Author: Peter

In Terry Gross‘s interview, Brian May, guitarist of Queen, put on an unexpected (by me) hat, and explained that everything in the universe is made of the dust of supernovae. He noted that Joni Mitchell was therefore accurate when she wrote, “we are stardust…” in Woodstock.

May, it turns out, studied the dust streaming through our solar system for his PhD, which he went back for after Queen and obtained in 2007. According to Wikipedia, he is currently the Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

‡ See I Am Love (Io Sono l’Amore) — again.

I occasionally find an artist I hope won’t become too popular. It’s a feeling of jealous possession. I can’t remember ever having this feeling about a film — until now. This amazing film is like a dreamy drug rush that makes it seem possible to leave behind a world of fascist perfection and all it offers its chosen ones for the romantic perfection offered by, say, la Boheme. Neither ideal can deliver in life, but through the most daring cinematic luxuriating I’ve seen since Tarkovsky, Luca Guadagnino with a cast led by the chameleon Tilda Swinton provide a suspended moment to show us what that ideal might look like. It’s a beautiful sight, but has a price tag that will nearly break the bank of mere mortals. The chosen ones, as usual in ideal and life both, just get richer. Don’t go see this — I want it all for myself.

Jean-Luc Godard said that all one needs to make a film is a gun and a girl. Shoot, I put so much extra in my last screenplay!!!

Cute article and one editor’s fatales françaises in Vanity fair

‡ Pop. To be sure, the most important act of the week will be to honor the father (and mother concurrently); luckily the visit is possible this year on Father’s Day.
‡ Cyrus. I am very looking forward to Cyrus with Marissa Tomei, a crush ever since My Cousin Vinny. This movie hits some of the themes I’m playing with in a literary vein.
‡ Haunted. I’m going to check this one out at the Guggenheim. Curated by Jennifer Blessing, Curator of Photography, and Nat Trotman, Associate Curator with lots of blue chip work in photo, video, sound, and installation. In a nutshell,

examines myriad ways photographic imagery is incorporated into recent practice and in the process underscores the unique power of reproductive media while documenting a widespread contemporary obsession, both collective and individual, with accessing the past.

‡ Laura Peterson Choreography, everyone. Flash mobs in two outdoor locations in lower Manahattan. I can’t wait to see this. June 22-25

robin, marion

with cate, russell, ridley

3 favorite talents

1 favorite story

somehow, everything is moving at the pace of … this,
but I will, i will, i….willl get to this film
or maybe when i go on vacation next week….

okay, so i’m the last person not a tourist to catch this installation of the biennial and other landmark museum shows in town. But there were extenuating circumstances.
The biennial was pretty much what I have come to expect (there is a review by Peter Plagens in Art in America that captures my overall feelings while disagreeing about which were the worthwhile offerings). My favorite (and Plagens pan) was the Bruce High Quality Foundation ambulance/hearse. I’m also kind of sweet on Charles Ray’s flowers (also a Plagens pan).
MoMA’s exhibitions by Kentridge and Abramovic blew me away and gave me a much better rounded appreciation for the full body of work of these two. Perhaps I’ll get to elaborate soon……

Christian Viveros-Fauné gives a big nod to Chris Verene’s new Book, Family in today’s Village Voice and throws down this assessment of “most artists” work:

…Substitute the word “art” for “cultural theory,” and you’ve just described a parallel universe for much of the stuff that regularly fills contemporary galleries and museums. While rafts of visual artists today flock to subject matter like Michael Jackson’s praxis and the emancipatory possibilities of “hamster nests,” very few sign up to tackle what were once tagged “grand narratives”—stories about how regular people deal with poverty, injustice, and suffering, among other conditions not fully captured by the drolleries of air quotes.

I had the great good fortune to notice that IFC is hosting the premiere of Hal Hartley’s latest films. I made tonight’s big screen showing of classics Surviving Desire, Ambition and Theory of Achievement. His new films are showing tomorrow 4/22. I picked them up on DVD and learned the Hartley is now back in New York after a handful of years working in Berlin. My interview with him from 2007 (in collaboration with Claire Adas) is archived here.
I’ll be hosting a movie night soon for these four new shorts.

Back during the project now:here:this, which I ran with Artists Unite, several artists took up a technique of using Scotch Tape to grab images from printed matter and create layered collage (here’s an example from Tony Gonzalez). In the subway stop I use these days, some graffiti artists have taken a similar direction with a very clever technique: they are scavenging one poster to tag another. The results tend to run to the same (replaced heads, new eyes), but some of the pieces are great. Here are a few I’ve seen this month. I have no idea who the artists are…

Ed Hardy Ad #1. Ad tagged with Justin Timberlake’s eyes and smile. Too bad for Justin.


Iron Chef Ad. Smart twist on the “eyes” theme (are we having flounder!?)

Ed Hardy Ad #2. Unique use of Rhys’s necklace to bling up the ad.

Doing some research on wordpress themes, I came across this website that I think is a writer’s book review site devoted to virtually everything cultural: ugly blog. What is everything cultural, you might ask? Well, imagine a syllabus that starts with Indonesian art and end with handbags of the apocalypse and you have the general scope. I say I think it’s a book review, because the site is relatively stream of consciousness and I am not confident of my following. I think I’m going to have to put this in my blog roll and spend a little time exploring this scattershot!
p.s. the expression “no, please!” should be tributed to leila shvetsov, who used this expression as a toddler when she was juggling learning both english and russian.

image (from an anarchist, so probably doesn’t care about copyright, but…) reportedly from October 2009 issue of Liberty. My source was this URL at ugly blog.