Flex Your Head — Glen E. Friedman’s idealistic lens hits Los Angeles
Posted on February 19, 2009 - Filed Under Art, Creativity, culture
If you grew up skateboarding or listening to punk rock and hip hop at any point in the late 20th century, chances are you’re familiar with Glen E. Friedman. Even if the name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve definitely stared at more than a few of his iconic photographs. In December, a collection of those images, many pieces from his newer art books and some never-before published archive shots, adorned the walls of Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects gallery in a show called “Idealist Propaganda.”
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Randoms: President, please!
Posted on February 18, 2009 - Filed Under culture
It seems my local news station has been taken over by The Onion… That, or there actually is a new multi-syllabic, racially-positive catch phrase in town… Either way, win-win. (thanks, paryshnikov…)
From Creativity: Feedbag 2.12.2009
Posted on February 13, 2009 - Filed Under Creativity, culture
(originally from Creativity-Online.com)
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The fine folks at FecalFace serve up another solid nugget, this time in the form of an interview with painter/illustrator/tattooist Shawn Barber, including copious amounts of pics and video action.
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Paris-based artist JR creates another stunner, this time for his 28 Millimetres: Women project. This installment takes him to the Kenyan slum of Kibera, one of Africa’s largest such neighborhoods. Not only do the portraits cover buildings and landscape, but also wrap the train that passes through town twice a day. Impressive, non?
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While it’s practically t-shirt weather here in NYC today, this rider’s eye view tour of Killington’s Stash terrain run by Cool Hunting reminds us how much fun winter can be. Beware the Gnar Yetis lurking in the trees.
From Creativity: Feedbag 02.10.2009
Posted on February 11, 2009 - Filed Under Creativity
Feedbag is a twice weekly item I put together on Creativity-Online.com that aims to point folks in the direction of interesting, inspiring and eclectic links around these here interwibbles.
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Just when you thought it couldn’t get easier to like the guy (or at least read his endless library of quotes), Shaquille O’Neal goes and gets a Twitter account. With more than 61,000 followers and entries such as, “Im tryn talk steve nash into joining twitter” and “Some rumors are planted for a reaction, i dnt react, i act , have u seen kazaam, i kno terrible, lol,” there’s no telling how much gold this could yield.
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Anyone trying to portray marketing and advertising as not completely full of donkey dung got dealt a major blow by the release of this (reportedly) real document “explaining” the new Pepsi logo. Beyond a look back at “tracing the Pepsi DNA” and the Golden Ratio of design, it also dutifully compared the “Pepsi Globe” to Earth’s Geodynamo and the “Pepsi Energy Fields” to the Earth’s magnetic fields… at which point we decided to shove an ice pick into our ear.
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Hilco Consumer Capital has invested $20 million in House of Marley LLC to find new and exciting ways to capitalize on the deceased reggae artists’ image and cut down on the amount of counterfeit merch sold around the world. One of the company’s first priorities is creating Marley Lager, a Jamaican beer featuring Marley’s likeness. Among the cornucopia of other products the company hoped to market using Marley was snowboards. Yes, snowboards. Because when I think of the message behind songs like “Get Up, Stand Up,” I think of gliding down corporately-owned mountains of snow with crowds of rich, white people.
Sky Arts and English Nat’l Opera Tag Team
Posted on February 10, 2009 - Filed Under culture
I know, I know, it’s been forever since I’ve updated or posted anything. Well, that’s about to change as stuff from Creativity’s Winter Issue will roll out this week, as well as my renewed resolve to post much more frequently. We’ll see what happens… Anyway, check out this partnership between Sky Arts and the English National Opera. Directors Werner Herzog, Dougal Wilson and Sam Taylor-Wood created short films to go with tunes from the upcoming opera season. Certainly an inventive way to attract potential audience members to see the fat lady sing.
Shepard Fairey Has A Posse
Posted on November 23, 2008 - Filed Under Art, Creativity, culture
Published in the November issue of Creativity. Read the official version here and if that floats your boat, you might want to check out this video interview with Fairey, too.
Shepard Fairey Has A Posse
Iconic artist straddles art and commerce with Studio Number One.
by jeff beer
A contemporary street art and culture crowd favorite for the last decade, Shepard Fairey has expanded his artistic scope and audience in recent years, most notably through a series of Barack Obama posters he created for this year’s U.S. presidential election. But while the Obama project was not-for-profit, Fairey has performed the fine balancing act between art and commerce for most of his career. No where is this more evident than his commercial design agency Studio Number One.
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A Rat’s Life: Blek Le Rat Takes Manhattan
Posted on November 19, 2008 - Filed Under Art, Creativity
Published in the November issue of Creativity. Read the official version, with proper pics here. Check out the lil’ video interview of Blek on the street here.
A Rat’s Life
A street art pioneer returns to the city where it all began.
by jeff beer
New York City has its fair share of sizable rats. So it’s no casual boast to say that standing on the corner of West 22nd Street and 7th Avenue on a brisk October afternoon is easily the biggest rat Manhattan has ever seen. But this specimen isn’t the same species as the bulk of the city’s rat population– Rattus norvegicus. This rat is French.
In Manhattan for his first solo show at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery, and only his second in North America, 56-year-old Xavier Prou doesn’t exactly fit the sartorial stereotype of a street artist. In fact, dressed in a very practical light ski jacket, blue oxford shirt and red sneakers, he looks more like the high school art teacher he once was. In 1981, a decade after being inspired by the graffiti he saw on his first trip to New York, Prou began painting stencils around his home city of Paris while still an architecture student. Soon, thousands of little black rats covered the French capital, marking Prou’s transformation into Blek Le Rat.
Bathing in the Tub Gin…
Posted on November 13, 2008 - Filed Under Advertising, Creativity
I had an unfortunate introduction to gin back in 1993. It involved me, my friend Jay and a half gallon bottle. Suffice to say, that evening did not end well at all. In fact, it took until about ‘99 for me to even whiff that pine forest hooch without wretching. But since then, moderation and a strong will to succeed have allowed me to embrace this hallowed spirit once again.
Now, I’m not a martini drinker at all, but I do enjoy a good gin and tonic from time to time, if for no other reason than to keep the malaria at bay. Anyway, Philadelphia-based agency Red Tettemer have launched a new premium gin brand called Tub and, with its bootlegger vibe and smooth taste, I’m sure it’ll make more than a few folks happy. And drunk.
I spoke with Carla and Steve at RT about Tub over at Creativity.
huzzah!
Creativity’s October Issue
Posted on November 13, 2008 - Filed Under Creativity
Given the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, I thought it appropriate to point out Creativity’s October cover to those who may not have seen it yet. It’s a special edition made especially for us by Shepard Fairey, obviously tweaking his now-ubiquitous original poster image.
So, here’s the cover… and click here for content from the issue.
huzzah!
Creativity: OK, Computer (The Art of Ray Caesar)
Posted on November 13, 2008 - Filed Under Creativity
Originally published in the September issue of Creativity. Click here for the original, or scroll down for the basic version.
OK, Computer
Artist Ray Ceaser trades in paints and brushes for a more high tech approach to art.
by jeff beer
At the age of 45, Ray Caesar had spent nearly two decades in the art and photography department of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, producing everything from charts and graphs for medical journals, to anatomy drawings, photo documentation of child abuse and even visual game tools for child psychologists. Though he’d also created his own artwork for most of his life, he had never pursued it as a singular focus. So six years ago, when he sent his work to New York gallery owner Jonathan Levine looking just for an opinion, it came as quite a surprise when he found himself with an actual patron.
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