Amber Sparks
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Famous People Jumping
April 27, 2010 — 2 Comments
Photo from Phillipe Halsman's JUMP
In this amazing find from The Photography Post (via notcot), pics from photographer Phillipe Halsman’s book, Jump. Halsman apparently found that asking his famous subjects to “jump” at the end of each photo session was a way to remove the masks that sitting subjects typically wear throughout.
The resulting photos are pretty amazing, and I have to think Halsman must have been one persuasive dude. I mean, who else could get RICHARD NIXON–Mr. Suits-and-Wingtips-on-the-beach–to jump in the air like a schoolboy?
Rothko on Broadway
April 8, 2010
The much-acclaimed play Red, about abstract painter (and favorite/obsession of mine) Mark Rothko, has just opened on Broadway. Why oh why does Broadway have to be SO EXPENSIVE?
Sigh. Since I don’t have a firstborn to sell, I probably won’t get to see this. But if you’re in NYC (so you can do the 1/2 price tickets thing) or you have the dough, you should go. Yes, you.
Interview with Artist Kate MacDowell
March 30, 2010
Must-read interview with the extraordinarily talented Kate MacDowell on Sprayblog.
Just one example of MacDowell's amazing work. Check out the link for more.
A Documentary about Bill Cunningham??!! Sweet.
March 24, 2010
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?
Death Star Watermelons
March 18, 2010
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.)
A Book on Stuffing Dead Animals
March 16, 2010
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
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.
Alice, 1933
March 1, 2010
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.
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?
