Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
New York City, often labelled as the capital of the world, has been celebrated in almost every way imaginable, but leave it to art book publisher TASCHEN to do so by producing a stunning photographic homage to the city fit for your coffee table. New York, Portrait of a City is an epic 560 page, visual tribute to the greatest city in the world which spans from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Thoughtfully curated by editor Reuel Golden, it compiles the work of over 150 celebrated photographers including Alfred Stieglitz and Allen Ginsberg. The book not only displays how endlessly picturesque New York is but also celebrates its historical, cultural and architectural significance.
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Painter-turned-photographer Stephen Waddell could teach the Sartorialist and his ilk a thing or two about candid clicks. The Vancouver native’s most recent collection, Hunt and Gather (Steidl), puts an Internet’s worth of street style shots to shame through its charming, contemplative documenting of city life.
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Tags: Hunt and Gather, Steidl, Stephen Waddell
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The evolution of cheerleaders, 1930s
It’s safe to say that we have all, at one time or another, wished that technology existed to transport us back in time, if only just to glimpse a long extinct manmade wonder, or know the intimate details of an everyday existence that our collective memories let slip away.
There are still no time machines but now there is How to be a Retronaut, a website built by Chris Wild, an ex-museum curator who is now an archival consultant. The website is an extraordinary database with millions of photos, videos, and text drawn from public and private archives as well as user submissions. Through this medium, time travel can be experienced through photos, videos and soundclips that have been largely inaccessible to the public, collecting dust in archives and ivory tower institutions. In making access to this information free and easy, he allows us to uncover the material culture that informed so much of society’s presumptions, assumptions and truths.
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Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Polaroid photography has experienced a new life in recent years thanks to nostalgic photo enthusiasts who romanticize the idea of shooting on film and that unique aesthetic of the instant Polaroid image. These instant images were crucial for photographers who often used them to test their shots before shooting their subjects on film. It is the saved Polaroids of renowned fashion photographer Helmut Newton that has become the subject of a new book published by Taschen aptly titled Helmut Newton, Polaroids that features over 200 never-seen-before test shots from his long career.
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"RAVE IS OVER" by Martin Eberle at Gestalten Space. Images Courtesy of Gestalten
Publishing house Gestalten is currently hosting its show “Rave Is Over” at their Berlin space celebrating the work of German photographer and designer Martin Eberle through a retrospective book Temporary Spaces and an exhibit titled “After Show.” Eberle moved to Berlin in 1992 following the reunification of its eastern and western halves, documenting the burgeoning club and art scenes that developed throughout the 1990’s. The collection of photographs in Temporary Spaces gives us a glimpse into a decade where the city’s creative community worked to redefine Berlin’s cultural identity after decades of stifling political and economic division.
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Our friends at artnet.com are currently hosting an online art auction to put all the other online auctions to shame. “Masterworks by Pop Artists” is a selection of the most iconic pieces in the genre by such names as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Tom Wesselmann and Robert Rauschenberg.
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It is no understatement that youth culture has been society’s most sustained obsession over the last 100 years. Contemporary culture is defined by its art, literature and music, and markets are shaped by its fleeting tastes and history is made by the ideologies it adopts. We are told that these are the golden years of our lives and that we should spend them basking in the glory of being young and being free. But have the youth always been free? Director Matt Wolf and writer Jon Savage try to address the history of youth culture in a very novel way in their new documentary, Teenage. Based on Jon Savage’s Teenage: The Creation of Youth Culture 1875-1945, Wolf sets out to create a visual history of Savage’s research. The result is an unseen and alternative history of youth culture that reveals the roots of our nostalgia for youth and reminds us that it is among the greatest of 20th Century inventions.
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Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
If you’ve ever felt that the culture of surf eluded you, look no further for enlightenment than Jeff Divine‘s photographic chronology of surf through the decades. His recent follow-up to the outstanding Surfing Photographs from the Seventies is aptly titled Surfing Photographs from the Eighties. He documents not only the sport but the culture that surrounds it, allowing an inside glimpse into a bygone era, and the metamorphosis and mastery of his favourite sport.
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Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
‘Blood, Sweat & Ten Years’ was the slogan that marked the tenth edition of The Cheaper Show, the annual art exhibition that has become a staple in Vancouver’s cultural scene. In line with their motto, the 2011 show proved to be one of their biggest efforts yet, turning an old 1,900 square foot factory into a functional gallery space that hosted up to 10,000+ visitors. The Block was there to witness the packed show as well as browse the pieces of a talented roster of emerging and established artists from Vancouver and around the world.
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The Time to Self Subsist from the series Twelve Stories of Transiency
In anticipation of this year’s Cheaper Show – a buzzy, decade-old art show highlighting emerging artists and selling their work for $200 a pop – we’re profiling a trifecta of young artists whose work we love. Our third profile in this series is Kate Bieschke.
Wisconsin native Kate Bieschke believes in the pursuit of laughter and of happiness. In reviving the landscapes and the memories of her experience through photography, she composes images that set out to tell a story, however absurd or comical. Her photographs contain a special ambiguity that affords each viewer a liberating freedom to interpret. She took some time to tell us a little bit about her Midwestern upbringing, growing up as a wild child, and getting involved in the Cheaper Show by following one of our favourite Vancouver-based blogs.
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THE BLOCK MIXTAPE
by Young Empires
Mixtape: Young Empires
Toronto's Young Empires send us straight to the dancefloor with this mixtape for The Block.
www.myspace.com/youngempires
01. Sabali (Vitalic Remix) - Amadou & Miriam
02. Lies (Herve Remix) - Fenech-Soler
03. Hour of the Wolf (Lifelike Remix) - Adam Kesher
04. Dance the Way I Feel (Armand Van Helden Remix) - Ou Est Le Swimming Pool
05. Snake Charmer - Bag Raiders
06. Wait & See - Holy Ghost!
07. All Night (Azari & III Remix) - Voltage
08. You Know I Know It - Tensnake
09. La Mezcla - Michel Cleis
10. Rain of Gold (French Horn Rebellion Remix) - Young Empires
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