avant garde

Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion

brittany — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Before Lady Gaga adorned her poker face with a diamond-encrusted lobster, there was the original eccentric fashionista Isabella Blow, the flamboyant muse to couture designers who, despite being the toast of London’s glitterati, would die at age forty-eight by her own hand. As a fashion director, she survived as one of Anna Wintour’s assistants to later become champion of the avant garde. From hot pink cobwebs to towering peacock feathers, there was nothing that Blow wouldn’t dare crown herself with. While she discovered both fame milliner Philip Treacy and designer Alexander McQueen, none of her accomplishments could prevent her suicide by swallowing poison in May 2007.

Even in death, Blow continues to make headlines and is now the leading lady of two books based on her extravagant life. One was written by her husband Detmar Hamilton Blow and the other by journalist Lauren Goldstein Crowe. Although she never knew Blow personally, Crowe was compelled to investigate the addict of lavish hats. Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion is more than just a biography. Rather, it’s a love letter that faithfully depicts who the icon really was. From a tumultuous family history to the final moments of an even more tragic life, Crowe expertly crafts a tale that’s more awe-inspiring and heartbreaking than anything ever written about Blow.

While Blow’s husband claims that Crowe’s biography is riding on the “Issie bandwagon,” she took on an even greater challenge than rehashing old diary entries. Crowe proves to be a masterful reporter in her investigation of Blow’s 600-year-old legacy and gives readers clues why the successful editor chose death over further redefining a world in which she ruled supreme. The dark cloud that shadowed Blow wasn’t unknown to her family. According to Crowe, her grandfather Jock Delves Broughton “injected himself fourteen times with Medinal, a barbiturate.” Then there’s her brother John Delves Broughton who, at age two, choked to death. It comes as no surprise that, after interviewing countless friends and relatives, Crowe would find out that Blow once told a nurse:

So many people kill themselves, it’s not unusual. It’s just unusual to have someone who wants to die so much to have been left here... I had eight suicides in my family. It comes like that to us. It’s like bacon and eggs. It’s like cheese and toast. I just have to make sure it happens the next time.

Crowe successfully questions what others haven’t dared asked: why is it that the elite were surprised that the patron of the obscure wouldn’t want to live? And more importantly, why didn’t her closest friends, including the husband that continues to mourn her, further attempt to give her the treatment she so desperately needed? Crowe exposes what many of us refuse to accept: that when someone is suffering from a serious depression, they will show anyone who’ll listen that they need help, whether they ultimately want it or not.

It’s difficult to overlook the glitz and glam shielding Blow’s mysterious life, yet Crowe never stops at digging for the truth behind the editor’s fears. From having an Italian lover named Casanova, to spending the last of her money on a luxurious picnic basket to share with her non-existent beau, the author implies that, despite how she felt about her looks, Blow could have been anxiously searching for the one person who could make her feel as beautiful as she so greatly desired. Instead of romances, she sought salvation with crowns of monarch wings, veils of delicate petals, and glorious sun bonnets, ensuring that not even statuesque sirens of the runways could attempt to steal the spotlight from the “ugly’ star. Sadly, her light would quickly dim before audiences throughout the world could fully appreciate a style she created.

Would Crowe have written Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion if it’s main character wasn’t famous and fatally flawed? Probably not, but does it matter? The point of Crowe’s book is to introduce readers to a real-life woman, one who didn’t shy away from exposing the wounds she attempted to shield. And while Blow didn’t live long enough to obtain the aid that could have encouraged her to live, we can now be assured that her legacy in fashion will continue to shock and inspire artists forever.

Written by: Stephanie Nolasco, February 11th 2011

A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Arts, Politics, and Daily Life

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Mira Schor

Duke University Press

A Decade of Negative Thinking is a collection of essays on feminism, paintings, and feminist art history. As a teacher of graduate students, Schor’s experience provides us with practical and theoretical background to an artist’s commitment to contemporary art.

The main theme of the study encompasses the ideas and images from Schor’s earlier life that were significant in influencing her artistic direction. The underlying theme explores the ways in which the past is perceived either consciously or subconsciously by people, and how easily it is to be misguided when forming our current views and opinions because of the undue influence of past styles. The artist writes as a New Yorker because she considers this city to be the center of the world art market, and an inspiring place from which to observe contemporary art and culture.

In part one, "She Said, She Said: Feminist Debates, 1971-2009," Schor describes debates on feminism and feminist art in a number of symposia, art magazine forums, and conferences over the years. Initially, as one of the chapter titles states, "The –ism Did Not Dare Speak Its Name" refers to the many academic –isms theories such as modernism, postmodernism, feminism, and post-structuralism. But later in “Generation 2.5,” the focus is on a community of women artists who had ideals about the feminist art movement, and who followed their direction during difficult times. They challenged the notion of a canon in art production and the cult of celebrity in contemporary culture.

In part two, "Painting," Schor analyzes the production of art history from a feminist perspective. She concentrates on the works of Alica Neel, an abstract painter who created Two Girls. Spanish Harlem (1959), Dore Ashton (1952), and Self Portrait (1980). She also considers works by Lisa Yuskavage and Myron Stout.

In part three, "Trite Tropes," Schor presents her views on common themes in art that are popular among college students and practitioners of the avant garde academy. Schor claims that art education is inadequate or even non-existent. She also asserts that practical visual contact by students with the artists themselves would help to clarify some misconceptions on art. As the writer explains, “negative thinking may indicate more of a programmatic belief in modernist ideas of resistance via that methodology of negative dialectics than is actually in play.”

Schor would like to see art works discussed and analyzed even if that analysis may be negative from the point of view of the art market. She clearly believes in the power of art despite all odds. This hope can empower our thinking and our actions. Schor vigorously researched her topic and included visual images of paintings in her book, which contributed to the visual pleasure of her narrative. I found her essays engaging and appealing, mostly because of Schor’s anecdotes and the choice of her personal stories; however, I needed a few breaks in the reading of her theoretical background, as some of the essays require extreme concentration on the part of the reader.

Overall, Schor, who is also a painter and writer, creates a very witty, brave, carefully designed, in-depth study on the question of politics and aesthetics in the contemporary world.

Written by: Anna Hamling, May 15th 2010

Rage

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Directed by Sally Potter

Adventure Pictures

My partner, Jake Barningham, is an avant garde film and video maker. He’s constantly on the prowl for new ways to express himself visually. Most recently it has been creating videos with his cell phone camera. I really like the idea of using something so accessible and widely used like a cell phone to create art. Aside from its artistic possibilities, the cost effective nature of using a camera phone makes it possible for everyone to make movies without relying on the bloated corporate Hollywood production structure.

However, the flip side of that coin is one that I have very mixed feelings about: actually watching movies on your cell phone, iPod, or generic electronic apparatus. In the age of the digital copy and rising movie theater ticket prices, more and more people are opting to watch movies on inferior viewing devices to save time and money. In my opinion, movies are divine entities that deserve as much respect as humanly possible. Cinema is prayer. So, watching a movie on a cell phone or iPod that’s compressed, pixelated, and choppy just doesn’t work for me.

Enter Sally Potter. The British feminist filmmaker of such films as Orlando and Yes recently made the first movie that’s actually designed to be watched on your cell phone. The film in question, Rage, is an incredibly intimate exploration of some of the minds behind the fashion industry. Using fourteen different actors, including Lily Cole, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi, Judi Dench, Adriana Barraza, Jude Law, and several others, Potter, in the guise of a silent, unseen student blogger named Michelangelo, films their diverse characters one on one with a cell phone and nothing but a moody, ever-changing colored screen behind them. By using what Potter calls “barefoot filmmaking,” she strips all of these larger than life personalities down to their naked emotions and exposes their vulnerabilities. Rage, like many great movies have done in the past, has turned my preconceived notions of cinema on their head.

At the beginning of fashion week, a famous model accidentally pulls an Isadora Duncan and dies on the runway. This sends the cast of characters into a tailspin of emotions and the atmosphere grows even more intense and hazy when another model is shot and killed on the catwalk. Unable to speak about their feelings with the people around them, the central fourteen characters, which includes Law as a beautiful transsexual model, Buscemi as the neorealism-hungry fashion photographer, and a bunch of corporate bigwigs and marketing executives, begin using Michelangelo’s filmic environment as if it were a confessional. Tears flow, anger swells, and light bulbs flash as ideas spring to life in front of Michelangelo’s camera.

At a solid one hundred minutes, Rage’s several one-sided conversations are genuinely captivating and engrossing. Ranging from deeply personal melodrama to exploring an immigrant worker’s role in the fashion world, the constantly shifting political agendas are bewildering and even exciting. Though I haven’t had the pleasure of watching the movie on my cell phone yet, viewing it on DVD with my home theater system granted me one of my best movie watching experiences in quite sometime. Potter, who took out a second mortgage on her home to pay for the movie, has quite possibly revolutionized the cinema industry with a single film. If Rage does well in the long run, who knows how long it will be before cell phone movies become the norm? The Hollywood industry is all but terrified of incorporating more digital cinema into their structure, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how they’ll react to something so simple and cheap becoming so accessible.

In any case, I highly suggest you check out Rage and support Sally Potter’s maverick feminist filmmaking in any way you can. It was one of the best films of 2009, and I guarantee you’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

Written by: Sara Freeman, February 19th 2010

Arminico Hewa

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:13:00 +0000

By OOIOO

Thrill Jockey

When I was twenty, I flew off to Japan one spring with a stated mission “to be alone.” While this may sound more glamorous than it actually was, I did accomplish my goal. Unable to speak to anyone, wandering between cities and sights in dazed confusion, I was undeniably alone. It was either the best ten days of my life or the strangest—and really, it was probably both.

Japanese band OOIOO recreate the strangeness of that experience. Their all-female lineup, which has made space for the likes of Sean Lennon in the past, plays a mix of experimental and minimalist noise rock. Much like their counterpart band, The Boredoms, OOIOO vacillate between enjoyably listenable and disturbingly avant garde.

On Arminico Hewa, tracks range from under two minutes to over six. Songs like “Ironrun” and “Konjo” run together and sound like Japanese tribal chants—if such a thing exists outside of a Kabuki theater. “Polacca” could almost be mistaken for a rock song. For balance, tracks like “Ulda” bring to mind the shoegaze fuzz of My Bloody Valentine. MBV's Kevin Shields scored much of the music for Lost In Translation. It all comes together, no?

My partner’s brother—a twin in DNA only—recently returned from a conference in Osaka with pleasant things to say about his time abroad. While I’ve recently warmed to the idea of returning to the islands nation, I’d no doubt do better with some company this time. As demonstrated by the constantly shifting OOIOO lineup, comfort—or at least safety—comes in numbers.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, October 20th 2009

TV is My Parent

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0000

By Sia

Monkey Puzzle Records

Sia's latest release is a concert DVD called TV is My Parent, which includes a set from her concert at the Hiro Ballroom in New York, four music videos, and traditional "behind the scenes with the band" footage. While I'm a big fan of Sia's quirky avant-garde pop, a concert DVD isn't usually something I would pick up. If I already have the music on CD, why do I need lower quality versions punctuated with inaudible on-stage banter? However, I have to admit that once I started watching the DVD, I was really really enjoying myself.

What makes a project like this work is Sia's relationship with the audience. This isn't a spectacle like Gwen Stafani and her Harajuku Girls, or Britney Spears lip-syncing her way through a series of electronically-produced songs. Sia's playfulness and energy are infectious, and her vocals have an intensity that demands immersion.

The show opens with Sia and her bandmates dressed as day-glow children's drawing. Most of the concert set is from her latest album, Some People Have Real Problems. The songs chosen for the DVD showcase Sia's songwriting at its best, from the haunting "Breathe Me" (a song some of you might remember from HBO's Six Feet Under series finale) to the honest and flippant "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine" that features satisfying lines like: "'cause I'll never get laid while I'm running your life." Her radio-friendly "Little Black Sandals" opens the concert and also features an adorable young girl singing backup.

The concert is definitely the highlight of TV is My Parent. The "behind the scenes" filming is fun—particularly when she's scheduled to do a signing at Starbucks, but can't find the right one because there are four on the same street. The problem is it doesn't tell the audience much about her creative process or thoughts about her music.

Following the band around makes the viewer feel distinctly like being the only sober person at a party, seeing a drummer rub his nipples is only really amusing once.

The music videos are great, and (as any Sia fan would expect) they are weird. The line between creativity and hipster obscurity is finely tread here but she comes off more Bjork than Feist. "Soon We'll be Found" is the real gem, with Sia's signature child-like art being used as a metaphor for the innocence of new love.

While I've never considered Sia in the vein of feminist music, there is something distinctly refreshing about her approach to sexuality in her lyrics and her own aesthetic. While aloof and friendly on stage and when interacting with fans, Sia is clearly an artist first. Her songs are largely about connecting to other people and could be applied to the complexities of any relationship.

My feeling is that TV is My Parent is for Sia fans. If you're new to her music, a better introduction would be to buy her solo albums and prepare for the unexpected urge to do interpretive dance.

Written by: Jennifer Burgess, July 25th 2009

Snowflakes and Carwrecks

admin — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:52:00 +0000

By Hauschka

Fat Cat Records

Once you’ve mastered an instrument, you have two choices: move on to another, or tinker with the one you know and love. No stranger to critical acclaim, German composer and avant garde pianist Volker Bertelmann’s work as Hauschka makes use of the latter technique. Known as prepared piano, Hauschka’s unique sound is derived from altering the original use of a piano—preparing it—to make new sounds by shoving tacks and wooden blocks in between strings or plucking them like a guitar. Why hire an entire percussive ensemble when you can make many of the same sounds yourself?

Snowflakes and Carwrecks reenergizes fans and warms up unfamiliar audiences for Hauschka’s upcoming tour across the US. While instrumental tunes may not immediately inspire a concert ticket purchase, a live show with fractured and reworked instruments might make you think twice. Listening to the soothing, complex layers of this short album—what I’d call “work music,” something to which I can listen while I work and not become distracted—is great for both a rainy Sunday or a walk in the woods. While reminiscent of the cold German winters that likely inspired it, Snowflakes and Carwrecks is at turns both somber and hopeful. Winter ends eventually, and you’d better have some music to pair with the returning sunshine.

Prepared piano has been used by everyone from Elton John to Ben Folds to Christine McVie. It can be described as the audible equivalent of using expired film in an ancient camera without casing. You may not be certain of the results, but bringing an art form down to its most basic, primitive state, you can find new ways to start all over again, from the ground up.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, February 14th 2009

Offend Maggie

admin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:29:00 +0000

By Deerhoof

Kill Rock Stars

Some people find Deerhoof unlistenable, with sometimes manic, screeching vocals over strange instrumentation. Some critics think they're twee, and some think they’re the best of noise rock. Most cannot slap a genre label on this expectation-bending band. There is occasional yelling and human-made sound effects, "Beep beep!" You have no idea where the songs will go, or when they will end. The lyrics may not sound like English, and while they are, it is not guaranteed that they will make sense.

On Offend Maggie, Deerhoof are in their typical bizarre, hyperactive form. The production quality is through the roof, making this album perhaps more accessible than their earlier releases, though the madness of their style is retained. “Fresh Born” is a series of words associated with baby animals, repeated. "Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back" also has a repetitive chorus of, "Rebound! Rebound!" "This Is God Speaking," which can hardly be classified as a song, is a series of distorted, Charlie Brown adult-type sounds with some clanky piano notes covering the incomprehensible groans. Only one of the fourteen songs clocks in over four minutes, and the album artwork—a cover image of a faceless man wearing headphones, parallel black and white lines inside—is disturbing and wonderful.

Yet some of the tracks here are almost ballads, melodic at times, consistently beautiful if consistently weird. Opener "The Tears of Music and Love" lives somewhere in between avant-garde awkwardness and loving harmonies. "Purple Past" sounds like it could be found on any number of other indie rock records, save the stylings of Deerhoof's signature vocalist, Satomi Matsuzaki. "Family Of Others" is reminiscent of Animal Collective with its woodsy appeal and quick switches between crooning and staccato onomatopoeia. The title track is perhaps the most appealing song and even amid its goofy lyrics of "Ring ring! I hang up!" it remains almost quaint, switching between something lyre-like tinkling and heavy electric guitar.

If you suffer from migraines, hate strobe lights, and think noise rock is for annoying hipsters, you will likely hate Deerhoof. Offend Maggie is nevertheless their most enjoyable record to date, and it is some of the most approachable noise pop on the scene.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, January 1st 2009

Saint Dymphna

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:53:00 +0000

By Gang Gang Dance

The Social Registry

Saint Dymphna is the patron of those stricken with mental illness or nervous system disorders, epileptics, mental health professionals, happy families, incest victims, and runaways. The saint was martyred by a recently widowed father. He’d made advances at her and she ran away to Belgium with her confessor, the court jester, and his wife. The elderly priest and Dymphna were slaughtered, but they don’t say what happened to the jester. St. Dymphna’s attributes include appearing praying in a cloud surrounded by lunatics wearing golden chains. Gang Gang Dance seems more appropriate to dancing on earth, but lunacy and jewelry still correspond. Their first album was God's Money, and based on the strength of Saint Dymphna, I’m actually tempted to track it down despite the fact that I possess neither.

The band includes Lizzi Bougatsos, Brian Degraw, Tim Dewit, and Josh Diamond. They craft world-beat-meets-moog tracks, with recordings veering in between the ethnographic and the experimental. This is destined to be a pick at art opening after parties, but not necessarily in a bad way. The band members say in an interview that two met with one stocking music on shelves and another shoplifting it out of the bin, and that seems as apt a metaphor as any. Moments of musical clarity are stolen between some extensive noodling.

My response to much jazz and experimental music frequently is to think, "Am I actually enjoying this, or am I acting like I am enjoying it because I believe that I should enjoy it as a cultured would-be-avant-garde person? How many other people here are actually enjoying this? How many would rather be listening to Johnny Cash? Are we all just a bunch of pretentious gits?" My own CD collection ranges from Eno to Orbison (okay, an old friend made me a tape of the Orbison), so eclecticism is all well and good, but I was more enamored of the opening tracks than the album’s wind-down. The cover graphic appears to depict Berbers at Mardi Gras. That works, as does a track entitled "Inner Pace." Gang Gang Dance is simultaneously measured and organic. Enjoy them at your own pace.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, November 26th 2008

1932

admin — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:07:00 +0000

By Vertigo Butterfly

With Kandinsky on the cover and a name like Vertigo Butterfly, I desperately wanted to like 1932. But I couldn’t. Maybe the music is too moody. Maybe I had secretly hoped for some type of Jen Wood impersonation. Maybe I just couldn’t get past the operatic dramatic voice of Luray Hodder Kuca. Whatever it was, 1932 was a Black Tuesday for me – it just crashed.

The arrangements are good – fantastic even. John Kuca, Jr does an excellent job putting together the instrumentation and backing vocals. Classical guitar rocks, but mixed with Luray Hodder Kuca’s vocals, 1932 sounds too incarcerated by its own pretensions and frankly, is too avant garde for a steak and potatoes kind of girl like me. Listening to the album is like watching an Andy Warhol film, like Empire. You get the feeling it should be art, but you aren’t really sure why or how or what the devil is going on.

In a musical sense, Vertigo Butterfly wants to be Bjork. But without the craziness and that uniquely orgasmic voice that blasted Bjork out of the icy depths of Reykjavik, Vertigo Butterfly just makes Andy Warhol films.

Written by: Mónica Teresa Ortiz, July 26th 2007

Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner

admin — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:07:00 +0000

By Shapes and Sizes

Asthmatic Kitty Records

The self-proclaimed neat-freaks in Victoria, British Columbia-based quartet Shapes and Sizes have crafted a genre defying sophomore album that begs you to rethink the way that you listen to music. Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner is a perfectly whimsical combination of lowbrow tartiness and heartfelt emotional awareness.

Released on Sufjan Stephen’s label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, Split Lips is already eligible for a Quebec Independent Music Award. Lead vocalists Caila Thompson-Hannant and Rory Seydel color outside the lines of what is traditionally considered masculine and feminine with their often sugary sweet vocals melding together so flawlessly in some songs that you almost forget both genders are at play. To say this album is all over the map would be an understatement, but that proves to be both its greatest strength and weakness. The vocal experimentation on “Highlife (I Had Been Duped)” exemplifies Split Lips, with Thompson-Hannant coercing the listener into the song with her slightly off-key poppy ramblings followed by orgasmic screams and a makeshift bar-room sing-along followed by what vocally sounds like a nervous breakdown. The emotionally vulnerable track “The Taste In My Mouth” makes a socially poignant statement about domestic abuse, while the track “The Horse’s Mouthy Mouth” deals with nothing more than, “generally fucking shit up.” Split Lips is refreshingly avant garde in a manner that is so intellectually taxing that it requires your undivided attention.

Written by: Claire Ashton, June 15th 2007

Remixed & Covered

admin — Sun, 27 May 2007 22:54:00 +0000

By Xiu Xiu

5RC

“Experimental” and “avante garde” may be the best ways to describe a band like Xiu Xiu. In earlier years their albums have come across as mind-boggling, nearly indescribable noise. Their newest release, Remixed & Covered, offers up some big-named friends that help decode the language that is Xiu Xiu.

Some may call it pretentious and others may question its integrity, but it can certainly be said that credibility is brought to this double disc by the likes of Devendra Banhart, Gold Chains and Kid 606, to name a few. Their interpretations of Xiu Xiu’s songs bring some sort of peace to the whole “noise” experience, or at least they did for me. The songs range from dancey to drone-like, ethereal, to heavily synthed. Oxbow’s cover of “Saturn” sounds a lot like the Black Heart Procession, while Marissa Nadler’s cover of “Clowne Town” brings a lighter feel. Some tracks are filled with quality while others are a bit headache inducing. If you can get past the obvious differences in the songs, which make it seem less like a compilation and more like a frantic jumble, the three-piece Xiu Xiu (Jamie Stewart, Caralee McElroy and Chess Smith) have proven that they are talented song writers, despite being almost experimental to a fault.

Written by: Lauren Begnaud, May 27th 2007

Taiga

admin — Sun, 06 May 2007 17:41:00 +0000

By OOIOO

Thrill Jockey

I have to admit, I was a bit concerned when I hit play on the first song of OOIOO’s album, Taiga. I’m not one to discredit noise as a musical form; I even own an album or two by Agoraphobic Nosebleed. However, there’s only so much “noise as art” that I can take at a time, and as the droning and incoherent screams of “UMA” came rushing into my headphones, I was seriously contemplating the ibuprofen in the bathroom cabinet. Luckily, the repetitive yelps of the first song are not present throughout, and there are some good moments. I appreciated the feel of “SAI,”, which sounded a bit like Yes, if they were influenced by Super Mario Brothers and Yoko Ono.

Perhaps I wouldn’t consider this album when recovering from a hangover, but despite the sometimes jagged hollering of the vocals, I enjoyed much of the tribal-cum-techno feel of Taiga. This isn’t the album for anyone who is firmly planted in the “verse-chorus-verse” mantra of western pop music, but I believe anyone who has an appreciation for the avant garde should make this an addition to their collection - just make sure to keep the Tylenol handy.

Written by: Emily S. Dunster, May 6th 2007