Film Noir of the Week

"Steve is the Film Noir of the Week editor. The blog was started in 2005 - and has been updated every week since the summer of '05. Steve-O is also administrators the Back Alley Noir message board and is a supporter of the Film Noir Foundation. He's also a frequent contributer to the site posting dozens of articles on the subject of Film Noir."
Film Noir of the Week

John Sloan

Six O'Clock
Wikipedia - "John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was a U.S. artist. As a member of The Eight, a group of American artists, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window."
Wikipedia, Google

Brothers Quay

Wikipedia - "Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs."
Wikipedia, senses of cinema, art+culture, YouTune, (1), (2)

We Five

Wikipedia - "We Five was a 1960s folk rock musical group based in San Francisco, California. Their best-known hit was their 1965 remake of Ian and Sylvia's 'You Were on My Mind', which reached #1 on the Cashbox chart, #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart."
Wikipedia, (1), YouTube, (1)

The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes

"What with all those cataclysmic storms, shipwrecks, sea battles and marauding pirates in 17th-century Dutch marine paintings, it’s a wonder anyone dared venture off land at all. There are periods of calm in 'The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes' at the Peabody Essex Museum here, but the overall impression is harrowing."
NYT, PEM

Roots from the YARD

"This is a blog set up in tribute to my good mate Steve who has over the years blessed me with cassettes and cds of exquisite roots reggae mixes from his collection of classic Jamaican 7" & 12"s. Steve's away right now, but maybe he'll contribute when he's back..."
Roots from Yard

NYC Grid

"NYC Grid is a photo blog dedicated to exploring and discovering The City of New York block by block and corner by corner. Updated every weekday, each post covers a new block with a focus on the mundane and ephemeral."
NYC Grid, flickr

John Waters, "Rear Projection"

Children Who Smoke (detail), 2009
"Since then, he has transposed some of his most provocative themes and motifs concerning race, sex, gender, consumerism, and religion into photographs, montages, and, more recently, sculpture. Editing them from their original context, Waters recombines film stills into 'little movies', as he calls his particular form of narrative sequence."
Gagosian Gallery

Edina Tokodi

"Eco-minded street artist Edina Tokodi is putting a new spin on green guerilla tactics in the trendy art enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tokodi’s site-specific moss installations of prancing animal figures and camouflage outgrowths are the talk of a local urban neighborhood typically accustomed to gallery hype and commercial real estate take-overs."
inhabitat, mosstika, Wooster Collective

jerm IX

"jerm IX is a street artist, activist, emcee and poet from Ontario, Canada. He now resides, with his wife of 13 years, in Vancouver, where over 2000 pieces of their poetry art have decorated the streets in the past 2 years or so. His wife ninja IX is also his partner in his art endeavors. jerm is also a lost soul, if those even exist?"
flickr, jermalism

Capturing Nature's Beauty: Three Centuries of French Landscapes

Landscape with a Bare Tree and a Plowman, Léon Bonvin, 1864
"This selection of over 40 drawings from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute highlights key moments in the French landscape tradition, from its emergence in the 1600s to its preeminence in the 1800s."
Getty

Ron Arad

"The sculptural forms often have an unexpected impact which first emerges during use, and are just as much a result of graphic design as the experimental work that goes on in the workshop."
Design Boom, MoMA, NYT, Google

Factory: Manchester From Joy Division To Happy Mondays

"In a dark, northern city in the late 70s, five dreamers built a record label - Factory 3 classic bands - Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays, and Britain's first super club - The Hacienda. Led by Tony Wilson, they created a unique collision between conceptual art and street music."
Quick Silver Screen, Google - Video

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Wikipedia - "Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist, the first African American painter to become an international art star. He gained popularity first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist. Basquiat's paintings continue to influence modern-day artists and command high prices."
Wikipedia, Google, John Seed

Arthur Clarke

"This is an amazing video from Arthur Clarke the author of 2001 Space Odyssey, with Benoit Mandelbrot, David Hawkins on the discovery of a fractal universe."
Energy Mandala

Van Morrison

Wikipedia - "His live performances at their best are seen as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are acclaimed as among the greatest ever made."
Wikipedia, Google, last.fm, Rolling Stone, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

The Berlin Wall

Wikipedia - "The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a physical barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany) completely encircling West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany. Both borders came to symbolize the Iron Curtain between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc."
Wikipedia, Berlin Wall Online, Newseum: The Berlin Wall

STAGES

Tree with yellow flowers, Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang, Andreas Gursky, José Parlá, Tom Sachs, Rosson Crow, KAWS, Raymond Pettibon, Kenny Scharf, Jules De Balincourt, Geoff McFetridge, Lari Pittman, Eric White, Dzine, Yoshitomo Nara, Richard Prince, Christopher Wool, Shepard Fairey, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha, Aaron Young. Lance Armstrong joins STAGES in Paris.
STAGES

Andrei Rublev

Wikipedia - "Andrei Rublev ... also known as The Passion According to Andrei, is a 1966 Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky from a screenplay written by Andrei Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the great 15th century Russian icon painter."
Wikipedia, IMDb, YouTube, (1), (2)

Ruth Orkin

"Ruth Orkin was an award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker. Orkin was the only child of Mary Ruby, a silent-film actress, and Samuel Orkin, a manufacturer of toy boats called Orkin Craft. She grew up in Hollywood in the heyday of the 1920s and 1930s."
Ruth Orkin

Acropolis Museum

Goddess Athena, the patron of ancient Athens
Wikipedia - "The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built in order to house every artifact found on the rock and on its feet, covering a large period of time, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece but lies also on the archaeological site of Makrygianni, ruins of a part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens."
Wikipedia, NYT, YouTube, (1)

The End of Bonus Beats?

"The 'Bonus Beats' tracks on 12" singles were used by DJ's to either extend the mix of the main track, or sometimes played within a dj mix on their own. One DJ mourns their passing." - analogue
joshuaIZ, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4), (5)

Coffee Cups

henry
"A very cool idea - Boy Obsolete on Flickr ... - using coffee cups as canvas. Most of them are for sale, too. As he puts it: 'they come in a case, with a hand cut name tag and cork base. oh yes, because i am still very 1985.'"
flickr

Kluster

Wikipedia - "Kluster was a German krautrock or experimental musical group whose work often resembles later industrial music. Kluster was short-lived, existing only from 1969 until mid-1971 when Conrad Schnitzler left and the remaining two members renamed themselves Cluster. The band was based in West Berlin."
Wikipedia, YouTube, (1), (2)

Merce Cunningham, Dance Visionary, Dies

"Merce Cunningham, the revolutionary American choreographer, died Sunday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 90. His death was announced by the Cunningham Dance Foundation. Over a career of nearly seven decades, Mr. Cunningham went on posing 'But' and 'What if?' questions, making people rethink the essence of dance and choreography. He went on doing so almost to the last."
NYT, Merce Cunningham - NYT, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company - 1, PBS, Wikipedia, Google, Google - Video, YouTube, (1)

Luis Meléndez

"Luis Meléndez (1715–1780) is now recognized as the premier still-life painter in 18th-century Spain, indeed one of the greatest in all of Europe, though his reputation had long been eclipsed by the achievements of his Spanish contemporary, Francisco Goya."
NGA, Wikipedia, NYT

René Magritte

The lovers
Wikipedia - "René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. His intended goal for his work was to challenge the observer's preconditioned perceptions of reality and force the viewer to become hypersensitive to their surroundings."
Wikipedia, Magritte, Google

Musique concrète

Wikipedia - "Musique concrète (French for 'concrete music' or 'real music'), is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sonorities derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical" (melody, harmony, rhythm, metre and so on). The theoretical underpinnings of the aesthetic were developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the late 1940s."
Wikipedia, art and culture

Bootsy Collins

Wikipedia - "William 'Bootsy' Collins (born October 26, 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a funk bassist, singer, and songwriter. Rising to prominence with James Brown in the late 1960s, and with Parliament-Funkadelic in the '70s, Collins's driving bass guitar and humorous vocals established him as one of the leading names in funk."
Wikipedia, last.fm, My Space, Bootsy Collins Homepage, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

John Riddy

"His subject matter is broad – ranging from the unassuming domestic interior to images of Renaissance or Modernist architecture and the specific qualities of certain city spaces. Time, atmosphere, spatial illusion and cultural histories are compressed and extended in pictures that aim to defeat our expectations of photographic descriptions."
Frith Street Gallery, V&A, Google

Alberto Contador - Tour de France

"The 96th Tour de France will be contested over 2,174 miles, a grueling test of endurance and strategy. Follow the New York Times's coverage of the race on this map, updated during the Tour with articles, photos and multimedia."
NYT, (1), Guardian - Tour de France, Lance Armstrong

James D. Griffioen

Wikipedia - "James D. Griffioen, born February 4, 1977, is an American writer and photographer who resides in Detroit, Michigan. He is the main contributor to the blog Sweet Juniper."
Wikipedia, James D. Griffioen

Kiki Smith

"Kiki Smith was born in 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany. The daughter of American sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki Smith grew up in New Jersey. As a young girl, one of Smith’s first experiences with art was helping her father make cardboard models for his geometric sculptures."
pbs, Wikipedia, MoMA, YouTube, veoh

Country Joe and the Fish

Wikipedia - "Country Joe and the Fish was a rock band most widely known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1966 to 1971."
Wikipedia, Well, rhapsody, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2)

Milky Way

Wikipedia - "The Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe."
Wikipedia, University of California, San Diego, The Milky Way System,

Bruce Nauman

One Hundred Fish Fountain
Wikipedia - "Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance."
Wikipedia, PBS, Video Data Bank

Lillian Bassman

"In 1940 Lillian Bassman, who was then a fashion illustrator, joined Brodovitch’s classes at the New School for Social Research on a scholarship. After just a few weeks Brodovitch suggested she switch from fashion drawing to graphic design, and by the end of the year he made her his apprentice at Harper’s Bazaar."
Michael Hoppen Gallery, Staley Wise

Miami Vice

Wikipedia - "Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The show became noted for its heavy integration of music and visual effects to tell a story. The series starred Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police detectives working undercover in Miami."
Wikipedia, Wikipedia - 1, IMDb, YouTube, (1), (2), (3), (4)

Song Dong, Zhao Xiang Yuan

Waste Not, 2005
"The current Projects series at the Museum of Modern Art features the work of Beijing-based artist Song Dong in collaboration with his recently deceased mother, Zhao Xiang Yuan."
The Brooklyn RailZ, flickr, Whitehot Magazine

The Oblique Strategies

"The Oblique Strategies are a deck of cards. Up until 1996, they were quite easy to describe. They measured about 2-3/4" x 3-3/4". They came in a small black box which said 'OBLIQUE STRATEGIES' on one of the top's long sides and 'BRIAN ENO/PETER SCHMIDT' on the other side."
The Oblique Strategies, Wikipedia, enoweb, (1), Stoney's Web Site

Paris Walking Tours

Jardin des Plantes, Palace of the Luxembourg, Panthéon, Cathedral of Notre Dame, The Islands of the Seine, Street Markets, Louvre Museum, Musée d'Orsay, Père Lachaise, Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation, Eiffel Tower...
Paris Walking Tours, (1)

The Undertones

Wikipedia - "The Undertones are a Northern Irish punk rock/power pop band formed in Derry in 1975. The original line-up released four studio albums — The Undertones (1979), Hypnotised (1980), Positive Touch (1981), and The Sin of Pride (1983) — before disbanding in 1983."
Wikipedia, The Undertones, last.fm, YouTube, (1), (2)

Doodlers Anonymous

Lisa Currie
"Doodlers Anonymous was founded to celebrate our addiction, and like any other, we're hooked. The need to draw, sketch, and doodle is constant. We doodle on almost anything we can find — pencil in a moleskine, marker on a napkin, ink on a torn receipt, sharpie on concrete. And we do it habitually — while on hold, in a meeting, during class, or while we should be sleeping."
Doodlers Anonymous

Rembrandt in Southern California

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 or 1607-1669), The rape of Europa, 1632.
"Rembrandt in Southern California is a virtual exhibition of 14 paintings by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) on view in five Southern California museums. This collaborative presentation offers a unique guide to exploring these significant holdings and provides information and suggested connections and points of comparison for each work."
Rembrandt in Southern California

The Art of BR1 in Turin, Italy

Wooster Collective - "My project deals with the representation of Muslim women and their social condition. I was been studying and dealing with this theme for years. As you can imagine, here in Turin, my posters are seen as an ambiguous subject. Some people mislead and rip them, while others love them. I would like to make people know that there is nothing strange with this particular subject: Muslim women are equal if compared to Western women."
Wooster Collective, flickr

Shindig!

Wikipedia - "Shindig! is an American music variety show which aired on the ABC TV from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles at the time, who also created the show along with his wife Sharon Sheeley and production executive Art Stolnitz."
Wikipedia

Mungo Thomson

"Thomson pairs a distinctly West Coast conceptual sensibility with an interest in cosmology, mysticism, and reception. In Thomson’s diverse art—ranging from films and sound works to publications, drawings, and photographic wall murals—simple processes of inversion and transformation are joined with an expansive sense of space and context."
John Connelly, Whitney, artnet

Alfred Hitchcock

Wikipedia - "Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a British filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood."
Wikipedia, Hitchcock, IMDb, senses of cinema, PBS, YouTube, (1)

Barbara Probst

"In Barbara Probst’s Exposure #39, two photographs depict the same woman at exactly the same moment but in very different ways. On one side, a color image captures her as she strides through a bucolic, alpine landscape. On the other, a black-and-white picture reveals the color photograph to be an illusion: the woman is actually on the rooftop of a New York skyscraper, moving in front of a backdrop depicting an idyllic mountain scene."
MoCP, Barbara Probst, Wikipedia, artnet

O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto

"As a longtime play-by-play announcer for the Yankees, Mr. Rizzuto embodies the divided, sometimes wandering attention, the ebbing and flowing alertness, the genial state of all-but-suspended consciousness that have made the sound of broadcast baseball a beloved national pacifier."
NYT, Cosmic Baseball Association