John Cassavetes / His Life and Work

"Yum ! A full-length documentary about John Cassavetes, of course featuring the wonderful Gena Rowlands. I'm on vacation. Enjoy some TV for me."
WFMU: John Cassavetes / His Life and Work

2008 September: John Cassavetes
2010 December: Shadows (1959)
2011 June: A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini

"It has been said that the Renaissance witnessed the rediscovery of the individual. In keeping with this notion, early Renaissance Italy also hosted the first great age of portraiture in Europe. Portraiture assumed a new importance, whether it was to record the features of a family member for future generations, celebrate a prince or warrior, extol the beauty of a woman, or make possible the exchange of a likeness among friends."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
MetMuseum: Artworks
NYT: Getting Personal
euronews: NY’s Met welcomes Renaissance portraiture (Video)

Everything is a Remix

"Everything is a Remix is produced by me, Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker. This site is a companion piece to the four-part video series. The first three episodes of the series have been published and part four should be released in late November. Donations are much appreciated and help me devote as much time as possible to research, writing and production."
vimeo: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Everything is a Remix

Fact-Simile

"These limited-edition poetic collectibles are printed on recycled paper and available for just 99 cents on our website. Subscriptions to the entire 2012 series are just $10 plus shipping and, as always, our 2010 and 2011 Poetry Trading Cards are still available individually or as a complete set. Happy Reading."
Fact-Simile Blogspot
Fact-Simile

John Cage: I Have Nothing to Say and I Am Saying It (1990)

"John Cage On His Way With Sound, By JOHN J. O'CONNOR: Perhaps the most striking thing about John Cage is his ability to reduce just about anyone in his vicinity to a gentle smile. For more than 50 years, the distinguished, influential and often provocative composer has been challenging audiences with his work and his ideas. All the while, his primary goal has been disarmingly simple. Mr. Cage is interested, as he puts it, in 'increasing one's enjoyment of life, to become more open.'"
UbuWeb (Video)

2008 February: John Cage
2009 February: P22 Music Text Composition Generator
2010 January: 4'33"
2010 October: Obscure No. 5 - Jan Steele / John Cage
2010 October: Indeterminacy
2010 November: Silence: lectures and writings
2011 January: Toy piano
2011 January: John Cage In Norway
2011 March: 27 sounds manufactured in a kitchen
2011 May: Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939)
2011 October: Water Walk

Fear of a Black Planet - Public Enemy

Wikipedia - "Fear of a Black Planet is the third studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released April 10, 1990, on Def Jam Recordings and Columbia Records. Production for the album was handled by the group's production team The Bomb Squad, who expanded on the dense, sample-layered sound of the group's previous album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988). They constructed elaborate sound collages for the album's music, incorporating varying rhythms, numerous samples, media sound bites, and eccentric music loops, which reflected the content's confrontational tone. Fear of a Black Planet contains themes concerning organization and empowerment within the African-American community, while presenting criticism of social issues affecting African Americans at the time of the album's conception."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Fight The Power, Burn hollywood burn, 911 is a joke, Can't Do Nuttin' For Ya Man, WeLCoMe To THe TeRRoRDoMe - 90BPM, Brothers Gonna Work it Out

2009 May: Public Enemy
2011 July: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy

Boubacar Traoré

Wikipedia - "Boubacar Traoré (born 1942 in Kayes, Mali) is a renowned singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Traoré also goes by the nickname Kar Kar, 'the one who dribbles too much' in Bambara, a reference to his soccer playing: 'a nickname I got from playing soccer when I was young. People would yell Kari, Kari - dribble, dribble - the name stuck with me.'"
Wikipedia
amazon
NYT: Video: Boubacar Traoré in Brooklyn (Video)
YouTube: KarKar, Minuit, Je Chanterai Pour Toi, Portrait (eng subs), Mariama, Tunga Magni

Father Guido Sarducci

Wikipedia - "Father Guido Sarducci is a fictional character made famous by American comedian Don Novello. Sarducci, a chain-smoking priest with tinted eyeglasses, works in the United States as gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano (sometimes mentioned as The Vatican Enquirer, a take-off of the tabloid The National Enquirer)."
Wikipedia
W - Don Novello
YouTube: Father Guido Sarducci on art school, Saint Patty, Interviews Pope John Paul II about jet lag, The Secret of Life, 5 Minute University

Mad Professor

Wikipedia - "Mad Professor (born Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser, 1955, Georgetown, Guyana) is a dub music producer and engineer known for his original productions and remix work. He is considered one of the leading producers of dub music’s second generation and was instrumental in transitioning dub into the digital age. He is a prolific producer, contributing to or producing nearly 200 albums. He has collaborated with reggae artists such as Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Sly and Robbie, Pato Banton, Jah Shaka and Horace Andy, as well as artists outside the realm of traditional reggae and dub, such as Sade, Massive Attack, The Orb, and Brazilian DJ Marcelinho da lua."
Wikipedia
Ariwa
last.fm
YouTube: A Dub Lesson, Mad Professor mix : Sandra Cross & Wild Bunch 1982, Mad Professor - U-Roy, Chase The Devil Dub, "what's going on?" marvin gaye, Bob Marley - Mad Professor - Lively Up Yourself, Live dub at Studio Um Dois

Berlin Stories - Robert Walser

"Over the next few days, we will be running several excerpts from Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, which have been translated into English for the first time by Susan Bernofsky, and just published in a new edition by New York Review Classics. Walser arrived in Berlin from Switzerland in 1905 and wrote hundreds of short reflections about the city’s charms. As Bernofsky writes in her introduction, 'The chirpy delight some of his narrators take in the city’s hum and bustle also reflects his own status as an outsider who enjoys blending in with the crowd.' The story that follows is drawn from a longer piece. —The Editors"
NYBooks: Berlin and the Artist, In the Electric Tram, Aschinger
NYBooks: A Letter From Susan Bernofsky, Translator of Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories
amazon
Bookslut

New York City Graffiti and Street Art Project

Art Kids Left Alone At Last (Court Rules Against Graffiti Law)
"LC Graffiti and Street Art Project was produced by Lewis & Clark College's Watzek Library and Off-Campus and Study Abroad Program. It was an experiment to develop and employ mobile technologies for teaching and learning with the expectation that it might serve as a model for creating collaborative digital image projects with mobile devices and Flickr for non-traditional classroom settings."
New York City Graffiti and Street Art Project
LC Graffiti & Street Art Project

BRAFA 12

"For the tenth time, the Brussels Antiques & Fine Arts Fair will take place in the large halls of the mail sorting station of 'Thurn & Taxis'. The exhibition space comprises a total surface of 14.000 m², spread over room 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the building A. This historical building, located along the Willebroek canal, is a wonderful example of the Belgian industrial architectural heritage. It was built around 1903-1904 according to the plans of the architect Van Humbeek and was originally used as a storage place for transit merchandise."
BRAFA 12 (Video)
From Delvaux's "Breakfast" to Beetle Collages, Belgium's BRAFA Fair Was Laden With Highlights

Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974–1981

John Divola, Zuma #9 (1979-2006)
"The years covered by the exhibition bracket a tumultuous, transitional period in United States history, beginning with Richard Nixon’s resignation and ending with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. The exhibition borrows its title from the album by the Los Angeles–based punk band X to suggest that the California Dream and the hippie optimism of the late 1960s had been eclipsed by a sense of disillusionment during this post-Watergate, post-Vietnam era. Under the Big Black Sun seeks to demonstrate how this collective loss of faith in government and institutions yielded a spirit of artistic freedom and experimentation that reached its apex in California through the pluralistic art practices that flourished here."
MOCA: Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974–1981
Under the Big Black Sun (YouTube)
amazon
LA Times - Art review: 'Under the Big Black Sun' at MOCA
YouTube: Under the Big Black Sun. Art in California 1974-1981

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Bluenose II
Wikipedia - "Lunenburg (2006 population: 2,317), is a Canadian port town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Situated on the province's South Shore, Lunenburg is located on a peninsula at the western side of Mahone Bay. The town is approximately 90 kilometres southwest of the county boundary with the Halifax Regional Municipality. The town was established during Father Le Loutre's War. The historic town was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1995. This designation ensures protection for much of Lunenburg's unique architecture and civic design, being the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America."
Wikipedia
Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic
YouTube: Lunenburg Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic
W - Bluenose II
YouTube: Bluenose vs Gertrude L. Thebaud

Fred Frith & Tom Cora

"Rehearsal at the Kitchen, New York. February '89."
YouTube":The Kitchen, '89

An Ideal for Living EP - Joy Division

Wikipedia - "An Ideal for Living is the debut EP released by Joy Division in 1978, shortly after changing their name from Warsaw. All tracks were recorded at the Pennine Sound Studios, Oldham, on 14 December 1977. A 7" version was released in June on the band's own Enigma Records label (not to be confused with the American record label of the same name), followed by a 12" version in October on the band's own Anonymous Records label."
Wikipedia
Joy Division the Bootlegs
YouTube: An Ideal for Living EP - 12:34
LiveLeak: Part 1/3 Part 2/3, Part 3/3

2008 March: Joy Division
2009 August: Factory: Manchester From Joy Division To Happy Mondays
2011 November: "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

Manifest Destiny!

"Manifest Destiny! is a temporary rustic cabin occupying one of the last remaining unclaimed spaces of downtown San Francisco—above and between other properties. The cabin is affixed to the side of the Hotel des Arts, floating above the restaurant Le Central like an anomalous outgrowth of the contemporary streetscape."
Wooster Collective
dezeen

Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde

Vladimir Tatlin
"Malevich thought that supramatism could transform the world in its entirety. This film by Michael Craig and Copernicus Films is part of a larger documentary film about Architecture and Russian Avant-garde art. Using computer generated material it shows how Malevich's black square came to bear on the development of modern architecture."
YouTube: Architecture and the Russian Avant-garde (Pt. 1), (Pt. 2)
W - Russian avant-garde
amazon

E.O. Hoppé

Wikipedia - "Emil Otto Hoppé (14 April 1878 – 9 December 1972) was a German-born British portrait, travel, and topographic photographer active between 1907 and 1945. Born into a wealthy family in Munich, he moved to London in 1900 originally to train as a financier, but took up photography and rapidly achieved great success."
Wikipedia
E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection
The Black Harbor

Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound

"Tara Rodgers’s book Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound collects interviews from a variety of female musicians who work with electronic instruments, either as deejays, composers, sound artists, or sometimes a composite of all three. Anticipation was high for this book, which began as a Web site Rodgers started while in graduate school at Mills College. I began reading over the interviews available online when preparing an encyclopedia entry on female DJs and found it an invaluable resource."
Feminist Music Geeks (YouTube)
amazon
machinemusic
Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, Vol 2, No 1 (2011)
UMD: Tara Rodgers

Absolute Wilson

"ABSOLUTE WILSON chronicles the epic life, times and creative genius of Robert Wilson, intimately revealing for the first time one of the most controversial, rule-breaking and downright mysterious artists of our era. More than a biography, the film becomes an exhilarating exploration of the transformative power of creativity itself - and the inspirational tale of a boy who grew up as a troubled and learning-disabled outsider in the American South only to become a fearless artist with a profoundly original perspective to share with the world."
Absolute Wilson
amazon
amazon: Biography
YouTube: Absolute Wilson trailer
Absolute Wilson Part 1 - Early Life, Part 2 - Psychology and Disabled Children, Part 3 - Byrd Hoffman and Watermill Center, Part 4 - Raymond Andrews and Deafman Glance, Part 5 - Ka Mountain, Part 6 - Christopher Knowles and A Letter for Queen Victoria, Part 7 - Philip Glass and Einstein on the Beach, Part 8 - the CIVIL warS, Part 9 - The Black Rider and Later Work

2008 April: Robert Wilson
2010 January: Einstein on the Beach
2010 July: The CIVIL warS
2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera (1985)
2011 August: Stations (1982)

The Marguerite Michaels Collection: Japanese Prints of the 1960s and 1970s

Matsubara Naoko. Walden Pond, 1971.
"The artists on display are all members of the Creative Print (Sôsaku Hanga) movement that began in the early 20th century but truly flourished in the 1960s. Creative prints differ from traditional ukiyo-e prints in that the artist designs, draws or carves, and prints the images themselves. For centuries, this process had been divided among various artisans in Edo period (1615–1868) Japan. In addition, plywood has replaced katsura as the wood of choice in the 20th century. Of course, using woodblocks is only one technique open to the contemporary printmaker, and some artists choose to work with silkscreen, photo-etching, or a combination of methods."
The Art Institute of Chicago
Interpretive Resource

Subway Riders' Portraits: Sophie Blackall

"What would you say to the one who got away? Artist Sophie Blackall's illustrations are inspired by the Internet's love lost and found. And for the MTA Arts for Transit program, she created a portraits of an interesting group of subway riders which are inspired by her sketches on the Subway."
ArtInfo (vimeo)
Sophie Blackall
Blogspot

61 “James Alley Blues” by Richard (Rabbit) Brown

"Recorded in New Orleans in 1927, Richard (Rabbit) Brown was a songster, a black folk singer and musician, often itinerant, busking on street corners and working as a boatman on Lake Pontchartrain. He grew up in the late 19th century on Jane Alley (or Jane’s Alley, as the residents called it), the turpentine distillery district of New Orleans. ... Video: Bob Dylan (The Minnesota Tapes), Judy Roderick (Woman Blue), Fox and Branch (Bootlegger’s Blues), Alice Stuart (All the Good Times), Jeff Tweedy (The Harry Smith Connection: A Live Tribute to the Anthology), Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard (Hazel & Alice), Big Moe & Jolly Jumper (Rooster Soup), Sweet Ginger Heat (Healy Heartache)"
The Old, Weird America - (Video)

Pigbag

Wikipedia - "Pigbag were a British post-punk band, active from 1980 to 1983. Pigbag were formed in Cheltenham in late 1980 by Chris Hamlin, a fashion student at Cheltenham Art College. Hamlin recruited multi-instrumentalist Roger Freeman, an old friend from his hometown of Birmingham, along with Chris Lee on trumpet and James Johnstone, a guitarist, record shop assistant and newcomer to the alto sax, for initial jam sessions which would eventually evolve into Pigbag."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Getting Up, Papa's got a brand new pigbag, Weak At The Knees, Big Bean

Johann Dieter Wassmann

Das Ehestand, (The Wedlock), 1897
Wikipedia - "Johann Dieter Wassmann (1841–1898) is a fictitious artist and sewerage engineer, purportedly from Leipzig, Germany. He is the creation of the American-born artist and writer Jeff Wassmann. According to his fictitious biography, Johann Dieter Wassmann was born in Leipzig, Germany, where he witnessed the industrial revolution rapidly alter the once agrarian, guild-based and perhaps idealised Electorate of Saxony."
W - Johann Dieter Wassmann
W - Jeff Wassmann
NYT: British Author Espies a Funerary Violin Vacuum and So Fills It
The Wassmann Foundation
YouTube: The Foundation

The Boombox Project: The Machines, the Music, and the Urban Underground

"On the heels of the graffiti renaissance comes a vibrant look at an old-school icon that figured prominently in the hip-hop, rock & roll, and punk movements of the 1970s and 80s. The Boombox Project features contemporary fine art portraits of an array of vintage boomboxes, as well as scores of documentary photographs of the people who brought the boombox movement to life back in the day. The book is more than just a collection of images, though; it’s also an oral history of the early days of hip-hop, featuring memories from Fab 5 Freddy, Bob Gruen, Rosie Perez, Kool Moe Dee, LL Cool J, Lisa Lisa, DJ Spooky, and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, among others, on the role this once ubiquitous machine played."
amazon (Video)
The Boombox Project | Lyle Owerko
The Boombox Project, A Photobook of Vintage Boomboxes (vimeo)
YouTube: CBS Sunday Morning - The Boombox Project Segment

The Other Side of Modern Sculpture - Charles Kessler

Cady Noland, Tanya as Bandit, 1989
"I've been thinking more about my post on how the backs of sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum, backs that were never intended to be seen, are nevertheless beautifully finished. It's occurred to me that traditional sculptures were usually commissioned by rich and powerful people. They were not only sacred objects, but they were also luxury objects, and anything that looked cheap or unfinished would be unseemly."
Left Bank Art Blog

Arkology - Lee "Scratch" Perry

Wikipedia - "Arkology is a compilation album by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Released in 1997, the album collects tracks produced by Perry and recorded at the Black Ark studio. The album was listed in the 1999 book The Rough Guide: Reggae: 100 Essential CDs."
Wikipedia
Stylus Magazine: Lee "Scratch" Perry - Arkology
Reggae Vibes
YouTube: Dreadlocks In Moonlight, Reel I - Max Romeo, The Heptones ft. Lee Scratch Perry - Make Up Your Mind, Junior Dread - Sufferers Heights, Mikey Dread - Dread At The Mantrols, Dread Locks

2009 November: Lee "Scratch" Perry
2010 November: The Upsetters
2011 April: The Silvertones

Dance/Draw

Juan Capistran, The Breaks, 2000
"On the occasion of its 75th anniversary, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents Dance/Draw, an ambitious thematic show tracing the journey of the line from changes in drawing in the 1960s to its explosion off the page and into three-dimensional space—ultimately finding itself in the realm of dance. In particular, this exhibition investigates the connections between visual art and dance over the past 50 years, culminating in the exploration of a new generation of artists deeply interested in dance."
ICA Boston
Slideshow: ''Dance/Draw'' exhibit at the ICA
Fuse Feature: Lining It Up — Dance/Draw at the ICA
YouTube: Dance/Draw exhibit at the ICA

2011 January: Trisha Brown - Floor of the Forest (1970)

Norman Blake

Wikipedia - "Norman Blake (born March 10, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years Blake has played in a number of folk and country groups. He is considered one of the leading figures in the bluegrass revival of the 1970s and is still active today, playing concert dates and making albums with his wife Nancy Blake."
Wikipedia
Nancy & Norman Blake
YouTube: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Back Again, Nashville Blues, Randall Collins and Done Gone, Elzic's Farewell, My Dear Old Southern Home and New Money, Salty, The Fields of November, Graycoat Soldiers

Jazz Photos

"Since Gottlieb was shooting pictures for free, The Post allowed him to keep his negatives, giving him the start of what would become a valuable library of photographs used on many album covers, posters, T-shirts and other products. He photographed the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington."
Jazz Photos
LOC: William P. Gottlieb Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz
flickr: Gottlieb Jazz Photos
Wikipedia
YouTube: Don't Get Around Much Anymore - Valentine Ryder
Loading...

Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), The Umbrellas
"The Frick Collection presents an exhibition of nine iconic Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering the first comprehensive study of the artist's engagement with the full-length format, which was associated with the official Paris Salon in the decade that saw the emergence of a fully fledged Impressionist aesthetic. The project was inspired by La Promenade of 1875–76, the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick's permanent collection. It explores Renoir's portraits and subject pictures of this type from the mid-1870s to mid-1880s. Intended for public display, these vertical grand-scale canvases are among the artist's most daring and ambitious presentations of contemporary subjects and are today considered masterpieces of Impressionism."
The Frick Collection
NYT: Soigné Parisians, Fit for a Grand Canvas
YouTube: Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting: An Introduction to the Exhibition

Junior Giscombe

Wikipedia - "Junior Giscombe (born Norman Washington Giscombe, 6 June 1957, Wandsworth, London) is a singer-songwriter (frequently known simply by the mononym, Junior) who was one of the first British R&B artists to be successful in the United States."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Mama Used To Say, Too Late

Civilisation - Kenneth Clark

Wikipedia - "Civilisation — in full Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark — is a television documentary series outlining the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages. The series was produced by the BBC and aired in 1969 on BBC2. Both the television material and an accompanying book were written by art historian Kenneth Clark (1903–1983), who also presented the series. The series is considered to be a landmark in British Television's broadcasting of the visual arts."
Wikipedia (TV Series)
W - Kenneth Clark
amazon: Civilisation: The Complete Series (1969)
amazon: Civilisation: A Personal View
YouTube: 1 - Civilisation: The Skin of Our Teeth