I WANT THIS BUICK.
Entries categorized as ‘art’
I never thought I would say, “I want a Buick.”
March 25, 2010 · Comments Off
Categories: art · cool stuff · rabid consumerism
A Documentary about Bill Cunningham??!! Sweet.
March 24, 2010 · Comments Off
The most kickass street photographer in all NYC, Bill Cunningham, is the subject of a new documentary, Bill Cunningham New York, that’s playing at MoMA.
I was shocked the notoriously camera-shy cameraman actually agreed to be in the film. Apparently it took some doing. From the Times item:
The film, which is to open the New Directors/New Films series on Wednesday at the Museum of Modern Art, took 10 years to make. The first eight were spent trying to get Mr. Cunningham to cooperate. “It started in 2000,” said Richard Press, who directed the film. Philip Gefter, to whom Mr. Press is married, produced it. “Philip and I approached Bill. He just pooh-poohed the idea. He couldn’t entertain it. He said, ‘Why me? There’s no subject here.’”
Wish I could get up there to see it. See it for me, okay?
Categories: art · film · smart people
Death Star Watermelons
March 18, 2010 · Comments Off
While this would be a really cool band name, or a story title, it’s not. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
Sometimes things are just cool and need to be pointed out. (Thanks, NotCot.)
Categories: art · cool stuff
A Book on Stuffing Dead Animals
March 16, 2010 · Comments Off
I’m a huge animal lover. Maybe not quite PETA crazy, but certainly crazy to the point where although I grew up partially in Wisconsin, a state where everyone hunts, I remain horrified by and of the practice and can’t kill anything, not even ants on the floor of my apartment. (I don’t disapprove of hunting in cases of overpopulation, by the way–I just personally could never hunt anything.)
Naturally, I’m just as horrified by the idea of taxidermy. And yet…I’m equally repelled and fascinated by the museum variety–you know, the dioramas at the Natural History Museum, that kind of thing. So I’m also equally repelled and fascinated with this new book on taxidermy. I really, really want to read it–but then I really, really don’t want the nightmares that are sure to accompany the reading of it.
Either way, if you’re not a weirdo like me, you might enjoy it.
Spock Talks Art, Oscars, Acting, etc.
March 12, 2010 · Comments Off
How can you not love Leonard Nimoy? From the interview:
A: I have an exhibition opening this summer at … the Massachusetts Museum of Arts … of some portraits of people … as their secret selves.
Q: Their secret selves?
A: The idea of a secret self goes back thousands of years. Greek philosopher and playwright Aristophanes had the idea that humans at one time had two heads and four arms and four legs, and became very powerful and arrogant. The gods were upset about it so they sent Zeus to solve the problem, which he did by taking a big sword and splitting everybody in two, leaving everybody the way we are, but leaving us feeling somehow incomplete. Everybody is looking for the lost part of themselves to make themselves feel whole again. So I began to explore this idea of a secret — but I have some issues with identity, don’t I?
Nerd out here.
Categories: art · cool stuff · film · smart people
Alice, 1933
March 1, 2010 · Comments Off
Why have I never heard of this? A 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland? One that includes Through the Looking Glass? Designed by William Cameron Menzies? Endorsed by Alice Liddell herself?
I mean, check this out:
The transformation of the howling baby (played by the dwarf actor Billy Barty) into a squealing, squirming flesh-and-blood pig could be an outtake from Tod Browning’s 1932 “Freaks.” And the croquet party hosted by the Red Queen (Edna May Oliver) turns into an Ubuesque scramble of authority run amok, in which the terrorized participants (“Off with their heads!”) flail around in violent desperation using actual flamingoes as mallets. (The end credits bring no comforting reassurances from the ASPCA.)
Although the project originated with McLeod (an unobtrusive studio functionary best remembered for his Marx Brothers vehicles, “Monkey Business” and “Horse Feathers”), the dominant creative force appears to have been the brilliant, unclassifiable art director, William Cameron Menzies.
Want.
Categories: art · film · great books
Okay, this is kind of awesome.
January 29, 2010 · 2 Comments
A site where the news of the day becomes poster art. How cool is that?
Categories: art · cool stuff · politics
Rodney Smith doesn’t watch movies made after 1947.
January 20, 2010 · Comments Off
Can you tell? Also that he studied under Walker Evans? P.S., I love love love these photos and I’m so pleased he has books for sale. I will buy them and pretend I am living the lives of these lovely, glamorous people.
(Thank you to NotCot for the find.)
Categories: art
Abstract Expressionists, Expressing Themselves
January 20, 2010 · Comments Off
Interesting piece over at TNR’s The Book (which I’m liking a lot, somewhat to my surprise) on two collections of writing from artists Jack Tworkov and Grace Hartigan.
Categories: art · smart people
Blurring Human and Beast in Porcelain
January 12, 2010 · Comments Off
I’m speechless after checking out artist Karen McDowell’s porcelain pieces here. So I’ll let her speak for herself about this collection:
These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops. They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones. In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world.
Seriously, check the rest of her work out, too. It’s all just as amazing.
Categories: art · cool stuff
