Spool's Out: 2013's Best Tapes Reviewed

"In our beautiful and enlightened, utopian digital age, the consistently rocky and progressively confused relationship with relics from the recent past is one of the strangest things to happen. From one day to the next we are surrounded with growing tonnes of out-dated detritus, rendered obsolete by the relentless march into the netherworld of a weightless society. ... In any case we’re talking about music here, so the rules of logic need not apply to the masses and our erratic behaviour. Inevitably, the most photogenic, nostalgic and the original pop music medium has seen the greatest upturn, with vinyl sales very glamorously doubling in 2013. But I’m here to discuss the unexpected return of vinyl’s redundant heir and that most filthy dirty of formats: the cassette tape."
The Quietus

Hotel Chevalier - Wes Anderson (2007)

Wikipedia - "Hotel Chevalier is a short film written and directed by Wes Anderson and released in 2007. Starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman as former lovers who reunite in a Paris hotel room, the 13-minute film acts as a prologue to Anderson's 2007 feature The Darjeeling Limited. It was shot on location in a Parisian hotel by a small crew and self-financed by Anderson, who initially intended it to be a stand-alone work. ... In a hotel lobby, the concierge answers a phone call from one of the guests' rooms. A man (Jason Schwartzman) lies on a hotel bed in a yellow bathrobe, watching the black-and-white American war film Stalag 17 and reading the newspaper. After ordering room service from the concierge in broken French, he receives a call from a woman whose voice he recognizes. She tells him she is on her way from the airport and asks for his room number."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Wes Anderson & Jason Schwartzman discuss "Hotel Chevalier"
YouTube: Hotel Chevalier

The Quotable Kierkegaard

"The father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a philosopher who could write like an angel. With only a sentence or two, he could plumb the depths of the human spirit. In this collection of some 800 quotations, the reader will find dazzling bon mots next to words of life-changing power. Drawing from the authoritative Princeton editions of Kierkegaard's writings, this book presents a broad selection of his wit and wisdom, as well as a stimulating introduction to his life and work. Organized by topic, this volume covers notable Kierkegaardian concerns such as anxiety, despair, existence, irony, and the absurd, but also erotic love, the press, busyness, and the comic. ..."
Princeton University Press
amazon

2011 July: Søren Kierkegaard, 2013 April: Repetition (1843).

John Fahey - Dances of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Bladensburg (1973)

"One of acoustic music's true innovators and eccentrics, John Fahey was a crucial figure in expanding the boundaries of the acoustic guitar over the last few decades. His music was so eclectic that it's arguable whether he should be defined as a 'folk' artist. In a career that saw him issue several dozen albums, he drew from blues, Native American music, Indian ragas, experimental dissonance, and pop. His good friend Dr. Demento has noted that Fahey 'was the first to demonstrate that the finger-picking techniques of traditional country and blues steel-string guitar could be used to express a world of non-traditional musical ideas -- harmonies and melodies you'd associate with Bartok, Charles Ives, or maybe the music of India.' The more meditative aspects of his work foreshadowed new age music, yet Fahey played with a fierce imagination and versatility that outshone any of the guitarists in that category. His idiosyncrasy may have limited him to a cult following, but it also ensured that his work continues to sound fresh. ..."
allmusic
YouTube: Dances of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Bladensburg (Live)

2009 March: John Fahey, 2011 March: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (The Fonotone Years 1958-1965), 2012 September: Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice), 2013 February: The Mill Pond, 2013 August: Railroad (1983).

Traveling furiously toward you

Hotel Negresco, 2010, collage, 6 ¼ x 5 ½ inches, by John Ashbery
"... Poetry and painting are set in an interlinked relation of the arts, with music, dance, movies, theater, and literature, all feeding new aesthetic questions as they come into being. With these overlapping affinities in mind, we went about assembling 'John Ashbery and the arts' wanting to explore how artists across genres respond creatively to Ashbery’s poetry. Our most exciting revelation was how much everyone here fashioned work by reading himself or herself into Ashbery’s. That is to say, contributors created their pieces through reading their own sensibilities into Ashbery’s, and not the other way around. ..."

Eugene and Johnny Go Boating Rosanne Wasserman, 

Star-crossed Trevor Winkfield

Francis Ponge translated by John Ashbery Francis Ponge

Boiled Dinner Jennifer Moxley

Excerpts from 'The Poet as Art Critic' John Yau

In No Time at All Wanda Coleman

Quiet Moon Harry Mathews

Correspondences Marcella Durand

Three poems by Ed Roberson Ed Roberson

Three looks Sandra Lim

The Late Parade Adam Fitzgerald

Personae, wonder, vetch: 'Crowd Conditions' John Emil Vincent

Farms Mark So

Uptick Emily Skillings

Morning in Runnemede Thomas Devaney

Jacket2

Frank Gossner – Brooklyn, NY

"I have the great pleasure to feature Frank Gossner, who some of you might also known from his amazing African Funk parties in Brooklyn. yes, I’m talking about Voodoo Funk! Frank was one of the first guys in NY to help me start this ongoing photo project. He introduced me to the right people and motivated me to do this documentary project about record collectors. It’s been 2 years now since our first meeting, and this time I’m honored and excited to give you a small glimpse into this man’s incredible collection which literally took a lot of blood, sweat & tears to accomplish. Frank has been digging for dusty and forgotten records throughout West Africa armed with endless dedication and desire to find that special sound and beat. His stories could fill a whole blog for themselves, and there is no way I could even touch the tip of his wild adventures on this magical continent."
Dust and Grooves

Thomas Bayrle at dOCUMENTA (13)

"One of the largest rooms of dOCUMENTA (13) is dedicated exclusively to the work of German artist Thomas Bayrle. Bayrle, born in 1937 in Berlin, has already participated in Documenta 3 in 1964 and in Documenta 6 in 1977 in Kassel (Germany). Nearly 50 years after his first participation Thomas Bayrle is now celebrating his impressive comeback to one of the most important art events of the world. In this conversation with Dr. Bettina Krogemann, Thomas Bayrle talks about the works he is showing at dOCUMENTA (13)."
Vernissage (Video)
Thomas Bayrle at dOCUMENTA (13): The Holy Ghost and the Machine
Contemporary Art Daily
frieze: Social Fabric (Video)

Map of the World

"I do realize it must feel like map week around here, but how could we not share this literary street map, loosely based on Victorian London? To quote the Dorothy studio, the map 'is made up from the titles of over six hundred books from the history of English Literature (and a few favourites from further afield). The map includes classics such as Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Bleak House, Vanity Fair, and Wuthering Heights as well as twentieth and twenty-first century works such as The Waste Land, To the Lighthouse, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse 5, The Catcher in the Rye, The Wasp Factory, Norwegian Wood, and The Road.'"
The Paris Review
Dorothy

Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China

"The first major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art ever mounted by the Metropolitan, Ink Art explores how contemporary works from a non-Western culture may be displayed in an encyclopedic art museum. Presented in the Museum's permanent galleries for Chinese art, the exhibition features artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture. These works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, but by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these artists' creative processes."
Met Museum
Met Museum - Exhibition objects
NYT: A Magical Well That Never Runs Dry

Nuart 2013: The Final Video

Vhils, Portugal 2013
"For the past 3 years, we have been invited to Stavanger, Norway to participate in the NuArt Festival, where an international roster of street and public artists convene on the west coast of the country to create a yearly project that combines art, city planning, and good old-fashioned street intervention. This year, the roster included David Choe, Vhils, Faith47, ROA, Martha Cooper, M-City, Aiko, Hush, DALeast, and many more, and today, the good people behind NuArt released a video recap of this year's festival..."
Juxtapoz (vimeo)

Alisa Baremboym

Alisa Baremboym - "My work revolves around how our relationships with our bodies are complicated by the perpetual need for conservation. The body is an industrious machine turned inside out and in need of maintenance. The line between exterior and interior is blurred and the topology is tubular, making its parameters cyclical, porous and absorbing. We have generated ways to extend our selves through technological mechanisms and we use these conduits to prolong and preserve the confines of our leaky bodies. There is no longer a line between organic composition and appendage. I am interested in this pollution of surfaces and the disintegration of boundaries. This contradiction of materialities propels my work."
47 Canal Street
HYPER-MATERIALITY interview by Ruba Katrib
Alisa Baremboym & skúta, installation view, hallway
vimeo: Interview d'Alisa Baremboym dans le cadre de COOKBOOK- Beaux-Arts de Paris

Běla Kolářová

Wikipedia - "Běla Kolářová née Helclová (24 March 1923 in Terezín – 12 April 2010 in Prague) was a Czech artist and photographer. Běla Kolářová belongs to the generation which touched off an iconoclastic revolution and "rearmament" in Czech art during the 1960s. This new wave hit the scene with a program of objective tendencies, proclaiming that art can exist as a process, concept, method, experiment and language, or as something 'concrete'—such as a found and designed object. Kolářová’s training is in photography, and her role in the 1960s reversal was associated with this medium from the beginning. As with many of her contemporaries, she arrived at the conclusion that it is not possible to photograph the world, i.e. to use classic methods of representing reality."
Wikipedia
Bela Kolarova – Raven Row
Contemporary Art Daily
vimeo: Běla Kolářová (v doprovodu Tomáše Vaňka)

Dennis Hopper: On the Road

"Director, actor, photographer, artist and art collector, Dennis Hopper was a man of diverse talents who intersected with countless key moments in American culture--particularly, and most famously, in the 1960s. Hopper’s great gifts as a photographer are well established, with many of his images having entered public consciousness. This handsomely produced volume looks at Hopper’s photography throughout its glory years, from 1961 to 1967. In these years, Hopper carried a camera everywhere, from bars to marches, art openings to freeways. Conceived as a kind of road trip across America, the book runs the gamut of 1960s counterculture and film culture, taking in Warhol’s Factory (where Hopper spent much time), film shoots, street scenes, road trips and of course the classic portraits of movie stars, musicians, artists, bikers and activists, from Martin Luther King to Allen Ginsberg and James Brown."
artbook
vimeo: Dennis Hopper: On The Road

The First 40 - The Monks of Cinema (1964)

"We came to the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar to present Jack Smith's film Flaming Creatures, although we were not included among the official guests. We slept outside and experienced Vermont night in our bones. The morning was beautiful and we all felt great, we felt we that we were the 'Monks of Cinema.' The eye-pod will give you another glimpse into my way of filming."
The First 40 (Video)

Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources - Claude Berri

Wikipedia - "Jean de Florette ... is a 1986 French historical drama film directed by Claude Berri, based on a novel by Marcel Pagnol. It is followed by Manon des Sources. The film takes place in rural Provence, where two local farmers scheme to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited property. The film starred three of France's most prominent actors – Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, who won a BAFTA award for his performance, and Yves Montand in one of the last roles before his death. The film was shot, together with Manon des Sources, over a period of seven months."
W - Jean de Florette
W - Manon des Sources
W - Claude Berri
amazon
Claude Berri: Film director and screenwriterbest known for 'Jean de Florette' and 'Manon des Sources'
YouTube: Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources

Was (Not Was) - Papa Was A Rolling Stone

"It was the third of September
That day I'll always remember, yes I will
'Cause that was the day that my daddy died
I never had a chance to see him
Never heard nothin' but bad things about him"
vimeo: Papa Was A Rolling Stone

2009 October: Was (Not Was)

Geoffrey Farmer - Leaves of Grass (2012)

'Leaves of Grass', 2012 - Life magazines (1935–85)
"Canadian artist Geoffrey Farmer has created the three dimensional and sculptural collage work 'leaves of grass' for the 13th documenta art festival, which features the works of 200 artists and takes place every five years for a duration of 100 days in kassel, germany. The work spans sixty feet and is built from thousands of clippings from american image-centric magazine LIFE taken between the years of 1935 and 1985. Each of the small photograph cut-outs feature various objects from advertisements and articles including politicians to products evocative of a particular point in visual history for the american journal. These excerpts from LIFE are affixed individually to thin wooden posts in order to properly display every image chosen by the artist from this fifty year period."
designboom
Geoffrey Farmer Discusses His Big Documenta Hit
W - Geoffrey Farmer
YouTube: Leaves of Grass (2012), documenta 13

The Richard Brautigan Collection from poet Joanne Kyger

Please Plant This Book
"Joanne Kyger met Richard Brautigan at a gallery opening in San Francisco in the spring of 1957 when they were both 22 years old. After dinner the following night Richard gave Joanne her first tour of North Beach. In 1960, Joanne left San Francisco and lived in Japan for several years where she married Gary Snyder and studied Zen Buddhism. She became close friends with Richard when she returned to San Francisco in February 1964. Joanne and Richard were greatly influenced by Jack Spicer early in their careers and both were important and vivid figures in the remarkable literary and art scene in San Francisco in the mid-to late 60’s. ..."
Granary Books
Richard Brautigan By Joanne Kyger

2011 September: Richard Brautigan, 2012 December: Trout Fishing in America.

Louis Braille

Wikipedia - "Louis Braille (... 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was the inventor of braille, a system of reading and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired. As a small child, Braille was blinded in an accident; as a boy he developed a mastery over that blindness; and as a young man – still a student at school – he created a revolutionary form of communication that transcended blindness and transformed the lives of millions of persons. After two centuries, the braille system remains an invaluable tool of learning and communication for the blind, and it has been adapted for languages worldwide."
Wikipedia
Lees Mee braille stamps by René Put
Louis Braille and the Braille System

Reginald Marsh - Why Not Use the “L”? (1930)

Why Not Use the “L”?, 1930
"... In this work, Marsh captures a slice of the city that's now gone: riders on the elevated train. The train depicted appears to be the Third Avenue 'L' (or, sometimes, 'El'), but transportation aficionados should chime in if we are wrong about that. As in many of Marsh's paintings, there is a gauzy quality to the canvas, though a few things are in sharp focus. Above the sleeping man's head is a sign that gives the painting its title: 'The subway is fast, certainly. But the open-air elevated gets you there quickly, too! And with more comfort. Why not use the 'L'?'"
Inside the Apple
Saturday Art: Why Not Take The “L” by Reginald Marsh
WSJ: The City We Thought We Knew
NYT: Misery Loved a Good Night Out
amazon: Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York
Whitney (Audio)

2008 September: Reginald Marsh

Susan Philipsz - Study for Strings (2012)

"This is art as an act of kindness. In this sound piece, which you can hear at the Kassel train station, artist Susan Philipsz has recorded the music of Holocaust victim musician Pavel Haas. It is said that Haas imagined this beautiful Study for Strings as he left the station on his way to concentration camp, and death. He heard his music only once, undoubtedly in dire circumstances, in the camp; Haas was killed, and manuscript to his music lost. Here, Philipsz reconstructs each instrument’s part, and has it play hauntingly across the platform, and beautiful homage to a wonderful musician – a stranger the artist never met. I think this artwork is a gift to all of us, who may never have heard Haas’ beautiful music, and it is a great gift to the man himself. Philipsz, you have done truly a beautiful thing with this artwork, in every way. Thank you."
words for the spirit
Susan Philipsz: Sound As Invisible Sculpture
Art on the Tracks at dOCUMENTA
vimeo: Spring 2013 Talks: Susan Philipsz 1:22:25
vimeo: Susan Philipsz, Study for Strings, at Documenta 13
YouTube: dOCUMENTA (13) SOUNDINSTALLATION AM BAHNSTEIG KASSEL-HAUPTBAHNHOF

2011 April: Susan Philipsz, Lowlands (2009)

Billi Kid/M.I.A. video for SPIN magazine

"BK BRAND - The 'notoriously harmonious'* Billi Kid is a street artist determined to refine his voice while leaving an indelible mark on the over saturated urban and cyber landscapes. A life-long doodler, art enthusiast and design junkie, his work blur the lines between graffiti, pop culture, iconography and art. Never to busy to look, feel and listen, his collaborative works with artist from around the world have been celebrated in both the media and street art community alike. His passion for the streets has led him to curate ground breaking exhibitions that have helped bridge the gap between the urban landscape and the sterile indoor environment."
Billi Kid
Understanding M.I.A.: 5 Things You Need to Know
vimeo: Billi Kid/M.I.A. video for SPIN magazine

Telephones - Christian Marclay (1995)

"It is a dark and stormy night, and a man hustles to a phone booth and furtively dials. Cut to another man, also dialing, the motion of his hand betraying a certain anxiety. Cut to a succession of others, many of whom are immediately recognizable--Cary Grant, Tippi Hedren, Ray Milland, Meg Ryan, Humphrey Bogart--dialing or stabbing Touch-Tones in various states of expectation. Drawn into this anticipatory mood, we are startled when, in the next shot, a phone actually rings--as, in real life, when we are jolted by that unexpected call. Cleverly conceived and artfully edited, Christian Marclay's 7 1/2-minute video, Telephones, comprises a succession of brief film clips that creates a humorous narrative of its own in which the characters, in progression, dial, hear the phone ring, pick it up, converse, react, say goodbye and hang up. In doing so, they express a multitude of emotions--surprise, desire, anger, disbelief, excitement, boredom--ultimately leaving the impression that they are all part of one big conversation."
Christian Marclay's Telephones
Christian Marclay by Ben Neill BOMB 84/Summer 2003
YouTube: Telephones, 1995

2008 September: Christian Marclay, 2010 July: Christian Marclay Festival, 2010 October: Night Music, 2011 March: Christian Marclay - Part I: Race to ‘The Clock’, 2011 July: Christian Marclay's Video Quartet, 2011 August: Cyanotype, 2012 July: Fred Frith at Cafe Oto, with Christian Marclay, John Edwards, and Mark Sanders, 2013 October: Record Player: Christian Marclay (2000).

Street - James Nares

"Street, a new video by the British-born artist James Nares, forms the centerpiece of this exhibition. Over the course of a week in September 2011, Nares—a New Yorker since 1974—recorded sixteen hours of footage of people on the streets of Manhattan from a moving car using a high-definition camera usually used to record fast-moving subjects such as speeding bullets and hummingbirds. He then greatly slowed his source material, editing down the results to one hour of steady, continuous motion and scoring it with music for twelve-string guitar composed and performed by his friend Thurston Moore, co-founder of Sonic Youth."
Met Museum (Video)
The Extraordinary in the Ordinary:
James Nares’ Video, Street
James Nares Captures a Dreamlike New York Streetlife in High-Def
W - James Nares
NYT: The Lens Rises in Stature

Winter Winds - Fotheringay

"Winter winds they do blow cold,
The time of year, it is chosen.
Now the frost and fire,
And now the sea is frozen.

He who sleeps he does not see
The coming of the seasons,
The filling of a dream
Without a time to reason.

He who sleeps he does not see
The coming of the seasons,
The filling of a dream
Without a time to reason."
YouTube: Winter Winds

Amour (2012)

Wikipedia - "Amour (pronounced: [a.muʁ]; French for 'Love') is a 2012 French-language drama film written and directed by the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert. ... A brigade of firemen break down the door of an apartment in Paris to find the corpse of Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) lying on a bed, adorned with cut flowers. Several months earlier, Anne and her husband Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), both retired piano teachers in their eighties, attend a performance by one of Anne's former pupils. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, Anne silently suffers a stroke. She sits in a catatonic state, not responding to Georges. She comes around as Georges is about to get help, but doesn't remember anything that took place. Georges thinks she was playing a prank on him. Anne is unable to pour herself a drink. ..."
Wikipedia
NYT: Étude on Aging, Its Graces, Its Indignities
NYT: Words of Love From a Severe Director
Roger Ebert
LA Times - Essay: 'Amour' is a horror film for the ages
Guardian - Amour: how can we embrace a film that is so clearly an advert for euthanasia?
YouTube: Amour - trailer Cannes Film Festival 2012

Belton Sutherland

"Ages ago, I came across a short video of a song fragment by Belton Sutherland on YouTube. The clip of Sutherland, performing the song 'Old Grey Mule,' was taken from the Alan Lomax documentary The Land Where the Blues Began (1978). In the film, and the YouTube clip I saw, the song cuts out after a single verse. That single verse captivated me. The emotion with which Sutherland performed the piece was incredible. The guitar lines were menacing, and his ragged voice matched the tone perfectly."
See That My Blog is Kept Clean
YouTube: Blues #2, Blues #1, Belton Sutherland's field holler, Belton Sutherland & Clyde Maxwell: Blues, I Have Trouble

Deimantas Narkevičius

"Originally trained as a sculptor, Narkevičius has mainly been working on storytelling using film and video. His central focus is an exploration of history with a current and subjective point of view. History itself has become his methodology and his primary material. Choosing moments in History has helped him understand physical and psychological phenomenon, and that process has made him reconsider his own place in the world. In the film installation 'His-story', the artist tells about a period in his country from a personal freely formed perspective, all the while using the style of a documentary. As in the title, Narkevičius is making a play on words: relating his own story to the history of Lithuania. He tells about his father, a highly placed government bureaucrat who was fired from his job without notice. Having no other explanation for this action, the state labeled him mentally unstable and had him committed. ..."
Deimantas Narkevicius: Presentation
Deimantas Narkevicius
Flash Art
Tate
frieze
BFI Gallery Launch (Video)
Deimantas Narkevičius’ Video Art: Between the Personal and the Political (Video)
YouTube: Ausgeträumt - Marino Marini, Firenze, Draudžiami jausmai (2011), Into the Unknown (2009), Matching the TU 144, 2012, Museo Marino Marini 2013
UbuWeb: The Role of A Lifetime (2003)

Pushed Out by Penthouses: The Gentrification of Downtown Brooklyn

"... As a resident of a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, Sunset Park, [Kelly] Anderson stresses how important protecting a community’s existing culture is for newcomers. 'Try to connect. Don’t just shape it to your will,' she advises. Encouraging people to speak out about gentrification, no matter who is in power, Anderson recommends partnering with grassroots organizations like ALIGN, FUREE, Good Jobs New York and Right to the City to address housing issues. She also notes the inherent difficulties of fostering a central role for culture in cities without advertising neighborhoods as 'artsy,' a label that policymakers and real estate proprietors often use when promoting new developments that have the potential of being detrimental to residents."
Creative Time Reports (Video)
The Real Story Behind the Gentrification of Brooklyn
Looking At Brooklyn's Gentrification Through Two New Films
NYT: A Work in Progress, From the Inside Out
Urban Films: My Brooklyn (2012)
vimeo: Trailer for My Brooklyn (2012)
Film Forum: Gut Renovation (2012)

The Pina Bausch Sourcebook - The Making of Tanztheater

"Climenhaga's book...is not yet another omnibus volume, collecting essays from a symposium. It is a complex and excellent edited sourcebook that ties together traces of written memories which have been slumbering in archived magazines or newspapers - waiting to be woken up from a 30-year sleep. Ultimately, The Pina Bausch Sourcebook - The Making of Tanztheater is a source in itself and can be marked as a 'Survey of Remembering Tanztheater'. As a glance at ways of 'Remembering Dance', this book is an indispensable contribution to the (still to be broadened out) research literature on dance for every scholar and student working in the field of dance history and theory. It focuses on and highlights the roots, aesthetics and methods of the German Tanztheater as well as its followers from the 1960s until today. It is a also a source for the reader who seeks to deeply research, ask further questions and continue her or his own path of reflecting on the Wuppertaler Tanztheater and the dance as art form in general. - Theaterforschung"
amazon: The Pina Bausch Sourcebook - The Making of Tanztheater
Google: The Pina Bausch Sourcebook - The Making of Tanztheater

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