“What Difference Does It Make? , A Film About Making Music,”gives viewers an insider’s view on why so many people are drawn to the music biz despite the challenges. It includes introspective commentary from more than 70 artists including, Brian Eno, Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Skream, Richie Hawtin and James Murphy, who discuss the ups and downs of the gig while providing some insights on their creative process.
The film, which was created in celebration of the Red Bull Music Academy‘s 15th anniversary, was shot at the 2013 Red Bull Music Academy in New York by award-winning director Ralf Schmerberg. It was produced by his Berlin-based artist collective Mindpirates.
Vanishing Point, Berlin 2013. United Visuals Artists.
United Visual Artists (UVA), a multi-disciplinary collective from London, radiates with its transportive light installations. Take last year’s Vanishing Point and its latest project, Momentum: The intricate projects challenges our ability to separate natural elements of our environments from elements that have been manipulated for the experience.
UVA, in collaboration with My Beautiful City, transformed Sou Fujimoto’s Pavilion. Commissioned by Serpentine Gallery for the Serpentine Summer Party, 26th June 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, designed by Sou Fujimoto.
The group’s latest work, Momentum, currently on view at London’s Barbican Center through June 1, uses light to examine the relationship between space and time. The installation consists of twelve steel pendulums that trigger light and sound when they move back and forth.
On his vimeo account, street artist Spidertag, who has been doing graffiti for over 10 years, writes that, ” the new geometry is in the streets.” His work features geometric figures, which are created using yarn.
Seattle producer Dil Withers’ cruises through blue skies with this ultra chill instrumental, which features jazzy guitar riffs and slick soundbites of laughter (yeah, it’s that kind of party).
Earlier this week, the Guggenheim Museum presented the exhibition, Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video. The exhibition is on view through May and it features written text, audio recording, video and photographs by Oregon-born photographer Carrie Mae Weems (Some of Weems’ most recent works will also be presented in an upcoming exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem on Jan.30).
She’s best known for her Kitchen Table Series (1990), which featured stunning vignettes of her around the kitchen table. In an interview with the New York Times’ Lens blog last year, Weems explained how the project challenged her to find beauty in the mundane mileu of everyday life: “…it doesn’t have to be the ‘real moment as seen spontaneously in life, but that it can be constructed in my living room, my dining room, in my kitchen, in my backyard, and it can be equally honorable, if not more so, than the actual ‘document’ of that reality,” she said.
The exhibition traces the evolution of Weems’s career over the last 30 years, from her early documentary and autobiographical photographic series to the more conceptual and philosophically complex works that have placed her at the forefront of contemporary art. Although Weems employs a variety of means to address an array of issues, all of her work displays an overarching commitment to better understanding the present by closely examining history and identity. It also contains a desire for universality: while African Americans are typically her primary subjects, Weems wants “people of color to stand for the human multitudes” and for her art to resonate with all audiences.
Although New York City’s bright lights have enticed tourists and kept Times Square aglow, over 20 years ago, the concrete jungle was known more for its widespread graffiti. In these rare photographs from Christopher Morris, a London-based photojournalism and contract TIME photographer, we get a glimpse of what it was like to commute on NYC’s gritty subway trains in the 1980s.
Using ektachrome film and a magenta filter to offset the florescent lights, Morris found interesting subjects in the relatively safe commuting space of midtown Manhattan, further north in the Bronx, and the eastern wilds of Brooklyn. He also happened to be working at approximately the same time as Bruce Davidson, a photographer who memorably chronicled 1980s subway life, and whom he admired greatly.
The images that emerged from his months-long project show subway cars being tagged, and stations covered in dirt and grime, but we also see commuters going about their business — reading newspapers, listening to music — beneath advertisements for vacation deals and aspirin.
On “Shibuya,” featuring indie songstress KID A, Tokyo producer Sunik Kim a.k.a Beat Culture, creates a supernatural outpost of entrancing sounds that are perfect for drifters.
The Studio Museum invites artists living or working in Harlem to join Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden to review their work and discuss their artistic endeavors. From 12 to 3pm on Sunday, February 9, Golden will hold fifteen-minute meetings with ten artists selected through a lottery system. Activating artist Theaster Gates’s work See, Sit, Sup, Sip, Sing: Holding Court in the Studio Museum atrium, this event celebrates the exhibition Radical Presence: Black Performance and Contemporary Art and the Museum’s ongoing commitment to the Harlem arts community.
Each artist should submit their name, home or studio address in Harlem and phone number to holdingcourt@studiomuseum.org by 6pm on Friday, January 31, 2014. Individuals selected through the lottery will be informed via e-mail and given further instructions on Tuesday, February 4, 2014. Participants will be asked to prepare a current resume or CV, a maximum of 10 images (no original artwork) and an artist statement of 500 words or less.
The Beauty In The Dark 
