Good morning, world! Monday's are my day off and I couldn't think of a better way to start (yes, I slept in a bit) than with this video I saw on Gawker. In an advertising spot for their local classical station, the Copehagen Philharmonic performed Grieg's Peer Gynt to some unsuspecting passengers on the metro.
Look at the smiles!
Artist: The Cure / Album: Boys Don't Cry
Spring has already done sprung at the John Cleary Gallery and for our last show Catherine and I decided to put up a "Masters of Photography" wall that is appropriately nature themed. You've got your Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, Henry Gilpin and finally Brett Weston:
For only $130,000 all this can be yours!
Now, Catherine (@clearygallery) is really quite Twitter savvy and has been known rub tweets with the best of them, including Emmy© award winning actress, Holland Taylor (@hollandtaylor). My fellow Texans should note that, in addition to her stint on Two and a Half Men, she has also crossed the country in recent years portraying former Texas governor Ann Richards to fabulous reviews. Click here to watch a clip and here to read more about the play itself!
Many people may not know it, but the inspiration for one of Brett Weston's most famous works is la diva herself and we got a hold of his first artist proof. Don't believe me? Let's take a closer look, shall we:
You betta WORK that bridge, Holland!!!
Oh and also, as a bit of Twitter self-promotion myself… you may now follow me at @ub_sessed :)
Artist: Tom Jones / Album: The Complete Tom Jones
The last Friday of April is set aside annually in celebration of National Arbor Day, a holiday which encourages the planting and caring for of trees and other foliage. According to our good friend, Wikipedia, it originated in Nebraska during the early 1870's and has since spread to a global level.
What better way to celebrate the greenest of holidays with a vertically integrated product: trees make paper, photographs are printed on paper, photographs on paper look FABULOUS on your walls! See the logic there?
So in honor of the 140th Arbor Day here is a small forests' worth of the photography world's best trees!
Mitch Dobrowner: Wind Swept Tree
Maggie Taylor: Oh, Happy Day | Jerry Uelsmann: Untitled, 1969
Josef Hoflehner: Elephant Hill Pathway | Jeffrey Conley: Snow Covered Branches
Takeshi Shikama: Central Park #21
Jeri Eisenberg: Magnolia, No. 9
Susan Burnstine: Forever | Michael Crouser: Girl and Tree
Brett Weston: Holland Canal
Charles Grogg: Juniper Bonsai | Jefferson Hayman: Tree in Central Park | Keliy Anderson-Staley: Plum Tree
David Fokos: Haybales, Ripsa, Sweden
Henry Gilpin: Trees, Reflections | Dan Burkholder: Tree in April Snow, Catskills
Niniane Kelley: Palm
Brad Moore: Roosevelt, Huntington Beach, California
Pine-ing for any of these images? Don't have a collection and looking for one to take root? Already have one but looking to branch out? Want me to stop with these ridiculous tree jokes? Don't be such a crabapple! Come into the John Cleary Gallery or give us a call and we'd love to help find that perfect photograph for you.
Artist: Bryn Terfel / Album: The Vagabond and Other English Songs
As many of you may have noticed whilst Googling your favorite celebrity gossip or low-cal recipes, today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of French photographer Robert Doisneau, a titan in the world of black-and-white photography and all around bad-ass image capturer.
Google's Doisneau "doodle"
It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've made a post (well over a month, I know) and I thought I'd ease back into things with a quick "best-of" of Doisneau's images. Many of his works are iconic and I encourage you to check out more of his work either online or stop into the John Cleary Gallery and see them in person!
La dame indignee, 1948
Danse
Jacques Prevert au Gueridon, 1955
Le menage de monsieur Barre, 1955
Mademoiselle Anita and Pablo Picasso
Les helicopteres, 1976
Le baiser de l'Hotel de Ville (The Kiss), 1950
Artist: Elvis Costello / Album: Ten Bloody Marys and Ten How's Your Fathers
In addition to having a rotation of different cars coming in and out of the premises, the Art Car Museum (mentioned in a previous post), also has exhibition spaces dedicated to non-automobile related art as well. The current show, the 7th Annual Open Call Exhibition, is exactly just that: an open call for art and once the walls were filled they stopped accepting. Though it was too late to enter this year, I’m pretty sure I have something on my own wall at home that would be PERFECT for next year:
KILLED BY J.D. ROBERTS!
Up until my most recent move I had yet to find the perfect place for my deer from home. Luckily, with a bit of help from West Elm and my good friend, Tito, that problem has now been resolved quite to my satisfaction.
Those of you who are more taxidermically minded (or even meme minded) may be wondering to yourselves: Is that a Chuck Testa original?!?! And for those of you who weren't, you might now find yourselves wondering: Who the hell is Chuck Testa?!?!
Ask and ye shall receive:
YOU'RE WELCOME!
Artist: The B-52's / Album: Time Capsule
My dear dear friend, Jeremy, visited the great nation of Texas (for the first time!) over the holidays, which I took as an opportunity to try out for the first time the “Joseph Roberts: This Is Houston, This Is My City, and This Is Why It’s Fabulous (And If You Disagree Then Get The Hell Out And Move To Dallas Already) Greater Metropolitan Tour Extravaganza!”* In other words… experiences quintessentially Houston and Houston alone.
In reality it was merely an excuse to visit a myriad of locales around the city I for which I haven’t made the time, all wrapped up in the guise of “Southern Hospitality.” That’s the secret about us Southerners— we’re just as selfish as everyone else, it’s just harder to detect because of our accents lull you into a false sense of security. Regardless, the first stop on our “Joseph Roberts: This is Houston, This is […] Tour Extravaganza!” was none other than longtime Houston institution …
The Art Car Museum, or “Garage Mahal” as many know it, opened in February 1998. […] The Museum has its conceptual origins in the 1984 Collision show curated by Ann Harithas at the Lawndale Art Center. Collision unveiled Larry Fuente’s “Mad Cad” art car which has since been featured in museums and cultural institutions across the country. The Collision exhibition provided enthusiastic fuel for the art car movement in Houston and eventually precipitated the Art Car Parade and the international Art Car movement. – Via the museum’s website
Due to the sheer number of art cars in the collection, the museum tends to rotate different specimens in and out of the museum gallery. As such, here are some of their most current pieces.
There’s even a Luke-sized option!!
For a real taste of what these things look like on the road, here’s a compilation of one of the more recent events:
Artist: Willie Nelson / Album: Live and Kickin’
