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
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 [...]
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The artist and filmmaker Nagi Noda died unexpectedly at age 35 last week. According to her agent at Partizan, Noda passed “in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes.”
From the Horror Cafe exhibition
A still from the LaForet spot entitled “Animal Girl.”
Recently commissioned animal headpieces.
Nagi noda [...]
Thursday, September 25, 2008
I still remember discovering Arthur Russell a few years ago and wondering how I’d never heard of him before. A cellist, singer/songwriter, disco producer and avant garde composer, Russell’s musical output could hardly be categorized. Now his life has been immortalized in a new documentary by Matt Wolf.
Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, [...]
A couple of weeks ago the NY Times featured a story on a house on 5th Ave that is embedded with enough secret doors and encrypted messages to set a Da Vinci Code enthusiast’s heart racing. Five days after the story appeared, Paramount bought the rights to the story and J.J. Abrams signed on to [...]
Received an email a bit ago about this 30 minute documentary called Digital Handcraft by Alexandra Weltz and Sarah Bormann. The film follows the life cycle of computer hardware, and gives some insight into how a machine manufactured in China reaches Germany is shipped to Africa for scrap which may wind up back in China. [...]
The Euro 2008 Football championships are on right now and you can hear cheering and/or fireworks just about every night. Turkey beat Croatia last night, so they face Germany next week. A friend in Kreuzberg reported that he couldn’t get to sleep with all the celebrations going on outside. Should be an interesting game, especially [...]
For those in Beijing: Zhao Liang, whose work is featured in the Berlin Biennial, has an opening this weekend at the Three Shadows Photography Center in Caochangdi. I’ve seen a few of his films, which I would recommend for their insightful observation of everyday absurdities (Crime and Punishment in particular). Plus, Zhao Liang is an [...]