Broken Arrow - Neil Young (1996)

"In many ways, Broken Arrow follows the same path as Neil Young's other '90s albums with Crazy Horse. Broken Arrow floats on waves of lumbering guitars and cascading feedback, ebbing and flowing with winding solos and drifting melodies. In a typical display of artistic perversion, Young has front-loaded the album with three epics with a combined running time of just over 25 minutes. ... The album floats from song to song, with the guitars drowning out the sound of Young's voice. There are some fine songs buried amid the long jams, but the album is directionless, and that lack of direction never manages to develop a consistent emotional tone."
allmusic
W - Broken Arrow
Uncut: A Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide sampler: "Broken Arrrow"
YouTube: Big Time (Live Phoenix Festival 1996), Loose Change, Slip Away, Change Your Mind, Scattered (Let's Think About Livin'), This Town, Music Arcade, Baby, What You Want Me to Do

2008 February: Neil Young, 2010 April: Neil Young - 1, 2010 April: Neil Young - 2, 2010 May: Neil Young - 3, 2010 October: Neil Young's Sound, 2012 January: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History, 2012 June: Like A Hurricane, 2012 July: Greendale, 2013 April: Thoughts On An Artist / Three Compilations, 2013 August: Heart of Gold, 2014 March: Dead Man (1995), 2014 August: Ragged Glory - Neil Young + Crazy Horse (1990).

Is this the most wonderful sign in Soho?

"Long before Soho became Soho, Fanelli’s was a no-frills bar that served up cheap food and drinks for the men who worked in the neighborhood’s factories, plus the occasional artist or stumblebum. And at least since the 1970s, that neon sign has been affixed to the red-brick building at the corner of Prince and Mercer Streets, a wonderful sight on a cold New York City night. Fanelli’s has a long and fascinating history. The building that houses the bar apparently has been around since 1857, when a grocery store was located on the ground floor, according to newyorkartworld.com."
Ephemeral New York

Rachel Whiteread

Drawing for Water Tower, IV.
"Rachel Whiteread is renowned for her evocative large-scale sculptures, but drawing has always remained one of her core activities. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore her works on paper, most of which have never been shown before in a public gallery. These collages and drawings provide a fascinating and intimate insight into the creative process behind Whiteread’s work. While her sculptures are often large-scale and involve a team of fabricators, these paper works provide a more personal, mobile counterpoint. Nevertheless, they also share many of the themes familiar from her public commissions: texture and surface; void and presence; and the subtle observation of human traces in everyday life."
Tate (Video)
Guardian
amazon: Rachel Whiteread
W - Rachel Whiteread
Hammer: Rachel Whiteread's Water Tower Sketchbook (Video)
YouTube: Interview Pt 1, Pt 2

Sergei Eisenstein

Wikipedia - "Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (... 23 January 1898 – 11 February 1948) was a Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928), as well as the historical epics Alexander Nevsky (1938) and Ivan the Terrible (1944, 1958). ... Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He and his contemporary, Lev Kuleshov, two of the earliest film theorists, argued that montage was the essence of the cinema. His articles and books — particularly Film Form and The Film Sense — explain the significance of montage in detail."
Wikipedia
W - Soviet montage theory
Eisenstein: ‘Intellectual Montage’, Poststructuralism, and Ideology
theory of montage - Ewa Neumann (Video)
A Visual Introduction to Soviet Montage Theory: A Revolution in Filmmaking (Video)

Wikipedia - "Battleship Potemkin ... sometimes rendered as Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the mutiny that occurred in 1905 when the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin rebelled against their officers of the Tsarist regime. Battleship Potemkin has been called one of the most influential propaganda films of all time,and was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958."
W - Battleship Potemkin
Battleship Potemkin by Roger Ebert
amazon: Sergei Eisenstein
YouTube: Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Full Movie 1:12:13

October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928)
W - Strike (1925 film)
Disc Spotlight: Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Strike’
YouTube: Strike! - (English Complete)
W - October: Ten Days That Shook the World
Sergei Eisenstein’s October: a monumental work
YouTube: October: Ten Days That Shook the World 1:42:23

Elmore James - Blues Master Works

"Generally acknowledged as 'the King of the Slide Guitar' among blues music enthusiasts around the world, the singer, guitarist and composer Elmore James remains an important musical influence half a century after his early death. ... On Elmore James' gravestone, in his Mississippi hometown, the inscription records that he left behind 'a powerful legacy that will remain forever in American music'. Doubtless the music of the 'King of the Slide Guitar' will continue to be heard for countless years to come, and this new collection is a welcome reminder of his classic Delta Blues style."
Spin
YouTube: BLUES MASTERS WORKS 1:09:01

2013 March: “Dust My Broom”: The Story of a Song

Aksak Maboul

Wikipedia - "Aksak Maboul (also spelled Aqsak Maboul for a while) are a Belgian avant-rock band founded in 1977 by Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis. They made two studio albums, Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine (1977) and Un Peu de l'Âme des Bandits (1980), the last one with ex-Henry Cow members Chris Cutler and Fred Frith. They were also active in the Rock in Opposition movement in 1979."
Wikipedia
ProgArchives
Crammed: Aksak Maboul
soundcloud: Véronique Vincent & Aksak Maboul - "Chez Les Aborigènes"
YouTube: Modern Lesson (1979), I viaggi formano la gioventu, Milano per Caso & Fausto Coppi Arrive, Saure Gurke, Vapona, Not Glue, Odessa

Sturtevant: Double Trouble

"Johns 0 through 9," 1965
"Sturtevant (American, 1924–2014) began 'repeating' the works of her contemporaries in 1964, using some of the most iconic artworks of her generation as a source and catalyst for the exploration of originality, authorship, and the interior structures of art and image culture. Beginning with her versions of works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, Sturtevant initially turned the visual logic of Pop art back on itself, probing uncomfortably at the workings of art history in real time. Yet her chameleon-like embrace of other artists’ art has also resulted in her being largely overlooked in the history of postwar American art."
MoMA
NY Times: Taking Copycatting to a Higher Level
New Yorker: After Image
amazon

One Day Pina Asked... - Chantal Akerman (1983)

"A fortuitous encounter between two icons of film and dance, Chantal Akerman and Pina Bausch, One Day Pina Asked... is Akerman’s singular look at the work of the remarkable choreographer and her Wuppertal Tanztheater during a five-week European tour. More than a conventional documentary, Akerman’s film is a journey through her world, composed of striking images and personal memories transformed. Capturing the company’s rehearsals and assembling performance excerpts from signature works such as Komm Tanz Mit Mir (Come Dance with Me, 1977) and Nelken (Carnations, 1982), the director applies her unique visual skills to bring us close to her enigmatic subject."
Film Society of Lincoln Center
amazon
YouTube: "One Day Pina Asked..." (1983) Clip, Nelken, excerpt: The Man I Love, In Un jour Pina a demandé, komm tanz mit mir

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

In Which The Elements of Disbelief Are Very Strong In The Morning

"... Poet Among Painters by James Schuyler: I first met Frank O'Hara at a party at John Myers' after a Larry Rivers opening: de Kooning and Nell Blaine were there, arguing about whether it is deleterious for an artist to do commercial work. I was most impressed by the company I was suddenly keeping. ... This was rich stuff, and we talked a long time; or rather, as was so often the case, he talked and I listened. His conversation was self-propelling and one idea, or anecdote, or bon mot was fuel to his own fire, inspiring him verbally to blaze ahead, that curious voice rising and falling, full of invisible italics, the strong pianist's hands gesturing with the invariable cigarette."
This Recording

2008 January: Frank O'Hara, 2010 February: USA: Poetry, 2010 October: Stones: Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara,  2011 October: City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara - Brad Gooch, 2012 December: USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara (1966), 2013 June: A Visual Footnote to O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died”: New World Writing and The Poets of Ghana, 2013 March: Happy Birthday, Frank O’Hara: The Beloved Poet Reads His “Metaphysical Poem”, 2014 June: Remembering Frank O’Hara’s Apartments, 2014 August: Lunch Poems (1964).

New York Neon

"A brilliant visual tour and history of that iconic element of the cityscape: the neon sign. Treating New York City as an open-air museum, Thomas E. Rinaldi captures the brilliant glow of surviving early- and mid-twentieth-century neon signs, those iconic elements of the cityscape now in danger of disappearing. This visual tour features two hundred signs, identified by location, with information on their manufacture, date of creation, and the businesses that commissioned them."
W.W. Norton
New York Neon Blog
The Bowery Boys
WSJ: Shining a New Light on City's Neon

Jess

Goddess Because Is Is Falling Asleep, 1954
"From the outside it appears to be a typical early 20^th century Berkeley brown shingle house. Inside, however, the former home of cineaste Pauline Kael is a trove of mid-century murals by the legendary artist Jess. And the house will soon be for sale. Kael, who wrote film criticism and helped run Berkeley’s famed Cinema-Guild Theater, a repertory house on Telegraph Avenue, in the 1950s, turned her nearby house at 2419 Oregon Street into a Bohemian hangout, attracting writers, artists, Marxists, a pretender to the throne of Russia, the filmmaker Jean Renoir, poet Robert Duncan, and Duncan’s partner Jess."
Miraculous Murals Hide Within a Berkeley Brown Shingle
[PDF] Dream House
Tibor de Nagy

2013 May: An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle

Crossing Brooklyn

"Reflecting the rich creative diversity of Brooklyn, Crossing Brooklyn presents work by thirty-five Brooklyn-based artists or collectives. The exhibition and related programming take place in the galleries and on the grounds of the Museum, as well as off-site in the streets, waterways, and other public spaces of the borough. ... The resulting work defies easy categorization, taking on diverse forms that include public and private action, the use of found or collected objects, and interactive and educational events, among others. Alongside the drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations, videos, and performances on view are several site-specific works."
Brooklyn Museum
Voice
NY Times: The Artist Next Door
YouTube: Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond

John Gutmann

"Born in Breslau, Germany, Gutmann studied to be a painter under Otto Mueller before turning to photography shortly before he emigrated to the United States, where he became known for his vivid images of popular culture. Gutmann brought a foreigner’s view to the streets of California, where he saw with fresh eyes such astonishing (to him) phenomena as multiracial crowds, drive in movies and restaurants, drum majorettes, car parks and golf links, beauty contests, tattoo parlors, and movie marquees. He was fascinated by the status of the car as an American icon and photographed unusual license plates, decorated dashboards, decals, and hood ornaments. He also took a notable series of New York City in the 1940s."
Lumiere Gallery
John Gutmann Photography Fellowship
W - John Gutmann
NY Times: John Gutmann, 93, Painter Who Became a Photographer
Fraenkel Gallery: My Eyes Were Fresh: John Gutmann (Video)

Becoming Modern

Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882
"People use the term 'modern' in a variety of ways, often very loosely, with a lot of implied associations of new, contemporary, up-to-date, and technological. We know the difference between a modern country and a third world country and it usually has less to do with art and more to do with technology and industrial progress, things like indoor plumbing, easy access to consumer goods, freedom of expression, and voting rights. In the 19th century, however, modernity and its connection with art had certain specific associations that people began recognizing and using as barometers to distinguish themselves and their culture from earlier nineteenth century ways and attitudes."
smarthistory

Pascal Comelade - El pianista del antifaz (2013)

"This page is not the embryo of a site dedicated to Pascal Comelade. It is just intended as a help, so as not to get lost in Pascal Comelade's plethorical and cosmopolitan record production. As for the 20th century, Pascal Comelade has done the task himself, in a magnificent manner, by publishing (in French) his 'Ecrits monophoniques submergés' in december 1999."
the lucidly hoptimistic fanzine
YouTube: El Pianista Del Antifaz, The Skatalan Logicofobism (Live), Sardana Mecanica, I Scream Ice Cream, Ze Crypto-Situ Cow-Boy Rides Again, Friki Serenata, Portrait de l'Artiste avec des Lunettes pour voir les Femmes à Poil, El Bolero Del Raval

2014 June: Pascal Comelade, 2014 September: September Song (2000)

The League of Outsider Baseball: An Illustrated History of Baseball's Forgotten Heroes

"From an award-winning graphic artist and baseball historian comes a strikingly original illustrated history of baseball’s forgotten heroes, including stars of the Negro Leagues, barnstorming teams, semi-pro leagues, foreign leagues, and famous players like Shoeless Joe Jackson, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, and Joe DiMaggio before they achieved notoriety. From a young age, Gary Cieradkowski had a passion for baseball’s unheralded heroes. ... Shining a light into the dark corners of baseball history—from Mickey Mantle’s minor league days to Negro League greats like Josh Gibson and Leon Day; to people that most never knew played the game, such as Frank Sinatra, who had his own ball club in 1940s Hollywood; bank robber John Dillinger, who was a promising shortstop and took time out between robberies to attend Cubs games; and even a few US presidents—this book is a rich, visual tribute to America’s pastime."
amazon
Infinite Card Set

Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Wikipedia - "Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. ... DiCorcia alternates between informal snapshots and iconic quality staged compositions that often have a baroque theatricality. Using a carefully planned staging, he takes everyday occurrences beyond the realm of banality, trying to inspire in his picture's spectators an awareness of the psychology and emotion contained in real-life situations. His work could be described as documentary photography mixed with the fictional world of cinema and advertising, which creates a powerful link between reality, fantasy and desire."
Wikipedia
Collective Shift
artnet
YouTube: PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA. PHOTOGRAPHS 1975-2012

The Old Woman - Robert Wilson, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe

"Legendary theater maker Robert Wilson returns to the Center with a brand-new theatrical production The Old Woman, based on a story by Russian author Daniil Kharms. A brilliant, slyly political story written in the 1930s, The Old Woman stars world-renowned dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov and film star Willem Dafoe. With echoes of Beckett in its deadpan narrative and humor, The Old Woman is one of the great works of the Russian avant-garde and tells the story of a struggling young writer."
UCLA (Video)
NY Times: A Duo, Dynamism and a Dead Body
Impressions From Paris: Robert Wilson's "The Old Woman" Starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe

2008 April: Robert Wilson, 2010 January: Einstein on the Beach, 2010 July: The CIVIL warS, 2011 May: Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera , 2011 August: Stations (1982), 2012 February: Absolute Wilson, 2012 August: Einstein on the Blog: Christopher Knowles’ Typings, 2013 March: The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 2013 April: Death, Destruction and Detroit, 2013 October: crickets audio recording slowed way down, 2013 October: Beached, 2014 January: The Louvre invites Robert Wilson - Living Rooms.

Hi-ARTS Presents JR’s Inside Out Mi Gente / Oyáte kiŋ Photo Art Project — opening this evening in East Harlem

"Opening this evening from 6-9pm at the Hi-Arts Gallery on 304 East 100^th Street is JR’s Inside Out Mi Gente/ Oyáte kiŋ Art Project — focusing on and uniting two communities: NYC’s East Harlem and South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. Here are a few images captured yesterday while visiting the exhibit, curated by Carlos Mare..."
Street Art NYC
Alice Mizrachi (Video)
PART ONE (Enrique Torres)

Entr’Acte: René Clair’s Dadaist Masterpiece (1924)

"René Clair’s 1924 avant-garde masterpiece Entr’Acte opens with a cannon firing into the audience and that’s pretty much a statement of purpose for the whole movie. Clair wanted to shake up the audience, throwing it into a disorienting world of visual bravado and narrative absurdity. You can watch it above. The film was originally designed to be screened between two acts of Francis Picabia’s 1924 opera Relâche."
Open Culture (Video)
W - René Clair
W - Under the Roofs of Paris
Criterion: Under the Roofs of Paris (Video)
[PDF] The Art of Sound - René Clair
YouTube: Paris qui dort (1925)

The Clash: Complete control - Safe european Home - Whats my name

"Well, I just got back an' I wish I never leave now
Who dat Martian arrival at the airport?
How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic?
The Johnny on the corner was a very sympathetic
(Safe European Home)
YouTube: Complete control - Safe european Home - Whats my name

Joe Brainard - Tibor de Nagy Gallery

Untitled (Rogue River Valley Pears) 1976 collage
"The gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of selected works by the artist along with a display of his never before exhibited artist books and manuscripts, in celebration of the publication by The Library of America of The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett, with an introduction by Paul Auster. The exhibition will comprise works on paper including collages, watercolors, and gouaches. Many of the works relate to writing, including images that incorporate text as both thought bubbles as well as compositional elements. The works are humorous and often have a sweetness to them."
Tibor de Nagy Gallery
artnet
Cat Dawson on Joe Brainard

2008 February: Joe Brainard, 2010 November: I Remember, 2011 October: A State of the Flowers Report, 2011 November: Joe Brainard: A Retrospective, 2012 March: Bolinas Journal, 2012 September: I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard by Matt Wolf (2012).

Fun Maps: NYC Literary Map Highlights Authors of the Upper East Side

"To celebrate the opening of its new location at East 82nd Street and Lexington Avenue, the eyewear company Warby Parker has released an Upper East Side Literary Map and Tour that pairs classic New York authors, stories, and places to their physical locations. On 88th Street and 3rd Avenue we have Elaine’s, an Italian restaurant frequented by artistic greats such as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Simone de Beauvoir, and Leonard Bernstein. On 87th and West End Avenue one can walk by the brownstones that inspired the home of everyone’s favorite teenage detective Harriet the Spy. "
untapped cities

The Book of Legendary Lands - Umberto Eco

"Celebrated Italian novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic, and list-lover Umberto Eco has had a long fascination with the symbolic and the metaphorical, extending all the way back to his vintage semiotic children’s books. Half a century later, he revisits the mesmerism of the metaphorical and the symbolic in The Book of Legendary Lands — an illustrated voyage into history’s greatest imaginary places, with all their fanciful inhabitants and odd customs, on scales as large as the mythic continent Atlantis and as small as the fictional location of Sherlock Holmes’s apartment."
brain pickings
NY Times: Exploring Imaginary Lands With One of Italy’s Masters of Fiction
News Statesman: Umberto Eco and why we still dream of utopia
amazon

10 Things You Might Not Know About Meredith Monk

2010 Meredith Monk Collection
"In 1964 American composer and musician Meredith Monk (2000 Performing Arts) came to New York to begin an incredibly prolific and inspirational career. 50 years later multiple venues and institutions are celebrating her time in New York. Early in Creative Capital’s history, Monk received a grant for her work mercy, a collaboration with Ann Hamilton. As Creative Capital and Meredith Monk both celebrate important anniversary milestones, we thought we would do our part in honoring the artist by presenting 10 things you might not know about her work."
Creative Capital (Video)

2008 March: Meredith Monk, 2009 September: Songs of Ascension - Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton, 2011 February: Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time, 2011 August: Ellis Island, 2012 December: Turtle Dreams, 2013 February: Quarry: The Rally (Live, 1977).

Living New Deal

John Langley Howard (1934) “California Industrial Scenes” - Coit Tower mural (Detail)
"In the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the American people a 'New Deal.' Over the decade 1933-43, a constellation of federally sponsored programs put millions of jobless Americans back to work and helped to revive a moribund economy. The result was a rich landscape of public works across the nation, often of outstanding beauty, utility and craftsmanship."
Living New Deal (Video)
W - Living New Deal

Evan Holm

Ghost Umbrella | 2013
"Evan Holm is a kinetic installation artist who utilizes sound and music machinery to make sculptures which speak towards nature, tradition, music, poetry, time, and movement. His work has a poetic quality which is a must see through his beautifully documented videos on his website."
Evan Holm (Video)
vimeo: Submerged Turntable

Nuclear War - Sun Ra (1982)

"Along with Lanquidity, Nuclear War is one of the rarest discs in Sun Ra's enormous catalog. Recorded in 1982, Nuclear War disappeared until 2001 when the Chicago-based Atavistic label made it part of their exceptional 'Unheard Music Series.' Originally Ra was so sure the funky dance track was a hit, he immediately took it to Columbia Records, where they immediately rejected it. Why he thought a song with the repeating chant 'Nuclear War, they're talking about Nuclear War/It's a motherf***er, don't you know/if they push that button, your ass gotta go/and whatcha gonna do without your ass' would be a hit is another puzzle in the Sun Ra myth."
allmusic
All About Jazz
YouTube: Nuclear War, Smile, Sometimes I'm Happy, Celestial Love, Blue Intensity, Drop me off in Harlem, Nameless One Nr. 2

Little Walter - Blue And Lonesome

"I'm blue and lonesome
As a man can be
I'm blue and lonesome
Whoa-oh
As a man can be
I don't have headaches
Over myself
My love is gone away from me"
YouTube: Blue and Lonesome (Chess, Early 50s), Blue and Lonesome (Take 1)

Cézanne: Landscape into Art

"Cézanne is the supreme landscape painter of modernity, and his famous dictum that 'painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations' defines the course of modern painting’s extreme departure from fidelity to reality. Despite or because of this dictum, Cézanne’s marvelously lucid 'sensations' become all the more evident and dazzling when set against images of the locales he painted. Cézanne: Landscape into Art, which reprises and expands the classic 1996 publication by Yale University Press, does precisely this."
artbook
amazon - Pavel Machotka's Cézanne: Landscape into Art