Thursday 18 March 2010

Ryan McGinley

The one and only Ryan McGinley, everyone knows him or should do and everyone should love him, will keep this short and sweet, check out his amazing short film for Pringle's SS10 collection starring Tilda Swinton.

SS10 Pringle of Scotland Tilda Swinton / Ryan McGinley Film from GlassmatesTV on Vimeo.



© Pringle/Ryan McGinley

He has an exhibition opening tonight in NY (boo!) at:
The Team Gallery
83 Grand St
New York
NY 10013
Exhibit feature his new series "Everybody knows this is Nowhere" which can be seen at: ryanmcginley.com


Also ch-ch-ch-check out the below selection from Ryan's amazing 2009 project Moonmilk view the full series here


River (Clouds) 2009


Coco (Moon River) 2009


Tracy (Stone Rose) 2009


Jonas (Glow Falls) 2009


Keyhole (Grand Canyon) 2009

As always © Ryan McGinley

Thursday 11 March 2010

Harri Pälviranta - Badscapes

After the previous post, I felt it unfair not to also feature the beautiful Badscapes series, a series of landscapes shot around at various battlefields and training camps.



Salla, Finland - Winter war combat area



Dungerque, France



Fort Irwin national training center, USA - Center for desert war training



The road of Raate, Finland - Winter war combat area



Fradrikshavn, Denmark - Image photographed from the top of a German bunker facing Sweden



Nennig, Germany - Second WW combat fields

as before see Harri Pälviranta and all image © Harri Pälviranta

Harri Pälviranta - Guns at Home 2004-2007

Harri Pälviranta is a Finnish photographer based out of Helsinki, he is currently working as a researcher at the University of Art and Design Helsinki. His projects are a cultural examination of Social communication, he describes his work as "My artistic practise is clearly photographic, and issues I touch upon are related to societal topics. Thematically my practise has been twofold: on the one hand majority of my work has discussed issues relating to violence (both in structural level and as concrete form of action), and on the other hand I have touched upon topics relating to male being and production of male identity"
see more of his projects at Harri Pälviranta

Below is his project Guns at Home 2004-2007 he describes this project as:

"There are guns in many Albanian homes, both guns ment for hunting purposes and illegal guns. Illegal guns are quite often Kalashnikovs. Reason for people having these illegal guns is in the revolt in 1997, when the people went to barricades and finally rushed into the weapon storages managed by the government robbing them empty. When situation calmed down the government asked the people to return the stolen weaponry. Some of the guns got returned, many of them stayed as a hidden property of the people and fair number of them were smuggled outside Albania. People having these weapons at home is unspoken common knowledge.

Originating to these happenings and being based in the earlier history it may be stated that Albanians have close relationship with guns. There are a lot of them out in the public as well.

Normal way of storing the weapons is having the actual gun in one place, the bullets in an another place and the magazin in the third place. This proves the guns are not ment for sudden use but rather for more serious cases."












all images © Harri Pälviranta

Monday 1 March 2010

The Greatest Book About The Greatest Movie Never Made

How did I not know about this!!! One day i shall own this book, even if im a kidney short of a pair.
Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, by Taschen, is a compendium of one of the most significant parts of Stanley Kubrick's life.

Tucked inside of a carved-out hardback book, all the elements from Stanley Kubrick's archives that readers need to imagine what his unmade film about the emperor might have been like, including a facsimile of the script. The collector's edition is limited to 1,000 numbered copies rrp £650 - now sold out but can find on ebay for £1500

For 40 years, Kubrick fans and film buffs have wondered about the director's mysterious unmade film on Napoleon Bonaparte. Slated for production immediately following the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s "Napoleon" was to be at once a character study and a sweeping epic, replete with grandiose battle scenes featuring thousands of extras. To write his original screenplay, Kubrick embarked on two years of intensive research; with the help of dozens of assistants and an Oxford Napoleon specialist, he amassed an unparalleled trove of research and preproduction material, including approximately 15,000 location scouting photographs and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. No stone was left unturned in Kubrick's nearly-obsessive quest to uncover every piece of information history had to offer about Napoleon. But alas, Kubrick’s movie was not destined to be: the film studios, first M.G.M. and then United Artists, decided such an undertaking was too risky at a time when historical epics were out of fashion.

TASCHEN’s sumptuous, limited-edition tribute to this unmade masterpiece makes Kubrick’s valiant work on "Napoleon" available to fans for the first time. Herein, readers can peruse a selection of Kubrick’s correspondence, various costume studies, location scouting photographs, research material, script drafts, and more, each category of material in its own book. Kubrick’s final draft is reproduced in facsimile while the other texts are tidily kenneled into one volume where they dare not interfere with the visual material. All of these books are tucked inside of—or shall we say hiding in?—a carved-out reproduction of a Napoleon history book.

The text book features the complete original treatment, essays examining the screenplay in historical and dramatic contexts, an essay by Jean Tulard on Napoleon in cinema, and a transcript of interviews Kubrick conducted with Oxford professor Felix Markham. The culmination of years of research and preparation, this unique publication offers readers a chance to experience the creative process of one of cinema’s greatest talents as well as a fascinating exploration of the enigmatic figure that was Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Sourced from Taschen's site

below is a selection of the pages including photographs, the handwritten script and includes the carved out display book. Below also features 2 videos;
first up we have the editor Alison Castle with Christine Kubrick © Taschen



and second up we have mmparis - unboxing of the book ©mmparis














all images © Taschen