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While Dan Rice slapped brushloads of rabbitskin glue onto the cotton duck canvas, further loads would slop down, warm and pungent, on his head and shoulders. Mark Rothko teetered on a ladder above, heavy as a bear and notoriously cackhanded, rushing his handiwork so that the two of them could cover the entire stretch of fabric before the size cooled. Moving on to another canvas almost nine feet high, the workers might swap places, with Rice getting to rain down on Rothko. The residues that ran off them as they showered afterwards would have been tinted maroon: as a personal variant on standard procedure, Rothko liked to feed pigments into the pan on the hot plate, as his sheets of glue dissolved. That way, the stretched canvas would have a character – a complexion, at least – from the very outset, even before the two of them applied similarly coloured resinous primers to support the upper layers of brushwork. A complexion, a disposition, a bias; this object that Rice had hammered together for him, out of wood and coarse cloth bought at an awnings supplier on the Bowery, would bristle with an inbuilt material resistance.
Before Pop there was Abstract Expressionism. From September 26, 2008 to February 1, 2009 the Tate Modern in London will be presenting a major exhibition of the late work of Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko including, for the first time, 14 of his Seagram murals.via warhol stars
Achim Borchardt-Hume (curator of the Tate Modern's Rothko exhibition):
This is the first exhibition to examine Rothko's late work from 1958 to 1970 in greater depth... One of the highlights of this exhibition will be a large gallery dedicated to the Seagram murals bringing together for the first time 14 murals including Tate's nine murals - the first time ever since they left Rothko's studio really. This exhibition could only happen at the Tate in this current shape as Tate has nine of the Seagram murals which were specially selected by the artist and because of their condition are generally not lent... It's just because of the unique nature of this exhibition that we agreed to bring these works together so it will really happen once and that will be it." (http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/markrothko/exclusivevideo.shtm)
Mark Rothko's Seagram murals were originally commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram building in New York. But after Rothko visited the restaurant he backed out of the project, angrily commenting "Anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kind of prices will never look at a painting of mine." (http://www.warholstars.org/abstractexpressionism/timeline/abstractexpressionism59.html)
The murals were eventually distributed to various museums. The Tate ended up with nine of them. They arrived at the Tate Gallery on February 25, 1970 - the same day that Rothko's body was found on the kitchen floor after he committed suicide. (http://www.warholstars.org/abstractexpressionism/timeline/mark_rothko.html)
Pop art, relying on figurative imagery, was the antithesis of Abstract Expressionism. Whereas Warhol often utilized "found" imagery in his paintings, Rothko used abstract forms and colour - although he denied being an "abstractionist" as recalled by Selden Rodman in his book Conversations with Artists.
Mark Rothko: "You might as well get one thing straight... I'm not an abstractionist."
Selden Rodman: "You're an abstractionist to me... You're a master of color harmonies and relationships on a monumental scale. Do you deny that?"
Mark Rothko: "I do. I'm not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else."
Selden Rodman: "Then what is it you're expressing?"
Mark Rothko: "I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on - and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions... The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!" (Selden Rodman, Conversations with Artists (NY: Capricorn Books, 1961) pp. 93-4)
Despite his denial of being an "abstractionist" Rothko and other Abstract Expressionists had fought hard over several decades for public acceptance of abstract art - through exhibitions, protests and writings. When Pop reared its figurative head in the early 60s, Rothko saw it as a step backward rather than forward. When Sidney Janis presented many of the Pop artists (including Andy Warhol) in his 1962 exhibition, "The New Realists," Rothko, along with Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston and Robert Motherwell, resigned from the gallery. Guston's daughter Musa Mayer recalled that "Overnight, it seemed, the art world changed. My father was in despair over the selling of art, over the slick, depersonalized gloss - not only of Pop Art, but of Minimalism as well - that was taking center stage in New York. Art was no longer struggle; art had become marketing." (http://www.warholstars.org/abstractexpressionism/timeline/abstractexpressionism62.html)
Ruth Kligman recalled that when she attempted to introduce Rothko to Warhol when she and Warhol ran into him on the street, Rothko walked away without saying a word. Warhol (via Pat Hackett) also recalled attending a party given by Yvonne Thomas, where Rothko was one of the guests during the early sixties. Marisol, who was with the same gallery as Warhol, brought both Warhol and Robert Indiana to the party. When they arrived Warhol overheard Rothko say to Thomas, "How could you let them in?" Thomas replied, "But what can I do? They came with Marisol." (http://www.warholstars.org/abstractexpressionism/timeline/abstractexpressionism63.html)
Despite their aesthetic differences, Warhol and Rothko do have one thing in common. They are the only American artists with paintings on the list of the "10 most expensive paintings sold at auction."
The Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern and the Warhol exhibition at the Hayward this autumn are both rare chances to see the work of two modern masters of their respective art movements - Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Both exhibitions are not to be missed. (Specific details of the Hayward's Warhol exhibition will be posted here when confirmed.)
inverted jenny
Axis Company presents EAST 10TH STREET: SELF PORTRAIT WITH EMPTY HOUSE, a new play by and about Downtown performance icon Edgar Oliver and directed by Randy Sharp. This look at a life on the fringes of New York's Lower East Side comes on the heels of what could be Oliver's breakthrough role in the upcoming film from Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess, Gentlemen Broncos (opposite Sam Rockwell), as well as a national advertising campaign for mobile phones in Ireland that has become a cult phenomenon.via vz
In EAST 10TH STREET: SELF PORTRAIT WITH EMPTY HOUSE, long-standing, downtown theatre icon Edgar Oliver takes the audience on a fantastic voyage through the strange rooms of the apartment house where he has lived since his first years in New York. Inhabiting the dark, mysterious halls of an East Village tenement building are a dwarf Cabalist, a possible Nazi, the landlord's former wet nurse who apparently lives in a nest of rags, and many other memorable persons. Edgar leads the audience up to the final room, his own, at the top of the derelict stairs, wherein lie the secrets of his own family and the unbelievable odyssey that brought him there. This incredible cast of characters illuminate the sad, funny, brilliant and deeply personal story.
Georgia native Edgar Oliver started performing in New York at the Pyramid in the mid-1980's alongside artists including Hapi Phace, Kenbra Pfahler, Samoa and playwright Kestutis Nakas. As a playwright, many of Oliver's plays have been staged at La MaMa and other downtown NYC theatres, including The Seven Year Vacation, The Poetry Killer, Hands in Wartime, Motel Blue 19, and Mosquito Succulence. As a stage actor, he has performed in countless plays including Edward II with Cliplight Theater, Marc Palmieri's Carl the Second, Lipsynka's Dial M for Model, and numerous productions at Axis including A Glance at New York (Edinburgh Festival & NYC), Julius Caesar, USS Frankenstein, Hospital, and Seven in One Blow. Edgar is also one of the most beloved story tellers at The Moth. His film roles include That's Beautiful Frank, Henry May Long (directed by Axis' Randy Sharp) and Gentlemen Broncos. His published works include A Portrait of New York by a Wanderer There, Summer and The Man Who Loved Plants (published by Panther Books).
ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL - SLEEPOVER AT STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE To mark the closing of the White House Redux exhibition, Storefront will hold an all-night election vigil in the gallery with live a large-screen CNN projection, 5 cable news channels, blogging stations and wi-fi for blog reading (and writing). The event, organized in association with Control Group, will continue until the 44th President of the United States is announced. Everyone welcome! Event begins 6pm. Drinks will be provided while they last - BYO food and sleeping bags. Coffee and croissants from Ceci Cela will be served at 7am.
making rip-rap
deans rock sorter
The only thing gloomier than the weather today was the members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, sitting out this morning’s thunderstorm as they decided the fate of Albert C. Ledner's iconic O’Toole Building, which St. Vincent’s Hospital hopes to demolish and replace with a new 300-foot-tall hospital.
MAD has saved the best for last. In the words of legendary MAD editor Bill Gaines, these three dozen pieces of art represent "the heart and soul of MAD Magazine."via vz
Now these last three dozen are going to be up for auction. After that, the vault is not only closed, it's empty. For an entire generation that cut its comic teeth on MAD - an influence still felt today in television, film, Internet and print - this will be the final chance to own a piece of humor history.
"You have some of the most iconic MAD covers and special art from the amazing original group of artists at the magazine," said Jared Green, Vice President of Business Development at Heritage. "These are names like Norman Mingo, Jack Davis, Bob Clarke and Richard Williams."
"These final 36 pieces were retained from three previous sales of the MAD archives at Heritage, Sothebys and Christie's," said current MAD editor John Ficarra. "We have waited until all the rest of the great artwork of MAD was sold to offer this final collection. It just doesn't get any better than this."
"MAD Magazine set the standard in the mid-20th century for humor magazines and the three sales of the MAD archives have shown how highly readers value it," said Green. "Heritage could not be happier that MAD and DC Comics have come back to Heritage to close out this historic collection."
"The Last American Hero is Junior Johnson. Yes!" by Tom Wolf from The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Steamline Baby. Copyright 1965 by Tom Wolfe. Originally published in Esquire. Reprinted by permission of the author.
the correct size wood stove for your space guide
The colossal cast-iron rings embedded in the eastern slurry wall at ground zero were — if such a thing can be imagined — the birthmark of the World Trade Center.more here on the hudson tubes
They were the last visible remnant of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, a commuter line that New Jersey officials insisted in 1962 that the Port Authority take over, before they approved the trade center project in New York. (The H. & M. was renamed PATH.) The rings marked the railroad’s route into the old Hudson Terminal, whose location determined where the twin towers would be built, since the trade center was designed to incorporate a new PATH terminal.
And the rings offered a lesson in scale. Seen from across West Street, they did not look much larger than a water pipe. But in fact, they formed a tube large enough to enclose a railroad tunnel 15 feet 3 inches in diameter. Visitors to ground zero who knew that could marvel at the dimensions of the slurry wall into which the rings were set.
This month, the rings vanished.
american tar and rope
via justin. thanks!
teri towe bach thursday am on wprb
red fuck-me pumps wont get you through the white house door
locked and loaded fall fashion
filson since 1897
lost nyc
via zoller
hey joe wiki
the brain a studio
rip rudy ray moore dolemite
rip bill melendez peanuts animation director
seven reasons to prefer stone
barn house modern
your reading all of this, right? the senders, nico...
float cabin
you think they ever "shoot the rapids" with that thing?
hey! its jersey city.
harold bakers tool and machine catalogs and lists
myron cohen live hbo '76
overspray
via reference library
oliver goldsmith sunglasses
picking flowers one may night in starkville mississippi 1965
'You couldn't build a city like New York in good taste,' Rudy Burckhardt—photographer, filmmaker, painter—observed in 1994 of the hometown he'd adopted some six decades earlier. That was, in large measure, what he liked about it. Of the countless bohemians who've fallen in love with New York, Burckhardt's feeling for the metropolis that inspired his greatest work is marked by lightness—passion masquerading as a passing fancy.
His constant, understated presence amid the New York School writers and painters made him something of a "subterranean monument," according to the poet John Ashbery. Along with his companion and later lifelong friend, the poet and dance critic Edwin Denby, he belonged to perhaps the last generation for whom it was still possible to live comfortably as artists-not-particularly-concerned-with-their-careers in Manhattan. The city has lost something with their passing. Just how much may be glimpsed in this show of a unique, handmade album that the two men put together in 1939, consisting of Burckhardt's photographs of New York accompanied by sonnets that Denby wrote in response to them.
The architectural historian Charles Jencks coined the term eye-con in relation to this proliferation of architecture pumped up to bursting by hype – a sub-species of the hype that first inflated, and then destroyed or maimed several of the world's most iconic financial institutions. Icons are images or likenesses that represent something. Most of today's so-called architectural icons represent only the iconic intentions of their designers, or commissioners. These buildings are iconic, but not actually icons in any potent sense. It doesn't fully exist, or engage. This complexity is not merely an academic luxury; nor is it confined to the Richter-Hampstead-Shires scale of "good value" conversational grist among the chattering classes. Architecture, from Hawksmoor to FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste, an architecture practice), exists in an age where Googlism has replaced Fordism as the paradigm of infinite growth and consumption.
sunday devotional
The Million Dollar Quartet Sessions / about the sessions
What makes this project different from your average everyday barn-raising—and any other TOH TV project to date—is that this house will be constructed in modular panels in New Hampshire, then trucked to Weston to be assembled and finished in a matter of weeks. Tedd Benson and his company, Bensonwood, have designed the house and, working side by side with the entire TOH team, will prefabricate about three-quarters of it in a factory. Then TOH general contractor Tom Silva and his crew will take over, preparing the site and putting the individual panels together on the property before completing the finishes. The process will cut the building time in half, as most of the wiring, plumbing, windows, and finishes will go into the panels at the factory. (The Favats' old house has been carefully deconstructed and 85 percent of the materials were salvaged for resale and reuse, many in a nearby Habitat for Humanity project.) Meanwhile, TOH landscape contractor Roger Cook will create an integrated natural landscape, eradicating invasive plants in favor of natives, preserving wetlands, and adding hardscaping elements like a boulder wall, a pergola, and bocce court.
Amy and Pete fell in love with the idea of a timber-frame house—essentially large-scale post-and-beam construction with wooden pegs and supports—while on vacation in Idaho. They stayed in a timber-frame cabin and immediately decided it was the kind of house they wanted. "We thought ‘Why can't your everyday house feel like a vacation house?'" says Pete. "Ski houses, beach houses, a house in Italy—vacation houses like these aren't so normal."
They already knew of Tedd Benson and his reputation as the premier builder of timber-frame houses in the country. They even had a couple of his books. But they didn't believe he'd have time for them. He did. And not only that, Benson was incredibly receptive to their ideas, and a collaboration was born. "These people really care about the houses they build," says Pete. "Plus it's called Bensonwood. I mean, his name's on the company." When This Old House signed on, it just meant getting ever closer to the dream with all the right players in place. The couple is excited about the chance to work with "the best of the best" as they put it, and to take advantage of the access the show has to excellent artists and craftsmen. (TOH first worked with Benson nearly 20 years ago on the Concord project, so it was a natural fit.)
high school kids 10k electric bradley gt kit car project
via zoller
contain
thx dave
add ralph stanley to the growing list of obama supporters
edit 10/19: powell confirmed the endorsement today on mtp
louis prima ca. '72
night train
Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard
Fortunately, a second document has emerged: Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall (a two-disc CD, in stores today). Recorded in 1998, a year after the first album's release, it languished for years in the vault - in part, says Cooder, because of "sonic problems - as is very often the case with live recording." Although parts of the concert were included in the Wenders film, it was just "bits and pieces," he says. "There's enough to get you to where you realized what a cathartic or dynamic event it was, but to hear song after song after song is another story."stream 2 tracks here
Getting the album to the point where it was possible to hear song after song was largely the work of Martin Pradler, an engineer Cooder has been working with in recent years. "He doctored on it, did a nice face-lift, and man - he really got it to walk and talk here," says Cooder.
"It's interesting to look back 10 years later," he adds. "The time interval didn't diminish it, it enhanced it. This was better than I recalled, and particularly in the case of Ruben Gonzalez. His piano playing was particularly strong right then, and I had sort of gotten used to hearing him in later years, when he had gotten weak and was losing strength. But man! You hear him here, being so free with all these things, especially the danzon piece [Almendra], how he just sort of tears through it. It's amazing."
FRIENDS OF MARINE STADIUM UPDATE: MIAMI MARINE STADIUM DESIGNATED AS HISTORIC STRUCTUREvia vz
To: Miami Marines:
We are delighted to tell you that that the City of Miami Historic and Environmental Preservation Board designated the Marine Stadium as a Historic Structure at its meeting on October 7. The vote was 8-0. We have pasted a link to the Miami Herald article below. We have also attached the article as a file to this email in the event that the link "times out."
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/717326.html
What's Next
With successful designation of the Stadium, we now move to the next step-developing a feasible plan to bring back the Stadium. We understand that the City of Miami will issue a Request For Proposals (RFP) for management and development of the Stadium. We look forward to assisting the City and making sure that there are quality responses to this process. We will continue to quietly build organizational support and research aspects of programming and financing. If you haven't checked lately, please go to the "Letters of Support" section of our website, marinestadium.org. Many of the organizations listed can be helpful to us in this process. We expect more letters soon.
We will immediately begin to pursue National Register Designation, which is required for the 20% Historic Tax Credit. With the tax credit in hand, we can finance 18% of the Marine Stadium restoration costs, net of fees. We continue to search for other sources of funding for the Stadium.
We expect more publicity in national publications shortly and we will try to use the designation as an opportunity to attract more press. At the same time, we will probably begin planning an even to discuss the Stadium in an open, informal gathering .We are also beginning to think of doing a fundraiser Please email us with any ideas and suggestions you have-and if you would like to help. Finally, please continue to refer people to our website, The last several days, we have gotten the greatest number of web hits we have ever received. Conclusion We imagine there is some Chinese proverb that reflects how we feel right now.....something about taking an important step in a long journey. Historic Designation is a major accomplishment and the Marine Stadium is worthy of it. But returning the Stadium to use is our main goal. We continue! Jorge Hernandez Becky Roper Matkov Don Worth Friends of Marine Stadium. www.marinestadium.org
cutting back in quakertown
via vz
Brown lawn means jail time
thx lisa
good morning dubai
embody chair
via zoller
mc-palin mavericks? more like the gobbledygook twins.
But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.via vz
“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.
In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.
twistin' the country classics
yuke orch of GB shaft
thx lisa!
Irwin chusid worst fucking wfmu dj blog posts EVER!!!
wooster wild style wall (video rough cut)
via this graphique index
survival igloos
we are just crazy about those video reports from that man on the street billl cunningham
sollo rago fall 08 modern art and furniture catalog now up online saturday sunday
insulating a summer place