Cool Hunting
| 31 March 2006view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Hobart Smith: In Sacred Trust
by Ami Kealoha
On this album of never-before-released work, mountain music virtuoso Hobart Smith, plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, and piano as well as singing, clog-dancing and reminiscing. All of the songs were taped shortly before Smith died in 1965 and they take you on a personal journey back to the lost era of old time Appalachian music. The album includes well known pieces like "Black Annie" and "Banging Breakdown" as well as a bunch of brilliant lesser known songs. Smith even gives two versions of some tunes like "Cumberland Gap" and "Old Joe Clark" to demonstrate how different people used to perform them.
Contributed by Edwin Cahill
$17 from Amazon.
Refinery29: Fit to Print
by Ami Kealoha
When it comes to fashion, it's often necessary to search far and wide to find the most dynamic designers and stores. With Ivana Helsinki, a designer from Finland whose clothing is based around bold, monochromatic prints, the journey is long but rewarding. Much like Sweden and Denmark have been a focal point of modern industrial design, Finland has been leading the way for textiles for much of the past century. Ivana Helsinki continues this legacy by releasing a new batch of hand-drawn, single-subject prints each season. Using unusual imagery, the prints awaken everything from shirts and bikinis to bags, and even bedding. Additionally, Ivan Helsinki's products uphold ethical, progressive standards and everything is made by hand using no chemical dyes or animal by-products. Lucky for you, Ivana Helsinki's stuff is now available in the U.S. so you can save yourself the trek—we believe in suffering for fashion but we draw the line at Finland.
The Danger Global Warming Project
by Ami Kealoha
Barbara Kruger fans, if you’ve missed your dosage of art blended with polemic, welcome it back with the Greenpeace Global Warming Project, hosted by British multi-media art collective Blacksmoke Organization. Artists contributing to the project were all asked to incorporate Greenpeace’s yellow and black Danger Global Warming tape into their work.
An installation by UK artist Dave White titled, “We Come in Peace…Do We F$$K” is one of the most dynamic pieces. (Pictured, click for detail.) On the wall behind White’s 3-D environment sits an almost animated painting of a tank on the move, Anime-girl pink hearts fluttering around it. In front, sit oversized sculptures of artists’ paint tubes and industrial paint cans – the toxic tools of creativity. Between the two elements, White ties culpability of aloof artists to the War in Iraq – a war about buttressing an environmentally hazardous lifestyle in the artist’s discussion.
Execution of pieces in the show ranges from traditional mediums to art as public action. Philippe Starck contributes a portrait in what appears to be, cooling artic water. The Way/Fear no Art does wonderful cow cut outs. One of Vopstars’ many interventions ‘vandalizes’ a BP gas station sign with the tape then changes the gas prices to read “hot.” Bruce LaBruce’s human sculpture, "Mummy Says Global Warming is Dangerous", engages the industrial hazard aesthetic of the tape while contemplating egocentric humankind as temporal creatures.
James Riches
by Lost At E Minor
Some beautiful work from Melbourne based artist James Riches who manages to effortlessly cover his vibrant story book narratives with a darker and somewhat ethereal coating. “I'm curious about those moments when we slip through the crack in reality into a different place. So often in our day to day life we are denied the pleasure of fantasy by the constraints of work, deadlines, commitments and our urge to seek logic in the illogical”, he says. It's like eating candy floss with a mild chili topping.
Aperol arrives in the U.S.
by Evan Orensten
Enjoyed since 1919, this staple of Italian café culture is now available in the U.S. This low alcohol aperitif—a blend of 30 herbs, spices and fruits like sweet and bitter orange, rhubarb and gentian—is as Italian as pasta and Prada. Aperol is light and refreshing like England's Pimm's, with a stronger citrus taste. It's perfect for spring/summer cocktails and shines when mixed with soda, vodka or champagne.
