BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

Duke Riley, Farewell, All Joys! More Fools Than Wise (2013)
"BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) is a multi-arts center located in Brooklyn, New York. For more than 150 years, BAM has been the home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas—engaging both global and local communities. With world-renowned programming in theater, dance, music, opera, film, and much more, BAM showcases the work of emerging artists and innovative modern masters."
BAM
W - Brooklyn Academy of Music
NYT: Brooklyn Academy of Music
YouTube: That's So New York: Brooklyn Academy of Music 150th Anniversary, The Brooklyn Music School

The Superiors - "What Would I Do"

"This is another performance filmed for my now legendary documentary, 'The Strange World Of Northern Soul'. The Superiors were a New York group in the 1960s, led by Ken Williams, who also recorded 'Come Back' for Okeh. 'What Would I do' seems to have been their only real monster on the scene. Ken worked a lot with both J.R. Bailey, and with Van McCoy, two late but great geniuses."
YouTube: What Would I Do

2012 October: Northern Soul, 2012 December: The obsession that is Northern Soul, 2013 February: J. J. Barnes

Parking Garage Door Does Impression of Miles Davis’ Jazz Album, Bitches Brew

"Classic. And if you’re not familiar with the reference — Miles Davis’ 1970 experimental jazz album, Bitches Brew — you can catch it on YouTube, or snag a copy online. H/T Kottke"
Open Culture (Video)

Atlas of Remote Islands - Judith Schalansky

"The Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky is an extraordinary book – an armchair exploration of some of the world’s most remote and fascinating places. It is fascinating, illuminating and extremely beautiful. - An exclusive interview with the author of the Atlas of Remote Islands."
The Island Review
Intelligent Travel
Literary Review
amazon
Google

"Private Idaho", "Give Me Back My Man" - The B-52's

Wikipedia - "'Private Idaho' is a single released by The B-52's from their album Wild Planet. The single was their second Billboard Hot 100 chart entry, at #74. The single also peaked at #5 on the US Hot Dance Club Play, along with previous single 'Give Me Back My Man' and 'Party out of Bounds', both from Wild Planet."
W - "Private Idaho"
W - "Give Me Back My Man"
YouTube: Private Idaho 1980, Give Me Back My Man

2008 October: The B-52's
2012 October: The B-52's -1

Meatpacking District

Wikipedia - "The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan which runs roughly from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street, although recently it is sometimes considered to have extended north to West 16th Street and east beyond Hudson Street."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Meatpacking District, Manhattan (Part 1), (Part 2

New England Fiddles

"New England Fiddles presents seven of the finest traditional musicians as they play in their homes and at dances and contests, passing their styles to younger fiddlers, and commenting on their music. Featured are Ron West (Yankee), Paddy Cronin (Irish), Ben Guillemette (Quebecois), Wilfred Guillette (Quebecois), Harold Luce (Yankee), Gerry Robichaud (Maritime), and the Cape Breton style of Joe Cormier. The film was made in 1983 by John Bishop and folklorist Nicholas Hawes."
folkstreams (Video)

An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle

Jess, Tricky Cad, Case V (detail), 1958
"The artist Jess Collins, known simply as Jess, and his partner, the poet Robert Duncan, were one of the most fascinating artistic couples of the 20th century. Soon after they met in 1950, they merged their personal and artistic lives to explore their interest in cultural mythologies, transformative narrative, and the appropriation of images. This is the first exhibition to explore the couple's artistic production and relationship. Through more than 100 individual and collaborative works of art and personal letters drawn from private and public collections, this exhibit also looks at their influence and unique position as precursors of Postmodernism."
Crocker Art Museum
artforum: Michael Duncan
O! Tricky Cad & Other Jessoterica
Proof: O! Tricky Cad & Other Jessoterica in Production
Jess: Master of the collage aesthetic
VillageLife

Bob Marley: In Dub Vol 1

"I'm always quite dubious of posthumous releases. They usually come cobbled together attempt at money making that would have the artist turning in his grave. Despite some reservations, I was intrigued enough to give this a spin as the thought of some good Marley tunes dubbed out was quite a prospect. In Dub Vol. 1 isn'€™t quite a new release, it was originally released in 2010 as a digital only package. There are some new versions here though added to some older stuff. The older ones have appeared on single b-sides in the past and are mainly instrumentals with some cute dubbing going on."
Louder Than War
YouTube: 03 - Forever Loving Jah Dub (Bob Marley & The Wailers In Dub, Vol. 1)
YouTube: Bob Marley "In Dub Vol. 1" (Full Album) 38:50

Un jour Pina m'a demandé (1987)

"Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater Wuppertal, for five weeks while they were on tour in Germany, Italy and France. Her objective was to capture Pina Bausch’s unparalleled art not only on stage by behind the scenes."
MUBI
The Pina Bausch blog - the films
YouTube: Un Jour Pina à Demandè - Pina Bausch - Chantal Akerman, Pina Bausch In Un jour Pina a demandé 01, 03, 05

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

I, You, We

Mary Ellen Mark, The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, 1987
"I, you, we: three very commonplace words. These pronouns—with all their implied complexities of meaning—provide an unexpected guide for assessing the works of art from the 1980s and early 1990s in the Museum’s collection. What becomes apparent in this survey of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs is how the personal, social, and collective issues and concerns of the artists of this time are still relevant several decades later."
Whitney
Whitney: Images

DJ Hugo Mendez

"Sofrito is a U.K.-based DJ collective whose members include Hugo Mendez, Frankie Francis, and the Mighty Crime Minister. Since 2007, they've established a near-fanatical fan base because of their almost legendary parties under the Tropical Warehouse moniker in East London. Their rep has spread and they've branched out, hosting massive bashes on the beaches of Greece, and spinning from the stages of the WOMAD festival and in New York clubs. They've also featured live acts along with their spinning: the Souljazz Orchestra, Manu Dibango, and Quantic have all all appeared with them."
allmusic - Sofrito: International Soundclash
W - Sofrito
W - Mirepoix (cuisine)
Sofrito’s ‘International Soundclash’: An Interview with Hugo Mendez (Video)
Super Discoteca Down Under Mix (Video)
Soundcloud - Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque mini-mix by DJ Hugo Mendez (Video)
22tracks (Video)
YouTube: The Story Behind Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque

Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist

"Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist is the first museum retrospective of the exemplary career of Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi. Bringing together approximately 80 works from five decades of the artist's career, the retrospective highlights one of the most significant figures in African and Arab Modernist art, and reveals his place in the context of a global art history. The exhibition traces a personal journey that originates in Sudan and leads to the artist's international schooling, his detention as a political prisoner in his home country, his self-imposed exile in Qatar, and his current life in the United Kingdom."
Museum for African Art
amazon - Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist
W - Ibrahim el-Salahi
YouTube: TateShots

6 Great Transit Maps That Aren't Transit Maps

"A good transit map is like a party for your eyes, and everyone's invited. Maybe it's the intentional distortion that brings clarity to an otherwise confusing world. Maybe it's the sharp lines and fluid curves that transform a utilitarian document into a piece of wall art (or, at least, a T-shirt). Maybe it's just something cool that's not worth over-analyzing. In any event, we find transit maps so appealing that they're worth looking at even when they don't actually depict transit systems. Here are six great transit maps — from a chart of classic movies to a meta transit map of the world's transit systems — that are likable precisely because they have little to do with transit."
The Atlantic: Cities

"Ol' '55" - Tom Waits

"Time went so quickly,
I went lickety-splitly
Out to my ol' '55
Pulled away slowly, feelin' so holy
God knows I was feelin' alive

And now the sun's comin' up
I'm ridin' with Lady Luck
Freeway cars and trucks"
Wikipedia
YouTube: Ol' 55 Live 1999, Ol' 55 (The Early Years)

2012 July: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
2013 March: Burma Shave

Narelle Jubelin

BOX.SET 10, 1999
"Art comes face-to-face with architecture in Vision in Motion, a project by the artist Narelle Jubelin. A celebration of significant – though often overlooked – modernist architecture, the exhibition presents a survey of Jubelin’s intricately sewn petit points of the past three decades alongside new site-specific works and videos, inspired by architecture and the built environment. The exhibition will be reconfigured for each venue of the tour."
Vision In Motion
Marlborough Contemporary
The Renaissance Society

Fairytale - Donovan

Wikipedia - "Fairytale is the second album from British singer-songwriter Donovan. ... Fairytale finds Donovan evolving his styles further towards British folk, especially on songs such as 'Summer Day Reflection Song' and 'Jersey Thursday'. 'Sunny Goodge Street' foreshadows the jazzy feel and descriptions of life in urban London that Donovan would continue to explore over the next two years."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Colors, To Try For The Sun, Summer Day Reflection Song, Sunny Goodge Street, Little Tin Soldier, Ballad of a Crystal Man, The Universal Soldier, Ballad of Geraldine

By the Lake, Tasmania

"Three young filmmakers from Melbourne, Australia heard about a man named Phipps who lived on a lake in central Tasmania. Phipps was a fly fisherman so the three set out to create a short film about the beauty of the serene sport. Once they met Phipps, however, that all changed. As Drew Dunlop, one of the three filmmakers explained to us, 'Phipps lives in a fisherman’s shack that his family’s owned all his life.
 His front garden is a giant lake, brimming with 9 lb trout; his neighbors are wedge-tailed eagles and possums and tiger snakes.
 We set out thinking we'd make a short film about the beauty of fly fishing but soon found out Phipps was the real star. The end result being a snapshot of Phipps' beautiful, quiet world.'"
My Modern Met (Vimeo)

A Passion for France

Edouard Vuillard, Young Girls Walking, 1891
"A pair of American art lovers, passionate about French culture, created, over several decades, an outstanding collection of 19th century and early 20th century works. The bonds of friendship established between the owners and the director of the Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie have now enabled this collection to be exhibited. Works include the seventh panel of Édouard Vuillard's Public Gardens, the Musée d'Orsay already has five of the nine panels, as well as works by Bonnard, Ranson and Roussel, and several of Vuillard's enchanting paintings, decorative panels by Maurice Denis and two Symbolist masterpieces by Redon."
Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay: A Passion for France

Self Portrait - Robert Mapplethorpe

"As variously costumed characters, Mapplethorpe researches his own identity, capturing his complex and contradictory nature. Whether depicting himself in a playful, fierce, or vulnerable state, the artist’s explorations are intensely personal and self-reflexive. In a number of early self-portraits, Mapplethorpe boldly explores the notion of gender. In one work from 1980, the artist appears as a sneering, smoking greaser – a James Dean archetype. In another from the same year, Self Portrait (with make-up), Mapplethorpe blurs his gender identity by appearing in partial drag, his face dramatically made-up."
Skarstedt
YouTube: Robert Mapplethorpe 'Self Portrait', 1980

2008 July: Robert Mapplethorpe, 2010 September: Arena - Robert Mapplethorpe (1988), 2010 October: The Hotel Chelsea, 2011 December: "Wild Leaves" - Patti Smith on World Aids Day, 2012 September: Last Address - Ira Sachs.

PUNK: Chaos to Couture

"The Met's spring 2013 Costume Institute exhibition, PUNK: Chaos to Couture, will examine punk's impact on high fashion from the movement's birth in the early 1970s through its continuing influence today. Featuring approximately one hundred designs for men and women, the exhibition will include original punk garments and recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear borrow punk's visual symbols."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Video and Audio)
Met Museum: Punk Fashion Will be Focus of Spring 2013 Costume Institute Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum
New Yorker: The Day That Punk Died Again
BBC: Punk fashion from chaos to couture at New York's Met (Video)
Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Costume Institute Shows How Derivative the Style Has Become (Video)
Dezeen
amazon
YouTube: "Punk: Chaos to Couture" exhibit, PUNK Gallery Views, Punk : Chaos to Couture Interview With Andrew Bolton - VOGUE, Met Gala 2013: Behind the Scenes at Punk: Chaos to Couture

A Century of Proust

"May 2 - Reading Proust: An Introduction. ... One hundred years after its publication, 'Swann’s Way,' the first volume in Marcel Proust’s cycle 'À la Recherche du Temps Perdu' — 'In Search of Lost Time,' better known to many Anglophone readers as 'Remembrance of Things Past,' the Shakespearian title used by Proust’s first English translator — doubles as thematic 'overture' and Michelin guide to the most captivating, ambitious and elusive of modern novels. The glittering surface of 'Swann's Way' presents a Manet-like canvas of belle époque France, a sumptuous world of fashionable salons and tranquil summer homes populated by characters — old and young, rich and poor, artists and aristocrats, footmen and physicians — who spring at us with comic ferocity: their sufferings and delusions, their petty cruelties, their self-destructive obsessions and corrosive vanities. By the end of the giant cycle (some 4,000 pages) these fictitious beings will seem realer than the members of one’s own family."
NY Times
Paris Review – Proust, Lost in Translation
Slate: In Pursuit of Proust

2008 June: Marcel Proust, 2011 October: How Proust Can Change Your Life, 2012 April: Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu, 2013 February: Marcel Proust and Swann's Way: 100th Anniversary.

Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions

Wikipedia - "Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions is a 2012 box set album featuring the lyrics of American folk musician Woody Guthrie set to music by English folk rock guitarist Billy Bragg and American alternative rock band Wilco. The set contains all the tracks from the previously-released Mermaid Avenue (1998) and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (2000) as well as a third disc of outtakes from the original album sessions. Nonesuch Records released the album for Record Store Day to commemorate Guthrie's 100th birthday. In addition to the three albums, the box set includes the documentary Man in the Sand about the making of the Mermaid Avenue project."
Wikipedia
Christian Century (Video)
ZPitchfork
Salon: Greil Marcus on “Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions”
YouTube: Go down to the water, Listening To The Wind That Blows, She Came Along to Me, Walt Whitman's Niece, Airline to Heaven, Remember the Mountain Bed, Natalie Merchant - Birds and Ships

Aryz New Mural In San Francisco, USA

"After a series of progress shots last week (covered), Aryz has now completed his new piece in San Francisco, USA. As usual with the Barcelona-based artist, he delivers a large scale mural featuring his signature colour palette combined with always impeccable technique. Organised by Upper Playground in association with Fifty24SF and WALLSPACE SF, this mural can be found on Polk Street. Make sure to peep some more extra shots after the jump..."
Street Art News

"3 a.m. Eternal" - The KLF

Wikipedia - "'3 a.m. Eternal' is a song by the British acid house group The KLF. Numerous versions of the song were released as singles between 1989 and 1992. ... When, the following year, The KLF accepted an invitation to perform at the BRIT Awards ceremony, they caused controversy with a succession of anti-establishment gestures that included a duet performance of '3 a.m. Eternal' with the crust punk band Extreme Noise Terror, during which The KLF co-founder Bill Drummond fired machine-gun blanks over the audience of music industry luminaries."
Wikipedia
YouTube: 3am Eternal HD (sNEaKY uPLOaDeR miX), 3AM Eternal (Guns of Mu Mu) 12 inch HD (sNEaKY uPLOaDeR ExCLUsIVe), 3 a m eternal (Complete)

2009 May: The KLF
2011 June: Justified & Ancient

Saul Bass

Wikipedia - "Saul Bass (... May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. During his 40-year career Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Among his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of a skyscraper in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho."
Wikipedia
Saul Bass’s Title Sequences (Video)
YouTube: The Man With The Golden Arm">, Edge of the City, North by Northwest, West Side Story, Anatomy of a murder, Vertigo, Psycho

Chris Cutler - Domestic Stories (1992)

"Alternately harrowing and slyly humorous, this collaboration between Chris Cutler and Lutz Glandien plays more like an Art Bears reunion featuring, Fred Frith on guitar and the irrepressible Dagmar Krause on vocals. What Glandien brings to these compositions is a modern manipulation of sound using digital and tape effects, creating rumbling beds of disturbance for the music to play against. The texts by Cutler take a look at the power relationships in marriage -- from a concerned Marxist, the outlook is pretty grim as one could imagine. But the accompanying music is fascinating, dramatic, theatrical, and strange."
allmusic
W - Lutz Glandien
Domestic Stories
Song Cycle on Texts by Chris Cutler, 1992
YouTube: None are disbarred, Unquiet Days in Eden, Seven Veils, Up to our Elbows, the same river

The Techniques

Wikipedia - "The Techniques were a Jamaican rocksteady vocal group mainly active in the 1960s. The group was formed by Winston Riley in 1962 while still at school, with the initial line-up also featuring Slim Smith, Franklyn White, and Frederick Waite. They regularly performed at Edward Seaga's Chocomo Lawn club, where they were spotted by talent scouts from Columbia Records, who released their first single, 'No One', released only in the United Kingdom in 1963. Their Jamaican debut came in 1965 when they were introduced to producer Duke Reid by singer Stranger Cole, with Reid-produced singles such as 'Don't Leave Me', 'When You Are Wrong', and 'Little Did You Know' appearing on labels such as Island Records, and Reid's own Duke and Treasure Isle labels."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: It's You I Love, I'm So In Love With You, Day O (The Banana Boat Song), I Specialise In Good Girls, My Best Girl (With Dave Barker)

The Lost Album - Dennis Hopper

"Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present photographs from The Lost Album of the late Dennis Hopper. This historically significant body of work from the 1960s has not been exhibited in the United States since 1970. ... Before his rise to Hollywood stardom, he captured the establishment-busting spirit of the 1960s in photographs that travel from Los Angeles to Harlem to Tijuana, and which portray iconic figures including Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lost Album in its entirety comprises over 400 black and white photographs taken between 1961—when his first wife Brooke Hayward gave him a Nikon camera for his birthday—and 1967. He would not make photographs again until the early 1980s."
Gagosian
Gagosian: Exhibition
NYT: Off Camera, Hopper Wielded His Own Lens
Dennis Hopper Photos Bring California Cool To Gagosian Gallery (PHOTOS)
Telegraph - Dennis Hopper: the Lost Album (PHOTOS)

2009 November: Easy Rider (1969), 2010 May: Dennis Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010), 2010 November: The American Friend (1977), Dennis Hopper Documentary (90s).

Rodney Graham

Rheinmetall Victoria installation
Wikipedia - "Rodney Graham (born January 16, 1949) is an artist and musician born in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He is most often associated with the Vancouver School. ... Coming out of Vancouver's 1970s photoconceptual tradition, Rodney Graham's work is often informed by historical literary, musical, philosophical and popular references. He is most often associated with other West-coast Canadian artists, including Vikky Alexander, Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas, Roy Arden and Ken Lum."
Wikipedia
Rodney Graham (Video)
BOMB: Rodney Graham by Kim Gordon
YouTube: "Rodney Graham. Through the Forest", Rheinmetall/Victoria8 @ MoMA
vimeo: 'The Phonokinetoscope' film on view at Matthew Marks

Flappers

Wikipedia - "Flappers were a 'new breed' of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms. Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe."
Wikipedia
'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong
Smithsonian - The History of the Flapper, Part 1: A Call for Freedom
YouTube: The Roaring 20s, flappers dancing the Charleston, The Fabulous Flappers

The North Star Grassman and the Ravens

Wikipedia - "The North Star Grassman and the Ravens is a 1971 album by English folk rock singer-songwriter Sandy Denny. Built mostly around her own compositions, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens is distinguished by its elusive lyrics and unexpected harmonies."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: The North Star Grassman And The Ravens, Crazy Lady Blues and Late November, The Sea Captain, Blackwaterside, John the Gun, The Optimist

2009 March: Sandy Denny
2013 January: "A Sailor’s Life" - Fairport Convention

Daguerreotype

Wikipedia - "The daguerreotype ... (French: daguerréotype) was the first commercially successful photographic process, invented around 1837 by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. The physical daguerreotype itself is a direct positive made in the camera on a silvered copper plate. The raw material for plates was called Sheffield plate, plating by fusion or cold-rolled cladding and was a standard hardware item produced by heating and rolling silver foil in contact with a copper support. The surface of a daguerreotype is like a mirror, with the image made directly on the silvered surface; it is very fragile and can be rubbed off with a finger, and the finished plate has to be angled so as to reflect some dark surface in order to view the image properly."
Wikipedia
YouTube: The Daguerreotype: Photographic Processes, Daguerreotypes at the Met

Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui

Earth’s Skin, 2007
"The first solo exhibition in a New York museum by the globally renowned contemporary artist El Anatsui, this show will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Anatsui converts found materials into a new type of media that lies between sculpture and painting, combining aesthetic traditions from his birth country, Ghana; his home in Nsukka, Nigeria; and the global history of abstraction."
Brooklyn Museum (Video)
NYT: A Million Pieces of Home (Slide Show)
arrestedmotion
YouTube: Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui

Sera Cahoone

Wikipedia - "Sera Cahoone (born August 4, 1975) is a singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Cahoone's music combines elements of both classic country-western and modern indie rock and lo-fi. ... In 2006, Cahoone focused on singing, songwriting, and guitar playing, skills she'd been honing for nearly 15 years on her own. Her first album was Sera Cahoone (2006)."
Wikipedia
Sera Cahoone
Sub Pop
YouTube: Nowhere To Be Found, Naked, Baker Lake, You Might As Well, Nervous Wreck, Full Performance (Live on KEXP) 27:09