Whilst wondering through the Fort Greene flea market the other weekend, I happened across this issue of Interview Magazine from the 70′s. As old as the publication may be, the images appear just as important now.
Arc brings you a very productive activity for your afternoon; you can even create your own Warhol.
Jean Cocteau’s 1959 Film, ‘Testament of Orpheus’ is celebrated for many reasons, but did anybody stop to acknowledge quite how great the end title is? The sequence opens to a shot of an expectant knife, in slow motion a balloon falls onto the blade, popping open, and releasing its smoke bomb, slowly fading into Cocteau’s hand-written ‘fin’.
I picked up these little gems at a bookshop on Melrose this afternoon. The Cocktail Party, a play by T.S. Eliot from 1950 was praised by the New York Post back then, “The Cocktail Party is an authentic modern masterpiece, one of the two or three finest plays of the post-war English speaking stage. It is not only beautifully written but extraordinarily effective dramatically. This is the stage as its illustrious best,” reads the cover flap. The cover is beautifully, and simply designed and the play itself takes place in a London drawing room throughout, with the exception of Act two.
The other book entitled, Four Days, documents the days before and after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The photographic essay includes commentary and documentation including telegrams and eyewitness testimonies. A steal at $1.
The last in the Teen Angst Journals series. This one started my senior year and took me into college. There’s a lot more of my own photography, 0 pyrotechnics and it smells less like spray paint and more like emulsion. That year I took three consecutive quarters of photography so it was nice to keep a journal. Nowadays my journals are much more subdued with little or no photography. Mostly scrawl and sketches. Something just happens after college. Entitled, That was then, This is now, the cover features a friend of mine from High School at the basketball courts.
This book was made from a Maxim magazine. It’s been burned and torn, painting and peeled. There’s a lot going on from spread to spread, lots of interesting smells and mediums. I guess you could say this was my first “traveling exhibition” as people in gym class would pass it around and look through its horrifying pages. I can only imagine what they were thinking…
1972. Advertising was great, advertising had its clever wit, its beautiful typography and over-saturated colors with an enchanted lifestyle of sport and beauty. 2010. Turns out, it also had misinformation. Tobacco advertising is hard to find these days, unless its those The Truth ads, that are most likely paid for by Philip Morris. “Big Tobacco” has been a major target for all things bad over the past twenty years and yet still, it’s not the number one killer. I wonder if 20 years from now, we’ll still be watching advertisements for new triple-pounder cheeseburgers exclaiming, “I’m Lovin’ It” or watching the beautiful footage of a car driving across a vacant stretch of sun drenched desert. Each of those industries cause quite a few deaths, but there’s more money to be made in diet products and all things related to car crashes.
Here are some tobacco campaigns from Life Magazine, all of which come from the same December, 1972 issue. Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health.
Mark Tansey, Push/Pull 2003.
On May 11th, 2010, works from the collection of Michael Crichton will go up for auction at Christie’s in New York. Who knew? The writer of such classics like Jurassic Park and The Lost World had also been a devoted art collector since the early 70s. Among some of the 31 lots are works by Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Anges Martin, and Roy Lichenstein. He was also into the more contemporary artists like Jeff Koons and Richard Prince. He was known for his desire to understand the artist and felt that in some way he was connecting with the struggles of the artist through the purchasing of their work. His own talent was one of quiet seclusion and introspection, so it should come as no surprise that after great success Crichton would enrich his surroundings. But it still does. You never know about those Hollywood types.
Two years after his death, all the works are quite valuable. There are two $7.5m Picasso’s and a $15m Jasper Johns Flag. Should be an interesting auction, and just two years after…
Kate Moss on the right, taken in 1993
Kate Moss with her CK Barbie doll. Nov.1996
What ever happened to this little piece of Kate Moss memorabilia? In searching through the Life Magazine photo archives, it appears as though Calvin Klein also designed for Barbie, using Kate Moss as the spokesmodel. I can see why the then fresh faced girl would have been chosen to represent the brand, but a Barbie? It would be interesting to see what kind of face is hiding behind that shiny, polyester mane and denim pagegirl cap.
This journal is the second one. Used for about a year and every page has something on it or attached to it. There’s booklets hidden inside the pages and the journal is very fat, probably 500 pages. I remember taping the receipt on the back from the store that I purchased it from, hoping to save the date. The ink has since disappeared, leaving a wrinkled, blank piece of paper. Its titled ‘Inspirational Catalog‘.
