Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Op-Art impresario Victor Vasarely designed and paid for the construction of what he christened the Centre Architectonique d’Aix-en-Provence. The structure was completed in 1976 and was intended to act in part as a permanent exhibition space for Vasarely’s work, but also as a populist community center for artists and designers, a focal point for [...]
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
High praise in the NY Times this morning for Gus Van Sant’s new biopic on the life and death of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in history.
Footage from the news report on the night of mayor George Moscone and Milk’s murder in 1978:
Monday, November 24, 2008
I had no idea that former Paris Review editor and sports journalist, George Plimpton, was the spokesperson for Intellivision back in the early 80s. I can’t help but read some irony into his endorsement of Intellivision’s “most exciting visual effect”…
Anyway, Random House published an oral biography of Plimpton last month that was recently featured [...]
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room when he was 14 and got a five minute interview. Years later, he’s teamed up with filmmaker Josh Raskin to make the short film “I Met the Walrus.”
Thursday, November 20, 2008
This new edition of hardback classics from Penguin – designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith – makes me want to clear some space on my bookcase and install the whole lot. More photos here.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Andrew Blauvelt recently posted a very thoughtful essay on the subject of relational design (some visual references and a more concise statement of his position are available at the Walker Art Center blog). Blauvelt frames his argument thusly:
Some of the most interesting work today is not reducible to the same polemic of form and counter-form, [...]
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I’ve been waiting for this for a while – Rene Daalder’s documentary concerning the disappearance at sea of Bas Jan Ader, one of the most poignant, incisive performance artists of the 1970s. His career was short and his output minimal, but his influence on recent art practice has been huge. The documentary, Here is Always [...]
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Northwest’s premiere budget boutique hotel - The Ace - will soon have new digs on the east coast. In line with Ace properties in Seattle and Portland, many of the NY rooms will feature shared hallway bathrooms – but at least you’ll have you’re very own in-room turntable. Not kidding.
Along for the ride [...]
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Prospect 1 New Orleans art biennial has been in the media a bunch recently, with most agreeing that its non-institutional deployment is both appropriate and refreshing, saving the event from becoming yet another formally-indistinguishable global art event.
Participating gallery KK Projects, which is housed in a dilapidated house located in the Katrina-ravaged quarters of [...]
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Insightful review of Michael Winterbottom’s 2003 film Code 46 at bldgblog. Seems that the film develops its urban backdrop via visual bricolage, amalgamating the landmarks of developing megacities into an uncannily familiar no-place. Regarding this technique, Geoff Manaugh asks, “But what does it mean that Asian cities – cinematically depicted as a kind of monolithic [...]