Focus on Yusaku Kamekura, Father of Japanese grahic Design

Excellent series of Posters from Yusaku Kamekura, considered as the father of the graphic design in Japan. Via the EXCELLENT Pink Tentacle website that i highly recommend to all art lovers, not only Japanese ones....

FEED YOUR BRAIN

Eloquent Vandals Trailer

Coming Soon // More HERE

Miami Basel Report with REVOK

Revok is back and he offers us a wicked compilation of shoots from Miami's Finest Basel production. Beware, Colourfull inside

Get More HERE

Tkid Movie Trailer

Terrible T-Kid 170 from Love Machine Films on Vimeo.

Legendary Terrible Kid 170 is about to release a movie about his life. Watch the Trailer & expect never seen footages, interview, actions and as i saw rollin' materials in Spain & mo' worldwide

Stay Rude

Brainfeeder & Strangeloop are launching Sessions at The Downtown Independent

With Short Movies by

Jp Frenay

Robert Seidel

Makoto Yabuki

Takafumi Tsuchiya aka Takom

Lucio Arese

Also a night with Ques, Daedelus, GLK, Jogger (GRAB HIS NEW LP on Daedelus Imprint !!!) & Dr Strangeloop

More here

Street Arts Finest # 1

- Edgar Müller -



- Joshua Allen Harris -



- Paris Old Good Times....RIP -

Nosaj Thing Live Visuals

Nosaj Thing Visual Show Compilation Test Shoot from Adam Guzman on Vimeo.

Brilliant<.......>

Amaze Me

555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

I watched those guys months ago....it was already Amazing
This one is great, i cant imagine what they will do in the future...

BIG

Headhunter's Transistor new record label + Forthcoming Tracks by F (7even Records)

[HEAVY]

Vector Meldrew, a great and imaginative Visual Producer just dropped this logo for Headhunter's new Record Label called Transistor Records.
As a big Fan of Headhunter (He's one of the top 3 Dubstep Dub Techno producer actually), what a surprise to heard that news....His own inprint......I can't wait to listen the forthcoming releases & wondering which artists will be signed.....

SO YEAH

F from 7even records will be signed on this label
So my 2 fav' producer working together, on their own label & a collab on the flip

Be Sure to listen those tracks on F MYSPACE, 3 new tracks in rotation including 2 forthcoming on Transistor!!!!!

- Headhunter & F - Dedale (Forthcoming Transistor Records)
- F - Night Dive (Forthcoming Transistor Records)

- Samuel H. Simpson - Spronkle (F Remix) (Take Records Dub)

KICK MY ASS
KICK YOURZ

Thanks to Vector Meldrew for this info
Check his work please

14th July Fête Nationale

I promised to find it...
won'ttalk about Fete Nationale Sorry...Army isnt my ting


Movie by Arthur Metcalf, great

Saturday is Samedi is Saturday

Fantaisie in Bubblewrap, a short movie by Arthur Metcalf

I was watching the end of Pulp Fiction this morning, while having my brunch...and it's
My fav' movie all time for sure...
Even if i love Jonas Mekas, Chris Marker or Pavel Lounguine screens....Pulp Fiction is so great
After the movie, there were this shorts called "Fantaisie In Bubblewrap", i just tried to youtube it and its not on it...so sorry for not posting it. The director said he will upload it very soon...so i'll keep in touch but if u saw it or will see, you can email him and drop a shout on his blog, check also his other works, Arthur Melcaf...more to come

AND

As i were reading his blog, he posted a fuckin cool short one called "Spider", i watched this one about 6 or 7 months ago.....and it's fuckin great.
Youtubed it? Correct

INTENSE SHORT

Have a good week-end world

I Love Sabotage Ayeah....

Zevs # Fake Gzzglz online(2009)

A friend of a friend is making a big report for Uni on Graffiti...and that "Street Art" Shits.
I tried to answered her the most true as i can, my vision of graffiti and why i think people think like tey think....
About street art, what can i say: Mr A. (André) sucks?
Right, treat me a jealous, or anything else
But everybody knows...he is
If you like to pay 175euros for a Andre Tees at the Palais de Tokyo shop, it's your choice
If you like to think that he's an orginal artist with such a great imagination, so take your notes back and have a look on Jacques Rouxel creations in....1968, a famous french cartoon called Les Shadoks.

If you didnt know, now you know
Also that Agnes B. paid all police stuffs for André....that's a real bad bwoy...


...André, if you read this: You suckaz...



Well, after that i can say that Street Art don't exist.
Art does

Why institutions call it Sreet Art? Why not just Art?
Because, and everybody will be agree wit'dat, you have stuffs in gallery who sucks a lot.
But it's Art, you know Real Real Art for nice suits and nice silicone lips gal'...looking at someone pooing on a Lady Di picture...
(I love Diana, but its so hardcore to shit on her picture...they say)

They're just afraid of it
Streets, smells, talents

Remember Kase2, NYC, back in the late 70's Mid 80's, he developped the Wild Style, on subways, illegaly, created master pieces in 25 minutes with shit spray cans, done so quick...
with only one arm.
Ghetto Child...Art always been political
And when it stopped, it died

ZEVS, which is considered by elites as a street artist is for me, more than that...

He's a vandal

Which is more interesting...
Do you think Banksy started graffiti, started Rats collections, vandalized the Southbank London with fire extinguisher just for fun? Or to become an artist? You think he's still a street artist? or an Artist? Cause of the price of his canvas? So he can keep on vandalize and no one will bring him on court?
So...if it's the case, let's vandalize !!! We'll become artists

The non-sense of that situation is pretty dadaist, i really like it

So You should check ZEVS's site if you never heard about him (no one is perfect) and think twice before call Art: Street Art or African Art...It's just Arts

We're all humans so let's dance now

Simian Mobile Disco # Synthetise

J.

7th Gwangju Biennial [5 Sept. - 11 Nov. 2008], Focus on Gwon Osang & New The Walkmen LP "You & Me" (Gigantic Music)

Gwon, Osang
A statement of meaningless 360 pieces / C-prints mixed media / 120x100x60 cm, 2000



Gwangju Biennale 2008 presentation from Artkrush
(Where u can look at pictures from Biennale's Artists)

"Artistic director Okwui Enwezor dispensed with a thematic framework for the Gwangju Biennale 2008. Instead, Enwezor — past director of the 1997 Johannesburg Biennale and 2002's documenta 11 — chose to showcase a series of selected traveling exhibitions, consisting of 127 artists from 36 countries, under the title Annual Report: A Year in Exhibitions. The show consists of three sections: On the Road gathers and engages 36 exhibitions from the past year; Position Papers allows five emerging curators to realize innovative exhibition proposals and curatorial strategies; and Insertions presents new works created especially for the Biennale.

For On the Road, German artist Hans Haacke's Wide White Flow is transported from New York's Paula Cooper Gallery to the Biennale Hall, its white silk sheet billowing above the currents of four large fans. Another New York transplant, the Whitney Museum's retrospective Gordon Matta-Clark: You Are the Measure contributes Matta-Clark's seminal works of segmented architecture, such as 1974's Splitting. Isaac Julien offers a somber film on illegal immigration off the Sicilian coast, while Bruce Yonemoto photographs Asian-American male models in theatrical Civil War costumes to explore heroism. Other notable contributions to On the Road come from two young Korean artists: Donghee Koo presents the impressive video work Static Electricity of Cat's Cradle, a film within a film based on a couple's shared memories of bygone heroes and ancestors, and Jina Park's new series of Moontan paintings draws inspiration from LOMO toy cameras, depicting banal, unremarkable moments of everyday existence.

In the Insertions portion of the Biennale, a collaborative work between Donghwan Jo and his son Haejun Jo contains more than 500 documentary drawings based on their family history vis-à-vis Korean social history. A special archival cabinet has been constructed for the work, with viewers invited to examine each drawing closely. Meanwhile, American photographer Daniel Faust channels Stephen Shore's drive-by aesthetic for a tourist-cum-ethnographer's take on Alaska, and Indian artist Praneet Soi shows deftly rendered miniatures of Abu Ghraib tortures. Claire Tancons' opening-day procession at Position Papers meanwhile, paid tribute to Gwangju's democratic uprising in May of 1980, while Sung-Hyen Park's Bokdukbang Project placed experimental installations by Korean artists Munho Ma, Munjong Park, Kiyoung Peik, and others in Daein Traditional Market — set up in stalls alongside fish, fruit, and vegetable vendors.

Founded in the fall of 1995, the Gwangju Biennale was intended to be the foremost contemporary art event in Asia, but it faces increasing competition from other festivals in Korea and those in nearby countries. However, Enwezor has praised such proliferation, saying: "It is not a competition among biennales... This is an immense privilege for this region to have so many exhibits open." Enwezor believes it is only proof that "the 21st century will be the Asian century."

- Josephina E. Lee The Gwangju Biennale continues through November 9 at the Biennale Hall, the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Uijae Museum of Korean Art, the Daein Traditional Market, and the Cinema Gwangju.

Also, one of the best artist at this Biennale is certainly the korean Osang Gwon

Born in 1974 in Seoul, where he lives and works today, Gwon received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in sculpture from the prestigious Hong-Ik University. Gwon's attempts to break away from traditional sculpture led him to abandon conventional materials, such as bronze and stone, and begin working photography into his work. In doing so, Gwon secured his first solo exhibition in 2001 at Insa Art Space in Seoul; he has since shown internationally in Beijing, London, and Zurich.



A statement of 280 pieces on the absolute authority and worship in art / C-prints, mixed media / 240x50x140 cm /1999

Osang Gwon may be best known for his photographic modes, but don't call him a photographer. In 1998, he began his Deodorant Type series of life-size figures created from hundreds of cut-and-pasted photographic fragments, including inanimate objects, such as Unbearable heaviness, that mapped the texture of stone over rounded forms. But his human figures — eerie, three-dimensional paper dolls — eventually became Gwon's trademark entrance into the art world, and continue to hold sway on the contemporary market. Several works from the series, along with new commissions, were recently on view in a solo show at the Manchester Art Gallery in the UK.


THE FLAT 11 / Lamda Print, Diasec / 180x225 cm / 2004

For his next project, appropriately titled The Flat, Gwon assembled magazine cutouts of luxury goods, propping them up in a tight swarm across desks and floors to create the illusion of depth; he then photographed the glossy, yet empty cascades, collapsing them back into two dimensions. Again toying with the demands of three-dimensional representation, Gwon re-examines sculptural conventions with full-scale, painted bronze models of sports cars and motorbikes in The Sculpture. Here, the sculptor's quest for anomalous artistic forms leads him back to an old-fashioned material in an act of ironic homecoming. Gwon's name continues to circulate — he recently photographed British megarockers Keane for the cover of their upcoming album — as his continuing ability to subvert his media challenges audiences to look beyond preconceived notions.

To be honest i'm fucking in love for that guy...Impressive Works



Today, i was listenning to The Walkmen's last LP called You & Me.
As i bought it for the library, i wanted to verify if my friends speechs about it were correct or just (again) bullshits

For one time, she was right. This new one is a great as well.

Beautifull songs all along if u were waiting for something different, don't be disapointed
It's still The Walkmen
It's different
And its Fuckin good

4th in a series (we hope so !!), this one was written since 2 years between an old night club in Chelsea/New-York & one old house inside Fish Town's neighboor in Philly.
Recorded first in the Mississippi by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth) then in New York by Chris Zane (Calla, White Rabbits, Asobi Seksu)...Yummy !

This track called On The Water, is clearly perfect to watch some pictures from the Biennale
Or smoke a lil one...

Get the album on Gigantic Music
And check their Myspace

Peace & Good Week end everyone

Syclops - I've Got My Eye On You (DFA, 2008)

I've been listening to this album since i found it on a blog one or two months ago (can't remember which one sorry)...About all mysteries around this band's members faces n shit, i really don't give a F*µù...
As my favs producers are mostly playing on stage with masks, i'm not gonna spend time to tell u why or who is behind Syclops.
Just the fact is, Maurice Fulton produced, arranged & Wrote that LP...This reason isn't the only one to be mo' curious about them.
The best one is this extract from that pretty good LP called I've got my eye on you.
Ok it's a DFA record but...what else?

THIS
Syclops # The Fly

Ok, it's not a brand new exclusive super VIP record, but it's a good one
So check it out

Read also Reviews on R.A. & Pitchfork Media

This Record can be purchase at
DFA Official Webstore
Boomkat
Or
Juno


Peace

Anne Sofie Von Otter # Swedish Songs [Boldemann-Gefors-Hillborg] (Deutsche Grammophon, 2008)

Anne Sofie von Otter was born in Stockholm and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Vera Rosza. She also attended classes in lied interpretation with Geoffrey Parsons in London and Erik Werba in Vienna. In 1980 she began her collaboration with the pianist Bengt Forsberg. Two years later she joined the ensemble of the Basle Opera, where she made her mark as an interpreter of Mozart (Cherubino, Dorabella, Sesto) and Richard Strauss (Composer). One of the finest singers of her generation, the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano works with the pre-eminent conductors of the day, has triumphed at the world’s major opera houses and is a regular guest at leading festivals. Anne Sofie von Otter has also achieved great success as a lieder interpreter, mostly in collaboration with Bengt Forsberg.

"Always searching for new and challenging repertoire, Anne Sofie von Otter herself came up with the idea for this album: “I wanted to do something for Swedish contemporary music, and so, following the intense work preparing and premiering Hans Gefors's Lydia's Songs, I asked Anders Hillborg if he would also compose a work." Complementing the two recent cycles by living composers in this collection is one from the mid-20th century by a lesser-known figure, Laci Boldemann.

Hardly any other Swedish composer's biography can match the drama of Laci Boldemann's. Born in Helsinki, he grew up in Germany and moved to Sweden in 1939. Forced into the German army during the war, he served in Russia, Poland and Italy before deserting to join the Italian partisans. Eventually he was captured and spent two years in an American POW camp. In 1947 he returned to Sweden, where during the 1950s he had to support himself as a timber measurer. As a composer, Boldemann devoted much of his career to writing stage works and songs for children.

Boldemann's Four Epitaphs for mezzo-soprano and string orchestra, labelled a cantata by the composer, date from 1952. They are settings of poems from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (1915), 244 free-form tombstone epitaphs for citizens of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois, written in the first person. “I find the songs incredibly moving," says von Otter. “The first one is truly beautiful, both text and music. I am also attracted to their simplicity; there is a streak of folk music in them."

The four epitaphs offer four different perspectives on love and death. In the first setting, with its almost Wagnerian accompaniment, Sarah Brown implores her grieving lover to tell her husband to accept their illicit affair: “Through the flesh I won spirit, and through spirit, peace." In the second song, a march, Ollie McGee avenges her cruel and humiliating husband in death. Boldemann's cantata is significantly more modern than his vocal works from the 1960s, especially the third song, in which Mabel Osborne complains that her tomb's flowers are drooping from lack of water, a metaphor for her loveless life. Finally, in a tranquil setting, William and Emily sing of the bliss in passing away together.

Hans Gefors composed Lydia's Songs for Anne Sofie von Otter in 1995-96 to a commission from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Having produced successful operas dealing with deception, murder and the dark side of the human mind, including Christina (1986) and The Park (1991), he chose here to write love songs that address themes of longing, innocence, lust, desire, jealousy, ridicule, abandonment, and both painful and sweet memories, finding his inspiration in Hjalmar Söderberg's The Serious Game (Den allvarsamma leken).

Arguably the greatest love story in Swedish literature, Söderberg's 1912 novel is a complex work containing direct references to specific works of literature, poetry and music. The story, which begins towards the end of the 19th century, is simple. Arvid and Lydia fall in love, but end up marrying others. After ten years they meet again at the opera. Arvid is now a music critic. They begin an adulterous affair. Lydia divorces, but at the end abandons Arvid for another man. Arvid leaves the country.

Gefors's song cycle is organized in seven sections, with a clear, almost operatic, narrative outline. Only once does he take his text directly from Söderberg, instead turning to poetry mentioned or suggested in the novel - verses by Heine, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Jens Peter Jacobsen.

Gefors first met von Otter when she played him her album “Speak Low: Songs by Kurt Weill," and he was immensely impressed with her range of expression: “I was fascinated by the fact that the same singer could perform Baroque and cabaret, high Romanticism, Lieder and folksongs with equal sensuality and commitment. That inspired me to aim high." Later, after having presented von Otter with the final version, he recalled that “she seemed surprised over the work's scopea 30-minute cycle in which the singer sings virtually the whole time is rare, but she approached the piece with a determination to master it." Von Otter agrees, and adds that she appreciated the work's “immense expressiveness and the different character of the individual movements. Although the music most often has a tonal focus, the cycle's sheer length and the rhythmic complexity of the fifth movement, 'The Sphinx,' make it intensely demanding."

Although sung by a woman, the cycle adopts Arvid's male perspective on Lydia. In two sections, however, we hear her own voice. In no. 2 she seeks a way out of her confining marriage. In no. 6 the text comes from the final duet in Bizet's Carmen, in which the heroine (a role von Otter knows well), referring to herself, famously exclaims “Free she was born and free she will die!" shortly before she is murdered by Don José. The concluding cabaret song, a Heine setting, is also the last poem that the disillusioned Arvid reads in the novel before he goes away. Although it has a familiar ring, the song is entirely Gefors's own. “I take pride," he says “in writing melodies that seem universal."

Anders Hillborg is perhaps best known for his orchestral works - among them, Eleven Gates (2003), commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen - although he has also made an astonishing contribution to the choral repertoire with his overtone piece muoaiyouum and has collaborated with Swedish pop singer Eva Dahlgren. Hillborg composed ...lontana in sonno... in 2003 for von Otter and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra to texts by Petrarch, the 14th-century Italian Renaissance humanist who channelled his obsessive, unrequited love into poetry. In these settings of Sonnets 250 and 301, expressions of Petrarch's emotions before and after the death of his beloved Laura in 1348, Hillborg blends the vocal line with highly imaginative instrumental combinations. As von Otter explains: “The vocal part is instrumentally conceived and is most demanding for the performer. Anders asked me to adjust my singing to the sound of the instruments."

In particular, the dense but clear, vibrato-free, sine-tone sound of string and glass harmonica chords suggests a giant synthesizer, typical of Hillborg's orchestral writing, as well as the spacious acoustics of a cathedral. The lament unfolds from a slow, static introduction with a Gregorian chant-like melody in the voice - here Hillborg is emulating the medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen. The music builds to an intensively ornamented section in which the poet recalls Laura's words - “Do you not remember that last evening?" - as Hillborg introduces a violin solo evoking the hurdy-gurdy of Schubert's Leiermann. ...lontana in sonno... ends as it began - in despair. "

Per F. Broman in Swedish Song original Booklet

In This new Recording published on Deutsche Grammophon, Anne Sofie von Otter insist to create one and unique records about Swedish Composers. First one composed by Anders Hillborg, is an absolute unique creation. As a world-premiere recording, this one is very close from György Ligeti's work (used in Kubrick's 2001) in instrumentation and sounds. Hillborg asked von Otter to put her voice the most closest from Strings...Quite difficult i can tell but after one and only one listening, we can see how much Anne Sofie is one of the last greatest Soprano of the last century.

...Lontana In Sonno ... (2003_World Premiere Recording)

Feelings during 15'05 are so powerfull...thats why i wanted to share this song with y'all


Don't doubt about quality of the entire CD, its an absolute master piece just released
You can buy it online on a deluxe 320kbps quality on deutsche grammophon website or as a CD.

BUY IT HERE
BUY IT HERE
BUY IT HERE
BUY IT HERE



Deutsche Grammophon Website
Anne Sofie von Otter Website
Anders Hillborg Website

Maria Callas 30th Anniversary

MARIA CALLAS (1923-1977)

On the 16th September i'll think about you

Hiroya Kurata's Arts

Hiroya Kurata was born in Osaka Japan, and grew upin Tokyo and Chicago.
His artwork is inspired by various things including thegreek myths, baseball cards, and Bikuri-Man stickers.He is a member of a Japanese manga group, Mashcomix.
He is currently living and working in Brooklyn, NYC.

I met Hiro 2 years ago, during the summer 2005 at the opening of the Dolce Vita # 2 organised by Carla Communication at Espace Beaurepaire in Paris. It was a big show with different artists as painter, sculptor, designer, couturier, musicians & performers, video & fashion alsoHiro introduced some sculpturs and canvas at this show. To be honest, I already admire his talent and his unique way of drawing at the first second I saw his works…It reminds me works of Os Gemeos, the two brazilian graffiti artists brothers. So i started to talk with him about this, and he knew works of those freaks...Who don't ??
Anyway, we talked a lot about Arts, our influences and differences between him; who considerate Art as an entire work and me; who just drawing for my pleasure or as a therapy...
He's involve into a lot of different projects with graffiti artists, designer and worked already for different galleries in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris and NYC where he's actually living.
I just saw he's gonna work with that great crew The Brooklyn Circus, check the blog.
The link to this great show he did in Tokyo last year as well 2006 at BBS Tokyo, the 10x10 Show.

Some of my favorites works of Hiro

A Bull and A Violin Man





Zen Meditation






Greek Myth


!!!! I'm proud to be your Friend !!!!
See you soon.....






All works are properties of Hiroya Kurata.
2006 hiroya kurata

shiloku@gmail.com