(Image, concept and design: Black Milk-Tronic, album cover art by Fatbeats A&R Bill Sharp, Black Milk and Skinny Boys Graphix.)

What ever happened to album art? It’s around, but goes mostly unnoticed.  Not only is the new Black Milk album, Tronic, a contender for the transformation of new millenium hip-hop to higher ground – its artwork makes you go hmmmm.  The concept and design are simplistic but somehow speak to the world’s transitional state.  One of movement and potential liberation from historical baggage to the future self-actualization of the planet. Like the album, the artwork is a bit old school. But, there’s something that takes you into the future that you can’t quite put your finger on. The albums special hologram cover might just make you want to own the hard copy and save the download for later.

Listen to Black Milk’s TRONIC…

Its been said before history is often his story.  Those who control the means of production get to create the master narrative.  As the democratization of media unfolds in the 21st century more and more stories are accessible to larger and larger audiences.  Two stories with rich local histories, global implications and misrepresentation in mainstream media are the stories of Palestine and Graffiti. The book Subjective Atlas of Palestine, a project by Dutch designer Annelys de Vet, includes artwork about Palestine from the perspective of the countries own artists, designers and photographers.  Its premise being – “Sublime landscapes, tranquil urban scenes, frolicking children; who would associate these images with Palestine? All too often the Western media shows the country’s gloomy side, and Palestinians as aggressors. It is this that makes identifying with them virtually impossible. If we are to relate to the Palestinians other images are needed, images seen from a cultural and more human vantage point.”

(Image: New Flags for Palestine, p.244-245, Subjective Atlas of Palestine)

Visual art and all forms of media have a significant role to play as negotiation, communication and collaboration become the new cornerstones of power relations on a global scale.  The humor and creativity housed in Subjective Atlas of Palestine makes a huge contribution to this effort and has continually received recognition and awards since its publication in October of 2007. Click here for more info on the project or to purchase the book.

(Subjective Atlas of Palestine, Edited and Designed by Annelys de Vet. Cover image: Yazan Khalili, Colour Correction.)

Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York’s Urban Underground, by Greg Snyder, is also poised to make a contribution from an insider’s viewpoint.  However, in this case on the topic of the often misunderstood world of graffiti.  Snyder, trained as a sociologist, spent over 10 years in the world of graffiti as a fan, occasional graf writer, photographer and scholar. His experiences, insights and exploration of graffiti culture in New York City take readers through streets and subway tunnels; to high end galleries, corporate design, marketing and publishing firms; and, on a mind trip through art, style and commerce.  Along the way Snyder captured the skillz of the writers he encountered in his own Graffiti Lives “blackbook” - a quintessential component of newer generations of graf writers.  The implications of crime, practice and sought after skillz that can eventually land writers in the “legit” capitalist marketplace are laid out for public consumption, consideration and awe.  Graffiti Lives’ release date is January 2009.

(Image from the Graffiti Lives “blackbook“. Click here for more…)

Purchase the book!  Watch the trailer!

In 2008 artist Diana Schmertz, founder of PERFECT8 magazine, launched the PERFECT8 Magazine Stand Project. PERFECT8 magazine is dedicated to the de-objectification of human beings and seeks to replace objectification with a pardigm of empathy. During a one year period throughout 2008-9 the PERFECT8 Stand will be appearing on the streets of New York City presenting the “Revised Men’s and Women’s Interest Sections” to the general public.

(Image: Diana Schmertz and Roni Mocan, Perfect8 Booth at Broadway and Dyckman Ave., 2008)

After researching the top selling Men’s and Women’s Interest magazines Diana Schmertz created their revisal via the publication of PERFECT8. Created in reaction to her disbelief that the primary interest of men is porn, and that women’s main interests are getting married and finding ways to look prettier for men, the Revised Men’s and Women’s Interest Sections present an alternative to the interest magazines currently offered to the public. For the PERFECT8 Magazine Stand project, Diana Schmertz created an actual magazine stand fashioned after newsstands seen throughout the streets of New York City. Via its insertion into the urban landscape the project seeks to raise awareness and provide a different choice to the current offerings found at the local newsstand.  The PERFECT8 Stand appeared on Dyckman and Broadway in New York City in September 2008 and is scheduled for its Times Square debut this month (see beow)!

(Image: Diana Schmertz and Roni Mocan, Perfect8 Booth at Broadway and Dyckman Ave., 2008)

NEXT INSTALLATION
PERFECT 8 Magazine Stand
Installataion 12pm-2pm, December 13, 2008
Times Square: SW Corner of 40th Street and 8th Avenue
In event of bad weather, please check website for rain date.

Visit the Perfect8 website.

View photos from the Dyckman & Broadway installation.

“Through the poems that I write, I seek to forge a path in the wilderness of the human experience…”  – Krista Franklin

Poet and visual artist Krista Franklin’s work openly reveals the subjectivity of the processing of human experience.  In some ways it highlights the relevance of the creative process that takes place within all human beings whether or not we choose to express it.  Through its artistic expression of the science of the mind, senses and spirit, her work makes sense of the wilderness by simply being present.

(Images: Krista Franklin, The Beautiful Dance, 2007, mixed media and it’s tricky (r.i.p. JMJ), 2007, mixed media)

Franklin’s writing and collage work express her own particular poetic that dips in and out of connection with the collective via moments of shared symbolism and experience. It’s almost as if her work paints with image and word a grid of moments that can be connected like dots on a map. Moments that ultimately reveal we each walk our own path of perception.  It is clear that impressions, whether verbal, visual or sensual, drive the Franklin aesthetic.  Interestingly, she manages to create a most subtle distinction between impression and statement.  Her main subject/image is bold enough to stand out in each piece, but becomes less objectified when considered in relations to its surrounding matter thus revealing, the instability of objectivity and the reality of subjectivity.

(Image: Krista Franklin, Transatlantic Turntable-ism, mixed media. from Callaloo‘s Hip Hop issue.)

The larger implications of Franklin’s art practice speak to the spiritual and metaphysical realm in the sense of finding peace with the unknown.  Making a commitment to explore and participate in the experience of life from the vantage point of surrender.  Her practice also suggests one’s opinion is simply one’s opinion, one’s taste is simply one’s taste and thus, one’s experience is simply one’s experience.  Live it deeply or miss the hidden bounty of life.

(Image: Lillian Bertram, Krista Franklin, 2008)

Krista Franklin’s poetry and visual art have most recently appeared in RATTLE, Indiana Review, Ecotone, Clam, Callaloo, MiPOesias.com, and the anthology Gathering Ground. Her mixed-media collages have been published on the covers of award-winning books, and she has exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Franklin is also a Cave Canem Fellow, and the co-founder of 2nd Sun Salon, a community meeting space for writers, visual and performance artists, musicians and scholars.

View Krista’s artwork here.

Read Krista’s poetry here.

The city of Ecatepec, Mexico, the most populated and industrialized city in Latin America, recently celebrated its first mass celebration of art + culture in the region, Festival International de los Nuevos Vientos (International Festival of New Winds).  The festival’s mission includes developing Ecatepec as a center of creative expression that celebrates both local and international diversity in the arts.  Through a partnership between the local community and government the project is part of a larger initiative to stimulate the intellectual and artistic develop of individuals, collectives and the community.  Dance, theater, activities for children and a music festival, including Instituto Mexicano del Sonido, Cafe Tacuba, Bebel Gilberto, and a host of other acts all represented in support of the cause.  On the visual art tip, Bay Area\NYC artist Cece Carpio, participated as part of an artist/activist delegation that was sponsored by the Secretary of Culture to plaster the town of Ecatepec with Art and Culture.  In her words, “The result was a ten day manifestation of cultural mobilization in galleries, museums, community centers, and the street…we plastered and painted wherever we could.  Watch this…you’ll see what I mean…” THE VIDEO!

(Image: Richard Louissaint, Bed Stuy Block Party, 2007)

More from Richard Louissaint…

Is there such a thing as anglicized aloofness, and if so, is graffiti not its antidote?  Many of us long for the days of flavor, before Sex in the City invited the flavorless to inhabit a once eclectically vibrant city – known as – New York.  But, like Bobby Seale said in 1970, Seize the Time. And, according to Alan Ket, for the graf world, 2008 is calling for not only the education of educators and policymakers on the importance of art, but also, an organized graf community to engage at the local level with business owners and perhaps, even, the government. If we take a look at public visual space, we generally see paid for advertising by corporations with deep pockets and the skillz to negotiate government bureaucracy.  Or, national and state funded grantmakers offering the biggest public art projects to big name artists that will boost tourism dollars for the city (Olafur Eliasson’s NYC Waterfalls).  Why does this matter and what does it have to do with Alan Ket?  It matters because young kids in local neighborhoods with limited access to resources are increasingly losing opportunities for self-expression generated through organic community based activity. And, Alan Ket is finally starting to see the light at the beginning of the end of the tunnel, after being New York City’s marquee prosecution for the criminalization of graffiti.

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(Image: Alan Ket, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

It’s been one year since Ket’s lawyers brokered a deal with the NYC D.A.’s office in regard to felony counts revolving around his graf activity as a youngster.  Although still indebted financially to the city, KET is continually processing the fall-out/silver lining of his transformational last few years.  His theoretical thinking has turned to the questions: How can I create something positive out of this? How can we (the graf community) have a strong, respected and influential voice? How do we (the public) address laws that stifle public voices and public creativity? And, canvas, who knew?! With plenty of experience in business development as a founder of both Stress Magazine and Complex Magazine, as well as marketing expertise, somehow it seems likely that KET will find a way to answer these questions and more.

(Image: Alan Ket, 2008. Courtesy of the artist.)

To that end, his role as an artmaker/caretaker/platform builder will be back in effect with several projects (put on hold due to his case) hitting the marketplace in 2009. Books on graf legends SENTO, GHOST and PART will come out on his publishing imprint, From Here to Fame, alongside his follow-up compilation to Graffiti Planet, a series that surveys the best graf art around the world.

Ket’s six-figure legal fees and fines have thus far been partially paid for through generous art donations and sales from artists, enthusiasts and supporters. For more info and to purchase art in support of Ket’s cause, visit supportket.org.

NeoHooDoo: Art of a Forgotten Faith is exquisite in its subtle attempt to lift the veil on the abundance of spiritual, metaphysical, magical excitement that takes place across the multicultural landscape of the Americas.  While George W. and his predecessors under the flag of Christianity have been doing it by the book, a whole host of folks have been trippin’ the light fantastic in consciousness exploration for centuries. Now that’s where the party’s at!

(Image: Brian Jungen, Beer Cooler,  2002. Plastic, 16x28x26in. Collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax.)

In a show curated by contemporary art trailblazer Franklin Sirmans (currently, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Menil Foundation) it’s not a surprise to find some audiences who can’t quite see or taste the flavorful depths of the exhibition.  Afterall, it tackles a topic where some folks are spectators and others are players.  According to Sirmans, “NeoHooDoo: Art of a Forgotten Faith grew out of a desire to examine the multiple meanings of spirituality in contemporary art.”  The show was designed to dissolve the boundaries between the physical and  spiritual world and was inspired by Ishmael Reed’s poems Neo-HooDoo Manifesto and Neo-HooDoo Aesthetic.  Dissolving the boundaries between the spiritual and the physical is essentially a marriage, or acceptance, of the so-called knowable and the unknowable.  Terrain that artists are quite familiar with, but audiences weened on western rationalism may find challenging.  Nevertheless, works by 30 artists, including Sanford Biggers, William Cordova and David Hammons, speak to time honored traditions and remixes of culture that put the chutzpah en la vida!

(Images left to right: Sanford Biggers, Ghetto Bird Tunic (full length), 2006. Bubble jacket, exotic feathers. Courtesy of the Artist & D’Amelio Terras. Michael Tracy, Cruz De La Paz Sagrada (Cross of the Sacred Peace), 1980. Acrylic on rayon wrapped over wood, tin and brass milagros, rosary beads, metal swords, spikes and nails, string, wire, ribbon, human hair, crown of cactus needles; wood base with gold leaf, 69x43x31in. The Menil Collection, Houston.)

NeoHooDoo: Art of a Forgotten Faith is on view at P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center through January 2009.

(Photos: Don Pollard, Courtest P.S.1. Contemporary Art Center.  Except for Ghetto Bird Tunic, Courtesy of the artist.)

Culture exists beyond time and space. It’s what happens when humans come together to explore and express life in all of its pain, pleasure and duty.  Culture becomes “urban” or otherwise labeled, once it gets documented and enters the world of language, description and categorization.  In that vein, Martha Cooper is one of the first artists to contribute to the formal category of “urban” through her collective documentation of the early stages of hip hop culture.  Widely known for the seminal work, SUBWAY ART (with Henry Chalfant), published in 1984, and a series of other books including Hip Hop Files (2004) and We Be* Girlz (2005), Cooper serendipitiously found her artistic heart walking and photographing the late 1970′s streets of the Lower East Side in New York City.  Eventually she met old school graffiti writers HE 3 and DONDI and the rest is history.

(Image: Martha Cooper, Untitled, (2008), from We B* Girlz Summit in Berlin, Germany)

In 2008, Cooper ventured out of publishing, briefly, and launched the first annual We B* Girlz summit in Berlin, Germany, which took place throughout the month of August.  Women and young ladies from all over the world convened to participate in, contribute to and document women in hip hop culture, through a series of events that included MCs, breakers, djs, graffiti artists and educational activities.  During the summit, female graf writers, from South America and South Africa to Germany, Japan and New York City, joined forces to create a 100ft wall for the ARCHIV community youth center. A wall that will live on as a visible historical marker of the 2008 worldwide presence of women in graffiti. (VIEW THE WALL!)

(Image: Martha Cooper, Untitled, (2008), from We B* Girlz Summit in Berlin, Germany)

Still on tap for 2008 is the release of Cooper’s latest book, Tag Town, on the evolution of New York graffiti writing from 1963 – 1982.  Graffiti has grown to become the world’s largest art movement and the progenitor of the Street Art movement.  At the foundation of the art form lies, what on first glance appears to be simple, the tag.  As is the case with any artist, the development of consistency and originality constitute the early stages of artistic development.  In the world of graffiti, the development of a universally recognizable tag is the first qualifier for genuine participation in what appears to be a free spirited public art form.  However, similar to the art school/gallery/museum system, the rules of the game are only apparent to those who pay attention.

(Image: Martha Cooper, Untitled, (2008), from We B* Girlz Summit in Berlin, Germany)

Tag Town (2008), which hits bookstores and retailers this fall, offers solid insight into the life of tags dating back to the 60′s, the origins of NY style graffiti and rare images of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, all inspired by the tag.

(Images left to right: Martha Cooper, Tag Town (2008), book cover, and Martha Cooper in Sao Paolo, Brazil)

If you’re out there trying to cultivate your chi in the world, TED.com will motivate, captivate and invigorate your third eye with its video archive of some of the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers of the 21st century.

TED’s clearinghouse of 18 minutes talks offers free knowledge and inspiration on some of the world’s most pressing issues, creative ideas and obscure topics.

Including:

Eve Ensler on security and insecurity
Vik Muniz makes art with wire, sugar and chocolate
Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives
Stew says “Black Men Ski”

Enjoy.

(Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Mildendranthema Grandeflorum, 2008, (detail), mixed media installation – steel, fabric, plastic, acrylic paint, glue)

Born in Jamaica and raised in Miami, artist Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow says of her work, “…Ultimately, my work may read as sensual, romanticized and idiosyncratic versions of the feminine perspective. Surprise transformations seem to be a common link in my work from sculptures to videos, to performances. I wish to portray an ambiguous relationship between fantasy and reality while questioning the subject, the object and the interplay between the two.”

Lyn-Kee-Chow’s latest performative project, Mildendranthema Grandeflorum, combines photography, video, sculpture and installation.  The work follows the protagonist, the “flower thief’ as she fiends to satisfy her unquenchable thirst for flowers.  Her journey takes viewers through the landscapes of St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, the White House’s Rose Garden in Washington D.C., and Queens, New York.  Inspired and influenced by Lyn-Kee-Chow’s grandmother, a prize winning horticulturist, Caribbean folklore and legends, and a preference for work that is beyond catergorization, Mildendranthema Grandeflorum is a captivating example of contemporary Caribbean art in a global context. At a moment when politics are looking a lot like Disneyland (i.e. Sarah Palin) and the diversity of the feminine experience is at center stage (i.e. Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton), Lyn-Kee-Chow’s out of the box questioning of the blurred interplay between fantasy and reality, from a feminine perspective, is quite timely. However, her use of flowers and landscape also speaks to a timeless global folklore on the divine feminine’s dominion over the earth, and her/its capacity to create, protect and destroy.

View photographs from the project or watch a video clip.

Mildendranthema Grandeflorum is currently on view at Rush Arts Gallery and Resource Center.

After spending many years involved in the art world it became evident, to YOUNITY founders/artists Toofly and Alice Mizrachi (AM), that urban contemporary women artists were in need of a properly organized forum of exchange amongst themselves, the public at large and female youth artists on the rise. After only one year, the organization is emerging at the forefront of a global movement to establish platforms and infrastructure for urban contemporary women artists.  With an eye on the past, present and future, the collective embraces and includes, among others: legends Martha Cooper and Lady Pink; contemporary scenemakers Toofly and Swoon; urban inspired fine art creators Mizrachi and Meredith McNeal; photographers Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Abeni Garrett; and, the YOUNITY Youth team.  Worldwide members include passionate graffitistas Faith47 (South Africa), Sofia Maldonado (Puerto Rico), MAD C (Germany) and Shiro (Japan), to name a few.

(Image: Martha Cooper, Alice Mizrachi, 2008, painting at We B* Girlz in Berlin, Germany)

Although the YOUNITY collective spans a diverse array of artforms and styles, one of its goals, “…to allow members to explore their own flavor while retaining their identity within the context of a collective body…”, is anchored by the collective’s roots in urban culture and that culture’s divinely appointed art form – Graffiti.  YOUNITY’s goals also include a commitment to the creation and documentation of a space specific to the expressions of contemporary urban women artists, a space that has largely been represented in popular culture as the domain of men. To this end the collective is involved in producing exhibitions, establishing an online presence and the publishing of a collector’s book series.

(Image: Martha Cooper, Toofly, 2008, painting at We B* Girlz in Berlin, Germany)

YOUNITY’s second annual exhibition, Heart & Soul, will feature the launch of the collective’s first book in its collector’s series, also entitled, Heart & Soul (self-published by YOUNITY Arts).  The book and the exhibition features 60 artists and promises a site specific installation and video projection within the shows indoor/outdoor gallery space. Heart & Soul opens on October 17, 2008 and is on view until November 17, 2008, at Alphabeta in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. For details click here.

(Images from left to right: Abeni Garrett, Heart & Soul (2008), book cover, and Abeni Garrett, Younity Collective, Queens, NY, 2008, documentation of a YOUNITY Collective meeting)

A public art project can’t get much bigger or more urgent than one that tackles our personal responsibility for the environment, and thus our collective responsibility for our future. Privileged Tactics II, a project of Sara Heitlinger and Franc Purg, attempts to do just this, and inspire action, by asking the question: When is waste one person’s trash and another’s privilege?  A 2nd place winner of the UNESCO Digital Arts Award in 2007, Privileged Tactics II, is a work-in-progress that focuses on the low-impact and low-tech model of waste disposal by 70,000 Zaballeen (“people that collect rubbish”) who live in Cairo, Egypt.

(Image: Privilege Tactics II, Recycling plastic in Moqattam, Cairo)

What Sara and Franc aim to do is to help the Zaballeen model gain global visibility and notoriety: 1) as an alternative to the replacement of their own system by international waste-disposal companies that are ecologically unsustainable, impractical, and socially irresponsible; and, 2) as a environmentally benevolent tool for waste management in cities across the global south (a.k.a. the developing world/third world).  The Zaballeen model is not only low-tech and low-impact, it’s a life-sustaining economic model for family-run cottage industries built around the collection and recycling of garbage in a city of over 17 million people.

(Image: Privilege Tactics II, Central Cairo)

The Privileged Tactics II project is in the midst of executing and developing a digital-public art project built around Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, technology.  The technology can be used to develop a system of tagging on objects and products, that in this case would be used to track garbage items along their path of creation, use and disposal.  By maintaining tag codes within a computer database, individuals could potentially base their consumer practices on information such as: the energy, pollution and materials consumed and created in an object’s production; how far it and its source materials traveled; where and how the object is disposed of; and, if manufacturers have taken responsibility for a product throughout its life cycle, including its disposal.

(Image: Privilege Tactics II, Plastic in Moqattam, Cairo)

There’s no doubt that the problem that Priviledged Tactics II is attempting to address is monumental.  However, it is truly a much needed contribution to the civilizing of humanity’s collective ego.

Sara and Franc’s first RFID tracked garbage item will be bottled water distributed in the Cairo area.  So far, action/exhibitions on the project are scheduled for Hamburg, Germany, Nottingham, UK and Ljubljana, Slovenia. Check the Privileged Tactics website for updates on Privileged Tactics II, and to find out about Privileged Tactics I, which asked: When is stealing a criminal tactic, and when is it a legal, or privileged tactic?

Chicana/Gypsy/Italiano, Los Angeles, under the radar, self-taught, artistic graf phenom, MROC, a.k.a. MELO, is unstoppable.  Precisely because, there is no destination.  Infinite is the mindset and wicked skillz is the stilo.  The work speaks for itself in a familiar language of words, colors and symbols that always touches on the transcendental within human experience.

(Image: Motus Apperendi, 2008 by MROC)

A magical reality emerges from MROC’s work that suggest a mystical flow modified through the lens of an East Los Angeles lifestyle full of beauty, pain, music, art, and adventure. Color sent forth from the universe manifests in each illustration through animated forms grounded in lived experience – true to the game with a twist.  How does one function as a vessel for the divine, a medium for energy, in a world built on static structures, labels and categorizations?  Shake it up. Dance. And, try to survive the impact of various collisions with so called reality.

(Image: Karma Loop: What Goes Around Comes Around, 2008 by MROC)

Not only does MROC, a.k.a. MELO, have the gift of imagination, she has the gift to manifest.  To many, where her mind, body and spirit travels probably seems quite foreign. But, to those who walk a fine line between formlessness and form, where the former is home and the latter is unchartered territory, MROC’s artistry captures a multidimensional vibration in 2D.  Representin’ for life lived outside the box, and better for it, her work redefines the matrix and gives anyone who views it a chance to fly with angels (fallen or otherwise), if only for a moment.

(Image: Angel Dust, 2008 by MROC)

MROC currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona, where she specializes in putting her custom touch on multiple mediums including: clothing, leather, accessories, indoor and outdoor-public/private murals, tattoos, and more…To view more work visit myspace.com/mrocla.

(Above left to right: The World Is Mine, custom t-shirt by MROC. MROC with more custom t-shirts.)

(Image: Wrapping Diary, video still, Anna Campbell, 2007.)

Anna Campbell has a fascination with romanticizing failure and idolizing drive for its own sake. But, as we all know, romanticization has a shadow side. For Anna, that shadow rests in the space of marginalized people for whom failure is not a luxury. In an effort to challenge her fascination, Anna has used boxing as a metaphor for an ongoing series of mixed media/installation work entitled Making Contact.   To this end, she trained for one month at the all-female (trans-friendly) Toronto Newsgirls boxing gym where she created video work on-site.  The project highlights Anna’s own internal emotional/mental dialogue while simultaneously creating a third-eye perspective (critical distance). The artist’s exploration of boxing, failure and drive speaks from the vantage point of a politicization of gender and power. However, when considered from the perspective of consciousness expansion, the works potential lies in its multifaceted reflection on the use of mind (a conscious substratum or factor in the universe) – mental chatter vs. meditation, critical understanding vs. unitive understanding.  Considering this, Anna’s videos Chase, Wrapping Diary and Slow, speak to a time/space continuum that includes the dialogical nature (with self and other) of boxing as well as the meditative quality of training.   Watch video…

Anna Campbell’s installation, Getting Strong Now, from the Making Contact project, will be on view at the Second Bedroom Project Space in Chicago, from November 1st – 30th, 2008.  Anna Currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art & Design at Grand Valley State University.