In "The City Out My Window: 63 Views on New York," illustrator Matteo Pericoli asks well-known New Yorkers to describe what they see from their windows. This is the view of David Byrne, the musician and artist. "I think of my view as pretty typical for a New Yorker. We look out our windows at other windows. That, in a way, mirrors our lives here -- we are constantly looking at each other, millions of us, on the streets and elsewhere."
Listen. .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.
Photograph: Gueorgui Pinkhassov
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1983)
Photograph: Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Without photography, would Elvis and his gyrating hips have shocked America? Can you talk about Grace Jones without thinking of the Island Life cover? The photographers who collaborated with rock 'n' roll musicians injected the genre with glamour, grit, and sex appeal, and even today, one photograph has the power to catapult a musician to stardom. The Brooklyn Museum is now curating the first major museum exhibition devoted exclusively to rock photography: Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present, opens today, featuring 175 works from 105 photographers. The massive collection covers a range of media, from album covers to slideshows to music videos—don't miss your chance to check out some rare and never-before-seen images, like a Rolling Stones photograph by Philip Townsend or four Beatles portraits by Richard Avedon.
via: The Village Voice
Tulsa is Larry Clark’s 1971 groundbreaking portfolio of black and white photographs exploring the graphic and uncensored view of the youth subculture of the Midwest. Clark’s insider photographs of the rituals and obsessions of drug culture show youth dominated by sex, the needle and the gun. The resulting lawsuit from the publication of the book, brought Clark considerable notoriety. Tulsa has been described by critics as "exposing the reality of American suburban life at the fringe and for shattering long-held mythical conventions that drugs and violence were an experience solely indicative of the urban landscape."
runs through February 7, 2010
Brassaï's images of 1930's Paris at night clearly belong among the masterworks of photography; they have become emblematic of the alluring and bewitching lights of the city and the provocative nightlife that goes on in the cafes and bars.
This fabulous show includes a variety of Brassaï's signature nocturnal subjects: couples in cafes (alternately happy, bored, dancing, or blithely smoking), backstage shots of cabaret shows and dancers, semi-nude women in brothels, and shadowy dark views of foggy illuminated bridges and street corner assignations.
While many of the images on display will be familiar to most collectors, there are also a few surprises mixed in. Several of the cafe images were printed somewhat larger than normal, making the intimate vignettes of private encounters more striking; the larger size seems to have transformed them from stolen moments to spotlit studies in human interaction. There are also a handful of unexpected pure abstractions, made from soap and cotton, and a pair of scarce formal nudes.
This show is a great reminder that vintage work isn't by definition tired and stuffy, or somehow distant and unrelated to the world of contemporary art. There are plenty of masterclass lessons to be drawn from this show, especially for those who seek to document the seamy underbelly of life.
via: DLK Collection
Irving Penn, one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide, died Wednesday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
Mr. Penn’s talent for picturing his subjects with compositional clarity and economy earned him the widespread admiration of readers of Vogue during his long association with the magazine, beginning in 1943. It also brought him recognition in the art world; his photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries and are prized by collectors.
Read more here.
© Irving Penn "Irving Penn's Studio" in Paris, 1950.
