ArtWalk's - 5 Cool Things - 10/29/21
A weekly newsletter by Aaron Massey
5 COOL THINGS
1) FILM/TELEVISION
DAVE - (FXX/HULU)
Dave became the most surprising, entertaining, and hilarious tv shows for me this year. I honestly cannot recommend it enough. I didn’t start watching until Season 2 had already come out, but I made quick work of both seasons after falling in love with this show.
Dave Burd, known as Lil Dicky, plays a fictionalized version of himself, a rapper/comedian hustling to “make it” in the cutthroat music industry. Mainly set in Los Angeles, the show features a supporting cast that continues to grow on you, with the likes of Dave’s real life hype man GaTa, comedian Andrew Santino, and his girlfriend played by Taylor Misiak.
The show feels like something new, counter to the sea of unoriginal comic book movie plotlines, offering an originality that I haven’t seen in a very long time. It takes chances, and although Season 2 starts off a bit awkward, I highly recommend punching through the first few episodes because the show definitely finds a stride that I hope will continue into several more seasons. It has several music industry cameos, really solid music and rapping from Lil Dicky, dirty jokes, and some cringe humor that is a pleasant change of pace. Alright, I’ve talked it up enough, here’s a look at the Season One “First Look” of Dave: (some explicit language)
2) MUSIC
HOUNDMOUTH - (American Alternative Blues)
I can’t tell whether everyone knows about this band, or no one does. And I think it’s either an “Oh ya, I love Houndmouth,” or a “Never heard of ‘em”. Regardless I have heard of them, and I do love them. Originally a four piece band including Matt Myers (guitar/vocals), Zak Appleby (bass/vocals), Shane Cody (drums/vocals), that started out of New Albany, Indiana in 2011, the band has now trimmed down to three members after a departure by their keyboardist Katie Toupin left to pursue other avenues. Houndmouth has added dual saxophones on several songs and touring since Katie’s departure.
The soothing, yet powerful sound that the band produces matches perfectly for a long road trip, or just jamming out in the shower while you sing along. Their music has a raw sensibility to it with a loose, reverb style that begs for a head nod. I feel like I’m in a dive bar drinking a cold beer, knowing that a great night is around the corner when I listen to Houndmouth.
Their most popular song Sedona shows that they are a band that can do big things for themselves, and create a loyal fan base if they keep churning out hits like it.
3) ART
KEHINDE WILEY - (American Portrait Painter)
I’ve had the fortune of seeing one of Kehinde Wiley’s paintings in person at the Columbus Museum of Art. And I will just say that his painting stole the room.
“Los Angeles native and New York based visual artist, Kehinde Wiley has firmly situated himself within art history’s portrait painting tradition. As a contemporary descendent of a long line of portraitists, including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Ingres, among others, Wiley, engages the signs and visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world.” (*per the Kehinde Wiley website)
Most of Wiley’s work is extremely large, often towering over the viewer. This invokes a sense of power, and nobility with his subjects, something that he clearly succeeds in representing.
The models, dressed in their everyday clothing most of which are based on the notion of far-reaching Western ideals of style, are asked to assume poses found in paintings or sculptures representative of the history of their surroundings. This juxtaposition of the “old” inherited by the “new” – who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak – immediately provides a discourse that is at once visceral and cerebral in scope.
Without shying away from the complicated socio-political histories relevant to the world, Wiley’s figurative paintings and sculptures “quote historical sources and position young black men within the field of power.” His heroic paintings evoke a modern style instilling a unique and contemporary manner, awakening complex issues that many would prefer remain mute. (*per the Kehinde Wiley website)
More information about Kehinde Wiley and his work can be found on his website at: https://kehindewiley.com/
4) BOOKS/WRITING
JIM THOMPSON - (American Author)
Jim Thompson is known as America’s “Dimestore Dostoevsky,” having written twenty-nine novels, mainly in the crime fiction genre during the 1940’s and 1950’s. He also helped pen two original screenplays for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory. And yet another story arises here, of an artist who was not fully appreciated during their lifetime. Much of Thompson’s popularity came in the 1980’s after his death, when many of his novels were re-published.
I was introduced to Thompson’s writing with The Killer Inside Me, known to be Thompson’s most popular and well-regarded novels. Many of his books are smooth reading, and you can knock them out pretty quickly. Just be ready for some unpleasantries. You are dealing with crime fiction here, and Thompson did not hold anything back, especially for the era in which he wrote.
“Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” -Stanley Kubrick
Amazon links to more of Jim Thompson’s books are listed below:
5) PHOTOGRAPHY
BERENICE ABBOTT - (American Photographer)
Berenice Abbott is widely known in the photography world for her portraits of upper class citizens and New York City architecture during the building boom of the 1930’s. Born in Springfield, Ohio, Abbott eventually left for Paris in the 1920’s to study sculpture, but eventually wound up becoming an assistant to Man Ray, working mainly in the dark room, exposing Ray’s photographs. She quickly became enamored with photography, and never looked back.
After returning to the states, Abbott lived in New York City, and recognizing the change that was happening to the city’s architecture, she knew she wanted to stay there and document it through her photography, leaving us with a timecapsule of the city that never sleeps.
More information on Berenice Abbott and her work can be found here: https://www.moma.org/artists/41
Keep-them-coming.Definitely look forward to ''5-Cool-Things'' every Friday!