Five Points

George Catlin, 1827, Paradise Square
Wikipedia - "Five Points (or The Five Points) was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south. ... Five Points gained international notoriety as a disease-ridden crime-infested slum that existed for well over 70 years."
Wikipedia
THE FIVE POINTS By Gregory Christiano
YouTube: Five points, Uncovering the real Gangs of New York Part 1 of 4, Part 2 of 4, Part 3 of 4, Part 4 of 4

James Brown - Live Zaire 1974

"In spite of various personal problems and setbacks he continued to score hits in every decade through the 1980s. In addition to his acclaim in music, Brown was also a presence in American political affairs during the 1960s and 1970s."
YouTube: The Payback, Cold Sweat, Try Me, Gonna Have A Funky Good Time - Muhammad Ali

Keith Haring - Journals

"This biography uses Keith's own words to tell his story--words that first appeared in numerous interviews and profiles published during his lifetime, as well as in his personal diaries."
Keith Haring - In His Own Words
amazon
Art In America Magazine
YouTube: Keith Haring Documentary

2009 April: Keith Haring

Rare Concert Footage of The Band, 1970

"Just four songs from The Band, performing live at The Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, PA, recorded on November 1st, 1970."
YouTube: Time to Kill, The Weight, This Wheel's on Fire, Up on Cripple Creek

EVOL

"EVOL is a berlin based street artist that transforms banal urban surfaces, into miniature architectural surfaces through pasting. using pasted paper, EVOL transforms electric boxes, small planters and other geometric city forms, into miniature apartment buildings and other structures. each piece of paper is printed with a repetitive pattern of flat gray walls dotted with plain window frames. once applied to a surface, the paper transforms the form into small building that EVOL often adorns with small characters. EVOL performs this process within different cities and has even been commissioned to do installations in galleries, where he was created entire blocks of miniature buildings."
designboom
EVOL – A Street Art Collection
EVOL/CTINK

Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven

Wikipedia - "Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven (born 5 December 1951) is a Belgian artist whose work involves painting, drawing, computer art and video art."
Wikipedia
Zeno X
e-flux

Elvis To KLF: The Train I Ride Is Sixteen Coaches Long

"Life with a three-year-old can find you focusing on on forms and representations of transportation you wouldn't otherwise. Trains, for example, hold a particular resonance with the developing mind that challenge their relative rarity compared to cars and airplanes. We've found ourselves meeting constant demands for all things trains by discovering the online world of obsessive documentarians of all things locomotive. Watching this narration-and-music-free modern footage of old-fashioned steam engines has caused us to consider the sensual impact the advent of train travel would have on the rural blues men who would incorporate the sound of trains into their music and use the eeire whistle of the coming train as a metaphor for all great changes in life, love and death."
WFMU (YouTube)

Music Is the Weapon - Fela Kuti

"Music Is the Weapon may be short, but it's essential viewing for Fela fans. Filmed in 1982, the 53-minute documentary captures the late Nigerian musician/activist at his peak. ... For the uninitiated, it's hard to explain--in mere words--how one man could so successfully mate the sexuality of James Brown with the righteous politics of Bob Marley and sinuous sounds of Miles Davis. Fela drew as much inspiration for his 'Afro-beat' from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as funk, reggae, and jazz."
amazom
vimeo: Music Is the Weapon

Simonetta Capecchi

"Simonetta Capecchi born in Milan, graduated in Architecture in Venice. She completed her Phd in Naples, where she works as an illustrator and lectures at the Faculty of Architecture. In 2006, she curated an exhibition at the Castel dell'Ovo in Naples, including a section where more than 50 Moleskines were distributed to travellers of all ages, with a view to recounting the City of Naples."
moleskine (YouTube
Escape Into Life
Urban Sketchers
YouTube: Simonetta Capecchi at Detour Exhibition in Paris

John Ashbery - Recent Collages

"The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new collages by acclaimed poet John Ashbery. This is the gallery’s second solo exhibition devoted exclusively to Ashbery’s collages, following his hugely successful debut with the gallery in 2008. Ashbery was fascinated in his youth by the collage novels of Max Ernst and the partly collaged Cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque. He started making collages as an undergraduate at Harvard, and has continued the collage process in both his visual and literary creations ever since. Influenced by such collage giants as Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell, and more directly, Joe Brainard, Ashbery’s work combines equal doses of art historical and contemporary pop culture references."
Tibor de Nagy Gallery

2008 September: The Collages - John Ashbery
2011 July: Postcard Collages - John Ashbery

Remain in Light - Talking Heads

Wikipedia - "Remain in Light is the fourth studio album by American New Wave band Talking Heads, released on 8 October 1980 on Sire Records. It was recorded at locations in the Bahamas and the United States between July and August 1980 and was produced by the quartet's long-time collaborator Brian Eno. ... The members of Talking Heads wanted to make an album that dispelled notions of frontman and chief lyricist David Byrne leading a back-up band. They decided to experiment with African polyrhythms and, with Eno, recorded the instrumental tracks as a series of samples and loops, a novel idea at the time. Additional musicians were frequently used throughout the studio sessions."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On), Crosseyed And Painless, The Great Curve, Once In A Lifetime, Houses In Motion

Joel Chadabe

"Joel Chadabe, composer, author, is an internationally recognized pioneer in the development of interactive music systems."
Joel Chadabe
Joel Chadabe – Rhythms
Kalvos & Damian (RealAudio)
Activities as Music (Video)
Interview with Joel Chadabe
YouTube: Joel Chadabe on Ear To The Earth

Great Directors

"The documentary filmmaker Angela Ismailos welcomes the debate over what makes a great director with her new film, appropriately titled, Great Directors, opening on Friday. It includes interviews with 10 filmmakers she sees as essential to the craft: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, Stephen Frears, Agnès Varda, Ken Loach, Liliana Cavani, Todd Haynes, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater and John Sayles."
NYT: Assessing Great Directors
YouTube: Great Directors - Trailer HD 2010
Great Directors
Film Journal

History of Jamaican Music

"The history of jamaican music from ska to reggae."
YouTube: History of Jamaican Music

Asphalt Renaissance - Kurt Wenner

"A new book, Asphalt Renaissance, collects the amazing 3-D street art of Kurt Wenner. The former NASA space illustrator turned street artist uses innovative techniques that produce astounding three-dimensional images. The book charts his 25-year career, with his designs leaping from pavement to pages. When viewed from the correct angle, people standing on top of them look like they are floating in thin air, and solid concrete can look like gaping chasms."
Simplex Design
amazon

Richard Hamilton

Wikipedia - "Richard William Hamilton CH (24 February 1922 – 13 September 2011) was a British painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage, Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by critics and historians to be one of the early works of pop art."
Wikipedia
W - Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?
MoMA
artnet
YouTube: Richard Hamilton Retrospective | euromaxx

The James Dean Story

Wikipedia - "The James Dean Story is a 1957 American documentary. Released two years after Dean's death, the Warner Bros. Pictures release chronicles his short life and career via black-and-white still photographs, interviews with the aunt and uncle who raised him, his paternal grandparents, a New York City cabdriver friend, and the owner of his favorite Los Angeles restaurant, and outtakes from East of Eden, footage of the opening night of Giant, and Dean's ironic PSA for safe driving." Directed by Robert Altman.
Wikipedia
YouTube: The James Dean Story

David Behrman - The Siren Orchestra

"A short film with David Behrman and the Siren Orchestra. This event took place in Leiden, The Netherlands. This event was focused on the element of sound and looking at alternative ways of viewing audio and music."
David Behrman
Intonarumori
YouTube: The Siren Orchestra "The Element of Sound"

Robert Duncan - Ten Poems, 1940 to 1980

"Transcribed and edited by Robert J. Bertholf and James Maynard. This material is © The Literary Estate of Robert Duncan. This piece is about 12 printed pages long. The ten buttons immediately below take you to the poems; the button on each poem takes you back to this listing."
October 2005, Jacket 28

Child Is Father to the Man - Blood, Sweat & Tears

Wikipedia - "Child Is Father to the Man is the debut album by Blood, Sweat & Tears, released in February of 1968. ... Widely regarded as a classic fusion of jazz, rock and roll, psychedelia and classical music, Child Is Father to the Man is one of bandleader Al Kooper's most enduring works. The album introduced the idea of the big band to rock and roll and paved the way for such groups as Chicago. Kooper left the band after this album, changing the nature of the group."
Wikipedia
amazon
sundazed
YouTube: I Can't Quit Her, I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know, Just One Smile, My Days Are Numbered, Without Her, Morning Glory, So Much Love Underture, House in the Country, Meagan's Gypsy Eyes, Overture, The Modern Adventures Of Plato Diogenes & Freud

GeoCurrents

"Martin W. Lewis has taught college-level geography for 20 years, and is currently a senior lecturer at Stanford University. He is a co-author on two leading textbooks in world geography, Diversity Amid Globalization and Globalization and Diversity."
GeoCurrents
facebook

5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude

"Plexifilm introduces its most elaborate release yet: FIVE FILMS ABOUT CHRISTO & JEANNE-CLAUDE. This three-DVD set is the most complete motion picture collaboration ever released between filmmakers and artists. Spanning 30 years, this unique DVD package shows the passion, vision and complexity of the environmental art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude."
Plexifilm
amazon: 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude
npr: 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude, realPlayer
Wikipedia

2007 November: Christo & Jeanne-Claude
2009 November: Jeanne-Claude
2010 April: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence
2010 September: Christo and Jeanne-Claude - The Gates
2010 November: Over The River - Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Documents of 20th-century Latin American and Latino Art

"Established as the research arm of the Department of Latin American Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) is currently in the midst of the multi-year Documents of 20th-century Latin American and Latino Art: A Digital Archive and Publications Project, which seeks to consolidate Latin American and Latino art as a field of study and to place it on equal footing with other established aesthetic traditions."
ICAA: Documents of 20th-century Latin American and Latino Art
YouTube: Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar

"All three movies, with their epic landscapes and acutely incised psychology, find a correlative sweep and depth in the scores that Cave and Ellis have devised for them, and a poignancy that imbues the films with a timeless aura; the music from this triumvirate is on Disc 1 of the 2 CD set. In addition to these large-scale efforts, Cave and Ellis have also contributed a resonant musical dimension to a pair of lesser known, but striking documentaries, represented on Disc 2."
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
amazon: White Lunar
Pitchfork: White Lunar
YouTube: White Lunar (preview), Song for Bob, Song for Jesse, Cheata, The Journey

Pierre Bonnard

La fenetre
Wikipedia - "Pierre Bonnard (3 October 1867 – 23 January 1947) was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis. ... Bonnard is known for his intense use of color, especially via areas built with small brushmarks and close values. His often complex compositions—typically of sunlit interiors of rooms and gardens populated with friends and family members—are both narrative and autobiographical."
Wikipedia
Google
Pierre Bonnard
NYT: Pierre Bonnard
YouTube

BBC Documentary: Sun Ra, Brother From Another Planet

"Sun Ra was born on the planet Saturn some time ago. The best accounts agree that he emerged on Earth as Herman Blount, born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1914, although Sun Ra himself always denied that Blount was his surname. He returned to Saturn in 1993 after creating a stunningly variegated and beautiful assemblage of earthly and interplanetary music, most notably with his fervently loyal Arkestra."
YouTube: BBC Documentary: Sun Ra, Brother From Another Planet

The Voice Lays Off J Hoberman

"Reaction on Twitter and Facebook to yesterday's late-breaking news that the Village Voice had laid off J Hoberman, a staff writer since 1983 and chief film critic since 1988, was swift and harsh. ... Following the waves of fury, some who might be in a position to know have suggested that Hoberman will 'land on his feet' and I know I'm not alone in sincerely hoping he does. Today's must-read, then, is 'A History of Film Criticism at the Village Voice,' which Hoberman wrote back in October 2005 on the occasion of the alternative weekly's 50th anniversary."
mubi
amazon: The Village Voice Film Guide: 50 Years of Movies from Classics to Cult Hits

Cesária Évora

Wikipedia - "Cesária Évora (Portuguese ... 27 August 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a Cape Verdean popular singer. Nicknamed The Barefoot Diva for performing without shoes, she was also The Queen of Morna."
Wikipedia
The Paris Review: Sodad
Cesária Évora
amazon
NYT: Cesária Évora, Singer From Cape Verde, Dies at 70
YouTube: Sodade (Paris, 2004), Besame mucho (Paris 2002), Isolada (Le Grand Rex de Paris, 2004), Saia Travada (Paris, 2004), Carnaval De São Vicente (São Paulo, 2000), Cabo Verde, Rotcha Scribida, Angola (Le Bataclan, Paris, 1995), Fada

"Into the Mystic" - Van Morrison

Wikipedia - "'Into the Mystic' is a song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and featured on his 1970 album Moondance. ... The lyrics are about a spiritual quest, typical of Morrison's work. 'Bass thrums like a boat in motion, and the song comes back to water as a means of magical transformation.' 'At the very end Van sings: too late to stop now, suggesting that the song also describes an act of love.'"
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Into the Mystic"

Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974

"Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974 is the first large-scale, historical-thematic exhibition to deal broadly with Land Art, capturing the simultaneous impulse emergent in the 1960s to use the earth as an artistic medium and to locate works in remote sites far from familiar art contexts."
Stanford
amazon: Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974
Will Double Negative be a no show?
Michael Heizer- Levitated Mass Update and Upcoming Exhibition
Levitated Mass Update and Upcoming Exhibition (YouTube)

Tintin: the Complete Companion

"A fully illustrated guide to the world-famous comic character Tintin, and his adventures. This well-researched and gorgeously presented overview follows Tintin through the 23 titles of the complete series. Tintin is the classic example of groundbreaking graphic narrative that all others can be compared to. Written and drawn between 1929 and 1976, the 23 adventures of Tintin, his dog Snowy and an unforgettable cast of characters has become a defining standard of graphic literature."
amazon: Tintin: the Complete Companion
W - The Adventures of Tintin
W - Tintin
Clear Lines (on the afterlife of Tintin)
Tintinologist

2008 May: Georges Remi, 1907-1983

Dr. T's Music Software

"I founded Dr. T's Music Software in 1984. The Commodore 64 KCS was the first sequencer that offered event editing and open-ended composition structuring. This program evolved for many years, and eventually became Omega II, for the Atari, a sequencing packing with interactive editing, performance, and algorithmic composition features that are (to the best of my knowledge) unmatched in currently available sequencers. I left Dr. T's in 1993, suffering from a severe case of personal burn-out, and uninterested in the direction that the company was going in."
Dr. T's Music Software
Dr. T's Musical Workstation - From Random Thoughts to Finished Score
Dr T's MIDI-Ax
"A Short History of Intelligent Instruments" (1987) - Laurie Spiegel
YouTube: Tobenfeld's channel

DJ Faroff

"So what's a mashup? What's a bootleg? It's pretty much all the same. Also known as 'bastard pop,' a bootleg is a song that's 'mashed-up.' Usually, this means the vocal track of one song is mixed over the instrumentation of another. Using audio editing software, DJs and mashup artists combine different artists and musical genres to create new and unique songs that are often greater than the sum of their parts."
DJ Faroff
YouTube: Johnny Cash vs Jackson 5 vs Steve Miller Band - Folsom Prison Robin, The Beatles vs Joan Jett vs Cypress Hill vs House of Pain vs RATM, MC Hammer vs Eurythmics vs New Order vs Talking Heads vs Donna Summer, B-52's vs Lipps, Inc. vs Patrick Hernandez vs Yello vs Soulwax - Funky Shack!, Bob Marley vs The Beatles - Let It Be, No Cry, Ramones vs Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Blitzkrieg Girl
vimeo: The Temptations vs Cee Lo Green, Justin Timberlake vs Ray Parker Jr. vs Laid Back vs MSTRKRFT vs Justice

John Luther Adams

Wikipedia - "John Luther Adams (born January 23, 1953 in Meridian, Mississippi) is a composer whose music is inspired by nature, especially the landscapes of Alaska where he has lived since 1978."
Wikipedia
John Luther Adams
YouTube: INUKSUIT, Red Arc / Blue Veil, John Luther Adams: The Music of a True Place
vimeo: A Sonic Geography Of Alaska

Andrew Lenaghan

"My paintings are life paintings. They are painted outdoors and on location. I observe the sun and weather move over the subject. I paint with an urgency to capture these passing moments. I encounter the people who frequent the site. I learn anecdotal stories about it. While working, I am fully immersed in my subject. It's exciting to get to know a foreign city or place through the act of pleinair painting. And that was the case for me in Santa Fe."
William Siegal
artnet