Exactitudes

Pretty cool website with the work of the photographer Ari Versluis. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 8 years. Rotterdam's heterogeneous, multicultural street scene remains a major source of inspiration for Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, although since 1998 they have also worked in cities abroad.

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.

Skwak

Cool illustrations. Crazy and messy but I like them!

Ed Rusha and fires and milk

I am reading this book that I absolutely recommend. It's pretty dense, so bit by bit, and pretty heavy so not good for the subway. But awesome. So don't be surprise if I throw in here some conceptual art every once in a while.

"As dispassionate as anything by Warhol were the books being produced by Ed Ruscha. The first of these, Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations, showed 26 photographs of service stations between LA (where he lived) and Oklahoma City (where he had been brought up). The photographs were artless, seeming neither clever nor eloquent. What was important was their indiference and everyday quality. The image was allowed to be itself adn to speak for itself. It was not important whether he had taken them himself, indeed sometimes he gor others to take photographs for him. In the books they were ordered so as to evoke neither narrative or mood. There is no text, as he wanted the material to remain neutral. "My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subjecct matter. They are simply a collection of facts, my book is more like a colection of readymades." Another book "So various small fires and milk" is quite literally that: photographs of various small fires and a glass of milk."
I found it interesting. You can read more here.

Rumania, en los 90

Esta es una de esas pelis que duele horrorosamente ver.
Nicolae Ceausescu prohibió el aborto y los métodos anticonceptivos y ordenó a las mujeres a tener todos los hijos que pudieran, con la intención de aumentar el número de trabajadores rumanos. Ceausescu fue ejecutado en 1989, pero el país sufre todavía numerosas secuelas de su régimen. Se estima que unos 20.000 niños viven en las calles de Bucarest.

Este documental sigue a 5 niños en particular que viven en una de las estaciones de metro de la capital a través de sus problemas diarios, las palizas y abusos que reciben, la falta de alimentación y escolarización y su dependencia de esnifar pintura.

Como película es durísima, no la he podido ni acabar de ver, pero es necesaria y recomendable. Ganó el premio especial del jurado en Sundance, y su directora Edet Belzberg acaba de recibir una de las prestigiosas becas McArthur que galardonan la excelencia de algunos profesionales y les proporcionan financiación para sus próximos proyectos.

Telemadre

En El País leía sobre un proyecto que ha dado una beca a un taxista de 642 euros por leer el Quijote completo. Me ha encantado. Es otro proyecto de mmmm... una organización muy cachonda. La web merece perderse un rato.
Me ha encantado el proyecto Telemadre un modelo que conecta madres sin trabajo con gente que quiere comer bien pero no tiene tiempo o facultades para cocinar.

Parra

Navigating the web I fell in love with the simplicity of this artist. It may sound familiar to you since he just illustrated the cover of flaunt. Check his work here,click on illustrators and then Parra.

ixone en la india

Ixone se fue a la India este verano con unos amigos. Después de estancias en diferentes colegios para niños con discapacidades (en la religión hinduista ser discapacitado significa un castigo por haber hecho algo malo en una vida anterior. Por ello muchos de los niños que aquí conocimos tenían algún tipo de discapacidad y probablemente por esto fueron abandonados) decidieron que seguirían ayundando al volver. Aprovechando que las Navidades estaban cerca surgió la idea de hacer postales con algunas de las fotos que habían hecho. "Con el dinero que consigamos haremos posible operaciones y adquisición de material ortopédico para niños/as con discapacidad de Gujerat."
Podéis informaros más sobre el proyecto aquí.

Nouvelle Vague

I have decided to mix my netflix queue up a bit. I haven't seen that many movies from the nouvelle vague and I think it's time.

In the late fifties and early sixties, a group of radical French film critics/enthusiasts—including such luminaries as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Eric Rohmer, Georges Franju, Claude Chabrol, Agnés Varda—irrevocably altered the way films were made and understood. The principal Nouvelle vague directors had been film critics for the magazine Cahiers du cinéma. Strong adherents of the auteur policy, they believed that the director should express a personal vision of the world. This vision would aapear not only in the film's script but also in its style. Most of them started by directing short films, but by the end of the decade, most turned to features. They helped each other by financing projects and sharing the services of two outstanding cinematographers, Henri Decae and Raoul Coutard.
"You become a director when you find the money to make your first film", Claude Cabrol.

The initial impact came from 4 films: Chabrol's "Le Beau Serge" (almost the French entry at Cannes) and "Les cousins" (won a major prize at the Berlin festival), Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (best direction prize at Cannes) and Godard's "Breathless" the most innovative early nouvelle vague film.

Shot on location, using portable equipment, little-known actors, and small crews, they changed the way films were conceived and shot.

Here are some ideas for your netflix:

1959
Les Quatre cents coups, François Truffaut
Hiroshima mon amour, Alain Resnais
Les yeux sans visage, Georges Franju

1960
A bout the souffle (breathless), Jean-Luc Godard
Les bonnes femmes, Claude Chabrol
Tirez sur le pianiste, François Truffaut

1961
Lola, Jacques Demy
Une femme est une femme, Jean-Luc Godard
L'année derniere a Marienbad, Alain Resnais

1962
Jules et Jim, François Truffaut
Vivre sa vie, Jean-Luc Godard
Cléo de 5 a 7, Agnes Varda

1963
Le petit soldat, Jean-Luc Godard
Le Mépris, Jean-Luc Godard
Muriel, Alain Resnais
Judex, Georges Franju

1964
La peau douce, François Truffaut
Bande a part, Jean-Luc Goddard
Une femme mariée, Jean-Luc Godard
Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Jacques Demy

1965
Alphaville, Jean-Luc Godard
Pierrot le Fou, Jean-Luc Godard
Le bonheur, Agnes Varda

1966
Masculin-feminin, Jean-Luc Godard
Farenheit 451, Francois Truffaut
La collectionneuse, Eric Rohmer

1967
Made in Usa, Jean-Luc Godard
La chinoise, Jean-Luc Godard
Weekend, Jean-Luc Godard
Les demoiselles de Rochefort, Jacques Demy
Ma nuit chez Maude, Eric Rohmer

More info here.

Alvin Lustig

Alvin Lustig's contributions to the design of books and book jackets, magazines, interiors, and textiles as well as his teachings would have made him a credible candidate for the AIGA Lifetime Achievement award when he was alive. By the time he died at the age of forty in 1955, he had already introduced principles of Modern art to graphic design that have had a long-term influence on contemporary practice. He was in the vanguard of a relatively small group who fervently, indeed religiously, believed in the curative power of good design when applied to all aspects of American life. He was a generalist, and yet in the specific media in which he excelled he established standards that are viable today.
Check out this amazing website.
(via efimera)

30. Uff.

Esto de cumplir treinta es un poco freaky.
Turning 30 is kind of freaky.

Cristina García Rodero

Hace 10 años, cuando vivía en Dublín mi profe de fotografía me preguntó si conocía a Cristina García Rodero. Tuve que responder que no. Hoy me he vuelto a cruzar con un artículo que hablaba de ella. Me encanta como retrata la sociedad española de hace unos años. Este desayuno es del 75. Como yo.

Ingar Krauss

Nice BW pictures. Here.

3 años del Prestige

Hemos aprendido algo?

El ADC pide pósters para la próxima convención climática y de protección del medio ambiente en Canada. Más info aquí y aquí por si os animáis. Yo estoy en ello.

Gena Rowlands & John Cassavetes

En el BAM hay un ciclo dedicado a Gena Rowlands. Fuimos a ver "Gloria" rodada en el 1980 en una NY muy distinta a la de ahora. El ritmo de la película es totalmente distinto y sin hacer uso de ningún tipo de efecto especial, al contrario rodado en un estilo bastante documental, te mantiene en tensión todo el rato.

Cassavetes está considerado uno de los padres del cine independiente. Financió sus películas actuando en grandes super producciones de Hollywood y en televisión. Junto con Gena Rowlands, su mujer, trabajó en varias películas entre ellas "A woman under the influence" que acabo de añadir a mi lista en netflix.

The Squid and the Whale

Wonderful movie about how much it sucks to have divorced parents. And it's always nice to see Brooklyn's brownstones on the big screen.
Watch a preview here.

MOBA. Bad Art Museum

Malaika told me about this weird project. The Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) is the world's only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms.
I couldn't help by thinking in Joe. We were roomates in 2001 and he decorated the house with found art and found pictures. It was funny to see all those faces looking at you of people you've never seen before. We would make up stories for them. It was like our second family.
The art he found was pretty amazing too. Could have gone into the MOBA no doubt. But Joe decided to paint it blue. All blue but one stripe. Fun.

Type drawing

Maria me ha mandado esta web super chuli de dibujos con tipos. gracias!!! Aquí, aquí.

Permanent Food

It's a magazine made from magazine pages gathered from around the world by hundreds of participants, a second generation publication. it is a non-profit magazine, without offices or editorial board, published by l'association des temps liberés and distributed by les presses du réel (dijon, france) and idea books (amsterdam, the netherlands), in association with le consortium (dijon), conceived and realized by maurizio cattelan & dominique gonzalez-foerster since 1995.
Why create content when you can just take it from other magazines? An interesting idea, that is.

And Permanent Foam is a website about websites. The same idea applied to the web.

Antony Gormley

I had seen his instalation with a the little clay men, but I didn't know much about him. Marcio showed me his book. I loved it. The website is pretty cool too. He creates sculptures of his own body. Really interesting and beautiful stuff.