I always love the Marc Jacobs/Barney’s ads just off Seventh Ave in the West Village, but this one is my favorite ever. The orange is so hot. If you’re in the hood, stop by and check it out.
Marc Jacobs | Barney’s Ad
Levi’s 1st Standard 10th Blast Jeans
Generally when I see hipster types who’ve spent a little too much time strategically getting paint on their pants as they toil away as artists somewhere deep on the heart of Williamsburg I mean Bushwick, I get a little nauseous and look the other way. Levi’s has a limited edition jean out that saves us commoners from having to go out and buy paint to doctor our own jeans or beg and plead to get a pair from a faux Brooklyn artist friend.
In celebration of the 10th birthday of Levi’s Engineered Jeans, a very limited 99 pairs of hand painted anniversary jeans have been produced, based on the original First Standard fit from 1999.
Each pair have a completely unique hand sprayed finish in a bright colour palatte. The fabric’s a recreation of the denim used in 1999, an innovative mix of cotton and hemp in an intense green-caste indigo shade. It’s woven on a narrow loom with solid green selvage and finished with 18 carat gold button and rivets caste from original moulds.
These limited edition jeans are presented in an exclusive commemorative box with a matching paint blast finish.
Check them out on oki-ni’s site and in the pics below. There’s only one little catch: they’re already sold out! I have a feeling though if enough people email oki-ni asking about these bad boys, they’ll restock them quicker than you can drip some gesso on your khakis.
Peter Marigold | Palindrome Series
I must admit that I nearly overlooked Peter Marigold’s Palindrome furniture series when an email from Moss announcing it came in today; but as luck would have it, I clicked the link and read the description. That’s when the pure genius of the series set in.
British artist Peter Marigold’s “Palindrome Series” is a collection of symmetrical pieces of furniture, each comprised of half mould and half cast. The forms, textures and details of one side are mirrored on the other.
The wood is first assembled as a mould and the composite casting material is layered inside. Once the casting material is set, the wooden mould is disassembled, turned inside out and reassembled to form the opposing side. The two sides, mould and cast, are then joined together using mould-making fasteners.
Every imperfection is complimented on the cast side of the object: circular saw marks become symmetrical decorative swirls, knots in the wood become motifs and holes become handles.
Prior to casting, the wood half is engraved with a Palindrome word or phrase (a Palindrome is a word or phrase which reads the same backwards and forwards), which results in the name being repeated on the cast side in raised writing.
Make sure to check out the pics below and go to Moss‘ site for more information on the series, as well as additional pics. The collection is simply genius.
Polly Borland | Bunny Eyes + Bunny Nose @ Other Criteria
I’m in love with these prints by photographer Polly Borland called Bunny Eyes and Bunny Nose available @ Other Criteria.
Taken from her book of the same name, Polly Borland’s Bunny photographs document a real-life giant woman called Gwen. The images of her clamped in her ballet tights with a naively drawn face explore femininity and deconstruct the idea of the Playboy bunny girl. In today’s world, peppered with cynicism and scepticism, Bunny offers us a chance to believe again in fairytale horses, bunny rabbits, and giants and reflects Borland’s delicate, bewitching narratives where childlike innocence sits hand in paw with stark sexuality and the ethereal.
Click through to Other Criteria’s site to see the images full size and to see more work by Borland. Don’t forget to check out her official site, which is chock full of images.
I also just discovered doing a little research that Borland did book of photos a few years back called The Babies, which deals with what used to be one of my recent obsessions: adult babies. With an intro by the late Susan Sontag, I want this book more than anything.
The Airborne Toxic Event
I really hate to quote Britney Spears, but “Oops. I did it again.”
A friend Jason Wishnow who makes videos tipped me off to a band from LA he’d made a video for Does This Mean You’re Moving On? a year or more ago for a band I’d never heard of named The Airborne Toxic Event. For whatever reason, I watched the video, loved it, and my time with the band ended there.
Fast forward to my birthday a few weeks back: another friend gives me a memory stick with 25 or songs records burned on it, including their eponymous record The Airborne Toxic Event. Given I have more time to listen these days, I listened from start to finish and am kicking myself in the ass for not getting in on this first time around, although I have to say after having listened to their first record just now, they’ve come a long way in the past two years musically and I’m not sure I would have liked them if I had listened then.
The band was formed in 2006 by Mikel Jollett. During a one-week period in March 2006 while working on a novel, Jollett learned that his mother was diagnosed with cancer, he also experienced a break-up and was diagnosed with a genetic autoimmune disease which led Jollet to develop two cosmetic conditions: Alopecia areata and Vitiligo. Spurred by these events in his personal life, Jollett turned from writing prose to writing songs as he realized he was composing an album instead of a novel.
InCase + AnOther + colette + Gareth Pugh
There’s a saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth and you’d think that having 4 entities like InCase, AnOther Magazine, Gareth Pugh, and colette involved in a collaboration could potentially be disastorous. Fortunately, cliches are only right most of the time, but not all of the time. I’d say the latest InCase artist collaboration is their best yet.
Incase has partnered with fashion and culture biannual AnOther Magazine and esteemed Paris fashion boutique colette to release a capsule collection of accessories for Apple product users with an appreciation for high fashion and technology. Ornamented with bold graphic artwork by fashion designer Gareth Pugh, the highly limited collection includes a 13” MacBook Pro Sleeve and iPhone 3GS Slider Case.
The products are part of a collaborative project between AnOther Magazine and colette, featuring a select group of favored brands and designers handpicked to create the six limited-edition products for this iteration of the project. All products in the series will be carried exclusively by select boutiques in major fashion capitals of the world–Paris, London, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, and Los Angeles.
Mouton Collet Men SS10
Check out the Spring/Summer 2010 collection by French design duo Mouton Collet. Their men’s line for SS10 has launched already and the women’s line is set to release the first week of October.
They’re playful in their designs, mixing conventional and unconventional objects into their pieces transforming them into wearable pieces of art.
After different collaborative including work with Loulou de la Falaise, Kenzo Takeda, Nina Ricci by Olivier Theyskens and Herve Leger, Matthieu and Nicolas, the duo behind the jewellery line Mouton Collet developed their confidential line of handmade silver jewels and objects.
Their collection is presented like a personal diary, Journal Intime, and through strange poetic forms inspired by the vegetal and animal world. Mouton Collet plays with singular and incisive aethetics, connected to human emotions.
For their SS10 men’s collection, the designers invite us on a picnic, complete with all of the trimmings. The collection is a visual tour‐de‐force, which employs clever trompe l’oeil elements with tremendous wit and vivid imagination to recreate the ideal summer experience.
It begins with a knives and utensils, charming bottle openers, then works through the sausages, mushrooms, and other edible delights, and even includes the flowers, flies, and little mice who might have shown up for a dibble of brie. Nothing is overlooked –not even the dillweed garnish or digestive biscuits. Of course, all of these objects have been cleverly reworked into a wearable collection of necklaces, bracelets, broaches, cufflinks, and tie clips. While the overall collection embraces an element of kitsch, each piece has been made to the highest level of perfection and has an element of sophistication.
Dan Graham | Beyond @ The Whitney
If you haven’t been to The Whitney yet to see the Dan Graham retrospective, do it before it closes on 10.11.09.
Dan Graham: Beyond surveys the artist’s career from the mid-1960s to the present. As one of contemporary art’s most innovative and influential figures, Dan Graham has been at the forefront of many of the most significant developments in art, including conceptual art, video and film installation, performance, site-specific sculpture, and musical collaboration. This exhibition—his first retrospective in the United States—examines each stage of Graham’s career through his photographs, projects for magazine pages, films, architectural models and pavilions, performances, video installations, prints, drawings, writings, and his work with musicians Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, and Japanther.
Graham’s rejection of the high-seriousness of modern art emerged at the same moment as Pop art in the early 1960s. “I love magazines because they are like pop songs,” he once explained about his early conceptual magazine works, “easily disposable, dealing with momentary pleasures.” He infused his approach with a wide range of literary, anthropological, and scientific influences, from cybernetics and topology to the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Gregory Bateson, and Margaret Mead.
Read more on The Whitney’s site, where you’ll also find additional images of the work in the show, and videos featuring Graham, Paul McCarthy, Kim Gordon, and Thurston Moore.
Dan Graham: Beyond
The Whitney
Through 10.11.09
Cloud Cult
You’ve got to check out Minneapolis indie rockers Cloud Cult. Not only is their back story amazing — someone told it to me at a party last night — but their music is amazing. To think they’ve been around for 14 years and this is the first I’m hearing of them!
Since 1995, Cloud Cult have crafted sprawling, cathartic albums that have won them the attention of the New York Times, MTV, Spin, Billboard, and a devoted following of fans.
During that time, the band has grown from the solo project of singer/songwriter Craig Minowa to include cellist Sarah Young, violinist Shannon Frid, painters Connie Minowa and Scott West (who create paintings live at the band’s performances), and recent addition bassist Shawn Neary (formerly of Tapes ‘n’ Tapes), and Arlen Peiffer.
Last year saw the band headline the KEXP BBQ. Past headliners have included Devotchka and Ghostland Observatory. The band also headlined the second stage at the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks Amphitheater between Spoon and The Flaming Lips on the Main stage.
Despite offers from major labels, Cloud Cult has chosen to remain independent, recording and releasing their albums through Earthology Records, a not-for-profit environmental record label established by Minowa in 1998. On a self-funded shoe-string budget they have achieved top 20 CMJ radio charting for all of their last three albums, a domain usually reserved for the SubPops and Merges of the world.
A Shaded View of Fashion Film
Fashion icon Diane Pernet has a little blog that everyone who’s everyone knows about called A Shaded View of Fashion. If you haven’t heard of it, not to worry. We won’t tell, but if you have even the slightest interest in fashion and want to play with the big boys, you need to know about this. Check it out before reading any further.
This weekend, for the second year running, Pernet presents A Shaded View on Fashion Film 2009, the second edition of Paris’s first annual film festival dedicated to Fashion, Style and Beauty. This edition, premiering @ Passage du Désir – BETC in Paris, features works by/with Roísín Murphy, Erwin Olaf, Steven Klein, Chris Cunningham, Johan Renck, Undercover — Jun Takahashi, Mr Pearl, Chloe Sevigny, Kim Gordon, Dita Von Teese, Yelle and many many more. The list is endless!
Hosted by the Palais de Tokyo and sponsored by Samsung, the festival is then set to travel around the world.
Since its premiere in September 2008 at the Jeu de Paume National Gallery, the program of short films has travelled to museums and institutions like the Guggenheim Bilbao, Cinema Rise X in Tokyo, the Chelsea Arts Club in London; fashion events such as AltaRoma in Rome and many others around the world
The main attaction is the Short Film Competition — 2 hour and 15 minute program made of 40 films of every kind (fiction, animation, experimental, art-video, music-video). Films involving fashion protagonists : designers, stylists, art directors, photographers, icons… A selection open to artists from other art worlds : cinema/video makers, musicians, plastic artists, dancers…It’s the best of filmmaking, music, fashion, and art all wrapped up into one. Click here for more info.
If you can’t make it this weekend, try to attend the Awards Ceremony on 10.08.09 at the Centre Pompidou. See you there!
