Friday, June 29, 2007

iPhone is sexy

So this is what supply and demand looks like? or rather Apple fetishism? This poor soul will get his iPhone but has endured some hellish NY weather this week. Be sure and give him a call...

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

La Jetee and Sans Soleil

Criterion Collection is releasing La Jetee and Sans Soleil today. I believe this is the first packaging of La Jetee with another Marker film. Previous versions were with Alphaville or in my case a cruddy a VHS tape. If you are unfamiliar with Marker this is a great place to start.

I'm excited to see this again after so long especially now that we have the Road and Children of Men context to compare this Cold War era apocalyptic vision. But beyond that, it is a marvelous use of the still image as cinema.

Monday, June 25, 2007

who's your state doppelganger

Here is very interesting map that measures and compares the size of national economies. The GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)
  1. California, it is often said, would be the world’s sixth- or seventh-largest economy if it was a separate country. Actually, that would be the eighth, according to this map, as France (with a GDP of $2,15 trillion) is #8 on the aforementioned list.
  2. Texas’ economy is significantly smaller, exactly half of California’s, as its GDP compares to that of Canada (#10, $1,08 trillion).
  3. Florida also does well, with its GDP comparable to Asian tiger South Korea’s (#13 at $786 billion).
  4. Illinois – Mexico (GDP #14 at $741 billion)
  5. New Jersey – Russia (GDP #15 at $733 billion)
  6. Ohio – Australia (GDP #16 at $645 billion)
  7. New York – Brazil (GDP #17 at $621 billion)
  8. Pennsylvania – Netherlands (GDP #18 at $613 billion)
  9. Georgia – Switzerland (GDP #19 at $387 billion)
  10. North Carolina – Sweden (GDP #20 at $371 billion)
  11. Massachusetts – Belgium (GDP #21 at $368 billion)
  12. Washington – Turkey (GDP #22 at $358 billion)
  13. Virginia – Austria (GDP #24 at $309 billion)
  14. Tennessee – Saudi Arabia (GDP #25 at $286 billion)
  15. Missouri – Poland (GDP #26 at $265 billion)
  16. Louisiana – Indonesia (GDP #27 at $264 billion)
  17. Minnesota – Norway (GDP #28 at $262 billion)
  18. Indiana – Denmark (GDP #29 at $256 billion)
  19. Connecticut – Greece (GDP #30 at $222 billion)
  20. Michigan – Argentina (GDP #31 at $210 billion)
  21. Nevada – Ireland (GDP #32 at $203 billion)
  22. Wisconsin – South Africa (GDP #33 at $200 billion)
  23. Arizona – Thailand (GDP #34 at $197 billion)
  24. Colorado – Finland (GDP #35 at $196 billion)
  25. Alabama – Iran (GDP #36 at $195 billion)
  26. Maryland – Hong Kong (#37 at $187 billion GDP)
  27. Kentucky – Portugal (GDP #38 at $177 billion)
  28. Iowa – Venezuela (GDP #39 at $148 billion)
  29. Kansas – Malaysia (GDP #40 at $132 billion)
  30. Arkansas – Pakistan (GDP #41 at $124 billion)
  31. Oregon – Israel (GDP #42 at $122 billion)
  32. South Carolina – Singapore (GDP #43 at $121 billion)
  33. Nebraska – Czech Republic (GDP #44 at $119 billion)
  34. New Mexico – Hungary (GDP #45 at $113 billion)
  35. Mississippi – Chile (GDP #48 at $100 billion)
  36. DC – New Zealand (#49 at $99 billion GDP)
  37. Oklahoma – Philippines (GDP #50 at $98 billion)
  38. West Virginia – Algeria (GDP #51 at $92 billion)
  39. Hawaii – Nigeria (GDP #53 at $83 billion)
  40. Idaho – Ukraine (GDP #54 at $81 billion)
  41. Delaware – Romania (#55 at $79 billion GDP)
  42. Utah – Peru (GDP #56 at $76 billion)
  43. New Hampshire – Bangladesh (GDP #57 at $69 billion)
  44. Maine – Morocco (GDP #59 at $57 billion)
  45. Rhode Island – Vietnam (GDP #61 at $48 billion)
  46. South Dakota – Croatia (GDP #66 at $37 billion)
  47. Montana – Tunisia (GDP #69 at $33 billion)
  48. North Dakota – Ecuador (GDP #70 at $32 billion)
  49. Alaska – Belarus (GDP #73 at $29 billion)
  50. Vermont – Dominican Republic (GDP #81 at $20 billion)
  51. Wyoming – Uzbekistan (GDP #101 at $11 billion)
I get a kick out of the parallel between Alabama and Iran!




via Strange Maps

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

holy highway

In case you missed the new 10 Commandments - of driving...

Friday, June 15, 2007

Avant-Garde Tube or how I learned to love that inane unthing thing

Ever wanted a resource for artist interviews of the last 60 years? A Martha Rosler video from 1975? How about some Beuys or Chris Burden? perhaps you're needing a Dieter Roth fix or a reading by Henry Miller? Well you can find it and much more at UBUWEB. Seriously, this is a treasure trove of archived materials. Tons of MP3's of major historical figures, films, videos....

I wish I could embed a sample but do check out UBUWEB and you'll wonder aloud - where was this when I writing my thesis!

From the site:
UbuWeb: The YouTube of the Avant-Garde UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video holdings to on-demand streaming formats à la YouTube, which means that you can view everything right in your browser without platform-specific software or insanely huge downloads. We offer over 300 films & videos from artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Vito Acconci, Pipilotti Rist, Jean Genet, The Cinema of Transgression, Richard Foreman, Terayama Shuji, Paul McCarthy Jack Smith, Carolee Schneeman, John Lennon and hundreds more -- of course all free of charge. Presented in conjunction with our partners at Greylodge.

Heres a short list of the video and film archive:

Vito Acconci
Marina Abramoviç
Igor and Gleb Aleinikov
Alejandra & Aeron
Erik Anderson
Skip Arnold
Robert Ashley
Beth B
Francis Bacon
Derek Bailey
John Baldessari
Banksy
Piero Bargellini
Francis Bacon
Otmar Bauer
Samuel Beckett
David Behrman
Charles Bernstein
Joseph Beuys
Christian Boltanski
Jorge Luis Borges
Walerian Borowczyk
Stan Brakhage
George Brecht
James Broughton
Luis Buñuel
Chris Burden
Robert Breer
Gunter Brus
Chris Burden
William S. Burroughs
John Cage
Alexander Calder
John Cale
Peter Campus
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Abigail Child
Segundo de Chomón
Henri Chopin
Cinema of Transgression
Robert Clampett
Rene Clair
Carlfriedrich Claus
Jean Cocteau
Émile Cohl
Anton Corbijn
Jospeh Cornell
Pierre Coulibeuf
Merce Cunningham
Guy Debord
Wim Delvoye
Maya Deren
Jean-Marie Drot
Marcel Duchamp
Germaine Dulac
Dziga Vertov Group
Viking Eggeling
Tracy Emin
Ed Emshwiller
Jean Epstein
Harun Farocki


Flux Films
Richard Foreman
Péter Forgács
Terry Fox
Hollis Frampton
Tessa Hughes-Freeland
Ernie Gehr
Jean Genet
German Dada
Alberto Giacometti
Allen Ginsberg
Gilbert & George
Paul Glabicki
Philip Glass
Godard & Miéville
Jack Goldstein
Peter Greenaway
Groupe Medvedkine
Laszlo Hege
Her Noise
Helmut Herbst
Piero Heliczer
Gary Hill
Henry Hills
Abbie Hoffman
Takahiko Iimura
Isidore Isou
Joris Ivens
M Henry Jones
Larry Jordan
Mauricio Kagel
Pitor Kamler
Anish Kapoor
Richard Kern
Raashan Roland Kirk
Dimitri Kirsanov
Yves Klein
Alexander Kluge
Paul and Marlene Kos
Kurt Kren
George Kuchar
Jerzy Kucia
Jacques Lacan
Andrew Lampert
George Landow
Fernand Leger
John Lennon
Alfred Leslie
György Ligeti
Alvin Lucier
Willard Maas
George Maciunas
Gregory Markopoulos
Toshio Matsumoto
Paul McCarthy
Jonas Mekas
Marie Mencken


László Moholy-Nagy
Meredith Monk
Irene Moon
Jon Moritsugu
Robert Morris
Frank & Caroline Mouris
Otto Muehl
Gordon Mumma
Music with Roots in the Aether
Bruce Nauman
Werner Nekes
Phil Niblock
Hermann Nitsch
Pauline Oliveros
Yoko Ono
Nam June Paik
Charlemagne Palestine
Kembra Pfahler
Robert Rauschenberg
Man Ray
Hans Richter
Ron Rice
Terry Riley
David Rimmer
Pipilotti Rist
Donald Ritchie
Peter Rose
Kay Rosen
Jeri Cain Rossi
Walter Ruttmann
Aram Saroyan
Carolee Schneeman
Werner Schroeter
Richard Serra
Situationist International
Jack Smith
Kiki Smith
Robert Smithson
Ladislaw Starewicz
Ralph Steiner
Jerry Tartaglia
Shuji Terayama
Stan Vanderbeek
Agnes Varda
Ben Vautier
Edgard Varêse & Le Corbusier
Dziga Vertov
Rene Vienet
Bill Viola
Robert Watts
William Wegman
Orson Welles
Peter Whitehead
Rachel Whiteread
Lloyd Michael Williams
David Wojnarowicz
Tadanori Yokoo
Zubi Zuva


great tip: Kazys

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Gore nutshells the G8



"The eight most powerful nations gathered and were unable to do anything except to say 'We had good conversations and we agreed that we will have more conversations, and we will even have conversations about the possibility of doing something in the future on a voluntary basis perhaps."

- Al Gore on the G8 climate "summit"




yep that sounds about right - see it's not only the Democrats...




image: eccentric toast

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Rorty

The other thing I missed - Richard Rorty's passing last week. Another controversial iconoclast we've lost this year. From the NY Times:

His views were attacked by critics on the left and the right. The failure to recognize science’s particular powers to depict reality, Daniel Dennett wrote, shows “flatfooted ignorance of the proven methods of scientific truth-seeking and their power.”

Simon Blackburn, a philosopher at Cambridge University, has written of Mr. Rorty’s “extraordinary gift for ducking and weaving and laying smoke.”

Mr. Rorty was engaged with and amused by his critics. In a 1992 autobiographical essay, “Trotsky and the Wild Orchids,” he wrote that he was considered to be one of the “smirking intellectuals whose writings are weakening the moral fiber of the young”; “cynical and nihilistic”; “complacent”; and “irresponsible.”

Yet he confounded critics as well, by speaking up for patriotism, an academic canon and the idea that one can make meaningful moral judgments.

Dear Apocalypse

Somehow I missed this opening on my hiatus but Lens Culture cites the following show which just opened at the New Museum - APOCALYPSE: CONTEMPORARY VISIONS (May 30 - July 27, 2007).

The blurb from the show states:
It is not specific, nor is it political. It is meant to be deeply psychological, more fantasy than reality. We have looked for photographs that suggest something. If they are literal, they may not be obvious, as in Stephen Vaughn's image of an iceberg melting quietly on a beach.
Funny I know some bloggers who have a few thoughts on this and would have loved to use that image. Perhaps this could be the official picture for the Democrats in '08...



image: Lucian Perkins: A Survivor of the Gulf War, 1991

Demand's Niger Embassy


So the word I get form Venice is that it is "POLITICAL". And so as luck would have it a few stories on a piece by Thomas Demand are circulating around the web today. The above is Demand's homage to the Niger embassy - infamous generator of a forged smoking gun that not only led to the Iraq war but also the ruination of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame. I've long been a fan of Demand and this is the perfect subject for him. Forgery on forgery so to speak and endless other paper cliches.

From the Fondazione Prada:

The Fondazione Prada is presenting a project by the German artist Thomas Demand, curated by Germano Celant at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. The proposed work consists of two large installations; Yellowcake, composed of a series of new photographs, exploring a place in Rome which was instrumental to US intervention in Iraq.

For the exhibition presented at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Demand has developed two large installations. The title Yellowcake refers to its technical meaning: “yellowcake” denotes a concentrated form of uranium, which when enriched may be used to make nuclear weapons. This word recently emerged in mainstream political discourse because it was the fulcrum of President George Walker Bush’s famous accusation in his State of the Union Address in 2003, in which he stated: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of Uranium in Africa”. The evidence was paperwork supposedly stolen from the Embassy of the Republic of Niger in Rome and passed on to British and American intelligence by SISMI, their Italian counterparts. The documents were supposed to be a contract for the sale of hundreds of tons of yellowcake to the Iraqi authorities, which soon turned out to be obvious forgeries.

Demand’s work consists of a series of photographs about the location where the trail leading to this ‘smoking gun’ originated. Usually, the artist bases his works on existing photographic sources, but with Yellowcake there were no images available: no one covering the story had gained access to Niger’s Embassy in Rome. It was thus a story that had yet to be illustrated. Lacking photographic evidence, it remained unanchored to its site. Demand’s first step, then, was to try to gain access to the Embassy. By entering the apartment-cum-embassy he also crossed an extra-territorial frontier between Italy and Niger (and Europe and Africa). The meeting yielded nothing much, but while there, Demand was able to memorize the site and begin a conversation with the embassy’s staff.

The information he gathered from these visits was the basis for a life-sized reconstruction of the very same place, built over a period of months in his studio and, subsequently, the large photographs that constitute the finished work and are presented at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. So the infamous story that has been named “Nigergate” has finally received a pictorial representation of some kind.



Friday, June 01, 2007

HIV Law Project benefit - June 4



I'm happy to be placing work in the above benefit show at Moti Hasson Gallery. So if you are in NYC on Monday June 4 please consider the event.
To encourage attendance, for those that might not be able to afford the $100 ticket, the HIV Law Project is offering discounted tickets at $35.00 each.

If you are interested in these tickets please email Almond Zigmund[almondz@optonline.net]
or you can purchase at the door (
Moti Hasson Gallery) as "Friends of Jesse" tickets.

Links for the auction:
tickets
artworks available

spread the word...