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Get a Move On

 If you want to be moved and you're visiting or live in New York, I suggest you spend some kinetic time tomorrow at "Moving Pictures: A Symposium of Illustration and Motion." Moderator and organizer Lauren Redniss reveals a history of blind spots; Jody Rosen unveils “The Knowledge” of London taxi drivers (the "it" that every London cabbie must know); Joel Smith, a Saul Steinberg scholar, maps the artist's mind; NYPL artist-in-residence Richard McGuire screens the film Fear(s) of the Dark .

The event is FREE and open to the public at The New School Jazz Performance Space Arnhold Hall. It's tomorrow, November 11, 2009, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., at 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor, New York City. 

via: The Daily Heller

Brassaï: Paris in the 30's at Edwynn Houk Gallery

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

Welcome to the Dollhouse

The most problematic aspect of Janine Antoni’s show,  “Up Against” at Luhring Augustine stems from Antoni’s melding of earnestness with cliché subject matter and aesthetics. I fail to see how a bronze gargoyle designed to allow a woman to pee standing up will empower her, but the solemness of Antoni’s pose in context with a political driven show suggests she believes it will. 

Lack of conceptual rigor proves to be an issue in every piece exhibited. Tear marks the highest point in a series of lows by pairing the sound of a crashing wrecking ball with a projection of a blinking eye.  Sure, it tells us everything we already know about eyeballs, but at least the dramatic lighting is effective. First conceived for the New Orleans biennial Prospect One, the installation fared a little better in its original humble environment. 

The final nail in the Antoni’s coffin consists of a large colorful photographic self portrait picturing the artist suspended from the ceiling with a dollhouse around her torso. The chest straps holding Antoni up recall Frida Kahlo’s Broken Column, and the wearable miniature,Laurie Simmons. A few detail shots of the leg inside a dining room, and an undefined fleshy form near a bed provide more compelling imagery and compositions, but are ultimately undermined by an almost uniformly shallow show.

via: Art Fag City

"The Unknown Hipster"

Born French (naturally), Unknown Hipster moved to New York to become a painter, a poet, or anything (within reason) art world related. All that can be said is that Unknown frequently appears at fashionable and cultural events without being necessarily on the list.

Richard Merkin 1938-2009

Richard Merkin, 70, New York painter, illustrator, teacher, author and all-around fashion plate, died of a heart attack on Sept. 5, 2009. 

Celebrated for brightly colored, R.B. Kitaj-inspired portraits of authors, jazz musicians and sports figures, Merkin was nevertheless a master of sophisticated pictorial space, whose grander compositions are present-day successors to  works by Braque and Matisse.

 Born in Brooklyn, he exhibited with the Terry Dintenfass Gallery in Manhattan from the 1970s until the dealer’s death in 2004. He taught at the Rhode Island School of Design for nearly 45 years, and was a contributor to Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and other magazines.

link: artnet

"Milkmaid" in Manhattan

Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece "The Milkmaid" is coming to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art for a special exhibition on the 17th-century Dutch artist.

The exhibition opens Sept. 10 and runs until Nov. 29. It will be the first time in 70 years that the painting will be seen in the United States. It was last exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair.

"The Milkmaid" dates from 1657-58. It shows a milkmaid in a delft blue and yellow dress pouring milk from a jug into a bowl.

The exhibition will also feature all five paintings by Vermeer in the Met's collection and works by other Dutch painters.

"The Milkmaid" is being loaned by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Only 36 of Vermeer's works survive today.

via: The Huffington Post

How Film Titles Have Evolved

Before the cinematic title sequences of today’s films, pioneered by the likes of Saul Bass  and (more recently) Kyle Cooper, film titles were once a motionless work of art. In this ‘Now and then,’ we are pressing pause and exploring the art behind the film title.

Since the early days of cinema, artists have carefully designed film titles to captivate audiences and set the film’s mood. To bring attention to this often overlooked art form, Dutch graphic designer (and movie lover) Christine Annyas  has put together . The Movie Stills Collection The website collects and neatly organizes film titles by decade, from the 1920’s to present. To illustrate how film titles have evolved over the years, we've chosen some of our favorites from the collection.

Continue here: idsgn.org

Sartorial Selects

Scott Schuman has long been trailing the fashion-show caravan from Florence to Milan, Paris and New York City, photographing selected stylish folk and plenty of fashion world regulars for his blog, The Sartorialist.com, and becoming a sort of de facto cultural anthropologist along the way. 

His eye is discerning but it doesn’t discriminate: the quirky, the refined, the interesting, the elegant, the chic and the sometimes outrageous, all shot very simply on the street, come together in a visual history of the fashion business, marking our place in the timeline of style.

“The Sartorialist,” a hefty 512-page paperback hot off of the press from Penguin, is a clever nod to the democratic nature of his photography, more high school yearbook than highbrow coffee-table tome. It’s chock-full of photographs you will want to pore over with friends, searching for those you know — and maybe even yourself.

via: The Moment

Michael Jackson and Bubbles by Jeff Koons.

 Provocative conceptual artist Jeff Koons has made a career of turning tabletop kitsch and American novelties into megalithic icons, and Jackson was not immune. Koons’s porcelain statue of the singer esthetically recalls the precious glass tchotchkes your grandmother might have kept, but the sculpture's message was more suggestive. Part of Koons’s Banality series, the piece is outsized (more than six feet long) and depicts Jackson’s young, male pet chimpanzee nestled in the singer’s arms. It sold for $5.6 million at auction.

via: Jackson in Five: Iconic Artworks of the Late Singer

"Found and Interviewed" -- David Lynch

Fans of David Lynch probably wouldn't have pegged the avant-garde director (Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) as an Internet star, but he's well on his way now. Lynch launched The Interview Project online this week--he traveled the country and filmed several interviews with strangers, and will post mini-documentaries on the project's Web site every three days. We love the idea of groundbreaking filmmakers taking their work directly to the Web, so we're all for this idea. Plus, it's David Lynch. Come on.

via: The Daily Beast