A quick gallery of images I shot whilst walking around the lovely city of Montreal this past week. So much art on the streets of this city, second favourite only to my own home town of London.
Art
Three brilliant tributes to MCA, a ‘Sabotage’ parody by James Winters, a ‘Licensed To Ill’ mural by Aroe, and a US departure lounge sign.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”370″]http://vimeo.com/42106181[/vimeo]
I just saw that my friend Pat Hamou did this lovely tribute to Maurice Sendak, this nails it for me. Pat said this about it:
“For Mr.Sendak.
I still remember the first time I laid eyes upon Where The Wild Things Are in my youth, leaving me wide eyed and wondering.
Here’s to the next Wild Rumpus that awaits you.”
Check out Pat’s site for his excellent gig posters and illustrations of Jewish gangsters. He lives in Montreal which is where I’m off to this week to develop my planetarium show with the people at the SAT Dome there.
Another tribute to the great Maurice Sendak who has now sadly left us, but has also left us so much great work, including this amazing pop up book.
This book is head and shoulders about all the other pop up books I have (and there are a few). Firstly because it’s the only one to feature Sendak’s art, which is gorgeous as always, and secondly because the paper engineering has to be seen to be believed.
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The story centers on a boy looking for his mummy who enters the house of Dr Frankenstein. As he moves through each room he encounters a different character from classic horror stories: The Vampire, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Mummy, The Werewolf and, finally, finds his ‘mummy’ in the Bride of Frankenstein.
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At each monster he enquires, ‘Mummy?’, before proceeding to disable them in different ways, seemingly indifferent to their attempts to frighten him. This is where the ingenious paper engineering comes in, the figures don’t merely pop up, they animate at the same time as each page is opened. The Werewolf actually transforms as he extends out of the book, Frankenstein’s monster is one of the biggest pop ups I’ve seen and the boy deals with his assailants happen as you open a flap on the right side of each page.
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Again Sendak sends a clear message to the children who read his books: you don’t need to be afraid of these monsters, they are easy to trick or get rid of. I don’t want to spoil it ALL for you by telling you how he does it but it all ends well and there is so much detail in each page that it bares re-reading. The whole scenario was dreamt up by Arthur Yorinks, paper engineered by Matthew Reinhart and released by Scholastic in 2006 where it won several awards including the New York Times‘ Best Illustrated book award. See the gallery below for some shots, with not too many spoilers.
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Another visionary artist gone, first Ralph McQuarrie, then Moebius (not to forget MCA on Friday), now Maurice Sendak!
I love his books, especially ‘In The Night Kitchen’, of which I made a huge poster for my kids’ bedroom when they were 2 years old. I also loved the way he was so outspoken about encroaching political correctness and what could and could not be shown to children. A true original.
Obviously ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ is his best known work, and deservedly so but there’s a lot more in his catalogue than that classic. When I was digging through the archive at Sesame Workshop in 2003 I found a cartoon of ‘Bumble Ardy’, voiced by Ken Nordine written by Sendak and illustrated in his style. This became his last book, published last year in a revised form and you can find it on a Sesame Street DVD called ‘Old School’.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2TVYdQU3-I[/youtube]
This is a post I had over on my old MySpace blog from Jan 2008:
“On December 27th I installed a ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ window display in the Tales on Moon Lane bookshop in Herne Hill, London. It will be up until Easter and then move to their Primrose Hill shop. I highly recommend the shop for kids books as they have an excellent selection and the shop is packed with loads of fun stuff.”
I just saw this via Twitter which is just beautiful:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
– Maurice Sendak – RIP, you left a great legacy for generations to come.
Augustine Kofie: Working An Angle @ Known Gallery Los Angeles from Augustine Kofie on Vimeo.
Promo for Augustine Kofies' Solo showing at Known Gallery as well as his first solo in Los Angeles in over 3 years.
AUGUSTINE KOFIE / WORKING AN ANGLE Opens: May 26, 2012 | 8-11pm Runs: May 26 – June 9, 2012 KNOWN Gallery, 441 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036 [email protected]
On June 1st I’ll be traveling up to my friends’ Sarah and Leigh‘s place in Hinckley, Leicestershire for the opening of a rejigged version of the DJ Food & Henry Flint exhibition that we held at the Pure Evil Gallery in January.
Their Factory Road Gallery will host a lot of the posters and original art and there will be local ale, special food and prints, CDs and books for sale. More details here.
There will be special limited editions available at the show, a 20 copy giclée print of the recent 12″ cover, printed tea towels (!) and chocolate bars in silver space-type wrapping. There will also be food on the opening night, local ale and I’ll be around to answer any questions.
Gorgeous poster for the 1st East London Comics & Arts Festival by one of my favourite artists currently – McBess. 7th June is the date with McBess as the artist in residence; live drawing relay races from Luke Pearson, Jack Teagle, Kyle Platts, and many more; a process talk by BLEXBOLEX, chaired by Paul Gravett; 600 second interviews from Avoid the Future; a kids workshop organised by Anorak; Screenings by Nexus; panel discussions with Karrie Fransman, Darryl Cunningham and Simone Lia; stalls from the very best comics publishers, including Jonathan Cape, SelfMadeHero, Blank Slate, Nobrow, Knockabout, Landfill Editions, Solopsistic Pop, WAWAP and more. Alos there will be a ticketed concert featuring the Dead Pirates (McBess’ band), the Vuvuvultures and a special guest running from 8 ’til late.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”370″]http://vimeo.com/41214166[/vimeo]
Amazing achievement by the Agents of Change on this mega project for a hotel in London’s Kings X. What you don’t see here is that they painted inside the building too, including murals and canvases that filter inside the hotel and restuarant and flesh out the experience.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WmjB3igMKo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The remaining unsold Secret 7″ sleeves and records are now up for sale on the Teenage Cancer Trust’s eBay page, each is one of a kind, a unique artwork with a limited edition 7″ by one of 7 artists. They start at just a penny and all the money goes to TCT once the auction is over.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOaT6ar3Ww[/youtube]
Definitely going to this… check out Felt Mistress‘ work
Sesame Street System [2012] Complete shot + detail (20 x 30/5 x 2 inches)
Found record covers, pencil, ball point pen, acrylic and xerographic gel transfer on wood panel. Finished in a matte varnish. Framed in found yardsticks and mahogany lattice.
Augustine Kofie for Sesame Street presented by The Seventh Letter & Neff Headwear
Benefiting City of Hope’s Department of Pediatrics
Known Gallery: 441 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Show runs April 28 – April 29, 2012
The Secret 7″s concept is something that ticks a number of boxes for me: vinyl, art and limited edition collectables. Set up by Kevin King from Universal Records, the idea is to take 7 different bands and ask hundreds of artists to design one-off sleeves for a 100 copy limited edition 7″ record by them. These are then displayed at the Idea Generation Gallery in Shoreditch and each is made available for sale on Record Store Day for a minimum price of £40 – all of which goes to the Teenage Cancer Trust.
The 7 artists participating this year were The Cure, Florence & The Machine, Bombay Bicycle Club, DJ Shadow, CSS, Noah & The Whale and Ben Howard with artists designing covers ranged from David Shrigley, Central Station and Stylorouge through to Luke Insect, Felt Mistress and Nigel Peake as well as complete unknowns. All of the musicians involved also contributed designs, sometimes not for their own releases, but each record was completely anonymous. No info was anywhere to be seen, either of the artist, track title or cover designer – hence the name Secret 7″. Here’s a gallery of the ones that caught my eye when I visited the preview although there were a few I couldn’t fit in as I’d completely filled up my camera by the time I reached the end.
The range of designs was completely across the board, lots of recurring themes popped up though: animals, stars, flies, hearts and Florence Welch featured repeatedly with her flowing red locks, presumably for her release. Not all of the sleeves illustrated the contents so literally though, one release was a three dimensional, playable guitar (see gallery above) and other sleeves were knitted, collaged, embroidered or cut to reach their final state. I didn’t make it on the morning of the 21st as I was playing in Rat Records in Camberwell, but finally managing to get there at 4pm and they’d sold around half already as you can see from the panorama below.
Several of the ones I wanted had obviously long gone by 4pm and I was looking to pick up a copy of DJ Shadow‘s ‘Come On Riding (Through The Cosmos)’ so a space theme was the first to search out. I grabbed one with a collage featuring an astronaut first of all but another, with a Victorian-style elevator in the sky I’d spotted as I walked in, had mysteriously vanished. Another I’d liked at the preview I spied in the hands of a guy ‘um-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ over several sleeves and then suddenly I located the sky elevator sleeve again, maybe someone had put it back? I was pretty sure I had at least one Shadow in those two but then I noticed the guy had put the other sleeve back. After making sure he definitely didn’t want it I snagged that too. He thought it would be a Florence one due to the shock of pink that could have been hair but for some reason it reminded me of the guy from CSS, not sure why.
Taking three £40 7″s to the counter isn’t something I regularly do, in fact I can categorically say that I’ve never spent that much on a 45 ever, but knowing that I was getting bona fide one-off items and that the money was going to charity actually erased any quibbles about it being too much. I’ve not been that excited about buying a record in a long while, the ‘lucky dip’ aspect of it as the sales assistant went to the box to retrieve the particular single for each sleeve (each was stickered with a number) was a genuine thrill. Even better was when she came back with the first 7″ – I’d guessed right, the collage with the astronaut, by Robin Antiga, was the DJ Shadow single!
The second 7″ came back, this time by Sebas & Clim – the last one I’d chosen, and it was for CSS, not Florence.
The third choice – the sky elevator sleeve, by Domonic Arroyo – arrived and it was another DJ Shadow, result!
Even though I had a hole in my wallet the size of a 7″ I left the gallery as pleased as punch knowing that the money had gone to a good cause whilst I had three unique pieces of art and vinyl to add to my collection. Much praise to Kevin King for coming up with such a unique way to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust on Record Store Day, I’m hoping to submit designs for next years round and you can hear a short interview I did with him at the gallery on the Record Store Day special broadcast on Strongroom Alive on April 21st.
I just spent the weekend gigging in France and found this in one of the record shops in Montpelier – from 1977, a gatefold LP cover by Moebius. According to those who I showed it to, Guy Beart was a very cheesy singer who played guitar and was the kind of un-hip singer your parents’ liked (if they were very un-hip) and they were surprised such a record existed.
Well he must have had a late flowering moment of inspiration for this release with what looks and sounds like a concept album based on a future civilisation, no doubt cashing in on the craze for all things sci-fi in 1977 once Star Wars opened. The music has its moments, there’s plenty of synth and space noises in there amongst the whimsical songs but the gem here is the cover, click for a larger version.
Detail from a forthcoming post and the origin of one of the track titles from ‘The Search Engine’. I seem to be one of the few people I know who actually likes Mondays, the week sprawls ahead with all the promise of untold creations emerging before the weekend is upon us.
Steve Cook over at Secret Oranges has had something put in his coffee I think, several blinding psychedelic posts today alone…
I found these today whilst looking on the Hang Up Pictures blog, art and ideas executed on this scale never fail to take my breath away. The top one is by MAMBO – how did they get that shot? Camera on a balloon / helicopter? The middle is by JR at the Galerie Perrotin in Paris and the bottom is by ARYZ, painted in Finland.
From one of the illustrations in his book, ‘Broadcast’, comes this gem, ‘Hide From The Monster’ – a three colour print made for Pick Me Up London at Somerset House. I think you have to actually go there to get one and I don’t know how much it is but there’s a lot of good art on display from what I’ve seen online.
UPDATE: It’s seems it’s £50 in an edition of 20
Fan art for a film yet to be released – but obviously with a long legacy to live up to.
The first illustration above did the rounds nearly a year ago it seems, masquerading as concept art. Nice image in an intriguing ‘what if?’-type way and a decent illustration too.
The image to the left was made into a mock film poster using a similar illustration of the Space Jockey sans gun / steering wheel / whatever it is he’s sitting in.
Then there’s Midnight Marauder, whose tumblr is full of poster and DVD covers, both real and fake, for films like Prometheus, Alien and Aliens and Blade Runner. There’s so much good stuff on there, take a look.
Starting this week in 2000ad, the first in a new series by Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing – The Zaucer of Zilk – the first episode is very intriguing and reads like Alice In Wonderland in rainy run down Britain. Brendan’s art is on great form too and other good news is that Henry Flint is back on the current Judge Dredd epic which is one of the best in years.
UPDATE: You can preview the first episode for free online at the CBR website now.