Recap: FAILE at the New York City Ballet

"We had a great time checking out FAILE's installation at the New York City Ballet. The piece was four stories high, composed of over 2,500 boxes and beautifully lit to bring out every inch of the vibrant structure. Each box was painted on all six sides. Below are some pictures from the event, but we definitely recommend you visiting the Lincoln Center to check it out if you have the chance. The magnitude of this project is best felt and experienced in person!"
Wooster Collective

New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual

"This site is dedicated to serve as an archival record of a first edition NYCTA Graphics Standards Manual designed by Massimo Vignelli of Unimark International. The manual was found in a locker beneath old gym clothes. Roll over the images to magnify. Enjoy. New York 1970."
The Standards Manual
Vignelli, Designer of Famous Subway Map, Defends His Version Over These Others (IMAGES)
NYT: The Subway Map That Rattled New Yorkers
Designspiration

2008 July: Transit Maps of the World
2009 August: Kick Map
2010 December: The Subway Issue
2011 August: West Fourth Street – Washington Square
2012 June: The Underground New York Public Library
2012 August: Tunneling Below Second Avenue

Barb Choit: Fade Diary

"Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present a show of new work by Barb Choit. For her second solo show at the gallery, Choit will exhibit a selection from an ongoing series of photographs, and will install a neon sculpture in the gallery’s front window. As in her earlier work, the artist continues here to explore fading as a photographic process—not just in its familiar dependence on the camera—but also as it is found in the world, in printed materials whose colors have become gradually faded by the photochemical impact of the sun’s UV rays. Channeling the tradition of street photography, Choit concentrates on the shop window as her subject matter. The layered reflections that figure in her images recall proto-documentary French photographer Eugene Atget's pictures of the same subject."
Rachel Uffner Gallery
Rachel Uffner Gallery: Gallery Publications

Rosanne Cash - Live From Zone C

"Intimate acoustic set by Rosanne Cash and her husband, John Leventhal in their living room (aka Zone C). Includes exclusive live recordings of songs from throughout her career, as chosen exclusively by twitter requests. Hosted by Lizz Winstead."
VPRX (Video)
Rosanne Cash, 'Sea of Heartbreak' (Video)
YouTube: Seven Year Ache, September When It Comes, Sea Of Heartbreak, Blue Moon With Heartache, Runaway Train, House On The Lake, Black Cadillac, Good Intent, Sleeping In Paris

2010 March: Rosanne Cash
2012 January: Black Cadillac
2012 April: "I Was Watching You" 
2012 July: The Wheel

Pablo O'Higgins

La huelga de Cananea
Wikipedia - "Pablo Esteban O'Higgins (born Paul Higgins Stevenson; March 1, 1904 - July 16, 1983) was an American-Mexican artist, muralist and illustrator. ... Like [Diego] Rivera, O'Higgins became an active member of the Mexican Communist Party. He immigrated to Mexico permanently in 1924, joined the party in 1927, and maintained his party membership until 1947. His political illustrations for the Daily Worker won him a year's study at the Academy of Art in Moscow on a Soviet Scholarship in 1933."
Wikipedia
Google
ArtDaily: The Intriguing Story of Muralist Pablo O'Higgins Told in New Book
YouTube: Exposicion "Dibujo y Gráfica de Pablo O'Higgins"

J. J. Barnes

Wikipedia - "J. J. Barnes (born James Jay Barnes, November 30, 1943, Detroit, Michigan) is an American R&B singer. He first recorded in 1960. His early releases including 'Just One More Time' and 'Please Let Me In', on the record labels Mickay and Ric-Tic, had relatively little success, but were subsequently picked up as Northern soul favorites. ... His biggest hit single came in 1967 with "Baby Please Come Back Home", which, like many of his records, he co-wrote."
Wikipedia
The Golden World Story - JJ Barnes
YouTube: BABY PLEASE COME BACK HOME, (Tell Me) Ain't It The Truth, Real Humdinger, Please Let Me In, I've Seen The Light, CHAINS OF LOVE

2012 October: Northern Soul
2012 December: The obsession that is Northern Soul

idem paris - David Lynch

David Lynch - "Hervé Chandès from the Fondation Cartier brought me over to Idem and introduced me to Patrice Forest. I see this incredible place, and I get the opportunity to work there. And this was like a dream! It just opened up this brand-new world of the lithography and the magic of lithography, the magic of the stones. And it was a great, great thing! This thing of lithography, this channel of lithography opened up and a bunch of ideas came flowing out and it led to about a hundred lithographs. I will say that Idem printing studio has a unique, very special mood, and it is so conducive to creating."
idem paris (video)
W - Lithography
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lithography in the Nineteenth Century
YouTube: The Of Art Lithography, Printmaking Processes: Lithography

Athénaïse - Kate Chopin

"Three years ago, Story of the Week presented the Kate Chopin story, 'A Respectable Woman,' whose heroine is unsettled by her attraction to Gouvernail, her husband’s friend. Gouvernail appears again in the much longer, more complex story 'Athénaïse,' and he fills a very similar role: the 'sensitive bachelor' (to borrow author Joyce Dyer’s characterization) whose attentions to a married woman straddle the line between flirtatiousness and thoughtfulness. Athénaïse, the married woman of the story, is trapped—limited by the opportunities afforded to her by society."
Athénaïse
W - Kate Chopin

Viktor (1986) - Pina Bausch

"The first co-production of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch with Teatro Argentina and the City of Rome. As with much of Bausch’s work the imagery in Viktor is brilliantly bizarre and breathtakingly beautiful. The audience is transported through the fragmented action by the human characters who carefully communicate personalities through a few precise gestures or perfectly pitched words. Viktor is accompanied by a combination of symphonic music, folk tunes and music composed for social dancing - from the Middle Ages to the Jazz Age. Even though the work deals with human pain and neurosis, much of it is humorous."
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch — Viktor
DanceTabs
Telegraph
Guardian - Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch: Viktor – review
a studio in covent garden
Viktor - 1986
Tanztheater Wuppertal - Viktor
YouKu: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch - Viktor

2008 May: Pina Bausch
2009 June: Pina Bausch 1940-2009
2012 August: Pina Bausch Costumes

Tank Battles: The Songs of Hanns Eisler - Dagmar Krause

Wikipedia - "Tank Battles: The Songs of Hanns Eisler is a solo album by German singer Dagmar Krause released by Island Records in 1988. It is a collection of 26 songs by German composer Hanns Eisler sung by Krause in English. She also sung the songs in the original German which were released by Island at the same time on a companion album, Panzerschlacht: Die Lieder von Hanns Eisler."
Wikipedia
W - Hanns Eisler
YouTube: Song of a German Mother, The Songs of Hanns Eisler - 2° parte, The Songs of Hanns Eisler - 3° parte

2010 January: Dagmar Krause
2010 February: Art Bears
2012 July: Supply and Demand: Songs by Brecht / Weill & Eisler
2012 November: News from Babel

Muthologos: Lectures And Interviews - Charles Olson

"Charles Olson’s insistence that the public value of any articulation is inseparable from the particulars of the time and place of its origins resulted in the proprioceptive methodology of his composition—in his speech and his writing, in both poetry and prose. Olson did not 'lecture' — he 'talked.' His encyclopedic knowledge of the subjects that interested him engaged in a manner always as surprising to himself as to his listeners. This element of discovery was to him a true measure of what is authentic in language, and it exhibits itself most in the impromptu exchanges of which Muthologos is mainly composed."
Talonbooks
Jacket2 - Charles Olson: "Poetry and Truth" at Beloit College on PennSound
Muthologos: Charles Olson and the Paris Review interviews
amazon

2009 January: Charles Olson
2010 September: Charles Olson: The Art of Poetry No. 12
2010 December: "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", NET film
2011 July: Charles Olson: February 21, 1957
2012 April: A Trip to Charles Olson’s Gloucester
2012 June: In Which We Lather Our Sensibilities At Length
2013 January: Mass.Charles Olson

The Troggs Tapes

"Reg Presley, lead singer of the Sixties rock group The Troggs, died Monday at the age of 71. The Troggs (short for Troglodytes) are often mentioned as a major influence on the punk rock movement of the 1970s. They recorded a string of hits between 1966 and 1968, most notably 'Wild Thing.' The Troggs are also remembered—much to the band’s chagrin—for one of the most notorious bootlegs ever: 'The Troggs Tapes,' described by Uncut magazine as a 'hilarious, 12-minute swearathon.'"
Open Culture (YouTube)
YouTube: With A Girl Like You, Love Is All Around

2010 April: The Troggs

Joseph Allard

Wikipedia - "Joseph Allard (February 1, 1873 – November 14, 1947) was a Canadian fiddler and composer. He occasionally recorded under the pseudonym Maxime Toupin. Allard made many popular recordings, including Reel de l'Aveugle, Reel de Chateauguay, Reel de Jacques Cartier, and Reel du voyageur. During most of his life he was rarely in the public eye, and worked much of his life as a fisherman."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: La mère Blanche, Reel Du Pendu (Hangman's Reel), La Joie Du Soldat (Soldiers Joy)

The Gleaners and I (2000) - Agnès Varda

Wikipedia - "The Gleaners and I (French: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse, 'The gleaners and the female gleaner') is a French documentary by Agnès Varda that features various kinds of gleaning. ... The film tracks a series of gleaners as they hunt for food, knicknacks, and personal connection. Varda travels French countryside and city to find and film not only field gleaners, but also urban gleaners and those connected to gleaners, including a wealthy restaurant owner whose ancestors were gleaners. The film spends time capturing the many aspects of gleaning and the many people who glean to survive."
Wikipedia
W - Gleaning
Senses of Cinema - Trash And Treasure: The Gleaners And I
On the Commons
Salon
Fandor: The Gleaners and I
YouTube: The Gleaners and I - trailer, The Gleaners and I - Official Trailer

August 2010: Agnès Varda
May 2011: The Beaches of Agnès
2011 December: Interview - Agnès Varda

Elizabeth Catlett

Sharecropper, 1952
Wikipedia - "Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an American-born Mexican sculptor and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged."
Wikipedia
The Sculpture of Elizabeth Catlett
NYT: Elizabeth Catlett, Sculptor With Eye on Social Issues, Is Dead at 96
African American Art
YouTube: The Art of Elizabeth Catlett, My Childhood, Struggling to Get My MFA from the University of Iowa, How I Met My Husband of 56 Years, Pancho, Being Detained by the Mexican Department of Interior

Hand Drawn Map Association

map #64 - Tanaloth
"With your help, the Hand Drawn Map Association has assembled a large collection of maps in both physical and digital formats comprising an immense variety of unique interpretations of place. It has been an absolute pleasure to share these with you. The time has come to slow things down a bit in order to concentrate on other projects. Though the web archive will continue to be maintained and made available here at handmaps.org, the HDMA is no longer accepting maps for our website. Submissions for our physical archive will continue to be accepted via postal mail."
Hand Drawn Map Association
Facebook
designboom
amazon: From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association
flickr
Design Notes

The Death of William Burroughs

Annie Leibovitz / William Burroughs
"A poetry film with John Giorno directed by Antonello Faretta"
YouTube: The Death of William Burroughs
Guardian: William Burroughs's exhibition only shows the limits of his art

East Broadway

"Displacing Details, 1991. Noel Copeland, artist in collaboration with students. A project of the Henry Street Settlement. This artwork is in the category of commissioned by Arts for Transit in its beginnings to be temporary but never removed and are three panels depicting the streetscape and some colorful figures playing music in a pop-art way. It is located across from the turnstiles at the East Broadway Entrance in the far too large mezzanine area."
East Broadway - F
W - East Broadway (IND Sixth Avenue Line)

Elodie Lauten - Piano Works Revisited

"... Elodie Lauten was one such composer/performer type, and Piano Works Revisited collects some of her early pieces from those heady days. The bulk of these two CDs draws from releases and live recordings put to tape between 1983-85, as well as one solo piano performance recorded in 1991, and the vibe here perfectly suits the era; as with first-wave lions Steve Reich and Philip Glass, there’s a tension between shimmering beauty and stark austerity. Unlike them, Lauten is clearly of the second wave, and a low-budget tangle of experimentation was the order of the day."
dusted magazine (Video)
Sounds Heard: Elodie Lauten—Piano Works Revisited (Video)
1983-2010: Elodie Lauten - Piano Works Revisited
allmusic (Video)
amazon
YouTube: Sonate Modale part 1 of 3 - Live at Music Gallery, 1985, 2 of 3, 3 of 3.

2010 July: Elodie Lauten

Paul Poiret

Wikipedia - "Paul Poiret (20 April 1879, Paris, France – 30 April 1944, Paris) was a French fashion designer. His contributions to twentieth-century fashion have been likened to Picasso's contributions to twentieth-century art. ... Poiret established his own house in 1903, and made his name with the controversial kimono coat. He designed flamboyant window displays and threw legendary parties to draw attention to his work; his instinct for marketing and branding was unmatched by any previous designer."
Wikipedia
Met Museum
Paul Poiret: King of Fashion
Pinterest
YouTube: Paul Poiret, Paul Poiret research Strasser, Paul Poiret (France)

Harmonic Transference of Porcelain and Water

"The musician’s experiment is often the listener’s best experience. Free from the anxiety of a final work, the test run is ready to fail and, in the process, to surprise. In addition, the test run by its very nature locates a unique common ground between musician and listener: inexperience. Case in point is 'Tomoko Sauvage – Making of a Rainbow (Sasanamix),' a reworking by Naoyuki Sasanami of Tomoko Sauvage’s 'Making of a Rainbow'.”
disquiet (Video)

Skewville

"On June 5th and 6th, the brothers of Skewville present their newest show, Shift Work Disorder. Inspired by the newest mental disorder hype labeled 'Shift Work Disorder,' an exhausting insomnia brought on by working irregular shifts at night, Skewville examines this disruption of the body's natural rhythm in their own lives-- making art while surviving in the real world often results in drowsiness, disrupted finances, and irritation with the general public."
Shift Work Disorder
Skewville: On the Streets of Brooklyn and at Factory Fresh
Feature—Skewville
Skewville | Black Book Gallery (vimeo)
YouTube: It's What's Outside That Counts

Downton Abbey 3

"Downton Abbey has weathered the war, and the prospect of an impending wedding for Mary and Matthew brings great anticipation, as well as Cora’s mother from America, Martha Levinson. New World and Old World are about to clash as Martha tests tradition at Downton, and the patience of the formidable Lady Violet. Aside from the sparks upstairs, a very real crisis threatens the foundation and future of Downton. Great houses have been crippled psychologically and financially in the wake of World War I, and Downton may not be exempt. In response, Robert clings decisively to his duty to maintain the home at all costs. But in this changing landscape, nothing is assured, and even the Crawleys may be faced with a new battle to safeguard their beloved Downton."
pds: Downton Abbey
amazon: Downton Abbey 3 - U.K. Version
Which Downton Abbey Character Are You?
YouTube: Downton Abbey Series 3 Trailer

2012 March: Downton Abbey

Meredith Monk: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977)

"This is the 'Rally' scene from Quarry, a piece by Meredith Monk, performed here at La Mama Annex, NYC."
YouTube: Quarry: The Rally
PDF: Quarry
art on air

2008 March: Meredith Monk
2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton
2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time
2011 August: Ellis Island
2012 December: Turtle Dreams

Amy Cutler - Brood

Berta, 2011
"Amy Cutler intertwines unique allegories with threads of actualities, art history, folk tales and personal experiences. The paintings, drawings and prints are meticulously detailed, mysterious and surrealistic depictions of people, animals and hybrids in dream-like activities. They have a perplexing quality that encourages the viewer to enter the work in order to find the keys. For the exhibition Brood, a title with many different meanings and interpretations, she has for the first time made a series of portraits."
Galleri Magnus Karlsson
Amy Cutler

Document Records / Third Man Records

"After nearly twenty years since the last Document vinyl LP record was produced, Document Records and Third Man Records are thrilled to announce the release of the first three records in our highly-anticipated Document Records reissue series produced exclusively as vinyl LPs. The recordings we'll be presenting in this reissue series are the building blocks and DNA of American culture. Blues, Gospel, R&B, Soul, Elvis, teenagerism, punk rock... it all goes back to these vital, breath-taking recordings."
Document Records / Third Man Records (Video)
W - Document Records
Pitchfork: Jack White's Third Man Launches Document Records Reissue Series of Archival Blues Recordings (Video)

Henry Taylor

Served Up, 2009
"Henry Taylor: Girrrrrl! is the first West Coast museum exhibition of a Southern California artist whose painting practice pointedly and poignantly examines the profound social, political, and racial disparities that persist in the United States. Girrrrrl! is comprised of 4 major new works depicting scenes from Taylor’s personal life and urban community."
Saatchi-Gallery
Henry Taylor at MoMA PS1
NYT: A Visual Equivalent of the Blues, in Warm Shades
Henry Taylor Paints a Picture
YouTube: Henry Taylor Summer Works in Progress, Blues for Smoke, 2012 Henry Taylor - African American Artist Profile - W Magazine & New York Times

The Globe Shrinks, Barbara Kruger

"The Globe Shrinks, Barbara Kruger, a solo exhibition by American artist Barbara Kruger, features a new multi channel video installation, entitled The Globe Shrinks, 2010, that continues the artist’s engagement with the kindness and brutality of the everyday, the duet of images and text and the resonance of direct address. Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1945, Barbara Kruger began her career as an editorial designer, followed by a picture editor at Condè Nast Publications. She started making art in the early 1970s and gradually developed her unmistakable and unique formal language using a powerful combination of image and text."
From Designing Magazine Pages to Large-Scale Gallery Installations

2008 February: Barbara Kruger

Women in Punk

"Documentary covering the Women in Punk rock such as Siouxsie Sioux, Gaye Advert, Poly Styrene, The Slits etc."
YouTube: Punk girls documentary (part 1), (part 2)

Pleasures of the Harbor - Phil Ochs

Wikipedia - "Pleasures of the Harbor is Phil Ochs' fourth full-length album and his first for A&M Records, released in 1967. It is one of Ochs's most somber albums. In stark contrast to his three albums for Elektra Records which had all been basically folk music, Pleasures of the Harbor featured traces of classical, rock and roll, Dixieland jazz and experimental synthesized music crossing with folk, in hopes of producing a 'folk-pop' crossover."
Wikipedia
LINER NOTES FOR PHIL OCHS'S PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR
YouTube: Crucifixion (Live Stockholm 1969), Flower Lady, Pleasures of the Harbor (Live in Montreal 1966)

2008 September: Phil Ochs
2011 December: All the News That's Fit to Sing
2012 February: There but for Fortune

Rev. Utah Smith

"Utah Smith was born in 1906 in Cedar Grove, Louisiana, in the countryside outside of Shreveport. He was schooled to the third grade, then took a job as a water boy in the cotton fields before graduating to picking cotton. He later worked in a chicken plant plucking and cleaning chickens, a job he was fired from."
TheHoundBlog
Rev. Utah Smith
I Got Two Wings: Incidents and Anecdotes of the Two-Winged Preacher and Electric Guitar Evangelist
CaseQuarter (Video)
YouTube: Two Wings, #1, Glory to Jesus, I'm Free, Take A Trip, God's Mighty Hand, A New World In My View

Pulp-O-Mizer

"If you're reading this manual you have just purchased, borrowed, rented, leased, stolen, or otherwise acquired the Pulp-O-Mizer, the world's most advanced customizable pulp magazine cover generator. Cornelius Zappencackler, inventor of the PULP-O-MIZER. The advanced Pulp-O-Mizing technology behind this remarkable machine has been developed in the Derange-O-Lab of Professor Cornelius Zappencackler, inventor of the highly regarded Pulp Sci Fi Title-O-Tron, the Reciprocating Orbital Hedge Trimmer, the Absolutely Unstoppable Bog Stomper, and other devices too numerous or controversial for us to describe here."
Pulp-O-Mizer

Luddites

Wikipedia - "The Luddites were 19th-century English textile artisans who violently protested against the machinery introduced during the Industrial Revolution that made it possible to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work. Historian Eric Hobsbawm has called their machine wrecking 'collective bargaining by riot', which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration, as the scattering of manufactories throughout the country made large-scale strikes impractical."
Wikipedia
W - Neo-Luddism
Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? - Thomas Pynchon
Smithsonian: What the Luddites Really Fought Against
Wired: Interview with the Luddite
YouTube: robots vs luddites 1 of 2, 2 of 2

"Dance Me To The End of Love" - Leonard Cohen

"Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love"
YouTube: "Dance Me To The End of Love", "Dance Me To The End of Love" (Live)

2008 September: Leonard Cohen
2009 November: Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen
2011 June: I'm Your Man
2012 May: Old Ideas

Perhaps it's Rock A Shaka

"A couple of new Rock A Shacka Studio One 7″ vinyl re-issues are in the shops now and despite the premium price will be hard to ignore. A few years ago the people at Dub Store had a beef with the Rock A Shacka crew over their Studio One re-issues. Initially the accusation was that they were unauthorised whereas Rock A Shacka argued they were legitimately licensed from Clement Dodd Junior, this was a short while after Clement Jr had successfully challenged being written out of his fathers will in court in Jamaica. As Rock A Shacka Studio One 7″ reissues have continued at a slow but steady pace without further comment from Dub Store it seems clear that this particular argument has been settled."
Perhaps it's Rock A Shaka (Video)