PressPausePlay – A must see film for the contemporary artist!
PressPausePlay directed by David Dworsky & Victor Kohler might be the best documentary I have seen in years if not ever! It addresses the gamut of issues that affect anyone who is producing art today. Wow!
“…Does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era”
Art Basel Miami 2011 Recap
I have been to Art Basel three times but this year there was an energy that was very different. From the large venues like Scope, to the indie galleries like Fountain, to the streets of the Design District, it felt like everyone everywhere was simultaneously absorbing as well as radiating positive vibes.
The Wynwood Walls were the single most incredible collective art project I’ve ever witnessed, the art was amazing! And as expected the after hours events left me worn out until well into the next day.
This was the first time that I wasn’t on assignment at Art Basel so I could move at my own pace and without all my equipment. The only thing I carried was my 7D. I didn’t even take extra batteries nor did I carry my external audio recorder. But I got to say that it was worth it traveling as light as I did. Shooting was almost an after-thought and I think that comes across in this cut, jus’ like dem New Pop days of old.
Enjoy
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Here Comes The Neighborhood – Trailer
HERE COMES THE NEIGHBORHOOD is a short-form Docuseries exploring the power of Public Art and innovation to uplift and revitalize urban communities. I am headed down to Miami Art Basel in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait to see this project in person.
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Mr Kaves
This is the directors cut of a video I shot for the French wine company George Dubeouf featuring Lordz Of Brooklyn legend Mr Kaves.
“Brooklyn-based graffiti artist, creative entrepreneur and rapper Michael McLeer, aka Mr Kaves. Providing insight on what it was like to grow up in the late ’70s, we get an idea of his beginnings from scratch and building up an empire revolving around the creative industry.”
Most recently Mr Kaves designed a bottle for George Dubeouf which will be unveiled at an event benefiting Meals on Wheels on November 16th at Stage 37. You can RSVP here.
Enjoy
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My Interview with Contour Magazine
A couple of months ago an old friend of mine Nikolai Soudek asked if I would be interested in being interviewed for his recently launched webzine/blog Contour Magazine. Described as a blog dedicated to people and their passions. Not only did Nikolai do his homework in terms of finding out who I am, but the article (specifically the way it incorporates embeds and links) most accurately captures the 6 year arc in my videography career. Nikolai took full advantage of what New Media offers us to create a piece that will stand the test of time simply because it very accurately reflects the time. I told Nikolai that if anyone wants to know what I am about today or in the near distant future all I have to do is direct them to this interview.
Enjoy
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Anthony Lister in Berlin
Brooklyn based Australian Artist Anthony Lister covers Berlin with his art and this video with his philosophies on life.
Enjoy
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Sarah Illenberger: She Speaks in Images
This film courtesy of the folks at Gestalten.tv profiles the Berlin-based artist Sarah Illenberger who transforms even the most abstract and complex content into vivid, humorous, and concise visual forms without ever forcing a meaning on them.
Enjoy
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Handmade Portraits – Domestikate
This video by Tara Young for the folks at Etsy profiles Kate Fix otherwise known as Domistikate. Kate is a secondhand collector who lives in Graham North Carolina. Like my mom I love to collect useless items that I won’t ever throw away. My mom drives my dad crazy with her stuff. In my apartment among other things I have a taxi roof ad, a street parking sign, a pay phone full of quarters and a big blue Teddy bear. Not much but it’s a start. My dream is to buy a little home upstate NY one day, and when I do the collector within me will be unleashed. Is this video a glimpse into my future? I hope so : )
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Paper Planes by Studio Glithero
This short video by Studio Glithero and presented by the folks at Wallpaper Magazine documents London-based letterpress printers Baddeley Brothers and the process behind their paper planes idea. This is one of the better “making of” videos that I have seen in a long time.
Enjoy
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Tiny Feature Saturdays – Tattoo Age
The folks at Vice Magazine in collaboration with New Era bring us the story of Smith Street Tattoo’s. This first episode in a three part series focuses on Dan Santoro who’s very distinct style attracts tattoo enthusiasts from around the globe. Dan who his partners describe as “a little odd” shares some amusing anecdotes about tattoo’s gone awry as well as gives us some insight into his appreciation for the classic sailor style shared by his partners. The clubhouse atmosphere that exists in that little shop in this little corner in Brooklyn is pretty special.
Enjoy
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Wayback Thursday’s: The Godfather Of Graffiti – Seen
This week we take the Wayback express to June of 2007 and one of our first artist profiles with legendary graffiti artist Seen. Up until then TheNewPop episodes consisted of mostly parties and musician profiles. For this episode Tone who was on assignment to shoot Seen for Peel Magazine asked me if I would like to come along and do an interview that we could post on our blog. Knowing who Seen was and dying to document a visual artist I jumped at the chance to have a graffiti pioneer appear on our site. In this interview Seen talks about his struggle to express himself as an evolved artist and not just a “graffiti” artist.
Enjoy
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Wayback Trivia: As in this episode, in the early days we would take advantage of any opportunity to turn a gig into a New Pop Episode. Utilizing this strategy allowed us to land interviews with artist like Wyclef Jean, Kid Cudi, Rapheal Saadiq, The Roots, Fred Armison and others.
Process: Marionettes with Geahk Burchill
About two weeks ago while on one of my lengthy NYC strolls, I happened upon my very first Marionette show in Central Park. I was amazed at what an effective and resonating storytelling medium it is. Especially for the kids who unlike me were more on eye level with the Marionettes at this show. This video courtesy of the amazing folks at Etsy and directed by Eric Beug gives an in depth look at this craft thru the eyes of puppeteer Geahk Burchill. The history and intimacy behind this art form is fascinating to say the least. I don’t know if there is any other medium including film that makes a greater leap from the inanimate to the animate. For more on this story log onto the Etsy Blog.
Enjoy
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Tracey Emin’s “Love Is What You Want” Exhibit
Wallpaper mag recently sat down with British artist Tracey Emin as she prepared for her first London retrospective at the Hayward gallery. Tracey who is best known for her confrontational and often sexual work dedicated one room in the exhibit to just Sex. Her reasons…
“People think that I make lot’s of work about sex, but I don’t I make lot’s of work about lot’s of things, I make lot’s of work about love, but I thought I would just give the people what they wanted.”
“Love Is What You Want” will be on exhibit through August 29th at the Hayward gallery.
Aaron Nagel Studio Interview
This video courtesy of the folks at The Warholian profiles figurative artist Aaron Nagel who is currently exhibiting at The Shooting Gallery San Francisco thru July 2nd.
Enjoy
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Eric Elms: No Way Out – Video Recap
New York Artist Eric Elms recently had a show at the Galerie Lazarew in Paris. Here is a video recap courtesy of Vans “Off The Walls TV.
Enjoy
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Helen Mirren | Moma – Kandinsky
This folks at Lost & Found sat down with Academy Award winning actress Helen Mirren to discuss art, MoMA and more specifically the work of Vasily Kandinsky hanging at the MoMA. She really captures the browsing experience MoMA accurately.
Enjoy
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Tracey Emin On Her Childhood In Margate
Courtesy of the folks at Wallpaper Magazine this feature on artist Tracey Emin produced by Louis Vuitton’s as a part of their exhibition of the British artist’s work at the Hayward Gallery. Shot on location in the coastal town of Margate, Emin explains the impact of the town she grew up in on her psyche and work.
Enjoy
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Album review: ‘Born This Way’ inspired by Lady Gaga’s social media savvy, and her Little Monsters
Lady Gaga Born This Way Regular and Deluxe Edition Covers, courtesy of PopCrush.com
Three days before the release of her album Born This Way, out now, Lady Gaga starred in a Google Chrome video that showed her dancing around on the Brooklyn Bridge. Spliced in were fan-made videos covering her latest Billboard Hot 100 Hit, “The Edge of Glory,” as she sent inspirational messages to them via her website.
And that video is just one of many promotional efforts Gaga employed to ramp up the excitement for one of the year’s most highly-anticipated pop records.
As it stands now, Gaga has officially reached over 10 million followers on Twitter, and over 30 million fans “Like” her Facebook page. This makes Lady Gaga, a blond-haired, New York-bred, Italian-American Catholic (much like a certain other pop goddess she’s often compared to), more popular than President Obama.
So, either America is wrongly prioritizing, or Gaga is a visionary. Though the former can be true, I’ll argue the latter.
Born This Way is quite the achievement, and though “hype” is such an ugly word, it lives up to its own potential, thanks to an incredibly high-bar music industry standard set by Lady Gaga herself. This album was her opportunity to bring on the crazy that the world reluctantly embraced (sales of her 2008 debut, The Fame, didn’t pick up until the following year). With so many millions of people watching, scrutinizing, publicizing and glorifying Lady Gaga’s every move, she had to deliver.
Born This Way is not the greatest album of the decade, as Mother Monster promised. It is a heady adrenaline rush at over an hour long, that is only squelched by any instance in which Gaga holds back. For example, “Electric Chapel,” a melancholic 80s coo of a tune, is one of the few moments on Born This Way where Gaga sounds restrained, poised even.
The public is so used to Gaga In The Meat Dress, or Gaga Dying Onstage, that anything other than total Gaga-walk-walk-fashion-baby-move that-bitch-crazy is unacceptable.
Thankfully Born This Way, for the most part, doesn’t beat around the bush. “Marry the Night,” the album’s opener, is a pummeling assault that hardly lets up. It’s opening church organ sets the tone for a thrilling album that finds Gaga tackling rough sex, religion, famewhoring, immigration, feminism, follicles and unicorns – often simultaneously.
Only Gaga could rope in childhood idols Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band (“Hair,” “The Edge of Glory”) and Queen’s Brian May (“You and I”) for songs that celebrate hair, public intoxication, grandfather love and Nebraska. And only she could purposefully craft many moments like these that beg you to give the album a gold star for a high WTF factor (See: “Heavy Metal Lovers”).
Only Gaga could mix feminist politics with 90s Berlin house, while rap-singing in German (See: “ScheiBe”). “I wish that I could be strong with no permission,” the singer pleads over a skittering gay-club unst chorus. It’s an honest moment for the singer, whose last album, 2009’s The Fame Monster EP, found her about as lively as a vampire in the Twilight movie series.
But perhaps Born This Way’s most impressive accomplishment – despite all the cheese-tastic 80s and 90s Eurotrash-y deliciousness – is how incredibly warmhearted Gaga sounds. She sings here with her whole heart, and the power of her voice is chilling in the right ways. It’s not like The Fame Monster, where Gaga experienced oddly disconnected wanderlust, and as a result, wound up in icy Siberian terrain.
That’s definitely not the case for Born This Way.
Gaga, a star who has always expressed in interviews what religion means to her, sings about her Holy Trinity, in “You and I”: “It’s my daddy, and Nebraska and Jesus Christ.” It’s one moment though, not a tactless #trendingtopic throughout a highly trendy, yet trendsetting album, which makes its revelation that much more powerful.
And that’s the beauty of the bigness that is Born This Way – an effort that aims to empower the powerless, and give people reason to celebrate their existence and stuff. Almost always, Born This Way hits the mark.
It even liberates the always-combustible Lady Gaga, a pint-sized New Yorker who is more popular than the president, a feat that isn’t bad for a second album.
- Mickey Woods
Finding America – John Van Hamersveld
American graphic artist and illustrator John Van Hamersveld who designed record jackets for pop and psychedelic bands, since the 1960s including the Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles, Crown of Creation by Jefferson Airplane and Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones is profiled by Sinuhe Xavier for the Finding America series.
Enjoy
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Handmade Portraits: Greg Beauchamp
Here is a great video portrait by Pascal Perich for the folks at Etsy. This video profiles California-based artist and art director Greg Beauchamp who’s simple yet profound philosophy’s on life really resonated with me.
“The simpler you can make something, the more universal it becomes. This idea that if you can reduce something to it’s core, it speaks louder than layering something.”
How true, Enjoy.
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Enjoy
Etsy – No Place Like Here: Marfa Texas
This video from the folks at Etsy focuses on the town of Marfa Texas. On the surface it looks like any small town with not much going on, investigate a bit more and you will find a quirky cast of individuals doing their own art and crafts including every Wednesday where they have Craft night.
Enjoy
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Toronto Comic Arts Festival | Pencil It In
This video directed by Christopher Hutsul for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival highlights the intimate relationship illustrators have with their drawing tools. I use to be a pretty decent amateur artists as a kid and then again in my late 20′s when I use to draw images for my own Tee Shirt Line. I remember how fanatical I was about my Sakura Pigma Micron Pen. I would usually buy mine at Sam Flax on 18th street in NYC. If they were out of pens there I would travel all over the city until I found it.
Enjoy
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Tiny Feature Saturday’s – Painter Kureshi
This video by hanif kureshi is another example of technology replacing craft. The video focuses on the typographic practice of street painters around India. With the advent of local DTP (Desktop Publishers) shops, these craftsman are rapidly losing there business to the quicker, cheaper but uglier vinyls. Many painters have given up their practice altogether.
Enjoy
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Safewalls | Aida, The Printmaker
Safewalls profiles UK based printmaker Aida. She discusses her relationship with the London’s street art scene as well as how she avoids becoming too commercial. I haven’t seen too many video profiles dealing with the art of screen printing. As a former screen printer myself I can really appreciate the craft.
Enjoy
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