Covenger + Kester

James Agee by Walker Evans (1951) “A little bit of too...

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:21:35 -0500

James Agee by Walker Evans (1951)

“A little bit of too much is just enough for me.”

“Midget Submarines,” Swell Maps (1979)

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:18:33 -0500

“Midget Submarines,” Swell Maps (1979)

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Blueprint II. Etching (2009)

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:37:00 -0500

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Blueprint II. Etching (2009)

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Kern County Airports III. Watercolor,...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:36:00 -0500

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Kern County Airports III. Watercolor, 9” x 7” (2008)

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Transparency IV. Tape, paper and ink...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:33:00 -0500

More by Gabrielle Ferrer: Transparency IV. Tape, paper and ink on plastic lighting panel, 7” x 9” (2009)

A map of Laurel Canyon (ink on architectural linen) from the...

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0500

A map of Laurel Canyon (ink on architectural linen) from the series Pocket Walks. Laurel Canyon Boulevard by Gabrielle Ferrer, on view starting Saturday, December 12 as part of the show “All Time Greatest” at the FOCA Gallery in Los Angeles.

With the curator repositioned as fan or enthusiast, artists were selected out of an admiration for or curiosity about their musical knowledge and tastes. The center of the gallery will feature a turntable and record collection composed of each artist’s chosen “all time greatest” album. Visitors are welcome to thumb through and listen to the records. The pairing of visual art and music emphasizes the temporal dimension of viewing, and comfortable seating will invite visitors to spend extended time with the works on display. Against the culture of rapid digital file sharing, All Time Greatest uses the exhibition format as an opportunity to revive an analog, old-school approach to sharing music at the same time that it adapts the fan culture of audiophiles to the task of the curator.

Ferrer’s series also includes a soft-ground etching (on a plate that she kept in her pocket while walking Laurel Canyon Boulevard); a 35mm photograph taken on the walk; and a Judee Sill song letterpress. Really smart; really beautiful. Other works here.

Canoe 1136 sw alder portland +...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:43:00 -0500

Canoe 1136 sw alder portland + 1 503 889 8545

Want everything!

It was 29 years ago… yesterday. In honor of Sir Winston...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:16:21 -0500

It was 29 years ago… yesterday. In honor of Sir Winston O’ Boogie, here’s the trailer for Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy, out 26 December in the U.K. and Spring 2010 in the U.S.

Image of the United Nations Secretariat building from Built in...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:49:48 -0500

Image of the United Nations Secretariat building from Built in U.S.A. (1952)

A canvas cowboy hat worn by Hank Williams during his time with...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0500

A canvas cowboy hat worn by Hank Williams during his time with Hank & Hezzy’s Drifting Cowboys in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Sold yesterday for $1,750 at Christie’s Country Music Sale. More from the auction here.

At the risk of inspiring an off-season invasion of New York...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:41:00 -0500

At the risk of inspiring an off-season invasion of New York chowhounds at what’s long been my favorite place to eat when home—my parents are among the few year-round residents of North Beach, on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island—I give you Mustache Bill’s. In continual operation since 1959, Bill’s earlier this year became the first diner to win an America’s Classics Award from the James Beard Foundation.

The only thing better than the decor is the food. Owner Bill Smith, who’s so skilled on the griddle that he can “paint” edible portraits of customers with pancake batter, started laboring as a dishwasher at 13 for the original owner, the late Joe Sprague, and learned how to cook from Charlie Lynch, who worked for Sprague. Smith bought the place in 1972. He still makes everything from scratch.

Some photos from my latest visit:

Best chicken cheesesteak ever.

Best turkey club too.

Not kitschy, just classic.

Mustache Bill’s Diner, Bayview Ave, Barnegat Light, NJ, 08006

Ceramic sailboat from Sam Maloof’s personal collection....

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:49:47 -0500

Ceramic sailboat from Sam Maloof’s personal collection. More here.

Via South Willard

Possible LP cover? From the Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:27:00 -0500

Possible LP cover? From the Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection at the Library of Congress. Russia, circa 1905-1915.

Via NiN.

Christmas card sent by Surrealist artist and poet Kay Sage to...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:21:00 -0500

Christmas card sent by Surrealist artist and poet Kay Sage to Eleanor Howland Bunce (1959). From a new exhibition of personal, handmade holiday cards by American artists at the Smithsonian’s Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Image gallery here.

“By Tomorrow,” Black Tambourine (1991)

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:30:18 -0500

“By Tomorrow,” Black Tambourine (1991)

Paul Rand for IBM. Not so coincidentally, I bought a few...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:57:00 -0500

Paul Rand for IBM. Not so coincidentally, I bought a few Rand-designed Paul Valéry books from Mr. J.P. Williams at the Pop-Up Flea last week. He’s a terrific guy. See more from Williams’ IBM corporate identity/ephemera collection at his blog, Amass.

Wanted: Student molecular model set (c. 1940s). Wood balls and...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:00 -0500

Wanted: Student molecular model set (c. 1940s). Wood balls and steel springs; white, red, orange, black, green.

The steamer trunk where Stanley Kubrick kept scripts and...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:29:00 -0500

The steamer trunk where Stanley Kubrick kept scripts and treatments for his long-planned dream project, Napoleon. New York has more:

“It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made,” Stanley Kubrick wrote to an associate in October 1971. Wily chess master that he was, the director rarely resorted to bombast. But in his third attempt to make Napoleon—a film that, according to his widow, Christiane Kubrick, “swallowed [him] up” like no other—he was willing to make an exception…

Kubrick—who by the time of his death in 1999 had assembled one of the world’s largest archives of Napoleon-related material—hoped to offer the most comprehensive vision of the emperor’s life, covering 50 years in three hours. And he had been trying to do that since 1967…

Early color photographs by Saul Leiter: Saul Leiter started...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:39:00 -0500

Early color photographs by Saul Leiter:

Saul Leiter started shooting color and black-and-white street photography in New York in the 1940s. He had no formal training in photography, but the genius of his early work was quickly acknowledged by Edward Steichen, who included Leiter in two important MoMA shows in the 1950s. MoMA’s 1957 conference “Experimental Photography in Color” featured 20 color photographs by Leiter.

After that, however, Leiter’s personal color photography was, for the most part, not shared with the public. He became better-known as a successful fashion photographer in the 1950s and 60s. All the while, Leiter continued to stroll the streets wherever he was (mostly New York and Paris), making photographs for his own pleasure. He printed some of his black-and-white street photos, but kept most of his color slides tucked away in boxes. It was only in the 1990s that he began to look back at that remarkable color work and start to make prints.

Birth record for Hana Oberholtzer by David Cordier (1816)....

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:57:00 -0500

Birth record for Hana Oberholtzer by David Cordier (1816). Probably Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Watercolor and ink on paper, 7 3/4” x 12 1/4”. “‘Oberholtzer’” is a Mennonite surname, enshrined in American life as Old Overholt, a rye whiskey initially made by a member of this family.” More Pennsylvania German birth certificates here.