Entries Tagged 'Art' ↓

The next James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, may have the corniest title of any 007 movie to date, but the filmmakers are totally not sleeping in the advance poster department. This double-sided German piece, slightly smaller (23.25″ x 36.2″) than an American one-sheet (27″ x 41″), is $25 at MoviePoster.com.

Would you wash the feet of Saudi terrorist, supposed Al Qaeda founder, and alleged 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden?

That’s the question implicit in the above piece of Christian art titled Servant to the World. Created by artist Lars Justinen, the image depicts Jesus Christ, dressed in the manner described in his Last Supper of John 13, washing the feet of prominent world leaders: Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, former British PM Tony Blair, Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India. In His hands is the right foot of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In the implied sequence, bin Laden is next. He’s seated beside George Bush, President of the United States, the very man who has promised to hunt him down.

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I missile you much: GTA IV‘s Niko Bellic sends his regards

The worst job I ever had was working in the car loans department of the now defunct Chemical Bank, at the Huntington Quadrangle in Melville L.I. It was a small office of about ten to twelve mutually limited, small-minded people, held under the managerial thumb of a doughy, mouse-faced, unsmiling, bespectacled woman with yellow smoker’s fingertips and a bad perm.

Our task was taking in loan requests by fax or phone from GMAC finance dealers, processing them, and passing them up the chain for approval. What I remember most was how tense this office was, as this woman kept us under the grind to turn out precious loan apps. My solace was ducking into my ’75 Impala at lunch time, loudly playing Grandmixer DXT and Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock album, and sleeping.

But pristinely nested on the other end of my employment karmic balance is the job I loved the most: The 2 1/2 years I spent, from 2004 – 2006, working in public affairs at Rockstar Games, maker of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series of video games.

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Typically, if you found yourself this close to the working end of an aerobatic sports plane, not to mention a Boeing 777, below, you’d be in a world of mess.

But if you’re Erik Hildebrandt, you’re, basically, at your desk. (Hey: That rhymes!)

One of the today’s most skilled aviation photographers, the Minnesota-based Hildebrandt is the guest on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, April 18, 2 pm ET.

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Tee-hee. This week, The Huffington Post quoted a New York Times‘s article on the new Wall Street Journal parody, My Wall Street Journal. Apparently, it so angered Rupert Murdoch that someone from the company went throughout Los Angeles, buying up the entire stock of local newsstands.

Last Thursday, Alexander Laurence was working at one such stand in Los Angeles, chatting with a customer, David Metz, when, both of them say, a man in a shirt with a Journal logo asked if anyone had seen a paper that looked sort of like The Journal.

“This guy comes by all the time to bring promotional stuff for The Wall Street Journal — bags, coin trays, stickers,” Mr. Laurence said.

Sure enough, they found what he was looking for. “He grabbed them all, said, ‘I need to buy all of these,’ ” Mr. Laurence said. “He had been going around to different stands, buying them.”

The man paid with a corporate American Express card. “At first he’s saying they have to make a correction or it’s not supposed to be out yet,” Mr. Metz said. “But then he said these are not published by The Wall Street Journal.”

Perhaps what most outraged Murdoch, and what the Huffington Post reproduced but the Times didn’t, was this, above: A full-page, topless spread of conservative “#1 FOX News Fox” Ann Coulter, done painstakingly in stipple, per Journal stylee.

On one hand, though satire, it could be argued that the image refines the use of women’s bodies as a territory over which men do battle, often symbolically, and that this post is part of that.

On the other hand, if accurate, the picture of a sow-like Coulter raises serious questions about the veracity of her Young Americans for Freedom forum quote, in the hed, further proving that conservatives not only mangle the truth, but exaggerate the greatness of Americans, particularly when speaking to naive, impressionable audiences.

Bag lady: Victoria Beckham says “Aaah” for photog Juergen Teller

Interesting article from yesterday’s New York Times on the creative partnership between German photographer Juergen Teller and American designer Marc Jacobs. But even more startling are Teller’s images, which have prettied up W and other fashion bibles for a decade: Teller as artist Cindy Sherman’s twin, or, in an incredible story, as Charlotte Rampling’s hapless gigolo.

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Though almost nothing is cooler than the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video that Samuel Bayer directed for Nirvana, if you can believe it, nearly two decades ago, in 1991—not Weird Al” Yankovic’s parody or Paul Anka’s big band-styled tribute—this $44.99, 18-inch figure of Kurt Cobain from the classic vid comes close. (Thanks to super-blogger and fellow New Zealand-phile Hanan Levin at Grow-A-Brain for the tip.)

It not only talks, nor solely comes in a 7-inch, $16.99 version but, revelation!, also makes obvious that Cobain’s competition model 1969 Fender Mustang was finished in “Lake Placid Blue.” Somehow, I’d never noticed this. Perhaps I was distracted by all the marbles in his mouth.

Like mazes? Think you’re good at them? Then try these downloadable goodies on for size, tough guy.

Seoul-born JooYoun Paek, a resident with the art/technology center Eyebeam, here in New York,

observes people doing everyday things like dressing and undressing, drinking and eating, calling and texting on cell phones, writing emails and letters, folding origami, etc. Then, she uses her observations on human habits and behavior to design interactive objects for public spaces.

Right now, you’re probably thinking of all the places and situations that chapeau, called Pillowig, would come in handy. (My favorite detail: The little bow.) Check out her web site for suggested uses, and more of her goofy, Dada-chomping work.

As a child born in the early 1960s, I can remember when every print ad in National Geographic seemed to be done in this style: Painting of athletic and slim white man and woman in some otherwise impossible, wildly desirable setting, madly enjoying some consumer item that, it seems, would not be that all interesting, actually, if you, say, lived in a bleeding-edge, part-glass, woodland home cantilevered over a stream, or a couple dozen stories above a headlamp-lit New York City street.

Both are by illustrator Charles Schridde. As the awesome Paleo-Future notes, the top pic is from a Motorola television print campaign:

This series ran in Life Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post from 1961 until 1963 and was immensely popular for its elegant, futuristic look.

Though the Western-themed stuff Schridde seems to most paint these days does zero for me, thankfully, his work is preserved on the web, in books like Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising and The Golden Age of Advertising – the 70s. Click on the pics to see close-ups. Thanks to FFFFOUND, StrangeHarvest, Paleo-Future, and The World of Kane for the links.