Up There with Victoria's Secret... Bella Bella Boutique Keeps Rising

December 5, 2014, 1:17 pm

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Bella Bella Boutique is the 6th most Googled lingerie shop in the world... right up there with Victoria's Secret. They are an exquisite lingerie e-boutique offering a carefully edited selection of fine intimate apparel from all over the world, luxurious gifts, and high end boudoir accessories. Bella Bella is more than a lingerie e-boutique, it is a lifestyle brand of cutting edge style, beauty and elegance.

And now the owner of Bella Bella is going to be the JUDGE for a Magazine Cover Contest, called PHILOSOPHIE boudoir. Playboy, Maxim and other known "male magazines" have a mainly male-centered audience. What makes PHILOSOPHIE unique, is that mainly WOMEN buy it. Women artists, that is. Women make up more than 80% of the boudoir photography industry worldwide, and PHILOSOPHIE captures the eyes of those who appreciate ART, not just women showing lots of skin.


In order to be IN the magazine, you have to apply, or be asked. While it is the offspring of the Association of International Boudoir Photographers (AIBP) - even members are not guaranteed to be accepted into PHILOSOPHIE. You have to earn it.

Aline Machado, will ensure that the best person wins COVER this time around, which is the magazine's 5th Cover Contest in just over 3 years. The bi-annual print is sold around the world with orders shipped to China, Norway, Germany, & all over Canada. Canadian Company The Boudoir Album is the main sponsor, but aside from them- the magazine is filled with editorials and industry trends ... not ads that no one wants to pay to read.

Belonging to Associations is an awesome necessity for large and small businesses alike- and having your work published?! EVEN BETTER. If you want to be considered for cover, click HERE to submit. If you want to be a part of AIBP, click HERE. May the best image WIN.

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The Influence of Andrew Forge

December 5, 2014, 1:44 pm

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Andrew Forge Fragment Torso III Oil on Canvas 44 x 36 inches

Andrew Forge was an influential painter and teacher for years at Yale among other places. His influence was formative for me and I know for many others as well. An ideal tribute to his memory would be a sprawling museum show of his work and the work of artists he influenced, since that's not in my power; I reached out to artists who have generously shared their memories and work below. If you're in New York this December, you can see a couple of Andrew's paintings as they demand to be seen, in the flesh, at The Betty Cuningham Gallery The show is called, "It's Magic!" a group exhibition of works by Andrew Forge, William Bailey, Rackstraw Downes, Jake Berthot, Forrest Bess, Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi, John Elderfield, Alison Wilding, and Christopher Wilmarth, December 10 - January 10, 2015 with an opening reception on Saturday, December 13th from 4 -7 pm.


Ann Gale Rachel with White Robe 14 x 11 inches oil on masonite 2011

Ann Gale had Andrew Forge as a teacher and I was happy to get the chance to talk about him with her. She remembered in particular a short two-part question he asked her: 'What are your intentions, and what are your assumptions?' a short question which fosters a self-critical reframing.


Julie Heffernan Self-Portrait Between a Rock oil on canvas 68" x 66" 2014

Andrew Forge by Julie Heffernan
My first semester at Yale was a disaster. I came into the MFA Program as a painter but not really understanding what painting is (this was the time of BFAs in self-exploration) and found myself in a space of magical thinking where I assumed, now that I was in the same program that graduated the likes of Chuck Close and Brice Marden, I would suddenly be able to paint anything I wanted. I went at it, stretching huge canvases and smearing on colors, hoping the instincts that had gotten me into the program would now work to keep me there.

My first critique was with Andrew Forge. I can still see his tall lanky frame in the doorway of my studio, how he paused and looked around before actually entering; how he paced around with his head down and brow furrowed, trying to give respect to the presence of another human being in the room but not knowing how on earth he might give intellectual cred to the awful messes in front of him, or what to say in general to give this poor clueless student the beginning of an idea of what a painting might be.

That's how it went the entire first semester. I would paint one sorry painting after another, and call Andrew in to look, who would patiently scrutinize the calamity and search his capacious intellect for something to say about it. With his infinite kindness and great mind he always would, in the end, find something wonderful to say to legitimize the poor thing he was conscripted to care about, and then break into a big grin as though he had discovered some marvelous treat in the bottom of a box of stale cheerios. Slowly, slowly, with that kind of intelligence guiding me I did get a clue, and I made some paintings worth discussing, was awarded the famous Cup and, best of all, Andrew Forge telling a friend that he would like to know me after graduation. I never took him up on it. A huge regret.

Denzil Hurley #4

More Dots to Be Connected by Denzil Hurley
Andrew always seemed to see more, and ask more of a given work, a situation and himself. His presence, his questioning, and keen perception located a listener or viewer to the inside of things, and away from a periphery to acknowledge an expanding and a pulsating core. He would often say, "press on!" and that would indicate that there is something there and more to be realized. Andrew's passion and thoughtfulness embraced knowledge with an openness that pointed to complexities and affirmations of beauty that his own work carried and holds.

Margaret McCann Sideshow 48 x 60 inches 2012

Margaret McCann

I studied at the New York Studio School in the 1980s with Andrew Forge's wife, Ruth Miller, and with Gretna Campbell, who also taught at Yale and suggested I schedule my grad school interview the day Forge and Jake Berthot were conducting them. They responded positively, so at Yale I took a seminar with Forge, which involved reading Gombrich, analyzing Turners at the British Art Center, and following assignments like 'do a painting involving an oval'. I made one of my best within those curious perimeters, "Self-Portrait as a Lady" (I'd just read the Henry James novel), which the director of the Yale Art Gallery purchased. I wrote an ambitious paper comparing the genres of portraiture, still life, and landscape, and Forge urged me to try to publish it, and to keep writing. He brought in a book on Dada and Surrealism for me to peruse, and suggested I take visiting professor Umberto Eco's class, advice I sadly didn't follow. I see now that like any perceptive teacher he was showing me how to take myself more seriously. Although his recognition of my artistic voice - something beyond technical ability, which back then was suspected of suppressing authenticity - initially bewildered me, over time it became an encouraging voice in the studio.

Forge's judicious remarks at critiques were short on the kind of flashy drama that shocks and captivates, but fades beyond the memory of injury. While painting and teaching in Italy for eight years after Yale, I read a lot of art history, including Forge's excellent book on Monet. Auden's observation in "Secondary Worlds," that it takes experiencing two other cultures to understand your own deeply, made me wonder if being a foreigner had shaped Forge's more expansive viewpoint, in comparison to other teachers' focus on the fickle politics of the art world. Eventually I got a couple poems published, and after returning to the states wrote art reviews for "Art New England," and a humor column for a local New Hampshire paper. When David Kratz of the New York Academy of Art recently asked me to edit "The Figure," a Skira/Rizzoli book, the confidence I felt pursuing my vision for it - evolving approaches from antiquity to cyberspace - owed much to Andrew Forge.

Paula Heisen September Gold 9 x 12 inches oil on linen 2012

Paula Heisen

As a Teaching Assistant for Andrew Forge at Yale in 1981-82, I was often as enthralled with his teaching methods as the beginning drawing students in the class. The subtle philosophical method with which he emphasized both the realities and mysteries of perceptual experience, and his vivid presentations of the tradition of art, were so seductive that even at this point in my life I often cannot disentangle his ideas from my own.

In a typical demonstration, he asked me to stand in front of the class in a Kouros pose, legs straight, one in front of the other, while he gave a lecture on the history of the representation of the human figure in art. When he got to ancient Greece, he asked me to pull the front leg back, shift my hips, slightly bend one leg and twist my torso. Voilà! Thousands of years of imagery upended by a minor shift in stance, Kouros to contrapposto. In another class, he placed a student in front of an easel, next to a still life setup. He talked about the "triangle" formed by the artist, the thing observed and the painting itself, explaining how during the process of painting or drawing what one sees, the artwork itself takes on a power as important as the thing observed, and that part of an artist's job is to recognize that particular power. I think of that triangle all the time. I watch as a painting slowly takes on a reality beyond perceptual observation, eventually replacing it in importance. It is this psychic unity that Andrew was illustrating, something I look for in my own work and in the work of others.
Once, while talking to him at an opening in New York City, I had the sensation of his presence blinking in and out of existence, something like a quantum particle. It seemed to me an essential part of his intelligence, his feeling at home in flickering ambiguity. At that instant, I understood an aspect of his painting that I had never before grasped. That there, not-thereness in his work: the elusive presence of things, sensed more than seen; the need for openness and exploration. I saw his paintings as a complete manifestation of the complexity of his brilliant mind.

Tommy Fitzpatrick Zeppelin Bend 30 x 30 inches acrylic on canvas 2014

Tommy Fitzpatrick

Once I remember a studio visit at the Art and Architecture Building where Andrew Forge discussed how painting is a non verbal art that transcends words. He then proceeded to discuss the importance of Broadway Boogie Woogie for at least an hour. His generosity and patience for young people helped me find myself as an artist. As a professor, he was full of life. When I meet Andrew he was working on his dot paintings.
You could tell how passionate he was for his work. Andrew would glow when he discussed his latest discovery. Andrew Forge made me and others aspire to do more.

Mark Brosseau Frenzied acrylic flashe ink on canvas 66 x 60 inches 2014

Mark Brosseau

One of the first things that Andrew said to me in my studio at Penn was "Do you want your paintings to be better because they're painted better, or because they're more what you want them to be." It seemed like a simple but important distinction that I had never made before, and it's stuck with me since then.

Andrew Forge Fragment Back Oil on Canvas 44 x 36 inches 1985

Steve Hicks

I've always considered Lennart Anderson my mechanic (so willing to muck around with my palate and painting) - and Andrew my analyst. What is so obvious to all that knew him is how he was able to put his finger on at once both the most simple and elusive ideas (typically after a St School lecture). Most importantly he didn't say anything when he didn't have anything to say. Once at my studio at Yale we had some initial small talk as we might had if we met by chance in a coffee shop - then after a pause he'd say "so great to see you" and leave! But more often there would be just one "simple" (Columbo-like) last question that would leave me thinking for weeks if not years.

Stuart Elster Dazzle Blue 2 16 x 24 inches oil on canvas 2012

Stuart Elster

I remember one specific time Andrew saying, "that meaning in a work of art is the sum total of the artists choices." I know he was talking about painting, and that every decision the painter makes is present for the viewer in the fabric of the painting. What I took from this was that painting is a form time machine; the artist's choices are present to the viewer when looking, and that we (the viewer) are transported back the moment of the paintings making. There is no past in painting!

Denis Farrell gouache on paper 1993

Denis Farrell

Battered and bruised, in June 1993, having just graduated from Yale University MFA in Painting I had the privilege of spending the next three months living at the home of Andrew and Ruth deep in West Connecticut. I was helping to restore their magical colonial house, with the building contractor and also Yale grad, Dawn McDaniel. There in that hidden place, they had themselves, their gardening, evening swims in their small outdoor pool (Andrew nude) trees, night, light and painting. Andrew painted in the evening into night. When I glanced him through the studio window smoking his pipe in his chair, he was in the act of looking. He never separated painting from looking. The extent to which he could look and discern was remarkable. He could also communicate-articulate his analysis of artworks with a spirit of generosity, and at the same time could leave you with something to think about. The paintings included here; I found in a book this past summer that I had brought for students at Lodestar School of Art painting intensive at Kylemore Abbey, Connemara, Ireland, and had framed for a recent exhibition. I made these paintings at Andrew's house in that summer of 1993. He was a wise and beautiful soul.

Marc Trujillo 1644 Cloverfield Boulevard 23 x 31 inches oil on polyester over panel 2014

I consider myself very fortunate to have had Andrew Forge as a teacher. He had a palatable way that he would couch something substantial, so that you took the hint as a nudge rather than a jolt; and his words had a gentle, luminous precision. I tried to compliment him on this once by telling him that I had been in interviews where the first thing that came to mind as an answer to a question I was being asked was something that he had said, and I tried to recast the idea into my own words so that I wouldn't just be quoting him as a response, but I couldn't do it, to which his response was "Rubbish!" and he changed the subject. Refusing the compliment was a part of his gracious style of interacting; he once said "It's better to be wrong about something, because that's when you're learning something."

In the final critiques at Yale, someone had a painting of themselves nude with butterfly wings and talked about 'making a personal statement'. Forge said 'I think you're confusing a personal statement, which is rhetorical, with being as involved as you can be, which is the most personal thing that you can do."

Another time Forge defined 'Arty' as 'when the aesthetic effect is a consequence of things known beforehand.'

I signed up for as many crits as I could get with him, took figure painting and the 'Pictures and Writing' class he co-taught with John Hollander. I remember Forge quoting Auden 'Poetry is the precise expression of mixed feelings.'

He was also a great practical help and got me to organize my palette in the studio, I had been mixing color on the paintings and it was a cumbersome, inefficient way to work. He showed me different ways of organizing the palette and gave me some limited palettes, having me make a painting only from the primaries, which he was sure was what Pissarro was doing; or telling me how Whistler would have his students mix a large pile of neutral color from more saturated colors and have this pile in the center of the palette to use to desaturate the other colors they were using. Both have remained a part of the way I teach painting to my own students. Another thing I tell my student is that since I had Forge as a teacher, their lineage goes directly back to Jaques-Louis David. Forge gave a toast once 'To my teacher William Coldstream, whose teacher was William Tonks, whose teacher was Ingres!' which leads to David. Cheers to you, Andrew Forge!

The Archivist's Dilemma: Q&A With Oddball Films' Stephen Parr

December 5, 2014, 1:55 pm

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While working on my new film in the Bay Area this summer, I had the good fortune of being introduced to Stephen Parr and his massive 6000 sq. ft. archive aptly named Oddball Films. My colleagues and I caught a real psychedelic Will Vinton animation screening and got a tour of Oddball Films, which was unlike anything, I've ever seen.

MN: Can you tell me a little about Oddball Films, the archive and how it all got started?

SP: I started the archive in 1984. My background was film and video art at the Center for Media Study at SUNY Buffalo in the late 70s. I was also an artist in residence at the Experimental Television Center in Binghamton, NY. I made my way out to San Francisco and started creating visual backgrounds for nightclubs. Ridley Scott was shooting in a club I created ambient imagery for and licensed some clips. I realized if I started my own archive I could have all the source material I wanted to create my own work. I chose film because I thought it would end up being the medium with the most longevity-and it still is-though not many people shoot or project it anymore.

MN: To get a sense of scale, what is the size of the space and approximate amount of films?

SP: We're on the top floor of a 3 story warehouse-6000 sq ft-approximately 50,000 films and 10,000 more in a storage unit sitting on the San Francisco Bay.

MN: What kind of films do you mostly tend to collect?

SP: Eclectic, offbeat films, footage that no one else would find any interest in. Films that fill in the cracks of culture- amateur and home movies, b-roll, news and film outtakes, cast offs, strange science and cultish curios. In actuality anything interesting to me-ethnographic, bizarre medical films, propaganda, historical and experimental works. We also have a comprehensive collection of every film genre from commercials to educational films to military to archival erotica.

MN: As a professional archivist who has supplied countless filmmakers and artists with obscure materials over the years, when did you start to see a need for digitizing all of this obscure film?

SP: About 10 years ago I saw the so-called writing on the wall. With the Internet and the advances of speed and data storage, film for all practical purposes was becoming non distributable. To distribute footage you must have fast access and deliver it instantaneously.




MN: How did you start the digitizing process?

SP: We researched what other archivists and archives were starting to do and decided to digitize footage to hard drives. Hard drives were one of the only real storage mediums back then. LTO (tape drives) were much more expensive and slower than they are now. There was a transition period since most archives and production companies were still using tape. We still have a lot of tape-in all formats-thousands of cassettes.
Now most moving images are born digital. Fortunately we still have the original films which means anything can be scanned in High Definition when needed.

MN: How many of the approximately 50,000 film oddities are digitized?

SP: A small percentage. We digitize selectively. We have approximately 30 terabytes plus over 20,000 Quicktime clips for preview. Digitizing is only one aspect. Everything needs to be stored, backed up and logged. It's a tremendous project.

MN: Assuming we continue to experience Moore's Law and the exponential doubling of circuits/ hard drive space every 18 months or thereabouts, what does that mean for the future of preserving films?

SP: I'd like to think it would make it more cost effective but there will always be a tremendous backlog in digitizing due to labor and newly emerging technologies that replace existing ones. High Definition digitizing for example-first it was 2k scans, now footage is being scanned at 4k, improving quality but effectively eating up drive space and savings.

MN: What interesting treasure has come in to the archive this recently?
SP: We just discovered a rare home movie from The Love Pageant Rally shot in the Golden Gate Panhandle. The rally was a billed as "a celebration of transcendental consciousness" and took place on October 6, 1966, the day LSD was made illegal. While less known than events that followed in the 1960s, this gathering marked a seminal moment in the counterculture revolution of the 1960s.

Visit Oddball Films.
All photos by Anthony Kurtz

The Top 10 Stories That You, Our Readers, Loved The Most In 2014

December 5, 2014, 2:33 pm

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Oh, what a year it has been. As we brace ourselves for the wonders of 2015, we look back at 2014 to see which stories you, our trusty readers, responded to the most: which did you share with your friends and family, Like on Facebook and feel a strong need to comment on.

The below represent the 10 arts stories that resonated with you the most. Fair warning: some of these photos contain nudity and may be considered NSFW.

10. Every Year Since 1974, This Artist Has Photographed Herself In Nothing But Her 'Birthday Suit'

Photographer Lucy Hilmer has spent the last 40 years bringing new, poetic meaning to the phrase "Birthday Suit." Since 1974, the San Francisco-based artist has snapped a self-portrait of herself wearing nothing but a pair of shoes, socks and her signature white "Lolly Pop" drawers.

Read the whole story.


Photo: Lucy Hilmer

9. Bad News -- All Your Favorite '90s Cartoons Just Became Drug Addicts

Well, this is a traumatizing one. If you hold your nostalgic '90s cartoon characters dear, we suggest you avert your eyes before things get ugly. Yup, we're sorry to report, but all your favorite animated characters, the ones whose playful misadventures carried you through elementary school and beyond, have developed serious drug problems. At least in the vivid images below.

Read the whole story.


Illustration: Paul Ribera

8. Stunning Photos Of Identical Twins As Grown-Ups Show How Fate Takes Its Course

When identical twins are born, they're most often indistinguishable. Save for the possibility of a birthmark or personality tick, the two tiny humans sharing the same DNA are practically carbon copies of the other. Yet over time, as traits blossom and decisions are made, unforeseen events occur and fate takes its course, even biologically homogenous siblings can begin to look significantly different.

Read the whole story.


Photo: Gao Rongguo

7. 'The Great Wall Of Vagina' Is, Well, A Great Wall Of Vaginas (NSFW)

UK-based sculptor Jamie McCartney has spent the better half of a decade creating hundreds of renderings of female genitalia. In a project titled "The Great Wall of Vagina," the artist demonstrates not only his ability to craft effective word play, but also his knack for capturing the physical diversity of labia in a 30-foot polyptych.

Read the whole story.


Sculpture: Jamie McCartney

6. Fifteen Remarkable Colorized Photos Will Let You Relive History

One thing we really need to thank the internet for: colorized historical photographs. Of course, the phenomenon comes to us courtesy of Photoshop and the talented editors who transformed black-and-white images into digital works of art. We're just happy we get to feast our eyes upon them.

Read the whole story.


Colorized by Jordan J Lloyd

5. Photos Of Nude Dancers Show A Very Different Side Of The Human Body (NSFW)

There is no denying the natural beauty of a dancer's body. Like finely tuned mechanisms programmed to seamlessly bend, twist and twirl, the contortionists' bodies taken on positions that may not be innately appealing. Neatly stacked flaps of skin overlap, toes curl as the muscles of a leg bulge and limbs protrude forward in ways we didn't think possible, yet these feats of flexibility amount to something inexplicably gorgeous.

Read the whole story.


Photo: Ludovic Florent

4. People Called These Photos Of An Artist's Daughter 'Pornographic.' And This Was His Response.

Wyatt Neumann is a photographer and a father. In 2014 he took his two-year-old daughter Stella on a cross-country road trip, photographing their journey along the way. Neumann captured sunsets and cornfields and, of course, Stella, often donning one of most two-year-old girls' two favorite ensembles: a princess dress and nothing at all.

Read the whole story.


Photo: Wyatt Neumann

3. Ten Shocking Photos That Will Change How You See Consumption And Waste

As individual and anonymous consumers, it's seemingly impossible to even estimate the physical ramifications of our daily consumption and waste. While our personal imprints may not seem in themselves worthy of alarm, the combined effect of human's habits and rituals is hard to look away from.

Real the whole story.


Photo: Chris Jordan

2. 'The Company' Dance Crew Performs Phenomenal Synchronized Routine, Might Be Robots

This incredible routine was filmed from the front row of the Vibe XIX 2014 dance competition. The dance crew, known as The Company, impressed the audience and Internet viewers around the world with their incredibly synchronized moves.

Read the whole story.


Credit: YouTube

1. 'What I Be' Project Reveals People's Darkest Insecurities In Stunning Photos

Photographer Steve Rosenfield recently asked subjects far and wide to complete the following statement: "I am not my ___ " He prompted individuals to fill in the blank with their deepest and darkest insecurities, moving people to bring issues regarding body image, substance abuse, mental illness, race and sexuality to the forefront.

Read the whole story.


Photo: Steve Rosenfield

Ed. Note: This list depicts HuffPost Arts & Culture's top 10 most viral, evergreen features of 2014.

10 Unavoidable Trends At Art Basel Miami Beach 2014 (NSFW)

December 5, 2014, 2:52 pm

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This weekend the art world overload known as Art Basel Miami Beach is in full swing. So far, this year's edition of the international art fair has been quite the crowd pleaser. Gallerist Sean Kelly dubbed it the "strongest" beginning to an ABMB he's participated in, while Lehmann Maupin co-founder Rachel Lehmann expressed that "the fair feels more grown up from year to year." The gang at ArtFCity even reported: "The general consensus seems to be less crap than usual."

That being said, it's still a lot to handle.

We've combed through the aesthetic labyrinth with the hopes of improving your art viewing experience, and preventing you from hyperventilating in the face of all. that. art. To add a little order to the chaos, we've selected 10 trends we thought dominated this year, for better or for worse. Let us know which trends you noticed in the comments.



1. Secret Portals and Crystal Visions: From glass cells to garbage can rabbit holes, ABMB was full of artistic entrances to other worlds.


Ivan Navarro at Paul Kasmin Gallery


Ajay Kurian at 47 Canal


David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen Gallery


David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen Gallery



2. Breaking the Fourth Wall: The canvas is no longer a window to another dimension, but a vertically hung garden that's started to sprout.


Francesca Pasquali at Tornabuoni art Paris


Francesca Pasquali at Tornabuoni art Paris


Xu Zhen at Bernier/Eliades



3. Cartoon Network: Imagine the craziest, nastiest, most bewitching morning of Saturday morning cartoons possible.


Peter Saul at Mary Boone Gallery


Jamian Juliano Villani at Tanya Leighton


Jamian Juliano Villani at Tanya Leighton



4. Funny Face: Goopy, drippy, slightly terrified yet oddly adorable. The doodle-inspired emojis were everywhere.


Jon Pylypchuk at Fredric Snitzer


Bjarne Melgaard at Gavin Brown's Enterprise


Brian Bress at Cherry and Martin



5. String Theory: Whether bound to a canvas, hanging in the wind or wrapped around a metal ring, stringy things were definitely in the air.


Jacob Hashimoto at Mary Boone Gallery


Emil Lukas at Sperone Westwater


Emil Lukas at Sperone Westwater


Reena Saini Kallat at Chemould



6. We See You: With many of the works on view, it was difficult not to make eye contact.


Tony Oursler at Bernier/Eliades


Tony Oursler at Bernier/Eliades


Milena Muzquiz at Travesía Cuatro


Milena Muzquiz at Travesía Cuatro



7. Wood You Rather: This year's natural medium of choice turned up as a pressure washer, a flip flop and an abstract sculpture, to start.


Roxy Paine at Kavi Gupta


Lia Chaia at Vermelho


Sam Ekwurtzel at Simone Subal Gallery


Michael Buthe at Alexander and Bonin



8. Soft Palette: If you were as exhausted by the endless art onslaught as we were, the following cozy looking artworks began to look pretty tempting.


Pascale Marthine Tayou at Galleria Continua


Pascale Marthine Tayou at Galleria Continua


Chris Johanson and Johanna Jackson at Mitchell-Innes & Nash


Pino Pascali at Magazzino



9. Face Masked: Disguises abound in this year's artworks, be they paintings or photographs.


Tomoo Gokita at Mary Boone Gallery


Tomoo Gokita at Mary Boone Gallery


Thomas Julier at RaebervonStenglin



10. Retro Erotica: From Lostutter in the 1970s to Iannone and Early in 2014, good old-fashioned sexuality had a comeback at this year's fair.


Robert Lostutter at Corbett vs. Dempsey


Robert Lostutter at Corbett vs. Dempsey


Dorothy Iannone at Peres Projects


Jack Early at Fergus McCaffrey


Jack Early at Fergus McCaffrey


Which trends stood out to you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

These Ceramics Encrusted With Crustaceans Are Our New Favorite Nautical Dishware

December 5, 2014, 3:14 pm

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Imagine if you took your favorite ceramic piece, be it a teapot, a pitcher or a tureen, and dropped it into the depths of the ocean. Envision, if you would, an alternate reality where, instead of rotting and melting away, said discarded dishware become an unlikely host for barnacles and crustaceans to settle and colonize. The crisp white glaze of the pottery is slowly swallowed up by the wild particulars of aquatic life.

This fantastical scenario comes to life in the works of ceramic artist Mary O'Malley, who works out of a barn on the south shore of Long Island. O'Malley's "Bottom Feeder" series couples the propriety of a teacup with the bottomless mystery of the sea, yielding wonderfully detailed artworks that bring the sea to you. For O'Malley, the works were inspired by her childhood memories of the ocean and her recent move to the seaside.



Upon beginning the series, it was the relationship between control and surrender which captivated O'Malley's attention. "The technical difficulties I began to encounter when enveloping the service ware with ferocious and unforgiving aquatic life got me thinking about a common need we all have to control our own representation of beauty," the artist explains in her artist statement. "There is so much fastidious control involved in creating each one of the 'Bottom Feeder' pieces, but with ceramics there is always a margin for error, and some degree of control must be sacrificed. The composition of barnacles and crustaceans populating each piece, the way the iron oxide discovers every nook of the creatures I've created, the way the tentacles warp in the firings, etc., is always a surprise.

"This play between total control and inevitability has sustained my interest and attention because it mimics life in so many ways: we try our hardest to compose the aesthetics surrounding us-from the buildings and environments we live in to the way we dress and present ourselves. Our daily fight against nature is a fruitless pursuit, yet one we never seem willing to
abandon. I find this play between forces endlessly challenging. The dance that results from trying to find a balance between what we can control and what we cannot is where I believe true beauty lies."

See O'Malley's sites of unbridled beauty below.


h/t ThisIsColossal

These Are The World's Most Expensive Skyscrapers

December 5, 2014, 3:34 pm

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This article originally appeared on ArchDaily.
by Rory Stott

It may or may not be the tallest building in North America, but one thing’s for sure: when it comes to costs, no other skyscraper comes close to New York‘s One World Trade Center. This is the conclusion of Emporis, whose list of the world’s top ten most expensive buildings puts 1WTC way out in front at $3.9 billion. Originally estimated at just half that cost, this sets a trend in the top ten list, with many of the featured buildings suffering staggering overruns. The second-place Shard, for example, overshot it’s original £350 million ($550 million) budget nearly four times over (although this is to be expected in London).





But perhaps the most surprising result is not related to high costs, but low ones. Compared to other much smaller buildings, the joint-fifth place Burj Khalifa seems a bargain at “just” $1.5 billion for what is by far the world’s tallest building, putting it on a par with the Sheraton Huzhou Hot Springs Resort – which at just one-eighth of the Burj Khalifa’s height demonstrates that formal complexity doesn’t come cheap.

At number eight on the list, Herzog & de Meuron‘s Hamburg Elbphilharmonie has the ignominious distinction of being the only building on the list which is still under construction. With current costs standing at just over $1 billion, however, it is still some way behind Toyo Ito‘s $1.4 billion CapitaGreen, so will likely remain in eighth until completion - that is if newer, ever more expensive projects don’t displace it first.

Infographic: The World’s Most Expensive Skyscrapers originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 25 Jun 2014.

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Grammys Album Of The Year Nominees Include Sam Smith, Beyoncé

December 5, 2014, 7:00 pm

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Following a day of nominations, The Recording Academy unveiled the Album of the Year nominees for the 57th annual Grammy Awards during a CBS special, "A Very Grammy Christmas," on Friday night.

"Morning Phase" by Beck
"Beyoncé" by Beyoncé
"x" by Ed Sheeran
"In the Lonely Hour" by Sam Smith
"Girl" by Pharrell Williams

With nods for Album of the Year, Beyoncé, Sam Smith and Pharrell Williams upped their pace-setting Grammy nomination total to six each. Beyoncé also earned nominations for Best R&B Performance, Best R&B Song, Best Urban Contemporary Album, Best Surround Sound Album and Best Music Film. Smith scored more high profile plaudits: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop Solo Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album. Pharrell helped produce both "Beyoncé" and "x," giving him three Album of the Year nods. He was also nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance, Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video.

Last year, Daft Punk walked away with the coveted award for "Random Access Memories" against Taylor Swift's "Red," Kendrick Lamar's "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City," Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "The Heist" and Sara Bareilles' "The Blessed Unrest."

The Grammys Christmas special featured performances from Pharrell, Maroon 5, Ariana Grande, Big Sean, Mary J. Blige, Tim McGraw and Sam Smith.

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The Most Over-The-Top Christmas Trees Of 2014

December 6, 2014, 5:25 am

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In the early 20th century, Americans typically decorated their Christmas trees with objects they found around the home -- dyed strings of popcorn, berries, and nuts.

But these are not your grandmother's Christmas trees.

From trees made completely out of Legos to Rio de Janeiro's fabulous 279-foot floating Christmas trees, artists have taken the old tradition to new heights.

Check out these amazing trees from around the world that have captured our imaginations this year.

Intimidated By Miami Art Week? Don't Be

December 6, 2014, 8:40 am

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While most of Art Basel and the satellite fairs seem to be crowded with locals, I think the majority of visitors are out-of-towners or the usual Miami party people. It seems to me like the "real" residents of Miami-Dade County are not enjoying Art Week. It could be because many feel it is an elitist-type thing and they don't fit in. But they do.


Oh sure, there are those who you see there who just smell of money, they're the ones in blazers and diamonds walking with their noses up in the air, many being escorted by the elbow, trying to make their way through the crowds. And there have been many celebs, the only one I saw was Josh Altman, from Million Dollar Listing L.A. There are also plenty of Teslas and Alfa Romeo's and limos lining the streets, but the bulk of the crowds are every day people who are out for a fun time -- culture, food and people watching are the game.

All the galleries set up in the tents know that you're there to look, they don't expect to sell to everyone who steps into their tent, dare I say they are happy with one sale all weekend, so there is no need to feel uncomfortable. Most enjoy talking about their art (and themselves) non-stop, so it's a joy for them to see you in their booths. You don't have to talk to them, but you can if you want. No pressure.



People are dressed up and dressed down. Some in suits, others in flip flops, some have backpacks, they look as if they hiked in; most are dressed in between. Many of the events and installations are free, many are not, but there's something for everyone.

Parking is a bitch, but people are of course finding it and you don't have to pay $20 to park, there are plenty of meter spots on the streets and also other areas that you'll find as you drive around. There are also shuttles and trolleys and other means to get around.







It's a great place for children to learn about art and culture; I wouldn't bring babies, although it seemed that every time I went to take a photo, there was a baby stroller in the shot, so people do tend to bring infants and smaller kids who probably don't know what's going on, but I suppose they are soaking up the culture through osmosis.



There's plenty to eat and drink in and out of the fairs, for example all you have to do is stroll through Wynwood and partake in what they offer you can have great Cuban food from Enriquetas at a low price or try Zak the Baker for something midpoint, pay a bit more at Morgan's or Sugarcane Raw Bar. The point is, there is something for everyone and nothing to be intimidated of. You probably will enjoy some of the pop-up restaurants that are only here for the week.



While Art Basel is the snooty event at the Miami Beach Convention Center, it seems that the satellite fairs in other parts of Miami Beach and especially Wyndood, are the places people prefer. The different events like Art Miami and Context are so different from each other. Each has it's own taste and feel. Red Dot is totally different from Spectrum. And of course the live painting around Wynwood and all the street art, especially the murals are a very special part of the event and the neighborhood itself.

There is no way to see the whole thing, it's like choose this and a little of that from a menu.

I highly recommend it for the locals, it's crazy to navigate the traffic but once you're there, you'll enjoy it. Just immerse yourself in the scene, don't have a set agenda, look around. Enjoy it.

Andre 3000 Reveals He Never Wanted To Do Outkast Reunion Tour

December 6, 2014, 10:04 am

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There's a reason Andre Benjamin, best known under his stage name Andre 3000, wore 47 custom jumpsuits during this summer's Outkast reunion tour.

In a recent interview with The Fader, Benjamin revealed that the jumpsuits, which are currently being shown in an exhibit at Art Basel in Miami, were his way of expressing his feelings about the hip-hop duo's 20th anniversary tour. "Honestly—I didn't wanna do the tour," Benjamin said.

The rapper may have reunited with Outkast partner Big Boi for the first time onstage in 10 years, but he wasn't excited about the music. "I'm like, how am I gonna present these songs? I don't have nothing new to say," Benjamin told the magazine. To add something fresh to his performances, Benjamin said that he came up with the idea to create jumpsuits with unique slogans on them. "It became a theme where I was more excited about this than the actual show," he said.

But overall, the rapper still feels that he let his fans down and is doing the Art Basel exhibit to make up for it in a way. "I felt like a sell-out, honestly," Benjamin said. "So I was like, if I'm in on the joke, I'll feel cool about it."

A film by Greg Brunkalla titled "Trumpets" is also playing alongside Benjamin's exhibit. It will project the quotes from the suits along with images to provide further commentary.

For the full interview, head to The Fader.

Once Again, Air Force Band Surprises and Delights

December 6, 2014, 6:09 pm

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U.S. Air Force men and women fly and maintain some of the most sophisticated aircraft in the world. They do many other things and do them well.

One of them is playing beautiful music, and singing beautifully, as the U.S. Air Force Band recently did -- one by one, eventually swelling to more than 100 instrumentalists and vocalists -- at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., on December 2.


As they did for the first time last year in Washington D.C. -- with tremendous success -- the U.S. Air Force Band once again surprised and delighted unsuspecting visitors at the National Air and Space Museum with a holiday-themed concert in the form of a "flash mob."





The United States Air Force Band performs a holiday flash-mob at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Devon Suits)

USA TODAY:

Disguised as a special holiday kickoff event, the U.S. Air Force Band began playing an arrangement of "Greensleeves" with a single musician, Technical Sgt. Emily Snyder, who played the English horn.

After several moments of performing solo, Snyder was joined by more than 100 instrumentalists who popped up throughout the crowd, transitioning the song into "What Child Is This," giving a "surround sound" style performance that charmed guests throughout the museum.

This year's performance brought together musicians from the Band's six performing ensembles.

Recalling last year's "flash mob" success, Chief Master Sgt. Jennifer Pagnard, the Band's chief of Marketing and Outreach, said, "Airmen musicians performing holiday classics at an iconic museum in the nation's capital was a winning combination." She added, "Like many popular videos, it also had the element of surprise, and this year's video is no different. We hope everyone enjoys it as much as last year's offering."


Senior Master Sgt. Bob Kamholz says, "An important part of the Band's mission is to have a positive impact on the global community on behalf of the U.S. Air Force and the United States of America. With each viral video, the Band garners worldwide attention from the media and on the Internet reaching millions across the globe."

This latest performance by the Air Force Band is certainly headed that way.

Judge for yourself:



Read more about the background and preparations for this flash mob here


Lead photo: The United States Air Force Band performs a holiday flash mob Dec. 2, 2014, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Devon Suits)

Meet Bruma, A Photogenic Dog That REALLY Knows How To Work The Camera

December 6, 2014, 10:24 pm

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This dog takes the role of "man's best friend" to the next level.

Since 2012, Spanish photographer Dani de los Muros has been photographing his 5-year-old dog, Bruma, and posting the shots on Instagram. Not only does Bruma, a Weimaraner, strike hilarious and adorable poses, but de los Muros says he and Bruma get along very well, especially when the camera starts clicking.

"Everything is a game for her. I have never had a dog before so I don't know so much about training, I think it's just a good agreement together," de los Muros told The Huffington Post. "She always comes with me and we travel together, and that's why she is very patient and loving. I've been very lucky.”

He added that it's hard to choose a favorite photo, but that he finds the photos of his nephew and Bruma particularly touching.

-Dulces sueños- Está bien lo de soñar por el día, pero si el sol no te deja hacerlo puedes hacer como Bruma, usa las orejas!!

Una foto publicada por Dani de los Muros (@danidlm) el Sep 9, 2014 at 12:46 PDT

"He's [a] very beautiful boy [and] Bruma is very patient with me when we are taking photos," de los Muros said.

Check out a few more pictures of Bruma below, and visit Instagram to see even more adorable images.

Llegó el frío... ❄️ Toca abrigarse bien! A sonreír que es viernes!! Buen fin de semana!

A photo posted by Dani de los Muros (@danidlm) on Nov 11, 2013 at 12:09am PST

Vampiro!! Hoy a Bruma le ha mordido un murciélago muy grande y la noto un poco rara, que será? Feliz noche!!

A photo posted by Dani de los Muros (@danidlm) on Oct 10, 2014 at 11:42am PDT

Cambio de cámara! Ahora Bruma se pasa al cine!!! Os acordáis de Pancho? El perro de la lotería? Pues están haciendo una peli con el de prota y Bruma aparecerá en ella!!! La semana que viene a Madrid de rodaje! Mientras a la playa a descansar!

A photo posted by Dani de los Muros (@danidlm) on Sep 9, 2013 at 5:30am PDT

H/T Design Taxi

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Graffiti Artists Cover Miami Neighborhood Wall-To-Wall Makeover

December 6, 2014, 5:00 am

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By Zachary Fagenson
MIAMI, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The acrid smell of spray paint fills the air in Miami's once-blighted Wynwood neighborhood where graffiti artists from all over the world have descended, covering walls - sometimes invited, sometimes not - with eye-popping murals from traditional graffiti lettering to themed designs.
"This is the place to be relevant, where your work can be in the public eye," said a 35-year-old, New York City-based artist called Mast.
He and others flooded the streets donning gas masks, part of an estimated 70,000 art enthusiasts who have converged on the city during its annual contemporary "Art Week," centered around an event called the Art Basel Miami Beach fair.
Wynwood, located just north of downtown Miami, is filled with hip-looking crowds posing for pictures in front of murals that adorn more than a dozen square blocks, creating a unique outdoor museum.
"This place is amazing, it's where you can come to see all of the artists you see online, in magazines," said Haroldo Paranhos, 27, visiting from Brazil. "You never have so many big walls like this all together."
The week draws globe-trotting street artists like Shepard Fairey, famed for his 2008 blue-and-red portrait of Barack Obama captioned "Hope." Better-known artists like Fairey paint for free but are sponsored with free paint, a wall and a team of assistants to undertake big projects.
One local developer commissioned nearly three dozen artists to cover Wynwood Walls, a free, outdoor complex showcasing the world's top street art.
Independent artists like Mast pay their way, haggle for a wall and barter for supplies. Some are lucky enough to be given free weatherproof spray paint cans by companies like Germany-based Montana, which sponsors artists around the world, though their murals may not last.
"Walls are getting done over, left and right, with total disregard," said David Anasagasti, a Miami-based street artist known as Ahol Sniffs Glue who complained Wynwood had become gentrified and over-saturated.
"It's getting kind of tacky," he said.
A handful of gallery owners have also begun shying away, citing rising rents, few art buyers and condominium development.
"It's not going to be Chelsea, it's not going to be SoHo," said Fredric Snitzer, who left the area three months ago. "It will be a nice enough neighborhood but it is not going to attract good quality galleries."
Still, the graffiti art is welcomed in a city trying to enhance its fun-in-the-sun image and become a more cultured metropolis.
"It's not the same Wild West it once was," Fairey said. "But I have always been a populist. I love the idea of democratizing art. Wynwood is a template, and there are lots more walls out there."
While Wynwood's street art-friendly attitude has made Miami a popular venue for graffiti artists, it can still be a risky business.
Activists held a vigil on Friday for Israel Hernandez-Llach, an 18-year-old graffiti artist who died after being subjected to a Taser by police who found him spray-painting an abandoned building on Miami Beach in 2013.
A Miami Beach bar's staff arrived on Tuesday to find that a "guerrilla" artist had hidden inside a bathroom overnight to emerge after closing and paint a pattern of black cryptic symbols on its walls.
"Art Basel brings out the crazies!!!" Purdy Lounge manager Aron Epstein wrote on Twitter. The work, believed to be by an artist called Zeem Rock, was so "cool" that Epstein said he was considering leaving it up.
"Well played sir, well played indeed," he added. (Additional reporting by David Adams; Editing by David Adams and Will Dunham)

After Dark: NYC Nightlife Today And Days Past

December 7, 2014, 7:01 am

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This is the final installment in HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols' 30-part series "After Dark: NYC Nightlife Today And Days Past" that examines the state of New York nightlife in the modern day, as well as the development and production of nightlife over the past several decades. Each featured individual in this series currently serves as a prominent person in the New York nightlife community or has made important contributions in the past that have sustained long-lasting impacts.

HuffPost Gay Voices believes that it is important and valuable to elevate the work, both today and in the past, of those engaged in the New York nightlife community, especially in an age where queer history seems to be increasingly forgotten. Nightlife not only creates spaces for queers and other marginalized groups to be artistically and authentically celebrated, but the work of those involved in nightlife creates and shapes the future of our culture as a whole. Visit Gay Voices regularly to learn not only about individuals currently making an impact in nightlife, but those whose legacy has previously contributed to the ways we understand queerness, art, identity and human experience today.

Over the past six months, HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols sought to provide a platform for the spectrum of performers, designers, promoters and artists engaged -- either currently or historically -- with what we collectively refer to as "nightlife" in New York City.

In a time where queer culture is increasingly both folded into the mainstream and appropriated by society at large, queer nightlife in the urban mecca of New York City serves a crucially important function. Not only do nightlife spaces act as central meeting points for creatives to showcase their work and meet like-minded individuals, but they also serves as as a preservation of queerness in this age of gay marriage and homonormativity.



Nightlife also acts as a major source of cultural production, both within the context of the queer community and the fabric of our society as a whole.

For all of these reasons, "After Dark" was born as a platform for artists to discuss and self-reflect on the current state of nightlife and the foundational role it plays -- or played -- in the formation of their work and identity.

At a time where the exponential growth of technology provides a constant excess and influx of information, many people engaged with the queer community oftentimes seem to have little awareness surrounding the history of our collective struggle for rights and citizenry. For this reason, "After Dark" aimed not only to elevate the work of those currently engaged in the NYC nightlife community, but also historic and legendary figures whose work has gone on to shape queer culture on a large scale.

In an effort to step back from the singular installments of "After Dark" and formulate a larger perspective surrounding this narrative -- as well as the future of nightlife in New York City -- we reached out to each individual featured in this series to hear their thoughts on one final question:

"As New York City continues to change, especially with some arguing that the city increasingly functions to primarily serve the wealthy and elite, what do you see as the role and future of nightlife for queer artists and performers in this new vision of NYC?"




Much like the city that it exists in, nightlife in New York City encapsulates a constantly evolving narrative. While the reality of existing in an urban mecca that seems to increasingly function to serve the needs of the elite certainly presents its own set of challenges, queer artists have historically continued to thrive and create in the face of institutionalized oppression.

In fact, few things hold as much political and social weight as living openly and authentically in the face of a world that has historically tried to "correct" or kill you.

As technology and the economic realities of New York City in the 21st century continue to augment nightlife, the value of the work coming out of these queer spaces will no doubt be the one constant within this narrative.

Our culture at large will continue to be shaped and informed in the future by the individuals navigating the NYC nightlife community -- a queer world that operates entirely within the hours After Dark.

---

J.K. Rowling Will Share 12 New Harry Potter Stories Leading Up To Christmas

December 7, 2014, 8:20 am

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You don't have to celebrate Christmas to know that this winter is the most magical time of the year, thanks to J.K. Rowling.

In a newsletter to the members of Harry Potter fan-site Pottermore, J.K. Rowling announced that she will releasing 12 new stories expanding on the wizarding world on the site on the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Starting on Dec. 12, each new installment will be posted at 8:00 am ET, and will include "moments from Half-Blood Prince, shiny gold Galleons and even a new potion or two."

According to The Telegraph, one of the stories is set to focus on Potter's former school rival, Draco Malfoy. Rowling made it clear that she was not entirely ready to put her series to rest, providing fans with the first new material since the release of the seventh novel. On Halloween, she posted a story detailing some of Dolores Umbridge's background. In July, Rowling published a tabloid-style column in the voice of Rita Skeeter, focusing on a nearly 34-year-old Harry Potter, his family and his best friends Ron and Hermione as they attended the Quidditch World Cup.

Now, if only we could read these stories at a snow-covered Hogwarts ...


Warner Bros.

Holiday Reads: 10 Recent Books on Art and Culture

December 7, 2014, 12:35 pm

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One of the joys of being an art writer is getting to know many other writers in my field over time. In the case of Britta Erickson, I have actually known her for over 35 years (we attended college together) and I really had no idea that she was writing until I reconnected with her on Facebook. As I have recently learned, Britta is an independent curator and scholar who lives for part of the year in Northern California, but who also spends a fair amount of time in China: she is the Artistic Director of a contemporary art gallery and experimental space called The Ink Studio in Beijing. It was Britta who introduced both the sponsor and organizer of the Ai Weiwei exhibit now on view at Alcatraz to the artist several years ago.



Ai Weiwei with Britta Erickson

As becoming reacquainted with Britta has reminded me, each writer I know offers me an open door into their extended world, full of their most treasured ideas and images. Writers share what they find most valuable. In that spirit, I'm sharing 10 great books with you and paying it forward for the writers -- and artists -- who have created them. With each book I'm offering you a few lines of information and opinion in the form of a description and a micro-review.



Zheng Chongbin: Impulse, Matter, Form (Contemporary Chinese Ink)
By Britta Erickson and Zheng Chongbin
Softcover, 192 pages, Published by Ink Studio

Description:

Zheng Chongbin is an artist who works with traditional Chinese brushes, black ink and white acrylic on xuan paper. Shaped by the bicultural experience of studying and living in both the United States and China, his works fuse the language of traditional ink painting with the philosophical and practical concerns of Western Modernism. In the book's featured essay, Establishing Spirit in a Sea of Ink, Britta Erickson credits Chongbin with finding "a new direction for art, with a new way forward for both abstraction and for ink." This book also includes essays by Kenneth Wayne, Craig Yee, Amjad Majid and the artist.

Micro-Review:

A strikingly beautiful book that opens up a new set of possibilities for contemporary abstraction and for the continued dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetic traditions.



River of Ink: [An Illustrated History of Literacy]
By Thomas Christensen
Hardcover, 320 pages, Published by Counterpoint

Description:

A wide-ranging series of essays that are loosely connected by the theme of literacy: the book's title refers to the sacking of Baghdad in 1258 when the Tigris ran black with the ink of books flung into the water by Mongol invaders. Its essays traverse the world and time, from Prehistoric China to contemporary America. Its author views culture as a mirror and asserts that "To explore other times and other cultures is really to explore our own time and our own culture..."

Micro-Review:

An eclectic and sporadically brilliant book in which an erudite writer takes his readers on a set of historical and cultural birdwalks. The essay "Journeys of an Iron Man," which tells the story of a 19th century Benin iron sculpture of the god "Gu" -- the god of ironworking and warfare -- is a particularly informative and engaging read.



Art Deco Hawai'i
By Theresa Papanikolas and DeSoto Brown
Softcover, 138 pages, Published by The Honolulu Museum of Art

Description:

Art Deco Hawai'i is the catalog for an exhibition at the Honolulu Museum of Art that will remain on view through January 11, 2015. Included in this book are paintings and sculpture by such artists as Don Blanding, Marguerite Blasingame, Robert Lee Eskridge, Isamu Noguchi, Agnes Lawrence Pelton, Gene Pressler, Lloyd Sexton, and Madge Tennent, and, at the center of them all, the six-mural cycle that Eugene Savage created for Matson in 1940.

Micro-Review:

A gorgeous and engaging book that documents the enchanting hybrid style that emerged when Parisian-born Art Deco came to dominate the fields of architecture, design and visual arts in Hawai'i in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. The catalog's main essays "The Exotics of Leisure: Art Deco in Hawai'i" by Theresa Papanikolas and "Art Deco in Hawai'i Modernity and Tradition in Commercial Art" by DeSoto Brown are superb.



Art in America 1945–-1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism
Edited by Jed Perl
Hardcover, 886 pages, Published by The Library of America

Description:

This book is a compendium of primary source materials on American art. It includes major critical essays by Clement Greenberg, Susan Sontag, Hilton Kramer, and other influential figures. There are also responses to art by poets and novelists, including John Ashbery on Andy Warhol, James Agee on Helen Levitt, James Baldwin on Beauford Delaney, Truman Capote on Richard Avedon, Tennessee Williams on Hans Hofmann, Jack Kerouac on Robert Frank. Add to that, a selection of memoirs, diaries, and journalism by Peggy Guggenheim, Dwight Macdonald, Calvin Trillin, and others.

Micro-Review:

Jed Perl has done a major favor for those of us with a deep interest in American art. This book combines a lovingly selected cross-section of historically significant writings with helpful headnotes. Perl's scholarship is, to put it succinctly, awe-inspiring.




Leonardo's Brain: Understanding Da Vinci's Creative Genius
By Leonard Shlain
Hardcover, 240 pages, Published by Lyons Press

Description:

Leonardo's Brain opens with two interwoven strands of exposition: one deals with the life and works of Da Vinci while the other the evolution of the human brain. The book's final section then goes on to both explore the role of brain anatomy on creativity and to offer some notions about the evolutionary future of human neuro-anatomy. In total, it offers an ambitious conflation of biography, art history, and neuroscience layered with scientific and sociological conjecture.

Micro-Review:

Leonardo's Brain, published posthumously through the efforts of the author's three children -- Kimberly Brooks, Tiffany Shlain and Jordan Shlain -- is the magnum opus of prodigiously curious man with a larger-than-life intellect. It is rare and stimulating to find a book that locates so many profound and unexplored connections between art and science.



Creating the Future: Art and Los Angeles in the 1970s
By Michael Fallon
Hardcover, 400 pages, Published by Counterpoint

Description:

Creating the Future is a work of social history/cultural criticism that examines the premise that the progress of art in Los Angeles ceased during the 1970s and didn't resume until sometime around 1984. Fallon takes a particular interest in the sheer variety of approaches and voices that appeared in the 1970s. Arranged into 12 themed chapters, it tells the stories of artists and their communities.

Micro-Review:

This book is a valuable record that captures the beginnings of a number of movements that later became tremendously influential including Feminist Art, Chicano Art and Lowbrow. Read it and plan on finishing with a more nuanced and insightful view of Los Angeles culture.



Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art
By Jordana Moore Saggese
Hardcover, 268 pages, Published by the University of California Press

Description:

Reading Basquiat offers a carefully constructed approach to Basquiat's themes and the impact of his practice. It does so by discussing his work in relationship to important aesthetic concerns including identity, appropriation and expressionism.

Micro-Review:

A deep and decidedly academic book that takes itself and its subject seriously. Its first chapter -- The Black Picasso: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Questions of Race -- offers insightful and overdue analyses of the complex "black experiences" that the artist's works both broadcast and embody.



Behind the Easel: The Unique Voices of 20 Contemporary Representational Painters
by Robert C. Jackson
Hardcover, 264 pages, Published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd.

Description:

Artist Robert C. Jackson interview 20 contemporary representational artists (himself included) and showcases there work. The artists are Steven Assael, Bo Bartlett, Debra Bermingham, Margaret Bowland, Paul Fenniak, Scott Fraser, Woody Gwyn, F. Scott Hess, Laurie Hogin, Robert C. Jackson, Alan Magee, Janet Monafo, John Moore, Charles Pfahl, Scott Prior, Stone Roberts, Sandra Mendelsohn Rubin, Daniel Sprick, Will Wilson, and Jerome Witkin.

Micro-Review:

Beautifully produced: the interviews are wonderful, but it is the high-quality plates that make this book a knockout. Prepare to be WOWED.



Lawrence Gipe: Century of Progress
by Lawrence Gipe
Hardcover, 80 pages, Published by Zero+ Publishing

Description:

A selection of works by Lawrence Gipe, who is fascinated by the romanticism of early images of industry and technology and their evocations of power and politics. The book includes an interview with Gipe by Marshall Price and contains containing 49 color plates and featuring Gipe's paintings from the '80s and '90s.

Micro-Review:

Gipe's work blends critical intelligence with a strong feeling for atmosphere. A great coffee table book for those who feel the nostalgic pull of the "Cult of Progress."



The Figure: Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture
Edited by Margaret McCann
Hardcover, 240 pages, Published by Skira/Rizzoli

Description:

The Figure: Painting Drawing and Sculpture, Contemporary Perspectives has the look of a high-end coffee table decoration, but don't judge this book just by its Martha Mayer Erlebacher cover. Inside, you will find it crammed not only with striking images but also with essays by critics, artists, and other thinkers that air out thematically related historical, philosophical, theoretical, and technical issues. The Figure is an ambitious and overdue tome that fills a void: if you haven't noticed, contemporary representation is coming on strong. It is is also a celebration of the burgeoning influence of the New York Academy of Art (NYAA), a singular institution that has come into its own more than three decades after its establishment.

Click here for my full review.

Micro-Review:

If there ever was an art book that needed to become a major exhibition -- or a maybe a salon -- The Figure is it.

'The Patron Saint of Sideshow,' The Found Theatre, Long Beach, CA

December 7, 2014, 1:45 pm

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"The Patron Saint of Sideshow," a documentary filmed and directed by Mike Brown for the Found Theatre, is an enchanting Puff the Magic Dragon tale. It recounts the making of "One Tit Wonder," Cynthia Galles' sublimation of her breast cancer diagnosis into a theatre production that recasts cellular mischief into an homage to humor, high spirits, and resilience.

Every aspect of the Found Theatre is a labor of love. So too is Mike Brown's direction. He filmed hundreds of hours of the production's cast meetings and rehearsals. As he said in his opening night preamble, he didn't know what he would do with the footage, it just seemed important. Given theatre's ephemeral nature and considering what happened shortly afterwards, no truer words were ever spoken.



Watching the film, you get the sense that it must have been hard for the cast to emotionally soldier on. On one hand, there was Galles. Even while being treated for cancer, she unflappably stewarded the production through its run. On the other hand, there was the cast. They had to not only face the preparations that go into any production. They also had to deal with the fact that the play's theme, the story's conflict, and the protagonist's trials weren't a playwright's fiction but her real life, real time drama.

The film has three epicenters. Each provides a riveting layer of significance. The first is informative. The second is inspirational. And the third is nostalgic. The first documents the history of the Found Theatre. You marvel not just at its evolution from Seventh Street storefront to its present, spacious Long Beach Boulevard location. You are blown away how the shift in venue and resources didn't in the least change its gritty and iconoclastic street theatre aesthetic. Most remarkable, the Theatre celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, thus proving that the Found's unique and delightful antics are not so much idiosyncratic as germane.



The second gives us a role model. After her breast cancer diagnosis, Galles didn't bat an eyelash. She resolved to sublimate her experience of the disease into art. It's a funny and sad production; surreal and hopeful; resolute, mostly. If I'm not mistaken, she was more concerned by a clueless review than the enormity of what she had to endure. Leaving the Theatre, you hope that you face your own personal crises with such therapeutic mirth and hopeful aplomb.

The third offers a more private message. With the exception of Galles, the cast from "One Tit Wonder" was in attendance at the premiere. You watch the documentary. Later, you chat with your chums. Everyone looks so much younger up on the screen. Not less irreverent and cheeky, just older and, having gone through the crucible of the subsequent events, wiser for the experience.

Like Puff the Magic Dragon, though, the magic, or at least one iteration of the magic, ended when the Jackie Paper that was Cynthia Galles moved on. We appreciate theatre because, with its brevity, it's so much like life. It puts things into context. So too, here. That's why, as the film shows, we're reminded to seize, indeed, relish the absurdity to be found in life. Why? Because it's an antidote for everyday complacency and a surrogate for fugitive joy.

Performances are 3pm, Sunday, December 7; 8pm, Friday, December 12; 8pm, Saturday, December 13; and 3pm, Sunday December 14. Tickets are $10. The Theatre is located at 599 Long Beach Boulevard, Long Beach 90802. For more information, call (562) 433-3363 or visit www.foundtheatre.org.

Theatre Of The Seriously Disturbed

December 7, 2014, 9:37 pm

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Why are some theatres like salad bars? The answer is simpler than you might expect. If you attend a production whose set is in full view as the audience enters the theatre, all kinds of possibilities come to mind before the performance actually begins. Although the architecture and props on display may look deceptively familiar, one never knows what might happen 30 minutes after going for the bait.

• In live theatre, an audience may be taken on a dramatic adventure they never anticipated.


• At a salad bar, the pickled fish may look delicious but, when combined with deviled eggs, tofu salad, and some questionable form of taco meat that's been sitting in a chafing dish for hours, the results may produce an explosive reaction or a noxious treat that is best categorized as "silent but deadly."

Two productions greeted Bay area audiences with sets that radiated an unusual sense of foreboding. One looked like a messy apartment with some tables, office chairs, and a large beanbag. The other was a decrepit, ominous-looking coastal shack resting on a cluster of eerily-lit wooden pilings.

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Over the past few years, Bennett Fisher has been one of the driving forces behind the Flying Island Lab and San Francisco Theatre Pub. In addition to serving as an associate artist with San Francisco's Cutting Ball Theatre, he has collaborated with the California Shakespeare Theatre, Stanford Summer Theatre, and Crowded Fire Theatre Company (among others). Now working toward his MFA degree at the University of California, San Diego, the extremely prolific (and fast) writer can be seen discussing his creative process in this 2011 interview about Disinfect (Fisher's zombie aftermath play that was performed by the Un-scripted Theater Company).





Fisher's Campo Maldito is set in the unkempt office of a disruptive digital startup business headquartered in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Ingersoll (Walker Hare) is a young CEO who has bet his entire future on bringing a killer app to market that could make him incredibly wealthy. White, arrogant, and with an unquestioning sense of entitlement, he has recently become increasingly paranoid and suspicious that he is being watched by some kind of avenging ghost. He's also been making some very poor business decisions.

A friend of Ingersoll's has referred him to Acosta (Luis Vega), an Hispanic man whose mystical powers as a Santeria priest may be able to purify Ingersoll's office space. However, unlike Ingersoll (who has never really been challenged by life), Acosta is a recovering alcoholic who has been living sober for 348 days. While he has no problem charging Ingersoll $1,000 as a consulting fee, Acosta quickly starts to realize that what Ingersoll views as a supernatural nuisance might be something quite different and much more commonplace.

Remounted from UC San Diego's Wagner Festival and presented in conjunction with the Bay area's Ubuntu Theater Project, Campo Maldito made its San Francisco Fringe Festival debut as an almost site-specific piece of theatre about gentrification and the spiritual cost of angering a dead (or sorely neglected) spirit. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just wait and see what happens when that woman is a vengeful, alcohol-based demon.

Bennett's skill as a dramatist makes clever use of magical realism as the demon of addiction takes control of Ingersoll's body and uses it as a puppet to berate Acosta for abandoning her by giving up booze. Through the eyes of a terrified recovering alcoholic who is struggling to live sober one day at a time, Ingersoll's increasingly dangerous constellation of symptoms are revealed to be a direct result of the budding entrepreneur's growing dependence on alcohol.

In the following clip from their Kickstarter campaign, Fisher and Jesca Prudencio discuss the origins of and itinerary for their traveling production of Campo Maldito.





Intensely directed by Prudencio, Campo Maldito's two-man cast takes its audience on a riveting roller coaster ride through white privilege, around hairpin turns of desperation, careening downhill in a life-and-death struggle with the forces of addiction, and ending when dawn breaks over a terrified and confused alcoholic who is bottoming out. Walker Hare and Luis Vega turn in two grippingly athletic and memorable performances. Their work easily made Campo Maldito the most interesting entry I saw at the 2014 San Francisco Fringe Festival.

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Over at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley, Shotgun Players presented Enda Walsh's 2005 dark, twisted and deliciously dysfunctional dramedy of nostalgia entitled The New Electric Ballroom (which may well rank as one of the few Irish plays in which alcohol is neither a major concern nor a steady presence). When Walsh received the 2012 Tony Award for writing the book for the musical stage adaptation of Once, he told the audience at the Beacon Theatre that:

"Anyone who knows my work knows that it's terribly dark. When I told my friend I was going to take on this delicate little love story, he said 'That's like the equivalent of producers having the stage rights to It's A Wonderful Life and then getting Charles Manson to do it.'"

Irish playwrght Enda Walsh (Photo by: Murdo MacLeod)


Unlike Anton Chekhov's whiny Three Sisters (or Gilbert & Sullivan's giddy "Three Little Maids From School,") Walsh's trio of bored spinsters is trapped in a tiny Irish fishing village where nothing good -- or even slightly interesting -- ever seems to happen.




Anne Darragh, Beth Wilmurt, and Trish Mulholland in a
scene from The New Electric Ballroom (Photo by: Pak Han)

• Clara (Trish Mulholland) is the oldest sister, a woman well into her sixties who is prone to worrying about how her body seems to be shrinking and babbling about what the baby Jesus's mother might think of certain local indiscretions.


• Breda (Anne Darragh) is, like her sister Clara, an old maid with little hope of a brighter tomorrow.


• Ada (Beth Wilmurt) is the youngest sister who must live with the constant repetition of Clara and Breda's faded memories of the night, decades ago, when they almost lost their virginity to a sexy rock 'n' roller at the New Electric Ballroom.

Trish Mulholland as Clara in The New Electric Ballroom
(Photo by: Pak Han)


The only man who visits these women on a regular basis is a fishmonger named Patsy (Kevin Clarke), who has certainly seen better days. Although Patsy usually arrives with a delivery of dead eels that get dumped into a bin marked "Fish" or dropped all over the floor, he is the odd subject of Clara and Breda's warped fantasies.




Patsy (Kevin Clarke) and Breda (Anne Darragh) in a
scene from The New Electric Ballroom (Photo by: Pak Han)


One dark day, when even the poetry of doom offers nothing new, Breda decides to seize the bull by the horns and break out of her dismal rut by inviting Patsy in for a surrealistic makeover. As Clara pours water into a tub, Breda starts removing Patsy's clothing until, together with Clara, the two women perform a ritualistic cleansing of the smelly (and mightily confused) fisherman.




Clara (Trish Mulholland) and Breda (Anne Darragh) give Patsy (Kevin
Clarke) a makeover in The New Electric Ballroom (Photo by: Pak Han)


Once he's been cleaned up, Breda dresses Patsy in some tight and shiny pants she's been saving for her special ritual. Soon he is transformed into Roller Doyle, a rocker from her nearly hallucinogenic memory who seductively grinds his hips like a reincarnation of Elvis Presley as he performs atop the sisters' dining room table.




Patsy (Kevin Clarke) struts his stuff in a scene from
The New Electric Ballroom (Photo by: Pak Han)


Bathed in Jim French's ominous lighting, Erik Flatmo's creepy unit set provided a strange framework for a play that begins with a generous helping of inanity and ends with three lipstick-smeared crones stepping over dead eels as they transform the village grunt into the man of their twisted dreams. While Walsh's writing combines a certain amount of fetid wish fulfillment wrapped in poetic babble, The New Electric Ballroom definitely belongs to the genre known as "Theatre of What The Fuck?" As the playwright explains:

"I love the risk factor that a good production demands. It always looks like none of it should work. It's artificial. It could collapse at any minute and then it becomes this suddenly real thing, where themes are flying about in the air, language is splitting apart, and it's just electric. Really, there's nothing better."

Director Barbara Damashek staged Walsh's script as a perverse passion play for three women who have long been terrified of silence. In her program note, she describes it as "a desecration ritual, an anti-mass in which the characters speak to avoid the living."


To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

This Pen Lets You Doodle On Your Food, So Now You Can Make Latte Art At Home

December 8, 2014, 4:00 am

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Ever wish your food had a bit more flair? Man, me too. I find myself longing for a home-brewed cup of coffee that's artfully presented, say topped off with a doodle of a mouse or something.

The CinniBird -- "the world's first and only spice pen" -- might be the answer. The pen lets you decorate dishes and drinks with ground materials like cinnamon, paprika, cocoa powder and sugar. It funnels the materials into a thin stream, making it simple to add a little pizzaz to pretty much anything. To use it, just fill the little gadget with the ground ingredient of your choosing, press the button and voila! With a steady hand, you're ready to create a doodle, write a message or play tic-tac-toe with a pal if you like. You could even fill it with colored sugars and compose pretty designs on your cookies and cakes.


CinniBird

The kitschy kitchen tool has already exceeded its goal of $5,000 goal on KickStarter and is currently available for purchase for $34.90.

Watch the video below to see the spice pen in action.


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