war suxxx

fuck me, how good is the WAR HERO editorial in this month's dazed? love love love...

I literally said I WISH ID THOUGHT OF DOING THAT like a million times....

The Strange Boys

TONIGHT.

Weegee

While perusing the library the other day looking for books to help with my impending dissertation (YUCK) I happened upon a couple of photo books which are just soooo great I feel bad about not having heard of them before.
Weegee (aka Arthur Fellig) began his career in the 1930s New York with a police radio in his car finding the gritty happenings of the city, always on the lookout for tomorrows front page image. The first book I found, Naked City, is full of such images.

The quality (and by this, I mean the atmospheric quality) soon got him bigger more glamorous gigs in the clubs and night spots of NY. The second book I got, Weegee's people, contained all of these.

Both sets of images are totally fascinating to me, and in this strange sort of way theres not much difference between the two, despite them seeming to be worlds apart in terms of location and subject matter. As soon as this here bloggy allows me to upload images from my camera Ill take some snaps of the books, theyre GEMS!

well this suxxx

Im on MOBILE INTERNETS which means basically pictures take a MILLION YEARS to upload. moan moan moan. Yeah well, stick arounds.

Fine Art Finalists 2010: The Catalogue.

It might sound bad - and I don't mean to ditract from the finalists' work, which obviously was the whole point of the degree show - but one of the things I was most excited about was this years catalogue. It.is.amazing. It seems my obsession with magazines extends further than the glossies and hi-fash, gaah!
The layout this year moved away sharply from previous years, and instead of just a place to print the finalists names, it is almost a work of curatorial art in itself.

The catalogue begins and ends with double page spreads showcasing the finalists previous works, while the middle houses the more traditional list of finalists, each with thier own page. What makes it extra special is the QUALITY of the book - the paper is reminiscent of the uncoated pages of Man About Town, while the layout was definately The Gentlewoman/ Fantastic Man. It is designed by finalists Owen Chapman and Christian Tilt, and you can tell theyve put a shit load of work into it. It has deffo got me inspired for next year! Here are my favourite pages.

And my very favourite page (By Abi Bryant):

Click to enlarge yo.

Fine Art Finalists 2010: Christian Tilt.

One thing I dislike - which I think you see alot of in degree shows - is when artists create an installation around their work just for the sake of creating an installation, which is always the great crowd pleaser.
Luckily Christian Tilt has been creating installation based work for a while now, so it deffo gets my stamp of approval (as if its needed...).
For the degree show he undertook a mammoth task of transforming an old ratty lecture room into a complete new environment of wonder. Based on the idea of The Well - 'the birthplace of the online community movement' - the first forum of the interwebs, where people came together to talk about all kinds of weird and wonderful subjects. Using this idea he created an artist's commune divided into pods showcasing work in all mediums but still utilising the installation format they were made to look as if the artist had been living there while creating the works.
It is insane the amount of work which went into it. I saw it first hand as me and Arianne were lucky enough (I think) to be asked by Chris to design one  of the artist's pods - Not that being a part of the work has influenced my opnions of the work, it truly is a wonderful piece. Stepping into the room transported you directly into a new place, while still maintaining its status as an artwork allowing the viewer to considor the context and apreciate the concept.

(There deffo was not a kitchen in this room before Christian built one...)

Christian is currently working on a website so watch this space. He will also be involved in a real gallery (!!!) show in London (!!!!!!) at the end of July along with a few other graduates. ILL KEEP U POSTED YA.

Fine Art Finalists 2010: Char Outram.

A really cool thing about this year's degree show was the amount of performance work, and although in the past at the degree show there has been some work of this kind, this year was the first time there was a designated area and time when the performances ran.
Amongst those with performance based work was Char Outram, who I have blogged about before HERE.
With a heavy emphasis on costume and character, Char created a whole other world in a corner of the studio. A place where a purple caravan spliced open and transformed into an domesticated flower print pirate ship complete with OCD housewife, pulled along by a crippled ghost of a human riding a fairground skunk. A tree strung with lights became a canope for a human teady bear hybrid, while an ice-cream eating entrail clad bride dances to the rythem of mashed up caravan cutting sounds. If you thought that sentence was a headfuck then I suppose you can only imagine what it was like to experience. OH! I almost forgot the dancing box!

The purple pirateshipcaravankitchen.

Some of Char's characters.

Since I was performing for Char (yup), I must admit I havent got very much images of her work, and certainly none that do the amazingness any kind of justice. WATCH THIS SPACE!
In the mean time, check out Char's website www.CharOutram.co.uk
Awesome!!

mutha fuckaz.

When I said Id be busy moving house I didnt really expect that it would be nearly a week til my next post. Having no internets suxx!!! Its so annoying when all you wanna do is blog but you c'aint!
Anyways, as I said before lots of nice arty posts will be thrown your way full force like BLUEGH.
First of all I feel like moaning about all the obnoxious horrible bastard shop assistants I have had to deal with in the last few days. SRSLY. As a shop bitch myself I think I have V good customer service, and I now see why this is so important. This will probable be boring so dont bother reading. I just have some irritatings I need to let out.
First of all if you ever find yourselves in the unfortunate position of having to go to Fabric Warehouse in Woodley (Reading), pretty much just dont bother. Everyone there is so fucking rude and WEIRD like some texas horror film where you just know something in the milk aint clean. There is one particular woman in there who acted as if she had been asked to eat a plate of my poo or something when we asked her if we could please buy some nets... surely the point of working in a shop is that you want to sell shit? you would think? She maintained a bitter face the whole time she was cutting, not even attempting any comunication or anything. And she did a shit job and was so rude when we complained about her service. Honestly what a horrible grubby gross shop of DOOM.
OK thats all. This was way boring right? shall I get on with the good shit now? noted. Lets never fight again xxxxxxxxxxxx

Degree Show 2010

So this Friday just gone was the Reading Fine Art Degree Show 2010. Oh man, so good.
It sort of pisses me off that reviewers/magazines/bloggers etc always just focus on London degree shows when there is so many amazing art students working outside of the city. Maybe Im just biased since I go to Rdg and all the finalists this year where my friends but SRSLY I have fucking talented friends yo. Basically my plan is to do a post each on all of my favourite exhibits from the show, and this will probs go on for the next week. Im in the process of moving house so I think it going to be a bit slow but you should deffo look forward to it. In the mean time here is the degree show website and a few sneak peeks of peoples work. do it.
http://www.readingfineartdegreeshow2010.com/

A Single Man

After months of waiting (limited release films make me sad, especially when theyre released when Im too busy to travel to see them), I finally got to see Tom Ford's stunning A Single Man.
For me it was a late night viewing, I starting watching at gone 11pm. Usually this means I will start to gently nod off half way through, slipping into a deep coma of sleep by the end. Although I absolutely did not intend fot this to be the outcome, in the back of my mind I thought it was going to be inevitable. Yet still the mood was right and I was determined to at least begin to watch the film.
I neednt have worried, because from the very very start I was moved, captivated and 100% alert enough to watch the whole beautiful thing.
Ford, as a director, appears just as maticulous as his designs. His attention to detail is perfect and really helps to carry the plot. The whole film feels so complete, the styalization mirroring the characters and adding further elements to the story. It is difficult to see this is his debut feature, and I truly hope it is the first of many.

As an actor I have never really rated Colin Firth. Although it has always been clear he has some form of ability, I think it is his choice of characters that have always let him down. I have to see after watching A Single Man I was really blown away by his performance, and I believe his critical acclaim was well worth the hype. He has a true subtlety about him, and yet there is no denying he solidly fits into his character and is truly believable. There are also two brilliant performances from Nicholas Hoult and Jullianne Moore - and although perhaps it was Moore's character who I thought was not perhaps the most brilliantly defined, and perhaps found her slightly off kilter with the rest of the film - I thought she really did find a great way to portray her, so snaps to Julianne.
Finally (woah all this writing. Have I even swore yet? shit...) Arianne (cool name) Phillips really did do an amazing job with the costmes. Although it is easy to spot the Tom Ford designed pieces (I think most, if not all, of Colin Firth's), Phillips found a way to include them seamlessly. You could tell that they were not used for the sake of using Tom Ford garments in a Tom Ford film. Really the styling is wonderful. Oh and as is the set design! But really I think I must stop talking now. Here is the trailer (Which actually I have to say is really really not representative of the actual film at all). Watch the film. I love you all.

GA GAG GAGA

My life was so much fucking easier when I just hated Gaga.
Yeah, Im not saying I love her now. Or even like herr, you know. Im just saying she is finally starting to do stuff which is making me pay attention and not just think bleughh.
Here I present her latest hot mess for Alejandro. Well, I dont PRESENT it, but you know what I mean.

OK, lets dissect this fuckery a bit shall we?
First of all I have to say I think you can sort of split it into two halves (well you'd have to, its nearly nine fucking minutes long!) the first half (up to about 5 1/2 minutes) being the better of the two halves. The first thing I imediately noticed is how it absolutely had to had to no doubt about it be inspired by the Arena Homme + shoot by Steven Klein from the Winter/Spring 08/09 issue, styled by Panos Yiapanis... Five seconds of googling later, what do I discover? The video is fucking shot by Steven Klein... OF COURSE!!!

Above: Gaga, Below: Arena Homme + shoot.

You see? you see? you see? oh yeah, you see.TRANSPARENT.

Actually I said I wanted to dissect it but actually after nine minutes of this im sort of DONE. I just want to enquire as to why she changes from this:

into this:

Blonde Dana Scully circa 1992?

Anyway, that is all.

RONSON RONSON RONSON

And now I bring to you some more awesome shit from The Creators Project.
Mark Ronson is back and sounding pretty awesome. Valerie was like my favourite pop song of 2007 (or was it 2008?) so its cool to see he's bringing his game to make something even better.
Got to love his viral video for Circuit Breaker, based on Zelda...

And here is the video from The Creators project. Exciting stuff!

Show Your Bones

Pretty much obsessed with this skeleton jumper Kieran gave me last week. I think Ive worn it like every day since...

IlovePamelaLove

Well, there was me all about to give up on Stylelikeu when they hit us with the best ever.  Ever since I dared to post a negative - yet constructive - comment about one of its featured rich spoilt brats with no taste and no style and no personality and faced a barrage of personal abuse, Ive sort of gone off the place. I realised that everyone they featured merged into one... "yah I really loooove this because I like think like its so DIFFERENT and like I love the like details and like I put studs on everything and like Im only 19 but like Im so rich I can live in this massive apartment with all these clothes and I dont have to work hard for anything and like, dont you think thats the coolest?"....   yeah it pisses me off. There have been some really cool styled people on there, but its sort of started to not be about style at all anymore. Anyway I never meant for this to turn into a personal rant aout the site because ok yah I still have it on my bloglovin and check it from time to time and sometimes, just sometimes they find the right sort of people who I actually WANT to get to know, who are ACTUALLY interesting and actually have great pieces that are really well styled and you can tell they CARE.

Here is PAMELA LOVE. I think this is like the third time Ive gone on about how much I love her designs, so its awesome to get to see more of the person behind the amazing designs. Enjoy!


Pamela Love from Stylelikeu.com from Stylelikeu on Vimeo.

oops!

woopsie, been a busy bee again and neglected all you mtherfuckers. Ill be back proper next week. BEAR WITH ME.

geddit? xxxxxxxxx

Louise Bourgeois 1911-2010

I think I thought Louise Bourgeois was the kind of person who would live forever, and I know in many ways she will, but still this is a harsh reminder of mortality and the impermenance of beauty.
A few years ago there was a Bourgeois retrospective at Tate Modern. I remember my art teacher telling me it was a once in a lifetime sort of exhibition. I remember thinking it was a really strange thing to say, since exhibitions are going on all the time and I can go anytime if I want to see her work. Suddenly I understand and I regret not going so much.
I remember seeing Maman in the Turbine Hall, and it was probably one of my first experiences of looking at real art. Although it probably now hold the least sentimental value for me in terms of Bourgeois' work, there is no denying its dizzying effect.
Its definately true (In the words of Joni Mitchell) that you don't know what you got til' its gone, and I think this is another sad example for me. However I would also like to remember that LB was born in 1911... which means she was 98... I think thats pretty good going, so I think its pretty fair to celebrate the life she had rather than mourn the life she lost. Amen yo.

SUMMER PLAYLIST.

HAPPY FIRST O' JUNE! PINCH AND A PUNCH AND ALL THAT SHIT!
I don't know what the weathers like for you today wherever you are, but Im here to add some sunshine to your day, even if it is raining/snowing/foggy/whatever.
Its the summer playlist! Probably PART ONE. But dont blame me if I never get around to PART TWO...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN. ADD TO YOUR SPOTIFY PLAYLIST AND HAVE FUN.