Month: December 2015

Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton in “Steamboat Bill Jr”,  1928, Computer Gif, Film Gifs

The stunt where the wall falls on Buster Keaton was performed with an actual full-weight wall. Half the crew walked off the set rather than participate in a stunt that would have killed Keaton if he had been slightly off position. Keaton himself, told the previous day that his studio was being shut down, was so devastated that he didn’t care if the wall crushed him or not.

Scissor Sisters, “Only the Horses”

Scissor Sisters, “Only the Horses”, 2012

Scissor Sisters is an American pop group formed in 2001. Forged in the “scuzzy, gay nightlife scene of New York,” the band took its name from the female same-sex sexual activity tribadism. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real as drummer (who replaced Paddy Boom). Scissor Sisters have incorporated diverse and innovative styles in their music, but tend to sway towards pop rock, glam rock, nu-disco, and electroclash.

The band came to prominence following the release of their Grammy-nominated and chart-topping disco version of “Comfortably Numb” and subsequent debut album Scissor Sisters (2004). The album was a success, particularly in the UK where it reached number one, was the best-selling album of 2004, was later certified platinum by the BPI, and accrued them three BRIT Awards in 2005. All five of its singles reached positions within the top 20 of the UK Singles Chart while “Filthy/Gorgeous” scored the band their first number one on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs, despite the album’s meager success in their native US.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Bruno Novelli

Paintings by Bruno Novelli

Bruno Novelli was born in 1980 in Brazil. Novelli studied sculpture at the School of Visual Arts in New York City; Drawing at the Atelier Livre da Prefeitura de Porto Alegre in Brazil, and Graphic Design at ESPM in Sao Paulo. Novelli is a founder of the Universidade Autoindicada por Entidades Livres, which was created to articulate interdisciplinary artistic research. Novelli is also co-founder of Metagrafismo (Metagraphism), an experimental collective exploring the graphic potential of metalinguistics.

Novelli’s work has been exhibited in his native Brazil, as well as internationally in England, Denmark, Spain, Japan and the United States. In 2010, Novelli participated in the São Paulo edition of TRANSFER for the Pavilion of Brazilian Culture at Ibirapuera Park. Most recently he has participated in exhibitions at Fundacion OSDE (Buenos Aires), Centro Nacional de Las Artes (CENART – Mexico) and at the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) in São Paulo.

Novelli’s paintings and videos feature enigmatic images, in which otherworldly entities, northern figures, dynamic geometric forms, and an encrypted alphabet strangely align. He has a deep interest in Amazonian rituals, the practice of painting, and experimentations with animated gifs. Novelli lives and works in São Paulo.

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky

 

Five Paintings by Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky

Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky was born in the village of Shitiki in Smolensk Governorate in 1868. He studied art at the Semyon Rachinsky Fine Art School, icon-painting at the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra in 1883, modern painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1884 to 1889, and at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1894 to 1895.

Bogdanov-Belsky worked and studied in private studios in Paris in the late 1890s, traveling to and painting in St. Petersburg. After 1921, he worked exclusively in Riga, Latvia. He became a member of several prominent societies in including the Peredvizhniki from 1895, and the Arkhip Kuindzhi Society from 1909 (of which he was a founding member and chairman from 1913 to 1918).

Bogdanov-Belsky painted mostly genre paintings, especially of the education of peasant children, portraits, and impressionistic landscapes studies. He became pedagogue and academician in 1903. He was an active Member of the Academy of Arts in 1914. He lived in Riga from 1921 until his death in Berlin in 1945.