Mighty Diamonds

Wikipedia - "Mighty Diamonds are a Jamaican harmony trio, recording roots reggae with a strong Rastafarian influence. The group, which comprised Donald 'Tabby' Shaw, Fitzroy 'Bunny' Simpson, and Lloyd 'Judge' Ferguson, was formed in 1969, and remains together as of 2010."
Wikipedia
Mighty Diamonds
amazon
YouTube: Pray unto thee, I Need A Roof, I Need A Roof (U Roy Feat), The Roots Is There, Tell Me What's Wrong, Identity, Africa, Gates of Zion 12' -1980

The Fame Studios Story - 1961-1973

"... In the fifty years since, FAME Studios and its idiosyncratic founder Rick Hall have been at the forefront of the Muscle Shoals Sound. FAME begat the process whereby a little known Alabama backwater would evolve into the very crucible of southern soul, a holy place to where musicians, singers and fans still make a very specific pilgrimage in the hope of experiencing a little bit of the magic behind so many hit records: 'I'm Your Puppet', 'Land Of 1,000 Dances', 'Tell Mama' and countless others."
MOG: The Fame Studios Story - 1961-1973 (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Wilson Pickett - Land Of 1000 Dances - Live `66, Bobby Gentry - Fancy (Don't Let Me Down), Etta James - Tell Mama, Bettye Swann - I Can't Let You Break My Heart, Candi Staton - I'm Just a Prisoner Of Your Good loving, Bobby Marchan - Funny Style, Maurice & Mac (Radiants) - Why Don't You Try Me, Barbara Perry - A Man Is a Mean Mean Thing, Clarence Carter - Snatching It Back

Anselm Kiefer

20 Jahre Einsamkeit, 1998
Wikipedia - "Anselm Kiefer (born March 8, 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah."
Wikipedia
WebMuseum
White Cube
amazon
YouTube: Anselm Kiefer, Ansem Kiefer Interview
MASS MoCA (vimeo)

The Pulse of Mixed Media: Secrets and Passions of 100 Artists Revealed

"Seth Apter is a mixed-media artist from New York City, focused primarily on works on paper, book arts, and textural assemblage. His artwork has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions and can be found in multiple books, independent zines, and national magazines including Somerset Studio, Cloth Paper Scissors, Studios, and Artful Blogging."
amazon
The Altered Page
Getting My Feet Wet

Larry Jordan

Wikipedia - "Larry Jordan is an independent filmmaker who has been working in the Bay Area in California since 1955, and making films since 1952. He has produced some 40 experimental and animation films, and three feature-length dramatic films. He is most widely known for his animated collage films. In 1970 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to make Sacred Art of Tibet. His animation has shown by invitation at the Cannes Film Festival."
Wikipedia
Larry Jordan
MUBI: Watch Films by Larry Jordan
Films (Video)
Jordan’s Animated Journeys
UbuWeb: Larry Jordan (Video)
Tableaux Vivant: Notes on Lawrence Jordan
YouTube: Our Lady of the Sphere (1969), Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Gustave Dore with Orson Welles, Samuel Taylor Coleridge) part 1, part 2; AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE, Video expert Larry Jordan talks to The Drum

Church of Anthrax (1971)

Wikipedia - "Church of Anthrax is a collaboration between John Cale and Terry Riley. The record was released in February 1971 by Cale's record company, Columbia Records, nearly a year after the material was recorded - whereas in fact it was recorded prior to Cale's solo debut Vintage Violence."
Wikipedia
amazon
last.fm
Headheritage
YouTube: The Hall Of Mirrors In The Palace At Versailles (with John Cale), Church of Anthrax, The Soul of Patrick Lee, The Protege

Florian Rivière - Urban Hacktivist

"Florian Rivière is an 'urban hacktivist'. He founded and led from 2008 to 2012 the collective 'Democratie Creative' very active in the public space of Strasbourg. Inspired by the hacker culture, he reinvests and diverts public space to allow citizens to reclaim their environment. His interventions, between urban design 'Do It Yourself' and upcycling, have the particularity to be spontaneous and raw, exclusively made with objects found in the street, and always with humor."
Wooster Collective
Florian Rivière

Earl Scruggs

Wikipedia - "Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for perfecting and popularizing a three-finger banjo-picking style (now called 'Scruggs style') that is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. Although other musicians had played in three-finger style before him, Scruggs shot to prominence when he was hired by Bill Monroe to fill the banjo slot in his group, the Blue Grass Boys."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Ground Speed, Orange Blossom Special, Breakdown, Home sweet home, Lonesome Road Blues, Katy Hill, Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow and Home Sweet Home, Cumberland Gap, Turn Your Radio On, Crying Holy unto the Lord, Earl Scruggs & Steve Martin - Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Earl's Breakdown, Doc Watson & Earl Scruggs Play At Doc's Home, Earl Scruggs & The Byrds - Roger Mcguinn, Earl Scruggs Performs At Anti War Demonstration, Earl Scruggs Banjo -- The Only Video Documentary

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

Interior with Young Woman Tracing a Flower, Martin Drolling
"This exhibition focuses on a subject treasured by the Romantics: the view through an open window. German, French, Danish, and Russian artists first took up the theme in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Juxtaposing near and far, the window is a metaphor for unfulfilled longing. Painters distilled this feeling in pictures of hushed, spare rooms with contemplative figures; studios with artists at work; and open windows as the sole motif."
Met Museum
Met Museum - Featured Catalogue: Rooms With a View
NYT: Romantics Shining Clear Light on Daily Existence
The New Yorker: Inside Story
TNR: A Room of One’s Own
The New Yorker: Romantic Windows (Video)
amazon
CBS (Video)

Adrienne Rich 1929–2012

"Poet and essayist Adrienne Rich was one of America’s foremost public intellectuals. Widely read and hugely influential, Rich’s career spanned seven decades and has hewed closely to the story of post-war American poetry itself. Her earliest work, including A Change of World (1951) which won the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Award, was formally exact and decorous, while her work of the late 1960s and 70s became increasingly radical in both its free-verse form and feminist and political content."
Poetry Foundation
Wikipedia
The Paris Review: In Memoriam - Adrienne Rich
YouTube: What Kind Of Times Are These?, ChilePoesía 2001
Poets: Diving into the Wreck (Video)
PennSound
NYT: A Poet of Unswerving Vision at the Forefront of Feminism
amazon

2007 December: Adrienne Rich
2011 February: The Young Insurgent's Commonplace-Book: Adrienne Rich's "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law"

R. L. Burnside

Wikipedia - "R. L. Burnside (November 23, 1926 – September 1, 2005), born Robert Lee Burnside, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention until the early 1990s."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Poor Boy A Long Way From Home, See My Jumper Hanging On the Line, Poor Black Mattie, Rollin and Tumblin, Mississippi Blues, Going Down South, When My First Wife Left Me

Alexis Smith

Passion and Technicolor, 2009
"Alexis Smith is an artist who uses collage and installation to create alternate narratives and understandings of popular culture. Born and raised in Southern California, Smith considers herself a “product” of the entertainment industry. In this video, Ms. Smith gives us a look at how the materials in her studio become artworks, and explains how shared ideas about objects and images lead each viewer to have a unique experience with her work."
MoCA (YouTube)
Pasadena (Video)
Margo Leavin Gallery

Kathy Hinde

Bird Sequencer by Kathy Hind and Ivan Franco
"Kathy Hinde has created video and sound for theatre and live art performances alongside making installations and site specific work. Her approach combines different art forms frequently through collaborations with other practitioners and scientists. She is keen to share her creative process, and regularly makes artworks that rely on input from the audience. She has shown work across Europe, Scandinavia, China, Pakistan, USA, Colombia and Brazil."
Kathy Hinde
Installations (Video)
Visuals (Video)
Music / Sound (Video)
Performance (Video)
Participatory (Video)
vimeo: Kathy Hinde's videos
YouTube: TEDxAldeburgh - Piano Migrations

Bob Marley: Live in Santa Barbara

"Bob Marley: Live in Santa Barbara 1979"
YouTube: 1:34:54

2010 November: Bob Marley and the Wailers
2011 May: Live 1973 - 1975
2011 July: Tuff Gong Studios 1980

Robert Smithson - Asphalt Rundown, Rome, 1969

"Asphalt Rundown, Rome, 1969, was Smithsons first flow, situated in an abandoned and mundane section of a gravel and dirt quarry in Rome. A large dumptruck released a load of asphalt down a gutted and gullied cliff already marked by time."
YouTube

2007 November: Robert Smithson
2010 April: Spiral Jetty

Songs for A.E.

"The American Composers Orchestra's continues its multi-year Millennium series at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, February 27 at 3pm with 'Lindbergh...', a thematic program devoted to flight--one of the 20th century's pioneering technological and human achievements--and to the heroes of early aviation. The concert's centerpiece is Kurt Weill's The Lindbergh Flight (Der Lindberghflug). Composer/electric violinist/performance- artist Laurie Anderson will perform the world premiere of Songs for A.E., dedicated to Amelia Earhart. Also on the program is Samuel Barber's Night Flight, and the U.S. Premiere of Act V of the Philip Glass/Robert Wilson opera The White Raven with Robert Wilson narrating.
American Composers
YouTube: Laurie Anderson - Songs For A.E. (part 1 of 3), (part 2 of 3), (part 3 of 3)

Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard

"There’s an exhibition currently hanging at one of my favorite museums, the extremely comfortable Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, called Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard. It bascially shows how the advent of personal photography in the late 1800′s, with the invention of the Kodak handheld camera, changed how many artists worked. The camera allowed artists to capture moments without their easel as well as permitted them to ponder an image long after the moment had passed. This exhibit focuses mainly on the effect fo the camera on the Post-Impressionists, such as George Hendrik Breitner, whose photo of a girl in a kimono and the resulting painting is shown here."
Redtree Times
Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard (vimeo)
Phillips Collection: Exhibition Images
amazon: Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard
YouTube

Vhils Solo Show

"Following the two months long action in the city of Shanghai, VHILS shows to the public his unusual work, chisels-carved walls, acid-engraved metal or laser-cut posters. VHILS’s artwork is a revolution in the stencil technique in its use of unusual tools. Through the destruction of walls, he explores the layers of urban space and its history. Old papers, worn out posters, wood panels, brick walls are attacked with chisels, jackhammer, acid, or explosives, in order to sculpt his stencil on the wall. VHILS’s portraits underline an important contrast between new and ancient ; he makes visible the inside face of these buildings."
Magda Gallery
Vhils Covers Shanghai (YouTube)
Juxtapoz

2009 May: Alexandre Farto

Live at Montreux 1980/1974

Wikipedia - "Live at Montreux 1980/1974 is the first official DVD by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released on October 16, 2006. The films consist of two separate performances by Van Morrison at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: 1980, 01 Wavelength, 02 Kingdom Hall, 03 And it Stoned Me, 04 Troubadours, 05 Spirit, 06 Joyous Sound, 07 Satisfied, 08 Ballerina, 09 Summertime In England, 10 Moondance, 11 Haunts Of Ancient Peace, 12 Wild Night
YouTube: 1974, 01 Twilight Zone, 02 I Like It Like That, Harmonica Boogie, 04 Bulbs, 05 Swiss Cheese, 06 Heathrow Shuffle, 07 Naked in the Jungle

Reanimation Library

1965, Let's Find Out About the Moon, Yukio Tashiro
"The Reanimation Library is a small, independent Presence Library open to the public. It is a collection of books that have fallen out of routine circulation and been acquired for their visual content. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles, and given new life as a resource for artists, writers, cultural archeologists, and other interested parties." 543 Union St. Brooklyn, NY
Reanimation Library
MoMA: Print/Out
YouTube: Reanimation Library

Bernhard Brungs

Piero Sraffa
"Not the first time a young artist has turned to the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein for inspiration, but in this approach Bernhard Brungs uses the philosophically historical as a means threefold. Brungs depicts artistic ambition, the male gaze as well as the logical reasoning as an end unto itself. In his exhibition at Mittwochsbar, Brungs presented new works, which he completed while attending the Lenikus Collection residency in Vienna."
Applause Exhibition
Produzenten Galerie
artnet
Tomio Koyama Gallery

Bonnie Tyler - "It's A Heartache"

"It's a heartache
Nothing but a heartache
Hits you when it's too late
Hits you when you're down
It's a fool's game"
YouTube

Beyond the Gardens: The Fungarium

"Most people know Kew Gardens as home of the world's largest living plant collection but are not aware that it is also the location of an internationally important botanical research and educational institution. Going beyond the gardens as we know them, Lonelyleap produced two films for 2012's Tropical Extravaganza Festival which showcase the behind the scenes work of Kew's scientists whilst also exploring two of the festival's themes, Earth and Air."
vimeo: The Fungarium, The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art

"Diego Rivera was the subject of MoMA’s second monographic exhibition (the first was Henri Matisse), which set new attendance records in its five-week run from December 22, 1931, to January 27, 1932. MoMA brought Rivera to New York six weeks before the exhibition’s opening and gave him studio space within the Museum, a strategy intended to solve the problem of how to present the work of this famous muralist when murals were by definition made and fixed on site."
MoMA
MoMA - Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art
amazon
NYT: Time Capsule With Pulse on Present
Google: Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art
Economist: A moveable feast

2008 May: Diego Rivera

Zoë Keating

Wikipedia - "Zoë Keating (born February 2, 1972) is a Canadian-born cellist and composer based in San Francisco, California. In her solo performances and recordings (particularly the ongoing project she calls 'One Cello x 16'), she uses live electronic sampling and repetition in order to layer the sound of her cello, creating rhythmically dense musical structures."
Wikipedia
Zoë Keating
Soundcloud (Video)
YouTube: Plays"Escape Artist", Avant-garde Cellist Zoe Keating, Radical Cello, Optimist at TEDxSF, Sun Will Set, Optimist

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy

"Documentarian Thomas Riedelsheimer shows us Andy Goldsworthy as he creates art in natural settings using natural materials such as driftwood, ice, mud, leaves, and stones. Goldsworthy comments on his “earthworks” and occasionally responds to off screen questions from Riedelsheimer while he painstakingly builds his outdoors sculptures."
Top Documentary Films
amazon
YouTube: Rivers and Tides 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

2007 November: Andy Goldsworthy: Roof

Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition

"As the seventh century began, vast territories extending from Syria to Egypt and across North Africa were ruled by the Byzantine Empire from its capital, Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Critical to the wealth and power of the empire, these southern provinces, long influenced by Greco-Roman traditions, were home to Orthodox, Coptic, and Syriac Christians, Jewish communities, and others. Great pilgrimage centers attracted the faithful from as far away as Yemen in the east and Scandinavia in the west. Major trade routes reached eastward down the Red Sea past Jordan to India in the south, bringing silks and ivories to the imperial territories."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Blog
amazon: Byzantium and Islam
NYT: Ornate Links Tethering Cultures in Flux
YouTube: Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition—The Red Monastery

Waiting - J Butler

"Waiting is comprised of songs written in 2011, using material and field recordings collected over the past 2 years. Although created using electronic means, many of the pieces draw inspiration from natural sounds and surroundings. 'Buhl Park' uses a bed of drones overlaid on a field recording of crickets and children playing in the park, while 'Dream Analysis' was inspired by a storm siren. J Butler - electric piano, field recordings, guitar, lapharp, photo, sampler, synthesizer."
J Butler
Soundcloud

Rackstraw Downes

Sprowls Bros. Lumber Yard, Searsmont, ME, 1978-90
Wikipedia - "Rackstraw Downes (born 1939) is a British-born realist painter and author. His oil paintings are notable for their meticulous detail accumulated during months of plein-air sessions, depictions of industry and the environment, and elongated compositions with complex perspective."
Wikipedia
Betty Cuningham Gallery
NYT: Street Life as Still Life
Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008
art21: (Video)
The art of Rackstraw Downes (Video)

The Art of Arts - Anita Albus

"There was a time, five hundred years ago, when science was regarded as an art, and art as a science. And in the contest between the senses, the ear, through which we had previously received all knowledge and the word of God, was conquered by the eye, which would henceforth be king. A new breed of painters aimed to reconcile the world of the senses with that of the mind, and their goal was to conceal themselves in the details and vanish away, like God. A new way of perceiving was born. Anita Albus describes the birth and evolution of trompe-l'oeil painting in oils in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, focusing her attention on works by northern European artists—both major and minor."
amazon: The Art of Arts: Rediscovering Painting
Google

"Always on My Mind" - Pet Shop Boys

Wikipedia - "'Always on My Mind' is an American country music song by Johnny Christopher, Mark James and Wayne Carson, originally recorded by Brenda Lee in 1972. Allmusic lists over 300 recorded releases of the song in versions by dozens of performers. While Brenda Lee's version had stalled at #45 on the country charts in 1972, other performers would reach top 20 (including #1) success with their own versions: Elvis Presley in 1972; John Wesley Ryles in 1979; Willie Nelson's Grammy Award winning version in 1982; Pet Shop Boys in 1987."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "Always on My Mind" - Pet Shop Boys, Live, Wembley Arena Tour in 1989, Top Of The Pops - 1987

2008 September: Pet Shop Boys
2010 November: Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989
2011 January: Behaviour
2011 May: Very
2011 December: Bilingual

Horace Andy + Sly & Robbie - Livin´ It Up

"Visa issues were the cause of Horace Andy missing several shows in the US recently, when he was scheduled to share the bill with dub and reggae heavyweights Sly and Robbie. The visa has been issued finally and Andy flew from Kingston, Jamaica to California today, leaving him with a full night to settle in before Saturday's concert. Cherine Anderson opens the concerts, warming up the crowd for Horace Andy's roots reggae crooning and Sly and Robbie's relentless and warm jamming on drums and bass."
MOG
amazon: Livin It Up
YouTube: 1/16, 2/17 artist set up, 3/17 bless you, 4/17 zion gates, 5/17 true rastaman, 6/17 king of kings, 7/17 thanks and .., 8/17 livin'it up, 09/17 true love, 10/17 skylarking, 11/17 rastafari..., 12/17 holy mt zion, 13/17 i m alive, 14/17 *gregory isaacs*, 15/17 one love, 16/17 sharing ..., 17/17 **GOODIES**

Astronomer's Paradise

"Astronomer's Paradise is the first episode of a Atacama Starry Nights timelapse movie series. ... Cerro Paranal is an astronomers paradise with its stunningly dark, steady and transparent sky. Located in the barren Atacama Desert of Chile it is home to some of the world's leading telescopes."
vimeo: Atacama Desert of Chile

Marjane Satrapi

Wikipedia - "Marjane Satrapi ...(born 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author. Apart from her native language Persian, she speaks English, Swedish, German, French and Italian. Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with communist and socialist movements in Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing suppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran–Iraq War."
Wikipedia
Nowness - Beginnings: Marjane Satrapi (Video)
YouTube: Graphic novels & her family's influence

2009 July: Persopolis 2.0

Vilhelm Hammershøi

White Doors, 1905
Wikipedia - "Vilhelm Hammershøi ..., often written in English Vilhelm Hammershoi (15 May 1864 – 13 February 1916), was a Danish painter. He is known for his poetic, low-key portraits and interiors."
Wikipedia
Vilhelm Hammershøi at the Royal Academy: the poetry of silence
YouTube: Vilhelm Hammershøi