STOP THE SENSELESS HUNTING OF WOLVES

On August 5, 2010, a U.S. District Court in Montana restored federal protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies. Wolf hunts in Idaho and Montana have been temporarily halted, but now more wolves may be killed by Wildlife Services—federal agents who are seeking authority to gas wolf pups in their dens and sterilize breeding pairs to control the wolf population. And in Alaska More than 1,000 wolves in Alaska have been killed by aerial gunning since 2003, and state officials are pushing to kill even more wolves this year using aerial gunning, poison gas and snares. Take action now to save wolves in Alaska...CLICK HERE

Richard Billings at the Guernsey Photography Festival

English photographer Ray Billingham is best known for his book Ray's A Laugh which documents the life of his alcoholic father Ray and obese, heavily tattooed, mother Liz. "My father Raymond is a chronic alcoholic. He doesn’t like going outside, my mother Elizabeth hardly drinks, but she does smoke a lot. She likes pets and things that are decorative. They married in 1970 and I was born soon after. My younger brother Jason was taken into care when he was 11, but now he is back with Ray and Liz again. Recently he became a father. Dad was some kind of mechanic, but he’s always been an alcoholic. It has just got worse over the years. He gets drunk on cheap cider at the off license. He drinks a lot at nights now and gets up late. Originally, our family lived in a terraced house, but they blew all the redundancy money and, in desperation, sold the house. Then we moved to the council tower block, where Ray just sits in and drinks. That’s the thing about my dad, there’s no subject he’s interested in, except drink." Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh will be presented together for the first time with new work portraying his own young family at the Guernsey Photography Festival until June 30. www.guernseyphotographyfestival.com

Louis Vuitton Voyages

Vuitton Family, 1888

When Louis Vuitton founded his maroquinerie label in 1854 on Rue Neuve des Capucines in Paris he knew how to make a good travelling case.  This is proven in durability and by the fact that most of the cases, even the earliest examples, still stand the test of time. And, just as well, the ethos of handmade luxury, that has slowly faded into a seemingly prehistoric notion, has lasted too–leaving the Vuitton unprecedented in the integrity of its craft–even through corporate mastication, mergers, and a platform in the publicly traded market. The Louis Vuitton label has had its own history in China too–in an age when the orient was a universe away from its Parisian base. In 1931 the Croisiere Jaune expedition led 40 men to drive 12,000 km from the Mediterranean coast to the China coast, following the footsteps of Marco Polo, was outfitted with Louis Vuitton trunks. And even further back to the 1907 Paris to Peking expedition when members struggled against temperatures as low as -30 degrees in cars outfitted with Louis Vuitton trunks. On view now until August 31 at the National Museum of China in Beijing, "Louis Vuitton Voyages" explores its own history and tradition since its inception as well as celebrates the label's place in Chinese culture.

[LAST DAYS] Marilyn Minter Retrospective in Hamburg

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Marilyn Minter, Chewing Green, 2008 C-Print

In Marilyn Minter’s work, pride of place goes to the complex relationship between body, photography and painting. Here, Minter exposes all our cultural inhibitions in dealing with sexuality and desire, the hyperrealist shots of high-gloss surfaces and sections of the body are both seductive and irritating at once. In the fragmented representation of lips, eyes, mouths and necks, decadence confronts beauty and the pitfalls of glamour collide with the fascination it exerts. Minter’s voyeuristic hallucinations seem both tempting and dangerous. Beauty here proves to be a brittle construct in which sensuality and self-destruction are two sides of the same coin; flesh, yearning, sexuality and gender models are revealed to be commercial products. For the first time, the oeuvre of US artist Marilyn Minter (born 1948) is the subject of an extensive exhibition in Germany. On view until June 12. www.sammlung-falckenberg.de

Martin Parr's Last Resort

"Leisure, consumption, and communication" is apt in describing the trifecta of themes in which Martin Parr explores through his saturated and gluttonous vistas of humanities seemingly inexorable appetite. Parr's seminal work, shot documentary style in rich hues on the beaches of New Brighton in the nineteen-eighties, captured an aura of man as beast in a dog-eat-dog false paradise; a notion propagated by the common belief that force feeding yourself to oblivion was good and fine for society. The book, entitled Last Resort, which has just been rereleased by Dewi Lewis Publishing–this time with an added forward–put Martin Parr on the map.

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www.martinparr.com

Koudlam to Release New Album

"Koudlam was born in 1979 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. As a kid, he loved to walk in the bush imagining he was doing such courageous acts as saving young girls. He read a great deal. His heroes were a diverse group, including the great mountain climber Reinhold Messner, the poet Charles Baudelaire and Jim Morrison." This June 1 sees the release of Koudlam's new EP "Alcoholic's Hymns." Launch party tonight in Paris. More info here.

[REISSUES] Chet Baker in New York

Chet Baker: In New York–Recorded in September 1958 for Riverside, Chet Baker's In New York features saxophonist Johnny Griffin, pianist Al Haig, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones. In addition to the half-dozen tracks from the original album, the reissue includes a bonus seventh track — "Soft Winds," a blues composition written by Benny Goodman and Fletcher Henderson. Chet Baker: In New York will be reissued June 7, 2011 by Concord Music Group along with multiple other releases from the halcyon days of jazz.

Last Pictures of Marilyn Monroe

On June 1, 2011, the day Marilyn Monroe would have turned 85, the Andrew Weiss Gallery, the world's largest dealer of Marilyn Monroe photography, will launch a major exhibition of rare and never- before- seen original photographs of the legendary star. Titled "Happy Birthday Marilyn", this exhibition will include photographs from the personal collection of George Barris, the last photographer to take pictures of Marilyn before she died. Also featured are photographs by Bill Carroll, who captured the very first photographs of Norma Jeane, and works by the major photographers of her era including Laszlo Willinger, Tom Kelley, Milton Greene, Bert Stern and many others.

WWW.ANDREWWEISS.COM

[FIRST LOOK] LINDSAY LOHAN - A RICHARD PHILLIPS FILM

Gagosian Gallery announces Lindsay Lohan, Richard Phillips' first short film. In his 90-second motion portrait of Lindsay Lohan, Phillips draws on the conventions of his painting that explore the legacies of classical portraiture in relation to the mediated representations of contemporary popular culture. Richard Phillips' Lindsay Lohan will be included in "Commercial Break," presented by the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Venice, Italy, June 1 - 5, 2011, concurrent with the 54th international exhibition of the Venice Biennale.

Kurt Cobain Well FUCKING Hung

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"Kurt was a leader, he was strong, in fact he was well fucking hung, if you really want to know."—Courtney Love, singer, Hole; widow of Kurt Cobain remarked in an, ahem, oral history of the band Nirvana. The Experience Music Project in Seattle is holding a massive exhibition celebrating the music and history of Nirvana, whose lead signer Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994. Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses runs until April 22, 2013. www.empmuseum.org

[LISTEN] PURE X Release Gem From Forthcoming Album

Pure X (formerly Pure Ecstasy) is the latest incarnation of a long-standing collaboration between Austin, Texas musicians and long-term friends Nate Grace, Jesse Jenkins and Austin Youngblood. Acéphale is to release their debut album, Pleasure, out July 5th in the US and worldwide August 22nd.  Looseness was a key concept for Pure X in recording Pleasure, and all songs were recorded live without overdubbing.  The aspiration was to capture songs in their purest form, mistakes and all, as they were being written.  Chasing a vibe in the studio allowed the songs to form themselves; structure and formula lost their rigidity as the songwriting process became more about meditative evolution than meticulous intent. www.acephalerecords.com 

LISTEN: PURE X - TWISTED MIRROR

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[FILM] They Shoot Movies, Don't They?

“Patti Astor” Photo by and courtesy of Maripol from Blank City

Blank City tells the long-overdue tale of a disparate crew of renegade filmmakers who emerged from an economically bankrupt and dangerous moment in New York history. From the late 1970's through the mid 80's, when the city was still a wasteland of cheap rent and cheap drugs, these directors crafted daring works that would go on to profoundly influence the development of independent film as we know it today. Film is out now. www.blankcityfilm.com

Tania Shcheglova & Roman Noven are Synchrodogs

Ukrainian photography duo Tania Shcheglova & Roman Noven, otherwise know as Syncrodogs, are part lo-fi revelers and bored kin of Eastern Europe's "nothing to fucking do but take photos" ethos and by turns protegès of Jurgen Teller's point and shoot philosophy–graceful saviors of analog's unpredictable thrills and bygone days of grainy erotica. Check them out here.

Riding the Hoods With Maripol

Riding_the_Hoods_With_Maripol

Maripol moved to New York from France in 1976, where she became a part of the New York club and music scene, styling Madonna and working on films such as Downtown 81 (starring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Deborah Harry). In the mid-1980s, she opened her own boutique, Maripolitan, in the NoHo area of New York. Maripol has also been art director on music videos for Cher, D'Angelo and Elton John, among others. Riding the Hoods With Maripol, a collection of her photographs, are on view at the Clic gallery in New York until June 19. www.clicgallery.com