Category Archives: Culture
New Photography Books: “Stones From The Inside – Rare And Unseen Images”
Along with the images of the band at work and play, Wyman includes remarkable images of those along for the ride, from John Lennon, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Iggy Pop to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. To accompany his photographs, Wyman offers up wonderful insights, anecdotes and behind-the-photo stories, giving all us a front-row seat and backstage pass to what it was like to be there, as music history was made as a member of The Rolling Stones.
Known, unknown, rare and unseen images from former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, capturing life on-stage, backstage and on the road
In addition to this trade edition, there will also be a limited edition of 300 copies, which comes in a slipcase, with an open-edition A4 print
As soon as Bill Wyman was given a camera as a young boy, he quickly developed a passion for photography. After joining what would become the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band, Wyman continued his hobby. When he didn’t have his bass, he had his camera. The result is an arresting, insightful and often poignant collection of photographs, showing his exclusive inside view of the band. From travelling to relaxing, backstage and on, Stones From the Inside is a unique view captured by a man who was there, every step of the way.
1960’s Cinema Icons: Remembering French “Bond Girl” Claudine Auger (1941 -2019)
From a France24.com online release:
The film’s trailer introduced Auger as: “Young. Beautiful. Trapped. Could be dangerous”.
French actress Claudine Auger, best known to international audiences playing alongside Sean Connery in the 1965 James Bond film “Thunderball”, has died aged 78, her agent said Thursday.
She played the character “Domino” in the film, the fourth in the Bond franchise, which was set in the Bahamas providing ample opportunity for swimsuit action scenes.
To read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20191219-auger-thunderball-bond-girl-dies-aged-78
1960’s Culture: “The 1963 March On Washington” Recreated For Virtual Reality (Time Video)
TIME goes behind the scenes of the making a virtual reality recreation of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, bringing the experience to life for a new generation.
WW II Tribute: 75th Anniversary Of The Battle Of The Bulge Celebrated (PBS Podcast)
Today, Monday December 16, marks 75 years since the beginning of one of World War II’s most savage battles. In December 1944, the Nazi army surprised U.S. and Allied forces in the frozen forests of Belgium. Badly outnumbered, the U.S. lost 10,000 soldiers amid frigid conditions in the war’s deadliest conflict. John Yang reports on the commemoration of what became known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Top Graphic Designers: 88-Year Old Seymour Chwast “The First Postmodernist”
Excerpts from The Revolutionary Seymour, By Steven Heller:
Seymour’s art was postmodern long before the term was coined. Yet it was resolutely modern in its rejection of the nostalgic and romantic representation, as in the acolytes of Norman Rockwell, that had been popular in mainstream advertising magazines at the time. Instead of prosaic or melodramatic tableau, Seymour emphasized clever concept. What makes the very best of his art so arresting, and so identifiable, is the tenacity of his ideas—simple, complex, rational, and even absurd ideas.
The illustrations for magazines, posters, advertisements, book jackets, record covers, product packages, and children’s books that he created after founding Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel in 1954 directly influenced two generations (statistical fact) and indirectly inspired another two (educated conjecture) of international illustrators and designers to explore an eclectic range of stylistic an conceptual methods.
To read more: http://seymourchwastarchive.com/about/seymour/
New Celebrity Books: “The Mighty Elvis – A Graphic Biography” By Seymour Chwast & Steven Brower
The Mighty Elvis is a commemoration of his life and times in the form of an art book, told through the unique vision of legendary designer and illustrator Seymour Chwast. Beautifully illustrated throughout, it presents an enhanced portrait of one of America’s greatest celebrities.
With text by author Steven Brower (Satchmo: The Life and Art of Louis Armstrong), The Mighty Elvis reminds us of the continuing stardom of one of the most popular American singers of all time. Through Chwast’s illustrations, cartoons and comics we get to relive his early life, his meteoric rise to fame and how he was affected by, and in turn, affected the world of music in the many genres he mastered. The book covers his first appearances on television, Graceland, his meeting with President Nixon, his wedding to Priscilla, and much more. Millions of fans loved him, purchased his records, attended his sold-out shows, and went to his 33 films. Death, 40 years ago, has not diminished his fame. “Elvis Lives!”
1960’s Icons: Remembering French New Wave Actress Anna Karina (1940-2019)
From a Hollywood Reporter online article:
It was during a run-in with Coco Chanel in 1958 that Hanne-Karine changed her name to Anna Karina, which the fashion designer told her sounded better. She used the moniker for her movie career, which began in earnest in 1960 with A Woman Is a Woman— just Godard’s second feature to be released —and lasted until 2008 with Victoria, a road movie she directed as well as starred in.
Anna Karina, the French New Wave starlet who rose to international acclaim in films directed by her then-husband Jean-Luc Godard, has died. She was 79.
She and Godard were married from 1961-64, and she served as his muse in such memorable works as A Woman Is a Woman (1961) — for which she received a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival — Vivre sa vie (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965) and Alphaville (1965).
The actress’ productive career was not limited to the movies of Godard, however. She accumulated more than 50 feature credits, working with other major auteurs like Jacques Rivette, Luchino Visconti, Chris Marker, Volker Schlöndorff and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Comics Books: “George Herriman’s Krazy Kat – The Complete Color Sundays 1935-1944” (Taschen)
The premise is simple: a black cat loves scheming a white mouse who incessantly throws bricks at the cat’s head, which police dog Officer Pupp, secretly harboring a passionate love for the cat, tries to prevent.
George Herriman endlessly plays with the above formula in his legendary newspaper strip Krazy Kat, published from 1913 until his death in 1944. Through his wit, detailed characterization, and visual-verbal creativity, Herriman introduced even the least comically-inclined to the young medium; Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, US President Woodrow Wilson, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Capra, P.G. Wodehouse, Willem de Kooning—all KK fans among many others.
It was thanks to media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, a confirmed fan who gave Herriman carte blanche in his newspapers, that the artist was allowed to freely explore countless absurd and melancholy variations on the theme of unrequited love for years on end. Herriman unabashedly took advantage of this, radically exploring the medium’s potential and pushing all of its formal boundaries; readers had to put up with surreal, Dadaist sceneries, a language that whirled slang, neologisms, phonetic spelling, and scholarly references, and diffuse gender roles—making Krazy Kat probably the first gender-fluid star in comic history.
To read more or purchase: https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/graphic_design/all/01173/facts.george_herrimans_krazy_kat_the_complete_color_sundays_19351944.htm
Cultural History Books: “Wicked City – The Many Cutures Of Marseille”
From a Literary Review online review:
The Toulousain Charles Dantzig wrote, ‘I find the Marseillais tiresome, especially those who, as soon as you speak to them, start to bang on about the uniqueness of being Marseillais, adding with a particular sort of whining machismo that no one likes them and everyone defames them. Their humour is nothing more than pitiable braggadocio.’ Régis Jauffret, who grew up there, is pithier: ‘Marseille is a tragic city. It formed my imagination.’ (It’s an imagination of peerless bleakness.)
Nicholas Hewitt died in March, less than a month after completing the text of Wicked City. It’s a fine monument to his curiosity, compendious knowledge, resourcefulness and measured enthusiasm. He calls it ‘a series of snapshots’, which is perhaps too modest. If they are snapshots, they have been photoshopped and retouched to accord with his vision of the city and its well-rehearsed mythology of outsiderdom and exceptionalism, edginess and banditry. And his aspiration to explore Marseille’s hold on the ‘nation’s imagination’ is also too modest. The ‘international imagination’ would be more apt.
To read more: https://literaryreview.co.uk/babylon-on-sea
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