_Black_Acrylic

To the University of Dundee's amusingly named Bonar Hall today to man Yuck 'n Yum's stall at the Dundee Literary Festival. Myself and Becca Clark took a few photos, and here they are:

The name of the event is the Dundee Literary Festival

Red hot YNY selfie action (L-R: your correspondent, Becca, Andrew)

Valerie Norris and Steven Myles' song-poem zine I Like Yellow Things

Assorted punters

http://www.yucknyum.com/

Zeitkratzer is an ensemble of improvisation - and new music , which in Berlin is located. The composite formation of international soloists playing together since 1997. She has performed at numerous European festivals and has partially presented by the criticism highly regarded albums.

The ensemble whose musicians are trained not only in the new and improvised music, but also expertise in the areas of noise , pop and folk possess is noticed with unorthodox projects since its inception. This includes his adaptation of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Lou Reed's guitar feedback -piece Metal Machine Music.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitkratzer via Google Translate

zeitkratzeris sound made visible, tangible, bodily – a truly unforgettable corporal experience of live music. The physicality of sound is celebrated through extended instrumental techniques, mutual understanding and amplification of traditional instruments. A midpoint between instrumental and electronic music turns out to be more bizarre and surprising than either of these. It will make you expect more from music than you did before!

zeitkratzeris a perverse subversion of musical genres. Keiji Haino meets Karlheinz Stockhausen meets Whitehouse meets Terre Thaemlitz meets Iannis Xenakis meets Lou Reed. The joy of the intensity of sound crosses all borders and brings these musics together into zeitkratzer's plain of complex textures. A challenge to both composers and non-academic noise-makers thrown by the most talented performers, improvisers, sound artists and composers around.
http://www.zeitkratzer.de/about.html

Metal Machine Music? Actually, it's more "European Son" or "I Heard Her Call My Name," a frozen moment from either (or some other) plucked off the stereo and dangled in perpetuity for as long as anyone will listen. But, if you think the Metal Machine double album was unlistenable, the sound of one man and his electronic noise box, then the live performance will drive you to distraction, because there are 13 of them up there making the noise, and though Lou Reed and Mike Rathke are certainly among them -- well, like the original album, you'd scarcely know it from listening, although the accompanying DVD, raw footage and deafening sound, shows you how broadly Lou is smiling. If you love the machine, this is incredible. Violin is the dominant instrument, but every different frequency, every pulse and squeak and barely audible burble is recaptured by a different hand. German avant-gardists Zeitkratzer are the brains behind the rebuilding, and they know their metal music well enough to recast it as a primarily acoustic performance, re-creating the peaks and troughs of the original soundscape and even drawing in those fabulous sequences where you think...you're sure...you'd almost swear...that there are actual snatches of music dancing in the distance, backwards classics and the ghosts of riffs. In fact, the only failing that immediately comes to mind is that the live performance is about 15 minutes shorter than the original album. But there are some folk who might call that a blessing.
Dave Thompson
http://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-machine-music-live-at-the-berlin-opera-house-mw0001989803

John Doran: Where you aware of Zeitkratzer before they started work on a classical version of MMM?

Lou Reed: I'd heard of them but I wasn't deep into them but the saxophonist and gentleman who was going to transcribe it, Ulrich Kreiger, got in touch with me and asked if they could perform it and whether he could transcribe it and I said that I didn't think it could actually be done. And he said: 'Sure it can. And I'm the guy to do that'. So he said let me do five or ten minutes and let me see what you think and they did and I was... amazed by what he could do and what they could do.

Did you recognise it as being identical to the noises that you heard when you last heard the album?

LR: Oh yeah, they nailed the opening it was pretty amazing how they could do that. I had been listening to it a little bit because I had done a remastering job because it was being reissued somewhere and Bob Ludwig who had done the original record did the remastering so I was familiar with the little details.

I take it you've actually seen the physical score?

LR: His transcription I think is a work of art and should be released as such. I wanted to have it printed. It's just too good. These days there are some insanely talented young guys out there. They're... wow! Their writing chops and computers, it's amazing what these guys can do. Ulrich's a sax player!

I presume it must be quite strange looking at something that was obviously quite free when it was recorded in the form of strict musical notation?

LR: However he did it, it's amazing. They're using all analogue instruments. Pretty startling, making notations of harmonics, that's pretty amazing.
http://thequietus.com/articles/04037-lou-reed-interview-metal-machine-music

When Zeitkratzer told Reed they could play MMM live, Reed said it couldn't be done. But when he heard a few minutes of the resulting music, he not only believed it, he agreed to play with the group live at the Berlin Opera House. The resulting 2002 concert is captured here on CD, and also on DVD, along with an onstage interview with Reed.

Initially, this release reminded me of that highly entertaining Honda Power Of Dreams advert (you can see it on You Tube) in which a large choir faithfully reproduces the sounds of a car being started, driving over gravel, accelerating, cruising, and so on. Close your eyes and you wouldn't know it was a choir rather than a car. Clever, but also a bit pointless—like a dog walking in its hind legs. Why use a choir to copy the sounds of a car? Why use ten musicians to faithfully reproduce the sound of two guitars feeding back?

But gradually, the new album has grown on me. As good a copy as it is, Zeitkratzer's version sounds less metallic than Reed's original, not surprising given the very different instrumentation. The way in which Krieger's own saxophones, overblown using circular breathing techniques, reproduce the scream of feedback is mightily impressive and could have been the impetus for him to start the transcription. The high pitched whines from the strings are equally effective in evoking feedback. Each of the players contributes to filling in the all-important details; the totality effectively reproduces MMM's tension between an unchanging overall sound texture and a constantly shifting sound field.

For once, the DVD is not an irrelevant extra included to bulk out the package and hike the price, but a vital part of the experience. To see the musicians all feverishly playing at full tilt in order to produce the music of MMM is a fascinating sight. The interview with Reed (despite a rather stilted interviewer) is no filler either. It throws light on Reed's current view of MMM and its history (which may or may not be historically accurate, but is certainly entertaining to hear).

My guess is that MMM will be remembered far longer than Reed's "Perfect Day or "Walk On The Wild Side . This latest release continues the rehabilitation process.
John Eyles
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=26951#.Um6fTSRn9aU

Since 2010 the AGK has attracted the brightest and best artists from across Scotland and beyond, all devising, directing and editing their own karaoke videos which are then performed on the night for an array of glittering prizes. It’s the Annual General Karaoke, a night where the videos are made especially for the event.

It’s a karaoke video competition!

Past AGKs have included dancing milk cartons, fake blood, stripping, screaming , floor rolling, drinking, smashed keyboards, women with moustaches, skeletons, and of course some lovely singing too!

For more information see here

Followed by NEoN's resident DJ RHL playing tech house and breaks.

Event information

Title: Yuck ‘n Yum’s AGK
Venue: Vision Building
Where: Greenmarket
When: Saturday 9th November
Time: 8.30pm till late

Over 18s only. No booking required.

http://www.yucknyum.com/

Yoko Ono (オノ・ヨーコ, also 小野洋子 Ono Yōko, born February 18, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese artist and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking and for her 1969–1980 marriage to John Lennon. Her experimental art was not popularly understood, and both the press and the public were for many years critical of Ono, blaming her for the breakup of the Beatles and repeatedly criticizing for her influence over Lennon.

An example of her conceptual art includes her book of instructions called Grapefruit. First published in 1964, the book includes surreal, Zen-like instructions that are to be completed in the mind of the reader, for example: "Hide and seek Piece: Hide until everybody goes home. Hide until everybody forgets about you. Hide until everybody dies." An example of heuristic art, Grapefruit was published several times, most widely distributed by Simon and Schuster in 1971, and reprinted by them again in 2000. Many of the scenarios in the book would be enacted as performance pieces throughout Ono's career and have formed the basis for her art exhibitions, including one highly publicized show at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York, that was nearly closed when besieged by excited Beatles fans who broke several of the art pieces and flooded the toilets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono

The most famous publication by Yoko Ono: it's a book of her instruction pieces. Originally published in 1964 in Tokyo, Japan as a very limited edition of 500 copies. From 1970 onwards it has been published in several countries and languages. For instance in 1970 it was published in Britain by Peter Owen (hardback) and also in USA by Simon & Schuster (hardback): these books contain approximately 10 new pieces plus letters she'd written to gallery owners and a text of a lecture. In 1971 Grapefruit was published in Britain by Sphere (paperback) and in USA by TouchStone Book (paperback). These later editions contain an introduction by John Lennon and material from the original Japanese 1964 printing as well as later works of art.

One of the recent interesting international editions of Grapefruit is the bilingual edition of it by the Swedish publisher and record company Bakhåll. This edition includes a bonus CD with an exclusive interview given by Yoko Ono on December 15th 2000. The Swedish Grapefruit is basically the same Grapefruit that was published by Simon & Schuster in 2000 with Yoko Ono's playful intro "Once upon a thyme, Kind told Keen that she must tell a gory, every naught, to ease his heavy blind...", but with a different cover. The 11 minute exclusive interview CD which comes with the book: Yoko Ono explains what conceptual art is, and why skies are important to her as an artist, etc. All in all, this Swedish publication is a must for all serious YO collectors, just like the other editions of Grapefruit.

Yoko Ono: "Burn this book after you have read it." John Lennon: "This is the greatest book I have ever burned." Review from Q, (August 1996): "Early performance pieces collected into book form. Violent and whimsical, pandemonium of imaginative brilliance to shame all performance artists." Have some grapefruit!

http://www.a-i-u.net/biblio_grapefruit.html

Somewhere between Zen poetry and a series of instructions for living, “Grapefruit” is literature as conceptual art, a sheaf of “event scores” that suggest how to turn daily life into something more engaged.

Perhaps the best-known effort in the collection is “Cloud Piece,” originally composed in 1963, which reads, in its entirety:

Imagine the clouds dripping.
Dig a hole in your garden to
put them in.

It appeared on the back cover of Lennon’s 1971 album “Imagine,” and is said to have inspired the title track.

I’ve loved “Grapefruit” from the moment I laid eyes on it, loved its sense of whimsy, its sense of play. The instructions range from the inspirational (“A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality”) to the prosaic (“Step in all the puddles in the city”) to the surreal.

In “Mirror Piece,” written in the spring of 1964, Ono urges:

Instead of obtaining a mirror,
obtain a person.
Look into him.
Use different people.
Old, young, fat, small, etc.

The work here reads like haiku, or even tweets. (There’s a reason Ono is currently a Twitter star.)
What all this has to offer is a way of thinking, of being conscious in the world. The universe is a place of wonder, Ono means to tell us, but we must remind ourselves to look. This is the key to creativity, to being present, which “Grapefruit” insists, begins with every one of us.

Or, as she writes in “Painting for the Wind”:

Cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds
of any kind and place the bag where
there is wind.

David L. Ulin
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/18/entertainment/la-et-jc-happy-80th-birthday-yoko-ono-20130217

Grapefruit is a delightful book of poems and art by Yoko Ono. If you missed this collection when it was published in 1964, now is a good a time as any to take a look. I wasn't even born when this collection first became available, but Ono's book is a classic that ought to be admired and studied by my generation of poets.

Yoko Ono's poetry in Grapefruit is primarily characterized by instructions to the reader. These instructions cannot be taken literally, but instead require the reader to use his/her imagination to perform the commands given. Her technique creates a unique kind of imagery that activates the mind in new way. Ono's commands are more complex than telling the reader to, for example, jump up and down. She uses active verbs to get the reader think about something unexpected. These unexpected images are not characterized by fancy or lyrical language; they are strong, direct and simple.

Some of my favorite poems are the ones in which music is the primary subject, like "Tape Piece I" through "Tape Piece IV." Ono says, in one of the best images from Grapefruit, "Take the sound of stone aging." No one could possibly know exactly what "stone aging" sounds like, but that particular image portrays eternal history. I imagine everything that stone has experienced: all of the sunrises, sunsets, good and bad weather, human life, growth, death, and wisdom developing over time. Ono forces the reader to try to hear something that is traditionally seen. In other words, she gives the reader enough structure to guide his/her thinking while also allowing her words to be highly open to interpretation. Readers can easily impose their understanding of what something sounds like, or what a particular action feels like.

Grapefruit is perfect for people who enjoy collections that are highly stimulating to the senses but can't stand traditional flowery poetry. Ono's metaphors create the same types of imagery without delicate language. Still, her poetry sounds lyrical because of the way in which readers can interpret it. Much can be learned from Yoko Ono's approach to imagery. As a young writer, I admire her distinctive style and will look back to Grapefruit whenever I am sick of fluttering butterflies.
Talia Clay
http://voices.yahoo.com/revisitng-yoko-onos-grapefruit-book-instructions-2521303.html

Fabio Frizzi (born July 2, 1951) is an Italian musician and composer.

Born in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, he is best known for his film scores. A frequent collaborator with famous horror director Lucio Fulci, his scores have become some of the most widely known in the genre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabio_Frizzi

Aided by Giorgio Cascio and Goblin’s keyboard maestro Maurizio Guarini, Frizzi conjures up a hypnotic, pulsing synth showcase, chiming xylophones merging with layers of bubbling, wailing synths. Sequence 6 – also known as ‘Eyeball’ on earlier releases – takes things even further, rattling percussion and shrieking guitar driving the music towards the film’s most famous gore sequence, as unlucky Olga Karlatos gets a foot-long shard of timber driven into her peepers.

Elsewhere Frizzi focuses on evoking the claustrophobic atmosphere of the jungle; sequences 3, 4 and 7 are heavy on the tribal percussion and moody ambient sounds. But it’s the title track (Sequence 8 on the Death Waltz release) that provides Zombi 2 with its signature piece. A dull, insistent thud that sounds like a primitive drum machine but is in fact nothing more than Frizzi tapping a mike carries a strangely beautiful melody that is both haunting and melancholic. Using a mellatron – essentially an early, analogue sampling device – Frizzi creates a melodic bed of disembodied voices, producing one of the key pieces of Italian horror film music.
Dan Auty
http://www.eatsleeplivefilm.com/videodrone-4-zombi-2the-beyond/

Fabio Frizzi and Giorgo Cascio make much of pounding, heart-beat drums and woodwind, linking the narrative to its Caribbean location like the backing tape in a dreadful theme bar where waiters serve drinks in hollowed out coconuts and pineapples, the steady rhythm sticking around long enough to be thick and oppressive, like a jungle march, the air thick with mosquitoes and the sickly tang of decaying plantlife.

Whenever the keyboard or drums appear to beat out a tacky calypso, the room starts to spin with oncoming delirium, undercut by a pining whalesong of pleading or melancholy, perhaps while Fulci pans over still corpses or our heroes huddled together for the night while shapes gather in the darkness under the canopy.

Eighties horror is generally parodied for its over-indulgence of menacing synths, and there’s no shortage of tension building mellotron in Frizzi and Cascio’s score, but there’s an off-ripe sickliness to it, and that trademarked keening howl of dead voices. While Romero’s world was one of sterile urbanity and silence, prowled by desiccated husks, Fulci’s Zombi 2 has an off-ripe, diseased look, a constant buzz of flies and splash of water against the dock, a warmer, faded colour palate that echoes its fever dream setting.

A fantastically off-kilter listen, testament to the composers, and of course Lucio Fulci himself, to have created something equal parts derivative and unique, and implacable and fitting. And of course to the grandly titled Death Waltz Recording Company for a treatment that oozes syrupy pus of love and respect, that even the most enthusiastic zombie fan will discover a whole new appreciation for one of the subgenre’s most beloved, and idiosyncratic, video nasties.
James Hoare
http://www.scifinow.co.uk/stuff/24558/zombi-2-zombie-flesh-eaters-vinyl-soundtrack-review/

In 1979 Fabio Frizzi offered a more subtle approach to the Italo-horror soundtrack, one which deftly combined the minimalist structures of new music composers like Philip Glass and Steve Reich with experimental rock, funk and early electronica. While Goblin’s Bacchanalian soundtracks are a fitting accompaniment to the garish colors and extreme art direction of Argento, Frizzi’s scores bear a more oblique relationship to the violence and gore they accompany. Zombie 2 was director Lucio Fulci’s attempt to cash in on the success of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, released as Zombie in Italy, and though far from being a worthy successor, its Grand Guignol horrors set a new standard for movie gore. Boasting an unforgettable underwater battle between a zombie and a shark, the film succeeds by sheer audacity and brazen energy.

Frizzi’s score is no less brazen or energetic, but transcends its filmic context—and in some respects the Italian horror film score tradition itself—by offering a richly arranged and measured composition without sacrificing the film’s violent urgency. By 1979 the synthesizer was beginning to emerge in popular music, most notably in the early synth-pop of British artists like Gary Numan, The Human League, and OMD, where it became synonymous with urban unease and future shock. Frizzi’s score is clearly influenced by the synthesizer’s new austerity measures, as well as drawing from earlier analogue techniques developed by German synthesized space rock, or kosmische music and English prog alike. The most distinctive of the various sounds-of-futures-past dredged up by Frizzi is that of the mellotron, an early electronic keyboard that actually plays pre-recorded tape reels of choral and orchestral sounds. While it was most famously used to grandiose effect in King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King, in Frizzi’s hands the mellotron’s oddly compressed choral effects sound more like a choir of the undead muffled by graveyard soil.

Frizzi’s melding of the futuristic with the moribund in his use of electronics is matched by his peculiar melodic lines, which often move uncannily between the lively and the funereal. While the Zombie 2 soundtrack often bears only an oblique reference to the violent and frenetic story line, this merging of the sounds of life and death provides a disturbingly effective aural equivalent to the undead creatures on-screen. Frizzi’s soundtrack sounds both shockingly new in its use of stark synthesizer tones, and uncomfortably old in its use of tonal distortion and decay. Freud famously defined “the uncanny” as the sense of unease we feel when encountering something that seems alive when we know it should be dead. It is an elusive quality that Frizzi manages to evoke melodically and sonically with seeming effortlessness.
Jed Mayer
http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/screaming-hides-the-sound-the-resurrection-of-fabio-frizzi

Cell: You Better Grow Up, 1993

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (French: [lwiz buʁʒwa]; 25 December 1911 – 31 May 2010), was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman.

While in her eighties, Bourgeois produced two series of enclosed installation works she referred to as Cells. Many are small enclosures into which the viewer is prompted to peer inward at arrangements of symbolic objects; others are small rooms into which the viewer is invited to enter. In the cell pieces, Bourgeois uses earlier sculptural forms, found objects as well as personal items that carried strong personal emotional charge for the artist.

The cells enclose psychological and intellectual states, primarily feelings of fear and pain. Bourgeois stated that the Cells represent “different types of pain; physical, emotional and psychological, mental and intellectual… Each Cell deals with a fear. Fear is pain… Each Cell deals with the pleasure of the voyeur, the thrill of looking and being looked at.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bourgeois

Cell, 2008

The “Cell” series explores the relations between microcosm and macrocosm. Cells have many definitions, from a small biological component of our body’s system to the cages, pens, convents, and rooms used to confine prisoners, animals, nuns, and artists. Cells have the connotation of being prolific units, like families, that belong to a larger system.

Bourgeois’s cells serve in these and other capacities. Some are framed by wooden doors and some by metal cages. Most of the structures have openings or mirrors suspended from the ceiling that invite the viewer to observe, perhaps to spy upon, the inhabitants. These works have many layers of activity; others, such as Cell (1993), are minimal containers. The metal is rusted, the windows broken and dusty. Unlike some, this dwelling isn’t fully inhabited. The grouping of a small, less finished sphere between two larger polished marble spheres could represent a family. These forms also recall the round marble eyes that stare out from Bourgeois’s other works. The cage door opens just enough to let the baby, if it could move, squeeze through. Observation mirrors, positioned over the “family” and the viewer, are the artist’s “eyes”; if we look into them, we enter the cage.
Jan Garden Castro
http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag01/janfeb01/bourg/bourg.shtml

Cell (Black Days), 2006

Among her most explicitly autobiographical installations, the Cells recreate architectures that Bourgeois remembered from childhood. This series of works is perhaps her most influential, and arguably her best: dense, claustrophobic interiors, thick with association.
Jonathan Jones
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jun/01/louise-bourgeois-art-maman-sculpture

Cell (Eyes and Mirrors), 1989-93

Cell (Eyes and Mirrors) is one of a series of installations which Bourgeois began making in 1989. The Cells are typically constructed from a mixture of such salvaged architectural materials as old doors, windows and wire mesh combined with found objects and sculptural fragments. This Cell has the structure of a cube. The ceiling and two of the walls are made of woven iron mesh joined by iron bars which are hinged in places. The other two walls consist of iron rods welded in a grid holding large square panes of glass so that they resemble oversize windows. Several spaces in the grid are empty of glass. A large round mirror is attached to a hinged circular panel cut out of the centre of the ceiling. The panel rotates to reflect different aspects of the interior.

A large pair of eyes, comprising two polished, black marble eyeballs, stares blankly out of a lump of rough, greyish stone mounted on two sections of steel girder in the centre of the Cell. This sculpture is a later version of a work Bourgeois made in 1984 titled Nature Study (Velvet Eyes). The artist has subsequently developed several versions of eyes carved in marble. As a result of their elemental materials, simple form and large scale, the eyes convey a sense of monumental force, both inviting and repelling the viewer’s gaze. They are surrounded by mirrors of various sizes. Several small mirrors hang off the mesh wall behind them. A large oval-shaped mirror and a small round mirror mounted on tall, old fashioned wood and metal stands are positioned on either side of the eyes. A square mirror is propped on the floor. Breast-like bulges, carved out of the back of the unpolished marble in which the eyes are embedded, are visible through reflection in one of the mirrors. These suggest that the eyes represent a female subject.
Elizabeth Manchester
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bourgeois-cell-eyes-and-mirrors-t06899/text-summary

Cell (The Last Climb), 2008

Constantly referred to by critics as 'installation pieces' these are rare among installation work for making manifest a self- determined, architectural, material description of the artist's own psychic space, rather than the artist making manifest their psychic(or intellectual or whatever) space within a given architectural space. Their role in protecting the artist from her childhood abandonment and loss of self is apparent from her own statements. Little in the work is reducible to object-status ; things in the works are never treated in a manner that can be identified as symbolic objects but retain an ambivalent status . Thus, for instance, marble 'sculptures', referring in both material and its working to a well-established tradition of object-making are placed in space or juxtaposed with other materials. Likewise, found objects, in the works are not placed to emphasise their Surreal nature or their usage as universal symbols or to encourage a reading of them as fetish objects: rather they are used as visual material with which an idiosyncratic narrative is being articulated. Viewers are attracted in to the Cells . but at the same time kept at bay through Bourgeois's description of this her symbolic space. She does this sometimes literally by making us peer in, while refusing us clear physical or visual access: sometimes she does this through her image. With what can be for the viewer a baffling lack of didacticism for such precisely selected or made things and such rigorously articulated space.
Hilary Robinson
http://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue3_Hilary-Robinson_17-27.pdf

To the Hannah Maclure Centre this evening for The Spectacle Remains, a display of experimental video curated by the artist and force of nature Morgan Cahn. I took a few photos and here they are:

The name of the event is The Spectacle Remains

"The works will explore the ‘spaces in between’ a array of themes, from humour to terror, to the mediated experience of film itself"

Experimental popcorn

Morgan introduces

Ross Fleming - I'm Every Woman

Peter Burr - Fake Trap

Goatsilk - Fill: Full

Michael Robinson - Light Is Waiting

Alex Tobin - Strange Presence in the Table

Sylli G - Previously on the Stratokovski Frame

Jesse McLean - Magic For Beginners

http://www.northeastofnorth.com/?event=spectacle-remains

Detail from the book How to Look at art

Adolph Frederick Reinhardt ("Ad" Reinhardt) (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered on the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism. He was also a founding member of the Artist's Club. He wrote and lectured extensively on art and was a major influence on conceptual, minimal art and monochrome painting. Most famous for his "black" or "ultimate" paintings, he claimed to be painting the "last paintings" that anyone can paint. He believed in a philosophy of art he called Art-as-Art and used his writing and satirical cartoons to advocate for abstract art and against what he described as "the disreputable practices of artists-as-artists".

Reinhardt joined the staff of PM in 1942 and he worked full-time at this daily newspaper until 1947, with time out while drafted for active duty in the U.S. Navy. While at PM he produced several thousand cartoons and illustrations most notably the series of famous and widely reproduced How to Look at Art series. Reinhardt also illustrated the highly influential and controversial pamphlet Races of Mankind (1943) originally intended for distribution to the U.S. Army, but after being banned subsequently sold close to a million copies. He also illustrated a children's book A Good Man and His Good Wife. While attending Columbia University he designed many covers and illustrations for the humor magazine Jester and was its editor in his senior year (1934–35). Other commercial art work was done "for such varied employers as the Brooklyn Dodgers, Glamour magazine, the CIO, Macy's, The New York Times, the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, The Book and Magazine Guild, the American Jewish Labor Council, New Masses, the Saturday Evening Post, Ice Cream World, and Listen magazine. He also illustrated many books such as Who's Who in the Zoo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Reinhardt

Circa 1946

However hermetic Reinhardt’s black paintings may seem, they were not created in a vacuum. The kind of profound, self-reflexive abstraction he advocated was partially a product of, and reaction to, the climate of Cold War America. Despite the iconoclasm of his aesthetic discourse, Reinhardt was actively engaged in political and social issues throughout his life. During the early 1940s, his editorial cartoons appeared in the leftist newspapers The New Masses and PM. Later, he participated in the antiwar movement, protesting against America’s involvement in Vietnam, and donated his work to benefits for civil rights activities. An aesthetic moralist, Reinhardt sought to create an art form that—in its monochromatic purity—could overcome the tyrannies of oppositional thinking.
Nancy Spector
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/3698

How to look at Modern Art in America, 1946

Reinhardt is largely known for his abstract expressionist paintings, but he also published a series of satirical cartoons around that time period. The Reinhardt cartoon, titled "How to look at Modern Art in America," was a response to a diagram that was circulated a decade earlier, attempting to explain cubism and abstract art

Reinhardt's satirical response was apparently very popular among artists and hung in studios all over America for many years. I love coming across these little known bits of art history--it would be fun to see a version about the current state of affairs--especially in the post-Pop art era.
Hilary Pfeifer
http://hilarypfeifer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/how-to-look-at-modern-art-in-america.html

The Races of Mankind, 1943

Long before Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg took shots at the high-mindedness of the postwar American avant-garde, Ad Reinhardt (1913-67) was blasting away from a privileged vantage in the middle of the fray. A wise-cracking contrarian whose penchant for dialectics would not allow him to hold any position he could not later undermine, he was a consummate art-world insider and a fierce defender of abstract painting. At the same time, his ingrained populism made him suspicious of the rhetoric and institutional power brokering that supports any art elite.

The critic Thomas Hess wrote in a booklet for the 1975 edition that Reinhardt's lampoons are ''like precious containers of the air of New York, 1946-61.'' They are also like core samples from the artist's brain, revealing a side of his personality not apparent in his canvases. Using cutouts from 19th-century illustrated books and periodicals, as well as line drawings and hand-drawn dialogue balloons, he concocted a style in which the surrealism of J. J. Grandville and Max Ernst was inflected with a tough Queens accent. As jabbering, pugilistic and outright funny as his abstract paintings are serene and self-contained, the cartoons can be enjoyed both as pointed social commentary and as autobiography.

As examples of the kind of blather that can still be overheard in cafes and galleries and art schools, Reinhardt's cartoons are still timely as satire. But they may be even more valuable for capturing the high spirits of a wily provocateur and his hot-house milieu. The Pop artists weren't the only ones who knew how to have fun.
Richard B. Woodward
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/arts/art-architecture-ad-reinhardt-newspaper-cartoonist-the-abstract-double-agent.html

Jonzun Crew was an electro and early funk–hip hop group that was active in the 1980s. The group was led by Michael Jonzun, his brothers Maurice Starr and Soni Jonzun, and Carl (Captain Fingers).

The group's most famous tracks, “Pack Jam (Look out for the OVC),” “Space is the Place,” and “Space Cowboy” were featured on the group's debut album, Lost in Space (1983). Other notable tracks included “We Are the Jonzun Crew” and “Ground Control.” The group's sound was particularly unique because all of the synthesizer parts were played live as opposed to sequenced, and despite using drum-machine hits in its tracks, most of the group's songs used a live drummer as the main drum track, giving its songs a unique groove and swing compared to most electro music of the era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonzun_Crew

Jonzun Crew was an electro group who carried their spin on Parliament/Funkadelic's loopy sci-fi themes throughout the '80s and early '90s for a handful of albums, which included singles like "Pack Jam (Look Out for the OVC),""Space Is the Place,""Space Cowboy," and "We Are the Jonzun Crew." Florida-born brothers Michael, Soni, and Larry Johnson (better known as Maurice Starr) formed Jonzun Crew in Boston in 1981, with Gordy Worthy and Steve Thorpe filling out the lineup for different stretches of the group's existence. Starr and Michael would gain further notoriety for helping to bring New Edition and New Kids on the Block to the world; Michael (who continued using Jonzun as his last name) also went solo for a brief period on A&M, in addition to working on several other artists' releases.
Andy Kellman
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-jonzun-crew-mn0000257771/biography

Despite including most of Jonzun Crew's best tracks, their debut album, Lost in Space, wasn't a successful LP. The Boston group with roots in funk were lousy songwriters at this point (more was to come from Maurice Starr), and what's worse, they insisted on writing songs instead of sticking with solid electro party jams like their singles classics "Pack Jam" and "Space Is the Place." Admittedly, the process did pay minor commercial dividends; "Space Cowboy" became a moderate R&B hit, though its electric interpolation of the trademark whistle from "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" was hardly the stuff of legend. They sounded appropriately cool on the opener "We Are the Jonzun Crew," but the rest of the non-singles material was stiff and formulaic. Far better to find Jonzun Crew's two landmarks on an old-school/electro compilation. A 2001 reissue on Tommy Boy enticed consumers with two bonus tracks, one of which was Grooverider's drum'n'bass update of "Pack Jam (Look out for the OVC)."
John Bush
http://www.allmusic.com/album/lost-in-space-mw0000243284

Whatever you wanna call this: electro boogie or space soul or what not, the break dancers of today are still getting their groove on to tracks like "We Are The Jonzun Crew", and so they are succeeding in their intent, that is told to us in the chorus: "we are the Jonzun Crew / we are from your planet too / we are the Jonzun Crew / we want to rock you". To us this does not sound too spaced out anymore, having been conditioned to years of electronic music. If you are a serious hip hop head, then you will also have witnessed at least one break dance battle, if not even participated. And so you will have heard songs like this one. You know the style. But surprisingly enough, we don't really consider this music to be for home enjoyment.

However, these tracks can be your home entertainment. They are much more than cheap background tracks for ancient aerobics videos. As if one thing can be found in each of these tracks, then a certain happiness. A "Space This Place" is not really dark. But it has your heartbeat follow this pace, and if you allow it to, it will actually give you a feeling of being carried off into areas of this galaxy, that with its glistening stars gives you one of the most thrilling sight seeing tours possible. Now by the way, if you care to read the liner notes to this track, you will see a name that should be familiar: John 'Jellybean' Benitez. And if you don't know who this is, then do your thorough history lesson.
tadah the byk
http://www.urbansmarts.com/reviews/albums/jonzuncrew.html

Something that really makes the Jonzun Crew tracks stand out is that despite their heavily electro sound of synthesizers, keyboards and vocoder vocals, they were using live drums in a lot of their classic tracks, with some drum machine hits worked in too. They might sound like synthetic drums, but Pack Jam, Space Is The Place and We Are The Jonzun Crew are all based on live drum tracks, which is where they get their unique groove and swing, and on top of that all the synthesizer parts are played live too, making up a sound that Michael Jonzun described as ‘space funk’.

Check out their outfits — fans of a certain french duo of robots might find the look strangely familiar. Daft Punk may be dressed by Hedi Slimane, but I’d say their robo-fashions owe more than a passing influence to old school cats like the Jonzun Crew, Space and Kraftwerk.

The Jonzun Crew imagery — classic inspired costumes complete with Beethoven and Mozart style powdered wigs, with ruffled shirts and flamboyant suits were the work of New York stylist and fashion designer Jesse Harris.
Cold Crush
http://coldcrush.com.au/electro_sydney/electro_funk/80s-electro-funk/jonzun-crew-we-are-the-jonzun-crew-pack-jam-michael-jonzun/

To Dundee's Vision building last night for the Yuck 'n Yum Annual General Karaoke, an event that's now a fixture in Dundee's cultural calendar. I took a few photos and here they are:

The name of the event is the AGK

This year's song bank

Andrew is master of ceremonies

Last year's winner: Quando, Quando, Quando by Edward Humphrey, Sophie Morris and Jeppe Rohde Nielsen

Alex Tobin sings Leland's Greatest Hits

Holger Mohaupt sings Yello - Bostich

The HMC staff sing the Human League - Don't You Want Me

Angel Zorn sings David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes, winning best performance prize

A group called Vince sings Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Lewis Den Hertog wins Best Video for The Future by Leonard Cohen. Lewis is the 2013 AGK champ!

Morgan and Becca sing to Rosie Barthram's video for Alphabet Pony by The Kills

A selection of AGKers sing to Morgan's video for Bohemian Rhapsody

DJ RHL spins a post-AGK set

http://agk.yucknyum.com/

Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson soundtracks the downtime between karaoke turns at the 2013 Yuck 'n Yum AGK:

Aes Dana - Alignments
Suicide Dada - Acque
Actress - N.E.W.
Patrick Cowley - Mockingbird Dream
Nine Circles - Mercy
Japanese Telecom - Remote Transmitter
Can - Midnight Men
Nimoy - The Orca Reunion
Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Hard-Boiled Babe
M.E. - School Hall
Geneva Jacuzzi - The Sleep Room
Martin Rev - Mari
Lovables - It's Beautiful
Man Parrish - Heatstroke (Club Mix)
K. Alexi Shelby - K’s Vertigo (12” Club K Re-Edit)
Salamandos - We Invite you to Expand your Total Self
Willie Burns - Run from the Sunset
Cerebral Hemorrhage - Back In 1984

Lewis den Hertog's £300 winning karaoke vid for Yuck 'n Yum's 4th AGK, with The Future by Leonard Cohen. Lewis is the 2013 AGK champ!

"An apocalyptic chant, lip-synced by beasts stranded in the cybersexual wasteland."

The Future (2013 AGK WINNER!) from yucknyum on Vimeo.

Bought a few items:

Kier-La Janisse - House of Psychotic Women (FAB Press), £11.19
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15766600-house-of-psychotic-women

The Passion of Joan of Arc DVD (Masters of Cinema), £9.32
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/

Sun Ra ‎– Disco 3000 (Complete Milan Concert 1978) 2CD (Art Yard), £12.20
http://www.discogs.com/Sun-Ra-Disco-3000-Complete-Milan-Concert-1978/release/3645025

A bumper haul of photos taken by the YNY team at last Saturday's AGK, this time on superior cameras with much improved tech specs:

Andrew holds forth

The judging panel (L-R: Gayle, Donna, Graham, your correspondent)

Assorted punters

Alex's video for Leland's Greatest Hits

Angel in character

A collective named Vince

Lewis takes the floor

Paul on the mic

Morgan and Becca in sync

DJ RHL in the mix

Theresa throws some shapes

Rachel Maclean's winning video from the inaugural AGK

http://www.yucknyum.com/

To the Generator last night for Here Bianca, a solo show of work by the sculptor Lauren Gault. I took a few photos and here they are:

The name of the show is Here Bianca

'Here Bianca' features made and found objects, elemental materials and process based works, all of which are selected for their specific histories and component properties.

The new works reference divining, archaeology, and theories around the 'vessel' as object.

http://generatorprojects.co.uk/

Red Plank, 1967

John Harvey McCracken (December 9, 1934 – April 8, 2011) was a contemporary artist who lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York.

In 1966, McCracken generated his signature sculptural form: the plank, a narrow, monochromatic, rectangular board format that leans at an angle against the wall (the site of painting) while simultaneously entering into the three-dimensional realm and physical space of the viewer. He conceived the plank idea in a period when artists across the stylistic spectrum were combining aspects of painting and sculpture in their work and many were experimenting with sleek, impersonal surfaces. As the artist noted, "I see the plank as existing between two worlds, the floor representing the physical world of standing objects, trees, cars, buildings, [and] human bodies, ... and the wall representing the world of the imagination, illusionist painting space, [and] human mental space." The sculptures consist of plywood forms coated with fiberglass and layers of polyester resin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCracken

Think Pink, 1967

The geometric forms McCracken employed were typically built from straight lines: cubes, rectangular slabs and rods, stepped or quadrilateral pyramids, post-and-lintel structures and, most memorably, tall planks that lean against the wall. Usually, the form is painted in sprayed lacquer, which does not reveal the artist’s hand. An industrial look is belied by sensuous color.

His palette included bubble-gum pink, lemon yellow, deep sapphire and ebony, usually applied as a monochrome. Sometimes an application of multiple colors marbleizes or runs down the sculpture’s surface, like a molten lava flow. He also made objects of softly stained wood or, in recent years, highly polished bronze and reflective stainless steel.

Embracing formal impurity at a time when purity was highly prized, the works embody perceptual and philosophical conundrums. The colored planks stand on the floor like sculptures; rely on the wall for support like paintings; and, bridging both floor and wall, define architectural space. Their shape is resolutely linear, but the point at which the line assumes the dimensional properties of a shape is indefinable.
Christopher Knight
http://ilikethisart.net/?p=16954

XIN, 1987

Experiencing New York art through magazines, in 1963, Californian John McCracken cut a notch in his sign-oriented abstract paintings on Masonite and began to inch his way from Newman toward Smith. He began to paint on blocks of wood, and in 1966 made his first lacquer-covered ‘plank’, an eight-feet tall blue and red board that linked the wall to the floor and seemed to wed West Coast colour with the severe, literal and systematic East Coast Minimal works he had read about.

Since then, McCracken has incrementally extended blocks, slabs and planks into a variety of wedges and polyhedral solids that recall the reductivism of New York Minimalism, Bay Area Zen, as well as the iconic, almost religious ‘presence’ (a McCracken word) of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. There is something solid yet evanescent about his sculptures, such that a room of them, now in varied chromatic hues, bears the stamp not only of something ‘higher’ but also of something man-made; something that looks at earth and sky and then beyond into primary forms, colour and light. They emanate both simplicity and complexity, and are imbued with the physical qualities of revelation and concealment - all requirements of religious mystery. Of course, there is no moral, no directive and no dicta guiding them - nothing to tinge them with moral imperatives, and no programmatic explanatory principle. And, they make you feel good.
Jeff Rian
http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/john_mccracken/

Galaxy, 2008

Dike Blair: I've noticed that there is a surprising confluence of responses to the work-most people tune into its metaphysics.

John McCracken: I find it interesting that that does occur. It helps me know that my thoughts about the work aren't just laid on top of it-that's something I try to avoid. It seems silly to superimpose words on work. It seems natural to me that these things are applied to the work as that's what I try to put in it. I've always been interested in metaphysics-so I guess one also does a self portrait of one's body of ideas. My own work has puzzled me-especially as it relates to the plank. I kept coming back to making planks and I kept wondering if I was being habitual or obsessive or responding to demand, or if there was more to this plank form than I consciously realized. I wondered if they were a life form from somewhere that was channeling through me and it didn't make any difference if I understood them or not. It worried me a bit-I believe in being intuitive but not being unconscious. I started to realize that these were figurative things that are both in the world and out of it. Because it leans at an angle, when you put a plank in a room, it kind of screws things up-it can be a little disturbing, but I found I liked that. When you set things vertically they go with everything but when you set them at an angle then you have something that shifts away from our reality. It's partly in the world and partly out of the world. It's like a visit.

DB: The pieces always look as if they were installed by something other than human hands.

JM: I do try to make things that look like they come from somewhere else-from a UFO or a futuristic environment or another dimension. That things exist in more than one dimension at one time is something that's more than a fascination for me, it's relevant to the human world. I think that humans exist in more than one dimension at once.

DB: You've described a trance state where you have out-of-body visions that inspire the work-could you expand on that?

JM: That kind of thing-out-of-body experience and expanded seeing and all that-are, to my mind, attributes of advanced consciousness. It's in an environment, inhabited by beings of advanced consciousness and capabilities, where I try to imagine my works. I try to go to a place like that in my mind to make my works and then bring them back. I also think of my works as representations of that idea. I'm after a physical object that appears to be nonphysical, hallucinatory or holographic. Otherworldly, in other words. I want something that suggests the coexistence of more than one dimension or world at any given moment. So the work can exist physically, in our situation, or be imaginary in a dimension where imagination is real.
http://www.thing.net/~lilyvac/writing30.html

Alex Bag (born 1969) in New York City is an artist working primarily in video. She currently resides in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

A performance video on art school, Fall '95 documents the fictionalized life of the New York City art school School of Visual Arts student, played by Bag herself. Taking the form of a video diary, Bag's character addresses the camera directly, expressing her thoughts on life and art, which mature significantly over the course of eight semesters. Interspersed between these entries are clips commenting on a variety of topics including male aggression, mockingly portrayed by toys, and video art from the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Bag

The work that made Bag’s name was “Fall ’95”, from the same year. The DIY confessional film depicts Bag as an art student recording the growing pains of the art school experience directly into a VHS camera. Interspersed with the student protagonist’s development and thoughts, Bag added small segments like scenes glimpsed from a changing remote control. They ranged from a lo-fi toy soap opera about bunny murder to fake chatline sex ads, to a comedic take on dated video art.

Bag is the queen of pop metamorphosis, a mantle she may steal from Cindy Sherman. Like Sherman, she has used herself as a medium, twisting the process of performance to suit her sense of satire. In her films she personifies a cast of over-the-top characters, advertising clichés and Hollywood divas. The whole of audio-visual archive culture is hers to be reused and reworked. She highlights the ideological mechanisms that we suck up unawares. Her work is an ode to trash TV and its melting, ever-changing sense of meaning and identity. “Shapeshifting is a hobby that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with a fractured psyche,” Bag says. “It’s a relatively healthy outlet to drain perpetual pain, disappointment and yearning into.”

Apart from Bag’s deft performances and transformations, what makes “Fall ’95” so enjoyable to watch is how it highlights the stupidity, hypocrisy and motivations of the art world itself.
Francesca Gavin
http://www.sleek-mag.com/print-features/2012/05/how-to-get-ahead-in-television/

In her Fall ‘95 (1995) tape, exhibited at the 303 Gallery in New York, Bag portrayed a student at the School of Visual Arts, checking in to report on her progress in each of eight semesters. In other bits she plays a phone sex siren in a cable TV ad, a girl scout and her mom, a McDonalds’ customer and a McDonalds’ counter person, assorted mourners of River Phoenix, the hostess of a rock commentary cable show (‘Rock Insights, the show that pontificates on the social and extreme nuances of rock music’), the hostess of a fashion talk show raving on in generic mid-Euro accent on the genius of Azzedine Alaia (‘small man, big ideas’), and a honky arrhythmic Salt’n'Pepa.

Alex Bag is truly versatile. She’s a woman of a thousand makeovers, like the Cindy Sherman of shtick, or a rarefied Carol Burnett. She gets all the microscopic nuances just right, the coif is high comedy, the lipstick and eyebrows are art. The rip in her T-shirt is art - finally grunge I can relate to. And the language, the diction and the accents and the phrasing are all dripping with mouth-watering verisimilitude. She’s fine art because she targets tastefully and destroys mercifully and elaborately things way outside the orthodox hit list. Way. She’s a cool scourge of the neo-banal. And it’s a feel-good kind of scourge. She’s bad. She’s Bag.
Glenn O'Brien
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/whos_that_girl/

In 1995, as Matthew Barney became famous for his opulent, surrealist film epic, video artist Alex Bag rose to stardom as a kind of anti-Cremaster, creating no-budget video art with little more than cheap wigs, bedsheet backdrops, appropriated television clips, and stuffed animals. In Untitled Fall ’95, Bag played a student at SVA, reporting on each semester in a satirical video diary, which she punctuated with sketches that featured warring toys, a fake phone-sex commercial, and Björk explaining how a TV works. Now, Bag’s first monograph has finally been published, as her work is absorbed into art-school curricula and newly pirated excerpts are posted online. The book contains stills, photographs, reproductions of her notebook pages, essays by critics, and scripts for the videos. Reading these screenplays shifts the focus from the brilliance of Bag’s performances and her purposefully makeshift art direction to the strength of her writing. Her pitch-perfect use of vernacular speech and mastery of plot and character become clearer, underscoring what’s long been known—she is a comic genius, and one of the art world’s coolest harridans. Bag’s punk-inflected institutional critique was leveled against novel targets like the sexual politics of art school and the alienated labor of a professionalized art scene, and she depicted these insider subjects with the damning detritus of mass media and advertising culture. In one of Untitled Fall ’95’s interludes, a Ronald McDonald doll’s brutish come-on to a Hello Kitty toy is followed by Ronald proposing a marketing partnership—it’s the perfect introduction to the penultimate installment, about a summer job for a Williamsburg artist. She notes that she’s “never heard of him before, but apparently he’s like an overlord of this pathetic scene out there,” and almost two decades later it’s still funny, even on paper. Bag’s post-Pop, pre-YouTube tour de force has become a prescient cult classic for a new generation.
Johanna Fateman
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_05/8883

Walter Van Beirendonck (Brecht, Belgium, 4 February 1957) is a Belgian fashion designer. He graduated in 1980 from the Royal Arts Academy in Antwerp. Together with Dirk Van Saene, Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee (graduated in 1981) and Dirk Bikkembergs (graduated in 1982) they became known as the Antwerp Six.

Since 1983, he issues his own collections. They are inspired by the visual arts, literature, nature and ethnic influences. His unusual color combinations and a strong graphic influence are characteristic for his collections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Van_Beirendonck

From 1993 to 1999, Van Beirendonck worked under the label W. & L.T. (Wild & Lethal Trash – or ‘Walt’ as it was known), staging elaborate fashion shows which often resembled huge warehouse parties more than anything else, featuring clothes with a distinctly futuristic vibe: ‘talking’ voice boxes, flashing lights, and holographic appliqués were common additions to the garments, many of which were constructed from high-tech synthetic materials. If brands like Boy London and BodyMap were espousing the vibe in a rough-and-ready way in London, while the likes of Moschino and Castelbajac were interpreting it with couture refinement in Milan and Paris respectively, Van Beirendonck occupied a unique position, blending high-end with ‘trash’ and cutting-edge with elements of mainstream pop culture. WVB’s work frequently blurs the boundaries between fashion and art (indeed, the designer has collaborated with the Austrian artist Erwin Wurm on several collections), and his ‘anti-fashion’ approach always provides an interesting meta-view of the haute couture world.
Peter, Hapsical
http://hapsical.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/walter-van-beirendonck.html

Ever since I laid my eyes on a very colorful editorial from Pigeons and Peacocks early last year, I'd been obsessing with all the W&LT clothes they used for styling. I researched it online but found no clothing shop that stocks it. I later found out that W&LT, or Wild And Lethal Trash, only existed during the 90's. It was created by the forever avant-garde designer Walter Van Beirendonck (former member of the Antwerp Six) who is known for his ultra-colorful designs.

One of his most known works was when he styled for U2's Popmart tour. Those who lived the glory of the 90's would never forget his iconic BLOW-UP muscle-jackets.

I researched online why a very different and creative brand like W&LT would close down during the period where his aesthetic for fashion was in. From an interview he said that the company's backer, Mustang, tried to get involved with the brand's image. He later on decided to step out of it. That's what happens when the corporate fucks with creativity.

I have so much respect for Walter Van Beirendonck as a designer. From an interview, he was asked who he is as a designer and how he described his designs. He said:

"Despite the fact that the first impression you get when looking at my collections is of color and fun, I do invest a lot of energy and research in the stories I want to tell, the statements I want to make, and the messages I want to communicate. So there is always a second (more loaded) layer in the collection. This makes me a designer with a recognizable signature, one who is ready to push the boundaries. I am not afraid to do it my way."

I think his style caters to a specific crowd or to a specific period of time. From all the colors and the prints that exploded in Fashion weeks last year and this year, his fashion designs are now in trend again. It's just the right time for his works to be celebrated again. Just recently, Antwerp Fashion Museum opened an exhibit for his timeless clothes (before, during, and after W&LT). It covered 30 years of his works. Amazing! I really wish I saw the gallery in person.
Paul Highness
http://www.paulhighness.com/2012/03/w.html

Dream The World Awake, RMIT Melbourne2012

Dazed Digital: Just a few years after gradating, you launched the infamous 90s label Wild & Lethal Trash. What was the idea behind that?

Walter Van Bierendonck: The jeans company Mustang approached me when street fashion first started to establish itself, and I went to see the company with my portfolio. They were amazed by the street fashion look that I showed them and gave me the opportunity to create a youth line inside the company. It started as a streetwear project and ended as a high-end designer line.

DD: What was its appeal?

WVB: I think it was the right feeling and the right product at the right moment. That period was about experimenting and looking towards the future in a bright way and it fitted really well into that generation. Eventually Wild & Lethal Trash became a victim of the 'Prada Sport period' - the end of the 90s when everything became dark again. Then the style was totally minimal, nylon and black, and the company behind W< wanted me to move in that direction. Eventually, I stepped out of the company and left everything behind me. It was a decision about whether to take the money or go for creativity.
http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/8203/1/walter-van-beirendonck-the-joy-of-six

Where to begin? I've been struggling to find the words on how truly amazing this retrospective exhibition of Walter Van Beirendonck's archive is since I saw it at the media preview early last week. As I previously mentioned I took over 500 photos that day and since then I've gone back a few times to take the images you see in the gifs in this post, but also to soak it all in and hopefully gather my thoughts. As you can see above, from the moment you walk in it's a visual feast of colour and movement (albeit a lot smoother than in my gif haha) and features pieces dating back from Van Beirendonck s graduate collection in 1980 through to today, a career spanning more than three decades. For those who don't know Walter Van Beirendonck is one of the famed Antwerp Six, a group of influential avant garde fashion designers who graduated from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts between 1980-1981 (the Antwerp Six also includes the likes of Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten). He is known for his spectacular fashion shows under the W.&L.T. label (Wild & Lethal Trash) which have featured everything from models line dancing to a collection of soft toys sitting front row with celebrities and editors relegated to the back row, as a sort of fuck you to the fashion system. Whilst in town Walter Van Beirendonck gave a series of talks with Chris Dercon, director of London's Tate Modern, and one thing that stood out for me from that was the idea that fashion is not art but rather industrial design ‘Fashion is not art, fashion can use art and art can use fashion but fashion is not art,’ said Dercon. ‘I think that fashion is one of the most important expressions of industrial design.’ Beirendonck agreed. Of course fashion can be creative and artistic, you'd only have to look at this exhibition to see that, but nearly all of the pieces in the exhibition were sold commercially and as such they have a primary function which makes them design. If only all designers were as brave and daring as Walter Van Beirendonck, who works within the commercial restraints of fashion but pushes the boundaries - what a different world it would be.
Fashion Hayley
http://www.fashionhayley.com/2013/07/walter-van-beirendonck-dream-world-awake.html

Lil Louis is the stage name used by Chicago-born house-music producer and DJ Louis Sims. He scored a number of hits on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the 1980s and 1990s, three of which hit #1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Louis

One of the most popular Chicago house producers during the late '80s thanks to his massive club hit "French Kiss," Lil' Louis was also the only Chicago producer to successfully deal with the major labels; he released two albums for Epic, and only left the label at his own instigation. Born in Chicago, Louis was the son of guitarist Bobby Sims, who recorded for Chess and appeared with the psychedelic-soul unit Rotary Connection. He grew up with nine siblings and played both drums and bass as a child, then began DJing in the mid-'70s (he earned his nickname after appearances at the club River's Edge while still in middle school). By the end of the decade he had his own club, the Future, where he began working on his editing techniques, thanks to a cassette deck and later a reel-to-reel recorder.
John Bush
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lil-louis-mn0000275207/biography

Rees Urban: Not a lot of people are familiar with the controversy of "Video Clash" that was released by Lil' Louis as well as the same formula follow-ups like Tyree's "Acid Crash" and Mike Dunn's "Magic Feet". Could you give us the story from your point of view?

Marshall Jefferson: Tyree and Mike Dunn were and still are good friends. I was in my living room with some friends and I did "Video Clash" right there in front of them. Lil' Louis was one of them. I did a lot of songs then that were played in the clubs and never came out. At that time I was giving all my rough demos to Ron Hardy and since he was there, Lil' Louis called dibs on the new hot tune. He also told me not to give it to Ron Hardy. I had a lot of other songs playing in the clubs and I started concentrating more on my major label groups like Ten City, CeCe Rogers and Kym Mazelle and kind of left all my instrumental tracks behind. A lot of them are still being played. Anyway, Mike and Tyree, knowing this, put out their versions. Lil' Louis came to me infuriated. He said the original version should come out, but I didn't want people to think I copied off Tyree and Mike. He asked if he could put it out on his label for me and I said yes. The only problem was that when the record came out, it didn't have my name anywhere on it. That was Lil' Louis' first record.

RU: Will the "real deal" ever see the light of day?

MJ: Nope, I lost the tape. I could remake it. I still remember the keyboards I used, but I don't know if I can duplicate that raw sound because it was done in my living room on cheap equipment.
http://www.5chicago.com/features/august2009/marshall-jefferson-p2.html

Every treasure hides its own secrets. Sometimes, these secrets may be astonishing as the treasure itself. Reputed among the most amazing tunes released by Lil' Louis ever, "Video Clash" has quite a story - and few, very few know its true extension.

The first time I heard about "Video Clash" story was on an interview I made with Tyree where he said that he did his "Video Crash" classic because he had heard that Lil' Louis released the original version of "Video Clash" which was produced by Marshall Jefferson, so he, Tyree Cooper, wanted to do one that was better than Lil'Louis one, so he did "Video Crash". Mike Dunn did something similar based on the same concept of "Video Clash" and made "Magic Feet".

The natural reaction was hearing Marshall Jefferson's statement about the original of "Video Clash" in order to elucidate the matter. "Video clash I did in my living room while Lil' Louis was there. Kym Mazelle, Sterling Void, and four others were there. Kym Mazelle started singing "Fuck it, I don't even wanna sing!" over the track, and we were basically just having a jam session. Lil Louis lived really close to me; Fast Eddie was my next door neighbour - and he always complained that Ron Hardy got all my tracks first."

Marshall continued: "Well, he (Lil' Louis) was right there when I recorded "Video Clash" and he insisted that I give him a copy. At that time Lil Louis had the biggest parties in Chicago, where more than five thousand kids would regularly show up, so I gave him a copy to play. He took it home, took off Kym's vocals and edited it. Somehow, that piece of shit became his biggest record."

The other music that spread from "Video Clash" concept was explained by Marshall Jefferson as well: "Soon after, Mike Dunn did a ripoff of it called "Magic Feet", and Tyree Cooper did another ripoff ("Video Crash", and Tyree's testimonial about its history was almost the same of Marshall's), and at least five other ripoffs were circulating and I (Marshall) didn't want to put my version out because I didn't want people to think I ripped off somebody else, so I was ready to push it to the side and forget it."

What made him change his mind is his explanation about Lil Louis' arguments: "He (Lil' Louis) seemed extremely upset that the other versions came out, and asked me to put out the "original version" because he said people needed to hear it. I said no at first, then he said he would put it out for me and after lots of urging I just said - "Go ahead".

The producer of "Video Clash", Marshall Jefferson - the same man behind several other quintessential House tunes, reasoned about when the "Video Clash" was released: "When the record finally came out, my name was nowhere on it. Never received any money for it either. Recently, I asked for the rights to the song back and Lil' Louis gave me back the rights without a fight, so that was cool. There's very little money if any for it now, but at least I have the rights for justice's sake" - said the one who claims to be "Video Clash"'s true creator.
Alain_Patrick
http://www.discogs.com/Lil-Louis-The-Original-Video-Clash-Music-Takes-U-Away/release/1451

Bought a few items:

Lisa Barnard - Chateau Despair (Gost Books), £14.99
http://www.gostbooks.com/books/31/chateau-despair

Maurice Lever - Marquis De Sade: A Biography (Flamingo), £0.99
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/797438.Sade

Charlemagne Palestine + Z'ev ‎– Rubhitbangklanghear 2CD (Sub Rosa), £10.44
http://www.discogs.com/Charlemagne-Palestine-Zev-Rubhitbangklanghear-Rubhitbangklangear/release/4288222

Yuck 'n Yum @ Dundee Literary Festival 25.10.13 - pictures

Zeitkratzer - Metal Machine Music

AGK

Yoko Ono - Grapefruit

Fabio Frizzi - Zombi 2

Louise Bourgeois - Cells

The Spectacle Remains @ HMC 05.11.13 - pictures

Ad Reinhardt - cartoons

Jonzun Crew - Lost In Space

AGK @ Vision 09.11.13 - pictures

Soundcloud - AGK Ambiance 09.11.13

The Future (2013 AGK WINNER!)

Receipts

AGK 09.11.13 pictures redux

Here Bianca @ GENERATOR projects 15.11.13 - pictures

John McCracken - Planks

Alex Bag - Untitled Fall '95

Walter Van Beirendonck - Wild & Lethal Trash

Lil' Louis - Video Clash

receipts