Does anyone have a copy of this film, does anyone know how I can get a copy? I know it’s Philipe Puicouyoul from 1979 or so, with Anoushka and actor Pierre Clementi. I can’t figure out what song/band is playing for the teaser; Ici Paris, Les Prives, Artefact or Go-Go Pigalles perhaps?

Filmmaker Spike Lee introduced the term “Super-Duper Magical Negro.” pointing out the tendency of white writers and directors to enlist mysterious black characters to aid their white protagonists. Writer Justin Strout presents The Magical Homo, “the vaguely mystical, anxiously accommodating gay friend to the straight lead.”

Pop goes Paris, the newly remodeled Grand Palais hosts, “Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol” from March 18 – June 6, 2009. The exhibition consists of almost 150 works by the artist, painted from the early 1960s onwards, revolving around key Warhol themes; Self Portraits, Screen Tests, Mao, Dollars, Disasters, and The Last Supper.

“All my portraits have to be the same size, so they’ll all fit together and make one big painting called Portraits of Society. That’s a good idea, isn’t it? Maybe the Metropolitan Museum would want it someday.”

Want them, yes, I’m sure the museum would want them indeed. The pieces in this Paris exhibition have never been brought together in a single show before. In 1979, the Whitney Museum exhibited about fifty of these paintings, but this exhibit reaches far beyond that one, grouping a prime selection of pieces to illustrate the artists love of repetition.

Not that the opening didn’t have it’s glitches, it seems that grouping this exhibition by theme has caused a bit of an “issue”. AFP reports that Pierre Bergé, who co-founded the Yves Saint Laurent Couture House with the designer in 1961, objected to the placement of 4 portraits that were put into the “glamour” section of the show and withdrew them instantly. I’ll defer to the author of the Warhol Stars site; “This is despite the fact that St. Laurent’s work was previously included in an exhibition devoted to glamour – “Glamour: Fashion, Industrial Design, Architecture” – at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2004/5.”

Sounds like a bit of a full on hissy fit, or a conflict of some sort that couldn’t be resolved. That said, all was not lost, days before the opening of the world’s first major show of portraits by Andy Warhol, wacky designer and onetime Warhol associate Jean-Charles de Castelbajac paid his own tribute to the “Pope of Pop.” Ahead of Wednesday’s launch, the French designer paraded funky dresses at Fashion Week, printed with a photo of the pop art legend and topped with a fake shock of his white moplike hair. Catch the YouTube video of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac showing these pieces and talking about Warhol; Pop Art’s Children: Fashion Star Remembers Warhol.

Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol
March 16, 2009 – July 15, 2009
Grand Palais, 3, avenue du Général-Eisenhower, (Google Link)
75008 Paris, Tel: +33 1 44 13 17, France

*
An observant reader sent me a wonderful link to a letter from M. Bergé that appeared in Le Monde that sheds new light on M. Bergé’s decision to remove 4 portraits from the Andy Warhol Show in Paris. According to Le Monde, it was a rule, for over 40 years that Yves Saint Laurent would never show among other couturiers. Additionally, the pieces were placed into a section of the show titled GLAMOUR. Observant Reader, rightly explains that GLAMOUR is what the French call ‘la presse people’ ie TMZ, paparazzi, and so on. Bergé objected, rather understandably to the rather limited categorization of his iconic artist/partner and removed the pieces from the show. A big thank you to this reader for the heads up on this topic.

“Yves Saint Laurent est le plus grand artiste français de notre temps.” Voici ce que déclarait publiquement Andy Warhol. Revenons maintenant à l’exposition au Grand Palais. Dans des propos reproduits dans Le Monde, M. Cueff parle de torchons et de serviettes. J’affirme n’avoir jamais tenu ces propos et, si je l’avais fait, j’aurais ajouté comme le faisait Cocteau : “Nous sommes des torchons heureux de l’être.” Pendant quarante ans nous avons pris grand soin de ne jamais faire de défilé de mode avec d’autres couturiers. Cette règle, nous ne l’avons jamais violée. Donc, exposer des portraits d’Yves Saint Laurent avec des personnalités de la mode – même si certaines ont du talent – était inenvisageable.”

After another hectic day as the newly appointed moral compass of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh unwinds at home…(Derf). Click for Larger. As if the Evangelical Baby Preacher isn’t enough to scare the living hell out of you!

If you’re in Austin on Saturday evening, my friend Leigh’s quartet, The Tosca String Quartet to be exact, is playing with Glover Gill at EsquinaTango. 10:30pm, a good time is guaranteed.

40 Instances of Objectifying Men A Trendhunter special report; “From Michael Phelps on magazine covers in swimming gear and a ballsy David Beckham for Emporio Armani underwear to athletes dropping it all for AIDS and cancer charity, the male body is being excessively exploited these days.”

East Village, Club 57 Where Are You? A few of Harvey Wang’s photographs and a bit of background information from the legendary east village club 1979-1983. Club 57 was in the basement of the Holy Cross Polish National Church on St. Mark’s Place. Regulars included, Ondine, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Lypsinka, John Sex, Wendy Wild, Klaus Nomi. Ann Magnuson helped run the place in the role of performer/hostess. She said it was a home to suburban refugees who had run away from home to find a new family…who liked the things we liked – Devo, Duchamp, and William S. Burroughs – and (most importantly) hated the things we hated – Disco, Diane von Fürstenberg, and The Waltons! I think it’s time to break out the VHS machine and watch “Making Mr. Right” again.

Reading Jason O’Malley’s, The Rural Modernist, Diary of a Backwoods Design Junkie, as if Jason needs another blog, he also manages to find time for Doodle Whore, The Handsome Devil Press and book publishing. The tasty Decorating with Morrissey is a good place to start on Rural Modernist.

Photograph’s from ADULT’s Nicola Kuperus
Photos and interview with one half of Detroit’s legendary electro group ADULT. (Art Basel Miami)

Rainbow Super Cake
I’m dying to make this rainbow cake, not that it’s anything I can actually eat due to food allergies; it looks ghastly, but I’d enjoy whipping one up for fun. Perhaps this is what you eat while waiting for the new Black Moth Super Rainbow record to be released. Eating Us comes out May 26 in North America, and there’ll be a deluxe hand-numbered cd version that comes in a hairy faux something sleeve.

For fucks sake, I really wanted this piece from one of my favorite painters, but damn, it got away. I was very happy to see Taner Ceylan’s painting “Spiritual” go for a healthy 70,850 GBP that’s Hammer Price with Buyer’s Premium. The lot went as part of the Contemporary Turkish Art Sale last week at Sothebys. From the catalogue note;

“The artist infuses this image of a boxer with a self-portrait; although the boxer is real, the blood and sweat are not. It is in these elements that the self-portrait is found. The year 2007 was a difficult one for the artist; slated in the local press and suffering from the onslaught both on his skills and his person, Ceylan transferred these emotions and experiences onto his boxer. The bleeding face, the punch-drunk gaze and the bruises all refer to his own emotional experience transferred to his pugilistic model, simultaneously shocking and piteous.”

He’s having his first NY show too, that is if you didn’t happen to catch the news of that opening on twitter, at 1-20, March 6 – May 2, 2009. Abstraction of Nothing, which consists of five new oil paintings by the Turkish artist. Transporter (Self-Portrait) and the cock sucking painting, The White Center 2008 are among my favorites.

Transporter (Self-Portrait) 2008, Oil on canvas, 55.12 x 78.74 inches (140 x 200 cm)

“Homosexuality is one of the essential elements of living in contemporary society.”

Official IKEA spokesperson’s response to pressure from grumpy Polish Catholics (namely a letter writing campaign) who had a hoo haa because they wanted queer couples removed from the IKEA catalog. The item in question was, according to The Ikea Fans Blog the most recent “IKEA Family Live 2009 publication, 12 archetypes of different family makeup are presented under the slogan ‘Family life is changing … Welcome to the new era.’ One of the 12 example families presented is Ian and Steve, page 54 -57 (see item 1 and item 2), who have no interest in having children, but enjoy their IKEA Kitchen and herb garden and their awesome digs.

John Purlia Stop Motion Film

Juxtapoz featured this real crazy stop-motion animation video by photographer John Purlia of his new photograph “Pulling a Miracle Ending Out of The Plastic Playbook“, the photo is part of Purlia’s first solo exhibit Plastic Prophets of Vinyl Redemption at Distinction Gallery in Southern California. Great on it’s own or as promotional material, want to see more, definitely. He’s got a great site too.

I’m playing a little catch up here on a few things I wanted to post but due to time constraints, got shuffled, please bear with me. WFMU posted an amazing interview with rock legends Lux (Interior) and Ivy (Rorschach) that Rex Doane conducted for his show, Fool’s Paradise, back when HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER came out. “This interview, opens to play Mp3 interview, (Fool’s Paradise with Lux & Ivy) is essential for truly understanding the mythos of The Cramps. Yes, The Cramps made amazing music, and amazing contributions to the history of music, but to really get a good idea of where they are coming from, is to listen to the music that inspired them. If you think its all crazy rockabilly, you’re wrong.” The entire set of “Lux and Ivy’s Favorites” are here to download and enjoy. You get stuff like “The Blob” by the “5 Blobs” and other kooky stuff.

Simon Doonan’s hilarious rant in the Observer; Where Have You Gone, Tyson Beckford? New Male Model Is Pale, Frail. Simon dishes the castrated fashion ideal and asks, “Why, when faced with such grim global uncertainty, are fashion designers vaunting an ideal that looks so frail, lost and screechingly incompetent?”

“In the World of La Mode, hunks are persona non grata: Pasty is the new handsome; scrawny is the new buff; limp is the new erect; and asexual is the new humpy…If you don’t believe me, then clearly you did not attend any of the recent men’s shows at New York Fashion Week. My dears, you simply cannot imagine what passes for a male model these days! To my eyes, the new crop of runway lads are shockingly genderless. Many resemble Cate Blanchett. Some even look like Tilda Swinton. In lieu of the dashing, square-jawed Mark Vanderloos and Tyson Beckfords of yore, we saw a group of “men” so androgynous that they could easily be mistaken for a troupe of F-to-M transsexuals. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) It is hard to imagine, based on their languid, hairless, anorexic appearance, that these lads possess “equipment” of any sort.”

The Museum of Modern Art’s new website goes live tomorrow, here’s a sneak peek. About damn time too, that tired old website was in serious need of refresh. The New York Times reports that MoMA loosens up and branches out considerably;

“The era is one in which blogs, photo sharing, social networking, bookmarking and many other ways of creating art-loving online communities have become a much more important part of museum Web sites, led by places like the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (walkerart.org), the Brooklyn Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which is so user-friendly that its site (imamuseum.org) contains a dashboard-like display with up-to-date information, like the size of the museum’s endowment, its daily energy use and the average time people spend looking at its Web pages.”

Go ahead throw them doors open, just for fun. I firmly believe that everything is going to have to open a bit more to make more, meaning? I think in some ways, the sharing of content scares the hell out of art institutions; perhaps this is a rant best saved for another time. Yes, the new site looks great, looks cool too, the MoMA digital design team worked with For Office Use Only to bring everything together. I hope they keep on top of content. It’s one thing to say that they’re starting to open, it’s another and more difficult commitment to remain so, grumble grumble the MoMA youtube channel gets an update once monthly. Does MoMA have a Twitter stream, I know the Brooklyn Museum does, and it’s a great one, 20,000 followers can be updated instantly…wait, MoMA has one too, but it only has 7,000 followers, hmmmm, that means, what?

One more thing, I was wondering if you’ve seen the Martin Kippenberger show? Run now, it’s genius. I remember seeing his “The Happy End of Franz Kafka’s “Amerika” piece in the Carnegie International 1999? No big deal on the floor, but from a balcony, well, I won’t ruin it for you, it was in a word, insane! Anyway, I think Jerry Saltz sums Kippenberger’s work up quite nicely;

“For the past decade, the world has been dominated by a chilly mix of Warhol’s use of culture as material, Richter’s ideas about photographs and abstraction, and Richard Prince’s notions of appropriation. It’s an international style that too many people use to produce art that looks like other art. Kippenberger’s work is powerful enough to scatter that aesthetic weather system. It’s deeply imprinted with received theories about reproduction, popular culture, and photography, but it never feels like it comes out of a cookie cutter. He created his own theory and then blew it to bits. Skepticism was his weapon of aesthetic destruction.”

I Love You Coach…see the whole photo set from one of my favorite blogs of all time, Sissy-Dude. Oh and he’s a talented artist too, as if you couldn’t tell from the site.

Quentin Crisp: The Naked Bon Vivant! A 100th Birthday Celebration Saturday March 7th, 7-10pm at Santo’s Party House, upstairs at (96 Lafayette Street). The fabulously flamboyant and witty gay icon Quentin Crisp (who died in 1999 at age 90) gets a party fit for a queen. The Naked Bon Vivant! is produced by Joe Birdsong (owner of the dearly departed bohemian stronghold Rapture Café), in association with Phillip Ward and the Quentin Crisp Archives. Proceeds from the event go to funding the archive.

Hosting the event is drag-queen performer Linda Simpson. The line-up includes celebrity journalist Frank DeCaro, post-modern cabaret singer Adam Dugas (Weimar New York, The Citizens Band), Anne Hanavan (Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black), East Village musician/playwright Paul Korsinsky, guitarist-songwriter Gordon Gano (of the pioneering folk-punk group Violent Femmes), Radical Fairie dance troupe Pixie Harlots (Lustre), performance artist Amber Martin (Rapture Cafe’s Wig Shop), LGBTQ blogger and activist Eric Leven, actor/dancer Jack Ferver (Dance Theatre Workshop Studio Series, Strangers With Candy), ground-breaking queer Latino poet Emanuel Xavier, photographer Bobby Miller, the divine Lavinia Co-op, glam rock musician Paul Bernstein and his Wide Stance band, West Village crooner Chris Lowe, erotic poet and blogger Guy Kettelhack, and other performers to be announced. Providing music is DJ Baby K.

The evening also includes screenings of excerpts of film and video starring Mr. Crisp. An auction of Quentin Crisp photographs by David Turner, Marcus Teo, and Martin Fishman. Special non-QC photographs for the night by Joe Oppedisano. Even more info here.

Motorcycles, Wear Cologne, Move to Williamsburg, Learn to Speak European, Grow Facial Hair, Helmets, Mowhawk, Designer Shades…READ THE WHOLE LIST. (Via Boing Boing Via Orange Crate Art’s Michael Leddy who spotted the list on the Daily What)

Apple announced yesterday that the 24-inch iMac Drops to $1,499, doubles memory and storage, gets greener. There’s also a new Mac Pro high-end desktop powered by Intel’s “Nehalem” processor, priced at $2,499 and $3,299, they also unveiled a new and more graphics-intensive Mac Mini machine. The entire line gets greener meeting the new Energy Star 5.0 requirements that will go into effect later this year. More from Gizmodo.

Amazon launches Kindle application for the iPhone
Available Now, as reported in The Washington Post; “Not looking to drop $360 bucks on a gadget purposed almost solely for book reading, but still want to partake in Amazon’s new found love for eBooks? You’re not alone – and if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re in luck. As we’d assumed they would, Amazon has just launched a free Kindle application for Apple‘s much-lauded touchscreens, available immediately” . Wow, the new Kindle application does replicate much of the functionality provided by the namesake device.

Bigger is indeed better, here it is the complete life and work of the artist Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen), Tom of Finland XXL is fresh off the press from Taschen. With dimensions of 29 by 40.5cm and 666 pages, Tom of Finland XXL contains over 1,000 images, covering six decades of the artist’s career, complete with eight specially commissioned essays on Tom’s social and personal impact by Camille Paglia, John Waters, Armistead Maupin, Todd Oldham, and others, plus a scholarly analysis of individual drawings by art historian Edward Lucie-Smith. This title is not to be confused with The Art of Pleasure which gave Tom some well-deserved recognition and increased his following exponentially.

For this title, the work was gathered from all known collections across the US and Europe with the help of the Tom of Finland Foundation and features many drawings, paintings and preparatory sketches that have never been reproduced in any book. Other images have only been seen out of context and will be presented here in the sequential order Tom intended for full artistic appreciation and erotic impact. This elegant oversized volume will showcase the full range of Tom’s talent, from sensitive portraits to frank sexual pleasure to tender expressions of love and Tom’s haunting tributes to young men struck down by the AIDS epidemic. Hardcover, 29 x 40.5 cm (11.4 x 15.9 in.), 666 pages, $ 200.00.

Freezing your ass off like everyone else in the northeast, please remember to bundle up, stay toasty warm with a hand made Beard Head that takes you from zero to mega-bear in no time flat. Beard Head beard caps protect your head from the cold and keep your upper lip and chin toasty warm, much like a real beard would, this is the next best thing. Available in Viking (yellow), Lumberjack (brown), Grandpa (gray) and Pirate (black), woven cap covers the entire head save for the eyes and nose, and features an awesome beard-like shape, complete with a woven faux porno-stache which you can change out for an extra five bucks.

Japan appears to be in the midst of a marijuana epidemic of unprecedented proportions. The Huffington Post reports Japan Shocked By Marijuana Scandals. In the past six months alone, four sumo wrestlers have been kicked out of the sport for using the drug and a player on the national rugby team was banned for life. In addition, police have arrested a rock star and staged high-profile raids at some of the nation’s top universities, arresting students and confiscating Ziploc bags full of suspicious substances.