Look alikes from 'Iraq in Fragments'

As I mentioned in y previous post, I had the opportunity to see the film Iraq in Fragments last weekend at the Getty Center. I was struck by how much two of the film's subject's looked like some of my favorite historical and pop-culture figures. Enjoy.

Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr looks like VH1 reality shows' 'White Boy'

Kurdish film subject Suleiman looks like RFK

Ultra Violets are Blue

"...The dog was not on drugs, and the cat was not on drugs, and I was not on drugs." -Factory Superstar Ultra Violet on Warhol's Factory

The tragic demises of factory girls Edie Sedgwick and Nico make it initially hard to believe fellow Warhol Superstar Ultra Violet's claim that she remained relatively sober through those wild Warholian years. But seeing her up close and sharp as a tack at 74 in David Henry Gerson's new short film Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes reveals she really may have been as clean as the cat.

Mr. Gerson met Ultra (legally Isabelle Collin Dufresne), still a fixture at gallery openings in New York City and usually recognizable in her signature purple garb, several years ago. At her urging, they decided to embark on documentary about her extraordinary life, starting as child in France excommunicated from the Catholic church who found her way to the United States as a young woman. Once in the states, Isabelle became first assistant and then mistress to Salador Dali who would introduce her to Warhol. She took her place as a “Warhol Superstar” for several years, then later went on to become Ed Ruscha’s mistress. After years of artworld debauchery, Ultra left Ruscha and found God, and has since become an active member of The Church of Latter-Day Saints and an artist in her own right.

The film has deep religious themes and explores Ultra's role as a serial disciple-- of Dali, of Warhol, of fame, and of God. I spoke to filmmaker David Gerson and he described her disciple-ship as linking the contemporary fame/celebrity conversation to a 5000 year old history, which seems like a nice way connect it all. Art, fame, genius, celebrity, religion--there are some things so seductive and beautiful that they just cannot be denied. Yet Ultra Violet is as much the seducer as she is the seduced; you only have to look at her photo (above), list the great men she's captivated, and listen to her engaging life story to realize as much.

Check out the film’s review over at the Huffington Post, and see David Henry Gerson's Ultraviolet for Sixteen Minutes June 18th at the New Jersey International Film Festival. For additional show dates and information about the film, visit its website.

Nanook of the Fuckin North.

Nanook of the North, the classic 1922 film about an Inuit family in northern Quebec, is usually discussed for its merits as an early documentary and as an example of directorial meddling and staging in a film sold as "reality" (little did we know back then how far MTV would take this premise a century later). But I'm going to discuss the title character and general Arctic badass, Nanook, as a sculptor. As seen in the screen shot above, in teaching his young son about hunting with a bow and arrow, Nanook carves two gorgeous little animal figures from ice for his son to shoot at (and comically miss). He even goes as far to dot their noses and eyes with little rocks and odd scraps! These are interesting examples of Inuit art, and proof that Nanook--expert hunter, igloo builder, and dad--really can do anything. In another scene, Nanook builds an igloo--in under and hour--and installs a clear ice window to allow in light. Artist, architect-- the man is a creative genius!

Also, let's talk about his pants. Do you fucking see them? He skinned a goddamn polar bear to make those--a POLAR BEAR. Remember PETA's unbelievably sexist "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign where they paraded hot naked babes all over town (which should have been called "I'd rather exploit women than wear fur")? I dare PETA to mess with Nanook--killer of polar bears and 300 pound seals--about his pants. But that's another discussion for a different kind of blog.

Intercourse with a Vampire: bloodsucking monsters, feminism, and the arts.

Is it just me or does everyone and their mom want to sleep with a vampire now? And by everyone, I mean adolescent girls. Seriously, I am not sure if I am pleased, puzzled, or disturbed by the number of renderings I have seen floating out there, generated by these young ladies, of men with emo hair, unbuttoned, ruffly shirts, and blood dripping out of their cherry mouths and a 5 o'clock shadow. Though the Twilight phenomenon is only very recent, there idea of the male vampire is (in the grand scheme of art history) a relatively new idea in art, and did not even exist before John Polidori's 1819 story The Vampyre. Up until the about 1900, you are hard pressed to find a representation of a vampire in art that is not female as vampire-like attributes historically came from ancient female demons. No, it is not a modern concept that women suck the life out of men (the jerk-faces had it coming.....), but it is one propogated by Freud and others of his ilk who offered up the theory that vampires represent sexual desires. So female vampires in art can be pegged as the fantasies of all those dirty-old-man-artists-- and that's an explanation I am willing to buy. I mean who hasn't had to defend the sexual proclivities of this nature--"I just couldn't help it....I was all out of garlic and crosses..... and he was hottttttt."

Anyway, the fabulous above plate is The Vampire by Philip Burne-Jones. I could post you a more contemporary piece--a lovely little sketch from one of those 13 year olds--but that would be cruel to both them and to art.

THIS JUST IN: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=A0WTcY_2FPJJAJYAFgaKxQt.;_ylv=3?qid=20090424095736AAGBoYy (and check out answer number 9.... I believe that is attempted murder)

Wigging out in Response to horse photography...

Number one: Daren Rabinovitch.

Aside from his photography, Rabinovitch is also one of the three members of Encyclopedia Pictura, a directorial triumvirate under the employ of Ghost Robot production studios. Encylopedia Pictura is responsible for Bjork's "Wanderlust" music video. Wait, what? YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT?! Get the popcorn and the doobies, this is some bizarre-ass cinematography. You can even opt to watch it in 3-D, provided you have 3-D glasses. Would you expect anything less from Bjork? 

Wanderlust:  http://www.encyclopediapictura.com/

Ghost Robot:  http://ghostrobot.com/

Number two: Julie Jackson, crazy cat lady and... fiber artist?

http://kittywigs.com

Comics, murder, and health insurance

Last night my boyfriend and I rented Mark Neveldine’s hopped-up, freaked-out action flick, Crank. It was almost completely awesome, but loses points for being nauseatingly sexist and stupid. That’s not my point.

There’s this scene where Jason Statham, a.k.a. “Chev Chelios,” is confessing his double life to his girlfriend, played by Amy Smart. Statham by the way looks like a sweaty, old, balding leprechaun, while Smart is blithe, young, and perhaps developmentally challenged. Sitting across from each other in a restaurant booth, you get the sense that Smart’s character would rather be home playing with her dolls and waiting to have her first period while Statham tries to explain to her that he is actually a hit man. It goes something like:

Statham: You don’t understand, sweetheart. I kill people.

Me: Ugh, what a loser! He’s a violent psychopath and he probably lied about having money, too. Dump that motherfucker, Amy.
Statham: I work as a gun for hire with a national crime syndicate.
Smart: Lalala, I love unicorns.
Me: Oh well, at least he does it professionally.

That is my point. Self-obsessed fine artists are like serial killers, and designers are like professional hitmen. Which one would you rather know, personally? Which one is more likely to pay rent and have basic social skills? Which one is more likely to have health insurance bennies? No, designers/hitmen don’t get to select their clientele or their tasks. Yes, they have sold their souls a little bit (perhaps more than a little bit, for hitmen). But have some degree of creative control in what they do, and guess what? THEY GET PAID, SON!

In my time at art school, the design students were universally regarded as lame-os by we fine fArtists because they (supposedly) didn’t possess the creativity to produce completely independent works. This was certainly true of some, but not nearly all. For really reals, there is no shame in using your talent to make a few bones. And unsurprisingly, those artists/designers who illustrate other people’s ideas all day often make their own nipple-shrinklingly awesome artwork in the off hours. Students take heed, I tell you, it’s totally legit to get paid to do what you do well. You can still be creative on your own time. Shit, even Dexter has a day job, and nobody calls him a sellout.

<"I work for the MPD, but that's just to support my work until I get my big break."

Here are some folks who are designers AND artists. Is it a coincidence that they are all comic artists as well? Probably not. The typically guileless and explicit visual language of comics jells well with design and advertisement, which have no use for obscure narratives. This is not to say that comics don't possess ambiguity, rather, the ambiguity of a comic is made manifest through strong and compelling sequential visuals. Basically, they "show" and don't "tell," which is good if you're trying to weave a deeply complex story or sell a wristwatch.

James Jean

http://www.jamesjean.com/

Danielle Corsetto

http://www.daniellecorsetto.com/index2.html

Adrian Tomine

http://www.adrian-tomine.com/

Gary Panter

http://www.garypanter.com/index.html

This list needs more diversity! I've only got one lady up there, and I think these folks are all American. Send your suggestions for ass-kicking designers.

Art World's Big Bad Boys Club look stupid. Again.

I went and saw Guest of Cindy Sherman this weekend to scratch the artworld catiness itch I'd been having. Filmed documentary-style by Ms. Sherman's former lover, Paul H-O, I expected the film to make the notoriously lime-light-avoider Cindy Sherman look like a phoney, but to my surprise and delight, Ms. Sherman was portrayed as a sweet, creative, beautiful, and kind artist. Paul films her working in her studio where she pensively and unfussily dresses and makes herself up, sitting on the floor surrounded by brushes, wigs, and dresses, almost like a child playing dress-up. Even as the relationship between Paul and Cindy sours, she maintains her appeal while Paul looks like a whiner whose ego can't handle having a girlfriend who outscores him in terms of money, fame, and power.

Not everyone in the artworld, however, walks away unscathed. The always easy-to-hate Julian Schnabel behaves like a beastly egomanic, chastizing the documentarians who dare make light of the gallery scene, in particular, one of Mr. Schnabel's solo shows. Later in the film, Eric Fishl proves to be similarly boorish, discussing the career of his wife, less renouned artist April Gornik, and admitting that if her career had outshined his, he would have not been able to stay with her. The big, maturbatory paitings of the so called bad-boys of the '80s become the butt of videographer's Paul H-O's jokes. Unfortunately, those bad-boys let their egos get in the way of the jokes just rolling off; by getting immediately defensive and returning good-hearted jabs with much harsher words, the "bad boys" appear afraid of being caught wearing the emperor's new clothes, or is it the emperor's new "broken plates?"