DAMIEN HIRST DOES SKATEBOARDS?

I learned something new today... that Damien Hirst the wild-child Brit artist apparently has a long standing relationship with the skateboarding world...something common amongst artists in LA but unexpected from a Brit. Or maybe everyone but me knew this already? In any case he has created this clean modern line of "spot painting" boards for Supreme Skateboards which was just released in the US on Nov 19th.
Shoutout to my friend Jonathan's website KSpace.tv the lifestyle website for KSwiss from which I gleaned this tidbit.

Au revoir Jeanne Claude...

From the website http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/
Jeanne-Claude, 74, American artist and resident of New York City, died suddenly November 18, 2009 as a result of of complications due to a ruptured brain aneurysm.

Christo is deeply saddened by the passing of his wife, partner and collaborator and is committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: The art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude will continue.

Christo is dedicated to completing their current works in progress: Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado, and The Mastaba, Project for the United Arab Emirates, as Jeanne-Claude would wish.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in Paris, France in November, 1958, sharing the same date of birth and have worked together for 51 years creating temporary works of art.

It is Jeanne-Claude's wish that her body be donated to scientific research.

A memorial will be announced at a later date. Christo requests that flowers not be sent. Memorial gifts may be made to the charity of your choice.

SWIM UNTIL YOU CAN'T SEE LAND

This one goes out to all the English Channel Swimmers out there. My father swam a relay of the channel this past summer and plans to do a solo crossing this summer. He said the most surreal part of the experience was to swim straight out away from the land without ever turning back towards land (as opposed to swimming along the shoreline as you do in most open water swims). Even though he is one of the most experienced and well known open water swimmers in the world he said he was actually a bit freaked out by swimming so far from land (and he NEVER gets freaked out when swimming!)
So...this song made me think of that sentiment.
I just recently heard of this band, Frightened Rabbit, literally just yesterday when checking out Rainn Wilson's blog (who plays Dwight Shrute on the one tv show that I watch and love, The Office). Rainn calls Frightened Rabbit him and John Krasinski's favorite band.

DOCK ELLIS AND THE LSD NO-NO

Hilarious animated short film about Dock Ellis' legendary LSD fueled no-hitter by James Blagden. I love the combo of the comedic animation set to Ellis' play by play account of the incident.

MAKE THE GIRL DANCE

I mean what's not to love? Its Paris, its naked French women, its dance music, and you could go as far as to say its performance art. 'Baby, Baby, Baby' by Make The Girl Dance. And you gotta love those pedestrian reactions. And other than the risk of getting arrested (is it legal to be nude in the street in France?), a very easy video to shoot. I'm guessing the cameraman was on the back of a slow moving moped.
This video is actually wide screen and the edges have been cut off to fit into the blog template. Click inside the box to open the youtube page that has the whole acreen.
Je t'aime.

EM STOREY. THE ART BEHIND TEGAN AND SARA

I've long been a fan of Tegan and Sara, Canadian twin indie-pop duo (sorry for the sound-bite categorizing) but I also have always admired their accompanying visual aesthetic featuring hand-made-looking album art, especially of the last album The Con. Curve magazine, a magazine geared towards twenty and thirty something lesbians, recently did a feature on Em Storey, Sara's partner, and the long-time art director for Tegan and Sara who has designed most of their album covers, accompanying art work, their website, and even limited edition Tegan and Sara shoes. Check the article here. And for those of you who have been under a rock (or maybe just anywhere other than Williamsburg and SilverLake) and have never heard a Tegan and Sara song, here's the video for 'Call It Off'.
On a side note...this video of Tegan allowing herself passively to be tied in rainbow phone wire reminds me (literally and figuratively) of my last relationship. Read what you will into that one!

Tegan and Sara - Call It Off

Mike Sol | MySpace Video

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND

I usually am primarily drawn to and feature less mainstream independent artists who work with a lower budget than someone like Jay Z has to work with. However, because I am loud and proud of being a native New Yorker (and am in self-exile in LA) and because I have recently had visions of working with still photography within video much like they did here (so if I do a video with that technique, this is just to say I DID have the idea before seeing this...Hype Williams and I must think alike!) I have a soft spot for this Jay Z - Alicia Keyes collaboration directed by Hype Williams. Even if you don't dig Jay Z, if you are a New Yorker, especially one who is missing New York from afar, you can still fall in love with the classic black and white New York imagery (at least in the first 60 seconds!) with the sound turned down. I admit, this video made me a bit homesick.

LAMPS IN THE WILD. RENE GUNERIUSSEN

Otherworldliness, dark humor, and stark nature imagery seem to be a Norwegian staple and all is captured beautifully by Norwegian artist Rene Guneriussen's photos of incongruous household objects in the wild.
A herd of desk lamps turn their lighted heads downwards to graze in the twilight of a lonely Savannah. Two chairs battle for supremacy on a lonely beach amidst a group of helpless bystanders. A line of telephones negotiates a stony mountain pass. The images are simultaneously serene, absurd and sometimes haunting. I am always drawn to images that have both traditional beauty as far as color composition etc, but that also have the element of the unexpected...something absurd, quirky, or just some perspective that no one has ever presented before. These are the things that expand our imagination of what is possible. See Rene Guneriussen's website gallery here.

FREESTYLE by FIONA & BETSY LAUGHLIN

Here's one by yours truly. My sister Betsy and I made this as a video birthday card to my sister Cari (if you look closely you'll see the words "Happy Birthday Cari" spelled on our bodies...an homage to the Daft Bodies videos). We shot this at the Total Immersion Swim Studio owned by our family in New Paltz, New York, in an Endless Pool suited up with underwater cameras typically devoted to the video analysis of the parade of swimmers and triathletes who comes through our door to transform their swimming technique. We took the opportunity to put this contraption to another use.

DAFT BODIES. AN OLD CLASSIC.

For anyone who digs on creative youtube videos, this anonymous performance of Daft Bodies set to Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger' is an old classic, but I would be remiss to leave it out. The first time I saw this a couple years ago I was thrilled and sent it to everyone I knew would appreciate it.

LA ROUX. I HEART ELLY JACKSON

This La Roux video featuring Elly Jackson is a throwback to those very first MTV videos we saw in the 80's complete with Elly's Molly Ringwald-esque looks. I dig their music and its also possible that I might have a bit of a crush on Elly. I'm a sucker for a Brit accent. And dig those tortoise rim shades at 1:25!!

Li Wei: Free Falling

Chinese artist Li Wei combines performance art and photography to create the illusion of flying, falling, and floating in unexpected settings. The images are not manipulated by computer. He uses scaffolding, mirrors, metal wires and acrobatics to create the effect. As one who loves my photography to be conceptual rather than traditional, he is a new favorite of mine. Check Li Wei images here.

OK Go. WTF

OK Go have become famous for their low budget, high concept videos. Their video for 'Here It Goes Again' with the one-take choregraphed dance acrobatics on a row of treadmills was such an internet hit, they were asked to perform the act live at the MTV Music Video Awards. WTF is the latest video from them to blow your eyeballs out of your sockets and all they needed to do it was a greenscreen!!

HYPNTZ: Dan Black does Biggy

Dan Black now has a record deal and with that a bigger budget for his videos. However before his official video for "Symphonies" came out, this video was on youtube with the original version of the song...a mash-up of the lyrics from Biggie Small's 'Hypnotize', and the drums from Rihanna's 'Umbrella' with Dan's lilting vocals. I loved the original low-budget video and while the video for Symphonies is cool, I still prefer the creative resourcefullness of the original.
I'll post both here:

Pomplamoose

Last night I hung with some friends who are music nerds and I mean that in the most endearing way. They are the boys who tour with KD Lang as her band and they all have an innocent enthusiasm for the magic of music. They shared this video with me last night and as Daniel Clark, the pianist so eloquently puts it, "That's the shit right there!!" Pomplamoose is Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte. I LOVE things like this that with zero budget and loads of creativity blow away the big budget MTV style videos.

FIREFLIES

Beautiful and imaginative video directed by Daniel Stessen for Chris Garneau's song 'Fireflies'.

Chris Garneau - New Music - More Music Videos

Beautiful Losers

Every time I have come across the book "Beautiful Losers" in art book stores I get excited to page through it because its energy is so fresh. Reminds me that you don't need a $50,000 art school education to be be revolutionary in the art world. Its always the underdogs that make history after all. I just recently discovered there is a film that accompanies the book.
"Beautiful Losers is a feature documentary film celebrating the independent and D.I.Y. spirit that unified a loose-knit group of American artists who emerged from the underground youth subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock and hip-hop. This documentary tells the story of how a group of outsiders with little or no formal training and almost no conception or interest of the inner workings of the art world ended up having an incredible impact on the worlds of art, fashion, music, film and pop culture."

OCEAN WITHOUT A SHORE

It seems to me that the general perception of "video art" is music video, or the type of hyperactive kinetic digital abstracts that you see at music festivals. For me this piece by Bill Viola from the Venice Biennial is true video 'art' in that its conceptual, visceral, visual, thought provoking and integrates multidimensional aspects of physicality, technology, concepts and visual elements.

PULP by Neil Krug

As much as I love the richness of the HD cameras and the evolution of the still digi cameras that rival film, I prefer the old grainy imperfect look of 70's style film. It just feels more romantic and to me. It transports to another era, while the perfection of digital brings us face to face with every detail of the present. I have seen some of the images from Neil Krug's Pulp Art Book www.pulpartbook.com and fell in love with them. This video doesn't even really do them justice so check the link! www.pulpartbook.com

RYAN MCGINLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

I was turned on to the photography of Ryan McGinley after a friend of mine worked on a Stella McCartney shoot that he was both the photographer and video artist for. I love his evocative style.

FREE CITY

I drove to Malibu twice in one week to take 2 different friends to the Free City Supershop. Hands down my favorite concept/aesthetic/spirit for a brand of all time. I get an inspiration overdose here.
Nina Garduno is the creative visionary behind Free City and one of my personal role models for creating community with ideas and aesthetics that naturally attract the things that resonate with a free spirit, rather than doing corporate branding. See a recent interview with Nina and pics from the Free City Supershop here. And a link to the official Free City website. Everything in the shop is handmade in the Free City workshop and every August a new art installation based on a theme is created that integrates design elements of color, found objects, books, music, artists, and what have you that all come together to create a precise and cohesive message along the lines of being open and free to possibilities. Here's a link to the most recent installation "The Museum of Natural Free City History/Sending Light".

WHEN I GROW UP

LOVE the richness and imagination of this one by Fever Ray, the singer from The Knife.

Japanese Teddy Boys

A Peter Bjorn and John video.