CRAZY4CULT 2: Andrew Wilson

A quick update today, since I'm in the process of moving.

Andrew Wilson's Crazy4Cult 2 poster blows my mind. I'm planning on buying a print for my new apartment and I've been drooling over it every day for the last week. You can pick up a print yourself for $35 at Stuff88.com (along with similar posters by Chris Lee and Scott Campbell).

I'll be making a full post on Crazy4Cult 2, which happened last week at Gallery 1988, once I'm settled into my new place. In the meantime, take a look at the above link and see how many cult movie characters you can identify. Personally, I'm hoping the print comes with a legend of some kind, as I've only managed to recognise about half of the featured characters.

In other news, I've upgraded the blog's template to Blogspot's new modular-styled version, which meant that a lot of my previous modifications were lost in translation. The most notable was my inability to transfer Extreme Tracking's code over, so there's a large chunk of hit data missing between August 13th and the 27th. After futzing with it for a couple of weeks, I ended up switching over to Google Analytics, and I couldn't be happier. If you run a blog or website yourself, I highly recommend Google Analytics. I haven't tried SiteMeter so I can't compare the two, but between Google Analytics and Extreme Tracking, Google Analytics has the edge in every instance.

Matthew Barney

From the "Cremaster" Cycle.

From "Drawing Restraint 9".

From the "Cremaster" Cycle.

Matthew Barney has a new film coming out, "Drawing Restraint 9", and while the style appears to be inimitably his, it also seems to be operating on a grander and simultaneously less contrived scale - it has something to do with Shinto, Japanese whalers, and a lot of blood, water and petroleum. I've always had a very ambivalent reaction towards Barney - I find his visuals remarkable and inspiring beyond words, but at the same time, sitting through the entire 400-minute run of the "Cremaster" cycle is simply interminable.

Which is why I'm excited about "Drawing Restraint 9". At 2-and-a-quarter hours in length, you won't end up falling asleep, and the collaborative influence of Barney's wife Björk (she composed the soundtrack and is prominently featured in the film) seems to have forced Barney out of his prior self-indulgence to some extent. While the "Cremaster" cycle was about digitally capturing performance art in motion, "Drawing Restraint 9" incorporates far more filmic techniques. If you're bound and determined to see at least part of the "Cremaster" cycle, take a look at the 30-minute excerpt "The Order", from "Cremaster 3" - it's currently the only part of the cycle available on DVD, and it gives a fairly good impression of the overall nature of the five films. Even more highly recommended, however, is the "Cremaster" book, currently available only in hardcover. It's a beautiful edition with a bevy of incredible photos and stills by Barney and Nancy Spector.

"Drawing Restraint 9" trailer (youtube) (Quicktime)
"Cremaster" site (www.cremaster.net)

Miscellany

Kentucky Art*O*Mat Machine
designed by Laurie Russell

First up, a shout out to For Crumb's Sake, my esteemed roommate's blog. Tim blogs about indie music, hipster culture, local politics, and self-drawn comics starring anthropomorphic turtles. Tim claims that For Crumb's Sake is "1 & 1/8 more fun than a shovel museum," but I've been in shovel museums, and I think he's underestimating their ability to entertain and, might I add, to educate. I'd put the ratio at closer to 1.09:1, myself.

I don't know much about David Normal, but "The Bicycle Ride", his short animation paying tribute to the very first acid trip, is hilarious, disturbing, and about as close to an authentic bad trip as you're going to get short of renting "Faces of Death 8" and dropping a postage-stamp-sized tab of blotter.

Art*O*Mat is a clever public-installation\kitsch-art\commentary on our culture of instant gratification, comprised of a group of artists who obtain dozens of old cigarette machines, modify them to distribute small works of art rather than cancer sticks, and then re-distribute them in art galleries, public libraries, coffeeshops, and museums. You can check this list to see if there's an Art*O*Mat near you - sadly, the closest one to me is in Tacoma, and I NEVER go to Tacoma. But maybe I'll have to start, now.

Floria Sigismondi

I can't praise Floria Sigismondi enough. Her music videos for Marilyn Manson, Sigur Ros and David Bowie are haunting and beautiful, and her photography is even more stunning. Her second collection, Immune, published by Gestalten Verlag, was released this past November and it is from this volume that the above photographs were taken (the first volume, also published by Gestalten Verlag, was titled Redemption and is currently both out of print and in great demand - copies sell at auction anywhere from $60 USD to $600 USD.) Both books are incredible and worth every penny.

Studio execs of the world: give Floria Sigismondi lots and lots of money to make feature films. Palm Pictures: for your next series of Director's Label DVDs, I urge to you consider Floria Sigismondi for inclusion. Everyone else: visit Floria's website, and order a copy of Immune before it, too, goes out of print.

Link to Floria Sigismondi's website.

(All Images © Floria Sigismondi 2006)