TOM of FINLAND Original Drawings

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Tom of Finland’s real name is Touko – because he was born on 8 May 1920, on the south coast of Finland, and May in Finnish is “Toukokuu”. His homeland had been independent for just three years when Touko was born, and outside its few cities the country was still rough and wild. The men who worked in the fields and woods, the farmers and loggers, were true frontiersmen, every bit as rough and wild as the countryside. Touko grew up among those men but was not a part of their world. Both his parents were schoolteachers, and they raised Touko indoors in an atmosphere of art, literature and music. Obviously talented, by the time he was five he was playing the piano and drawing comic strips. He loved art, literature and music. But he loved those outdoorsmen even more. At that same age of five, Touko began to spy on a neighbour, a muscular, stomping farmboy whose name, “Urho”, means “hero”. Urho was the first in a long line of heroes to hold Tom’s attention while he memorized every flex of their lean muscles, every humorous twist of their full lips. In 1939, Touko went to art school in Helsinki to study advertising. His fascination expanded to include the sexy city types he found in that cosmopolitan port – construction workers, sailors, policemen – but he never dared proposition them. It was not until Stalin invaded Finland and Tom was drafted into a lieutenant’s uniform that he found nirvana in the blackouts of World War II. At last, in the streets of the pitch-black city, he began to have the sex he had dreamed of with the uniformed men he lusted after, especially once the German soldiers had arrived in their irresistible jackboots. TOM of FINLAND  Original Drawings now on view at the PHD Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri until August 6. more...

Geoffrey O'Connor "Vanity is Forever"

Vanity Is Forever, being released September 27th via Chapter Music, is Crayon Fields frontman Geoffrey O’Connor’s first album under his own name, and his most ambitious, dynamic and sophisticated work yet. O’Connor’s fractured romantic reflections and lustful tributes play out over vast synthscapes, colossal stadium drums and flanged orchestral sweeps, creating a world that is at once ethereal and strikingly vivid.With a combination of restraint and fearless abandon, O’Connor embraces the conflicts of modern love in a manner as ambiguous as it is blunt, and as shameless as it is generous. His songs indulge in ecstasy, love, pride, failure and all the glamorous contradictions they become. He is both an adult with a juvenile mind, and a geriatric in the body of a young man. Painstakingly refined over two years, Vanity Is Forever is O’Connor’s most fully realized album to date, an epic pop melodrama that shifts seamlessly between seductive high-production dance hits, suave funk joyrides and modern synthetic power balladry. Recently, O’Connor has mesmerized audiences with an extravagant live show of dueling synthesizers, lasers, light sculptures and hypnotic projections. His diverse solo output – under both his own name and previous solo moniker Sly Hats – has seen him handpicked to support the likes of Fleet Foxes, Jens Lekman, School Of Seven Bells, Andrew Bird and First Aid Kit. In addition, O’Connor will release a series of steamy clips to realize his soap opera dreams. View a taste of what’s in store with a trailer for Vanity Is Forever.

Harvey Stein: Coney Island 40 Years

"Coney Island 40 Years. spanning the years 1970-2010, is a meditation on time, history, persistence and longevity (of both Coney Island and Harvey Stein), fate and public social behavior. It is an important record of a passing way of life, of a Coney Island that is fast changing in the wake of its recent development. The book is important as a document of a time and of an iconic American place." More....

Helmut Newton: Sleepless Nights

Houston hosts the U.S. premiere of an exhibition featuring the entire contents from Helmut Newton´s first three groundbreaking books: White Women (1976), Sleepless Nights (1978), and Big Nudes (1981). The 205 photographs in these books established Newton´s reputation as the supreme recorder of female identity, and as a master craftsman of the photographic medium. A complete set of the prints in the exhibition has been acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Ed Ruscha: On the Road

Ed Ruscha photographed by Dennis Hopper

In 1951, Kerouac wrote On the Road on his typewriter as a continuous 120 foot-long scroll, feverishly recording in twenty days his experiences during road trips in the U.S. and Mexico in the late 1940s. With its publication in 1957, Kerouac was acknowledged as the leading voice of the Beat Generation, a group of writers that included Alan Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Over the last few years Ed Ruscha has continued to explore his own fascination with the shifting emblems of American life by turning his keen aesthetic sensibility to Kerouac’s classic novel. Having created his own limited edition artist book version of On the Road in 2009 published by Gagosian Gallery and Steidl, and illustrated with photographs that he took, commissioned, or found, Ruscha has created an entirely new body of paintings and drawings that take their inspiration from passages in Kerouac’s novel. Opening today at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles an exhibition entitled Ed Ruscha: On the Road includes Ruscha’s edition of Kerouac’s legendary novel, six large paintings on canvas, and ten drawings on museum board, each taking its text from On the Road. www.hammer.ucla.edu

The Accursed Poets

Paul Verlaine

Nineteenth-century French poete maudits (accursed poets — poets who lived outside or rebelled against society), such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Comte de Lautreamont, have inspired numerous artists of various eras. An exhibition in Japan showcases etchings and prints of 20th-century artists, including Maurice Denis, Salvador Dali and Roberto Matta, who celebrated such French poetry. On view are around 180 works, including Matta's interpretation of Rimbaud's "Une Saison en Enfer" and a copy of de Lautreamont's "Les Chants de Maldoror," which inspired print works by Bernard Buffet as well as illustrations by Dali. On view until August 7 at the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, (042) 726-2771, 4-28-1 Haramachida, Machida-shi.

Listen to a New Track by Gardens & Villa

In the year of the saxophone, Santa Barbara's Gardens & Villa give us the flute. And along the way, Gardens & Villa effectively wipe clear the vaseline from the murky bedroom funk of recent days. Gardens & Villa bang out instant classics — each crystal clear and immaculate, but no less sweeping or languid. Their debut is a youthful exploration of just how opulent and pop starkness can go." Gardens & Villa continue on their North American tour as they wrap up dates with Foster The People and head out with Generationals, followed by shows with Craft Spells. Gardens & Villa’s debut LP is out July 5 on Secretly Canadian.

Le Royal Monceau Exhibits Melvin Sokolsky

Luxury hotel Le Royal Monceau – Raffles Paris exhibits Work by photographer Melvin Sokolsky starting Thursday, July 7th, 2011 "Rétrospective" will showcase American photograph Melvin Sokolsky, a major figure in the revival of fashion photography in the 1960s. Considered the golden age of photography, this was a period of major innovations and audacious images, a decade that formulated a new vocabulary that still inspires image-makers to this day. www.raffles.com

The Urbaneering Shirt by Serum Versus Venom

"Serum Venom set out to investigate how to push the limits of a modern workshirt, without compromising its classic appeal. We focused on combining the attention to detail and strength of military specification garments with the day to day functionality requirements of an urban existence. Our conclusion is a system of design we refer to as Street/Spec, which combines extreme tactical functionality with everyday comfort.  The Urbaneering Shirt has multiple function pockets, reinforced cuffs, lower placket tab closures, heavy duty under arm vents, rear hidden hang strap, reinforced front placket strap loops, authentic vintage metal workwear button, side tension stash pocket and reinforced universal internal seams." www.thekdu.net

Picasso at Work

Cannes, 8 February 1956. The photojournalist David Douglas Duncan stops his car in front of Villa La Californie, residence of one of the most famous artists of all time: Pablo Picasso. In his hand is a ring especially made for Picasso, who appreciates the gesture and invites him into his home, his studio and his intense life.  With Stephanie Ansari and Tatyana Franck as its curators, Picasso at Work. Through the Lens of David Douglas Duncan brings together in the Museo Picasso Málaga 115 photographs selected from among the thousands that Duncan took of the artist and his milieu in those years. www.museopicassomalago.com