ARTIST & DAD TOM CURTIS TURNS KID'S DRAWINGS INTO SCARY (CUTE?) PHOTOS...

Artist and Dad Tom Curtis shares kids drawings on an Instagram called Things I Have Drawn. But he decided that it would be fun to bring those cute, childish doodles to life via Photoshop. 

He just posted this note,

“Hi everyone. Tom here, the boys’ dad. Our tortoise, last week, was our 250th Instagram post. We’ve done so many animals, objects and vehicles over the past 2 and a bit years, that the boys and I thought we could probably make an entire alphabet out of the pictures we’ve made together. Turns out, for some letters we’ve got loads – others, not so many. But we certainly haven’t got space in this first carousel to go beyond B.”

Scary cute.

(via Sad and Useless)

JUDY CHICAGO'S "POWERPLAY" IS 3 DECADES OLD –& AS CURRENT AS KAVANAUGH'S DISPLAY OF TOXIC MASCULINITY

When artist Judy Chicago posted the juxtaposition below on Instagram following the Senate hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, it struck a chord.

Chicago’s PowerPlay series was first exhibited in 1986 with paintings, drawings, and reliefs of white male anger.

Chicago, 79, is now the leader of a newly visible, angry feminist resistance and told Artsy, 

“Over the course of the five years I spent on ‘PowerPlay,’ I began to look behind the surfaces of male behavior, at the multiple sources of their often gross and destructive actions. What I found was that the prohibitions around openly expressing feelings—particularly of vulnerability as expressed in tears—caused innumerable personality distortions. Add to this the expectations to succeed, to ‘act manly,’ to provide for others through money-making, et cetera—which often led to a level of pressure that is unhealthy. That said, too many men go along with these expectations rather than challenge them, probably because of the rewards they are offered.”

Sexual assault is one of the most visible manifestations of toxic masculinity which is, of course, a function of patriarchy and how men are socialized. Another positive discussion that is emerging from the hearings and the #MeToo movement is that it is not enough that feminism has allowed women to break out of the confines of the construct of femininity. Men have to be helped to revolt against the dehumanizing aspects of the construct of masculinity; to face that too many of them have become monstrous and that their monstrosity is threatening life on earth. Men have to change and women have to insist that this happen. It is not enough to lose one’s job; men have to wake up and work to regain their humanity which will result in their becoming unable to rape and pillage anyone or anything.

My work has never been about the moment; as an artist I have tried to deal with deep truths. Three decades has not done away with patriarchy. Efforts to emerge from its huge shadow and overthrow it as a system have been going on for centuries and it will take many more centuries to accomplish this task everywhere in the world. My only fear is that the world will not survive long enough to accomplish it. But I choose hope over despair.”

Sadly, what’s old is new again. And it will be 3 decades or more we’ll be seeing that face and reading his rulings, most likely against you and me.

(via Artsy)

THE BILLBOARD CREATIVE TAKES AMAZING VISUALS OFF THE WALL AND ONTO LA'S STREETS

The Billboard Creative (not the magazine) celebrates photographers, like my pal the street photo-dynamo, Ruben Natal-San Miguel as well as other high-profile artists like Lawrence Weiner, Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons and Spencer Tunick by featuring their work on billboards all around LA. 

Andrea Blanch (photographer and editor of of Museé Magazine) was asked by Mona Kuhn, creative director of TBC, to curate the project that had over 6,000 submissions. Blanch explained the criteria,

“What became important during the selection process was not only the quality of the work but how the work would look on a billboard…“

The winners are posted on the Museé website with a special print edition of the work. For the participating artists and an interactive map of locations around LA, go here. The Billboard Creative transforms 31 Los Angeles billboards into public art spaces starting in October…

Ruben Natal-San Miguel

Miguel Arzabe

Andrea Blanch

Laurie Simmons

Marlies Plank

Susan Propper

Lissa Rivera

Ken Pivak

Marco Walker

Marilyn Minter

Julia Fullerton-Batten

Spencer Tunick

Lawrence Weiner

Naomi Harris

#RIP: THE VOICE IS SILENCED AFTER 60+ YEARS (& 3 PULITZER PRIZES)

According to CNN,

“The Village Voice, the country’s first alternative newsweekly which offered New Yorkers local news and classified ads for decades, will cease production and lay off approximately half its staff, the newspaper’s owner announced Friday.”

If you thought The Village Voice was already dead, Friday was the final nail in the coffin. VV owner Peter Barbey said,

“This is a sad day for The Village Voice and for millions of readers. The Voice has been a key element of New York City journalism and is read around the world. As the first modern alternative newspaper, it literally defined a new genre of publishing.

Although the Voice will not continue publishing, we are dedicated to ensuring that its legacy will endure to inspire more generations of readers and writers to give even more speed to those same goals. We have begun working to ensure that the enormous print archive of The Village Voice is made digitally accessible.“

Founded in ’55, The Voice became a staple of living in NYC. Before the internet every Wednesday morning the new rental listings came out and NYers in need of a new place POUNCED to get a copy first thing. I was living in the East Village in 1989 an $1800 a month duplex rental (that was expensive then, btw) I decided I wanted twice the space at half the rent. I always contended you never found a good apartment in the paper but I found a duplex brownstone with a garden in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn for $900 a month in the Village Voice. Six years later, I bought the 4-story building with a friend for $168,000. So, thank you for that VV.

The paper leaves behind a long history of stories like that as well publishing the works of legends in the journalism and literary world, including one of its co-founders, Norman Mailer. It won three Pulitzer Prizes.

In April 2017, the Voice halted its print production and went entirely online. The move was aimed at reinvigorating the more than half-century old publication. But it didn’t work apparently, and yesterday readers and employees both were told of its ultimate fate.

Tweeted Valerie Vande Panne, a freelance journalist who has written for The Voice. 

“That’s… the bad news.”

Dylan was the last print cover of The Village Voice, April 2017

(via CNN)

LIKE MID-CENTURY MODERN AND S&M? JAMIE DORNAN'S SEXY HOLLYWOOD HOUSE IS FOR YOU!

Former Irish model turned actor, Jamie Dornan, best known as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades franchise, is selling his sexy mid-century modern Nichols Canyon house.

It was built in 1959, but the home has been thoroughly modernized and retains era-appropriate open “breeze blocks” and stone fireplace in the living room. It’s very indoor-outdoor with walls of glass for the exhibition in you. The central atrium, open to the elements, leads into the kitchen, dining, and living areas.

With 2,500+ square feet of living space, it has four bedrooms and four baths, a covered patio, a swimming pool, a spa, and and a fab entrance. You could easily convert one of those 4 bedrooms into a playroom.

It listed for $3.195 million. Whips and sling not included.

(Photos, The Agency; via LA Curbed)

TIFFANY'S INSANELY EXPENSIVE "EVERYDAY OBJECTS" INCLUDES A $275,000 MINI-GREENHOUSE

Tiffany’s new Artistic Director Reed Krokoff has been busy updating the brand’s image in a myriad of ways, but none has garnered more attention (and some ridicule) than the Everyday Objects collection like a sterling-silver mini-shovel or pots in Tiffany’s robin’s-egg blue. 

It’s easy to make fun of, but I really do covet the Stering Silver Coffee Can ($1500) It’s really conceptuaL art recontextualizing such mundane items and there could be no better paint brush can in my studio.

The most crazy expensive is a beautifully wrought mini-geenhouse objet d’art made of sterling silver, copper, and glass. At the Salon del Mobile, Milan’s premier design fair this spring, installations by artists Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons, Anna Galtarossa, Shantell Martin, and Anna-Wili Highfield were showcased. (That’s $1,375,000 worth of sliver art greenhouses, btw…)

Minter crammed her greenhouse by with shattered glass on the floor and fogged windows in a lurid green hue suggest that the greenhouse had become an actual hothouse. She explains her process in the video below.

And if you have a billionaire gardener on your holiday list, (and you have a Black AmEx) here’s your shopping list.

Terra-cotta Flowerpots, $95

Sterling Silver Flowerpot, $1,450

Garden Tote, $850

Sterling Silver Herb Labels, $550

American Walnut Sugar Shovel. $150

Sterling Silver Coffee Can, $1,500

Sterling Silver Ball of Yarn, $9,000

Sterling Silver Bird’s Nest, $10,000

Sterling Silver Lantern, $20,000

Sterling Silver and Copper Watering Can, $35,000

Marilyn Minter

Laurie Simmons

Anna Galtar

Shantell Martin

Anna Wili Highfield

(Photos, Tiffany; via Artnet)

#REALESTATEPORN: FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S OFELT HOUSE IS USONIAN PERFECTION

Frank Lloyd Wright homes are highly sought after and rarely hit the market but when they do, they are often NOT in major metropolitan cities.

But the Ofelt House, (for sale by the original owners, Paul and Helen Olfelt) is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s is one of the last homes that FLW designed and was completed in 1960, a year after his death.

Wright’s Usonian homes designed toward the end of his life had many of his signature aesthetics;

• locally sourced materials
• plenty of windows
• low, flat roof lines
• custom, built-in furnishings

These Usonian homes were FLW’s idea to create an entire community, not just stand-alone homes built to blend in with nature. 

The Olfelt House was one of Wright’s first attempts at his bold new vision.

The meticulously maintained Olfelt House is a wing-shaped home that sits on nearly 4 acres just outside of Minneapolis and the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house still has much of the original furniture created by Wright. 

From the outside, it’s instantly recognizable as a Wright design. The entry features a grand staircase with a low roof that juts out creating a covered parking area. Vaulted ceilings inside allow for tall windows. Brick is left exposed and floors are painted a deep, rusty red. The oddly shaped rooms required much of the furniture be custom built, the majority of which is still in place.

Wright was infamously difficult with clients personal whims and tastes, insisting on designing every single aspect of a home. Olfelt House was not an exception. Wright designed the majority of the lighting, from the pendant chandelier above the dining table to the lamps in the living space, not to mention the draperies.

It can all be yours, right down to the draperies, for $1.2 million.

(via The Manual)

JACKIE GLEASON'S UPSTATE PAD, “THE MOTHERSHIP” WAS DESIGNED AS A PARTY HOUSE (MARILYN PLAYED THERE)

Do you kids remember TV comedian Jackie Gleason? The Honeymooners? Bang! Zoom! To the moon Alice! Making fun of 50s domestic abuse…?

Just kidding sort of, but at the height of Gleason’s fame he started a project to build a one-of-a-kind party house in the woods just north of New York City. He was fascinated with with UFOs (there’s a Space theme to my posts today) and his home and guest cottage are both round inside and out, including curved floorboards, windows, kitchen cabinets, bars, and furniture. 

The twin buildings were christened “The Spaceship” and “The Mothership.”

Designed by architect Robert Cika, the house was constructed by a Norwegian shipbuilder, who shipped the completed pieces to Cortlandt Manor for final assembly, real estate agent Margaret Bailey told the Journal News.

Gleason personally oversaw the project, which cost $650,000 –about $5 and half million in today’s dollars. It took five years to complete and was a marvel that he shared with his celeb pals like Marilyn Monroe, husband Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra among others.

The Mothership main house was designed to host big parties, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a 14-person, curving bar, which had a baby grand piano and a microphone that would emerge from the marble floor. There was another bar too.

The house, clearly ahead of it’s time in terms of look and tech, had central air and a built-in, surround-sound system, double-sided marble fireplaces and the main fireplace, was a three-sided, 40-foot-tall marble model that weighed 240 tons. Gleason flew Italian artisans in to complete the stonework.

The master bedroom features a round bed and a TV mounted on the ceiling along with a exposed shower.

The kitchen’s stainless-steel appliances and glass cabinetry were made to follow the curve of the room.

Gleason died in 1987 at 71. The current homeowner, a retired orthodontist, bought the 8.5-acre property in Cortlandt Manor, NY, in ’76 for just $150,000. It is currently listed for $12 million.

(via Realtor.com)

#REALESTATEPORN: EAST OF BALI, SEASCAPE VILLA IS THE PERFECT PERSONAL RETREAT

Seascape Villa is an ocean front property on the island of Nusa Lembongan east of Bali. The clients requested a “Mediterranean feel” and the architects say,

“In response to this we have developed an architecture made of clean soft white volumes and we have combined these with various built in elements in concrete and pebbled floors. The pool area takes advantage of the length of the land, connects the building with the beach and it’s been balanced by introducing a circular deck all around it. 

The combination of round and square shapes continues across the whole project whether it’s in the pond design or in wall openings. Materials used have an organic feel and are accentuated by the extensive use of bamboo screens to balance the contemporary lines of the building.“

I love the palette and sophisticated ease of the decoration. Kinda perfection, if you ask me.

(Photos, Moch Sulthonn for Word of Mouth; via Arch Daily)

#NSFW: ROUGH TRADE: ART & SEX WORK IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY

Rough Trade: Art and Sex Work is an exhibit that opened this week in NYC. It explores a little known history at the crossroads of the sexual underground and popular culture and was organized to coincide with David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night at the Whitney. 

It includes work by Wojnarowicz, along with John Barrington, Mark Beard, Kenny Burgess, Larry Clark, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Fred Halsted, Peter Hujar, Mark Morrisroe, Joe Parker, Tomata du Plenty, Bill Rice, John Sex, Jane Sherry, Pedro Slim, Samuel Steward, and Tommy Vallette along with related ephemera.

Propelled by the sexual revolution of the 60s, many artists found not only employment in the adult entertainment industry, but artists like Wojnarowicz and Mark Morrisroe drew on their early histories of hustling on the streets to create work that reflected personal experiences as child sex laborers. 

Other artists, like Tomata du Plenty and Larry Clark, documented their friends, lovers, and tricks that were involved in the sex trade. Groundbreaking shows like the Times Square Showin June of 1980 were held in massage parlors, go-go bars, porno theaters, and strip clubs. 

Rough Trade: Art and Sex Work was curated by Greg Ellis and Brian Paul Clamp and runs through September 22 at ClampArt.

And look for World Of Wonder‘s upcoming documentary about David Wojnarowicz, directed by Emmy award winner, Chris McKim. 

John S. Barrington

John S. Barrington

Larry Clark, Bobby

Larry Clark, Chuck

P.L. diCorcia, Major Tom; 20 years old; Kansas City, Kansas; $20

P.L. diCorcia, Mike Miller; 24 years old; Allentown, Pennsylvania; $25

Tomato Du Plenty, Golden Boy, Bubba, and Scooter (Sex Worker Series)

Mark Beard, Untitled (Aiden 11)

Mark Morrisroe, self-portrait

Mark Morrisroe

Mark Morrisroe; [Sweet 16: Little Me as a Child Prostitute]

Handmade leather banner from The Spike

Master Rick’s paddle

Master Rick’s Leather Sling

David Wojanarowicz’s drawing at Pier 34. Photo, Peter Hujar