

Adrian Sherwood

"Adrian Sherwood (born 1958 in London) is an English record producer best known for his work with dub music as well as for remixing a number of popular acts such as Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy. Within his role as a record producer, he has worked with a variety of record labels, however his most well-known label is On-U Sound Records. Sherwood has been a member of the band Tackhead."
Wikipedia, Adrian Sherwood, Obsolete, On-U Sound, YouTube - Boogaloo, LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY & ADRIAN SHERWOOD, Adrian Sherwood At The Control, ADRIAN SHERWOOD & LITTLE ROY "TRIBAL WAR", Adrian Sherwood"monastery sound", Animal Magic, Zoo Time - dub reggae dub, Adrian Sherwood vs Tackhead vs Grimey Rob "Technology works"

The Miners' Hymns

"Above is a trailer for Bill Morrison's film The Miners' Hymns, a melancholy celebration of coal-mining culture in the great northern English city of Durham. The film is centered on the Durham Miners' Gala, an annual summertime meeting which, from the late nineteenth century until the Thatcher era, brought thousands of celebrants into the city. The gala was famous not only for its union activism but for its carnival atmosphere, its massed choral singing, and its myriad brass bands."
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise (Video), Johann Johannsson, 12 Tónar, Tribeca Film

"Poses" - Yolanda Dominguez

"'Poses' is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women that they transmit through models that do not represent real women and that avoid all those who are not within their restricted parameters. These images are virtually the only feminine reference in the mass media and they have a great influence in both men and women when building our roles in terms of behavior and ways of thinking."
Yolanda Dominguez (Video), Yolanda Dominguez - Works, It's Nice That

WNYC's Guide to 9/11 Arts Events

Thomas Hirschhorn's "Mondrian Altar", 1997. MoMA PS1.
"This month, cultural institutions around the city are paying respect to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks through literature, visual arts, theater, dance, music, and film. Here's our guide to what's happening around town..."
WNYC's Guide to 9/11 Arts Events (Video)

Tompkins Square Park

Wikipedia - "Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5 acre (42,000 m) public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is square in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the west by Avenue A. St. Marks Place abuts the park to the west."
Wikipedia, W - Tompkins Square Park Riot (1988), YouTube - Tompkins Square Park Riot

Southern Gothic

'The Ghost of Bernadette Soubirous,', 1890, photograph
"To grow up in the South is to be fed a steady diet of grits and ghost stories. Ask any household in Alabama, and they’ll tell you about a friend or family member with a rogue phantom that blows out candles or stomps around in the attic. Being haunted is a permanent condition below the Mason-Dixon, one that defines the region as much as the voracious kudzu and the iced tea so sugary it hurts your teeth. William Faulkner, who was known to spin particularly scary fireside stories, described the Deep South in Absalom, Absalom! as 'dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts.'"
The Paris Review - Margaret Eby

Can

Wikipedia - "Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music. Can constructed their music largely through collective spontaneous composition –– which the band differentiated from improvisation in the jazz sense –– sampling themselves in the studio and editing down the results;[1] bassist/chief engineer Holger Czukay referred to Can's live and studio performances as 'instant compositions'."
Wikipedia, Spoon Records, YouTube - Hier und Heute 1971, Mother Sky, Don't Turn On the Light, Leave Me Alone Deadlock, Bring Me Coffee or Tea, Song Swan Song, Paperhouse, Spoon (1971), Vernal Equinox, Don't Say No.
The Can (from "Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany" Documentary).

Workers Wearing Toeshoes

Edgar Degas, The Dance Lesson, c. 1879
"In 1903, when ballet had been a prolific subject of Edgar Degas for over 30 years, an American collector, Louisine Havemeyer, asked him, 'Why, monsieur, do you always do ballet dancers?' His quick reply was, 'Because, madame, it is all that is left us of the combined movements of the Greeks.' This already said much: in ballet he had found a modern source of classicism. Yet Degas’s body of work shows that he had found far more. His views of dance — in oil, sculpture, pastel, gouache, lithographs and other mediums — include those who aren’t dancing, those who can’t dance well yet, those who once danced but can do so no longer, and a great many of those who can but happen not to be doing so just now."
NYT: Workers Wearing Toeshoes, Royal Academy of Arts: Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement

Fame megamix

"EPMD vs Lady Gaga & Lady Starlight vs David Bowie & John Lennon vs Jay-Z vs Irene Cara vs James Brown vs Ultramagnetic MCs vs Godfather Don vs Sage Francis. It's widely believed that David Bowie ripped the guitar lick off of James Brown, but actually it's the other way around."
SoundCloud (Video)

Henry Flynt

Wikipedia - "Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is a philosopher, avant-garde musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist often associated with Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Nihilism."
Wikipedia, Henry Flynt, Stewart Home Society, YouTube - Sky Turned Red, Violin Strobe, Missionary Stew (1966), You Are My Everlovin' (1981) / Part 1, Part 2.
Henry Flynt in New York (vimeo)

Paroles -Jacques Prévert

"This edition was translated by Beat godfather and proto-Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and was published by his own press, City Light Books. Paroles struck a chord with the young people who lived through Pétain, the Occupaion, la Resistance, even though Prévert, who was born in 1900, was part of an earlier generation. The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies."
The Coffee Philosopher, amazon

Public Image Ltd.- Poptones & Careering (American Bandstand 1980)

"ABC, 'American Bandstand'. PiL's, hilarious, and now infamous, 'performance' on the prime time US pop show is broadcast on National TV. Pre-recorded on 3rd May, PiL mime to 'Poptones' and 'Careering.' Presenter Dick Clarke introduces the band as, 'a memorable moment in rock n roll, something special and interesting'. The longstanding mainstream music show is thrown into chaos as Lydon invites almost the entire audience up to dance with the band on stage! John barely pretends to mime, and the band swap instruments."
YouTube