From the advertising card series “Cabinet Photos, Allen & Ginter” (H807, Type 1), issued by Allen & Ginter. courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

1. Hidden along a hallway on the mezzanine level of the Metropolitan Museum’s new American Wing is A Sport for Every Girl: Women and Sports in the Collection of Jefferson R. Burdick — a tiny exhibition of nineteenth-century cards produced by tobacco companies to promote their brand. What is unique about this collection is their depiction of ‘sporting girls’ — female athletes, dancers, baseball players, gymnasts, sharpshooters and more. The women, however, were not depicted as individual accomplished athletes, but rather as flirtatious ladies pursuing a common hobby (unlike their male counterparts, whose names and accomplishments were regularly notated). To study idiosyncratic imagery and inspire a good laugh, check out this exhibition — it is on view until July 2013.

Fiks’s Gorky Park (Парк им. Горького), 1970s. courtesy of Ugly Ducking Presse.

2. Published by Ugly Duckling Presse in February 2013, Moscow is an artist book by Yevgeniy Fiks that records gay cruising sites prevalent around Soviet Moscow from the 1920s to the early 1990s, when the USSR disbanded. Since homosexuality was criminalized in the Soviet Union under Stalin, queer culture was forced to hidden sites. Taken in 2008, the 31 photographs display nondescript and uninhabited locations around the city that do not disclose their subversive history. Along with two essays — including a newly-translated 1934 letter from the British communist Harry Whyte to Joseph Stalin that presents a Marxist defense of homosexuality — the photographs provide a rare insight into this often-overlooked facet of Soviet history.

May 11, 1929: An international Rhönrad contest in Würzberg, Germany. courtesy of The New York Times.

3. Once I’ve had my daily fill of French bulldog and sad cat videos, I head over to the New York Times’ Tumblr, The Lively Morgue. Derived from the newspaper’s archive of over five million prints and contact sheets and 300,000 stacks of negatives, this blog reveals a diverse range of historical and anecdotal imagery such as a 1958 picture of a painter retouching the Capitol’s frescoes, a 1935 photograph of a motorized unicycle, and an image of a 1968 student protest rally in Washington Square, NYC. Perhaps what makes this photo blog stand apart from the many other offerings of its kind is the inclusion of a scan of the reverse side of each photograph. The backside includes the photographer and photo editor’s original notations regarding the image’s sequence, context, licensing agency, and even the amount paid for it. It also often displays the published caption that accompanied the image in the paper. These details not only teach us more about the image itself, but also about the inner-workings of the Times’ photo departments since the early-twentieth century.

4. Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of Kaoru Ishibashi — a violinist, singer and composer. He came onto the indie music scene through the band Jupiter One, then joined forces with Regina Spektor and Of Montreal, and is now touring a solo act in support of his album 151a that came out in 2012. Ishibashi’s gorgeous voice, soaring string arrangements, and climactic compositions inspire a complex range of emotions throughout the album.

5. The Gatekeepers is a documentary consisting entirely of interviews with six former heads of Israel’s secret internal security service (the Shin Bet). These men answer difficult questions about the country’s strategy against terrorism, internal political divide, and the enduring occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. A lot of films have been made about the individual and national conflicts in Israel, but this one is unique in the same way that Errol Morris’s The Fog of War offered a singular view of the Vietnam War. The Gatekeepers is characterized by a strong belief and pride in the State of Israel, but its unequivocal conclusion is that the country’s tactics are frequently de-humanizing, destructive and most of all — self-defeating. That this message is coming from the very individuals who helped craft this policy makes this film a must-see for those interested in the issue.

6. A Jeffrey Lewis performance is a total experience — you get music, comics, and good old- fashioned storytelling. This NYC native is a talented songwriter, but his tendency to incorporate his ‘low budget documentaries’ into his live shows is really what got me hooked. The ‘films’ consist of his incredible illustrations projected onto a stretched piece of fabric with the aid of an overhead projector. Lewis accompanies this imagery with songs that tell the narrative we are witnessing. He has tackled the history of Communism (in multiple parts), the Watchmen, and the post-punk band The Fall, among many other topics.

Book shields. courtesy of Interference Archive.

7. Interference Archive is a small space in Gowanus that houses a collection of archival materials of social movement history. The archive of posters, buttons, maps, fliers and more was born from the personal collection of artists Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, and has since received donations from additional individuals. The organization opened its doors to the public in fall 2012 with exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, and workshops. This fascinating collection makes me wonder how we will archive the movements of our future in this digital age?

Kjartansson’s The Visitors, 2013. courtesy of Luhrig Augustine.

8. Ragnar Kjartansson’s nine-channel video installation at Luhring Augustine gallery, The Visitors, is a music performance that unfolds over nine different locations in a house on Rokeby Farm in the Hudson Valley. Kjartansson invited musicians from his native Iceland to perform a song in a single take. Most of the screens display one musician playing an instrument and singing the same song. For me, the most interesting aspect of the installation was watching the gallery visitors respond to the song — with its emotional peaks and valleys — in the course of the 53-minute video. They mostly moved slowly through the room, lingering around each screen until finally settling (primarily) on the one that contains the most people in it. After spending some time in the gallery, most visitors would ultimately begin singing along to the main lyric, ‘once again I fall into my feminine ways,’ abandoning any sense of self-awareness and joining in on the communal feeling the video evokes.

Happy faces hidden in a cross-section of a blade of marram grass. courtesy of I fucking love science.

9. ‘Liking’ the I fucking love science Facebook page truly made my days so great. I find myself saying “Whoa” more than ever before… This page is run by Elise Andrew, who offers up an array of daily posts on some of the weirdest creatures nature has produced, humorous and esoteric inventions, and serious discoveries in health and environmental issues. I would have never guessed there is a science nerd hidden inside me.

10. And finally, for a little inspiration. The Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project (P+NAP) is a visual and literary arts project that connects teaching artists and scholars to men at Stateville Prison (in Greater Chicago) through classes, workshops and guest lectures. Artists and writers offer 14-week classes to the prisoners in a range of subjects from poetry and visual arts to film and history. Each course selected by the inmate results in finished projects — visual art, creative writing or scholarly works. Sometimes I dream that every community initiative would include art, and every art project would encompass a community.

Robert Johnson’s original 78 recording, Me and The Devil Blues / Little Queen of Spades, 1937, Keith Richards Blues Collection. courtesy of the ARChive.

1.The idea that, hiding in plain sight somewhere in Soho, lies a perfectly organized, meticulously archived and scrupulously preserved 2-million records collection of ‘popular music of all cultures and races throughout the world from 1950 to the present’ is pretty amazing in itself. Add to this the fact that you can NOT access this collection (unless you privileged/ultra-talented self is currently enrolled at Columbia, or via ridiculously expensive a la carte arrangements) and you have the ARChive of Contemporary Music. Of course a board of advisors including Lou Reed, David Bowie, Youssou N’Dour, Keith Richards and Martin Scorsese (among others) also helps consolidate the aura of this place in my imagination. I am kind of hoping to never see it. Maybe only before I die… I will be let in with a special golden pass and, upon placing some undiscovered Robert Johnson acetate on the turntable, will be possessed by the Devil itself, streaming out of the grooves into my eye sockets, Raiders of the Lost Ark’s final scene style.

The Orion Bullets. courtesy of APOD.

2. Sometimes the life makes us feel bigger and more important that what we really are. New York and its ‘The World in a City’ feel definitely don’t help, in this sense. I get my daily dose of humilty and re-focus from NASA. This blog is pretty much self-expalnatory in its title, providing exactly what it says: An (often unbelievably good/original/relevant) astronomy picture per day. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Who the hell would know… you have to trust them NASA guys. After all (if you believe…) they put a man on the moon. A man on the Moon! In any case: the cosmos looks so immense and sexy here that you wish you had one of those Time Square mega-screens on your bedrooom ceiling, set to slideshow this stuff on and on. I bet the site is on Trevor Paglen’s bookmarks, too.

woman holding fish. courtesy of Honza Zamojski.

3. When I was a kid, I really liked fishing. Growing up, I also realized that I liked women. And laughing. And contemporary art. Therfore polish artist Honza Zamojski’s Women Holding Fish tumblr totally makes my day. Before spending my time gazing at this impressive, quirky photo collection, I was fulfilling some other sort of Freudian fantasy by watching Vladimir Putin (eeek) hold dolphins, bears, tigers and a LOT of different dogs in his lap. In those pictures, Putin was often bare-chested, which kind of added to the whole awkwardness of it. Now I only watch consistently hot (or hott-ish) women holding fresh, colorful fish of all sizes and species. Thanks Honza for redirecting my attention to what really matters.

Keith Lemley’s Super Blue, 2011. courtesy of the artist, via Uncopy.

4. Now that VVORK is gone, I need another curator-friendly pics and assorted info aggregator. Uncopy is not bad. Just wish it was updated a little more often. The small texts (metaworks) and link sections are pretty good, too, sending you out to many more similar resources, visual and/or otherwise, many of which are available for download.

screenshot of the Gallery of Lost Art. courtesy of the Tate.

5. Who doesn’t love what can never come back? Ah! The eternal thrill of the invisible, the lost, the irreplaceable, urban myths and myths proper. I do know this is old-ish news (the site was launched a while ago) but I’m STILL addicted to Tate’s Gallery of Lost Art website. First and foremost, a tip of the hat to whoever designed this beautiful, dynamic site. Maybe I would have kept the Twilight Zone-y background drone a little lower but yeah, great job guys. This archive of ‘lost’ artwork covers all sorts of failed, destroyed, unrealized projects. From Bas Jan Ader’s disastrous trans-oceanic sailing expedition to the drawing that de Kooning donated for the realization of Rauschenberg mythical Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953). The site itself will vanish and add up to ‘lost’ art on June 2013 so check it out before it’s too late!

 
6. Whenever I’m out of ideas (or having clearly lame ideas, or not being able to work on better ideas, etc.) I summon the unbelievable animated shorts of Norman Mc Laren. Start with the Classic Boogie Doodle, above, for a quick brain massage. This Scottish/Canadian Academy Award and Cannes Film Festival winner jazzed the 50’s experimental film world up with a series of mesmerizing animated shorts. McLaren drew and colored directly on 35mm film blanks, switching between reductionist figuration and pure abstraction, as well as between proto- electronica and other music soundtracks with humor and gusto. His work is not only beautiful and energizing, but also important as an example of something thouroghly accessible, yet endowed with a superior and sophisticated understanding of color and line rooted in the avant-garde. Many videos are available on YouTube in decent quality.

Want something a little darker and (even more) surrealistic? Len Lye is your man. A Neo Zeland-born globetrotter, Lye’s early flirtations with Surrealism shine through a body of exquisitely minimalistic pieces. Many in black and white, realized scratching the film surface directly.

Check the historical Free Radicals (1958), but don’t forget his early animation and stop motion animations, and that YouTube has many in various degrees of quality.

GoogleEarth view of Herbert Bayer’s Earth Mound, 1955. courtesy of MOCA Los Angeles.

7. I love Land Art, Earthworks, all of that. Therefore I painfully regret not making the trip to MOCA Los Angeles to see the game-changing Ends of Earth — the Miwon Kwon curated retrospective that rewrote large chapters of this ongoing art world saga. Fortunately for me and for everyone, they published an exhaustive catalog and superbly designed website that lets you visualize historical masterpieces, like Herbert Bayer’s 1955 (!) Earth Mound via full-screen Google Earth links. Almost like being there. Once more, Google Earth proves to be a great instrument, and platform for all sorts of serious and semi-serious research, as awesome blogs like Google Maps Mania clearly attest…think about this as a whole new way of imagining socio-political geography, at the tip of your finger.

8. What happens if you stimulate the skin of a longfin squid with vibrations from Cypress Hills’Insane in the Brain? This —

If the Vimeo is not enough you can go see the damn thing on a much bigger screen at Welcome to the Real, a show I curated as a NURTUREart off-site project. Open until March 30 at {TEMP} art space.

1. The documentary Five Broken Cameras is one of the best films I have seen in recent memory. Nominated for an Oscar, the film is co-directed by Emad Burnat, a Palestinian man who captured the opposition to Israeli settlers by residents of his West Bank village, Bil’in. Israeli peace activists also joined the resistance. The film is brilliantly structured around the acquisition and subsequent destruction of the five cameras that Burnat used to document all that was happening. His initial camera was purchased to capture the birth of his son. We watch the first five years of his son’s life while also seeing Burnat risk his own life, lose his friends, and replace his cameras as they are shot and destroyed. This documentary has my vote.

Gene Wilder as Wonka. courtesy of Letters of Note.

2. Arguably the best entrance of a character in the history of cinema is Gene Wilder’s portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The entrance, complete with limp, cane, somersault and surprise recovery, were entirely his idea – as illustrated in this letter. He wanted to introduce Wonka this way so that for the rest of the film the viewer would never know if he was telling the truth or not. The rest of the letter addresses specific details of his costume, including the suggestion to shorten his top hat by two inches. His investment in this sort of detail along with his deadpan delivery… “wait, stop, come back.” join together to make Wilder’s Willy Wonka a classic.

Newkirk’s Long Division (v.1) (detail), 2012. courtesy of Blum and Poe, Los Angeles.

3. Born in the Bronx and currently based in Los Angeles, the artist Kori Newkirk creates works using a combination of images and objects in a lyrical way to address race, family, gender and politics. For his piece: Long Division (2012) he cuts pictures of crime scenes out of the newspaper every time he sees one. He collects them and pins them to the wall connecting each image to the next by way of the yellow crime scene tape that runs through frame. The delicate, fluttering portrait of crime marking both time and place, that emerges, is striking. The piece is drawing, photography, performance, and ephemera all in one.

image from Rogers’ A Method of Inquiry, courtesy of the artist.

4. Jonathan Loïc Rogers, a photographer born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, finds inspiration in the abandoned and condemned buildings of the area. Many artists have an attraction to ‘ruin porn’ — but that’s not what this work is, nor does that interest Rogers. In his series A Method of Inquiry, Rogers photographed fifteen places, then cleaned them — in one case spending 3 months to get the empty theater dirtless to his satisfaction — then re-photographs the space. All that frenetic energy is for the image only, the spaces will not be saved and the debris that is just out of frame will soon overtake the buildings again. There is beauty in both the action and the resulting image.

Charles Kaufman. courtesy of Interview Magazine.

5. The 70-minute BAFTA speech Charlie Kaufman gave on being an artist is one of the best, raw, real descriptions of the struggle and importance of artistic expression and staying true to one’s own voice that I have heard.

I do believe you have a wound too. I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that won’t be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic. It is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself. But it is the thing that wants to live.

Listen to the whole speech.

Levine’s Poses. courtesy of Kelly Cove Press.

6. To go to a life drawing class and decide to write poems rather than make drawings is in-and-of-itself brilliant. The resulting poems, accompanied by Richard Diebenkorn’s drawings in Genine Lentine‘s new book Poses: An Essay Drawn from the Model— attest to the ingenious idea. As gestural with her words as Diebenkorn is in his drawings, we sense the artist’s model and the artist in their awkwardness and grace. This collection of poems is part of Lentine’s gentle curiosity about everything.

For her project, she conducts a series of podcast interviews that take place while both interviewee and interviewer (Lentine) are lying on a mattress. From this relaxed position a conversation about discomfort begins– and goes where it will.

7. Earlier this year I went to a fundraiser for young dancers — Kumble Theater’s Stars of New York Dance, or what I like to call: Dancing With Your State Legislature. Modeled after Dancing With the Stars, state senators and other local politicians agreed to learn and perform a routine with the guidance and partnership of a professional. The night couldn’t have been more fun, the politicians couldn’t have been more game, and the cause couldn’t have been a better one.

Pussy Riot. courtesy of n+1.

8. The Moscow based artist group Pussy Riot garnered worldwide attention when they were arrested for performing at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Their music video: “Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!” aimed to criticize the church’s support of Putin. Three of the group members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevitch, were convicted and sentenced. Two of the three were sent to prison camps.

Excerpted from Yekaterina Samutsevitch’s closing statement:

Perhaps the unpleasant, far-reaching effect of our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. At first, they tried to present our performance as a prank pulled by heartless, militant atheists. This was a serious blunder on their part, because by then we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out its media assaults on the country’s major political symbols.

In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

It is worth reading the entire statement.

9. Los Angeles based poet, Scott Wannberg, died last summer. Wannberg worked at Dutton’s bookstore in Brentwood and frequently got around Los Angeles by bus. He eventually moved to Oregon in 2008 as his health deteriorated. Influenced by the beats Wannberg was one of the founders of the Carma Bums. His humor and generosity in turn touched so many other writers. Here is one of his poems, THE ONGOING STORY:

Dancers of a music
softly sculpting nouns of
seeing
weaving ceremonial rugs of
empathy
America’s complicated biography
always unraveling
in rich sentences of
the heart
History, a confusing series of streets
in a dimly lit end of the world
made accessible
by his sweet singing
in a voice that cultivated the young American
earth and helped
teach it how to
dream
She painted the stories between the
stories
Together they invented
a rhythm
that flows clear
to the source of
our tired bones
and allows us to
believe
For Page and Eloise
dancing on the opening
sentence structure
of being
May your energy
keep us all
alive

The KVB. courtesy of Alix Lambert.

10. I was initially introduced to the music of the British band The KVB when I was asked to direct an episode of Room 205, which features them. The band consists of Klaus Von Barrel and his girlfriend Kat Day. Their hypnotic sound — a marriage of Von Barrel’s vocals and lo-fi synthesizers is well matched to their lack of movement or affect when they perform. Kat, who is also a visual artist, has created a number of videos for the band. Room 205 Episode forthcoming, stay tuned.

French sailer Bernard Moitessier.

1. You may be somewhat familiar with the 1968 Golden Globe sailing race, which was the first non-stop around the world single-hand sailing competition. Today, this feat is accomplished by teenagers in an almost quotidian fashion, but in the late 60’s it was still a life-and-death challenge with little instrumentation besides compass and sextant. Bernard Moitessier, a Frenchman, was the projected winner of the ill-fated Golden Globe race, and just as he was drawing towards the finish line, he decided to turn his boat around and sail the world again, eschewing the fame and fortune that would come from a record-breaking win. Moitessier enjoyed the zen and quietude of the sea so much that he began to sail for the pure joy of it rather than the notoriety. Most accounts of the Golden Globe race either focus on its winner Robert Knox Johnson, or one of the colorful losers, Donald Crohurst, who faked his voyage progress and in total lunacy, committed suicide off the coast of South America. However, Moitessier is the unsung sailor and I find his journey not only romantic, but heroic.

A reader at The Making of Americans. image courtesy of Peter Russo.

2. Picking up where Paula Cooper Gallery left off, Triple Canopy hosted their second annual marathon reading of Gertrude Stein’s impenetrable modernist tome, The Making of Americans. Featuring dozens of readers over an entire weekend, the marathon has become something of a spectacle. It can be equal parts fun and tedious, yet somewhat entertaining to hear people fumble over the repetitions and roller coaster language of Stein. The mise-en-scène of the marathon reading is somewhere between an underground Hasidic Jew Talmud recital and a secret tribunal of a banana republic due to the rather bleak, windowless space and stark reading table and microphone. All of this adds to the relentless, no frills prose of Stein. Triple Canopy themselves once said “The Medium was Tedium.” So, if the shoe fits!

KLF. photo by Ronnie Randall/Corbis, courtesy of SPIN.

3. After completely deleting their entire back catalogue of songs after they disbanded in 1992, a number of KLF songs magically and mysteriously appeared on Spotify. The seminal concept-band is known for drastic acts of creativity, such as burning a million British Pounds on a beach, shooting the audience at the Barbican with fake machine guns or traversing the countryside looking for mystical ley lines in a time-traveling vintage police car called Ford Timelord. Subsequently, they are one of the strangest, most intriguing musical acts. It’s been over 20 years since you could access the KLF through recognized channels — either by buying a CD or Mp3, so this was a big deal in the world of Mystical Stadium House. Many thought they would never again hear The Lost Sounds of Mu. All Bound for MuMu Land!

Robert Ferro. courtesy of Elisa Rolle.

4. Robert Ferro was a novelist and founder of the Violet Quill, a seminal gay literary group in New York and died of AIDS in 1988 only two months after his life partner, Michael Grumley. The two men were inseparable and were great forces in the gay literary milieu of 70’s and 80’s New York. In the late 60’s at the behest of a gypsy in Rome, the two men sailed to the Caribbean in a small boat in search of the lost city of Atlantis. What they did find was a strange, underwater wall off the island of Bimini. They wrote a compelling and magical book about their journey titled Atlantis: The Autobiography of a Search which launched their literary careers. Every year they are remembered by the Ferro Grumley Award, given out to the best in gay fiction.

Brand New.

5. No one with any cultural capital gives Brand New their due. The band is an important part of the late 90’s Long Island ‘screamo’ and hardcore scene, but has consistently surpassed that and developed into one of the more unique, complex, dark and moody bands playing today. I think Jesse Lacey (the lead singer/songwriter) is firmly in the direct lineage of Morrissey, Eliot Smith and Jeff Mangum and like them, expresses true pathos and carries a signature voice. Every album of theirs sounds different than its predecessor and we sometimes wait five years between each. In my opinion, after you hear Jesse Lacey, most voices sound like nails scratching on a chalkboard.

JFK, Jr.

6. John F Kennedy Jr fulfilled Kennedy to every measure. Devastatingly good looks, uniquely classic style and remarkably tragic death. The archetype of 90’s New York yuppie chic who made politics, magazines and TriBeCa look cool when no one else could. What’s not to love?

Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet and filmmaker.

7. In 1999 I fell in love with Pier Paolo Pasolini when a new friend in Florence, Italy gave me a book of his poems. I then set out to translate them and thus my first introduction to Pasolini was as a poet, not a filmmaker. This holiday, the Museum of Modern Art featured the films and poetry of Pasolini with concurrent screenings at PS1. For me, it was like a Christmas gift! I have always felt that PPP is one of the more under-recognized (outside of Italy) poets and filmmakers, so this attention was long overdue.

A farmhouse.

8. The Gaeltacht is the Irish language speaking part of Ireland, and I have been romantically fascinated with it since I studied Irish a few years ago. I have fleeting fantasies about buying a dilapidated old thatch roof farmhouse on a windswept cliff, and frequently stalk Western Ireland real estate websites. The ratio of charm to dilapidation is unparalleled in Europe. I consider this a rather undiscovered place in terms of people buying properties on a whim. A dhéanann an Ghaeltacht i dteach álainn!

Montgomery Street, near the Hudson River. courtesy of Mattron.

9. Almost like the Gaeltacht, Newburgh, NY can seem remote and a real estate gamble but I assure you, this place is on the uptick. Filled with architectural treasures from the Hudson Valley’s “Golden Age,” Newburgh is ripe for a renaissance. With a rich and unique history, close proximity to New York City and a burgeoning arts scene, I say Forget NADA Hudson. I think the New Art Dealers Alliance should have their annual art fair in Newburgh- it’s right across the river from DIA Beacon and 10 minutes from the Storm King Art Center and Newburgh needs the attention.

courtesy of FIAF.

10. The French Institute/Alliance Francaise has a perfectly acceptable movie theater and every Tuesday they screen a French language film that is curated into themes. The month of February features the strange and difficult films of Leos Carax. One of my cherished moments at FIAF cinema Tuesday was a few years ago on Valentine’s Day — they were showing the 400 Blows and I was coincidentally sitting next to Drew Barrymore, who brought her own sandwich and juice box to the screening. I was single at the time and thought how lovely and quaint it was that this famous movie star was just having a simple night to herself at the French Institute. Simple, mais très chic!

image by Dan Allegretto. courtesy of the artist.

1. Bobby Doherty. Matthew Leifheit. Dan AlegrettoThese guys, whose names I have just typed, are friends of mine, who also happen to be three of my favorite photographers right now. All recent art school grads, these three create interesting still photographs that serve as a constant source of inspiration and awesomeness. Bobby’s images are enigmatic, in that his photographs and the way that he sees seem to provide a never-ending source of questions and answers. Matthew has a way of capturing beauty within the most mundane situations and self-publishes the totally awesome Matte Magazine (which you can get at Printed Matter ! Go get one!). Dan’s pictures have a quality that is simultaneously tragic and hilarious, which is the best! I feel that their images all compliment each other beautifully while all bringing something different to the table.

Phaedra Parks of Real Housewives of Atlanta. courtesy of Bravo.

2. Reading Critical Theory while watching Reality TV is a practice I began my senior year of art school, whilst researching ideas around
reality television and how it correlates to a metaphysical simulacrum. Next thing I know I’m reading Aristotle while watching Real Housewives and I! Am! GETTING IT! Ideas and concepts were syncing up in ways that they hadn’t before, and everything was in it’s right place. I highly suggest blending some theory with whatever your reality TV poison may be to create a beautiful brain cocktail that’s equal parts good and bad for you. If you need a starting off point, might I suggest a little Žižek with your America’s Got Talent, or perhaps some John Berger and The Bachelor. If you really want some fun, throw in some Guy Debord with Mobbed — a terrible show in which guests surprise and/or apologize to their loved ones by throwing them into a terrible situation involving Howie Mandel and flash mobs. Definitely a spectacle to behold.

Warren’s Self-portrait as woman in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso / Online Deceptions by MommaBird, 2012. courtesy of The Hole, New York.

3. I’ve been obsessed with Jaimie Warren’s work since she was first brought to my attention many moons ago, and my love for her only grew stronger after viewing her new show at The Hole Gallery in Soho. The show, entitled The Whoas of Female Tragedy II, is a hyperpop self-portrait experience built around limitless extensions of the self, internet culture, and reality. Warren’s bizarre images of herself-as-celebrities-as-food (Lasagna Del Rey, Madonut) and riffs on totallylookslike.com are funny, interesting to look at, and are weird as fuuuuuck. Warren also produces a kids show, Whoop Dee Doo, out of Kansas City that’s like Sesame Street’s surreal little sister, aka everything I wish I would’ve had growing up.

Warren’s The Whoas of Female Tragedy II is view at the The Hole, 312 Bowery, New York NY 10012 through February 9, 2013.

4.Lauren Greenfield is a photographer and film maker whose work deals with femininity, classism, and the American dream. Her 1999 book, Girl Culture, is a seminal photo series observing the day-to-day lives of American teenage girls. Over the past decade she’s explored her fascination with American excess and femininity in short documentaries like Kids and Money and Teen Spa, but her grand opus would have to be her feature-length documentary, Queen of Versailles, released last year. The film set out to tell the story of the Seigels, a multi-millionaire family who were working to build their dream home modeled after Marie Antoinette’s palace of Versailles. However, halfway through filming, the 2008 financial crisis reared its ugly head, and the family is forced to confront the harsh reality that they are broke as a joke. I cannot stress how much I love this doc, as I found it to be an extremely honest and captivating way of illustrating the crux of our current American plight, and can hopefully be observed as a cautionary tale.

Aura image from Magic Jewelry, New York. courtesy of Jamie Simone.

5. I’m not crazy into new agey stuff, like psychic readings or tarot cards, but aura readings are definitely my new obsession. There’s a place in Chinatown in NYC called Magic Jewelry that does them and they made me a believer. They use a technique called electrography, where you place your hands on sensors while a woman takes your photograph with what is known as a Kirlian camera. What’s produced is an image of yourself with different colors representing your past, present, and future. A woman then reads the image and tells you what the colors represent. I went with a group of girls and we all had an array of different readings that were weirdly on-point with our lives and personalities. It’s definitely trippy and I recommend it, cuz even if you don’t wanna buy the hype you’ll at least get a pretty dreamy polaroid out of it!

Spinning hype man. courtesy of Signe Pierce.

6. Over the past year and a half I’ve spent some time assisting photographers shooting some extremely ritzy NYC bar and bat mitzvahs. I find them endlessly entertaining and am never-not shocked at what I see — from weird little hors d’oeuvres (mini ice cream cones filled with caviar?) to pink mechanical bulls. But I think my favorite thing about these parties are the teams of dancers and ‘hype artists,’ hired to pump the kids up and be comfortable with themselves whilst in the midst of their most undeniably awkward years. These people are hired to jump up and down, sing, dance, scream, and engage the kids on the dance floor for hours, and it is SO AWESOME. Mitvah hype teams’ vibe ends up being felt by all — they truly deliver the entire energy of the party. I often leave a Saturday night mitzvah feeling like my night has already peaked, which I both find cool, AND sad, because if you ask me, all party people should go into a fiesta with the gusto of a hype artist. Take note!

7. I know that this came out a few weeks ago and by this point could be considered late (especially considering how internet-centric the video is.. I mean, moot is in it) but I DGAF because I think I have watched the video for Anamanaguchi’s single Meow a million times since its release. My obsession is not waning. Anamanaguchi’s music has always reminded me of youth, suburbia, and reckless abandon, which is probably why this video hits so hard. It is straight up balls-to-the-walls Americana silliness from start to finish and is visually rad. I feel like if MTV still existed it would be on constant rotation and would even get one of those little Buzzworthy labels that they used to give the really cool vids. I bet it would even make it to the 60-Day limit on TRL and they would have to retire it and the Anamanabbz would get one of those little TRL Gold Plaque things they used to give out. Also just love this song so hard, putting it on and thrashing the fuck out is my new method of drying my hair after the shower, you should try it.

Dev Hynes. courtesy of The Fader.

8. Dev is a musician/songwriter/producer/entity of a man that I am currently dying over. I love everything he touches and can’t get enough of the music he’s been making lately. He performs cool, funky-surfey music under the moniker Blood Orange, but is also responsible for writing two of the best songs of the past year — Sky Ferrierra’s Everything is Embarrassing and Solange Knowles’s Losing You. His music is melodic and pretty, sweet yet real. I believe him to be a genuine artist in the truest sense. Hynes has been performing and working with music for years and years and years (despite only being 27, prodigy!!). He’s just absolutely killing it as of late, and is carving out and defining a style that is unique and undeniably all his own.

image courtesy of the club.

9. Bossa Nova Civic Club is a new bar in New York that I am loving so hard right now. Self-described as a ‘tropical fantasy dance club,’ it indeed functions like a breath of fresh sea breeze in the middle of Brooklyn. The place exudes cool, lush vibes from the outside, and the interior delivers. It’s kinda got everything you need — sexy lounge vibes in the front, and a beautiful dance floor with an incredible sound system in the back. I’m pretty sure there’s no better remedy for the winter gloomies than a tequila sunrise, so go get yourself one and pretend like you’re dreamin’ on a beach instead of hanging out under the JMZ overpass. It’s called a fantasy club for a reason!

JamestownMall. courtesy of St Louis Patina.

10. Dead Malls are something most Americans should be able to enjoy, because I’ve got the feeling that every populated area has a dead mall within a 20-mile radius (or something to that degree). I don’t know exactly what it is about malls that are suffering/waning/dying, but they fill me with a really weird feeling of introspection and inspiration. I really feel like there’s no better way to observe the state of our country than by walking through these gigantic centers that at one time were so alive and thriving with their Cinnabons, tweens, and cell phone kiosks, yet now are ugly, weird, skeletons of what was once booming economy. The weird thing about a lot of these dead malls is that a lot of them still have a few stores that are open inside. So if you need to go to the Hallmark store (to, I don’t know.. buy a card?), you have to walk through a hallway of dread and emptiness to get to it. This is totally depressing, yes, but interesting too! Go support your local dead mall today, and tell them I sent ya.

Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White of THEESatisfaction. courtesy of Sub Pop Records.

1. It is pretty safe to say that I live in the internet. I sleep next to my laptop and carry my iPhone close to my chest everyday. One of the better parts of the internet (thug) life is meeting people from the net IRL (in real life).

Two summers ago I got into THEESatisfaction heavy. Songs like I Nigress and Permission to Bash were on every playlist. When I heard that these ladies were coming to New York for a show I knew I had to go. I have always been cautious when meeting people that I admire (Amiri Baraka, Shangela, Q-Tip, so on) but meeting Cat and Stas was a breeze. Much like their laid back style of dress and music they are good people, as well as incredible musicians and performers. Their video for QueenS, directed by dream hampton, is here.

2. Someone somewhere once said, “behind every great man is a great woman.” I’d say about 99% of the time that quote is completely inaccurate, unless we are talking about the male rap clique. Within every great rap group there is an even greater femcee. The first ladies (and female affiliates) of Ruff Ryders, Gangstarr, No Limit, Bad Boy, and Three 6 Mafia make my heart sing. From Bahamadia to Mia X, a few of those unladylike lyricists:

Lil’ Kim (Bad Boy/La Bella Mafia/Junior M.A.F.I.A.) — Can’t F*ck With Bee

Eve (Ruff Ryders) — Tambourine

Mia X (of No Limit) x Take Ya Man

La Esquina, 114 Kenmare, NY. courtesy of Grandlife Hotels.

3. La Esquina’s beef tacos are the best things I’ve ever ordered from a restaurant (under $5). I’m not sure how else to put it… I’ve walked, waited in lines, shed tears and borrowed money for the warm, meaty goodness of their dishes. They have two locations one on Kenmare in the LES — one pretty close to New Museum, and the other in Williamsburg around the corner from Glasslands Gallery. If you love tacos, good food, and live in New York you’d best find yourself in an Esquina ASAP. Oh, and they deliver.

4. Khalil Joseph recently directed two breath-taking short films for Shabazz Palaces’s Black UP and Black UP and Flying Lotus’s Until the Quiet Comes. I came across his video for Flying Lotus on a whim one sunny Saturday morning while eating a bowl of cheerios with vanilla almond milk. Back to Joseph, I watched the video and began to tear up, his work — specifically this moment — reset my thoughts about the ways that black, male sexuality could be displayed in contemporary film. (Also, if you are like me and think about gender representation and/or black male bodies in motion peep this, this and this).

The video for Black Up was already a win because I love the track and have been a Shabazz Palaces fan for a while. The video serves as metaphor for a fever dream, taking the viewer on a journey through a New York that is rarely seen. Joseph creates a dynamic, urban scene that is juxtaposed with the seeming serenity of nature occupied by corpses-like, immobile black figures.

Nikita Gale’s 580. courtesy of the artist.

5. Where do I even start when talking about the incredible Nikita Gale? This southern belle’s artwork is so cool! A self-taught conceptual artist Nikita is killing it. Her formal education is rooted in anthropology which you can see in works like her series Ad Tension that features old ads that are layered with photographs from incongruent, impactful moments in history. For example, she lays a photograph of Hitler over an ad for Kleenex:

work from NIkita Gales’s Ad Tension series. courtesy of the artist.

Gale’s work shows a deep understanding of the human experience. Her text work interrogates literacy and text. In her series 580, Gale writes please hundreds of times on a wall — the repetition engages our connotation and overuse of the the word Her heavy handed manipulation of text is fascinating and calming.

cover of Octavia Butler’s Kindred.

6. Octavia Butler is the captain of my ship. Her ability to engage science, race and history with grace is awe-inspiring. This summer I re-read her novel Kindred and began the Seeds to Harvest series. Butler’s characters are multifaceted and her writing style envelopes the reader with every page turn. If you are looking for a good read for the subway or something to read tucked in bed on a Sunday morning take a journey into her world.

work by Felandus Thames. courtesy of the artist.

7. I came across Felandus Thames’ swork very recently. His images have really stuck with me. Working on Black Contemporary Art, I am always getting lost in an artist’s work trying to find images that I want to share with our followers. Thames’ work has a great mix of implicit and covert nods to contemporary American culture. In his studies and works on paper he takes daguerreotypes and adds large colorful lips. Unlike other portrayals of minstrelsy, Thames’ narrative is not overbearing. He presents a new sense of beauty, his gaze incepts the viewers preconceived notions about photography of black subjects. The subtle beauty of his imagery deconstructs and reimagines the historical references he channels.

Anton Kannemeyer’s A Black Woman, 2011. courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

8. I’ve never been into comics, though I always wanted to be one of those cool kids who read X-Men or Batman. Instead, I spent most of my childhood playing with Barbies and listening to the Spice Girls. It was not until recently that I’ve gotten into comics produced by artists. One of my favorite at the moment is Anton Kanneymeyer of South Africa. His satirical images are poignant and entertaining, as he pokes fun at the political landscape of his homeland. In an interview for ION Magazine, Kanneymeyer states, “I think this is very important in my work, to show my complicity, to check and recheck my own fears and prejudices+” Kanneymer’s cartoons do just that, he employs satire to draw the viewer into his headspace and meditations on race, history and representation in post-apartheid South Africa.

documentation from Wilson’s Henry ‘Box’ Brown: Forever, 2012. courtesy of the artist.

9. Last week I had a long discussion with a friend about whether or not an artist’s body can be read as an object. After teasing out the ways that artists manipulate their bodies, and articulating a pseudo-concrete definition of art object we spoke about Wilmer Wilson IV. Wilson uses his body to drive historic narratives and illustrate how he thinks through his own identity and role as an artist.

In his three-part performance of Henry ‘Box’ Brown: Forever, Wilson travels around DC covered in stamps attempting to mail himself. At first glance, Wilson adorns his body in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and confusing to the unassuming viewer. When one engages the narrative and historical context of mailing one’s body Wilson’s performance is activated.

While conveying a storyline, Wilson uses his body to draft and communicate his message. I’m still unsure about whether or not his body is an object but this work definitely makes a case for both conclusions.

cover of Destination Motherland: the Roy Ayers Anthology, 2006.

10. To close, I have to include Roy Ayers’s Destination Motherland. This anthology of Ayer’s discography includes hits like Sweet Tears, Red, Black and Green, and We Live in Brooklyn, Baby. Ayer’s anthology is one that I keep in rotation on my busiest days. A little funkadelic, genre-defying, afrofuturistic jazz does the soul some good. Ayers, the father of acid jazz, has a crazy history having partnered with Fela Kuti, Guru (on Jazzmatazz), and most notably making the soundtrack for Coffy starring Pam Grier.

still from Breaking Dawn. image by Keaton Ventura.

1. Nothing makes my blood pump faster than the Twilight series. I have been fantasizing about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson sucking on each other’s blood since 2008 when the first twilight film was released.

Impatiently awaiting Breaking Dawn, released November 16, 2012, I had no idea I would experience some of the most visually stunning credits I have ever seen.

The motion graphics were comprised of aerial landscapes — sweeping forests, fractal geometry unconvinced by the human the eye. Billowing snowflakes falling in holy synchronicity under magnification left an unforgettable imprint in my mind. The color palette of images ranges from deep red fog, lush burgundy, and vivid sea greens. The names of the cast members appeared in smoke, set in heavily kerned sans serif white dissipating into blood red. I could not imagine a more dynamic introduction to the film, nor have after effects ever been quite so effective.

2. As a person who identifies as LGBTQ, I was extremely proud and affected by friend and artist iO Tillett Wright who recently gave a TED talk generally about her work as an photographer and specifically about a project on modern civil right issues. The artwork I create often addresses the subject of civil rights and importance of equality for same sex relationships. I could go deep into my own thoughts on how to support change, but iO says much of it in her discussion for TEDxWomen.

3. Here is a selection of my Top 3 Youtube videos that I watched this week, old and new —
 

 

 

Tufte’s Envisioning Information. courtesy of the author.

4. There is something that a lot of people in my generation are not looking at more — they are called Books. I have always had affinity for the book, as they are a source of power and thoughtful information. In college I use to make a lot of books by hand, and I still tend to see in narrative structures.

The other day I came across a book located in one of my favorite stores in Brooklyn, Open Air Modern called Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte.

The way we perceive space is a learned and developed construct. Hardly ever am I changed by the presentations of information on the Internet. If anything, much of the material out on the net comes and goes without consideration. I am consistently trying to fold common structure and presentation of ideas that are expressed via the World Wide Web. In today’s world the Internet is how we gain most of our information, but it does not mean that we have to leave great books like Envisioning Information in the dust.

still from Lana del Ray’s Ride.

5.

“It takes getting everything you ever wanted, and then loosing it, to know what true freedom is.”

Lana Del Rey

What’s up Lana Del Rey? Is it her glazed over gaze, her French kitten mohair H&M ad campaign? What draws me in is the very same thing that draws mainstream culture away from pop stars of this sort. I’m interested in the the poetics of popular culture. Lana holds an unacknowledged mystery, living in her own personal tragedy that she transforms effortlessly into a fantasy.

Christopher Glazek’s recent article for Artforum’s end of year issue — The Year in Pop — hit the nail on Del Rey’s coffin. We have accepted her as one of us, for better or for worse.

image courtesy of site of Kristin Fontana.

6. I read quite a bit about astrology, mostly in books. The information that exists on the internet is pretty diluted. There is one particular astrologer who I always go back on the net, as she gives fairly accurate and positive perspective week by week. I have been visiting the site of Kristin Fontana, Evolutionary Astrologer for almost three years now and gained a lot of knowledge about the way I consider the stars and what they can bring to a life. I hope someday to meet with this source in person.

A Google self-driving car at the Google headquarters. Photo by Justin Sullivan, courtesy of The New Yorker.

7. When I was young, I watched a lot of cartoons. The The Jetsons were a personal favorite of mine because I have always had an inherent love for technology and pondering the future. The intro to the cartoon, if you don’t remember, depicted the Jetson family flying around in an art deco hover like craft, where each family member would be dropped from the bottom of vehicle.

The Jetsons cartoon affected a lot of people’s idea of the future and human transportation. Although we not quite there yet, some changes in automation are allowing us to live more like Jetsons. For the past four years Google has been developing a car that drives itself. Maybe we will not even be using the term drive next time around.

Read more about Google self-driving car in this New Yorker article, and watch more here.

a porcelain piece in WEAM’s collection. image by Analisa Teachworth.

8. I have been attending Miami Art Basel now for the past five years. I walked by the World Erotic Art Museum a handful of times but never ventured in. In this year 2012, I decided to pay a visit to the largest collection of erotic art in the world, with over 4000 erotic based works from around the globe.

I was not disappointed.

The museum, located in the heart of South Beach, was a treasure chest, containing illustrations of familiar Disney cartoons in positions I had never imagined. I found tiny porcelain sculptures of Leda and the Swan — one of my favorite stories in Greek mythology in which Zeus comes to Leda in the form of a swan and makes love to her. Antique 18th century marble hand carved centaurs along side fiberglass sculptures of two women riding a double-edged dildo was enitled Double Trouble.

All the erotic work lead to me the familiar question an artist asks — what is new? The conclusion was the same — nothing. However, I left WEAM with the realization that the modern artist has a responsibility to continue creating erotic works of art.

still from video of Baumgartner’s jump. courtesy of Red Bull.

9. I spent one morning on a live stream from the internet watching a man jump from the Stratosphere of earth. The project, Red Bull Stratos, was an attempt to break a record, funded by Red Bull. The workings of this jump are incredibly complicated. I took a lot of screen grabs and also made a youtube video of the space jump:

Here is Red Bull’s statement on the Jump:

The purpose of the Red Bull Stratos mission is to transcend human limits. Supported by a team of experts Felix Baumgartner ascended to 128,100 feet in a stratospheric balloon and made a freefall jump rushing toward earth at supersonic speeds before parachuting to the ground. His successful feat on Oct. 14, 2012 holds the potential to provide valuable medical and scientific research data for future pioneers +

my nails by MP. image courtesy of the artist.

10. Last but not least, I want to write about my friend Madeline Pool. Based in Los Angeles, she is nail artist with a very cool style. She just did my nails and she has done major celebrity nails, like Ke$ha. Madeline goes hard in the nail paint and brings the best nail game I have ever seen. Check her work! @mpnails!

Jeremy Deller’s ‘Sacrilege,’ 2012. courtesy of the artist.

1. So if you haven’t heard, time travel is illegal in China; more specifically, any cultural material depicting or using it as a main plot-point. The Chinese Administration for Radio, Film, and Television condemns time travel programs, which according to the state:

lack positive thoughts and meaning….casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation +

Oh wait, does that sound familiar? Perhaps suspiciously exactly like the precise task of artists? Better outlaw them too (see: Ai Weiwei). Perhaps the revolutionary potential of cultural materials that are both expansive in their imaginative thinking and also escapist in their entertainment value fosters the kind of individualist, desire-motivated thinking that is intolerably threatening to oppressive regimes. For this reason, we must open-heartedly embrace all forms of cultural material that include this trope, even if it means we have to watch movies like Ashton Kutcher’s The Butterfly Effect or continue to fetishize Michael J. Fox and 1985 DeLoreans. What would our cultural landscape be without people like Orson Welles or Chris Marker, or more recently artists like Adrian Villar Rojas, whose work calls upon eras both prehistoric and futuristic, or Jeremy Deller, who during the London Olympics made an inflatable Stonehenge-shaped moon bounce? Even movies like the recent and exquisite Holy Motors, directed by Leos Carax, are to be staunchly supported, if for nothing else than their mental flexibility to infiltrate, alternate, and transport between worlds and dimensions. Long live the frivolous, the absurd, the monstrous, and the casual construction of myths.

Kim Kardashian krying. courtesy of E!

2. There are plenty of parodic twitter accounts, and many of them make use of the effective, but ultimately easy trick of mingling high and low. That said, somehow, the author of KimKierkegaardashian, or
@KimKierkegaard, takes this gamble into the most absurd of territories, fusing the luxury good-flecked vernacular of the Kanye-dating, Mercedes G-Wagon-driving, fragrance-pushing, booty-bumping reality television star (read: phraseology having to do with style, mock-horror at having to do work, distress involving the condition of her nails, etc.) with the sedately doleful insights of the foundational existentialist Soren Kierkegaard, deftly weaving existential dread with spirited bimbo-latry.

still from Shah’s ‘Between the Waves,’ 2012.

3. Tejal Shah‘s Between the Waves, 2012 was one of the more unlikely (and physically out of the way) additions to Documenta 13. While the work itself is dauntingly sprawling, the saturnine beauty and primordial tone of Shah’s five-chapter circular fable points to a contemporary condition of uncertainty. The artist captures this anxious and collective millennial straddling and searching for the defining features of our present by using that which is undecipherable, pictorially and historically, of the past. Adopting strategies similar to artists like A. L. Steiner, Matthew Barney, Mika Rottenberg, and most obviously Rebecca Horn (whose own Einhorn was exhibited in Documenta V), Shah’s 85-minute piece references archaeology of the Indus Valley in Western India, home of the earliest known symbolic representation of a single-horned animal — which the work posits as a Unicorn — dating from 5000 – 2000 BC. The work engages the mythological, via the symbol of the Unicorn, as something co-opted from the East by the West, but also as a potent symbol for sexuality and gender. The artist, who is Bombay-based, but studied at SAIC, deals ambitiously with Indian transgender communities, known as hijra / hijada, notions of “hysteria” by way of feminism, orientalism, the body, religious iconography, mythology, and animism. A sculptural tablet blinks white light, which is revealed to be an iPhone Morse code app, suggesting the object is a Rosetta stone-like cipher for the piece. The title alludes to Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts, and the five chapters that comprise the main channel — Dreamtime, Catastrophe, Regeneration, Hedonism, Ache — each correspond to a poem commissioned by Minal Hajratwala, poems that are reminiscent of modernists like Mina Loy or HD.

image from Gob Squad’s Infinite Jest, 2012. image courtesy of the artists.

4. This past summer in and outside of Berlin, the experimental artists troupe Gob Squad, in collaboration with Hebbel am Ufer theater company, staged one of the most ambitious performances of literary sustenance, theater, and geographical freneticism I’ve ever had the pleasure to soldier on through. Tasking themselves with not just reading, but enacting in physical space with full-on ambulatory sets and dramaturgy, David Foster Wallace’s seminal tome, Infinite Jest, Gob Squad presented Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: 24 Hours Through the Utopian West this past June. The novel itself spans 1079 pages — each page chock a block with the dense, self-interrogatory and narratively recursive style that has made the writer so popular and so uncanny at depicting as close to reality as it gets the way mental processes jump and percolate and buckle and interrelate. The troupe led participants on a day long journey, transitioning from a community tennis court (hilariously the Steffi Graf Stadium) to the vast Berlin Grunewald.

Kraus’s Summer of Hate. courtesy of the author.

5. Chris Kraus’s cogent essay, Indelible Video, in Semiotexte’s Where Art Belongs, and her new novel Summer of Hate are both trenchant and earthy takes on the contemporary problems of art and identity in a corporatized, post-individual world where people yearn for identification and separation — even exemplification in the face of, in her own words, “a subjectivity that’s been bludgeoned to the point of nonexistence.” One of her key observations surrounds the notion that contemporary art practice is much more devoted, in the sense of dedicating time and energy, to the maintenance of an image, guise, or semblance of a life, career, or persona, and less related to actual content or production. Indelible Video sharply compares corporate branding strategy with the current methodologies for influencing contemporary art spheres, comparing the corporate strategies of American Apparel to process artist in their heyday of the 1950s and 1960s. These ideas of a psychically sensitive, expertly tailored simulacrum meaning more than that which it imitates, complicates and enriches the constellation of thinking about current groups of artists like the Bruce High Quality Foundation, and especially a reading of the current Bernadette Corporation show at Artists Space.

While she is known for writing in the first person as herself, or in a thinly veiled version of herself in the third person, she doesn’t engage in an etherealizing process that artists like Sophie Calle or Frances Stark have, to, in her view, gussy up simple social interactions with intellectual gymnastics, admirably contemplative solipsism, or carefully considered display strategies. Kraus asks questions like “what would it be like to be someone who doesn’t have the process of association that comes from education,” working towards, if not a purity of mental examination, a brutal honesty and confrontation with not just the real, but the now.

screen shot of Miller’s color wheel for Calypso.

6. Susan Miller, that goddess, makes it possible for me to read for nearly 20 uninterrupted minutes an entire me-focused (or at least my zodiac sign-focused) opus reflective of my celestial and daily well-being, on a monthly basis. What I mean to say is: she really GETS me. Lest you haven’t dropped the 99cents on iAura (why yes, the oracular iPhone app that photographs you and determines from the digital image the color of your aura), and then synthesized that information with your local sweater vendor, Susan Miller has done the dirty work. All you need do is waltz into the glitzy, plantation-living, island romping, resort-wear magnate Calypso‘s closest boutique to find cashmere to match your aura’s color.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5nCxloXVU

7. Is Harmony Korine mildly infuriating, with his insistence on aestheticized suffer-porn, grotesque-core fantasias? Yes. Do we still want to see these worlds, even though they are removed from a more empirical, documentary-level of devastation, that includes visions of what actual disgustingness and revoltingness look like, stripped from color filters and carefully styled props? Yes. Is that because we are grossly implicated voyeurs that get off on a kind of lifting of a curtain to an underworld where mentally-incapacitated women are sold sexually, babies with bodies like grandfathers tape bacon incomprehensibly to walls, Diego Luna is purported to look an ounce like Michael Jackson, and teenagers casually infect each other with HIV? Yes…reluctantly. Part of this is because the sensitively drawn material contains revelatory imagery; while Korine’s films are often seemingly lackadaisically inscrutable on many fronts, the visual passage of skydiving nuns resplendently black and sleek against a blue sky, with whistling wind billowing their habits like hopeful parachutes, is a striking and ecstatic image. Korine’s neo-picaresque style will be on full-blown, baroque girliness with Spring Breakers, which will take a look at teenage dreams Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, near non-persons who have been cast in roles and propped up with hairspray and ambition since toddlerhood. With Skrillex on board to score the film, it seems like the kind of project that, rather than spurn and snark about the elements of culture that seem vacuous and incomprehensible, chooses instead to immerse itself into abstruse pockets of radically banal, chipper cultural products in an effort to pursue the purposeless hedonism and consumption that the American Spring Break rite has come to connote. Also, James Franco in cornrows.

Georgia O’Keefe cooking. image from A Painter’s Kitchen, Museum of New Mexico Press.

8. The economy of yogurt has become as distended and multiplying as the bacteria itself in the yogurt: Faje and Chobani reign supreme over the commercial Greek variety, farm-to-table-ish Siggi’s and the 90s era Hackers-ish branded Skyr.IS over the chic Icelandic skyr category, and of course the proletarian charms of Dannon and the continental gentility of Yoplait are constant classics. While Georgia O’ Keeffe’s art is well known and even overdetermined (cue: vilifying remarks of anti-sentimentalists and skeptical feminists and even more skeptical chauvinists), much of her later life was spent largely in the desert in New Mexico, living in a way that would be entirely at home with contemporary sustainable food practices. In fact, Georgia YO ‘ Keeffe pioneered a huge self-irrigating community garden where fruits, vegetables, and herbs grew in 1945, putting all the current political food celebrities to shame. Her most important staple was homemade yogurt, so in the same, incredible house in Abiquiui, New Mexico (which you can only visit by appointment, and which is highly recommended), where boxes of correspondence from her to Alfred Stieglitz reside, archival notes from the Metropolitan museum, alongside early Saarinen and Eames furniture, Ikea furniture she hacked and embedded into the adobe construction of her home, and sculptures by Arthur Dove and Isamu Noguchi, rest her two prized industrial yogurt boilers. She’s so DIY she don’t even KNOW. Eat your (yogurt-filled) heart out, Michael Pollan:

1/4 cup high quality yogurt
1/2 gallon whole cow or goat’s milk
4 1 pint glass canning jars
Electric yogurt maker, or large pan containing water

Pour milk into saucepan and heat it to 110 degrees. When the milk is the correct temperature, remove 1/2 cup and mix with the yogurt. Add back to heated milk. Pour the mixture into glass jars and set in the pan of hot water (100-120 degrees), and maintain temperature for 4-6 hours. When the yogurt thickens, cover and refrigerate. Georgia recommends eating plain, and every now and then adding a banana, a pinch of cinnamon, or peaches, pears, or apricots.

Fig 8. Fitter In, 2010. courtesy of the artists.

9. Now that we can finally stop having nightmares about Mitt Romney’s secret Mormon underwear, I can fully smile and laugh at Portland-based artists’ Sara Phillips and Neil Dacosta‘s terrific sendup of Mormons doin’ it right. Mormon Missionary Positions depicts two young gentlemen immaculately in missionary whites, the artists wittily pose their subjects in a variety of deeply erotic, athletic sex positions, with the starchy whites and shiny black shoes and perversely anal — pun intended — name tags still pinned to their shirts. The elaborate costume, which acts as an insistent visual shorthand for purity, functions in these images as a kind of perverse barrier that jabs at Mormonism’s own strange practices, but also reveals creative and energetic sex positions to be balletic, but also even more dirty than they might be if the boys were butt naked.

Ferris’s ++++****)))), 2012. courtesy of Mitchell-Innnes & Nash, New York.

10. While there’s something undeniably 80’s and overly palatable about Kentucky-born, Brooklyn based Keltie Ferriss’ paintings, the layered visual idiom of sidewalk graffiti transmogrifies into the pixelated realms of Microsoft Paint, which saves it from being woefully dated and makes her canvases pyrotechnically contemporary. This show presents a dozen large-scale paintings created over the past year.

Keltie Ferris is on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea space, 534 West 26th Street, New York, through January 12, 2013.

still from Jérôme Bel’s Shirtology, 1997. available on UbuWeb.

11. At this point, we all can probably agree that UbuWeb is pure magic, for its open-source offerings of material that is both incredibly high quality and incredibly difficult to find otherwise. In some ways, Ubu is filling the role of the library, the micro cinema, and the museum, albeit in a new and even more accessible way. Recently they launched a Beta version of their Dance category, launching materials ranging from a Pina Bausch web retrospective to Fred Astaire to Fatboy Slim. Get ready to spend an afternoon alone at home with your computer, a leotard, and embarrassing homemade digital videos that you will eventually have to delete in shame.

image courtesy of The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul.

12. After several years of delay, Orhan Pamuk’s physical monument to his narrative fiction process is finally open and operating, and now exists as a sort of hermetic, cryptic, object-translation of his 2008 novel of the same name, The Museum of Innocence, which centers on a wealthy upper-class Turkish man who falls in love with a much younger shopgirl, and although loves her ardently, finds himself unable to treat her as anything more than an extension to his own identity, objectifying her and ruining any chance for a real kind of relation or progression. One could argue that this exercise itself is one in objectification; that it seems a fairly gimmicky thing to do, on the order of Elvis’ Graceland Mansion or Dollywood, to create a specific and esoteric site that enshrines a single literary work located on a strange street in the blank district in Istanbul. That said, it is precisely this kind of impulse, one that Pamuk reveals as a perhaps unfortunately entirely human impulse, that The Museum of Innocence is about. More to the point, it’s eminently clear that the novel was built to situate the museum, and not the other way around, making it a very interesting foray into artistic process. It’s almost a paean to Vladimir Nabokov, whose Lolita in some ways shares a kind of DNA with the character dynamics at play in Pamuk’s story. Nabokov closes his novel with the idea that art is the only salve and solution to the impossibility of the human relationships in his novel: “I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” It seems Pamuk has taken this one step further, and erected his own, concrete refuge of art.

Bruce High Quality Teach 4 Amerika at LACMA, Los Angeles.

1. The free art school is back in session. From my previous experience attending the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, it is what you make it to be. You can have the discussions you want to have if you bring it. It’s a good non-pedagogical space for like-minded people. Artist and non-artists can come together and talk about art and education and in relevant, no bullshit terms of today.

2. I usually wake up hungover on Sunday morning and play a Keren Cytter video. VENGEANCE is her new series. Right now there are three episodes up on her Vimeo channel. VENGEANCE is perhaps Cytter’s take on American television. I feel like I’m watching a bad dream flying through mediated images and experiences. Different vignettes simulates dramatic relationships. I feel like so much is going on even though maybe nothing is going on? Then it ends, and I want more. What just happened?

the grave of Basquiat. image by Korakrit Arunanondchai.

3. Did you know Basquiat is buried at Green-wood Cemetery? Did you also know that it is like 2 stops on the D train from Grand Street in Chinatown? I think this place is amazing and provides a kind of solitude that beats Central Park. Awesome landscape of nature and culture. Green-wood’s Burial Search allows you to type people’s name into a database computer and print out a detailed map of how to walk there through the park. It feels like an adventure when you’re doing it. I usually try and bring my dates here!

installation shot of Arunanondchai’s decor at Santos Party House, taken by the artist.

4. The new SPENCER’S GIFS party at Santos Party House is pretty much what I’ve been doing every Friday. Spencer Sweeney‘s SPENCER’s GIFS is now on the main floor at Santos, and everything sounds so good. We have legend DJ Harvey once a month, and a long list of supporters, including the Good Kids, Melissa Burns, Spencer Cherasia and drag sisterhood Chez Deep and the list goes on. The highlight, though, is Princess Magnifique Royalty — originally from the House of Xtravaganza — who arrives in a different costume every week to vougues on the stage for hours, sometimes with friends too. I’m super into it. The series runs every Friday, starting at 11 pm, at 96 Lafayette Street.

page from Billy Bat, courtesy Manga Here.

5. If you like Manga, para-fiction and cliff-hangers then Billy Bat is definitely your read. It’s a Manga about a mangaka (cartoonist) who draws a famous comic called Billy Bat, then figures out that he stole the bat drawing from someone. In an adventure to uncover this forgotten history, he discovers a supernatural cartoon bat that is behind many conspiracy theory of the 20th century from Einstein’s time traveling to JFK’s Assassination to the US moon landing. The narrative structure goes back and forth through time, and across space, leaping between the US and Japan. The series is available to read online. I usually read this comic when I stay in on a Saturday night.

screenshot of K-Hole‘s homepage.

6. K-Hole is a trend report magazine. A collaborative project between a group of really smart and interesting people, the publication has released two issues so far, both released in the form of PDF files on a USB bracelet. It is a well-done, super researched and interesting read. They really connect all these dots in popular consumer culture and coin ideas that are fascinating. All you have to do is digest as you scroll down, a format that works well on iPads and mobile devices. Current issues include Fragmoretation — a report on visibility — and Prolasticity — a report on visibility — both downloadable. I read K-Hole in the afternoon while drinking coffee or tea with bubble.

Eric Nathaniel Mack’s Electric Blanket, 2012.

7. Fore opens at the Studio Museum in Harlem November 11. Fore is “a non-thematic group presentation reflecting a multitude of ideas, approaches and processes.” I’m super excited about this exhibition. Featuring twenty-nine emerging artists of African descent, Fore is the 4th installment in a series of group shows with titles starting with the letter F. The last one, Flow, was in 2008. Eric Nathaniel Mac, Caitlin Cherry, Abigail Deville and Jacolby Satterwhite.

8. Jeremy Couillard’s 3D animated videos bring me to such a good place of psychedelic ecstasy and nostalgia. Couillard’s work creates the fantasy of what you thought the world was going to look like when you were tripping even though it never did. He’s made a few of these videos and they seem to just get better and better. My favourite one at the moment is called Black Hole Memory. The video is so good that it makes me sad these places don’t exist in real life, yet, simultaneously happy that through contemporary technology, and knowledge from video games and National Geographic these landscapes can exist on my laptop. I can just sit back and enjoy. I watch these videos late at night, kind of hoping that it will continue in my dream.

screenshot of an video of Dora Moutot.

9. Is Dora Moutot someone everyone knows about already? I very recently clicked into a video of her talking about something in French and it said curator below the video. I was initially pretty interested because she was pretty hot and speaking French. I think I watched the whole video without understanding a word. Her website is a vacuum and it seems like you can scroll down forever. It’s a lot of colors and a lot of fashion and lot of people taking pictures of themselves, mostly young people with prisma colored hair, gradients. If you’re into these things, which I am, then you probably find her amazing like I do. According to her website, she is also a part time unicorn. Is that a real thing?

Peet’s Total Cover Up, 2012. courtesy of On Stellar Rays.

10. JJ Peet’’s exhibition DEFEND_STATION at On Stellar Rays is totally simple and weird at the same time. JJ’s practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture and video in a very fundamental but thought provoking way. In his last show he made a nomadic painting station and a television show called Sunday Painter Show. In this new show, the drawing and sculptures loosely represent the idea of a floating head or thought itself. There is a list of words related to one of the drawings, and here is a part of the list:

Floating Heads
Time Collectors_
Shivs_
Communication Devices_
Peace Offerings
Least Moves Possible
Clear and Direct Moves
Residue
Leftovers
PinPoints/Labor Issues
Past Visions
Filter
Filtered
Filter Limiter
Open Filter
Holding Units
WORK HARDER
Blockers Individual
BLOCKERS
FUCKing FOCUS

go see this show! DEFEND_STATION is on view through December 16 at On Stellar Rays, 133 Orchard Street.

still from ‘We Live In Public,’ courtesy of Indie Pix Films.

1. Upon Netflix’s suggestion, I checked out We Live In Public (2009) documentary about Josh Harris, the Internet prophet of the late 1990s who developed pre-broadband predecessors to social media broadcast sites like Youtube, and Hulu. The documentary follows Harris through his life, and primarily focuses on his famous art/life experiments called “Quiet: We Live In Public,” an Orwellian social experiment designed to observe the effects of complete surveillance on a community, and weliveinpublic.com, a website that broadcasted Harris and his girlfriend’s life for over a year. I found the documentary fascinating for its portrayal of Harris as a cyberspace Candide, one who explores the internet’s darkest impacts on the soul and retreats to a farming village in Ethiopia in an effort to restore his naivite and innocence. Harris’s lunacy is unsettling considering the fact that most of the population is finally catching up to his prophesized reality of life and human relationships after the Internet.

recent photo of Yulia Tymoshenko in prision. AFP/Getty Images.

2. Someone needs to make a biopic about this woman! Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine and current political jailbird has become globally infamous as controversy builds around her imprisonment. As scandalous as her politically motivated trial may be, it is Tymoshenko’s post-Kardashian use of propaganda that has made her an icon of the moment. I am fascinated by everything she does and says — her trademark ‘peasant braid’, her meticulously composed photo ops, her 20-day hunger strike, her outrageous digs at opponents (most recently calling them “Mafia Godfathers”). I await every move of Tymoshenko’s saga.

still from ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild,’ courtesy of A Fistful of Culture.

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild asserts a kind of cinematic critique at timely moment in American culture. Set outside the New Orleans’s levies, Beasts Of The Southern Wild depicts a community that exists entirely outside the American paradigm of commercial living and education. The characters nobly exhibit founding American virtues like self-reliance, perseverance, brotherhood, and individual freedom, and they maintain these virtues in spite of the cultural influence of a contemporary America that exists just beyond the levies. The film perverts our 21st century understanding of the ‘American Way’ by imagining a community that more closely resembles Thomas Payne’s America. In a problematic election year that implores us to consider progress, as a return to America’s mythological hey day, Beasts offers a complicated, human glance into the fragile balance of life that might come to pass in the wake of commercial progress.

Arca’s ‘Stretch 2,’ courtesy of UNO NYC.

4. Arca’s music is a kind of challenge to the soul. On the surface, one hears fuckery of glitchy, chopped-up samples, but pulsing through these mechanical rhythms are hauntingly tweaked vocals and evocative ambient compositions. Stretch 2 (out on UNO NYC), Arca’s first full-length album, invites this challenge more expansively by unexpectedly fusing genre, rhythmic patterns, and a variety of emotional appeals over nine tracks. A kind of reckoning is embedded within the first listen –- it’s a confrontation with the sublime through the haze of hectic and aggressive textures. To love Arca’s music is to have a relationship with it. The listening process becomes a metaphor for seeing a soul shine through the restraints of inner chaos.

image by Luca Finotti. courtesy of Dust Magazine.

5. Once and a while, a magazine will arrest my attention and shape my way of looking at an aspect of culture. DUST Magazine, a photography magazine run by Luigi Vitali, assembles photographs from the world’s most in-tune and out-there photographers. By bringing together international photographers whose work similarly exhibits the attitude and sexuality of urban male youth, DUST actively curates a way of looking globally at sex and style in bleak urban environments.

Emoji phraseology

6. Just as my text communication patterns were becoming hopelessly minimal, Emoji came along a relief from the restriction of words and their limited literal meanings. Emoji are a more expansive kind of emoticon language, and used in combination with text, can add just enough personality to infuse a truncated message with more complex meaning. Emoji put personal expression back in the hands of the user, and allows us to convey more with less. In my experience, using images to communicate makes text conversation feel more direct and interpersonal because both parties feel clued in to the code. I hope Emoji eventually expands its vocabulary to a point where humans can return hieroglyphic communication.

Boy Child. courtesy of the artist.

7. Boy Child is one of the most riveting performers I have ever seen in my life. Stunningly androgynous and statuesque, Boy Child’s enigmatic physique alone is transfixing. She incorporates Butoh, drag, and powerful physical instincts into her performance. The combined effect of her presence, physicality, and expression left me speechless and emotional. Boy Child’s impact lies beyond the realm of language — she makes you feel a kind of visceral empathy that evades understanding. The most incredible feelings arise when you step back to realize that Boy Child is actually human. Her performance is so powerful that her physical form begins to feel like a shell, and that a sublime figure is trying to emerge. Boy Child performed last night in New York, at Westway’s West Gay party.

courtesy of CRUFT.

8. SUPERMAMMAL is the most incredible work of art I have heard of this year. A friend told me about it over the summer, and later showed me pictures. SUPERMAMMAL is the title given to a hypothetical organism made up of only equisite synthetic genitalia, creating a creature that is ‘polygenital , hypersexual and of no fixed gender.’ The brainchild of CRUFT, an art collective that uses digital technologies in order to question the nature of today’s society, SUPERMAMMAL is a snake-like video game wherein the goal of the game is to add as many genitals as possible, while avoiding de-segmentation.

SSION & House of Ladosha’s American tour, 2012.

9. SSION and House of La Dosha take their iconic acts on a 30-date US tour. SSION is the queer musical collective led by vocalist Cody Critcheloe, brought to New York via Kansas City. Anticipating the release of his Bent LP, SSION sets out on a cross country crawl, kicking off with an album release show at Santos Party House this month. Cody and Co. will surely bring some incredible visuals and fun to the party. Critheloe is joined by the drag rap-duo Dosha Devistation and Cunty Crawford (Antonio Blair and Adam Radacovich respectively) to go Pan-Am HAM for kids across the country. Should be nothing less than legendary!

courtesy of TLC.

10. I’m anticipating Breaking Amish more than any other fall show this year. The series will follow five Amish youth who go to New York for their Rumspringa –- the Amish right of passage where adolescents leave their communities to spend time in the outside world. The idea of broadcasting these kids’ exploits during their sacred rite of passage is so beautifully debased, I could cry. It is extreme, even for TLC. Nevertheless, I am fascinated. I look forward to tracking each character to see how far their desire for independence leads them. I’m especially excited for their testimonials. “What will they think of us?” is a much more intriguing question than, “What should I think of them?”