Khameleon808 created this stunning mix of music and film in what will invariably be one of my top 10 videos of 2010. Music by TV On The Radio, Evil Nine, Nalepa and edIT. The film clips are waaay too numerous to list. The edits are tighter than a mosquito’s asshole. Watch and be amazed.

 
Maxime Bruneel sent me this terrific little video she created for Freak Owls and I thought you might enjoy it. I do.

 
While I agree with most of what Jarmusch has to say in the above quote, I question whether or not originality is non-existent. You may be inspired by or steal from other sources, but ultimately what you create - from whatever you got from wherever you got it - is your own original creation no matter that it’s composed of received elements. If nothing else, the energy originates from you and therefore is original. If originality is dead then aren’t we all? If originality is dead then what drives art? Has the shock of the new turned into a recycled thud?

Here’s a fascinating look into the process Jarmusch went through making the soundtracks for Dead Man with Neil Young and Ghost Dog with RZA. All three artists seem to enjoy working in the moment, improvising and spontaneity, and I find the results quite original.
 

 

 
Who woulda thunk a Status Quo pillow existed? Thanks to Manbroidery, it does now. 

Men who embroider or knit unite! Join and post in this awesome group. Men can sew, too. Don’t forget it! Post any works or pictures of “the process”. Any fiber art is allowed. Thanks.

 
(via Everlasting Blort)

Michael Leavitt, inspired by Harold and Maude

Super delightful Harold and Maude scuplture by artist Michael Leavitt. They’ll be showcased at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco starting Saturday, September 4th.

Crazy 4 Cult: Customs - Saturday, Sept. 4th from 7-10PM at G1988 SF!

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Harold and Maude paper dolls

 
Another tasty Jim Steranko cover, this one from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s second issue, published in July 1968. The title is charming: “So Shall Ye Reap Death!”

From Charles Johnson’s Lizard collection over at Little Green Footballs.

 
Noah Scalin, known for creating a skull a day over the course of a year, recently created a massive one made of human brain slices for Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum.

Noah describes working with the museum’s curator and the process of creating his fascinating work of art:

Anna, the curator, asked if I could make a new skull for an upcoming project of theirs and of course I said yes, and then suggested that I make it in the museum itself. Since most of the items on display are very fragile I figured I’d be working with display jars or other non-historical materials. However, to my delight they had just acquired a collection of hundreds of beautiful real brain slices encased in acrylic (which had been dubbed “Zombie MRE’s”)! Since they’re very sturdy I was allowed to used them as my material and I was set up in a lovely room that holds the card catalog for their library. Over the course of two days I arranged the slices on two large old library tables and climbed a ladder over and over making sure the image looked right from a single vantage point (where I would eventually take my picture). All told I used 375 slices and a bit of fabric for the eye/nose holes…

As someone who has a thing for craniums and mandibles, I find this pretty damn exciting.

You can purchase Noah’s book ‘Skulls’ here.
 

 
Interview with Noah Scalin after the jump…

Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Norman René, Peter Hujar, Ethyl Eichelberger, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cookie Mueller, Klaus Nomi….the list of New York artists who died of AIDS over the last 30 years is countless, and the loss immeasurable.

A heartwrenching tribute to New York City painters, writers and performers who died of aids, Last Address is composed of images of the exteriors of the buildings where the artists last lived. The video was shot by Ira Sachs and if you visit the film’s website you can read about the artists featured in this bittersweet poem of a film.
 

Last Address from Ira Sachs on Vimeo.

The Fleshtones at Club 57
 
A photographer named Robert Carrithers has posted an extraordinary series of 63 portraits taken at the legendary Manhattan early 80s nightclub, Club 57 on Flickr. Club 57 was hosted by Dangerous Minds pal Ann Magnuson and some like-minded friends.

Club 57’s entertainment, much of it rooted in punk rock and an ironic take on campy TV re-run culture, had the same kind of “let’s get up and put on a show” spirit as a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney musical, but against a much more decadent backdrop. It’s fascinating to see how this era is being defined by contemporary art historians, as well as first rate digital fare like this unique portfolio.

From photographer Robert Carrither’s statement:

I lived in New York during the early ‘80s, a very special unique time of creativity in New York. I was a regular at a place called Club 57 in the basement of a Polish church on St. Marks in the East Village. It was a creative laboratory that would change night after night with themes and happenings. One night there would be an art opening and then another night there would be bands, films or a crazed theme party. Many talented and fun people developed their art at Club 57 throughout this time. The following photographs capture some of these memorable people through portraits or at the various events.

Each of these photos has its own story. Please read them and you can understand each one better.

Carrithers: “Ann Magnuson was one of the founders and the first creative manager of Club 57. She developed her performance skills night after night going from one incredible character into the next. From Soviet lounge singer to country and western to heavy metal. She went from performance artist in the downtown 80’s New York to the thirteen all-girl band Pulsallama (and was the lead singer and lyricist for the band Bongwater and in the fun heavy metal band Vulcan Death Grip). She went on to Hollywood films and TV. A charming, talented chameleon performer. There really is way too much to write about her. It is best to go to and see for yourself: www.annmagnuson.com.”

Carrithers: “I guess I do not need to write too much about Keith. He was a regular at Club 57 and had his first shows there. He took off as an artist not so long after. An inspiring person and artist of the early 80’s in New York. I photographed him at one of his first shows outside of Club 57 somewhere on the west side of New York City.”

Thank you, Julien Nitzberg!

18 x 24″ Screen Print.  Signed and Numbered Edition of 450.  $70.  Limit one per person/household.  A portion of the proceeds go to the Spirit Foundations, Inc.

John & Yoko print by Shepard Fairey. They’re available for purchase 8/26/10.

(via Nerdcore)

 
Watching these Kodachrome color tests from 1922 actually took my breath away for a moment. I felt as though time had stopped and I’d entered a dream. The colors are so sensual I felt like devouring them, inhaling them like opium. This stunning footage is archived at the George Eastman House and is an early test of the Two-Color Kodachrome Process.

In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear.

Read more about these gorgeous moving pictures here.
 

 

 

 
Plenty more hi-res images to scan over at Stanley Kubrick - Deserving of Worship.

 
Dangerous Minds patron saint Brian Eno has signed with the revered and generally high-quality UK label Warp in order to bring us a new collection of well, I don’t know exactly since there are no previews or samples, sorry. It’s called, charmingly enough, Small Craft On A Milk Sea. Eno’s last high profile release was 2005’s Another Day on Earth, a fine album that, ahem, I also was lucky enough to contribute to. If this new one is anywhere near as good as that, I’ll be a happy Eno fan indeed. You’ll also note, as is de rigeur for your higher profile artistes these days, that there are a few different and increasingly more expensive/elaborate packages available including the ultimate: a limited edition of 250 LP/CD package which will include a unique, signed by the man screen print and a golden ticket inviting you to visit and eventually inherit Eno’s candy factory (OK, I made that last part up).
 

 

 
‘it’s a small world’

Using a photo album of vintage Polaroids purchased at a fleamarket, animator Axel Roessler constructed this dreamlike video.

Bertram Ritter’s music adds to the overall eerie effect.

Via countrytrouble.com

 
Italian video wizard Bante has taken classic Blue Note album covers and animated them in this totally groovy video promoting Italy’s Bellavista Social Pub.

 

 
Red wine paintings by artist Marcelo Daldoce.
 
(via Nerdcore)

 
New Yorker Judy Linn’s photographs of Patti Smith are an indelible part of the collective consciousness of Patti’s fans and admirers. But, the Dylan one is new to me.

A book of around 100 black and white photographs Lynn took between the years of 1969-1977 of Patti, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sam Shepard, Gerard Malanga, among others, is being published next March by Abrams.
 

 
More of Linn’s photographs of Patti after the jump…

 
Behold the perplexing multi-media underground electropop darlings of Tokyo, Trippple Nippple. Their stage show sounds like a J-Pop version of out-there 70s performance artists, The Kipper Kids, and features stuff like eggs, glitter, milk, blood and rotting food. From an interview posted today at the Dazed and Confused blog:

Dazed Digital: Is there symbolism behind your costumes and performances?

Qrea Nippple: Last time we were doing some guillotine things, and we cut so many heads off balloons. The helium goes to the ceiling. Yuka was crying like, “Oh I feel so guilty for killing so many balloon heads, so I drew some really wicked, bad faces on the balloons, so she wouldn’t feel guilty for cutting their heads off. ”
Dazed Digital: What were some of your most memorable performances?

Yuka Nippple: We have a lot of stories about making a mess. We played club Asia in Tokyo and our costumes were mud, just that. And we put on some blonde hair ponytails. We were just mud and blonde hair ponytail. That was our costume. It was a lot of fun as always. But in the morning when the lights turned on, the whole club was covered in dry mud. And everyone went mad, and everyone had to clean up until about 9am in the morning. We made a lot of people really upset. We didn’t mean to of course, but my bad, but I’d like to announce that we can do “Not dirty one” too! People sometimes misunderstand what we are, but we are musicians!
Dazed Digital: So where did you acquire all this mud?

Yuka Nippple: Amazing, amazing store called Tokyu Hands in Shibuya. It’s a department store with 21 floors of DIY stuff. We get everything from there. You can spend a day just looking for things. We found rice-field mud in a packet.
 

 
Read the entire article at Dazed Digital: TOKYO’S TRIPPPLE NIPPPLES: Insane electro popstresses hailing from the fine land of Tokyo talk fake tits and their milky alcohol

Photograph by Bruce Davidson
 
Photos of old school New York before they switched over to the subway trains that couldn’t be graffitied on. New York has sadly lost a lot of its character since then (as well as many of its characters, too!)
 

Photograph by John F. Conn
 

Photograph by Bruce Davidson
 
See more photos after the jump…
 

Nude No. 2 by John Perry
 

For friends and fans of John Lurie, there’s a disturbing article in the current issue of The New Yorker. The title of the piece is ‘Sleeping With Weapons’ and it’s a strange and sad tale. John has been in hiding for the past 18 months to avoid a former friend who is supposedly stalking him. The alleged stalker, John Perry, was Lurie’s closest friend. The two had a serious falling out and Lurie feared that Perry intended to kill him.

The above quote is from a piece I posted on Dangerous Minds August 11. Last night I spoke with John Perry, Lurie’s alleged stalker, and in conversation, Perry came across as an even-tempered and thoughtful guy who allowed a falling out with a friend to escalate into an epic battle of wills and a public airing of dirty laundry.

To hear him tell it, Perry, an artist who specializes in cityscapes and portraits, had invited his friend Lurie to participate in an instructional documentary on drawing called The Drawing Show, with Lurie serving as the subject of one of Perry’s portraits. Lurie enthusiastically agreed to do it. He liked Perry’s work.  The finished film was then going to be pitched to PBS as a concept for an ongoing television series. As Perry described it, it would be a program instructing non-artists on how to draw, just like the numerous cooking shows teach people how to cook.  In discussing the concept, Perry was at his most upbeat and energized during our talk. Clearly, it means a lot to him. At this point, the project is still up in the air and that’s where the problems with Lurie begin.

Citing illness, Lurie left the project before its conclusion. Whether he intended to complete the shoot or not is unclear, the fact is he left. What is clear is that Perry is stuck with 27 minutes of professionally shot video that was not finished as planned. The end of the piece was to have Lurie looking at the portrait that Perry had sketched of him and commenting on it. This was the agreed upon ending. But, Lurie left and never returned. No one knows why. What is known is that Lurie’s leaving the project has left Perry $6000 poorer, frustrated and initially quite angry. Perry, bewildered as to why Lurie would sabotage his project, did everything he could to communicate to Lurie the importance of finishing the video shoot. Lurie’s lack of response and evasiveness fueled Perry’s frustration and some trash talk ensued.  But, Perry’s anger never went beyond tough guy posturing and some heated e-mail exchanges between Lurie and himself. I’ve read some of the e-mails and in them both men are equally guilty of being hostile. But no threats of bodily harm were made by Lurie or Perry. At no point in my conversation with Perry did I feel he was the type of guy who would stalk someone with the intention of hurting them. It just doesn’t seem to be his style. But, I’m speaking from the gut, I don’t know all of the facts, only Perry and Lurie do. No amount of ink on the page or words on a computer screen will tie this emotionally charged mess up in an aesthetically pleasing bow. Anyone who has gone through a toxic breakup knows that tidy resolutions to deep heartbreak is rarely achievable.

When all is said and done, two friends, two artists, have had an extended personal dust-up publicly exposed in what will eventually become a major embarrassment for both of them. In John Perry’s case, it already has. 

Through it all, Perry has tried to stay focused on the things that mean the most to him, his art and a deep desire to teach people how to draw. The ultimate test of Perry’s success will not be in whether or not he proves to the world that he’s not the person Lurie has painted him to be, but whether or not the world gets to know him through his art and a film as yet unfinished. My advice to John last night was to move on and let his work speak for him. The people who really give a shit about Perry know who he is. The readers of The New Yorker and this blog will have forgotten about a fight between two New York artists (even one named Lurie) in a matter of months if not weeks. It really doesn’t matter. “Ars longa, vita brevis”

The drama is in watching a semi-celebrity like John Lurie going through hell. There hasn’t been much interest in John Perry, a man who’s life has been derailed, for the moment, by unproven allegations of being a stalker. I personally think he never intended or threatened to harm Lurie. I may be naive, I may be wrong about Perry, perhaps there’s someone out there, other than Lurie, who can back up these allegations, so far they haven’t spoken up. And until they do, Perry, to me,  is just a guy who’s been through a shitstorm magnified by an article in a magazine: the phantom stalker, perhaps just a demon in John Lurie’s head?

Watch the clip from The Drawing Show and see what really matters to John Perry.

Here’s ten minutes of unedited footage from The Drawing Show.

 
The Strange Tale Of A Lounge Lizard.