March 2, 2010
“Theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it.”
Banksy’s been giving granting a lot of press lately, in his version of a PR campaign for his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, including two British magazine covers.
Proof that he did the Sunday Times Magazine cover:
Check out Time Out London‘s feature and interview.
Read the Sunday Times Magazine article here.
Larger cover images after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 1, 2010
JR is a French street artist who deals in large-scale wheatpaste murals—as if Paris wasn’t beautiful enough already. The documentary captures the essence of the work: striking, controversial, and nothing if not ephemeral. Highly recommended.
More information here and here.
Dailymotion via Hypebeast
February 25, 2010
» Mr. Oizo – Nazis (Justice Remix) (3:50) – 7.3MB mp3 @ 262kbps
Munk One
The recent Upper Playground × Inglourious Basterds poster collaboration inspired me to finally watch Quentin Tarantino’s latest masterpiece (six months late is forever sooner than never).
All images via Arrested Motion (full-size images available, since my web-optimized crops don’t do the artwork justice).
L: David Choe; R: Estevan Oriol
Like most of my postmodern peers, I’m predisposed to like anything that Quentin Tarantino has a hand in (I actually genuinely like Jackie Brown) and it was largely a foregone conclusion that I would enjoy his fifth feature-length film. Even so, I would say that Basterds is somewhat unique, not just as Tarantino’s take on a war flick—homage-y, genre-agnostic and immanently quotable—but even within his oeuvre: the film relies heavily on the absolute moral compass dictated by historical hindsight, operating within a framework of unambiguous good guys and bad guys. This isn’t the clusterfuck of Reservoir Dogs or, say, Vietnam: the eponymous team of Americans is fighting goddamn Nazis, a.k.a. evil in its purest form.
NB: Spoilers ahead.
L: Alex Pardee; R: Rene Almanza
With history on his side, Tarantino can afford to instill the Basterds with a measured, weirdly heroic, sadism: the American boys sent to terrorize enemy forces in Nazi-occupied France can do no wrong. Scalping, clubbing, scarring, it’s all good—it’s nothing compared to the horrors of the Holocaust.
Nevertheless, Basterds is relatively tame for the auteur who made his name by transcending senseless violence by depicting it for what it is: nasty, brutish and short. Seasoned film viewers have certainly seen worse.
But Tarantino is (and arguably never was) going for shock value, and graphic violence is but one of his calling cards: he’s at his best when he’s spins tension out of talk, typically between arch-enemies (knowing or otherwise), over milk, strudel, whiskey or fashionable pumps (T has always had a bit of a foot fetish). Tarantino further demonstrates his mastery of dialogue with the clever but unforced play on language: if English is the lingua franca, America is the punchline—cheap shots, perhaps, but all in good fun.
L: Sam Flores; R: Grotesk
Read the rest of this entry »
February 12, 2010
Yet another aggregated assault. I’m thinking about starting a Tumblog for all this crap and re-working the balance of the content on the blog…
Read the rest of this entry »
February 9, 2010
Although All Gone 2009—LaMJC‘s annual compendium of “The Finest of Street Culture”—has been out in Europe for about a month now, the coveted tome is finally coming stateside to party.
This year’s edition and previous installments can be perused in their entirety in a web-based viewer here.
The Reed Space is playing host to the much-anticipated streetwear event.
All Gone 2009 Release Party
The Reed Space
151 Orchard (at Stanton) [map]
New York NY 10002
212 / 253-0588
Saturday, February 13, 7-10pm
January 31, 2010
Slow strings set a maudlin mood for Philip Bloom’s visually stunning time-lapse footage of Dubai—my own admittedly predictable/uninspired soundtrack would be “Red Sky,” a chilled-out techno track by Shanghai’s B6 (Sulumi‘s labelmate). Other contenders included AC’s “What Would I Want? Sky,” either of Dam-Funk’s sky-related tracks, Kid Cudi’s “Sky Might Fall” and M83′s “We Own the Sky.”
» B6 – Red Sky (B6 Mix) (7:06) – 12.8MB mp3 @ 251kbps
Read the rest of this entry »
January 19, 2010
–Andy Woodruff of Cartogrammar has mapped his “whole darn year“—a map of routes he travelled in the Greater Boston Area last year. He acknowledges that UrbanTick has done the same thing in the past, but the flash movie (linked above) is worth watching nonetheless.
–Stereogum has just posed a new track by David Byrne & Fatboy Slim, “Please Don’t,” featuring Santigold on vocals. The song is from Byrne’s forthcoming concept album Here Lies Love, a collaboration with Norman Cook, plus guest appearances from the likes of Tori Amos, Róisín Murphy, etc. (I never would have guessed that I would someday have a picture of Imelda Marcos on my blog, but it must be cool if David Byrne thinks its cool.) (Stereogum; previously on BV)
–Stereogum also recently brought my attention to Wieden+Kennedy’s web series “D.I.Y. America.” Say what you want about insidious corporate marketing industry appropriation of authentic art and music movements, the videos definitely benefit from high production value. Three of the four episodes focus on skateboard culture, plus an interview with NYC artist Swoon.
–Anomaly London handled Diesel’s latest cheeky ad campaign, “Be Stupid.” It’s fine for what it is, though I don’t think anything will ever top the viral ‘SFW pornography’ video by The Viral Factory for Diesel’s XXX extravaganza (video after the jump). (DB)
Read the rest of this entry »
January 13, 2010
Even more assorted links. Info at the bottom (after the jump).
January 10, 2010
“This is not something everyone would do, but this is what I do.”
Fucking Dickchicken. Most everyone in New York has encountered his tag at some point in Brooklyn and “Manahattan” (sic; a typo on Playboy.com, since I highly doubt that it’s an oblique nod to NYC’s natural history). I can’t say that I recommend the video—and, in fact, I refuse to embed it here—and I certainly do not condone Dickchicken’s obnoxious imagery, but I suppose it’s nice to know that there is a kind of method to the madness.
As with Carles of Hipster Runoff, I respect “Richard Poultry’s” dedication to his crass, but I am (at best) ambivalent about the aesthetic implications of DC’s blight upon this lovely city. Diligence is one thing, but obscenity is uncalled for.
Read the rest of this entry »
