Category Archives: Art

Printing Banksy: Modern Multiples Creates the LA Prints

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

The art is thin, but secret identities are always fascinating. No artist needs one. They are always put in place to cover up a glaring weakness.  In Banksy’s case, the weakness is that he is simply a mildly talented, professionally skilled illustrator with some measure of showmanship.  The showmanship is the primary industry in his case.  He draws for people who are texting.  There is absolutely no art being produced.  None at all.  But that is one hell of grand joke if you ask me!  Banksy naked would simply be the emperor with no clothes.  I do however believe that the energy and impulses behind the current explosion of street art will lead directly into the next great movement in art.  But that movement will most assuredly not include Banksy.

This is a video about the Los Angeles fine art printer, Richard Duardo, who worked with Banksy to prepare for a 2006 gallery show. The film was made by Brad Beyer and Robert Dragan. There’s an official website.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUzUQfyA1sg&feature=player_embedded&w=560

Downtown 81 – A Film Starring Jean Michel Basquiat

by Cimaxion

Mature Content:

This is a 1980 film starring American artist Jean Michel Basquiat. It follows him around and through the downtown New York art and music scene, presenting real people and events in a barely fictionalized semi-documentary. It’s a fascinating look into the world of 1980 New York and the quickly rising star painter who was to pass away in 1988. It’s a glimpse of a New York just a few years before it was bombed by The Gap.  It was directed by Edo Bertoglio.

You can stare straight into the open face of Basquiat and find more mystery than Banksy could conjure with a black velvet cloak, top hat and a mask.

Pixel Art Documentary

by Cimaxion

I loathe geek culture. Its practitioners and reporters consistently talk about pixel art and steampunk. But removing the pixel art from their smartypants realm and into the realm of the artist does have its merits. It seems useful to at least consider what small blocks of light have to offer.

Monologue Under White Light! – A Film by Samira Eskandarfar

by Cimaxion

A ravishing beauty from Iran! Look at this mysterious and subtle film by director Samira Eskandarfar. Her figures drift through time and space in a stage setting that seems open-ended and universal. The underlying themes and messages are probably far more complex than I can ascertain without a proper understanding of Iranian culture. But the film stands as a mysterious and slightly harrowing glimpse into the progress of attraction, love and communication between individuals.  The characters, played by Kazem Sayahi Saharkhiz and Faranak Miri, engage in mundane conversation, offer each other drinks, smoke cigarettes, make eyes at each other, play music on a tape recorder and disappoint each other in all the little ways of a normal life.  But they seem symbolic of something greater and perhaps very much to do with the filmmaker’s Iran.  There are some amazing artists working with enormous expressive power in Iran.  Samira Eskandarfar is one of them.

By the way, the filmmaker is also a painter.

Visit the filmmaker’s web site.