Posts by Miss Rosen

Word on the Street: The History of Globe Poster

Posted on March 25, 2017

Artwork: © Globe Poster. Courtesy of Roger Gastman.

For more than eighty years, you could see Globe Poster standing tall, hanging out on street corners, posted up on telephone palls, or chilling ‘round the way inside the union halls. They were bright, bold, fabulous affairs that understood that one must demand attention if you want to be seen and heard in this noisy world.

Using DayGlo colors and big black letters etched out of wood type and letter press, if Globe Poster a theme song it would be Nas, talking about “Made You Look.” Because they had to—they needed t let you know the 2Pac, Luke, Snoop Doggy Dogg and That Dog Pound were performing at the Miami Arena on Saturday, August 24. Better get your tickets now, before they sell out, because trust and believe and event like this only comes once in a lifetime.

Globe Poster knew what the people wanted and they delivered the goods. Established in Philadelphia in 1929, Globe Poster promoted everything from carnivals to concerts up and down the East Coast. Like so many in old Hollywood, they started out in vaudeville, moving their way up to burlesque and film, then finally hitting their stride and finding their groove with R&B acts during the 1960s.

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Artwork: © Globe Poster. Courtesy of Roger Gastman.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave

Game Show Legend and Alleged CIA Assassin Chuck Barris Dies at 87

Posted on March 24, 2017

Pour one out for Chuck Barris, game show genius and alleged CIA assassin, who died of natural causes on Tuesday, March 21, at his home in Palisades, New York, at the age of 87.

Best known as the creator and host of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, in 1982, Barris stunned the world with the publication of his memoir Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: An Unauthorized Autobiography, in which he claimed to be a former CIA agent and assassin. In 2002, the book was adapted into a feature film of the same name, directed by George Clooney and starring Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts, and Clooney. The CIA adamantly denied Barris’ employment, calling the whole thing “ridiculous.”

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s

#FridayReads: David Bowie’s Favorite Books

Posted on March 24, 2017

In the August 1998 issue of Vanity Fair, David Bowie took the famous Proust Questionnaire. The first question asked was the most telling: “What is your idea of perfect happiness?” to which Bowie answered, “Reading.”

In celebration of Bowie the bibliophile, Open Culture put together a list of the artist’s top 100 books. The list is as diverse as it is revealing; perhaps there is no better way to get inside the mind of a person than through their library. Crave spotlights ten Bowie faves that make for great Friday Reads.

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Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Books, Crave

TAKI 183, Elusive NY Graffiti Legend, Comes Out of Retirement

Posted on March 21, 2017

Photo: TAKI 183 gets up in house paint. Wall also features EVA 62, HELLAFIED SISTERS 184 and more. Circa 1971. Photo by Andrea Nelli.

On July 21, 1971, The New York Times ran a story titled “TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals,” in which journalist Mark Perigut interviewed a 17-year-old high school graduate who wrote the name TAKI 183 up and down the streets of New York City. With marker in hand, he got up everywhere from lampposts to trains, airports to train stations.

The story makes note of a call-and-response effect, where the appearance of TAKI 183 created a chain effect. Suddenly names like BARBARA 62, EEL 159, and LEO 136 could be seen sharing the walls, as well as find their own spots. Perigut immediately takes note of the cost required to remove graffiti, estimating $300,000 worth of damages ($1.8M today). He confronts TAKI about the cost, TAKI is nonplussed, observing, “I work, I pay taxes too and it doesn’t harm anybody.”

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TAKI 183 tag on canvas board, 20″ x 24″, spray paint on canvas board. 2016. ©TAKI 183

Categories: 1970s, Art, Crave, Graffiti, Manhattan

Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work

Posted on March 20, 2017

No title (This feeling is), 2011. Pen and ink on paper, 37 1/4 x 49 1/2 in (94.6 x 125.7 cm). Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon. Photography courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

No Title (Fight for freedom!), 1981. Pen and ink on paper, 11 x 8 ½ in (27.9 x 21.6 cm). Private collection. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

“I don’t make art with grandiose delusions. I do know there are limits to what art is capable of. That makes it all the more appealing to me. And I can do as I will whenever I choose,” American artist Raymond Pettibon has said, revealing the essence of the continuous appeal of his work. A populist without pretense who came up in the West Coast punk scene, Pettibon honed the D.I.Y. ethos of the era into a fine art career.

Now, in celebration of his phenomenal body of work, the New Museum, New York, presents Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work, the first major museum retrospective of his work, currently on view through April 9, 2017. The exhibition takes America to task for its truths, providing a perspective that is equal parts poignant, witty, and subversive.

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No Title (Lieutenant! There’s our), 2008. Pen, ink, and gouache on paper, 22 1/4 x 30 in (57.2 x 76.2 cm). Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon. Photography courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions

Honoring the Legacy of Chinese Artist Ren Hang (1987-2017)

Posted on March 17, 2017

Photo: ©Ren Hang, courtesy of Taschen.

On February 24, Chinese photographer and poet Ren Hang (1987-2017) killed himself in Beijing, jumping from one of the terrifyingly vertiginous buildings that appears in so many of his photographs. His sudden death shocked the world, as Hang had reached a new level of success with the simultaneous release of his first major monograph, Ren Hang (Taschen), along with exhibitions of work at Fotografiska, Stockholm, and Foam, Amsterdam.

Dian Hanson, who wrote the introduction to the book, described Hang as, “an unlikely rebel. Shy, lanky, prone to fits of depression, the 29-year-old Beijing-based photographer [was] nonetheless at the forefront Chinese artists’ battle for creative freedom. Controversial in his homeland, but wildly popular in the rest of the world he says, ‘I don’t really view my work as taboo, because I don’t think so much in cultural context, or political context. I don’t intentionally push boundaries, I just do what I do.’”

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Photo: ©Ren Hang, courtesy of Taschen.

Categories: Art, Books, Crave, Photography

Scientists Confirm: The Mona Lisa is Always Happy—And Sometimes Sad

Posted on March 16, 2017

Artwork: Artwork: The Mona Lisa (or La Joconde, La Gioconda). 1503-06. Oil on poplar wood. Courtesy of The Louvre/Wikimedia Commons.

The Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous portrait in the world, has captivated the public’s imagination for centuries. Painted in 1503-06 by the great Leonardo da Vinci, the portrait has mesmerized audiences with eyes that follow up wherever you go, and an expression of deep ambiguity that has begged the question, “Is she smiling?”

Now, a team of scientists at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Freiburg, Germany, have just released a study confirming that The Mona Lisa is happy.

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Categories: Painting

Black in America: Louis Draper and Leonard Freed

Posted on March 16, 2017

Photo: Portrait, New York, c 1965. Louis Draper (American, 1935–2002). Gelatin silver print; 20.3 x 25.4 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment Fund, 2016.271. © Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust.

The photograph is more than a work of art: it is a piece of evidence, a document of fact, and an artifact of the past. It offers proof of what has transpired in time and space, for seeing is believing—and belief is faith. To shoot or not to shoot, that is the question, for what we focus our attention on grows in power and strength. To frame a story through just one perspective, or to never frame it at all, these acts have the power of changing the way people see the world.

Photographers Louis Draper (1935-2002) and Leonard Freed (1929-2006) understood this, each in their own way using the camera as a way to write history. Together they created fresh perspectives that were heretofore largely ignored in favor of the spreading of malicious lies, telling the truth about what it means to be Black in America.

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Children in the Mirror, Johns Island, South Carolina, 1964. Leonard Freed (American, 1929–2006). Gelatin silver print; 23.8 x 29.8 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, 2016.282. Image courtesy of Leonard Freed / Magnum Photos.

Categories: 1960s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Eternal Youth

Posted on March 15, 2017

Photo: Larry Clark American, b. 1943 Untitled (KIDS) 1995 Chromogenic development print 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm) Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Gift from The Howard and Donna Stone Collection 2002.16.8 Photo: Michal Raz-Russo, © MCA Chicago

When Larry Clark released Kids in 1995, he set the silver screen ablaze with his vision of New York City youth as it tore itself apart through sex, drugs, and manipulation. He thrust a new cast of characters onto the world stage, taking us through a day in the life of a group of kids who embodied a combination of sexual precociousness and racial dysmorphia.

Kids was designed to wreak havoc and cause fright, playing with paranoid fears of HIV in a new generation of adolescents coming up just a few years after the disease had decimated a generation right before their eyes. In the ‘80s and ‘90s sex did not create life; it created a death sentence from which there was no recourse at that time. In light of this apocalyptic vibe, the film embodied fully embodied the nihilistic existentialist crisis of the times. Not surprisingly, not everyone in the cast survived. Two of the film’s biggest stars Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter would die young—while Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson would go on to become Hollywood stars.

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Categories: 1990s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

Digging in the Crates for the Best “Art Record Covers” Ever Made

Posted on March 14, 2017

art: Takashi Murakami / music: Kanye West / record: Graduation / year: 2007 / label: Roc-A-Fella Records / format: Album 2×12 ̋, CD / artwork: Digital compositing

Once upon a time, just a couple of decades ago, new albums used to be released on vinyl, which was carefully stored inside 12 x 12 inch record sleeves. In the days before video killed the radio star, all you’d have available was what you held in your hands. You’d pop the record on the turntable, drop the needle and then sit back, gazing upon the album cover searching for some sort of understanding.

There was something profound about the simplicity of it all, the single image becoming an icon all its own. Sight and sound complemented each other, like yin and yang, striking the perfect balance of substance and style. Then, everything began to change. The record gave way to the CD and the image scaled down tremendously. But that was nothing compared to the current lay of the land, where the album cover appears as a thumbnail image in the upper half of our smart phone.

If you missed it, c’est la vie. Times change, invariably. But if you miss it, and you want that good thing back, Taschen has just released Art Record Covers, a 448-page compendium of the finest collaborations between musicians and artists. Edited by Francesco Spampinato and Julius Wiedemann, the book is perfectly sized at 12 x 12 inches, capturing and recreating the visual impact each image once possessed.

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art: Andy Warhol / music: The Velvet Underground and Nico / record: The Velvet Underground and Nico / year: 1967 / label: Verve Records / format: Album 12 ̋ / artwork: Screen print / special: Vinyl released with three variations of front cover with banana sticker to peel off

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Music

Welcome to “The Walled Off Hotel”

Posted on March 10, 2017

Photo: Courtesy of The Walled Off Hotel

In the heart of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, British artist Banksy introduces The Walled Off Hotel. Located in Occupied Palestine Territories, just 13 feet away from the controversial 30-foot concrete barrier wall erected by Israel, known among the Palestinian population as the Apartheid Wall, each of the ten rooms has what Banksy describes as “the worst view of any hotel in the world,” and receives just 25 minutes of sunlight as day.

The Walled Off Hotel, which officially opens to the public on Saturday, March 11, fuses the realms of art, politics, hospitality, and tourism, all under one roof. While the website asks for a $1,000 security deposit, the rooms themselves straddle the class divide. High rollers can enjoy the lavish presidential suite while the more budget-conscious can enjoy a stay in the bunk beds recovered from abandoned army barracks.

“Walls are hot right now, but I was into them long before Trump made it cool,” Banksy announced in a statement. The artist, who rose to fame and wealth as a street artist, has long used public walls as a space for political comment. He has previously painted scenes on the Palestinian side of the barrier wall, revealing his empathy for the people forced to live under apartheid.

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Photo: Courtesy of The Walled Off Hotel

Categories: Art, Crave