'There has to be a diamond in here somewhere? '... a customer searches through pairs of Levis. Photograph: Denis Poroy/AP

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/09/levis_and_hirst_jean_genius.html

Excerpt from >>>>theblogart & architecture .......>>>>>04/09/07

Levis and Hirst: jean genius?

' Even though there is always a twitter of concern that artists are selling out when they join forces with fashion designers or mass-market retail brands, there is usually an underlining logic to these collaborations. For example, the current range of cool tank-dresses and beautifully cut T-shirts bearing Stella Vine's images conceptually reproduces the way Vine straddles high and low with her custom-made art created from mass market imagery.

But when an artist moves too far afield, the product can be neither art nor fashion. Tracey Emin has publicly expressed her regret after designing a collection of limpid limited edition bags for the French luggage company Longchamp. Her experience should not deter her from future forays into fashion, but the frumpy, insecure-seeming brand was never a coherent match with Emin or her art.

In contrast, Hirst and Levis are a perfect match. Beneath the blinding bling of this orgy of fashion and high-art brands, there is a much grittier and more interesting story about class, classics, symbols, selling and selling out. '

PART TWO : ...The Video...........>>>Warhol Factory X Levi's Damien Hirst...

Video: Vincent Gallo and Andrew Andrew Swoon Over Male Models, Damien Hirst Jeans

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2007/09/video_vincent_gallo_and_andrew.html

PIC. altonburg studios

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton....etc etc etc...if we are to believe the media's gossip and informing...arguably they all seem to have become tangible mirrors of how lost our modern society seems to be.....no direction...no purpose....no ideals....no real contribution to anything of real substance or positive.....

' THE NEW ICONS' seem to have proven to be totally a false illusion...just like all the values propagated through the ' MARKETING and IMAGE MAKING MACHINES'..the brain washing machine with their..tasteless, shallow, empty....'WORKS of MODERN ART'...... and ironically all summed up by P.H...( if we are to believe the media ) when she claimed that after MARYLIN MONROE and LADY DI........ ( a rather clownish statement ! LOL) ... ' SHE is the new ICON !...Yes ! I would dare to say.. .the new icon and monument to a decomposing society as in......PUTRIDITY...this is the kind of stuff where ART should be doing its job.........TO EXPOSE.... OUR STATE of MENTAL DECAY.....where are all those brave, intellectual , artistic and philosophical minds who used to dare to challenge our values ...like the ones from the past....?...

ICONS WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE MORALLY 'PERFECT' , BUT AT THE VERY LEAST......INSPIRING and ENERGISING!

PIC: MoMA the Museum of Modern Art...Charlie Chaplin. The Gold Rush. 1925. 35mm film, black and white, silent, 66 minutes

..... it was announced today that LOS ANGELES is/remains the homeless capital of the USA !...droll enough the birthplace of HOLLYWOOD, the Mecca of ' beautiful, unimaginable and impossible dreams ' ...how ironic ...then again, somehow such a bizarre paradox would had been a great subject for the likes of KAFKA.....but then again KAFKA is long...long ... gone.....and his place seems to be available and fully ' VACANT ' ever since.......
I wonder if putting an add next to the iconic 'Hollywood 'sign would help
to fill such an opportunity for a creative mind in the Art of intellectual and
artistic 'EXPOSURE', but I guess that there is no point in such a very
' uninteresting' theme with no financial rewards attached ... and to be honest a rather unglamorous theme....very understandable of course...who could ever blame ANYONE ?....... :):):)!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071012/lf_afp/ussocietyhomeless_071012050202

EXCERPTS from:

The Frieze art fair in London: Where art and commerce happily co-exist
By Sarah Lyall
Published: October 15, 2007

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/15/arts/13frie.php

' On Wednesday the artist Sam Taylor-Wood could be found in the booth, photographing members of the public alongside Pruitt, dressed in a panda suit, at £200 ( about $406) a shot.

Why the panda ?

Pruitt took off the head for a moment.

"I'm a vegetarian, they're vegetarians," he said. "I like the equal parts black and white. I think it's really funny that they're too lazy to have sex, although I'm not saying that I relate to that, myself."

This being a contemporary art fair, there were a fair share of people from all sides of the "Is it art, or what?" debate. Some purists said they felt the work at Frieze had become too obvious, too geared to the market.

"It's interesting, but not as progressive as we thought it would be - it's more of a commercial event selling for broader tastes," said Andrew Kinmont, 35, a classmate of Thompson. "Although, I suppose if you're not an artist, a lot of it is very avant-garde."

------------------------------------------------

Another commissioned artists, Kris Martin, hit on a novel concept: stop Frieze for an entire minute on Wednesday, the day the fair was all but groaning with important art-world figures and important collectors like Charles Saatchi, Frank Cohen and Eli Broad.

The idea was to "succeed in temporarily stilling the wheels of commerce," the catalogue said.

"To be honest, I never thought it could work," said the fair's co-director, Amanda Sharp. But the announcement came across the loudspeaker: please stop buying, stop selling, stop talking and switch off your cellphone "in respect of the moment."

Shockingly, everyone obeyed. Silence reigned. The wheels of commerce were stilled. "It was actually quite beautiful," Sharp said.

The great thing was that Martin's piece, titled "Mandi XVI," would probably have worked even if it hadn't.

"If it failed," Sharp said, "it would have been an experiment in failure."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/18/arts/melik20.php

........an 'episode' in the Art...of Selling ' ART'........

Excerpt from :

Breakthrough by Chinese shakes up contemporary art market
By Souren Melikian
Published: October 19, 2007

'As if to put the final nail into the coffin of proletarian dictatorship, a curious incident took place just as Tobias Meyer - Sotheby's international head of contemporary art, who is also an auctioneer - was about to open the proceedings.

A man in casual clothes strode in from behind the scenes and, standing by the podium, shouted at the room: "I want to say this, shame on you, shame on you who are spending all this money on trinkets," or words to that effect. Meyer feebly retorted "We are selling art." The man then quietly walked away.

A new film...already release in France...for whoever might be interested...

'BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU ARE DEAD'

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/25/arts/FMREVIEW26.phpFilm Review: A dark but exhilarating tale of destruction

Reviewed by A. O. Scott
Published: October 25, 2007

EXCERPT:

"Devil," directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Kelley Masterson, is a chronicle of destruction - physical, spiritual and moral. That most of the victims and most of the perpetrators are members of a single family gives the story some of the suffocating fatalism of an ancient tragedy. But the workings of fate figure far less in the narrative than bad choices and unlucky accidents. The evil in this world arises not out of any grand metaphysical principle, but rather from petty, permanent features of the human character: greed, envy, stupidity, vanity. There are no demons on display, just small, sad, ordinary people. The filmmakers rigorously tally the results of their sins, minor lapses made monstrous by the failure of love and the corruption of ambition. Simple, familiar desires - for money, sex, status, respect - end in murder.