Life in Moments/Moments in Life

in Art, Film, Life | July 28th, 2011

Back in 2009, the folks at Radi­o­Lab tack­led anoth­er big ques­tion: “What hap­pens at the moment when we slip from life…to the oth­er side? Is it a moment? If it is, when exact­ly does it hap­pen? And what hap­pens after­ward?”

The show (lis­ten here) inspired film­mak­er Will Hoff­man to shoot a video the med­i­tates on the lit­tle moments that give life (and death) their mean­ing. Some moments stand in iso­la­tion. Oth­ers moments are con­nect­ed, cre­at­ing a link between birth and death, cause and effect, begin­nings and ends. In this audio clip, Hoff­man talks with Radi­o­Lab co-host Robert Krul­wich about the vision inform­ing the video sim­ply called Moments. And, if it delights, don’t miss two oth­er Hoffman/RadioLab pro­duc­tions, one sim­ply called Words, the oth­er Sym­me­try.

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Improv with New Yorker Cartoonists

in Art, Comedy | July 27th, 2011

When you think of The New York­er, you think about two things — long-form arti­cles and leg­endary car­toons. The two art forms have gone hand-in-hand since the mag­a­zine began pub­lish­ing in 1925, and, decades lat­er, a younger gen­er­a­tion of car­toon­ists still deliv­ers the laughs. Thanks to the Gel Con­fer­ence 2011 (see all videos here), you can spend 25 min­utes inside their artis­tic world. Matt Dif­fee, Drew Der­navich, and Zach Kanin talk about their some­times con­tro­ver­sial work at the mag­a­zine and draw improv car­toons based on audi­ence sug­ges­tions. Fun guar­an­teed for all. H/T @opedr

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ein­stein’s Rel­a­tiv­i­ty: New York­er Car­toon Ani­mat­ed

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Lucian Freud (1922 — 2011)

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | July 22nd, 2011

Lucian Freud, dis­tin­guished artist and grand­son of Sig­mund Freud, died yes­ter­day at the age of 88. The painter was best known for his con­tri­bu­tions to fig­u­ra­tive art and his uncom­pro­mis­ing por­traits, which The New York Times has col­lect­ed in an impres­sive online gallery.

Freud was also known for his rig­or­ous (some would say cru­el) demands on his sub­jects. From his New York Times obit­u­ary:

To the artist and Freud biog­ra­ph­er Lawrence Gow­ing [Lucian Freud] said, “For me the paint is the per­son.” Mr. Freud’s dingy stu­dio became his artis­tic uni­verse, a grim the­ater in which his con­tort­ed sub­jects, stripped bare and there­fore uniden­ti­fi­able by class, sub­mit­ted to the artist’s unblink­ing, mer­ci­less inspec­tion.

You can learn more about Lucian Freud’s work and lega­cy through a dis­cus­sion of his paint­ing Stand­ing by the Rags at SmART His­to­ry (video post­ed above or click here).

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Classic Jazz Album Covers Animated & Brought to Life

in Art, Music | July 18th, 2011

Back in 2009, Blue Note Records, the influ­en­tial jazz label, was cel­e­brat­ing its 70th anniver­sary. And The Bel­la Vista Social Pub, look­ing to pro­mote its own sum­mer jazz con­certs in Siena, Tus­cany, came up with a smart idea. Why not pay trib­ute to Blue Note (and pro­mote the Ital­ian con­cert series) by ani­mat­ing the cool cov­er designs that graced Blue Note albums dur­ing its hey­day. These cov­er designs were the work of Reid Miles, a graph­ic design­er who moved from Esquire mag­a­zine to Blue Note around 1955, then designed hun­dreds of aura-cre­at­ing cov­ers until he left the label in 1967. The ani­mat­ed video above, called Hi-Fi, brings Miles’ work back to life. Graph­i­col­o­gy has more on the nos­tal­gia-induc­ing clip here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Name That Painting!

in Art, History, Music | July 14th, 2011

In Feb­ru­ary 2010, the Paris-based band Hold Your Hors­es! released a music video to go with their song “70 Mil­lion,” which became an imme­di­ate suc­cess. In the video, the band mem­bers recre­at­ed famous paint­ings, tak­ing the view­er on an enter­tain­ing tour through art his­to­ry. Try to iden­ti­fy as many paint­ings as pos­si­ble, then com­pare your results with the list of the actu­al paint­ings below the jump. Enjoy — and let us know your scores! And, of course, Hap­py Bastille Day.

(more…)

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A Building Salvador Dali Could Love

in Art | July 12th, 2011

You’ve seen build­ings mag­i­cal­ly trans­formed into artis­tic can­vas­es before — the Astro­nom­i­cal Clock Tow­er in Prague; the icon­ic build­ings at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty; and then this facade in Ukraine. But have you seen the audi­ence take con­trol of the archi­tec­tur­al paint­ing? That’s what hap­pened in Lyon, France dur­ing the “Fête des lumières,” held last Decem­ber. Throw an audio analy­sis algo­rithm and a micro­phone into the mix, and the audi­ence now dri­ves the sur­re­al archi­tec­tur­al show…

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Alfred Hitchcock Recalls Working with Salvador Dali on Spellbound

in Art, Film | July 5th, 2011

In 1945 Alfred Hitch­cock had to explain one of Hol­ly­wood’s unwrit­ten rules to Sal­vador Dali: No, you can’t pour live ants all over Ingrid Bergman! Hitch­cock had approached Dali for help with a dream sequence in his upcom­ing thriller, Spell­bound, star­ring Bergman and Gre­go­ry Peck. He was unhap­py with the fuzzi­ness of Hol­ly­wood dream sequences. “I want­ed to con­vey the dream with great visu­al sharp­ness and clarity–sharper than film itself,” Hitch­cock recalled in his 1962 inter­view with François Truf­faut. “I want­ed Dali because of the archi­tec­tur­al sharp­ness of his work. Chiri­co has the same qual­i­ty, you know, the long shad­ows, the infin­i­ty of dis­tance and the con­verg­ing lines of per­spec­tive. But Dali had some strange ideas. He want­ed a stat­ue to crack like a shell falling apart, with ants crawl­ing all over it. And under­neath, there would be Ingrid Bergman, cov­ered by ants! It just was­n’t pos­si­ble.”

This clip per­ma­nent­ly resides in our col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons, which lets you see/hear great cul­tur­al fig­ures in video & audio. And don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Hitch­cock movies.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Beatles, Friends & Family: Photos by Linda McCartney

in Art, Music | June 29th, 2011

In 1967, a young Lin­da East­man went to Lon­don to pho­to­graph the “Swing­ing Six­ties” and snagged exclu­sive pho­tos of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clap­ton and Jimi Hen­drix. In the midst of it all, she met Paul McCart­ney, and when the two mar­ried in 1969, she had a fixed place with­in rock ‘n rol­l’s inner cir­cle.

Dur­ing the com­ing decades, she took over 200,000 images. Yes, that means many more pho­tographs of rock stars and artists. But the empha­sis also shift­ed inward, to a new domes­tic life with Paul and their chil­dren — Heather, Mary, Stel­la, and James. Years lat­er, as Paul pre­pares to mar­ry again, the pho­to­graph­ic work of Lin­da McCart­ney (1941–1998) has been pub­lished in a 288-page ret­ro­spec­tive vol­ume called Lin­da McCart­ney: Life in Pho­tographs. It fea­tures a for­ward by Paul and some com­men­tary by Annie Lei­bovitz. An impres­sive sam­pling of Lin­da McCart­ney’s work can be pre­viewed on this web site.

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