Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room--The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away is now available to view online through The Broad Museum's Instagram feed.
Take an opportunity to delve into the spiritual aspects of Kusama's exploration of eternity—paired with aural selections curated by The Broad, including drone, electronic, ambient, and pop music. Featuring deep cuts by celebrated musicians and sound artists from Los Angeles and beyond, the Infinite Drone series presents a new, contemplative way of experiencing The Broad’s most popular artwork.
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Experience an immersive environment of light and sound in the spirit of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away. Take an opportunity to delve into the spiritual aspects of Kusama's exploration of eternity—paired with aural selections chosen curated by The Broad, including drone, electronic, ambient, and pop music. Featuring deep cuts by celebrated musicians and sound artists from Los Angeles and beyond, the Infinite Drone series presents a new, contemplative way of experiencing The Broad’s most popular artwork. Today’s musical artist is: 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗮 𝗦𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗻 The Oval Window (2018) Los Angeles-based artist and composer Geneva Skeen (@geneeves) is influenced by écriture féminine, alchemical metaphors, and a range of musical traditions ranging from holy mysticism to industrial. She works with recordings, digital presets, voice, and mixed instrumentation. Her performances, publications, and installations focus on the contrast between facing the finite resources of our physical landscapes and their infinite digital representations. She is a recipient of the Touch Mentorship program and a member of VOLUME, a curatorial collective focused on sound-based practices.
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The Flippist presents "Social Distancing... A Flipbook," inspired by Kirsten Lepore's wonderful "Hi Stranger" (2017) and Juan Delcan's "Safety Match" (2020).
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This is the creation of avant-garde fashion designer Arnold Putra, claimed to be made with an ethically-sourced human child spine and alligator tongue leather. Unfortunately, it's been memory holed since Twitter found it. Fortunately, the memory holers always forget about the Bing Cache.
The ARNOLD PUTRA alligator tongue and human spine bag has been ethically sourced and crafted in a multiple panel construction. With an emphasis on protruding scar stitching lacing the outer construction of the bag, each wearer is encouraged to sculpt a form of his/her own sentiment. The unique silhouette is complimented by the human spine handle and raw edge finishes. Technical in design and construction, this one off bag is an ideal statement piece.
Each piece of Arnold Putra is meticulously hand crafted in their atelier upon order, limited in availability and may take up to 14 days to arrive during busy periods.
FEATURES:
- Limited to 1/1
- Alligator tongue and human spine bag with a unique pattern construction
- Natural finish
- Protruding scar stitching finishes
- Large main compartment
- Raw edge finishes
- Limited in availability
COMPOSITION:
- Shell: 100% Alligator tongue- Shell: 100% Human spine handle
If you're thinking of DIYing it, it turns out that ethically-sourced human child spines are not on Amazon, sadly, so you might have to wait three or more days to get the materials together.
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A delightful website called View-Master World features photos from View-Master reels across the decades. My favorite View-Master art has always been the 3D stuff from the 1960s. These 21 samples from a Flintstone’s reel are a high water mark of the genre. Read the rest
My friend Dean Putney sent me a link to this new video series called "Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems" and I like the videos so much that I asked Dean to write a bit on how it signifies what is going on right now. Here's what he said:
It feels like I haven’t met someone new on the Internet in a while. The start of this video series my mom posted on Facebook introduced me to children’s book author and illustrator Mo Willems in a wonderful way –-- drawing calmly in his home studio while we all observe social distancing. He talks to the camera, playfully gives you time to find your craft materials, and shows you some of his treasured original drawings from an early book in the brightly colored drawers behind him.
People everywhere are reaching out increasingly over the Internet to provide this kind of calm and support as we all deal with something new and unexpected. This was the stuff that made being online so exciting when it still felt good to log in.
But presumably these people existed before now. And the tools they’re using to make such important messages were there too -- they’ve gotten so good that you can whip up a video or a chat room pretty quickly. This raised a lot of questions for me: Is it just that people needed time and space for new projects? Have these sources of joy retreated from view as the open online became more hostile?
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In 2014, reddit user u/damburglar posted this abandoned recreation of Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks. That it's a plainly-rendered 3D model seems to make it even creepier. [via]
Here's one from Maxim Leyzerovich:
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It was 1993. I was working on my book Media Virus, and about to return home to LA from San Francisco, when Timothy Leary called to ask if I could make room for a “friend in need” who needed a ride. That friend turned out to be Genesis P-Orridge.
I had known of Gen through his music and reputation alone, and was frankly a little afraid to meet him. If the “coyote” boys I knew in the Temple of Psychick Youth were modeling themselves after him, I could only imagine how fierce Gen might be. But when I pulled into the parking garage where we supposed to meet, and saw the diminutive Genesis P-Orridge standing there with his two gorgeous young daughters and all their suitcases, my perception of him changed entirely.
And over the next eight hours, so did my perception of world.
Gen had just been quasi-exiled from England after a video he had made for Channel 4 (in which he carried out a mock abortion and ate the fetus), went viral in the tabloids. While Gen was in Thailand, the authorities ransacked his place, seized his archives, and made it clear he was no longer welcome in the UK. So he flew to California instead, essentially homeless, and was feeling pretty out of sorts as we drove. As his two daughters fought in the back, he told me, “If only people realized I was also a regular dad with two kids fighting in the back seat.”
The rest may as well have been straight from the tweets of QAnon. Read the rest
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge -- the pioneering performance artist, musician, and occultist -- died this morning. S/he was 70-years-old. Gen's daughters Caresse and Genesse released the following statement:
Dear friends, family and loving supporters,
It is with very heavy hearts that we announce thee passing of our beloved father, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
S/he had been battling leukemia for two and a half years and dropped he/r body early this morning, Saturday March 14th, 2020.
S/he will be laid to rest with h/er other half, Jaqueline “Lady Jaye” Breyer who left us in 2007, where they will be re-united.
Thank you for your love and support and for respecting our privacy as we are grieving.
Caresse & Genesse P-Orridge
#s/heisher/eforever
Here's the New York Times obituary: "Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Musician, Artist and Provocateur, Dies at 70"
(Image: Seth Tissue, CC BY-SA 2.0, modified)
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In 1962, Mel Brooks attended a screening of an abstract animation by Norman McLaren. He overheard an older fellow chattering and complaining through the whole thing. Inspired, Brooks and director Ernest Pintoff created this wonderful short film, "The Critic." Amazingly, Brooks improvised the narration while watching the animation. The film won a 1964 Academy Award in the category of Short Subjects (Cartoon). Read the rest
An unusual artwork at the Hotline Pink Thrift Shop in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina caught the eye of volunteer Wendy Hawkins. Intrigued, she brought it to a nearby art gallery to see if they could offer any insight. Turns out, the piece is a woodcut print from Salvador Dalí Divine Comedy series of watercolors painted in the 1950s. And the print is signed. While the piece is certainly striking, Dalí authorized countless prints that he signed in his lifetime. Still, the thrift store sold it for $1,200 that they will put to good use. From CNN:
[Michael Lewis, executive director of the Outer Banks Hotline, which runs the thrift shops] told CNN he doesn't know who donated the art.
"We get things donated in the middle of the night and sometimes people just drop off things and leave, so we have no idea who donated it," he said.
Lewis said they plan to use the money from the sale to help pay for their shelter for survivors of domestic violence and abuse, anti-bullying efforts and other programs.
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By not touching your face, you reduce the chances of getting sick from a virus or bacteria. This website, called Do Not Touch Your Face, uses your webcam to analyze your face and alert you with a tone if it catches you touching your face.
From the FAQ
How does this work?
Using your webcam, you train a machine learning algorithm (specifically Tensorflow.js) to recognize you touching your face and not touching your face. Once it's trained, it watches and alerts you when you touch your face.
Why shouldn't I touch my face?
The CDC recommends not touching your face as one action you can take to prevent getting COVID-19. Other things you should do: stay home if you're sick and avoid contact with other sick people. But you probably knew that already.
The alerts aren't working!
Try refreshing the page and trying again. Every time you reload the page, the algorithm retrains itself.
Do you keep my information?
Nope. This entire site runs locally—all the calculations from your webcam and alerts are done on your computer and are never sent over the internet.
Will this stop me from getting COVID-19?
Not for sure, but it might help.
Who made this?
This was made with love and fear by Mike Bodge, Brian Moore, and Isaac Blankensmith. Be safe out there.
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Cleethorpes is a faded northern English resort town whose inherent grimness is leavened by low rainfall and a nice sandy beach. And now it is to become home to a giant white metal palm tree, to the dismay of some locals.
Artist Wolfgang Weileder has said the sculpture will serve as a "warning for the future" on climate change. It will feature a black shadow underneath, partly made from recycled material collected from Cleethorpes beach. The project, due to be installed by the end of the year, attracted mixed reactions from residents, with some describing the sculpture as a "laughing stock". North East Lincolnshire Council's planning committee approved the sculpture by six votes to four, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.
They should call it The Tree of Brexit as it will warn off invading Danes.
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Since the 60s Genesis P-Orridge has been one of the masterminds behind artist collective COUM Transmissions and seminal music acts Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. Beyond that, P-Orridge has had an astonishing career in the visual arts, founding an artist collective called Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, as well as helming the infamous pandrogeny project in, which P-Orridge and deceased partner Lady Jaye went through ongoing plastic surgery sessions to resemble each other in an attempt to, as New York's Rubin Museum's catalogue once put it, "break down the limitations of biological sex and express their unconditional love for each other." As of 2017, Genesis has been having an ongoing battle with cancer. Here's our interview with Genesis, conducted earlier this year.
Do you think something happens to our consciousness when we die?
We think about that a lot. But we've also spent much of my life as an existentialist. We had the, is it good or misfortune to have read La Nausée by John Paul Sartre when we were about 12. And needless to say, it totally altered the way I saw all the information I'd been given by the Church of England and the status quo. And it made me basically an existentialist. There's just "we're here, we die, there's nothing," you know? But then we also had these psychic experiences and saw certain things that made me still not 100% sure of that either.
We used to say we were a romantic existentialist because we've always had this strong belief in Big Love. Read the rest
Colossal writes:
Designed to recycle outdated electronics, multiple musical projects by Electronicos Fantasticos utilize a version of the barcode system found on every package on store shelves. When scanned, each pattern sends a signal to its audio component, emitting the corresponding sound wave. The black and white stripes produce a variety of rhythmic and tonal noises in two instrumental projects: the Barcoder, shown above, and Barcodress, a pattern-covered gown that’s played when the wearer moves in front of the scanner. Artist and musician Ei Wada leads the design group, which said in a statement that its goal is to create an entire orchestra of similar instruments. To watch more of the barcode projects in use, head to Instagram and YouTube.
[H/t Jay Townsend]
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Designer Harikrishnan's inflatable latex trousers suggest "anatomically impossible" proportions. They're so weird, silly, and so delightful. Read the rest
An annual parade of kinetic sculptures and other artworks and performances in a Dutch canal to celebrate the work of hometown hero Hieronymus Bosch? More of this in the world, please! Read the rest
This 1632 portrait of a young woman was painted by the Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn, says Allentown Art Museum, contrary to the judgement of the Rembrandt Research Project, which long-ago determined the painting was by an assistant or student.
Earlier X-ray analyses had led some historians to question the authenticity of the brushwork on the subject's face. The apparent lack of clarity in her clothing further fueled doubts, while additional concerns were raised over the artist's signature, which is painted differently from those found in many of his other works. But after embarking on conservation efforts in 2018, experts noticed signs that it may be an original Rembrandt. According to Shan Kuang, a conservator at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts who worked on the project, thick layers of varnish from a previous restoration had darkened over time, obscuring the brushstrokes and hiding the depth of appearance the artist was celebrated for.
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Shan Kuang–Old Master painting conservator at @nyuifa–shares the science behind restoring the Allentown Art Museum’s "Portrait of a Young Woman," recently reattributed to Rembrandt. The painting will return for viewing in the Museum’s Kress Gallery. • #atownartmuseum #artgallery #artwork #artlovers #artofvisuals #artstagram #artcollector #artlife #artmuseum #artmuseums #allentown #allentownpa #lehighvalley #liftyourspiritsdlv #discoverlehighvalley #downtownallentown #rembrandt #rembrandtartexperience #rembrandts #restoreart #restoringart #artrestoration #artrestorer #artrestoring #artrestorationandconservation
A post shared by Allentown Art Museum (@atownartmuseum) on Jan 17, 2020 at 8:11am PST
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