Friday, October 29, 2010

Everything is Everything

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Pretty Much Everything 1985–2010: The Newspaper Collector's Edition is a large-format, loose-leaf newsprint book featuring 25 years of work by photographers Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin – designed and published by by M/M (Paris) and printed on the occasion of Inez & Vinoodh's exhibition at Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. In the US it's available in limited quantities from my favorite bookstore in New York, Dashwood Books. (You can also order and get info from mmparis.com.)

One Person's Trash

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I cannot wait to see this. Waste Land, which opens today at the Angelika in NYC, is a documentary about the catadores (garbage pickers) who live and work in Brazil's Jardim Gramacho, one of the world's largest garbage dumps. The film chronicles their lives and recent collaboration with the artist Vic Muniz (now based in Brooklyn but born in São Paulo) in the creation of his latest series, Pictures of Garbage.



Read the NY Times movie review here, and an article about Muniz here.

More Women

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Design on the front of a Women t-shirt available from Flemish Eye Records, $20.

Women played a phenomenal show at the Vera Project in Seattle a couple nights ago to a crowd of about 30 people. My level of appreciation of their second album, Public Strain, is reaching semi-obsession – I was saying to my brother that if I listen to one of the songs by itself I feel like I'm cheating the rest of the album out of its cohesiveness. It's like playing Jenga, The Ultimate Stacking Game©, with songs. I still do it – I listened to "Eyesore" about 8 times yesterday – but the point is that the album holds together so well as a whole that if you have time to listen to the entire thing, it's a very full experience.


Public Strain is out now – get it at your local record store, or directly from Jagjaguwar or Flemish Eye.

...
Update:
OH NO! From Pitchfork:
Women Cancels Tour After Clashing Onstage

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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Fall weather = cold nose

Watashi wa Josei Robotto Desu

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Watashi wa scared-to-go-to-sleep desu.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Need vs. Want

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Want. I don't know exactly why, because it's not really my style, but I love this dress. It makes me want to host a fondue party or something.


Thread Social polka dot long dress,
$616 at shopbop.com.

That's When She Got Hyper / Flippin'

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Diana Ross + Nas x Bean One = "Can't Hurry (1) Love"

Best Foot Forward

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A good ankle keeps things interesting.

Camilla Skovgaard Ankle Cuff Sandals, $420 at shopbop.com

Aim High

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Sadamitsu Neil Fujita, who designed the iconic original book covers for Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Mario Puzo's The Godfather, among others, as well as classic album covers while in the position of art director for CBS Records during the formative years of modern jazz, died last weekend at the age of 89. In addition to being a distinguished designer, Fujita made it through the internment camps and enlisted in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which consisted almost entirely of Japanese-American volunteers and became the most highly decorated unit of World War II.

Read more about S. Neil Fujita's extraordinary life in William Grimes' obituary at the New York Times; Steven Heller wrote an essay for Design Observer earlier this year on Fujita and his book Aim For A Job In Graphic Design/Art which also serves as a fitting remembrance of this relatively unknown but truly great designer.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

My Work As A Surrogate For Me

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John Baldessari: Heel, 1986

John Baldessari: Pure Beauty
, an excellent-looking retrospective of the 79 year-old artist's work, recently opened and runs through January 9th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Here's a great video on Baldessari, produced by the Tate Modern, who put the exhibition together with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art:


Get info and see more images at metmuseum.org, and read a great review of John Baldessari: Pure Beauty by Roberta Smith at the New York Times.

Trickster

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Bike tricks in Senegal

[via Reference Library]

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Image of the Day

Hans Hartung, T1989-L14, 1989 (acrylic on canvas, 76 x 51 in.)

Cheim & Read's posthumous show of Hartung's work, opening this Friday, is the first in NYC since a poorly received exhibition at the Met in 1975. (What did anyone know back then anyway?) This show features work from the last 2 years of Hartung's life. From the gallery's press release:
In the last year of his life (Hartung died in December 1989), he produced 360 paintings [ed. what!] - a monumental accomplishment, especially given his restricted physical condition. Confined to his wheelchair, he seemed to focus entirely on his creative output . . . . His spray paint technique facilitated productivity – the sensitivity of the sprayer allowed Hartung to exercise control over the canvas without physical strain. . . . These works hint at the natural world, the qualities of light and shadow, and the infinitude of space, while remaining distinct artistic entities, anticipatory of contemporary concerns.
The show closes out the year at Cheim & Read; more info here.

This One Goes to 11

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Kanye West "Runaway" – is anything being said here that could not be said in a normal-length video?

Puget Soundings

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Photographs of poles and wires, icons of Seattle streets, by the great Mary Randlett

Select covers of Puget Soundings. I first learned about the magazine, which was published by the Junior League of Seattle from 1929–1983(?), through
Javas Lehn, and then found a big stash of them through Abe Books. The art direction throughout is pretty great.


Silk screen by Jim Dine

Photograph by Mary Randlett

Uncredited sketch of the schooner Exact, which brought the pioneer families of Denny, Boren, Low, Bell, and Terry to Alki Point on November 13, 1851

Untitled Nancy Genn mixed-media piece from a 1976 show at Linda Farris Gallery called My Neighbor, the Stadium

Photography by Ed Cooper

Photograph by Mary Randlett

Pike Place Market by Lauri Olin

Cyanotype photograph by Chris Rendina

Madison Park, late 1890s

Monday, October 25, 2010

On the Move

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Artist Tauba Auerbach (center) with Ohne Titel designers Alexa Adams and Flora Gill

MOVE!
is a two-day event this coming weekend at PS1 merging art and fashion through collaborations between designers and artists. Organized by Visionaire co-founder/editor Cecilia Dean and journalist David Colman, the two-day event features collaborations by Tauba Auerbach and Ohne Titel, Kalup Linzy and Diane Von Furstenberg, Rob Pruitt and Marc Jacobs, Terence Koh and Italo Zucchelli (Calvin Klein Collection), Brody Condon and Rodarte, Rashaad Newsome and Alexander Wang, Dan Colen and Proenza Schouler, David Blaine and Adam Kimmel, and Jonah Bokaer and Narciso Rodriguez, among others. Here's a preview of a collaboration between Olaf Breuning and Cynthia Rowley:



MOVE!
runs October 30 and 31st at PS1 in Long Island City (NYC). Visit PS1.org for info.

Need vs. Want

LL Bean sweater, made in Norway with naturally water-repellant wool, $129 at llbean.com. Kind of the sweater version of this shirt. On a day like today: Need.

The Return of Bruno

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Between Two Ferns with Bruce Willis