Image of the Day

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Today is the birthday of photographer Diane Arbus (1923–1971). It's pretty impossible to pick a favorite Arbus photo, but the photo above is one of them, and one of her most well-known: Teenage Couple on Hudson Street, NYC, 1963.

Arbus led an extraordinarily interesting life before committing suicide at the age of 48; to this day she is considered one of the most controversial photographers of all time. The Nicole Kidman movie based on her life is actually worth watching, but I recommend starting with this Masters of Photography documentary, produced in 1972:



There are a number of good books of Diane Arbus' work; I recommend one that Emily bought me for Christmas several years ago: Diane Arbus: Revelations, and I've also heard that this biography is good.

Need vs. Want

Olivetti Valentine typewriter (designed by Ettore Sottsass, 1969) – $450 via 1st Dibs. Very tempting. Want.

(via)

Push the Button

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Playbutton is a self-contained, rechargeable device that holds music or other pre-recorded sounds inside a wearable button. There's a headphone jack at the bottom, and sound control buttons on the back. The recording is unalterable, which is an aspect of it I like, as it forces you to deliberately choose an album to listen to, not unlike putting on a record and playing the whole thing.

Wind's Poem by Mount Eerie is an album that lends itself particularly well to that kind of listening; I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the Playbutton version (above) from my friend Chad and I have to say that the sound quality and packaging – including copper foil, as on the original LP – are top notch. Two other Playbuttons are currently available, one from Bubbles and a 10-song compilation from Opening Ceremony (below) featuring Girls, Björk, How To Dress Well, Matthew Dear, Coconut Records and others. Proceeds from that one go to Musicians On Call, a non-profit that brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of hospital patients.

Playbuttons are forthcoming from The XX, Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Javelin, Mark Borthwick, and more. Visit Opening Ceremony to purchase for $25 each.

Fly

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Prada Spring/Summer 2011

Image of the Day

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Glenn Ligon: Rückenfigur, 2009. (Neon and paint, 24 × 145 inches) from Ligon's solo show of the same name at the Whitney through June 5th. Holland Cotter's review in this morning's New York Times was scintillating. Here's an excerpt:

The shift back and forth between reading and looking, object and idea, is the basic dynamic emphasized by the show.... And it represents an effort, very much of the current, formalist, post-'90s moment, to position Mr. Ligon as being as much a craft-conscious painter as a social commentator.
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In several paintings beginning in 1990 Mr. Ligon covered wooden doors or door-shaped canvases with stenciled sentences pulled from different sources: an autobiographical essay by Zora Neale Hurston (“I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background”); Genet’s play “The Blacks” (“I’m Turning Into a Specter Before Your Very Eyes and I’m Going to Haunt You”); a poem by Jesse Jackson (“I Am Somebody”). In each painting the single line is repeated over and over, continuously, in black letters on a gessoed background, with a few paintings white on white, or ivory on ivory. As the words wind down from the top, the stencil becomes increasingly clogged with pigment so that individual characters turn smudgy, and words grow progressively less legible and the bottom of the painting is a kind of miasma.

Cotter later connects Ligon's use of stencils to Jasper Johns, and it strikes me that these paintings also have something in common with Richard Prince's typographical paintings of a jokes – this one for example – which evoke a certain era and archetype of American male. I'm not a knowledgeable critic, it's just a thought, but it seems like Ligon's repeated words could be read as a response or added perspective to the America of Richard Prince and Jasper Johns (his distressed flags as much as his stencils); I'd like to see paintings by all three side by side. More Cotter:

The effect is most extreme in pictures that quote from James Baldwin’s 1953 essay “Stranger in the Village,” an account of his stay in a tiny Alpine hamlet where, he claimed, no one had ever seen a person with black skin. His tale of enforced visibility and vulnerability ends with a vision of social transformation, specifically in America: “The world is white no longer, and will never be white again.” But Mr. Ligon makes Baldwin’s words all but unreadably dark, by stenciling them with a mixture of black paint and coal dust that cakes and clots on the canvas surfaces like epidermal growth and gives off a spooky sheen.

Head over to nytimes.com to read the rest and watch an audio slideshow with curator Scott Rothkopf; visit whitney.org for more info on the exhibition.

Image credit: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Paint and Sculpture Committee T.2010.71

Issues

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Three new ones:

A. Emanuelle Alt's first cover as Editor of French Vogue, succeeding Editrix Carine Roitfeld. Gisele by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.

B. The third issue of The Gentlewoman – Adele shot by Alasdair McLellan. I'm not really on board with this whole Adele thing (so much singing...) but it's a good photo and the minty color is winning. Seven women I would have rather seen on the cover:
1. Emily Shepard Smith
2. An editor from another magazine, someone like Giovanna Battaglia or Cecilia Dean or Suzy Menkes. There are certain editors at fashion magazines who are more complex than you'd expect, and make for interesting interviews. Maybe it's kind of weird to put someone from another magazine on your own cover but who cares.
3. PJ Harvey? New album, and seems cool.
4. Sarah from Colette in Paris. Possibly too obscure but I guarantee she would be a great interview.
5. Sofia Coppola. Maybe too obvious, but the truth is, she always has interesting things to say.
6. Miranda July.
7. Lauren Hutton or someone else who has been chic since before I was born.

Feel free to chime in with your own suggestions, all 11 of you, if you feel like it.

C. Self Service no.34. Just a great cover shot (also by Alasdair McLellan), and gold foil to boot. Still my favorite magazine, maybe of all time.

Things That We Need

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M.O.P. [Mash Out Posse] "Ante Up"
from Warriorz (2000, Loud Records)

Pacific Standard is having a hard time focusing today.

In the Studio

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Kyle Johnson, photographer

Leave the Light On

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MOTEL is a new purveyor of vintage home furnishings in Ballard, celebrating its opening with a party this Saturday evening. Stop by and browse what appears to be a phenomenal collection of mid-century furniture, lighting, and curiosities – and stay up-to-date at motelballard.blogspot.com.

Motel is located at 5009 Northwest 20th Avenue in beautiful Ballard Washington.

Best Foot Forward

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Ugh, I love these. I need these. (Well, not really, but I want them so much I might as well need them.) Limited quantities available.

Stella McCartney slingback (satin and elastic),
$428 at YOOX (incidentally, one of my long-time, go-to sites
– ya gotta dig, but you'll be rewarded).

City Planning

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International Fountain at Seattle Center, 1962 World's Fair, by photographer Max R. Jensen – via Vintage Seattle

Not to get all smug and Portlandic on everyone, but this article on the New York Times' Economix blog – "How Seattle Transformed Itself," by Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser – caught my eye. His basic points:

Seattle is one of the few large cities outside the Sun Belt that is growing more quickly than the country as a whole.
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A great paradox of our age is that despite the declining cost of connecting across space, more people are clustering together in cities. The explanation of that strange fact is that globalization and technological change have increased the returns on being smart, and humans get smart by being around other smart people. Dense, smart cities like Seattle succeed by attracting smart people who educate and employ one another.
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The Seattle model is particularly important, because the ideas created in skilled cities are likely to be the economic mainstay of America in the next century.

It has to be said that a lot of what Glaeser discusses (density, a great transportation system) feels more like Seattle's aspiration than its present-day reality, but this is a relatively new city, and now is the time for goals. It's good to know that someone thinks we're on the right track. Click here to read the whole post.

Image of the Day

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Ryan Molenkamp: The Visitor, 2009. (30 x 33 inches) from his show opening tonight at Vermillion. Also showing is Amanda Manitach, who has one of the greatest website names ever made.

Friends

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Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis

Image of the Day

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Cool-looking advertisement for Spoonbill Books, in the forthcoming 30th anniversary issue of BOMB Magazine. Spoonbill Books' website doesn't really match the ad but you can visit them in person at 218 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn NY.

Chinoise

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Behind the scenes of Givenchy Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2011. Rumors are flying that Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci has been picked to replace John Galliano at Dior but apparently no final decisions have been made.

Circle Game

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Philip Glass "Geometry of Circles" (1979) for Sesame Street

(hat-tip to Christa H.)

Guilty Pleasure

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It goes over the top and lands too far on the other side of the costume-y line – but it's fun and it fits with the glammy 70s moment I've been feeling lately. I can't lie, I love it.

Isabel Marant Fall 2011 [click to enlarge]

More at style.com.

Ego Trïp

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Covers of the Paris-based fashion magazine Egoïste – published intermittently since 1977 by founder and editor Nicole Wisniak.

Back issues, with photography by Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Paolo Roversi, to name a few, go for hundreds on eBay.

The first issue since 2007 is due out next month and I'm sure it will go quickly – I will definitely be on the hunt.

Read more about Egoïste in a recent article at nytimes.com.

Open Country

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Hussein Chalayan Fall 2011 [click to enlarge]

style.com

Lie On the Ground

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Memoryhouse "Heirloom" video, by Jamie Harley. From the "Caregiver" single (2010, Suicide Squeeze). The Toronto-based duo recently signed to Sub Pop. More Memoryhouse here.

Image of the Day

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Robert Sperry: Spirit of '76 (Ceramic, 1975) from the Henry's long-running show Vortexhibition Polyphonica, which (believe it or not) closes in one week (it seemed so far in the future when the show opened). Definitely check it out if you haven't seen this installment – info at henryart.org.

Ain't You

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Kleenex (aka LiLiPUT) "Ain't You" from LiLiPUT (1978, Sunshine; 1982, Rough Trade), re-issued awhile back by Kill Rock Stars.

Fantasy League Fashion

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Fashion journalists (et al) weigh in on who should replace John Galliano at Dior:


Alber Elbaz is a logical first choice but I don't see why he would leave Lanvin, and no one mentions Olivier Theyskens but he would be great. Haider Ackermann would be a bold choice and probably my top pick.

Need vs. Want

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Aquariva by Gucci, a made-to-order Riva (basically the Cisitalia of boats) customized by Gucci creative director Frieda Giannini.

It's a little too pretty for my style but ...damn, it is pretty.

Not really a need or a want, just ...it's pretty. More info here.

(via Free Time Industries)

In the Studio

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Maja, model

Where Do You Wanna Go

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Papercuts "Do You Really Wanna Know" (Live)
from Fading Parade (2011, Sub Pop)

Best Foot Forward

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I prefer them in all tan, with the tan heel - but apparently so does everyone else. One of these could be an acceptable substitute, if you really have to twist my arm about it.

Chloé Ankle Cuff Wedge.
In tan with dark sole: $749.20 at Luisaviaroma.com;
in black and white: $645 at Barneys.

Rx

Also tonight—CMRTYZ presents:

Cassie Ramone (Vivian Girls, The Babies) is installing an aisle of Walgreen's - not a realistic, actual aisle, but rather a "super-aisle" filled with products sold at big-name drugstores that she's attracted to. So far, items for inspiration are: boxes of hair dye, waxing/hair removal products, fake nails/eyelashes, Hanes t-shirts and underwear, condoms, cosmetics aisle items such as lipstick and nail polish, chapstick, the magazine rack, Ziploc bags, As Seen On TV products, fungal cream, wrist braces, and surely there will be many more to come. Thick lines on the wall to represent "shelves" and on pricing- the pieces will be determined by moving the decimal point on the actual product over one (if a box of hair dye is $8.99 the piece will be $89).

Plus: after party with The Pharmacy, Cassie Ramone, TacocaT, Battle Stations. More info and additional greatness at CMRTYZ.

Image of the Day

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Artwork by Stacey Rozich for Earth's new album, Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1, available now from Southern Lord on CD or 180g black or red vinyl. Earth plays its album release party tonight at the Tractor, with Pacific Standard favorite Mount Eerie and the Low Hums opening.

Bending Light

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The Plumen 001 light bulb, designed by Samuel Wilkinson for Hulger, uses 80% less energy and lasts 8 times longer than regular light bulbs. It also just looks cool, and recently won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year Award in the Product category.

I don't think they're available in the US yet but you can get more info here.

Fall Into the Gap

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Gap-Toothed Women (1987) by Les Blank

Poor Form Is Caused By Insufficient Yelling

. The stenciled signs on the wall in my gym remind me of Lawrence Weiner. (This one is my favorite, not a great photo but click to enlarge.)

Lawrence Weiner

Ciao, Bella!

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For me, one of the first truly inspiring shows – fresh-feeling, but old-fashioned; relevant, but sweetly anachronistic; and nothing trop de tout – of the season. Surprised it's Marni? Of course not!

Marni Fall 2011 [click to enlarge]

via style.com

Yellow Pages

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This week Abe Books' rare book room pulls together a collection of books produced by visionary publisher Victor Gollancz. Here's what they have to say about him:

Gollancz (1893-1967) studied the classics at Oxford University and during World War I began his life in publishing when he joined Ernest Benn’s firm … recruiting writers [such as] Edith Nesbit and H. G. Wells. In 1927, he set up his own publishing house and his career took off. [Among others,] he signed George Orwell, Ford Madox FordDaphne Du Maurier.
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Gollancz was ahead of this time. He placed full-page adverts for his books in newspapers (very rare for this period) and his designers established a recognizable style featuring powerful typography and yellow dust jackets. Gollancz was creating ‘branding’ 50 years before marketers embraced the buzzword.

In 1936, Gollancz was a co-founder of the Left Book Club with the intention of halting the growth of Fascism in Europe and promoting socialism. Every month, Gollancz recommended a left-leaning book and members received the book for a discounted price of two shillings and six pence. The first selection was France Today and the People's Front by Maurice Thorez, a French Communist. The Left Book Club had 45,000 members within 12 months and hundreds of local groups met and debated the books up and down Britain.
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The publisher was knighted in 1965.

I cut out a lot, but the point, to make a long story short, is that Victor Gollancz was quite an interesting dude. Visit abebooks.com to learn more about him and browse.

Image of the Day

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Four-song EP out today on Sub Pop

Image of the Day

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Tara Donovan, Drawing (Pins), 2010 (72" x 72")

Tara Donovan, Drawing (Pins), 2010 (detail)

Donovan's show by the same name is up now through March 19 at The Pace Gallery in NYC. From the gallery's press release:

For the first time, Donovan determines a composition prior to the work’s creation and brings it into realization through mark-making within the self-defined parameters of a traditional picture plane. The optical effect—a visual field with shifting viewpoints—is central, underlining and expanding upon a concept that has defined much of the artist’s installation and sculptural work.
. . .
In [Jonathan T.D.] Neil’s catalogue essay [Neil] relates Donovan’s new work to psychologist James J. Gibson’s mid-twentieth century theories on the “ecological approach” to the study of vision. . . . Donovan’s new drawings, Neil proposes, reposition perceptual experience (both literally and figuratively) at the forefront of visual concern in the digital era[:] . . . “we could say that nature is still at stake in these works[;] it is the nature of human perceptual experience, an experience that is undergoing a massive reshaping at present, all at the hands, or rather through the inhuman eye, of a screen.”

(Monday Morning Weather Report)

.[+] More snow than I've seen in the Olympics since we've lived here.

(This is actually from Friday morning but I'm pretty sure the mountains are still there.)

The Rolling Stones

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The Rolling Stones