Books I'm currently reading/looking at
I bought this book from djmrswhite last fall I think and began slowly reading it a little and now I'm really getting into this book big time. The book itself is broken down by the year but is begun with childhood snapshots of the various characters that played a role in 60's art scene and also were central to the Factory during that period and then the rest of the book is broken down by the year, beginning with 1960's cusp and braking it down by year after that until 1968.
Very interesting reading in that much of the characters that were a part of Andy Warhol's Factory were mostly homosexuals, have not fixed that any of the women involved were gay or not but I suspect most weren't, there were poets, actors, lighting designers, artists, painters and Andy himself doing silk screenings of basic items such as the Campbell soup can or Marilyn Monroe.
Right now I'm into the beginning of the chapter on 1964 and Andy had recently moved into a new studio space, a former factory located on 231 E 47th St in NYC and what made it unique was that it was NOT downtown like most of the other artist types who had studios at that time.
It is an interesting look at Andy Warhol and how he made it and yet hadn't for while he did end up with 2 gallery showings in 1962 and in 1963, he was not selling much of his work at the time but as I read on, I see where he really did shine, he was good at using technology such as the photo booth to provide him w/ the base material to create his work and to make some people more known than they'd otherwise be, just by sheer association if nothing else. We see how the underground and the independent film makers got their start through Cinema 16 and later iteration during the first years of the decade and most of what I'm reading takes place in NYC, but parts of it take place in LA during 1963 when Warhol had his second showing.
About 4 years ago I saw the film, I shot Andy Warhol a film based on the real life events of Andy's shooting in 1968 by one of the factory participants, I think Edie Segdwick and a manifesto was written that lead up to her trying to assassinate Andy, which then lead Andy to go into seclusion the rest of his life until his death a few years ago.
Well written and quite interesting reading of the advant guard painters of the period, Andy and how he helped bring Nico to promanance by having her be with the then new band, the Velvet Underground, fronted by Lou Reed and did the peeling Banana cover, that actually could be peeled and an original pressing w/ that cover unpeeled is now rather rare and is simply entitled, Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) and I have a not so great early-ish copy on Verve but sans cover.
This is a book I got from the library and will be seeking a copy to read as I'm on my second reserve and still have a long way to go to finish.
It's an interesting book on the history of graphic design, beginning with the Guttenberg press in the 1500's, printing up the Bible for the first time and working its way to the 19th century where graphic design as we know it today had it's humble origins through book binding/printing and new printing techniques and through the advent of the poster that came along in the late 1880's or so and the Art Nouveau movement onwards.
It's been interesting reading in that it talks about how the designers did or didn't integrate text w/ the image in a cohesive way and early posters were simply done by the print makers themselves and some of then simply threw everything they had to fill every inch of space as they could possibly do and the resulting poster was chaotic in nature, gradually, artists/graphic designers began to create the works for the print maker to press up as finished product and that's how we got the Art Nouveau and Japanesme style of block printing that had an influence in some sub movements such as the succesionists to create a style within the Art Nouveau movement.
I"m up to about the 1910's or so and seeing the changes in the representation of the art at that point and am finding it quite interesting to see how it all began and how it's evolving as time goes by.
I also got this from the library and while I've not had a chance to really delve into it, from what I've gleaned so far is how art, music, graphic art, architecture and culture of the mid century era was and how it was often 2 things at once, both cool and white hot for instance. The cover of the book is part of a painting that was done back in the 1950's, representing the abstract designs common to the art scene at the time with it's hard edges and bright fun colors, often hailing from the west coast, specifically, LA and it's environs, which is also the birthplace of the Cool Jazz ethos of the same period and up through the early 60's. Jerry Mulligan's Quartets were from SoCal, same with Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz and others of the cool jazz movement and it all had their start with Miles Davis' seminal 1950 LP, Birth of the Cool that combined the hard sounds of Bop with a big band like sound that made it seem easy and was what most historians of Jazz consider to be the beginnings of the cool Jazz movement.
But it was not just the Jazz that has this dual personality, but the culture, the architecture, the arts were all sporting this personality split, as much of the nation was as the country was coming into a population explosion, lots of leisure time, post war prosperity but also underneath it all was the communist witch hunts and the cold war along with the Korean war to add anxiety to the mix. In the middle of all this was modernism and how it broke away from the conservative traditionalism of much of the rest of the country and had its zeitgeist here on the West Coast, SoCal to be precise but largely the entire west coast I think was more into this new look than the East coast or middle America although you DID see modernism take place there, but it was not as wide spread however.
So that's what I've been reading of late and yes, I DO have other books I need to finish up and put away or give back to their rightful owners (Mom) and I have some I've bought or have gotten as gifts that need to be finished and/or cracked open.
Lately I've been doing much more reading than I have in a good while and that's good but also listening to music as well, something I've not done as much in recent years. A good sign I think of where I am right now.
Now I just need to move on w/ the ACTUAL art and other projects.