July 8, 2010
Big Bang Big Boom
Filed under: Art · Tags: Art, Blu, street art, video
May 26, 2010
Assorted Links
UPDATED, one last time before midnight.
Os Gemeos & Blu (Works in Progress) in Lisbon
Street art’s symbiotic relationship with the Web makes you wonder whether the genre’s broad popularity stems from the fact that its characteristic features—swift execution, quicksilver response to pop culture and politics, the dominance of quotation and commentary, snarky attitude, fragmented statements embedded in the world rather than meant to stand apart from it—actually reflect the way that plugged-in people process information, more so than “traditional” art. There is something particularly contemporary about street art’s whole M.O., in this sense.
–Ben Davis, Is Street Art Over?, Slate, May 26 2010 (Highly recommended)
Fresh Stuff from Ron English in Queens
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Two perspectives on Marina:
She and MoMA have brought some magic back into art—the sort of magic that all of our courses in art history and appreciation had encouraged us to hope for.
–Arthur C. Danto, Sitting with Marina, The Stone blog on NYT, May 23 2010
There are euphoric moments and then intensely sad feelings of heaviness. Whatever you’re feeling becomes intensified. Certain truths about things I need to fix in my life are revealed to me. Marina says that in her own life she’s not so disciplined—that the performance gives her structure.
–Deborah Wing-Sproul, The Performer Made Bare, NYMag, May 23 2010
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- Bill Simmons’ awesome Guide to Mikhail Prokhorov. (Recommended; thanks Tony)
[As Prokhorov] explained to “60 Minutes,” “I don’t use a computer. We have too much information and it’s really impossible to filter it.”
You know what? He’s not necessarily wrong. Do we REALLY need all this information? Like, right now—you’re reading this column and hopefully enjoying it, but ultimately, could you have survived the weekend if you missed it? I say yes. Just about everything online fits that mold—you have to sift through loads of bad writing and irrelevant information to find the occasional entertaining/funny/interesting thing, and even then, it’s not something that’s making or breaking your week. Ever been on a vacation and had little-to-no Internet access that week? You survived, right? Maybe the big Russian is on to something.
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Candy reminds us of the postmodern notion of self-creation—the way we don social signifiers with the same ease as clothing, constructing our selves bit by bit from cultural cues and images. Rather than the solid frameworks we cast them as, our selves are more like sweaters we put on and take off. When it comes to social identity, we’re all a wee bit in drag.
–Caroline Hagood, New Documentary Tries to Solve the Riddle of Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling,
The Huffington Post, May 21 2010
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- With the 2010 World Cup just 16 days away, Nick Hornby and Sean Wilsey debate the U.S. vs England match on June 12. (GQ)
- Five Bold Predictions for the 2010 French Open.
- Jamie XX’s [dubstep] mix for Colette.
- Play Me I’m Yours: public pianos in NYC this summer. (Animal / BV)
- Michael Pollan on the Food Movement, Rising.
- Eddie Huang of Baohaus on Foodies and Hypebeasts.
- Carl “A.C.” Newman of New Pornographers fame talks maple syrup with T Magazine.
- The First Yardstick for Measuring Smells.
- Alber Elbaz of Lanvin on the Future of Fashion.
- Magritte’s Missives (The Economist)
- McSweeney’s via Salon: 20 Fascinating Self-Portraits.
- Sony’s roll-up digital display (Bits)
- Don’t Ice Me Bro! When Memes Meet the Marketplace. (Thanks Em)
- AT&T / BBDO Worldwide vs. Christo & Jeanne-Claude. (Media Decoder)
- Pay what you want to see the Whitney Biennial for the next 48 hours (Artsbeat)
- Wired has a feature on traffic theorist Charles Komanoff, who makes an ironclad case for congestion pricing. (Highly recommended—seriously, I love shit like this.)
The problem of negative externalities [refers to] costs that accrue when the self-interested actions of one person leave bystanders worse off. The biggest example of a negative externality is global warming: When we burn carbon-based fuels, we benefit ourselves while imposing a great cost on billions of other present and future inhabitants of the planet.
–Felix Salmon, The Man Who Could Unsnarl Manhattan Traffic, Wired, May 24 2010
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GOOD Picture Show has a gallery of J. Bennett Fitts' incredible photos of Middle America
Filed under: Assorted Links · Tags: advertising, Art, Blu, Candy Darling, city life, fashion, food, graphic design, KAWS, Lupe Fiasco, maps, Marina Abramovic, marketing, Music, NBA, NYC, NYT, Os Gemeos, performance art, photography, public transportation, Ron English, soccer, Sports, street art, Technology, tennis, The xx, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
January 6, 2010
Assorted Links
–Pavement’s 2010 comeback continues, this time in greatest-hits form. The “fully remastered 23-track compilation”, entitled Quarantine the Past, “digs deeper than the hits” and is slated for a March 9th release. Matador has challenging fans to guess the final tracklisting in order to win a handful of Pavement-related prizes. (Matador)
–Arrested Motion is on top of its game as usual, with recent coverage of Blu, Os Gemeos, and Ryan McGinley (all of whom are worthy of fuller discussion in future posts), plus a nice December recap. Good stuff.
–Raphael Zarka = Richard Serra × DQM. Awesome. (DB)
–The Knife has posted a new mp3 (download link) from their forthcoming operatic (literally) recording Tomorrow, in a Year. More details here. (The Knife / Soundcloud / YANP)
Filed under: Assorted Links · Tags: Art, Blu, fashion, footwear, Fuck Buttons, Google, Gourmet, graphic design, images, movies, mp3s, Music, Nike, Os Gemeos, photography, Ryan McGinley, Scott Schuman, street art, Style, Technology, The Knife