Ryan Dooley, street artist, made this little documentary about his group of painter friends working in Italy. They are painters who paint on walls. They have nothing to do with what we know as ‘taggers,’ who are simply imbeciles who like to write their names on things. Painters are people who make art. This group seems to find walls in Italy that need some paint applied. It’s beautiful.
Someone at YouTube named Chrspck went into the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on April 10 and shot a photograph of every painting. Museums and galleries have no business forbidding photography as long as it doesn’t use a flash or get in the way of visitors. I love seeing all the paintings go by. It makes me want to go to the museum.
This is British artist Banksy sneaking out at night to deface a wall that has a security camera. It think in general that it’s a pretty neat idea to deface, destroy, disable, or demolish any 
wall that has a security camera. This artist is unidentified because he probably likes it that way, makes more money that way, and avoids arrest that way. He uses stencils a lot. Seems like he can draw. Seems angry in a mild sort of way. Seems like he runs away a lot. But I think his pictures are good. I like them. I keep looking for more of them. The odd part is that I don’t look at them for long. Very short lifespans. About seven seconds. Then finished. Like signs passing on the road. They hit fast then run.
I think he should make a picture that you are supposed to look at for an hour. But when have you ever seen someone doing that? Stand in front of picture for an hour. You’d think they were nuts, wouldn’t you?
About art galleries Banksy says:
These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires, the public never has any real say in what art they see.
Damn right. When you give the public a real say in what art they are going to see, you know what you get?
A T-shirt.
Some abject fool of an artist named Jack Mackie made a deal with the city of Seattle to embed an artwork called Dancers’ Series: Steps into a sidewalk back in 1979. Then a photographer named Mike Hipple went and did a logical thing; he took a photograph of a public sidewalk with the artwork in it. Now the nitwit fraudulent artist is suing him for using his artwork in a photograph! It’s jackasses like this Mackie dude that need to be put out of business. By this jerk’s reasoning I would have to pay royalties to all of the architects responsible for the design of every single building in the Manhattan skyline if I took a photograph of New York. Ridiculous! This fool is an insult to artists and intellectual property courts all over the country.
The only good thing about this Jack Mackie art is that people get to step on it.
I have an idea for a great photograph. Someone goes up to Seattle with a jackhammer for a 4:00 am dig-and-run operation then takes a photograph of the hole that’s left and its caption reads, ‘Please Fill This Hole.’
And this would be something to do to every public artwork attached to a moronic lawsuit like Mr. Mackie’s. Every time one of these lawsuits is filed, destroy the artwork. Eventually, corporate midgets like Jack Mackie will go away.
And another thing, Mr. Mackie, I recognize the concrete incorporated in your artwork on the sidewalk. It’s extremely distinctive. My uncle owns the mill that made that concrete and he will expect to be compensated for the use of his concrete in your public artwork. You owe him $600,000. He’s coming to collect. His name is Lou. Smile when you open the door.
Artist and animator Theodore Ushev created this poster for the purpose of spreading the word about helping victims of the Haiti earthquake. They need enormous help very quickly to prevent even more deaths than have already been suffered. He told me there was no need to ask permission to use the picture. It was created to be used. Thank you to an artist using his magnificent talents to assist in an emergency.
Here are some ways to give assistance:
The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations Food Program are putting medical supplies, doctors, nurses, food and water on the ground in Haiti to try to prevent the worsening catastrophe and enormous loss of life.
If you have one of these cell carriers:
Alltel
AT&T
Sprint-Nextel
T-Mobile
U.S. Cellular
Verizon Wireless
You can donate $5 to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund simply by texting the keyword “GIVE” to “2HELP” (24357).
This is an odd post and I’m not entirely sure I can pull it off. The film above is called Montparnasse. It was made in 1929 by Eugene Deslaw. I watched the film and want to write about it cold, without looking up Mr. Deslaw on Google. I’ll check up on him after I’ve posted this and see if I’m even in the ballpark.
Watch the film all the way through. If you think it’s just a collection of boring tourist shots in Paris with nothing happening, then stop reading and leave now because this post is for the four out of one hundred who catch the drift of the camera work. Deslaw was shooting in the Paris of Pablo Picasso and Matisse. He appears to have had a close connection to art and the cafe life of the city. His film is full of odd angles and closeups. He runs up onto a balcony in order to shoot straight down at some tabletops. He catches a woman applying makeup at about the 13-minute mark and makes a shot that is worth paying for. He films traffic and buildings, windows, curbs, chairs, newspapers, smokers, drinkers, snake-handlers, paintings, and water. He’s fascinated by his city and by his camera. He’s making art. He set out one morning with his camera and went around making art. Everyone was happy to be alive there in Paris in 1929 and he was playing his part in it. Films made at that time tend to have this cheerful experimental quality. Deslaw is nearly drawing with his camera. It’s an immediate act of finding visual meaning. He was walking and was struck by something and filmed it in an excited state. He was consciously being an artist.
The film he made is beautiful. It’s very hard to make a film with its kind of beauty today. Think about it a little. What would you do? Go to a Best Buy and look around for a brand new digital camera. You know, one of those shiny silver things with the HD viewfinder and all the buttons. One of those? Then what? You’d march out into the neighborhood with this gleaming tourist gizmo and look like a ninny bending over to film trash as it floated down into a storm drain? You’d walk up to a guy behind a news stand and ask to film him? Really?
Yes. That’s what you’d do. You’d get a little camera and do just that. And here’s your assignment: you must do this with the total conviction that you are about to make the greatest film ever made about your subject matter. Set out for a particular street corner and make a magnificent short film or a long one about that corner and everything on it. Spend an entire day doing only that. Skip lunch. Just stay there and make your film without ever entertaining even the slightest doubt that you are working on something of incredible importance and value. It’s going to be very hard to do. Some people will walk by and giggle. Some will become belligerent and tell you to stop. Film those people. Run away if they chase you. Then come back and continue your work. Remember that you are an artist on a mission to make something and absolutely nothing will stop you. Then come back home and figure out how to edit it and then put it online. Tell me about it even and I’ll watch it.
In 1929 it would have been recognized by the maker of this film that a camera is a camera and it will make your film if you want it to. Ever wonder why you don’t ever see Steven Spielberg out and about with his little camera making a movie for himself? It’s strange isn’t it? Could you imagine Pablo Picasso or David Hockney never carrying a sketchbook to make some quick pictures while having coffee or dinner? I couldn’t imagine such a thing? So when was the last time you ever heard of a Spielberg or Scorsese out with a camera making little films for their web site?
You could almost think of all the decades of massive budget film production and the studio structures built to support the film industry and film schools as an organized effort to confuse the issue and make people forget what a film actually is. We think of screenwriters and producers and agents and superstars and all the talk shows. But it’s very hard for the artist to walk out with the camera and go make a film the way a painter would work alone on a canvas. The Montparnasse film should help to illuminate the proper use of the camera for anyone who’s interested.