Bread Body Parts

Since 2006 Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom (whose family also runs a bakery) has used dough as his medium to sculpt gruesome renditions of hand, feet, heads, torsos and other body parts. The results are unnervingly realistic with eyes, lips and other details constructed out of cashews, raisins and the like. A lack of hair and blood-like glazes make the work all the more creepy. Sold at his family's bakery in Ratchaburi, Thailand, he displays the parts wrapped like food in plastic and hung from meat hooks. Apparently, the art is in fact edible and tastes like regular bread.

Watch the video below to see Unarrom at work and some visitors' reactions.

Selling Solo vs. Working with a Gallery

Ed Winkleman weighs in on Selling Solo vs. Working with a Gallery.

Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary by director Jennifer Baichwal, follows Edward Burtynsky to China, as he captures the effects of the country’s massive industrial revolution. I was already familiar with Ed Burtynsky's work and had often seen his prints hung throughout his photo lab Toronto Image Works while I worked in Toronto. Normally I'm not a fan of landscape photography but the scope of his work spoke to my interest in globalization and its effects on the environment. I was really looking forward to seeing this documentary but was ultimately disappointed. My expectation when watching a documentary about a photographer is to gain insight into their thought process either by hearing their commentary with particular photographs or seeing how they work with their chosen subject. Here, however, the director just tries to create a cinematic equivalent of Burtynsky's still images rather than a documentary on the artistic process of Burtynsky himself. So the end result is a film that would be better as a coffee table book.

Hey, Hot Shot! Opening

From Hey, Hot Shot! "We are excited to announce the five photographers selected for the first edition of Hey, Hot Shot! 2008:

Juliane Eirich
Derek Henderson
Roc Herms Pont
Kate Orne
Colleen Plumb

Please join us for the opening reception for their exhibition on Friday, August 8. The show will be on view at Jen Bekman Gallery (6 Spring Street) through August 23."

How to Succeed in Commercial Photography

This is a great video series with Selina Maitreya, author of "How to Succeed in Commercial Photography". If you need help defining your vision and applying it to your portfolio and website you need to view these videos.

Leigh Ledare's Oedipal Complex

Every photographer has his or her obsession and for Leigh Ledare it's his mum. "The photographer recently released a book of images, Pretend You’re Actually Alive, which features his mother, a 59-year-old ballerina-turned stripper, in various stages of undress. Some of the pictures include lingerie and boyfriends; many feature a come-hither gaze that wouldn’t be so jarring if the photographer weren’t her son. Ledare, 32, says the project began about eight years ago, when he paid his mother a visit in Seattle. “Basically,” he says, “I arrived home one Christmas, and I hadn’t seen her in a year, and she came to the door completely naked.”"

The rest of the article can be found here.

Hipsterdom

Adbusters has an article about hipsterdom where "We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality."

"With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace, the idea of “hipsterdom” is left wide open for attack. And yet, it is this ironic lack of authenticity that has allowed hipsterdom to grow into a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture. Most critics make a point of attacking the hipster’s lack of individuality, but it is this stubborn obfuscation that distinguishes them from their predecessors, while allowing hipsterdom to easily blend in and mutate other social movements, sub-cultures and lifestyles."

"Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it."

"Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over."

NYPD's finest

Since I've rediscovered the joy of cycling I became interested in participating in New York's Critical Mass. While Critical Mass is viewed as a monthly political protest-rides, I couldn't imagine the situation would escalate to this.

The NY Times has an article about the incident. Bike Snob has a interesting take on the situation, "And one of the most important truths I’ve learned is that where there are crowds there is stupidity. When large numbers of people get together, stupid things happen, and you’re almost always better off simply getting as far away from the crowd as possible."

Young Women of the F.L.D.S.

Last night I finished reading Escape by Carolyn Jessop, one of the most bizarre memoirs I've come across. A recent review notes, "Seventeen years after being forced into a polygamous marriage, Jessop escaped from the cultlike Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints with her eight children. She recounts the horrid events that led her to break free from the oppressive world she knew and how she has managed to survive since escaping, despite threats and legal battles with her husband and the Church. Though sometimes her retelling overflows with colorful foreshadowing and commentary on how exceptional she is, the everyday details she reveals about this polygamous society are devastating and tragic."

The latest issue of The New York Times Magazine has an article about The Children of God, discusses the world of the F.L.D.S., a radical sect of the Mormons.

Stephanie Sinclair of the VI Network took the pictures and I posted some of my favourites. You can also see them all in this slide show.

The Girl Effect

The powerful social and economic change brought about when girls have the opportunity to participate in their society. Girl + education/opportunity/a fighting chance = change the world.