The National Gallery Makes 25,000 Images of Artwork Freely Available Online

in Art, Music, Technology | June 11th, 2013

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No sur­prise that in “Mas­ter­works for One and All,” an arti­cle about how muse­ums have begun to offer free, high-qual­i­ty down­load­able images of works from their col­lec­tions, the New York Times’ Nina Sie­gal brings up Wal­ter Ben­jamin. The pre­oc­cu­pa­tions of the philoso­pher behind “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechan­i­cal Repro­duc­tion” may seem more rel­e­vant than ever in these days of not just mechan­i­cal repro­duc­tion, but uni­ver­sal, devel­oped-world own­er­ship of the means of mechan­i­cal repro­duc­tion — and near­ly instan­ta­neous, effort­less mechan­i­cal repro­duc­tion at that. Many rights-hold­ers, includ­ing cer­tain muse­ums, have effec­tive­ly decid­ed that if you can’t beat the mechan­i­cal repro­duc­ers, join ’em. “With the Inter­net, it’s so dif­fi­cult to con­trol your copy­right or use of images,” Sie­gal quotes the Rijksmu­se­um’s direc­tor of col­lec­tions as say­ing. “We decid­ed we’d rather peo­ple use a very good high-res­o­lu­tion image of [Ver­meer’s] ‘Milk­maid’ from the Rijksmu­se­um rather than using a very bad repro­duc­tion.” (See our pre­vi­ous post: The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art.)

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Sie­gal goes on to men­tion the efforts of Wash­ing­ton’s Nation­al Gallery of Art, which has so far made super high-res­o­lu­tion images of 25,000 works freely avail­able on NGA Images, a site that describes itself as “designed to facil­i­tate learn­ing, enrich­ment, enjoy­ment, and explo­ration.” You can browse the images by col­lec­tion — French gal­leries, self-por­traits, music — view the most recent addi­tions, or pull up the works of art most fre­quent­ly request­ed by oth­ers. Leonar­do’s por­trait of the Flo­ren­tine aris­to­crat Ginevra de’ Ben­ci, seen up top, has proven par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar, as has Claude Mon­et’s The Japan­ese Foot­bridge just above. But does all this bear out Ben­jam­in’s con­cerns about mechan­i­cal repro­duc­tion cheap­en­ing the orig­i­nal aura of a work? “I don’t think any­one thinks we’ve cheap­ened the image of the ‘Mona Lisa,’” an NGA spokes­woman said to Sie­gal. “Peo­ple have got­ten past that, and they still want to go to the Lou­vre to see the real thing. It’s a new, 21st-cen­tu­ry way of respect­ing images.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google Launch­es a New “Art Talks” Series: Tune in Tonight

Down­load Hun­dreds of Free Art Cat­a­logs from The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art

Free: The Guggen­heim Puts 65 Mod­ern Art Books Online

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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World Records: New Photo Exhibit Pays Tribute to the Era of Vinyl Records & Turntables

in Art, Music | June 11th, 2013

KindofBlue_MilesDavisJust yes­ter­day, The New York Times ran a piece declar­ing that vinyl is back. Once a casu­al­ty of the CD, vinyl records are now sell­ing at a steady clip, and not just to nos­tal­gic sex­a­ge­nar­i­ans. Younger music fans are embrac­ing old-school records, frankly because they deliv­er a bet­ter sound than com­pressed MP3s. When Daft Punk released its lat­est album Ran­dom Access Mem­o­ries last month, 19,000 vinyl copies were sold, rep­re­sent­ing about 6% of over­all sales. And that may be a low­ball num­ber.

There is, of course, a nos­tal­gic com­po­nent to the vinyl revival. We fond­ly rem­i­nisce about the days when music had oth­er tan­gi­ble and aes­thet­ic dimen­sions. Remem­ber when you could feel the weight of the records, study the cov­er designs, rev­el in the lin­er notes, then slip the discs onto the turntable and watch them spin? Those mem­o­ries get cap­tured by a new pho­to exhib­it — “World Records” — being held at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Ange­les from June 8 to July 13. It fea­tures the work of Kai Schae­fer, who has pho­tographed over 100 clas­sic albums on an array of turnta­bles. Above, you’ll find a copy of Miles Davis’ jazz clas­sic, Kind of Blue, sit­ting on a Rekokut B‑12GH. Oth­er favorites of ours include Lon­don Call­ing by The Clash on a B&O Beogram 4004, The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street on a Dual1010, and VU’s The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico on a Thorens TD 124II. You can vis­it a larg­er online gallery of pho­tos here.

via Slate and Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A Cel­e­bra­tion of Retro Media: Vinyl, Cas­settes, VHS, and Polaroid Too

Neil Young on the Trav­es­ty of MP3s

Neil Young Busts a Music Store for Sell­ing a Boot­leg CSNY Album (1971)

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Maurice Sendak Animated; James Gandolfini Reads from Sendak’s Story “In The Night Kitchen”

in Art, Comics/Cartoons, K-12 | June 10th, 2013

Mau­rice Sendak (1928–2012), the great writer and illus­tra­tor of chil­dren’s books, would have turned 85 today. To cel­e­brate his birth­day, Google has adorned its web site with a fan­tas­tic ani­mat­ed doo­dle (make sure you press the “play” but­ton) and Blank on Blank has released a video that ani­mates Sendak’s mus­ings about being a kid. Based on a pre­vi­ous­ly-unheard inter­view record­ed in 2009, Sendak speaks in the clip about his dif­fi­cult child­hood, which was sur­round­ed by tragedy. (He grew up in Brook­lyn, the child of Pol­ish Jew­ish immi­grants whose remain­ing fam­i­ly per­ished dur­ing the Holo­caust.) He also recalls how chil­dren all have prob­lems to work through — prob­lems that remained at the front of his mind when he start­ed writ­ing his clas­sic chil­dren’s books. It’s worth pair­ing the video above with anoth­er ani­mat­ed video of Sendak’s emo­tion­al last inter­view with NPR’s Ter­ry Gross. And, for a com­plete­ly ran­dom bonus, we’ve added below a clip of James Gan­dolfi­ni (aka Tony Sopra­no) read­ing from Sendak’s con­tro­ver­sial sto­ry book In The Night Kitchen. The read­ing took place on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2008 at the 92nd St Y in New York City, at a trib­ute held on the occa­sion of Sendak’s 80th birth­day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Late James Gan­dolfi­ni, Star of The Sopra­nos, Appears on Inside the Actors Stu­dio (2004) 

The Mind & Art of Mau­rice Sendak: A Video Sketch

An Ani­mat­ed Christ­mas Fable by Mau­rice Sendak (1977)

 

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David Byrne’s Graduation Speech Offers Troubling and Encouraging Advice for Students in the Arts

in Art, Education, Graduation Speech, Music | June 10th, 2013


How could David Byrne nev­er have giv­en a com­mence­ment address before? As an expe­ri­enced pub­lic speak­er, a well-known cre­ator who has carved out his own cul­tur­al niche, an advo­cate of things (such as cycling) beloved among world-chang­ing young peo­ple, the founder of a band with a sur­pris­ing mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional appeal, and a man with no small com­mand of Pow­er­point, he’d seem to make an appeal­ing choice indeed. His first com­mence­ment address ever came this year at the Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of the Arts, and, view­able from 1:17:00 in the video above, it has cer­tain­ly made an impact in the inter­net. The mes­sage some grads and fans have tak­en away? “If you chose a career in the arts,” as the New York­er’s Rachel Arons puts it, “you are, basi­cal­ly, screwed.”

“A pie chart, based on 2011 data, showed that only three per cent of film and the­atre grads, and five per cent of writ­ing and visu­al-arts grads, end up work­ing in their areas of con­cen­tra­tion,” she writes of the visu­al aids deliv­er­ing Byrne’s grim ini­tial mes­sage. “A sub­se­quent bar graph showed that, accord­ing to those stats, four­teen writ­ing and four­teen Colum­bia visu­al-arts grad­u­ates will go on to careers in their fields, and eight the­atre and eight film grads will go on to careers in theirs.” But first­hand reports from the cer­e­mo­ny don’t describe a too ter­ri­bly shak­en Colum­bia grad­u­at­ing class, and even Byrne took pains to empha­size, or at least emphat­i­cal­ly imply, that tru­ly worth­while careers — such as, I would say, his own — lay out­side, or in between, or at the inter­sec­tion of, defin­able fields. And why would you want to work in the same field you stud­ied, any­way? To para­phrase some­thing Byrne’s friend and col­lab­o­ra­tor Bri­an Eno said about tech­nol­o­gy, once a whole major has built up around a pur­suit, it’s prob­a­bly not the most inter­est­ing thing to be doing any­more.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

David Byrne Gives Us the Low­down on How Music Works (with Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Daniel Lev­itin)

How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er: A Short Doc­u­men­tary

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Louis CK Ridicules Avant-Garde Art on 1990s MTV Show

in Art, Comedy | June 10th, 2013

In the 1990s, some­where on his long road to star­dom, Louis CK made an appear­ance on a satir­i­cal “Artu­men­tary” aired by MTV. In it, CK plays the role of David Cross, a would-be artist who spe­cial­izes in pho­tograph­ing toi­lets filled with ink — a not-so-sub­tle metaphor for the tripe that often gets passed off as avant-garde art. In case there’s any ambi­gu­i­ty about the under­ly­ing mes­sage, Cross add wry­ly, “Basi­cal­ly, see, MTV will show you a lot of crap, and they’ll tell you it’s art. But I show you crap, and it’s, like, art.”

via Petapix­el

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

David Lynch Teach­es Louis C.K. How to Host The David Let­ter­man Show

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Building Statues for Nikola Tesla and Bob Dylan: Two Kickstarter Campaigns

in Art, Music, Science | June 6th, 2013

In the mat­ter of a month, a group called North­ern Imag­i­na­tion raised $127,000 on Kick­starter, the amount need­ed to fund the build­ing of a stat­ue ded­i­cat­ed to the inven­tor Niko­la Tes­la in Sil­i­con Val­ley. It’s a way of pay­ing trib­ute to “the per­son who used his bril­liance to advance soci­ety” by mak­ing “hun­dreds of sig­nif­i­cant and ground­break­ing inven­tions in areas of wire­less ener­gy, wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mag­net­ism, radio, x‑rays, cos­mic rays, radar, robot­ics, engine-pow­ered air­craft and much more.” As cur­rent­ly planned, the stat­ue will sit on Cal­i­for­nia Ave in Palo Alto (right in my neck of the woods). Nat­u­ral­ly, it will host a free Wi-Fi hotspot and also a time cap­sule to be opened on Jan 7, 2043.

Mean­while, halfway across the coun­try, the “Dylan by Duluth” cam­paign is hop­ing to raise $159,000 (again on Kick­starter) to build a stat­ue hon­or­ing Duluth’s favorite son, the trou­ba­dour Bob Dylan. Once com­plete, the bronze stat­ue will stand approx­i­mate­ly 12 feet 6 inch­es tall and hope­ful­ly sit some­where near High­way 61. Three days in, the still-very-young cam­paign has received $5,089 from 40 back­ers. You can help make the Dylan mon­u­ment a real­i­ty right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Magi­cian Mar­co Tem­pest Daz­zles a TED Audi­ence with “The Elec­tric Rise and Fall of Niko­la Tes­la”

Bob Dylan and Van Mor­ri­son Sing Togeth­er in Athens, on His­toric Hill Over­look­ing the Acrop­o­lis

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

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Bauhaus, Modernism & Other Design Movements Explained by New Animated Video Series

in Architecture, Art, Design | June 5th, 2013

UK’s Open Uni­ver­si­ty has devel­oped a fun way to mar­ket their design cours­es: a series of six short ani­ma­tions called “Design in a Nut­shell” that briefly sur­vey impor­tant move­ments in the arts and architecture—from the late-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Goth­ic Revival to late-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Post­mo­d­er­mism. While the for­mer looked far into the past, seek­ing to pre­serve tra­di­tion, the lat­ter looked every­where, glee­ful­ly dis­man­tling, recy­cling, and recom­bin­ing frag­ment­ed and irrecov­er­able his­to­ries.

Between the two extremes, three inter-relat­ed post-WWI move­ments sought to make peace with the indus­tri­al present and design for a har­mo­nious future. The first one fea­tured, the Bauhaus move­ment (above)—founded in Weimar, Ger­many by Wal­ter Gropius in 1919—integrated the fine arts and indus­tri­al design into one school. Famous teach­ers includ­ed artists Paul Klee and Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky. Bauhaus designs per­me­ate the larg­er move­ment known as Mod­ernism.

The ani­ma­tion above gives us the briefest gist of Mod­ernism, a sweep­ing umbrel­la term for a host of rad­i­cal ‑isms in the arts, lit­er­a­ture, design, and architecture—impressionism, cubism, fau­vism, futur­ism, bru­tal­ism, sur­re­al­ism…. Euro­pean and Amer­i­can artists turned their back on the old-world past after the mass slaugh­ter of World War One. Not all Mod­ernists found solace in the break­down of the old order. Writ­ers like T.S. Eliot found much rea­son to despair. But design­ers like Eero Saari­nen and the hus­band and wife team Charles and Ray Eames embraced indus­tri­al tech­niques and mass pro­duc­tion to cre­ate for­ward-look­ing, min­i­mal­ist fur­ni­ture and build­ings that still define the way we live now.

The episode above, “Amer­i­can Indus­tri­al Design,” describes how indus­tri­al design­ers made inno­v­a­tive use of new mate­ri­als and pro­duc­tion meth­ods to cre­ate sleek, stream­lined prod­ucts that rein­vig­o­rat­ed the Amer­i­can mar­ket in the midst of the Great Depres­sion. Design­ers like Nor­man Bel Ged­des cre­at­ed a futur­is­tic land­scape that inspired faith in tech­no­log­i­cal progress, even as much of the coun­try still lived on strug­gling farms.

Bel Ged­des’ most notable achieve­ment was his design of the “Futu­ra­ma” ride (which gave the ani­mat­ed show its name) at the 1939–40 World’s Fair. Part of the Gen­er­al Motors exhib­it, “Futu­ra­ma” whisked rid­ers past detailed minia­tures of “the world of tomor­row.” The opti­mism of some Mod­ernist design­ers would be shat­tered by the tech­no­log­i­cal hor­rors of World War Two. But for a few brief decades, the future looked entire­ly man­age­able with the right designs, tech­niques, mate­ri­als, and savvy mar­ket­ing.

You can find all six videos appear­ing in the Design in a Nut­shell series on YouTube.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The ABC of Archi­tects: An Ani­mat­ed Flip­book of Famous Archi­tects and Their Best-Known Build­ings

Charles & Ray Eames’ Icon­ic Film Pow­ers of Ten (1977) and the Less­er-Known Pro­to­type from 1968

Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Caught in the Act of Cre­ation, 1926

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Watch Idem Paris, David Lynch’s Short Film on the Art of Making Lithographs

in Art, Film | June 4th, 2013

Locat­ed in the Mont­par­nasse sec­tion of Paris, the Idem stu­dio was orig­i­nal­ly built by the print­er Emile Dufrenoy in 1880, as a space to house his lith­o­graph­ic press­es. Mov­ing into the next cen­tu­ry, var­i­ous own­ers pre­served the art of lith­o­g­ra­phy, pro­duc­ing lith­o­graphs by the likes of Matisse, Picas­so, Miro, Braque, Cha­gall, Léger, Cocteau, and oth­ers. Today, the tra­di­tion con­tin­ues. And, amaz­ing­ly, the ate­lier still uses 19th cen­tu­ry flatbed machines, pow­ered by a gas steam boil­er, to keep the tra­di­tion of lith­o­g­ra­phy alive. While on a recent trip to Paris, the sur­re­al­ist film­mak­er David Lynch paid a vis­it to Idem and fell in love with what he saw, so much so that he pro­duced a short doc­u­men­tary high­light­ing Idem’s artis­tic process. As a pref­ace to the film, Lynch wrote on the Idem web site:

Hervé Chandès from the Fon­da­tion Carti­er brought me over to Idem and intro­duced me to Patrice For­est. I see this incred­i­ble place, and I get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work there. And this was like a dream! It just opened up this brand-new world of the lith­o­g­ra­phy and the mag­ic of lith­o­g­ra­phy, the mag­ic of the stones. And it was a great, great thing! This thing of lith­o­g­ra­phy, this chan­nel of lith­o­g­ra­phy opened up and a bunch of ideas came flow­ing out and it led to about a hun­dred lith­o­graphs. I will say that Idem print­ing stu­dio has a unique, very spe­cial mood, and it is so con­ducive to cre­at­ing. Patrice has the great­est atti­tude for all the artists and he cre­ates this space of free­dom and this joy of cre­at­ing. It’s so beau­ti­ful! And I think the place is very important—in oth­er wors, the same stone could be moved to anoth­er place, and I think that the work that comes out would be dif­fer­ent. It’s a com­bi­na­tion of the stone, the place, the peo­ple, this mood, and out comes these cer­tain ideas.

You can find the short film, Idem Paris, list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 525 Free Movies Online. You can also find a primer explain­ing the basics of lith­o­g­ra­phy here.

via Bib­liok­lept

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Free: The Guggen­heim Puts 65 Mod­ern Art Books Online

Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky Caught in the Act of Cre­ation, 1926

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

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