New Photography 2013

Anna Ostoya, Lee No. 1, 2013
"New Photography 2013 presents recent works by eight international artists who have expanded the field of photography as a medium of experimentation and intellectual inquiry. Their porous practices—grounded in photographic artist’s books, sculpture, photomontage, performance, and science—creatively reassess the themes and processes of making pictures today."
MoMA
MoMA - New Photography 2013

The Chilean muralists who defied Pinochet

"Walk around the side of the GAM, the main cultural centre in the Chilean capital Santiago, and you come across a striking mural, 25m (80ft) wide and 3m high, covering an entire wall. In bold, bright colours, it shows a copper miner, a student, a fisherman and a member of Chile's largest indigenous community, the Mapuche. Wander down the road to the headquarters of the CUT, the country's main trade union federation, and you find another mural overlooking a courtyard. This one tells the history of the country's workers. Both walls are painted in the same distinctive style. The colours are primary and the faces - often indigenous in their features - are outlined in thick black lines."
BBC

Wire - Chairs Missing (1978)

"Chairs Missing marks a partial retreat from Pink Flag's austere, bare-bones minimalism, although it still takes concentrated listening to dig out some of the melodies. Producer Mike Thorne's synth adds a Brian Eno-esque layer of atmospherics, and Wire itself seems more concerned with the sonic textures it can coax from its instruments; the tempos are slower, the arrangements employ more detail and sound effects, and the band allows itself to stretch out on a few songs. ..."
allmusic
Wikipedia
Pitchfork
New York Night Train
YouTube: [Part 1] 01) Practice Makes Perfect 02) French Film Blurred, [Part 2] 03) Another the Letter 04) Men 2nd 05) Marooned 06) Sand in My Joints, [Part 3] 07) Being Sucked In Again 08) Heartbeat, [Part 4] 09) Mercy 10) Outdoor Miner, [Part 5] 11) I Am the Fly 12) I Feel Mysterious Today 13) From the Nursery, [Part 6] 14) Used To 15) Too Late

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979.

Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal – BBC Omnibus 1995

"Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal is a BBC Omnibus documentary first screened in 1995. The two part film biography covers Vidal’s life by visiting scenes from his past."
P U L S E (Video)

2011 May: An American history lesson with Gore Vidal

Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra (1972)

"Florian Fricke pioneered the use of synthesizers in German rock, but by the time of Hosianna Mantra he had abandoned them (eventually selling his famous Moog to Klaus Schulze). While In den Gärten Pharaos had blended synths with piano and African and Turkish percussion, Hosianna Mantra focuses on organic instrumentation. Conny Veit contributes electric guitar, but other than that, Fricke pulls the plug and builds the album around violin, tamboura, piano, oboe, cembalo, and Veit's 12-string, often with Korean soprano Djong Yun's haunting voice hovering above the arrangements."
allmusic
Wikipedia
YouTube: Hosianna Mantra.
01 Ah! 02 Kyrie 03 Hosianna Mantra 04 Abschied 05 Segnung 06 Andacht (Devotion I) 07 Nicht Hoch Im Himmel 08 Andacht (Devotion II) 09 Maria (Ave Maria)

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972), 2013 May: Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog

Kimsooja: Unfolding

"KIMSOOJA Unfolding is the first retrospective exhibition to assess the thirty- year career of the Korean-born, Paris- and New York based artist, and offers an unprecedented opportunity to trace the development of the artist's practice from her earlier works to her more recent production. While the scale and media of her art has varied widely, what remains constant is an engagement with questions of identity in the face of change and social flux. The exhibition highlights works that address notions of time, memory and displacement, and the relationship between the human body and the material world."
KIMSOOJA Unfolding
Kimsooja
art21: Kimsooja (Video)
To Breathe: Bottari Kimsooja
kimsooja: korean pavilion at the venice art biennale
Kimsooja at a Glance: Revisit Past Work
YouTube: "A Beggar Woman" & "A Homeless Woman", Kimsooja: Art & Everyday Life

John Zorn's Masada String Trio - Sala Kongresowa, Warsaw, Poland (1999)

"John Zorn's Masada String Trio. Masada String Trio: Mark Feldman: violin, Erik Friedlander: cello, Greg Cohen: bass, John Zorn: conductor. 01. Intro 02. Tahah 03. Sippur 04. Lachish 05. Bikkurim 06. Malkhut 07. Moshav 08. Aravot 09. Mehohalot 10. Socoh"
YouTube: John Zorn's Masada String Trio 42:51

2009 March: John Zorn, 2010 August: Spillane,  2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 January: Bar Kokhba and Masada.

‘Paraíso’

"I first got the idea for this film (whose title, 'Paraíso,' is the Spanish word for 'Paradise') when I was living in Chicago working as a film editor. One morning, as I sat at my desk in a high-rise downtown, a man dropped down inches from my window, cleaned it, and disappeared to the next floor. This momentary interaction seemed a perfect metaphor for life in many multiethnic American cities where the work of immigrants often goes unnoticed. I hoped to find out more about what motivated these men to spend their working days dangling hundreds of feet in the air."
NY Times: ‘Paraíso’ (Video)

Aldo Tambellini

Black | Electromedia Performance at Black Gate, 1967
Wikipedia - "Aldo Tambellini (20 April 1930) is an Italian American artist. He was the first to pioneer electronic intermedia, is a painter, a sculptor and a poet. ... In 1962, Tambellini was founding member of the counter-culture group called 'Group Center' which worked to find creative ways of displaying non-mainstream work. Other founding members include Ron Hahne, Elsa Tambellini, Don Snyder, and Ben Morea. Notable members who came on board later were Jackie Cassen and Peter Martinez. A major group highlighting the intermedia genre, 'Group Center' combined poetry, photography, choreography and film-making."
Wikipedia
Aldo Tambellini
Aldo Tambellini: Retracing Black (Video)
Aldo Tambellini: Black Zero
Light Cone
art21: Transmission | An Interview with Aldo Tambellini: Black Zero, Avant-Garde Jazz, and the Cosmic Void (Video)
YouTube: BLACKOUT (1965), BLACK TRIP 2 (1967), BLACK PLUS X (1966)

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

Wikipedia - "The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29. When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there. Nicknamed the 'Mighty Fitz', 'Fitz', or 'Big Fitz', the ship suffered a series of mishaps during her launch: it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle used to christen her, and she collided with a pier when she entered the water."
Wikipedia
Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (Video)
YouTube: Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain

"Whether for weavers at the handloom, labourers at the plough, or factory workers on the assembly line, music has often been a key texture in people's working lives. This book is the first to explore the rich history of music at work in Britain and charts the journey from the singing cultures of pre-industrial occupations, to the impact and uses of the factory radio, via the silencing effect of industrialisation."
amazon: Rhythms of Labour: Music at Work in Britain
Whistle While You Work: On Music & Toil From Communism To Coldplay
W - Work song
YouTube: Laura Hockenhull - The Washing Song, Mary Brooksbank - The Spinner's Wedding, Bob Hart - All Jolly Fellows that Follow the Plough, The Animals - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Coldplay - The Scientist

Visual Iconography, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3

"A website dedicated to 78rpm recordings of folkloric and vernacular music from around the world. These items are from my own collection (unless noted) and have been transferred to the best of my abilities, without the aid of expensive noise reduction software. They are for research purposes only. With just a few rare exceptions, I post items that are not available on CD in any way, shape, or form."
Visual Iconography, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt.3

Peter Schumann on 50 years of the Bread and Puppet Theater

Domestic Resurrection Pageant 1994
"... During these five decades of puppetry, thousands of dancing and music-making puppet operators have assisted in the invasion of streets and plazas all over the globe, or they’ve come to Vermont to be part of Our Domestic Resurrection Circus and other summer shows. By the grace of the Whatever ¾ Almighty, we have survived and even sometimes thrived, doing hundreds of sculpture happenings and esoteric musicals with activist ingredients, and we hope to continue for a few minutes longer. –Peter Schumann, July 10, 2012, Glover, VT"
Bread and Puppet: Cheap Art and Political Theater
W - Peter Schumann
YouTube: Bread and Puppet : Deflection Campaign Office Art Exhibit at Goddard College Art Gallery, Bread and Puppet 2013, Bread and Puppet Summer Theatre 2012 Season, Bread & Puppet Museum, Bread and Puppet 2010 -The Derby Line issue, Bread & Puppet 2007 - The Grand Forgiveness Society of Glove

2009 October: The Bread and Puppet Theater

Dennis Hopper: Inside The Actors' Studio (1994)

"Dennis Hopper is one of Hollywood's scariest actors - and not just because of his gallery of villainous roles. From his earliest days working with James Dean on Rebel Without A Cause, through to Apocalypse Now, Hopper recalls some of the more bizarre episodes in his colourful career."
Daily Mail
YouTube: Inside The Actors Studio with Dennis Hopper

2009 November: Easy Rider (1969), 2010 May: Dennis Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010), 2010 November: The American Friend (1977), 2012 November: Dennis Hopper Documentary (90s), 2013 May: The Lost Album, 2013 June: Colors.

The First Rock And Roll Record

"Musicians play music, and when they play, they don't begin something so much as they pick something back up that was there all along, and music expands like a delta this way, an unbreakable loop that doesn't begin or end but just rolls onward like a wave. And rock & roll as an American musical form is very much like a delta, collecting elements from jazz, blues, country, gospel, R&B, show tunes, and whatever else was floating around into a high-charged, rambunctious music that defined and drove pop culture across the backwaters of the 20th century and into the 21st. ..."
allmusic
Guardian: The First Rock and Roll Record – review
amazon
The Quietus
YouTube: 'Going To Move To Alabama' CHARLEY PATTON (1929), Pine Top Smith - Pinetop's boogie woogie (1928), Robert Johnson - Cross Road Blues (1936), T-Bone Walker - Mean Old World (1942), Muddy Waters - I Can't Be Satisfied (1948), Mary Ford and Les Paul - How High the Moon (1951), Rocket "88" - Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats (1951), Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley (1955), Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel (1956)

Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis

Les constructeurs (1950)
"Comprising approximately 160 works, including loans from public and private collections in Europe and the United States, this multimedia exhibition will unite The City with other important paintings from this period by the French painter Fernand Léger (1881–1955), and with key works in film, theater design, graphic and advertising design, and architecture by the artist and his avant-garde colleagues, including Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Cassandre, Amédée Ozenfant, Le Corbusier, Francis Picabia, Alexandra Exter, Gerald Murphy, and others."
Philadelphia Museum of Art
amazon

White Noise - Don DeLillo

Wikipedia - "White Noise is the eighth novel by Don DeLillo, published by Viking Press in 1985. ... White Noise explores several themes that emerged during the mid-to-late twentieth century, e.g., rampant consumerism, media saturation, novelty academic intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and reintegration of the family, human-made catastrophes, and the potentially regenerative nature of human violence."
Wikipedia
NYT: 'White Noise,' by Don DeLillo
LA Times: Tuning back in to 'White Noise'
New York Magazine
An Annotation of the First Page of White Noise, With Help From Don DeLillo
amazon: White Noise

2010 October: Pafko at the Wall, 2012 May: Underworld , 2012 July: The Body Artist.

Kassidat: Raw 45s from Morocco

"Features six extended tracks from the Golden Age of the Moroccan record industry. 'Kassidat', the Arabic word for poetry, is one of the essential ingredients in Moroccan song. Despite the bewildering array of musical styles in Morocco, the Moroccan sense of poetry is found throughout the music, regardless of the style or language. This isn’t the language of high art, but an often impenetrable vernacular poetry of oblique references, symbols, metaphors, and double entendres that describes the lives of average Moroccans."
Dust-Digital (Vinyl)
Soundcloud (Vinyl)
Juno (Vinyl)
amazon

Willie Williams – Messenger Man (2005)

“As far back as the rocksteady age, Willie Williams had attempted to deliver songs with a message, but it was only in the roots era that he finally succeeded. Returning to Jamaica after several years in Canada, the singer, with his session band in tow, entered the Channel One studio and laid down this fabulous riddim adapted from the Bee Gees’ chart-topper ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.’ Driven by Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis and Lloyd Parks’ roots rockers rhythm, the backing beautifully blends a militant aura with a funk-tinged, bluesy atmosphere that’s shredded by organist Bobby Kalphat’s extraordinary solos, which imitate searing rock guitar leads to perfection.”
allmusic
Reggae Vibes
YouTube: Messenger Man (Live), Messenger Man, Dungeon / Version, No Hiding Place, Give Jah Praise

Laundromat - Snorri Sturluson

"Snorri Sturluson is an Icelandic director and photographer. He is best known for his work as a member of the directing / photography collective Snorri Bros. Snorri has lived in New York since 2001 and as part of the Snorri Bros. helmed numerous high profile advertising campaigns for TV, print, and Internet for many of the world’s best known brands as well as directing music videos and other content for various purposes. Along with being a professional image-maker and storyteller in the commercial world Snorri is developing several feature film scripts. Laundromat is the third book of photographs under the Snorri Bros. moniker but it is the first one consisting solely of photographs by Snorri Sturluson."
Known Gallery
“Laundromat” by The Snorri Bros. Looks At a Dying NYC Institution
An Ode to the Urban Laundromat
amazon: Laundromat
vimeo: Laundromat Photography Book

Fernando García

"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This seems to be the pretext that Fernando García has applied to his recent work. He recently moved his studio from José del Rio Street in the Madrid neighborhood of Urgel to a new house in the country, located in the Los Endrinales area of the town Miraflores de la Sierra. Not being from a small town and never having had any roots in the countryside, this move has been a significant event for him. Consequently his decisions, materials and content have been determined by his surroundings at every moment. A detailed look at local culture and tradition are the result of this reflection. Our worthy heritage, as portrayed through its customs, makes up the artist’s first solo show at the Heinrich Ehrhardt Gallery."
Heinrich Ehrhardt
El artista del pueblo

Women of Visual Poetry Issue

Lori Anderson Moseman, Jet Black
"What is 'visual poetry'? Just as the question of “what is poetry?” may be answered differently by every reader and practitioner, so 'visual poetry' is hard to define closely. The unifying elements of the visual poems presented here seem twofold: first, the following poets responded to the call for 'visual poetry' with the following works (a self-defined community); second, the poems privilege the visual or material over the verbal or sonic. Poetry is so often compared to music that the visual element of the word on the page is transparent in many poems."
Jessica Smith - Women of Visual Poetry: an introduction
The Volta

Maureen Gallace

Grassy Beach House, Falmouth, MA 2002
"Maureen Gallace finds inspiration in the modest edifices and rural environs of her native New England. She paints intimate landscapes featuring serene, unpeopled houses. Deceptively effortless in their appearance, Gallace’s paintings take shape through careful observation and decisive omission. In this series of works, boxlike cottages are surrounded by bright hues of thriving summer greenery and a luminous pale sky. Visible brushstrokes, applied in wet-on-wet layers of oil paint, describe areas of color that appear infused with light. In some of her paintings, descriptive architectural details such as windows and doors are absent, leaving the viewer free to attach his or her own associations to the structure."
Whitney
303 Gallery
Sprueth Magers
frieze

Third Ear Band

"Although they were loosely affiliated with the British progressive rock scene of the late '60s and early '70s, Third Ear Band was in some ways more of an experimental ensemble performing contemporary compositional work. For one thing, they didn't use electric instruments, or even guitars, instead employing violin, viola, oboe, cello, and hand percussion. More important, they didn't play conventional rock "songs." They featured extended instrumental pieces that often built up from a drone, or hypnotic pattern, to a dense, raga-like crescendo, somewhat in the manner of some of Terry Riley's work."
allmusic
Wikipedia
Scaruffi
YouTube: Live (French TV May 1970)
YouTube: Stone Circle - "Alchemy" (1969), Druid One, Water - "Elements" (1970), Fire, "Experiences" (1976)

Iran Modern

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. Untitled, 1977
"Asia Society is organizing a landmark exhibition, Iran Modern, that will focus on Iranian art created during the three decades leading up to the revolution of 1979. Asia Society’s aim is to shed light on a period when Iranian artists were engaged with the world through the Tehran Biennial in Iran as well as exhibitions overseas, and when their work was collected by institutions inside and outside of Iran. The exhibition maps the genesis of Iranian modernism in order to argue that the development of modernist art is inherently more globally interconnected than previously understood."
Asia Society
WSJ: A Society Evolves
'Iran Modern' Exhibit At The Asia Society Illuminates 20 Years Of Contemporary Art In Tehran
NYT: Asia Society to Present Modern Iranian Art
Video: 57 Images of Amazing Pre-Revolution Iranian Art in 28 Seconds
YouTube: Iran Modern: A Conversation with Melissa Chiu

Caged/Uncaged - A Rock/Experimental Homage to John Cage (1993)

"Joey Ramone recorded a tribute song to album entitled Caged/Uncaged - A Rock/Experimental Homage to John Cage. Song is The Wonderful Widow Of Eighteen Springs. ... CD contain also tracks by David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Arto Lindsay, Richard Hell, John Zorn with Naked City, Chris Stein, Lee Ranaldo, Ann Magnuson and John Cale, Jello Biafra and Eugene Chadbourne, Lou Reed, Elliott Sharp, Amy Denio and Shelly Hirsch. As an added treat, John Cage himself appears sporadically throughout, in excerpts from a 1969 tape of readings from his book Silence."
RAMONES: JOEY RAMONE ON THE CAGED/UNCAGED
Discogs
YouTube: Caged/Uncaged 1) David Byrne - Cage And The Long Island Expressway (→0:31) 2) David Byrne - Enlightened Whistler (0:31→) 3) Art Lindsay - Proust (4:57→) 4) John Zorn - Verlaine : Part 2 La Bleue (7:41→) 5) David Weinstein and Shelley Hirsh - Cheap Imitation (13:38→) 6) Elliott Sharp - InDET (17:36→) 7) John Cage - John Cage Excerpt #10 (22:11→) 8) John Cage - John Cage Excerpt #11 (22:54→). Joe McGinty, Joey Ramone, Don Yallach / The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, Lee Renaldo / 329 Overtones for John Cage

Hear Joey Ramone Sing a Piece by John Cage Adapted from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
"In 1942, John Cage composed a short piece of music adapted from the text of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Titled 'The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs,' the piece was originally commissioned and performed by amateur soprano and socialite Justine Fairbank, and while we don’t have a recording of her performance, we do have Cage’s sheet music (see first page above, or view the entire book here). It is—as one might expect—an unusual piece. It sounds like song, yet isn’t."
Open Culture (Video)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

Wikipedia - "Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments. ... The story of a rebellious teenager who arrives at a new high school, meets a girl, disobeys his parents, and defies the local school bullies was a groundbreaking attempt to portray the moral decay of American youth, critique parental style, and explore the differences and conflicts between generations."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE by Stewart Stern, CAST OF CHARACTERS
NYT: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
YouTube: Rebel Without A Cause Trailer, I Go With The Kids, The Chicken Game, Inspriational Performance, Live it Up

2012 January: The James Dean Story, 2012 July: East of Eden.

Ann Hamilton: the event of a thread

"Visual artist Ann Hamilton combines the ephemeral presence of time with the material tactility for which she is best known to create a new large-scale installation for the Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Commissioned by the Armory, the event of a thread references the building’s architecture, as well as the individual encounters and congregational gatherings that have animated its rich social history."
Armory On Park (Video)
NYT: The Audience as Art Movement (Video)

2007 November: Ann Hamilton, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2010 March: Ann Hamilton - 1, 2010 December: Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects, 2011 January: stylus, 2011 April: indigo blue, 2011 December: Objects, 2012 November: phora , 2013 January: Gemini GEL.

Central Park

Wikipedia - "Central Park is a public park at the center of Manhattan in New York City. The park initially opened in 1857, on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land (it is 840 acres today). In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan. Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War, and was completed in 1873. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States."
Wikipedia
Central Park
The Official Website of Central Park
[PDF] Central Park Maps
YouTube: Two Years of Mapping Central Park, New York Magazine: Visitor's Guide to Central Park, Central Park, NYC Peak Fall Foliage, Central Park Video Tour Part 1, Central Park Video Tour Part 2

2008 June: Central Park, 2010 September: Christo and Jeanne-Claude - The Gates.

Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads (1990)

R.L. Burnside
"This superb documentary vividly illustrates the enduring vitality of country blues, an idiom that most mainstream music fans had presumed dead or, at best, preserved through more scholarly tributes when filmmaker Robert Mugge and veteran blues and rock writer Robert Palmer embarked on their 1990 odyssey into Mississippi delta country. ... The film's real triumph, however, rests in the team's success in capturing modern day blues survivors and inheritors playing in the bars, juke joints, and barns of delta country. Palmer, who had returned several years earlier to the delta to capture these artists for his scrappy Fat Possum label, introduces us to the now-amplified but still elemental blues of R.L. Burnside, the late Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes, and other keepers of the faith."
amazon: Deep Blues
amazon: Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta
NYT: In Search of a Father in Search of the Blues
W - Robert Palmer
Now This Sound Is Brave
Robert Christgau
YouTube: Deep Blues - R.L Burnside, Dave Stewart and Robert Palmer, Deep Blues Bonus RL Burnside, Big Jack Johnson - Catfish Blues, Big Jack Johnson-Daddy When Is Mama Coming Home