Bring the world with you

New Black Dice music video for “Kokomo”, the first song off their latest record Load Blown, as well as the band’s first video collaboration. I never liked the Black Dice/Jason Frank Rothenberg Gore book, it was something I bought, looked at in another store, and immediately returned. It’s much nicer to see their brand of collage in motion. Less pornography, though.

You can catch them this Saturday at Sneaky Dee’s. However, for me, times are destitute.

Via Biba Bidi. (Mp3 available for download)

As the first installment of a new show on VBS.tv, Peter Sutherland visits the compound/studio of Richard Prince to discuss some of the facets of his body of work. Having just mentioned Prince here the other day, and after having a lengthy conversation about him during a walk home over the weekend, I thought I would mention it here, again, for you. Part 1 of 4.

When in Berlin, I became interested in seeing the Mies Van der Rohe Haus because it differed from more famous black steel structures I had seen at the Neue National Gallery, the Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago, or Toronto’s own TD Bank Towers, which are just down the street from where I live. The Haus lives on the residential outskirts in the North East of Berlin, right above the Obersee River, and was designed in 1933 for art director Karl Lemke and his wife. It was the last building Van der Rohe built before emigrating to the United States in 1938.

As a small L-shaped bungalow, the Haus is structurally reduced to a minimum, cut to the housing requirements of a childless married couple. Keeping everything on the ground floor allowed for an easy transition from the house out into the courtyard, and the large glass windows furthers the integration of the building into the natural world, as it faces out south to the lake.

In 1945, the Lemkes were forced out of their home as the area became seized by the Red Army, and the house was turned into a garage and janitor’s storage space. Until 1989 it was used as a laundry depot and cafeteria for the coworkers of the Ministry for State Security. A part of the garden was covered in concrete and transformed to a parking lot. After the wall, it was restored in 1990 as a heritage building, now used as an art gallery. Showing at the time was a retrospective of famous German painter and graphic designer Anton Stankowski:

As Marla Olmstead, who is currently still 4 years old, continues to become more established as a celebrated painter/genius, the growing speculation over her authenticity is probably natural. Documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev set out to determine whether or not she’s legit in his latest film, My Kid Could Paint That. The promotion makes it seem as if this may be a tough story for Bar-Lev to solve, with Marla’s parents’ concerns over the film itself; their reluctance to share with him suggests that they might have something to hide.

Personally, I don’t really see what the big deal is either way, as I could give the benefit of the doubt to most children, when given the proper art supplies. Seeing as her website now includes video footage documenting the process of her paintings (although not entirely, as they’re edited for time-elapse), I could still give her credit for doing at least the majority of the work. However, I am still interested to see how the tension comes forth in the film, and how it manages to resolve itself.

Here’s the trailer:

Some debate over artist Richard Prince’s collaboration with Marc Jacobs for the Spring 2008 handbags for Louis Vuitton. Cute? Subversive? Tacky? All of the above?

“I’m not sure that ironic is really the mot juste. The way I see it, Prince is attempting to do for high fashion what he already did for high art: change the very criteria by which quality is judged. Prince’s great achievement in the art world, the thing which made him one of the most important artists of the post-War(hol) era, was his idea that he could appropriate mass-market iconography and simply by declaring it to be high art, make it so. Here, he’s doing much the same thing with handbags.”

My apologies for some updates being a little on the mouldy side.

As something new, here are two recent songs playing in my house:

Japanther - Boyz Donut Cry
Babyshambles - There She Goes (Demo)

“Sweet Bird of Youth”, a group show curated by Hedi Slimane for Amdt & Partner Gallery. The title of the exhibition was taken from a Tennessee Williams play of the same name, referring to the transition and fading of one’s own adolescence. The works on show were created especially by Slimane and his friends, all tackling the same themes of youth and nostalgia. Here is an interview with Slimane with Jefferson Hack discussing the show. Maybe this explains why he doesn’t eat solid food?

JH: Do you wish you were still 16?
HS: Not at all. I had the worst time ever at 16. I was totally autistic, and locked myself in my room. I felt I had a complex because I was skinny – people thought I was sick, and tried to feed me like a goose. It was quite tragic really.