Venezuela Giving Danny Glover $18M to Direct Film on Epic Slave Revolt

by Rory Carroll

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela is to give the American actor Danny Glover almost $18m (£9m) to make a film about a slave uprising in Haiti, with President Hugo Chávez hoping the historical epic will sprinkle Hollywood stardust on his effort to mobilise world public opinion against imperialism and western oppression.

The Venezuelan congress said it would use the proceeds from a recent bond sale with Argentina to finance Glover’s biopic of Toussaint Louverture, an iconic figure in the Caribbean who led an 18th-century revolt in Haiti. 0521 04

It will also give seed money for a film version of The General in His Labyrinth, Gabriel García Márquez’s novel about the last days of Simón Bolívar, who liberated much of South America from Spanish colonialism.

The project could mark a breakthrough for Villa del Cine, a new government-funded studio outside the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, which is part of Mr Chávez’s effort to combat what he sees as American cultural hegemony.

Toussaint Louverture is a towering figure in the region’s history. A freed slave of African descent, he led thousands of slaves in successful campaigns against British, Spanish and French troops before being betrayed, captured and exiled. He died in 1803, just before his followers succeeded in establishing the island’s independence. William Wordsworth wrote a sonnet about him. Glover said he wanted to educate the US about the story. “It’s been essentially wiped out of our historic memory, it’s been wiped clean.”

Venezuela’s congress, which consists entirely of Chávez supporters, also said it would give $1.8m to develop a screen treatment of The General in His Labyrinth, by a Venezuela-born director, Alberto Arvelo. Some rate Gabriel García Márquez’s account of the final days of Bolívar along with the Colombian writer’s better known novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.

To build consciousness of what Mr Chávez calls “21st-century socialism”, the government has funded nationwide screenings of Charlie Chaplin’s classic film Modern Times, about the exploitation of US factory workers during the depression.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

Spray painting

Augmented Sculpture

Augmented Sculpture

Pablo Valbuena's project is focused on the temporary quality of space, investigating space-time not only as a three dimensional environment, but as space in transformation.

For this purpose two layers are produced that explore different aspects of the space-time reality.

On the one hand the physical layer, which controls the real space and shapes the volumetric base that serves as support for the next level.

The second level is a virtual projected layer that allows controlling the transformation and sequentiality of space-time.

Monogram in superflat world

While doing some research about monograms for a project I'm working on, I came across this cute video of Takashi Murakami past work for Louis Vuitton. Cute stuff nontheless.

FRINGERIE

Achiving a good solution that is simple is one of the great challenges of design; the lamp "fringerie" by Dotting design is a good example of this achievement.
I love the textural quality of the lamp...kind of sexy lamp dishabille.

Bangkok market design

Train Drives Through A Bangkok Market

Kid's Wear

A magazine for parents that want to initiate kids into the obscure world of trend setting and its subsequent required consumerism has to have Kate Moss eating some fries with fly kids on the cover, and some poems by Bokowski.
Fresh is the name of the game specially in the perpetual infant world.

fav. euro electro trash band

Love to listen to Vive La Fete while designing and sipping my 3rd spresso. You can actually keep watching more of their videos trough this window thanks to you tube! At end of the video click on any of their other videos, I recomend "Ne touche pas ".

personal che

Colombo/Brazilian production about the revolutionary ICON. Click here for the official site

The national/ daugters of the soho riots

Came across the music of The National and cinematography work of Vincent Moon something about three years ago after a trip to Paris that left my soul in a continuous disaggregation... Here is one of my favorite songs ever.

Humanistic

Fashion editorials become just blah when not being able to establish a direct relation between the nature of the clothes and an ideal context in which they would exist, creating a cohesive story for the clothes engaging the audience. I find that the last Teen Vogue manages to present a credible experience for the Fall 07 Balenciaga collection, while generating a high and wide sense of respect for the the clothes identity: a sublime merge of culture and aesthetics. Well done teen vogue.

Stella McCartney HOT Shoes

Shoe shapes are one of the most capricious and ever evolving trends. Now, when you make a a shape that is different and still holds a strong identity you have a hit.

Solveiga and Alfredas Krivičiai

"Ethics and Aesthetics is the same"
L.Wittgenstein

"Ethics is the condition of the world.
Beauty cannot change the world
Life is more important.
Art does not exist.
Creation is an act of ethics.
Art is an interpretation.
One cannot buy art.
(but you can sell it).
Art does not exist.
Jewellery is the process of making adornments
Adornments is not art.
Jewellery is art.
Art does not exist."

"…a lot of people see jewellery making simply as the production ornaments and accessories, the value of which is measured by the kinds of materials and techniques used. In such cases jewelry making is just a craft. It differs from mass-produced goods only in the sense that it is made in smaller quantities….

This does not only apply to jewellery. Paintings which are considered to be fine art are sometimes no more than interior decoration. They are used to “dress up” a room the same way as jewellery is used to dress up a person…

On the other hand if jewellery is art, can it really remain indifferent to the cultural, technological and social changes taking place at the moment in the society?

Should jewellery just concentrate on aesthetic and decorative issues? Or is it supposed to be relevant? If not doesn’t it become no more than the pretty and expensive toy of a cultural elite and jewellery nothing more than appendage to adorn a wealthy person?

Can jewelery react actively to social processes? Can it be socially engaged? Or maybe these days jewellery can, albeit indirectly, express people’s aspiration and phobias, actively and perhaps even dramatically react to the “now”..."

Solveiga Krivičienė

Born 1965 in Rokiškis

1986-1991 studied at Vilnius Academy of Arts

Alfredas Krivičius

Born 1961 in Trakai

1980-1985 studied at Kaunas University of Technology

Both live in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Guido Mocafico

Of Italian descent, Guido Mocafico was born in Switzerland in 1962.
A specialist in still life, he works regularly for international magazines such as Numèro, Paris Vogue, Big, The Face, Self-Service, and Wallpaper. He has also undertaken numerous advertising campaigns for Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Clinique, Shiseido, and Hermës.
Over the past four years, Mocafico has been at work on a personal project related to architecture, and he continues to explore aesthetic and scientific themes in nature. He lives in Paris.

a fav: 6267 Commercial appeal

All the trends in one collection! That is how I see the very edited and very wearable 6267 collection. The military that clashes with colonial and oriental motifs keeping all very refined and still edgy . I'd love to wear any of these pieces, they are not so totally dull as many of the full blossom collections I've seen for spring 2008


"Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi have been designing anonymously for a big-name Italian manufacturing house for long enough to know exactly how beautiful clothes are put together. And now, with their label, cryptically called 6267 (it’s Rimondi’s clothing ID number from his childhood summer camp), launched in 2004, they have been able to wed their technical skills with design innovation. With this sophisticated collection, the design duo combined detail from Spanish matador costumes with a sleek, narrow-skirted line that evoked the mid-century couture exaggerations of designers like Jacques Fath and Christian Dior—all executed with a refreshingly twenty-first-century lightness of touch. Some of their silhouettes and deft draperies owe a debt to Roland Mouret. But the meticulous attention to detail couture fabrications, and seductive palette (cocoa, lilac, old rose, copper, ink) set them apart as exemplars of accomplished modern elegance."

Doris Lessing wins Nobel

Novelist, Story Writer, Autobiographer, Poet, Playwright.
Active 1948- in England, Britain, Europe; Zimbabwe, Southern Rhodesia, Africa

Doris Lessing, 1984. © Marianne Majerus

Doris Lessing is a visionary writer. Now in her eighties, her output is still prolific. Her huge body of published work, for which she is internationally acclaimed, includes novels, stories, non-fiction, poems, plays and opera libretti. She has recently received, among other honours, the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the Companion of Honour from the Royal Society of Literature and the Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. Her depth and range of vision encompasses concerns about environmental disaster, the threat and consequences of warfare, the collision of race and culture, the collapse of political and social systems and the dynamics of the family. Archetypal narratives of quest and invasion (often in the form of colonisation) recur throughout her writing. The earliest stories were published in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1948, while her twenty-fourth novel, The Sweetest Dream, which explores the transience of political ideologies, was published in 2001. A new collection of four novellas, entitled The Grandmothers, was published in 2003. In lighter vein, Lessing has written several books about cats, her favourite animal, and published her most recent poems on playing cards (INPOPA Anthology, 2002). Not only do her books span more than half a century, they also display a great formal variety, including generically hybrid texts, dystopian, fabular, inner space and space fiction, and closely observed social realism.

How does one begin to understand the complexities of Lessing as a writer and the ways in which the experiences of her life have shaped her work? A passage of introspection from the first volume of her autobiography perhaps provides one useful key to understanding Lessing's writing. She describes her own mind-set as “that emotional or psychological double helix coiled at the roots of my nature” (Under My Skin, p.357). A disposition which reserves the inner axis of self while exploring different political or social ideologies has often caused her to change direction rather unaccountably (p.398). Her self-analysis is suggestive of a multi-layered and restless imagination and may explain the ease with which she frequently writes books of different forms and genres simultaneously.

Lessing was born Doris May Tayler on 22^nd October 1919 in Persia (now Iran) where she lived until she was five. Her mother, formerly Emily McVeagh, had been a sister at the old Royal Free Hospital in the East End of London, where she had nursed many wounded soldiers from World War One

"Helena Hörstedt is...

a Swedish design label. It was created after my graduation from Beckmans School of design, Stockholm, 2004. The label provides handmade garments with emphasis on structures and techniques, advanced details and classic tailoring.
I think the genuine work and the handcrafted feeling gives an irreplaceable value to the garment. The trade of handcrafting is always one of the most important sources for both construction of and inspiration for my design. I want my garment to be a fascinating visual experience as much as a usable. I want them to build a desire, continuously expand and to surprise the beholder."

Dresing up with dramatic clothes, how fun! The same design found by Mr sartorialist in Paris last week.

GOLDEN Age

Nationalism, sexuality, religion and power, can ethics can get any trickier?

anonymous LV nurse for sale

Mr. Jacobs is a genius when it comes to being a merchant of the visual... and having so many thousands of complacent individuals as clients I guess this new season's "concept" will be a hit even when it is all reduced to a perceptual color scheme. You can get both fashion and art in one bag!
Richard Prince has an ongoing exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum here in NYC. I would dare to say that -on Prince's work- there are reminiscences of the same treatment of "femininity" that Terry Richardson gives to the subjects of his work: feminine take from a sexual perspective only, I'm afraid. Unidimentional femininity for LV...? Maybe D&G.

"Richard Prince: Nurse Paintings
FROM www.sadiecoles.com

When asked about these paintings last year, Richard Prince said ‘I’m painting nurses. I like their hats. Their aprons. Their shoes. My mother was a nurse. My sister was a nurse. My grandmother and two cousins were nurses … I like the words nurse, nurses, nursing.’ Painting over large inkjet prints of pulp paperbacks, each featuring a pretty, melancholic-looking nurse, Prince has created a vivid series of canvases that sit somewhere between his appropriated photoworks and joke paintings; the subject matter bringing to mind his Girlfriends series, as well as works such as Untitled (Three women looking in one direction), 1980.

Exaggerating the garish palette of these sixties covers, everything is painted out except for the titles of the books and the nurses themselves, who are washed over in various pastel shades and given white slashes across the face in approximations of surgical masks. The books’ titles – which include the classics Heartbreak Nurse, Dude Ranch Nurse, Aloha Nurse and Danger Nurse at Work – are left as grand captions over each image, with any other characters or text painted out in expressionist gashes of colour (although tantalising fragments of handsome doctors and cheesy bylines such as ‘Could her love thaw his frozen heart?’ are allowed to come through the layers of paint)." source
From nursingadvocacy.org: "The masks in particular point to critical problems today's nurses face, namely their invisibility and difficulty in speaking up for themselves. Nurses are poorly understood--as if hidden behind masks--but many feel they urgently need to shed them, to tell the world what they do and why it matters, to move, in Buresh and Gordon's phrase, "from silence to voice." In some of the paintings, the nurses' eyes burn out over the mask. This suggests real, sentient beings struggling to assert a genuine identity, and to overcome the obstacles placed in their way by the very society they are trying to save. Though it's unlikely Prince intended it, it's possible to see this exhibition as a harsh but constructive critique of nursing's invisibility and a call to action. As one veteran nurse noted in reaction to the paintings: "The masks are killing us.""
if you wanna read more about nurses here

JOEL PETER WITKIN

memento mori as leitmotif

USA, 1939 Joel Witkin claims that his unique visual sensibilities began to come about when, as a small child, he witnessed a terrible car accident in front of his home, in which a little girl was decapitated. He recalls her head rolling to his feet, her dead eyes staring upward. This was the chilling feeling and mood he tries to convey in each of his works. Joel-Peter Witkin was born on Sept, 13, 1939, in Brooklyn, N.Y. His father was Jewish and his mother was Roman Catholic. His parents were unable to transcend their religious differences and the two divorced when Witkin was young, the boy remaining with his mother. He attended grammar school at Saint Cecelia's in Brooklyn, and went on to Grover Cleveland High School. He also cites family difficulties as an inspiration for his work"

Cum*

Another boy playing tough with the ladies on the streets. I find all this reapropiation of porn quite interesting : males once more using ladies to express their existencial fears.

FaceHunting Jewels

Fantastic girl style captured by Yvan Face Hunter in Paris.
She is like the most outregeus sexy woman IN CENTURIES!
It is whorth noting that Yvan (the photographer) insisists in letting people know that most of the people he shoots in Paris are not French. I say: wherever she goes she will bring rainbows.

Le dumb american vs the frencies

Paul Rudd and Romany Malco are the main carachters in "The chateau" an EXCELLENT comedy about disfunctional american francophiles and ideas of racial identity. Interesting at so many levels: the romantic, the politic, and the human. Intelligent humor. For a trailer cklick here

Currently showing as part of IFC movies, in cinemas and TV.

General Cucumber

When you think all designers are only interested in becoming masters of the universe while charging extreme prices, help comes from New Zealand. GENERAL CUCUMBER is a store for the style hungry and not very deep pockets.
They are in the vanguard. Not only they have allocated the proper amount of attention to visual identity bringing attention from trend setters and early adapters but also marketing aspects such as intercontinental distribution, and pricing. Love their incursion in the global market of fashion and love their excercise of excellent branding.

...hang me out to dry

A visual identity

about me...well i like whisky, madrugada, tralfamadore, industrial silence, royal treatment plant, bulgavok, belgium beer, cinderella, volcanoes, lerstoel, pralines and cream, test icicles, darkness, amadeus, strange colour blue, kings of leon, the nightly diseased, 16 times on the moon, Nocturne in E minor Op72- No1,paul ansell, water, milk, 777, arequipe, brazil nuts, das experiment, northern soul, screens, back to the future, montreal, radiohead, curry, pad thais, snow, being colombian, road trips, camping, placebo, l'avenue, colombian coffee, almond croissants, cartagena, 24, indie, planes, vertigos, poland, world war II, krakow, the pianist, magnolia, live music, copenhagen, bikes, bandeja paisa, cranberry juice, mayonnaise, arepa, fresh juices, vampires, the sky, rain, lakes, not writing emails, travel, passports, nationalities, sweden, lapland, greenland, oceans eleven, blues, the 100 club, manhattan, manizales, pandebono, jedem osiem l, brick lane, animation, computers, german, fast reading, cinemas, drivng fast, smoking, staying up late, sun, blue eyes, converse, presto, canada, pierogi ruskie, photoshop, nandos chicken, taking photos, and quite possibly other things i cant think of now. My current location= Manizales-Colombia


Image of Juliet Lewis

Jen Kao

I have never feel atrackted to sequins like I do for this sequin jacket by Jen Kao

Josh Keyes

The artist: "My intention is to create work that asks questions about the implications of urban sprawl and its impact on the environment. I am interested in creating psychological narratives set in closed systems that express the behavior of and the interaction between humans and animals. The dystopian model creates a dynamic playing field where I can experiment with these ideas and forms. "

KNOTAN

FROM THE VILLAGE VOICE

Sui Generis? Anna Sui, others sue Forever 21: How original are you?






by Lynn Yaeger
September 25th, 2007
Did the prisoners at Leavenworth consider suing Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel for ripping off the saggy belt-less trousers they wear in the prison yard? Did hundreds of anonymous graffiti artists sue Stephen Sprouse for printing tags on Louis Vuitton satchels? OK, you're not going to believe this—but you know Anthropologie, that place where you just bought that thick, knit, flared sweater exactly like the one Dries Van Noten showed on his runway last year? The store where you purchased all those puffy jolie-laide fake Marni dresses in charmingly hideous prints last spring? The shop that currently stocks those ersatz Marc Jacobs jackets with all the military bells and whistles that you're trying to make up your mind about? Well, that very venue is currently pursuing a lawsuit against Forever 21 for—get this—knocking off Anthropologie clothes.

And just a few weeks ago, Marc Jacobs was furious with Suzy Menkes, the critic for the International Herald Tribune, who took apart his most recent runway collection, accusing Jacobs of borrowing rather too liberally from Comme des Garçons, Martin Margiela, and John Galliano. Jacobs fired back in the September 13 issue of Women's Wear Daily:

"I've never denied how influenced I am by Margiela, by Rei Kawakubo, those are people that inspire my work; I don't hide that. . . . Of course there are comparisons to other things. I'm a designer living in this world who loves fashion . . . I'm attentive to what's going on in fashion, I'm influenced by fashion, that's the way it is. I have never ever hidden it. I have never insisted on my own creativity, as Chanel would say. I have my interpretation of ideas I find very strong. Jil Sander is influenced by Comme des Garçons, Miuccia Prada is influenced by Comme des Garçons, everyone is influenced by Comme des Garçons, Martin Margiela. Anybody who's aware of what life is in a contemporary world is influenced by those designers."

Girl overload from Milan

trapped in images flying arround the world...thanks to all the fashion industry making life sexy every season. Instant satisfaction thans to La repubblica.it

under Paris' light

With Scott Schuman is not about the technique, it is about the "visual" language!
source