Author: greg

Mad Hot Clearances

Once again, a highly acclaimed documentary is nearly wrestled to the ground by the exorbitant cost of clearing the rights to music–including a ringtone–that appears in the film. Not talking about the soundtrack here, either, but the diagetic (i.e., in-story, on-camera) sound that permeates the real world where the filmmakers shot.
This time, it’s Mad Hot Ballroom, directed by Marilyn Agrelo and produced by Amy Sewell. The filmmakers spent $140,000, 45% of their budget, to clear the rights. Stay Free! interviewed Sewell about the IP challenges they faced, which went well beyond the music:

Well, we had to watch out for billboards and Frito-Lay trucks all the time. But I usually didn’t care, we would just shoot. The biggest danger with clearances is when they interfere with documenting real life. Something spontaneous like a cell phone ringing is different than a planned event. If filmmakers have to worry about these things, documentaries will cease to be documentaries! What happens when the girls go shopping and there’s music playing in the stores? We were lucky because in our movie the music wasn’t identifiable, but otherwise what are we supposed to do: walk up to the store manager and say, “Excuse me but can you turn off your radio?”

That sucks. Of course, we say that all the time when we go into stores. It can be an audio pain to edit a scene with a song playing through it.

How did Mad Hot Ballroom survive the copyright cartel? [stay free! via waxy]
Previously: Clearing Tarnation cost approximately 2,200 times that film’s $218 production budget.

Bring The Spiral Jetty Into Your Home!

Do you ever wish you still had those Matisse Cutout posters from freshman year? Well, the good old days are back, my art advertising-loving friend.
BetterWall will sell you an actual, cleaned up, polyvinyl street banner from your favorite museum exhibition–or, if that one’s sold out, from some other exhibition you chose to make yourself look sophisticated– that’s ready for hanging right in your own home!
They’re cheaper than art, but hella more expensive than posters. But if you’ve got $300-1800 to spend, and you don’t want to buy actual art for some reason, BetterWall is for you.

Buy one of 30 Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty banners from the 2004 MoCA retrospective, $549 [betterwall.com, via nyt]

Young, Dumb, and Full Of Coke

modern_review.jpg
You have to admit, she does look rather mannish.”

For a brief moment in the early 90’s, The Modern Review was really good, almost a smarter, smugger Spy, if such a thing can be imagined. Then it started to turn in on itself, then it imploded in a brawlful of recriminations between its two egomaniacal founders Julie Burchill and Toby Young [who both happened to bed the magazine’s soap-operatically named would-be-usurper/editrix Charlotte Raven] and then–jump forward ten years so I don’t have to recount the whole annoying Vanity Fair Toby Young saga again, thank you–well, and then Monday at 9PM GMT, Mark Halliley’s documentary about the coke-fuelled rise and fall of MR airs on BBC4.
From his account of the making of in the MediaGuardian, the whole show is a bunch of self-absorbed liars and cokeheads in various stages of denial and/or sobriety who continue bitching about each other instead of doing something more productive with their once-promising talents. Which sounds about right. Enjoy.
[And this, from someone who counts Toby as a friend of two different friends.]
Julie and Toby in the hall of mirrors [mediaguardian.co.uk]

Sleepwalkers at White Columns

One of my top picks of 2004 for film/video art, Sleepwalkers, by the British collective Inventory, will be included in the first ever US installation of their work at White Columns. It opens Friday 17 June and runs through 23 July.
Sleepwalkers was filmed at an “Americana” festival in the UK, where Britons gather to celebrate such high-minded touchstones of American culture as monster trucks, RV’s, and big rig tractor trailers with huge, pimped out sleeper cabs in the back. If White Columns’ a-rockin’, don’t bother knockin’, just go on in.
Other People’s Projects: Inventory [WhiteColumns]
Previously: My 2004 Video Art Top Ten Seven

The Views Of Venice

Finally hearing more reports and reviews of Venice. So Francesco Vezzoli’s trailer for an imaginary remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula is the favorite of Artforum-istes and the Guardian alike? How amazingly uncritical of these critics to not notice that a star-filled, 5-minute trailer filled with S&M orgies–a contrived and condensed meta-work for a film that won’t exist, a series of shorthanded, empty, titillating referents–is perfectly and cynically designed for ADD-addled art worlders at a sprawling Biennale? Don’t these people know when they’re being targeted?
Also in Artforum: “I’m still bored.” and “Math is hard! Let’s go shopping!”
The Times is pleasantly relieved, if not surprised.
And WPS1, well who knows what WPS1 thinks, since their live-via-FM programs from Venice are still not online?
[update from Our Man In Venice:

Subject: Hands off my boy Vezzoli.
> Sorry my friend — Vezzoli’s work was one of the highlights of an absolutely
> terrible Biennale. Ignore (as usual) Kimmelman’s review; Claire Bishop at
> artforum.com had it about right. The arsenale was the worst p.o.s. I have
> ever seen — so terrible that I have issued a fatwa against Rosa Martinez.
> The national pavillions were passable; the italian pavillion was perfectly
> respectable. Offsite, Pippilotti Rist, Karen Kilimnik and Olafur Eliasson
> looked great. The Lucian Freud show at Museo Correr was perhaps the best
> thing in all of Venice (other than Paul Allen’s yacht — any relation?).

On the list of somewhat dubious accomplishments, then, “Highlight of the Biennale” ranks slightly below “better than Phantom Menace,” but still miles ahead of “well-known blogger.”

Mixtapes, Hip Hop, & Hypocrisy In The NYT

The Times’ Kelefa Sanneh sounds pissed off, but weary, as he unpacks the contradictions and outright hypocrisy of mixtapes and the RIAA’s stunt raid on Mondo Kim’s last week:

So while record labels donate money to honor a man who helped promote mixtapes, the trade group representing the labels cracks down on those who sell them. And who goes to jail? Well, suffice it to say that the police haven’t arrested any of the major-label record executives who profit from the hype generated by mixtapes.And who scout out new talent at Kim’s. And the RIAA neglects to mention that the artists whose authority they claim also work hand in hand with mixtape producers to release, promote, test, and experiment with tracks.
Mixtape Crackdown Sends a Mixed Message [nyt]

I Cut Thigh With A Little Help From My Flense

drawing_restraint9.jpgFor the first time, Matthew Barney and Bjork have collaborated on a film and soundtrack called Drawing Restraint 9, after some of Barney’s earliest, pre-Cremaster works. In DR9, the two visit a Japanese whaling ship in Nagasaki, undergo various Shinto wedding-inspired rituals, form and reform a large Vaseline sculpture, and then themselves transform into whales by cutting each others feet and legs off with flensing knives.
Bjork’s soundtrack incorporates Japanese instruments, vocalizations, and both folk and court music traditions.
[No, I didn’t know, either. Flensing is the process of cutting strips of blubber off of a whale carcass, as in Moby Dick, or this 1970 National Geographic photograph of a flensing Icelandic whaler.]
No word yet on when/where this will be released. The film premieres July 1 along with an exhibit of Barney’s work at the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa, Japan, and the cd comes out later that month. I love that a museum with this name still follows the antique Japanese corporate tradition of requiring postcard requests for seats. [kanazawa21.jp, via pitchfork]

Drawing Restraint 9 [bjork.com, via kottke, archinect]

What do Kim’s Video and Janet Cardiff Have In Common?

Why, copyright, for one thing. And a quaint, lingering fixation on outmoded technology for another.
Kim’s St Mark’s location got busted by the NYPD, the Feds–“everybody was here,” says one nonbusted employee–the other day, who confiscated all the computers and arrested four employees.
Although the store has been a speakeasy-type outlet for bootleg copies of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle and Todd Haynes’ Barbie doll classic, Superstar!: The Karen Carpenter Story, neither Barbara Gladstone nor Christine Vachon–as intimidating as they are–was behind the raid.
No, it’s an even scarier outfit–yes, it’s possible–the RIAA, who patted the NYPD on the head in a statement given to MTV. Apparently the problem was the store’s brisk mixtapes business, which, according to the RIAA, were largely “urban in nature.”
And speaking of urban in nature [sweet segue, right?], artist Janet Cardiff’s audio/photo walking tour of Central Park, which was commissioned last year by the Public Art Fund, was so popular they’re bringing it back again this summer. The piece, titled “Her Long Black Hair,” can be experienced by picking up a CD player, CD, and stack of photos at a kiosk on Central Park South, Thursdays through Sundays until Sept. 11, only between 10 and 3:30.
I guess we should be only slightly thankful the original equipment–a Victrola in a wheelbarrrow and a watercolor set–didn’t work out. It’s nice to know that Cardiff’s work is so popular, but it’s too bad there’s no easier way to distribute a 45-minute piece of audio and a handful of images to large numbers of people…a Magical Media Mover– call it the MMM for short–and some kind of player for it, a 3MP… Oh, I give up. Never happen.
Police Raid Video Store in East Village in Piracy Case [nyt]
Police Seize 50 Cent, Jay-Z Mixtapes In Raid On NYC Store [mtv, 50 Cent? You mean the guy who launched his career via mixtapes? Someone’s hatin’ the game here.]
Read info from 2004 about “Her Long Black Hair,” by Janet Cardiff,, which is being restaged June 16-Sept. 12 [publicartfund.org]

WPS1: Northern Italian Exposure

northern_exposure.jpgGood Morning, Cicely! Whether that’s Cicely Brown or Cicely, Alaska, only time will tell. WPS1 is broadcasting live from a party barge near the Arsenale, site of the Venice Biennale.
The web audio programs will should be up within a couple of hours days, max, of their actual creation, so if you’re the other [*cough*] art world groupie not in Venice at the moment , you can still follow along online someday.
But who cares what you think if you’re not in Venice, anyway? And if you are, you won’t care, because you’ll be gettin’ your WPS1 on over the air, via one of the 10,000 free WPS1 fixed-frequency radios being distributed to the masses of VIP’s. (And you’ve probably expended too much energy trying to get it upgraded for one of the 5,000 VVIP radios, which, although they look less cool, still, in an irrational way you can never adequately explain to your parents over Thanksgiving dinner in that leafy suburb you fled with disdain, signal your ascendance into the top third of your class, 67th percentile, which if you think about it, is barely passing. Hope they’re grading the art world on a curve.)
Anyway, by pumping out a low-power FM signal on the ground [sic] in Venice, WPS1 is making a play to become the local radio station for the art world’s small town. Entertain yourself with the notions of artmacher flashmobs and storming the Arsenale if you like, but it suddenly reminds me of Chris, the DJ on Northern Exposure, who later packed it all in, changed his name to Aiden, moved to the city, and hooked up with a neurotic sex columnist.

WPS1 Live Venice Broadcast Schedule [wps1.org, most of Monday’s shows are up. must be one helluva party on that barge]

WPS1: Northern Italian Exposure

northern_exposure.jpgGood Morning, Cicely! Whether that’s Cicely Brown or Cicely, Alaska, only time will tell. WPS1 is broadcasting live from a party barge near the Arsenale, site of the Venice Biennale.
The web audio programs will should be up within a couple of hours days, max, of their actual creation, so if you’re the other [*cough*] art world groupie not in Venice at the moment , you can still follow along online someday.
But who cares what you think if you’re not in Venice, anyway? And if you are, you won’t care, because you’ll be gettin’ your WPS1 on over the air, via one of the 10,000 free WPS1 fixed-frequency radios being distributed to the masses of VIP’s. (And you’ve probably expended too much energy trying to get it upgraded for one of the 5,000 VVIP radios, which, although they look less cool, still, in an irrational way you can never adequately explain to your parents over Thanksgiving dinner in that leafy suburb you fled with disdain, signal your ascendance into the top third of your class, 67th percentile, which if you think about it, is barely passing. Hope they’re grading the art world on a curve.)
Anyway, by pumping out a low-power FM signal on the ground [sic] in Venice, WPS1 is making a play to become the local radio station for the art world’s small town. Entertain yourself with the notions of artmacher flashmobs and storming the Arsenale if you like, but it suddenly reminds me of Chris, the DJ on Northern Exposure, who later packed it all in, changed his name to Aiden, moved to the city, and hooked up with a neurotic sex columnist.

WPS1 Live Venice Broadcast Schedule [wps1.org, most of Monday’s shows are up. must be one helluva party on that barge]

Alex Kuczyinski’s Desperate Plea For Netflix Recommendations

How else to explain this totally out-of-nowhere reference to one of the worst “short films on a theme by different directors” compilations EVER? Kuczyinski is fast becoming the Times’ new crazy auntie, Joyce Wadler.
“I wandered from one rack to the next, dragging my mitts over the textures and beading, feeling like Buck Henry in the 1987 movie Aria, when he spends an ecstasy-fueled evening stroking the iconographic statuary at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Calif.”
Let Clothes Be Your Guide to Adventure [nyt]
Look–but don’t touch, rent, or buy–Aria at imdb.com
Hey Alex, I have a Netflix recommendation for you–switch to greencine.

Alex Kuczyinski’s Desperate Plea For Netflix Recommendations

How else to explain this totally out-of-nowhere reference to one of the worst “short films on a theme by different directors” compilations EVER? Kuczyinski is fast becoming the Times’ new crazy auntie, Joyce Wadler.
“I wandered from one rack to the next, dragging my mitts over the textures and beading, feeling like Buck Henry in the 1987 movie Aria, when he spends an ecstasy-fueled evening stroking the iconographic statuary at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Calif.”
Let Clothes Be Your Guide to Adventure [nyt]
Look–but don’t touch, rent, or buy–Aria at imdb.com
Hey Alex, I have a Netflix recommendation for you–switch to greencine.

Don’t Book That Spiral Jetty Trip Just Yet

Recent record flooding in Utah has raised the water level (elevation, that is) of the Great Salt Lake to a five-year record high of 4,198 feet, enough to submerge the Spiral Jetty and scuttle any art world latecomer’s summer pilgrimage plans.
With mountain runoff, the lake is expected to keep rising through July.
Meanwhile, the rest of the artworld is in Venice, which is also sinking. Coincidence? I wonder.
Floods pump life back into lake [sltrib, thanks, dad]

Don’t Book That Spiral Jetty Trip Just Yet

Recent record flooding in Utah has raised the water level (elevation, that is) of the Great Salt Lake to a five-year record high of 4,198 feet, enough to submerge the Spiral Jetty and scuttle any art world latecomer’s summer pilgrimage plans.
With mountain runoff, the lake is expected to keep rising through July.
Meanwhile, the rest of the artworld is in Venice, which is also sinking. Coincidence? I wonder.
Floods pump life back into lake [sltrib, thanks, dad]