New Warmth

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I know it's almost summer and so I shouldn't be thinking about sweaters – but we live in Seattle, where knitwear is always appropriate.

From past collections by Swedish designer Sandra Backlund.

S/S 2010:

Of Another Kind

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Eva Hesse, Right After, 1969

Hot on the heels of minimalism in the late 1950s and early 60s, with its emphasis on the "object-ness" of art, came the post-minimalists: artists who called attention to the physicality of their materials, focused on process rather than end product, and welcomed the chance effects of environmental forces on their work. Eva Hesse, who escaped to the U.S. from Nazi Germany with her family at the age of two, embraced the de-objectification of art in her sculptures by favoring malleable materials (latex, cheesecloth, twine) that would deteriorate over time. Hesse died of a brain tumor in 1970 at the young age of 34, but her use of "female" techniques that included spinning, sewing, and knitting, along with the physically suggestive nature of much of her work, helped turn her into a feminist icon.

Vertiginous Detour, 1966

Contingent, 1969

On the occasion of a 2006 show of Hesse's work at the Jewish Museum in NYC, Grace Glueck of the New York Times wrote:

Not many contemporary artists have approached the uncertainties and contradictions of making art as resolutely as Eva Hesse. Her challenges to Mimimalism, the reigning movement of her day, while using some of its vocabulary and serialist aesthetic, helped create a genre that went beyond Minimalism's anti-Expressionism and rigidity of form.

Using materials then new to sculpture, like latex and fiberglass, she made work that hung, draped, dangled, looped, drooped, slumped, webbed, protruded breast- and penislike, imitated skin, suggested bodily orifices, spilled or just lay on the floor.

Art that wasn't "art" was her aim. "I wanted to get to nonart, nonconnotive, nonanthropomorphic, nongeometric, non, nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort, from a total other reference point," she wrote in an exhibition statement in 1968.

Tomorrow's Apples (5 in White), 1965

Repetition 19 III, 1968

On June 2, Derrick Cartwright, the Seattle Art Museum's director, will present a lecture exploring work made by the 28-year old Hesse in 1964, during a one-year sabbatical in Germany. Hesse had returned to Germany at a point when she reportedly perceived her career to be at a dead end. For much of her time there she worked in an empty textile factory in Kettwig-am-Ruhr, where she produced small-scale paintings and drawings as well as her first sculptures.

Untitled, 1964

If you're not a SAM member it might just be worth joining for this – or you can tag along with someone who is. (Members $5, guests $9; more info here.)

Eva Hesse in an exhibition image from Hauser & Wirth's 2004 show
Transformations – The Sojurn in Germany 1964/65

8:14 AM

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Kate Bush "Cloudbusting" from Hounds of Love (1985)

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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Image of the Day

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Graphic designer Lester Beall with a Cheviot sheep, 1960's. Via Eric Baker/Design Observer and AIGA.

Happy Birthday, Bill

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Today is Wild Bill Hickok's birthday. Hickok, born in 1837 in Troy Grove, Illinois, was at various times throughout his 39 years a gunfighter, stagecoach driver, scout for General Custer, lawman, and professional gambler.

The Action-Packed Story of Wild Bill Hickok,
Cowboy Western Comics #31 (1951)

A few other random facts, while we're at it:

1. While Hickok was growing up, his father's farm was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Hickok learned his skills as a marksman defending the farm against slave catchers.

2. Five months before his death, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a circus proprietor in Cheyenne, who was 11 years his senior. (Meow.)

3. Hickok was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.

On August 2, 1876, Hickok was shot in the back of the head by "Broken Nose Jack" McCall, while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota (then the Dakota Territory). He died instantly. At the time he was shot, Hickok was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black (a combination now known as the "Dead Man's Hand").

Keith Carradine as Wild Bill in Deadwood.

Happy Birthday, Wild Bill. You were a true American badass.

Wild Bill's headstone in the Deadwood cemetary
(photo by Strath)

Newsstand

We've already posted a few times about The Gentlewoman, which is my favorite magazine to come out in quite awhile (in Seattle you can pick it up for $10.95 at Elliott Bay Books), but here are some other current magazines that I recommend.

032c – based in Berlin, always worth picking up for smart fashion, art and design.

25 – a great looking new title, edited by Anja Rubik (pictured above left as well as on the cover of 032c) and her boyfriend Sasha Knezevic.

The Last Magazine – co-founded by Tenzin Wild, with whom I collaborated on several projects at Visionaire. Folded out, it's the size of a big poster, which forces you to lay it out on the table and really experience turning the beautifully printed pages. Content-wise it's kind of all over the place, like a Sunday afternoon where you don't have any plans but to walk around and see what happens.

Aperture – a much more dense issue than usual, with expansive features on too many great photographers to name here. Also included is a Polaroid-sponsored supplement featuring Mary Ellen Mark, Chuck Close, Joel Meyerowitz, and others discussing the merits of instant film.

And finally:

Self Service – I've mentioned it before – it's maybe my all-time favorite magazine, and this is one of their best recent issues. Yes, it's $32, but you're not going to throw it out, so on that level you should consider it an inexpensive photography book (and it is hardback, if that helps). The front section has an extended series of fashion photographs, all mixed together, by Daniel Jackson, Roger Dekker, Richard Burbridge, Max Farago, and others, and the entire well is made up of polaroids of a variety of people by Ezra Petronio. Here are some of those:

Some day I'll have my own newsstand.

Also Noted:

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Stylist Andrew Richardson's newly re-launched
Richardson magazine (NSFW)

Best Foot Forward

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Pick your color. I'd wear the yellow with this.

Fendi ballet-wrap sandal, from the Spring 2010 collection.
Version of the runway shoe: $885 at Barneys.
[Images via style.com]

Checking the Traps

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In the Dining section of this morning's New York Times, Sam Sifton has a funny review of the Carroll Gardens restaurant Prime Meats.

You can see people standing on Court Street nightly, staring through the plate-glass windows at a dining room packed with brownstone bohemians, third novelists, people with Web sites, with good art at home. They look slightly pained, these visitors from afar wondering about the life choices they made that put them in Chelsea or Park Slope or Montclair, and not down here in Carroll Gardens, this little Italian village off New York Harbor where life is obviously perfect.
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Have a Manhattan made by one of the whiz kids back behind the bar, some mustachioed chemist with tattoos and an understanding of bitters that rivals a rabbi’s knowledge of the Talmud, then some brilliant oysters, fresh and clean and cold, tasting only a few hours out of the waters of Cape Cod or the Gulf of Maine. Eat some roasted bone marrow with crunchy radishes, vibrant gremolata, caramel-like roasted garlic and toast; some malt-rich pretzels and fiery mustard; a spicy hunter’s sausage; a few scoops of snoutish pâté or thin-sliced smoked pork belly. Devour a steak or an excellent burger along with some salty, crisp fries the color of burnished copper. Drink some grüner with it all, or a few tankards of Sixpoint ale.
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The staff is exceptionally well trained and efficient, a crew of handsome men and women dressed as if ready to ride horses back home to Bushwick, where they trap beaver and make their own candles. And a meal in the restaurant proceeds with all the jollity and good manners of something scripted by Laura Ingalls Wilder and scored by the Grateful Dead. It is an extremely pleasant place.

I've only been to Prime Meats once – it opened after we left – but I can vouch for the quality. (I'm sure you care. I also think there are a number of restaurants in Seattle that do the same thing just as well or better, lest anyone start feeling jealous. It's not a competition...it's not a competition.) Read the rest of Sam Sifton's review of Prime Meats here.

And with that I believe it's time to hunt down some dinner.

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Side point: The gold type on the big mirror in the photo above was my original inspration for the gold foil-stamped type on the Kristofferson record (though it ended up being quite different).

Twice As Bright

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Untitled self-portrait by photographer Francesca Woodman, Rome, ca.1978.

In a new documentary, The Woodmans, Francesca Woodman's family discusses her life and her intensely creative but sadly short-lived photography career, as well as their own lives since she committed suicide in 1981 at the age of 22. Here's the trailer:



So far I think The Woodmans has only screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best New York Documentary, but info should be forthcoming from thewoodmansmovie.com, and you can use the Google to see more of Francesca Woodman's work.

New Ish

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Wax Poetics no.41, The Hip-Hop Issue.

Moonshine

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Cool cover – the first edition/first printing of Alastair Crowley's Moonchild (1929). Yours for a mere $20,066.15 at Abe Books.

Image of the Day

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I like the intensity of the red in this image from the new Givenchy campaign, especially in contrast with the background – an unexpected combo and a nice counterpoint to ubiquitous (and much-loved) camel and navy.

Kind of reminds me of Vincent Gallo's red boots in Buffalo 66. Photos by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Dioramas

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Memoryhouse "Lately"

To be totally honest, in my humble opinion, the video's overt sentimentality kind of takes away from the music. I don't know, maybe I'm kind of tired of everything being so precious all the time, if that makes any sense. Be that as it may, the color and more visually ethereal moments are nice, and the beauty of the song remains. Definitely a group to look out for – more Memoryhouse here and here.

[video directed by Church & Steak]

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

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...as they say in Louisiana, the state responsible for producing these awesomely packaged, limited edition, Spicy Creole Tomato potato chips – my new favorite way to be unhealthy.

Available at Pine Food Store on Pine and Boylston in Seattle (next to Linda's), or procure them without having to leave your couch, through Zapp's online store (check out the other Cajun flavors while you're there).

Image of the Day

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Recycled skateboard craftiness by Japanese artist Haroshi. Gluing old skateboards together and cutting them sideways would also make for really nice flooring or a counter/bar.

[via AnOther]

Sneak Attack

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I don't love all the clothes, but the sneaker styling is fresh.

Anne Valérie Hash, Spring 2010 RTW

6:58 AM

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Blur "Battery In Your Leg" (from Think Tank, 2003)

[photo: Capitol Hill Light Rail Station Construction Site, Seattle, March, 2010]

File under "Life"

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I was cleaning out some papers yesterday and came across this old Staple Design ad. I had it tacked to my bulletin board when I was in law school, to remind me to breathe. (You can't see it in the scan, but tiny text on the side of the photo says "mom and auntie.")

8:23 AM

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Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash "Darling Companion"
(Appears on the album At San Quentin, 1969)
...stuck in my head for the last several days.