Our suspicions confirmed

Its true friends, Clay is gay:

Damaged...

GOVERNMENT PAYS FOR TV

...DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK THAT THIS OFFICIALLY MAKES OUR GOVERNMENT THE MOST RETARDED GROUP OF DICKHEADS ON EARTH?

Olaf Breuning: armies of mundane objects with googly eyes, potatoes vs. bread rolls, faces drawn on people's asses and legs, a white tourist playing with Ghanian children while wearing a gorilla mask, etc. etc... A teacher recommended this swiss artist to me and oh how happy i am that i had a look. Breuning approaches contemporary life and culture with an incredible wit and sense of humor and discusses his own practice with regards to pleasure as opposed to struggle. His incredibly humorous and terrifying video "Home 2" was selected and featured in the Whitney Biennial.


A short video of a studio visit:





A link to Breuning's video "Home 2", featured in the Whitney Biennial:

http://web.mac.com/olafbreuning/Films/home2.html

some recent work... finally!

some photos from a trip back to california and some from here in Chicago:

I know this work is not "brand new", but i was looking at Peter Beste's work earlier, specifically the Norwegian Black Metal series. I found myself totally fascinated with Beste's job of documenting an amazingly interesting sub-culture of an already sub-genre: Norwegian black metal. This relatively small movement (historically at least, in terms of known cultural movements,) has spread it's roots surprisingly far and has an ever-growing fan base all around the globe. Beste's choice to document such a fascinating contemporary movement headed by musicians who embrace their viking roots; drinking mead, sacrificing goats, burning churches, and generally being involved in an ongoing brutality contest, is engaging enough on it's own. However, more impressive is the emanating feeling of complete comfort and acceptance which Beste seems to achieve among these harsh-looking figures. This is highlighted by the fact that Beste's website includes his other work, namely his "Houston Rap Culture" series, in which one can sense the same feeling of acceptance from the subjects photographed. I doubt i am alone in admiring the extreme versatility that someone must exhibit in order to fit in comfortably with dirty south gangster rappers and then travel to the extreme opposite end of the cultural scale and be able to achieve photographs equally as intimate amongst a predominately young, white, male group that espouses church burnings, animal sacrifice, and "corpse paint" make up-wearing, along with producing frostbitten music that seems to have risen from the very bowels of hell itself. After taking a careful look at the Rap Culture series and the Black Metal series one could justifiably make the inference that neither of the groups are really that different when it comes right down to it. Although specific interests and general appearance obviously bring forth gargantuan differences between the two groups, both seem to be pariahs of "normal" day-to-day society, pushed to the wayside for a reason not too blatantly obvious, (beyond physical appearance). This ambiguity allows for the synthesis of an uncanny legitimacy; a certain feeling of being proud about one's given situation that arises and in a way, insures a guaranteed identifiability with the "common man". I like that Beste doesn't make a huge effort to explore how these subcultures became the way they are, but instead simply presents a detailed and personal examination of these people just the way they are... That is to say- No bullshit, detailed, guesswork attempting to "blame" the rise of these groups on a certain person or oppressive society.Though these inferences can easily be made, Beste instead chooses to move-in incredibly close, providing an overwhelmingly honest portrait of how the group at hand goes about its day-to-day life within the larger context of a society that seems to rarely if ever, cast a glance at the potent idealism and individuality lying just beneath its surface.

Dear Peter Beste: Nice Fucking Job!

http://peterbeste.com

DONATE!!!!?

Please, someone be so kind as to buy this for me or lend me money that i dont have to pay back....Ah fuck i'll probably just increase my student loans. Please email me if you'd like to help me buy this. Thanks! Cool!