March 2008 Archives
Safe to say Barack owes writer Juse One a drink or two.
Aaron Rose has an interesting take on street art. It’s like Blues or Jazz, he says: initially frowned upon but increasingly understood. It’s a neat comparison, and right now, with the emergence of urban art auctions and the great celebrity of Banksy, it seems we’re in the midst of that mainstream acceptance. But Rose has been involved since the very beginning, since he was 19, when he found himself alone in New York having recently moved there from the San Fernando Valley in LA. A woman he met there offered him a rundown store space:
“It was very cheap in a bad area of town. The neighborhood was just heroin and crime etc. We opened this art gallery not knowing what we wanted to do. I never wanted to be an art dealer. I didn’t have any art world experience. I just had a space and so we started putting up shows and we called the gallery Alleged after these (alleged) good luck candles that they sold in the Puerto Rican grocery stores. It was an Alleged gallery, not a real gallery.”
Perhaps, were it still around, it might be considered a ‘real’ gallery today. There would be plenty of things to put in it, that’s for sure. Rose is clearly in love with creativity - in a head over heels kind of way. He’s always doing something, pushing something, helping someone, getting people to express themselves in whatever medium they like. His Beautiful Losers film just premiered in the States, he has a travelling exhibition that goes by the same name, and is one of the four co-editors of the wonderful ANP Quarterly, a magazine born of their own dissatisfaction with most of the titles available on shelves:
“Our goal is not to focus on current events or who’s hot but rather to bring forward people and phenomena that deserve acknowledgment and coverage regardless of their place in time. For as long as we can make it happen, this magazine will be completely free and without advertising. We are beholden to nobody, save our own conscience.”
That seems to have been the attitude that has guided Rose throughout his eclectic career from naive but exuberant gallery owner to editor and film director. He’s simply a tireless promoter of creative expression, and if he wants to do something, then he’ll just do it. Just do it eh? Yep, and he’s done loads of stuff for Nike.
“I’ve just kind of stumbled into stuff. I guess I have ideas and then just try to follow through with them. It looks far more impressive from afar!”
It certainly does.
Think back to Linford in Barcelona, Kelly in Athens, Thompson in LA and Redgrave, well, everywhere. The Olympics are back this year, and we have a national treasure ready for his first act.
British gold medal hopes are a rarity, but that’s not the only reason we get so excited by sports like curling once every four years. In the main it’s due to the stupendous, behemothic and magnificent gravity of the whole occasion. Footballers can screw up but then make up for it when next Saturday comes. But if a sprinter doesn’t ‘go on the B of Bang’, as Colin Jackson puts it, he has to live with failure for another four years; and what’s more, if an athlete has a ten year career, then they may only get two shots at glory. That’s why the Olympics are so huge: it’s the ultimate test, the culmination of four years work in one moment of exertion.
Tom Daley might just be the next big thing in Britain’s Olympic history. He will be fourteen when he competes in the diving event this summer, so, by the time he’s 18 in 2012, he might have as many gold medals as Matthew Pinsent because he competes in both the individual and synchro events. It’s one of those situations in our mad culture of creating sporting icons, a bit like “the dream that was Rome” in Gladiator. “Anything more than a whisper and it would disappear, it was so fragile.”
Well the whispers are becoming pullout features and TV interviews as the summer draws near. The boy himself is calm, even if we ourselves are getting a bit silly. His humble confidence bears the hallmarks of Redgrave. Will he ‘arise Sir Tom’ by the time he gets his A-level results? Probably not, but we wait with baited breath for the barminess in Beijing to begin.
There are few things in this world that are at once insanely eccentric, staunchly traditional and devoutly practical. In most circumstances there is no room for tradition while technology and design are forging new and improved paths, especially in an environment that is obsessed with innovation - the motor industry. From the moment Henry Ford rolled out his Model T, the race has been on to be the most modern, the most advanced, the quickest, the safest.
How extraordinary, then, that a small, privately owned British car company, Bristol, has for 60 years turned its nose up at fashion and convention in favour of what some might see as archaic practices in car design. The styling is discreet, penned by aeroplane engineers rather than car designers. Bristol cars are an acquired taste:
“As a company, we have no interest in slavishly copying automotive fashion. We crave instead integrity of purpose and an unmatched level of engineering perfection. We pursue a mindset that designs and builds our cars with a useful life of many decades in mind. The labour hours to build a Bristol are four times more than those of any other specialist luxury cars. This we happily accept as the cost of perfection.”
From their origins as the Bristol Aeroplane Company, they have exhibited a certain Britishness that has always seen them through. Having embarked on a joint venture with car manufacturers AFN Ltd. in 1945, BAC Director HJ Aldington used his military connections to visit the bombed BMW plant in Munich several times that same year. He gathered detailed plans of BMW cars, no mean feat considering Munich was in the ‘American Zone’ and the plant was due to be dismantled and crated up for shipment to the USA. These plans were subsequently declared to be ‘war reparations’ by Aldington. The first car then, the 1947 Bristol 400, bore more than a passing resemblance to the pre-WW2 BMW 327. Cunning.
Their motto is ‘Nicely Understated. Never Underrated.’ However the V10 ‘Fighter’ (below) has brought Bristol into the 21st Century with an almighty bellow. Understated? Well, maybe not. But who cares. Its mental, it goes 210 mph and we love it.
They met on the Isle of Wight in 2007 and self-released their first album "What You See Is What I Sell" earlier this year. The Operators are made up of Owen Taylor on Vocals, John Stevens on Bass, Charlie Westropp on Synths and Guitar and Ben Athey on drums. I have managed to see them live a couple of times so in exchange for my sweat, well trodden-on feet and mild whiplash I thought they owed me answers to some tough and probing questions. Luckily Owen and Charlie could spare a moment:
The Operators are (in no more than 5 words...)
Charlie - A funky, dancey, geeky quartet.
Best on stage Moment?
Charlie - March 12th 2008 , The Studio, Newport , Isle of Wight . Everyone knew the words...
Owen - Album launch November '07, The first pair of frilly white nickers ever to be thrown onto an Operators stage.
Worst on stage Moment?
Owen- Album Launch November '07, they looked well worn.
Charlie - When Owen twatted himself in the face with the microphone resulting in a bloodied moustache. Not an ideal look...
Favourite film character?
Charlie - The Dude.
Owen - Obi Wan Kenobi.
Have you ever been in a fight?
Charlie - Once with a Ukrainian guy called Eugene . He was reading a letter that I was writing 'out-loud' as I was writing it which was quite annoying. I restrained myself until the end of the first paragraph, and then sprung into action. He was bigger than me and I lost.
What angers you about the music industry?
Owen - That we are not major players in it yet.
Charlie - When really average acts appear to be able to sell a huge amount of records. By that I literally mean average acts. If someone's clearly appalling, there's usually some sort of gimmick that explains their success. I can not understand the success of 'Beautiful' by James Blunt. What an average tune.
What are you listening to at the moment?
Owen - The Archers.
Charlie - A lot of Justice (French dance duo hailed as the new 'Daft Punk') and other recent dance acts (SMD etc...). I don't really enjoy the current post-libertines climate of British guitar music.
Do you believe in life after death?
Owen - Around easter I suppose you have to.
Charlie - No.
What is creativity?
Charlie - Somewhere between a means of showing off and something important. Probably more of the former in our case.
Owen - Taking the smallest element imaginable and making it into something enjoyable. And then saying something really pretentious.
Which band or artist do you most like being compared to?
Charlie - Two acts that we all love are Kings of Leon and Justice. A direct comparison is a bit hard to draw because these acts are so diverse, but either would be fine!
Owen - Only the really big bands because I am arrogant and think we are better than everyone else.
Are you booked in for any festivals this year?
Charlie - Yes indeed. The Isle of Wight festival, Festibelly (in Lymington), and Bestival. It's going to be a belter of a summer.
Where will you be in 5 years time?
Charlie - Personally, doing anything musical and getting paid a bit for it would be ace. As a band, world domination beckons...
Owen - Alexa Chung.
So ‘Grand Slam Super Soccer Sensational Sublime Stupendous Sunday’ has been and gone. And the Premier League continues to insist that all fixtures are drawn at random using some special machine they keep at HQ. Oh look, would you believe it, the Big Four have been drawn against each other on the same day. Oh and look again, it’s on Easter Sunday. Of all the days eh? Wasn’t that the second ‘G.S.S.S.S.S.S.S’ we’ve had this season? Random? Hardly.
Anyway, what of it? Well, as always, it’s not the football everyone’s talking about but the referees, only this time for the right reasons. Liverpool fans will disagree with me, I’m sure, but Steve Bennett got it spot on at Old Trafford on Sunday. We can’t have it both ways, you see. Have you seen the pictures of Ashley Cole gesticulating at the ref last Wednesday as if to say, “All ball ref,” or more likely, “I got the ball you f***** p***”? If that’s what you get when you blatantly risk not just a red card but, more importantly, the career of the lad whose knee your studs were aimed so squarely at then it will take an iron fist to change what was fast becoming an epidemic of dissent. We can’t pine wistfully for the days of well mannered players and jolly good decisions only to berate a referee, as some have, for ruining a game by drawing for his cards.
The whole thing reminds me a little of a similar situation in Paris back in 2006. There we were, cramped around a TV back home, settling in for a game between two of the finest footballing sides on earth: Arsenal vs. Barcelona in the Champions League final. And what a game it was shaping up to be: Barca bristling with ability, the Wenger pups gradually coming into their own. And then, all of a sudden, Ronaldinho shakes off a challenge in midfield and slides in Samuel Eto’o. The world rises to its feet, Eto’o controls the ball, and Jens Lehman brings him down. Now, at this precise moment in time, YOU are the referee, Terje Hauge. You have two options: blow the whistle right away for what was a clear foul and deal with Lehman accordingly; or play on, see what happens, and bring the play back if needs be. What would you have done? Hauge chose the former, effectively destroying the game as a spectacle in the process. Had he waited a moment longer he would have seen Ludovic Giuly put the ball in Arsenal’s net. Oh, the irony of it.
But Lehman was gone, and the plight of referees made glaringly obvious. The thing is, it’s never as simple black and white, yes or no. There are times when a ref must weigh up all number of factors and make what is, in fact, a creative decision based on what he sees and feels. That’s why there are good refs and bad refs - because results rest on one man’s interpretation of the beautiful game. Of course, there will be times when rules will be rules, when a ref must choose to make a stand not just for the good of the game he oversees, but for the good of the game at large. And for that, Steve Bennett, we commend you.
(Just a shame it had to happen to Javier Mascherano - a player we admire!)
Let us know your thoughts.
I was at Bloc Weekend last, err, weekend. It was a strange experience to say the least: three nights at Pontins, that enduring luminary of British holidaying, with three arenas playing host to the cream of electronic music, both past and present. All in all it was a memorable trip and well worth the large fee, but one thing struck me, and I wasn’t alone: watching a nerdy guy in specks standing motionless behind a laptop isn’t always conducive to dancing. Playing live can mean many things. At one end of the spectrum it can mean bringing along a bunch of synths, a few outboard effects units and even a few ‘real’ instruments and letting loose on stage. And at the other, it can mean doing the aforementioned ‘still’ thing. Some of the people we saw were playing quality music, but they may as well have been checking their emails for all we knew. This is the current conundrum facing electronic musicians today. Often driven by the simple fact that they have rent to pay and mouths to feed, the ‘producer’ is thrust on stage and, for an hour or more, becomes the ‘performer’.
It’s a conundrum that has troubled Robert Henke, a German musician who records much of his material under the name Monolake (see him performing at Bloc above), for many years. He recalls a time when the earliest electronic recordings were played back on tape, but he appreciates that simply pressing play, and maybe handing out information on what people are about to hear, just isn’t an option. Punters want to be entertained. Henke explains the problem:
“If the tape concert is not an option, the key questions are: how can I really perform and interact on stage, and how can I make the audience aware of what goes on without having them read a long statement or listen to a ten minute introduction?” Indeed. So rather than accept the limitations of the innocent laptop (it’s not its fault after all), Henke decided to create his own live tool which has now been updated from Monodeck to Monodeck II (above). It gives him all the live facilities of his laptop but with the added spontaneity and physical interaction that people want to see. And while every other act at Bloc was positioned high up on the stage, Monolake chose to be down low in the sound booth at the same level as the crowd. By all accounts, his was a performance and not an email session. It was an awesome reinterpretation of live performance for the 21st Century and totally unique in its nature.
Nevertheless, it didn’t stop a friend waking up on the last day and remarking sarcastically to the rest of us, “Dammit today’s gonna be good. I wonder if anyone's got the latest Dell...”
For more on the problem of live performance check out Henke’s little mini-thesis here.
Someone once asked OS GÊMEOS, the identical twin brothers and original pioneers of Brazilian graffiti, what makes them want to write. Why do what you do, was the question, and this their response:
“Hate and love, living in a country where you have to survive, the simple look of a child asking for money in the street, living in a country where the government doesn't care about you, where there are no laws, where people are paid miserable salaries and are still smiling, waking up sometimes and realising it was only a dream. Idolatry, lack of union, vanity, ego, jealousy, people who need others to be somebody, people who use the others. Love. We are proud to be Brazilians from São Paulo, to know that what we believe in exists, to write incorrectly in Portuguese, to live some moments that seem eternal, to use firecrackers in the street, to build fires in those streets, to tell lies to the police, to know that our family loves us, to do things without thinking, using latex and rollers, to paint in the street with out clothes dirty from the paint, to go up on a ladder without a shirt, to be from South America, to use the city, ugly things, to know we fly in the fog, and to float paper boats in the rain.”
Good enough for us.
This is the most philanthropic time of year. We tend to be a bit introspective about our lives as we see sportsmen and comedians ‘doing their bit’ for charity. We’re soon back at work though, maybe having made a donation, safe in the knowledge that the fractured world is being healed by our efforts.
For some people though, philanthropy is a way of life. A children’s charity called Touraid has been set up by Andy Berry and Nick Avery to give children from third world countries the chance to establish educational and social links to children and schools in England. A bold mission statement that really comes to life when you realise that sport is the catalyst for all of this.
Kids from Rwanda, Swaziland, Cambodia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, India, Zambia, Romania, Kenya and South Africa have undertaken the tour of a lifetime as they played an international rugby tournament at the same time as the World Cup in 2007. The fact that two teams of children from Rwanda and Cambodia played each other on English soil is as far-fetched as it is brilliant and Touraid continues to change lives. The organisation is supported by the likes of Fergal Keane, the BBC special correspondent who was instrumental in enabling the Rwandans to gain visas for the UK:
“These are kids from both the Tutsi and Hutu tribes. They are the children of the perpetrators and victims of genocide, and here they are coming to England - together - to play rugby. Doesn’t it make you weep?”
Like any charity, Touraid relies on the goodwill and determination of others to keep going. Please have a look at www.touraid.org and be inspired...
Beautiful Losers is a new feature documentary film, just premiered in the States, that celebrates the independent and DIY spirit that unified a loose-knit group of American artists who emerged from the underground youth subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock and hip hop - the likes of Ed Templeton (above), Shepard Fairey (whose art was recently shown in London - see below), Harmony Korine and Mike Mills. Directed by Joshua Leonard, it explores the remarkable impact that this group of influential outcasts have had on contemporary culture. How, for instance, does a young guy learning to skate become an internationally renowned photographer? They are imaginative doers, people united by an artistic independence who have somehow gone from here to there without really knowing what happened in between. “The real magic lies not only in the fact that we were acknowledged, but that, really, none of us were supposed to get there,” says Aaron Rose. “This is art created by a group of individuals who, in the eyes of society, were considered outcasts. When we started making our work it was never even an option to think of having a career.”
Perhaps the one guy who best encapsulates the kind of artistic success no one could have predicted is Ed Templeton (above), the non-smoking, teetotaling, vegan “hippie who hates hippies.” One of the first to take skateboarding beyond the bowls and pipes and out into the real world (street skating to you and I), Templeton turned to photography early on and, inspired by the brutal realism of the likes of Larry Clark, began to document his own life, firstly in skating but later in a far wider context: “I realised I was missing out on all this great subject matter that I was living around.” The shackles were off. There was so much more to say beyond skateboarding: “Every free moment I’m walking around the streets shooting photos of life in general. But I don’t stop there, I keep going, into my house.” And into the bedroom if his series of nude pictures of his wife Deanna are anything to go by...
Templeton wonders if he’ll be remembered when he’s gone, but if he isn’t, then he’s determined to ensure that his work is. “The thing I dislike is art that seems to have no craft. It’s just a clever idea and you have to have gone to years of art school to understand why it means anything. A fabricated blue cube on the wall says nothing to me, but a painting made by hand about subject dear to the artist says a lot more. Seriously documenting a certain time or group of people - that has a chance of going down in history as interesting.” That’s exactly what Beautiful Losers seems to have done: celebrating the people who, both as individuals and as a group, embody the boundless creative spirit that will always transcend what lesser people see only as limitations.
CHECK OUT OUR RECENT PIECE ON LARRY CLARK, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND FILMMAKER WHO INSPIRED ED TEMPLETON, RIGHT HERE, AND ALSO ANP, THE BEAUTIFUL FREE-OF-CHARGE, FREE-OF-ADVERTISING ART MAGAZINE THAT HE NOW EDITS. A JACK OF ALL TRADES IN THE TRUEST SENSE...
He’s called Felix Zenger, he comes from Finland and he can do both this:
And this:
A philistine like me would bring these tricks out at parties and completely devalue them. On the flip-side, a devalued Zenger copy would still take my current party trick (running man into robot-dance into forward roll culminating in cramp) to the cleaners.
You could write a thesis on the influence and significance of street art. But why not use film to tell the story. Better than that, documentary film in its purest form - a locked-off camera edited into a time-lapse piece. For over an hour, Jeremy Gibbs stood across the street from fresh work by Banksy on Essex Road, London, and filmed people who stopped to look and take photos.
The great thing about the film is that it captures the diversity of the audience. This isn’t about grubby kids vandalising for its own sake. It's about a blank canvas, and an artist with the determination to make his voice heard. The not so great thing about the film - the music. Sorry about that.
Woody and Buzz set the tone. They kicked it all off. We fell to our knees so we might touch the cloak of this magnificent new thing: the Lord of animation; images of the mind rendered in three dimensions. Oh the possibilities. Oh the brilliance of it. But like any regime, we grew tired. The great paradigm shift was forgotten, and then the improvements became smaller and smaller, and we ceased to care quite so much. Okay, so it’s not quite as black and white as that, but new advances in CGI animation aren’t enough anymore. We are human beings. We crave stories, meaning, emotion, not technological advance, and these are the things that even the simplest animations can support. They bring static images to life and transcend the possibilities of the everyday. You can make the flimsiest drawing do what an actor could never do. There are no restrictions. With a pen, a piece of paper, a computer - whatever - it shouldn’t matter. The great animated films show that, where animation is concerned, the possibilities are endless.
And, by all accounts, Persepolis is one of those. While the American studios turn away their once treasured two dimensional friends and choose to dine with newer models - Disney closed down its 2D Florida studio in 2004 - a chaotic little Parisian studio was, under the guidance of Marjane Satrapi, busy putting together one of the film sensations of 2007. An assemblage of simple lines washed with greys and blacks, the lead protagonists in Persepolis don’t claim to go to infinity and beyond, and yet, according to the universally favourable reviews, they do.
The thing is, the latest Silicon Graphics machines and the greatest team of CAD wizards can only get you so far, but a little imagination, creativity and determination can take you anywhere you want - something Marjane Satrapi knows only too well:
“Animation is like the Wild West. Anything is possible. And when you come from the underground, lots of work doesn’t freak you out. That is what art should be about - you work because you like your work, not to get paid.”
Like those American studios then...
For an in-depth exploration of Persepolis, cinema and truth in movies, look out for this month’s LITTLE WHITE LIES, a cult film publication currently building a devoted following through its heartfelt editorial, stunning production, and unwavering commitment to the very best in film.
I'd never seen this video (below). It's the making of Honda's 'Cog' ad.
When determination comes good. Eventually.
I really enjoyed the BBC documentary last night focusing on the life and work of Australian designer Marc Newson. If you missed it, bad luck. He has a captivating manner and, in spite of his astonishing creativity, was able to explain his motivations and passions in layman’s terms. He wasn’t dumbing down, but rather letting us all into his own little secret - that simplicity and function constitute the key to great design:
“People ask me where creativity happens. For me it’s about aspiring to something functional and then joining the dots. Creativity is the space between the dots."
The program, presented by Alan Yentob, was absorbing for a number of reasons. For a start, the breadth of Newson’s output - he has designed restaurants, boutiques, coat hangers, vibrators, surfboards, bottle openers, cars and marble tables. Furthermore, the guy is likeable. Despite his familiar Lockheed Lounge chairs (see below, one of only 13) going for up to £2.4m each, he remains down to earth and humble, a rarity for one with such prodigious talent. Newson has designed for Ford, Nike, G-Star, Dom Perignon, Alessi and many more. And on top of that he is currently Creative Director at Qantas Airlines and responsible for plane interiors and First Class lounges. If I win the lottery I’ll book a first class trip to Sydney for the soul purpose of immersing myself in his work.
In the wake of Papa’s savage attack at the paws and fangs of a domestic cat this weekend, we thought it would be apt to salute unyielding courage and steadfast pluck in the animal kingdom. Among us humans, provocation can be dealt with in a number of ways: fronting up, backing down, seeking help, outwitting, outrunning, outfighting, outtalking...
But for animals, the list of reactions isn’t quite as long: you either fight, or you run. So when our man tried to break up an epic scuffle between terrier and domestic mog, the petrified feline latched on to his interfering limb and went to town with both claw and tooth. What mettle! What spirit! What spunk! Not content with battling a dog, the traumatised cat chose to chew on the arm and hand of a meat eating representative from the food chain’s uppermost echelon: Papa.
So a nod of the cap to those beasts that see a threat and react with interest: dive-bombing owls targeting early-bird joggers, wildebeest herds turning on lioness hunters, cougars defending their cubs from fearsome brown bears. There is a lot to be learnt from the determined underdog that rises up against its aggressor and sends him back from whence he came.
The finest example of animal determination must be this video, dubbed the greatest ever wildlife sequence to be caught on film. Enjoy.
